A Tiger in Eden (16 page)
It was a good wee story about a king telling this fella to round up all the blind people in the town and try explaining to them what an elephant was by letting them touch bits of it but then when he asked the blind what the elephant was like they all said something different ‘cos they’d touched different parts, it was one of them fables basically saying that every fucker sees things different and no one’s got a fucking clue what the truth of the matter is really that’s what I took out of it anyway, sure I’d met loads of cunts back home who thought they knew the score but they’d no idea.
Anyway I had to go up the front and read it out, I was a wee bit nervous but not too bad even though everyone was watching me. It was dead early in the morning still dark and lots of tired-looking faces but sure they all perked up when I started talking. I hammed it up a bit,
exaggerating the words and that sort of like a performance or something sure it was obvious everyone was all starved of entertainment ‘cos they started laughing dead quick at my antics. It was weird hearing my voice and I suppose some were thinking fuck me he’s from Belfast and others were probably thinking what sort of fucking stupid accent is that like but at least I was talking proper ‘cos I was reading something out and not just speaking like I normally do a mile a minute and catch yourself on and away and fuck you’re a head-the-ball and all that stuff.
Those who had been shown the ear of the elephant replied, the elephant your majesty is just like a winnowing basket,
I says, now that’s not even funny or nothing but sure they were cracking up maybe it was the way I said it, you can never tell with an Irish accent this one time a Welsh girl went gaga over me saying washing-up liquid, what’s that all about? Anyway I had the crowd in the palm of my hand and I felt like Dave Allen or someone telling dirty jokes down the comedy club, maybe they were just relieved to hear one of their own talking.
Bit of light relief did the atmosphere a world of good and when I sat back down half the place was staring at me with goofy grins on their faces and the rest of the day I was a minor celebrity people patting me on the back and giving me the nod. The best part was all the women looking at me like he’s brilliant so he is I wouldn’t mind getting into his fisherman pants. Fuck me I tried not to think about it especially the redhead who was giving me
sultry looks, don’t tell us she fancies me I was thinking sure if we get together after this it’ll be like a thermonuclear explosion.
It was a good day though, not a single person there wished me any ill will they were all looking friendly at me and smiling, a bit strange for a Prod from the Shankill Road when you’re used to everyone hating your guts and wanting to take a baseball bat with a nail in it to your knees. I went to bed quite happy that night thinking this is all right maybe I can get through this sure I’m halfway there and quite enjoying it, there’s something to be said for the aul Buddhism.
Weird stuff started to happen when I was doing the aul meditation. Like yer man said I just concentrated on my breathing going in a circle and didn’t think about the past no more all that noise and chaos in my head was fading away into the background it was getting quiet in there and I started seeing this vision sort of thing, I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a wee gentle dream only I was awake maybe in a trance or something I don’t know anyway here’s the thing, in it I was floating in the ocean but the waves were dead calm and all was quiet, I wasn’t worried about nothing just floating there with my mouth shut and not a thought in my head. The sea below was deep and dark, I couldn’t see nothing down there but I wasn’t scared it was like I knew there was sharks and giant squids and piranhas and whatever else
lurking in the depths but I knew they wouldn’t bother me, I was safe so I was. Away in the distance was a beach with flat land stretching out behind it no trees or buildings or nothing just like a desert but not the Sahara or some place that would kill ye, a friendly patch of land not threatening.
That was it at first, just me hanging out in the middle of nowhere not bothered about being alone. I kept coming back to it though and every time it was a wee bit different, the waves were picking up a bit and carrying me closer to shore or there was other figures floating in the sea as well but too far away for me to see who they were or a couple of white clouds passed overhead or a wee fish came up to have a gander at me and say hello. It was weird as fuck but as the days went by I was thinking ten days wasn’t going to be long enough for me and maybe I could take a few days off after, do some talking, get it out of my system and then sign up for another ten if I could or maybe just hang out in the monastery for a while longer not become a monk or nothing I’m not that mad but you know it was obvious this place was changing me for the better, meeting yer man Tony up in Bangkok was maybe the luckiest thing ever happened to me.
The whole thing was coming to an end, those final few days were a blur and I felt like I’d been through the wringer but I’d made it out somehow. I knew it couldn’t be all over just like that, there was still the memories of my brother deep down like there’d still be plenty of stuff to come. It helped me start to understand why home
was such a toxic fucking place though sure just take my case and multiply it by about a million and try and sort that out, fucking impossible like but one thing was for sure I promised myself there’d be no more aul talk about Fenians and Taigs and Catholics’ eyebrows meeting in the middle though that is kinda funny.
I decided to put all that behind me, what a load of shite anyway. I could get angry at Big Jim and them ones that made me that way full of hate and spite but there’s no point is there. I was always saying I was a good Prod but the truth of it is I’m not the religious type, I don’t really believe in the big man upstairs or anything. I mean if any of that stuff’s true sure I’m proper fucked, there’ll be a red-hot poker with my name on it down below. Fucking Beelzebub will be rubbing his hands together when he sees me coming.
