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That Old Big Sur
updated: Dec 03, 2011, 9:45 AM

By Frank Frost

Christian crested the last hill on the yellow dirt road, wrestling the wheel on the old ruts, coming over the top unexpectedly, and suddenly the whole blue Pacific smacked him in the face, forcing him to pull the old Jeep to an abrupt halt and confront the visual impact of half a hemisphere receding into the distant haze to the west. From here there was nothing but ocean until Japan, seven thousand miles away. He was up over a thousand feet here and the steepness of the slope almost gave him vertigo, looking down at the blue-green sea crashing against the cliffs, miniature waves at this distance, he couldn't even hear the surf.

"Came over the mountain? That's a hard drive." "Well. I'm sort of taking other roads these days. More interesting." "There's your coffee. Here's the sugar. Oops, it's empty, just a second..." "It's okay, really. I don't take sugar."

An hour later he saw the big rugged wooden sign. NINKOPO KAI. GUESTS ONLY. A gravel road led down toward the ocean. Now he could hear the surf booming on the cliffs below. He could also smell the faint rotten-egg odor of the famous sulfurous hot springs. The driveway led through a circle of wooden buildings and he saw the sign, RECEPTION. He was expecting to meet the head guru, or at least some enthusiastic disciple, but there was only a spotty teenage girl in the office wearing engineer overalls from which her fat arms sprouted like white sausages. She showed no interest, avoided eye contact, gave him two towels, a white terrycloth robe, and the key to cabin 6. "I probably don't need a key here," he chuckled. "Who am I keeping out?" "Suit yourself," the drab replied and went back into the office.

Margot had been checking out the new arrivals. Most of the women fit into the Hapless Recent Divorcée category. She had to admit that she could almost fit into that group, except her two previous divorces had blunted the pain of that experience. The few men seemed to be a complete loss. At a place like this you could count on at least one scrawny guy in his fifties, half-bald, but with a brave gray ponytail, glasses, and a distressing compulsion to tell anyone in earshot how liberating this whole thing was. She'd seen the first one come in an hour ago, followed shortly by someone who could be his twin, except they were complete strangers to each other. Then there was a plump younger man who had been wandering around in a black bikini since he got here. Nobody would have to explain their life stories until tonight. It wasn't as if she couldn't wait. And then, hello?! A dusty Jeep pulled up to the reception and a slim young guy got out, stretched, and walked into the office. He could have been a hot young hunk in a beer commercial. Margot instantly looked around at the circle of cabins to see if anyone else was checking out newcomers. They were. Across the oval of the driveway she could see the young girl--what was her name? Penny, or something--staring a hole in the man's back. Penny was one of those fragile beauties without a bone in her body, had to have someone to cling to, it was obvious. She'd started to tell Margot her whole story at breakfast and

So this was the Big Sur. Nothing but a huge cliff, from Monterey to what? Morro Bay? Two hundred miles of coastline? Something like that. He'd left the map on the back seat of the Jeep. But he'd read the guide book. The west coast here had been forced up out of the ocean millions of years ago in the geologic past and had remained perfectly remote, inaccessible, until the road was built by the WPA during the Depression. Now it was California Route 1 and famous for its wild cliffs, savage ocean, refuges for seals, sea otters, poets, the few megarich who could afford castles on crags, and a few very protected and limited resorts.

Christian was headed for Ninkopo Kai, an old collection of hot springs right on the coast, recently a famous and fashionable refuge for damaged human beings. Ninkopo Kai was said to mean "Circle of Peace" in the Miwok Indian dialect. He'd had the recommendation from a counselor, had phoned and explained his situation. Although they usually had a waiting list eight months long the woman to whom he spoke accepted him immediately and he was amused that she had never asked for assurance that he could pay the $450 per day charges.

The road down the chaparral-covered hill wove through a collection of switchbacks until it finally joined California Highway 1 a little south of the tiny hamlet of Lucia. He stopped for a cup of coffee at what looked like the only cafe in town, had to go back into the kitchen, finally into the adjoining house to find a woman, flustered before a visitor, who led him back into the cafe.

"Didn't expect anyone this early. I can fix you some toast too, if you want. Nothing else this morning. Truck from Cambria didn't get here yet. Okay?"

"That's fine. I got up early in King City, had breakfast there."

"Came over the mountain? That's a hard drive."

"Well. I'm sort of taking other roads these days. More interesting."

