Maybe (Maybe Not) Read Free Page B

of his “laboratory” is spread out at his feet—a map of the universe—a twenty-eight-foot field of granite in which 2,700 small metal studs are embedded. These represent the relative location of the planets, sixth-magnitude stars, and other celestial objects as they were at noon on April 22, 1979, when the memorial was dedicated.
    The statue is remarkably well placed with regard to other powerful places.
    Just behind Einstein’s statue is the National Academy of Sciences Building. To the east rises the white obelisk of the Washington Monument, and farther on the Capitol Building of the United States of America.
    South, across a grassy field, the shiny black granite of the Vietnam Memorial is cut into the earth.
    Over to the right, the grave face of Abraham Lincoln looks out from his marble rotunda.
    And across the Potomac River, the flame that burns on John Kennedy’s grave is visible in the early evening.
    Each time I visit Washington, I come here to sit for a time on Einstein’s lap and think. His demeanor is inviting. His knee accommodating. With so many reminders of the human enterprise visible in all directions, Einstein’s knee becomes an intersection where powerful forces meet—those arising from the complicated human capacity for pain and sorrow, promise and glory, wonder and awe.
    More than anything, Einstein wished to reveal the single common law governing the universe. To state in one ultimate simple equation the unifying property of space, time, matter, energy, gravitation, and electromagnetism. He was in quest of a unified field theory. He failed in this quest.
    An unresolvable polarity resisted his genius.
    Einstein worked his equations in the invisible, abstract world of quantum physics. His conclusions there coincide with the experience of daily existence. He lived, as we live, in the bipolar world of wet and dry, love and hate, peace and war, hard and soft, light and dark, yes and no.

S he was called “Lovey.” Real name—true story. She taught me how to swear and dip snuff, how to sing the blues and iron shirts. Five days a week she did the housework and cooking for my family. My mother worked in the family business during the years I was in high school. When I came home each afternoon, Lovey was there to look after me. And there to continue my education in subjects not taught in school.
    She was young, perhaps thirty-five, with fine features, curly black hair, and light brown skin. Neat and precise in her habits. Strong and clear in her opinions. Unmarried, she took care of her blind father, who played guitar and sang on the downtown streets, with a tin cup on the sidewalk in front of him.
    Lovey didn’t fit the cultural stereotype of the hymn-singing,humble mammy. Maybe my mother thought of her that way, but behind my mother’s back Lovey mimicked her, sang raunchy songs, dipped snuff, bad-mouthed white folks, and used all the foul language a rebellious teenager like me so admired. My mother thought of Lovey as my baby-sitter, but Lovey was in truth the high priestess in charge of the rituals of my coming of age, and thereby one of the most influential people in my life—then and now.
    One day she handed me her snuff can. Said she knew I was just waiting for a chance to get into it when she wasn’t looking, so I might as well learn how to dip snuff right.
    First get a little twig from the yard and chew the end soft and wet. Then dip the twig into the snuff and put the end of the twig under your tongue and suck on it.
    After about three dip-and-sucks, I got sick and dizzy and had to lie down for a while. My respect for Lovey went up, since she could handle strong tobacco and I couldn’t. But thanks to her, I could boast to my peers, “Sure, hell yes, I’ve used snuff.”
    For the same reason, she gave me my first drink of homemade corn liquor. With similar results. For the rest of my life, I left snuff and corn liquor alone.
    When my mother wasn’t around, Lovey sang the blues. I