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After the talent show, the boy was referred to as the “Pi Kid.” Hundreds of kids sat dispassionately through such acts as “Spoon Man” (in which two kids strummed balloon guitars while a geek pranced with a large spoon) and “Desperate Times” (in which one kid played a piano piece that never seemed to end, appropriately making the audience more desperate). Now a lanky little kid, maybe in fifth or sixth grade, rose to the stage, which seemed too large for the terrified creature upon it.
“I,” he said in a quivering voice, “am going to recite the first five hundred digits of pi.”
The pi kid returned to his house after a long day at school, followed by math club and topped by an Honor Council meeting. Some girl with overly blue eyeshadow had copied a report from the internet; condemning her to two weeks of detention and a zero on the paper had made him miss dinner.
“Dad!” he called. “I’m home.”
He listened for a response and heard none. On the kitchen table, neatly laid out, was a peanut butter sandwich, a peach, and an unopened bottle of soda. His stomach grumbled, but he stood in the doorway to his kitchen, unmoving.
“Dad!” he yelled sharply.
He knew his father had to be home. He had become increasingly afraid of the outside for reasons even he could not discern. He now worked at home in a corner of his bedroom he called his “office.” He hadn’t left the house in almost three months, leaving his son to buy the groceries, take the garbage out, and find his own rides to school.
His mother, on the other hand, never came home. She went on repeated business trips almost continually. Her job did pay the rent, however, and the pi kid’s summer programs and education. She called home every night in lieu of tucking him in. The last time she stayed a solid week at home was when he was eleven, a week before the talent show.
“Dad!” he hollered.
He went up the stairs on the warn-down periwinkle carpet that still smelled faintly of long-gone cats. The wall to his right held his mother’s old oil paintings. Not a single one of them featured people.
“Dad?” Voice getting frantic.
“Dad!” Voice getting desperate. His father refusing to leave the house to see a doctor, now dead. Cold body parts marbled hard and smooth. Cheeks white, no longer bustling red. Oh god, the ambulance and all those pitying stares. He wasn’t old enough to take care of himself. His mother would have to come home.
Why hadn’t he noticed how silent the house was when he first came in? Usually, the radio was blasting the oldies station, or the television was set to stop operas or reruns on the Sci-Fi channel.
The top of the stairs: he could see his father’s bedroom at the end of the hallway.
It took quite some time for him to recite all those digits, staring from 3.14159 and continuing ad nauseum. Two TA’s leaned over a book, reading along as he flawlessly repeated the numbers. Over time, their expressions grew in turns disbelieving and awed. The audience sat forward, attention flickering between the boy and their teachers. He had to be making this up, but somehow he wasn’t, and couldn’t be.
When he paused, they all held their breaths. They did not want to feel embarrassed on his behalf if he failed. And he didn’t; he made like he wasn’t counting on his fingers, then prattled right on. When he finally finished, he got a standing ovation, the first and perhaps last he’d ever gotten in his life.
But afterwards, he was still a shy boy with rather fluffy hair. He stayed by the wall at dances and though a few girls told him they were impressed, not one called upon him to escort her to the floor. He knew he’d go home and his mom wouldn’t be there, though she’d call every night. He knew his father would get him working on extra math for hours in his room “to prepare for being the only freshman in Calculus.” He remained awkward, a Doogie Howser of sorts who couldn’t talk to his peers. He was marked as the “pi kid” for life but wouldn’t properly blossom until he was thirty.
And so it went, for many, many years and now he had the cold knob in his hand. He was loosing feeling, needed to steady himself. “Three,” he said, “one, four, one, five, nine…” and so the numbers came back like a nursery rhyme he’d almost forgotten.
He pushed the door open. His father, on the bed, unmoving. Numbers, numbers, until they were a mantra, a prayer, and he was yelling them, one after the other, like bullets. All five hundred of them swarmed from his mouth.
He was a loser kid with fluffy hair who had grown up into the only freshman in Calculus. Now his hair was gelled and he was no better, just older, and when he reached the last digit, he started over.
His father’s work was all over the floor, organized into neurotic little piles. Beside the piles, under the bed, was an almost-obscured wine bottle. Still reciting, his voice fluctuating and cracking, he dropped to his knees to find the biggest supply of alcohol possible to store in such a tight space.
The pi kid stopped. His father didn’t drink, did he?
No sleeping pills in sight. Nothing, just silence. “Dad?” he whispered.
The phone rang, startling him. His father rolled over. Not dead, no, not dead yet. He grumbled something. The pi kid was unable to move. The phone rang a few more times and the machine picked it up. His father’s voice, a cheery voice recorded many years back, spoke into the silence.
“Hello, boys,” his mother chimed after the beep. “Where are you tonight? You’re usually home by this time. Well, I hope you’re out bonding or somesuch.” She dropped her cordial tone in a way he had never heard before. “Leonard, you should be getting the papers in the mail sometime this week, if not already.” She clicked off, leaving them in silence. His father’s eyes were closed.
“Dad?”
His father grumbled indistinctly.
“What papers?” But he was a smart boy, smart enough to memorize the five hundred digits of pi and yet not smart enough to realize his mother could have gotten a more stable job a long time ago.
They weren’t hard to find, divorce papers with his parents’ names on the top. She was leaving his father all the possessions, half the money, checks in the mail, and custody of their only child. “Irreconcilable differences,” the papers claimed.
The pi kid went downstairs to eat his dinner, taking the wine bottle with him.