Walter Workmaster
I must say before I even start talking about him, I am fond of Walter who earned himself many nicknames from Wreck-Man to the shit-stirrer. If the character was alive and real, I would take him to the pub and go for a long ‘talking shit over pints’ session, reviewing whatever happened that week from news to politics passing by a glimpse on our love lives and see where they are at, eager to ear what he had to say about everything.
Walter Workmaster is a man, a human, imperfect like one. He sweats, shouts, swears yet cares so much and generously loves others to stand as their spokes person to defend and protect them. Not afraid of punching someone down for you, he is a lively character who anyone finds hard to make him shut up or to not listen to.
The character faced a massive break down when his twin sister Wendy passed away, years earlier before we meet him in 2012. His break down was bad enough to be etched in the minds of all who witnessed it or heard of it. It created ‘Wreck-Man’ or the myth of him. It ruptured his marriage, with his wife leaving him, frightened for his sanity, only thinking of protecting their two year old son. The separation sent the man further down in a spiralling depression.
The helping hand, which took him away from the brink of a suicidal death was the one of his brother in law, Gabriel Purallee. They have a very special brotherly bond, yet a tough one. They do not take any shit from one another, or it seems like it, for they are always there for each other. When Walter loves Caroline, Gabriel’s younger sister, Big Gab loved Wendy Workmaster and was betrothed to her when she died. The two are just pure family. The baseball bat joke is just a symbol of their love and hate relationship. They have been together through a lot and will see each other through no matter what.
Divorced from Caroline, not by his own choice, Walter is not only unable to rebuild a life with someone else, he doesn’t even consider it. He loves his Caro. Back from his brink and break down, being able, allowed to see his son, spending some afternoons with him and seeing a little Caroline in doing so, makes his days and keeps him going. The separation devastated him to the point that Walter had lost all confidence and self esteem.
Gabriel took charge of the broken man that Walter was for four long years in his house in the wood before he trusted him to live on his own again. In 2012, at the start of the story, Workmaster had been in his own flat for a couple of years. He is also at a moment in his life where he is taking steps to reform himself. He quit smoking and has started to quit drinking for about a week. However he does not harbour the hope that cleaning up his act would bring him back Caroline. The character doesn’t think very highly of himself.
But others do. For a start his son, Michael, nicknamed, Micky adores and admires his father. He is eager to listen and gather the advice of his well educated dad. Full of wisdom, Workmaster is an excellent father, cherishing every minute he gets to see his son like if it was his last. The character has that internal fear that someone, Caro, Gab, anyone, would find him unfit again and deprive him of his child.
Although Caroline did split with him, she still loves him and does harbour a strong regret about the divorce. She does question her own actions when she faced the break down of Walter and in hindsight truly think that she should have staid with her husband and give him support in his hours of need. Yet she flew away from her conjugal nest with her son, only making the matter all the worse. She secretly blame herself to have made of Walter, the broken man that he is now. Devoted to her son and work, she does not consider rebuilding her life with someone else. She feels for the humbleness, the shyness of Walter around her. She remembers better days fondly and the man that wowed her.
The Walter Workmaster of the past was a brilliant law student who courted her effortlessly. He had that charisma, and the matching wild energy that she possessed. From student protests to demonstrations, she would follow him anywhere. Her ultimate accolade that she was dating him properly came as she presented him to her dotting yet daunting uncle Raphael.
Raphael Wrath brought up the orphaned Gabriel and Caroline. He had a soft spot for the wild Caroline to the extent that no one would ever be good enough for his niece. Walter and Wrath didn’t see eye to eye, with one thinking of the other as a multi millionaire mobster and the other as a shit stirring student.
Their kind of father in law/son in law relationship if strained, grows and develops through time to mutual appreciation, respect to the point of conspiring together on future plans. The arrival on the scene of the young Beast irremediably pushes those two characters in the vicinity of each other where they move on from their hate and love relationship. The Archangel that is Raphael is actually very fond of Walter Workmaster and has been secretly involved to make sure, he was kept out of trouble many times. He considers the man as part of his family and as such is rather protective of him.
Walter Workmaster went on to become a successful Human rights lawyer. His cases, his stance, his work caused the admiration of many from his Caroline who was only too eager to be asked in marriage by him, to the Angels who were watching almost every step of that human.
Until the perfect world of Workmaster went crumbling down, until his twin sister Wendy was murdered, until he became known by his family and friends as Wreck-Man.
Turned Private Investigator, scraping a living together, the character at the start of the saga although reformed goes through everything in order to bring to justice the murderer of Wendy. This leads him to the bunker in the wood belonging to the politician Paul Peterson. This is where he makes the devastating discovery of the Beast. Touched by her plight, he frees that new victim of Peterson.
The almost legendary chaotic behaviour of the atheist that is Walter, is dreaded by all: what will they have to deal with to tidy up the mess that Workmaster created?
None expected him to find the Beast and plead for her. Let alone to adopt her with the firm intention to bring her up and give her a little bit of a descent life and childhood back.
The character of Workmaster has a warm, generous and kind heart who understands what it is to be down and under. When none would give consideration, he would be the last man standing to bring you some, not only that to try to desperately turn the situation around. The character is the staunch advocate of It-666.
