Prologue

    George would often walk the high pass when the weather would allow. The stillness of the air, and the silent falling snow were a perfect backdrop for reflection. This narrow valley, running through the Himalayan highlands north of Mt. Machapuchare, was the only clear route to the temple. The road that ran along the western ridge provided a breathtaking view. Below, the fields where the monks would gather millet and the shepherds would graze their goats were growing bare for the winter. Most of the shepherds had already moved deeper into the safety of the Annapurna Sanctuary, where they would be shielded from the weather, and they could winter their animals. The wind above the mountains howled their warning that soon this road would be impassable, and the season would be unforgiving. George walked along, dragging a thin branch. As he walked, he wrote words with it in the snow and intoned softly to himself; om mani padme um, om mani padme um. George normally tried to distract himself from thinking too long on the past, but recently he had allowed his thoughts to linger. This place, in and of itself wasn’t enough. He couldn’t help the feeling that maybe he had come here for all the wrong reasons, and that this entire pursuit was simply another distraction. As if removing himself from the situation and pretending it didn’t exist was somehow a solution. Om mani padme um, om mani padme um. The idea of it had even seemed to grow heavy in his mind, and pollute his daily meditations. It was in his thoughts when he woke, and on his mind when he wanted only to rest. Sometimes it found the space between, and it would invade his dreams. He would dream of New York City… he would think about Richard. Still, he did everything he could to force the thoughts from his mind. Om mani padme um, om mani padme um. Suddenly, he began to feel uneasy. A familiar sensation, like the weight of eyes, began to make him restless. Tossing the branch to the ground, he decided to make his way back to the temple. He tried to focus on the sound of his feet breaking through the surface of the snow. That steady, regular sound. Feeling uneasy once more, George stopped. However, the sound of snow breaking underfoot did not. George looked back over his shoulder. As he turned, a spotted grey muscular form slid along the rock face by the trail. As it crept out of the shadow toward him, George became lost in its eyes. These were the eyes that had been watching him so many years. These were the eyes that had been judging his worth and weighing his sins. Looking into those pale green eyes, like two deep pools that bore reflections of his own troubled soul, George spoke. “Have I been a good man? Have I even been a decent man?” Still, the leopard slinked its way across the ground, eyes fixed. Backing away from it now, his heart began to race, and tears began to burn his eyes. Falling to his knees, he let the tears run, and spread his arms to the sky. Now it was time to receive his final absolution. George closed his eyes. “Forgive me! I’ve been a-” With that, the leopard lunged, and the valley was silent once more. The burden of the guilt that George had carried with him so many years, all the way to this lonely valley in Nepal, would not leave him even in death. His restless heart would linger in this valley, too afraid to accept its fate, and die.

Samsara (Chapter 1, Part 7)

