Rilaly's Blog
Simple Truths

Words: 554

Rating: G. Appropriate for all age groups.

Randall Otis

I don’t know if you’ve ever met this guy, this Randall Otis, but I’m sure you have.  Randall is one of those people who is so angry in life that you just can’t help laughing with him, at him, and around him.  Angry people are hilarious.  In the walks of life I’ve been through, I’ve often found that for comedic pourposes angry is better.  The angry, cynical types are usually trapped by some sort of misfortune in life.  This usually results in a cynicism that results in them giving up on various aspects of life in such a manner that usually causes laughter.  Some of the times, their misfortune is set upon them by God or nature.  Some of the times, their misfortune is self-imposed.  Whatever the case is, they’re usually seething balls of hatred as a result.

Everyone learns their placement at various stages in life.  These seething balls of hatred usually figure theirs out quicker than others.  Learning your placement does not breed acceptance however.  Learning that that gorgeous blonde would never consider dating you does not get easier over time for some individuals, it gets more frustrating.

Every time they near acceptance, they watch movies and see a main character–the one you’re supposed to identify with–land the gorgeous blonde.  There’s a part of us all that enjoys that association for 90 minutes.  We love to fantacize, for those 90 minutes of our lives, that we have a shot at a Scarlett Johansen type.  It’s one of the main reasons why men pay hard earned money to watch a movie with a gorgeous blonde in it.  Then, after the 90 minutes is over we return to our lives, our dogs and our wives, and we’re just as happy as we were when we walked into the theater.  We do this even though we know that Scarlett Johansen, or the equally gorgeous blonde that sits at the end of our row, would say ‘no way’ to us.  This return to the normal life can be tougher for some, for they know that not only would they receive a ‘no way’ from the gorgeous blonde, they would receive a ’no way’ laced with expletives and laughter.  This can cause some anger, and it can cause others frustration, but s seething ball of hatred can reach a point that will usually leave their audience on the floor.

This learning process usually does not occur in a seething ball of hatred’s teens or twenties.  It’s not gradual, and it’s not learned through trial and error.  It’s something a seething ball of hatred knows for most of their lives.  It’s usually knowledge gained through the ostracization, the heckling, and the bullying that occurs in grade school.  This doesn’t occur in the manner it will in those ABC After School Specials that we all grew up with those overdramatized, Carrie-like scenes, but on those rare occasion when one of these ostracized, heckled and bullied kids find themselves in the middle of the popular kids they learn that their stay is a conditional one.

Some seething balls of hatred learn their place quite early, and they learn that take on life from an ostracized plateau.  They find themselves a soul mate, usually one who has also learned to operate in this realm of their existence in a similar manner.  They also find friends who have similar plights.  They get a job, a house, and kids.  They move on.  Randall Otis could not move on.  He became a seething ball of hatred.

Randall Otis’s favorite comedian is George Carlin.  Randall can throw out a Carlin quote for any event, joke, or situation that.  Carlin is the patron saint of the embittered.  They usually have his rants memorized.  Randall can throw out a Carlin reference in a manner similar to a knee being hit by a doctor’s hammer.

I knew Randall Otis in two different phases of life.  In the first phase, Randall was a grade school target, a butt of all jokes, a Frank Burns.  Randall was the stepping stone for those of us looking to ascend the ladder of cool.  We couldn’t help it, he was an odd looking boy.  I saw his Mom and his Dad, and neither of them were attractive people, but they weren’t ugly or odd looking.  Randall Otis assumed the worst of all of their characteristics.  He walked at an angle, in that it appeared as if his top half was too heavy for his bottom half and this made no sense when one witnessed his oversized bottom half.

God graces most of our lives by allowing those gangly, awkward attributes to soften a little as we age, so that by the time we’re adults most of us are halfway decent looking.  Others simply learn how to finesse their gangly, ugly attributes with combs and/or makeup.  Randall Otis didn’t have either of these luxuries.  He was as odd looking as a man as he was as a boy.

In the second phase of our lives together, a space of twenty years had passed, and the man had become a seething ball of hatred.  I’m not sure if the grade school phase of life was that hard on him, or if all of the phases in between had culminated into the man I met twenty years later, but he was definitely on the outside looking in on life, and his sense of humor reflected that.

As I said, Randall Otis did find himself a mate, and when those two mated they found that the old saying is not always true that when two ugly people get together they will create a beautiful child.  We all hated to say that behind Randall’s back.  It was a child, for God’s sakes.  It was cruel to make comments about the physical appearance of an infant, but everyone made them, and we all felt just awful about them later.

On a related note, one of my cousins brought home an ugly mate.  My Cousin, by other’s accounts, is a good looking guy.  This frustrated his Dad, my Uncle.  I remember him complaining to his wife: “He’s a good looking kid.  Can’t he do better than that?”  I wonder if Randall Otis’ parents ever said anything like that, or had they come to a certain understanding about their son’s placement in the world?

From the stories Randall has told me, he never accepted his placement in life.  He adjusted to it, but he never accepted it, and that adjustment was the quiet one for the most part.  For the most part, when that gorgeous blonde laughed at him, he quietly moved on.  When the boss spoke to him in a manner that that boss would’ve never attempted with an attractive person, Randall accepted his fate for what it was.  He needed the job.  He needed to make money for his wife and child.  When a genuine grievance accidentally happened upon him, however, Randall Otis made noise.

He was in the right.  They were in the wrong.  They wouldn’t listen to him.  They unwittingly allowed Randall to unleash the hounds of hell upon them.  It was shocking to hear him tell it.  I don’t care who you are or what kind of friends you have, when someone you know unleashes the frustrations of forty years on another human being it can be unsettling.  You say things like, “You didn’t really say that did you?”  Or, “that is funny, but I know it didn’t happened”, and there’s a part of you that will never believe it no matter how much evidence rolls in.  You thought you knew this guy.  You knew he was frustrated and all that, but you never expected him to say that.  You had an idea, based upon his hilarious rants, that he was a bubbling cauldron, but you never expected him to get that loud on someone.  You never expected him to be that hateful, or that hilarious, or that disquieting.

A seething ball of hatred is different from an angry guy.  A seething ball of hatred is usually quiet and complex and tough to figure out.  Randall Otis was all of these things, and he caused you to laugh with a worried expression at times.