“Houston? That’s interesting. What’s it like in Texas? And why did you come here? Harrisonville is so boring!”
Now I had a problem. I could agree with her, but diss her town, or I could disagree with her, but avoid insulting her town. This was where not having an identity got tricky.
She must have felt awkward with the silence because she filled it up. “I guess you’re kind of quiet, huh? Are you shy?”
She was smiling kindly at me. Hmm, maybe I was shy now. Shy—I kinda liked it. I nodded.
“OK, then, if you need anything—anyone to show you around or give you the scoop on teachers or, well, anything, just ask, all right? This town is pretty lame, but with some expert native guidance, you should do OK. I, uh, better eat now. I’ll see you later, San.” As she sat down, she did the hair-blow thing again. I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought that was the cutest thing in the world.
I wanted to say something witty and smart, but I just kind of mumbled, “Thanks. Uh, see ya.”
You know, being shy and all.
Then I walked away, with my hands jammed in the pockets of my baggy California skater jeans, whistling Woody’s song.
I was a shy whistler. Not much to pin a whole personality on, but it was a start.
buddha meets howling monkey
That same day, in social studies, I accidentally added a whole new facet to my pretend identity. Santa Dowd was asking questions about the textbook reading assignment from the night before: “The Spread of Buddhism: China and Japan.” Now, admittedly, I hadn’t done the reading the night before, but I already knew this stuff. I had even done a whole poster project on Taoism and Zen Buddhism. I’ve always liked poster projects, mostly because I love the smell of markers.
Even though everyone obviously liked this Dowd guy, of course nobody raised a hand to answer anything he asked. Kids were squirming around, avoiding the dreaded teacher-eye contact, organizing folders, and sharpening pencils that could have already sliced through Kevlar body armor. Woody was looking at me, which caused my big mistake. I wanted to smile at her, but was afraid that would be un-shy of me—so I turned away, right into the twinkly baby-blues of Mr. Dowd. Once he had me in an eye-lock, I knew it was coming. But like a deer in headlights, I was powerless.
“Mister Lee? Can you explain how Buddhism was adopted and adapted in China?”
Huh, I actually did know this. And I was the perfect guy to answer it, since I had been adopted and adapted FROM China. But was I the kind of shy kid who answered teachers’ questions, or the kind who crumbled under the glare of full-class scrutiny? Should I mumble “I don’t know?” Fall off my chair again? Faint, and hope Woody would seize the opportunity to revive me with mouth-to-mouth?
My eyes flashed over to the new love of my life. She was smiling encouragingly, but didn’t necessarily look like she’d be ready to administer CPR if I needed it. So what the heck, I took a stab at answering the question.
“Well, Indian Buddhism was brought to China by traders about, umm, fifteen hundred years ago. The story goes that a man named Bodhidharma was the first Zen master. He and his followers combined the basic ideas of Indian Buddhism with earlier Chinese traditions like Taoism and Confucianism to create Ch’an Buddhism, what the Japanese later called ‘Zen.’ ‘Ch’an’ means ‘meditation,’ by the way.”
Had I really just said all that? I guess I had just decided which kind of shy kid to be. I took a breath, looked around, and saw that everyone was looking at me like I had just sprouted a second head. Except Dowd and Woody, who were both smiling. Hmm…maybe acting smart had fringe benefits!
Dowd nodded. “Very good, San. Have you, uh, studied Zen before?”
Whoa. On the one hand, teachers usually avoided the topic of students’ personal beliefs like the plague. But on the other, I realized that everyone in the room was probably thinking Chinese kid = Buddhist. And Woody was still smiling.
I played it cool. “I guess you could say that.” A mysterious and knowing half smile played across my lips. Wow, I had a mysterious and knowing half smile!
The lesson moved on, and I answered a bunch of other questions. Near the end of the period, the angry kid—the LARGE angry kid, in case I forgot to mention it—next to Woody leaned across her and asked me in a booming voice, “So, Buddha Boy, if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?”
