The Seeking

    J. T. TOWNLEY

​

 

               It was the gong that woke me.  I pawed at the darkness, still reeling from the peyote.  I felt like shit, dizzy and green.  My friend Jay, a dirt-poor grad student, had recently reminded me about the perks of wealth, not that any of it belonged to me, so I’d decided to get broad-minded and drink their hallucinogenic tea.  Also, I beat the tabla—for going on three hours.  I couldn’t stop.  Every time I hit it, swirls of intense colors kaleidoscoped across the room, refracting in the haze of marijuana and Nag Champa.  The bohemians that Jessica and Kwest appointed to watch over me, a lanky guy in hipster cutoffs and a small blonde with severely short bangs, nudged each other and whispered.  Others, possibly higher than I was, goggled alongside me at the colorful pinwheels.  We all laughed and laughed.

             The house was quiet, except for the haunting whistle and yawp of whale songs.  Also, the chanting.  It was faint and indecipherable, but steady.  I wandered from room to room, searching for the gong that woke me.  The house had been teeming with bohemians, but now they’d all disappeared.  So had the last stick of furniture.  Maybe the bohemians were taking it to furnish their dive apartments, which I might’ve done in a previous life, such as when I lived in that dump over in Hollywood.  Anyway, it all belonged to Jessica, and apparently she didn’t mind.  In its place, the bohemians brought rugs and cushions.  Tibetan prayer flags and Hindu tapestries hung where the photos and paintings used to be.  It was all a sorry substitute, if you asked me, but nobody had. 

            Lights flickered in the kitchen, so I staggered that direction, leaning into the drywall to keep myself upright.  Two dozen lit candles burned on every available surface.  Some of them were in saucers or jars, but most were simply melted right onto the counters and stovetop.  Choking on that heady aroma of balsam and cedar and beach wood wax, I grabbed an Ashtanga Pale Ale from the fridge and meandered toward the back of the house.  I found a cushion and sipped my beer.    

A few minutes passed before I realized I’d chanced upon the gong.  Candlelight danced across its bronze surface.  It was huge, four feet or more in diameter, though the emptiness around it made it seem smaller.  I took the mallet and swung.  The deep sound drowned out the whale songs and chanting, reverberating through my body.  I listened for barking dogs, bellowing neighbors, incomprehensible bohemians.  Nothing but the screech and yelp of whales, and that low, steady chanting. 

I strolled back to the kitchen for another beer, marveling at the dozens of flickering candles.  It was a wonder the house hadn’t burned down.  I gazed out the window at the back yard.  At some point, the bohemians had put in a meditation garden.  Koi swam in a little pond fed by a waterfall.  Flagstones and benches surrounded a fire pit, which was currently roaring.  The garden was lush with palm trees, bougainvillea, and lots of flowers, all of it planted around a huge stone statue, which a pudgy hipster with five-day scruff had explained was the Buddha.

            I stood there watching the flames lick at the night air long enough for my beer to get warm.  Then a voice overpowered the whale songs and chanting.

            “Now you’re tingling from your temple to your toes, free, light, and open.”

            It was Kwest.  The chanting swelled in response. 

            I followed the voices, which seemed to be coming from the master bedroom.  Our bedroom, Jessica’s and mine.  Stomach aflutter, I peered around the corner.  What I saw knocked the wind out of me.  Seven boho couples, coupling.  The guys sat on cushions in the lotus position facing the opposite wall.  The women straddled them.  All of them buck naked—unless thrift-store scarves or hipster hats count. 

Not five feet away, I could now make out their chanting:  “Yabyum,” they moaned in rhythm.  “Yabyum, yabyum.”  Over and over, as if it meant something.  As they writhed and chanted, they radiated a luminous, white glow, sparkling blue at the edges.  I realized the peyote was probably still working its magic.     

Then Kwest’s voice, clear and confident, cut through the incantation:  “I want you to stay grounded.  Let the mind quiet.  Practice being calm.”

            His shoulder-length curls were unmistakable.  Kwest in the center, three couples to his left, three to his right.  And his partner?

            Jessica.

            My Jessica.

            She had her chin on his shoulder.  I would’ve sworn she was staring right at me, but her eyes were glazed over.  Maybe she was deep into the peyote, too. 

