A Naked Singularity: A Novel (76 page)

“Would one of them be around more often than the others?”

“yes that was gary, he was my real dad but then he would drink and he would have to leave, so someone else would come and stay until they left, like that.”

“You have no brothers or sisters right?”

“i had a big brother but he’s an angel now, he was always an angel, even before i was born. my mother said he was only here for three weeks before he had to go to heaven because he couldn’t breathe right. he was one of the people in prayers at night.”

“I see, did you always live in the red brick place?”

“yes in the red brick always. that’s where i was when the police came to rest me that night. i was hiding in a closet but my mother said i had to come out.”

“In school why weren’t you in special classes?”

“the teachers would say i should be in a different room but then my mother would go and yell at them and they would keep me where i was. the teachers really wouldn’t mind because i was quiet. and when i was old enough i quitted.”

“You were quiet?”

“yes . . . i . . . had a stutter then.”

“Did you get into fights at school?”

“no never.”

“Never?”

“no.”

“Did you used to get in trouble in school at all?”

“no.”

“Why did you quit school?

“i wasn’t graduating and then the sizers started coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“sizers i started having.”

“Seizures? Is that what you’re saying? You started having seizures?”

He did, every few weeks even though there was no indication of them in any of the meager medical and school records I had. And he said they only started after the Big Bike Headache, which I gathered was an ugly unaddressed head injury that resulted from a school prank involving Jalen’s bicycle. From what I gathered that bicycle must have been quite a sight. It was called a Rose Lady, it was his mom’s, and it had one of those absurd banana seats and those exaggerated fenders that curl around the top of the tires. It was Jalen’s daily means to and from school and it was the kind of thing other kids tend to notice. One of the kids who noticed it took a wrench and completely loosened then removed the screws that attached the bike’s body to its front tire. When the bell rang ending that school day, a larger crowd than usual gathered around Jalen’s bike, and though they took extra care to avoid his eyes a nervous laughter seemed to course through them as Jalen got on. And those bikes are designed fairly well because, though wobbly, it actually managed to ride forward a short while. But only a short while because the parking lot Jalen rode in was covered with things like shattered glass and spent cans and when that front tire met its first resistance it immediately quit while the rest of the bicycle continued forward. The quickly ascending rear wheel pitched Jalen past the handlebars and drove him face-first into the choppy pavement. Jalen said that against the crowd’s laughter he just picked the glass out, wiped the tears and blood off, and pulled the bicycle home, the body with his hands, the amputated wheel over his shoulder. He told no one what had happened and the seizures started coming a short while later. We spoke about other things like that.

“What about that night, the night you were arrested?”

“i did it.”

“Why?”

“for money.”

“There was no money, why’d you do it?”

“i don’t know.”

“Maybe you didn’t really do it but you’ve convinced yourself you did, is that possible?”

“no i did it.”

“Maybe for some reason you think you should say you did it, maybe to protect someone, but you didn’t really do it.”

“no i think i should say i did it because i did do it and it’s wrong to lie my momma say, right it’s wrong to lie?” And many other similar, only slightly varied, and increasingly desperate exchanges between us until I accepted that I would fail miserably at the most critical aim of my visit. And time was running out.

The Guard came in. He told me what I already knew then left.

“why are you mad?”

“I’m not mad at you kid.”

“you look mad.”

“But not at you, just at things. I’m almost always mad, you understand?”

“i think so.”

“You heard kid, I have to go soon.”

“i know.”

“But the last two days have helped I think. I discovered a lot that’s going to help your case.”

“really?”

“Really, we’re going to do everything we can.”

“why?”

“Why?”

“because you have to?”

“No because we want to. We’re your friends, I’m your friend.”

“why?”

“Why? Because I like you Jalen and because I didn’t have any friends before coming here and I needed at least one.”

“oh.”

“Anyway remember that even though you may not see me again that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you, or that I’m not working on your case, or that I’m not still your friend okay?”

“i understand.”

“I’ll write you more letters. Everything is going to be all right Jalen.”

“sometimes i get scared or really sad but when you were here i didn’t feel that way as much.”

“When you feel that way think about something nice. You have nice things too. Think about that football game you went to that time or that flower dress your mom wore for your kindergarten graduation or that valentine you got in second grade or think about maybe getting out.”

