A Naked Singularity: A Novel (101 page)

“What did he look like?”

“He? Was it a human? If so, the biggest one I’ve ever seen. As for the face I really couldn’t tell you. First of all it’s hard to explain but I was afraid to look at it directly. Second of all it was as if it was in shadows the whole time, only shadows it was itself creating if that makes any sense. Anyway it zipped through here, turned the beds over, then just like that it was gone. So what the hell was that Casi?”

“Did you call the police?”

“Crazy? I highly doubt it would like that and I really don’t want to upset it.”

“What about your door?”

“Forget the door man, what was that?”

“Nothing really, just some guy who wants to literally rip my head off with his bare hands.”

“He could probably do it from what I saw!”

“Not a question of probability really, more like certitude.”

“Why does it want to, you know, do that ripping thing?”

“Long story.”

“How fucking bizarre.”

“Actually one of the less bizarre things currently happening to me.”

I heard the sound of rain and went to the window to see it pouring.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

“No what’s going on?”

I was so tired. I wondered if so many sharp lines of rain might not devolve all that was solid into non-aqueous liquid. I turned back to Angus.

“What’s going on you say?”

“Yes, what?”

“Well for starters where the fuck you guys been? In all the time I’ve been here I can’t recall this apartment being empty for so much as a minute now suddenly all three of you gone for weeks? With no warning? And then the apartment’s not empty but it’s suddenly inhabited by a fat guy named Ralph? You animated Ralph Kramden didn’t you you fuck? That’s what you were so proud of that night, wasn’t it? He said he was a bus driver and even dressed like one. He wanted to go bowling and golfing. What the fuck? Where is he now? What have you done with him? And I just had a teenager represent me at an insane hearing with a giant gavel. And before with the attacking chimps and giant hot dogs! And don’t forget the not so minor detail of what is occurring outside this very window as we speak.”

“Slow down dude, you’re not making any sense.”

“Of course not, that’s the point!”

“First of all, we didn’t just disappear. We told you we were going to Panama City for spring break remember?”

“No.”

“Yeah we stayed a lot longer than originally planned but you would too if you saw this place. My God, the women.”

“So where’s Alyona? And Louie?”

“Still there dude, I’m the only one came back.”

“What about Ralph?”

“Ralph. Ralph.”

“There was a fat guy living here, I talked to him multiple times. I didn’t imagine it!”

“Oh you must mean John.”

“Who?”

“John, he’s a friend of mine. I told him he could stay here while we were gone. Good guy John. You’re right, he’s pretty fat. I tried to introduce him to you the night of the blackout.”

“He said to call him Ralph. But it was even more than that really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

“Well I should add that John is an actor, not that you would have seen him in anything. The point being that he’ll sometimes
do
whatever character he’s playing even when he’s not on stage. Dig? So he
will
get a little weird at times if you’re not expecting it and come to think of it I think he did mention he had just landed a big part at the Bushwick Y or something.”

“Whatever happened with that Honeymooners thing you were doing Angus?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well you don’t want to know, let’s put it that way, especially if you already think things are getting a little weird.”

“So everything has an explanation’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“You guys didn’t vanish.”

“Nope.”

“And the chubby guy was an actor.”

“Yup, a poor one too by all accounts.”

“I guess I feel better.”

“Good.”

I felt better I guessed. I stared out the window and tapped on the glass making drops of water fly off like jumpers from a plane. “Wait a goddamned minute!” I said. “You almost had me fooled.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

“What?”

“What do you see?”

“Wow it’s really coming down huh?”

“It sure is, that doesn’t bother you?”

“Well I don’t like rain if that’s what you mean.”

“It isn’t. Look
through
the rain. Up there. See where I’m pointing? What does that say?”

“Citibank?”

“No, the display below it.”

“Okay. 6:08 p.m. Well 6:08 but I know it’s p.m.”

“Okay but keep looking. Wait. See that?”

“Yeah?”

“What does it say?”

“Six.”

