Chapter 25: The rest of freshman year

The weirdest class in my entire academic career happened a few months later, just before exams, in my math class. Stoney was in the desk next to me sound asleep in his aviator shades, head resting on his copy of Moby Dick. Dr. Wolff was addressing us on some tedious point and for some reason, Dr. Ladd, the chairman of the Math department and my academic adviser, was present, seated in a chair behind Dr. Wolff. Wolff called on me to ask me about something that seemed complicated but wasn’t if you’d read ahead a chapter or had Mrs. W as a math teacher, and I answered in a way that I thought the next chapter would approve of, and Wolff got all cross.

“No, Mr. Baida, I want you to focus very clearly on the methodology of this chapter,” he said. “Do you think you can do that for me?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean yes, sir, but next class you’re going to teach us a much simpler way to address the same problem. All you need to do is get really close to the limit, and the limit here is zero.”

“Mathematics is a rigorous discipline, Mr. Baida. Each thing I teach you is a building block for what comes next,” he said.

“I guess, yeah,” I said.

“You guess? You guess?”

‘I mean, the way the next chapter addresses this same set of limits has a really different methodology. And it’s lots faster, at least for me,” I said.

“I know you dabble in Physics,” said Wolff. “But in math, once things are true, they are always true. Always settled. Every few years physicists change their minds about the fundamentals of their discipline. Physics changes. Math does not.”

“Okay,” I said. Stoney woke up, sat bolt upright, and looked surprised at to be in these particular surroundings, as though he’d never been there before. He looked at Wolff, who was obviously cross with me, then at me, then a wary expression settled on his face.

“You disagree?” asked Wolff.

“Maybe,” I said.

“If A is greater than B and B is greater than C, A is always greater than C, always and everywhere.”

“Okay,” I said.

“You disagree?” Wolff asked. Now that Stoney had realized he wasn’t about to get in trouble, he was following the conversation with a contemplative expression, so far as I could tell from the part of him that wasn’t covered in sunglasses.

“I understand that you believe that the laws of mathematics are universally true,” I said.

“And you do not?”

“Not exactly.”

“If A is greater than B and B is greater than C, A is always greater than C. You disagree with that?” he asked.

“Not exactly. It’s not like I think it’s wrong. I just don’t think that any precept is universally true.”

“Why not? How can you not?” Wolff asked.

“I just don’t think that anything is always true. Rules all have exceptions. Beliefs and laws all have holes in them.” I really didn’t like being in this semi-confrontational conversation.

“You can’t agree with me that if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A is always greater than C?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Wolff. I don’t mean to be disagreeable or difficult, but I just don’t think that anything is universally true. I just don’t. Reality’s not like that.” There was an awkward pause. The other students, except for Stoney, were shifting awkwardly in their seats and trying to not make eye contact with anyone else.

“Okay, Mr. Smarty-Pants, name me one place in the entire universe, in Physics or Mathematics, where if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, A is not greater than C.”

“In Rock, Paper, Scissors,” I said. Stoney immediately threw back his head and cackled so loudly that the smell of marijuana smoke filled the room. He coughed and caught his breath and cackled some more.

“Oh, that’s fuckin’ perfect,” he said. The other math students were looking at me in frank horror.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Dr. Wolff, primly.

“John,” said Prof. Ladd.

“I’m asking a serious question and you answer with a child’s game?” said Wolff, to me.

“John—” said Prof. Ladd, to Wolff.

“Yes, sir,” I said, to Wolff.

“John!” said Prof. Ladd, to Wolff.

“But—” began Wolff.

“I know,” said Prof. Ladd. “I asked you to make this class your most rigorous, and to make sure Mr. Baida was possessed of the mind of a mathematician. But you have challenged him and he has answered your question deftly, with insight and ingenuity. He is absolutely right, and it is a delightful answer.” There was a pause.

“Far fuckin’ out,” said Stoney, in a conversational voice, starting at me. Those few words reoccupied the air between us with the rich dark smell of marijuana smoke.

“John, let’s move on. Mr. Baida, if you’d come have a word with me after class? Thank you.”

Stoney took off his shades and looked at me in frank admiration, gesturing in some odd, high way. Other students looked worried, as though I’d done something improper that was going to get everyone in trouble. Wolff turned his attention to some other student. He (Wolff) was discombobulated for a minute or two but soon reassumed his air of supercilious punctiliousness and class reassumed its normal rhythm.

At the end of class Stoney looked at me, as usual, with a lunch question. “Rand or Campus Grill?”

“Your pick, but Ladd wants to pow-wow first.”

“Oh, right.” I stood and walked the few steps to the front of the classroom. Dr. Ladd and Dr. Wolff were talking, and I stood a few paces away and waited for them to be through. Stoney followed right along, standing right next to me with his copy of Moby Dick, as though he, too, had an appointment with Dr. Ladd.

