A car approached the bridge. It slowed down as it passed me. I turned. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing there. A dark figure in a hood, in the shadows, watching me. It appeared to be holding a staff, divided into three barbed points at the top. I shuddered. It was the same figure that had stood there 11 nights before. An electric ripple of fear, no one would hear me shout. It was fully in the shadows of the bridge’s tower, just a silhouette. I looked away, back into the water, but I could feel those eyes still on me. It stepped out of the shadows onto the bridge itself. I didn’t look up. Footsteps moved down the bridge toward me. My heart, pounding. Footsteps moving straight toward me. Where could I run?
“This is the evening of your last day,” said the voice.
I looked up. Skin bleached white under the neon light, glistening with the moisture of the evening. Eyes bore into me, unwavering. He came close, stood still, not a muscle of his face moved. He waited. I felt compelled to offer some defense on my behalf. It would only be a testament to my failure. I looked back down at the water, not at him. So we stood in silence, each of us waiting.
I had no idea how or why he was here, how or why he knew I would be here. I had to speak.
“I know it’s the tenth day,” I said. “I know there must be a tenth lesson, but really … ” I struggled for the right words. “To be honest, I’ve lost interest. All day I’ve been feeling restless. I’m grateful for your help, I really am; but I don’t think I need a teacher or a teaching. I need to live my life.”
I turned and looked into Joey’s eyes. They were absolutely expressionless, absolutely still.
“I have two children. I realized today that if I don’t take some kind of action, they will suffer more than they have. More than they need to. I have a wife. You were witness; you helped me connect with her. You spoke with her on the phone. She’s waiting for me to take action, so she too can get on with her life. Everybody is waiting. I feel, in a certain way, like I have just been playing around with you these last days.”
He said not a word; not a muscle moved in his body.
“There may be all kinds of higher states of freedom and enlightenment,” I went on. “And maybe one day I’ll find out about them. But right now …” I paused and felt strong, like the iron of the bridge. “Right now, I just need to live my life. I need to take care of the things I’ve already started. I may not do it perfectly; I may not do it the way other people would, but I will bring all of me to it. I will do the best that I can.”
Still he waited; still no reaction; still not a flicker of response.
“I want to thank you. I know you’ve done your very best to pull me out of my predicament, and maybe, in a way, you have. Maybe, in a way different than either of us expected. I really find not a shred of interest left within me in being spiritual or learning anything or passing any test. It’s up to me. I have to do it. Me, Matt. I have to take action, and I’m fully responsible for the consequences.”
His eyes widened a little, his mouth remained soft and still. Finally, he spoke.
“Our work is complete,” he said. “You have, in your own way, stepped into and owned your own freedom. You are free. You are free even of the need to be free. You are free of me, free of any work, free of any teaching. It is done. Come, I want to take you somewhere.”
I slowly followed him off the bridge. It had a railing along the side. Around the tower, each post cumulated at the top in three barbed points.
“But what about the last lesson? You said there were ten lessons. We only did nine.”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. His face showed a tinge of boredom, frustration even, like trying to tell a good joke to a serious German scientist.
“Matt, Matt. This ain’t some celestial prophecy. This is real life.”
He led me off the bridge in silence, in the direction of the café where I had first met Sam. He walked right up to the door; it was dark inside. “Closed,” said the sign. He produced a key from his pocket, slipped it into the lock, and opened the door. I followed him into the darkness.
The moment my foot touched the café’s linoleum floor, lights came on. The sound of cheering. Streamers, balloons, bright colors everywhere. Somebody activated the jukebox, the place was filled with Fleetwood Mac encouraging us not to stop thinking about tomorrow, that it will soon be here.
