The Empty Chair (9 page)

I audited classes at a few of the formerly Dharmabudless start-ups and have to say that Kelly was pretty fucking slick. She soothed the savage Ritalin beasts, made 'em into little
bhaktas
faster than you could say puff the magic drag queen. The tapped-out, stressed-out educators got a respite in the bargain . . . a little downtime to reboot, before making the next Safeway run for nutritious snacks and yellow Ticonderoga No. 2s.

Kelly figured the memoir would take a few years so in the meantime self-published a Zen children's book she'd been working on called
How It Can Dance!
It was filled with quirky koans—“Does an
Awfully
Messy Room Have the Buddha Nature?”— loved that one—along with Kelly's distinctively squiggly, faux-naïf illustrations. (I take full credit for sneaking in a poem from Kerouac's
Mexico City Blues
and an “upside-down” nonsense rhyme by Kabir, the cantankerous saint of Varanasi.) Mom drew Ryder à la Jules Feiffer—she stole from the best—as the prototypical great-grandchild of the Beats, and her sweet, fanciful narrative allowed him to surf from page to page with beginner's-mind alacrity and charm. He had a blast . . . though again I'm compelled to say that Ryder's exuberance remained sunny and pure. Not a prideful bone in his body. Don't get me wrong—all kids like to please their moms but he somehow struck a balance between the scholarly and the Oedipal. I've tried to do that all my life and failed! Anyway, I kept a close watch on that heart of mine—one of my duties as househusband, don't you know—and can proudly attest that our son's head stayed firmly on his shoulders.

Kelly went on a
How It Can Dance!
book tour that she organized herself, from Seattle to San Diego and every place in-between. She arranged for local library readings and hawked it out of vitamin barns, co-ops and daycare centers. Sold it from her
car
for God's sake.

We were on a budget, notwithstanding the advance on the memoir and my disability checks. You know how the money thing goes. I admit I was getting a little wiggy. I must have gained, oh, close to 45 pounds. I put in a lot of time on the porch in a rocking chair that rumor had it once belonged to either Neil Young or Pigpen. (Got it at the flea market.) You know, my wife had an interesting relationship to my lawsuit. On the one hand, she said it was bad karma to be sitting on my ass waiting for reparations over something that happened as a result of karma
anyway
and that the case had turned all us plaintiffs into virtual eunuchs, which was the ultimate triumph of the abusers. Probably had a point. On the other, I knew she wasn't above dreaming of the Big Win. With enough Merlot, Kelly's thoughts wandered to India, a mainstay of her recurring encyclical money-pot grand tour. She
loved
to tease. She said that when my ship came in—always referred to as the
Good Ship Lollipop
—she expected no less than a first-class expedition. “And if that isn't convenient for your schedule, Ryder and I will have a perfectly fine time by ourselves.” She always diva'd out when she drank Merlot. But no bullshit, Kelly considered the fact that she'd never traveled there to be a gaping hole in her CV. She desperately wanted to visit the cave where Siddhartha Gautama meditated; she longed to sit under the Buddha tree in Bodh Gaya. She wanted to go to the Deer Park in Sarnath where he gave his teachings, and to Sravasti, where he taught breath awareness meditation . . . and make the pilgrimage to Kushinagar, where the Buddha drew his last breath. Her fantasy itinerary for Ryder was catholic indeed, mixing elephant rides (like his beloved if recently outgrown Mowgli) with a visit to Varanasi to watch bodies burning on a ghat—a ritual for which Ryder, courtesy of Mom's bedtime stories, had already seemed to have acquired a small but persistent curiosity.

After the third glass of wine she'd crinkle her eyes and stare at the moon, archly whispering, “Or maybe I'll just bring a . . .
ladyfriend.
”

She was a hoot.

