Life After Genius

by M. Ann Jacoby

  He shakes her off. “I don’t have sunstroke, Hayley, I saw him.”

  She sets her hands on her hips, like his mother. “Look at yourself, Theodore. You’re red as a cooked lobster.”

  And the thing is, he is red. Bright red. Shit. It’s going to keep him up all night.

  HAYLEY DIGS A PAIR OF JEANS and a baseball jersey out of that duffel bag in the trunk of her car and pulls them on over her bathing suit, but they don’t fit. They’re too big. She has to fold over the waistband and roll up the cuffs. “You stay put and I’ll be right back,” she says and disappears into the five-and-dime, leaving her car to idle in its parking space with Mead in it. Heat is radiating off his arms. He has grown three shades redder in the short amount of time it took to drive back into town. You could fry an egg on his chest. No kidding. This is what happens when you spend twelve years hidden in the stacks of the library followed by three hours in the midday summer sun. Mead redirects the air-conditioning vents and holds his arms in front of them to get the full benefit.

  Hayley comes back with a brown paper bag, out of which she takes a jar of Noxzema, a bottle of aloe vera gel, and a six-pack of chilled soda. Mead picks up the six-pack and presses it against his chest.

  “You look worse,” Hayley says.

  “Thanks.”

  Squeezing a blob of green goo into her palm, Hayley slathers it all up and down Mead’s arms and legs. It feels good, cool to the touch. Then she rubs it over his chest, the way his mother once massaged his chest with VapoRub when he had bronchitis.

  “Is Herman the one who lied to you?” she asks.

  Mead doesn’t answer, just concentrates on her cool hands.

  “Turn around so I can do your back.”

  He turns around and thinks about another girl he liked and then lost. The one he met after Cynthia. Herman’s fault again.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, that just about does it.” Hayley removes her hand from Mead’s back and closes the lid on the aloe vera bottle. “Give the gel a chance to sink in, then put on some Noxzema. And drink plenty of fluids.” She reaches into the duffel bag and pulls out a red T-shirt. “Here, put this on so you won’t stick to the seat.”

  Mead pulls on the cotton tee over his head. It’s a couple of sizes too big for him. Little brother, my foot. No one drives around with a duffel bag full of her brother’s clothes in the trunk of her car. And they certainly don’t fit her. There’s no doubt in Mead’s head: Hayley has got a boyfriend. Or an ex-boyfriend.

  “I didn’t graduate,” Mead says. “Commencement ceremonies are set to take place in six days. I just left.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Okay.” Hayley opens one of the cans of soda and takes a sip, then sits back to stare out the front windshield. Is she afraid her boyfriend is going to walk by, see the two of them sitting in her car, and get angry? Mead would rather not get punched in the face. He already knows what it feels like to be on the fist end of that deal and it isn’t very good. Unless, of course, he’s her ex-boyfriend.

  “I’m being blackmailed,” Mead says.

  Hayley turns around. “By Herman?”

  “I thought I saw him in the cemetery this morning, only now I’m not so sure.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  “No, I haven’t told the police and I’m not going to. It’d be pointless. Herman functions beyond the long arm of the law.”

  “My god, Theodore, what happened?”

  “He lied to me, Hayley, that’s what happened. He lied.” And for all Mead knows, she’s lying to him right now. About her little brother. About these clothes.

  She sits back and gazes out the window. “What does he look like?”

  “Herman? A rich boy from Princeton.”

  “Well then, he ought to stick out like a sore thumb around here.”

  Mead looks over at Hayley, scanning the streets of High Grove for a rich boy from Princeton, and allows himself a smile.

  6

  SUFFERING OLD FOOLS

  Chicago

  Two Years Before Graduation

  IT’S BEEN RAINING for the past twenty-four hours straight. Puddles everywhere. But at least for the moment, it isn’t coming down hard. Which is a good thing because Mead does not have an umbrella. He finds them cumbersome and more trouble than they’re worth. After all, it’s just water. So he pulls the hood of his rain slicker over his head, tucks his books under his arm, and starts off across campus.

