The Almighty 'C' Word: John Constantine

[pirate_anon]

The Almighty 'C' Word:
John Constantine

John Constantine is mostly known as the sarcastic blond
British magician from the Hellblazer comics. However, Draven’s
John isn’t that one; instead he is the much more sedate American
brunette version played by Keanu Reeves in the 2005 film
Constantine.

Draven’s John first appears in July 2005 and isn't
particularly notable, by Draven standards. He gambles on cards
for cigarettes, learns some stage magic involving balls of light that
the Phantom will reuse years later, and seems to be a return to
Angel's roots as a paranormal investigator (2005 September 13).
He talks about gathering up magical gear, including "WWII
shrapnel” for ammunition “and a few expired mortar shells I'm
using to put together another 'version' of the old shotgun, when I
get to it" (2005, October 9). Said shotgun was used to slay
demons in the movie, and it never gets mentioned again, leading
me to believe that it is never completed. Still, it makes me
wonder how exactly John expected to get a permit for a shotgun,
and who he intended to use it on… if this wasn’t just more “bi-
locating,” that is.

John Constantine doesn't seem to have the highest
opinions of Neo. "'The other guy' gets all the glory in this
'system'," he complains (2005 August 30). "He's not even a bond
anymore, he's the primary 'entity'. I'm just... along for the ride.
I'm not looking for any friends here - most of my friends seem to
last about as long as a hooker's bedsheets. But still. Does get
lonely, it does."

Constantine doesn't need to suggest more than that to
gain some company. One of Neo's acolytes and roommates,
Demos, hosts Constantine’s acolyte from the movie—more on him
later. Trinity hosts Constantine’s love interest Angie (Draven,
2005 August 30), and according to an ex-follower, also a Gabriel
and a Lucifer, two of the movie’s antagonists (personal
communication 2017).

Angie's story is sad. Constantine reports her pregnancy...
followed by her miscarriage (2005 September 13). He shows no
sign of sympathy or care, merely states, "Angela miscarried,"
before moving on to focus on his own suffering, and then his
"illicit affair with a temporarily Earth-bound archangel who once
tried to kill me." Meaning Gabriel, Trinity's headmate. Angie
herself seems to come to some dubious fate never publicly
discussed; Trinity later reassures John, "You know you had
nothing to do with what happened to Angie. These things
happen. We're here if you want to talk. Ok?" (2005 December
17a).

John never shows any similar sentiments. At best, he
seems to see Angie as a flunky; at worst, he treats her like a shrew.
The only notes he makes of Angela's presence all involve her
doing things for him--bringing him magical gear (2005 October
9), wanting him to go to the ER (October 16a). He even rants
about her, calling her "Detective Period" (2006 January 11) and
ranting, "SCREW her and her self-improvement, screw her and
her 'letting go of baggage'" (2005 December 15).

An ex-follower who lives with them at this time says that
John Constantine's dynamic with Angie and Gabriel mirrors the
same follower/leader/dom dynamic that William and Neo had.
"Angela = Trinity, Gabriel = Smith" they report. "Everything
basically falls back into the same old Mulder/Krycek dynamic
from back in the day, and is acted out during roleplay sexyteims
[sic]. Which I couldn't really get away from or unsee, because
one bedroom apartment" (personal communication, 2017
February 8).

In September 2005, John Constantine blows the rent
money on Red King forearm tattoos like those in the movie. He
posts photos of the newly-healed ink in the middle of the month
(2005 September 13), and less than a week later, his household
ends up in court on charges of "unlawful detainer," meaning that
they are living in property without permission and won't leave
(Goldberg, 2005). They are finally successfully evicted come
October, and they move to Texas to live with another follower,
which I’ll discuss in the next chapter.

Despite the legal problems, John doesn’t clean up his act;
he shows the same violent tendencies and substance abuse issues
that previous Draven folks had, which ends up triggering a fight
between himself and Angie (2006, March 29).

"She gave me a skelp last night and called me a drunk...
then cut out,” John reports. “So I drank more. Threw some of my
pain meds on top of it.... yeah, so what? Lung cancer, assholes.
And THEN she comes home. Apparently she got me undressed
and into bed...And get this: then, SHE apologized to ME."

Lung cancer? Pain meds? This requires some context.

During this time period, Draven first takes up the
narrative that they are dying. They never let go of it since, to the
point that they have now been on death’s door for thirteen years,
through a constellation of changing illnesses which have grown
increasingly improbable over time.

