Ep. 2: Sid Makes A Confession.
And Sid's best friend Marcus tries to figure out where the hell he's coming from.
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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 was regaining some semblance of consciousness after surgery to remove a tumor that had triggered the stroke during which he realized he was the Buddha. Sid’s wife Diane was about to leave the hospital and his best friend Marcus had arrived to visit.
After walking Diane to the elevator, Marcus returned to find Sid smiling mischievously and snoring contentedly. So he went over and sat on the sill of the picture window—his back against the wide jamb, one leg stretched out and the other draped uncomfortably over the chilly ventilation unit. He had a panoramic view of the Boston skyline, a close-up on two orderlies getting high in the parking lot below, and memories of Sid drifting in front of his mind’s eye.
Marcus had been Sid's best audience, straight man, and co-conspirator for decades. They’d met when he was an impressionable teenager and Sid a larger-than-life college student who was renting a room in his parent’s attic.
At the time, Marcus was in his junior year in high school and riddled with teenage angst. His little sister Julia had just started junior high school and was insufferable.
They and their parents lived a couple blocks away from Sid’s college campus where Marcus often went when he needed to “get away” to ponder the meaning of life and why he didn’t have a girlfriend. And whether there was a chance that the answer to one would lead to the other.
Late one afternoon, he was sitting on the steps of the student center writing intensely in a worn spiral notebook. Or so it seemed. For the most part he was doodling and watching various clusters of students, particularly the group tossing a frisbee around on the green. At one point, an errant throw sailed over the head of the guy closest to him and landed next to the steps on top of a privet hedge that had been pruned so flat it could have signed up for ROTC.
When Marcus picked the frisbee up and started walking down the steps to hand it over, the guy pointed to his buddy who was streaking full speed to Marcus’s right. Fortunately, throwing a frisbee was one thing Marcus could do at the college level, so he snapped off a clean throw and hit his intended receiver.
The guy who had pointed out the receiver nodded approvingly. “Name’s Sid. I want you on my team.”
Marcus shrugged and mumbled his name.
“K. Maarrcccus,” Sid said, imitating the mumble, “Let’s go.”
Marcus put his notebook and pen under the hedge and joined them.
After a half hour or so of increasingly acrobatic exchanges, the group broke up and Sid took Marcus to the snack bar, bought him a soda, and gave him the third degree—responding to Marcus’s teenage angst with light-hearted one-liners that implied he knew what it was like, but, more importantly, knew ways to stop the pain if not the madness. It was the kind of attention Marcus craved.
After hearing the story that evening, Marcus’s parents told him to invite Sid over for dinner. Having never met a free meal he didn’t like, Sid joined them two nights later.
He told them his dad had died in the Korean War. His mom had moved overseas somewhere and was in very poor health. But he decided to stay in America for college which was paid for by some proverbial rich uncle.
To all extents and purposes, he was an orphan.
To some extents and purposes, this was true.
Before long, Sid had an open invitation to come by whenever he wanted. At first, he acted like a guest—although a guest who felt free to use the washing machine and raid the icebox. But soon he was more like a prodigal son.
Sid became the big brother that Marcus had never had, as well as the one his little sister Julia had always wanted…someone who treated her like an increasingly mature teenager rather than a twelve-year-old.
To both kids’ delight, the next semester, their parents offered to rent Sid a room on the third floor, after which the whole family lovingly referred to him as “that thing in the attic.”
While Marcus’s parents soon realized Sid was less than a stellar influence on their children, it did give them an occasional free night or weekend off from the annoyances of raising a teenage boy and his twelve-going-on-sixteen-year-old little sister.
Marcus soon learned many important lessons from Sid: the most inconspicuous way to pick your nose; how to play soccer indoors with a tennis ball; the wisdom of Marx Brothers movies; and, of course, the fine points of surviving on nothing but popcorn, potato chips, candy corns, peanut butter, jelly, and chocolate milk.
More importantly, Sid initiated him into the proper way to roll a joint, how to get over a hangover in time for school, and where to buy condoms.
Sid is possessed.
While these days, Marcus was more likely to roll his eyes than look up to Sid, he was still impressed by the guy’s ability to turn the serious into the absurd. But, he thought sadly, a diagnosis of Stage IV brain cancer would probably be sobering enough to put a cramp in his style…
It wasn’t.
“I have a confession to make!” Sid bolted upright in the hospital bed as if he’d been awake the whole time.
Marcus sighed, got off the window sill, and stretched. “You want me to track down the hospital chaplain?”
“No, you’ll do.”
“Me? You want me to take your confession? Don’t bother. I know everyone you slept with…”
“What…about…?” Sid offered a weak grin and the words kind of slid off the corner of his mouth that still seemed a little askew.
Huh, Marcus thought. Maybe Sid had finally met his match pharmaceutically speaking. He decided to stay on offense. “I always suspected that,” he said. “And I know about the drugs and the borderline business blackmail, too.”
“The drugs were legal,” Sid mumbled, without a whole lot of conviction.
“Yeah, maybe in some third-world country.”
“Wasn’t blackmail! Speaking truth to power.” Sid sounded hurt. And uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “May I confess now?” His voice was plaintive.
Things were getting jumbled. Sid wanted to explain his Buddha nature. Or the Buddha wanted to explain his Sid nature. Marcus seemed far away. Sid dragged himself back to the razor’s edge, painfully pushing back a little from the side of the bed.
