I watched the door close,
Heard its soft click.
Now,
My eyes sear,
I see as the wind feels.
My friends speak to me
Using words bent,
Screwed and
Wound through
Steel forming machines.
I answer with
Doorknobs,
Tire nuts and
Spaghetti ladles;
It is all the same to me.
It is a bluing evening on the waterfront
Blind cliffs by my shoulder black
Hasty footprints in the soft, damp sand
Painted flowers and the memory of her tears.
“Identical twins separate at birth and never meet”
(“Steel Strings”, Cody Myers, 2009 release)
Dawn
I noticed the dimmest light outside my window,
-fitting neatly between two heartbeats-
I heard the cicada start their sawing.
In a few more heart beats,
More of them joined in
Until the air was full of sound and light.
JW was on stage in front of hundreds of students and visitors, and he had nothing prepared. He would just start, he thought, and the words would come, they always did.
On the other side of the curtain, he could hear the level of conversation rising, and he knew that the time for him to speak was approaching. He peered through a slit in the curtain at the audience to to find Samantha.
There on the left side, about half way down, she was her arranging her fat purse on top of her jacket, she was looking around and pushing as deeply into the seat as she could.
Just then a hand clasped him on the shoulder and someone asked him if he was ready. JW was as ready as he could be. And with that, another man appeared on stage at the podium saying something that resulted in laughter and then applause as the curtain opened.
JW was still standing where he was when he spotted Samantha, as the curtain swept past him and the spot light found him.
He smiled at the audience a little confusedly using his thick eyebrows to help shield his eyes from the light. He started to speak but realized that his voice could not be heard. He needed to be at the microphone; bowing slightly he walked to the podium, took a drink of water wishing it was something stronger and began talking.
“A long time ago, I read that complexity is the result of a lack of understanding.” JW smiled at his audience a beat too long, he thought, some were stirring. “I will try to keep it simple so that I don’t appear too foolish.”
He looked around the stage, “I feel naked without a blackboard.” Some laughter.
“How many are here because you read what I wrote and it made sense to you?”The auditorium was full with students crowding the aisles and the two doors that led into the hall. There were a couple of hands in the air. JW looked over the entire assembly and decided that it was time to begin. “In the next few minutes, I am going to tell you about the essence of life, i.e., the answers.” He paused,”You have already thought of the questions.” There was murmuring and laughter from the audience.
“As most of you know, I am a math professor at the university, which means that is how I make my living- but I don’t think you will need to know a lot of that to understand what I am going to say here tonight. Mathematics isn’t for everyone, and certainly it isn’t the only way to look at things or understand life, but it is my life’s training and my point of view. There will be many other completely valid and acceptable ways of framing what I say. If I make it clear enough, you will understand what I mean.” JW paused searching through the mental outline he was creating for his speech, rechecking the priorities, rechecking the completeness. He paused with his finger to his lips, “Yes, yes, I can say that. In the end, they are all one.
“I would like to lay the ground work for what I have to say in simple and practical human terms.’, Again, he looked around for a blackboard, not finding one, he dropped his shoulders a little and went on.
“How many here think that the world is flat? Anyone here think that the universe is finite, you know, maybe only has so many galaxies- what 42 or so? And Maybe things can get only so small, right? Or maybe just so big, right? Who sees these limitations in the universe? Go on, it’s ok, admit it, no one will laugh.
“Well, no one is raising their hands but I am not sure that means anything.
“Assuming that you do think that the world is not flat that the universe is not finite, then maybe you believe that the universe is infinite- not a bad idea, considering. An infinite collection of things.
“There is a physical law- law because it shares so much agreement that to disagree is not only silly but dangerous. I will give it in terms of electricity but you will see it everywhere, even in your horoscope.” Laughter.
“This is Ampere’s law and it says that if you can get a bit of stuff in a space to have any kind of charge, be it positive or negative, then there will be somewhere associated with it an equal charge of opposite polarity.
