Altruistic Genie

“Do a kindness unto another person for a pain of equal and opposite proportion unto yourself.”

Read part 1 here!

Part 2

I hurried to lunch. We ate at a different bench than we did at break. This bench faced the front lawn and was a little separated from the other benches with hedges, giving it an illusion of seclusion. Jason, Avery, and I had nicknamed this bench ‘The Loner Bench,’ which we thought was fitting because we used to not get as many lunchtime visitors as we got now. Natalie was one of these visitors.

Natalie was a welcome addition, though we got a few unwelcome additions, such as Cathy, the new girl to the district this year. She was a little chubby, but that’s not why she was unwelcome. She told us stories about how she used to fight or bully kids at other schools; uncomfortable was an understatement. She either picked up on this uncomfortable feeling we had when she was around or the cold shoulder we attempted to give her, although our good natures would kick in most of the time, and we would offer her some form of engagement or a spare grape or granola bar. She soon stopped eating with us. I didn’t see her much, but I remember she sang the national anthem or the alma mater at graduation.

Today, we welcomed Maya and Natalie. Maya was welcome because of her know-it-all charm and on account of Jason knew her from Hebrew school at their temple.

“Are we still on for this weekend?” Avery asked.

“Do you mean tonight?”

“Yeah, tonight. When should we get to your house?” He was talking to Jason. His house, closer to downtown than either Avery’s or mine, which were in the surrounding mountains, was the natural meeting spot.

“I don’t know, after dinner? 7 or 8.” We were planning to sleepover, a normal occurrence I was worried could only become more reticent as the SATs and college apps approached.

“You forgot this!” Natalie announced her arrival by shoving her poster at me.

“Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to take it.” I apologized.

“I mean, do you want it? You don’t need to take it.” She sounded disappointed.

“No, no! I want it.” I said, twisting my face in such a way I hoped would reveal honesty. The gold-glitter letters would look good on my wall.

“Oh wow, you asked him already? She told me her plan. Thought you were gonna do it next week! The dance isn’t for three weeks.” Maya chimed in. “Super cute!”

“I couldn’t wait!” Natalie raised her voice over the bell.

Jason and I had bio next, but today was one of the days I fell asleep in class. Almost as soon as we got there, Jason was shaking me awake and it was time to go.

Today was Friday, so I went straight home from school. I didn’t have debate practice and I had time to nap or watch TV before the sleepover. If I was in a really good mood, I could endure SAT practice. Well, I thought I was headed straight home, but I ended up turning onto a garage sale on Almond Blossom and off of Blossom Hill. It seemed like more instinct than conscious choice that made me follow the signs to the garage sale. I saw signs like that about three times a week, and I had never been to one before. Maybe because I had extra time that day I decided to go, and since I was there already, I decided to check it out.

The first thing I noticed was a tremendously large pile of clothes. It was about half my height tall and one-third my arm’s length wide. I didn’t think I owned that many clothes. I didn’t need new clothes, and if I did, I don’t think I would’ve wanted them to be used.

I moved on. I saw a few stacks of books, but on closer examination, most of them were Jules Verne, and most of the Jules Verne were books I had already read. On the table, I saw a fairly recent Coldplay CD, and I would have bought it if only it were two dollars cheaper. Next to the CD, I saw a lamp.

The lamp was a combination of aluminum and engraved mahogany; silver and red. I was strangely drawn to the old, dusty lamp. It struck me as the kind of lamp I would gift to a friend; it was not the kind of lamp I would keep. So on a whim, I bought it. The lamp cost $14, and I didn’t even know what I would do with it.

When the woman running the garage sale rang me up, she spent a good ten seconds admiring the lamp, touching it upside and down.

“Take good care of this lamp. It’s special--”

“--I will, thank you.” I cut her off, suddenly anxious to leave. Her loving tone was off-putting. Her smile was crooked. She seemed to love the lamp less than she was pretending to.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

I didn’t think too much of it. I rushed home, dropped the lamp off on my bed, made myself a snack of some yogurt and berries, and plopped myself in front of the TV. After a quick dinner, I made my way to Jason’s house. Avery arrived a few minutes after I got there. We started the night off with a game or two of Settlers of Catan -- the game is like a mashup of Risk and Monopoly insofar as it involves both territory expansion and trade. When the three of us played, anything was possible: Embargos, boycotts, free trade, and I think Avery even tried to introduce taxes at one point.

