Agatha Christie's stories always revolved around character and motivation. What you see can be misleading. Evidence can be faked. It always came down to what people really were. The post I made recently about hordes of looters at one's home got me thinking about that and how it plays out.
A friend of mine had a life changing experience a few years ago. Circumstances provided the exercise. His fundamental unspun self gave it shape.
The dear boy has always been wound tighter than a five dollar watch. And he does things that just make you shake your head in disbelief. It gets him to some pretty strange places from corporate boardrooms to toxic squats. He seems to be perfectly at home in all of them.
He had a real rarity for many years, a 1000 square foot apartment in midtown Manhattan that cost him less than a dollar a rent controlled square foot. It housed a publishing business, a small machine shop and a degree of clutter that makes me look like a neat-freak with severe toilet training issues.
One day he was using some pretty harsh solvents to clean off a mess in his kitchen while he was cooking something in the oven. The oven was leaky. The fumes and dripping chemicals combined explosively. The apartment was cleverly laid out so that the gas shutoff was behind the stove.
My friend could have run. The walls were concrete. The building would not have burned down. But he staid and fought the fire with fire extinguishers, salt and sand until the fire department got there.
They took him away to the burn ward where he spent the next several months under sedation and many more recovering from injuries which will never really get better.
The point is, he stayed and fought. When there was no time and it all hit the fan at once he found out what he was and what that would make him do. I'm not surprised at the choice although I regret the damage. It follows inevitably from what I've known about him for the last twenty years.
A little while back I was trying to get him his "citizenship papers", i.e. a gun once he moved out of NYC for good. My good friend and first Silat teacher had just met the guy and said "Get him a rifle. If you got brother ------- a pistol he'd just beat someone to death with it instead of shooting them." Yep, a born fighter.
A friend of mine had a life changing experience a few years ago. Circumstances provided the exercise. His fundamental unspun self gave it shape.
The dear boy has always been wound tighter than a five dollar watch. And he does things that just make you shake your head in disbelief. It gets him to some pretty strange places from corporate boardrooms to toxic squats. He seems to be perfectly at home in all of them.
He had a real rarity for many years, a 1000 square foot apartment in midtown Manhattan that cost him less than a dollar a rent controlled square foot. It housed a publishing business, a small machine shop and a degree of clutter that makes me look like a neat-freak with severe toilet training issues.
One day he was using some pretty harsh solvents to clean off a mess in his kitchen while he was cooking something in the oven. The oven was leaky. The fumes and dripping chemicals combined explosively. The apartment was cleverly laid out so that the gas shutoff was behind the stove.
My friend could have run. The walls were concrete. The building would not have burned down. But he staid and fought the fire with fire extinguishers, salt and sand until the fire department got there.
They took him away to the burn ward where he spent the next several months under sedation and many more recovering from injuries which will never really get better.
The point is, he stayed and fought. When there was no time and it all hit the fan at once he found out what he was and what that would make him do. I'm not surprised at the choice although I regret the damage. It follows inevitably from what I've known about him for the last twenty years.
A little while back I was trying to get him his "citizenship papers", i.e. a gun once he moved out of NYC for good. My good friend and first Silat teacher had just met the guy and said "Get him a rifle. If you got brother ------- a pistol he'd just beat someone to death with it instead of shooting them." Yep, a born fighter.
