“I’m just scared that she’s gonna move out there and hook up with one of those cults is all.”
“Stop it, Mom. I’m not joining any cults. I’m just going to college.”
“She seems like a smart girl, Irene. I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Lud hardly knows these ladies, but he can tell by the way Constance pays close attention to everything going on around her that she’s sharp. “Anyway, Irene, what cults are you even talking about? I’ve been to the west coast plenty of times. It’s great.”
“I hear they got all sorts of cults out there that worship the devil and dismember little babies.”
“God. I’m not going to dismember any babies, Mom!”
Lud’s getting a kick out of the endearing argument between the daughter who is determined to live and the single mom who has probably never left southern Florida trying desperately to protect her.
“You know,” says Lud to Irene, “most of the cults aren’t satanic. Some of them are quite friendly.”
“Quit pulling my leg, Lud. A cult is a cult is a cult.” Irene sits back in her squeaky aluminum lawn chair; done eating. She had let her hair down after work and its chestnut color clashed with the neon green t-shirt the gift shop had her wear.
Lud stabs the last piece of ahi on his plate with the tip of a sharp knife and then uses his whitened teeth to pick it clean off. His curly hair, in need of a cut, bounces off of his ruddy cheeks while he chews. As he lifts his wine glass to wash down the fish the rim attracts a yellow jacket who gets ornery when pinched between his face and the glass and lashes out with its back end and stings him on the mouth. Lud drops the glass which shatters on the hard packed earth below. There is French burgundy on his white golfing shirt, and his hands are clamped around his nostril. The confused dinner party assumes that he is crying and writhing in pain, quite possibly embarrassed. But Lud is actually just drunk and off balance. When he releases his grip on his nose the crowd sees that he is laughing. Irene is the first to come to his aid. She keeps her arm around his shoulder while he calms down, and young Constance darts off to the motor home’s bathroom to look for a first aid kit.
She returns with a flashlight and the kit. Lud’s head is leaned back and Constance shines the light right up his nose and notes all sorts of details that she couldn’t see from across the dining table; like the fact that he missed a crescent-shaped band of stubble while shaving the underside of his chin, there is a brick of snot clogging up the left nasal passage, and that the bee actually got him on the upper lip, which is starting to redden and swell. Irene is wielding a pair of sharp tweezers that she found in the first aid kit. Lud holds perfectly still while Irene, who has pulled about a million fishhooks out of fishermen and fish over the years, deftly removes the stinger and then swabs the region with a Bacardi soaked cotton swab. Lud stretches his neck and then escapes to the weatherproof locker that he keeps chained to the axle of his motor home and produces another bottle of the burgundy from within it.
“I think you need ice on that, Lud, not more wine.”
“Always buy three,” he says.
“Are you sure that you are not allergic to bee stings?”
“Oh, I am sure,” says Lud, snorting and fumbling with the corkscrew, “I’ve been stung hard before.” There’s a little pop sound when the cork bursts free and the wine starts oxygenating. Lud’s past bothering with the decanter and is sloshing a full pour into a fresh piece of stemware. When he’s satisfied he’s got enough he passes the bottle counterclockwise around the table. “Man, it must be like fifteen years since my last bee sting, whole fucking-excuse me Constance-whole swa-”
“She’s seventeen and grew up around fishermen, I think she’s heard it, Lud.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
“You need some ice.”
“Ahhh.” Ignoring the protest, Irene gets up and wraps some cubes in a cloth napkin and hands Lud the package. He reluctantly puts the icy compress on the minor wound.
“What were you saying, my friend?” asks the retired professor, Mario. “Something about a swarm?”
“Fuck-sorry-yeah. I was attacked by a swarm of bees, when I was on this kind of bizarre vacation out in the northwest. There’s a bit of a story to it if you guys want to hear it.” Everyone was stuffed with food and and lazy and glad to be entertained. “Alright. Although I need to warn you that this story has a bit of a cult angle to it.” Lud looks at Constance for permission. “I don’t want to freak your mom out.”
