Rage

by Ryan, Paul W.

  At that moment, the other officers blocking his view moved to one side and Jason caught a glance of a long, steel rod with two enormous weights attached to either end. Except now, the weights were resting uneasily on the ground. As the officers moved, he saw glimpses of a body still partially resting on the exercise bench. Then, as he felt the coldness of the handcuffs slap across his wrists, he saw him. In the centre of the room, underneath a faint buzzing light was Tony.

  * * *

  Thick robes bulged along Tony’s crushed neck and his eyes looked ready to pop like two overripe zits. Blood dripped in thick droplets from his ears. His partially crushed jaw still hung open—his last words cut short. A faint wheezing filled the air as several officers tried to move the weights free from his crushed windpipe. All around the body was yellow tape and little red flags. A crime scene analyst bent down over one section to pick up a chunk of Tony’s tongue from the gathering pool of blood. His eyes met Jason’s for the briefest of moments as he dropped it into a plastic bag.

  It took four officers to move the heavy weight from Tony’s neck. As soon as they pushed the weights aside, his head flopped loosely against the back of the bench. One of the officers began vomiting. His compressed neck had been forced back, as if it had almost folded in on itself. Broken bones jutted out from underneath the skin in angry lumps. Jason allowed the cops to take him away as a white blanket was thrown over Tony. The same officer had stepped in front of him again and was yelling so loud that Jason’s ears were ringing.

  The last thing Jason saw was those two dead, bulging eyes staring back at him.

  CHAPTER 33

  Jason had not shown up for work again, claiming it was due to Tony’s death, yet truthfully, he had little to do with the funeral or any of the arrangements other than identifying the body. Of what remained of our small group, he was the only one that attended the funeral. Hell, he was the only one that actually knew what had happened at the time. Probably for the best considering if Alice, Jonathan or I had gone and we ran into Jason, there would have ended up being another funeral to attend.

  Jason had been called in to the mortician’s office after the police station on the day of his murder to identify him. Tony had no family left, so to speak. He was an only child and both his parents had passed away a long time ago. All that remained were a bunch of money hungry aunties, uncles, and cousins who kept saying: “Teddy was a good man, wasn’t he? Oh lord, why does he only take the good ones away from us?”

  Once they heard that Tony had died, they came out of the woodwork and the funeral arrangements were made with haste. His body had literally passed from the mortician’s table to a funeral casket without a moment’s pause.

  The church was one of the few old relics that still stood in this city. Inside, tall, stained glass windows glowed and faded in ghostly retrograde. A film of dust hung in the air like long, grey fingers, calling the mourners forth. The entire church groaned and creaked as one by one, people filled out into the pews. The pews were pockmarked with women; their little black hats with veils looked like dark cobwebs that had fallen over their faces. Some managed a stifled cry, while others had their cell phones hidden in their laps, calculating Tony’s great fortunes and how much they planned on inheriting. The men sat next to them, stiff in the feeling of their best clothes, only able to sit still for several minutes before squirming in their spot again.

  “Be sure to carry the one, dear,” they would say to their wives. “And be sure to mention that I’m the eldest from Teddy’s mother’s side, not his father’s.”

  “Oh Lordy, why do you always take the best ones?” a woman wailed again.

  Jason needed to get away from them all. Another minute with these people and he was going to lose it.

  He left the church and was halfway through a cigarette when a man approached him.

  “Jason Casey?”

  Jason turned to face the unfamiliar voice. A shimmer of light caught the reflected steel of a handgun the man was not so subtly trying to conceal. He held it in a half tight grip, the sleeves of his baggy overcoat hiding his hand and fingers apart from his dirty, uncut nails.

  “Oh, this is rich. What do you want?”

  The man edged closer and pressed the gun against Jason’s stomach.

  “Phoenix sends her regards.”

  “Who the fuck is Phoenix?”

  The gunman flexed his hand around the handle of the gun. It was a stubby cylinder of bright steel that flashed in the pale light. His finger rested uneasily on the trigger. He poked Jason with the barrel once again. Jason could feel the man’s fear. His eyelids beat heavily and noisily as a cold sweat trickled down his sloping forehead. A murderous rage tap-danced around in his brain. All the signs Jason was looking for were there.

  This man has never killed anyone in his life. Me, on the other hand . . .

  “This is it.” The man tried to sound his bravest, prodding him again with the barrel. “Any last words, Jason Casey?”

  “All right, I get it.” Jason started a slow, sarcastic clap. “This little show? Real cute and all that, but listen, I have other, more important things I need to do, so let’s cut to the chase, alright? How much is it going to take to make you fuck off, huh?”

  Jason casually pulled out his wallet from his pocket and started waving it in front of the man’s face like bait to a fish.

  “This isn’t about money,” the gunman grunted as some of his former brevity came back to him.

  “Not about money?”

  “It’s about something more.”

  “More than money?” Jason laughed. “Honestly, tell me: you don’t want this? You don’t want all of this?”

