Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

The remainder of the recording was just our conversation in the morning. I don’t know what I was expecting to discover, but I was relieved it was nothing. I still saved our two conversations on the voice recorder. It was rare to have both a personal dialogue and a business conversation with Mr. Schrub within a few hours, and I always want to remember them.

acclimate = adjust to

at your earliest convenience = polite way of requesting a response ASAP

birding = observing birds

borrow a person = have that person’s attention briefly

bowl a person over = significantly impress that person

call dibs = claim ownership

DUI = charge for Driving Under the Influence (of alcohol)

full clearance = 100 % permission

heliport = airport for helicopters

Johnny Bench = baseball player known for having large hands

made my bitch = defeated = conquered = subjugated = dominated = enslaved

no harm, no foul = no serious damage has been inflicted

notes = variations of flavor in wine

POV = point of view

retire = hit the hay = go to sleep

talons = a bird’s feet that are used for containing a smaller animal

we’re not in Kansas anymore = revised line from The Wizard of Oz that indicates being in a new environment that is different and frightening

I bought a quality card with plant and bird designs and thanked Mr. and Mrs. Schrub for their hospitality, and mailed it to their home address in New York. I didn’t receive a response, so on Thursday I emailed his secretary to thank him again, and added:

Please also pass on my wishes for a happy Thanksgiving next week for the Schrubs. It is a holiday I do not know well, but I know that Americans use it to give thanks for what they have, and I am thankful for the opportunity Mr. Schrub has provided me.

The office would be closed next Thursday, and although the stock market was open on Friday, Schrub was giving the day off to most employees, including me. Everyone else was stimulated about having four days off from work, but I was anxious. I didn’t have anything to do or anywhere to go. I hadn’t needed to do much work on Kapitoil lately, because it was mostly self-running, and for the first time my work was slightly boring to me. Even the Y2K project required more problem-solving skills. Mr. Ray had told me I could use the time to work on new programs, but ever since I started finessing Kapitoil I wasn’t having any original ideas that stimulated me. So I hoped Mr. Schrub would possibly invite me back to Connecticut for Thanksgiving.

I saw Rebecca in the coffee room and asked about her Thanksgiving plans.

“I’m not really doing Thanksgiving this year,” she said. “It’s hard to justify flying to my mother’s just for a few days.”

I asked, “Where does your father live?” and then I remembered I shouldn’t ask about him because she didn’t mention him previously.

“New Jersey.” She poured herself more coffee even though her cup was almost full, and we discussed the Y2K project briefly before we divided.

On Friday Mr. Ray visited me in my office. “Just wanted to let you know we’re still thrilled with Kapitoil’s results,” he said. “Are you working on anything new?”

“I am continuously updating the algorithms,” I said.

“I meant any new programs.”

I said, “No, I have not innovated anything.” I should have said, e.g., “I am batting around some ideas,” as I heard Jefferson say to a supervisor one time, which is strategic because it is undefined and the listener will probably not ask for more details. But I am unskilled at that class of speaking.

Mr. Ray said, “Ah. Well, let me know if you’re struck by lightning with anything.” At the door he added, “And Mr. Schrub mentioned something about a contract?”

I had been attempting to read it over the week, but I couldn’t decipher most of its contents, and I couldn’t ask Jefferson or Dan or even Rebecca for help. So I said, “I am still reviewing it.” He said that was fine and he would recheck with me later.

I went to a bookstore on Saturday and bought another novel by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men . I read it all in one day, and I liked it even more than The Grapes of Wrath , because it made a similar economic argument and had equal emotional power in a more efficient length. I emailed Zahira and recommended that she read it after her winter exams were over.

That night there was news of a small bombing in Pakistan on an oil refinery. Five people died as well. It would make the markets volatile and Kapitoil would profit on the vacillations. It was the class of event that happened infrequently, but when it did I tried to reroute my brain.

So I thought about Zahira some more, and wondered if she would pursue biology and possibly become a doctor, and if so if she would be a doctor who did clinical research to boot and attempted to cure diseases or simply a doctor who treated diseases. If I were a doctor I would prefer to do clinical work, as it’s more beneficial to prevent diseases before they develop than merely treat them after they have made an impact, and I would also be less valuable as a regular doctor because my interpersonal skills are weak.

Then I was struck by lightning.

What if I could apply the idea of using news reports, and an updated version of Kapitoil’s algorithm, to predict the spread of disease? The stock market functions like other systems of controlled chaos, such as viruses and epidemiology. Some diseases, e.g., cancer, are not possible to predict, because they occur independently of world events, but possibly I could anticipate how the flu virus or malaria spreads, or other diseases that relate to variables like poverty and sanitation and also political unrest that are discussed in the news.

But I will test out my hypothesis and create a prototype program to certify it has merit before I propose it to Mr. Ray or Mr. Schrub.

do a holiday = observe a holiday 100 % by spending it with family

struck by lightning = innovate a major idea

On Monday I received an email reply from Mr. Schrub’s secretary:

Mr. Schrub was pleased to have you as his guest, and he wishes you a happy Thanksgiving as well.

That was all. I was foolish to think he would invite me to Connecticut. He had his own family and other friends and business acquaintances. I was not an integral part of his life. “Pleased” was a word with such minimal weight. And possibly Mr. Ray told him I didn’t have any new ideas and therefore didn’t merit an invitation. I almost wrote to the secretary that I had a new idea about Kapitoil, but of course Kapitoil was still highly privileged information, and I had not even started testing out my new idea yet.

On Wednesday I went into my former pod and said good-bye to Rebecca. She was still working, and it was rare for me to exit work before she did. She had dark shadows under her eyes. I said, “Possibly you should not work so hard.”

Her mouth turned up slightly and she told me to have a good Thanksgiving. I asked if she was celebrating it with her roommate, but she said Jessica had gone home to California the previous day.

That night I watched television without truly selecting a program, which I don’t like doing. I considered finally calling one of the people in New York our family friends knew, the Bashar family. I opened my cellular and scrolled through the few numbers I had inputted so far, but stopped before I reached them.

“Hello?” Barron said.

“Hello, Mr. Wright. This is Karim Issar. I am the Schrub Equities employee you have previously driven from JFK Airport to my apartment, from the Schrub office to game four of the World Series between the Yankees and the Atlanta Braves, and from—”