She leaned over the formica diner table, searching his face. “How about you? Do you feel your heritage? As a Native American?”

“Native Mexican, you mean?” Ben smiled. “All these hypens get me mixed up. No. I’m was just one more hustler on the street. Now I’m just one more foreign student trying to beat the competition at Yale. But you know what’s funny?”

“In some contexts.”

“The ones who take all this pride in the old sites and talk about Mexico’s rich archeological history… know who? White professors and intellectuals and politicians and foreigners. The same rich crooked white guys you see praising the Chiapas indios.”

“It’s not so different here. My parents are so liberal they think Clinton was a Republican. They go on and on about civil rights, Indian rights, women’s rights, labor. But if a black working man showed up on the front porch they’d speed-dial 911 and call for an airstrike. But I wouldn’t say that at home because ‘strike’ is a dirty word.”

“This is all part of why you had to go to Yale?”

“Very much. My family goes back to the founders of this place.”

“Now there’s a co-incidence.”

Erin leaned back and studied him. The contrast between his dashing caballero looks and the funky townie diner where they loitered suggested more contrast to her. He was not like guys she knew. She didn’t have a handle on anything about him, where he was coming from. What he wanted. What he meant, half the time. There was mystery behind Ben Ochoa.

She said, “You meant something by that. But you’re not going to tell me about it.”

Ben smiled. “You caught me. Maybe if I knew you better.”

“That’s what they all say this time of night, honey,” the stocky, ageless waitress called from behind the counter. “They want to know you better. You know what waitresses say this time of night?”

“Would you like more coffee, kids?” Ben tried boyishly.

“Not even close, cutie. We say, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Ben did a double-take at the big pink clock over the counter and stood up reaching for his wallet. “I got a feeling this place was our last refuge, too.”

“I can’t think of anyplace open around here,” Erin said, slipping out a few dollars for the tip. “So it’s back to the dorms.”

“Well, actually,” Ben said. “Hang on a minute.” He stepped to the counter, paid and thanked the waitress. She handed him his change, glanced at Erin, winked at him.

Ben moved to the door, where Erin waited, pushed it open for her. “Actually, I have an apartment.”

“How nice for you,” she said, giving nothing to go on.

“So, you know,” Ben fumbled on. “I have a Mr. Coffee and everything. So if you want to come over.”

“Come over,” Erin said in a flat voice that typecast “come over” as a lurid innuendo.

“Yeah,” Ben told her. “Mi casa es su casa.”

“Jesus,” she blurted. If this is what he shows company, God knows what he tossed in the closet. “Didn’t your parents teach you to pick up after yourself?”

“I was street trash, remember?” he swooped discarded clothes and takeout cartons off the sofa with his foot. “Nothing to pick up. Guess I should learn, huh?”

“Well, it might cut down on infections.”

“I’m not used to visitors,” he said. “In fact, you’re my first guest. Bienvenida.”

First girl in his place? That’s cool, Erin thought. She said, “I can see why.”

She looked around, gnawed by the compulsive impulses that had gotten her the grades and gymnastics medals. “Look, you were going to make coffee?”

Ben nodded and she waved at the room. “Mind if I straighten up a bit while you’re at it?”

“Mind? Look, I’m sorry…”

“Go. Coffee.” Erin waved him to the kitchenette. A thought struck her and she called, “Shall I put the really toxic stuff in the front closet here?”

“No!” came from the kitchen. Ben peeked out, discolored glass coffeepot in hand. “It’s full of stuff. You don’t have to…”

“I got it,” Erin said. Mystery closet. Probably bodies of stupid co-eds. She quickly tidied the room, piling the big stuff on a chair in the corner. She heaped kitchen things and disgusting remnants on a pizza box and carried them into the kitchen, where there was no counter space to set them down. She shook her head at the clutter. “I should have known better than to come in here. God knows what the bath and bedroom look like. Probably land fill.”

“You’ll never know,” Ben said, handing her a cup of coffee and spiking it with a dollop of tequila. “I’m not that easy.”

Yeah, right, Erin thought. “You have any milk that doesn’t resist capture?”

Seeing Erin naked, he thought as he lay watching her doze, has to be be one of the major revelations of my entire life. Ranks right up there with finding out my father’s a spaceman. But way better.

