Sequence Page 5
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.
&nbs
p; 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.