Brewster in Three Parts: One (iii)

You can read the first two parts of this story here (1) and here (2)

II.

Brewster Lewis was stuck inside his head most of the time. He figured it was a good place to be. The world around him was confusing, often appalling, and frequently frightening. Retreating to the clean sheets of his mind offered him solace. It also gave him justification for all sorts of anti-social behaviors that might otherwise harm one’s reputation. Over the years he perfected the art of aloofness turning the quality from a particularly hated form of social callousness into a excuse for his curious ways. Brewster often thought if he had a nickel for each time someone said, “Oh, that’s just Brewster,” to explain is apparent lack of concern, about everything, then he’d be better off then he currently was. He’d certainly be able to afford a nicer apartment and maybe a deluxe pair of headphones. Headphones being Brewster’s one obsession.

If he could, Brewster would wear headphones all the time. He’d wear them to work if his boss allowed it but his boss forbid it. Brewster argued his logic once, that as a computer technician he habituated the back room not the sale’s floor. Circuit boards and LCD screens didn’t care if he wore headphones. It made sense to Brewster, though explanations usually sound best to those who need them to be true. Nonetheless, his logic fell upon a man whose primary concerned was productivity not well being. Headphones were a liability. Brewster was worth so much. He was worth less with headphones or so the boss figured.

As it was, Brewster wore headphones most of the time. He rarely venture outside his rented walls without a pair snuggled against his ears. He was quite fond of large earmuff headphones. The bigger the better. The earbud types didn’t project the requisite air. Brewster was gunning for the self-contained look. Earbuds were not nearly noticeable enough. They lead to misunderstanding, which in Brewser’s case meant people mistaking him for a person concerned with their thoughts and needs.

No, Brewster preferred the gigantic earphones. They were noticeable and signaled to any person with eyes to see that he wasn’t to be disturbed or if one choose to do so, he’d probably wouldn’t hear you. Maybe he didn’t care but the headphones left that conclusion up for grabs. Brewster learned long ago people tend not to do things they know in advance won’t pan out. Striking up a conversation with a man contained under enormous headphones wasn’t an action that had potential so most people ignored him. This made him happy.

Of course, he’d have to wave off the occasional pan handler or manic depressive, but like most of his actions he’d perfected the gesture. When someone did attempt an interact he’d scrunch his face in a confused visage, shake his head, and point to the headphones. He’d finishing it all off with an apologetic shrug of his head. “Sorry, can’t hear you,” would be the message or the message he hoped to convey. Brewster was clear he couldn’t control other people’s interpretations. The best he could do was shoot for something benign and hope for the best.

A perspective person, perhaps one curious enough to follow Brewster through the a grocery store or down the sidewalk, would soon notice a peculiarity about his headphones. They were silent. The absence of sound from Brewster’s headphones wasn’t an artifact of their superior quality, rather a result of the fact they were connected to nothing. Brewster didn’t listen to music. He wore the headphones as a deterrent. One may rightly think wearing headphones to avoid human contact is a radical step and by all angles it is. However, Brewster arrived at the behavior via judicious experiment.

His most involved experiment in tuning out the world occurred shortly after he graduated college. Tired from the heft of books and mental focus the Cornell professors demanded of him, Brewster decided to embark on a cross country road trip. Alone. The trip itself was unremarkable. The fact that Brewster spent the entire two weeks pretending he was deaf was not. At each campground, hotel, dinner, and tourist trap he visited, Brewster feigned a lack of hearing. It was difficult at first but Brewster soon learned America had become place socialized. That is certain places have certain expectations and rhythms. One only need appear at that space and the spots social conventions take over.

For example, approaching a hotel front desk requires little vocal work. The attendant assumes you are there for a room and will usually walk you through the process. A few well timed nods and shakes of the head will result in a single room for a night. Paying for gas hardly ever requires conversation and ordering fast food can be attained without a word. One just need avoid the drive-through. On the rare occasion someone forgot their social role, Brewster would garble something suitable to indicate his inability to hear. Once his deafness was established people tended to do things for him. On the very rare occasion someone wasn’t getting it Brewster would break out his invented sing language. He hated to do it. It made him terribly uncomfortable and embarrassed, the fate of a moral impostor.

Indeed, his greatest fear during his trip was not having his car break down in some dead-end, death to outsiders, remote corner of the country but running into someone who really knew sign language. The thought appalled him. It shook him with such force he once threw up in a Sedona hotel lobby when he noticed two people conversing in sign language at a hotel bar. His vomit attracted the attention of bellboy and, with the treat of exposure increasing because of the building spectacle, Brewster puked again and ran away with assurances he was fine despite the foul oil spill he retched all over the ill patterned lobby rug. Later in his room, after a thorough brushing, he vowed to be more watchful of his fear.

Brewster was many things but uncaring was not one of them. He worried pretending he was deaf, and especially his silly hand signals, might be misinterpreted as mockery. Brewster wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. As fate would have it Brewster never ran into his greatest fear. He did, however, run out of gas in Nebraska on his way home.

At the conclusion of his cross country trip, Brewster sat down in his apartment and decided his experiment in deafness was a failed one. Feigning deafness did not insure isolation. Brewster discovered most people make a few general assumption about life. These assumptions are practically unconscious and statistically reasonable. Most people, the vast majority of people, assume everyone around them can hear what they’re saying. It’s a safe assumption as it’s born out by reality, though Brewster thought there was also a whispered element of need involved in the assumption.

Sure, most people can hear you but most people also need you to hear them. If one’s not heard then a whole host of unpleasant emotional and metaphysical problems need addressing. Who am I? Why am I here? What do I have to offer? One’s better off assuming they’re heard, which is what most people do. All fine and well but it wrecked havoc with Brewster’s experiment. He desired to shut out the world. Short of wearing a T-shirt that declared him deaf and dumb, Brewster couldn’t rely on being deaf to insulate him. What he need was a visual clue to halt their inquiries, a not to be disturbed sign, which he actually wore when he was eleven but his Dad demanded he take it off.

A day after his trip, Brewster found his answer when walking into work. As he opened the door to Stay Fresh Computers, Brewster noticed a teenage browsing the latest Apple laptops. The kid wore a pair of headphones. Brewster watched as a salesperson approached the kid only to pull a U-turn when he noticed the kids iPod. And there it was, the answer to his problem. Headphones are people repellant.

July 20 2006 11:28:20 AM EDT