Lights up.
DR. GUZMAN and THEO enter. THEO carries an unopened umbrella.
They converge at the whiteboard. It shows a mess of diagrams, numbers, and words.
DR. GUZMAN turns to face the board. She finds an eraser, wipes the board clean.
THEO turns to face the audience. With mock trepidation, he pops open the umbrella.
Playfully, he peers out from under it, looks upward. He closes the umbrella.
THEO moves to the ladder. He circles it. Mysteriously. Mischievously.
DR. GUZMAN takes a moment to find a marker. She accidentally drops it, picks it up again.
Abruptly, THEO ducks under the ladder. He emerges, welcomes the applause.
Chest pain! Is he having a heart attack? No, he’s just joking around.
DR. GUZMAN writes on the board with her left hand: WHICH CAME FIRST?
THEO strides to a wall mirror. He stumbles, almost trips on the way.
DR. GUZMAN addresses the audience.
THEO fixes his hair in the mirror.
DR. GUZMAN
The question is, which came first?
THEO suddenly takes a big swing with his umbrella handle, smashing the mirror.
The chicken or the egg?
THEO
Macbeth!
THEO looks up to the heavens, opens his arms, waits for the lightning bolt that never comes.
DR. GUZMAN
I submit to you, despite popular misconception, that the question is not rhetorical.
THEO addresses the audience.
THEO
Luck is like irony. Not everybody who thinks they got it, got it.
DR. GUZMAN
One had to come first. Wouldn’t you agree? Unless you postulate simultaneous creation. That is, unless you postulate God.
DR. GUZMAN writes on the board: GOD.
THEO
Luck is like breasts. It’s relative. If everybody had big breasts, we’d just call them breasts. And we wouldn’t stare. As much.
He picks up a marker. He writes on the board: lLUCK.
DR. GUZMAN
But we’re scientists, are we not? At least until your final exam results are posted. And we know Borel’s Law states if the odds of an event are less than one in ten to the fiftieth, that event will never happen in the entire time and space of our known universe.
THEO
You are not all lucky; I’m sorry to have to break it to you. In fact, I suspect the truly lucky ones are those whose wives did not drag them to a book reading three hours before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday.
DR. GUZMAN
So the chances of the chicken and the egg evolving simultaneously are perilously close to zero. Ergo, it must have been sequential.
THEO
Take a guy in a wheelchair, who can’t even take a crap by himself. Ask him if he considers himself lucky. Trust me. He’ll say yes. Every time. He has persuaded himself he’s the luckiest guy in the world. But he’s not. You know why?
Pause.
Because I am.
DR. GUZMAN
Everything happens sequentially. Music. DNA. Every story ever told. There is an order to the universe. If chicken, then egg. Or if egg, then chicken. And, even more importantly, the order implies causality. Egg creates chicken. Or chicken spawns egg.
THEO
What determines success? Does a Nobel Prize recipient stand up and say, “I’m an average schmuck who just got lucky”? No, they won’t tell you that. But I will. Because in many ways I’m just like you. I put on my pants one leg at a time—always the right one first, as someone once pointed out to me.
DR. GUZMAN
But whatever you do, do not tell me it doesn’t matter. That’s a cheat. The only thing I detest more than cheating is laziness, and chaos is lazy. Entropy is lazy. God is lazy.
DR. GUZMAN circles the word GOD.
THEO
Except, on the luck scale, I am off the charts. If you look at the odds I’ve fortuitously overcome… I’m told I’m a one in a billion. That’s with a B!
DR. GUZMAN
Order is sweat. Order is who you are and why you’re here today. In this classroom. On this planet. Wasting oxygen.
THEO holds up a book.
THEO
My book is called Change Your Luck. And that is the reason you’re here today.
DR. GUZMAN
So which came first? You may not know right now, but by the end of my class you will hypothesize an answer, support it, and commit to it.
She underlines WHICH CAME FIRST.
THEO
There are a thousand books out there that offer to change you in some way. Change your attitude. Your diet. Your golf swing. You know the best way to shave a couple of strokes off your score?
Pause.
Get a hole in one.
THEO circles the word LUCK.
DR. GUZMAN
I’m telling you right now, you’d better start thinking about it. The last question on your final exam will be this… Which came first? A: the chicken. B: the egg. C: simultaneous. And if anyone is audacious or careless enough to put down C, that will earn you an automatic F and you will be shot. I know you’ve heard those campus myths about me. Don’t test me. I have tenure.
THEO
Now before we get started, let me ask you a question.
DR. GUZMAN reaches for a white cane, smacks it against her hand.
DR. GUZMAN
What jury would convict a blind woman?
THEO reaches into a jar full of papers.
THEO
Anybody feel lucky today?
The board shows:
WHICH CAME FIRST?
LUCK GOD
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN holds a clipboard close to her eyes.
She has good central vision but no peripheral vision. She has learned to compensate.
A knock on the door.
DR. GUZMAN
Who is it?
MR. ADAMSON
(off stage) Dr. Guzman? I’m one of your students. From your 121 class.
DR. GUZMAN
What time is it?
MR. ADAMSON
(off stage) I’m sorry, I know it’s late. But the library just closed and I thought I’d take a chance. You don’t have regular office hours.
DR. GUZMAN
See me after class.
MR. ADAMSON
(off stage) By the time I get to the front you’re out the door.
DR. GUZMAN
Walk faster.
MR. ADAMSON
(off stage) Right.
Pause.
You said you wanted to see me.
DR. GUZMAN
Give me your ID card.
She slips the clipboard under the door.
When she pulls back the clipboard there is an id card on it. She holds it close to her eyes, then stuffs it in her pocket.
Ah, Mr. Adamson. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.
DR. GUZMAN unlocks the door and opens it. She slips the key back into her pocket.
You’d think with the recent incidents the university could spring for some state-of-the-art security. I’d settle for a damn peephole.
MR. ADAMSON enters.
He is in a wheelchair, a jacket on his lap.
A wheelchair. Intriguing.
MR. ADAMSON reaches for his jacket.
Without warning, DR. GUZMAN grabs the jacket, tosses it aside, and reveals a briefcase.
She lunges for the briefcase, throws it on her desk.
Put your hands on your head. I said put your hands on your head.
MR. ADAMSON reluctantly lifts his arms.
DR. GUZMAN does her best to frisk him. She kneels down, looks under the wheelchair.
Hear the latest? Some undergrad student sneaks into a genetics laboratory at Princeton and burns the whole thing down. Shoots the Ph.D., who just happened to be a stem-cell researcher. We seem to be a dying breed.
DR. GUZMAN turns her attention to the briefcase. It’s locked.
What’s the combination?
MR. ADAMSON
I’d prefer if you didn’t open it.
DR. GUZMAN
I’d prefer if I was assigned to teach courses commensurate with my qualifications. What’s the combination? No doubt something you might be capable of memorizing… One two three, four five six? What’s inside?
No response. DR. GUZMAN tries various combinations on the briefcase lock.
MR. ADAMSON
Can I please have my briefcase?
DR. GUZMAN
I have reviewed the results of the Introductory Genetics final exam.
MR. ADAMSON
It was a long test.
DR. GUZMAN
I like to separate the men from the boys.
MR. ADAMSON
So which am I?
DR. GUZMAN
You, Mr. Adamson, are an embryo. No, a zygote. That first moment when the sperm touches a polysaccharide on the egg and says, “Hi honey, I’m home.” That instant when the staunchest pro-lifer in all of Kentucky would have a tough time calling it the beginning of human life. That’s what you are.
MR. ADAMSON
So did I pass?
DR. GUZMAN draws a bell curve on the board. She doesn’t let go of the briefcase.
DR. GUZMAN
In this exam, the mean was seventy-one per cent. The passing grade was fifty-eight. Sixteen per cent got an A.
She draws on the board: 16.
MR. ADAMSON
What did I get?
DR. GUZMAN
You got an F.
MR. ADAMSON
I see.
DR. GUZMAN
Sometimes you get an outlier on the curve. On this exam, one person ended up more than five standard deviations below the mean. Do you know what that means?
MR. ADAMSON
No.
DR. GUZMAN
Computer malfunction. Usually. Only this time, the computer was right. You, sir, had the misfortune of getting every question wrong.
Auditorium
THEO packs up his briefcase on stage.
CYNTHIA enters. She is not used to wearing a miniskirt.
CYNTHIA
I don’t believe in luck.
THEO
You must be Cynthia.
CYNTHIA
They sure cleared out the auditorium in a hurry.
THEO
Kickoff is in an hour and a half. I’m surprised anyone even came. I’m Theo.
CYNTHIA
I know who you are. I just sat through your speech, or whatever you call that.
THEO
You look familiar. Have we met before?
CYNTHIA
Are you hitting on me?
THEO
Excuse me?
CYNTHIA
I don’t believe in luck.
THEO
I don’t believe in unicorns with paisley headbands.
CYNTHIA
I’m serious.
THEO
So what brings you here then?
CYNTHIA
I’m here because you selected me.
THEO
Randomly.
CYNTHIA
It would seem.
THEO
If I had pulled another name out of the jar, I could be having an equally engaging conversation with a little old lady from Tallahassee.
CYNTHIA
But you wouldn’t want to sleep with her.
THEO
No. Probably not.
CYNTHIA
Isn’t that what this is about?
THEO
You won a book. In a draw. That’s what this is about. You got lucky, that’s all.
THEO pulls out a book and a pen.
Who should I make this out to?
CYNTHIA
There must have been a thousand people in this place. Assuming half of them actually wanted to meet you, that means there were five hundred names in that jar.
THEO
Why assume half?
CYNTHIA
I just assumed the other half might have to get back to the nursing home. Have a sponge bath.
THEO
I’ll bet you there were a thousand names in that jar. But I know it’s not about me. Or my book. It’s about the winning. Everybody wants to be lucky. Or luckier. As I say in the book, luck is like your penis. You can always use a little more. Except for me, of course.
CYNTHIA
Of course. You’re the luckiest man alive.
THEO
Exactly. But that’s why people showed up today. I have something everybody wants. They want my luck. They believe it’s contagious. Or somehow transmissible.
CYNTHIA
By exchange of bodily fluids?
THEO
Some do. And if some young woman in need of a little luck feels some of mine might rub off on her…
CYNTHIA
By rubbing off on you.
THEO
Then who am I to argue?
CYNTHIA
A self-serving father figure who thinks he’s God’s gift?
THEO scribbles something in the book.
THEO
Don’t be so quick to judge. One day you might find yourself in a position where you need a little luck.
THEO hands the book to CYNTHIA, puts on his jacket.
CYNTHIA
But I wouldn’t be so naive as to think fooling around with some self-professed lucky guy would win me the lottery.
She reads the inscription.
“To Cynthia. Good luck. From God’s gift.”
THEO
Theodore does mean “gift of God.”
CYNTHIA tosses the book to the floor.
CYNTHIA
I think we both know I’m not here by luck alone.
THEO
Then why are you here? Just a coincidence?
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
No way. Every question?
DR. GUZMAN continues to try combinations on the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON looks for an opportunity to take it back.
DR. GUZMAN
Even the last one.
MR. ADAMSON
I got zero per cent?
DR. GUZMAN
Ha! If only. An exam should assess one’s knowledge, not one’s luck. Did you guess, Mr. Adamson?
MR. ADAMSON
It depends on what you mean by guessing.
DR. GUZMAN
I mean, did you throw a dart or two? Or a hundred and fifty?
MR. ADAMSON
I did my best.
DR. GUZMAN
If you had bothered to read the instructions, you would have realized that, to deter guessing, this examination was scored in a right-minus-wrong fashion.
MR. ADAMSON
Uh oh.
DR. GUZMAN
Your mark, Mr. Adamson, was negative one fifty.
She draws an emphatic negative line on the board.
MR. ADAMSON
I thought you graded on a curve.
DR. GUZMAN
Mr. Adamson, for any kind of curve to help you, it would have to have been the statistical equivalent of Marilyn Monroe being sucked into a black hole. You even got the last question wrong. I thought I made it clear. C, simultaneous, is not the answer. It’s almost as if you were trying to fail this exam.
MR. ADAMSON
Why would I try to fail?
DR. GUZMAN
Why indeed. After I saw your result, as an experiment, I asked my graduate class to take this examination. And I assigned them the task of getting the lowest mark they could. The brightest guy in my group actually got four questions right. By accident! So how does some generic undergrad student earn the worst achievable score in my final examination?
