The Downfall of Tylor B Tyrone

If he has treated them disrespectfully, for that he might consider asking them for their forgiveness.

The downfall of the exalted Tylor B Tyrone has been spectacular and is now almost complete. After the day’s battle he’s currently in hospital having his mental wounds attended to. What began as a reveille has ended in rabble. One by one his accusers had stormed past him leaning on a lamppost and giving it to him. They came as pillars of society. They came as fell sewer wanderers wearing their Sunday best. Some directly accused him, spring loading their spite with a silver bullet scat name calling. They took cubist swings at him. He swung back and got a few in himself. One bitter exchange ended in disaster. The loser had to quickly get himself off to the mortuary before he died. Offensive words were exchanged like legal tender. Nothing was held back. A woman was so disgusted when she heard what he’d done, that her contempt came out in Tourette-like screams, going on for some minutes. In the midst she’d change tack and declare that he was a really nice guy who was misunderstood, before screaming at him again. It had been that kind of a day.

Tylor B Tyrone is a man in his late forties. On this fateful day he wore a pale blue opened neck shirt; cream slacks were held up by an ornate leather belt, and he wore shiny black pointed boots. He had his pipe with him, getting out a few puffs in between the venom and violence. He’d washed his thinning hair that morning, and though slender, he looked in command of himself from his head down to his plumed toes. To an outsider seeing this man for the first time, it would appear that easy respect came to him, his bearing being tall and graceful; and what he’d done to incense his community, has left a wide and deep ocean of speculation to explore.

No longer will he enjoy the common pleasures of an inviting companionship. He is guilty, if by trial and by not, because his offences are now famous in his community. It hadn’t taken long. And whether Tylor will be allowed back in as he was, nothing is yet decided. His downfall could very well induce a new beginning. It may depend on remorse; his, as well as his community’s, if, by returning to him all the respect and kudos he had lost, it might incidentally expect more of him. What is concerning is this something he had done, and simultaneously something he had not done.

His downfall will never erase his name, for it is bound up with his society. But what he’s done has left a detectable stain on his society. If, after the conclusion he will be an exile, either on the fringe of his community walking on the other side of the tracks, or down on the main street, maybe even both. The unravelling of remorse is his to begin, as the community expects it. He is now a stranger to them, as though he had just entered this small outback town, swag on his back, hobnailed shoes scuffing dust, the leer of contempt stretched wide across his face. And whether he now participates in the usual Saturday rounders or Saturday night roundups, as he has always done, is no longer up to him, but up to any who choose to be offended by him, those who had come by him earlier, and those yet to rise from out of their hospice beds.

His society has the right to ban the likes of him the old-fashioned way, with bell, tablet and light bulb. Proof of this is based on legitimate authority, founded in law, the illegality felt by society as the victim. This dumbing down of his once exalted status has rendered him most unworthy and grievously culpable. Whatsoever he has bound in himself is also bound in society, and whatever is loosed in himself is also loosed in society. In time his shunning might force him to change his identity, and then might he be tolerated.

And if he is to be truly tolerated, it is not because he is pagan, infidel, deviant, nor religious, because they are outside the realms of his society, but rather, it is because his intimate relationship with his society is unbreakable, having been born into it and having been water cleansed of its evils before he had the opportunity to experience them. If there has been doubt in his mind concerning this bond that doubt hasn’t rendered him untouchable. Having done something serious which, as we have seen, had roused a normally docile and compliant society into rabid action, has not yet totally precluded him from his society. In order to compromise his peers might have him move around on the streets incognito in a one-piece hooded leisure suit, rather than let the stain on his community’s good name be made infamous by him go beyond the town’s surrounding 20-foot concrete wall.

His downfall is a common acceptance, his redemption a matter of conjecture. If we look back on Tylor B Tyrone’s life we see troubles. He did naughty things as a child; he’s had demented periods when he was supporting the opposition at home games; he was scared of spiders; he was ignorant of footpath laws; he believed in God as strongly as he believed in Santa Claus; his childlike behaviour was mistaken for autism. Today’s encounter shows what a powder keg the situation has become. All that restrained contrivance has now been released. How he and his society were a toxic brew for trouble! Tylor just couldn’t help himself! His loving parents have always been there for him. His siblings played with him then, as they’d done right up until Tylor’s downfall. No one understands what went wrong.

Is he going to be believed guilty, or is he really innocent? No statement of his mental condition has emerged from the hospital as yet. He must be presumed guilty for the time being in any case, for the complainants in his society will not reverse their measured scorn for him until they are told to do so. If he is to seek proof of innocence it is on the condition that his muddied name stays precisely that. He is not the ‘exile concrete’ yet. Even if he tries to behave like an exile, it will be quite difficult, for the examination won’t yet begin; the annual bachelors and spinster ball is on next week, and if he doesn’t attend, they will be one bachelor short.

There is a way for him to soften his downfall, and that is to seek reconciliation. Just as they have queued to show him what they thought of him, he may, if an agreement can be reached, and this will require a lot of alcohol, then kiss the bare arses of his accusers while saying sorry for their historical hurt. Then, what is done is undone, to the satisfaction of all aggrieved. But first he, in all humility, must repent and seek re-education. He will probably have to supply all the alcohol, and in addition, pay for the hiring of the community hall. It’s got to be his medicine, and he’s got to take it. And the bare arses, queued around the hall’s perimeter, must not show signs of their particular usages, for the kissing will be prolonged, for some arses will deserve more kissing than others.

Tylor B Tyrone may never know what he has done wrong. His face slappers, his spitters upon his person, the baseball bat wielders aren’t in a position to say, for they had heard something through hearsay, and that makes their actions inevitable. The man who took himself off to the mortuary had accused Tylor of discrimination, and he is thought to have come closest. However, in a new development, it appears the accusation might also born out of a childhood resentment toward Tylor when Tylor was wrapped up in his teenage struggles. So, while Tylor is experiencing his downfall, his society is looking to absolution. The violence toward him matters not, and Tylor had his part to play, and soon all of that will be forgotten. What will endure is the speculation over what he had done. That will inform his society as to how they will embrace or shun him. He may even end up with his old name. But either way, when Tylor gets out of hospital he will be as confounded as his society is over the day’s events.