Table Of ContentEuropa Editions
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Seth Greenland
First publication 2012 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in
any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
ISBN 9781609458867
Seth Greenland
THE ANGRY BUDDHIST
To the memory of my father
PROLOGUE
Everyone knows that when a certain kind of single American female on a
Mexican holiday drinks too much tequila she will get a tattoo. And when
she is in a sybaritic seaside town like Puerto Vallarta with a girlfriend, they will
get matching ones. The women in question were an attractive pair. They had
fallen into the sensual thrall of Mexico for nearly a week and into the sensual
thrall of each other’s arms whenever the door closed behind them in their cliff
top hotel just north of a curving, white sand beach ringed by gentle green hills.
They were visiting from the dry precincts of the Mojave Desert in Southern
California and the aromatic salt breezes wafting in off the Pacific Ocean
released the gossamer ribbons binding all of their gringa inhibitions.
The single woman, lithe, alluring and in her early twenties, and her married
lover, two decades older but no less attractive, had spent the warm early
December days playing tennis, tanning beneath deferential palms, splashing in
the turquoise waters, and chasing the flavorful local seafood with endless
pitchers of margaritas, each night at a different local bar that catered to the
crowds of well-to-do tourists who flocked to these shores each winter. And
every evening, pleasantly buzzed, they would stroll back to their hotel, past
Tango Tattoo, a raffish place nestled between a florist and a souvenir shop,
which displayed a sign in English that read Your Design or Ours. The drawings
offered by the artisans at Tango drew inspiration from the locale and featured
a variety of mythological, architectural, and religious motifs borrowed from
indigenous culture. Mayan, Incan and Aztec creatures vied for space on the
tattoo parlor walls with, skulls, serpents and saints, Day of the Dead-inspired
designs proliferated alongside popular cartoon characters and flowers of such
vivid reds and yellows, they seemed to emit a scent.
Intoxicated by the combination of anonymity and alcohol, the women would
dare each other to step inside and each time they would laugh and keep
walking. But this was their last night before they would take the plane back to
Los Angeles, the connecting flight to Palm Springs, and car rides back to their
separate lives. The holiday had been a lark, taken at the behest of the single
woman and paid for by the married one, whose husband thought she was
deserving of a break with a girlfriend and remained unaware of his wife’s
Sapphic proclivities. Their revels now were ending and this finality lent a sense
of portent not evident in the course of the previous week. The married woman
was not happily married and this splash of freedom had been mitigated by her
knowledge of its impermanence. She was going to be returning to her family
the next day; running off with another woman, making the kind of drastic
change that most people never even contemplate, was simply not in her
character. But the thought of commemorating this week of liberty with
nothing more than some photographs to be stared at forlornly, accompanied
by the sounds of her husband’s snoring, nearly made the wedded woman weep.
For the unmarried, a tattoo acquired on a Mexican holiday requires no
explanation. A married person vacationing without their spouse has no such
luxury. Upon the return home, there will be an unavoidable moment of
reckoning when the human canvas can only hope that the body art will find
favor. So credit her for crossing the threshold of the tattoo parlor, where she
hesitated, second-guessing her impulse until her lover suggested that they get
matching tattoos. If I get one, the younger woman had asked, will you? If I pull
up my white linen skirt and let this tattoo artist do his magic, won’t you?
Whether it was the week of sunlight and salt air, the aroma of tanning butter
mixed with Chanel No.5, or the sense memory of her companion’s dexterously
probing tongue as they lay naked and entwined, she could never be certain,
but when the needle whirred and the point pressed against her skin with just
enough pressure to delicately break the surface the married woman knew that
whatever happened between the two, for better or worse, they would be
forever linked.
The wife and mother chose a manga design of a kitten. Because who, really,
would object to that? And not on her supple bicep, the top of her breast, the
base of her spine or any of the other places popular for the flaunting of body
art but, rather, because she was nothing if not discreet, on her left buttock
where no one save her spouse would ever see it.
Later that night, in the aftermath of having their bottoms painfully and
repeatedly pierced and stained, the lovemaking was a little more physically
uncomfortable than usual and they both woke up sore, with terrific hangovers
and varying degrees of remorse. If the youthful instigator of the tattoo caper
had hoped the inking would bond the two women, this supposition was quickly
deflated by the emotional distance of her companion who was out of bed,
showered, packed and waiting in the lobby within half an hour of waking. The
older woman didn’t want to talk about what they’d done and when the
younger woman tried to joke about it, suggesting they come back next year to
get matching ones on their opposite cheeks, her friend didn’t smile.
They rode in silence to the airport and on the flight to Los Angeles the older
woman compulsively scrolled through digital editions of newspapers and
magazines on an electronic reading device, unable to settle on anything for
more than a few minutes, while the younger one listened to personal
affirmations on an iPod.