  Contrary to Dr. Kustrup’s advice —and partially because of it —Mead decided to stay in Chicago for the summer. And when he found out that his new faculty advisor would be returning from his sabbatical to teach during the summer quarter, it sealed the deal. That’s where he is headed right now, to meet with this Dr. Andrew Alexander. Only this time Mead did his homework first: He looked up the professor in Who’s Who in America. It seems that the mysterious Dr. Alexander also matriculated at a young age —sixteen to be exact —right here at Chicago University. He had his doctorate in mathematics by the time he was twenty-three and then headed out east to spend a year at the Institute for Advanced Study before taking a string of teaching jobs at a series of universities —including King’s College in Cambridge, England —before finally ending up back here at CU. Mead wasn’t quite so upset after reading that, especially after he looked up Dr. Kustrup in the same volume. It seems that he didn’t start college until he was nineteen. And it wasn’t Chicago University he attended but some lesser school in the Midwest. And he didn’t get his doctorate until he was twenty-eight. And, oh yeah, he lied. He never attended the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There isn’t one mention of it in his bio at all. And all those papers he claims to have published? Apparently he lied about those, too. Or maybe they just weren’t important enough to get a mention in Who’s Who.

  Mead comes to a crosswalk and has to wait, along with two other students, for the light to change. As they’re waiting, a man comes pedaling up the street on a bicycle, a green Schwinn that looks as if it were purchased at a yard sale. The man riding the bike has a cap pulled down low over his eyes so it’s hard to make out his age. He’s also wearing a lightweight zipper jacket, khaki trousers, and loafers. One of the students says, “Look at that old fool, will you?”

  “You know who that is, don’t you?” his buddy says. “I see him around all the time. He’s a professor here on campus. Rides that bicycle all year round. Rain, snow, sleet. Doesn’t matter.”

  At that moment a car speeds through the intersection, trying to beat the yellow light, and hits a puddle, sending a geyser of water up over the bicycle and its rider. The professor raises his fist and shakes it at the car. If he curses, Mead does not hear it.

  The first student laughs. “Like I said, old fool.”

  Mead glances down at his own feet, which are clad in loafers similar to those on the professor. He wonders what the student would say if he noticed. Something derogatory, no doubt. And perhaps he’d be right, seeing as how Mead’s feet are soaking wet, water having already seeped in through the hand-stitched seams. Perhaps Mead is just a young fool. Or maybe a person only notices these things when a friend points them out.

  But the student does not notice Mead. The light changes and he crosses the street with his buddy. They turn and head off to the right, Mead goes to the left and heads for the quad.

  Yesterday he picked up the class schedule and read through all the course offerings in the math department. One class in particular caught his eye: Introduction to Analytical Mathematics. The class is being taught by the widely traveled Dr. Alexander. Mead figures that if the man is going to be advising him, then he should take at least one of his classes to decide whether or not the professor has anything worthwhile to say. If he still has all his marbles. Because the other thing Mead read about Dr. Andrew Alexander in Who’s Who in America is that he was born in 1910. Which makes the man all o
f seventy-seven years old. Which makes him four years older than Mead’s grandfather Henry Charles was when he died.

  Mead exits the quad and heads up the walkway toward Epps Hall, where the math department is housed. Chained to the bicycle rack in front of the building is the green Schwinn that just passed him back at the intersection. Apparently the old fool on the bicycle is a professor in the mathematics department. How odd that Mead never before noticed the bike. He tries to calculate what the odds are that the old fool is his new faculty advisor. Mead didn’t get a look at his face, nor could he see his hair, stuffed as it was up under the cap, so he didn’t get a reading on the man’s age. It’s a three-speed bicycle with a bell on the handlebar, a wire basket on the back, and a blue license plate that reads: PNT.

  His heart suddenly beating faster, Mead trots up the stairs to the second floor. Could it be that Mead’s new faculty advisor is the old man he met in the park? But that would be too good to be true. And the initials, they’re all wrong. But what if it is? What if the old fool on the bicycle and the old guy in the park and Dr. Andrew Alexander are all the same person? Mead stops just short of his new faculty advisor’s office. A familiar voice is coming from inside of it: Dr. Kustrup’s voice. The door is nearly closed so the chairman cannot see him but Mead can hear plenty.

