Numbers
Marcia Calhoun Forecki
The best years are even years and the square is the perfect shape. Some people say the circle is the perfect shape but that’s ridiculous because a circle only has one side. Only two odd numbers are lucky—three and seven—but the rest are just sharp and awkward like scissor blades or pocket knives, the two sharpest instruments I have yet to come in contact with in this, the spring of my fifth-grade year. Even numbers are smooth and sweet, and can all be divided by two, which is the most perfect number of all because two means love: husband and wife, mother and child, man and dog. That should be obvious to anyone.
Another reason I love even numbers is that my grandparents, specifically my father’s parents, visit us from California every other year, in the even years as this one, 1960, and bring shells from the beach, real paper leis like in Hawaii, and five dollars cash for each of us, my brother, sister, and me. They come in the late spring before it is too hot to cross the desert but after the mountain passes open. Grandpa follows Route 66, which divided by two is 33, a double lucky number.
Naturally, Mrs. Fitzgerald chose the day of my grandparents’ arrival to send Pixie and Dixie, our class’s science experiment, home with me for a week. Mary Ann Cummings was supposed to have them this week, but she threw up after lunch and her father had to come to school and drive her home.
“Can’t we just give them extra food to last the weekend?” I ask.
“Ella, the school has a rule against animals in the building over a weekend.”
“They are in a cage.”
“Rules are rules. Your mother signed a pledge to take the mice for one week and feed them according to the experiment rules.”
“But, my grandparents are visiting. My mother is already nervous enough.”
“Nevertheless.”
I pick up the cage. It isn’t heavy. This is partly due to the fact that Dixie is being fed a bad breakfast every day: donuts, rolls, or cold pizza. Pixie, on the other hand, gets oatmeal or eggs. This is part of the experiment. Pixie is now fat and sleek. Dixie is scrawny and her fur is dull and patchy.
Mom is going to flip when she sees me walk in with this cage. Maybe I’ll sneak it up to my bedroom and she won’t notice. The first couple of blocks go well. Pixie and Dixie huddle in one corner and I can balance their weight all right. At the corner of 45th and Forest Avenue, where I normally cut over to Flora, the mice find their courage and start scurrying around the cage. Pixie decides it’s the perfect time to run on the wheel. Suddenly, the cage feels heavier than when I started out.
We’re supposed to walk home along Flora, even though it takes longer, because walking all the way down Forest Avenue takes us past the home of Sammy Willis. We’re not supposed to walk by the Willis house without an adult present.
But looping over to Flora for one block and then back will make me carry the cage even longer. I’ll have to stop outside the Laundromat and rest. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting with gifts and if I am late getting home, the best stuff will go to my sister and brother. I’ll be left with broken shells and crushed paper leis. Sharing my bedroom with my sister is good on Christmas Eve or in a storm. But she gets to walk to the library by herself, while I have to wait until an adult has time to take me. Even when I get to her age, twelve, she will still be two years more. The numbers won’t ever let me catch up.
I decide to stay on Forest Avenue. There is an additional reason for me to hurry. I am wearing my favorite pink socks. As they are my favorites, I wear them all the time and they get washed at least once a week in the wringer washer. The elastic has gone kerplunk in one and it slips under my heel into my shoe. It is slipping now.
I cross the intersection and continue down Forest Avenue. The Willis House is coming up on my left. Darlene, two years ahead of me in school, is sitting on the rock wall above the sidewalk. The wall holds their yard from washing away. A steep set of stairs leads up to their house. Sammy is not outside. This is good for three reasons: (1) my sock has slipped completely under my heel into my shoe, (2) Darlene said “Hi,” and (3) my arms are aching from carrying the mouse cage. Three is a lucky number. The three little pigs. Goldilocks and the three bears. Three children in my family.
“Hi, what are you reading?” I ask Darlene.
“A book for school.”
Darlene is wearing a cotton dress, probably her mother’s. It’s miles too big, but she can’t wear kids’ clothes anymore because of her huge breasts. So, the waist of the dress barely touches her and the hem comes to her ankles. Darlene never looks completely clean. Her hair is stringy and her breath smells like baloney. But, I feel Darlene will be all right because she’s smart. I’ve seen her reading at the public library in the high school section. I notice the book she’s reading has a blue label on the spine. It’s a high school book, even though she’s only in seventh grade.
“It’s called Lust for Life, and it’s about a painter who cuts off his own ear.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know yet. What have you got? Let me guess. Science experiment mice?”
“Yeah. I’m taking them home for a week.”
I set down the cage on the bottom stair and pull up my sock. My foot feels much better. I take the opportunity to pull up the other sock. When I straighten up, there is Sammy standing on the stairs above me. He is six feet tall if he’s an inch and wears denim overalls. He’s older than Darlene, at least twenty, or two times as old as me. He was eight when Darlene was born. Eight is a good number because you can divide it by two three times and you get back to one.
Sammy probably doesn’t know much about numbers because he only went to school through fourth grade. No junior high and no high school. “He’s got a child’s mind in a man’s body,” she says. How does that kind of a switch take place, I used to wonder. If Sammy’s body age is a different number than his mind’s age, no wonder he’s unlucky.
Sammy is staring at the mouse cage on the bottom stair.
“Get back in the house,” Darlene orders him. “You can’t be out here when I’m talking to people.”
“Can I see the bunnies?” he asks.
