Ep. 8: Sid Preaches to the Choir.
In which he tells his grandchildren how he became the Buddha.
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: Marcus returned home in time to have a nightcap with his wife Leila who, in some ways, knows Sid best of all.
Ever since he’d come home from the hospital, Sid had been eager to give his first “Dharma talk.”1 It would be by invitation only; and the only people invited would be his five grandchildren.
But, between summer camps, summer classes, and summer basketball leagues, it took a couple of days before they could all be wrangled into the same space and time.
Usually, an event like this would be worthy of one of Sid’s infamous bonfires. But Di insisted he wasn’t ready to play with matches yet, so they all gathered around him on their big wraparound porch looking over Boston Harbor. The place was a riot of wicker, with all the cushions upholstered in Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse slipcovers over Di’s vehement objections.
By the time the kids arrived, Sid had already settled into the oversized chaise. Casper immediately grabbed a cushion and sat on his right while Willy did the same on his left. Zoey got on the porch swing with her big sister Courtney, and Bieça jumped up next to her, knowing she was always good for at least a good scratching if not some free food.
Ju sat on the railing, unsure whether he wanted to be there at all. There were guys to hang out with, girls to make out with; pick-up basketball games to play, and homework not to do. Plus, while he loved Sid as much as the others, he was beginning to get tired of all their “Can you believe Sid did this?” and “Sid did that?” Grownups were meant to be neither seen nor heard.
In lieu of a bonfire, Sid lit candles and had each of the grandchildren come up, take one in turn, and remain standing while they recited the traditional Jewish Prayer for the Dead. Although half-Jewish, Sid knew way less than half of the prayer. But he had learned the fine art of saying the first word—Yiskadal or something—and then mumbling in sync with everyone who did know the prayer. In this case, however, no one did, except, it turned out, Zoey who, among other talents, had a photographic memory—or, as Sid put it—was afflicted with total recall. And, since she’d been to a friend’s grandmother’s funeral she knew the prayer by heart.
When she cautiously ventured: “But grandpa, you’re not dead yet,” he looked at her sternly and said, “Are you telling me what’s Kosher? Besides, I want to get a head start.”
She dutifully began to recite the prayer as the other kids joined in with Sid’s lusty mumbling. Then he told them to “make a wish, blow out your candles, and assume your positions, my true disciples.”
It felt just like Christmas morning, except instead of delivering his annual ever-changing rendition of the birth of Baby Jesus, he began to tell them the miracle story of their grandfather’s return from near death.
“So once upon a time…” he began.
“A week ago,” Di interjected, walking in and sitting on a rocker she pulled over next to her granddaughters’ porch swing.
“Sorry darling,” Sid said sweetly, “This is a special Dharma talk just for the grandchildren…and Bieça.”
“Spousal privilege,” she said with a finality that even he couldn’t finesse.
“Well, anyway,” he sighed, “your grandma and I had just gone to bed.”
Di gave him a stern look. By now, Sid had not-so-subtly implied to his three grown children that the seizure happened during an orgasm. Abbey, the oldest, had said simply, “TMI dad. Way TMI,” while Melissa stuck her fingers in her ears and burst into the chorus of “If I Only Had a Brain,” while their “little” brother Jake cut to the chase: “You were f—-ing? You go dad!”
But they all agreed on one thing…the grandchildren didn’t need to know.
“Don’t worry, I’ll chaperone,” Di had reassured them. Which they didn’t find very reassuring.
“You see, my dear disciples,” Sid continued, “your beloved grandfather had a seizure.”
“Probably a focal impaired awareness seizure,” Zoey suggested. She’d been studying up since hearing the symptoms.
“Shut up, Zoey,” her big brother Junior said, now standing up and leaning against a porch post. “Let grandpa tell the story. You mean like a blood clot, Sid?”
“More like an electrical short circuit in your brain,” Zoey explained.
Sid blinked…maybe that was what those bolts of lightning were, those times in the hospital when he’d think that maybe he wasn’t really the Buddha.
“Zoey!” Junior said. Courtney reached out, put her arm around her little sister and pulled her close. Zoey got the hint.
“But what made it happen?” Willy asked seriously. At 13, he desperately wanted to show he was as grown up as the other cousins.
“Well I rolled over, to, you know…” Sid hesitated, as he glanced over at Di who was glowering at him.
