A Thousand Steps

15

Good thing he sat near the chow, because a lot of hungry young Vortex of Purity visitors are already having at it.

He puts the utensils in his shorts pocket, loads a plate, and heads outside. Sitting on one of the concrete benches, he remembers being here once with Kyle as they checked out a king snake they’d caught one spring day.

Now he watches the guests and followers mingling in the lobby and outside, where the night is cool. Two sharp-faced older men — in their forties, Matt guesses, and dressed in white suits over black T-shirts, their hands clasped in front of them — watch over the people like security guards. Matt catches glimpses of Sara, surrounded. The food is pretty good but it tastes a little funny, too.

When most of the audience has left, he goes back for seconds. It’s picked over but there’re still some noodles and vegetables. He wants to walk the grounds as he eats, see what the Vortex of Purity has done with the old campus.

Matt’s ninth-grade history teacher said that the original seminary architecture is Spanish Revival. Its central feature is the bell tower adjacent to the chancellor’s big residence. The tower is domed with cobalt blue tiles and often lit at night.

The buildings have their white plaster walls, rounded doors, and terra-cotta roof tiles. There are ornamental iron grates on many of the campus windows, and many painted tiles. The chapel looks like a small mission and sits in a grass meadow between the grand chancellor’s quarters and the auditorium.

Matt looks out at the rolling grounds. Considers the former chancellor’s residence and the blue-domed belfry on a rise at the far boundary of the property. He remembers the plywood that once covered all the vandalized windows and doors, the weeds that grew dense as ivy.

Now the central quad bustles with young men and women, most of them in street clothes but some in white, yellow, and orange pantsuits, and sandals. Some smile at him. The two serious looking men in the white suits stride by with alert expressions.

Matt walks past the former classrooms and small lecture halls, along a garden of paloverde, cacti, and happy looking succulents. He continues between two facing arcades of small apartments where he and Kyle used to chase and throw rocks at each other through the pane-less windows.

There are lights on within the arcades, and Matt wonders if the Vortex has many full-time students, or members, or worshippers, or whatever they’re called. And what’s the purpose of all this hospitality, he wonders. Camera Man directs his models here and Mahajad throws a banquet. Why? Recruitment? How much does the Vortex charge students who enroll? He remembers his mother’s comment about how expensive the Vortex of Purity is.

Most important, would Jazz come here?

The Jazz who Matt knows, or thinks he knows, probably wouldn’t have come here more than once. She is a seeker, yes, as her interest in the Bible, mysticism, and spirituality proves. An artist, too. But not a joiner. Not a follower. She’s the opposite of that. Jazz the skeptical, the questioning, the unconvinced. She writes songs for herself and her ukulele, not for a band, because, as she once told him, “other people would stink them up.”

But Matt knows from Laurel Kalina that Jazz has participated in at least one Thousand Steps shoot — on Tuesday of last week, two days before her first night gone.

Jasmine looked a little bummed by the whole scene. You know, bummed out but above it all, like she is.

Matt ponders why she did the photography thing at Thousand Steps. To show off? For the trip of doing something sexy in front of other people? To be a celebrity?

Which leads him to the Sapphire Cove parties of Jordan Cavore. No, Matt still can’t picture her there. She would have fled, in spite of the curiosity that might have led her on, of which she has tons. In spite of what she said or didn’t say to Austin Overton’s friend Dana. She would have fled in superior disgust.

He continues past the arcades, sneakers crunching on the gravel walkway, the coastal mist tingling his skin and cooling his scabs. The old gym building actually looks good now, he thinks, with windows instead of plywood and no trash and weeds in the parking lot. The lap pool is full and lit, the surface a wobbling mirror. Bums used to make campfires and sleep there. He’s never seen the place looking anything like this. Mahajad must make a lot of money.

Looking at the flat blue pool, Matt wonders where Jasmine is exactly right now. What, exactly, is she doing?

He stops at a trash can to toss his paper plate and utensils but wonders if there’s any food left. Those veggies have a way of not sticking with you, and thirds would be nice.

The main parking lot is empty except for his mother’s little van. But the auditorium door stands open and he sees light in the lobby.

