Dumb Guy’s Disease

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“Taken care of me? Mike, you’re my kid brother, and you take care of me? Did you ever think of that. Ever once? Send Fredo off to do this, send Fredo to take care of that… take care of some little unimportant night club here, and there; pick somebody up at the airport. I’m your older brother Mike and I was stepped over! … It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things. I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!” –Fredo from The Godfather II

“What happened?” we ask ourselves. “I thought I was going to be one of the smart ones. I know, I was a disinterested student in school, and I probably cared too much about partying for far too long in the afterlife (the life after high school), but I thought I would’ve gathered enough wisdom by now that someone, somewhere would consider me wise, but I have to face it. I have a mean case of dumb guy’s disease.”

Dumb guy’s disease doesn’t necessarily mean that the carrier is dumb, but that they are not as smart as they thought they would be at this point. We all know dumb guys, those men and women who by social calculations don’t know enough to enter into the league of intelligence. We never considered ourselves one of them, until someone far more intelligent than us gave us a condescending “you don’t know do you?” smile. We would love to dismiss that look with the notion that they had an agenda, but we know we choked in crunch time, because we didn’t know. When enough of these moments happen, we conclude that we’re not half as bright as we thought we would be at this point in our lives.

To prove ourselves to us, we sought less structured forms of education. We thought this might result in us becoming what smart people call autodidact, or a self-taught person. (Yes, I had to look that up.). We might begin reading better websites and better books, we might watch more documentaries, and listen to a wide array of podcasts. No matter what venue we choose, we will focus our renewed thirst for knowledge on defeating the structured concepts we failed to learn in school. This is our way of putting all those poor grades behind us by rejecting traditional, accepted knowledge as a form of intellectual rebellion.

“Everything they taught you in school is wrong,” is click bait for dumb guys who hope to succeed beyond the fools in school who regurgitated accepted facts back to the teacher. We dumb guys learn the truth, but this version of the truth should not be confused with the truth, in most cases, but rather a subjective truth that various authors spend decades writing in various forms and incarnations. This is one of the many attempts dumb guys make to rectify the past.

***

“Too many lyricists attempt to write a song, as if it’s a college thesis,” a musician replied. “I just write lyrics that fit the music.”

That’s pretty much it, right there, I thought. We dumb guys spend the rest of our afterlives (those years after high school) focused on informing the world that we’re not as dumb as everybody thought we were in school or in the immediate aftermath where the focus of their life was partying. The musician’s quote informed me that when I injected politics and music appreciation into my fiction, I was writing my college thesis to impress upon my peers in high school the idea that I was not as dumb as they thought I was. Some big name fiction authors make political overtures to enlighten their readers, and they attempt to woo us into listening to their favorite groups with forays into music appreciation. I used to write about my main character’s appreciation for my favorite group of the moment, in the manner the big name authors do. My modus operandi was if they can do it, why can’t I? My second thought was they could get away with it, because they were big names in the fiction world, and I wasn’t. I knew their music, everyone did, it was ZZ Top, AC/DC, The Ramones, and just about every tired, formulaic classic rock group we hear every day on classic rock radio. The author’s point was to instill in our minds the idea that his character was risqué, because he enjoyed listening to rock and roll. I enjoyed the author’s brand of rock and roll back when I was trying to define myself by listening habits, but I grew tired of the classic rock monochromatic formulas. This author obviously didn’t, and it defined his work for me. In his attempts to appear hip, naughty, and rebellious through his rock choices, I also saw his attempts to appear meaningful, thoughtful, and intelligent for what they were, and I realized that he was writing his college thesis for ushis big name author didn’t introduce his political, or music, preferences as well as I thought he had when I was blinded by his big name.

