Kris was silent as he picked at the
crust of his supper. His cheek was a bit
swollen and a dozen stitches ran like a zipper up his forehead.
Maggie tried to comfort him, “Don’t
worry about dinner tonight, it’s on me.
Hey, did I tell you, I came up with some great ideas for your writing
career, if this paper doesn’t pick up your column.” This was not a comforting idea. “Ok, ready?
Juvenile literature for adults.
What do you think? I am thinking
sort of a choose-your-own-adventure for grown-ups – you remember those,
right? For instance: for the schmaltzy
happy Hollywood ending, turn to page 215; for the morose European ending, turn
to page 274; for the Memento ending, please begin the book at the last
page and read to the beginning.
Huh? Waddya think? This is gold I’m givin’ you here, Kris, gold! Ok, don’t like that? How about The Very Horny Caterpillar? You know, like that kids’ book?” Kris stared at the table. Maggie took hold of his hand. “Kris, I know that you are not feeling this
right now, but we learned some important info tonight. And you were part of that; actually you were that. You did a good thing – and sometimes doing a
good thing doesn’t feel so good. Why
would Alpha Male have all of those syringes?
And that boy’s got some pretty heavy duty baggage to boot. There’s something going on here.”
“Something feels wrong about Donnie
– something’s not right.”
“You mean, because he’s a man, and
it doesn't fit the pattern?”
“Well, yes and no. I don’t know.
Just, something feels different to me.”
“Yeah, it is a little odd. I can’t seem to get the pattern.”
“And those plastic cuffs. What’s the story there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sort of out-of-place, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hmm. Interesting.
You’re an insightful one, Kris Whitlowe.”
“At any rate, it’s a real shame, isn’t
it? Feels like one of our own.”
Maggie shrugged, “I don’t
know. Reminds me of something Mary told
me. She said: You can’t save ‘em all.”
Kris was quiet again before asking,
“Are you rich, Maggie?”
“Ok, here we go. Alright Kris, so what is rich?” she evaded as if she had been expecting the question.
“Who are you? Caiaphus? Don’t get
all philosophical with me, Maggie Kennedy – I know your secret name. Do you have to work for a living?”
“Hmm. Well, yes, Dad did leave me a little
money. And yes, technically, if I so
chose, I suppose that I could live off of said funds.”
“If that’s the case, then why .
. .”
Just then the small cowbell on the door clanged as someone walked
in. Kris was sitting with his back to
the door and could only see all of the color flee from Maggie’s face. Kris craned his head around to see: It was Kamal Dahak, The Oracle.
“Hello, my babies!” he chirped as
he made his way to the couple’s booth.
He had with him his overstuffed book bag as always, which he plopped
heavily down next to Maggie as he slid in next to Kris. Kamal hoisted one of their empty water
glasses over his head and rattled the ice in it around as loudly as
possible. “Hel-lo-o! I’m dry over here! We need alcoho-ol!” He turned his attention to Maggie, “So what
is up, people? Hey, are you ok? You look discombobulated.”
“I have never been more
combobulated in my life, than this moment, right now,” Maggie replied icily.
“Thank you for inviting me,
Kris. You’re right, this place does have
a certain charm – so authentic. Last one the block for sure.” Kris could feel Maggie silently seethe at
him, and he knew he had made a mistake.
“Don’t you think we must look like Nighthawks
in here, you know, that old Edward Hopper painting?” Kamal piped. “Hm, the boulevard is quiet tonight,” he was
wearing his same work shirt as before, but had a trucker’s cap on from
someplace called E-Z Inn which looked like it had been rescued from a
landfill. “So, where were we? Something about free choice – no! –
Emergence, that was it.” Jimmy came over
and Kamal ordered a Beam and Coke.
“Ok, I’ll play,” Maggie challenged,
“I found a bust in your theory, the one about all colors being arbitrary. What about Nature? Colors have all sorts of meanings in Nature,
even colors that humans can’t see: what
to eat, who to mate with, where to land to get pollen . . .”
“Yes!” Kamal exclaimed, “This is
what I like about you, Maggie, right to it, yeah? (She doesn’t even realize that she is making
my argument for me.) Let’s forget about
all of the non-visible light waves for the moment, earth’s atmosphere being
generally opaque to gamma and ultraviolet frequencies and such. Obviously natural selection would crave those
wavelengths most prevalent in the environment, the ones which Sol just happens
to churn out the most of. BUT! To your point: let us distinguish then perceived worth and intrinsic
worth. Totally different things, yeah? Gresham’s Law tells us that whenever a thing
of lesser intrinsic worth comes in to circulation, the thing of greater
intrinsic worth will be taken out of circulation. He was talking about gold and paper money of
course: we used to trade in gold, but
when we figured out that we could just pass around leaves of pretty paper –
greeting cards, basically - all of the gold got stashed away behind locks and
concrete.”
