THE NUMBERS GAME

Desmond Chauncy O’Hare was a smart kid. From the back alleyways of Brooklyn, he lived with his older sister and her husband, Liz and Dominic Gardner. They led a modest life. Dominic owned the corner grocery that had belonged to his father. It rested beneath their one bedroom apartment, with wooden staircase that creaked no matter where you stepped.

Des (as he preferred to be called) had just graduated high school with average grades. As a prospective art student, he had his hopes set on Kingsborough Community College, but his hopes were dismal as he hadn’t yet received his letter of place. And his choices for any other further education were slim at best. Dominic had offered him a future with the grocery as consolation, but Des couldn’t be any less inclined. Nothing about boxed tomatoes, over-populated tabloid shelves or half-priced organic tooth paste held any appeal whatsoever.

In fact…not much appealed to Desmond’s fancy. He appreciated the solidarity he found in street art and the escape it offered - from the incredibly thought-provoking and profound to the intrinsically flat and dull. He felt like life was kinda like that. Sometimes a rush of truth and inspiration…but like sometimes what was the point.

He was in this latter headspace on the Saturday morning that he was meant to deliver some potatoes to the Blue Dime (an old jazz join south of Highland Park). But what he found in the club’s back alley was just enough of a spark to pique and differ his interest that day. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so pointless after all, he thought, as he pedaled his bike instead to his best friend, Bianca Hayworth’s, house.

Bianca and her mom rented a small apartment near the Gardner’s, and Des and B had been friends for as long as they cared to remember. Without any hesitation upon approaching their front steps, Des jumped off his bike and gave B’s window a good rattle.

“B! Bianca are you awake? Come to the door!” Des gave the window a few more good pounds.

He saw Bianca’s tousled hair silhouette as she approached, groggy and disoriented. “What is wrong with you…” she groaned from the other side. She opened door looking annoyed as ever. “You couldn’t wait til later…?” Bianca had never been a morning person.

Des took out a little black notebook from his coat pocket. “Look what I found behind Mr. Pike’s place this morning!”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “And?” She frowned and grabbed the book, looking it over. It was mostly empty, save a few random numbers, with charts and a single graph in the very back…and a single entry in the very beginning of the journal. She peered closer and read:

“Dear reader;

Congrats! If you’ve found this notebook, it’s your good fortune. This journal has become a bit of a game for me. Please accept my invitation to play - with an awarded $20,000 dollars to those who crack its puzzle. The only stipulation is that you reposition this book after with intentionality somewhere in the streets of New York, that someone else might glean from its merit…”

Further down, there were instructions and a P.O. Box address to mail the answers to, but other than that, the book was empty - a riddle in itself.

“Des, is this a joke? Are you the dupe today, is that it?”

Des shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But like, what else ya got going on today?”

Bianca scowled. “Me and my mom are going upstate. She’s gotta ask her brother for a loan or something, so I gotta look half decent before we leave….I’m gonna pass.”

Des sucked his teeth. “Yeah, but…. What if you don’t go? And help me instead? For the memories. This could be fun, right? And if not, at least you’re not seeing your grouchy old uncle. Thought you hated him anyway. Just tell her you’re sick!”

Bianca leaned on the doorway. “It’s true. I do hate him.”

“So done! We have something to do this weekend, and you’re not driving upstate.”

Bianca stared at Des for a moment, considering her options. She grabbed her coat.

The kids took the book to Clancy’s Diner to look over the numbers with some coffee. Bianca got started by compiling all the numbers on a paper napkin, ignoring the defacing pencil marks that were clearly post additions.

“- 4.08.53

- 1.27.78

- 40

- 41

- 2.004

- 73

- 54

- 4.3128”

“Is that it?” B hunched over her elbows on the table top. “What’re we supposed to get from this?”

Des looked at the chart in the back. “Liz plays Sudoku all the time. I’ll bet this is just a giant puzzle like that….with….patterns?” They glanced up at each other, stumped.

Spending the next two hours at the table, the kids went through several mugs of coffee, an order of pancakes, a side of bacon, and several more napkins with scrawled equations.

“Ugh, I give UP.” Bianca sat back in the booth, exasperated. “You need to put this back in the alley. Or the trash.”

“No! There’s gotta be something here…” Des was getting desperate. It had to mean something. There had to be more to his life than potatoes. He slumped his face in his hand.

“Doin alright over here?”

Des looked up. There was Mr. Clancy, out clearing plates. He must’ve seen them sulking in the booth. He was a good guy, that Clancy.

“Yeah…just…something for school…” Des muttered.

“Hmph..” Clancy grunted. He reached over to grab the syrupy side plates in the corner.

“Hey, Mr. Clancy, what’s that?” Bianca squinted and frowned at Clancy’s right arm. He was a burly man covered with layers of tattoos that nobody ever asked about. But there on his wrist, Bianca had spotted a scrawled number that she hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh,” Clancy looked down as if to confirm the tattoo was still there. “Map coordinates of my momma’s house in Texas. R’minds me where I came from.” He finished stacking the plates on his strong arms and looked at their mugs. “Y’all need anything else?”

