Life After Genius

by M. Ann Jacoby

  When an hour goes by and Pete does not return from the exam, Mead starts to think that maybe he should have waited for him outside the classroom instead. But Mead isn’t very good at this kind of thing, at having a friend. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of how it all works. He just assumed that Pete would come back to their room but apparently he was wrong. He decides to wait some more, in case Pete got hung up on the way back. Mead would hate to go off to dinner and miss him. He doesn’t want Pete to think he wouldn’t wait for him. And so Mead stays in their room until half an hour before the cafeteria closes, until he has to leave or miss dinner altogether. He’s sliding his tray along the buffet when he looks up and sees Pete sitting at one of the tables with half a dozen other students, talking and laughing.

  Mead feels like a fool. A complete and utter fool. What made him think college was going to be any different from high school? Or junior high? Or elementary school? Doing his best to hide behind his tray, he heads toward an empty table —one preferably next to a window —when he hears his name. “Hey, Mead. Over here,” Pete calls out and waves him over. Relieved, but also wary, Mead approaches the table with caution. In case it’s a trick of some kind. “I was just telling my friends about you,” Pete says. “About my genius of a roommate. Have a seat. Everyone, this is Mead. Mead, everyone.”

  He sits at the end of the table, next to this pretty girl with long, brown hair. She introduces herself as Cynthia Broussard from Virginia, then says, “Pete tells us you’re only fifteen. Is that true?”

  “I’ll be sixteen next month.”

  “It must be hard always being younger than everyone else.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Mead says. “You get used to it.”

  “Hey, great button-down shirt,” a boy at the other end of the table named Rick says. “I used to wear one just like it to church on Sunday.”

  “Yeah,” another boy says. “You don’t have to be so formal. You’re in college now, you can wear whatever you want.”

  “His mother picked the shirt out for him,” Pete says, “after unpacking his suitcase and telling him when to go to bed.”

  “Get out of here,” Rick says. “Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious,” Pete says.

  “Hey, you shave yet?” another boy asks.

  Mead blushes. “I don’t see how any of this —”

  “No,” Pete says. “Not unless there are razor blades hidden inside the first-aid kit I saw his mom tuck inside his sock drawer.”

  “Now I know you’re kidding,” Rick says.

  “I am not,” Pete says. “I swear.”

  Mead stands up. He has had enough. It is just like high school all over again. Or junior high. Or elementary school. “I have to go.”

  “No,” Pete says. “Stay.”

  “No, really,” Mead says. “I have something I have to do.” And he picks up his tray and heads for the exit, having had nothing to eat.

  “Hey, Mead,” Pete says. “Don’t go. I was only teasing. Come on. I’m sorry.”

  But he keeps going, sliding a baked potato into his napkin and then into his pocket as he exits the cafeteria. Sits alone in his dorm room and eats it. Mead tells himself that things will improve as soon as classes start. That it will be better this way, without the distraction of friends. After all, Mead’s father is not footing the bill for tuition so his son can sit around and socialize. Mead has come here to get an education and an education he will get. Tomorrow he will go to the library and familiarize himself with the floor plan. He will seek out the quietest corner in which to study. Yes, this is all for the best.

  By the time his roommate returns, Mead is under the bedcovers, facing the wall.

  “Hey,” Pete says. “I brought you something.” And he places what smells like a cheeseburger on Mead’s desk. “Listen, I’m sorry about earlier. I was just kidding around. Really. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Apology accepted,” Mead says but does not turn around.

  “Okay, well, a bunch of us are going to hang out in Rick’s room for a while. He’s got a TV. Feel free to join us if you’d like.”

  “No, thank you,” Mead says.

  “Okay, well, if you change your mind, his room is at the end of the hall.”