"There's your coffee. Here's the sugar. Oops, it's empty, just a second..."

"It's okay, really. I don't take sugar."

An hour later he saw the big rugged wooden sign. NINKOPO KAI. GUESTS ONLY. A gravel road led down toward the ocean. Now he could hear the surf booming on the cliffs below. He could also smell the faint rotten-egg odor of the famous sulfurous hot springs. The driveway led through a circle of wooden buildings and he saw the sign, RECEPTION.

He was expecting to meet the head guru, or at least some enthusiastic disciple, but there was only a spotty teenage girl in the office wearing engineer overalls from which her fat arms sprouted like white sausages. She showed no interest, avoided eye contact, gave him two towels, a white terrycloth robe, and the key to cabin 6.

"I probably don't need a key here," he chuckled. "Who am I keeping out?"

"Suit yourself," the drab replied and went back into the office.

Margot had been checking out the new arrivals. Most of the women fit into the Hapless Recent Divorcée category. She had to admit that she could almost fit into that group, except her two previous divorces had blunted the pain of that experience. The few men seemed to be a complete loss. At a place like this you could count on at least one scrawny guy in his fifties, half-bald, but with a brave gray ponytail, glasses, and a distressing compulsion to tell anyone in earshot how liberating this whole thing was. She'd seen the first one come in an hour ago, followed shortly by someone who could be his twin, except they were complete strangers to each other. Then there was a plump younger man who had been wandering around in a black bikini since he got here. Nobody would have to explain their life stories until tonight. It wasn't as if she couldn't wait.

And then, hello?! A dusty Jeep pulled up to the reception and a slim young guy got out, stretched, and walked into the office. He could have been a hot young hunk in a beer commercial.

Margot instantly looked around at the circle of cabins to see if anyone else was checking out newcomers. They were. Across the oval of the driveway she could see the young girl--what was her name? Penny, or something--staring a hole in the man's back. Penny was one of those fragile beauties without a bone in her body, had to have someone to cling to, it was obvious. She'd started to tell Margot her whole story at breakfast and had been discouraged gently at first and then almost rudely. She looks like she's going to run over and attach herself like a refrigerator magnet, thought Margot.

Now she saw a movement behind the window of the next cabin. That would be Deirdre, a tall thin mountain woman in jeans and a leather jacket, hair in a long braid.

The two women who'd come from Berkeley together were walking up the rocky path from the beach when the man came out of the office and they froze in their tracks, watching him stride across the compound looking for number six, pack slung over one shoulder, discover his cabin, and disappear into it. So, thought Margot, maybe they're not lesbians after all.

Christian found himself in a one-room cabin, all old knotty pine, gingham curtains on the windows. The single bed was covered with a threadbare chenille spread. There was a nightstand, a wooden desk with a chair, and an old dark brown naugahyde recliner. A small dresser stood next to the door of the bathroom. He unpacked his two changes of clothes rapidly and stored them neatly in the dresser. Then he took the Bible out of his pack and sat down in the recliner. He looked at his watch. They said drinks were at five, supper at six, and the big meeting in the hot spring at eight. Time to consult his Bible.

Hungry for companionship, the new group at Ninkopo Kai heard the bell announcing cocktail hour and rushed over to the main building, where they circulated eagerly, milling and clustering like dogs just unleashed at the beach. They adhered to the written rules: first names only, small talk only, no politics or sexual innuendo, absolutely no biographical details. That was all left to the big moment, the moment in the huge heated pool after dinner, when they'd had a chance to digest their food a bit. Nothing had been said about drugs, and Christian noticed a plump young man with sleek dark hair in Gucci warmups trying to pass around a joint, being politely turned down by everyone except a scrawny man with a gray ponytail.

And into their midst bounced the guru, Hans Katzen, a small, almost shriveled old man, but radiating good cheer, wearing a floor length Egyptian gelebiya. He rapidly made the circle of the twelve guests, addressing them by name, stopping by Margot for a second--"Glad to see you again, my dear, good luck!"--flashing her a splendid smile, and off to Christian.

"Christian, Christian! So good to see you! I read your application. You'll be one of our stars in the hot spring later!" And then on to the plump young man, saying something quietly that made him stub out the rest of his joint and slip the roach into a pocket of his warmup jacket.

