I don’t want to make light of a man’s death if he doesn’t deserve it, but in the abstract, this story about a homeless man drinking himself to death during Twilight is almost comically dark. This is like a real-life noir novella:
A 23-year-old quietly drank himself to death after sneaking into a screening of Twilight: Eclipse in Wellington.
Damian Anthony Smythe’s death was “a sad and tragic loss of life of a person so young”, Wellington [New Zealand] coroner Ian Smith said.
Mr Smythe was described in the coroner’s report as an unemployed man with no fixed abode.
CCTV footage of Mr Smythe showed on July 4 2010 [don’t ask me why they’re only reporting this now…] he snuck in to a 6pm screening of the vampire movie at Reading Cinema on Courtenay Place without paying for a ticket. He was alone at the time.
A woman who sat behind Mr Smythe said she had seen him drink at least half a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label whiskey straight before slumping forward in his seat and snoring.
About five minutes before the movie ended, he fell silent.
He was found by cleaners who thought he was drunk and asleep, but was cold and blue in the face.
He had an empty one-litre bottle of whiskey beside him.
Ambulance staff were called and police alerted after it was clear Mr Smythe was dead.
Police records showed Mr Smythe was a transient person and was known to be an alcoholic with a police record of stealing from businesses and trespass.
Toxicology reports revealed no evidence of drugs but found a blood alcohol level of 569 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood. [for a BAC of .569. You may recall that Professor X, aka Alexander Broughton, the Tennessee buttchugger from Pike, had a BAC “well over .40”] [Stuff.Co.NZ]
Jesus, man, that story was so dark Rorschach from Watchmen could’ve written it. But yeah, I can see how being a homeless dude from a broken home watching a bunch of perfect whitebread yuppies whine about their relationship problems from the comfort of their inexplicably palatial crate and barrel catalog homes while never working could drive a person to drink himself to death. Well, that, and living in New Zealand.