Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“So what do you propose? Until then this is still progress.”

“No, no no no no no and no. The first sign of progress will come when we give up.”

“Give up?”

“Exactly. Imagine yourself father to two boys. For years they trade punches in their common room while you try in vain to get them to get along. Finally one day you give up and just separate them, put them in different rooms. Problem solved, no more fighting. That’s where we are. So you say people are slaughtering each other unabated because they don’t like their opponent’s skin? Well I say stop trying to educate these lice and just make everyone’s skin the same. That’ll end the slaughter. Do you doubt it? Only when we give up in that manner will you start to see genuine progress.”

“Wait a minute,” said Toomberg but just then Conley was paged to reception and not often have I felt such relief. After he left Toom turned to me.

“By the way, there’s another reason I’ve been feeling so sanguine about humanity of late and that’s your brief.”

“Huh?”

“I just finished reading it and don’t really know what word to use to describe it.”

“The word finished I most covet.”

“Well I certainly don’t think it could be filed exactly as is.”

“No I told you, you’ll fix it.”

“It would almost certainly get you disbarred or something but it’s nonetheless an astonishing document and as such it filled me with optimism. That someone was capable of that. That someone wanted to do that, someone I know no less. It had qualities of art. In fact I discussed it extensively with my wife and even though we ultimately concluded it was not art we gave it more than passing consideration. I think what ultimately denied it that lofty status was the work’s selfish prescriptivism if that makes any sense, its innervating desire for a specific result. True art, by contrast, seems marked by a generous susceptibility to extrapolation. Your work, understandably, is not sufficiently oriented in that direction to constitute art and has more in common with something like advertising. Advertising of course, despite the activities it often subsumes, is not art and neither, regrettably, is your document.”

“I wasn’t aiming for art Toom.”

“Oh I know of course. I was just so shocked and affected by it that I felt I had to share that with you.”

“…”

“I’ll make the necessary edits and we’ll file it. Well I should say I doubt, based on today, that we will actually end up filing it. And all that work for nothing. I hate to say it but you may have poured your very soul, as you obviously did, into the creation of this work and it may never be read by anyone, it may never so much as influence a single person’s actions. I just came to that realization, how awful.”

“Wait a minute, maybe it is art.”

“Well that’s the only downside to today’s events I suppose. I’m still thrilled. Can I be the one to tell Jalen the good news, well to write him about it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Please, up until now you’ve basically had all the personal contact with him and I’m very grateful for that but I would love to do this. I think I could do it with appropriate concern for the fact that he and I do not have the relationship you have with him.”

“It’s not that, and I’m not doubting your reading of the situation, it’s just that… if you’re wrong.”

“I see, I’ll couch it appropriately don’t worry. It’s not just that it would give me pleasure to write the letter either. I also believe that writing a letter like that with potential good news fulfills an important obligation of ours.”

“There’s nothing really that must be disclosed.”

“Not that kind of obligation. I’m talking about an obligation I think we have to not only seek legal success but also to provide our client with the occasional ray of light and hope so to speak. Especially now that he’s in that outrageous enforced isolation. In a manner of speaking, we’re his only friends.”

“All right but don’t go overboard.”

“I won’t,” he said getting up to leave. “And don’t worry I’ll be sure to give you a copy of the letter for the file, ha ha!”

I laughed too but not then, later, when I saw Ralph and the way he was dressed.

“What’s the meaning of this Ralphie boy,” I said when I could. Like an overstuffed sausage, Ralph was encased in a tight crewneck sweater. Atop his head sat a beret-type lid and his similarly tight white pants ended a good six inches above his ankles. In his hands was a titanium Big Bertha golf club that he swung slightly between his parted legs in the hallway outside his door.

“Hey pal,” he said. “Whattya say we try and get nine in before supper.”

I laughed again.

“So? Whattya say pal?”

“Oh you were serious? What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? What am I talking about? Golf! Nine holes. Let’s go pal.”

“It’s like ten degrees out.”

“I don’t care what degrees out it is. Somehow Mr. Monahan got the impression I’m this great golfer and now we’re playing on Sunday. You have any idea what this could mean to my future? I got two days to learn how to play golf. Surely you’re going to help me pal.”

“How did Monahan get that idea?”

“Uh humana, well never mind that! You gunna help me out or not?”

“First of all, I’ve never played golf in my life. So there’s that. Second of all, even if I was an avid golfer, the current temperature is I think seven degrees. Seven.”

“It’s just as well. I can’t learn to play golf in two days. It would take at least a week. Me and my biiig mouth!”

“Guess you’re just going to have to tell the truth.”

“The truth? Have you gone cuckoo? I’m serious, I’m calling Bellevue cuz you’re nuts!”

“What then?”

“Simple, I’ll just have to feign some sort of injury. Do you have any of those fake plaster casts around?”

“No but good luck, let me know how it works out.” As I reached the top of the stairs to my apartment Ralph called out to me but so lowly that I debated whether to pretend deafness. When instead I answered he said someone had been there looking for me. My insides tightened and I sat on the top stair.

“He didn’t give his name or anything but he seemed really interested in finding you that’s for sure.”

“What did he look like?”

“Hard to say.”

“It was that detective who once before talked to you about looking for me right?”

“Oh no it soytainly wasn’t him.”

“I’m pretty sure it probably was.”

“Oh no it definitely wasn’t him.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Oh I’m sure pal,” he said. “Wait here.” He went inside then came back out with a newspaper, The Post. I came down and took it from his hand. “See?” he said. “It wasn’t him.”

On the front page of the paper was a picture of Assado’s head. I don’t mean to say that the photographer only captured Assado’s head within the frame of the picture. I mean that Assado’s head was now its own separate entity. I turned quickly to page three. It said what I already knew, that the head and its nearby body belonged to Homicide Detective Mondongo Qualtagh Assado and that it had been found, along with another decapitatee , at an uptown apartment known to function as a drug stash house. It said the other head belonged to known minor drug kingpin Juan Escalera and that the preliminary available evidence pointed to a dispute over drug money and that Assado was a dirty cop . And someone from the medical examiner’s office said there were no signs of serration meaning most likely that the excisions were achieved solely through extreme pull combined with torque or as another put it them heads was simply ripped off which led the police to conclude that either a machine of some sort or a great many individuals were involved as no single human could generate that kind of force . I put down the paper and dropped my wet face into my hands.