Dinner was simple and adequate. Rice, broccoli, and carrots on a big platter with an olive oil and lemon dressing, and another platter of baked chicken and onions, sprinkled with fresh herbs from the kitchen garden. Lots of brown bread cooked in Ninkopo Kai's own outdoor clay ovens. Something for everyone. Carafes of white and red wine were passed and drunk. There were no dietary laws at Ninkopo Kai, no prudery.

After dinner Hans Katzen shooed everyone out into the evening air. "Walk around! Enjoy the moon! Listen to the waves crashing below! Relax, free your minds of anxiety, stress, give up all the silly rules you have set yourself. And remember, this is the hour of silence. Smile at each other but do not talk. In one hour--actually now, forty minutes--we meet at the great pool, the place of peace! Wear your bathrobes to the pool, but if no one told you yet, when you get there you have to take all your clothes off, all your old attitudes, all your childish whining, any phony baggage you might have brought here by mistake...and get in the pool of peace the way you were on the day you were born!" There was general nervous laughter. Christian had felt discouraged so far. Now he was impressed by Katzen's manner and he wondered, How good can he be? How does this compare to the confessional?

The great pool had a shingled roof supported on redwood logs set upright like pillars in the concrete pad, but it was completely open on the sides and the fog had begun to blow in from the Pacific. A few overhead lights shone down on the steaming surface, gurgling at the north end where the natural hot spring funneled the sulfurous water in. There was a small raft tethered in the middle of the pool, covered with candles of all sizes and shapes, flickering, but staying lit despite the breeze.

Christian slipped off his bathrobe and climbed quickly down into the pool to escape the frigid air and welcome the heat of the water, which always remained five or so degrees above body temperature. There was a shallow seat in the concrete, he found, and he could sit with his head just above water while his legs stretched out along the bottom of the pool. He'd been concentrating too much on undressing and getting into the pool to observe anyone else, except a blond nymphet on the other side who took her time submerging, oohing and ahhing, and splashing water up onto her small breasts. He thought she was the one who hadn't said anything at dinner, just looked defeated and hurt. Hans Katzen appeared, nude, at the end of the pool, still short and wiry, standing for a moment at the edge to look over his flock. Then he stepped gradually down into the steaming water. There was complete silence, broken only by the cries of gulls out over the water. Then Hans spoke.

"Please hold hands with your neighbors, don't be shy."

There was some squirming, as the twelve-plus-one bodies in the pool nervously searched for a neighboring hand.

"That's right, get closer together. The pool is shallow, and there are no monsters in the middle." Nervous laughter again.

"Now, the rules you have agreed to. First, let me stress the subtitle in our literature, 'a place for damaged human beings.' Do you all fit that model?" All heads nodded.

"Then I should remind you that 'damaged human beings' in this case, means California human beings, not, for instance, Sudanese or Syrians."

There was dead silence. Margot thought, That was brutal. That little reminder.

Good for him! Better than last time.

"Next, there are no religions here except the religion of humans living together in peace and, whenever possible, love of each other. If you are true believers in some creed, go happily back to it when you leave, but do not speak of it here. You are on spiritual sabbatical." Chuckles, and the plump young man said, "Right on!"

"Finally, we hope nevertheless to repair some of the California-type damage you've suffered. Tonight we will take a little test, like a college test. I'm sure you've all been to university? Hold up your hands?" All entwined hands went up.

"All right, the test question we ask here is, in three minutes, identify yourself and explain your significance."

There was general laughter. They'd all taken those ID tests.

And we'll start with...Penny!"

Margot thought immediately, A stroke of genius! Get rid of the whiniest casualty first!

Actually, Penny surprised them all. She'd been in med school with this guy and they'd gotten married and like one of them had to work to keep med school going so she quit and worked as a nurse and he got his MD and started to get rich and then he dumped her. She poured all this out in about five minutes, although everyone had figured her for a half-hour, and some people actually wanted her to go on. But the rules were, no questions, no rebuttals, just go around the circle. There would be two more nights, after all.

Most of the others were boring: he dumped me, women always reject me, Margot was almost going to sleep when one of the scrawny ponytails came on with this story about the lab he worked in and he had done the work and the research and then they told him he was out, the company owned all the proprietary stuff he'd developed and he was causing problems. This sounded like a real-world problem, not a Ninkopo Kai-style bruised psyche.

Margot told her carefully rehearsed story, which got as little attention as it deserved, and then Hans Katzen looked over at Christian, pointedly skipping over the plump young man, who had desperately tried to break in after the last four life stories.

