The Ring's Mystery

I published my poem, "The Ring", in the hope that someone would read it and explain its mystery. Or perhaps that Dave, himself, would come across it and answer the questions posed. I learned some things about Buddhism, when I was younger and studying other cultures. And I believe everyone should have the right to worship as he or she pleases. This is, after all a free country. I've had friends from many different beliefs and cultures. Dave was not the first Buddhist I'd ever known or been friends with. He was simply the first ever to get so close to me. You've probably read the poem and know the basics. So, now, I'll tell the story, to help my readers better understand.

I'd lived in Texarkana, for nearly a year, when things began to go wrong. I don't believe in coincidence; it does not exist. I believe everything in this life happens for a reason.
So, when I lost my job, and was unable to find another, I felt something else at work. Then my brother, who lived in Montgomery, TX, at the time, told me to go there, and stay with him and his girlfriend, for a while. I was behind on all my utilities, so I went ahead and had them scheduled for shut-off, and let my landlord know I was leaving. On January 30, of this year, I had everything in storage, except for what I was going to load into my van the next morning and take with me. The next morning, I loaded the van, and my daughter and I prepared for the 300-mile journey, which would take nearly 7 hours. My landlord informed me, that afternoon, that he would've worked with me on the rent, until I could find another job. It was then too late. The utilities were off, and I couldn't afford to pay what had to be paid to turn them back on. It was the middle of winter, and ice was on the ground. I stopped by my old work place, to get snacks, drinks, and gas the van. That's when I was told I could've had my job back. No one had told me anything, until it was too late. I was already heading out.

I lived with my brother and his girlfriend for a month, searching for work. I'd given up hope on finding a job. Then on February 25, I got a call from Mary, the District Manager from the Exxon where I'd applied. She'd wanted me to come to the other store, over in Conroe for the job interview. I had Sedona with me, since no one else was home, at the time. That was the day I first saw the man I now call "Buddhist Dave". He worked there, at Quik-Mart Exxon, and was one of the clerks who kept my daughter occupied, so I could do the interview. I'd never seen a Hindi with dredlocks. Unusual but cool. When I left, I thanked them for helping with Sedona. And the next day, I started work at Lake Conroe Exxon, in Montgomery.

I worked with and was trained by Raj. He was a Buddhist man, who was upset that he couldn't spend enough time with his family. In the first two weeks that I worked there, the crew came to be like another family. It was also in that time that my brother and his girlfriend left for Arizona. Their job was starting back up. That was also the time that Raj was sent to Quik-Mart Exxon to be its new manager.

I came into work on March 12 to find I was working with someone else. Karim, the manager, introduced me to Dave. He smiled at me and said, "I remember when you came into the other store for the interview." Yes, I remembered him, too. The dredlocks are hard to forget.

Over the course of that next month, Dave and I became close friends. And we talked about anything and everything. I also learned he was Raj's nephew, which was the reason he couldn't continue working at Quik-Mart. The odd thing is I never learned the last names of any of the people I worked with. We were all on a first-name basis. We were all like family. And during that time, my van had failed inspection, and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. My daughter had to go to work with me every night, because I couldn't find a sitter, and I learned the landlord of the apartment I was staying in hadn't allowed for other tenants. Karen had broken the terms of the lease. Mary had offered to let Sedona and me move in with her for $400 a month, utilities included. Great deal, actually. But I was trying to figure out what to do about the van.

Then came the night, on or about April 8th, that Dave showed me the ring. And so many things changed. Especially the comfortable relationship we shared. I'd never thought of Dave as anything but a friend, and was, in fact on the verge of starting up something with the stock boy, Aury.

That night had started like any other night we worked together, except for the fact that he stayed past the time he was supposed to. We had another rush of customers, which caused us to have to work very closely together. That was business-as-usual, though. The store was often so busy that I worked the register, while Dave scanned items and bagged them. I remember a customer had come in that night, and Dave was handing him his change. While holding out his hand, he revealed the tattoo of the Ahm on his right forearm. The customer looked at it with confusion, and asked him, "Why do you have a '30' tattooed on your arm?"

Dave only smiled and said, "It's not a number. It's the symbol of my faith."

Then the customer looked at the ring on Dave's right ring finger. "When you gonna sell me that ring?"

Dave jerked his hand back and said, "I'll have to talk to my mother about that."

I remember looking at him and thinking: You're 25. Why ask your mother?