“Mr. Baida,” Ladd said, frowning slightly, when he’d finished talking to Dr. Wolff. “I believe we got off on the wrong foot.” He paused. It’s not uncommon for people I don’t particularly like to pause as though I’m supposed to help them along with the conversation. He looked at me. I looked back. There was an awkward pause. “I guess I assumed that the policies of the department were based on years of experience, and that assuming that someone who had not taken the prerequisite courses was doomed to failure was … reasonable.” Dr. Ladd looked at me again as though he wanted me to say something. I looked back. There was a pause. Even Stoney started to look at me as though I was supposed to speak. “And so I was wrong,” said Dr. Ladd. “John—Dr. Wolff, that is, has been showing me your grades, and it appears you’re in first place in your class for both semesters. Never a wrong answer. Well, you’re tied for first place. There’s somebody else—”

“Oh, cool, that’s me,” said Stoney, stepping forward behind his sunglasses.

“And you are?” asked Ladd.

“Thomas Jackson … sir,” said Stoney, proud of himself for remembering to say “sir.”

“Is this correct?” Ladd asked Wolff.

“Yes, sir,” he said. They both shook their heads ruefully.

“Would you mind standing a little further away, Mr. Jackson? I’m trying to talk to Mr. Baida. Stoney took a step backwards.

“Okay. Mr. Baida, I am worried that through departmental limitations I have unduly restricted the development of a sound mathematical mind.” He looked at me. I looked back. There was a pause. “Did you really take math from Dr. Margaret Wertheimer?”

“My high school math teacher was named Margaret Wertheimer. I don’t know about her educational background.”

“Tell Dr. Wertheimer that if she tells me you’re okay with complex integration and differentiation, I’ll approve you for any math course you want to take, whether you’ve taken the pre-requisites or not. There’s a book I think she has, Introduction to Complex Analysis, by Zeev Nehari. I know he’s a friend of hers, so I assume she’s got his book. It’s a little more engineering-related than I like for a math student, but the math is acceptable. Tell her I said if you can read it, you have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I hadn’t actually made any plans for my summer, but now it appeared I had some.

“How about me?” asked Stoney.

“How do you mean, Mr. … Jackson?”

“If she teaches me, too, do I get the same pass?”

“You, too, know Dr. Wertheimer?” he asked.

“No, no. But Henry’s my best friend in the whole world, and I’m sure he can get me in.” I looked at him and frowned. Stoney all day every day might be a bit much. There was a pause.

“Are you two ….” Wolff asked.

“Oh, no,” said Stoney, shaking his head. “Henry’s gay, but I’m totally straight.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said.

“Okay, Mr. Jackson. If Dr. Wertheimer signs off on you, you get the same pass. We smiled and shook hands. Dr. Wolff cocked an eyebrow at me as we left.

“So you really want to spend the summer in Chattanooga studying math?” I asked, outside.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, firing up a joint right outside the doors. “Grosse Pointe is kinda boring. Gotta be lots of good weed in Chattanooga.”

We did Campus Grill for lunch. Roxie was our waitress. She didn’t do any magic tricks, but my bill came out to exactly $4.00, including tax. Later that day, Milton knocked on my door and asked if I’d decided where I wanted to live the following year. I hadn’t, and he said he’d decided we should be roommates, or at least suite-mates. I was floored.

“Why’s this?” I asked. He was trying to straighten out a cigarette from a pack that had been in his back pocket when he’d sat down on it several occasions.

“It’s a larger plan,” he said, studying his cigarette with a degree of scrutiny that might accompany the examination of fingerprints from a crime scene. “If I get both you and Cisco into one suite, I may have my best year ever.”

“How’s that?” I asked. I needed a place to live, and his plan was fine, I was just curious about his reasoning.

“Well, improbable things are always happening around you. And me getting laid could easily be filed under “improbable things.” All these really attractive women are always circling around Cisco, like moths circling a moderately intelligent, handsome, morally compromised, extremely Southern porch-light. So I figure when the improbable happens because I’m around you it will be with a beautiful girl because I’m around Cisco, which is good all around, no?”

“How high are you?” I asked. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon.

“Hardly at all,” he said, taken aback and a little wounded that I’d asked. He selected another, slightly less broken cigarette and lit it, then gazed at it speculatively. “I smoked part of a joint after lunch, but nothing since then.”

“I’m fine with rooming with you and Cisco,” I said. “You said four. Who’s the fourth?”

“Yeah, I dunno,” said Milton. “I kinda don’t think most of the guys on the floor are right for the vibe I’m tryin’ to set up.”

“Do you know my friend Stoney?” I asked.

“Stoney who?” he asked.

“Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson.”

“Stoney Jackson? You know Stoney Jackson? Oh, man, that would be so cool! He has the best drugs on the planet!”

I called Stoney, and he was okay with the roommate plan. I called Mrs. W, and she was okay with teaching him math over the summer. I had been aware from the time Stoney had suggested he accompany me on the Summer of Math that it would involve her putting us both up for the summer. If she minded, it didn’t show.

