The Swallowing Puzzle by Allen Landver

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Side A

The timing of our graduation with the writer’s strike meant that there was a hiring freeze, and this was not news for writers entering the industry that summer. At least Obama was running for his first term in office and that beard that I had been trying to grow since graduation was growing. It was already scorching hot that morning when the friendly monk came into the air conditioned bakery, sweating through his orange robes at the armpit. “Auspicious weather today,” he said, using a word that I had never heard spoken publicly before by anyone, much less a Hare Krishna monk. I jumped out of Final Draft where I was slaving over a screenplay, and typed the word auspicious into the search. It had only been a few weeks since Q and I had stopped talking, and unlike the rest of the kids who I knew from high school, who were still high, I had stopped going out every night, and was focused on something that could pay the bills. Still, after earning my degree, something other than the job market was off, and the auspicious meeting with the friendly monk would become the first clue in a series of unexpected events that would help me figure out what that was.

The Hare Krishna was swoll for a man of Adonai. The way his head was shaved to the skull, here was someone as cut as a running back for Navy. Razor thin eye sockets that laser beams could have been blasted out of, face, pale white, like the flesh of a watermelon, and baby fat under his chin, made him look to be in his 20’s. Yet it was the way that he spoke that intrigued me most, I had never heard anyone not on TV speak as clearly as that, pronouncing every word with Terminator-like precision.  

“I’m new to your city,” he said, rolling up the unclean sleeves of his orange robe. “Maybe you can help me get to where I’m going?”

“Sure,” I said, ready to do my act of service for the month. “Where’re you off to?”

“The Bodhi Tree Bookstore,” he said, flashing fangs as he pronounced the “O” in Bodhi like it was the rarest of letters. “Have you heard of it?” 

I had. I had been there with Q just a few weeks ago. Q loved going there because horror movie actresses went there for beeswax candles and artisanal postcards. It was the very last place I had seen him before we stopped talking. 

“Sorry,” I said, distracted by my screenplay, “what is it?”

“It’s a place for spiritually minded people to gather for readings, tea, and healing,” he explained.

“Let me look it up for you,” I said, whipping out my first generation iPhone, a hand-me-down from Q. “What you want to do is head down Hollywood Boulevard until you get to about La Brea, then hook a right on Melrose. The bookstore is on Melrose.”

“As a token of my gratitude,” he said, taking two dark purple sodas out of the cooling fridge.

The thing fastened to the counter where the credit card machine was, was a can opener, and he cracked open the caps of the sodas with it, both of which were bottled in glass, and that fancy Italian kind. “Where are you from?”

I took a big swig before I answered, savoring every bubble. “The valley.” 

“In Los Angeles?”

“Yes, sir, just over the mountain that way.” I noticed a purple spray of salvia above his lip from the soda. “May I ask,” he said, spreading his legs as he sat down behind me, “how do celebrities survive in this heat?” 

“I don’t know,” I said. “You might have to ask one. I hear they live in the hills.”

He laughed, as I put down my soda. The 11am sun was whipping through Hollywood Boulevard, painting our shadows on the linoleum floor. “You know,” I said, “the weather has been weird recently.” 

“My guess is from the fires,” the stranger said, before a loud noise made me jump. 

It was Pepe, the owner of the bakery, clad in denim, who was coming in with a rack of gooey, square-shaped croissants. They were made from clean produce, and the total opposite of the X-Large muffins from the coffeeshop on the corner, which were filled with heavy cream from Smart and Final. As usual there were several options that included, on that morning, chocolate, strawberry, and apricot, and the monk had a sweet tooth.

As Pepe helped the stranger, I continued on with my screenplay that was inspired by my relationship with Q. Several of the scenes that had been written thus far were uncomfortable. Q’s aggression, especially the way he would sit on me whenever he felt like it, no matter how many times I begged him to stop, made me feel, increasingly, at least on paper, like I was being hunted. 

