Chapter 2 - Who is Biz?

A Chapter by Nadine

Meet Biz.

Biz was Mitch's old friend from College. He had been in the same year as him since he was eight years old, when Biz moved over from New York, but they barely even spoke until they found themselves rooming together in College. At first, Mitch was seriously contemplating moving out, as he found Biz to be quite an unusual and possibly dangerous character, but then he thought of it as an adventure – something that every good writer should be looking out for at all times, Mitch thought.

Biz had a deserving reputation for being deranged, eccentric and often flamboyant. He majored in Criminal Psychology which Mitch always felt was quite fitting as Biz himself was probably insane to a certain degree, anyway.

An example of this is how his name came to be Biz. It's not his birth name. His parents were hardly perfect but they weren't cruel. He was christened Thomas.
When Thomas first read William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet” he quickly became obsessed with the Shakespearian language and the idea of Verona and all it's people. He loved everything about it and he valued everything Shakespeare had to say. So much so, that he decided to change his name to something that Shakespeare would have approved of. Something that said a lot about him, but also fitted in with the usual characters you would find in Verona or Venice.
After plenty of pondering on the subject and many sleepless, caffeinated hours he took a good look at himself in the mirror and the answer came to him like lightning to a golfer. On seeing the tie-dyed poncho, the skinny ripped jeans and the red Mohawk he thought of the perfect name for himself: Bizzario.
Bizarre, for obvious reasons, and the -io so that he could live up to his great predecessors such as Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, Antonio and Bassinio. It just seemed right.

From that moment on, Thomas decided that that was the name by which he should be addressed from there on in with no exceptions. He would not even consider acknowledging anyone who referred to him as Thomas. Not even his own family, who understandably thought it was ridiculous and were quite frankly a bit worried about him. Although he was proven to be a very intelligent young man, he was often mistaken for someone with a split-personality disorder or just plain crazy. You could argue that he was just unique, though. His brain wanted peas when everyone else's craved beans. He daydreamed about being in a fire rather than just cozying up to one. He was different.
Soon after 'Bizzario' caught on, it was shortened to Biz by his friends and family. Partly because it was easier to say and saved time, but mostly because they were too embarrassed to address him by his full pseudonym in public.

This episode laid the foundations for people to expect future escapades from Biz, yet they always seemed particularly taken off guard when they heard about his latest epiphany or saw his latest body-part disfigurement (or as he called it “Art”).

All of that aside, Biz was, and still is, a very lovable and kind person. He seems intimidating but he would never hurt a fly. He couldn't, even if he tried. It was just not in his nature to inflict pain or hardship on anyone else. He was a good man and now, at 28 years old, he had not changed a bit. He was always getting involved in new things and he had a lot of experience behind him. This proved to be just one of the reasons why Mitch phoned him for help. Since College they remained as close as brothers, but lately they had not been seeing as much of each other as before because for the entire time that Mitch was writing “The Devil's Harp” he secluded himself from most of the living world. It would be nice to catch up with Biz again.