Schrödinger's Ball

by Adam Felber

  And struggled there alone upon thy lands.

  E’en I, who loveth peace as much as breath,

  Was compelled to admiration for his stand.

  Full twenty minutes did he fire and fume

  ’Midst gases that brought tears into his eyes

  And filled his lungs and stained the very air.

  Yet still held his bold resolve unbreaking,

  Till all at once through smoky air there came

  A whizzing missile fired from a gun.

  It seemed the very arrow of fair Eros,

  Yet with purpose dark and black intent

  It pierced thy lieutenant’s aching breast.

  He teetered briefly, screaming ’gainst the smog,

  And, falling then, he clattered to the ground.

  So dying there his blood spread like a rose,

  And thus brought thy rebellion to its close.

  PRESIDENT: Ah, fair Dix, I did love thee once. Foul was the day that thou didst come under my sway, for it did bring thy downfall.

  MULDOWER: E’en still, good Earl? For did he not depose you?

  PRESIDENT: Aye, but washed was his brain from my declamations, and his bullish mind once set ’pon a course did lack the sense to turn aside. Fell were his deeds, and fevered was his angry brow, yet do I regret his demise.

  MULDOWER: And yet thou livest, m’lord, as do thy friends and thy fair mistress. Keep this glad news close to thy breast.

  PRESIDENT: This I will—and in that vein—ye gods! Look upon the hour! I must away!

  MULDOWER: Away? ’Tis early yet, old friend. Come, drink ye more, for ’tis the Hour of Happiness, and small silver will it cost thee to imbibe.

  PRESIDENT: There will yet be time for such a night, gentle Muldower. But this night, with thy news, has been renewed, and so must I away to see its close.

  MULDOWER: Then take thee my card, and wait thou whilst I gather my effects; I’ll walk with thee awhile.

  PRESIDENT: I thank thee, kind friend, let us away, and afore our parting will we many things exchange, names, numbers, and notions, so that future congress will not rely on chance. Come, gentle friend! For though we age there may yet be deeds ahead. The moon be old itself, and so smileth ’pon the aged, and smoothest e’en the most furrowed countenance. Come! For live we yet!

  MULDOWER: Lead on, lord. I’ll follow awhile.

  [Exeunt]

  Chapter 13

  JOHNNY’S STARTING TO FEEL lighter and lighter. He’s playing with things now, seeing how far things will stretch around him. Everything feels warm and semisolid, like he’s moving through a dry liquid. Colors radiate from everything, reminding him of particularly good acid trips. He’s been speaking less and less. There are no words for the things he can see and hear, which makes language a little confusing and inadequate.

  He’s leaving the Charles Hotel now with his friends, aware that he kind of freaked them out with that swizzle-stick thing. He didn’t mean to. It makes the gulf that’s growing between them even wider. This isn’t what Johnny wants, and he resolves to keep himself from doing those kinds of things again. At least not in plain view.

  Idly, as they walk out the door, Johnny considers the ground beneath his feet, notices how much air is displaced by each step, wonders if that displacement could be prevented … thinks indescribable things … and decides, yes, it could be done, perhaps like this. Carefully, subtly now, so as not to freak out his friends, Johnny arranges things so that the displacement isn’t total. A quarter of an inch or so beneath the shoes … no more … It seems to work!

  His feet don’t quite touch the ground, and he smiles broadly, secretly enjoying the spongy feeling of his strides, tinkering with the resistance and resiliency … finding ways to make this easier on his legs and back as well, creating unseen cushions and massaging tendrils all around him….

  “John-man, what is it?” comes a voice, slightly muffled until Johnny thinks to thin the atmosphere around his ears (hadn’t thought of that…). It’s Grant, still a little freaked but obviously happy to see Johnny’s grin. If Grant has noticed that Johnny is now a quarter of an inch taller, he doesn’t let on. Johnny’s thrilled to be singled out for conversation, no less so for his difficulty with words, thrilled to see Grant (as though he’d been gone for weeks), just thrilled in general.

  “I’m walkin’ on air, Grant-man,” he says, “just walkin’ on air.” Grant smiles, and Johnny giggles uncontrollably at the perfect (if lonely) joke.

