© 2000,   by Paul Roasberry

A Matter of Perspective

Harry Watkins, Licensed Social Worker, approached his first day on the job with extreme trepidation.  For students graduating with degrees in social work, counselling retarded patients at the State Home wasn’t exactly a plum.  The truth of the matter was, Harry didn’t like retarded people.  He preferred “clients” who could better appreciate his altruistic politics.  He was, after all, a liberal.

His first brush with reality came at nine thirty-seven A.M., when he was called upon to work with a forty year old inmate named Fred.  Fred’s intelligence quotient was about fifty.  He could function well enough to do light housekeeping chores, but today, he was depressed.  The staff could see it, plain as the nose on your face.  Fred shuffled down the hallway with his broom, pushing it half-heartedly to and fro, but his mind – or what there was of it – seemed to be elsewhere.  He met anyone who greeted him with a scowl and a shrug.

Fred sat across the gray institutional metal desk, looking around uncomfortably  at the objects Harry had just unpacked:  a few books, some framed pictures of Harry’s family, and a bright, colorful poster of hot air balloons ascending en masse into a cerulean New Mexico sky.  It was Harry’s ambition to own a hot air balloon someday.  He’d gone up in one at the state fair last summer, and the experience had hooked him.

“You seem to be feeling a little down today, Fred,” Harry noted matter-of-factly.

No answer.

“What I mean is, the other staff members are telling me that you are usually a pretty cheerful guy.”

No answer.

“You know, Fred, when I’m feeling low, I like to listen to music.  Do you like music?”

“Moo-zik?  Aaa, I ligghh moo-zig.  I liggh the Beedles.”

“Really?  Who is your favorite Beatle?”

“Unhhh?”

“Your favorite Beatle – is it John?  Paul?”

“Pow?”

“Tell you what.  If you’ll help me here, I’ll let you listen to a Beatles tape on my cassette player.  But first of all, can you tell me why you think you’re here?”

“Ium here to sweep ub th’ flore.  I doo a reel good job.  You got a broom?  I show you how.”

“That’s Okay – maybe later.

And so the conversation continued for a while in this fashion, but eventually, Fred settled into a silent, sullen funk which Harry simply couldn’t penetrate.  Harry hit upon a new tack, and thought it might be interesting to teach Fred a new skill.  He had the definite impression that the patients weren’t getting enough intellectual stimulation.

************

The following day, which was Harry’s second day working at the State Home for the Developmentally Challenged, he brought to work a large sketch pad of newsprint and some colored markers.

When he encountered Fred in the hallway sweeping, he invited him to his office.

“Fred, have you ever played tic-tac-toe?” Harry asked.

Fred stared dumbly at the big sketch pad, which stood beside Harry’s desk on a presentation easel.

“Hunnhh?”

“Tic tac toe.  It’s a game, Fred.  Here, I’ll show you.”  Taking a marking pen in his hand, Harry drew a tic tac toe grid and put a big ‘X’ in the upper left hand corner.  “The object of the game is for me to get three X’s in a row.  Your mark is a circle.  Your goal is to get three ‘O’s’ in a row before I get three ‘X’s.’  We take turns.  Since I made an ‘X’, it’s your turn to put an ‘O’ somewhere.”  He handed Fred the marker.

Fred remained seated, holding the marker in his fist and glancing nervously from the sketch pad to the door and back again.

“Well, go on, Fred.  Put an ‘O’ on the board.”

Hesitantly, Fred rose from his seat and traced an enormous ‘O’ that lapped over four different squares on the grid.

“No, no, no!” Harry almost shouted in exasperation.  Do it like this.

Tears ran down Fred’s cheeks.

************

“I’ve been watching you today, Watkins,”  Doctor Margrave  continued.  It seems these people here have you a little flustered.

“I suppose so, sir,” Watkins admitted.  “It’s just that they are so damnably slow.  It takes some getting used to.”   His eyes drifted to the wall to his left, where Dr. Margrave had hung his diplomas and honors.  His attention gravitated to the Mensa certificate in its neat little black frame, hanging off to one side.

“Wow.  Do you belong to Mensa?  You must be pretty smart.”

Margrave, the chief administrator, smiled. He had an idea.  “Let’s suppose fifty I.Q. points separate you and me, Watkins.  It’s not an unreasonable assumption, is it?”

Watkins gulped and shook his head.

“Try to imagine what that’s like, from my perspective.”

Watkins fidgeted  He felt something bad coming.  Margrave shifted into high gear.  “Now, let’s also suppose that fifty I.Q. points separate you from most of the patients here.  From Fred, let’s say.  Are you getting a clear picture, Watkins?  Imagine now that instead of being cooped up in this home here, that people just like Fred populate the whole world.  They run the government, the police, all the businesses.  They teach your kids at school, and they broadcast the news.  When you go shopping, Watkins, you find them trying to count the change at the super market and agonizing over whether to ring up your produce purchase as ginger root or jerusalem artichokes.  They work on your car.  They mill about in the summertime, when you have all your windows open, so that you have to listen to their fascinating conversations.”

Watkins’ collar suddenly felt constricting.  He jerked his neck to one side, looking dumbly at Dr. Margrave.

“Be thankful you are in the middle of the bell curve, Watkins.  You have someone to go have a drink with tonight.  Lots of someones.  Take your pick.  Wherever you turn, Watkins, you’re almost assured of finding somebody on your own intellectual level.”

Dr. Margrave twirled his pencil in his fingers a few moments, thinking.  Watkins shifted uneasily in his seat.

“You know, Watkins, when it comes right down to it, I have more in common with these inmates here than I do with you.  They are on one side of the bell curve and I’m out there just about the same distance on the other side.  They have this home here and I have Mensa.  You might think of our little establishment here as a sort of Mensa for idiots, Watkins.”

Fred stood in the doorway, leaning on his broom, grinning.

Watkins didn’t know quite what to say.  He thought it prudent to remain silent.  Ignoring him, Dr. Margrave picked up his copy of the Matrix, his local Mensa group’s newsletter,  and started reading it again, just as though Watkins weren’t even there.

Here was another weird short story  by that demented fellow Roasberry,  Margrave chuckled.  “You may go, now, Watkins,” he said without taking his eyes from the newsletter.   Unless you’d like to play a game of chess.”



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