I have a friend. Let's call him Dan.
He clearly has issues. He has struggled with concepts such as right and wrong, and when to stop being tough and when to show more empathy. Following some major incidents that happened in our final year of secondary school, he became very passive about his issues, almost like he would now "run with it" and see where he ended up. Dan used to spend his life trying to latch onto "stronger" people, "smarter" people and basically anyone who can be some sort of mentor or idol. I've convinced him that I'm not this person, and that certain things would leave me way out of my depth.
He's given me detailed accounts of the events that transpired during secondary school. There was much speculation regarding what went on, and what his motives were, but the version he has given me makes much more sense than any other. I don't know if he has told anyone else.
We went to a Catholic school, and there was one lunch time where the inside of the school was pretty much deserted. During a week of summer weather, most students were taking advantage of the sunshine and were frolicking on the school field. The Deputy Headmaster summoned Dan to his office and declared that they were "going somewhere." Dan followed.
He led him down the corridor, past the chapel and into the PE block. There were was only one entrance into the block from the outside, two double doors that had a bolt on one side. Dan followed the Deputy through these and gestured him into the sports hall. He told him "Ian wants to talk to you. I don't know what he wants, and I won't be watching or listening to any of this."
The Deputy bolted the doors to the PE block and also locked Dan in the sports hall, and then apparently disappeared into the changing rooms.
Now, because of some of Dan's "antics" leading up to this moment, he was now getting worried. The Deputy sounded extremely ominous when he said those words, and Ian wasn't alone, but accompanied and part of a crew of about twenty lads.
Although he wasn't just worried, he was also excited. I told you...Dan had massive issues, and this meant he often wrestled with conflicting emotions.
Some of Dan's demons had manifested in the months leading up to this moment in the sports hall. The things that he had said had become sicker and sicker until many students and even staff had decided that the situation was untenable. He couldn't be officially punished by the school or any other authority because he was so clever with how he worded things. Everything was implied, never directly stated and he was an expert at preventing people from achieving a position of moral high-ground over him.
Dan had baited several of the toughest lads in our year group, declaring them "vaginas" and "wimps." He was attacked in the corridors several times. He would often spend his journey between classrooms in head-locks, or receiving body shots or blows to the head. It's a school, though, and things were often quelled before getting too out of hand.
The situation wore on. Dan's baiting of people got worse and worse. He started making veiled threats to girls now, referring to banned movies where the female protagonist was raped and tortured. The way he sat there and explained these films, he would say everything with a loving caress in his voice. It was clearly compelling, because people sat and listened. Needless to say, the girls in the year group were terrified of him, and he would relish their reactions to all of this. Dan was never treat that nicely by the girls, even before all of this. He was weak, difficult to get on with, had a superiority complex and was always bitter about lack of positive attention and social feedback.
I had suggested to Ian, one day, that all the things Dan was doing were cries for help. There were desperate bids for attention, and that maybe he should be approached from that angle. We both tried. We failed. We got a faculty member involved, a lady who worked with students who had behavioral problems. She failed. Apparently Dan spent every one of their talks either sullen, laughing at her or interrupting her with descriptions of scenes from a particularly disturbing banned movie which I won't name.
Other kids around the school were starting to call him The Devil, and he was getting an infamous reputation. The worrying part was, he didn't seem to enjoy it. The star power he acquired was never used. We decided, therefore, that he wasn't behaving this way for attention.
Dan watched the other lads in the sports hall, who were still pretending that nothing was happening. Some of them were sat on the floor near the fire doors, playing music on their slide-phones. Some were playing basketball and some were just stood around staring at the floor. One or two of them gave the game away. They would look at Dan, and then quickly look away. He knew a storm was threatening.
I was one of those sat next to the fire exit. Around fifteen minutes prior to Dan arriving in the sports hall, Ian told me about the last thing Dan had said to him. He had apparently told him that if he got the school involved again, he would "leave him scarred for life" before reciting various facts about how blade manufacturers make their products superior to the competition.
The next song was played by me. I had a flashlight application on my phone that used the bulb next to the camera lens. I chose The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter and remember watching Dan begin walking towards Ian. The lights above were switched off in sequence, the last one to go out was the one directly above the center circle, where Dan was now stood. I remember his sneering face vanish into the darkness for a moment before I pointed my flashlight toward him. He was standing dead still except for that he was licking his lips with the enthusiasm of an ecstasy addict.
Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away...It's just a shot away!
Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away...It's just a shot away!
The conversation that occurred next was between Dan and Ian, supplemented with shouts of agreement whenever Ian said something. Ian was stood facing Dan, flanked by two other lads. It consisted of the usual verbal jousting that Dan used to love, and I was getting annoyed that Ian was falling for it. There was one thing that Dan said, that has stuck with me to this day.
