The Feet of God

8 - THE SEEKER

Bob and me sprinted back to the pickup.  “Pop me a beer,” Bob wiped her brow and kept checking the rear view mirror to make sure we wasn’t being followed.  I followed orders and popped a can for each of us.

“Why didn’t we stay and get the money?  I mean, the ol’ bitch just wanted to shine a light in our eyes before giving us some dough.”

Bob tried to be patient, “You’re a newbie Seeker.  You don’t know all the ways of The Path.  I’ll just say for now that something’s terribly wrong.  We have to get back to Gorda Fortuna fast.”

“What’s Gorda Fortuna?”

“That’s our base.”  Bob finished her beer and threw it out the window.  “Pop me another one.”

“What kinda base?”

“It’s a refuge, a sanctuary, a universal center for all Seekers, Finders and Reapers.  But most important, it’s the home of the Grande Bodhisattva Herself, the Avatar of Avatars, the Shemama of Shamans, Karmi Sri Boomrambis.”  Bob seemed practically in rapture.  “We call her Ma.”

I could see she was really starting to open up to me.  I took advantage of the moment and probed, “How’d you get yourself hooked up with these Seeker folks anyhow?”

“I was lost but then I was found by Krishna Merman.”  She paused so I’d know to be suitably impressed.  “The Loud Enlightened One picked me up along The Path.”  After another awe-inspiring pause Bob continued with her tale of personal redemption.

“I’d been out on the road hitching about a year or so ago, having run away from the family home in Ashtabula, Ohio.  I thought I was really something back then, a free spirit and all, going places and seeing the world, and not having to do what other people told me to do.  Then I hit a dead spot while trying to hitch a ride off to the side of the freeway on a ramp to nowhere except a CHP rest stop and a CALTRAN maintenance shack.”  Bob paused briefly for another swig of beer.  “I was stuck there for a goddamn eternity with nothing to eat except some stale crackers and a few granola bars stashed in my backpack.  I was sleeping minutes at a time so I didn’t miss my next ride opportunity.  After a few days I was starving and dehydrated, lying in the sun, close to death, and that’s when Krishna Merman mercifully looked down upon me from a passing Winnebago.  He made the driver stop and back down the ramp to get me.  It was my redemption.”

“Wow,” was all I could muster.

“Eventually our heavenly hosts dropped us off near Death Valley.  Oh, by the way newbie, that’s what we call them, the people who pick us up for rides, heavenly hosts.  Anyhow, Krishna Merman and I spent a lot of time bonding during our time in the desert waiting for the next heavenly host.  The Master shared his special knowledge with me, and he showed me how wonderfully ripe life could be.  Most important, he taught me to shed old patterns of thinking so that I, a newbie Seeker myself, might one day enjoy the full blessings of becoming a Reaper.”

Bob fell into some sort of trance as she swayed back and forth with her eyes shut, mumbling something over and over again that sounded like, “Reap, reap, reap….”

I pointed out, with measured concern in my voice, she might wanna keep at least one eye glued to the road while driving in a swoon.  And then I tried to tune her out.  I had to.  Here I was, a free spirit myself, cruising down a freeway with a beer in hand and plenty of beers in the back, with a chick I was just getting to really know, and suddenly she had to go and get all complicated and emotional on me.

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