An Angry Hum

Recently, She and I were out with a couple very dear friends. As we were walking into Malcolm Yards, a good bar and food hall in NE Minneapolis, I asked, as part of our conversation, what another friend drives. My friend A nonchalantly, yet instantly, told me. He delivered that little nugget with such alacrity and confidence that I turned and looked at him. He shrugged, and said “It’s my superpower. I always know what everyone drives.”

I made him prove it. It was weird. He knows what everyone drives. His Superpower.

Then he stated his theory, and I fucking love it. Everyone has a superpower. Everyone.

I’m not talking about a quirk, like my inability to sit still, or my penchant for using words like alacrity or penchant. I’m talking more about something that someone just does, just can do, that feels natural to them. It just is, and it becomes part of what makes us each beautifully different.

When we’re all kids I suspect there’s some small thing we start doing that steadily, persistently, carves a freeway out of a certain neural pathway. It winds a unique course, adding to our individuality and becoming “our thing”.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit in the last couple weeks. What’s my superpower? What do I think is yours? How far off would I be? I suspect I’d be wrong most of the time because it’s probably something no one really notices. And we don’t really talk about it, because for each of us it’s no more interesting than blinking. For instance, my whole life, or at least as far back as I can remember, I’ve added numbers together. Specifically phone numbers. Every time I see a phone number on a building, billboard, or the side of a truck, I automatically, involuntarily add up it’s digits. It’s made me really good at very simple math.

I think my true superpower though, is an ability to remember facts and details about movies and music. At a time in my life when I was desperately searching for myself, about 15 and 16, I got my first job at a movie theater. And man, it clicked. I, along with a few lifelong friends, watched an insane number of movies, and listened to an insane amount of music. Insane. Over the next six years, it had to be thousands of movies and tens of thousands of songs. My Neural Freeway is a 10-lane autobahn straight to John Cusack’s filmography and every band Dave Grohl has been a guest drummer for.

When The Boys were young, we’d play a game nearly every time we were in a car. One of us would say, for instance, “Can you get from Harry Potter to The Count of Monte Cristo in less than five?” (That’s a poor example, because the answer is one. Richard Harris was both the original Dumbledore and Priest in The Count of Monte Cristo, but you get the idea. Ooh wait, here’s a better one: Can you get from Lion King to Thor: Ragnarok in less than six? Mufasa was played by James Earl Jones, who was also Darth Vader, whose theme music was written by John Williams, who also wrote the theme for Jurassic Park, whose Dr. Ian Malcolm was played by Jeff Goldblum, who also played Grandmaster in…Thor: Ragnarok. Six moves, can you do it in less?)

Anyway, I love the idea that we all have a “superpower”. For me it puts to rest the notion that if all of us are special, then none of us are. I’ve known my buddy A for almost 20 years, and I didn’t know he knows what everyone drives until a few weeks ago. She and I have been together for over 32 years, and I’m certain she has abilities I have no notion of. None of us are boring or commonplace. We’re all capable of mystery, and surprise, and unpredictability. It’s a little new-agey, but I love the idea that we’re all a bunch of beautifully different, one-off weirdos.