Occam’s Razor
By khaleesian
Despite many people’s conviction to the contrary, Benton Fraser, RCMP was not Superman and thus he did not possess X-ray vision. However, when the light tap came at his office door on Monday afternoon shortly after five, he was more than able to envision the person on the other side. He sighed gustily imagining the slight grin on Ray’s face, the one that he would try to obscure by tilting his head down but would peek out through his eyes. Fraser wondered at Ray’s sudden consideration. Typically, a door, like a stoplight, Ray took as only the vaguest hindrance. Ray was probably considering the best way to tease Fraser about his injury. Fraser tried to imagine the words that Turnbull would have chosen to relay the story of the, “incident”. Ray would be highly amused by his predicament. Ray would laugh. Ray would laugh, but was that really so terrible?
“Please come in,” he called, bracing himself.
The door swung open and it
was just as he suspected…the only difference was that Ray’s tee shirt was green
instead of white. Ray leaned lazily
on one elbow placed high on the doorframe.
“So, how’s it going?” he
asked breezily, with the air of someone who was not curious at
all.
“It’s going well, Ray,” said
Fraser, brightly, with the air of someone who doesn’t have a care in the world.
“How are things with you?”
Ray kicked lightly at the
guest chair making it skitter back a few inches. He settled himself down,
stretching his legs out, spreading his elbows to the chair arms and tenting his
fingers over his chest. Fraser
grinned inwardly. To all outward
appearances, Ray was about to have a relaxed chat…only Fraser could feel the
gleeful tension that lit Ray up from the inside.
“Busy day at the
station. Sorry you missed
it.”
“Yes, well...” Fraser tugged
at his collar and barely restrained himself from running his hand over his chin.
“Monday’s usually quite hectic. We had a pretty busy day here as
well.”
“Oh really?” Ray arched an
eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“I’m sure your day was much
more interesting, Ray,” Fraser said hurriedly. “If you’ll forgive me…you
also…smell…quite interesting.”
Ray grimaced then grinned.
“Yeah, I smell like a zookeeper’s shoe.
Did you know the circus was in town?”
Fraser tensed. This sounded
like the beginning of a joke at his expense.
“No, really,” Ray said, off
his look. “Ringling Brothers doing up a big show downtown. They’re unloading today and we get a
call that some guy has hijacked an elephant.”
“My word,” breathed
Fraser.
“Yeah, Dewey took the call,
so we wasted half an hour thinking it was some crackpot. Then Frannie sees the ad for the circus
in the paper, so I hightail it down to the site. I tried to call you to get your
…expert advice…but Turnbull said you were in a meeting with the Ice Queen and
you ‘were not to be disturbed’.”
“What happened?” Fraser
imagined Ray in the path of a charging bull elephant. It was ridiculous to feel
this way so far after the fact, but he couldn’t suppress a thrill of fear for
Ray. And guilt that his own vanity and punctiliousness had kept him from being
there. He shook it off and
concentrated on Ray’s animated face.
“Well, I’m on my way down
there, right?” Ray leaned forward in the chair. “I’m trying to cross against the
signal on
“How did you stop
it?”
“Well, I didn’t,” Ray
chuckled. “I followed it down a few blocks, trying to be quiet, you know, the
horns honking were just making it crazy. There’s this little market and the guy
has got all his produce, melons, mangoes and stuff in bins outside.” Ray was now almost stuttering with
laughter. “So the elephant gets a whiff and makes a huge turn and next things we
know it’s making free with the apples and squeezing the melons like my
grandmother.”
Fraser smiled at the mental
picture. “What did the proprietor do?”
“Same thing everyone else
was doing, he took pictures. He was a champ, figured it would be good publicity,
didn’t make a fuss. So I call it in; Welsh sends uniforms to cordon off the area
and we start herding the beast back with fruit from the market. There are clowns all over and the
press…well, it was a circus, all right. Probably be pictures in the paper
tomorrow.” Ray sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Circus folk are
so psyched to have their elephant back they don’t even press charges against the
kid…put it down to youthful hijinx or something. Figured it was good exercise,
good advertising, no harm, no foul.”
