Breaking Clean - The Sequel to Simon's Prequel

Ok... it might have taken over an hour. Actually, I'm not sure. The wines and the fact that Watchmen was on, definitely stretched this effort out. Yet it was definitely all done within an evening, so I'm generously allowing myself full marks for following the one-hour-per-project rule.

Here it is. Now, to understand this story, you have to read Simon's first (http://projectblurst.blogspot.co.uk/). If you don't, it will be like watching Empire Strikes Back, without watching the original Star Wars. The result is confusing, unsatisfactory and ultimately you'll never understand the underlying daddy issues that caused that tragic galactic conflict.

Anyway, without further ado, here is "Breaking Clean".

Breaking Clean

I really wasn’t planning on seeing the day out – after all, they couldn’t give me a detention for after the last day of school. But it was in clearing my locker that I decided to stick it out.

I pushed in the numbers of my numeric combination lock and twisted the handle to pull open the locker door. It’s funny. As I pulled it open, ready to take the licit contents of textbooks and exercise pads to put into the bin, before collecting the illicit holdings, I somehow felt nostalgic about the matt feel of the plastic latch, when the slip of paper someone had wedged into the locker fell out and with a twirl landed at my feet.

I reached down and opened it. In printed text it simply read “Fibranacci”.

I almost fell backwards when I read it. Quickly I scrunched it back in my hand and I swivelled my eyeballs left and right scanning the corridor for any onlookers. It all looks normal, the students moving about their business, talking in circles. No one looking at me.

Well, well, I thought. I had better check the cubicle.

The boys’ toilets. Ah yes. A liberal zone of free verbal exchange. Poetry, insults, pictures of skulls and various innuendo about the teaching staff. Forget the library, forget debate club, the true intellectual and social melting pot of the school was where everyone relieved themselves.

For me that place had a special meaning. Beginning in Year 7, being the nerd that I am, I wrote out the famous “Bridges of Konigsberg” mathematical problem on the wall of one of the stalls in blue texter. I knew how to solve it – actually a cinch for me – but I wanted to reach out to the hoi polloi and see if there were any biters.

Perhaps it’s worth a quick aside about maths and me. I am a mathematical genius. I don’t say that lightly and I’m not showing off. I’m just a hell of a lot better at that stuff than the average Joe. Let’s put it this way – you know the movie version of the Life of Pi? I gave it 1 star on IMDB because I spotted an error when he was writing out the Pi sequence. I can’t stand inaccuracy in film.

Anyway, I have kept this a secret from everyone for a long time. In fact, I took the lowest level of maths available to me, and the teacher considers me one of the least talented students. I don’t know why I’ve held back all this time. Maybe it started with wanting to fit in but morphed into my quiet little secret. I didn’t want to pursue maths as a career, or maybe I did, but for whatever reason, my high school certificate wouldn’t convince any second rate university to accept me into anything based on numbers.

Anyway, back to the present, or rather the nearer past. About a month after I put up the Bridges of Konigsberg problem, someone solved it. There it was, the full solution, but alas, no one signed it off. Instead, they wrote out the second Bridges of Konigsberg problem. Of course, I solved it right away, and added the third Bridges of Konigsberg problem. A week later that was solved too!

It continued in this way for the whole of high school. Sometimes a month would go by before a problem was solved and a new one written up. Other times, we solved three in a week.

The bathroom had been painted just once in that 6 year period (pathetic!) so we lost the record of our work. It might have made for a great maths journal piece. We realised early on to write small. Sometimes we had to squeeze in our text and numbers between the type of sketches of genitalia that are common next in the cubicles. But we always found space.

Originally, I thought the mysterious co-conspiritor was someone a lot older – perhaps one of the Year 12 maths club. However, as the years passed, I realised it had to be someone in my own peer group.

I considered the option of monitoring the bathrooms, but somehow that felt too crude an option. If the person wanted anonymity, why not give it to them? Or at least, if we are engaged in an intellectual struggle, I had to use my brains to discover them. In any case, if I hung out too long at the loos, people would think I’m some kind of a pervert or I’d be accused of smoking cigarettes or something.

