I lit a joint. Exhaled contemplatively.
“Then came Einstein,” I said. I knew I was getting a little out of whack chronologically, but the old Indian was a tough audience, so I figured I’d better get to the crux of the matter. I explained how Einstein’s Theories of Relativity (General and Special) had thrown classical physics on its ear, setting the stage for the next revolution in modern thought and science: Quantum Mechanics.35
At this point the old Indian asked for another banana. Again, he shoved it down his throat without peeling or chewing it. I got the distinct feeling that he was trying to derail my train of thought.
“No more bananas until I’m through,” I warned. His nod was barely perceptible.
I had another warning to lay on the old Indian. This was it: We were about to make a conceptual leap. A leap from the Macrocosmic world of Bananas and Banditos to the bizarre Realm of the Atom and Beyond. We were about to take a look at what’s really going on. A leap from here to here, as it were.
I was starting to get excited, so I had a few more belts of mescal to calm myself down. I relit my joint.
I then explained that one of the major problems with discussing the world beneath the atom is that our language is geared for Macrocosmic Reality and that the best way to understand the Microcosmic Realm is to use allusions, metaphors and analogies. Otherwise, what we call “common sense” can short-circuit our acceptance of the Truth.36
The first thing I did was to guide the old Indian down the path from Macrocosmic Reality to the nitty-gritty world of Underlying Reality. I started by explaining that a long, long time ago there was Nothing. No space, no time, no matter. Zip. Doodley Squat. Then there was a Bang. A very Big Bang.37 The Universe actualized and expanded rapidly, forming a Space-Time Continuum. Matter and energy appeared, stars and solar systems formed, along with the aforementioned Banditos and Bananas. Upon hearing the word “bananas” the old Indian cleared his throat.
Okay, I thought to myself. He wants to fuck around with me. Well, two can play that game.
I grabbed a banana and held it up. “What are bananas made of?” The old Indian licked his lips.
“Banana stuff,” he replied. This was more or less what I’d hoped he would say. Now I figured I really had him.
“And what is banana stuff made of,” I inquired smugly.
The old Indian’s response to this question took me by surprise. “The Great Spirit,” he answered without hesitation.
I took a big hit from my joint. Exhaled contemplatively.
“And what is the Great Spirit made of?”
He put his hand on High Pockets’ head. High Pockets wagged his tail, as he always does in response to a display of affection. “Ask his tail,” the old Indian replied.
“What?” I was getting annoyed again.
The old Indian smiled, his eyes fixed on the banana I was holding. “The Great Spirit wags,” he said. “Now give me the banana.”38
“No bananas, goddammit!” I yelled. “Abso-fucking-lutely no bananas!”
I had a monumental belt of mescal, then handed the bottle to the old Indian. “You get the banana when I say you get the banana.”
His nod was barely perceptible. He drained the half-full bottle in one slug.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
The old Indian let fly an incredible belch, scaring the shit out of High Pockets, who bounded out the door and into the jungle. Even Legs was startled.
“All right, all right,” I said, trying to calm things down.
At this point, the old Indian started giggling. Apparently the mescal was kicking in.
I sighed and sat down. “Are you in touch with the Great Spirit?” I asked.
The old Indian nodded and continued to giggle.
“Tell him to go fuck himself,” I said.
My comment had the desired effect. The old Indian stopped giggling and closed his eyes.
“I am now going to tell you all about this Great Spirit of yours,” I boasted. “Banana Stuff or any other kind of stuff is made of atoms, in the case of bananas, mostly carbon atoms. Now, when we get further down, below the level of the atom, things get weird.”
I started pacing in front of the old Indian, who remained immobile, his eyes still shut.
“There is only one system of thought that has successfully explained the nature of Subatomic Phenomena,” I continued. “That system of thought is called Quantum Mechanics. It is a way of looking at Underlying Reality. It is a way of looking at your Great Spirit.”