“This is straight out of the Dao De Jing, you know, Ampere was cribbing.” JW chuckles, the audience laughs.
JW put his finger to his cheek, “Can I say that?” Then “Yes, I can say that.” He said, jabbing the air with that same finger.
“Precept two in the Dao De Jing talks about beauty and to have beauty means to have what is ugly.
“Ok, but infinity means that this universe then contains an uncountable number of things and an endless number of positive and an endless number of negative things, as well as all those things in between, which can allow us to reasonably assume. Well, lets just think about it…
“If all these things don’t cancel each other out, that would make one infinity larger or smaller than the other, right? Countable and finite. But if the universe is infinite, at the end of the day, as I hear my students say all the time, the tally sheet, the sum of all positive and negative, that is, of all things in the universe is and must be equal to zero.
“Infinity is the artist’s idea of balance. Many problems solve if we are able to include everything.
“Do you see? We have a sum.
“The answer is zero. everything and nothing. It is a perfect balance.”
The first paper that JW published after Sara’s death and his attempt to understand what had happened was called, “About Nothing” and it argued that the only perfect balance, the only concept that could possibly contain infinity was absolute nothing itself. Nothing was a perfect balance. And nothing could account for everything. And nothing needed no creator. It was all very simple, nothing was the single answer to everything:
“So it doesn’t matter what you eat or what you love or even what you think because sooner or later, every thing has to be eaten, loved and thought to create the balance, the whole, the infinity that results in nothing. This is your part, don’t be afraid of it and don’t demean it. It is necessary. Every action you take, every motion you make is necessary.
What do I fear? What do I think? What do I know? The universe, an endless collection of reflections.
If nothing is good, then nothing is also evil, making judgement a waste of effort. Fear nothing, think nothing, know nothing.
If a person knows nothing, then everything is his and if nothing is out of reach then so is the meaning of the universe.”
He was surprised at how easily his ideas flowed based upon his simple arithmetic, he was amazed at just how neat it all was. And he knew he was right. But how could he come up with the actual meaning of life that could be expressed so simply? Sara’s death was necessary and so was his reaction to it.
His papers and articles brought him notoriety and trouble. Spoke freely, in class and outside of it. There were calls for his dismissal, some said that his work was not academic, some said it frivolous and egocentric, and there were many that liked it.
The students loved the controversy and readily rallied to his defense, and JW enjoyed this sort of popularity. He found himself surrounded by students asking questions about his theories. Now, instead of studying into the night, he sat in his office or classroom in discussion with his students and an occasional colleague. He was the center of attention.
“But now we have this huge something-nothing, right? Oh, ok, it is an infinity so it is bigger than huge but can I say that? Can I say that for this talk? Does anyone have any problem with me saying that? Everyone understands what I mean. Good, good.
“Ok, now we have this really big, this huge thing-nothing, right? What can you do with that? A collection of all things- doesn’t that smack of chaos? No, no, it doesn’t. And I will tell you why,” JW poked the air with his finger beginning to get excited. Recognizing this, he chuckled.
“It is because we, each of us is an unique viewpoint, the intersection of an infinite number of relationships, you, me, here, the position of the sun, the earth, the stars. All of these things make you you and me me. We are the universe as viewed from individual, unique viewpoints.
“Each of us is a unique version of this universe. Does that make sense?
“And we, as human beings, have at least 5 primary bases for our understanding of this universe. To say that another way: we know things about this universe based upon our senses.
“Five senses: taste, smell, touch, audition and sight. Some believe if you can’t taste it, smell it, touch it, hear it or see it, it probably doesn’t exist, right? There you go, there you go, you get a certain amount of agreement on that right? Yes, I can see that the majority of students here agree that if you can’t taste it, smell it, touch it, hear it or see it, maybe it doesn’t exist.” There was some laughter and murmuring of dissent.
“OK, OK, give me a moment here to lay out an argument- there is more, you will see.
