THE MIND OF GOO/Martin Krasney IT HAS NEVER OCCURRED to me to say no to The Numbers; they chose me, and I've accepted them. Totally. Now, almost every afternoon when I come home from my office in the city, they let me know in advance precisely how many automobiles wiU drive past me during my short descent down the hill to the little lane where I turn left and finish my walk home. The Numbers have never yet disappointed me, and I don't believe that they ever will. But I fully recognize that each occurrence is a separate instance and I proceed with the utmost attention and respect. Knowing doesn't exactly capture my relationship with The Numbers; neither does seeing or feeling. It's more like a visitation. I don't bid The Numbers to come into my mind, I can't conjure them. But I can always tell for certain whether or not it is going to be a Number day. Now, it nearly always is. And when it is, I serenely, devoutly, become their medium, never resisting, not even wondering whether to resist. The Numbers have become my destiny. It is the most tranquil acquiescence of my life. As the commuter bus grinds away north on this chilly autumn afternoon , I walk briskly from the bus pad to the edge of the parking lot and hesitate there for a moment, waiting for The Number to come to me. Same spot every day. I pivot my head slightly, a quarter turn in each direction, like a cat sniffing the weather before venturing into it. Looks like negation, but it's actually affirmation, availability, acceptance . I think of them as The Numbers. Not my numbers, certainly not simply numbers: The—definitive. Every afternoon provides its distinctive little drama, with The Numbers emerging in my mind incrementaUy, but indeterminately. I give their progress my full concentration. The final resolution is always deeply reassuring, Uke the turning of the key in a front door lock at the end of an anxious evening or the last, silent tumble of warm, clean, fragrant clothing in the circular window of a laundromat clothes dryer. I haven't looked hard into one of those in at least fifteen years, haven't ridden around inside an empty one in probably more than twenty-five. Not since that night during law school. That was another act of faith: trusting that my roommate would open the door at my first tap rather than diaboUcaUy letting me cycle again, panicking in the intensifying heat. I remember how much I used to enjoy watching the The Missouri Review · 60 clothing fumble seductively in the dryer, mingUng unpredictably. Difficult to sort them out with the eyes. Not necessary; they separate themselves. Something always on top when it stops. I moved into my involvement with The Numbers about a year and a half ago and over that period have built an intricate, secret labyrinth of expectations, associations and conjectures, an almost spiritual relationship , an almost erotic one. It is a very specific genius that I have been granted: not one that I expected, certainly not the one that I would have sought. But it is truly my very own, and I carry it now with a proprietary arrogance so subtle that it approaches humUity. Only integers come, of course, and not a very broad range. Rarely as low as single digits and never much over fifty. More than that could not pass me in the six or seven minutes it takes to cover the third of a mile of steady downhill walking. Occasionally, The Number arrives with exquisite clarity and confidence like a !¡esolving chord. But it is unusual for me to receive a single authoritative emanation like that, one that just comes and nests. More commonly, they begin as a small barrage, jostling softly, floating down in a drowsy sequence Uke motes ofpoUen, dropping through my mind sUghtly out of focus. Then, eventually, one clicks in and holds tight, assertive, palpable, like the victorious sperm claiming the egg. I always know when I have received The Number for the day and can stride down the hiU fulfilled and...