“Six what?”

“Six degrees. It’s six degrees out, what’s your point?”

“What’s my point? It’s pouring rain out there and the temperature is six fucking degrees! How can that be? Does water not freeze at thirty-two degrees anymore? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Hmm, maybe it’s not rain?”

“Oh no? What is it then?”

“It’s like a type of snow or sleet.”

“It is?”

“Let me see. No you’re right, that’s pure rain baby. Maybe the temperature’s wrong.”

“I just came in from out there and if it is it’s too high.”

“You’re right again. I hate rain Casi. When I was a kid whenever it would rain my mom would say it was God crying. Believe that? Then one time when I was thirteen I said something like
fuck him, we’re the ones should be crying
. You can imagine how that one went over.”

“I’m waiting on that explanation, this is no fat actor.”

“Shh, it’s starting.” Angus made Television louder and sat on the floor. “Did you know Tula is mostly a local story. Thank God I came back when I did huh?”

“What the hell is
this
now?” I said.

“Shh!”

On the screen was a genuine red carpet in front of black limos. A disembodied voice came on to explain that we were live at the legendary Ed Sullivan Theater in Times Square where a select list of invited guests was preparing to view the world premiere of the Tula Abduction Video. And as the voice spoke tuxedoed men opened car doors to let smiling actresses out and the cameraman would capture the precise yummy moment when their outer leg would first pierce the slit on their black dresses. The voice gave the background: about the crime and the Vigilantes and how the footage was originally to be shown at a City Hall press conference but how that plan was foiled by an untimely power outage, how said outage damaged the footage to the point that only
the dedication and tireless expertise
of the FBI’s Video Reclamation Lab was able to restore the clip so that it was fit for viewing but how such great expense was incurred in doing so that an enterprising FBI intern came up with the
inspired and unprecedented
idea of hiring a hot young Bollywood director to cut the footage into a PG-13 feature length film to be released in New York only, with children and senior citizens charged double and all proceeds going to the restoring lab. This was the premiere of that film and the proud mayor was set to take the opportunity to make a major announcement as well.

So it was that, under a giant red Campbell’s Tomato Soup canopy erected to shield speaker and audience from the rain, Toad announced the formation of T.O.A.D. or the Team to heap assistance On Actors and other Destitutes. He began by identifying what he called the two biggest problems facing New York: homeless people and unemployed actors. Seems the
inhumanly frigid nature
of the past few weeks was causing the homeless to drop like flies or
attrit at record numbers
. The crowd didn’t seem to know how to respond to that information but then Toad began to describe the difficulties of
making it
as an actor in the city and his audience voiced audible support.

Toad’s solution called for the city to pay unemployed actors to attend funerals for the recently dead homeless and play the part of bereaved friends and relatives. In that manner would
the homeless be afforded the final dignity of an appropriate funeral ceremony complete with the illusion of concern while needy actors will gain valuable experience not to mention a nice paycheck to boot
. Congratulations were exchanged and everyone went inside, where it was warm and dry, to see the highly-anticipated movie.

“I suppose that was okay huh Angus?”

“A little weird maybe but that’s to be expected.”

“And the rain? There’s just no explanation.”

“Oh there’s an explanation. For the rain and everything else. I’m just not sure it’s one you’re going to like.”

“What is it then? What’s the explanation for these people?”

“People? Surely you can’t think this is about anything as jejune as people or human nature can you? Because it isn’t. This is exactly why I had to switch from Psychology to Physics. People like you always trying to explain and understand human conduct. The fault, dear Casi, lies not in ourselves but in our stars.”

“Huh? How’s that?”

“Physics my friend. Only Physics can adequately explain what’s occurring. Don’t look to the person across from you or even the one in the mirror, look to the cosmos. Don’t look closely, look out and afar into the great distance. Because to explain you need a telescope not a microscope as the explanation lies in the very nature of our universe.”

“So what is it then?”

“Singularities. You know what they are.”

“Singularities?”