            My stomach lurched and roiled.  I bolted for the back door, staggering across the patio.  I upchucked into the fire pit, then slumped to the ground.  Last thing I remember was the cool flagstones against my cheek.           

                                                                                                                     *

              As I sit here in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristos, the air thin and light clear, I remember the day I came home from a meeting about a horror movie I’d been hired to rewrite, and there Kwest was, traipsing around in spandex tights, his hair long and greasy, leather necklaces knotted in his chest hair.  It’s all difficult to fathom now, tending the goats and heirloom tomatoes for Jay’s friends, learning to meditate at the Hokoji Phoenix Light Temple.  Taos and L.A. could hardly be more different.  But if the bohemians had a ringleader, it was Kwest.  Although the other bohemians came and went, and I never learned their names, or even thought to ask, this guy was different.  Something about his aura, or hara.  He was leading what seemed to be yoga for Jessica and bunch of the bohemians. 

            “Who’s this?” I said.  “I don’t think we’ve met.”

            Jessica glared at me from her side plank.  “Ryder,” she said, “meet Kwest.”

            “Quest?”

            “Namaste,” he said, palms together at his chest.  It was a wonder they didn’t get tangled in all that matted fur.  He gave a little bow.  There was a twinkle in his eye.

            “He spells it kay double-u,” said Jessica.  She’d abandoned her routine and flitted over beside me.  Or, more precisely, beside Kwest.  “He’s my lama.”

            “Then shouldn’t he be following a trail up some mountain?”

             I’d had a few at El Chivo with Jay.  Happy hour.  Best margaritas in Silver Lake.

           “Not llama, Ryder.”  She flashed me her classic Jessica smile, all honesty and light.  I was a sucker for it.  “He’s a guru, a yogi.”

          “As in, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over’?”

          “Luminosity and emptiness, my friend,” said Kwest.  The greasy-haired guru gave another little bow.  “We’re working on equanimity, a calmness that pervades everything we’re experiencing,” he said.  “Let’s meditate upon light and love.”

           “Is he serious?”     

            “Just till we’re done,” said Jessica. 

            Then she smiled again, and I almost joined them.  I would lay a mat down next to hers, twisting and contorting my body into figure-eights and pretzels just to be near her.  That’s the kind of effect Jessica had on me.  

           Which was why I put up with the bohemians for so long.

                                                                                                                *

            I woke up with a scream in my throat.  The sun hammered in through the open window.  I was sweaty, partly because I was still in my clothes.  I tore off my Asics and socks and wrestled out of my guayabera.  Then I sat on the edge of the bed—our bed:  miraculously, it hadn’t gone the way of all the other furniture—and took a few slow, deep breaths.  I still felt like shit.  The house was quiet.  I needed to talk to Jessica. 

            No sign of the bohemians as I wandered to the kitchen.  I downed three glasses of tap water, then grabbed a package of pop tarts from my stash.  Although I hadn’t actually seen her eat anything for a long time, Jessica insisted we keep only fresh, organic, possibly macrobiotic foods in the house.  Besides a steady flow of herbal remedies, the bohemians ate tofu and sprouts and figs.  They drank chai tea while they did t’ai chi.  They made organic fair-trade soy macchiatos on the new Pavoni espresso machine. 

            I roamed the house looking for Jessica but didn’t make it further than the living room before I gave up.  The place was empty.  I wondered what time it was.  I wasn’t even sure what day it was.  I finished my second pop tart standing on the cool tile, gazing out at the street.

            “Yabyum,” I heard myself say. 

            I let my voice echo through the empty house.  Then I opened the front door and stepped out into the sunshine.  The air was redolent with lemon and rosemary and diesel exhaust.  I walked a couple of blocks into the Silver Lake maelstrom before I realized I wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of jeans.  No one seemed to notice.  I strolled past the espresso bars, vintage shops, and noodle houses, trying to clear my mind.

            But it was still muddy as I padded back across the xeriscaping.  As I stepped inside, I spotted Jessica.  She sat on a cushion in the middle of the living room, legs twisted into lotus, palms together at her chest. 

           “Where were you?” I asked.

           “Please shut the door, Ryder.  All the good chi is escaping.”

            I sat on the floor beside her, waiting.  She said nothing.  I thought I heard a soft humming deep in her throat.

