The Last Laugh Read online

He laughed, obviously delighting in the show that was unfolding. “Yes, Matt, you are absolutely alone. There is no other anywhere. Welcome home, welcome home. I have been waiting for you.” He reached out his hand to me, and pulled me to him. As I moved toward him I had the feeling that this body was moving through the real me. I was much bigger than I was used to. I extended even beyond the walls of the room itself.

  After some time, I found my own spot against the wall. Someone handed me two cushions. I sat between Alan and his wife, who both reached out to me and took each of my hands in one of theirs.

  I did not pull away.

  I closed my eyes, and fell into a very comfortable resting, a happiness that felt like being massaged in the sunshine. There were periods of silence and of talking in the room, but again the words seemed foreign. The silence was so much more real and important. The slightest movement of activity or energy in the room stirred a wave of pleasure in my body. I could only move very slowly. A thought briefly tried to grab my attention, asking me if I had been drugged, but the thought had nothing to land on or grab onto, so it evaporated into thin air.

  Someone addressed the old man as Joey, and I remembered that Alan had used this name on the phone in the morning. As I listened, Joey changed his manner abruptly from one questioner to another, sometimes laughing uproariously, sometimes being very stern and serious, sometimes just grunting in response to a well-articulated and thought-out question and giving no reply at all. The whole evening was like a movie playing in another room. I could hear everything, but I was absorbed in an immensely funny joke that I did not understand, nor even need to.

  After a while there was a long silence. I opened my eyes to see what was happening. Joey was looking right into me with a beam of warmth. It took me deeper into a place of not knowing.

  “Now, tell me again of all your troubles, because we don’t have much time and all your issues must be resolved to your satisfaction.” He spoke sternly, then looked at Alan, and they both burst into laughter. “You came with so many problems, and now is the time to deal with them. Hurry up please, I don’t wish to miss the ten o’clock news.” Again everyone laughed, even me.

  I tried to recapture the filing system of my heavy misfortune, only to find the office had been ransacked. “I have lost all my money.” The words sounded empty and contrived.

  “Is it true?” he asked.

  It was a strange question, for in terms of the story of my life it was absolutely true, yet in this meeting and with this intoxicated feeling even the word money had little meaning.

  “In a sense it is true, yes. But it doesn’t feel the same now.”

  “Are you lacking anything just now?” he asked.

  There was a long pause.

  “Just now, no,” came my reply.

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  If I listened to the thought pool, I had no idea, and that created a big problem. If I just remained present with him in the room I still had no idea, but there was no problem at all.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “Well,” he demanded, “don’t you have any problems left for us to solve here? Come on, boy, speak up.”

  “No,” I had to admit. It seemed absurd. I grinned sheepishly and wanted to close my eyes. The inside of my body felt so much more pleasurable than all this talk.

  “How did you solve so many problems in such a short time?” Although he was obviously playing with me, his eyes emanated a soothing balm, which made me want to stay silent.

  “I don’t know,” I stammered.

  “Tell me,” he went on. “What is to prevent you from resting in this way of seeing things? Are you under any obligation to return to your misery that you came with tonight?”

  I had nothing to say. I felt confused. “It is good. It is good,” beamed Joey. Then he looked over at my waitress. “I like your new boyfriend very much,” he chuckled. “You always bring me the best catches. … ”

  Sam’s eyes opened wide. She turned bright red and tried to protest, “Oh, no, Joey, he’s not my boyfr—,” but he cut her off.

  “You have done very well to harvest such a ripe prize, and now you will have to take good care of him.”

  She seemed visibly annoyed, but returned her gaze to the floor. Joey looked around the room. He inhaled slowly, as though savoring the smell of great food. He pressed down hard on the arms of his chair, elevating himself to a standing position. He stood there for a moment in his luminous white shirt and black pants. He could have been an aging musketeer.

  “KYSH,” he said, grinning. “KYSH.”

