Bright Guy

Okay, I’ll come clean: I’m not smart. This may not seem like much of revelation, especially if you know me. And let’s face it, if you’re reading this, you probably know me. However, many people think I am smart. Random people will accost me on the street and ask for directions or some other kind of difficult question, but as they are speaking, all that is going through my head is the theme song to Gilligan’s Island.

Now, it is true; I wear glasses and read a lot. I mean I have all of the accoutrements of the smart, so I could see people making the initial mistake. Like, you see a tall guy and you figure he must play basketball or you see an Italian guy and you figure he must have mob connections. Of course, it’s not true; not all tall people play basketball, but we have a tendency to do quick, lazy stereotypes when we first meet someone. I mean, why not, it’s fun and easy!

When I was in school, kids used to cheat off of me all the time. And I get it: chubby guy +glasses+ clothes picked out by mom=genius. It’s an easy mistake, but, at some point, don’t you think it they would figure it out? Wouldn’t someone look over and see me penciling in the answer “George Washington” to the question, “Who is thought to be the father of modern astronomy?” and breathe a sigh of annoyance and look for some fresh brains to cipher off of?

They wouldn’t though. They would lean over, as obvious as can be, and copy whatever half assed shit I could think up like they were the slickest cats in the world. The teacher would never interfere, of course. I mean talk about only cheating yourself. While I knew I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the tray, I took solace in knowing I was not quite as dumb as these guys.

Over the years, I have come to terms with the limited mental capacity I was given in this crapshoot we call life. Oh, sure, I may never win the thing-a-ma-jiggy, you know-the award they give to scientists and junk-but I have gotten this far and, hell, say what you want about him, but George W. Bush was the God damn president! I don’t agree with his politics, but knowing that one of us (you know, morons) was able to become President of The United States of America! It stirs a sense of both revulsion and pride. I can only imagine this is how black Republicans must feel.

So, yes, I am not going to be splitting the Adam any time soon (which is such a gay saying, am I right?), but I have accepted my lot in this life. For the most part, I feel the serenity and peacefulness that comes with knowing your place in the world.

However, every so often, something happens that throws me off balance. A moment materializes that makes me realize that I am not as smart as I think I am, which is depressing, because that is not too tall a cliff to fall off of in the first place.

The axe came down on Halloween night. I had just got home from my part time job and my girlfriend, Laura, had a few friends over for drinks and scary movies (although, when I got there, they were watching From Dusk ‘til Dawn, which, I for some reason don’t think qualifies, but we can save that for another discussion). As all conversations do after a few drinks, ours turned to the impending time change. Now, I think I have made it clear that I do not consider myself an Einstein, or even a Salk, for God’s sake, but I am able to complete the simple task of setting the clock back an hour. However, I soon learned that if time travel is ever invented, you probably won’t want me as a travel companion.

“The worst part about the time change” I whined with the casual arrogance of one who understands a simple process, “Is that it will be dark out now when I got to work.”

I explained that I wake up for work at 6:30 am every day. I usually leave the house at around 7:10 and that at that time it is still pretty dark out. Now it would be even darker because it was an hour earlier. This seemed like an even, intelligent, and logical assumption about what would happen if I set my clock back one hour.

It seemed that way, but of course, I was absolutely incorrect.

“No, no. It will actually be 7:30 when you wake up now,” said Rachel. She was a friend of the group’s. She lived in DC and while we have met on several occasions, we didn’t know each other that well. It is good we do not know each other that well, because as I am more behaved and diplomatic with people I don’t know as opposed to being pretty much a jerk with good, lifelong friends, it stopped me from, replying with, “What the fuck you talking about?”

Instead, I used the more genteel, “come again?”

Rachel explained it once more and then once more after that. To her credit, she quickly gleaned what the rest of the party had yet to. Which was basically this: I wasn’t going to get this. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. Maybe on my deathbed, I would spring up one last time exclaiming, “Oh! So, a an hour back, so when I wake up at 6:30, it will actually be..wait, I just had it…” and then I will pass and those will be my last words on this earth.

Rachel excused herself and Allison slid into position to take the reigns of driving through my thick skull what setting the clocks back an hour would mean.

“So, when you wake up now, it’s dark out, but after the time change, it will be light out at that time,”

“But it will be an hour earlier!” I cried.

“No, it will be an hour later.” She said, with the kind of look on her face people usually keep in reserve when explaining to a child why he can’t live on candy.

“…But…But…We are setting the clocks back!” I countered with what I felt to be a compelling argument.

“Well, you’ll see. On Mon when you wake up, it will be light out.”

We dropped the subject and I smiled and joked with everyone and as the evening turned to early morning, we all said our goodbyes and turned in for the night.

Oh, but I didn’t forget. I may forget my keys, wallet, and middle name, but when I think I am right, I hold on to that like an old miner holds onto a gold nugget. Which is to say, very tightly.

The alarm went off at 6:30, just as it always does during the weekday. I hit the snooze button, but as my eyes caught sight of what was outside, I vaulted out of the bed. I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning. I practically threw open my window and peered my head out to ask some passing street urchin, “ Did I miss, boy? Is it too late?”

“Miss what,” the precocious urchin would ask.

“The time change boy! Has it happened?”

He would have answered yes because, of course, it did happen. What got me out of bed was not the dark, but the complete absence of it. A steady stream of sunlight shone through my bedroom window and illuminated so much more than the hardwood floors. I had been wrong, of course. The sun was out. We had set the clocks back, but that also meant that it was actually 7:30 right now, and not 5:30 and if I think more about it, my head may explode.

I walked to work, feeling a slight twinge of defeat. It didn’t help that the shower failed to produce even a drop of warm water this morning. I was forced to wash myself of in the sink like a hobo at the Public Library.

So, there I was, walking to work, feeling out witted again, and smelling of hand soap and tap water. I felt foolish in my faulty logic, and this turned over in my brain a few times. After having some coffee and a cigarette, I quickly forgot about the intellectual thrashing I had suffered. I surveyed my Brooklyn neighborhood and took in the charming buildings and the busy Flatbush Ave parade of commuters. Life was teeming around me and the sun took it’s rightful place up in the blue sky.

I suppose that is one good thing about being stupid. I soon forgot what I was feeling bad about or why. I simply looked ahead and continued on the bright, sunny path ahead; content to stay out of the shadows.