by Cauble, Don
"Fuck me, fuck me," she whispered.
*****
"The only way I can stay in this house is to not feel guilty," she said.
Naomi wanted me to trust her.
I trusted her, but why the phone call from Eden in San Francisco that I only learned about by accident, by a "slip of the tongue"?
Eden had gone to San Francisco to clear legal stuff for his trip to India. Molly had finally sent him his passport. Before, Naomi would have been excited to hear from Eden and would have immediately told me that he had called her from San Francisco. Ah, but now that he was her lover....
And then came the Special Delivery letter with the key to Eden's van, a letter he thought I wouldn't see, and which Naomi obviously wasn't about to mention.
And the next nine days?
She drove to Eugene for her Thursday night class and told me she'd see me sometime on the weekend. I knew she had plans to take photographs of Mala and Aniruddha, and of Mala's little boy, who was dying. Mala had returned from India because of her little boy's health. "Go back to America. You belong with your son," Bhagwan had told her. I knew also that Eden was suppose to leave San Francisco on Thursday by train, to come back to Portland.
She did mention that she'd probably see Eden before me.
I didn't doubt that.
Then I got a call from Julie, a sannyasin friend in Naomi's psychic development class. She wanted to talk to Naomi. Julie had already talked to Mala. No one knew where Naomi had gone. She stayed gone for nine days. The night they returned, Eden took off for India. And I learned that later on, Naomi would be going, too.
A small fire flickered in the fireplace beside us. The same fireplace where we had spent so many winter evenings together, drinking coffee, chatting, watching TV, making love. Naomi had made her sleeping bag into a bed near the fireplace after she had moved out of our bedroom, after she and Eden had become lovers. One night, after Eden had been in India for several weeks, she was lying on her sleeping bag in her nightgown, smoking a cigarette and watching Doctor Zhivago on TV. I crawled across the floor, the brown, carpeted floor of our home, begging for her pussy, begging for a taste of her sweet, dark love, moist and cruel as spring earth in April rain. I crawled on my hands and knees, just to see how far I would go, just to see how far she would go. Please, please… my heart ripping apart, splitting me into a creature as ancient as the ocean floors. She raised her gown and opened her legs for me. I put my lips to her yoni. "David," she said, turning the other way, scorn and indifference blasting like thunderbolts in her earth-burning eyes, "I'd rather fuck someone off the street than you."
What kept me on the line?
My fear of losing her. Naomi knew that and she worked it well. She was always going to leave. I suspected that she wanted to leave me before I could leave her. We human beings do get complicated, don't we? Not so much in essentials, but in our shapes and forms. In a power struggle, we'll do whatever gives us the illusion of having the upper hand, even if that means killing everything that ever meant anything to us.
Looking back, I think we both did our best, intentionally or unintentionally, to tear everything apart, everything good between us and everything bad. Everything.
§
from Going into the darkness / Tales of past times
(an unpublished novel)
The last thing on his mind
They closed two places that night;
a bottle of dry red wine from Greece
at Poppi's,
then white retsina,
which, to his amazement,
she relished with the first glass—
a woman after his heart! he thought.
She talked about her husband,
a "business partner" she called him,
and, like any woman, she wanted to be wanted;
and he talked about his wife
and her love affair with his friend,
their coming divorce, her name change
to Sister and travel plans for India
to be with her lover, already there.
But it was all craziness, he thought
and they still loved each other.
Two nights ago,
the first night since her lover
flew off to India,
they made love and he swore
he could never go to bed with another
woman, he loved her that much.
And these words opened a door back
to their marriage, after India.
If she went to India. Now
she wavered. Or so she said.
But he only found that out later,
the night she burned their marriage
certificate, and then carefully, very carefully,
—oh, she knew how to twist the knife—
put the ashes into an envelope,
perhaps to scatter over the Ganges,
but he never asked.
It felt ALL crazy,
and they were too, time
the waiter put the chairs upside down
on the tables and it was the last thing on his mind,
to make love to her that night.
But they kissed under a street light
on the way to Aunt Lucie Divine,
and both knew there was no turning back,
though they spoke not a word
of what might be.
"I could never have an affair,"
she had said to him in Poppi's
(but with no reference to him;
they felt safe with each other)
"without first telling my husband."
But the word never, like forever,
rang and rang and rang in his mind.