My eyes roamed the room in disbelief. There, at the table closest to me, were Becca and our two children, sitting with Will Thurston and Paul. At the next table were Alan, June, Maryanne, and Cheryl. In my peripheral vision I could see there were at least 50 or 60 people here. Sam and Tim, even Carlos. Everyone from Joey’s meetings, everyone from the farm. Even friends of Becca’s and mine I hadn’t seen since before we separated, who had nothing at all to do with this crazy world. Almost the entire staff of the radio station was there. Joey evaporated immediately and joined Katie and Jesse at a booth in the far corner.
The kids jumped up and climbed on me with cries of “Daddy!” Becca stood up and threw her arms around me, too.
They ushered me to their table. Food and drink were produced; cake, bubbly wine. I looked at my kids and my wife. I looked around the room. How strange, only a hair’s difference from jumping to my death. It’s just another movie.
They talked and laughed and tried to unravel the intricate web Joey had spun us all into. I ate the cake, slowly. I sipped the wine. I pulled my children toward me.
“Would someone for pity’s sake explain to me what on earth is going on here?” Becca wasn’t angry; she was playing. From the way she was looking at me I knew I was Captain Fantastic again in her secret velvet world. “I got the strangest call yesterday. Matt’s friend, same one who had him over for Christmas. Said he’d really love to show me his Bresson prints, but he was leaving town. Wanted me to come with the kids the same day. From Chicago, mind you, not round the corner. I thought he was a crackpot. Then you call,” she looked at Thurston, “telling me you could vouch for it all, offering me three prepaid tickets. So what gives? I thought you moved to Hawaii, Will. How’d you end up in all this?”
“It was me,” announced Paul, with an affable smile, wiping cake from his face with his sleeve. Paul had always regarded Becca’s indifference to him as a huge misunderstanding, and hence completely ignored every cold shoulder she had offered him. “Matt’s been going to these meetings, see. Tried to get me along, told me he was seeing God. I thought it was all hooey,” he shoveled in some more cake, and continued his story while chewing, “until, that is, I found out that Matt’s friend knows Coppola. I was ready to sign up after that, that’s my kind of a cult. So I went along to a meeting, and had quite a talk with the guy afterward. Cartier-Bresson, Olivier, he’s known everyone. Joey wanted to know how to reach you,” he looked over at Thurston, “and all the details I knew about that deal with the bike and all that.”
Sarah had fallen asleep in my lap. Like nothing had ever happened. Dom was finding a number of very convincing arguments why I should let him try my wine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joey walk from his table toward the door. He motioned to Alan, and they left.
“Joey called me that same night,” Thurston picked up. “It was quite late, he called Annie first in Hawaii and got the hotel room number from her. Now mind you, I had no idea Matt had lost all his money to that swindler Harmer, or lost his house, or any of the rest of it. And Becca and the kids! Dom’s my godchild you know. I was mortified. I felt so badly to have been out of touch with everyone. I’d only just found out you were no longer with the station.” I was only half listening; Dom was telling me the rules for Diablo. “But I did know how to track down Harmer. Pushar had only just gotten through with trying to persuade me to invest, seems they were in cahoots.
“We tracked Harmer down to a hotel room in Detroit yesterday morning. He was still merrily raising funds. I got my lawyer onto it right away. They have an office in Detroit, so they sent someone over. Made him an offer he could not refuse. Return all the m
oney Matt lent him, with the promised interest, or face immediate prosecution. I’ve got you a cashier’s check back at the office, Matt.” Dom had just got as far as how to raise your life shield significantly by attacking the druid forces with elves and drinking purple potion. I mumbled thanks to Will. Cashier’s check. Why not?
“So all that was left was to send you the tickets, and here we are! I’m sorry Annie couldn’t join us. Tai Chi weekend in Kauai. Oh, by the way, I checked with the bank about your house. It hasn’t sold. Had the lawyer look into that, too. They took repossession a full six days before they were allowed to by state law. You should have been given six months clear with no payments. They took advantage of your situation. We’ve negotiated; you can have your house back tomorrow. You simply have to make the payments for the last six months, and the loan is reestablished.”
