The Book of Moon

by George Crowder

  Then a black man in his forties named Phillip cleared his throat. I had spoken to him in passing, as all the Buddhists had made an effort to say hi. He looked over at me as he started his testimonial.

  “Some of you guests may not be going through such rough times as Robin did. That’s not how it is for all of us. My life was good when I came to the practice, about three years ago. Except my mother was sick with arthritis pain. We took her to different doctors and she was still suffering.

  “That’s when a friend brought me to one of these meetings. After listening, I thought I’d give it a try, for my mother’s sake. My friend said, ‘Okay, that’s fine. But you’ve got to follow the directions.’ ‘What directions?’ I asked. ‘You told me I didn’t even have to believe in it, and it’d work. Now you’re telling me I’ve got to follow the directions.’ ‘Ain’t nothing changed,’ he said. ‘This here Buddhism we practice is like a microwave oven. Whether you believe in it or not, it gonna heat things up in a hurry. But you gotta plug the machine in, you gotta set the dials right, you gotta follow the directions.’

  “I guess that seemed reasonable, so I did it. Got the gohonzon, did my gongyo twice a day, lotta trouble with the words, but I got better, just like you will. Chanted daimoku. Said I’d give it a month to prove itself.

  “Well, at the end of the month, Mama was so much better that she went back to doing her gardening. Doctors didn’t know what to make of it. So I asked her, ‘Hey, Momma. Anything else bothering you?’ She said, ‘Phillip, your daddy left me with a bad mortgage. If only interest rates’d go down, I’d refi into a long term fixed. That’d give me peace of mind.’ ‘Oh, that so, Momma?’”

  Phillip slapped his hands into prayer position and chanted a couple of lines, while the crowd laughed appreciatively.

  “Well, every day I’d check the newspaper, and I watched those rates drop a point and a quarter in a month. And Mama got her a new mortgage.”

  Phillip paused for a round of applause.

  “Now, I’m relating these experiences for the benefit of our guests, since this sort of thing is pretty common to the rest of us, isn’t it?”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around.

  “Fact, we give it a name, call it the ‘Hundred Day Test.’ Here’s how it works. You write down ten things you want to see happen, then you start chanting. Remember what I said. Follow the directions. Then like the commercial says—just do it. This Buddhism is no spectator sport. Just do it. At the end of a hundred days, you’ll see some miracles, too.”

  Chapter Nine

  Working for Cousin Rufus

  So I did it. I got a gohonzon and set up an altar in my room. Mom began to refer to me as “her son the Buddhist,” and Dad called me “the Dalai Landing.”

  Like everything else, the Internet has revolutionized Buddhist practice. New folks like me can access online recitations of the Lotus Sutra done at a snail’s pace by a digitized Japanese woman. Twice a day I’d poke along with her, surprised and pleased to find the foreign words becoming familiar. Even as I embraced the challenge, I found myself wondering if this had anything to do with Buddhism, or if I was just tackling this like any other project, such as memorizing an epic poem.

  During the drone of nam-myoho-renge-kyo, there’s a lot of time for your mind to wander, and that’s the kind of doubt mine tended to return to. I was having a very hard time believing that I was tuning in to the mystic law of the universe. Chanting seemed a ridiculous waste of time, and I found myself thinking of the things I’d rather do instead. Perhaps this was the genius of the practice: it bored you into action.

  Once a month I attended a special Kosen-Rufu meeting. Kosen-Rufu is loosely translated as “world peace.” The Nichiren Buddhists believe that when enough people are practicing they will have such a beneficial effect on their environment that we will succeed in working out our problems and live together without killing each other. I explained this to Moss and he nodded wisely. Now when his skate crew asks what I’m doing, he says that I’m working for Cousin Rufus. That ends the conversation.

  One day Mom asked me if I was experiencing any buyer’s remorse. She told me that sometimes “Frank the closer” could talk people into buying the pens, but once the merchandise was shipped the customers refused to accept delivery. No longer under Frank’s spell, they came to their senses and reneged on the purchase. Mom said that she kind of admired those people—they might have been suckers, but they weren’t complete losers.

