Rage

by Ryan, Paul W.

  Despite what they try to tell you: God is angry, and his believers are commanded to be angry. Two Greek words in the New Testament are translated as ‘anger’. One means ‘passion or energy’ and the other means ‘agitated, boiling’. Biblically, anger is God-given energy intended to help us solve our problems. Examples of biblical anger include David’s being upset over hearing Nathan the prophet sharing an injustice, and Jesus’ anger over how some of the Jews had defiled worship at God’s temple in Jerusalem.

  Sadly, it did not answer the pressing question I had: is it wrong to kill your rage-addicted best friend?

  I didn’t need a book to tell me what I needed to do.

  Either way, Jason was going to die.

  CHAPTER 25

  I stood for longer than I could remember at Marcus' grave. I didn't know what to say. I just stood there gazing, looking at his engraved name, so cold and final.

  I felt lost in the eternity of this world and the finality of his. In the end, the only difference between life and death is just six feet of dirt with a jutting piece of marbled rock at the top to say you existed.

  That and the ghosts of memories. No man is truly eternal.

  Even in life, I could never think of much to say to him, other than try provoking his anger, just to get something from him. He was a quiet guy who kept to himself mostly. Except for when he was angry.

  I turned and saw Alice come walking towards me. She wore a simple black dress that flowed down past her thin hips, barely covering her knees.

  She stood beside me and said nothing for several long minutes. Her hair was pulled back in a bun so tight that it looked to be pulling back the skin on her forehead. She wore a wide-brimmed black hat with a hanging veil that obscured her face. She flicked the veil back to light a cigarette and passed one to me.

  “Thought you'd fucked and chucked me, Pete.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “I tried calling, but you never answered.”

  “Sorry—I guess I've just been busy.”

  She fumbled in her designer handbag before popping another pill into her mouth.

  “You know this whole thing can't work out, right?”

  “What do you mean ‘can't work out’?”

  I tried to reply, but the words fell short.

  “Three years! Three fucking years I've known you, and you just shove it back in my face? I was there the whole time. More than Sarah ever was, I didn't try to tame or sedate you—I accepted every part of you.” She crunched the pill between her teeth.

  “Shit, guess I deserve it anyway . . .”

  She fumbled through her collection of pill bottles, lozenges, and tablets to relight her quenched cigarette. I held out my lighter for her and she leaned in towards the flame.

  “Remember our first Playdate?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “How stupid were we?”

  “I remember you got caught.”

  “Trying to run from security in high heels . . .” She exhaled a cloud of thick smoke. “What was I thinking?”

  I could remember it as clear as day. My scrapbook had the whole thing documented.

  “But they let you go,” I said.

  “Because you bailed me out, Pete. Because you tried to save me, just like you’ve tried to save all of us.”

  That day at the shopping mall, I still didn’t know where it had come from. I was just in a bad mood and needed to vent, but didn’t know how. Like an infant who still hasn’t learned how to talk yet, but sure as hell knew how to kick and yell. The words on that day seemed to flow out of me. My first words—I’m sure my mother and father would have been so proud.

  The shopping mall was how I’d found them. It was also how I’d first met Sarah. She was just another passer-by that day, another raving lunatic, she probably thought, and continued shopping and spending money she didn’t have on books and things she’d never use.

  I found her profile online. She was young and inexperienced, but wanted to help. ‘Group anger management sessions’ were what she called them—a place to vent and connect with others. The support group I turned into my personal drug den.

  Sarah arrived not long after us and walked up to the grave beside us.

  Petals fell from the tear-soaked flowers clutched in her hands, a motion of colours to rest on this bland piece of grass and dirt. Other people passed by, but none stopped at Marcus’ grave—either no one else knew him, or much more likely, no one else cared.

  Sarah’s eyes widened as she saw the cuts and bruises on my face. As always, she chose to listen rather than ask. Her defining trait, which had let me corrupt her group anger management sessions so well.

  “I never knew much about Marcus,” I confessed. “Three years and still I never knew a damn thing.”

  “You and he were quite alike,” Sarah commented, her eyes never meeting mine for more than a fleeting second.

  “His anger was too much; it swallowed him whole. Snuffed out what little love and hope still existed.” Sarah let the words hang in the still air for a moment.

  “He was kicked out of home at seventeen. Couldn't hold down a job or girlfriend, eventually he just started living on the streets.”

  “Marcus was homeless?” I asked.

  “More or less . . . He first enrolled into a clinic for drug addiction; he'd been through so much and he tried so hard. He got clean for a while, got council housing, but he couldn't stop hating himself. Eventually, he stopped trying. Somewhere along the line, he lost the ability to love; to care anymore . . .”

  Probably because of me, I reflected.

  “I thought I could save him. I really did . . .” Sarah said.

  “We all did, Sarah, we all did,” Alice comforted.

  “Pete, I have to ask you: is it your fault Marcus died?”

  The question felt like a knife twisting into my gut.

  She looked up at me. Her eyes glistened with tears. There were no words I could find, no explanation that would make it all alright. Nothing I could say would change the things that had happened.

