Graffiti

A child with a pink ball is running and laughing out loud. A few steps behind, her parents are locked in a muted but bitter dispute. All three are heading down the steep, narrow path leading to the Japanese stone garden. Upon reaching it, the child bounces her ball across the meticulously raked sand. Her father shouts and runs to catch up with her. He grabs her roughly from behind and spins her around to face him. Then, he slaps her hard with his open hand. The child staggers and falls. - She is stunned and silent now, whimpering softly to herself at the edge of the garden; while her mother retrieves the ball, leaving the imprint of her footsteps in the sand.
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Corbitt has just stepped onto the viewing platform of the Ryoanji Temple at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A can of red spray paint is concealed under his jacket.

The platform is almost deserted save for the young couple sitting against the back wall. They are reading a hand-out about the temple's rock garden. All three are wearing the disposable paper slippers that are supplied at the entrance with the understanding that shoes are to be kept outside.

The garden is an exact replica of one that has enjoyed a successful run in Japan for over five hundred years. Corbitt had visited the original one twice, two years ago, when he had been to the Orient on a business trip. It had left a deep impression on him, though he could not have explained why.

He sits down at a point just to the left of center near the front edge of the platform. The two young people behind him glance up from their pamphlets. The boy returns to his reading presently, but the girl's eyes continue to linger over the somber shades of the garden.

Corbitt is taken aback when he realizes that it is precisely from this same perspective that he had viewed the original garden. As then, his eye glides naturally to the open area of crushed rock directly in front of him. (None of the major configurations of stone interest him for the moment.)

The bright bed of finely fractured stone blinds him to detail at first. But soon, the parallel patterns - dragmarks left by the points of a rake - begin to emerge throughout his field of focused vision. The patterns appear to be shifting under his steady gaze, almost as if something were about to materialize in this vast illuminated field.

"If light is energy, and energy is indeed merely a manifestation of mass, then there might almost be enough of the stuff here to create something from nothing. Perhaps this explains the five islands of rock and moss which are only now beginning to intrude into my consciousness", thinks Corbitt. "Perhaps someone long ago - or was it I, myself even - had stared long and hard at the empty light and had organized that light into stone; from there creating the rest: moss and ants and men with rakes..." The people behind him are stirring. They get up and head for the exit. The girl looks back at Corbitt before rounding the corner. A pale smile flickers across her painted lips.

Corbitt's thoughts take flight to an earlier time, to a different soil, to when his own situation seemed to conform more rigidly to the proven principles that govern upward mobility. He notes that the only constant between then and now is this garden. He had kept a diary then. His entry after the first of two visits to the Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto comes back to him:

There is one garden in particular which struck my eye and imagination. It is the famous rock garden at the Ryoanji Temple. It was constructed by a landscape artist in accordance with the principles of Zen Buddhism. The scene, briefly, is this: a rectangular sea of small white pebbles in which 15 rocks of varying sizes are arranged in groups. One is supposed to sit quietly and meditate. The mind struggles for comparisons. Depending on the vividness of one's imagination, anything is possible. Given that one sits there long enough, the mind will at some point cease its struggle and see the garden simply for what it is: a semi-random arrangement of stone. This final stage is difficult to achieve, even under the best of circumstances. And here at Ryoanji, conditions are far from perfect. Loudspeakers drone on intermittently. Hordes of tourists are continually either arriving or leaving. Their faces are infinitely more arresting than this simple study in serenity. And the eye and heart are so easily nudged away from pursuing the disciplines required to...

"It's the same alright," Corbitt says softly to himself, turning his head slightly to the left to focus on the first grouping of rocks. There are several in the group. The largest is worn smooth, suggesting age. Contemplating this island, Corbitt sees it as a fixed entity. No longer are there any shifting patterns awaiting an act of creation. Creation is already a fact. It occurs to him that there are only two factors that can drive a man to madness: one is emptiness; the other is the weight of too much. Corbitt is astounded by the garden's perfect balance between the two.

Just to the right, and a few feet behind the first grouping, are two more stones. As in the first group, one dominates the other(s).

