How I became a Buddhist (The Arizona Years part 1)

Sometime in the mid 1960's my mother married a mail order boy friend. She'd met him in an ad placed in True Story magazine. He was described as a "single handsome Japanese born, up and coming executive, a former religious scholar, who enjoyed the nature of the desert and was seeking companionship and marriage to the right woman. Children okay." My mother jumped on that ad like a Stingray on Steve Irwin and a romance was born. We were living alone at that time, in a falling down dump on the outskirts of Guntown. Aunt Bitch Face had moved to Vegas temporarily, but, Grandma was just down the street...in her own dump. Neither place had indoor plumbing. I was about to enter the 6th grade and was mortified because Tuwella had held me down and cut off most of my hair while I screamed at her to stop. She fancied herself a beautician and was unamused that I called her imaginary business"Tuwella's Snip And Singe." She also gave me a permanent and left the solution on too long and I came out with towns first albino afro. It also burnt my eyes so I had pink albino eyes for the first week of school. That bit coupled by the too big used rags I had to wear created a sight. Needless to say, I was not popular.
*
After exchanging letters with Andrew, the Japanese businessman, for about a month, he asked for her hand in marriage. She had sent him a photo of her. She told him to come for a visit and if it worked out, she would marry him. He did. He came and stayed one day and one night. I was surprised he was so tall. I thought Japanese guys were short. All my mothers other Japanese boy friends had been short, but, not this dude. He was quite handsome in a mean way. You know what I mean? He was good looking, but, intimidating and he never smiled. I found out later, he smiled at his business clients, but, not in real life. He had high cheekbones and unlike any of her other boy friends, he was not American born. He was the real deal. He'd been raised in a Buddhist monastery, moved to Hawaii as a young man, and had a degree in religion. He told her of his fine house in Arizona and of desert sunsets and good living..with indoor plumbing. The way he told it, I reckoned the toilet seats were made of pure gold. My mother was sold.
*
What I remember most about that time was that once, while they were sitting on our rundown shabby steps outside, I thought I'd make friends with him by playing a joke. My brother and I snuck up behind them and got them good with loaded squirt guns. We took off laughing, and he followed. I thought we were playing a great game with our soon to be new daddy. My brother got off scott free because he was the cute baby at age 8, (boys are more important than girls) but, I didn't fare so well. My mother instructed Andrew to do what he pleased to discipline me. He grabbed my arm, jerked it hard and I fell. He towered over me, in his aviator sunglasses and bright white dress shirt and I expected a good beating. He didn't disappoint. That was the first and last time he ever touched me. I never gave him a reason after that. I realized he had no sense of humor and I figured I earned that beating. I never held it against him. I did resent my mother for standing there watching this strange stranger wail on me though. She even went and got him the stick. That aint right, I thought, your parents can whip you, that's normal, but, they hadn't ought to let some stranger whip the tar out of you. She smiled at him when it was over and said she knew her kids needed discipline. She meant me. I was the one that needed whipping daily. But, it's better to shut your mouth than to get more of the same..and I knew that.
*
And so...the next day my mother packed her bags and my brother's and they took off for the promised land of Tucson, Arizona with cactus blooms and indoor toilets. I stayed behind. She explained it to me by saying that someone had to stay here and handle the house and it's belongings (that would be me) and I could stay with Grandma and in a few weeks, when they got settled, she'd send for me and I'd be living the good life too. That seemed normal in my family and wasn't anything to bitch about.
*
A year went by. A year where I received a letter from her every month telling me how fantastic it was there, how rich they were and how I'd love the swimming pool in the backyard. I was so stoked when she finally responded to my begging and told me they were ready to add me to their family. She sent me ten bucks and a Continental Trailways bus ticket....I was 12.
*
I packed one small cardboard suitcase with everything I owned and I tearfully said goodbye to Grandma and Iowa and I thought, poverty and shame. My hair had grown out and I was going to have a new start in a new school and be like any normal kid. I would have friends, maybe they could come over and swim in my pool! The bus ride took three days. When we finally crossed the border into Arizona I was hot, tired, dusty, hungry and scared. But, excited. Looking at the amazing houses on the way into the city, I wondered which one would be mine? I was shocked at how large the city was. It seemed to go on forever, how would I find my way around? I supposed I'd get used to it and soon I'd be right at home, with a new life. No one was there to meet me, but, I'd been warned that they had to work and I might have to wait awhile. I got dinner from a vending machine, told some perverts to fuck off and settled down on a bench to wait. I waited all night. I waited there until the next day. My money was nearly gone and I was starting to get worried. The bus ticket people were starting to ask questions. Finally I saw a tall Asian man in aviator sunglasses stride through the doors and I knew it was him! He'd come! I was going home.

