Me Talk Pretty One Day

  The fact that the roofer had to pry my hand off his knee is proof that my inner vachette was not nearly as vicious as I’d imagined her to be. The show over, I sat trembling in the stands, watching the contestants who now gathered around the concession booth showing their battle scars to anyone who would look. The horn-in-the-back injury wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. The victim had to lower his trousers in order to exhibit the wound, which amounted to little more than an angry red welt located just to the right of his crack. Wincing slightly, the fellow with the broken ribs decided he would wait until morning to visit the hospital. He and the others were enjoying their moment in the sun and saw no reason to cut it short. Surrounded by their admiring neighbors, they reenacted the more dramatic moments of the afternoon and speculated on how they might do things differently the next time. They drank and joked and were still at it when Hugh and I returned later that evening for the fireworks display. It wasn’t much in terms of a spectacle. I’ve seen more elaborate pyrotechnics at the grand openings of grocery stores, but the audience was kind and everyone made an effort to pretend that the display was magnificent. Between the puny pops of Roman candles and the hisses of launching rockets, we could hear the vachettes bitterly lowing from within their nearby trailer. They would leave the following morning to wreak their havoc at some other backwater festival, where another set of figures would end their evening gathered before their perfect matchbox village, pointing to the sky and whispering, “Ohhh. Ahhh.”

  The incident at the fair had caused me to worry that perhaps my vachometer was reading a little higher than anyone else’s, and it pleased me to realize that, at the time they were hit, I’d been rooting for the young men down on the field. Their injuries turned out to be relatively minor, but still I’d felt no pleasure witnessing their misfortune. I wondered how I might have reacted had somebody been killed, but then I dismissed the thought as overly dramatic. Watching even the sorriest of sporting events bears no resemblance to coming upon an accident and hoping to exploit it for your own personal gain. Anyway, it had been the young blond woman who’d wound up with the most disturbing story. We might have watched her, hanging by a strap umpteen feet in the air, but, even worse, she had been forced to watch us. Squinting down at our hideous, expectant faces, she probably saw no real reason to return to earth and reclaim her life among scumbags like us. For all I know, she might still be there, hovering above Paris and kicking, scratching at anyone who tries to get near her.

  Smart Guy

  WHEN I WAS TWENTY-FIVE, I found a job cleaning construction sites in the suburbs of Raleigh. It was dull work, made even duller on the days I was partnered with a fellow named Reggie, an alleged genius unhappy with the course his life had taken. Every day he’d talk about how smart he was, and it was always the same conversation.

  “Here I am with a one-thirty IQ, and they’ve got me sweeping up sawdust.” He’d glare at the bristles of his broom as if they had conspired to hold him back. “Can you beat that? A one-thirty! I’m serious, man. I’ve been tested.”

  This was my cue to act impressed, but I generally passed.

  “One three oh,” he’d say. “In case you didn’t know it, that’s genius level. With a mind like mine, I could be doing something, you know what I mean?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Pulling nails out of two by fours is not what I was made for.”

  “I hear you.”

  “A sixty could do what I’m doing. That leaves me with seventy extra IQ points sitting around in my head doing nothing.”

  “They must be bored.”

  “You’re damn right they are,” he’d say. “People like me need to be challenged.”

  “Maybe you could turn on the fan and sweep against the wind,” I’d suggest. “That’s pretty difficult.”

  “Don’t make fun of me. I’m a lot smarter than you.”

  “How do you know?” I’d ask. “I might be a three hundred or something.”

  “A three hundred. Right. There’s no such thing as a three hundred. I’d place you at around seventy-two, tops.”

  “What does that mean?” I’d ask.

  “It means I hope you like pushing a broom.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He’d shake his head in pity. “Ask me in about fifteen years.”

  Fifteen years later I found myself working for a house-cleaning company. Yes, it was unskilled labor, but for what it’s worth, I did very little sweeping. Mainly I vacuumed. Oh, but that was years ago. Two years ago, to be exact.

  I’m not sure what Reggie is doing now, but I thought of him when, at the age of forty-two, I finally had my IQ tested. Being an adult with a fairly steady history of supporting myself, I figured the test could do no real harm. At this stage in my life, the die has already been cast and, no matter how dumb I am, I’m obviously smart enough to get by. I failed to realize that intelligence tests effectively muck with both your past and your future, clarifying a lifetime of bad choices and setting you up for the inevitability of future failure. When I think of an IQ test, I now picture a Vlasic-nosed sorceress, turning from her kettle to ask, “Are you sure you want the answer to that question?”

