Iris Has Free Time

by Iris Smyles

  “Oh,” I said, frozen stiff. Your family, sure, before you killed them. If there ever was such a family! Where are they now, huh? Why are you here at the movies alone on a Thursday night, you creep, you criminal, you rapist?

  He smiled warmly and motioning to the screen, said, “It was very good. It made me cry.”

  “Yes,” I said rigidly, smiling politely despite my fear, not wanting to appear rude. At last, he turned and left.

  After the door closed behind him, I followed and exited the theater, too. I was eager to get home. The Law & Order percussion sounded in my ears again. I thought of my home address.

  189 West Tenth Street

  On the street, I thought about the man from the theater and felt bad. Perhaps he wasn’t trying to brutally rape and murder me, but just wanted to connect. Instead of reacting the way I had, I might have offered my own feelings about the movie: “I too could identify. I just got a Roomba—a robot vacuum cleaner—and he eats up all the dust just as Marley ate up all the furniture. What’s that? My Roomba’s name? I’m still deciding, but I’ve narrowed it down to Charles, Knuckles, or Saul. I had originally wanted to call him Oonchaka, but the name already belongs to an ex-boyfriend’s penis.” We might have shared a laugh had I not reacted so defensively. After all, wasn’t I also suspiciously alone at the movies on a Thursday night? Wasn’t I also a creep?

  I arrived home and greeted my plant Epstein, my Roomba _________, and my stuffed animal Herbert. I was safe. Alone and safe. I studied my to-do list. I still had to wash my face, brush my teeth, and shave my legs, but I decided instead to write my column right then and there. I took out my computer and set it down on my desk.

  Second Base

  By Iris Smyles

  Wave or particle? Quantum physics has it that light and in fact all matter is both, or rather, exhibits both properties depending on how it is observed, though, when it is observed, it can only be one or the other.

  I think about this a lot when I’m having sex with Glen. Sometimes, I imagine him as a wave and other times a particle. “Wave or particle! Wave or particle! Yes! Yes!” I’ll cry, near the end of our double-slit experiments, before, like a wave-function, he collapses on top of me.

  According to the Copenhagen interpretation, it’s impossible for me to know exactly when and where Glen’s going to come—electrons have been known to turn up in the most unusual places!—but using probability statistics, I can guess to pretty near accuracy whether it will be after ten minutes and on my chest, leg, or back, or more Newtonianally speaking, within the confines of the condom.

  For a full minute after testing my theory, Glen lies sprawled on top of me, his breath slowing. Finally I ask him to move so I can record the results in the Chemistry ledger I keep next to the bed. With a pencil, I write the date and time and then, “thigh,” before curling up next to him.

  Glen says I think too much, that I should stop trying to put him in a box. That he doesn’t care about Schrödinger’s equation. “You need to open yourself to life’s great mysteries and stop obsessing over explanations.” Then, in the same breath, he tells me he’s got me all figured out.

  “You know what your problem is? You’re not a romantic,” he told me yesterday. “That’s the difference between you and me; you’ve never been in love.”

  “How do you know where I’ve been?”

  He laughed and said, “I know. Your wild past, right? Reading novels by David Rukowski and Hunter P. Farmson. Drinking wine coolers and staying up late with your girlfriends.” He dismissed me with a wink.

  Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle postulates that one can never know exactly where a particle will turn up, though we can narrow our guesses by studying the statistics of where they’ve turned up in the past. A wave-function is basically the sum of such probabilities, like a map of every possible outcome, which collapses once an observer takes a measurement. That’s how Schrödinger could have an equal probability of a live and dead cat in a box at the same time.

  Once you look inside the box though, probabilities don’t matter anymore. All possibilities but the one observed disappear and what you’ve got is a cat, alive or dead, not both. You’ve got the thing itself, a particle not a wave. But before anyone checked, everything was true. Before you locate the electron, the thing could be anywhere. Like the way I could be anywhere, but instead I’m here with Glen, who, let’s face it, is kind of an asshole.

