A Working Theory of Love (19 page)

He shakes two out. “Strictly forbidden,” he says.

I don’t smoke, but I take one anyway, charmed back into myself by a little mischief.
From the first puff it’s a mistake. My head is whooshing and whirling; I feel disjointed,
my chest clinched, my legs limp. “I think I’m going to fall down,” I say, and then
I do.

When I come to, Raj is on his knees next to me, squinting into my eyes. He takes my
chin, turns my head left and right. Above him, the tree canopy glitters darkly.

“Dude,” he says. “You ate it. You all right?”

I cough something up, phlegm from the ocean floor.

“I’m not a smoker,” I say.

“Let’s not be shy about what’s really happening. There’s some serious energy rebalancing
going on in your body. Most people—takes them four or five of these weekends. You’ve
just slipped right into it.”

I cough up more phlegm.

“I had a weird experience today,” I say. “I thought of my ex-wife, and couldn’t summon
any resentment.”

He leans back on his heels and sits down. His lighter flares demonic light on his
sunburnt face. He blows out a plume of smoke, waves it away into the air.

“Old energy, new energy—it’s not just a figure of speech. We’re feedbacks. We’re not
confined to our bodies. That’s what we forget, especially if we’re not religious people.
Puttering around in our houses. Living alone. Never being touched. Did you know when
you put a group of women under one roof their mooncycles synch? That blows my mind.
Their energies, their auras are interacting. They’re not even separate people. None
of us are separate. We’re literally made up of each other. Which is why it’s such
a problem that so many people live alone now. It’s like we’re less human.”

I clear my throat. “I live alone,” I say. My voice sounds blurry.

“So do I,” he says. “I mean I get it. You start to feel like you’re an image reflected
in a mirror recorded on a videotape. Why not live alone? It’s a lot easier. I mean,
think of Rachel.”

“What do you mean?”

“That pornographer she was living with. He basically tried to steal her soul.”

What does that mean? She said “regular stuff.” “I looked for the video the other day.
I couldn’t figure out the search words.”

“Don’t do it, man. There’s nothing to be gained.”

I lie there on the dusty, warm ground. It’s not so bad down here.

“Was that her with Trevor, at that protest in the city?”

Raj looks at me, but his face is too shadowed to read.

“You know,” I say, “the one where he was dressed like a robot and he was pretending
to penetrate Rachel on the sidewalk?”

“A robot?”

“Like a retro-robot. With tape wheels and buttons.”

“And that was Trevor?”

“He was wearing a helmet. I couldn’t see his face.”

“But you saw Rachel.”

“She was wearing a mask.”

He looks back up and exhales smoke through his nose. “I’d be surprised if you could
get Rachel to lie down on a sidewalk in San Francisco. She carries hand sanitizer.
Besides Trevor is off at a PE house in Oregon.”

“How long has he been up there?” I ask, pushing up to my elbows. I’m ridiculous. I
feel unbounded relief.

“A couple of months, at least. He’s got quite a few resentment-anger management roadblocks
to break through.”

“Is he up there VAMing?”

Raj nods. “Trevor is one of our most intensely clicked strokers.”

•   •   •

T
O MY GREAT SURPRISE,
I sleep like a stone. I have an odd mash-up dream where my mother tells me that my
father is not an intensely clicked stroker. No doubt this was true.

The morning breaks with bright, artificial-lemon light. We gather in the cedar-planked
meditation room to do some breathing, then adjourn for breakfast, which is a scoop
of yogurt and three almonds.

Next is spiritual housecleaning, which consists of Raj telling me very funny stories
of Internet dating, including one in which a woman “forgot” to tell him she was on
ankle monitoring. He then segues into his work life, which has been a long, lucrative
struggle with meaninglessness.

“I go to the office in the mornings,” he says. “Fix a cup of rooibos, stare out at
Napa Valley. It’s gotten like a theme park. Disneyland. I think, who am I? What does
it mean to sell condos and lots?”

