The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández
Authors: Carlos Hernández
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lb., 11 oz. boy with ten fingers and ten toes and his whole life ahead of him.
It was hours more before they would let me in to see the baby and the proud parents. When I did finally enter the room, Chase was cradling the sleeping newborn in his lap, while Karen lay on the bed with her eyes closed, looking like a vampire’s most recent meal, black-eyed and enervated.
I whispered from the door, “Hey, happy parents!”
Chase gestured me over; I tiptoed so as not to wake the newborn. “He’s just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Chase whispered. Only surface tension held the tears against his eyes; they would fall the next time he blinked. “It’s like he’s made of ‘perfect information,’ right Jesús? Like you gathered all the best ideas from every universe and put it into our child. That’s what you did. There in the ClassAgg,you made all this possible. It’s a miracle. You gave Karen and me a child of our own.”
“Yeah,” said Karen, “a child of our own.” I looked at her and found she was staring at me. Through her exhausted rictus I could see that same infuriating look of hers. Once again she was waiting for me to betray her.
I knelt next to Chase’s wheelchair and brought my face close to the child’s. The sleeping baby took easy, sonorous breaths. “My God,” I said, and I meant it. It was hard to imagine the universe had any problems at all when it had babies in it breathing so peacefully.
But the truth is, babies are born into a universe of problems. My son’s skin was as brown as mine.
The International Studbook of the Giant Panda
Part 1
It’s a cool Pacific-coast morning when I pull up to the gate of the American Panda Mission’s campus. Security is tight: two guards cradling M-16s and girdled in kevlar ask me what I am doing here.
“Gabrielle Reál,
San Francisco Squint
?” I say, giving them my best can-you-big-strong-men-help-me? eyes. “I have an appointment with Ken Cooper?”
One guard walkie-talkies in my press credentials. The other stares at me behind reflective sunglasses. Nothing inspires silence quite like a machine gun.
Finally: “O.K., Ms. Reál, just head straight, then take the first right you see. Mr. Cooper will be waiting for you.”
I follow the almost-road to a nondescript warehouse. Outside, park ranger and chief robot-panda operator Kenneth Cooper is waiting for me. Full disclosure: Cooper and I used to date. Which is why you’re stuck with me on this story instead of some boring, legitimate journalist.
Cooper’s been Californiaized. Back when I knew him he was a hypercaffeinated East-coaster working on a Biology M.S. Now he’s California blond, California easy, eternally 26 (he’a actually 37). Flip-flops,bermudas, a white, barely-buttoned shirt that’s just dying to fall off his body. Not exactly the Ranger Rick ensemble I was hoping to tease him about.
I park and get out; I’m barely on terra firma before Cooper’s bagpiping the air out of me. “So good to see you, Gabby!” he says.
I break off the embrace, but keep ahold of his hands and look him up and down. “Looking good, Mr. Cooper. Remind me: why did we break up again?”
“You were still at Amherst. And I left for California. This job.”
I let go, put a hand on my hip. “Biggest mistake of your life, right?”
He holds out his hand again—wedding ring—and I take it, and we fall into a familiar gait as we stroll to the warehouse, as if we’d been walking hand in hand all these years without the interruptions of time and space and broken hearts.
“Don’t be jealous,” he says. “There’s room enough in my heart for you and pandas.”
The warehouse isn’t as big as it looks from the outside. Straight ahead and against the back wall is mission control, where a half-dozen science-types wear headsets and sit behind terminals, busily prepping for the mission of the day. From this distance it looks like a NASA diorama.
To the left are cubicles, a meeting
It was hours more before they would let me in to see the baby and the proud parents. When I did finally enter the room, Chase was cradling the sleeping newborn in his lap, while Karen lay on the bed with her eyes closed, looking like a vampire’s most recent meal, black-eyed and enervated.
I whispered from the door, “Hey, happy parents!”
Chase gestured me over; I tiptoed so as not to wake the newborn. “He’s just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Chase whispered. Only surface tension held the tears against his eyes; they would fall the next time he blinked. “It’s like he’s made of ‘perfect information,’ right Jesús? Like you gathered all the best ideas from every universe and put it into our child. That’s what you did. There in the ClassAgg,you made all this possible. It’s a miracle. You gave Karen and me a child of our own.”
“Yeah,” said Karen, “a child of our own.” I looked at her and found she was staring at me. Through her exhausted rictus I could see that same infuriating look of hers. Once again she was waiting for me to betray her.
I knelt next to Chase’s wheelchair and brought my face close to the child’s. The sleeping baby took easy, sonorous breaths. “My God,” I said, and I meant it. It was hard to imagine the universe had any problems at all when it had babies in it breathing so peacefully.
But the truth is, babies are born into a universe of problems. My son’s skin was as brown as mine.
The International Studbook of the Giant Panda
Part 1
It’s a cool Pacific-coast morning when I pull up to the gate of the American Panda Mission’s campus. Security is tight: two guards cradling M-16s and girdled in kevlar ask me what I am doing here.
“Gabrielle Reál,
San Francisco Squint
?” I say, giving them my best can-you-big-strong-men-help-me? eyes. “I have an appointment with Ken Cooper?”
One guard walkie-talkies in my press credentials. The other stares at me behind reflective sunglasses. Nothing inspires silence quite like a machine gun.
Finally: “O.K., Ms. Reál, just head straight, then take the first right you see. Mr. Cooper will be waiting for you.”
I follow the almost-road to a nondescript warehouse. Outside, park ranger and chief robot-panda operator Kenneth Cooper is waiting for me. Full disclosure: Cooper and I used to date. Which is why you’re stuck with me on this story instead of some boring, legitimate journalist.
Cooper’s been Californiaized. Back when I knew him he was a hypercaffeinated East-coaster working on a Biology M.S. Now he’s California blond, California easy, eternally 26 (he’a actually 37). Flip-flops,bermudas, a white, barely-buttoned shirt that’s just dying to fall off his body. Not exactly the Ranger Rick ensemble I was hoping to tease him about.
I park and get out; I’m barely on terra firma before Cooper’s bagpiping the air out of me. “So good to see you, Gabby!” he says.
I break off the embrace, but keep ahold of his hands and look him up and down. “Looking good, Mr. Cooper. Remind me: why did we break up again?”
“You were still at Amherst. And I left for California. This job.”
I let go, put a hand on my hip. “Biggest mistake of your life, right?”
He holds out his hand again—wedding ring—and I take it, and we fall into a familiar gait as we stroll to the warehouse, as if we’d been walking hand in hand all these years without the interruptions of time and space and broken hearts.
“Don’t be jealous,” he says. “There’s room enough in my heart for you and pandas.”
The warehouse isn’t as big as it looks from the outside. Straight ahead and against the back wall is mission control, where a half-dozen science-types wear headsets and sit behind terminals, busily prepping for the mission of the day. From this distance it looks like a NASA diorama.
To the left are cubicles, a meeting
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