by Bruce Wagner
They prayed to the 4 directions and to earth, moon, and sun. Laxmi read from a book written by a saint she wanted to visit in Bombay, about having your head “in the mouth of the tiger”—there was no escape if one continued to fight with the Self—true freedom meant not liberation from the ego but liberation for it. Chess made a bad joke about Siegfried and Roy, how the one who didn’t get mangled might have a different opinion, but she attributed his clowning to sheer nerves. Suddenly he remembered a book he loved as a boy (they weren’t coming on yet, though Laxmi said they were close to the stage where you wondered if you were, or should be, even though you still felt sorta normal), he began talking about it 10 minutes after Laxmi diced up “the little ones” (what the cognoscenti called cubensis, they’d swallowed them with banana to cut the bitterness), Chess saying that as a kid he hardly read but the book he loved more than any just happened to be called The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. Laxmi sexily guffawed. When the title came out of his mouth, neither of them could actually believe it. What an omen! she said. He told her that the most beautiful thing about it, the thing he could never forget, and thought of even to this day to calm himself when times were tough, was the rocketship that a tribe of children built in the middle of the night, they rose from their beds and went to the beach to blast off (Tim Leary’s Blue Blasters!)—“How amazing,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing?” he countered, their amazings somehow perfectly overlapping—maybe they were coming on—rocketship on blackvault oceanshore seemed to embody everything, all wonder of cosmos harmoniously attuned until adolescent cynicism snowed under, “the headlamps of childhood,” as some writer put it, headlamps onto motes of orgiastic Mystery then wattage dimmed and lamp cords frayed before one grew callous, hide-bound, and rueful over what he could no longer feel, taste, see, or remember, so far from the awesome messages once carried on beachwind of infinity-looped, dead-on summer nights now dead.
They lay quiet awhile—Laxmi said they should be quiet—and Chess thought maybe he hadn’t taken enough little ones—then had the thought he might be coming on—then definitely, even though Laxmi said with a vacant smile that she wasn’t. Which made sense; she took half. Or maybe she lied and swallowed a full dose and only said she’d taken less because she knew how spooked he was. (Maybe she’d be the one to lose it.)
(Doubtful) (The Nancy Nurse fantasy was bullshit anyway)
He was coming on now. Oh. No. Industrial-strength—“ego-leveling dosage”—another favored phrase of the shamanguides—queasy and afraid. Stomach hurting. Body/mind changes churning vertigo/hawhrfear: why did i do this i shouldn’t have done this what if i/we need a hospital what if it’s the same hospital they took Maurie. They hadn’t left their room at the perfectly named Miracle Manor, beautiful minimalist hotel with sweet utilitarian kitchen, clinical desert tile whites, he didn’t at all want to go outside. He lay on the floor.
feeling the presence of elephants.
He could sense the duststorms stirred by their powerful legs.
THE DISTANT MUSIC EMANATING FROM THEIR TRUNKS.
Trumpets.
Chess asked Laxmi if she minded if he spoke, that he was going to tell her “essential truths.”
She said she would like that: excited for him, giddy almost. And he said, like an anchor in Iraq
these are Her imperial troops. i am on the outskirts of the army’s gathering. these elephants are the imperial guards. because i have taken the little ones, the cubenses, they are allowing me here, but i can only be present at a great distance. getting too close would endanger. i feel like huckleberry. what is his last name. Finn, she said
these are Her imperial guards—
He sat flummoxed and shocky with the holiness of it and Laxmi grinned, quietly eager and respectful. He asked for reassurance that she’d help, that Laxmi would help with whatever came up because She—that’s how he referred to this energetic entity, misty mythopoeic colossus the elephants were guarding—She could easily crush him and all that is or ever was built or imagined. It would be nothing for Her! Laxmi made gentle oath. His girlfriend and journeywoman, splinter of She, was generous and bountiful, just like that whom the elephants guarded. But there was no danger in Laxmi, the human manifestation…
Chess began to cry and said
She is learning about me through you. She sees that i am afraid because i brought you, laxmi, to help. She sees i am a frightened, frail being, and because of that, She is going to treat me with tenderness. He convulsed in tears. Oh! (Laxmi cried with him, softly though, so as not to upstage) can you imagine? this being—(Laxmi told him it was Kali-Durga)—this being who could crush me—crush the world if She wished—has deigned to treat me with such compassion and tenderness i am so ashamed! i was so afraid, and among the infinite tasks She has before her, She has taken the time to make certain i am unharmed! for i am a fragile
Laxmi put her arms around him and said to let everything just wash over, and that she loved him.