The kids shook their heads. “We’re good, Mr. Clancy…” Des sighed.

“Alright. I’ll be out back if y’all need.”

As he turned to go, Bianca grabbed Des’ wrist. “We’re doing this wrong.”

Des frowned. “Whaddya mean?”

Bianca grabbed a new napkin and started scratching her pen in a frenzy. “His tattoo….same format as these numbers… I wonder if it’s not an equation at all. What if it’s a PLACE…”

In thirty seconds, Bianca had grouped the last six numbers together as Latitude and Longitude. “Ok… Let’s try them as 40°…. 41 and 2.004 North… and 73° … 54 and 4.3128 West…” She pulled out her phone and looked up the location. “It’s…it worked?” She looked just as confused as she sounded, staring hard at her phone screen. “…Evergreen Cemetery..” She paused to look up, her mouth twisted in a thinking face.

But the cemetery wasn’t far from Clancy’s. They paid their tab and took a taxi, using the coordinates from Bianca’s GPS. Once arriving, they walked through the silent rows of history and tombstones till they reached their mark. They were standing directly in front of two tombstones that read:

“Harriett Jean Townsend Fife - Beloved Wife and Mother.

April 8, 1953 - Jan 27, 1978.”

and

“Samantha Rose Fife - Beloved Daughter.

One day on earth - an eternity in spirit.

Jan 27, 1978 - Jan 27, 1978.”

The kids looked at each other. “Look at the dates?” Bianca lifted the napkin and pointed out the similarities to the gravestones. They had a match. And with some quick detective work and Bianca’s phone, they traced Harriett and Samantha to a man named Arthur Fife, a retiree apparently in pharmaceuticals and foreign trade, alleged to live in upstate New York.

Bianca and Des were stunned. This wasn’t the direction they’d anticipated this book to take them. But here they were.

They wrote up a letter with their findings, and Des sent it to the P.O. Box listed in the instructions. Though he waited to “relocate” the notebook… He still wasn’t convinced of its legitimacy.

But sure enough, one week later, Des walked in with muddy shoes to an envelope on the Gardner’s table. Liz had set it aside for him. “I’m sorry, Des, I don’t think it’s from Kings’…” Des didn’t wait. He scooped up the letter and ripped it open to find a hand written letter in fine penmanship. The letter read:

“Mr. Desmond O’Hare,

I was delighted to receive your correspondence. You figured out my riddle, and I couldn’t be more pleased. As a tribute, please consider this letter a formal invitation to collect compensation in person at my own estate, June 12th at 7pm. I would be delighted to meet the only person who has yet to accurately respond to my bequest.

Sincerely yours,

Arthur Fife”

Without much thought to the dangers of such a proposal, Des and Bianca somehow bribed Dominic to take them upstate. “It’s for a project for King’s!” Des had convinced him.

Though reluctant, Dominic loaded up the three of them in the Gardner’s Civic and they made their way to the estate. They approached the given address and looked in awe at the massive house, donned with white columns and a wrap around porch.

Greeted by a butler and led into a sitting room, they felt uncomfortably out of place. The room smelled like ash tray, with trails of Cuban smoke, Verveine and Scotch, and the braided aztec rug was soft beneath their feet. They couldn’t help but wonder what kind of personalities had trailed in over this rug before them.

But they were jolted out of their thoughts by the sound of footsteps approaching, belonging to a thin older man with white hair and a kind face. “You must be Desmond.” He smiled and extended his hand.

The four moved to the sofa, where Mr. Fife began the explanation of the notebook and the numbers, and how it all came to be. He chuckled as he recalled, “I planted this journal three years ago. In a subway train beneath Times Square. Didn’t imagine it would take this long of a journey.”

“And nobody figured out the clues?” Des looked confused.

“My boy, I’m sure most people thought it was rubbish. It’s an easy thing to pass another person’s prized secrets and not recognize their value. But I’m impressed you figured it out. And as promised - a cheque for you, sir. Though, I do hope that you can find a way to split it amongst yourselves.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope, handing it to Des.

“Th-thank you sir.” Des took the envelope respectfully.

Mr. Fife smiled, but his eyes looked sad. “It’s never about the numbers, you know. No ladders or hierarchy or achievements…” He paused and pursed his lips as he looked from Dominic to Des to Bianca. “This game was meant to be a small reminder of that. Life’s about your family. I was my happiest when the house was full of people to share it with.”

The four exchanged polite goodbyes and reinforced gratitude…they were all still in a state of shock. But in the car their shock quickly escalated when Des opened the envelope to find not only a cheque for $20,000, but also a notice of Will and Testament.

“Wait, what?” He pulled out the paper and held it open for the others to see.

Sure enough. There it was. Mr. Arthur Fife had extended his will in its entirety to Desmond O’Hare, with a small note was paper clipped to the back. It read:

“I don’t have any family; I don’t have any heirs. But I wanted to find the right people to share the fullness of my life with. Please don’t ever hesitate to do the same. Because - that’s the REAL game.”