THURSDAY AFTERNOON, THE day after Harry had decided to dabble in physical violence, he sat on Sarah’s couch nursing a sprained wrist. He flexed his hand and did some wrist stretches he’d found on a website for skinny men who suddenly thought, You know what would be a good idea? Punching someone significantly larger than me in the face. The website featured home remedies for stiff jaws, cracked ribs, and the loneliness after one’s partner left because of all the fist fights. Fortunately, his wrist was just a little sore, as though he’d slugged a six-foot tall block of processed cheese and not a two hundred-pound man. As his knuckles cracked, Harry couldn’t help but feel defeated, not by Dennis (Harry knew he would eventually trounce Dennis by winning Amanda back; he was playing chess while Dennis was playing paper flick football), but by himself. He had failed to convince Dennis to lend him one of his cars for the weekend. Once Harry had found someone he was confident would be interested in his paper, finding a ride to Chicago had been his only goal.
Car horns blared, followed by screeching tires and a crash. Outside, two cars had collided head-on in the middle of the street, each refusing to yield the right of way. Smoke rose from their crumpled and interlocked front ends. Like most people who witnessed the aftermath of a car accident, Harry looked to see if there was any traumatic carnage waiting to haunt him for the next few hours. Confident there was not, he returned to the comfort of his own predicament: getting to Chicago.
His 1995 hatchback would fall apart if he drove faster than fifty miles per hour. Timothy’s car was also undrivable; Deborah had guaranteed this when she decided day drinking at a wine bar was a suitable way to spend a Wednesday afternoon. He could try Dennis again…
Talking to Timothy the previous evening, Harry was positive Dennis would help them. His calculations had confirmed this outcome, and they were always accurate. Now he wasn’t so sure. He’d crossed a line. A punch to the face ensured Dennis would never talk to him again.
Or did it?
Harry pulled out his notepad and began scribbling. He divided the force with which he’d hit Dennis by how much groveling he expected to do and then multiplied that by the square root of a human’s capacity for forgiveness. And knew he’d been a fool to doubt Omnicalcumetry.
Outside, the drivers shouted, blaming each other for causing the accident. They threw punches, wild haymakers knocking them off-balance and onto the pavement, bloodying their clothes and faces. In the distance, sirens blared as the ambulance headed toward the wreck.
Feeling confident, Harry called Dennis.
“No way!” Dennis said, hearing Harry’s request.
“Why not? It’s just a car.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Harry. Some of us have our own problems to deal with.”
“Speaking of problems, I was performing a rather tricky, little devil of an equation this morning.”
“Harry, I have work to do,” Dennis said while the cashier at Burt’s Big Beef asked him if he wanted to add a raspberry turnover to his order for only a dollar.
“I was trying to determine the odds of humanity traveling to Mars once Omnicalcumetry is taught in colleges. And here’s the amazing part: humanity will set foot on Mars in five years.”
“I don’t give a shit about Mars. It’s a dumb planet.”
“We can use Omnicalcumetry for engineering or to develop new energy sources to power the spacecraft.”
“I’m not loaning you a car. Deal with it.”
“Don’t you see? That’s the brilliance of Omnicalcumetry. It’s a mathematical system that applies to all fields of knowledge and fixes all the problems inherent in them.”
“Jesus, Harry. Do you listen to yourself sometimes?”
“You can play an integral part in its history, Dennis. You can proclaim to all that you were present when the world changed.”
“Harry, I’m gonna get off the phone now.”
Harry didn’t know what else to say. He knew Dennis would never understand the complexities of Omnicalcumetry. Only the highest possible minds would ever comprehend it. But he also knew something had been occupying Dennis’s thoughts. His nemesis seemed distant and distracted lately, as though he’d rather be in another town. Harry could relate. He often wished he could fast-forward his life to the moment when he was accepting his Nobel Prize. Or to when he and Amanda were renewing their wedding vows on a beach in Fiji, surrounded by family and sea turtles. One of the sea turtles, Buster, would be the ring bearer, while another, Gladys, would hold the flowers. Harry had thought by hearing how innovative Omnicalcumetry was, Dennis would realize its brilliance, even though it was beyond his understanding, and lend him a car. He should have recognized the gaps in his strategy. He performed a quick calculation and decided to change tactics.
“Wait, Dennis. We never hit it off. We’re never going to be friends, and we both know this. I can be difficult and demanding.”
“Don’t forget arrogant and conceited.”
“And our personalities are constantly in opposition. We’re a volatile mix.”
“We’re like one of those volcanoes at a junior high science fair.”
“I don’t have your flair for salesmanship; I can’t convince people to take a course of action if they’re already opposed to it. I apologize for even attempting to do so.”
“We only talk people into doing something they already want to do.”
“I need to get to Chicago tomorrow,” Harry said. “Not because I want a weekend getaway, but because if I don’t, a part of me will remain unfulfilled. I know that sounds esoteric. But have you ever believed in something so strongly that that belief became transformative? You ponder it constantly, this unshakable idea, to the point where you can’t envision a reality where this thought doesn’t manifest exactly as you imagined it.”
“Maybe,” Dennis said quietly.
“Because of this, you take steps to transform your present condition into your imagined ideal. These steps, while miniscule at first, lead to larger steps and then larger ones, until your world begins to transform into something beautiful, something perfect. But there are still setbacks, because the universe progresses toward entropy, and perfection is the enemy of entropy. And when you experience these setbacks, they hurt so deeply because this idea has become a part of you. But you know deep inside, your dream must manifest. There are no other alternatives. This is why I must get to Chicago—to manifest my vision. But here’s the thing, Dennis, I think there’s something like this for you in Chicago as well, a dream you’ve been dwelling on with the same intensity. I saw the look on your face last night when I mentioned going to Chicago. You exploded with anticipation.”
“I know what you mean about an idea taking over,” Dennis said. “And you’re right. It does have something to do with Chicago.”
“You don’t need to tell me what it is,” Harry said. “We’re all entitled to our privacy. I would just ask that you consider one thing: if you are ready to manifest your own reality, consider driving me to Chicago.”
After a long silence, Dennis finally spoke. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this. What time do you need me to pick you up?”
They made plans to meet at 7:00 a.m.
“Oh, and Timothy needs a ride too. See you at seven.”
Harry quickly hung up his phone. He circled the solution to his equation and added some exclamation points. He knew Dennis’s reversal had nothing to do with the brilliance of his paper. Dennis was softened by something in Chicago. Harry would take any stroke of good fortune if it furthered his objective, even if it meant spending a couple of hours in the car with Dennis listening to sports talk radio. The world was about to change, after all; Harry was on his way to becoming a household name. He would have to remember to be gracious and not rub it in Dennis’s face when Amanda returned to him. After all, he’d finally made an ally of the man who’d stolen his wife.
Outside, the two drivers sat on the curb and waited for the ambulances and tow trucks. They laughed and joked, as though they were children in the aftermath of a minor disagreement.