A Naked Singularity: A Novel (55 page)

“Casi?” Angus said as I walked to the door.

“Let the rat go,” I said.

“Yeah I now think we should let the rat out too,” said Alyona.

“I don’t care,” said Angus. “Let him out.”

“No way, fuck that rat bastard,” said Louie. “If he doesn’t want to be shocked let him get his rat ass out of that box.”

“Goodbye,” I said. “Stop shocking that rat, you rat-torturing bastards. Not just that, let it out of that box too, that’s almost as bad. Oh and Louie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m calling Traci.”

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary
.

—
William Occam

What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed to for this kind of situation? A situation where when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant.

I wondered then what the first true doubters must have felt. How simultaneously freeing and paralyzing to untether the moorings of the previously unquestioned Known. They must have emerged about the same time as the first knowers these doubters; their ability to frighten and unsettle commensurate with the plausibility of their particular doubt.

To acquire true certainty, one doubter thought, you first had to subject everything, all your lovingly-held beliefs no matter how basic, to the penetrating, white-light glare of true doubt. And I was game and had no problem going along with Descartes, those bygone days, as the physical world we held so dear melted away like the ball of wax in his hand by the fire. And when he said that dreams were often only identified as such once they’d been safely tucked away in the past by the awake dreamer, I inaudibly screamed my assent. And that meant of course that even
right now
could be nothing more than a mere dream, a chimerical illusion of a physical body in a physical world. Could you imagine?
This
not really happening? It was true visceral doubt I felt and I liked it so much, could feel myself bathing in it so thoroughly, that even after my guide had long discarded his doubt, and achieved his version of certainty, I still clung stubbornly to mine. I was unpersuaded by his return and could not be so easily talked back from the ledge. For days people would talk to me and I wouldn’t know what to make of it, how to respond to them, what level of reality to assign them or our whole exchange. The logical climb back into certainty never approached the allure of this illogical descent into doubt; the echoes of which I then felt stirring in me again.

But like this renowned doubter, I too had my first principles I embraced in order to keep from drowning whenever the mental seas got too choppy. I had to go to work, even if that building was the last place on the globe I wanted to enter. I had mouths to feed. Okay I had no kids so it was really
mouth
to feed. Mine. Maybe I had to put food on the table, even if there was no room in my apartment for a table and there was no expression for putting food directly into your stomach. What was needed was an expression for just going to work out of force of habit.

At least I knew better than to go underground in my condition. Nor did I want to be a pedestrian in that unremitting, percussive cold. I had newfound, temporary wealth because my check had gone in that morning so I drove in and parked in a nearby lot. I had left early to avoid traffic on the two mile trip and was so successful that I ended up looking for ways to kill time before entering the building I didn’t want to enter.

I sat down to coffee nearby, relentlessly spinning the post-recycled paper sleeve around the cup and drinking little. At the counter near the cash register was a selection of candy where two guys were arguing. “No way motherfucker,” the one said, “Almond Joy’s got the nuts, Mounds don’t!”

Sometimes I felt like a nut. The kind of nut who could go up to those guys, bang their heads together Stooges style, and walk away before the police arrived; never to be heard from again.

The Post had a Special Exclusive Fold-Out Commemorative Collector’s Edition Section on Tula. Sponsored by the good folks at Sony who not incidentally brought you The Casio Carousel. It contained a Tale of the Tape comparing the two seven-year-old killers. Everything but their names because of their ages: instead they were Killer 1 and Killer 2. Tula’s was compared to previous horrors and it was strongly hinted that Tula was the victor. Psychologists were interviewed and they responded by spitting out, without the slightest hesitation, capsule psychological profiles, color-coded, for One and Two. The defense lawyers were interviewed and their vital information—phone numbers, addresses, websites—was given. The President, of the country, had a statement. The neighbors, in deference to one of the norms mandated by these situations, were heard from. The police told the reader what had happened, what would happen, and how.

The footage is what everybody really wanted, when could they see it?

But the Video Vigilantes were suddenly shy. Mayor Toad seemed to have become at least an honorary vigilante and he explained that negotiations for the release of the video were ongoing. The Post had exclusive rights. Not to the video or to any of its images, but rather to the announcement of when and where the video and images would be released, and through what venue. You were urged to stay tuned. Only
tuned
couldn’t be right I thought. Once released, Julie Stole reported, the footage could be played on an endless loop thanks to an ingenious new device called The Casio Carousel and the story went off in that direction but without me.

The reason I didn’t want to go into that building was the rotten timing. Except for Soldera’s return I had no cases on. Usually good but then meant that for the majority of the day I’d be sitting target for anyone interested in discovering what happened the Friday before, not the sort of thing I enjoyed.

Like seeing Liszt walking towards me in the hall and thankfully not noticing me, which reminded me of maybe punching a hole in his wall. I quickly ducked into the first office to my left before he could spot me.

“Yes?” It was Debi, her office I had leapt into and what the hell was she doing there so early?

“Oh hi.”

“Hello Casi. What is it?”

“Oh I . . . just wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“What’s what?”

“Your question?”

“Question?”

“You said question.”

“Right.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So what is it?

“I was wondering if you could . . . tell me what . . . the . . . temperature . . . is today.”

“The temperature?”

“Yeah, the weather.”

“Believe I heard say it was nine degrees.”

“Wind chill?”

“No, regular.”

“Celsius?”

“No, Fahrenheit.”

