Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

Jessica left at night, but Rebecca and I watched the movie Platoon on television. When it was over, I said it was interesting to observe the deviations from Three Kings in that they were about the U.S.’s two most recent wars, and of course the Gulf War movie was more optimistic, but they shared some parallels, especially in the way the male characters related to each other.

“Yeah,” she said. “Though they threw in a female in Three Kings and the Other is depicted in a much more generous light — concessions to PC tastes and Hollywood sensibility. Yet they both affirm the dominance of patriarchy and masculine excess transferred from father to son in warfare.”

After I asked her to define several of the words she used and to clarify her idea, I said it was very intelligent, and she said, “Good film critics borrow; great film critics steal.” I asked her to reclarify, and she said, “I lifted it from an essay I read in college. I’ll show you.”

She took me into her room and retrieved a book of essays on movies from a large bookshelf that incorporated, in decreasing quantity, books on history and culture, novels, computer science, finance, and poetry.

I tried reading the beginning of the essay, but it contained many larger words I didn’t know. Then Rebecca said, “It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it myself. Want to read it together?”

We sat on her bed and Rebecca read the first paragraph. Then she defined each larger word and explained the argument, and asked what I thought about it. We did this for each paragraph. The essay was 20 pages long, and it took us almost two hours. However, by the end I understood the idea very well and had gained some new vocabulary from it and the dictionary in the rear, e.g., “mise-en-scène” and “phallologocentric,” although I’m uncertain how valuable some of the words will be to know.

When we finished I said, “Rebecca, you will be a good teacher someday.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, then said “Thanks.” Similar to me, Rebecca doesn’t like to look boastful when she has performed well at something she truly is invested in, but I believe she was proud.

I also think she enjoyed that night’s activities more, because my skills were enhancing and I wasn’t as nervous about making an error.

The next morning it stopped snowing, but there were over eight inches on the ground. We read the Sunday New York Times , which was the solitary time the whole weekend I thought of Kapitoil, until Jessica suggested we go to Prospect Park.

The park was like a lake with thick white waves that were static. Many children rode sleds down a hill and built statues with the snow and some threw snow at each other, which caused at least two children to cry. Jessica worked as a waitress and had taken an orange tray from her restaurant, and we used it on the hill. It was one of the more stimulating exercises of my life, much more than racquetball, and Rebecca also said she missed doing winter activities in Wisconsin.

Jessica had to leave early to meet someone, but Rebecca and I stayed longer. We sat under a tree on a rock and cleared the snow off it and watched the sun set until just a few children remained. I wasn’t wearing my watch, and the only way to estimate the time was from the sun, and I wished we could spend several more days like this. It was as if time didn’t truly exist outside of us, which reversed how I always felt at work, when the world moves forward with or without you and you have to maintain progress with it.

The sun made the field of white look pink like the clouds at sunset, and the sylvan trees without branches were like the hands of elderly people. I told Rebecca it would be nice to take a picture.

“I don’t own a camera,” she said. “I don’t really think visually.”

So I looked around at everything and at Rebecca and removed my left glove and put my hand inside her glove next to hers and inhaled the air and listened to the sounds of the children, and closed my eyes and saved all the different sensations to my nonvisual memory.

But then I wanted to save the emotions I was feeling, and it was more difficult to classify and categorize them, so I concentrated exclusively on the feeling I received from the cold air that removed all odor except for a minimal amount of Rebecca’s watermelon shampoo, and it was still complex to classify it, but I tried anyway.

When I opened my eyes, the sun was almost 100 % down and it was time for the Salatu-l-Maghrib prayer. Rebecca asked if she could watch. I consented, and afterward I taught her about the different prayer positions and the translations of what I was saying. Then, because she seemed interested, I discussed a few other subjects, e.g., the Five Pillars. “I’m pretty ignorant about this stuff,” she said.

“As a parallel, I now see I did not truly know much about the U.S. before I came here,” I said. “And I am ignorant about movies and music and books.”

We were quiet for a few minutes until she received a telephone call from her brother. She gave him advice on where to search for an airplane ticket and how much to spend. When she disconnected, I asked if he was visiting her.

She shook her head and picked up some snow and compressed it with both hands. “He always flies the day after Christmas to see our father.”

“I did not realize he still spoke with him,” I said.

“They have a little more in common than I do. Though not much. But David tries, and when my father isn’t caught up with his family, he deigns to let him visit a couple times a year,” she said. “He’s got a lot of lingering anger at our father. I mean, I do, too, but I’m aware of it, thanks to several hundred hours of therapy. I’m not sure he’s really conscious of how upset he is.”

She continued compressing the snow into a sphere. “I think I understand what you mean,” I said.

Her body vibrated from the wind, and she said it was getting late and that we should return. She was about to throw the sphere, but contained it in her glove, and it remained there as we walked home in silence until she dropped it outside her apartment where it blended with all the other snow.

decent = possessing positive values

deign = lower yourself to do something

ditch an event = do not attend an event

mise-en-scène = visual arrangement within a movie

Other = term for people who are not the majority

patriarchy = a society controlled by men, or a family controlled by the father

PC = Politically Correct; fearful of offending the Other

phallologocentric = I still do not understand what this means

After burning the midnight oil for several days, I completed a draft of the epidemiology paper at the office on Wednesday. The writing was Karim-esque, but it stated the central ideas clearly and the math and programming examples were elegant. It could be a strong launch pad from which connoisseurs in the field might refine Kapitoil.

That night, as I put on the rented tuxedo Mrs. Schrub had delivered to me at my apartment, I debated ditching the party. I was not 100 % certain that Mr. Schrub was being dishonest with me, and I was also not 100 % certain my epidemiology idea would function. At significant crisis moments some people feel confident about themselves and some people lack confidence, and although I ultimately trust my skills, I do not think I will ever be the class of person who is infinitely certain of himself.

The fund-raising event was at a hotel near the Schrubs’ apartment. It was in the ballroom, and when the young female guard asked for my name, I identified myself, and she said, “Issar…I don’t see you here.” I became nervous and I spelled my name in case she didn’t see it. Then she said, “My mistake — you’re on the special guest list of Helena Schrub. Go on in, sir.” The people behind me on line paid more attention to me as she allowed me to enter.