In the years I spent trying to prove I was not a dumb guy, I never heard the notion that intelligence and brilliance should be considered different strains of intellect. (I realize that in the strictest sense of the terms, some might consider another so intelligent, in a structured manner, that they consider them brilliant, but for the sake of argument let’s say that brilliance and intelligence are parallel roads.) The two strains of intellect could be broken down to left-brain versus right brain, as in one type of brain has a natural aptitude for math and science, while the other is more of a creative type. One could also say that an intelligent person knows the machinations of a saxophone so well that they can fix it and tune it while the other knows how to play it brilliantly, and while both can learn how to accomplish the other’s feat, neither will ever do it as well as the other, for their brains work in decidedly different ways.

This idea applies to dumb guy’s disease, because some creative types do not discover their aptitude for creativity, until the afterlife, the life after school. We recognize some forms of artistic expression, such as an ability to draw or play an instrument, early on, while an aptitude for creative writing often occurs later in life. The math and science types discover an aptitude for the structured learning, memorization, and problem solving in school, and it puts them in the upper echelon of learners, whereas the young, creative types live outside the bubble, looking in with jealousy. Screaming, as Fredo did in The Godfather II, “I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!”

***

“You’re not already there,” would be the first piece of advice I would give a younger me if I could go back in time and give my younger self some advice. “You’re not special,” I would add, “and you don’t know how to play basketball already.” These are the pathogens of dumb guy’s disease, and the bacteria reproduces and multiplies rapidly infecting every matter it comes across.

I would also advise myself to find a way to learn the structure of the system and succeed within it, but I was never adept at structured learning–I’m still not–so, that would be pointless. What I would say instead is learn more about yourself, who you are and how you can succeed with your gifts and talents while keeping an eye on your limitations. 

I would also ask myself to work harder to acknowledge that there’s nothing special about me. I wouldn’t tell myself to stop watching Tom Cruise movies, but I would suggest that I stop watching them, thinking that the theme of those movies applies to me. “You’re not the chosen one, or the one that shouldn’t have to accept mediocrity. Accept mediocrity. Learn it, love it, and live it, until you can surpass it.”

I wasn’t a better athlete, student or employees because I thought I already was, and the frustration I felt when faced with the fact that I wasn’t, was tied to that idea that I thought I was already there, or should’ve been. When I failed in athletics, it was such a mystery to me that I threw temper tantrums, because I was frustrated that I wasn’t as great as I thought I was. It was also a message I sent to my teammates that that wasn’t me. That was but a snapshot of my abilities, and I was so much better than that. The problem for dumb guys is that oftentimes the message is enough. We don’t feel the need to get better, because “We already know how to play basketball.”

We get in front of ourselves at times. We never learn how to slow our roll long enough to work within the confines of who we were to succeed within the constraints of who we are. 

If I could advise myself thirty years prior, I would say slow down, realize who you are when you’re doing it. Analyze your shot in basketball and try to figure out how to make the shot more often, and when some tries to give you some advice, don’t shoot them down by saying, “I already know how to play basketball.” 

“You’re not the all star athlete you think you are,” I would add. “You’re not a great employee, and you’re not near as smart as you think you are. You’re actually pretty dumb, because you refuse to listen to people, like that obnoxious 50-year-old waiter who nodded at everything you said, because he said he used to say those same things.”

“He was a waiter, a 50-year-old waiter, so what the hell does he know about life?” my younger self would argue. “He was an oafish, avuncular type, who was always kind of a fool.”

“Until he got you alone, away from all your friends, and he turned all serious on us, saying, “You’re doing it wrong, and the only reason I know is because I was doing it wrong at your age, the same way as you. I was a dumb kid, just like you, but I knew better. I knew how to play football already, and I was good enough at Math to pass the stupid class that I probably would never use anyway. I didn’t get good grades, and I thought it was kind of funny, and I fell asleep in study hall too. I did just good enough in school to keep everyone off my back, so I could go out, enjoy my youth and have some fun in life, and here I am a 50-year-old waiter. If I could somehow switch places with you, right here, right now, I’d do my life differently.”