Constance rolls her eyes and flashes Lud that very specific expression that only teenagers can make which says precisely Please do not worry about my embarrassing and obviously ridiculously overprotective mother.
“So yeah, it must have been about fifteen years ago,” Lud adjusts the way he is holding the ice so his mouth is unobstructed and his voice is clear. “There was a woman that I used to pal around with, named Shelly.” Irene looks jealous, she’d probably like to do a little palling around with Lud if the opportunity pops up. “I met her on a flight out to Ambergris Cay in Belize. She saw me carrying my tennis racquets onboard and suggested that we get together for a game in the next few days. She gave me the name of her hotel and we met up a few times and practiced our groundstrokes for an hour and then usually drank a cocktail. Before you know it we were having dinner together. She was a nudist by the way.”
“So where was she from?” Irene had to seize upon the nudist bit to keep driving her point home about the cults. “California?”
“Actually she lived in Waterford, Connecticut.”
“Hmm. Touché.”
“Have you been up to Connecticut, Irene?” asks Mario. “Everyone goes around naked in Connecticut.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Ha. One thing led to another...you know how it is. We kept in touch and traveled together a few times before things eventually fizzled. I never went to an actual nudist retreat with her. She would try to get me to but I just wasn’t into it. I guess you could say that I just didn’t have the balls for it. She was pretty new-agey. Cultish, you might say. And I was petrified of getting stuck, naked, in the midst of a whole throng of new-agey folks like her without clothes on. Plus I figured some of them were bound to be unsightly and...you get the picture.
“We compromised and went to a week long meditation retreat in the San Juan Islands. One where people kept their clothes on.”
“Where are those?” asks Constance.
“Northwest. Near Canada. Hell and gone from here. Place called Orcas Island. Surrounded by water.”
“Which is the definition of an island,” says Mario.
“Thank you for that, Mario.”
“You’re welcome for that, Lud.”
“It was a nice place. There were lots of birds and deer. You could see snowcapped mountains in the distance. Real quiet and serene. We were staying in a rustic little cabin, one of twelve or so on a piece of land known as Camp Maranatha. Hippie dippy to the core. There was a big garden in very so-so shape and a commons building where everyone ate and gathered for events. Part of the program involved pitching in with the running of the place. So each day we would sign up for kitchen chores or some sort of yard work. Nothing too tough. You couldn’t drink or smoke on the grounds. Which can be nice once in a while.
“The specific retreat we were attending was hosted by a couple of.....let’s say, modern psychiatrists, one of them may have been a social worker actually. They were married and split their time up between living in Washington and living in Hawaii. They made this incredibly violating sort of eye contact when they spoke to you. But they let you violate them right back. When we spoke it felt like all of our most guarded secrets were suddenly in plain view, swirling about in the air between us. They were very patient and thoughtful-empathetic. Their names were Levi and Monica Stein. I liked them. I believe also that they liked me. But to be honest I didn’t get into the program as enthusiastically as most of the rest of the group.
“The attendees were mostly middle aged or older. All of them were white folks, except for one tall black teenager named Trystin, who came with his very short caucasian grandparents. There were some couples. But it was mostly a mix of single men and women. Divorcees, widows, folks who all seemed to have something to get over. At the time Shelly and I felt a little too young, or just not exactly damaged enough to be there.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“Mom, drink your wine and let Lud tell the story.”
“By the end of the story, the babies will be chopped up and boiling in a pot on the mountaintop. Right, Lud?” Mario roars with laughter at his own joke.
“You guys are nuts,” says Lud, “there weren’t any babies there at all.
“Life during the camp was very routine. This bell would chime around seven in the morning. Half an hour later you would notice all of the people walking from their cabins and campsites toward the commons building. Conversation during meals was always hushed. These people took eating very seriously. They actively absorbed their food. It was a little creepy. After the morning meal the crowd could be seen walking toward and from the bath houses. Some showering, others taking a dump. Things they also took very seriously and did with intention. Intention was a popular word there as I recall. By nine, the group would be seated in a circular formation in the grassy field and the Steins would lead the morning program. The program didn’t consist of too much. It was a little weird but nice. We would mostly just be together. Sometimes there would be breathing meditations. Sometimes we would do these exercises called conscious walking, where we would focus intently on each and every nuance of our very slow and drawn out strides. Monica liked us to focus on every single folding blade of grass as we took our steps. It made me feel guilty, like I was smashing the earth just by walking around. I remember it being tough to keep my mind still when we were doing all that slow stuff.
