Mahasiddhas, mouthwash drinkers, and the internal cum shot

 I.  

At the Wall Mart, a filthy, alcohol-ravaged native stumbled at the self checkout line. He couldn't figure out the machine, but an attendant, also a native, took the extra large bottle of mint mouthwash from him and told him to leave. I looked at what as in my arms--some instant coffee, some blueberries, Power Aid, bottled water. "If I wanted alcohol, I'd go buy some beer. I would not buy alcoholic mouthwash," I said to myself.

Treat everyone in such a way that they do not stand in a hollowed-out forest fire of a soul, a a dry socket of hope. Raise children in such a way they do not stand in line waiting to drink mouthwash in the back of the parking lot. 

Perhaps I was too curt with the native from the Aleutians. He had interrupted a conversation on colonization or taxation to ask if anyone wanted to buy a 30-day bus ticket. He had asked another man if he had any work for him, that he was looking for a job. I gave him the name of a boat that fished the Bering Sea in Winter. "You can make four thousand dollars, but the Bering Sea is tough." "I know," he said, "I spend 35 years of my life living on the Bering Sea."

I went on a long run along the river. Hipsters on steel bikes road past. I headed back in to town and the native from the Bering Sea passed me on the sidewalk and we missed a fist bump because I was running fast. The last thing he told me was that he would fly to Dutch Harbor. I hoped he wouldn't try some stunt with mouthwash, I hoped he would go to an employment agency and use his special status as a native and they would help him out. He was a good guy. He could drive a cab. Tourists would like him. 

"Which one of the Mahasiddhas?", I considered, "is the mouthwash-drinker?" I had read the Wikipedia passage that day. Was he a "Rejected Wastrel," "Lucky Beggar," or the "Celibate Bell-Ringer?" I didn't know. I don't have room to hear people's stories anymore, and I had already spent the morning learning about the importance of a dry suit (it saves a man's life in the back country) and Cleveland's real estate bubble in 2005. I had no time for a potential "Goitre-Necked Yogin" or "Courtesan's Alchemist." I myself was just walking through the motions of the cycle of suffering as explained to me by Marcelo in his camper in Patagonia when it was damn cold and my feet were giving me trouble. All I wanted was a pair of thermal pack boots. Energy is released and a man becomes wild, crazy, and happy, like an escaped dog. Then he grows hungry, thirty, and sad. Perhaps he dives into the forest with relish and excitement, only to be chased out by a bull. No one expected a bull to be lurking in a Patagonian forest. But there it is, chasing after you because two stupid dogs had never seen a bull. But bulls are the real thing, and it is terrorizing to be chased by a bull. You lose your cynicism at that moment if the rain and ripio had not done it earlier. You can't complain that it's not fair for a bull to chase on wet gravel, on an incline. But your sprinting ability on heavily loaded bike somehow outran the bull, and the dogs weren't mauled. Is that were my luck was spent?

I wonder how Carlos is doing with his Brazilian woman. I wonder what's going to happen to Brasil now. The currency has fallen apart, almost 100% depreciation from the day I arrived until today. Brasil's economy grew 400% in 15 years. I arrived thinking Brasil would be like it was in 2000. But parts of Sao Paulo were more like Portland than Buga. Outside of the city it was different. But the girl I met scoffed at the small towns. "If you won't live in a small town, I'm not visiting you ever again," I should have said. But I missed her after my ride across the Estrada Real. Those two nights together in Rio in the summer were maybe among the best two nights I've ever had. I had settled into a hostel and everyone liked me there. I was the strange guy that only spoke Portuguese. The Israelis thought that strange. The Irishman and the Dutchman ran the place and found it obvious that I had arrived in the hostel to be their business adviser and psychotherapist. I learned everything about their lives, their business struggles and proposals, as well as their romantic problems. I just wanted to be left alone and practice Portuguese but one of these two were always in the kitchen or living room offering to me one final confession. "It was great talking to me," a guy like me, but I said nothing and hid my impatience.