           “We need to talk, Jess.”

           “Not now.”

           “It’s important.”  She didn’t stir.  “It’s about last night.”

           “It’s Tuesday, Rye.  You’ve been out for three days.”

           “No shit?”

            She almost smirked.  “Cactus isn’t for everyone.”

            “I saw things, Jess.  I need to discuss them with you.”

            All at once, we were surrounded by bohemians.  They lounged on mats, shared joints, sipped strawberry-mango smoothies.  A twenty-something guy sporting checkered Vans and a handlebar mustache said, “Put some clothes on, bro!”  Then he stripped off his royal blue t-shirt and tossed it to me.  It was sweaty and stank of patchouli.  I held it up and read:  Karma’s only a bitch if you are!  For some reason, maybe to please Jessica, I put it on.

           “Jess?” I said.

           “Stay out of your ego, Rye.”

           “What does that even mean?”  I felt the bohemians eavesdropping, though they all seemed engrossed in themselves.  “I need to speak to you, Jessica.  Now.”

            I grabbed her wrist, led her to our bedroom, and locked the door behind us.

           “What the fuck is going on?” I said.

           “Breathe, Ryder.  Just breathe.  If we do anything, we do it calmly.”

           “Like getting me wasted, then having an orgy?  In our bedroom?  And I’m supposed to be calm?”

            “When there’s space,” she said, “there’s light, there’s freedom.”

            I took a deep breath, squinting against the sunlight pouring into the room.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.  All I know is, I woke up to find you and your guru fucking right here on the floor, alongside a dozen bohemians.”

            “Why do you insist on calling them that?”

            “What should I call them?”

            “We’re all Seekers, Ryder.”

            “And that’s not even the point.  You’re screwing that greasy-haired charlatan?  He’s the reincarnation of Yanni.  You know that, right?”

            “Yanni’s not dead, is he?”

            Then Kwest was standing right beside us, wearing nothing but spandex tights and chest hair. 

            “Namaste,” he said, and made the usual sign.

            “Speak of the devil.  And I mean that literally.  Where the fuck did you come from?”

            “The closet,” he said.  “Inverted meditation.”

            “Put some clothes on,” I said.  Then I pulled off the bohemian’s t-shirt and tossed it to him.  He held it before him like a question.

            For a moment, we fell silent.  I figured the guru was meditating on a threesome. 

            “Look, whatever’s going on has to stop.  As in now.”

            “You’re reveling in ignorance, Ryder.  This is not about you or me or Kwest.  The self is an illusion.  We are all light and love.”

            “I don’t understand a word you just said.”

            “I’m Kwest’s tantric seal.”

            “He’s a llama, and you’re a seal?  How exotic animal park.”

            “Highest yoga tantra,” said Kwest. 

            “You mean, tantric sex?”

            “It’s not sex,” said Jessica.

            “The bliss of union,” said Kwest, “combined with the wisdom consciousness of realizing emptiness.  It approximates the mental state of buddhas.  They perceive all appearances as manifestations of luminosity and emptiness.”

             “It looked like sex,” I said.  “Strange, unappealing sex.  An orgy.”

             “It wasn’t sex,” said Jessica. 

             “You feel connected,” Kwest said, “to the beauty, power, and love that’s in each of us.”

             “It’s very simple.”  My blood was hot.  I was sweating again.  I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white.                    “Did you have your dick in my girlfriend?  Yes or no?”

             “I’m very uncomfortable with this conversation, Ryder.”

             “Not my.”  Kwest was in his element.  “It’s about non-attachment.  No one and nothing belong to us.  We’re free and light and empty.  The key is total dissolution.”

            The rage swelled up inside me like lava, and I decked the guru harder than I figured I could.  He dropped to the floor.

            “Kwest!” Jessica screamed.

            I yanked the karma t-shirt from the lama’s hands, grabbed my flip-flops, and made for the door.

 

           I spent an hour in traffic getting to Westwood and felt fried as I searched for a parking spot in the garage near the East Asian library.  Inside, it stank of mildew and fish sauce.  I climbed the carpeted stairs to the third floor, then located Jay’s carrel in the far corner.  It was hard to miss.  His door was plastered with images from Chinese cinema, mostly stills from Zhang Yimou films.  There was also a sign-up sheet for office hours—entirely empty except for one name, which’d been scratched out—and a charcoal caricature of Chairman Mao.  I grinned at photos of half-naked Chinese actresses I didn’t recognize, then knocked.