Oh and look, Bruce, I don't want to give you the impression I had no
life
. When Kelly was on the road doing her book or teaching thing, I took breaks from the drudgery of the legal waiting game. I'd arrange for Ryder to have a sleepover at a friend's then ride into the city to buy crack in the Tenderloin. Find a friendly porn shop with booths in the back for watching movies and get high. Kneel in front of the glory hole and wait for Mr. Right to poke his dick through . . .
Suck-A-Mole
not Whac-A-Mole, huh
.
Not exactly a self-esteem builder but you do what you gostta do. I acquired gonorrhea that way once, in the throat.
Nice.
Another time I got crabs in my eyebrows. You haven't lived until you've almost blinded yourself with A-200 before finding out that Vaseline
asphyxiates the little fuckers.
Vaseline!

I was in the yard. What was I doing? I have no memory.

I know it was a Saturday, three weekends before the news of the settlement—O happy day!—though of course at the time, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that everything had fallen apart or the case needed to be refiled on a technicality and would take five more years to resolve.

I went back in the house. Why? No memory.

As I passed Kelly's meditation room, something caught my eye. A chair, overturned on the floor. I went in to right it. Something stank—my foot skidded—it was shit, right next to the chair—
on
the chair.
How did a dog—
what
dog—

Then I saw him, hanging from a rope.

No clothes . . . he wore no clothes.

—
what's this?

(My heart was racing but my mind was calm, observing.)

Rushed to lift—so heavy.

Dead.

Dead—

But
what
is dead? And what does dead
mean
—

I could smell him, and all manner of stinky things—that thing Ram said—actually the awesome poet Ravidas said it, or wrote it, anyway—about everything being stinky—emanating from the untouchable touchable body of my son—poo smells, horsey, germy,
sandalwoody
smells—a complete, fetid jumble.
The sky is falling
—the phrase came into my head and kept repeating—the sky is falling—so
this
is what they mean by that—he was a bag, heavy boxer's punching bag, and I, me, a freak stuck in timespace, slow-dancing with that cold nude weight—
How It Can Dance!
—and if you've ever confronted this sort of thing (there are more out there than you think, I went to a support group for folks who discovered loved ones hanging), there's an odd moment when you're
lifting
—later you wonder why you didn't just cut them down—as if that might have saved him—you're
supposed
to cut them down, but at the
moment
—dread moment of moments—it seems counterintuitive so you find yourself holding and
lifting
instead,
lifting
up
—in that odd moment—
very
odd—you're just
stuck
, your instincts say
raise him
up
,
take pressure off his neck (the damage already done, windpipes ruined forever), there you are left holding the bag, no way to cut the rope even if you wanted, there's no
knife
and you can't let go, and besides, the angle's all wrong and your hands are full, so you're stuck holding the torso of him who was—
is
—always
was
your love and your light—like one of those exhausted marathon dance couples from that wonderful movie
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
If you can't cut it then you need to undo the knot but it's too
high
,
you'll need to stand on a
chair—conveniently provided!—so you can lift him with one arm and loosen the noose with the other . . . you'll need to bend down to right the chair (now inconveniently laying on its side) but it's been kicked a few feet away so you need to do more than bend, need to literally
let go
of him to get to it—the very first of a letting go that will stretch into Infinity—which you do, you have no choice but to let him dangle—
have to
—and it's against the will of every cell of your body—body of father holding his son, every cell shrieking
no no no he'll choke . . . again!
—and you cannot,
will
not bring yourself to be party to a further hanging—oh Bruce! It's just a horrible, terrible bind—I found myself in—a wretched, killing, scum of the earth moment, alone with myself in the deadly
present
—and you feel . . . you're just
completely useless
, you're
beyond
,
like some demon who never should have existed, why were you born?
He
wouldn't have been in this ludicrous predicament if you never had been, you've murdered him by definition
.
Your busy, useless arms won't let you dial for help—
where are your clothes, son?
—but eventually you do just that, blacking out all thoughts so as not to be party to an unspeakable second hanging—you let go of him as you shuffle over to right that dastardly chair. The seat is broken but you see a short wood plank (what's
that
doing there? Well, never mind for now), you lay the plank across the broken drum of the seat so you can stand upon it, a good,
pro-active
move that suddenly vanquishes or at least diminishes other awful thoughts, our brains are so primitive, they enjoy ordering us to take action-steps, now suddenly face-to-face with Ryder's dead head, staring at the twisted hard candy features. And again the mind begins its metal machine Muzak:

Ryder?
—

—son?—

SON!