“That is because, for most of us, ‘existence’ is defined as something you can taste, smell, touch, hear or see. I suppose the most profound evidence of that is that if I ask someone to describe something that exists but cannot be, heard, felt, tasted, seen or smelled, all I will be asking for is a lot of argument, right?
“Would it be all right if I lump all these senses into the word ‘perceive’- will that be ok?” JW stopped, looked at the group briefly, “Can I get your agreement on that? Good.” Some shouts of agreement and a few scattered voices, saying they didn’t agree and laughter.
“Now, these senses, or bases as a mathematician might call them, each of these senses is independent of the other. Though there may be experiences that appear to combine senses, just as some flavor experiences combine smell and taste, the senses themselves never ever ever mingle. There is no part of sight in taste or hearing or feel or smell, right? Another way to put that is, can anyone explain any part of what you smell by using your sense of touch?” JW waited for a second for the question to sink it without expecting an answer.
“No, you can’t, no part of smell involves the sense of touch and vice versa, though we may have experiences that involve combinations of senses. So we can saw these two are independent of one another. And it can be argued in the same manner that all the senses are independent of each other.
“Lets take our flavor experience. It is mostly composed of taste, let us say 3/4 is taste and 1/4 is smell, right? If we let taste be the x axis and y be the smell axis we can actually plot a point describing this experience in this two dimensional system. It may not exist at all on any of the other axes, that is sight, aural or whatever.” He spoke quickly to get the words out, hesitated to re-evaluate his position in the outline and then went ahead.
“Well, I make the same argument right here: if something can be defined in terms of our senses, it exists for us- we have coordinates for it. If we cannot find one sense that something has a measure on, then basically that thing doesn’t exist, right? It is like that Boson thing, right? It was all theory until we found a metric for it. When we could identify it as something measurable with our senses, we said it existed.
“But that broaches the question- how did we ever get the idea it was there at all? Can you imagine something that cannot exist? I would be hard put to say so- if it is conceivable, it could exist”
Jennie smelled like bread. She was sleeping with her arms around JW’s chest and her legs around his left leg, her hair was everywhere.
JW was awake, dreamy and unwilling to move. What was this feeling? He looks at the part in her hair and her pink scalp and then at the fine blond hair on her deeply tanned arms and then her pale buttocks separated by a gentle valley. Her innocence and simplicity touched him.
He could feel her breathing and watched her body rise and fall ever so slightly.
If only he could absorb her, have her whole in his heart but he could not, he had tried. He could only hold her closer and then not nearly close enough. And that particular agony of separation only made the moment more magnificent.
JW felt wonderful, held her and longed for her at the same time.
“OK! These five senses allow us to fix ourselves in this huge chaotic aspic we live in.
“Now we know about the basis of our universe, we know that our experience here is dependent on that basis. Now, what about some of the things we take for granted, that is to say, we believe are real but cannot be measured by these 5 senses.
“We take time and space for granted, that is, we accept both concepts without question even though they were not mentioned as basis functions. Could we add them? They certainly don’t occupy any space in any of the other basis functions we have discussed but the problem is they really don’t define what exists in the physical universe whereas the basis functions do and if we think they do qualify something that exists we have already given it existence because we can measure it with one of the basis functions. They are not independent. Anything defined in time or space, inevitably distorts and loses meaning.
“Time and space may as well be interchangeable expressions for point of view.
“In other words, we suppose them. Oh, I know there are those that will say that time is an axis and we are all traveling on it, but that is because if they can get you to agree, they can control you. More on that in my deep space lecture, if you are interested,” JW chuckles.
About a year before that lecture, JW became aware of one of his students.
He became aware of the way she looked, what she wore and where she sat in his classes. He became aware that she was often around the math department, the parking lot and the cafeteria. And he became aware that if he didn’t see her, he looked for her.