  “Remember the day at the art gallery? You promised me three honest answers for three questions. I only asked you two on that day. Now answer me truthfully, Peter, one last question: was it your fault?”

  The question echoed again. Sarah looked disgusted at me, eyes wet with tears. I wanted to hold her tightly against me, to tell her how it was all my fault. But the sadness I felt didn’t seem to be coming from Marcus’ death or the killing of Steve Connolly—it came from the pain I had caused Sarah and the sorrow she felt.

  Yes, a voice inside my head comforted. It’s my fault Marcus died. It’s my fault Steve Connolly was beaten to death and his kid was left fatherless. It’s my fault my father drank himself to death. It’s my fault countless other lives have been ruined. I hadn’t been saving anyone. All I’d been doing was destroying these peoples’ lives.

  All these words were screaming inside of me. Alice wrapped her arm around Sarah and led her back to her car as she wept curses and insults between sobs of tears. All these things that I wanted to say and instead I just stood there, paralysed as the woman I loved walked out of my life.

  CHAPTER 26

  Her limbs felt dead and numb as Sarah got into her car. It felt like she was on autopilot as she sat down. Her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t put on her seatbelt properly. With a deep breath, she steadied her shaking fingers and managed to put her key into the ignition. The car came to life with a roar that made her flinch. Dead petals still clung to the frayed ends of her black dress. She shook them loose, and they fell beneath her feet and onto the pedals. She caught a glimpse of him, still looking at her, but she turned away. She couldn’t face him now—she couldn’t face any of it anymore. That was to be her old life. Old memories from an old life. She took another deep breath and focused on steadying her trembling hands.

  Old habits from an old life of anxiety and shyness.

  Old habits from a life of trying to help peopl
e.

  Nothing had prepared her for any of this. Her four years of college, her crammed notepad of scrawny scribblings, her binders with their stickers marking the name of each member of her ‘group anger management sessions’—none of it mattered anymore. Her stacks of printed articles dating back from when she was just sixteen years old and first got interested in psychology—all of it was worthless now. None of it had prepared her for the big, bad world out there.

  Everything moved in slow motion as Sarah drove away. She hadn’t picked any destination really. All she was thinking about was her breathing and getting as far away as possible.

  Deep breath in, deep breath out.

  Just like she had learnt before. A mantra from her old life.

  She thought about staying with her mother back in Ohio, but she couldn’t face that. Already she could hear her mother’s voice telling her she was going to fail and how she was not surprised her daughter could not make it in the big city. She felt an old panic attack rising, but for once, she didn’t care. Anything was better than staying.

  Had she bred those monsters back there? Was it her fault she couldn’t save them? How could she not have seen all the signs?

  She thought back to the art museum with Peter, about how Peter had spent so long gazing at pictures of hell and suffering.

  They are not sheep and you are not a shepherd . . . a cruel voice mocked in her ear.

  Suddenly she was standing in the art museum, with an easel in one hand and an old paintbrush in the other. Peter was grinning back at her, monstrous and disfigured.

  “This is how I’d like to be remembered,” his voice rasped. “Peter Clayton, monster, murderer . . .”

  She fought back the tears. She couldn’t shed anymore; her eyes were too sore and tired.

  She reached over and turned the radio up to distract herself. A sad Spanish song began to play—a song about the death of someone you once knew.

  Finally, she let the tears she was holding back fall.

  CHAPTER 27

  My legs felt like cement, all the while my head shook from side to side. Regrets raced through my mind. I stood there watching as she drove away, knowing deep down that this was the last time I would ever see her. She had come to the city hoping to make a difference, to change lives. She never thought it would have turned out this way.

  Alone, Alice turned to me and said:

  “Try not to feel bad, Pete. Marcus was a junkie long before he met you. You gave him a new drug to try and fix things. Yet, just like you, he was not a monster. He tried to get off it, but it was too much. I hope you remember that, Pete. I need you now more than ever. You know what we need to do. Call me when you decide that you are ready.”

  With that, she kissed me on the cheek, and she too walked away.

  For the first time, I felt almost human, but when I looked down at the flowers and the small wooden cross with his name etched onto it, I saw my own.

  Peter Clayton, it read:

  Born 08/06/79

  Died 12/05/14

  Gone and forgotten. The world is better off not having known him.

  I walked through the graveyard for what could have been hours. I read each and every name and the year they had been born and died in. Some graves looked like they had been routinely cleaned to the point of obsession while others were simply left to the overgrown vines and moss that consumed them whole.

  I couldn't help but wonder what stories the people lying underneath each grave might have. How had they been remembered in life? How were they remembered now in death? Did any of it really matter? In the end, all I saw was a blurring streak of names and deaths, all of which seemed forgotten in my eyes. All except for one.

  The tombstone looked new. That kind of newness that the eye is always drawn towards.

  ‘Remembered by his wife and son.’

  Out there amongst the graves, I found the one person I knew, the one person who would remember me.

  I began to wonder how many others in this graveyard had known me and how many were a passing face in the crowd.

