The Devil's Vial

by Brumbaugh,Byron

  Richard felt a little embarrassed; like he should have, somehow, acted more compassionately. But how?

  He thought of the many conversations he had with his fellow monks about the meaning of compassion. He still didn’t understand it well. He was told the essence of the human condition is absolute bodhicitta, loving kindness. But, because he wasn’t enlightened, Richard had trouble acting from this real compassion. Sometimes he could touch it, for an instant, but his immediate reactions always seemed so, well, self-oriented. To be able to act from absolute boddhicitta, he was instructed to constantly, consciously practice his imperfect idea of compassion, relative bodhicitta, and, over time, he would come closer and closer to the real thing. But it seemed he was only able to do that after reacting out of something more self-serving. He also found it hard to know what the compassionate thing to do is. What would really help? But that was an exercise of the mind. Compassion came from the heart. So, he kept trying; even if it was in retrospect.

  He hadn’t gone very much further down the street when he felt a tug at his hand. He saw a man about his own age, dressed in rags and barefoot, running down the street with the bag Richard had been carrying. Dammit! he thought. That’s mine! The bag contained some gum and snacks he bought for the train. Soon, the man was lost amongst the milling mass of bodies on the street. Richard sighed heavily. At least I had the street smarts not to carry my passport, tickets, or money with me, he thought. Maybe the man needs the bag and its contents more than I do. Practice, practice. He decided that it might be better to return to the train station and wait there. He was too much of a target out here.

  On the way back, he saw a child with a cleft palate so severe, he had a large hole in the side of his face. He passed a thin bedraggled man with one leg, using a bent stick for a crutch. There was an old woman seated on the hard cement sidewalk, holding out a cup, pleading for aid. Birth, old age, sickness and death, he thought.

  . . .

  Riding on an Indian train was not like traveling on a train in the US. It was noisy, full of shouting people and, in third class, their animals. The locomotive was diesel, but the train was slow, stopping at many villages along the way. Richard was sitting on a hard bench next to a window. Next to him was a heavyset woman wrapped in a sari, holding onto a leash attached to a goat. The people in the train seemed fed and their clothes were not exactly rags. But then if they didn’t have enough money for the essentials of life, they probably wouldn’t have enough for even a third class train ticket.

  Richard kept to himself and watched the scenery as it played past his window like a long un-narrated documentary. At the lower altitudes, the country was arid and brown. Farmers plowed their fields with bent sticks and oxen. With few exceptions, people were on foot. Then, as the train got closer to the big city, Richard saw more and more paved roads, lorries chugging their way along, and then private cars – at first, old beat-up American cars from the sixties, then gradually, more and more brand new Japanese models.

  Once in Delhi, Richard took a cab straight from the train station to the airport. What started as a slow re-enculturation into the twenty-first century exponentially escalated into a rapid fire series of impressions that, if he had not been from the west, would have been bewildering. As it was, he found it daunting. The Delhi airport was up to date – it had video screens showing flight information, electric carts moving people and their belongings around, restaurants and bars, food everywhere of a remarkable variety and bathrooms with hot and cold running water. It had all the ills that come along with modernity – the noise: high-pitched whine of the jet engines, the smells: all-pervasive odor of jet fuel, the sights: graffiti on bathroom stall doors. And everywhere, people were hurriedly rushing about with some mission in mind. They had cell phones and iPods, they were working on laptop computers and watching movies on small video monitors. Even the kids had electronic games that grabbed their attention so their parents could put their attention somewhere else.

  By this time, Richard had been traveling for hours and he was very tired. He was grateful for the short delay before his flight left for Paris and, once on board, made himself as comfortable as possible and fell asleep. In Paris, he was in a half-awake daze as he rushed to make the plane to Boston. It was crowded as there was some kind of delay in London that rerouted many passengers through Paris. It involved something about a baggage handlers strike. Once on the plane, he fell asleep again and didn’t awaken until touchdown at Logan Airport. Somewhat rested, he deplaned and quickly made his way to the baggage claim area.