“maple?”

“Sure, when you feel bad think of Maple.”

After I signed out The Guard handed me a folder.

“This was what I was talking about before,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It’s an A.S.P., an anti-sympathy packet.”

“A what?”

“Right, well I’ve been doing this for many years as you know and, despite the way I earn a living, I am not a monster. I realize that people who actually come in direct contact with our guests will as a result almost always begin to feel a great deal of sympathy for the condemned man. I myself am not immune to this by the way. Anyway I have a lot of contacts in the Alabama criminal justice system so with their help I took to putting together these packets if you will. Basically they consist of graphic evidence, the more graphic the better, of the misdeeds that landed the sympathy-receiving guest here in the first place.”

I opened the folder, saw some colorful photos and reflexively turned away from them.

“See? Never forget that counselor. The ultimate punishment administered here is severe, that’s true, but it’s also only meted out to the ultimate offenders. Look at this picture for example. You see that in the upper right hand corner? Those are teeth. Human teeth blasted off a face like so many Tic Tacs. See how her jawbone hangs from the skin?”

There were other pictures too, showing more open-eyed matter in crimson puddles.

“It’s not just pictures either counselor. Read those reports if you want to know more about the people in the photos, like their names, how they lived, what their relatives thought and felt when they heard the news, what they said in court. People who never did anything to your kid other than exist in his vicinity. I’m not trying to be an asshole son, just maybe reminding you that there
is
another side to this. I think if you focus on that from time to time when you need to it might help.”

That last night at The Orchard it got quieter with every passing minute. The previous evening’s party was well over now and the whole of SERPENT was in rapid exodus from the hotel. No one seemed to be replacing them either as a sepulchral calm filled the empty gardens.

Whenever I stepped out of my room for even a second, five maids would be waiting by the door with nothing to do, waiting to possibly clean my room. That night I went to sleep very early again and my dream picked up where the one two nights before had left off. I was on the street and hungry. Strangers would give me tasty morsels of food but whenever I went to sink my choppers into them, that I might gulp them down into my vacant waiting belly, they would turn into assorted Battlestar Galactica action figures. What hunger too. And when I woke up I saw why the hunger because the room-service dinner I had ordered the previous night lay uneaten on the tray near my bed. And I liked the things on the tray, the way everything was small and toylike. The tiny ketchup bottle with the typewriter-size 57 and the shrunken cans of drinks that were soft. The food was still there but now congealed and inedible.

Checking out in the lobby, I saw Santangelo as he entered the corner of my eye.

“Have you given any thought to extending your stay with us young man?”

“Hello B.M.”

“Actually I just received the formal paperwork this morning. My legal name change finally came through. I am now Mr. Big Mac Wideload Santangeleeskees.”

“Big Mac Wideload?”

“B.M.W. for short. B.M.W. Santangeleeskees.”

“Okay B.M.W. thanks for everything.”

“Not so fast. Can I convince you to stay longer, at no charge of course.”

“No charge?”

“Yes, we have plenty of vacancies at least until the next convention, which isn’t for several weeks.”

“Thank you B.M.W. but—”

“Just a minute now, I’m prepared to offer you a veritable protective cocoon here at our facility. I will use every resource at my disposal to ensure it. You will be like a pink, plump infant who wants for nothing and of whom nothing is expected. What do you say? Your womb, I mean room, is upstairs waiting for you. I can recharge the key right here. No need for words, I can see the answer forming on your face as we speak. I’ll go ahead and charge it up.”

“No, no B.M.W. I have to go. Right now.”

“If you’re worried about the plane tickets they’re not a problem I can take care of that with a couple of clicks or even one double-click.”

“Thank you but no, I better go.”

“If you insist then, but if you ever again need anything round these parts let me know lickety split. Remember the name, BMW Santangeleeskees.”

On the flight back I avoided all pills, it seemed wrong to take them. I wanted to experience whatever the flight would give me without any decrease in sensation or awareness. So this time when the stewardess came by with the headphones I snagged them violently, hoping for distraction from my mounting sickness. But someone at the airline must have screwed up because when the movie came on I saw with dread that it was the same flick from the earlier flight, the Story of Jackie and Trevor. Except that now, fully awake and armed with audio, I saw that the movie was entitled Terms of Bereavement and it was actually a comedy. But not a good comedy where witty people trip and wear funny outfits either, rather one that relied principally on the smug knowingness of its audience. A comedy in name only, neither divine nor vulgar. A comedy in error, full of irony and self-reference and signifying an empty nil.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubt, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties
.

