A Naked Singularity: A Novel (64 page)

“Ah but what about tic tac
dough
?”

“Same answer.”

“Fine, I’ll assume there’s no God for now and accordingly devote all my intellectual energy to our project.”

“Good, but I fail to see the connection.”

“Well if I were to conclude that there
is
a benevolent God who reigns over a blissful afterlife then why would I possibly put so much effort into trying to keep Kingg here with the living, where he has experienced nothing but abject misery and where if we are successful he can expect a whole lot more of the same in his rancid cage. That would be like an attorney pleading with a parole board to keep his client incarcerated. Better he should be released to take flight with an angelic brain in place of his current, faulty instrument.”

“I’m not sure how to respond to that but if it gets us started I’ll take it.”

“But one last thing.”

“What?”

“How did you come to the conclusion, whenever you did, that it would be wrong for the state to execute an individual like Kingg? I assume you know that a strong majority of this country’s population disagrees with you on that point?”

“How?”

“Yes, how.”

“I guess I thought about it.”

It was settled and we got to work. We worked long, hard, and well. That Toomberg was a smart fuck. He could grasp things instantly but without mentally simplifying their complexity like most. When we were done I felt I knew Kingg. I certainly knew the situation he was in as well as I could. And despite some huge problems I felt in control of the case now and my trip out there would, I was sure, cement that control. It was late.

On his way out, Toomberg stopped near my door and looked at some articles and books I had on the semicircle table there. “What’s all this boxing stuff?” he said.

“Boxing stuff.”

“I find Boxing fascinating,” he said. “I don’t mean to say that I watch individual matches and am fascinated. Rather I find the very existence of Boxing fascinating. Aren’t you ever surprised that human beings are still willing to admit they derive pleasure from seeing others hit and harm each other?”

“No, I guess I’m too busy being one of the pleasure-receptors.”

“I mean the sport should probably be banned don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“You
don’t
?”

“I guess, it’s complicated.”

Toomberg left and moments later it wasn’t so much that Dane knocked on the door as it seemed to open on its own with him in the doorway.

“We have to talk,” he said. “I have an idea.”

“How did?” I wondered.

“Secretary gave me your address, you really should provide an apartment number you know.”

“You must’ve just passed Toomberg on the way in.”

“Must have, may I come in?”

“It’s late man, I’m beat.”

“It’s about our plan, and your conditions.”

“I figured, but besides it being late I just spent quite a few hours working so can’t we talk tomorrow?”

“Allow me to say one word. Then if you still want me to leave I will.”

“One word?”

“One.”

“Fine, just one word and no tricks.”

“Course not, tricks are for kids.”

“What’s the word?”

“Swords!”

“Swords?”

“Swords.”

We looked at each other silently for like ten seconds.

“Come in,” I said. He sat on the treacherous stool and I lay on the sofa. “What about swords?” I exhaled.

“My new favorite channel’s this goddamn Beastly Burden Channel. I can watch a predatory cheetah chase down a hapless antelope all fucking day. The best part is when they’re sitting around waiting on a victim. These cats will do things like stretch their jaws revealing their honed instruments of death. I don’t have to tell you what they look like when they spot dinner either. They uncoil like a spring, every muscle rippling and taut in service of a single objective; to kill and eat. There’s no deliberation, no contemplative thought. Instead their entire being, their very existence, is nothing beyond desire. A desire that must be fed. It’s glorious and beautiful and I love it.