“Lunch was at noon, and there was a rule that no one spoke at lunch. The only sounds came from the spooning out of soup into bowls, juice and water collecting in cups, the gentle clinks of knives and forks on plates, chewing, an occasional cough or snort, a bowl being rinsed, or someone’s footsteps as they walked up for another helping, or to deposit the contents of their tray into the bus bins. It was always hard to figure out when it was acceptable to begin talking again after lunch. I always had a sense that I was ruining something for someone if I spoke.”
Lud looks around the table. Mario is twirling his cigar back and forth between his thumb and index finger, grinning below his mustache like he is waiting for a punch line. There is still a sharp pain from the bee sting, but it sobered Lud up some.
“Some free time, or time to do work in the garden followed lunch. Sometimes the Steins could be heard having private conversations with different participants in the program. These conversations assured the rest of us that it was alright to begin speaking again. The Steins shared with us one morning the fact that they had once taken it upon themselves to not speak for an entire year. They did it together. As I recall they may have written a book about it. I often found myself wondering how much sex they had that year.”
“I bet they got a look going, you know?” says Mario. “The sex look. I bet they did it all the time. I know they weren’t talking but could they holler or growl, maybe whimper a little bit?”
“I think you need to read their book, Mario.”
Everyone laughs.
“There was always an optional-everything was always optional-outing in the afternoon. A walking meditation around a lake, or to a beach. Dinner was a little more lively than the other meals. And before bed the group would meet in the big cozy hall adjacent to the eating area for another group therapy work out or some sort of seminar on seeing into another person’s soul, or developing real connections. I don’t mean to sound like I am making fun. I got something positive out of all of this, but I burned out on the practice after a few days.
“Shelly burned out quicker than me. She liked the grounds and the food and the quiet slow pace, but she wasn’t interested in attending many of the group events, which surprised me because the whole trip was her idea and I thought she was going to be the gung-ho participator out of the two of us, but she wasn’t. She helped out in the kitchen an awful lot. Seeming real relaxed and happy. In the afternoons we would sneak off to our cabin to get naked while the group was focussing on something else.
“I continued being a good sport about the group stuff. I did my best to attend the morning and evening sessions regularly while Shelly skipped everything but the meals. I was trying to be open the way they were encouraging us to be. I wanted to give it all a real shot. I was there, might as well. But by the end of the week I started to feel like I had learned enough from the program, and was benefitting more from being by myself. While Shelly was putting time in in the kitchen, I started taking on some bigger projects in the garden. Plenty of folks were lackadaisically pulling weeds, or harvesting berries for fifteen minutes here or there. But no one seemed to have a handle on the composting area. The comings and goings of so much volunteer labor, with no clear-coordinated effort had resulted in major disorder.
“I got into working hard for a few mornings. The sun was shining brightly in the northwest that summer. I acquired a very healthy suntan. I rebuilt the composting bins with fresh hardware that I found in an old barn near the garden. I turned over old mounds of decaying material and readied it to be spread onto the garden beds to provide nutrition to the soil. I sorted through hectic piles of straw and weeds and wood, selecting out items to be added to my new compost piles, and items to be discarded. So far my project hadn’t directly affected any of the garden beds. But the greater level of organization made the gardens appear much more healthy and productive. I was receiving many compliments from the group. Compliments probably isn’t the right word. Deeply heartfelt appreciation is what I was receiving from this group. Many took my hands and looked me in the eye as they said stuff like thank you deeply for caring for our garden. They talked real slow, same as the way they walked, enunciating every last sound, like they were milking their words for phonetic potential. None of them would even be there the following week.”
“How is this not a cult?”
“Maybe they were but I swear they were harmless and sweet.”
