You would have been hard pressed to even find a mention of the report online until a Danish newspaper ran an inflammatory series of editorial cartoons on the “debate.” Deepak Chopra shoving a Dr. Seussian Schrödinger’s cat into a microwave oven. Anthony Robbins® putting it “doggie style” to physicist Niels Bohr, who knelt on a bed of burning coals. Uri Geller dining on Einstein’s entrails à la The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover using a large bent spoon. Esoteric “European” humour at its worst.
But the Internet being what it is, the gist of the argument was soon translated into Amerikan. It was at that point that things took a turn for the worse.
Our belief in human energy fields, in mind-over-matter responses to our increasing health problems, threatened not only the physicists but those in the field of conventional medicine. Powerful alliances were formed.1 They unfortunately had, have, an erroneous understanding of bioenergetics: “The belief that human consciousness controls reality,” the scientists scoffed. Controls is a misnomer. Manipulates is closer; defines would be more accurate.
Was it altogether too simple-minded of me to ask: Why can’t we just get along? (“What the Heck?” promotional brochure, March 2012.) Apparently so. Because it was soon afterwards that the death threats began.
Dodge has brought his girlfriend with him. I’m not convinced this was a good idea. Sam is a slippery one, very all-Amerikan in her locution, yes ma’am, absolutely ma’am, and with a look on her face some may describe as beatific, but that strikes me as bland. Her energy field is like a clear-cut, with no remaining signs of life, not even a termite.
She sits in a patch of sun filtered through fern and cedar, telling Felix a story, the light glinting off her wedding finger, Dodge hovering around them like some kind of manservant. She wears what is called a “purity ring” and has persuaded Dodge to wear one as well. To put it bluntly, the rings are a symbol of sexual abstinence, although Sam didn’t put it that way. She just held it up in front of my face and said, “True love waits.” Then she patiently told me, as if I were a small child, that it was a reminder of the commitment she had made to God to remain pure until marriage. I should be relieved, but somehow I find this offensive. Isn’t Dodge good enough for her? Is this what constitutes sex education in Amerika today?
So much hard work over the years, so many appearances made while hopped up on antihistamines or fighting rogue waves of menstrual cramps, scalp itchy with excess sebum, wondering when I last had the opportunity to take a shower. Did I ever let on that I was suffering? You succeed through terrorizing the negative impulse (My Emotional Fatwa, Golden Agouti Press, 2009, p. 64). This is, I contend, because you’re never going to stop the rain by whinging.2
I clap my hands and announce that it’s time for our daily Pronouncements. Time to break up this little idyll.
The word pure really irks me. “Gets my tits in a knot, Alice,” as my friend Ingrid would say.
We sit cross-legged in a semicircle. A bird demonically shrills somewhere in the forest canopy. “I am striving to overcome the urge to snog Sam until my lips fall off,” pronounces Dodge.3 The Kevster makes a rude noise, and Sam covers her face with her purity-ring hand.
“That is so not a serious Pronouncement,” says Cinders. She is the follower who has taken my teachings most to heart. The Kevster likes to refer to her as Rulebook.
“I am striving to stop eating so many high-fructose, high-glucose snack foods,” says Cinders, who struggles with body image. During Pronouncements we are meant to pledge to overcome something standing in the way of our future happiness.
“I am striving to overcome doubt,” says Sam, somewhat cryptically in my opinion, but I don’t ask, “Doubt about what?” You could say that I am striving to be a more tolerant person.
Sam is older than Dodge by about six years. Technically, at nineteen, he is still a teenager, although legally speaking she cannot be accused of robbing the cradle. Still, there is a way I have found her looking at me at times, woman-to-woman you could call it, that is unsettling.
“I am striving to control my bladder at night so I can have a sleepover at Dexter’s place when we get home,” says Felix. I grant him an encouraging wink. Felix is reassuringly goal-oriented. That we may not be going home anytime soon would not be useful information to impart to him at this point.
The Kevster remains silent. Pudding as well, but that goes without saying.
The worst accusation from the scientists, on a personal level, was that we were “confusing bioenergetic fields with the ether.”
