“I think someone should just take this city and just… just flush it down the fuckin’ toilet.” –Travis Bickle
You live in a city long enough and it’ll get to you. Love it, hate it, whatever. Could be any city in the world. Sooner or later, it’ll just get under your fucking skin. Some people can deal with that. Other people go crazy. But Rufus Terrill has turned into Travis Bickle.
It’s not uncommon.
He’s made a robot that patrols the city streets, armed with big red lights, a megaphone that Terrill shouts through and a water cannon on a spinning turret. And this former marine uses all of this to scare the local junkies and vagrants. He runs unsuccessful political campaigns. People say the robot is a prop.
It’s not. I’ve seen this madness before.
There was a guy hovering around my workplace either last summer or the summer before. A local kung-fu instructor. He too turned into Travis Bickle.
It started harmlessly enough. He attended neighborhood meetings where he ranted. People agreed with him. He started going door to door, annoucing a political campagin. Sounded reasonable. A bit of a crackpot and a bit angry but sane. Then he started picking fights in alleys.
He was just as crazy as any of the other crazies.
I saw him one day following some poor woman up the street screaming that she should get a job. He was absolutely out of his mind. Guys like this have a problem. They need help. As they go progressively more berserk, they lose the public support they first had, and then they get lonely and go even more berserk.
It happens.
I can understand it. Like I said, the city gets to you.
And we all have crazy thoughts. Shit, when I hear a screaming kid, some part of me thinks about kicking it and some other part likes the idea. Whenever I pass a woman I assess her as a fuck and when I pass a man I assess him as a fight. It’s just the background noise from the reptile brain. Not to be taken seriously. But it’s there.
With a guy like this, some of that background noise has gotten too loud. He’s started paying too much attention to the voices. Next thing you know, he’s on a mission. And it won’t end well. We many never hear about what happens next but it won’t be good. Not for this guy, not for his friends and not for his family.
I hope he gets better. I don’t think he will.
