by Dermot Davis
"I ain't going nowhere," Arjuna said, raising his hands in the air, as if he was reading Andrew's thoughts. "I'll go first, if that will make you more at ease," he said as he turned to walk toward the coffee shop.
"Oh, I'm at ease," Andrew said, pulling his tie loose. "I'm just tired of the bullshit," he said, even though he himself didn't quite know what he meant.
"Whatever," Arjuna said as he allowed himself a smile. "Whatever."
With a face slightly red due to blushing from embarrassment, Andrew ordered two coffees from the young lady behind the counter.
"Just regular coffees?" the girl asked. "You don't want no cappuccinos or frappuccinos or espressos?" she asked although Andrew wasn't sure if she wasn't being sarcastic.
"No, two regular coffees," Andrew repeated, somewhat meekly.
"And you don't want no pastries?" she asked with a smile.
"No. Not at the moment, thanks."
"Be right up," she said brightly. "I'll bring them to your table."
"Thank you," Andrew said, making a point of stuffing the small lid of her tip jar with a dollar bill.
"So, your old lady walked out on you?" Arjuna said when Andrew sat on a chair opposite. "Didn't see that one coming," he said sarcastically.
"Excuse me?" Andrew said, like he didn't appreciate his tone or his accusation.
"I said, I didn't see that one coming," Arjuna said louder and without apology.
"There's no need..." Andrew said but stopped himself from finishing.
"No need to what?" Arjuna asked, like he was up for the fight.
"No need to be a jerk about it."
"Exactly!" Arjuna said, like Andrew got it in one. "There's no need to act like a jerk!"
"Oh, I see," Andrew said, getting his point. "You think I'm acting like a jerk."
"You don't?"
Interrupted by the young lady who placed their drinks on the table, Andrew took the extra time to reflect. "Two regular coffees," the girl said pointedly, looking directly at Andrew.
As she left, Arjuna looked at Andrew, as if the girl's attitude was clearly validating his point.
"Yeah, I guess," Andrew relented. "I've been under a lot of stress, lately."
"Your life stress… is your excuse for being an asshole?" Arjuna asked, sugaring his coffee. When the young man failed to answer, Arjuna spoke again. "You think that you're the only one working in the stress factory of life, hot shot? Everyone else is living in some kind of sweet-smelling paradise?"
"I don't want to get off on the wrong foot here," Andrew said, hoping to change the tone of the discussion. "I was hoping we could be, I don't know—"
"Friends?" Arjuna interjected.
"No, not exactly friends," Andrew admitted, considering it a bit of a stretch. "Maybe respectful of each other, I guess."
"Fair enough," Arjuna agreed, taking a sip of his coffee. "I'll ask you again, then. What can I do you for?"
"I was wondering if you had seen Fiona lately?" Andrew asked respectfully.
"She comes and goes," Arjuna answered, taking a sip of his coffee. "She's not here presently, if that's your next question. And no, I have no idea where she is right this minute, if that was going to be the follow-up question."
"Fair enough," Andrew said, pondering his next move.
"Henry sends his regards, incidentally. I visited him in prison. He's pretty much recovered from his beating," Arjuna said, making a face like it was an unfortunate business.
"He got a beating in prison?"
"Yeah," Arjuna answered, wondering how to phrase it so as not to make Andrew feel too bad. "Someone saw you paying him a visit. I guess they wanted to teach him a lesson for associating with you."
"I knew it," Andrew said, as if his suspicions about the organization were true, after all. "He practically yelled at me, at the hospital."
"Yeah, some gang member was in the visiting room and recognized you."
"A gang member?" Andrew asked, now confused.
"Henry said that it was the same dudes that messed you up. White supremacists?" Arjuna asked doubtfully.
"Oh," Andrew said, realizing that Arjuna meant Duke and his scary posse. "Yeah, those guys had it in for me. I feel bad for Henry," he said with genuine remorse.
