Failed Moments

Chapter 3: West Side Story

Chapter 3

West Side Story

THE HAND SHAKING evolved into involuntary flexing as Patrick began extending and clenching his fingers. Aunt Grace wasn’t sure if this was pure nerves or indecision as to whether he should form a fist. She tried again to calm her nephew, and while being strong and assertive always worked, she thought kindness would be the better approach.

“Perhaps you’ll be more comfortable up here in our room. Look at these lovely accommodations. Did you notice the room number, 1010?”

Kindness didn’t work.

“Why are you asking me about numbers and who cares about the accommodations? If you’re dead, am I dead as well? I’m only forty-six. How about that number? How could I be dead? Yes, how could I be dead? I go to the gym almost every day and I eat the right things. I can’t understand. Tell me already, am I dead? Tell me. Answer my question!” Patrick demanded.

She tried again with kindness.

“Patrick, my dear. Slow down. Please. I don’t want to give you answers you cannot yet comprehend. Let’s take a look out the window…”

Kindness failed, again.

“Take a look out of the window? Answer my damn question! How could you possibly say I would be unable to comprehend such a basic thing as to whether I’m dead or alive?”

So much for kindness.

“Tone, young man. Tone. Pissing me off was never a good idea when I was alive, and I assure you, it will be an even worse strategy now that I’m dead. You will sit quietly, shut your mouth, and mind your manners. Do you understand?”

Patrick always respected true strength. After being put in his place by his aunt, he did calm down, but he felt like he was about eight years old.

“The answer to your question is not a simple yes or no. You are rushing me, and I am trying to carefully choose my words in order for you to understand things properly. I will jump ahead just for you, my impatient nephew, but don’t push me.” Aunt Grace paused for a second to regroup and try to find the best way to present such a highly disturbing message. After another sip of her tea provided a few extra moments to think, she decided a straightforward approach would be best. “Your body is forty blocks north of here on Tenth Avenue in St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital and you are on life support.” Much too direct, much too cold, much too businesslike, she thought to herself as she watched Patrick’s reaction. Rushing her message made matters worse and Aunt Grace needed to regain control of the conversation.

A single tear streamed down the side of Patrick’s face as he asked, “But how can this be true? I’m sitting with you in this hotel room. I still don’t understand.”

“Patrick, please go over to the computer and turn the power on. I set up a feed from your hospital room for you to view. You’ve always needed to see something to believe it—sometimes you lack faith, my dear. Go take a look.”

Grace watched Patrick slowly walk to the desk and settle into the chair. She didn’t like his body language. Once he turned the computer on and viewed the screen, which was divided into quadrants, Grace noted the tears welling up in his eyes.

“Patrick, the upper-right quadrant. The upper right.”

Patrick stared at the screen as another tear traveled toward his lip. This tear, however, had company. Patrick wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve as Aunt Grace walked over to her favorite nephew, hugged him, and said, “Take your time. It’s been far too long since you’ve shed any tears. Far too long. Too much isolation. Not enough laughing and crying with the people who care about you. The laughing and crying, my dear boy, is what represents true living. Get it out, Patrick. Get it all out.”

Patrick tried to regain his composure and looked again at the quadrants on the screen. The other three patients had friends and family around their beds. He was alone. “Why is no one there for me?”

“Because you’ve not been there for them for a long while. I’m not sure you’re even aware of what became of a few of your family members over the last few years. Enough of this, let’s go admire the view!”

They both walked to the window, which faced north. Aunt Grace reached up to try to hug Patrick, who at six-two and two-hundred and fifty pounds probably didn’t go to the gym quite as much as he claimed.

“Do you see the building on the far left? Yes, The Victory, your old building, I believe. What a marvelous terrace you had! In my opinion, this was your best one. You always intended to invite the family over for a big party, am I right? Never happened, did it, Patrick?”

“You’re right. Never happened.”

“Who do you think is to blame for that?”

“Me.”

“Good boy. Take responsibility. You made the poor choice to lead a solitary life. I’m pleased to see you understand.”