From their mutual understanding grows a strong filial affection between the human and the powerful Being. It trusts Walter completely, not only that, she would protect him with her life. Just by being himself, Workmaster makes the Beast love humanity. Walter develops further the contradiction that It-666 already is. The Angels can only make the constatation that it was the right man at the right time who found the Beast, and all partake of that human’s dream that scripture can be rewritten, remastered, but also that it doesn’t have to end with an apocalypse.
Writing Walter Workmaster is a sheer pleasure. Not often wrong, his words have the power to sway, convince, or simply be listened to with care. That particular human’s rants are the food for thought for Raphael and his Angels. Far from being dismissed as non sense by them, Walter has become a human allowed in their incarnated walking the Earth secrecy. Raphael admits him as parts of his Beings’ circles although he is only human. Walter bestows a VIP status among Angel. Throughout the saga, we learn why it is the case. Just to let you know, the preceding bio of the character is only the tip of the iceberg of Walter Workmaster.
His status is not due to his good looks. Imagine a man who does not care for one moment for his appearance and you will see Walter: Dusky blue eyes, an untamed blond mop which has a length which could qualify it as a mane, a chin not regularly free of hair, baggy shirt open onto a Tee shirt of some sort that we never know when it was last cleaned or changed, upon jeans usually riped from his treks and quests in woods and sewers. He is a man on a hunt, the one that will bring down the politician who killed his sister, and looks like a hunter which tracked his deer in the forest for days without a rest. Caroline’s nickname for him is ‘Blondie Bear’. In his heyday, Walter didn’t have that un-kept appearance, nonetheless even with it, he bestows a rogue charm about him which makes everyone accept him as he is. Apart from Raphael who still attempts to polish the rough diamond that he is, with meagre success. Personally, I picture a hard done Brad Pitt when I see Walter.
The entire conception of that character didn’t take long, he seemed that he was already there all along with his black and white Great Dane, Bud, following him, stepping out of a French car from the nineties which he had tweaked like a new version of ‘Kit’, a bit marginal and mouthy who just stands for rights, and laws which promote everyone to use a heart.
His name de-constructed: Walter stands for altering the big W, changing the World for the better, so it becomes a peaceful lovey-dovey place, respectful of all within it.
Workmaster, not particularly because that human is hard work but because he is working the Angels hard, or whoever has some power in this world. He will be the forever questioning soul that demands that things are put to right. He is the one who fights fate and dares to dream. He brings hope to many doing so.
Walter Workmaster in quotes and passages, dive in with this down to earth dreamer:
The being obliged and with great physical pain exhibited the bridge of its foot. It was marked by 666, forming a kind of pattern, with their tips touching. It was not a tattoo, it had been deeply stamped upon It, probably by a hot iron. He considered the mark dreading its implication, and muttered, -Fuck it. I don’t believe in any of that shit. If that caused your ordeal, human, you are in front of an unbeliever, therefore safe hands. Let’s get you out, It.
He put the proposed code upon the lock: I-T-6-6-6. He smiled widely as a clicking noise announced the unlocking of the cage. He opened its door and presented his arms to It, helping the naked human out,
-Come here, poor thing, no more shit hole for you.
He realised that the being was a young woman, so damaged that she was unable to stand or walk. He carried her away within his strong arms, headed for the manhole and exited the bunker as fast as he could. His dog waiting for him, wagged its tail at his emergence. As he pulled the body of It before him, the dog turned around her, smelling her and pushed her with its nose to make her react somehow. The woman moved weakly, showing her face, trembling. The dog licked her pale visage, crying slightly doing so. He took the little human within his arms once more and told his dog,
-Yep, I know, she bloody needs a good clean, but I don’t think that your tongue will do, Bud. I don’t know how you are going to both fit in the car but we will figure it out.
(verse 2: Code 666)
Walter stood confronting the tall Doctor and shouted, tears coming to his eyes, pointing all the while to the skeletal woman, -This is ‘It’, for Christ’s sake: A fucking human being who had the bad luck, I am pretty sure of it to be born at the wrong time, wrong day, wrong month and wrong year. It was enough for others who thought it significant to mark her like a bloody beast and treat her like so. You want to know what the hell that is? It’s a human in need, an appalling picture of what lack of reason can do and result of beliefs gone horrendously too far. Her state is similar to the one we saw in our history books of the victims of the holocaust. You want to know what is going on. Let me tell you, if you can’t bloody see someone that needs your help any more just because it has a mark with some cultural or religious significance you are one of those ‘good’ self-assured ‘convicted’ of their convictions men who let horrors happen. Yes, the poor bloody thing was called It-666. My heart tells me an error was made somewhere; seeing a human treated like that, it tells me to help and do something. Obviously I made a mistake coming here. I always thought you had the soundest heart. I just heard horrors from it, Gabriel. Sorry to bring an injured and abused human into your clinic instead of Bambi or an arse.
(verse 5: Stating It-666)
As Asha opened the body bag, Walter and Caro were smiling at each other, all snuggled up and intertwined within it. Caroline whispered, -This was exciting, being rolled up to the A&E.
Walter replied as he lifted himself up from the bag,
-Indeed, my cock is in plea for a relief. Raphael, you torturing me with the very proximity of my ex-wife will not do. I love your niece to bits and she drives me crazy because she is going to give me none of it later. What’s up with the big talk with Gab? He is a wicked bastard slash Angel but a good one in a righteous sort of way.
Azryel Mortimer grinned widely and mentioned with a slight cough,
-And that would account to forgiveness being given from the injured party.
(verse 26: Raphael’s heavy Cavalry.)
