by Marco Vassi
Larry shivered with a chill that had nothing to do with cold. The tremors bubbled up his spine and broke in his brain where such a tumult of sensuous realization cascaded through his mind that his face flew apart and he laughed wildly into the incessant clatter, roaring at the thunder.
It was almost midnight, and Eleanor had not yet returned. Waiting for her had pushed him over the edge of any pretense at self-control and he'd run into the forest to find a force to balance his wildness. He'd been there for an hour by the clock but had swung into a space that contained no measures for mechanical time. He had shouted and screamed his way into a primal animality, and looked and acted like one of the classic zen crazies who appear in Buddhist paintings.
The entire day's sitting had been focused on Eleanor. He installed her in his awareness the way another student might use mu, or any of the traditional koans. He breathed her and envisioned her, felt her in the straightness of his spine and the immobility of his legs. He didn't indulge in any thoughts of her, but simply incorporated her as a presence in his being.
By dinnertime, when he got up from his final session, a decision stood up with him. He was ready to confront Eleanor about her note and to engage if necessary in a knock-down battle until they got clear about how they really felt about continuing their marriage. Waiting until September now seemed arbitrary. If it indeed was over between them, it would be best to settle that at once.
But she didn't return. By seven he was annoyed, by eight worried, and by nine angry. "I can't believe she's pulling this number again," he said to himself. "And that I'm going through exactly the same changes." By eleven he was beside himself. Eleanor had either had an accident or was purposely staying out. He doubted the former possibility for the police would certainly have been by. She was either punishing him or had decided to live with her lover after all.
It was then that the fantasies began again, more vivid than ever, fueled by a day of concentrating on her. Eleanor appeared on the screen in his mind lying naked on a rug in front of a fireplace, a man next to her. But this time the man's face and figure were blurred and hazy. They lay side by side, talking.
"Would you believe it?" she was saying. "He was holding me and I could tell he was aroused. He even put his hand on my breast. And then he nodded off. And when I woke up he was gone and didn't even have the decency to cover me with a blanket."
"And you found him in the woodshed?" the man replies.
"God, it was so spooky."
"The man is obviously sick," her lover says, solicitously. "He needs help."
"What should I do?"
"You've done it. You've left him. Maybe that will wake him up and he'll go see a shrink." The man puts one hand on Eleanor's belly and begins rubbing and kneading the flesh, spreading the arc of his caress until he moves from her nipples to her clitoris, stroking gently, pinching lightly. She sighs and squirms closer to him.
"You're sure it's the right thing?" she asks.
"Even if I didn't want you myself, if I were just a friend giving you advice, that's what I'd tell you."
She puts her head on his chest. "Oh Michael, I don't know what I'd have done without you. You're so strong."
When the Eleanor of his mind's eye had begun to kiss her phantom lover's body and started to go down on him, Larry lost his control. Outside the house the storm was peaking, lashing with unbridled fury at the ancient mountains in its path. He'd thrown off his robe and put on the full-length slicker and strode out into the wind and rain, and raged like Lear at the elements.
He might have stayed there for hours except, at midnight, he saw the lights of Eleanor's car making its way up the road, the high beams flipping through the trees like a stick held by a running child hitting the slats of a fence. Larry had traveled so far back into primal consciousness that for a few seconds he gazed at the lights as an aborigine might, simply not knowing what the contrivance was.
And then, in an instant, he returned to his conventional identity. Suddenly he was a deranged husband waiting for his wife to come home, and a student of zen discovering that his practice had pitfalls that had been described well enough in the abstract but never in relation to a situation such as his. He stood perfectly still for a minute, breathing deeply and composing himself, and then walked back to the house.
He opened the door and stepped inside just as Eleanor was going into her bedroom. She turned to face him. She looked very drunk and her mouth was puffy, almost bruised. She took one step forward, her hip jutting out. She exuded a randy, raunchy recklessness. "Well, well," she drawled. "It's our little monk."
The taunt, the attitude of aggressive abandon, the seeming evidence of having been at least kissing a man for hours, were like claws across his chest. He took two steps forward, his knees shaking. It was clear to him in that moment that no amount of sitting, no number of zen teachings, could ever serve as ballast against the blasts of her emotional power. "Eleanor," he said, his voice thin.
She stared at him for a few seconds and then underwent a compelling transformation. Keeping the exterior aspect of the wanton wife, she seemed to drop back inside herself and collect herself around a different personality. It was as though her present character became transparent and he could see through it how she felt inside, and what he saw was a lost little girl. He couldn't tell whether he was hallucinating, or observing the inner role that Alec had talked about, or was just a man seeing that the woman who was his wife was many women.
"Larry," she said, her eyes filling with pain, her lips quivering.
As he looked at her changes, he felt what little sense of his own identity he still had dissolving even further. So much of who he felt himself to be had become dependent on his relationship to her that she could now literally throw him into confusion simply by altering the shape of the mirror she held before him. And now he had lost all context for knowing her, this Eleanor, this woman, this living koan.