Now that the roles are flipped, what would we do differently? I’d drop the whole Tom Cruise “I could be the chosen one” mindset, because Michael Jordan wasn’t the chosen one, until he sculpted himself into it. I’d drop the whole “I already know how to play basketball” mindset and listen to those teaching me the “finger tips, rotation, follow through” tedious mechanics of the game. I know those mechanics now, now that it’s too late. I was never an adept student with all that structured learning, and I’m still not, but if I would’ve had more patience with myself and learned more about myself earlier, I might’ve been able to chip away at the granite stones I placed in my path to create something, as opposed to inviting that ‘I’m already there’ pathogen that caused my dumb guy’s disease. 

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff III: “He Was a Real Sonofabitch”

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“I finally shot the sonofabitch,” a Ms. Haith informed the dispatch operator of the sheriff’s office that day. After discussing the preliminary details of her call, the operator got on the radio to direct Sheriff Dan Anderson to the Haith home. Ms. Haith said the sonofabitch, in question, happened to be her husband Mr. Haith.

“Even though I knew the residents of the Haith home after all of the calls the two of them made,” Sheriff Dan Anderson said, “I knew enough to know that you never know how such scenes might play out. So, I drove onto this woman’s estate prepared for anything. When I saw the wife sitting on her porch in a porch swing, I couldn’t see anything that would cause greater suspicion on the scene, so I exited the patrol car.

“We received a call of an incident,” Dan called out to Ms. Haith from the outskirts of her property. “Do you mind if I enter your property?”

“That’s fine,” she said. “The rifle is over there, in the corner of the porch.”

Sheriff Anderson said, “I entered the woman’s property, walked onto the porch and secured the rifle. I determined that the rifle had been recently fired.”

“My husband’s body is in the living room,” Ms. Haith said, mentioning her husband by name.

“I secured the body,” Dan said, “and I left the house to discuss the matter further with the wife.

“She informed me that her husband was violently abusive, which I already knew from previous calls, and that he had been throughout the course of their long marriage. She said that she decided that she wasn’t going to put up with the abuse anymore, and she said that she decided to end it.”

“The wife stood without further incident, and we handcuffed her. We then placed her in a jail cell, and we went back to the scene of the crime to examine the evidence for the case. With all of the preliminary evidence, some might consider collecting further evidence unnecessary in such a case. The wife signed a full confession after all. She provided a minute-by-minute recounting of all that had taken place that day, and she provided us a full backdrop for her motivation for doing what she did. The wife was very forthcoming, in other words, saying that she’d rather spend the rest of her life in jail than put up with another day enduring her husband’s abusive ways. Even though the evidence we had, prior to returning to the scene, was largely preliminary, I considered it my duty as a lawman to go back to the scene, no matter how open and shut I thought it was, to do my due diligence on the matter and collect every piece of evidence available.

“We determined that the rifle that had been sitting on the porch, was the rifle used in the incident,” he said. “We determined that it was her fingerprints on the gun. The husband’s fingerprints were on the gun too, but the nature of the wound suggested to us that it was not self-inflicted. All of the evidence we found, and gathered at the scene, suggested that the idea that anyone but the wife was the alleged shooter were remote.

“As her arresting officer, I was later called upon to sit in on the trial of her case. I was there to offer my testimony, if necessary, and any other character assessments of the wife and husband I might be called upon to make, should that be necessary. Again, I didn’t think any of this would be necessary, for we had a full confession, and such an overwhelming amount of evidence that I didn’t think this would be anything less than an open and shut case.

“Before the trial began, the wife’s defense lawyer asked the judge for a sidebar,” Dan said. “The judge agreed to this, and he invited the state’s lawyer, and me, to attend this sidebar.

“Before we begin your honor,” the defense’s lawyer says. “The defense would like to submit into evidence the idea that the accused had every reason to shoot her husband, because he was a real sonofabitch.”

