Broken People

by Sam Lansky

  Jacob was seated on the sofa in the living room. “Sam,” he called. But Sam walked past him, pushing his way into the bedroom and collapsing into bed.

  He lay facedown in the pillows for a few minutes until there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said. He looked up and it was Buck. At least it wasn’t Jacob.

  Buck sat down on the bed next to Sam and rested a hand on his shoulder. “This whole thing really meant a lot to you, didn’t it?” he said softly.

  Sam nodded. “It’s almost like—the more I started to believe in being fixed, the more I saw parts of myself that needed fixing.”

  “There’s nothing about you that needs fixing,” Buck said, and the tenderness in his voice melted Sam’s frustration for just long enough that he could really see Buck, and there, in the dim light of the bedroom, looking directly into Buck’s kind eyes, so close to him he could smell his skin, Sam let himself wonder if this was the whole point of this weekend: to bring him closer to Buck, to finally cut the tension between them, to turn their affection for one another into something more than just that, and so Sam reached out and put his hand on Buck’s thigh and leaned forward to kiss him.

  Buck pulled away. “What are you doing?”

  Sam jerked his hand away. He could feel himself turning red. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

  “This isn’t—I mean, I’m not—” Buck stammered.

  “It’s fine,” Sam said quickly. “My mistake.” He turned over on his side. “I’m gonna go to bed, okay?” Shame rocketed through him. He felt Buck linger for a moment.

  “Good night,” he finally said, and Sam heard him close the door behind him as he left.

  * * *

  In his dreams that night, the feeling kept going—his anger and embarrassment, the unresolvedness of it. His sleep was restless; he woke up every hour or so to find that he was reaching out for someone, or something, in the night. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that it was what he needed, and yet, when he tried to put his arms around it, there was nothing there.

  And then he was deep in a dream, or a vision, or a memory—or maybe all three. He was back in the Hamptons, the night he and Charles had lost the house. As they were packing up to drive back to the city, they had begun to argue—first over something trivial, and then, as it did so often, it escalated into something explosive. Charles had a temper—it was his most frightening quality—and Sam knew at the moment that his eyes went dark and empty that it would be a long night. There could be no walking back the anger once he got that way.

  They fought in the car as they drove west, back toward the Long Island Expressway. It was late at night but the freeway was still crowded with cars, all of them heading back to the city, which Sam had come to see as his captor. He hated New York, hated their sterile apartment, hated the muggy summers and frostbitten winters, hated how the city seemed to support and reinforce his workaholic schedule, hated the life he had built there, and most of all, he hated that he didn’t appreciate any of it. And the man who had earlier that day felt like the only partner he could imagine a life with was suddenly an enemy. Whatever they were fighting about didn’t matter, of course; they were angry about the dissolution of a fantasy.

  Sam didn’t have the distance to see his part in it; wasn’t yet willing to look at how he manipulated Charles by fanning the flames of his anger, then breaking down in tears and begging him to stop yelling. The love that he had been chasing for so many years, that he had finally found with Charles, was something that he knew urgently that he had to destroy, because on some level he was convinced that he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve the house on Woodhollow Drive any more than he deserved to be loved by a man like Charles.

  “You’re such a fucking monster when you don’t get your way,” Charles was saying. “You always do this.”

  “I can’t take one more day like this,” Sam said. “I’m at my breaking point.”

  “Then go, Sam,” Charles yelled. “Leave me, then.”

  That white light was blinking again, faster, then faster still.

  At that moment, they drove past a car on fire. It was pulled over on the side of the freeway, and flames were licking at its sides, red-orange and violent. People stood around it in concern, watching it burn. Sam could hear sirens approaching. They fell silent and stared in bewilderment as they passed it.

  “Should we stop?” Charles said, his face suddenly a mask of little-boy worry.

  “No,” Sam said grimly. “Keep going.”

  Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. The white light stopped flashing. Charles accelerated and the car roared forward into the dark night.

  10

  The Knowing Place

  Something’s wrong.

  The morning was brutal, slices of sunlight cutting through the bedroom in zebralike stripes—the most psychedelic thing Sam had experienced all weekend. He rolled over and moaned, pulling the covers up around his neck. He buried his face in the pillow, trying to summon sleep again, wishing feebly that he could fast-forward through the next few hours, at least, until sunset and the final ceremony.

  He didn’t want to do another day of this, cut off from everyone and everything, mired in this ascetic discomfort, waiting around for epiphanies that weren’t coming. He just wanted to be done, to return to his normal life from this preposterous fantasy of healing, to be back in his everyday misery instead of getting teased by the hope of relief.

  He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and checked his phone, which he hadn’t even looked at the night before.

  A text from Kat: You doing okay, babe?

  A shudder of embarrassment moved through him, at the realization that he would have to tell her that this whole thing hadn’t even worked—that it had left him even more despairing than he’d been before. At least she’d probably be able to commiserate with him over his humiliation at making a pass at Buck.

