Tuesday

The wait for a table at Jane’s was at least a half hour. There was a lineup on the front porch by 5:30, a very loud and lively crowd, talking and laughing. As soon as Ray unlocked the front door the dining room filled up, the prize tables being the ones flanking the fireplace. The weather had turned a bit wintry that morning, below freezing and breezy, so Ray got a good fire going. It took Jane and him 15 minutes just to get everyone menus and coffee.

Against her better judgment Jane had hired Skid as a host. No one else was willing to be there at 6am. Skid stood out on the porch, by the front door, with a clipboard with a single sheet of 8x11 paper. He wrote people’s names randomly, so he had to guess at who was next, and then at where they were, so he just went to whatever car seemed to have been waiting the longest. There were a few complaints, not too many by Skid’s standards. The clipboard gave him a feeling of authority, the same as when he was driving the big snow plow.

Professor Loomis pulled in Jane’s driveway at 7:00 that morning. He was surprised to see the crowd on the porch. He walked up to the front door and found himself face to face with Skid.

“Name?” asked Skid, as if he didn’t know who the Professor was.

Donald Loomis was more amused than annoyed. “Loomis” he replied with a straight face as he gently pushed past Skid and reached for the doorknob.

“Half hour to an hour, Professor” exclaimed Skid. He reached to interpose his arm between the Professor and the door. “unless you want an express seating upgrade.”

Professor was instantly more annoyed than amused. Things might have gotten ugly if Ray hadn’t opened the front door just then. A couple of the early parties were leaving. Ray showed the Professor to a table, not his usual fireside table. Professor was astonished to see the room so busy. It looked and sounded more like a frat party at midnight than a country diner at 7am.

It had not occurred to Professor, Ray, Jane or Skid that the customers had been partying all night. Indeed Professor’s thoughts of a frat party were on the money. Because of the shortage of hotel rooms some of the wealthier attendees rented fraternity and sorority houses. There were parties every night at each of them, all night, all out parties, the best and worst parts of frat house booze bingeing and snobby New York City disco VIP lounge decadence.

The frat and sorority houses were in the Greektown Ghetto, or just Greektown, a long semicircular drive on the far edge of campus with 20 or so big ugly red brick/white shuttered center entrance Colonials, vintage 1920’s but eerily similar to a development of McMansions. Greektown was a good half mile from the village of Susquehanna, far enough that the sound of frat parties did not disturb anyone in town. During festival week the parties were louder and longer. It was really more like one big party than 20 different ones. People drifted from one party to another, and anyway the good parties overflowed onto the lawns and patios of Greektown, music blaring from several sources, the combined buzz of music, laughter, singing and shouting enough to wake some of the townspeople.

Enough to keep Cornelia Cabot-Holmes awake past midnight despite the ear plugs. Cornelia had rented the largest house, Gamma Phi Beta, following the counsel of a Tibetan Buddhist high lama named Pancha, one of her spiritual advisors. The house had 15 bedrooms but only 3 were in use, one by Cornelia, one by Pancha, and the third by two low ranking lamas.

Cornelia woke up in a bad mood, tired and sore, feeling like she had hardly slept because of all the noise. Someone was shouting something incomprehensible right outside her bedroom. She went to the window and saw two men merrily urinating on a privet hedge, drunkenly chanting improvised lyrics to “Macarena” as they sashayed around the building, their heads bobbing, pumping their free hands to keep time. An audience of a couple dozen egged them on.

Cornelia repressed the urge to open the window and scold the men. She believed too strongly in karma for that. She showered, wrapped herself in a saffron sari, and went down to the living room to pray at the shrine which Pancha had set up for them. In her prayers she sought, as always, the Quiet Place, where she could see things. The lack of sleep did not matter. That was longing. The effrontery of the partiers did not matter. That was vanity. She closed her eyes and relaxed, let her thoughts empty.

She sat in a full lotus and faced east. She wore finger cymbals on the thumb and ring finger of each hand. She began a meditation that Pancha called the 100 lotus breaths. It entailed drawing a deep, yogic breath, visualizing its passage, chakra by chakra, to the lotus. In the same motion she slowly lifted her hands from her knees, palms addressing heaven, until they were level with her shoulders. It always seemed like the hands raised themselves, or were pushed by the air rushing into her belly, the motions synchronized so that her hands arrived just at the apex of her breath. Then she clinked the finger cymbals and exhaled very slowly, following the overtones well past the audible range, repeatedly chanting om mani padme hum, her hands floating back down until they returned to her knees, and the cycle would begin again.

