Ray Vs the Meaning of Life

by Michael F Stewart

  “What d’you mean? That’s what my grandma’s paying you for,” I manage. “The meaning of life.”

  Dalen shakes his head. “You don’t get it. Usually, my job’s to help people rediscover their lost meaning of life. But there’s nothing to work with here. If you were a genius who lost his creative touch, or a mega billionaire who lost their work-life balance and forgot their kids’ birthdays all the time, I’d have the magic you need. The people I fix were once great. They go on to change lives around them. You’re gonna, what? Gonna rearrange how people park their trailers?”

  There’s a flash of light followed by Kaboom! a moment later.

  “What was that?” Charlie asks.

  “My uncle. Fireworks,” I mumble.

  “So now that you understand, what d’you say? Fifty grand, we forget about the whole bus accident, and I’ll throw in the complete collection of my books and quotes.” He reaches beneath the coffee table and pulls out a stack, and places them on top. “That’s like another two hundred bucks, but reviewers say they’re priceless—you can read?”

  “You’re giving up on me?” I ask.

  “Giving up?” He chuckles a little. “Look, little man, I have one life to live, too. I’m not the one searching for meaning here. I can help people who change things or I can help people who can’t. There’s a difference. Economies of scale. People like you read my books.”

  “You can’t help me.” I sink into the couch.

  This gets Dalen’s attention. “Sure, I can help you. I choose not to.”

  My headache’s growing worse. “I think I have a concussion.”

  “You’d be a snap. I just don’t want to be selfish. I have a choice to make. I can help one kid who will stay in this place, or I can help someone rich and powerful who might control the destinies of thousands of others.”

  I sag, folding my arms across my chest. “You’re right. I don’t have money. I’m not a genius. I’m just average—maybe not even that. You’ve never helped average, have you? Why should I bother?”

  Dalen’s eyes tighten, and he swallows hard. “I can help you through my books. My books have helped millions. Have you read the comments beneath my videos?”

  “So you’re a rock star, whatever, but have you ever coached someone average? Below average? Is there even a point?”

  “Why would anyone average pay a hundred grand to be coached by me?”

  A hundred thousand dollars. I still can’t believe it myself. “You must be really good,” I say and smile sadly.

  He grumbles and shares a look with Charlie, who’s frowning at him and giving nudging nods.

  “Look. Why do you want my help?” he asks.

  “I told you, if I figure it out I get the RV park.”

  He shakes his head. “Then I actually can’t help you.”

  His checkbook is back out, and with it a pen.

  “At the start,” I add slowly, “I didn’t want the park. Then, I thought about how my grandma wanted me to have it. My sister and mom became so mean, so then I wanted to kick them out. To show them I could do it. But then there was Tina and Uncle Jamie too, and what would they do?”

  “For money or revenge, you’re really missing the point of it, kid.” Dalen chuckles.

  “Dalen,” Charlie warns, and his smile drops.

  “Okay, what about now?” he asks.

  “Now, I guess it’s because I feel totally lost. When I started to work on the park, I saw how a whole life could be spent running from one chore to the next. It was all laid out, and if I don’t start doing the right things I’ll never figure anything out. Won’t have the time to change.” That gut-berg panic crackles. I suck in deep breaths before calming. “It’s funny, but when I tore up the check, that was when I really decided I wanted to know the answer. Will you help me?” I squeak. “I want—I want to be better.”

  “No fifty grand? Fifty thousand dollars?”

  “Nope.”

  “Make it sixty, high as I can go. I had to cancel a show for this.”

  I shake my head. His dark eyes seem to burrow into me.

  “Dalen,” Charlie urges. “This could be just the thing. What we talked about.”

  The guru clucks his tongue at her and then clears his throat. I jerk back when his palms slap his thighs. “You know what? I’ll do it. Fresh air. Kind of a vacation for me.”

  I swallow. “You’ll help me?”

  Charlie breaks into a dazzling smile. Dalen waves her off. “I’ll help you help yourself.”