“That’s an amazing story.”
“Yeah. So, what’s with the
bandage?” Ray asked suddenly. “Paper cut? Turnbull get carried away with the
sterile gauze?”
“No, I broke three fingers,”
said Fraser and stopped short. Trickery! Ray had cleverly drawn him in with his
outlandish story and thrust his question into an unguarded moment…well that
train of thought was both ridiculous and uncharitable. It wasn’t as if Ray was
asking maliciously. He was a concerned friend, after all. Fraser drew back from
his indignation.
“How did that happen?” Ray
managed to get the question out but his lips were
twitching.
“I think you must already
know,” returned Fraser, sourly.
“C’mon, don’t be like that,” Ray tilted his chin down and
pouted slightly. Fraser knew that they were going to have this discussion all
along, yet that wheedling tone in Ray’s voice was just …delicious. Fraser had a
sudden vision of himself as the hard-boiled detective in a film noir and cast Ray as the dangerous
blonde. What if Ray stood up and
swung his hips around the desk and sat in Fraser’s lap? Sat in his lap, twined
his fingers through his lanyard and whispered, C’mon, you know how to whistle,
don’t you?
That’s just silly,
“Turnbull told you surely.”
Fraser hoped that Ray couldn’t hear the husky note in his
voice.
“Well, yeah…but if I don’t
hear it from you, I might not believe it….might start having to draw my own
conclusions.”
“Fine.” Fraser steeled
himself. He had been rehearsing this story all of yesterday afternoon. “As you
may remember, we’ve been having some plumbing problems lately. Being in receipt of the requisite parts
on Friday, I convinced our plumber to make a house call on Saturday
afternoon. Considering
my…circumstances…I was the natural choice to supervise and assist him. In the
course of his repair, Mr. Stepacyk dropped a socket wrench and when I attempted
to retrieve it for him, he, quite unknowingly, stepped on my
hand.”
“Quite unknowingly?”
“Mr. Stepacyk is very dedicated, very
focused on his work. It took a few moments to alert him to the mishap and get
him to move.”
“You’re polite and
everything, Fraser, but he’s breaking your fingers and you can’t just shove him
off you?
“Well, the angle and
the...ah, issues of leverage…well, the fact is, Ray, it is possible that Mr.
Stepacyk weighs in excess of 150 kilograms.”
“Whoa…that’s…whoa. That’s a lot.”
“Really, it could have been
much worse.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Ray fixed
him with a look that was both knowing and tender. “Much worse. You want to grab
a bite?”
Fraser relaxed a tension
that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “I’d like that. I’d like to hear more
about the elephant wrangling. You decide what you want to eat while I
change.”
Ray rose and looked at him
speculatively, “You aren’t going to, uh, have any problems with
that?”
“With what, Ray?” Ray suddenly wouldn’t meet his
eyes.
“You know….” Ray’s hand drew
a parentheses around his body. “Shedding the serge?”
Oh dear. “Oh no, I’m…quite
capable of…well, as you can see, I got it on. Getting it off is actually much
simpler.”
Fraser felt his cheeks burning as it suddenly came to him that his innocent statement could easily be…misconstrued. Hopefully, Ray still labored under the delusion that he was quite unversed in American idiom. He darted a quick glance at Ray who was just turning to the door. Ray suddenly seemed in a hurry to be gone and who could blame him?
“Yeah, well, yell if you
need anything.”
Fraser sighed again. With
alarming frequency, his mind and body seemed to be battling for the sovereignty
of his mouth. Dief got up to leave with Ray, his lupine grin speaking
volumes.
“Ray, if you don’t mind my
asking, what did Turnbull tell you?” He projected his voice to penetrate the
door as he pried at his laces with his left hand.
Fraser could practically
hear the devilish grin. “He said you’d had a mishap.”
Which was certainly true.
But not very descriptive. So Ray had essentially, to put it in his own words,
“foxed” him. He found his own lips twitching with a smile as he scratched his
chin.
