Changing the Subject

by Stephen-Paul Martin

  When we woke before dawn the following day, I was eager to talk about the pattern of strange events I’d been caught up in. I figured if anyone could shed some light on what was going on, it was Moon. But he was clearly preoccupied, so we drove in silence into the desert. We stopped for food and water near the southern end of the Salton Sea, about seventy miles northeast of San Diego, then went south another twenty-five miles. We stopped at the end of a long dirt road and walked for perhaps an hour, following a rough trail through a rocky labyrinth of hills and canyons, finally arriving at a crude enclosure made of cinder blocks and fake wood paneling. Its occupant was a man who might have been over a hundred years old and might have been only twenty. He seemed to know my face. His face was like a door standing all by itself in the middle of nowhere. After talking with Moon for a few minutes in a language I didn’t recognize, he went back inside. Moon told me to sit and wait. I rested my back on a smooth rock in the shadow of a mesa, looking west at Garnet Peak, wondering if the hawks that rode the winds at the summit were feasting on the ten hours I’d lost there.

  I don’t know how long we waited, somewhere between ten minutes and ten hours. My teeth felt like they’d been gone for a long time but had somehow gotten back into my mouth before I knew they were missing. Then the man was standing outside his hut in a costume that made him look like a huge bird of prey, something between a hawk and an owl. I wanted to laugh but something stopped me. Moon made a fire in a pile of round white stones. The smell was delicious, as if the stones were the homes of secret aromas that could only be released by fire. Moon held up two flat wooden objects and told me we would be using them as drums. He showed me the beat and told me to keep it steady. The man began dancing, spinning in slow circles, each one part of a larger circle, chanting in a language I didn’t know.

  At first I felt silly. I looked at Moon and shrugged. But the sharp look he gave me made me feel stupid, and soon the beat and the chant and the dance began to absorb my attention. The word “absorb” is not a figure of speech. The world slowly contracted into the dance, became the dance, and before too long I was nothing more than a vehicle of the rhythm I was making with my drum, and the drum was time itself but without human measurement, not gliding across the surface of the world, but slowly beating its way into the depth of space, dissolving into colors and shapes, velocities and textures. The only way to describe the dance was to say that it came from the sun, just as the chant was coming from a hawk in the circling sky, gracefully riding the updrafts and downdrafts, as if it might suddenly dive and drive its beak deep into my forehead.

  But then the hawk was gone. Our drumming stopped. The man collapsed. He lay motionless by the fire, and Moon knelt beside him, posing what seemed to be questions, again in a language I’d never heard before. The phrases felt like a system of corridors constructed only to break down the distinction between arriving and departing, as if each corridor were a missing interval of time, parts of a house that existed only on the outside, a place that no one approached without getting lost.

  Moon finally nodded, stood and smiled at me with burning eyes. I could feel my back leaning on a smooth rock, cold at first then hot then made of circles. The pain that had been mounting behind my eyes began to relax, like music breaking out of a buried coffin. Moon went into the hut and came out with a knife. He put the blade in the fire, then kneeled and made a quick incision, pulling open the man’s chest and stomach. He motioned for me to bring him an old wicker basket beside the hut. One by one, Moon pulled out the man’s internal organs, placing them carefully in the basket, replacing them with the burning stones. He motioned for me to close the basket and place it back inside the hut. Then he pulled the man’s body back together, sealing it with the wave-like motions of his hands.

  We started drumming again, and soon the man was up and dancing, this time shouting with ecstasy at the sun going down behind Garnet Peak. The words of his chant had such presence that they didn’t vanish right after they came from his mouth. Rather, they drifted up like vapors, shaping themselves into cumulonimbus clouds, disappearing over the mountains, as if they were crossing a threshold into another dimension. It occurred to me that in this other dimension, every place was the same place, and words were things and things were words. Then it occurred to me that this thought was foolish. Then it occurred to me that it was no more foolish than anything else people thought about other dimensions. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what a dimension was, that probably no one else did either. Then it occurred to me that each thing that occurred to me occurred to me so that other things might occur me. Then it occurred to me that I was trapped in things that occurred to me. Then the word occur became five stones that marked the edge of the space the man made with his dance—but north was facing west, south was facing east, and the fifth direction, which I wanted to call the center, was never the same, changing with the dance and the beat and the chant and the heat of the sun, whose beams came raining down in spears and arrows, marking the dust, as if the desert had once been a sequence of pages, and before that, an ocean of words on the verge of becoming a language, and before that, the collection of one-celled animals that became those words, and before that, a random set of chemical reactions, and before that, the musical score those chemicals emerged from, and before that, the word that becoming before becoming and, as if there was nothing before that and, and the man was chanting louder, slicing the air with large white feathers, cutting space into words that the gathering wind was whirling away. For a second I knew precisely what they meant, and then I knew nothing, like a bubble of air rising rapidly from the ocean floor, bursting once it reached the air on the surface.