Then we talk about some key concepts, including this feedback idea. Basically, clicking
is volitional love, the choice to have serotonin, melatonin—all the friendly neurotransmitters—cascading
through your brain all the time. The serotonin is a click itself. Clicks unite the
limbic system with the more rational brain. At any moment when you might separate
from other people, you click again. And as you become a more engaged person, as clicking
becomes who you are, you reach a feeling of connection to others and to the universe
(a dreaded word, but oh well). The body is a vehicle for the spirit and by clearing
all the energy channels you liberate the spirit.

“You know that saying—‘Love makes the world go round’?” He rolls his eyes. “Cheesy,
I know, but it’s literally true. It’s the basic force humming through the world. It’s
what’s in all of us. And we can bring it out in each other. Flesh to flesh.”

Like Transcendentalism but with a focus on the genitals. All those years there was
the battle between the heart and the mind. Hard to believe the winner will be the
gonads.

•   •   •

T
HE AFTERNOON SESSION—
the big finale—is led by Raj himself. Someone has lit a crisper incense. The Marin
sun dazzles against the wood shades. The full title of his presentation is “Pure Encounters:
Ready to Click.” The men—all ten of us—sit on meditation cushions in a circle. Anyone
who wants to can discuss his problems, and the more experienced participants will
help him “love over” his “roadblocks.” The youngest guy there, a kid named Walker,
says that he can’t talk to women. He can’t express his desire, and he bottles it up
and does reckless things. He masturbated in a public bathroom last weekend he was
so amped up. He did drugs in high school and afterwards and he thinks he may have
damaged himself—done something permanent to his limbic click. The lingo is horrible,
but there’s no doubt that Walker is suffering. And if a little lingo will help him
or anyone else—Rachel, for instance—then the least I can do is soldier through.

•   •   •

I
LEAVE THE ASHRAM
just before dusk. A few miles closer to Fairfax, my phone comes back into range of
a tower. I have ten messages—one from Rick and nine from Livorno, who needs to speak
to me right away. I stop by the Coffee Barn, where Rachel is still not working, and
fill myself to the cockles with caffeine. Then I call.

He has something serious to discuss, but doesn’t want to do it over the phone. He
invites me to an excellent Chinese restaurant for lunch tomorrow. Have I heard of
P.F. Chang’s?

I don’t tell him it’s a chain, but this lack of knowledge—the idea that because he’s
only seen one P.F. Chang’s there
is
only one—feels like the source of many problems. Amiante is supposed to evoke magnetism,
but it really means asbestos. It’s a selfless vanity project, a dunderheaded finale
to a brilliant career.

Of course, then there are all the problems with me at their root. Incoherence, ignorance,
diluting of mission.

•   •   •

I
DON’T KNOW
if old energy can really be replaced by new energy. So, sort of as a test, I arrange
to meet Erin out. We were going to have an afternoon coffee but we switched plans,
dangerously, to a drink.

I sip my martini, smiling at her and smiling at the irony of grabbing a drink with
someone who berated my drinking while we were married. Then since we’re supposed to
be moving to some pleasant later stage of divorce, some stage of openness, I mention
the irony.

She arches her eyebrows, perfectly tweezed. She really does look a little like Audrey
Hepburn, though not as willowy. She’s started working Saturdays in a co-op bakery—since
Ian, the boyfriend, works six days a week at his firm—and she displays her large forearms.

“Don’t forget,” she says. “You were so drunk our wedding night you couldn’t have sex.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “I was so drunk you wouldn’t have sex with me. Key difference.”

She laughs. “I guess you’re right. I do look back on those days and wonder what the
hell was going on with us.”

“Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we were not well suited.”

“Like you and the young girl. You weren’t well suited.”

“She wasn’t that young.”

“Is that right?” Erin is sipping her whiskey at a pretty good clip. “Should I remind
you how old you are?”

“I can always check my driver’s license. She and I are good friends now.”

“That’s too bad. I liked her.”

“You talked to her for three minutes in a restaurant.”

“I still liked her.”

“I’m actually dating someone who’s older than you.”

“She can walk without a cane?”

“She runs marathons.”

“Oh, boy. I guess you’re going to start running with her. Don’t get too skinny.”

“The first person to run a marathon fell over dead of a heart attack. No one seems
concerned about this.”