He’d seen her hair, stared at it, stalked it, marveled at it. But he hadn’t buried his hands and face in it. Watched it fall through his fingers glowing like metal light. Lain with it over his eyes, turning the world to auburn smolder.

And her skin. ¡Barbaro, wey! Her cute spritz of freckles had fooled him into thinking of her as he thought of most gringos, as pinkish people. But naked, she was a whole different story. The screaming whiteness of her took him by storm, the endless scope of milky mounds like cherry vanilla ice cream. Dusted with cinammon in places, in others touched by the pink of babies, of little girls, of sugary icing in the bakery. These nipples weren’t black like Mexican girls. Or ruddy like other American girls. They were translucent! Like rose quartz! That’s what killed him, the light passed through her flesh and cast a color on her skin. Her nipples were a source of light.

And her eyes were a source of visions. Light flowed into them, then washed back out shining and sparkling like hidden seas. They were green beacons that shone through her hair. Her hair was a filter that lent everything the color of things warm and precious. Her pubic hair curled out of her crotch like red smoke, as though she exuded a flame. She was a miracle. She was a masterpiece, a mystery he must plumb to its fullest extent.

He liked Erin. A lot, actually. He liked her company, her humor, the feel of being around her. She felt right, something he could slip into like a well-worn shirt. He didn’t feel like blowing her off afterwards and going out for beer with the guys.

BUT, that was a minor factor compared to his immediate, deep infatuation with the bounties of her body. After all, he was a nineteen year old kid from the streets of Mexico. And also, there was something working up through him. She’d lit some sort of fuse. Something about the delicacy of her beauty and the frankness of her friendship cut away at his machote mode and stimulated an impulse to enfold, to cherish and protect.

He broke his hungry gaze to move slightly and her eyes opened, washing him in green. She smiled at him and said, “You’ve heard of doing it French style?”

He nodded. What, did she miss that part?

“Or Greek style?”

¡Epale! Not bad for a first date! He nodded again.

“So is there a Mexican style?” she asked, wide and innocent.

“It involves a few props and religious rituals.”

“Well, let me know when you line that stuff up.”

“So you didn’t notice anything different about the macho Mexicano experience?”

“Well,” she said, thoughtfully, reaching under the sheet to grasp him. “There’s this right here.”

“Gringo guys have them, too. I take showers with them. I would have noticed.”

“Well up here they cut this off.”

“They what? At what age? I did right to come to this country, I can see.”

“No, you jerk, they cut if off when you’re born. Not the whole thing. Just this, you know, this part right here.”

“Jesucristo, that’s a cold shot, all right. No wonder gringos are always so paranoid and grouchy.”

“Well, it adds a dimension.”

“I’m surprised I’m the first Latino you’ve investigated.” Hint, hint.

“Lack of opportunity.” She shifted to look at him full on, but without relinquishing her grip. “You surprised? Flattered? Elated? Not sated, I hope.”

Ben smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. “Dumbfounded. Electified. Mutated.” He leaned forward to kiss her, leaned away. “But I have to say, I am a little surprised. We think of the United States as racist and elitist. In Mexico a rich girl from a good family wouldn’t have anything to do with a guy like me.”

She checked him quickly for sarcasm. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Wow.”

She used her grip to pull herself over, slither on top of him. She let her hair drop around his face, enclosing them in a tunnel of coppery sunrise. She told him, “I just wish you were black so I could really piss my parents off.”

Ay, Ben thought happily as he wrapped around her, she’s sooooo cool. I’d think I’d be nuts about her even if she was ugly.

He rolled over, bearing her beneath him, and leaned up on his arms to watch her face as she squirmed laughing up against him. But thank God I don’t have to find out.
]]> http://adorobooks.com/skywp/?feed=rss2&p=239 http://adorobooks.com/skywp/?p=236 http://adorobooks.com/skywp/?p=236#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:44:24 +0000 Author http://adorobooks.com/skywp/?p=236 “Okay, so we project things.” Ben said reasonably to the hiply aging prof in front of a projected image of a Rorschach card. Ben wondered if there was psychological significance in his standing right below what looked like an enormous gaping vagina. “So you see a bat in that ink blot and I see something X-rated.” There was a small titter in the classroom.

