Jake Fades Read online
“Longtime Buddhist practitioner Guy explores the Zen zone in this low-key tale of meditation, mentoring, and mouth-watering baked goods.”
—Booklist
“The Buddhist lessons of impermanence and letting go are folded into a contemporary urban story of drifters and their teachers in this sweet novel. . . . The conversational first-person narration draws the reader in, as does the eminently likable Jake.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Guy conveys through Hank’s koanlike interior commentary and Jake’s dialogue, the subtleties of Zen practice. Readers into the dharma will find this novel worthwhile.”
—Publishers Weekly
“In the frolicsome, playful novel about Zen Buddhism, death, and sexuality, [Guy] beautifully conveys the impermanence of life. . . . Jake Fades gives sex and death the respect they deserve.”
—Spirituality & Practice
“Jake Fades is a book written with an uncommon clarity: a story by a real storyteller. Like all good books, it’s about many things: Buddhism—sure, that’s there—but it’s also about the families we’re born into and the families we make for ourselves. Sit. Read.”
—Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and The Watermelon King
“A wonderfully entertaining and admirably down-to-earth story about Zen, beer, sex, and real people in real life—not the make-believe Zen of your dreams.”
—David Chadwick, author of Crooked Cucumber and Thank You and OK!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Jake is a Zen master and expert bicycle repairman who fixes flats and teaches meditation out of a shop in Bar Harbor, Maine. Hank is his long-time student. The aging Jake hopes that Hank will take over teaching for him. But the commitment-phobic Hank doesn’t feel up to the job, and Jake is beginning to exhibit behavior that looks suspiciously like Alzheimer’s disease. Is a guy with as many “issues” as Hank even capable of being a Zen teacher? And are those paradoxical things Jake keeps doing some kind of koan-like wisdom . . . or just dementia?
These and other hard questions confront Hank, Jake, and the colorful cast of characters they meet during a week-long trip to the funky neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As they trek back and forth from bar to restaurant to YMCA to Zen Center to doughnut shop, answers arise—in the usual unexpected ways.
Click here to listen to the author, David Guy, discuss Jake Fades on North Carolina Public Radio.
DAVID GUY teaches writing in the Hart Leadership Program and the Masters of Public Policy Program at Duke University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Autobiography of My Body and The Red Thread of Passion. His book reviews appear regularly in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other papers, and he is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
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JAKE FADES
A Novel of Impermanence
DAVID GUY
Trumpeter
Boston & London
2013
Trumpeter Books
An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2007 by David Guy
Cover design by Jim Zaccaria
Cover photograph by Matt Scott
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUES THE PREVIOUS EDITION OF THIS BOOK AS FOLLOWS:
Guy, David, 1948–
Jake fades: a novel of impermanence/David Guy.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2632-8
ISBN 978-1-59030-433-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-59030-566-9 (paperback)
1. Priests, Zen—Fiction. 2. Bar Harbor (Maine)—Fiction. 3. Impermanence (Buddhism)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.U89J35 2007
813′.54—dc22
2006035725
For
Mary Jane Edwards
And in memory of Richard Dilworth Edwards
Practice secretly, working within as though a fool, like an idiot.
—Tozan Ryokai,
“Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi”
Denizens of Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will notice that, though this novel takes place in the present day, I describe a donut shop on Mass. Ave. that is no longer there. As a resident of Cambridge from the early nineties, I simply can’t imagine the square without that shop. That fact suggests that this is a Central Square of the imagination—not of reality—as it certainly is. That goes for all the characters as well.
For their suggestions on my manuscript, I would like to thank Beth Guy, Sarah Jane Freymann, Giles Anderson, Tom Campbell, and the editorial staff at Shambhala Publications, especially the intrepid Dave O’Neal, who brought the staff’s suggestions forward and worked on the book with me. I’m sorry I’m so stubborn and don’t take suggestions well. You should try being married to me (as one of you did).
Thanks to Alma Blount for her tireless support of my writing, and for dragging me off to my first meditation class.
I would also like to thank the staff of Charlie’s Tap in Cambridge for their invaluable aid during my early weeks of studying meditation. Without their assistance I could never have continued.
And my deepest thanks go to my two wonderful teachers, Larry Rosenberg and Taitaku Pat Phelan.
DG
1
“WHAT’LL IT BE, FATHER?” the bar girl said.
“He’s not that kind of priest,” I said.
“There are kinds now?” somebody said.
“There’s more in the world than those Irish micks you’ve spent your life confessing to,” another guy said.
“I haven’t been to confession in years.”
“It would take two days, and he can’t get the time off.”
“Guinness,” Jake said. He seemed to enjoy the repartee.
“I’ll have a Harp,” I said. “The ale.”
