Death My Own Way by Michael S. A. Graziano

Author:Michael S. A. Graziano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leapfrog Press
Published: 2013-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

13

“I’ll take the conch,” Chair Lady says.

Everything she says hints at mockery. I don’t know what she’s mocking. Plausibly herself. Her homelessness. Or maybe the other members of the tribunal? The art object of the moment? The absurdity of an elite conversation in rags under a leaky roof? Far from opposites, humor and seriousness have an affinity to each other, and I can see that affinity in the subtle crinkle at the corner of her mouth. Humor and desperation. Humor and that brand of empathy that comes from having little or nothing of your own except cheap glass jewelry and an enigmatic smile.

She reaches out with her foot. She props herself on her elbows on the damp wooden floor, her right leg stretched out, a sneakered foot pointed toward me, her leg so skinny that the fabric of her jeans hangs over the boney scaffold. The canvass sneaker has acid holes and through the holes I can see two of her toes. No socks. Her sneaker touches my chair and gently nudges it, turns me another few degrees with another squeak and another rattle of the rusty metal bearings. The chair tilts slightly and I come to rest facing her directly.

“Why,” she says, looking into my eyes, “does a person take everything off, every bit of cloth and showmanship, every pretense, and say please, this is all I have left?

“Dependant arising. In a phrase, that’s what it is. Sorry—jargon from my past. We depend on each other to lift ourselves up. Suffering is craving is fear is delusion is clinging to selfhood, clinging to objects, clinging to the trivia that we think makes us happy. Clinging to superficialities. Clinging to the covering that separates us from each other. Strip off all that delusion, and we take a step toward each other and a step toward enlightenment. I don’t know, you guys, but I don’t see any sculpture here. I don’t see art in the discuss-what-it-means sense. I see a person searching for spiritual insight.” She looks at me thoughtfully but I don’t see anything like insight in her eyes. Curiosity. Dread. For a moment the humor is gone and her eyes are captured entirely by curiosity and dread.

She sits up and rubs her elbows where they were pressed against the floor. I feel a sudden deep sorrow for her elbows. They must have red marks in the shape of the grain of the wood.

The group is silent.

She says, briskly, smiling, “Don’t be shy. I can feel the collective distrust.”

A meditative “ping, zing,” from Guitar.

“Mouthing off about Mahayana Buddhism,” she says. “Yawn. Oh dear. Have we come to that again? How embarrassing. She’s gone batty.”

Knee stirs, looks up, looks around with an apologetic smile. “Our refusal to answer the question answers the question?”

“Thank you,” she says.

“I think we’re waiting,” Cloak explains, “to find out what sophistication lies behind the tantric claptrap.”

“Thank you,” Chair Lady says. “How intellectually phrased. Look at the special contempt you save for spirituality. For any kind of love.

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