The Heart of Henry Quantum (20 page)

Henry's face came up to greet her in the steam rising from the teacup and in the bloom of those errant roses and in her own reflection in the glass of her kitchen window. And everything suddenly seemed rather beautiful to her.

Her garden was beautiful, the grass pushing up between the faded brick path, the dark earth holding fast the bulbs that slept within, the fat blue jay fluttering merrily in the waxen lemon tree—so lovely! And the photograph of herself with her two children taken on Mount Tam near the cataracts, the silver rush of waters cascading behind them, that, too, was beautiful; and the copper pots hanging from hooks in her kitchen, these also were beautiful. And so was the scent Jorge left behind, and the faint aroma of fir drifting in from the living room, and the way the maple shivered in the wind that had suddenly come up from the sea, and—

“Oh!” she cried. “It's raining!”

The rain on the window and the tears in her eyes turned everything into a kaleidoscope of colors shrouded in a forest of mist. The clock struck four thirty. She rummaged through the hall closet for her raincoat, found the umbrella, and went out to the car to pick up her daughter at dance class.

December 23rd, 4:17–5:49 p.m.

He'd been sitting in Union Square still thinking about whether there was actual space between atoms or if distance was an illusion and we were all holograms projected from the edge of some black hole of a universe, when the downpour came—hard and cold and sudden and without warning. Right before he'd left, Santa had asked him what he wanted for Christmas and for some reason Henry blurted out “Rain!” And Santa said, “Well, you've been a good boy this year, so, okay.” And fifteen minutes later—
po
w
! Henry had to laugh out loud. He raised his arms wide and opened his mouth as far as it would go so he might feel and drink every drop of that glorious rain as it fell on his face and hands.

That lasted a good five seconds.

He ran to find shelter at Emporio Rulli, but the tiny café was overflowing with tourists who were also trying to stay dry. There was a great deal of pushing and shoving, in fact, and the panicked faces of the waiters reminded Henry of movies he'd seen about prison riots—so he gave up on Emporio Rulli (and their wonderful Italian pastries, which he'd been thinking about for the last half hour at least) and decided he had no choice but to get seriously wet. Thus he made his way out of the square and over to the St. Francis hotel, where he thought he might at least be able to catch a cab back to the office—but of course it was a madhouse there as well. As if they'd never seen rain before. And this made him wonder, as he squeezed himself through the throng under the wrought-iron awning of the hotel entrance, if rainwater gets into our brains and washes away all knowledge of past storms. What, after all, would be so horrible if we got a little wet? What are we so afraid of? Well, of course, we're all afraid of something, and maybe when it rains those fears are somehow activated. Because in wetness there are no boundaries—by which he meant, water had no outline, not unless you captured it in a bottle, and so when it rained and the bottle of heaven broke, or, at best, leaked, everyone was reminded that their bodies are bottles, too: just paper-thin membranes of skin holding in all that liquid, and if
we
began leaking, why, we'd bleed to death. Rain is just another way of saying your life is hanging by a thread.

But we need this rain, he thought. It's a blessing! Thank God, thank God, for this rain! Unless of course you're on vacation. Then it sucks.

The doorman's whistle brought Henry out of his reverie long enough for him to shout over the general mayhem, “I'd be happy to share a cab with anyone! I'm just going to Jackson Square.” But none of the tourists knew where Jackson Square was and certainly had no desire to go there, and even when Henry reached into his wallet and waved some largish bills about, the doorman ignored him. Fate, Henry understood, was knocking. And his fate was not to score a cab. Henry steeled his heart, assured himself that rain was not really a symbol of chaos, muttered in a cool, low voice, “How much wetter can I get than I already am?” and leapt out into the blustering wild that was the corner of Post and Powell. Thus, ignoring the crowds surging along with their shopping bags over their heads, not to mention the cars splattering mud on all who came too close to the curb, and disregarding the stinging nettle of rain that slapped his cheeks and pricked his eyes, he commenced his trek back to Bigalow, Green, Anderson and Silverman.

But he was wrong. He could indeed get wetter. In fact, there seemed to be no end to how wet he could get. It wasn't the end of the world, though, because having entirely forgotten why he had gone downtown in the first place, he now saw himself as a lone pioneer crossing some unmapped, windswept plain, an explorer braving the torrential white waters of the San Francisco Amazon, a mountaineer ascending the Chinatown Annapurna without so much as a down parka or a pair of mittens, a ragged, bone-thin
zek
escaping the Union Square gulag with only a Muni Metro pass as his guide! No, Henry Quantum was not one to be afraid of a little rain. And something else happened, too. He noticed how the tourists and shoppers had disappeared, as if evaporated into the clouds, and he was finally alone, face-to-face with his great city. He had always loved San Francisco, loved it in his bones. But now, slopping through puddles and slipping here and there on a manhole or a sewer grate, he saw his town with new eyes.

He had more or less retraced his steps through Chinatown, first along Grant Avenue and then up Pacific, emerging at the five corners where Pacific meets Columbus and Kearny. To his right he spotted the black and white sign of Bask, the tapas place, and to his left the wan neon lights of Tosca Cafe, where once he had seen Baryshnikov holding forth with friends over spiked cappuccinos, and up on Kearny, though he couldn't yet glimpse it, he knew Tommaso's was waiting, much loved for its calzone even though the place had been there forever, and across from that would be the Lusty Lady with the nipples that lit up at night—though it might have closed—so maybe he was thinking of the Hustler Club or the Hungry I or the Garden of Eden—it really didn't matter. They were all equally and unrepentantly and gloriously seedy.