    Richard held the empty bottle up to his eye like a telescope, scanning the lights on the horizon for… something. Scanning the water, humming a sea shanty and swaying from the liquor and the chop, Richard looked up the East River and the distorted view through the bottle turned black. Rubbing his eyes, he let the bottle drop by his feet. “What is that? Is it... an island?” Richard looked to the others for an answer, but they were all laid out, in haphazard fashion on the deck. He didn’t recall there being an island this far south on the river, nevertheless, he could make out the shape of an island. A great stone jutting twenty or thirty feet out of the water, topped with trees crowned in verdant foliage. “Just a rock, really.” Richard leaned over the side of the boat to try and get a better view. In his current state of inebriation, he was already seeing double, and squinting at it from here obviously wasn’t going to do too much good. “Capitan! Change of course!” Running over to the mast to let out the boom, Richard slipped on the bottle still rolling around on the deck. As it let out the slack, the sail billowed and he started drifting towards the island. “Hehe, watch your step ‘matey’...” He picked himself up and walked back out onto the prow. He watched the statuesque tower of stone grow taller as he drew near. It seemed unnatural, out of place. The sound of water breaking on the stone roared all around him, and the reflection of the moon off the surface of the water was the only light. Taking the rudder in his hand, Richard tried to guide the boat sideways, parallel to the island. As the boat circled around to the north side, he could make out a recess in the wall of stone. There was a wide alcove, and along one side of the opening there was a platform several feet above the water, with an arcade of columns along the outside edge. Thick layers of barnacles and lichen covered the side of the platform near the waterline. Frantically, he started digging through gear in the cabin. He came up holding a flashlight, and shined it into the alcove. It was so deep you could only just make out where the columns collided with the solid, uncut rock face. Where the columns met the vaulted ceiling there were carvings of elephants and birds. Vines of stone, with leaves of stone wrapped around the columns. At the base they became life size dancing women adorned with beads, holding out stone lotuses cupped in their delicately carved hands. “I don’t believe it… What is this?” The boat came to rest against the platform, and Richard took a coiled mooring line from the deck, hastily tying himself to one of the columns. Now the sounds of crashing water seemed so far away. Even in this small alcove, the rest of New York seemed like it was a world entirely separate from… wherever he was now. Richard looked out at the skyline, framed in the pointed arch of the alcove, and it appeared to shrink further into the distance as he watched. A portal into everything he knew. Near the back of the alcove there was a shaft of moonlight coming through a doorway. A broad stair, carved into the living rock and covered with cascading vines, curved gently upward into the night. As he climbed, Richard could see small, bright yellow flowers reaching up through the nest of leaves. He could smell jasmine, and see moths the color of milk scatter as they drew near. Once he reached the top of the stair, the stone had vanished beneath the thick carpet of moss and vines. The roots of the trees dug deep, and great boulders seemed broken, lying about tangled in the roots as if the trees had thrust themselves upward through the bedrock in an instant. All around him were growing things, beautiful living things that had no place in this city, and the canopy was like a dome painted on the sky that shut out all the city lights. The distant crashing of the water shut out the sounds of jets and cars. As Richard mounted the top of the stair, he could see a great stone structure wreathed in the halo of the moon. It rose like three broad, slightly square spires and made Richard think of something like a step pyramid, but steeper and terminating in a rounded point. There were wide shallow steps almost the entire width of the structure leading up to an imposing wooden door. Keeping watch at the doorway were two large stone lions, baring their teeth. “Is it... a temple? What is it doing out here? Why the hell am I talking to myself...” Richard ignored his unease. He climbed the steps, and rested his hand flat against the ancient weathered wooden door. It was heavy, with bands of metal bolted to it in a crisscrossed pattern. He closed his eyes and could feel a warm, soothing energy emanating from somewhere inside. In the center of the door, where two bands of metal met, they formed a large cockle shell. Nestled in the center of the shell like a glowing pearl, was a keyhole. Peering into the slot, Richard could make out a room flooded with a bright saffron glow, and dancing shadows. He could hear the ringing of cymbals, and a melodic chant beneath the rhythm; om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum. Richard stood back for a moment. “Alright, I should probably go…” Putting his eye back to the keyhole, Richard was startled by a vision of a demon wearing a garland of severed heads and hands. Her skin was deep blue, and as Richard peered through the keyhole, the demon let her tongue slide out between her lips. Startled, he jumped and his heel slipped off the highest step, sending him falling backward down the stair. Lying on his back looking up at the door, the keyhole became a soft green eye, and the cockle shell folded closed like a heavy lid.

The Book of Geno (Chapter 3)

My first memories were of my grandfather… just pieces, really, here or there. He would tell me these little stories, like parables. I liked the one about the miller, the millet, and the mule, but I can’t remember how it goes… He used to do puppet shows for the children in Sicily, until an affliction of his hands kept him from performing, and he was a very superstitious sort of man. As his health began to fail him, he would say that he was cursed, and once, he bought an amulet. A long, thin brass pepper. It was meant to banish the curse and make him well again, but one day he told me he wanted me to have it. That day, I sort of knew it would only be a matter of time. Not because of some curse… but because he had given up. He had finally accepted his mortality. The marker on his grave bore a single word, ‘VIXI’ or; ‘I have lived’. And that he did surely… as my father put it to me on that day, “In a world of his own creation, whimsical and wholly unrealistic. If there were some kind of magic bean that could have saved him, I’m sure it would have. He was a loyal believer in the fallacy of hope, and wonder... and he perpetuated it everywhere he could. But that ‘magic bean’ he planted, that denial, sprouted into the wretched vine that he climbed up and up, until he departed from this world entirely. But I expect more from you Geno… Don’t lose yourself like he did. Take my advice; sell that crap, it’ll do you more good as legal tender. ” But I’ve kept it ever since. Somehow, I just couldn’t bear to see it go.

    Ever since that day, a rift grew between my father and I, and he would always remind me what a disappointment I was to him. But if it was his intention to achieve his goals existentially through me, he only set himself up for disappointment. What we both value in life is essentially oppositional, although there were some aspects of his mentality that I was forced to embrace, purely out of necessity. My father had a profound love of drink, and it became problematic. It forced me to learn how to look after myself, and soon I learned that I had a certain proficiency at it. I started working in a boarding house on the Bowery, and Bleeker, where we would let rooms out for the night and provide entertainment for sailors, or any mop in the ward with currency. My father used to make a fair living selling or buying swapped and stolen goods out the back door, but since all the money just got poured down his throat, I had to take his business in hand as well. Before long, I was the boarding house’s sole proprietor, and I did everything I could to class it up... stay on the up and coming. There was a growing appeal for German burlesque shows, so we set up a modest stage, and we changed the name. I’m not German, the shows not really German, but no one ever really cared… The Showhaus was just another place you could sit down, and distract yourself from your own lives for a moment.

