Numbers Don't Lie

by Terry Bisson

  “You can see out of a TV?” I asked, amazed.

  “Only a little,” Wu said. “Pixel inversion piggybacked on the remote locational electron smear. It’s like a reverse mortgage. Feeds on the electronic equity, so to speak, so we have to get on with it. Hand me the gun, Studs. The Glock nine.”

  Studs was immobile, torn between conflicting loyalties. “How can I hand a gun to a guy on TV?” he whined.

  “You could set it on top of the cabinet,” I suggested.

  “Don’t do it, Arthur!” Dr. Dgjerm broke in. “Give the gun to me. Now!”

  Studs was saved. The doctor had given him an order he could obey. He tossed the Glock nine across the tree house. It got smaller and smaller and went slower and slower, until, to my surprise, Dr. Dgjerm caught it. He checked the clip and laid the gun across his tiny, or distant, or both, lap.

  “We can settle this without gunplay,” said Wu.

  “Wilson Wu,” said Dr. Dgjerm. “So we meet again!”

  “Again?” I whispered, surprised. I shouldn’t have been.

  “I was Dr. Dgjerm’s graduate assistant at Bay Ridge Realty College in the late seventies,” explained Wu. “Right before he won the Nobel Prize for Real Estate.”

  “Which was then stolen from me!” said Dr. Dgjerm.

  “The prize was later revoked by the King of Sweden,” explained Wu, “when Dr. Dgjerm was indicted for trying to create an illegal universe out of unused vacation time. Unfairly, I thought, even though technically the Time did belong to the companies.”

  “The charges were dropped,” said Dgjerm. “But try telling that to the King of Sweden.”

  Studs fingered the Nobel Prize medallion. “It’s not real?”

  “Of course it’s real!” said Dgjerm. “When you clink it, it clinks. It has mass. That’s why I refused to give it back.”

  “Your scheme would never have worked, anyway, Dr. Dgjerm,” said Wu. “I did the numbers. There’s not enough unused vacation time to inflate a universe; not anymore.”

  “You always were my best student, Wu,” said Dgjerm. “You are right, as usual. But as you can see, I came up with a better source of Time than puny pilfered corporate vacation days.” He waved his hand around at the sofa, the potted palm. “Connective Time! There’s more than enough to go around. All I needed was a way to make a hole in the fabric of space-time big enough to slip it through. And I found it!”

  “The D6,” said Wu.

  “Exactly. I had heard of the legendary Lost D6, of course, but I thought it was a myth. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found it in my own back yard, so to speak! With Arthur’s help, it was a simple bandwidth problem, sluicing the Connective Time by phone from LaGuardia, where it would never be missed, through the D6’s gauge boson rectifier twist, and into—my own Universe!”

  “But it’s just a sofa and a plant,” I said. “Why do you want to live there?”

  “Does the word ‘immortality’ mean anything to you?” Dgjerm asked scornfully. “It’s true that my Leisure Universe is small. That’s okay; the world is not yet ready for vacationing in another universe, anyway. But real estate is nothing if not a waiting game. It will get bigger. And while I am waiting, I age at a very slow rate. Life in a universe made entirely of Connective Time is as close to immortality as we mortals can come.”

  “Brilliant,” said Wu. “If you would only use your genius for science instead of gain, you could win another Nobel Prize.”

  “Fuck Science!” said Dgjerm, his tiny (or distant, or both) mouth twisted into a smirk as his giant voice boomed through the tree house. “I want my own universe, and I already got a Nobel Prize, so don’t anybody reach for that plug. Sorry if I’ve thrown off your butterfly figures, Wilson, but your Universe won’t miss a few more milli-minutes of Connective Time. I will disconnect mine when it is big enough to survive and grow on its own. Not before.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” said Wu. “The more universes, the better, as far as I’m concerned. Look here . . .”

  Wu’s face on the TV screen stared straight ahead, as a stream of equations flowed down over it:

  “Impossible!” said Dgjerm.

  “Numbers don’t lie,” said Wu. “Your figures were off, professor. You reached critical mass 19.564 minutes ago, our time. Your Leisure Universe is ready to cut loose and be born. All Irv has to do is—”

  “Unplug the TV?” I asked. I reached for the plug and a shot rang out.

