The Empty Chair (35 page)

These were among Queenie's last words, on the night before I left. We haven't spoken since, nor do I know her whereabouts. All efforts to contact her have failed.

She was very stoned.

Okay, that's enough.

E
-nough.

I'm finished—
famished.
Let's go kill 'n eat
somethin'. Then it'll be
your
turn, bub. Tha's right, bubba, I've decided I can't let you leave . . . just
yet.
Right
on.
No way. 'Cause you're blessed. An' I'm too blessed to
stress
. Aw, just teasin'!
You are hereby free to go.
You're probably a better listener than you are a talker, anyway. Am I right? Course I am. On second thought, you ain't
completely
off the hook yet so don't fall to pieces on me . . . O come on now. I ain' gonna make you sing for your supper. But I
cain't
just let you
skate.
I mean how would it look? To the ladies and gentlemen in our audience? Well you know
maybe
I could but that just wouldn't do, not after what-all you put
me
through. Just wouldn't be right. What are friends for. Blah. Man, I am
drunk.
Guess that'll happen when you have a 72-hour nip or however long the fuck it was—heh heh heh—was that the long goodbye or the long hello? But enough about me, let's talk about me. Okay now
really.
Listen up. I'm gonna ask you to perform an activity, I'll tell you what it is. In a minute. No cause for alarm. Nothing illegal or
compromising.
Well maybe just a
little.
But I swear it won't
hurt
—though maybe it kinda sorta will. What are friends for. Have some wine, we need to soften you up for the kill. Ease the ol' performance anxiety . . .
Hey-
oh! I'll bet you're the type who needs loosening up. O shit, I'm not going to have to seduce you, am I?
[calls out to staff]
Esme? Ez?
Es-me!
—where
is
that girl? O there
you are. Don't mind me, I'm drunk off my ass.
I'm so drunk I'm drunk off
his
ass. And yours too. Must be the celebratory oxy.
Things go better with ox. And
the celebratory weed. And the and-the and the and-the. You know:
job well done.
I told the whole story!
Whoa.
Kinda honored my baby, my Kura, something maybe I never did so well in life. Though that isn't really true.
He
didn't honor
me.
No, that ain't true either, he was awesome. Sorry, Kura. Devil made me do it. Ez-honey? Do you think we can get a fire going? Ya do, ya do, ya do? O goody. Then can you get that together? To get a fire going? Could Miguel—can you tell Miguel? That we want a fire? Maybe over by the tent?
Yes.
Well, dig a
pit
then. Go for it, Esmeralda . . . do what you
gosta
do . . . Say what? . . . Yup.
Exactamente.
Thank you, Esme! Man, I have been wanting me a fire
all day long.
If we don't get one going pretty soon I'm like to
shoot
somebody, and I shoot pretty good too. From the hip!
Right.
Ha!
Hey-
oh.
But seriously, Broozer, you've talked to what, thousands of people? Okay, maybe not
thousands
but
hundreds
,
right? I mean, at
least.
So don't get all modest. However you slice it, it's a shitload and a halfa people. Right? And not
everybody
has the gift of blab,
comme ça
. I mean,
comme moi
.
Non?
Mais non? Mais oui?
May we? Well, pardon my French. Bet you've had your fair share of folks baring their souls in under an hour, brevity being the soul of wit and all. Speed storytelling. Oops! Then what does that say about
moi.
Enough about
toi
, let's talk about
moi
. I talk a lot but I'm funny, right? Aren't I, Brewster McCloud? Does being funny make me look fat? Don't answer that. Allow me to continue. Some of the folks who told you their stories—some of 'em probably blew lunch in an hour, maybe
less
,
am I right? Course I am. So here's my little request. Queenie's gonna lay it all out for you, put
all
her cards on the table. K? I want you to think of a story somebody told you, a
single, solitary
story. Like a
beautiful
one. It can be
short
,
but
hell
, it don't
have
to be. It can be
long-ass.
But the deal is it has to have stayed
with
you, plus you have to need to
want
to tell it, because—because there's something about it you just couldn't shake. K? Beautiful or haunting or crazy-funny or whatever. Do a really short one, or a
long
one, I only offered training wheels as a simple courtesy. Didn't want to jam you up. But if you're pressed for time, it can
really
be short, you can tell it, like, in a New Mexico minute. Ha.
Hey-
o! Y'all remember those “60-second fairy tales”? Edward Everett Horton.
Horton Hears a Who.
Horton hears a whodunit . . . Weren't they a hoot? Or should I say weren't they a Who. And why is it that whenever I get drunk, I start with the y'alls and the—the Southern shit. I don't
know
why, but it's been that way since when-evuh . . .
Love will keep us togethuh.
Remember “Fractured Fairy Tales”? From
Rocky and Bullwinkle
, right? Boris and Natasha! You could just tell us a fractured fairy tale, Bruiser. But enough about me . . . but I'm
serious
, I want to hear a story you
really liked
,
one for the road, or at least one you think
I
would like. One for the roadies. Something
memorable.
So c'n you think on one? While I go freshen up? I guess the story's on the other foot now,
huh
babe—ha! Come on. Just think on it. And we'll just sit here in suspense waiting for the other story to
drop.
Ho ho ho.
Heh heh heh.
I
know
you can do it, babe. I know you can make it!
I know damn well
 . . .
yes we can can I know we can can yes we can can uh why can't we if we wanted to we can can
—tell ya what. To be fair. If that big brainuh yours rolls snake eyes, then you can just
make something up
! Hell, ain' nobody gonna hold you to it, no one'll ever even know the
difference.
'Cause nobody's even fucking listening but
me
,
bubba. Man, you have got to understand, Bruce—right now I am so fucking tired I don't even know my name . . . I know I'm drunk but I am freaking
serious
about this! Get your
freak
on, Mother Jones . . .
get your free gun.
So you'll—do we have an affirmative, sir? I mean, you can wait, you can wait to tell us over dessert. Crackling fire, starry night, blah. Or you can
not
wait, you know, tell us
whenever.
Blah. Pull up a chair and stay a while.
[sings]
“Don't be shy meet a guy pull up a chair. The air is humming . . . please don't be long please don't you be very long please don't be long or I may be asleep—”
 . . .
Tell you why—I'll tell you why I'm harping. Why I'm being so
importunate
over here, is because—because it's—it's so
weird
that this
thing
just came over me like BLAM—
right
when we finished. It is
too
fucking strange . . . because you would
think
that after three days I'd had enough.
Nope!
It just sort of dropped
down
on me, this crazy
urge
, this
need
—do you know what I'm saying? Sounds sexual huh. Wull mebbe it is. I just had a thought . . . know what it
might
be? It
might
be I'm still in my own
stuff
,
you know, stuck in my head, and maybe I just want to get
out
of my head. Because these last few days we went to some
very
heavy places, my friend, I am
telling
you. And you
know
it. You little devil. 'Cause you
took
me there. Dark, heavy places—beautiful but heavy. So maybe now I just want to cleanse the palate. Does that make sense? What are friends for.
Don't answer that. Why fucking analyze. Where's Esme . . . Esme? Ez! Ezzy?
Esme!
Never can find that girl.
[sings]
“Never can say goodbye, no no no no . . . Then you try to say you're leaving me and I always have to say no, tell me why . . . is it so . . .
don't wanna let you go”
—bubba, go have some wine and start Googling that big brain o' yours while I freshen up. I am just so
effing tired
of hearing my own story—for three effing days!—and it's such a trip, I am telling you it was like
whoosh
right you know
exactly
when we finished like this voice was saying “No!”—this
need
,
this fucking
need
washed over me, this primal
thing
, and it's not even a full moon!—like an actual
physical craving.
So Bruce you have
got
to fucking think—because I don't want—it's like it's
too soon
, I'm not
ready
—I hear this
voice
—you know I'm just not you know quite ready to—
apparently
, anyway—this voice is saying like
come on come on
just let me hear
one more
—blam blam
blam
—'cause I'm just not
ready
yet, Bruce—it's like a
drug
, like I'm still coming onto the
drug
—goddammit Bruce all I'm saying is I want to hear one more story! So just
come on
,
man!—and I fucking
know
you understand—come on!
Come on come on come on come on come on
—tell me a fucking story!

