SERIES
My Name is Mr. Anger
Fiction — part 1
About series: This is the story of violence, a story so old it is in our very blood. And while a few of our sisters feel its pull, for many of us born to the Y chromosome, a violent act lies just beneath the surface, ready to hand like sword and shield.
1. Mall
“Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.” (Nahum 1:6, 1:5, Bible)
David Barnaton was late again. David had decided to head through the shopping mall on his lunch break that Tuesday afternoon. It was the long way back to the office, but he had his wife’s present on his mind; a striped cashmere jumper. A gift he’d promised to her weeks ago. Success came, but at the end of a long queue of other shoppers and now heading back to work, he was late. Again.
David’s hurried feet slapped across the mall’s floor. The alarm on his watch rang. And rang.
He pulled a pair of headphones from his pocket, fumbling the little white buds into his ears around his purchases: the new jumper in its oversized hard-edged paper bag, the half-eaten burrito, the can of Diet Lilt. Pulling his phone out — and navigating to the right app — he joined the conference call, making sure he set it to silent mode, no camera. Glancing up, come on running through his head on repeat, he pumped his legs faster. He was sure he could get back to the office, through the silly turn-stile security gate, up the lift, and be back at his desk in five minutes.
He typed into the call’s chat channel, “Brb 3 mins.”
He watched the little tiles flick on, little heads and shoulders jostling, their lives behind them set to blur, rubbed out. Then he saw her name, J. Catherson. Shit. The Programme Director had joined the call unannounced. This was something she often did, though these last two weeks she’d been on holiday. But now, she was back. And David knew Catherson would want status updates. Shit, shit, shit. David increased his pace, swerving around the other denizens of the Mall, office worker tides, and slow-moving islands of mothers with prams.
“Hi everyone,” cuts in Catherson. “I’m back!”
David scrabbled to join everyone else sending a heart-shaped applause, but instead hit the icon to raise his hand. Fuck!
“David,” Catherson replied with a controlled smile under her mass of curls. “OK, we can skip the talk of my holiday. This isn’t my meeting.”
There was a pregnant pause, and David managed to switch off his raised hand and then hit the applause icon. Twice.
“Well, moving on shall we do updates?” Catherson continued. “I’ve got 15 minutes till I’m with Denby and our new Head of Data. Do you mind-thanks. Charlotte, why don’t you go first.”
David gave a great sigh and looking up, spied the Mall exit. He could make it back. Come on!
Sliding between another island of mums and an elderly couple, the exit doors not ten feet away, he felt a solid weight hit his shoulder, causing him to stumble and one of those odd pinball occurrences that don’t end well: his can of Lilt tipped precariously toward the paper shopping bag; the hand holding the shopping bag swung wildly away; ankle collided with opposite foot; swinging hand opened, reaching to break fall; phone dropped; mouth shaped in the great ‘O’. Then, all of David’s limbs tried to rescue the situation at the same time.
“Oi mate, you wanna look where you’re going,” said the stranger with the shoulder.
David looked up from the floor, then back at his mobile phone lying among the splatter of his half-eaten burrito. The cracked screen showed the distorted face of Catherson, grinning back at him.
“What the fuck!” David blurted out.
“You what?” The other man stopped and turned.
He was taller than David, wide of shoulder too. A solid lump of a man, who could frown and smile at the same time. A clever smile. He did that on purpose! thought David.
Heat ran across his shoulders towards his neck, his heart rate spiked and his breathing became shorter. None of this did he consciously sense.
“What do you mean, what? Look at my phone.” David’s voice raised three octaves as he reached to pick up his mobile. “Even my bloody lunch — ”
He cradled his phone, staring at it unbelievingly. His phone screen was cracked. Badly. This had never happened to him before.
The other man rubbed a hand over his shaved head and then stepped forward, offering a big-knuckled hand to help David up. David saw two of the man’s fingernails filled with grime. David swatted the proffered hand away but missed.