Then, shifting his attention still further to the right - skipping over the empty white field of crushed stone directly in front of him - Corbitt studies the third grouping. Here, the dominant stone is rather angular. It has a white vein extending diagonally across one face of it. It and its companions form perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing alliance.

Could these rocky islands possibly represent family groups? Or nations on the five continents? Or the set of someone's emotions, graphically depicted here as being so out of touch with one another? Or is it just a rock garden, a rectangular sea (360 sq. yds.) of finely crushed stone on which fifteen rocks are randomly placed in groups of three, five, and seven (as the guidebook explains)?

Corbitt studies the next grouping, and the next...

His mind once again flips back over the years to his own encounter with Japan. He wonders if the large neon SEIKO advertisement is now complete. He had watched the laborers work on it from his hotel window in Tokyo that first afternoon. It certainly was destined to take up a vast stretch of emptiness and, perhaps, even to dominate the entire skyline from that particular vantage point.

Now Corbitt shifts his weight. He looks about furtively while reaching inside his jacket. The can of spray paint slips out and rolls over to the extreme right of the platform. He goes to retrieve it.

After having returned the can to its nook under the jacket, he remains there to continue his meditations. But something is wrong! The new perspective changes the garden. Rocks that had earlier appeared larger than others, now seem diminished. The veined, angular stone, described earlier as being a part of the third grouping, now appears almost round. And rocks that were altogether hidden from view, now make a first appearance; even as others with which he had become so intimately familiar, now have completely disappeared. This is a different garden. He does not recognize it. He flees back to his original spot: just to the left of center, directly in front of the bright open space.

Now his eyes drop to the border of flat, slate-gray stones which lie sandwiched between strips of concrete edging. The eye is often drawn here to find relief from the blinding glare in which all possibilities writhe so insistently.

For some reason the circumstance responsible for his present unemployed status comes to mind: He had worn lipstick and eye shadow to work at the office that day. He had been quite pleased with himself in the mirror that morning. The cherry-red lips, the sensuous arcs above the eyes had taken the accent off his prematurely knotted brow somewhat.

The reaction at the office had been pronounced; people seemed to be avoiding him all day. He was excluded from his daily dose of gossip by the water cooler. Only the boss would speak to him later - just to say that he need not return in the morning.

Corbitt wasn't exactly surprised. He knew the rules: white shirts, vested suits with subtle ties, polished leather shoes, and weekly visits to the barber shop. There was no mention in the dress code regarding make-up for men. Still, it may well have been implied.

On the other hand, his accounts had been in order and a fair number of fresh prospects appeared certain within the coming months.

Now he is jobless. His life is open and unstructured like this bed of white sand where certain events may yet conspire to happen: a glance, a footfall, a smile... Who is to say what precise combination of events is the one that produces moss and rocks and men with rakes?

Corbitt thinks these thoughts and more, quietly vexed by his inability to achieve this garden's implied promise of release.

Finally, just two and a half minutes before closing, he does manage to attain some sense of unity when some slight movement distracts him. The static perfection of the garden becomes momentarily unhinged and Corbitt recognizes his opportunity. His senses respond to a single sound: that of a dry leaf scratching across the white surface of raked stone, propelled by a hesitant breeze. Its brittle points leave no mark on the stone (the way the rake did). Soon it will have reached the wall where, in time, it will disintegrate to become the stuff from which new living shapes are spawned.

The guard has entered the garden. He walks silently across the platform. His size twelve shoes leave odd-shaped patterns of moisture and mud on the wooden surface. Corbitt remains unaware of his approach. The guard puts his gnarled hand heavily on the younger man's shoulder. Corbitt starts, and turns to look up into the old man's tired eyes.
"I must lock up now, son," he says. "Do come back tomorrow."
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Note: Some readers might note a problem with the numbers in GRAFFITI. The math just doesn't add up. The rock garden at Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto is a real place and the descriptions of it - as well as those of its replica in Brooklyn (which today no longer exists) - are accurate. I submit that any problem in logic that may come to mind can sometimes be accounted for in the inevitable gap between fact and perception.