  “I need you to consider my offer seriously, Andrew,” he says. “It’s selfish of you to continue teaching at your age. There’s a whole new generation of mathematicians out there and it’s only fair that one of them be given a shot at working here, only I don’t have the budget to add another salaried staff member so I need you to do the honorable thing and step down. I mean, you’re seventy-seven, for god’s sake. It’s time, Andrew, it’s time.”

  “Have you received any complaints about my teaching?”

  “No, but that’s not the point.”

  “It may not be your point, Frank, but it’s mine. I’m not changing my answer.”

  “You’re being unreasonable, Andrew.”

  “This meeting is over.” A chair scrapes across the floor. “I’m expecting a student at any moment so I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  Mead leaps away from the door just as Dr. Kustrup throws it open and charges through it. The man’s face is beet red. He’s so mad that he doesn’t even see Mead as he storms past him and disappears around the corner at the end of the hall. And Mead is so mad that he almost goes after the guy to give him a piece of his mind. Not only did Dr. Kustrup dump Mead but he handed him off to the very professor he is now trying to get rid of! Well, screw him. The man couldn’t talk his way out of a 4 x 4 matrix if he wanted to. Mead is not going to let Dr. Stuckup Kustrup get the better of him. He is simply going to graduate from this university —with top honors —without him. Hell, he’s going to graduate in spite of him. And he is going to do it with the old fool on the bicycle.

  Mead hesitates before entering the professor’s office. Perhaps he should give the old man a few minutes to cool down, to regain his composure. He’s bound to be even more pissed off at Dr. Kustrup than Mead presently is. Only he isn’t. Instead of sitting behind his desk stewing about the unpleasant encounter, the professor is standing at his blackboard writing out a series of mathematical expressions, the piece of chalk in his hand clicking against the slate like a bird singing in a new day. “Dr. Alexander?”

  He turns around. And it’s him all right, the old guy with bloodhound jowls and long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. Mead smiles and the professor smiles back. He remembers too.

  “Mr. Fegley, I presume?”

  “Mead, sir, I prefer to be called Mead.”

  “Come in, come in,” he says and waves him into his office. “Tell me, Mead, do you know what a harmonic series is?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s the addition of terms continuing indefinitely.”

  “And if it’s divergent?”

  “The total has no limit.”

  “And if it’s convergent?”

  “It creeps closer and closer to a finite sum but never quite reaches it.”

  “Excellent,” Dr. Alexander says. “Excellent.” He turns back to his chalkboard. The professor’s pant legs are soaking wet and he is standing in stocking feet. A pair of loafers sits on the radiator under his window.

  “Dr. Alexander? I’m sorry but I couldn’t help but overhear part of your conversation with Dr. Kustrup.”

  “Oh, that. Don’t worry about that, Mead, I’m not going anywhere. That man has been trying to get rid of me for years. Put the old geezer out to pasture, so to speak.” He stops writing and turns around. “Old is just a state of mind, Mead. I don’t feel any different today than I did when I was your age, so why should I retire? So I can go home and stare at the walls? Watch too much TV? Drive the wife crazy? Or maybe he wants me to open up a bookshop like that physics professor they bribed into retirement a few years back. But I’m not interested in shelving books, Mead. I need to keep my mind engaged and challenged.” He turns back to the board. “Besides, I have tenure. Kustrup can’t do a damned thing but squawk.”

  Mead sets his books down on the professor’s desk, next to his wet cap. “I’d like to sign up for one of the courses you’re teaching this quarter. Introduction to Analytical Mathematics.”

  “I think that sounds like a fine idea, Mead.”

  “Sir. The license plate on your bicycle outside reads PNT. I’m just curious. What does that stand for?”

  “Prime Number Theorem. Tell me, are you familiar with it?”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  “Not to worry, Mead, you’ll learn all about it in my class.” And he goes back to writing on the board.

  “Uh, sir? Shouldn’t we sit down and figure out the rest of my schedule?”

  “Sign up for whatever you’d like, Mead. After you complete my course, then we’ll discuss what you should do next.”

  “Uh, all right, sir. Then I guess I’ll be going.”

