by Teddy Wayne
He shifted the bong clockwise to the next person. I was next, and while the female next to me inhaled, Rebecca looked at me again as if she were afraid for me.
When I received the bong, I inflamed the marijuana for a long time and inhaled strongly. The water inside made a quiet bubbling sound that was pleasing and then the marijuana smoke reached my lungs, and it burned and produced tears in my eyes, but I closed them and continued inhaling at the same pace as if I were a machine that could proceed infinitely. When I was finally done, Jessica said, “Damn, Karim knows how to par-tay!” and I still contained my breath for even longer than the previous two people. By the time I exhaled there were just a few clouds of smoke, so I had absorbed the lion’s share of it and was using the product efficiently.
I felt slightly imbalanced, but I was not truly inebriated yet. They passed the bong around the circle, and the originator asked if we were up for another round. A few people, including Rebecca, said they had inhaled a sufficient amount, but Jessica said she wanted more and asked if I did, and I said, “If you have enough remaining I would like more,” not only because I wanted to see what the true sensation was like but also to show Rebecca that I knew how to party.
I watched the first man produce another cloud of smoke. I thought about how it was previously the marijuana plant, which came in a larger shipment that was probably sold by a drug dealer with a small income who bought it in a much larger shipment from a drug dealer with a larger income and so on, and was transported into this country by a drug dealer with an even larger income, and originally derived from marijuana plants in the ground, but that it was picked by someone with a very small income. It is always a valuable exercise to evaluate how a product arrives at its consumer, because it shows how many middlemen there are and whose labor helps determine the market price.
When the smoke contacted my lungs on the next round, it didn’t burn at all, and my body instantly felt lighter, as if someone had rotated a dial and reduced the gravity in the room.
After I handed the bong to Jessica I thought about how:
1. The party was not stimulating the economy, because most of what the guests consumed for entertainment at the party minus the alcohol was either essentially “free” (all the food was homemade, although the raw materials were purchased elsewhere) or not purchased from a store (the marijuana) or was previously purchased and reused (e.g., the music);
A. but then it also meant the guests were not paying for middlemen or advertising;
B. and ultimately they were creating a “product” (a social event providing entertainment) from almost nothing via creativity and cooperation;
i. which is impossible in the physical world in which matter cannot be created or destroyed;
1. but this is how human emotions and intangible products differ from objects;
a. and the most powerful material/emotion that you truly derive from nothing is love, which does not require a source and has no limit;
i. e.g., I have infinitely loved Zahira since the first time I saw her and will always feel that way.
As I concluded this thought, I observed Rebecca more closely than I would normally, especially the small area between her lips and her nose and the soft angles of the two vertical lines there, and I almost became imbalanced, but I put my hand on the wall and remained vertical. I could hear the blood zooming in my ears like water boiling in a teapot, and I licked my dry lips.
I craved water but I couldn’t go to the kitchen because I didn’t want anyone to see me in that condition. I went down a hallway to the restroom on the other side of the apartment.
The restroom was locked, so I leaned against the wall. It hurt my back and I plummeted slowly until I was sitting. That was uncomfortable also, and then I noticed an open door to another room. Multiple coats covered the bed in a pile like a bowl of colorful herbs, and I considered that if coats were allowed to be on the bed then I could be as well.
The room had only a small lamp on for minimal light. A picture of Rebecca’s brother was on the table by the bed and next to a black-and-white picture of a young female with long straight hair who looked like Rebecca. Three framed paintings hung on her walls of men’s faces in colors such as orange and blue and green that looked like the inverted true colors.
A bottle of prescription pills was next to her pictures. I rotated it to read the label:
Rebecca Goldman
Zoloft
Take daily with food (150mg)
I rotated it back and reviewed the paintings. The men looked like aliens, and their faces were very angry and sad simultaneously, and my heart accelerated and my skin perspired at what felt like an infinite number of points. I sat on the bed where there weren’t any coats and reclined and closed my eyes because the ceiling looked like it was spinning. Then I grew very panicked, because I knew I did not have complete control over my thoughts anymore, and I didn’t want to be at the party anymore and I regretted inhaling marijuana smoke only to impress Rebecca.
I tried to regulate my breathing but I was inhaling shallowly, and then a voice said “Here,” and a cold wet cloth was on my forehead and absorbing the perspiration, and when I opened my eyes Rebecca was leaning over me. She said, “You’ve been gone almost half an hour,” even though it seemed like only a few minutes.
“I am not feeling well,” I said.
She continued petting my forehead. “Just stay still.”
We stayed like that for a few minutes and my breathing deepened. “Do you think some slow music will help?” she asked, and I nodded.