100 lotus breaths later Cornelia was good to go, The partying was a welcome distraction. It reminded her that she had a serious mission. Not really her mission. She was the instrument. It was a pure coincidence that she was at SUNY Chenango the same time as the Arts Festival. She was there to locate New Lhasa. That had been her mission for 30 years, and she’d been working at it all that time without really understanding, not the way she did then. Pancha had clarified it for her.

Indeed she had already accomplished many good works in the interest of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people, contributing untold amounts of money towards the preservation of traditions and the resettlement of refugees. She had funded the construction of monasteries in Colorado, Alberta, Vermont, and North Carolina. She made several trips to India and Bhutan each year to personally supervise the liberation of religious artifacts from Tibet. Pancha had shown her a higher mission – the establishment of a Buddhist community in North America, an opportunity to bring enligtenment to the Land of Liberty.

Cornelia thought about New Lhasa as she sipped barley tea in the kitchen. Pancha and the other monks were just getting up. She would take them to that country restaurant for breakfast. It was too noisy on campus and that diner in town had been awful. They could drive around the countryside after breakfast, scout out possible locations for New Lhasa.

While Cornelia sipped her tea and waited for the lamas to be ready, Donald Loomis sat at his table drumming his fingers in impatience. His third cup of coffee was stone cold and he had yet to put in his order. He didn’t really care what he ate as long it included scrambled eggs and toast. The place was downright boisterous too, one loud table leaving only to be replaced by an even rowdier bunch, sometimes even 7 people squeezed in at a table for 4. One could tolerate it for a week, he supposed. So many things had changed in Chenango County in his time. What was next? Would New York City overtake the area the way it had overtaken the Hudson Valley?

David Prendergast tapped Donald on the shoulder and inquired if he and his friend could join the table. Professor was relieved to see David and the German fellow, Casper. “Yes, of course, please do” said Donald. “To tell you the truth I was about to give up. I’ve been here at least a half hour and haven’t even ordered. And it’s so busy. Where are these people from?”

David raised his eyebrows. “Half hour?!” He caught Ray’s attention and waved him over. Ray apologized profusely, took their orders and went off to the kitchen. Scrambled eggs and woodchuck bacon for all. Casper wasn’t sure what a woodchuck was but was more interested to resume Sunday’s discussion of Jesse James and Washington Loomis. Unfortunately for him the Professor had no memory of that conversation and was initially unsure where to begin.

Cornelia and the lamas arrived around 8:30am, slightly past the peak of the after hours crowd. The porch wasn’t as mobbed and the waiting time was down to 15 minutes. Skid was able to relax a bit. He was busy counting his “tips” when he noticed Cornelia and the three monks. Cornelia led them single file through the front yard, lifting the hem of the yellow sari clear of the mud. Pancha walked flatfooted behind her in orange dhotis and dollar store flip flops, his footfalls splattering the sari from behind. He had the most awesome hunting jacket Skid had ever seen, a bright orange ski jacket with some weird embroidery on it.

“Hey, nice coat” Skid offered as Cornelia and Pancha came up the steps. One of the other lamas had a long trumpet with him, which out of the corner of his eye Skid mistook for a rifle. Skid was so distracted (the chick was pretty foxy) that he forgot to do the host thing. Cornelia opened the door and went in, Pancha right behind her.

“You can’t take that in there!” Skid barked at the other two lamas as they made for the door. The lamas did not understand. They smiled and made a praying sort of gesture at Skid. “Oh” said Skid, seeing that it was not a gun. One of the lamas noticed Skid staring at the long trumpet, raised it to his mouth and sent a very long, very low note in the direction of the big sycamore.

“Awesome” said Skid. The monk grinned and slipped in the door. The other people who were waiting didn’t think it was too awesome, neither the sound of the trumpet nor the fact that Cornelia’s party got seated right away while they had to wait.

Jose was at the chicken coop, gathering more eggs for Jane, when he heard the sound. He walked across the barnyard and around the house to investigate. He looked at Skid and the people waiting for tables, walked around the driveway and out on the road, then back to the house and into the dining room. Ray was surprised to see him there. He hardly ever was in the house, and even then only in the kitchen.

