Pi

It is the new year, 2012, and it has just turned midnight and the college kids next door are whooping it up here on Mulberry Street. All over the East Side you can hear the pop, pop of revolvers. And I have coffee and a little smoke and I'm feeling good except my back is a little achy and I think of Pi.

 

My back is achy because of the letter Pi.

 

It seems every man of labor and many a man of leisure has a "back story." It's a weakness which tells us we have reached a point and perhaps an indication that we are not meant by nature to be doing what we are being called upon to do. Sometimes we are just reckless. Sometimes we are worn. Everyone has a back story because evolution has seen fit to place us upright; evidence that there are even flaws in nature. Say what you will.

 

My "back story" happened at the top of the Palm Springs Arial Tramway. We were loading in. I was working for a small production company; a job I only kept for a year. We worked the event circuit; seasonal work. There aren't many shows or events scheduled while the relentless desert heat fries the road and the residents of the Imperial Valley. Tourism dries up along with the brush in the washes, but come fall, everybody is back in business again and so were we.

 

It might have even been close to New Years… no, wait… it was, actually, now that I think about it, which is probably why it popped into my mind while the pistolas were poppin' over on the east side. Funny how that works.

 

I remember that it was very cold. I don't remember any snow. It must have been a dry December, much like this year and we were loading in and I was the "load master." This meant that I supervised the loading and unloading of large stage and event sets which included all manner of painted or fabric covered "flats," aluminum trusses and custom fabricated props, a massive collection of "par" lighting and miles of electric chord. It was freezing. The wind was blowing too and it's a long way from the desert floor on the east side of the San Jacintos, to the flats, at the top, where the ride ends at eight and a half thousand feet and we were loading in the dark because the event was a late event. That's right, It was New Years. Now I remember.

 

This one was heavily themed because it was centered around a particular product; Givenchy's latest scent for men, simply called…

 

Pi.

 

The logo consisted of the Greek letter Pi. How original. Anyway, someone got to think they were pretty slick for a moment when they thought that up and I think this stuff actually did end up taking off. I'm not sure if they still sell it. It's been so long since I've been in a mall or a department store. They're bad for my overall disposition so it's better this way.

 

The event would probably be full of young corporate execs and ad people; heavy mingling, corporate camaraderie, probably some sloppy drinking and virtual hot-tubs full of subtle and not so subtle sexual signals, all assisted and enhanced by the very best cocaine money could buy. There was a lot of that sort of thing in Palm Springs back then. In any case, we had a job to do, and since this was a theme event and a heavily funded event (we're talking Givenchy kids), meaning that everything had to be just right; sparing no expense… we did our job, and braved the heights and trusted the tenuous wires; dangling hundreds of feet above the ground in the dark, in gondolas full of show-time with the cold wind blowing all around us. We bounced and swung high above the earth, risking our lives because, as everyone knows… the show must go on.

 

It was to be a truly gala affair, including a laser light show extraordinaire (not a part of our contract) and an elaborate platform set-up for the DJ. We supplied the curtains, the par lights, the background sets, and you guessed it, the

 

Pi…

 

or should I say,

 

Pi's.

 

There were two as I recall, standing much higher than a man. They were to become portals; doorways to paradise, strung with garlands of lights under which the guests would pass. They were two very large Pi's, crafted from polystyrene foam; carefully formed, coated and painted. The plan was that we, meaning three temps and I, would load these in sections (four legs and two tops) onto the tram cars, to be assembled at the end of the line in the pines. We off-loaded the trucks and carted the Pi pieces to the waiting platform; two men per piece. We then waited for our car to arrive while the giant electric motors hummed and the cable-pulleys clacked. We packed that gondola full of Pi and it was hard struggling out there in the cold wind. My fingers were numb. My cheeks hurt.

It took two trips to the chateau at eight and a half thousand feet on the eastern plateau of the San Jacinto peaks; one up, one back and one more up.

 

We reached the top for the final time, after bobbing on what I hoped to be very sturdy wires, high above the dark and craggy ravine, and we knew that there was no time to waste. The guests would be arriving soon… so, we went to work and one of the first things we did was to raise and decorate that magnificent Pi; that monument to both math and fragrance. We assembled it there, at the top of the steps leading to the chateau, where all the lesser royalty would soon pass. And when they passed, they would enter through Pi and be consecrated by Pi. They would pass through Pi as if through an ancient Greek security check point. They would pass under Pi and be blessed… blessed with the promise of extravagantly expensive indulgence.

 

After we had lain Pi out out horizontally on the concrete, with both legs matching slots cut into its curving chapeau, we fastened Pi's hat onto its legs, which were taller than me (over six fee), using a series of dowels set strategically into the large sections of popcorn plastic, we rested for a moment and steeled ourselves in the freezing wind for the next task at hand. We prepared ourselves solemnly and my eyes were watering from the icy wind, leaving burning tracks down both cheeks; now nearly frozen. The three temps and I lent our shoulders to the task of Pi's erection. We got behind Pi and began lifting Pi to its feet, slowly and carefully, like some trigonometricIwo Jima. But we hadn't counted on the wind and the dowels began to twist and the legs slipped in their slots and that is when I felt it; a sharp, instantaneous pain, vertebral and deep, causing a momentary flash of light inside my cranium.

 

And that, my friends, is how my life was changed forever by a non-terminating, non-repeating decimal.

 

Happy New Year.

 

Reviews

[Rose of Gondor]

Brilliance. I loved the ending. This, as usual, is a very deep read. I would expect no less of your writing. :) Lovely. Happy New Year to you too!! :)

[RainQueen]

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! You wove this "back-story" into a stinging indictment of class. You made the reader truly feel what it means to build high society on the "backs" of workers, made the reader understand the price that is paid by others for a pretty banana republic.

~perfection~

[TKBickel]

You have a very interesting life. A story well delivered. I visualized it easily and the story unfolded in a way pulling me through out it. See if you can find the Pi sign and attach it for your story photo.