Charlie was a year younger than I.  His Dad was head of the Classics Department and happened to be my Latin professor.  Having grown up observing the customs and rituals of academia, and being familiar with the hilarious predicaments that faculty members could sometimes get themselves into, Charlie tended to see university culture as a highbrow form of slapstick comedy.  And even though he chose to live in a dorm on campus rather than at home with his parents, he avoided the official college organizations and traditional student activities.  Charlie was a non-conformist, partly because he objected to conformity, but mostly because his peculiarities would have designated him as such anyway.  If you add to the mix a manner of dress even the campus hippies considered odd, and a shrub-like head of crazy hair you could spot two blocks away, Charlie constituted a demographic that either hadn’t been invented yet, or hadn’t made it to Appleton, Wisconsin.  I was proud to be his friend.

Just the fact that Charlie was taking this Hindu stuff seriously was enough for me to read the book.  In short order I found myself captivated by the extraordinary exploits of India’s famous yogis, many of whom could levitate or be in two different places at the same time, and something in me wanted to believe that I too might be capable of such abilities. 

But when it came to grasping technical Hindu concepts like Brahma and Atman, which was apparently critical if you expected to get to that mind-over-matter place, I was stuck.  Charlie just seemed to naturally get it, and when I asked for help, he patiently tried to explain the fundamentals of Hindu metaphysics to me.  I never asked Charlie how or where he had learned about such things.  He could expound on all kinds of arcane subjects, and I just figured that came with the territory if your Dad was a university professor.

He also tried to instruct me in meditation, but I couldn’t focus my attention for more than a few seconds at a time.  I guess what kept Charlie from giving up on me was a willingness to at least try the practices and read some of the books he suggested.  When he laughed at my efforts, which he sometimes did, I took it in good fun, which it generally was.

When I did run into him in the Student Union later that day, and told him that an authentic Swami , from India, was coming to Lawrence in a week, his eyes lit up like saucers, just as I’d hoped.

“Really?!  Are you kidding?  What’s his name?”

“I’m not sure”, I said. “I don’t think I could pronounce it even if I could remember it.  But there are flyers all over campus.  Just grab one.  All the details are on it.”

When Charlie saw the flyer he agreed that, even though he didn’t recognize the Swami’s name, he sure looked like the real deal, so we made plans to attend the talk together.  In those days there wasn’t any Wikipedia you could use to check out someone’s credentials.  This gave hucksters a definite advantage, so in a situation like this you just had to trust your instincts.  In any event, the lecture was free and we really had nothing to lose but maybe an hour and a half of our time, which I would have spent shooting pool and drinking beer anyway.

When the day of the Swami’s visit arrived, I met up with Charlie in front of the Union, where a room had been reserved for the event.  It was scheduled to begin at seven-thirty but we got there twenty minutes early so we could make sure we were positioned as close to the Swami as possible.  A few other curious students and some of the local oddballs had already arrived.  Folding chairs had been set up, and some colorful, oversized pillows placed in front of the first row, which added a casual touch to the otherwise formal seating arrangement.  We headed for the pillows and sat down on the floor, a few feet in front of a table with a wooden lectern on top of it.

By seven twenty-five perhaps thirty people had arrived.  Quiet, muffled conversation, the kind that precedes a recital of classical music, pervaded the room.  Exactly at seven-thirty, a tall, dark-skinned figure entered the room accompanied by a well-dressed, middle-aged Caucasian woman.  He was wearing a long white cotton garment, and while he lacked the turban I was expecting, his flowing white hair, full-length beard, and courtly bearing more than compensated for what might have been missing.  As far as I was concerned, this guy fit the bill perfectly.  I wasn’t expecting him to levitate, of course, but was certain he could have if he’d wanted to.  Charlie didn’t say anything, but I could sense his approval as the pair took their seats behind the table, facing the audience.  The woman stepped up to the lectern, and when the last murmur from the audience had faded, spoke.

“Good evening, everyone.  My name is Helen Turner Pratt, and it is indeed a great pleasure to welcome you tonight, and introduce to you a man whom most of you have never heard of, but is well-known and loved in India for his many contributions to the spiritual well-being of his people.”

Thus began a windy, effusive introduction that took far longer than it should have, after which the Swami rose from his chair and walked around in front of the table so he could address the group in a less ceremonial fashion.  Charlie and I now found ourselves gazing up at him like tourists looking at a skyscraper, and we had to scoot back so we could see his face.  The Swami stood there for a minute, statuesque and serene, his blackish eyes silently surveying the room.  Two aging hands, brown and lean, lay gently clasped in front of his waist, and he breathed, quietly and deeply.  After expressing his appreciation for having been invited to speak, the Swami began his talk.