Pepe returned to the back to watch futbol, and the monk and I were alone in the cool bakery again. I typed, but the presence of the orange-robed stranger made it difficult to concentrate, and I knew that despite the affection I was getting from this traveler, I was going to have to get back to work.

“Do books about spirituality interest you?” he said.

“Not really.”

“No, how come?”

“I went to religious school growing up, so.”

“I have a story for you,” he said, “but you have to promise not to repeat it.”

“I can’t promise that,” I said, eyeballing him in the blurry window. “I’m a writer.” 

“That’s okay,” he said. “I trust you.”

I took another swig of the soda, looking up at his pale blue eyes as he stood beside me. “If you prefer,” I said, “I can text you the directions to the bookstore, but then I really have to get back to work.”

The monk slid his long fingers down his humble robe. “I’m sorry, I don’t travel with a phone.” 

I grabbed a napkin and a pen at the cash register. “No problem.”

“Would you like one?” he said, referring to the plate of handsome croissants on his table. 

I clutched my emaciated stomach. “Thanks, but I’m on a diet.”

“If California burns, it might be the last sweet you ever eat.”

“Okay,” I said, and placed his chocolate croissant behind my soda. 

“Have you ever been in the ocean?” he said, wiping apricot jam off of his face with a napkin.

I laughed. “Once or twice. Have you?”

“No, but I hope to tomorrow.” 

“You should,” I said.

It was quiet for a few seconds before a frightened woman and a timid boy walked into the bakery. I gave them what I had in my pocket. I knew it was not smart to drink from the bottle of a stranger — one block to the west, a subway station had been raised on Western, adding more anarchy to a flooded corner which had been at the center of a story not that long ago about burned human remains found in trash cans. The body parts in each can all came together to form a single Jane, and the perpetrator was still at large…

“You know, for a long time I thought my fate was to be a pro football player,” the monk said, once we were alone again. 

“I am not surprised.” I said, trying not to ignore him.

“I hurt myself in one of my first games after highschool, and you should’ve seen me after that. Before, never there for anyone, and then expected the whole world to be there for me when I was down. Life doesn’t work that way. Not in Georgia.”

“No, I know what you mean.”

“I was going to take my own life before someone recognized my anger—”

I saved my screenplay. “You were going to what?”

“It was close,” he said, scanning the front door of the bakery. 

“What happened?”

“I was approached,” he said, as he strolled toward the door, “by a man at the park who said he had been called to Atlanta in meditation. Two weeks later, I’m on a plane to Los Angeles, and I’ve been a member of the congregation since.” 

“Weird.” 

“If you ever need us,” he said, “we’re in Topanga Canyon. May I write the name of the temple for you?”

“Sure.”

As he went to find a pen by the register, I gazed at his empty chair. “How long have you been in Los Angeles again, did you say?”

“Oh, not that long, about a year.” 

I took the piece of magazine paper from him, turning toward the bright window. Try and remember what the monk said when he first walked in, I thought. I’m new to your city.

“I believe writers are mystics,” he said, “visitors to our world from the future.” 

I put the address into my pocket. “We definitely are.”

“What are you working on?”

I snuck my arm under the table to pick up my backpack. “A movie about someone close to me.”

“So, you’re a movie writer?”

“Yeah.”

He licked jam off of his finger. “You were chosen, you know that?”

“Like Abraham, baby.”

The monk lunged toward my table and grabbed my forearm. “You are blessed— 

“Props,” I said. “Nice to meet you,” and with one last look into his icy eyes, I tossed the soda, and— 

Kanye was blasting on my headphones for thirty feet down Hollywood Boulevard before I started to get dizzy. The sun hurtled toward me, and the next thing I remember is lying face-first on the cement. Lightheaded, I ran back to the bakery. Very carefully, I popped my nose inside to see if the monk was there. The bakery was drenched in shadow, but the only sign of life was from the fan. I looked inside the trash can for the soda, and it was gone.