  Dear Diary,

  Another beautiful sunset. Bibu would’ve loved it. It sounds nuts to say what a baby would’ve loved, but I am nuts, and I know.

  Walking by all the dorms is always a stroll down memory lane. How many girls can say that they’ve turned tricks at their own alma mater? Very few, I’d guess. Two lives—three now, if you think about it—all in the same place. I walk by a building and there’s three sets of memories. For instance, “Hey, that’s where I [studied organic chemistry / took it doggy-style from a terrified freshman on his birthday / snuck in for a muffin last Thursday]!” All of the above were difficult and rewarding in their own ways, by the way.

  So now I’m sitting by the river (not too close, mind you, not anymore, not ever again), playing with one of these trendy giant molecules someone left behind. Damned if the thing doesn’t vibrate just a little. Should it do that? Maybe I’ll keep it in my panties. Ha!

  Been ridin’ fifty-eight hours straight now, man and boy, up the ramps, down the innerstates. Buzzin’ like a beehive. Goddamn radio show won’t take my calls anymore, and everyone calling in is a fucking idiot anyway. I should just listen to the music anyway, get me movin’ a little bit in the seat for the next hour or so, so I can make the dropoff and then the pickup and then just park it and get some goddamn sleep. Lessee … talk, talk, Latin shit, talk, rap … There it is—Workin for the man evry night an’ day….

  Got nuthin’ but buzz and road now, right down to th’ mcginlies. A big wheel keeps on binin,’ Proud Mary keeps on tinin’…. Shit, but why the hell din’t I stop at the Arby’s? Coulda had a road beef n’ maybe used a men’s room ‘stead of the goddamn Coke bottle. Coulda got a little somethin’ with extra jaspers on my collup….

  WHOA! Almost lost it there, fell asleep, yes I did. Gotta admit it, keep me sharp, keep on truckin’ … Where the hell is 495? I passed it, maybe. Fuck. Same song, though; I’m okay. Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ onna rivuh … Okay, no big, 95’s as good, just take 95, or maybe skip that and come straight in on 90, why not. Past the bowlin’ alley with the fagpins they like up here, go straight as piss into the migilicuddy.

  Got some kinda dagnab makin’ my bungleys itch somethin’ awful…. Don’t scratch! Don’t scratch. Rollin’ rollin’… Itchin’s my friend, itchin’s gonna keep me sharp, itchin’ away as I cruise inta the heart of the goddamn …

  Boston, godfuckingdamnit. Worst goddamn streets I ever except for Frisco, with all the steep bullshit making the brakes get all frungy. And that crappy Super 8 or 6 or something, with no shower curtain and the radiator spusterin’ like a lungshot deer—

  WHOA! Back in the game, bro! Stay with it! Never shoulda scratched that thing. Where th’—? Missed 95, no doubt there, but I guess 90’s what the good Lord wanted for me. Gotta be a juke. Box. Hero. Got scars in his size.… Straight down 90, right down the chute, no fuss, no muss, and damn th’ tortillas, like they say….

  “God died a cartoon death, you know.”

  Dr. Schrödinger, we noticed, had taken to introducing topics as though composing a tabloid headline or providing catchy buzz-phrases for a movie preview. He was also, we observed, knee-deep in his several desserts.

  “Look, God cheerfully led us to science, right past the cliff’s edge of his own plausibility. Then, sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, he looked down, saw he was standing on empty air, did one last double take to the camera, and plummeted to his death. If there ever was a deus ex machina, the machina was built by the ACME Corporation.” />
  We were entertained, but a little unnerved. What had happened to Dr. Schrödinger, who now seemed a hip avatar of mod science? Was it Dori? Was it the pressure of the success of his Cat that finally turned him into the raconteur we all wanted? He was still, in some ways, a pedantic and occasionally gross old man. But more often than not, he now seemed increasingly urbane. Obnoxiously so, we thought.

  “There was a sweet spot, you know. Back about a hundred years, after God had walked the plank but before Planck had walked all over us—ha-ha. We’d briefly, beautifully eliminated the unknowable and incomprehensible. And people would’ve been much happier if we’d kept it that way. That’s what we want. People want electrons to orbit atoms like tiny planets, hard and regular. They make sense that way. People like that—they don’t want their electrons to exist only as a cloud of potentialities. But that’s what we’ve got now, and we’re stuck with it. Quantum mechanics isn’t going to roll over and die as easily as God did.”