            I heard a muffled response in Chinese.  I tried the knob.  It was unlocked, so I pulled it open.  Jay was hunched over what looked like a sketchbook, painting Asian characters with a brush and ink.  He squinted up at me through his tiny spectacles.

           “Holy shit,” he said.  “I didn’t know screenwriters could read!”

            “Only comic books.”  I nodded at his sketchpad.  “Working hard on your dissertation, I see.”

            “Just a little calligraphy.  Keeping up the chops.”

            I frowned at the smooth, black brush strokes.  “What’s it say?”

           “This one’s Confucius:  ‘Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.’  And this one’s from the Tao te ching:  ‘To use words but rarely is to be natural.’”

            “Clever,” I said.  “And that one?”

           “‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’  Yogi Berra.”

            I laughed harder than it was funny.

           “So what’s the occasion?” he asked.

           “You hungry?”

            He laid his sketchpad on the desk and ushered me out the door.  “As Lao Tzu says, ‘The people are hungry.’”

            We strolled over to Flaco’s, a hole-in the-wall taquería run by actual Mexicans, a rarity in Westwood.  We didn’t say much.  I noticed the neighborhood hadn’t changed since I was over here last spring for my features writing workshop, BMWs and Porches crawling the streets, sidewalks jammed with the Louis Vuitton set, the air thick with franchise bistro garlic.      

The taco joint was slammed.  When it was finally our turn, we ordered, and I paid.  That was the routine.  We both moved out here right after college, and Jay’d been a grad student ever since, going on eight years.  We were both pushing thirty.  Anyway, he could only squeeze so much out of his tiny stipend.  On the other hand, I was a big-shot screenwriter, especially since I’d co-written that zombie movie.  When they called our number, we collected our tacos and grabbed one of the only empty tables.  We’d already wolfed down half our meal when Jay finally said:

            “So you gonna tell me?”

            “What?”

            “What’s going on with you, man?”

            I swallowed and wiped my mouth with a paper napkin.  “It’s just that—I can’t believe it, but I’m pretty sure Jessica’s cheating on me.”

            I told him the whole story.

            Jay sipped his mango Jarritos through a straw.  “Highest yoga tantra, huh?”

            “Why?  That mean something to you?”

            “I’ve read a little about it.  Tantric seals, buddha-union, stuff like that.”  Jay was an expert on Taoism, but he knew more about all of it than I ever would.  “Still, it’s probably just bullshit, like you said.  Her excuse to do a group thing and not invite you.”  He balled up his napkin, then pulled another from the dispenser.  “Can’t exactly say I’m shocked.”

            “What the hell?  You’re supposed to sympathize, right?”

            “She cheated on you with a Yanni lookalike.  That sucks, man.  But how long you been together?”

            “Four, almost five months.”

            He leaned back and finished his soda.  “Well, that’s five months longer than I expected.”

            I said nothing, finishing my tacos.  Maybe Jay had a point.  Jessica and I met at a mutual friend’s party, then hooked up at her place.  She was beautiful, the house was beautiful, I moved in two days later.  It was an odd beginning, but things were great for a while.  She sat on the board of some do-gooder foundation, I worked on a kung-fu screenplay I’d been hired to doctor, and we spent as much time together as possible.  We went to the beach and the movies.  We saw local bands with names like Friend & Fire, The Bad Karmas, and L’Emptiness.  We were completely into each other.  Then the bohemians showed up, first in pairs at random times, but soon in small groups a few nights a week.  Before long, hoards of them were hanging around all the time.  I tried to keep an open mind.  Jessica was almost forty, and I sensed she was searching for something.  Anyway, I’d fallen for her, positive we were soul mates.  I was pretty sure she felt the same way.                  

            “But peyote’s strong shit,” Jay said.  “You might’ve been hallucinating, right?”

            Occasional bursts of swirling color still shimmered in my peripheral vision.  I finished my soda and crunched on some ice.  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but wasn’t this all your idea in the first place?  ‘Embrace the change,’ you said.  ‘Open your mind,’ you said.  Great advice, man.  Stellar.”

