The battle was apparently short but spirited. (I only heard it, so this information is secondhand.) José claims he had a great time playing with his rocket launcher (the one he had used on the jaguar) and doubts that we’ll have any further problems with the army or anyone else in his right mind.

A couple days after the shoot-out, there was another interesting development, right here at my shack. José’s buddy who knows the Indian on the crazed fast informed José that the Indian is eating and talking again. José asked me if I’d like to meet the guy to discuss snakes, Subatomic Phenomena, comas or anything else. I said sure, why not?

So José showed up with this wizened Guajiran clad in a loincloth and festooned with feathers, bones, amulets and two Timex watches. José explained that the old geezer was a holy man of some sort, and that he’d been fasting in order to reach a higher plane or whatever.

Luckily the old Indian spoke Spanish, so I asked José if I could spend some time alone with him. José nodded sagely, mounted his little burro and disappeared into the jungle.

I gave the guy a banana, which he swallowed whole, peel and all, and then motioned for him to sit down. He squatted on the floor.

I wanted to find out exactly how wise he was before delving into important issues, so first I asked him why it was that High Pockets and Legs seemed to get along fairly well except on Wednesdays.

He nodded and explained he would have to meet them. Since it was Saturday I figured there wouldn’t be any problem with this.

I called for High Pockets to come out from under the bed. He emerged bleary-eyed, yawned, then erupted in a short sneezing attack. I told him to sit down in front of the old Indian.

In order to roust Legs from his nest under the shack, I picked up my M-16, rammed home a clip and fired a few bursts out the window. I then placed the rifle in front of the old Indian and High Pockets. Legs appeared on cue, snaked his way up the warm barrel and dozed off.

The old Indian placed one hand on High Pockets’ head, lightly gripped Legs with the other and closed his eyes.

He sat that way for about ten minutes. Neither he nor Legs nor High Pockets moved a muscle. I had never seen High Pockets sit so still. He didn’t even blink. Legs didn’t blink either, but I attributed this to the fact that snakes don’t have eyelids.

Finally the old Indian opened his eyes and put his hands on his bony knees.

He then explained that the phenomenon was astrological in nature. It had to do with, among other things, phases of the moon in conjunction with the birth signs of Legs and High Pockets. (Guajiran astrology involves well over 500 birth signs.)

I smirked inwardly and reminded him that the lunar cycle is twenty-eight days and our monthly calendar (excluding February) has thirty or thirty-one. This would result in Wednesday falling on different phases of the moon each month, so what the fuck did the moon have to do with anything, for chrissakes?

The old Indian smiled slightly, motioned for me to calm down and proceeded to impress the hell out of me with a detailed discourse on how the retrograde motions of certain planets (most notably Mars) coupled with the Coriolis effect³⁴ caused High Pockets’ doggy consciousness to conflict arhythmically with Legs’s consciousness, which is, he added, longer and narrower than High Pockets’ consciousness, even though a dog’s spirit is located in his tail. He then explained that dogs don’t really wag their tails but that the Great Spirit is moving in such a way that when dogs wag their tails, the tails are really stationary while everything else wags.

At this point I sensed he was starting to ramble in order to distract me from some glaring inconsistencies in his answer to the original question.

For example: Legs was not born—he was hatched. And as impressed as I was with the old Indian’s knowledge of astronomy, and most especially of the Coriolis effect, much of his astrological data still rang untrue.

Now I was in a quandary. I wanted to get down to more serious matters, namely, Subatomic Phenomena, but I wasn’t sure that the old Indian was ready or willing to absorb the profundity of what I had to say, never mind add some insights of his own.

I had a couple belts of mescal to clear my head.

What the hell? I figured. I’ll give it a shot.

I casually inquired if he would care to hear my views on the Underlying Nature of Reality. His nod was barely perceptible.

I started at the beginning, with José’s mugging of Tina’s family. I explained how my newfound wisdom was somehow related to Tina’s nymphomania (I didn’t mention the concealed diaphragm since it is doubtful that Indians are familiar with such devices), then briefly described José’s assault on the University of Barranquilla Research Library and the abduction of Señor Rodriguez. I asked him his views on comas. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then told me he thought comas were okay. I was impressed by the almost poetic brevity of this answer, so I decided to dive headlong into the New Physics.

I felt that the old Indian needed a bit of background information, so I first gave a very brief but insightful lecture on the history of science, physics in particular. I made mention of Copernicus, Galileo and, most importantly, Newton.

I explained how Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation had formed the bedrock of classical physics. Laws that we take for granted. Laws that we either learned in high school or know intuitively. Laws that deal with cause and effect. Laws that say that the Universe is an orderly and predictable place. Laws that have been found to be totally untrue.