You brush his penis with your arm, it's larger than you thought—

The mind metal-machines: Hmmm, when was the last time I saw it?

My son's penis—

—probably a few months ago when he was sick.

. . . right? Holding his head with a cold rag. He puked into the trash.

But he was a shy kid. Always modest about his body, at least more than his parents.

Ry? Why aren't you wearing clothes?

Ryder?

What is it you've done?

What's happened here
—

In the unfathomable midst of it all, your monkey mind noshes on its usual bullshit buffet. But whose thoughts and emotions are these? They don't feel like yours . . . you're a thousand miles away, in the middle of a dream.

A daydream.

You even feel—
I
felt—silly.

. . . tongue herniating from mouth—impossible to untie Kelly's blocks, he used the rope from Kelly's yoga blocks—why did I think that would be an easy thing? To noodle a finger between rope and skin, like a steel wire under the jaw . . .

So I had to let him hang again—third hanging!—and run to the kitchen for a knife. Easier to let go the second time. Serial killers say that with each victim, the killing gets easier—

I cut him down.

Carried the birthday suit bag to a phone (no phone in Kelly's meditation room)—carried! As if to break the vigil of human contact would endanger him—endanger
me
—and dialed 911. I told them what happened and they said, you know, they were sending someone out, and to stay on the line.
Please stay on the line, sir.
I've heard enough 911 calls on the news to know that's what they do, that's protocol, they ask you to stay on the line and be calm. I dropped the receiver on the carpet and just held him, pretending he was asleep. It half-looked like that . . .

. . . from a certain angle.

Angle of repose.

What exactly
is
an angle of repose?

The sky is falling.

I really do have blocks against certain phrases. Words too—like “abide.” “The Dude abides.” I can never remember what it means. And right after I find out, I forget. It's a biblical word but people use it in songs all the time . . .

Later I learned that the firemen broke down the door. I didn't hear them till they wrenched Ryder from my arms. One of them asked, Did you take off his clothes?
Uh,
no, he was like that when I found him.
Metal machine mind said,
That probably sounds strange to them.
Hell, it sounded strange to
me.
I knew the police would want to explore further. Protocol. Cop work 101. In death of spouse, rule out spouse. In death of child, rule out parent. In hanging death of naked child, rule out creepy gay dad.

My head told me it was going to be a bit of a hassle but would ultimately resolve. I just hoped it didn't turn lurid, that the truth would out itself—quickly.

But should I use my church-suit lawyers to defend?
(Said monkey mind.)

I rode in the ambulance. They made me sit in front while they worked on him in back. No real memory of it. They tried to start an IV at the house but I don't think that works when someone's dead. The veins collapse, no blood's flowing. Far as I know. But everyone played their part, they were all great. No professional likes to give up on a kid. I think they probably ham it up with kids, it's instinct, you know, you're trying to resuscitate a person who hasn't had a chance to fuck it up, someone who hasn't had the chance to break any hearts (until now). So they put in that extra effort, apart from the fact that a lot of 'em have kids themselves. If you work on a child who dies, grief counselors and an extended leave with full pay is a slam-dunk.
Earth to monkey mind! Now
I remember, the chief paramedic, head honcho, was an old pro. Very seasoned. Some of those guys are even D.O.s. You know, osteopaths. There was a woman trainee too, doing her best to not be distraught. Her very first call as an EMT, someone told me later. That had to be rough.