“That’s very Buddhist,” said someone from the back.
From the front: “It is, he’s right–I took a survey class of world religions in college.”
“Or maybe,” continued Paul Sutherland, “the kindest and best thing you can do with your life is to decide to suffer yourself, so that some other version of you in some other universe doesn’t have to.”
“That’s very Christian!”
“It is, he’s absolutely right.”
“Please,” said Dr. Gibbs, “calm down, let us address these points rationally and one at a time, like scholars.”
“This is bunkum!” cried a new voice, to much agreement, and the crowd exploded into a cacophony of reproach.
“Hokum!”
“Bullshit!”
“You’re wasting our time!”
“Your first book was a fluke!”
“No, your first book was terrible!”
“You ruined your whole life over two patients. What about your other patients, the ones you stopped seeing? They needed your help too!”
“Did you ever even stop to think about your wife, and her feelings?”
“I’ll bet you never put her first in anything, did you?”
“Did you even turn the gas off on the stove like she asked you?”
As Dr. Gibbs pleaded with them, the voices blended and diminished, like a background track of disapproval that someone was turning down slowly.
“I know what this means to you, Russell,” said Clarissa-in-his-head, suddenly very quiet and very close, as if she had snuck up to the lectern and were speaking in his ear. “You think that if the Hsiao Experiment is real, you can explain Maxwell and Derek. But it’s a dead end. There are too many holes, and even if you plug them all, it doesn’t end up meaning anything. Wake up.”
As she finished speaking, the cries from the crowd swelled again. Rotten produce rained down on the stage. A swollen melon exploded against the lectern, stinking of sulfur.
“Wait,” Dr. Gibbs shouted over the voices, holding up his hands to protect himself from a cucumber, or as if appealing to a freight train, “just wait, let me respond from the beginning, let me think, please. Ah-ha, now I have it–now I have you!”
He came out from behind the lectern, weaving through the missiles, waving his arms, and stumbled down the aisle through the crowd, which quickly became dark and cavernous, searching for Clarissa.
“If the Copenhagen Interpretation is wrong, then there has to be one universe where the prisoner survives 100 pulls. But if the Copenhagen Interpretation is right, then it’s almost impossible that any prisoner would ever survive. So, if the prisoner did survive, it’s not a coin flip, because how can you not think it’s more likely that we’re in a parallel–wait–this has to be right …”
It was becoming quite dark, and his voice echoed around him.
* * *
“I appreciate the private room, Mr. Esposito,” said Derek.
“My friends call me Espo. I can lift the house limit, as well.”
“Thanks Espo, but I want to enjoy every minute of this.”
“Another Sazerac, then? Something to eat? Our VIP chef is world-renowned for his porterhouse and baked Alaska.”
“Maybe later. Right now I’d just like to get back to roulette.”
Espo’s cell phone rang from his breast pocket–the ring tone was the Imperial March from Star Wars.
“Pardon me a second,” he said. “Hello? Delores, I can’t talk now. No. I told you I would sign them, and I will. Soon. Soon means soon. I’m at work. Hold on–hold on–all right–just calm down, I’m going to call you right back, OK? Yes, right back. That means two minutes. Fine, two minutes tops. Bye.”
Derek could hear an agitated voice still talking on the line as Espo hung up.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Espo.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
“My soon-to-be-ex-wife–seems it can’t be soon enough for her tastes. Let me tell you something, Derek: I’m glad I didn’t know how bad divorce could be when I got married, because I’m not sure I would have gone through with it, and then I wouldn’t have Jenny–my daughter. That’s the great thing about kids–they put a cap on all your what-ifs and regrets, because you think ‘If I’d done the right thing back then, or if this tough chance I was so mad about at the time had broken my way, then Jenny wouldn’t exist today.’ And that’s just not on the table for me–I can’t imagine life without Jenny, and I don’t want to. Now her mother, that’s a different story. But I guess you win some, you lose some. Or actually I guess I do–you, on the other hand.”
The Imperial March started to play in his pocket again.
“I should probably go take this, or she’ll just keep calling.”
“You do what you have to do, Espo, and thanks again for everything. I’ll see you later?”
The croupier set the ball spinning and followed it closely, watching for any indication that its orbit had begun to decay.
“Actually,” said Espo, silencing his phone as the ball revolved, “do you mind if I stay and watch for a little while?”
“Knock yourself out,” said Derek.
“No more bets,” said the croupier.
* * *
In his dream Maxwell stood outside Demonologie, arms at his side, straight as a post around which a flood of naked women surged and swirled. There were women of every description and for every taste: tattooed biker chicks and scandalized debutantes covering themselves in the attitude of Botticelli’s Venus, librarians with their glasses on their heads shushing all who passed, madonnas weeping and rocking invisible babes at their breasts, blondes and brunettes and raven-hairs, every race and skin tone, fat and thin, girls from next door and across the tracks, flowing without impediment in and out of the club whose door Maxwell no longer manned.
Through the crowd he spotted something–or someone–a flash of red, familiar somehow. She entered the club and he followed, leaving his own clothes on the doorstep.
