I have never been able to achieve any pleasant level of popularity. Foul, forgettable, phony — these are the labels attached to me. The harder I try to attain respect, the more vociferous the remarks against me. Take my West End play, The Importance of Good Street Etiquette, for example — a truly marvelous examination of twenty first century state education and its appalling effects on social behavior. Despite the fact that I was merely attempting to highlight the present problems in schools, I was the one who was vilified for my noble efforts in re-addressing the balance of power!
I still wonder at the charge leveled against me. Is it so wrong to want to address social ills before they become an epidemic? What is so ghastly about wishing to re-install use of the cane? Antiquarian it may be, but it seemed to work as a disciplinary tool.
"Schools need modernizing," said Britain's education minister, and so I responded, "bring back the cane and allow each schoolboy in turn to administer fitting punishment."
Power is a universal craving. Let each young tyke have power at his fingertips. Let him have a taste of power by disciplining his fellow classmates. Let him also discipline the school principal. After all, a school is not a dictatorship. A schoolboy should be allowed to punish both those above him as well as those below. So, let our chosen hooligan buckle the principal over his desk and give him six of the best.
Those who witnessed my little drama called me "a monster." The Critics' Circle called me "a moron." How I should like to have disciplined those fat overbearing men. Give me my hat and cane and tell me it wouldn't be a joy to see my idea put into practice.
Power, popularity and social inequality played heavily on my mind during March. As I walked along the cliff tops, through Sydney's gay Tamara Beach and the tranquil Waverley Cemetery, on my pilgrimage from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach, I witnessed smoke billowing out from the cliff top ahead. I thought it was a forest fire at first. As it happened, it was a house fire! Some poor beggar-turned-caveman had set fire to his little hole in the ground. A fire engine arrived in time to put it out and rescue the unfortunate.
I stood in the burning sun for half an hour while the drama played out. Just like our wretched beggar, I also got quite crispy. During that time I thought about the scrawny lunatic who had been living in the cave. Part of me pitied him his lot in life. Here he was, bereft of material possessions, companionship, unnoticed by the world (except when his home is destroyed) and reduced to hiding in a hole for shelter. He was an empty, pitiful creature, whose only contentment is a hole in the earth that has previously gone unnoticed to all but him. Now it is gone.
However, the more I thought on the matter the more the situation troubled me. That emaciated bastard had been occupying a terrific abandoned old cave for days, months, or even perhaps years. His dwelling overlooked Bondi Beach, for heaven's sake! While I was sharing a room with two men and a funnel-web spider, that crafty bugger was living rent free in a prime piece of real estate. The nerve of the man! I had a mind to tell him exactly what I thought of him and suggest to the authorities that he be charged back rent for all the time he had been cunningly cowering in his stunning cave.
I scowled at the villain as he was dragged to safety. My only solace was the hope that the fire might have been caused by the glint from my binoculars.
When I returned to my own pitiful home, I felt dismal and bitter. I envied the caveman his hideaway and wished for similar privacy. Everything about the beggar's existence appealed to me — except for his recent misfortune, of course.
"Curse those blasted beggars!" I found myself muttering.
Free from rent and taxes and employment, they don't know how fortunate they are. In those low moments, I wished for a cane and the opportunity to administer to all beggars a public beating on a scale that would stamp out homelessness altogether and outdo anything Rudy Giuliani might possibly conceive.