At this, the old Indian’s eyeballs started rolling around behind his eyelids, as if he were in REM sleep. As if he were having a spectacular dream or hallucination.
“Your Great Spirit is a very bad boy. He has been doing his best to confuse us. But we have more or less figured out what he is up to. He has given us an apparently orderly Universe. But under that illusory order, there is chaos. Absurdity.”
I relit my joint and continued. I went on to explain how Quantum Theory has demolished our conception of causality, of the connectedness of events.
“Moreover, Subatomic Units, the stuff everything is made of, do not behave like solid particles. Instead, they behave like abstract entities. Statistical entities that have tendencies to exist.”
I held the banana in front of the old Indian’s closed eyes. “In some sense, this is an illusion. We conjure up reality and reality conjures us up. You participate in the existence of this banana and vice versa. This Great Spirit you are talking about is mathematically described by Quantum Mechanics. This mathematics indicates that chance is absolute. The Great Spirit doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”
The old Indian opened his eyes slowly and stared straight ahead.
“Matter, indeed, the whole of the Universe, is essentially nonsubstantial. In other words, there is no Banana Stuff in the real sense. Simplistically speaking, this banana is ‘made’ of waves and these waves are probability waves. To put it another way, this banana probably exists. Do you still want it?”
The old Indian didn’t move a muscle.
“I thought not.” I opened another bottle of mescal and had a belt. “The human view that we live in a Universe that ‘makes sense’ is gone forever. The whole thing is a Cosmic Crapshoot. The first rule is that there are no rules and the rules and the paradoxes go on and on and the circus goes on and on with an infinite number of acts, sideshows and freaks.”
I heard a faint humming sound. It was coming from the old Indian.
High Pockets started howling from the jungle.
Legs was staring at the old Indian from his position wrapped around my M-16.
“Now we come to the problem of Schrödinger’s Bandito.”39
The humming increased in intensity by a few decibels.
“Let’s assume that José was captured during his assault on the University of Barranquilla Research Library and was thrown into solitary confinement by the Army.
“Let us further assume that a sadistic Generalissimo has placed a vial of deadly nerve gas in José’s cell. A random event (like whether or not a uranium atom decays during a specific time period) will decide whether the gas is released.”
At this point I digressed slightly. I explained that the work of Heisenberg, Schrödinger and others had led to the aforementioned conclusion that we are participators in the reality we are stuck with, not observers. Extrapolating from this, it has come to be accepted that nothing really occurs until it is observed, in this case by the Generalissimo. When he looks in the jail cell he will observe that José is either alive or dead. He will then know that the uranium atom has decayed. Again, until this observation, nothing bas happened.
The old Indian’s humming was getting louder.
“Let’s say the Generalissimo is fucking his girlfriend and doesn’t get around to checking how José is doing for an hour after the allotted time. What is José’s status during this hour? Common sense tells us that he is either alive or dead.”
I paused
for emphasis. “Quantum Theory says that this is simply not the case. The Copenhagen Interpretation asserts that José is neither alive nor dead, but is in some sort of limbo, waiting to be observed.”
It now became necessary to raise my voice. Between High Pockets’ howling outside and the old Indian’s humming inside, I could hardly hear myself think.
‘This idea that José’s condition is contingent upon a horny Generalissimo’s sexual endurance runs against the grain of many scientists. John Wheeler, Hugh Everett and Neill Graham came up with a nifty solution to the dilemma.”
Now I was yelling. “The orthodox interpretation of Quantum Mechanics says that one of the possibilities actualizes. José is either alive or dead. What Wheeler, Everett and Graham propose is that both actualize, but in two different branches of reality !”
The old Indian’s humming was now wavering like a police car siren. High Pockets’ howling was more or less in tune with him.
Legs got disgusted with the situation and snaked his way back down to the floor, then disappeared through his crack.