Of course it can also be quite sad. As a matter of fact just before coming here I was home crying it was so damn sad. It seems a pride, has there ever been a more apt word, of these gorgeous cats had fallen on hard gastronomical times. Anyway one of these famished felines has managed to secure a tasty meal, but is eating alone without catty support. Suddenly it’s surrounded by goddamn hyenas, those mangy mutts. Turns out they want the cat to share. Share! Can you imagine? This majestic, sexy, sleek beast giving even the slightest bit of its lion’s share to those ratty mouth-breathing pieces of shit. Now if you know anything at all about the situation, you know there’s not a lioness in the world that is going to lose to a fucking single hyena, is going to let a hyena take even a morsel of its food. And don’t kid yourself, the pussy hyenas know this as well. Of course we’re not dealing with a single hyena here, we’re dealing with like twenty of the bastards and, as I said, one cat. They surround the cat, these filthy dogs. But the cat, like the viewer, knows that twenty dogs can kill it if they need to. It takes one last bite of its zebra dinner, a zebra it fucking acquired when no one else could, through its feline will and sense of self, a zebra rightfully bestowed on it by the cosmos, then leaves it to the mutts. Well if that doesn’t make you cry then you’re just an unfeeling bastard and I take my leave of you. The cameraman had to gall to stand there and film these lowly furry rats stuffing their faces, knowing that not one of these weasels would’ve had the balls to so much as look at our cat crossly if not for their overwhelming numbers.”

I closed my eyes.

“What can we say about a world that permits such nonsense Casi? Nature should stop worrying about vacuums, which nobody gives a rat’s ass about, and abhor hyenas emboldened by packs. Watching the horrid display, I imagined I was that cat surrounded by those hyenas. I thought about it of course because of what we’re going to do. Know what I concluded? That if I was surrounded by those hyenas, even if they numbered in the hundreds, they would pay a blood-soaked price for that zebra. Especially the first one. You see one of them would have to be first in trying to take some of my zebra burger and I would make sure that presumptuous fuck got it worst of all. I would kill him with the extremest of prejudices. But not just him, I would take a violent chunk out of as many of those pricks as possible. If they chewed one of my paws off, I would keep using the other one to fuck up as many as I could. I would take the bloody stump back from them then beat them to death with it like Samson with that jawbone. Basically they would have to kill me before I would allow them to so much as
lick
a single zebra bone and even then my final suspiration would be a defiant bite. I would die it’s true, but I would sooner die than know that I, an august, resplendent, regal lion had surrendered anything to that lowly riffraff.”

“What about swords?”

“Swords? Are you high or something? What’s a lion to do with a sword?”

“You said swords. You got in here by saying the word remember?”

“Oh right. I thought about our plan in light of the things you said at lunch. You say you won’t go in with guns and I don’t want to go in unarmed.”

“You’re not suggesting.”

“Of course I am. If I don’t who will?”

“True, but I don’t know, it seems so.”

“Cool? Intense?”

“Bizarre.”

“We’re going in with swords Casi, serious flesh-emulsifying swords. If you think about it, it’s perfect.”

“What if I don’t think about it?”

“Then it’s still perfect. I mean you’re wary of a violent accident right? You don’t want to do harm. Well a sword is a far more precise instrument than a gun. A sword can circumscribe movement in a way a gun can’t. If you put a sword to someone’s neck or stomach and tell them they can’t move, they
know
they can’t move without cutting themselves. You’re absolved of all responsibility. With a gun, you end up having to shoot the idiot, which you don’t want to do, or worse you run the risk that your opponent will discern your reluctance to do same and that can be a big problem. Lastly, I like the element of surprise involved with swords. I believe that there is less of a chance of retributive violence if we use swords because they’ll be taken aback, think we’re insane or something. I mean who walks in there with fucking swords? I think the use of swords should also satisfy any aesthetic impulses you may wish to appease. Of course you know how to expertly handle a sword right?”

“Dane, the only thing more ridiculous than your assumption is the fact that I
do
know how to use a sword.”

“Then it’s settled, swords it is. I’ll go procure them.”

Leaning over the banister just outside my door, I watched Dane go down the stairs and out the door. Then there was noise below, a lot, from Alyona’s. I was tired but I wanted to see what was going on, maybe grab that pendant so I could later get it to Traci. I changed my mind when I got halfway down the stairs. I went back up and inside. What I saw from those stairs changed my mind. A hulking blue figure flashing into that apartment and sealing the door behind it.

Back inside I visually drifted to the picture Traci had drawn on the window with her lovely digit. Because I had opened the window the once-sharp condensation lines had blurred, although they continued to exist in a way that made an identification at least theoretically possible. I looked at them but nothing came forward. Just meaningless lines without apparent form.

