My Favorite Character

(this post has nothing to do with Sudden Cardiac Arrest.  Sometimes, it just doesn’t).

I read a lot.  I see a lot of movies.  I get out some.  So I meet characters.  Introducing D.

D has an extraordinarily well crafted persona, carefully and consciously constructed, far beyond what most of us attempt.   This persona is not casual; it has a job to do.   Most of us put some polish on our personalities, we smooth our rough edges.  If the analogy is to a woman putting on makeup, most of us slap it on, spend 5 minutes and a quick check to make sure the lipstick is in the general vicinity of the lips.  But D – he'd stand before the mirror for hours; he tests different combinations, he plays with shadings, he knows his angles.   This is serious business, this persona.

The finished product is so carefully and skillfully constructed that it’s nearly invisible.  Meet the persona: the man most often described as a great guy, a charmer, fun to go out with, women adore him, he is invited to parties.  Above all else, he is affable.  Seriously.  Many of us strive for honorable, admirable, or at least worthy of respect – this man has aimed for affable. And he made it.  He’s never been in a fist fight, he’s never been arrested.  He doesn't argue, he won’t confront.  But of course, the problem is that he won’t confront anywhere – not other people and not his resident demons.  Everyone knows him, everyone likes him, no one respects him, he has no genuine friends.  

He lives a unique, sloppy life with more failures than successes, but the failures destroy only him; no-one else is harmed.  He has failed to manage money, failed to control alcohol in his life, failed to stay solvent,  he has failed to sustain any relationship.  He has failed to develop the skills to cope and prevail when faced with life’s curveballs.  Instead, he reacts as he did at 15 – he drinks and runs, runs and drinks.    

His friends have largely fallen away; they have moved to adult lives with homes, wives, children, jobs.  D now has buddies instead of friends, and those buddies seem to become a little younger each year.  Instead, D interacts most easily now with teens; they still think he is cool.  High-schoolers, maybe college.  Just the boys.  Not the girls.  He’s not a pervert.  Though there may be a thing about feet. 

When we first get to know and enjoy him, it’s because he’s bright, witty, self-deprecating in a light-touch way, enormously charming with a kindness that he doesn't see as the exceptional rarity it is.  (He is a mess, but he is extraordinarily kind).  Initially, knowing him is pure pleasure.  It’s fun; he's fun.  Then of course,  he inadvertently reveals bits and we begin to see the wreckage. One bit at a time.  Various forms and shapes of bankrupt. 

This is him at his worst.  In the sober light of day -- he remembers that he has let down the guard.  Even an inch is too much.  Fear and self-loathing crash out from the persona’s armor.  He tries to corral them the only way he knows how.  More running.  More drink.  Binging.  Scotch in the morning.  Nothing works.  Cracks turn into fissures - all over the persona.  Panic.

Whoever has seen the bits, D erases them from his life. Delete. Even if he loves them.  He cannot bear it.  The reflective shame is too much.  He will happily abandon love to escape that shame and loathing. 

These are D's worst days - this onslaught of panic, shame, despair. He knows only one way; this is not multiple choice; no A, B, C or D.  He doesn’t think it through, he doesn’t talk it out,  he doesn’t write to find clarity, he seeks no counsel.  He sees only one door. Full tilt run;  he doesn’t know how to stay.   He can’t.  He runs;  he is gone. He is alone again, but he is relieved.  Safe.

On a sober day, or in a sober hour, he knows his life is wrecked.  He knows the booze is ruinous; it is both cause and effect of all the other failures, and he knows this.  He knows that his life now consists of waiting for the next disaster, and he knows it’s around the bend.  The only mystery left is what form it will take.

He’ll never have a woman in his life again.  Not really.  Catch-22.  He tried a heavy drinker and it turned to disgust.  Over time, she disgusted him; she was him.  And he has had non-drinkers - that is a simple impossibility for him now.  

This disaster is my favorite character. It defies description how far short he sells himself.   Life is a mystery.