Then, one day, she was standing in the door way to his office asking to come in and JW noticed her eyes, so deeply personal he felt her gaze no less than if she had reached out and touched him. Her name was Samantha and she wanted very much for him to be her advisor. She knew how busy he must be with all his projects but it would be such an honor and… JW interrupted her. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said. He had no other students studying with him and would be delighted to work with her.
Now, she spoke when she saw him and they were often together. At the beginning of the following semester, he was able to hire her to work with him in class and on his projects.
Something was happening and JW was very curious.
Logic, he thought, is a prisoner of man’s rule based intellect. Man-made logic does not and has not ever brought about change.
Change is a moment when the incalculable, the impossible happens.
He wanted to know about this, he needed to know about this to fully understand. He knew that it existed and he knew that once passed it is impossible to re-visit, he must not miss it.
But as hard as he looked, he could not see it. It wasn’t in the moments that he stood outside her door listening to the tumblers roll into place as she turned the key in the lock. It wasn’t in the motion of his arm swinging over her head to open the door. It wasn’t in the motion of her body as she turned.
Nor was it in the half-smile on her face as she turned and looked up into his eyes. JW, trembled slightly, exhaled and surrendered, caressing her arms and cheeks with his fingers, smoothing her hair and kissing her lips again and again in total abandonment.
And with every caress, she opened and received him more deeply while holding him more and more tightly, as though he might disappear.
JW realized that he had not looked at his audience in some time. He had been re weighing each of his thoughts, using his hands to arrange them in front of him, animate them. He looked up, smiled quickly and put his attention on them, “Can I say, can I take just a moment to say something about sums?” JW asked the audience and paused. There was only silence.
“I am not sure what I want to say because it involves talking about the being and infinity not just any one lifetime.
“I think that where most of us have a problem with this idea of balance is: if there is perfect balance, where is the fairness?
“It exists, as we mathematicians are want to say, in the limit as one approaches or attempts to view the entire collection of things as a whole. Though it may not be immediately perceptible in an individual collection of things called a lifetime, a swath or ensemble cut from the infinite universe called one lifetime. It exists. Be patient. Your existence will be populated with all things.
“But what about those of you interested in the meaning of life, the purpose, the ‘why am I here?’ question. Well it is all involved in point of view and I can make the answer any thing I want and so can you. But I will tell you that it is for the simple process of living that you are here. If you can find a way to make eating, sleeping, laughing and making love enjoyable, please do.”
(This is a chapter, for the complete text please view https://baykitty.com/jw-2/jw/)
When he was about eight years old, Orguz’ father, Saleh, would occasionally have him run a sandwich or dinner over to another carnie from their grab joint, Aata’s Fancy, near the midway. Sometimes, the hungry carnie would give Orguz a tip or let him keep the change.
Orguz liked having the money. It was ice cream, popularity and importance.
So, he came up with an idea of his own. Before noon and late afternoon, he would tour the midway taking orders from carnies for lunch and dinner which he would then deliver at an agreed upon time for a small surcharge.
And he got Saleh, grudgingly, to give him a discount on the meals he bought.
This idea had its ups and downs. He dumped food, he lost money and, occasionally, there was no one there when he did arrive with the order.
Saleh said nothing, worrying that his son was in for a loss.
Orguz continued to work at his delivery service. His handwriting got better. His memory got better. He paid more attention. He used Bilko’s smile. He brought his wagon into service to carry food, condiments, napkins and plastic knives and forks for his customers.
After a while, he managed to pay Saleh for every meal he ordered, and he started to make a profit.
But Orguz wasn’t satisfied, he wanted his own concession. He wanted an outer space themed candy and ice cream joint. He would put up posters of Commander Cody, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and he could sell Atomic Fireballs, M&Ms, all his favorite candy and ice cream.
Even firecrackers, if he could get them.
And he would wear a gray suit, a straw hat and carry a cane like the ones the bally talkers at the kootch and freaks show had.
Bilko moved in with Vafa, his father.
Hormat would not let him back in the trailer or let him spend time with Sara.