"Christian. Or should I call you 'Father'?"

There was an intake of breath all around the pool. Christian felt his hand squeezed by the woman next to him--Margot, was that her name? The man on the other side almost let go his grip.

"Please, no fathers, no brothers. That's all over."

"Right you are, Christian, otherwise, can you identify yourself and give your significance?"

"Well." Here it was. Could he go through with it? "Well, I was raised a Catholic. The whole thing. I was an altar boy, then went to seminary up in San Rafael, then on to Loyola and I guess I never really considered there was anything else to do with my life until one day, there I was, a Jesuit priest."

The audience was quiet and respectful. The world was full of Jesuit priests who had left the priesthood. Everyone knew at least one.

"So then I had this big crisis. Here I was, twenty-six years old. And Africa and the Middle East in the papers every day, massacres and war everywhere, and things seeming just to get worse everywhere in the world, even in the inner cities here in California. Anyway, one day it just hit me in the face. I didn't feel I could go on one

minute longer just teaching history and theology at this little college because...because the history and the theology just seemed to contradict each other. And when I asked for guidance my superiors...anyway, you don't all want to hear that stuff. And I'm not going to knock my church, even though I left it."

He stopped and there was silence until Hans asked quietly, "And what have you been doing since then, Christian?"

He chuckled sheepishly. "Nothing, actually. I told my order that I was resigning, I got into my Jeep and came here."

Somewhere in the world, hidden in some precious, protected wonderland, there might have been a female who didn't immediately understand what Christian was saying. All the women in the pool at Ninkopo Kai felt something like the jolt of an electric current go through them, the current amplified by the hot water in which they were all sitting. And the questions began, in spite of the rule against them.

"So, Christian, you've always been a priest until just now?"

"Well, yeah..."

"And before that, you were always studying for the priesthood?"

"Right." A beat or too in the silence of the night.

"So," Margot finally said it. "You've never made love to a woman in your entire life?" There it was.

Christian laughed nervously. "I guess so. I mean, no. Not that...not that, uh..." he went on quickly. "Not that I don't know all about sex, men and women, and men and men, and you name it...after all, I heard confession for quite a few years. But no, you're right. I never actually had sex with anyone, although I sure felt like it sometimes and I had to confess that and do the penance and try to put it out of my mind."

Hans Katzen had been listening intently instead of enforcing the no-questions rule. Now he broke in.

"Christian, that was some identification and you really explained your significance. But we're going to go on and leave the interaction until tomorrow when we get into some heavy group stuff, okay? Now, Wendell, you've been bursting with your story. Let's hear it!" And he turned to the plump young man who began talking immediately, and no one heard a single word he said.

Margot walked up to the door of her cabin and just waited there, watching, until she saw Christian coming down the path, turning, then going up his steps. She immediately walked quickly across the lawn and was at his door before he had closed it all the way. She pushed in after him and he turned in surprise.

"Christian," she said. "You didn't think you could say what you did and just come in and go to sleep, did you?" She grinned at him maliciously.

He cocked his head, gave her a blank look, a glimmer of a smile. "You know, I'm not dumb. Jesuits aren't. Ever since I decided to come here I knew that when I said...when I said what I did, that it would cause at least some reaction."

Margot closed the door behind her, then turned and locked it. "Okay, Christian, if you're not dumb then you won't be surprised. Here's the reaction." And she let her bathrobe slip off her shoulders. They'd just been in the pool naked together. Naked in a small room with a bed in it was different. Christian was petrified, helplessly staring at her body, so Margot stepped forward, took his hands and placed them on her breasts. Then she parted his robe, placed her hands behind his back, and pulled his hips to hers, held him tightly. She was almost a head shorter so she had to stretch her head up.

"Kiss me, you idiot. You must have heard how to do that in confession." It was a long kiss, and he got his arms around her, and then finally figured out the tongue part, and then Margot pushed him back onto his bed and got on top of him.

"Get ready for prime time," she said, reaching behind her. Margot had expected it to be fast but the action took longer than she expected and she was quite thrilled by the time a ragged cry burst from his throat and the grip of his strong arms threatened to crush her. They lay for a while in silence and when he started to say something she shushed him. "This is the time that the first person who speaks says something stupid," she said.