I looked from Becca to Paul to Thurston. It was all I’d ever wished for and a lot more, but strangely I couldn’t even muster happiness. It was just fine like this, but really only a rearrangement of the same pieces from a few days before. I felt extraordinarily still, as though I had died, and this was borrowed time. Sarah asleep in my lap. Dom wrapped up in his virtual war with dark cyber forces. It all felt liquid.
“So,” said Thurston. “I’ve grown to love Hawaii, can’t stay away too long. Annie’s all alone there, you know. I made a very poor choice with that Pushar character, think I let my head overrule my heart. Turns out there’s been some funny business at the station. I met him yesterday. He was actually getting paid by Harmer to solicit investors, including me. I fired him on the spot.
“I’ve got to get back in a few days and I’m gonna need someone to look after the station, someone I can trust this time. Someone who’ll keep the kind of quality and integrity we’ve had for decades. I’d like to offer you a job, Matt.”
I looked at him. Sarah had just woken up. She was burying her head into my belly. All these explanations made no more sense to her than they did to me. She ate some cake off my plate with her fingers and then wiped them on my pants. I took another sip of wine; it tasted good, a little sweet. My breath reached down to the lowest part of my belly.
“Okay,” I said. “That would be okay.”
They laughed.
“I like this new Matt,” said Becca as she kissed my neck. “He’s, you know, cool.”
CHAPTER 24
TIME RELEASE
“Gooood morning, matey, Alan here.” The last two words were unnecessary; who else began a phone call like that? “Just calling to let you know that a good friend of yours and mine will be back in town and was hoping to see you.”
It had been more than 18 months since I had seen Joey. He left town the day after the party. True to reputation, once the meetings hit 15, he was gone. Becca and I got settled into the old house, and within weeks we were back in our old routine. The kids returned to school, I got busy running the radio station, Becca seemed to take her responsibilities as a graphic artist much more seriously now and kept the money she made in a separate account. I didn’t blame her.
I willingly put on the hats of father, radio interviewer, manager, husband. It all worked fine, better in fact than it ever had before. But in my heart I was in a bigger room, I was with Joey and his horses. I was playing on the beach, surrounded by a feeling of invisible protection. Not a day, not an hour passed without the need to return to Joey’s lessons. I used them not out of choice, more from a sense of preserving sanity. When judgments came to visit, it felt dangerous, wild, and destructive, until I remembered those magic words, “just like me.” When powerful feelings took me over like monsters out of the deep, some instinct in my heart demanded they be met, fully met, just as a skillful animal trainer might bring an unruly beast back into submission, lest someone get hurt. Even the depths of despair I had felt at the end of our time together revisited me regularly. The darkness would show up uninvited at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, oblivious to any sense of appropriate timing. Only in embracing it, was it transformed.
Days and weeks turned into months. I spoke to almost no one about the continuous practice in which I was now engaged. I rarely even reflected on it; it became as inevitable as breathing or the beating of my heart. I stayed in contact with Alan and June and the others. I even called Cheryl from time to time. Paul once again became a frequent visitor to our house and freezer. One night, we invited him to dinner with some other Joey friends, including Sam. That was it. They married within a month. We visited Katie on the farm now and then. I heard fragments of Joey stories from South America, China. I’d heard he came back to the farm once, just the same time we were visiting Becca’s family. And now Joey was back in town and wanted to see me.
“Well, of course,” I answered Alan. “It’s been quite a while. I mean, where? When?”
“Same as usual. We’ve given him the apartment above the café. Tomorrow, seven-thirty. Oh, and bring your wife.”
I looked out of the window at the early spring flowers. Daffodils, all in a row. The front lawn, neatly cut, the bushes trimmed. Our life was working now, a well-oiled machine painted in bright, happy colors. My days were filled with kids’ soccer matches and ballet lessons, work and friends. Much as I had thought of Joey this last year, now I had a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. On the way to work I went through angry scenarios in my head with him. No, you can’t drive my car, it’s an almost new BMW, and look what happened last time. No, blind man’s baseball on the edge of a cliff is just not responsible when you have a wife and two children dependent on you. No, Joey, I’m not accosting strangers in a restaurant for your amusement. But later in the day I pictured a great reunion, Joey taking me into his private room, looking deeply into my eyes, and telling me I had reached the final stages of enlightenment.
