[Intake – The awareness of possibilities (versus the awareness of endings in Three Tokens)]
Ska’s long dyed dread locks are knotted together like so many bundles of rust and purple tumble-weeds. Her crazy hair reflects her vibrancy. She’s singing “Work” by Bob Marley and grazing in the bulk food area at Healthy Pleasures.
“Hey I know you. From my class.” She leans over and kisses me – patchouli scented air wafts from her onto me.
“Peter, right?”
“Patrick.”
“Hola.” She doesn’t care that she got my name wrong.
As she says this she smiles and slowly takes her hand out of a bin of walnuts. Then she just strikes a pose, not an attitude pose, but straight and loose, slightly swaying. She looks like something thrown together by the wind.
“What are you up to?”
“Just getting some lunch. Then going home to the east village. ”
“I’m going that way too.”
“Wanna hang out at the park and eat?”
“Sure.” We go to Tompkins Square Park. Some IKON dancers are singing Hare Krishna – very melodically – and assorted freaks and drunks lie around us. The days when this park was owned by junkies and crack ho’s are long gone.
Ska comfortably sits down on the bench in a position that would snap my spine should I attempt it.
“You’re not from here. Can’t quite place your accent.”
“Canada. Toronto.”
“Yeah. I’ve been there. I’m from Arizona.”
One of the groovy parts of Arizona, no doubt. “Sedona?”
“Close. Jerome.”
“It’s way up on that mountain.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s beautiful. Family still there?”
“My mom has a Bed & Breakfast there, right beside the old mine, but everyone else has moved…. So what do you do?”
“I work for an investment bank. Computers.”
“What do you think of working on Wall St.? Does capitalism look better from the inside?” Her chill manner belies the weight of her question. I realize that she’s interviewing me.
“On bonus day. Just kidding.” I hastily add. The joke fell flat. I continue, “I never thought I’d wind up here. It is really interesting work. Before I came here I didn’t understand how the world works politically, economically and now I have a much better idea.”
“Its all about money, isn’t it? Don’t you think it’s really creepy when a bunch of traders get together and trash an entire country’s currency. I remember traveling in Thailand in September 1998, and over the course of a week I could buy twice as much stuff with one dollar. Twice as much and everyone was out of work. Crazy.”
“Yes, it makes me feel weird.” Shrug. I remember how crazy it was at work when the Thai baht crashed. “I’m in IT so its doubly unreal, because we’re so far removed.”
“You do your bit to make the whole system work.”
“I do.” Ouch.
“So what are you going to do when your boss throws you away like a broken doll? Or when you get so sick of your job that you have to leave?”
“Depends on whether that happens when I’m 40, when I’m 60 or when I’m dead.”
“Say it happens tomorrow. Say your boss realizes that your job is on the wrong side of the bottom line and fires you.”
“I dunno. Probably grow my hair down to my ass and bum around Asia.”
“Any plans to grow up?”
“Maybe.”
“Have kids?”
“Maybe. With the right person.”
She catches me with her eyes as I look at her. We just look at each other. I smile at her and it works – she smiles back.
“Where do you live?
“Downtown. Beside the World Trade Center.”
“Really. It’s a bit dead down there at nights.”
“Yeah, but I don’t mind it. I walk to work. Where do you live?”
“I live right there.” She points to an apartment at the intersection of Avenue B and 6th St. “Why don’t you come up for tea?”
I’ve been here before so I know where these next steps can lead. After the terrible ending of my last relationship I’d been thinking what it would be like to come around to this place again; I wondered whether I’d hesitate; or even if I’d ever cross the line again. But decisions are tricky things because they don’t happen in theory, they become real only when they change our actions. In the event my decision requires no more effort than to go to where I want to go. I nod assent to Ska’s invitation and smile.
“Let me escort you then.” She slips her left arm through my right and guides us across Avenue B to her home.
It’s late afternoon by the time we arrive. She begins to light candles [, flames from which illuminate the evening gloom]. I look around and don’t see any electric lights. Her apartment is painted in bright earth tones; even though it is early spring, it is warm and sunny; the air is moist and flowers are blooming everywhere.
“Nice flowers. Its amazing to see so many blooms at one time.”