  I shudder a little, seeing now how this wasn’t going to come easy. He wasn’t going to let me in on the secret so fast.

  “Are you ready? Are you sure you’re ready? Not for money. Not for spite, or for love even, but for you.”

  I nod.

  It’s like a switch is flipped. He runs manicured fingers through glossy rich hair that a lion would be proud of.

  “Call me ‘Coach’,” he says with these eyes that demand my attention.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. “Coach.”

  “Good.” He claps and I jump. “You are an Olympic athlete and I am your trainer.”

  “Me?” I say.

  “You. We’re going to use secret techniques. You are the CEO and I’m your venture capitalist. I am Obi-Wan Kenobi and you’re Luke Skywalker. Are you ready? Are YOU ready!?” His hands grip my shoulders. He’s farther into my personal space than Tina’s ever gone.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes! We’re going to rekindle the spark that you’ve lost!”

  I blink. “Seriously, Coach, there never was a spark.”

  He stumbles a bit and then nods. “You need to figure out what your life is about before it’s too late. You’re in crisis!”

  Panic crystallizing in my blood. Yup.

  “Soon people will start telling you that you look younger.”

  “Um, great?”

  “An aura of power will surround you and your steps will thunder.” He’s shaking my shoulders back and forth and my brain sloshes with it. “Together we will find your soul. Today is the first day of your new life. Who can do it?” He pauses, and I realize I’m supposed to say something.

  “I . . . can?”

  “Louder.” He pumps a fist.

  “I can.”

  He waves his arms.

  “I can!” I shout and then cringe from the pain in my head.

  “Only those who seek shall find, my friend. You’re a seeker—I can see it in your eyes.” He holds me still for a long moment, hands back at my shoulders, and his gaze mining mine. “You know what? I don’t think you’re average at all, kid. Not average at all.”

  Chapter 21

  “So, what are your goals?” Dalen asks later, when my headache’s subsided.

  “You tell me,” I say, leaning forward and rubbing my hands together, crumbly mud flaking from my skin. I fight the urge to itch at my face. He sits beside me now, our foreheads nearly touching.

  He looks at me oddly. “What do you mean—you tell me? What are you expecting with this?”

  I glance to Charlie and then back to Dalen’s fierce stare.

  “Uh, I actually thought you’d tell me the meaning of life, maybe it would take a few days, and then I was going to go to the lawyer and tell the lawyer, and then we could all go home.”

  “And now? Are you still not getting it? You know I cannot tell you the meaning of life. I can only help you to discover it for yourself.”

  This panic-berg, it bobs against my insides, freezing where it touches.

  “Yeah, it’s going to be different. Secrets and all,” I say and lean back against the armrest.

  On the wall beside the small couch there’s a photo of Dalen with his arm around a young girl. A woman stands behind the pair, in the picture, but not quite all in. Dalen follows my eyes.

  “My daughter,” he says, and I know by the omission that the woman isn’t at all in the picture anymore. He slaps his leg, and I jerk. “One step at a time. Set a goal for today, Ray. Achi
eve it. Say, no drugs today. No hookers. No more online gambling.” I frown. “You can do it! We will use the secrets of ancients. I’ve studied from the masters. When you know the goal for the day and then the week, you can learn the goal for the month. When you know the goal for the month, you can set your sights on the year. Those who have the foresight of one year can know their destiny.”

  “I don’t do drugs,” I say.

  “Achievement unlocked, we can work on the hookers. Don’t wait for someone to make your day. Winners make their own days!”

  “Where do I start?” I ask.

  “Who says we haven’t?” From the back of his pocket he pulls a journal, opens it and hands it over.

  Day 1, reads the first page.

  “Write down today’s goal.”

  I sit there and then write: Figure out the meaning of life.

  Dalen looks over my shoulder. “No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. That’s the destiny. With one eye on the destination you only have one eye for today. What happens if you walk around with one eye closed? If you concentrate on the endgame it will take you twice as long to get there, because you will lack focus on the now.”

