The Last Laugh

by Arjuna Ardagh

  The class was in a ground floor studio: soft music playing, a statue of the Buddha in the corner, some flowers in a vase at his feet. The floor was covered with coconut matting. There were 10 or 12 people already in the room with very professional-looking mats rolled out. Most of them were graying women, in an all-out war with the aging process. Sam looked surprised to see me, suspicious even, but pointed to a corner and gave me a mat of my own. She wore tight yoga pants and a tight shirt, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She taught yoga with the same grace with which she had served coffee and cheesecake on that first night, the same grace she had brought to the minestrone soup. Each movement seemed like ballet.

  Yoga has never been a primary strength for me. I prefer gentler approaches to caring for the body, like taking long baths, lying in bed, or receiving massage. Sam soon had us doing things I would not have thought possible or advisable. We had to stretch our legs straight out in front of us, and bend forward from the waist. Some of the ladies were kissing their kneecaps in smug flexibility; as hard as I tried, my knees were still a long way from my head. Next we lay on our backs and raised our legs and feet up toward the ceiling, then raised up the whole torso, so only head and neck remained on the ground. That was bad enough, way beyond my pain threshold. Every tiny space between every vertebra was announcing revolt. But it did not stop there. It went on and on. We lowered our legs even further behind the head, until the feet were touching the ground. That was the idea, anyway, and it seemed to work out fine for the ladies with rubber spines. My feet dangled in midair, like disoriented insects. Sam cruised among the urban yogis, murmuring words of encouragement. As she came close, I lowered my feet even further to the floor, in a kamikaze bid for her approval.

  “Don’t strain, Matt,” was all she could offer my heroic self-torture.

  “Would Hawaii suit you for the honeymoon?” I tried to reply. Too late, she had moved on. “And what about children, I’m really okay to have more.” We could discuss it later. We had the rest of our lives.

  We finished with a balancing posture, for which I was truly unprepared. First we stood on our mats, in two long lines, one behind the other.

  “Place your feet together, feel your head pulled to the sky as though by a golden thread,” Sam said.

  I relished every word, made mental notes to encourage her to write poetry.

  “Now, reach back with the left hand and catch your left ankle. Pull your foot up to the buttocks.”

  I felt a shiver of excitement as she said that word. I love your buttocks, darling, I rehearsed for Hawaii.

  “Stretch your right arm out in front, and lean the head and torso forward.”

  Every tiny part of me was now relying on my right ankle to stay upright, and my right ankle was feeling quite unsure of its credentials for the job.

  “Now, stretch your left foot and leg out behind you.”

  A very trained foot, proudly adorned in a pristine white sock, appeared perfectly still in mid-air before me, offered as a challenge from the lady on the next mat up. I was already wobbly before Sam did her tour of the room, but the more desperate I felt to excel at this feat, the more elusive it became. I held out as long as I could, but when it was truly time to abandon hope, raw instinct kicked in. I reached out for the nearest stable object I could find, in hopes of staying upright. I grabbed that still and strong white sock. We went down together.

  I was disappointed in that lady. With all her yogic practice, the perfect outfit and all, I would have expected greater control of her emotions. Her assumption that I had done it on purpose, and her quite needless aggression to me betrayed her yogic training to be very immature. I made a mental note to have a word with Sam about this, when we were alone later.

  “So sorry,” I offered as I helped the lady back up to her feet. “I trained in partner yoga in India, you know. More interaction in those schools.” She was unimpressed, and looked at me as though I were both mad and dangerous. Sam giggled. I winked at her. We would have a good laugh about this later, maybe in bed gazing out at the sunset, sipping white wine. Organic.

  Finally Sam had us lie flat on the floor and close our eyes, spreading our arms wide. This, I could do really well. I am sure that no one else in the room could do that posture as well as I could. I was dropping, falling back like a dewdrop meeting the ocean. At some point, Sam came over and touched my belly. I opened my eyes right away. Was she ready to discuss where we would settle now, health insurance, one car or two? But she closed her eyes in an invitation for me to rest, and was gone as quickly as she came. Then it all fell away. It must have been some form of sleep, although it didn’t seem like it. I felt I was just falling back and back into ever deepening relaxation. Everything disappeared. The next thing I knew, the urban yogis were all sitting in a circle. I sat up and joined them. They were bowing to each other, and offering knowing smiles. I did my best to offer a suitably holy greeting, especially to the victim of my inexperience, but it was too late. I was branded as a terrorist.

  I hung around for a while waiting for Sam, feeling sheepish. A little slimy even. Like I was about to try to sell her life insurance or a used car with bad transmission. I walked out of the studio in retreat, made it to the street, and then went back in again. She had disappeared somewhere into a back room to change into city clothes, and I lingered, rehearsing my big line. When she reemerged, she was booted, jacketed, and scarfed for the December weather. Her eyes were an even more vibrant blue. She was wearing a knitted hat with a pom-pom on the top, tied underneath her chin. It framed her rosy cheeks, and very red lips. Her face looked plump, childlike. I wanted to kiss her and take her for hot cocoa. When she saw me, she couldn’t hide her crestfallen look. I wished I had left with the rest, but it was too late now.