“They are white mice.” I hold up the cage so Sammy can get a better look.
“Not bunnies,” Sammy smiles. He’s clearly delighted with Pixie and even Dixie.
“Get in the house before Daddy sees you talking to people,” Darlene warns.
Sammy lingers a few seconds, smiling at the mice.
“Their names are Pixie and Dixie. Pixie’s the fat one.”
Suddenly I hear the slap of a screen door closing. “Sammy, get in here!” It is Darlene’s father and he is mad as a hornet. Sammy cringes and limps up the stairs backward, without turning around to see his fate. His father is holding a belt.
“Get in here!” Mr. Willis shouts again, louder.
Sammy covers his head with his arms. He stumbles through the door backwards, trying to get by his father without a blow from the belt. He doesn’t make it. I hear the screen door slam shut. I hear shouting and crying and blows. Darlene gets up from the wall and walks around toward the back of the house, her face buried in her high school book like she hasn’t heard anything.
I am paralyzed in front of the house. I want to run up the stairs and explain to Sammy’s father that he was only looking at my mice. I must be shaking the cage because Pixie and Dixie huddle in the corner, tilting the cage to one side. I wish I could huddle with them and not hear what I’m hearing.
“I told you never to talk to people.” Slap, slap.
Part of my mind insists on counting the blows: six. An even number divided by two to make a lucky number, three. Not this time. Not lucky for Sammy. Number six is now ruined for me. For the rest of my life I will eat four or five candies, never six. I will cut apples into eight pieces, never six.
I hear Sammy cry. It is a deep, moaning sound—a man’s crying. I’ve never heard a man cry before. It sounds twice as sad as a little kid crying. There is a note of weariness in Sammy’s crying, as if he has been crying all of his life.
I take off running down Forest Avenue. I count my steps to take my mind off Sammy. When I get to the corner, the count is thirty-one. I jump in place to make the count come out even at thirty-two. I add the digits—three plus two is five. I ask God to give Sammy a lucky number, and offer the five.
As I run in the door of my house, I want to vomit but nothing comes up.
“What is it? What happened?” Mom asks.
“What on earth do you have in that cage?” Grandma asks.
“Mother, let her tell us. What is it, baby?”
Grandma grabs my arms and examines them. “Did one of those rats bite you?”
“I’m not bit. I just stopped to pull up my sock. He thought they were bunnies. I only showed him the cage. Darlene’s dad hit him.” My words come out in a jumble. “He was man-crying. Why did he hit him so many times?”
“Who hit who?”
“Sammy Willis. His dad. Just for talking to me.” I felt crying start in my throat.
“It’s your fault for speaking to him,” Dad says. “Why did you even go by the house?”
“The cage was heavy,” I try to explain. “It was too hard to go the long way—”
“—What are you doing bringing those mice into this house?” Mom cuts in.
“You signed the paper.”
“That man has no right to beat Sammy,” Dad shouts. Then Dad looks away. “Not his fault he’s not right in the head.”
“That boy belongs in a home,” Mom says. “I’m going to call someone about him.”
Dad glares at Mom. “Call who? Mind your own business.”
Grandpa picks up the cage and looks at the mice. “This one is kind of a runt.”
“It’s an experiment,” I say. “We have to give him bad food to show why good food is better.”
“Everyone knows that,” Dad says impatiently. “How many times do we have to prove it?”
“Every year. It’s the fifth-grade science lesson.”
“We aren’t doing a science lesson on my dining room table,” Mom snaps. “Take that cage to your bedroom, Ella Jane Reilly.”
For the next week, I feed both Pixie and Dixie good food. Dixie didn’t do anything to deserve a bad diet. Nobody should treat anyone bad, not a man with a child’s brain, not even a mouse. Not on purpose. When we weigh Pixie and Dixie the next Friday, Mrs. Fitzgerald is surprised Dixie has gained weight and his fur looks better. She looks at me with suspicion, but I don’t care. My experiment is a success.
After Grandma and Grandpa leave, my mother makes phone calls to lots of different offices. At first she doesn’t tell Dad. When he reminds her in the kitchen to call about Sammy, she tells him everything. “One social worker told me that because Sammy is over eighteen, he does not have to live in his parents’ house any more.” Dad nods his head. I am in the kitchen drying the dishes. I twirl the dish towel over my head seven times to celebrate.
The social worker sends the police to pick up Sammy and take him to a group home. Dad said that Sammy’s father tried to order the policeman off of his property and even swung a punch at him. I asked Dad where Sammy went and if we could visit him. Dad said he didn’t know where Sammy was and besides, it might upset him if we visited. I couldn’t imagine why, but I believed every word Dad said in those days so I never asked again.
Mom said Sammy had a low IQ. I asked what that was and she said it was a brain score that you are born with. Sammy had drawn a low score and no amount of adding or subtracting could change it. I asked Mom a lot more questions. I finally decided that Sammy was better off at the group home in three ways: (1) he was away from his mean father, (2) there were kind people taking care of him, and (3) he had a room of his own, which I wished I had but didn’t.
After Sammy left, the Willis family moved away. I never heard anything about Sammy after that summer, but I never forgot him.
Being twenty years old saved Sammy, so twenty was a good number for him. If you divide twenty by two twice, you get five: Sammy’s lucky number. Three is still lucky, and if you subtract three from five, you are left with two, an even number. And that’s very good because two is the number of love.