A Working Theory of Love (30 page)

25

T
HE DAY BEFORE THE
contest, the door buzzer to my apartment rings. It’s such a rare sound I need a second
to recognize it. I check my watch. It’s 7:45 in the morning. How did Rachel—it must
be Rachel—get down to the city so early?

But it isn’t Rachel. It’s Rick, in a two-piece suit and tie.

“I’ve never seen you in your lawyer garb,” I say.

He grins and then suppresses it, seeming uncertain about his exact approach here.

“Is everything all right?” I ask.

“Can we talk inside?”

“Of course.” I usher him in. “Coffee?”

“Nice place.” He walks into the living room, pokes the newspaper on the coffee table.
He surveys the windows and then—with studied nonchalance—sticks his head in the bedroom.

“I can give you a proper tour.”

“That’s quite a bed you’ve got in there.”

“Family heirloom.”

“That’s not like a special harness thingie?”

I sip my coffee. This is our last day of adjustments, and as much as I like Rick—would
not even mind spitballing the S-and-M possibilities of my ancestral bed—I have to
get to work.

“Is it Rachel?” I ask.

Rick runs a hand through his thinning hair. “We wanted to tell you in person. She’s
moved out of the house and into the Pure Encounters . . . place. I think they call
it a lodge? The Pure Encounters lodge?”

“She’s doing a retreat?”

“It looks kind of permanent. I mean, she told us she wasn’t planning on coming back.”

“What happened to Lexie?”

“Had to get back to college.”

“Did she give a reason?” I mean Rachel.

“No. And she’s not answering her phone. We were hoping you could help us out on that.”

I doubt there’s much I can do. “She wanted to go to Arkansas with me, but I couldn’t
take her.”

“Couldn’t?” he asks.

“The tickets were really expensive.” It suddenly seems a bizarrely hollow excuse.

“Well, that could be it. She wants to think you guys have something real going on.
I mean, I know it’s real. Stevie and I always say how sweet you two are together.
But Rachel really wants to be
involved
, you know? Like a big part of your life.”

It’s not asking too much, I think. Just more than I can give.

I stop that thought. Who knows what capaciousness might be found in my heart? It’s
true there doesn’t feel like much, has never felt like much. It’s been a lifelong
hindrance. But just because there doesn’t
seem
to be much room doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Or maybe I’ve got that backwards: if
there could
seem
to be more room maybe
real
room will follow close behind. I’ve probably had too little respect for that leap
between who we are and what we want to be, our be and our seem. My father, of course,
cast notable discredit on such aspirations. His ideal—his
seem
—was so baffling. And even worse, when he successfully made the leap, he discovered
that the life he always wanted wasn’t really what he wanted.

Or not. Maybe that’s not how it went at all. He wasn’t a failed argument. He was man.
He was depressed.

If Jenn were down there would I go get her? No. Erin? I’d feel conflicted about it,
but still, no. So why Rachel? Is it because she’s younger and I feel more responsible?
Maybe. Is it my desire to maximize personal capital, my attraction to her ratio of
hip to waist? Who knows? I’m no more free of being an animal, of being a social animal,
than anyone else. And so what? The most beautiful fields grow within fences. The limits
of our life—day and night, birth and death, this partner and not that—
are
our life.

I’m starting to sound like Neill Sr. Worse, I’m starting to sound like a reverted
Catholic. But I don’t think Rachel is my anointed one, my only chance at love. There
is, however, no escaping one truth:
I
am my only chance at love. And what has Rachel ever asked of me, but me?

•   •   •

T
HE
P
URE
E
NCOUNTERS COMPOUND
is in a converted auto body shop in the SOMA. It’s enormous and well lit, the brick
walls draped with yards and yards of sheer fluttering fabric. I don’t know if this
is an artistic choice or just an effect of the central heat, but I get the skeevy
feeling that I’ve entered the folds of some well-used communal organ.