"Eleanor," he repeated and took another step forward. But even as he moved she changed again. She became all hard glittering surfaces, impermeable. Her mouth turned into the slit of a gun turret, her eyes the barrels of a cannon. It was Pirate Jenny on the steps of the hotel, and every man inside would be dead in a few minutes.
"No," she said, "It's too late. You waited too long."
He raised a hand toward her, but she spun around quickly and stepped into her room. She turned one last time and her face was now a mask of sorrow, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I loved you so much," she said, and then slammed the door shut. He heard the inside bolt slamming into place.
He stood there staring stupidly at the door. He pushed back the hood of the slicker and ran one hand over his scalp. He realized that there was a small puddle at his feet where the rainwater had dripped onto the floor. He was stunned, and reached for whatever would bring some sense of normality back into the moment. He decided to make some tea.
But as he walked toward the kitchen he noticed Eleanor's handbag lying on the table next to the couch, still wet from her short trip from the car to the house. It was lying on one side, as though she'd casually tossed it down when she came in, and some of the contents had spilled out. One item was unfamiliar, and he went over to look at it more closely. It was a flat, round, plastic case, and when he picked it up he remembered what it was, the holder for Eleanor's diaphragm, something she hadn't used for several years since she switched to the pill, which she was slightly afraid of but felt would allow more aesthetic lovemaking. He remembered that when they'd agreed on a summer of celibacy, she'd expressed relief at not having to take the pill for three months.
He opened the case. The rubber shield was there. It was warm. And it was covered with secretions and spermicidal cream. He sat down heavily on the couch. His lips trembled. And his first hot tears fell onto the coated surface forming tiny droplets.
"I can't handle this," he said out loud and leapt up and walked rapidly into his bedroom where he took off the slicker, put on pants, shirt and boots, scooped up some money
, threw the raincoat back on, and went outside once more, this time to jump on the motorcycle and roar off into the night.
If he'd paused even for a second he wouldn't have attempted the trip, riding down a mountain road during a violent storm. But he was more driven than driving, and the grace which is said to protect madmen and drunks kept him from the accident the circumstances would have predicted. He rode blindly, drawing stares of astonishment and concern from people going by in cars who felt it was risky enough negotiating those roads with four wheels and a roof over one's head.
He drove to the Joyous Lake, a large restaurant and bar that took its name from one of the chapters in the I Ching, and which served as a club house for the locals and the major entertainment center for the summer people. There was music every night, mostly provided by a band of four or five of whichever musicians happened to be around that evening.
On the night Larry went in, the storm had kept the audience to a very small crowd, and when Larry entered he caused a stir. Water was pouring off his slicker and with the hood back his bald head shone red in the cabaret lighting. His eyes were blazing like Fourth of July sparklers.
The regulars, used over the years to a long progression of eccentric millionaires, legendary dealers and homegrown hermits, were rarely stirred to interest by any idiosyncrasy of dress or manner. But Larry impressed them.
"What's he on?" said a heavy-set man with a bushy golden beard.
"I don't know," said his companion, a man that could have been the twin of the first except that his hair was black. "But that's about as crazy as I've ever seen."
To Larry, the space was a jumble of sound and color, an impressionist refuge from the sharp contours of his life. He went to the bar and ordered a beer, and as he did thought of Alec's getting him to have a drink the day before, and wished the man was there to talk to. As it was, the other people in the place might have been from Pluto. He felt very alone, and got up to go over to the cigarette machine.
"Do you think he's for real?" said a lanky brunette to her girlfriend.
"He looks like he's just swallowed a couple of thousand mikes of acid," said the second woman.
Larry went back to the bar, tossed off the first beer, ordered a second, and lit a cigarette. He sat and smoked for several minutes and felt himself calming down. Slowly, his flashing jagged aura became smoother and dimmer. His breathing returned. And by the time the band had finished its set and Larry was on his third beer and second cigarette, he had become inconspicuous, just a bald man in a raincoat sitting at the bar.
His heart was sore and his brain a traffic jam of conflicting thoughts. He was also beginning to feel the slight delirium that comes from lack of sleep. He'd already stayed up through one night and was well into his second, and fatigue ate away at whatever little balance and stability he had at that moment.
"What should I do?" he wondered. "Go back and kick the door in and wave the diaphragm in Eleanor's face? Not go back at all? What do I want?" The last question was the easiest to answer. What he wanted was peace, the peace that he found in sitting. But now that it seemed he'd lost her, he also yearned for Eleanor. Not as she was now, not as they'd become, but as the dream of union they'd shared early in their marriage. "Is it possible?" he wondered, "After all this? And would it be foolish to try? Maybe it's best to just let it lie, suffer all of this now instead of running the risk of causing even more pain and damage by attempting a reconciliation." A sharp pain shot through his chest as he asked himself whether he would ever be able to make love with Eleanor again knowing she'd been with another man.