If our energy fields don’t exist—what is this? This luminous face turned skyward, pale irises, the flecks in them wildly kaleidoscopic, her skin, that way of looking. Pudding has such an intense aura. There are times I have witnessed static crackling blue from her scalp, her fine hair rising and quavering like the tentacles of a sea anemone. It is as if she is communing with the unseen particles in the air around us, decoding them into her private language somewhere deep in her hermit kingdom, in her Arkadia.
I have far from given up on what quantum mind theory may be able to do for Pudding. In the TRIUMF cyclotron, the gigantic particle accelerator at the university, various matters and antimatters collide to release pure energy in the form of gamma rays. The subatomic particles travel in the accelerator in a spiral, and a spiral is the primary geometric form in which thought waves travel. If we could get within shouting distance of these gamma rays and direct them to interact with Pudding’s already overactive energy field, perhaps they could unlock her from inside her private realm.4 The radiation issue remains unresolved. But it is a risk I’m willing to take.
Our location in this particular arboreal area, then, in the vicinity of the university’s research facility, is not entirely without foresight. Somewhere farther from the city would have been safer, but if you’re convinced the tortoise will lose to the hare, then what is the point of the race?5 (Five Fables for the Future, Golden Agouti Press, 2011, p. 109.)
Infiltrating the TRIUMF cyclotron has become my number one priority. For far too long has Pudding remained on the periphery—a cipher, a “changeling,” as people like her were called in the past. It is my duty to bring Pudding fully into the fold. I have that can-do feeling surging through me, despite the furtive whisperings between Dodge and his virgin concubine and The Kevster’s surly and penetrating silence.
It is time to admit what we have become. A rebel unit. No longer on the run, but proactive. To think that I almost succumbed to despair when I first perceived that my life was in danger. My followers give me strength even in their own moments of weakness. My platoon. I like the sound of that. Ten-hut!
I must find a way to polish my boots.
Tony Robbins was the first of us to disappear. Initially, a publicity stunt was suspected, but for a man of his voracious public appetite to voluntarily remain out of the limelight for so long seemed unfathomable. His financial holdings and current and former wives and associates were investigated, his accounts frozen. It has been eight months now and a body has yet to be recovered. A few months after his disappearance, Zachariah Madoff and Bernie “Hola!” Rodriguez were found dead within days of each other. The cause of death in both cases was eventually attributed to natural causes. (Who but scientists, international scientists, I ask, could cover their tracks like that, mimicking a coronary embolus and a subarachnoid hemorrhage so effectively as to dupe two coroners at the top of their game?) Werner Washington died more publicly, shot by a sniper at a shareholders’ meeting in the Houston Astrodome. (The laughable lone-gunman theory has been widely debunked but continues to be the FBI’s official line.)
Deepak now travels Kevlar-coated, with two armed guards, in an electric vehicle reminiscent of the Popemobile. He remains mum about whether he’s received death threats, but the security at his residences and events rivals that of the phalanx of sharpshooters and the bulletproof glass dome at Amerikan President Obama’s second inauguration.6
I was closer to Tony than
most people would care to acknowledge.7 I have had night visions in which his baseball-glove-sized hands are cradling my head and his teeth are lighting a path through the darkness. In truth, darkness is something I have never feared. I have the eyes of a cat. I have little use for Tony’s glowing teeth, but could use some of his advice right about now. I simply try not to even think about his hands.
We have managed to move closer to the TRIUMF facility, undetected but for the occasional raccoon and the unseen birds that twitter and caw their way across the forest canopy. After studying the diagrams of the site I obtained from the Internet, it has become obvious to me that breaching the inner sanctum will be trickier than I thought: the cyclotron is situated three storeys beneath the ground and is shielded by triplicate layers of 100-tonne concrete blocks, each 4.5 metres thick.
There is, of course, the recourse to a public tour8 to gain entry and then staging a distraction while I spirit Pudding nearer the chamber. I can practically hear my friend Ingrid, who is an excellent slam poet, spit, “Permission is for losers.”9 Besides, I am a wanted woman.
