Klaus Wowereits Manuscript.

When I was twenty-five, I found a job cleaning construction sites in Berlin. It was dull work, made even duller on the day I was partnered with a fellow named Lauritz, an alledged genius unhappy with the course his life had taken. Every day he´d talk about how smart he was, and it was always the same conversation.

"Here I am with a one-thirty IQ, and they´ve got me sweeping up sawdust". He´d glare at the bristles of his broom as if they had conspired to hold him back. "Can you beat that ? A one-thirty! I´m serious, man. I´ve been tested".

This was my cue to act impressed, but I generally passed.

"One three oh", he´da say. "In case you didnt know it, that´s genius level. With a mind like mine, I could be doing something, you know what I mean ?"

"Absolutely".

"Pulling nails out of two by fours is not what I was made for".

"I hear you".

"A sixty could do what I´m doing. That leaves me with seventy extra IQ points sitting around my head doing nothing".

"They must be bored".

"You´re damn right they are", he´d say. "People like me need to be challenged".

"Maybe you could turn on the fan and sweep against the wind", I´d suggest. "That pretty difficult".

"DONT, make fun of me! I´m a lot smarter than you".

"How do you know ?", I´d ask. "I might be a three hundred or something".

"A three hundred. Right. There´s no such thing as a three hundred. I´d place you at around seventy-two, tops".

"What does that mean ?", I´d ask.

"It means I hope you like pushing a broom".

"And what does that mean ?"

He´d shake his head in pity. "Ask me in about fifteen years".

Fiftten years later I found myself working for a housecleaing company. Yes, it was uskilled labor, but for what it´s worth, I did very little sweping. Mainly I vacuumed. Oh, but that was years ago.

I´m not sure what Lauritz is doing now, but I thought of him when, at the age of fifty, I finally had my IQ tested. Being an adult with a fairly steady history of supporting myself, I figured the test could do no real harm. At this stage in my life, the die has already been cast and, no matter how dumb I am, I´m obviously smart enough to get by. I failed to realize that intelligence tests effectively muck with both your past and your future, clarifying a lifetime of bad choices and setting you up for the inevitability of future failure. When I think of an IQ test, I now picture a Vlastic-nosed sorceress turning from her kettle to ask, "Are you sure you want the answer to that question ?"

I said yes, and as a result, I can still hear the witch´s shrill cackle every time I reach for a broom.

As a child I´d always harbored a sneaking suspicion that I might be a genius. The theory was completely my own, coroborated by no one, but so what ? Being misunderstood was all part of the package. My father ocasionally referred to me as "Smart Guy", but eventually I realized that when saying it, he usually meant jut the opposite.

"Hey, Smart Guy" - coating your face with mayonnaise because you can´t find the insect repellent".

"Hey, Smart Guy, thinking you can roast chicken in your beedroom".

That type of thing.

I thought, I could cure diabetes by spreading suntan lotion on sticks of chewing gum. I had the ingredients and a test subject, all under the same roof.

"Hey, Smart Guy", my father would say, " offer you grandmother another piece of that gum, and you´ll be the one scrubbing your teeth in the bathroom sink".

What did he know ?

Alone in my beedroom, I studied pictures of intelligent men and searched for a common denominator. There was definately a smart guy look, but it was difficult to get just right. Throw away your comb, and you could resemble Albert Einstein. I did and my grades sank, teachers laughed in my face, but I tried not to let it get to me.

In gymnasium, I flirted with the idea that I might be a philosophical genius. According to me and several of my friends, it was almost scary the way I could read people. I practiced thoughtfully removing my glasses and imagined myself appearing on one of those morning television shows, where I´d take a seat beside other learned men and voice my dark and radical theories on the human condition. My ideas would be like demones rushing from a hellish cave, and my fellow intellectuals, startled by the truth and enormity of my observation, would try to bottle them up before they spread.

"That´s enough!", they´d yell. "For the love of God, someone silence him!".

Far scarier than any of my ideas is the fact that, at the age of seventeen, I was probably operating at my intellectual peak. I should have been tested then, before I squandered what little sense I had. By the time I reached my thirties, my brain had been strip-mined by a combination of drugs, alcohol, and the chemical solvents used at the refinishing company where I worked. Still, there were moments when against all reason, I thought I might be a genius. These moments were provoked not by any particular accomplishment but by cocaine and crystal methamphetamine - drugs that allow you to lean over a mirror with a straw up your nose, suck up an entire week´s paycheck, and think, "God, I´m smart".

