Guardians of the Secret
copyright © 1998 by Cary Shulman
All Rights Reserved
13.
Michael's strategy had worked. Time and drink had taken some of the edge off. But what was allayed in the intensity of his thoughts was made up for by their repetition. No matter what direction his thoughts would go off in they'd still deadend in the same place. The backyard with that stupid package. Prepare for the next show. Think about calling Sara. Think of rechecking the parcel delivery, rechecking the phone call. What about her challenge that she was going to reveal stuff about Everett? What about her info? Could he stop her? They all ended up in the backyard with the package.
He couldn't sleep. What about the therapist's tape? Maybe that would lead somewhere else. He needed a somewhere else. Anything to work on. But what were the people in his fantasies going to say? What if they were silent? It started to spook him. It was making him feel like he didn't know what was inside his own head. He realized with a laugh nothing new in that. What did he have to lose? And he didn't know the answer to that.
He speculated on a whole variety of their responses, accusatory, funny, hostile, sexy, silent. But speculating wasn't asking. He finally decided to ask. But who shall it be? Why not the girl that started it all. He imagined her sitting across from him. He imagined asking who she was.
She didn't say anything in response, but looked at him as she began to cry. It caught him completely by surprise. It unnerved him like looking in the mirror and seeing a complete stranger. He realized there were tears in his eyes. "I'm coming unglued, this is crazy." He had to stop. But he managed to get some sleep.
The next time he asked, expecting something similar, perhaps hoping for something similar, there were no tears. "Let's just have fun," she said. He asked again. "You don't want to know," she replied. He began to get a queasy feeling. He summoned up his courage and proceeded. There was a long silence, he was getting nothing and about to give up when suddenly she said "help me". At first quietly and then again and again with more intensity, her voice altering in the process until it seemed it had embodied the voices of all the women in his life.
He stopped, shaken at the realisation he had heard his mother's voice. He suddenly remembered a childhood fear that she might be in hell because of what she did. It was an awful, helpless feeling. He didn't need that. He needed a drink and got one. What was the use of this? He couldn't help her. Or his ex wife or Sara or any of the women he imagined he heard. He couldn't save any of them.
At five in the morning he gave up on sleeping and began driving. At first just to be driving and then toward Massachusetts and Nimé's workshop. He saw a hitchhiker and thought about picking her up. He passed her by. He already had more passengers on this trip than he could handle.
* * *
A note left at Sara's box at the station had led to weekly mailings of information. She was naturally skeptical about it, but it turned out to be interesting material and it kept getting better. It included the revelation about Everett and the militia. From its contents she had tried to figure out who might be the source. Whoever it was is certainly consistent she thought as she picked up her mail.
She had made it a habit of putting all important documents from the show in her safety deposit box. She went to her bank with the package. She sat down in one of the cubicles. She recognized the mailer. She opened it with expectation and started reading the material.
* * *
Nimé had found the small actors' equity theater when he was having his house remodeled and he needed another place to give his talks. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement, but now he wasn't sure. There were two chairs on the stage of the upstairs theater and he was sitting in one of them, talking to a group of people sitting in the audience.
"It's been fitting in a way that we've had a chance to meet here in this theater. We've been interpreting sexual fantasy, and it's a drama both as an entertainment as well as in its power to reveal the deepest truths about our lives.
"The title of my talk today is "The Bedroom, the Battlefield and the Graveyard". They are the site of three great transformative experiences; sex, war and death. We have been focusing on the bedroom and will continue to do so, but I also want to talk about war and death whose meaning is missed.
"The great passions of life have been pushed into some corner and left there. This corner is sex, this corner is war, this corner is death. We want to take sex, war, and death out of the bedroom, battlefield, and graveyard into the rest of life.
"Speaking of death there's been a lot of research on near death experiences. It's fascinating. But here we attempt to specialize in near life experiences. Being alive is a very intense experience, we all shy away from it preferring an ambulatory twilight sleep. We shunt off our peak intensities of life into sex, war and death. Not only can you reclaim those energies for the rest of your life, but they can point the way to how you can transform the rest of your life.
