ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS

25. TEACHING OF KABBALAH

I start to work at the bar with Risa. I hardly have the time to see her dance because I spend most of my time taking care of my customers. After about a month, everything starts to feel easy, and I become a permanent fixture at the bar.

I begin to think a little less about Beth and my life in Weatherford. Vegas becomes the predominant part of my waking hours, even though I still have dreams about Beth once in a while.

Risa and I live together, and all of our colleagues think that Risa found a young lover. We are together, becoming more of a dysfunctional family who cares about each other. She is like an older sister I never had, and I am a younger brother she left behind in Brooklyn. The time passes very quickly, and it is almost Christmas.

Risa asks me if I am going home for a holiday. I tell her no and ask if she is going back to Brooklyn. She reflects for a few moments.

"I can't leave you alone in Sin City. The devil might take you away. Instead, we are going to celebrate a nice Hanukkah at home!"

She begins to take out a silver candleholder from her wooden trunk at the bottom of the bed. It has nine branches. By observing the peculiar look on my face, she tells me.

"This is a menorah I stole from my parents when I left New York. I will get candles tomorrow. This is a kind of Christmas tree for the Jews. Right! I will get you a Hanukkah bush as well. But I don't know how to decorate it. So you have to do it yourself."

"You never went out with a Jewish girl, so I will let you know about the important stuff. On the first evening of the festival, we light up a candle at the center and continue lighting up one candle each evening for the next eight days. Each night, we exchange gifts. So you have to get me eight gifts before Hanukkah starts."

I am not sure if she is telling me the truth or not. But she seems darn serious, even though eight gifts seem a little excessive. The following weekend, I go out to get her eight presents for my first celebration of Hanukkah.

January and February rolled in quickly and went. It is almost the end of March, and the sun is getting stronger and warmer by the day. One evening, Risa wakes me up from the nightmare I was having.

"Honey! Are you all right? Your whole body was shaking, and you screamed out loud! Who is Beth?"

The nightmare still shakes me, and my entire body is drenched with sweat. I dreamed about Beth. She had a beautiful wedding dress on and was walking toward the altar where I was waiting for her to arrive.

When she came close to me, and I was about to touch her hand, all of a sudden, blood started to gush out of her body and covered her white dress entirely. She is standing right in front of me and screaming at me for help, just like the epic scene from the old occult film Carrie. That is when Risa shook my body to wake me up.

I know it is time for me to tell Risa what happened to me before coming to Vegas. So I start.

"I dreamed about my ex-girlfriend. We grew up together in Texas. I always thought we would be together and grow old together. When we are going to get married last June, she was hit by a truck on her way to the church and died in my arms in the hospital."

"I left my town to forget and started to wander around to find out why something like that happened to me. Beth was her name. In the dream, she was covered in blood, just like when she died in my arms."

Risa stares at me without a word, and tears fall from her eyes. Then she holds me so tenderly as if holding a newborn baby. The silence comforts me while I am in her arms. I feel very safe as if I am in my mother's arms.

"Do you remember what I said the morning after we met? I said, 'Kabbalah appears to you when you need it. When you question why things happen in life, the meaning of life, and your role in it.' It is so true, and I think you came here to be with me and hear what I am about to teach you."

"Ancient Kabbalists say we live in a box with five openings. These openings are our five senses. As long as we live in this box, we are judging everything with the five senses. This box is called egoism. Our reality is all about how it affects us or what it is in for us. That is our physical world. We only have a will to receive, and that is how we are made. The divinity made us that way."

"But the spiritual world operates oppositely. It only has a will to bestow. There are only two things that exist in the Universe: the creator and the creature. Anything spiritual is the mind of the creator. Anything egoistic is the mind of the creature. We are all creatures."

"To know how the Universe operates, you need to know the mind of the creator. To do that, you need to have the six senses, which Kabbalists call screen. It is the key to entering the spiritual world."

"People experience the event and judge whether it is good or bad only using their five senses. But the true reality is that events are only good and positive. If good happens to us, we think, "God is good to me." If something bad happens to us, we think, "God is punishing me, or another dark force is taking over." In the reality of Kabbalah, there is only one force, and it is always good."

"We can't see the goodness in it because we are judging the events based on our egoism. To see the true reality, you need to trust in God or trust in the Universe. That is the only way. I know you can only see that your girlfriend died, and you think God has no mercy. But there is a reason for it, and it will turn out to be a good reason. I promise you will be able to see it one day. I promise!"

Since that night, Risa has been much sweeter to me, even though she was kind to start with. Our relationship deepens because of it. She teaches me how to see reality in the way Kabbalists see it. It happens to be the opposite of how I used to see it.

As my knowledge deepens, the more I like being with her. Almost seven months have passed since I arrived in Las Vegas. When Risa and I spend more time together, I can see that she is having a harder time controlling herself. I feel that she is seriously falling for me. Her inner struggle is written all over her face.

One evening with a full moon, the hell breaks loose. Risa walks up to me, grabs my neck, and kisses me. Her eyes are filled with tears.

"It is time for you to leave Vegas. If you stay any longer, I wouldn't know how to let you go. Anyway, I am not the right one for you. I know it, and you know it too."

"I know that another Beth is waiting for you somewhere. You will eventually meet her or someone with her quality. But I don't have that quality. You have to leave me before you break my heart. Please go! Go!"

She turns away from me and quickly walks out of my life. I am again alone with Bianco on the busy streets of Vegas. A drunk pushes me aside as if he wants me to leave town. The neon lights are glowing brighter than ever, and they are telling me it is time to go.

So I get in the driver's seat, and Bianco jumps in the back of the truck. I turn on the engine and drive off into the night. No one cares if I leave or not. Vegas will find another victim, as it found me seven months ago.