Chicago--Part 7

I slowly stood, suddenly feeling every eye on me.  Paul chose this moment to creep forward and pull the trashcan out of the center. 

            “In Leopold’s old life, he was a police officer.”  Solomon spoke to the group, but turned toward me.  “Would you like to tell us more about why you left that life to join us, Leopold?” 

            “I.  Uh.  Sure.”  I said feeling the blood race into my face.  Had I told him about being a cop?  “I joined the force a little bit after high school.  And everything seemed to be going great, until a little bit ago.  Someone killed an ex-girlfriend of mine.  Really brutally.  I mean, they tortured and…”  A couple people groaned, and someone gasped.  “Sorry.  I forget that others aren’t used to that kind of thing.”  I took a breath and tried to figure out where I was going with this.  “I don’t know.  I really wanted to catch that person.  I wanted to set things right.  And I couldn’t.” 

            I felt my hands clench and my body begin to sweat.  I hadn’t really talked about it, but I felt like I was about to let everything out.  I was suddenly back at the crime scene.  I could see her body wrenched apart.  Her body torn and broken, left lifeless.  The stomach that I had laid my head on as we talked about the future, was bruised and burnt.  The neck I kissed and tickled was swollen and scraped.  Her once-beautiful face was unrecognizable.  And the person who did this was out there still.

            “It made me feel so helpless that I could not help her.  That this woman I loved died and I was not there.  I mean, we had our problems.  I was not good for her.  We weren’t good for each other.  But that’s beside the point—“

            “Leopold.”  Solomon cut me off softly, and paused for a second.  “None of that matters.  As you will learn, that was you last life.  As we’ve all seen with James, that life is tough to give up.  But the first step is realizing, intellectually, that you are not your brother’s keeper.  You have years of training and instinct telling you otherwise, so this may be hard for you to accept.  But the truth of the situation is that the person who committed these regrettable acts, he is a symptom of the problems.  He is someone who has lost in the system of competition, and he is someone that could be saved if everyone would accept our teachings.”

            He looked knowingly in my eyes, as if he was waiting for my reaction.  I opened my mouth to speak, but could only stutter.  “I-I.  Mindy.”  Suddenly my throat clenched as if it would not allow any sound to get out.

            “You cared deeply for her.  But look at you now.  Look where your caring has brought you.  Look where your quest to catch this man has brought you.  It has brought you to misery.  It made you run from the city you called your home into a city with which you have no connection.”  He paused.  “But luckily it brought you here.  Where you can be healed.  Where you can be accepted.  Where you do not have to continue to compete.  Where you can lay that burden down.” 

            Standing there with everyone looking at me, I suddenly smiled. 

            Solomon returned my smile graciously.  “Freedom isn’t playing their rigged game, it’s accepting that you cannot win and therefore should not play.  Freedom is accepting your bondage, the role you can play here.  By accepting yourself as a member of this community, you are giving up all connections to the outside world.  You are a member of this group and nothing more.  You aren’t responsible for anyone else.  You don’t have to continually strive for more and lose.  The feelings of helplessness will subside, because here you are not trying to be anything other than a member of our community.  You can just relax and be.  Just be.” 

            I felt a flush in my cheeks.  I felt heat in my face and then it radiated down my spine and throughout my body.  My throat opened and I felt a sudden cooling sensation on my neck.  I looked around and saw every face smiling up at me. 

            “Can you accept that?”  Solomon asked.

            “I think I can,” I said quietly.

            “Good,” he said with a smile.

            That night, following a meal of an oatmeal-type sludge mixed with prunes (apparently staying regular is very important part of the group), we all went to bed silently.  There had been some idle chit chat, but no one spoke about what we saw at the offering.  It was hard for me to tell if this was a normal part of things or if this was different from the normal pace of things. 

            As I crawled into bed, I laid my head down still seeing James’s face as he watched his wife’s smiling face burn in the trash can.  I turned on my side and closed my eyes.  I took a deep breath and let it out, feeling happy to be in a place where I could forget about everything that had happened in Des Moines.  A new start, I thought as I drifted into the first deep sleep I could remember having in a long time. 

            Sometimes I am extremely stupid.  I’ve learned to accept that about myself, but I cannot say how it pops up will still surprise me.

Chicago--Part 6

The crowd thinned out at 11:30 AM, which seemed ungodly late for breakfast.  But young kids, had to be just out of college, were still sitting there playing with their pancakes and French toast.  They all wore sweat pants, the men had their baseball caps turned backward, covering their hair which had not been combed.  They wore jerseys, sweatshirts, and t-shirts, most of which were smudged with crusted ketchup and mustard.  The women all wore make-up, their hair done in pony-tails that tried to look casual.  I was pretty sure it was only Thursday, but these young people lounged like they had nowhere to be. 

            After the last of them left, we cleaned.  We cleaned the tables and walls with soapy wet rags.  We cleaned the floors with mops dosed with bleach.  We cleaned griddle with water and spatulas.  We cleaned the sidewalk outside with brooms and rakes, shoveling “unnecessary debris” into black trash bags.  We pulled the weeds that were barely budding from cracks in the sidewalks.  We cleaned the bathrooms.  We cleaned the simple table linens.  We cleaned the sparkling windows.  We cleaned and cleaned until every surface, sparkled, shined or shimmered.  All the work was done without any conversation, except for Stephen coming over to tell me to use more cleaning solvent and to work harder, quieter and faster. 

            And eventually, everyone came to a stop at pretty much the same time, except me.  I was still hauling garbage outside, when a couple more men came up to help me and we finished up.  Heading back from the dumpster behind the building, I said, “I’m famished, what’s for lunch?”