“Ray?”
“Yeah?” Ray must be standing
very close to the door. He was barely raising his voice.
“Was it an Indian or African
elephant?” And in one form or another, that discussion lasted the rest of the
evening.
“We really needed your
fearsome talents today, Frase.” Ray sounded like he was trying not to sound
accusing or whiny. He swirled around the office like a windstorm. “What’s the
deal, huh? You haven’t had this much paperwork in all the time that I’ve known
you.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Ray,”
Fraser hoped he looked suitably penitent and caught his fingers as they tried to
stray toward his chin.
“I’ve had it just about up
to here with circus-related crime. You should have seen the squadroom. Frannie just left,
she couldn’t take it and me, well, I’ve had the sensitivity training and all,
but I really could have used you while I was interrogating the MIDGET
CLOWNS!”
“Ray, surely I could not
have foreseen that someone would use the popularity of the circus as a venue for
terrorist activity. And the
“Fraser, the weirdest thing
about today….and today was plenty
weird, I gotta tell you…was the fact that you weren’t there. I mean, who else is
going to chase the bad guy into a lion’s cage with me?”
“Ray!!”
“Nah, I mean, that was no
big deal,” Ray suddenly seemed abashed, “Lion was a real, uh, pussycat….but it’s
the principle of the thing, you know, we’re partners. I needed you
today.”
Fraser bowed his head and
stared at his bandaged right hand. The warmth that flooded through him at Ray’s
words seemed like it could have healing powers. He wondered if he peeled the
bandage back if he’d see his hand smooth and whole again.
“So, I mean you’ve broken
some fingers? With your track record, that’s like pretty small potatoes,
huh? Could be a lot worse, right?”
Fraser nodded slowly. Of
course, that was perfectly true. Ray had penetrated his thoughts
effortlessly.
“So why the hermit
act…you’re not, like, developing a phobia about fat guys? Cause that’s gonna
make
Fraser couldn’t believe he
was actually hanging his head. He couldn’t believe that he couldn’t actually
find the words, couldn’t envision himself telling Ray the problem in a clear
voice. This not-speaking was tantamount to a lie…there were so many other things
that they could not speak of. This
was truly “small potatoes”. Surely, if he could tell anyone, he could tell
Ray. Ray hadn’t laughed before. Ray
would tease, but wouldn’t think less of him.
“Oh my God, what an idiot….”
Ray was looking at him, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, the epiphany had arrived. “You
can’t shave, can you, Frase?” Ray
chortled. “You got that
not-so-fresh feeling in spades. You don’t want to disgrace the uniform. Gee,
what did the Ice Queen say?”
“She gave me a
dispensation.” Fraser tried not to snap.
“What, like the Pope?” Ray
was incredulous. “She can do
that?”
“As you may have guessed, it’s contingent upon not being seen in public in the uniform in my current state of…”
Ray threw up his hands and
blew out his breath. “No, no, no, no. You see, today is not over. The last suspect is still on
the loose, there’s a mountain of paperwork and I am not going to pack it in
because you’re sporting a shadow.”
“Really, Ray, you seem to be
doing fine…” Fraser trailed off before he felt the weight of the final words.
Ray narrowed his eyes as if
he had heard the “without me”. He abruptly stopped pacing. “Look, this is a minor detail. This
shouldn’t be that hard. Don’t you have electric razors in
“Well, certainly. I should
have thought to acquire one at the pharmacy last night…but I forgot and today,
of course…”
“Yeah, I get it. You can’t
go outside…”
“And Turnbull was busy with
the…”
“…yeah, yeah.” Ray rubbed
his hand ruefully over his own prickly jaw. “You know, back at the one-six I had
a friend whose partner only bathed once a week. It was hellish for him in the
summertime, hellish for all of us, really…course, hygiene problems aren’t the
typical concerns in this job...how did I manage to find myself a partner…” Ray
appeared to be talking to himself or perhaps praying, the way he was addressing
his remarks to the ceiling. Again he stopped himself abruptly and
turned.