I’m
warmly
welcomed by two women thin as hammered metal. I wonder if there’s a particular word
I need to use—not a password, but just some word that makes me seem simpatico, plausible.
All I can think of is their powered-up words for human anatomy: cock, clit, etc.

“I’m here to see Rachel,” I say, and they point me to the back where apparently I’m
free to go and find her. They even suggest I stay for breakfast.

Rachel is in the kitchen, dressed in a dark brown pajama suit, making a frittata the
size of a hubcap. Her sous-chef is Raj.

“Don’t turn around,” he says to her. “And don’t talk to him.”

“I’m not talking to you,” Rachel says. She does not turn around.

“I’m here to attend a VAMing class,” I say. Raj checks to see if I’m serious, which
I am.

“There’s a schedule up front,” Rachel says.

“Will you be my intimate?”

She gestures for Raj to take over the frittata. Then she whirls around. I’m hoping
for a smile—forgiveness—but I can tell by the speed she’s moving that I’m not welcome.
And then there’s her face, red and clenched. Closed. She is absolutely not open to
my idea. She does not want to be my intimate. In fact, it looks like she’s going to
bounce me—she takes me by the arm as if I’m a shoplifter, pressing me toward the front
door. I’m waiting for the kubotan blow to the kidneys. Actually, I’m hoping for it.

“Where do you get off coming here?” she says out on the sidewalk. It’s commute time,
and Brannan Street booms with cars and delivery trucks. She has to raise her voice
to be heard.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take you to Arkansas.”

“It wasn’t Arkansas.”

“Why are you using the past tense?” I ask. It’s the question Dr. Bassett asked me.
It means I’m dead. We’re dead.

“I’m doing something right now for myself. I know you don’t understand it. You don’t
want to understand it.”

“I’m
here
to understand it.”

“You’re here to rescue me.”

I open my hands, innocent.

“You’re actually here for a VAMing course.”

“I did want to take you somewhere. Just for the morning.”

“Some sort of intervention? Rick and Stevie are waiting to give me some hippie lecture?”

“It was going to be a surprise, but it’s a dairy farm. I got you a session with a
butter churn.”

She blinks, quiet. A UPS van stops next to us. The smell of diesel clouds around us.
The driver—happy and whistling—maneuvers a stack of boxes on a dolly into Pure Encounters.
Hello, ladies
.

“That was nice of you,” she says. “You remembered my Amish story.”

“Of course I remembered it. You told it to me on the roof of my building. On our first
date.”

“It wasn’t our first date.”

“Our second date,” I say, though it might have been our third. “The dairy farm is
organic.”

She sighs. “I’m not supposed to leave. Was it really expensive?”

“I’m sure I can just call her and cancel,” I say.

“Can we get back before three? That’s my shift at the front desk.”

•   •   •

K
RAUSE
D
AIRY HAS NO SIGN,
just a mailbox and a sagging house in front of a barn in need of paint. There’s the
sweet smell of cow manure in the air, and some distant lowing. The farmer, Ms. Krause,
is waiting for us as I pull the Subaru up into her gravel drive. “That’s the barn,”
she says. “That’s the house. There’s the cows.” This isn’t a place that does tours.

“Churn’s in the barn,” she says.

Rachel looks worried. “Will
they
be in there?” She means the cows.

Ms. Krause shakes her head, seeming genuinely put out. I don’t know if she’s giving
us rural brusqueness—though she’s probably a Smith grad—or if she disapproves of us
as a couple. She knows I’m here on a romantic mission, but perhaps she didn’t imagine
Rachel, who looks very young in her Zen pjs, as the love object.

The barn is picturesque on the outside, all business on the interior. Fluorescent
lights and a concrete floor. But in the corner there sits a hard wooden chair and
an old-fashioned heavy stoneware butter churn, grey with a blue stripe.

“The simple life,” Rachel says.

I expect Ms. Krause to groan, but she just pours a pail of yellowish, bubbly milk
into the churn. “Take as long as you like,” she says, stomping her boots as she leaves.
She probably has no opinion one way or the other about us. She’s just in a hurry.