“I’m not sure you’re answering my
question,” Maggie interjected; Kamal had a way of muddying the waters.
Kamal continued on as if she hadn’t
spoken at all, “Think about music: Way
back when, people were forced to
listen to live music, played by real live human beings – it was all that was
available. Now you and me, we grew up
with albums, big 12” LP’s, or at least our parents did. But then came along CD’s, so the LP’s went
away. Now we barely need a medium at
all, yeah? Music is just a bunch of 1’s
a zero’s – my whole collection on a thumb drive! Hallelujah!
And someday soon, all of my music will be aether itself, snatched from
the atmosphere as it passes right through me.
It’s a continually ever-more abstract medium, see, further and further
removed from the real thing. And the
thing that has the actual real intrinsic value, it gets taken out of
circulation, yeah? And food is no
different, I can get pounds of Ramen noodles and Fruity Pebbles and Mac ‘n’
Cheese for pennies, but an apple grown without genetic modifications and
pesticides and all of that crap added to it – as it has happened unassisted for
thousands upon thousands of years – is now exotic! I have to pay premium prices for a thing that
has sprung unaided from the dirt for thousands of years! Why?
Whywhywhy, Maggie?” Kamal
repeatedly jabbed at his temples, indicating the grey matter within, “Big fat
brains, Maggie! Stupid, stupid
fat-brains. Only humans would work so
hard to make something worse than it already was, and charge more for it. DEVO had it right: we’re not e-volving, we are all just de-volving to lower, more complicated
life-forms.”
As always with Kamal, they were
off-and-running. Maggie knew that she
was every bit as smart as this Oracle,
and really wanted to beat him at his game.
“Kamal, I think the bottom line is that you’re really just talking about
simple mathematics. I mean, this is just
economics after all, which, while elegant, not really all that – mmm – cosmic.”
Every time Maggie threw a pitch to
him, Kamal acted as if he had been waiting desperately for years for someone to
ask just that question. “Mathematics, yes!” he relished the word
like a letter from an old lover, “Ok, first of all, I agree with you, we do not
wish the conversation to degenerate to one upon a topic as base and carnal as
economics, yeah? Because economics is
nothing more than getting and spending, and as the great Andrew Delbanco so
eloquently put it, ‘that all our getting and spending amounts to nothing more
than fidgeting while we wait for death.’
“But! Mathematics!
Yes, now we are into a different territory! What we need to understand about mathematics
is that the universe doesn’t need mathematics, and this only makes math all the
more elegant. Agreed? See, why should the universe care to adhere
to laws and physics? For all it cares,
one plus one could equal tomato. What
does it care? Why should E=mc2,
or F=ma? Why only have 4 natural forces to run the whole enchilada? Why not 100?
Or just one? The truth is that
the universe could get by without any rules at all just fine.
“But she doesn’t, does she?” Kamal looked at her like an unemployed
magician, his eyes all full of angles and want.
“More to the point, yeah, why are certain numbers – the Fibonacci
sequence, Pi, Euler’s number – all hardwired throughout every level of the
cosmos – macro to micro? I’ll tell you
why, precisely because – to us – these numbers are lovely, and that is the only reason. Do you see?
The Golden Mean, for instance, appears to us as a perfectly balanced
proportion; we see it in the petals of flowers, the human form, geometry. We build its proportions into our
architecture and paper sizes and television
aspect ratios. You see, mathematics
is just the universe showing us a little leg; she wants us to want her, she
knows what we like. So what does this
tell us? It tells us that the universe
craves an emotional connection with
us, yeah? Can you – can you just drink
that in? And poor Carl Sagan was the
only one who seems to have ever got it, yeah?
‘The cosmos is full beyond measure
of elegant truths.’ - Oh, my drink is here – yum!” Kamal took a swill of the newly-arrived
cocktail, “But still we silly Earthlings prefer Fruity-effing Pebbles and
yellow number five over intimacy with the wonder of the universe. Poor little fat-brains, Maggie Kennedy. We are no different from a tapeworm, we just
have a few more moving parts, yeah?”
Maggie realized that a conversation
with The Oracle was not a thing to be won or lost, but rather a fun-house ride
through his world, to be held on to as tightly as possible as the car careened
about on its rails: She had no chance of
out-reasoning a man whose universe had no need for physics other than as rouge
and fishnets with which to flirt with humanity.
“Why do all of your stories have the same moral, Kamal?”
“Moral,” he snickered, “A-dorable.
I mean, how quaint. Even the word
itself is a conundrum. None of my
stories are moral, remember? Simply
truisms. And Truth, as our boy here is
beginning to understand, is the third rail of the universe. You can touch it any time you like, but all
that juice might prove a soul-fatal force, brother.” Kamal leered over his tumbler at Kris. A certain darkness seemed to come over him,
“Mind the gap, friend. You look like
hell.”