MR. ADAMSON
What do you mean, “generic”?
DR. GUZMAN
Hmmm. Good question.
DR. GUZMAN pulls a voice recorder from her pocket.
(into voice recorder) Can one be both generic and handicapped, or are the two mutually exclusive? Fascinating…
MR. ADAMSON
Dr. Guzman, I’m a little confused. You wanted to see me because I got every question wrong? Is that why?
DR. GUZMAN
I wanted to meet you, Mr. Adamson, because there are only four possible answers. A, you’re exceptionally smart. B, you’re exceptionally stupid. C, you’re exceptionally unlucky. Or D, and I sincerely hope this is not the case, you cheated. Can you conceive of any other alternatives?
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
A coincidence? That word is incense laced with crack. Or vice versa.
THEO picks up his briefcase.
THEO
You don’t believe in coincidences?
CYNTHIA
Sure I believe in them. They happen every day. Simply a random statistical event that occurs no more or less frequently than the models predict. It’s called a co-incidence. Not a cause-incidence.
THEO
Guess what? My dog’s name is Cynthia.
THEO tries to leave. CYNTHIA blocks his path. Repeatedly.
CYNTHIA
So what? There are twenty thousand Cynthias roaming this country. The chances are pretty good you’ll cross paths with one of us sooner or later. I am so sick of people seeing a predictable co-incidence as some sort of wormhole into the mystical side of the universe. It’s not very sexy and it clashes with everyone’s yoga pants, but the truth is, your dog and I just happen to be in the same subset and our paths intersected today.
THEO
But just because there’s a chance of something happening, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. You still need a little luck.
CYNTHIA
No, all you need is a little math. Talk to Pascal.
THEO
Who’s Pascal?
CYNTHIA
Grandfather of probability theory. Have you heard of Pascal’s Triangle? Pascal’s Wager?
THEO
Rings a bell.
CYNTHIA
Pascal would tell you, while the odds of you bumping into a Cynthia right here and now are miniscule, the odds of something like that happening are high. Even probable. Guess what? I have a goldfish named Theodore. Woooo. The universe must be trying to tell us something. Maybe we should compare zodiac signs. I’m a Scorpio, what are you? No, wait… I might be an Aquarius. You know what impresses me more than coincidence?
THEO
Name-dropping historical figures?
CYNTHIA
A lack of coincidence. Assuming one possible event per second, each of us can expect a one-in-a-million miracle every month. Now, if you manage to make it through this whole month without bumping into a Cynthia, then call up the papers and tell them about the coincidence that never happened.
THEO
Math major?
THEO finally reaches the door.
CYNTHIA
Biology major, math minor, I mean, haven’t you ever noticed you can only identify a coincidence in hindsight? But the best way to prove any scientific theory is to predict the outcome. If you’d woken up this morning and declared, “Today at 3:20 p.m., I’m going to meet a left-handed woman with a goldfish named Theo, who will inexplicably grab my briefcase…”
CYNTHIA grabs THEO’s briefcase, runs away.
Now I’m interested!
THEO
Do you really have a goldfish named Theo?
CYNTHIA
You’re not getting this, are you?
THEO
I knew someone who died on her birthday. You have to admit, that seems coincidental. Can I have my briefcase back?
CYNTHIA
Do you know what the odds are of dying on your birthday?
THEO
Let me see. One in 365?
CYNTHIA
Actually, one in 321.
THEO
Really? Why’s that?
CYNTHIA
I don’t know. My point is, dying on your birthday is no big deal. Statistically speaking. Shakespeare died on his birthday. Three people in the audience today will die on their birthday.
THEO
Maybe you.
CYNTHIA
Maybe me. But that doesn’t mean the universe is trying to tell us something.
THEO
Fine, but you’re here. In this room. Holding my briefcase. Why? Why here? Why now? It can’t just be random chance, can it?
CYNTHIA
It can. But it isn’t. There’s another possibility.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Let’s examine the options. A. You’re exceptionally smart. I think we can safely exclude that possibility.
DR. GUZMAN searches for a screwdriver.
MR. ADAMSON
Based on what? My wheelchair?
DR. GUZMAN
Right, Professor Hawking, it’s about your wheelchair. I’m just saying that if you are smart enough to get all the questions wrong, then I would expect you’d be smart enough to get them all right. I have no idea why an aspiring scientist would aim for negative one fifty.
MR. ADAMSON
So now you’re calling me stupid?
DR. GUZMAN
Actually, no. If you were stupid enough to guess on all one hundred and fifty questions, you should still have gotten thirty-seven right. So, I ask myself, did you cheat? But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would cheat to get the worst possible score. Can you?
MR. ADAMSON
No.
DR. GUZMAN
If you cheat on my exam, that tells me you think you’re smarter than me. Do you think you’re smarter than me, Mr. Adamson?
MR. ADAMSON
No.
DR. GUZMAN
So you’re just unlucky. Exceptionally unlucky.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t believe in luck.
DR. GUZMAN
And I don’t believe in handing over cheaters to that pansy-assed dean for a slap on the wrist.
MR. ADAMSON
I didn’t cheat.
DR. GUZMAN
Well, it has to be one or the other, and I intend to find out which.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
What if… I’m here today because I wanted to be here?
THEO tries to get his briefcase back, but CYNTHIA stays one step ahead.
Although CYNTHIA moves throughout the room, she conspicuously avoids walking under the ladder.
THEO
There are 999 other people who wanted to be here.
CYNTHIA
Give or take. But maybe these 999 rocket scientists were so busy reading chapter seven, “Change Your Luck by Changing the Way You Wipe Your Ass,” that they neglected to exercise their free will.
THEO
So you willed your way into being selected? Maybe I should read your book. How exactly does one overcome the one-in-a-thousand odds?
CYNTHIA
Let’s see. Perhaps one could surreptitiously replace all the slips of paper in the jar with a bunch of new ones. I mean, really, is anyone going to pull out a second name to confirm the validity of the draw?
THEO
Are you saying you cheated?
CYNTHIA
Or maybe one could use one’s analytical mind to consider that in both of your other readings this week, the “random draw” just happened to select a young woman in the front row who was wearing a miniskirt.
THEO
Are you saying I cheated?
CYNTHIA
Did you?
THEO
Maybe I just got lucky.
CYNTHIA
The chances of you selecting three young women wearing miniskirts from the front row, by chance alone, even assuming an optimistic ten per cent miniskirt coefficient is one in two billion.
THEO
It’s not zero.
CYNTHIA
It’s never zero. Unless it’s impossible.
THEO
So you’re saying I’m lucky.
CYNTHIA
Unbelievably lucky.
THEO
That’s what I’ve been telling you!
Pause.
Did you actually sit through my talk three times?
CYNTHIA
Yes.
THEO
Why? Are you a stalker?
THEO corners CYNTHIA behind the ladder. Her only apparent option is to duck under the ladder. She hesitates.
CYNTHIA
Define stalker.
THEO
Why three times?
CYNTHIA
I was trying to decide.
Abruptly, CYNTHIA scrambles up the ladder, still holding the briefcase.
THEO
Decide what?
CYNTHIA sits on top of the ladder, briefcase on her lap.
CYNTHIA
Whether to wear a miniskirt.
THEO
Excellent decision.
CYNTHIA
Evidently. But I’m not going to sleep with you.
THEO
Zero chance?
CYNTHIA
Let’s call it one in ten to the forty-ninth.
THEO
That’s not zero. Right?
CYNTHIA
All you have to do is persuade me that sleeping with you will give me everything my little heart desires. Then yes, it’s a non-zero probability.
THEO reaches into his inside jacket pocket. He produces a small bottle.
THEO
Champagne?
CYNTHIA
I shouldn’t. I’m pregnant.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
What are the odds? Mr. Adamson, do you know what the chances are of getting all one hundred and fifty questions wrong, purely by guessing? About the same chance as throwing sixty-three coins on the ground and having them all come up heads. One in five quintillion.
DR. GUZMAN finds a screwdriver, tries using it to open the briefcase.
So you see? I don’t mean to insult you by calling you unlucky. It’s a fact, not an opinion.
MR. ADAMSON
I disagree.
DR. GUZMAN
There is no other explanation.
MR. ADAMSON
There is.
DR. GUZMAN
Educate me.
MR. ADAMSON
Maybe it was God’s will.
DR. GUZMAN
God?
She backs away from him, finds her white cane.
My unannounced late-night caller is a religious nut? This gets better and better.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m not a nut.
DR. GUZMAN
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were here under false pretenses.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m here because you said you wanted to see me. If we’re all finished here—
DR. GUZMAN
Mr. Adamson, would you consider yourself unlucky?
MR. ADAMSON
Absolutely not.
DR. GUZMAN
Have you ever won anything?
MR. ADAMSON
I won the heart of a girl once. But she left me for someone who could walk. Darn walkers.
DR. GUZMAN
Anything random? A raffle? A toaster? Two tickets to a monster-truck show?
MR. ADAMSON
No, can’t say I have.
DR. GUZMAN
Ever play a slot machine? Roulette? The lottery?
MR. ADAMSON
I’ve bought a lottery ticket every week for the last seven years.
DR. GUZMAN
What have you won?
MR. ADAMSON
I won a free ticket once. That was pretty exciting. I thought it was a sign.
DR. GUZMAN
Was it?
MR. ADAMSON
No.
MR. ADAMSON checks the watch on his right hand.
What time is it? I really should get going, it’s getting kinda—
DR. GUZMAN
Why are you in a wheelchair?
MR. ADAMSON
Because I can’t walk.
DR. GUZMAN
Thank you, Captain Pike, that’s very helpful.
MR. ADAMSON
I was born with cerebral palsy. Doctors said I would never walk. But I proved them wrong. By my twelfth birthday I was actually the fastest kid on my football team.
DR. GUZMAN
Congratulations.
MR. ADAMSON
By thirteen I was back in a wheelchair.
DR. GUZMAN
What happened?
MR. ADAMSON
Drunk driver ran a crosswalk.
DR. GUZMAN
No shit.
MR. ADAMSON
There were eight of us crossing. Everybody else walked away. Doctors said I would never walk again. I didn’t believe them.
DR. GUZMAN
(into voice recorder) Cerebral palsy, one in three hundred. Drunk driver, one in eight.
MR. ADAMSON
You think I’m unlucky?
DR. GUZMAN
You think you’re not?
MR. ADAMSON
I think God makes everything happen for a reason. If I wasn’t disabled I probably wouldn’t even be here talking to you. I’m pretty sure I only got admission because I’d look good in class pictures.
Auditorium
THEO
And that’s why you’re here today. Because you’re pregnant.
CYNTHIA
That’s a little presumptuous.
THEO
Something made you put on that miniskirt. I’ll bet it has something to do with your baby. Am I right?
CYNTHIA doesn’t respond.
First child?
CYNTHIA
First pregnancy. And last. I am not going through this again.
THEO
Morning sickness?
CYNTHIA
I can deal with the morning sickness. I just… I swore I wouldn’t put myself in this situation.
THEO
What situation?
CYNTHIA
You wouldn’t understand.
THEO
Yeah, you’re probably right.
CYNTHIA
The situation where I’m sitting on a ladder wearing a miniskirt, talking to some guy who claims he’s the luckiest man in the world… all because of this.
CYNTHIA produces an envelope.
THEO
What’s that?
CYNTHIA doesn’t answer.
I’ll bet you want my help with that.
CYNTHIA
You like to bet, don’t you?
THEO
That’s what we do, we lucky people.
CYNTHIA
According to 60 Minutes, you made your first bet twenty years ago.
CYNTHIA puts away the envelope.
THEO
Yes, I believe that was Super Bowl XYZ-IMNOP.
CYNTHIA
Don’t most people bet on who’s going to win?
THEO
My way, you didn’t have to worry about silly things like who had the better team.
CYNTHIA
So that’s why you bet on the coin flip.
THEO
That was the only place on the planet I could actually make a bet like that. A true fifty-fifty proposition.
CYNTHIA
Flipping a coin is not a true fifty-fifty proposition.
THEO
I’ve been misled.
CYNTHIA climbs down from the ladder, still protecting the briefcase. She makes her way to the board.
