Chapter 28: Nadia and Kiki A few days later we were in the middle of an afternoon of integration of analytic functions

and Mrs. W was explaining the nature of simply-connected domains when she looked at her watch in alarm in the middle of a sentence. Ah, shit, she said. Stoney, whats planned for dinner tonight? The veal didnt look good so I fell back on spaghetti Bolognese, he said. I hope thats okay. Have you started the bread? she asked. No, maam. The sourdough starter is still a day or two away, so Ill be working with Mr. Fleishmann, and I can start that in, maybe an hour or two, as hot as it is. How do you do this? I asked. Do what? he answered. Cook anything that comes up in conversation, I said. You could, too, if youd get off your dead ass and give it a try, said Stoney. Hush, boys. First, Im going to be late for a garden club meeting, so Im leaving. Stoney, wont those spaghetti ingredients keep to tomorrow night? Yes, maam, he answered. Second thing is, tomorrow night were going to be joined for dinner by my sisters son, Clarence. Ginny is playing in tennis tournaments and such and Winnies going to take her around. Im a little surprised that she wants to go along. Ginnys part of a mixed doubles pair, I said. Oh, with whom? she asked. Ciscos friend Walter. That snobby boy from Atlanta? she asked, Yes, maam. Well, that explains it, said Mrs. W. Shes trying to protect Ginny from Walt? I asked.

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Its more complicated than that, she answered, lighting a cigarette. You said he was from Atlanta. Do you know if his parents are in the Piedmont Driving Club? Yes, maam, I think they are, I answered, after thinking a second. I think Cisco mentioned it on the way down either Christmas or Thanksgiving. I didnt understand what it meant. Its a posh kind of country club in Atlanta. It used to be outside of town, so you had to drive to it, but the towns grown. If Walts nice and his parents are rich, Winnies been waiting for this, she said. Hmmm, I said. Is this that Peabody girl that was all over you outside the Campus Grill? asked Stoney, somewhat awkwardly. Later, Stoney, I said. Mrs. W cocked an eyebrow at me and took a drag off her cigarette. I am late for Garden Club. After that I may have dinner with a friend. You boys should take yourselves out to someplace to have dinner and a beer. Yes, maam, said Stoney. What time will you be back? Hard to say, said Mrs. W. Well leave the porch light on, said Stoney. With that she departed abruptly. Usually when she left she gave us a problem to work on, but she didnt this time, so Stoney and I looked at each other and shrugged. It was a few minutes after four. We looked at each other briefly, then returned our attention to the problem on the blackboard. Shed posed it without letting us know where she was headed, and we soon realized we didnt know as enough about multi-variable differentiation to solve the problem once wed stated it. We could state it as let f :Rn R, and let a Rn and then let u Rn be a vector such that |u|= 1. So we figured that the directional derivative of f at a in the direction of the vector u would be defined to be
Du ( a ) = d d t

(a =tu )

t= 0

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which we could not solve. Clueless. Completely empty. Translating Linear A to Urdu. We shook our heads at it, then shrugged. Okay, said Stoney. Time for a beer. Where can we get a good burger around here? The closest place on this side of the river is over on Frazier, just down from the Oddfellows Hall. Whats it called? Cant remember. It changes hands about every six months. Sometimes they have a pool table, sometimes they dont, but whoever buys it seems to hire the same cook. A guy named Rocky. Good burgers, good fries, good chili. A good muffaletta, if you like them. Sounds promising. What are the chances of scoring some dope there? Couldnt tell you. What are the chances that there will be a television in the bar showing a baseball game? High. What are the chances they will be showing the Tigers play the Angels tonight? Slim to none. This anti-Detroit bias must be stamped out, he said. Not that. The Braves will be playing the Expos.1 Rank regionalism. Lets go, he said. We got there just before 5:00, a little earlier than I would usually have dropped in. The pool table had been removed from the back room in favor of a few more tables. Petey and Rex, two guys who were in this same bar the last time I came in, when I was in high school, were at the bar and had obviously been there for some time. Petey was wearing a summer Navy uniformwhite crackerjack and bell-bottoms with those really shiny shoes sailors wore in the Cold War.2 I waved as Stoney and I took seats at the bar.
1

In 1974 the Montreal Expos were a National League baseball team, named for a worlds fair of some sort that happened in Montreal sometime in the sixties. More at footnote 6. 2 The Cold War was so christened, oddly enough, by George Orwell, the author of the semi-classics 1984 and Animal Farm, well-written books about the zeitgeist of the 1950s and 1960s that are doomed to join the collected works of J.D. Salinger on the scrap heap of undergraduate literature as books that, while brilliantly written, capture perfectly something that no longer matters. Where was I? Oh yesthe Cold

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They lurched over. I knew Petey from playing pool and knew Rex from somewhere vaguer than that. Church? Our mothers were friends? Anyway before Id left town Id bumped into them in bars all the time. Yo, cuz, said Petey. Long time, no see. Where ya been? Out and about. Hey, Rex. Rex was maybe six foot five and solid like a brick wall. Petey was reedy and flexible, like a drunken willow sapling. You still play pool? Petey asked. Not too much. Ive been in college, I said. Wow. Thats outta sight, said Petey. Why are you dressed like a sailor? I asked. I enlisted, man. I am a Seaman Apprentice in the United States fucking Navy man. What do you think about that? he took a swig from his Budweiser longneck. Last time we talked you were dating a flower child, I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cindy. Sandy, I said. Yeah, yeah, right. Sandy. Yeah, well, like, it didnt work out. You were opposed to the Viet Nam war. Yeah, well, thats over, man, didnt you hear? he said. Are you a Turtle? Rex asked, looking at Stoney. What? Stoney asked. Ignore him, Stoney, I said. Rex and Petey have this whole stupid shtick about being a member of a club called the Turtles. They usually do it on girls, but Rex must be bored. Its stupid. Why you gotta go fucking with it? asked Rex. Petey signaled for another beer and laid his head on the bar. How we gonna pay for this? he asked Rex.
War. What Orwell meant to capture with the phrase Cold War was the idea of a war of ideology between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. in which the two countries did not do battle directly, as the U.S. and Britain had done against Germany in World Wars I and II, but indirectly, through proxies and client states. Even to this day, neither the U.S. nor Russia seems to be able to let go of the bad habits they developed during the Cold War: propping up dictators because theyre friendly.

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I think I know his routine anyway, said Stoney, knocking back a shot and taking a sip of beer. Is this name a word that starts with f and ends in u-c-k? he asked. Rex looked deflated. The bartender, a pretty, trim woman in her thirties or forties whom I recognized as an alumnus of the Frosty Mug, cocked her head in bemused concern. Firetruck, Stoney told her. The other question is What sticks out of a mans pajamas? She shook her head as she refilled his shot glass. His head! bellowed Rex, too loud by half. Stoney knocked back his shot and took a pull of his beer. Rex was cackling to himself at the richness of the riddle. Club soda, please, I said. Thought it was you, said the bartender. I used to work weeknights over at the Frosty Mug. I thought I recognized you, I said. Petey had started snoring. It wasnt yet six. You boys eatin or just drinkin? she asked. Oh, eating, most definitely, said Stoney. Ill get menus, she said. Petey? asked Rex, jostling him. What the fuck? said Petey, sitting bolt upright. He looked confused for a minute, then took a swallow of his beer. Jesus, he said. Youre supposed to be in uniform? I asked. I am in uniform, he said proudly. The uniform of the United States Navy. Wheres your hat? I asked. Petey smacked his right hand on his bare, crew-cut head, then looked around, a look of panic on his face. My Dixie cup! Oh, shit! exclaimed Petey, and scuttled off of his barstool, beer in hand, to search the seats theyd had before they came over to talk to us. Rex followed. After much pawing around on the floor, they decided he must have left his hat at the Brass Register, the last bar theyd attended. Stony watched them flee, beers in hand, impassively, then pushed his shot glass towards our bartender for a refill. They just stiffed you, he remarked, as she filled his shot glass with bourbon. Thankfully, at this point I remembered the bartenders name, Grace.

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Not really, she said. Rex forgot his credit card. When I cash him out hes gonna to give me a big tip. Hell figure it all out tomorrow. Is that ethical? Stoney asked, knocking back another shot, and placing it within easy reach of a refill. Yes, she said. Rex is an asshole. Speaking of which, I said, Grace, do you have Stoneys credit card? If he passes out from all these shots youre feeding him, I dont want to get stuck with the tab. Stoney smiled, retrieved his wallet, handed her a BankAmericard3, and pushed his shot glass forward for a re-fill. It was going on 6:30. I was about to suggest that we move to a table and order dinner when two young women came into the bar. They looked familiar, much as Rex and Petey had, but I couldnt quite place them. The taller, blonder one took the stool next to Stoney, and the shorter, brunette one took the next stool down. They looked really familiar. Whatll yall have? Grace asked them. I think well have two Cokes, said the shorter, brunette one. The taller blonde seemed to look at the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar longingly. She may have licked her lips. At this point Stoney stopped staring at Grace and looked at the newcomers to his left. Christ on a crutch! he said, under his breath. The taller blonde one smiled. She still looked familiar. What was that? the brunette asked. Hello, my name is Stoney, he said. This is my friend Henry. He specializes in being gay and making sure sailors remember where their hats are. Who are you? Nadia, said the blonde, and already there was an accent. Something eastern European. Kiki, said the brunette, and there was an accent there, too. Georgia or Alabama, and not close to a big city. Grace gave them Cokes and was about to ask if they wanted to run a tab when Stoney volunteered that their drinks should be on his tab. They smiled, but they were drinking Coke, so the limits of his largesse were in plain sight. I have it, I said. The three of them looked at me. Stoney motioned for another shot. Youre the two girls who were sunbathing on your back porch two days ago. I waved at you and you waved back.
3

BankAmericard became Visa in like 1975.

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Oh! Yes! said Kiki, then they went through one of those excited acknowledgements of recognition that young women do that young men dont. Within a minute Stoney had established that Kikis grandmother lived two doors down from Mrs. W, that they were visiting her for a few weeks, and that they were from Colquitt, Georgia. Stoney was unfamiliar with Colquitt, and Kikis explanation that it was near Albany4 didnt help Stoney much at all. He looked at me. South Georgia. You have no landmarks for this. If you drove to Florida on I-75 youd get within 40 miles, but youve never been there and youre never going. How do you know about it? he asked. The Southside Pool Hall is there. Close, anyway. Nice place, I said. And what is Colquitt? Thats where theyre from. Its down 91 from Albany a few miles. So why did they even mention Albany? he asked. Kiki knew you wouldnt know where Colquitt was, so she mentioned Albany, because she thinks of it as a big town. Why? Theres an airport in Albany. And why in the fuck do you know about Colquitt? He gestured for another shot. Well, like I said, Southside Poll Hall is there. And head on down 91 to Donaldsonville and you find Eds Pool Hall. Stoney knocked back a shot and thought for a minute. Youre no help whatsoever, he concluded, and turned to face Nadia. So Nadia, he said. Where are you from? Boolgaaria, said Nadia. She means she used to be from Bulgaria, but now shes from Colquitt, said Kiki. And Colquitt is in Georgia? Stoney asked Nadia. Yes, of course, Kiki answered.
4

Albany, Georgia. Its pronounced All Benny.

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And whats Colquitt famous for? Stoney asked, looking directly at Nadia. Why our mayhaws, of course, answered Kiki. Nadia frowned at Stoney intently. Mayhaw? Stoney asked. Mayhaw iss small froot in middle of bolshoi swamp, said Nadia. Locals make syrup from fruit. She means a fruit that grows wild in Georgia, said Kiki. What you call indigneous. We make them into jelly, not syrup. Nadia rolled her eyes and sipped her Coke. Well, so if your jelly is coming out too runny, maybe you should cook it longer, said Stoney. Get it hotter. Or maybe add some pectin. Ive had good results he began. Nadia said something I couldnt understand but it sounded unhappy and bitter. I need to run to the ladies room, said Kiki. Are you joining me? she asked Nadia. Nyet, she answered. Fine where am. Kiki looked a little provoked at this but went off towards the restrooms. Nadia watched her leave, and as soon as Kiki was outside of earshot, urgently beckoned Grace the bartender, who showed up immediately. Yes ma'am? Grace asked. Must haff largest shoot vodka, pliss, fast, said Nadia. Excuse me? asked the bartender, not sure what shed heard. Nadia wants a triple shot of Stoli, said Stoney. Neat. Can I see your I.D. please? asked Grace. No. Iss in tiny little town in South Georgia, not same Georgia I thought. Crazy Baptistses seized my wallet when my madre ran off and left me with thiss pipples to follow crazy artist with big how you say there was a pause. Bank account? asked Stoney. She shook her head. Car? asked Grace. No, no, said Nadia. How you say cook? Ah, said the bartender, smirking. I still need an I.D.

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Half no ID, she said. You no been listen? Whats your name? Stoney asked the bartender. Grace, she said, smiling. Hi, Grace, he said. Nadia appears to have mislaid her wallet, but Im ready for a drink. Id like a double shot of frozen Stoli. Id like to order one for my friend Henry, too. I dont I started. Thats okay, Henry, said Stoney. Actually, make Henrys a triple. And put it on my tab. And Id like another beer. The bartender cocked an eyebrow at me as she left to fill our orders, and my expression may have conveyed a shrug. My triple shot and Stoneys double shot arrived before Kiki returned from the restroom. Stoney took a sip of his vodka, and as soon as Grace turned her back Nadia downed mine in a single gulp, then took a big swallow of her Coke. She grinned a stylized grin at Stoney, then turned to me. Me am sex starved, she said. Ah, I said somewhat nonplussed. So you want to give sex from me? she asked. Im afraid youre barking up the wrong tree, there, said Stoney. Henrys gay. Grace showed back up just in time to hear this, and looked at me. I shook my head. She nodded, then frowned at the empty glass of Stoli shed served me. I think my gay friend Henry needs another round, said Stoney. I was trying to avoid eye contact with Grace so as to avoid making her complicit in our crime. As soon as she was gone, Stoney nudged his glass towards Nadia, and she bolted it back, then smiled again at Stoney. She looked at me again, and leaned towards me a bit, then remembered to rinse out her mouth with Coke. So, Nadia said, stroking my shirtsleeve. What iss this gay? I was about to answer when Grace showed back up. Stoney raised his glass for a refill, and asked for another beer as well. I avoided eye contact with all concerned. It means Henry isnt interested in girls, said Stoney. She frowned at me as she took the Stoli in front of me and drained about half of it. You are ? she asked me.

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I doubt it, but I dont speak whatever language you just said, I said. Iss Bulgarian, she said. You am ? ? ? I still dont speak Bulgarian, I said. We know. So I gift you Russian. Dont know that, either, I said. So he iss ? she asked Stoney. Yes, said Stoney, taking a sip of his new drink before she snatched it from his hand and downed it. Really, really gay. Once I saw him Howdy, all, said Kiki, returning. Miss me? Doess this man seems to you? Nadia demanded of Kiki. Kiki thought for few seconds. Our Lord says that for a man to lie with another man is an abomination, said Kiki. Nadia rolled her eyes. You? she demanded of Grace. Henrys always been a little hard to figure out, said Grace, taking away various empty glasses for refills. If you are a homo, I implore you in the name of Jesus to rebuke your sinful ways and return to the bosom of Christ, said Kiki. Thanks for your concern, I said. Jesus has cured friends of mine who were completely sinful. There was this cheerleader at Miller County High who was deeply digging the lusts of the flesh. In a far out, over the top kind of way. She was letting boys do things to her that violated Georgia law, from what Ive been told. Dy-no-mite! said Stoney. But she found Jesus and turned her back on her sinful ways. If it could work for her, whose lusts were normal, I guess, even if they were unusual, maybe, and revved up too much, it can surely work for the abnormal, homo temptations youre experiencing, Henry.

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Oh, for Christs sake, I said. Grace returned with various drinks, plopping a triple shot of Stoli down in front of me. Ive been listening, said Grace, smiling. You may actually want this drink. This is on Stoneys tab, right? I asked. The drink? Sure. Good luck with the Baptist. She smiled and left. Stoney managed to place his drink near Nadias elbow, then took mine as his own. You cant really hold it against Henry, said Stoney. Sinful as he may be, Henry was born this way. Look! said Nadia, pointing. Iss Aquila chrysaetos! she was pointing out the window as if at a bird. Golden iggle. Look! everybody turned to look except me, and she downed Stoneys drink. I cocked an eyebrow at her and she shot me the bird, although she was smiling. Didnt see it, said Stoney. Neither me, said Kiki. Oh, look, theres Louanne from Mrs. Simms Bible study group. I think Ill go say hi. She excused herself and left to go talk to a young woman at another table who seemed to have a very un-Baptist beer in front of her. As soon as Kiki was gone, Nadia drained my triple Stoli and grabbed Stoney by the collar. Thiss pipple iss driving me lunar, she said. All day long Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Church Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night, with all this how you say awkward food. You life down street from me, yes? Thats what Henry tells me, yes, said Stoney, lighting a cigarette. Nadia immediately took it from him and took a drag. Then you call me, we make date. You sex for me. It seemed a little voyeuristic to eavesdrop on this, so I took a swallow of my club soda and turned to my left. And there was Ed Bork. It took me a minute, because his beard was gone and his funnyshaped, possibly dyed hair was much shorter. Mormon missionary short. Ed? I asked. Hi, Henry, he answered. Long time, no see, I said. Ive been sent here to save your soul, he said. God has a plan for your life. Ed? I asked.

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Yes? Ed Bork? Yes? The last time I saw you I think you were wearing a black velvet robe and handing out pamphlets about Satanism, he answered. The Lord tells us that when we come to Jesus, we are washed in the blood of the lamb. All past sins are forgiven. Didnt you convert Jessie Longworth to Satanism? And Mildie Pinzey? And maybe a couple of other friends of theirs, too? Yes. But I have no shame in my former sinful ways. St. Paul says Wait, so after converting them to one religion, you just cut them off and converted to another one? I asked. Yes, but certainly anyone could see that worshipping Satan was sinful. Why? Because hes, you know, Satan, said Ed. Yet you were convinced. I dont honestly know, he said. There were certain aspects of what we called Sabbaths, not to be confused in any way with a real Sabbath, that I found very enticing. Jessie and Mildie seemed to find black Sabbaths entertaining, too. But thats not why So you found Jesus, just like that? And turned your back on pagan ritual? Yes. The power of Christ is profound. This is just too weird. I need to talk to you about Gods plan for your life, said Ed. No you dont. You need to talk to me about why I should believe you now any more than I did three years ago. But this is completely different. Im with Jesus now.

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Leave Jesus out of it. Why should I believe the you thats pushing Jesus any more than the you who was pushing Aleister Crowley? Good recall, said Ed. Thanks. But Ive got Jesus now, Ed said. Its not about Jesus, its about the messenger. Im not eating acid any more. And you should be able to rise above my flaws, if God can reach you, he said. Why? What reason in the world is there for me to believe you? The Truth is revealed on every page of the Bible. If youd just read it, and accept Jesus, you would achieve everlasting life. At this point Kiki showed back up. Grace was just refilling the glasses because Nadia had downed the first round singlehandedly. Another club soda, please? I asked. Nadia took a mouthful of Coke and swished it around to de-Stoli her breath on Kikis behalf. Kiki, meet my high school classmate Ed, I said. Pleased to meet you, said Ed. Can I ask if youve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Oh, yes! Totally and completely, she said. Nadia rolled her eyes. I respect and honor your choice, said Ed. I have been talking to Henry about his spiritual journey. Oh, are you saved, too? Kiki asked me. Not sos youd notice, I said. Henry has yet to repent of his sins, said Ed. Ed, I have to say, given our respective backgrounds, seeing you on your high horse is a little hard to take, I said.

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I think Im going to show Nadia the view, said Stoney. He and Nadia stood, each taking a vodka. Stoney also picked up his beer, but Nadia ignored her Coke. View? I asked. There was no view at this bar. See ya in a few, Henry, said Stoney. He and Nadia left for the back of the bar, drinks in hand. Id like to invite you to the Vine Street Christian Community, said Ed. Ive been living there for the last six months and its really changed the way I look at Jesus and Christianity and Christian service. Which church is that associated with? Kiki asked, Were kind of Jesus freak non-denominational, he said. But Baptist? she asked. A busload of our fellowship went to services at First Baptist Church last Sunday, he answered. Where did the rest of them go? she asked. I dont know about all of them, but I went to First Pres. A Presbyterian church? she asked, obviously irritated. Yes. Pastor Ben Haden is quite highly regarded around here. We at the Vine Street But hes not a Baptist, said Kiki. At the Vine Street Christian Community, we dont think pastors are the essential ingredient of Gods message. We strive to live like the first Christians. Sharing, singing, loving. Gene tells us But youre not Baptists? No. But were not not Baptists, either. And Dr. McEwen at First Baptist is very nice to us, he said. We think the particular denomination is not as important as the Truth of Gods message. Whos that? she asked. Who?

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Dr. McEwen. Hes the pastor at First Baptist. Hes really smart, if you havent met him. We go to First Baptist while were in town, but of course I havent met the pastor. Hes a really keen guy. He really knows the Bible, said Ed. Well, of course he does, if hes a Baptist minister. Thats not as much true as I thought. I asked the pastor over at East Ridge Baptist Church a question about the difference about the Old Testament Passages referring to Elohim and the ones referring to Yahweh and all I got was a nasty look. Dr. McEwen was all excited about that kind of sh stuff. So why were you going to a Presbyterian church? And where has that long-hair Stoney taken my sister Nadia? Youre sisters? I asked. In the sense that my family has taken her in as a foster child, and I am also a child of the same family, we are sisters, yes. Plus the Lord has charged me with seeing to her wellbeing. Where is she? Stoneys showing her the view. Theyll be back in a minute, I said, hoping this to be true. Jesus came to earth to establish the Baptist Church. Why are you going over to the Presbyterians? she asked Ed. Why dont you ask him? Ed asked, pointing to me. I think you and me are on the same side. He doesnt claim to be born again, she said. Being born again means youre Baptist. I heard a chuckle over my left ear and turned to find Grace, the bartender, pretty as ever, smiling at the discourse between Ed and Kiki. Ready to take up drinking yet, Henry? she asked me, with a semi-flirtatious smirk. Maybe next time. If theres still no pool table, I said. At this point Stoney and Nadia showed back up, paying attention to each other in that way that people who are dating do, but with empty glasses. Another round, please, said Stoney.

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Ill still need to see some I.D. from Miss Romania, Grace said. I mean, another round for me and Henry, said Stoney. And its Bulgaria. Maybe you better try this on a different bartender, she said. Is there another one on duty? he asked, hopefully. Not tonight. Ah, shit. I think we need to be going anyway, said Kiki. I think your long-haired friend is a bad influence on Nadia. Nadia rolled her eyes. Nadia, lets boogie, she said, and marched off. As she did, I noticed that Nadia had left her purse. I started to call out, but Stoney silenced me with a hand. Grace? said Stoney, theyre gone, so could I get a big Stoli, please? She filled his glass with vodka without measuring shots. Stoney watched the door without touching his drink or saying anything. A few minutes later Nadia came running back into the bar. Without any greeting between her and Stoney she bolted back his Stoli, drained his beer in three gulps, gargled with the remains of her Coke, grabbed her purse, and French-kissed Stoney in a desperate, deep embrace. Your undersands me needs, she said, kissing him again. Then she sprinted to the door, purse in hand. Stoney smiled as he watched her go. Shes a keeper, he said, and waved the empty glass at Grace. I think Ive been brought up to date on the subject of vodka and feel like branching out a bit. How do you feel about Jack Daniels? he asked, earnestly. Green or black? asked Grace. Green Jack Daniels? he asked. I never heard of such a thing. Lets try that. While Grace went to get a clean glass and pour the drink, Stoney sighed and looked at the ceiling. Grace brought the drink. He looked at it with a quizzical expression. I may have neglected to mention that I require a beer. Perhaps a draft beer. A Lowenbrau, unless you have Guinness. They didnt have Guinness, of course, so Stoney had a Lowenbrau in a few seconds. I dont drink, but I have to admit that the sight of a draft beer in an ice cold glass looks like it ought to taste really good. Stoney looked up from his whiskey at Grace as she brought his beer. Its not green, he said. Yes it is, she said. No, its amber. An agreeable nut-brown, perhaps.

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Green is the color of the label, she said. Aha! he said. Now were getting somewhere. Why dont you leave me to my researches, then, and I will divine the mysteries of green label. She left, he sipped it, and made a noncommittally agreeable tasting face. So how do you know, he asked me, a little over-dreamily, when youve found the one? The one what? Whiskey? No, no. The love of your life, he said. Oh, for Gods sake, Stoney. What? Shes a thirsty teenager you met in a bar. You spent a half an hour with her, ten minutes of which you were alone, feeding her vodka. Okay, guys, I gotta go, said Ed. Id like to invite you to the Vine Street Christian Community any time you have some free time. Its a far out, happenin kind of Jesus place. Well feed you, put you up if you need a place to stay. Thanks. Good luck with the Christian deal, I said. Where are you off to? My shift is about to start at the Yellow Deli, he said. You have a job? Ed, even saved, did not look to me to be employee material. Its not so much a job, as a way to serve Jesus. At a Deli? Stoney and I asked together. The Vine Street Christian Community, as a way to integrate ourselves into the community and to give us a productive, happy way to serve the Lord, has started several restaurants where we serve wholesome food at a reasonable price. Stoney looked at me, dubious. Ive been to Yellow Delis a couple of times. Foods decent. Not expensive. Clean, smells good. I said. I didnt know they were owned by a church. Beer? Stoney asked. No, of course not. Jesus doesnt like alcohol, said Ed. Stoney crossed it off of his places I might eat list.

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What about Jesus turning the water Stoney started. Dont start, Stoney, I said. They always have an answer for that one. And it takes a long time to explain. Stoney frowned. Anyway I have to go now, to catch the bus to my job, but I invite you to join us at the Vine Street Christian Community any time. Or come to one of our Yellow Deli restaurants and introduce yourselves. Everyone working at each Yellow Deli is imbued with the grace of Christ. Goodbye now. He smiled and weakly grasped each of our hands in turn, kind of bowing and smiling shyly as he did so. He left and Stoney sipped his whiskey again. This stuff is pretty good, he said. Grace came by to check on us. She refilled my soda, and squeezed lime in it, which she hadnt been doing earlier. Stoney watched her leave, then drained his double shot of Jack green impassively. She seems to like you, he said. Were old friends. She used to tend at the Frosty Mug. You dont think shes cute? He waved his glass for a refill. She came back pretty fast, then looked at Stoney with her hands on her hips. Do I need to administer an FST? she asked. A what? I asked. Field Sobriety Test, Stoney said. No, Im fine. I promise. Just two or three more, he said to Grace. She frowned a bit but got him another drink. Give me your car keys, Stoney, I said, after he took his first sip. What is it with you and my car? he asked. You always seem to be wanting to drive it. Look at it this way. If you give me your keys, Grace will continue to serve you until you pass out. Otherwise, shes about to cut you off. That would be rude, he said. He was getting a little foggy, but I wouldnt have been able to recognize it if he hadnt been sober for the last few weeks. He polished off his glass and waved it for a refill. Grace frowned at him and shook her head from about twenty feet away. He sighed, then demonstratively pulled out his key ring and made a show of handing it to me. I put the keys in my pocket. Grace brought him a new Old Fashioned glass brimming with sour mash. She patted me on the cheek before she left. See, she seems to truly love you, said Stoney. Like Nadia loves me.