How can there be shame? When
She never rests! he shouted, wild-eyed, filled with grace. because of her compassion she allows the elephants to guard Her, but only because She knows that is what they wish—She knows they are guarding nothing! (Laxmi was crying again) can anything be more beautiful than that? oh! so sad! it’s so sad! the plant! i feel the sadness of the plant—how can we bear up against the sadness of a plant? he asked rhetorically—quietly, Laxmi changed “plant” to “planet” but he didn’t hear—how can we bear the sadness of a plant, how can we take that, laxmi? She says that She knows we can’t. She knows we are too weak and that our backs would break under the weight of even a single tear of this mushroom, Her favorite pupil, Her most devoted student, can you see? She says the mushroom likes to observe the world through our eyes and that She lets us see things through Its eyes, though not for very long because it’s too much, we’re too frail, so She lets us be human, lets us forget, because it would destroy us if we walked around remembering
For hours (4 hours), Laxmi tended him, bringing fruit drinks. Still, he had no desire to go outside.
There was no outside.
Once, on her way to the kitchen, Chess said with a laugh:
“I don’t know if I’ll be here when you get back.”
He wasn
rode beachrocket from marinesub to subcontinent, Old and New testamentary Worlds, found himself at sea as well, Homeric ship on tsunami wave, crest of voice imploring him to let go, let go of the mast—Her again, commanding—let go, for the mast is already broken. She whom imperial elephants guarded and for whom mushrooms were merely students and Chess a speck Chesapeake of submarined subatomic dust, showed him cubensis Cubist crystalline prismpink mosaic of amethyst-emerald alien cityscapes, high-tension tessellated grids, he literally got knocked down by her wedding train—merely one more groveling suitor. He began to shiver/shudder, felt his mother Marjorie, the plant ingeniously wafting him from cosmoecstaticdemonic to interpersonal, now on Freudian couch feeling melancholic pain of that old woman’s heart and body—there were so many Mothers, why should Marjorie be any less scared/ sacred? He was already in India, thankful soon to be faraway, sadness and anxiety of separation and necessary revolt. Rocked in Laxmi’s arms. Those men beating Mom’s small white body in the night, robbing her, Mother alone without him, his protectorship, saw himself taking her money, asking for money, Die Rich, how could he, how could he make such a joke, he killed with his jokes, 1st Maurie than Marj, and now it must stop, She, the Great Mother, would help him, must help, he would call on Her imperial army, guarding nothing, do what he had to, he was good for Nothing, he would leave the useless killing part of himself behind, rocking a rock in Laxmi’s arms, Laxmi, cheap ineffable wondrous sterling knockoff of She, It, Chess now stereoscopically keening and wailing at Her unfathomable horror and Mercy.
I will go to India for I cannot be here for her death. I could not be here for her life.
O Mother Mother Mother I have
LXXX.
Marjorie
discarded the paper at her feet which she lifted to read the dingy ad blaring out at her
It’s never too late to finish rich.
Even if you are buried in debt—there is still hope.
Find your “Silver Lexus Nexus”—and turbocharge it to save money
you didn’t know you had!
from the floor of the bus that would take her (though she did not know it) to Long Beach.
The LOVE IS AROUND THE CORNER fortune and lucky numbers were tucked in pocket, she had gotten the original scrap back from Joan after her daughter had promised—sworn—to write the string of numbers down once and for all. They were to be used without exception when buying lottery tickets.
Marj left the bungalow while the nurse was dozing. She strolled the gardens awhile—a lovely hotel, she’d been to a reception there once with Hamilton—before going south on Beverly Drive to Wilshire where she sat and looked at the gutted Taj Mahal, the theater she took her babies to when they were young. A tear of sorrow on the cheek of time. Wasn’t that how a poet had described the palace in Agra?