  I wrestle with what he’s saying. Dalen begins pacing up and down the length of the bus.

  “How are you going to make your day good? What does a good day look like? It has to be achievable,” he says.

  “No one’s yelling at me? I can game.”

  Dalen draws another deep breath and then lifts a finger as if he’s got the solution. “What do you have to do to stop people yelling at you?”

  “Make everyone happy.”

  “By . . . ?”

  “Cleaning the washrooms, and the road needs to be fixed, the pool, plus the playground’s a deathtrap. Now the power’s out and the phone because of the bus, and I still have my shifts at Pulled Beef.” I can feel the blood drain from my face. Salminder’s dying. I keep forgetting and then remembering all over. Beneath the surface, gut-berg’s bigger than I’d imagined. “I can’t do it all. I can’t, I just can’t.”

  The corners of my mouth wrench down and I can’t stop them either. My eyes blur with tears.

  “Worry, worry, worry. Most of the stuff we worry about never happens. Worry is a symptom that you live too much in the future. You can’t afford negative thoughts, not a one. Not a single bad one about yourself or about anyone else.”

  “I can’t do that—they just pop into my head.”

  He sits beside me and takes my hands. It’s weird because I can’t remember the last time a man, a person of any kind, has touched me in so intimate a way. It’s not sexual or anything, it just doesn’t happen to me. I cringe from it, but he holds.

  “They don’t pop into your head.” Dalen’s intense eyes hardly blink. “You control them. If there’s anything I can teach you, it’s that. Only you are in control of your thoughts. Thoughts lead to actions, actions to habit, habit to destiny. In fact, my friend, your thoughts are the only thing in your control.” I blink away tears and manage to flatline my mouth again. “Listen, say your boss doesn’t give you a promotion . . .”

  I’m shaking my head and even manage a small laugh. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be funny or really so out of touch with what it means to be seventeen in a campground. “Like head burger flipper?”

  “That’s not really your world, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “Say your girlfriend . . . you have a girlfriend?” I shake my head again. He has nothing to work with. “Imagine you do, and she cancels a date. What’s your initial thought?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t like me anymore?” I shrug.

  “And how would you feel about that?” The questions come right on top of my answers as if he’s gone through this patter so many times.

  “Sad, angry,” I say.

  “Right, good. But maybe she’s sick? Maybe it’s an opportunity to go deeper with her? Instead of texting an angry message back you say, ‘Are you okay? What’s wrong? What can I do to make your life easier?’”

  Salminder and Tina. She’s not the one who’s sick, but I see it. Maybe they don’t need silence right now? Maybe my stupid questions earlier were exactly what they had needed? And maybe her anger was less directed at me and more due to worry over her father. I sit up.

  “I can tell you got part of that.”

  I release a deep breath.

  “Manage your mind, manage your life. I’ll help you with this evening’s goal. It’s a hard one, maybe the hardest. For tonight I want you to become aware of your thoughts. Catch yourself if you think a negative one and write it down here.” He taps the book. “Go ahead, write the goal down.”

  I do. Write down negative thoughts.

  “Good, that’s it. Now go on, sounds like you’ve got some stuff to do.”

  Chapter 22

  I stumble down the steps of the bus. Run-over, bug-eaten, and reeling a bit from everything he’d said, I hold his books in my arms. Everyone has long ago dispersed. I’ve missed most of my evening shift at Pulled Beef, and Tina’s going to be annoyed. Everyone’s conspiring against me. Crap. Now I have to write that stupid thought down. Crap, that one too.

  I’m standing between the bus and Sunny Days. The park looms like a mountain of chores.

  Do I really need to go through with this? I mean, it’s not like I have to.

  Grandma stares down at me. A hundred thousand dollars. That’s how much this is costing. Whether it’s money I won’t get at the end of the month or money Uncle Jamie and my mom will never see, my mom was right: it’s real money.