No, I had decided a while back to not even try, but that was before today. Never before had proof of the culprit manifested beyond the bathroom stalls. More importantly, never had the culprit shown that they knew who I was. Had they known all this time who I was? This changes everything. Now I must know who they are.

And they had given me a clue. Fibranacci. The famous number sequence. This clue narrowed down the field substantially, in fact, it narrowed it down to just three people. My co-pranksters from the previous night.

You see, I organised the operation last night. It was all of our ideas, but I’m the logistics guy. They know that I’m good, they trust me, so it was me who called the shots.

The lockers were all mixed up, but as far as anyone knows, it’s a random mix up. However, actually, it was not. You see, much to Max’s annoyance, I specified where each of the lockers had to go. To my friends, it looked like I was being anal, and they bucked with annoyance but humoured me in the end. I had thought they didn’t know what was going on. But someone did.

You see, the first locker, on the top left, I left where it was. Lucky Year 11 kid. The second locker, I moved one position to the right. The third, by one as well. The next after that, 2 places. The sum of the previous two numbers determined how many positions to move the next locker. Eventually the sequence was larger than the total lockers in the space, in which case I looped it back to the start. If the number landed on a previously positioned locker, I put it at the next available slot. It was complex. It might take a computer a while to figure it out. I did it all in my head. And someone, had noticed. The chase has begun. D, Max or Swifty. One of you has been holding out. But who?

First stop, the bathrooms. After all, we still had a final puzzle outstanding. This one was also quite special. We had so far solved everything we had thrown at each other, sometimes not without some effort, but we had. Throughout the process, at the back of my mind, I knew my nemesis might have just been googling the answers. After all, none of our problems were unsolved mathematical problems. That’s why two months ago I put up Pollock’s Octahedral Number Conjecture.

It was a bit unfair. After all, no mathematician over the past 150 years had managed to solve it. And I was asking some Year 12 kid in Melbourne to solve it. A big ask.

It took me a while to verify. It wasn’t straight forward. There were some big steps in there, and a lot of assumed knowledge. It took up half of a stall and then around the cistern and onto the other side. But I couldn’t fault it. The bastard had solved one of maths’ most difficult problems, and he did it to prove a point on the last day of school.

Whoever it was didn’t bother leaving a reply problem. Why would you? They had clearly won. But they did leave the following text:

“Dress it up any way you like. You’re Firanacci is no match for my Pi”.

What did that mean, Pi? Another clue.

Ok, roundup of the suspects. Swifty. If he was a mathematical genius, he was also the world’s best actor. Puppy like in nature, easily led, he seemed the least likely to have a hard edge to him. But maybe that’s his trick? He would be the first I try, as he’s perhaps the easiest. He has a strong weakness for girls, and one in particular.

Ever since kindergarden, he’d been chasing Jess Allen. Well, initially he was literally chasing her threatening to spread boy germs, but later on more seriously. She was never interested.

You see, Swifty is a definite lady’s man, a guy who can get what he’s after. He’s charming in a fumbling innocent kind of way, and he has confidence to go up to anyone. Anyone, that is, except for Jess Allen, the true object of his affections. However, she was a nerd, and rather more rarely had a keen eye only for other nerds. Swifty didn’t fit that bill. And I’d spent too many nights listening to him whinge about his lack of success not to know what to do. So I knew his weakness.

Max, well, he was definitely the smartest of us if you looked at the scoreboard. He’s on his way to do law at ANU. He had eschewed scholarships from Monash and Melbourne because he wanted to specialise in constitutional law. Funny thing is, he was never any good at maths. Ok, he did better than the rest of us, but while he sat in the top few in English and History, he was in the top quartile for maths of our peers, not a star. Maybe that was an act too.

