The higher they are...

Don’t watch “The Walk” on a large television screen. If you have a fear of heights you’re liable to lose control of some very important bodily functions, and you’ll be stuck explaining to any housemates why you have an oscillating fan pointed at your living room couch.

Consider that a backhanded compliment of the movie’s special effects. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot, it relates the true story of Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist who rose to international fame in 1974 by walking on a wire strung between the two World Trade Center towers. And while the towers are sadly gone now, you’ll remember that they were very, very high. Like, 110 stories high. Birds feel queasy at that altitude.

Recreating the towers digitally and in the studio is a marvel of movie magic, with frankly some of the best special effects I’ve ever seen, and while it made for enthralling viewing, it also created some queasy, uncomfortable moments. I knew the imagery, while realistically rendered, was fake. I knew Petit wouldn’t fall off his high-wire, because he’s still alive, and in fact worked as a consultant on the film. But that didn’t matter. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who portrayed Petit, is shown suspended in mid-air halfway between the two towers, with only a thin cable supporting his body, I had to clutch a pillow to keep from passing out. There’s a chance I sucked my thumb at some point, but nobody can prove that. In fact, forget I said anything.

Not everyone has a fear of heights, and maybe those people came away from the movie whistling a happy tune. Maybe they watched it on a stadium-grade IMAX screen, merrily gulping Junior Mints with nary a disruption to their gastrointestinal systems.

My fear of heights runs too deep for that kind of fortitude. If it were any worse I’d have to carry a brown paper bag with me at all times, for hyperventilation purposes. For kicks I’d also abandon walking from place to place in favor of rolling around face-down on a skateboard. The closer to the ground, the better.

Acrophobia is the official term for an extreme or irrational fear of heights, but very few people meet its criteria. In order to be a full-fledged acrophobe you’d have weep violently or revert to a catatonic state simply by climbing a flight of stairs. True acrophobia is a serious medical condition, and there are really only two means of treating it: Judicious use of potent medication, and living in an eco-pod buried miles below the surface of the Earth. If you opt for door number two, I suggest bringing a book.

What I have is more closely described as “visual height intolerance.” Up to one-third of the population experiences this to some degree. It’s not intense enough to warrant pharmaceutical intervention (drats!), but it can complicate certain situations.

Take ladders, for example. I regard ladders in much the same way I regard snakes and Pauly Shore fans: Dangerous creatures that are to be avoided at all costs. There are ladders barely taller than I am that inspire in me a horror-movie kind of fear, and this turns mundane tasks into complicated affairs. It should be a relatively simple matter to climb the six steps necessary to lift myself into the attic so I can retrieve my old VHS copy of “Mrs. Doubtfire.” The chances of injury are minimal. Tell that to my brain’s panic center, which blazes bright red whenever that rusty contraption is wrested from its hiding spot. The wobbling, the creaking … yeah, no thanks. I’d sooner drink a gallon drum of tomato ketchup.

Ladders are a walk through a dewy meadow compared to the Ferris wheel, though. Ferris wheels are torture devices for the height averse. You’d think that roller coasters would be far worse, with their violent dips and drops, but no; roller coasters are models of speed and control, and paradoxically I feel safe in their wind-whipping velocity. A Ferris wheel has no velocity. It’s slow. It’s clunky. It allows you to feel every micromovement, every cross-breeze and creak of its motor, and as passengers are loaded and your compartment reaches the top, it just stays there -- eerily still, swaying ever-so-slightly as the far-away Earth remains distant and unreachable. In those moments I chance a look down, and that’s when I start envisioning various scenarios, all ending with TV news reporters and a solemn-looking cleaning crew armed with mops and buckets. It’s awkward to have such dark thoughts at a venue that serves slushies in plastic alligator cups.

Nature brought us to this point. Human beings evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to be comfortable at a certain height, and then whammo, during the past century or so we’ve seen the rise of towering skyscrapers, passenger flights, parachuters, base jumpers and the International Space Station. The species got vertical in a hurry, and frankly our brains haven’t had enough time to catch up. We’re still wired to be OK with a medium-sized tree. Anything higher than than and about a third of us, by some statistics, start to majorly spazz out.

Which makes Petit a freak of nature, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why people gather in large crowds to witness a good high-wire act -- it’s far more gutsy than anything we’d even think of attempting. People like Petit have got that little something extra, a biological override that allows them to do things we normal folks can’t. Conceivably, we’ll soon be able to swallow that kind of courage in pill form and start sprinting up ladders with wanton recklessness. The Ferris wheel won’t be so terrifying. And we can keep those oscillating fans in the backs of our closets.

A man can dream. In the interim, a man can crawl. It may look silly, but it never ends with a splat.