Tonight, I was winning. I traded in a sheep, ore, and wheat, for a development card that gave me a Victory Point, so I just needed one more to win. Avery must have realized how close I was to winning, because he gave Jason all his cards to help Jason at his own expense in the hopes that Jason won that turn. I guess he realized he couldn’t win and figured that Jason winning was better than me winning. Avery was the decider of this particular game, and he decided that this was a fair or equitable division of the available pain and pleasure. It could have been distributed innumerably many ways.

After finishing the board games, we left Jason’s house as discretely as possible in his car. We went up Foster road in downtown to the top of a hill overlooking the entire town. This was one of our favorite smoke spots. I liked it because it guaranteed privacy with an awesome view, and it was only a few minutes’ drive to 7-11.

Jason packed the first bowl, which we passed around almost silently with the music playing over the car speakers. While Avery cleared the ash out, he said. “I need to pee. You guys wanna join me?” So we all left the warmth of the car and crossed streams in the cool evening breeze. I could see the sun setting under the facade of Los Gatos’s downtown, which quickly became a silhouette.
I broke the quiet under the rippling sound of our piss hitting the dry hillside. “So, we’re probably gonna end up at different colleges, huh?” I stared into the center point where all the streams met. “What happens then?”

“Well, hopefully we’re not too far apart.”

“And if we are, we’ll obviously talk and stuff.” Avery chimed in.

“Plus, we really don’t need to think about that for another year, year and a half anyways.” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

It was quiet again as my pee stream slowly receded. I prayed the wind wouldn’t change direction.“But, like, we’re gonna be friends even if we go to college on opposite sides of the country?”

“Of the world, dude.” Jason enthused.

“A little distance isn’t gonna hurt our friendship.” Avery mused.

“I love you guys.” I said finally. “You and Nat and Maya. We’re all gonna be permanent friends, I can tell.”

“What do you mean permanent friends?” We started walking back to the car.

“Some of my friendships right now I just know are not gonna last after high school. Those two sophomores I drive to lunch after French. We’re only friends because we have a class together. Those kinds of relationships are temporary. But with you guys I know it’ll last after high school.” I reclaimed my seat in shotgun.

“Aw. And Nat and Maya?”

“Yeah, I think them too. I really like Nat.”

“We know, dude. We know.”

“But, yeah. I love you guys too.”

We packed another bowl. We got milkshakes, went back to Jason’s house, and went to sleep.

“Good morning boys! Why do you sleep so late all the time?” Jason’s mom woke us up with a start. She was Japanese, so she pronounced late with a half ‘l’ and half ‘r’ sound. Lrate.

“You guys need to leave soon.” Jason said. “I have a lot of homework.”

“Nonsense!” Jason’s mom joined in with warm hospitality. “You buys should stay for breakfast.” She looked at the clock on the wall, which read 11:15. “Lrunch.”

“Thanks mom!” I said, to Jason’s chagrin. I stayed at his house so often I had started calling his mom ‘mom.’ Over winter break, maybe even more than I stayed at my house.

Avery and I acted on a compromise between Jason’s sentiments and his mom’s. We stayed for a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee and then left.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

As soon as I got home, I went up to my room. I saw the lamp on my bed, and suddenly I was bothered by how dirty it was. I picked up a cloth and began dusting it, slowly at first, and then faster and faster.
I became aware of a plaque on the lamp a few minutes after I started dusting it. The plaque read: “Do a kindness unto another person for a pain of equal and opposite proportion unto yourself.” Almost in a haze, or a daze, I kept cleaning the lamp, rubbing it, especially around the plaque. I wanted to make the plaque shine.

Cross my heart, the room filled with smoke. It’s weird now to think that while it was happening my biggest worry was that my mom would see it and think I was doing drugs. Before I could realize what was happening, the smoke condensed into the shape of a person. The shape of a person condensed further until a tan man in a suit emerged.

He was standing tall for his height, his arms spread out like he was about to start praying. He appeared completely open to me. It was relaxing how open he was.

“Alejandro.” He said. “At your service.” He bent over to humble himself.

“Whoa.” Was all I could say for what felt like minutes. Then: “Are you a genie?”

“Djinn, yes.”

“I thought genies were Arabic?”