"As I'm sure you've heard me say before, we start with a tension. The tension you feel is the gap between where you are and the possibilities of your becoming. Fantasy and orgasm take place in that space of growth, that gap. They're a journey in that space, but because you're unaware as to the true nature of that journey, when they're over with, that gap remains. Instead of an intense momentary arc, we wish to build a bridge connecting sexual ecstasy and insight.
"What is truly remarkable is that as we explore this idea we discover that mankind has been trying to build that bridge for a very long time.
"Twenty five thousand years ago cave paintings were done by stone age hunter gatherers that are not only exceptionally beautiful, but seem to have a mythic, almost religious significance. One of the paintings shows in addition to a large hunted animal, a bearded man wearing a bird mask. He has an erection and is falling backwards in a state of ecstasy. He appears to be a shaman of some sort. The bird mask is a symbol of the flight or journey that he takes during his rituals.
"In that ritual the shaman enters an altered state of consciousness and makes a journey to the realm of the spirits. He receives wisdom from them and returns in order to heal, make whole, the person he's treating. The journey he takes is associated in the painting with sexual ecstasy. Sexual ecstasy is intimately connected here with a way of knowledge.
"So we have the beginning of this idea in shamanism tens of thousands of years ago. From there it has continued to evolve. In Eastern philosophy and religion there is much made of the connection between opening up the energies of the body, changing our relationship to the energies of the body, and the awakening of consciousness and realization.
"A variety of techniques are used to accomplish this. Chanting, breathing exercises like pranayama, t'ai chi, meditation, dervish dancing. In kundalini yoga you attempt to move energy from the base of your spine through chakras or energy centers to the crown of your head to bring about illumination. In Tantric Buddhism there's the direct use of sexual energy for realization.
"What we are suggesting here is that these energies, which are manipulated to bring about insight in all these practices, are manifested by the people in your sexual fantasy. And that in relating to them and in changing your relation to them you are making the same sort of connection that brings insight.
"This presents an entirely new way of approaching this age old endeavor. A way that opens up many possibilities. For one thing it makes it more accessible. After all, it's a practice, unlike dervish dancing and t'ai chi, we are already involved with and familiar with. And since it involves working with the imagination, with the psyche, all the interpretive insights and techniques of psychology can be brought to bear.
"So we can add a modern technique of ecstatic wisdom to those that have been used before."
* * *
Michael got to Nimé's house by early afternoon. He saw the note posted and found the playhouse in town. He walked upstairs past a sign announcing a production of "Uncle Vanya". He thought to himself it'd be funny if he ended up watching a play. There was a small room that led to the theater. He opened the door and took the first seat he came to. He was relieved nobody turned around. All eyes were on the stage where Nimé and David, a preppy looking, nervous young man were sitting across from one another. Nimé was addressing the audience.
Michael sized him up. He had long graying hair. His glasses gave him an intellectual appearance, but his build and physical presence were more like a manual laborer. "No, it's more aggressive than that," Michael thought to himself. He struggled with the image. A high school friend who was on the wrestling team popped into his mind. "Yeah, that's it," Michael concluded. "A wrestler, that's who he reminds me of. Maybe he got that way wrestling with the angels like Jacob."
Satisfied with his take on Nimé, Michael shifted his attention to his talk. "I could tell you about it. I could give you an explanation. We do a lot of that, analytic work. And it's very helpful. That's why I've spent a lot of time with you discussing that approach. But in modern life explanation has taken the place of connection. We have an explanation for just about everything. But less and less connection to anything. We know more and more of the world, but it doesn't move us.
"So I could provide you with an explanation, tell you that probably this or that happened in your childhood, you had this sort of relationship. But it's like telling you what love is, it's better to experience it. And one way you can do that is through relating to the person in your fantasy. That way you begin to enter into it and it begins to live for you, it begins to move you. Does the world around you live for you, speak to you, have meaning for you, or is it just stuff out there? So let's continue."
