by Maria Semple
So that’s how you wanna play it?
David zoned out into the wet tea bag stuck to the side of his handmade cup. Dinner was over and everyone had trickled outside for the sweat lodge ceremony. He was alone in the mess hall, frozen, a state he had found himself in more than once since his arrival at the Matilija Retreat Center. During the afternoon yoga class, Shiva had asked David if he was okay. Only then had he realized he’d been standing, lost in a knot in the wood floor, while the other students were arched in backbends at his feet.
David looked up from his tea. A hand-painted sign on the wall read ONLY TAKE WHAT IS FREELY GIVEN.
Did Violet think David had earned eight million dollars last year in a music industry that had turned to shit because he didn’t enjoy a street fight? For starters, he’d throw her out of the house. Change the locks. Cancel the credit cards. Shut off her cell phone. Impound her Mercedes. Send LadyGo and the rest of the minions packing. Then he’d kick the party into high gear and go about winning sole custody of Dot.
You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough?
All it would require was money. Any judge would sympathize with hardworking David, whose stay-at-home wife spent more time with her south-of-the-border lover than with the baby she could barely conceive.
Her womb is so polluted she can’t even make a fucking baby.
David couldn’t wait for the scabrous trial so he could enumerate Violet’s maternal transgressions. The time she was changing the battery on a smoke alarm and Dot swallowed a bunch of pennies and David had to perform the Heimlich in order to save her life. When Violet had left Dot unattended in the rocking chair while she went outside to show the phone guy some junction box. Or when Violet was in another room and Dot had sucked on an indelible-ink marker, which left her with a sickening black mouth and tongue for a week. The jury would gobble that shit up. David wasn’t the one who had been desperate for a baby, but at least he understood that once she was born he had an obligation to keep her alive!
The table David sat at was made of wood. Burned into its surface in wavy lettering were the words THIS PLACE OF FOOD, SO FRAGRANT AND APPETIZING, ALSO CONTAINS MUCH SUFFERING . David pondered its meaning, then caught himself softening and looked away: anger reloaded.
So that’s how you wanna play it?
Did Violet actually think she could get by without David? The most she’d ever earned in a year was a million. And that was before she took five years off. The television business, like the music business before it, was fucked. If she was even able to get a job, she’d be lucky to make two hundred grand, one hundred after taxes. He’d love to see her try to scrape by on that! Private trainers, nannies, assistants, maids, first-class travel, limos, restaurants, shopping sprees whenever she got bored. That cost real money. Their nut was a million a year. Did Violet even know that? Had she ever thought to ask? Did she fucking care? She’d start caring come Monday, when she’d return home from some goddamned manicure and her gate clicker wouldn’t work. When she finally tracked down a pay phone — she’d have to, as he’d have canceled her cell phone — David would be unreachable because he’d be out to lunch with one of the long list of women who would die to be seen with him. And how old would they be? Twenty-five. What would they look like? A perfect ten.
I never fucked anybody over in my life didn’t have it coming to them. You got that?
She thought things were rough now? She didn’t know the half of it. Her life would be spent never knowing. Would Dot get dropped off for her supervised visit? Would the alimony be there this month? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. David would fuck with her payments as much as possible without getting hauled into court. There were pettifoggers who specialized in shit like that. Violet would become one of those divorcées deformed by plastic surgery who descended into madness and isolation because all they could talk about was how evil their ex was. Violet would be forced back into the workplace. She liked houses; she could always become a realtor. He pictured her face on the bus bench, VIOLET PARRY, THE CONDO QUEEN OF ENCINO!
You think you can take me? You need a fucking army if you gonna take me!
What did Violet think was so great out there for a fat, divorced, forty-two-year-old woman with a kid? Oh, that’s right, some guy who didn’t have the wherewithal to fix his own car! For that Violet had sabotaged sixteen years of marriage and a family? For that she was willing to abdicate all claims to David’s riches?
Say good night to the bad guy.
