Ted and Mariana moved some furniture out of the way so they could have space in the middle of the floor to do yoga poses. It began simply enough with some sitting and chanting, and then some of what she called “sun salutations,” which Ted thought were pretty identical to “head—nose—tippy toes” stretches from kindergarten. But that’s okay, he was going along for the ride. Mariana had changed into her beige Capezio unitard. “Keep your eyes focused inward.” Fat chance, he thought, and what does that even mean? She assumed a pose she called Downward Dog and then Upward Dog, and then onto a series of increasingly difficult poses named after other animals. Ted was soon out of breath and quivering, his muscles already fatiguing.
“My dad does this? My dad, who is dying, does this?”
“Your father is quite the stud. You’re shaking.”
Ted was looking for an excuse to take a break. He felt like he was going to pass out. Headstand? Shit. “My dad does this, too?”
“I’m afraid so. Here, let’s slow down a bit. Let’s try lotus.”
Mariana took Ted’s ankles in her hands and tried to twist them underneath each other like a Gumby doll. Ted thought his ankle might literally break off like a stale baguette, but he’d be damned if he was going to fail at what the old man did. She finally had him in a full lotus, snapped into place. He had no idea how to get out of this. He felt a panic start to rise as his ligaments howled, a yoga pain. A bead of sweat jumped off his forehead.
“Thanks, I always need help with that one.”
Trying to find anything to distract him from the white-hot pain in his legs, and the growing thought that he was doing permanent damage to himself, Ted focused on something on Mariana’s ankle—of all things, a Grateful Dead tattoo. Could this woman get any more attractive? The classic Dead image of a skull seen from above, neatly scalped to reveal a lightning bolt diagonally bisecting a circle, half red half blue, of brain. Ted’s voice was trapped in his own benumbed feet, but he managed to croak, “You like the Dead?”
Mariana seemed taken aback for a moment, her eyes flashing mistrust and defense as Ted’s eyeline brought her gaze to her own ankle. “What do you mean?”
“The band? The Grateful Dead? Your tattoo is one of their symbols.”
Mariana relaxed. “Oh, I was messed up one night a while back, and saw this symbol in the window of a tattoo parlor, and thought it would be perfect for me. They’re a band, huh?”
“One of the most famous bands in the world.”
“Cool.”
“‘Truckin’? ‘Casey Jones’? ‘Sugar Magnolia’?”
“Nope. What are those, songs?”
“Songs? They’re not songs. They’re hymns.”
“What religion?”
“Deadian. Deadianity. Deadiasm.”
“Okay.”
“And can I ask you”—when Ted wasn’t talking, the pain began shooting up the back of his legs to his spine, so he made an effort to keep speaking—“after you got the tattoo, did you find that white folks were a lot nicer to you? A lotta skinny guys in tie-dye shirts with hacky sacks start to ask you out?”
Such an odd question, he could see Mariana initially thought he was kidding, but then reconsider and say, “Wow. Yeah. I thought it was ’cause I highlighted my hair.”
“Well, your hair I’m sure was lovely, but those were fans of the Dead. Drawn by the symbol. Like a secret handshake.”
“The ways and customs of you gringos can be confusing.”
“We’re pretty fascinating. Us whiter folk.”
As Mariana shifted her weight, another tattoo revealed itself on her left ankle. Ted could make out the word Christ.
“And what’s the story with that one. The Christ one? You drank too much communion wine at a church near Forty Deuce?” Even before it was out of his mouth, Ted knew that “Forty Deuce” sounded ridiculous and was trying way too hard to be “street.” Ted had been on many streets, some of them even dangerous, but he was not “street” and would never be. Mariana pulled her leggings down to cover the tat self-consciously.
“Oh,” she said, “that’s a nunyo.”
“A nunyo?”
“Yeah.”
“That Spanish?”
“Yeah, it’s Spanish for nunyo business,” she said with a smile. “I gotta run. Namaste.”
“Now you’re gonna stay? Thought you had to run.”
“No, ‘namaste’—it’s Sanskrit for peace, it’s the yoga ‘later, alligator, over and out.’”
“I knew that.” Ted didn’t know shit. “I was joshin’.”
“You want a hand?”
Ted could not even move to take her hand if he wanted to. He was locked up from neck to toe.
“No, I’m not done. I’m gonna grab another hour or two. Once I get going, I can’t get enough of the yoga.” Mariana threw her things together.
“Okay, do five minutes of shavasana at the end, corpse pose.”
“I think I can manage that.”
“And chant ‘om shanti shanti’ when you’re done, okay?”
“Copy that. I mean, nama, you know, nama, nama, rama-lama-ding-dong…”
Mariana smiled. “Namaste.”
“That.”
Ted flashed a smile that was a grimace in drag. As soon as he heard the door slam behind Mariana, Ted howled in pain and rolled on his side, his ankles still locked one under the other. He looked liked a turtle on its back. He grabbed his ankles and pulled, but could not free himself from the clutches of the lotus. Marty, alerted by Ted’s animal yowl of distress, came shuffling into view. He looked at Ted, narrowing his eyes. “You stoned again?”
“Dad, gimme a hand.”
“You should take better care of your lungs.”
“Help me.”
“How?”
“Kick me.”
“Where?”
“In the ass.”
“You want me to kick you in the ass?”
“Please.”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Marty came up behind Ted and kicked him in the rear, finally freeing Ted’s legs. But the torture was not yet over. Ted’s legs were so stiff from being immobile for twenty minutes, he was unable to straighten them, and each time he tried to stand up, his lower back went into spasm and sent him back down to the floor again. He was hunched over like Tricky Dick Nixon and looked much like Quasimodo unsuccessfully learning to roller-skate.
“This is quite amusing,” said Marty. “You have a flair for physical comedy.”
Ted finally straightened and tried to walk but he was stiff-legged, like the Mummy, arms blocked straight out for Marty’s chair, like Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, hoping to steady himself. Marty moved back a few inches out of reach. “That’s a little over the top now. You went from Peter Sellers to Jerry Lewis. You making fun of me, Ted?”
“No.”
But Marty didn’t believe him, thought he was imitating his disability, his old-man walk. Marty shuffled away to the next room. “Asshole,” he said in parting, just as Ted’s legs shot out from under him as if they had a mind of their own. Ted landed hard, shaking all the furniture in the house. Marty, thinking he was still being mocked, yelled from another room.
“Very funny, asshole. Wait till you get old.”
Ted thought it best to just lie on the ground and wait for the spasms to pass. He gingerly rolled onto his back like a dying cockroach, limbs twitching, thought fleetingly of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and chanted as the rigor mortis came and went in electric waves, “Om shanti shanti … om shanti … shit.”