Counting by 7s (6 page)

I
sat in
the airless office/trailer and stared at Mr. Dell

Duke.

His head was very round. Most human heads are not round. Very, very few, in fact, have any real spherical quality.

But this chubby, bearded man with bushy eyebrows, and sneaky eyes, was the exception.

He had thick, curly hair and ruddy skin and it looked to me as if he was at least of partial Mediterranean origin.

I was very interested in the diet of these countries.

The combination of olive oil, hearty vegetables, and cheese that comes from goat's milk, mixed with decent servings of fish and meat, had been shown in numerous studies to promote longevity.

But Mr. Dell Duke did not look so healthy.

In my opinion, he wasn't getting enough exercise. I saw that he had a substantial belly under his loose-fitting shirt.

And weight carried around the middle is more deleterious than extra pounds in the butt.

Yet, culturally speaking, today men with big butts are considered less desirable than a man with a potbelly, which is no doubt wrong from an evolutionary point of view.

I would have liked to take his blood pressure.

He started by saying that he didn't want to discuss my test scores.

But that's all he talked about.

For a long time, I didn't say a single word.

And that made him talk more.

About a lot of nothing.

It was hot in his stuffy little office and as I stared at him, I could see that he was sweating up a storm.

Even his beard was starting to look wet.

He was getting more and more agitated. As he spoke, small dots of saliva lodged in the corners of his mouth.

They were foamy and white.

Mr. Dell Duke had a large jar of jelly beans on his desk.

He didn't offer me any.

I don't eat candy, but I was fairly certain he did.

I guessed that he had the jelly beans to make it look like he was offering kids a treat, but in actuality he never did and went on his own jelly-bean-eating binges.

I considered calculating how many were in the glass container.

The volume of one jelly bean = h(pi)(d/2)^2 = 2cm x 3 (1.5cm/2)^2 = 3.375 or 27/8 cubic centimeters.

But jelly beans aren't really perfect cylinders. They are irregular.

So this formula was not accurate.

It would have been more fun for me to try to count them by 7s.

I hadn't told my parents about meeting Principal Psoriasis from Sequoia.

Or that I would have to see some kind of school parole officer named Dell Duke.

I'm not sure why.

It had been their idea to move schools, and I wanted them to think things were going well.

Or as well as possible.

So I was now officially duplicitous.

It didn't feel good.

The middle school years were supposed to be (according to the literature) about an emotional separation from parents. I figured lying was laying a good groundwork for that.

But it was as if I'd eaten something that was giving me indigestion. And that burning sensation extended beyond my stomach and moved upward, where it lodged in my neck.

Right where I swallowed.

My parents didn't know any of my test-taking drama at Sequoia because I destroyed the evidence.

I erased the message from the school that was on our home phone voicemail. My parents always forgot to check it, so that wasn't a big deal.

But what was more deceitful is that I hacked into my mom's e-mail and answered the principal's note about going to see a district counselor.

So I would just have to put up with this stomach queasiness, because I deserved it.

The round-head counselor/warden finally stopped talking.

He was worn out.

He folded his short arms defensively over his ball of a belly, and then after more sweaty silence (on both of our parts), he had an actual idea:

“I'm gonna say a word, and then you say the first word that comes into your head. I'm not saying the word as a question—it's something else. Let's try to do this very quickly.”

He sucked in a lot of air and added:

“Think of it as a game.”

Dell Duke didn't know that my experience in this arena was very limited.

But I have found myself to be shockingly competitive.

For the first time since I stepped into the room, I felt mild enthusiasm.

He wanted to play a word game. I was certain that I could beat him in chess in fewer than six moves. But I have only played against a computer, and not often, because chess is one of those things that can become obsessive.

I know.

I once played for twenty hours straight and experienced signs of mild psychosis.

Mr. Dell Duke leaned forward in his chair and dramatically said:

“Chocolate.”

I was interested in the benefits of chocolate and I said:

“Antioxidant.”

He then tapped his foot, like he was accelerating in a car, and said:

“Piano.”

I said:

“Concerto.”

The day before, I had heard a kid at school shout to a group of boys in the hall:

“Game on!”

I wanted to shout that now, but it didn't feel appropriate.

Mr. Dell Duke tried to write down what he and I said, but he was struggling.

Fortunately, he gave up and decided to just play the game.

He said “space.” I said “time.”

He said “dark.” I said “matter.”

He said “big.” I said “bang.”

He said “car.” I said “tography.”

He said “mouse.” I said “wireless.”

He said “white.” I said “corpuscle.”

He said “single.” I said “source.”

He said “seed.” I said “embryo.”

He said “pie.”

I said “3.14159265358979323846264338327.”

But I said the number very, very, very fast and I stopped on the second 7 because of course that was my favorite number.

Mr. Dell Duke then loudly shouted:

“You animal!”

It scared me.

I don't like loud things. I was silent for a long time, but then finally managed to find my voice.

I said:

“Lemur.”

And then his eyes grew sort of dazed for an instant and he mumbled:

“Female lemurs are in charge of the troop.”

This was an accurate statement.

If there is conflict in the group, the female lemurs are the ones who fight it out. Because of this, the female leader gets the best food and the preferred sleeping area.

I now looked at him hard.

Not everyone knows that a lemur is a primate found only on the island of Madagascar.

It was possible he was not the toadstool that he appeared to be.

He then ran both of his hands through his curly mop of hair, and that made it double in size.

That has happened to my hair before.

So I understood.

I left the meeting confused.

I knew that he knew that I was different.

Mr. Dell Duke wasn't friend material because he was the wrong age and, female lemurs notwithstanding, we appeared to have absolutely nothing in common.

But as I walked away from the district headquarters parking lot, I decided I would come back and see him again.

Mr. Dell Duke was testing me.

But not in the way he thought.

I believed he somehow needed me.

I liked the feeling.