Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event — Excerpt
As is becoming exceedingly important to me, I need to state that context is everything.
The following is something that I wrote for the protagonist of my third novel about a month ago and shared with my partner while drunk. It was amusing at the time because the ideology of the character was something I found highly immature (despite his expected age of mid-to-late 30s), but that worked for him as his main modus operandi is to avoid scrutinising his behaviour in a way that might make him a better person.
The scene is set after he (Leonard) and his co-worker (Phillip) have finished a shift in which Phillip was assaulted by someone he doesn’t know. Leonard is so deeply, badly, stuck in a dead end job that he hates/loves, with no way out of it. Phillip is still young but a sullen, metal-obsessed outsider.
“Of course, we get paid to do this job but we don’t get paid to be treated like shit.” I continued. “If someone punches you in the face, make the assessment of whether you can hit them back and then go one of two ways: hit them hard or compose yourself and have some self-respect while they kill you.”
He laughed, I actually made Phillip laugh.
“I don’t know. It just feels like I am never going to win.”
“You aren’t. Things are only going to get worse and the only thing you can do is stick a middle finger up at the part of the world that deserves it.”
“Is that how you live your life then?”
I hesitated. He got me on that one. Emboldened by the beer I went for it:
“No, I am the biggest coward you will ever know. I fucking hate almost everyone and you should too.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, first off, Metal fucking sucks.” I got another laugh from him. “But the truth is that everyone already hates you. You are white, so you are racist, are you straight?”
Phillip nodded.
“Well, that means you’re homophobic; you’re definitely sexist and you’re sure as fuck prejudiced to a bunch of other people too.” I got to the end of my drink. “And by just being you, you’re making things worse. Want to understand how it’s worse? White, straight, rich men, hate you too and want you to hate everyone else so that you’ve no fucking idea.”
“Fuck everyone.” Phillip smiled.
“Obviously, sorry to get political, but we’re at the bottom of a fucking barrel where we’re held accountable for all the world’s wrongs while being encouraged to make them worse.” I slurped at what was left in the dregs of my glass. “What’re you doing now?”
“I have to go home.”
“Maybe next time then.”
The character in this novel pretty much motivates himself with that logic: ‘fuck everyone because they don’t know how tough I have it’. There is supposed to be some tempering, a lingering self awareness in there somewhere — hence the almost throw away line at the end where he implies it is at the hands of rich elite that this confusion and entitlement is encouraged. The thing is, the main character isn’t quite as clever as he thinks and isn’t good enough with his oratory skills for him to convey that most important part of the puzzle — he isn’t enlightened he is a victim as well.
Society has often been described as a crab barrel, in which the crabs crawl over each other to try and get out, with no regard for the people below them. There is no hope for the crabs getting out of the barrel but they still smother those below them in the attempts that they make. Leonard is one of those crabs, so is Phillip (he just doesn’t know it yet) and by crawling over their fellow people they are continuing the problem.
I wrote it a month ago and it feels even more relevant now.