  With that enigmatic closing comment he picked up the rose from the vase on the table and was walking, or better to say, floating to the door of the room. He shot me one last glance of amused affection, threw the rose in my lap, and was gone.

  The room immediately coagulated into clusters of twos and threes. Everyone here knew each other fairly well, for there was a relaxed atmosphere, like a family gathering. I felt pulled to my waitress. She met my eyes with an awkward and tense smile.

  The man I had pegged as a professor came to introduce himself; he was actually named Roy, and owned an artsy cinema, also in the university district. The woman in the business suit was Swiss German, her name was Maryanne, a clinical psychologist. And the man in the suit next to her was Jack. He owned a company on the outskirts of town that manufactured parts for laser printers. The young bearded man with the long hair, Sundance, had a voice so soft and etheric it hardly moved the air as he spoke. They all seemed extraordinarily sober after this bizarre evening.

  I looked back over for my waitress, anticipation growing in my belly, but she was gone.

  Alan and June surrounded me, like protective parents.

  “Why did he say KYSH as he left tonight?” I asked them. It was the name of the rival station to the one I used to work for. “Does he have corporate sponsors?”

  They laughed. “No, it’s not the radio station!” Alan replied. “It means Kiss Your Sweet Hearts. He used to always say that, but now he abbreviates it to KYSH.”

  Alan helped me to my feet. I was giddy and lightheaded.

  “It’s great that you came, really great,” he exuded as we moved toward the door. “You can come here every night at the same time, except Wednesdays and Sundays. You are always welcome.”

  I stepped out into the hallway to find that mine were among the last remaining shoes to be collected. As I pulled them on, I heard Joey’s voice from the door to my left call out, “Eh, Alan.” My British host brushed past me through the other door, and popped his head out again after no more than 30 seconds.

  “He wants to see you,” he said, and then immediately bounded down the stairs back to the street.

  I stepped through the door, rose still in hand. Joey was in a high-backed chair, in a sparsely furnished room. There was another older-looking leather chair, a carpet on the floor, and a table with some more small framed photographs including, surprisingly, an autographed picture of Joey with J.F.K.

  Joey was looking at me with a warm smile.

  “I am very happy with you,” he said. “You got the point right away.” I felt empty and quiet.

  “I am very grateful to you,” I replied. “For the first time in months I feel like myself again. I feel I have the courage and energy now to put my life back together.”

  I thought he would be happy with this little endorsement, but instead he scowled at me. When he did reply, it was with a fierce intensity.

  “Do not fool yourself, kid. Do not fool yourself. The life you know has been completely predetermined by old habits, both your triumphs and your failures. There is one way out, to exercise the only free choice that an individual ever has, and that is to choose freedom. If you are really at the end of your rope, these habits will drop away, and you will be free of the chains that have bound you.”

  “That could take a very long time,” I replied, daunted at the task of unraveling every twist of my dark subconscious mind
.

  “The time it takes depends on you. If you are really ready to die, as you have been, and if you are as intelligent as you seem, it can take almost no time at all. You seem to be ready. But we will find out.

  “You have run on automatic, each event sparking a reaction in you, which in turn caused a new event, which caused another reaction. If you return to those old habits, it will not take long before you find yourself again on that bridge. But, if you truly understand what has been running you, you can be free. That is your birthright, to enter a life beyond your old desire and fear, and to discover real blessedness.

  “I give you ten days, starting today. I will show you all you need to see. It is up to you. Come back tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 5

  FLEETING HEAVEN

  I stepped back into the short alley, then into the street. The light drizzle, lit up by passing headlights, fell to the earth like millions of tiny diamonds. The sidewalk glistened under my feet as the tickle in my lower belly spread throughout my body. I was invigorated, consumed with lust for it all: the people, the food, the jeweled, luminous moisture. The city smells of cooking caressed my body. Chinese, Indian, Italian—all fed my insatiable lust for raw experience, for life itself. Finally I was pulled, bursting with appetite, into the magic world of Taco Bell.

