Number Mad

I moved to New York in 1976. In a stolen car. Not really stolen, but a Newton, Mass. lawyer paid $300 to vanish his gas-guzzler. I drove the Olds 88 on the West Side Highway on Manhattan, took off the plates, threw them into the Hudson, and walked away from the vehicle. Easy same as the previous times for other men wanting to rid themselves of a big car. I took the subway to Brooklyn Heights. I was in love with a painter from Pittsburgh. I knocked on Ro's door and was greeted by her ex-lover.

Bix had the look of a hillbilly. Lanky, sallow, and sad. Ro had told me that she had never kissed him, but she liked having sex with him. He was gentle. That information had made me sad too, but not as much as his news that evening.

"She's gone to Paris. To study art. She left on a jet plane."

"Gone?" I understood the word even more saying it again.

"Don't know when she'll be back again." Bix tended to talk in liners from Beatles songs. His other trait was to scribble numbers. He was fixated by them. His hand held a scrunched up paper scrawled with thousands of numbers. They weren't a mathematical equation. Only random numbers. He was mad. His madness had nothing to do with Ro not kissing him.

"Thanks." It was late and I had no place to stay.

"You can sleep here." He held the door open wide.

"Okay." I stayed awake all night in Ro's bed. So did Bix. He sat at the kitchen table writing down numbers. With a pencil. He should have been in a hospital. In the morning I said good-bye. I knew of a cheap hotel on West 11th Street and 5th Avenue. A dump with a good address.

"Are you going to be alright?"

"Sure, no problems." He didn't even lift his head from his task.

A year later he was found dead in a cave located among the bare winter trees of Fort Tryon Park. The police said the stones around his last home were covered with numbers. None of them made sense.

Not like 1 + 1 = 2, however today is a special day. At 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds on the 7th of August this year (today), the time and date will be 12:34:56 07/08/09. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9; note it, enjoy it, as it will never happen in your lifetime again.

Some numbers are not for the mad.