Where had he heard that before?
Why, only a few weeks ago, his wife
had vowed she could never…
And just two nights ago, he swore
he could never….
They closed Aunt Lucie Divine
and where to go?
He was staying with friends
—they were in Eugene
for a weekend spiritual retreat,
and his "assignment" for the night
was to drink a bottle of wine with her
(one bottle)
and she, to use her intuition.
She had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc
back at her motel,
so they walked in the February night
holding hands, laughing,
not thinking too much, not analyzing,
not feeling the pain
and confusion of his wife leaving,
or the boredom and frustration
of loving a husband never there.
Inside,
beneath the "proper English lady,"
in her pride and her well-cared garden,
beneath the white high-button collar,
beneath years of making appearances
and holding her intensity
with acceptable pretenses
and half-hearted attempts at being,
a wild woman was coming alive,
and wanted out, wanted to be free;
ached to be desired;
and not assumed, not taken for anything,
or compromised, or denied, or put aside;
but allowed TO BE.
*****
He woke her in the nicest way,
touching her body like flickering warm sunlight
through a curtain of dream,
and she loved every moment of this moment
and laughed and let him have his way,
all the burning in his kisses awakening
her to life.
"It's time you come to your own,"
she whispered, her voice
cutting through all his remembrances,
his shame and childhood prisons,
and blessing him with forgiveness,
such that he would always come back
to this voice,
in the day
s and nights that would follow.
"Do you feel guilty?" he asked.
"No, I feel marvelous!" And she laughed.
He grinned back at her.
"You're too damn healthy!" he said.
"Of course I'll have to look him in the face
when I go home, and tell him. And you?"
"No, no. I feel great.
But for this slight headache."
All that wine and seven years of not drinking;
two hours of sleep,
and the delight of her energy with his.
Considering this,
what had he to complain of?
They were the first guests to arrive
at the retreat house,
a big Victorian house on 14th street,
and they warmed themselves by the fire.
(Aniruddha loved to build devilish fires.
They had things in common, these two men.)
And then his wife drove up.
I'm leaving
Naomi didn't participate in this weekend group. She did, however, volunteer to prepare lunch both days for the group. Naomi had made plans to go to Bhagwan's ashram in Poona. She and Julie were going together. They needed to go right now, Naomi explained to me. One, they could get a price break on the plane ticket; and two, they wanted to arrive before the intolerable hot weather set in; and, three, she had a friend to travel with, blah blah blah. Eden, being in Poona, had little to do with her decision to go to India, you understand. That is, until he calls her from Poona to tell her that he can't stand the place and that he's coming back to Portland. Naomi immediately cancelled her plans to go to India.
Marcia was the last straw for Naomi. Naomi still wanted to believe we might get back together after she came back from India.
"What you did with Marcia," she told me," closed that door."
Perhaps Mala thought I had acted with courage, doing what I did to free us from the sticky ball of string that Naomi and I had created in our marriage. We were nesting in our own emotional shit. As for myself, I didn't see any act of courage. What else could I do?
In three days, Naomi and I got a divorce.
Naomi wrote the papers herself.
I agreed to lie to the judge. Naomi and I told the judge that she was pregnant by her lover—and for sure the baby was his—and that she wanted to go to India to be with him.
Could this divorce be saved?
Aniruddha wanted to hold some psychic classes in Portland. I offered him our house, since Naomi would soon be going off to India. The day Aniruddha arrived in Portland, Naomi came to our house to see him. Aniruddha had an intense talk with the two of us. He gave us his best shot. He had Naomi role-playing both herself and me—or her image of me. Back and forth she kept going in her roles. Back and forth. Aniruddha (God bless him) told her she was running away from her problem, but she seemed determined not to change her mind. I knew she wouldn't give up Eden. I knew this but didn't say it.
The next morning, Naomi called me.
During the night she had written me a long letter. In her letter, she wrote how she loved me, how she needed me, and that she wanted to work on our relationship. She felt scared, too. Maybe for the first time, I thought. For she knew she would have to finally confront her own patterns of avoidance. Yet, I wonder if she felt fear for another reason. Perhaps deep within she knew staying with me was not the right choice for her, and to stay with me meant denying her true, evolving self. The untraveled road of her destiny had taken a different turn, and go she must, no matter what, no matter who, no matter the cost. Indeed, I loved her for that very strength and passion.