* * *
“It’s all spelled out in my second book,” shouted Dr. Gibbs into the dark, “in the case studies. Yes, yes, you aren’t so bold now, are you? Derek thinks he’s cursed because he wins every wager he makes, but it’s just parallel universes at work. A man flips a coin and the universe splits in two. He wins in one universe and loses in the other. The winner flips again, and the universe splits again. Flip, split. Flip, split. No matter how long he keeps flipping, no matter how improbable his hot streak, in one universe the man will think he has won every toss he ever made. That just happens to be Derek, our Derek. Someone has to be that Derek–someone has to win every toss, every bet. It’s inescapable.
“The same goes for Maxwell, but on an entirely different scale. He would scoff if I explained Derek to him, if I told him he had the same problem. ‘Look,’ he would say, ‘Derek has some form of unruly luck I don’t understand, whereas I have a physical condition. My problem is temperature, not luck.’ But Maxwell is easily the luckiest man in our universe, so lucky that it doesn’t even look like luck. Because temperature, considered correctly, is just a series of bets at a molecular level. He brings a hot cup of coffee into a cold room, and the odds are that the hot molecules of the coffee will transfer heat to the cold molecules of the room. The coffee will get colder and the room a little warmer. But there is some tiny, infinitesimal chance that the reverse will happen–that the room will transfer its scant energy into the coffee instead. The room will get colder and the coffee hotter. The odds against it are staggering, but they are just odds. It’s a bet, so it works the same as Derek’s so-called ‘Curse.’ Some version of Maxwell in some universe will win every one of these tiny bets of temperature.”
A chilly breeze started blowing into Dr. Gibbs’s eyes, as if a powerful air conditioning system had just flipped on.
“They both want me to cure them, but there’s nothing to cure. In countless other universes they’ve already been ‘cured.’ When I gave Derek that ‘u
nlucky coin’ and had him flip it, in this universe it came up heads, and he was dejected. But in some other universe it came up tails, and he kissed the coin and embraced me in tears.
“If I were to tell Maxwell ‘Hop on one foot until your condition goes away,’ in most universes it would clear up immediately, leaving him amazed at the simplicity of my prescription. Or at some moment his ‘condition’ might simply vanish of its own accord, and he will attribute it to whatever he happened to be doing right then. Washing his hands? Oh, miraculous water from the men’s room sink! Did he just sneeze? It must have all been a virus that he finally expelled the last traces of. But why are you wrinkling your noses? Why are you leaving?”
“Paul Sutherland, Yale University. Did you turn off the gas on the stove?”
“Yes, Paul, I … either did or I didn’t. It’s 50/50. Rather, I did and I didn’t. Maybe in this universe I did, not in another, or vice versa. It doesn’t matter. It all averages out. But you are all missing the point! This is good news, my friends and colleagues, the best and gladdest news! We are unbelievably lucky to be here, not just in this universe but afloat in all of them, because somewhere, in some universe, everything is as it should be. Our sorrows are relieved and we, all of us, are perfectly happy together. In that best of all possible universes, even the dire pronouncements of the cosmologists are wrong–the universe is not winding down to entropy, and will never wind down. The sun will never quite burn out.”
“But don’t you think you should be more worried about this universe,” asked Paul, “and whether or not you left the gas on here?” He sounded very far away.
“With all these other Copenhagens, it will happen eventually. It has to happen. You told me it had to happen, Clarissa. You had to leave. But another version of you … you turned around when I called to you. Another version of me. You came back. You stayed. Do you think if we die, Clarissa, in this universe, we really go …”
* * *
Derek wandered around the casino floor, unsure what to do with himself. He didn’t feel any different–did that mean anything? He kept running through details, considering potential loopholes. What about the clothes on his back, for example, did they count against him? What about the tip he had given the croupier when his bankroll fell below the minimum bet? What about his cell phone, which he had left in the glove compartment of his rental? What about Dr. Gibbs’s book, which he had left in the hotel room dresser instead of burning? Were these technicalities? Niggling points that would keep the Curse alive and well? He passed by the blackjack tables, sparsely populated but not empty even at this early hour, where he counted two 21s and four busts. Did that mean his aura was lucky or unlucky?
Eventually he found himself sitting by the slot machines. Their endless ringing and blinking lights soothed him, like the sound of a heavy rain on a cabin roof. They seemed to cancel out the precise frequency of his brain’s worrying. He sat down on one of the stools.
Next to him a retiree was working his way through a long and delicate negotiation with one of the one-armed bandits, pausing every few pulls to gulp some oxygen from his tank-on-wheels. Beneath the straps of his rainbow suspenders he wore an ancient t-shirt on which cracked, screen-printed letters read “Have you thanked a veteran today?”
Derek could not stop watching as the old man pulled and pulled. It seemed that the old man was not even watching the reels tumble and slow to their conclusion, instead staring into space above the machine, relying on sound alone to know when it was time to pull again, or when a short spray of quarters needed to be cleared from the tray below. It seemed that he pulled the arm not to win but to pull the arm, and while the reels spun it was all he could do to wait to pull again, pull again, pull again.