  I looked around at the shiny small tables, the illuminated pictures of the kitchen’s offerings, the abundance of small packets of hot sauce, and I knew: The world was infused with a divine and benevolent intelligence. The short journey from the door to the counter felt liquid. I was swimming through myself, through an ocean of living presence.

  I was received at the counter, still holding my rose, by the divine mother. I wanted to fall at her feet in adoration, but instead opened my arms wide in a greeting of recognition. She was black and huge, more than 200 pounds of pure divinity. Her hair was braided into hundreds of little multicolored beaded ropes. Her eyes were enormous saucers of infinite love, absolutely still in their capacity to embrace the suffering of all humanity.

  “Next,” spoke the goddess of all creation. I get it; she’s undercover, pretending to be a poor and uneducated woman working for minimum wage. She’s good, really good. She’s probably fooled most of her customers, but she doesn’t fool me. I looked back into those deep pools of compassion with a devotion I could not suppress.

  “A super burrito, please,” I asked, trying not to blow her cover, and then, unable to fully hide that I saw her, I added, “Your eyes contain galaxies.” She looked a little startled, and peered at me.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “Your eyes are very, very beautiful,” I said, standing my ground.

  “Uh … thanks. Want anything to drink?” The divine mother cares only for her children, thinks constantly of their every need.

  “Sprite,” I replied. She took my money, keyed some codes into her cash register, and turned her back on me to take a foil-wrapped offering from the display. Turning back, she dropped her disguise for a moment. She beamed. Every cell of her body was smiling heavenly love.

  “You have a nice day now.” The Mother had blessed me. I kissed the rose, and offered it to her. She did not refuse it. A sign.

  As I continued down the counter, I saw another incarnation of divinity, a young man of 20 or so, sporting a goatee and a musketeer mustache. A gold hoop dangled from one ear, and his oiled hair lay in ringlets on his shoulders. His eyes were bright, laserlike. As they fixed onto me for a moment, a spark of fierce energy ignited between us. Mother had brought Shiva along to help with the tacos.

  “Need anything more, man?” asked Shiva, jutting his jaw toward me in a gesture nudging me further into the cosmic void.

  “Nothing more than this,” I beamed. “It’s all perfect. It’s all utterly perfect. We are blessed.” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as we shared this brief moment of rapture.

  “Cool. Thanks for choosing Taco Bell,” replied Shiva, obviously also undercover. I winked at him, and took my sanctified foil-wrapped prize to a vacant table. I wished I had a second rose.

  As I unwrapped the burrito, I was flooded with gratitude—such care and love had gone into the creation of this miracle. Rice and beans were cradled together in a cheesy sauce. I sank my teeth into the sacrament, acutely aware of the food passing through my mouth and down into the belly. The bliss intensified. I had no idea that nectar such as this could be served under such humble cover. I was making hot, wet, sticky love to all of it. As I sipped my Sprite, I tasted rose petals and sacred fragrant herbs from the Himalayas.

  The entire staff were celestial beings. Their eyes completely blew their thin disguises, no matter how bored or unhappy they pretended to be. Shiva came out from behind the counter and began wiping off the little stand where more packets of hot sauce were made available for devotees. He was so close to my table now that we could talk without being overheard. He leaned toward me.

  “Hey man, what are you on?” he asked. It must have been a divine riddle.

  “It has no name, but one drop of this has destroyed all that is not love,” I replied. Surely he would follow my coded language.

  “Hey, man, got any more?”

  “It is infinite; it is everywhere, once you know where to look.”

  “Could you get me some of what you took?” Shiva was serious. Although full of Grace, he was longing to drink yet again at the fountain of eternity. I reached into my jacket pocket and found the check Sam had written on the night before. I copied the number for Shiva.

