He had planned everything so carefully, Marvin had. And now, what with a long delay due to unforeseen road construction, a flat tire despite brand new steel-belted radials, and a state agricultural inspector at the Nevada border who found Dipa’s turban possibly indicative of forbidden foodstuffs, they are hours late for, and ninety-five miles away from, their rendezvous with Mary, Marvin’s wife, at the only vegetarian restaurant for hundreds of miles around.
Dipa, a tiny, bird-like man with brown skin, his dress a loose gown of gray cotton, is not the least disturbed by the various delays in their journey. He turns to Marvin and says, “Perhaps this next village will provide us with some tasty comestibles. I haven’t eaten since I left Bombay two days ago.”
“I am so sorry,” says Marvin, grimacing sympathetically. “Two days? You must be faint from hunger.”
“I believe I am.” Dipa giggles. “Low blood sugar.”
Marvin—a heavy-limbed man with wispy gray hair, the reluctant chauffeur of his wife’s guru—terminates cruise control and slows his enormous silver Mercedes to a crawl as they enter Shotgun, population 97, home to Lacey’s General Store and two taverns: the Buckshot and the 12-Gauge.
“There.” Dipa points at the brilliant neon sign above the Buckshot—a blinking fountain of blue and green and red light erupting from the muzzle of a gigantic magenta shotgun. “Surely they will have food.”
“The thing is,” says Marvin, breaking into one of his exceedingly odiferous sweats, “that’s a rough and tumble kinda place. Mostly cowboys. I don’t think . . .”
“Well, then that one,” says the holy man, pointing at the 12-Gauge, its neon sign also featuring a colossal shotgun, turquoise, breaking open to receive two glowing orange cartridges from an unseen source, the gun snapping shut as gold and red fire erupts from its double barrels.
“It’s the same sort of place,” says Marvin, shaking his head emphatically. “I’m not sure they’ll have anything but beer and peanuts.”
“Two fine foodstuffs,” says Dipa, nodding enthusiastically.
MARVIN PARKS AMIDST a herd of enormous pickup trucks in front of the 12-Gauge. “I’ll just dart in and grab us a snack,” he says, frowning at the gravity of his mission. “Probably be better if you waited here.”
“I must pee,” says Dipa, opening his door and leaping out. “And I’m very hungry.”
“But these are violent rednecks!” cries Marvin, panicking. “They’ll . . . who knows what they’ll do when they see your turban and your . . . dress.”
“I believe otherwise,” says Dipa, skipping to the double doors and pushing them open before Marvin can finish punching in the twelve-digit anti-theft combination on his remote auto manager pocket computer.
“Jesus,” Marvin murmurs, whipping out his mobile phone and calling Mary.
She answers on the first ring. “Marvin?”
“We’re in Shotgun,” he says breathlessly. “He just went into the 12-Gauge. I’m going in after him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just so you know,” he whispers, putting a shoulder to the saloon door. “Shotgun. 12-Gauge.”
Dipa is nowhere to be seen. Four men, none of them wearing cowboy hats, are sitting at the bar tended by an elderly woman wearing bifocals, her long gray hair in braids. A middle-aged man is playing pool with his nine-year-old granddaughter. A football game watched by no one is showing on a big-screen television, the sound off, while the jukebox plays an old Johnny Mathis recording of Moon River—the big room redolent with the scent of grilled steak.
“Excuse me,” says Marvin, addressing the woman behind the bar, “do you serve anything vegetarian?”
“Potatoes.” She nods pleasantly. “And we can make you a salad and fry you up some veggies. The menu’s all steak, but we can make you just about anything you want.”
“Oh, it’s not for me.” He grins anxiously at the men without cowboy hats. “It’s for my friend from India. The man with the turban? He observes extremely strict dietary limitations.”
“I would love a beer,” says Dipa, mounting the barstool beside Marvin and bowing graciously to the bartender. “Please allow me to buy the next round of drinks for these good gentlemen.”
Marvin’s mobile phone vibrates violently in his pocket, clattering against his miniature computer. “Excuse me,” he says, hurrying to the men’s room. “I’ll be right back.”
In the bathroom, the walls covered with old record jackets from the early days of folk rock—Quicksilver Messenger Service, Buffalo Springfield, Big Brother and the Holding Company—Marvin presses the phone to his cheek and says to Mary, “It’s okay. I’ve got things under control. We’ll grab a quick bite and be on our way. He was famished. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Thank God it’s not a Friday night.”
AN HOUR AND several beers later, Bea, the bartender, waitress, hostess, chef, and owner of the 12-Gauge, serves Marvin his T-bone steak, rare, with baked potato and green beans, and for the holy man she has prepared a generous helping of curried vegetables and potatoes with yogurt and red-hot salsa on the side.
“Many thanks,” says Dipa, bowing to her. “Just like home.”
Marvin is about to cut into his singed slab of cow flesh when it occurs to him that the sight of the bloody meat might be offensive to Dipa. He forces a smile. “Does this bother you? My eating meat?”
“No,” says Dipa, contemplating his food before eating.
“But you would never eat meat,” says Marvin, sneering at his steak and feeling mean and unevolved.
“I have eaten meat,” says Dipa, nodding. “And I would have eaten meat tonight if there had been no other choice.”
“But it’s a sin, isn’t it?” Marvin stabs at his steak and winces. “Do you call them sins? Or taboos?”
“There is a story about Buddha coming to a village at dusk,” says Dipa, smiling warmly at Marvin. “No one there recognizes him as anything other than a simple monk. He is given shelter for the night by a humble woman who lives in a small hut. For Buddha’s meal, she serves him a bowl of stew she has been cooking for several hours. There is goat meat in this stew, but Buddha understands that no intention on his part caused the death of the goat, so he eats in gratitude for those beings who have lived and died so that he might go on living, and in gratitude to the woman who has shown him such generosity.” Dipa winks at Marvin. “That’s all I teach. Intention and gratitude and generosity.”
