The last two miles of the hill were terrible and I said 'Japhy there's one thing I would like right now more than anything in the world—more than anything I've ever wanted all my life.' Cold dusk winds were blowing, we hurried bent with our packs on the endless trail.
'What?'
'A nice big Hershey bar or even a little one. For some reason or other, a Hershey bar would save my soul right now.'
'There's your Buddhism, a Hershey bar. How about moonlight in an orange grove and a vanilla ice-cream cone?'
'Too cold. What I need, want, pray for, yearn for, dying for, right now, is a Hershey bar...with nuts.' We were very tired and trudging along home talking like two children. I kept repeating and repeating my good old Hershey bar. I really meant it. I needed the energy anyway, I was a little woozy and needed sugar, but to think of chocolate and peanuts all melting in my mouth in that cold wind, it was too much.
Soon we were climbing over the corral fence that led to the horse meadow over our shack and then climbing over the barbed-wire fence right in our yard and trudging down the final twenty feet of high grass past my rosebush bed to the door of the good old little shack. It was our last night home together. We sat sadly in the dark shack taking off our boots and sighing. I couldn't do anything but sit on my feet, sitting on my feet took the pain out of them. 'No more hikes for me forever,' I said.
Japhy said 'Well we still have to get supper and I see where we used up everything this weekend. I'll have to go down the road to the supermarket and get some food.'
'Oh, man, aren't you tired? Just go to bed, we'll eat tomorrow.' But he sadly put on his boots again and went out. Everybody was gone, the party had ended when it was found that Japhy and I had disappeared. I lit the fire and lay down and even slept awhile and suddenly it was dark and Japhy came in and lit the kerosene lamp and dumped the groceries on the table, and among them were three bars of Hershey chocolate just for me. It was the greatest Hershey bar I ever ate. He'd also brought my favorite wine, red port, just for me.
'I'm leaving, Ray, and I figured you and me might celebrate a little...' His voice trailed off sadly and tiredly. When Japhy was tired, and he often wore himself out completely hiking or working, his voice sounded far-off and small. But pretty soon he roused his resources together and began cooking a supper and singing at the stove like a millionaire, stomping around in his boots on the resounding wood floor, arranging bouquets of flowers in the clay pots, boiling water for tea, plucking on his guitar, trying to cheer me up as I lay there staring sadly at the burlap ceiling. It was our last night, we both felt it.
'I wonder which one of us'll die first,' I mused out loud. 'Whoever it is, come on back, ghost, and give 'em the key.'
'Ha!' He brought me my supper and we say crosslegged and chomped away as on so many nights before: just the wind furying in the ocean of trees and our teeth going chomp chomp over good simple mournful bhikku food. 'Just think, Ray, what it was like right here on this hill where our shack stands thirty thousand years ago in the time of the Neanderthal man. And do you realize that they say in the sutras there was a Buddha of that time, Dipankara?'
'The one who never said anything!'
'Can't you just see all those enlightened monkey men sitting around a roaring woodfire around their Buddha saying nothing and knowing everything?'
'The stars were the same then as they are tonight.'
Later that night Sean came up and sat crosslegged and talked briefly and sadly with Japhy. It was all over. Then Christine came up with both children in her arms, she was a good strong girl and could climb hills with great burdens. That night I went to sleep in my bed by the rosebush and rued the sudden cold darkness that had fallen over the shack. It reminded me of the early chapters in the life of Buddha, when he decides to leave the Palace, leaving his mourning wife and child and his poor father and riding away on a white horse to go cut off his golden hair in the woods and send the horse back with the weeping servant, and embarks on a mournful journey through the forest to find the truth forever. 'Like as the birds that gather in the trees of afternoon,' wrote Ashvhaghosha almost two thousand years ago, 'then at nightfall vanish all away, so are the separations of the world.'
- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
'What?'
'A nice big Hershey bar or even a little one. For some reason or other, a Hershey bar would save my soul right now.'
'There's your Buddhism, a Hershey bar. How about moonlight in an orange grove and a vanilla ice-cream cone?'
'Too cold. What I need, want, pray for, yearn for, dying for, right now, is a Hershey bar...with nuts.' We were very tired and trudging along home talking like two children. I kept repeating and repeating my good old Hershey bar. I really meant it. I needed the energy anyway, I was a little woozy and needed sugar, but to think of chocolate and peanuts all melting in my mouth in that cold wind, it was too much.
Soon we were climbing over the corral fence that led to the horse meadow over our shack and then climbing over the barbed-wire fence right in our yard and trudging down the final twenty feet of high grass past my rosebush bed to the door of the good old little shack. It was our last night home together. We sat sadly in the dark shack taking off our boots and sighing. I couldn't do anything but sit on my feet, sitting on my feet took the pain out of them. 'No more hikes for me forever,' I said.
Japhy said 'Well we still have to get supper and I see where we used up everything this weekend. I'll have to go down the road to the supermarket and get some food.'
'Oh, man, aren't you tired? Just go to bed, we'll eat tomorrow.' But he sadly put on his boots again and went out. Everybody was gone, the party had ended when it was found that Japhy and I had disappeared. I lit the fire and lay down and even slept awhile and suddenly it was dark and Japhy came in and lit the kerosene lamp and dumped the groceries on the table, and among them were three bars of Hershey chocolate just for me. It was the greatest Hershey bar I ever ate. He'd also brought my favorite wine, red port, just for me.
'I'm leaving, Ray, and I figured you and me might celebrate a little...' His voice trailed off sadly and tiredly. When Japhy was tired, and he often wore himself out completely hiking or working, his voice sounded far-off and small. But pretty soon he roused his resources together and began cooking a supper and singing at the stove like a millionaire, stomping around in his boots on the resounding wood floor, arranging bouquets of flowers in the clay pots, boiling water for tea, plucking on his guitar, trying to cheer me up as I lay there staring sadly at the burlap ceiling. It was our last night, we both felt it.
'I wonder which one of us'll die first,' I mused out loud. 'Whoever it is, come on back, ghost, and give 'em the key.'
'Ha!' He brought me my supper and we say crosslegged and chomped away as on so many nights before: just the wind furying in the ocean of trees and our teeth going chomp chomp over good simple mournful bhikku food. 'Just think, Ray, what it was like right here on this hill where our shack stands thirty thousand years ago in the time of the Neanderthal man. And do you realize that they say in the sutras there was a Buddha of that time, Dipankara?'
'The one who never said anything!'
'Can't you just see all those enlightened monkey men sitting around a roaring woodfire around their Buddha saying nothing and knowing everything?'
'The stars were the same then as they are tonight.'
Later that night Sean came up and sat crosslegged and talked briefly and sadly with Japhy. It was all over. Then Christine came up with both children in her arms, she was a good strong girl and could climb hills with great burdens. That night I went to sleep in my bed by the rosebush and rued the sudden cold darkness that had fallen over the shack. It reminded me of the early chapters in the life of Buddha, when he decides to leave the Palace, leaving his mourning wife and child and his poor father and riding away on a white horse to go cut off his golden hair in the woods and send the horse back with the weeping servant, and embarks on a mournful journey through the forest to find the truth forever. 'Like as the birds that gather in the trees of afternoon,' wrote Ashvhaghosha almost two thousand years ago, 'then at nightfall vanish all away, so are the separations of the world.'
- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
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