The Nirvana Blues (68 page)

He had hit bottom, all right, and there had been no bounce.

The only consolation was that now he had nowhere to go but up.

“Up?”

Joe shuddered.

*   *   *

“J
AVA
H
ANUMANA GYANA
guna sagara, jaya kapis tihun loka ujagara.”

Come again?

Afraid of where he was, terrified of where he may have been transported during the night, Joe hesitantly opened one eye, blinked, and then remained very still, playing possum lest they realize he was alive and light into him, flails glistening.

But this was no congregation of gods—Norse over here in bone-and-copper helmets, Saxon over there in fur loincloths and silver gauntlets—but instead a grouping of perfectly normal human beings, most of whom Joe knew, gathered in some kind of rite not of immediate national (that is Amurrikan) origin.…

The healing of Sasha, by Jove!

Dawn: Joe stretched open his eyes. About two dozen of them had gathered while he slept. Nikita Smatterling and his kid, Siddhartha, Randall Tucker, Spumoni Tatarsky and Moonglow Winterwind, Pancho Nordica, Crazy Albert, Baba Ram Bang, Baldini and Ipu Miller, Ray Verboten, Natalie Gandolf, Suki Terrell, Jeff Orbison, Nancy Ryan (and Bradley), and several other folks, adorned in turbans and little gold slippers, whom Joe did not immediately recognize. Some sat in yoga positions on the floor, softly chanting. Others occupied ordinary chairs, their heads thrust backward, singing in a lilting monotone. Only Bradley and Siddartha had open eyes staring at the idol in the middle of the rug: A stuffed monkey smothered in Crazy Albert's fluffy dyed carnations.

Not a real stuffed monkey, but a toy, rather, a scruffy brown-and white doll with big furry ears and mocking popeyes. Like a whacky little gunslinger from the Amazon, it gripped dual plastic bananas. Gaily colored ribbons decorated its throat and tummy. One ribbon supported a button, a relic from bygone decades: “Make Love, Not War.”

“Yuga sahasra jojana parabhanu, lilyo tahi madhura phala janu.”

The instant Joe's scrutiny alighted on Nancy, she opened her eyes. Although in midrefrain, she smiled, and, without causing a disturbance, rose, circled outside the healers, and settled on the couch beside Joe.

“What are they saying?” he whispered.

“We just said, ‘When you were young, you leapt high and swallowed the sun, thinking it to be a sweet fruit.'”

“Ah-hah.”

Her cheeks glowed. She seemed imperially clean, infused with generous tranquillity. Their hands touched. Dawn light settled against her dark hair like a transparent silk prayer against polished ebony. Her throat was as smooth as the surface of a white stone molded for centuries by flowing water.

“Apana teja samharo apai, tinon loka hanka te kanpai.”

“Meaning—?” Joe prodded.

“‘You are self-radiant. The three worlds tremble at your thunderous roar.'”

Until the recitation ended, Joe kept his eyes on Nancy's face: it had grown uncannily pretty, flushed with the innocent power of a believer in a Way To Be. Her bright, sentimental conviction had him enthralled. He fantasized living together for the rest of their lives, Nancy captured always in this immediate mood, forever charged with this spiritual radiance that seemed almost unbearably simple and good. God, her beauty was dazzling! It stirred eerie mellifluous longings. In her resided possibilities of ecstasy. They would live surrounded by lighthearted weather and easygoing folks with modulated voices, bare feet, white clothes, and genteel manners. And no brash hang-ups stemming from ambition, alcohol, materialism.

“‘Oh Lord, make my heart your abode.'”

Silence. Everybody joined hands. Peace poured into the room like water filling a clean porcelain bathtub. Spellbound, Joe barely dared breathe. All windows were closed, allowing light in, but keeping the silence from leaking out. As it grew, the pressure of it increased. With every passing second the silence became more portentous, until Joe thought he could bear it no longer.

They held hands, concentrating on the funny flower-laden doll. Their silence became so overwhelming, that Joe suddenly thought he must risk eternal damnation by breaking it with some idiotic remark. They had sucked the noise out of an electric wall clock, they had engulfed the noisy colors of Nikita Smatterling's fluorescent monkeys, they had even digested the turbulence of dust dancing in dawn's first sunbeam, which landed—where else?—squarely upon the dime-store Hanuman lathered in flora.