“So it just doesn’t happen in a shrink’s office, right? So I’m seeing something different than you when I watch television, or look out the window. Correct?”

“Of course. It’s a universal mental process. It just gets more noticeable when it becomes abnormal.”

“So doesn’t that make it seem like we’re not really just passively receiving here, like a TV set? Like maybe we’re interactive, not really cameras, but more like projectors?”

“That our perceptions create reality? That’s a question for philosophy class, Mr. Ochoa. This is abnormal psychology, not parapsychology. Perhaps you’d be happier at Duke.” Another chuckle from the class gratified the prof, who raised his voice slightly.

“There’s a name for that awareness. It’s called psychosis.”

“But look, you’re testing for it. It’s not just locos who project. Take a look at Wilbertson, Schein…”

“No, thank you, Mr. Ochoa. What you are overlooking is consensus. For instance, right now there are forty other students here who are more interested in the reality of their final exams than what you perceive it to be.”

He flipped a remote, causing the screen to show a picture of a bell curve divided into standard deviations. He paused, looked back at the class. “Let me say this, because I’m not trying to belittle your thinking. Psychology is a very young science. What you are talking about is not inconceivable. In subtle fashion. In philosophy, certainly. In psychology, even. Where it doesn’t make any sense is the area where the rubber meets the road, as it were. By which I mean physics.”

He turned away, pointing to the card on the screen. “Now if we can get on the measures of intelligence.”

“Measure it?” Ben asked loudly. “We don’t even know what it is, do we? We know what energy and matter are. How they work, what they do. So what is intelligence?”

“There are two definitions that any real application, Mr. Ochoa.” The prof was not thrilled about this kid’s aggressive investigations, but on the other hand he generated interest in a class that mostly seemed like they were just ticking off hours until they could graduate and go get some money. “One was in your reading. David Wechsler?”

“Designed the major IQ tests,” Ben nodded.

“If you recall, he said that intelligence is the global ability of an organism to function effectively in its environment.”

“Yes, I read that. And what I thought was, if your environment is the jungle or prison or some tough ghetto, being intelligent might just mean being big, fast, and vicious.”

“That’s a problem with the definition. Most people understand it to refer to mental functioning.”

“So are we measuring our intelligence against each other? On the curve? Or against the environment?”

“Does a high jumper measure himself against the pole?” The prof paused for a nicely timed beat. “The pole for organisms being, basically, survival.”

“I was thinking that we measure this thing, but we don’t know what it is or how it works. Now I’m wondering if we even measure it.”

“Well, there is that other definition.” He waited the class out, then dropped the punchline. “Intelligence is that quality quantified by an intelligence test.”

Ben grimaced in disappointment. “I think I read that in ‘Intelligence for Dummies’,” he said. The prof frowned at the sarcasm, but it got a good laugh that he read as constructive.

“It’s analogous in many ways to economics, Ochoa,” he said with his best hip “out of the envelope” delivery. “We set things up as standards and they work according to the degree people subscribe to them. It’s based on confidence as much as money is. Is there anywhere you see faith fading over to a gold standard here? If you do, and can back it up, you might have a career in the field.”

“Do you think it’s possible to get the picture on what intelligence is? What attention is? I mean, see it’s basic design?”

“I think you just stepped out of psychology. Again. And over into some other department where somebody else will have to deal with you.”

“What I learned today,” Ben told Kairos as he watched him uncork an expensive bottle of wine he’d purchased with obvious doubts after driving the manager at The Wine Thief batty, “Is that if I say the words ‘intelligent’ and ‘design’ in the same sentence they break out torches and pitchforks. Start piling firewood around a stake.”

“A lot of work for nothing. They could just use this jumble for a fine conflagration.” Kairos peered around Ben’s cluttered flat disprovingly. He squinted carefully at the two stemmed glasses, wiped them with his impeccable handkerchief.

“Thing is, I can’t see way of proving or disproving any of it. But they’re damned sure of themselves.”

