Teach Me by R. A. Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

also keeping me standing.
    “I kind of like that you kind of like it.”
    I raise the posthole digger—“I claim thee in the name of Sir Guy of Gismond!”—and stab it violently in the trampled sod.
    Stop being stupid. Calm down.
    I lever the metal jaws shut, lift, pull away a bite of turf, pile.
    “Hey, you’re pretty good at that.”
    I feel myself flushing pleasurably and stab the hole again. “My dad taught me. We used to build stuff. So what are you doing here?”
    “Hey, can’t a new guy join the community? Actually, I promised Britton and Kelly—they pledge, I work.”
    I feel myself bristling.
    “So how much did they give?”
    “Completely confidential! Dollar an hour.”
    “Cheapskates.”
    “You get what you pay for.”
    “So they say.”
    Is this turning into small talk?
    Quiet.
    I dig steadily, trying not to grunt. Praying my deodorant is a shining example of Truth in Advertising. I need something to occupy my hands, my flaming attention. I watch my feet to keep from glancing at his back, his shoulders, his arms. The ground is reasonably soft; the hole grows in satisfying pinches.
    For a while we don’t speak. I appreciate the lack of mindless chatter. We set the first tree, shovel in the fill, pat the cool earth. When our fingers briefly touch, an electrical impulse riots up and down my spine. When I get up again, my hands and legs are shaking. I grip the digger harder. We move along the edge of the field, slowly emptying the sack. I refuse to trade for the shovel.
    After an hour or so of this, things are feeling a little more comfortable.
    Now:
    Start with the easiest question.
    “There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
    Mr. Mann leans on the shovel, top lip beaded gold. I love the fact that he hasn’t shaved today; his stubble is dark and bronzed at the tips.
    “Sure.”
    “Why Emily? You could have picked so many poets. Whitman, Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Wouldn’t longer poems have been easier to dig into?”
    “And you said you didn’t know poetry.”
    “I don’t. But when I learn something, I learn it. What’s the internet for, anyhow?”
    “EBay. I’m looking to score a set of Clackers.”
    “Huh?”
    “Never mind.” He stretches, making me nearly gasp in wonder, arms reaching over his head, broad chest pulling at the material of his shirt. “Whew. Haven’t done anything like this in a while. Okay. Why Emily.”
    He brushes his eyes with a shining arm. I’m glad I’ve got something to hold on to.
    “Because she’s the Queen of Almosts ,” he says.
    “Almosts?”
    “Almost beautiful. Almost married. Almost published to fame and fortune. Almost, almost, almost. That’s even the title of one of her poems, ‘Almost.’ The closer she would get to a thing, the more she would cut herself off from it.”
    “That sounds so quantum,” I say without thinking.
    “Yeah, you know, you’re right. It is.”
    I don’t know what to say next. I’m too busy thinking. We move on to the next hole.
    Bang.
    I’m suddenly paralyzed by a terrifying thought:
    Is that what this is, this thing with Mr. Mann? Quantum theory?
    Am I trying to discover what’s really real there?
    A quantum physicist chops hunks of matter into smaller and smaller bits, atoms, neutrons, electrons, quarks, hadrons, leptons, gluons, etc. Looking for what they call the God particle —it has been so hard to find, some physicists call it the God damn particle—that final piece of matter that really, truly, concretely exists.
    That final piece of something you can actually, physically Touch.
    But it’s never really there. You can slice away forever and not find a single piece of solid ground to hang on to.
    A burning starts behind my eyes, the sudden need to bawl.
    No.
    I drive the posthole digger viciously.
    I’m a Deep Sky astronomer. Deep Sky astronomers are used to dealing with stuff that seems impossible: quasars, black holes, event horizons,