"You've already beaten me countless times. You've threatened to do worse. You've threatened to attack my parents house and you've almost never come good on anything you've said. You are feeble and definitely not the hard-man you think you are. There's nothing else you can do to me, that you haven't already done...is there?"
Now this has stuck in my head because of the way he said it. The way he asked that question...his tone was not mocking...but excited. And the look on his face. I pointed the beam directly at it, expecting to see his usual ice-cold lack of expression, but he looked almost...well...friendly.
The Rolling Stones song was now at a guitar solo that was quickly fading into silence. One of the lads behind me was clearly not relishing the tension, and he asked me to shine the light at the basket. He took his set-shot from inside the three-point line, and it was a swish. A fine shot.
What was of interest to me about Dan's change in demeanor seemed to escape the other lads. It seemed to escape everyone. They proceeded to beat him senseless. All I could hear was scuffling noises, the sound of knuckles impacting on flesh, yells of pain and the sound of Dan getting thrown to the floor several times. They didn't strike him in the head that often. The plan was to not knock him out cold, but to beat the **** out of his body.
I remember how humid the sports hall felt when I shined the beam at Dan hobbling towards the fire exit, and the sound of quick breathing from the retribution squad. The most notable thing, though, was Dan's childish laughter. He'd just been beaten black and blue and he's laughing like he'd just shared some jovial banter with all of us. One of the smaller lads kicked Dan in the rear, which made him fall through the fire exit rather spectacularly.
He wasn't seen for a couple of weeks.
I don't know what was said behind closed doors. The Deputy Headmaster never said anything about it, nor did he or any of our little squad get into any trouble. It seemed that Dan never told his parents or anyone anything.
Dan didn't make much attempt to speak to anyone for the last few weeks of school. Me and the others had drawn a line under it, but no satisfying conclusions. His social isolation continued throughout the summer, until we started college last year.
I had been meeting Dan on the sly with one of my other friends. My friend was called Scott, and he didn't know about anything that happened back in our old school. As far as he was concerned, Dan was just someone who we smoked with. We used to smoke socially, but Dan's habit was different. He'd become dependent.
These merry little meetings had to come to an end though. Dan started doing the same things he did in school. He began scaring girls on purpose again, and he also got into several fights during which he didn't return a single punch. His nose is permanently crooked now, and he has a scar inside his mouth where a blow to the face made him bite into his own cheek.
I got a phone call from Dan recently where he pleaded with me to come and visit him. He lives in a council tower block. I decided to go round and take some smoke for us both. I did feel sorry for him. I'm also the only one who would bother with him.
What was weird about this time, though, was that he told me to meet him on the roof. You aren't supposed to go on the roof, obviously, but he told me that he spent quite a bit of time up there nowadays. I took the lift to the top floor and found the access ladder he described to me.
It was chilly up there, and the wind made it difficult for me to light up. I did, though. We both needed to smoke. Dan especially. He was in tears. Often incoherent. Sometimes pleading with me. Whenever I tried to lift his spirits he looked at me with this repulsion on his face. I didn't get it. And then it all got a little scary. He started talking, at length about how clever he was, and declared himself God and "absolutely invincible."
He was pacing backwards and forwards, a spring in his step one minute, and a shrunken, beaten vibe about him next. The changes in his emotions were quick, alarming and I made to leave. But he stopped me.
Turns out, Dan is an exceptional fighter. I don't know where he learned to fight, but every time I swung for him, all I hit was air. Every time I ran at him, he casually stepped aside. The only time he hurt me was with a judo flip in which I collided with the floor rather harshly. He got me in a hold which he told me that police use to restrain people. He did all of this intoxicated.
He let me go, and began drifting rather close to the rail for my liking. This was all getting too surreal and I was now feeling more and more uneasy.
"Why do you do it?" I asked him.
"Do what?"
"You spend your life trying to turn people against you. You've probably never lifted a finger to hurt anyone in your life, yet you always frighten people with this crap that you keep coming out with."
He looked momentarily hurt, but then began smiling at me. It was horrific. He looked genuinely pleased with himself.
"And why do you keep baiting lads into hitting you, and then roll over without hitting back?"
Dan wouldn't answer for a while. He ignored me while he rolled another cigarette, and he took ages with it.
"Are you trying to toughen yourself up for something?"
"No. I'm a masochist."
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And that was just that. I don't really know what to do because I'm definitely not going to indulge this need of his, and yet I'd feel bad and worried leaving him to his own devices.
Put the internet to work for you.
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