01/21/01

Yeah, the free trip to paradise, that never happened. The plane started moving down the runway, I just panicked. Got the hell out of my seat and climbed up the aisle toward the cockpit hollerin’ like a little girl for the captain to stop the damn plane and let me the fucking hell off. September 11, 2000— that’s a date I’ll not soon forget. Took off from Newark, so by the time they got me subdued, and that Sumo wrestler guy got my face---and what seemed like the whole rest of my body too---smushed up against the window, the plane was making a descent toward Stewart Airport for emergency landing. And wouldn’t you know we ended up flying right over the damn farm! I could see the old backhoe working away in the corner of the oak tree lot, a plume of dark smoke rising up out of its engine.

That was the first of the three arrests.

Here the wife had in mind she was going to be finally visiting Hawaii like she always dreamed and I fucked the whole thing up for her. I don’t fly, what else can I say. Every time I had to go to my daughter’s college in Oklahoma I drove the hell there, even fell asleep behind the wheel once. But even after that I still wouldn‘t fly. I’m telling yah, they don’t call me Old Moa for nothin'.

Damn I wish I never won that fucking prize.

I wish I never let Percy bring that damn filmmaker on the place either. Both those fuckers are jinxes, I’m telling yah!

01/20/01

So what other deep, dark secrets do you need to know about me?

I suppose you also want to know how I ended up on probation---the three arrests last Fall. My tragic decent into criminality? Yeah, where to begin on that?

Well, for one thing, I wish I never entered that riddle contest last January. Everything in my life seemed to go farther downhill from that point. What does a man who's afraid to fly need with a fucking free trip to Hawaii anyway?

I guess that could be a pretty good riddle right there.

I should have insisted on a trip by boat. The riddle was: “opposite a traffic light, when is green a signal to delay and red to proceed?” The answer came to me in my sleep a few hours after I heard it. My brother-in-law, Percy Tobiassen— the obsessive compulsive Mensa member— couldn’t believe an idiot farmer like me could ever figure that one out. He was the one I heard about the damn contest from too. He obsessed for 6 weeks trying to crack it. He came to me last Spring, after it was announced I had won, and asked me what my IQ was.

I said, how the fuck do I know! When the fuck did I ever take an IQ test? What the fuck difference does it make what the fuck my IQ is?

He said if you can crack the top 2% of intelligence, you could join Mensa.

And I said, and why the fuck would I want to do that?

He said well. . . to be around like-minded individuals.

And I said Oh, really. . .they got some fucking people like me over there in Mensa, do they?

That was when Percy brought over this old Gateway computer and set it up for me with the World Wide Web and all. My own fucking computer, imagine that. Percy hasn’t had a real job since 1993. He’s living in a little duplex in Country Club Heights in Maybrook with hardly a pot to piss in— but he’s got money somehow or another to upgrade to a Mac so he can be on par with all his geek friends. One of the first things he did after he got me set up was make me take an online IQ test. Seems like the fucker just couldn’t sleep at night dwelling on the thought that I might actually be smarter than him. I came away on one test at 146 and another one at 144. Percy looked all pale and downtrodden.

I say, those good?

He says, well. . . yeah. . .

I say, would it get me in Mensa?

He says, well. . .yeah. . .

I say, My score’s better than yours, isn’t it?

He says, well. . .yeah. . .

All these fucking years— all those snooty assholes looking down on me like I’m shit. How the fuck was I suppose to know I’m in the top one percent for intelligence?