"He told me to tell you not to feel bad. He knows that he freaked out when he saw you in the hospital. He's a pretty paranoid guy but being high on pain-killers didn't help."
"How did he know, I mean, why would he tell you to tell me? I don't understand how he knew that you’d see me again," Andrew said with a perplexed expression.
"I told him that you had come looking for help and that you'd be back," Arjuna said rationally.
"How did you know that I'd be back?"
"Because you are obviously a man in pain and where else are you gonna go for help with the kind of pain that you got?"
"What?" Andrew asked, looking like he didn't understand a word.
"Soul pain," Arjuna said, draining what was left of his coffee. "Not something you can get and over-the-counter remedy in a drugstore for, that kind of spiritual illness I mean, am I right?"
"Soul pain?" Andrew asked like it was a ridiculous notion. "You're leaving?" he then asked when Arjuna abruptly stood up to leave.
"You got more questions?" Arjuna asked.
Searching his mind for further questions, Andrew wasn't exactly sure what to ask. "Okay, so what if I do have this soul pain that you're talking about... how do I make it go away?"
"Go away?" Arjuna asked and laughed. "Your soul pain is the only thing saving you right now. Why would you want it to go away?"
"What?" Andrew asked, now totally confused. "Would you mind sitting down for just one more minute... please," he then pleaded. As Arjuna sat back down, Andrew relaxed a bit and tried to get clear in his mind. "My soul pain is... what, now?"
"The pain that you're feeling inside, right now, your heart ache, your spiritual suffering, is the reason that you're here; it's the reason that you're looking for answers. Yeah, yeah, you want to find Fiona and guess what? She comes out here looking for the very same thing that you're looking for: a connection to your soul. That's the only thing that makes sense in this life. Everything else is a distraction."
"What is it exactly that you're selling?" Andrew asked in bewilderment. "I don't get what your thing is. You sell hokus-pokus answers to the lost and the misplaced out here, is that it? You sell hope to the hopeless? What?"
"I ain't selling anything, hot shot," Arjuna said as he stood once again. "I told you before that what you need is a vision quest. See, the answers you're looking for aren't out there," he said, looking out beyond the coffee shop at the beige, brown, sage green, and peach desert landscape. "All the answers that you ever need are in there," he said as he patted Andrew's chest with his fingers.
"A vision quest is like… well it takes days," Andrew said with a pout as he briefly considered the idea. "I can't take that kind of time off of work."
"Take it easy out there," Arjuna said kindly. "I hope that you find whatever it is that you're really looking for."
Andrew watched as Arjuna waved a goodbye to the young lady behind the counter, then walked out of the door and into the fading sunlight. For a brief moment Andrew thought about following him back to his RV home to see if Fiona really was hanging out at the dude’s place, after all. He didn't get this guy, Arjuna, and he didn't know how the man made a living or how he got by if he wasn't selling anything to anybody. Andrew knew that even if he did look up 'soul pain' on the Internet, he wouldn't get much satisfaction. It had to be something that the dude made up and obviously wasn't a real thing that rational or educated people discussed for the most part.
"Can I get you anything else?" the young lady asked with a smile. "We'll be closing shortly."
"No, I'm good, thank you," Andrew answered gratefully as he drained the last of his now cold coffee. "The coffee was very good," he said as he took the empty cups to the counter. "I hope to see you again," he said
as he left.
The girl watched him go and it crossed her mind that maybe she had misjudged the guy, after all. Just because he wore a fancy suit and was from the city didn't make him arrogant and stuck up.
Deciding that it was late, now that it was getting dark, Andrew walked to his car with his mind made up. He would drive straight home. Even if Fiona was hanging out at the old geezer’s place, he felt like he didn't have the necessary resolve or inner strength for a confrontation. He knew that he wouldn't be strong enough to take another rejection from her. What if she told him to go take a running jump or, worse, that she never wanted to ever see him again? How would he ever get over such a shock? The very idea made him feel ill.