  I guess I was a complete loser, because I was determined to stick with this for the hundred day limit I’d set for myself. The time went pretty fast. On the evening of the hundredth day my family unexpectedly went out to dinner. I hadn’t told anybody about the hundred days, so I was surprised at the coincidence, but I thought this might be the universe’s way of celebrating the completion of the trial period.

  I was really savoring this karmic treat until I heard Dad say, “Boys, your mom and I are throwing in the towel.”

  Uh…the benefit the universe had prepared for me on completing my hundred days was my parents’ divorce.

  My wish list did not contain ten items, per Phillip’s recommendation. It consisted of a single objective, on which I had staked everything. My only goal was for my mother to be happier.

  Perhaps divorce was the only way the universe could accommodate me, but it sure seemed like a dirty trick.

  Chapter Ten

  Moss Rules

  Pretty much everything I know about family life comes from watching The Simpsons. Since Homer and Marge never divorced, I didn’t know how to handle what was happening to my family. But I guess if you haven’t watched it on TV, you just have to figure it out for yourself.

  Mom and Dad sure must’ve had their ducks in a row, because within a week following the Pizza Night Bombshell, Dad moved out and got a small apartment near his bar. Mom said their agreement gave Dad “custody” every other weekend, which made it sound like Moss and I were going to be handcuffed and arrested. It was nowhere near that bad.

  Like a lot of boys, our relationship with our father was mainly based on sports. When our parents separated, sticking with something that was familiar seemed like a safe way to ease into things. So on weekends with Dad, we’d spend a lot of time in the park.

  Even Mom would give Dad credit for helping us become the best athletes we could be. Dad was never so drunk that he couldn’t play catch with us. He taught me to throw a curveball, though he couldn’t teach me to hit one. When the athletic genes were given out, my brother got the lion’s share.

  Moss is the most gifted natural athlete I’ve ever seen. He could throw a tight spiral forty-five yards, catch passes one-handed all day long, and beat high school basketball players at HORSE. But his capabilities were no big deal to him, and for that matter, neither were sports. He’d play a game just as long as he enjoyed it, and then walk away. Competition didn’t interest him.

  When he was eleven, some of Moss’s friends nagged him into joining their little league team. He hit four home runs in the first two games, and his manager, Mr. Franken, was delirious. He imagined winning the league, coaching the all-stars, sweeping state championships, national championships, international championships. He came to see Dad, spewing these visions of glory and Dad tried to gently talk him down. When Mr. Franken left, Dad just shook his head and muttered, “That man does not understand your brother.”

  Of course, Dad was right. Moss decided there wasn’t enough challenge playing by the standard rules, so he invented his own. He didn’t disclose them, but Dad and I figured them out pretty fast.

  Moss’s first at-bat the next game, he took a pitch down the middle. Strike one. “C’mon, Moss, c’mon, babe,” yelled Mr. Franken.

  Moss took the next pitch as well. Strike two. “C’mon, Moss, shake the stick, c’mon, babe,” yelled Mr. Franken, perturbed.

  The pitcher delivered high and tight, maybe a strike, maybe a ball. Moss hit the pitch three hundred feet down the
left field line, just barely foul. He missed a massive home run by a foot.

  I looked at Dad, puzzled. “Did he do that on purpose?”

  The next pitch was outside and low. Moss golfed a towering drive down the right field line, again foul by a foot. Dad and I grinned at each other.

  Mr. Franken was a little slower to catch on. “C’mon, Moss, c’mon, babe, just straighten it out, guy, you can do it.”

  Yes, he could do it—but I didn’t think he would. The pitcher, who was pretty good, was also starting to wonder what was going on. He was way ahead on the count, but after the last two foul balls he wasn’t feeling confident. His next pitch was so far outside the catcher couldn’t snag it. Moss looked tempted, but laid off. Ball one.

  The pitcher threw one a little closer, about a foot outside and just off the ground. Moss strode across the plate to get to it, and hit a line drive that hopped over the right field fence for a ground rule double.