CYNTHIA
For starters, there is a one in six thousand chance of a coin landing on its edge, so it’s more like 49.99 each way. But that aside, if you start with a coin showing tails up, there is a greater likelihood of it ending tails up.
THEO
How do you figure that?
CYNTHIA draws on the board a coin, rotating in air.
CYNTHIA
The coin rotates in the air… Tails, then heads, then tails… Overall, it spends fractionally more time in tails than in heads.
THEO
I should have bet tails.
CYNTHIA
You did. Twenty years ago. A thousand dollars. Every penny you had to your name.
THEO
I felt lucky.
CYNTHIA
Doubled your money.
THEO
I was lucky.
CYNTHIA
Same thing the following year. Only heads. Why heads?
THEO
Why not?
CYNTHIA
Doubled your money. Again. Now four grand. Next year, tails. Then tails. Then heads. Double or nothing every time. Don’t believe in hedging your bets?
THEO
I was on a roll.
CYNTHIA
You’re not kidding. Every Super Bowl since you’ve bet on the coin toss. And every year, for the last twenty years, you have doubled your money.
THEO
More or less. Casinos take a cut. Bookies take a cut.
CYNTHIA
Last January you placed a bet of 440 million dollars on heads. And won.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
That’s ridiculous. Your God’s bright idea is that he bestows upon you paraplegia as your ticket to the Ivy League?
MR. ADAMSON
Isn’t that why you’re here?
DR. GUZMAN
What are you implying?
MR. ADAMSON
I figured if anybody would understand it would be you. Can I please have my briefcase back?
DR. GUZMAN
Are you suggesting I’m here because I’ve lost ninety-two per cent of my peripheral vision?
MR. ADAMSON
No, of course not. Your success is clearly due to your achievements. But in the beginning…
DR. GUZMAN
In the beginning? Isn’t that the opening line of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species? No, that’s not it.
MR. ADAMSON
I was just wondering if your disability might have helped you. When you were starting out. A foot in the door.
DR. GUZMAN
Because my white cane might look good in class pictures.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—
DR. GUZMAN
You have the audacity to suggest my blindness is somehow an advantageous mutation? Do you have any idea what I’ve had to overcome to be here? The sacrifices I’ve made for this?
DR. GUZMAN gestures to her lab.
If you knew you were going to be completely blind within a year, what would you be staring at right now? Tropical sunsets? Impressionist paintings? Or test tubes?
MR. ADAMSON
Why don’t you just stop? Go see the world, before…
DR. GUZMAN
Before I can’t see the world? Because if I stop now, Mr. Adamson, I will have wasted my sight on a failed experiment and that would mean I earned an F. But, unlike you, I have no intention of spending my remaining days lying awake at night second-guessing my choices.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t do that.
DR. GUZMAN
You never think about that chance rendezvous with the car? I don’t believe that.
MR. ADAMSON
I try not to. But you know what I do think about? All those little things I could have done that day that might have slowed me down half a step. If I had to tie my shoelace. Or even just sneeze. But what’s there to second-guess? How could I have known?
DR. GUZMAN
I knew. I saw the darkness creeping in from the corners. And I chose to lock myself in this basement lab. I chose science. Over sunsets.
MR. ADAMSON
Some people might second-guess that.
DR. GUZMAN
I am not some people. I knew I had the brains and the ambition and opportunity to attempt something significant. Better a bold F than a timid W. Only now, they’re calling me unstable! An intellectual liability. They’re looking for an excuse to put me out to pasture, while I work day and night to make my mark, before I lose the remaining eight per cent of my visual field.
MR. ADAMSON
Dr. Guzman, there’s a pub down the street. With a ramp. How about I buy you a drink?
DR. GUZMAN
Mr. Adamson, do you want to walk again?
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t need to walk again to have a meaningful life.
DR. GUZMAN
Answer the question.
MR. ADAMSON
I will walk again when God decides—
DR. GUZMAN
A. You want to walk again. B. You don’t.
MR. ADAMSON
A.
DR. GUZMAN
I may be able to help you.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m not interested in spinal-cord research.
DR. GUZMAN
Neither am I. I’m talking about something much bigger.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t need your help.
MR. ADAMSON makes a grab for his briefcase.
DR. GUZMAN sees him just in time, thwarts him using her white cane as a weapon.
She locks the door, puts the key back in her pocket.
DR. GUZMAN
I think you do. But first, I need to know something.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
What’s your secret?
THEO
I’m on a lucky streak. That’s all.
CYNTHIA
A lucky streak? How the hell do you have the audacity to go double or nothing on each flip, and that aside, how on earth do you get twenty consecutive coin flips right?
THEO
I’m a lucky man.
CYNTHIA
No. You’re not.
THEO
Time Magazine called me the Luckiest Man Alive.
CYNTHIA
Give me a break. You can’t keep hiding behind luck.
THEO
Who’s hiding? The media follows my every move. There are cameras and reporters waiting outside the building right now. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Now if you’ll kindly give me back my briefcase—
CYNTHIA
Okay. Fine. Let’s say you are lucky. Why? Why are you so lucky? That’s what I want to know.
THEO
That’s what everyone wants to know.
Pause.
Even me.
CYNTHIA
I don’t understand why the casinos let you keep betting. Are they just hoping your luck is going to catch up with you sooner or later?
THEO
Are you kidding? Nobody will let me stop. The casinos want me to keep winning. The believers bet with me. The skeptics bet against me. But everybody has their theory and now the entire planet bets on the coin flip. Seniors. Soccer moms. Even Canadians.
CYNTHIA
What about this year? What’s it going to be? Heads or tails?
THEO
I don’t know yet. But Vegas is waiting for my call. And my phone is in my briefcase. And my briefcase is still, by strange coincidence, in your hand.
CYNTHIA
Aren’t you worried your streak is going to end?
THEO
Do I seem worried?
CYNTHIA
It will end. Sooner or later. It has to.
THEO
No, it doesn’t.
Pause.
But it will.
Pause.
Today.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Now. Did you even read the textbook?
DR. GUZMAN renews her efforts to open the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON
No.
DR. GUZMAN
Why not?
MR. ADAMSON
Because I don’t care.
DR. GUZMAN
About your grade? About your future? What exactly don’t you care about?
MR. ADAMSON quietly pulls out his cellphone. There is no signal.
MR. ADAMSON
Genetics. I don’t believe in genetics.
MR. ADAMSON moves around the room, inconspicuously holding up his cellphone, searching for reception.
DR. GUZMAN
That’s preposterous. Our genes are the very building blocks of life. The order of the four base pairs in your DNA has programmed everything about you. That sequence created you.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t know. It seems kind of arbitrary.
DR. GUZMAN
Arbitrary? Without order there is chaos.
MR. ADAMSON
Without God there is chaos. The DNA is just… calligraphy.
DR. GUZMAN
There is order to DNA. Just like there is order to everything. What if Beethoven played every note in his fifth symphony simultaneously? How would that sound? Without order it’s not a symphony, it’s a cacophony.
MR. ADAMSON
Maybe it’s just a different piece of music.
DR. GUZMAN
No, I’m pretty sure it’s a cacophony.
MR. ADAMSON
Order is subjective. It doesn’t matter what order the ten commandments are written in.
DR. GUZMAN
Really? They’re not prioritized? How sloppy! I would have used a logarithmic scale to compensate for the relative value discrepancy of killing versus merely coveting.
MR. ADAMSON
Wouldn’t change their meaning. The sequence was not part of the design.
DR. GUZMAN
But a gene, like any text, is not a palindrome. If you read Hamlet backwards, what do you have?
MR. ADAMSON
Tel… mah?
DR. GUZMAN
You’d have gibberish. There is order in everything. Just ask Watson and Crick.
MR. ADAMSON
Why not Crick and Watson? The order is meaningless. It’s the chicken and the egg.
DR. GUZMAN draws a B on the board.
DR. GUZMAN
Actually, it’s the egg and chicken. The correct answer was B.
The egg came first.
Pause.
Mr. Adamson, how much more research will you require to establish, with a p-value of less than 0.05, that there is no cellphone signal down here?
MR. ADAMSON
Dr. Guzman, what did you mean when you said you might be able to help me?
DR. GUZMAN
How badly do you want to walk?
MR. ADAMSON
What do you mean, on a scale of one to ten?
DR. GUZMAN
If I gave you two new legs right now, what’s the first thing you’d do?
MR. ADAMSON
I’d probably take the door key from your pocket.
DR. GUZMAN
You don’t want my help.
MR. ADAMSON
I guess I’d try to meet a girl.
DR. GUZMAN
Right. You’ve never had sex.
MR. ADAMSON
It’s not about sex.
DR. GUZMAN
Everything’s about sex. Ask Darwin.
MR. ADAMSON
Sure, I want to experience… that. After I get married, of course. And fall in love.
DR. GUZMAN
Of course.
MR. ADAMSON
I want to be a dad.
DR. GUZMAN
You don’t need new legs for that. If your reproductive organs are still intact they can extract the sperm.
MR. ADAMSON
Sounds romantic.
DR. GUZMAN
There could be scented candles. Vivaldi. Perhaps a moonlight extraction.
MR. ADAMSON
If God wants me to have kids, He will make it happen naturally.
DR. GUZMAN
So if He decides you’re worthy of having children, He will first make you walk.
MR. ADAMSON
Yes.
DR. GUZMAN
You know your God is rolling his eyes right now.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t think you can help me.
DR. GUZMAN reaches into a beaker full of coins. She produces a single coin.
DR. GUZMAN
Tell you what, Mr. One-in-Five-Quintillion. Call it. Heads or tails. If you get it right, you can go.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
Really?
THEO
Call it a hunch.
CYNTHIA
You have a hunch you’re going to guess wrong? Today?
THEO
Yes.
CYNTHIA
Do you think that every year?
THEO
First time.
CYNTHIA
So don’t place your bet. Just leave your money in the bank. Why risk it?
THEO
He who lives by the coin flip should die by the coin flip. Don’t you think?
CYNTHIA
No! That makes no sense. If you think you’re going to lose, quit while you’re ahead. Thank your lucky stars and ride off into the sunset. That’s the smart thing to do.
THEO
I never said I was the smartest guy alive.
CYNTHIA
Don’t be ridiculous. What if you lose? Have you even thought about that?
THEO
Every day.
CYNTHIA
You’d become some ordinary guy whose luck and greed eventually caught up with him. No fame. No fortune. You’d lose everything.
THEO
Just an ordinary guy.
CYNTHIA
But if you don’t place the bet, you’d walk away a winner. You’d still be the luckiest man alive.
THEO
Until I die.
CYNTHIA
Isn’t that what you want?
THEO
I’ll let you in on a little secret. This time tomorrow, I’ll be a billionaire. Or I’ll be broke. But either way, win or lose, it’s going to end. Today’s going to be my last bet.
CYNTHIA
I thought they wouldn’t let you stop.
THEO
If I lose, they won’t care. If I win… well, this time I won’t give them a choice.
CYNTHIA
Then why not stop now? Why roll the dice one last time? You could lose it all today.
THEO
I know.
CYNTHIA
Well, Mr. Super-Lucky-Man, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you’re going to lose today.
CYNTHIA hands THEO his briefcase.
I’ve figured out your secret.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
So tell me. What’s the catch?
DR. GUZMAN
The catch is, if you guess wrong on the coin flip, there will be a consequence.
MR. ADAMSON
Excuse me?
DR. GUZMAN
Without stakes, how can we truly evaluate the “unlucky” hypothesis?
MR. ADAMSON
So this is some kind of test?
DR. GUZMAN
An experiment, if you will. A critical assessment of your luck. Or lack thereof.
MR. ADAMSON
What do you mean, consequence?
DR. GUZMAN
I’m sure we can think of something. I know I have a bottle of H2SO4 here somewhere.
MR. ADAMSON
h2so4?
DR. GUZMAN
Sulphuric acid. So which is it? Heads or tails?
MR. ADAMSON
Why the egg? Why did the egg come first?
DR. GUZMAN
Ah. We know all new species appear via mutation. Since DNA can only be modified prenatally, the first chicken egg gave birth to the first chicken.
MR. ADAMSON comes across a phone jack in the wall. He follows the wire.
MR. ADAMSON
But a chicken laid the egg in the first place.
DR. GUZMAN
No. A creature which was similar to a chicken, but technically not a chicken, laid that first egg. Likely the Red Junglefowl.
