Goo Goo Barabajagal

April 17, 2008

Although, as a freelancer, I work with a lot of different people in a variety of places, there's a lot less diversity than you might think. Sure, every once in a while, a job comes out of left field to shake things up, but for the most part, everyone I work for is in the same business, doing essentially the same things. Subtle personality differences and different management styles are the most I can expect.

Deborah's freelancing, on the other hand, brings her in contact with a much more colorful spectrum of humanity. As you may know, Deborah does bookkeeping, and since all kinds of businesses need bookkeepers, she isn't tied down to one industry. Aside from the fancy bakery I've written about previously -- the one that makes thousand-dollar cakes for book launches, movie premiers, lavish corporate events, and the children of celebrities' bar mitzva parties -- she also works for a non-profit theater program full of "the best of the best of the best" performing arts majors. Seventy students out of seven thousand applicants, most of them flamboyantly gay with brightly colored hair who flit through the building, stopping briefly to compliment Deborah on her boots before leaving for lunch, and prima donna Miss Teenage America types who give her the cut eye while sizing up her hair, her clothes, her makeup.

Deborah also works for a recently divorced photographer with a drinking problem who barely ever shows up for work, and when he does, it's only to share melodramatic stories from his troubled life -- his internet dating heartbreaks, for instance, or his young son's schoolroom fist fights. He often complains about injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident, though one of the employees whispered to Deborah that it had actually been a scooter accident.

Deborah's newest client is a Yoga instructor, just over five feet tall, with a well-proportioned and well-defined body and a self-proclaimed ability to "read" people. He operates his Yoga studio out of the first floor of his Park Slope brownstone. Deborah has to take her shoes off when she works there, which isn't a bad thing, as long as she remembers the protocol before leaving the house and doesn't wear her stinkiest shoes.

She brings her laptop and sets up a makeshift workspace in the corner of the studio. While she was working the other day, the instructor asked her if she needed anything before he left for a long-distance phone call. "From Europe," he made sure to specify.

"Nope," said Deborah. "I'm all set."

"Okay, I'll be back in a little while," he said, leading Deborah to believe he was going to leave the studio, or at least leave the room, but instead, he only walked several feet away, sat down in a lotus position, and proceeded to dial his cell phone.

"I'm glad you're making progress," Deborah overheard him say. The guy on the other end of the phone pays the Yoga instructor a retainer for spiritual guidance, and they check in with each other once a week. The student appeared to be especially excited, as he described a variety of epiphanies at the hands of another guru. "Honestly," said the instructor, "I don't care who you're learning this from, I'm just glad you're getting it, but I mean, it's all stuff I told you three years ago. I'm glad you're in a place now where you're more open to what I've been telling you all along."

The instructor listened as the student continued, and then replied, "If you don't work at it, you'll just keep making the same mistakes over and over. I told you that years ago. I'm just glad you're finally understanding. I don't care how you're gaining this enlightenment; I'm just glad that you're moving forward. But you know, it's stuff I've been telling you for a long time now."

He listened some more and then replied, slightly more pained and frustrated, "Yes, yes, I understand, of course I do. It's what I've been trying to teach you. I told you that three years ago when we first started. You weren't prepared to listen. I'm glad you're finally understanding what I told you. Yes, I know, but I told you that three years ago ."

And so on.

"That guy sounds like a real character," I said to Deborah as she threw herself onto the couch, exhausted, and told me about her day.

"I hate to say it, but he is pretty good at reading people," she said.

"I'm sure he was reading you," I said. "Up and down and all around."

"Shut up," she said, and slapped me across the shoulder the way she often does. "It's weird though, he really does have this strange—what do you call it—what is that thing called?"

"Willie?"

"No! Aura, that's it, aura."

"I'm sure he's very charming and charismatic. I doubt he'd own a brownstone in Park Slope if he wasn't. Some people use their gifts for good, some people use them for evil, but most just use them to make a living. If he wants to make any progress on his own spiritual journey, though, he's gonna have to lose that competitive jealousy."

"Oh yeah? Tell me more, guru."

"For free? I don't think so."