Over the top

My head felt like it was going to explode.

That’s what happens when your body is under an enormous amount of strain. My friend “Zippy” and I had been locked in an arm wrestling battle for what felt like an hour and a half, and it occurred to me that if I reached any deeper into my remaining energy supply I’d probably burst a vessel and collapse in a bloody mess. Zippy would have a kitchen to clean, several phone calls to make, and I’d have lost the match. This would not have been a favorable scenario for anyone involved. At least he would have gotten an epic story out of it: The time he killed his friend with the sheer force of his biceps.

Maybe that thought occurred to me in the moment, maybe it didn’t. I don’t really remember much except the fiery pain pulsing through the right side of my torso, the kind that usually signifies either a catastrophic heart attack or an especially greasy burrito. All I know is that our epic stalemate had to end, and if that involved my capitulation, well, I’d just have to live with it. Better than a compound fracture.

Relief washed over both our faces when I finally laid my hand down. We’d been arm wrestling for far longer than is normal, minute after excruciating minute, and the veins in our temples were throbbing alarmingly, seeming to communicate to each other in some weird biological Morse code: Stop it fellas, you’re being ridiculous.

It was the first and only time I’d ever hugged my opponent after an arm wrestling match. Usually when someone wins one of those things there’s a lot of macho posturing, a cavalcade of high-fives and fist bumps and testosterone-drenched grunts. Then someone cracks a celebratory beer or eats a slab of beef or something. Not this time. We bonded like locker room athletes or men at war, stronger as friends because we had survived something together, a test of wills. There may have been tears. Manly tears. Very very manly.

But that’s the problem with arm wrestling. It’s way more manly than any casual activity should be.

At some point, some guy -- I’m assuming it was a guy -- decided that this chest-pounding test of strength would actually be an acceptable way to pass the time. Apparently this guy was Egyptian; according to the Ultimate Armwresting League, paintings depicting a type of arm wrestling were discovered in Egyptian tombs dating to about 2000 B.C. So people have been doing this for a super long time, which may explain why it’s still so popular in frat houses and basement rec rooms. People are tapping into a primal need to pit their strength against someone else, to brag and flex and preen like a ’roided-out peacock.

Unfortunately, most of the people who engage in the sport recreationally fit a certain description: Young, drunk, and with fewer brain cells in their skull than there are Quakers at the North Pole. It’d be interesting to see statistics on how many emergency room visits are caused by arm wrestling-related injuries, although I imagine most of the people waiting to see a doctor have concocted some cover story that makes them seem less foolish. “It was the darndest thing, doc, I was rescuing a dog from a burning building and my humerus just snapped! It was a big dog -- German Shepherd. I swear!”

Not everyone’s like that, though. As the existence of the Ultimate Armwrestling League would suggest, it’s an actual sport, and its athletes take it pretty seriously. That’s where things get interesting. These aren’t college kids. They’re serious adults who train rigorously for these events, I assume by repeatedly lifting refrigerators filled with steel ball bearings.

A couple of years ago I used my privilege as a journalist to cover a regional armwrestling event that took place in Biddeford. Ostensibly this was for a story, but part of me was just curious, expecting to see some kind of circus-level freak show. Imagine my surprise when I saw a regulation table, pinstriped referees and a throng of amped-up female competitors, many of whom looked like they could have gone head-to-head with the men. This wasn’t a halfhearted throwdown in some dude’s kitchen. Add some stadium seating and a few spotlights and this could have been broadcast on ESPN, complete with its own theme music. Something heavy and fast, with a singer who sounds like he regularly bites the heads off live chickens.

It’s consistently amazing to me that so many alternate worlds run parallel to ours. While the rest of us commute to our office jobs and walk in parks and watch “Survivor,” there’s a whole universe out there in which hard-charging men and women do endless bicep curls at the gym so they can squash their opponents at regional semi-pro armwrestling events. I assume these people also eat a lot of steak. You don’t get muscles like that by eating Skittles.

Events like that put my cute little rivalry with Zippy into perspective. At the Biddeford event I saw what arm wrestling, in an ideal world, should be: a rigorous athletic competition in a bar that serves killer cocktails. There was nothing athletic or noble about what Zippy and I did. Our private showdown wasn’t about competition, it was about burning off excess testosterone and staking a claim to virility. Afterward we both felt a little foolish. Aside from hurting ourselves and flirting with serious injury, we hadn’t really accomplished anything of value. Without a trophy on the line the whole endeavor was a waste of both our times.

Besides, everyone knows the true test of manhood is premature balding and a foul mouth. Your move, Zippy. Your move.

Speakeasy

When I discovered I’d have to spend an entire semester doing public speaking, I just about soiled my knickers.

