Dark Matter(3)

“What are the chances of you settling down in the near future?”

“Slim. The single life, and its considerable perks, appears to suit me. You’re still at Lakemont College?”

“Yeah.”

“Decent school. Undergrad physics, right?”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re teaching…”

“Quantum mechanics. Intro stuff mainly. Nothing too terribly sexy.”

Matt returns with our drinks, and Ryan takes them out of his hands and sets mine before me.

“So this celebration…,” I say.

“Just an impromptu thing a few of my postgrads threw together. They love nothing more than to get me drunk and holding court.”

“Big year for you, Ryan. I still remember you almost flunking differential equations.”

“And you saved my ass. More than once.”

For a second, behind the confidence and the polish, I glimpse the goofy, fun-loving grad student with whom I shared a disgusting apartment for a year and a half.

I ask, “Was the Pavia Prize for your work in—”

“Identifying the prefrontal cortex as a consciousness generator.”

“Right. Of course. I read your paper on it.”

“What’d you think?”

“Dazzling.”

He looks genuinely pleased at the compliment.

“If I’m honest, Jason, and there’s no false modesty here, I always thought it would be you publishing the seminal papers.”

“Really?”

He studies me over the top of his black plastic glass frames.

“Of course. You’re smarter than I am. Everyone knew it.”

I drink my whisky. I try not to acknowledge how delicious it is.

He says, “Just a question, but do you see yourself more as a research scientist or a teacher these days?”

“I—”

“Because I see myself, first and foremost, as a man pursuing answers to fundamental questions. Now, if the people around me”—he gestures at his students who have begun to crowd in—“are sharp enough to absorb knowledge by sheer proximity to me…great. But the passing on of knowledge, as it were, doesn’t interest me. All that matters is the science. The research.”

I note a flicker of annoyance, or anger, in his voice, and it’s building, like he’s getting himself worked up toward something.

I try to laugh it off. “Are you upset with me, Ryan? It almost sounds like you think I let you down.”

“Look, I’ve taught at MIT, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the best schools on the planet. I’ve met the smartest motherf*ckers in the room, and Jason, you would’ve changed the world if you’d decided to go that path. If you’d stuck with it. Instead, you’re teaching undergrad physics to future doctors and patent lawyers.”

“We can’t all be superstars like you, Ryan.”

“Not if you give up.”

I finish my whisky.

“Well, I’m so glad I popped in for this.” I step down off the barstool.

“Don’t be that way, Jason. I was paying you a compliment.”

“I’m proud of you, man. I mean that.”

“Jason.”

“Thanks for the drink.”

Back outside, I stalk down the sidewalk. The more distance I put between myself and Ryan, the angrier I become.

And I’m not even sure at whom.

My face is hot.

Lines of sweat trail down my sides.

Without thinking, I step into the street against a crosswalk signal and instantly register the sound of tires locking up, of rubber squealing across pavement.

I turn and stare in disbelief as a yellow cab barrels toward me.

Through the approaching windshield, I see the cabbie so clearly—a mustached man, wide-eyed with naked panic, bracing for impact.

And then my hands are flat against the warm, yellow metal of the hood and the cabbie is leaning out his window, screaming at me, “You dipshit, you almost died! Pull your head out of your ass!”

Horns begin to blare behind the cab.

I retreat to the sidewalk and watch the flow of traffic resume.

The occupants of three separate cars are kind enough to slow down so they can flip me off.

—

Whole Foods smells like the hippie I dated before Daniela—a tincture of fresh produce, ground coffee, and essential oils.

The scare with the cab has flattened my buzz, and I browse the freezer cases in something of a fog, lethargic and sleepy.

It feels colder when I’m back outside, a brisk wind blowing in off the lake, portending the shitty winter that looms right around the corner.

With my canvas bag filled with ice cream, I take a different route toward home. It adds six blocks, but what I lose in brevity, I gain in solitude, and between the cab and Ryan, I need some extra time to reset.

I pass a construction site, abandoned for the night, and a few blocks later, the playground of the elementary school my son attended, the metal sliding board gleaming under a streetlamp and the swings stirring in the breeze.

There’s an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling red in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead of me.