http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/21/eggers/print.html

To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser

New Hampshire Is for Lovers

Apr. 21, 2004 | Dick Benjamin had a problem. He was really goddamned smart -- just mind-bogglingly smart to the point where people would spit out their food or drinks if they heard about just how smart he was -- but no one knew it. He asked his wife, Donna, what she thought about the problem.

"What's that again?" Donna said. Donna was a geneticist, semi-retired, and in her basement lab again. She was trying to make a raccoon that glowed like a firefly.

"I said, how do I let people know? How do I get this out?"

"Get what out again, hon?"

"The I.Q. thing," Dick said impatiently.

His wife's memory was abominable. He'd told her about this just last night, after he'd taken the test online. After he took that test, he was so worked up he couldn't sit still, wanted to go out and scream, wanted to run ten miles and then solve some complicated calculus equations or build a rocket. All these years and who knew? He was a certified brainiac! His daughter had guided him to the Web site, which allowed visitors to take a standard IQ test, submit it for $39, and receive results almost immediately. And Dick Walker had taken that test, on his daughter's eMac -- he'd timed himself perfectly and when he was done the result sent his heart through his chest, through the roof: 138! He was a supra-genius!

But this would show her! He was the mental monster in this house, towering over her like ... a very large person would tower over someone much smaller. And he would soon be known nationwide as Big-Brained Benjamin. Oooh, that's good, he thought, looking for a piece of paper. He'd write that down, Big-Brained Benj--

No, that was a danger in itself. Can't have a paper trail. There could be no evidence of any of this, anywhere on any level. But how to do it? Where to start? How the hell does one start a whispering campaign of one's own? When he was working as a congressional aide in the '80s he'd done plenty of this himself, once intimating that Joe Biden not only had gotten hair implants but also wore shoulder pads in his suits.

"I think I have to use the Internet maybe. You think?" he said to the steps. How he hated talking to those steps!

"Oh Dick," Donna said in that unique way of hers, somehow able to communicate exasperation and condescension simultaneously, while making it sound very much like the most patient kind of compassion. "Why don't you tell Jerry? He'll figure it out."

But he couldn't tell Jerry, because while Jerry Warren Harding II was a fine communications director, he might not always be a fine communications director, or might not, if Dick Benjamin was elected, receive the White House spokesman appointment he hoped for, and if for whatever reason Dick and Jerry parted ways in a less-than-amicable way, wouldn't this make just the juiciest anecdote? Jerry would be dining out on that one for years. The candidate who'd taken the IQ test online and wanted the world to know...

But let the world know he must! He very well might be the smartest candidate, like -- ever! Who would have been smarter? One of the Democrats probably. How many brilliant Republicans had there been, ever? It was hard to come up with even one. Eisenhower Nixon, Ford, Reagan -- a bunch of lightweights. As for the recent Democrats, Carter and Clinton were smart, yes, but were they ultra-brilliant-scary-awesome!-smart like one Dick Benjamin of New Mexico? Not even close.

138! 138! Maybe he needed a license plate with just those numbers. The people who knew would know. The people who mattered would know how much Dick Benjamin mattered.

And at the moment, Dick Benjamin wanted to test out his brain. He had to see how powerful it was. All the time he'd wasted! He felt like Spider-Man, just realizing his supra-powers and needing to see what he could do with them.

"Give me some kind of math problem," he said to the stairs.

"What's that, hon?"

"Any kind of equation. Just the first thing that pops into your mind. Something supposedly hard. Something it would take a freaking genius to solve."

"Oh honey, did you just watch 'Good Will Hunting' again?"

Screw it. He'd have to deal with this kind of brain envy a lot from now on, he was sure. Mensa, too, was going to be a place fraught with competitiveness, politics, backstabbing. But he was ready for it. He was sure as shit smart enough to deal with it! He could handle anything now. He should be in the lab, creating new species and splicing genetic thingies together in new ways. He should be out there, at the University of Chicago or someplace like that, coming up with awesome new economics theories and winning Nobels or MacArthurs or whichever one paid the best. Pretty soon he'd be brilliant and rich and the president! Outstanding.

But first he had to let people know. He could get his daughter Jackie to post it online somewhere. Some kind of chat room. Or blog or whatever. But could that be traced back? He needed a firewall. He needed a Web expert. But the second he found the Web expert -- or guru or whatever you call them -- then that guy would be in on it, and he didn't know any of those freaks well enough. Gah! This was torture!

An anonymous letter! He could write an anonymous letter, signed Concerned Citizen, send it to the Washington Post. They'd come to him for corroboration, and he'd say, "Why, where ever did you hear that? Yes, I suppose it is true, I have the brain of twelve normal men. And the burden I carry is commensurate."

But how would the Concerned Citizen know about his geniusness in the first place? Damn!

He thought of that actor, the one in the movie with one of the Judds, who everyone knew had a large member. How had he gotten that information out there? Aha! He wore tight trousers! Should he, Dick Benjamin, wear a large hat? Something that would say "My brain is exploding out of my skull!" What kind of hat would that be? A Panama hat? Or one of those tricolored knit rasta hats? Would that send the signal clearly?

He could have a Mensa brochure casually lying about his office and then invite the press in. "What's that? Oh that? Yes, they bother me all the time. Membership drives -- you know how Mensa is." That might be the way. He'd need the brochure of course. But could he order one online? He couldn't, not under his own name. He could get Jackie to do it. Was there a Mensa office in D.C.? Perhaps near the Christian Science Reading Room?

"Honey, are you still standing at the top of the stairs?"

Whatever. He'd figure out a way. If anyone could figure out a way to leak to the public the fact of Dick Benjamin's huge hulking brain, it was Dick Benjamin, owner of that selfsame brain, huge and hulking! This was his first test, but would not be the last.

-- By Dave Eggers