  By the end of the game, Dad and I had figured out Moss’s rules:

  He refused to swing at any pitch in the strike zone until he had two strikes.

  With two strikes he would simply defend the plate, fouling off balls until he got a pitch he liked.

  He liked pitches in the “Moss zone.” The Moss zone surrounded the normal strike zone. These pitches would’ve been balls if Moss didn’t swing at them.

  Moss went four for four despite these self-imposed handicaps, but he didn’t hit any home runs. His team won, so Mr. Franken wasn’t too put out by his star’s drop-off in production. He clapped Moss on the back and told him he had to work on his eye—lay off some of those bad pitches and swing at the strikes. Moss nodded respectfully.

  In the short time that he played baseball, Moss’s odd at-bats became legendary. After a couple of quick strikes, pitchers would test the limits of the Moss zone, sailing the ball high into the backstop or bouncing it in the dirt, scowling when Moss refused to swing at their most outrageous offerings. But if they got within a foot of the plate, Moss would shift his stance and attack with lethal results.

  The team was winning, but the scores were closer. The Moss rules were taking a toll on Mr. Franken’s nerves, and his chatter when Moss was at the plate suggested his deteriorating mental state. “C’mon, Moss, c’mon, babe, you’re killin’ me. Don’t play with it, just hit it, for Chrissake!”

  Mr. Franken offered to spot the opposition two strikes on Moss’s at-bats so he wouldn’t have to witness the best hitter in the league taking a pair down the middle like mighty Casey, but the umps wouldn’t go for it. So Mr. Franken just looked down at the ground in disgust. When he’d hear the ump call, “Stee-rike two!” he’d reluctantly look up to watch how things would turn out.

  One game Moss came to bat in the last inning with his team down four runs. There were two outs and the bases were loaded. Mr. Franken called Moss over before he went to the plate. We could see him pleading with his hitter to, just this once, abandon his rules for the good of the team. With one swing Moss could tie the game! Moss nodded and stepped to the plate.

  No surprise to Dad and me, Moss did things his way. The result was a triple that scored three runs, an outcome that would have made most managers happy. But when the next batter popped up and his team lost by a run, Mr. Franken was apoplectic. He sat the team on the bench and railed at them all for letting him down, but especially at Moss.

  When it was over, Dad took us out for burgers. Moss sucked hard on his milk shake and looked at us, tears in his eyes. “Mr. Franken takes baseball waaaaaay too seriously.”

  Dad looked at Moss gravely. “Son, this is a tough lesson, but it’s time for you to learn it,” he said quietly. “What other people think of you is none of your business.”

  Moss and I looked at each other, completely confused. “I don’t get it, Dad. What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Moss made his rules and he stuck to ’em. That’s what a man does, how he lives his life. Sure, you’ll take some heat for it—but you have to ignore that. What other people think of you—and this goes double for Mr. Franken—is none of your business.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Moss Cup

  Nights at Dad’s place were more awkward than the days. It was like camping out without the trees or animals or campfires—you know, the things that would make anyone want to go camping. There were no extra beds and not a lot else in Dad’s apartment, so Moss and I bunked on the floor in sleeping bags. Dad never got cable and had only a tiny TV. We spent a few months of total boredom before he came to his senses and fetched us over to his bar. Turned out Fanatics Bar and Grill had something for all of us—sports, food, women, and liquor.

  When we’d walk in, the waitresses would all rush over and try to seat us. Sometimes they’d have play fights and argue over who was going to get “the M&M’s.” When I said I loved M&M’s and I’d take some too, they giggled. They said we were the M&M’s. Moss and Moon.

  Our popularity was due to Dad, and not because he was their boss, or because they liked him, though they did. It’s because Dad was a big tipper.

  As far back as I can remember, Dad put money in my hand and taught me to leave the tip. Before I could even add, I could calculate twenty-five percent. Once, I pointed out that the waitress had forgotten to bring us water after we’d requested it. Dad said she looked stressed and told me to give her twenty-five. Another waiter sighed deeply when Moss ordered a hamburger without pickles. Dad suggested that twenty-five percent might help the man develop more patience. One of Dad’s sayings was, “Twenty-five’ll keep y’alive.”