Then there was D. Man I hope it’s D. D who is in my dreams always. Just last night, we held hands briefly. She might just have been scared, but I wish it was something more. How I hope it’s her, a hidden mathematical genius, even better than me. However, it seemed the least likely option. After all, was she really sneaking into the boy’s toilets for the past 6 years? How could she have discovered the problem in the first place. No, it’s unlikely. I’d decided I would get to her by process of elimination of the other two.

It was 11am. I’d lost hours, and my friends might not stay around all day either. I had best get the ball rolling. I had to act fast. I sat down on a bench on the playground to form my strategy. Before five minutes was up, I knew what I had to do.

At lunch, we all met up as normal in the quadrangle. In just an hour, I’d set my two traps and now to check the results.

We chatted inoccously for a while, talking about the latest Buffy the Vampire episodes. I joked with my friends about how funny it would be to set up a Buffy Society at Uni. They all thought the idea was hilarious.

Then Swifty folded first.

“Guys, I have a problem”.

“We know that Swifty”, said Max.

“No I’m serious. I have a real problem”.

“We’ve known that for years dude”, I chipped in.

“Screw you guys. I’m serious here. My heart is bleeding”.

“You’re such a drama queen”, said Max.

“Come on Max, give him a break”, said D, as usual sensing the right moment to back down on the banter. “What’s wrong then?”

Swifty looked at us through narrowed eyes, but relented.

“It’s about Jess”.

“Here we go again”, said Max.

“Shut up Max,” censored D. “Don’t listen to him, tell us what’s wrong”.

“Well, I received this note in my locker,” he said, handing it to D.

“Swifty”, started D, reading the note. “We have been friends since forever, and I didn’t want us leaving high school without having expressed our thoughts for each other properly. So I challenge you with this. My phone number is the 5^th, 8^th, 1^st and 3^rd number of pie, then the first three decimal points of the square root of 8, then the first three digits of the square of 2013. If you can piece that together, you’ve earned a date.”

Now, I knew this might have seemed a bit obvious. If Swifty was the guy all this time, he might well have seen through this simple ruse. But what I knew of the guy was that whatever secrecy he might have liked, he would not have given up even a remote chance of a date with Jess without trying.

“Sounds ludicrous to me”, said Max.

“Yeah, I’ve got to admit,” added D, “that if she was interested, she wouldn’t make it this hard”.

Swifty didn’t even look at me. I was watching him carefully. I figured that if he suspected but couldn’t be sure of a ruse (after all, Jess might just be nerdy enough to pull a stunt like this) then he’d have looked me in the eye when he confronted us with this. But he didn’t. I felt sure he couldn’t have been the one.

“Maybe she’s…”, he stammered. “She’s just not the one…”.

Even Max looked down and refrained to abuse him after this statement. Maybe I had gone too far. He looked truly hurt. Ouch. Ok, a bit shameful. I’ll need to punish myself later on by having a beer with him and talking about it. That’s a fair exchange. I hated to do it, but actually as far as collateral damage goes, it’s good to get him moving on from this obsession. After all, it’s not like he’s going to her uni next year.

Next was Max. My plan here was simple.

“Max, do you want to square up on last night?”, I asked.

“Damn right I do you tight bastards”, said Max with a smile.Ironic.

You see Max was perhaps the tightest person I’ve ever met. You know those loyalty cards that are handed out like candy by coffee houses and other businesses? Well, no one bothers to collect those when they are out of town, or in a place they are unlikely to return. No one but Max. His wallet is bulging with discount vouchers and cards. He sorts through them religiously, and knows the entire set. It’s embarrassingly common that he pulls out a two for one. I’ve seen him argue the toss for an hour with a teenage McDonald’s clerk on an expired 2-for-1. In other words, this is perhaps the tightest person on the planet.

“Well, you made the purchases Max, so we all owe you”, I started. “You paid $35.23 for the bolt cutters and $3.43 each for the four torches. According to my calculator that comes to $48.45 altogether, which means we owe you $12.15 each”.

I had pretended to use my mobile as a calculator while I did this. I short changed him both on the total and on what we each owed. He’s a stingy guy, but he trusted his friends to give him clear information. Yet I know it would hurt him to part with the just shy of a dollar amount I had just shafted him by.

