Karma

Karma

by mikeA

Lester Avery had never considered himself a lucky man. Although, to be entirely fair, what kind of a man does consider himself to be lucky? Unless, of course, the lucky that is being considered is the UN-lucky, or perhaps even NON-lucky. Just to be clear, Lester Avery did not consider himself un-lucky or non-lucky or well-to-do-lucky or any other variety of lucky. The reason for this was not because Lester had not often considered life’s implications with regard to fortune.

The plain truth of the matter was that Lester Avery had given luck a great deal of thought. He knew that things simply happened, in their own good time, as they were going to simply happen. Some of those things worked out conveniently for Lester, and others did not work out as conveniently. At one time, Lester would have been tempted to see the convenient ones as good fortune and the inconvenient ones as misfortune. Now, however, Lester was pretty sure that the world did not operate in such an objective way. Instead, Lester was pretty sure that everything fell into the realm of subjective interpretation. That is to say that a convenient thing in Lester’s life could be fortunate or misfortunate or both, all dependant on his perception.

Again, that was not always the point of view that Lester Avery expounded. In fact, the sum total of events from one afternoon was all it took to convert Lester’s way of thinking from a world that operates objectively to one that is totally dependant on subjective interpretation. Those events were all set into motion with a simple phone call.

* * * *

“Caller Eleven!” the voice loudly blared out of the small cell phone speaker in Lester Avery’s hand, more softly echoed on the speakers of Lester’s car stereo. “Can you define ‘karma’?” Lester unconsciously licked his lips as he tried to get his thought in order. He was still having trouble accepting that he was actually the eleventh caller. He loudly cleared his throat, and waited, to make sure that the caller on the radio also cleared his throat. Of course, the two throats cleared almost simultaneously. The very experience began to make Lester wonder about the nature of reverberating sound. He wondered if a part of himself echoed out into the world as the noises from his throat did.

“Caller Eleven?” the radio voice interrupted, “Are you still wish us?”

“Yessir!” Lester responded nervously. “That I am!”

“Well, isn’t that fantastic! Can you define ‘karma’ for us? Give it a shot, whaddya say?!” The radio voice’s tone made it clear that the speaker did not think that Lester would be able to define ‘karma’. Obviously they did not know that Lester’s father, Aaron Robert Lester Junior, had been one of Camden’s top scholars on Indian faith and worship. Lester could define hundreds of Sanskrit words verbatim in his sleep.

“I believe I can sir, Karma literally means ‘action’ or ‘deed’. Although a more common definition could be that ‘every action has a consequence’ or even ‘what goes around comes around’.” Lester always felt a stab of guilt when he quoted Sanskrit to Americans. His Father ingrained in him a respect that the words represent serious concepts, and that those concepts ought to be experienced and lived. Lester knew enough about it all to realize that he had no right trying to explain any of those concepts. Seeing how other Americans butchered the ideas and concepts that his Father held so dear was an even greater source of pain. Despite the stab of guilt currently throbbing in Lester’s temples, something had prompted him to dial into the radio show on his cell.

“THAT IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!” said the radio voice, switching into excited announcer mode. As far as Lester was concerned, all it really did was aggravate the pain in his temples. “You have just won four complimentary tickets to the City Museum’s classical music symposium. Please stay on the line for further details.”

The car stereo speakers stopped echoing what Lester heard on the phone, and began to play a block of commercials. Lester listened patiently to a woman’s pre-recorded voice, as it talked him through how to pick up his prize. Apparently all he had to do was swing by the station before eight p.m. He looked down at the clock on his car stereo. The digital numbers read ‘4:32’. Lester figured that he would have just enough time to swing by the radio station before he had to pick up Karen from work. As he tucked his cell into a compartment on the dashboard, Lester began to drive a little more aggressively. Mostly in an attempt to insure that he would not be late getting to Karen’s work.

As he merged unto the expressway, Lester found himself wondering if Karen even liked classical music. Lester chuckled softly under his breath. He had been dating her for over three years, and he honestly had no idea if she would even liked classical music. She had never complained when he had played classical music in the car, although he knew that there were a number of things that Karen tolerated that she did not like. She was always leaving rather overt hints that she wanted to go out and do more things, and different things.

