The Theory of Games (10 page)

“The law is an ass,” a tiny smile seemed to play about the corners of the Authoritarian Man’s mouth.

Why, Jim, you surprise me! Quoting Dickens! Look, there is what I call a chasm between academia and ‘real world’ computing. In academia you write what are called ‘toy programs’. These are little programs that illustrate one particular algorithm. In the real world we write what are called ‘non-trivial’ programs. These are big programs that do big things. How many programmers did Stanhope have?

“I can’t tell you that,” the Authoritarian Man replied.

“Okay, but he probably had plenty of coders and some of them probably had advanced degrees, right?” The Authoritarian Man gave half a nod. “And Stanhope still had to bring me and my kids in to finish the job.”

The job. Finish the job. The unwritten law of the freelance coder: take the money, finish the job and try not to get screwed on the backend.

The Authoritarian Man seemed sincerely interested in what I was saying but this wasn’t one of my introductory programming classes and there wasn’t a test on Friday. “Hey, how ’bout a cup of coffee? I could really use one.” I changed the subject.

“Okay,” the Authoritarian Man agreed.

“And Bill,” I continued (no sale unless you ask), “I haven’t seen him yet today.”

“I guess that would be okay, too” the Authoritarian Man agreed.

Sale!

CHAPTER 3.2

The same damn handler brought Bill in on the same fucking choke collar. Bill’s eyes were clear and bright; his tail was upright and he was focused. Except for the collar he looked like he had been treated properly and was getting his meds and was being kept out of the rain.

“Jim,” I began, “you know Bill can’t be on a choke collar. I’m cooperating. Can’t you,
please
, put him back in his harness? We’re not going to do anything.”
Yeah, right!
“I’m just worried that one false misstep and - you know - the leads to his pacemaker will get severed. Please, Jim.”

The Authoritarian Man looked at Bill and then looked even closer at me. He nodded at the handler. “Okay, from here on out, you can put the dog back in his harness.” The handler began to protest but the Authoritarian Man silenced him with a look that embodied all of his seniority and all of the handler’s duty to follow orders.

Bill pulled to get up close to me and those damn choke collar prongs began to cut deep furrows into his flesh. A look of cold fear crossed my face and the handler must have noticed because he let up a bit on Bill’s lead. Bill pressed on oblivious – but he wasn’t oblivious, he knew what he was doing - until I could just reach his left ear and Bill could lick my arm.

“Get his harness!” the Authoritarian Man growled at the handler.

Bill winked at me and wagged his tail. He understood that we had just won.

The handler returned with Bill’s red
tres gros
size rig; the same one he was wearing the day that this nightmare had started. The handler struggled to put Bill in the harness; I could tell Bill was messing with him on purpose. Bill shot me another look –
see how I’m messing with him?
Bill stepped out between the lengths of webbing that were supposed to go around his legs; he chomped on the strap that went around his neck.

“Okay, Bill, behave,” I told him. He gave me one last long look and then settled down. “See you tomorrow, Bill,” I said. Bill wagged his tail again and the handler led him out of the room.

A junior Authoritarian Man brought in tray with a plastic carafe of coffee and two mugs. The Authoritarian Man poured a cup for me and – I wasn’t prepared for this – undid the restraints on my right arm and handed me the cup.

The coffee tasted great, but it was this little act of freedom, being able to just hold a cup of coffee, that raised my spirits.

The Authoritarian Man pulled a chair up to my bedside. He seemed to stumble around for awhile in his brain looking for a gentle way to say something that was going to cause me more pain. Finally, he just asked the question, “Did Nick’s death put a stop to the development of the Stanhope simulation?”

I let out a little involuntary laugh. “No, Nick efficient to the end had finished his work and put it on the server before he died,” I answered.

“So you saw him in your house, then, after your meeting on the levee but before he died?”

No, I hadn’t. The last I time saw Nick was when he and Katelynn drove away in her Volkswagen. Nick was waving like a fool out the passenger side window and Bill was woofing goodbye.

