The Far Shore

by Paul T. Scheuring

  No baggage, never.

  That was the sake talking, she says.

  (Just be as efficient as you can, get that slip in the rearview.)

  I had a hysterectomy a few years ago, not a biggie.

  (Good!

  Not genius, but good!

  No sharp edges on that one!

  Seems like a nice pleasant sterile procedure, not a butchering.

  Well done, young lady.)

  Bruce sits there, one of his ankles folded beneath him.

  He’s a round, ridiculous-looking thing.

  And she feels for him.

  Because he’s searching.

  No doubt about it, he’s lost the fire.

  But he doesn’t want to make her feel bad.

  So he’s searching.

  Good soul, this one.

  Even if he wants to get the hell out of there.

  So she gives him an out.

  Sits up.

  Fashions a lie about being tired.

  About how maybe they should take a rain check.

  Which most men would fight tooth and nail, especially when they’re this close to pay dirt.

  But he jumps at it, you can see it in his eyes.

  But now he’s acting, trying not to let her down!

  You sure?

  You sure?

  I’m sure, she says, building a yawn into it.

  Not that she doesn’t inside still want to close the deal, because she does: her body is hungry, it’s been forever.

  But he looks so hapless, so terrified by what she’s said, the issues it suggests, the squishiness of it all.

  He does a commendable job of looking crestfallen, but he’s nevertheless willing to climb into his boxers and pants within moments.

  I’m, you know, I’m always available to talk, you know, he says.

  Again, a commendable attempt, but said out of sheer obligation.

  Men, she thinks.

  They have a fatal penchant to pretend they are not men.

  That they are not meant to fuck and kill and conquer, then move on.

  They would be fine if they didn’t do this.

  Not that he is not a little bit charming in his uneasiness.

  He’s trying, she’ll give him that.

  Even if he doesn’t mean a word that he says.

  And he will breathe a sigh of relief once he is outside that door, something like this running through his head:

  Thank God I dodged that one; you try to fuck ’em and suddenly they think you’re married, suddenly they think they can dump a few decades worth of bullshit on you, even though you had nothing to do with it.

  And that’s the thing.

  She wasn’t trying to.

  She was trying to give him the all clear.

  But the sake had plans, didn’t it?

  A few moments later, he’s gone.

  Still trying as he hovered by the door to appear compassionate, understanding.

  It’s just me, Lil.

  It’s just Bruce.

  You don’t have to worry about any of this.

  Again, he would almost seem sincere, but there’s that small element of him talking to her like she’s on a ledge.

  Once he’s gone, she sits there for a bit, then goes into the bathroom, brushes her teeth naked.

  Considers herself in the mirror.

  World’s a cynical place, Lil.

  And no doubt about it, you fit right in.

  But on the great cynical bell curve of the world, Bruce is just a boy in the woods, isn’t he?

  Completely transparent.

  Naive in his greed.

  With the emotional depth of a postage stamp.

  But, man, the world needs that, doesn’t it?

  Just like it needs Vince Vaughn comedies.

  Stupid as rock salad, but, man, doesn’t it transport you for a moment?

  She goes to bed, doesn’t bother to put any clothes on.

  As she lays there fading away in the Japanese darkness, she wonders about that word choice.

  They cut it out of me.

  Where did that come from?

  That medieval spin on the hysterectomy.

  Why had it come out so cold, so barbaric?

  She thinks the next day about Kesuke.

  While she is out awander in the streets looking for caffeine.

  The town is its usual quiet Japanese self.

  It makes sense a guy like Kesuke would be from a place like this.

  An old monk at a remove from the world, easing and shrugging and smiling and abiding through days.

  That’s what Japan does, doesn’t it?

  It abides.

  How then did war come out of this place?

  Was it that it was not always like this, but only arrived here to this quietude through the ravenous spasms of its own ambition?

  Its own hunger and ego?

  Which took a Bomb, and then another, to undo?

  Is that it?

  Must we be bloodied to learn?

  It didn’t seem the case with Kesuke.

  He seemed unbloodied.

  Just the supreme abider in this land of abiders.

  In fact, what she was most left with about him was not his story about Gray, but instead how he said goodbye to them yesterday—

  As they left, he bowed, extended many wishes through the interpreter, then, as they moved away down the path, he called to them in that grating Sinatra-skewn English of his:

  I’ll be seeing you.

  He seemed pleased to say it.

  As if the words were a rare treat in his mouth.

  Left on the shelf for half a century, then dusted off for a special occasion.

  Lily and the others offered broad smiles that said Nice English.

  Then moved on down the road, already pondering the next steps in their journey.

  But even so, I’ll be seeing you hung somewhere in the peripheries of Lily’s mind.

  There was an inclusive optimism in the words.

  Like a welcome mat.

  One that suggested the door that you’ve just passed through will never be closed to you again.

  That you are not visitor but brethren.