“To this point in my career,” Dan said. “I attended hundreds of court cases. I’ve witnessed such a wide variety of claims of innocence that it would take months to document them. I’ve witnessed defense attorneys make insanity claims and temporary insanity claims. I thought I’d heard everything at that point in my career, but this defense was a new, and almost laughable. I’m serious, I almost laughed when the lawyer said that, because I couldn’t believe the lawyer asked for a sidebar to submit that claim to the judge.

“That was the beginning and the end of the defense lawyer’s submission to the judge, and presumably the only reason he asked for the side bar, and the judge turned to the state’s attorney, and me, to ask us if we had anything to add. We both said no, the judge ended the sidebar, and he ordered us back to our seat.

“I walked back to my seat and I did laugh a little. I snickered at what I considered defense so laughable that I wondered if the judge would declare a mistrial on the basis that the lawyer for the defense was incompetent, and that the wife would need a new lawyer.

“The defense has submitted the idea that the victim in this case of murder against the accused, was a real sonofabitch,” the judge stated. “Well, I knew the accused’s husband, and he was a real sonofabitch. Case dismissed.”

“You could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Dan said. “As I said, I’ve worked so many cases, and sat in on so many trials that swung in a direction contrary to the evidence that I compiled, that I thought I was above being shocked at what can happen in a courtroom. This was beyond anything I ever witnessed. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open.

“After the trial, I thought about the husband, and I thought that even if the man was a real sonofabitch, he didn’t deserve to die for it. If this man physically assaulted his wife, he deserved jail time. If the wife feared that the abuse was escalating, and she feared for her life, I could see the judge being more lenient, or even dismissing the case based on the nature of that abuse. I could even see the courts dismissing a case against the wife if she physically assaulted the husband, and the court judged her assault to be retribution for the years of abuse. The idea that a judge could dismiss a murder not on the basis of years or abuse, but. on that basis that a man was deemed a disagreeable person, was unprecedented to my experience in such matters. I was a lawman who believed in the justice system, and I had had that belief tested throughout the years, but this dismissal shook my beliefs in the system to its core.

“I also thought about the man hours law enforcement officials put in to collecting evidence for a case. I thought about how what I believed to be either a corrupt, or incompetent, judge can undermine those efforts and our beliefs in a fair and blind justice system in such a manner that it makes one question everything they do in the aftermath. I didn’t let it affect how I conducted myself on the job, going forward. You can only control what you can control, I thought, but one cannot involve themselves in such a bizarre case without being affected by it.”

*This story was used with permission.

Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff I: “I Want to Kill Someone!”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff II: “Is He Dead?”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff II: “Is He Dead?”

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“We immediately discovered the headless torso of a young male lying in the middle of the road when we arrived on the scene, but we were unable to find the head,” Sheriff Dan Anderson began. “We searched the radius around the body, and we searched out in concentric circles, until we found it about a half a block away from the body. There were no signs of struggle, or any activity around the body, on the shoulder, or on the highway. There were no signs of activity on the road that would indicate that a car accident, or a hit and run, occurred. There were also no preliminary indications suggesting that the body was not moved or dumped there, so we widened our search out for any signs of activity that would lead to a decapitation out in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway. We were unable to find any answers. It was an unforgettable scene, even to a lawman of my tenure at the time.

“After we decided that the evidence at the scene would not further our investigation, I made the call that every lawman regrets having to make,” Sheriff Dan Anderson continued. “I called the man’s wife to inform her of the incident. When the wife answered the phone, I informed her that her husband was involved in an accident, and that I needed her to come out to this lonely stretch of highway to meet me there, so we could discuss the matter further. We did not relay such information over the phone. We either drove over to their homes to deliver such information face to face, so we could console them in their time of need, or we asked them to drive to the scene of the accident. This scene was such a mystery to us that we wanted her to drive to the scene, and we were going to tell her to make sure she had some family members with her, but she cut us off. We were also going give her directions to this stretch of highway, but she cut us off.

