face the music
‘I’m at a loss to explain my actions. I have always had an aversion to facing the music. What a ridiculous saying anyway, it never made sense to me’.
There was no doubt in my mind that I was dealing with a sociopath. I recognised his behaviour, he was a lot like myself. But I liked to think I had come to fit in. I had learnt to read the signs, speak the language. A good trick was simply repeating the last words or phrase as a question, like this.
“Never made sense?’ I placed the emphasis on ‘never’. I wasn’t sure what I was doing other than I’d rather have him talking than me, and I had some unease with any silences.
‘Never. I remember as a child my mum caning me for this or that, yelling at me that I was incorrigible, a hopeless case. It wasn’t so much that I broke this or that, or this rule, and there were quite a few of those. She was a stickler for rules, all different sorts for all different situations. It was like living in a board game, spending half my time waiting for my move. And anyway ‘I didn’t want to play. What was the point? What is the point?’
He looked at me, obviously expecting an answer. One that would inevitably be unsatisfactory, therefore only proving even more pointedly that there was no point. The pause though was starting to become a silence, I had to say something.
‘How about you don’t bother explaining anything. How about you just tell me what you did? Just for the hell of it. Just so I know. No point. No purpose. Just tell me’
He looked like he was considering it.
