800

David is excellent at math. I know this because he told me today. In fact, he didn’t only tell me, he also demonstrated his abilities by hijacking the Sudoku puzzle I was working on. I’d found the puzzle on the break room table. It didn’t appear to belong to anyone, although it was clear someone had to have put it there. Regardless, I claimed it as my own and began working on it. I didn’t care so much about the puzzle as I did the distraction it provided. I’d have been just as wiling to read a magazine or kill an insect, but neither of those options presented themselves. I’d already filled in a few squares when David entered the room and asked what I was doing. He could clearly see what I was doing but had opted to ask anyway. After I stated the obvious, he sat down next to me and began scanning the puzzle himself. He sprayed his shorts when he discover a box I’d missed and called out the appropriate number with hurried excitement. This must have assured him that I was an inferior Sudokuman who needed his help but was too insecure to request it, as he uninvitedly began working the puzzle.

After a few minutes, I thought about abruptly ripping it in half and throwing it away, though I reasoned that would be a little too much a “fuck you” to my boss. Instead, I continued to sit there and analyze the numbers. My hope was to finish as quickly as possible, as the activity was no longer entertaining nor was it providing the distraction I’d previously sought.

David began to outpace me on the puzzle, which I know he loved. I had lost focus on the task at hand and was instead thinking about what kind of person invades someone’s puzzle? I had not asked for his help, nor indicated that it was necessary for this puzzle to be completed. He just chose to take it over. It was perhaps the lamest attempt to show-off that I’d ever witnessed. I’m sure that in his mind, he looked like a star. He was envisioning how awestruck I must have been by the light speed at which his brain operated. I even wondered if he’d planted the puzzle there in the first place, with this exact result in mind. That would have taken a unique level of pathetic which I doubted he possessed, although I didn’t rule out the idea completely.

When we finished, he said, “That was a fun little break.” I didn’t immediately respond. Was it? That was fun for you? After an elongated pause, I blankly replied that yes, it had been fun and he knew I was lying. This was followed by him asking me if I was more analytical and numbers oriented. I told him that I was, to which he quickly acknowledged with an “A huh”, before he began telling me about his own inclinations. This was an example of perhaps David’s worst habit. In conversation, he made it painfully obvious that he was waiting for his turn to speak, as opposed to listening to what was being said to him. This is something everyone does to a degree, but most people are more adept at masking this behavior. But not David. David was always ready with a long sentence that didn’t incorporate a single thing you’d just said, indicating he had configured it in his head while you were babbling something to him.

In this instance, David began telling me about his achievements in math from when he was in high school. He’d been recognized for some award given to the best math students in the state, all of whom I’m sure got tons of pussy. From there he mentioned that he’d also scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of his SAT. That was actually pretty impressive and he knew it. He was extremely excited when he saw my genuine interest. The story continued with him going to college on a scholarship, then he did something and another thing and then I don’t remember. The sticking point for me was clearly the 800. I couldn’t recall anyone I knew getting an 800, nor could I remember even hearing of someone getting an 800. That was quite the rare achievement. However, within minutes of hearing this, my perspective quickly evolved. As impressive as it was, the feat was largely deflated by his failure to actually do anything with it. After all, he worked in a bank branch where the work we did barely required consciousness, much less college degrees or academic accolades. He had scored an 800 in math and had been awarded a scholarship, but ultimately did nothing with it, besides come back home to work at a retail bank location. It was a game-ball worthy example of under achievement. It was on par with meeting a Mensa member who worked at the library. I’d have been more impressed had he told me he’d dropped out of high school, but later earned his GED and worked his way back into the respectable workforce. Instead, his story was soaked with “what could have been”. The worst case scenario had he lived his life twenty times over.

I did my best to recreate my initial expression of respect, though I doubt it looked genuine. I felt he needed that look or would have at least appreciated the effort. In the year and a half that I’ve been at this job, I’ve chose to keep my educational experience to myself, as I am painfully aware that I am not living up to my potential. David was no fool, so I’m certain he has had similar thoughts about himself. Perhaps at some point he had been like me, keeping his credentials to himself while privately speculated about what inspiring career turns may lay in his near future. But now, 20 years later, he didn’t gaze too far onto the horizon as he was no longer expecting to see his ship. The certainty he had once felt about the great things he was going to do in his life had dwarfed into a small ember of intermittent optimism that was only stoked on occasion. Instead, it was more reasonable to accept this reality. He wasn’t complaining. He simply wanted me to acknowledge the situation, acknowledge that he and I were similar in that regard and that he wasn’t naive to his place. He simply wanted some respect.