“I’ll do
it.”
“You’ll do what?” Fraser
suddenly felt that his head was about to float off his
shoulders.
“I can trim my own hair, I
can sure as hell shave someone else. C’mon, let’s get to it. Daylight’s
wasting.”
“You cut your own hair?”
Fraser was astonished that his voice was so steady. Stupid, stupid remark, but
it was all he could manage.
“What are you, a comedian?”
Ray was rummaging around the cabinets next to his cot. Ray was going to be
unstoppable now that he saw his duty clear. “Where’s your
stuff?”
“Ah, right over…here, Ray,
have you ever used a straight razor before?”
“What?” Fraser unzipped his
kit and pointed to the object in question.
“For Pete’s sake, you have
GOT to be kidding me, Fraser. Jeez, the nineteenth century as a way of life.
What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Ray.” Fraser took
refuge in pedantic snippiness. “Please remember that we are decidedly short of
all-night pharmacies in the
Ray shook his head, as if to
clear it. “Maybe you just have something against the concept of
‘safety’”.
“Who spent part of their
morning in a lion’s cage?” Fraser was all innocence.
“Oh, that’s...” Ray smiled
suddenly and punched Fraser lightly on the shoulder. “Thought I was you for a
second. Well, I’ll learn something new today, like it or not. Get a towel and
washcloth.” He turned on his heel, exited the office and headed off to the
bathroom under the stairs. Fraser squared his shoulders, retrieved the required
items and followed, slowly.
“OK, this and this,” Ray
pointed at his rather elaborate kit. “I understand, but what is
this?”
The bathroom on this floor
seemed to have almost been added as an afterthought, it was truly tiny. Fraser
had had to go back into the hallway to remove his tunic after his first attempt
to do so in the bathroom had nearly given Ray a black eye. It was a desperate
effort to keep his posture loose and casual, while he was so uncomfortable. He
felt even larger than normal and unaccountably clumsy, perched on the toilet
seat. Ray had directed him with hands that never quite touched him, for which he
was simultaneously grateful and disappointed. Ray never stuck at touching him before,
but it seemed that these close quarters were making him nervous as well. He
could not even rebuke Ray for wasting volumes of hot water as the steam was the
only good explanation for his flushed face.
“That’s the strop, Ray. You
sharpen the blade by drawing it thusly.” Ray mirrored the gesture with his right
hand. “Some blades you can strop on
wood but leather travels better, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Ray frowned,
“You want I should strop (sounds like a made-up word) this baby right
now?”
“If you would. It’s actually
much safer if the blade is sharp, much less likely to pull or catch.”
“Well, if you say so.” Ray
concentrated on pulling just the barest edge across the leather. “This was your
dad’s?”
Fraser’s mouth was suddenly
dry, “How did you know that?”
“Lucky guess,” and Ray
smiled that quicksilver smile and bent over his task again, drawing the blade up
and back on the leather strop, the rhythm becoming hypnotic. Silence descended.
The white porcelain of the tiny bathroom seemed to glow. Fraser squirmed and
noticed that he was twisting his unbroken hand in his lap. He froze and then
laid his hands carefully on the tops of his thighs, trying to keep them still as
inanimate objects, not attached to him.
“Why so shy all of a sudden?
Really, Frase, it’s not the same if you’re not yakking at me all the time.” Ray
shook his head from side to side in what looked like the start of an elaborate
dance. “Feels weird.”
“Ah…what do you want to talk
about Ray?”
“Tell me something I don’t
know” Only it came out like the start of a chant, the emphasis on every other
syllable: Tell me something I don’t know. Oh dear. The rhythmic stropping
had obviously put Ray in a dancing mood. Nervous? Fraser suddenly felt a real
anxiety for his jugular.
“Tell me the story of
Fraser’s Razor, ha.” Now Ray was giggling. “That sounds funny, Fraser’s Razor,
master blaster, sounds like something out of a sci-fi
flick.”