It’s not like I’d seen the light and become an aul Buddhist or something, I mean they seem to have the right idea about not doing no harm to no one and not living in the past or pining after the future that’s all good stuff, common sense really. I’m not convinced about the reincarnation or any of that it’s believing in stuff you’ve no idea about that bothers me. I suppose that’s what most people call faith but I’ve no need for it really, sure I can only ever see the world through my own eyes and know my own feelings and thoughts, I don’t need to believe in a bunch of aul stories that might be true and might not, be they Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Jedi or whatever. Aye sure the only thing I know is that
I’m nothing I’m only here for a short time and it doesn’t fucking matter in the grand scheme of things, now that maybe frightens some people but not me because the flip side of it is that I’m also everything I’m plugged into the world like there’s a lead coming out my arse and going into a big socket and that’s brilliant so it is. Aye, there’s big questions to be asked who are ye and what are ye doing here and why but you’ll never know the answers and that’s the whole point really isn’t it, that’s what it is to be a human being just asking just wondering with an aul cheeky grin on your face.
The final morning I was happy and sad at the same time, it was a bittersweet sort of feeling but when I closed my eyes and tried the meditation the weirdest thing happened, there I was back in the water as usual only the sun was beaming down from the sky not boiling or nothing just warm. I was light as a feather like my weight didn’t even matter, I didn’t have to paddle to stay afloat and then my legs started to come up from underneath me and I was rising out of the sea floating on the air. I was out of the water completely like a big invisible hand was picking me up.
As I went up I could see the others still down in the water some of them waved to me and I waved back, I felt brilliant I was going higher and higher until their heads were just dots on the surface of the ocean. I could see the beach and the land beyond it wasn’t desert at all there was big grass fields and forests and mountains and rivers, it was unbelievable so it was all of nature before me and
there was me flying totally light up and up towards the sun until I couldn’t feel my body no more that was it that was where it ended I opened my eyes and looked around the temple I was crying a wee bit but not out of sadness or grief but because I was free or maybe close to it.
There was something else though, something I’d glimpsed down there in the water like an aul fucking black monster lurking in the depths. I got a wee flash of an image as I was sitting there rubbing my eyes just a quick one but it was enough. A Doberman pinscher straining at its chain foam at the corner of its mouth, rain bouncing on cobblestones and the silhouette of a man lit by a streetlamp, sheltering from the rain waiting.
The English-speaking monk made an announcement on the last night, I was surprised ‘cos he seemed almost happy or something he said this dead famous aul monk had kicked the bucket and if we wanted we could all go to the funeral, it was on this island just off the coast where he lived most of the time there’d be buses going and everything. He said it was a privilege to be offered the chance to see the aul fella off and if we weren’t doing nothing else we should seriously think about it. I didn’t fancy going to a funeral what a downer after ten days of silence and yoga, I wouldn’t of minded having a wee drink and a few laughs not going overboard or nothing just a wee reminder that although I liked the Buddhists I wasn’t one myself.
It was either that or hang round the monastery for
a couple of days, they said we could if we wanted just to come down off the experience and chat amongst ourselves about what it was like, that sounded better to me but if the gorgeous redhead decided she wanted to go to the funeral then that’s where I was going too. There hadn’t been a word between us yet obviously but since we’d had our wee moment there’d been constant eye contact like we were both dying to get a hold of each other for an aul chinwag and maybe more besides. It was weird so it was flirting without saying nothing but good too, none of the usual aul nonsense. I just hoped it wouldn’t be spoiled as soon as we opened our gobs sure I was dead worried she’d be Irish, that’s all I need to fall for one of our own with some aul annoying accent from Galway or somewhere.
So the buses were waiting on the morning of the eleventh day for those who wanted to go to the funeral. It was weird hearing people’s voices and all the accents from all over the world loads of people came up to say hello to me and to thank me for doing the funny reading from the aul Tripitaka, they said it made all the difference gave them a boost halfway through the ten days and helped them over the hump. I appreciated that and it was dead good having an aul yarn with people and hugging them and whatever, they felt like good friends like I knew them really well even though we’d never even talked to each other before.
The guy with the glasses who always wore black came up to me dead serious I’d thought he was German but
he was a Yank turns out he was there with his fiancée, that must of been weird, I goes, but he says they stayed away from each other. His girl was friendly she wasn’t that into the meditation and everything, she said she was only doing it for him. I asked him what the story was and he told me he’d been a medic in the army sent out with a bunch of other lads into the desert somewhere but he saw too much and he lost it eventually and had to get sent home. You’d never have thought to look at him he’d had a life like that, his girl was a soldier too he met her when he was in the hospital getting his head seen to she was there too just like him lost the plot the aul army’s not for everyone like. They were getting married in Hawaii in a couple of months, it was good talking to them and I wished them the best of luck.
My neighbour in the next cell come over to see me too the aul fella he was dead educated, Norwegian he was, name of Knut. I’d never heard a name like that before, fucking brilliant I thought. I started laughing straightaway, aye pleased to make your acquaintance Knut, I goes, give us a hug big man I know you’ve been wanting one for a while, he gave a huge laugh himself and near broke my ribs he squeezed me so hard, you give me hope when I see you, he says, what do you mean, I goes, no one ever said something like that to me before, it stopped me dead in my tracks so it did. Whenever I look at you I see strength, he says, and I know that anything is possible, fuck me you wouldn’t believe what happened I just burst into tears he grabbed me again and I put my
head into his shoulder he smelled of pine of autumn, it’s all right son, he says, I know how you’re feeling we’ve all lost something or someone. I was sobbing like a wean into his neck it would of been dead embarrassing only there was a couple of other people greeting too.