DR. GUZMAN finds a stethoscope, uses it to listen to the briefcase lock.
MR. ADAMSON
Fine, but which came first, the Red Junglefowl or the egg?
DR. GUZMAN
The egg. Same logic. Wouldn’t you agree?
MR. ADAMSON
No. I would not. “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of Heaven.”
DR. GUZMAN
So your money is on the chicken.
MR. ADAMSON
My money is on God. It doesn’t matter whether God created the egg first or the chicken first. It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it’s Watson and Crick. Baskin and Robbins. Ernie and Bert.
DR. GUZMAN
Bert and Ernie. Only thirteen per cent of the population says Ernie and Bert.
As DR. GUZMAN writes 13% on the board, MR. ADAMSON follows the phone wire to a desk.
MR. ADAMSON
Did you get a research grant to study that?
DR. GUZMAN
Somebody did. What I’m saying is, everything has an order. It’s fundamental. It’s intrinsic. The order is everything.
Under some papers on the desk, MR. ADAMSON finds a cordless phone base.
MR. ADAMSON
Why does it matter if it’s Ernie and Bert or Bert and Ernie? They’re still the same people.
DR. GUZMAN
Muppets. Ernie has no DNA. Ernie has no parents. Ernie has no God.
MR. ADAMSON
Everything has a God.
DR. GUZMAN
Even Oscar the Grouch?
MR. ADAMSON
Even you.
The cordless phone locator alarm beeps.
DR. GUZMAN holds up the phone handset.
DR. GUZMAN
Looking for this?
She climbs the ladder, places the phone on a shelf, out of his reach.
We have a hypothesis to test. Heads or tails, Mr. Adamson.
MR. ADAMSON
Why not tails or heads?
DR. GUZMAN
Ha! So what you’re saying is, it doesn’t matter. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. Whether it’s your right leg first or your left, the order doesn’t matter, right?
MR. ADAMSON
You still end up wearing pants.
DR. GUZMAN
Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. It does matter. Would you believe which pant leg you put on first is a question that has significant scientific implications? And, it’s predictable.
MR. ADAMSON
Are you telling me you can predict which leg I put on first?
Auditorium
THEO
What’s the secret?
CYNTHIA draws on the board: Hs and Ts.
CYNTHIA
I’ve been analyzing your picks. Tails. Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. Heads. Heads. Tails tails tails tails tails heads heads heads heads heads heads heads, and, last year, heads.
THEO
I’m honoured. And disturbed.
THEO nudges toward the door.
CYNTHIA
Notice anything interesting?
THEO
About what?
CYNTHIA
About the sequence.
THEO
Like what?
CYNTHIA
How do you make your picks?
THEO
I pick them out of a hat.
CYNTHIA
Bullshit!
THEO
If you really must know, I make my picks by flipping a coin.
CYNTHIA
You pick the result of the coin flip by actually flipping a coin?
THEO
Seemed appropriate.
CYNTHIA
So you take your lucky coin…
THEO
No, I lost my “lucky coin” after year six. So now I use any old coin. It’s not the coin that’s lucky. Although, I will say, year seven was a bit suspenseful.
CYNTHIA
And you flip it.
THEO
Once a year.
CYNTHIA
And by flipping that coin you got that sequence. Tails. Heads. Tails. Tails. Et cetera.
THEO
The last eight have been heads.
CYNTHIA
Yes. That’s quite a feat in itself. Do you know what the odds are of getting eight heads in a row? One in 256.
THEO
Most people are betting on nine in a row. The odds in Vegas are six to five for heads this year.
CYNTHIA
Are you telling me millions of people collectively believe that because you’ve had eight heads in a row you’re more likely to have nine?
THEO
Hundreds of millions.
CYNTHIA
Idiots!
THEO
Why are they idiots? How do you know they’re wrong?
CYNTHIA
They’re being seduced by the last eight heads. But the odds of the next one being heads remains one in two.
THEO
They still might be right.
THEO checks his watch. He wears it on his right wrist.
What time is it? I should make my pick.
CYNTHIA
This year, I’d pick tails.
THEO
Why tails?
CYNTHIA
Trust me.
THEO
If you’re so convinced, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?
THEO opens the door.
CYNTHIA
Okay. If it comes up heads, I’ll sleep with you.
THEO stops.
THEO
Go on.
CYNTHIA
Let’s examine your sequence mathematically. One tails. One heads. Two tails. Three heads. Five tails. Eight heads. One one two three five eight.
She circles groups of Hs and Ts, then writes 1 1 2 3 5 8.
THEO
That’s my briefcase combination. One one two, three five eight.
CYNTHIA
Are you serious? Why that number?
THEO
I’ve always used that number, ever since I was a kid.
THEO looks at his watch.
CYNTHIA
Do you know what that is? One one two three five eight. It’s the first six numbers of the Fibonacci sequence… the most fundamental and universal mathematical sequence ever identified!
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Your right. Then your left.
MR. ADAMSON tries on an imaginary set of pants.
MR. ADAMSON
How do you know that?
MR. ADAMSON circles the room, looking for something he can use to reach the phone.
DR. GUZMAN
Over the course of our lifetime, we will put on our pants forty thousand times. And whether it’s right then left, or vice versa, do you know how many times the average person will do it in reverse? Never! From the age of six, we are absolutely faithful to that order. Try doing it backwards sometime. See how awkward it feels. How alien. But why? How does a child even learn which leg to put on first?
MR. ADAMSON
From their mom?
DR. GUZMAN
Precisely! But not how you think. For fraternal twins, the concordance rate on the pant leg order was sixty per cent. In identical twins… ninety-eight per cent. Ergo…
MR. ADAMSON
Are you trying to tell me if I put my pants on right leg first, that’s genetic? That’s crazy.
DR. GUZMAN
I’ve identified the PLO gene.
MR. ADAMSON
PLO?
DR. GUZMAN
Pant Leg Order. It’s X-linked. You get it from your mom, who got it from her dad. I’m hoping to publish the results. If I can make it past the damn peer review.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m sure the Nobel Prize committee will be all over this.
MR. ADAMSON finds a book on the floor.
DR. GUZMAN
How dare you. I’ve spent a significant portion of my professional career unearthing this gene.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t get it. This is your big idea? One day you say to yourself, before I die, I must figure out the whole pant leg mystery? Then, on to the Colonel’s secret recipe!
DR. GUZMAN
I realize it may seem trivial. But what you fail to understand, Mr. Adamson, is that genetics is like real estate. Location location location. It’s not the house. It’s the neighbourhood. Because you just never know who’s going to move in next door.
Making sure DR. GUZMAN is not looking, MR. ADAMSON throws the book toward the phone on the shelf. He misses, the book falls to the floor.
To disguise the noise he sneezes.
Bless you.
MR. ADAMSON
Bless me?
DR. GUZMAN
It’s just an expression.
MR. ADAMSON
People used to believe when you sneeze, you are in that brief moment between Heaven and Hell. And if you were blessed, you’d be saved from damnation.
MR. ADAMSON tries again with the book. Again he sneezes.
This time, THEO sneezes simultaneously.
DR. GUZMAN
Noroc.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
Bless you.
THEO
Thank you. In Romania, they say noroc. To your luck.
CYNTHIA
I’ll have to remember that.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
A sneeze means someone is talking about you. One sneeze good. Two bad.
DR. GUZMAN notices the book on the floor. She grabs it, puts it on a shelf.
DR. GUZMAN
You know what three means? You’re catching a cold.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA writes on the board…
CYNTHIA
Fibonacci is a recursive sequence, where each number is the sum of the previous two. You start with the numbers zero and one. And you add them together, which gives you the next number, which is one. Then you add the last two numbers together, one and one, and that gives you two. Then again, you add the last two numbers together, one and two, and that gives you three. And so on.
THEO
Okay. So what does that mean?
CYNTHIA
So what’s fascinating is that you have been picking your numbers along the Fibonacci sequence.
THEO
I don’t understand.
CYNTHIA
Don’t you see? The Fibonacci sequence is seen in everything. In science. In nature. In how honeybees multiply. When you cut open a pineapple or a pine cone, they are arranged in a Fibonacci pattern.
CYNTHIA draws a spiral on the board.
And if you draw arcs from Fibonacci numbers, you end up with a spiral, like in seashells, galaxies, and even in our very own molecules. It’s in the architecture of the Acropolis. It’s there behind Jesus in Dalí’s Sacrament of the Last Supper.
THEO
What are you saying, that this Fibonacci has something to do with Jesus?
CYNTHIA
Who the hell knows? But it’s everywhere. And Fibonacci gave us the golden ratio, which we see in the dimensions of a credit card or a belt buckle or a widescreen TV. The Fibonacci sequence is integral to the structure of the universe and everything in it. It’s in our very own DNA.
THEO
But I don’t get it. Why am I choosing my coin flips based on these Fibonacci numbers?
CYNTHIA
I was hoping you would tell me.
THEO
Is that why you’re here?
CYNTHIA
I’m here because there’s a genetic disease in my family.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Of course… I didn’t set out on a mission to find the PLO gene. I was going to discover the gene for RP. Retinitis pigmentosa. Cure blindness. Cure myself. That was going to be my life’s work.
DR. GUZMAN tries using her white cane to pry open the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON
That would have been quite a story.
DR. GUZMAN
Damn right. Instant immortality.
She whacks the briefcase with her cane.
What is this thing made of, osmium diboride?
She hurls the white cane across the room.
Even the quest was a compelling story. Afflicted researcher strives to identify her own gene before she goes blind. The grant money came pouring in. I even used my own tissue as a genetic sample. Like the guy who discovered the suicide gene. Then killed himself.
MR. ADAMSON
Wow.
DR. GUZMAN
I know. Seems paradoxical, doesn’t it? The suicide gene is a dead end, so to speak. It should have been a lethal mutation. Like, say, a gene that caused a target-shaped rash to appear on your forehead right before hunting season.
MR. ADAMSON picks up the white cane.
MR. ADAMSON
So how can there be a gene for suicide?
DR. GUZMAN
Ah, but what if the suicide gene gives you some sort of competitive advantage? Maybe people who have this gene are more fearless. They take bigger risks. Have more sex, more progeny. Before they pull the trigger.
MR. ADAMSON
My dad committed suicide.
DR. GUZMAN
If you give me some blood, I can test you for the gene.
MR. ADAMSON
Then what?
DR. GUZMAN
Then you know. That’s all. Diagnose, adios.
MR. ADAMSON
But if you know the gene, why can’t you just cure the disease?
DR. GUZMAN
It’s not that easy. For starters, you need a billion dollars to go from gene to drug. And you need a lot of luck.
Delicately, MR. ADAMSON attempts to bring down the phone using the white cane.
And somebody got lucky. Somebody else.
MR. ADAMSON
Somebody else discovered your gene?
DR. GUZMAN
Using a culture of my own cells. This young kid doing his post-doc throws up a prayer and discovers the very gene I’d spent my whole life chasing.
MR. ADAMSON
That doesn’t seem fair.
DR. GUZMAN
Fair? Is it fair that you can’t walk? Is it fair that some prick stole my gene from right under my nose? Fairness is not in the equation. Science doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s not a creation. It’s a discovery. If somebody didn’t accidentally stumble upon penicillin, the double helix, or the goddamn Slinky, somebody else would have. Can you imagine the world today without a Slinky? Impossible!
MR. ADAMSON
So why did you fail? You were smart enough, hard-working enough. Motivated enough. You know why you failed?
DR. GUZMAN
The same reason I got defective eyeballs. Short straw.
MR. ADAMSON
But why? Why weren’t you the lucky one?
The phone crashes to the ground. DR. GUZMAN grabs it, puts it away.
DR. GUZMAN
I might ask you the same thing.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m not unlucky.
DR. GUZMAN
Prove it. Heads or tails.
No response.
Then I can’t help you.
MR. ADAMSON turns his back to DR. GUZMAN, shields her view.
He opens a Bible on his lap, drops something onto the open book.
MR. ADAMSON
Heads.
DR. GUZMAN flips the coin. She tries to catch it, but the coin clatters to the floor.
DR. GUZMAN
Dammit.
She drops to her knees, searches for the coin.
Things that require peripheral vision. Driving a car, pouring a drink, and, apparently, flipping a damn coin.
She finds the coin.
Tails. Unlucky.
