14. Gaia’s Koan

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. The Achilles Factor

The arrival of a new season can be misleading by the expectation that a particular date or event will automatically switch on or off a particular climate or environment.  Waking up to a new day can be similar in many ways. Jake used to wake up to a new day and be grateful that he made it through another night. Sundance would wake and get busy right away because he had so many plans. The first thing their old friend Ed used to do after he opened his eyes was to look out the window. If he saw one cloud he would get worried that the weather might take an unexpected turn sometime during the day. Jake thought that Ed did whatever he could to avoid mowing lawns, which was his job during the summer months.

 

Christmas is more than a special day. It is a season. Scripture and preachers write a lot about hope and salvation that last few months of the calendar year. That morning of the twenty fifth day of the last month expectations were always mixed in the Niebo household. One never knew what would be under the decorated tree, if anything. Some years were better than others for Jake’s dad at work. The number of ornate wrapped gifts would be an indicator of how Jake’s father’s work life was doing. Jake tried to manage his expectations, as sometimes disappointment became a regular companion. Surprises wouldn’t be surprise if the heart or mind weren’t jolted unexpectedly. He was slow to learn that gifts come in all different sizes and forms.

 

Sundance stopped strumming “Yesterday” as Jake continued to press the Black Beauty’s pedal to the floor and out of the blue asked

 

“ Did you hear about Michael Chamberlin?  I heard he signed up to go to Nam. Then he volunteered to go on some secret dangerous mission. Someone said it was into Cambodia. The rumor has it that he was captured and tortured. They said they found his head on a post along the path that was used by our troops for their incursion into Cambodia. Then I have heard that he is just classified as MIA. Who knows.”

 

“Who cares!”  , Jake grimaced.

 

“Come on let it go Jake. Just cuz he bullied you in high school for wearing those Beatle boots to school one day.”

 

“Well, the truth is that this punk and his brothers had started that whole chain of fights or bullying a couple of years before the Beatle boots incident. They were in the Boy Scout troop I was in and one night at a bonfire we had they smeared burnt marshmallows all over my uniform. So as I left found their bikes and jumped on their wheels and destroyed the spokes when they weren’t looking. The wheels were busted so badly that they couldn’t ride home. Eventually they all guessed who did it and started to threaten me at school saying they would hunt me down to beat me up. But they never got me until the Beatles boot incident.”

 

“But didn’t you get Michael thrown out of school for assaulting you?”

 

“No, that was my dad. When Father Adolph asked for a meeting with those involved with the Beatles boot incident and that’s where my father threatened to file charges against the school and sue them for not protecting me …since it was a private school an all. He also threatened to file assault charges against the three boys. ”

 

“Could he do that?”

 

“Who knows but my dad was pissed and Adolph was scared. So my dad insisted that Michael and his friends be suspended or thrown out. Michael’s two buddies got permanent detention for the remainder of the school year and Michael was kicked out of school. But he threatened to have me mugged by his friends when I least expected it. “

 

“Well, I guess he really got his in Nam then!”

 

Jake smiled “Yep, but if there was a God the Viet Cong would have skinned him and eaten him alive.”

 

“You are an unforgiving nasty bastard aren’t you? You were mugged weren’t you?”

 

“Yeh, but that was someone else and a result of another fight I had.”

 

“You are always in a fight!”

 

“Well, isn’t that what life is all about?”

 

(Time goes faster for some. Some are more lucky than others and some will always pay for their sins. It would be about twenty years later that Sundance read an article in Time Magazine about how that same Michael was one of the first prisoners of war who was returned by the Viet Cong. He had admitted to being part of the Central Intelligence Agency and was eventually captured again by rebels in Northern Africa in the early 1980’s while posing as a missionary. Sundance threw the magazine away and laughed.)

 

Suddenly a red bead began to make herself known on the horizon, larger and larger, slowly transforming the black canopy to a spectacular virgin blue. The rain and clouds evaporated from sights and existence. The river of history and revolution was also apparent flowing at their side. They followed the River Charles and sang together

 

“I love that dirty water….oh Boston you’re my home!”

