Thirteen Confessions

by David Corbett

  “It’s our tax money,” Eleanor said. “Over which we have zip control.”

  “Ah yes,” Victor said. “Lack of control. Which brings us at last to MonsterMind.”

  He turned once again solely toward Lonnie, the focus of his gaze even more severe. Shi Changsheng and her mantras for the masses seemed to fade further into the background.

  “This cyber-center will not only be tracking incoming attacks, singling out suspicious algorithms as they flash through communications links. There’s going to be an automated strike-back capacity, where the computer, with no human input can, in a microsecond, launch a counterstrike at the source of the intrusion.”

  “Too bad if the source computer’s a proxy,” Eleanor said. “Or a zombie.”

  Jonathan: “Some kid in Slovenia hijacking an Iranian computer.”

  “And Obama has refused to rule out nuclear retaliation for a massive cyber-attack,” Victor said. “We’re talking the reincarnation of Mutually Assured Destruction. With robotic computers in charge of the nukes.”

  “The infamous Doomsday Machine.” Eleanor tilted her head toward Lonnie and smiled: “I’m assuming you’ve seen Dr. Strangelove?”

  Jonathan raised a cautionary hand. “But we all agree the problem isn’t technological. It goes a great deal deeper than that. It goes to the self-destructive nature of what the West considers freedom.”

  “The freedom to be miserable,” Eleanor said. “The freedom to ruin your life.”

  “To be greedy and cruel and self-idolizing,” Katy said.

  An addict, Lonnie thought.

  “When most Americans think of freedom,” Jonathan said, “what they mean is power.”

  “I don’t entirely agree,” Victor said. “Yes, I get what you mean. But some just want to be left alone.”

  “In a trailer somewhere in Idaho.” Eleanor struggled forward in her chair to set her empty cup down on the coffee table. “Head off with the guns and dogs, get away from the niggers and spics and chinks.”

  Lonnie thought: my parents.

  “Money is power,” Jonathan said. “Money is liberty. This is America.”

  “I am free to ride the dragons of want,” Katy said, paraphrasing one of the sutras. “Free to chase my illusions.”

  From which Lonnie inferred the dharma is freedom, feeling too timid to say it out loud.

  Jonathan rose to stretch his spidery limbs, his fingers almost reaching the ceiling. “The world isn’t a mess because we’re denied opportunities to discover the truth. We already know the truth. It lies in virtually every spiritual and philosophical system in the world. Abandon the ego. Still the mind, calm the passions, look within. Do unto others as you’d like to get done.”

  “Simple to state, hard to live by,” Eleanor said. “Much easier to be free, which is to say lazy and frightened and restless.”

  “Speaking of rest,” Katy said, “perhaps it’s time to turn in.”

  After turning off the music and joining hands for the vow of empowerment, dedicating themselves to the end of suffering for all living things, they headed up to their separate rooms.

  Katy, touching Lonnie’s arm, suggested they linger downstairs for a moment.

  “Doctor Wu wanted me to let you know he’d like to speak with you tomorrow after morning practice.” A puckish smile. She took his hand. “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing.”

  Almost instantly upon rising at 5 A.M., Lonnie became plagued by a state of doubt so fierce it swelled to the level of panic as he pulled on his square-necked tunic, tied the drawstring on his loose-fitting pants, stepped into his rubber-soled slippers.

  Throughout the hour of sitting meditation his mind hissed with negativity and self-doubt. During tai chi his attempts to perform even the simplest movements of the kata—Cloud Hands, Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane, Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail—created such uncontrollable trembling he all but lost his balance, and he actually fell attempting Snake Creeps Down. As for qigong, the Five Animals never frolicked more miserably.

  He wasn’t surprised when Doctor Wu, at the conclusion of the morning’s final session, all but fled the garden patio without so much as a glance back. The ensuing sense of foolishness tinged with devastation only broke when a hand settled gently on his arm.

  “You look like you could use something cold to drink,” Katy said.

  Until that moment, he’d barely noticed the sheen of sweat covering his skin, soaking his armpits and the back of his tunic.