“What’s up, Jose?” Ray asked. Jose paid him no attention, walked straight to Cornelia’s table and prostrated himself in a turtle pose, face pressed into the floorboards with the hands folded atop his head. He was moaning, or something, thought Ray.

Jane was watching from the kitchen door. “What’s going on?” she asked Ray. Ray shrugged.

Cornelia looked down at the chubby figure which was wedged between her at Pancha. Jose continued to babble. Pancha was babbling back at him. Cornelia caught a couple of words of Tibetan but they made no sense. The other two lamas were standing, eyes wide, mouths agape. Pancha sat there serenely, as if he had expected Jose.

Jane walked over and put a tentative hand on Jose’s right shoulder. Jose did not seem to notice.

“Old Jose finally found someone to talk to” observed Ray.

Jane looked at Pancha, then at Jose, then back to Pancha. “Are you speaking Spanish?”

Pancha chortled. “Spanish! No, we’re speaking Tibetan, southern dialect.”

“Why would they speak Spanish?” Cornelia wanted to know.

“Well, Jose’s Mexican.” Jane explained.

Cornelia was amazed. Imagine a Tibetan speaking Mexican turning up at her table in the middle of nowhere New York. Then again was it really that surprising? Clearly there was a reaon why Jose had crossed the paths of Cornelia and the monks at this karmic point in the space-time continuum. This had to be about New Lhasa. There were others. People were here. People were coming. It was all too much. Something was being revealed here, and it was up to them, Pancha and her, to discern what. For sure it was positive, a directive to proceed with the establishment of New Lhasa. Just exactly where and when needed to be nailed down. That’s why Jose is here, concluded Cornelia. She jumped up from her seat.

“Pancha – ask him where and when” she exhorted.

Pancha took the sunglasses out of the breast pocket of his ski jacket and put them on. “Where and when? What do you mean?”

“Please, just ask him where and when.”

Pancha hid his annoyance and did as Cornelia bid. He said something to Jose and a spirited discussion followed for a couple of minutes. The other two lamas joined in from time to time. A couple of times it seemed like they were just telling each other jokes.

“What did he say?” Cornelia pressed. Jane and Ray were no less interested. Indeed the entire room has fallen silent, everyone watching Cornelia, Jose, and the lamas.
Pancha shrugged. “He just tell us about the village he comes from in the southern part of Tibet. He left a long time ago. He doesn’t know when.”

Jane still didn’t get it. “So, you can understand Jose” she asked Pancha. As she said that it dawned on her. “Do you mean he’s from Tibet?”

“Of course. He is from Tibet. Why is that a surprise? Didn’t you know that?” Pancha was getting confused himself. He explained to Jose that everyone thought he was Mexican. That made Jose laugh, which made Jane feel good. “Why did you think he was Mexican?”

Jane felt a twinge of dizziness, had to lean on the table for support. “So, he’s not Mexican. So is his name really Jose? Why is he here? How did he get here.”

Pancha and Jose conferred again for a minute or so, more seriously and quietly than before. Pancha reflected for a few seconds before translating. “He says his name is not important. He like Jose. It sound a little like Jose.”

“A little like that. What is his real name?” Cornelia interjected. Pancha whispered something in Cornelia’s ear. Cornelia nodded.

“Whoa, are you going to tell us too.” Skid had been watching too and was throwing in his two cents.

Cornelia gave Skid a dirty look. “He says Jose is a good name” she fairly snarled, in a Buddhist southern belle sort of way.

“But why did he come here. What does he want?” Jane cried.

Pancha and Jose fell into another side discussion while Jane recounted for Cornelia the circumstances under which Jose had appeared at the farm. Pancha interrupted them before Jane got very far. “He say he’s happy here.”

“Is that all? You and him were talking to 5 minutes and he only said that he’s happy here.”

“Yes, that’s the main thing. He’s happy here. He wants to stay here.”

“But how did he get here. Wht did he come here?”

Pancha smiled and relaxed back in his seat, adjusted his sunglasses. “He says that’s his business.”

Jose looked at Jane and smiled. Jane smiled back. Nothing had changed for them.
Ray didn’t think much of it. Not much difference between Mexico and Tibet in his atlas.

Cornelia was flat out in an altered state. If she had had any doubt that New Lhasa was the right thing to do it was surely dispeled. This was the right time and place. They were very warm. It would be revelead.

Next chapter
Back to table of contents