MR. ADAMSON
Or… maybe God wanted me to stay. Just like maybe God wanted you to fail.
DR. GUZMAN
Am I being punished? Have I angered the gods?
MR. ADAMSON
God doesn’t get angry, but He has His reasons. Maybe He has bigger successes in store for you. Or maybe He thinks you should be remembered as the person who discovered the gene for putting on pants.
DR. GUZMAN
To assume my best work is behind me, Mr. Adamson, would be a mistake. When I die, my contributions will be celebrated.
MR. ADAMSON
Of course. I’m sure your obituary will be front-page news.
DR. GUZMAN
What’s that supposed to mean? Is that a threat? Are you threatening me, Mr. Adamson?
MR. ADAMSON
No. I just—
DR. GUZMAN
Why are you here?
MR. ADAMSON
I’m here because you wanted to see me. That’s all. Why do you think I’m here?
DR. GUZMAN
Because, despite evidence to the contrary, I’m not convinced you’re unlucky. I don’t think you’re a one-in-five-quintillion guy. I think you cheated your way into my office and I think you’re here for a reason.
MR. ADAMSON
What is that reason?
DR. GUZMAN
I think there’s a gun in your briefcase and I think you came here to kill me.
Auditorium
THEO
I knew there was a reason. There always is.
CYNTHIA
My dad had it. His mom had it.
THEO
That’s unfortunate.
CYNTHIA
What do you mean, unfortunate? Are you implying my family is unlucky?
THEO
Of course not. I meant it… randomly.
CYNTHIA
Damn right.
THEO
So this disease runs in your family. And you? Are you affected?
CYNTHIA
I always knew I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting the disease. Only I never felt the need to get tested. It usually appears later in life, so I figured either I have it and I’ll deal with it or I don’t and I won’t. No treatment. No cure. So why bother? Diagnose, adios.
THEO
But now you’re pregnant.
CYNTHIA
Right. That changes everything. Now I can do something about it.
THEO
What do you mean, do something?
CYNTHIA
Does the luckiest man alive have a problem with choice?
THEO
So that’s why you’re here. Thought a little luck might help you before you get tested?
CYNTHIA
No. I got tested. Two weeks ago.
THEO
And?
CYNTHIA
I’m positive. The laboratory says I have the disease. It’s just a matter of time before it starts to affect me.
THEO
That’s… unfortunate. I’m not sure how I mean that.
CYNTHIA
Yeah. I’ll have to deal with that later. I’ve got a bigger problem.
THEO
Bigger than going blind?
CYNTHIA
I had an amnio last week.
THEO
Okay.
CYNTHIA
And I’m having a girl.
THEO
Congratulations.
CYNTHIA
And I just got the results of the genetic testing.
CYNTHIA produces an envelope.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
That’s why you’re here.
MR. ADAMSON
Why do I want to kill you?
DR. GUZMAN
Because I’m a stem-cell researcher. We seem to be unpopular in gun-toting circles.
DR. GUZMAN finds a laser pointer.
Why else are you taking my course?
MR. ADAMSON
If you must know, because God wanted me to.
DR. GUZMAN
God wanted you to take my genetics course.
MR. ADAMSON
Yes.
DR. GUZMAN
Why?
MR. ADAMSON
I’m not sure.
DR. GUZMAN
I’m honoured. It’s like having the dean recommend your class, only it’s his boss. Next time you talk to God, ask Him if He’d write me an endorsement on ratemyprofessors.com.
MR. ADAMSON
You ask Him. Next time you talk to Him.
DR. GUZMAN
How, exactly, did He tell you to take my course? Does He come to you in dreams? Do you see patterns in your Rice Krispies?
MR. ADAMSON
I ask him questions. He answers.
DR. GUZMAN
Like what course should I take? Is this cantaloupe ripe?
MR. ADAMSON
I really don’t think it’s any of your business how I communicate with God.
DR. GUZMAN
Maybe it isn’t. But you know what? Maybe it is. Why don’t you ask Him?
DR. GUZMAN finds a magnifying glass.
MR. ADAMSON
Ask Him what?
DR. GUZMAN
I mean, He did bring you here today, didn’t He? Why?
MR. ADAMSON
He will tell me when He is ready.
DR. GUZMAN
Perhaps He brought you here to answer my questions. So why don’t you ask Him if He is, in fact, any of my business. What do you need? Tea leaves? All I have are coffee grounds. I could sprinkle them on the floor.
MR. ADAMSON
There’s no reason to be disrespectful. I don’t mock your beliefs.
DR. GUZMAN
I have no beliefs to mock.
MR. ADAMSON
You believe in science.
DR. GUZMAN
Ha! You could mock my belief in the laws of nature. Make fun of my allegiance to gravity. To the roundness of this planet.
MR. ADAMSON
You’re entitled to your beliefs.
DR. GUZMAN
Science is not a belief. It’s an absolute.
DR. GUZMAN tries using the laser pointer and magnifying glass to melt the lock.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m not questioning gravity and I’m not disputing the earth is round. But science is not the whole story. It gives us the what, not the why. Why is there gravity? Why is the earth round? Science needs God as much as God needs science.
DR. GUZMAN
Science needs God like an amoeba needs a Golgi apparatus.
She laughs at her own joke.
Why did God want me to fail?
MR. ADAMSON
How should I know?
She aims her laser pointer at him.
DR. GUZMAN
Theorize.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t know. Do you have any blood on your hands?
DR. GUZMAN
Somebody else finding my gene was some kind of punishment?
MR. ADAMSON
It’s possible.
DR. GUZMAN
It’s absurd.
Pause.
So what does He say?
MR. ADAMSON
Who?
DR. GUZMAN
God. Your creator. Did you ask Him if He is any of my business?
MR. ADAMSON shakes his closed fist, lets something drop onto the open Bible in his lap.
MR. ADAMSON
Yes. For some reason, He said yes.
Auditorium
THEO
And so?
CYNTHIA holds her envelope.
CYNTHIA
And so I thought I would hedge my bets first. Before I opened it.
THEO
You don’t believe in luck. I believe you were quite clear on that.
CYNTHIA
My baby has a fifty per cent chance of inheriting this disease. And the glass is looking half empty right now. So I just thought, if there’s anything I could do to fill it up a little bit. Just in case…
THEO
If you don’t believe in luck, walk under the ladder.
CYNTHIA
I don’t think so.
THEO
Exactly!
CYNTHIA
Well I also avoid stepping in dog poop. Or licking frozen metal. It’s called common sense. Don’t step in things. Don’t lick things. Don’t walk under things.
THEO
Absolutely nothing to do with bad luck.
CYNTHIA
For God’s sake. No, I don’t believe in luck, good or bad. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit hogwash. It’s the mantra of failure. It’s the opiate of the atheist masses.
THEO
But?
CYNTHIA
But I believe in Fibonacci.
THEO
And that’s why you’re here. Because of Fibonacci.
CYNTHIA
Because of my baby. What would you do?
THEO
Tear up the envelope.
CYNTHIA
Don’t judge.
THEO
You asked.
CYNTHIA
What I meant to ask, what I’m here to ask is, what, if anything, can I do to optimize things? To change my luck. Her luck.
THEO
I heard crossing your fingers sometimes works.
CYNTHIA
Consider them crossed.
THEO
Rabbit’s feet. Four-leaf clovers. Sex with lucky men.
CYNTHIA
I’m asking for your help.
THEO
What exactly do you want me to do? Wave a magic wand?
CYNTHIA
Your book is called Change Your Luck. I was hoping maybe you would have some insight.
THEO
Really?
CYNTHIA
Desperate times.
THEO
Did you read it?
CYNTHIA
It’s bullshit.
She walks to the shelf, finds the book, flips it open.
“If you pick the shorter line at the grocery store, celebrate your good fortune. The more luck you look for, the more you’ll find.” That’s absurd. You’re not telling people how to change their luck. Only to recognize it. You won’t become luckier, you’ll just feel luckier.
She slams the book shut.
There is absolutely nothing of value in that book. Change Your Luck… the whole premise is preposterous.
THEO
So walk under the ladder.
CYNTHIA
It’s complete and utter bullshit.
THEO
I got an email from somebody last month. She read my book. The next day she won the lottery.
CYNTHIA
What about the other ten thousand people who read your book and didn’t win the lottery?
THEO
Try two million.
CYNTHIA
No shit. Well there are 1,999,999 people out there who deserve a refund. Not to mention a college education.
THEO
These people are trying to improve their lot in life. There’s no need to criticize them.
CYNTHIA
I’m criticizing you. Your book is a fake.
CYNTHIA opens the book again.
“To improve your luck in the dating world, spend more time where single people hang out.”
She stares at THEO, incredulous.
“In bookstores. In coffee shops.” You forgot Star Trek conventions!
THEO
What’s wrong with that? It’s sound advice.
CYNTHIA
Your idea is to improve the odds of random events by increasing the numerator. That’s not improving your luck. That’s improving your percentages.
THEO
Tomayto tomahto.
CYNTHIA
If I want to improve my odds of winning the lottery, I should buy more lottery tickets? That’s your bestselling technique?
THEO
It works.
CYNTHIA
So if I want to improve the odds of having a healthy child, your solution is I should have quintuplets? That doesn’t help the little girl I have in my uterus right now, does it? Does it?
THEO
No. It doesn’t.
CYNTHIA
You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re scamming innocent people.
THEO
I’m giving them hope.
CYNTHIA
You’re taking advantage of their desperation. And why? For a few more bucks? Do you really need more money?
THEO
All the money from this book is going to charity.
CYNTHIA
How noble. So why are you doing this?
THEO
I wanted to share my good fortune. That’s all.
CYNTHIA holds out her envelope.
CYNTHIA
Then open this envelope.
THEO
Okay. I will.
Pause.
If you walk under the ladder.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. What the hell is that?
MR. ADAMSON holds up a small bone.
MR. ADAMSON
It’s a bone. Technically, a bone fragment.
DR. GUZMAN
Fascinating.
MR. ADAMSON
It’s the fragment of bone that severed my spinal cord. I started carrying it around as kind of a reminder.
DR. GUZMAN
In case you forgot you were in a wheelchair?
DR. GUZMAN climbs the ladder, holding the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t suppose you’ve heard of astragali? Animal knucklebones. The ancient Greeks used them to talk to their gods. Before a big battle they would throw them, and depending on how they landed they would make strategic decisions.
DR. GUZMAN
Making Greece the powerhouse it is today. So you make your decisions by tossing this… vertebra?
MR. ADAMSON
When I need God’s guidance. That’s how I chose your course.
DR. GUZMAN
It seems I was premature in dismissing “exceptionally stupid.”
DR. GUZMAN drops the briefcase. It crashes onto the ground. It doesn’t open.
MR. ADAMSON
Can you please not do that?
DR. GUZMAN
Then tell me the combination. I think we can safely eliminate six six six, six six six?
MR. ADAMSON
Here’s how I look at it. God decided, for the time being, I would best serve Him from a wheelchair. The instrument which He used to achieve this was this very bone. So by using it in this way, I, myself, have become an instrument of God.
DR. GUZMAN
Hallelujah! Let’s open our hymn books and sing “Come Speak to Me, O Lord, With Thy Holy Bone.”
MR. ADAMSON
What I don’t understand is why He wanted me to talk to you about this.
DR. GUZMAN
Maybe He made a mistake.
MR. ADAMSON
No. He has His reasons. He always does.
DR. GUZMAN
So you decided to take my course because your bone-dice—
MR. ADAMSON
I call it my “instrument.”
DR. GUZMAN
Because your bone-dice instrument came up heads.
MR. ADAMSON
(shows her the bone fragment) This bone has four faces, like an astragalus. So for two-option questions, I call these two sides heads and these two sides tails. When I asked Him about you just now, it came up like this. Heads means yes.
DR. GUZMAN
Do you use this thing to make every decision in your life? “Do you want fries with that, sir?” Hmm, I’m not sure… Excuse me a moment while I confer with my bone-dice.
DR. GUZMAN examines the briefcase on the floor. It’s intact.
Since when do they make briefcases an eleven on the Mohs hardness scale?
MR. ADAMSON
I use my instrument for important things. Like taking your exam.
DR. GUZMAN
You used that thing to answer my questions?
MR. ADAMSON
I put it on my desk, rolled it quietly one hundred and fifty times.