“Tell Stoney no marijuana or other illegal drugs over the summer,” she said. “Not in my house.”

“Yes, ma’am. Just out of curiosity, what made you think that Stoney might be interested in recreational pharmaceuticals?” I asked. There was a pause.

“That nickname was a good start,” she said.

“He’s called that because he has the same name as Stonewall Jackson,” I said. I could hear her lighting a cigarette and savoring that first deep breath.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

“No, really,” I said. I could hear Mrs. W thinking and smoking for a minute.

“I’ve heard it said that a good symbol is one that can stand for a lot of different things. Different people can see it different ways. Makes it enduring. Maybe a nickname is the same deal.” I heard her take another drag off of her cigarette and conversation moved on to something else.

So we were set for the summer.

Chapter 24: Stoney's Math Club

“Okay,” said Stoney. We were on our way to the first meeting of Stoney’s math club, which was to convene at an establishment called House of Pizza on White Bridge Road. I’d never been there before. “So the other invitees are Leah Bromberg, Raheem Washington, and Cecil Murray.” Stoney was driving his Volvo 1800E which I was able to identify because my older sister had been a faithful watcher of “The Saint. ” Stoney had seemed relatively sober when we met outside McGill, his dorm, so I wasn’t worried about him driving. It was early December and it was cold, and already dark by dinnertime. Stoney was wearing a military-issue overcoat of some sort, blue double-knit pants, and his cowboy boots. “Leah’s from Memphis. Parents run a jewelry store. She’s smart. Senior. Math major. All these people are smart. Raheem and Cecil are good friends. Don’t know much about them. I was in Rand one day having lunch and I heard them arguing about how to differentiate a hypothetical problem about how fast water would descend across an irrigated hillside onto terraced farmland. I think they got the math all wrong, but joined in to their conversation and they didn’t seem to mind at all. They’re both smart. Both ΩΨΦs, both juniors, I think. I think Raheem’s from DC and Cecil’s from Los Angeles, but I could be wrong.”

“Okay, so what are we doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man. Something fun. When I was in high school, I looked forward to math class. Didn’t you?”

“I did like my teacher.” Stoney got to White Bridge Road and parked and we crossed the street to get to House of Pizza. It was a nondescript-looking place in a white stucco building with a window across the front. A large-ish sweet-natured woman whom Stoney addressed as “Beverly” showed us to our table. Stoney told Beverly that three other people would be joining us, and she seated us at an appropriately-sized table. We were early. The place was dark-ish. It was about three quarters full. The tables were dark brown wood-grain linoleum. The walls were probably some eggshell off-white, with dark wainscoting. There were a few Black couples in the crowd. This was unusual. In 1974, integration of schools was mandated, and discrimination on the basis of race was prohibited in many situations, but it still was not common for blacks and whites to eat together, at least in the Old South.

We sat. A young-ish waitress showed up immediately.

“Hi, Robin,” said Stoney. “Who’s in the kitchen today?”

“Ellis and George,” she said.

“Cool,” he answered. “We’re waiting on a few more people, so why don’t you start us with a pitcher of Schlitz.”

“Can I have a glass of water?” I asked.

“Oh, wow. Sure,” she said, and hopped off. Two tall black guys opened the front door, jangling the cowbell attached to it. Stoney waved to them and they came over. I stood when they got to the table, but Stoney didn’t.

“Hey, Raheem. Hey Cecil. Henry—”

“Stoner, my man!” said one. He extended his hand to Stoney and gripped his hand in an elaborate handshake I’d never seen before. It was cold out but he wasn’t wearing a coat over a yellow sweatshirt with ‘ΩΨΦ” in large purple letters on both the front and the back. He had a gold chain with one of those Italian good luck charms hanging outside his sweatshirt and wore his hair in a large natural. His handshake with Stoney took several seconds to complete.

“Henry, meet Raheem Abdul Washington. Raheem, Henry Baida.” We shook hands but it was a brief “normal” handshake.

I turned to his friend and extended my hand. “Henry Baida,” I said

“Cecil Murray,” he answered. He shook my hand and smiled. He was lean and even I could tell he was handsome. He had darker skin than Raheem and close-cropped hair with one of those shaved lines almost like his hair was parted that black guys sometimes sported in the seventies. He had on a well-worn but quite serviceable A-2 flight jacket that could have been from World War II over a white Oxford cloth button-down and slightly faded Levi’s. He was one of those people who, when he smiled, he meant it, and it seemed to make the world a better place.

We all sat as the waitress showed up with a pitcher of beer and four glasses. “Are we all here?” she asked.

“No, we’re still waiting on one,” said Stoney.

“Okay. I’ll get another glass,” she said, and turned quickly and started to leave.

“Hey. Robin,” I called after her. She turned warily and looked at me.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“Stoney used it when we came in.”

“And who is this Stoney?” she asked.

“Him,” I pointed.

“His name is Tom. Tom Jackson,” she said, frowning.

“Yo’ name Tom?” asked Raheem.