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Stoney, the Venn diagram of you and Nadia overlaps at areas marked vodka and hormones. It does not overlap in any way with the set labeled true love. No, I think shes the one for me, he said, draining about half his bourbon. He followed it with a swallow of beer. Sometimes you just know. You met a pretty teenaged girl and got her drunk, I said. Oh, no. Im sure she was of age, he said. Grace, who was hovering nearby waiting for him to finish his seventh drink, cocked an eyebrow at me. And youre sure of this because she had a strangely concocted-sounding story about the whereabouts of her passport, or because in your experience nineteen year-olds generally dont have drivers licenses? I asked. Why would she lie? he asked, draining his whiskey glass. He gestured for another. Show me the keys, said Grace. I pulled them out and jangled them and she refilled his glass. I put them back in my pocket. Stoney, shes a teenager. She wants to party and have fun. One need not dissemble to party. Or to have fun. There was lots of fun and partying at my high school and we didnt have to concoct stories to go about it, he said, taking a somber sip of his sour mash. Did we eat yet? he asked. No. Grace, how are the burgers? Good. Rockys in the kitchen. Sale old same old, but he knows what hes doing. Bacon cheddar cheese for me. I like mayo, I said. Fries. She nodded and smiled. Stoney discussed his burger options with her and eventually settled on a mushroom burger with bacon and Guldens mustard with German potato salad rather than fries. And another beaker of this excellent green whiskey, he added. And perhaps another beer as well. This guy has a hollow leg, she said, and left to place the food order. I thought you said this place had a TV, said Stoney. It does, its just not on. Stoney looked up, surprised. Ill be damned. Grace showed up with another glass of bourbon. Do you mind if I call you Grace? he asked.

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Not at all. And you are? she asked. Stoney. Of course you are, she said. He extended his hand and they shook. Miss Grace, I notice you have a TV mounted right up there and that its dark. Can it be activated? Stoney asked. Of course. What do you want to see? The Detroit Tigers, he said. I dunno, she said, picking up the remote and turning on the TV. We get the Braves on TBS and the Cubs on WGN, but theyre both National League teams. I dont think we get any American League channels.5 She flipped to the cable companys schedule screen, and no American League games were listed. The Braves were playing the Expos6 and the Cubs were playing the Padres. Cubbies or Braves? she asked. Why does this always seem to happen in the National League? Stoney asked her. What? she asked. The four worst teams in all of baseball are playing each other, he answered, and those are the only games on TV. Name your poison. Atlanta. And another beer. And perhaps some more green whiskey. On the way home, after burgers, lackluster pitching by both teams, middling offense by Henry Aaron and Davey Johnson, and a confused discussion about who was driving home, I brought up Nadia. What are you doing with that Bulgarian girl? I asked. Nadia? I expect well marry and settle down somewhere. Grosse Pointe, maybe. Or someplace near Princeton.

5 6

Aside from spring training, there was no inter-league play in 1974 except for the World Series. Les Expos de Montral played in Montreal, Quebec from 1969 until the end of the 2004 season, after which the they moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals. They have sucked ever since, but then they sucked in Montreal.

144

Stoney, she may be underage. You could get in trouble over this. He frowned and thought and thought about it. He was remarkably coherent for someone whod consumed enough alcohol to kill you and me both. He shook his head. No, no. She was very clear on this point. Shes nineteen and enrolled in some junior college down there. Did it occur to you that she might be lying? Why would she lie? he asked. So you would buy her booze and have sex with her, I said. Id get her drunk and fuck her anyway, said Stoney. No need to lie for that. I decided to try a different tack. Much of what you hear in bars isnt true, at least in my experience, I said. Several pool players have told me they were All-State basketball players, in their prime. Men who were five foot one. Six men in three different states have told me they know a woman whose maiden name was Fonda Beavers but whose married name was Fonda Cox. Thats kinda funny, said Stoney. But not at all true. Yeah, well. Nadias this nice sweet country girl from south Georgia. No, shes not. Shes a gymnast from Bulgaria who grew too tall to compete. Im sure Colquitt is a nice place. No, its not. Its a wide spot in the road in Miller County, which is a slightly larger hole in the ground, although as farmland goes, its pretty. Theres nothing in Colquitt except a Baptist Church. The closest pool hall is in Donaldsonville, across the Georgia line. Colquitt is part of a very agricultural part of a pretty agricultural state, and its as much Alabama or Florida as Georgia. Why are you so resistant to my dream of true love? Shes perfect in every way. Because she drinks? That is quite a turn-on, he admitted. And shes very pretty. You have to admit that. He was right, I guess. He wasnt, say, in Melissas league, but she was cute.

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Pretty girls are good. But Stoney, she wasnt just throwing herself at you, she was hurling herself at you like Mike Marshall7 throwing to Rod Carew. Rod Carew is at Minnesota. He wont ever face Mike Marshall, said Stoney. And my larger point was I asked. That Nadia was easy? he asked. Very good, I said. Well, we dont know that yet, do we? he said. She certainly seems cooperative, and engaging, but many girls seem cooperative and then turn out not to be so, he said. So your position is that she threw herself at you but might now withhold? Its certainly happened before. Once I dictated Fermats last theorem to this tall, hot math major and then I never heard from her again. And you thought that dictating a theorem to a woman would somehow engage her libido? I did. Bu now that I hear it put that way, I see my approach lacked finesse. And were you drunk, high, tripping, or otherwise loaded? He frowned for a few minutes. Thats a very complicated question, he said. But I remember blacking out shortly after finishing the theorem, so the answer is more than likely yes. I hear that girls are not keen on this, I said. Why not? They like company.

The Dodgers have had two important Mike Marshalls. Henry refers to the first. A pitcher named Mike Marshall won the Cy Young award as a Dodger following the 1974 season, and an outfielder named Mike Marshall, a man who wouldnt play when he had a sore toe or an aching thumb, or because he had a wart in a funny place, played in Los Angeles in the late 1980s. I complained about him all year, but then I was there with my wife in game two of the 1988 World Series when Marshall hit a towering shot, a three-run homer that gave ace Orel Hersheiser all the cushion he needed. The 1988 Series, which included Kirk Gibsons pinch-hit homer, is my favorite Series of all time. It was the kind of baseball that usually exists only in the mind of God.

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Well, fuck, I gave her Fermats last theorem, he said. Isnt that worth something? He nodded to himself several times. You know, that Nadia, shes really hot, he said. I think shes underage, Stoney, I said. No, no. You worry too much, he answered. Why are you driving? Isnt this my car?

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Chapter 29: Nadia and Clarence Interfere with Stoneys Hangover The next day when I woke up I could see through the window that it was overcast but not raining, although it looked like it might. I did my morning ablutions then went to the kitchen, where Mrs. W was having a cigarette and a cup of coffee and reading the Chattanooga Times. It was a little after seven. Im not an early bird. Morning, Henry. Wheres your running mate? He usually beats you down, she asked, taking a drag from her Benson & Hedges. If Stoney wasnt up yet, I had a chance to do the Times crossword. He may be a little late today. He had a few drinks last night. Ive seen him have a few before lunch, she said. There were these girls, said. Stoney likes girls? she asked, as though this were something of a surprise. I had assumed that Stoney was interested in she took a drag off of her cigarette, then took a sip of her coffee. Well, never mind. So you boys found some girls you like? Where was this? At that bar over on Frazier down from the Odd Fellows Hall. She thought. Down near the Little Theater? she asked. Yes, maam. Cant remember what that place is called. Anyhow, who were the girls? Nadia and Kiki, and no, we wont be double-dating. Stoney is very taken with Nadia, a Bulgarian migr and former gymnast who now resides in Colquitt. Kiki, her foster sister, is very, very focused on her church. Which flavor? she asked. Baptist. I filled a coffee cup for myself and topped off Mrs. W.s. Big church or hard shell? she asked. Id guess big church. Since Stoneys running late, why dont you make breakfast this morning? said Mrs. W. My civics class is getting off to a slow start anyway. Not much world news today.

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I have no idea how to cook, I said. Kind of like I hear that dirt and seeds and rain turn into beans, somehow stuff in a kitchen turns into food. Farmers and cooks amaze me. Your ignorance is highly descriptive, Henry. Take a Biology course and all that would be answered. But you dont have to know how to cook to make oatmeal. I really have no idea how to make oatmeal, Mrs. W., I said. Henry, you poor pitiful foundling, the instructions are on the box. Look for something with a picture of a Quaker on it. Where? I asked. In such a place as food may be found, she said, without looking up. Youre in a kitchen, which is generally a good place to start. Okay. I looked through her cupboards, got a sense of how they were organized, and finally found a cylindrical cardboard container of Quaker Oats. The instructions were, indeed, on the box, if box is the right word for a cardboard cylinder. The instructions suggested that I would need a device for measuring the volume of water and a cooking vessel. I kept looking and found a measuring cup and a pot. Make enough to feed six, she said. You boys eat a lot. I multiplied out the number of cups of water from the portions given on the label and poured that number of cups of water into the pot, which almost filled it. I turned on the heat. After a few minutes the water started to boil and I added the appropriate volume of rolled oats. The results of the experiment deteriorated from this point onward. As soon as I stirred in the oats, carefully following the instructions, the pot foamed up and boiled over. This aspect of cooking oatmeal was not mentioned in the instructions at all. Mrs. W was focused on her paper. I kept turning down the heat and stirring and it kept boiling over. Mrs. Wertheimer didnt look up. After a more than a few minutes of stirring and turning the heat down, eventually as low as it would go, the oatmeal began to thicken. At this point Stoney showed up, wearing a purple silk bathrobe over jeans and a Ziggie Stardust teeshirt and, in an unusual sartorial touch, his Ray-Ban Aviator shades, with a cigarette dangling from his lip. He poured himself a cup of coffee and trudged into the kitchen, in apparent pain, to look at what I was doing. He shook his head. Use a bigger pot next time, he said. Oatmeal boils up. When it looks almost done, stir some milk and butter in and let it reduce. Did you add any salt to the water? No. It needs just a pinch. I looked down and saw that he was wearing cheap blue rubber flip-flops like you buy on the street in Panama City.8 He sat down and smiled
8

The one in Florida. I have no idea what they sell on the street in Central America.

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blearily at Mrs. W. She looked up at him, then without saying anything, she got up and disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with two packets of BC powder. Stoney got up and poured himself a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator and returned to the kitchen table, then emptied the two BC Powders9 into his orange juice, stirring the mix with his index finger. He then drained the glass in a few continuous swallows. Mrs. W took no notice. Youre a godsend, Dr. W. Stoney youre lucky the news is light today, she said, after a few seconds. Stoney was straining, extending his tongue to its limit, to lick the BC residue from the bottom of his juice glass. After a minute of watching this spectacle I felt compelled to comment. Your tongue is like a prehensile tail, I said. Impressive, no? he asked. Its grotesque, I answered. Tigers? he asked Mrs. W., putting his orange juice glass aside and taking a sip of his coffee. They lost to the As, Im afraid. They only had three hits, and Oakland had four. The Giants beat the Cards and Gibson was pitching, and if they can hit Gibson thats a good sign. Henry, your Dodgers clobbered the Pirates, she said, disapprovingly. Pirates will bounce back, Stoney said, lighting a cigarette. They look bad now, but with Stargell and Parker theyre going to get some hits, even though their pitching is pretty lame. Who was pitching? he asked, taking a drag. For whom? Mrs. W. asked. Motown,10 Stoney answered. He frowned and adjusted his sunglasses. Mickey Lolich, she answered. Dont know him. You National League people. Hes been around forever. Past his prime, like most of the Tigers rotation. The oatmeal looked done, to me, so I found an appropriately-sized spoon and dipped out a bowl for Mrs. W. and put it in front of her. Stoney looked at it and took off his sunglasses, making a noncommittal back and forth wag of his head.

BC Powder is an analgesic that is especially popular in the South. Motown was a contraction, of sorts, of Motor City, a nickname Detroit gained when most American automobiles were manufactured there.
10

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She needs butter, milk, sugar, salt, a spoon, and a napkin, said Stoney. I collected those things, thinking ahead and getting him a glass of milk, spoon, and napkin, too. When I put a steaming bowl of very pretty oatmeal in front of him, he thought about it and asked for some of the reduced maple syrup and if there were any blueberries left. I found some, rinsed them again, and gave them to him in a small Pyrex ramekin. He mixed them all together and it looked so good I followed suit, as did Mrs. W. A good breakfast. When we were done I cleaned up while they smoked and drank coffee and passed the paper back and forth. So who is Nadia? Mrs. W asked him. The most beautiful woman in the word, he answered, earnestly, but without looking up from the sports pages. Wheres she from? she asked. He took off his sunglasses and cleaned them with the hem of his purple silk bathrobe. Cant remember. Henry will know, he said. Someplace swampy in south Georgia. Colquitt, I said. Wheres that? she asked. Nearest big town is Albany. Its in Georgia. Near Florida and Alabama both, I said. Is there a pool hall there, or something? she asked me. No, maam. Closest pool hall I know is in Donaldsonville. Theyre good farm people in Colquitt. They have a nice-looking high school. But town-wise, not much more than a post office. And you met a teenaged girl from there? she asked Stoney. No, maam. A hard-drinking, hard-partying grown-up of a woman from the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria. Mrs. W. frowned slightly and returned her attention to the newspaper. Stoney finished with the sports section and finished his oatmeal. As each of them finished with a dish I took it away and put it in the sink. It seemed more efficient to wash them all at once, so I was waiting. Stoney suddenly looked up at me with a cross expression. Hey. Last night. What were you thinking? he asked, indignantly.

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About what? I asked, refilling his coffee cup. All of us took our coffee black. Making me drink all that vodka, he said. Nadia drank the vodka. You were drinking Jack green, I answered. He thought about this for a few seconds. Well why did you let me drink so much Jack Daniels, then? Where were your manners? he demanded. Am I my brothers keeper? I asked, and immediately regretted it. Your friend Ed Bork would say yes, Im guessing, he said. Mrs. W. looked up and cocked an eyebrow at me. Ed was there, yes, maam, I said. She took a long drag from her cigarette. And? she asked. Eds found Jesus, I said. Pretty thoroughly. She nodded and smiled to herself. Ill be damned, she said. Good for him. I was surprised, I said. Why? Because he tried to hex you into a heart attack, I said. Yeah, sure. So praising Jesus is going to be less obnoxious than that. And lots of the people who focus on Jesus do good in the world. I know a woman, Gini, who runs a camp for kids who wouldnt be able to go to camp if she wasnt there. And a man, Paul, whos the chairman of the board of this abused womens shelter. He also works with handicapped kids. Hes an asshole, and I cant tell that he actually believes in God, but hes a good Christian whos doing his best to work out the Jesus deal. Any more coffee? asked Stoney. He had folded the paper over to the crossword puzzle. I refilled his coffee cup. And Im feeling better after the oatmeal, but how about a gallon of ice water? he asked. I found the largest glass and filled it with ice and water. The front doorbell rang. Stoney and I looked at Mrs. W in confusion. This had never happened before. Stoney pulled his pack of Winstons from the pocket of his robe and shook out a new cigarette.

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You boys can stay put, she said. Thats my sister dropping off Clarence. Ill be back in a second. She got up. Stoney looked at me, expecting me to explain. He had the crossword puzzle in hand. Mrs. W. has a nephew named Clarence, I said. Twelve, maybe? Thirteen? And? he asked. Weird kid with eccentric interests and keenly in search of a friend. Projects himself into others a lot. Fixated on Carlos Castaneda. After the cool kids shun him in high school he may develop into an asshole. Stoney nodded contemplatively, sipped his coffee, and looked down and completed the crossword. Damn. It took him two, maybe three minutes. Boys, this is my nephew, Clarence McColl, said Mrs. W, entering with an obnoxious-looking and obviously unhappy pre-adolescent. She was happier about, and prouder of, him than appearances warranted. Clarence looked at Stoney and me seriously. Stoney extended his hand and Clarence shook it morosely. Clarence turned to me and said, quite intensely, Has your Datura root seeded? Excuse me? I said. Please tell me you have not abandoned the Yaqui way of knowledge, he said. Youre into Carlos Castaneda? Stoney asked me. No, of course not, I answered. Who? Mrs. W. asked. Later, Stoney said. You? Stoney asked Clarence. Yes, I pursue the Yaqui way of knowledge, said Clarence. And youve found mushrooms? asked Stoney. Henry, whats he talking about? Mrs. W. asked. Stoney, knock it off. Hes like eleven, I said. Thirteen. No mushrooms here, said Clarence. The Datura, though, is plentiful, if you know where to look.

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Little buddy, you may have just solved a problem for me, so lets talk later. You are on the Yaqui path of knowledge? Clarence asked. No, but Im willing to learn. Tell you what. Ill give Henry my Kuhn and you give me your Carlos Castaneda, and what will we give you? Sports Illustrated? asked Clarence. Can do, said Stoney. Whos your team? Braves, of course, said Clarence, as though this point, at least should be obvious. Sorry, little buddy, said Stoney. Im from Michigan and not yet acclimated to the local customs. Of course youre a Braves fan. Well get you an SI next time we go out. Okay. Im going to assume some generational communication deal is going on here that I dont understand so Im going to go look at the blackboard, boys, said Mrs. W. She got up and moved towards the dining room. I gathered my coffee cup and followed, feeling slightly guilty because I still hadnt finished washing the dishes, which Stoney would have done by this time. Stoney refreshed his coffee and shepherded Clarence into the dining room, where Clarence looked around at the different blackboards in disapproving bewilderment. Stoney, apparently refreshed by breakfast and BC, explained to Mrs. W. how wed formulated the problem wed abandoned the previous day. She nodded, Clarence frowned. Hey, little buddy, later today, Ill explain some things about this to you. What were doing is called calculus, which is a slightly more complicated form of something called algebra. Youll learn all about it in high school. This symbol here just means change, and this symbol here just means function, and all function means is were gonna treat all of the numbers over here in this same particular way. Mrs. W. smiled one of her broadest smiles at this, but Clarence frowned and Stoney didnt see it. So now we all looked at the problem Stoney and I had written on the blackboard before wed abandoned it to go to the bar the preceding evening. Wed been able to express it, but had no idea how to solve it. After looking at the way wed formulated it for a few minutes, Mrs. W. lit a cigarette and looked at us, frowning. I got the feeling that she wasnt keen on the way wed expressed it, but even still she explained how to deal with this particular kind of multi-variable equation, covering most of one blackboard. At one point Stoney jumped up and took the chalk and worked out the solution himself. Stoney really liked performing calculations.11Working through the problem, she decided we needed more work on the existence and uniqueness of the
11

Stoney liked to calculate square roots longhand, like we learned in eighth grade.

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solutions to n-th order equations. After she showed us how to solve it, she flipped one of the blackboards over and cleared what little was written on it. Stoney, I know youre not as keen on physics as Henry is, but lets look at our friend y = f ( x, y ) , which youve worked with many times, where f is some continuous function, and its hard to find an exact answer, and Henry noted the special case of y = g ( x ) y + h( x ) where g and h are continuous on some interval. Remember this? Q( x) = g (t ) dt I said. x
0

Exactly! she looked at Stoney, and he nodded, lighting a cigarette. He and Clarence were playing Thumb War. So jump forward, and assume there are some theorems for this that I could provide that prove its true, so that you have a system of these equations such that y1 = f1 ( x, y1 yn ) and y2 = f 2 ( x, y2 yn ) and so on. Fuckadoodledoo, said Stoney, at which Clarences face lit up in delight. Language, Stoney, she said. You know Newtons second law? Yes maam. Say it, she said. Verbally or in math? he asked. Were doing math, here, Stoney, she said, perhaps a touch exasperated. Stoney thought a minute, then said mx =
x y F (r ) , then mx = F (r ) where, r r

oh, something about r. Maybe r = x 2 + y 2 . And I guess F (r ) is the force on the mass. Id just finished a course called Physics for Physics Majors, and Im not sure I could have dialed that up. Stoney was calling it in from high school. Right! said Mrs. W. After reminding us about ellipses and their relation to the other conic functions she eventually got to r =
(h 2 / k ) . 1 + e cos( )

Ill be damned, said Stoney, taking a drag from his Winston. Then he smacked me across the backside of my head, not hard, but it was still startling. Whats that for? I asked. Remember how I tried to talk the Math Club into analyzing Tycho Brahes observations? Sure. Mrs. W told me it would be boring, I said. 155

Doing it the way Kepler did it would be boring, he answered. But Mrs. W has just shown us the music of the spheres. The doorbell rang. Mrs. W., Stoney, and I all looked at each other in confusion. The doorbell had never before rung in the morning and here it was ringing a second time before lunch. Mrs. W got up to answer the bell, and while she was gone, Stoney explained, bewilderingly quickly, how what shed just taught us overlapped with planetary mechanics.12 I tried to follow but he was moving too fast for me to follow.

12

He was interrupted, but heres what he told me later that day: All right. Dr. W. told us that 1 v ((t )) = r (t )

so

r (t ) =
and you can see that

1 dv dv d ( (t )) (t ) = h d ( (t )) v ( (t ))
2

r (t ) = h

Right? So really it boils down to

d 2v d 2v ( (t ))(t ) = h 2v 2 ( 9t ) ( (t )) d 2 d

if I have it right. If you assume, as Newton tells us, that the force is inversely proportional to radial length squared, and you ignore for now the fact that mass isnt concentrated in points at the centers of spherical objects, you end up at

1 F( ) d 2v v +v = d 2 mh 2v 2

F (r ) =

km , or F (1 / v ) = kmv r2

right? And that long fucker we did before lunch becomes

Simpler, no? And Dr. W. would tell you that linear equations that look like that one have solutions in the form

d 2v k +v = 2 . 2 d h

v( ) =

k + B cos( ) , where B and are constants. It was about this point that I began to think h2

that I was more of a Physics major than a Math major. I still planned to double major, but still and all. So, Stoney continued, if you drop back four or five steps, the elegant simplicity of 1 v ((t )) = r (t ) remains reliable, and if you think about it, t is related to as (h 2 / k ) r= , as long as e = Bh2/k. 1 + e cos( ) Stoney, are you doing all of this in your head? I asked.

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Mrs. W. appeared a few seconds later with Nadia in tow. She says she met someone who lives here named Stono in a bar and that he was generous enough to buy her lots of vodka, said Mrs. W., with a slight frown. Nadia was wearing a semitranslucent tee shirt and not much else. It was possible that she was wearing the bottom part of a two-piece bathing suit under her tee shirt but it was clear to all present that she was not wearing the top. Far too much of her was available for view for a bra of any sort to have been involved. Clarence sat up alertly, smiling, eyes the size of cue-balls, like Christmas at the orphanage. Hello, Nadia, said Stoney, smiling and taking a drag from his cigarette. Clarence and I stood, and when Stoney didnt, I grabbed the back of his collar and pulled it up, encouraging him to stand. He did, but looked at me in some irritation as soon as he did so. What the fuck? he asked me, in a stage whisper. Local custom, I said. Miss Nadia, I think the only gentleman present you dont know is Clarence, said Mrs. W. Clarence, delighted, extended his hand.

Yeah, but I dealt with these equations a lot in high school, and I still think about them a lot. Youd see it if you wrote it down. This is as close as I come to being interested in physics. Its also why Im interested in Kepler and Brahae. But most of the unsolved Math problems are lots more fun. Dont interrupt. If you make h2/k greater than zero and e greater than or equal to zero then I think that last fucker describes a conic with the focus at the origin and with eccentricity equal to e. What kind of conic depends on whether e is lesser than, greater than, or equal to one. For an orbit in stasis, its going to solve for an ellipse. Well, for planets it will. I cant possibly follow this, I said. You could on paper. This isnt my first time through this. He lit a cigarette. Where does this string end? I asked. Id want a blackboard to show the next few steps, anyway, he said, but if Keplers right it ends at T 2 =

4 2 3 a . But Keplers third law is the squares of the periods are proportional to the cubes of the k

major axes of the ellipses, and that just makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, its possible, but I dont know why that would be so. It was silent for a few seconds while he smoked his Winston. So what do you think? he asked. I understand why you have good grades, but I no longer understand why I have good grades, I said. There are different forms of intelligence. I think Im pretty good at recognizing patterns. I have a spatial ability. But I would never in a million years be able to run with Stoney in terms of If A+B=C, lets deduce the values of D, E, and F.

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Wow, he said, shaking her hand. She smiled sweetly. She seemed slightly bashful, or at least as bashful as a woman whose nipples are plainly discernable can seem. We were just going over the rules of orbital mechanics, said Mrs. W. Hows your math? I looked over at Stoney, who seemed surprisingly nonchalant, with his Winston 100, and Clarence, whose eyes had not left Nadias breasts since she entered the room. Wow, he said, every thirty seconds or so. No Sanka, she said. Simple drooped by to say hello to handsome Stono. Mrs. W. cocked an eyebrow at Stoney, who paid no attention. My might own cigarette? she asked. Sure, said Stoney, shaking her out a Winston. Gracisas, she said. Stoney gave her a light from a paper book of matches with the logo of the Black Angus, something of a mystery since we hadnt been there since wed been in town. Mrs. W. frowned. Perhaps she disapproved of high school students smoking. Nadia took a deep drag from of her cigarette the way people do when they havent had one for what they think is a long time. . ,13 she said. She smiled shyly at Stoney. Clarence continued his study of her breasts. Meet Stono and at tinny bar at river, she said. Much fun. What time is it? Stoney asked. Id never noticed before, but he didnt wear a watch. A quarter to noon, said Mrs. W. Nadia, would you like to have lunch with us? Oh, , she said, smiling and nodding vigorously in a way that caused abundant movement inside her tee shirt. Clarence looked as though he might faint. Wouldst be much nice, said Nadia. What are we having? Mrs. W. asked Stoney. I was thinking B.L.T.s and the rest of the vichyssoise, said Stoney. Theres not a lot of the soup, but we can make plenty of sandwiches. Sounds good to me, said Mrs. Wertheimer, looking at Clarence. He nodded at Nadias tee shirt, captivated.

13

Excellent. Thanks, in Russian. But a Russian would never say here, he or she would say X (good!) or maybe O (very good!). Nadia knows four languages but cant really speak anything but Bulgarian. Even so, she is waaaay ahead of most Americans.