I closed my eyes and focused on the words of the singer on the stereo she said was named Leonard Cohen, and it helped reroute my brain from panicking. The line “Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm” especially helped because I had to mentally link the two images, and it was a logical connection I had never previously considered, and after he sang that I opened my eyes and Rebecca’s hair was now hanging down on the pillow like falling black water and covering everything else around my face like a cylinder and all I could see was her face looking down at me, and my body felt more stabilized.
“Who produced these paintings?” I asked.
“My brother,” she said. “He’s studied art since he was little.”
“Zahira is artistic as well.” I didn’t know what else to say in that position. “But my father discouraged her from taking classes like that when she was young.”
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Girls can do whatever they want here.” She removed the cloth from my forehead. Then she lowered her head and her hair touched my face like feathers. Her eyes fluctuated quickly from my eyes to my chest, and her warm breath moved over me, and my heart accelerated again.
I said, “Rebecca,” because the silence felt like shallow breaths again, and she didn’t answer, so I said her name again and she said, “God, it’s been a while,” and I wasn’t certain what she was referring to but I had an idea, so I said, “Then possibly—”
Before I could finish my sentence, which was going to be “Then possibly we should first discuss this situation from other angles,” she sat up and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is a mistake.” She kept saying the word “mistake” to herself as she stood up and moved away from the bed.
I said I was feeling enhanced and should go home, even though I was perspiring again, and tried to find my coat. The pile was large, and Rebecca stood there while I searched. She said, “You must think I’m a real shithead,” which almost made me laugh after I had analyzed the word, but because I didn’t know how to respond I looked around while I continued feeling through the pile and saw her blue wool hat on her desk.
I said, “That is a nice hat,” and she said, “My mother knitted it for me,” and suddenly I became very sad thinking about her mother producing a hat for her, even though there is of course nothing truly sad about it for her, but I could feel pressure behind my eyes, so I refocused on the pile and finally found my coat at the bottom and said I would see h
er on Monday and walked out while holding it, and I exited the party without saying good-bye to anyone and took a taxi home.
bong = device for inhaling marijuana
Manhattan project = term for atomic bomb project (not necessarily a project in Manhattan)
obscurantist = a person who withholds data from others
par-tay = different pronunciation for “party”
performative = a statement that also produces an action
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: NOVEMBER 9
On Tuesday I was making some trades in my office when someone knocked on the door. The person knocked very softly as if waking a child, and I didn’t hear it the first time, because it was raining loudly outside.
“What’s up?” Rebecca asked when she entered, which I didn’t know how to answer, because (1) she was the one to search for me, and (2) I never know how to respond to that question, since (a) people don’t truly want to know exactly what you are doing at the moment and (b) I couldn’t tell Rebecca even if she did want to know.
So I said “Nothing,” which makes people think you are boring, but I had no other ideas and I was slightly nervous.
“You’re allowed to decorate here,” she said.
“I do not own many objects.”
“Still, a picture or something. Some personality.” She was now standing across from me at the desk even though there were two empty chairs there. The sky outside was the color of smoke, which made the interior seem even less decorated. “It’s pretty dead.”
“Maybe you can lend me one of your brother’s paintings,” I said, and immediately I regretted it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about that. Not about the paintings.” She picked up a pen on my desk and moved it in her fingers like a conductor of a symphony holds a baton. “So, the other night, I was pretty drunk and all, and I think I may have done or nearly done certain things that could be considered somewhat inappropriate by some given the context of our professional relationship.”
It was difficult for me to follow the meaning of her sentence but I could understand it from her expression and how she focused on the pen.
“So, basically I’m saying that I wanted to make sure you didn’t get the wrong impression or anything.” She looked at me for the first time since she had entered the room. “Still friends?”
The rain had stopped, and in fact the sun was now out, but I wished it was still raining. It felt as if someone had turned up the gravity inside my chest, the opposite of feeling high, and without looking at her I slowly said, “Still friends.” I understand on a logical level how all real-world systems have finite resources and can partially satisfy only some consumers, and therefore the desires of two parties are sometimes incompatible. But it is still difficult to understand on a nonlogical level.
I heard her put the pen on my desk. “Great. Well, that’s all I wanted to say.” Then, to be polite, she asked me how work was proceeding, and I again responded like a robot, and she left, and I looked at the sunlight pouring into my dead office until I decided to concentrate on my work.
dead = lacking decoration or personality
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: NOVEMBER 14
The next two days I worked very late and was home only to sleep. My apartment had many luxuries but I was the solitary person using them, and that can grow boring, e.g., many times I was listening to the radio on the stereo and wished I could play the song for Zahira, but when I remembered she wasn’t there, I didn’t want to listen anymore.
Kapitoil was humming at near-optimal efficiency. We were restricting our daily investment so we would not cause market turmoil, and Mr. Ray didn’t state any specific projections, but I calculated that if we continued at this rate for the next year, Schrub’s quants revenues would increase approximately 30% over the previous year.