  In the kitchen she withdrew a pitcher of water from the fridge, filled a tumbler, and passed it to him. Parched by a thirst that felt greedy and small, he downed the entire glass in one go, only realizing at the end what she’d so clearly intended. Words from the Tao:

  True goodness

  is like water …

  It goes right

  to the low, loathsome places

  and so finds the way.

  Taking the glass from his hand, she said, “Doctor Wu is waiting in his office.”

  Lonnie climbed the steps to the third floor with the deliberation of someone unsure whether he was ascending an altar or the gallows. Wondering as well: did it matter?

  The office door stood open. Doctor Wu, smiling, gestured him inside. “Have a seat,” he said in a voice both calm and pleasant, then closed the door for privacy. Lonnie doubted he had ever felt more scared.

  He chose a rocker near the bookshelf, thinking movement might ease his jitters, while Doctor Wu wheeled his desk chair over, like a physician preparing for a consult—eyes with their usual imperturbable focus, now graced with something not unlike warmth.

  “I must admit,” he began, “I did not know much about your world until Katy recommended you join us.”

  “My world,” Lonnie said. He was gripping the rocker’s arms like the railing on a boat about to capsize.

  “The music business,” Doctor Wu explained. “Specifically, the form I believe you refer to as as ‘punk.’”

  The word had never sounded so cheesy, so petulant.

  “I believe there is a recording company,” he continued, “that takes a particularly spiritual perspective on the form.”

  Lonnie bit back a chuckle. The form. Like concertos, the minuet. “Equal Vision,” he said, thinking: lightweight boojie pseudo-angst. Not quite as lame as Christian metal, but who wants nihilism with a melody, let alone a message. “I know about them, yeah. Based in New York?”

  “I was wondering if you would be interested in developing something of that sort out here on the west coast.”

  Lonnie, unaware up to that point that he’d indeed been rocking, stopped.

  Doctor Wu leaned a bit closer, grazing one hand pensively across the other. “Much of Buddhism focuses on the wisdom of emptiness, the perfection of silence. But the arts, when practiced with right intention, can be useful as teaching tools. Stories excel at demonstrating moral truths. Are you aware of the Shasekishu, the Collection of Stone and Sand?”

  “Not …” The rest of whatever his mind had hoped to say abandoned him. He shook his head, swallowed. “No.”

  “It’s a collection of Zen stories from the thirteenth century, written by a master named Muju.” He glanced around the room. “I’m sure I have a copy somewhere, I can loan it to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a wonderful example of how stories can enlighten and guide.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Lonnie resumed rocking.

  “As for music, nothing so touches the heart, ennobles the mind.”

  Yeah, Lonnie thought. Same thing occurred to me last time I slam-danced.

  “The popularization of the traditional chants, such as I heard all of you playing downstairs last night, is one such example. Though I must admit, to my taste, Shi Changsheng, for all her good intentions, is a bit …”

  Slick, Lonnie thou
ght. Cloying. Sanitized.

  Doctor Wu reached out, set his hand on Lonnie’s knee. A gaze to cut glass. “I realize that what I’m saying may seem outlandish in the context of … ‘punk.’ But as you’ve already admitted, there is a spiritual side, and certainly a political side, to the music as well. It is not all swagger and attitude.”

  “No,” Lonnie said. “It’s not.”

  Doctor Wu withdrew his hand and sat back. “I’ve read the lyrics to some of your songs.”

  Lonnie crossed his legs, feeling a sudden, overpowering need to urinate. “How—”

  “Katy sought them out, found them online, your musical troupe’s website. They are very powerful, very true to the spirit of anti-materialism, the quest for truth.”

  “Thank you …”

  “Most of what one hears and sees in this culture is commercialist propaganda. Advertising for excess and vanity. An ironic pose masquerading as wisdom. I gather you agree.”

  “I …” Lonnie felt a sudden mysterious weightlessness—and feared he might pass out. Breathe, fool. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “So.” Doctor Wu laced his fingers together. Two hands joined as one. “Do you know of anyone to whom we might turn to help us with our enterprise?”