DR. GUZMAN
Are you telling me that this bone succeeded in randomly getting every question wrong?
MR. ADAMSON
I didn’t say randomly.
DR. GUZMAN
You think God got you a goose egg?
(into voice recorder) Subject claims all questions wrong the result of one hundred and fifty flips of magical bone.
MR. ADAMSON
I think it is God’s will that we are here, right now, face to face.
DR. GUZMAN
Let say we indulge your hypothesis. Then why? Why, Mr. One-In-Five-Quintillion-Random-Bone-Dice-Guy? Why does He want us here, right now, face to face?
MR. ADAMSON
That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. But if I hadn’t gotten every question wrong on your exam, would you have even let me in the door?
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
No. I’m not going to play your patronizing games.
THEO
Suit yourself. Doesn’t matter, anyway. My luck is not transferable. I have no stake in your result, so no matter what your envelope says, you will walk out the door and my charmed life will go on. My luck, I’m sorry to say, is of no use to you.
CYNTHIA
Open it anyway. What’s the harm?
THEO
There’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll head straight to some clinic. I don’t want blood on my hands.
CYNTHIA
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. Not that it’s any of your business.
THEO
If you like, I’d be happy to rip up the envelope.
CYNTHIA
I couldn’t do that to her.
Pause.
You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have any kids.
THEO
No. I don’t.
CYNTHIA
Well, that’s… unfortunate.
CYNTHIA heads for the door.
THEO
I lied.
Pause.
The truth is, you can’t change your luck.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Perhaps not. But then why did He send you here if it wasn’t to kill me?
DR. GUZMAN finds a glass pipette.
MR. ADAMSON
It’s possible He sent me here to inform you, or even to warn you, that you have ventured into God’s territory.
DR. GUZMAN
What exactly is God’s territory? The Middle East? The Vatican? Alabama?
MR. ADAMSON
This lab. You’re playing around with something sacred. You’re trying to rewrite God’s very own text. Our genetic code. Why is that fair game? Nobody would dare mess around with Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is merely one of His creations.
DR. GUZMAN
Shakespeare never killed anyone. He never blinded anyone. He never took away someone’s child by making a typo.
MR. ADAMSON
God doesn’t make typos.
DR. GUZMAN draws GAG --> GTG.
DR. GUZMAN
No? Well your God must have been a little hungover one morning because He stuck a thymine instead of an adenine in the hemoglobin gene, so I’m pretty sure He goofed.
MR. ADAMSON
God does not goof.
DR. GUZMAN
Is that right? Did He intend for this one simple polymorphism to cause the red blood cell to sickle? Did He intend for one in five hundred black people to be crippled by this disease? I’m pretty sure He meant to hit the A on his four-key typewriter.
MR. ADAMSON
How do you know that? What if Shakespeare intended to write, “To pee or not to pee.” Maybe Hamlet had a prostate problem and that was the question. Or why don’t we just assume the writer did what he intended to do, and accept it at face value?
DR. GUZMAN
So what did your God intend to do? What was He thinking when He created sickle-cell disease? Or muscular dystrophy? Or retinitis pigmentosa?
Pause.
What was He thinking when He put you in a sex-free wheelchair for the rest of your goddamn life?
MR. ADAMSON
I will walk again. I will have children. When God decides it’s time.
DR. GUZMAN
Right. While you sit around and wait for two legs and a penis to drop from the sky, my job is to hit the delete button and fix what needs to be fixed, by whatever means necessary.
MR. ADAMSON
My job is to preserve and protect His original manuscript. In all its glory.
DR. GUZMAN
How, exactly, do you intend to do that? You can’t even preserve and protect your own underpants.
MR. ADAMSON
People think just because you’re in a wheelchair, you’re an easy target. I can protect myself, Dr. Guzman.
DR. GUZMAN finds a bottle of clear liquid.
She sets it on top of the briefcase.
DR. GUZMAN
I don’t see how. Unless you’re hiding a weapon in here.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
So you admit it! You might want to change the title of your book.
THEO
To what? You’re completely screwed and there’s nothing you can do about it? You think that’s what people want to hear?
CYNTHIA
Doesn’t matter. You should tell them the truth.
THEO
Fine, here it is. I think you were born unlucky. I think your baby has the misfortune of having an unlucky mother, and if you open that envelope, I’m betting the test is positive. You can’t change your luck. You got what you got. I’m sorry.
CYNTHIA
Don’t be sorry. There’s no reason to apologize for being an arrogant, know-it-all prick. Some people are born that way. You got what you got.
THEO
I am sorry. I’d help you if I could.
CYNTHIA
Go to hell.
THEO
I couldn’t save my wife. And you expect me to help you?
CYNTHIA
What happened to your wife?
THEO
Car accident. A long time ago. Only one of us survived. Guess which one.
CYNTHIA
The lucky one?
THEO
The one who wasn’t pregnant.
CYNTHIA
I’m sorry.
THEO
Apparently, my luck has an asterisk.
CYNTHIA heads for the door.
This Fibonacci sequence. I don’t understand. Why would my bets be following that pattern? That’s quite a…
CYNTHIA
Here’s what I can’t figure out. Why this sequence? There are hundreds of mathematical sequences out there. You could have picked your coin flips according to the digits of pi. Why Fibonacci? This sequence you just happened to choose is almost… spiritual.
THEO
I didn’t choose it. It chose me.
CYNTHIA
Yeah. That’s the thing. I’d feel better if you had chosen it. It would make the probabilities more palatable.
Pause.
Theo, why is your briefcase combination the first six digits of the Fibonacci sequence?
THEO
I don’t know why. Those numbers just came to me one day.
CYNTHIA
You had no idea about their significance?
THEO
No. I just knew I’d never forget them.
THEO checks his watch.
CYNTHIA
You’re a strange man, Theo. Mathematically speaking.
THEO
What did you mean, spiritual? You mean God? Is this God communicating with me?
CYNTHIA
Is God giving you gambling tips? That’s your theory?
THEO
It’s possible. God invented Las Vegas.
CYNTHIA
God invented religious delusion.
THEO
Well, what’s your theory? Why am I following this Fibonacci sequence?
CYNTHIA
I don’t have a theory. I just identified a pattern. The question is, why? Why are you following this predetermined pattern? It’s almost as if your picks have already been written down and sealed away.
THEO’s phone starts ringing in his briefcase.
THEO
And I’m just opening the envelopes. One by one.
CYNTHIA
You don’t have to. You could just tear it up and walk away right now. You could die a lucky man.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
Do you really believe I would do that?
DR. GUZMAN
If anyone is an easy target, it is me. A public advocate of stem-cell research. A blind woman alone in a basement lab, foolish enough to open her door in the middle of the night.
DR. GUZMAN uncorks the bottle.
MR. ADAMSON
What is that?
DR. GUZMAN
H2SO4. pH of 1.26. This will burn through anything.
MR. ADAMSON flips his astragalus.
MR. ADAMSON
Tails!
DR. GUZMAN
Ah. So you’re saying we should increase our sample size? I might make a scientist out of you yet.
DR. GUZMAN pulls out her coin, flips it. Again she tries to catch it. Again she misses. The coin falls to the floor.
Dammit. I could have sworn I was able to flip a goddamn coin six months ago.
DR. GUZMAN examines her glasses.
She drops to the floor, searches for the coin.
Mr. Adamson, are you in favour of embryonic stem-cell research?
MR. ADAMSON
No. But that doesn’t mean—
DR. GUZMAN
You, if anyone, should be cheerleading this whole thing. You have the most to gain.
She finds the coin, shows MR. ADAMSON.
Heads, not your lucky day. Do you actually know what the odds are of you ever walking again? One in a billion. That’s with a B.
MR. ADAMSON
I’m an optimist.
DR. GUZMAN
You’re an idiot. The only chance you have is if some stem-cell researcher gets lucky and stumbles on a cure. Before some myopic fundamentalist kills us all in the name of God. If you want to walk to your altar one day, we are your only hope.
DR. GUZMAN draws up the sulphuric acid in a pipette.
MR. ADAMSON
That doesn’t make what you’re doing right.
DR. GUZMAN
Oh, so it’s a matter of morality, of conscience. Why didn’t you say that, instead of invoking your nebulous God construct?
She attempts to burn her way into the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON
God gives us our conscience.
DR. GUZMAN
Actually, the conscience gene was discovered two years ago. Made quite a splash. Fox News called it “The Cheatin’ Gene”! Where the hell did you get this briefcase, Mr. Bond?
MR. ADAMSON
But where did the gene come from in the first place? We are here because God created us.
DR. GUZMAN
Bullshit.
MR. ADAMSON
Prove it.
DR. GUZMAN
Prove what?
MR. ADAMSON
If you’re a scientist, prove God doesn’t exist.
DR. GUZMAN
That’s impossible.
MR. ADAMSON
Exactly.
DR. GUZMAN
But that’s the wrong question. Unicorns with paisley headbands may have roamed the planet a million years ago. But they didn’t need to. The God hypothesis was advanced to fill a void. To explain the inexplicable. So the better question is, can we prove the need for God doesn’t exist?
MR. ADAMSON
And?
DR. GUZMAN
And I can.
Auditorium
The phone continues to ring.
THEO
I don’t think so. That’s Vegas on the phone. They want my pick.
CYNTHIA
Fine, go ahead, risk it all. But if I’m right, if Fibonacci is right, your next pick should be tails.
THEO
Say it does come up tails. Then what?
CYNTHIA
Then you take a cold shower.
THEO
No, I mean, what if your Fibonacci sequence holds true? What would that mean? That maybe somebody is trying to tell me something? That I have some pretty powerful cosmic forces in my corner?
CYNTHIA
Sure. You’re a conduit to the spiritual centre of the universe. God is speaking to you via your coin flips. You do have quite the ego.
THEO’s phone stops ringing.
I should be going. You have a coin to flip. And a God complex to indulge.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
God is unnecessary. God is redundant. There is nothing in the universe that cannot be explained by science. We are the product of genes and evolution and probability. We do not need God to be our fudge factor.
DR. GUZMAN looks in a drawer.
MR. ADAMSON
So life began purely randomly. In the beginning, there was nothing. And then all of a sudden, one day, without any help from God…
DR. GUZMAN
Or aliens.
MR. ADAMSON
All of a sudden, life appears.
DR. GUZMAN
Plausible.
MR. ADAMSON
Far-fetched.
DR. GUZMAN
Of course. But far less far-fetched than postulating divine intervention.
MR. ADAMSON
So life magically appears one day…
DR. GUZMAN
Not magically. First there was the Big Bang. Or does His existence preclude the Big Bang?
MR. ADAMSON
Not if He was the Big Banger.
DR. GUZMAN
Well, unfortunately, since He hadn’t yet created plasma tv, or actual plasma for that matter, we’ll never know for sure what actually happened at the moment of the Big Bang. Everyone has their own theory.
DR. GUZMAN finds a Bunsen burner.
Let’s see how your 007 briefcase likes a thousand degrees Celsius.
MR. ADAMSON
Heads!
DR. GUZMAN
N equals three? Why not? Let there be heads.
DR. GUZMAN flips another coin. This time she doesn’t even try to catch it. She doesn’t bother looking for it.
MR. ADAMSON searches for the coin.
But we do have a supercollider that can approximate the condition of the universe one billionth of a second after the Big Bang, which gave us the Higgs boson, your “God particle,” followed by the main attraction, our entire universe.
MR. ADAMSON
But not life.
MR. ADAMSON locates the coin.
It’s tails.
DR. GUZMAN
But everything necessary for life. First came our sun. Then came the earth and its big primordial soup, the prebiotic oceans, from which the first self-replicating DNA was born.
MR. ADAMSON
Spontaneously. Randomly. Miraculously.
DR. GUZMAN
Yes. Yes. And hell no!
DR. GUZMAN finds a flint lighter.
MR. ADAMSON
So life began on Earth at the exact time and place when conditions could support life. Our sun happened to be the perfect age. Our planet happened to be the perfect temperature. Then, out of this soup, life just began. What are the chances of that?
DR. GUZMAN
One in ten to the fortieth. About the same chance as a monkey sitting down at a keyboard and randomly typing a passage from Shakespeare.
MR. ADAMSON
Doesn’t that seem far-fetched to you?
DR. GUZMAN
Sure. Unless.