For instance, by the time of the fight, Draven had claimed
the following conditions within a two-month span:

• lung cancer (2006 March 29)
  
• going blind (2006 February 2)
  
• multiple sclerosis (ibid)
  
• spinal cord lesions (ibid)
  
• fibromyalgia (ibid)
  
• a heart attack (Trinity, 2006 March 24)

All of this could perhaps be theoretically possible, but
they claim to have all of these conditions while at the same time
recording and broadcasting Neo’s radio show (2006 January 18),
making soap for Neo’s fundraiser (2006 February 9), stalking
Buffy II (Buffy II, 2006), attempting to build a Turing-Test
winning chat bot named Joe (2006 March 5), and aggressively
proselytizing. These are the activities of someone embarking on a
new beginning, not an end.

And then there’s how Draven uses their health as a beating
stick on their followers. After Draven’s alleged heart attack,
Trinity berates a follower named Matrix for being online and not
on IM in Draven’s hour of need—never mind that if they were in
the hospital, they would not be allowed to make phone calls or
chat online anyway. When the follower responds that she is
putting them in God's hands, Trinity scolds, "I'd've rather he'd've
been in yours...he cried all morning while they stuck and
prodded him, because he couldn't CALL you...YOU, you know?
He could have died.…" (2006 March 24)

Ostensibly due to his poor health, John takes a number of
drugs, which just so happen to correspond to the ones William
describes being interested in four years prior. Asides from the
alcohol, John reports the following painkillers:
* codeine cough syrup (2005, August 28)
* cyclobenzaprine (October 9)
* oxycontin (ibid)
* oxycodone (ibid)
* morphine sulphate (ibid)
* Dilaudid (October 16b)
* Vicodin (December 15).

None of these painkillers are safe to mix with alcohol, and
the side effects include issues with liver damage, respiration,
coma, and death. And Draven knows it; even if they weren’t an
experienced drug-user by now, just two weeks after John’s fight
with Angie, they leave a comment in support of a fanficrants post
about the proper use of Vicodin, which mentions how dangerous
it is to mix with alcohol (2006 April 17).

So John is obviously deliberately using his medication
improperly. And he’s not the only one; pretty much all Draven’s
system members up to this point reference their drug abuse. Kurt
called himself an "ex-junkie" (1999 April 13), while William
mentions his own “drug habit” and eludes to using heroin, along
with Vicodin and mixing alcohol with Valium (2001 June 12).
Angelus also mentions taking Vicodin in 2002 (October 31),
making John’s opioid and opiate use all the more concerning.
(Both classes of drugs work the same way; opioids are just
natural, while opiates are synthetic.) Dilaudid, heroin, Vicodin,
and oxycodone/oxycontin are all opioids; morphine and codeine
are opiates.

And those are just the drugs Draven publicly admits to
taking. "'Neo' [...] is, not to mince words, hooked through the bag
on hydrocodone-based [opioid] painkillers," an ex-follower
reports (personal communication, 2006). "And this is a problem
that goes back wayyyy into his teen and early adult years... He
dropped out of a methadone program while they were in
Washington State (apparently the cab ride was too long and
inconvenient.) [...] [Trinity] and [Demos] (until the latter escaped)
have been feigning maladies and visiting local emergency rooms
around here in order to get pills for him after they refused to see
Neo anymore, because he kept going in to try to get pills, and the
ER docs recognized this. [...] [Draven] kept inferring that physical
violence would result if he didn't get either his pills or his
cigarettes." Suddenly, John's remark about wanting "to rip
someone's throat out" because "it's been over two hours since I
had a goddamn cigarette" seems to be more than just hyperbolic
complaining (2006, January 11).

John's drug use adds a different dimension to his fight
with Angie. Suddenly it's not just a matter of her hitting him,
calling him a drunk, and leaving; it's them getting into a fight
about his substance use, her leaving, and him responding by
intentionally mixing his painkillers with alcohol, just to spite her.
Combined with Draven's earlier tendency to threaten suicide
when his partners left, it's not a surprise Angie returns and tries
to placate him. Draven's underlying message seems to be, "If you
upset me so much I kill myself, it will be your fault, and won’t
you feel bad then?"

But Draven doesn't die. The cancer and the heart attacks
seem to oddly vanish, as does Constantine himself a week later.
The drug issues don't, though. On John's heels comes Greg.