As Oscar Pistorius was sent down on Tuesday, he shed no tears. That was a first. He shook a few hands, looking stoic.
Despite the fact that he's headed to prison, this must have been something of a relief. Pistorius understands the hard part is over.
He was sentenced to five years for culpable homicide in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. He'll likely serve 10 to 20 months in proper jail, and the remainder under house arrest.
It sounds sour to say it, but today marks the beginning of Pistorius's return. He'll go away and get fit again, find God, mentor inmates, rescue small birds, what have you. All the jailhouse clichés.
In a year or two or three, he'll reappear in a flashy TV special. He'll look better. He'll be contrite. People will have forgotten, which is just as good as forgiving. Plus, there's the simple pull of curiosity. We want to know how the story ends.
The truth is that we will forgive a celebrity anything, as long as he isn't boring us. Check the top-rated shows on TV. Nothing excites us more than murder.
Upon hearing Pistorius's sentence, the International Paralympic Committee imposed a matching ban – five years. The International Olympic Committee wasn't so hasty.
Neither was the International Association of Athletics Federations. They want to see how this plays out before they abandon the sort of splash Pistorius's return to competitive running would occasion.
You can already feel the outrage over his crime abating. Putting aside the issue of intent, 10 months does not seem like much for massacring someone in a toilet. People who kite cheques get 10 months.
But the world shrugged in this instance. We're all anxious to get to that future point where we can feel freshly infuriated by Pistorius' re-emergence.
He's only 27. He'll be back for Tokyo 2020. What else has he got to do? In turn, we will stomp our feet and pretend this impacts our lives, which it does not.
We like to congratulate ourselves that we've grown up when it comes to athletes and crime. No more pretending it didn't happen. No more free passes.
Nowadays, we get properly outraged when our Player X gets caught pistol-whipping someone or beats up his girlfriend. We have a serious discussion amongst ourselves about whether Player X deserves to be on our team.
We make that decision not on a moral basis, but on the pragmatic concerns of the hockey/football/baseball/basketball club. I'll guarantee you this much: If Ray Rice had been an elite 24-year-old quarterback rather than an overpriced running back in decline, the Baltimore Ravens would have found room in their hearts to forgive him.
We haven't replaced willful ignorance with enlightenment. We've only added a new layer to the narrative of sports – the Redemptive Crime Story.
The 10 million channels dedicated to sports can only spend so much time talking about the Dallas Cowboys and Peyton Manning's good character. You need something more visceral.
Nothing makes for more compelling storytelling than the sordid details of our neighbours' lives. Since we don't talk to our neighbours any more, professional athletes are filling the void.
The biggest story in English sports right now is that of Ched Evans, an averagely talented footballer who's just been released from prison after serving 21/2 years for rape.
In the British press, they're clawing one another's faces off on the topic of whether he should be allowed to play again. In one instance, TV presenter Judy Finnigan argued for discretion because Evans's crime was "non-violent."
Years ago, this might've prompted a little thought and a few rebuttals. Nowadays, it's spinning into madness 10 seconds after the words are out of Finnigan's mouth. This sort of provocation is treated like taffy – you can pull it in any direction you like. Nobody seems to really care if Evans wears cleats again. (If he's still any good, he'll play.) What they want to do is argue about it.
Nobody understands the seedy value of these topics more than ESPN's white-noise generator, Skip Bayless. This week, he claimed that Kobe Bryant's 2003 rape charge had given him "edge" and "sizzle" that made him more marketable.
Is that offensive? I'm not sure how. Is this a fruitful line of debate? Maybe, but not in the way Bayless will pursue it. Is it amusing to watch people go mental over it? Maybe just a little.
That's the point. Arguing is fun, especially when the argument feels important, but isn't. It isn't because nothing ever comes of these discussions. Nothing changes because our priority has always been and will always be the team.
Bryant is an instructive example to other pros who find themselves jammed up on a felony charge. It doesn't really matter what you did or what you do, you will be flayed for it. If you're still any good on the field/rink/court, you will eventually be forgiven. This pattern is as predictable as the tides because that's what people enjoy doing – flaying and forgiving. It satisfies their sense of order.
Ray Lewis had something to do with a double-homicide – we never were able to say exactly what. But in his defence, he was a really good linebacker. So now he's a talking head on ESPN on Sundays, and nobody seems to mind.
The same pattern will redeem Pistorius, but only as long as he can still run.
This tendency to valorize rogues and criminals is neither good nor bad. It simply is. We need to confront the darkness in our lives. We don't want to do it ourselves. So our heroes do it for us, while we look on from a safe distance.
The only thing that's changed is our insistence on pretending there is a point at which we will stop watching if this continues. We won't. We watch precisely because it does.
Cathal Kelly