MR. ADAMSON
Unless what?
DR. GUZMAN
Unless that monkey who sat down at a keyboard was exceptionally lucky, and just happened to type Hamlet on its very first try.
DR. GUZMAN tries to light the Bunsen burner.
Mr. Adamson, are you sure you don’t believe in luck?
Auditorium
THEO
Being lucky is not all it’s cracked up to be. Doesn’t necessarily mean you’re better off. Or happier.
CYNTHIA
Poor rich baby. Money can’t buy you happiness? Should we write a country song?
THEO
Forget I said anything.
CYNTHIA
In psych class, we read that lottery winners got an immediate jump in their happiness scores, but a few months later they returned back to their baseline.
THEO
So you can’t change your happiness or your luck.
CYNTHIA
Not true. Rich people are happier, but only if they earn the money themselves. Stolen loot, lotteries… not so much.
THEO
Why is that?
CYNTHIA
Because it’s cheating. And they feel guilty. Do you feel guilty?
THEO
Should I?
CYNTHIA
Did you know people who won the lottery with numbers they chose themselves end up happier than those who won with randomly selected numbers?
THEO
Because they think they deserve it.
CYNTHIA
Idiots.
THEO
Happy idiots.
CYNTHIA
Have you earned your wealth? Do you deserve it?
THEO
Not a penny.
CYNTHIA
There you go.
THEO
Maybe that’s why I get death threats every day.
CYNTHIA
From who?
THEO
People who don’t think I deserve my good fortune.
CYNTHIA
People who think you’re cheating.
THEO
How do I prove I’m not?
CYNTHIA
By losing?
THEO
What if I can’t lose?
CYNTHIA
Have you tried?
THEO
How exactly do you try to lose a coin flip?
CYNTHIA
Right. I see your point. But if you could. Would you?
Pause.
Theo, do you want to lose?
THEO
What I want… doesn’t matter, does it?
CYNTHIA
If only you could perform a luck-ectomy.
THEO
If only.
CYNTHIA
How would one go about doing that? Carry a black cat under a ladder on Friday the thirteenth?
From a hidden compartment in his briefcase THEO pulls out a gun.
THEO
Or maybe I could use this.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
I’m starting to think there’s nothing in here.
DR. GUZMAN cannot get the Bunsen burner to light. She keeps trying.
MR. ADAMSON
Then can I have it back?
DR. GUZMAN
Perhaps we could work out a trade of some kind. Is there something you have that I might want?
MR. ADAMSON
Like what?
DR. GUZMAN
I always thought luck was a bunch of bullshit hogwash. But after enough near misses and why me’s, you start to consider other hypotheses. What if I told you there are instances where somebody won the lottery, and then their child also won?
MR. ADAMSON
I would say they are blessed.
DR. GUZMAN
Dammit, think like a scientist. In a population of thousands of lottery winners, what are the chances, based on randomness alone, that there will be families with multiple winners?
MR. ADAMSON points at the board, at the previously written 13%.
MR. ADAMSON
Um… Thirteen per cent?
DR. GUZMAN
Here’s the funny thing. The numbers are greater than they should be. Families are winning lotteries disproportionately. And how do you explain the family in Norway where a woman won the lottery. Then her father won. And then her son.
MR. ADAMSON
They’re a bunch of cheaters?
DR. GUZMAN
They were investigated. And paid in full. Any other ideas?
MR. ADAMSON
Really good cheaters?
DR. GUZMAN
Did you notice the pattern? Grandfather. Daughter. Grandson.
This is the same pattern as the pant-leg gene. X-linked.
She draws an X on the board.
MR. ADAMSON
What are you saying, luck is genetic?
DR. GUZMAN
I’m asking the question.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
What the hell?
THEO
Protection. I’ve carried it with me since I was fourteen. I used to be an easy target.
CYNTHIA
Put it away.
THEO
Relax. It’s not loaded. Fully.
CYNTHIA
What do you mean, fully?
THEO
Ever heard of Russian roulette?
THEO spins the cylinder.
CYNTHIA
It’s been nice talking to you.
CYNTHIA walks toward the door.
THEO
Doesn’t seem fair though, does it? I should really use three bullets, not one? To be fair.
CYNTHIA
How long have you been suicidal?
THEO
If I wanted to commit suicide, I’d put all six bullets in.
CYNTHIA
And that would end your lucky streak once and for all, wouldn’t it? This time, you won’t give them a choice.
THEO
Well I’ve been wondering… maybe I should test my luck. What do you think?
CYNTHIA
I think you need to see a shrink.
THEO
Saw one. “Depressive Disorder. Schizoid tendencies. Excessive and inappropriate guilt.” He recommended medication.
CYNTHIA
Exactly.
THEO
Then he asked me for my Final Four picks.
THEO puts the gun in his pocket.
Turns out, when it comes to actually pulling the trigger, I’m a chicken. I think I was born that way.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
What if people are born lucky? Or unlucky? Some families are tall. Some have blue eyes. And some families you’d swear have horseshoes up their ass. How else do you explain the Bush presidencies?
MR. ADAMSON
How is that even possible? I mean, I see how a genetic defect can give you a disease. But how could this work with luck?
DR. GUZMAN
In order to answer that, you’d have to understand the molecular basis of luck.
MR. ADAMSON
Which is?
DR. GUZMAN
Damned if I know.
She gives up on the Bunsen burner, throws the lighter across the room.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t hypothesize. Let’s say you have a gene that makes you smell bad. You lack an enzyme. Upshot is, you stink.
MR. ADAMSON
I stink?
DR. GUZMAN
So you go through life smelly. Girls don’t like you. Teachers don’t like you. You can’t get a job. Maybe you step in front of a car, end up in a wheelchair. But you know what? You don’t even know you smell. And you think you’re just one incredibly unlucky guy.
MR. ADAMSON
You’re saying if I go to Vegas and put twenty bucks on black, there’s something in my genes that causes the ball to land on red?
DR. GUZMAN
Or… something makes you pick black in the first place. When you should have picked—
MR. ADAMSON
Heads!
DR. GUZMAN gives a coin to MR. ADAMSON.
DR. GUZMAN
What is luck anyway? What if it’s just precognition? What if you woke up this morning and you already knew what was going to happen today?
MR. ADAMSON
I’d probably roll on past your office.
DR. GUZMAN
And go straight to the corner store to buy a lottery ticket. Wouldn’t you?
MR. ADAMSON
I might.
MR. ADAMSON flips the coin, smacks it on the back of his hand.
DR. GUZMAN
And you’d win. Because you already knew the outcome. Of everything. And you’d become one very rich man.
MR. ADAMSON
Tails.
MR. ADAMSON looks to the heavens in frustration.
DR. GUZMAN
But if nobody knew you could see the future, if nobody knew your secret, the world would just think you were one very lucky guy.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
Were you born lucky? Were you a lucky child?
THEO
I wouldn’t say that. Missed a lot of school. I was kind of a loner. My best friends were probably Ernie and Bert.
CYNTHIA
You mean Bert and Ernie. Who says Ernie and Bert?
THEO
Lots of people, check it out.
CYNTHIA
I will. Were your parents lucky?
THEO
My dad committed suicide when I was three.
CYNTHIA
So where did your luck come from?
THEO
It remains a mystery. Nobody can figure it out. Turns out I’m a normal guy. With a big schlong.
THEO’s phone rings.
And a lucky streak that refuses to die.
THEO produces a coin.
Until now.
He flips it high in the air. Just as he’s about to catch it, CYNTHIA reaches out. She catches the coin, inverts it onto the back of her hand. She and THEO lean in close.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
How can you know what’s going to happen?
DR. GUZMAN
We already know time is malleable. Maybe there is some molecular basis that lets us modulate a sequence of events.
MR. ADAMSON
But you just said order is everything.
DR. GUZMAN
Yes, but sequences can mutate. And Einstein said time has relativity. So what happens in a certain sequence through one person’s eyes might happen in an alternate sequence for a different observer. And what if this warped chronology gives you a priori knowledge? And that’s why the “lucky” person chooses red.
MR. ADAMSON
Maybe it’s just intuition. A hunch.
DR. GUZMAN
But what is intuition? When someone flips a coin, what is that little voice in your head that says, choose tails. Is that your God or your Devil? Or is it déjà vu? Perhaps some people are born with the ability to see things differently. In a different sequence. And maybe that’s the gene that you, that we, lack.
MR. ADAMSON
Well good luck finding that gene.
DR. GUZMAN
Actually, I think I found it. I happened to stumble upon its next-door neighbour.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
No way! Thank God.
THEO
Thank God? For heads?
CYNTHIA
I knew it. Fibonacci Schmibonacci. Your guesses are completely random. Fibonacci was just…
THEO
A coincidence?
CYNTHIA
It was inevitable. Sooner or later you were bound to diverge. People don’t just randomly roll mathematical sequences. It caught up with you. On the twenty-first time. Finally.
THEO
You’re pretty happy about that.
CYNTHIA
Well, I was starting to wonder. I mean, what if it came up tails? What would this mean? That all of your picks have come from… somewhere else?
THEO
From God?
CYNTHIA
Who the hell knows? Turns out your picks came from nowhere. There was no predetermination. No spiritual or scientific questions to be pondered. Just a coin flip gone bad.
Pause.
You seem disappointed.
THEO
A little. I was kind of hoping it would come up tails.
CYNTHIA
You’re sad because there is no spiritual reason for your lucky streak? You’re not God’s chosen one? You’re just a statistical aberration?
THEO
Thanks. I feel a lot better now.
The phone starts to ring in the briefcase.
CYNTHIA
Sorry to disappoint you. But math is absolute. You can’t mess with it. Sooner or later, probability will prevail.
CYNTHIA finds her autographed book, prepares to leave.
THEO snaps open the briefcase, reaches for his phone.
THEO
I liked it better when I was an instrument of God.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
You’re joking, right? You can’t expect me to believe—
DR. GUZMAN
I understand your skepticism. I know it sounds implausible. There’s a reason nobody in the department knows I’m working on this.
MR. ADAMSON
How exactly does somebody find the gene for luck?
DR. GUZMAN
I started with those lucky families. I played a hunch and discovered all the winners put on their pants left leg first. Then I analyzed their DNA and incorporated gene candidates into mice. And I went looking for the luckiest mouse.
MR. ADAMSON
How can you tell a lucky mouse from an unlucky mouse? The one with the most cheese?
DR. GUZMAN
Exactly! Now you’re thinking like a scientist! I simply designed a random reward generator and identified the mouse with the most cheese.
MR. ADAMSON
Then you killed it?
DR. GUZMAN
Wouldn’t you know, just as I was about to euthanize him, the phone rang and the lucky bastard got away.
MR. ADAMSON
Really?
DR. GUZMAN
No. I killed him! If some higher power wants you dead, you’re dead, right? But I think I found it. On the X chromosome. Right next door to the PLO gene.
MR. ADAMSON
You’ve found the gene for luck?
DR. GUZMAN
First I need more data, or I will be discredited and put out to pasture for good. I don’t have much time left. I need to find a control… an exceptionally unlucky human being.
Auditorium
THEO speaks into the phone.
THEO
It’s me. Put everything on tails.
CYNTHIA gasps, drops her book.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
It’s easy to find lucky people. But how do you find the unlucky ones? The unluckiest of them die. Usually in freak accidents, like playing with loaded guns.
DR. GUZMAN rummages through a drawer. MR. ADAMSON moves closer.
MR. ADAMSON
So you need to get lucky to find an unlucky person to validate your luck gene? That’s a bit ironic.
DR. GUZMAN
Irony is like luck. Not everybody who thinks they got it got it.
MR. ADAMSON
I’ll have to remember that.
MR. ADAMSON steals the door key from her lab-coat pocket.
DR. GUZMAN
It seems you do have something I want, Mr. Adamson.
DR. GUZMAN produces a tourniquet.
Your blood.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
What the hell? Your coin said heads.
THEO
Call it a hunch.
CYNTHIA
A hunch? How much money did you bet?
THEO
All of it. Eight hundred and fifty million. Give or take.
CYNTHIA
Holy shit. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars. On tails. On a hunch. How could you bet against your lucky coin flip?
THEO
How could I bet against Fibonacci?
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
I couldn’t do that.
DR. GUZMAN
Your DNA would be most useful for my research.