“What happened, did I suffer a stroke or a heart attack? My blood pressure spikes when I get upset.”

“Neither. You were hit by a stray bullet below your right ear. Do you remember that quick but strong pain when I tapped on your shoulder?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was the bullet. I spared you the prolonged agony. Please understand, however, that this bullet was not the random act of violence it was assumed to be. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time at The Boigen and it was your time to come meet me.”

“You say it was my time, but I’m only forty-six. How could that be?”

“Your life was not going in the right direction and you had already traveled too far down the wrong path. You can still fix things, however, and get back on track.”

Patrick’s hands stopped their frenetic movements. He slumped in his chair as he started to come to grips with the gravity of his situation. “How could I possibly fix it? I don’t even know what was so wrong!”

“My dear Patrick, I know it’s hard, but I do need you to perk up. I will tell you how you can fix things, but you must be resourceful. Can you do that for me, my dear boy?”

Aunt Grace took note of Patrick’s improved posture and took that as a sign he was ready to listen. “That’s better. I’m going to try to help. Maybe I can be as clever as my nephew the successful trader—why don’t we call this your own private West Side Story? After all, you lived here, you were attacked here, you are lying in a hospital here, and the actions you take while a resident of this lovely West Side hotel will determine whether you wake up and return to your life or take some other course.”

Patrick barked, “What other course? Speak plainly, this is my life you are talking about!”

“As you wish. Do you remember the happy group boarding the charter bus a little while ago?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they were all going back. But you must be patient in order to understand the forces at play here. Going back might be the right thing, but the other course may be even better.”

“Again, with the other course! You can’t even describe the other course properly to me. I’m a successful investor. I don’t need some other course. I want to return to my old life!”

Grace took a deep breath and dug deep into her bag of tricks. “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick…” She let the third Patrick hang in the air. He was often chastised in this fashion as a child. Patrick got the message and sat forward, tilting his head downward, feeling eight again. He was on his best behavior.

“You don’t yet understand what is best, but I am here to guide you. First, we will start with the basic rules of your little West Side Story. Come and sit next to me”—she gestured to the easy chair beside her—“and relax. I need you to patiently listen and you must, I repeat—must—stay calm. Can you sit and listen?”

“Yes, Aunt Grace. I can and I will.”

“Excellent, let’s start with the basics. Remember how you always said you wanted to take a course about the religions of the world? I wish you’d done that…this would be so much easier to explain. Here is the simple truth—no single religion has it totally right or totally wrong. The things which are actually true are in the areas of overlap. The soul is perhaps the biggest of those areas. So this is the first thing for you to understand—when a person’s body dies, the soul survives. In many cases, the soul is attracted to a new body, and the next life is dependent, to some extent, upon some lesson not learned in the present life.”

Patrick smirked as he asked, “So you are saying I’m talking to your soul, not you?”

“What you’re doing is better described as interrupting. May I continue?”

“Apologies. Please do. I’ll try not to interrupt your ‘soul’ again.”

“Very cute, my dear. There is some agreement on the soul, but most religions made the concepts of Heaven and Hell too simplistic. Heaven is the ultimate resting place for the most highly developed souls and something to which we should aspire, but it is rare for a soul to achieve that level of purity after just one life. The concept of Hell, on the other hand, would be much better thought of as nothing more than karma, pure and simple—the old “what goes around comes around” dictum; those people who are abusers and evil in nature in one life pay the price in the next. So all of those people who boarded the charter bus are going back, but not to their old lives—those bodies are dead. They will be reincarnated.”

“But I want to go back to my old life, I still have so much to do. I don’t want to start all over. I’ve achieved so much…”

“Patrick, I know how upset you are but things will all be clear in due time, I promise. Your Aunt Grace will explain everything. Relax. Please trust me.”

Patrick was as calm as he could manage. Aunt Grace took a deep breath and then finished her explanation, “Souls continue being reincarnated until they are so pure they would not benefit from another life. Did you notice how each person peeled a single petal off a tulip on their way out of the hotel? Those tulips are symbols of purity, and peeling off a petal is our little good luck ritual when we go off to start a new life, which we hope will be more pure than the last. Do you understand so far? Do you get the basic concept? This is important. Any questions?”

