Way of the Peaceful Warrior (14 page)

I roared through the dusk; the street lights flashed by as I approached Seventh and Western. I was about to cut through the intersection when I noticed a red and white Buick facing me, signaling for a left turn. I slowed down--a small precaution which probably saved my life.
 

Just as my bike entered the intersection the Buick suddenly accelerated, turning directly in front of me. For a few more precious seconds, the body I was born with was still in one piece.
 

There was time enough to think, but not to act. “Cut left,” my mind screamed. But there was oncoming traffic. “Swerve right!” I'd never clear the fender. “Lay it down!” I'd
slide under the wheels. My options were gone. I slammed on the brakes and waited. It was unreal, like a dream, until I saw a flashing image of the driver's horrified face. With a terrible thud and the musical sound of tinkling glass, my bike smashed into the car's front fender--and my right leg shattered. Then everything sped up horribly as the world turned black.
 

I must have lost and regained consciousness just after my body somersaulted over the car and crashed onto the concrete. A moment of blessed numbness, then the pain began, like a searing, red-hot vise, squeezing and crushing my leg tighter and tighter until it became more than I could bear and I started to scream. I wanted it to stop; I prayed for unconsciousness. Faraway voices: “… just didn't see him…” “... parents' phone number...” “... take it easy, they'll be here soon.”
 

Then I heard a faraway siren, and hands were removing my helmet, lifting me onto a stretcher. I looked down and saw a white bone sticking out through the torn leather of my boot. With the slam of the ambulance door, I suddenly recalled Soc's words, “... and you'll be tested severely before you're done.”
 

Seconds later, it seemed, I was lying on the X-ray table in the emergency room of L.A. Orthopedic Hospital. The doctor complained of fatigue. My parents rushed into the room, looking very old and very pale. That's when reality caught up with me. Numb and in shock, I began to cry.
 

The doctor worked efficiently, anesthetizing me, snapping my dislocated toes back into place, and sewing up my right foot. Later, in the operating room, his scalpel sliced a long red line deep into my skin, cutting through the muscles that had worked for me so well. He removed bone from my pelvis and grafted it to the fragments of my right thigh bone. Finally, he hammered a narrow metal rod down the center of my bone, from the hip; a kind of internal cast.
 

I was semiconscious for three days, in a drugged sleep that barely separated me from the agonizing, unrelenting pain. Sometime in the evening of the third day I awoke in darkness when I sensed someone quiet as a shadow, sitting nearby.
 

Joy got up and knelt by my bedside, stroking my forehead as I turned away in shame. She whispered to me, “I came as soon as I heard.” I wished her to share my victories; she always saw me in defeat. I bit my lip and tasted tears. Joy gently turned my face to hers and looked into my eyes. “Socrates has a message for you, Danny; he asked me to tell you this story:”
 

I closed my eyes and listened intently.
 

An old man and his son worked a small farm, with only one horse to pull the plow. One day, the horse ran away.

“How terrible,” sympathized the neighbors. “What bad luck.”

“Who knows whether it is bad luck or good luck,” the farmer replied.

A week later, the horse returned from the mountains, leading five wild mares into the barn.

“What wonderful luck!” said the neighbors.

“Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” answered the old man.

The next day, the son, trying to tame one of the horses, fell and broke his leg.

“How terrible. What bad luck!”

“Bad luck? Good luck?”

The army came to all the farms to take the young men for war. The farmer’s son was of no use to them, so he was spared.

“Good? Bad?”

I smiled sadly, then bit my lip again as I was assaulted by a wave of pain.
 

Joy soothed me with her voice. “Everything has a purpose, Danny; it’s for you to make the best use of it.”

“How will I ever make use of this accident?”
 

“Everything has a purpose, a purpose, a purpose,” she repeated, whispering in my ear.
 

“But my gymnastics, my training...”