Joan would be angry with her for sneaking away. Her daughter had been so kind but that hotel was costing too much, had to be. Why were they at a hotel in the 1st place? Joan was acting strange and solicitous, as if Marjorie were a child. She spent money like water on nurses and room service. It just wasn’t sitting well. Joan kept telling Marj she would soon be a grandmother, but she knew that couldn’t be true, Joan was too old to have children, and not even married! Marj didn’t want to say it but she was truly concerned. She thought Joan was and always had been barren, and worried she’d quit her job as an architect too soon.
She rested on a bench and let the buses pass. Then she walked to another hotel, kitty-corner to the vanished Taj—the Regent Beverly Wilshire—also quite lovely. (She remembered having been there with Ham as well, at a bar called Hernando’s Hideaway. There used to be a big bookstore inside, but all that was long gone.) She wandered into a restaurant with black-and-white floors called The Boulevard, they spelled it “The Blvd,” but suddenly had to use the restroom—a young woman pointed the way, though it took a while for Marj to find—and as she sat in the opulent marble-floored fully enclosed stall (reminding, as a certain opulence usually did, of Bombay’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel), she thought of Bonita and their excursion to Neiman’s. She even imagined retracing their steps yet didn’t have the strength, not today.
She wiped herself then looked for the lever but there wasn’t one—nothing at all! How could such a splendid hostelry have skimped on a basic fixture, installing a toilet that couldn’t be flushed? Perhaps they were on timers; that seemed rather crude. She wondered what to do. She decided she’d go tell someone. Marj stood from the bowl, gathering her skirt around her. She didn’t like leaving all that in the water, it was ugly. A moment after she got up, she heard a flush. Something must be wrong and she still thought she should mention it at the reception desk, but shrugged. The old woman washed her hands with the sweet-smelling soap, glad that she wouldn’t have to share her travail with the staff, who had so much else to tend to.
Maybe the toilet had fixed itself.
She walked to the grand entrance (where the swimming pool used to be way back when) and asked the doorman in the marvelous costume for a cab. She gave the driver the address of her Beverlywood home. As they turned into the street, Marj felt bad because she hadn’t brought anything for Pahrump.
The coachman slowed down, looking for the house. Darkness was descending. She told him this was it, the charred lot (she didn’t say that in so many words), and he made a snorting sound. She said just pull into the drive please and let me out. He was one of those horrid, judgey men from unknowable countries who had an agenda on top of getting their money. Marj gave him a nice tip and he shook his head, ogling her as she stepped to the sidewalk, like she was a crazy person. The old woman was about to investigate the remains of her residence but saw the driver still sitting there gawking, and she looked him straight in the eye until he shrugged and sneered and snorted again or whatever it was he did and put the car in gear and pulled away.
She couldn’t get onto the property because of a wire fence.
“Marjorie?”
It was Cora.
“Hello!”
“Marjorie, what—what are you doing here? Aren’t you at the hotel? Joan said you were at the hotel.”
“Oh yes, we’re still there, but there’s no place like home!”
“But—how did you get here?”
“I cabbed it. Cora, why is there this fence?”
“For safety. The kids in the neighborhood were climbing all around.”
Cora stared at her old friend.
“I am so sorry I haven’t come to see you, Marj—you’re at the Beverly Hills? But, well…you see, I had some bad news of my own. My Pahrump passed away.”
“No! Not Mr P!”
“Yes. Yes, he did.”
The 2 began to cry.
“And there I was for the last few hours wondering what to bring him…oh darling, how dreadful!”
“The doctors said they did everything humanly possible, but it just got to the point where—I thought it was cruel. I put him on DNR. ‘Do Not Resuscitate.’ ”
“He was so brave. Oh, that Mr P! Cora, it was his time.”
“Well, yes, I suppose. He lost his testicles at the end. You know, Steinie said they do prosthetics now, for dogs who get neutered. Just like a breast implant, only down there. But the doctors said the surgery would have killed him.” She smiled that incongruous cookie-jar smile. “Come! Come inside, Marj, it’s cold. Does Joan know you’re here?”