I paused for effect. There didn’t appear to be any. The old Indian was still sitting on the floor impassively. I smiled to myself. See what I mean? I thought. A cause with no effect.

I lit a joint. Exhaled contemplatively.

“Then came Einstein,” I said. I knew I was getting a little out of whack chronologically, but the old Indian was a tough audience, so I figured I’d better get to the crux of the matter. I explained how Einstein’s Theories of Relativity (General and Special) had thrown classical physics on its ear, setting the stage for the next revolution in modern thought and science: Quantum Mechanics.³⁵

At this point the old Indian asked for another banana. Again, he shoved it down his throat without peeling or chewing it. I got the distinct feeling that he was trying to derail my train of thought.

“No more bananas until I’m through,” I warned. His nod was barely perceptible.

I had another warning to lay on the old Indian. This was it: We were about to make a conceptual leap. A leap from the Macrocosmic world of Bananas and Banditos to the bizarre Realm of the Atom and Beyond. We were about to take a look at what’s really going on. A leap from here to here, as it were.

I was starting to get excited, so I had a few more belts of mescal to calm myself down. I relit my joint.

I then explained that one of the major problems with discussing the world beneath the atom is that our language is geared for Macrocosmic Reality and that the best way to understand the Microcosmic Realm is to use allusions, metaphors and analogies. Otherwise, what we call “common sense” can short-circuit our acceptance of the Truth.³⁶

The first thing I did was to guide the old Indian down the path from Macrocosmic Reality to the nitty-gritty world of Underlying Reality. I started by explaining that a long, long time ago there was Nothing. No space, no time, no matter. Zip. Doodley Squat. Then there was a Bang. A very Big Bang.³⁷ The Universe actualized and expanded rapidly, forming a Space-Time Continuum. Matter and energy appeared, stars and solar systems formed, along with the aforementioned Banditos and Bananas. Upon hearing the word “bananas” the old Indian cleared his throat.

Okay, I thought to myself. He wants to fuck around with me. Well, two can play that game.

I grabbed a banana and held it up. “What are bananas made of?” The old Indian licked his lips.

“Banana stuff,” he replied. This was more or less what I’d hoped he would say. Now I figured I really had him.

“And what is banana stuff made of,” I inquired smugly.

The old Indian’s response to this question took me by surprise. “The Great Spirit,” he answered without hesitation.

I took a big hit from my joint. Exhaled contemplatively.

“And what is the Great Spirit made of?”

He put his hand on High Pockets’ head. High Pockets wagged his tail, as he always does in response to a display of affection. “Ask his tail,” the old Indian replied.

“What?” I was getting annoyed again.

The old Indian smiled, his eyes fixed on the banana I was holding. “The Great Spirit wags,” he said. “Now give me the banana.”³⁸

“No bananas, goddammit!” I yelled. “Abso-fucking-lutely no bananas!”

I had a monumental belt of mescal, then handed the bottle to the old Indian. “You get the banana when I say you get the banana.”

His nod was barely perceptible. He drained the half-full bottle in one slug.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

The old Indian let fly an incredible belch, scaring the shit out of High Pockets, who bounded out the door and into the jungle. Even Legs was startled.

“All right, all right,” I said, trying to calm things down.

At this point, the old Indian started giggling. Apparently the mescal was kicking in.

I sighed and sat down. “Are you in touch with the Great Spirit?” I asked.

The old Indian nodded and continued to giggle.

“Tell him to go fuck himself,” I said.

My comment had the desired effect. The old Indian stopped giggling and closed his eyes.

“I am now going to tell you all about this Great Spirit of yours,” I boasted. “Banana Stuff or any other kind of stuff is made of atoms, in the case of bananas, mostly carbon atoms. Now, when we get further down, below the level of the atom, things get weird.”

I started pacing in front of the old Indian, who remained immobile, his eyes still shut.

“There is only one system of thought that has successfully explained the nature of Subatomic Phenomena,” I continued. “That system of thought is called Quantum Mechanics. It is a way of looking at Underlying Reality. It is a way of looking at your Great Spirit.”

At this, the old Indian’s eyeballs started rolling around behind his eyelids, as if he were in REM sleep. As if he were having a spectacular dream or hallucination.

“Your Great Spirit is a very bad boy. He has been doing his best to confuse us. But we have more or less figured out what he is up to. He has given us an apparently orderly Universe. But under that illusory order, there is chaos. Absurdity.”

I relit my joint and continued. I went on to explain how Quantum Theory has demolished our conception of causality, of the connectedness of events.

“Moreover, Subatomic Units, the stuff everything is made of, do not behave like solid particles. Instead, they behave like abstract entities. Statistical entities that have tendencies to exist.”