 It was a huge disappointment.  There were no stories about saints who never aged, yogis walking through walls, Himalayan caves, or any of the mystical stuff I had hoped to hear about.  Instead, he gave a scholarly discourse on exactly those topics that were such a source of bewilderment to me:  Brahma and Atman – the Supreme Being and the Self.  I couldn’t understand the difference between these two concepts before the talk, and I was just as confounded afterward.  His pronunciation certainly didn’t help, but, to be honest, the content of his lecture was over my head, plain and simple, Indian accent or not.

Charlie, on the other hand, was delighted.  Whatever the Swami was talking about made perfect sense to him, and when the lecture was over, his face was practically radioactive with appreciation.   I was ready to head off to the watering hole behind my dorm and grab a beer, but when I mentioned this to Charlie he insisted I stick around so we could try to engage the old man in conversation.

“C’mon, Mike.  This is the chance of a lifetime.  Maybe something he says will help you along your path.  You won’t regret it.  I promise.”

It’s not that I didn’t believe the Swami, or doubted his wisdom or his motives.  What I did doubt was my own capacity to understand whatever it was that was so clear to Charlie, and right now that was making me really uncomfortable.  But for some reason Charlie had faith in me, and I didn’t want to let him down.

“Okay”, I said. “I can get a beer later.”

So that’s what we did.  After most of the audience had gone home, and a few people were still milling about the room, the Swami could see we were waiting to talk to him, both of us still sitting cross-legged on the floor.  When the person he was currently engaged with finally left, he turned toward us and asked some friendly questions about our studies, and where we were from.  Charlie, of course, did most of the talking, and after a few minutes of general conversation, started asking the Swami about mantras and meditation.  Again, I wasn’t getting whatever it was they were talking about, so I just kept nodding my head and looking interested, now and then asking what I thought might be an intelligent question.  This lasted for maybe twenty minutes.  Just when it seemed like things were winding down, and I could finally high-tail it over to the bar, the Swami dashed my hopes.

“I’m delighted that you boys are so interested in the spiritual life.  So many young people in America today are distracted by material things.  It would please me greatly if you would join me in my hotel room where we can continue our discussion.”

Great.  How was I going to get out of this?  Charlie, of course, was happy as Larry, and speaking for both of us, immediately accepted the invitation.

“Oh!  Sir… that would be such an honor.  We would love to come.  Just tell us where you’re staying and when you want us to be there.”

The Swami was staying at The Conway Hotel, six blocks from the Student Union.  He told us to meet him there in half an hour.  Presumably the lady who introduced him was going to give him a ride, but for reasons unexplained Charlie and I would have to walk.  As we set out for the hotel I voiced my concerns. 

“Charlie… how do we know the Swami isn’t some kind of weirdo?  Are you sure about this?  We could just not show up, you know.”

Charlie wasn’t fazed.

“Don’t be so negative, Mike.  He seems okay to me, and I really think there’s a reason this is all happening.  Like this whole thing has been divinely arranged or something”.

I decided not to argue, which is what I often do when conflict arises.  Besides, if the Swami tried anything funny there were two of us and one of him.

We arrived at the hotel, found the Swami’s room, and knocked on the door.

“Come in”, said the Swami, in his melodious Indian voice.

When we opened the door the Swami was standing in the middle of the room.  He graciously motioned for us to be seated on one of the twin beds, which we did, and he sat down on the other.  The conversation picked up pretty much where it had left off, and we stayed for no more than half an hour.  Nothing significant happened at all, except that Charlie was having the time of his life.  As we put on our jackets and the Swami was wishing both of us well on our spiritual journeys, he announced he would like to speak privately with Charlie for a few minutes.

“Your friend will be with you shortly”, he said to me. “Just wait in the hallway”.

I stepped into the hall and closed the door behind me.  I was dumbstruck.  What in the hell did he want to tell Charlie that he couldn’t tell me?  I felt like a miserable failure, even though it had been perfectly evident I had nowhere near the metaphysical aptitude that Charlie did. 

He remained in the hotel room for ten minutes or so, while I took stock of my spiritual condition.  Then I heard the door open, and Charlie was saying goodbye to the Swami.

“Charlie… what was that all about? Why did he want to talk to you alone?”

“He said I’m not allowed to talk about it”, Charlie answered.

I felt like I’d been dealt a death blow.

“What do you mean, not allowed to talk about it?!” I bellowed, wounded and outraged that after this whole fucking Swami brouhaha, I wasn’t privy to whatever, apparently, it was all leading up to.  Charlie had been let in on some Big Secret, and I had been left out.  I was upset.