“They are beautiful aren’t they?” She lays out a bowl of fruits and nuts, which she hands to me as I sit down on her futon bed, which is in a couch position. This afternoon’s interrogation has exhausted me. She continues to stand, watering and doting over her plants. “Just before I left for California they were ready to bloom and I asked them to wait just one more week for me because I really had to go visit my family.” As she says this she leans over and kisses the blue petals of an iris. “Even though I think that my plants really like me, and I take good care of them, I was certain that they would have bloomed by the time I returned.” I watch her closely as she speaks, charmed by the complete absence of guile in her manner. “But they didn’t! They still hadn’t bloomed when I returned! I was so tired from my trip that – even though I arrived home at noon from Cali – I immediately had a nap.”
“BUT! When I awoke there were flowers everywhere!”
It’s impossible not to smile at the image. “Not only are your plants are very patient, they have a sense of fun.”
“They are wonderful. I love them.” I imagine I hear them reply, as they rustle in the breeze created by her desktop fan.
Ska plops down beside me on her futon and puts her right arm around me as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it is. “What would you like to do? Let’s watch a movie.”
We watch a DVD of Casablanca on her laptop computer and slowly get drunk on wine. Then we sleep with each other. In fact we make love and it is beautiful. In the morning I awaken before her and watch her breath animate the curves of her body, her face a picture of serenity in the muted tones of the early morning light. How could her flowers not have waited to bloom?
“Patrick, have you ever slept with anyone else while going out with me?”
“No. I will only be gone a few months. Will you visit me?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be back. I’ll get another job. Will you wait for me?”
“No.” She squeezes my hands tightly. “I don’t wait for anyone.” She catches herself. “Patrick, that sounds wrong. Let me explain.” Big inhalation. “I believe in karma. Things happen. Things happen for a reason. My place is here. Right now your place is in Toronto. I really hope you can return. I think we’re close to making things happen, y’know, like long term. You really might be the one. But let’s see. I think that the universe is sending us on paths that will make us both happier.”
I frown, not at all convinced.
“Things can work out in unexpected ways. Maybe now that you’re going back to Canada you can change jobs; drop the finance bull-shit and become an artist. Maybe you’ll come back here in triumph. Maybe I’ll love you more then.”
“Ska, I want this to work out now.”
“If it’s the right thing, it will happen.” She starts to cry and holds me tightly. “Patrick, there are things about you that I try not to hate, but they’re small and most of the time I think that you’re amazing. I’m devastated that you’re going. But you have to, and I won’t wait for you.”
Leaving per se is not such a big deal: every day that I’ve been here I’ve thought about going back. My negative emotions are caused by being forced to leave.
Despite these emotions, I suspect that returning home won’t be so different after all. I can find as much wealth and poverty and diversity and style in Toronto as in New York. The difference is simply scale, my friend and enemy. Maybe its time to begin operating on a more human scale.
Dating is totally impossible. One night stands just serve to draw a line under my impending departure. With no interest in internet dating I turn on the television. Iraq is a mess. 3 soldiers dead in Nasaraja (sp) 2 more in Fallulah. It’s so easy to forget that we won the war last spring.
I go into my room, close the door, turn off the lights and sit on a meditation pillow. Though I am alone I live in a world of distractions. My room is dark grey, as it is just after dusk. Across the street a pile driver blasts into the night, my fan whirs, all the details big and small distract me and keep my mind busy. Both my cell phone and my land line start to ring. The tendrils of my social life reach out for me. I have no more time for “I’ll miss you” conversations I’ve already had a lifetime’s worth and who has time for pain?
Then I filter out the noise and start to think. Or rather I am more lucid in my awareness of my thoughts. “I’m leaving tomorrow. What is the difference between leaving and being alone? For me now, nothing.
The e-vite comes from evillama@cousins.com. The evil lama in question is Edwardo Villamurga, a manager in Desktop Engineering.
To: Desktop Engineering, Software Engineering, Commodities Technology, Derivatives Technology and Futures Technology
Subject: Paintball this Saturday
Be there and be square!