Zoey didn’t know and didn’t really want to know because, while still at the handholding stage herself—well there was that little thing with Bobby Valente…that was gross—from what she’d seen on TV, it wasn’t something she wanted to picture her grandparents doing. She didn’t even know grandparents could do that. She scrunched her whole face into a predictable Ewwww response.
Courtney laughed and agreed, “You can say that again, Zoey!” Followed by, “Shut up, Junior…”
“What’s your problem?” Junior shot back. Even though he knew exactly what her problem was. He’d just been dramatically deflowered by a good friend of Courtney’s and she was uncharacteristically pissed.
While Courtney was fanatically devoted to the idea that everyone should be able to have sex with whomever they wanted, the buck stopped at her little brother doing the deed with her friends, especially one she, herself, had a crush on.
For his part, Junior had turned his attention to the logistics of his grandparents having sex since big Sid was kind of heavy to be on top. Of course, having done it a grand total of one time, he hadn’t really given that position or any others much thought.
“So, what happened then, granddad?” their cousin Casper asked looking up at Sid wide-eyed. The youngest of the grandchildren, Casper was Jake and his wife Carolyn’s miracle baby, born several years after they gave up on the last of a $30,000 alphabet soup of fertility treatments: from ART and IVF to MESA and ZIFT.2
A little over two years later, Casper appeared, with a full head of hair that was so light, the first time his, then, three-year-old cousin Zoey saw the pudgy newborn she said reassuringly, “It’s OK, he’s a friendly ghost.” From then on, he’d been Casper.
Fast forward eight years, and Casper was now sitting at his grandfather’s feet, doing what it seemed he had been doing his whole life—pretending to understand what his cousins were talking about even though he didn’t have a clue. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, he loved listening to Sid tell stories and now wanted him to get back to it.
The kid has potential, the Buddha thought.
“You see,” Sid continued, “sometimes at MY age, if you shift your weight too quickly your blood pressure drops.”
“Sid!” Di said sharply. Which sealed the deal for Junior.
“What were his symptoms, grandma?” Zoey asked like she was a reporter for a medical journal.
“Well, he was mumbling something or other and his face was lopsided. His eyes were wide-open but it wasn’t like he was looking at anything.”
“No! I thought I saw a brilliant white light in the distance,” Sid tried to continue.
“Sid, you weren’t thinking anything. You were unconscious.”
“Never stopped him before,” Abbey said, walking in, “C’mon Willy, we’re meeting Malcolm at 5.’’
“Just a second, mom…he’s getting to the best part.”
Abbey reluctantly pulled up another wicker chair, thinking about how quickly her only son, just turned 13, was already mastering the art of teenage annoyance. Willy needed a strong male role model. Fortunately, he rarely saw his two-faced embezzling father. And she wasn’t quite ready yet to let her new bighearted boyfriend Malcolm get too paternal. Which left his grandfather as Willy’s main male role model…a troubling notion by anyone’s standard.
“She picked up my right arm and let it go.” Sid continued. “Nothing. And then she got on her knees on the bed next to me—show them Di…” Abbey uttered a silent prayer, and Di just shook her head and took over the story to keep it from going any further off the rails.
“I did no such thing. First, I said, ‘Sid!’ almost yelling in his ear. Then he started drooling.”
“I love it!” said Junior, moving closer to the group. This was just the kind of detail he’d been waiting for.
“Then he started kind of babbling.”
“What did he say, ‘gram?” Courtney asked.
“Weird stuff. Sounded like a nursery rhyme but the words were all jumbled.”
Wasn’t all that weird, thought the Buddha.
“What weird stuff did he say, grandma?” Casper asked.
“Sounded something like ‘Gotti Gotti Papa Gotti. Sam Gotti. Buddy Ha-Ha.’ He kept repeating it.”
“You mean Gotti like the mobster?” Abbey asked. Seeing the kids look her way, she added, “Before your time, guys…even you Courtney…Look it up Zoey,” she said unnecessarily. “OK, Willy, we have to go.”
“Was that all he said, grandma?” Zoey said, sensing this could be the Nancy Drew moment she’d been waiting for her whole life.
“It was more of the same, Zoey,” Di said. “Pair of Sam Gottis, Buddy, See yah!”