David hoped Teddy the King would still be there for Violet when the money dried up and the friends mysteriously scattered. LA wasn’t kind that way. All their friends would fall in line behind legendary impresario David Parry, not his aging, unemployable wife. How long would it take Violet to realize that all she was to Teddy Reyes was a rich lady who paid to have his car fixed? If Señor Reyes could stomach fucking Señora Gorda, there might be more bills paid. Perhaps a new cell phone. He’d gladly eat some stretched-out gabacho pussy for one of those stylin’ Apple phones! Was Violet deluded enough to think Teddy Reyes was in it for her sparkling personality?
“David?” It was Shiva. She stood in the open door. “Are you going to join us for the sweat lodge?”
“I’ll be right there.”
And David would be there. He honored his commitments. Violet had been the one to sign up for the yoga retreat, but she apparently preferred staying home and getting fucked by a beggar!
David brought his cup to the kitchen. Above the sink hung a colorful sign, WASHING THE DISHES IS LIKE BATHING A BABY BUDDHA. THE PROFANE IS SACRED . He smashed his cup in the sink and went outside.
The night sky was not an LA night sky, where streetlights hit the haze and ricocheted back a constant glow. It was a night sky that meant business: black, the stars-you-could-touch each had their own twinkle. David walked under the canopy of ancient California oaks and startled as the stars popped out from between the web of branches. The roar of the water sliced into his ears. He had noticed a river before, but only now really heard it. David hung at the perimeter of affluent yogis and yoginis who, like him, had driven up from the city. They stood around a roaring fire, attention rapt on Ruth, an abdominous woman with tough skin and scarecrow hair.
“The ceremony will last for roughly an hour and a half,” she said. “Hot stones will be brought in between each prayer round. . . .”
“Can I see your wrist?” whispered a young guy with a scraggly beard who wore pajama bottoms. “This sweet grass will form a band of protection around your heart.”
“If it’s supposed to protect my heart, why are you putting it around my wrist?” asked David.
“It’s to protect your heart,” the kid said. He was either stoned or stupid. David offered his arm. The hippie, tongue hooked over his lip in concentration, braided some grass around David’s wrist and gave it a tug. “Make sure you let this fall off naturally. If you cut it off, everything you receive tonight from the Great Spirit will disappear.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“There are about thirty of us,” Ruth was explaining. “That means we’ll need to have an inner and an outer circle. It’s going to be a tight fit.” She nodded to a chest-high dome constructed from branches; it measured about twelve feet in diameter and was covered in animal hides.
Tight fit? When Shiva had said there’d be a sweat lodge, David pictured a lodge lodge, like an Ahwahnee or an El Tovar. Not as grand, obviously, but something wood paneled, with a place to sit, like a big sauna. That puny twig thing was the fucking sweat lodge? During the evening yoga class, David had contemplated some hippies pulling pelts out of a plastic storage bin, the kind Violet kept stacked in the carport to store Christmas decorations and the like. The hippies had laid the pelts across this wood structure. David had assumed there’d be one structure per person. Jesus, they were all expected to fit into this one? And hot stones, too?
“The temperature will reach a hundred and fifty degrees,” said Ruth, oblivious to the growing terror in t
he Westsiders’ eyes. “I will pour water onto the stones throughout the ceremony, which will make it about two hundred degrees with humidity.”
There was no way Violet would have been able to take this. David remembered when she was pregnant and she tried to cajole him into letting her have a home birth. He pointed out that she had once complained for three days after swallowing a piece of gum. “I have a high tolerance for pain but a low tolerance for discomfort,” she had explained. It was very Violet, and David was charmed, as ever.
“Earth Mother,” Ruth intoned to the night sky, “we ask you to accept us into your womb and return us to our innocence. Please cleanse us of our ignorance and spiritual dis-ease. . . .”