Nimé waited as David struggled to say something.
"I just can't talk to him. I worry where he is? Whether he's all right"
"I could tell you that he's all right, that in fact in the most profound way he's still everywhere among us, or that he's in heaven at peace. But this not really about where he is, it's about where you are. And if you can get in touch with that, it would be unnecessary for me to reassure you he's among us or in heaven, you would feel it in a way that nobody could possibly describe."
"I think I get that, but I still.." David's thought drifted off into silence. Nimé turned to the audience.
"So we started with David's fantasy encounter with a woman in a deserted office. She's bound and gagged and made love to. And we worked on the fantasy. The woman stepped out of her role and David had a conversation with her and she asked him why he had to tie her up and gag her. And he had no answer. It just brought the conversation to a standstill. I suggested he ask himself why he was stuck and it brought up this problem he is having dealing with the death of his brother. And I think if we go into it, we'll see that the woman in David's fantasy is not the only one that's bound and gagged.
"We've talked about war and sex. Death is also one of the areas where we put a lot of our fantasies. It doesn't tell us much about death, but a lot about ourselves. We stick a lot of our fears and energy there. So let's see if we can retrieve some."
Nimé turned back to David, but didn't speak right away. Nimé sat quietly as if he was listening to the man's silence, and then began again.
"You have visions of your brother being in a dark, empty place somewhere. I can't see this. What I can see is a dark, empty place in you. You're trapped in there somewhere, holding in all your grief, terror, rage and love. Somehow you're going to have to open. Let someone in to that closed space.
"Your brother is dead, we don't know what that means, but we do know what your being dead means. Your brother can't speak to you because you can't speak to him. You would have to connect your voice and your heart and you've choked the life out of both of them. Your brother will live for you when you live."
David began to weep. Michael watched him until suddenly he realized he was holding his breath. He tried to catch it but couldn't. He had to get some air. He hurried down the stairs and outside.
The street was deserted and still. It was if everything were holding its breath. Waiting. Waiting for what? Everything around him seemed to have more of a presence, about to step beyond itself, almost as if it were about to break its inanimate silence and speak. It lasted for a moment, but it was too much, and then it was gone. A car turned a corner, two people came out of a shop, everything rushed on.
* * *
Sara was lost in thought as she drove her BMW toward town. As her car headed up a long incline, Sara picked up her car phone and dialed Michael's number. The phone rang in Michael's loft. Michael was not there to answer. Sara's voice came over the answering machine.
"Michael, if you're there, pick up. All is forgiven."
Sara was disappointed when she realized Michael wasn't there.
"I've got something, but it doesn't quite make sense. Grab some coffee and meet me at the studio! Hurry!"
A mile ahead of Sara a United delivery truck was idling at the intersection to the highway. A deliveryman with a freckled complexion and jet black hair was at the wheel. He was like an All-American kid who had just gotten larger rather than older. Next to him was a young Latino deliveryman, his hat pulled over his forehead. The driver turned to him.
"Buckle up, Pedro, this is going to be a rough ride."
Pedro seemed unconcerned.
"Suit yourself macho man."
The driver made a left turn on the highway and started down the hill that Sara was going up. The Latino slumped against the door, his head tilted back. His eyes were glazed and there was a bleeding wound on his forehead. He had no need to buckle up, he was dead.
Sara saw the truck coming down the hill on the opposite side of the highway. It was almost up to her, when it suddenly crossed the highway heading right at her. She swerved off the highway. It swerved right toward her.
Two minutes later Sara's car was crumpled against a tree. The United delivery truck buried in the BMW's side had a shattered windshield. The Latino was slumped over the steering wheel as though he had been the driver. The other man was gone.
copyright © 1998 by Cary Shulman
All Rights Reserved