Kairos nodded approvingly at that sentiment. He poured, sipped dubiously, deliberated, apparently decided the Beaujolais Nouveau would do in a pinch. He held his glass up for Ben’s reluctant clink. “I’d suggest to them that a good glass of wine is all the proof any man could demand. Wonderful things just don’t happen on their own. Argumentum ad veritas. I told you you’d run into provincialism, especially in fields involving religion and ideology.”

“This was in a psychology class.”

“How well did you comport yourself?”

“Split decision.”

“You have to tell priests what they want to hear. Keeping in mind what you really think and concentrate on clarifying the distinction.”

“Well, they’re all pretty emotional about it. And a lot of what they say makes sense. There’s a lot of stupid design around.”

“Mostly after the fact. Let me ask you this. If God… or the local deity Evolution… is not intelligence, then what would be the source of creation?”

“Sex, I guess.” Ben sipped, still failing to appreciate all the “complexity” and “nuance” his old man raved about. Not all his obsessions seemed to pay out. “Love?”

“Or course.” Kairos smiled with an irritating indulgence. “And by ‘love’, you also mean, ‘sex’. You’re nineteen . An almighty orgasm is your lord.”

“It seems pretty conclusive to me.”

“Actually, there’s something to that. The beauty of women is a rebuke and model to us all,” Kairos swished his glass, held it up to the light. “Is beauty truth or isn’t it? Is truth not sense? Can you really look at them… or the nebulae or a flower or a single cell of your body and not see the design? The intelligence and creativity throbbing there?”

“Now you’re starting to sound like a preacher.”

‘”Intelligence is truth is beauty is creation.”

“Works for me. In other family news, I met the coolest girl.”

“Speaking of beauty, intelligence, and truth?”

“Yeah, speaking of that.”

Ben had liked the jacuzzi and steam rooms. He liked the sauna. His big impression from the faculty club was that professors liked to be cooked. So did Kairos, apparently. Not your usual ice-loving Nyrd. Ben could handle the steamy heat. He and Nabo had hitched to Chiapas in July one time. And it was actually easier talking to his father when he was hidden in mist. Another one of those pinche metaphors, Ben thought. One of which he was trying to unravel at the moment.

“So what you’re saying,” he spoke in the odd voice you pick up in saunas, “Is basically, Life Is But A Dream?”

“That’s an illusory concept in itself.”

“Say what?”

“Sorry, I thought you people liked having your cosmic messages wrapped in vague, contradictory half-messages like that.” Kairos wiped sweat from his pecs, idly slapped his abs, splashing sweat. He might spend all his time lounging around eating, Ben thought, but he sure stays tight. “What I would say,” he went on, “Is that life, or a dream for that matter, is no more illusion than anything else.”

“Great. I find the one guy who knows what it’s all about and he goes Zen Master on me.”

“Maybe those Zen masters know, too. And that’s why they talk that way.”

“How about just giving me the big picture? A quickie nutshell overview?”

“Of the nature of reality. Ah, to be a young student again.” Kairos dabbled his hand in the bucket, splashed his face. “Okay, here’s the one I use myself. You are a dream in the mind of a dreamer who is composed of all dreamers, including yourself, in the same way your body is made of cells but hosts cellular dreams.”

“Oh thank you, Yoda.” Ben stood up, but got light-headed from the hotter air at head level. He looked down, saw the dark imprint of his butt evaporating. He sat down again, and leaned over, forearms on his thighs, head dangling. “I was hoping for something a little more down to earth. Not mystic poetry slams.”

“It’s a more comprehensive way of saying this. You’ve seen what projection does in the Tubes, in The Sky. It’s no different here. You have billions of minds projecting the same picture, so it has substance. It’s not like two of us in the tube where I can just change things to suit myself. You have to get everybody on the same page if you want to make a mountain disappear or something. And they all have to believe it will happen.”

“So you can have, like, sorcery, in The Sky, but not here?”

“The difference is The Sky is more recent, more local. That’s why there’s so much ettiquette on altering things. I’m sure you understand that.”

“Yeah. But you can do sorcery on this world with a concentrator.”

“Because it concentrates energy and will. That’s what it does. It basically moves minds. That’s what our technology is based on. Transportation is our only trick.”

“So if you concentrate enough energy and will, you can change reality?”

“Think about that a minute. How else is reality altered?”

“You know what I meant.”

