A Naked Singularity: A Novel (34 page)

And so like the more thought I gave to Mrs. Benitez, the more convinced I became that the oscillating fan in her room was not her idea at all but was like more or less forced on her by Mr. Benitez. He would say things like he works hard and the kids have their entire fan-buying future in front of them and she would grudgingly go along but when it got unbearably hot, truly so, she would exert her will and on those nights she would spread a sheet on the sofa and other smaller sheets on the floor of the living room so that every Benitez might share the one fan as it oscillated throughout the night, fro and to each appreciative member.

And it was Good that this woman would later nod and swell as they talked about her son.

But then after a while the voices I imagined weren’t about Benitez at all. They were about me. And the voices spoke to
my
mother.
Never seen anything like it before
they would say.
Miles ahead of where so and so, yes him, was at this stage
. And the people saying this weren’t chumps like you and me, they were the foremost experts in their respective fields and they exhibited genuine urgency too. Now the greatest beauty of it all was that my Talent, whatever it was, was so immensely profound that it wouldn’t require any of that annoying Hollywood-montage-best-song-on-the-soundtrack-type training/nurturing that is invariably led by a recovering alcoholic, formerly great, last-chance-at-redemption guru. Instead
it
, the Talent I mean, would simply squire me around. It would define me with its purpose and occlude the remaining universe of choice so that if someone asked me why I did what I did I could truthfully answer that I had no choice. Ah dreams.

From maybe six on there was a piano in the house, brown and small (the piano). A minuet written by Mozart when he was three. The fingers move in a manner that’s technically correct yet somehow not fully right and if you want to come closer to the proper sounds and silences you need Alana to play it.

As a young boy Einstein was taken to see a military parade. He saw the soldiers in strict formation, started crying inconsolably, and had to be taken home.

When he was twelve, this would be like 1635, Blaise Pascal used a lump of coal to figure out Euclid’s proofs on his playroom floor. In addition to huge contributions to physics, nascent calculus, and the theory of probability, Pascal invented the first calculating machine. In his
Pensées
, he argued that we should wager that God exists since we have less to lose that way.

Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner were tight. More than that really, in Dick’s music Freddy—who once said that without music life would be a mistake—saw a majestic synthesis of all art. In his essay
Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
he urged the German people to treat the coming Wagner festival as they would a sacrament.

When he was twenty-five, Nietzsche watched a cavalry troop pass through Frankfort. During the war with France this happened. It was then he had a vision that shaped his entire philosophy for in this collection of armed soldiers he saw a Will to Power.

When, in 1876, the Wagner festival in Bayreuth became a reality, Nietzsche disapproved greatly. Here was the frivolous in-crowd elbowing aside the true devotees and, what was worse, Wagner hamming it up for them. Disgusted by what he called the feminism and dishonest idealism that had infected his friend and his friend’s music, he split abruptly. When they ran into each other again in Sorrento, Nietzsche turned to Wagner and said:

“Remember me?”

No, wait. That can’t be right. What he actually said was:

“Yo, remember me?”

“What?” I said.

“Remember me? It’s me DeLeon! You beat my case remember?”

“Yeah, Ramon. Hi.”

“I was just telling everybody what a great lawyer you are man. Look man you have to take over my case from this Leaves guy! You know how to handle a case of mine! I can pay you, he said he would talk to you.”

“Hold it, stop. You can end your pitch right there. I already took the case from this Darren—”

“Derrin.”

“—character. So what happened?”

“Oh man thank you!”

“What happened?”

“I got caught man.”

“Caught doing what?”

“Selling.”

“Selling what?”

“Coke, man.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re guilty.”

“Yeah I’m guilty.”

“And you were guilty in my case too right?”

“What do you mean?”

“The case where we went to trial and won? Remember that case?”

“Yes.”

“You sold in that case too right.”

“All right man I’m going to be straight with you. I did sell.”

“And you sold here. You want to go to trial again, is that it?”

“No man. I ain’t taking it to trial.”

“So what do you need me for? If all you need is a plea, this Leaf guy is perfectly capable of talking to the DA and getting you a deal.”

“Nah man, this time I’m selling everybody out is what it is. I already talked to them cops.”

“Selling who out? And keep your voice down.”

“The guys I work with and shit.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m giving them up man. I’ll tell them cops whatever I have to tell them to get up out from under this. I’ll be a CO and whatnot.”

“A CI?”

“Yeah, a CI. That’s what I meant.”

“And you talked to the cops who arrested you about that?”

“Yeah at the precinct. And the DA too.”

“And?”

“And they know I have good shit to tell them man. They want to work with me.”

“Good for you. That means you need me even less and you can keep the attorney you have now.”

“No way, this is too big. I don’t trust him, I need you.”

“Did you tell him about all this.”

“No, that’s what I mean. I don’t trust him”

“What trust? All he has to do is stand there while you tell the cops what you know. A properly-trained monkey could do it.”

“Nah man, I don’t want that guy.”

“Fine. You know you’re going to be indicted today.”

“I know all that. They said I would be going to supreme court and that I should talk to you, to my attorney, to tell you to call the DA about setting up a meeting.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thank you man. I won’t forget this. Listen if I give them really great information, you think they could get me up out of here?”

“I don’t know. They don’t really promise anything until they hear what you have to say but it’s a possibility I guess.”

“Great. Will you be out there when I see the judge?”

“See you then.”

“Okay.”

I wasn’t surprised when I saw Dane as I left court that day. Somehow it had the feel of a planned meeting. And when he started right in as if continuing following a brief interruption I was similarly unfazed. But it was late and I had to meet someone.

“Where you headed?”