Fraser cast about
desperately for a neutral (hopefully horrendously boring) topic. “Well, ahm,
actually, the only renowned razor that I know of is Occam’s
razor.”
“Was he some kind of famous
barber?”
“No, he was a medieval
scientist and philosopher. William
of Ockham. And his razor is kind of metaphorical.”
“You’re losing me,
Frase.”
“Well, Occam’s Razor isn’t
an actual razor; it’s a rule in science and philosophy that states that entities
should not be multiplied needlessly. It’s also called the law of
parsimony.”
“You’re still losing me,
Frase.”
Ray held up the gleaming
blade and looked at it as if it were a crystal ball. Fraser realized that the
surface was a mirror. Ray was examining his reflection in the flat steel. Fraser
had a second of vertigo as he thought, I’m going to remember this moment
forever.
“I can’t do this,” Ray said
abruptly.
“What? Why?” Fraser didn’t
quite quell the shocked hurt.
“Don’t want to hurt you,
Frase.”
“I trust you,
Ray.”
“It’s not that, damnit! This thing,” Ray
brandished the razor. “I don’t have a clue how to use this thing. I could carve
you up like a Christmas turkey. We’re going to do this, we’re going to have to
do it my way.”
Fraser swallowed, “All
right. What did you have in mind?”
“Wait here a minute,” Ray
started to grin. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as Ray was out the
door, Fraser sagged back. Then he leaned forward to rest his head in his
hands. He seemed to hear Ray’s
voice echo in his head, that musing voice, “…how did I manage to find myself a
partner?..” Indeed. And how did they manage to keep finding themselves in
circumstances like this; that drew the tension so tight between them it was
almost palpable? Ray could feign insouciance all he wanted but when Fraser tried
to imagine…no, he was almost positive that none of the other cops at the
precinct would have responded to this situation in quite this fashion.
In for a penny, in for a
pound. Ray was a good friend, what was wrong with him that a good friend made
him so…discomfited?
“Hey, I’m back, got a
present for you…hey, why haven’t you soaped up?” Ray bustled in.
Fraser raised his head,
considering that it was a testament to his distraction that he hadn’t even heard
Ray’s steps on the stairs.
“Ah, I wasn’t sure when
you’d be back and…”
“Oh yeah, it would be nasty
if it dried on you. You know that tiny drugstore down the street has lots more
stuff than you’d think?”
What exactly was that
supposed to mean? Fraser didn’t have time to wonder.
Ray was struggling with some
plastic packaging. Finally, he just ripped it open with his teeth with a
dexterity that made Fraser’s eyebrows climb.
“Hah!” Ray was triumphant.
He brandished the razor with a flourish. “My gift to you for your stay in
“Well, that certainly is
very…useful...Ray.”
“Yeah, see, check it out, my
mum got me one of these for Christmas. They’re terrific. Look, three blades and see how jiggly the
head is? Makes everything a
breeze.”
“Thank you, Ray. It
certainly seems very high-tech.” And it was quite a pleasingly functional thing,
with the look of steel and a black rubber grip.
“Yeah, well, let’s get to
it. Ain’t got all day.” Ray busied himself suddenly, dunking the washcloth into
the basin of hot water, wringing it out and passing it to Fraser. He then
brandished the shaving cream until Fraser held out his left hand and then
obligingly squeezed out a dollop. Then he watched Fraser spread it over his
cheeks and chin with the peculiar expression of a person who is in pain but also
trying not to laugh, his lips pursed, his chin raised, the corners of his eyes
crinkled. Fraser had to observe this with his peripheral vision, if he looked,
he might stop moving altogether.
“You ready?” Ray was almost
whispering. Fraser just nodded.
He almost flinched when Ray
placed gentle fingers under his chin, it was almost over before it started.
Holding himself still, he felt the shudder reverberate through his innards. He
breathed deeply through his nose, kept his eyes heavenward and started spelling
Ray’s last name backwards. Ray tilted his face with the softest pressure of his
thumb, placed the blade at the exact line of his sideburn and drew it downward,
gently, yet firmly. This safety razor was not as wide as his own blade and it
required perhaps twice as many strokes across his cheek. He suddenly had a vision of Ray as an
artist, painting his portrait with tiny brushstrokes. He dared a glance up into
Ray’s face. Surely it was not that dim in here? Ray’s pupils were dilated. He
clenched his jaw.
