The Last Laugh Read online

  I separated myself from his embrace. He was wearing jeans and some kind of ethnic jacket from South America or India. Probably made from organic hemp. He kept beaming. I was sure I could have punched the guy full force in the belly, and he would have hugged me and told me he loved me. Just behind him was a woman with long hair almost to her waist, dark and streaked with gray. She was also adorned in imported clothing, a maroon skirt with little mirrors sewn into it and a velvety blouse over her full breasts. If her Earth Mother role was not already clear, I saw that she was wearing the kind of sandals that mold themselves to your feet. In December. Welcome to Looneyville. I stepped back a couple paces to safeguard myself from further hugging.

  “I’m Alan, and this is my wife, June,” declared my new friend. He spoke in a British accent, obviously softened by a few years away from the Queen’s empire. “Well, let’s go, he’s expecting you.” He pushed past me to open the door. “Next time, just go on up. The door is always open.” A flight of stairs was flanked on each side by a dirty wall. I wondered if his instructions for a next time would prove necessary. The carpet on the stairs was worn, so much so that it had gone completely white in places. The whole place was ominously silent.

  I followed Alan up the stairs with June in tow behind me. At the top was a small hallway, with three doors leading off of it—one straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. Outside the door to the right were about a dozen pairs of shoes, of every possible description: sandals sat next to brown leather business shoes, walking shoes had been cast off next to high heels. There were hiking boots, old sneakers, and more of those molded sandals. Alan motioned to me. I followed his cue and added my shoes to the collection. I had holes in my socks, and they were not clean that day; I hoped this would not prove to be a disqualification for whatever was to follow. Alan motioned briefly with his fingers to his lips, as though we might wake a baby, and opened the door, ushering me to follow him inside.

  The silence swept over me, as if someone had switched off a TV I had not even noticed was on. There were 12 or 15 people in the room, all sitting or leaning against the walls with their eyes closed. Immediately, I spotted my waitress from the night before, now out of uniform. She still had her hair tied back, and she sat quite still. The room was almost completely unfurnished, except for an oat-colored carpet on the floor and a pile of cushions in the corner. Each of the inhabitants had a similar cushion, some had two or three. No one was speaking, but they weren’t tense, more as if they were actively listening to something I couldn’t hear.

  I looked around the room, restless. I wanted to run away, or jump up and down, or engage someone in some kind of an exchange or animated debate. Since there were clearly no willing volunteers, I involved myself in a game of “match the shoes.”

  At the start it was easy. The lady in the business suit and the hair up in a tight bun on top of her head, early 50s, wearing pince-nez glasses with great precision; she must go with the high heels. Next to her, the man with the thin wispy beard, oversized sweater, and baggy jeans? Older tennis shoes or sandals. Next to him was a dead cinch; the gray-haired man in the brown tweed jacket and khaki pants, a discreet tie over his pale blue shirt; without doubt he came in the lace-up brown business shoes. An eccentric-looking man, who could have been a professor or an inventor, eluded me; I decided to come back to him later and give him whichever pair was left over.

  I would have kept going much longer in this way, but my eyes came to rest on the only person in the room not sitting on a cushion. A lean old man was sitting almost completely upright in an equally upright armchair. His eyes were open, but he could easily have been a waxwork. His gaze was not on anything at all; it seemed as though he was looking into something behind his own eyes. His absolute nobility of posture and calm of face made the unkempt goatee and shoulder length snow-white ringlets irrelevant. As I stared at this statue of a man, his gaze slowly shifted, moving in a way that included everything in its path. Then he was looking back into me. Now I could see his eyes were completely blue, almost electric in their blueness. Panic gripped my chest, as though I had been running wildly on a path and suddenly came to the stark edge of a cliff. I felt I might fall into him. I closed my eyes. My heart was beating wildly.

  After some time l could sense the shifting of bodies. Then the inventor-type started talking. I couldn’t understand a word. It was as though he were speaking Chinese, with frequent use of terms like fullness, emptiness, and the witness. I’d heard the lingo before, but my brain could not register the meaning. Every time the old man seemed engrossed in the talk, I snuck another look at him, and every time I did, he would look back almost right away, raising one eyebrow at me, laughing without moving his mouth at all. As soon as our eyes met I had to avert my eyes. It was not like looking at a man at all, more like I was looking through him into … I cannot say what. I was facing an abyss.

  Finally, when other talk was done, which could well have been ten minutes or a couple of hours, he looked at me and would not look away. The rest of the room shifted its attention to me, too. The business suit lady stiffened her posture and was sitting more erect, my Goddess waitress opened her eyes and smiled demurely, and Alan beamed even more exuberantly, like a sports fan settling down to cheer his favorite team. Everyone, including me, was waiting, as those clear blue eyes continued to greet me. Finally, the eyes wrinkled a little at the edges, the corners of the mouth curled slightly, and now the face was smiling at me.

  “I have been waiting for you,” he said. His voice was a deep growl, which seemed more like it was coming from the room itself, like the air was speaking. It shuddered normal thought back into motion, and I realized that throughout this gazing I had been out of time, suspended in stasis. The room giggled, and bodies shifted as though in anticipation of slapstick or a shoot-out.