Bilko pleaded and raged, he tried to explain that he was in a bar, remembered the card Lori had given him, on a whim he went to see her. It was just something that happened. But he had not done anything really wrong. Nothing.
Hormat wasn’t listening, and, soon, he stopped trying to explain.
When he got back in his car outside Lori’s apartment, he thought himself something of a hero for leaving when he did. But there was no way he tell Hormat about that moment.
He was never ever able to tell anyone, drunk or sober.
It was difficult for Bilko to accept being so abruptly cut off. He had built his life around Hormat, and then Sara.
He felt empty and was often ill. The end of the season brought no change.
Bilko continued to slip the money he had saved and made buying, selling and working on cars through the door on Hormat’s trailer. He explained this to himself in a number of ways, but mostly it was hope.
By the end of the following season, it was duty, continuity and the only way he knew.
Now, Hormat would sometimes talk to him and let him see Sara. Occasionally, but irregularly, they would play backgammon.
Over the next few years, he realized that he could not give up on Hormat because the only dream he had was the one Hormat and Sara gave him.
Bilko stayed and drank until the bar closed.
When he got back to Jubilee! it was late and very dark. And he was drunk. The unlit tents and rides formed eerie patterns among the stars.
A German Shepherd pulling a guard opened the gate for him, saying, “Better get some sleep, Mr. Dilmac. Sun up soon.”
It was going to be daybreak in just a few hours. Tonight was already miserable and tomorrow would be worse. Bilko regretted everything that had happened over the last three days. It seemed like a nightmare.
He staggered toward the rear of a shrouded stick joint and threw up.
And now, he was probably going to have the hangover of his lifetime. He could already feel it in his stomach.
As he neared their trailer, he could see a light on. He had hoped, prayed that Hormat would be asleep. What was he going to say?
Got drunk. Met an old buddy from San Diego and got drunk- that would work. It should work.
When he climbed into the trailer, he saw Hormat sitting, at the table in their tiny kitchenette, knitting.
Bilko headed directly to the small refrigerator they had to get a beer. He washed the taste of vomit out of his mouth and turned timidly toward her.
“You still…,” Bilko started.
“You saw Lori, didn’t you?” Hormat interrupted.
Old buddy, San Diego, could still work, Bilko thought, “Yeah,” he said as cheerily as his surprise would allow him, “ we…”
“Did you fuck her?” Hormat interrupted again, without looking up.
Nothing was going to work. Couldn’t think, smoked too much, had a stuffy nose and he was sick. Bilko surrendered to justice.
“No,” he said shaking his head and looking down. “I am so sorry, Mattie. I don’t know what I was thinking, If I had had a brain in my head, I would never had even seen her.”
“Get out!” Hormat said, getting up. “You don’t live here anymore. Do you hear me? Get out!”
Hormat locked the door behind him as he stumbled off the small porch and into the dark.
When Bilko left the carnival that afternoon, he was wearing a t-shirt and carried his Pall Malls rolled up in his right arm sleeve.
He thought he should call Lori before going over, so he stopped at a bar near the address on the card she gave him, he could get something to drink, relax and think a little.
It was a quiet place with a billiard table in the rear. The lights were low, a few people talking. The lissome golden spirits he drank tickled his spine and relaxed his neck.
He could talk to a friend if he wanted to, he told himself. He didn’t have to say anything to Hormat. It was his business. He was a living, breathing person, after all.
An image of Lori’s eyes, her expression changing ever so subtly as he enters her, flashed through his mind. No! That wouldn’t happen. It would be the end of everything. So, what was he doing there, anyway?, he asked himself, but the question seemed irrelevant.
Bilko lit a cigarette and withdrew her card from his back pocket. He put it on the bar in front of him, careful not to get it wet, and stared at it for a long time before picking it up.
In front of the pay phone, he was twisting from side to side, nervously passing the phone from hand to hand, patting his stomach and wishing it was smaller. If she didn’t answer on the third ring, he would hang up and go home. He could just go home.