Then on Thursday morning I received an email from Mr. Schrub’s secretary. I was so stimulated when I saw her name in my inbox that I spilled my cranberry-blueberry juice on my desk and it left a small red puddle. She wrote:
Mr. Issar,
Mr. Schrub would like to invite you to his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, this coming weekend. Car service will pick you up at the office at 5 p.m. on Friday and deliver you to Downtown Manhattan Heliport, where you will meet Mr. Schrub and proceed by helicopter to Greenwich. A car will return you to your residence on Sunday afternoon. Please let me know at your earliest convenience if these terms are acceptable.
I almost called Zahira to tell her the news, but it was too expensive to connect to Qatar during the workday. And I couldn’t tell anyone in the office because it would produce envy and they would question why Mr. Schrub was requesting my company, so I told my mother in Arabic so no one would understand me if they heard. I don’t truly believe she is observing me, but it’s nice sometimes to pretend she is.
I replied that the terms were acceptable, and she responded with further data about the car service. I asked:
Is it possible for me to arrange my own car service?
She wrote that it was. I removed Barron’s business card from my wallet. It was easy to find because it was the only one I had received in New York so far.
When I made my reservation with Barron he didn’t mention if he remembered me, but maybe that was because he was very busy and couldn’t talk for long.
At noon on Friday I saw Rebecca in the kitchen. She was emptying packets of false sugar into her coffee. “Hey,” she said.
“Hello,” I said.
“Any weekend plans?” she asked.
“I have a busy weekend planned with friends,” I said, which was at least partially true. “What about you?”
She stirred the coffee with a plastic straw without looking at me. “Nothing special,” she said. “Have a good one.” She walked past me and out the door. I should have said that I was instead going to try to compensate this weekend for work I had neglected. But maybe it’s better I didn’t. When people lie they often have to lie again to cover the first lie, and they continue for many iterations in a chain.
Barron was on time, and as I got into the car I said, “It is my pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Wright.”
“You, too,” he said, and although I know that people reciprocate that to be polite, it sounded more authentic with his voice. “Heliport, right?”
“Yes. It will be my first time on a helicopter.” I added ASAP, “When you took me to the Yankees game, I forgot to call you after the game. My employer drove me home.”
“That’s cool. People forget all the time. I still get paid.”
“No, it is not cool,” I said. “It was my bad.”
He turned his head and looked at me even though he was still driving. “Okay,” he finally said. “Nice suit, by the way. Fits you right.”
Barron turned down the sun-protector, and again I saw the picture of his daughter taped to it. I asked how she was progressing. He said she was excelling in school and he thought she would soon be smarter than he was. I told him I thought the same thing about my sister. “Although for now I want her to think I am more intelligent, so that she continues to try to impress me in school.”
He laughed and said, “You’re all right. You’ve got a unique sense of humor. It’s subtle, but you’ve got one.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I will work to make my sense of humor less subtle.” This was possibly the reason no one else found me humorous. Then I said, “It must be enjoyable to spend time with your family after a week of work.”
Barron scratched the back of his head. His haircut was close to his skull, but many white hairs blended with the black ones. “It is. Sometimes it’s not. But mostly it is.” His eyes angled at me in the mirror. “You have any family here?”
I looked out the window, because suddenly it felt like tears were under the surface of my eyes and waiting to appear like perspiration on a Coke can. “No,” I said. I remained in that position to avoid Barron and because we were now near the East River and I always enjoy observin
g the water. My father used to teach me swimming at Al Wakrah beach on Saturdays. He was a powerful swimmer, and I learned quickly, although I was never as strong in the water as he was. He didn’t take Zahira, and of course my mother never went although I derived my broad shoulders from her and I believe she would have been efficient in the water as well. We stopped going when she became ill.
We arrived in a few minutes at the heliport, which had a landing pad in the shape of an L on top of the river, a large building behind the small parking lot for cars, and spaces for 12 helicopters, although just five were currently there. I thanked Barron. “Call me when you need a ride to the White House,” he said, and I laughed and complimented him by saying he had a non-subtle sense of humor.
In a few minutes Mr. Schrub’s limo entered the parking lot. The driver, Patrick, exited and opened the rear door for Mr. Schrub. He nodded at Patrick while he held a briefcase in one hand and talked on a cellular, and Patrick returned to the car and waited.
When Mr. Schrub was next to me, he said on the cellular, “John, I’m going to have to go—I’m with an employee,” which was both stimulating, because I always enjoy when anyone mentions that I’m a Schrub employee, especially Mr. Schrub himself, but also disappointing, because he didn’t refer to me by name. He closed the cellular and put down his briefcase and shook my hand. “Glad you could make it, Karim. I hope the late invite wasn’t a problem?”