“We’re not talking about bad people here. My local isn’t some evil den of iniquity, it’s just a place where people like to have a drink and a laugh.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be evil, but it should be a den if its decent, because it’s healthy to get unhealthy, and banter is fun. But there’s a line between laughing at someone’s expense and bullying them. Playground bullies cross it by manipulating others to join in, and drunk people are way easier to manipulate than sober ones, especially if there’s a chance they’ll be excluded from the group if they don’t play along.”
“I haven’t been bullied. I’m too big for that remember. Although… well this is going to sound weird, but it happened a couple of years ago, and is childish enough to fit your playground bully description. Have you ever seen the show ‘Community’?”
“I don’t watch reality TV.”
“Ah, it’s an American comedy. Very meta, loads of movie references. Used to be funny before it meta’d itself.”
“Meta often feels too ‘cool for school’ for my taste. Always seemed the guys who acted ‘cool’ were the ones who really weren’t.”
“Still works like that. So anyway…”
Being a film buff Jack loved a show packed with a million movie references and he recommended his latest discovery to his friends. One of those supposed friends named himself after the ‘cool’ guy in show, Jeff Winger, even memorising lines and aping the character’s affectations. He played on his new-found iceman status to belittle Jack by renaming him Pierce, after the hated old guy in the show, played by Chevy Chase, winning a new girlfriend in the process after her Mum died. The grieving girl bought into the fantasy and took to repeatedly screaming “shut up Pierce” at Jack, despite them previously being friends.
“Well, some have an inner and outer brat,” said Scot. “But that’s what you get for hanging out with teenagers. They’re not fully… formed.”
“They’re in their mid-twenties, and they didn’t like being told where to go, which I eventually did… after about five months of the weirdness.”
“Why’d it take you so long?”
“I was polite at first, but they just got too nasty so I snapped.”
“Again, why’d it take you so long?”
“I liked the girl. I thought she was my friend, and I felt sorry for her. Three years on, and a hell of a lot of lies and bizarre little games later, she tells me the reason we had a rift was because of how I acted after her Mum died. And she still smirks when she calls me Pierce, albeit on the sly.”
“How you acted? Sounds like they pulled a Dyer.”
“A what?”
“As in Danny Dyer. Mark Kermode, the film critic, did his job by saying Dyer’s acting lived up to his name. Dyer accused Kermode of attacking his children. The logic being that Dan’s trade was acting, so any criticism of his… uh, craft, was effectively snatching food from his kid’s mouths.”
“Ah, yeah, I knew a charity fundraiser who told me the greatest thing about the job was its untouchability. He could get away with exploiting anyone for anything, blame random strangers for the plight of a starving African child if they hesitated to hand over their savings.”
“Yeah, bully’s bull. Vile behaviour excusable in relation to a sympathetic scenario. Roget’s. Rights reserved. It’s how a Portsmouth mob justified burning down a paediatrician’s office when they got confused over the job title. But what was it about being called Pierce? Since when was your skin so thin silly names prick it? Just because some still play in the sandpit doesn’t mean you have to.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “It’s nothing to do with the name. Or the show. Hell, half the jokes probably go over their head. But intent is everything. They wanted to belittle me and thought they were being really clever doing so. After I told them to jump they painted me as this pantomime villain so the beau could play the protective hero, accusing me of all the weird innuendo and lies they indulged in themselves.”
“So… she was a fragile kid, and bought into the manly hero fantasy, even if she was really the one protecting him from criticism. People need their fantasies, and we are living in the age of delusion. Were you jealous?”
“No, she’s like, half my age. It just got way nastier, and I felt… emasculated, yeah, in a way. It was cowardly and parasitic to use her like that, and boy, she got real loud. Name-calling, exclusion, plain lying – real old school playground bullying. I used to see her as a kid that brightened up a room when she walked into it. Funny, warm, lovable. But, when she smirks, or shrieks, now I just see a cruel, sly, silly little liar. Because that’s what she is when she calls me Pierce.”
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