There’s something strangely familiar about this man. He is muttering to himself about airports and heavy snow.
“There’s going to be a wintry atmosphere starting tomorrow,” he says in a loud monotone, shaking his head. “If you want more information about your luggage, you must report to carousel three, Report to carousel three!” he repeats with a bellow of laughter. People in the hotel lobby turn round in surprise, then smile as they recognize the shuffling gait and large bespectacled head of Kim Peck. Here in Salt Lake City, USA, the 53-year-old is a local hero.
“You know the film Rain Man,” says Kim’s father Fran. “Well this,” he motions towards his son, “is Rain Main.”
The Oscar-winning role played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1988 film, about an autistic savant with astounding arithmetical skills, is indeed based on Kim Peek (among other), although Kin is not autistic but developmentally disabled. Most savants possess remarkable expertise in up to three subjects. Kim is a mega-savant, because he is expert in at least 15 different subjects.
No one in the world is thought to possess a brain a extraordinary as Kim Peek’s. NASA is hoping to use modern advances in brain imaging and data fusion techniques to shed light on how Kim’s brain ticks.
I ask Kim what he feels about it. “It’s the best way of all,” he replies enigmatically. Why does he think he knows so much? “I have great love for everybody I see,” he answers. It is hard to hold a conversation with Kim. His mind flits from one subject to the next with bewildering rapidity – with Fran always trying to steer Kim back on course.
I tell them I grew up near a town called Cirencester. “It was a Roman camp, called Corin,” says Kim. “Corinium,” I correct him. Later I check and find that he is right: the Romans based the name Corinium on the Celtic word Corin.
When Kin was born in 1951, his head was a third larger than normal, with an encephalocele – a blister into which part of his brain protruded – across the back of his head. At the age of three the blister retracted, pulling a nodule into Kim’s cerebellum, destroying most of it. In 1983 he had an x-ray which showed that he had one solid brain hemisphere, instead of two. A later scan showed that the right half of Kim’s cerebellum had exploded into three pieces.
None of this explains Kim’s abilities, but they explain his disabilities. He has severe motor deficiencies and needs help bathing and brushing his teeth. “He dresses himself,” explains Fran, “and I basically redress him because his shirt is on backwards.”
After Kim’s birth, doctors labeled Kim a “retard” and advised his parents to put him in a children’s home. Instead his parents took him home and introduced him to books. When, aged three, he asked his father what “confidential” meant, Fran jokingly told him to look it up in the dictionary. “He couldn’t walk.” Says Fran, “so he put his head down and crawled over to the desk, pulled himself up and about 30 seconds later said, ‘I’ve found it.” At four and a half he had memorized the first eight volumes of an encyclopedia set. Recently it was discovered that each of his eyes can read a separate paperback page simultaneously, absorbing every word in about ten second – and he never forgets it.
Today, because I am with him, his mind is on all things British. He spouts large sections of Shakespeare and Dickens at me and names the kings and queens. When I ask him if he knows who had the shortest reign and who the longest, he replies without hesitation: “Edward V was the shortest and Victoria latest 63 years, seven months and to days.”
Kim loves music and has started playing the piano with Dr. April Greenan of Utah University. “He has musical abilities that are phenomenal and go beyond memorization.” Dr. Greenan tells me. “For example, Kim will have heard a recording of a symphony once as a boy – he’ll hear it again at the age of 53 and if there’s a mistake, he will note it.”
Until a chance meeting with Barry Morrow, the screenwriter of Rain Man, Kim seldom dared to look another person in the face. It was Dustin Hoffman who urged Fran to take him out into the world. At first Fran was reluctant, fearing that Kim would be a freak show. Now they travel around the US and Kim addresses schools and clubs. They accept no fees, only traveling expenses.
Social contact has transformed Kim. He has developed a marked sense of humour and loves meeting people. Physically, he can be a bit intimidating.
Fran dreads the moment when he can no longer look after Kim. “We’ve already asked the local assisted-living centre, who’d love to have him. Kim doesn’t reason so he really can’t tell me how he feels about things. I have to guess at that.”
Like everyone else, Fran is eager to find out what the scientists make of Kim’s brain. But he says that whatever they discover, his son’s greatest asset is his loving nature. “It is only since Rain Man that Kim’s mind became connected to his heart,” says Fran. “Now I think his heart is bigger than his brain.”
Helena De Bertodano
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