Becca got a sitter. We went to the café on West Broad Street early, and had monster sandwiches for dinner before climbing the faded stairs. Joey seemed quite unchanged, greeted me and everyone else as though there had been no break at all. He chuckled when he saw me, but more as a private joke he was remembering than a greeting. He looked a little older, suntanned from some adventure somewhere. He laughed a lot more than I remembered, but seemed distant, like an atheist showing up at a Baptist meeting, along for the ride. Many of the old faces were there, Maryanne, Jack, even Carlos. Sam held Paul’s big hand throughout; she was visibly pregnant. At the end of the meeting, Maryanne was called in to speak with him, then Sam and Paul. Becca was loving every minute, talking to everyone afterward, like she’d been doing this all her life. I waited nervously.
We drove home together, to our floral print wallpaper, our neat rows of flowers, our sleeping children. I spent the ride home explaining to my wife how unaffected I was by not being called into Joey’s room. Totally, totally cool. Appropriate. I shared my theory with her, from a number of different angles, that our work together was done. He needed to give his attention to the new people, the people who still needed him. She smiled at me and rubbed my knee.
I saw him one last time, a couple of days later. I went over alone after work, met Paul and Sam at the café. The room was fuller by now, some old faces, some new. One newcomer stood out. Despite his open white shirt, casual and spotless, his faded jeans, shoulder-length hair, and stud earring, he had the unmistakable air of a man with private means. He couldn’t hide the relaxed amusement that only those born wealthy can pull off convincingly. He was probably in his early 40s. He was doing his best to sit cross-legged, but looked very uncomfortable. Alan offered him a chair, but he refused in an Ivy League accent.
Joey was shining that night. From the moment he came in I noticed it, as if his skin were emitting a luminous glow. Once he began speaking, he cracked up frequently, and closed his eyes, relishing some feeling, as though he were being tickled or massaged in a particularly pleasurable spot. Despite his shaggy white beard, he seemed half-feminine, extraordinarily sensual. He laughed, as if to say, “I’ve tried to control myself but it’s no good. I’m hopeless
ly gone.” Someone read a Rumi poem, and he wept. He looked at me with transparent, empty eyes. I felt I was looking at someone in rapture, but on a TV screen. His ecstasy was unmistakable, but he was no longer really with us. He had moved on.
This was the time that George Bush was creating the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act was still quite new. A man I did not know, wearing a serious tie, serious glasses and a very serious expression told us that he was a member of a local group that met weekly to discuss citizens’ rights. They had recently been infiltrated by a plainclothes police officer. When he made a blunder and the group found out, it made the news. He asked Joey for comment. Joey looked right back at him, closed his eyes for a moment, and was gone again. I felt embarrassed for the people meeting him for the first time; it was as though he had taken laughing gas.
“Everyone needs someone to make into the enemy. That’s how we get by. Just now everyone has it in for this Saddam fella in Iraq. He is the problem. Looks like you’ve got it in for the president. ‘Get rid of Mad King George, and we will all be okay.’ The undercover cop had it in for you. ‘Get rid of the lefties, and we will all feel safe again.’ The most revolutionary act is to relax the urge to revolt. We are all the same, fighting ghosts of our own choosing. I’d say that the most revolutionary thing you could possibly do would be to see how similar you are to George Bush. Another chip off the old block.”
The questioner looked shocked, surprised, and speechless. The Ivy League visitor seemed to relish Joey’s political observation, however, and laughed with glee. Joey was delighted. They were looking at each other, tears now streaming down their faces. I tried to laugh, too, but it was forced. I didn’t get the joke.
“So who are you, sir?”
The Last Laugh Page 23