“This is your training. Let the pain purify your mind and body. It will burn through many obstructions.” She saw the questioning look in my eyes, and added, “A warrior doesn’t seek pain, but if pain comes, he uses it. Now rest, Danny, rest.” She slipped out behind the entering nurse.
 

“Don't go, Joy,” I muttered and fell into a deep sleep, remembering nothing more.
 

Friends visited and my parents came every day; but for most of twenty-one endless days I lay alone, fiat on my back. I watched the white ceiling and meditated for hours, battered by thoughts of melancholy, self-pity, and futile hope.
 

On a Tuesday morning, leaning on new crutches, I stepped out into the bright September sunlight and hobbled slowly to my parents' car. I'd lost almost thirty pounds, and my pants hung loosely on protruding hip bones; my right leg looked like a stick with a long purple scar down the side.
 

A fresh breeze caressed my face on this rare, smogless day. The wind carried flowered scents I'd forgotten; the chirping of birds in a nearby tree mixed with the sounds of traffic created a symphony for my newly awakened senses.
 

I stayed with my parents for a few days, resting in the hot sun and swimming slowly through the shallow end of the swimming pool, painfully forcing my sutured leg muscles to work. I ate sparingly--yogurt, nuts, cheese, and fresh vegetables. I was beginning to regain my vitality.
 

Friends invited me to stay with them for a few weeks at their home in Santa Monica, five blocks from the beach. I accepted, welcoming the chance to spend more time in the open air.
 

Each morning I walked slowly to the warm sand, and, laying my crutches down, sat by the waves. I listened to the gulls and the surf, then closed my eyes and meditated for hours, oblivious to the world around me. Berkeley, Socrates, and my past seemed lost, in another dimension.
 

Soon I began to exercise, slowly at first, then more intensely, until I was spending hours each day sweating in the hot sun, doing push-ups, sit-ups, curls. I carefully pressed up to hand-stands, then pumped up and down, again and again, puffing with exertion until every muscle had worked to its limit and my body glistened. Then I would hop one-legged into the shallow surf and sit dreaming of lofty somersaults until the salt water washed my shining sweat and soaring dreams into the sea.
 

I trained fiercely until my muscles were as hard and defined as a marble statue. I became one of the beach “regulars” who made the sea and sand their way of life. Malcolm the masseur would sit down on my blanket and tell jokes; Doe, the Rand Corporation think-tank whiz, would drop by my blanket every day and talk with me about politics and women; mostly women.
 

I had time--time to consider all that had happened to me since I'd met Socrates. I thought about life and its purposes, death and its mystery. And I remembered my mysterious teacher--his words, his animated expressions--mostly though, I remembered his laughter.
 

The warmth of the October sun faded into the November clouds. Fewer people came to the beach, and during this time of solitude, I enjoyed a peace I'd not felt for many years. I imagined staying on the beach my whole life, but I knew I'd be going back to school after Christmas.
 

My doctor gave me the results of my X-rays. “Your leg is healing well, Mr. Millman--unusually well, I should say. But I caution you; don't get your hopes up. The nature of your accident doesn't make it likely that you'll be able to do gymnastics again.” I said nothing.
 

Soon I waved good-bye to my parents and boarded a jet; it was time to return to Berkeley.
 

Rick picked me up at the airport; I stayed with him and Sid for a few days until I found a studio in an old apartment house near campus.
 

Each morning, gripping my crotches tightly, I'd make my way to the gym and train on the weight machines, then fall exhausted into the swimming pool. There, assisted by the water's buoyancy, I'd force my leg to the point of pain, trying to walk--always, always to the point of pain.
 

Afterwards, I would lie on the lawn behind the gym, stretching my muscles to retain the suppleness I'd need for future training. Finally, I rested, reading in the library until I fell into a light sleep.
 

I had called Socrates to tell him I was back. He wasn't much for talking on the phone and told me to visit him when I could walk without crutches. That was fine with me; I wasn't ready to see him yet.
 

