A Naked Singularity: A Novel (83 page)

I looked up just in time to witness a celestial transfiguration. The new terrestrial darkness allowed the heretofore invisible above to emerge, as the sky, now cleansed of all mortal light, became dotted with astral pinpoints. I went out and wandered the streets; for the first time in that hyperkinetic place, walking beneath the stars.

I cannot believe that God plays dice
.

—Albert Einstein

The world of the happy is quite another than the world of the unhappy
.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Today’s Citibank temperature is absolute zero. Once again the current Citibank temperature in Central Park is absolute zero. That temperature is bought to you by Citibank. Citibank. If you bank in the city, bank on Citibank to do your city banking. Citibank. You can bank on them. Back to you Dave
.

Jim I thought the Third Law of Thermodynamics pretty much forbade that temperature from ever being reached
.

I have no idea what you’re talking about Dave. I just report the number, I don’t get involved with the legalities of the situation or any of those other extracurricular shenanigans
.

Okay, well I wonder, Jim, if there are any special precautions our listeners should take given that the temperature is absolute zero. Absolute zero is rather cold is it not?

Good question Dave and yes absolute zero is indeed cold as in the generally accepted value of minus 273.15 degrees Celsius and I don’t even want to get into what that means on a Fahrenheit or even Kelvin scale
.

The precautions Jim
.

Right, well in terms of precautions there really are none adequate to the situation. I suppose I would counsel people to stay indoors for one. If you go outdoors you will die. The cold will stop your heart in its very tracks, petrify your flesh, and freeze your blood so that it ceases to circulate. You will die
.

What about the homeless Jim?

They’re not listening to this Dave, they’re already dead
.

Like my dream in The Orchard where I was scrounging desperately for food, this dream borrowed heavily from present reality because when I woke up the cold in the room made my eyeballs recoil from the lack of eyelid protection. And as cold as it was in that bed, even beneath multiple covers, I didn’t even want to imagine coming out from under them and onto the bare hardwood floors. But there was a definite knocking. And waking up into that cold in that way made me think of being a squirt and awakening in our tiny cold apartment where the only heat was in the very immediate vicinity of the unpainted radiators and how my mother would take the polyester uniforms we would wear to hear nuns yell at us and place them on top of those radiators so that when we were ready to slip them onto our chubby little bodies they would be nice and toasty and in large measure combat the frost of that place. And I looked for the radiator in my current bedroom, so I could put my prospective clothes on it, but couldn’t find it. I heard more knocking on my door. The radiator wasn’t anywhere. I looked in the rest of the apartment. No wonder it was so cold, there wasn’t the slightest hint of a radiator anywhere. How had I ever been warm in that place? I felt reasonably certain that the apartment had contained, at some past point, multiple radiators, but at that moment it was undeniable that no such contraption existed in that forsaken place and also that there was still that persistent knocking on my door that would need attending.

When I said
wait
to the knocking door I saw my breath escape taking most of my valuable inner warmth with it. I walked to the door with my comforter wrapped all over me and three separate times almost fell on my face. It was Alyona.

“Hi Casi, sorry, it’s almost eleven-thirty I didn’t think you’d still be sleeping.”

“Me either.”

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ve noticed there’s no heat.”

“Noticed.”

“Well, I’m sure you know about the blackout.”

“ . . .”

“The whole damn city practically, no electricity. Seven hours and counting too and since we’re among the unfortunate few around here to use electric baseboard for heat I guess we’re shit out of luck. I told my uncle to leave those damn radiators alone but he was adamant that it would save money. Can you believe the timing? Wait, it occurs to me you’ve been sleeping, do you even know there’s been a blackout?”

“The radiators?”

“I know, they’re gone.”

“But when?”

“While you were in Anchorage remember? Ridiculous timing too. So you knew about the blackout?”

“Yeah but you’re saying they still haven’t gotten power back?”

“Exactly, all of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn have no power whatsoever.”

“Are like major riots and shit going on?”

“Good instincts but no. Everyone thinks the combination of the late hour of the blackout, which meant it was fairly quickly followed by the emergence of the sun, along with the ridiculous cold, is keeping people from flouting the law, against their base instincts of course. Nonetheless, there’s a great deal of worry about what will happen in about six hours if power isn’t restored given that people will have had time to digest and plan.”

“Oh.”

“Bottom line is this is a time we’ll probably never forget. You should see the Promenade. Anyway I just came up to tell you the deal with the heat and to offer you my cousin’s apartment in Staten Island where we will be sleeping tonight if the heat’s not restored.”

“Thanks, nice of you, but I’d probably just go to my mom’s or something.”

“Right, didn’t think of that. You get used to dealing with these guys like Angus and Louie who have no family for miles and you forget you know?”

“What do they say about it?” I said pointing at the paper in Alyona’s hand.

“Who Angus and Louie?”

“No, The Post.”

“Oh they got screwed big time. You know they’re the only paper actually printed in Manhattan so they lost all their power too and had to go with what they already had. So while everybody else has some cool variation on Darkness Falls or some such nonsense, they’re stuck with this. See for yourself.”

I looked at the front of the paper where it said MASSACRE! above a split picture of the sidewalk of 123rd Street and the inside of 410. I gave the paper back.

“You believe it?” Alyona said.

“Yeah.”

“So where were you last night? Angus was trying to introduce you to someone.”

“I was here.”

“No cause we thought we heard you like really late but then when we knocked no answer.”

“I was sleeping, deep sleep. I’m sick.”

“Telling you man, got to get that ear checked out.”

“It’s not my ear, my ear actually feels pretty good come to think of it.”

“So?”

“Just sick.”

“Well whatever it is, this cold won’t help.”