But just as Joe believed he must utter a sound to salvage sanity, somebody said, “Hello, Sasha.”

Another person added, “How's it going—better I hope?”

A third healer offered, “Keep a stiff upper lip, Sasha. We're with you, kid.”

Then everybody opened their eyes at once. They smiled, nodded at each other, and commenced normal conversations. Nancy excused herself, heading off to fix some tea. Suspiciously, Joe assessed this conglomeration of cosmonauts, who came across very cool, very calm, very collected—infused with Inner Light and Infinite Understanding. Joe wondered if this sort of seance could actually hasten the recovery (or stall the demise) of a gangster monkey that shat on sand castles and shoved spoons up little girls' noses.

As if in answer to his idle conjecture, the telephone rang. Nancy said “Yes?,” listened for a second, then addressed the gathering: “Oh dear, he died.”

They joined hands, exclaiming joyfully: “Our prayers are answered! He joins the others in the eternal happiness of heaven!”

Into the phone Nancy said, “What? Oh gosh, I'm sorry.…” Again, she spoke. “I made a mistake everybody. I didn't hear correctly. Sasha hasn't died, he has
revived.
”

Again they all sought each others' hands. “Our prayers are answered! He joins the rest of us in the eternal happiness of life on earth!”

Joe did a double take, scratched his head, and realized his bladder was about to explode. Bolting upright, he dashed into the bathroom, where a single carnation floated in the toilet bowl, and somebody, using soap, had drawn a gawky monkey on the medicine-cabinet mirror: it had a halo above its head.

*   *   *

H
E WAS SPLASHING
water in his eyes when Natalie Gandolf appeared in the doorway. Her hard, pretty face had a momentary spiritual softness.

“Hello, Joe, how's it going?”

A warning bell rang in his head—
bong!
And a headache suddenly flared. Cautiously, he dabbled at his damp cheeks with the corner of a fluffy towel. “Can't complain,” he replied warily. “I'm still alive.”

“Though maybe not for long.”

“Ho ho
ho.
”

“Tribby called late last night. He said he's not sure, but he thinks Heidi flushed the cocaine down the toilet. Or anyway, that's what you told him. When I passed the news to Ray, he suggested the toilet rap was a ruse to make him call off his dogs so you two could then unload the stuff in secret.”

“I only gave Tribby what Heidi told me on the telephone. Why don't you call Heidi?”

“Ray did.”

“And?”

“She said it was none of his business.”

“I don't have it,” Joe whimpered. He stared at his pathetic features in the mirror. “I don't even have my original twelve thousand bucks. Apparently, I also don't have a wife anymore. And I've lost my children into the bargain. If Ray Verboten wants to kill me, tell him he's welcome to, I don't care anymore.”

“You should know the rumors are flying fast and furious. Somebody said you were casing the First State People's Jug yesterday, with an eye toward robbing it. Others think you and whatshername, the waitress—Angel Guts' ex—and Eloy Irribarren are sitting on the dope, with an eye toward marketing it later when the heat's off.”

“Natalie, I think the only way to resolve the impasse is for Ray to assassinate me, my kids, Heidi, Diana, and Eloy, and anybody else who has even a microscopic acquaintance with the affair.”

“Of course, Tribby could be bullshitting me for the benefit of your interests.”

“You better off Tribby, then, on general principles.”

“My party is tonight,” Natalie threatened softly. “I really could use that stash, Joe. Ray's in a bind ever since his plane crashed. I'll tell you what: providing you don't tell anyone, I'll up my offer five thousand dollars, cash, if you can deliver it before five
P.M.
Nobody else has to know … strictly between us two.”

“I don't have it. I don't even know if it still exists. And if it does exist, I don't know where it's hiding, Boy Scout's honor. Heidi said yesterday the only way I could recover it was with a rubber suit and a snorkel.”

“You mean a scuba suit?”

“If you insist.”

Her fingertips nuttered off his shoulder. “Will I see you this afternoon, Joe, before my party?”

“I really can't promise anything. Apparently I have very little say in the matter these days.”

“I'll tell Ray not to do anything rash. Not just yet, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Joe mumbled to her back as she floated away.

HEIRESS BEFRIENDS LOWLY GARBAGE MAN
: “
NATIONAL COMPASSION WEEK
”
PROCLAIMED
!