“That’s how they lure people in.”
“Mom, would you stop it.”
“There was just one area beyond the barn I still wanted to tidy up. And just one morning left of the program. I felt a bit guilty about deciding not to participate in the final morning meditation, but I was more driven to finish what I had begun in the garden. After eating a big vegetarian-all the food was vegetarian-breakfast, and then taking a big vegetarian dump-I was feeling very regular at this stage of the retreat-I stopped by the kitchen to give Shelly a very inappropriate French kiss. I pinched her ass. I told her she looked sexy in her apron and then went outdoors to put the finishing touches on my suntan and garden project simultaneously. I removed my shirt, and draped it over the deer fencing. My muscles felt good. I collected my trusty pitchfork and shovel and surveyed the scene. The group was chanting in unison in the adjacent meadow. They were working on their oms, or oming, I am not sure how to put it.”
Lud demonstrates the sound of an ohm for everyone at the table.
“Ooooommmmm....”
Mario belts out his own Om, mocking Lud and getting a laugh out of Irene.
“I fell into a trance. The sound of their voices as one vibration took hold of me. I felt like I was with them, even though I was working on my own. I offered a steady Om myself as I sized up my project. There was some cardboard, and plywood on the ground. There were a few stacks of rotten boxes that used to be homes for honey bees. The bees had vanished without the presence of a consistent beekeeper. I broke down the old hives and added the useless materials to my garbage pile. I hoped someone would take the pile away soon. I knew it could as easily sit there forever after I left. The thought made me sad. I added the cardboard to my compost pile. It would break down in time. The group in the meadow was really connecting on this final morning session. Their legs were crossed, their backs were straight, their eyes were closed, their hearts were wide open and the Om sounded like a thread connecting every bug to every person to every bird to every fish to every grain of sand on the island. I wondered if a certain piece of plywood on the ground before me had any usefulness. I flipped it over. That is when the swarm of long lost honey bees attacked me.
“Hundreds of ‘em came at me from their secret lair underneath the board. I must have been under the influence of a meditative contact high, because I don’t recall perceiving them as a swarm. I saw each one of them as an individual bee. They each had their own color scheme, stripe pattern, flight pattern and desperate intention. Most of them obviously flew off. But a large contingent also came right for me. Almost all of the stinging was around my waist and on my wrists, but a few got me up on the neck. The sensation of pain was very slow to register. When it finally hit me I remember feeling each stinger on its own rather than an experience of broad pain or fear. When the spell that I was under finally broke, my actions became erratic. I was under siege and needed to behave accordingly if I was to save myself. I flailed about wildly. My arms and legs moving in sudden jerks and fits, trying to brush them away. I was shaking my head, and running my fingers through my hair. My mouth opened so that I could scream FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!! but no sound came out. Despite my predicament, I was making a priority out of not disturbing the group who was still engaged in their ritual just yards away. A lunatic shouting obscenities from the garden was definitely not a feature of the morning routine. It is possible that the entire metaphysical universe could have been dislodged from its axis had I caused the scene that I probably deserved to cause. Eventually I had the sense to run full tilt toward the kitchen where I found Shelly with Rebecca, the program’s head chef, unloading the commercial dishwasher and looking through recipe books. They got me into a chair and looked over my body. My eyes were bulging out. I could only utter a single word. Bees.
“Rebecca, the cook, was also a nurse and started fixing me up. Shelly stroked my head and talked softly to me to calm my nerves. I was shocked and panicking but I could breathe just fine. The process of removing the stingers and coating the penetrations with a comfrey salve took nearly an hour. I can’t remember the final tally, but I am sure it was up in the forties or fifties. At the time I was not sure if I was allergic to bee stings or no, those may have been my first. Rebecca assured me that if I was allergic my throat would have been closed already and that I would likely be fine. Her t-shirt had an image of hands on the front, and the words below the hands said I am a Krueger Krazy. I asked what it meant and she told me that she was schooled in a discipline of energy healing not unlike Reiki and that she would put her hands on me if I like. Why not? At the time I was feeling pretty high strung and anxious about the incident. The moment she laid her palms on my shoulders I felt mellow, and warm. The adrenaline faded away. I grew sleepy. Shelly walked me back to the cabin and tucked me in for an afternoon nap, though she did not stay with me for long. When I woke up it was late afternoon and I felt more at peace with who I was than at any other moment in my life, before or after really. I stayed in bed just enjoying the simple process of being for a little while, it was like I finally got the hang of it. There was even a point where I wondered if the meditators sicced the bees on me intentionally, for the sake of my own spiritual growth. Could they do that? Would they do that? They seemed so nice.”
