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Special Bonus: The Law of Large Numbers
Volvo Walker was so nicknamed because he drives a brand-new Volvo with a bumper sticker that reads But Daddy, I Wanted a Beemer! He shouts at me over the funked-up dance ditty-da-da crap music, “But how did you lose all your money, Frank?”
“We were undercapitalized.” Gleaming alcohol bottles, high-end stuff, warp on the other side of the blue fire that caps my shot of Flaming Snakebite. I puff and blow out the fire with a long stream of cigarette smoke. Fire is a waste of good alcohol, and now the shot tastes like an ashtray with a girl’s lip mark of strawberry gloss.
Volvo Walker lays a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. A C-note is worth one black chip at the casino. I’d lost fifty black chips on one hand of blackjack last weekend. Fifty black chips could buy 714 Flaming Snakebite shots at the Devilhouse with enough left over for one happy-hour beer at Joe’s, but the black chips weren’t mine.
Physics graduate stipends almost cover a flop and a monthly case of ramen noodles, and the cheap bastards don’t even cover tuition. Seven dollar shots sure don’t fit into the budget. Volvo’s daddy pays his tuition and his frat dues, so he also gives him money for shots at the Devilhouse. Undergrads who couldn’t get into swanky, private colleges come to Arizona State because we’re consistently ranked in Playboy’s list of Top Ten Party Schools, and the second-generation nouveau riche writhe on the plantation-sized Devilhouse dance floor like the partying damned in the caves of Hell, just like my Baptist uncles proselytize.
The bartender, Jonah, mixes us another round of Flaming Snakebites. Jonah also tends at Joe’s Bar. Jonah glares like I’m cheating on Joe’s but hands us the shots.
Walker says, “But that M.I.T. blackjack team brought down the house in Vegas.”
“Yeah, I know.” I bang the bar to the bumpy beat. Two girls shimmering with Daddy’s money bud off from the undulating crowd and slink past us. Three triangles mark their shirts over their store-bought breasts: delta delta delta.
In physics, delta means “change.” Delta v means “change in velocity.” Delta m means “change in mass.” Delta $ means “Here’s your change,” which Jonah says and hands Walker a wad of cash.
Circles of light chase each other on the girls’ blonde hair and sculpted faces. They’re twins or clones, or they had the same plastic surgeon. One of them winks at Walker. There must be an invisible ink mark near the hairline of the wealthy that we lowlifes can’t see.
Walker shouts above the computerized drums that reached for a crescendo, “The M.I.T. blackjack team flew first class to Vegas every weekend with thousands of dollars duct-taped to their chests and duffel bags full of chips, stayed in Trump-level suites, and ate and drank comps. Why didn’t your blackjack team work?”
My flaming drink sputters and dies. “Because Chi is a pussy and wouldn’t hit on a sixteen, no matter how many times we ran the numbers.” The fruity Snakebite shot slides into my throat and numbs me. I suck on my cigarette. “And Sanjay kept going home to India for a month at a time. And Emma bet too low, even when she was the gorilla. And stinking bad luck.” Luck, chance, the randomness of the universe, and entropy.
Walker says, “Man, the drinks, the steaks, the shows, the planes, the suites, the chicks. They got all that comp’d.”
Walker doesn’t need complimentary food, drinks, and women. Must be nice to have a family who’ll pay for college, for a frat, for drinks, for food. I ask, “What, did you read the book?”
“Nah.” Walker leans back on his bar stool and watches the tri-delts’ asses. The girls’ slim asses sport blue glitter deltas, too. “I watched the movie.”
Figures. “Didn’t work out that way for us.”
Jonah supplies more shots.
“But Frank,” Walker says, “it’s a sure thing. If you count cards like they did, it’s a sure thing.”
“Nothing’s a sure thing. Weren’t you listening in lecture today?”
“Some Jew named Einstein Bose.”
“Two guys.” Shmuck. Idiot hadn’t listened to the physics lecture, which was dumbed down so that even the calculus-innumerate could understand. “Einstein as in E equals m c squared. Bose like the stereo.”