    When I first met Peter, he was an unassuming man. Like many of my patrons he walked in off the pier at the end of day for a drop of rye, but unlike the others, he kept mostly to himself. He never touched the girls, and he never gambled, but he was there nearly every evening. I could see something in him… Some restless hunger, and in my fine establishment, I felt obligated to do anything I could to... assuage his anguish, and maybe make a few of his dollars mine in the process. One day he came in, haggard, and wandered downstairs. He seemed unsettled. It was late, and I was sitting by a lamp with some of the girls. We invited him to come, and join us. He sat down, and before he had said a word, took up the pipe. Breathed in deep and long. I’m not sure why he came in or what was on his mind... but he stayed for two more days before a woman, his wife apparently, came and dragged him out by his ears. On the last day that he was with us, he went in on a game of Pauper’s Peril, and found himself in the hole. Since then, he’d come infrequently to settle his debt, and borrow more against it for his next pint or a pipe. This man was no different than any of the other men whose pockets I’ve emptied at The Showhaus. At least, as far as I could tell.

    One day he came in, and wanted to ask a favor of me. For one reason or another, he had gotten it into his head that he was meant to travel to India. He wanted to depart as soon as he was able. Peter had come to me because he felt as if I might be able to book passage for him on one of the ships that may no longer be accepting bookings. I’m not a judgmental sort of person, so it never bothered me that he would be leaving his wife, and children here in New York City when he left. In fact, I saw an opportunity in it. A courier was bringing me my regular shipment from Singapore, and I had already secured for him a private cabin aboard L’Albatros, a French Line steamer bound for Morocco. I assured Peter that my courier would drop him off at a port in India on his way back to Singapore, and that I could have him on his way for a reasonable price. Understand, this wasn’t exactly my intention. Maybe, if my courier were convinced to “dispose” of him en route, I could approach his wife in her time of need, and offer her shelter... and employment. She would of course be required to settle her husband's outstanding debt, first and foremost. I had seen her at the docks. When Peter boarded the ship, she was there clinging to him. I remember wondering what possessed him to leave her in such a state, and I even felt like a bit of a monster for taking advantage of the situation. But I was far too stubborn for remorse. I hardly even tried to rationalize it. Maybe by telling her that he never meant to return, and then letting her work at The Showhaus, I was simply offering Maggie an easy way out of a difficult situation? Even though it was a situation that I had created. Eventually, I just told myself this was a decision Peter had already made.

    I waited merely two days before I made my way over to Orchard St. to check on Maggie. She was furious. She was already very upset about how much time he had been spending at The Showhaus, and understandably, she resented me for it. Maggie said I would never see the money. She spat at me and shut the door in my face, but I was willing to give it time. I felt like after a few more days, she wouldn’t have any other recourse.

    When I did return, I was confident. She answered the door calmly at first. I tried again to sell myself as the kind benefactor, but again she spat, before she started slapping my face and cursing. I held her by her wrists and tried to calm her. I’ll never forget what she said to me then. “You think you’re such a charmer, don’t you? But you’re nothing but a snake, conniving and coldblooded. If you had half the balls of a real man you wouldn’t be down here, hassling a woman you’ve backed into a corner… and it’s because you’re a coward.”

    I’ve never responded well to criticism, but I’ve never hit a woman like that before… She didn’t talk to me like I thought a woman should, so I showed her no mercy. It wasn’t until I saw how terribly I had beaten her, written on her face, that I felt ashamed. And I was so ashamed, that I ran. After a restless sleep, early the next day, a man walked into The Showhaus. He wasn’t like any of my other patrons. He had a look of fervent determination, but he also seemed lost. He was well dressed… a gold fob chain tucked into a fine tweed waistcoat, and felt spats instantly belied the class of our confused visitor. Then he asked me if I could direct him to the ‘proprietor of this establishment’. If I had only known! When I told him he had found his man, he immediately responded by taking his cane and bringing it down as hard as he could manage, over and over again across my brow. So disoriented and surprised was I by his sudden onslaught that I could do nothing but fold up on the floor in shock as he bludgeoned me to my end. I kept a stiletto in my boot, and as I fell I managed to take it, and bury it in his side above the hip, to little effect. I was lying motionless before he even noticed the wound. Calmly, slowly, he pulled the blade from his side. The blood that poured out was a deep hue, almost black. As he started to bleed out standing over me, I thought he looked into my eyes. But his eyes wandered, and seemed to look past me, through me. I followed their gaze to a pool of our blood, mingling and spreading through the carpet. He stared into the stained fabric enthralled, and died with a strange smile on his face. I’ll probably never know what he saw there, but I’ll probably always wonder.

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