The beginning of the genius novel
Chapter 1--Introducing Harry
Suddenly there was a loud crashing noise like the entire world was coming to its quick, long-deserved end. I awoke with a jump, nearly falling from the sofa which served as my bed more days than not.
``What the holy fuck?!'' I exclaimed to no one but myself. The rumbling continued for a few seconds more. When I noticed the floor of my home felt more like the deck of a ship at sea, I realized it was only an earthquake. I appraised it as a Category II; depending on the epicenter, it could have been as large as a magnitude 6.5.
I quickly assessed the situation: no structural damage, displaced objects, or property damage. Nothing to worry about. I lay back down to sleep again. It was 12:47 p.m.; I had slept only three hours and fourteen minutes thus far.
* * *
He hadn't been sleeping well, even for him. Harry had been dealing with insomnia since he was thirteen, but for the last three weeks-since his father had died-his sleep was even more disturbed than usual. There weren't enough sedatives in the pharmacopoeia to knock him out when he needed to sleep, not enough stimulants to keep him awake when he needed that.
His life had degenerated into one ruled by iron-fisted artificial chemicals. He was not yet dead only by the grace of modern pharmacology: sedatives, stimulants, antidepressants, triptans, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, analgesics, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, prostaglandin inhibitors, leukotriene modifiers, and cholesterol-lowering agents. He was the poster boy for rational drug design. The medications piled up, one by one, over years of monthly visits to physicians and psychiatrists. Somewhere in the process, ``this medication will save your life'' turned into ``one more isn't going to kill you.''
The death of Harry's father came unexpectedly; he was only 54 and in good health. The aneurysm that took his life shocked his family and devastated his family. Harry had never had a chance to make his peace with the old man. Now he never will, and that's what upset him most about his father's death. But he'll never tell you that.
* * *
I awoke again at 4:32 p.m. feeling not the least refreshed. It is Friday, and I have nothing important to do. I wonder, often, why I even bother waking. Then I remember that I have little choice in the matter, save swallowing every pill in my extensive at-home pharmacy. I consider it every day, but I am apathetic-not desperate.
The highlight of my day, each day for the last year, has been my nightly residence at the local Starbucks. I arrive between six and seven, chat with the two or three other regular patrons who have managed to befriend me, and leave when the store closes. I don't know why I keep going, honestly, except to demonstrate to myself that I would be missed if I didn't.
I haven't worked for two years. The chronic insomnia, severe mood disorder, and intense headaches have debilitated me, perhaps permanently, to the point that gainful employment is not possible for me. I often feel worthless, not because I have failed society, not because I am a recipient of public assistance, not because I have disappointed my mother. All those things are true, yes. But I am worthless because I have failed to use even one iota of the extremely rare intelligence I have been given. I am a genius, living the life of an idiot.
* * *
When Harry was 11, his parents asked the school psychologist to test Harry's IQ. They knew that he was exceptional. All his teachers had told them many times what a bright young boy he was. He was at the top of his class, but his grades were beginning to slip. Eventually they met with the psychologist to find the explanation.
Dr. Franklin, the school psychologist, met with Harry and administered a full battery of psychological tests: the [bsh1] MMPI, MBTI, APS, BDI-Y, and the WISC-everything she could find with an interesting acronym. Among the other results, she learned that Harry was moderately depressed and more intelligent than the IQ test was even designed to measure. She believed that Harry was able to score even higher, but he didn't see the point in expending his energy on the test. He answered every question but three correctly, but he did it in only one-fifth of the allotted time. Both she and Harry knew that he could have answered the other three questions correctly if he had spent another ten minutes on the test. Other testing showed that Harry had the rarest personality type of all sixteen measured by the MBTI, the INFJ type [bsh2] .
It was no surprise, then, that he hated his classes. He was chronically bored and unmotivated. While his classmates were learning fractions, he should have been studying differential equations. What could his classes possibly offer him that was appropriate to his intelligence?
* * *
In an unusual move, I decided to skip the usual Starbucks tonight. I'm really quite bored of the corporate swill and the mass-produced approved musical recordings. But where, then, to go?
I found myself driving toward the more bohemian neighborhoods in search of a new life. I have been living in the quiet comfort of upscale suburban university students for years now, and while I enjoy their vivacity, I find their lack of personality thoroughly depressing. I was ready for a change of venue, if for no more than an hour.
I drove down Washington Street. I hadn't been in this neighborhood in years, but nothing had changed about the place except my memories. As I passed 23rd Street, I saw an eclectic crowd gathered on the sidewalk on the right. I slowed to look at the storefront where they stood, and saw a bright green sign announcing the name: Pandora's Dream. Unusual. Perhaps worthwhile. I turned at the corner, parked on the street, and carried my notebook with me toward the entrance.
The crowd that I had seen gathered was moving into the adjacent door where I saw, looking in, a man playing an acoustic guitar on a stool on a small stage. I was relieved; I wouldn't face the immediate judgmental scrutiny that my paranoia caused me to believe I would.
As I walked through the door, I was assaulted by the aroma of rich teas that overpowered the cigarette smoke I had passed through. I saw urban hipsters reading leftist literature, Goth teens painted in black discussing the latest music, and aging punks refusing to accept their age and conform: Seated at the edge were the homeless men, who were there simply for a comfortable place to sit. Interspersed among them all were the locals who lived in the neighborhood, many of them too poor to leave the inner city, who defied any other categorization. Each was an animated cliché, but all of them had personality.
The walls, I noticed, were decorated with black and white photographs of nude couples. Bookshelves lined them, filled with free newspapers, magazines, and independent literature. Promotional flyers for nearly every independent musician in the state, tattered and torn, were strewn willy-nilly.
``What can I get ya?'' the sufficiently-pierced but thoroughly attractive woman at the counter asked me.
I balked, then spit out the first thing that came to mind: ``Chai latte.''
``What size?''
``The big one.''
She assembled a bag from loose tea and spices, added honey, milk, and hot water, then set it before me. ``Three twenty-five.''
I gave her four ones, dropping the 75 cents she returned me into the tip jar, then sat at the nearest empty table and opened my notebook to begin sketching the diverse crowd before me. The overriding thought as I sketched was that I had finally, within a microcosm of diversity, found the one group where I belonged. I am not a stranger here.
* * *
Harry had struggled his entire lifetime with finding his place in the world. It was no small endeavor, given his highly unique brain. Other geniuses bored him to tears; he found more ordinary people overly frustrating. Even when Harry was a child surrounded by what came closest to his peers, the other children at the school for the gifted, he never made friends.
He had tried to date, when he was younger and less world-weary. It was impossible, it seemed, for Harry to find even a tolerable dinner date, much less a potential girlfriend. Not that he was alone in his contempt for others; the people he dated often expressed as much or more frustration with him. He had not once been on a second date with the same woman.
He eventually accepted his fate. Three years ago, he began meeting women, and occasionally men, for one-night stands, which required neither person to like the other. He found it spartan but sufficient. It became his bimonthly indulgence, the stopgap to his eventual insanity.
He was, by necessity, a man alone in the world. He had made peace with that already, but having accepted it didn't make it any easier to keep living it.
[bsh1]MMPI: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
MBTI: Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator
APS: Adolescent Psychopathology Scale
BDI-Y: Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment]
WISC: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
[bsh2]RESEARCH: Statistical analysis of personality types of EXIQ (extended IQ, > 160) individuals. Do MBTI types follow the same distribution within that population that they do in the general population?