Great vengeance and furious anger

A low-key Friday night unexpectedly turned into a festive evening out with friends. Nothing epic, but when your friends have athletic sons, weekends are filled with out-of-town baseball and soccer tournaments. With no place to be and nothing to do, it was a rare night out to relax, laugh and catch up.

Wives, kids and the less hardy head home as the little hand creeps closer to 12. What had started as a baker’s dozen dwindles to two holdouts and one last nightcap.

I’m in the kitchen grabbing the last beers. My buddy is outside finishing a smoke. I hear a commotion near the front. “Damn, who else showed up? I don’t have enough beer. I’ve got to shut them up. Tell them not to wake the neighbors.”

I open the door. There’s a pistol pointed at my head.

“Shut the door mother fucker! Back in the house! Get back mother fucker!” a pistol-wielding teenager growls.

Three feet away, I see my buddy on the ground, a gun to the back of his head.

I shut the door trying to process what the hell is happening. A few seconds later, illogically, I open the door again trying to figure out if I saw what I think I saw.

“They’re stealing my car! Call 911! Call 911! They almost killed me,” my buddy screams. His car is rocketing out of my driveway.

Minutes later the cops arrive. In the distance I hear the sheriff’s helicopter circling. The officers’ radios chirp in short bursts of cop jargon. Pilots with their night vision cameras direct officers on the ground to the whereabouts of three teenagers running from the crashed car, some 22 blocks to the south.

An officer asks me how I’m doing. My voice starts to hiccup and tears form in the corners of my eyes as I try to answer her question. I’m fucking pissed. I was a probation officer in a previous lifetime, so I have no illusions that justice will be served.

At least not by the courts.

I’m in the back seat of a police SUV on the way to the station for the “show-up,” police lingo for identifying the perpetrators. I can’t stop dreaming about torturing these cowards.

I think about twisting their nuts into grotesque positions with that old pair of Vice-Grips my dad gave me in college. I consider the best way to gouge their eyeballs out with that big spoon I use to eat my Cheerios. I wonder about the proper ratio of crushed glass to water I’ll need to force them to drink to inflict the most internal damage. I weigh the pros and cons of using the lock-blade knife or the Old Timer pocketknife my grandfather gave me to cut off ears, fingers and toes.

FUCK!!! Why are my torture plans so specific? What’s wrong with me?! Who thinks like this?

We wait before walking into the police station. The patrol cars have just pulled into the garage with the roll-down cage that prevents the newly arrested from making a last-ditch effort to escape. The officers don’t want the teenage thugs to see us walk by. Same thing happens when we try to take the elevator.

Fuck this! I want these assholes to see me. I want them to see I’m not scared. Just the opposite. I can’t wait to be in the same room. I’m going to sit as close as possible in the courtroom. Taunt their manhood. Screw the State Attorneys office. I don’t care if I ruin their case.

I’ll handle this Old-Testament style, like Samuel L. Jackson in “Pulp Fiction” — “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

I wonder what kind of ammo I need to splatter their brains like a Gallagher watermelon?

WTF!!! Now I’m angry at my anger. Why am I thinking in such detail? I’m even planning my speech when they prosecute me for killing these bastards.

Dammit! Why am I trying to ruin my life? Fuck these mother fucking fuckers!! Get the fuck out of my head! FUCK !!!!!!!