“The guy who I spoke to at the monastery told me to go to the cops.” I was blindly searching for my car. “You know I’ve studied sociopaths, and I’m positive I was being groomed. This is what serial killers do. You know what, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was his first victim?”

Larissa was laughing. “You, and your imagination, Allen.”

“What about what the guy from the monastery just said?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t think it’s weird that he was kicked out of their congregation?!”

“Next,” a police officer said, like I was in line for the deli. Now I was looking up at a uniform, who was taking down the details of my ordeal with the Hare Krishna monk. I told her everything, starting with the very first thing the monk said in that factual, Terminator-like voice of his about the weather being auspicious. 

“Unfortunately, no” she said, through a mouthful of takeout noodles, “see, without that juice bottle, or a name, nothing we can do for you.” 

“Fuck,” I yelled. “I should’ve gotten his name!”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, kid. If he really was who you say he was, no way, no how, he was going to tell you the truth.”

She was off, even though the monk was a novice who made mistakes, he was dangerous. It was in all the literature I had read on serial killers, they always screwed up when they were beginners. I placed my palms on the counter, trying to convince her to call the monastery, and investigate. “God forbid someone gets hurt?” I said. 

But she wouldn’t budge, something about traffic on Sunset…

I was at my place watching the fires rage up North on the Weather Channel. It was a few days after the situation with the monk, when out of nowhere, I couldn’t breathe. My phone, thank god it was in my pocket. “Hey, mom,” I said slowly, “I think I might be having a heart attack.” 

“No, you’re — you’re too young, Allen,” she said over the noise of Russian satellite radio.

“Can you hear me? Are you there?”

“I’m going to come over now,” Larissa said, calmly. “I am in the car. Hang up and call 911.”

When the paramedics got there, they opened the curtains and light pounded in through the windows. They took my vitals and said that I had probably had a panic attack. After they left, I sat down on my couch and waited for Larissa. Fyodor had gifted this couch to me two years ago, it had been almost a decade since the divorce and now he lived in Moscow. 

The chemical smell of Larissa’s nail polish was infecting my apartment as she opened a box of pizza, and I was dizzy. We had been sitting together waiting for the food to show up, watching Seinfeld reruns to pass the time. “You’re not going to die, Allen.” 

I snatched a warm slice of pizza and looked at her simply. “I know.” 

“Okay,” she said, “good,” and then there was a piece of cheese stuck in my throat. “I can’t swallow.”

“What?”

“Food!” 

Spitting cheese, running around the apartment like a claustrophobic pigeon, and then a clump of congealed cheese flew out of my mouth.

“Is there something in the pizza?” Larissa said.

”No,” I said, as I found my breath again. “It’s the same crap.”

After cleaning up the mess, Larissa grabbed my elbows, and held them. “You’re going to be okay.” She let me go and picked up her white sneakers. 

“You’re leaving?”

“I’m cold here,” she said.

“I can grab you a sweatshirt?”

“I have to go to temple in an hour.”

“You really are leaving?”

“I love you,” she said. 

I didn’t say anything. “Hey, mom?” 

She turned around. 

“Tell him I say hi.”

I shut the door and sat on the couch, trying to eat. It took an hour to finish one slice of pizza, and the next morning I choked on a muffin. 

Side B

Terry cycled to work in dark jeans and clear spectacles. His dim office on 5th Ave. looked like a therapist’s office was designed to look in a Noah Baumbach film, sofa and a green chair, coffee machine, yellow abstract paintings, and a shelf of New Yorker magazines. The plants were ripe, complimenting all of the husky furniture, and I was self conscious about the way I smelled in frumpy, wet clothes. It was a cold morning in March, a few days before my 29th birthday. A wall clock was ticking, but I could barely hear it because of the rain. Through the streaky window, I could see a pizza place. “Do you ever go to Tito’s?” I said. 

“Where?” he said, in a nasal-like voice that conveyed narcissism.

I pointed at it. “I don’t remember it in this neighborhood.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before,” he said. “Did you go to NYU, Allen?”

