Luminarium (39 page)

“Who would watch it?”

“No one.”

There was a light in Manny’s eyes as he said this, charged yet lucid, which, more than the words themselves, made Fred wonder.

The walkway ended. Manny led them through a concession area into the park’s transgenic hybrid of urban downtown and outdoor mall. They made a slow loop around the carefully orchestrated chaos of lights and music—taking in the NASCAR and NBA restaurants; the Hard Rock Cafe; the fountain around which people sat gaping up at music videos on giant screens; the Endangered Species store; the Bob Marley A Tribute to Freedom nightclub; the person-sized Spider-Man, Betty Boop, and Shaggy from
Scooby-Doo
cutouts; and out across the water, the company’s emblem,
UNIVERSAL
, and the globe around which it wrapped, transformed from a mere image to a physical thing, as gigantic as ever it appeared on any screen. Manny remained uncharacteristically silent during these few minutes, gazing around serenely.

“So I’ve heard you’ve attained nirvana or something?” Fred mumbled.

“Attained nonattainment!” Manny answered, gaze keen.

“So what’s that mean, then, exactly?”

“It means beyond attachment, Freddy. Beyond the vicious cycle of desire and aversion.” He wheeled an arm back at the artificial river ahead at the plaza. “Beyond the slum of human reality. It means
free
, Freddy. Just free.”

That half-amazed, half-amused expression might have been a remnant of shock treatment, might have been Stanislavskian immersion, might have been the actual experience of something approaching that freedom of which he spoke. It occurred to Fred he’d never met an enlightened person, that he was aware of. He didn’t have much basis for comparison.

“At least I think so,” Manny said. “None of those monks over there spoke very good English. We communicated mainly by slaps. Hey. Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. Let’s go there. They’ve got good fries.”

Manny picked out two free stools at the bar, under a massive sail, and ordered his fries. Fred ordered a margarita from the fifty-gallon, blender-shaped plastic tank over the register. As the drink was being prepared, Manny positioned the videocamera—which for all Fred knew had never been turned off—on the bar between them, propping its front end up with a stack of folded napkins so that it pointed at Fred’s face. The irritation this caused him was so small a drop in the ocean of his misery that it didn’t seem worth fighting. He asked for another margarita before picking up and draining the first. Only after he did so did he realize he’d just spent his last ten dollars. Turning his wallet upside down, he shook the bill out onto the bar. There’d be no choice now but to give in to the hospital’s continual calls for George to be moved to a long-term-care facility, self-storage for the not-quite-dead. And even there, the fees would be staggering.

“So … enlightenment—how does it happen?” he asked. Maybe he just wanted to punish himself.

Instantly, Manny slammed his palm on the bar’s copper surface. Fred started, his fluorescent yellow drink slopping onto his shirt and motorcycle jacket.

“Like that,” Manny said. “It’s a shock. Then eventually, they transfer the Buddha Mind Seal to you.” He made a gesture with clutched fingers in front of Fred’s eyes, resembling, more than anything, the Vulcan Mind Meld. “But to start, you’ve got to penetrate the
mu.
”

He gave Fred a significant look. Behind him, on a projection screen, Jimmy Buffet himself sang into a mic and strummed a guitar. Higher up toward the ceiling, the propellers of a suspended seaplane spun with a hypnagogic slowness.

“The mu?” Fred asked.

“The monk Joshu was telling his disciples how buddhanature was present in all things. One of his disciples asked, ‘Is it also to be found in a dog?’ And Joshu replied: ‘mu.’”

Fred waited for more. Manny, however, was already elsewhere, picking up his camera and zooming in, with a phallically extending lens, on a table of women under a thatched umbrella. “Tits tits tits,” he said, then, turning back to Fred: “It’s very simple. This isn’t real.”

For an unearthly moment, they stared at each other, that giddiness Fred had felt seeing the realtor cupping the daughter’s shoulder returning. It almost made sense, he thought. How could this crass, shimmering place—how could any of this—be real?

“It’s not
not
real,” Manny added.