  And Pete leaves. Only then does Mead roll over and pick up the cheeseburger, checking carefully between the buns for any foreign objects before finally taking a bite. Even then he isn’t sure that someone hasn’t spit on it but he is too tired and too hungry to much care. He gobbles it down and then heads for the bathroom to brush his teeth for bed. He isn’t alone. Someone is taking a shower. As Mead is flossing, the shower shuts off and a moment later he sees, reflected in the mirror, a girl stepping into his line of vision. A stark naked girl drying her hair with a pink towel. Mead drops his eyes to the sink, all embarrassed. He must have wandered into the wrong bathroom. Maybe he can slip out without her noticing. He was distracted. That must be it. He was upset about Pete and not paying attention. But wow, what a great mistake. The only other females Mead has ever seen naked were the ones in the basement of Wessman’s Funeral Parlor. He lifts his eyes back up to the mirror. This girl looks a lot better than they did.

  She looks up too, sees Mead staring at her, and screams, then covers her body. “Holy shit,” she says, “you scared me. How the hell did you get in here?”

  “With a 1600 on my SATs.”

  “You mean you’re a student? Here? I mean, you look so young.”

  “Sorry. I must’ve wandered into the wrong bathroom.”

  Then she laughs. Not a mean laugh, just a laugh. “Didn’t anybody tell you? All the bathrooms in this dorm are unisex. Welcome to college.”

  “YOU’VE PLACED OUT OF ALL the entry level courses,” Dr. Kustrup says. He is Mead’s faculty advisor. “Congratulations, you’re a sophomore. Not bad for one week of college, not bad at all.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Mead says and squirms in his chair. It’s hot in the professor’s office. Too hot. Mead wishes the man would open a window or something. Let in some fresh air. After all, it is sixty degrees outside, which would make it about thirty degrees cooler than this room. “So,” Mead says, “what happens now?”

  “Well, Theodore, let’s start with your curriculum. I’m guessing you’re interested in a math major, otherwise I wouldn’t have been chosen to be your advisor.”

  Dr. Kustrup is wearing one of those tweed jackets with patches at the elbows as if he wants to make sure that he won’t be mistaken for something other than what he is: a college professor. He strikes Mead as a man who wants to fit in, something at which Mead has never been much good. Perhaps he should ask the professor where he bought the jacket, then go out and buy one just like it for himself.

  “Yes, sir, Dr. Kustrup,” Mead says. “Math or possibly physics. I haven’t yet decided which.”

  The professor leans forward on his desk, leans on his elbow patches, and says, “I’m going to come clean with you, Theodore. I was not originally chosen to be your faculty advisor. I requested that you be assigned to me. You want to know why? Because you strike me as a young man with a lot of potential. But I want to be more to you than just an advisor, Theodore, I want to be your mentor.”

  “Mead, sir, I prefer to be called Mead.”

  “Have you thought at all about your future, Mr. Fegley, have you thought at all about where you’d like to be in five years? Ten? Twenty?”

  “No, sir, I thought for now I’d just focus on where I ought to be next week.”

  Dr. Kustrup laughs. “You’re not only smart, but funny too. I like that. Humor is a sign of great intelligence. But I can see already, Mr. Fegley, that you are going to benefit greatly from my guidance. I see this a lot in boys from rural backgrounds. A lack of foresight. No sense of possibility. Well, not to worry, son. You’re in good hands now because I’ve thought about it for you. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. That’s where I’d like to see you end up, Mr. Fegley. Have you ever heard of it?�
��

  “No, sir, I haven’t.”

  Dr. Kustrup smiles as if he has just proved his own self-worth. “It’s where all the truly brilliant minds go, Mr. Fegley, to learn from the best and the brightest, where geniuses are paid to exchange ideas, one generation mentoring the next. Albert Einstein himself was once a member of the faculty. Paid to think, Mr. Fegley. Can you imagine anything better? Before you walked into my office this morning, would you ever have imagined that such a place even exists?”

  No. Never. Not in Mead’s wildest dreams. He wants to hear more. He wants to know all about this oasis of knowledge. “Have you ever been there, Dr. Kustrup?”