  As much of me as I am of you.

  Maybe that is how Kesuke was bloodied by the war.

  By Morio’s door, that could wall him off from the world.

  By all the doors of ideology and agenda, that could open and close as they wished, shutting one off indiscriminately from the flow of information, from the flow of inclusion, from the flow of communion and understanding.

  From the flow of fellow man.

  She could be reading too much into this.

  But that is what she took away, and wants to take away from it.

  Maybe it is because she herself does not want to feel that separation.

  Not from anyone, not in this moment.

  The wall of language is up between her and the Japanese around her in the streets.

  So, too, the wall of men and women, which is no doubt up between her and Bruce now.

  Quickest way to isolate yourself, Lily, is to get close to someone.

  Even if it is only physical.

  Because people start shutting doors.

  Protecting the inner reaches, the stashes of their hearts.

  You must shrug this all off, Lily.

  Put Bruce at ease with a laugh and some bemused, deprecating commentary about last night.

  (Besides, you never wanted anything from him, right?

  Him with the Mike Ditka mustache.

  ….

  Right?)

  There she is, says Bruce, when he sees her a half hour later, seated in the lobby of the hotel, a small to-go cup of green tea in her hand.

  It is nowhere near enough caffeine, but, Jesus Christ, try to find a cup of coffee in small-town Japan.

  His early morning eyes are swollen.

  Fleshy lids concealing most of his pupils.

  Like he’s been stung by a bee
he’s highly allergic to.

  Or just come out of a coma after a decade.

  Despite this, he’s got a nothing-happened attitude about him, no doubt employing the tactic she planned on using on him.

  So, she nothing-happens him back.

  It’s not a denial thing—no, that would make it worse.

  Better to acknowledge last night, deftly, with a shrug.

  Got a little nutty there, she says, standing.

  Good kind of nutty, he says, accompanying the words with a wry, shruggy chuckle.

  He’s got no interest in belaboring what both of them would rather not, and for this she’s grateful.

  He shifts instead to more pressing things.

  Where’d you get that coffee?

  He is playing up the early morning jones for caffeine, which is fine.

  Couldn’t find coffee, just tea, she says.

  The important thing is no one is doing the hand-wringing thing, or the avoidance of eye contact.

  They can inhabit the same space.

  They’re both seasoned at this, clearly.

  The no-big-dealness conveyed by hungover smiles.

  Yep, he says, only way out is coffee.

  Ate a few too many Ambien last night, I guess.

  Ambien?

  After I left you, couldn’t sleep.

  Besides, I love sleeping pills.

  For travel, anyhow.

  Half the reason I go on long trips is to get jetlagged.

  Justify a few Ambien.

  Man, that is an oblivion like none other.

  Holiest, most checked-out peace imaginable.

  Did you just say Holiest?

  Didn’t peg you for a religious man.

  I’m talking about pills, Lily.

  And how goddamn good it is just to disappear from your own head for a while.

  Never get that at home, never.

  Swear, the only time I ever sleep, really sleep, is when I’m on the other side of the world, eating Ambien.

  Sound like you could be a junkie, Lily says.

  (Keep small-talking, Lily.

  Small-talk the hell out of it.

  Because you know that’s exactly what he’s doing.

  Whistling past the graveyard.

  Anything besides the aborted nakedfest of last night.)

  No, I’m too smart to get hooked on pills, he says.

  Only when it’s justified.

  And travel, it’s justified.

  Thank God, she thinks.

  No drama.

  Last night can just be a bit of confused idiocy everyone can forget.

  A minute later they’re out into the street, because Lily says it’s hard as hell to find someone who will actually give you a to-go cup in this town, with the requisite luxury of a sippy-cup lid.

  She’ll show him where.

  It’s just through this maze of pedestrian alleys.

  So, she says, once he’s gotten his cup of tea and they’re walking back through the narrow lanes.

  (She’s also ordered another cup; green tea—how in the hell do these people wake up in the morning—let alone have the energy to start a war?)

  So…what?

  What do you think about Bodh Gaya?

  It’d be the next step, wouldn’t it?

  Well, so you know, last night, after I went back to my room, before I had my Ambien for dessert, I went online.

  And obviously, you know, we’ve searched that mother deep and far and wide for anything Gray Allen these past months, and there’s been nothing.

  But I figured I’d go again, maybe this time crossing with Bodh Gaya, monk, whatever.

  And the same thing.

  Nothing.

  We don’t have anything to go on.

  What’s the population, it can’t be big.

  Bodh Gaya’s thirty thousand, but the city of Gaya around it is half a million.

  We’d be back to needle in a haystack.

  But what’s the alternative, Lily asks.

  We go home.

  We go home?

  But we’re closer to Bodh Gaya than we are to home, aren’t we, she says.

  No idea, but what I can tell you is that there’s a limit to what can be spent.

