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79 20 Out on the road, I made a habit of stop ping at Cath o lic churches when ever I’d see them on ac count of an old super sti tion of my mother’s that I al ways thought was swell. It goes like this: if you are a bap tized Cath o lic, you get three wishes every time you enter a Cath o lic church that you’ve never been in be fore. I doubt she ex pected I’d still be prac tic ing this after I’d left the church and child hood be hind, but then again she prob ably hadn’t ex pected I’d drop out of col lege and end up with soup for brains ei ther—or wid owed at twenty-one. And since I’d never been to church in Napa, Gey ser ville, Ukiah, Wil lits, Lay ton ville, Gar ber ville, or any where north of Val lejo for that mat ter, my trip was turn ing into a real jack pot, with lots more where that came from. But being of lit tle faith, I al ways wished for the same thing, count ing on a squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease meta phys ics. Or maybe I only truly had just three wishes. In a lit tle clap board chapel in a place called Mid dle town, with nice, tall, stained-glass win dows, and a cheesy ’70s-era Sta tions of the Cross (all ab stract and Braque-esque)—an ob vi ously well-intentioned en hance ment via Vat i can II that aes thet i cally missed the mark—as well as some tired-looking vel vet ban ners hang ing from the ceil ing, I plopped down in a pew and hummed my tune. Be cause that’s what a prayer is, was, and will ever be—a song. All through my youth I’d sung pop songs to the Mother of God: Hold me in your arms, just like a bunch of flow ers, sing to me your sweet est song. 80 Pull and wish. And I’d wish that Mom stopped drink ing, that my dad was at peace wherever he was, and that Jimmy was okay in the bardo. Be cause ac cord ing to the Tibe tan Book of the Dead, which we read in bed once to gether—and which Jimmy sus pected was close to the truth—Jimmy wasn’t any where yet. He was still in the bardo—the in-between state, the space between lives, as in re in car na tion—and ac cord ing to the high lamas of Tibet it lasted forty-nine days. He was wan der ing—hope fully on his game—going to ward the right lights and all. There were so many in that book and of every color and bright ness— and you had to pick the right ones. Which is which? Like a cos mic SAT it was. Bad scores don’t get you into col lege. You’ll end up back here, or worse. Just forty-nine days, like a sale. And when the time ex pires, the jig is up and you’re re born wherever: womb, Bud dha field, ce les tial or hell realm; as a hun gry ghost with a huge ap pe tite and stom ach and a mouth like a pin hole; or as an an i mal even. Well, as I under stood it, any way. And I was one sorry-ass Bud dhist. Still I counted each and every day for Jimmy. He’d been gone for about five weeks— thirty-three days to be exact—so he had two more weeks to go. They say if you’re on your game early awareness-wise, you’re out of the whole pro gram by the first few days—sort of like pass ing out of fresh man En glish. But that was only for Gandhi-type peo ple or saints. The rest of us take the full forty-nine and are re born. “Hang in there, Jimmy.” Pull. And then I re mem bered, thirty-three days too late, that some one was sup posed to read that book over you when you died. Some thing else to feel guilty about. Well, it’s never too late. I could still chat ter at him with what of it I re mem bered: “Lis ten...
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