The bet was that our two ALA frat brothers, who’d been placed on the Quiz Bowl team, were just as smart as the SMT nerds and would be able to help them win the finals.
Even more important, I knew that winning this championship would not only fulfill the agreement of my fraternity with Dean Robberts to cooperate with our rivals, the Sigma Mu Taus, it would also mean we won the bet that half the school was invested in. I didn’t know much about Quiz Bowl, but I did get that we just scored a point in a super-tight match in the finals. I caught my breath as Dobbs, the head of “my” team, slammed a hand on the buzzer and said, “Jules Henri Poincaré.”Īn official at the head table said, “Correct.”Īnd I yelled with half the people in the room, “Yes!” My belly clenched with tension, which was clearly catching. As if getting it right would result in world peace and the salvation of baby seals. The huge room was filled with people gripping their pens and gazing at the two teams seated at the tables up front as if they could transmit the answer to the question telepathically. I pressed back against the wall, squeezing between two guys clutching phones. I scooted out of the crush and slid into the back door of the room where the finals were happening in time to hear somebody at a head table saying, “This mathematician names a homology sphere which results from +1 surgery on the right-handed trefoil knot.” Did that mean I’d been living in a bubble? The immediate evidence suggested yes. In addition, we tended to hang out together. It was just that we also happened to be athletic and didn’t wear our brains on the outside. Hell, I hadn’t made Dean’s List and Summa Cum Laude on my looks, plus some of my fraternity brothers, the Alpha Lambda Alphas, were damned smart. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand or appreciate intelligence. Taking a breath, I plunged into the flow of humans and let the river take me. Rand Charles, jock stranger in a strange geek land. He glanced up at me like I came from another planet.
One guy in a blue knit beanie, who automatically made me tense because he reminded me of my least favorite person, sported a T-shirt that said, I could explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
To the final Quiz Bowl matchup between Harvard and U of W, Madison. They carried books, tablets, and every variety of super-tech phone invented, and all of them surged in one direction-exactly where I needed to go. I took a step into the hotel lobby, dodging a flow of people, most at least a head shorter than me, sporting khakis, plaid shirts, Star Wars and Marvel T-shirts, glasses… Jesus, there was even a Darth Vader costume.
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