*   *   *

E
YES BLOODSHOT
and swollen, wrapped in her ski jacket and huddled refugeelike in a corner of the tent, Diana yelped “Where have you been?” as she lunged for his embrace and held him tightly, head burrowed into his armpit, her body shuddering from heartfelt sobs.

Joe said, “Listen, I'm sorry.…”

Apologies. By the time all this ended, he would be so riddled with guilt that not even a life spent groveling on his belly, only the whites of his eyes showing, would constitute sufficient repentance. How could such a simpleton go so complexedly astray? How is it that a person he scarcely knew could cling so tightly? How bad (how sad) must be the national emotional state that endowed its citizens with such a hair-trigger on the pistol-shaped frame of their dependencies? The moment a shred of kindness or a blivet of semi-compassionate sex touched their crucified sensibilities (and expectations), they collapsed, becoming maudlin effigies of human beings, incapable of rational thought, let alone survival. What kind of society even allowed, let alone catered to, a Jack the Ripper like himself?

“Stop me, lock me up, envelop me in chains, kill me quick, before I murder again!”

Deaf angels inhabited heaven. He was on his own. Time to be a man, make a clean breast of it, tell the truth. He was too far gone to keep procrastinating. Salvation could only be earned by coming clean and taking his lumps, by facing Diana—without a blindfold or the crutch of a last cigarette—like a man.

Joe opened his mouth, fully intending to break it off candidly, showering her with the bitter truth. Instead, he lied like a trooper.

“I got nervous about the car,” he explained haltingly. “I couldn't sleep. So I got dressed and walked into town. But then I couldn't find the keys. I must have spent two hours tearing that damn vehicle apart. I felt like an FBI agent searching for subversive literature in the house of a suspected Weatherperson. I even crawled all around that parking lot on my hands and knees. But around three
A.M.
I finally threw in the towel. By then I was too tired to walk back here, so I limped over to Ralph's office and crashed there for a few hours. This morning I returned to the hospital at daylight, and guess what?”

“What…?” Ay, such a bedraggled, forsaken, forlorn, and much-too-tightly-clinging kitten!

“In two minutes I found the keys. You know where?”

“No.”

“Lodged in a tire tread. The car must have rolled over them. Ain't that a kicker?”

“You can't leave me like that, ever again. I mean, after last night, after that incredible loving, I woke up, I don't know exactly when—probably around midnight—and you weren't here. God, that was devastating!”

“Wait a minute. Two days ago you were trying to brainwash me into a state of cynical detachment and sardonic objectivity re romance. You said you couldn't stand sentimental bullshit. What happened?”

“Things change. I fell in love.”

They clung to each other silently for a half-hour, until Joe sprung a bad cramp in one thigh and twisted away from her, shrieking. She smiled as he thrashed painfully and cursed, pummeling the delinquent muscles. Wonderful highlights glistened on her cheeks. Even in pain, Joe was reminded that all of us, no matter what our physiognomy, have our moments of soul-rattling beauty. And he seemed defenseless against these moments. His firmest resolve could be melted by a smile, a provocative pose, or thoughtfully pursed lips. He could be enslaved by a gesture, enraptured by a sentimental melody, hog-tied by the promise of tenderness.

At heart, all he really wanted out of life was to be a lovable buffoon, liked by everybody, with an impeccable social conscience.

Sooner or later, for the nation (for the world) to become a sane and humanistic place, a shattering and violent revolution would probably have to occur. Yet Joe doubted he had the courage to pick up a gun. In his revolutionary fantasies he saw himself as an invaluable arbiter, beloved and trusted by both sides, responsible for the crucial liaisons that ultimately forged a just and reasonable (and lasting) truce.

In other fantasies he saw himself brutally drawn and quartered at the first bugle call to holocaust, disdainfully cut down and spat upon for being a lily-livered and ineffectual sissy on the barricades who nobody, on either side, could stomach: a Fraidy-Cat without the courage of his convictions.

Yet he didn't want to cause actual physical
bodily
damage in the upcoming conflagration. Although it might be argued that, on his own this past week, and without any assistance from the John Birch Society, the National Association of Manufacturers, or the American Nazi party, his sordid escapades had caused enough hurt to give him Ku Klux Kredentials for life.