Rachel sits in the chair. She tests her weight; it wobbles a bit. She wraps her fingers
around the wooden dasher, which is darkened and smooth from use. No telling whose
use. Rachel turns it as if spinning a top, then she presses down. The milk sloshes
thinly.

“This is easy,” she says.

“I think it gets harder.”

She pumps the dasher a few times. “You just want to watch me hold this pole.”

It’s true—though not in the way she means. I couldn’t sex this moment if I wanted
to. I think of what I could give her to keep her here for the day—hot-air balloons,
massages, fancy dinners. It’s typical Neill thinking. This whole butter churn thing
is typical Neill thinking. The grand romantic gestures were never my problem. It’s
all the days in between. And that’s the flaw. I should have thought of something more
original—something in San Francisco, some reminder not that I’m a beau for the ages
(which I’m not), but that life holds promise not only in radical transformations.
We could go to Dolores Park and soak up the noncommittal Pacific sun, drink a glass
of delicious wine, and I could say, that’s made from grapes. Grapes! And the sun and
the wine, though not long for the day, are the nectar of life, the quotidian nectar
of our normal hours.

I get down on my knees. She releases the dasher; it settles slowly. She sees I’m about
to make some announcement, and she’s nervous about it. I am, too. I don’t know what
I’m going to say. I think, no grand gestures. No mesmerism. No promises that are really
distractions.

I put both hands on her legs. It feels a little awkward, as if we don’t know each
other well. “Are we going to go VAMing later?” I ask.

She reaches down to touch my arm, and the awkwardness dissipates. This is the difference
between Rachel and Erin—at least the old Erin. Even if my ex-wife had wanted to get
close she would have blocked our way. Rachel wants to smooth the passage.

“I’m not doing the VAM Method right now,” she says. “I’m not really ready for it.”

I nod, trying to look understanding and not grin at how happy I am to hear that. It’s
a happiness to be questioned, maybe a selfish happiness.

“Should I move into the compound?” I ask.

She smiles. “You mean the lodge?”

I squeeze her leg. Whatever they’re calling it.

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

“In a cosmic manner,” I say.

“More like a financial manner.”

I sit down on the cold floor of the barn. Take in the sour smell. Am I really going
to move into the PE compound? What is that but a grand gesture?

“I could give it a try.”

“You wouldn’t like it there. It’s a cult.”

She’s not going to make this easy, but that’s okay. A challenge seems right.

“I don’t know if I can give you what you need,” I say. “But I’ll support you looking
for it.”

It’s an interesting new idea for myself—not being the lost one, but being the stable
support. Her spiritual wingman. Maybe it’s what I need, a little bourgeois responsibility,
a little Dr. Bassett.

She sloshes the milk around in the churn. “This is actually kind of boring.”

“Let me help you with that.” I motion for her to get up and sit back down on my lap.
The warmth of her body like this, close to me—never mind the sandalwood in the pjs.
It’s just where I want her.

She turns and gives me a kiss. Not a passionate one or even a forgiving one—more of
a test kiss. “You scared me down there on your knees,” she says. “I thought you were
going to confess something.”

No. Nothing to confess. Just trying to resist offering any life that isn’t our real
life. Then I think—make your real life worth offering. Be your seem. Seem your be.

I pull her tight. “How would you feel about moving to the city?” I ask. “In a normal
fashion.”

“You have a normal place in mind?”

“How about my apartment,” I say. “I think it qualifies.”