Lester tried to push the speculation from his mind. He knew that he could spend hours mentally going in circles without reaching any true conclusions. He would pick up the tickets, and when he picked up Karen, he would just ask her if she wanted to go. She would either like the idea, or she would not. Nothing that Lester did was going to have any impact on Karen’s reaction. He would just have to patiently wait and see. In the meantime, he refused to dwell on it. Lester shot a glance over his shoulder to check the lane to his right. Then he turned on his turn signal to change lanes.

As he eased the wheel to the right, he felt the back tires start to slide. Before he could fully turn to his right to look, the car had spun 180 degrees around and slid into the right lane. A car rushed past him, honking its horn, as Lester’s brown Honda careened off the road. The car began to roll through the snow as it dropped off the shoulder. Lester held tightly to the wheel as the car tumbled end over end. Finally the car came to a rest on the driver’s side.

Lester tried to lift his head, and noticed that there was a throbbing sensation. It was pretty hard to see anything because every window was completely covered with thickly packed snow. Lester took his hands off the steering wheel, and brought them in toward his body. He used one hand to brace his weight against the car door, and the other he reached up and turned on the dome light. The light clicked on, and Lester realized how much junk was lying against the window. There were receipts, ketchup packets, snow and dirt, a book, and various other things that had gathered in his car. He also realized that the car’s engine was still running. He quickly turned off the ignition.

“Is everyone okay?” a faint voice could be heard from somewhere outside the car. “Is anyone hurt?” Lester could hear the sound of something scrapping away snow from the windshield.

“Hello?” Lester called out.

“How many people are in there?” the voice replied.

“Just me!” Lester cried back. Rays of light shined in through the windshield as two gloved hands wiped snow aside. Lester could see a bundled up man frantically digging at the snow.

“Oh! Hello!” he cried out once he had cleared a space big enough to see through. “Are you alright? Can you move?” Lester undid his seat belt and began maneuvering into a standing position. He stood on the driver’s side door, and reached up toward the passenger side door. He unlocked it, and tried to push it open, but the door was very heavy. Lester crouched back down to look through the windshield at the man.

“I can stand! Can you help me open the door?” Lester pointed up at the passenger side door. The man nodded and flashed an ‘okay’ sign. Lester stood back up and tried pushing on the door. At first it only opened a few inches, and then the door became light and flew open. Lester grabbed the edge of the door frame and pulled himself up. He managed to use the passenger seat headrest as a foothold, and climb up to the side of the car. Lester looked down and could see that the man was holding the passenger side door open. Lester jumped off the side of the car and flopped down in a snow bank.

The man came around the side of the car and extended a hand to Lester. Lester could see that he was a middle aged Indian man. He accepted the hand up, and began to brush himself off once he was back on his feet.

“Thank you so much for stopping! I don’t know that I would have been able to open that door by myself.”

“Not a problem,” the Indian man replied. “I am glad to see that you are alright. I was quite a few car lengths back, but I saw you spin off the road. Was it a patch of black ice?”

“You know, I’m not sure,” Lester replied. “I was changing lanes, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling off the road.”

“Listen to me, running at the mouth. You must be frozen. Why don’t we wait in my car for the police.” Lester saw him indicate a gray four door sedan that was parked up on the shoulder.

“Sure,” Lester replied, “Why not.” Lester followed the man through the snow up to his car. He made an extra effort to shake as much snow off himself as he could before he climbed into the man’s vehicle. The Indian man already had the car running, and had the heat turned all the way up.

“I called the police before I came down to your car.” the Indian man said. “Don’t take that the wrong way, but you can never be too careful. My name is Cam Ma.”

“I’m Lester,” Lester replied. “Thanks again for stopping. I’m not sure what I’d have done otherwise.” Cam laughed softly.

“I’m sure you would have done something, Lester. Today must be your lucky day, walking away from a wreck like that one, huh?” Lester looked back at his car. The car itself did not look bad, but the two hundred feet of trail from the road to the wreck was a sight to behold.

“Man,” Lester let out a soft sigh under his breath as he tried to calculate how many times the car must have flipped.