After that customer left, Dave looked thoughtfully at the ring, and told me, "He's always trying to buy this ring." He touched it reverently, and added, "I'm never supposed to take it off." This led to yet another of our discussions on Buddhism. He seemed impressed that I knew so much about his faith.

"Why don't you just tell him it's against your religion to sell the ring?" I asked him.

"It IS against my religion!"

"Well, yeah. Tell HIM that!"

He looked at the ring again. "There's an elephant on it," he said softly. And this led to a discussion of how sacred the elephant is to his people. He twirled the ring around his finger a moment, and then repeated, "I'm never supposed to take it off. All Buddhists wear one." He looked up at me. "Raj has one, too."

I shrugged. "I never noticed his hands."

Dave looked back down at the ring. "It's coral," he said quietly. "There's the shape of an elephant in the coral." He looked at me again. "It occurs naturally in the coral."

"Really? COOL!"

He smiled and held his hand out to me, so I could see the ring. I took his hand in both of mine, to get a better look at it. I saw nothing. I thought, maybe he was pulling my leg. I shrugged, "I don't see it."

He moved to stand beside me, taking off the ring and was trying to show me the elephant's features. "It's the head of an elephant." Still, I saw nothing but the swirls in the coral. At that point, he put the ring in my hand, and turned to stand in front of me, facing me. He said nothing else. Just stood there, watching me study the ring. I turned it first one way, and then another, trying to see what I knew HAD to be there. He leaned over to look and turned it back the other way. I held it up to eye-level, still trying to see it. And I felt him watching me. I shifted my eyes from the ring to his eyes. I'd never seen him look at me so intently. I felt something, but don't know what.

At that point, I looked back down at the ring, and it revealed itself to me, in the way a face becomes apparent when you press it against plastic wrap or something. It came gradually. First, I saw the ears, outlining it. Then I saw the two black eyes. Between them, I followed the line of the trunk. And then I saw the right front leg. I felt a sense of awe and wonder. "WOW," I whispered, then described what I saw. "It's like it's stepping OUT OF the coral."

I looked back at Dave and realized he was looking at me with a look of wonder and awe, too. Our eyes locked, and for a moment, I felt confusion. I felt something I couldn't comprehend. Couldn't explain. It was the first-and only-time I'd ever looked so deeply into those brown eyes. I broke the contact, handing him back the ring. "That is SO COOL!" I told him. He laughed, replacing the ring on his finger.

Before I could ask the question on my mind, there came another rush of customers, and then Dave left for the night. He hadn't looked directly at me again. Though I had seen him looking at me, from time to time. And, the next day, he had to work at the other store. So it was two days before I saw him again. And that's when I realized something had changed.

At first, it was simply the fact that Dave wouldn't really look at me. Even when he talked to me, he was looking down at the floor, and not at me. Though, as before, I did catch him watching me, from time to time. I thought that was odd. Then, when I tried to talk to Aury, Dave yelled to him to go stock the cooler. Or, another time, to clean the gift-shop area. Or another time, to put ice on the small coolers in front. I realized, for some strange reason, Dave didn't want me talking to Aury, anymore. But couldn't figure out why.

On April 11th, I sprained my ankle badly enough that the doctor had thought it was broken. I was off work for a week. It was during that week, having to take care of myself, and getting the notice from the landlord that the apartment was to be vacated on the 26th, that I knew I couldn't stay in Montgomery. It was the first I'd missed any work, for any reason, and I missed the companionship of my friend. Though I thought that friendship had grown weaker, for some reason. Dave and I hadn't talked like we had before. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. I had no family there, no one to help me while I was injured. No one to help with my daughter, while I was laid-up, trying to heal my ankle. No work that week meant also that I had no money that week. No way to get the van fixed to pass inspection. No inspection meant no new tags. And no money meant I couldn't give Mary money to move in there. My only choice was to come back to Texarkana. Close to family and friends, and where inspections are not so stringent. I knew I could get my old job back. So, when the doctor released me to go back to work, I had to tell my manager, Karim, that I'd be leaving. I went back to work on Saturday, April 19th, only being able to give a 3-day notice. I needed time to sort and pack, before the deadline. Everyone was upset that I was leaving, and so was I.

Sunday, April 20th, was the last time I ever saw or spoke to Dave. I'd hoped to get his number and exchange email addresses, to stay in contact. Things don't always go the way we plan, though. I got to work at 2 pm. Dave was scheduled to work until 6 pm. I noticed a difference in him, immediately. He was avoiding me completely. Didn't talk to me, at all, during the shift-change or during the first rush. I asked him if everyone was upset that I couldn't give a 2-week notice.