I touched a plant next to where I was standing. “Something like that. What’s your favorite slice?”

“That’s a tough one; if there was a gun to my head, probably Joe’s.”

My eyes lit up with old memories. “My friend Marty and I used to go to that place all the time.”

“Have a seat,” Terry said. 

“Okay.”

“Choose any you like.”

There was an armless chair and a couch behind it, and I chose to sit on the carpet.

“Is this your first time in therapy?”

“I did some growing up, but this is my first time coming in as an adult.”

He took a notebook out of his coat, and unbuckled it.

“How often did you go to Ray’s when you were at Columbia?” I said.

“Once or twice.” He was jotting things down, making a bit of noise with the pen as it hit the pad.

“I get it. It’s a bit off the beaten path.”

Terry looked at me professionally. “What brings you in today, Allen?”

I listened to rain hit the window. “What were you just writing?”

“A note.”

“Oh,” I said, lifting myself into the armless chair. “I have a swallowing issue.” 

“What kind of issue?”

“I have a hard time swallowing food.”

“I see. Any particular kind of food?”

“Almost any, but especially pizza. The chewier it is — the harder it is to swallow.”

“What about liquids?”

”Liquids are fine.”

“Coffee?” he said. 

I laughed. “It’s pretty weird, right?”

Terry was tapping his pen against his notebook, trying to figure out what the best way to answer me was. I noticed his thin purple socks, victims to time in the washing machine.

“Have you been looked at by a doctor?”

“Yeah. Many, including a neurologist.”

“And?”

“They say I’m healthy.”

“Mazal Tov,” he said, with a self conscious chuckle.

I explained how after the panic attack I had gotten in touch with a gastroenterologist who wanted to get my esophagus tested by a specialist at UCLA. “They stuck this really long thermometer into my throat that took pictures inside of my stomach, and then a few days later the results came back negative.”

“This is the first time I have heard of a phobia quite like this,” he said. “What do you think might be going on?”

Leaning in, I said, “Well, about a year ago, I was drugged by this Hare Krishna monk at a bakery in Hollywood. I’m pretty sure it’s a reaction to almost being murdered.” 

“Wow,” he said.

I told him about a dream that I had been having about the monk. In it, he is holding a box of pizza in the ocean, and it’s in flames, underwater. “Remember the Burning Bush scene in The Ten Commandments?” 

“It’s been a few years since I watched any movies.”

“Oh. Anyway, I’m so fucking lucky that I ditched that bakery because I would’ve fully blacked out for a serial killer!” 

“So, you passed out?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s awful you had to experience that.”

“I know, and this all happened a week or two after my friend and I got into a pretty big fight.”

“I’m very sorry. What was your friend’s name?”

“Q.”

“Q?” he repeated, to make sure he had it right. “Was he a close friend?”

“Yeah, no, not when we stopped talking. We were kind of starting to grow apart.”

“I’m very sorry, Allen. Losing a friend is extremely difficult.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to write a screenplay about it.”

After I finished telling him about my screenplay, the light in the office had shifted, and he looked hungry. “With the time we have left, do you want to talk about anything else?”

Here goes, I thought. “I go numb while having sex, and I think maybe it’s because I’m not into girls or something?”

“When you say numb, you mean in the middle of intercourse?” 

“Yeah, it started with my high school girlfriend. We broke up after.”

“Does this happen often?”

“It usually happens when I’m sober. When I don’t know someone that well it doesn’t really happen, so I end up having one-night-stands to get off.”

“Just women, or men, too?”

“Just women.” I lowered my voice. “I’ve never been with a guy.”

“This sounds like it could be an issue with intimacy.” Terry wrote something down, then looked at me. “We only have a few minutes left and I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier from the bakery.” 

“The Hare Krishna?”

“You said that about a week before the incident, you fought with your friend.”

“Yeah.”

“What was your friendship with him like?”

“We knew each other since elementary school. So we go way back. Went way back.”

Terry began coughing. “Were your families friends?”