She answered on the second. It was her. That was Lori’s voice, but more real, alive than he remembered it. Bilko stopped for a second, then pushed on.
He coughed out a crusty ‘Hi, its me, Billy!’ and received a delighted response. His arm across his chest, he squeezed his right bicep hard.
If she wasn’t busy…
She wasn’t busy…. Just reading.
Bilko put down the receiver and patted his stomach again, tucking it inside his pants, and left the bar.
On his way to her apartment, he bought some flowers and a small box of candy and a bottle of wine.
He was exterior now, operating his reluctant, but excited body from the outside. He got out of the car, buzzed her apartment, heard the door unbolt and walked up the dimly lit stairs.
Then, she was standing in front of him in bare feet, pajama bottoms and a heavy flannel shirt covered with teddy bears. She raised up on her toes and put her arms around him.
Bilko could feel the full length of her body against his, he picked her up and pulled her close with one hand on her back and the other on her buttocks.
Putting her down, his hands slid from her stomach over the smooth curves of her hips to her legs- it was as though she was wearing nothing at all.
He grinned.
She took the gifts inside to the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Well, come in, Billy,” she said, smiling at the man at the door.
Bilko flushed a little and laughed, his hands were sweaty. He walked to the couch and sat, watching her. He wanted to be familiar and charming but he couldn’t think of anything to say, funny or poignant.
“So, tell me what has been happening,” he said, looking away.
Lori laughed a little and said, “Let me open that wine.”
She got up to get a corkscrew from the kitchen and passed Bilko touching his knees with her fingertips.
That was the moment. He could hold back no longer, he either had to have her or be refused, and it would be fine either way.
Bilko reached for her flannel shirt and when she didn’t resist, he pulled her to him. Then he put his hands under her shirt and caressed her breasts.
He moaned audibly and Lori put her arms around him as a mother with a child. Lori leaned down to kiss him.
Her lips were soft and warm, nulling what inhibitions he had left.
He kissed her hard, pulling her to the couch. His arms and hands moved under her body pressing her to him.
Her shirt was off and he was kissing her chest and breasts and stomach. She was struggling with his pants.
She said, “Billy, let’s go into the other room.”
Bilko stopped.
“Come on, lets go into the other room, it will be nicer.”
Bilko stood, shuddering, shaking, anguished and said, “I can’t. I have to go.” and then, “I am sorry.” He left without looking back.
Only moments after he arrived, Bilko was again in the car smoking a cigarette, driving back to the bar he had just left, unsure what had happened, thinking nothing had happened, wishing it had never happened.
It had been a struggle. When Lori stepped away from Bilko that night, she took part of him with her.
She had hold of him. She pleasured him and baited him and held his attention from the moment he got up in the morning wondering, imagining what she was doing, until the time he went to bed at night.
In her eyes, he saw anticipation, suspense, surrender and release. He craved the touch of her skin, her face, her eyes, her breasts. Her body was all he could think about.
He watched Hormat playing with Sara and wondered how he could feel this way. He could not hurt Hormat; he had to see Lori.
But for those three days, the card Lori gave him with her phone number on it remained in his pocket.
Then his father came with a message that someone named Lori had called for him, Bilko could wait no longer.
When Lori left, she took something warm. Bilko suddenly felt a little cold and solitary, unsure what to do. He lit a cigarette and scanned the area.
It was busy, herds of people, couples kissing, families carefully shepherded along by mom or dad, and a few men standing around smoking.
He checked the air for his name, he looked around for the flash of a knowing glance.
Nothing out of the ordinary. But Bilko felt removed from his familiar surroundings. He wandered on to finish his rounds, distracted.
He hadn’t done anything and wouldn’t do anything.
Why was he irritable? For several days, he walked the carnival with her number in his pocket. He didn’t call.
Then, about a week before Jubilee! was to leave San Diego, he found a message waiting for him at the maintenance trailer.
That night, he sent a runner to tell Hormat he had to go into town.
He went to see Lori.