I had told him yesterday. My sister had set me up with some doctor. Well I had done the actual calling and arranging and such but it was only at her urging and she was my brother-in-law’s cousin’s sister’s hairdresser’s best friend or something and if I didn’t get a cab in like forty seconds I would surely be late and there was the matter of a potential wrong foot to be considered.

“Why are you so intent on making a good first impression? She hot? What does she look like?”

The distinction then discussed was the one between trying to make a good first impression, for example during a job interview, and simply following the mandates of common courtesy of the sort involved in returning a basketball to a successful shooter. And where exactly lay the relevance of her appearance of which I had no clue?

“Funny you should mention a job interview. You’re nervous aren’t you? Like audition-type nerves right?”

Not in the slightest.

“Naturally, who wouldn’t be?”

I wouldn’t. And wasn’t.

“And they’re an ugly kind of nerves too, ones that cut to the quick. I realize that society has long since placed its imprimatur on the activity but you must admit that a date is a deliciously odd thing if you break it down,”

Meaning we shouldn’t.

“Remember that a person is nothing more than the sum of how he is perceived by others, a truth a date probably reveals better than anything. You might dispute this, you might point to people, maybe yourself included, who seem to not give a rat’s ass what others think of them. You might also point out that, at any given moment during a day, the average person does not seem overly or manifestly preoccupied with what others think of them. However, as a thought experiment, imagine a seemingly secure woman being informed that she is about to be told definitively how every single person she knows truly perceives her. Their incontrovertible, and completely devoid of artifice, opinion of her. Such a person would lose it. She would start to sweat. Mentally, she would try to convince herself that she didn’t care what these people thought. But the way she would do this is interesting. She would most likely tell herself something like she doesn’t care what
those idiots
think. This need to downgrade the opposition is supremely relevant and gives you an idea of the hostility engendered by the tension of the situation. No matter, because ultimately she will not be able to convince herself that she doesn’t care. She will know that she stands on a precipice with a very real danger of an emotional landslide. What she would realize, and what anyone else in her situation would realize, is that the wrong answer can be devastating. And mostly devastating in its ability to create reality. If everybody thinks you’re an asshole and you think yourself a gem guess what? You’re an asshole! And if you confront one of these asshole people and say to them
hey everybody thinks you’re an asshole, what’s your response to that?
I bet you he doesn’t say
that’s okay I know I’m not an asshole
. Instead he’ll probably say something like
the people who know me best know I’m not an asshole
. Either that or he’ll try to convince you that despite appearances he is not, in reality, an asshole. In other words, he instinctively recognizes that you cannot combat an unfavorable perception others have of you with your own self-perception you can only either try to change that perception or combat it with the more favorable perception of others who you will argue are better informed. In short, all that matters is what others think. This is why women stick their fingers down their throat, men lick some fat guy’s ass to make more money, and certain eight-year-olds feel genuine terror at the thought of getting on the school bus.”

Interrogative expression because what was the relevance of all that to someone who had to get in a cab like that instant?

“The relevance is that the reason you’re so nervous is that a date, especially of the blind variety, crystallizes this normally diffused anxiety into a fixed space-time point. The pressure builds to enormous proportions as you realize your place on the display shelf. On the bright side, unlike a job interview, this audition is a mutual one. Meaning you have two people wanting to be liked, well
liked
is probably not the right terminology. What you have is two people who want the other person to be impressed by them. But there’s a self-defense element as well so one of the things they want the other person to be impressed by is how little they need that person’s validation. Look at me, they say nonverbally, I am one impressive, self-contained motherfucker who doesn’t really need your approval but please agree with this self-assessment or else I might start to doubt this perception of mine which deep down I don’t really believe. And therein lies the beautiful irony of it all. The beauty is that while these two people are expending tremendous effort, and considerable subterfuge, to create an impressive veneer they are actually subverting their chances of making a connection, the purported goal of the date.”

I really had to go, could he please stop talking so I wouldn’t feel rude?

“You see what I’m saying? The more you impress this doctor, which of course you do in part by feigning disinterest, the less likely it is that she’ll think you are in turn impressed by her, which of course is her paramount concern, whereas your impressiveness is like tenth on the list of things that matter to her. Notice I say tenth on the list. I don’t discount it entirely. The reason for this is that if she thinks you are a completely unimpressive individual then the fact that you are impressed by her is of limited value to her and therefore unlikely to ever sufficiently satisfy her psychic needs to the point that you two will connect. So that’s the very predictable equation at work here, one where, by avoiding the extremes, the less impressive you are to her the more impressed by her you better be and vice versa. Of course, remember that deep down she probably doesn’t think she’s all that impressive so if you mess up the equation and are disproportionately impressed by her then she’ll in turn view you as less impressive with all attendant consequences. Got that? We can state the equation and its impetus another way. What matters to the average person, vis-à-vis dating relationships and such, is not any particular quality the contender may or may not possess. What matters is how they feel when they’re around that person and whether they get sufficient stroking to offset, for those moments anyway, their insecurities. So you’ll hear a woman talk about her boyfriend and it becomes apparent that what most recommends him is his obsequiousness. He buys her flowers every day, tells her how beautiful she is. So even though yeah he’s a bit of a schlump, he’s just so good to her. And they, meaning she, have a lot of fun when they’re together. He’s romantic, that’s the quality he has if pressed. I know what you’re about to say about people seemingly attracted to those who treat them poorly but recall that the equation . . .”

A raised hand near a cab before an apology during an exit and how do you forget to ask someone whether it’s true they’re dying?

I liked about cabs mainly the abdication of responsibility so I always left it up to the driver to decide how to get somewhere. I suspended all judgment and opinion. That’s what I paid the big bucks for, to close my eyes.