“Watch it,” Ray’s voice was
still soft as he took a second to rinse the blade. “This would go smoother, if
you would relax.”
Fraser felt like he had
swallowed his tongue. He nodded minutely and turned his gaze back to the
ceiling, L-L-U-B-N-R-U-T, R-E-H-C…
The new razor was
wonderfully sharp and did not tickle or pull at all, even as he almost
unconsciously pressed his lips together so Ray could get at the sensitive patch
right under his nose. Even in this, they were in sync. Ray seemed determined to
touch him with just the tips of his fingers, but it was all the guidance he
needed. Ray mirrored the expressions he needed to make without thinking about
it. Ray’s eyes never met his, concentrating on discrete patches of
skin.
Finally, Ray pressed three
fingers under his chin lifting his head up, up, up. Fraser was reminded of
seeing a sled dog trying to become member of a strange pack, the long line of
throat that was exposed to the alpha, no threat here, just
submission.
“You know, I remembered that
law of parsecs from my senior physics class.” Ray said, in a dazzling display of
the non
sequitur.
Fraser felt like his
thoughts had hit a brick wall. “Ah, the law of parsimony?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” The
tip of Ray’s tongue was tantalizingly visible as he held the skin of Fraser’s
neck taut. “I remember the teacher saying we should shave at some theory with
Occam’s razor. For some reason, I was awake that day.” Ray suddenly,
disconcertingly, looked deep into Fraser’s eyes. They were inches apart. “I
think you’re making it harder than it is.”
“Wha—what?” The steam had
obviously not dissipated as much as he thought; it was almost impossible to draw
a full breath.
“Your explanation. Your
description. Occam’s Razor, what the hell are we talking about here?” Ray rocked
his own head around in a circle, as if to shake off tension. “ Tell me again. In
simple words. I know you can do that, Frase.”
Moving his lips as little as possible, because Ray appeared to be finished but occasionally swiped at what presumably was a less-than-perfect spot, Fraser drew on his resources, “It’s simply a principle that states that a problem should be stated in its most basic and simplest terms. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.” Then he added, before his wits could catch up, “In this century, the expression has been largely changed to the KISS principle.”
“What?” If he wasn’t
imagining things, Ray’s voice had just risen a semi-tone. And, perfectly
naturally, of course, his eyes had moved to Ray’s lips. He blinked and then
tried to focus on Ray’s eyes, which was difficult because Ray was looking…oh
dear.
Fraser quickly tried to
extract himself, “It’s an acronym. Keep It Short and Simple, you
see?”
“Uh-huh,” Ray was bent over
the washbasin again, draining it, while rinsing the washcloth. He arranged the cloth to cover his
entire hand and then began swabbing at Fraser’s face. It felt like a kitten
being licked by a mother cat, thought Fraser and screwed his eyes shut against
the onslaught. He noticed that he’d been gripping his trousers so tightly that
they were hopelessly wrinkled. Ray continued, “In
“Ah, well, that’s, ah, very American of you. In short, Occam’s Razor is just the principle that states: the simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations."
“Hmmmmmm. Oh I get that one,
I really do.” Ray moved his head in a bird-like fashion, he was examining his
handiwork from all angles. “Look up.” Fraser obediently bared his throat again.
Ray took a deep breath and unforgivably winked at him. “You’re done. I did a
great job. Let’s get a move on.”
Fraser did not even bother
to look in the mirror. He was shrugging into his tunic as they headed down the
stairs and completely missed the look on Turnbull’s face as they burst from the
bathroom together, Fraser still flushed and damp. Which was probably a good thing.
Turnbull certainly did not need anyone to explain the principle of Occam’s razor
to him and he felt quite confident drawing his own
conclusions.
End for
now…