The security, though, is not what I had assumed. The sprawling and tastefully landscaped site comprises several buildings without, if the diagrams are to be believed, fibre optic security or even electrified fencing around the perimeter. An invitation to a reckoning.
This mission gives me a feeling of liberation I have not felt in a long time. The big question now is: Do I share the details of my plan? Or do we proceed on a need-to-know basis? My attempts at a military style of discipline have been met with a degree of resistance. After so many years of establishing my authority, I perceive a growing slackness among my followers that bespeaks, if not quite insurrection, then some form of unconscious revolt.
Sam sits astride a cedar log massaging Dodge’s shaved scalp as if it’s a crystal ball and she’s divining the future. What does she see? Herself and Dodge surrounded by the emaciated children of an orphanage in Chad or Pune, or by bald little babies of their own in a stucco fourplex in East Vancouver? Is that a path to happiness for either of them?
“Velcro. There’s an example,” Dodge says. “Think of burrs sticking to a dog’s belly fur. Think of the entire planet as a humungous R&D lab. There are sustainable air-conditioned buildings inspired by the study of termite mounds, wind turbines based on the humpback whale’s fin.” Dodge, it seems, intends to study biomimicry. This is not something we have had time to discuss. Much like the Sam liaison.
“Would God approve?” Sam wonders out loud. She doesn’t appear to require an answer from Dodge, who just closes his eyes and sighs with pleasure against the circling pressure of her fingers. What about me? What if I don’t approve of his misplaced faith in science?
Why does no one think to offer me a massage?
Cinders wants to know what I’m going to do about the cougar The Kevster has spotted. They never used to question, especially Cinders. I would say jump and Cinders would ask, “Horizontal or vertical?” (You’re O.K.—I’m K2, Golden Agouti Press, 2010, p. 156.) Now it’s become all why, what, when? Perhaps the anomie that has been creeping through the general population has gone viral, infiltrating the spores of the various fungi that proliferate here and compromising the morale of my troops.
Need I say, look it in the eye and show it who is boss? Need I say, winners are not eaten? Winners bite, chew, and disgorge what they don’t need. I learned this lesson from a boy cousin what seems like an eternity ago now. We had been arguing about who was the real creative genius, Elton John or Bernie Taupin.10 He tore my cherished poster of “The Desiderata,” designed to evoke an illuminated manuscript, from my bedroom wall and crammed it into his mouth piece by piece, gnashing ferociously. When he was done, only a gummy strip with the words Go placidly amid the noise and has— hung from one of his incisors. Above my desk the Hang in There, Baby! poster curled upward from the wall, masking tape in petrified clumps, a Siamese cat clinging to a telephone wire with a frenzied look on its face. “Eat or be eaten,” my cousin growled. “Kill or be killed.”
Ricky had what you would call charisma. But he didn’t enjoy what you’d call a successful adulthood.
Cinders has wet herself rather than dare venture outside of our little enclave. I think we’re long past due for a visualization circle.
There was a time, back in high school, when I would have described myself as a Christian Existentialist. A believer in God, albeit one who believed not in personal destiny, but rather in personal responsibility. I was a somewhat gloomy girl who wept during the singing of “Kumbaya” at school assemblies.11 Our Catholic school was remarkably progressive, thanks to Vatican II. It was through a lanky, good-natured religion teacher that I discovered Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Carlos Castaneda and his Teachings of Don Juan. It is to Mr. S. and to Cousin Ricky that I owe my metaphysical awakening.
We hold hands, because there is nothing equivalent to the holding of hands to pass on currents of self-generated electricity and intensify our energy fields. I sense that placid Sam may be a weak link. Pudding, on the other hand, standing between Felix and me, has a charge that could fire up a fleet of cross-Strait hydrofoils.
There is a strong wind sweeping across the tops of the trees; I hear it rather than feel it. More than a whisper, less than a roar. And a smell settling in not unlike that of a cabin that has been closed up for the winter. It emanates from our little group, a reminder that none of us have bathed for almost a week.