“Oh! I imagine.”
Cora sensed something was wrong. She wanted to get her friend into the house, maybe get some food in her while she called the hotel and told her daughter what was going on. (She had a sneaking suspicion Mrs Herlihy’s whereabouts were unknown.) All she could think was, the poor darling has been through hell.
Cora parked her in the living room. She brought a glass of water and part of a Reuben sandwich from Factor’s that her grandson left, and the maid had wrapped up.
“The most wonderful thing was, just before my Drummer Boy passed, these extraordinary people came and put him on film—he’s a television star! Now they’re going to dedicate the entire episode to Mr P. Oh Marj, let me show you!”
She put on the Dog Whisperer DVD that Stein had “burned.” Marjorie wasn’t sure what the whole thing was about but it did give her a chance to see Pahrump again, and that was fine. There was another dog too, who’d been shot by mistake, so awful, but the animals seemed to be busy making friends. She recognized some of her neighbor’s grandkids. Cora was on the show too, “in the wings,” and Marj thought she comported herself well.
She called the hotel from the kitchen and left a message with guest voicemail saying, “Joan, your mom is here.” When Cora hung up, she realized that in her excitement she stupidly hadn’t identified herself, and phoned again. This time, it took longer to connect her to the room. “Joan? I’m so sorry—that was me!—but I don’t think I left my name. It’s Cora, Cora Ludinsky, Marjorie’s neighbor. Well, she’s here in my living room. I wasn’t sure if you knew, but she’s right here in my living room, right now.” It came to her that she had Joan’s cellphone number somewhere; finding it would be another story. Also, that she probably should have said what time it was.
She went back in—Marj was already standing at the front door. Cora begged her to stay, but Marj was adamant and the neighbor said she would give her a ride back to the hotel. Marj told her it wasn’t necessary, that “Lucas sent a Town Car,” and it was waiting on Robertson because she didn’t want to “put on airs” or suffer the embarrassment of the chauffeur seeing her beloved house in its undignified burned-up condition. Cora knew that was nonsense and wild talk. She pleaded with Marj and tried to stall, saying she wanted to show off some of the new garden furniture Stein had bou
ght. Marj left almost hastily. Cora went straight to the phone to reach her son but didn’t have any luck. She began to look for Joan’s cell number.
The old woman stared through the Cyclone fence at the ruins of her home. It made her think of that ancient city the Travel Gal mentioned, Benares, where Jesus learned the art of healing—where corpses were set on fire and thrown from ghats into the Ganges, the proceedings watched over by Lord Siva, god of Death. (She looked it up in the old Encyclopedia Britannica her father had bought for her Sweet 16th.) The river, between the Varana and Asi rivers, was said to have sprung from Siva’s matted hair. When his girlfriend Parvati died, a jeweled earring fell to earth and landed in the exact place that became the holiest cremation site—“the Manikarnika Ghat.” She was amazed to read that it took 100 kilos of wood to render a body to ashes. All day and all night one could hear the chant, Rama nama satya hai (“God’s name is Truth”). Benares, she read, “is also known as Mahashmashana, the great cremation ground, the final resting place of the corpse of the universe at the end of its vast cycle of life.” Trudy said that Benares was nothing but a “wretched ant farm.”
She began to walk. Just before turning the corner to Robertson she looked back to see Cora, distressed, standing on the sidewalk—the neighbor called out to her but Marj couldn’t hear and besides, quickened her pace.
Within 5 minutes she was on a bus, heading for Long Beach as she
LXXXI.
Joan
came home from visiting her dad, the caregiver was frantic.
After tearfully admitting to the possibility she had napped during Oprah, the RN said that her mother had somehow managed to “slip out.” Upon realizing “the client” was gone, she became distraught and went looking for her. Joan asked if she’d bothered to notify security; she hadn’t, and was tormented afresh by her own incompetence. Joan picked up the phone. The staff said they would immediately alert the police in case Mrs Herlihy had “wandered off-site,” and begin to check ladies’ rooms, pool and cabana areas, and the hidden fern-choked nooks that were plentiful on the grounds—everywhere they could think of.