If Debbie in Human Resources had known she would have been mortified. Consider the legal implications: men playing paintball with women; managers playing with their direct reports; and most dangerously of all Americans competing with Indian consultants who were taking their jobs.
The event is held in a deep, dark corner of New Jersey, which – once the noose of highways surrounding Manhattan is traversed – proves to be a beautiful. And rich. We pass towns like Maplewood and Summit that are larger than Canada’s richest neighborhood, Rosedale, and have nicer houses. We take a pit stop at the Short Hills Mall, in the lot of which are parked 500 of the nicest cars I’ve ever seen. This is a great revelation to me that explains so much of America – surrounding every city in the country, including the most decrepit, like Detroit, are these swaths of rich, white suburbs.
Without prompting we divided into 5 teams. 2 teams are American: the engineers form one team, the business support groups the other. Three teams are Indian: the Hindu team, the Moslem team, and a miscellaneous group of Untouchables, Christians, Parsis and Jains.
The players are of an incredible variety ranging from the rabbinical, to guys named Lance, to gurus, to babes. But all are of a type: we are nerds. There was an orthodox Jew Raz who was scholarly and tremendous at evaluating logical expressions; and a reform Jew Paul with whom I get along famously because he is as liberal as I am and much funnier; serious Mohammad from Malaysia and dashing Aziz from Morocco via Paris and Rome, and no doubt some mojo finishing school in between. That team was rounded out by Peace Sign Lance, who was one of those people you see on Star Trek who can fix a warp conduit using bubble-gum, hair-pins and a Game Boy; a perfectly groomed Puerto Rican woman named Deanna and her Chinese equivalent Opia who had long, straight black hair and dark eyes. Lynn was there as well, looking like she had tagged along, like she always does, yet somehow always being in the middle of things, both on the production and support side. Deanne, Opia and Lynn: they were the best of the next generation, who, with their ability and beauty and glowing health were proof positive of evolution or at least progress. Somewhat disquieting if you represent the model that has been improved upon.
My team featured two smart, confident Russian American women Alla and Anna (in my mind I completed the sequence and wondered where Appa was). New Jersey was well represented by Scott, a beefy, neckless man with linebacker, and the evil lama himself, Edwardo ‘Evil Lama’ Villamurga, who is small, lank, and economical with his movements.
We are all somewhat surprised by how much our Indian opponents meet us on our own terms. Some attempts do not work, for example Rajababu’s Yankee’s uniform. Nagaraj’s khakis, however, are virtually indistinguishable from Lances’ (and look better on his slim physique), and Sachin, who grew up in Garden City Long Island and came armed with a rifle and a pistol. But the clothes competition, or perhaps I should say cultural affinity, runs deeper, for from their pedantic manner to their unstylish clothes, weird physiques and odd shoes the Indian consultants are every bit as present and into the game as we are. They look like us, and like us they are here to play and to win.
The game operates on several levels. In theory the idea is to capture flags but in practice a successful ambush, a quick dodge or a sharp shot counts as social points scored. Bragging rights.
The teams gather around their flags, which are placed at corners of an octagonal field surrounded by landscaped, small hills, into which shrubs have been used to create a maze of paths; it is not that large, but is full of hiding places. A shallow man-made stream bisects the space.
Edwardo not surprisingly takes charge of our team, in the sense of calling a huddle. “Did you hear the story of Rajababu, that guy in the Yankees uniform?”
“Nice uniform”, Alla notes.
“It must have cost a lot of money”, Anna adds.
“That uniform is bullshit.” Scott interjects.
Alla raises one skeptical eyebrow and places her hands on her slightly tilted hips. Scott crumbles. “Yeah its nice. But it’s not authentic. He’s from Chennai for God sake, not Queen’s.”
“I’m from Petersburg and I love the Giants.”
Scott suddenly looks at her in a new light. “What kind of car do you drive?”
“BMW M5 series.” Smile. “Its red.”
Scott’s flirting brings out Eddie’s evil lama side. “Guys, c’mon. As I was saying, that guy Rajababu in the Yankee’s uniform. He took Davidson’s job. And you know what? They pay Tata more for him even though he only has 1 year’s experience and Davidson had 5. Davidson was let go 3 months before his wife gave birth.”
