Epistemology

by Barry Rachin

  “I’m drunk and you’re a pain in the ass, but I don’t hold that against you.”

  The drunk staggered off in the direction of the stairwell leading up to the second floor landing where the children’s’ books were located, but before he reached the first riser a sturdy hand snaked around the man’s shoulder pulling him back. “Hey, Frankie.”

  The fellow blinked twice then draped both arms around Scotty Bergeron’s waist in a fierce bear hug. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “It’s getting late,” Scotty said, “and the library closing in fifteen minutes.” Propping the man upright, he coaxed the drunk back toward the foyer of the building. “Might as well head out together.”

  When they were gone, the librarian noted, “That’s a sad case. The man served in Vietnam during the late sixties. Came back from the war all screwed up. Frankie Manning. His name shows up on the police blotter at least twice a month for disorderly conduct, drunkenness, loitering. He finds his way in here at least a couple of times each month. We just call the police and they swing by to collect him.”

  “Does he live local?”

  “The Veterans Administration got him a place over at Chelmsford Arms.”

  Chelmsford Arms – a glamorous name for low-rent housing, mostly one bedroom efficiency apartments over on the east side of town that catered to welfare types, recovering alcoholics and younger people on disability pensions. Scotty Bergeron lived there, which would explain how he was on familiar terms with the bearded man. But Scotty certainly wasn’t a down-and-outer. So why was he renting in a crappy flophouse, consorting with mentally defectives and the likes of Frankie Manning? Nothing made any sense.

  “I can help you now.” Having returned to her post behind the circulation desk, the receptionist was gesturing at Ronda.

  She didn’t hear a word the woman said. Rather, her eyes were drawn to the quarter-sawn, white oak table in the reading room where a bulky text lay open. A woman with a toddler in tow pushed past her and deposited a load of children’s books on the polished counter. Ronda meandered unobtrusively into the reading room where she collected the abandoned text, tucking it in the crook of her left arm.

  “Wittgenstein,” the librarian pressed a date stamp onto a paper flap pasted to the inside cover, “will be due back in three weeks.”

  “Excuse me?” In her haste, she hadn’t even bothered to glance at the title.

  The librarian pointed at the bulky tome Ronda was holding. “Your philosophy book.”

  *****

  Ronda rushed home, took a quick shower and brushed her teeth. Drip. Drip. Drip. The pitter-patter of tepid water even more insistent now, the leaky bathroom faucet had noticeably worsened. She’d call her plumber in the morning.

  Ronda massaged an Oil of Olay moisturizer into the crow’s feet feathering the outer edges of her eyes. The woman first noticed the unflattering filigree when she hit the big three-0. In a mild panic, Ronda bought Frownies—packaged all-natural strips impregnated with a secret revitalizing emollient— that she plastered on either side of her face at night before going to bed. The rational was that the strips would ‘retrain’ the facial muscles, help the aging tissue regain its youthful vigor and firmness. One day in late August as she was driving to work, the assistant manager glanced in the rearview mirror and spied a beige strip of tape dangling from her right cheek. Later that evening, she threw the Frownies box along with a full three-week supply of rejuvenating strips in the trash.

  In her prime, Ronda Wickford had always been reasonably attractive. High cheekbones and a dainty chin were framed by a swirl of jet black hair. It didn’t matter if she let the dense strands cascade down to the small of her back or nipped them in a jaunty pageboy. Either way, the effect was stunning. Now the aristocratic cheekbones had settled like a slightly tipsy structure searching for bedrock. And the irresistibly cute chin had a mate that Ronda air brushed away each morning with various shades of powdery cosmetics.

  The book Scotty was hunched over in the reading room of the Brandenberg Public Library was a collection of essays discussing the linguistic philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

  Facts exist in what Wittgenstein calls "logical space" Logical space is effectively the realm of everything that is logically possible. For instance, though it is not true that Toronto is the capital of Canada, there is nothing illogical about supposing that it might be, so its possibility exists in logical space. Some items in logical space (for instance, "Ottawa is the capital of Canada") are true, while some items in logical space are false. True or false, everything in logical space is possible. "Love is purple" is not an item in logical space, because it is not logically possible (love is not the kind of thing to which we can ascribe a color).