“So, how did Nick give you the computer files he was working on? He must have stopped by your house. Maybe when you were out?” the Authoritarian Man was baffled.

Nick used our WiFi network. Remember, I told you about WARdriving and everything before? Nick had login permissions to my network. But it’s not like we got much work done the next day. We – Katelynn, the students, me - all of us, we were like zombies. People would try to work on the project, hoping that doing
something
would help, saying stupid things like, “it would be what Nick wanted.” We would look at the code and then look away and then be overcome with grief again.

Katelynn and I just tried to comfort the students, each other, Bill, ourselves. None of it made any sense. Nobody believed that Nick would kill himself. Nobody.

Grief comes in waves and there is a little respite in the troughs between the peaks, but then the next wave hits and you curse God all over again. That afternoon the little yellow house had been swamped in grief just as if the Mississippi had burst the levee.

And then the phone rang.

CHAPTER 3.4

Katelynn put the phone down and her face, which had been pale with grief, was now flushed with rage. “They won’t bury Nick,” she said.

I have never been good in a crisis and I will never be good in a crisis. I need some time, a cup of coffee and a cigarette; just a moment so I can collect my thoughts. “What do you mean they won’t bury Nick?” I could not comprehend the words that had come from Kate’s mouth.

“The Catholic Church won’t bury Nick,” Kate answered, “They’re saying Nick was… They’re saying he committed suicide. The sonofabitch priest said, “The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, ‘Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is not ours to dispose of.’ It’s their catechism. They won’t bury Nick,” Katelynn said.

Those fucks won’t bury Nick? I never gave a rat’s ass about religion. I never understood Nick’s religion. I never accepted Nick’s religion. But I accepted that Nick accepted Nick’s religion.

Nick was a devout Catholic. Nick never missed a Sunday mass; he could have been up all night working, writing code, but bleary-eyed and sober, he would drag his ass down to the ostentatious gothic cathedral on Spring Street. Ten-percent of every dollar that he ever received went to that fucking church. And now, and now? And now those fucks wouldn’t even bury him in his church? I was more than furious. Furious was distant smoke on the horizon.

Give me the phone
, I told Kate and she meekly handed me the phone.

I punched in John the Howler’s number.

John, it’s Jake. We have to bury my student, Nick. Do you remember him?
John remembered him
. I need you to… I need… we need your church. They won’t bury him in a Catholic church. They think he killed himself. He didn’t. But we need your church.

Only I knew that hung-over or whatever
or wherever the night found him
, John the Howler made it to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church down on Twelfth Street every Sunday morning – bright as a pin in a crisp pressed suit - by ten A.M. and then he led the choir.

John the Howler said, “No problem. Don’t worry. I understand. I’ll have the whole band there. Don’t you worry we’ll give him a proper burial, Jake.”

I said, “Thank you, John” and handed the phone back to Kate.

“The services will be at the AME church on Twelfth Street,” I said, “Please tell his family and his friends.”

Kate had started to say, “Jake there’s something I wanted to talk to you about Nick’s files.” But I cut her off, “It can wait, go tell the group.”

And then – I hadn’t even cleared my brain from the
fucking fury that still swirled around it
- the phone rang, again. Kate answered and handed it to me. It was Bishop Miller.

I knew Bishop Miller and Bishop Miller knew me because I had often played at his AME church down on Twelfth Street. It was just John the Howler’s and Bishop Miller’s and my little secret (and any member of the congregation that was so color blind that they didn’t see that there was a white boy who surreptitiously slipped in and out and played the piano behind the choir – transported – his white boy’s eyes rolling up in his head, sober, because now he was sucking straight from the fountain from which blues and rock and roll flowed and playing all those Gospel passing chords (D/F#, B/D#) and then mysteriously disappeared before the potluck afterwards.

I liked to play Gospel. I loved to play Gospel. I needed to play Gospel. Gospel was the root of the Blues which was the root of Rock and Roll. But it was our little secret. So I played, in Bishop Miller’s church down on Twelfth; and now I needed a favor.