“He was talking about stereos?”
“Yeah.” No. Einstein-Bose condensates are a fifth state of matter, the coldest state. Plasma is the hottest state of matter, the fusing interiors of stars. Plasma cools until it is mere gas, and then liquid, and then solid and, at temperatures as cold as the dead space between stars, into Einstein-Bose condensate.
“Why don’t you start another team, one with smarter guys?” Walker asks.
“Can’t.” The roller on my lighter scrapes my thumb, lighting a fresh cigarette, and the flame leaps near my nose and singes stray eyebrow hairs. “You need a stake to start a team. The Law of Large Numbers applies. On any one blackjack hand, anything can happen. You can lose it all even when the count is good, just due to chance.” Smoke condenses in my throat.
“So, if you had enough money, you could start another team?” Walker asks.
“Sure.” I exhale, and the nicotine buzz starts in the back of my head, Equations are born in the neuron nebula back there. Spiky Greek letters poke my tender grey matter.
“So you need investors?” Walker asks.
“Whatever.” The mirror behind the bar reflects the dance floor. The dancing damned wail and flail in hellfire. My Baptist uncles assure me that I’ll end up among the shrieking sinners if I study worldly things, like physics, like finance, like astronomy or evolution or politics or literature or molecular biology or music or statistics.
Volvo Walker smirks. “Leave the money to me. I want to be the gorilla.”
Continue reading “The Law of Large Numbers” in American Stories
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Praise for TK Kenyon’s Writing
RABID: A NOVEL
Available soon for E-readers and in bookstores everywhere
"WHAT'S NEXT? WHAT'S NEXT?"
"RABID is a solid good read by first time novelist TK Kenyon, a gifted writer who has crafted a book of such mystery that you find yourself, at midnight, on the edge of your seat, asking, 'What's next? What's next?'"
-- Thom Jones, Award-Winning author of: The Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap, Sonny Liston was a Friend of Mine
"A GENRE-BENDING STORY"
*STARRED REVIEW* A priest, a professor, the professor's wife, and his mistress--it sounds like the set-up for a dirty joke, but debut novelist Kenyon isn't fooling around. What begins as a riff on Peyton Place (salacious small-town intrigue) smoothly metamorphoses into a philosophical battle between science and religion. You would think that in attempting to deal with so many different themes-- shady clergy, top-secret scientific research, marital infidelity, lust, love, honor, faith-- Kenyon would run the risk of overwhelming readers. But, and this is why Kenyon is definitely an author to watch, she juggles all of her story's elements without dropping any of them--and, let's not forget, creates four very subtle and intriguing central characters. This is a novel quite unlike most standard commercial fare, a genre-bending story--part thriller, part literary slapdown with dialogue as the weapon of choice (think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf)-- that makes us laugh, wince, and reflect all at the same time. Kenyon is definitely a keeper.
- David Pitt, Booklist, December 1, 2006
"IMPRESSIVE MEDICAL THRILLER"
"When a New England woman discovers her research scientist husband is cheating, she appeals to the clergy for guidance and unleashes high drama that pits religion against science in Kenyon's heated debut novel. After finding pink panties in husband Conroy's suitcase, Bev Sloan seeks spiritual guidance from young replacement clergyman Dante (parish priest Father Nicolai has disappeared after allegations of sexual misconduct). Heavy-handed marriage counseling sessions and a few innocent dinners with Bev lead Dante, smitten with lust for Bev a
nd battling a drinking problem, into a crisis of faith. Meanwhile, Conroy takes a mad scientist turn in his campaign for a promotion. Bev and Dante's courtship unleashes some serious bodice-ripping, and when Conroy remains unrepentant about his dalliances, jealousy and anger erupt in a murder, a tense jury trial and the discovery of a lethal, lab-cultivated aerosol rabies virus. [T]o her credit, Kenyon manages to rein her characters in nicely at the conclusion of this … impressive medical thriller."
