Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories Read Free Page A

floor of an old-law tenement.”
    â€œIt’s no cow pasture,” Robinson said.
    â€œThen what the hell is it? A mirage?”
    â€œI’m going down there,” Robinson said.
    â€œLike hell you are!”
    Robinson’s round face was no longer jovial, no longer the easy, controlled face of a black cop in New York, who knows how much to push and just when to push. He looked at McCabe, smiling a thin, humorless smile, and he asked him what he thought was down there through the hole to teacher Montez’s apartment.
    â€œHow the hell should I know?”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œMy ass, you know!”
    â€œWhat’s down there?” I asked Robinson, my voice shaking.
    â€œWhat did you see?”
    â€œThe other side of the coin.”
    â€œWhat the hell does that mean?” McCabe demanded.
    â€œMan,” Robinson sighed, “you been white just too goddamn long.”
    â€œI’m going to call in,” McCabe said. “You hear me, Robinson? I’m going to call in, and then I’m going to get the keys from the super—if there is one in this lousy rat-trap—and I’m going to go through Montez’s apartment and I’m going to look right up your ass through that hole, and we’ll see who grows grass four stories up. And until I do, you don’t go down there. You understand?”
    â€œSure, man, I understand,” Robinson answered softly.
    Then McCabe pushed past the sobbing Mrs. Gonzales and slammed the kitchen door behind him. As if his slamming the door had created a current, the perfumed air rose out of the hole and filled the bedroom.
    â€œWhat did you see down there?” I asked Robinson.
    â€œHave a look?” Robinson suggested.
    I shook my head. Nothing on earth would persuade me to lie belly down on that creaking floor and hang over the edge the way Robinson had before. Robinson was watching me.
    â€œAfraid?”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou know what’s going to happen when McCabe gets the super and they go into that apartment under us? Just like he said—he’ll be standing there looking right up my asshole—then it’ll be some kind of optical illusion, and two or three weeks—man, in two, three weeks we won’t even remember we saw it.”
    â€œIt’s an illusion,” I agreed.
    â€œSmell it!”
    â€œJesus Christ, you’re looking at something that isn’t there!”
    â€œBut you and me, mister, and that lady over there”—he waved one arm in a circle—”that’s real. That’s no illusion.”
    â€œThat’s real,” I said.
    He stared at me a long moment, shook his head, then sat down on the edge of the break in the floor, slid down, rolled over, hanging on by his hands, and then dropped, landing in a crouch on the turf. He brought himself erect and turned in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, his eyes sweeping over what he saw. Like the grass he stood upon, he was bathed in a kind of violet sunshine.
    â€œRobinson!”
    He didn’t hear me. It was obvious that he didn’t hear. He raised his face to where I should have been, his dark skin bathed in the lilac sunshine, and whatever his eyes saw, they did not see me. The strange light turned his dark brown skin into a kind of smoky gold. He looked around again, grinning with delight.
    â€œHey, man!” he called out. “Hey, man—you still up there?”
    â€œI’m here. Can you hear me?”
    â€œMan, if you’re still there, I can’t hear you, I can’t see you, and you better believe me, it don’t bother me one bit!”
    Mrs. Gonzales screamed. She screamed two or three times and settled for sobbing.
    â€œTell McCabe,” yelled Robinson. “Tell McCabe to take his prowl car and shove it up his goddamn ass! Tell McCabe—”
    I never knew what else he would have told McCabe to do, because at that moment McCabe kicked in the door