—Francis Bacon

When Alana and I were but squirts, a trip to the airport was as good as it got. To begin with, such trips almost always occurred late on Friday nights, an already magical time of the week where what passed for pressure and responsibility was drained from our little lives. Then there was the airport itself with its tiny coin-operated Televisions, beeping golf carts, and revolving luggage carousels. We liked pretty much everything about it, especially the end result because a trip to the airport almost always meant someone was coming from Colombia and they would be staying with us, which would mean chaos in our home; chaos being almost universally welcomed by squirts growing up in highly stable homes like ours and probably loathed by our opposites. I for one would have to sleep on the sofa if, for example, my twin bed and Alana’s had been joined and tied together at the legs for Buela and Buelo to sleep in. And I loved sleeping on that sofa because whatever inexplicable material it was covered in managed to maintain itself at a temperature ten to twenty degrees cooler than room temperature and what could be better than that for sleeping?

And no one in our family ever, for any reason, did something like take a cab home from the airport or stay in a hotel while visiting family. So expensive and wasteful. Other people permitted those things when their families visited but they were the wrong kind of people. Quiet, unemotional people who at all times thought of nothing but their self-interest. People unwilling to make even temporary sacrifices. People who viewed things like trips to the airport and overnight guests as extreme impositions and so declined or threw money at the problem.

When I told Alana about my travel plans for that Monday she said she feared I was beginning the not-terribly-long process of becoming one of those cab and hotel people. She said she would come to the airport, in my car, and pick me up; thereby avoiding, or at least delaying, my probably-ineluctable descent into that unfeeling frost.

All of which sounded nice and helpful until I found myself sitting in the precise area we had agreed to meet and there was nobody around who even resembled Alana. I began to lose even the scant hope I initially had that the great many number of things that could go wrong with an endeavor like ours would not go wrong on this occasion. For one thing, Alana could quite easily have forgotten our arrangement entirely as I was unable to make the customary night-before-reminder phone call and in fact during my three-plus days in Alabama, despite repeated attempts, I was never able to execute a simple phone call to a location outside The Orchard. Then there was the matter of the airport itself with its many gates, flights, and screens with changing numbers and letters, none of which represented great Alana strengths. I could be there all day.

I knew what I was going to do in now less than two days and I wanted to go in there with the right mindset. I wanted to think positive thoughts so I thought about Benitez and what happened after he lost to Leonard. The problem with the loss to Leonard, well one of them anyway, was Wilfred’s reaction. The great boxer hates to lose. More than that really, he fears and despises it down to the final gasp of his soul’s air. In fact he can so little accept loss that even obvious losses are followed by inevitable, sometimes insane, excuses. And this is not a generalization about a group of people called
Great Boxers
. Rather this is a partial definition of that term: a concept that has great intuitive appeal when correctly considered. Losing a boxing match is not at all like discovering that another person is better than you at a particular skill. Remember that Boxing is basically fighting. If someone outfights you then you have to come to grips with all that entails. Being outfought, or worse knocked out, means you have been emasculated and are subsequently less of a man than your opponent. In other words, if the world consisted of just you and him, he would get what he wanted and you wouldn’t. You have to understand that notion to be a great boxer because there is nothing that will motivate you to continue taking an obvious beating, not love of money or fame, not enjoyment of athletic competition, other than the fear inspired by this realization. The great fighter’s arrogance will not allow him to concede that another person is better than him and this refusal
makes
him perform better. The problem with Benitez in the loss to Leonard was how easily he seemed to accept defeat. When the referee stopped the fight handing Wilfred his first loss, a TKO loss no less, Benitez didn’t argue with him even though only seconds remained in the fight and he didn’t seem badly hurt. Instead he smiled as if
no big deal
then exerted almost as much effort trying to congratulate Leonard as he had the previous fourteen rounds. It was almost as if he was relieved he had finally lost and more than one observer thought they saw this.