“That’s my real name,” he said.

Raheem, looking to help me out, pointed at Stoney and said “D’a’s Stoner.” Robin looked at us in confusion.

“Stoney is a nickname,” said Cecil. “He has the same name as Stonewall Jackson, so we all call him Stoney.” She still didn’t like it, but shrugged and turned to go.

“Robin!” I called again as she left.

“What?” she spun and answered crossly.

“Can I get a glass of water, please?”

“Oh, sure,” she answered.

“So w’a’s ‘dis?” asked Raheem, pouring himself a glass of beer.

“Schlitz,” said Stoney, and poured himself a glass.

“That’s cool,” said Raheem, taking a sip.

Stoney poured himself a glass. “Cheers,” he said, raising his glass to Raheem. Cecil poured another glass and placed it in front of me, with a quick nod. One guy at the table with manners.

“Thanks, man, but I don’t drink,” I said. He smiled and took it himself.

The cowbell at the door rang again and a young woman with long curly hair spilling out on a rainbow-striped woolen cap stepped in. She had on a navy blue puffy down-filled coat that came down to her mid-thigh and gold-rimmed glasses the shape of Stoney’s aviator shades, but with clear lenses. She spotted Stoney before he spotted her and came over. Cecil, Raheem, and I stood up.

“Hiya, Stoney,” she said. “Is this the group?”

“Yep,” he said, still seated. She unzipped her down coat and hung it on the back of the empty chair. Raheem and Cecil watched the process of her removing her coat with keen interest. She was really, really short. Maybe 4’9”. But quite noticeably female. Stoney introduced us all, she was Leah Bromberg, and she sat down. The waitress showed back up. Cecil poured her a beer from the pitcher and she took a sip.

“You guys ready to order?” Robin asked.

“I want an Ellis special,” said Stoney. Cecil and Raheem quickly picked up a menu and started looking at it.

“What size, Tom?” she asked.

“Yeah, well, large, so I won’t have to think about food tomorrow. And we want separate checks. I’m not paying for all these guys,” Stoney said.

“You?” she looked at Leah, who had been brought up right and was surprised, as the only woman at the table, that her order had not been taken first.

Leah looked up at me. “You eaten here before?” she asked me.

“No,” I answered.

“Are you okay with anchovies?” she asked. Everyone else around the table made a face.

“Love ‘em,” I said.

“Okay. I, like, promise, that if we split a medium Pizza With Everything it will be more than we can eat and will be one of the best pizzas you’ve ever had,” she said.

“I’m game,” I said.

“Cool. Got it, Robin?” she asked.

“Yeah, man,” she answered.

“And could I get a glass of water?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Keep forgetting. Sorry, man,” said Robin.

“Okay, we wan’s a I-talian sausage, pepperoni an’ ‘shroom deal,” said Raheem. Big ‘un.”

“Got it,” said Robin and skipped away.

“Okay, so where’s everybody from?” Leah asked, after Robin was gone. Raheem reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of Kools. He’d opened the pack from the bottom, so that when he shook one out, the tobacco end came out first. He lit it with a Bic disposable.

“I’m from Grosse Point, Michigan,” said Stoney.

“I thought you were from New Jersey,” I said.

“No, Michigan,” he answered, placidly.

“You said you went to high school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, near Princeton,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered, smilingly unaware of any contradiction.

“Yo. You boarded at L’ville?” asked Raheem.

“Yeah, sure. There weren’t many day-dogs,” Stoney answered.

“Lookit. Stoner boarded at L’ville. He from Motor City,” said Raheem. I had no idea what this meant. There were blank stares around the table.

“Raheem means that Stoney went to Lawrenceville School, but that’s a boarding school. Stoney’s home is near Detroit,” said Cecil.

“Like I said,” said Stoney.

“I’m Cecil. I’m from Los Angeles, and I agree with Leah.”

“Hey. I’m Henry. I’m from Chattanooga, just down I-24.”

“Okay, so, the only thing all you heads all have in common is that you know me. Well, that and you all like math.” He paused and thought for a second. “And I think you’re all smart.” He thought a second more. “And now that I think about it, you’re all good-looking.”

“Get on wit’ it, Stoner,” said Raheem.

“So I got stuck in this math class—Math 140—last year that was all simple stuff I’d done in high school—” Stoney looked around, and Raheem and Cecil were nodding, but Leah was not, “—Junior year,” he looked around again and Cecil and Raheem were nodding. I could have, but didn’t. “So I thought maybe a few like-minded souls could get together and talk about math in an intelligent and cool way, and ignore the academic bullshit of it.” There was a pause in which most of us bobbed our heads in different directions in agreement with Stoney’s logic. Leah cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

“Do you do crossword puzzles?” she asked Stoney. He looked baffled at the question.

“No,” he answered. “All those words. I wish there was something like a crossword, but with numbers,” he said. “A little square puzzle like that. Crosswords are so tidy-looking.” She looked at me.

