IT WASN'T BETZ'S COKE. She bought it at Morelia, the fried-taco-shell-smelling taqueria on K Street. She bought it for Edward who annoyed her because he only craved Cokes "from a bottle, old style," so he sent her sometimes out of her way to get them, to go to Morelia which was just near the bus station, which was surrounded by the kind of "pain-bodies" Betz was learning how to avoid.

Her newfound love was spiritual enlightenment literature. She was well-versed in all the Pema's, the Chodra's and the Gustav's and she was intent on being in the now, choosing the less traveled road, finding the seat of her soul and checking in with herself in the moment. Unfortunately, the moment was ugly ugly and Betz had a terrible inclination to absorb everything her eyes took in.

And she had eyes that took everything in, even now as the crowd waiting for the bus took her in. She was noticed. It was the wiry frame of her body that seemed to clip straight through the air. Were her feet touching the pavement? She was swayed to the ground, like a pine bent in the wind, she pushed forward, always walking like it was a struggle. She looked pained, too—her white face a caricature of a doll in consternation, one solving some kind of higher math equation. It was tucked under a scarf that covered most of her head. She could have been a priestess.

She was walking this way, thinking about the pain-bodies of Tolle's The Power of Now. Without any judgment, she was trying to take in the legless woman ramming her wheelchair into the brick wall. She was trying to see herself from above judging and then let go of that judgment. She was trying just to see the boy who wrapped his thin body around the bus sign like it was his mother. And she was trying not to fear the huge knot the size of a softball coming out of his kneecap, beyond the line of his low-cut basketball shorts.

"Do not judge them," she said under her breath while trying to hold the very tip of the Coca-Cola bottle to keep it from getting too warm. Edward, her boss, hated them too warm. He was always putting them in the little office freezer and asking her to clean up the explosion. "If you kept them cold from the start, this wouldn't happen," he said, pointing at the paper towels near the fax machine. Like a bird, she bent.


"DO NOT JUDGE. YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND." Over and over she said this, waiting to feel the incredible warmth and lightness of her true being.

Benny noticed this shell of a girl housing a woman. He noticed that she carried a real Coca-Cola bottle. He noticed that her pale face was enshrouded in a scarf.

The woman banging her wheelchair into the wall saw that the bus had arrived. Her arms quaked to turn the chair around and she ran it right into Betz. Betz tried to avoid her but her mind was above time. It was traveling somewhere near the atmosphere, not judging at all but focusing on the present, until her leg hit the wheelchair and her body hit the pavement. The crash of broken glass reached up to her ears as the shards dug into her left arm.

"Goddamn bitch," spat the woman. She missed the bus. "Bitch don't know where she's going. Don't watch where she's been."

Betz tried not to cry. She re-wrapped her scarf around her head and clenched her fists. But the tears were there. They had seen her pale bald head. They were judging, destroying her ability to be in the now.

Benny spoke softly, "hey. Hey you. Come on. Let me get you another Coke. You okay?" She wanted to disappear. To fall below the sewer like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. But she needed that Coke and she'd only brought enough money for the one.

"I don't have much time," she said to Benny. She tried not to stare at his red-wild dyed hair or the uneven cut of his eighties black jeans. They were slung low on his girlish hipbones. He looked like a mix between a gothic Marilyn Manson fan and a drummer for Warrant.

"I have all the time in the world, but what you can give me will do." He winked. Dark eyes behind thick lashes, the kind Betz tried to imitate with a wand dipped in black mascara. She couldn't decide if he was pitiful or beautiful. She tried not to judge.

He took her arm like she was a senior citizen and again asked if she was all right.

"Yes, I'm fine. I can walk fine." She brushed him off and stood straighter, her hands reflexively tightening the scarf around her head.

He walked faster then and she tried to keep up. "You should just take that thing off. I can't see your ears and ears are very important."

"It's not a fashion statement."

Benny stopped. "Did I say it was?"

"Well, you seem to have your own colorful sense of style. This, this is a side effect of a much larger issue."

"Cancer." He said it like he would say french fries.

She didn't know how to respond to such flatness. People grew concerned. They pitied. They prayed. They carried her through spaces of air like she was made of glass or shell. His response annoyed her. She walked past him. "Like I said, I don't have much time."

"Maybe my physical appearance is also a side effect of a much larger issue," he said again flatly. "You're on your lunch break from work?"

"Yes."

"They let you work with cancer?"

She wheeled around, feigning offense. "It's not like I have AIDS." Her face flushed and she readied herself to attack. How dare he.

"People with AIDS work. Haven't you ever seen Philadelphia? There's laws for it." They were nearing Morelia and the smell made Betz nauseous.

"Yes, whatever. I get them there," she pointed. "It's the only place around here that sells Coke in a bottle."

"Not everybody cares to drink them that way." Again, a kind of half-wink like he was trying to make up his mind.

At the counter, she held out her hand for his money and he bought one, too. "Let's just sit here for a bit and drink them."

"It's not for me. It's for my narcissistic boss. Part of his obsessive-compulsive routine. Bottled Coke after lunch, Mrs. See's truffle early afternoon. Blue pens in the top drawer. Red in the second," but she stopped herself. She wondered where all of this was coming from and just how far she could go on unchecked. Rage. What would the enlightened gurus think of her now? What had happened to her stronghold, her commitment to being in the present?

He opened the door and motioned for her to step outside. The dense gray of day was burning off and Betz felt her face go warm.

"I think you need to sit down on this step with me and drink the bastard's Coke. Tell him it was stolen from you by a punk kid with dyed hair. You won't really be lying," and Betz had to smile. Her fingers twitched toward her scarf and she undid the hurried knot. The Coke was cold. Perfect. Straight from the bottle. Betz's Coke and the lightness of being.


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