My Dinner with Andre Page #5

And then at night we would walk out

under that enormous sky...

...and look at the stars.

I just kept thinking about the same things

that I was always thinking about at home...

...particularly about Chiquita.

In fact, I thought about

just about nothing but my marriage.

And then I remember

one incredibly dark night...

...being at an oasis, and there were

palm trees moving in the wind...

...and I could hear Kozan singing

far away in that beautiful bass voice.

And I tried to follow his voice

along the sand.

You see, I thought he had

something to teach me, Wally.

And sometimes

I would meditate with him.

Sometimes I'd go off

and meditate by myself.

You know,

I would see images of Chiquita.

Once I actually saw her growing old...

...and her hair turning gray

in front of my eyes.

And I would just wail and yell my lungs out

out there on the dunes.

Anyway,

the desert was pretty horrible.

It was pretty cold.

We were searching for something, but we

couldn't tell if we were finding anything.

You know that once Kozan and I...

...we were sitting on a dune,

and we just ate sand.

No, we weren't trying to be funny.

I started, then he started.

We just ate sand and threw up.

That's how desperate we were.

In other words, we didn't know why we were

there. We didn't know what we were looking for.

The entire thing seemed

completely absurd, arid and empty.

It was like, uh...

like a last chance or something.

Huh.

So what happened then?

Well, in those days...

I went completely on impulse.

So on impulse I brought Kozan back

to stay with us in New York...

...after we got back from the Sahara,

and he stayed for six months.

- And he really sort of took over the whole family, in a way.

- What do you mean?

Well, there was certainly a center

missing in the house at the time.

There certainly wasn't a father,

'cause I was always thinking...

...about going off to Tibet

or doing God knows what.

And so he taught the whole family

to meditate...

...and he told them all about Asia and the East

and his monastery and everything.

He really captivated everybody

with an incredible bag of tricks.

He had literally

developed himself, Wally...

...so that he could push on his fingers

and rise off out of his chair.

I mean, he could literally go like this...

You know, push on his fingers

and go into like a headstand...

...and just hold himself there

with two fingers.

Or if Chiquita would suddenly get

a little tension in her neck...

...well, he'd immediately have her down on the

floor, he'd be walking up and down on her back...

...doing these unbelievable massages,

you know.

And the children found him amazing.

I mean, you know, we'd visit friends

who had children...

...and immediately

he'd be playing with these children...

...in a way that, you know, we just can't do.

I mean, those children...

just giggles, giggles, giggles...

...about what this Japanese monk

was doing in these holy robes.

I mean, he was an acrobat,

a ventriloquist...

...a magician, everything.

You know,

the amazing thing was that...

I don't think he had any interest

in children whatsoever.

None at all.

I don't think he liked them.

I mean, you know,

when he stayed with us...

...in the first week, really, the kids

were just googly-eyed over him.

But then a couple of weeks later,

Chiquita and I could be out...

...and Marina could have flu

or a temperature of 104...

...and he wouldn't even go in

and say hello to her.

But he was taking over more and more.

I mean, his own habits

had completely changed.

You know, he started wearing these elegant

Gucci shoes under his white monk's robes.

He was eating huge amounts of food.

I mean, he ate twice as much

as Nicolas ate, you know?

This tiny little Buddhist

when I first met him, you know...

...was eating a little bowl of milk...

hot milk with rice...

...was now eating huge beef.

It was just very strange.

You know, and we had tried working together,

but really our work consisted mostly...

...of my trying to do these incredibly painful

prostrations that they do in the monastery.

You know, so really we hadn't

been working very much.

Anyway, we were out in the country, and

we all went to Christmas mass together.

You know, he was all dressed up

in his Buddhist finery.

And it was one of those... One of those awful,

dreary Catholic churches on Long Island...

...where the priest talks about

communism and birth control.

And as I was sitting there in mass, I was

wondering, " What in the world is going on?"

I mean, here I am. I'm a grown man...

...and there's this strange person living

in the house, and I'm not working...

You know, I was doing nothing

but scribbling a little poetry in my diary.

And I can't get a job teaching anymore,

and I don't know what I want to do.

When all of a sudden a huge creature

appeared, looking at the congregation.

It was about, I'd say, 6'8"...

something like that, you know...

...and it was...

it was half bull, half man...

...and its skin was blue.

It had violets growing out of its eyelids

and poppies growing out of its toenails.

And it just stood there

for the whole mass.

I mean, I could not make

that creature disappear.

You know, I thought, " Oh, well. You know,

I'm just seeing this 'cause I'm bored. "

You know, close my...

I could not make that creature go away.

Okay. Now, I didn't talk with people about it,

because they'd think I was weird...

...but I felt that this creature

was somehow coming to comfort me...

...that somehow

he was appearing to say...

"Well, you may feel low and you might

not be able to create a play right now...

"but look at what can come to you

on Christmas Eve. Hang on, old friend.

"I may seem weird to you,

but on these weird voyages...

"weird creatures appear.

It's part of the journey.

You're okay. Hang in there. "

By the way, uh, did you ever see...

...that play, uh, The Violets are Blue?

No.

Oh, when you mentioned the violets,

it-it reminded me of that.

It-It was about, um, people...

...being, uh, strangled

on a... On a submarine.

Hmm.

Well, so that was...

that was Christmas.

What happened after that?

- Do you really want to hear about all this?

- Yeah.

Well, around that time...

I was beginning to think about going to India.

And Kozan suddenly left one day.

I was beginning to get into a lot

of very strange ideas around that time.

Now, for example, I'd developed this...

Well, I got this idea which I...

Now, it was very appealing to me

at the time, you know...

...which was that I would have a flag,

a large flag...

...and that wherever I worked,

this flag would fly.

Or if we were outside, say, with a group, that

the flag could be the thing we lay on at night...

...and that somehow, between

working on this flag and lying on this flag...

...this flag flying over us...

...that the flag would pick up

vibrations of a kind...

...that would still be in the flag

Rate this script:3.5 / 2 votes