Recent renegade revisionist recorders of history report how
the rivers that ran from the northeastern Green and White Mountains of the Appalachian
range became highways for inland treks for lost exile pilgrims trying to find a
home away from the sea. Also noted
that local native inhabitants reported how these 17th century wandering
sojourners would travel against the flow. Jake and Sundance didn’t worry about
either perspective. Jake just liked to keep moving while Sundance felt he had
to move towards something with some purpose in mind. But sitting in the shadows
of Bunker Hill their own revolution was brewing. They just needed to find a
cause.
A shadow slowly became lost her darkness becoming clear
through the faded misty morning fog. Jake’s heart thumped as Sundance sought
solace of a sanctuary somewhere away from the forthcoming encounter. The muse slowly made her way to the two
souls sipping warmed over sludge. It was Isabella. Her brown eyes brilliantly
pierced through the filthy ground to ceiling windows of the pancake house
zeroing with laser accuracy on Jake’s own eyes. Like a lost Labrador he put
down his head and Sundance noticed how Jake’s ears flopped back at that moment
as Isabella made her way through the restaurant’s doors. Jake, confused as
usual, didn’t know what to do. His instincts said
“Run up and hug her!”
His ego said
“Let her come to you. She’s the one who walked out on you
this time.”
Still debating on his course of action, since he had not
thought this through in advance at all Sundance was already on his feet hugging
Isabella and she was smiling and hugging him in return.
Sundance whispered
“You’ll need to forgive Jake. He didn’t think you would
really come down to see him”
Isabella pushed back gently glancing at Jake, who was
pretending not to notice this scene,
“Well, I am always in the state of forgiving Jake.”
“Well, come on over, sit down and have a cup of tea or
something since I can’t recommend the coffee here.”
Jake finally stood at the booth where he was sitting,
reached out for Isabella’s hand and she let him gently pull her to him as he
kissed her on the cheek.
“It is so good to see you,” he said while sitting and
waving his hand for the waitress for another cup.
Isabella looked to the same half attentive waitress and
said
“I think I’ll have tea.”
“That’s new isn’t it? The drinking tea I mean.”
“Well, sometimes it takes a while for people to change and
sometimes it only takes a split second.”
“Well, you look the same to me. Actually you look better
than when I last saw you.”
Jake was really thinking
“Is she going
to bring up the squirrel thing or the poem? Just be cool don’t get excited.”
Talking to himself usually calmed him down and he would
either drift or it would help him focus. The problem was that sometimes he
wasn’t always a good listener even to himself.
Isabella laughed with Sundance as they jointly smiled at
Jake. Isabella responded,
“Jake, we all are in a constant state of change. Besides,
you are just a horny bastard.”
Not wanting to lose control of this moment or their
exchange Isabella quickly continued….
“So, Sundance here tells me you are on a mission.”
Jake excitedly jumped in at the opening, as he also really
didn’t want to admit to an ulterior motive for coming to Boston and began one
of his long stories about the weekend so far. He glossed over the events at Babe’s Tavern and the Yale
party and spent his breath explaining about Kerouac, Salinger and Walden Pond.
He threw in discussions about Fenway Park and Yastrzemski for good measure.
Sundance half listened has he now thumbed mindlessly through the stolen phone
book pretending to look for Salinger’s or Kerouac’s address as he secretly
listened to Jake’s fable.
Jake ‘s roundabout tale sounded much like the explanation
of a child late to dinner responding to a mother’s concerned query,”Where have
you been?”. …Or the response of an unfocused travelling salesman who files a
travel report with no orders for sales to his manager.
Isabella finally jumped in asking
“So you guys staying anywhere in Boston or is this just a
day trip?”
Jake delaying his response lit another Marlboro and exhaled
“I thought of calling your friends Riley and Ben and maybe
stay at their place here in Kenmore Square.”
“Don’t you ever pay attention? “
Isabella’s annoyance stared to surface.
“I had told you that Riley’s mom had passed away and that
they would be in New Hampshire for a while cleaning up her mother’s affairs.”
Sundance interjected
“What? Who?”
It was the first he had heard any of this but he wasn’t
surprised.
Jake tried to explain
“Riley is one of Isabella’s former roommate’s. Riley is
actually her maiden name that she kept as her surname after she married Ben.
Ben is a Vietnam hero who is in law school at Harvard and….”
“Ok, Jake, I get it now…”
“Well then there’s Diana, my old neighbor. She is also at
Harvard Law or something and she gave me her number just in case I was ever in
Boston.”
“She what? What would you want with her number” Isabella
challenged.
“Uh oh” Sundance thought we need to resolve this quickly so
he added…
“Who knows we might not stay the day or we may end up
sleeping at Walden Pond.”
Now there was the Sundance that everyone had come to know
and love…the skilled mediator. The sparks that were about to fly were quickly
diluted into some future that may never happen.
Though Isabella did make the point over and over and over
that she had exams coming the next week and she could in no uncertain terms be
distracted from her studies. She had worked so hard at convincing her father to
free her from the Catholic all-girls college of Maryville to Boston University
that she didn’t want to jeopardize his commitment to pay the extra tuition. She
convinced her father by saying she decided to study Sociology and conveniently
Maryville didn’t have that major. She had no idea what academic discipline of
Sociology encompassed at the time or if it would prepare her for any viable
career. Fortunately on her first visit to Boston with her father she didn’t
admit that she didn’t know that Boston was by or near water. Even more
fortunately she didn’t tell her dad that she wanted to major in Geography. The transfer was just a good way to get
her away from the Sisters of Good Intentions at Maryville. (This was the order
of nuns that was rumored to have discovered Salt Peter for women during the 1950’s.)