  “When I was a much younger man. Yes. When I had time to research and write and publish my own papers. But eventually other obligations got in the way. I married and started a family and had less time to devote to my beloved math. Such a luxury is reserved for the young and unattached, Mr. Fegley. You’ve got to strike while the iron is hot. So tell me, are you ready to strike?”

  Heart racing, Mead perches on the edge of his chair and says, “What do I have to do to get in?”

  HE’S STANDING OUTSIDE OF EPPS HALL as if waiting to meet someone. Mead recognizes him right off: Mr. Paris France, better known as Herman Weinstein. The guy glances up and looks directly at Mead, who nods as if to say hello, but Herman shows no sign of recognizing him back. He stares at Mead blank-faced. It’s terribly unnerving. So Mead drops his eyes and decides to play along, to pretend as if they have never before met. Which they haven’t. Not formally, that is. Who knows, maybe the guy truly does not remember Mead. After all, it was Herman who came waltzing into the exam late, making a public spectacle of himself, attracting all that attention, not Mead. There was that odd wave near the end of the exam when Mead was leaving but perhaps, in the world that Herman comes from, it is common to wave to people who will be forgotten a moment later. Maybe Herman is one of those socialite types who treats everyone he meets as if they are his best friend but in fact has no true friends at all. Mead trots down the front steps then glances back to see if Herman is still looking at him. But the guy is gone. DR. KUSTRUP SIGNS MEAD UP FOR HIS COURSE in Theoretical Geometry. Eighteen students show up for the first day of class, twelve show up on the second, and by the end of two weeks, there are only seven students remaining. Even Mead, who has never met a math class he did not love, who went through four math tutors just last summer, is finding it difficult to keep up. The professor’s lectures are, to say the least, confusing. But Mead cannot figure out if it is himself or the professor who is the problem. By the end of the third week, however, he is all but convinced that he does not have what it takes to understand the concepts of higher mathematics. That he is woefully in over his head. It was easier in High Grove. Easy to be the big fish in such a small academic pond. Mead remembers what Percy said to him right before he left. About drowning in the ocean. And now it seems to be coming true. And so Mead does what any drowning man would do: He thrashes about in the water hoping to find air. MEAD IS HUNCHED OVER HIS GEOMETRY BOOK, deep in thought, when someone says, “Must be really interesting, should I leave you two alone?” He looks up and sees Cynthia Broussard standing over him, the girl who was sitting with Pete and his friends in the cafeteria that day. The girl who knows that Mead’s mother picks out his clothes for him. That he does not yet shave. “Actually,” Mead says, “I don’t understand a word of what I’m reading. They may have to send me back to high school.”

  She laughs, then sets her lunch tray on the table and sits down across from him. “Don’t worry, we all feel that way. The first year is supposed to be the hardest.”

  “Really?” Mead says and closes the book, leaving his finger tucked inside to mark the page. “This is a common occurrence?”

  “You say that as if it’s never happened to you before.”

  “It hasn’t.”

  She laughs again. “I like you, Mead. You’re different. Very open and honest. Very real. It’s refreshing. Most the boys around here are only interested in one thing.”

  “Beer?”

  She laughs again. “Well, that too, I guess.”

  Cynthia eats her salad and continues to talk. About her classes. About how she has not yet picked a major. And Mead listens. Then she glances at her watch and says she has to get to her next class, that she hopes to run into him again sometime. Then she stands up and leaves. Only then does Mead remove his finger from the pages of his geometry book. His concentration shot. His place lost. And the thing is, he doesn’t care. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t really care.

  “DAMN IT ALL TO HELL, NOT AGAIN.”

  Mead looks up from his geometry book. He thought it might be better to study out of doors for a change, to get off campus and away from the cafeteria. Seven days. Seven days in a row he sat at the same table at the same time hoping to run into Cynthia again, but she never showed up. And now he has fallen even further behind in class. He thought maybe the fresh air would clear his head, that it might wake up some latent brain cells, but so far it isn’t working out that way. He just keeps getting interrupted. First there was the homeless man looking for spare change, then it was the garbage truck, and now this: some old guy with bloodhound jowls and long, gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. Some half-senile senior riding around the city on his hundred-year-old rusting bicycle instead of the bus so he’ll have enough money at the end of the month to pay his utility bill. Some crazy lunatic cursing at life.