  “I am, too, romantic! I just don’t think romance should hinge on shutting your brain off.” I should have told Glen that. I should have said, “Glen, you don’t think enough! That’s your problem. And you’re slightly overweight!”

  Lately, I find myself acting subatomically and I have no idea what to do about it. I mean that all the laws I used to obey just don’t seem to correspond to my present life or what I’m doing with it, or what I’m doing with Glen. What am I doing with Glen?

  Glen and I fight all the time and I think it has everything to do with special relativity. The fact that we each believe ourselves to be the fixed point in our experiments, the objective observer—which, as Einstein noted, is an illusion just like love—is a constant source of conflict. I tried explaining special relativity to Glen the other day as a way of bolstering my side of the argument, but he’s a more forceful arguer than I am and wouldn’t have it.

  The argument: He keeps insisting I don’t move around enough in bed. I told him I was trying to compensate for our age difference by moving very slowly; Glen’s six years older than me. I told him that by lying very still while he moved around at a speed approaching that of light—“Faster!” were my exact words—we might make time dilate, with the effect that he would grow younger and I would grow older and theoretically we might climax at the exact same age, and how much fun would that be! Sweating all over me, Glen said, “Don’t tell me what to do!”

  I still dream of a Grand Unifying Theory, especially when Glen takes me out to dinner or says something funny and I laugh and we seem to be getting along so well. But more and more I doubt the possibility of my ever finding it, or more specifically, of my ever finding it with Glen. What would a wedding prove?

  Regardless of whether or not time exists, regardless of gravity and so much space, and the confusing wave-particle duality of love itself, regardless of the ever-increasing probability of my ending up alone, perhaps it’s time this experiment comes to an end.

  After a couple hours of writing, with a first draft before me, I stopped to brainstorm a title. “Iris’s Science Corner,” I typed up at the top, just under “Second Base,” thinking perhaps this piece might help me break into science writing. Imagine my name in the Scientific American! My dad would be thrilled.

  Before closing my computer, I checked my email: a message from Glen. “How was the movie? Sorry I couldn’t go with you,” he wrote, as if I’d even asked him to. He is always doing this, revising past events according to how he would prefer them to have happened. As if I don’t have my own memory, too.

  But then, I often revise things about him to include in my column. I suppose everyone does this to a greater or lesser degree, whether they are writing or just talking to their friends. For example, I wasn’t in Florida visiting my parents when I saw The X-Files sequel. I lied. I was in Florida, but I was there alone. My parents were in Greece for the summer, and instead of visiting them there, I went to their place in Florida to spend four months by myself during hurricane season. Having just turned thirty—yes, I lied about that too—and having just stopped drinking, not cut down—that too—I went there “to finish my novel” (a phrase I’ve been using for the last seven years in a more or less unwitting lie) in isolation and to continue writing the column I’d been hired to write five months after I got sober, the column that would detail my sex life as a binge drinking twenty-eight-year-old Manhattan girl-about-town.

  Einstein’s theory of special relativity is often explained with an anecdote about time-traveling twins. One twin is sent into space, traveling at the sp
eed of light. (If you could travel faster than the speed of light, physicists say, you could, theoretically, travel through time.) When he returns to Earth, he finds his twin brother much aged while he has not aged at all because for him, time had slowed. Einstein tested his theory by measuring the ticking of a clock in motion compared to the ticking of a stationary clock, proving that a clock in motion ticks slower than a stationary clock. The heart is a clock, too.

  This is what it’s like when you write about yourself: You split yourself in two. There is the you who is traveling—not precisely at the speed of light but at the speed of memory, which is even faster—and the you moving through time normally whom you can visit at any age. The two of you live at different speeds and occupy different dimensions. “Iris” has free time. I don’t anymore.

