Read Online The Devil's Dream: Book One by David Beers - Free Book Online
Authors: David Beers
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that."
Laziness.
It’s a word that seems ridiculous to speak about in connection with
Brand, especially after everything that transpired. Still, most of
his professors would use the adjective to describe him. Matthew's
laziness didn't affect his grades because he wasn't challenged. The
only thing it affected was his production. He withheld his gift from
the world, and didn't care.
Matthew Brand lived with a woman
named Dawn White, a twenty-eight year old PhD candidate studying
biology. They shared a three-bedroom condo just a bit off campus and
Dawn was quite open when it came to discussing her old roommate.
She's now sixty-two and about to retire from her position as full
professor at the University of Georgia.
"Matthew didn't care about any of it. That's easy to say and
it's easy to write down in your book, but if you haven't been through
a PhD program you can't really understand what that means. They are
all encompassing, years of one hundred hour weeks. You truly have to
fall into your work and hope you don't drown. Not for Matthew. He did
no work outside of class. I asked him once when he wrote his papers,
he told me he wrote them during class. I just kind of looked at him
like he was insane and then he laughed. He said something like,
'Sorry, I'd give it to you if I could.' I thought about his offer a
lot later, at least while we lived together. Whether or not he would
give me that gift if he could and whether or not I would take it. The
answer I think is clear now, no on both accounts. Someone like him
can't care, because if he begins to, I'm not sure there's anything
that can stop him."
Eight
years of our man's life were spent in college classrooms with
everyone he met simultaneously amazed at his incandescent brilliance
and startled by his stunted work ethic. How many more years and how
many more degrees would he have piled up if not for Jerome Watson?
The world owes Watson a great debt and perhaps a prison sentence. It
can be assumed everything that came after Jerome Watson, both the ten
years of miraculous discoveries until Hilman's murder and the ten
years of Frankenstein-like science after, couldn’t have happened
without him.
The
class was Complex Function Theory, which I tried to understand and
couldn't. It contained a total of ten people including the professor,
Dr. Watson. A black man nearing fifty, he had heard about Brand and
what to expect in class. Virtually no participation and yet an
effortless A. Dr. Watson didn't like the idea of that.
"I
was, honestly, just appalled admissions let someone like that into
Yale University. It's like you think this place is prestigious, is
supposed to have some real merit behind it, and here is this lazy,
brilliant kid making a mockery of what we were trying to do. We're
all smart but what separates us from other universities is our
ability to work hard for long periods of time. Then this student
comes in and keeps his head down because he's too busy looking at
Facebook or some other nonsense, and yet is able to basically tell us
how to do our jobs. That wasn't going to work for me."
He
changed the parameters of the class on the first day. There would be
no papers. There would be no tests. The only grade one received would
be based on one's contribution to the class. Basically, class
participation would make up the entire grade. That meant for three
hours a week, Matthew would need to be actively engaged in the world
around him. Not lost in his computer, not in his own head, but
actually contributing to the university in some form. Or else he
would fail. If he failed, Yale might keep him, but most likely not.
Most likely he would get the boot the same as any other PhD candidate
after failing a required course.
Matthew looked up from his
computer when he heard this.
"He smiled," Dr. Watson said. "It was as if he was
saying, okay, challenge accepted. I'm over eighty years old now and
I've seen what this guy ended up doing and the myth is that I'm the
one that got
Laziness.
It’s a word that seems ridiculous to speak about in connection with
Brand, especially after everything that transpired. Still, most of
his professors would use the adjective to describe him. Matthew's
laziness didn't affect his grades because he wasn't challenged. The
only thing it affected was his production. He withheld his gift from
the world, and didn't care.
Matthew Brand lived with a woman
named Dawn White, a twenty-eight year old PhD candidate studying
biology. They shared a three-bedroom condo just a bit off campus and
Dawn was quite open when it came to discussing her old roommate.
She's now sixty-two and about to retire from her position as full
professor at the University of Georgia.
"Matthew didn't care about any of it. That's easy to say and
it's easy to write down in your book, but if you haven't been through
a PhD program you can't really understand what that means. They are
all encompassing, years of one hundred hour weeks. You truly have to
fall into your work and hope you don't drown. Not for Matthew. He did
no work outside of class. I asked him once when he wrote his papers,
he told me he wrote them during class. I just kind of looked at him
like he was insane and then he laughed. He said something like,
'Sorry, I'd give it to you if I could.' I thought about his offer a
lot later, at least while we lived together. Whether or not he would
give me that gift if he could and whether or not I would take it. The
answer I think is clear now, no on both accounts. Someone like him
can't care, because if he begins to, I'm not sure there's anything
that can stop him."
Eight
years of our man's life were spent in college classrooms with
everyone he met simultaneously amazed at his incandescent brilliance
and startled by his stunted work ethic. How many more years and how
many more degrees would he have piled up if not for Jerome Watson?
The world owes Watson a great debt and perhaps a prison sentence. It
can be assumed everything that came after Jerome Watson, both the ten
years of miraculous discoveries until Hilman's murder and the ten
years of Frankenstein-like science after, couldn’t have happened
without him.
The
class was Complex Function Theory, which I tried to understand and
couldn't. It contained a total of ten people including the professor,
Dr. Watson. A black man nearing fifty, he had heard about Brand and
what to expect in class. Virtually no participation and yet an
effortless A. Dr. Watson didn't like the idea of that.
"I
was, honestly, just appalled admissions let someone like that into
Yale University. It's like you think this place is prestigious, is
supposed to have some real merit behind it, and here is this lazy,
brilliant kid making a mockery of what we were trying to do. We're
all smart but what separates us from other universities is our
ability to work hard for long periods of time. Then this student
comes in and keeps his head down because he's too busy looking at
Facebook or some other nonsense, and yet is able to basically tell us
how to do our jobs. That wasn't going to work for me."
He
changed the parameters of the class on the first day. There would be
no papers. There would be no tests. The only grade one received would
be based on one's contribution to the class. Basically, class
participation would make up the entire grade. That meant for three
hours a week, Matthew would need to be actively engaged in the world
around him. Not lost in his computer, not in his own head, but
actually contributing to the university in some form. Or else he
would fail. If he failed, Yale might keep him, but most likely not.
Most likely he would get the boot the same as any other PhD candidate
after failing a required course.
Matthew looked up from his
computer when he heard this.
"He smiled," Dr. Watson said. "It was as if he was
saying, okay, challenge accepted. I'm over eighty years old now and
I've seen what this guy ended up doing and the myth is that I'm the
one that got
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