  Again the man collapsed and our drumming stopped. With his bare hands, Moon pulled open the man’s body, removed the burning stones, and motioned for me to bring the basket, carefully putting the man’s internal organs back into his body. Then he closed him up, massaging his skin, again making wave-like motions with his hands, leaving no trace of the opening he’d made. Ten minutes later the man slowly got up, gazed at the gash in the sky where the sun had gone down behind Garnet Peak, nodded to Moon and me, and disappeared into his hut.

  Then Moon and I were stumbling and weaving our way back out through the desert night. As I drove toward San Diego, he sat gazing out the window, refusing to speak, as if he were there by himself, as if he were someone I no longer knew. When we got home, he aggressively steered the conversation toward things we’d done together thirty years before in New York City, and our laughing memories seemed to intrude on and transform what had just happened in the desert. It’s no secret that memory is more a reconstruction than it is an objective account of past events, but our conversation made my recollections even more unstable, and later that night, after Moon had gone to bed, I was sure that what I remembered was quite different from what really took place. I knew that if I told my Zen teacher about it, he would give me that slightly condescending smile and tell me not to put so much emphasis on the paranormal side effects of my practice. So I decided to keep the experience to myself.

  Moon left the next day, resisting all my requests for an explanation, except to say that our work in the desert had been crucial in restoring the health of the nation. I’d always felt that to talk about restoring the nation’s health was misguided, implying that the United States had at some point in its past been truly healthy. But exactly ten days later, the nation was buzzing with what the media called a tragic disaster, even though it made me happier than I’d been in many years. It was either a marvelous coincidence or the result of a magical process I couldn’t begin to understand. Had someone predicted it the day before, I would have laughed.

  But there it was in the headlines of every paper I looked at, on every TV newscast, on radios and the Internet. George Bush was dead. Dick Cheney was dead. Donald Rumsfeld was dead. Karl Rove was dead. All the leading Republicans on Capitol Hill were dead. All the Republican think-tank people were dead. The immediate assumption w
as that terrorists had somehow been responsible. But not a single person had been murdered. Bush had been struck by lightning on his ranch, and the rest had died of strokes, heart attacks, aneurisms, and freeway accidents—all within the same ten-hour period. Meanwhile, the White House had been occupied by environmental activists, apparently with Pentagon approval.

  Of course, I thought of Moon, his claim about our actions in the desert. But when I tried to reach him by phone, his ex-girlfriend answered instead. She told me Moon had changed his name and moved out of his apartment, claiming that within ten days his book would come to an end, and everyone he’d ever known would forget they’d ever known him.

  CELL

  I couldn’t stand the cell phones any longer. I couldn’t stand the swarms of people with phones pressed up to their ears, eyes bright with hi-tech happiness, walking and talking endlessly about nothing. When I started amusing myself by calling them “phonies,” even though I’d always avoided such terms of contempt in the past, I knew I needed a change. So I took my dog and drove out into the desert, planning to stay away as long as I could.

  Two hours east of the city, I came to a town I’d been to several times before. But everyone there had cell phones, so I knew I had to go further. I drove east another two hours and came to a town I’d never seen on a map, a place where all the buildings seemed to be more than a hundred years old. I parked and watched the people going up and down the town’s main street. For more than an hour, I didn’t see any cell phones. It looked like I was in the right place. At first I thought I should find a hotel, but I wasn’t ready to be around other people, so I drove thirty miles out of town, found a hiking trail, and started walking.

  The desert was filled with canyons and mesas, ringed with towering mountains. It felt good to walk with my dog in a silence broken only by the cries of circling hawks and the sound of wind. There was no need to think about what I’d left behind or what I might be doing in the future. There was no need to do anything but enjoy what I was looking at. I felt like radio music finally arriving without any static. The more I walked the better I felt. The sky was blue enough to drink. But finally I needed shelter from the sun, so I called my dog and we sat in the shade of a huge rock. I poured water into the small plastic bowl I keep in my backpack, and my dog drank it quickly. Then something caught his attention and he took off down a steep slope into a canyon.

  I sat and stared into the distance. Thirty minutes passed. The words that were telling me what I was thinking went backwards. The same thirty minutes passed again. The words that were telling me what I was thinking went backwards. The same thirty minutes passed again. For less than a second I became a tall cactus on a ridge thirty yards to my left. I saw myself sitting with my dog in the shade of a huge rock, staring at the sky. The words that were telling me what I was thinking went backwards. The same thirty minutes passed again. The wind was picking up and getting colder. The sun was about to go down behind a mountain, at least one hour too soon for a late March sunset. My dog still hadn’t come back. I called him three times. His name echoed only the second time. There was no sign of him. I knew I had to find him before the sun went down. I took a long drink of water from the bottle in my pack. Then I stumbled down into the canyon.