  “Hey, thanks man. Cool.” He reached out his hand. “Carlos.” I shook the hand, and winked at him as though to say, “I’ll call you Carlos, but I know who you really are,” and returned to my blessed burrito.

  As I stepped out again into the night drizzle, I noticed the invasion of divinity was not restricted to the fast food restaurant. God was everywhere in many disguises: waiting at bus stops, walking along hand in hand, even playing at being a street person. Each and every person I saw became immediately fascinating to me. I had to restrain myself from rushing up to people randomly to ask if they would like to have a drink, share intimate secrets, let our hair down, and go really deep and get real.

  As I turned from West Broad Street onto Moulton to catch the bus, a wave of doubt came over me like a visitor from nowhere. Thoughts began to coagulate again: Am I just fooling myself? Has anything really happened? Am I just projecting all this divinity onto ordinary people?

  Then I saw the sign, a direct communication from the intelligence that protected me completely. Across the street was an enormous billboard blaring the slogan: Your Search Ends Here. I knew it was meant for me, a direct confirmation that what had been found was real and true. I stopped dead in my tracks and held my hands to my chest. “Oh, yes!” I called out aloud. “Yes, it is over, the search is truly over!” I stood there, gazing in awe. A couple, walking arm in arm down the street toward me, stepped aside to avoid me, looking embarrassed and intrigued.

  “I can’t believe how emotional people get about a search engine,” I heard the man say to his companion. “The Internet is taking over our lives.”

  I floated along the remaining few blocks to the bus stop in unwavering contentment. The light drizzle made my hair and face damp, but even that and the cold of the night mysteriously added to the sense of unconditional pleasure. Nothing was out of place anywhere. Nothing was resisted; nothing needed to be different than it was.

  The bus arrived at the stop at exactly the same moment as I did. Perfect, just perfect, it’s all part of the great plan. I recognized the driver—riding the bus for the last several months I had come to know every driver on this route. But tonight I realized I had seen only a face. Now I could feel the real man. I was getting the picture. Everyone was undercover, pretending to be small and suffering. Almost everyone had persuaded themselves to believe their own disguise. The driver must have been in his mid-50s, with graying hair brushed back and a lined face with pockmarked skin. His who
le presence smelled of fatigue, of a life lived oblivious to any passion. His eyes flickered, betraying a fear he might be suddenly accused of wasting precious human birth.

  “Howyerdoin,” he grunted to me.

  “Very, very good,” I replied, in a voice that also said, “It could not get any better than this.” I could not lie. I had been living a lie for too long. He peered at me through the decades of habit. Something deeper than words or even thought was calling out to be rescued from the damp cellar.

  “Well, you have a good night,” came the driver’s response, still speaking in automatic transmission, while his eyes said: “I desperately want to dance and love and laugh and scream. I want to make love all night. I want fifth gear.”

  I took my seat in the bus and looked around me. The world was fresh, new, and interesting. I felt I had just arrived on a flight from Pluto. Suddenly the world was in 3-D, where it had been flat before. There were only a few other passengers. As I looked into each one, I saw an exquisite mystery trapped inside a personal soap opera. I wanted to jump up and pull the emergency cord and shout, Listen, none of this is necessary! You are not what you think! You can shake off your habits of self-restraint with one finger snap and be free. But a sign above the cord warned of huge fines for improper use, so I restrained myself, exploding with urgent love.

  The bus stopped across the street from the apartment building that had become home. Paul’s light was already on. He must have come home early. It was hard to leave the bus. I really wanted to invite them all in for massage and food and wild fun. I let myself into the building and went straight to Paul’s door.

  “That you, Matt?” he called from the sofa. He was watching more of his endless video footage: Brazilian prostitutes were tonight’s entertainment. “Well, did you go, what happened?” Paul switched off the TV and sat in avid anticipation.

  Now that I had a captive audience with whom to share my secret, no words were coming. I sat on the sofa with him, looking into his eyes and grinning.

  “You okay, man? Did you smoke a joint or something?”