My first major in college was Math. My mother had chosen that field of study, because a 710 score in my Math SATs provided convincing proof that her second son was a future Einstein. She was not privy to the fact that I was smoking pot and dropping acid. Both opened my mind to the realm of infinity, while reducing my ability to add and subtract to a preschool level. I survived the first two semesters through the genius of my mind. My grade for multi-variable calculus was a B-. Without the drugs it might have been a B.

I started an affair with a divorcee the summer between freshman and sophomore years.

Linda worked as a junior executive in the same office as my father. She wore lingerie. We had sex for hours twice a week in the back of my car. I moved into a small apartment near my college. Sex in a bed was better than in the back of a VW Bug. I drove taxi to pay the rent. My grades suffered, since my math class was at 9 am. I missed most of them. My professor for linear algebra was Rene Marcuse, who could calculate missile trajectories in his head. My mid-term result was a D+. I showed up for the final two weeks of classes.

“Who are you?” He asked from the front of the class.

I told him my name.

“I thought you had withdrawn from the class.” He was short and bald. A little overweight, but his eyes sparkled with an intelligent designed for NASA and not a pot-smoking underclassman.

“No.” I explained that I was working to pay for school.

“You know you’re in danger of failing?”

“Yes.” I hadn’t realized that you could pull out of a class mid-term. This was December. Too late to withdraw and my ignorance had committed me to taking the final.

My crash cram failed to pierce the intricacies of determinant and vector spaces. I showed up at the final with the book in my hand. I cheated without any fear. I paraphrase the text regardless of the question. Two hours were more than enough. At the end of time I handed in my test.

“How you think you did?” Professor Marcuse asked staring at my textbook.

“Aced it.” I went out and smoked a joint and then went to work driving a cab. I didn’t get home until 3am. I made over $70. This was good money in 1972 and would have to be. I read my test score on the math department wall.

15.

“Aced it?” Professor Marcuse was standing behind me.

“Better than a zero.” Zero was the most powerful number in mathematics with the power to negate any equation, but I was in danger of failing out of my college. My lottery number was 96. If i wasn’t going to school, then I was headed for Viet-Nam. “But not good enough to keep me for of the Army.”

“If you drop Math as a major. I’ll give you a D-.” Professor Marcuse was offering a lifeline and I took it. My mother was disappointed, but I sat out the war with Linda in my cold-water apartment and I thanked Rene Marcuse for keeping me a civilian.

Bad math would have determined another destiny.

ps X is 5. I’m better at math now.

Counting on my fingers is easy. I have all ten.