There was another business partner, a stunning blond Brazilian, who was the girlfriend of the final business partner, a Brazilian surfer from Niteroi. "Our good friend Richard cycled around South America with $200 for two years. He has written a book about it. I invited him over tonight to meet you."

A. had arrived that day. She and her friend were dancing on the kitchen table. Spirited, I thought, but both were drunk. Richard and I sat in the lounge and swapped cycling stories. The girls said they would go out to the balada and dance. We talked about the journey. The girls arrived hours later, went to their room and brought a bottle of vodka. We began drinking heavily. A. went to the court yard to smoke. I followed her. I took a puff and told her to breathe in my smoke. Moments later my hand was up her dress. We returned to the lounge and the banter continued and Richard slept on the couch and the girls and I returned to the bunk. I climbed in the bunk but with all the snoring bodies around us she wasn't in the mood and suggested I come to her large bed in Sao Paulo. That was an unfair deferral of pleasure, I felt at that moment. There were two 3X3 bunks and one single bed and all were full. The room was tiny, two men snored, and it would be bad to add to the must.

The next night we went out with two German guys and danced. The girls wanted to stand hours in line to get into the best clubs, but when they learned I didn't have my passport and I would not be admitted, we sulked to a small club with a low cover and danced for hours.

R. was drunk and went home with one of the Germans. A. and I caught a cab back to the hostel and went to the leather couch in the lounge. Laura slept on the couch across from us but wasn't bothered. I was inside her immediately and the leather love seat was slippery. I cummed on her stomach and grabbed a few paper towels and handed them to her. We walked up to the bunks and slept separately.

The next night the girls went out again but I stayed in and read. They didn't return til three and when A. got on her bunk I asked her if she wanted company. I had asked this question in Colombia with a German and it's a polite question. I climbed up and she pulled aside her shorts and when it was time to pull out, she gripped me tightly and I could not break away. I gushed inside her and I felt happy and peaceful. The Argentinian might have been masturbating as he watched us, but it was dark an I'm not certain. I climbed down my bunk and arose early the next morning for a run along the beach. I had breakfast with R. and A. was still in bed, unwilling to get out of bed and check out before she would be charged for another day.

She put on a dress and led me through he streets and to an outdoor samba festival. In all the days I knew her she never looked prettier or happier. Before we left she asked me, "A fora ou dentro?" Inside, yes, inside, don't you remember? "I'll have to take one of those pills, then," she said.

But that night I watched the two dance together and the crowd sing together only as Brazilians do. We drank cold beer and ate grilled chicken on skewers. Then she led me through the streets of Rio once again, back to the hostel where she tore out a poem from a book and wrote me a message. Something about dreams. She shed a tear as I kissed her in front of the taxi. And then she was off to São Paulo, and I returned to listen to the confessions of the Irishman and the Dutchman and the occasional complaints of the acid-tripping Panamanian who could not, for the life of him, speak one word of Brazilian Portuguese.

"List of the Mahasiddhas

In Buddhism there are eighty-four Mahasiddhas (an asterisk denotes a female Mahasiddha):