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I think Nadia and I can take care of this, said Stoney, and led Nadia into the kitchen as though he were leading a debutante to her presentation. Mrs. W. cocked an eyebrow at me as she lit a Benson & Hedges. Shes awesome! said Clarence. He insists shes enrolled in a junior college down in Georgia, I said. Henry, she said, after a pause, taking a drag off of her cigarette, you know what the worst thing about being a teacher is? No, maam, I answered. So often you have to wait on students to think for themselves. They have to get hit over the head with a club of some kind and before the light goes on. I told him not to believe everything he hears in bars, I said, after thinking a few seconds. She shook her head and took another drag. The smell of bacon started to overpower the smell of cigarette smoke. So you two met her last night at a bar? asked Clarence. Yep, I answered. Can you guys take me to that bar sometime? he asked. No, said Mrs. W. and I simultaneously. Hes a smart young man, said Mrs. W. Yes, maam. Hes awesome, said Clarence. Well, hes a good cook, said Mrs. W. Yes, maam, I said. Well, so far as I know, hes observing the rules of the house, she said. Yes, maam, he is. I understand we are privileged to be guests here, and have stressed this to him. He understands. She nodded, then looked at one of the blackboards. After a few minutes she got up and changed a symbol that she didnt think was right. How much Relativity do you have? she asked, without looking at me.

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Clarence, bored, looked up, with a frowning, snarky expression. Eight pounds, he said. Clarence, go figure out how to convert eight pounds into kilograms, said Mrs. W., without looking at him. How? he asked, with a scowl. There are lots of books in this house. Youre smart. Henry? Clarence left, sullenly. Not much Relativity, no maam. General principles, but no math, I said. Well, I want you to have more than that when you go back to school. Lunch was good. Stoneys vichyssoise was wonderful. Clarence didnt want his, so I ate it, and the B.L.T.s were excellent. The tomatoes were not quite as sweet and ripe as theyd be in the hottest part of the summer, but they were tasty, and Stoney had used his home-made mayo. Excellent sandwiches. At the end of the meal, I grabbed Stoneys collar again and pulled him over. Mrs. W. will expect you to walk Nadia home, I said. No shit? he looked at me, surprised. None. Okey-doke. Nadia, can I walk you home? he asked, when he returned to the room. That was be much happy make, she said, smiling shyly. She stood and turned, and her tee shirt bunched at her back a bit, so that it almost, but not quite, covered her bottom. Stoney stood. Take off your bathrobe, Stoney, said Mrs. W., shaking out a cigarette. He reacted as though startled, then removed his robe and draped it over his chair, and smiled at Nadia through his sunglasses. They left, Clarence staring intently. Mrs. W. lit her cigarette and looked at me disapprovingly, as though this were my fault. God Almighty, said Clarence. Knock it off, Clarence. You boys clean up, she said. We got to work. Apparently cleaning up was a new chore for Clarence. He didnt mind, but he didnt know what he was doing.

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Chapter 30: Civic Affairs, an Unexplained Absence, and Armed Drunkards at the Brass Register, or June 13, 1974 Things returned to normal, or as normal as they could be while Clarence was around, the next day. A few days later I came down for breakfast, last as usual, as Stoney was preparing waffles with Mrs. W.s World War II-era waffle iron. Mrs. W. was sipping coffee and looking at the first section of the paper. Clarence had a glass of orange juice, apparently untouched, and was puzzling over something on a sheet of quadrille paper. Hey, Henry, said Mrs. W., without looking up. Stuff to talk about in morning civics class so read up. Stoney sort of waved at me. Neither Mrs. W. nor Stoney was smoking, which was odd. Stoney placed two small pitchers in front of Mrs. W., one white like cream and the other looked like his reduced maple syrup, then put a glass of whole milk next to her coffee. She looked up and smiled and handed me the first section of the newspaper. She turned her attention to sports. A few seconds later Stoney plopped a perfectly-formed round waffle in front of her, liberally smeared with butter, now melted and drooling towards the edge of the waffle. Okay, this is a pretty standard American waffle, which is what I can make with this waffle iron. Itll be a little chewier, little crisper, a little eggier than a Belgian one, I hope in a good way. You have your choice of reduced maple syrup or this highly experimental yogurt-cream-vanilla sauce I kind of made up this morning because I thought it might be good on waffles, because I made some pretty good yogurt, although I tasted it and the sauce might be better on desert crepes. Oh, and there are these. He placed a bowl of sliced, sugared strawberries on the table, with a serving spoon. Mrs. W smiled warmly at her plate. She divided the waffle into two halves, drizzled yogurtvanilla sauce over the right half, and sprinkled sugared strawberry slices on top of that. With her first bite she smiled and rolled her eyes like a six year-old tasting her first ice cream cone. Wonderful, she said, and cut off another bite. Usually Id want some kind of protein with breakfast but I couldnt figure out what kind of meat or egg deal would go with this. Once I got fixed on the sauce, I mean. He watched the indicator light on the waffle iron and sipped his coffee intermittently. Youre next, little buddy, he said, to Clarence. I looked at my paper, Mrs. W. enjoyed her waffle, and Clarence looked at his graph paper. According to the paper President Nixon was in Cairo, where President Sadat had welcomed him as an important world leader without whom the problems of the Middle East could never be resolved. After these solemn pronouncements were complete, President Sadat had feted President Nixon with a performance by a belly dancer.14 After a few minutes the light on Mrs. W.s ancient waffle iron turned red and Stoney turned out another perfect waffle. He plated it in front of Clarence, after which he gave Clarence a glass of milk and a bottle of Log Cabin syrup. Bud, youre welcome to
14

I am not making this up. Not one whit.

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yogurt vanilla sauce or reduced maple syrup if you like, but youre welcome to Log Cabin if you prefer, he said, handing Clarence the small glass Log Cabin bottle. Cool! said Clarence, and poured at least six fluid ounces of Log Cabin syrup on his waffle. Hungry? Stoney asked me. I dont usually eat breakfast, I said. Ill split one with you, he said. Mrs. W. had finished her fist waffle half and had cut the other half into two quarters. She covered the one nearest to her in yogurtvanilla sauce and strawberries. She ate a few bites. You know, this would be good with blueberries, too, she said. Good call, Dr. W., said Stoney. Well have to try that. But sugared strawberry slices bleed a lot of juice out, and that helps the flavor of the sauce. Thins it a little, too. A final waffle was ready. He split it between us on two plates. He poured a generous dollop of yogurt-vanilla sauce on his then sprinkled it with strawberry slices. I followed suit. Clarence finished his waffle. Mrs. W. still had a quarter of hers left, which she drizzled with still-warm reduced maple syrup and consumed with an emotional cast to her expression. While Stoney and I were eating our
waffle s Clarence unceremoniously 2

dumped the remaining strawberry slices onto his plate and then spooned lots of yogurtvanilla sauce over them. He had unsatisfactory results consuming this mixture with his fork, so adopted the strawberry serving spoon as his own. I expected Mrs. W. to object, but she didnt notice. Another triumph, Stoney, she said. It was pretty tasty. Clarence had cleaned his plate as thoroughly as he was able without licking it, which he would have gladly done had no one been looking, then turned his attention back to his quadrille paper, which seemed to have sparked an unusually studious streak in Clarence. What are you working on? I asked Clarence. Mrs. W. lit a cigarette and waited on his response. Its some games Stoney made up for me, he said. Yeah, I figured hes probably bored with pretty much everything around him, so for the past week or so Ive been setting up some puzzles for him, said Stoney. He should have something interesting to do, too. So? Mrs. W. asked Clarence.

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I like the crosswords and the Cryptoquotes best. Jumbles are too easy, said Clarence. Mrs. W. looked at Stoney. Honestly, thats been pretty closely based on whats available in the Chattanooga Times, he said. But Clarence has done the Cryptoquote in less than five minutes twice. So word puzzles? Mrs. W. asked Clarence. The math ones are harder, but kind of more fun, he answered. What kind of math problems? she asked. At first it was like addition x + y = 5 and that kind of stuff. How youd graph that. Here, he said, shuffling his papers, and handed up a list of about six graphs of linear equations. I gotta say, that was pretty boring. But this week he added little numbers and the puzzles are a lot more interesting, he said. Little numbers? she asked. Yes, maam. Like Okay, well, we started with x 2 + 2 xy + y 2 = 0 . 15 Stoney writes the power numbers as little numbers above their variers. And? Theyre fun. He shrugged. Stoney showed me how thats the same as x plus y times x plus y, and its like multiplication only with letters. Kind of like the Cryptoquote substitutes one letter for another, he thinks up these puzzles where he has letters instead of numbers, and you have to figure out what the letters could be. Then to get the curves all you have to do is plug real numbers into the key. Its keener and cooler than the word puzzles, but I think the word ones are more fun, somehow. More Yaqui. Mrs. W. turned to Stoney. Mr. Jackson! she said to Stoney. Yes maam? Stoney asked, hesitantly. Youre a teacher! she exclaimed. I dont know, he said, after a pause. I just thought if he was stuck with us he might as well have something to do.
15

He pronounced it X to the power of two plus two XY plus Y to the power of two.

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What made you think of this? she asked. Well, that first night we forgot to get him a Sports Illustrated and I felt so bad I wanted to make it up to him so I made him a game sheet of stuff he could play with while you were talking to us. And youve got him to quadratics already? she asked. Hes pretty fast. Well. Clarence, Im going to leave you to Stoneys tutelage, and you boys let me know if I can help. She paused and thought and lit a cigarette. She looked at Stoney, contemplatively. Sometimes you connect with a single person, and thats great. Happens a lot with parents, as it should. Sometimes you connect with a larger group, but not with everybody. Ministers, Rabbis, Boy Scout leaders, singer/songwriters. Sometimes you connect with almost everybody in the room. Those people all need to be teachers, because nobody else can do the job as well. Clarence and I are just buds, said Stoney. So do you think youre learning a lot, Clarence? she asked. Oh, sure! Stoneys like Don Juan, he said. Who? A character in Clarences favorite book, Stoney said. What have you learned? she asked. Well, a needle case is called an etui. The Hawaiian word for goose is nene. Theres a college in North Carolina called Elon. The easiest place to start with a Cryptoquote is to look for patterns, like there or that. All kinds of stuff. How are there and that patterns? Mrs. W. asked. If you have a five-letter word where the third and last letters are the same and nothing else matches, thats almost always there, he said. If you look around and the first three letters match up somewhere else, youre sure, because thats the. And if the first and last letters of a four-letter word are the same, thats usually that, he said. Could also be else, said Stoney. Be careful. Sons, twit, hath, barb, kink, dead, fief, gang, maim, pimp, rear, roar, sips, I said.

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Dont show off Henry, said Stoney. Whats he saying? asked Clarence. Hes giving you examples of other four-letter words that fit the pattern. But for the purpose of doing a Cryptoquote, ignore him. If you have a four letter word that begins and ends with the same letter, its almost always that. And if its not, its usually else. And after that, all of those words Henry said are equally likely. Whats a tutelage? asked Clarence. It means Dr. W. thinks Im teaching you stuff, said Stoney. His fastest time on the Jumble is less than two minutes. But what about factoring quadratics? she asked Clarence. He immediately drew his face into a quizzical frown. What? Clarence asked, confused. Behind Clarence, Stoney waved his hands back and forth, like an umpire signaling safe, to wave her off from telling Clarence he was doing ninth grade math. Know your pupil. Thats what your Aunt Margaret calls that kind of number puzzle, Stoney said. Oh, he nodded. Theyre just puzzles, he said to Mrs. W. Theyre fun, but once Stoney shows you the trick theyre lots easier than the word ones. I dont think Im really, like, learning anything from the number puzzles. Theyre just fun. He shrugged. Okay, she said, smiling. So whats in the news? Dodgers lost to the Cards 6-3 with Sutton on the mound, I said. You think hes going to last? asked Stoney. Seems solid. Torre hit a homer for St. Louis and the good guys just never caught up. Brock hit a triple to seal the deal.

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We never should have traded Torre, said Clarence.16 He was my favorite player ever. What was the Braves score? They beat the Mets one zip. Both pitchers must have done well but I didnt recognize either name. Aaron homer? RBI? asked Clarence.17 Nah, Davey Johnson18 singled in somebody from third, said Mrs. W. Nobodys asked about my Tigers, said Stoney. They didnt play, said Mrs. W., Clarence, and I in unison. Tough room, said Stoney. All right, so anybody noticed whats going on in the world? she asked. Stoney lit a cigarette. Clarence concentrated on some puzzle on Stoneys sheet. She looked straight at me. Well, Nixons in Egypt, I said. Good. Why is he there?
16

Clarence is a Braves fan and alludes to the fact that Torre came up to the majors in Milwaukee and came with the Braves when they moved to Atlanta. As is the way with catchers his knees went before his arm or his bat so the Braves tried playing him at first base and third and even in the outfield as a way to rest his legs. Unfortunately he played first like he was still a catcherhed stand up straight as though blocking the plate and catching a throw from the cut-off man rather than stretching towards the infielder to get that fraction of a second break like a first baseman does, and he just wasnt fast enough for third. The Braves ended up trading him to St. Louis (this was before free agency, so players played where they were told to play). Torre would go on to manage the Angels, Yankees, and Dodgers, and in between stints as a manager was the best color announcer of my lifetime, except for maybe Joe Garagiola, also a catcher. And of course there was the hilariously mismatched team of Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese in the sixties, but which of them was the color man and which was play-by-play would be hard to say. And then of course theres Vin Scully, the standard by which all other sports announcers are judged. Hes known as a play-by-play guy, but since he works alone he also provides his own color. 17 Henry Aaron is the Braves all-time leading scorer in most categories and is Major League Baseballs alltime leader in non-juiced career home runs. 18 Davey Johnson, then with the Braves, would go on to manage the Mets and the Dodgers both. Odd fact: Davey Johnson had been in the on-deck circle a few weeks earlier on April 8, 1974, when Henry Aaron hit his 715th homer, the one that broke Babe Ruths lifetime record, unfortunately off of the Dodgers Al Downing. A few years later Davey was playing in Nippons Professional League, Japans MLB, where he played for the Tokyo Giants (whose uniforms are obviously stolen directly from San Franciscos). Johnson was also in the on-deck circle on September 3, 1977 when Japans greatest player ever, Sadahaaru Oh, hit homer 756 to surpass, theoretically, anyway, Aarons lifetime record of 755. In those days Japanese pitching didnt have the velocity that American pitchers did, but opinions vary as to whether harder pitching would have meant more or fewer homers for Oh. Japanese pitching improved, of course, and in 1995 Hideo Nomo jumped from the NPL to the Dodgers to become the first of many Japanese pros to find success in the American major leagues. Nomo had a wicked fast ball and a delivery that baffled hitters for a number of years. One last note about the Aaron/Oh rivalry: after the 74 season Aaron agreed to appear in a home run derby against Oh and Japanese pitching in Tokyo. Aaron won, 10 to 9.

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I paused to think before answering. Because there are fewer American reporters there? I hazarded. Oh, for Christs sake, Henry, she said. This is a state visit. What is the purpose of the visit? There was a pause. Mrs. W., Im going to have to have to side with Henry here, said Stoney. Yesterdayor maybe sometime in the last day or soone of our coffee chats was about how Henry Kissinger was going to resign if people didnt stop pestering him about all the criminal investigations going on about White House stuff. But thats not the purpose of a state visit, she said. We both looked at her quizzically. Clarence had lost interest. She rapped her knuckles on the table. Clarence? He looked up. Yeah?19 he answered. Why is President Nixon in Egypt? she asked. He put on his game face, as though he were answering a question in class. To achieve peace in the Middle East? he answered, after thinking. Yes! she said, happily. Yes maam, and so how long has this middle east deal been going on? asked Stoney. Several thousand years, she answered. Shaking her head and lighting a cigarette. And you think Nixon is going to work it out? he asked. Well, no, but hes trying. It says here that there was a parade in which Nixon was cheered by throngs, Stoney said. Yes, she answered. This was in Egypt. Is there any place he might get a similar response in the US? There was a pause. Clarence frowned and looked back down at his puzzle sheet. Maybe Wadley, I said.
19

Both Henry and Stoney, separately, pulled Clarence aside later in the day and told him that he should address his aunt as maam.

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Wadley? Stoney asked. A little town in Alabama. They like their president. A lot, I said. I do get your point, Stoney, she said. Peace in the Middle East is important, though, and Im glad theyre thinking about it. What else is going on? Ehrlichman can be tried with the rest of the plumbers, said Clarence, without looking up from his puzzle sheet. That he can, said Mrs. W., smiling at him. That he can. All right, lets get to work. We moved into the dining room and she took us through a pretty intricate double integral that had integrations over some regions that were more general than polar rectangles.20 It branched out a lot, and we drew some diagrams on the blackboards to reason through it. Mrs. W. observed that the notation had changed a little from when she was in grad school, but it all meant the same thing. For lunch we had gazpacho and tuna salad sandwiches, but that makes it sound a little more generic than it was. Stoney made a special olive oil mayonnaise to bind the tuna salad, although he used his standard Wesson oil mayo on the bread, which he had baked the day before. I think we had a cool meal because Stoney didnt like to heat up the kitchen too much in the middle of the day when it was hot outside. After lunch we were still working on the double integral problemwell, Stoney and I were, and Clarence was working on a second problem sheet Stoney had whipped out right after lunchwhen the phone rang.21 It didnt usually ring. We all looked at each other, then Mrs. W. got up to answer it. She returned after a few seconds. Its Nadia, she said, Asking for Stono. Ah, Stoney said, and got up to take the call. Mrs. W. took a contemplative drag from her cigarette and looked at the beautifully framed unsolved problem on the blackboard.22 This is the girl who came over for lunch wearing ... a tee shirt? she asked. Yes, maam, I said. She was awesome! said Clarence.

20

As I recall, after we got through the preliminaries, it was

f (r ,)dA =
R c

h ( )

g ( )

f ( r , )rdrd

and for once I got it before Stoney did. 21 Mrs. W. had just said if the disc R has a density (r,)=r, then, symmetrically, the mass of the disc is

M = 2 dA = 2 rdA = 96 .
R+ R+
22

Greenboard would be more accurate, but you get the point.

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And he thinks this girl is a college student? Mrs. W. asked, to no one in particular. She says shes enrolled at a Junior College in Colquitt, I said. Shes absolutely gorgeous, said Clarence. Okay, Clarence, Im going to tell you something about men, she said. I want you to remember this ten years from now. Clarence looked up with a quizzical scowl. Men are mysteriously unable to detect or deduce the ages of females they find attractive. Im telling you, remember this. The fact that you find her attractive doesnt mean shes eighteen. Got it? Yeah, sure, he said. He was trying to appear earnest, but Mrs. W. saw through it and shook her head in annoyance with men in general. Stoney returned. Mrs. W., if its okay with you, Im gonna go pay a visit to Nadia, he said. Wont be long, he said. Have fun, she said. He smiled and lit a Winston. You know shes underage, so be careful. Oh, no maam. Shes enrolled in Colquitt Junior College. Twenty years old, he said. Uh-huh, said Mrs. W., without looking away from the blackboard. Okay, see you again in a few minutes he said, and left. I could hear the door close behind him after a few seconds. Well, what to you gentlemen want to do? she asked Clarence and me. I got my puzzle sheet, said Clarence, and shrugged. We could take a walk, I said. Mrs. W. frowned and smoked for a minute. I know, she said. Henry, tell me again, how much Relativity do you have? Philosophical principles mainly. He showed us some of the math but we werent tested on it. I looked at your book over Christmas. The way they presented it is not the same way Albert did it. Let me show you Alberts original thinking. Itll make a lot more sense. She flipped over a blackboard. Didnt you tell me you knew the Lorentz transformation?

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I think so, yes maam. We did it in Stoneys math club. On your recommendation, I might add. Okay. So here we go. Place a rod one meter long in the x axis of K in such a way that the beginning end coincides with the point x=0, while the other end coincides with x=1. What is the length of the rod relative to the K system? And with that she was off, scudding across principles vast and small, demonstrating on the blackboard from time to time. It was though shed been hungry to talk Physics, as though dealing with geometry and pure math for so many years had starved her for something. She galloped. I could follow, but not really absorb. It was exhilarating, but frightening, in a way. I am by nature skeptical, and to inhale so much so fast didnt brook much analysis. But it all came in so right. She went on for about three hours. By the end, general and special relativity had been planted in my brain, but I couldnt have said I grasped it. I understood it, in a way, but I hadnt been able to think it through. What do you think? she asked. Clarence had wandered off. Im kind of stunned, I said after a pause. It makes sense, but Jesus. I knew that mass and energy were supposed to be related. But damn. Where are you on gravity? she asked. Thinking it through. Everything you said makes sense, philosophically. And the math? she asked. Not sure yet. I need to think all this through. I understood it when you said it, but it wasnt all math. Fair enough. The doorbell rang. What the hell? she asked. Its Stoney, I said. Why would he ring the bell? she asked. Hes a guest. Oh, for heavens sake, she said, rising to answer the door. When she came back, she had Stoney in tow and was explaining that he was part of the household now, like it or not, and did not need to ring the bell to come inside. Well, thank you, Dr. W. Thats so sweet of you. He looked exhausted, in a way that doesnt care that its exhausted. I know I planned to cook something tonight, but I cant remember what it was, he said.

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You said red beans and rice, said Clarence, wandering in. Oh, Jesus! Youre right! Ive got nothing like the time to cook red beans and rice! What was I thinking? Well, I guess we know what I was thinking about. But still, Ive let down the team. He lit a Winston in exhausted despair. I dont know what Im going to do, he said. What do we think? Omelet? Quiche? Oh, Stoney, dont worry about it. Its time for me to repay the favor. Lets go to the Brass Register. Im buying, she said. Whats that? he asked. A bar downtown, on Fountain Square. Good burgers and omelets. Dark, with drinks and beer. Youve been, Henry? A couple of times. My friend Dennis Plumlee used to hang out there, I said, but he was pretty much everywhere. You didnt like it? she asked. Good burgers, but no pool table, I said. Will Nadia be there? Clarence asked. No, said Stoney. The Baptists are all back, I think. Damn, said Clarence. Language, Clarence, said Mrs. W. Sorry, said Clarence. Stoney, what does this mean? he asked, pointing at something on his quadrille sheet. Oh, thats something well get to in a week or two. A different kind of puzzle. For now, just treat it like its x or y or a or b, he said. But how do I say it? he asked. Sin? Its an abbreviation, said Stoney. Sine. Sign, said Clarence. You got it, buddy, said Stoney. So maybe a drink before Brass Registering? He made Mrs. W. a massive martini, himself a gin and tonic, and brought Clarence a Coke. We retired to the living room to watch the news. Nixon and Sadat had looked at

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the pyramids. Things could be better in Viet Nam. Prince Charles had invited Laura Jo Watkins, the daughter of an American admiral, to hear him address the House of Lords. Thats just not right, said Clarence. It was odd for him to volunteer anything. We all looked at him, surprised. How so? asked Mrs. W., taking a sip of her martini. For that prince to go siphoning off American girls. He should stick to Brits. Why so? she asked. Thats a really pretty girl. Whats she going to do? Say No, Ill take a pass on being maybe the queen of England? Its not fair. Well, maybe he likes her, said Mrs. W. There was a pause. Much as I love you, Dr. W., Im going to weigh in with my little buddy on this one, said Stoney. Isnt the Prince of Wales required to marry an English citizen? No, no. Under the Royal Marriage Act as long as the reigning monarch approves, he can do what he likes. How about under the Settlement Act? Clarence asked. All of us looked at him in surprise again. Well? he asked, when none of us answered. That just says that no monarch of England can be Catholic or be married to a Catholic, Mrs. W. said. Where did you pick that up? I go to school, Clarence answered, sullenly. Stoney gave him a thumbs up and Clarence brightened in response. The news came back. The world monetary fund had agreed on some changes. Nixon said Sadat would be coming to Washington in a few months. It was inextricably dull. Stoney refreshed his and Mrs. W.s drinks halfway through. All right, lets go, said Mrs. W. after the news was done and we all piled out towards her car. She handed me her car keys without comment. It was maybe 6:00 or 6:30 and it was still light. I hadnt spent much time in the Brass Register before, although Id been. My high school classmates had all spoken of it as a destination of some importance, but it didnt have a pool table and I dont drink. It was clean and neat, though, and the hostess, who may have been behind me a year or two at City High, showed us to a nice table near the windows up front. Clarence was checking out the new and interesting environment, focusing intently on whatever pretty girl walked by. We all ordered various kinds of cheeseburgers and different drinks.

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The front door opened and Rex23 walked in, alone, looking for someone. He scanned the bar several times before he noticed me, then waved and came over. Something about his bearing suggested he had been drinking for some time. Yo, Henry, he said. Hello, Mrs. Wertheimer. Henry have you seen Buster in here tonight? Buster Wilhoite? I asked. Rex paused for a few seconds to think about this. Is there another Buster? Rex asked, confused. He was a little unsteady and he was moving his lips in this odd way that made his handlebar moustache look like it was moving across his face like a caterpillar. Havent seen him. Why? I asked. Buster has a skeet machine for sale and I was going to look at it tonight. If I see him Ill tell him youre looking for him. Cool. Rex wandered off, more towards the bar than in search of Buster. Did he say Buster Wilhoite? Mrs. W. asked. You remember Buster, I said. He went to City. Buster didnt take much math, she said. Stoney was waving at the waitress, who showed up with a smile. Hey freak, she said, to Stoney. Hi, Janie, said Clarence. Oh, hey, little fella. Hows your Coke holding out? Oh, its fine, he said. He stared at her in a way that manners would have forbidden if he had any. Okay. So this was a gin and tonic, Stoney said, pointing at his now empty drink. So what Id like is another gin and tonic, only this one with like three or four shots of gin in it. Make it four. And so for there to be any room for tonic water, you need to do this in a Collins glass. Lime? she asked. Yes, but just one wedge, Stoney said.
23

You remember Rex.

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Got it! she said, smiling, and walked off. Clarence watched her leave longingly. Knock it off, Clarence. You boys have to talk to him about the way he looks at girls, Mrs. W. said. What? asked Clarence, confused. Whats he doing? Stoney asked, oblivious. Ill explain it to Stoney and Stoney will explain it to Clarence, I said. Youll do what? Stoney asked. Ill explain later. Yo-ho-ho! said a loud voice to my right. How in the hell are you, my badass dog Henry? It was Buster, bellowing. Hey, Buster. Rex is looking for you, I said. Fuck Rex! he yelled. No, thanks, I said. What in the fuck have you been up to, Henry Beta? he demanded. Im in college, I said. No shit? he asked, obviously uninterested. Wheres Rexie? I got a machine I gotta unload. He was headed for the bar a few minutes ago, I said. Cool. Buster headed towards the bar and I lost track of him. He, too, looked as though he might have been drinking. A lot. Janie brought Stoneys second drink as Mrs. W. sipped on her first. After a few minutes our burgers came, and we all enjoyed that first few minutes you get with hot cheeseburgers and hot, salty fries. As we were doing so, Rex and Buster, who certainly did not seem less intoxicated than when I first spoke to them, left the bar together. Theyre looking at a skeet machine? Mrs. W. asked. Yes, maam, I said.