“You?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Crosswords, Cryptoquotes, Jumbles, Mensa questionnaires. I love puzzles,” I said.

“You?” she said, looking at Cecil, who was removing his flight jacket. House of Pizza was warm as long as no one opened the door.

“I’m okay with puzzles,” Cecil said, “and every now and then I’ll do a crossword puzzle in the newspaper, if I don’t have anything to read. But I’m like Stoney. Crossword puzzles are all words. I take English because it’s required, you know, and, you know, I know that’s a good thing, but left to myself, man, I’d be all math all the time.”

“How about you?” she asked Raheem.

“I loves them NYT crosswords,” he said.

“How often do you do them?” Leah asked.

“Ever’ day. I ain’ no savage.”

“How long do they take you?” she asked.

“Good day, fo’ minutes. Bad day, eighteen minutes,” said Raheem.

I, Henry, have done the Times crossword hundreds of times. I love it, and buy the Times as more for the puzzle than for the news. The news is always focused on New York garbage strikes or weather conditions, anyway, which doesn’t speak loudly to me. When I get to do the New York Times crossword puzzle, it usually takes me ten or fifteen minutes. If I’m lucky if I can do it in eight or nine minutes, but there was one three years ago when I was stuck outside Wadley that took me over 20 hours to complete. I am proud enough of my crossword puzzle skills that I keep track of how fast I can do them but here I was being bested by a man who did not, so far as I could tell, speak English.

“You’re good,” said Leah. “I’m from Memphis. Went to an all-girl’s high school. We took math, and I took pre-calc, but it wasn’t like they were an enlightened crew who thought women of all ages could storm the battlements. It was like math wasn’t an important skill for women to possess. When I got here I took that same Math 140 class you guys are complaining about, that’s where I met Raheem and Cecil, but my reaction was different that you guys. I thought my high school math wasn’t that strong, and I thought that class with Dr. Wolfe—” Stoney, Cecil, and Raheem all groaned, “really toned up everything I learned at St. Mary’s and got me ready for college math. And I’ve been having a really good time.”

“I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy that class,” said Cecil. “But all of us had to take it, so we all have that in common, too, Stoney.”

“No, we don’t,” said Stoney. “Henry here is a freshman, and in 150.”

“Single variable calculus?” asked Leah.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Stoney and I are in it together.”

“What did you take last year?” she asked.

“I’m a freshman,” I said.

“Oh, for the love of Christ,” said Cecil.

“Motherfu’,”said Raheem.

“How?” asked Cecil.

“It’s not what you think,” I said. “Dr. Ladd, the department chair, is my faculty advisor. Luck of the draw. He’s fucking with me. He approved me for this course because he doesn’t think I’m ready for it. He thinks I’m pig-headed, and that approving me for a course I’m not prepared for will teach me a lesson.”

“How’s it gooin’ wit’ dat?” asked Raheem.

I looked at Cecil. “How am I doing in the class?” I asked. He nodded. “Okay. I’m doing okay,” I guess.

“He’s gotten perfect scores on all the tests,” Stoney said. Everybody nodded, impressed. “Of course, Henry goes to class. I have perfect scores in all the tests, too, and I don’t go to class at all, so some might say I have the more impressive scholastic achievement.” Leah rolled her eyes and shook her head, but Raheem raised his hand for a high-five, a gesture I had never seen before.

“You da man, Stoner,” said Raheem.

“Okay, so I thought we could work on math stuff that they’re never going to assign us at school,” Stoney said.

“Like what?” Leah asked.

“Okay. Like, in 1602 Johannes Kepler finally got access to all of Tycho Brahae’s incredibly detailed astronomical ovservations.”

“Stoney—” Leah started.

“No, let me finish,” he said. “How cool would it be for us to go back and find, somewhere, a copy of Tycho’s observations, and see if we can deduce Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from them.”

“Stoney I asked Mrs. W. about this—”

“Who?” asked Raheem.

“Henry here, who is really cool, has this semi-mystical friend named Mrs. wertheimer who comes up in conversation every few hours. She knows everything about math and physics and somehow controls all his money,” said Stoney.

“She taught me Math in high school,” I said. They all nodded.

“So? What’s she say about my Tycho-Kepler deal?” Stoney asked.

“She said that Kepler didn’t know anything like calculus. Integral calc didn’t come along until Newton and Leibnitz a hundred years later. Kepler worked all of that planetary mechanics stuff out using simple arithmetic, which took thousands of calculations to figure out each hypothesis, and he went through a bunch of hypotheses before he figured out Mars.”

“How many?” asked Stoney. I shrugged.

“Forty,” said Raheem. He took a deep drag off of his cigarette and blew a cloud of blue smoke that smelled of nicotine and Vick’s Vapo-Rub over the table. The cigarette was getting short, so he stubbed it out in the black plastic ashtray on the table. He refilled his beer.