“So what do you do with the old lady?”

Have sex. Go watch seals have sex. My time with Jenn seems unusually perverse. We
have gone out to eat, though we both fidgeted at the table, waiting to go back to
her apartment and . . .

“We’re in that getting-to-know-you stage.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She’s very smart. And pretty. She runs marathons.”

Erin orders another drink for herself and me. Why is my tongue suddenly mud around
the subject of Jenn? Maybe it’s not the subject of Jenn but the audience of Erin.

“She works down south,” I say. “Like me.”

Erin regards me, amused.

“Fine,” I say. “What do you want to know?”

“I’m waiting to hear some bigger-picture stuff. Is it a relaxed thing? Does it have
a feeling of being right? Does it have a kind of sibling feel?”

Sibling feel? “I only have a brother.”

“I’m trying to figure out this choice of yours. Let’s say Rachel is innocence and
naivety. But you didn’t want innocence, so . . . Jenn. She’s, what? A desire to settle
into your life?”

I’ve never loved this idea that the people in your life are paths you might choose.
It elides too many inconvenient facts. Such as that they’re people. But even if I
were to play along I wouldn’t say Rachel was innocence, as much as kismet. The thought
that something good might come unbidden. Which would definitely make her a different
path than Erin, where the good took coaxing. “I’m flattered you think this is all
in my power.”

“I’ll give you an example.” She slurps her whiskey. Who is this hearty party girl?
“If I’m not overstepping boundaries.”

I wave my hand, go ahead.

“I dated that guy, Serge, right after you and I split.” Actually we were still living
together, but I let this correction go unmade. “And then I started dating Ian. Serge
represented excitement, carpe diem. But he was kind of an asshole. Those kinds of
guys usually are, right? Ian is the absolute opposite of an asshole. He’s caring.
He does work around youth justice. He represents stability and the long term.”

I’m no expert on the matter, but this does not sound like the heights of passion.
And I’m glad to hear it. My pleasure, I’m afraid, is a petty feeling, strong evidence
I’ve retained a few volts of old energy.

“This word ‘represent.’ It sounds like he works for Amway.”

She shrugs. “You’re still keeping things shallow. Playing the field. They can just
be people to you. Not people who mean something about a direction in your life.”

I should get angry about this comment, but I sip my drink and consider whether she
has a point.

“What direction did I represent?”

“Did or do?”

I’m surprised to hear I represent anything currently.

“Do.”

“First love gone mysteriously wrong.”

I raise my glass to her description. “I’d agree with every word in the statement but
‘mysteriously.’”

“If you can explain it to me, I’m all ears.” She leans on the bar and gives me a warm
smile, as if we’re old friends having a chat. As if we’re not talking about the implosion
of our lives together. Does she not think our lives imploded?

“Does Ian know you’re here?”

“Of course he does,” she says. “He just doesn’t know
you’re
here.”

Some comedian has loaded the jukebox with Journey’s greatest hits. We’re caught in
a whirlpool of “City by the Bay” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Erin leans over to the
bar to order yet another drink, and I find myself wondering if I could sleep with
my ex-wife. If we might—and this
has
to be the third martini whipping up my post-retreat brain—get past some roadblocks
that way. But I can’t make a pass at her and have it turned down. And I can’t make
a pass at her and have it accepted. We would know exactly what to do, of course. We
had a white-hot physical connection, before we had no physical connection at all.
I look at her newly strong forearms. I like them.

“Are you having another?” she asks.

Sleeping with her would have pleasures, one of them the pleasure of home—home after
a much-needed remodel. I imagine the exact steps we would go through. The awkward
question. Would you like to come to my place—our old place—for a nightcap? Then we
would walk up over to Dolores and past the park and up the hill—a good twenty-minute
walk, a near eternity. The dusty staircase would be waiting on us. Maybe even an old
neighbor with a surprised look. Erin would comment on the changes in the building—the
new compost bin, the energy-saving bulbs. And then there’s the cat, which will probably
give her a cold welcome and offend her. Or give her a warm welcome and offend me.
And then the bed . . . our old bed . . .