  “You want to have lunch?” I asked her.

  She looked trapped again, as she had when Joey sent me home with her.

  “I can’t today, Matt,” she replied. “I have things to do.”

  “Okay,” I replied, and felt the yearning in my chest intensify. “You know, I feel really touched by you.” I felt like an idiot. My heart was racing, pounding. My legs felt very weak, as though her yoga class had lasted 43 hours and this was our first break. Every muscle and joint in my body was aching. I wanted to run away. I wanted to grab her to me. “I’d really love to spend more time with you, to get to know you better.” I cringed. The words sounded impossibly corny. I was truly out of control.

  She frowned at the ground, as always. “Matt,” she said quietly, “it’s not about me. It’s not about anybody else. You’ve got to trust him, Matt. You’ve got to trust him completely. When I came by you in class, I could feel the longing in you. But it’s not for me, Matt. You’ve got to understand, it’s not for me. It’s nothing that any person or experience can satisfy for you. Remember that night when he told us his life story?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve never heard him tell anyone else that story before. In some way he’s chosen you, Matt. He’s working with you. And if you let him, he’ll lead you beyond everything you ever thought you wanted, beyond all the pain you’ve passed through while not getting it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I feel like something is watching out for me. And … and … ” It was a strange moment. The words that wanted to speak had a force of their own, but they were accompanied by an equally strong knowing that they were not true, just mechanical speaking from habit. They spoke anyway. “And I feel like meeting you is part of all this. I feel like I’ve waited an eternity to meet you.” Now the machine was in full swing, unstoppable. “You know that night I stayed at your house? I had a really strong dream about us.”

  Sam was looking increasingly uncomfortable, but the machine was oblivious. Like a steamroller, it was determined to smash aside anything that did not conform to its agenda.

  “I need to know, do you feel the same for me, too?”

  “I can’t explain now, Matt,” she replied. “It’s not what you think. You have to let go
and trust him before you can see things clearly. I have to go now.”

  “Well, can I see you later on, or tomorrow?” It was out of control; it would stop at nothing now.

  “I’m going out of town this afternoon, for a few days. I’ll see you when I get back.” She tried to force a smile.

  “Are you involved with someone?” I implored, leaning toward her. As much as the compulsion kept pushing forward with its agenda, the clear knowledge of its insanity resounded more clearly.

  “No, Matt, I am going to spend Christmas with a few friends, that’s all.” She swallowed hard. “If that is all right with you.” She swung her backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the parking lot. I watched her get into an older Mazda. The rear left taillight was smashed and was held together with tape. As she pulled out of the parking space, I could see that the front left side of the car was severely dented and the damage had accumulated rust. As she drove away, I was left holding the whining child of my discontent.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE VOICE OF DIVINE GRACE

  Sam was going to spend Christmas with friends; I would be alone. For the first time I could remember, alone. Paul had taken all the shifts at the studio no one else wanted. He didn’t care. My children would be unwrapping presents, probably toy guns with their Mafia-funded grandfather. My wife of 11 years refused to even speak to me on the phone. And I couldn’t even try to start an illicit affair, without acting like a complete idiot. Despair descended again like a black cloud.

  I walked from the yoga studio over to the little square nearby, where a bookstore-cum-coffee-shop sat in the middle surrounded by outdoor tables and chairs. It was warm enough, even in December, for patrons to sit outside.

  As I waited to order my bagel and coffee, I could not force myself to look at the other people in line. I was sure that not a single one of them would be alone for Christmas. I was a beggar for love, wandering in a land of kind hearts and warm welcomes. Plenty for everyone, but not for me.

  I noticed the fliers that had been left near the counter. Crystal healing workshops, aromatherapy, multilevel telephone companies. One caught my eye. “The End of Suffering.” Sounded familiar. There was a picture of a charismatic-looking woman in her mid-50s. She was smiling so thoroughly from ear to ear that every glistening white tooth in her mouth was exposed. A little blurb announced her to be a fully realized being, surrendered completely to the will of the Divine. “If you’re tired of dead end streets,” the flier said, “come listen to Diana Milton Jones. The voice of Divine Grace will set you free.” A few dates were listed at the bottom of the flier with the address of a church hall near Joey’s house. I picked one up, folded it, and popped it in my pocket.

  I was floating in and out of a self-invented hell. Whenever thoughts turned to my unrequited love, to my precious children far away, to my uncountable mistakes, the contractions increased, I was back in a pre-Joey universe. The seduction of guilt and worthlessness was very strong—it would catch me unaware, like a wave on the ocean, and drown me in itself. Then, as I brought my attention to the smells, the people, to the blue winter sky overhead, it all fell away, and I felt absolutely protected. My father was once again on his rock on the beach, and no wave was big enough to frighten me.

  The book was still in my pocket; I spent the afternoon wandering and reading. The more I read, the more I faced the fact that nothing I thought I knew about anything was going to help me now.

  “Peace is your natural state,” my little book told me. “It is only your mind that covers over what is natural in you. Look for the mind and it will disappear.” Each time it wandered, back I came. It was becoming another habit stream, ripping holes in the continuum of thinking. Just here, through the rip, all is just like it is, without a problem needing solving.