“Kepler started with the assumption that the orbits were oval for religious reasons. He also couldn’t believe that if planetary orbits were as simple as ellipses, nobody would have noticed before. But once he settled on ellipses, he figured it out pretty quickly. But still, each set of calculations took months and months,” said Leah.

“Why are ovals better than ellipses for religious reasons?” asked Stoney.

“I’m not sure, but Kepler thought the Sun was the emanation of God’s goodness or power or some such crap, so its end of the orbital focus points got to be bigger than the other. Or something. Anyway, I’m not sitting down doing months of tedious calculations to derive something we already know. Besides, I think if we knew somebody who could program a computer it could do all those tedious calculations in a few minutes.”

The waitress came back with three pizzas balanced precariously on two arms. “Ellis Special?” she asked. Stoney raised his hand. She placed a pie with an improbable mix of ingredients in front of him. “Everything?” Leah her hand. That just left one, and Robin placed it in front of Raheem. “What else can I get you?”

“Another pitcher of Schlitz,” said Stoney. “Charge these guys for this one,” he said, pointing at Cecil and Raheem.”

“Can I get some red pepper flakes? And maybe some plates?” asked Leah.

“Sure. Anything else”

“Can I get a glass of water?” I asked.

“Yeah, all right,” she answered, and walked away. She returned just a few seconds later with the pepper flakes for Leah and plates for all of us.

“Stoney, what’s that you’ve got?” Leah asked, handing me a slice on a plate and then serving one for herself. Everyone else was digging in. I sprinkled some of Leah’s red pepper on my slice.

“Ellis Special,” said Stoney, chewing. “Ellis runs the place. I think.”

“What’s on it?” asked Cecil, mouth full.

Robin had shown up with a frosty new pitcher of Schlitz. “An Ellis Special is a pie with hamburger meat, green olives, and hot peppers,” she said.

“And bacon. Lots of bacon,” said Stoney. “Tell Mr. Ellis it’s great.”

“George made it,” she said. “I’m not sure where Ellis is. Anything else?”

“Can I get a glass of water?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” she answered, and trotted off.

“So no go on my Kepler deal?” Stoney asked. I finally took my first bite of my pizza. It was absolutely wonderful. The best pizza in the universe. It had all of the classic pizza ingredients—sausage, pepperoni, onions, black olives, anchovies, mushrooms, and probably lots of others I couldn’t distinguish—on a perfect light crispy thin crust that tasted faintly of olive oil, was nice and hot, with just the right amount of perfect tomato sauce and covered in lots of hot, stringy, rich mozzarella cheese. I ate the tip bite, then folded it slightly for the second bite, then looked at Leah through widened eyes.

“I told you,” she said. People from Chicago and New York are extremely fond of their hometown pizzas, and, when a group of Chicagoans or New Yorkers gather, will get into protracted and tedious arguments about which of the pizzerias in their respective hometowns prepared the best pizza in all history. But really. House of Pizza in Nashville, Tennessee circa 1974 may be the best of all time.

“Kepler thought his mama was a witch,” said Raheem.

“What?” I asked.

“Kepler’s mother seemed to have strange powers,” said Leah. “She was raised by one of her aunts, and the aunt was burned at the stake for witchcraft, often the fate of a wise woman in olden days. You men just can’t seem to take the idea that a woman might have an alternative view of reality. Anyway, because her aunt was a witch, Kepler’s mom was always viewed as kind of suspect. And then later when Kepler was off at Prague, his mother started doing things that caused the whole witch trip to come up again. She’s accused of touching people and making their limbs stop working.”

“Cool,” said Stoney.

“No, it’s not cool,” said, Leah. “Eight women were executed for witchcraft during this time in Leonburg.”

“No, I meant it’s cool she could do that,” said Stoney.

“Do what?” Leah asked.

“You said she could touch people and make their limbs stop working,” said Stoney.

“No I didn’t. I said she was accused of that,” Leah answered.

“Yeah, of course where there’s smoke there’s fire. So let’s concentrate instead on pizza and math,” said Stoney.

Leah was about to say something but Raheem interjected “And beer,” and everybody laughed.

I had another excellent slice of the pizza with everything that Leah had ordered for us. I was on my third slice, she was on her second. Nothing had changed my opinion that this was not only the best pizza I had ever eaten, it was the best pizza in the universe.

The waitress showed back up, chipper and happy. “How are you guys doing?” she asked. Everyone at the table made complimentary noises.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Sure!” she answered.

“Can you tell the bartender that I’ll come over and give him a five dollar tip for a glass of water? I promise.”

She frowned at me. “Yeah, sure,” she said.

For a few minutes, we were caught up in a pizza reverie. I don’t mean to go on about it, but really.

“Okay, so no Kepler,” said Stoney.

“Maybe his mama was a witch,” said Raheem. “Ya’ never know.”

“So no Kepler, no matter how fascinating it might have been to have applied modern calculus to the calculations that Kepler performed with mere arithmetic, and the possibility that Tycho Brahe’s incredibly precise observations might have some further, as yet undiscovered, Nobel prize-worthy principles in them.”