  He opened the door and padded silently out to the kitchen. It was early, still—Buck probably wouldn’t rise for hours. Fuck it, he thought, and he poured himself a little shot of cold brew from the bottle in the fridge, plopping a few ice cubes into it. He took a sip and its gorgeous bitterness was like rocket fuel, sharp and fast, lights turning on inside his brain.

  Ice clinking in the glass, he walked out into the living room—and there was Jacob, seated cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, facing Sam with his eyes closed. He was meditating. Sam turned quickly, hoping to destroy the evidence before Jacob saw, but then he heard Jacob’s voice: “Sam.”

  Shit. Sam turned back around to face him.

  “Good morning,” Sam said.

  Jacob rose to his feet and stood tall. He wore flowing white pants and a loose white T-shirt that made him look like a real guru. “Morning,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

  “All right,” Sam said. He saw Jacob’s eyes glance over to the coffee in his cup, but he said nothing, and Sam was grateful for the pass. “You?”

  “Good,” Jacob said. “Off to yoga.”

  “Cool,” Sam said. “Have fun.” In his head, it had been polite, but he heard the way it sounded—nasty, sarcastic. Sam shook his head. “Sorry. That came out wrong,” he said. “I’m just going through some shit, I think.”

  “I know,” Jacob said. He sat down at the dining room table and looked at Sam dolefully. “I know you’re disappointed. But it’s not about me—it’s about her, and the type of experience she wants you to have. You need to trust that it’s going exactly the way it’s supposed to.”

  “I just feel...” Sam trailed off. What did he feel? He tried to scratch at the surface of the feeling but there was only powerless anger. “Do you think this is my fault?” he asked. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

  Jacob shrugged. “I don’t think you really trust the process,” he said. “I think you want this to happen on your terms, and it’s only ever going to
happen on hers. Maybe you aren’t ready. Maybe there are things you aren’t ready to see.”

  “I thought she was going to make me ready,” Sam said. “I thought that was the whole point. To show me what I need to see. So I can see what I can’t see on my own.”

  “She can,” Jacob said. “She has that power. But you have to be willing to open your eyes.”

  Sam felt a lump in his throat. This was useless, chicken-or-egg nonsense—maddening and counterproductive. “I don’t know how,” he said. He sat down at the table across from Jacob.

  Jacob raised his hands. “Then you might not be humble enough.”

  “Is that really what you think?” Sam said.

  Jacob looked at Sam as though he was boring through him, cutting him open, and Sam inhaled sharply at the effect, at how exposed he suddenly felt. “She is very powerful,” Jacob said. “But so are you. In a different way. There is so much darkness inside you. But you resist it. You don’t want to embrace it. You don’t want to hold it as a piece of you. And yet, the light cannot exist without the dark. These are the things that you want to erase, to ignore, to stomp out. But they are a part of you, too.” He smiled. “You’re afraid of your shadow. But as you move, so does it. You and it are inextricable. And still you run from it.”

  “But you felt something in me,” Sam said. “That first night, in Portland.”

  “Yes,” Jacob said. “It’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “It’s still in me,” Sam said. “I can’t get it out.”

  “You think it is very deep,” Jacob said, “and it is, but it is not irretrievable.” Then he leaned forward, across the table, and the voice that came out of him was deep and gravelly, his eyelashes fluttering, his face drained of color.

  “Don’t you want to know?” he growled. “Wouldn’t it be easier to know who you really are, instead of running from the truth? Wouldn’t you rather just go to your knowing place?”

  Sam was frozen. “Yes,” he said quietly.

  Jacob rested his back against the chair and became himself again. “Then carry that intention with you into ceremony tonight,” he said. He looked at his watch. “I should go,” he said. “But meditate on this today. Maybe you’ll find some more clarity. Willingness. Something.”

  “Okay.”

  Jacob stood and slung a yoga mat over his shoulder. “Goodbye,” he said. Sam slumped over at the table, resting his head in his hands. A moment later, he heard the front door click shut.

  * * *

  By the time Buck rose, it was almost midday. He wandered out into the garden in loose terry shorts and a T-shirt, stretching his arms in an exaggerated yawn.

  Sam, seated at a picnic table, stared at the ground. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said finally.

  “Oh, please,” Buck said. “We were on ayahuasca!”

  Sam looked at him sideways. “Were we?” he said.

  “You know what I mean,” Buck said. “You were vulnerable. I get it.”

  “I’m really embarrassed, Buck.”

  “Don’t be.” Buck sat down across from him and Sam could tell from the look on his face that Buck didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Did you see Jacob this morning?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I did.”

  “Did you kiss and make up?”

  “Not exactly,” Sam said. “Why, do you think I owe him an apology?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Buck, what if we get to the end of this, and nothing happens and we stay exactly the same way we always were?”

  “Are you the same as you always were?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course not!” Buck said cheerfully. “Every experience changes you, right? So even if there’s no actual magic, in the traditional sense of the word, that doesn’t mean I’m the same, or that it was all a waste of time. Maybe there’s a lesson that hasn’t been revealed yet.”

  Sam frowned at Buck. “How are you so zen about all of this?”

