The Complete Roderick (39 page)

‘But Father, I just thought, maybe he had like a baptism of desire or –’

‘Great, kid. Terrific thought there. You know it’s never too late with God, you can get sent into the game in the last minute of the last quarter and still score … Listen, I’ll try to fit him into my prayers, okay? I’m pencilling him in on the roster right now, okay? Now how about getting off the line, I’m expecting a top-priority call from Thailand.’

‘Yes, but couldn’t Father Warren maybe –?’

‘Father Warren is sick. Goodbye.’

The long hands, now bulged about with tape and gauze like a boxer’s weapons, rummaged through old xerox copies of
Philosophy
and
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
At times he would stop, outwardly appearing to rest or perhaps to try to remember what he was looking for. But inwardly the wheels never stopped, never slowed.

Zeno would say it was impossible, motion. For before a wheel can make a full revolution, it must make a half-revolution, before that a fourth, before that an eighth, before that a sixteenth … faced with an infinity of infinitesimal movements before it can move at all, the wheel gives up.

Father Warren sighed. How easy
now
to smile at Zeno’s simple paradoxes!
Now
with the two-handed engine at the door, waiting to crack the very hinges of the universe!

Mrs Feeney opened the door a crack. ‘Won’t you eat anything, Father? Just, even a glass of milk?’

He waved a lump of bandage. ‘Too busy, too busy here.’ Milk! To build bones, no doubt. As if that were any kind of solution but a calcium solution, calcium being a metal sure, but can these metal bones live? Let her answer that, yes or no. He lifted the glass, praying inwardly:

‘Father if it be Thy will, let this cup pass away, but if it be not Thy will, then let me take this cup and throw the dice therein.’ He felt a sudden coldness within, and saw the glass was now empty. ‘For Thou playest not dice with the universe,’ and even Pascal said it was a safe bet. So give the wheel its turn, and roll the bones.

But what did Luke say? Not Luke, Lucas, Lucas … something about Gödel’s paradox was it, where … The hands pawed wildly for a moment – or an hour – was he looking for Gödel or J. R. Lucas, now, ‘On Not Worshipping Facts’ was it? But the article is a fact itself, is that a para … here, here now to get it down once for all time. Holding the pen awkwardly, he began:

Gödel’s paradox shows that within any mathematical system it is possible to write formulae representing statements outside the system. Then if a certain formula is true, its corresponding meta-mathematical statement is true, and vice versa. Moreover

Moreover what? Gödel equals GOD + EL, stop it, stop it!

Moreover one can write a formula
Z
corresponding to the meta-mathematical statement: ‘The formula
Z is
unprovable in the system.’ If the system proves
Z
,
Z
is true and therefore the statement is true, making
Z
unprovable: a contradiction. Therefore
the system cannot prove
Z,
so the statement is true. But that means that
Z is
true, but unprovable in the system.

Thus for every mathematical system (without internal inconsistencies) there must be one formula which is true but unprovable.

Lucas goes on to show that all machines are mathematical systems of this kind, since all of their operations can be written into formulae. Thus for every –

‘Father, did you want anything else, a sandwi –?’

‘
GO AWAY DAMN YOU DAMN YOU GO AWAY
!’ Damned interfering old biddy sticking her nose in the door just when he was getting to the, where, where was it, yes:

Thus for every machine there must likewise be a formula
Z
representing the metamachine statement: ‘The formula
Z
cannot be proved in the machine.’ In other words, there is one thing the machine cannot do. This reduces the mind-machine debate to a simple contest: The mechanist first presents Lucas with a machine proposed as a model of the mind. Lucas then points out something the mind can do but the machine cannot (prove
Z
). The mechanist can now alter the machine so it can handle
Z,
but then it is a different machine. There is now a different unprovable formula
Y
to baffle it. And so on. The contest continues until the mechanist either produces a machine for which there is no unprovable formula at all – which he can never do – or admits defeat. The mind must win.

Father Warren paused a moment, then added: HA HA HA HA HA!

But –

But what if the machine could alter itself? What if every time Lucas pointed out a gap in the machine mind, the machine simply plugged it? What if the machine could learn and change? So that it begins by saying ‘Gee Father I don’t know …’ and before you know it, it’s inside your head yes inside your head, twisting the controls, stop it, stop it!