“Right. Picture a star turning into a black hole as happens from time to time. It does this through gravitational collapse right? In other words, we know that, put crudely, the term gravity refers to the attraction by matter of other matter. Obviously then in a massive object such as a star its component matter is constantly attracting itself while other forces generally counteract gravity to keep the entity from collapsing in on itself. Now with gravitational collapse the counteracting forces don’t do their job well enough and the object begins to shrink, for lack of a better word, and become denser. Of course as the object’s density increases so logically does its core’s gravitational pull so that the shrinking continues at an accelerating rate. Ultimately the shrinking will end in a point so dense, with an internal gravitational pull so strong, that nothing, not even light, can overcome its pull, thus forming a black hole, black because even light is irretrievably sucked into it if it gets past the hole’s event horizon. And at the center of this black hole is a spacetime singularity right? A point of infinite density. A point where concepts such as space and time have no meaning, where the laws of science break down and the future lacks even the slightest predictability. Singularities like these are not mere inventions Casi. They are predicted by a little thing called the General Theory of Relativity. They are, as I’ve said, the centerpiece of black holes, another actual and verified phenomenon, and they are thought to be in some sense the origin of the universe just before The Big Bang and its likely end after The Big Crunch. Now fortunately until now singularities have only existed in black holes, locations that by definition prevented them from having any effect on our world since remember that no information can escape a black hole.”

“Until now?”

“Well you wanted the explanation man and that’s it. Our universe is collapsing into a singularity. Slowly, I admit, but it’s happening. And not the kind of singularities found in black holes either. No. What we’re headed for is what theorists call a naked singularity. One not cloaked by the shadow of a surrounding black hole. One apparent and visible with effects we’re all feeling. Predictability, Space, Time, the physical laws, they mean less with every passing second and soon enough they’ll mean absolutely nothing. Why now? Why the collapse? Too much matter dude, causing too great a pull. My theory is that certain things that used to have no mass now suddenly do and they’re multiplying. Either that or the mysterious invisible force that had previously served to combat gravity and drive universal expansion has now abandoned us or otherwise failed.”

“You were doing okay until the end man. Are you high right now?”

“Insult away but how else can you explain that rain and I didn’t want to mention this but . . .”

“What?”

“That night of the blackout?”

“Yeah.”

“I swear I saw Time itself. I saw it and it was hideous man. Do you understand? I saw Time!”

I didn’t tell him I had as well.

“So how do you explain those things if I’m wrong?” he continued. “Not to mention Ralph Kramden traipsing around here.”

“You said it was an actor!”

“Maybe it was, what do I know? I’m no expert.”

“It’s not a question of expertise. Was it an actor friend of yours or not?”

“Two seven-year-olds kidnap and kill a baby, people carving each other up like inexpensive deli meat and others lining up to profit from it? The way I see it it’s either my explanation or Alyona’s.”

“Alyona’s?”

“Yeah you remember, healthy kept from the sick and we’re the sick? Does it really matter which of us is right anyway since we both agree on the ending? You don’t even need a theory to agree on the ending right?”

“ . . .”

“Anyway Casi, I got to go.”

“Go? What about your door?”

“Some dude’s on the way to fix it.”

“I don’t get it, where you going?”

“Back to P.C. man where else? Thought I told you.”

“No.”

“I just came back to get some things.”

“Now though? Stay at least tonight.”

“No can do dude. You don’t seem to understand. Hundreds of college girls clad scantily and constantly being urged to show even more SKIN TO WIN! And this cold and rain? You get the picture.”

“What about school? Spring break’s a week not a month.”

“Oh, we’re dropping out.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I can get a job without it, I know a guy.”

“What about Physics?”

“You serious? Look, in Psychology I could’ve been a leading light. In Physics I’ll be carrying the spit bucket. No dice. Anyway, I’m going man. You should come too dude, New York’s over. Nobody lives here anymore, it’s too crowded.” He was grabbing a bag and starting down the stairs.