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Oh, dear, she said. We continued working on our burgers. Mine, with bacon and cheddar cheese, was good, but then how could a hamburger with bacon and cheddar cheese not be good? Mrs. W. had a worried look on her face. Stoney drained his gin and tonic and ordered a pint of draft Lowenbrau.24 So what Clarence began but was interrupted by the booming sound of a shotgun blast coming from the street. Clarence jumped, terrified, and Stoney appeared to be considering taking refuge under the table. Its okay, boys, Mrs. W. said to Clarence and Stoney. They said skeet machine, after all. She looked at me and shook her head. Yes, maam. Ill go see whats up. I took another big bite of my bacon cheeseburger and went outside, still chewing. It was about 7:30. The sky was a little dark, but you could still see. Buster had parked his pickup next to the fountain for which Fountain Square was named. The skeet trap machine was in the bed of his pickup, and Buster had flipped down the gate so the clay pigeons wouldnt graze it on their way out. There was a 100 foot orange extension cord running from the skeet machine to an outlet in front of the Brass Register. Both Buster and Rex were armed with shotguns. I observed all of this from about twenty yards away and was not interested in getting any closer. Jimmy Pelfry, Busters running buddy, was standing near Rex and Buster but did not seem to be otherwise participating in the evenings events. Pull! yelled Rex. Buster yanked something and a clay pigeon sailed off into the darkening sky off towards the Hamilton County sheriffs office. Rex shot and reduced it to dust. Pull! yelled Rex again. As the clay pigeon sailed through the courthouse lights Rex fired and missed, so Buster quickly sighted and shot the bird right before it got tangled in the large oak trees in front of the courthouse. Hey, Jimmy! I called out. He looked over his shoulder at me and waved, and then as Rex and Buster launched another clay pigeon and commenced shooting at it, he left them to come talk to me. Hey, Henry, he said, approaching and shaking my hand. Hows it going? Its okay, I said. The skeet machine hurled out another clay pigeon, which Rex rendered into dust with another shotgun blast. So whats going on here? I asked. Theyre both drunk, Rob said. Yeah, Id say so, I said. Another clay pigeon went flying, both Rex and Buster shot at it at about the same time, and then began to argue about who had hit it.
24

Heres to good friends. Tonight is kind of special.

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Theyre shooting pretty good for bein as drunk as they are, he said, watching them. Another clay pigeon. Rex missed, Buster got it. It was far enough downrange that he shot some leaves off of one of the stately oak trees in front of the courthouse. Okay. But doesnt the idea of shooting skeet with 12 gauge shotguns on a city street in the dark seem like a bad idea in many ways? Oh, sure. Its a terrible idea. And you left out the fact that the sheriffs department is right over there, he said, pointing. Any minute cops are going to show up and arrest them both. Arent you and Buster friends? I asked. Buster and Rex were arguing about something. Rex took a clay bird from the machine and threw it into the air, and they both shot at it. You could hear the bird shot raining down around us a few seconds later. Oh, yeah. Been pals since junior high. We were in Little League together. We roomed together when we were in college. And youre not trying to stop this? I asked. There was a pause while we watched them shoot at another clay pigeon. Neither hit it this time. Busters practical joking has got to stop, Jimmy said, eventually. What? Busters always been bad about practical jokes, he said, as they reloaded. Theres a connection between practical jokes and this skeet tournament? Yeah, okay, he said. In high school and college if he put Dinty Moore Beef Stew in the pockets of my tux or hid all my underwear before we went to play a road game.25 Id just beat the snot out of him and hed stop it for a few months.

And you no longer feel comfortable beating the snot out of him? Oh, hell. I can still beat the snot out of him and am willing to do so at the drop of a hat. Its just gotten out of hand, though, so I suggested he bring his shotguns. I brought an extension cord so they could test that skeet machine Buster stole. Made sure Buster got good and drunk. Hes pretty stupid when hes drunk. And of course Rex is an idiot. And?

25

Buster played safety for the University of Tennessee football team. He tore an ACL in the Auburn game in his junior year on a block that should have been called for clipping but wasnt. In those days knee ligaments could not be repaired, so that one clip ended his athletic career.

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Well, you can see, he said. I also told them I wasnt aware of any law against firing shotguns inside city limits. Im surprised the police are taking so long, he said, glancing at his watch. May I ask about the nature of the practical joke? Buster picked up a case of the crabs from this Russian girl he met at that bar he goes to down by the river. Before he used the de-lousing shampoo pulled some of them off and put them in a jar and then put them in my bed, said Jimmy. I take it you did not see the humor in this, I said, as a police car pulled up, lights on but no sirens. Buster was now showing Rex how to operate the machine. Pull! Buster called out. Rex yanked the cord and a clay bird sailed out into the indigo sky. Buster shot just as two uniformed police officers emerged from their car, one with a shotgun aimed at Buster and the other with a pistol aimed at Rex. No, I found no humor in it, said Jimmy. But what I failed to get Buster to grasp was that Carrie found no humor in it, either. Buster was trying to explain that it was all okay, that they were just shooting skeet, as it was their right to do. He cited the Second Amendment. The police did not seem to see it that way, and were instructing Rex and Buster to lay down their weapons. Rex, the more experienced criminal defendant of the two, was complying, but Buster was refusing on the grounds that this was his good shotgun and he didnt want to scratch it. And Carrie is a girlfriend? She was at the time, yes. Unfortunately, she and her mother share clothes from time to time, and her parents are happily married, so it was only a matter of days before the entire Kershaw household, Carrie, her mom, and her dad, were all crawling with crabs. Unfortunate. I said. Rex was now lying on the street face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. Buster was clutching his shotgun like a five year old girl clutches her favorite doll, pointing at Jimmy, apparently trying to explain that Jimmy had told him that it was okay for him to fire his shotgun downtown on a June evening. Jimmy waved. Really, really, unfortunate. Given the nature of the crab louse and how it spreads, Carries parents eventually came to question her on the specifics of her pledge to stay a virgin until marriage. Another police car pulled up. Buster was pleading for permission to return his favorite shotgun to the gun rack. The police advised him not to move. He began stroking the shotgun, a two-barrel with an elaborately carved stock, the way drunks and stoners do with objects they decide they like. A third police car pulled up as an officer emerged from the second one, shotgun aimed at Buster. Rex tried to say something but the officer accompanying him placed his shoe on the back of Rex neck to

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encourage him to exercise his right to remain silent and refrain from exercising any others. Alas, I said. Yes. A great girl. Pretty as a picture. Sweet-natured. Took the Pill. She was even a Baptist. My folks loved her. Now my chances of seeing her naked again are as good as my chances of becoming pope. Buster had negotiated some kind of deal with the policeman that had been talking to him. He broke the double-barrel, which shucked both shells, at which point officers seemed to converge on him from all over, tossing his shotgun aside and forcing him to the street, cuffing him. In not too many seconds, he was in the back seat of one police cruiser and Rex was in the back seat of another, but on the way, Buster called out to Jimmy Bail me out! to which Jimmy called out No! Buster looked confused and hurt. Why? Buster demanded. Crab lice! Jimmy called back. Buster shook his head as they handed him into the back seat. Hell have to call his father for bail, said Jimmy, so hell remember this one. Jimmy unplugged the extension cord from the outlet and began coiling it up. This isnt going to go well for Rex, either, I said. Jimmy shrugged. Rex is an asshole, he said. Good catching up with you, Jimmy, I said. Same here, Henry, he said. I loaned him this extension cord and dont want to lose it. All of the police cruisers seemed to turn off their flashing lights at once and silently roll off into darkness. About the girl Buster got the crabs from, I said. Any chance she was Bulgarian rather than Russian? You think Buster would know the difference? Good point. See you later, I said, and returned to the Brass Register. A crowd had apparently been watching at the window and looked at me nervously as I came back inside. I rejoined our table. Mine was the only plate left on the table. Mrs. W. and Stoney both had cigarettes lit and brandy snifters filled with brown liquids, and Clarence had another Coke. I still had a third of my burger and half of my fries.

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Anything odd? Mrs. W. asked. It was more elaborate than it looked but just as stupid. She nodded. I took a bite of my not-entirely-cold burger and followed it with a few entirely cold fries. I poured ketchup on the fries. So do people, like, fire shotguns into the air all the time around here? asked Stoney. Its rare, said Mrs. W. Not in a town as big as Chattanooga, I said. Sometimes, said Clarence. Cause in Detroit we only do that sh that stuff on New Years. We all looked at him curiously. Shouldnt there be some limitations? he asked. Whys New Years a good time? Clarence asked. Mrs. W. looked at him by way of acknowledging that hed asked a good question without giving much else away. Better than June, Stoney answered, draining his snifter and waving to the waitress for another. Why? Mrs. W. and Clarence asked, simultaneously. In Detroit in January its like zero degrees outside, said Stoney. So? So everybodys inside. Fewer targets. We all nodded.

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Chapter 31: In Which Clarence, Stoney and I Demonstrate that the Amount of Entropy in a Closed System Increases Over Time The following week Mrs. W. and some of her friends had signed up to play in a duplicate bridge tournament at Callaway Gardens down in Georgia and Clarences mom still hadnt returned to town so Stoney and I were slated to take care of him for the weekend. Mrs. W. was a little worried that wed do something stupid while she was gone but she had a hard time articulating what that might be. She wouldnt admit it but it sometimes seemed as though she harbored suspicions that all men were capable of turning into idiots on short notice so leaving Stoney and me in charge of Clarence might lead to trouble. She left at about two that afternoon, a Friday. She left some problems for us on the blackboard, and looking at them right before she left I figured wed need to collaborate extensively to work through them. She said her farewells with a vague look of concern and had just somewhat hesitantly closed the front door behind her, but then just a few seconds later she re-opened it and looked back in. Stoney. I forgot to tell you, she said. I ran into my neighbor Weezie Long yesterday. I was getting the mail while she was walking her dog Rocky. She said those girls you met have gone back to Colquitt. Nadia and Kiki? he asked. Thats it. She said Nadia turns sixteen next week and wanted to be home to take her drivers license test on her birthday. Thought Id let you know. Bye! she waved. Bummer, Stoney said, after a pause. Sixteen, I said. I heard. I prefer to believe that theres been some kind of mistake, he said. There has been, I said. I mean some other kind of mistake, he said. Which other kind of mistake? I asked. Any other kind of mistake, he said. What other kind of mistake could there be? I asked. Can we change the subject? he asked. Some kind of non-criminal mistake? I asked.

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So Clarence, what do you want me to cook for dinner? Your call, he said. Why do we always have to cook? asked Clarence. Because cooking is part of life, said Stoney. Clarence looked at me. Stoney likes to cook and we like to eat. Ask him what the word statutory means, I said. Can we go to McDonalds? asked Clarence No, said Stoney. Why not? asked Clarence. There are usually lots of underage girls there, Stoney, I said. Your kind of scene. Because McDonalds is evil, Stoney said, ignoring me. Evil how? asked Clarence. Like the Yankees are evil, Stoney said. Just because something draws large crowds and everybody knows their names doesnt diminish their evilness. Can we go pick up a take-out pizza? asked Clarence. Impossible, said Stoney. Why? I asked. Because we have no beer, he said, matter-of-factly. We could go to the store to get some beer, suggested Clarence. Wow, said Stoney, slapping his forehead. The simple elegance of your logic has won me over. Let me enhance your paradigm-shifting idea with another: since were going out to get Lowenbrau anyway, and Henry will insist on driving even though Im completely sober, we could also pick up tomato sauce and pepperoni and mushrooms and anchovies and make our own pizza. A good coping skill for a young man on the threshold of life. Cant we just go pick it up at Pizza Hut? he asked. Girls love a man who can cook, Stoney said.

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If were going to Pizza Hut, lets eat it there, I said. If we carry it home from the one on Hixson Pike itll be cold by the time we get back. Besides, there might be a high school freshman who captures your interest. High school girls love that place. Okay. Pizza Hut sounds good, Stoney said. Little buddy, we now have a plan for dinner so my heart is at rest but its too early to eat so why dont you show me the plants you know in your aunts garden? This surprised me. Id assumed Stoney and I were about to start working on the problems Mrs. W. had left on the blackboard. She was gone, but it was still a school day. Its hot as Hell out there, I said. Since when are you interested in botany? My buddy here noticed an odd plant or two in the garden, he said. I just asked him to show them to me. Suit yourself, I said. They left. I started looking over the first of the problems Mrs. W. had left us. It, and the others, were all more multi-variable deals. I began to piece together an approach to the first one, then the second, and the fact that I could do so by myself felt a little odd. A few weeks ago Stoney had known lots more pure math than me but by this point I might have caught up. Maybe. But Id been used to being part of a problem-solving team, and it was oddly exhilarating to be thinking through something on my own. It was like a mini-return to my pool hustling days. Then it was just me and the cue against the cosmos. Now it was just me and the pencil against Math. I got most of the areas mapped out in my head on the first one, and the first several problems were so similar that mapping one was figuring out how to map them all, but then I got to scribbling down the values so fast I broke the point on my pencil. I looked around but there were no other pencils so I got up to sharpen mine at the sharpener in the hall closet. On the way I passed a window with a view of the garden and was surprised to see Stoney, barefooted, clad in white bell-bottomed Levis, his aviator shades, and a red I-Zod26 shirt, and Clarence, clad in short cut-offs, a striped tee shirt and his Braves cap, both jumping up and down, or maybe dancing, depending how flexible your definition of dancing is, not quite rhythmically but not randomly. They made occasional erratic vocal expressions that conveyed no information whatsoever. Maybe they were dancing in a circle in the garden. Maybe not. There was a low plant with white flowers at what appeared to be the center point of their circle. After about a minute of semi-leaping, Stoney paused in his leaping, or dancing, whichever it was, panting, and lit a cigarette. Clarence stopped at the same time. They looked at each other as though they werent sure what was supposed to happen next, then shrugged and
26

In 1974 I-Zod manufactured tennis shirts with little alligators on them that had labels inside saying Chemise Lacoste, which Walt, Ginnys doubles partner, once told me was named for Renee Lacoste, a one-time French tennis player who was known as the Little Crocodile, so Walt found some irony that the shirts were known in the U.S. by the name of a different species altogether. I do know that the sizes on the labels were given in French. The I-Zod tennis shirts of 1974 were much more comfortable and much better made than the I-Zod shirts of today. I also dont know what happened to the small reptiles stitched to the front.

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began leaping, or dancing, again. This time they seemed to grasp the absurdity of what they were doing and enjoyed it and so were skipping faster and jumping higher than theyd been doing before, which only made them look stupider. After a few minutes they exhausted themselves and collapsed on the garden grass, Stoney panting mightily and perspiring heavily and Clarence maybe a little out of breath. Youth. Stoney took a drag off his cigarette, which set off a coughing fit, but this did not induce him to pitch the butt. He and Clarence smiled at each other as Stoney began to catch his breath. After a few minutes they were still sitting in the hot sun and doing nothing. I got bored, so sharpened my pencil in the closet and returned to the calculus problems in the dining room. Maybe ten minutes later Stoney and Clarence returned to the house. I heard them open the back door then go to the kitchen and put ice in glasses. A few seconds after that they came looking for me in the dining room, tired but smiling. Clarence was carrying a glass of ice and a can of Coke. Stoney had a glass of ice, a can of coke, and a fifth27 of Ron Rico rum. It was brown, like whiskey, which Id never seen before. What were you guys doing out in the garden? I asked. It looked like white guys imitating Soul Train with no music. They both laughed a little and cracked open their soda cans, dropping their pop-tops28 into the ashtray. Nothing, said Stoney. Ritual preparation for the Datura, said Clarence, filling his glass with CocaCola. Excuse me? I asked. Just blowing off steam, Stoney said. Stoney filled his glass mostly full of brownish rum then topped it off with a little Coke. Its a Yaqui thing, said Clarence. How come your sister smacks you every time you say that? I asked Clarence. She seems to find Carlos Castaneda irritating, he said. Im not sure why. Maybe because, like so many pupils, but unlike Don Juans dog, she has not found her place. I dont want to go sit on the front porch, little buddy, said Stoney. Too hot.

27

In 1974, the most common size for a bottle of liquor was one fifth of a gallon, which is really, really close to 750 milliliters. 28 In the 1970s, canned beverages of all kinds were sold in aluminum cans with ring-pulls. You pulled on the ring and a small rounded Isosceles triangle of the top popped and then peeled out of the top of the can so you could drink it. These small, curved, surprisingly sharp bits of metal were casually thrown aside like burning cigarette buts, which led to many a foot injury among a population of young people that prided itself on its bare-footedness. Jimmy Buffet cut his heel on one while blowing out his flip-flop and had to cruise on back home.

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Perhaps your place is at this table, solving problems with Henry, said Clarence. With a great big ol rum and Coke, said Stoney, nodding. I showed Stoney what Id done with the first problem, and then he handed Clarence the crossword puzzle, the Cryptoquote, and the Jumble from the Chattanooga Times. The originals? Wow, said Clarence. He acted like hed been given some special privilege. I looked at Stoney in puzzlement. I think youre ready, buddy, he said to Clarence. Usually I change em around a little before I give em to Clarence, he said to me. Clarence pulled a stopwatch out of his shirt. It was hanging around his neck by a long thin piece of leather that may have originally been a bootlace. Call em out, bud, Stoney said. Clarence nodded, punched the stopwatch, and got to work. I noticed he was working in ink. I looked at Stoney with a cocked eyebrow. Hes gonna tell me his times as he completes each one, Stoney said. Where did he get a stopwatch? I asked. I gave it to him, he said. Where did you get a stopwatch? I asked him. I ran track in high school, he said. You ran track? I asked, surprised. Sure. I believe I still hold the Lawrenceville record for best time on the 44029. I was also the anchor leg of our mile relay team. When did you start smoking? I asked. At thirteen. And youre right, thats why I wasnt a miler in high school. Cross-country? I asked. Oh, Christ, no, said Stoney. Fifty-two! sang out Clarence.

29

440 yards, or a quarter of a mile. In the 1970s all American track and field events were measured in miles, yards, feet and inches.

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Thats great, buddy! Stoney said. I looked at Stoney in puzzlement. He just did the Jumble in 52 seconds. Thats great. Anything better than a minute is pretty commendable. My own best time on the Chattanooga Times Jumble puzzle was 45 seconds. I looked at Stoney with an inquisitive expression. Cryptoquote next? I asked. Of course30. What time are we looking for on the Cryptoquote? I asked. He usually does it in less than eleven minutes, Stoney answered. He looked at what Id done on the multi-variable non-planar problem and didnt say anything. He nodded a few times and circled a few things he wanted to ask about, then looked up. My own best time on the Cryptoquote was a few seconds over two minutes, and I generally did it in about six minutes, so I felt good about myself. Stoney finished looking over my calculations and looked up. Actually, Clarence always does better than eleven minutes. Eleven is his outside. Id take the under on that bet. Hes usually in the six to eight range. Damn! Thats good. Whats your time like? I asked. Stoney remembered he had a drink and drained it, then poured in, again, a massive amount of rum and a little Coke. I dont know, Stoney said. I never saw a Cryptoquote before I came here, and I do them while Im cooking breakfast, so I dont really time them, and if I did, the times wouldnt be, like, accurate, because Im looking at breakfast most of the time. Ive been trying to get to where I can solve them in my head. You know, like those guys do who play chess without a board? Ive always thought that was so cool. So today I could do the Jumble and the Cryptoquote in my head, and a lot of the crossword, but I couldnt do the whole crossword in my head. So I dont know. He asked me a few questions about steps Id taken on Mrs. W.s problem and nodded as I explained what I had done. He stared at one step, then exclaimed Fuckadoodledoo! and began scribbling furiously on his pad. I got this! Six minutes and 23 seconds! Clarence called out. Good time, buddy, said Stoney. It was a good time. I generally did better than that, but damn. Whats got you so excited on the multi-variable? I asked Stoney. Hang on, he said, and returned to scribbling. Ah, shit, he said, after a few minutes, disappointed. What? I asked. Clarence, focused on his crossword puzzle, paid us no mind.
30

I cant tell you why, but in a newspaper that offers the Jumble, the Cryptoquote, and a crossword, it just makes sense to do them in that order.

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Yeah, well, I thought Id found this great insight into this fucking equation and so I tore off into this magnificent, elegant solution that took fifteen steps and basically just proves your step four. So I agree with you. Fuck. Its possible that you may have noticed that I like to be the clever one but all Ive done this time is prove you right. A bitter tear to swallow. Perhaps some more Ron Rico will ease my troubled soul. Dont you mean a bitter pill? I asked. What kind of pill are you suggesting I take? Im not. Hmm. What kind do you have? he asked. None, I said. Then why did you divert conversation onto the topic of pills? Surely you know how cruel it is to get a mans hopes up like that. Five thirty-two! said Clarence. Excellent, little buddy! said Stoney. On the crossword? I asked. Yep! he said, proudly. Good time. I tried to beat six minutes every day, which hed done. And he was an obnoxious ten year-old. So how smart was I? Well, in Dr. Ws absence we still need to watch the news, Stoney said. We all agreed, so they grabbed their beverages and we all dutifully filed into the living room to watch the news. We went with Peter Jennings, and in Mrs. W.'s absence our commentary on the current administrations activities were perhaps a little more raucous and crude than usual. None of us could have been entirely sure what Mrs. Ws politics were, though. She usually seemed to approve of Dems and disapprove of Repubs, but it was hard to tell. Stoney and Clarence were clearly Democrats and assumed Mrs. W. was as well, but she was critical of Dems as often as she was of Repubs. Id never thought much about politics until that summer, but at that time particular point in time the main difference between Democrats and Republicans was that more Republicans were either in

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jail or on their way to jail31 than Democrats.32 But back then I really didnt understand politics.33 Which one is Stans again? Stoney asked. The level of the rum bottle was dropping pretty fast, and he was still on his first Coke. He looked at me for an answer to the Stans question and I shrugged. Couldnt tell you. Without Mrs. W., we were rudderless. He looked at Clarence. Hes an accountant. He was secretary of something. Maybe Secretary of Commercials. Resigned to become some big deal. Put money in a flush fund. Or was it a slush fund? Slush. Under indictment? asked Stoney. Yeah, sure. Perjury and obstruction of justice, Clarence answered. Stoney nodded as the news came back on. Clarence understood most of it, and Stoney had a general idea of what was going on, but it didnt make much sense to me. Something was up with New Yorks budget.34 Wholesale costs were up. Stoney made yet another rum and Coke. There was more trouble with tapes in the Watergate deal. Same old daily news routine, but it wasnt the same without Mrs. W. After the news we went to Pizza Hut. It was the same as the last time Id been there. Anchovies still werent on the menu. Stoney ordered a pitcher of Schlitz.35 The
31

Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (he was Greek, so . , which would be more Hagnew than Agnew) may not have been in jail but he pleaded to something pretty bad that required that he resign as Vice President of the United States, and Nixon aides Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Colson, Hunt, LaRue, Liddy, Magruder, McCord and Attorney General John Mitchell all went to jail. 32 As Ive aged Ive become aware that its the rare politician of any stripe that doesnt have some mud on his or her shoes when he or she first treads across the national carpet, but having an Attorney General, the nations chief law enforcement officer, go off to jail in Montgomery for engaging in some kind of criminal conspiracy is a kind of high-water mark for the executive branch being badly off-track, at least in my lifetime. I know this kind of thing happens all the time in other countries, but the reason people move her from those places is to get away from that kind of crap. 33 Im not sure I do now, but I do better. There are always competing ideas, but mainly political discourse seems to be absorbed with was saying the other side is wrong. Wheres the utility in that? 34 Why is what goes on in New York City national news? They dont treat what goes on in Los Angeles as national news unless theyre mocking California. What goes on in Chicago, Seattle, Miami, San Francisco and Wadley is not national news. I could give a shit whats going on in New York. Why do we all have to hear about it? 35 In 1970 Schlitz was without a doubt the best domestic beer in America, but then they began tinkering with the recipe, I assume to make more money. In 1974 it was still better than anything else in the United States, but it had dropped from the most popular beer in the U.S., The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous, to number two, behind Augie Bushs second-best beer, Budweiser. They tinkered with the recipe enough (and came out with the truly wretched Schlitz light) that they lost lots of customers to European brands like Lowenbrau and Heineken that were grabbing market share for the first time and even to Miller. (Miller High Life. The champagne of bottled beer.) Their efforts to improve profits had a disastrous effect on taste, so by the early eighties Schlitz was out of options and got purchased by Strohs in 1982, which started turning Schlitz into a more Stroh-like product that was awful. Schlitz abasement was complete in the late nineties when it and everything else Strohs was purchased by Pabst, which has to be the ultimate

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waitress, a pretty teenager who did not look old enough to work in a bar, assumed our beverage order was complete and left immediately, returning a few minutes later with the pitcher and three glasses, one for each of us.36 I asked for water, and she left immediately again. After she left Clarence redirected his earnest, intense stare from her tight, low-cut pink tank top to stare, not quite as intensely, at the pitcher. He nonchalantly took one of the three glasses and placed it close to himself, as though no one would notice.37 The waitress returned a few seconds later with my water and Clarence returned his appreciative gaze to her tank top, although he was not so captivated with her breasts that he didnt try to nonchalantly reach for the pitcher as Stoney put it down. I batted his hand away, and he looked deflated but not surprised. Could you bring him a Sprite, please? I asked. Sprite? Why do I have to drink Sprite? he demanded. What do you want? I asked. Coke, please, he said to the waitress breasts. Caffeine is bad for you, I said. What? said Clarence, Stoney and the waitress, all at once. It will stunt your growth, I said to Clarence.38 Clarence looked at me as he might look at someone who was providing how-to advice from the Dark Ages. Coke, please, he said to the waitress breasts again, whereupon she smiled and disappeared. She returned within a few seconds with his Coke, and we ordered. We each ordered an entire pizza for ourselves, roughly twice as much food as we needed. I ordered pepperoni, black olives, mushrooms, and sausage. Stoneys was some similar combination of standard pizza ingredients, but then Clarence asked for ham and pineapple on his, neither of which belonged on a pizza. I looked at the waitress in horror. Thats allowed? I asked. Called a Hawaiian, she said, nodding. Whats next, broccoli pizza? I said.
embarrassment for any self-respecting beer. 36 Clarence was ten. 37 Well, Stoney didnt. 38 My mother told me coffee would stunt my growth. In the mid-seventies, we still believed that kind of thing. On the other hand, the other things that my mother thought would stunt my growth included cigarettes, chewing tobacco, Coca-Cola, and all forms of alcohol. As is true of some things your mother tells you, she was right even if she wasnt correct.

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We can do that! she said. Its not on the menu, but they have broccoli back there for some kind of salad nobody ever orders so they can put it on a pizza if you want. No! I said. Yeah, we can, she said. My friend Margo comes in Saturdays after she gets off at Pennys and orders a white pizza with anchovies and broccoli. Stoney and I both picked up our menus. That actually sounds pretty good, Stoney said. Oh for Christs sake, Stoney! I said. Broccoli on pizza? You said the same thing about Clarences Hawaiian deal, said Stoney. Ive had it and its not so awful. Query whether heavy tomato sauce and/or olive oil work with pineapple under any circumstances, but I didnt gag. Now that I think about it, mine was prosciutto, not American ham, and I dont mean to be elitist but that may matter. I still dont see anchovies on the menu, he said. Theyre not, because people, like, think theyre gross, and they make, like, these waaaay inappropriate references to what they taste like, but they have some back there, if you want them. Sardines, too, she said. No, no, no. Sardines is just wrong, said Stoney. But Im changing my order to a white pizza with broccoli and anchovies. How could I resist? Heavy on both. You worry me, man, I said. Do you want to change your order? she asked me. I want to add anchovies as a fourth ingredient, I said. Fifth, she said. You already have pepperoni, sausage, black olives, and mushrooms. Do you want to take one off? No, no, I said. Ill have a five topping pizza. She smiled, flipped her order pad shut, and left. Stoney refilled his beer glass for maybe the third or fourth time since shed brought the pitcher and drank off about a third of it in one gulp. Shes pretty cute, said Clarence. Stoney, tell him to stop ogling girls, I said. Stoney looked confused. Why? he asked.