            “Sure, maybe.  But I never said you should trip on mescaline for three days.  That was your deal.”

            “Yet if I hadn’t drunk that cactus tea, I never would’ve witnessed Jess and Kwest and the orgy.”

            Jay smiled beatifically.  “To know yet to think that one does not know is best.  Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.”

 

            When I got home, the place was crawling with bohemians.  They lounged in the living room, taking bong hits and sipping beers.  A pale brunette wearing knee socks and barrettes sat on the stairs and strummed a guitar.  I was pretty sure it had strings, but I couldn’t hear a thing.  Bohemians in v-neck t-shirts and Chuck Taylors perched on the kitchen counters, philosophical drivel leaking from their mouths.  Through the windows, I could see a half-dozen bohemians chatting and sharing a joint around the fire pit, though it must’ve been eighty outside.  Other bohemians sat in a circle where the dining room table used to be, reading poetry aloud to each other.  I went to the fridge for a beer. 

No one said namaste. 

            I searched the rest of the house, room by room, but couldn’t find Jessica or her guru.  Probably perched atop San Gorgonio Mountain, wrapped in prayer flags and a cloud of incense, screwing.  In the most spiritual way possible, of course.  The image made my skin crawl.  My stomach churned.  I downed my beer and went back for another, grabbing the rest of the six-pack. 

           

           That’s the way my days went for a couple of weeks.  I drank and mulled and pretended I had deadlines to ignore.  I couldn’t remember the last time I worked on a screenplay.  I’d lost my phone somewhere along the way, and my laptop had gone the way of the furniture, meaning it was probably in a pawn shop downtown.  I waited and waited, hoping Jessica would reappear and we could finally clear the air, kick Kwest to the curb, and either get rid of the bohemians or just move.  Where didn’t matter:  Echo Park or Pasadena, San Francisco or Marfa, Texas, where both my parents were buried.  All I wanted was for us to be together, just the two of us, no gurus or lamas or yogis, no bohemian hangers-on.

           Over time, though, I got to know the bohemians a little.  They weren’t as bad as they seemed.  A little too self-involved, maybe, what with their vintage clothing, ironic sneers, and homemade haircuts, which mostly looked like they’d wrestled with a weed-whacker and lost.  But they were nice people for the most part, low-key and relaxed.  A beautiful red-headed girl who always wore sundresses unless she was wearing nothing taught me how to knit.  I learned to make bracelets and cultivate organic sunflowers.  They taught me Ayurvedic healing practices.  I joined their poetry readings and meditation circles.  They were generous, too, especially with their herbal remedies.  I did whatever they were doing, in whatever quantities.  We smoked weed constantly and ate lots of mushrooms, and I half-wondered if they were some kind of drug cult. 

          Almost a month passed, and Jessica still didn’t show.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  Rumor had it she’d gone on a meditation retreat.  I knew what that meant, and it almost drove me berserk.  In hindsight, I think I started reading to distract myself.  Maybe I also hoped to get closer to Jessica.  Anyway, I pilfered everything they had on Eastern religions at the public library:  The Bhagavad Gita, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Book of Changes, a collection of poetry by Rumi.  All the books on yoga I could find, and there were many. 

          As it turned out, Kwest, former yogi to the stars, had a whole series of instructional books and videos, so I checked those out, too.  When I thought I was ready, I started working on my practice, if that’s what you called it.  Anyway, yoga.  Harder than it looks, and some of it looks pretty hard.  The chair, the half-moon, the warrior poses:  I wasn’t too bad at them, though I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about.

          Mostly, though, I read.  I found this saying somewhere that went, “If you come across the Buddha on the road, kill him.”  I thought I might be hallucinating, so I wrote it down on a piece of homemade paper courtesy of the bohemians.  When whatever I was on had run its course, I went back to my notes.  Right there, among the bizarre doodles of peaceful and wrathful Buddhist deities, I found the quotation.  I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I kept repeating it under my breath like a mantra.     