“Come on. Don’t be daft,” the man added and more firmly offered his hand.
David sighed and reached out. Meaty fingers gripped his hand squeezing and pulling. Just as he was between crouching and standing — and with perfect timing — the man let go of David’s hand and he fell back to the floor, a dull thud as his rear and hip connected with the ceramic tile.
David let out a small gasp. Several new emotions fought for control, but it was embarrassment that won. He stared up at the other man, blushing hard, words failing him.
The man smiled back.
“Stay on yer arse mate. It’s where you belong,” he said, his voice all hard edges.
His grin only widening, the man turned and disappeared into the crowds.
David remained a pile on the floor, people flowing around him, ignorant of his plight. None stopped. Sweat broke out across his back. His head began to pound, and just under his skin, blood vessels expanded as adrenaline coursed through his veins. But it was too late.
David was left to boil in his own thoughts.
2. Interview
“Here’s a rule of life: You don’t get to pick what bad things happen to you.” (Rory Miller, Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence)
Henry Clarke sat, tapping his foot, trying hard not to fidget but as he went over the anecdotes he’d prepared, his mind kept skipping. He wished again he’d written the cards like Tash had told him to. Just a few lines. He could see Tash waving her finger at him. She was shouting, losing her shit at him again. He didn’t want to admit it, but she was getting worse. Even when she was right.
“Mr. Clarke,” said a voice. “They’ll see you now.”
Henry looked up and over at the young woman behind the desk opposite. It was time. Come on, he thought. This could be the one.
He walked through the door into the meeting room and realized immediately and with clear certainty that no, this would not be the one.
Three people sat on the other side of the table for his interview, its pale expanse forcing him to stretch to shake hands. One face smiled back warmly, the second gave nothing away and the third’s face turned from shock to anger to something that told Henry he was screwed. It was the guy from the mall he’d bumped into. His eyes remembered and the set of his shoulders told Henry, he was going to take the whole thing quite personally. He felt his own smile freeze in place. I need to get out of here, he thought.
They locked eyes and he shook the man’s hand. It was like a wet fish.
The interview — for a two-year apprenticeship in marketing — was going to be the second chance he needed. Or the fifth one as Tash reminded him, even that very morning. As the questions came though, all the answers he prepared fled from his mind as he felt the gaze of Mall-guy boring into him.
“Tell us Henry what this apprenticeship would mean to you?” asked number one (‘Smiler’).
“I, I–” he mumbled. He couldn’t think of anything. What was it he should say? “ — er, a lot of things.”
Why is my collar so tight? I should never have worn a tie. None of them are. Fucking Tash, she was wrong!
After a pregnant pause, number two (‘Blank-face’) continued.
“Ok, Henry, what skills would you bring to this apprenticeship? Say from your current sales role?”
Henry was sweating now pretty hard, his shirt beginning to stick to his shoulders, his sides. He shifted in his seat. He mumbled an answer, but even he knew it was completely wrong. This was the transferable skills question! What are my bloody transferable skills?
He turned and looked at Mall-guy. He was grinning at him. I’ll give you a skill, he thought. Punching this bastard’s lights out!
A rictus grin froze on his own face as he waited. Mall-guy didn’t mess about and went straight for the throat.
“Hello Henry,” he began. “Can you describe a situation where you’ve overcome a challenge? But rather than your last job, let's say, hem, you were in prison correct? Yes, prison then.”
Both Blank-face and Smiler turned to cast glances at Mall-guy, but then they looked back at him, waiting.
You bastard, Henry thought, bringing up his prison time, in his damned interview. Wish I’d met you inside, Mall-guy.
But he knew it was over now. So fuck-it, he thought.
“You wanna know about prison eh,” he began. He leaned forward. “And what challenges I overcame,” he continued, feeling oddly now on safer ground.
