Having tasted the advertising industry, I was interested and now quite like the television series MAD MEN. Then to my astonishment they explained through one of their unexpected characters my “condition” as my specialists call it.
A central character Don Draper is with his secret lover one night and they are disturbed, by her brother Danny. He is apologetic for the late night visit. With a bloodied forehead and looking dishevelled, he says:
“..its not what it looks like, I am not a junkie”
Later Don offers to drive the brother to a new job that has been arranged by his sister, “not for the first time”, at a hospital because she “wants him to be safe”. Danny replies “I am safe! Its other people that are the problem, I am considered too dangerous to push a cart in a library!”. But it is the car journey dialogue that brings down the hammer.
Don: I don’t know if you are capable of understanding but that job is important.
Danny: Did YOU get me the job?
Don: No
Danny: (angry) So SHUT UP! I am NOT retarded, Julius Caesar had epilepsy, HE ran Rome.
Don: (mumbles) things didn’t turn out to well for him.
Danny: I know what’s waiting for me at that place. I am 25 years old Don ! I don’t want to be cleaning toilets until I die, just pullover.
Don stops car and Danny half opens the door.
Don: Hold on !
Danny: What?
Don: I am older than you and I am telling you it seems bad but you can change things.
Danny: ..‘pull my self up by the bootstraps’?
Don: Does that sound so stupid to you?
Danny: (chuckles) How do I explain this? I CAN’T do anything that you can do. Everyone knows, sooner or later, there is something wrong with me. They are kind and try but then when I come to, with piss in my pants, they look at me as if I am from another planet.
I am afflicted – OK?
It’s not a question of will, I can’t change that.
After accepting an offer of money and taking Don’s card “I want to help because your sister loves you” Danny gets out of the car and his silhouette is lit by the car’s lights as he walks into the dark.
......over the edge 