  I said yes, and as a result, I can still hear the witch’s shrill cackle every time I reach for a broom.

  As a child I’d always harbored a sneaking suspicion that I might be a genius. The theory was completely my own, corroborated by no one, but so what? Being misunderstood was all part of the package. My father occasionally referred to me as “Smart Guy,” but eventually I realized that when saying it, he usually meant just the opposite.

  “Hey, Smart Guy — coating your face with mayonnaise because you can’t find the insect repellent.”

  “Hey, Smart Guy, thinking you can toast marshmallows in your bedroom.”

  That type of thing.

  I thought I could cure diabetes by spreading suntan lotion on sticks of chewing gum. Sea & Ski on Juicy Fruit, Coppertone on Big Red. I had the raw ingredients and a test subject, all under the same roof.

  “Hey, Smart Guy,” my father would say, “offer your grandmother another piece of that gum, and you’ll be the one scrubbing your teeth in the bathroom sink.”

  What did he know?

  Alone in my bedroom, I studied pictures of intelligent men and searched for a common denominator. There was a definite Smart Guy look, but it was difficult to get just right. Throw away your comb, and you could resemble either Albert Einstein or Larry Fine. Both wore rumpled suits and stuck out their tongues, but only one displayed true genius in such films as Booty and the Beast and The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.

  My grades sank, teachers laughed in my face, but I tried not to let it get to me. In high school I flirted with the idea that I might be a philosophical genius. According to me and several of my friends, it was almost scary the way I could read people. I practiced thoughtfully removing my glasses and imagined myself appearing on one of those Sunday-morning television shows, where I’d take my seat beside other learned men and voice my dark and radical theories on the human condition.

  “People are insecure,” I’d say. “They wear masks and play games.”

  My ideas would be like demons rushing from a hellish cave, and my fellow intellectuals, startled by the truth and enormity of my observations, would try to bottle them up before they spread

  “That’s enough!” they’d yell. “For the love of God, somebody silence him!”

  Far scarier than any of my ideas is the fact that, at the age of seventeen, I was probably operating at my intellectual peak. I should have been tested then, before I squandered what little sense I had. By the time I reached my thirties, my brain had been strip-mined by a combination of drugs, alcohol, and the chemical solvents used at the refinishing company where I worked. Still, there were moments when, against all reason, I thought I might be a genius. These moments were provoked not by any particular accomplishment but by cocaine and crystal methamphetamine — drugs that allow you
to lean over a mirror with a straw up your nose, suck up an entire week’s paycheck, and think, “God, I’m smart.”

  It’s always been the little things that encourage me. I’ll watch a movie in which an attractive woman in a sports bra, a handsome widower, and a pair of weak-chinned cowards are pursued by mighty reptiles or visitors from another galaxy. “The cowards are going to die,” I’ll think, and then when they do, I congratulate myself on my intelligence. When I say, “Oh, that was so predictable,” it sounds brainy and farsighted. When other people say it, it sounds stupid. Call me an egghead, but that’s how I see it.

  It was curiosity that led me to take my IQ test. Simple, stupid, brutal curiosity, the same thing that motivates boys to see what flies might look like without their wings. I took my test in Paris, in the basement of an engineering school not far from my apartment. I’d figured that, on its own, my score would mean nothing — I needed someone to compare myself with — and so Hugh came along and took the test as well. I’d worried that he might score higher than me, but a series of recent events had set me at ease. A week earlier, while vacationing in Slovenia, he’d ordered a pizza that the English-speaking waiter had strenuously recommend he avoid. It came topped with a mound of canned vegetables: peas, corn, carrot coins, potatoes, and diced turnips. Observing the look of dumb horror on his face as the waiter delivered the ugly pizza, I decided that, in a test of basic intelligence, I was a definite shoo-in. A few days later, with no trace of irony, he suggested that the history of the chocolate chip might make for an exciting musical. “If, of course, you found the right choreographer.”

  “Yes,” I’d said. “Of course.”

  The tests we took were designed to determine our eligibility for Mensa, an international association for those with IQs of 132 or higher. Its members come from all walks of life and get together every few weeks to take in a movie or enjoy a weenie roast. They’re like Elks or Masons, only they’re smart. Our tests were administered by an attractive French psychologist named Madame Haberman, who was herself a Mensa member. She explained that we’d be taking four tests, each of them timed. In order to qualify for Mensa membership, we’d need to score in the top 2 percent of any given one. “All right then,” she said.“Are we ready?”