  “This is nuts!” Ronda fumed. “Pure and simple.”

  Love was not something that could be assigned a color. Sure, that made sense. But in life, nothing was ever what it seemed to be. Love could make a jilted soul feel blue with misery or blood red with homicidal rage. So how did the human heart factor into the equation? Or did the illustrious Herr Professor Wittgenstein conveniently ignore that ephemeral organ?

  The world is "the totality of facts, not of things", which is to say the world is the totality of lit light bulbs, not of power sources.

  “Okay,” Ronda mused. “That’s a bit hard to digest but perfectly manageable.” Sitting alone in your comfy condo thinking about sex was not quite the same as what Wittgenstein might describe as “the totality of facts’, which was a rather insipid way of saying that fornication - raunchy, hedonistic, libidinous sex - had distinct physical and emotional advantages over its cerebral counterpart.

  The phone rang. It was her mother. “Yes, I still have plans for Christmas.” The conversation limped along for another fifteen minutes. Ronda’s father needed a hernia repair. Nothing serious. The doctor would schedule him sometime after the beginning of the year. Married Thirty-five years, Aunt Thelma was considering divorce. She wanted a new life. A few years shy of social security and Medicare, Aunt Thelma wanted to reinvent herself - ditch Uncle Morty with his smelly cigars and penchant for soft porn videos. According to Thelma, he rented at least three or four a week from the cable TV network.

  So you give you not-so-perfect spouse the bum’s rush. For what? To end in a one-bedroom condo with a refrigerator stocked with quarter pounds of stale deli meats and cheeses? Nobody bothered to enlighten Aunt Thelma that sometimes, according to Wittgenstein, True Love is not an item in logical space.

  Signs are given meaning through their use in propositions, so it follows that if a sign is used in two different ways we are actually dealing with two different signs. For instance, the "is" in "John is tall" is different from the "is" in "John is the captain of the guard."

  Ronda Wickford “is” the current manager of the Brandenberg Supersaver Grocery Mart. That very same Ronda “is” also an unmitigated idiot who drove to the library for the sole purpose of picking up Debbie Macomber’s latest bestseller, but brought home the Wittgenstein compendium.

  *****

  “Scotty Bergeron – where’s he live?” Rhonda tried to affect an unassuming tone. Not that she didn’t already know the answer.

  Marna who was running a stack of forms through the copier, looked up. “That cheesy factory complex that was renovated into affordable housing off Busby Street.” She snapped her fingers together, a repetitive motion, trying to conjure up the name.

  “Chelmsford Arms,” Ronda volunteered.

  “Why the sudden interest?”

  Ronda told her about the incident at the library.

  Marna removed the original from the copier, adding it to the pile. “Can’t hardly imagine,” she mused, “why a guy like Scotty would be schmoozing with mental defectives and stumblebums.”

  “Probably saved the drunk a trip to the pokey.” Ronda left the office and went directly to the produce department. A pimply-faced teenager was sorting five-pound bags of Idaho potatoes. “Where’s Scott
y?”

  “Out on the loading dock. Eighteen wheeler just pulled in.”

  Ronda doubled back to the office to grab her coat. The temperature overnight had dropped to sixteen degrees with a wind chill of minus two. Out on the loading platform she found the truck pulled up snug to the cement platform with the rear door ajar. Scotty Bergeron was examining a bill of lading, while Dwight pulled cardboard boxes and thin wooden crates from a tall stack buried deep in the bowels of the container.

  “You taught philosophy at the community college in Minnesota?” Puffs of steamy air like miniature clouds escaped her mouth as she spoke.

  Scotty glanced at her distractedly then turned to Dwight. “What’s in those boxes?”

  Dwight pulled back on a two-wheeler stacked chest-high with a green leafy vegetable. “Lettuce,” he mumbled, obviously unhappy with the extreme weather. “Romaine.”