  My boss is pretty good at cutting things before good money goes after bad.

  You can hardly call what we’ve done bad, she protests.

  We found out he survived the war, maybe even where he went.

  That doesn’t mean we get rash about things, Bruce says.

  (Ah Bruce, you son of a bitch, you played your hand.

  Last night’s still here.

  A third wheel between us.)

  No, Bruce says, I think the only thing we can do is go home, circle the wagons a bit, and start digging again.

  These things don’t always go in a straight line, he continues.

  Sometimes it takes years for the next piece to come up.

  Years hits her like a dagger.

  It’s the most painful thing he’s said to her.

  Tantamount to forget it.

  She entertains the idea of paying for a ticket herself.

  But the idea winks out within moments, because she’s nearly broke.

  Well, technically she is broke.

  But she’s got credit cards.

  Still, she’s not that far away from maxing them, so discretion is the better part of valor here.

  They’re headed home before she knows it, saying goodbye to Bradley at the airport.

  He seems sad to be heading back to Honolulu.

  Perhaps the only person in history to board a plane to Hawaii in a state of dejection.

  He likes the idea of Bodh Gaya, he says, even though he doesn’t know anything about it.

  Of course, neither does she.

  He says hopefully that maybe they can find more information, new information, and maybe they can all get together again and the adventure can continue.

  What do they drink in India anyhow, he wonders.

  Is it like sake?

  Do they have golf courses?

  Then he’s headed to his gate and Lily misses him before he’s even out of sight.

  She splits with Bruce in San Francisco, where their connecting flights diverge, hers to South Carolina, his to Florida.

  His eyes are still swollen.

  Must have been a hell of a dessert of Ambien.

  It is all smiles and bullshit as usual.

  But something has changed.

  There is something strained about it.

  Something not quite final but near it.

  He takes the initiative to embrace her.

  Let’s keep talking, he says.

  See where this goes.

  She gives him a big nod like hell yeah she’s going to see where this goes.

  But she’s not so sure now.

  Enthusiasm is easy to maintain when it has company.

  A solo effort is a weaker strain.

  Bruce heads to one terminal, she for the next.

  Her apartment seems indifferent to her reappearance.

  She puts down her bags, sits on the couch.

  Tired from crossing half the world.

  Tired from a lot of things.

  Good news is there’s a Klondike bar in the freezer.

  Yes—she realizes the following morning, as she assesses the lay of the land—she is closer to running on fumes than she thought.

  The balances of her credit cards are a deeper shade of red than she remembers.

  But there are still beers in the fridge, a pantry full of Costco.

  She is not in danger of starving.

  Rent will be due, but she can fudge that with a cash advance from the credit cards.

  She has wiggle room.

  And that’s all she really needs.

  Out in the streets of the city, it feels dense, complicated.

  Like so much is zinging around seen and unseen.

  A physical busyness, an implied busyness of plans, tele
communications, schedule.

  Things are moving.

  Many-parted things.

  She feels separate from it, of course.

  No doubt because life has been stripped down to its essentials during these past weeks for her: the basics of travel, of living out of a bag, of a cell phone that doesn’t get overseas internet.

  This, the world before her now, is all comparatively too much.

  An overkill of focus.

  Life stretched out thin over too many things at once, present in a way to none of them.

  Her to-do list, on a Post-it, on the seat beside her:

  GET A SOURCE OF INCOME

  FIGURE OUT BODH GAYA/GRAY THING

  The temp agency is an earnest place.

  The people in the waiting room the perfect mix of optimism and despair.

  A job away from getting it together.

  A few days or weeks away from falling apart.

  Will the fickle hand of employment pick them?

  Will it pick Lily?

  She has printed out a resume, filled out the form.

  When she’s in the room with the Lady, the Lady asks Lily if she can type, if there are any computer programs she’s familiar with, if she can use email.

  Yesses to all.

  She asks Lily if there is any work she is averse to.

  No.

  (Though obviously phone sex or anything in a slaughterhouse is out.

  But cross that bridge when you get to it.)

  That’s more or less the size of it.

  The Lady gives her some boilerplate about how the temp agency functions, how opportunities come up, how they notify prospective candidates if a match should come up between the candidate’s aptitudes and the requirements of the particular opportunity.

  They shake hands.

  The Lady has been polite the whole time.

  Probably a nice lady back home.

  But she’s overtaxed here, overthinking.

  Onto other things before she and Lily have even disengaged their hands.

  As Lily’s leaving, she’s struck by the thought that the Lady never really looked up at her face.

  Just focused on the resume and application form throughout the whole interview.

  Did she look at Lily, make eye contact?

  Lily can’t remember.

  But she’s pretty certain she didn’t.

  Lily doesn’t take it personally.

  It’s just the circumstances of things, isn’t it?

  The days are rolling forward.

  The phone is silent, though she checks it repeatedly, makes sure the ringer’s not turned off.