  Richard stood next to the baggage carousel, waiting for his suitcase to appear. He was surrounded by several hundred people with the same objective: to get their luggage and get out as soon as possible.

  “Hey, buddy,” said a man standing next to him. “Where’re you goin’?” The man was portly, about forty and dressed in a wrinkled suit. He seemed tense, tired, but friendly. He kept diverting his eyes from Richard to the hole where the bags would appear and back again.

  “Georgetown,” said Richard.

  “I’m going to Boston. Got a business meeting there in the morning.” He paused for a moment and then added, “I hope I can get some sleep before then.” He paced toward the carousel and back again. “If I don’t get these contracts signed, I’d better look for a new job,” he muttered to himself. He was soon lost in the crowd.

  Behind him, Richard heard a crash. He turned to see a slim attractive woman in her thirties, trying to keep her luggage cart from turning over. The baggage shifted so the weight was all on one side, making it teeter dangerously. Richard went over and helped her right the cart. He lifted the baggage into a more stable pile and then looked up into her face. There were tears running down her cheeks. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No. No, there isn’t.” She seemed to break down even further.

  He waited for her to regain some composure and then asked, “Can I get you some coffee, or maybe a cab? Is there someone picking you up?”

  “No, really. Thank you.” She paused for a minute. “I’m leaving my husband. He was cheating on me – I never knew…” The words came pouring out of her as if they were unbidden, as if she couldn’t stop them. She burst into tears again. “I’m going to stay with my parents. They should be here soon. But thank you.”

  He forgot what it was like in the world outside the monastery walls. It was so quiet and peaceful there. Out here, he was under a constant barrage of suffering of vast variety and range. Every breath he took was suffused with it. Every heartbeat perfused his mind with it. Every thought was served up as a barrier against it. Why had his lama sent him back to this?

  Chapter Two

  The late model, but well-used, yellow cab rolled northbound up interstate 495. It was early morning, the beginning of rush hour. The six-lane freeway cut through a sea of green – grass, bushes, and trees. It was the first week in June; the temperature was pleasant and the skies were blue with just a few scattered clouds. All in all, it looked to be the beginning of a nice day.

  This was Richard’s world; the place, he supposed, where his lama meant him to return. They were approaching Lawrence, Massachusetts, and it had a familiar feeling to it that seemed to draw at his psyche like a magician draws at an object of incantation. He felt like a long lost cog falling into place in a cosmic mechanism of dubious function. It had an ominous feel to it; not so much as a portent of things to come, but as shadows of things past. His lama was right. There was unfinished business here; issues he had yet to work through.

  The whole trip was surreal. It was as if he used a series of transporters, like those on Star Trek, but acting much slower. He would enter artificial bubbles - automobiles, trains, airplanes - that isolated him from the rest of the universe, except for sights as seen through windows. Then there was the thrum and rattle of machinery at work, much pitching about an
d suddenly, a door was opened and he stepped out into a different universe, a different reality.

  He looked out the side window in the back seat of the cab. Red brick smokestacks of old factories-turned-into-office-space slid past his view. The freeway was packed with people rushing to some destination or other. The cabbie, a somewhat plump, casually dressed Caucasian male in his late twenties, was able to keep up a good pace in the inside lane despite the traffic. “Are you from around here?” Richard asked the cabbie.

  “You mean Lawrence? Nah, I’m from up the road here a bit – Plaistow, New Hampshire. It’s closer to where you’re headed.” The cabbie looked at him in his rear view mirror. He seemed to be a kind gentle man.

  “Oh, good. You should know the area pretty well then. I’m temporarily staying in a motel in Georgetown, but I’m going to need a place I can rent. You know of anyplace nearby that’s not too expensive, but not too run down?”

  “Mmmm… Maybe. How long you gonna stay?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m just coming home from being out of the country. For now, I just need a place to figure things out. Probably at least a year.”