  Two hours later, dressed in a crewneck sweater and jeans, a simple blue windbreaker, Lonnie found himself, courtesy of several bus transfers, seven miles south of downtown outside a ramshackle row house along the Islais Creek Channel, the borderland between Hunter’s Point and Dogpatch.

  He knocked on the door. Middle of the afternoon, he thought, hard to know if anybody’d be up yet.

  No answer, he knocked again—not louder, though. Why be a dick?

  Finally, muffled footsteps thumped down an inner hallway. The door swung open. An immediate waft of tobacco, reefer, and something sweet, Jack & Coke maybe.

  “Hey, Clint.”

  He hadn’t been sure what to expect. What he got was a stunned, brutal stare, eyes blasted—Clint shirtless, shoeless, just a pair of black leathers worn low on his hips, boxer mushroom at the waist. Pipe-thin torso, ropey arms, every inch blazing with tats. Barbell studs in the nose and lip. His hair, as always, shaved away on the sides, madly disheveled up top.

  Lonnie said. “Been a while.”

  Clint crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, glanced quickly up and down the street, like Lonnie might conjure a posse of narcs.

  “Just me,” he said. “Sorry I’ve been out of touch. Been stuck way across town.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve gotten clean, been—”

  “The fuck you want?”

  So this is how it’ll go, Lonnie thought. I’m the stooge. The one to blame.

  “I just wanted to see you. Thought we might talk.”

  “About?”

  “What happened.” Lonnie swallowed. “What’s going on. I dunno …”

  Clint’s eyes tightened, like he was trying to get Lonnie a bit more in focus. “I got something going on right now.”

  “Sure, I understand.”

  “No you don’t. That’s not the point. I’m tied up the next hour. Come back then, we’ll sit and … you know.” He nudged off the doorframe, stood upright. “That work for you?”

  “Yeah,” Lonnie said. “I’ll come back.”

  He turned to go. Clint called him back with, “Hey, Shocker.”

  It took a second for Lonnie to remember: That’s me. Over his shoulder: “Yeah?”

  That tight-eyed stare again, like there was just too much to take in. “You look good.”

  Lonnie found a sandwich shop, feeling too shaky even to risk a café on the off chance they’d have beer and wine on hand. He couldn’t risk a relapse. Cardinal rule of rehab: avoid all triggers, like former friends.

  He ordered a Snapple and took a seat by the window. A processed, instrumental version of “The Ballad of John and Yoko” simpered through an overhead speaker, as though to remind him that nothing is sacred.

  Focus, he told himself. Three months you’ve been at Metta House, a devoted student, steady and strong. Worthy of trust. Why else would the man in charge send you on this mission?

  And yet, having now seen Clint eye-to-eye, he felt groundless. Maybe this is what they mean, he thought, when they talk about No Self. An anxiety-tinged emptiness.

  It was way too soon to bring up starting a production studio, no matter how he pitched it. Sure, he could make the case that they’d weed out the listless cutesy poseurs so typical of the scene now: Doom Dirge, Bitch Pop, Sad Core, Lo Fi Bedroom Grunge. He had no intention of selling out, going mainstream, becoming the Shi Changsheng of punk. They’d restart true hardcore, give a voice to the angry young and poor, speak the ugly fucking truth to power.

  Clint would laugh in his face. How many times had he said it? The minute you think you have something to say, you’re on the path to asshole. Kind of thing you expect from a drummer.

  But jacking the system was righteous—what did punk mean if not that? And what better way to answer back to the sniveling greedy horseshit than selflessness? Not groovy peacenik sniveling, that’s not what I mean—I’m talking defiance of the emperor, like the venerable Tano and his warrior monks of Shaolin.

  Buddha is true revolution. Buddha is the real Mao Tse Tung.

  Which brought him back around to the real problem. They had to talk that out, Mousy’s death. He had to own the rage, the spite. Cop to the guilt. All grand plans for anything else lay on the far side of that. Regardless, this was the place to start, for a thousand and one reasons.

  Clint met him at the door, now wearing an Evil Conduct t-shirt—admittedly not a positive sign—and gestured him toward the back of the flat. “We’ll talk in the kitchen.”