Boston would be the place to nurture Isabella’s own self-awakening and her own
pilgrimage. Jake was convinced that no matter how many volumes are written on
the relationship between fathers and daughters that these books would just
about cover the tip of the iceberg of such a subject. He had no idea how
prophetic that this observation would become. There was no way Isabella would
compromise this good thing of getting to Boston and making the home of dirty
water her new home!
It wasn’t too much of a task for the boys to convince
Isabella to stay with them a while. Jake said
“Hey it’s the Sabbath somewhere in some religions today.”
Sundance worried where this might be headed.
“ I saw a sign on a brownstone on Back Bay coming over here
and it was some type of Buddhist temple, church thingee and there is some type
of service today and the sign said ‘Visitors Welcomed?’ So, let’s go visit.
I need some Karma!”
Both Isabella and Sundance were unsure about this somewhat
great notion but then maybe it would distract Jake for a little bit. Sundance
hoped that it might shut Jake up and Isabella thought she could use the time to
think about how she was going to deal with her unplanned two visitors. Isabella
preferred structure and plans though she admired Jake’s freewheelin’spirit.
Always the expert on everything, Jake reminded the two that
he read Siddhartha at least three times. But, the only things that Jake really
knew about Buddhism is what he had read in Kerouac’s books On the Road, Dharma Bums
and Big Sur. He was proud that he memorized a few Buddhist Zen Koans. Actually Al
and Billy originally shared these koans in their letters and yearbook
inscriptions. But Jake was good at rationalizing and he touted how he had a
copy of the Tao Tse Ching and something called The Upanishads. He figured if it
was eastern in origin Jake believed it must be good.
Sundance succumbed
“Well, since I won’t be at mass this weekend at least I can
say I went to some kind of church.”
Isabella never did get her tea as they headed out to Back
Bay.This not quite holy trinity meekly wandered into this early twentieth
century brown-stoned bay windowed temple and found three vacant spaces on
cushions in the back of an over sized living room. Silence. No words. Shoes
removed. Everything solemn unlike the reunion-like bantering amongst
congregants found in Catholic churches before their officiants commenced the
melancholic half celebratory liturgy.
“Gong, gong, gong”
A bald headed young man arises with hands in a prayer-like
pose folded pointing to the full house that had gathered. Eyes closed, softly
“Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum.Om Mani Padme Hum.Om
Mani Padme Hum…..”
Jake, Sundance and Isabella stare around the room…almost everyone
present have their eyes closed and are slowly repeating these words in unison.
One or two stare as if in a daze and no words slip from their lips.
“Ah, this must be what they call the mantra”
Jake surmised.
He wanted to whisper his awareness to his friends but chose the better path and
closed his eyes. He could hear Isabella and Sundance’s soft voices. He imagined
they would all become one. Then something discordant was happening as he leaned
his right ear closer to Sundance hearing him muttering
“et cum spiritutuo”
Over and over.
“You can take the boy out of the church but you can’t take
the church out of the boy,”
Jake smiled.
All the voices gradually dissipated easing into quiet no
sound no air, no movement. The smell of a sweet incense sneaked through the air
in the room. The souls were lifted.
Jake being Jake couldn’t help himself squinted peaking to
see the congregation in unified truth-filled mindfulness. He glanced again at
Sundance who’s head now bowed forward and became jealous of Sundance’s quick
adaptation to this practice.
He thought
“Boy, is he into it!”
But just at that moment …..
“Chortle, chortle, grrmmpphh, harrumph, snorggle, chortle,
chortle…”
Jake laughed to himself
“He’s snoring! He’s snoring!”
And as Sundance’s chortling became louder Jake could no
longer control himself breaking the solace shouting out punching Sundance in
the arm….
“You’re snoring! You’re snoring!
The congregation became quickly unsettled and annoyed. The
peace that had almost instantaneously filled the room had burst just as
quickly. Sundance slowly shook the cobwebs from his head and Isabella pinched
Jake’s arm
“Did you see what you just did? Did you hear yourself?”
“But he was snoring! Sundance was snoring!”
Jake’s voice raised up louder and louder when the bald
headed crimson robed leader made a firm yet soft motion with his hand pointing
the trio to the door that they entered. They gathered their things laughing
like three mischievous Our Gang characters running out the door and running and
running - faster, slipping, falling, picking each other up, running until they
realized that no one was chasing them.
The three meditation thieves found themselves on a grassy
knoll on the banks of the River Charles huffing and puffing. The soft mindful
breathing became a fast faded memory. The river’s banks had now become completely
filled with people and activities of all kinds as the brownish-blue current
reflected the sun’s increasing glow. Sundance and Jake automatically removed
their jackets in unison to have something dry to sit or lie down on in the sun
and watch the river flow. Isabella didn’t sit, saying,
“Look, let me get my books and a blanket. You guys need
some rest. Wait here and I will be back soon.”
No objections could be heard from the two wearied worn-out
wanderers curling up like terrible-two toddlers in dreamland as Isabella
disappeared from the river’s edge.
