Ep. 18: Sid Receives a Special Blessing.
The Grand Finale of Season One.* (And Peace with Every Other Step. Part 4 of 4.)
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The Man Who Woke up the Buddha is the story of a guy named Sid who wakes up from a stroke and realizes he's the Buddha, even though he knows almost nothing about Buddhism.
Previously: Sid successfully revised his meditation practice to peace-is-every-other step in order to have time to window-shop for new shirts (since he was losing weight), an electric assist for his bike (so he could keep up with Dr. Jay), and cinnamon scones (because he lusted after them) while still being on the lookout for new obstacles. Then, suddenly, something wriggly bumped into him!
Looking down to see the source of his latest collision, Sid saw a small child at the head of a daycare chain gang—a long rope with multi-colored rings that kids hold onto while they are being force-marched to the next strange place they’ve been banished by their parents.
“Why are those little children tied together? Are they being taken to the stake?” Sid heard a voice say.
No dear Brigid, it is to keep them under control, the Buddha whispered etherically.
“That’s what they told me…” the terribly-wrongly-accused witch said, before vanishing.
“Annie! Watch where you’re going!” a voice cried out.
“My fault. Totally!” Sid interrupted, waving at the nearest teacher. But, as he watched in mock horror, Annie’s fall turned into a four-kid pileup with three or four more swerving out of the way behind them. He held out his arms and the kids grabbed for them like drowning swimmers and let him pull them jerkily to their feet. Gee, had he lost that much arm strength? How much could they weigh?
As he crouched down to introduce himself to Annie, he wondered if they should be exchanging insurance information.
“Hi Annie. My name is Sid.”
Annie’d been taught not to talk to strangers and they didn’t come any stranger than Sid. So she held up her Raggedy Ann doll to her ear. “She says she’s sorry we bumped into you.”
The Buddha nodded. It was difficult to encourage beings like Raggedy Ann to talk directly to anyone over the age of five or six.
“But I bumped into you!” Sid said.
Annie held Raggedy up to her ear again. “She says we bumped into each other. She thought it was fun.”
“It was fun!” Sid agreed. He paused. “Would Raggedy talk to me?”
“She’s never talked to a grownup before…” Annie said.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Sid agreed.
It’s a great idea, the Buddha agreed.
“MY G.I. JOE WILL TALK TO YOU!” Annie put her head down as a tall—relatively speaking—boy wearing a green t-shirt, blue jeans, white running shoes, and holding a purple ring cut in front of her. He was clearly the alpha male of the group.
The teacher was trying to figure out how to get close enough to the accident scene without losing her grip on the four kids still standing.
“Where are you guys going?” Sid asked, prepared for a full-on assault by G.I. Joe’s doppelganger.
“We are going to see the dinosaurs,” Raggedy Ann spoke up clearly—to Annie, Sid’s, and even the Buddha’s surprise. Annie looked at her proudly.
“Real dina-saws!” the alpha male added, although he had clearly lost control of the talking stick as a chorus of answers rolled down the chain in various syncopations and pronunciations. “Yay! dino-sores! See! Strepto-sore-us! Yeah! Bronto-sau-rus. Ty-ran-no-saur-us Rex. My name’s Becky!” The last from a prematurely narcissistic blond girl with a stylish barette. She was the only kid wearing a dress. Sid knew the type.
“Is Becky a dinosaur?” Sid asked, realizing he’d never thought about dinosaurs being female. If so, the alpha male might be in for a surprise when they were teenagers.
“No…no…no…” The chorus said in relative harmony.
“Hey Shiddy!” Sid looked up to see a 3-something-year-old girl in a pink shirt, blue shorts, and pink sneakers holding on to her (orange) ring with one hand and waving with the other. She looked vaguely familiar.
“Shiddy!” “Shiddy!” “Shiddy!” The chant went up the line and back. Except for the boy in the orange shirt, grey shorts, and black sneakers holding onto the blue ring with his right hand and closely examining some archeological discovery he’d made while digging in his nose with a finger on his left.
By then, the teachers had accepted they’d lost all control of the situation. But, given the option of calling for backup or waiting for the scene to play itself out, they looked at each other helplessly and chose the latter. Although, the chorus’s shift towards the scatological was a dangerous development.
Even Sid realized that having a raging band of preschoolers shouting obscenities on Main Street could be problematic. Plus, he finally remembered who the little girl was who had used the unfortunate pronunciation of his name. It was, uh, uh, Maxine’s granddaughter. She had a crush on his youngest grandson Casper who, since he was five years older, had her wrapped around his little finger. Fortunately, he didn’t know it. What was her name?
The little girl started running up to him, pulling at the teacher behind her and the kids in front. Sid decided to play dumb. It wasn’t hard.
“And what would your name be little girl,” he asked like it was a private joke they shared. “Aw-wa-wa,” she giggled.
“Let me guess, Aw-wa-wa would your grandmother be…” he looked up to the sky, down to the sidewalk, put his finger against his head…”Mary?”
“Nooooo.”
