Jeremy thought Michael charming and without conceit; he marveled at the witchcraft of actors, of this one, who could reach into himself, or out of himself, and bring his seeming antithesis—“Christopher Moltisanti”—to savage, gangstery life.
“This isn’t really a ghost story, though maybe it is,” Michael said. “A ‘hungry ghost’ story, anyway. Those tales of ponds and rivers made me think of it. A friend of mine asked me to go with him to a retreat, up past Ukiah. This was a while ago, when I was in California. A few years before The Sopranos. A Rinpoche was going to be giving a talk. A tulku—I’m sure a lot of people in this room know him. Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche.” Joan and Nicholas nodded in assent, telegraphing that they knew the man personally. “His father was Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, the great Dzogchen master. Anyway, my friend and I were going through some hard times — not with each other, but separately. I’m not even sure what was happening in my life back then, but I was… kind of unsettled, in mind and spirit. Body too! Though I do think he was a bit more troubled than I was. My friend. At that time.
“Like so many of us, he was a lifelong seeker. He’d been a monk — he’d shot ketamine with Ginsberg, in Benares—did the whole Kumbh Mela nine yards… been through all kinds of phases. Jesus, I think he was even a Scientologist, a pretty high-up one too. For a while, he tried his hand at being a guru. Had a piece of land somewhere. He actually had followers! We went to college together — took different paths, but were very close. He was like a brother to me in a lot of ways; we had that connection. And I hadn’t heard from him in a while, maybe ten years, until that phone call. When he asked me to go to Ukiah to hear the tulku, I said yes, no hesitation. It was good to see him again — I really loved this guy. It was like no time had passed at all. Being with him, being together. And he gave me this kind of warning, he said he didn’t want to talk to anyone when we got to the retreat! (Not that it’s mandatory.) Told me he’d had enough of people, didn’t want to talk to anybody. He was always a little eccentric. But as you know, it’s not so unusual for people to do that. On retreat. To want to do that, to choose not to speak. So we drove up the coast, and when we got there he put a little sticker on his shirt that said ‘Silent.’ I didn’t care. But the thing was, I couldn’t quite understand why he wanted to go on the retreat in the first place. Because there seemed to be an undercurrent… of cynicism. Still, I thought, ‘Good for him!’ You know, he’s cynical or he’s whatever, maybe he’s hip to that and he’s working shit out. I was happy to be of service. And I was probably a little bit smug—you know: he’s cynical and I’m not. But I didn’t want to be there under those auspices — you know, the Skeptic Brothers, the Skeptic Twins. So I was watching myself kinda carefully. Because I was way past wearing that particular outfit. So I thought.
“So we made the trip to Ukiah and it was good. On the drive, we cut up old times, caught each other up on who was dead, who was divorced, who’d gone off the rails — sex, dope, jail, whatever. All that. Turns out one of the casualties was his wife, which pretty much stunned me. Because I knew Meghan, fairly well. But I didn’t know they’d stayed together (whatever together is), stayed married all those years. He was her first love, her only love, and she hung with him through the craziness. And there was a lot of craziness. Meghan was always there when he came back home from wherever — you know, to dress his wounds before he returned to battle. He didn’t say how she died and I was almost afraid to ask because a voice kept telling me she’d taken her own life. What shocked me even more was the way he talked about her. You know, when he said that she died, that she was dead, there was very little emotion. I remember he picked up on my reaction, you know, my reaction on him not having a reaction. But all he would say was that he was at peace with what happened. (I still didn’t ask him for details!) And that sorta made sense, really, that he was ‘at peace,’ because for all that time, he’d been with her and not with her: the man had a lot goin’ on in the ladies department. So maybe his equanimity was healthy, I don’t know. And maybe enough time had passed anyway, for him to have reached that point, because it wasn’t like it just happened. I think it was maybe five years before. That she died. Anyway, I wasn’t his therapist.
“When we got to Ukiah, we didn’t even go to register, we just went straight to the river and jumped in. It was incredibly beautiful, super hot day, in the hundreds, the water was cold, clear, perfect. We swam a while then sat on the bank, recovering from the long drive. Grooving. Starting to feel really good. A little full of ourselves — you know, Zen studs, spiritual good ol’ boys, too cool for school. Like, ‘this ain’t our first rodeo.’ Top guns.
“So we’re tanning ourselves when this fat guy waddles toward us. And my friend and I kinda look at each other with a wink because he’s our ‘first victim’—the whole silent-retreat ruse. And I’m the straight man, I’m the one who’s going to have to tell the guy that my friend ain’t talkin’. (Because we’re shirtless and he doesn’t have his ‘Silent’ sticker on.) The whole set-up’s a bit passive-aggressive for my taste. A bit lame. You know, I wouldn’t have felt that way if my friend had been sincere… or if the guy waddling up had been some beautiful woman. It felt a little disrespectful, a little bullshitty, but I remember not wanting to get heavy about it either. I thought maybe I was just projecting my own shit onto it, and that would be one of my teachings for the weekend — to lighten up and not care what my friend or anyone else was up to. To just focus on my side of the street and get clarity that way. So I was able to sidestep those feelings.
“This fat guy waddling toward us — he looks like a Dutch banker, some kind of big fat sweaty tourist. And at this point I’m in full judgment mode. He’s pink and absurd, and slathered with sunscreen. Awkward, comical. A Miami Beach Sancho Panza or whatever, an easy target — and he’s wearing this sombrero! He starts asking all these questions, with this thick accent, Dutch or German or whatever, he’s just being friendly, that’s all — he wants to know where we’re from, how we got here, how long we’ve been practicing… and my buddy’s kind of vibing him. He is not making Sancho feel very welcome! He’s looking at Dutch Boy like he’s some kind of dumb, nasty farm animal. Then my friend looks at me, with a crooked smile, like, See why I don’t want to talk to these assholes? And I have to say it’s a little contagious, you know, the rudeness and entitlement are contagious. Even though I’d already been practicing for a while — meditating, doing sesshin—‘lovingkindness’ flew out the fucking window. So it didn’t feel great, see, because I still had enough awareness to be watching myself. And I was really starting to feel like an asshole so I kind of cleaned it up, tried to clean up the mood. So I told fatso we were beat up from the drive and that maybe we could have more of a discussion at dinner. To kind of get him to go away. Which he did. And I could see the schmuck was bummed from the encounter. The whole thing got very uncomfortable — for me. I could have just said, ‘My friend’s on silent retreat,’ and engaged a little with him. But I didn’t. Because by then, it was kind of Us vs. Them. It got twisted. What made it worse was, the guy’s first questions were directed toward my bud, right at him, and he wouldn’t answer. Without the explanation of the silent retreat, it must have seemed very rude and very weird. Which it was! Not a great way to begin a long weekend with Buddhists! Or maybe it is.