Dave paused, looking at me coldly, and said, in a very sarcastic tone, "At least you GAVE a notice. Some people just don't come back." Then he turned away from me again.

I continued to watch him for a while, trying to figure this one out. Dave had never been hateful or icy with me before. I finally asked, "Is anyone MAD at me, for leaving?"

No hesitation, at all. He whirled around to face me, his eyes flashing with rage like I'd never seen. "WHY ARE YOU LEAVING?" He shouted the words viciously. I'd never seen him angry. Didn't even realize that, as a Buddhist, he was capable of such emotion. I took a step back, totally shocked. Then, I began trying to explain to him my reasons for leaving. He stared at the floor, while I talked, chewing his lip. The anger seemed to leave as quickly as it'd come. I saw something else on his face that I had no name for. When I began to talk about how alone I'd felt, during that week I was off, I saw a brief moment of pain on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, and then clamped it shut. He didn't even look at me. He shook his head, turned, and left.

It took me an hour to realize he was actually gone. He hadn't even clocked out. I thought: Well, damn, I guess we weren't as close as I'd thought. I'd thought he'd be the one I could talk to. He didn't come back either. Nor did I see him, during my last two days. That was the last time I saw the man I came to call "Buddhist Dave".

On Thursday, April 24th, I finally had the van ready. We were packed and ready to go. I stopped at Lake Conroe Exxon for the last time, to return my store key and stock up and gas up for the trip. Only Karim, and a new guy-Billy-were there. Karim told me, before I left, that Mary would've let me go ahead and move in with nothing upfront, and he would've sold me the car he had up for sale. It would've passed inspection. Then he told me, if I ever come back to Montgomery, he'd hire me back, in a heartbeat.

Strange. Once again, I was pushed to leave, only to discover, at the last moment, that I could've stayed. If I'd had a little more time to work with.

My first two months back in Texarkana, were busy for me. I had many things going on. But the one question that plagued me was: Why was I led to go down there, only to have to come back, three months later? I asked myself that question often.

Then, suddenly, in early July, I began dreaming about Buddhist Dave. Just replays of the nights we worked together. I hadn't even thought about him, since the day he'd walked away from me. Why was I suddenly dreaming about him? Every night, I dreamed of the moments we'd worked together. I'd wake up every morning, confused. That went on, all through July. Then, just as suddenly, the dreams stopped. So I stopped thinking about them.

In August, the dreams began again. Only now, the only night that replayed and looped repeatedly, was the night Dave showed me the ring. It replayed in every perfect detail. I was watching the whole scene as an objective observer. And, after two weeks of this, I realized I'd never asked him the question I'd meant to ask that night:

Why did he take off the ring, when he'd just told me, twice, that he was never supposed to remove it? And why did he let me hold that sacred ring, to study it?

I began to meditate on the dream, and the memory. But nothing would come to me. I tried searching across the internet for the answers. Still no answers came to me. I'd thought about calling the store to talk to Dave, and then decided against it. After the way he'd acted that last time I saw him, I figured he wouldn't talk to me.

In September, Hurricane Ike hit. It hit that area worse than here. Dave had lived in an area not far north of Houston. I thought, again, about calling; again, I decided against it. I didn't think Dave would talk to me, and wondered if anyone else remembered me. I instead sent an email to Mary, to find out how everyone had fared the storms. But she never answered.

In late September, I meditated on the question of the ring, again. This time, an image came to me: I saw the Ahm from Dave's tattoo. In front of that, I saw the coral stone from the ring, with the elephant in all its detail. Behind this image, I saw Dave's eyes, watching me, as he had that night. But when I tried to meditate on the image, all I saw was a replay of that night. It became a mystery that began to torment me. The ring stuck out in my memory. I kept wondering, is it important? Was Dave trying to tell me something? If so, then what was it?

I wrote the poem "The Ring" in an effort to tap my subconscious mind for answers. And none came. I published the poem, in an effort to reach out to others who might know. Though no one seems to know. After I published the poem, the dreams began to change.

The Ahm was the size of a wall, the image from the ring was life-sized, and the elephant stepped out of the ring. Standing before me was a life-sized coral elephant, staring at me with Dave's eyes. The mystery deepened.