Even though the thoughts of returning home to an empty mansion, a home, that, day by day, he had slowly grown to hate, it still felt like the best option. He had finally made progress in his search. Bumping into Arjuna meant that he was definitely getting closer to finding his true life mate. Even though they had talked about Fiona for just a little bit, he felt closer to her by merely talking to someone that knew her and had seen her more recently than he had. It was a great relief for him to discover that she hadn't moved out of state. She was close by and still living in the city, somewhere.
As he cruised on the freeway, heading back to LA, he looked at the familiar skyline and imagined Fiona living someplace within the city’s embrace. Perhaps she lived in a loft downtown and maybe, at that very moment, she was looking east towards the very freeway that he was driving upon. Waiting for the coffee to brew or the kettle to boil, she might be staring aimlessly out the city window as the sky began to darken and the first stars of the night began to sparkle in the heavens.
Perhaps Fi was thinking about him and wondering where in the world he could be; what he would be doing? "I'm coming for you," she would hear him say in her mind's ear and she would smile. She would smile and her heart would beat soundly in the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would be found again. She would be found and he would make her happy, finally. “I promise you,” Andrew whispered, “I will find you my love.”
Chapter 2
Fiona spent a lot of time with Arjuna in the desert, a place of solitude and sun, sand, stones, and rock, that she had grown to love. Life was simpler in the wilderness and a lot more honest. The plants and animals lived to their nature and you always knew where you stood with each and every one of them. Admittedly, the coyotes were pretty shifty critters, yet they only used their smarts to get food and had no desire to rule the world. They had nothing to prove by wanting to live in the swankiest den in the neighborhood. The sun and heat were relentless. There was no place to hide. The desert brought clarity and purification.
Arjuna, curiously enough, had turned out to be a mixed bag of tricks. Even though she’d had many heartfelt talks with the man, she still never managed to fully plumb the depths of his psyche. When he’d encouraged her to become a Spiritual Warrior—despite the fact that she had no idea of his meaning—she had jumped eagerly at the opportunity. Even though he’d insisted that it required rigorous training, Arjuna didn't seem to have a definite prospectus that he adhered to nor could he easily disseminate to her the tried and true curriculum that she should follow in order to make spiritual progress.
Explaining that it was different for each seeker, he’d suggested that her training was flexible and unique. Expecting the activity to require lots of talks and serious homework, Fiona had expressed surprise when Arjuna took her to a clearing in the desert and simply demonstrated some martial arts techniques. "I thought you said that I was to be become a Spiritual Warrior and not an actual hand-to-hand fighter?" she asked when he told her to adopt a defensive stance.
"You need to find your core," he said, meaningfully. "You need to connect with your strength. Failure to do so ensures that you are subject to the winds; blowing this way and that, shifting each time to wherever the strongest wind blows. By connecting with your own strength you will be able to forge your own path, no matter which way the wind tries to blow you, so you won’t get blown off course. Understand?"
"Yes, sir," Fiona said and then planted her feet firmly on the desert floor and imagined herself to be a strong, immovable boulder.
"Learning how to defend yourself in combat is training for how to defend yourself in all other aspects of your life: mentally, emotionally and spiritually. By learning to defend your person, you grow in confidence. That confidence radiates throughout your soul and being and powers your mind and body in your worldly pursuits. To walk and act and think and commit with confidence, like a true Spiritual Warrior, is to declare yourself to the world. Your being says to the world that you exist; that you belong and that you are entitled to your share of its bounty, of its life essence. It’s declaring sovereignty over your person and your reality. Now, where is your strength?" he asked firmly.
Unsure of his question, and understanding next to nothing that he had just said, Fiona shifted her position. "Here," she said uncertainly.
"Where is your strength?" he repeated the question more forcefully.
Shifting her position, once again, Fiona adopted a martial arts stance that she remembered seeing on TV.
"Here," she said a bit more certainly.
"Where is your strength?" he bellowed as he walked closer to where she stood.
Shifting her body once again, Fiona bent her knees and made a pair of fists then she extended her arms in a boxing stance. "Here," she said, hoping this time to be right.