Lucas’s bright paradox began to look tarnished already, like Zeno’s whirligig, only an amusement, a game the game position –
stop it! –
only a trivial, a puppy chasing its tail, that was it, a puppy chasing its own, but if, but what if …?

He looked up, but there was no one at the door.

But what if the machine caught up with Lucas, what if it surpassed him and turned the tables? What if it began setting formulae Lucas could not prove, what then?
Write,
he commanded his hand.
Anything, write.
And after a moment the hand moved, writing A.M.D.G., A.M.D.G., faster and faster, trailing a glory of gauze:

A.M.D.G., They have pierced my hands and my feet they have numbered numbered all my bones I believe in God the Fact the

And he saw the whirling puppy snap up its tail, then its hind legs, front legs collar and head snapping up its tail and so on, damn him, and so on!

‘Now, you good sisters been doing a darn good job here,’ said Father O’Bride. He stood with one shoe up on the desk, scraping mud from his cleats. Points of light glancing from his 30-function sports watch danced in the corners of the office behind Sister Filomena, who stood with downcast eyes. ‘As I see it, you gave that Wood kid every chance. Every chance. Not your fault if he fumbles instead of running with the ball, is it? Nope. And boy does he fumble! Let’s just run over his track record, okay?’ He swaggered to the little portable blackboard and erased a football diagram. Then he stood, one fist on the hip of his SHAM OCKS uniform (from which the erroneous C had been removed), the other hand flicking and catching a piece of chalk as though it were a decision coin. Finally he wrote
1
.

‘One,’
he said.
‘Discipline.
The little creep fouled up Sister Olaf’s religion class, but good! Then
I
tried to have a man-to-man rap with him, where did I get? Zilchtown, that’s where. Kid’s not even in the same ballgame, can you dig that?’

‘Yes Father. We –’

‘So I says to myself fine, okay, I’ll bench him a while, give him a couple hard workouts with Father Warren, he’ll come around. Only what happens? Father Warren hits into the rough and stays there! And that’s what hurts. Sister, that’s what really hurts. I see him sitting there day after day, busting his … his brains over these dumb games – how to read a robot’s mind, crud you
wouldn’t believe, a book called
The Soul of the Robot,
another one
Computer Worship –
and all the time his faith is just winding down, winding down … That really makes me sick, you know? I want to reach out a hand and – by the way, you see his hands? I got Doc Sam to look at him, he says it’s just some local infection, clear up in a minute if he could only stop scratching – but like I said I want to reach out to him, help him, only he won’t help himself! Like yesterday I took him my rowing machine, figured if he won’t come outa the study at least he could get in a little workout, you know what happened? He went all to pieces, started moaning how it wasn’t fair, I couldn’t show him the instruments of torture until I at least asked the question! Instruments of torture! My old rowing machine!’

‘Yes, yes Father.’

That ain’t the worst end of it.’ He wrote 2, hesitated and added 3. ‘He hasn’t said Mass for two weeks, that’s what hurts. That’s what really hurts, Sister. I have to take morning Mass every day and six times on Sunday, double confessions every Saturday – when am I supposed to get down to my own darn commitments? I got no time for the team, no time for planning, firming up dates for the league play-offs, nothing! Not to mention a few business commitments, sure I could scratch them
now
but then
next
season how do we get a deal on uniforms? Same with the devotional items, how else we gonna build the new stadium?’

Sister Filomena said nothing, but he seemed to feel her silence as criticism.

‘Sure, okay I spend a lot of time on these things, yeah and a lot of time at the country club too, but Sister, it’s all an investment. It’ll pay off for the school, the kids, everybody! Only now … and all because of one rotten kid, it makes me sick.’

‘Father Warren’s sick too,’ she reminded him. ‘And I think we ought to do something about him. I think he needs hospital care.’ ‘Hospital? Oh no you don’t. I’m not having our record dragged in the mud like that, not when I’m
that
close to Monsignor. All we gotta do is play it cool and hang in there, this place’ll be a Deanery next Fall. Isn’t that what we all want? The Deanery of Holy Trinity? Or do we want it to be known as “Holy Trinity, yeah, where that priest went bananas”. Besides, he’s not that bad.
He’s just, it’s just that kid, having that kid around. Get rid of him, and Father Warren will be –’

‘I was thinking of the scandal, Father. I suppose you know already Mrs Feeney thinks he’s a saint, and she’s not the only one, half the older women in the parish are saying he’s got the stigmata, the sacred wounds –’

‘Hey!’ Father O’Bride didn’t look at all distressed. ‘They could be right, you know? Who are we to –’

‘Father!’