Now, a normal teacher might have jumped all over this guy for blatantly attacking the new kid. But Dowd just leaned back against the chalkboard and twinkled. I hoped his back was getting smeared with fluorescent chalk. On the other hand, I was pleased to note, Woody looked irritated with the smirk the kid was now sporting.
Shy or not shy, I wasn’t going to roll over and turn into some steroid case’s whipping boy. I replied quietly, calmly, “If a monkey howls and nobody listens, is he still a monkey?”
There was a beat while everyone processed this. Then an intake of breath, followed by a wave of snickering. Two wimpy-looking guys I recognized from the chess table high-fived in delight. Somebody near the front of the room muttered, “Oh, snap! Jones got told!”
Felt pretty good until I caught the expression on Woody’s face. Now she looked annoyed with me too.
Everyone was looking back and forth between me and the hulking figure of Jones, wondering whether social studies was about to get interesting. But Dowd stepped smoothly into the silence and assigned a chapter to read for homework. Luckily for me, it was more stuff I already knew. This way, if Jones broke all my fingers right after class, I wouldn’t have to try turning the pages with a bulky cast on.
When the bell rang, I took my time packing up my backpack. If I scurried out of the room, I’d look like a coward. Well, I was a coward, but there was no need to advertise it.
A shadow fell over me—a wide shadow. I looked up from my fascinating bag-zipping activities, and Jones was leaning over my desk. His massive, veiny arms bulged with power as he put his weight on them. But his face wasn’t in “kill” mode. In fact, he had a sort of rueful grin going. Woody and Dowd, who were the only two other people still in the room, looked on with interest as Jones’s growl swept over me: “Good one, Buddha Boy. You’re pretty funny.”
I tried to paste the mysterious half smile onto my face, but I suspect it looked a little bit sickly as Jones punched me playfully in the arm and walked out of the room.
With Woody. Dang.
Dowd said, “You really know your stuff, San. I’m impressed! Your social studies teacher back in…um…”
“Houston.”
“Right. Your social studies teacher back in Houston must be missing you right about now.”
I got the half grin up to speed as the feeling began to come back to my arm. I tried not to remember the last time I had seen good old Mrs. Brown, at the courthouse on my last day in Texas. “I don’t know, sir. She’ll probably survive without me.”
“Well, I’m not sure I would have survived this class period without you. Keep it up!”
I walked out of the room, pondering. That was the first time I could remember a teacher ever saying “Keep it up!” to me without any sarcasm. It felt weird. Possibly good, but weird good.
I mean, are teachers good guys? Mrs. Brown used to let me bring home markers for those posters I mentioned. Dowd twinkled, helped me up off the floor, and actually praised me. But then again, teachers gave homework, wrote me up, gave more homework, yelled at kids for being kids all day (Well, duh! We are kids… ), and sometimes even took an interest in their students’ lives. Interested teachers had caused me more than enough trouble to last a lifetime.
All in all, it was a tough judgment call and a slippery slope. I mean, if teachers are good guys, then a person might have to decide that cafeteria ladies, school bus drivers, and even—ugh!—assistant principals could be OK sometimes. Which would be a total betrayal of everything I believed in.
Insofar as I believed in anything. I whistled shyly, yet with a certain intell
igence, and left the building. My toes had a date with some gray slush.
i become one with my buddha nature
That evening I made a remarkable decision, if I do say so myself. I actually went beyond a homework assignment. If you’re going to be called Buddha Boy, you might as well know enough to fake it. And somehow I didn’t think I’d be able to pick up what I needed to know by watching Total Request Live or waiting for the premiere of MTV Cribs: Dalai Lama Edition. I stopped by my house and left a note for my mom, saying I’d be at the town library. This was a brilliant ploy: First, I wouldn’t have to be home for my dad’s first scheduled phone call—a huge plus. Second, no mom in the world could possibly get mad at her kid for going to a library voluntarily. She might keel over with a heart attack and expire right there on the ghastly burnt-orange linoleum floor of our apartment kitchen from the shock, but she couldn’t be mad about it.
