Particles and Luck
by By Jones, Louis B.
Category: Fiction , Humorous , General

Particles and Luck is the story of one night, two men, and an invisible third force that has brought these two men together. Mark Perdue and Roger Hoberman have nothing in common - except the joy of adjoining yards. Mark is a whiz-kid physicist who knows that the "genius" stature and the endowed chair at Berkeley that have been accorded him are bits of dumb luck; Roger is the owner of a pizza franchise whose luck has turned dumb - in financial and marital distress, he has been denied child visitation rights but not babysitting obligations.Roger and Mark have just been notified of a claim of adverse possession on their property, effective the next day. Particles and Luck is the story of the Halloween night they spend together, trying to imagine how this threat will materialize. Camped out amidst pieces of Roger's Naugahyde furniture, warmed by a pile of Kingsford briquettes, fortified by some frozen peas and meat that has not quite thawed, marking boundary lines with Oakland Raiders pennants - this will be a night unlike any other in contemporary fiction.