26

O
N
S
ATURDAY,
L
IVORNO,
Laham, and I park the Penske in front of the downtown Marriott, an ugly building shaped
like a giant mauve jukebox. It’s the day of the contest, the culmination of all our
work at Amiante, the world debut of Dr. Bassett. It’s everything we’ve struggled for.
And yet as I help Laham maneuver the stack—covered with an enormous blue blanket—down
the narrow ramp, I can barely sort through how I feel. We’ve managed to bolt the battered
Shop-Vac contraption to Dr. Bassett’s side; it looks a little like a booster rocket.
But the hard angles of the case—heavy enough to kill us if it tips—makes me think
of an upright coffin. I want to win, of course, for Livorno’s and Laham’s sake. But
what about for my sake? There might be money in it for me—and having Dr. Bassett deemed
the first “intelligent” computer would make Libby happy. At least I think it would.
And Lord knows I’d love to stick it to Toler. But for me? I grip the stack hard, as
we level out on the ground, safe and stable. In this arena of life, I suspect I’ve
already done most of my winning and losing.

In the lobby we’re directed toward the Laurel Room, upstairs and just past the business
center. As we push Dr. Bassett into the elevator and then out, we round several meeting
areas filled with people stultified before presentations. I’m catching a distinct
whiff of amateur hour from our event, a feeling confirmed once we find the Laurel
Room, a meeting space not twice as a large as my apartment. The room has been divided
into three sections—one for computer contestants, one for human contestants, and one
for judges—but the dividers are the types used for cubicles, padded and so low that
people shake hands over the top. Judges stuff their faces at the bagel table. There
is no press; no one even to greet us at the door.

Do we deserve press? I guess it depends on what we ultimately think we’re up to. If
a bunch of computer geeks (minus myself—I don’t have the chops to be called a geek)
have come together to see who can outprogram who—if, in other words, this is the old
human (male?) show of dominance, then maybe we haven’t earned the attention of the
world. But if we’re really passing a threshold, really introducing the first intelligent
computer to the world, then this will be an awfully quiet setting.

Our usual competition—a couple of sun-deprived hobbyists who have flown in just for
the contest—are setting up their talking programs (so simple they run on laptops)
and glaring at what must be Toler’s team: six men all in black—like a mime troupe
without the charm—fussing over a large stainless steel case, hooked up to a cylinder
about the size of a Shop-Vac. It must be the stack I saw in Jenn’s
Survivor
tryout video. I had thought it looked a lot like Dr. Bassett, but I was wrong—it’s
a carbon copy of Dr. Bassett.

“Goodness,” Livorno says.

Laham shakes his head in bafflement. “How do they know the design?” he asks.

Because we let them, I think. I let them. I gave Toler the working theory. I knew
Jenn was a spy. Yet I couldn’t quite do anything about any of it. “It’ll be an even
better scientific comparison,” I say. “They’ve gone for breadth. We’ve gone for individuality.”

Livorno asks Laham to excuse us for a minute. “What do you think of our chances?”
he asks me.

“We’re going to cream them,” I say. I hope I’m right.

“I mean the Turing test. Do you think Dr. Bassett might be determined intelligent?”

I shrug. It’s possible. “I might have gotten too close to say.”

“If it happens you’ll have to figure out what to do. And I’ll respect your wishes.”

I nod, looking over at the bagel table, waiting for Livorno’s words to coalesce into
an idea I can follow, but they don’t.

“What to do?” I ask.

“Maybe this wasn’t your father’s choice. Maybe he doesn’t want to exist anymore.”

“Ah, but that’s the interesting thing I realized,” I say. “Dr. Bassett isn’t my father.
I mean he’s
like
my father, but my father is, you know, gone. Dr. Bassett is really me—he’s my father
and me together.”

“Possibly. But he’s one hundred percent himself. You may have to make a decision,
and I just want you to be prepared.”

If you really wanted me to be prepared, I think, you could have brought this up yesterday.
But I try to engage the quandary as he has put it. We’ve agreed on a scientifically
framed test. If Dr. Bassett fools thirty percent of judges into thinking he’s human,
then he’s intelligent. Since we’ve agreed to the test, we’ve agreed that we accept
its definition. The winning computer is intelligent. So even though Dr. Bassett is
the same now as he will be in two hours, there are no decisions to be made until after
the test.

“Still, it won’t mean that he’s aware,” I say. “Or cognizant. Or present.”

Livorno rubs the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “I merely counsel humility
before the evidence,” he says. “Ask yourself—does he seem aware, cognizant, or present?”