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Mrs. W. thinks his way of staring at girls is too obvious, I said. I told her Id explain it to you and that youd explain it to him, I said. This approach seems indirect, he said. Clarence, oblivious, was staring at some high school girls at a nearby table. He ignores me and he listens to you, I said. Thats probly true, Stoney admitted. Okay, little buddy, lets talk about girls, he said. Cool, said Clarence. Okay, so girls all want you to think youre interested in them, said Stoney. And I am! said Clarence. Particularly girls with big hooters! They want you to be interested in what they think, said Stoney. What? asked Clarence, confused. Girls all want you to be interested in what theyre thinking about, he said. Cant be, he said. Is, said Stoney. No, really. Theyre always talking about David Cassidy and Donnie Osmond. David Carradine. Hair and fingernails. What kind of shoes Belinda is wearing. Nobody could be interested in that kind of stuff. If they wanted people to be interested in what they were thinking theyd talk about Viet Nam and Watergate and say they voted for McGovern. There was a pause while Stoney lit a cigarette. David Cassidy? Donnie Osmond? Dont know those guys, said Stoney, and then he paused again. Singers? he guessed. Donnie Osmond is the little brother of those twerps who used to be on The Andy Williams Show, I said. Stoney frowned. Dont remember them. What did they do? he asked. Sang. Smiled. Climbed ladders. Wore sweaters. He shook his head dismissively. David Carradine? Stoney asked.

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Hes this Kung Fu guy who wanders around the Old West. Hes actually pretty cool, said Clarence. I just think its weird that these girls in my school are all crazy about a guy whos two or maybe three times their age. There was a pause in which Clarence looked back and forth between Stoney and me. How old? Stoney asked. Hes at least in his twenties, said Clarence. What do you mean? I asked. He said Old West, Stoney said. How old? Id guess Civil War era, I said. Clarence nodded. And the actor playing him is named Carradine? Stoney asked. Yep, Clarence and I both said. So there was a round-eye who knew Kung Fu in the 1860s? he asked. There was a pause while Clarence and I thought about this Well, they play him as Chinese, I said. Totally, said Clarence. They cast somebody named Carradine as a Chinese guy? asked Stoney. Clarence and I thought. Well, yeah, we said. And you guys watch this? Stoney asked. Its not quite as stupid as it sounds, I said. Its totally cool, said Clarence. Stoney seemed mystified. But hes a round-eye? Stoney asked. What? asked Clarence. Round-eye is Asian slang for Westerner, I said. Clarence still looked confused. It means non-Asian. Stoneys not sure an American was a convincing cast as an Asian martial artist. Clarence shook his head, confused. This had never occurred to him before.

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Our pizza came and we all partook. Conversation immediately turned to baseball,39 but then I realized I hadnt finished one of Mrs. W.s assignments. We never finished explaining to Clarence why he cant stare at breasts, I said, in the middle of my second slice. She generally asks me about homework problems. Oh right, said Stoney, wolfing down his third slice of white and green pizza and washing it down with a large swallow of beer. Ok, so buddy, there are some things you need to know about girls. Okay, said Clarence who, hoping no one would notice, had nonchalantly taken a beer glass and was reaching for Stoneys pitcher. Stoney didnt react, so I smacked him on the back of the head. Ow! said Clarence. What the fuck are you doing? he demanded, glaring at me. Keeping you away from the beer, I said. Your Aunt Margaret wouldnt approve. No, I mean smacking me in the head like that! he said, unhappily. Your sister does that all the time, I said. Not that hard, he complained. Stoney refilled his beer and looked contemplative. So we, he began, then paused, by which I mean us men, are not supposed to look directly at womens breasts even though those particular body parts are of exceedingly keen interest to almost all of us. Men, I mean . But even though were are all really, really interested in breasts, and women all know were all really, really interested in their breasts, were not supposed to let on. I honestly dont know why this is, but assure you it is so. Were not supposed to ever let them catch us looking at them, even though hey know we do whenever we can. Often times they want us to do so. Its weird. Inexplicable, even. But thats how it goes. Clarence scowled. What is it, little buddy? asked Stoney. Clarence pondered for a minute. Its just weird, said Clarence. I agree. But what exactly do you have in mind, little buddy? Stoney asked. It just seems that theyre proud of them, said Clarence.
39

Stoney was going on and on about Denny McClain. Who was an asshole, by the way.

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Of what? asked Stoney. Of their hooters, said Clarence. Yes, of course they are, said Stoney. So if theyre proud they have them, and they know we like them, why am I not supposed to look at them? asked Clarence. Im just liking something theyre proud of already. They jus dont like it when you stare at them, answered Stoney. This is weird, said Clarence. No, no, said Stoney. If you want to touch one you cant be caught drooling over it, he said. I think thats the only rule. Simple. You know, your Aunt Margaret would have a different take on this, I said. How so? both Stoney and Clarence asked. She might say that staring at a womans breasts is rude because it will make her feel uncomfortable, and manners requires that we do what we can to avoid making those around us feel ill at ease, I said. She also might mention that reducing a woman to an object of sexual interest demeans her in a way you do not understand. Stoney and Clarence looked at each other, then back at me, and shook their heads. Thats not the way the issue presents itself, said Stoney. Clarence nodded in agreement. How so? I asked. Okay, man, said Stoney. So hypothetically, say this really attractive waitress with really nice knockers whos wearing a tiny, thin pink tank top happens to be serving Clarence his pizza. Her hooters are pretty much on display. He cant glance at them? I think thats the point Clarence ha trouble with. Stoney managed to consume another slice of broccoli anchovy pizza in three bites. Not when she can tell, I said. It would be bad manners. If shes putting them out there where I can see, why cant I look? Clarence asked. Shes probably not much interested in you, Clarence. Even if shes advertising, shes advertising for somebody, shes not advertising for everybody. Stoney and

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Clarence frowned at me but neither said anything. Okay, I said. Just imagine for a minute that youre a really pretty girl. Cool. I love this kind of deal, said Stoney. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Clarence tried to imitate him but was opening his right eye every few seconds to see what Stoney was doing. I really hadnt anticipated this response. I was just trying to make a point. So Im a really pretty girl, said Stoney. Do I have really nice hooters? Stoney, I said. No, really, Stoney said, what about my hooters? Theyre fine, I said. Large and firm? he asked. Stoney, this angle really wasnt my point. But Im wearing a tight pink tank top? Look, the idea of all manners is that you dont want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable, I said to Clarence. Are you sure? he asked. Yes. I answered. Stoney gave up his reverie and refilled his glass. Clarence nonchalantly pushed his glass forward as if to be refilled, too. Stoney moved as if to refill it and I waved him off. Clarence sighed. Its just not right, Clarence said. How so? I asked. With my real friends, the most fun thing in the world is to make them as uncomfortable as possible, said Clarence. How so? I asked. You know. Standard kid stuff. Kick them in the nuts. Blow snot on their book reports. Fart in their faces. Put dog shit in their lunch bags. You know, just stuff. And? I asked. And theres this whole other deal I have to do for girls?

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Yep, I said. Its not just for girls, though. Theres this whole manners deal that applies to everyone whos not a thirteen year-old boy. Grownups. Teachers and parents especially. You agree with this? Clarence asked Stoney. Stoney was re-filling his beer glass for the umpteenth time and Clarence tipped his glass forward expectantly. This time Stoney either didnt see or ignored him. Sort of, he said. Um, I may not be the best guy to ask, because I grew up in allmale prep schools. And Im not sure about some of what Henry just said. I mean, it made sense when he was saying it, but if we have the same standard of behavior for parents and teachers that we do for girls, I think the world will be a dreary place in which to live. So I cant explain with any rationality why I think Henrys wrong, I certainly hope he is. Stoney poured the last of the Schlitz into his glass forlornly Nah, hes not right. Nadia was nothing like my mother, said Clarence. Whod want a girlfriend like a mother, anyway? Stoney asked. They clinked their glasses together and looked at me as though theyd just won a point. Stoney paid for dinner, which was nice. We had ordered way too much pizza, so each of us went home with a box.

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Chapter 32: Coffee, Trouble, More Trouble, Unexpected Visit, Leftover Pizza, a Reduction in Household Entropy Level The next morning I assumed Id be last down as usual but no one was in the kitchen. There was no newspaper. Usually by the time I came down somebody had already brought in the paper, but since this had always happened before I got there I was unclear on the process. Maybe today I was first up. I started a pot of coffee in Mrs. W.s ancient percolator then retrieved the paper from the driveway. As I was returning to the house I thought I heard a coyote but shook it off as a misperception. There were no coyotes in Tennessee in 1974.40 When I got back to the kitchen, the coffee was perking and Clarence was pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Wheres Stoney? I asked. In the garden, he said. Why? I asked. Stoney wasnt much of an outdoorsman. Don Juan said a man must return to his plants, said Clarence, somberly. What kind of plants? I asked. The Datura will become his friend, said Clarence. Datura? Yes. It will teach Stoney to fly, he said, ladling maybe half a cup of sugar onto his Cheerios and cracking open a Coke. Fly? Like a bird? Don Juan refused to answer this question. Is this the guy from that Carlos Castaneda book you talk about all the time? I asked. When a man has been enlightened he seeks others that share his path, he said, between mouthfuls of highly sugared Cheerios. Yes and no are your options on answering that question, I said. You Americans are so limited in your outlook, he said, slurping back his Coke so fast that he coughed with his mouth closed and a lot of it sprayed out of his nose.
40

There are now.

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Thank you for the insight, professor, I said. He was looking at the mess hed just made and thinking through whether he wanted to eat his Cheerios, now bathed in Coca-Cola and snot. He decided not, and moved his current breakfast to the sink, took out another bowl, and started afresh. Again he put at least half a cup of sugar on his Cheerios. I looked out the window and Stoney appeared to be hopping around the garden like a frog. He tried to hop off after a squirrel but hit his head on a hardwood tree, which caught him up short. He looked at the tree in some confusion, as though it were not supposed to be there, then hopped off in the other direction. What have you done to Stoney? I asked. Following the example of my own tutor, I have instructed Stonewall in the ways of the Datura. Whats that? I asked. A tool of enlightenment. A friend for Stoney, he said. I had no patience for this. Okay, so what Im going to do is Im going to grab your ear and hold it really hard and tight so you cant get away and then Im going to beat the living daylights out of you until you tell me whats going on with Stoney. Youd never do that, he said. Yes I would. I said. Stoney came back in from outside, holding his hands in front of him in a chipmunk-like way and sniffing at everything. Where is he? Stoney asked. Who? Clarence and I asked. The bearded dwarf in the wheelchair, he said. He was here just a few minutes ago. Before I went outside. He was singing Free Bird. Would you like to sit down, Stoney? I asked. Oh, fuck no. I need to fly. Clarence said something about that, I said. Stoney darted off and I could hear him gallop up the stairs. Okay, I said, grabbing Clarences ear. He stood. So Stoney is non compos mentis but has no drug dealer here. I had his ear pretty tight. So? Clarence asked, worried. So you have introduced him to something weird, I said.

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This is a journey for Stoney, said Clarence. None of your bees wax. Also a journey for you, I said. How so? he asked. I pulled up on his ear a little bit. Ow! he said. I looked down and he was standing on his tiptoes. I pulled up the tiniest bit more. I wasnt actually going to hit him, of course. The longest journey starts with a single step, I said. Don Juan said something like that, he said. I lifted his ear a fraction of an inch higher. His tippy-toes rose a bit. I wasnt really hurting him, nor would I, but Id had enough of adolescent mysticism. What did you give Stoney? I asked. Its just jimson weed! he said. I let him go. Don Juan gave it to Carlos Castaneda lots of times. Where did you find it? Its growing in the back yard, he answered, exasperated. Stoney, barefoot, came bounding down the stairs, hopping from a crouch, more kangaroo than frog now. Frogs land on their front legs, kangaroos dont, and he was managing to hop around using only his legs despite the fact that he lacked a kangaroos tail for counterbalance and stability. He took the last six stairs in one hop and landed on a throw-rug that immediately slipped out from under him, causing him to fall flat on his back with an enormous crash. Clarence and I hurried over to see if he was okay. That was fucking amazing, he said, to the ceiling. Are you okay? I asked. I will never be the same again, he said. Move your toes for me, handsome Stono, I said. He did. I must have been flying for hours, he said. No, you hopped down the stairs and fell on your ass. It lasted at most four seconds. He looked up at me quizzically.

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Your reality is so he began. Reality-based? I asked. Constipated, he said. Still lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling, he retrieved a crumpled pack of Winstons from a pocket and tried to shake one free. Three or four fell out but he only seemed to notice the one that made it to his mouth. He had difficulty with his lighter and never got it to flame but thought hed actually lit the cigarette, taking long drags from it and making like he was blowing smoke rings. Wowthat one bounced of the ceiling, he said. Ive never seen that. It happens, I said. After a few seconds of contemplating imaginary smoke rings he appeared to pluck something invisible out of the air and put it in his mouth. What was that? I asked. One of them turned into a Life Saver, he said, then looked at me and smiled shyly. I knew you thought I was handsome, he said. I left him to his reverie and looked up the Poison Control hotline phone number in the Yellow Pages. Somebody picked up after two rings. Poison Control Hotline, said a low voice. Whom I speakin to? He had a very East Tennessee accent. Henry Baida, I said. What can I do you for, Mr. Baida? he asked, then made a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a burp. I have a friend who may have eaten some jimson weed, I said. Ah, shit, he said. How much? I have no idea, I said. It doesnt41 really matter. It wouldn tell me much even if you knowed. So hes been readin that Carlos Castaneda? asked Poison Control, then made that noise again. Well, hes got a friend who put him up to it whos always quoting that damned book. Whats he doin? asked Poison Control.

41

Like many Southerners, poison control pronounced doesnt as duddn. How do I write that?

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Hallucinating. Hopping around like a kangaroo. Seeing things that arent there, I said. How long agod he take it? asked Poison Control. Hang on, I said. Yo. Einstein, I said to Clarence. How long ago did Stoney eat that stuff? Maybe two hours? he answered. My sources say about two hours ago, I said to Poison Control. Really, that doesnt42 much matter, either, he said. If you was to catch it real early you might could get him to puke it back up, but by the time you starts seein pictures, theres nothin to do but ride it out. How long will that take? I asked. Well, assumin its not fatal, four to eight hours, as a rule, but a guy once tol me hed tripped for two whole days on that shit. He hiccupped again. Is there an antidote? I asked. Nope. I could almost hear him sadly shaking his head. What are the effects like? I asked. There was a pause while Poison Control considered his answer. Well, it reminds me of taking a bunch of Benadryl and then drinking a bottle of codeine cough syrup, only wif shimson weed you get hallucinations kindly like that blue blotter acid that was around in 1970, he said. I see. Ifn it dont kill him, tell him that theres some good acid out there that wont fuck him up nearly as much as that Datura shit. It looks like a Anacin tablet with a pink dot on it, but its a king-hell acid and you dont do crazy shit like you do on the Datura. Its lots safern eatin shit outta the back yard. Plus, when you eat weeds off the ground, how dya know a dog didn just piss on it? I heard the sound of something falling in the living room. Hang on, I said. I need to go check on something. Dont hang up, I have some questions. I put down the phone and ran over the living room to find Stoney, flushed and red, trying to balance a ladder-back chair on his chin. Clarence was looking on with something between concern and alarm. I took the chair from Stoney.
42

See footnote 2.

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Talk to him when hes doing something stupid, I said to Clarence. About what? Anything except Carlos Castaneda. Try baseball. I ran back to the phone. Okay, so how many people die from this? I asked Poison Control. Oh, wow, man, not sure. Not lots, I don think. Some. What was he doing when you checked on him? He hiccupped. Scuse me, he said. He was trying to balance a chair on his chin, I said. Oh, thats not gonna go well, he said. Youre real uncoordinated and clumsy when youre on that shit. Drop stuff all the time. But you think youre Superman and you dont understand why you keep fuckin up. Any tips on how to get him through this? Not really. Jush gotta live through it. Dont let him pick up anything expensive, cause hell fuck it up. Okay, I said, preparing to hang up. I can tell you what not to do, he said. Okay, I said, hesitantly. I got this friend Junior down in Wadley. You know Wadley? he asked. Yes, I said, unsure where this was going. Well oncet when Junior did jimson weed he got so crazy I decided to start feeding him tequila figuring it would calm him down a little and thinkin he might get so drunk hed pass out and sleep it off. But after maybe a pint of tequila he decided to go for a motorcycle ride. We stopped him, but hes a big guy and was pretty determined and I think he may have broke a couple of Earls fingers in the ensuin melee. And then we went back to the house to watch the Alabama/USC game and nobody was watching Junior and then not ten minutes later we seen him sailing off down the back yard in his colors and motorcycle helmet on his little sisters teeny pink Barbie bike and damned if he didnt go straight into the fish pond helmet and all so we had to run down there and pull him out so we missed most of the second half. It was one of the Bears last games, too. Okay. So no tequila, I said.

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No liquor of any kind. Maybe some beer. Or white wine, he said. But no red wine? No, no, no. Red wine would be a big mistake, said Poison Control. Why is red wine a mistake but white wine is okay? I asked. Because red wine will stain the carpet. Okay, bud. Gotta go. I hung up. Good luck. I returned to the living room. Stoney was sitting on the couch, sunglasses on, with a cigarette that was actually lit. Clarence was looking at Stoney with rapt attention. Which brings us to doggie style, said Stoney. What are you guys talking about? I asked. Stoneys explaining the birds and the bees, said Clarence. Oh, for Christs sake, Clarence. I told you to talk about baseball. But the Tigers lost. Havent been the same since Denny McClain flamed out, said Stoney. Dont wanna talk about baseball. The doorbell rang. Oh, Lord. What now? I asked no one. Stay here. Watch Stoney. Keep him occupied. Okay, so you were saying doggie style? Clarence asked, as I left the room. No. Stoney, talk about anything else in the world. I walked the few feet to the front door and opened it. There on the front porch were Ginny and her mother. Hello, Mrs. McColl. Hello Ginny, I said. Come in! Were just returning from a tournament at the University of Georgia and thought wed come by and collect Clarence, said Mrs. McColl. Were going to be in town for a few days and Im sure hed like to see his friends on Lookout Mountain, she said, smiling. How have you all been getting along? At this point Clarence wandered into the entrance hall. He did not look especially happy. Clarence and Stoney have become fast friends. Clarence can do the crossword in less than seven minutes, I said.

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Hi, Mom, he said, sullenly. So what do you say to spending a few days at your own house? she asked, beaming and obviously happy to see him. I actually kind of like it here, he said. Stoneys been teaching me stuff. Whos this Stoney? she asked. My friend Thomas Jackson from college. Mrs. Wertheimer is teaching us higher math this summer, I said. Like tutoring? asked Mrs. McColl. Sort of, I guess, yes maam. At this point Stoney came into the hall. He was doubled over, arms wrapped around his shins and hands clasped to his ankles, face between his thighs, lit cigarette between his lips, walking backwards, so that both his ass and his upside-down face were advancing in the same direction. When he reached us in the hall, he kind of tilted over backwards so that he rolled over his shoulders and ended up standing, in a graceful, gymnastic motion, cigarette still between his lips. He bowed slightly and smiled. Hello Clarences mom, he said, and politely shook her hand. He looks just like you. Good kid. You should be proud. He turned to Ginny. Hello pretty Peabody girl from near Campus Grill. Nice to see you again. He still had his sunglasses on and a Winston dangling from his lips, but was otherwise almost courtly. Then he turned suddenly and ran out the back door like a scalded cat. What a strange young man, said Mrs. McColl. Hes pretty cool. Hes just having a Yaqui visionary experience, said Clarence. Ginny reached over and smacked him on the back of the head with a frown. Whens Margaret going to be back? Mrs. McColl asked. Yes, maam. Shes at a bridge tournament in Callaway Gardens, I said. Oh, she told me. I just cant remember when shes supposed to be back, said Mrs. McColl. Sunday or Monday, depending on when they play Sunday, I said. Well, I think were in town until Tuesday, so thank her for me and tell her if she doesnt mind Ill bring him back then.

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Yes, maam. Its really okay if you want to leave me here, said Clarence. At this point there was the unmistakable sound of a coyote from the back yard. What was that? asked Mrs. McColl. Ive been hearing coyote sounds the last day or so, I said, which is odd, because I dont think we have coyotes here. Come along, Clarence, said Mrs. McColl. Really, Mom. Im fine here, said Clarence. No, you should come home, she said. All right, he said, glumly. There were smiles all around except for Clarence as the McColls made their good-byes and left. In the back yard, Stoney was crouched like a dog and was yip-yip-yipping like a coyote. The back door was still open. It was oppressively hot outside, and Stoney was perspiring heavily. I crossed the yard to talk to him as he barked. Come inside, Stoney, I said. But Im hungry, he said. I need to catch the squirrel who lives in this tree. What in the world would you do with a squirrel? I asked. He stood and pitched his cigarette butt contemplatively. Well, we could get a chicken and some beans and tomatoes and corn and make a Brunswick stew. Or add some pork to that and we could make Kentucky burgoo. Come back inside, Stoney. But what will we eat? Cold pizza, I said. Oh man, thats like, wow, like, so cool. He flopped straight onto his back. I cigarette popped out of his pocket. He held it at arms length and contemplated it carefully before lighting it. He then carefully inserted the coal end into his mouth and blew through the cigarette backwards so that a column of blue smoke rose straight into the air before developing chaotic curlicues about six inches up. Jesus, Stoney, be careful! He replaced his cigarette to his normal, yellowed smoking fingers, raised his sunglasses and winked, something Id never seen him do.

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Its cool, he said, and knocked out a smoke ring that seemed to sail up at about seventy miles per hour. He smiled beatifically at it and seemed to contemplate the beauty of the universe. So on a non-logarithmic scale of one to ten, how handsome do you think I am? Stoney No, youre right. I should go first. I think youre he seemed to scan me up and down for a few seconds. Oh shit! he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and pitching his cigarette butt. What? I forgot about the yogurt! He squared his sunglasses resolutely and sprinted towards the back door. I followed at a walk. I found him in the kitchen, stirring a halfgallon sized plastic pitcher of what looked like buttermilk, only without the flecks of butter. Youre making yogurt? I asked. Oh sure. You ever been to Greece? he answered. No Well, they have this way cool, far-out, kick-ass, take-no-prisoners yogurt thats parsecs43 better than the jelly-sweetened stuff they sell here in the good ol U.S. of A. Its just fantastic. Okay I said. By experimenting with buttermilk cultures, temperatures, and times, I found I could make it pretty well even though there was nothing like it in the store. But until it stiffens you need to keep it pretty well-stirred or it will clabber. Which is cool in one way because you can make some pretty good cheese out of it then, but you have to start over on the yogurt. He stirred patiently for several more seconds, then seemed to freeze up, staring at some odd place in the middle distance. Holy shit! What? Stir this for four more minutes, gently, not the way Ive seen you beat pancake batter, then replace it in the warming compartment of this fine old stove. He handed me the spoon and left the kitchen towards the dining room.
43

A parsec is a unit of length equal to about 3.26 light-years, or just under 31 trillion kilometers, or about 19 trillion miles. It is the distance from our Sun to a hypothetical object which has a parallax angle of one arcsecond. Its long.

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Okay. I did as told, listening for strange noises or indications that he was going outside again, but didnt hear anything. After stirring for the requisite time I put the yogurt in the stoves warming compartment44 and went looking for Stoney. He wasnt anywhere to be found, but there was a new diagram on one of the blackboards:

I wasnt sure what he was up to. There were some formulas written underneath, but I didnt stop to look at them because I was worried about where he might have gone. I found him lying on the living room floor, drooling on a beautiful Persian rug that Mrs. W. later told me was a silk rug from Qum. His arms were outstretched and his legs were spread, so he looked like that pentagram drawing of Man by DaVinci. You okay? I asked. No response. Is this due to the figure you just wrote on the blackboard? He lit a new cigarette off the old one even though the old one was only half gone. I brought him an ashtray from one of the end tables. He didnt ditch the old cigarette, but held one in each hand, puffing quietly, alternating between them for his drags, but taking two drags from the long one for every one drag on the short one. Whether this was intentional only Stoney could say. I watched him in silence for a few minutes. You are one perceptive rectangular asshole, he said, after a while, without looking at me. Excuse me? Yes, yes, of course that figure reminded me of Leonardo, so I had to come outside and try it. Im glad I did. He took a drag off his left cigarette. Youre in the living room, Stoney, I said. He ignored me. And the oddest part of the trip is my clean, warm, soulful recognition that no one else in the world would have noticed that resemblance. Plus, I think youre handsome, too, in a wiry, medium-sized kind of way.
44

She had a white OKeefe & Merritt no. 16.

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Stoney I began. He waved me off with his right cigarette. I know. It embarrasses you to talk about your feelings, especially about The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. I understand. That isnt what I was going to say, I answered. What were you going to say, mon petit chou? Did you just call me a Brussels sprout? I asked. Mon lapin, then, he answered. Im a rabbit? Of course. A cute, medium-sized bunny rabbit who has an amazing predilection for math and recognizing patterns. I had no idea you knew French, I said. Naturellement je sais le Franais,45 he answered. In der Tat spreche ich Deutsch, auch.46 That sounded like German, I said. Ja, Schatzi. I dont know any German, I said. Sie dont sprechen spanisch, irgendein, das ungerade ist. Aber Sie kennen Latein und Griechen, den ich nicht tue. Ich wei, dass Sie, mein Schatz intelligent sind, he answered. Not following you, I said. Oh, never mind all that, Schatzi, he said. You were about to explain your feelings for me, but you were being reticent. No I wasnt, I said. He took a long drag off of his left cigarette.

45 46

Of course I know French. I didnt speak German at the time and had no idea what he was saying.