  The canyon floor was a labyrinth of tall blade-like rocks and jagged shadows. I started walking toward what I thought was my dog barking in the distance, but it turned out to be the stiff wind amplified and distorted by the rocks and walls of the canyon. The wind kept getting louder, blowing sand into my face, forcing me to take shelter behind a rock. The shadows were getting longer and I knew I had to get out. But I couldn’t leave my dog in the canyon all night. Finally I decided to go back to my car and get a flashlight. I stumbled through the gathering darkness up the steep side of the canyon. The stars were coming out in the deepening twilight. When I got back to my car, my dog was sitting there placidly chewing a bone. He looked up at me and wagged his tail as if nothing had happened.

  We drove back into town. I stopped for gas and then went into a small café for dinner. The only other customer was wearing black robes and a conic black magician’s hat. He was eating a double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke. The waitress came and asked me what I wanted. I ordered a double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke.

  I stared out the window onto the street, the dark line of brick buildings, all of which seemed to be empty, though jazz was playing from someone’s open window. I looked at the man on the other side of the room. He was looking at me as if I should have known who he was. I looked back at him as if he should have known who I was. For less than a second, I felt like I was dressed as a magician. I knew the words of power. I knew all the shapes I could take.

  The waitress brought my food. It was the best cheeseburger I’d ever tasted. The fries were perfectly crisp. I’d never had a better Coke. Soon after I finished, the waitress brought me another double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke. My hunger had increased and the food was even better than before. Soon after I finished, the waitress brought me another double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke. My hunger had increased and the food was even better than before. I looked at the man across the room. He met my eyes with silent laughter. Then he got up and left. The conversation we could have had hovered like fine mist about three inches above his empty plates.

  The waitress was tall and thin, with long brown hair and glasses. She wore a blank white sweatshirt and faded blue jeans.

  She said: Can I get you anything else?

  I thought for a minute: No, I guess not. Just the check.

  She smiled: How was your food?

  I smiled back: Incredible.

  She said: That’s what everybody says.

  I said: Why aren’t there more people here? You make the best burgers on the planet. Why isn’t the place packed?

  She shrugged: Beats me. But I’m not complaining. The owner pays me pretty well even if no one shows up. And he lets me sit and read if there’s no one to wait on. It’s a good situation.

  I said: Sounds like it. Does that guy who was here before come here often?

  She said: Every night. And he always gets the same thing.

  I said: Does he live here in town?

  She seated herself at the table and said: I don’t think so. I’ve never seen him anywhere but here. I live right across the street, and if he lived in town I’m sure I’d have seen him at some point during the day.

  I said: Maybe the only place he exists is right here.

  She looked at me in silence. The wind was rattling the windows. The clock on the wall had stopped at 3:15. She finally said: What’s that supposed to mean?

  I wasn’t sure. So I smiled and said: I’m joking.

  She said: I don’t get it.

  How was I going to explain? I wanted to get up and walk out. But something about the darkness of the wind prevented me from leaving.

  She said: I really don’t get it.

  She looked impossibly serious. I knew I had to say something. But the pressure to speak was making speech impossible. I thought of changing the subject, but her face was telling me that evasive behavior of any kind would be unacceptable. I put my hands flat on the table and stared out the window, tracking the line of streetlights into the distance, watching them advancing and receding, a double motion so carefully balanced that nothing seemed to be moving. I looked back at my hands, flat on the table. I lifted them two inches, moved them two inches to the left and put them back down, lifted them two inches again, moved them back two inches to the right and put them back down.

  I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. I had to change the subject, so I said: The other day I saw that new townhouse condos were being sold a few blocks from where I live. It’s not like I can afford a townhouse condo. But I wanted to see how much one of them cost. There was an open house so I went inside. They were fairly nice—three bedrooms, three baths, three floors, pretty good urban views from the top floor. But the rooms all looked
like showrooms in a department store, fancy but totally boring. They cost a million dollars each. A million dollars! And it’s not even a rich neighborhood. Can you imagine? And if you bought one of these places, you wouldn’t even get a yard or a swimming pool.

  She said: I hate swimming pools.

  Something about the way her voice expanded around the word hate got me up from the table and out the door. I got in my car and drove like a maniac, running two stoplights. My dog was looking anxiously out the window, jumping into the back seat, pacing back and forth, jumping back into the front seat, whimpering softly. I stroked his head and scratched his ears, but he wouldn’t calm down. The darkness on the edge of town had never been more inviting.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going. There were no road signs, and I had no map in the car. All I knew for sure was that before too long I was climbing, circling up into the mountains, and the air was getting colder. Soon I had to roll up my windows and turn on the heat. On either side of the road was a dense pine forest. I knew I should probably go back and ask for directions, but something about the hate in the woman’s voice made the whole town seem sinister.

  I thought of turning west and going home, but I knew there were cell phones there, and hundreds of other technological obsessions, many of them waiting in the future. I thought about how much I hated video games and automated answering systems, plasma TVs and digital cameras, shopping malls and subdivisions. Suddenly one woman’s angry voice didn’t seem so dangerous. But the night was parting in front of me, closing in back of me, as if it wanted me to keep moving. I felt powerless to resist. An hour passed without any road signs. The wind was getting harder and colder. Soon I began to see patches of snow in the forest. I knew I had to find a place to stop.