Serge has been diagnosed with a variety of
mental illnesses, and has been prescribed a "cocktail" of drugs to keep him stable. These are effective, but he often refuses to take them, since he dislikes their effects. Free from the drugs' influence, he quickly becomes
manic and
obsessive about trivial things; he frequently acts as an extremely eccentric
tour guide for whoever happens to be handy. Despite his psychological disorders, Serge is for the most part a charismatic, likable person (he can be viewed as a somewhat more
liberal version of
Joseph Heller's
Yossarian).
When an event or person offends his extremely strong (and subjective) sense of
justice, however, he can quickly fly into a
homicidal rage; he has committed a string of murders for which the police pursue him as a
serial killer. Serge acts as an independent vigilante who dispenses rough, creative and immediate death penalties for low-life criminals, somewhat in the style of
Death Wish (and its sequels) starring
Charles Bronson.
All aspects of the
history of Florida, whether political, ecological, or sociological, are of intense interest to Serge. He is often seized with a sudden urge to visit landmarks, although their significance is frequently personal or related to
popular culture, rather than historical. Serge usually documents such visits with copious numbers of photographs and keeps a box full of Florida-related
memorabilia.
