IQ

I’m going to the middle of fucking nowhere to meet some moron genius who I’ve never met before.   That’s what it’s like being a journalist.   It sucks.   Oh, yeah.   Travel the world, experience new unknown lands and cover catastrophes.  Fun, fun, fun.   Should’ve been a gynecologist or a golfer.   Golfers travel to fun places and get to party if they win.   I just get padded down at all the fucking aeroports and have to worry about being arrested by foreign nations.   Oh, but the ratings.   Gotta have great ratings or else the shows cancelled.   Idiots.   So these people sent me to timbuck too to find the person with the highest IQ to find out what he does on a daily basis to keep smart.   Right.   Eat shit:   A billion flies can’t be wrong.   If you do what this guy does, you can be as smart as he is.   Maybe there’s a secret he has.   Or maybe it’s in his fucking DNA and this who story is bullshit, just like every other story these morons have me cover.   Magician reveals all.   How customers are ripping off the gas stations by pulling the last bit of gas out of the goddamn hose.   Oh, yeah.   Someone fucking cares.   I have no idea who, but someone does.   

      And we also have to cover the local news.   Oh, yea.   There was a crash in the neighborhood.   Or a stabbing, or robbery, and here’s what the experts have to say about it.   

      But, someday one of the head reporters will croak and I’ll take over their position.   Maybe.   

*

    I’m finally there.   The middle of fucking Nowhere.  Whoop Dee do.   Let’s see if El Genius is in.   I look for a doorbell, but there aren’t any doorbells in B F E.   So I knock on his . . . Guess you could call it a door.  

     A thin man in a white cloth over his privates and waste comes to me with a smile and shakes my hand.   I introduce myself and he does the same.    Very American of him.   So, I ask the usual bullshit questions:   Name, occupation, when did he realize he was smarter than others?   He answered the like a defendant answering questions from a prosecutor, with simple answers like yes, no.   Those don’t make great quotes for newspaper stories though.    Bullshit like he eats raw tea leaves from the outskirts of India or his parents got the gynecologist to genetically engineer him.   No, he’s lived a boring life in the middle of fucking no where, reads whatever material he can.   He went to public schools through 12th grade and graduated with honors.   

       But, no major secrets.   He reads on weekends, too.   Eats and drinks what every other person in the world eats and drinks.   Sleeps between six to eight hours every night.   Grew up and stayed in touch with both parents.   And he said the secret to becoming smart is to go to the local library and read books.   No shit, Sherlock.   I just went to Timbuck Too for this.   Why?

      So, I decide, since I need this goddamn story by Saturday, to ask more detailed questions.   Like what kinds of books did/does he get from the library?   How many hours does he spend reading every day?  What does he do for a living?   What did his parents do for a living?   Every answer this idiot genius gives me is simple.    He is a warehouse manager.    His mother was a psychiatrist and his father a salesman.    What did he sell?   Insurance.   Health insurance.    When did he first notice he was smarter than his peers?   Since he was weaned.  

     Who contacted our newspaper about this story?   He did.  Ok, what is it he wants the world to know about him?   That he’s smart.  Yes, but that doesn’t make a story.   I try to explain to him a man saves a cat from a tree, that’s not a story.   A cat saves a man from a tree, that’s a story.   So, why are you different from every other genius in the world and how did you get that way?   You got a free library card from your local library.     Anyone can get a library card.  Hell, a bum on the street reeking of booze could get a library card.  

      Then, the man smiled and said, “Exactly, but 75% of the population don’t get a library card and those who do barely use it.   They don’t use FAFSA and say college is too expensive.   They don’t research anything but TV shows.   A nuclear bomb is worthless unless you use it or are willing to use it.   But no one but me does.   Or they use it for school to write reports for teachers but never use it when they get their careers.   They only go for their children’s school assignments and get the bare minimum.   Nobody reads, “Robert’s Rules of Order” for fun, except me.   I found it fascinating.”

      You read “Robert’s Rules of Order”?

       He told me how he’d read dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedia brittanicas, and all this boring shit that no one in their right mind would spend time reading.   Now, it’s starting to sound like a story.   And I asked him what specifically interested him in these kinds of books?   Then he told me since he was a child, he’d been reading the library books from this library by catalog number and he was about a third of the way through.  

     But who told you to do this?   Did one of your parents tell you to . . .

     “Oh, no.   I asked the librarian what books I was allowed to take and she said any book between the first number in the dui decibel system and the last number in the dui decimal system.   So, I started at the first number and have been working down ever since”.  

     But, don’t libraries throw away books or sell books that don’t circulate and buy books people request?

     “Yes, but I’m a friend of the library and I have first dibs on all the books and buy all of them.  I’m a bibliophile.”

     Obviously, but where do you keep all these books and don’t some old books contradict new books?   And don’t libraries buy new books and other items like DVDs?

     “I keep the information in my head and I keep the books in my library at home.”

      Could I come in and see it, then?

      “Oh, this isn’t my home.   This is my business quarters.”

      “Why are we meeting . . .?”

      “I figured it would make a better story”.