  From somewhere on the second floor, a stereo blasted “Slave State,” one of Acid Prancer’s signature numbers. Lonnie stopped in his tracks and glanced up the smoke-hazed stairwell. Mousy’s vocals stitched through the air:

  A sweat-soaked bed

  Then daylight and dread

  Stuff whatever you’re dreaming

  Back inside your head

  How many lifetimes ago, he thought, did I write those words? How many eternities have come and gone since I showed them to Mousy, watched him make that wicked, lopsided grin. “Let’s work up a tune, Shocker McRocker.” So full of faith. So present.

  Clint, standing hallway down the hall, snapped his fingers. “You coming?”

  “Yeah.” Lonnie shook off the moment. “Sorry.”

  It wasn’t till he passed the first doorway that he sensed the other presence in the house. Two presences, actually.

  One had a ball bat, but by the time Lonnie noticed the thing coming at him all he could make out was a blur. The wood shaft crashed across his temple and ear, knocking him down like a bag of cement. Instantly all but deaf. Blinded by pain. Wetting himself.

  The three of them kept him down with kicks to the kidneys, the groin, the head. He curled up like he had with his father so many times, making out little by little that the other two were Mousy’s sister, Jordan, and her old man, Gearhead Greg, who continued chipping in with the bat.

  A voice for the angry young. Speaking the ugly truth.

  About the time he was choking on blood and his right knee felt on fire, Greg and Clint got down on the floor to hold him down, one pinning his legs, the other his shoulders, while Jordan knelt beside him, leaning close to be heard over the music from upstairs, everything swathed in hiss.

  “You remember what you said, cocksucker?” Her breath smelled rank from cigarettes, Southern Comfort-and-Coke—the sweet smell he couldn’t quite make out earlier. “I’m outside the room, pounding on the door, trying to get inside—see my brother, see if he’s okay, see if he’s fucking alive—you remember that?” She grabbed his chin, squeezed like she wanted to rip it off. “Remember what
you fucking said? ‘He don’t want to know you, you smokehound cunt.’ But those weren’t his words. That was you. My beautiful little brother was already dead.”

  Even with it pressed so close he could barely make out her face, his vision fragmented from the pounding, blood streaming into his eyes. But despite the angry buzz inside his brain and the thundering music upstairs he could suddenly make out nearby sounds with eerie clarity. What he heard was a match scrape a friction strip, the whisper of the flame, the singed tobacco of the cigarette. And he could smell: not just her breath but the billowing exhale smothering his face. Just beyond the smoke, in the haze, the red tip of ash glowed like the eye of an angry angel.

  Two strong hands gripped his head and Jordan’s thumb pushed back his eyelid. Even then, he couldn’t see, but that was the least of his problems just then.

  She said, “He didn’t belong to you, asshole. He was mine, too. He was everybody’s.”

  He wasn’t sure whether he merely thought the words or screamed them—he died quiet, he died peaceful … if you wanted in so bad why didn’t you force the door, why leave it to the cops—but he also realized none of that mattered. This was the price of finding his way. This was the low, loathsome place.

  He shuffled up Third Street toward Mission Bay, bent over like he’d been gut-shot and dragging one leg. A bus was out of the question: one, Gearhead Greg had taken his money. Two, the driver would no doubt call the law. And that just wouldn’t do. They could have killed him, that would’ve been just and fair, but they hadn’t.

  So, as best he could, he walked.

  The dragged knee buckled every time he tried applying weight, the joint a grinding, boiling knot of gristle. Given the stab in every breath, at least one broken rib seemed likely. As for the eye, an oyster couldn’t clench shut tighter, and the scalding pain sent sickly orange flashes throughout his body, crackling and sparking along every nerve.

  He crossed Lefty O’Doul Bridge where China Basin narrows into Mission Creek and kept trudging up Third, ballpark looming to the right, downtown a mile ahead. Avoiding eye contact as pedestrian traffic intensified, he continued across Market with its trolleys and traffic and crowds, aiming almost unaware toward Chinatown, sensing somehow he could find a place there to sit, rest. No one would trouble over him. For all intents and purposes, he’d be invisible.