  The old doctor was obviously enjoying himself, unaccountably amused at mankind’s spiritual dead end. He ran one long finger through the patterned syrup that had adorned the plate for his Black Forest cake.

  “So, yes, as people like to say, we can consider ourselves the end product of history. But you have to bear in mind that history is more or less a digestive tract.”

  Ugh.

  Lester the Rat watched the meat. It was now definite in Lester’s mind that it was meat. No doubt about it. Now Lester prepared himself to go and get it, all his senses extended toward the meat and the space between it and his ratty presence.

  It seemed safe. Yes, there were large moving objects semi-nearby, but they were cars, not predators (not that Lester could have told you what a car was, but they’d never gone out of their way to eat him). There were humans around, but not always near the meat—there would be opportunities. There was also a bird.

  The bird, a sparrow, was out a bit late. It would be useless to name the bird or try to get too deeply into its thoughts, since birds have even less going on upstairs than rats do. Suffice it to say that this bird had discovered that the meat in the gutter had a small but significant quantity of bread attached to it and had been picking away at it as the sun set. Hungry birds sometimes stay out late, one might suppose. Or perhaps this particular sparrow was a bit of a night person, as it were. For whatever reason, the bird was there. On the meat.

  Lester was not above trying to eat the bird, but that wasn’t Plan A. Plan A was simply to scuttle over to the meat and eat it. Frightening the bird away from the quarry would be good enough.

  And so Lester watched, waiting for the opening. And suddenly, with the passing of a lone pedestrian, the time had come.

  On a street in Cambridge, just after sunset, a furry gray shape in the gutter suddenly leapt to life and began to dash furtively along the curb.

  The President of Montana (Just Call Me “Earl”) was alone again, walking aimlessly, his head a riot of emotions. He was elated (Tammy’s alive!), concerned (Tammy might’ve been arrested!), hopeful (Tammy might be on her way here!), melancholy (Dix is dead), and touched (Muldower is still my friend).

  After walking Muldower to his enviable Victorian house, the PoM(JCM“E”) found himself wondering if he (the President) actually had any backbone at all. Sure, he’d been a natural “leader” all his life, but his convictions seemed … environmental in origin. He’d been a left-leaning activist years ago here in Boston, found himself increasingly conservative and isolationist in Butte, and had become a bit of a fanatical conspiracy-monger once he’d moved back to the sticks. And now that he was back in Boston, here was all the dewy-eyed humanism he’d left behind, as though it’d been waiting here for him like an eternally patient Irish setter. All these serial belief systems had felt real, but the President couldn’t completely discount the idea that he was a bit of a windsock, ideology-wise. Perhaps, he thought, he ought to stop being so convinced about things for a while, though it’d be a hard habit to quit cold turkey after all these years.

  Right now, all he wanted was Tammy. He knew that even if she was free there was a strong possibility that she was being tailed by spooks who would arrest him the minute he showed his face. Or maybe not—he didn’t really have enough information as to where he stood, law-enforcement-wise. Either way, he was going to go to the appointed place and hope Tammy was there, with or without the Law. He was tired, he missed his wife, he was eager to find out what was next, whatever it might be.

  The little park was just a block away, just a tiny little path-and-bench-strewn green place on JFK, not far from the center of the Square. The President checked his watch: ten minutes now.

  From fifty yards away, the park was heartbreaking. If Tammy didn’t show up, he realized, he could happily spend the whole night there, just sitting on a bench and recalling the twenty-one-year-old girl he’d sat there with, the one who’d made his stomach ache, the one he’d married and dragged out to the middle of nowhere.

  She wasn’t there yet, as far as he could tell. But he was still across the street and couldn’t see too well in the lamplight. In ten minutes (seven now) he’d know.