Across the room, Toler calls our names. The mimes part, and he emerges, followed by
a videographer and Jenn, who is not dressed in black, but in a charcoal business suit.
I guess she wants to communicate her neutrality. Amiante versus Toler? She’s just
a consultant. Toler, too, has a different look—sleek German-looking glasses that seem
to say,
Greetings, Earthlings
. But his face hangs gaunt and yellow.

“Thar she blows,” Toler says, patting Dr. Bassett’s blanket. He doesn’t lean on the
stack, though I suspect he could use propping up.

“You’ll probably recognize the design,” I say.

Toler is wall-eyed and out of breath, but he suppresses a smile. “Like you and me,
Neill. It’s what different on the inside that counts.”

“I have to lodge my dissent, Adam,” Livorno says. “The stacks appear identical.”

“No, no,” Toler says. He takes Livorno by the arm and leads him over to Program X,
where he vigorously points at the cables in the back.

“That’s his innovation,” I say to Jenn. “The cables?”

She indicates the other developers—the long-haired, sun-deprived hobbyists—who are
glancing at us and muttering. The other entries are both solo projects. As I remember
from a few years ago, talking robots are the imaginative province of men who aren’t
very good at talking. “At least they hate us equally,” she says.

“Your pillow talk wasn’t so benign after all.”

“Things have gotten mixed. It’s like one project with two teams.”

“It was two projects before you started ‘consulting.’”

She sighs. “I tried to help. Everyone enters these arrangements with their eyes open.”

I reflect on this nice sentiment—that adults can be trusted to look out for themselves.
It’s not the least bit true, but we have to treat it as if it is. It
ought
to be true.

“On a personal front,” I say. “I probably owe you some sort of apology.”

“No.” She shakes her head, definitive and earnest. “You don’t.” There’s no bitterness
in her voice, and I get a new glimpse of her rare qualities. That she wouldn’t be
bitter, that she would believe everyone enters such arrangements with their eyes open.
In the final accounting I haven’t treated her very well.

“Well, I just want to say I’m sorry—”

“Please.” She deflects my apology with her palm.

The tournament director comes over to hush us. He’s a small, bespectacled man with
the beard of a disillusioned Trotskyite. His tie is dirty; his coat ill fitting. He
says our voices might contaminate the judging pool.

“I just saw the judging pool at the bagel table,” I say.

He doesn’t accept this objection. I guess he can’t—he set up the test. He tells us
to whisper or not speak at all. Jenn nods in agreement. Then he leaves to go quiet
Livorno and Toler, who are standing slightly askew from each other so that their conversation
will be caught on film. Toler isn’t just speaking; he’s declaiming. He’s a ridiculous
man, but I remind myself that he’s dying.

“What’s his wife like?” I ask.

Jenn looks at me, angry. “I get the message,” she says, backing away. She’s returning
to the mime troupe. A symbolic gesture—they’re only a few yards away—but the opposite
of what I wanted. I was asking a real question.

“I wasn’t trying to send a message,” I say to Laham. He ignores me, still shaking
his head, talking to himself under his breath. I’m surprised at how upset he is, but
I shouldn’t be. Dr. Bassett is his life, too. Of course he’s upset, our boy wonder.
I go over to help him dab a baby wipe across Dr. Bassett’s vents, picking up dust
and blanket lint. We snap a few quilting strings from the wires in back. “The same,”
he says. “The same.” It’s true I can’t tell any difference in the cables for Program
X. Is there a difference in the stack? I take the strings over to a trash can and
then stand next to the judges’ cubicle wall, from where I can compare Dr. Bassett
to Program X, head to hoof. All the nodes, all the processors are the same. The only
visible difference is that Program X’s gut is a brushed aluminum cylinder. It looks
more expensive.

Livorno leaves Toler and the videographer, chuckling. I don’t buy his good mood, but
he continues to grin as he pulls a folding chair up to the table where we’ve positioned
the screen. Laham is running through the start-up. I join them.