 

It seemed as though only minutes ago that they left Fairfield. Sundance insisted on making one last pit stop before they would make entry into Boston. Jake thought that Sundance had a weak bladder but when they pulled into the rest stop Sundance darted quickly to the local phone booth, looked around to see if anyone was looking or awake in their cars and yanked out three of the poorly anchored phone books. Jumping into the Black Beauty he shouted

 

“Take off hurry…and I will look up Salinger and Kerouac. I am not sure if this book has Lowell listings but we’ll see and if we can’t find them here we’ll go to the library.”

 

Jake thought

 

“What?”

 

He had been lost in thought about Isabella and trying to connect with her while they were all in Boston and their original motivation he thought of trying to see Kerouac, Salinger or visiting Walden Pond had remained in Connecticut somewhere.

 

Sundance observed

 

“It’s early yet and I’m hungry. We need to find a place to eat.”

 

“There’s the Peter Pan Pancake House on Commonwealth Avenue in Kenmore Square”

 

Jake knew that place well as he an Isabella use to eat the a lot when he spent time with her.

 

“Is that anywhere near where Isabella is staying?”

 

“Yeh, she lives in 700 Commonwealth dorms right down the street.”

 

“Ya gotta call her then. Maybe she would meet us for breakfast?’

 

The inside of Jake’s head started to spin again. It was probably the sleep deprivation that was throwing him off.  He thought he just need some coffee before he would decide on whether or not to reach out to Isabella. He tried putting off responding to Sundance’s recommendation as long as he could. Sooner or later we all have to answer the question about what is it really that we want in life, or at least now? Jake remembered something about Billy Barrows’ comments in some of the Wanderers yearbooks about deciding and not deciding.  It had been years since he considered becoming a priest. What is the source of a true calling anyway? Sometimes one needs to listen with the heart instead of one’s ears. Sometimes we need to learn to listen to the silence as it speaks louder and clearer than any human or animal voice. Sometimes we make deals with God to help pass a science exam in order to graduate. His vocation would be left up to his bargain with God.

 

His novena ….

 

“Help me pass this exam and I will become a priest . Well I will at least check into it. I promise!”

 

When he realized that the exam wasn’t that difficult and passed with flying colors he sent off for an application to Holy Mary Seminary and that’s the extent of his “checking into it.” 

 

Edie Parsons soon afterwards diverted Jake’s attentiveness from completing the application to the seminary by baptizing him into the Church of Aphrodite. A new voice was heard. The intermittent skirmishes with bullies also kept his mind off the spiritual path. But sometimes he worried if God was angered that Jake had backed out on his end of the bargain. Jake wondered if that’s why he had difficulty at times with schooling or relationships with females. Maybe this was his penance. He rationalized

 

“God you let the Hebrews wander for forty years because they didn’t show their gratitude or trust for their rescue from the Egyptians and you let them wander! Or were they really lost? Anyways, aren’t bound to let me wander or even get little lost too! Right? ”

 

The state of being lost would become his perpetual purgatory. He was still wandering. His promised land unrealized. Then again maybe it was all a youthful dream.

 

“Whack” came another sudden Sundance special big smack on the back Jake’s head jolting his brain forward back to the matter at hand.

 

Sundance barked

 

“Just give me Isabella’s phone number and I will call her to invite her to breakfast.”

 

Well practiced at the art of  “what if” worrying , without hesitation Jake wondered aloud …

 

“What if she isn’t there? What if she says no ? What if she is with another guy?  What if we wake her up…. she’s grumpy early in the morning!”

 

“Just gimme the number and you can start looking for Kerouac’s and Salinger’s addresses.”

 

The sun slowly rising higher in the heavens, birds of all colors, sizes and formations careened across the River Charles as rowers muscled their sculls swiftly down river and duck boats cruised to their tourist docks near the harbor. Marathoners, joggers and walkers sweated their way along the banks’ paved paths monitoring their heart rate preparing to breathe one more breath,“nike.” Everything seemed to be running with the current down to the sea. Jake stopped and secured a seat to rest in the pancake place, phone books on his lap, watching the river flow as he glimpsed at Sundance wondering.

 

Jake was tired and found himself waiting again.

 

 

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