            The man next to me smiled, looked at my face and said, “Meditation,” without breaking his stride.  I rubbed my belly and followed the crowd as they lined up and headed downstairs into the basement.  Leaving the day’s sun, we filed past a thick door, down a set of stairs and into a room that was lit only by candles.  Already sitting in the front of the room was Solomon, who by the looks of things had been meditating for a while already.  He sat on a wooden chair, his arms rigidly bracing the rest of his body as it seemed to crumble against those arms.  I would’ve thought he was a corpse if not for the ropes of muscles that strained under his robe.  But hearing us approach, he seemed to stir.  His eyes slowly opened and his body seemed to come back to life. 

            “Apostles come to me.”  He said almost lazily.

            “We come thirsty for knowledge.  Thirsty for life.”  The rest of the group said united as I looked on.  I shifted again. 

            “Then sit and accept what the world willingly offers.”  Solomon shifted in his seat, and opened his arms to the room as if offering them the chairs that sat in a circle around the room.  I sat with everyone else, Candice took the seat to my right.  “Who has an offering?”

            The room sat silent for a moment until an older man began.  His quiet voice suddenly filled the room.  “I don’t really know how to say this.  Master Solomon, you have been so kind to me.  And I have been trying so hard.”

            “James,” Solomon started.  “You have no need to preface your offering.  You can say whatever you want here.  You know that.”

            “It’s just that I don’t think I’m doing very well here.  I don’t miss my life.  Ever since my wife died, I just.  Well, you know, sir.  You’ve been with me almost every day since then.  And most days have been great.  I love our work.  I love my place in this community.  I love not being a part of that painful, cruel world.  But today is the two year anniversary.  And I know I should have left all of that behind.  I know that her death is not a part of my life anymore.  I know our life, the life we were building was wrong.  It was based on competition and I’m not aching to go back to that.  But still, sir.  I ache.  I ache to feel her hand on my chest and to hear her soft snores when  I sleep.  I ache to hold her again, or to argue with her.  Or anything.  I just ache.” 

            There was a moment of silence as Solomon took in James’s words.  The moment stretched uncomfortably until Solomon rose.  He walked over to James, slowly, placing a hand on his shoulder.  He leaned in, wrapped his other arm around James and put his lips next to James’s ear.  Solomon stayed in that position closely and, from where I was, it was impossible to know whether Solomon was whispering or not.  But after a very long moment the two came apart.  James was wearing a contented smile on his face and mouthing appreciative words.

            As Solomon turned, James left the room quickly.  “The words I shared with James were for him alone.  But his predicament is like what many of you are dealing with, I believe.  James is dealing with problems that continue to follow him from his former life.  He has tried to detach from that world, but has found that harder than he expected.”  Solomon strode slowly back to his chair at the front of the room, but continued to stand.  After taking a couple deep breathes, he spoke again, his back still toward us. 

            “We all had lives before we came here.  None of us are free of the baggage the world heaps on all of us as we progress from youth into adulthood, and as we try to become that elusive something.  That something that  will give us everything we want.  Whether it’s becoming a great husband, or getting that great job.  Of finding the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood.  There’s always that something you’re supposed to get.  And what happens when you get that elusive something?  You start to concentrate on getting the thing that comes after it.  You’ve got a spouse?  Now you need a house.  Then a baby.  Then another baby.  But first you need a good job, which will lead you to another job, and then another.  You’re on the treadmill, being pushed through life.  You can’t choose the next job, because you bought the bigger house, so you need to take the one that pays the most.  Not to mention that being paid more is a big stroke to your ego.  But you’re all here because you know how hard—cruel in fact—that life is.”

            He fell silent again as footsteps could be heard coming down the steps.  James came back inside holding something in his hand.  “What we seek to teach, to instill in you, is the ability to choose to get off.  You all have the ability to make that choice.  It is hard, no doubt.  It requires a great deal of discipline.  It requires learning how to live, and part of that learning process is sacrifice.  To fulfill his offering, James has decided to show us all about sacrifice.”  

            James came to the center of the circle and held out his hand.  Solomon turned around and signaled with his left hand.  Paul came forward with a metal trashcan.  “James, tell us all what it is you’ve brought before us.”

            “I brought,” James started with a huff of energy, “a photograph.  My last photograph of my wife.”

            Two chairs away, a woman gasped, but Solomon held up his hand to calm her. 

            “I know Rebecca.  You were all told when you joined that you had to give up all your connections to the outside world.  This includes photographs of loved ones.  James and I have talked about it, and I have known for a while that he harbored this picture.  And I allowed it, hoping that James would soon become ready to give it up.  And tonight, I believe James is ready to take that step here with all of us.” 

              While Solomon spoke, Paul set the trashcan beside James and handed him a box of matches. 

            “Is that right James,” Solomon continued.  “Are you ready tonight to leave your last connection to the world behind?”

            “I am, sir.”  James said with a small crack in his voice.  He had retracted his left hand to his chest, holding the picture close to him.  He looked down at it and ran his the index finger of his right hand over the surface, the box of matches held in by his remaining fingers.  His eyes began to well up, but James bent at his knees and gently laid the picture in the bottom of the basket.  His shaking hands pulled out a match and struck the match once, then twice, then a third time before fire jumped from the end with crack.  His hand fumbled with the matchstick for a couple seconds before the ignited match seemed to fall.  Smoke almost immediately rose from the trashcan as a tear fell from James’s face onto the cement floor below.

            “James, you may sit now.  Thank you for giving to this community.  Thank you for completely embracing your new start.  It is not easy to accept.  After a lifetime of being told to compete, to accumulate friends and other things, but the truth is that life only brings misery.”  The room sat quietly, as most watched as the smoke slowly ebbed and then stopped.  Finally Solomon spoke again.  “Most of you know we have a new member.  Leopold, please stand.”  

This had to be good.