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Billy Bad Boy Drummond pulled the sporty red Bronco 4X4 into the Retreat's cobblestone courtyard and parked beside an olive green telephone company repair van. He sat in the Bronco for a minute feeling more solid than he'd felt in ages. The drive over from Denver had been gorgeous. There's nothing quite like Colorado in the autumn with the trees changing colors. LA had been hot and smoggy when he'd left, but this...this was like a different solar system. Cuttingly fresh air with all the smells and sounds of nature and peace. He opened the door and breathed a deep lungful of mountain air as he stepped onto the cobblestones.
A twinge of nostalgia, one of the many he'd felt already this morning, assailed him. Those cobblestones had been a year long project of the whole monastery - part of clearing the fields for easier farming. Everybody went out in the fields to gather the round stones that were laying just everywhere. He remembered pondering deeply about why smooth beach stones were all over the fields at this altitude. A real mystery of the world. Recalling a sense of awe when faced with the insoluble paradox, Bad Boy realized he still didn't know the answer to those stones, even though he'd gotten really interested in geology at the time. Even though he'd read Velikovsky and other thinkers on the subject of how things got where they shouldn't be, nobody's theory totally answered the question for him. A real mystery.
Having gathered huge piles of stones, a team of workers under Sam Johnson started on one side of the courtyard, and another team supervised by Sri started on the other, pressing the stones carefully into damp mud, always long side down. Billy hadn't really believed the stones would stay in place, but they had. Twenty years later, they still looked great. There. Billy nodded his head significantly, looking down at a ragged line of smaller stones in the middle of the courtyard where the two teams had met. A line of small stones that showed up the glitch of imperfect spacing. A lot of people had said the teams should both start in the middle, but Sri had insisted that if they planned and executed the spacing right, they could start on the outside like the ancient stone masons did, and meet perfectly in the middle. But their concentration hadn't been perfect; and there it was - a ragged line to prove their lack. A sublime road map of lost attention. The old man was so beautiful, always teaching. Here it was, twenty years later, a story set in stone for anybody to read who knew how.
Billy's anticipation was intense. Since Colorado Springs, he'd been feeling queasy at the thought of facing the old man. Giant butterflies tickled his stomach. This is silly for a pro like me, he decided. I must have more invested here than I know about. What could Sri possibly want? Why would he call me up like that?
Near the kitchen, he saw a young student with his robe tied around his legs, kneeling beside a ten speed bicycle, trying to repair the spokes in the front wheel. His concentration was total. He'd never even looked up when the red Bronco had pulled in. Billy felt a tremendous surge of respect for the young fellow. I could just stay here, he thought. I could apply myself this time, instead of faking it. I could learn to be like that.
"Excuse me," he said to the bicycle repair man. "Sorry to bother you, but do you know where Sri is?"
With absolute peace and tranquility sparkled in his eyes, Norman Ungerer looked up from the chrome wheel rim at the hippie-looking stranger. "He hasn't come back from fishing yet," Norman said, then turned his attention back to the wheel.
"Looks like you could use a hand with that," Billy said. He had once owned a racing bike, which was more for show than anything else. Just an expensive toy. When it went out of alignment, someone else had fixed it.
"I'd love some help," Norman said, guilelessly. "I'm not much of a mechanic."
"I'm not either," Billy confessed, kneeling on the hard cobblestones beside the bike frame.
*
Montclief had tracked the great bear for most of yesterday afternoon before coming upon him high on the shoulder of Mukatee, the next mountain to the north. He saw the great red lump lying in an alpine meadow, and he knew that Sigmoid had come there to die. A bear bent on survival would have made himself a mud wallow beside a brook. The wet mud would suck the poison out of the wound and keep the flies off. But this meadow was too high for a mud wallow. Sigmoid had either collapsed on his way to somewhere else, or he had chosen this spot for his last battle. Approaching cautiously, Montclief saw that his former cavemate was still alive, but very weak. The bright red lung blood had never stopped dripping out. Because of that, the tracking had been easy. Hunkering down in the tall grass a respectable distance away, Montclief spoke. "There's no water up here, old friend."
The great bear grunted. With an effort he raised his head. His black pig-like eyes stared at the yeti. Then tiredly, he lowered his massive head onto his huge forepaws. After a time, the yeti rose and left the meadow. Here the bear would be. Here the hunting party would find him.