END

1934—Kura is born.

1952—Cassiopeia (“Queenie”) is born.

1954—Kelly is born.

1960—Charley is born.

1967—Charley is molested by clergy through 1972.

1968—Kura and Queenie meet at a club in Chicago. A few months later, they reunite in Paris.

1970—They visit a guru in Bombay. Queenie stays four months; Kura remains for seven years.

1976—Kelly becomes a Buddhist. Her practice deepens over the next 25 years.

1977—Kura's teacher disappears from the ashram. After months of fruitless searching, he returns to his home in the Marais.

1990—Kelly and Charley's son Ryder is born.

1992—Kura has a heart attack. During convalescence, he renews the search for his teacher.

1997—After a near 30-year separation, Kura and Queenie rendezvous in New Delhi. She accompanies him to a remote village.

1997—Charley becomes a plaintiff in a class action suit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.

1998—Kura dies at 63.

1999—Kelly's mother dies; she and Charley are wed. Kelly takes a sabbatical from school teaching and tutors prisoners in the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation. She eventually helms a popular special education program for children. Kelly signs a contract to write a memoir.

2001—Kelly and Charley experience a terrible loss. Charley receives a settlement.

2005—Queenie tells her story (“Second Guru”).

2010—Charley tells his story (“First Guru”).

Bruce Wagner is the author of
Dead Stars
,
Memorial
,
The Chrysanthemum Palace
(a PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalist),
Still Holding
,
I'll Let You Go
,
I'm Losing You
, and
Force Majeure.
He lives in Los Angeles.

1
. Lucien Carr died in 2005.

2
.
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
was finally published in 2008. As current as he was on the Beats, I'm not sure why he missed it.

3
. Johnson's critically acclaimed memoir of her relationship with Kerouac was published in 1999. Her biography,
The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
, would not come out until 2012, a few years after this interview.

4
. He got stoned very quickly; my initial thoughts were to end the day's session but I let it go.

5
. Briefly referred to at the end of the short preface.

6
. Cf.
Shri Padodaka
, M. Cidandamurti (Mysore, 1983);
Caranamrt Ramayana
, Dvarkadas Parikh (Mathura: Sri Bajarang Pustakalay, 1991);
Tobacco Saint
, David Gordon White (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); et alia.

7
. Queenie's impersonation of an overbearing Indian matriarch was deliciously venal, complete with bobbling head and comically fractured syntax.

8
. Clinging or grasping—attachment.
Sanskrit
.

9
. Awakening of mind or consciousness that strives toward compassion for all sentient beings.

10
.
Sadhana
(literally, “a means of accomplishing something”) refers to a practice whose goal is liberation, be it enlightenment or freedom from the cycle of birth and death.
Samasti sadhana
is the highest form and most difficult path, impossible to perform without a guru.

11
.
Karma
,
bhakti
and
jnana
yogas were first introduced in the
Bhagavad Gita
. (“Yoga” generally means spiritual path.)
Raja
yoga completes the “Four Yogas,” or paths to God, each chosen according to one's temperament: the active, the emotional, the mystical, and the philosophical.