“The Edition of José that is eventually observed (for sentimental reasons, let’s say he’s alive) is the Edition of José in our Reality. In some other Branch of Reality, there is an Edition of José that is dead! This theory is appropriately called the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics!”40
I took another serious slug of mescal, then screamed over the din, “How’s your Great Spirit doing, Jack?”
The old Indian abruptly stopped humming. High Pockets shut his trap, too. The resulting total silence made me a little woozy. Maybe it was the mescal. It’s hard to say.
I examined the old Indian’s eyes. It was obvious that he was in some sort of trance. I thought briefly of Señor Rodriguez, wherever he was, then of Tina, Tom, Gary and Tina’s father.
The old Indian suddenly rose and walked stiffly out of the shack and disappeared into the jungle. I haven’t seen him since.41
This morning I woke up with a monumental idea buzzing around in my head. Since Tina’s father has not responded to my missive, I’ve decided that some drastic action has to be taken. Something that will shake him up enough to force a response. I have also decided to include Tina, Tom and Gary in my plan. I will drop notes at regular intervals to the whole group.
This new volley of musings will be Subatomic in nature, and I have hatched an ingenious plan to keep them all on their conceptual toes. José has agreed to help me in this. He has Bandito Cohorts all over South and Central America, a veritable Bandito Grapevine. He will have his Bandito Buddies mail my notes from many different Bandito Strongholds simultaneously. The handwriting and my unmistakable style and wit will be the same, so it will appear that I am in many different places at the same instant!
The astute reader should immediately sense the similarity between this concept and the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (each note will metaphorically represent a different Edition of me). I am especially interested in Tina’s father’s reaction. I can’t wait to see if he picks up on what I am doing. I am, in essence, putting his Subatomic Mettle to the acid test.
God only knows what Tina, Tom and Gary will think of all this.
If one has to stick to this damned quantum jumping, then I regret having ever become involved in this thing.
—Erwin Schrödinger
8
The Flight of the Looney Tune
Flash and I took off from the Bahamas and headed for Colombia, accompanied by our two Canine Cohorts in Crime. At my insistence we had filled his waterbed with high octane AV-gas and hooked up a transfer pump to the Looney Tune’s fuel tanks. Flash made me edgy by throwing lit roaches over his shoulder, in the general direction of his volatile bed.
In spite of the fact that the Looney Tune had no navigational equipment other than a crude compass, we managed to find Santa Marta International. Flash did one of his patented roller-coaster landings, causing José’s gang of Bandito onloaders to erupt in spontaneous applause.
José, Robert, Jim, Flash and I relaxed on the runway while the Banditos loaded up the plane. We got into some serious drinking while High Pockets and Aileron (doggy buddies of the first order) wandered off, doing whatever dogs do when they are out of sight of human beings.
When José’s crew finished the onload, they joined us for a bon voyage party.
Flash and I collected the dogs and staggered into the Looney Tune. Flash turned the stereo up to full blast, lit a joint, then did one of his crowd-pleaser takeoffs. We headed north, climbing very slowly since we were dangerously overloaded.
About an hour out of Santa Marta, we leveled off at 10,000 feet. High Pockets, Flash and I were crowded together in the cluttered cockpit since the rest of the plane was jammed full of fifty-pound marijuana bales. As mentioned previously, Aileron’s post was all the way aft in the tailgunner’s bubble.
“Aileron!” Flash called out between hits on his spliff. A single muffled bark was the response.
“All clear?”
Two barks. This was the all-clear signal. Three barks meant that Aileron had spotted another plane. One that was on a heading different from ours. Sort of a yellow alert. Four or more barks meant that the bogie had changed course in our direction or that he had spotted one that was definitely shadowing us. This was red alert. Hysterical howling meant we were in deep shit—say, being fired on by a fighter plane—and would have to take drastic action.
This usually took the form of a steep dive toward whatever land was nearby so Flash could weave his way between hills, trees or (his favorite) buildings in order to shake his foe.