“Pretend the bed rails are like a confessional. So you can’t see me.” Sid gave a hopeful inner smile…phew…he sounded like himself!
Who thought that?
“…Never been to f-ing confession in his life,” Marcus mumbled to himself as he dragged a chair over, pulled up the bedrails, and put his forehead against the top rail. He was back on the defensive.
“Tell me you’re ready to hear my confession,” Sid mumbled weakly, his eyes closed.
“I will hear your confession now,” Marcus said somberly.
Sid lifted his free left arm and made the sign of the cross in the air—getting the right and left mixed up.
“Forgive me father for I have sinned.”
“No surprise there. What’cha got?” Marcus realized he was upset. He was upset that Sid was sick. Hell, he was upset Sid was mortal. And he was upset that in the midst of this pretty serious situation, the guy might still be playing with him. Then, he smiled. Whenever Marcus got to the bottom of what was bothering him it stopped bothering him. He went back into character. “Our Father welcomes all who welcome Him.”
“You’re welcome back,” Sid said pleasantly, sliding back into himself. “May I tell you my sins now, Father?” He felt perky again. It was as if he were a traffic cop at the intersection of multiple trains of thought and the light closest to his everyday reality had just turned green.
“If you must,” Marcus said, knowing the list was extensive no matter what religion or ethical standards you adhered to. “Sure. Go for it.”
“Well, do you want to know how many women I have fornicated with, Father?”
“It’s not necessary, my son.” Marcus sighed.
“How ‘bout my many acts of pride…avarice…envy…” the words seemed to tumble out from different parts of his mouth, “wrath…lust…gluttony…and…and…slaw…sluh…sloth?”
Something was way off and on at the same time. Marcus was surprised Sid even knew what the seven deadly sins were. “Let’s wrap this up, Sid. You’re going to Hell.”
Sid didn’t respond. As he rolled away from the bed rails and pushed himself to sit up straighter, his eyes darted as if he’d heard someone coming. It was happening again. He was beginning to oscillate between multiple worlds and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it.
Marcus tried to help but Sid waved him away. He sat up even straighter and looked directly at and past Marcus. His face became ascetic, hints of skull appearing under melting skin—as if he were letting his force drift back into a slowly diminishing form. When he spoke, his energy no longer exploded out of his face. It rumbled from some deep place.
“Marco my friend…my friend,” Sid whispered urgently as his eyes closed. “My confession…”
There was a whisper of unfamiliar poignancy. “Yes?” Marcus asked, cautiously feeling real concern. Sid saved “Marco” for special occasions.
“When I was drifting in and out after the seizure…”
“Yeah…?” Marcus was still waiting for them both to laugh…for Sid to try to fist-bump him through the railings. “What…you had some kind of vision? See the dark tunnel, buddy? Go towards the light?”
“I wasn’t myself.”
“Unh huh?” Marcus said, noncommittal.
“Who came. It’s…it’s…at first I thought I was really dying and someone came to greet me.”
“Unh huh?” Marcus said cautiously, again sensing a trap. But who knew, maybe he’d really had some kind of Near Death Experience. He waited for the punchline.
“But that someone was me.”
Marcus was about to laugh but the look in Sid’s eye stopped him.
“No…Marco…” Sid said slowly. Then he smiled as if he’d suddenly come upon a clearing in the woods but was still lost. “Marco, I’m the Buddha. The B-U-D-D-H-A.” Sid sounded regretful. He closed his eyes and slid down. Only his head rested against the back of the bed as if in contrition.
“Sid? Sid?”
A nurse appeared suddenly and looked at the monitors.
“Is he OK?” Marcus was bewildered.
“Just checking,” the nurse said, although Marcus knew from how fast he was moving, it was more than checking.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’re good,” he added, reaching across Sid for the button to lower the back and make him more comfortable. “He had a little spike but he’s good now.”
“I’ll go then. Let him rest.”
“Yeah, probably best.”
“Hey, can you tell me something?”
“Sure,” the nurse said absently, looking back at Sid’s vitals.
“How out there do people get after seizures?”
The nurse laughed. “How far do you want to go?”
“You know. Like personality changes.”
“Like I said, How far do you want to go?”
“Well, at least that’s in character,” Marcus sighed to himself.
“I heard that,” Sid mumbled, without opening his eyes. Marcus has no idea, he managed to think.
Sid has no idea either, the Buddha thought.
Next Episode: Having heard that her grandfather is the Buddha, Sid’s precocious 12-year-old granddaughter Zoey embarks on a quest to learn everything she can about Buddhism.
I am really enjoying this and looking forward to the next episode. I had some doubts about the premise when I first heard it—who wouldn’t?—but you’ve sold me on it effortlessly. The style is captivating and there’s a lot of economy in how the story moves. If I had the whole novel I would devour it in a day!
To be more precise, the wells were not early at all…
After many more insistently timeless moments wandering through various unfamiliar states of unconsciousness, subconsciousness, and drug-induced superconsciousness, Sid suddenly became aware of himself feeling and thinking like, well, himself. But also like, well, someone else. And that someone else was, well, the Buddha.
It was these wells that bothered me. Especially the third one. I think it’s good the first two times but oddly loses its punch before the Buddha. But that’s only my opinion, and if you hear it differently perhaps other readers will too. A teensy point, in any event! Just that it struck me.