Bishop Miller was a very large Black man; and the voice that came through the phone line was that of an extraordinarily large Black Man. “John Styles,” – all these years I never knew John the Howler’s last name – “just called and asked me to arrange a funereal service for a beloved.”

Yes, a beloved.

Yes, I need to bury a friend.

“John said that he would provide the music for the service. Are there any other arrangements?” Bishop Miller asked.

How do you tell an AME Bishop that Bill needs to be there?

Yes, Bishop Miller, I answered, the beloved, one of the departed’s best friends was… was a… was a dog.

“I understand,” said Bishop Miller, ”You know there was a time when we African Americans were thought of as less than human; less than one of God’s Creatures. As long as I am Bishop of a Church there will always be a place for all of God’s Creatures.”

Thank you. Thank you, Bishop Miller I said.

“Ten-thirty on Saturday,” said Bishop Miller, “and the departed’s best friend will be welcome.”

CHAPTER 3.5

I was behind an ancient Lowry grand piano – age-stained ivory keys yellow – at ten-thirty the next Saturday.

I looked up into the choir loft and there my eyes met John Styles’ and he just nodded. This piano looked as if it had not been tuned since before I was born but I put my hands on the keys and I pressed down and I heard the most glorious D chord that I had ever heard.

D, D7th, G, G7th… I was numb but the hands just played.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me.”

Did you know that John Newton, the author of
Amazing Grace
was a slave captain?

“No, no, I didn’t,” said the Authoritarian Man, “seriously?”

“Yeah, fucking seriously,” I answered, “his ship foundered in a storm, he prayed to God – the cargo in his hold were slaves packed like anchovies in saltwater – and
they were all saved
. So, John Newton wrote
Amazing Grace
– didn’t stop him from running slaves from Africa to the Carolinas for the next ten years. And eventually John Newton became a Methodist preacher. Go figure.

“Go figure.”

I played the gospel (i.e.
Black
Gospel) turn: B minor 7th, A7th, D7th and the chords, flew sweet and clear from the ancient brass harp of the instrument.

This was an old – beaten to death piano – and
it sang
.

I made it through the intro and then John the Howler, up in the choir loft, picked up the fine thread of the song, “Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me….” and then when we turned the corner into the chorus, Clyde the Foot came in and I looked up from the keys – which were clear and pure and not out of tune – and Clyde hit the kick twice –
whomp, whomp
– and then the bass just glided into the A7th and then John and the choir picked it up, “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” And then six big Black men brought in Nick’s casket from the back of the church.

Bill and Katelynn were down in the front pew and Bill lay back on his haunches and
howled
. And the big Black men wheeled Nick’s casket down the aisle to just before the altar.

I could not cry anymore.

All the tears that I had left in this body I poured out into this old piano.

All my life I have tried to hold back the Angel of Death.

And now everything was for nothing.

Bill howled.

John the Howler wept.

Clyde the Foot wept.

But nothing stopped the six big Black men that brought Nick’s casket down before the altar. Nothing can turn back the Angel of Death when He has already collected.

Bishop Miller came out from the wings. He held a Bible so worn that it was
fluid
in his hands. The six Black men left Nick’s casket before the altar and then took their seats in the second row.

“We are here to bury Nick Constantine; a good man,” Bishop Miller began. “A good man; wronged in life; wronged in
death
,” Bishop Miller looked up from the pulpit and fixed his gaze upon every single person in the church. And then he repeated it again, “A good man.”

“We have
all
been wronged,” Bishop Miller continued. A gigantic woman who was sitting in the pew behind Bill and Kate answered, “We have
all
been wronged, Bishop Miller!” And then the entire congregation said, “Amen!”

Bishop Miller sucked in his lower lip. “Yes, yes, it is true. We have
all
been wronged. We have
all
been maligned. We have
all
been slandered.”

“I want to tell you, people,” Bishop Miller continued, “we are burying a
white man
here today. A white man! Forsaken by his own people!”