Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

She makes jokes that amuse only us, e.g., when I tell her how efficient the subways are and she says, “I would like to see Aunt Maysaa on the subway. She would complain even if it transported her from one station to another instantly.”

I say, “And if it paid her money as well.”

She adds, “And if the conductor told her she was the most important passenger.”

We find similar concepts humorous, although she produces jokes at a greater and more successful rate. Business manuals explain how valuable it is to have a sense of humor, so I am studying how others produce jokes, such as making a statement that is clearly the reverse of what you truly mean and using a tone of voice that indicates the reversal. But it is not a natural response for me, minus sometimes with Zahira, and I am unskilled at intentionally adjusting my voice.

“I am working on a prototype of a program for the stock market that I will soon present to a superior at Schrub,” I say.

I explain the concept, and how it employs complex algorithms, which are parallel to instructions or a recipe. Although she does not have my math or finance skills, she is intelligent enough to decipher the main idea.

“I am certain it will be successful,” she says.

“Why?” I ask. “I have not completed the program yet.”

Then she says what I always said to her when she was in school and was having difficulty with an assignment: “Because you are very smart and you labor very hard, and if it is possible to achieve, then you are the person to achieve it.”

“Where did you learn that idea?” I ask.

“From a stupid person I know.”

It is the class of joke she produces rapidly which takes me longer to think of, if I even do think of it.

She asks if I want to speak to our father. I pause, then tell her to transfer the telephone. Zahira yells for my father. In a minute he greets me.

“You have been away a week without any calls,” he says.

Without attempting, I convert to the voice people use when speaking to an automated telephone menu. “As I told Zahira, I emailed immediately to inform you I arrived safely, and the time difference makes it difficult to call during the weekdays.”

“Your sister was worried,” he says.

The windows in my apartment have a partial overview of Times Square. At the top of the chief building is a neon-green Schrub logo of the hawk transporting the S and E in its two feet, with a thin horizontal monitor like an electronic ticker tape that displays a scrolling font of news, e.g., METS TAKE 2–1 DIVISION SERIES LEAD…YANKS LOOK TO SWEEP RANGERS…The monitor travels around all four sides of the building so that it is visible from every direction. It is enjoyable to watch the words angle around the corners.

“I will contact her more, but she is also very busy with her schoolwork,” I say.

“Her work is not so important that she cannot take a few minutes off.”

My hand tightens on the cellular and I walk in a rectangle around the white carpet. “I would not know about regular university courses. I know only about the nighttime courses I paid for myself.”

He is mute for several seconds, then he says, “I have to leave for the mosque. I hope you have not been too busy so far with work to find one near you.”

I tell him I have been to one already, and we disconnect. I spend the rest of the weekend working on my program and thinking about what Zahira said. If it can be achieved, then I have faith that I possess the skills to do it.

book it = make a transaction official

genuflect = angle the knees into a position for prayer

kudos = praise

minor league = inferior level of play in baseball; also applicable to other skill sets

piggyback = add on to previous work

pod(mate) = workstation (workstation coworkers)

privy to = have access to

scintillating = stimulating

vassal = inferior worker in the feudal system

you was robbed = usage of incorrect second person to indicate an unsound transaction

I stay up late Monday and Tuesday nights programming and email Zahira a longer description of my program. It is difficult to translate into words what is a very rigorous mathematical process, but it is still like scanning a Pollock painting. There are so many layers and colors and patterns of paint that it is impossible for an art critic to analyze all of them, just as there are so many data in and surrounding the stock market even for a computer program to evaluate, and in fact it does not help the program to evaluate all the data, because then it does not know which layers, colors, and patterns of data are truly important. So other programs typically weight the obvious variables more, but because they are all using them, they produce similar results.

My program magnifies variables that I believe other programs are underutilizing and creates links between these and other variables that do not seem to relate. It is like scanning one minimal corner of a Pollock painting and studying only that corner carefully, and then scanning another partition of the painting somewhere, or even another painting, or data from Pollock’s life, and discovering how the different partitions of data are equal or different. Then the program repeats this comparison with more partitions and more paintings, which computers are of course more efficient at than humans are.

While I labor on the project, I power on the television in the background. I watch financial shows whenever possible, but I also watch the baseball games. I am not very interested in the game itself, but the analysts converse nonstop, so it is beneficial for my English. Each night at midnight I see a long advertisement for a machine called Steve Winslow’s Juicinator that produces juice out of vegetables and fruits. By the third night I can remember and predict what Steve Winslow will say, such as: (1)“This juice has powerful, all-natural antioxidants” (2)“It’s made with high-quality, durable plastic that will outlast you” (3)“It’s not a blender; it’s not a juicer; it’s a Juicinator” and (4)“If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t put my name on it.” On Wednesday night I buy the juicer, as I do not eat enough fruits and vegetables here, and because it is durable it will survive for many years and retain its value.

Late on Tuesday night my program reaches an average of +2.0 percentage points above market returns in tests, which means it is a positive investment risk. I stay up until Wednesday morning writing a short report on my program and explaining its benefits. It is challenging to write something in English that a native speaker will read, but most of it is mathematical and financial jargon terms, which I am more comfortable with, such as:

The model can be interpreted probabilistically, so it can derive error bounds on estimates. Then it runs secondary simulations, with different possible values. Then it creates agents that model activities of major players in the market…

I notice I use many words that the baseball analysts frequently say, e.g., in this section: “error,” “runs,” “agents,” and “players,” which is logical, since baseball is partially what helped me conceive this idea and is also a system of independent players and actions and laws that people like Dan attempt to predict.

On Wednesday I wait until Jefferson is alone in the office kitchen and tell him about my program and show him my report and ask which superior I can give it to. He scans the pages for a few minutes.

“You’ve coded it pretty good, but it’s a little Karim-esque,” Jefferson says, “in that it’s littered with grammatical errors.” I want to tell him that I rarely make grammatical errors and that I merely have problems with idioms, and that his last sentence in fact contained a critical grammatical error, but he is helping me, so I nod. “If you like, I can clean up the writing for you and submit it to a higher-up I know in quants.” I thank him and ask him to keep these data private.