                                                                                                              *

            For more than a year now, I’ve been working on freeing myself from anger and resentment.  Also, desire.  Like Jessica, I strive to realize my Buddha-nature, to become light and love.  Who wouldn’t, right?  But it’s not as easy as all that.  Maybe I lived in L.A. too long.  Maybe so-called screenwriters are destined to suffer.  Because, at best, I’m stumbling down the awakening path, though it’s possible I haven’t even figured out where it begins. 

           And I can’t seem to stop dwelling on the last time I saw Jessica.  Which began by not seeing her.  The bohemians and I were sitting or kneeling on cushions in the living room.  A joint worked its way around the room.  A thin guy with long, blond surfer hair strummed a sitar to accompany the whale songs.  Several bohemians hummed and chanted in a language I’d never heard before.  Occasionally, one bohemian or another hit the gong.  Sometimes it was me.  I’d been high for days and days.  Though I was drowsy, probably from the whales and the weed, I was also more awake than ever.  And I felt light, so light I thought I might float right up to the rafters in some kind of uncontrolled levitation. 

“Hold me down,” I said.  “I’ll drift away.”   

            The bohemians laughed and laughed.  Then a tall, preternaturally skinny bohemian sat behind me, hands on my shoulders. 

            The whales bellowed and squealed.  The sitar and chanting sounded like thousands of jumbled, sparkling colors.  I felt my mind expanding and contracting, like an accordion.  The burning cannabis smelled like the earth singing.  I realized the skinny bohemian was massaging my shoulders.

            “Yabyum,” I said.

            The bohemians gave no sign they’d heard me.  But the whales began singing, “Yaaab!  Yummm!”  It echoed through the huge, empty house.  I listened hard, trying to decipher the secret message.  I was sure it was there to be found.

            “Yabyum,” said a cute brunette with a nose ring and boy haircut.

            I had no idea what we were talking about.  Yet I intuited that it was the key to unlocking the mystery of the bohemians and Jessica and the yogi.  So I said it again:  “Yabyum.”

            The skinny guy kneaded my shoulders a little harder. 

            A bohemian in a dirty white t-shirt appeared in tree pose against the near wall.  Left foot on the floor, right foot flush against the inside of his left thigh, arms extended over his head with palms together.  His teeth gleamed in a huge, beaming smile.  It sent a column of white light like a flaming comet ricocheting through the room. 

“It all starts in the hips,” he said.

            Then, still in tree pose, he began a series of slow pelvic thrusts.

            I snickered, but the bohemians looked stone serious.  Then they started in with the pelvic thrusts, too, chanting yabyum all the while.

            The skinny guy kept massaging my shoulders.  Maybe he was also thrusting, I couldn’t tell.  “We’re all Seekers,” he said over the chanting. 

            I blinked, or thought I did.  Maybe my eyes were closed for a while.  Anyway, when I opened them, there stood Kwest.

            “The hips are a huge storage depot for stress and tension,” he announced, then took a giant bong hit and held it in for what seemed like ten minutes. 

I wondered where Jessica was.  I wondered if he was Jessica. 

            “We’re just trying to be where we’re at, as fully as possible,” he said, exhaling,

            “Yabyum,” chanted the bohemians, hip-thrusting.  “Yabyum.”

            Then Jessica appeared, perhaps through the front door.  She, too, took an enormous hit from the bong.  When she exhaled, a rainbow of swirling light cascaded through the room.  It took a while for her glazed eyes to meet mine.  “Ryder?” she said.  She sounded incredulous.  “What are you doing here?”

            “Yabyum,” I said, and the bohemians laughed and laughed.

“It’s about being alive,” Kwest explained.  “And that happens with sensation, by creating friction at all the different areas of the body.  You’re feeling something, there’s friction, you’re enlivening that part of the body.”

Jessica teetered on the edge of the group.  “I can’t believe you’re here.”  She took another bong hit, and, exhaling rainbow light, said, “I didn’t think you’d ever come around.”

Kwest’s expression softened.  “All you need to do is feel something and breathe.”

“Make sure you’re honoring yourself,” said Jessica.

            Then everyone started taking off their clothes. 

            I wriggled out of the skinny guy’s clutches and fell to the floor.  I was laughing so hard, I could barely breathe.  The bohemians froze, shirts half-unbuttoned and pants around their ankles.  I gazed up at them and laughed even harder, pounding the floor with my fist.  When I could breathe again, I belly-crawled toward Jessica and drug myself onto a cushion. 