  Scotty kneeled down on the muddy bed of the truck and tore an emerald-colored leaf from one of the boxes. “That’s escarole not romaine.” He penciled a notation on the bill of lading.

  “Yeah, I knew that,” the youth shot back indignantly.

  Staggering forward under the heavy load, Dwight headed off in the direction of the warehouse. When he was gone, Scotty turned to Ronda. “Yes, I taught philosophy. Epistemology. That was my specialty.”

  “Which is?”

  “From the Greek episteme, knowledge. The study of the nature, sources and limits of knowledge.”

  “Quite a mouthful,” Ronda remarked with a dry smile. “So what are you doing out here on the loading platform with the likes of Dwight Epstein, when you could be in a toasty warm classroom ministering to fawning graduate students.”

  The man hauled down a column of boxes with similar markings, stacking the produce off to one side. Dwight returned looking utterly morose. Scotty loaded up the two-wheeler then helped him tip the hand cart at a sharp angle. Ronda noted that the boy’s jacket was much too thin for the frigid New England weather.

  “In a warped sort of way,” he finally replied after making another entry on the paperwork, “dealing with Dwight presents even more of a challenge than a classroom full of precocious preppies.”

  Ronda felt her brain going numbed, as much from the bone-chilling dampness in the carcass of the container truck as the pointless conversation. She stamped her feet vainly trying to restore some semblance of circulation to the frozen flesh. “My bathroom faucet leaks.”

  “How’s that?”

  Ronda told him about the incessant drip and how she had tried to fix it. When she finished Scotty said, “The damaged washer sits below on the bottom side of the unit.”

  Putting the clipboard aside, he disappeared into the warehouse and returned momentarily with a vise grip. “Lock this onto the rectangular base and ease the wrench counterclockwise to break the seal.” “The rubber washer will be located on the underside of the shaft. Make sure that when you - ”

  Before he could finish Dwight returned dragging the two-wheeler haphazardly behind him. “I’m going on break,” he muttered.

  “Yes, that’s fine. There isn’t that much left. We can finish with it after.” Dwight shambled off.

  “Right is tight. Left is loose. Just remember that. When you free the washer unit just take it to a hardware store so they can match up the replacement.” “Now let’s get out of here.” Scott tucked the pencil behind his right ear and moved toward the protective warmth of the warehouse.

  *****

  After lunch Ronda called the Borders book store at the Emerald Square Mall. “The new Debbie Macomber novel. I was wondering - ”

  “Yes,” the salesgirl cut her off in mid-sentence. “A very hot item!”

  “Could you please put a copy aside for me.”

  “That won’t be necessary. We have dozens on display in the front of the store and boxes more in the back room.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do,” she returned curtly. “My name is Ronda Wickford. Please put one aside at customer service, and I’ll be by to get it shortly after five.”

  As she was hanging up the phone, Scotty appeared. “Here’s the invoice from that eighteen wheeler.” He laid the paperwork on her desk. “By the way, make sure to shut off the water supply before you loosen the faucet.”

  “I didn’t when I removed the handle and nothing leaked.”

  The man scratched an earlobe. “ That’s because the water pressure is below the housing.”

  Ronda felt her cheeks flush. “And where do I find the water supply?”

  “Under the sink you’ll see a pair of shut-off valve.” Scotty nodded and went back to his department.

  Epistemology. The study of the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. Knowing about the water supply lines – an innocuous detail – had just averted a potential disaster.

  Saturday afternoon Ronda tackled the leaky sink. Removing the handle, she studied the chrome base. A raised rectangular piece of metal snaked around the rusty stem. She adjusted the vise grip until it was mated to the protruding section and locked the wrench in place.

  Shut the plumbing supply line! Dear God! She almost forgot the most important step. Ronda dropped down on her haunches and fished about under the sink, locating the valves. Right is tight, left is loose. She shut both hot and cold for good measure.

