That night there was news of a small bombing in Pakistan on an oil refinery. Five people died as well. It would make the markets volatile and Kapitoil would profit on the vacillations. It was the class of event that happened infrequently, but when it did I tried to reroute my brain.
So I thought about Zahira some more, and wondered if she would pursue biology and possibly become a doctor, and if so if she would be a doctor who did clinical research to boot and attempted to cure diseases or simply a doctor who treated diseases. If I were a doctor I would prefer to do clinical work, as it’s more beneficial to prevent diseases before they develop than merely treat them after they have made an impact, and I would also be less valuable as a regular doctor because my interpersonal skills are weak.
Then I was struck by lightning.
What if I could apply the idea of using news reports, and an updated version of Kapitoil’s algorithm, to predict the spread of disease? The stock market functions like other systems of controlled chaos, such as viruses and epidemiology. Some diseases, e.g., cancer, are not possible to predict, because they occur independently of world events, but possibly I could anticipate how the flu virus or malaria spreads, or other diseases that relate to variables like poverty and sanitation and also political unrest that are discussed in the news.
But I will test out my hypothesis and create a prototype program to certify it has merit before I propose it to Mr. Ray or Mr. Schrub.
do a holiday = observe a holiday 100 % by spending it with family
struck by lightning = innovate a major idea
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: NOVEMBER 26
On Monday I received an email reply from Mr. Schrub’s secretary:
Mr. Schrub was pleased to have you as his guest, and he wishes you a happy Thanksgiving as well.
That was all. I was foolish to think he would invite me to Connecticut. He had his own family and other friends and business acquaintances. I was not an integral part of his life. “Pleased” was a word with such minimal weight. And possibly Mr. Ray told him I didn’t have any new ideas and therefore didn’t merit an invitation. I almost wrote to the secretary that I had a new idea about Kapitoil, but of course Kapitoil was still highly privileged information, and I had not even started testing out my new idea yet.
On Wednesday I went into my former pod and said good-bye to Rebecca. She was still working, and it was rare for me to exit work before she did. She had dark shadows under her eyes. I said, “Possibly you should not work so hard.”
Her mouth turned up slightly and she told me to have a good Thanksgiving. I asked if she was celebrating it with her roommate, but she said Jessica had gone home to California the previous day.
That night I watched television without truly selecting a program, which I don’t like doing. I considered finally calling one of the people in New York our family friends knew, the Bashar family. I opened my cellular and scrolled through the few numbers I had inputted so far, but stopped before I reached them.
“Hello?” Barron said.
“Hello, Mr. Wright. This is Karim Issar. I am the Schrub Equities employee you have previously driven from JFK Airport to my apartment, from the Schrub office to game four of the World Series between the Yankees and the Atlanta Braves, and from—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said. “What time and where?”
“I do not require transportation,” I said. “I would merely like to give thanks to you for the previous rides.”
He paused for a few seconds, then laughed. “You’re welcome. It’s my job.”
“Also, I would like to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving.” He reciprocated, and I asked, “Are you having a large Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Just having a few friends and relatives over, nothing too fancy,” he said.
“That sounds enjoyable.”
There was another pause, and he said, “You?”
“I do not have any current plans,” I said.
I could hear Barron intake his breath, and then he said, “Well, shit, like I said, it’s nothing fancy, but you’re welcome to come over here.”
“I could not infringe on your hospitality.”
“I wouldn’t have invited you if it was an infringement,” he said.
“Then I accept your offer, and I will bring some food with me as well.” He gave me his contact information. “Mr. Wright, may I infringe on your hospitality and invite someone else?”
He laughed again. Barron created high pressure when he didn’t speak, but when he laughed he depressurized the environment. He said why the hell not as long as I called him Barron and not Mr. Wright.
I called Rebecca, who picked up on the second ring. When I invited her to Barron’s, she said, “You don’t have to do that just because you feel sorry for me.”
“It is all right,” I said. “I was invited just because he felt sorry for me.”
She laughed and accepted, and I hypothesized that she and Barron would partner well because they were the only two people in the U.S. who thought I had a sense of humor.
On Thanksgiving I cooked hareis. It is my preferred meal to cook because it is like writing a complex program: It takes a long time to produce such fragile meat, you can innovate with trial-and-error experiments with different spices (e.g., I use more cinnamon than most cooks do), and removing the bones at the end is even parallel to debugging. Then you have a full meal made from several ingredients that would not be independently edible, minus the lamb and rice, just as a program combines several functions that have less value when solitary.
I also blended a complex juice of bananas, strawberries, peaches, and kiwis, which are independently edible but preferable in collaboration.
Rebecca and I planned to meet at Barron’s home in Jackson Heights, which I read was the most diverse area in the world. The subway was above the ground in Queens, and I tried counting the number of Spanish and Indian restaurants, but even I couldn’t do it. I also saw very few stores with names I recognized. Before I came to New York I expected to see this class of neighborhood more, but I haven’t found it in Manhattan.
Although I found this neighborhood intriguing, all the garbage on the streets suddenly made me wish I was in Connecticut with Mr. Schrub and his family and around trees and lawns and spacious houses.
I found a small brick house in a row of similar houses and rang the front door. A female with short black hair answered. She was Japanese.
I reviewed the number above the door. “I apologize,” I said. “I think I have the incorrect home.”
“For whom are you looking?” she asked.
“Is this the house of Barron Wright?”
“The house of Barron Wright and Cynthia Oharu, yes. Barron’s my husband.” She smiled, and I felt foolish for my original statement. “Karim, right? Please come in. And would you mind taking off your shoes?”
I said that was often the custom where I was from as well. She asked for the location, and I told her, and she made me guarantee to tell her more about Qatar later. Then she said my friend was waiting for me.
The living room had pictures on the walls of Barron and Cynthia and their daughter. Over a dozen adults and several children stood or sat on the two couches and multiple chairs. Everyone was black or Latin American, minus Cynthia, Rebecca, two white couples, and me.