Notes on Buddha Sightings

The details of the trouble are ours. But, the day I see the third Buddha, I am convinced Ev and I are plummeting to a most bitter form of death—no Tibetan bardo through which each of us will pass into new wisdom, but an ending that will finish not just the friendship, but my conviction that friendship must lie at the heart of love.

I medicate with whatever works. Gin gave me up years ago; pot was not my vegetable; love affairs best compared to near-death-experiences no longer hold allure. I obsess about the behavior of the president, read too many newspapers, dive into the weird blue light of e-mail and eat the local grocer’s home-made potato chips till my mouth burns.

I gamble—till mid-March, when the money runs out, Ev is in Mexico, Bush is killing Iraqis and Americans by remote control and I have scrounged just enough change from jacket pockets to buy a new bag of potato chips. I pull out of the shopping center onto what used to be a two-lane, a sweet little road that once wound through Ponderosa forest and past a prairie dog colony. I make my turn and am under the new maze of highway cross-overs that now block the sky above me.

As usual, I long for plastique and dumb courage. As usual, I say, “Fuck this.” As usual, my longing and curse change nothing. I glance right to the Urban Trail—and slow down.

The Trail runs along the highway, at the edge of what was once the untouched meander of Sinclair Wash. A new development rises on the western edge of the wash. I see under the bridge abutment, just before the bull-dozed mud of once-was-wash begins, what appears to be a hooded figure sitting on a wooden pallet.

The figure is still. It sits in full lotus on what I realize is a new bench along the urban trail. Five full plastic shopping bags lean against the bench. The highway roars above. Somebody honks. I check my rear-view mirror, look at the jammed-up road ahead and drive on.

4. Roll-top desk, the wallboard cabin off Old Munds Highway, Flagstaff

Ev returns from Mexico. “I’ve got presents for you,” he says. I’m not sure I want them. Whatever is going weird between us seems to have affected my vision. He doesn’t look like my best friend. He looks like a guy on his way down the road. I wonder if the presents are a bribe.

I hold out my hand. He sets a little plastic ivory Buddha in my palm. The Teacher’’s robe is open over his fat belly. His earlobes hang to his shoulders. The only difference between this Mini-me Buddha and the big guy we saw spray-painted on the canyon wall is that his left hand is empty.

When I look up, Ev seems familiar. The crack that opens in my stone heart is not a canyon. It is no wider than the word “surrender”. Ev does not take me into his arms. I don’t fall in love. We have had, when all is said and done, nine years practice being best friends. We are not Harry and Sally. We are Mary and Ev.

I put the little Buddha on top of my roll-top desk. There is an altar of sorts there, a clown Katsina choking a chicken; Babe, a pig in the city and his pit bull buddy; Ray Carver’s poem “Gravy”; a postcard of Nevada ghost towns. Right above the place I write are two pictures of a little girl, the grinning one dressed like a cowboy, the second in a skirt and ruffled top. You can see in the second picture, the one with the fake smile, the frightened woman I will become for far too much of my life. And, you can see that it is far too soon in the child’s life for you to know that.

I move the pictures of the little girl to either side of the Buddha. He looks out over the room. Ev and I sit down for our bazillionth game of Scrabble. The Buddha smiles.

He smiles again a few weeks later as Ev and I continue down the slippery slope. My best friend and I decide we might need a trial separation. We look at each other with the dull eyes of the shell-shocked. This doesn’t happen with friends. Something is crazy. Neither Ev nor I say the word “crazy.” The Buddha smiles.

And smiles, as he will the afternoon I tell Ev to get out of my life. And the same afternoon, five minutes later, when Ev refuses and says, “Look, that’s enough of a trial separation.” And I nod and say, “O.k.,I’m sorry. We’ll see what happens.”