“Calm down, Mike.  It’s not like you think.  The Swami says each seeker moves along at his own pace, and I’m at a point where he wanted to tell me something particular he thought I was ready for.  It’s nothing personal, and it doesn’t mean I think I’m better than you.  But… you have to admit, you’re not exactly Einstein when it comes to spiritual things.  So… relax.”

We walked back to the campus in silence.  Boy was my pride hurt.  But he was absolutely right and I knew it.  The funny thing is that once I accepted this, which really didn’t take long, my relationship with Charlie got better.  I didn’t feel like I had to compete so much with him anymore.  I still tried to follow his meditation instructions, but didn’t feel threatened when I wasn’t getting the results I imagined I was supposed to. 

A few months later we both decided to take a breather from college, and headed out to California in a VW bus we found advertised in the “Cars for Sale” section of the paper.  His Dad, who in addition to being a Latin and Greek scholar knew a lot about auto mechanics, told us we were crazy to buy it.  The bus made it as far as Boulder, Colorado, and died.  So we hitchhiked the rest of the way and had some amazing experiences.  During that trip, Charlie meditated faithfully every morning.  Sometimes I joined him and sometimes I didn’t. 

And that was okay.

“H-e-e-y  there”, the body mumbled as I tried to step over it so I could reach the third floor landing. 

“Uh… hi”, I answered cautiously. “Are you… all right?  Do you need some help?”

The incoherent dialogue that followed wasn’t exactly a conversation.  But two tanked teenagers can bond pretty quickly, and within twenty minutes the mystical interaction of alcohol and adolescent bullshit did its magic, and a friendship was conceived.  When my head hit the pillow that night, everything was clear:  getting out of Ohio and away from my parents was good.  College was good.  The encounter with Jake in the stairwell was good, too.  Everything about the fall of 1967, so far, was good.

Jake and I began spending a lot of time together.  He was a chemistry major from Rochester, New York.  I was a music major from Cleveland.  The dorm we lived in, Brokaw Hall, was an immense, circa 1910 limestone exercise in austerity that could have just as easily served as a prison or an asylum for severely disturbed people.  I can’t remember which of us saw the notice posted in the lobby, but Jake and I agreed that the judo lessons scheduled to start in another week at the YMCA, a block from the dorm, seemed like a good idea.  So we signed up, and had taken two lessons by the time the fraternities held their annual “rush”, a weekend in late October set aside to recruit those freshman guys who fit the particular image each fraternity was trying to project.  This, of course, meant beer, and lots of it.

Neither of us had any intention of joining a fraternity, but an opportunity to get hammered for free couldn’t be passed up.  So late Friday afternoon, after classes were finished, Jake and I set out for the east end of campus where the college’s six fraternity houses lay waiting for the curious and the thirsty to arrive.

We made stops at the first three.  The plan worked perfectly.  We had fun and got to drink all the beer we wanted, and as a result, were barely standing when we headed back around eight-thirty, yelling and singing as we went.  It was dark by this time and the autumn air was brisk.  When we got as far as a lawn adjacent to one of the classroom buildings, about 200 yards from the dorm, I stopped.

“Jake… I got an idea… let’s practice judo!”

The conditions were ideal.  We didn’t have a mat, of course, but there was grass all around, and a bed of fallen leaves covered most of it.

“Ya mean right here?” he asked.

“Yeah!  This place is perfect!

We located a suitable patch of grass and leaves, bowed to each other Japanese-style, and assumed the postures we’d been taught.  Jake then proceeded to flip me. 

When we practiced this maneuver at the Y, the person being flipped landed neatly on his back with a big “Whop!” as legs, arms, and butt all hit the mat at exactly the same time.  Here, now, under almost-barren oak trees and a cold black sky, I landed on my right side – not with a dull “Whop!”, but with a sharp, perfectly articulated “Crrrack!”  

 “Jake, did you hear that?”

“Yeah”.

“I think I hurt myself.  C’mere… help me up.”

Jake grabbed my left arm and lifted me off the ground.  I raised my right arm and looked at my hand, which was sort of dangling, twisted and cockeyed, from my wrist.  A lamppost by the sidewalk, and some lights left on in a classroom, allowed me to make out some detail.  I could see I’d broken something, but was so drunk I couldn’t feel a thing.

“Holy shit, Jake!  Look at my hand!”                                                                                                                                                                                                   ‘

Jake looked at it for a moment, said nothing, then turned around and bolted.

“Jake!  You fucker! Where are you going?! Get back here!” I screamed, watching his dissolving shadow disappear into the night.

I knew he wasn’t going for help and I was on my own.  I stood there for a minute, assessed the situation as best I could in my inebriated state, and started walking toward the dorm.  I was pissed at Jake, definitely, but he was probably too drunk to have done much good anyway.  I’d deal with him later.

