Another vignette from Rajyogi’s box of memories.
It was somewhere around the beginning of 1983. Everyone on the Ranch had just gotten alternative work, and I was chosen for Zorba the Buddha in Antelope. So I was flipping veggie burgers one day when the Security guard came in and asked me if I would relieve him, as he had been guarding for hours and was dying for a sleep.
I said “Sure,” gave my spatula to a co-worker, and went with him.
We got in his truck and drove down to his house. He was about to get out, and I said, “Wait a minute, what do I do if something happens?”
He replied, “Don’t worry, nothing ever happens in Antelope.”
“You don’t know me, crazy stuff happens to me all the time!”
“Okay, if something happens just pick up the Motorola and push the button and say, ‘Zero come in, this is Antelope Security,’ and tell them the problem. They will tell ya what to do.”
“Okay, now you can go, have a good sleep,” I said.
So I was sitting there looking at the empty road and twiddling my thumbs and wondering what to do for a few hours while he sleeps.
I had been sitting there guarding Antelope for not more than 30 minutes, when, as I was gazing into the distance, I saw this car flying down the road, coming, I thought, from a ranch house that was up there. I said to myself, They are driving so fast, with a huge trail of dust, I hope they don’t crash! The car was getting closer and finally turned into Antelope. And then the woman driver slammed on her brakes and yelled out the window, “Please help me! Call an ambulance, my husband has just shot himself!”
And then she took off to Zorba’s.
I thought, Now what the fuck do I do?
After a few minutes she came back with a girl working in Zorba’s, with all these sheets, and they stopped and said, “Call an ambulance, we are going to try to save him.”
“I should go, I am trained for medical emergencies, maybe I can help him,” I said.
So the Zorba’s girl got out of the car, I gave her the Motorola and said, “Call the Ranch and tell them what happened, and ask them to send an ambulance.”
I got in the woman’s car and she took off like a rocket.
We arrived at the farmhouse and stopped at this pickup truck that was there, and I got out. I could see a man lying on his back on the ground, blood everywhere. His head was totally blue and he was not breathing,
I checked his pulse and it was still there, if faint. I saw where the bullet had struck him in the neck. I cleaned blood and matter out of his mouth and started doing CPR, with my thumb held over the bullet hole.
A few minutes later this guy came up, I guess a farmhand, and asked what he could do, so I told him, “You pump on his chest after I blow in his mouth.”
And we started… and every time I would blow and him pump, all these blood-spatters would hit me in the face.
We went on and on. The man’s color had changed, instead of blue he was white, but still we were keeping him alive. We had been doing CPR for over an hour. I was so tired, and completely drenched in his blood, but I knew I could not stop, for he would die.
All of a sudden the ambulance arrived, with Osho’s doctor driving, He came over to me and said, “Okay, I will take over,” and I said, “Ya got to be ready, Devaraj, he will die if you’re not quick!”
Devaraj said, “I’m ready, stand back.”
And I just fell back on the ground, so finished, too tired even to clean the blood from my face.
I watched Devaraj try one machine after another and they all didn’t work, and then he felt his pulse and looked at me and said, “Rajyogi, he is dead.”
I just burst out crying and couldn’t stop. I’d been so determined to save him, he looked like a nice man, I felt as if I knew him… It was so strong, I couldn’t speak, I could only look at him, tears running down my cheeks.
Soon after, the Oregon State Police arrived, and Devaraj told them what happened. They looked at the gun and the gun rack in the back of the truck, and said that he had pulled his gun off the rack and it had gone off.
The State policeman just looked at me, my whole head covered in blood, and said, “You must’ve been the one trying to save him.”
I said, “Yes sir, I gave him CPR.” (I found out later that I’d done it for close to 2 hours.)
The policeman said, “Okay, it looks like an open and shut case, it’s an accidental shooting.”
About that time another ambulance arrived from Madras, and they put the man’s body on a stretcher and put him in the back.
His wife came up to me and hugged me and said, “Thank you so much.”
I am sure she could hardly see me with the tears in her eyes… She said, “I will take you back to Antelope.”
“Thanks but I would like to walk… I need to be alone.”
So I walked slowly back to Antelope, feeling so totally blown apart…
Adapted from a post on Facebook
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