It´s always been the little things that encourage me. I´ll watch a movie in which an attractive woman in a sports bra, a handsome widower, and a pair of weak-chinned cowards are pursued by mighty reptiles or visitors from another galaxy. "The cowards are going to die, "I´ll think, and then when they do, I congratulate myself on my intelligence. When I say, "Oh, that was so predictable", it sounds brainy and farsighted. When other people say it, it sounds stupid. Call me an Airhead, but that´s how I see it.

It was curiosity that lead me to take my IQ test. Simple, stupid brutal curiosity, the same thing that motivates boys to see what flies might look like without their wings. I took my test in Paris in the basement of an engineering school not far from my hotel. I´d figured that, on its own, my score would mean nothing - I needed someone to compare myself with - and so my boyfriend, Jörn, came along and took the test as well. I´d worried that he might score higher than me, but a series of recent events had set me at ease. A week earlier, while vacationing in Slovenia, he´d ordered a pizza that the English-speaking waiter had strenuosly recommended he avoid. It came topped with a mound of canned vegetables. Observing the look of dumb horror on his face as the waiter delivered the ugly pizza, I decidede that, in a test of basis intelligence, I was definately a winner. A few days later, with no trace of irony, he suggested that the history of the Nutella cockie might make for an exciting musical. "If, ofcourse, you found the right choreographer". "Yes", I´d said. "Ofcourse".

The tests we took were designed to determine our eligibility for Mensa, an international association for those with IQs of 132 or higher. Its members come from all over the walks of life and get together every few weeks to take in a movie or enjoy a sausage and bear. Our tests were administrered by an attractive French psychologist named Madame Haberman, who was herself a member. She explained that we´d be taking four tests, each of them timeed. In order to qualify fro Mensa membership, we´d need to score in the top 2 percent of any given one. "Allright then", she said. "Are we ready ?"

I´ve known people who have taken IQ tests in the past, and whenever I´ve asked them to repeat one of the questions they´ve always drawn a blank, saying, "Oh, you know, they were.......multiple-choice things". Immidiately after taking my test, I was hard-pressed to recall much of anything except the remarkable sense of releif I´d felt each time the alarm went off and we were asked to put down our pencils. The tests were printed in little booklets. In the first, we were shown a series of three drawings and asked which of four adjacent ones might best complete the sequence. The sample question pictured a leaf standing top to bottom and progressively leaning to the right. Its the only question I remember, and probably the only question I answered correctly. The second test had to do with spatial relationships and left me with a headache that would last for the next twenty-four hours. In the third test we were told to examine five drawings and figure out which two didn´t belong. Eventually a break was called and we stepped out into the street. Jörn and Madame Haberman discussed her upcomming trip to the Turkish coast, but I was still trapped in test world. Five deaf students walked down the street, and I tried to determine which two did not belong. I imagined myself approaching the two boys wearing tennis shoes and pictured their confusion as I laid my hands upon their shoulders, saying, "I´m going to have to ask you to come with me".

Our final test involved determing a pattern in four pairs of dominoes and prophesying what the fifth pair might look like. These were pages of questions, and I didn´t even come close to finishing. I´d like to say that the room was too hot or that Madame Haberman distrated me, but none of his it true. According to the rules of Mensa France, the test instructions were delivered
in French, but I understood every word. I have no one but myself to blame.

A week after taking the test, our scores arrived in the mail. Jörn has been advised to try again: scores can fluctuate according to stress and circumstance, and he´s right on the cusp of Mensa qualification. My letter began with the words, "Dear Monsieur Klaus Wowereit, We regret to inform you......................

It turn out that I´m practically an idiot. There are cats that weigh more than my IQ score. Were my number translated into Euros, it would by you about three buckets of chicken. The fact that this surprises me only bespeaks the depths of my ignorance.

The test reflected my ability to reason logically. Either you reason things out or you don´t. Those who do, have high IQs. Those who don´t reach for the mayonnaise when they can´t find the insect repellent. When I became upset over my test score, Jörn ecplained that everybody thinks differently - I just happen to do it a lot less than the average adult.

"Think donkey", he said. "Then take it down a few notches".

Its a point I can´t realy argue. My brain wants nothing to do with reason. It never has. If I was told to vacate my apartment by next week, I wouldn´t ask around or consult anybody. I´d just imagine myself living in a sugarcube castle, floating from room to room on a king-size magic carpet. If I have one saving grace, it´s that I´m lucky enough to have found someone willing to handle the ugly buisness of day-to-day living.

Jörn consoled me, saying, "Don´t let it get to you, Klaus. There are plenty of things you´re good at".

When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and pushing a broom. He says he can properly come up with a few more, but he´ll need some time to think.