  BRANNNGGG!

  It was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

  CRAASH!

  “You killed him!” shouted Studs.

  At first I thought he mean me, but my head felt OK, and my hands were OK, one on each side of the still-connected plug. Then I saw the thick broken glass on the floor, and I knew what had happened. You know how sometimes when you fire a warning shot indoors, you hit an appliance? Well, that’s what Dr. Dgjerm had done. He had meant to warn me away from the plug, and hit the television. The D6 was no more. The screen was shattered and Wu was gone.

  I looked across the tree house for the sofa, the potted palm, the little man. They were flickering a little, but still there.

  “You killed him!” Studs said again.

  “It was an accident,” said Dgjerm. “It was meant to be a warning shot.”

  “It was only a video conferencing image,” I said. “I’m sure Wu is fine. Besides, he was right!”

  “Right?” they both asked at once.

  I pointed at Dr. Dgjerm. “The TV is off, and your Leisure Universe is still there.”

  “For now,” said Dgjerm. “But the timeline is still open, and the Connective Time is siphoning back into your Universe.” As he spoke, he was getting either smaller or farther away, or both. His voice was sounding hollower and hollower.

  “What should we do?” Studs asked frantically. “Hang up the phone?”

  I was way ahead of him; I had already untaped the phone and was looking for the OFF button. As soon as I pushed it, the phone rang.

  It was, of course, Wu. “Everything all right?” he asked. “I lost my connection.”

  I told him what had happened. Meanwhile, Dr. Dgjerm was getting smaller and smaller every second. Or farther and farther away. Or both.

  “You have to act fast!” Wu said. “A universe is like a balloon. You have to tie it off, or it’ll shrink into nothing.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why I hung up the phone.”

  “Wrong timeline. The phone connects the baggage carousel to the D6. There must be another connection from the D6 to Dr. Dgjerm’s Leisure Universe. That’s the one that’s still open. Look for analog, narrow bandwidth, probably green.”

  Dr. Dgjerm was standing on the tiny sofa, pointing frantically toward the front of the TV.

  “Like a garden hose?” I asked.

  “Could be,” said Wu. “If so, kinking it won’t help. Time isn’t like water; it’s infinitely compressible. You’ll have to disconnect it.”

  The hose was attached to a peculiar brass fitting on the front of the set, between the channel selector and the volume control. I tried unscrewing it. I turned it to the left, but nothing happened. I turned it to the right, but nothing happened. I pushed. I pulled.

  Nothing happened

  “It’s a special fitting!” said Dgjerm. “Special order from Chrono Supply!” I could barely hear him. He was definitely getting smaller, or farther away, or both.

  “Let me try it!” said Studs, his panic showing his genuine affection for the swiftly disappearing old man. He turned the fitting to the left; he turned it to the right. He pushed, he pulled; he tugged, he twisted.

  Nothing happened.

  “Can I try?” asked a familiar voice.

  “She can’t come in here!” shouted Studs.

  It was Candy, and Studs was right: NO GIRLS ALLOWED was our other by-law. It was the bedrock of our policy. Neverthless, ignoring his protests, I helped her off the ladder and through the door. Studs and I bot
h gasped as she stood up, brushing off her knees. I had seen Candy out of uniform, but this was different. Very different.

  She was wearing her special Honeymoon lingerie from Sweet Nothings.

  Nevertheless, she was all business. “It’s like a child-proof cap,” she said. She bent down (beautifully!), and with one quick mysterious wrist-motion, disconnected the hose from the fitting. It began to flop like a snake and boom like thunder, and Candy screamed and dropped it. Meanwhile, Dr. Dgjerm was hauling the hose in and coiling it on the sofa, which was beginning to spin, slowly at first, then more and more slowly.

  I heard more booming, and felt a tremendous wind sweep through the tree house.

  I heard the sound of magazine pages fluttering and wood splintering.

  I felt the floor tilt and I reached out for Candy as Studs yelled, “I told you so! I told you so!”

  * * *

  The next thing I knew, I was lying on a pile of boards under the maple tree, with Candy in my arms. Her Sweet Nothings Honeymoon lingerie was short on elbow and knee protection, and she was skinned in several places. I wrapped her in my mother’s old rag rug, and together we helped Studs to his feet.

