I knew the moment I met Benny that there would be complications. In the first place, within the first half hour of our conversation, Benny had fallen asleep, only to be jolted awake after much poking and prodding by Janice, our mutual friend. This occurred a whopping four times.
“This is not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately,” Janice explained. “Once, we were giving a presentation on our project to the English class, right? He just dropped to the ground, two minutes into it. Our professor – bless his heart – just about had a heart attack.”
As I got to know about Benny, I found out that he was affectionately known in his circle of friends as the “narcoleptic Argentinean,” even though he wasn’t at all from Argentina. Once, he went to an elementary physics lecture, and as the new instructor was explaining how to differentiate kinetic energy from potential energy, his pen stopped on a dime as he slumped forward as he sat in the front of the lecture theater. The next thing he knew, he was looking at a diagram of the interior of a magnified red blood cell, as a well-aged professor was discussing the intricacies of mitochondria in a lab rat, as if that had anything to do with the mechanics of pushing a wooden block on a smooth, flat, slanted surface.
He attempted a smooth exit, mumbling some excuse about "lack of bladder control,” when it appeared that he tripped on his feet at the only pair of stairs between him and the doors, and landed flat on his face. He might have commented on the detail of the carpet, but he was out before his foot reached the bottom.
Another time, he went to his Italian class, but once again, the next thing he knew, the discussion went from the works of Italo Calvino to something almost familiar but vaguely different.
“¿Como estáis, clase?”
“Bien, profesora.”
“¿Como está la obra de Larra? ¿Dificíl?”
“Tengo una pregunta…no entiendo esta página….”
He just smiled and nodded, and snuck out as smoothly as he could during what he thought was the break…or whatever “descansito” was.
At least he didn’t lack a sense of humor, as evidenced when he talked to his friends when he was awake. Of course, I expressed worry – how will he manage to get around town without a car these days? Get a job? Do things non-narcoleptic people do?
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Benny assured me when we had dinner at – out of all places – a casual Italian restaurant, situated across the street from the fast food burrito place.
“I hope you found this out before you started doing things like getting a permit?” I inquired as I twirled my spaghetti on my fork and took a chunk out of my meatball.
“Actually, that’s when I discovered it,” Benny explained. “My driving instructor was judging my driving skills the last day, and she took me on the highway to go out to the airport. I remember being in the middle of the highway, and then I found myself at the airport parking lot. Quite amazing actually, especially since I passed it – they should make cruise control easy to guide the car as it had done in the student car,” he said between a few bites. I gave him a horrified look.
“Oh, don’t worry yourself,” he said. “I am not a menace to society. I don’t drive. Maybe we can ask for the check now, though, because I am getting….”
Squish, the fettuccini alfredo said, as the server approached. Benny had done a dive in tomorrow’s dinner.