“Maybe later,” said Leah. “What are our other options?” Another pause. Beers were poured. Pizza was consumed. No water was brought.

“Anybody heard of the Lorenz Transformations?” I asked. There was a pause.

“Uh-huh,” said Raheem, putting an enormous amount of pizza in his mouth and swallowing without seeming to chew. He took a swallow of beer, too. “’Dis be goooood,” he said.

“How do you do that?” asked Cecil.

“Do what?” Raheem answered.

“Inhale food like a Great White Shark.”

“Stoner know,” said Raheem.

“Yeah, sure. If you go to a boarding school, unless you eat fast, you’re always hungry,” said Stoney.

“So you went—” Leah began, but she was interrupted by Cecil.

“And what in the fuck do you know about the Lorentz Transformations?” Cecil asked.

Raheem swallowed his pizza and took a swallow of beer, then said

“


where


."




“I don’t know how he does this,” said Cecil. As far as I could recall, Raheem had recited it exactly as Mrs. W had done.

“Say it again?” said Leah. He did. She frowned. She turned her placemat over and took out a mechanical pencil. She wrote it down and tapped the pencil point on the paper. “So obviously this expresses a matrix,” she said, and started scribbling.

“Don’ like no matrix,” said Raheem. “Graph betta’”

“You do it your way, I’ll do it mine.” Her pencil raced across the back of the placemat in tiny, perfectly-formed letters and digits. “Okay, I think it solves to


but I’m going to need lots more time with this sucker to plot it out. It must turn inside out.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Turns inside out,” said Raheem.

“How the fuck do you know this?” said Cecil. Raheem smiled and finished off the last of their pizza.

“Aside from being an elegant and complex equation, has the Lorentz transformation led to anything else?” asked Leah, still scribbling with great precision.

“Well, according to Mrs. W—” I started. Everybody looked up.

“Henry’s mystical math teacher,” said Stoney, and refilled his glass. Everybody nodded and refocused on math, beer, or pizza, as the case may be.

“Well, she said the Lorentz transformations were Einstein’s gateway to Relativity,” I said. Leah put down her pencil and looked up.

“Physics?” she asked.

“Well, Lorentz was trying to explain the propagation of waves through something that bwe now know doesn’t exist, but the math is still math,” I said.

“What is it that we now know doesn’t exist?” she asked. I had to think.

“Ether,” said Raheem.

“I prefer pure math but I gottta admit this sucker’s fun. So let’s all play with it and meet back here in, what, two weeks?”

So we did.

Chapter 23 C: Finally, an End to the Thanksgiving Chapter

“Yeah, well, I’ve been making money playing pool since I was much too young to be in pool halls. And a lot of the places I’ve played pool in also served alcohol. So I’ve played pool against a lot of people who’d been drinking. Some a little, some a lot. I’ve never met anybody who had consumed any amount of alcohol that I thought it improved their game, and of the people I’ve played drunk and sober, all of them played better sober.” Ginny’s dad watched the Broncos waste a few downs.

“Landry’s just not a class quarterback, you know?” he said, as he watched another Lions incomplete pass. He looked over at me. “If you don’t want to drink, that’s fine, but people are going to make assumptions about it all the time.

“So I’ve noticed,” I said.

“And I don’t need to question you as a possible suitor after my Ginny?” he asked, watching the football game.

“Mr. McColl, you have a wonderful daughter. But I’m really good friends with Mrs. Wertheimer. She helps me out a lot in all kinds of ways. If I dated your daughter, it might affect my relationship with Mrs. W.”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. McColl, without taking his eyes off the game, “Margaret’s a pretty smart old bird. You behave like a gentleman, she’ll forgive a lot. But it sounds like you pissed Ginny off with that pool game.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was a little surprised at that.”

“Her mother and I didn’t want her to be just another snooty stuck up Lookout Mountain GPS girl like all the Luptons and Probascos. So we gave her a really small allowance and encouraged her to play sports. We may have overdone all that. She seems to think that to be a good girl she has to be a jock who’s cheap as hell.”

We watched the game in silence. The Bronco, bad as they were, were pulling ahead of the Lions.

“Still and all, he said, after a few minutes, “$1,500 is a lot to gamble on a pool game. You can maybe see how a girl of modest upbringing would think that an extravagant wager,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

The Broncos beat the Lions, the McColls all hugged at the door, Ginny’s little brother asked me something incomprehensible about seeing visions in the desert, and everyone went home. It was about 10:00 when everyone left. I looked in the kitchen and it was surprisingly clean.

“Glad you were here, Henry. You fit right in, pretty much,” she said.

“Ginny’s wary of me, her little brother—“

“That’s Walter, although Ginny has been known to refer to him by nicknames.”

“Seems to be interested in hallucinogenic drugs, despite the fact that he’s in grammar school,” I continued. “Her mother—“

“That’s my younger sister Winnie,” she said.