MR. ADAMSON
That’s why you wanted to see me. You needed me for your research.
DR. GUZMAN
First I needed to establish if you were, in fact, luck deficient. Or if you were cheating. I think I have my answer.
MR. ADAMSON
Right. Yes, I’m starting to understand.
DR. GUZMAN
I’m not asking you to believe the science. I probably wouldn’t myself. I’m just asking you for some blood.
MR. ADAMSON
Have you even thought about the implications of what you’re doing? I mean, what if, God forbid, you’re right?
DR. GUZMAN
Did you know that Nobel Prize winners live two years longer than nominees?
MR. ADAMSON
Dr. Guzman, who wants an unlucky child?
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
I wouldn’t. I’d just take the money and run.
THEO
Run where? Do what?
CYNTHIA
How much does it cost to cure a genetic disease?
THEO
When I die, all my money is being left to medical research.
CYNTHIA
Really?
THEO
Eye research.
CYNTHIA
Why eye research?
THEO
I knew someone.
CYNTHIA
I’m going blind.
THEO
What do you mean?
CYNTHIA
Retinitis pigmentosa. RP. You lose your peripheral vision.
THEO
That’s your genetic disease? RP?
CYNTHIA
Yes. That’s quite a…
THEO
Coincidence?
CYNTHIA
I need to open the envelope.
THEO
No. You don’t.
CYNTHIA
I’ll be legally blind by the time I’m forty. How can I let that happen to my daughter? Knowingly.
THEO
Did your mom know you had the gene? Did she know you were going to go blind one day?
CYNTHIA
No.
THEO
What if she did? What if she had an envelope, just like yours, and she had opened it? What would she have done?
CYNTHIA
That’s not a fair question.
THEO
I’ll tell you what she should have done. She should have torn up that envelope. Because if she had opened it, you wouldn’t be here today…
The phone rings.
And I would have chosen heads. When I should have chosen…
THEO answers his phone.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
Nobody. Nobody wants an unlucky child. People kill innocent babies for lots of reasons. Now you want to add bad luck to that list?
DR. GUZMAN
I’m just trying to help people who are less fortunate. Like you.
MR. ADAMSON
I am not less fortunate.
MR. ADAMSON moves toward the door.
DR. GUZMAN
Oh but you are. You have lost the ability to walk. This is not an advantageous adaptation. It’s a lethal mutation.
She writes on the board: lethal
You have returned to that primordial ocean. You will not procreate. Your genes stop here. You are the definition of less fortunate. Have we not proven that to your satisfaction?
DR. GUZMAN grabs a fistful of coins from her beaker.
Heads or tails, Mr. Adamson? If you get just one coin right, I’ll let you go. But if you don’t…
MR. ADAMSON
You get my blood.
DR. GUZMAN
What do you say?
MR. ADAMSON moves to the door. He stops, thinks. He flips his astragalus.
MR. ADAMSON
It says tails.
DR. GUZMAN
But what do you say?
MR. ADAMSON takes a long look at the door, at the key hidden in his hand, at his astragalus. He spins to face DR. GUZMAN.
MR. ADAMSON
I say…
DR. GUZMAN throws her fistful of coins into the air.
MR. ADAMSON & THEO
Tails.
The coins crash to the floor.
Auditorium
THEO hangs up the phone slowly.
THEO
It was tails.
CYNTHIA
Are you telling me you just won 1.7 billion dollars?
THEO
Fibonacci was right.
CYNTHIA
Fibonacci was right.
THEO
What does this mean?
THEO and CYNTHIA stare at the board.
CYNTHIA
It means you can’t lose.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
You can’t win, as they say, if you don’t play.
MR. ADAMSON moves around the room in a tightening spiral. He checks each coin on the ground. DR. GUZMAN slides in behind him, pushes his wheelchair.
So we all play. Even you, Mr. Adamson. Only money can’t buy you a couple of new legs. That’s the lottery you’re really playing? That’s what you covet.
MR. ADAMSON
If it’s God’s will.
DR. GUZMAN
Well, you’ve got to be a little lucky to win, don’t you? Maybe I can help.
MR. ADAMSON
I don’t need your help. I’m betting on God.
MR. ADAMSON climbs desperately out of the wheelchair, falls to the floor.
Frantically, he checks each coin on the ground.
DR. GUZMAN
That was Pascal’s Wager. He said even though the existence of God cannot be determined, we should wager as though God exists. Because that way you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
MR. ADAMSON
Exactly.
DR. GUZMAN
Only Pascal went mad. Mr. Adamson, you’re not in a wheelchair because of some divine plan. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
MR. ADAMSON
No! That’s not what happened.
DR. GUZMAN
Your bone-dice is nothing but a meaningless coin flip. God has no plans for you because he doesn’t exist.
MR. ADAMSON
How do you know that?
DR. GUZMAN
Because luck is embedded in our DNA. So we don’t need to invoke anything from above or from beyond. How did life begin? God? Or luck. You don’t need both. They’re mutually exclusive. It’s the chicken or the egg. So which is it? Decide for yourself. I say, in the beginning, in our blood, there was luck.
MR. ADAMSON slumps against his wheelchair, still on the floor.
MR. ADAMSON
Not a single tails.
DR. GUZMAN
What are the odds?
MR. ADAMSON rolls up his sleeve.
MR. ADAMSON
If I give you my blood, will you give me back my briefcase?
DR. GUZMAN produces a syringe and tourniquet.
DR. GUZMAN
Not only that. I will, one day, repair your defective gene. I will make you walk again.
She ties the tourniquet.
If I’m right, you will become the luckiest man alive.
DR. GUZMAN jabs the needle into his arm.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
You really can’t lose.
THEO
What if… I get a stake in your test?
THEO produces the gun. He loads it.
What if this time, I use six bullets?
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Quick and painless.
She snaps off the tourniquet.
Thank you, Mr. Adamson.
DR. GUZMAN pulls his id card from her pocket. She glances at it, returns it.
Theodore. Gift of God.
MR. ADAMSON
How did you know that?
DR. GUZMAN
I had a goldfish named Theodore.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
Theo. Please just—
THEO
Open the envelope. Open it.
THEO lifts the gun to his head.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN hands MR. ADAMSON his briefcase.
DR. GUZMAN
I have to know. What’s the combination?
MR. ADAMSON
One one two, three five eight.
DR. GUZMAN
Really? Why that number?
MR. ADAMSON shows her his watch.
DR. GUZMAN
11:23:58.
MR. ADAMSON
My watch stopped at the moment of impact.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
What the hell—
THEO
If the test result is positive, I’ll pull the trigger.
CYNTHIA
Are you insane? Put the gun down.
THEO
Open it. Please. This is what you wanted.
Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
What if God doesn’t want us to be lucky? What if God doesn’t want us to win the lottery?
DR. GUZMAN moves toward the door.
DR. GUZMAN
Then that’s not fair. And maybe we, the terminally unfortunate, need to take matters into our own hands.
DR. GUZMAN feels in her pocket for the key. It’s not there. She turns.
MR. ADAMSON snaps open the briefcase.
MR. ADAMSON
Then this is God’s will.
He points a gun at DR. GUZMAN.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
No. Put the gun down. Please.
THEO
I finally figured out how to share my luck. By giving myself a stake in your daughter. I can change your luck.
CYNTHIA
Because you can’t lose? Because you’re too lucky to die?
THEO
Exactly! So the test result will have to be negative. If I can’t lose, she can’t lose.
CYNTHIA
You’re very kind. And a little psychotic.
THEO
I couldn’t help my child. Let me help yours.
CYNTHIA
I’m going to tear it up.
THEO
I’m not going to die. Trust me.
CYNTHIA
How do you know that?
THEO
Because you’re here. Something brought you here today. Tell me this. Did you cheat? In the book draw? Are you here, right now, because you stuffed the jar with your name?
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
No. It’s not God’s will. It’s yours.
MR. ADAMSON
This is why He brought me here. This is why He kept me here. I know that now.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
No. I didn’t cheat. Did you? Did you choose me because of my miniskirt?
THEO
No. I swear it was a random draw.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Random dice brought you here.
MR. ADAMSON
God brought me here!
Auditorium
THEO
Fibonacci brought you here. To me. So I can help you. Why else are we both here?
CYNTHIA
Coincidence?
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Really? He brought you here today to shoot me in cold blood?
MR. ADAMSON
To stop you, one way or another. There was a reason. For everything. I was at the right place at the right time.
Auditorium
THEO
Are you sure? Let’s find out. Open the envelope.
CYNTHIA
You’re crazy. You have a fifty-fifty chance of killing yourself.
THEO
I don’t believe that. Do you?
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Why don’t we ask Him. Did you, God Almighty, send this man here to kill me? Yes or no.
MR. ADAMSON
I already know the answer, Dr. Guzman.
DR. GUZMAN
Cynthia. My friends call me Cynthia.
MR. ADAMSON
That’s… my dog’s name.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
I don’t give a shit what you believe. Do you really want to put your life in the hands of a coin flip?
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Do it. Flip that bone thing. Heads you shoot me, in the name of God, and spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair praying for a miracle. Tails, you put the gun down and I will change your luck. It can be our little secret.
Pause.
Theodore. Theo. One in a billion is nothing if you have luck on your side.
Auditorium
THEO
I am not going to die. Deep down, you know that. Trust the numbers. Trust Fibonacci.
Laboratory
DR. GUZMAN
Trust your instrument. Heads is God. Tails is Science.
MR. ADAMSON
Why tails?
DR. GUZMAN
Call it a hunch. I feel lucky. Today’s my birthday.
Auditorium
CYNTHIA
I don’t believe in luck.
THEO
Prove it.
THEO drags the ladder in front of CYNTHIA.
Did you pray for a healthy child?
CYNTHIA
Yes.
THEO
What if I am the answer to your prayers?
CYNTHIA pauses, then takes a single step.
CYNTHIA now stands directly under the ladder. She looks up.
Auditorium/Laboratory
MR. ADAMSON
Forgive me.
MR. ADAMSON points his gun at DR. GUZMAN.
THEO
Open it.
DR. GUZMAN kneels down.
DR. GUZMAN
Maybe the chicken came first.
CYNTHIA holds the envelope.
As if she’s going to open it.
As if she’s going to tear it in two.
Slowly, simultaneously…
…DR. GUZMAN brings her hands together and prays.
…THEO raises his gun to his head.
…CYNTHIA tears opens the envelope.
…MR. ADAMSON shakes his bone-dice. He keeps shaking it.
With his gun against his forehead, THEO stares at CYNTHIA.
With his gun pointed at DR. GUZMAN, MR. ADAMSON looks down at his Bible.
MR. ADAMSON is across from THEO.
DR. GUZMAN is across from CYNTHIA.
Together, they resemble a double helix of dna.
The board is a mess of diagrams, numbers, and words, identical to how it appeared in the opening scene.
Simultaneously…
…CYNTHIA opens the lab report. She looks at THEO.
…MR. ADAMSON lets his bone-dice drop. He looks at DR. GUZMAN.
Darkness.
A single gunshot creates a Big Bang!
A sonic boom reverberates through time and space. Sounds and images of cosmic and microscopic events. A mirror unbreaks. Time warps before our eyes.
Lights up.
The wall mirror is now unbroken.
The board and the stage now look exactly the same as they did at the beginning.
The opening scene is now recreated.
DR. GUZMAN and THEO enter. THEO carries an unopened umbrella.
They converge at the whiteboard. It shows a mess of diagrams, numbers, and words.
DR. GUZMAN turns to face the board. She finds an eraser, wipes the board clean.
THEO turns to face the audience. With mock trepidation, he pops open the umbrella.
Playfully, he peers out from under it, looks upward. He closes the umbrella.
THEO moves to the ladder. He circles it. Mysteriously. Mischievously.
DR. GUZMAN takes a moment to find a marker. She accidentally drops it, picks it up again.
Abruptly, THEO ducks under the ladder. He emerges, welcomes the applause.
Chest pain! Is he having a heart attack? No, he’s just joking around.
DR. GUZMAN writes on the board with her left hand: which came first?
THEO strides to a wall mirror. He stumbles, almost trips on the way.
DR. GUZMAN addresses the audience.
THEO fixes his hair in the mirror.
DR. GUZMAN
The question is, which came first?
THEO suddenly takes a big swing with his umbrella handle, smashing the mirror.
end of play