Fred was still nodding, trying to understand. Manny continued staring into him, judging his readiness.

“It’s not
both
not real
and
not
not
real,” Manny elucidated.

Fred chased the words, fighting the despair.

Manny tictocked his finger. “It’s not
neither
not real
nor
not
not
real.”

“Just … tell me why life sucks so much,” Fred said.

Manny fixed him with that peculiar eye-light. “What are you talking about? This is the Pure Land. Hey,” he spread his arms wide, “Paradise.”

The flashing gelled lights positioned above the bar reflected off Manfred’s bald head, now red, now yellow, now blue.

“You guys are incredible,” Manny went on. “A year ago, George asked me the same thing.”

“He … he did?”

“Same fuckin’ words, just about. ‘Manny, why does life suck so much? Manny, why can’t I get what I want?’”

“Why couldn’t he?” Fred said, dizzy from the alcohol and lights, nearly slipping off his stool. “Why can’t I?”

“So change what you want.”

“Who can want failure?” Fred shouted. “Who can want misery?”

“So stop wanting.”

“How can I stop wanting?”

“So stop being.”

“What do you mean? Kill myself?”

“Whoa,” said the bartender, a sunburned guy with a gold necklace and open Hawaiian shirt, as he set Manfred’s fries on the bar, “no suicide in Margaritaville. Wasting away only. It’s in the charter.”

“No self, no problem,” Manny said, with a placid smile.

“Is that what you told
him
?” Fred said, his voice giving out.

Manny’s expression changed, sad and happy at once, it seemed. “I didn’t know what to tell him. That’s why I had to go join the monks. Fries?”

Fred waved the proffered basket away. Placing it in front of himself, Manny tucked a napkin into his sweatshirt, bent his head, and began to eat. Methodically, one by one, he conveyed the fries to their destination. He didn’t rush or overfill his mouth, but made rapid progress nonetheless, without a wasted movement or lapse of attention. A mesmerizing calm, the first gentle breezes of a stupor, perhaps, descended upon Fred as he watched.

In two minutes, the basket was empty and Manny looked up.

“Swallow the mu, Fred.
Become
mu. Figure it out, OK?”

“How?” Fred could barely mouth the question.

Manny took in a deep breath, fixed Fred with a fiery stare, and pursing his lips, whispered in a long exhalation:

“Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

As Manfred blew, around him, Fred could see the unearthly glare coming back, lighting up the margarita tank, the party lights, the saltrimmed glasses, the laughing, flirting, gabbing crowd—all of it already gone, here forever, both at once.

“Do it,” Manny said.

Fred blinked. The glare had vanished.

“Go ahead,” Manny coaxed.

“Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu,” Fred whispered.

“Yeah. That’s it. Just keep doing that inside your head.”

“For how long?”

Manny considered. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On how long it takes. Will you do that?”

Fred considered. “I doubt it.” He could dive into the margarita mixer, he thought, be whirled to a pulp.

“They have a saying. If there is doubt, doubt hard.”

“
Doubt hard?
”

Manny nodded, eyes electric again. “Doubt coming and doubt going. Only when the Ball of Doubt has been smashed”—he slammed his palm down, sending Fred’s drink sloshing once more—“can Great Faith arise!”

Trying to wake up, as usual, he’s just wound up in some dream city.
Done on the cheap. No streetlights, no people, its tallest spires no taller than him. He can barely walk on these darkened, spongy streets, every step a potential fall involving a series of lurches and counterlurches. He can’t even stand properly; even the plazas are crazily banked. His club, each time he raises it to swing, throws him off balance. And these two shabby towers in front of him—the powers that be aren’t even bothering to keep this dreamworld up to date.

No matter, he’s doing it for them, winding up and releasing, again, again, again, smashing the pair to pieces.