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If this Datura shit Clarence made me eat wasnt so gonzo over-the-top mindblowing I might be just as reticent as you. But fuck a frog on the Fourth of July, this stuff is insane. So what were you saying? Lets eat lunch. We still have pizza. He propped himself up on his elbows. Theres pizza? he asked. Yes, of course. Remember? We went to Pizza Hut Last night? Is there beer? he asked. I think if he hadnt been wearing Ray-Ban Aviators his expression could have been recognized as intense. Theres a six-pack in the pantry, but its not cold. I caught Clarence trying to filch one last night. Stoney leapt to his feet and pitched both buts with a simultaneous flick of the index fingers of both hands as though he were outdoors. I scrambled to retrieve them. Luckily they landed on the hardwood floor and I got them to the ashtray before they did any harm. Lead on Macduff.47 But Ill hear naught of this eating cold pizza. The only logical way to deal with pizza leftovers is to manfully re-heat them in an oven, my gay friend Henry. Lets get to it. Portez-moi cette pizza que vous parlez de et je traiterai elle immdiatement.48 He marched off towards the kitchen and I followed. He got progressively calmer as the day went on, although after lunch he claimed to be a bloodhound named Amos Moses and went sniffing through the closets upstairs. I settled in in the dining room to work through the problems Mrs. W. had left us. They were all multi-variable problems and they were tough, but theres something inestimably appealing about working out the details of an infinite series. Its always interesting to think about infinity. The problems all seemed similar until I realized that some of the series had sums and some did not, which was of course her clever way of teaching us to recognize the difference. After about an hour Stoney, still claiming to be named Amos Moses but now walking upright came downstairs with a box labeled 2000 piece puzzle and a picture of Van Goghs Starry Night on the front. He smiled at me and dumped the contents onto one of the tables and busied himself with turning them all right-side up and smoothing them out. After that was done he got himself a beer. I worked through the first three of the six problems Mrs. W. had left, and he steadily built the perimeter of his jigsaw puzzle. Neither of us said a word. By around midnight Id solved all of Mrs. Ws problems and Stoney appeared to have solved about a third of his jigsaw puzzle. He had the rectangular outline al the way around, six or seven sun-like yellow objects, and a broad wavy stripe of yellow put together, but it was unclear how theyd fit together even though Id seen the picture on the box just a few hours before.

47 48

I know. Im quoting Stoney, not Shakespeare. Take me to this pizza you speak of and I shall deal with it immediately.

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Stoney I began, in a conversational tone of voice. He jumped, startled, as if the creature from Alien had suddenly leapt out of its egg and through his visor. Fuck! he shouted. Sorry. Youve seemed pretty calm for the last few hours. I have been! But thats because I havent had fuckers yelling at me every few seconds! So youre still not okay? I asked. He pondered his answer for a few seconds. Your question reveals a deep prejudice, nay hostility, against those who use drugs. You will never understand what it is like to be an oppressed minority in a nondrug-using society. Ah, shit, I said. What, my little cabbage? he asked, returning his attention to his puzzle. Im tired and want to go to bed. Then bring me a bourbon and soda and go, he said. Youre still fucked up, I said. No, I dont think so, he said. I was tres clumsy when I was on the Datura, and I dont seem to be having any trouble handling these little puzzle pieces. My perceptions are a little off but I dont seem to be having any trouble lining up the lines and colors on them. The yellows are a little intense but my reasoning appears to have returned to nonDatura levels. He fitted a small blue and white piece into a larger group of similar pieces that appeared to be one of the swirls in Van Goghs night sky, then suddenly wheeled back to me. Where did that dwarf come from? he asked. What dwarf? The bearded dwarf in the wheelchair. You said something about that, but I assumed it was the drugs, I said. He thought about that with a semi-dubious look on his face. No little person of any sort in a wheelchair? he asked. None. He frowned and thought a minute more. Did anyone small, or with a beard, come over to sing Free Bird? he asked.

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No. It was just you, me and Clarence until about eleven, then his mother and Ginny came by to pick him up I started. Fuck! Thats right! Clarence is missing! I never even noticed! Gack, what a terrible parent Id be! Did you just say gack? I asked. You and Mrs. W. use it all the time, he said, a little defensively. Is it some kind of personal code? he asked. No, no. You used it perfectly appropriately. Ive just never heard anyone but Mrs. W. use that word. You use it all the time. Really? Are you sure? I asked. Positive. Okay. So youre not going to go galloping out into the night to chase squirrels? I asked. No. He smiled and returned his attention to his puzzle. I am unaware of any species of nocturnal squirrels. He matched two puzzle pieces and looked back up. And there was nobody over here in a wheelchair, or with a beard? No. Weird, he said, looking back down. Why? Because it seems like the experience was all drug. Usually drug experiences are part drug, part reality. Each informing the other. (A), from my experience of you over the last ten months, I get a keen sense that drugs influence your reality experience, but no sense at all that reality influences your drug intake, and I began. Harsh, Stoney interjected. (B), the guy on the Poison Control hotline indicated that people die every year from this stuff, I sad.

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Who called Poison Control? I did, I answered. Whats the lethal dose? he asked. No way to know. Apparently all parts of the plant are toxic. Impossible to determine what amount will kill you. Next time you take a tiny nibble and I could be singing hymns at your funeral. What will you sing? he asked. Whatevers in the service. He nodded. Oh, well. Go on to bed. And dont worry, I wont run off and do anything fucked up. It was an interesting trip, but as Im coming down Im remembering it wasnt much fun. Did I at any point climb up a tree thinking I was a cat? Not that I could see. So it goes without saying that I didnt turn into a coyote. No, but you really, really sounded like one, I said. Thats reassuring. Go on to bed, but not before you bring me a bourbon and soda, he said. Why does your drug experience lead to me serving you bourbon and soda? I asked. Oh, it doesnt, not at all, he said. So why do I need to do it? I asked, confused. Because I want a drink, Im lazy, and Im interested in this puzzle, he said. Particularly the pieces with yellow. I got him a drink and went to bed. The next morning when I came down the whole house smelled like biscuits and coffee. Still-warm bacon was draining its excess grease onto newsprint on the counter next to the stove, and Stoney was reading the Sunday Chattanooga Times sports section, resplendent in his sunglasses, jeans, kelly green boxer shorts, and his purple bathrobe. Hi, bud, he said. Bacon biscuits and coffee comin up. Actually, coffees done. Help yourself.

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We had bacon and biscuits for breakfast. Hed made two-inch wide biscuits, which we split and buttered and turned into bacon sandwiches. Really good stuff. At the end I cleaned up, then wandered into the dining room. Stoney was sitting there staring at the blackboard where Mrs. W. had set out our six homework problems. The Starry Night puzzle was complete. These fuckers are hard, he said. They look hard, but its just new limits, and then dealing with convergences and limits that increase or decrease. It kind of builds from there. So if and I began talking him through my solution to the first problem. He stood at a blackboard and reasoned out each step without any help from me as to the calculations, although I suggested the process at each step. It took about three hours to work through the problems this way, although it had taken me two days to work through them by myself. It felt odd. I was almost Stoneys teacher, and Id always been his collaborator before. He didnt seem to notice. We were done by about one p.m. and Stoney made us bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with some of the breakfast bacon. I went up and read the Novum Testamentum Graecae. About five I heard the front door open and came downstairs. I found Mrs. W in the dining room staring at the blackboards. Hello, Henry, she said, without looking at me. She was looking at the figure Stoney had drawn on the blackboard when he had been at his craziest the day before:

Underneath was written a formula: Area ACBA = distinctive handwriting. Damn, hes good, she said. What am I looking at? I asked.

r 2 ( sin ) in Stoneys 2 180

Stoneys given us an elegant new solution to the volume of a cylinder problem we started with at the beginning of the summer. Hes turned it upside down, for some reason, but the math is easy enough to apply to the other part of the circle. She then

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turned to the blackboards on which Stoney had worked out all of the homework problems. She looked back at me with a frown. What happened? Did you have something else to do? No, maam, I said. Honey, this is strange. Its not like you to let somebody else do all the work. What happened? Have you reached the end of your string? she asked, looking at me, worried. Hey, Mrs. W., said Stoney, walking into the room with what appeared to be a fresh gin and tonic which he immediately handed to Mrs. W. I think I heard most of that. Henry figured all of that out while I was messing around with Clarence, then he walked me through it yesterday. Its in my handwriting, but its all Henry. Another drink? Ive made a decent gazpacho and really, I think if we have some cheese and bread with that, well be good. Wine? Where is Clarence? she asked. His mother and Ginny came to puck him up yesterday. She said they would bring him back here Tuesday, if thats okay. She nodded. We had a fun night, but about a week later Mrs. W pulled me aside and said Henry, all of the upstairs closets have been re-organized. All of the fragrant objects in each closet have been gathered together. What happened? My sister said you and Stoney were acting really oddly when she came to pick up Clarence. Im sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Fragrant objects? Like what? Cedar blocks, lavender wands. An old box of Constant Comment tea. All kinds of stuff. But the closets have been tidied and everything aromatic gathered in one corner. I suspected this had to do with Stoneys canine impulses while he was on the Datura, but couldnt make sense of it. I tried to think it through but got nowhere. While I was at the bridge tournament, were the rules of the house violated? No, maam, I said. Not as I understand them. Nothing illegal took place. I was thinking this through. Henry? No, maam, not at all, but next time we do this Ill suggest a refinement to the rules. She thought, then she smiled. Fair enough.

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Chapter 33: June and July, 1974: a Level of Political Strangeness Not Re-Attained for 27 Years The rest of the summer passed without further household incident, albeit with an increasingly ominous aura of weirdness that seemed to me to be associated with the national news, although pure math can be pretty weird all on its own. Pure math organizes itself around concepts not rooted in anything related to physical reality. Most of what were doing in July was calculus, and most of the concepts of calculus have strong utility in figuring out real-world problems, but not all of them do and she didnt teach any of them as though they had to. I like physics and the problems that interest me most are always the parts of the real world that are difficult to explain, plus I think best by analogy, so my approach to problem-solving relies a lot on memory and pattern recognition. Problems and procedures that resemble things we see in the physical world or problems that resemble in some way ones that Ive worked on before are the ones Im going to be able to solve the fastest, but everybodys brain works differently. Mrs. Ws brain was pretty free-ranging, but she was still a physicist, no matter how good a mathematician she was. Stoney couldnt care less about physical reality, so even more than Mrs. W he had the ability to reason through from if A+B=C and C-G=Y then 2(AG+5)7-xd!equals a teacup-shaped torus. She was fast, though. Even when he caught her off-guard with some off-beat realization she always went with it and we always followed things to their logical conclusion. Weird as the math sometimes was, what was going on in the news that summer was utterly preposterous. President Nixon found ways to spend increasing amounts of time overseas, trying to look presidential with foreign dignitaries, as his lawyers wrangled in venues all over D.C. seeking to avoid variously impeachment, having to respond to testimonial subpoenas, Ehrlichman49 gaining access to his own notes to allow
49

John D, Ehrlichman was President Nixons White House Counsel (until he was replaced by John Dean, who ratted Nixon out in every way he possibly could about Watergate and everything else he could think of) and later his Chief Domestic Policy Adviser. In that capacity he became part of President Nixons inner circle and so was among those, along with H.R. Haldeman, who were told of the Watergate break-in soon after it happened and so were part of the presidents attempts to distance himself from the fallout from the break-in, one of a number of utterly idiotic plots hatched by the White House Plumbers (they fix leaksget it?) a group over which President Nixon appears to have had little direct control but whose moronic operations he supported with money from a slush fund that would get him and all contributors to it arrested were such a thing to occur today. The relationship between Ehrlichman and Nixon was perhaps the most Shakespearian, or perhaps the most classically tragic, relationship of the morality play that was President Nixons second term. Like a hero from Sophocles, President Nixon suffered from a not unusual form of hubris that told him that he could weather any political storm as long as he occupied the White House. And like the eponymous Richard III of Shakespeares play, Nixon the man expected absolute loyalty of his subordinates but was willing to cut them off at the knees when it became expedient. Ehrlichman resigned to avoid embarrassing President Nixon with his own legal troubles, all of which sprung from serving Nixon in two important offices. As soon as he did so he found that Nixon would not cooperate with his (Ehrlichmans) lawyers in any way, not even to the extent of letting Ehrlichman look at his own notes to establish that he hadnt been present for several conversations in which the prosecution asserted hed heard about the Plumbers schemes. Not only was his president and former champion unwilling to assist in his defense, he was willing to block his access to Ehrlichmans own notes in a way that was certain to enhance the crimes with which Ehrlichman was charged and ultimately lengthen the sentence he to which he was sentenced. The Presidents lawyer, James St. Clair, insisted that to allow former employees access to any government records, even their own notes, was an unconscionable infringement on presidential autonomy.

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him to defendwhat? Obstruction of justice, maybe? Or to have administration members at all levels from clerical to cabinet secretary appear to defend graft charges in all sorts of cases. As the summer wound on the plots and problems reported on became more and more tangled and outspread and I just couldnt follow them all, but more seemed to pile up every day. It felt like not even CBS could keep up. But through it all Nixon kept traveling. In the weeks following his June trip to Egypt weeks he found his way to Syria, Belgium, and the Soviet Union.50 There was an otherworldliness to the disconnect between his diplomatic trips and his legal troubles. The theater of his presidency was one side of Alices looking glass, his legal troubles were the other.51 Every day there were headlines that would shock us today but just werent noticed in the Seventies: Soviet Said To Seize Jews as Nixon Visit Approaches; France and Iran Sign $4 Billion Accord, Shah To Receive 5 Nuclear Reactors; Women Ordained Episcopal Priests, Church Law Defied; Austrians Elect Socialist Again. The Israelis
The three branches of government are supposed to be co-equal, right? So neither Congress nor the courts should be able to order the president around. This position is defensible, of course, as a matter of constitutional law, but utterly indefensible as way to treat a friend, loyal henchman and former colleague. Poor Ehrlichman was convicted and sentenced and did several years in prison. I met him several years after he was released and it is to his credit that he was not a bitter man. He had the sad resignation of a someone who has had everything taken away from him due to his relationship with and loyalty to a powerful man who would not lift a finger to help him when he needed help. Such is politics. Mr. Ehrlichman was also convinced to a fare-thee-well that Ford had agreed to pardon Nixon in exchange for Nixons resignation. 50 The Soviet Union, or the U.S.S.R., for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a communist country in 1974. So far as I know, the best working definition of Soviet is under the thumb of the Kremlin and the other words in the countrys name have their ordinary meaning. The U.S.S.R. was huge and enormously powerful and woefully poorly run. The Kremlin never ever got a hold on agriculture, and one of the things President Nixon was sometimes willing to do was to sell the Soviets enormous amounts of grain which was popular with American farmers because it drove the price of grain up but enormously unpopular with a group of people called with no trace of irony or approbation housewives because sale of American grain to the Soviets by the shipload caused the cost of Merita, Holsum and Wonder Bread to skyrocket. There were widespread protests. They were polite protests by todays standards, but still. It was an odd time. Any large-scale protests over the price of food in the last 40 years? How about the cost of anything else? Gas? Housing? In 2011, the only thing people protest about is the other political party. 51 If your only exposure to presidential impeachment procedure came during the Clinton administration you might be prone to make understandable but incorrect assumptions about how things worked in the Nixon Administration. Clinton lawyered up very quickly to defend himself from the various allegations, innuendoes, and threats that emanated in all directions from special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, an investigation that began with a second-rate real estate deal financed by a bank whose only branch was in a house trailer in a Little Rock parking lot and eventually extended to an Oval Office blow-job performed years after the whole Whitewater deal had cratered. Even so, you didnt see or hear from Clintons lawyers very much, and Clinton (a former Arkansas Attorney General, after all) appeared to be representing himself, at least in the public eye. He wasnt, it just seemed that way. And regardless of what was going on behind the scenes Clintons lawyers never appeared in Congress to argue with the House about the propriety of the Houses investigation into Clintons affairs or the articles of impeachment it was drawing up. Clinton had his political allies in Congress do all of that. Not so in the Nixon Administration. James St. Clair, the presidents lawyer in connection with the Watergate investigation and all of the various legal proceedings swirling around that, was also his lawyer and chief spokesperson in the impeachment proceedings, all of the corruption charges, all of the subpoenas by former staffers on trial for corruption or various sorts, and everything in every court, congressional committee, or Senate panel in which President Nixon was called upon to appear, provide information, explain himself, or answer questions. That summer, Mr. St. Clair may have been the most important legal advocate in history, before or since. He still lost.

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began a new policy of pre-emptive bombing against Palestinian guerillas.52 CIA Criticized Over Watergate. It turns out that the CIA knew more than it had disclosed about the break-in. But since the CIAs charter is limited to international operations and specifically excludes operations in the United States, why did it know anything about Watergate? Nobody even asked the question. Drug Flows Noted Despite New Laws. How many times have we heard that in the years since? VP Ford Hits Spectator In Head With Golf Ball In Celebrity Golf Tournament. What the Hell was the Vice President of the United States doing playing in a golf tournament under any circumstances, much less during a constitutional crisis? Greece managed to sponsor a military coup in Cypress, Turkey responded by invading Cypress,53 then a few days later the military junta that had ruled Greece for decades just stepped aside, much to the delight of the Greek citizenry, but it was all just a minor blip on the news horizon. The real story was all Nixon all the time. Nixon promised the ambassador to Jamaica a better job in exchange for a large donation. Nixon had manipulated IRS data to make George Wallace, governor of Alabama and a competitor for conservative presidential votes, look bad. Nixons people offered to drop enforcement actions against ITT in exchange for large campaign donations. Attorney General John Mitchell and Nixon Campaign Finance Chairman Maurice Stans were under indictment for offering to obstruct criminal proceedings against Robert Vesco54 in exchange for a $200,000 campaign donation. It was just amazing. There were also signs of changes to come: HEW Proposes New Rules Prohibiting Sex Discrimination In Education. Note that this was a Republican administration proposing sweeping regulations to implement the 1972 amendment to the Civil Rights Act known as Title IX. No foot-dragging involved. As Republican presidents go, Nixon was a terrible conservative.55 You could also pinpoint the moment in time when some things changed. On June 17 a headline read Negro Heads Southern Presbyterians. Negro. On June 18 both White May Get Seat Zoned For Black and Blacks Return to South In Reverse Migration appeared. Negro no more. But always and constantly the noise continued of Nixons lawyers protesting that criminal proceedings against Nixons former staffers were providing Congress with impeachment fodder to which they were not constitutionally entitled. We I watched the news every night and all shook our heads for our various reasons. The others considered me a liberal, but everybody elses politics seemed to me to be up for grabs. One night after some startling revelationmaybe Ehrlichman was sentenced, or maybe the dairy farmers admitted to raising millions for Nixon so he would make the Department of Agriculture to fix the cost of milk at an advantageous pricestuff like that

52 53

Now theyre terrorists. Forty years later, the Turks are still there. 54 An international financier and fugitive from justice. Today wed call him a Ponzi schemer, but in 1974 nobody knew what a Ponzi scheme was. We started hearing about pyramid schemes in the mid-1970s, but nobody referred to Ponzi schemes until the early 1980s, apparently to distinguish investment scams from Amway-style sales scams, which are pyramid schemes but are not Ponzi schemes, no matter how similar their effects may be on the trusting. 55 Daniel Patrick Moynihan was one of his key domestic policy advisers.

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was on every nightMrs. W and Stoney were finishing off their drinks and Stoney was finishing preparing dinner. I just dont remember anything like this, Mrs. W said. Wed come down to the kitchen after the news. How so? I asked. It just seems like everything is corrupt at all levels of government. And its not just the White House. One of the senators on the Watergate Committee is supposed to be under investigation for some kind of corruption.56 Are you sure this is odd? Stoney asked. He was whisking together some chicken stock, light cream, and a little sour cream. Ive never seen anything like it, she said, lighting a cigarette. Its on the TV every night. But maybe thats the point, Stoney said. Clarence and I looked at him as though hed started speaking in tongues. We didnt expect him to take much interest in civic affairs as long as the Tigers were in last place. TV news is a different sort of thing, he said. And print journalists are publishing things they never did before. I wonder if the immediacy of TV isnt causing the print media to report on things theyve traditionally overlooked. Cool! Marshall McCluhan! said Clarence. Exactly, little buddy, said Stoney. Hed peeled and seeded a cucumber and was mincing it finely. What are you Castenadans talking about? I asked. Mrs. W, baffled already by Clarences comment, scowled at me as though Id just added an unwanted variable to her equation. Clarence is alluding to one of my favorite authors, said Stoney. He says, sort of, that the forms of media you rely on define in a way who you are. TV is kind of hot in that theres a constant flow, you dont slow down to take it at your own rate, you get caught up in it at its rate and you just drink it in. Newsprint used to be and to a certain point still is different. In the morning we all drink coffee and pass the paper around. And we talk about what we see and what we disagree with.

56

She refers to Senator Edward J. Gurney, Republican of Florida, who eventually resigned on July 24, 1974 to prepare for his trial on charges that he extorted money from real estate developers.

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Like whether it was cool that Billy Martin got ejected from two different games on the same day yesterday?57 asked Clarence, in that way snotty kids do of trying to get their grandmothers goat. Its never cool to break the rules, said Mrs. W. But Mr. Nixon may be president because he broke the rules, said Stoney. And according to my dad, part of the reason hes willing to break rules now is that he got totally screwed by Kennedy and Daley in 1960 and was determined that it would never happen to him again. Dont now the story, I said. The Mayor of Chicago was a crook and he rigged the election for Kennedy, said Clarence. We all looked at him with various levels of surprise. He did, said Clarence, defensively. Then, after a pause, I go to school. That was the rumor, anyway, said Mrs. W, lighting a Benson & Hedges. Howd it go? I asked. Chicagos always been a tough town, she said. Lots of mobsters. Old-style political bosses. The biggest of the big bosses, politically, anyway, was Mayor Richard Daley. Everybody knew he was a crook, but he was too smart and too powerful to get brought down. You remember a few years ago at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the one where they nominated poor sweet Hubert Humphrey. Student protests broke out, and the Chicago police beat up a bunch of boys your age just for protesting. All that was Daleys doing. Chicagos a tough town. What were we protesting? I asked. Dont be snide, pal. I was there. It was brutal, said Stoney, whisking together all of the ingredients hed been dicing, tasting with a fingertip, then deciding it needed a little salt. Hed never mentioned being in Chicago before and I was chagrinned by my own glibness. Needs to sit a minute for the flavors to get out, he said. Potatoes need another ten minutes. So endive and lettuce salad with spicy walnut vinaigrette, cold cucumber dill soup, potatoes Diane and broiled grillades in about ten or fifteen minutes. Mrs. W, I have a Pouille-Fuisse chilled. Excellent! Id love a glass. What were you boys protesting in Chicago, though? Was it an anti-war thing? There were lots of pictures of kids getting beaten up on TV, but not much of an explanation of why they, I mean you, were there. Stoney retrieved a
57

Clarence alludes to the fact that on July 14, 1972, Billy Martin, then manager of the Texas Rangers, became the first manager in Major League Baseball history to be ejected twice in one day by getting tossed from both games of a double header against the Brewers, which was then an American League team owned by Bud Selig. Selig was, even then, an asshole.

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bottle of wine from the freezer and opened it. It was frosted, and when he poured a glass for Mrs. W, it immediately frosted the outside of her wine glass. She smiled at it happily. My friends and I were in Chicago because some Princeton guys had told us all about how it was time for a change and it was high time the up-tight Establishment58 realized that a different generation was taking over. They said the Establishment was all poised to nominate Humphrey, whom we all considered a political hack, and we wanted Clean Gene.59

58

In the 1970s the Establishment referred to an ill-defined group of businessmen, politicians, military leaders, Wall Street types, and wielders of authority whom young people believed were oppressing us in variously vaguely-defined ways. We wanted enhanced freedom from the draft, from limitations on our ability to have sex and do drugs, to wander about freely with no means of support, to reject accepted norms of fashion, grooming, and manners. In the 1960s people demonstrated for basic civil rights. In the 1970s we sought an amorphous freedom from any restraint whatsoever. The Establishment was the amorphous but perceived-by-youth-to-be-powerful opposition to our aims. Rush Limbaugh speaks of liberals as being a well-organized machine bent on nationalizing the American economy and embracing European socialism. In the 1970s we liberal youth opposed the Establishment in the much same way that Rushs Ditto-heads oppose liberals: there wasnt a lot of basis in fact for what motivated us to hatred. 59 Gene McCarthy was, in 1968, the senior Senator from Minnesota. He lost the nomination after a bloody convention floor fight to a former senator from Minnesota, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. That two Minnesotans who knew each other well went hammer and tongs at the convention, thus dooming any chance of unifying the party in a fight against Nixon brings two quotes spring to mind: Casey Stengel said Doesnt anybody here know how to play this game? and Will Rogers said Im not a member of an organized political party. Im a Democrat. McCarthy had been very popular in the early primaries as the only anti-war Democrat challenging Johnson, the sitting president, whom everyone expected to run for a second term. McCarthys strong showing in New Hampshire (then, as now, early in the primary season) led Johnson to drop out of the race altogether. At that point both Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern entered the race (neither had been willing to run against a sitting president who was seeking re-election) and had he not been murdered by Sirhan-Sirhan, Bobby almost surely would have won the nomination. McCarthy resented all of this. Hed done the heavy lifting of getting Lyndon knocked out of the race early, then the pretty boys jumped in and looked good using the exact same anti-war message McCarthyd been peddling. McCarthys resentment made it hard for him to accept the fact that he didnt have a snowballs chance in Hell of winning a general election in 1972 or any other year. After Bobby got shot, for reasons that defy logic, his delegates started glomming on to George McGovern, who had a good heart but the oratorical gifts of your favorite aquarium fish and not one chance in ten thousand of winning any general election, as he demonstrated with alacrity four years later. McCarthys supporters were all true hearts, but their effort was doomed by Democratic Party rules. Under its nominating rules in 1968 most of the delegates were chosen by local party bosses and state party leaders. If a clear leader developed, as John Kennedy had in 1960 and as Lyndon Johnson naturally had as an incumbent in 1964, the party bosses were obligated to shovel their delegates onto the party favorite, even if (as had been the case with Democratic party leaders from Alabama and Mississippi in 1960) there were misgivings within the Southern party faithful about having a Papist lead a party that also included George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Orville Faubus, Ross Barnett, and, well, you get the picture. So the Democratic Party rules were set up to reward a clear winner if there was one, and otherwise to pick somebody who might actually win. By the time of the Democratic convention in 1968 there was no clear winner. McCarthy had some delegates, McGovern had some, mainly as beneficiaries of Bobby defectors, and Hubert Humphrey had a few from having come in second, third, and fourth in primaries in which he had never stood a chance of actually winning. Nobody trusted McCarthy and McGovern wasnt a serious candidate in the eyes of the party establishment, so it threw its entire weight behind Hubert Humphrey, a good Democrat, a fine man, and an honorable politician, but a guy who entered the convention a distant third or maybe fourth, could never possibly have won in the primaries, and, as is so often the case with Democratic presidential candidates, a guy who

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Mrs. W frowned. As I recall it McCarthy was strong in the early primaries but had been more or less eliminated by the time of the convention, she said. Yes, maam. Youre probably right. I wasnt particularly well informed, and I just assumed everybody else knew what they were talking about. Theres no evidence they did. But back to my thesis, or certainly a theme closely related to my thesis, TV took over that event. In 1954, the events of that night would have been described in the New York Times with a sentence or two: some unruly youths were arrested. But TV cameras caught all kinds of things, and the country was riveted. How could they not be? People were getting beat up o n live TV. Now, I wonder if the newspaper and magazine guys dont think they have to try harder to keep up with that kind of thing, to get noticed. The print guys want to be just as relevant as the TV guys so they look for more and more spectacular stories. And political corruption is always interesting. But the fact that its interesting doesnt mean its not true, she said. Regardless of what motivates the reporters, theres more of this crap in the news than I ever remember, she said. Stoney scraped some more finely minced cucumber into his soupy white liquid, stirred it a bit, tasted it, then shook his head and started mincing some more dill and chives. Mrs. W was watching, as well. She looked at me with a quizzical expression, and I shrugged. We had no idea what he was making. I could smell the potatoes cooking in the oven.

wasnt likely to motivate the electorate too much (think about Carter, Clinton, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry). McCarthy entered the convention hoping to mount an honest to God floor fight but it quickly became clear that the establishment had coalesced behind the trustworthy and well-known Humphrey. The college kids who had surrounded the convention center to express their support for McCarthy got wind of what was going on inside and started protesting, chanting a mix of pro-McCarthy and anti-war slogans. The Chicago Police Department, supposedly on Daleys instructions, decided these protests were an unseemly display of party fractiousness, and began trying to disperse the protesters. There were lots of protesters, more than the cops had anticipated, and they were not at all cooperative. The clash quickly escalated, with riot police and billy clubs making their presence known, and pretty soon the police were chasing groups of college kids all over town, knocking heads and making indiscriminate arrests. The most memorable film clip of the evening was probably a line of long-haired college kids, gamely trying to stay in place while being beaten absolutely senseless by the cops. The protesters chanted The whole worlds watching! The whole worlds watching! and indeed it was. The cameras caught it all. As is so often the case when police action seems to be the main source of violence at a social protest, Daley and the Chicago Police Department blamed outside agitators.