- Publisher's Weekly, 10/30/06
"THRILLING … SHOCKING"
"RABID is a biopsy of our heated emotions and troublesome philosophies. Kenyon puts the vanishing point between science and religion under an electron microscope, and what she finds there is as thrilling as a discovery and as shocking as a revelation."
- J.C. Hallman, author of: The Chess Artist, The Devil Is A Gentleman
"SCANDALOUS"
"RABID is sensational, scandalous, and sexy. A remarkable novel, not to be missed."
- Derek Armstrong, author of: The Game, MADicine, The Last Troubadour
LIKE ROBIN COOK ON STEROIDS
“Rabid is one of those reads that hits the ground at full speed and picks up momentum from there. Either T.K. Kenyon doesn’t care where the brake pedal is or decided she didn’t need one and frankly, she's right. This is a full blown scorcher of a novel. Dual themes; out-of-control scientific research, and Pedophilia make hot-as-the-devil premises and great material for Kenyon’s fascinating scientific and philosophical tirades. Science and religion. Rabid gives no quarter. The characters are flawed. You feel their pain, their fear. They sear their way into your subconscious. Still, you root for them. The American priesthood is infested with pedophiles. The reasons have never been explained better, made more exciting, or offered as much hope for the future. Get yourself a copy, strap yourself into your favorite chair, and find out what’s really been going on behind closed doors.”
-Art Tirrell, author of The Secret Ever Keeps.
ELEGANT AND THRILLING
Let me tell ya something about elegance. Elegance is a matter of refinement and quality, sure. But it's also a matter of complexity. Elegant things just have more going on than things that are merely excellent. You may disagree, but I find the Beatles excellent, Bach elegant. You get my drift?
The first layer in this book is the question of murder itself. We know from the outset that someone's going to die, but we don't find out who until half-way into the book. The author hasn't so much muddied the waters as she's added levels to them. Is the victim to be *the annoying and ambitious medical researcher? Could be-he's unlikeable enough and no innocent creatures-or readers- would miss him much.
*the graduate student with whom he is conducting an affair? Maybe-she is brutally transgressive of all the rules of female romantic life. She's the sort of heroine who is always dispatched in the movies to reinforce the notion that sin doesn't pay.
*how about the researcher's milquetoasty wife? The researcher obviously wants her dead and from the way her character is built, it seems that the author did too. Her husband not only has the motivation, he has access to all sorts of yummy viruses to do the job.
*or maybe it's the impossibly refined and educated priest who's just arrived on the scene, sent by the Vatican to lead their parish out of the inferno of a child-abuse scandal and into the paradiso of something better. His name, of course is Dante and he has the combination of faith and doubt that is sometimes resolved in pulpier novels by a heroic death.
Then there's the question of sex. (is sex a question?) anyway, all the main characters are simmering with unfulfilled lusts. Some, like Leila the grad student, are ferociously acting out. (Leila is a deliciously good acter-outer by the way). Others are celibate or so repressed as to be semi-celibate. Does all this sexual stewing have anything to do with the illicit sex that Dante has been sent to stamp out? Or is it thematically related to the HIV research going on in Leila's lab?
The science adds another layer, an elegant hypothesis is teased out of the authorized and underground experiments. The conjecture relates ultimately to questions of faith which are another layer.
There is more, much more. The roles and rules of men and women, the politics of institutions and the tidal waves of ambition all weave threads that recur and fascinate. What makes the whole thing work is that the author is bigger than any of the devices she uses. Nothing is obvious, every thread leads to another consideration without a hint of cliché.
So let's define something else: the word thrill. A thrill is a shiver of delight-it's physical and mental and spiritual. Suspenseful, erotic, many-layered and intelligent, Rabid is truly an elegant thriller.
-Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG
(FIVE STARS) Best debut novel by an author in years
I really didn't expect to like this book much based on the cover flap synopsis, but I could not have been more wrong. It grabbed me very quickly and kept me glued throughout to the last page. Even though the author was bold enough to set up overt clues early in the book about what would happen, I couldn't predict any of the twists and turns in the story. It was like being in the ring with a professional boxer, with blows landing at will from every angle. Unbelievable effort for a first novel. I am definitely looking forward to T.K. Kenyon's future work.