I held the banana in front of the old Indian’s closed eyes. “In some sense, this is an illusion. We conjure up reality and reality conjures us up. You participate in the existence of this banana and vice versa. This Great Spirit you are talking about is mathematically described by Quantum Mechanics. This mathematics indicates that chance is absolute. The Great Spirit doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

The old Indian opened his eyes slowly and stared straight ahead.

“Matter, indeed, the whole of the Universe, is essentially nonsubstantial. In other words, there is no Banana Stuff in the real sense. Simplistically speaking, this banana is ‘made’ of waves and these waves are probability waves. To put it another way, this banana probably exists. Do you still want it?”

The old Indian didn’t move a muscle.

“I thought not.” I opened another bottle of mescal and had a belt. “The human view that we live in a Universe that ‘makes sense’ is gone forever. The whole thing is a Cosmic Crapshoot. The first rule is that there are no rules and the rules and the paradoxes go on and on and the circus goes on and on with an infinite number of acts, sideshows and freaks.”

I heard a faint humming sound. It was coming from the old Indian.

High Pockets started howling from the jungle.

Legs was staring at the old Indian from his position wrapped around my M-16.

“Now we come to the problem of Schrödinger’s Bandito.”³⁹

The humming increased in intensity by a few decibels.

“Let’s assume that José was captured during his assault on the University of Barranquilla Research Library and was thrown into solitary confinement by the Army.

“Let us further assume that a sadistic Generalissimo has placed a vial of deadly nerve gas in José’s cell. A random event (like whether or not a uranium atom decays during a specific time period) will decide whether the gas is released.”

At this point I digressed slightly. I explained that the work of Heisenberg, Schrödinger and others had led to the aforementioned conclusion that we are participators in the reality we are stuck with, not observers. Extrapolating from this, it has come to be accepted that nothing really occurs until it is observed, in this case by the Generalissimo. When he looks in the jail cell he will observe that José is either alive or dead. He will then know that the uranium atom has decayed. Again, until this observation, nothing bas happened.

The old Indian’s humming was getting louder.

“Let’s say the Generalissimo is fucking his girlfriend and doesn’t get around to checking how José is doing for an hour after the allotted time. What is José’s status during this hour? Common sense tells us that he is either alive or dead.”

I paused for emphasis. “Quantum Theory says that this is simply not the case. The Copenhagen Interpretation asserts that José is neither alive nor dead, but is in some sort of limbo, waiting to be observed.”

It now became necessary to raise my voice. Between High Pockets’ howling outside and the old Indian’s humming inside, I could hardly hear myself think.

‘This idea that José’s condition is contingent upon a horny Generalissimo’s sexual endurance runs against the grain of many scientists. John Wheeler, Hugh Everett and Neill Graham came up with a nifty solution to the dilemma.”

Now I was yelling. “The orthodox interpretation of Quantum Mechanics says that one of the possibilities actualizes. José is either alive or dead. What Wheeler, Everett and Graham propose is that both actualize, but in two different branches of reality !”

The old Indian’s humming was now wavering like a police car siren. High Pockets’ howling was more or less in tune with him.

Legs got disgusted with the situation and snaked his way back down to the floor, then disappeared through his crack.

“The Edition of José that is eventually observed (for sentimental reasons, let’s say he’s alive) is the Edition of José in our Reality. In some other Branch of Reality, there is an Edition of José that is dead! This theory is appropriately called the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics!”⁴⁰

I took another serious slug of mescal, then screamed over the din, “How’s your Great Spirit doing, Jack?”

The old Indian abruptly stopped humming. High Pockets shut his trap, too. The resulting total silence made me a little woozy. Maybe it was the mescal. It’s hard to say.

I examined the old Indian’s eyes. It was obvious that he was in some sort of trance. I thought briefly of Señor Rodriguez, wherever he was, then of Tina, Tom, Gary and Tina’s father.

The old Indian suddenly rose and walked stiffly out of the shack and disappeared into the jungle. I haven’t seen him since.⁴¹

This new volley of musings will be Subatomic in nature, and I have hatched an ingenious plan to keep them all on their conceptual toes. José has agreed to help me in this. He has Bandito Cohorts all over South and Central America, a veritable Bandito Grapevine. He will have his Bandito Buddies mail my notes from many different Bandito Strongholds simultaneously. The handwriting and my unmistakable style and wit will be the same, so it will appear that I am in many different places at the same instant!

The astute reader should immediately sense the similarity between this concept and the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (each note will metaphorically represent a different Edition of me). I am especially interested in Tina’s father’s reaction. I can’t wait to see if he picks up on what I am doing. I am, in essence, putting his Subatomic Mettle to the acid test.

God only knows what Tina, Tom and Gary will think of all this.