  Buck looked reflective. “Age, probably,” he said. “It’s gotten easier to detach from outcomes as I’ve gotten older. To just be in an experience. So we don’t leave here tomorrow fixed? So what! Look around.” He gestured to the garden, illuminated by the sun in ghostly beams. A butterfly flitted from the outstretched fingers of a flower bush, like it was dancing in midair. “It’s a beautiful day. Life is good.”

  “I don’t know why I have such a hard time with that,” Sam said. “It feels like it shouldn’t be this hard.” He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them. “Maybe it shouldn’t have been a shaman. Maybe I just need to find a new therapist. Maybe I need to go see a psychopharmacologist again because this is just, like, neurotransmitters firing the wrong way.” He sat back up. “Or maybe I just need a boyfriend.”

  “You know what someone very wise once told me,” Buck said, and he leaned in toward Sam.

  “What?”

  “If dick fixed it,” Buck said with a grin, his voice going drag-queen liquid, “then dick would have fixed it by now.”

  * * *

  By late afternoon, Sam had begun to feel nauseated. He went into the powder room and knelt before the toilet, the water running in the sink, the cold white porcelain. What is it? he wondered. That question again. What is inside you? He thought about the medicine, that bloodred brew, stagnating in his gut. He could taste it in his mouth. He didn’t want to drink it again tonight.

  There was no part of him that could throw up without sticking something down his throat to induce vomiting, but he wanted it out of his body. He gagged. He couldn’t do it. Then he sat down on the cool tile and let his eyes flutter closed. After a few moments, he felt a warmth on his face, something radiant. Maybe it was her, he thought idly—the spirit. Maybe she had finally arrived, to do her work. To make him whole.

  But when he opened his eyes, he saw that the sun had moved from behind a cloud and light was now streaming through the window. So he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes again. There was nothing to see.

  11

  Sick

  They gathered again at dusk, settling into their nests of blankets and pillows, trying to get comfortable. By now it was all routine—Jacob’s solemn face as he poured the medicine, that heady rush of anticipation tempered by the disbelief that rushed through Sam like a force he couldn’t control. Just please let this end, Sam thought, and in the same moment he felt a flash of sadness that the weekend was coming to a close already, and so anticlimactically.

  He leaned against the front of the sofa. Jacob called Buck up to drink first again, while Sam sat still. Then Jacob motioned to Sam and he made his way up to the mat. Jacob handed him the glass, a grave expression on his face. His eyes revealed nothing.

  Sam looked at the medicine. What are you, anyway? he asked it. Nothing, it answered back. I’m nothing. And then he looked at it again, and the contents of the glass were suddenly so multitudinous it was dazzling—its crimson ink containing all of the stories Sam couldn’t tell, all of the blood coursing through his body—and then, in a blink, it was nothing again. Sam shook his head. This is pointless.

  He took it in one shot and wiped his mouth, handing the glass back to Jacob. He crawled back to his nest and lay back down.

  What was there left to do? He closed his eyes and waited for memories to start drifting through him. He had already combed through all of the memories that were easy, accessible—the ones he wasn’t afraid to exhume. Now nothing came. His mind was blank. He studied the pinpricks of light under his eyes, scrunching up his eyelids until they grew brighter, like a million little stars.

  All he could feel was his body.

  Actually, where was his body?

  He floated off into the little lights. He was no longer gazing at them—he was among them, alone in space. It felt as if he was in the console of a spaceship. He had a dist
inct feeling of motion, like he was pushing forward. Things moved from the center of his field of vision into the periphery and he watched them go. Some of them were simply colored shapes, interlocking sequences of visual data, patterns that connected together—cosmic geometry. They passed by him like masses of replicating cells, squiggling off into infinity, beautiful threads of colored DNA.

  Oh, he thought. Is this all ayahuasca does? He felt tranquil, traveling through space, watching little bits of color stream past him. He tried to remember if this was what acid felt like, or mushrooms. It had been so long since he’d done anything like that. Maybe that was all this would be, like a night at the planetarium. At least he’d gotten to go somewhere else, if only for a minute. At least he wasn’t in his memories anywhere.

  Memory—all those moments he kept spit shining in his mind’s eye, finding no new truth anywhere in the same old recitations. He didn’t know how to go into the shadows.

  You’re never going to be able to tell this story, a voice whispered.

  I know, Sam said in his head.

  You wanna do it anyway? she said softly, but it wasn’t quite a question. It felt more like an invitation.

  Sure, Sam said. Let me try.

  * * *

  Deeper. That was where he wanted to go, and so that was where he went, and the very texture of it was deeper, like descending into a dreamless night’s sleep, cushioned by velvety darkness, into an elevator and down a long, dimly lit hallway in shades of gray, faintly patterned slate gray carpeting and light gray walls, fumbling with the key at his front door, and then into the foyer of the apartment on Sixty-Third Street. Sam looked around the apartment. It was his but also not his; all his things were there but the apartment did not belong to him.

  It was beautiful, though, the apartment—or at least it was full of beautiful stuff. Stuff that had cost a lot of money. Stuff that had meant something, for a moment. Stuff that had represented the promise of a better life.