“No.”

“Well Louie and I are going to get some food. Want to come? There’ll be heat.”

No thanks I said and he left.

I remembered the baby so tried the phone, it didn’t work.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to meet my new nephew. I knew my entire family was in noisy, celebratory congregation, most likely in my mother’s house, even on a Wednesday morning, and I wanted to be there for that. Alana and I were the only ones who lived in New York and I knew from her message that she was already there. If I wanted any information I would have to go home.

I looked out the window. I didn’t see any chaos but the immanent stillness was possibly worse. Suddenly I was really hungry and regretted saying no to Alyona’s invitation. My initial reaction was almost always to say no to that kind of thing then, almost as often, to nearly immediately regret it. The apartment was so cold it made me feel hollow. I decided to go down and try to catch them before they left. Then I would get in my car, go home, and see everyone.

Angus answered the door and I saw that I’d already missed the others and Angus didn’t know where they’d gone only that they’d gone to get food and he had not gone with them because he was sure that at any moment everything was going to be all right and power would return and everything that was
off
in his apartment would go
on
again and he wanted to be there at the precise moment that happened just as he’d been there and fully cognizant at the precise moment everything went dead; he wondered, he said, if it wasn’t warmer in my apartment given that science tells us that heat rises.

“Who tells us that?”

“Science.”

“Oh. Well I don’t think my apartment is any warmer. I think the heat has to exist first before it can rise.”

“There’s always heat.”

“Not if its absolute zero.”

“True, but it isn’t, so there’s heat.”

“All right then, where is it?”

“It’s around, I’m sure, it’s just not having any effect.”

I went inside when he asked. I watched him as he returned to the middle of his sofa then I looked at the black screen as it reflected my face back at me. He wore a hat, I had never found mine, and one of those ridiculous coats that’s all bubbly and doubles your girth. His face was drained of all color, his visible hair shone with grease. He chewed at the skin on his fingertips.

“You okay Angus?”

“In what sense?”

“Do you feel all right, in that sense, because you don’t look great.”

“I’ve been better, no question about that. But be that as it may, I’m still perfectly sanguine about the fact that we are going to get through this little problem in a matter of a few more minutes. This too shall pass Casi.”

“This blackout?”

“Yes. I have faith, you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I am twenty-three years old and in those twenty-three years science has never let me down. And it’s not going to let me down now. Two years before I was born was the last time we had one of these, at least on this scale, and you cannot seriously expect me to believe that for the duration of my entire life Father Science has not adequately investigated and prospectively remedied the deficiencies that occasionally cause us to become cloaked in unnatural darkness.”

“Forgive me but isn’t the strongest proof there’s been no prospective remedy what you currently see when you look out the window?”

“But I have faith, faith in science.”

“Okay.”

“Faith.”

“You still going to school? I mean figuratively, of course, from your computer and everything.”

“School?”

“Yeah Columbia, Psychology, that school?”

“Oh.”

“So?”

“Columbia yes, Psychology no.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’ve seen the light and now realize that terms like
social science
are devoid of meaning. Psychology is no more a science than astrology and here I was studying it like some hairy caveman magically transported centuries forward in time and oblivious to the news; the news being that in Science man has found his long-sought panacea to all that ails us. Really, how did you keep from laughing when I would tell you I was a psych major?”

“So what’s your new major?”

“Physics, what else?”

“I see. So at this rate you should be getting your bachelors around the time you hit, what, thirty-five?”

“See now you’re talking about time and I have a lot to say about that but I’m not really prepared at this moment to take a hard position on it, not at this time.”

“Why not finish Psychology, which you’ve spent years on, then pursue Physics? That way you have
something
.”

“Finish Psychology? What do you think I’ve done? Finish it is exactly what I did to it. I
finished
Psychology the way no one before had ever finished a discipline.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I created a malady and as if that weren’t enough I created a human being Casi! That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What? Who?”

“Kramden that’s who.”

“Ah man you still on that?”

“Of course I’m on it.”

“What are you doing to yourself Angus?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m serious man you weren’t always like this, you’re losing it. I thought I was in bad shape until I came in here. It’s that fucking carousel, you need to stop with that thing. This blackout might be the best thing ever happened to you. Come with, let’s go outside. We’ll look for those guys, get something to eat.”

“I’m going to forget you said that about the carousel because we’re friends, you and me I mean. Although the carousel and I are friends as well.”

“Fine, I’m sorry then, but let’s go find those guys. Let’s go
outside
, it’ll be good. Besides it’s just as cold in here maybe colder if that’s possible.”

“Everything’s going to come back on any minute.”

“I think you should go outside. I think you should develop a stronger relationship with reality and going outside would assist you in that.”

“Funny you should mention reality because that’s exactly what I’m trying to get to the bottom of. The problem with Psychology was it was too nebulous, there was no certitude, it was like trying to predict what the weather was going to be in two months with all those damn butterflies constantly getting in the way. Like with Kramden—”

“Please Angus no more Kramden.”

“Okay I won’t mention him again but that doesn’t change what I’m after though. I want answers; answers to the deepest questions and when I get them I want them to be indisputable and to constitute true
knowledge
not probabilities or conjecture. This is what Physics, a true science, is going to give me and now that I’ve aligned myself with the true king I can take my place at the right hand of the throne armed with a perfect understanding of the ultimate reality, what it precisely is and what it means. That’s the reality I’m going to be developing a relationship with.”

“Okay.”

“Proof! Indisputable
proof
without qualifications or gradations of any kind. Proof of the kind that simply doesn’t exist in Psychology. Physics can be verified, Psychology can’t, therefore one is a science while the other was an extreme waste of my time.”