JW from North Carolina: The Man Who Knows It All (Or So He Thinks)
In a quiet corner of North Carolina, where the pines stretch tall and the summers hum with cicadas, lives a man known simply as JW. To the folks in his small town—let’s call it Pinewood, nestled somewhere between Raleigh and the coast—JW is a familiar figure. He’s the guy at the gas station counter who’ll tell you why your truck’s engine is making that noise, even if he’s never popped a hood in his life. He’s the one at the diner who’ll explain the federal budget over a plate of biscuits and gravy, though his numbers don’t quite add up. JW is, in short, a man convinced he’s the smartest person in any room—and sometimes, that conviction tips over into a fault-line of arrogance that’s hard to ignore.
JW’s no stranger to the locals. At 38, with a patchy beard and a wardrobe of faded ball caps, he’s spent most of his life in Pinewood. He works odd jobs—handyman gigs, a stint at the hardware store, a summer driving a delivery truck—but none of them stick. “I’m too smart for that grunt work,” he’ll say, leaning back in a lawn chair outside his double-wide, a can of Natty Light in hand. “I’m meant for bigger things.” What those bigger things are, nobody’s quite sure, least of all JW himself. But he’s got opinions aplenty, and he’s not shy about sharing them.
Take last Fourth of July, for instance. The town gathered at the lake for fireworks, and JW decided it was the perfect time to hold court. “Y’all know these displays are a waste of tax money,” he declared, loud enough to cut through the chatter. “I could rig something twice as good with a couple Roman candles and some duct tape.” When a retired engineer pointed out the safety codes and physics involved, JW waved him off. “Book smarts don’t mean real smarts,” he said, tapping his temple. The crowd rolled their eyes, but JW didn’t notice—he was too busy scanning for nods of approval that never came.
It’s not that JW’s dumb. Far from it. He’s got a knack for trivia, the kind that wins bar bets—like knowing the state bird (the Northern Cardinal) or rattling off the starting lineup of the ’96 Tar Heels. He’s quick with a comeback, too, and can talk circles around folks who don’t know better. But there’s a gap between what JW knows and what he thinks he knows, and it’s in that gap where the trouble lies. Ask him about climate change, and he’ll tell you it’s a scam cooked up by “coastal elites,” ignoring the flooding that’s crept closer to Pinewood each year. Bring up politics, and he’ll lecture you on the Constitution like he’s James Madison reincarnated, even if his take’s more Fox News than Founding Fathers.
The arrogance, though, is what really gets people. Like the time he decided to “fix” his neighbor’s Wi-Fi. Miss Clara, a sweet 70-year-old widow, had been complaining about her slow internet. JW swaggered over with a toolbox and a smirk. “These tech companies are ripping you off,” he said. “I’ll have it running like NASCAR in ten minutes.” An hour later, Clara’s router was in pieces, her password was lost, and JW was blaming the “cheap equipment” while she quietly called her grandson to undo the mess. “I don’t need thanks,” JW told her as he left, though she hadn’t offered any.
His friends—well, the ones who still tolerate him—say JW wasn’t always like this. Back in high school, he was just a loudmouth with potential, decent grades, and a dream of moving to Charlotte to “make it big.” But life has a way of wearing down dreams in a place like Pinewood, and JW’s response was to double down on his own hype. “He’s overcompensating,” his buddy Travis says over a beer at the VFW. “Thinks if he talks loud enough, nobody’ll notice he’s still here.”
Not everyone minds, of course. Some find JW entertaining, like a one-man reality show. Others pity him, sensing the insecurity beneath the bluster. And a few—like the cashier at the Piggly Wiggly who’s heard his “I could run this place better” rant one too many times—just wish he’d hush up. But JW keeps going, a North Carolina legend in his own mind, barreling through life with the confidence of a man who’s never met a mirror he didn’t like.
Will JW ever figure out he’s not quite the genius he imagines? Maybe. There’s talk he’s been eyeing an online course in coding—“the future’s in computers,” he says—though he’s already griping about the “dumb instructions.” For now, Pinewood’s stuck with him, flaws and all: a man too proud to see his limits, too stubborn to care, and too JW to be anyone else.