  “I told you so,” he said.

  “Told who what?”

  Instead of answering, he swung at me. Luckily, he missed. Studs has never been much of a fighter. “The by-laws. NO GIRLS ALLOWED. Now look!” Studs kicked the magazines scattered around under the tree.

  “It wasn’t Candy!” I said. “It was your precious professor and his Leisure Universe!”

  Studs swung at me again. It was easy enough to duck. A few lights had come on in the neighboring houses, but they were already going off again. The back yard was littered with boards and magazines, ball gloves, pinups, water guns, and pocketknives. It was like the debris of childhood—it was the debris of childhood—all collected in one sad pile.

  Studs was crying, blubbering, really, as he picked through the debris, looking (I suspected) for a little sofa, a miniature potted palm, or perhaps a tiny man knocked unconscious by a fall from a collapsing universe.

  Candy and I watched for a while, then decided to help. There was no sign of Dr. Radio Dgjerm. We couldn’t even find the hose. “That’s a good sign,” I pointed out. “The last thing I saw, he was coiling it up on the sofa.”

  “So?” Studs took another swing at me, and Candy and I decided it was time to leave. We were ducking down to squeeze through the loose plank in the Patellis’ fence, when I heard the phone ringing behind me. It was muffled under the boards and plywood. I was about to turn back and answer it, but Candy caught my arm—and my eye.

  It was still our Honeymoon, after all, even though I had a headache from the fall. So, I found out later, did Candy.

  * * *

  I thought that was the end of the Ditmas Playboys, but the next day at LaGuardia, Studs was waiting for us at the top of the escalator to Gates 1–17. He had either cleaned or changed his uniform since the disaster of the night before, and his medals gleamed, though I noticed he had taken off the Nobel Prize.

  At first I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but instead he took my hand.

  “Your friend Wu called last night,” he said. “Right after you and what’s-her-name left.”

  “Candy.” I said. “My fiancée.” She and Aunt Minnie were standing right beside me, but Studs wouldn’t look at them. Studs had always had a hard time with girls and grown-ups—which is why I was surprised that he had become so attached to Dr. Dgjerm. Perhaps it was because the brilliant but erratic Lifthatvanian realtor was, or seemed, so small, or far away, or both.

  “Whatever,” said Studs. “Anyway, your friend told me that, as far as he could tell, the Leisure Universe was cast loose and set off safely. That Dr. Dgjerm survived.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we have a plane to catch.”

  “What a nice boy that Arthur is,” said Aunt Minnie, as we boarded the plane. I felt no need to respond, since she was talking to Uncle Mort and not to me. “And you should see all those medals.”

  The departure was late. I found that oddly reassuring. Candy sat in the middle, her eyes tightly closed, and I let Aunt Minnie have the window seat. It was her first flight. She pressed the urn with Uncle Mort’s ashes to the window for the takeoff.

  “It’s his first flight,” she said. “I read in Reader’s Digest that you’re less nervous when you can see what’s going on.”

  “I don’t believe it,” muttered Candy, her eyes closed tightly. “And how can ashes be nervous, anyway?”

  The planes may be old on PreOwned Air, but the interiors have been re-refurbished several times. They even have the little credit card phones on the backs of the seats. There was nobody I wanted to talk to for fifteen dollars a minute, but I wasn’t surprised when my phone rang.

  “It’s me. Did the plane leave late?”

  “Eighteen minutes,” I said, checking my notes.

  “Numbers don’t lie!” said Wu. “Things are back to normal. I already knew it, in fact, because my calculations came out perfect this morning. I released the first moth in the rain forest at 9:14 A.M., Eastern Standard Time.”

  I heard a roar behind him, which I assumed was rain.

  “Congratulations,” I said. “What about Dr. Dgjerm and his Leisure Universe?”

  “It looks like the old man made it okay,” said Wu. “If his Universe had crashed, my figures wouldn’t have come out so good. Of course, we will never know for sure. Now that our Universe and his are separated, there can be no exchange of information between them. Not even light.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a good bet for a resort,” I said.