“Old Aileron’s got a sixth sense about bogies,” Flash explained as he raised the volume on his massive sound system, then adjusted the color-tuning on the Beta
The cockpit was awash in marijuana smoke eerily illuminated by a Road Runner cartoon. Jim Morrison was bellowing “Backdoor Man.”
“One time old Aileron heard this F-16 coming before he actually saw it.” He passed me the joint.
“I put the Tune into a radical dive to treetop level, found some city—ah, Baltimore, I think—it’s hard to tell. Which is the one with all the statues and monuments?”
“That’s Washington.”
A contemplative pause. “No shit. I shoulda been over Baltimore,” Flash grunted. “Tailwinds.”
I pointed out that we were somewhat off course. In fact, we were headed in the general direction of Portugal.
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“You see that star, the sorta faint one at the end of the Little Dipper?” I asked, waving smoke from the windscreen.
“Little Dipper?”
“That’s Polaris, the North Star. Put our nose on that and leave it there. Our course is almost directly true north.”
“Far out.” The fact that Flash had never heard of Polaris made me edgier than I already was.
Flash seemed to sense my growing apprehensions. “Don’t worry. Soon’s we get down to treetop level, we’ll be OK.”
Let me add at this point that Flash is the only living aviator who feels safer at low altitude. At high altitudes not only is navigation easier (due to increased visibility) but in the event of engine failure, it’s possible to glide to a reasonably safe emergency landing. Moreover, flying at treetop level is, almost by definition, a questionable practice. A small lapse in concentration at 200 or so miles per hour can quickly turn a treetop below you into a full-blown tree in front of you.
Flash’s response to this inescapable logic was this: “Bullshit. The higher you come, the farther you fall. It’s an old aviator’s saying.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The old saying is, ‘The bigger they come, the harder they fall.’ It doesn’t have anything to do with aviation.”
A contemplative pause. “Treetop level,” Flash mumbled, then turned the stereo up full blast, making further conversation impossible.
We reached the Bahamas at first light, located Bimini and landed. Our Learjet was i
n front of the ramshackle customs shed. Robert and Jim were drunk and arguing with the police chief and two customs officers. They wanted $10,000 more than the usual fee for refueling a pot-laden airplane. José had brought his Thompson submachine gun and wanted to settle the dispute in the prescribed Bandito Fashion, but I talked him out of it.
The situation finally calmed down sufficiently for us to get the Looney Tune fueled up. We took off, leaving Robert, José and Jim waving magnums of bubbly on the runway.
Harry and the copilot had stayed in the Lear the whole time, as usual. In spite of his impressive war record, Harry claimed that some of our antics made him nervous, so he preferred not to get involved.
We had timed the flight so we could make the Massachusetts coast as night fell.
I got a little tense when I realized that we were over Nova Scotia and (I calculated) getting low on fuel.
Flash didn’t seem concerned. “Crosswinds,” he mumbled, then hung a sharp left and proceeded to follow the jagged coastline at treetop level.
I turned down the stereo. “I think we could use a tad more altitude.”
Flash gave her more throttle, clipped the top of a pine tree, relit his joint and grinned. “Treetop level.”
I looked at High Pockets. He was lying on a bale, his eyes shut tight.
“Aileron!” Flash called out.
One bark.
“All clear?”
Two barks.
I was the bombardier. Flash gave me the “bombs away” thumbs-up signal when he figured we were over his buddies’ commune. I snapped open the bomb bay doors, then, to my horror, realized that High Pockets was still lying on top of the bale with his eyes shut.
What I next perceived was obviously a hallucination, probably brought on by a combination of breathing marijuana smoke and watching Road Runner cartoons for more than ten hours with two dogs and one outright lunatic.
Anyway, the bale High Pockets was lying on dropped into the night with a hundred or so others, but High Pockets remained suspended over the open bomb bay, his eyes still closed.
Cosmic Banditos Page 8