On heroes

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

So it’s 2 am, and I’m sitting on the bar of a pub somewhere in Cambridge, which is always a sad state of affairs. My rat in shining armour has apparently gone, which is even more of a tragic loss, quite frankly, and instead I’m talking to the largest boy scout I’ve ever met in my entire life.

No, literally, the largest. He’s the size of a mountain. I suspect his biceps are the same size as my waist and I’d bet good money that if I got him to strip, I could use his stomach to scrub socks on. Metaphorically, I’ve no idea how far his urge to save the world goes, and I’m not entirely sure I want to find out.

I cared for a hero once before, you see.

Still, I’m here, and he’s feeding me vodka, which means I listen as he talks, even as the conversation turns at last to the dead men we both remember.

"Moorcroft and Dominic were both good men,” he says, “and a sad loss to us. I can never fill their shoes, but somebody has to try."

Good men? God, I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. I remember Moorcroft staggering drunkenly out of a bar, covered in other men’s blood. My stomach still flips over a little when I remember that, and I get a stupid rush of wanting. He’s dead, Venice. Please remember that. And you left him before he died.

I raise an eyebrow, instead of laughing or crying. "Good men?” I say, “Really? The morality of you people never ceases to amaze me.”

He shakes his head again. "I wasn't talking about morally good - I meant that they were good at what they did. I don't think they were saints by any stretch of the imagination."

"Really? How very easily satisfied you must be."

I swallow my latest shot of vodka – Smirnoff’s as a side note. Predictable, but reliable – and think about Dominic and Moorcroft. "Dominic was a marvellous bully," I say "And Moorcroft...”

What the fuck can I say about Moorcroft?

“Moorcroft was the most peerless psychopath I've ever known. A perfect killer, without fear, doubt or conscience."

This latest hero looks a little taken aback by this, although I don’t know why. Has no one noticed how much heroism involves killing or hurting things? "Okay, so I didn't know that about Moorcroft,” he says “but I knew about Dominic. I don't intend on following either of those examples."

I blink. I’m sure that wasn’t what he said before.

"You are a remarkably fickle creature, you know," I comment, and now he looks even more confused.

"Fickle? No I'm not."

“You are!” I say. “I've been here less than ten minutes and you've already contradicted yourself. It's all very confusing for me. I'm currently so high I can barely see, and I'm somewhere on my sixth shot of vodka already. I'm really not mentally competent enough to keep up."

He considers this, with a ponderousness which makes me wonder whether he moves his lips when he reads. "Or maybe you're just getting confused about what I'm saying because you're drunk?" he offers

I shake my head.

"Inconceivable!” I say, with great determination, only to be floored by an unfortunate memory, which honesty compels me to add "although there was that one incident with the Bishop. But I really think I couldn't be expected to follow his particular meaning..."

"Which Bishop? You've lost me..." he says.

"The Bishop of Sunderland,” I say. He had a beard, I remember. “I was nineteen at the time” (and this is a lie. I was fifteen, but there’s a story there I don’t want to remember) “and I thought he meant I was literally the spawn of the devil, not some particularly melodramatic metaphor."

I shake my head mournfully at that memory. I never did get a penny out of that man because he said I couldn’t prove a thing.

"He made me bleed,” I say. That was when I started carrying handbags with hidden cameras in.

"He what?" the boy scout says, his voice raising. "Did you have him arrested? He can't do that!"

Frankly, I think I’m lucky he didn’t come after me. It’s surprisingly how much influence a Bishop has, and god knows he could have probably had me sectioned to make sure I was safely tucked away. I know he knew my psychiatrist at the time.

"Did I what?” I say. “Why on earth would I do that?"

"Because he hurt you. That's wrong..."

I do almost get a fit of the giggles at that. Is this boy even for real? "Oh, yes. Very wrong," I agree. "Especially the way he was doing it. There are entire sections of hell reserved for men like him."

I pour myself more vodka and return to the earlier topic of conversation before we can get entirely derailed by the sexual habits of the clergy. "So, darling,” I ask. “Do you want fill Moorcroft's shoes or be nothing like him? If you do want to be anything like him, I have an extensive video collection which could give you a few pointers..."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean, especially after your earlier comments about him,” the boy scout says, a little suspiciously. “He was a Hero. A defender of the Summer Court. They're the shoes I want to fill."

This is excruciating.

"Why on earth would you want to be that?" I ask.

"Because it's the right thing to do.,” he says. “Somebody's got to do it - why not me?"

No, this is beyond excruciating and the reality of my re-involvement with this particular little society of unhinged fairy story rejects is hitting me in the face like a Colombian’s fist.

"You know," I say, to no one in particular, "nowhere in the world outside of prep school cadet forces and the Escaped Fairy Love Slave Support Society does anyone ever have these conversations."

You know, I don’t think I like heroism. First of all, it’s always self aggrandizing, always selfish. Secondly, it’s always cruel, in a way. The hero slays the dragon. The dragon is dead. Poor reptilian bastard. I’ve always had a certain level of sympathy for bastards, you see. And finally, what good does it really do? Has a hero ever made the world a better place?

But what the hell business is it of mine anyway? We all make our choices, we all find our own way.

So I reach out and pat this enormous hunk of muscle and moral rectitude on the cheek.

"I am sure you'll be a perfectly marvellous hero, darling,” I say.