  “Well, let’s see…” The cabbie glanced again at him in the mirror, then seemed to be looking past him. “Hey, is there any reason someone should be following you?”

  “None I can think of.” Richard twisted his body around, placing his right arm on the back of the seat, and looked through the rear window. Close behind them was a large black sedan. It was closing the gap between them. Its driver, no one he recognized, stared intently at Richard. A wave of dread washed over him and he reflexively patted his shirt pocket for a non-existent cell phone. He broke out in a cold sweat. Could the driver be a relative of Gary’s seeking revenge? That made no sense. How could he possibly know Richard was back in the country so soon? The guy looked Indian. Was someone from the monastery trying to contact him? For what? Did something happen to his lama? How would they know where to find him? He was being paranoid.

  The cabbie signaled and moved over to the middle lane. The other car followed. “This guy’s been behind us since we left the airport. Sometimes he’s closer, sometimes he’s farther back. I slow down and change lanes; he slows down and changes lanes. I speed up and he speeds up. He’s always there.” The cab sped up and moved into the high speed lane. The sedan followed.

  The cabbie saw a hole in the thick traffic to his right, deftly moved into it, then began weaving in and out, trying to put distance between them and the sedan. “Let’s see him keep up with this,” he said.

  At first, the sedan fell behind. Then it sped up and moved into the breakdown lane, bypassing much of the traffic. Soon, it was behind them again. “I don’t think there’s much question,” said the cabbie. “He’s following us.”

  “I wonder what he wants?” asked Richard, still watching him through the back window. “Road rage?”

  “Over what? I haven’t cut him off or anything.”

  “The Mob’s not after you, are they?”

  “Hell, no. Get real.”

  “FBI? It looks like something the government would drive.”

  “For unpaid parking tickets?”

  The sedan sped up and got very close behind them.

  “Why’s he following so damn close? What’s he trying to do?” The cabbie was watching the rear view mirror.

  In his peripheral vision, Richard saw motion in the next lane. Turning his head to look, he saw a Mini Cooper, whose driver was using a cell phone, swing right in front of them. He was so close, he nearly took out the cab’s right headlight. “Look out!” cried Richard.

  “Shit!” yelled the cabbie as he slammed on the brakes

  The driver of the sedan put on his brakes and swerved toward the median strip, trying to miss the cab. But he was too close and hit the cab’s left rear bumper – hard. The sedan spun into the grass, rolled several times and hit a tree. It burst into flames.

  The impact swung the cab around sideways. A fast-moving car in the middle lane hit the passenger side front fender, spinning the cab back around the other way. There was a cacophony of screeching tires, breaking glass, blaring horns, and bending metal. The world was spinning, dancing, and convulsing. Richard’s body was thrown around violently, straining at the seat belt. The cab finally came to a halt.

  There was a thud as the cab was hit one final time. Richard could smell steam hissing from the radiator, hot oil from the engine and the sweet odor of blood. He felt the grit of glass and dirt on the seat next to him and could feel something wet running down his forehead. Most of the glass in the windows was shattered. His neck hurt.

  “Are you okay?” he asked the cabbie.

  “Uhhhh…” was the reply.

  He looked in front of him and saw the cabbie was sitting up. Looking in the rear view mirror, he could not see the cabbie’s face. Richard undid his seat belt and leaned forward. The plexiglass separating the front and back seats made it impossible to get a good look, but he thought he could see a fair amount of blood on the seat. The cabbie was very still and pale. Richard reached out for the door handle. It moved, but the door didn’t. He slid across the seat and was able to get out the other door.

  Richard swiped at something warm and wet running down his cheek. He was surprised to see blood on his fingers. He felt his face and found a sticky sore spot on his forehead. Scalp wound, he thought. Damn things bleed a lot. He pulled out his shirt tail and tore off a strip of cloth that he folded and pressed to the wound.