“Damn straight you do”, he said. “Do you have the money now? I can get change from the canteen if you need me to”.

He looked earnestly at us, expectantly holding out his hand for payment. I knew he couldn’t have been the one. If you are both a maths genius and ludicrously stingy, then you would have at least asked to double check the calculation, not necessarily giving away anything. It can’t have been him.

My heart began to lift like a balloon. Process of elimination. I turned to D. I stared at her. She didn’t notice at first, then saw me staring and shook her head as if to say “what”?. I turned to the other two.

“Guys, can I have a moment with D please?”

“Want to smoochy  smooch?”, asked Max.

“Shut up and get out of here you loser”, I retorted. Max looked at Swifty, they shrugged, and they moved off.

“What’s this all about?”, asked D, almost angrily. “What’s so secret you’ve got to get rid of the gang for?”

“D, I know.”

D looked confused. For a second I hesitated, but my logic was infallible. “D, I know about it, you don’t have to hold back any more”.

D looked at me. “Who told you?”

“No one told me D. I worked it out”. I was a little surprised by her response. After all, did others know about your mathematical brilliance too?

“It’s just so embarrassing”.

“D, with a mind as beautiful as yours there’s nothing to be embarrassed by. You should be proud of it”.

D looked down on the ground.

“We don’t have to lie to each other any more. Let’s talk honestly and directly from now on. It’s a new chapter to our relationship”.

D looked me in the eye. Then suddenly I felt her lips pressing to mine. Tingling electricity course through my extremeties and I felt my stomach lurch upwards.

She pulled away just as suddenly and stared at me, vulnerable and nervous.

“D, I, I…”

“Shut up you jerk. Did you like that or not”.

My heart was fluttering. This is what I had always wanted. D, not just  beautifully physically and emotionally, but my intellectual superior. I didn’t need her to be all three, she was perfect for any one of her attributes. My secret hopes and desires felt so close now.

“Of course,” I said sheepishly. “Can we, uh, can we do it again?”

It was perhaps five minutes later when we returned for air.

“D, I can’t believe  this. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting”.

“You fool. I gave you like a million signals. Why do you think I was holding your hand last night – from fear? Just one thing. Who told you I liked you?”

“No one. Honest. I just found out your other secret. You know, with the Fibranacci number”.

“What’s a Fibranacci number?”, she asked.

“Oh come on, you know, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3 ex cetera”.

“What the hell are you talking about? Are you some kind of hidden nerd or something?”

Hmm… she really didn’t know.

Sometimes the best laid plans fail. For me, I like to think that’s rare, but then again, I know when I’m licked. I tried to prise out of the three which was the culprit, and I thought I had the perfect plan. I guess, as hard as it is for me to say, I miscalculated.

But you know, when you sum it all up, I can’t say that I lost. Ok, so I was defeated intellectually by a mathematical genius greater than me, so they figured me out and I know nothing about them, and so I’ve kind of ripped Swifty’s heart out and stuffed it down his throat. On the other hand, finally, finally I’ve managed to move past hoping to hold hands with D. And that’s all that matters, in the end.

So we ended up staying the day. It’s not like the teachers tried to teach us anything. They were happy enough to let us chillax and spit the wind. Some of them joined in. There’s nothing like a last day of anything to bring out some nostalgia.

On the way out the gates, Swifty, Max, D and I left together. Swifty and Max had quickly gotten wind of the development with D. “About fucking time”, was all Max had to say.

Just on a hunch, call it intuition, I looked back one last time on the school before I got in the back seat of Max’s car to get to the after school party we all had planned. My eyes rolled over the buildings, the grounds and finally they caught something on the playing field on the left.

I could see that the lawn had been mowed today but they’d missed a spot. And damned if that spot didn’t look like the shape of the symbol Pi. In the distance I could see Mr Frock motoring away on his lawn mower machine, big yellow earphones on not paying attention to anything.

Mother Frocker.