-Software Guy (South Florida, Center of the Universe) 5-Star Amazon Review
Of God and Glycoprotein: Rabid for Religion and Science
September, academia's spring, brings with it rebirth and resurrection. Ideas breed with renewed enthusiasm as minds meet afresh. The new season means, for me, opportunities to join up with others who dwell in the ecological overlap zone of science and religion.
Perhaps in part because I inhabit this overlap zone, I greatly enjoyed a few days' visit to T.K. Kenyon's own hybrid labworld/churchworld. In Rabid, Kenyon pulls together all the beauty and terror found in religion and all the beauty and terror found in science to create a fictional space where every person seeks light, whether at the lab bench, or at the church altar, or both. We all of us are seekers and sinners; we, the devout and the damned, are all the same.
-Barbara J. King, Bookslut
OUTSTANDING THRILLER
“An outstanding thriller, Rabid is based on a plausible scientific hypothesis that reflects the author's scientific education and experience. On this she builds a psychological, legal and religious drama that captures and holds the reader's attention. The main characters are well drawn, deeply flawed human beings who still have something of the heroic in them.”
-R. Lee Holz, Blog Review
CALLOUS: A NOVEL
Available soon for E-readers everywhere!
“Crisp character studies … Surprising finish.”
“Kenyon revisits themes from her first novel,—small-town intrigue, salacious carryings-on, scientific research, religious fervor,—crisp character studies and considerable tension on the way to a surprising finish.”
-Mary Frances Wilkins, Booklist
“Convoluted lines of battle … Unconventional ending.”
“Like Kenyon's first novel, this one draws convoluted lines of battle between science and religion. There is also a big dose of small-town intrigue and some really smart law enforcement folks, although you don't always notice that right away. Kenyon has a way of painting vivid characters with a broad brush, although she also keeps a few character traits in reserve to keep things interesting. The book starts conventionally enough, with the disappearance of Ester, the adult daughter of a rancher in Texas. Chief Deputy Max, an old-fashioned cop if there ever was one, is on the case with his wife, County DA Diane, who is a secret Bible reader. You can't have a murder mystery these days without forensics, either, so Ester's childhood friend Vanessa carries on that theme. The tension and suspense build throughout the book, which makes it a tempting one-sitting read. If you get hooked on it, though, take time to enjoy Kenyon's characters, who offer a lot of detail to study. There's an unconventional ending
, too, but I better not say anymore about that.”
-David Donelson, 5-star Amazon review
“Highly recommended.”
“T K Kenyon is launching a literary career from small town Texas. Like the best mystery writers, she has created a unique geographic niche with characters that are every day believable. CALLOUS is hardly a stereotypical mystery where the only plot motivation is to figure out whodunnit. The characters and plot are complex. There is more in the lives of the husband and wife detectives than solving mysteries. You care about them as people as they sort out the differences in their lives. CALLOUS is for those who enjoy mystery, for those who care about characters, and for those who just enjoy a good can-t-put-it-down read. Highly recommended.”
-Peter Clenott, 5-star Amazon review
“A Loyal TK Kenyon Fan”
“With "Rabid" as a first release, TK Kenyon established herself as a writer that could push your imagination while making you happily uncomfortable. With Callous... she has grown as an author and managed to tone down the quirks in "Rabid" that made me realize I was reading a fiction book while dialing up the suspense. This book is masterfully written and while not as cutting edge as a Chuck Palahniuk novel... it certainly challenges you on a number of levels. TK has done an excellent job of creating a spiral in this story where each turn of plot pulls this small TX town deeper and deeper into a manic episode of self destructive behavior and as you cling to the stability of a few characters, you as the reader, will revel in the difficulties that are created by the rest of the cast. "Callous" represents a big step forward for TK Kenyon and not only have I recommended it to everyone that I know, It has also cemented me as a loyal TK Kenyon fan. I hope to be reading her for years to come.”