            She knelt beside me.  She’d already taken off her shirt, and her tanned breasts dangled loosely in the swimming light.               “You’ve taken too much, Rye.  You’re strung-out.  What have they been giving you?”      

             I shook my head and tried to quiet my laughter, but it surged up again.  I swallowed hard and wheezed, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”

           “You’ve been reading,” she said.

            I took a couple of deep breaths, climbed to my knees, then tried again.  “You have to kill the lama.”

           “No, Rye, that’s not what it means.”

           “Let’s respect ourselves,” Kwest said.

            I stood up, wobbling a little and leaning on Jessica.  “You have to kill your guru.”

           “It’s a metaphor,” Jessica explained, but I wasn’t listening.

            I’d already knocked the fucker down once, so I knew I could do it again, despite all the psychoactive substances coursing through my veins.  So did Kwest.  Maybe he used his mystical powers to read my mind because he backpedaled toward the door.  I closed in on him.  He had his hand on the knob, but I shoved him up against the wall. 

          “Right, motherfucker?”  I was slurring.  “Isn’t that right?”

           “Let’s stay rooted, centered, and balanced.”

           “It’s just a bad trip,” Jessica insisted.  “You need to sleep it off.”

           The whales shrieked and cried. 

            I couldn’t take it anymore.  It was all too ridiculous.  I took a swing at him, throwing all my weight into it, but I mostly missed, my fist glancing off his chin.  Maybe he ducked.  But I cornered him and eventually landed one to his temple and another to his gut.  He grunted but said nothing intelligible.  I hit him again, and he slid down the wall.  The room filled with the scent of sandalwood, thick and cloying. 

           I smacked him again and said, “Practice being calm, okay?”

           He screamed and covered his head. 

           “You’re a fraud,” I yelled.  “A crackpot.  And you fucking brainwashed her.”

           His eyes saucered, then he yelled, “Wrathful deity pose!”

           “Huh?” 

            I looked around.  Jessica was gone.  The bohemians had abandoned their chanting and thrusting.  Still half-naked, they gnashed their teeth and growled, fingers locked out like claws.  They were inching toward me. 

“Yabyum?” I said, but it had no effect whatsoever.  So I threw open the door and sprinted out into the night.

 

            It’s taken me hours and hours meditating in the hot mountain sun, also during blizzards and thunderstorms, to realize what Jessica must’ve known all along.  Suffering is rarely done alone.  That’s one of the Four Noble Truths, I think.  Yet when I came to in a booth at the Tao of Diner, hovering over a chipped mug of coffee dregs, I still didn’t have a clue.  The ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts, and I didn’t even smoke.  My mouth tasted like dead hope.  It was the middle of the day—but which one?  My head was killing me, though at least words no longer billowed out of people’s mouths as cascades of rainbow light.  I over-tipped the waitress, then wandered back through Silver Lake. 

           The house was only three blocks away.  The front door was wide open.  “Hello?” I said, as I stepped inside and waited for my eyes to adjust.  “Namaste?”  No one answered, not even the whales.  The floors and walls were completely bare.  The rooms were empty.  The fridge had been cleaned out, and there was no trace of candle wax on the kitchen counters.  I checked out back, and even the fire pit had gone cold.  There was nothing left but the feint odor of cannabis smoke, though all the windows were wide-open.

            I hoped to find Jessica passed out in our king-size, but the bed was gone, and so was she.  In the middle of the room, though, I found the giant gong.  It glistened in the afternoon sunlight.  I wanted to strike it but couldn’t muster the energy.  On the floor beside it was a small, golden statue, a Seeker in the lotus position.  It was about a foot tall and gleamed so intensely I had a hard time looking at it.  I stared anyway.

           Outside, hummingbirds buzzed around the bougainvillea.  I stood there with the golden statue in my hands for a long time. 

           Then I took a deep breath, tucked it under my arm, and walked out the front door.  I didn’t know it would be the last time I set foot in that house.  I went from noodle shop to vintage store to espresso bar until I finally found a payphone.  I called Jay, and we arranged to meet at El Chivo.  Then I wandered around the neighborhood, studying passers-by like sacred scrolls, trying to figure out if I’d seen them before.  I couldn’t tell.  With their vintage shoes, hand-knit scarves, and bad haircuts, they all looked alike.       