Derek was not aware of how intently he had been staring until the old man became aware of it himself. Derek saluted him casually, but it was too late: the object of his fascination had been spooked, and after another pull or two, and a few glances over his shoulder, he wheeled his oxygen away to find another machine.
“Mr. Field,” said Espo, having snuck up on Derek in the same fashion as at their first meeting, “you’re more than welcome to stick around–I’m happy to comp you a few nights, if you’d like–but like I told you last night, I can’t have you scaring off my guests.”
“You know what’s funny, Espo?” said Derek, not turning around. “He doesn’t even want to win. Sure, if he won a million he’d freak out and jump up and down and maybe choke to death–but when the machine paid out a few bucks, he wasn’t even happy. Like having to pick up the quarters was more of a nuisance than a victory.”
“You’re worried it didn’t work,” said Espo, walking around so they could speak face-to-face.
Derek didn’t answer.
“There’s only one way to find out. Here: allow me to stake you.”
Derek looked at the quarter Mr. Esposito offered. Had he ever really looked at a quarter before? There were more ridges on the side than he would have guessed from memory, letters and numbers in odd places, a coppery slab sandwiched between two slices of silver.
“There’s no point in putting it off,” said Espo. “Come on, your friend already worked this one for you.”
Derek stood and walked up to the machine the retiree had been playing. His mouth was dry and his hands trembling, but he dropped the quarter in the slot. The machine sprung to half-life, blinking and ringing quietly, waiting. He pulled.
“Don’t turn away!” said Espo. “Watch!”
The reels clicked and tumbled, the lights flashed, a manic cowbell kept tempo deep in the guts of the machine. One by one the colored blurs began to cool and freeze.
Seven …
Seven …
Derek closed his eyes.
* * *
Maxwell woke up before Shannon, opening his eyes to her broad neck and shoulders and the brief tumble of red hair across them. He tried to slip quietly out from under the blankets he had put on the bed for her sake, but as his toes touched the pine floor he nearly screamed–he would have, in fact, if he had not inhaled involuntarily at the same moment. By the time he finally regained the breath to scream, reason had caught up with experience, and he understood that what he had just felt was not pain.
The feeling was not confined to his foot, either, though it was most intense there. This novel sensation assaulted his face and his chest and his arms, causing hairs all over to stand up and urging him strongly to urinate. Gasping and puffing, occasionally biting his lip, he stepped gingerly across the floor and made his way to the kitchen. There was something he had to check.
He was still standing there, holding the door of the fridge open, when he heard Shannon begin to stir across the small apartment.
“Hey, I’m starving,” she shouted. “Who does a girl have to sleep with around here to get some breakfast?”
“With me,” he called back, closing the refrigerator. “But we’ll have to go out. I don’t trust these eggs.”
* * *
Derek had never seen a morning so beautiful. Even the puffy clouds of his breath seemed pure and redeeming. He felt as if he had been drinking champagne and dining on diamonds–or like a man who had just received a revised diagnosis. He felt free.
“Sorry that took so long,” said the valet as he hopped out of Derek’s rental, “Mr. Esposito asked me to fill it up for you.”
“Oh, thanks,” Derek said. “I hadn’t thought about gas money. Shit, I don’t have anything left for a tip either.”
“Already taken care of, Mr. Field.”
“Hey,” said Derek as he eased into the driver’s seat. “How many miles to New York City?”
“About 130 on a good day, sir.”
“130 it is then.”
For a moment Derek considered ducking back into the casino and asking Mr. Esposito to comp him a suit, so he could show up at his old boss’s door in style. But no, it was better this way: down to nothing, to the clothes on his back and a tank of gas in a rented car that he wo
uld have to return tomorrow, with only his talent to take on the world, to find out how good he really was.
As he pulled on to the highway, Derek put the radio on low and fished his cell phone out from the glove compartment. He had forgotten to switch it off, and the battery had been draining all night, but there was just enough charge left to chat for a few minutes. He dialed Dr. Gibbs, eager to tell him everything, now that it was too late for any concerns or objections. As the car heated up and the sun burst here and there over the bare tree line, Derek dialed again and again, hanging up and calling back each time the voice mail answered, just letting it ring and ring.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many friends who read and helped improve drafts of at least one of these stories: Eugene Barlow, Kevin Crowe, Drew Herbst, Ben Johnson, Meade Jorgensen, Dan Milstein, Matt Papi, and Owen Raccuglia. Thank you all.
Moira Racich designed the excellent cover.
Eric Yablonowitz read and commented helpfully on several drafts of several stories, even though he doesn’t like short stories, earning my gratitude.
Alison Plante read the entire book and made numerous invaluable suggestions, for which I am extremely grateful.
Thank you to Jessica Werner, Robin Jorgensen, and Brian Jorgensen, who all read many stories in many incarnations and helped make them better.
A special shout out to Jessica Werner for profreading, in her copious free time, every single page but this one, and to Brian Jorgensen for his help formatting the print edition.
Most of all, thank you to my wife Mónica, for too much to list here.
Books By Edmund Jorgensen
Speculation
Other Copenhagens (And Other Stories)
About the Author
Other Copenhagens Page 17