  I arrived at Joey’s upstairs apartment at four o’clock. He was waiting for me, sitting in the same little room where he had delivered his life story to us a couple of nights before. A cup of tea was waiting for me on the table, next to his own. He looked at me for a long time. “It’s day three,” he said, finally.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “What else do you know?” His look was piercing.

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering all day. Nothing seems to be very reliable just now. I think a lot about Sam, but at the same time I’m realizing now that she can’t really give me what I want.” This wasn’t entirely honest. The lines were more hers than my own, and I think he knew it.

  “What do you want?” asked Joey accusingly. “That’s the question you have to get clear about before we can go any further. What is it you really want? Once you find the genuine answer to that question, you can have it, but there’s no point in driving with your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time.”

  I had to experiment with several answers before I spoke. “Actually, I have no idea. Every answer I try to come up with doesn’t quite fit. I could say I want my old life back, but that’s not quite true. I could say I want my wife and kids, and I do, but there’s something more. I could say I want to get close to Sam, and that is also true. I don’t know what I want, Joey.”

  “That’s a good beginning,” he reflected. “You don’t know what you want.”

  “I want to live the way that I felt after the first night with you. I can remember everything was perfect, shimmering, my mind stopped working. I was full of optimism and hope. I want that.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Very good,” he said. “Not everyone wants that, you know. You get whatever you put on your altar. If you worship money with unwavering totality, that will fill your days and nights. If you worship sex and relationship, you can have that movie, too. If you worship fame and power, you can dedicate your life to them, and that obsession will fill your life. It just takes a little more time, but desire brings things to you, like a dog when you whistle.” He paused, chuckled, and added, “And then they leave again. If you want what you say you want, you can have that, too. But how much do you want it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel there’s any alternative left.”

  “Very good,” he replied. “That is indeed true. But so far you are just dicking around with it. How are you going to get what you say you want?”

  “I need help,” I replied. “I’m hoping you can give it to me.”

  He burst out laughing. “Ah ha!” he said. “So you want someone to give it to you. What price are you willing to pay?” He had teased Carlos in the same way. “What are you willing to give?”

  “I don’t have anything,” I replied.

  “Not true, not true,” he muttered. “Oh, if only that were true. You’ve got a lot that you’re still holding onto. And the price you’ll have to pay is all of it. There’s nothing I can do about that.” He dabbed his mustache with an ornate handkerchief.

  “There’s no meeting tonight,” he announced. “So we’ll go out, you and me.”

  I remembered the flier. “I found this today.” I passed it to Joey. “Do you know who she is?”

  Joey read every word on the flier with diligence. His face was expressionless. “This sounds very important,” he announced. I had no way to know if he was joking or serious. “We’d better go tonight and listen to the voice of Divine Grace. Now let’s have some dinner.”

  I followed him into the kitchen; he motioned for me to sit at his kitchen table. He took a jar of yellow goo from the shelf. It looked like glue. He doled out a couple of large tablespoons into a pot and lit the gas. He pulled four or five little jars of powder from the shelf and sprinkled some of the contents of each, one by one, into the melting yellow goo. Within 30 seconds, the kitchen was filled with the smell of an Indian restaurant.

  “Curry,” I said.

  “You don’t need no curry,” he laughed. “You’re what they call a vata type. Curry powder’s too stimulating for you. What you need is a bit of calming.” He went on to tip some rice into his aromatic concoction, and then some small yellow beans. After a couple
minutes of stirring, he added water and put a lid on it. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and a turnip. He was chopping now, but not quite with the ballet-like strokes I had observed in Sam the night before. This was more of a martial art. He declined all offers of help. He didn’t talk during his culinary preparations, just hummed gently to himself while I sat at his table and watched. After a while, he opened the pot again, tossed in the vegetables, and stirred.

  “My Guru taught me to cook, you know,” he said. “There’s a science to it. Here in America we just eat for pleasure. But food is important. The right tastes, even the right consistency, it all affects the way you live.” Finally he produced a couple of plates and served some of his concoction onto each one. He put a plate before me, put one on the other side of the table for himself, and then between us he put a plastic tub of yogurt, a glass jar that looked like some kind of preserve, and another jar of white powder. “Help yourself. Yogurt, mango chutney, and coconut.”

  I did as he instructed. The food was delicious. Within minutes I did indeed feel my body calming. We ate in silence. I savored the rich blend of tastes and textures he had miraculously woven into one tapestry. When we were done, we washed the dishes together and put everything away. I noticed how meticulously clean he kept everything. Although the apartment was not fancy, nothing was out of place.

  “Time to go,” he announced, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall. As he was getting his shoes and coat from the closet, there was a knock on the front door.

  “See who it is.”

  I opened the door and found the stocky-looking woman who had appeared at the previous night’s meeting.

  “Where’s Joey?” she barked at me.

  I stepped back, my chest tightening. “Um, he’s just getting his coat.”

  “I’m Cheryl,” she announced and pushed past me into the apartment.

  Joey came back into the room and grinned at her. “Well, well, well,” he said. “How are you, dear?”