*
Montclief related all this to Sri Rainy as they fished the next morning. And he also dropped the anthropological bomb of the century squarely on Rainy's head, or into his brain pan to be more specific. There was going to be a council meeting of the yetis, and Rainy would be invited. Montclief had already sent word. The caucus was scheduled for three nights from now, and the four of them, Yolanda and Chava included, would leave whenever the bear hunt was concluded.
The yeti insisted that Rainy should guide the bear hunting party, that way there would be no slip up, and the hunters would be off the mountain as rapidly as possible. As an added benefit, Rainy would become something of a hero to the local gunslingers and frightened housewives. Maybe that would be useful in the days to come.
With his head spinning, Rainy hid the fishing poles in the hollow tree and limped back down the path to the Retreat. One thing was for sure, he'd have to get himself some proper footgear before he tackled these long hikes. Gruesome hikes, actually. Maybe some of those new featherweight boots he'd seen in the Bean catalogue, or better yet those air cushioned high-topped tennies. Now that could be the ticket to real foot comfort. Didn't the Sherpas all wear something like that in the Himalayas? Correct, they did. Sherpas most certainly knew something about foot comfort. And, if he could catch a ride back over to Clinton, he could get the boots today.
Approaching the Retreat, Rainy experienced great pleasure when he saw not one vehicle, but two, parked in his courtyard. A red jeep wagon and an olive phone company van. Transportation was provided right on schedule. Consider the lilies of the field.... And when he recognized Bad Boy Drummond, with his long black hair now streaked with grey, helping the enigmatic Norman Ungerer to fix his cheap bicycle, tightness caught in Rainy's throat. Very intense tightness. It hurt. Words of greeting jammed up in his chest, unwilling to come out, and his eyes misted over. My God, he was actually emotional about seeing his old student. How unusual. Rainy couldn't even remember the last time his throat had lumped up. Maybe he really was getting old and senile.
"Billy..!!" he exclaimed, limping forward to embrace the boy. Who knows why he wanted to embrace him, he'd never done that before either; but in this case it was the wrong thing to do. The toe of his sandal stubbed on a cobblestone. Screaming pain wrenched through his scabbed over toes. His face contorted into a rictus mask.
Both Billy and Norman witnessed the performance, knowing exactly what had happened when the old fellow went rigid. Those cobblestones were killers. Always had been.
Standing up, Billy smiled his commiseration. "Perfect reminder for staying alert, right, Sri? You certainly look awake now!"
Rainy smiled as the pain level in his toe receded to bearable. "Hello, Billy. Nice of you to come up." He patted the rock star paternally on the shoulder instead of hugging him. It had been a good impulse that hadn't been strong enough to survive the moment. And he also wasn't used to being baited by a student - they all treated him with respect. He remembered now that Billy had always insisted on being treated as an equal, with full pecking rights for making jokes. Right, always the little jokes about awareness and cosmic dildos. It all came back to the front of Rainy's mind. Cosmic dildos. Billy had invented that term to describe any surprising, awakening event. Rainy smiled. Those little jokes which showed a lack of real perception, had put a barrier between Billy and the real thing. Jokes had prevented him from achieving deep realization. And he was still at it. Oh well, he was here, and the task at hand was not cosmic awareness, but shit awareness. Atomic bull crap.
"Yes, I'm awake now," Rainy chuckled. "Rather a fine cosmic dildo, eh? Is that your jeep?"
Norman Ungerer's mouth fell open in a blithering sea of insight. A cosmic dildo! What a genius Sri Rainy was. What a way he had with concepts and words. And how brilliantly funny, too. Enlightenment always had its element of humor, he knew in a flash. What a pleasure to witness him interacting with an older student. He's always so careful with us.
"It's rented, but at your disposal," Billy answered, meaning the Bronco. "What's up, Sri? You planning to have an old home week?"
"Something like that, Billy. Why don't you come into my office, if Mr. Ungerer can make do without you for a few minutes."
Norman smiled to himself at the masterful put-down, pithy but gentle, and went back to the spokes. It was amazing how nice people were being to him lately. That guy, Bill, or Billy as Sri Rainy called him, just came over and started helping. Sri Rainy always said hello now, and even Sister Angie was being nice as pie. It was actually rather amazing.