“Is he dead?” she asked, cutting us off.

“Your husband was involved in an accident,” Sheriff Anderson said. “I began telling her where we were on this highway again, and I prepared to give her the directions to this location again, when she cut me off a second time.”

“Is he dead?” She repeated this with a sense of urgency that I believed contained her desire to cut through what she might have perceived to be the painful details of a matter that might further shock her. My experience in such matters is that when a sheriff calls a home, most people fear the worst, and they don’t want to flirt with the possibility of a worst-case scenario on their drive over. They think that they will be better able to deal with such matters better if they can have those fears confirmed as soon as possible. I have not found that to be the case. I have found that most people need immediate comfort at such a moment in their lives. Most people need to call close friends or family members, to drive them to the location, so that they can share that grief with a loved one.

“I started to tell her that’s what I wanted her to do,” Dan said, “but I didn’t get halfway through that sentence when she cut me off a third time with her, ‘Is he dead?’ question.

“Yes ma’am,” Sheriff Anderson said, breaking protocol. “It appears that your husband met an untimely demise at the side of a highway.“ I also informed her that with the details available to me, at the scene, that I was not able to report to her the nature of the incident that led to his demise.”

“I can tell you what happened,” she said. “I can tell you exactly what happened. That sonofabitch would not leave me alone. He was always on me about such stupid stuff, and I told him. I said, “Not tonight.” I warned him that this was not the night to be on me. He said he wasn’t going nowhere, and I told him I wasn’t going to put up with it no more. I got in my truck to take off, and he up and jumps into my truck bed, saying, ‘I ain’t leaving.’ I tell him he is, and he says he ain’t, so I tell him he is. “One way or another you’re leaving, and I drove down the road as fast as I could, and I swerved to the left and right, and he held on, until left … the hard way.”

“With that new information in mind,” Dan said. “I walked up the lonely stretch of highway to find a highway sign bent at the corner. The logistics suggested that when the wife took a sharp turn at one point in the highway, at a high rate of speed, the husband maintained his hold on the trackbed, but he was thrown so hard to the right that his head was sticking out at just such an angle that it caught the roadside sign, and his neck met with the corner of a roadside sign in such a manner that it led to his decapitation.

“The reason I remember this case, to this day, has less to do with the sad and horrific details of it,” Sheriff Dan continued, “and more to do with this woman’s callous reaction to the news of her husband’s death. The two of them were obviously in the midst of a heated argument when the incident occurred, so one could argue that she asked her question as a result of the flurry of emotions she experienced as a result of that argument. Our follow up investigation suggested that the incident occurred hours prior, as much as four, before an uninvolved motorist saw the body and called into dispatch. That was more than enough time for her flurry of emotions to subside, in my opinion. She told me what that argument was about, and how heated it was, but their fight didn’t become physical, and she didn’t try to escape him in fear for her life.  

Was her reaction the result of a flurry of emotions she still felt regarding the argument she had with her husband? Was the reaction fueled by some sense of remorse she had over what she did? My instinct was to discount remorse, as she didn’t sound remorseful, but remorse takes many forms. I couldn’t answer those questions, and I still can’t, as I don’t know what was in her head, but my experience, while working in that particular county in Arkansas, suggested that her reaction to the news of her husband’s demise was characteristic of the people in that Arkansas county. My experience with the residents of this county suggested to me that these people don’t value life in the manner the rest of us do. This wasn’t the only example of the experiences I had with this characteristic in this county, but it was one of the more brazen. I didn’t witness such uniform callousness in Kansas, in Phoenix, or in any of the locations I’ve worked throughout my career. It would define for me,” Dan said of his characterization, “how I would work in this county, and it happened early on in my tenure there.”

*This story was used with permission.

Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff I: “I Want to Kill Someone!”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff III: He was a Real Sonofabitch