  So it wasn’t exactly a lie, my saying I was twenty-eight, for one version of me was. And when I insisted The X-Files piece was fiction, I had been telling my mother the truth, too. Unobserved and by myself in Florida, watching storm warnings on TV and writing stories about the alien assault on Glen’s pubic hair, I was like Schrödinger’s cat before you look inside the box, paradoxically alive and dead at the same time. Twenty-eight and thirty. Drunk and sober. Ruining my life, trying to save it.

  Just before I went to Florida, I was dating the Glen I’ve written about and often talked to him about my column, hoping he might read it but unable to come right out and ask him to. I felt conflicted since writing about sex is sort of shameful and low, and yet, it was the first thing I’d done since college of which I was proud. I wanted him to see me and felt I was somehow more there, in my stories, than here, right in front of him. So, I’d drop hints and say things like, “I have to go home and work on my column,” or, “I got into an argument with my editor about the title of last week’s column.” But he didn’t seem at all interested. He pretended he was interested, but I’m pretty sure he was just making his actor’s listening face and nodding his head.

  I hadn’t started writing about him yet because I was still catching up on older stories. But when I did eventually write about him later, after we’d broken up, I wondered, if he were to read this—Are you there, Glen? This is you!—would he recognize himself? In my column’s comment section, a reader asked how Glen felt about my writing, if the column was affecting our relationship—if my observations had influenced the outcome of the experiment.

  My findings are as follows: When I write, I feel as I did when I was a kid at the movies with my parents, when everyone was facing forward and I was facing back. When I write, it’s like I can go anywhere in time and stop everything for a moment, just freeze the scene. I can walk around everybody, walk around Glen, see him stuck in mid-action, about to kiss me goodnight, about to walk away after a tiff outside of a restaurant, about to exit the bathroom shiny and return to the table where I’ve been waiting for the last fifteen minutes, reading the TV guide on my phone.

  I step outside the moment, and everything in it becomes clear. I see him, but I can also see myself finally, too, my eyes fixed on him as usual, fixed on his eyes and where they are looking, concerned again too much with what he’s seeing, with what he’s thinking. It’s one of those moments during which I felt myself in full eclipse, one of those moments when I thought I had disappeared. But there I am in plain sight. There I am. The cat is alive.

  CHAPTER 9

  SMYLES’ GAMES

  A COMPLETE HANDBOOK CONTAINING ALL

  THE GAMES PLAYED IN THIS BOOK, WITH THEIR

  RULES, REGULATIONS, TECHNICALITIES, ETC.

  It were indeed to be wished that less time was killed. . . .

  “A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN AT BATH,” HOYLE’S COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF GAMES

  AWAKENINGS

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: The Bastard Felix

  After smoking some very strong pot, notice Player Two hasn’t spoken or moved in quite some time. Instead of saying, “[Player Two], are you alright?” Pick up the Beanie Baby your mother gave you for Christmas, the one resting on your bookcase that you don’t know what to do with. What’s a grown woman of twenty-five supposed to do with an adorable small stuffed dog? Throw the adorable small stuffed dog at Player Two and watch his arm shoot up suddenly, just like the catatonic patients’ arms in that sad movie, starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, about that hospital where people fell asleep for twenty years. Say, “Felix! Felix! I have an idea for a game!” Sit down and feign catatonia. Say to Player Two, “Now me!”

  DRINKING GAME #1

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your college roommate May

  PLAYER THREE AND FOUR: Two girls from your dorm

  Meet Players Two through Four at a bar where you accidentally have one too many. Discover how witty you are after three. Discover your heretofore untapped leaning capabilities. Take up smoking.

  Talk about boys in the dining hall with the other Players the next morning. Refer to them as “men.” Say something wicked, then leave the table to get more fro-yo. Return with a smart remark about the “man” who got your phone number last night.

  Go out for drinks with the other Players again. Have one too many on purpose. Discover how witty you are after four, five, and then six. Discover older men who find you fascinating. Discover you have this in common with them; you find you fascinating, too! Catch sight of yourself flirting with one in the mirror behind the bar. There’s something about you, isn’t there?