Jake did look like a priest, one of those Franciscan friars you see in old movies; he wore his gray hipari, those Japanese jackets that look vaguely clerical, and he always wore a turtleneck, always black. The man didn’t have a shred of affectation, but always wore the same clothes, as if they were his uniform. It was more like he didn’t want to bother with choices. He topped it off with a black beret.
It was the bald head that really did it. There was only a little white hair on the fringes but he shaved that too, totally slick, shiny in the lights. He had a round little shape, diminished stature; he looked like a medieval monk, always smiling.
“What kind of priest is he?” asked somebody a couple stools down.
“Buddhist,” I said. “Zen.”
“What do they call them?”
“Sensei,” the guy beside me said, an intense little bird who kept pushing up his glasses. “Roshi.”
You never know who might show up in a Cambridge bar. Scholars of all sorts.
“Jake,” the man himself said. “Call me Jake.”
“Father Jake, then. It’s got a ring to it.”
“I’m calling him Padre,” the bar girl said, bringing the beer. “I’ve always wanted to call somebody that. He’s so cute!” She leaned over. “Let me see that little head.” She took it in her hands and Jake obligingly leaned forward; she planted a kiss smack in the middle. The place broke into a cheer.
“Or gives you any, for that matter.”
“Dream on, boys,” she said. “You’ll never be this cute.”
Cute he may have been, but this was a man who had spent years in one of the severest temples in Japan, often sitting in meditation for hours every day. Before that he’d been an art student, cab driver, mechanic; he could still take apart any machine you put in front of him, find what ailed it, and put it back together. After Japan he’d bummed around and finally settled in Maine, where he didn’t seek students—they just seemed to find him, like yours truly.
So he might have looked like one of the seven dwarfs, but he was hard-assed and tough-minded. He could have gone back to those sittings in Japan right now. When I first knew him, round shape and all, he could lead my son and me on long bike rides, scale the steepest hills, and leave us in the dust.
The bar girl was quite a piece of work herself, dressed as black as any Zen student; all the girls there seemed to be, I don’t know whether it was a policy of the place or what. She had on a short black top with a skirt, which happened to be leather and rather short itself. The top seemed small and tight, blown out by some major boobs, and her hair, short like the top and skirt, was streaked in purple. There were umpteen little rings in her ear, a larger one in her nose, and nail polish to match the hair streaks; she was also clopping around on platform shoes, all but walking on stilts, every step an adventure.
She looked washed out and hung over, as if she’d just rolled out of bed—possibly in those same clothes—though it was almost dinnertime. And she had that trembly little edge that I associate with migraine sufferers, smiling but with a little tremor so you had the feeling that if there was a loud sound she’d shatter into pieces, an arm would fall off, something.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Jake said.
I’d seldom known him to be so gallant.
“Jessica,” she said. “Jess.”
“Jess the mess,” some guy down the bar said.
“Sit on it,” she said, holding up her thick middle finger, dabbed with purple. “Rotate.”
She smiled at Jake, who was beaming right back. “He’d probably like it,” she said.
“I prefer Jessica,” he said.
“That’ll be fine, Padre.”
“A little action, Jess?” A guy down the bar held up his glass.
“In your dreams,” she said. “But I’ll get you a drink.”
I’d never known the old boy to be a bar hound; we had the stuff around, and he took a nip before he went to bed, maybe had a cold one after a day in the sun. But almost as soon as we got to town and stopped at the Y to drop our stuff, he said, “There’s a place back on Green Street, quite relaxing. You can’t hang out at the Y. But this is perfect. No pretensions.”
I’d spent some time around in Boston and Cambridge myself, what with my son down there, and every bar had its crowd. Irish, blacks, Chinamen, you were always on somebody’s turf, and of all the drunken, aggressive, angry bar-fight towns I’ve ever seen, Boston was the worst. Everybody had a chip on his shoulder.
But this place was different; leave it to Jake to find it. The adjacent room was an award-winning restaurant with a Jamaican cook in an open kitchen who always seemed to be high on something, juggling pans and clattering around, flames shooting everywhere. But he nevertheless had a knack; even a slender fish filet came out perfect. All kinds of fancy people walked down that little alley to eat.
The bar crowd, weirdly, had nothing to do with the restaurant. They couldn’t afford it, most of them, grad students taking forever with their dissertations, guys who worked with computers, the two guys down the street who closed their filling station at five, post office workers, a couple of writers, city hall bureaucrats. It was all the guys left out of all the other bars. For that very reason they got along.
“You guys from the neighborhood?” It was the guy beside me again, the one who had known the Japanese titles, a thin, dark, intense guy with large black glasses that kept sliding down his nose. “There’s that place toward the river.”
“That’s Korean. Not our style. We’re from Maine.”
“What brings you to town?”
“Jake’s leading a retreat. Teaching some classes.”
“Hank’ll be leading,” Jake said. “I’m watching.”