“Yes, I do. Examine this: the amount of truth behind any given proposition is directly proportional behind the amount of energy and will it represents.”

“Then… Hmmm. Okay, I have to think about that one.”

“Please do, it’s a very central key to our environment. And here’s another one, tailored to your present experience. Reality is an election. What’s real is what has the popular vote. Can you change the vote with enough will? With enough energy? Money? Firepower? Scientific proof? It’s entirely a question of consensual projection.”

Ben stood up and walked to the door. “Can we get the hell out of this steam?” He opened the door and felt the cool draft from the locker room tighten his pores and shorten his dick. Kairos laid full length on the wooden slats behind him.

“You go ahead,” he said. “I could stay in here all day.”

“No sir,” Ben said respectfully. He’d gotten a glimpse of the prof’s need to be coddled. “It’s just something I ran across outside of class and it sparked my interest in the subject.”

“Of course I am familiar with PIE,” the prof said rather bitchily. “Proto Indo-European, for those who haven’t been sparking their interest outside the survey text.”

“So they were saying that it’s a sort of theoretical language that people spoke before it broke down into Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.”

“Conjectural. But sound. I hope this isn’t heading off into more of your science fiction fantasies. Or into the usual Tower of Babel mytho-babble that seems to grip sophomores who approach it.”

“No sir. But they do see this sort of proto Earth language, and all our other speech sort of corrupted down from it?”

“That’s the idea. It becomes a compelling idea when examined with better knowledge of the languages in question.”

“And the further the get away from the source, the less inflected they are? Like Spanish has less conjugation than Latin, and…”

“Yes, yes. You have a point Mr. Ochoa? Or even a question?”

“Well, I guess what I’m asking is that if evolution and history are this rise from simple cells and grunts into greater complexity…then why do we see language going the opposite direction?”

“We’re not talking about evolution in this class.”

“But we’re talking Devo here, aren’t we?”

“No, you are. You have a penchant for crackpot ideas that I’d warn you will not be helpful.”

“I figure that no pot is so cracked it’s not worth seeing if it will hold water.”

“I’ve noticed that, Mr. Ochoa.”

“Oh, God forbid,” Ben remarked straight-faced as he investigated his cassoulet. It just looked like frijoles charros con chorizo, was his initial impression.

Kairos glared at his sarcasm, but continued to eat and pontificate. “It’s all about trappings. Certainly as presented here in this country. It’s no better than Cantonese cuisine, and much less honest. Frankly I think it just borrows prestige from the wines.”

He sipped from the Pinot in front of him, nodding happily. “Which is forgivable. I’m sorry Mexico hasn’t developed better vintage. Maybe we can work on that in the future? As a sort of side project, you understand?”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Ben said. Actually, these frijoles weren’t bad at all. And that was duck meat? Where the hell did you go to buy a duck in his town? “I mean in our spare time between rebuilding the planet and restructuring civilization.”

“As usual, you are being…is ‘pissy’ the word here? I think so. At any rate, you’ll see that it all falls together. The overall project is composed of many small ones, some quite ordinary in their way. It’s not a wrecking ball sort of approach. More of an organic evolution.”

“Now that’s a word that’s starting to bother me,” Ben said between bites. Damn, this stuff was great. Just like Kairos to bitch about something as killer as these beans.

“Ah, yes. I thought we’d get to that.”

“Yeah, well, the wonderful school you hauled me up here for has ideas on that subject that are pretty much a total crock if I believe what you’re telling me.”

“I know exactly what you mean. But I doubt you’re particularly confused between what you observe and what they tell you.”

“There’s some areas I haven’t figured out yet,” Ben said. If those eggheads could give me something to slam you with, he thought. But they haven’t. “But there’s sort of an overall thing that’s got me doing a lot of thinking. It’s like ‘evolution’ is a religion. Like it’s the scientific alternative to God. Or maybe their rival God. Something like that. I mean, I’ve seen people with little Christian fish bumper stickers that say ‘Darwin’ on them.”

Kairos laughed as he adroitly speared a stray pomme du terre. “A religion of science. Yes, that’s what happened here. Most worlds that reach this point have evolved a balance between matter and energy, but here it’s a competition, no?”