  How many had I actually interacted with? How many had been a Playdate? How many of these empty plots of land might become Playdates if I didn’t stop them? If I didn’t stop myself?

  It must have been thirty or more Playdates by now. I couldn't remember anymore. I'd stopped trying to keep count. Sure, I could recall the first, maybe ten or fifteen, but after that it all just started to blur into one. Except for this grave of this still rotting man who lay before me—six feet under with worms burrowing into the folds of his hairy, bloated flesh. He was one I would never forget: for he became the message, bold and strong. It should be Jason in his place. Instead, Steve Connolly had become the message that we all wanted to send, but lacked the proper canvas to write it down upon. The timing, I guess was good enough.

  We were a terror cult now.

  We were rage junkies.

  We were monsters.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tony stood in the centre of the group, illuminated by a single blinking light and haloed by stale cigarette smoke. His dominating stare turned to watch me as I entered the room.

  I'd used the last of my cash to buy some concealer to try and hide some of the bruises—not like I could have eaten anyway.

  I cast my eyes over the dysfunctional little group, looking for her.

  Instead, all I saw were junkies, outlined by a fog of low-lying stale smoke. Jason, Tony, and Jonathan sat in a haphazard semi-circle. In the centre, was a frail, middle-aged woman who was all glasses, beaked nose, and high-pitched voice.

  “Whoa, whoa, what the fuck are you doing here, Pete?” Jason demanded, rising to his feet.

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “She’s gone, Pete. Quit the other day,” Jonathan stated.

  Sarah’s replacement started making noise like some kind of frenzied cawing, presumably about ‘who I was’ and ‘why I was here’, but I wasn’t listening. All my attention was on the rage junkie in front of me, who just like me, was going through rehab of the worst kind—pure, unforgiving, relentless cold turkey. One of which he had no control over. The prohibition I had actively enforced upon them before there was another overdose or murder on our hands.

  “No, Pete, we’re going to talk about it. You're not going to say sorry for what you done?”

  His bruised face moved closer to mine.

  I shot him a cold look. I was about to ask Jonathan if he knew where Sarah had gone before Jason cut across me.

  “You should be crawling over here on your hands and knees to beg for my forgiveness, Pete. Crawl over here, right now, on your hands and knees, and hell, I just might decide to forgive you.”

  “Guys, please!” Sarah’s replacement pleaded, her voice finally dropping back to almost human levels.

  Jason pushed her away, sending her spilling onto the floor. Jonathan raced towards her like a knight in paint-crusted armour. Tony towered behind Jason and thrust out his broad, chiselled chin towards me in open challenge. His eyes bored into me, demanding that I look up at him, but I kept my gaze firmly fixed on Jason.

  “Unbelievable savages,” Jonathan muttered as he gently helped her back up.

  “Shut up, Jonathan! Don't you fucking start!” Jason snapped.

  “Don't fucking touch her again, Jason or I swear—”

  Jason's eyes burned red. His head whipped back towards me. Jonathan knelt beside Sarah’s replacement, his eyes wide. Sarah’s replacement yelled for security. Her shrill high-pitched voice rang like a wailing siren.

  “Why are you so afraid, Pete? All of a sudden, you want to live forever? Been avoiding me and cancelling Playdates left, right, and centre—still feeling bad over the last time?”

  “I warned you. You could have killed her—”

  “Bullshit! Where's the Pete I used to know, eh? Old pistol Pete? You still in there or what? Can Pete come out to play, old man?”

  I smacked his hand away.

  “Get out of my face, Jason.”


  “Peter, you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion,” Tony said as calmly as could be. “We had it all under control. You could have killed Jason if I hadn’t stopped you.”

  “Like fuck Petey boy could have taken me on! That’s what you want, isn’t it, Pete? Don’t lie; I can see it in your eyes. You want to kill me, don’t you?”

  Jason circled around me like a shark on the scent of blood.

  “You really think you could do it? I know how you work. You and me both, we’re far too alike and too far gone to come back from this. I know what you’re thinking. I always know exactly what you are thinking. You’d prefer if we threw money at her while we fucked and beat the shit out of her, huh? How about if she was a homeless person? A washed-up loser just like you. That’s the kind of sick shit you like to do, Pete. Or even better, if she looked like your father. Would you have preferred that, Pete? If we all beat your old man half to death? I know you would have loved that Playdate.”

  “Yeah, Jason,” Jonathan began as he stepped towards Jason and I. “I’m sure Pete would have preferred that the submissive you fucked looked like his deceased father. That’s exactly what he’d want. Hell, you probably even enjoy it, knowing the sick shit that you—”

  Jason punched Jonathan with such a force that when he fell back he tumbled over two of the chairs, breaking the semi-circle.

  “Jonathan, I fucking swear if you say another word, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Jason? Tell me, what will you do?” I pushed Jason back into Tony. Like an immovable mountain, Tony didn’t even flinch as Jason knocked against him. Jason’s face twisted into a cruel, snarling mask.

  “I must say, Pete, you look like shit. And here I was thinking that maybe I’d gone too easy on you."