But after they'd eased apart, still holding each other, they talked, and he seemed in a rush to explain that this wasn't what he'd expected--maybe he'd hoped to meet someone, get to know her, and then, maybe... Margot had to explain that the unexpected presence of a twenty-six year old man, a good-looking man with a good figure (and she ran her hand over his tight buns and his thigh) who had never had a woman, might conceivably cause a violent reaction in some women, maybe even many women. So Christian asked her why she was here and she told him about the kind of men who were attracted to her and why it always seemed a fatal mistake. He couldn't stop looking at her, "Your belly is like a heap of wheat," he said. "And I shall lie between thy breasts all night."

"What's that?" Margot asked. "Gibran or someone?"

"A little older." He smiled. "The Song of Songs, in the Bible."

"Oh," she said. "But I'm Jewish."

"That's okay. It's in the Jewish part of the Bible." They both laughed.

"Shows you how good a Jew I am," Margot added.

And then, just as she could feel him becoming aroused again, there was a soft knock on the door.

"Don't move," she ordered him. Quickly moving to the door she opened it a crack and saw Penny standing there in a lacy nightgown, wispy blond hair outlined by the moonlight, a rose in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

"Beat it," Margot said and closed the door.

"What was that?" asked Christian.

"Room service," Margot said. "What did you expect?" She snuggled down next to him, kissed him, whispered in his ear, "That first time was the basic model. Now we're going to customize you. Give me your hand a minute..."

First light was coming over the Big Sur to the east when Margot finally slipped out the door and walked quickly back to her own cabin. It was noon before she finally appeared for lunch. Christian was nowhere to be seen. Most of the guests had chosen to drive into Carmel to shop or eat lunch, so she was stuck with Wendell and Deirdre and one of the Berkeley women. She wondered how many of the group had heard about where she spent the night. The four of them managed to stay on neutral topics.

As the afternoon wore on Margot had to admit to herself that she felt like a high school kid again, a kid with almost a painful crush. She couldn't wait for Christian to get back.

But cocktail hour arrived and Christian never came back.

"Oh, he checked out this morning," said the creepy girl in the office, where Margot had finally gone in desperation. She slumped. Dammit, I came on too strong! But he lasted like a hero all night! What could have happened? She was trying to imagine something she'd said or done. And then came the terrible blow.

"And that girl, Penny? She checked out the same time."

Margot managed to stick it out that evening in the pool, avoiding the eager group repartee. Hans tried to get her involved but he'd obviously heard about her adventure and Christian's disappearance so he didn't press it.

She checked out herself the next morning before breakfast, unwilling for any of the rest to see her go.

Margot produced the eleven o'clock news on a big television station in Los Angeles. She threw herself back into work, thinking she'd get over the Christian thing. But it kept bugging her and her mind kept going to the back of a business card in her wallet where she'd scribbled down the license number of his dusty Jeep. Finally she couldn't help it. She called an old friend at the Los Angeles headquarters of the California Highway Patrol.

"Conrad? I got a license number. I need the name and address, okay?...I know you're not supposed to...I know...Okay, let's say I'll owe you one...No, nothing'll come back on this...No, no, it's not political, it's personal..."

Two minutes later she was jotting down, "Townsend, Christian," and the address, obviously an apartment, in Santa Clara. "Thanks so much, Conny. I'll call you later."

She waited two days, then couldn't stand it anymore. She called in sick first thing in the morning. By early afternoon she was looking up streets on a Santa Clara street map. There was the apartment building, a nice one, with lawns around it, a swimming pool visible in the interior courtyard, spacious balconies on all the upper floors. She couldn't see an old Jeep parked anywhere. She was standing on the walkway below, just figuring out where apartment number 207 would be when a woman came out on the balcony and started watering plants. Margot couldn't hide. It was obvious she was staring right up at that apartment.

"Are you looking for someone?" the woman asked. She was a slim brunette and did not appear to be in a good mood. She took off her sunglasses and inspected Margot carefully.

Margot was an experienced reporter. She didn't make many mistakes locating addresses. And yet she nursed a faint hope that she'd got the wrong number, the wrong block.

"Uh, does Christian live here?"

The woman didn't answer for the longest moment. Silence filled the hot afternoon.

"Okay, what was he this time? Was he a priest again?"

Margot couldn't face her. She walked slowly back to her car. All she could think of was Christian's face, contorted in passion, as he pretended that he was having his first...

But the woman wasn't through. She called to Margot's retreating back. "And listen, if you're Penny, don't bother leaving any more poetry on the e-mail." And she went back into the apartment.

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