  “Dgjerm didn’t think it all the way through,” said Wu. “This was always his weakness as a realtor. However, he will live forever, or almost forever, and that was important to him also. Your friend Studs cried with relief, or sadness, or both when I told him last night. He seems very attached to the old man.”

  “He’s not exactly a friend,” I said. “More like a childhood acquaintance.”

  “Whatever,” said Wu. “How was your Honeymoon?”

  I told him about the headache(s). Wu and I have no secrets. I had to whisper, since I didn’t want to upset Candy. She might have been asleep, but there was no way to tell; her eyes had been closed since we had started down the runway.

  “Well, you can always try again after the ceremony,” Wu commiserated.

  “I intend to,” I said. “Just make sure you get to Huntsville on time with the ring!”

  “It’ll be tight, Irv. I’m calling from a trimotor just leaving Quetzalcan City.”

  “An L1011? A DC-10?” The roar sounded louder than ever.

  “A Ford Trimotor,” Wu said. “I missed the nonstop, and it’s a charter, the only thing I could get. It’ll be tight. We can only make 105 mph.”

  “They stopped making Ford Trimotors in 1929. How can they have cell phones?”

  “I’m in the cockpit, on the radio. The pilot, Huan Juan, and I went to Flight School together in Mukden.”

  Why was I not surprised? I leaned over to look out the window, and saw the familiar runways of Squirrel Ridge, the airport, far below.

  “We’re getting ready to land,” I said. “I’ll see you at the wedding!”

  I hung up the phone. Aunt Minnie held the urn up to the window. Candy shut her eyes even tighter.

  * * *

  Divorces are all alike, according to Dostoyevsky, or some Russian, but marriages are each unique, or different, or something. Our wedding was no exception.

  It started off great. There’s nothing like a morning ceremony. My only regret was that Candy couldn’t get the whole day off.

  The weather was perfect. The sun shone down from a cloudless sky on the long, level lawn of the Squirrel Ridge Holiness Church. Cindy’s catering van arrived at ten, and she and the two kids, Ess and Em, started unloading folding tables and paper plates, plastic toothpicks and cut flowers,
and coolers filled with crab cakes and ham biscuits for the open-air lunchtime reception.

  All Candy’s friends from the Huntsville Parks Department were there, plus the friends we had in common, like Bonnie from the Bonny Baguette (who brought her little blackboard; it was like her brain) and Buzzer from Squirrel Ridge, the Nursing Home, complete with diamond stud nose ring. My friend Hoppy from the Hoppy’s Good Gulf, who happened to be a Holiness preacher, was officiating. (“ ’Course I’ll marry Whipper Will’s young-un to Whipper Will’s Yank. ’Nuff said.”)

  Aunt Minnie looked lovely in her colorful Lifthatvanian peasant costume (red and blue, with pink lace around the sleeves) smelling faintly of mothballs. Even Uncle Mort sported a gay ribbon ’round his urn.

  It was all perfect, except—where was Wu?

  “He’ll be here,” said Cindy as she unpacked the ice sculpture of Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler (the only thing the local ice sculptor knew how to do), and sent Ess and Em to arrange the flowers near the altar.

  “He’s on a very slow plane,” I said.

  Finally, we felt like we had to get started, best man or no. It was 11:55 and the guests were beginning to wilt. I gave a reluctant nod and the twin fiddles struck up “The Wedding March”—

  And here came the bride. I hadn’t seen Candy since the night before. She looked resplendent in her dress-white uniform, complete with veil, her medals gleaming in the sun. Her bridesmaids all wore khaki and pink.

  Since I was short a ring, Hoppy slipped me the rubber O-ring from the front pump of a Ford C-6 transmission. “Use this, Yank,” he whispered. “You can replace it with the real one later.”

  “Brethren and sistren and such, we are gathered here today . . .” Hoppy began. Then he stopped, and cocked his head toward a distant buzzing sound. “Is that a Ford?”

  It was indeed. There is nothing that stops a wedding like a “Tin Goose” setting down on a church lawn. Those fat-winged little airliners can land almost anywhere.

  This one taxied up between the ham biscuit and punch tables, and shut down all three engines with a couple of backfires and a loud cough-cough. The silence was deafening.