Larry sat there for over an hour, looking more and more like any troubled man drowning his problems in drink and introspection. And when his emotions had settled, his mind took control once more, and its directive was clear. Larry realized he couldn't just let Eleanor slip away, nor could he walk out on the marriage without confronting her. If that happened, he saw, he'd always be tormented by a sense of failure, of not having solved the koan. If there was to be a break between them, it had to be clean, mutual, and out in the open. He decided to go back and force the issue.
When he went outside, the storm had ended. The night was soft, subdued, and his drive back to the house was slow and easy, almost a meander through the sweet rain-washed air. He felt focused, resolved. He would face Eleanor and know once and for all whether they could fit into one another's lives.
He pulled into the driveway and it wasn't until he'd dismounted and taken several steps that he realized that the car was gone. He looked around sharply. All the lights in the house were on. He froze for an instant and then he was running, flinging open the front door and charging inside. The door to Eleanor's room was open. He stepped inside.
She was gone.
The bureau drawers were open and empty, the closet vacant, the suitcases missing. Her vanity table had also been cleaned out. On the pillow of her bed Eleanor had placed a letter. It took him a few seconds before he was able to move, and then he walked over and picked it up.
"You," it said at the top. And then continued underneath, "I was going to write Dear Larry but I realized how dreadful that would sound. This is not easy for me, but I didn't want to leave without some kind of goodbye.
"We once spent an afternoon lying in bed in our apartment. We held each other for hours and you said to me, You are my true home. Not this apartment or this city or anywhere in the world, except where you are.
"I know that that's the kind of stuff that gets written off as romantic, but I know you meant it and how you meant it, because I felt the same way.
"After we got married we had the usual problems, but none of that mattered so long as we were home for one another. Not even if I spent most of my time in the theatre and you went off to your meditations. I never wanted to keep you from anything, so long as when you came back you were coming back to me.
"Now it doesn't feel like that. Zen isn't something you do when you're not with me, it's become a substitute for me. And maybe I'm to blame, maybe we should have had children, maybe I shouldn't have stayed so wrapped up in acting. But I never lost sight of you, and I think you don't know me anymore.
"I hope you find what you're looking for. I know I have. I want a man who can be his own man and still have room for me in his heart and mind. I don't want to be married to a monk."
The note wasn't signed.
Larry stood without moving for a long time. He held the letter tightly in his hands, his head thrown back as though he'd been struck a blow on the neck. The room smelled of Eleanor's perfume. Her absence was palpable.
He shook himself and walked back into the living room. "Well, you're free now," he thought, "You can go sit as much as you want."
He went into his room, took off the slicker, and put on a sweater. He walked outside and into the woodshed. The sky was clearing and the moon brightened the path and the inside of his meditation chamber. He looked at the space that symbolized and embodied the way of life he'd chosen, and for which he'd risked, and lost, what had been most precious to him.
But it was all changed now. He saw it as Eleanor must have, a bizarre artifact, a place for an absurd ritual. It seemed alien, foreign, a cave of solitude for a lonely man. He stared at the pillow for a long time, his mind blank. And then in a single fluid motion he spun around, picked up the axe that was standing next to the door, swung it over his head, and brought it down on the raised board that served as an altar. It cracked, and the statue of Buddha, the incense holder and the candle went flying into the air. Then he attacked the pillow, but on the first blow the axe merely bounced off, and he swung again, this time splitting the cloth. His eyes glowing fiercely, he hit it again and again until it was cut to shreds, the cotton ticking inside spread over the entire floor. He didn't stop until the ache in his arms and shoulders made it impossible for him to lift the axe again.
He tossed the tool to the ground and leaned against a wall, panting. And when his heart and breath were no longer racing, his face formed into
a mask of resolve. The crisis of doubt was at its climax, and the koan had permeated his entire being. The zen practice had brought him this far, but to take the next step he had to go beyond sitting or studying. He had to plunge into life.
10
He drove steadily. The moon was very bright now, its ghostly light caressing the ancient mountains and broad plains. It was almost three in the morning and Larry had the road to himself. He was possessed by a crazed lucidity that made his going to Alec's seem logical and even necessary. Rationally he knew that the director would probably not be able to help him find Eleanor, but Alec was the only link he had to her just then.
He sped past sleeping houses and roused dogs into barking. It was the end of the week and everyone else was resting after a normal day in which people had presumably managed their affairs without worrying about enlightenment or having their mates run out on them. In the morning there would be work to be done, children to be tended. It was the ordinary routine of humanity and Larry wondered if he would ever be part of anything like that again.
An old poem from one of his zen texts came to mind:
Let us admire the moon and cherish the flowers—
Thus we should like to live.
Never to try to become Buddha
And ruin our precious life!
Larry leaned into the wind whipping past as the bike splashed through puddles. "What will I do?" he asked himself. It seemed that his marriage was finished. His confrontation with Eleanor, whenever that happened, would probably only put the final period on their relationship, and that left him free to pursue his practice. But at that moment, he wasn't at all sure he would go back to it. He understood that his destroying the altar and pillow was an act of desperation and frustration, and yet it had a sense of closure.