I had this buddy named Chris that was on the collegiate path with me through junior high and early high school. He was easily one of the most brilliant minds I've ever met. He's this 5'5'' Irish guy capable of benching a small house, and somewhere during puberty his Irish Genes kicked in and he became a stereotypical Irish street hoodlum. He dropped out of high school, and started deliberately starting fights with people in the streets just to see their reaction. I'd occasionally get dragged along (I was an inveterate hanger-out-with-the-wrong-crowd at that age) and would have to literally DRAG him home after he got beat down a few times.
So anyway, about age 17 he decided to move to Ashland, Oregon, to become a Shakespearean festival actor. He's a really great actor, and has the looks to BE a great actor, and I didn't hear from him for a few years. I get done with the first two years of my degree and come home for a few months to recuperate, and there he is, back in the hometown beating people up for fun and profit. Only this time he's dressed like a deranged English professor, complete with tweed jacket, pipe and hornrimmed glasses. He's DELIBERATELY dressing like a nerd now in order to get people to start fights with him.
ANYWAY, so another few years go by, and I keep up a fairly regular email correspondance with Chris, and come to learn more about his personal life, which he kept pretty quiet. Apparently he had sired five kids with five women in three years, and was now in Idaho with a tattoo on his chest reading "Fuck the KKK" in order to start fights with Neo-Nazis. It's like his entire life had just become Fight Club, and that nothing in his existence was better than beating people up. Weird thing is, the more I realize this, the entire time I've known him he's been egging me on to beat him up. It's like some sort of bizarre sexual thing to him, he gets beat up, and then goes home and fucks his girlfriend, gets her knocked up, and moves on.
Anyway, time finally caught up with him. He made the mistake of getting the wrong girl pregnant. Apparently he started dating a daughter/relative/something of the Japanese Aum cult (subway gassers, remember?) and the government has declared him a terrorist. So, he had to marry this chick and move to Japan for citizenship, and got deported. He's teaching English in Japan currently. Whenever I talk to him, he seems like a broken man, but apparently he's found this underground thing in Japan LIKE Fight Club, only disturbingly kinkier. These guys beat the living snot out of each other and then go to the bath house together. His wife doesn't care at all what he does in his spare time as long as he pays the bills and doesn't ignore the child.
Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.
I recall a few times he actually DID try to get me to beat him up, and every time I talked out of it. He was flirting with me the whole damn time.
― true story, Thursday, 21 July 2005 21:46 (twenty years ago)