*
He put me in the backseat, like he was a cab driver. The ride through the city was long and silent. No words were exchanged. I didn't want to start off on a bad note, so I kept silent. The city sped by and soon we were in the desert with the looming dark mountains in the distance and when he at last pulled the silent car into a driveway, I could tell this was some sort of suburb, like I'd read about in magazines. All the homes were big and beautiful, if foreign looking and expensive. Except one. One was a shitty little desolate adobe house with a gravel yard and a chain link fence which looked like some kind of strange little prison. Prison. Talk about a premonition there. He pulled in and my heart sank. This place looked worse than what I'd come from and that was pretty bad. I'll never forget the address, it was 2001 N. Forgeus Avenue. Like the movie, Space Odyssey. Which I never saw until I was grown up, but, by then Hal the computer seemed normal. At least you knew where you stood with Hal.
*
I saw a strange cement statue of a short fat man in the yard, sitting on the gravel that replaced anything resembling grass. It was the only decoration. There was a white poodle barking behind the chain link, Andrew said the dog was a pure bred and his name was Kane. Pronounced Connie. He said that meant boy in Hawaiian. I was just glad he was speaking to me. We went in the side door, me clutching that pathetic beat up suitcase and Andrew said "This is my home and you will follow the rules. Remember that." I said I would. My mother came out of the bedroom and said hello and that it was nice that I was here. That was it. Real formal and distant. Like an android or something. I was so confused. My brother came out of another bedroom and asked if I had any money and I told him I had one dollar and I gave it to him as a present and he took off. I stood in the tiny living room and looked around. It was white, bare and spotless. I could not believe my mother lived here. She is a hoarder and we lived our whole lives in filth, but, this place was clean as a whistle. Pink rug, pink curtains, white walls, one couch, one chair (also white) a color TV, a small white shelf with Japanese dolls on it in red silk costumes, and a blue lighted five gallon aquarium full of Gold Fish and small bright Betas completed the bare sterile look. It was the strangest coldest room I have ever seen. Andrew pointed to a bare corner of gray painted cement where the carpet ended and said "That is where you will sleep." There was nothing there. I must have looked confused. He said there was a fold out foam cushion in my brother's closet. I was to get it out every night and make it my bed and put it away every morning. I was not to keep anything personal in the living room or any other room. The other rules, (there were so many rules to remember) were..I was to "play" outside during the day, I had two times a day when I could come in the house to use the bathroom, I could have one soft drink a day from the refrigerator, I could watch TV through the front window while sitting in a lawn chair on the front porch. Two meals would be provided. I was then handed a list of chores I would complete every day before I left the house and there was to be no talking in the house. Andrew assured me all of this would become clear in the coming days. I nodded in agreement and got out the foam cushion, put it on the floor and layed down. The small white poodle crawled onto the foam beside me. Andrew turned off the light and he and my mother went into their bedroom and shut the door. As Andrew closed the door he turned and said to me "Oh, yes, now you are Buddhist and you will follow the way of Buddha and his teachings. I will tell you more tomorrow."
*
The next day I woke up early, checked for a bathroom and thank Buddah, I found one! It was through my brother's bedroom and had another door that opened up to my mother and Andrew's bedroom. I quickly shut that one. Then I checked my chore list, found the kitchen and completed all the chores there in the already clean room. I made sure I went down the list. When Andrew got up he said I had done well and I remember being so relieved that I had pleased him. I was going to really try. Then he took me to the backyard and he handed me a shovel. He said, "Until school starts, you will spend your Summer digging a swimming pool. It is kidney shaped and I have marked it out. You will complete it by the time school starts. It will be good exercise and will discipline your mind. You will speak to no one. Silence is golden." I looked at the desolate yard, fenced in by a high brick wall, shaded only by one scrubby Palo Verde thorn tree, no grass, only sand, barrel cactus, black widow nests and gravel and my mouth dropped open. I also realized it was only 9:oo am and it was already 115 degrees in the shade. I was 65 pounds of Iowa white haired albino hillbilly and by my calculation, I had only five weeks to complete this pool. He insisted the deep end be eight feet down. He needed the depth for his nightly swim. Well, you know what? No Japanese businessman is going to call me lazy or a quitter. I dug in. If this mother fucker wanted a swimming pool, he was going to get one.
*
And that was the start of my new life. Just the beginning..it gets a little weird after that.