  “Excuse me,” Mead says. “Is everything all right?”

  The man looks up as if surprised to discover that he is not alone in the world. “No, everything is not all right,” he says. “The chain on my bicycle fell off and now it’s jammed in the gear and I can’t get it out.”

  Mead gets up off the bench he has been sitting on for the past two hours and steps over to the bike. He watches the old guy tug at the chain a few times, then lays down his geometry book and says, “Here, let me give it a try.”

  “It’s jammed in there too tight,” the old man says. “It’s hopeless.” But he steps back anyway, his hands covered in black grease. Mead wraps his clean hands around the chain, yanks once, and it pops right out. He turns to the old guy and says, “You must’ve loosened it up.”

  The old man does not respond, just takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and offers it to Mead. “Here. Wipe off your hands.”

  “Thanks,” Mead says and takes the handkerchief even though he has one of his own in his back pocket, so the old guy won’t feel completely useless. And while he is wiping his hands clean, the half-senile senior points to Mead’s geometry book, with all Mead’s various and sundry notations scrawled in the margins, and says, “You’re going about it all wrong.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re taking Theoretical Geometry with Dr. Kustrup, am I right?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Because only Kustrup could turn simple logic into a complicated labyrinth. Allow me to lay out for you some of the basic principles of geometry, just enough to get you back on the right track.” And the old man proceeds to pull Mead up out of the depths of the ocean, to give him the mathematical equivalent of CPR. Then, just as suddenly, he hops back on his bike and says, “I have to go. If I’m late, the wife worries and when she worries, I have to explain. And I hate to give long explanations.”

  “Wait,” Mead says. “Who are you? Are you a teacher or something?”

  “Yes, something like that,” the old man says and pedals off before Mead can ask him any more questions. He catches a glimpse of the license plate, though, hanging from the back of the seat. It’s easy to remember because there are only three letters: PNT.

  ANOTHER SEVEN DAYS COME AND GO. Mead eats lunch in the cafeteria every day but Cynthia never shows. He is beginning to think that she is avoiding him, that he said or did something wrong. But what? Mead barely said a word. Maybe that’s it. Maybe he should have talked more. What he needs is another opportunity. One more ch
ance to get it right.

  He goes back to the park too. The following Saturday. Sits on the same bench hoping to run into the old guy again, but he never shows either. So Mead goes to the library. He looks through the CU faculty directory for a professor with the initials of PNT and, finding none either past or present, comes to the conclusion that the old man must have taught at another university. Way back when. Mead feels disappointed that the old professor did not come back to the park looking for him, that Cynthia never came back to the cafeteria, and so he does what he always does when confronted with the frustrations of everyday life: He throws himself back into his studies.

  FOUR STUDENTS SHOW UP FOR THE FINAL EXAM. Mead gets the only A. But Dr. Kustrup is not the slightest bit concerned. He does not seem to get it that his students’ failures are really his own. As a matter of fact, he seems quite pleased with himself.

  “My job is to separate the men from the boys,” he says to Mead as they sit together in his stuffy office. “I’m known around here as the gatekeeper to the math department. If a student cannot pass my course, then he just does not have what it takes to be a mathematician. Only the best get past me. Only the brightest and the best.”

  Mead might beg to differ but he doesn’t say a word because he knows better. And because Dr. Kustrup has promised him a glorious future.

  MEAD SEES HER CROSSING CAMPUS. Cynthia Broussard. He sees her and drops his eyes to the sidewalk in case she looks up. To avoid an uncomfortable conversation. An awkward moment. She has probably forgotten all about him by now, all about their lunch that day. A day Mead cannot stop thinking about.

  “Hey,” she says. “Mead, long time, no see. How’re you doing?”

  He looks up then into her big brown eyes. “I got an A,” he says. “In geometry.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Actually, I got A’s in all my classes.”