the corner office

As Ronwen pointed out, perhaps our intrepid Aragorn-worshipper simply wasn't All There. You never know.

This got me to thinking about a real insane bloke who used to haunt the Wits campus, Braamfontein and the Johannesburg city centre in the late 80's and early 90's. This chap was young, tall, dark-haired and unkempt and usually cruised around wearing his underrods on the outside of his trousers, superman style. It wasn't uncommon to see him missioning around town pushing his shopping trolley and hurling obscenities at imaginary people around him.

I remember the first time I saw him was when I was in high school, and myself and friends had come through to Joburg one weekend. We were sitting in a movie theatre, when this bloke ambled into the movie theatre, having a rather animated and belligerent conversation with nobody in particular, and then strolled out again. Either the ushers knew him or were too scared to stop him. Needless to say, us young country bumpkins nearly kakked ourselves, but when I came to varsity in Joburg a year later, I saw him around a number of times. He was intimidating, but didn't harm anyone, as best we knew.

Story had it that he was a Wits student who'd been in a car crash. Brain damage had left him a few sarmies short of a picnic, and he spent his days in the old stomping grounds he knew as a student. We thought he was a tramp, but (apparently) he was cared for by his parents. Just about everybody knew who he was, iirc he was known by name (Rob?). His was always a 'there, but for the grace of God' type story.

I always wonder what happened to him, or what the real story behind his condition was.