Ahem, the Buddha thought. It’s “Gaté Gaté Para Gaté Parasamgaté Bodhi Svaha!” He unconditionally accepted Di’s bastardization of the sacred mantra, however, in light of the fact that she had freed herself of several lifetimes worth of karma for putting up with Sid for so long.
“That’s the Tibetan prayer for the dead,” Zoey pointed out.
“Did you think he was dead, grandma?” Casper asked. He was so into the story he was afraid maybe his grandfather had died.
“That’s interesting,” Zoey said. “Maybe it was a temporal lobe seizure. Although that staring eye could mean it was an absence seizure....” Zoey stopped and realized everyone was looking at her. “Sorry,” she said.
“Then,” her grandmother said, “he gripped my arm really hard…”
“That makes more…” Zoey felt all the heads turn towards her again, smiled shyly, and closed her mouth.
“So, no, I didn’t think he was dead yet. I thought he was having a heart attack.”
Instinctively, Courtney pulled her sister even closer so she wouldn’t go off on a treatise about the difference in symptoms between a seizure and a heart attack.
“So, I kind of backed myself off the bed…it was like I had to keep looking at him to keep him alive.”
Casper’s eyes opened even wider, eager to find out what happened next. So was Sid.
“I reached over and picked up the cell phone. And started to dial 911.”
“OK, Willy,” Abbey sighed. ‘We have to go.’
Willy got off the bed slowly. He had no interest in meeting mom’s new boyfriend for dinner. He wanted to stay with his cousins. He turned to look back at Sid as he walked towards the door. Hearing his mother already on the steps he hung back.
“That was it?” Zoey asked.
“Well, he repeated it a few times.”
“Then what happened?” Casper asked urgently.
“Well,” Sid said, closing his eyes as if remembering the scene. “Then, things got even stranger…”
Sid opened his eyes to see five pairs of grandchild-ish eyes looking at him, wearing various expressions of bemusement (Courtney) prurient anticipation (Junior), frustration (Willy…over by the door, slowly backing away in the direction of his mom’s call), deep thought (Zoey), and total devotion (Casper).
Sid mustered as much solemnity as he could and, looking at each in turn, uttered the immortal words, “That’s when I realized I was the Buddha.”
All the kids knew about Sid and the Buddha thing. Courtney and Zoey knew who the Buddha was. Junior didn’t care. Willy kinda got it and Casper just knew he was someone important. All of them had figured it was their grandfather goofing around again. But his tone of voice was strange.
“Who is the Buddha, really Grandpa Sid?” Casper asked.
Sid was Casper’s hero. They had a special connection. Different from how he was with the other cousins. Not like he loved him more or anything. Well, maybe. Just a little.
Sid looked down at him, “A very very wise man who lived a long, long time ago.”
“And that’s who you are?”
“Yes, Casper,” Sid said, understanding himself in a new way.
“You mean you’ve lived forever?” Casper said wide-eyed. “You hear that?” He said, turning to look at his cousins without really seeing them. Looking back at Sid he said, “So you’re like a magician. Like Dumbledore.”
Sid looked down at him with an odd feeling of recognition.
I wonder how he knew about my Dumbledore connection, the Buddha thought, nodding approvingly. He gave Casper a wide grin that no one but Casper saw.
Next Episode: We’ll try to get to the bottom of Sid’s so-called “impersonation” thing. Including the havoc it could wreak at the dinner table back when the kids were young.
In Buddhism, “dharma” means a whole lot of things but, basically, refers to the Buddha’s, I mean Sid’s, teaching.
In one of Sid’s very least finest hours, after hearing about their failed Zygote Intra-fallopian Transfer he asked sympathetically, “Have you considered F-U-C-K-I-N-G Torn between running from the room in tears or flinging her wine in his face, Carolyn chose the latter. Then she threw the glass crossarm against the wall, narrowly missing Jake’s ducking head, stood up, and stomped from the room.
Di’s next four thoughts were disconnected—as her thoughts often were—like a band of pushing and shoving children trying to get a word in edgewise. The first made her feel a little guilty: She was glad it was white wine ‘cause red would have stained the wall. The second was maternal: Sigh, poor Jake. The third was predictable: You sure deserved that one, Sid. And the final one was prescient: Finally, she thought…now Carolyn will get pregnant.