“Yeah, but not really competitive around school. If you don’t think everything from day one to the opening of the first Walmart was a series of accidents you’re like a heretic hermit or something.”

“And they speak of their religious figures as a sort of accelerated evolutionary breeding, correct? Quick time creation.”

“Yeah. So anyway, I decided I should ask God about it.”

“Oh, I recommend it,” Kairos said, sampling a roll from the nice Provencal basket.

“And since evolution is unavailable for comment, and I didn’t have God’s cell phone number, I decided to ask somebody who thinks he’s God. Or plays him on television or whatever. So, what do you think?”

“That is so precious. Actually I would think the things I’ve told you, and not without evidence, would have settled a lot of that for you.”

“I guess what I’m wondering is…you guys didn’t build the universe, right? There was something here when you got here, too. Was everything just random chance before you showed up and started playing powerball?”

“Let me guess. They tell you it’s a game of chance. Random events that somehow stagger together to form a coherent, progressive thing called life, which organizes against the pull of entropy, even as it, itself, has risen against the thermodynamic tide?”

“Whoa.” Ben hadn’t been set for that riff, but sorted it out and nodded, reaching for more wine. “But yeah. That’s it. Random chance. Some big accident to start with, then everything goes according to chance, like a roulette ball.”

“Accidental combination over,” Kairos used four fingers to scrawl quotation marks in the air, a smirky gesture that poisoned anything he so framed. “…billions of years. Time becomes God, in a way. Organizing against chaos merely by providing all that opportunity.”

“Yeah. And personality develops the same way. Accidents in what happens when you do or think different things. The mind, the universe, the race, the world. They believe that with a really hard line of faith, like martyr zealots down in the pueblos.”

“An infinite number of monkeys would eventually type all the works of Shakespeare.” Kairos frowned, thought. “That’s this world, right?”

“Yeah. Infinite monkeys. Everybody believes it. I don’t, but I can’t prove it. Unless you can get hold of the monkeys and set them up somewhere.”

“Like most sophomore sophistry, it has an initial appeal. The very ‘wrongness’ of it lends it charm.” Kairos carefully wiped his plate with a roll, looking a bit downcast that there was no more to eat at the moment. He sighed happily, then looked back at Ben. “Do you also have trouble with the concept of an infinite number?. It’s sort of like dividing by zero.”

“I prefer the term ‘an endless shitload’.”

“Not surprisingly. So our infinite shitload of monkeys would eventually…does the word ‘eventually’ also bother you in this context?”

“Now that you mention it. If you’ve got infinite eventually, why not just use one monkey?”

“Good. And if they had pianos instead of typewriters…” Kairos shuddered. “Well, so far we’ve been spared that. The thing is, it’s important to realize that these smartassed ideas, even though they can’t be rigorously disproved, don’t hold water and aren’t useful. You instinctively feel the holes in them.”

“Exactly. I don’t believe they’ll type anything but an infinite amount of garbage.”

“Good instinct. And I’ll come back to the word you used…belief. But why would the monkey school not produce literature?”

“Well, that’s why I’m asking you about this. I can’t really put it into words. But it’s like…there has to be some system for the model to work.”

“Excellent. Ask your mathematics professors about this, by the way. But yes, Shakespeare was organized, the monkeys aren’t. You can’t win a chess game with random moves even if you play an infinite number of games. There is blind luck…and there are systems. The temple of that wisdom is a place in Nevada called Las Vegas. Where I am establishing my base of operations, by the way.”

Las Vegas? Ben shrugged that one off, this other thing had been on his mind and he didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Yeah. If an infinite number of monkeys played slot machines…”

“Actually I think that’s precisely the principle that has achieved such wealth with in that city. The chimps could play. They would hit jackpots. But would they win money?”

“No. They’d lose more than they won. You’re right, it’s almost like they have a laboratory to test it.”

“Well, they also have a system. And to get to back to your word…it’s a matter of belief. Quite apart from smartass tricks like infinity and zero and immovable forces. There is also what I’ve heard called ‘the seat of my pants’. I have no idea why?”

“Because when it comes down to it, that’s what you bet you ass on.”

“Ah, you’ve already learned it, then. And the more you know, the more intelligently you bet.”
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