  He continued waving it before slapping the gunman on the forehead with it. The gunman’s greedy fingers pried at his wallet, but Jason batted them away. As calm as possible, Jason removed several of his credit cards and placed them into the top pocket of his jacket. The gunman’s brow furrowed as Jason waved the wallet dramatically in front of his face again before tossing it into the middle of the road.

  “There you go, buddy. Fetch. Go on.”

  The man's eyes followed the wallet like a dog instinctively cocks its head towards a thrown ball. His body urged him to run after it, but his legs seemed firmly planted to the ground.

  Before he could turn his head back around, Jason tackled the gunman to the ground. Jason wrenched the gun from the gunman’s claw-like fingers and pressed it against his forehead.

  “You want to die, asshole? Huh? Answer me!”

  The man tried to speak, but fear had taken his voice, drowning his words in sea of panic. Jason pressed the barrel down harder onto his forehead.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Kill me if you wish. More Survivors will come. You cannot run, Jason. Your redemption is on its way.”

  Something had finally snapped inside Jason. Looking down at this man, whimpering and crying at his feet, he did not feel anything. That transformation Jason felt was not something which had happened overnight. It had been with him his entire life, as integral and involuntary as the blood that flowed through his veins. Countless Playdates had shown him that he could beat a man half to death and then sleep soundly that night. He didn’t feel haunted at night. He didn’t have any regrets for what he had done. He had crossed the threshold from man to monster.

  A church bell started ringing, long and sonorous.

  Then Jason pulled the trigger.

  FROM THE DIARY OF PETER CLAYTON

  Let’s face it—anger is a fact of life. Our world is filled with violence, hatred, and war. Psychologically, many theories of human development focus on the infant’s struggle with anger and frustration and the primitive fantasies of aggression, guilt, and reparation that result from these feelings. That first moment we all learn to say ‘no’, we define ourselves. That moment we defy our parents and stubbornly resist what is right for us is the moment we are truly born. A new-born gets hungry and what does he or she do? Either they cry or they get a
ngry and frustrated. We grow up with anger right from the beginning.

  That’s how they get what they want in life. Little changes all the way into adulthood. In adulthood, when things don’t go right we get angry at others, blaming the parent that is society for neglecting to nurture us, to feed us, to sing us to sleep in this big, bad world. We all crave that parent figure that will hold our hands all through life until we grow old and die, to make all the anger and frustration of life simply vanish.

  When one doesn’t exist, we make one up.

  Anger, violence, rage: they’ve all existed since the dawn of man. They had nothing back then and still they went around bashing in each other’s heads for a warm fire and a scrap of food. Nowadays we bash in other’s heads in for land, oil, and politics. All throughout history, mankind has been violent against his fellow man, but always believed it was just and that it was deserved because they are wrong or the enemy or maybe just weak. Maybe they follow the wrong religion, or look different or like different things than you do.

  Nowadays, it’s always something or someone to blame for it all. Whether its games consoles, cell phones, cable television or celebrities, it’s never the fault of the receiver. They are always the victim in each story—a victim against the many wrongs of society.

  Consider the anger victims often feel. Victims of abuse or violent crimes often feel like they have been violated in some way. Often while experiencing the trauma, they do not experience the anger. Later, the anger will emerge. Because of the complexities of trauma recovery, this anger is not often short lived—they need to stand up for themselves; they need to exact revenge upon the wrongdoer and in turn, letting their rage free. They too just as quickly become the monsters of someone else’s story.

  No one wants to be a monster in any story. We all want to be the heroes, the just and holy, the proud and the noble. Yet unfortunately, in every perspective there is at least one monster.

  Depending on whom you ask, you just might find yourself being the monster of someone else’s story.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Look, Alice, you need to get out of here. Take all your things and run.”

  “Pete, what the hell are you talking about?”

  I was folding up what clothes I had in my apartment and tossing them into a suitcase. My apartment was almost completely bare, apart from a few unwashed dishes and my overflowing garbage bin. My scrapbook, along with my diary, had also been thrown into the trash, along with any old clothes I didn’t plan on bringing with me.

  “There’s a group out there that want our blood for all we’ve done. The ‘Survivors’ they’re calling themselves. Our former Playdates. It’s a witch hunt, Alice, a monster slaying. It’s not just Tony and Jason they want anymore. They want all of us.”

  “So, what? We’re just supposed to pack up our things and run away?”

  I nodded. My eyes were wild with urgency.

  “Pete, this is madness.” Alice shook her head, refusing to let the thought inside. “Why are they after us? Where would we go? What would we do?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t,” I replied while gathering what savings I had hidden around my apartment since the Playdates had begun. Cash I had hidden to escape all of this. Although, back then I always thought I would be fleeing to some remote village, not fleeing for my life.

  “Why are they after us, Pete?”

  I stopped racing around the apartment. I knew I had to tell her.

  “Because of everything we’ve done, Alice. You’re right when you said it before. Hell, even Marcus was right all along—we are monsters, and monsters deserve to be slain.”

  “There must be something we can do! How do you know all this?”

  She deserved the truth. I was tired of running. Tired of fighting. I let out a deep sigh.

