A Single Eye (25 page)

“Hurry!”

I ran through the rain to the kitchen for a thermos of coffee. Barry was at the far end leaning over the side of his conching machine. If he noticed me at all, he must have assumed I was filling Leo's thermos.

As I hurried down to the truck I began having second thoughts. I was trusting Justin because I didn't trust anyone else. What did I know about him, except that Leo let him to come to sesshin to make things easier for Amber? And Leo had been wrong about him. Still, he wasn't an old-timer. He hadn't been here at the opening. That made me breathe more easily.

Justin was already behind the wheel when I arrived. I climbed in beside him and handed him the thermos. The overhead light blinked, turning Justin's shaved head into a beige light bulb with deep-set eyes and long narrow nose that threw his mouth in shadow. The truck smelled of damp and of cacao beans and in the dark it seemed filled with Leo in his knit cap, talking about his plastic forks collected from truck stops all the way to Canada.

In the driver's seat Justin was pouring coffee. I had guessed black for the coffee—he was a no cream, no sugar guy if I ever saw one—and when he unscrewed the top he gave a brisk nod of approval. He poured a bit in the cup, handed it to me, and took a swallow from the thermos.

I'd paid no more than cursory attention to him before, but now I surveyed him: Late twenties, average height, but short-waisted so that sitting he appeared smaller than he was. His lean body looked to be not the result of exercise or even heredity but of a predilection for self-denial. His clothes, though, fit well and were not the second-hand garb of those who disdain Mammon. The anorak looked new, and too warm an item for the mild winters of San Francisco. But, although he'd obviously bought it for this fortnight, it was a mite snug. There would be no room under it for an extra sweater to insulate against the cold, no chance of his stoic form being overlooked. This type of garment always came in olive, khaki, and navy, but he had chosen a dark burnt orange that suited his Nordic skin and set off his blue eyes. Stoic on the outside; but what on the inside?

I sipped the coffee he'd shared automatically. There was no one else to trust with our only vehicle
and
Leo's health, and yet . . . What was he inside?

“Justin, have you been here before?”

“Not since the opening.”

Oh, rats!

“The opening? When the Japanese roshis came to open the monastery?
You
were there? But you weren't in the picture.”

“I
took
the pictures. Because I wasn't a real Zen student.”

After six years, his bitterness came through. I clutched the truck keys tighter. Who else was there to ask—

“Someone had to drive Amber,” he was saying. “She wasn't old enough, and her dad had just had heart surgery. I didn't think they would let Amber come all this way with me—my wheels were even worse than this.” He nodded at the truck. “I thought if they agreed at all, they would make us take their Oldsmobile, regardless of what a goon I would have looked like behind the wheel. I mean, there is a reason those rolling couches were called
Old
smobiles. But they didn't blink; they were so hot to see how Aeneas was doing up here, they would have let us come on a scooter.”

“Because they were worried about Aeneas?” I repeated.

The only people I knew up here I couldn't trust. To find another driver I'd have to start plucking guys from the zendo on faith. Who looked like a car nut? Who was strong enough to push a truck in the mud? Who!

“Yeah, I mean, before Aeneas hooked up with meditation it was like he'd been dropped on earth from another dimension. Like he knew he was in an alien society. Our rules had no meaning to him. He could see Reality, of course, but no one knew that. To his family, to everyone, he was a guy going wacko.”

“But when he was up here, he fitted in?”

“His parents couldn't fucking believe it. It was like a miracle. I didn't realize then how desperate they were to be reassured. They didn't blink at the pile of tin I was driving. That tells you how frantic they were, because a month later when I wanted to come back they wouldn't let Amber come with me, even though I had a Jag.”

“You don't think that's the reason?”

From San Francisco to here was five hours, ending in miles of sharply curving two-lane blacktop that was the Switchback of Temptation for the sports car driver.

“The thing is,” Justin was saying, “Amber was just a kid. It was not like there was anything between us. I was seventeen. In a year I would be away at Cornell on the other side of the continent, and she'd still be in junior high school.”

“But she wanted to drive up here with you in your Jag.”

“Yeah. Maybe it was the car; maybe it was just getting away from her parents for a couple days.”

Maybe it was already him? But I was too—too what? sorry for? angry for? ashamed for? Amber to suggest that possibility if it hadn't occurred to him. If I hadn't been so worried about Roshi, if it hadn't been six in the morning, I would have had trouble fighting off the urge to shake him silly for not seeing that he'd been the only stable thing in Amber's young life, little as that had been.

Yet, he had driven her here when she needed it. And now, six years later, he was still around. So, despite anything else, he was responsible, right? That was the important thing—a responsible guy who would fetch the doctor for Leo. Right? The end justifies the means, right?

Wrong! In stunt work you learn pronto that the end definitely does not justify the means. Sloppy means can kill you.

Justin twisted the stopper back in the thermos and held his hand out for the keys.

What
was
underneath his shaved head and stoic garb?
Why was it so important to you to come back here now?
I wanted to say.
Did you do it for Amber? Do you care more about her than is apparent?

He turned to face me for the first time, leaning in toward me with sudden eagerness. The last time I'd seen that ilk of posture was when I'd made the mistake of asking, “Just what are the twelve steps?”

