Dukkha Unloaded. Loren W. Christensen
Son. I also wish you two could have had more time together.”
“I look forward to more times,” I say. Silly words. Meaningless, but they convey my love.
He nods; the gesture also meaningless, but it takes in my love. Father knows a thousand quotations for a thousand situations but he is at a loss for this one.
“How is your school?” he says. “You said you were anxious to check on it.”
“I taught two classes this evening. Trained a little, worked up a sweat, cleaned out the cobwebs.”
“Very good. The martial arts are a constant we can always return to, no? A place for us to take comfort; a place for us to seek; a place for us to find; a place for us to vent; and sometimes it is a place for us to hide. I am sorry we did not train more while you were here.”
“I got lots of practical experience,” I say without humor. “One of my new students is a kenpo black belt and a veteran of Afghanistan. I think he’s troubled by something that happened to him in the war. He said something about choosing my school because he thinks we shared similar experiences. I think he thinks I can help him.”
“Then help him, Son. You have been through much. Share what you have learned with him. Buddha said a thousand candles could be lit from a single one. And lighting the thousand will not shorten the life of the one.”
“I’m not sure if I’m ready.”
“You are. Chödrön says, ‘We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.’ I have told you about Pema Chödrön before. She is one of my favorite modern day Buddhist teachers. She also says, ‘Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.’ I believe you are at the door, Son. There is still darkness in you, but just keep opening the door to let in the light.”
“Yes, sir,” I say. “I will do what I can. I think he is a good man. Oh, one other thing. I have a tough decision to make. I’ve been offered a job in our Intelligence Unit. There have been a lot of hate crimes going on here in the last couple weeks and they want to get a jump on it. I’d be out of the public eye doing mostly intelligence gathering. I’d still have to carry a gun but …” I look away from the screen and Father’s gaze for a moment. I swallow and look back. His face is neutral. “I don’t know. If I were to pull the trigger again, to use your words, I’d be in darkness forever. But I feel compelled to take the position. Man, I’m so screwed up.”
Father lifts his eyebrows as if he’s surprised at what I just said. “You want some cheese with your whine, Son? We have talked about this before. You know the answer. You have already decided.” He tilts his head as if trying to peer around my defenses, which I’m sure he is. “Have you seen the woman doctor yet?”
“Yes.”
“Helpful?”
I nod.
“Son, I can see in your eyes the answer is within you. Reach in and extract it, no matter how painful or frightening it might be. He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes making me feel like a girlyman. “What time is it there, Son?”
“Almost eight thirty.”
“Make your decision by ten,” he snaps, his eyes loving, stern, a father telling his son to man up.
“Okay.”
“Talk to you later,” he says, standing. He disappears from the screen. Mai reappears. I hear the door close.
I raise my eyebrows. “He’s such a funster.”
“I do not know your word, Sam, but so many times he is right.”
“When was the last time he was wrong?”
“He did not think you and I were a good idea,” she says.
I laugh. “I remember. Gave us a hard time didn’t he? And he was wrong.”
She smiles, which nearly burns up my screen. “Yes, he was. And he has admitted it to me.”
“Really?” I say, feeling like a lovesick teenager learning his girlfriend’s father approves.
Mai smiles. “Cool, huh?”
Chien looks up at her on the screen and at me. She meows and settles her head back next to the mouse.
“Definitely,” I say grinning. Next, we’ll be talking about our big math test on Friday and which brand of acne cream is best.
“But, Sam, all he said to you just now?”
“Yes?”
“For what it is worth, whatever you decide, I’m with you.”
I nod, and stroke the top of Chien’s head.
* * *
I’m leaning on my bedroom windowsill looking out at the night. Over the four years I’ve owned this house, I’ve made all my big decisions right here: where to bury my mother; whether I should take the test to become a detective; whether to refinance my school; whether to go through with my promise to Mai and go to Saigon. Then there was the crazy time I decided I would never ever step foot out of this house again. I’d convinced myself if I did I would most assuredly kill again. Not all my decisions have been good ones.
Maybe it’s because it’s a bedroom window, a place where I’m tired, groggy, and vulnerable in my underwear. Or maybe it’s my reflection in the glass looking back and compelling me to decide. With me looking back at me waiting for me to make up my mind, I feel the need to please the face in the glass.
Should be in a country western song. Oh, my wife left me, and took my pickup and my dog. Now I got to please the sad man in the mirror and decide what I want to fight for: my truck or my dog? Needs work but, hey, it’s not too bad.
I turn my head to the left and my reflection turns to its right. I turn to my right and my reflection turns to its left. Man, would I crap a brick if my reflection turned in the opposite direction. Okay, I’d better decide before the face looking back at me drives me over the edge of what little sanity I’m using to navigate.
Thinking … thinking … Done.
And it’s only nine fifty-five.
CHAPTER THREE
Louise pulled her hood tighter around her face so only her patched eye, her good eye, and her nose peeked out. She pressed herself back against the old brick building at Third and Couch in a feeble attempt to stay warm on this unusually crisp June morning.
Since the police cars and ambulance had left a couple of hours earlier—there had been a stabbing on the corner—she had been standing with her back to the wall watching the traffic volume change from sporadic to heavy. Seven blocks to the north, commuters exited off the Steel Bridge onto Third and, though the three-lane, one-way street had a speed limit of 25 MPH, nearly every motorist went at least 35 to get through skid row and on to the chrome and glass high-rise district on the south side of Burnside. Only the old timers still called it “skid row.” The modernettes, as she called them, called it “Old Town,” as more and more art galleries and unique eateries occupied the former flophouses and ass kickin’ taverns.
Ocnod’s death had shocked Louise, not because he had died but by the way he died. Death happened almost daily on skid row’s streets, and as a long time resident, she had seen a lot of it. Many of her friends had frozen to death or died of tuberculosis, but lots of others had died at the hands of another down-and-outer. Clara’s death was from a two-by-four smashed across her forehead; Wade and Johnny got it from knives; Ol’ Ed got himself pushed out the 6th-floor window of the Free Clinic; and Big Danny got himself shot to death. She witnessed that one. No, death wasn’t anything new to her, but ol’ Ocnod’s death was horrifying. Hung from a lamppost. She shook her head and tucked her gloved hands into her armpits.
Her eye watched a shiny black BMW pull to the curb. She frowned as the 30-something retrieved an electric