Patrick responded, “Lots of them, but I just want you to finish before I ask them. I promise…no more interruptions from me.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about the hotel for a minute. I’m not sure you realize the meaning of the name. Boigen is actually two Swedish words, ‘Bo’ and ‘igen.’ The meaning in English is ‘Live Again.’ The hotel should be thought of as a place where souls can reflect. When souls arrive, they go for a cup of coffee in the Reflektions Café. Sometimes they are met there by souls like me, who’ve been with them in many lives and will provide advice related to lessons learned. Most of those souls who got on the bus never checked in—they just had coffee, reflected, and then left for another life. You and I, however, did check in, because our time here will be longer.”

Patrick’s spirits were improving. Everything was starting to make more sense to him and his beloved Aunt Grace was going to be his guide. He took the risk of interrupting to say something light, “Ah, so I get to move back to the West Side for a while! Excellent. I missed the old neighborhood.”

“Yes, indeed!” Aunt Grace exclaimed. “You’ve regained your sense of humor! This is an excellent development, but let me finish up. Not to worry, we’re almost done. You were close to achieving the highest level of purity three lives ago. Yes, that’s right, you messed up two times in a row, and you seemed destined to fail again as Patrick Walsh. I almost achieved my level of purity with this last life, but I too had difficulties. Think of our time in this hotel as our opportunity to fix our mistakes as best we can. Depending on how well we do, we may be here for either a short or long period of time, but we certainly require a room. Reflecting over coffee won’t be enough for you and I, my dear. I think I’ve given you a lot to consider. Perhaps we should stop.”

“Okay, but only if you’re done.” She nodded. “I definitely need time to process all of this, but how will I go about fixing my mistakes? How will I know what things I need to work on?”

“You won’t be given a report card that will pinpoint exactly where to focus your efforts. Remember, you reflected after each life, and while those thoughts are not currently available to you, they will be soon. We were both so close, we will know where we went wrong. Please understand…we’re being given an opportunity to fix things. Think of it like a do-over of certain critical moments in our past lives where we made the wrong choice or took an inappropriate action. You have two prior lives to revisit, and if you fail at any point, a quick fix will not be possible. If you are successful, however, you will regain consciousness and live out your days in this current existence predestined to advance to that ultimate level we just discussed. This is your West Side Story, my dear, a fabulous adventure. Are you ready?”

“Well, I am over the shock and I want to do better. The fact that I made mistakes in prior lives is not surprising, and I do like the idea of a second chance. Can you tell me what my prior lives were?”

“Yes. The first life you will revisit will be in the French colony of St. Domingue just before the slave uprising in the late 1700s that resulted in the creation of the modern-day country of Haiti. You were the son of an affluent French planter and your name was Patrice Beaumont. Your second life will take you from Ireland immediately following the Great Famine in the mid-1800s to New York. In that life, your name was Patrick Allen, and in both lives, you were involved with the important issues of the time. By the way, you were always called Patrick. Patrice is the French version of your name.”

“Interesting. I’ve always been Patrick and always screwed things up at particular points in my life. So these do-overs are kind of my chance at perfecting Patrick. Appropriate, don’t you think? One last question, though, how did you get me to come to The Boigen thinking I was meeting a date?”

Aunt Grace was so happy the mood had lightened and chuckled as she responded, “Oh my, Patrick. Do you think there is some mystery to the formula for getting you to respond to an online profile? Some tasteful pictures showing high fashion, then one showing a little skin, and then a little language about ‘not looking for anything too serious.’ Am I right?”

“You have me pegged!”

“All right then, when we wake up in the morning, we will be met with the challenge of one of these past lives. I will be with you in each one. We have always been together, although as I’ve said, the relationship has been different. When the adventure of each life is over, we will meet in the Reflektions Café for coffee.”

Well, that didn’t go too badly, Grace thought. I might have let him down this last life, but now we can try again. Success for him would also mean success for her. She hoped they would be up to the challenge.