1. Acinta, the "Avaricious Hermit";
2. Ajogi, the "Rejected Wastrel";
3. Anangapa, the "Handsome Fool";
4. Aryadeva (Karnaripa), the "One-Eyed";
5. Babhaha, the "Free Lover";
6. Bhadrapa, the "Exclusive Brahmin";
7. Bhandepa, the "Envious God";
8. Bhiksanapa, "Siddha Two-Teeth";
9. Bhusuku (Shantideva), the "Idle Monk";
10. Camaripa, the "Divine Cobbler";
11. Champaka, the "Flower King";
12. Carbaripa (Carpati) "the Petrifyer";
13. Catrapa, the "Lucky Beggar";
14. Caurangipa, "the Dismembered Stepson";
15. Celukapa, the "Revitalized Drone";
16. Darikapa, the "Slave-King of the Temple Whore";
17. Dengipa, the "Courtesan's Brahmin Slave";
18. Dhahulipa, the "Blistered Rope-Maker";
19. Dharmapa, the "Eternal Student" (c.900 CE);
20. Dhilipa, the "Epicurean Merchant";
21. Dhobipa, the "Wise Washerman";
22. Dhokaripa, the "Bowl-Bearer";
23. Dombipa Heruka, the "Tiger Rider";
24. Dukhandi, the "Scavenger";
25. Ghantapa, the "Celibate Bell-Ringer";
26. Gharbari or Gharbaripa, the "Contrite Scholar" (Skt., pandita);
27. Godhuripa, the "Bird Catcher";
28. Goraksha, the "Immortal Cowherd";
29. Indrabhuti, the "Enlightened Siddha-King";
30. Jalandhara, the "Dakini's Chosen One";
31. Jayananda, the "Crow Master";
32. Jogipa, the "Siddha-Pilgrim";
33. Kalapa, the "Handsome Madman";
34. Kamparipa, the "Blacksmith";
35. Kambala (Lavapa), the "Black-Blanket-Clad Yogin");
36. Kanakhala*, the younger Severed-Headed Sister;
37. Kanhapa (Krishnacharya), the "Dark Siddha";
38. Kankana, the "Siddha-King";
39. Kankaripa, the "Lovelorn Widower";
40. Kantalipa, the "Ragman-Tailor";
41. Kapalapa, the "Skull Bearer";
42. Khadgapa, the "Fearless Thief";
43. Kilakilapa, the "Exiled Loud-Mouth";
44. Kirapalapa (Kilapa), the "Repentant Conqueror";
45. Kokilipa, the "Complacent Aesthete";
46. Kotalipa (or Tog tse pa, the "Peasant Guru";
47. Kucipa, the "Goitre-Necked Yogin";
48. Kukkuripa, (late 9th/10th Century), the "Dog Lover";
49. Kumbharipa, "the Potter";
50. Laksminkara*, "The Mad Princess";
51. Lilapa, the "Royal Hedonist";
52. Lucikapa, the "Escapist";
53. Luipa, the "Fish-Gut Eater";
54. Mahipa, the "Greatest";
55. Manibhadra*, the "Happy Housewife";
56. Medhini, the "Tired Farmer";
57. Mekhala*, the Elder Severed-Headed Sister;
58. Mekopa, the "Guru Dread-Stare";
59. Minapa, the "Fisherman";
60. Nagabodhi, the "Red-Horned Thief'";
61. Nagarjuna, "Philosopher and Alchemist";
62. Nalinapa, the "Self-Reliant Prince";
63. Nirgunapa, the "Enlightened Moron";
64. Naropa, the "Dauntless";
65. Pacaripa, the "Pastrycook";
66. Pankajapa, the "Lotus-Born Brahmin";
67. Putalipa, the "Mendicant Icon-Bearer";
68. Rahula, the "Rejuvenated Dotard";
69. Saraha, the "Great Brahmin";
70. Sakara or Saroruha;
71. Samudra, the "Pearl Diver";
72. Śāntipa (or Ratnākaraśānti), the "Complacent Missionary";
73. Sarvabhaksa, the "Glutton");
74. Savaripa, the "Hunter", held to have incarnated in Drukpa Künleg;
75. Syalipa, the "Jackal Yogin";
76. Tantepa, the "Gambler";
77. Tantipa, the "Senile Weaver";
78. Thaganapa, the "Compulsive Liar";
79. Tilopa, the "Great Renunciate"
80. Udhilipa, the "Bird-Man";
81. Upanaha, the "Bootmaker";
82. Vinapa, the "Musician";
83. Virupa, the "Dakini Master";
84. Vyalipa, the "Courtesan's Alchemist"."