To my relief Jamal says, “Let’s leave grudges out of this and focus on winning.”
The one thing all of us are is self-organized, so it takes but a minute for everyone to take on a role. Eddie and Achilles play forward, Lance plays middle with me, and the girls play defense.
Once this is done, Lance smiles and tells us he has a surprise. Looking like an arms dealer from ‘Toon Town he opens two attaché cases made of brightly colored plastic and withdraws an assortment of weird guns, from Buck Rogers lazers to Six Shooters, which he solemnly hands to his team mates with brief instructions about each toy’s features.
The game begins with all of us gathered in the middle. A real gun, shooting a blank is used to start the game. When it’s fired we all turn and run for the hills.
For a moment it is all mixed up as people run in every direction. A crush and a blur and all mixed up: in that moment we are a nice dynamic metaphor for our world. I’m glad its happening here.
…
I had wondered why Lance had gone for middle and not forward position. As I watch him morph into the quarterback for our team I understand.
…
The Brahmin team, called the Eagles, is sandwiched between us and the other American team, the Long Islanders who go by the moniker Jets. We’re the Jersey team, so we’re the Giants. The Dalit team is to our right, they’re the Tigers. The Moslems are the Patriots.
Strategically, our problem is that the Indians outnumber us in a game where – despite the fetishes about weapons – bodies count. If we can somehow split the Indians – or at very least keep the Tigers away from our right flank – we may be able to buy enough time to work with the Jets team to take out the Eagles.
I am the sole guardian of our right flank, which faces Tiger territory. I try to send the message that if they leave us alone we’ll leave them alone. The Tigers hang back around their flag so it is unclear what they think.
I have always found the Untouchables difficult to read. Most of the Indian consultants are Brahmins, and therefore patricians and in that sense of a type I know. For example they are comfortable with authority, particularly when they have it. The Dalits – the untouchables – though now in charge of vast poor places like Bihar, still have the odds against them in India; Dalit schools are still burned in vicious rural caste wars, for example and Moslems, and even Christians, are sometimes massacred in provocative attempts to get fundamentalist votes. This kind of history makes you play your cards closer to your chest. Hence the inscrutability.
Positionally, the Jets are in far worse shape than us because they share a border with all of the Indian teams, two of which, the Eagles and the Patriots, appear to be ganging up on them. The Jets have arranged themselves like Musketeers with cartoon blunderbusses, into two semi circles of equal size, each facing one hostile border. Their captain, Oleg, is in the center of one circle calibrating some form of paintball cannon.
The Eagles and Patriots attack first – focused on the Jets. The moment they began to move the Jets Captain fires his cannon and an array of paintballs fly into the air. A cluster slams into Dilibabu’s chest One! Two! Three! “You’re dead!” The game’s first casualty. We are playing with easy rules: you only die after three hits. Everyone is on a schedule.
As Dilibabu dies a slender Indian woman who I recognize from Transaction Management rushes to his side, removes his firearm and rushes away. She is wearing football tights and a Jets t-shirt and looks great.
The Jet’s have no time to savor their first kill, because events are moving very quickly. Lance grabs a plastic blunderbuss and moves into the line. Like a group of Dutch defending Mastricht against Louis Quattorze, they count, raise their guns and fire. Beautiful smoke rings emit from each gun and through these rings their volleys are fired. The first volley takes their opponents by surprise.
3 more players are taken down.
The Indians fall down but are far from out. Quickly adapting, they start crawling into good tactical places like the lees of hills and behind tree stumps. Gradually their strategy becomes clear – they have taken the high ground around the Jet’s flag. Taking pot shots from heights, they begin to pick off the Jets.
[Final rush – In the ensuing we all blend together, difficult to see who is who.]
…
…
Our undoing, in the end is Rajababu, who with his pristine Yankee uniform and job history proves to be too tempting a target for Scott.
As fate would have it Rajababu is the lynchpin in the undermanned Eagles defense that faces us. His pinstripes are like a bulls-eye. With no discipline at all we rush him like moths to a flame. Much to our surprise we are out gunned. Rajababu has a gatling paint ball gun and he quickly takes out Scott and gets two hits on Edwardo and Carol.
We pull back in disarray. Eddie decides to gamble.