They made awkward conversation in the departure lounge at LAX and on
the short flight to Palm Springs, the older woman pretended to sleep. On the
sidewalk in front of the terminal the younger woman tried to kiss her lover
lightly on the lips but the older one, still slightly hung over and in residual
pain from the needle, turned her head and they managed only a desultory
brushing of ears and hair. Then they took separate taxis home, one to a
complicated marriage, an oft-absent husband, and a child who gave her little
comfort; the other to an empty house.
Their reunion would not be a happy one.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
CHAPTER ONE
In the desert the sun is an anarchist. Molecules madly dance beneath the
relentless glare. Unity gives way to chaos. And every day, people lose their
minds.
But you wouldn’t know this in Palm Springs, California. A hundred years ago
a wasteland, home of the Cahuilla Indian tribe and a handful of white settlers
who had relocated to this desolate outpost from points east. Today a golden
oasis drawing privileged tourists from cooler climates in search of sunshine,
clean air, and a place apart from the rest of the world. In air-conditioned cars
they cruise exclusive neighborhoods gaping at perfectly restored mid-century
modern homes that cling to the inhospitable land. The verdant lawns are neat
as graves. The streets are quiet as Heaven. You would think nothing ever
happens here.
You would be wrong.
On a heat-blasted afternoon in late October Jimmy Ray Duke positions
himself to the side of a political rally in the Save-Mart parking lot just off the
Sonny Bono Memorial Highway. Average build, dressed down in a loose black
tee shirt, green cargo pants, and running shoes. Behind dark sunglasses his
bloodshot eyes regard Harding Marvin, Police Chief of nearby Desert Hot
Springs, who stands gun barrel straight on a riser that makes his six-foot four,
two hundred and forty pound frame appear even more imposing. Shaved head
looming over a dress blue uniform, Marvin, known to one and all as Hard, is
energized as he steps to the microphone in front of nearly a hundred people.
Jimmy has listened to Hard speak innumerable times because he used to work
for him.
“Election Day is one week from tomorrow,” Hard booms, perspiration
running in rivulets down the side of his broad face. “And on that day we’re
going send some new blood to the United States House of Representatives.
We’re going to send a message to the elites that the same old same old doesn’t
cut it any more. We got the other side running scared now. Well, they can run .
. . ” He waits a moment for the expected cheer that materializes on cue. Jimmy
watches as Hard lets it caress him like the supple hands of a Thai masseuse.
The Chief concludes with the inevitable words about the opposition’s inability
to conceal their whereabouts. The appetite for recycled hokum at political
rallies being bottomless, the cheer momentarily reignites, before Hard
proclaims, “This is someone who supports a strong defense, supports a strong
dollar—and as a law enforcement officer this is particularly important to me—
she is a supporter of the death penalty.” The crowd loves this and another
cheer blooms then subsides back into percolating anticipation. “It’s a great
pleasure to introduce a gal who is gonna kick butt from here to the other side
of this great country. Ladies and gentlemen, she’s hell in high heels”—more
shouts and whoops. This is an image they love, hell, fancy shoes, the cloak of
religion pierced with stilettos neatly summing up the exploitable duality.
Then: “Give it up for Mary Swain.” Hard steps back with a flourish and leads
the applause.
She glides to the microphone and Jimmy notes the burnished skin, the
blinding smile, the five hundred dollars worth of blond highlights, fitted red
blouse set off against the matching white linen skirt and jacket that wrap her
like cellophane. Then he envisions her without any of it. Which he knows is the
whole idea.
Mary Swain thanks Chief Marvin then turns to the crowd and says, “What a
great day in the American desert.”
Signs wave adorned with her name, cell phones are held skyward, people
taking pictures. Jimmy wonders how any sane person could come out to hear a
politician talk on this scorching afternoon. Breathes deeply, tries to relax. He
has been attempting to meditate lately and to this end has been struggling
through books about Buddhism. Exhausted from another bad night’s sleep, he’s
here for a reason: to practice seeing life clearly without an emotional charge
on his way to liberation from suffering.
Jimmy watches the show for the next twenty minutes as Mary Swain
performs with a mixture of stories, jokes, and fire, pulling, tweaking, and
working the crowd into a supine mass of quivering optimism. Her voice is
friendly, homespun. It invites you in, asks you to sit down and pours you a cup
of coffee. It confides in you, says you and I are friends. It says you, the voter,
have an ally as beautiful and shapely as I and together we will share the bounty
with which God has gifted us. She learned this flimflam from her husband, a
master of the high-end grift. Shad Swain became rich selling sub prime