“That’s exactly the type of things the cults do, Lud. They make thunderstorms and snowstorms, they send swarms of bees to attack people-they want chaos. They’re sick.”
“Mom, stop it. No one sent the bees to attack him. They were just living under the wood. Aren’t you listening?”
“Oh, I am listening alright. If you ask me Lud’s lucky to be alive and sitting here in Florida where it’s safe. Telling us his story. What happened next, Lud? They sic the deer on you?”
“Pretty soon I started feeling desire again. I had this burning desire to see the Steins. I didn’t have anything to report to them specifically. I had no interest in telling the tale of what happened in the garden. I was simply wondering if I might look different to them, somehow ascended into another tier of consciousness.”
“Christ,” says Irene as she reaches for a cigarette from the pack of Parliaments on the table, “they brainwashed you.”
“I wasn’t brainwashed, Irene. I felt great. I slid into my favorite jeans and a clean cotton shirt and took a walk down to the commons building. On the way I exchanged small talk with some of the other participants in the program. The conversations weren’t about anything, but the bliss of being and of being with other people was still with me. The Steins were seeing people individually on this final informal afternoon and I chose not to interrupt any of their chats. I found Shelly and Rebecca in the kitchen and they smiled when they saw me but didn’t ask how I was. They could tell. I poured a cup of tea and sat outside beneath a madrona tree. A blue heron flew overhead. Some robins were chit-chatting and feasting on ripe elderberries. No one knew about the bee stings. I was proud that I had endured the trial without attracting attention or sympathy. Everyone there had problems. Most of those problems much bigger than mine.
“I was disappointed that Shelly decided not to attend the final evening’s group session. She was tired from cooking all day and wanted to have some alone time spent reading in the cabin. I understood. Personally I needed to attend. I needed a punctuation mark placed at the end of my experience at Camp Maranatha. I spent a long moment cuddling with Shelly before making my way to the meeting. We smoked a joint in the cabin. I was high when I left and walked in to the meeting late.
“You know that feeling, when you step into a room and all the conversation suddenly dies and you are sure that everyone was just talking about you? This was like that. But only for a split second. The quiet, awkward moment during which I felt paranoid that I had interrupted something was quickly filled with shouts of welcome, and Lud, we are so glad that you made it. I was led to a choice spot in the middle of the floor. I sat in between Trystin’s grandparents. I felt like one of God’s little children.
“There was a very intimate question and answer session taking place. The group had accepted the Steins willingly as their spiritual guides for the week. Some of the group had met them before, but most did not know them and were keen to learn some personal information about the couple. They wanted details about the path that had led them to their attainment of peace. As I said before, the Steins were very open people. They were forthcoming about their own problems, and they were comfortable speaking lovingly about each other in front of the audience. We were all very surprised to hear that Levi worked as an industrial psychologist and was often contracted by large companies to assist their employees in getting over traumatic workplace incidents. He was not able to divulge specific details about cases but you got the feeling that he had helped people get through some real life horror. He told us he often wore a suit and tie to work. That set off murmurs of disbelief amongst the crowd who had come to expect that this man was always dressed in purple garments imported from Guatemala and sported a bead necklace beneath his bushy beard. Monica came clean about her day job as well. She worked for the King County Prison System as a social worker. Her function was primarily to help juvenile convicts prepare themselves for life after confinement. I remember thinking that was very sweet of her, but doubting that a teenager would be ready to benefit from what she had to offer. I certainly would not have been.