“We’ve been betrayed,” I say.

Livorno turns his guileless blue eyes up to me. “On the contrary, she tried to warn
us. They have the sexual nature.”

“Sticking off the side of the machine?”

“I told you it’s not that literal.”

“So what are they calling it—‘Program X, now with sexual nature’?”

“No, no,” Livorno shakes his head, annoyed. “Just Program X.”

What good is my effort to make this a case of Jenn’s malfeasance? All the roads lead
back to me. When I feared Dr. Bassett would never speak again I happily handed over
everything I knew.

“I should tell you something, Henry,” I say. I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the shame.
“I gave Toler the theory. You know, instead of no—yes. The theory of love.”

He nods. “I had to give him the gut as well,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “Jenn told me.”

Who knows? Maybe she
was
trying to help. It looks like we entered the arrangement with at least one eye open.

•   •   •

L
AHAM SIGNALS TO ME
that Dr. Bassett is ready.

frnd1: why does the chicken cross the road?

drbas: to get to the other side

frnd1: how do you get a one-armed aggie out of a tree?

drbas: wave to him, son

“Anything you want to add, chief?” I ask.

“Tell him what the room looks like,” Livorno says. “And tell him the bagels are stale.”
It’s good strategy. I’m glad the man wants to win.

The tournament director waves his arms in the middle of the room, seeking our attention.
“Lady and gentlemen,” he says. A little joke: Jenn is the only woman. “First the rules.”
There will be four conversations running simultaneously, each of which pairs a human
against a computer. The judges will be asked to determine which is the human. The
threshold for determining if a computer has beaten the Turing test is if at least
thirty percent of judges are fooled, but there are only four judges—so the threshold
will have to be fifty percent. I hadn’t thought of this last-minute math challenge.
It seems fairer to lower the number to one out of three. That would certainly make
it easier to win. But do we want to win? “Now,” he continues, “all of our contestants
are here. The judges are installed. We will now require absolute silence. Except for
the typing of keys!”

I glance at Toler’s team. Jenn is looking my way. She seems sad, wistful.
Seems.
I try to think of something to say, but all I can conjure is
may the best man win.
Wrong in so many ways.

“And go,” the tournament director says.

judg1: how are you today?

drbas: pretty well. and you?

judg1: fine and dandy. are you a computer?

drbas: no

judg1: quite the loquacious one, huh?

drbas: loquacious? I’ll have to look that one up

judg1: it means talkative

drbas: thanks

judg1: well you’re here to convince me you’re a human. convince me

drbas: what does it mean to be human?

judg1: don’t get all philosophical on me. i haven’t finished my bagel

drbas: the bagels are stale

judg1: man, are they. with the future of technology hanging in the balance you’d think
they’d spring for decent snacks

“Whoa,” I say. That’s a tough sentence to parse.

drbas: do you want to hear about my horses?

A good parry—just change the subject.

judg1: sure

drbas: well, i’ve had twelve. blazers, little george, wild thing, gal, mr. c., umpteenth,
galahad, timmy, his trots, señor, miss mess, and dorothy

judg1: this is more boring than i expected

drbas: what is more boring than you expected?

judg1: your horses

drbas: do you want to hear about my horses?

judg1: hmmm . . . sure

drbas: well i’ve had twelve

“Man’s perfection is only glimpsed through his imperfection,” Livorno says.

I push out of my chair. “That judge got a clear glimpse of imperfection.”

I walk over to Toler’s team and stand next to Jenn, who smells of that nice herbal
soap she uses sometimes. She’s biting her thumb, eyes flickering along the conversation
on their console, a flat-screen monitor the size of a baking sheet.

progx: i don’t read romances

judg2: what kinds of books do you like?

progx: i like books about spies

judg2: what’s the best spy novel you’ve read recently?

progx: the spy who came in from the cold

judg2: is that bond?

progx: i don’t understand

judg2: is that james bond?

progx: i’m not sure what james’ bond is for