  “Yes,” I stammered. The waitress must have told him she gave me the number, or my hugging host might have tipped him off.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I added. “Couldn’t find the place, you know.” The room burst out laughing. I felt uncomfortable. Was I missing some private joke here? Even my waitress was shyly giggling, all the while staring resolutely at the floor.

  “You are not late,” retorted the voice, still speaking more from the air itself through this elderly wiry body than from a person in the normal way. “You are right on time,” he continued. “Everything always is. And I have been waiting for you … forever.”

  His gaze was like a hawk circling a small mouse in a field. My mind was racing now with excuses of how to leave, how to get out of this.

  “Your heart will not let you run away any more,” said the voice. This was becoming seriously scary. “Something has brought you to this moment; there is nowhere left for you to run.”

  I felt a surge in my chest as he spoke these words. I looked in his eyes. I was running from, and was somehow attracted to, a tenderness and a relief that I had run from and longed for forever. Then I was sobbing. It came out of nowhere, but it felt strangely pleasurable, a relief. A long forgotten sense of relaxation was pouring over me, but I did not fully trust it or even want to let it have its way.

  I found myself babbling, out of all control. “It is true … I feel like I’ve been running forever. I don’t know to what or from what.” It all came pouring out: the loss of my job, the money, the house, Rebecca and the kids. I told him about the shrink at the hospital the previous afternoon, I even told him about the dream and the sunlight in the morning. During the whole confession a voice was telling me I was insane; I did not know these people from Adam. Throughout my torrent he was unmoving—his eyes were still and open; I felt as though they absorbed and dissolved all of it. I kept going for several minutes. No one interrupted me. Finally he spoke.

  “You are very fortunate. This is a rare blessing.” All his words came in a slow measured flow, with no more emphasis on one word than another. He looked directly into my eyes, without wavering or pausing for consideration. It was as thoug
h he were reciting lines he knew by heart and had no need to think of what to say next. “Everything must fall apart for the new to be born. You have reached the end of the road in the life you are used to.”

  At this point he paused and let his gaze fall to his hands, which were gently resting on one another. His left palm was upturned, and his right hand was resting on it with the palm turned down. These were the hands of a pianist, hands of refinement and reflection. They were ridged with heavy blue veins.

  “All your old habits have led you to this dead end. It is truly time to die now, as you have been, but it is a deeper death than a physical one. It is time to rip through the fabric of the trance you have been living in.”

  How could he talk of being fortunate? Had he ever been abandoned, separated from his family, penniless? Had he even known what it was like to want to kill yourself—and then to flunk even that? Involuntarily, something else spoke from within me. I heard it speak more than said it. “Show me how …” I wanted to withdraw the words as soon as they were said, like a suicidal chess move. Too late. I’d taken my hand off the piece and had to face what came.

  As though waiting for this invitation, his eyes locked onto mine, and all else disappeared. I couldn’t think straight, colors grew vivid and bright, the smells became stronger. A cauldron was brewing in my lower belly, like being turned on, but without a hard-on. In the vacuum I heard him ask a question: “Through all this story of my life, my wife, my money, my children, my house, my pain, my problems, even my death and my suicide, who is this ‘I’ you refer to? Look now, and find this person who is in trouble.”

  It was very hard to focus. I had no idea at all what he was talking about. I felt a gravity, a pull to close my eyes and forget about everything.

  “I am Matt,” I answered. It felt so weak.

  “Okay, that’s a name, isn’t it? And to whom does that name refer? See this?” he asked, tapping the face of his nautical-looking, very old watch.

  “Yes, it’s a watch,” I replied. What was happening to me? His questions were so stupid and annoying, but I was feeling pulled by an unfamiliar force that I could not understand.

  “Watch. That’s a word, isn’t it? And there is an object, a thing, to which the word is pointing.”

  “Right, that’s your watch,” I said, hoping to raise a laugh from the room, but sadly disappointed.

  “And do you see this?” he asked, raising a glass of water from the table next to his chair. I noticed that on the table was a single red rose in a vase and a very small picture in a frame.

  “That’s a glass of water,” I replied. I looked across and noticed that my waitress had a Band-Aid on her left little finger. What a beautiful finger.

  “Good, name and form, name and form. Each word has an object or a thing it is pointing to. Words are signposts to that which exists.”

  He held up an empty fist. “Now. Can you see this screwdriver?”

  “There is no screwdriver,” I replied.

  “You are good at this,” he grinned at me. They all laughed. I felt like an idiot.

  “Now, do you need to think to see the glass of water?”

  “No.” I said the word, afterward realizing it was true.

  “Does it take time to see it?”

  “No time.” Simple, thoughtless. A split second later came thoughts about the speed of light and brain chemistry.

  “Do you have to think to see my watch?”

  The more he went on, the more still and luminous everything was becoming. I was being slowly seduced into something I was resisting. I just stared at him. It was getting harder to speak.

  “And time?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even really understand what he was saying.

  “Do you have to think to see the screwdriver?” he asked, again holding up an empty hand.

  “There is no screwdriver.”