  I’ve known people who have taken IQ tests in the past, and whenever I’ve asked them to repeat one of the questions, they’ve always drawn a blank, saying, “Oh, you know, they were… multiple-choice things.” Immediately after taking my test, I was hard-pressed to recall much of anything except the remarkable sense of relief I’d felt each time the alarm went off and we were asked to put down our pencils. The tests were printed in little booklets. In the first, we were shown a series of three drawings and asked which of the four adjacent ones might best complete the sequence. The sample question pictured a leaf standing top to bottom and progressively leaning to the right. It’s the only question I remember, and probably the only question I answered correctly. The second test had to do with spatial relationships and left me with a headache that would last for the next twenty-four hours. In the third test we were told to examine five drawings and figure out which two didn’t belong. Eventually a break was called, and we stepped out into the street. Hugh and Madame Haberman discussed her upcoming trip to the Turkish coast, but I was still trapped in test world. Five deaf students walked down the street, and I tried to determine which two did not belong. I imagined myself approaching the two boys wearing tennis shoes and pictured their confusion as I laid my hands upon their shoulders, saying, “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

  Our final test involved determining a pattern in four pairs of dominoes and prophesying what the fifth pair might look like. There were pages of questions, and I didn’t even come close to finishing. I’d like to say that the room was too hot or that Madame Haberman distracted me with her incessant banjo picking, but none of this is true. According to the rules of Mensa France, the test instructions were delivered in French, but I understood every word. I have no one but myself to blame.

  A week after taking the tests, our scores arrived in the mail. Hugh has been advised to try again: scores can fluctuate according to stress and circumstance, and he’s right on the cusp of Mensa qualification. My letter began with the words, “Dear Monsieur Sedaris, We regret to inform you …”

  It turns out that I’m really stupid, practically an idiot. There are cats that weigh more than my IQ score. Were my number translated into dollars, it would buy you about three buckets of fried chicken. The fact that this surprises me only bespeaks the depths of my ignorance.

  The tests reflected my ability to reason logically. Either you reason things out or you don’t. Those who do, have high IQs. Those who don’t reach for the mayonnaise when they can’t find the insect repellent. When I became upset over my test score, Hugh explained that everybody thinks differently — I just happen to do it a lot less than the average adult.

  “Think donkey,” he said. “Then take it down a few notches.”

  It’s a point I can’t really argue. My brain wants nothing to do with reason. It never has. If I was told to vacate my apartment by next week, I wouldn’t ask around or consult the real estate listings. Instead, I’d just imagine myself living in a moated sugar-cube castle, floating from room to room on a king-size magic carpet. If I have one saving grace, it’s that I’m lucky enough to have found someone willing to handle the ugly business of day-to-day living.

  Hugh consoled me, saying, “Don’t let it get to you. There are plenty of things you’re good at.”

  When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he’ll need some time to think.

  The Late Show

  I’M THINKING OF MAKING a little jacket for my clock radio. Nothing fancy or permanent, just something casual it can slip into during the wee hours. I’m not out to match it with the curtains or disguise it to look like something it’s not. The problem is not that the clock radio feels underdressed, the problem is that I cannot bear to watch the numbers advance in the heartless way common to this particular model. Time doesn’t fly — it flaps, the numbers turning on a wheel that operates much like the gears on a stretching rack.

  For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called “going to sleep” but rather “passing out,” a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.

  As a perverse and incredibly boring experiment, I am now trying to prove that I can get by without the drugs and the drinking. It was hard for the first few months, but then I discovered that I can live without these things. It’s a pretty miserable excuse for a life, but technically it still qualifies. My heart continues to pump. I can put socks on my feet and make ice; I just can’t sleep.

  I’ve never gone to bed early, and have no intention of changing my schedule. There’s always a little hump at about eleven o’clock, which I’ve traditionally gotten over by drinking a lot of something. I’m used to holding a glass or can and raising it to my mouth every thirty seconds or so. It’s a habit my right hand can’t seem to break.

  Having decided in advance that I will never use the word decaf, I began looking for a new beverage. My disappointing search taught me that, without the blessing of vodka, tomato juice is a complete waste of time. Even when you buy it in a bottle, it still tastes like the can. I’ve learned that soda gives me a stomachache, grape juice gives me a headache, and that nothing is more disgusting than a glass of milk, especially French milk, which comes
in a box and can sit unrefrigerated for five months, at which point it simply turns into cheese and is moved to a different section of the grocery store.