“Michelle?”
“Nooooo.”
“Maxine?”
“Nooooo.”
No? He was sure it was Maxine’s granddaughter.
“Her name’s Nenna!”
“Oh, of course,” he said, slapping his forehead and sending a blaze of pain across his skull. Inexplicably, the whole line stopped, freeze frame.
He looked down and was surprised to see Annie still there, looking up at him and holding Raggedy Ann out in front of her. She had let go of her ring—worthy of a 911 call in the manual of daycare crowd control. But one of the teachers stood next to her protectively. “There are still dino-saws, Mr. Shid,” Annie explained, holding Raggedy back to her ear. “She says grownups just don’t see them because they’re afraid. She says that all you need is love.”
The Buddha nodded.
Sid nodded. Although he had the brief image of Raggedy in a rock band with Bert, Ernie, and Big Bird.
Sid, the Buddha thought, shaking his head.
Though Big Bird would have trouble playing an instrument, Sid thought. Maybe Grover. He has big arms. Bert could be Paul…George would be Ernie…is John Raggedy? No, she’s Yoko…no one really understands her. Kermit is definitely Ringo. Then is John, Cookie Monster?
Sid! the Buddha thought.
Sid decided to take up the issue with Casper later. Carolyn said he’d started drum lessons.
“Annie,” the teacher said firmly. “We need to move along now.”
“But Ms. B,” Annie objected. “Raggedy has more things she wants to say to this man.”
Sid decided to help, “It's okay. Tell, Raggedy I think she’s a real doll and I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk another time.”
“But how will we find you?” Annie asked.
It can be arranged, The Buddha thought.
“It'll be magic,” Sid said. The girl nodded sagely.
By now, another line of eight kids, attached to another grownup, had begun moving again, pushing up against the first group. The whole scene was beginning to turn into a Lord of the Flies flashmob. Adults walking on the sidewalk were keeping a wide berth, even going into the street to get around them safely. They all had that understanding-but-condescending smile grownups have when confronted by wilding bands of preschoolers.
Sid stood up and stepped aside so the teachers could get the kids rearranged in one line. He was about to leave it at that, but he couldn’t help himself. “Hey kids. Want to see something cool?”
The ‘yeahs’ were cacophonous.
Sid took off his hat and leaned over so they could see the stitches across his skull. Never before had stitches attracted such rapt wonder. The kids began uttering indecipherable and indistinguishable expressions of shock and awe.
“Can I touch it?” The alpha male said.
“Can I?”
“Can I?”
“Can I?”
“OK, kids, that’s enough!” the teachers said in unison. The one at the back of the first group handed her ring (blue) to the kid behind her and raced to the front to take hold of Annie’s ring (red) to start the line moving forward. Sid at least had enough wits about him to call out, “Gently! You gotta be gentle!” as he crouched down and bent his head so each one could touch it as they went past.
Each hand had its own size and warmth. Some dry, some a little sweaty. He felt beyond calm and peaceful. He felt ecstatic. As if he were being blessed by a procession of saints.
(Although he couldn’t help but wonder which one belonged to the little kid who had been picking his nose.)
He stood up, beaming, as the final teacher walked up, “What, Grandpa Sid, I don’t get to touch?” she laughed.
He looked at her…again recognizing only the wide gulf between his conscious mind and what was left of his memory.
“It’s Stephanie,” she said. “Courtney’s friend…from high school.”
He put his head down and she lay her hand carefully on his scar as the kids pulled her away. “Tell Courtney I said I’ll be in touch!” she called out.
As the kids walked on, many looked back at Sid and waved. He waved back, but feeling faint, he found a bench to sit down on. To his surprise, a moment later Annie and Raggedy were standing right in front him, with Stephanie watching over them.
“Raggedy didn’t get a chance to touch your head Mr. Shid,” Annie said.
Sid lowered his head and felt a small soft paw-like hand stroke his scar a couple of times.
He opened his eyes to see Raggedy talking in Annie’s ear. “She says, ‘Have fun, Mr. Shid. Whatever happens, have fun!’”
As Annie took Stephanie’s hand and walked away, Sid smiled and tears came to his eyes.
Some tension he didn’t know he’d had since the stroke melted away. He felt, well, human.
Ah, the last frontier, the Buddha thought. Although only the first step.
Sid let his head rest on the back of the top of the bench and sighed. The last thing he remembered before drifting off was thinking that he should drop a line to Mr. Hanh to tell him all the things he’d realized while practicing peace is every other step.
* END SEASON 1!
Yup. Sid and the Buddha are taking a little break ‘til early or mid July. Fortunately, “The Man Who Woke up the Buddha” has been renewed for another season as they say on TV (and several after that). Meanwhile, since many subscribers signed up for “Fields of Vision” during Sid’s First Season, I’ll fill the weeks in between with a few non-fiction pieces from previous work. And I’ll let you know as soon as I can when Sid, the Buddha, family, and friends are planning to return from their short, and well-deserved, summer vacation. It’s a union contract thing…you know how complicated they can be.