  “One other thing, Mead.”

  “Yes?”

  The professor turns around one last time. “Stop calling me sir. It makes me sound too important.”

  A POSTCARD ARRIVES in Mead’s mailbox postmarked St. Louis. On the front is a photograph of Busch Stadium. A short message is scrawled across the back. “I can’t believe I’m being paid to play baseball! I’ve been promoted to Class A status and will be going on a whirlwind tour of the United States care of the St. Louis Cardinals. Not a bad gig for a kid from little old HG. Life is great! Love, Percy.”

  Shit. No matter how hard Mead works, Percy somehow always comes out on top. And with next to no effort. Life on a silver platter and all that crap. Mead should send his cousin a picture postcard of the campus library. On the back he could write, “Studied here until midnight on Saturday night. It was awesome!! The books are incredible. University life is great! Love, Mead.” Only he figures his cousin wouldn’t get it, so instead he drops Percy’s postcard into his sock drawer, scoops up his textbooks, and heads over to Epps Hall.

  DR. ALEXANDER BEGINS HIS LECTURE on the first day of class talking about Western Europe in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, about a section of Germany being ruled by the king of England. A few of Mead’s classmates exchange looks of confusion. Others check their class schedules to make sure they’re in the right classroom, to make sure they have not inadvertently wandered into a Western Civilization class by accident. The rest roll their eyes and smile knowingly because they got warned ahead of time to expect odd behavior from the old professor. Dr. Alexander sees them all reacting and smiles back.

  “This is the world,” he says, “into which Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was born. In the village of Breselenz, a flat, dull countryside of farm, heath, marsh, and thin woodland. An undeveloped region where, in the early nineteenth century, one was either a craftsman, a domestic servant, or a peasant. Or a minister. Which is what Bernhard’s father was: a country parson who struggled to feed and clothe his six children, only one of whom lived a normal life span.
And it wasn’t Bernhard.”

  The kid sitting in front of Mead squirms in his seat and glances at his watch. Mead imagines him heading over to the administrative building at the end of the hour to drop the class and wonders if he should follow, wonders if the old professor has begun to lose his marbles. Or maybe the unair-conditioned classroom is causing him to have a mental meltdown. After all, this is supposed to be a math class.

  “Needless to say,” Dr. Alexander continues, “there were few opportunities in such a place for young men like Bernhard so he was sent to live with his grandmother in Hanover, eighty miles away. But the young Bernhard was homesick the whole time, a poor scholar interested in only one thing: mathematics. It was understood, however, that he would follow his father into the ministry so he entered the University of Göttingen as a student of theology.”

  Mead sits up a little straighter in his chair. He is starting to like where this rather unconventional lecture is headed. Already he likes this Bernhard Riemann. He sounds like Mead’s kind of guy. Perhaps Dr. Alexander is not so addle-minded after all.

  “The school was at a low point when the young Bernhard arrived in 1846, in the middle of a political upheaval. It did have one major attraction, however: It was home to Carl Friedrich Gauss, the man who discovered the Prime Number Theorem. The greatest mathematician of his age, Gauss was sixty-nine and did little teaching by that time, but he gave a lecture on linear algebra that our young hero attended. Afterwards, Bernhard confessed to his father that his true love was mathematics and thirteen years later, in 1859, Bernhard published a paper that mathematicians have been trying to prove or disprove ever since: the Riemann Hypothesis.”

  The rest of the lecture is spent discussing the Riemann Hypothesis in purely mathematical terms. Including its genesis, the Prime Number Theorem. Many of the terms Dr. Alexander uses are unfamiliar to Mead. But this does not discourage him. It heightens his desire to know more. And he leaves Dr. Alexander’s class having been bitten by the same math bug that once bit Bernhard.

  A SECOND POSTCARD ARRIVES, this one postmarked Cleveland, Ohio. On the front is a photograph of that city’s baseball stadium. Another short message is scrawled across the back. “I got to pitch in both the fifth and the sixth innings. My fastball clocked a respectable 92 mph and no runs were scored while I was on the mound. Not bad for a day’s work, not bad at all. Hope things are going as well for you. As always, Percy.”