“I’m thinking about nachos with the works,” says Dodge, “the kind they have at Tinseltown in that flimsy cardboard dish with the melted cheese product bubbling like lava.” When his eyes are closed it’s easy to imagine Dodge is still a child, filled with wayward charm and bereft of the flinty humour. It is impossible to tell if he is being genuine, but as no one starts giggling we move on.
“I’m thinking about a handheld electronic device,” Felix says, his lisp prominent and endearing, at odds with his preternaturally advanced vocabulary. “Even an old Nintendo DS.”
“That’s the spirit,” I say. I had forbidden anyone to bring a cellphone or nano—to preserve the purity of the retreat, I told them. If the new President of Amerika is forced to survive without her BlackBerry for security purposes, then so can I.
Cinders says, “I’m thinking about Pudding saying her first word. I’m thinking it should be, ‘Howdy, Pardners!’” Cinders has a thing for cowboys, which I’m not sure is age appropriate. She opens her eyes and looks at me, and I give her an encouraging smile and squeeze Pudding’s hand. Technically speaking, my eyes shouldn’t have been open either, but chances are good Cinders will not broadcast my flouting of the rules. “That’s two words,” says Felix.
Even Sam seems game, although typically opaque. “I’m thinking about a dark path easily traversed.” I cannot help but admire her correct usage of traversed. For someone I have never seen poking her button nose into a book, she is very well-spoken.
It’s all going so nicely when The Kevster plops down onto his butt and leans back on his elbows, legs splayed. When did his legs get so long? “I want Dad.” He draws it out so it sounds like Duh-ad.
Do I say, “Was it Dad who stayed up for nights on end rubbing your back in soothing circles as you writhed with night terrors brought on from DVDs you know you shouldn’t have watched at Calvin’s house?” (The mole people! I never could understand what could have been so terrifying about the mole people.) Do I say, “Was it Dad who drove out to every cheap-plastic-off-gassing Walmart in the Lower Mainland in monsoon rains because you had to have a Dark Knight costume?” Do I say, “Do you think Duh-ad gives a shit?”
To my credit I merely drop Pudding’s hand and shake off Felix’s sticky grip and walk off in the direction of the unseen coastline. The ocean is out there. Somewhere beyond this increasingly oppressive foliage and the gnarled trunks, these optimistic nurse logs and fecund mulches, is the edge of Amerika and beyond that the rest of the world. It has been a very long while s
ince I’ve felt anything approaching the sting of tears. Now is not the time to succumb to a pitiful nostalgia. But, unbidden, “Buffalo Springfield Again”12 rises from somewhere inside me.
I was once young and I was wild—but refused to let it eat me up.
Winners are not sentimental. Winners look forward, not back. And still, the tears begin to fall.
It rained all night. Rapping against the tarps, weighing them down in deep troughs, the water cascading off like minor Niagaras. The ground surrounding us is now marshland. It’s that squelching kind of weather that is counterproductive to a sense of esprit de corps. But at least the rain has tamped down the effects of the fungal spores and my head feels clear.
I awoke this morning with a strong feeling that Sam has a gun. Why would Sam have a gun? Did I dream it? Did I see it?
Everyone else is still sleeping, so perhaps it is not yet morning. With this greyness it’s difficult to tell when day begins.
Of all the shocks over the past few months, I would have to say that the one that had me reeling was the loss of Viva Sawatsky. Lively little Viva who broke through the gender barrier in our field back when most of us were still busy daring each other to lift pots of green-apple-scented lip gloss from drugstore cosmetics displays.
How old would she have been? Well over seventy, maybe even over eighty. She never did divulge her age. She was found slumped in the green room of NBC’s Alameda Ave. studios minutes before she was to appear on the new new Conan O’Brien to talk about her latest (and now final) book, 87 Ways to Plug into the Power of Whimsy. Her premise, which I am not certain I fully appreciate the brilliance of yet, was that there is an area of the brain that is exclusively wired for whimsy and yet only 0.000000087 percent of the total world population has the preternatural ability to tap into its power. Clothing designer Betsey Johnson is one of these people. Idi Amin was another.13 And, of course, Viva herself.
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