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My dad would call himself a Rockefeller60 Republican, said Stoney. Which is to say he votes Republican except when Nixon is running. He hates Nixon. Anyway, what he would say about this is that everybody does it, Nixon just got caught. Hey! My dad says that too! said Clarence. Stoney lit a cigarette and gave Clarence a thumbs up. Clarence reached as though to take a cigarette for himself, casually, as though no one would notice. Your father is a Humphrey Democrat and a labor lawyer, Mrs. W said to Clarence. Get your hands away from the smokes. I thought he worked for the railroad, said Clarence. Moms always complaining about that. But where our fathers would agree, little buddy, said Stoney, seeming to talk to Clarence, is that this has always been going on. Powerful men have always been doing things to preserve their power. And once they attain power they use it to insulate them from having to pay the piper. If youre the president, you call the FBI and tell them to stop looking at particular things as a favor to your friends or donors, or to protect yourself. Or you tell an ITT if they give you a bunch of money they dont have to worry about some case. Then you call your attorney general and tell him the ITT case really isnt too interesting. Cool, said Clarence. Power corrupts. Mrs. W. stubbed out her cigarette and scowled at me. Did you guys rehearse this? I asked. No, maam, Stoney answered. This is like popular literature. You and Mrs. W read Beowulf and Greek and sh stuff. Clarence and I read like, stuff that everybody else reads. Like? I asked. Stoney shrugged. Rod McKuen. Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

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Nelson D. Rockefeller was a liberal Republican who was governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was an unsuccessful Republican presidential primary candidate in 1960, 1964, and 1968, and Vice President under Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977. When Ford decided to run for president in 1976, facing a hard-charging primary challenge from the far right by Ronald Reagan (Reagan hadnt wanted to challenge Nixon as an incumbent but had always planned to run in 1976 when Nixon retired and thought hed be too old to run if he bided his time until Ford stepped aside voluntarily) he dumped Rockefeller in favor of Bob Dole in a misguided attempt to appeal to the Reaganauts, who were already beginning their plans to yank the rudder of the Republican Party hard to the right, a process that continues to this day. Nelson Rockefeller died at his desk in 1979. Died at his desk may give the wrong impression, though. He was having sex on his office desk with a younger staffer when he had a heart attack and died. She got dressed and called a friend for advice before she called the paramedics. Yet another reason to forego strange.

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I loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull! Clarence said. He got up and ran around the kitchen in small circles making noises like a fighter jet with his hands drawn to his sides like little fins or tiny wings, shouting Terminal velocity! Terminal velocity! Hey, Ill give you my copy of Watership Down, said Stoney. Its lots better if you read it sto No, wait. Never mind, I looked up at Mrs. W. She hadnt noticed. Already read it! Clarence said. I love rabbits. What does this have to do with Nixon? I asked. Mrs. W withdrew another Benson & Hedges from her cigarette case and looked expectantly at Stoney. Nothing, directly, said Stoney. Yes it does! said Clarence, gleefully. The books Stoney and I like are all about people, or rabbits, or seagulls overcoming adversity! Go on, said Stoney. Nixon is that adversity. Him and everybody like him, said Stoney. Cool! Stoney said. He and Clarence did a high-five that continued through several more elaborate steps. Now that has to be rehearsed, said Mrs. W. Well, yeah, sure, said Stoney. Lets eat. He ladled the soup into bowls in the kitchen then handed us each one. He plated his in the dining room then returned to the kitchen to get retrieve the Pouille-Fuisse for himself and Mrs. W. The soup, a cold cucumber-chive-dill cream soup, was delicious. I think we got diverted, said Stoney, halfway through the soup. The idea is that Nixon is just doing what everybody else has done for decades, but that changing pressure on different sorts of media is resulting in different standards for reporters, with the result that Nixon has been just doing what everybodys always done, but he was just unlucky enough to get caught. But that doesnt make it right. Said Mrs. W. Stoney thought a minute. Look, Im a math guy, said Stoney. I see the world in mathematical concepts. Thats true for right and wrong. Rightness and wrongness are scalar quantities. Seeing anything thats 100% either way is rare. You Physics guys are always looking to describe an underlying reality. Im not sure thats realistic. Well, youre right about that, said Mrs. W.

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What? I asked, surprised. Time for the entre, said Stoney. He collected our soup bowls and returned to the kitchen. Ive tried to explain this to you before, Henry, she said. Each thing we do in Physics is just an approximation thats always subject to revision. The Mayans had an understanding of astronomy that wasnt based on any mathematical concepts youd recognize as math but they knew exactly when the equinoxes were, understood the solar year, and could predict both solar and lunar eclipses. Same with the Sumerians and Babylonians. Same with the Egyptians, although they started to introduce what look like mathematical calculations, although Im not sure how much of that is ancient Egyptian math and how much is inventive grad students. Ptolemys tables allowed anyone with basic math to calculate the positions of the moon and the known planets and 48 different constellations with ease. So? Clarence asked. Mrs. W looked at me. Well, Ptolemy believed the Sun orbited the earth, and had these weird explanations for the movements of the planets. The underlying premise was completely wrong, I said. Stoney brought in two plates of sizzling grillades with mushroom sauce and potatoes Diane. He put one down in front of Clarence and the other at his own place.61 Actually, thats hubris, she said, looking at Stoneys plate. Clarence knew he had to wait until everyone was served to eat, but he clearly liked what he saw. Maam? I asked. We have a different explanation now, one we all accept, but we may have another one tomorrow and another one after that. It may eventually turn out that the Earth is the center of the universe and all the other orbital mechanics fall into line with that in some elegant way. Theres just no way to know. You believe this? I asked. Of course, she said, as Stoney returned with four salad bowls. Forgot, he said. Go ahead Clarence. Dont wait on me. He placed one salad bowl in front of each of us and left. Clarence looked at Mrs. W. She shook her head. He couldnt eat until Stoney sat. Just because youre comfortable with what youve been taught doesnt make it the only possible way the earth can be. These models we live by, that make so much sense to us, they come and go all the time.
61

By serving Mrs. W last, her food would be hotter when she ate.

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The Copernican model just seems to describe the universe so much better, I said. Stoney returned with plates of grillades and potatoes Diane for Mrs. W and me. He sat and picked up his napkin, then Mrs. W picked up her fork and we all started in. It was delicious. I started with the veal, which was tender and juicy and coated in just the right amount of savory sauce, and then tried the potatoes, which were rich and flavorful and lightly, but agreeably, salty. So where did conversation go? Stoney asked. Henry thinks our current model of the solar system must be correct because it matches the observable universe so well. Stoney shrugged and nodded and continued eating. I know you say that the others, did, too, but lots of rationalization was involved, I said. Like? Stoney asked. All those mini-cycles, whatever you call them, that explained retrograde movements of planets, I suggested. Epicycles, she said. Yes, they were complicated. But Copernicus model was just as hard to understand in its day. Theres not so much thats not understood. Not so many exotic explanations required. Not so many mysteries. Maybe not so many, but there are lots, said Stoney. Like? I asked. Why does Uranus rotate on its side? Mrs. W asked. All the other planets rotate more or less with their equators more or less in the orbital plane. Uranus is at ninety degrees to everything else. Why would that be? Isnt Pluto on a different orbital plane than the other planets? asked Clarence. Mrs. W and I looked at him as though hed spoken in fluent Latin. Indeed it is, little buddy! said Stoney. He raised his almost full wine glass to Clarence in a toast and drained it in a gulp. Plus its ellipse is much more off-center than the other planets. Well done. Im not sure thats a mystery, said Mrs. W.

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How so? asked Stoney. Drink up, he said, to Mrs. W, rising from his chair and pointing at her wine glass, which was mostly empty. She took a sip but didnt drain it. Stoney took her wine glass and his to the kitchen for refills. Plutos not really like the other planets in other ways, too, she called out, so Stoney could hear. It may not really be Stoney returned with the wine glasses and her voice dropped to a conversational tone again, what mothers of the day called an indoor voice to their shrieking toddlers. the same kind of planet as the rest of them. Clarence and Stoney looked at her quizzically. Its just outside of the Kuiper Belt, she said. Stoney nodded and resumed eating. The what? asked Clarence. The Kuiper Belt, said Mrs. W. Clarence looked at Stoney. You know the asteroid belt? asked Stoney. Sure, said Clarence. Between Mars and Saturn. Jupiter, said Stoney. Jupiters inside Saturn. The Kuiper belt is like the asteroid belt, only its outside Neptunes orbit. Its like the asteroid belt, left over from when the Solar System was formed. Asteroids are mostly nickel and iron. Metals, anyway. The Kuiper belt is mainly made of great big chunks of ice. Not just water ice, but all kinds of gasses and crap. Whats that got to do with Pluto? asked Clarence. I think Pluto was a big chunk from the Kuiper belt that got disturbed or hit somehow and ended up in an orbit around the sun, said Mrs. W. Plausible, said Stoney, nodding. Like a comet, said Clarence, staring into space, speculatively. Exactly, said Mrs. W, appreciatively. Stoney looked at Clarence with pride, as a parent might, chewing the last of his grillades, but Clarence didnt notice. Mrs. W looked at me. Henry, you look confused. I have this experience a lot, I said. What? she and Stoney asked together. Clarence managed to pile an enormous glob of potatoes on his forktheyd congealed a little as theyd cooled a littleand managed to fit the entire pile into his mouth. He smiled to himself with chipmunk cheeks as he undertook the delicate task of chewing and swallowing with his overfull mouth. Im in a place Ive been in a lot since I started college, I said, after a pause.

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Whats that? she asked. Stoney looked up with interest. Clarence was still trying to chew up his potatoes, but enjoying the process. Everybody around me seems to understand the topic under consideration better than I do, said. Rarely has it been brought home more forcefully than tonight. Stoney nodded and began on his salad. I had in mind the fact that over the course of the evening I was surprised to have heard several reasoned and erudite discourses from Clarence, heretofore the village idiot, but nobody noticed. You know, said Stoney, Next time Im doing yeast rolls and serving them hot with the salad as a second course then bringing the grillades and potatoes in at the end. Mrs. W raised her eyebrows and nodded agreeably. Clarence swallowed the last of his potatoes and smiled. Eat your salad, Clarence, said Mrs. W. Clarence frowned dubiously. Dont like salad, he said. Youll actually like it little buddy, said Stoney. I made it with you in mind. How? Clarence asked, mystified. You like walnuts, right? And you like spicy food, right? So this has walnuts and olive oil and red pepper in it. Its based on a salad they talk about in a Nero Wolfe book called Devils Rain dressing. Nero Wolfe? Cool! said Clarence. My grandmother used to give me Nero Wolfe books. Archie Goodwin is the coolest! he said and dug in. You know he hates green vegetables, said Mrs. W. No, he doesnt, said Stoney. I mean, no, maam, said Stoney. Sorry. Neither does Henry have this experience a lot. What? Mrs. W and I asked in unison. Henry said hes the most ill-informed person present a lot of the time. Or something like that. Its not true. Its just true in Math Club. Hes over-generalizing. Math Club is your Kepler/Brahe thing? she asked. Well, actually, no. Quoting you, Henry steered everyone away from the elegant observations of Brahe and the intricate calculations of Kepler. We ended up in Maxwell instead. Your suggestion as well?

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Not at first. I think I suggested the Lorentz Transformations first, she said. Yeah, well, that was fun, Stoney admitted. You wouldnt have been happy with Kepler, Stoney, she said. Thats arithmetic, not math. Endless addition and subtraction, over and over, for months. I didnt intend we should use Keplers methods, said Stoney. I wanted to use Brahes observations and apply modern calculus to Keplers ideas and see what we came up with. Hmmm, she said, speculatively. Do you know the Galilean transformation62? she asked. I dont think so, said Stoney. Only way I can think of to do it. Ill show you tomorrow. Had you figured out some way to do the calculus? she asked. No, maam, he answered, and shrugged. I figured wed figure something out. Ill show you tomorrow, she said. Where were we? Weve got a lot going on. Dessert? said Stoney. What do we have? she asked. Sugared blackberries in blackberry syrup on vanilla ice cream, said Stoney. Lord, yes, said Mrs. W. We didnt always have dessert. I had been with Stoney when hed bought the berries and assumed they were for breakfast. He retired to the kitchen, beckoning Clarence to come with him, and they returned a few minutes later with ramekins of vanilla ice cream with a dark purple sauce, slightly grainy and with lots of small blackberries. We ate without much conversation aside from appreciative noises. The portions were pretty small, but boy was it good. When we were finished Stoney and Clarence cleared the table. They returned a few minutes later, Stoney with an enormous beaker of brown liquid for himself and a thimble-sized cut crystal glass of a slightly darker liquid for Mrs. W. She took a tiny sip and smiled. What are you having? she asked Stoney.

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Two coordinate systems, S and S', in uniform relative motion:

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Brandy. Martell. She nodded. Feel free to try that Armagnac Gunner gave me. Not in that sized portion, but have yourself a taste, sometime. Its really extraordinary. Tank you, maam, said Stoney, and raised his glass to her. Soweve got the issue of whether Nixon is a different kind of crook or just the same kind of crook who was unlucky enough to get caught, we have the issue of whether the way news is delivered has changed its content more than the way its reported and whether that may have contributed to our perception of corruption in Washington, weve got fractious Democratic politics contributing to the rise of Republican political power Really? said Mrs. W, sipping her B&B and lighting a cigarette. Well, thats the way I see Chicago, anyway. Johnson withdraws, leading to a feeding frenzy among Democrats who dont or wont understand the nature of national politics, said Stoney. Clarence shrugged and nodded. Mrs. W gave a noncommittal nod. Fair enough, said Mrs. W. We have Henry thinking that Copernicus must be right and Ptolemy wrong because why, Henry? she asked. Ptolemy is so complicated. And the calculations are so much simpler. And they have to be more accurate. They just have to be. I cant prove it, but No, you cant, said Mrs. W. Weve got you wanting to take a crack at Brahe using modern calculus, although I cant see what youd do with all those observations without the Galilean transformation she said, to Stoney. Weve got Clarence eating a salad without coaxing or protest. Clarence looked up, shrugged, and nodded. If were going down that road, weve got Henry eating dessert, said Clarence. Usually he tells you over and over how he doesnt like dessert and you kind of coax him into it. I frowned at Clarence. True enough, said Stoney. Three weeks ago when the raspberries came in and we had raspberries and cream, I just decided to put them down in front of him to see what hed do and he just ate them up. Ever since, if we have dessert, I just serve him, and he eats it. You just kind of slipped that in? Mrs. W asked. Yeah, its such a struggle sometimes getting him to do what you know he wants to do. Youre aware Im sitting here, right? I asked.

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Yeah, yeah, sure, said Stoney, firing up a Winston. Mrs. W pushed the ashtray towards him so they could share. Sometimes I think Henry may be the least self-aware person I know, Stoney continued, speculatively. He always seems to know what hes looking at, and he has this way of understanding mathematical and physical properties and stuff like that really, really well, but if you ask him what he thinks or feels, he doesnt know. Thats true, said Clarence. Can he do stuff other than calculations? Stoney asked Mrs. W. He seems to be really good with literature, and he seems to have a knack for languages. He can speak several, and he seems to have picked up Greek in the last six or eight months. Really? asked Clarence. Cool. And then theres pool. And gambling, said Mrs. W. Well, thats just another attribute of the calculation deal, said Stoney. Even still, we have a lot going on. Politics, education, science, dessert, violence, television. So whats our unifying theme here? What connects between Nixon and Henrys dessert and everything in between? Well, Kuhn, of course, said Mrs. W. Ive recommended he read it, of course, said Stoney. Me, too, said Mrs. W. Kuhn? I asked. Yeah. He wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, said Clarence. This didnt surprise anyone. Oh, for heavens sake. And where did you pick this up? I asked Clarence. Stoney and Mrs. W both took sips of their drinks, then drags off their cigarettes. Stoney loaned me his copy, he said. So what does Kuhn say? I asked the three of them. He says that science organizes itself around paradigms, he called them said Clarence. He pronounced paradigm so that you could hear the g. Theyre kind of, like, supported by teachers and colleges. All the teachers and colleges and stuff get, like, comfortable with what they know. The sun revolves around the earth, maybe. Or theres

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this stuff called ether thats like, maybe its like water. Like if you throw a rock into water, it ripples and makes waves on the surface. And since light is like a wave, then there must be a water-like deal its moving through, so they call that ether and everybody accepts it because it makes their theory make sense. And then all the teachers everywhere stick with the ether or the Earth revolves around the Sun or this weird deal about why food goes bad until some new idea comes along and sweeps all of that stuff away and its like everybodys blinders come off and all the teachers and everybody see the world in a whole new way. It makes more sense that the Earth revolves around the Sun. And theres no ether, lights moving through space in some weird way. Can somebody explain that? Clarence asked, looking up. How so, little buddy? asked Stoney. Whats this ether stuff? asked Clarence. Mrs. W stubbed out her cigarette and took a tiny little sip of B&B. Stoney took a massive gulp of brandy, draining his glass, then gave a little shudder, as though he could feel it moving down, but looked at Mrs. W expectantly. The luminous ther was part of a bad deduction, she said. We just didnt realize it. I was taught it in high school, and they still used it when I was in college, but you could tell the younger guys didnt like it. They used a lot of its as if analogy language and then didnt test us on it. But what was it? Clarence asked. Stoney took a puff from his cigarette and shot a smoke ring at the ceiling. I couldnt follow it. I expected him to get up to freshen his drink but he didnt. It was a bad analogy, she said, after a pause. If you measure any electromagnetic energy, it appears to oscillate, to vary in intensity at a regular, measureable way. If you describe that oscillation on graph paper, it would go up and down in a regular pattern, and it would look like a wave. Why does it do that? Clarence asked. She sighed. Hard to say. Theres a lot we dont know. Say you have a steady force. Like a magnet. And then you bring that magnet close to a copper wire. The magnetic force, and we dont really understand what a force isat least I dontbut the magnetic force will cause changes in the wire. Specifically, the electrons in the copper molecules will move around a little bit in the presence of the magnet. If you move the magnet back and forth, the interaction between the copper and the magnet will create something newthere will be something you know as electricity in the wire. Electricity is a form of energy. That electricity will oscillate, it will vary, in sync with the timing of the magnets proximity to the wire. With me? Yes maam, said Clarence and Stoney in unison.

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If you were to plot that electric energy on graph paper, it would look like a wave. Its not really a wave, but it looks like one on paper, and the same rules and equations that seemed to apply to sound waves and ripples on the surface of a pond seemed to apply to electromagnetic waves, at least in 1920. And it turns out that the same is true for waves all across the electromagnetic spectrum. You know that light waves and radio waves are just two different forms of the same thing? Yes, maam. And x-rays and gamma rays, said Clarence. Stoney shot him a thumbs up. All of them have that same traitthey all oscillate, vary in intensity. They arent all generated the same waylots of light is generated by heat, for example, theres no wire and no magnet, but even still light waves all oscillate and if you plot them on graph paper the oscillation is like a very regular wave. So lots of really smart people came to the conclusion that since they acted like waves in a lot of ways and looked like waves on graph paper, then electromagnetic energy must really be waves. And that got them to thinking. All of the waves they were aware of were moving through some other medium. You can make a mechanical wave on a string or a spring, you can make a wave on the surface of a liquid, waves move through air and other gases, and shock waves move through everything. So what are light waves moving through? Clarence frowned. They told us in science class that light moves through everything, said Clarence. Yes said Mrs. W drawing him out. Well, that includes empty space. Vacuums. Like, light gets all the way from Alpha Centauri to here every night, and its all vacuum almost all the way, said Clarence. Exactly, said Mrs. W. And nobody really thought about that. Maxwell had shown that light was an electromagnetic wave. They decided since it acted like a wave and graphed like a wave and all the wave math seemed to apply, that it really must be a wave. So if it was a wave, it must be moving through something, so what was it moving through? They all turned back to this silly idea that had been around since before Newton. They hypothesized that there was some as-yet-to-be-detected substance that permeated the universe kind of like an invisible matrix, and that light waves were disturbances passing through that matrix which they called the luminous ther, which, if you could see the way it was spelled, it would look even more old-fashioned than it sounds. But they deduced that it must be there, because waves had to move through something, so the theory said that it was there. Stoney and Clarence nodded. Did they experiment? I asked. Stoney and Clarence jumped, as though surprised I was still there. Excuse me, honey? Mrs. W said, taking a sip of her B&B.

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Did they conduct experiments to confirm the existence of the luminous ther? She brightened. Oh, God, yes. Constantly. Most of them were frustratingly inconclusive, but respectable people managed to interpret some of the experimental results as confirming the existence of the luminous ther. They were mostly idiots of grad students with blinders on, of course, but if youd been paying attention you could see people trying to think it through in a different way no matter what youd learned in high school. And if you took physics from somebody who spoke German, they always seemed to be one step ahead of everybody else. Sprechen Sie knnen Deutsch? said Stoney.63 Ja, Sprachen wir es in der Heimat, als ich ein Kind war, said Mrs. W. Natrlich, said Stoney. Clarence and I looked at each other, hoping this wasnt going to continue. So what happened to the ether? asked Clarence. It went away, she said. It was never there. It was just something that college professors thought up as a clever way to explain something they didnt really understand. And then they stopped talking about it as though it had never existed. Which it didnt, of course. Cool. Kuhn, said Clarence. Again with the Kuhn, I said. Henry, as far as I can tell everybody who knows you has been telling you to read this damned book, she said with some irritation. Its an easy read. If youd just give up reading the Bible in Greek and being proud of yourself for finding verses that disagree for just a few days youd have plenty of time to read Kuhns tiny little book. There was a pause. What makes you think Im looking for Bible verses that disagree? I asked. Thats just the kind of thing youd do, she said. Stoney nodded. That does sound like you, said Stoney. I got no opinion on this one, said Clarence. So Kuhn explains why the ther went away? I asked.
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I have no idea what he said to her. I didnt speak German in 1974.

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Sure, said Clarence. Not only that, but why it came up, if I followed. The professors at the colleges invented the ether because it fit with what they already knew. They knew what a wave was, and how it moved, so they made up an explanation for what light was that fit what they already knew. This made em all feel famous for being smart and lots of grad students had to suck up to em and do experiments to prove the whole ether deal. Then Einstein and maybe some other guys came along thirty years later and said no, there is no ether, light waves do this entirely different deal They propagate, said Mrs. W, to Clarence. His eyes lit up. I think he realized for the first time that he was sitting at the grown-up table. So light waves propagate, not through the ether, but through anything. Even through a vacuum. They require no Clarence started. They require no medium, said Mrs. W. Okay. No medium, said Clarence. So no need for ether. So what happens next little buddy? asked Stoney. To the ether? asked Clarence. No, to the academy, said Stoney. Clarence looked confused. To the university, Stoney went on. To the professors and the teachers. Oh! Clarence brightened. Okay, so when Einstein and his buds came up with this completely new explanation for how light worked, Kuhn would call that a paradigm shift. Its like maybe like everybody put on a new pair of glasses, or something. They just saw things in a different way. He still pronounced the g in paradigm. So? Mrs. W led him on. Okay, Clarence started, So, like, all the old guys that taught ether would have been put out to pasture. None of them changed their minds, they all woulda thought there was still ether, but nobody woulda listened to em any more. And all the good jobs woulda gone to the Einstein guys, cause they now had the coolest paradigm. You could still hear the g. And so they got all the dough for experiments and grad students and stuff. And everybody woulda written the ether out of textbooks and stopped teaching it to high school and college kids, because of the new paradigm. Again with the g. So how would you describe this paradigm (no g) shift in just a few sentences? asked Mrs. W. Clarence frowned and thought. So everybody in the academy? he looked at Stoney, who nodded proudly, gets set on one way of seeing things. And that becomes, like, accepted, and thats, like,

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the way everybody teaches it. And everybody agrees that its the, like, right way to look at things. But, like, over time, little things dont add up, and the experiments, like, dont have the kinds of results that, like, prove the story. Then, all of a sudden, a new theory comes along that does a better job of explaining everything. And, um, more of the experiments make sense and stuff. And so everybody, all of a sudden, grabs on to this new story, and all of a sudden, theres a new kind of accepted theory. And it, like, stays in the books, and all of the teachers teach it, until eventually some other explanation comes along and knocks that one out of the box. Um, then that same deal happens over and over. One theory after another. Whatevers accepted now is gonna be replaced by another one some day. Clarence, frowning, wasnt sure he was done. He thought a minute, then nodded. Wish this was an open book test, he said. Im sure Im leaving out all kinds of important sh. stuff. Stoney gave him a proud thumbs up. Mrs. W? asked Stoney. He nailed it, she said. Stoney leapt to his feet excitedly. Woo-hoo! Stoney cried, and made to high-five Clarence. Clarence frowned unhappily. For Christs sake, Stoney. It was a just a book report. And I didnt get graded, said Clarence. Mrs. W laughed and drained the last few drops of her B&B. Just as you say, said Stoney. Refill time, he said, taking his glass and Mrs. Ws into the kitchen. Henry, you really need to read this book, said Mrs. W. Yes maam. It will explain why your math professors dont like you, she said. Really? I asked. How? What Clarence just described is the operation of the academy. Its members agree on a received truth and they all accept it until a better one comes along. You, on the other hand, dont accept anything, except conditionally. Youre always looking for whats wrong. Your eye is always focused on the pieces that dont fit. Okay, I said. Yeah, I can so completely see that, said Clarence. Far out. Stoney returned with a new B&B for Mrs. W and a glass of ice and a Coke for Clarence. For himself, he had exchanged his Old Fashioned glass of brandy for a water

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glass full. Mrs. W noticed his portion size but didnt say anything. She sipped her B&B and lit another smoke. So Nixon or TV? Stoney asked. I read Kuhn that night and the next night. Good book. To reconstruct, Mrs. W, Stoney and Clarence all thought, to varying degrees, that the 1970s had seen paradigm shifts in our approach as consumers and interpreters of media, the medias approach to reporting, my approach to dessert, Nixons approach to getting elected, Clarences approach to salad, and politicians approaches to politics. May you live in interesting times.