  “I met with their leader. Remember the sex worker Chloe that Jason and Tony raped and beat half to death? She found all our old Playdates and now . . . they want our blood, Alice. All of our blood.”

  “What? Oh, my God . . . Pete, how . . . How did she find you?”

  “Alice, look you need to understand this had to be done.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I called her, Alice. I told her everything we’d done. I gave her our names, addresses, everything . . .”

  She slapped me so hard my head almost spun all the way around.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  She raised her hand to slap me again but I grabbed it. We grappled and fell to the floor in a tangle of kicking limbs and spat words.

  “Why would you do this to us?” She batted her tiny fists against my chest, sobbing all the while. “Why . . . you’re going to get us all killed, you stupid little—”

  “What we done was wrong, Alice. You and I both know this.”

  She looked at me through tear-soaked eyes. Her little body trembled with barely-restrained rage.

  “Look, I have over seventeen grand. Here. Take it. Start a new life. Get away from all this.” I held out the envelope for her. She just stared at me blankly.

  “No.” She shook her head and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I have to get away from you.”

  “Alice, please . . . You’re not listening.”

  “You’re poison, Peter. That’s all you are. No wonder Sarah could never love you and ran away. You’re poison! Poison that chokes everyone you care about until they slowly die one by one! I never wanted to kill anyone . . . I never meant for that man to . . . I only did all these things because it made me feel good and made me feel in control for once . . . and to be close to you. This is too much . . . I have to go.”

  “Alice, please—”

  “No, Pete. You know what? You want me to die? Fine. Watch me then. You want to die, too? Great. I don’t care anymore. Just stay the hell away from me.”

  I watched her walk out my front door, knowing deep down in my heart she was not going to run for all the money in the world. I knew I had put her in danger long before the Survivors were coming. Here was where she belonged. Here with her diet pills, anxiety pills, uppers, downers, do-it-yourself Botox kits, and all the rage and sadness she could need for a lifetime. I had made her a rage junkie with my false words and false promises.

  It was time to come clean and purge ourselves. Whatever it may mean.

  My phone rang. I picked it up without checking the number. I knew the only person it could possibly be.

  “Not been following the news lately, Peter? That’s very unlike you. Channel Seven.”

  The voice on the other end waited patiently.

  I turned on the television. The news bulletin ran the headline: ‘Tony Garcia—CEO of Echo cigarettes found brutally murdered in local gym.’

  “This is just the beginning, Peter,” the voice said. “You had your chance to save your soul. Your redemption will come soon.”

  Then the phone went dead.

  CHAPTER 35

  Alice popped another diet pill and her second anxiety pill. Why had Pete done this?

  Fucked and chucked. She was almost laughing to herself. That’s what he has gone ahead and done. Fucked and chucked all our goddamn lives away.

  Alice could not shake the constant feeling that someone was watching and following her. It was not a new sensation, however. She had grown accustomed to having men stare at her all through her life. It was the price she paid for being a model and as frustrating as it was, there was a certain sense of power in it.

  They all want me.

  She would think of how frustrated all the men she had met throughout her life had gotten when she would give them nothing more than a flirty smirk and a brushing graze across their quivering arms. Being watched and in power was almost second nature to her.

  Yet now she felt none of those things. It was an unsettling kind of feeling, a growing dread of what was coming for her. The thought of being out in public made her heart hammer in her chest. She found herself suddenly pressing dress after dress int
o cramped suitcases. All around her apartment were mounds of clothes and expensive jewellery others had bought for her down through the years.

  She sat on the edge of her bed and fought back the tears.

  This is so ridiculous, she thought. Running away. Where would I go? My home is here, everything I have worked for is right here. Screw Peter and screw every single man on the face of this Earth. Screw these ‘Survivors’ or whatever the hell he had called them.

  She popped another anxiety pill and chased it down with a tall glass of gin and tonic. The alcohol went straight to her head. Her stomach fluttered, but she couldn’t eat if there was still a possibility of going to make the show later tonight.

  Old habits from an old life.

  The ghost of the past that still haunted her. She never seemed to be allowed to eat much anyway.

  It was just pill after pill. That was all the life of a fashion model would allow her. She had to stay below a certain weight and maintain a certain level of beauty at all times by men who commanded her to stay pretty so they could worship her from near and afar. And she played by their rules, growing more bitter each day as she was denied more of more of life. Her manager would keep telling her to lose more and more weight and to put on more and more make-up so more and more men would hit on her and to try and ‘win’ her.

  Who am I kidding? She laughed to herself.

  She’d fought off boys and men her entire life. Alice had no older brothers or lasting father figure throughout her life. Her mother had a constant series of men come and go all throughout her childhood, yet none seemed to stay for longer than a few months. Days in some cases. Hours sometimes.

  She was strong enough to defend herself. She could fight and had fought ever since all the boys at pre-school had wanted to kiss her. When puberty finally hit all the boys at school, she fought back even more. She had hurt men and women before, far worse than their egos. She had made them bleed.