"Where is your strength?" he yelled, his mouth but inches from her left ear.
"Here!" she yelled back, dropping her arms to her side, annoyed by what she perceived as his attempts at intimidation.
"Where is your strength?" he again yelled, even louder.
"Here!" she yelled back, even louder; her body and mind finally filled with certainty.
"That's right," he then said calmly.
"Your strength is not your body. Your strength is not your mind. Your strength is your connection between your mind, your body, your emotions and your soul. Remember this," he then said softly. "Remember what this feels like; the alignment between body, soul and mind. This is where you are strongest; for this is who you truly are. Don't let anybody or anything disturb you from this place. Live here. Be here. Come from here. And when life experience knocks you from your alignment, as it surely will, retreat to here. Heal from this place. Regain your strength from this place. Trust me, there's nothing out there that can give you your strength: nothing. Only from here,” he said and touched the center of his body, “can you live your one true life. Only from here can you live in your truth."
Fiona kept her position and, taking some deep breaths, made a mental note of how she was feeling so that she might return to that feeling place again, when she returned to the real world.
"How does it feel?" Arjuna asked. "Being in alignment with your one true self?"
"I do feel strong," Fiona answered, clearly liking what she was experiencing. "I feel more me, if you know what I mean. I feel like I can do anything and yet, I feel calm, like there's no need to do anything or go anywhere or be something. I feel like I accept myself," she said with a smile. "I don't think I've ever truly felt that way before," she said with a hint of giddiness, "to fully accept myself. Like, I'm okay. I'm not inferior or... less than anyone else. I'm just me. And that's okay," she said, her smile broadening as she tuned more deeply into her experience.
"Yup," Arjuna said, like he was now the old familiar, backwoods Texan. "Feels good, don't it?"
"I want to stay here forever," Fiona said like she was filled with strength. "Everything looks different," she then said, looking around at the desert landscape. "Like every thing's as it should be. Every thing's perfect." She noticed that the world looked vastly different from this place. Everything seemed to shimmer, the molecules of reality vibrating with energy. Her body pulsed with peace and increasing energy and she felt warm and almost ecstatic.
"Ain't that the truth
," Arjuna said, looking around and taking in the majesty of his surroundings. "Ain't that the truth." They stayed in that place of authentic power for some time until the energy naturally dissipated and the golden afternoon sun hung low in the sky.
Back at his trailer, Arjuna poured out two glasses of cold lemonade. The sun was going down in the sky, as Fiona sat on the lower bunk and basked in the afterglow of her effervescent experience in the desert.
"Feels good, huh?" Arjuna said as he gave the smiling girl her cold drink.
"Feels good being me," Fiona responded, taking the glass of lemonade. "Thank you, this is lovely," she said upon tasting it. "You know, it's hard to describe what I'm feeling, right now," she said, her face still posed in a grin. "It's like I have belief again, kind of a knowing, although it's not a belief in anything, exactly. A belief in myself, perhaps?"
"That's the strongest force there is, right there," the homegrown guru said as he toasted her with his glass. "Belief in yourself. Sounds corny, but it's true," he said as he sat on the bunk opposite. "When you have belief, your energy flows strong. When you have doubts, your energy doesn’t flow; your body gets weak and it fails. Let me show you something," he then said as he stood up. "Put your drink down and stand in the center of the room there."
Fiona did as she was instructed and adopted what she considered was a power stance.
"No, I'm not going to attack you," he joked. "Just stand natural and put your arm out by your side; don't matter which one."
"Like this?" Fiona asked as she stood with her feet slightly apart and her right arm extended horizontal to her body.
"I want you to resist my force," he said as he pressed lightly on her arm.
"Okay."
"Your name is Fiona," Arjuna said as he pushed down on her arm. "See how your arm remained strong and stayed in position?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Your name is Melinda," he then said as he similarly pressed down on her arm. Even with his light pressure, her arm grew weak and she was unable to hold it up strong.