Avoiding angry parents: a definite life skill of mine.
The library was just a block over from our place, so I didn’t have far to go, at least. My toes were still clammy and semi-frozen from the walk home. I set out in my sad little Houston Astros windbreaker, which was a year too short on my long, monkey arms and totally lacking in insulation. At least my backpack blocked the biting wind from behind.
Whatever, I got to the library and walked in—a real milestone in my reading career, I assure you. I found an empty table in a dusty corner by the oldestlooking magazines—I didn’t want to actually be seen in a library. No matter how smart and shy I wanted to look, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go to that length yet. I busted out with the social studies book and read the chapter. It was about the traditions of Zen Buddhism practice, which I remembered pretty well already. First, there were the Four Noble Truths that all Buddhists believed:
Life is suffering.
Attachment to desire is the origin of all suffering.
You can end suffering by giving up your cravings and desires.
You can give up your cravings and desires by following the Noble Eight-Fold Path.
I certainly agreed with the first one. Who am I kidding? I was like the poster child for the first one. The second one seemed right too: How many times had I spent months counting down the days until Christmas just so I could get an Ultra-Mega-Transformo-Tron toy? And then the first day back at school after New Year’s, some other kid always had the SUPER-Ultra-Mega-Transformo-Tron, and I immediately started lusting after that until my birthday.
Number three sounded like a swell idea. Now that we were virtually penniless, it seemed like as good a time as any to stop wanting things. All I had to do was learn how to follow number four. It occurred to me that this was why I hated research: First, you started out with only four things to learn about Buddhism. Then the fourth one forced you to track down and remember eight more.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the Eighth Fold of the Noble Eight-Fold Path would be something like: “The key to the Noble Eight-Fold Path is mastery of the Thirty-Seven Lotus-Blossom Precepts.”
Wow, I hadn’t fully appreciated the advantages of playing dumb until I tried to play smart. After fourteen grueling minutes of book work, my brain needed a break. I had Woody’s song stuck in my head and decided to see what I could learn about it; maybe there would be some angle for impressing her.
See? Now I had to do research just to impress a girl. Attachment to desire really is the origin of all suffering. I left my book bag on the table and found a computer carrel nobody was using. Just as my mouse-arrow thingy was all lined up on the Explorer icon, a cold-and-bony hand descended on my shoulder. I heard a wheezing inhalation right next to my ear. I swear, it was like Instant Horror Movie.
“Hello, young man,” the owner of the skeleton hand croaked. “I haven’t seen you around before. My name is Mrs. Romberger. You must have a valid library card to use the computers. Do you have a valid library card?”
No, I felt like saying, but do you have a valid death certificate? It looks like you’ll be needing one any day now.
But that didn’t seem like a very Buddha-esque move, plus I wanted to use the stupid computer. So I smiled wholesomely and said, “Of course I have a valid library card.” I didn’t tell her that it was for the San Jose Public Library, but that’s what she gets for asking vague questions.
I introduced myself and promised not to spend more than thirty minutes on the computer, after which the crone hobbled away to frighten some other innocent seeker of knowledge. Once I got the Internet fired up and my heart back into a normal rhythm, I typed “dusty road that a million feet have trod” into a search engine. I figured that was the most unique phrase from Woody’s song, so if the song was at all famous, I’d get some hits. I hit ENTER and pow! Up they came: hundreds of entries.
The song turned out to be from the Great Depression, which, according to the first site I hit, was “a time of great poverty in America that started with the Stock Market Crash of 1929.” As far as I could tell from my current financial situation, the Depression hadn’t ended yet. Anyway, the song was by a famous folksinger named—get this!—Woody Guthrie.