  “But to see one there, would you need to think?”

  “I would need to imagine one there, yes.”

  “Good, you need to imagine, to activate thought to see that which does not exist. Now, in this same way, look directly for this ‘I’ who has come here today with all these problems.”

  I looked. Things were getting very shaky. “I am a talk show host on the radio, I am a man, I am a failure,” I offered.

  “Are you still a talk show host?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “So is it true?”

  “Not now, no.”

  “If you do not look at the body, are you a man?”

  “Yes,” I argued. He was not going to rob me of that. “This was certainly a male body the last time I looked at it.”

  “Very good, you look at the body and say man. Now, who is looking at the body?” This would be a lot easier if he weren’t looking into my eyes with such intensity. I was unable to respond coherently, disarmed before the battle.

  “I am,” was all I could say to him in reply.

  “Good, ‘I am.’ Now, with the same innocence that you looked at the watch, just as you looked at the glass of water, look now for this ‘I.’ Try to find it.”

  All I could find to reply to his question was “I am me,” which seemed immediately ridiculous.

  “Good, and who is this ‘I’, this ‘me’?”

  I feebly tried to answer his question. “I am American.” Totally not true. I cannot be defined by a passport. “I am … I am a father to two children.” Ah, yes! I locked onto that and squeezed it for sentiment, but it was also drawn away by the vacuum in his eyes. I was struggling, wobbling, overcome by a kind of insanity. Finally words came, through my lips but now from a source unknown.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who I am.”

  “Yes, that is an honest answer,” came his reply. “And who is experiencing this moment?” He emphasized the word this with great force. “Ask the question of yourself now, ‘Who am I?’”

  I asked myself.

  There is no way to describe what happened then. I still cannot recall it or think about it or understand it. It is as though there is a gap in the whole event. As though it were a movie, and for a short time, it could have been a fraction of a second or even a few minutes, someone switched off the projector. Blank screen. White. Nothing. No limits. Terrifying and indescribably familiar at the same time.

  My body filled with an energy that was almost unbearable. It went from pelvis to skull, and sent jerks and spasms of movement up my spine. It was both ecstatic and painful, but mostly just too much. My body was incapable of coping with this much raw life.

  Then a small thought passed. A lost, small thought, a bemused thought, a tourist separated from the rest of the party, wandering alone through the vast halls of emptiness. This small thought wondered to itself if this was the same stuff that the Dalai Lama had talked about to me, Nirvana. With that, the regular world came back into focus.

  Slowly there were his eyes again, then the rest of his face reformed, then his body, then the room. The people were here again, but as though they were made of nothing. Although there were thoughts and noises, everything was dancing in the silence that was now so clearly omnipresent. A bus passed on the street outside. It was also passing through silence. The sounds were brushstrokes in silence. All was still; all was indescribably perfect.

  He was smiling at me. Suddenly, like an amnesiac in recovery, I found him very familiar, as if I had known him forever.

  “Who are you?” I asked him out of the silence. The voice was familiar and habitual, but no longer could it be called “mine.” His eyes looked back, the familiarity deepened, a trap door opened to an even more mysterious place of meeting.

  “Who do you see here?” came the reply. “Look not at this old body, but through it, and find out now who is looking back at you.”

  The looking happened. There were no limits again, like looking into the sky. And then I had the strangest experience. I was not ready for it at all. The rest of his face went out of focus, so I could only see his eyes, and I be
came convinced that I was looking into my own eyes. As though he were a mirror. I tried to shake it off, to get him back again, but now his face was like a mask. I recognized myself hidden behind the veneer.

  “Myself,” I whispered, afraid I would be thought insane.

  “Look around you,” came another instruction through the old body. “See who is here.”

  My body turned and met the eyes of the lady in the business suit. I had the same feeling, the same myself looking back at me. I blinked a few times, not quite sure if I liked it. The woman in a blue suit was just packaging now; it made no difference if she was wearing a bikini or a bowler hat, it was just a thin disguise. She sat very still with me, very present. She was clearly sharing the recognition. She nodded soberly, her eyes unmoving.

  I looked around the circle. One by one, it was the same. I met the eyes of the eccentric-looking professor. I could feel he was shy and reserved by nature; right away I could feel it as my own. I could feel what he was feeling, an intimacy for which I was not prepared.

  Next in the circle came Alan. He was still looking exuberant, and I had the body sensation of liking him. It was a softening in my chest, my body opened a little, and I knew he could feel it. The whole room laughed. They too could feel it. I found myself laughing too. I could not hide. I hated it and loved it. My gaze passed from body to body, the shock never lessening as I saw myself in disguise again and again. Each person was entirely different. There was no code of dress or behavior in this gathering; all that we shared in common was a simple recognition of something that was by now unavoidable and completely obvious.

  My eyes finally came to rest on my waitress from the previous night. This time the recognition was accompanied by a rush of energy in my lower belly. I felt transparent, naked. She smiled at me modestly. I knew she knew. I wanted to say something, thank her for bringing me here, but I saw now how deeply shy she was. She held my gaze for just a few seconds, then reddened and looked to the floor. Finally, I came full circle to the old man.