  Gripping the vise grip with both hands, she pushed back to the left. Nothing budged. She leaned into the fitting with all her weight, but the tool didn’t moved, not even a fraction of an inch. On the third try, she felt a subtle give, a relenting of some pent up tension in the mechanism and the threaded tubing slid noiselessly in a circular direction.

  Ronda felt a heady surge of adrenalin, an exuberant rush of joy. That was it! The unit was free. No need for additional leverage, she removed the vise grip and unscrewed the wobbly stem by hand. Lifting it free of the sink, she turned the grimy metal upside-down. Buried in the bottom of the stem was a badly bruised and disfigured rubber washer.

  At the hardware store, a willowy sales clerk - he couldn’t have been much older than Ronda’s fifteen year old nephew - replaced the damaged washer. “That’ll be a quarter.”

  “A quarter?” Ronda fumbled with her change purse. “Somehow I thought it would be more expensive.”

  The skinny boy smiled good-naturedly. “It’s just a rubber washer, lady.”

  “I noticed that the one you sold me is thicker and shaped differently.”

  The boy leaned across the counter. “Your old washer was probably the same thickness when new.” He ran a finger over the outside edge of the new purchase. “The convex shape is just an improved design.”

  The world is "the totality of facts, not of things", which is to say the world is the totality of lit light bulbs, not of power sources.

  Later that night as she was getting ready for bed, a revelation occurred to Ronda. The properly functioning bathroom sink resembled a lit light bulb in that something had to happen in the finite, real world before the abstraction of a damaged washer was resolved. Now, not only did the water shut off completely, but the unnerving drip, drip, drip ceased altogether long before the handle reached to the far side of the sink. Ludwig Wittgenstein, may he rest in peace, could surely have seen the humor in that.

  *****

  “Won’t need this anymore.” Ronda handed Scotty back the vise grips.

  “How did you make out?”

  She told him about fixing the sink. “What type of philosophy did you specialize in?”

  “Wrote my dissertation on linguistics, but I also gave several courses each year on logical positivism. “

  “That’s a mouthful.”

  “Logical positivism asserts that all we can ever truly know are things grasped immediately with any of the five sense.”

  Ronda picked a Bartlett pear from the bin and raised it to eye level. “It you see it, feel it, taste it, the thing exists.”

  Scotty smirked then patted his chapped hands lightly in silent applause. “The statement, ten
thousand angels can dance on the head of a pin, may be an interesting from a theoretical standpoint but is unverifiable.”

  “Santa Clause lives at the North Pole,” Ronda offered.

  Scotty’s smile broadened. “Funny you should bring that up this time of the year.” His expression grew more sober. “The logical positivists would suggest that both statements are frivolous because they can’t be proven, but there’s an inherent flaw with their own argument.”

  “Which is?”

  “The foundation of their philosophical system is built on an a priori abstraction.”

  Ronda’s brain fogged over. “You’re losing me.”

  “According to the logical positivists, only that which can be verified empirically by one or more of the five senses is real.”

  “Yes, you already said that.”

  “The statement: ‘Only that which can be validated by one or more of the five senses is real.’ is an abstraction no better or worse than the one about angels dancing on the head of a pin.”

  *****

  For Christmas Ronda visited the Pit Stop Diner in downtown Brandenberg. No reservations required. Also, no fear of running into any of her coworkers or neighbors from the condo complex. They would all be at home with family or away visiting friends.

  Except for a few elderly who had hobbled over from the senior high-rise, the diner was empty. The place smelled of fresh-baked turkey, mulled cider and sweet potatoes. Ronda slid onto a stool at the counter. A waitress approached, arranging silverware, and placing a glass of water on the Formica counter.

  “The holiday special will be fine.” Ronda handed the menu back to the woman. The door opened and the bearded veteran who had staggered into the library the previous week lingered in the entryway. He looked sober and physically pulled together, but then it was only twelve-thirty. Scanning the room, his eyes came to rest on Ronda sitting at the counter.

  “You mind?” He slid onto the stool directly to her left.

  “No, not all.” The food arrived and she lowered her head.