“As nine o’clock drew closer I noticed within myself, and within the group because we were all one and experiencing the same exact thing, a sadness that the program was going to end. Surely a thanks a lot, see y’all next year, would have been terribly inappropriate. The Steins had one more thing hidden in heir billowy sleeves. They invited us to enter their Soul Kitchen. We wondered aloud. Levi clarified with a bit of a menacing sarcastic comment, we are going to cook your souls, he said.
“Tranquil music was played on the sound system while the Steins instructed us all to line up in two rows facing one another, and everyone all jumped up and obeyed. By that point of the program all the Steins had to do was say shit to one of the program’s participants and they would respond by saying where and how much? Not like they were drill sergeants or anything. The group just had so much faith in them. The distance between the rows, once they were arranged, was just large enough to squeeze a body through. When we were all in place the dreamy music was turned up loud. A single woman named Sue who had driven up from Ogden, Utah was selected to go first. The Steins told her to do nothing at all. They wanted her to simply close her eyes and let go. That’s when the rest of us took over. The loving hands at the beginning of the lines guided her body slowly though the narrow space between the files. Everyone touched her, and as they did, they leaned forward to whisper kind sentiments into her ear. I was in the middle of one of the rows. I couldn’t hear all that was being said to her, but what I could hear was really intimate and nice. When her limp body arrived in front of me I told her that she was beautiful and passed her gently along. I don’t even know what made me say it but I really believed it. When she reached the end of the line she smiled and looked truly warmed, not so much her body, but her whole being. Her aura was shining bright.”
Irene makes a gun with her fingers, points it at her head, and pulls the trigger.
“After that it was time to cook another soul. As the participants proceeded through the line, I picked up more and more of the comments that were being whispered. The devoted members of the retreat had gotten to know one another awfully well. I had some regret that I did not spend more time with them while I had the chance. The kitchen rolled on like an unstoppable machine. It was my turn. I got stage fright and couldn’t recall what I was supposed to do. Levi noticed and reminded me to close my eyes and let go. So I did. It was like being caught in a current. I was able to move forward without effort. By simply being I was being taken care of. People were touching my body everywhere. And not just with their hands. People were leaning in to make as much contact with me as they could. Whole legs and arms were wrapped around my waist and neck. It was a colossal groping, like hundreds of hands massaging me at one time. And the things that people were saying, I had no idea that anyone had been paying attention to me at all. But they were. They told me that Nantucket was a wonderful place because I lived there. They told me how much they adore Shelly and all the work she has done in the kitchen. I was told what a hard worker I was. I was told what a great couple Shelly and I made. I was told that I would make a wonderful father. Someone, a man, said Lud, I love you, I don’t know who that was. At the end of the line I understood the name of the exercise. There was Levi again saying, are you cooked? I couldn’t speak but he knew the answer.
“I don’t exactly remember leaving the room that night. I just remember my heart babumping like a shoe in a dryer. I was excited and couldn’t wait to tell Shelly what happened. What the hell did happen? My attempt to describe it to her fell flat, but it didn’t matter. She could see that I had been profoundly moved. She was glad for me. She helped me out of my clothes and we made love.
“I wish I could say that the elated feeling lingered longer than it did. As soon as we boarded the ferry boat to the mainland and watched the island retreat into the distance there was a sense of leaving something behind. We were on our way back to the real world. Going back felt wrong. But there wasn’t anything else to do. Life always goes on. I resolved that in the future I would make a greater effort to step back, and give it the unbiased open attention and notice it deserves.”
“Anyway,” says Lud, “that’s how I know that I am not allergic to bee stings.”
“Is that it?” asks Mario, looking less than satisfied.
“That was a nice story, Lud,” says Constance. “Thanks for sharing it.”
“I am disappointed in the ending,” says Mario. “No sacrifices? Not even an animal?”
“I still thought it was creepy,” says Irene.
“Whatever happened to Shelly?” asks Constance. “Sounds like you were good together.”
“Honestly,” Lud takes a drink of wine and stares vacantly at the ground, “I don’t know.”
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