Autumn of my sophomore year of college would be a months-long heart attack if I couldn’t figure out how to overcome my stage fright, I realized. Public Speaking 101 was a required course, and even though I’d done some acting here and there, reciting pre-written dialogue is vastly different than firing something off extemporaneously. I’d have to be me. I’d have to research things and know stuff. I’d have to learn how to get through the first five minutes of every speech without fainting like a man in the throes of heatstroke. It was intimidating.

Unpleasant things I would rather have done include swallowing an entire package of frozen hot dogs; belly flopping onto a pile of jagged cinder blocks; and singing “I Feel Pretty” on a karaoke machine in front of a gathering of New England Patriots cheerleaders.

Fear of public speaking is pervasive among the general population, to the point where more people are afraid of getting up in front of a crowd than they are of dying. It’s a telling statistic. Society has basically said, “What, you want me to toast my brother and his new bride at their wedding? No thanks. I’d prefer suffering a massive coronary while hunting elk in Siberia.”

Everyone’s got their own reasons, I guess. Mine is shyness.

It’s tough being shy. We live in a society that rewards A-type personalities, those outgoing, conquer-the-world types who flash their bleached teeth at every stranger and turn them into a friend. A-types are like street-level celebrities, endowed with a gravitational pull that sucks people into their orbits, an ever-growing coterie of enraptured satellites. Life is set up for them to succeed, if they take advantage of it. Certain things become easier -- making friends, advancing in a career. If you’ve ever seen someone rocking the crowd at an open-mic poetry slam, without a whiff of awareness that their sonnets stink like muscle cream, well, that’s probably an A-type. They can do public speaking. They were made for it.

Shy folks, a generally misunderstood bunch from the start, have got it tougher. We keep to ourselves. We’re less bold. We have value -- we’re oozing with value, we have value leaking out of various bodily orifices -- but society tends not to acknowledge that value, at least not to the same degree. Our neurotic, eye-contact-avoiding, non-small-talk-making ways seem strange and off-putting to people, and we’re often dismissed as standoffish. Which is a hard label to avoid when you’d prefer to drink hot lava than make small-talk on an elevator with the UPS guy.

When a shy person finds out there’s no avoiding Public Speaking 101 -- no alternate courses, no academic-based witness protection program -- there’s a certain panic that sets in. “Public” and “speaking” are two words that induce anxiety even when they’re independent of each other; combined, they have a power like nuclear fusion, white hot and face-melting. If acting in a play is the equivalent of singing in the safety of a shower, raw public speaking is like singing a schmaltzy ballad under the cutting spotlights of Madison Square Garden. Naked. And strapped to a giant bullseye.

Things I’d rather do include juggling live grenades on a Tilt-a-Whirl; making small cuts all over my body with an X-Acto knife and swimming in a lake filled with lemon juice; and French-kissing a giraffe while an Armenian cover band plays “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.

Getting up in front of a crowd, for an introvert, requires an act of heroism that the A-types will never understand. This holds true even if the crowd in question is a small group of sleepy college students who frankly couldn’t give a crap how well you can command a room. A natural speaker stands in front of all those people and plays them like a musical instrument, running up and down scales just to show off. A person like me feels the weight of all those eyes, the burden of attention magnified through our neuroses, and no matter how well prepared we are, all our language and vocabulary liquefies in our brains. A cogent, eloquent opening statement comes out as, “Uhhhh…” This is right before our bladders fail.

Our instructor warned us not to memorize our speeches; better, he said, to break our presentation down into talking points and then speak in a more off-the-cuff manner. This comes across as more natural, he argued, and I totally saw his point. I also blatantly ignored it.

Using acting experience as a crutch, I wrote my first speech in a conversational style and memorized it word-for-word, rehearsing until I knew I could deliver it with a smooth and misleading charm. My classmates never knew that the person speaking to them wasn’t Jeff, per se, but a fictionalized version of Jeff,  a character created for the occasion: glib, polished and without the faintest whiff of comic book geekery.

What most people don’t know about the chronically shy is that they’re inventing characters like this all the time, going about their lives in what amounts to jungle camouflage. The smiling, chortling face that neighbors and coworkers see is oftentimes hiding a primal desire for solitude and silence. And in my case, a deep yearning for novels about werewolf slayers with square jaws and names like Brock.

So when Public Speaking 101 comes up on our course schedule, we invent ways to survive. We have to. It’s what we do.

Of course, things we’d rather do include scaling a cliff wearing a backpack filled with live tortoises; volunteering as a sparring partner for a boxer with anvils for hands; and doing a thousand jumping jacks on a bed of hot coals while being shot at by an epileptic sniper.

