I think I was trying to depict a character who has lived through so
much, seen so many things, lived "the life" and though physically
surviving it, been psychologically scarred to the bone... someone who
has "done, seen done, been done," and in the course of it all become
utterly cauterized, unable to experience reality or joy, set apart from
the world as if become a bored observer... highly intellectual, as they
sometimes are (the "hulking brute" stereotype has no place here), but
that only serves to further isolate them... consider the person who
has seen the elephant, "been there," and come back again, and now wants
only to avoid touching that ever again, and enjoy the rest of the life
he's been given... now, consider the same person, but instead of going
and coming back, he's been burned so hard that he can't return anymore;
when he returns to his normal life, all it means is that he's lost all
the meaning he once had, and literally has nothing -- he keeps living,
but only on automatic, and while the old skill and professionalism may
come out if they situation dictates, it's not so much because he cares
about his life as because it's what his reflexes drive him to do.

Hence the sense of strong, ivory-tower detachment before the shit hits
the fan, and once it does, the almost out-of-body observatory quality,
as if he were giving a lecture on street combat. He doesn't really
care. Emotion is no longer an aspect.

Finally, have you ever been in a 7-11, small grocery store, gas
station, or so on in the very late night/early morning? I'm sure most
people have at some point in their life. There's this really unusual
feeling, something I haven't experienced anywhere else, a wholly unique
atmosphere -- the quiet night, the empty building, and always, always,
the buzzing and flickering of those damned fluorescent lights...