            Jay was already a couple of margaritas in and elbow-deep in the complementary chips and salsa when I arrived.  I sidled up to the bar and grabbed a stool.  Before I had a chance to order, he said:

            “What happened to you, Rye?  You look like shit.”

            “Hey, man.  Long story.”

            “Involving what?  Huffing antifreeze with hookers?”

            I ordered a frozen with salt, then crunched into a handful of chips.  I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.  Accordions trilled over an oompa bass line. 

            “Something like that,” I said.  “Only it was bohemians and some wicked homegrown.  Also mushrooms.  Perhaps more peyote.”

            Jay shook his head and munched some chips.  We drank for a while, listening to the chatter swell around us as the bar filled up.

            “So who’s your friend?” he asked, nodding at the golden statue.

            I set it on the bar, and we both gazed at it, squinting against the gleam. 

Then I said, “Jessica vanished.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Disappeared.  Went missing.”

            “I know what vanished means, Einstein.  What happened?”

            I summarized as best I could.

            “So you think the bohemian cult abducted her?  To raise urban chickens and build fixed-gear bicycles and knit ugly Rasta hats?”

            “Well, not exactly.”

            “Good, because that’s just insane.”  He finished his drink and ordered another.  “I hate to tell you this, but chances are, Jessica ran off with the yogi—”

            “Kwest.”

            “—of her own free will.”

            I shook my head but said nothing.

            “Sorry to say it, Rye.  But that’s how it looks.”

            “No way, man.  It didn’t happen that way.”

            “Why not?”

            “She was a Seeker, Jay.”  I held the golden statue up between us.  “And she found it.  Awakening, enlightenment, nirvana—whatever you want to call it.  All the mystical hocus-pocus worked.”

            Jay’s gaze seemed empty, as if he were waiting for the punch line.  I ordered another drink and dug into a second bowl of chips.

            “Ryder?” he said as quietly as the music and crowd would allow.  “That’s the Buddha.”

            “No, he’s a fat, jolly guy, right?  There’s one in the meditation garden.”

            “You’re thinking of the Chinese one, Laughing Buddha.  This one’s more like Siddhartha, the original, a wandering ascetic.”

“Well,” I said, puzzling over what seemed like a contradiction.  “Exactly.”

            “Exactly what?”

            “There’s a Buddha in all of us, right?”

            He pondered the condensation on his glass for a long moment.  “Some people believe that’s true.”

            I gazed at the golden statue again.  “And Jess was on the awakening path.”

            “That’s great, buddy.  Maybe she realized her Buddha-nature, like you say.”  He took a quick swallow of margarita.  “Maybe she’ll come back and maybe she won’t.  Probably she will, unless she already sold the house.  But, listen, that’s not her, okay?  It’s just a statue.”     

            The cheesy harmonies wailed over some mean accordion licks.  I felt like I was going to cry.  Maybe I was already crying.  I could sense Jay watching me, trying to gage how bad things really were.    

The bartender set another margarita in front of me.  I sucked on the straw until my forehead felt like an aching block of ice. 

            “You know what?” said Jay.  “Maybe you should get out of here for a while.”

            I gazed dumbly at the bodies milling around us.  “But happy hour just started.”

            “Disappear for a few weeks.  Months, whatever.  You know, sober up, find your center, all that.”

I wasn’t sure what he was driving at. 

             “Remember Gabe and Sonia?  My friends who moved to Taos?”

             “New Mexico?”

             “They come back every year to remind themselves why they left.  Anyway, they’re good people, Rye.  Run a little cooperative farm.  They could put you up for a while, give you work, look after you.  It’s beautiful up there.  Think it’d do you some good to get away.” 

              Accordions wailed, bass line thumped.

             “I don’t know.”  I was about to explain how my career was here, my friends, my life.  How I needed to be here for Jessica.  Then I felt the sobs ballooning in my chest.  Luckily, the crowd noise swallowed them, so I didn’t have to face any drunken hipster scorn.

             Jay patted me on the shoulder, nodding sagely.  He flagged down the bartender and asked for the check, paying with the credit card he kept only for emergencies.  Then he led me to the door and out into the bright, empty afternoon.