Weekly Short Story Review: Nobody Bothers Gus by Algis Budrys

Nobody Bothers Gus, a short story by Lithuanian-American science fiction writer Algis Budrys, appeared in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #17 (1955), (DAW Books, 1988).  In it a middle-age man, Gus Kusevic, looks back on his life, humanity, and his place in it as a government clerk services him notice that his property has been condemned to build a freeway over it.  It quickly becomes clear that Gus is not an ordinary person...in fact, he considers himself to be one of a new species.  And why?  He can manipulate reality in front of him to make anything work out in his favor.  This genetic variation has produced a side effect, in the interests of survivability.  After all, inevitably society would regard a "superman" such as Gus to be a great danger and try to destroy him...along with anyone else sharing his traits.  So Gus also has the burden of automatically producing something he calls the "damping field" that causes anyone to ignore and forget him and anything he has ever done.  Being simultaneously supremely gifted for greatness and cursed with never being recognized...even as just an "ordinary Joe"...can serve to create a very cynical outlook on life.  From time to time in his life Gus has noticed others who seem to be like him, including an ace baseball pitcher who has broken practically every record in the sport but whom nobody seems to remember...

Like any very good tale, there is some significant allegory here.  A lot of folks would love to be able to accomplish great things in their lives, and an integral component of this desire is the fame and respect they would receive as a result.  But, at least for me, striving and being publicly successful at endeavors has created little positive recognition and quite a lot of negative feedback from others who suffer from insecurity, jealousy, or other irrational hang-ups.  So there is my own personal "damping field" I have to contend with, as apparently I ended up learning how to make myself less visible to others.  And I think, as is the case with Gus watching that pitcher on TV, that there are other people in the exact same boat as myself...