“Has concluded that I’m a born-again Christian,” I said, and she nodded, smiling, “And the father—”

“That’s Gunner,” she said.

“Nickname?” I asked.

“Yes. His real name is Angus, but he’s been called Gunner since I’ve known him.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not going to be appropriate for me to use a nickname with an older man, so he’s going to be ‘Mr. McColl” or ‘Ginny’s father” to me,” I said.

“Fair enough,” she said, “But if you want to call him ‘Gunner’ for shorthand, I won’t care, and he won’t know.”

“Thanks. Anyway, he thinks the most I’ve ever bet on a pool game is $1,500.”

“What do you care about that?” she asked. I thought for a few seconds.

“I guess its like grownups don’t like being treated like kids.”

“I don’t get you,” she said.

“Grown-ups don’t like being told what to do. If I were to come into your house and start telling you how you should run it, you wouldn’t like it.”

“It would certainly be presumptuous,” she said, lighting a Benson & Hedges off of her Gates lighter. She paused a few seconds. “Do you have advice for me that you’re withholding, Henry?”

“Oh, good Lord no. You have a very orderly, warm, good house. Bad example.”

“Give me a better one.”

“Okay.” It was my turn to think about things for a few seconds. “This is an abstraction, and I’m not good with those. So imagine you’d just finished grad school, or med school, or law school, or something, and you’d bought a house or rented an apartment. And you’d managed to set it up just like you always wanted. Because it’s your first place, you’ve thought about everything that’s in it.”

“How would you know what that feels like?” she asked.

“My dorm room,” I said. “I’d never really had a place of my own before, except for my Valiant, and I lost that.”

“Okay.”

“And so everything in your house or apartment is something you put there because you thought it was exactly what you wanted there. And you’re happy with it. And then somebody comes in and starts telling you you’ve done it all wrong. Nobody like that kind of thing. Nobody likes being treated like a child.

“How is that like being treated like a child?” she asked.

“We’re very presumptuous with children. Dismissive. We think it’s okay to laugh at them to their faces. Nobody likes having their ideas treated dismissively. If you start telling me about what’s wrong with my house without an invitation to do so, it’s rude. Presumptuous. I think the reason it bothers us so much is that we’re being treated like children, and the only people who have leave to treat us like children are our actual parents.”

“And you haven’t talked to your actual parents in years?” she asked.

“True.”

“Did somebody come into your dorm room and tell you it was all wrong?” she asked.

“No. Well, yes. Milton does, but I don’t pay any attention to him. That’s just the way he is. He also lights up cigarettes in my dorm room and complains if I don’t have an ashtray.”

“So your example of something that really bothers you is something that doesn’t really bother you?”

“Maybe. I just don’t think people like being treated like children. I was trying to think of a situation where a person might feel like he’s being treated like a child. But I don’t have a lot of experience, I’ll admit. People don’t usually treat me like a child. They kind of never have.”

“Why’s that, do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Luck of the draw. I was tall for my age in grammar school. I don’t talk much. Let’s do a different example. Supposing you and some chance-met stranger got into a discussion of how to factor a quadratic equation.”

“As so often happens.”

“And so the guy you’re talking about assumes you know nothing about algebra and insists on explaining in tedious detail how it’s done. That wouldn’t bother you?”

“I might find it a bit tiresome to listen to but I’m actually pretty secure in my knowledge of the quadratic formula.”

“So being lectured by the ignorant doesn’t bother you?”

“Not especially. You?” she asked. I had to think. She stubbed out her Benson & Hedges into a dark brown glass ashtray seated in a red oak holder with a brass musket ornament.

“Yeah, again, I guess that doesn’t happen to me too much. There’s not so much stuff that I know so well that I’d have a platform on which to build my resentment. The only thing I’m really good at is pool. I remember back in Soddy-Daisy I started to tell this other pool player I met to avoid the cons and he got kinda irked with me because he thought I was getting on my high horse a bit. And I guess people don’t do that to me too much. But what I was doing to Hank, or maybe his name was Donnie, was the same as what I’m trying to talk about here. He thought I was talking down to him, and he didn’t like it one bit. I wasn’t, of course. I was imparting the wisdom of my time on the road, but he didn’t like it because I was being presumptuous.”

“So your example of something you really don’t like is not something that someone has done to you, but something you did to somebody else?” she asked.

“Odd, that,” I said.

“I like that about you Henry,” she said. “I think one more piece of pie,” she said, and served us both another piece of mincemeat. “Coffee or milk?” she asked.

“Milk,” I said.

The rest of the weekend passed without incident. Mrs. W and I ate leftovers and turkey sandwiches for the rest of the weekend. She frowned at my calculus textbook and smiled at my physics textbook. I ran through my math and physics assignments through the end of the semester and the first several assignments of the next semester, to decide if I wanted to stick with them.

And this holiday set a pattern. I’m always welcome for any holiday at Mrs. W’s house, and I get there whenever I can. I’m hoping to get back there for Christmas this year.