Aha! I had stumbled upon the secret origin of my beloved’s name. I read all about this guy. Yeah, he was a guy—the only female Woody in the world was my Woody. Anyway, there were like two and a half million search results for his name. He sounded like he must have been pretty fascinating. He grew up in Oklahoma, and his family started out fairly well-off. But his mom started going insane from a genetic disease, his sister died in a suspicious-sounding fire, his dad lost all his money in a real-estate crash, and the family wound up totally broke. Woody ended up homeless and alone as a teenager. Then he learned how to play the harmonica and guitar from street musicians, and started traveling around the country singing about how poor people deserved rights and a helping hand. He wrote “This Land Is Your Land” and over a thousand other songs before he came down with the same insanity disease that had killed his mom.
Oh, and in between there, he was a hero in World War II. He wrote tons of anti-Nazi songs too, and painted “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar. Just like my Woody.
His life would have made an excellent Behind the Music episode.
I read the lyrics to maybe ten of Woody’s songs, enough to get a definite good feeling about the guy and what he’d stood for. I also memorized a few choice quotes, hoping I could reel them off in so-called “casual” conversation with Woody.
One thing about being an eternal new kid and having an insane dad: I’d never had a casual conversation, ever.
As I was trying to figure out whether I could somehow get away with printing a few pages of lyrics on the library printer without having to pay ten cents a page, the Ghost of Librarians Past started shambling my way again, tapping her watch.
Yikes! My time was up. I had gotten caught up in the excitement of research. This had been a real day of firsts for yours truly. I smiled, waved, and logged off. Then I realized I still hadn’t learned anything about Buddhism beyond what the forty percent of the class that did the homework would know the next day. This gave me the radical idea that perhaps I could take out a book.
But not on my San Jose card. My God! I mean, Jumping Buddhas! Or something. I was going to have to go legit. I went over to the information desk, which was abandoned, and rang this little bell that said RING FOR ASSISTANCE. Apparently in the wacky world of libraries, “assistance” could mean “hot mama.” An incredibly beautiful, young-looking lady popped out of a little back room and glided toward me. I felt myself blushing as I cleared my throat.
“Are you…um…a librarian?” Oops, I hadn’t meant to sound so shocked.
“No, I’m a lawn gnome. Yes, I’m a librarian. Well, a librarian in training. My name is Amanda.”
“Umm, well, I was wondering if you could help me find some books.”
“Sure,” she said. “Here! I give you…some books!” She gestured in a wide circle at the stacks all around us, then kind of giggled.
Oh
, great. Not just a librarian, but a library comedienne. THAT was something the world needed.
“Uh, yeah. I mean, specifically, some books about Buddhism. Zen Buddhism.”
“Lucky boy. We do have a bunch of books on Buddhism. It’s a special interest of my colleague. Mildred!”
The crone had a name. And expertise. With my usual luck, of course, it couldn’t be the hot librarian who was a Buddhism scholar. Mildred came over and grabbed me by the arm. “Buddhism, young man? Is this for a school project? I bet you have Mr. Dowd for social studies, don’t you? He’s the only person who ever looks at our Buddhism collection. Other than me, of course. Come this way.”
Her bone claw grabbed my bicep and yanked me toward the stacks. “Two ninety-four point three,” she intoned. “Right this way!” I had to step lively just to keep from getting my arm ripped off. Mildred could really move when she wanted to. I gave one wistful glance back at the gorgeous information lady before I was whirled around a corner.
Mildred took me through various rights and lefts, while the stacks got dustier and the lighting got dimmer around me. Just when I was sure she was getting ready to murder me and file my body under YOUNGSTERS: DECEASED, she screeched to a halt.
“Hold out your arms, San.” She remembered my name. Interesting.
Then she started grabbing books off the shelves at eye level and slapping them down onto my forearms. She was talking to herself too, but I couldn’t catch much of what she said: Zen…Tao and Te…Archery…Book of Koans…On the Falsity of Dualism…” When I thought that either she had run out of books or she had noticed how loaded up my puny arms were getting, she climbed up on a step stool and stretched her arms up toward the highest shelf. Great. Now she was going to fall off the stool, break her hip, and die. And without her, I’d starve to death while trying to find my way back out of the stacks. She started dropping a rain of hefty hardcovers down upon me, and the height added to the impact.