And right around the corner from where he stood, the rain still cascading off his head, his socks being so wet that little puddles were forming under his toes, and his scarf a soggy rag around his chin, was the original Brandy Ho's Hunan, which, by the way, was still great, and, down on Columbus where Zim's used to be was the Cafe Zoetrope, which Francis Ford Coppola owned. It was situated in the Flatiron Building, which Coppola also owned but used to be owned by the Kingston Trio and in which one of Henry's art director friends once had an office—a guy who did the best storyboards he ever saw, but then he died in a skiing accident and everyone forgot all about him.

He sighed for his lost friend, and when he did, water poured into his mouth and he almost choked. He didn't care—it was just so sad. Everyone forgot him! In fact, he himself couldn't bring the guy's name to mind at the moment, though he knew it would come to him probably at four in the morning when it no longer mattered. His poor, dead friend would never again taste the onion cakes at the House of Nanking, which was also right around the corner, and it had been his favorite place. He stifled another sigh so as not to get another mouthful of water—but this sigh was for himself, because he knew that someday his presence would also be obliterated and the city—his city—would go on without him, too. House of Nanking will go on, Tommaso's will go on, but Henry Quantum will not.

Oh, he was filled with grief! Filled with the San Francisco he would no longer inhabit! Just down the block was the Comstock Saloon, which used to be something else, but he still liked the beer there. And Mr. Bing's, which in all his years he never entered because he assumed only Chinese gangsters were supposed to go there, but jeez, that bar must have been around since the fifties at least, and “Bing's” doesn't even sound Chinese, so he decided then and there that this was his year to get a drink at Mr. Bing's!

Yes, he was filled to the brim with San Francisco, with its eternal beauty and bounty—a city without boundaries, a beacon to all who did not fear the rain—and he was happy now that it would go on without him.

When he finally arrived at the office, Gladys was putting on her coat and fishing an old umbrella out of the closet.

“Bones! Where the hell have you been? Everyone was looking for you.”

“I guess I was buying perfume,” he said.

“I tried to reach you on your cell. Honestly!”

“Sorry,” he said.

“So where's the perfume?” She gestured at his empty hands.

“Oh,” he shrugged, “I guess I forgot.”

“Forgot?”

“Something came up.”

“It always does. But I have to tell you, Mr. Bigalow was concerned.”

“Why?”

“You missed a planning meeting.”

“I did?”

“Year-end wrap-up. It was in your calendar.”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Bones, everyone's calendar is automatically updated.”

“Okay, I'll talk to him.”

“Too late. He's gone home. And look at you. You're sopping wet!”

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess I am.”

“I don't know why you even own a cell phone,” she said.

“You sound like my wife.”

“Maybe she has a point,” Gladys replied.

He looked at her now, really for the first time—the bouncy ponytail, the toned athletic body in the tailored skirt and pink cashmere V-neck, the smooth bronze skin, the arms napped in auburn down, and saw that, in spite of her cool, aristocratic air, she was the most ordinary creature on earth.

“It's only rain,” he said.

“Right. That's why we have umbrellas.”

She slipped out of her heels and tied on a pair of running shoes.

“Don't forget to lock the door behind you,” she said. “You're the last.” Then she smiled politely, as always, and disappeared down the stairs.

Henry waited until he heard the outer door close and only then strolled down the hall to his digs. It was as good to be alone in the office as it was to be a trailblazer on the stormy streets. He'd spent so much time in this place, but when had he ever been alone? Slowly he made his way past the empty desks and silent file cabinets, the copy machine that for once sat sleeping, the art directors' tools that had found their way back into their compartments, the computers that had retreated into their own mysterious cyberspace, the conference rooms filled only with empty chairs: they all seemed quite content to be without their human masters. To tell the truth, he told himself, we all could just as easily work at home, couldn't we? Connect by Skype or whatever. But somehow no. People have to congregate. Like colonies of yeast coagulating on the side of a test tube. What, though, he wondered, is the reason for all this propinquity?

And then it came to him.
Gluons!

He had read about gluons. It was another quantum problem, maybe the very essence of the quantum problem. To understand a gluon (he explained to his imaginary and rapt class of physics-impaired copywriters), you first have to understand protons and quarks: a proton, which contains a good deal of the mass of an atom (neutrons supply most of the rest), is made up of three quarks. But quarks have almost no mass at all, even though they make up most of the proton. So where does the mass come from? It's supposed to be supplied by something called a gluon. But guess what? The gluons have no mass of their own, either! They pop in and out of existence in far less than a blink of an eye, and although they seem to take up space, they don't! This (dear amazed and totally mesmerized students) is the crazy universe we live in! But gluons
do
have a purpose even if they're not really there. And that is: to glue the whole proton together—i.e.,
glu-
on. Not with glue, he chuckled to his wide-eyed audience, but with a remarkable and, I would posit,
satanic
force. For here is the disturbing part: even though the impulse of a quark is to move away from other quarks—to get out of that damned proton as fast as it can—the gluon won't let it. In fact, the farther one quark drifts from another, the stronger the force between them, just the opposite of gravity. Which means the poor little quark can't flee. No matter how hard it tries, no matter how much it wants its freedom, it will
never
get away from the other quarks. That is a fundamental law of quantum physics. A quark is stuck to its partners no matter what it wants for itself.

“Stuck,” he said, only half realizing that he was moaning at the same time. “Totally, completely, one hundred percent stuck!”

He considered the empty conference room. Tomorrow it would be filled with staff anxiously awaiting their Christmas bonuses before heading off to the party at MoMo's. He would be one of them. He would open his envelope and feel justly rewarded for selling products no one wanted or needed; rewarded and also emasculated. That envelope was the gluon. And none of us would ever escape, because the harder we tried, the farther we fled, the more strength it had to pull us back. And not just the money. But the whole thing. The whole need to congregate. To be part of something. To have a place in this world. To succeed no matter what.