"The Tip of the Crystal"

The Sedona Cracker

  I entered the New Age Center, which was actually a long room with some folding chairs, to see a performance by my friend Michael. The room was already full so I found a place near the rear. The first thing I noticed was that I was overdressed. The second thing I noticed was that as people came in they would approach others and engage in dramatic, drawn out hugs. I decided that these people must be related in some way. After some time had passed I realized that either everyone in the room was related or that something rather strange was going on. Everyone was hugging everyone. The hugs were followed my meaningful looks into each others' eyes. The words "aura" and "chakras" were repeated ad nauseum. My mind was a swirl of thoughts and I was somewhere in the ether produced by fatigue when a woman approached me.

  "You must be Paul," she said with a smile, arms outstretched in a foreboding bear-hug. I nodded and was then enveloped in my first Sedona hug. I was reminded of my childhood where propriety (and my mother's backhand) demanded that I be smothered by the embrace of any and all relatives. I fell back into the helpless immobility of my youth. As I wasn't sure how long the process was supposed to last, I waited a while, assuming she would release her hold before too long. The hug showed no signs of abating. I continued to wait and wondered why it was taking Michael so long to start his performance.

  "Perhaps a friend of hers will enter soon," I wished to myself, and then ammended the thought by adding, "and that friend will be in need of an immediate hug." Nothing changed. I repeated my plea in case the wish fairy didn't hear me the first time. I was feeling very uncomfortable. I wondered if my shirt was getting wrinkled. I finally realized that I would have to do something to precipitate the conclusion to this interaction, so I responded with two short squeezes. I didn't know if there were standard operating procedures to hugs, but I assumed that my physical acknowledgement would be the "uncle" necessary for the removal of what now felt like a life-size tumor. It worked! She unhugged me. I felt myself getting lighter. Perspiration flowed in streams down into my pants. I inhaled and stepped back, fearing the possibility that these hugs might come in sets. She smiled and said that she knew Michael, that he often spoke of our friendship, and how she sensed that it just had to be me. She was right, it had to be. After exchanging some pleasantries she remarked that I seemed to be a little out of balance, and since she was a chiropractor, would I mind if she did a small adjustment? Out of balance? Hell, I was hug overdosed.

  "Adjustment? Uh, sure, go ahead," I heard myself say. I had read about Hollywood starlets marrying chiropractors but I had never been to see one. I knew that they had something to do with easing pain through the strategic "cracking" of bones. I also knew that they weren't considered real doctors. I imagined her sneezing in the middle of the adjustment and leaving me with a permanent neck deformity.

  She had me sit down in a chair and stood behind me with her hands on each side of my face. She began to move my head from side to side. I felt self-conscious and was worried about what people might be thinking. (This was a habit I had acquired in Hollywood.) As my mind attempted to find some humor to this situation I heard a crack.

  "Please God," I thought, "don't let this be an irreversible fracture." I had let my imagination run wild. It created a thriller. This woman played the part of a mad chiropractor who broke the neck of anyone faking a hug. The bodies of nonhuggers were found tied to massage tables. Their necks were twisted so that their faces looked down on their buttocks. The word "HUG" was tatooed on the victims' foreheads with acupuncture needles. "The Sedona Cracker," as the newspaper headlines had dubbed her, was finally brought to justice by an undercover policeman whose prior employment as a circus contortionist made him the obvious choice of the department. She spent the remainder of her life doing backrubs to inmates in exchange for incense and dolphin posters.
 

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