Mr. Schrub whispered to his friends, “Remind me who we’re giving our money away to for this one?”
Mr. Slagle said, “Kosovo.”
“Kosovo,” Mr. Schrub said. “It’s beautiful there. They don’t need any money.”
Mr. Slagle laughed. Mr. Schrub looked at him. “You find that humorous, Dick?” His tone of voice was as serious as when he yelled at his sons.
Mr. Slagle’s eyes rotated to the others. “Sure,” he said.
“Well, it’s not,” Mr. Schrub said. “My great-grandfather was from there.”
His friends looked uncomfortable. “Hey, I’m sorry, Derek,” Mr. Slagle said.
“You’re sorry?” Mr. Schrub asked.
Mr. Slagle looked at the others as if he required help. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I thought you were making a joke.”
The female finished her speech and the crowd applauded, but Mr. Schrub remained silent. I wanted to say something to help Mr. Slagle, but I didn’t know what I could say and of course I was afraid.
Then Mr. Schrub said, “I’m just joking, Dick,” and he contacted him on his shoulder and smiled. “What do you take me for, some kind of monster?”
Mr. Schrub laughed and then Mr. Slagle did and the other men followed, and the tension around them deleted. However, my muscles still felt restricted, as if I were exercising with weights. It reminded me of when Dan pretended he had cancer.
The others began talking again, and Mr. Schrub seemed to be in a positive mood, so I said to him quietly, “I am ready to discuss the contract.”
He looked at me and said, “Let’s go to my car.” He told his friends he would see them later, and he called Patrick to bring the car around. We exited the ballroom together. Walking with him was again parallel to walking through the restaurant: People pretended not to observe him, but they were all doing it.
We had to wait a minute on the street for the car, and I didn’t know what to say, and Mr. Schrub said nothing either, and I again felt a lack of confidence and wished I hadn’t told him I was ready to discuss the contract, but now I was there and I had to continue my plan.
The limo arrived and we got inside and Mr. Schrub told Patrick to drive us around the area for a few minutes. Mr. Schrub raised the internal divider between us and Patrick, and the world outside muted. The windows were also cloudy from the combination of interior heat and exterior cold, so it was as if we were contained inside a small egg with no sounds and few lights as we drove down 5th Ave.
“So?” he asked. It is difficult to proceed when someone launches a conversation with that.
I commanded myself to be strong and said, “I have finished the epidemiology paper. But I am not signing the contract, because I believe it transfers ownership to you.”
The lights of the luxury stores and their neon Christmas decorations passed by our dark windows in undefined shapes. “It transfers ownership so we can improve it,” he said. “You still get a healthy raise and plenty of stock. You’re not getting a raw deal here in any way.”
“It is not about the money,” I said. “Kapitoil has already independently outpaced quants revenues from all of last year by 3 %. Possibly this can help people.”
“You already are helping people,” he said. “This is not a zero-sum game, Karim. Do you know how many people in our office would be looking for jobs now if not for Kapitoil? Or how many other people it’s created opportunities for?” I didn’t say anything. “Look, I want to help people, too. But I’m a realist. The program might work for predicting the spread of diseases. But it definitely works for predicting oil futures. You don’t cut open the goose that lays golden eggs.”
“I understand I am helping some people,” I said. “But Kapitoil is a zero-sum game. It leverages problems elsewhere and transforms a loss into financial gain.”
He shook his head. “If we don’t do it, someone else will. Maybe you wish otherwise, but those are the rules of the game. If you can’t play by them — well, then, you’re not man enough to be in this business. And I had you pegged wrong.”
The car stopped quickly, and to stabilize myself I placed my hand on the window and deleted a section of the moisture. It was interesting how by making something clear I simultaneously left a mark. Through the small hole was St. Patrick’s Cathedral and its two tall towers in the front that looked like antennae.
“I’ve discussed with George promoting you and giving you a raise,” he continued. Then he stated a figure I never expected to earn in my life.
“Don’t answer now,” he said. “I’ll be away for Christmas, but my secretary will set up a meeting on the 30th with a new contract and all the terms spelled out clearly.”
He asked if I wanted to return to the fund-raiser, but I said I could walk home. Before I exited, he said, “Remember what I said about the goose, Karim.”
But as I walked home, instead of considering the goose or the rules of the game or if I was cut out to be in business, I thought about the toothpicks Mr. Slagle had deposited on the ground, and I wondered how long it would take until someone located them and picked them up, and how they would probably remain hidden for weeks or months with small pieces of dates and bacon on them and turn rotten. It was not the correct subject to be thinking about, but sometimes it’s difficult to control where your brain routes itself.
in the ballpark = an estimated value
man enough = possessing the strength and power to succeed
raw deal = a deal that is unfavorable for one party
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: DECEMBER 26
The next day I still didn’t know what to do. I could consult with Barron, but (1) I still didn’t want to reveal what Kapitoil was, and (2) I was afraid he would think I was greedy for considering taking the money. And I had already not told the 100 % truth to Rebecca and couldn’t disclose to her all the details.
My mother would have also been a valuable advisor in this situation. She would not have judged me like my father would. And she would not have been as inexperienced as Zahira is in subjects like this. She also would be able to see multiple POVs, e.g., maybe the epidemiology proposal wouldn’t function and I might lose this program that would certify Zahira and I had sufficient funds for the future, or maybe it would function and some ventures like this merited the risk.
On the day of Christmas Eve I watched television for several hours. Most channels displayed shows or movies with Christmas as the subject. In one, a family invited a homeless man to their Christmas dinner, even though they were poor themselves. In the end he revealed that he was in fact a millionaire, and for their generosity he rewarded them. It was unrealistic and false although it still made me feel slightly enhanced at the end, but the more I thought about it after, the less I liked it.
By nighttime I felt quarantined in my apartment. I had seen advertisements on the news the entire day about Midnight Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and driving past it with Mr. Schrub had already made me think about attending it, and I had nothing else to do.
I walked along 50th St. to the cathedral. The black sky was littered with snowflakes like rays of sun underwater. I thought of how they would melt and sink into the ground for trees, and then the trees would eject water vapor, which produces more rain in return. The world can be so elegant when it is left alone to itself.