I fought the tablet, and the tablet won

Despite owning one, tablets are still largely a mystery to me. And no, I’m not talking about giant stone slabs, although frankly those would be more my technological speed. You don’t need a user manual when all you’re working with are a hammer, chisel and a chunk of rectangular rock.

It’s amazing how the very definition of the word “tablet” has changed so dramatically in recent years. For me, it once evoked images of Moses trudging down Mount Sinai with God’s commandments, finally providing his people some much-needed clarity on the whole murder issue. These days, a tablet is something you use to play “Candy Crush Saga” while waiting for your checkup at the dentist. Not quite as epic, I’d say.

That there’s now a tablet in my living room feels like a betrayal of some deeply held ideal. See, for years I was vehemently anti-tablet. I reckoned they were a time-waster, nothing but an oversized smartphone minus the ability to actually make calls. I bemoaned their contributions to dwindling attention spans, their forceful advancement of the virtual on everyday life. And I was right. People now fill every second of their downtime with touchscreen adaptations of Wheel of Fortune -- rather than, I dunno, sitting and thinking about stuff. Which people used to do.

Grudgingly, though, I came to admit that they can be useful. Sometimes. Ugh, I’m choking on the words.

My cautious acceptance of them began about a year ago, on a flight to Las Vegas. The two-leg trek out west was a lengthy one, and while I came prepared with the requisite book and Game Boy (yes, I still have a working one), a little variety is the best antidote for airline-inspired boredom. Prior to leaving, I thought I was really clever: I packed my laptop, reckoning I could just fire it up and surf the web, do some writing, maybe ask Google why suddenly I’ve had to trim my nose hair so damn much.

Soon after lifting off the ground at O’Hare in Chicago, I whipped out the trusty laptop, flipped up the screen … and then panicked. If you’ve ever sat in coach, you know how little space you have in front of you, and I quickly realized there wasn’t enough room to flip the screen up all the way. Instead of being open at a comfortable 100-degree angle, my machine was stuck at a useless 45 degrees. The only way I’d be able to see the screen was if I retracted my head into my body like a turtle and cut out eye slits in my chest cavity. Lacking the necessary surgical implements, this was out of the question.

At this point I had two options. I could admit defeat, tuck the laptop away and simmer in bitterness. Or I could fly into a rage, turn to the nice-looking man seated next to me, and punch him right in his nice-looking face. I chose the former. I think that was wise.

For the first time in my life I found myself thinking, “Boy, I sure could use a tablet right about now.” It would have been so perfect. How easy it would have been to lay it flat on the tray table in front of me and swipe and tap my way across the internet. If the mood had struck I could even have watched a movie on it -- one of my own instead of the dreadful fare they were showing on our tiny individual seat-back screens. Most of the airline’s offerings were box-office bombs starring once-famous sitcom stars with bad mustaches. I don’t know if you’ve flown the friendly skies lately, but they’re not exactly screening “Casablanca” on these things.

For my purposes, buying a tablet brand-new is pretty unjustifiable; I’d be shelling out hundreds of dollars for a seldom-used brick that can stream Stephen Colbert interviews and do little else. So to have one on hand for those rare moments of need, I decided to nab a used machine, thinking they couldn’t be that expensive. After all, we’re talking about a device that weighs less than a baby and boasts fewer features than a library copy of “Anna Karenina.”

Reality stinks. Even used, tablets often sell for $200 or more, which is money better spent on things that keep me alive, like groceries and Netflix. You’d think these contraptions were made out of solid gold and the tears of ancient dragons.

Short of robbing a jewelry store, starting a pyramid scheme or selling off my prized collection of Superman comic books, there were few things I could do to justify spending that kind of dough on a tablet. You don’t shell out 200 clams for something you anticipate using solely on airplanes, unless it’s a device that mutes the sounds of snoring coming from the narcoleptic dude who fell asleep on your shoulder five minutes after takeoff.

That’s what friends are for. A buddy of mine was looking to unload his and so I managed to snag one for cheap. Now all I have to do is mow his lawn for a month and iron his pleated khakis. That’s a fair trade, I guess.

Only now the tablet is mocking me. There it is on my coffee table, cackling, grinning devilishly as it plots to hook me on the two-dollar tap-and-swipe games in Google’s app store. “Soon.” it’s saying in its best Rod Serling voice. “Soon you’ll be whipping me out on your lunch break so you can check your Facebook feed and look up recipes for low-fat banana bread. Soon you’ll be face-timing with San Francisco tech geeks and shooting YouTube videos on a screen the size of a frying pan. Make no mistake, Lagasse: You will be mine.” It says all that and more, although that could just be the peyote talking.

Buyer’s remorse aside, it’s nice to have one lying around, just in case a need arises. If God ever gives me a new set of commandments, I’ll be able to carry them around a lot more easily than Moses did.