“Well now, there was that time at Bristol prison — this would have been in the early months of my sentence–when Tash stopped sending my sheets of paper in the post, you know, the kind all covered in acid. Guys inside, they fucking love that shit. I used to make a tidy sum from that. So losing that income was tricky. Hem…”
Henry was lost in recollection and didn’t see Smiler or Blank-face’s jaws drop open.
“Though during the bulk of my sentence, I was at Wymott. Right up north. Loads of fucking nonces there. Oh yeah, there was that time I lost my job — and it was a right cushy job, let me tell you. Yeah, that was a challenge. But I just found a cunt like this one” said Henry, pointing at Mall-guy, “and kicked the living shit out of him.”
He sat back, scratched his balls hard, and took one look at Smiler and Blank-face, and added “reckon we’re done here, right?”
Without waiting for their answer, he stood and stared at David. “See you around Mall-guy.”
3. Car park
“Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven.” (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom & The Evolution of a Revolt, 1926)
David walked down a long street, happier than he had been in a long time. The lights from the restaurant and off-license were lost around the corner, as he walked arm-in-arm with his wife into the background glow of the flats now shouldering the street. David agreed to drive, so Debs — his wife — had happily cleared two bottles of wine at the meal.
It was their fifth-anniversary celebration. Their little one was asleep at home and elderly Mrs. Dibbs from next door was their babysitter.
Over a coconut chicken curry — both choosing the same dish as always — they’d agreed to try for a second child. Even without the alcohol, David felt a warm fuzzy feeling when he looked over at his wife. They were really going to do it. Number two. This would definitely clear his slate with Debs.
Then he saw him.
“Shit, it’s him,” whispered David, as his stomach gave a little lurch.
Across the road, fifty or more feet away, a group of five men were walking with laughing faces. David could well imagine which pub they’d just exited. The Bell Martin. One of the men flashed across his memory as it walked under a street light.
It was him. It was Henry. When, when was that interview?
“What?” his wife’s voice was a little slurred.
“Him!” David mouthed, but no sound came out. He slowed down, caught in indecision, heart beginning to race. Should they turn around and head back to the restaurant? Henry and his mates wouldn’t be going in there, right? Or, looking ahead if he timed it right, they’d be between the street lights.
He pulled the collar up on his jacket and swapped sides with Debbie.
“Whass-are you doing?” Debs was looking at him, frowning.
“Nothing hun,” and he put his arm around her.
Slowing their pace even more, watching the group opposite with one eye, while shielding his face with collar and Debbie, his heart hammering away, he prayed and prayed they’d pass unseen.
After the longest minute and a litany of words to the heavens, they were passed, the group opposite — the growls of their conversation interrupted with barks of laughter — gone, heading away.
“Come on love, let’s get home,” and David gave his wife a hug pulling her closer to him, a great flood of something sweet running through his limbs. Christ that was close, he thought. A few minutes later, they were beside their parked car. Debbie was leaning against David as he tried to fish the car keys from Debbie’s purse — she always insisted on carrying them.
“Davie-boy, tonight is your luck-ie night,” said Debbie smiling.
Debbie ran a hand around David’s neck, pulling herself closer, and leaning into him. After a little stumble, she managed to position herself between the car and David. “Let’s do it here,” she whispered and giggled a little.
David raised an eyebrow and smiled. He was trying to pull the car keys out of the purse when the first can hit the side of his head.
“What the–!”
The second and third hit Debbie who yelped, and the final two just collided with their car.
“Hello David,” said a voice from behind. It was him, it was Henry.
David instinctively pulled Debbie towards him as he turned to watch the pack of wolves staring back at him, a hungry look on all their faces. All except the one in the middle. Henry didn’t look hungry — in his eyes there was simple hate.
David felt a fear he’d not felt since school. As waves gripped his chest, a strange smell filled his nostrils, which it took a moment to realize came from himself.
And then, the wolves were upon them.
Author’s note: Read part 2 of 5 — Professor Barbara Tuesday offers a solution.