You’d have thought he was off in his own world, staring down at those small thick hands as if wondering at all the work they’d done, taking a hit now and then on his Guinness. He was the most self-contained person I’d ever met. But he picked up on things.
“There’ll be some disappointed people in that case,” I said. I felt a nervous thrum in my belly. This was news to me.
“The man has a following,” I said to the guy beside me. “Quite avid.”
“Disappointed they’ll have to be,” Jake said.
Technically speaking, of course, you should be able to jump in any time. You talk off the top of your head, actually the pit of your belly, speaking from your years of experience. You don’t compare your words to someone else’s, just give what you have, all you have, every time.
“I might be interested,” the guy said. “Can I contact someone?”
“We’ll put up flyers. I’ll bring some here.”
A great place to publicize a Zen retreat.
It would be nearly full from Jake’s following alone. He hadn’t taught for months.
He drained the rest of his glass in a swallow, slid off the stool, and hit the floor. I’d been pacing with him, still had a gulp left.
“Shake hands with your teacher,” he said to the young man, slapping me on the back. Quite sincerely, the guy pushed up his glasses for the tenth time and shook my hand.
“Drink up,” Jake said. “I’m hungry.”
Our exchange with this young man was apparently his way of telling me something.
2
WE DIDN’T HAVE MONEY TO WASTE. The tourist season was over on Mount Desert Island, so we’d done our months of work, Jake repairing bikes at the same shop where he’d worked for thirty years, me running the register, a job they gave me as a favor to him. They close up on Labor Day and head down to Fort Lauderdale, where they do the same thing, rent bikes, sell and repair them. They find some other old duffer to do repairs. Anyone can do my job.
Jake owned a house—a gift from a patron—with a capacious garage apartment. In season we lived in the apartment and rented the house. Once the tourists were gone we had a lot more space, back in the house. Also a lot more time. That’s when we did our retreats.
I like both seasons. Each seems appropriate at the time.
There is a Buddhist concept called dana, by which students support their teachers. Jake shared what he got with me. What with Madeleine around, his oldest and most devoted student, he was set for life. About me things were less certain.
Here we were, anyway, Cambridge in autumn, the most beautiful season by far, leaves bright and spectacular on the trees and a chill to the evening air as the light faded early. It’s one of my favorite spots in the world, but the prices eat you alive, hence our residence at the Y. I was actually surprised by our trip to Green Street; we could have had a beer anywhere. Now we were headed up Mass. Ave. toward one of Jake’s cheap eateries. He knew them all over.
He’d fallen silent. I was never sure whether he was having one of his episodes or just afraid of one. In past years he’d have been chatting away as we walked, grabbing my arm in an Old World way. He’d been a Jewish cab driver before he was a Zen teacher. But he had those brief moments of forgetting what was up, had to remember where he was, where he was headed, what he was doing, not entirely sure what would pop out of his mouth. Silence was safer.
He was still always in touch with the pace of things, what he called the “unconscious rhythm of the universe.” “Don’t be ahead,” he would say to me. “Don’t be behind. Be right on the money.”
You had to feel it.
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br /> There was plenty of entertainment on Mass. Ave., a perpetual circus. Central Square was a major center for the homeless, what with a shelter nearby. They congregated on the benches, hung around the subway stop. There always seemed to be a gang in front of the Y, a rough looking crowd, tattoos on their shoulders, cigarettes in their pockets. In front of city hall were some big-bellied pols, looking useless and bewildered. Always there was the rush of traffic, nutty Boston drivers finding ways to cut people off and give them the finger.
The cheap eatery this time was up past the Y, no decor whatsoever, four little tables, rotisserie chickens in the window. That was their one entrée, and they had just a few sides, but it was delicious, just like grandma used to make. Dirt cheap. Less than the beer.
“So what’s this about me being the teacher?” I said.
“Don’t you want to eat first?”
“Are you afraid I’ll throw up?”
We had sat down with our chicken and mashed potatoes, peas with little pearl onions, glasses of water. Jake had taken off his beret and put it on the table, always the gentleman. He loved the ritual of sitting down. Every meal was a ceremony.
“I can eat and talk,” I said. “I’ll just be waiting if we don’t.”
“Don’t wait,” he said. “Eat.”
“Talk and eat.” We were past the Zen lessons.
He shrugged, split the leg from the thigh of his chicken. “We’ve got to be realistic,” he said. He seemed utterly casual, as if chatting about the weather. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
Because of the way we lived, seasonally, Jake hadn’t taught for six months. In past years he’d found a way to do weekend events, but this year he’d let it ride. Students came to see him—most lived in New England anyway—to talk and sit informally. He taught by phone, also a little by e-mail, though he didn’t like that, wasn’t a good typist with those thick mechanic’s hands. But he hadn’t given a talk in six months.
“You did fine around the shop all summer,” I said.
Jake Fades