Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Undeveloped monster


There was a bloke in my social circle with the worst case of unexamined rage I've ever known. He moved among polite middle class people secure in the knowledge that when they gathered he could encourage himself with massive doses of alcohol and start flailing, first with verbal abuse and then (depending on how reptilian he got) all out physical harm. He did it this way because he knew two things: all those well reared folk would forgive him through fear and a little middle class guilt and; he wouldn't remember any of it once he emerged from his hangover. No one approached him with the notion that this behaviour was effectively criminal and wouldn't be tolerated. It was always tolerated.

Most people are the same when they get drunk. They just get slower, repetitive and boring. I do. This guy went from being an affable part of the convivium to a violent cretin in a shockingly short space of time. If you knew what was going to happen, watching him drink was like seeing Popeye down a can of spinach and suddenly burst into a musclebound  proto-Hulk. I never did a story about this as I think it was just too close to people who might have been upset by it but the idea worked. He'd be a kind of super anti-hero. His head started as a brick and became a brick wall.

Didn't even name him. Well, here he is.

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