  Notice he’s not too attractive. Humor him and give him your number anyway. Humor him and agree to go out with him when he calls. Humor him and meet him for drinks during the week. Humor him and let him kiss you. Humor him and go home with him that night. Humor him over eggs in the morning. Prepare to humor him when he calls. Wait for him to call.

  In laying out crib, consider your hand, also whom the crib belongs to, and the state of the game, because what might be prudent in one situation would be less prudent in another.

  “MAXIMS FOR PLAYING THE CRIB CARDS,” CRIBBAGE, HOYLE’S GAMES

  HIDE AND SEEK

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your friend Caroline’s brother, The Captain

  At the studio apartment of Player Two’s sister who is out of town, count to five with your eyes closed. Now yell from the bed where you’re sitting, “You can run, but you can’t hide!” Open your eyes. Spot Player Two crouching nervously between the refrigerator and the dresser. Run a few steps and touch him on the shoulder, then say, “Tag, you’re it!” Look around as he counts to five. Scan the 275 square feet frantically as your time runs out. Now make yourself small inside the bathtub in the kitchen.

  The cards being shuffled and cut, a certain stake, from a cent to five dollars, is deposited by the dealer, who gives three cards to each of the company. The elder hand, and the others after him, having examined their hands, either ‘pass,’ which is signified by laying down their cards, or ‘brag,’ in which case the dealer’s stake is to be answered by all who brag.

  “MODE OF PLAYING,” BRAG, HOYLE’S GAMES

  SCARY ROOMMATE

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your college roommate May

  When Player Two is studying, stand partially obscured by the door to the living room, so that one eye is visible and the other is blocked. Wait patiently for Player Two to look up and see you. Laugh when she starts screaming. Return to your own homework. Scream later when you’re watching TV and are startled by Player Two’s one creepy eye staring out at you from the closet.

  DRINKING GAME #2, ROXANNE/RED LIGHT

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your boyfriend Martin

  PLAYER THREE: Rachel, a girl Martin knew in high school

  PLAYER FOUR: A plump girl in a pink cashmere cable-knit

  PLAYER FIVE THROUGH PLAYER NINE: Five twenty-four-year-olds in an East Hampton mansion

  Turn your head from right to left in order to take in the enormity of the “house” you’ve just pulled up to. Hop out of
Player Two’s jeep. Ask Player Two, “Whose house is this again?” “[Player Three’s], a girl I knew in high school.” Nod. You met Player Three before at Player Two’s friend’s rock show in the city (Player Two’s friend is the son of the world’s most famous concert violinist); they all grew up together. That night, at the show, you could tell Player Three liked Player Two, but you weren’t worried because Player Two was your boyfriend, because you knew he liked you and not her, and because you were wearing such cute vintage pumps.

  Feel your used pumps sink into the gravel driveway as you approach the large forbidding front door. Notice Player Three’s bare, perfectly pedicured feet when she greets you. Take in the pearly ease of her smile. Reciprocate awkwardly when she gives you a kiss on the cheek. (You and your friends don’t kiss on the cheek.) Follow her long legs from room to glorious room as she makes some joke about her and Player Two being “Jewish WASPs,” a joke they both laugh at, which you don’t quite get.

  Arrive in the dining room where six Players surround a long banquet table with a small CD player placed purposefully in the middle. Offer your name. Accept a beer. Take a seat. Don’t be shy.

  Ask in your friendliest voice, “What are we playing?” Listen to a plump girl in a pink cashmere cable-knit summer sweater (Player Four) count out the players on Team One and Team Two. “You’re Team Two,” Player Four tells you last. “Team One has to drink every time Sting sings ‘Roxanne.’ And Team Two, every time he sings, ‘red light.’ Also, ‘Ra’ counts, Team One!”

  “Could you?” Player Four asks, before you realize you’re closest to the CD player.