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Chapter 34 In what seemed like just a few days the summer was over. Nixon had resigned, tears in his eyes, and flown off to San Clemente. Gerald Ford, about whom most of us knew only that he had an interesting wife, a pretty daughter, and a hound of a son, became president. The summers mathematics, like its politics, had gotten less and less rooted in reality, but the math was a lot of fun. Then all of a sudden the summer was over and we were loading up Stoneys car. Like everything else that feels like it should last forever, it didnt. Oddly, there was lots less stuff to put in the car on the way back than there had been on the way down. Partly this was because Stoney had given his piranha and both aquaria to Clarence, a gift that did not seem to please Clarences mother, and partly because, being sober, or at least not stoned, Stoney had managed to organize his clothes into two suitcases and a box. Why this should take up less space than the other configuration was not immediately obvious to me. Clarence was watching glumly as we packed the car and Stoney was promising to visit and write letters. I dont get it, I said. What dont you get, Henry? asked Mrs. W. Why Stoneys stuff takes up so much less space than it did three months ago. Because its organized, she said, lighting a Benson & Hedges. So? I said. Its the same mass. Yes, but its organized, she said. I made him wash it all, and because hes got a pretty buttoned-down brain, he folded it all so it wouldnt wrinkle and put it away. Its all in neat stacks. A lesson you could pick up, a little, she said. I keep my stuff clean and neat, I said, surprised and a little defensive. Yes, you do but you dont really own much stuff, so you dont need to organize it particularly well to fit it in a suitcase. This is, well, partly, anyway, because your wardrobe may be just a little bit limited. Really? How so? Well, you really dont own much that you couldnt wear to change the oil in your car. Eventually youre going to need slacks and blazers and real shirts and ties and stuff, but you dont really need it now because of the way you kids are dressing. Stoney has

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some of that kind of stuff, although he generally wears it in non-traditional ways. He also folds his tee shirts and jeans in a pleasingly ordered way. Lets get back to the other issue, I said. She cocked an eyebrow at me but smiled. Why is it that a mass thats organized occupies less space than a mass thats less organized? Im not sure I even know what organized means in this context. In my defense, I was aware that, outside of Mrs. Ws presence, Stoney was an unpredictable if engaging hellion who might do anything at any moment and so I was having trouble with her characterization of his brain as buttoned down, but I still think I had a point. Okay, she said. Imagine the Sunday paper. Got it, I said. Will it fit into that box next to the car? There was a smallish box next to the left rear wheel of Stoneys car. It had an image of a moving van in orange and book box in black letters. Sure, I said. How much of the volume of the box would you say would be occupied by the Sunday paper? I dunno. Less than ten percent. Maybe less than five. Youre imagining the paper flat, as its delivered, as youd find it in the driveway if you were ever up early enough to go get it, she said, taking a drag and tapping her cigarette ash into the azaleas. Yes, maam, I said, with a quizzical expression. Imagine yourself sitting in a chair with that box at your feet, taking every sheet of that Sunday paper, wadding it up into a ball and tossing it into that box. Would the entire paper fit into the box, my sweet brilliant chump? No, maam, I guess not. Youre going to run into this over and over again. Disorganized things take up more space than organized things, and make it harder to tell whats going on. You can wad up paper to cushion your glassware when you move but it makes it harder to see whats in the box. The same principle applies to Stoneys tee shirts, to transport of crops and fuel by rail, to legal briefs, to politicians speeches and to your money. Which is doing fine, buy the way. But somebody who doesnt know what he thinks will take twice as long to express himself as someone who does. Free molecules bouncing around as a gas take up many orders of magnitude more volume than those same molecules bound

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into a liquid or a solid. The atoms in a diamond take up less volume than the same atoms lying around as soot. Okay. If you organize yourself, you will occupy much less time and space. Youll waste less. Okay, I said. I had no idea what she meant, but she was almost always right. You have no idea what Im talking about, do you? she asked. Stoney was handing Clarence a card with his college address and phone number written on it. No, maam. She lit a new cigarette and watched Stoney take down Clarences address, on a dollar bill, which he folded and placed in his billfold somewhere other than the bill compartment. You find Clarence irritating, she said. Yes, maam. Doesnt everyone? No. Stoney doesnt, at all. I do, but not like you do. What youre reacting to is the fact that he just gloms on to the last thing he heard as the best thing the world has ever come up with. I thought about that for a few seconds. Well, he does that, for sure, I said. Thats the adolescent intellectual version of the Sunday paper fitting into the cardboard box, she said. All those ideas rattling around like that with no intellect sorting through them they take up so much space. But hell settle down. Stoney sees that and connects to it. Youre out there on your own. I wasnt sure what to make of this. Im sorry, I began. Oh, heavens, nothing for you to apologize for, she said. I was just trying to give you a frame of reference. I like you, so I guess I I talk to you like I talk to myself. But did you notice that when Stoney organized Clarences thoughts for him, when he told Clarence he was playing with puzzles he was doing math at four to five years above grade level? And the last few crosswords were mostly in German. I wondered what they were talking about, I said. Stoneys brain is organized like a mathematicians but he still has something big to work out, I think. But inside here she tapped her temple, hes sorted through a lot already.

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And you dont think I have? I didnt say that, exactly, but I think you changed from being a hustler to being a student in a very short period of time, and youre trying to deal with school like it was a series of pool sharksyoure sizing things up all the time. It works, but I dont think you think much about what you feel. Thats where most people start in this day and age, and if it feels good they give themselves permission to go ahead. On the one hand, I find your resistance to the hedonism of the day refreshing, on the other hand, you may be missing something. I was a little taken aback. Oh, dont worry about it. I just like you, so I worry about you. Thanks, I said. Stoney and Clarence returned to the front porch. From somewhere in Stoneys possessions hed produced two martial arts-style belts. Stoney was wearing a red one and Clarence was wearing a black one, both neatly tied. Well, chief, I think its time to hit the dusty trail, said Stoney, probably to me, but he was wearing his dark aviator shades and I couldnt see where he was looking. You boys come back any time. Together or as unbonded ions, said Mrs.W. Stoney gave her a hug. Both of them had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, but somehow nothing caught fire. She held out her arms to hug me, something wed never done before, but it would have been more awkward not to than to do so, so I hugged her back. I will admit I was worried about the cigarette close to my ear. Stoney and Clarence were involved in a lengthy, multi-step handshake. See ya, little buddy, he said. Later, Clarence, I said. He waved to us, but seemed too choked up to talk. We walked to the car without saying much. I had the keys. It looked like we were going to get to Nashville by lunchtime. Ill drive, said Stoney. How much have you had to drink? I asked. Nothing, said Stoney, a little indignantly. I gave him a few seconds to think. Well, I sweetened my coffee with a little brandy. Each cup, I said. Well, yeah, but thats not much. And then I guess when I was packing there was so little Cuervo in the bottle it seemed dumb to pack it so I drained that and threw the bottle away. Just to save space. And arent you going to want to have a drink on the way? I asked. He looked at his wristwatch.

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Yeah, I guess so, he said. He shrugged and got into the passenger seat. We waved and pulled out of the driveway. Mrs. W looked proud but sad, Clarence looked heartbroken. Clarence really likes you, I said, as we pulled away. Yeah, well, hes smart, but the other kids dont like him and he hasnt connected with his teachers. They think hes a problem and he doesnt get any of the gifted kid attention. Hell settle down this year and get better grades in a few subjects and teachers will start to notice how smart he is. In math? I asked. Math may be kind of dull for him for a few years. Hes good with literature, too. He reads faster than you think. I told him how to game literature classes. His teachers are going to love it. How do you game a literature class? I asked. You look for a symbolic subtext in everything you read, from the stupidest, which I would say is Shirley Jackson, based on my high school literature reading, to the most sophisticated, which is Shakespeare. If an author force-feeds the symbolism, like maybe T.S. Eliot, you just make like you think hes a genius and not plodding and pedantic and over-wrought. Gack. Literatures easy. You just have to know what the teachers looking for. We were about to pull onto the freeway. There was a long acceleration ramp. There, about halfway up, was Ed Bork, with his right thumb out in the recognized gesture, a miniature American flag stapled to a quarter-inch dowel in his left hand, and a large aluminumframed Boy Scout backpack at his feet. Of course I stopped. Stoney rolled down his window. Howdy stranger, he said. Want a drink? Ed smiled in a tolerantly Christian way. Hello, Stoney. Hello Henry, he waved at me. No, but if youre heading north, Id like a ride, if its not too much trouble. We are. No trouble, I called out to be heard over a truck passing us. Hop in. He picked up his backpack, which seemed to be heavy, Stoney opened his door and folded down his seat to let Ed in, and Ed wrestled his pack into place on the back seat then climbed in and sat next to it. Stoney returned to his seat, closed his door, then scooted his seat up a few inches to give Ed more room. Thanks guys, I really appreciate this, Ed said.

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Where you headed? asked Stoney. I presumed he was not asking me. He lit a Winston.64 Not sure. North, though, said Ed. I merged onto I-24 and nobody said anything for a while. So are you on a sabbatical? Stoney asked. There was a pause. I couldnt quite see Ed in the rear view mirror. Whats a sabbatical, exactly? Ed asked. A hiatus? Stoney suggested. Sorry. Dont know hiatus, either, Ed said. He shifted slightly in his seat and I could see most of his face in the rear view mirror some of the time. He had a kind of glum expression. He hadnt shaved for a week or so and had a kind of flamenco goatee growing in, with very sparse whiskering on the rest of his cheeks and jaw. A vacation? asked Stoney, tapping his cigarette ash into the Volvos front seat ashtray. Im sorry, said Ed. Are you asking me if Im on vacation? he asked Stoney. He was confused, not irritated. Well, sorta, said Stoney. You were all strong on the Vine Road Jesus Community last time I talked to you, he said. Yeah, sure, said Ed. And so are you still? There was a really long pause. More than a minute. No, Ive left the Vine Street Christian Community. For now. I couldnt see him in the rear view mirror. The seconds ticked by. I dont think I fit in there, he said. Another long pause. We were well past Moccasin Bend before he said anything more. Stoney had turned sideways in the passenger seat so he could look at Ed, and was tapping his cigarette ashes into the Volvos ashtray. I really liked all the positive energy. All the teamwork, Ed said, eventually. There was another long pause. We were almost into Georgia. I was raised by my grandmother. Shes Catholic. They were always telling me what to do. I didnt like it. Gramma could get me to school and church and all, but I was a lot of trouble. I got into witchcraft mainly to piss her off, I think. It was mean. I shouldnt have done it. But once you get into it, witchcraft actually makes a lot of sense. There arent many other witches in Chattanooga, so its not like we were going to start a
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In 1972 people thought it was okay to light up a smoke in a confined space when non-smokers were present. Of course, smokers were a higher percentage of the population then, and it was Stoneys car, but still.

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revolution or something. Most of the people wholl tell you theyre witches are big girls who like wearing capes. But Gramma made me go through parochial school and put me in Notre Dame High and I was going to church and all but then one of the nuns heard I was doing witchcraft and they threw me out. So I showed up at City High in the middle of junior year. Not a good way to start. I wondered about that, I said. Jack and Joe showed up from Baylor, and some other guys from McCallie, and the rumor was they all got thrown out for drugs. Sorry, but I assumed that was your story too. Oh no need for an apology. I did do a lot of drugs. Especially after Gramma died. She died? Oh, jeez, thats awful, said Stoney. What happened? She pissed me off so I cast a spell on her, said Ed. What? She really was a pain in the as, said Ed. Wait. So you killed her? asked Stoney. Depends on who you believe, Ed said. Ill confess, and have confessed to Jesus and anybody else who will listen that I cast a spell on her and meant to do her harm. I feel kind of bad about that now, but a man can only take so much nagging. I cant fucking believe you killed your grandmother! said Stoney. So you believe in witchcraft? asked Ed. No. Not at all, said Stoney. All I did was cast a spell on her. She had a heart attack all by herself. I was off with a girl in Mentone at the time. But to believe I killed her you have to believe in witchcraft and you just said you didnt. I need drugs for this, Stoney said. There was another long pause. Minutes. Whyd you leave Vine Street? I asked. You know, when I first started talking to them they were all so full of good will and cheerfulness. They were all working so hard. They all had this message about how I needed to open myself to the Gospel. When I was growing up there was this deal where the church hierarchy told you what to believe and how to experience your religion through all these different rituals and things you were supposed to do. But here were

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these people who were telling me to interact directly with the Word of God. It was exhilarating. Exciting. No barrier between me and God. A religion based on personal experience. My conversion. Personal revelation. If God is revealing Himself to each of us through His gospel, then I am partaking of God directly from God. What could be better than that? he said. So you cast a spell asking demons to kill your grandmother? asked Stoney. Something like that, Ed answered. But the idea of directly connecting to the living God was almost, like, intoxicating. You cant imagine what its like to feel directly tapped into the omnipotent force at the center of the universe. I feel that all the time, said Stoney. Im usually pretty fucked up at the time, of course. So what happened? I asked. Didnt anyone ever tell you its impolite to quiz people about their religion? Stoney asked. Hed reached around to rummage through a box in the back seat and returned with a quart bottle of Jack Daniels. Any coffee? he asked. Theres a Thermos in the back seat, I said. Ed handed it up. Stoney uncapped the Jack Daniels and was about to pour some straight into the Thermos. Wait, I said. I want a cup. Stoney shrugged and was about to pour me a cup into the cup-shaped plastic cap when Ed leaned forward with a larger yellow enameled cup. Wow, said Stoney. Whered you find this? It was on the seat, Ed said. It was my great-grandmothers, Stoney said. Theres some kind of pioneer story that goes with it. Not a Conestoga wagon but that same kind of shit. My mom was mad as hell when I lost it. He peered at it like a pawnbroker looking at a gold-plated wedding band. Looks pretty clean, Henry. Okay? I handed him my handkerchief. Wipe it out for me if you dont mind, I said. He sighed deeply. Talk about a fussy asshole, said Stoney, but he polished it up. How do we know this handkerchief is any cleaner than my great-grandmothers cup? That handkerchief has been riding around in those jeans right next to your ass for God knows how long. Im just gambling that its cleaner than the shoes of everyone whos sat in the back seat of your car since you lost it, I said. He poured me a cup of gratifyingly hot

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coffee and topped off the Thermos with whiskey. He replaced the stopper briefly to shake the jug, then proceeded to sip straight from the jug. So where were we? Stoney asked. I think you were telling Henry that it was impolite to ask me about my religion, said Ed. Oh, right. What were you thinking? Stoney said to me, crossly. Were you raised in a barn? What did you ask, anyway? asked Stoney after a pause. I have no idea, I said. We were passing the exit where the Highway Patrol office was, where I got my first drivers license. I took a sip of coffee. It was cooling fast in the metal cup. What did he ask? Stoney asked Ed. I think the question was So what happened? which I think was his way of asking me why Id left the Vine Street Christian Community. Oh, okay, said Stoney, taking a slurp from his Thermos. He thought for a minute. Okay, so what happened? I guess the problem is that I thought I was getting into this because of the personal revelation thing. If you think about it, what Jesus tells us to do is to buy into the whole Christian trip personally. We have to personally accept Jesus Christ as our lord and savior. I really like the personal revelation deal. I found the whole idea that God had chosen to reveal Himself to me personally very appealing. Okay said Stoney. I know it seems funny, but when I was a little kid my mother sang this song to me and here he sang: Jesus loves the little children All the little children of the world Red and yellow, black and white Theyre all equal in His sight Jesus loves the little children of the world. Stoney looked at me quizzically. People sang this song in your youth? he asked me. Yeah, sure, I said. In Tennessee?

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All over. Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida. I dont remember California well enough to say. Sorry for interrupting, said Stoney. So as a kid you liked the idea that Jesus loved you. Yes, very much. I also liked the idea that Jesus was nice. Makes sense. But what started to worry me abut Vine Street Christian Community was that they didnt seem to want me to be personally experiencing Jesus at all. Usually when I did they told me I was going off in the wrong direction. It was like they wanted me to have this personal conversion experience, but they wanted me to have it in the way they wanted me to have it. It was weird. There was this thing we did like every week, or maybe it was every few days. It was hard to tell. I was working like eighty hours a week at the Yellow Deli and then when I was back at the house I wanted to sleep a lot, but generally we had a lot of Community stuff to do, and one of those was this thing called Critical Mass. Theyd get us all in this room and wed talk about how we thought the others in the group were performing. When they explained it to me they said the idea was to encourage each other to be good Christians, but really what they were talking about was whether you were a good member of their particular little group. Whether you were working hard enough at the deli, putting enough hours in. One girl got in trouble because she didnt move all of her inheritance into the Communitys hands. It was weird, some of the time. You didnt like it that they were grasping? Stoney asked. Grasping? asked Ed. Trying to take away your possessions, he said, taking a gulp from his Thermos. Oh, no. I had nothing. What did I care? What I didnt like was that I wasnt supposed to be asking questions. I was just supposed to accept the Word of God as they delivered it to me. See, what Id liked was that God was showing Himself to me, this whole one-on-one trip, but what they were telling me was that I shouldnt rely on the personal part of it so much once Id connected with them, that it was far more important that I do what they told me to do than to think for myself. Or even to point out problems. Once in Critical Mass they were explaining where the name had come from and they said theyd borrowed the term mass from the Catholics, which they said was a ceremony where the participants did a soul-searching examination of themselves, or something like that. I raised my hand and said thats not exactly what mass was and I didnt even get to say why before I wash shushed and told that it was unseemly for me to be questioning Community teachings that way. So far as I can tell, they dont have a lot of Catholics in the Community. I may have been the first. I seemed to be the only one around that day.

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To be stifled that way must be very frustrating, Stoney said. My grandmother was lots worse. But the deal was that they didnt want me to think much. Which seemed to me to mess with the whole personal revelation thing. Once in one of those meetings somebody asked me why I was so worried about being taught, rather than just figuring it out for myself. They were saying that the Bible was all perfect and everything. And the only thing I could think of to say was that when I was in high school everybodyd told me Shakespeare was this genius good writer, and Mrs. McCrary and Mrs. Johnson made us memorize all these verses and stuff. But I bet if you sat down and you tried you could pick and choose lines from Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth65 and then stitch them together to tell a completely different story that didnt have anything to do with any of those plays. Sure, said Stoney. Add Othello, too. Whats Othello? asked Ed. The Moor of Venice, said Stoney. Whats that? asked Ed. Never mind. So you think you could put lines from Shakespeare together to make a different play? asked Stoney. Sure. Anybody could, if he had some time. But the Community people didnt like me saying that. They said that I didnt have to worry about somebody stitching together Bible verses into a different story than Jesus meant because our leaders were so tight with Jesus that there was no way theyd make that kind of mistake. I had to trust them, to have faith that we were on the right path. Ed didnt say anything for the next few minutes. I finished my coffee and placed Stoneys great-grandmothers cup on the console between the two front seats. Stoney drank down some more of his coffee. Judging from the angle of the Thermos as he drank, he was getting towards halfway through with the jug. Isnt that what everybody thinks? asked Ed. Whats that? asked Stoney. That you should trust their particular leaders, their particular interpretation of the scriptures. Dont all religions think theyve come up with the One True Way? Pretty much, I said. Maybe except for the Unitarians, Stoney said. They seem to think that even they are wrong.
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Why isnt it MacBeth, anyway? Ive got some cousins named McBeth, for that matter.

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Yeah, so, I was looking for personal revelation, and I got shoe-horned into being told what to do and what to think. It was my grandmother and her priest with no costume. I have to take my personal conversion experience the way some other guy tells me to. And he seems to be a guy that doesnt show up for Critical Mass that much. Im taking somebody elses word for the fact that he really knows what hes talking about and God has chosen him as His messenger. Thats the Pope. That wasnt what I was going for. Once youve done nine hits of Purple Haze and fucked a majorette youre looking for an intense kind of religious experiencegoing straight for the mind of God. I understand completely. I think. Majorette? asked Stoney. Being fed Jesus in spoonfuls and told to toe the line isnt the kind of personal experience I was looking for, anyway, said Ed. I still want to find a group that lets me personally experience Jesus. Thats what Paul talked about. Not in the pastoral letters, I said. Stoney looked at me in frustration. Henry, what in the fuck are you talking about? Hes right, said Ed. What? asked Stoney. St. Paul has a lot of letters that go in a different direction. Its almost as though somebody else wrote Timothy. And Second Thessalonians. They just dont tell the same story as most of the books, Ed said. And whats up with Hebrews? I asked. Shut the fuck up, Henry. What were you saying, Ed? And dont forget to explain about the majorette. I was getting to what I liked about St. Paul was that hed been one kind of person then he had this conversion experience on the road to somewhere Damascus, I said. Stoney frowned at me. I aimed the car at a mile marker and he made an apologetic gesture. Damascus, right. So what I wanted was to have the scales fall from my eyes and then have this intense personal relationship with Jesus. One on one. Personal conversion. But instead, I had this extreme born-again experience then all these people started telling me what to do. Not Jesus. All these other people. And if I read the Bible and had questions, they all told me to shut up and listen. Not what I was looking for. What was the deal with the majorette? asked Stoney.

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Jessica. Long blonde hair. She was very sweet, Ed said. Youre saying you had sex with Jessica Chester? I asked. On acid. Yeah. It was intense, said Ed. Wow. So about the witchcraft deal, said Stoney. Howd that work? Its hard, Ed said. There arent many practitioners in Chattanooga. Or even in Tennessee, so far as I could tell. I bought some books, and there were some books on Magick in the library, but it was hard to put together. A lot of the popular books are pretty stupid, and Aleister Crowley is all about himself. One of the problems with Magick is that theres not really a Bible. Im not sure it really matters, though, because the Bible is all about Jesus and Paul, and in Magick theres not really a Jesus or a Paul. Theres not a story about people that led to this strange ritual that we do every Sunday, like there is with Christianity. Anyway, the big weakness with Magick and witchcraft is that theres all this elaborate ritual, but no real explanation of why it works. Spirits? asked Stoney. Yeah, maybe, said Ed. Nobody really talks about what a spirit might be, though, or why it is that a high school kid and some naked cheerleaders might be able to make it want to do something. Say I chant something in a language I dont understand. Is there some reason that would make a spirit wake up and do what I wanted it to do? At the end of the day, it didnt make a lot of sense. Did you say naked cheerleaders? asked Stoney. Its not like you understand what youre doing with witchcraft. Even if you find a really thorough book, alls it tells you is what incantation to say and what youre supposed to do in the ritual. It doesnt explain why any of this stuff works. Crowley is big on adding sex to everything, and thats always fun, but why should getting laid make your spell more likely to come true? He says it releases some kind of energy that you can learn to harness, but it doesnt really make much sense. So what kind of spells did you cast? Stoney asked. Oh, all kinds of stuff. To pass my history test. To fix the radiator on Grammas car. I told you about Grammas heart attack. To have some money in time for my date wit Allison. To have Abbie fall in love with me. You know, just stuff. Abbie who? I asked. Stoney frowned at me but drained his Thermos. Abbie Norman, he said. Abbie Norman the cheerleader? I asked.

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Yeah, sure. Shes very sweet. Cheerleaders seemed to be very susceptible to the dark arts. Christ on a crutch, said Stoney. Dont take the Lords name in vain, please, said Ed. I dont remember hearing anybody talk about you dating Abbie Norman, I said. We had to hide it from her parents, Ed said. Because you were a witch? asked Stoney. No Ed answered. Because you killed your grandmother? asked Stoney. No, Ed said. Why, then? asked Stoney. Because I was a Catholic, Ed said. Oh, for Christs sake, said Stoney. Did you cast a spell on Mrs. Wertheimer? I asked. No. You know, I meant to, but before I got to it Abbie took me to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting and I got saved. Besides, isnt Mrs. Wertheimer still up and around? Waitwhy did you get saved? You were a witch, I said. He thought for a minute before answering. Honestly? he asked. Sure, said Stoney. Abbie got saved first and told me she was going to cut me off if I didnt accept Jesus as my personal savior. I was kind of going through the motions that first few days, then I met somebody from Vine Street. Once school ended I wasnt sure where I was going to live. They sold Grammas house. The Vine Street guys took me in. And like I said, they just had this happy enthusiasm about the whole Jesus deal. Plus, Abbie got all worried about not repenting the lusts of the flesh, so I got cut off anyway.

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Is it more comfortable being a Christian than a Satanist? Stoney asked. I was never a Satanist. Anton LaVey is a gibbering idiot and incapable of telling the truth. Stoney and I looked at each other and shrugged. Besides, nobody would worship Satan. Thats just dumb. But what I like about Christianity, or what I thought I liked about it, seems a little harder to find than I thought. But all that casting spells and incantations and stuff, you were okay with all of that black cat kind of stuff? Stoney asked. I dont know why people get so hung up on that. I would get together with some friends and cast a spell that would help a girl do good on her SATs. Or to make it rain the night of the Hi-Y Clubs outdoor party. Or to make it snow in April when I didnt have my term paper ready. Catholics are always praying for specific things. If Im not mistaken, the Vine Street guys were praying for something bad to happen to Pastor Ben Hayden because he was preaching against them. I dont understand how it is that Christians praying for God to intervene in current events in some really, really specific way is any different than me asking some different kind of spirit to do the same thing after a different kind of ritual. Did all that stuff happen? Stoney asked me. I remember it snowed in April one year, I said. I dont know about the rest of it. Why the Hi-Ys? I asked. They were a bunch of jocks. All jerks. Plus Abbie used to date the president and he was mean to her. Ed, I said, How do we know youre not making this all up? Is there any way to objectively verify any of what youre telling us? Have I ever lied to you Henry? How would I know? Its not nice to accuse someone of dishonesty, Henry. Especially when you have no reason to believe hes not telling the truth. I could see his face in the mirror again and he looked hurt. I mean no offense, I said. But some of this is pretty wild. Kids talk about whos dating who all the time and I never heard anybody say you were going out with Abbie or Jessica. I didnt really date Jessie, he said. That was kind of a one-weekend fling. But I never heard about any of this, I said.

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Henry, you werent really the most socially connected guy, he said. Plus I found Jesus and everything. Renounced my sinful ways. So? Lying would be sinful. Ive moved on from Vine Street, but that doesnt mean Im a sinner like you and Stoney. Yeah, right. Still, I dont have a lot of ways to connect any of what youre saying with things Ive seen with my own eyes. Well, if youre ever close to Abbie, she has a little birth mark in the small of her back shaped like a little mitten, he said. He seemed to sigh wistfully. Ah, shit, said Stoney. Like Michigan? No, the other way, he answered. Thumb on the left. We got off the freeway at the Nashville exit. We left Ed there to thumb further north. He strapped on his backpack and took out his little American flag. He waved and smiled. Thanks again, guys, he said, and walked for the light. No, I have no idea how much of what he said was true. When Stoney got out of the car to let Ed out, I noticed that he was still wearing his red martial arts belt.

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