Dis-ease. This, too, would have sent Violet fleeing to the nearest Four Seasons. Nothing vexed her like hippies mangling the English language. Once, during a yoga class at home, Shiva had said, “We’re all members of the one song.” She repeated it several times, one song this, one song that. Finally, Violet couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up out of her Warrior II pose and demanded, “Why do you keep saying that? What is that? One song?” Shiva answered, “Uni-verse. Uni means one and verse means song. One song. Uni-verse.” Violet rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, always her father’s daughter!
Ruth started banging on a drum. “We call upon the spirit guides of the Four Directions. We beseech you to grant us your wisdom so we may be re-birthed into the world with a healed heart.”
A pleasing array of yoga asses swayed to Ruth’s a capriccio drumbeat. David used to fetishize yoga chicks for their hot bodies and free-loving spirits. But enough yoga classes had made him realize these hotties were no less crazy or manipulative than strippers. Both were willfully ignorant and directed their limited intelligence into their bodies. There was a yin-yang to it. Yoga chick on the one side, crazy stripper on the other.
“Now that we’ve blessed the stones,” Ruth said, “it’s time for us to take off our clothes and enter the lodge.” She ripped off her T-shirt and sarong. David wasn’t the only one to quickly look away.
If Violet were here, she’d have been having a complete breakdown. He’d have to go through the whole rigmarole about how she wasn’t fat. A lie! But what else could he say? David had never pressured his wife to lose the baby weight. He was painfully aware of the looks on people’s faces any time Violet stopped by the office, their eyes aglimmer because the almighty David Parry’s wife had gone fat on him. He had been heartened this past month to see Violet exercising and losing weight — for Teddy! It was for her new lover, Teddy.
“Aaagggh!” He punched a nearby tree. The skin across his knuckles split open. He felt the sting but didn’t bother to look.
Apparently, nobody wanted to be the first to strip. All just stood there, eyes downcast. At least nut job strippers had no problem getting naked! David pulled off his T-shirt, stepped out of his shorts, and walked over to Ruth.
“What is it you want us to do?” he said.
“Enter the lodge on your hands and knees, prostrating yourself to Earth Mother. Crawl counterclockwise until you’re nearest to the door on the other side.”
David spiked his clothes, dropped to his hands and knees, and hightailed it into the so-called lodge. Inside, he hesitated. It was darker than dark, the dark of nothingness, and impossible to determine where his body ended and the blackness began. He proceeded gingerly, the twig wall brushing his right side. Suddenly, a pain pierced his knee. A sharp rock was sticking out of Earth Mother. David’s hand was already raw and throbbing from the tree. He didn’t want to fuck up his knee, too. He stood up, and the whole lodge popped off the ground with him. He fumbled for a branch to balance the sweat lodge before the whole goddamn hunk of junk capsized.
“Jesus Christ!” He dropped to his knees, and the structure crashed down on his back. “Fuck me!”
“Hey, what happened?” called Ruth. “Stay prostrated close to Earth Mother.”
David continued crawling, then felt something soft on his face. Before he realized it, he was inhaling a musty animal pelt. “Gaaah!” He slapped the germs off his face, then a head rammed his legs.
“Did someone up there stop?” asked a voice.
David decided to bail on this perimeter bullshit. He clambered across to where he sensed the door would be. But then his arm buckled and his face was planted in some loose dirt: he had fallen into a pit. “Cock-sucking fucking shit cock motherfucker.” David spit out a mouthful of dirt and licked the rest onto his forearm.
“I think someone’s hurt,” called a frightened woman.
“I’m fine!” David lifted himself back on all fours. He had lost any sense of direction. He decided to crawl until he reached the wall, then hang a left. He put one hand in front of the other until the crown of his head tapped a branch. He turned to the left. He felt something soft and fuzzy against his arm. Only when it pressed harder against him did he realize he had brushed up against a dick and some hairy balls. “Aah!” David jerked his arm away.
“Just breathe in, buddy.”
“Yeah, I’m trying.”
“One hand, then one knee,” offered another voice.