Inside, Mahajad Om stands before a food table in his crimson robe, eating snow peas from a paper plate. A wheeled cart stands nearby, onto which the bowls and pots and the crockpots are being piled by two women, and apparently, by the swami himself. The women look Indian and to Matt’s eye must be mother and daughter.

Mahajad looks at Matt, his eyes lively and his expression amused. “I am always hungry after an Evolution Ceremony. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

The swami takes another bite then steps away and gestures to the table with his free hand. “Please to eat all you want.”

With expressionless looks at Matt, the two women recede.

“Thank you, sir. I read ‘The Waste Land’ just a few weeks ago at school. So I know what ‘shantih’ means.”

“It took me forty years to learn what ‘shantih’ means. Don’t forget the snow peas. They are cooked in bacon fat left over from breakfast.”

Matt fills his third plate while the swami stands and watches, bringing small forkfuls to his mouth. The women watch from a corner.

“You look familiar to me,” says Mahajad. “Do you meditate at the Mystic Arts World?”

“No, but I help run the art gallery,” Matt answers, suddenly very proud — in the presence of this man — to have a position other than paperboy.

“Maybe there is where I’ve seen you.”

“Christian Clay is my boss. I don’t get paid, though.”

“There is greater pay than money.”

“I get to read the art books and help hang the paintings.”

Matt’s thirds don’t last long. The swami points to the table with his plastic fork, but his expression doesn’t change. Deep in the thicket of hair and beard, his eyes really do seem to be laughing.

One more little plate can’t hurt. They eat together standing and facing each other, Mahajad half a head taller and almost a body heavier than the hungry sixteen-year-old.

The two white-suited, black-shirted men come briskly in from outside, see that Mahajad is talking, assess Matt, and pass into the auditorium proper.

“Why did you come here tonight?” asks the swami.

“I got invited to see Sara evolve.”

Matt senses that Mahajad approves his stated motive. The man says nothing for a long moment, just patiently eats with small bites, poking the fork with what looks like bemused concentration.

“But, like, actually,” says Matt. “I was at the beach today, looking for my sister, Jasmine Anthony. She did the photo shoot last Tuesday at Thousand Steps. And we haven’t seen her since Thursday evening. So, Mom filed a report. And I wanted to see if she might be there, again today. She wasn’t. But I got an invitation to tonight. I have this...”

Matt puts his plate on the table and works the new Jasmine sketch from his pocket. Unfolds and holds it up for Mahajad to see.

Again, the happy eyes and expression of amusement on his dark face. Matt waits, hears the far-off generators through the night. They drone like the sitar. It’s almost peaceful.

“No. I have not seen Jasmine here. My memory is very good. But I feel your love in the way you say her name. Tell me about her.”

Matt isn’t surprised that his sister is not a Vortex follower. Maybe Sara the Skateboard Girl got Jasmine mixed up with someone else here. He’s relieved. It’s okay to take a wrong trail, he thinks. It’s how you find the right trail.

He describes his sister to the swami, trying to be accurate and objective, not like a brother but like Walter Cronkite on TV. He tells Mahajad Om that he doesn’t think his sister ran away.

“You love her very much,” says Mahajad. “You will find her soon and your family will be together as one again. I have something for you.”

He puts his plate on the table beside Matt’s, gets a clean one from the stack and heaps it with the last of the food. From the wheeled cart he takes up a long skinny box of tin foil, swings out a good length of it and wraps it around the heavy paper plate, twice.

“I never learned to drive a car, but one of my women can give you a ride home.”

“I have a van. Thank you, swami.”

“Shantih.”

“Thank you, your... holiness?”

“Just swami.”

“This is for you.”

Matt has already written his phone number on the back of his new Jasmine sketch.

The swami looks at the sketch again. His black eyes are wet.

“There are many missing souls. Even in beautiful places. Bonnie, the girl from the flyers in town, evolved here. I wish I had spoken to her. Maybe I could have intervened, even if only spirit-to-spirit. One of the reasons I created the Vortex of Purity is to fill the emptiness that leads people into unhappiness and wrong behavior. To fill the soul with the enlightenment that leads to ecstasy, which is the conqueror of emptiness. And I always feed the hungry, because I am one of them. Go in peace, Matt.”