I stared.

Then it clicked. I saw precisely the image Traci intended. How strange. And then that thing happened where it became impossible for me to look at that window and see a different image or even no image at all.

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently
.

—William Shakespeare

“Christ Cleary, that’s precisely what I’m saying. Why doesn’t your pleasant fiction of a religion account for the Saturday between Easter and Good Friday? This is our life!”

“How do you mean, Deborah?”

“Well, as I understand it, Good Friday is a big deal right? A very sad day where you Christians reflect upon the crucifixion, death, and all other sorts of maudlin subjects. Two days later you have Easter, a joyous, bright day. Misery followed by bliss but what about the Saturday in between? Nothing. No fancy name.”

“Holy Saturday.”

“No fancy name that stuck, no reflections, no feel whatsoever. No meaningful commemoration of any kind and yet this Saturday is the day that most accurately reflects what our lives are like. After all, the majority of our days are spent in neither splendid bliss nor abject misery but rather in a state between those two extremes. A boring state where nothing much seems to happen but which is life’s bread and butter. If you want to look at why your religion engages less and less people every year, ask yourself why this critical day is essentially ignored. I say celebrate and name the day, make
it
the celebratory centerpiece, and you’ll take a significant step towards addressing our real concerns. Maybe get some people to come back.”

“I completely disagree.”

“What a surprise Conley.”

“I’m serious. One of the painfully few things Cleary and his sort get right is ignoring that day. I kind of agree that the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter reflects the majority of our lives but it does that by being completely meaningless and thus
should
be entirely ignored. Take Casi here as an example. You’ve all heard that he’s gotten himself into a bit of a pickle here. So what? I bet he’ll never even remember any of this when all is written and done. How old are you Casi?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Exactly. He’s middle-aged, a meaningless stage of life that nobody remembers.”

“What are you talking about middle-aged? He’s a kid. Middle-aged is like you, fifty or so.”

“Really? Let’s say the average male in this country lives to seventy-two. If that’s the case then ages 0 to 23 represent youth, 24 to 47 are your middle ages, and 48 to 72 your senescent decline into death.”

“That’s absurd. But fine, even if we allow you to define the term middle-aged in that way, why would it follow that whatever happens during this time period is meaningless?”

“Good God! Must I forever be the world’s instructor? Do the terms Primacy and Recency mean anything to you? The human brain processes information a certain way. The things that come first, i.e. primacy, and the things that come last, i.e. recency, are the things that will stick in the human head. The rest is part of the forgotten middle. In a brief, where do you put the damaging admissions? In the middle! If placed in a lineup and given the choice of where to stand where should you stand? In the middle! These are not my usual unsupported ramblings, these are well-settled principles. In sum, Cleary is right to ignore that Saturday. Where he errs is when he tries to tell us that the Friday and Sunday
are
meaningful. No way. This, our world, is just a giant theatre, showing Life, a poor play written by a middling playwright featuring repellent and insipid actors that will close within the week. Friday doesn’t matter because Sunday is a scam and because of that, Saturday, id est our lives, couldn’t possibly mean less. You’re also wrong Debi when you try to paint our lives as this boring but ultimately benign even pleasant endeavor. Life, even at its best, is a tedious chore. For the overwhelming majority it’s Good Friday every day. If you disagree chances are you’re the sort who doesn’t pay attention, because life is hideous if you do. The things you have to see and otherwise experience will sap the joy right out of you. You start out shitting in a diaper, dependent on random lunatics to cart your shit away and fill your belly. You have no control over anything, can’t even speak! Then at the end, where I am, you feel like a giant bruise that won’t heal, your knees make more noise than your mouth, family members become strangers far as your memory can tell, and you resume shitting in a diaper. And in between? Well I already told you what I think about that. Life isn’t sweet, it’s sour, and that’s what keeps Cleary in business. Those are your choices, boredom or agony. Life is nasty, malevolent, toxic, evil, and brutish. And you know the worst part? The part that really sticks in my craw, whatever a craw is.”