It was a lonely Christmas that year until Pat and Dennis, two of my teammates, knocked on my apartment door, grabbed me, grabbed my jacket, and practically carried me down to the car. We drove toward Reno, up into the snow, and stopped at Donner Summit. While Pat and Dennis ran through the snow, wrestling, throwing snowballs, and sledding down the hill, I hobbled carefully through the snow and ice and sat on a log.
 

My thoughts floated back to the coming semester, and to the gymnastics room. I wondered if my leg would ever heal straight and strong. Snow dropped from a branch, thudding with a slushy sound to the frozen ground, waking me from my reverie.
 

Soon, we were driving home. Pat and Dennis were singing bawdy songs; I watched white crystals float down around us, glittering in our car's lights as the sun began to set. I thought about my derailed future and wished that I could leave my whirling mind behind me, buried in a white grave beside the road in the snowy mountains.
 

Just after Christmas I made a brief visit to L.A. to see my doctor, who let me trade in my crutches for a shiny black cane. Then I headed back to school and to Socrates.
 

It was Wednesday night at 11:40 P.M. when I limped through the doorway of the office and saw Soc's radiant face. I was home again, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to sit and sip tea with Socrates in the quiet of the night. It was a more subtle, and in many ways greater, pleasure than all my athletic victories. I looked at this man who had become my teacher and saw things I'd never seen before.
 

In the past I had noticed a light that seemed to encircle him, but I'd assumed it was only my tired eyes. I wasn't tired now, and there was no doubt about it, there was a barely perceptible aura. “Socrates,” I said “There's a light shining around your body. Where does it come from?”
 

“Clean living,” he grinned. Then the bell clanged and he went out to make someone laugh, under the pretext of servicing a car. Socrates dispensed more than gasoline. Maybe it was that aura, that energy or emotion. Anyway, people nearly always left happier than when they had arrived.
 

It wasn't the glowing, however, that impressed me most about him; it was his simplicity, his economy of motion and of action. I hadn't truly appreciated any of this before. It was as if I saw more deeply into Socrates with every new lesson I learned. As I came to see the complexities of my mind, I realized how he had already transcended his.
 

When he returned to the office I asked, “Socrates, where is Joy now? Will I see her again soon?”
 

He smiled as if glad to hear my questions again. “Dan, I don't know where she is; that girl is a mystery to me--always was.”
 

I then told Socrates about the accident and its aftermath. He listened quietly and intently, nodding his head.
 

“Dan, you're no longer the young fool who walked into this office over a year ago.”
 

“Has it been a year? It seems like ten,” I joked, “Are you saying I'm no longer a fool?”
 

“No, only that you're no longer young.”
 

“Hey, that's real heartwarming, Soc.”
 

“But now you're a fool with spirit, Dan. And that's a very big difference. You still have a faint chance of finding the gate and passing through.
 

“Gate?”
 

When Socrates talked, it sounded like a pronouncement. “Dan, we've talked much; you've seen visions and learned lessons. I teach a way of life, a way of action. It's time you became fully responsible for your own behavior. To find the gate, you must first learn to follow . . .”
 

“The House Rules?” I volunteered.
 

He laughed, then the bell clanged as a car rolled smoothly through a rain puddle into the station. I watched through the misty window as Socrates walked quickly out into
the drizzle, wearing his poncho. I could see him put the gas nozzle in, go around to the driver's side, and say something to a bearded, blond-haired man in the car.
 

The window misted over again, so I wiped it clean with my sleeve in time to see them laughing. Then Socrates opened the door to the office, and a draft of cold air slapped me harshly, bringing with it my first awareness that I didn't feel well at all.
 

Socrates was about to make some tea, when I said, “Please, sit down, Soc. I'll make tea.” He sat, nodding his head in approval. I leaned against the desk, feeling dizzy. My throat was sore; perhaps the tea would help.
 

As I filled the kettle and placed it on the hot plate, I asked, “Do I have to build some kind of road to this gate, then?”