Chumpions

Two Sundays ago I encountered a “thought.” I was sitting on a couch in a coffee shop in Waco, TX next to an extraordinarily attractive girl, having somehow miraculously induced a spat of conversation, when appeared, as if from the void, The Amazing Walter Barker. One moment I was explaining to this sultry caffeinated vixen the meaning of the phrases “phenomenological ontology” and “existence precedes essence” (Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, a hulking orange volume of obsolete philosophy, sat in my lap) and the next I was silent, staring at a middle-aged man, roughly six feet tall, who looked like an exploded Lee Trevino and wore an entirely black suit with a white tie. He was standing before us, waiting to be noticed. Supplementing his outfit was a ridiculously oversized black graduation cap, around the sides of which dangled several strange objects and on top of which was fixed a glowing light bulb. A full-length black cape was fastened around his shoulders.

No, you’re not dyslexic (at least probably not); a man really entered a busy coffeehouse full of college students and twenty-somethings WEARING A CAPE AND A LIGH-BULB-HAT. My conversation ended abruptly and, compelled by some ungodly curiosity, I asked, “Alright, so what’s this all about?”

“I,” he began, clearly pleased to have been noticed, “am a thought. I am an image, an idea, which you will never remove from your mind. I am Walter Barker.” He sat down heavily on the recliner next to the couch, leaned forward and began to explain to us in earnest just who and what he was. He claimed to be an information technologies consultant for companies and universities, a commercial pilot, and a man sincerely dedicated to changing the way people think. “If you give me five minutes of your time, I will transform you into a verifiable genius.”

I did not inquire further or in any way suggest that my curiosity had been piqued. However, he took my silence as acquiescence and produced a calculator from an inside pocket of his coat, handed it to me and asked me to cube any two-digit number and tell him the answer. I did so and he immediately provided me with the identity of the two-digit number. He did this time and again, without fail. I’ll admit it: I was impressed. “In only five minutes,” he said, “I can teach you to do this and in so doing provide you with a framework for achieving eidetic memory [photographic memory].”

I consented. He began to frantically point to different locations around the room, assigning them numbers and outlandish imaginary objects (i.e., a tree that is falling on you, a castle who’s gate flaps open and hits you, a linebacker about to crush you, etc.), each object having some relation to a two- or three-digit number. He explained that he was creating images of “accidents” in order to excite the secretion of acetylcholine in my brain (as if his mere presence was not “accident” enough). His claim was that if you associate information with a combination of cognitive links, locations, pictures, words, and emotions (thus triggering acetylcholine production) you cannot forget that information. Whatever. It was all gibberish, yet somehow at the end of it I could spit out cube roots just as well as he could.

By this point the girl I was sitting with had lost interest in Walter Barker and had stuffed her iphone earbuds into her ears, blocking him out with Fallout Boy or some other neo-punk atrocity.

Walter Barker, delighted at my cube-rooting ability, leaned forward—light bulb pulsing, cape rustling—shook my hand and congratulated me on having become a genius, like him. I repressed a shudder.

He then went on to make some of the most outlandish statements I have ever heard. They were so bizarre that my memory (sadly, far from eidetic) of it all has sort of run together. I don’t remember the sequence or even the context of these statements, but I’ll list them as best as I can:

1. “Currently, I am working here in town developing my SEAIROAW. It is the vehicle of the future. It is a car the flies and floats. You can take off from your driveway.”
2. “I fly all over the country getting paid $100 an hour to provide corporate employees with photographic memory and the ability to read at a rate of 400 words per minute.”
3. “The greatest problem of your generation is a failure to launch. Your parents have been coddling you all your lives and now you’re all unemployed and don’t know what to do with yourselves.”
4. “I am a good friend of the governor of Texas and have numerous contacts with the leaders of industry in Texas.”
5. Last but not least: “I have powerful ties to the Pentagon. You know, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Walter then asked me what I studied. I told him and briefly explained my current situation—that I am living with friends, writing fiction, and searching for steady employment. Then he said, “See, you’re failing to launch. If you let me, I can equip you with the tools to add $600,000 to your resume.” He then explained that for every dollar you invest in your brain, you should expect $400 in return. I asked him where he was getting his figures from and he seemed appalled that I should doubt a man who could do cube roots in his head. He provided no answer but went on to try to sell me on his fifteen-hour seminar on memory enhancement, entrepreneurship, and speed-reading, which costs a measly $1,500.

I told him I was broke.

He says, “Hey, that’s not a problem. I won’t charge you anything. Just come and let me equip you. You won’t owe me a cent so long as you commit to traveling the country with me for six months, helping me to open minds.”

He then asked me to be his protégé. Just let that sink in. A man wearing a cape asked me to be his protégé.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime, he said. I too could be making $100 an hour selling crazy. He was going to hook me up, take me around the country in his flying car, even share his Pentagon connections with me. I could be living the dream.

Then I realized that virtually everyone in my immediate vicinity was staring at me, observing the insanity. I quickly stood up and thanked him for the offer and told him that I would “seriously consider it,” but that at that moment I really had to piss, which was the absolute truth. Walter Barker’s five-minute genius session had taken an hour and a half.

He extended his hand, I shook it, and he reiterated that he was more than willing to allow me to “ride his coattails” for a while, to “take advantage of his pre-established credibility” until I had built my own. He jotted some more info down on a business card and gave it to me. Then he was off and out the door, cape fluttering into the night.

When I returned from the restroom, people still stared at me. The cute girl had her earbuds out now and was on the verge of laughing. All I could think to do was to look squarely at several people and then say, “Wow. That really just happened.”

Is there a lesson in all of this? Possibly. The encounter did serve as a bookend to my Sunday, the other being the church service I attended in the morning where the pastor preached on “Can-Do Attitude” (right, only in Texas); so, conceivably, the universe is telling me to get on my horse and ride. However, I believe there is a more fundamental gem to be found here: unless they can fly without the aid of a magical car, DO NOT TALK TO MEN IN CAPES.

[For anyone interesting in learning more about Walter Barker, search YouTube for “wbprotime.”]