“Then the other hand and then the other knee,” someone else pitched in. “Break it down.”
How had this fucking happened? Just this morning, David had booked Hanging with Yoko to open fifty dates on the Green Day tour. And now a mob of new age dipshits was instructing him on the finer points of crawling? These privileged half-wits who drove up for the weekend in their Mercedes Kompressors, did they actually think they had money? David would put his portfolio up against theirs any day. Bring it, motherfuckers!
“Why are we stopped?” squeaked a woman.
“I thought we were supposed to go counterclockwise,” said a deep voice.
“Is something wrong?” It was Ruth. She must have stuck her head in. “You’ve got to keep moving in there. Is someone confused?”
“It’s the guy who punched the tree,” volunteered a woman.
Anger ripped through David. Violet would pay for this. He would put a dollar amount on his rage and humiliation and deduct it from her settlement. He took a deep breath, then knocked heads with somebody.
“Ouch!” cried a woman.
At least it meant he’d reached the door. David felt for the edge, then planted himself beside it and pulled his legs into his chest. The dick-and-balls guy plastered himself next to David. Why didn’t he just lean in for a kiss while he was at it? David attempted to get comfortable, but a knot from a branch poked into his upper back. He reached around and broke it off. It didn’t do any good. He shifted his weight and nestled between some bigger branches. He licked his injured knee and sucked the dirt from the raw wound. Big salty flaps of skin came off in his mouth. If Violet were here, she’d give him a peck on the cheek. She understood how hard his days were. . . .
A fleshy ass dropped onto David’s feet. He quickly widened his stance to avoid his toe up someone’s butt. A slender back leaned into his shins. He scrunched his legs closer, but the person just pushed deeper into them.
Something heavy landed in his lap. Jesus Christ, it was a braid. One of the yoga-chick-slash-strippers had a big one. He had marveled at its lack of hygiene in the dinner line. David lifted the braid with his thumb and index finger and dropped it off to the side. In an instant, it was back in his lap. Once again, David picked up the braid.
“Excuse me,” whispered a woman. “It throws off my alignment if my braid falls to the side.”
“How’s that my problem, Rapunzel?” David tossed the braid off to the side.
“I need it to fall straight back,” she said. The braid-that-wouldn’t-die landed in David’s lap.
“Cut your hair, why don’t you?” David chucked the braid to the side, making sure to yank the woman’s head in the process.
“Ouch!”
“Fuck you!”
“Hey —” admonished someone. “Language.”
“That energy is total
ly inappropriate,” said another.
The fetid thing once again appeared in David’s lap. He wiped his bloody hand and knee on it.
“What are you doing?” said the woman.
“Nothing.” David spit into his palm and smeared that on the braid, too.
Violet would have found this hilarious. If she were here, this incident would be added to their rich annals of happiness: how the sweat lodge kept getting worse and worse and then . . . the hippie braid fight. Knowing it was being shared with the woman he loved would have made David’s increasing misery almost thrilling. But no, it was just David, alone in the dark with a bunch of strangers.
Fat-lady grunts announced the arrival of Ruth. “O Great Spirit of Life,” she adjured, “we are gathered below in our pitiful little lodge on Earth Mother.” Ruth needed to read that book of Dot’s about using your “inside voice.” If David had whispered that to Violet, she would have cracked up. He smiled. Violet had a zesty, unapologetic laugh. After all these years, it still took him by surprise.
“We shall invite the helpers of the Great Spirit to enter our lodge,” said Ruth, who continued on with some mumbo jumbo. The drum sounded three times, then there was silence. Not even the river could be heard. Did their bodies absorb its roar? The hides deflect it? David couldn’t comprehend the physics of it. A glowing orange orb floated past him. Smooth wood touched his shoulder. The fire guy must have been using a pitchfork to lay down the hot stones. Three more were brought in and lowered into the pit. Sweat dripped down David’s face. A hiss filled the darkness. Wet heat blasted him.