“No, our families were different. His was really American.”

“Your family isn’t American?”

“Not like that, no.”

“Where is your family from?”

“Russia,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. And Q’s family?” he said.

“Los Angeles, I think? Maybe Orange County?”

“How did you two meet?”

“We were in the same class in elementary school, and we both liked chess.”

“Your friendship started with chess?”

“I know, right? We were obsessed.”

Terry walked over to the window to grab a Kleenex. 

“Q was one of the leaders of our group of friends when we were young.”

“What do you mean by leaders?” he said.

“We all had to do what he said.” I waited for him to sit down. “Like if Q wanted me to run around the recess yard, or something. If he told me to tie his shoelaces, stuff like that.”

“You would tie your friend’s shoelaces?”

“Yeah. This; it was dumb shit like that, they were bullies.”

“Who’s they?”

“Q and this other guy, Brad.” 

“I’ve worked with patients who were bullied as children,” he said, crossing one leg narrowly over the other, “and this is the first time I’ve heard anything about tying shoelaces.” 

“I guess it is a little weird?”

“Allen, do you mind not touching my plants?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Do we have to keep talking about this? We were really close, and it’s still kind of fresh.”

“I understand. Let’s move on for now.” I switched over to the couch. “Before we stopped talking, I was avoiding him.” 

“How come?”

“It just felt like we were growing apart. I guess because I was pursuing what I was pursuing, what I am pursuing, and he was, you know? Doing a lot of drugs? He had all this money from his parents, and my dad….”

“Your dad isn’t helping you out financially?”

“I wouldn’t say that, it’s just different.”

“How do you mean?”

“My dad is crazy.” 

“I understand. It sounds like your life and Q’s life were going in opposite directions.”

“Yeah.”

“If you had to pinpoint when that started, when would that be?”

“I guess it was right before I went to Russia with my parents… when we both had sex with this fifty year old woman from Florida.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not before… we had sex with her.”

“How did it feel to do that?”

“I was pretty high,” I said, “so I don’t remember.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Q just wanted me to do it in front of him.”

“Had he ever asked you to do something like that before?”

“No.”

“What about when he made you tie his shoes?” 

“It’s not the same thing.” 

Terry poured ice water into our glasses. “Let’s stop there for today.”

I left the water on the table asked Terry if he could help me with my swallowing issue.

He said he hoped he could. “To help us cope, Allen, our minds can sometimes distract us from things we aren’t ready to confront by creating sensations.”

“What do you mean?” 

“For example, and I’m not saying this is what happened, but for example, the struggle you’ve been having with your sexuality, going numb, perhaps your mind is sending your body a warning there.”

“Okay, what kind of warning?”

“Well, right now I don’t know you that well, so we can’t say.”

“Wait, so are you saying I am going numb because of my mind?”

“It’s possible.”

I was confused and didn’t want to offend him. “Interesting…”

“Your mind may be trying to protect your body from a pain slightly more acute.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s continue to explore.”

“Wait, so you’re saying I wasn’t drugged?”

“No, no, no.”

“But it’s possible?”

“If your mind is acting out, Allen, anything is possible.”

I tightened the hood of my jacket. “Do you think I was panicking because Q and I had beef?”

“I don’t think it was to cope with that.”

“Then what?”

“With the chance that you were sexually abused.”

“Wait?” I gazed out the bleary window. “By who?”

“Your friend, and maybe by the woman from Florida.”

“No way. No, I wasn’t.” 

There was a splash of rain, and then an ice cube cracked.

“Please don’t touch the plants.” 

Teenagers were walking by the window, eating pizza. “Sorry,” I said, before remembering to take out my Visa.

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Allen Landver is a bi-lingual writer and poet living in New Orleans. His parents and grandparents are all originally from Odessa and Kyiv in the Ukraine. Recent and forthcoming publications of his writing include Rejection Letters, Rip Rap, Ligeia, and Black Warrior Review.

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21 April 2023