“Listen, Lester, do you know what a boon is?” Still lost in thought, Lester did not answer right away. “Lester?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lester turned back to face Cam.

“Are you familiar with the concept of a boon?”

“Um, yeah, I think so,” the look on Lester’s face must have told Cam that he was not familiar.

“A boon is like a favor or a wish. When you are owed a boon, it is like being owed a wish.”

“Is this for rescuing me, just now? Cause I got some money in my pocket.” Lester began to fish into his pocket for his cash. Cam began to laugh loudly.

“No, no, no,” he gently gestured for Lester to leave his money alone. “You do not owe me anything, Lester Avery. It is I, who owes you.”

“What? How do you know my last name? I don’t remember saying my last name!”

“Please calm down, I will explain. Your father, Aaron, did a number of things in India back in 1972. It matters little what he did, but suffice it to say that he earned the blessings of a holy man and a God. He was granted a boon. Any boon.”

Lester brought both his hands to his head and began to wonder if the throbbing in his head was an indication of some very serious delusions.

“This is not a dream, Lester Avery, this is real. Your father earned a boon, and his wish was that his first born would have access to that boon in time of crisis. You are the first born. This is a time of crisis. You now have access to that boon, Lester Avery.” Lester shot a sideways glance at Cam, and rocked a little bit to check to make sure he was not passed out or dreaming.

“You are” Lester stopped and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them, and looked back at Cam. “Is this, well,” Lester let out a long sigh. “Let me get this straight. You are here to grant me a wish. Because of something my Dad did over 30 years ago?”

“Yes, Lester, a boon.”

“Jesus,” Lester exclaimed, still holding his head. “This is like a bad LIFETIME original movie.”

“I assure you that Jesus has nothing to do with it. You do not have to accept the boon, Lester. I, on the other hand, do have to offer it to you.” Lester looked down and noticed that his leg was bouncing up and down. He was not even sure when the nervous motion had started. He reflexively brought his thumb nail up to his teeth to chew. The entire situation was so dreamlike, and surreal. And yet, he felt a gnawing sense that something about this was not right.

Lester’s mind raced over the details that Cam had shared, looking for the source of his unease. Had his father even been in India back in the early 70’s? He wasn’t sure. He also wondered what his father could have been doing that would have granted him this boon? And how did Cam know that he was going to go off the road and need the boon today?

“This is not a trick, Lester,” Cam said in an even tone. “Would you like to use the boon now?” Lester did not answer, and Cam waited a few moments before he continued. “I could fix the car, Lester. Right here and now. It would be like the accident never happened. I could even put you and the car right outside Karen’s work. Just say the word, Lester.” Lester was clearly nervous, wringing his hands as he spoke.

“You said it was an Indian holy man and an Indian God, right?”

“Yes, Lester, I did.”

“Well, my Dad always taught me that the Indian believed in karma.”

“Yes.”

“Well, how can the actions of my father be transferred to me? How can a boon earned by the actions of him, be collectable by me? I don’t understand.” At first Cam did not say anything. He just looked into Lester’s eyes. After a few moments of silence, he suddenly smiled and nodded.

“Good point, Lester. Very good point indeed.” Lester could see the flashing lights coming from behind Cam’s car. He turned in time to see two police cars and an ambulance pull up. He watched the police jog through the snow toward the overturned car. As the two cops reached the car, they began clearing snow off the windshield. Lester noticed that somehow all of the snow that Cam had cleared was caked back on. Lester also noticed that there were no tracks through the snow to Cam’s car. He looked back to Cam, and saw that Cam was still smiling with a wicked grin.

“Last chance, Lester. I will still grant the boon, you just have to ask me for it.” Cam looked at Lester. Lester had no idea what was going on, but he knew that something was terribly wrong. He weakly shook his head from side to side. Cam’s smile faded, and then Cam and his car began fading. Lester turned to look back at his car, but found that he was still inside the car. He tried to move, but found that he was pinned in place by the seat belt. He could see the police clearing the windshield.

“Are you okay, sir?” one of the police officers called in through the glass. Lester tried to answer, but found he could not find his voice. He did manage to nod his head up and down. “Man!” the same cop yelled, “today must be your lucky day!”