She brought the letter to me.
I could hardly believe it. So much we needed to do, so much we needed to say to each other, so many sticky strings to untangle, carefully, lovingly.
She brought a few personal things with her.
That night, Eden called from Salt Lake City.
He would arrive in Portland at midnight.
"You're fucking me over, Naomi," Eden muttered.
The three of us were sitting in a bar. We had stopped to talk after picking up Eden at the airport. He was pissed off. He wanted a whiskey and he seemed weirded out by India. I guess he couldn't leave India fast enough. Well, Eden, what did you expect?
I looked at him closely.
We were inside each other. We were parts of each other. Yet we were opposites. Like Cain and Abel. I was a giver, a pleaser, the Good Boy. The voice of reason. The one who understands. The one who accepts. The one who'd rather hurt himself than harm another. Eden was a taker, a manipulator, the Bad Boy. The Dark One. A man of mystery and danger. Ice and shadows. Hardness like a mirror. Never open. Never showing what he is. An act of revenge. A man dense with his rage of childhood abuse. The infant destroyer. A psychopath willing to attack and hurt with his power. An arrogant motherfucker. A hidden fist. A beautiful promise that would never be kept. He was like a thief at a wedding banquet stuffing things under his coat. He would leave with his coat stuffed and a victorious grin, but he would leave with an empty stomach. He was a hunter and he lived for the kill. Like a drug, the hunt gave him hope. The hunt gave him a rush. He came alive inside. He lit up with power. Once he caught the prey, however, for him the game was over. The game was finished. (A hard lesson that Naomi would have to learn.)
I knew our friendship had come to an end.
He had written me from India that he would choose Naomi over me if it came to that. As a man I understood this. And of course it came to this.
Naomi stayed the night with me.
Aniruddha had scheduled some personal readings for the next morning. Marcia came to see him for a reading. Naomi freaked out when she saw Marcia. Before I knew it, Naomi left the house through a side window. I ran after her car, yelling for her to stop. I chased her until my lungs gave out.
The next day she came by the house while I was at work.
She left a brief note. "No more yo-yo," she wrote. "I'm leaving."
§
from Going into the darkness / Tales of past times
(an unpublished novel)
Going
Where to go,
now that you're not
going with me?
Where to go,
now that you've made
up your mind
to leave;
you,
who, more than any other
being alive
have touched me
with the touch of fire:
a deep blue flame rising
from below,
into my heart,
an intense rose, radiant,
burning into a luminous red orange
light, an electrical egg around
my body, a flame,
singing,
singing.
Where to go,
now that you're gone?
I shall not repeat
myself,
forever.
The game of love,
exhausted;
the child we never
had,
the garden
and fruit trees:
paths
I will not travel
with you this time,
all turning to ash
in my hands,
like in the dream
I once had in Greece—
the meaning of my life
in a handful of ashes.
And you?
Where will you
go?
What will you do?
To India,
to be with your lover?
Already you see auras,
read past lives,
and feel the exquisite heart
beat of each moment,
with your own winged heart.
Perhaps,
(if you go),
you'll return a healer
of souls,
a transformer of lives.
Perhaps,
(a
personal sentiment
now),
with someone else, another
man,
you will have your flowers,
your fruit trees and green beans
to put up in the summer,
your tasseled corn,
your sweet red strawberries.
But the fire!
The fire will forever
be
you and me,
a living, flowering flame,
you and me,
our loving, merging,
a crying,
a dancing birth &
death between
us,
through us
and within us, around
us,
singing,
singing,
singing,
singing
Going into the darkness
1981-1985
§
To equate light with love is misdirected.
For certainly there's as much love in darkness
as there is in light.
—Alora, in conversation
Every major galaxy, it turns out,
has a black hole at its core.
—Robert Irion, "Homing in on Black Holes,"
The Smithsonian, April 2008
The scholars are deficient in that they are afraid to enter
the darkness.
Reason shuns it and is afraid to steal in.
But in avoiding the darkness reason does not arrive
at a vision of the invisible.
—Nicholas of Cusa, 15th c.
Meditations with Nicholas of Cusa
trans. James Francis Yockey
As night descends
What to do?
Get drunk? Meditate? Go south?
It's June.