from "Wet Look"
Iggy’s thirty-fifth year had been all about Being Here Now, thanks to the book he’d read profiling the counterculture man who turned from acidhead to yogi in a blink. He’d interpreted this to mean, at various points, Do what I want right here right now, if in a hedonistic, self-destructive mood; I miss you and I want you to be here now, if missing his ex; Feel my body now, during aroused moments, and, most true to the cause, Maybe I do have a godsource, where is it, I need it right now. He hadn’t received any spiritual clues yet and therefore planned a deluxe Be Here Now package for summer, beginning with regular detoxifying lemon-cayenne cleanses and a high-protein, low-carb steak and salad diet.
While Iggy longed to take his health to the next level on a pilgrimage to India, all he could afford was a $3-a-night campsite in the Missouri Ozarks, where he’d heard of a dolomite canyon that hosted annual gospel choirs. He wanted to hear that country mountain singing, in case divine vibes might absolve him of the skepticism he’d been schlepping around like a suitcase with a broken zipper, dropping bits of his bitter aggregate, his heavy thoughts, everywhere he went. He buzzed his red hair and read a few more books on Buddhism to prep for the trip, aching to bury complaints about his life’s sequence of events in the Ozarks. The regional potential for Christianity didn’t bother him as much as it used to, since the Dalai Lama said that all religions aim towards goodliness. Meeting some Christians would be wise in comparison to assuming complete strangers were self-righteous and petty. It was small-minded of him to criticize Christians when he hardly knew any and certainly had never spent more than 24 hours in the Bible belt.
From Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton. Copyright © 2012 by Trinie Dalton. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Two Dollar Radio.