  Richard looked in the passenger side front door. The cabbie was still sitting up, head laid back against the headrest, eyes open. Richard pulled the door open, with some effort, bending metal. The cabbie turned his head and looked at him.

  “My leg,” he said.

  Richard crawled into the front seat and looked at the cabbie’s right leg. It was bent at an awkward angle and the thigh had a large bulge under his pants. There was a rapidly growing red stain where the bulge was. Damn, thought Richard. Femoral fracture. “You’re leg’s broken,” he said. “It’ll be okay, I’ll take care of you.”

  The cabbie groaned and gave him an uncertain look.

  “It’s alright, I’m a doctor.” At least I used to be. Setting his ad hoc bandage down to free his hands, he tore the cabbie’s pants to expose the leg. A sharp piece of white bone protruded through the skin mid-thigh. Now that the pants were gone, the blood squirted freely from the wound, pulsating with each heartbeat. Must have cut the femoral artery. Richard took off his shirt, tore off a wide strip and tied it around the cabbie’s upper thigh.

  The cabbie screamed in pain.

  “Sorry,” said Richard. “Gotta stop this bleeding.” Looking around, he found a screw driver in the glove box. Placing this under the cloth strip, he twisted it, making a tourniquet. The bleeding slowed and then stopped. “Anything else hurt?” he asked.

  The cabbie groaned through clenched teeth. “I don’t think so, but man, that hurts like a mother.”

  It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with anything like that, thought Richard. He tore another strip from his shirt and secured the compress he made earlier to his head with a head band.

  “I’m going to go check if anyone else is hurt. You okay for now?”

  The cabbie nodded weakly.

  I hope EMS gets here soon, thought Richard.

  A hundred yards or so in the distance, Richard could see a dense black cloud of smoke billowing upwards. Below the cloud, flames licked at what used to be the black sedan. No help needed there, he thought.

  Chapter Three

  Alex Stewart was an experienced ER physician in his mid-thirties. He was lean; he kept himself in reasonable shape by jogging with his dog and occasionally visiting the gym. Even so, between three and five in the morning, his biorhythms were at a minimum, no matter how much sleep he had before the start of his twelve-hour overnight shift. He wouldn’t recover before his head hit the pillow. Now, it was less than an hour before the end of his shift and he was
tired.

  Sally, the charge nurse for the night shift, hung up a phone. “There’s been a multi-vehicle accident up on 495,” she told Alex. “We’re getting four with backboards and collars.”

  Alex sat in his chair and sputtered as he exhaled. Suck it up, he thought.

  Georgetown Community Hospital had one-hundred and eight beds. It had been around, in one building or another, under one name or another, for well over one-hundred years. Presently, it sat on a hill whose grassy slopes ran down to the banks of the Merrimack River about five miles from Interstate 495. It was a small hospital, by some standards, and from five PM to seven AM, there was only one doctor in the hospital - the one in the ER

  The ER had twenty beds, most of them with cardiac monitors. The equipment was up to date and the staff had a well-earned good reputation. There was no trauma team on call and most serious trauma bypassed the hospital. Minor trauma was a different story.

  Alex surveyed the rooms having patients and did a mental calculation. Bed two: sore throat, I can get her out in five minutes. Bed six: chest pain, stable, ready to go up to his room. Bed one: ankle sprain, splinted and ready to leave. Holding two: abdominal pain, awaiting CT; stable, but will have to sign her out to the next shift. Holding four: diverticulitis, admitted and ready to go upstairs. He looked up at Sally and said, “I think we can handle that without much strain.” He turned back to the desk and began writing the discharge instructions and prescriptions for the patient in bed two.

  Fifteen minutes later, the first of the ambulances arrived. The crew brought in a young woman on a gurney, boarded and collared. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties. One of the EMTs was giving Sally a verbal report on the patient and Alex went over to listen in. The patient complained of neck pain only. The other EMT pushing the gurney saw Alex and said, “You’re not going to believe this, Dr. Stewart.”