Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“I’m sure it was very recently,” said Marcela.

“Not so fast. Think about it. You’ve been married nine years.”

“Seven.”

“Timmy’s four.”

“Five.”

“Buela and Buelo moved in six years ago.”

“Three years ago.”

“Exactly, see what I’m saying? Look at this table, it’s the four of us. We’re even sitting where we used to sit.”

“What’s your point?” I said.

“That don’t you feel the electricity of this moment? Here we are, it’s like a reunion. This used to be us. There was no one else. I would come home from school and head right to my room to sulk and paint and just try to feel interesting. Then one by one each of you would appear. Marcela would start dinner and ma would show up to finish. Then remember the rule? If you were going to eat it had to be at this table with the Fantastic Four. A good rule I think Ma. There are things the four of us have lived and shared that others could never understand and that will always be the case even though we’re so much different now and so little the same. And that thing, that feeling, is in this room right now and I like it. The four. Us four.”

“We were five.”

“Yeah we were, I know, but then we were four and we’ve been four almost as long as we were five and that’s fine because what are you going to do?”

…

“I’ve been thinking a lot about who the real me is. Who the real any of us is.”

“Goood,” said Marcela in a way that I was sure betrayed more of her enthusiasm than she intended.

“You see I know I act differently when I’m in this house. I feel like a kid again and so I find myself falling involuntarily into my old role. Basically I act different than I do when I’m with my Pratt pals for example and that got me thinking that maybe you guys don’t know the real me. Maybe you just know the way I act when I’m cast in my familial role. Don’t say you’ve seen me with my friends either because I’ll just respond that what you’re seeing then isn’t the real me either but just the person I am when I’m with friends but being watched by family. Then again maybe the opposite is true and everyone out there doesn’t know the real me, the one that only comes out when I’m in this foursome. The problem is that I now spend a great deal more time out there than I do in here. I’m happy right here right now, and maybe that’s because I don’t have to act as much or if I do the performance doesn’t have to be as good, as expertly mannered you know?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“The real problem is I’m greedy. I want complete, utter, unceasing bliss. But I don’t want to fall into it either. If happiness were money I wouldn’t want to win the lottery. I want to accomplish it, urn it as John Houseman would say. I want it to be an achievement because I want to be in control of my life. I don’t want things to happen to me, I want them to happen because of me. Power I want. I want to feel the way I do when I stretch a new canvas and I want to feel that way all the time. The blank canvas fills me with the power of imminent creation. I’m its god and it always bends to my will and when I’m done I know, inside, that it’s markedly better than what almost all of my similarly-engaged others can achieve. That’s happiness.”

“Good,” said Marcela again but this time sounding the perfect pitch.

“You know how I came to know all this? I’m currently undergoing self-psychoanalysis, which is all the rage. Actually, I invented it myself because I’m certainly not going to pay some idiot my hard-borrowed money to be my rented friend and tell me it’s not my fault. Anyway, the result of sitting on my couch and listening to my crap is this conclusion. To the extent that I have good qualities, they are the product of fortunate genetics and brilliant rearing, thank you cute Mom (responsorial smile). On the other hand, any undesirable qualities or circumstances that I face are solely the function of my own individual and self-generated neglect, sloth, insecurity, avarice, pettiness, selfishness, insincerity, jealousy and other embarrassing causes too numerous to mention. Isn’t that great? This realization is the key to my newfound happiness because of the amazing power it invests in me and remember that power is happiness. What’s misery on the other hand? Well, lack of freedom and its resulting absence of power.”

“Like in jail,” said Marcela. “Where Armando is right now.”

— Ay , don’t remine me. Casi if we have to pay bail, we can collect from everyone to get the money. Or if we have to pay un abogado .

“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary mom. Like I said, not a big deal.”

“Okay hijo . I juss hope they don’t take el hot dog car. He bought eh all the way from Texas.”

“Don’t worry they won’t.” I ate. “Texas? What do you mean Texas?

— Sí , Texas.

“When was he in Texas?”

— Thas where he came in.

“What are you talking about? He flew into LaGuardia, I picked him up myself.”

— He flew to LaGuardia from Texas.

“What the hell was he doing in Texas? Wait are you telling me he came in illegally?”

— Sí , he’s here illegally.

“I know that , but you’re saying he didn’t originally fly in on a tourist visa?”

— No, he came in through Mexico.

— ¿Entiendes bien lo que te estoy preguntando verdad?

— Sí, claro .

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

—¡ Casi por Dios !

“I have to go like right now.”

— Pero finish your food.

“Can’t, have to get to Armando right away.”

I got there just in time. Just in time to realize there was absolutely nothing I could do but watch. I watched as a court officer announced to the court that an INS detainer had been filed against my cousin Armando meaning he wouldn’t be going anywhere. He wouldn’t be drinking aguardiente that night as I had smugly predicted. The case itself wasn’t the problem anymore as it was dismissed in deference to Armando’s greater legal thicket. And it wasn’t until then, when the officer made his announcement and their prey, my cousin, was escorted into the back, that I realized how small Armando was. He turned and smiled at me just before disappearing into the doorway and he seemed to be shrinking by the second. By contrast everyone else in that room seemed large and still growing. Even the women were giant and their words came fully equipped with echo and resonance in that corny suburban excuse for a courtroom. It was an inside joke the whole thing and from my seat on the outside looking in I felt nothing but contempt for those hideous people who in reality were just doing their jobs and so had no real responsibility; and I hate people who just do their job when their job consists of trapping my cousin.

I sat there stunned for longer than made any sense. Then I spoke to the attorney who had handled the case. Amidst his constant defensive reminders that his involvement with the case was over because the criminal charges had been dropped, I gathered the pertinent information I would need then left.

I went to Armando’s apartment, which was not far from the courtroom. He had rented this basement apartment, the kind with black bars on the windows, from an apostrophe-shaped elderly woman with severely thinning hair that formed a faint blue aureole around her deeply-creased face. She remembered me from when I helped Armando find the place and she let me in but only after assuring me forcefully that she never used the key otherwise. Except for Television the place looked oddly unlived in. I turned it on and sat on the couch. The couch I sat in was essentially a giant bean bag. It enveloped me, sealing me tight to its bosom. It was going to take a Herculean effort to get out of there so what was the rush? I lay there and thought about what needed to be done. Something had drawn me to that place. I looked at everything but Television. From where I sat, you could see the entire place. I didn’t see any papers, the kind of things I would gather for him. Nothing seemed urgent in that apartment and I wanted urgency.