‘Yeah okay but it’s worth thinking about. Now about this kid. I want him out of our hair now. Right away.’

‘Expulsion?’

‘Nope, too messy, too many explanations. Look, since he’s a smart kid, why don’t we just graduate him? Yeah? That’s it, we’ll graduate him!’

Sister Filomena cleared her throat. ‘I ought to remind you, Father, that while I respect your opinion, I am the principal of this school. We can’t just –’

‘If we don’t,’ he said, ‘we’re all washed up. You, me, the school, the good sisters, and especially Father Warren. Whole team.’

‘I see,’ she said, after a moment.

‘Great. Terrific. Now you just jog on and fill out a diploma for the kid, hand it to him when he comes in, and that’s that. Okay? I gotta coupla phone calls to make …’

‘… him being an inventor and all,’ Mr Muscatine finished. Roderick was staring out of the window. The rain outside the mourners’ car fell in sheets (as he knew it always did at funerals), probably flattening the young oats, and certainly cancelling the big game against the St Theresa Terrors. Over the hiss of tyres, the squeak of windshield wipers and the taped sounds of Sereno Benito’s Strings, it was hard to make out what the little funeral director was rambling on about. ‘No charge of course.’

Ma wasn’t listening, either. She stared out at (or past) billboards advertising Quebec beer, Finnish toilet paper and Turkish cars, and she kept humming that same aimless tune from the Bow-wow Symphony. Probably still couldn’t realize that Pa was dead. He turned to the window again. A rainbow ran with them briefly, the end of it ploughing across Howdy Doody Lake and then apparently dropping back to linger at the new Welby-Bangfield Corporation property development.

Wally Muscatine carried on. ‘My nephew Cliff knocked it together. You know, a bright boy like that gets itchy just setting around all day out there at the junkyard. Has to keep busy, see? So anyway I just thought we’d give it a little run today, see how she goes. Like to think your Pa would want Cliff to have his chance.’

Ma looked around. ‘What was that, Mr Muscatine?’

‘Oh just telling the boy here about my new set of pallbearers. Fully automatic,’ he said, winking. ‘Patent Applied For.’

‘Patent –?’

‘Hope we get some sun, though. Brought the old camera along, thought we might get a publicity shot or so. Like to help young Cliff along.’

The humming commenced again.

*

Ma had been acting strangely – even for Ma since the night of the raid. Roderick had expected tears for Pa, anger at the stupid million-dollar gas bill, anything but this quiet smile, this constant humming. Every now and then she’d wander into Pa’s workshop and rattle some tools, as though looking for something. At other times she seemed to think Pa was only upstairs, lying down after dinner.

‘Bless his heart, he will overeat,’ she’d said yesterday. ‘Chicken and dumplings, chicken and dumplings. Do you know, he likes them so much, I’ve cooked them three times a day for the past forty-odd years?’

‘Ma, listen.’

‘To what?’

‘To me. Listen, Pa is not upstairs lying down. He’s dead.’

‘Pshaw!’ she said, spelling out the unpronounceable word. ‘He’s no more dead than – than I don’t know who than John Keats!’

‘But he’s –’

‘Oh sure his heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains his senses as though of hemlock he had drunk, maybe, but that’s not
dead.
Why, every time you read John Keats he comes to life and speaks, didn’t you know that? Son, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

‘Well gee sure Ma, but …’ But it was no use arguing. He had to go along with the whole charade, pretending to wonder what new invention Pa was working on today; setting out Pa’s plate at the dinner-table (though now that Pa was there only in spirit, Roderick noticed that the old man seemed weary of chicken and dumplings, preferring instead Ma’s vegetarian diet); watching Ma go out for her solitary night-time rambles.

‘Now you stay home, just in case your Pa needs anything upstairs I won’t be long, just getting some ether I mean air.’ And off she’d go, carrying with her some memento: a pair of old earphones, a soldering iron.