The Long Highway Pt. 22D

I meant it when I said that Akemi impressed me as having lived a little when she was my student. Compared to the rest of the class, she'd lived a lot. I don't mean only personal experience, though there was that too- leaving her country- but the wider, deeper education she'd gotten in Japan. It dwarfed that of Americans, North South or Central. She didn't show it off, wasn't the kind of person who would, but as her teacher and afterward when we talked outside the classroom, I saw her sophistication and was impressed.

The students around her didn't know about much that had happened before because they had grown up on their phones. They missed great works of art, literature.

Near the end of a class we watched a film clip and after it I talked about movies. I wondered if I should. There were still more than ten minutes left in the session. Another teacher would have used the time to teach something, but I thought, "What the hell." I wanted to talk outside the curriculum and did.

"Have you heard of Hitchcock?"

"What's Hitchcock?"

"It's a name, a person, a great director."

One student raised his hand, almost timidly, as if afraid to stand out from his peers, seem to be bragging about knowledge they lacked.

"I saw a movie, 'The Birds,' and it was incredible, scary," he finally said, his voice strengthening with each word as his conviction carried the day. Clearly, the film had left an impression on him.

"Well, he made a lot more than that, and they all were" (incredible, etc), I said. It occurred to me that my statement might not be wholly true, there may have been one or two clunkers in Hitchcock's oeuvre.

I continued, "They all had honesty and integrity and that made the suspense and terror real."

The other students weren't uninterested, weren't dismissing it. They just didn't know.

Akemi, of course, did know. She'd grown up in Japan, where education is different and great works, even- or especially- Western ones, are revered. So Akemi and I could connect on a lot of levels. Most of the time.

Speaking of suspense and terror that is real, I dreamed when Nelson and Leticia were here of being invited to join a cult. It was no doubt Nelson's guru-like qualities and the effect on Akemi that brought this on.

A women introduced me. We were in Japan. She was Japanese and a member of the "Peace Group." We'd stopped by its home one time, open, airy place, and again later. I was brought there by the friend, this time to spend a night. Akemi and I had been at odds (as we sometimes were in her country) and the friend suggested I take a break at the sanctuary.

I was welcomed as on the first brief visit, this time by the leader, an attractive, small woman, vigorous and purposeful, but not pressuring me to stay; the place didn't work that way, not by force but seduction. I felt its enchantment, allure. If I stayed on for a month or so- my whole life?- I'd enjoy a totally stress-free existence, peace, as the place was named. Also, I could probably have all the sex I wanted, with the friend, member of the cult who'd brought me, like a bird enfolding me in its large soft wings. I might even be able to sleep with the leader, whom I liked. She had gentle, persuasive charm. I liked how she moved around the large, low, wide-windowed main room. Her grace, assurance attracted me, her earthiness consistent with the environment which her character seemed to fill. I wanted to get down on the floor with her. I felt the fear of an insect about to be caught in a honey trap, carnivorous plant with colorfully enticing sticky leaves, chalice-like ones that swallowed, but excited as well, felt like surrendering, enjoying what was on offer.

Only the two women and I were there. Even small sounds like our stockinged footsteps echoed a bit, adding to the sense of intimacy between us, as if narrowing the distances some. The leader had been preparing a meal when I arrived. I saw she'd set an extra place for me. There was a salad, fresh and delicious, carrots cut into needle-like slivers, light green soft lettuce, in a savory sesame sauce, I think.

Taking my seat at the long sturdy table- no doubt the setting at other times for communal lunches and dinners, different from this spontaneous repast just whipped up- I saw that my bowl wasn't as full as the other two. The leader said, "I'm sorry. I couldn't give you more. It wasn't ready." She'd been expecting to feed only herself and the friend, who she hadn't known would be bringing back a new, potential recruit (I was that and attended as such). I'd come on short notice and the short portions were fine with me, of course, totally understandable.

My bowl only had clear soup at the bottom, few noodles of which the two women's were full, gelatinous, yellowish, bending, softened by the broth, gathered in complex configurations; knots, undersea plant life came to mind. The bowl before me was itself beautiful, black, stone or ceramic, smooth glossy. The surfaces shone.

"Akemi has no idea where I am," I said to my friend the cult member.

"That's okay," the leader replied. "We've called and let her know you won't be returning for a while."

It was then that I saw the cult people were already setting about taking control of my life.

I tell you, Nelson's stay with us, his visit to New York with his wife, was a very strange time. What a dream. How close to reality it felt.

And there was another- I'm only remembering now as I write this- about a young boxer just making his push, a celebrity sports star on the rise. The dream followed him into a hotel, a high-rise (also in Japan). He'd gone up to his suite, led by a fawning and manipulative entourage, managers and promoters all but bowing and scraping in grinning subservience as they used him to their own ends, falling all over themselves to flatter their protege in order to profit by his success, opportunistic money men all of them, without morals, absent scruples.

The young boxer was beautiful, shiny with strength and health and dreams of how to use his gifts, a vision of a radiant future. It stirred you to behold that in his face.

But something went wrong with a friend/colleague of his, another boxer, young woman. Also on the verge of great things, near her prime, she died in a match. The male athlete heard of the tragedy and I learned he had ended his own life at the news, overcome by despair had jumped from the high floor of the hotel he'd come to. I would soon see his body fall to the floor of the lobby atrium where I stood, I was told. And sure enough, moments later, there it was, first a sound, a thud, then a thing I didn't recognize at first as the fighter or even as a person, a crumpled form, not in a position we are accustomed to seeing a human being. I thought I recognized his blue jeans, They didn't look like the expensive designer type you might expect from a person who had come into great wealth in a world where people show it off.

I have no idea what that dream meant, who that fighter represented to me. Why had I had that dream about a young life so full of promise, great potential just ready to crest, so suddenly snuffed out? Was it a dream of sexual frustration? Akemi and I couldn't get close much when our visitors were here.

In a sense, the ending was no surprise, consistent with the fate of the central figure. Boxers are black, poor, with a chance in a million of success in the world of white power. You sensed no real grief over his death. The promoters who had all but held the cash cow on their shoulders didn't really care about him, just about the riches he would bring them. And those in the hotel lobby were only sad about that loss.

I much preferred the dream about the two appealing, welcoming young women cultists in their flowing flower-pattern soft gowns whisking around the wide open rooms. Or were they instead in loose blouses and skirts? I don't remember, only that they emanated peace, a harmony with the earth and their lovely figures, and that I felt nearly ready to surrender everything, my will, to join them.

One did seem to be wearing a nature print outfit. I recall orange with a fine pattern, embroidery or embossment. Was the leader of the cult in that or was she sporting pale sky blue? Those two colors lingered even after the dream disappeared.

And I felt excited to wake to the real world with Akemi, even if it was one shared with Nelson- who was, after all, my friend; I probably wouldn't even have met Akemi if not for him. "Find an Asian woman," he'd once said, yes, guru-like in his own right with his cryptic pronouncements, instructions, the hypnotic way he'd clasped Akemi's hands over the table, gazed into her eyes, making everything else at the restaurant, all the guests with us, disappear for those moments, leaving him alone with her.