The Resident Advisor lived on the first floor and all I could do was hope he was in his apartment.  His name was Randy.  I knocked, waiting for a response.  When Randy opened the door, I showed him my hand. 

“Wow! How did that happen?”

“My friend and I were practicing judo and he flipped me the wrong way” I said, hoping the fact that I was positively shitfaced would escape his notice.

“I see.  Well… sit over there on the sofa while I try to get some help. I’ve got a list of numbers to call in case of an emergency.”

Randy picked up the phone, struggling to suppress a laugh.  In a few seconds he had the campus nurse on the line, and arranged to have her meet us at the infirmary, a five-minute walk from the dorm.  He put on his jacket and we left. 

I remember the nurse as very young, and very nice.  She was standing at the entrance when we        varrived, and after unlocking the door, we walked in.   With the flick of a switch a bank of l. lllll                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          .;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;88888888888888888;;;;;;;;;;;;;;/fluorescent ceiling lights, which nearly blinded me, lit up the waiting room.  She looked at my hand. 

“Wow!  How did that happen?” she said.  I saw the smirk on Randy’s face and didn’t say anything.

She had already called the doctor, who lived off-campus and was expected in about ten minutes.  He had instructed her to go ahead and take some x-rays.  So the nurse showed me into the x-ray room and took some pictures.  Still not feeling any pain, and having gotten used to the idea that I’d broken a bone, it dawned on me that this wasn’t the calamity I thought it was.  This was an epic life event, possibly a male rite of passage.  And even if the ordeal didn’t quite thrust me into full-fledged manhood, well, at least for the moment I was the center of attention.   Randy apparently thought it was his duty to stick around at least until the doctor made some kind of prognosis, so while we were waiting I entertained them with a detailed account of the judo lessons, the frat parties, and Jake’s disappearance.

I was still a little drunk when the doctor arrived.  He looked at the x-rays, and told me that, while he couldn’t give me any pain medication because I’d been drinking, he would try to set the bone as gently as possible.  Then, without allowing me even a few seconds to think about it, he grabbed my arm and gave my hand a yank that would have had me howling like a banshee if my blood alcohol level was anywhere near normal.  But it was over in a flash, and I hardly felt anything.  The doctor made a plaster cast, which took another half hour, and I was on my way to the dorm to find Jake.

By this time I was beginning to sober up, and my wrist was starting to hurt like a mother.  The doctor had given me a prescription for some pain pills, but told me I wasn’t allowed to fill it until the next day.  For a brief second I thought about going back to one of the frat parties, but really, I’d had enough booze and enough trouble for one night.  My rite of passage was starting to feel more like bad karma.  I found Jake in his room listening to The Doors on his stereo.

“Jake you asshole…. where did you go?” I demanded.  His eyes turned toward the doorway, surprised and guilty.

“Mike!  Hi! …uh, well… I just got scared and didn’t know what to do.  I don’t know what to say.  I guess I shoulda stuck around.  Are you okay?  I’m really sorry.”

The truth of the matter is that I was dead tired, in considerable pain, and not nearly as upset with Jake as I thought I was supposed to be.  But an admission of guilt and a little contrition was certainly called for, and since it seemed like that’s what I was getting, I decided to accept his apology. 

“Don’t worry about it… I’ll survive” I said, trying to look hurt and forgiving at the same time. “But you owe me one.”

I can’t remember who started laughing first.  But we couldn’t stop.  The more we laughed the harder we laughed and the harder we laughed the more we laughed.  Jake fell back on his bed, kicking his legs in the air.  My body slid down the door I was leaning against, collapsing in a heap on the floor.  It was so obvious:  the whole thing was just a really funny story, as if God had written a sitcom episode and we were just playing our parts.  We lay there, spent, exhausted, free.

I showed Jake my cast and filled him in on how the RA had taken me to the infirmary.  Some of the guys on the floor had heard us laughing and came to find out what all the commotion was about.  I told them what happened and allowed myself to bask in the sweet, warm satisfaction to which only survivors of harrowing experiences are entitled.  A cast, of course, is incontrovertible proof of such an experience, a badge of suffering that comes along only once in a great while, meant to be savored, appreciated, and taken advantage of.  

But I quickly learned that such emblems of bravery have their limitations.  When I presented the cast to my piano teacher the following Tuesday, expecting to be released from any obligation until the bone healed, I found out the piano repertoire includes a whole slew of pieces either composed or transcribed for the left hand alone.  Not only that, a number of amputees and other one-armed pianists have mastered them, and I ought to consider myself lucky that not only did I have two arms, I’d been given an opportunity to strengthen some under-used muscles, improve my left-hand coordination, and expand my musical horizons.

I tried my best to see it that way.  I really did.