Jeremey Nefreuteau was a poster boy for the American dream, damnit!
His parents had immigrated from the little-known Eastern European nation of Blendork when he was just a lad, and he’d grown up in a tough steel town on the north shore of Lake Erie. From these humble beginnings, he became one of the best-paid managers in all of North America. And one of the most damaging.
Yes, he was a marvel.
As a child he learned to play the tuba, was shunned by the other kids, and tortured small wild animals for fun. (Not to cast any dispersion on the tuba-playing populace; Jeremey had been forced to play the tuba by his domineering father, Buptor Nefreuteau, who had once played flugelhorn for the Great Leader, back when Blendork was part of the Warsaw Pact.)
His folks knew no better, and they did their best to bring him up right. This was both a good and bad thing: Jeremey knew that if he killed people, if he broke the law, then in all likelihood, he would eventually get caught, and spend the rest of his life in jail (unless he moved to Texas, where eventually he would be executed); so, Jeremey never killed a human being nor broke the letter of the law, but at the same time, in his professional career he left a swathe of destruction behind him that sent many therapists’ children to good universities.
During his post-secondary education, he realized he had a big problem. He was well socialized (damn his parents) and reasonably bright, so Jeremey knew that he would have to obey many laws to survive, but how to engage in his psycho-proclivities?
The answer came to him in a flash, while he sat in his fourth-year psychology seminar — business school! Yes, he thought, an MBA! Management …
For where else could a psycho truly flourish, but within the bosom of a large organization, where he could ingratiate himself with the corporate masters — thus securing his future, and fulfilling the American Dream — while at the same time he brutalized the unlucky proles beneath him?
His marks were middling, but he managed to get into a well-respected business school in Canada. (Many US corporations had even heard of the Quarry School of Business, so it was perfect.)
In class, Jeremey was smooth, polished and engaging. He quickly learned that one of the most important aspects of doing an MBA was the networking he could achieve while there, so he refrained from giving his classmates psychic-wedgies and socially torturing their spouses at class functions.
In group work, his classmates found Jeremey somewhat remorseless and manipulative, but this was admired. This was countered somewhat by how unctuous he was around the professors, so he never became class president, or well liked. (Liked, yes, but never well liked.)
Two years passed, and Jeremey repressed his need to cause others pain, though occasionally, his mask would slip, and his classmates would see the monster. Many attributed it to stress, as generally, he was a jolly fellow.
Jeremey was short — barely five-foot-six — and slight, and he had a round face, with rosy cheeks that tended towards pudginess. His eyes sparkled with what many assumed was intelligence, but was actually just animal cunning.
He married well, graduated, and landed his first job, managing the IT department of a mid-sized company. (Even though he knew very little about IT, the company was impressed with this Quarry MBA.)
And then his life as a pyscho began.
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