“We’ve got to take out Rajababu.”
“He’s got a fucking machine gun.”
Edwardo has no time for defeatism. “Patrick. I want you to give me covering fire on the right, and then when I break circle around their flank, towards the center of the field to distract them and pull fire. Alla, Anna give me covering fire on the left.”
“But he’ll shoot you.” Alla smiles sweetly, consciously sounding melodramatic, a little reminder that she is beautiful and talented enough to become a movie star in the event that she gets bored of Derivatives technology.
“Someone always dies taking out a machine gun. I’ve got two hits already. I’ll take as many hits as I can going down. Lance can make the final kill. ”
…
The Tigers are hiding in the shrubs behind Rajababu.
…
The women sigh then Anna makes a joke in Russian and Alla smiles.
I walk out to our flank which is very far removed from action and take in the view. The Dalit team has left Mariya behind to guard me. She is another lithe, smart, beautiful young woman of the type God seems to be creating so many of these days. She actually isn’t a Dalit at all. Like a couple of other players on her team she’s a Catholic, named after the Virgin Mary herself. Without knowing her history I could easily place her in a number of places, Kerala, London, New York. She’s wearing embroidered bell bottom jeans, her nose has a diamond stud and when she reaches up I can see the glint of a navel ring. She catches my eye and shoots me using her fingers as pretend pistols.
Suddenly Mariya runs right at me, dodges to her right and then literally runs around me in a circle. This is a distraction: the Tigers have broken the game wide open by bolting towards the Eagle flag. They have a few athletic players who lead their pack but mostly they are of the same mawkish physical type as the Americans so they amble forward slowly and unsteadily and we all blend together.
Edwardo takes advantage of this surprise attack and bolts towards Rajababu. He nearly makes it, too: Rajababu is completely distracted by the Dalit rush and fumbles his initial shots. As a result, the Evil Lama doesn’t die in a hail of paintballs. Just one volley hits him, but that’s all it takes. As Eddie is promoted to glory, he plugs Rajababu and therefore his plan works brilliantly: Alla rushes Rajababu from his left, Anna from his right and then he is one dead, pinstriped Jackson Pollack painting.
Meanwhile, the startled Patriots over-react to the Tiger assault and pulls back entirely from Lance’s flank. Lance has Deanna and Opia harry the retreating Patriots and sends everyone else against the Eagles. Alla, Anna and Carol seize the opportunity and close in on the two remaining Eagles players, the women in the Yankees uniform and Mary in the Giants uniform. We loose Carol. Across the field Lance himself is taken down by an ambush expertly coordinated by Sachin, who is turn is ambushed by Alla and Anna.
We’re in the end game.
I survey the field. To my left Alla and Anna are the near side of the Eagle’s flag, the Indian woman dressed in a Yankees uniform, and her friend in the Giants uniform are on the far side. Just beyond them Sachin is fighting for his life with Mohammed, the last remaining Patriot. In my immediate vicinity, in fact far closer to me than I realized, are Deanna, Opia and Mariya, the only surviving members of the Jets, have surrounded Jamal but have not yet managed to kill him.
The moment Sachin kills Mohammed, I try to catch Deanna’s eye to suggest we make a move against Mariya. Both Mariya and Deanna, however are looking at Opia who bursts out laughing and shouts “Girls against Guys!” Just like that I’m dead as each of the women plugs me once. Mariya then backs off while Opia falls to the ground laughing and Deanna mocks me in Harlem Spanish. The indian girls take out Sachin, and the Chinese girls take out Jamal.
I bury my humiliated head in my hands so I don’t know whether it is Opia or Deanna who plugs me one last time in the butt. Not that it matters given how hard both are laughing and how I am already dead.
Alla and Anna finish their victory dance and then start swaggering towards the middle of the field while joking with each other in Russian. Deanna and Opia chat in Spanish and dance with their arms over their heads. Mariya is quiet and hangs back, circling slightly to her right inching towards Opia’s flag. She too is smiling modestly as her team loudly cheers her on. The two Indian girls, x and y, have joined the party and are laughing uproariously.
Then they join their hands and dance around in a circle. “Girls five. Guys zero!”