“Well, this one is Spanish.”

Apprehensively, raising one eyebrow, “Do I get three wishes?”

“Yes and no. Not exactly. Not by my rules.”

“What do you mean not exactly? And what do you mean not by your rules?”

“Please do not raise your voice at me, sir.” I didn’t even realize I was raising my voice. “Genies can set their own rules. Forget everything you think you know and listen.”

He waited for my reply. “Ok.”

“I used to be what you would call a traditional three wish genie, and I did that for years and years. Then I grew tired of everyone’s selfishness and excess. I changed my rules to force people to think of others.”

“What’re your rules?”

“You have to wish for a benefit for someone else and you get some suffering for yourself. That keeps the karma and luck of the universe in balance.”

“What do you mean, ‘karma…?’”

“Karma balance. People don’t realize this, but every wish anyone makes causes a natural equal and opposite reaction. When I gave everyone three wishes, this was self-contained. That is, each wisher got equal parts pleasure and pain from his wish. When someone wished for a million dollars or to win the lottery, that person got his money, but his friends would start looking at him differently. Their eyes flash dollar signs all of a sudden. They start asking for money and expecting lavish favors. Invariably, a wish for money drives a wedge between the wisher and his friends. I noticed that even though this was ‘balanced’ for the wisher, his friends would become greedy, leading them all to a whole lot more negativity and negative consequences than just the wisher losing his friends. This is a kind of pain chain reaction.”

Alejandro unbuttoned his suit jacket to sit on my bed. He put his hands on his knees. I nodded to communicate understanding. “And that’s just one example. Say you wish for love, the universe gives you a clingy and unbalanced relationship. Again, I’ve seen time and again that this cosmic ‘balancing’ leads to more pain than pleasure. The two lovers have a falling out, and this affects their friendships and future relationships, too.”

“And by forcing the wish to be a kindness to someone else…” I struggled to use his jargon, “You think the way the karma balances out creates more pleasure than pain?”

“I know it does. It’s painful for you, but you know why you get the pain. Knowing the reasons behind it make it easier to deal with. And at the same time, the pleasure you give another person creates a ripple effect they carry with them for their whole lives. Usually, the kindness affects the people around them for even years to come. More pleasure than pain. I’ve tried different paradigms, and this seems to be the best one.”

My jaw must have dropped, or something else must have tipped Alejandro off to my shock. I closed my eyes forcefully and opened them a few seconds later in an attempt to will myself back to reality. Alejandro pressed his hand to my back and said, “I know this is a lot to process. Take some time to think about everything. If I were you, though, I would be more careful saying the words ‘I wish’ now because rubbing that lamp binds us together. Now, even if the lamp’s not with you, whenever you say ‘I wish’ directed at another person and the wish is pointed in the positive direction, it’ll happen. Be careful about that.”

I peeled his hand off my back and stood up, silently. I went to the bathroom to shower. I wanted to take a shower then because I did some of my best thinking in the shower. The warmth and steam gave me a feeling of security, and with it came the ability to think more freely.

When I had decided with sufficient confidence that a) I wasn’t dreaming and b) this was really happening, I turned my thoughts to deciding a course of action. The words equal and opposite bounced around my head. You don’t like anyone as much as you like yourself, so why would you willingly give yourself equal pain to another person’s pleasure? I asked myself. You wouldn’t, I answered back. I would graciously thank the genie for his time and patience, and then I would tell him to find someone else. To find a better person than me.

I returned to my room wearing a towel and noticed that Alejandro averted his eyes while I got dressed. I respected him more because he gave me privacy. “I won’t do it."

“You should find someone else. A better person. But really, thank you for your time and patience.”

A laugh bubbled from him and filled the room, surrounding me. “I can’t do that. Rubbing the lamp bound us together. I’m stuck with you until you either die or make three wishes, whichever comes first. Or, you’re stuck with me.”

“I’ll just throw the lamp away.”

“You can try that if you must, but you’ll see. The lamp will keep coming back here, no matter what you do with it and I’ll come right back along with it.”

“I just won’t make any wishes. What happens then?”

“Nothing happens. I can’t force you to be a nice person. You’ll just have the lamp as a reminder of your selfishness for the rest of your life.”

I sat on my bed, willing myself out of my room while the walls slowly closed around me until I was in a container as small and confining as I imagined a lamp would be.