  I’ll write my evil thoughts down. See where it takes me. Transcribing thoughts for the rest of the evening doesn’t really seem like a good way to figure out what I should be doing with the rest of my life, but whatever.

  Write that one down, too.

  Smoke trails from around my uncle’s firework shack. The sun’s still up and will be for another couple hours.

  As I walk through Sunny Days’ gate, my mom shouts, “So, what’s the meaning of life there?”

  I pause for a second. Glance around. It’s not here.

  I shake my head and scratch at a particularly big bite.

  “I knew it,” is all she says and ducks back into her trailer.

  I’m about to shout back but swallow it. Crystal’s laughter pierces the moldering vinyl camper walls.

  I lug the books to Pulled Beef. The line’s a half dozen deep. Manageable for one person. Inside the grill sizzles and flares under Tina’s expert hands. This is time she could be spending with her father, and I’ve made her stay here.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, dumping the books on the floor of the trailer, putting on a hair net and apron. “I’ll take over and close.” Tina’s blank, uncaring look terrifies me. Grief has tarnished her eyes. I’ve seen the dullness in others. I’ve felt it myself. But not her. Sunlight’s in shadow. “It’ll get better,” I say.

  “So you’ve got all the answers now?” she replies, slamming the spatula on the grill so that it bounces and grease sprays the aluminum foil taped on the wall.

  “Didn’t mean—”

  “Forget it,” she says. “Stop trying to make me feel better or pretending it’s fine.”

  I flush. How’s it going to get better for her? How? When her father dies?

  As she pushes through the door, I lean out past the jack holding out his five bucks and call to her. “How can I help you?” I say, repeating Dalen. “How can I make your life easier?”

  There’s a hitch in her step and then she shouts back, “Keep your shifts.”

  I hesitate. “Sorry, running the camp and the whole Dalen thing . . . ,” I say.

  She stops and then pretends to shoot people in a video game. “Pew, pew, pew . . . ,” she says, and then walks on.

  I don’t even like first-person shooter games.

  The worst customer is the pigtailed girl. Not because she whines at me about the pool, but because she doesn’t. She smiles and doesn’t mention it
as if she’s used to my answers by now. Sorry, nothing I can do, little girl. It’s a big chunk of ice. Soon.

  It’s dark by the time I walk back to my trailer. I spent another hour trying to chip mud back into the ruts. The swelling in my face has subsided, and I no longer feel as though I want to scratch off my cheeks. Light shines from the corners of Uncle Jamie’s shack. He hadn’t been making fireworks for a week, not while he fed his swamp fire. He seems to be making up for lost time. In my trailer I pull a ball of socks from a laundry basket. I stuff the socks into a pocket and then grab a dollar from where I keep my money in a little lockbox. There’s not much there; I spend most of it on new games or upgrades to my gear.

  I ate a Ray Special for dinner—one of the perks of the job—and so have time to go drop the socks and the dollar by the campers. On the light-show guy’s trailer, I post a note asking for him to hood his lights at night so as not to disturb others. Sock guy thanks me, but his eyes water when he sniffs the pair; lost-dollar dude says he would have preferred quarters. To which I shrug and stifle all my negative strangling-type thoughts, which take five minutes to write down. On my way back from brushing my teeth, I see Salminder in his screened-in area, reading beneath twinkling lights.

  “Knock, knock,” I say, scratching at the screening.

  He starts, and I realize he’d been asleep with the book in his lap.

  “Sorry, shit, sorry,” I say and start to turn. I’m stealing his healing sleep. I’m actively killing the guy.

  “No, no.” He waves me inside. “Don’t swear.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tina’s asleep,” he says and then adds after a moment, “Sleep has not come easily to either of us these last weeks.”

  “I’m not helping.”

  “You lost your grandma,” he says. “This whole decision must be difficult.”

  I sit in a wicker chair that creaks and then we listen to the silence. I may fear the dark, but the best thing about living in the woods is the night sounds. The crickets and owls are my favorites. Coyotes and wolves I can do without, but in my tin can I handle them.