In a tiny office half the size of his bedroom cell, Sri Rainy kept the records of forty years in a second hand desk that probably was a bona-fide rustic antique by now. The walls of the room were bare save for a seed catalogue calendar and several small needlework tapestries that had been women's projects over the years. The aforementioned records were woefully spotty. He was always very punctilious about getting names and addresses of entering students, and about noting down arrival dates; but how in Hades was he supposed to keep records up-dated after a student had flown the coop? And to be honest about it, sometimes he wasn't aware that a student had left until months after the fact. They drifted into town for an ice cream bar, and forgot to come back. Of course, a lizard like that wouldn't have the spine to announce he was leaving or even drop a note so the records and the food budget could be squared away.
Rainy pointed Billy into a straight chair next to the desk; then opened the old ledger. He found the name under D for Drummond and jotted in today's date. Billy had checked out in 1976. The Bad Boy had made an issue of leaving, Rainy remembered, that's perhaps why the date was written so boldly. Actually, that was a point in his favor from an accounting point of view. Oh, well, the boy seemed happy to be back.
"So how are you, Billy?" Rainy asked, for openers. "You seem older." After noting Billy's flinch, he added, "Still beautifully young, of course. I just meant you're one of the senior people here now."
Mollified by the senior student bit, Billy related a brief history of his financial trials and dissatisfaction with the life he'd been leading. He skirted the issue of Betty Ford and all the coke. Telling the truth when dealing with a spiritual master was completely necessary, but he didn't want to get kicked out on the first day. Sri had always taken a very dim view of dope. Rightly so, of course. Rightly so.
When Billy paused, Rainy broached the subject of half a million years of radiation contamination on the mountain, and his intended battle with the Nuclear Regulation Commission. He enlisted Billy's help in the crusade, which Billy was delighted to agreed to. After all, a fight against tangible evil is a simpler matter than self-development. Soul searching could wait. Rainy went on to tell him about the bear hunt and his need for new boots, but managed to leave out the part about yetis. No need to alert the world to that issue at present.
Their conversation was interrupted by the telephone installer tapping on the door frame, asking permission to drill a little hole in the wall in order to run the line inside. He had already finished the drop from the pole out by the road and was ready to hook up the phone.
Rainy was annoyed at the thought of a hole in the wall where the cold winter wind could whisk inside, and he was more annoyed at having to pay a phone bill every month. But he needed the contraption, he reminded himself. This was the modern age, and he had to be able to rally his forces. "Can't you just run the cord in over the window sill?" he asked.
"Sure can, sir," Ace Bessemer, the lineman, replied. "Good idea. I was worried about using up all my drill bits on your wall anyway. Won't take a minute and you'll be all hooked up."
Rainy had barely reemphasized his need for new footgear to Billy, and was getting Billy's impressions on the merits of hiking boots versus tennis shoes, when they heard a high-pitched drilling outside the window. Sri Rainy limped swiftly across to the said window and tried to open it. It was firmly stuck as always, so he had to put his back into the effort. He had intended the lineman to open the window.
"Almost got it, Mr. Rainy," Ace yelled into the room. "No sweat. This sill wood is pretty cottony." He meant it was rotten, but saying it was cottony didn't frighten people as much as the word rotten did. The long drill bored through the sill and poked out inside, missing Rainy by a foot or so. "Got her," Ace exclaimed, delightedly. "Boy, this is my lucky day. That cottony wood was the second real good thing that happened already today."
"What was the first?" Rainy inquired dryly, knowing he would hear about it anyway.
"I ain't gonna lose my job! They was gonna lay two guys off down to the company because, you know, just about everybody up here has got a phone if they're ever gonna get one. Then we got news of this new mine opening. So they ain't gonna lay Fred and me off just yet, till they find out how soon it's gonna happen. That's about the best news I've had in awhile. Sure would hate to be out of work with winter coming on."
"Good for you," Rainy said. The repository would create jobs, he hadn't thought that part through clearly. The townies would be gulled into loving the project. He had to strike quickly to snuff it before the word got out. Shit, it was already out, who was he kidding? Esther had probably blabbed it all over town. Damn it! "Just put the phone on the desk," he said to Ace Bessemer. "I have to run into Clinton for awhile."
"Sure thing, Mr. Rainy. She'll be done in no time."
(End of Sample)
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