Fred awoke to the sound of a door catching on a deadbolt. The maid, checking to see if he was out yet. He was beyond nauseated. He would have paid to be properly nauseated, instead of what he was—it felt like he’d been turned inside out, like all of his skin were on the inside simmering in stomach acid and all his nerves and bones were scraping against the sheets. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten back here. The last thing he could remember—aside from that awful dream—was wasting away with Manfred in Margaritaville. Fred had never had a memory lapse from drinking before. Maybe he’d never been quite that drunk. The gap was scary to contemplate; though, on the other hand, here he was, on the verge of retching but otherwise all right. The clock by the bed read 2:04—
PM
, judging from the daylight around the curtains. The police hadn’t come about the helmet and the picture. At least, he couldn’t remember them having come. To make sure, he sat up, waited for the room to gyroscope into place, and squinted over at the corner. The helmet sat on the desk. The picture of Gretta and the Bush brothers leaned up against it. He was about to look away, satisfied, when something shiny resting by the base of the picture caught his eye.

A golf club.

He lay there, not daring to move.

Uh-oh
, said Inner George.

He couldn’t have. Who would have let him? Or had he snuck in? Could he remember a fence? Climbing it? He thought he could remember a fence, maybe, lumbering alongside it, the streaks of passing headlights. Those narrow, green runways lurching beneath his feet. He kept sifting through the tatters, hoping for something that would prove it a dream, but the more he thought about it, the more real it got: Staring down those replica Twin Towers. The rubberized handle in his grip, vibrating as the club cracked their fiberglass hulls and crunched their plaster interiors. The plumes of dust erupting with every strike. The utter hatred he’d felt for the hollow, hokey things. The utter joy at bringing them down.

Now, though, the thought of the desecration nearly made him vomit. He pictured his face up on wanted posters next to bearded Al Qaeda operatives. He looked again, hoping that when he’d seen the club before he’d still been dreaming.

There it was.

What was he supposed to do now? His cell phone wasn’t flashing, but he checked it for messages just in case, almost hoping for one, despite the fact that at this point there couldn’t be any news but bad. In any event, there were none.

Maybe Armation was planning to let the theft go, he thought. Or maybe no one had seen him removing the items from the premises. It was possible no one had seen him smashing up the miniature golf course, either. For all he knew, he’d gotten away with the whole sorry crime spree. He tried to derive some hope from the possibility. But the golf club, the space helmet, and the stares from the three grinning white men beside it unnerved him entirely. What should he do with those things? He thought about leaving them here in the room when he left, or tossing them all from his rental minivan over a theme park wall. He could do it with the golf club, maybe, but as for the other items, it seemed more prudent to hold onto them. At least have the option of returning them if need be.

The hot void in his stomach was already beginning to signal hunger as well as general revolt. With no money for food, the only thing to do was head straight for the airport. He’d missed his flight, but could probably get a standby. He stood under the shower for a minute, clambered back into some clothing, then tried to figure out how to pack everything. He ended up sticking the golf club into his carry-on and wrapping the handle that stuck out through the zipper in the leather jacket Manny had given him, which he turned inside out to reduce the chances of the hotel staff recognizing it from their lost and found. As for the space helmet and the picture, he wrapped them as best he could in his Barneys jacket, stuck them under his arm, and grabbed his briefcase.

No one paid much attention to him, he was pretty sure, on the way out of the hotel. He loaded it all into the minivan. From the parking lot, he steered in the direction Manny had gone last night, up the street, past the golf course. He made out only bright yellow police tape and a handful of onlookers, before his foot stomped the gas.

A few blocks down, he pulled into a convenience store lot and leaned his head against the wheel, opening the windows to dilute the atomized marshmallow blasting straight into his forebrain. He finally recognized the car-freshener scent. It was Lucky Charms, the breakfast cereal. With the realization came a sliver of a memory of some otherwise lost, overcast morning, of him and George and Sam munching those stalesweet trinkets and the surrounding salty-sweet gold bullion, gazing at the bright red box with its heel-clicking leprechaun scattering magic sparkles with a spoon. The smell now made him as hungry as it did nauseated. Every thirty seconds or so, the sound of rattling roller-coaster cars and group screams shook the otherwise cadaverous calm of the day. He didn’t blame all those park employees on Xanax in the slightest.