“Kelvin?”

“Once again, Fahrenheit.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.”

In situations like that I’m often perfectly willing to let my opponent think me possibly insane rather than expend the social effort necessary to rehabilitate my good name so I split.

I sat in my office and waited but nothing happened. Not at first and not later. Julia and Leon didn’t arrive and I discerned they wouldn’t. Outside, the swirl of activity increased steadily and I picked up bits and pieces of information. It seemed Swathmore would be on vacation all week and that accounted for the looseness in the air. An attorney was in big trouble too. What would they do to him? Assault is what it was. She had heard forgery. Contempt. A new guy. Had he heard about the nine degrees? Because that was
without
the wind chill factor having been factored in, and said factoring was reportedly required by law; meaning meteorological law. And even though there was surprising agreement that seemingly little by way of wind was present out there, it was also universally agreed that a post-factor negative number could be expected. Yes.

It was then, at that height of auditory receptiveness, that I decided I would not leave my office that day, for any reason, until it was time to feed my mouth around one o’clock. Soldera could wait until the afternoon, he wasn’t going anywhere with Cymbeline in charge anyway.

Everything I would need could be piped in. The room would function as a makeshift womb. Bobbing and awash in amniotic fluid, I would ingest its silent emptiness and reflect upon both my last near-quarter-century and my next move.

Once I made this decision, the outside noise, as if in direct response, seemed to die down then disappear.

I
knew
so little.

But I knew that the stillness of that moment, the solemn sanctity I had managed to create out of pure silence and inaction, would never
ever
be disturbed.

“What say you Casi?” said Dane loudly. “I tried you all weekend. What’s going on? Don’t you talk to your answering machine? So you lost. Big deal. That entitles you to turn into a recluse? Did you forget we have work to do? You call Saturday morning to give the green light then fall off the face of the Earth? Notice the interrogatory lilt at the end of these sentences by the way. You need to put this behind you, the sooner the better. Throw yourself into your work. Your work, and mine of course, is extracting those millions from that building.”

“You sure you don’t want to use our P.A. system when you say that? Because I’m not sure the guy who sells papers in the lobby heard it.”

“Now you’re working with me. Get angry. A little anger is good I always say. Of course, a lot of anger is even better but I usually leave that part out. One thing we can all agree on is the clear enemy: complacency. So when do you want to start planning?”

“Look I hadn’t slept in days.”

“The human body, regrettably, needs sleep.”

“Right.”

“The effects of extreme sleep deprivation have been likened, by those who do that kind of likening, to the use of hallucinogenic drugs.”

“Exactly. I know, and when I talked to you that morning I hadn’t slept in some days. Well actually when I spoke to you I had just slept seventeen hours.”

“Straight?”

“Yeah, but before that I hadn’t slept in several days and I think it affected, I mean I
know
it affected, my brain and what I was thinking.”

“I haven’t read anything talking about the effects of too much sleep.”

“No it’s still sleep deprivation if looked at from the perspective of several days.”

“Maybe, but seventeen hours? Sheesh.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t really thinking straight when we talked.”

“Straight?”

“Right. Not straight. Crooked maybe. I was thinking crooked.”

“Like a crook.”

I laughed. “You get where this is going right? I’m not going to be partaking in any desperate heist.”

“Me either don’t worry. I would never participate in a
desperate
heist. This heist is going to be methodically thought out and planned, as well as expertly executed. But not if we don’t get going soon on our preparations. I’ll come get you for lunch and we’ll start. Bye.”

I sat there trying to cultivate the reborn silence, but this one lasted even less time than the previous one.

“So?”

“Toomie! Where were you yesterday? I called you every hour on the hour.”

“I didn’t get any message.”

“I don’t leave messages.”

“So what happened?”

“When?”

“With the case.”

“Ah the case. What do you think happened? I lost because of that ridiculous defense you made me put forth.”

“
I
made you?”

“Actually the crazy thing would’ve worked if not for damn Arronaugh.”

“What happened?”

“Well the jury comes in wanting to hear testimony about company lettering on the van. Fine, except that while the court reporter is looking for the testimony the DA pipes in saying he spoke to the complainant over the break and it seems there was no lettering on the van whatsoever.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes!”

“Right. Except Arronaugh rules that the jury doesn’t have to hear this little bit of information and directs the court reporter to read back the part about the van having
our lettering
to the jury.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“So they convict?”

“Soon as they hear the testimony.”

“So it worked, they based their decision on whether the defendant had reason to know that the van was commercial. The problem is their verdict appears to be based on a factual misstatement.”

“Which the judge was aware of and refused to remedy in any way. Worse than that, which the judge was aware of and allowed to be repeated!”

“What a strong appeal, I believe the leading case is—”

“Appeal. Guy’s like you get all excited about the appeal. Don’t you see that I view the very existence of an appeal as a disastrous failure? No much worse, a personal affront of the highest order for which I blame you.”

“What about a 330.30 motion?”

“I know, I have to do one.”

“A motion to set aside the verdict.”

“Yes.”

“The relevant question under such a motion is—”

“I know all about them Toom. I just never thought I’d have occasion to do one and I blame you.”

“I think you have a great argument that—”

“Don’t you want to know why I blame you?”

“You don’t blame me.”

“You’re right, I don’t, but someone has to take the blame for this fiasco and I’m telling you right now, it’s not going to be me. I wash my hands of this whole affair is what I do.”