Sequence (6 page)

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.

THEO

I lied.

Pause.

The truth is, you can't change your luck.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

Perhaps not. But then why did He send you here if it wasn't to kill me?

DR. GUZMAN finds a glass pipette.

MR. ADAMSON

It's possible He sent me here to inform you, or even to warn you, that you have ventured into God's territory.

DR. GUZMAN

What exactly is God's territory? The Middle East? The Vatican? Alabama?

MR. ADAMSON

This lab. You're playing around with something sacred. You're trying to rewrite God's very own text. Our genetic code. Why is that fair game? Nobody would dare mess around with Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is merely one of His creations.

DR. GUZMAN

Shakespeare never killed anyone. He never blinded anyone. He never took away someone's child by making a typo.

MR. ADAMSON

God doesn't make typos.

DR. GUZMAN draws GAG --> GTG.

DR. GUZMAN

No? Well your God must have been a little hungover one morning because He stuck a thymine instead of an adenine in the hemoglobin gene, so I'm pretty sure He goofed.

MR. ADAMSON

God does not goof.

DR. GUZMAN

Is that right? Did He intend for this one simple polymorphism to cause the red blood cell to sickle? Did He intend for one in five hundred black people to be crippled by this disease? I'm pretty sure He meant to hit the
A
on his four-key typewriter.

MR. ADAMSON

How do you know that? What if Shakespeare intended to write, “To pee or not to pee.” Maybe Hamlet had a prostate problem and
that
was the question. Or why don't we just assume the writer did what he intended to do, and accept it at face value?

DR. GUZMAN

So what did your God intend to do? What was He thinking when He
created
sickle-cell disease? Or muscular dystrophy? Or retinitis pigmentosa?

Pause.

What was He thinking when He put you in a sex-free wheelchair for the rest of your goddamn life?

MR. ADAMSON

I will walk again. I will have children. When God decides it's time.

DR. GUZMAN

Right. While you sit around and wait for two legs and a penis to drop from the sky, my job is to hit the delete button and fix what needs to be fixed, by whatever means necessary.

MR. ADAMSON

My job is to preserve and protect His original manuscript. In all its glory.

DR. GUZMAN

How, exactly, do you intend to do that? You can't even preserve and protect your own underpants.

MR. ADAMSON

People think just because you're in a wheelchair, you're an easy target. I
can
protect myself, Dr. Guzman.

DR. GUZMAN finds a bottle of clear liquid.

She sets it on top of the briefcase.

DR. GUZMAN

I don't see how. Unless you're hiding a weapon in here.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

So you admit it! You might want to change the title of your book.

THEO

To what? You're completely screwed and there's nothing you can do about it? You think that's what people want to hear?

CYNTHIA

Doesn't matter. You should tell them the truth.

THEO

Fine, here it is. I think you were born unlucky. I think your baby has the misfortune of having an unlucky mother, and if you open that envelope, I'm betting the test is positive. You can't change your luck. You got what you got. I'm sorry.

CYNTHIA

Don't be sorry. There's no reason to apologize for being an arrogant, know-it-all prick. Some people are born that way. You got what you got.

THEO

I
am
sorry. I'd help you if I could.

CYNTHIA

Go to hell.

THEO

I couldn't save my wife. And you expect me to help
you
?

CYNTHIA

What happened to your wife?

THEO

Car accident. A long time ago. Only one of us survived. Guess which one.

CYNTHIA

The lucky one?

THEO

The one who wasn't pregnant.

CYNTHIA

I'm sorry.

THEO

Apparently, my luck has an asterisk.

CYNTHIA heads for the door.

This Fibonacci sequence. I don't understand. Why would my bets be following that pattern? That's quite a…

CYNTHIA

Here's what I can't figure out. Why
this
sequence? There are hundreds of mathematical sequences out there. You could have picked your coin flips according to the digits of pi. Why Fibonacci? This sequence you just happened to choose is almost… spiritual.

THEO

I didn't choose it. It chose me.

CYNTHIA

Yeah. That's the thing. I'd feel better if
you
had chosen
it
. It would make the probabilities more palatable.

Pause.

Theo, why is your briefcase combination the first six digits of the Fibonacci sequence?

THEO

I don't know why. Those numbers just came to me one day.

CYNTHIA

You had no idea about their significance?

THEO

No. I just knew I'd never forget them.

THEO checks his watch.

CYNTHIA

You're a strange man, Theo. Mathematically speaking.

THEO

What did you mean, spiritual? You mean God? Is this God communicating with me?

CYNTHIA

Is God giving you gambling tips? That's your theory?

THEO

It's possible. God invented Las Vegas.

CYNTHIA

God invented religious delusion.

THEO

Well, what's
your
theory? Why am I following this Fibonacci sequence?

CYNTHIA

I don't have a theory. I just identified a pattern. The question is, why? Why are you following this predetermined pattern? It's almost as if your picks have already been written down and sealed away.

THEO's phone starts ringing in his briefcase.

THEO

And I'm just opening the envelopes. One by one.

CYNTHIA

You don't have to. You could just tear it up and walk away right now. You could die a lucky man.

Laboratory

MR. ADAMSON

Do you really believe I would do that?

DR. GUZMAN

If anyone is an easy target, it is me. A public advocate of stem-cell research. A blind woman alone in a basement lab, foolish enough to open her door in the middle of the night.

DR. GUZMAN uncorks the bottle.

MR. ADAMSON

What is that?

DR. GUZMAN

H2SO4. pH of 1.26. This will burn through anything.

MR. ADAMSON flips his astragalus.

MR. ADAMSON

Tails!

DR. GUZMAN

Ah. So you're saying we should increase our sample size? I might make a scientist out of you yet.

DR. GUZMAN pulls out her coin, flips it. Again she tries to catch it. Again she misses. The coin falls to the floor.

Dammit. I could have sworn I was able to flip a goddamn coin six months ago.

DR. GUZMAN examines her glasses.

She drops to the floor, searches for the coin.

Mr. Adamson, are you in favour of embryonic stem-cell research?

MR. ADAMSON

No. But that doesn't mean—

DR. GUZMAN

You, if anyone, should be cheerleading this whole thing. You have the most to gain.

She finds the coin, shows MR. ADAMSON.

Heads, not your lucky day. Do you actually know what the odds are of you ever walking again? One in a billion. That's with a B.

MR. ADAMSON

I'm an optimist.

DR. GUZMAN

You're an idiot. The only chance you have is if some stem-cell researcher gets lucky and stumbles on a cure. Before some myopic fundamentalist kills us all in the name of God. If you want to walk to your altar one day, we are your only hope.