“Aeneas was the most amazing Zen student I'd ever seen,” he said in a voice high with excitement. “Before the opening there was a three-day sitting, tangario. In tangario students sit nonstop—no breaks, no kinhin, three days. Maureen and Rob sat a lot of it. Roshi sat more. Amber and I and a bunch of other people sat a couple periods. But Aeneas sat the entire thing. I mean the
entire
thing. It was amazing, inspiring. I would have followed him to Japan—”

“
If
he'd gone to Japan,” I put in.

Ignoring my comment, he said, “Aeneas was Enlightened, like the Buddha. No one understood that. He didn't need to be like ordinary men, to waste his time in school learning unimportant things so that he could spend the rest of his life selling his time for money. He already knew what Life was.”

Oh, rats! A fanatic!

“Here, he was like a prince walking among beggars. People here were so ignorant they didn't realize what they had in their midst. The Japanese roshis saw it though. That's why they took him back to Japan—”

“But they didn't, Justin! They didn't take him to Japan.”

His head gave a quick shake and he looked toward me as if for the first time.

“Aeneas didn't go to Japan, Justin,” I repeated.

“He didn't go to that specific monastery, the one Leo thought he'd been at. We don't
know
he's not in Japan.”

“We don't know he's not on Mars.”

Automatically my fist tightened over the keys. How could I possibly trust Leo's life to this fanatic?

“The postcard service is bad from Mars.”

In the dim light I could make out the suggestion of a smile. I gave him major points for that, took a deep breath and reminded myself: fanaticism does not mean you can't handle a pickup. Au contraire. A knowledgeable fanatic is better than a sane person who can't drive off pavement.

I quizzed, “Justin, the road's muddy. What if you get stuck?”

“There're boards in the bed. I'll slip them under the back wheels, I'll rock 'er.” He turned, and in the foggy predawn light looked to be staring me in the eye, “Trust me, I've kept that old Jag running for years. I can drive this thing. I've been through the town. What do you need?”

I sighed. He had passed my test, albeit with a D minus. I trusted him, in theory. Still, I held out the keys tentatively, as if I was offering Roshi's stricken body.

“Get a doctor for Roshi.”

“Done! There's a drugstore in town. They'll know the doctor. I'll catch him before he's got a chance to leave home. I'll have him back here by lunch.”

Justin snatched the keys, stuck them in the ignition, and started the engine on the first try. The old yellow truck that had grumbled along the road with Leo now hummed eagerly. As I jumped out, the overhead light showed the face not of a fanatic but of a car-guy off on an adventure. Justin whipped the truck back, turned it toward the road, and headed out, gliding from high point to high point as he skirted the potholes.

It was like the truck had been reborn, reincarnated into a new, four-wheel drive model not to be fazed by wind, water, rock, or tree. The question was not whether Justin would snag the doctor, only how soon he'd get him back to Leo. It was twenty after six now. By lunch Leo would have a stethoscope on his chest.

For the first time since I'd arrived at Redwood Canyon Monastery I breathed in deeply and felt my shoulders relax. I smiled.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

I
glided back to Roshi's cabin, feeling the soft rain on my face as if it were sunshine. He was asleep, but that frantic thrashing had ceased and he lay curled on his side snoring like a little pink piglet. Even the fire required minimal stoking. It was as if the cosmos was trying to make up for the miseries of yesterday. I smiled at his safe, sleeping, soon-to-be-healed form, walked out his door and was back in the zendo for the last zazen period before breakfast.

“When sitting zazen, be alert! Hear the farthest sound,” Yamana-roshi often said. He meant it as a way to keep from getting carried off by the maelstrom of thoughts, to sit in silence just listening. In the Ninth Street Zendo with trucks rattling and cabs screeching, buses groaning and cars slamming on brakes, listening to sounds was a given, but hearing the distant sounds behind the traffic noise was a challenge. Here, now, it was no problem to listen beyond the rain on the roof, to the swish of leaves, the creak of a branch, to cock my ears for the first, distant sound of the truck on the road bringing the doctor. It was way too soon for Justin to have made it to town, much less back again, but still I sifted every sound.

At breakfast hour, Roshi woke up long enough to swallow four spoonfuls of watery oatmeal, and I could have cheered. I was beginning to wonder if I had panicked sending for the doctor and if Roshi would chew me out. It would be a small price to pay.

At the after-breakfast break I slept the sleep of the relieved. And when it came time for the lecture, I found I was actually looking forward to hearing Rob.

I don't know what I expected him to say, but it definitely wasn't what he did.

He sat in the front seat, on a raised platform, a
tan
, like the rest of us. Just like Roshi, he adjusted his robes, pulling, tucking, shifting the layers as the ashy-sweet smell of incense wafted through the room. Each skirt had to be spread over his crossed legs and tucked in under his knees. The flap of his okesa, the black outer robe that went over his shoulder sari-like, needed another pull. Then the whole thing had to be checked again. Finally he rocked side to side, eyes shut, finding the center of balance. He did exactly what the Roshi had done, but he did it more precisely. What surprised me was that the effect was not persnicketyness, but rather that of an attentive performance.

I glanced across the zendo at Maureen. Her brow was wrinkled as if she was judging the aesthetics. All robes and no heart?

Barry sat next to her, eyes closed, head drooping, either on the verge of sleep or caught up in thoughts of criollo beans. Or maybe the Big Buddha Bakery?