Jekyll, Meet Hyde
There
was a time when I cringed in horror when the drunken
antics of the night before were recast (with great
relish) by friends who possessed the bad taste to
black out after I did. Impossible, I would
think. That’s not me, that’s not
how I act. That was someone else, surely, the diabolical
work of an imposter bent on sullying my good name
while I innocently napped under a pool table.
This, of course, was before I got around to getting
to know the real me. The uptight Dr. Jekyll had yet
to be formally introduced to the freewheeling Mr.
Hyde. They existed as antagonistic strangers, their
poor opinions of one another based on sheer rumor
and speculation. One considered the other a prig,
and the prig thought his opposite a rabid animal capable
of any unspeakable act you care to name.
As a youth I was an insufferably bookish and shy young
man, and as I forayed deeper into the cult of alcohol
the increasingly common second-hand accounts of my
bad behavior startled me. Not from the path of drinking,
to be sure, but certainly into some grave thoughts.
If the drunk
me were capable of getting up on a barstool and obscenely
declaring a perfectly undeserving bar a nest of traitors
and spies, something I wouldn’t
dream of doing sober, then what else was the boozehead
capable of? Lasciviousness? Theft? Cold blooded
murder?
It came to
the point that I refused to listen to the stories,
fearful they would end with ”—and
then you dropped your trousers and started chasing
the sheep screaming, ‘I only want a kiss!’
when, by all anatomical appearances, your mind was
dead set on something much more amorous.”
They were
as sailors working different shifts but sharing the
same bunk; when one was falling headfirst into deep
sleep, the other would be lurching awake. Blurry-eyed,
they would brush shoulders around the fifteenth drink
with barely a sideways glance. If two strangers pass
in a hallway enough times, however, they’re
bound to strike up a nodding acquaintance, if not
an accord.
Over time
Jeckyll and Hyde got to know each other. Once it
was understood that even Hyde had his limits, Jekyll
started looking forward to the day-after stories.
Having a dark side can be rather exhilarating, so
long as you know it isn’t that dark. Instead
of cringing, I now say,”Did they enjoy the speech?
No? But didn’t I have a right to be angry? Wouldn’t
such a strange hat incite anyone to righteous fury?
I’ll buy him a drink and all will be forgiven.”
What’s more, they began to meld. The priggish
Jekyll began to loosen up and learned to converse
comfortably with complete strangers; and the madman,
well, he didn’t change much, but he never committed
cold-blooded murder or made any attempts on the virtue
of livestock either.