  I wasn’t getting a lot of practice with percent, since we always left twenty-five. I suggested maybe we should try twenty, even fifteen. Dad said maybe we ought to leave thirty. When I looked at him, I guess he figured it was time to explain more.

  It was just Dad and me, sitting in a booth at a little coffee shop. Dad looked at me seriously. “Who’s your favorite superhero?” he asked.

  “Spider-Man, at the moment.”

  “I don’t imagine he’s a very good tipper.”

  “Probably not,” I conceded. “He’s usually broke.”

  Dad nodded. “He’s got a lot of problems. Aunt Mae, a horrible boss, difficult girlfriends…”

  “That’s why I like him. He keeps it real.”

  “Yeah,” Dad agreed. “Except for having spider strength, spider senses, being able to swing through the air, stuff like that…”

  “Well, yeah, stuff like that.”

  “So Spidey’s a bad tipper. But he makes up for it by fighting villains and saving people’s lives, right?”

  “Uh, I guess so…”

  “Well, I can’t fight villains or save anybody’s life. So I try to make up for it by being a good tipper.”

  I guess I looked unconvinced, because he went on. “You must have noticed that life is not easy.”

  “Maybe even hard.”

  Dad nodded. “Maybe even. So everybody needs a break once in a while. I just figure that for anyone who deals with people for a living—which, believe me, is not a piece of cake—we can be that break. We can be the most polite, the most generous, the most understanding people we can possibly be.”

  “But what if they don’t really deserve a break?” I said, probing for a flaw in his reasoning.

  Dad shrugged. “Ask me, everyone deserves a break. Can’t we afford to be wrong?”

  This sounded kinda golden ruley—do unto others twenty-five percent, blah, blah, blah. But it was my dad’s religion and I couldn’t argue with it, any more than I could take exception to anyone else’s religion. When we started hanging out at the bar, I came to appreciate it. For him to believe anything else would’ve been a lot more hypocritical than giving up the booze.

  At first we’d just drop by Fanatics, have dinner, maybe watch a little TV, and then go home. Being a sports bar, Fanatics had TVs everywhere, and each of them could be tuned to whatever channel we wanted. And man, we wanted. We watched football, basketball, baseball, ho
ckey, soccer, tennis, skiing, track and field, bowling, rugby, you name it. Then there were the skateboard competitions.

  The Street League Skateboarding contest is the purest, most respected street skating event in the world. With nearly a quarter of a million dollars at stake, it also has the highest purse. Twenty-five of the world’s best skateboarders ride a course laid out like an “idealized” city street—loaded with ledges, handrails, stairs, and ramps at varied heights, so skaters can launch their most outrageous tricks.

  Dad and I were watching the competition with some interest, but Moss was so bored he started yawning. Dad looked at him. “Not impressed?” he asked.

  Moss shrugged. “Same old, same old.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I could do that in pre-K while those little kiddies were taking their nappies.” Moss always had his board. He grabbed it and headed for the exit.

  “Where’s he going?” Dad asked me.

  “Moss Cup, Dad. You don’t want to miss this.”

  The setting sun of September hit us smack in our eyes when we stepped through the door, and we squinted as our pupils adjusted to the surplus light. Meanwhile, Moss surveyed the landscape. To me, it didn’t look like he had a lot to work with, but he could see a skatepark in a desert.

  Moss launched. A group of regulars about to enter the bar stopped to watch along with us. He did three pop shuvits in succession—the board rotating 180 degrees, but his feet retaining the same forward orientation. The moves followed so quickly on each other that the silver board looked like a flashing knife. Then, without breaking rhythm, he executed a “front foot impossible,” popping the tail and going airborne. He flicked the edge of the deck with his leading foot, sending the board rotating in a complete circle around that foot before he landed. Bada-bada-bada-BOOM.