Maggie didn’t understand why Kamal
was turning his attention on Kris, but she didn’t care for it. Was that a threat? Should she be in protection-mode? “So how ‘bout it, Oracle, you ready to do my
fortune yet?”
“Hmm.” Kamal lit a cigarette and lowered his head so
that his eyes were hidden in shadow beneath the frayed brim. “Yeah, I got you,” Kamal popped a perfect
smoke ring over her head, you could have hung a hook on it. “You are someone pretending to be someone . .
. who is pretending to be someone
else.” And then he added with a
humorless laugh, “But who you really are, I don’t know. . . How about you
Krissy, do you know who she is?” Kris
was lost in his own head. He waved Kamal
off, so the Oracle addressed Maggie again, who, frankly, was a lot more fun,
“You know, it’s like Vonnegut says: Be careful what you
pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.”
“And
what, pray tell, does that mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to be pithy.” Kamal came back to life again , “So! Have you let Kris make the sex with you yet?”
“Someday someone is going to teach
you some manners, Kamal, clean up that pig mouth of yours. We’ve had this conversation before. I told you
. . .”
“Yeah yeah yeah, I know I know, you are woman,
I hear you roar. Yada yada yada. Listen, we’ve been talking about what you
want to talk about since I walked in; do I get a turn or what? Can we talk about something that I am interested in for a moment?”
“Haven’t we been talking about your
stuff since . . .”
“Parasites! That’s what I want to talk about!” Kamal
finished off his drink and clinked his ice cubes for another. “I have been reading the greatest book. Do you know that there are parasites all
among us that are constantly making us ‘higher developed’ creatures do their
bidding? This is fascinating, yeah? I mean, check it out. I can’t tell you about
all of them, but for instance, there is one parasite, this little fluke worm
thing, that will get in to an ant and makes it – instead of going back in to
its nice cozy little hill at the end of the day – the fluke will make the ant
want to go to the top of a blade of grass wag it bulbous little abdomen about
so that a bird will come down and eat it up.”
“Why would it do that?” Kris
asked. Jimmy brought another drink for
Kamal.
“Because it wants to be in the
bird. Actually, no, that’s not
true. It actually travels through as
many six different creatures before
it gets to the host where it really wants to live, which is some English sheep,
I think. Is that not amazing?
“There is another parasite that
will actually make a field mouse feel amorously attracted to a cat; the mouse
will walk right up to a cat, and oo-la-la
mademoiselle, quick as that,” he snapped his fingers, “get eaten right
up. You see, it’s always part of a
Bigger Plan. And we are no
different. You think we’re not full of
parasites and microscopic critters, pulling our strings like marionettes? Don’t fool yourselves, little ones. If something has got to happen, then it’s
just got to happen. It’s Nature at its
most sublime. It lovely and horrific,
and it’s all around us. The fluke worm
is no less beautiful than a rainbow. A
Nutcracker ballerina should envy the lion ripping at the entrails of its
prey. It’s all part of the same song,
the Universal Serenade!
And this is what I am trying to get
through to you, Maggie. Let the boy
couple with you. His urges are not his
own, they are all part of the Grand Plan.
Critters, hormones, whatever,” thick smoke rolled out from under the
skinny man’s cap in a reverse waterfall, “– if it’s got to get done, then it’s
just got to get done, yeah? Just the way
it is.”
Kris was beyond uncomfortable. Maggie was beyond furious. “How about you, Kamal? What if part of the Grand Plan is for me to
cut you in to bite-sized bits and feed you to the cats in my alley, like your
little field mouse friend?” Kamal
chuckled, his eyes occluded in shadow, “There is no right or wrong, Madame, but
only cause and effect. Cause-and-beautiful-effect.”
A spider, larger than the one Kris
had rescued that first day he came to the Shack, crawled onto the table. It was the size of fifty-cent piece and
scurrying right for Kris. Kamal
unhurriedly pulled a surprisingly large pocket knife from the clip on his
belt. He stabbed the blade into the
spider, nailing it to the greasy yellow table cloth. He then silently cut the fat arachnid in half
down its middle, leaving the two hairy halves writhing before Kris’ plate.
Kamal stood and wiped the bug guts
on his pants before replacing his knife in its clip. “Well, I have to run kids. This had been a hoot, as always.” He bottomed his glass up and picked up his
large backpack. “You know, I am a little
low on funds right now, but you can cover me, can’t you . . . detective?” Maggie snapped towards him when he said this;
the code was lost on Kris who was exploring the pulsing pain emanating from his
forehead. Kamal pointed a single finger
at his right eye, charades style, and mouthed the word, “Ob-serve” to
Maggie. Before flitting away, he bowed
deeply from the waist and said, “Au
revoir, mademoiselle, monsieur! Until then.”
