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In my line of work I often get to mingle with some terribly intelligent and often equally-esoteric personalities. The nature of the work is always both technically challenging and requiring great cleverness, especially when interacting with customers. This preamble is important- the gentleman in question that I'm about to describe is both very intelligent (wide and deep) and very "street smart", which implies a savvyness not gleaned from book-learning alone.
Though we worked in slightly-different areas of the company we were both cigarette smokers and would often meet each other outside by the ashcan when the work permitted us to speak. Because of our work, which is in enterprise-level electronic and computer security issues, it is often the case that we're so sick of "shop talk" that talk often turns to private matters. After several conversations it came out that about five years previous this man had been in rehab for some substance abuse problem. Many people in the industry suffer from some form of substance abuse in my experience, people who enjoy learning the intimate details of programming phone switches, firewalls, etc. often "suffer" from obsessive personalities.
So it wasn't that great of a shock. But then he tells me that he'd met his wife in rehab a few conversations later, since we generally hit it off. No biggie. Then he mentions one day that his wife had overdosed and suffered quite a bit of brain damage and that's why she was in rehab. Ok, I raised both eyebrows. Then he mentioned that the level of brain damage that she received was so severe as to render her childlike, in a sense, incapable of telling a lie of any sort and that her intellectual capacity precluded anything but literal interpretations of things said to her. I raise another eyebrow.
That's three eyebrows so far.
For instance, a male friend of his was over and mentioned in some oblique and no-doubt polite way that his (the male friend's wife) was having some some grief with her period. The gentleman's wife (with the brain damage) had then proceeded to talk about her own problems with menstruation at a level of detail that goes far beyond the pale for "small talk" and had even begun to lift her skirt to point out some chafing or other irritation(not sure exactly what the reason for her physical illustration was, this happened quite a while ago and it has been years since I worked in the same organization as this man) on her vagina.
At this point I realized that I had not been endowed with enough eyebrows.
Anyway, this man, I perceived, was extremely loyal to his wife. He said her earnestness was something he had never experienced with another human being and openly doubted he ever would. His wife was not "dumb" in a conventional sense she, in fact, was able to drive a car, take care of their child (for he and she had had a child together), and do a great many things that "normal" people do except lie or have any sense of shame about her body, body functions, etc. or any inhibition, any inhibition about her sexuality.
When recalling the conversations we had, I often vacillate back and forth between thinking that he was taking advantage of her because from our conversations he described essentially a childlike mind in a woman's body, and thinking that fate might have done them both a good turn, he fiercely loyal to her and she protected by him.
Still, strange one. After the series of stories he told me I try to keep at least one extra eyebrow in a pocket.
Any thoughts?
PB
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