Tony Briscoe, Schitzophrenic
                      A Tale From Tales From the Front
                        Copyright 1994 by Dave Laird

Tony Briscoe rarely sleeps during the night which, by itself, is not only
would escape comment by his neighbors, but since most people would believe
that he was working somewhere on the graveyard shift, and thus laudable.
However, Tony couldn't work if he wanted to, since he fell through societal
cracks a long time ago into the nebulous world of the schizophrenic.

Less than a troubled decade ago, he discovered an angry god-man, sitting
beneath the trees in Manito Park late one afternoon, who told him in no
uncertain terms that he was out to get Tony, and would spend every daylight
hour, if need be, looking for a way to kill Tony with the maximum of pain.
The fact that no one else had ever encountered this troll never crossed his
mind, mostly because he rarely talked with other people after his mother had
warned him about strangers and the evil things they do to young men.

So, sleeping during the day in the garage behind his mother's house, which
is where he has lived since the age of sixteen, he rides his bicycle at
night. There are a thousand interesting places he can go, even more people
he can watch, all the time being extremely careful to never let anyone _see_
him.

No, it is not that he is invisible, or lurks somewhere behind the shrubs or
a tree, watching between the branches. Tony has discovered, through
experimentation, that if he appears polite and personable, without creating
even the slightest fuss, he can go nearly anywhere without raising the
slightest suspicion in strangers that he meets.

However, when the pressure of smiling blandly and hardly ever speaking
becomes too much to bear, he jumps on his bicycle and pedals as hard as he
can until he is up on top of the South Hill. There, with the entire city
laid out below him, he sometimes plays masquerade games in the streets,
riding his bike through the darkness making the sounds of a police or
ambulance siren, as he imagines himself on the way to save another life from
the evil god-man.

It is on those nights when he is successful in saving some poor unfortunate
from the persuasive powers of the demon that he triumphantly zooms down
Grand Avenue at breakneck speed, toward the city down below, his imaginary
lights and siren flashing, and in the night he hears the dispatchers, miles
away in the Public Safety Building, broadcasting the news of his bravery for
all to hear.

Then, as the mist begins to lift off the Spokane River with the rising of
the morning sun, he returns once more to the garage he shares with the mice
and an occasional owl, and sleeps deeply once more, dreaming of yet another
conquest over the demon-man that waits in the park.