Life After Genius Read Online Free PDF

look. He prefers to suck it up and move on. The way he did in junior high when his so-called peers Super-Glued his desktop shut. And when his father missed his fourth, fifth, and sixth birthdays in a row because of deaths in other people’s families. Mead is simply going to look upon this latest unfortunate turn of events in his life the way he has looked upon all the others: as an opportunity for personal growth. And so he resolves, as of this very moment, to change things up. To live out the rest of his life as the other half is living theirs —or, according to his SAT scores, the other ninety-nine percentile —and if that means trying new things, things Mead would never have even dreamed of trying before, well then, that is exactly what he is going to do.
    Mead looks across the table at Mr. Sammons, who has locked heads with Uncle Martin to talk baseball statistics. Last week Mead probably would’ve seen an overweight individual with ruddy cheeks, suggesting a man who suffers from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, the beginning stages of heart disease, and probably a little cirrhosis of the liver too. But now he sees a sanguine fellow, wise to the ways of the world. And so he lifts the beer mug to his lips and gets a first taste of his new life at 5.2% alcohol per volume.
    M EAD’S DAD EXCUSES HIMSELF to go say hello to the people at the next table. He spends about five minutes or so talking to them, then moves on to a second table. And then a third and a fourth and a fifth table, hell-bent on making his way around the entire dining hall. The man probably knows every person in this place —and on a first-name basis no less. Mead wonders how he does it, how he memorizes a whole town’s worth of names. He pictures his father sitting up in bed late at night, surrounded by dozens of high school yearbooks and the telephone directory. The man opens the directory and flips to the
L
’s. Runs his finger down the page until he finds the name he is looking for: Brad Lastfogel. Then he reaches for the 1969 edition of the High Grove High School yearbook and turns to the section titled MUSIC . The caption below a black-and-white photograph of eight boys and one girl reads: BAND : BACK ROW : E . JOHNSON , C . THOMPSON , R . KELLEY , AND B . LASTFOGEL . Bingo! Brad doesn’t have as much hair anymore, and he has put on a few pounds, but the impish grin and square jaw line are still intact. Under the phrase, WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP , it says
astronaut or doctor.
Mead’s father crosses that out and writes in its place: Manager and Pharmacist of Lastfogel’s Drugs.
    M R. AND MRS. SAMMONS’S DAUGHTER leans across the table and says to Mead, “You doing anything tomorrow?”
    “Yes,” he says. “Getting on with my life.”
    “Well, how would you like to get on with your life out at Snell’s Quarry?”
    “I have personal obligations,” Mead says, “which must be met before I can indulge in the ordinary frivolities of life.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I can’t, I have to work at my father’s store.”
    “How about after that then?”
    “That won’t work either.”
    “Why not?”
    Mead is suspicious. Any boy in High Grove with a pair of working eyes would jump at the opportunity to go swimming with Hayley Sammons, so why is she asking him? Unless her plan is to lure him out there and then laugh at him with all her friends because he actually showed up.
    “Don’t worry, Theodore. I’m not going to make fun of you or anything.”
    “I didn’t think you were.”
    “Then it’s all set. I’ll pick you up at your father’s store at five.”
    Shit.
    M ARTIN SITS DOWN IN THE CHAIR next to Mead. Oh boy, here it comes. His uncle has been waiting for this opportunity all day: to be alone with his nephew. Without Mead’s shield (i.e., his father) around to protect him. Uncle Martin has downed three beers —that Mead knows of —and god knows how many more before Mead and his dad arrived. Picking up the pitcher