“If watching cartoons has taught me anything, its that characters never really change,” said Devin, taking a long draw on his cigarette. The butt glowed orange. He was sitting in the dark, back to the wall, long legs splayed out on the studio floor. Colorful sketches surrounded him, and he flicked a bit of ash onto a drawing of a cockatoo with black, smoldering tail feathers, a tendril of smoke floating upward above its rigid little body. The bird stared crossly at a baffled looking St Bernard holding a match. The cockatoo’s wings folded over his chest in irritation. The fallen ash from the cigarette made him look like the victim of a war crime rather than a misguided prank.

“That doesn’t have to be true,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “You write the cartoons. You could change the characters. Make those burned feathers permanent. Send Bernard to therapy. He’s obviously tormenting that poor bird to distract himself from some pretty dark stuff.”

Devin didn’t look up. “Stories like that are for HBO. Not for people who watch cartoons. In cartoons, wounds heal. The physical and the emotional. In the next episode, the feathers are magically regrown, good as new. Bernard and Court are back at it. Nothing’s changed. The events of the last episode are never thought of again. Like they never happened.”

I sighed. This was Devin. Such a brooder. What was it that I read recently - something about “Sad Clown” comedians who use humor to mask what they’re ashamed of, to bandage painful wounds. Surely the same would be true of adults who escape to a lighthearted, uncomplicated world, writing and animating entertainment for children. But I’m no psychologist.

“My point is,” I said, “that humans are more complicated than your characters. They can change. Often times they don’t, not really. But often times they do, for better or for worse, and you can’t blame yourself for their failures.”

I thought back to when we were kids. Devin wasn’t always this way. He was sharp, talented, optimistic, rare. Senior year, he played on the state champion soccer team and won first prize in the art show. The image contrasted starkly with the gangly, unkempt smoker sitting before me. The irony of Devin’s suggestion, that people never change, was not lost on me. Hadn’t he changed? Or, is this who he always was? Had this moody cynic been waiting inside, waiting for an act of betrayal to pry open the door and let him out?