Alexander Masters - Simon: The Genius in My Basement

(January 1956)

Simons brother Francis had barely managed to recite the digits from one to ten by the time he was four years old; his brother Michael, a fraction quicker, had understood that if you gave him three banana-flavor milkshakes, and asked him to count them, the correct answer was one for the first, two for the second and three for the sticky splosh dribbling down his ear.

Percentages, square numbers, factors, long division, his 81 and 91 times tables, making numbers dance about to itchy tunes:

Simon mastered these when he was five.

Occasionally, his attention wandered:

Sschliissh, dhuunk, dhuunk, zwaap, dhuunk, zwaap

Listen! Can you hear?

dhuunk, sschliissh, dhuunk, zaap, zwap, dhuunk
Bend down. Put your ear against the carpet:
Zwaap, dhuunk, dhuunk, dhuunk,

zwaap, dhuunk, ssschliissh

Its fifty years later.

liissh,

dhuunk,

dhuunk,

dhuunk,

zwaap,

dhuunk,

ssschliissh,

dhunnk

dhuunk, zwa

ap, sclissh

dhunnk, du

unnk, sw

Thats the sound of a once-in-a-generation genius.

Simon Phillips Norton: Phillips, with an s, as if one Phillip were not enough to contain his brilliance. He lives under my floorboards.

Dhuunk, dhuunk

When I first moved here, I had no idea what the noises were. Underground rivers? The next-door neighbors dragging a new pot through to their Tuscan garden? Dhuunk, dhuunkBut after eight years of interpretation I know that its the great mans feet, stomping from one end of his room to the other. Every second stomp is heavier.

Sssschlissh: thats the swipe of his puffa ski jacket against the stalagmites of paperbacks he keeps piled on the furniture.

Zwaap: the sound of his duffel, as he rotates at the end of the room. He sometimes flings it wide, hitting papers. Simon carries this bag about with him everywhere he goes, clutched in the crook of his arm, even if its just to his front door to let in the gas man.

dhuunk, dhuunk, dhuunk, zwaap, dhuunk, dhuunk

Simons bed is ten feet directly beneath mine. My study is on top of his living room. His stomping space extends the full depth of the building, under my floor. My balcony is the roof of his basement extension, which has herded all the pretty garden plants into a six-foot square at the back of our house and stamped them under concrete slabs.

The phone rings. A charge from Simon: Dhuunk! Dhuunk! Dhuunk!

Snorting. The receiverrrinng, clank, clumpump, ping, pingwrenched from its holster. Attempts at speech, grunts, bangs of talk-noise; a strangulated word.

Clunk. Phone back in its holster.

Silence.

Dhuunk, dhuunk, dhuunk

Theres another very important sound, which is too difficult to represent typographically: an intermittent, twisted crackle, sharp but thick, with a strong sense of command, resting on a base of plosive disorder. In an exercise book from when he was five theres a squiggle that comes close:

Its the sound of plastic-bag-being-opened-in-a-hurry-and-the-gratification-of-discovering-important-papers-inside. Without understanding this noise, you cannot understand the man.

ssschliissh, dhuunk, zwaap, zwaap, dhuunk, dhuunk

Simon has been pacing down there for twenty-seven years, three months, five days, thirteen hours and eight minutes.

Ssssh!

Stop breathing!

Did you catch that?

Still another sort of noise?

A sort of sigh?

That was a thought.

Your representation of me as interesting is inaccurate. I feel ashamed by it.

Simon

Damn! Hes gone!

Simons refused to enter the book!