Djelloul Marbrook

I have Attention Defection Disorder. Don’t look for it in the books, but it should be there. Invite me to a posh dinner and I’m interested in the servers. Take me to a rally and I listen to the crickets or the cops or the caterer. Drag me to a wedding and I’ll find that one disapproving face. Show me a lush lawn and I’ll cherish the dandelions. Ask me to listen to somebody famous and I’ll study his panderers.

I just don’t like to be focused unless I’m doing the focusing. This is not a formula for success. I don’t commend it to you. It’s just one of my many disorders, but I like it better than most. My ADD made me the kind of reporter who liked sidebars better than the main story. I like life’s sidebars. I’m drawn to the people who observe the people who want to be observed.

Defecting from the main subject, that’s what I do. You tell me what’s important or who’s important, and I’ll study the cracks in the floor.
I could never be a paparazzo. Exhibitionists make me retch, especially the ones who thrive on calling attention to themselves by complaining about their lack of privacy. How creepy is that?

I’m taking liberties with the word exhibitionism. The textbooks say it’s an obsession with exuding your sexuality. My definition is broader. I‘m talking about all those loud-mouthed look-at-me’s who assail us in restaurants and almost everywhere else with their obscene craze to be noticed. On the other hand, the look-at-me game can be played with great subtlety and refinement, and most of us are willing to pay to see that.

Early in my life—I think it was in Sunday school in Bayshore, Long Island—I noticed that certain people are psychic blimps. When they enter a room there’s no room for anyone else. We all know who they are. We vote for them, we stand in lines to see them. Sometimes we marry them.
My ADD isn’t the kind that minutely examines the walls when someone’s talking to me. I usually give the person in front of me my full attention, but I get a little antsy if he or she likes it too much.

It’s probably a protective device, this ADD of mine. When I was in high school I had one of those epiphanies that change your life. I was wondering more or less idly why I liked vampire movies so much, and then it dawned on me we’ve all had run-ins with vampires. I mean, how many times have you felt like a blood donor after dealing with certain people? Now please don’t jump to the conclusion I’m talking about mothers-in-law, because I’m talking about husbands, wives, parents, bosses, politicians, the whole global gamut of blood suckers.

I was one of those eerily perceptive kids people are always trying to distract for fear the kid knows what’s up. I usually did know what was up, and I noticed that a lot of adults in my life weren’t crazy about it.

Well, I think my ADD has saved me from being hypnotized by vampires. The lady next to me may choose to think I’m just another lech checking out the waitress, and I’m not going to swear I don’t do that, but it’s just as possible I’ve noticed the lady next to me checking out my jugular.