  … 3. And so the Prophet Bernie did come to the Place of the Crossing, and saw the people there, yet he did not cross. 4. For the Lord had said unto Bernie, “Bernie, when thou dost come to the Place, thou shalt not cross until thou seest the Sign.” 5. And Bernie had replied, “Lord, what is this Sign of which Thou speakest? Dost Thou mean ‘Walk’ and ‘Don’t Walk’?” 6. And the Lord had answered, saying, “Nay, Bernie! Would the Lord your God be so small? Thinkest thou that I concern Myself with foot traffic? Hast thou ever known Me to literally post a sign?” And Bernie was ashamed, and begged the Lord’s pardon, and thought it best not to mention that “MENE, MENE, TEKEL” business from the book of Daniel, and rather abased himself until the Lord did cut short Bernie’s mumblings, saying, “Cease thine endless apologies, Bernie, for thou talkest too much! Go as I have commanded thee, and seek ye the Sign.” 7. And so it was that Bernie had come to the Place of the Crossing. And there at the Place of the Crossing Bernie did stand, and did not cross, for he saw not the Sign. 8. And the Prophet Bernie wondered again what the Sign might be, yet he did not cry out to the Lord, for he was acting in accordance with the Lord’s command, and besides, the Lord had been Curt and Pissy of late. 9. And so the Prophet there stood as the night fell upon him, and yet he did not move, saving only for his hand, with which he did beg for alms of the people there, as the Lord had commanded.

  Leonora Decaté rose, shrugging on the blue policeman’s shirt that lay at the foot of the bed. It came down past her knees. She went to the window and saw that her nap had turned the day into night. She felt abruptly disconnected from time—it could have been anytime between sunset and sunrise.

  She’d been napping because Officer Jack Kennedy was possibly going to drop by after his shift. Or was that his “rounds,” or his “patrol”? She wasn’t sure.

  Leonora briefly considered that he was, of course, too young for her, reminded herself that she was not the sort of person who thought of such things, and felt her well-tempered self-image click back into place with a satisfying and secure thud. This wasn’t self-deception, just the mental calisthenics of a woman who knew in her bones that personality was a construct and was careful to construct her own creatively. She liked Jack, liked his sturdiness, his sweet interior, his muscular frame, and his obvious good taste in women. Not to mention the cachet that dating a younger man (and a cop at that!) brought her within her circle of staid but admiring fellow faculty members, the way it shored up her already invincible reputation as a remarkably active, wild, exciting, eccentric scholar. Leonora was not so shallow as to think that such shallow satisfactions didn’t matter.

  That she wasn’t “in love” with Jack, that she didn’t think the relationship would last any longer than had the past few, that he’d eventually abandon this adventure and opt for a younger and more suitable mate, that she wasn’t any
closer to finding true companionship—these all seemed like positives to Leonora. What good would it do to go through all that again?

  Outside, the lingering gang of children was still making noise, and she realized with some annoyance that this was what had woken her from her nap. She thought of the shotgun in the basement, and she smiled broadly at the image of her standing on the porch and brandishing it, dispelling the crowd. What a story that would make at the dining hall tomorrow!

  Leonora padded out of the room and down the stairs. She thought of her peculiar grandson, the assembled throng, the warm evening, and she found herself filled with immense gratitude as she reached for the basement door….

  Deborah Johnstone is walking silently next to Johnny, idly listening to Grant and Arlene, enjoying the warm evening. Johnny seems taller, she thinks in passing.

  Her head is filled with pleasant things: the faint blur of alcohol, the nearness of friends, the beauty of the Square, the breath in her lungs. There’s also an undeniable buzzing—something is afoot. It may be Johnny, or Grant, or both, but there’s that feeling of things in flux. The air itself is humid, breezy, warm, crackling. Anyone with even the faintest sensitivity could tell you that there is a thunderstorm coming. Deb has known it for hours and is hoping it will break while the four of them are walking.

  You have noted that Deb is happier, prettier, better adjusted, and more joyful than yourself. You have, perhaps, speculated that there is a darker underside to this, that no one can sustain such ongoing bliss in an imperfect and ever-changing universe. You suspect that events will lay her low, or that her state of grace will come to a crashing end. You likely do not believe that happiness, true and nondeluded happiness, is sustainable at these levels over the long haul. Perhaps Deb feels like a fictional construct to you, or an exaggeration seen through the eyes of an adoring Grant, a Platonic ideal only dimly seen as a shadow in the real world. In short, you don’t buy it.