Life Rage Read online

  This was different. She was actually waking up, getting ready for work, the whole time thinking only about that first drink of the morning. Once Sam was gone to his practice, she was alone. And free to indulge. She grabbed the brandy decanter and sat down on the white leather couch. She kicked off her shoes, and opened it. She didn’t even bother to get a glass. Drank it right from the bottle.

  The taste didn’t bother her anymore. She could drink anything.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d stayed home from work to get drunk. It was happening more often lately. After the first drink, she’d call in sick, and then she’d kick back and get sloshed, making sure she had enough time to sober up and take another shower before Sam got back home.

  It had been an occasional thing at first. When she just couldn’t face the world and she decided to take a day off. This was the first time she’d done it two days in a row. How much longer before it became a problem with her job? Before they fired her? Before she didn’t bother to sober up and Sam caught her?

  She couldn’t say. But she knew it was going in that direction. And, honestly, she didn’t care.

  She had showered and dressed, but now she took off her dress and put it back in the closet, on a hanger. She went back to the couch, in her underwear and took a long drink from the brandy. Then she went to the phone and called her office.

  “Hello, Mary?” she asked, hearing the receptionist’s voice. “This is Maggie. I’m still feeling pretty awful and I won’t be able to make it in today. Can you cancel my appointments for me?”

  Mary said she would take care of it, and Maggie hung up the phone.

  Then she went back to the couch and the bottle.

  It was like there was a snake inside her, coiling around her insides. That’s really what it felt like. A snake that only got nourishment from alcohol. That hungered for it.

  A snake, or maybe more like a drunken tapeworm. Demanding sustenance.

  It wasn’t like her at all to do these things. She wasn’t the kind of person to stay home and drink all day.

  But she was becoming that kind of person, slowly but surely.

  * * *

  Jonathan Williams sat very tensely in the leather chair. His bandaged hand resting uncomfortably on his lap. Staring at the man’s hand, Sam thought about the incident at the red light. When he’d struck the car’s window. Strangely, his hand seemed to have healed overnight. It mustn’t have been badly hurt after all. But there was a subtle, probably psychosomatic stinging along his knuckle line now, as he stared at the man’s bandage.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” Williams said. “I just lost my temper.”

  “These things happen,” Sam said. “If you were the only person this ever happened to, I’d be out of a job.”

  There was a slight change in how Williams was sitting. Sam’s last statement had made him relax a little. It was always comforting to know you weren’t alone in feeling a

  certain way.

  “Start at the beginning,” Sam said.

  “It was Tommy, my son,” Williams said. “He was playing ball near the house and almost broke the kitchen window. I told him to get away from the house, maybe three, four times, and he just wouldn’t listen to me. He’s at that awkward age, you know. No longer a child, but not really an adult, either. I can’t blame him for being volatile. But if he lives in my house, I have to demand that he listen to me. Don’t I?”

  Sam nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “So he came real close to hitting the window. It bounced off the wall. But I was outside, you see, watching him, ready to yell at him. And his defiance, throwing the ball when I was standing right there. It just infuriated me.”

  “So you broke the window yourself,” Sam said.

  “How did you know? Yeah, I got so furious, I smashed the window with my fist. And I told him ‘Is that what you meant to do, you little shit?’ It scared him so much, he ran away. And for a moment, I felt good about that. Victorious, you know?”

  Sam nodded.

  “But then I looked at my hand, and saw all the blood. So much blood. My wife had to drive me to the emergency room. It took something like thirty stitches. I realized then that I had to do something about my temper. This just isn’t rational behavior, is it?”

  Sam thought about how it had felt, punching that woman’s window. Seeing the spider-webbing cracks in the glass. Knowing that in that moment, she was not sure if she would live or die. And how he had let her live.

  Sam leaned forward. “I don’t want to pass judgment on your behavior, Jon. I really don’t need to, do I? You realize that there’s a problem here. You don’t need me to tell you that. You’ve already identified the problem, so I won’t waste your time. You came here for help. That, I can give you.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “Is this the first time you’ve done something like this?” Sam asked.

  “No, not really. I’ve broken things before. But I never hit my son. I never touched him. It was always objects, things.”

  “You’re afraid that might change one day.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m glad you came here. I can help you, John.”

  “I really do hope so.”

  “Tell me about some of the other incidents,” Sam said. “As many as you can remember.”

  * * *

  When Colleen got back to the apartment, Turney was taking a shower. His “companion” was nowhere to be found.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for him to get done. She had been out walking, thinking about their situation, and she had decided that he had to leave. She knew she’d told him he could stay indefinitely, but she realized now she wanted her own space, and she was uncomfortable sharing it with him.

  The sound of the shower stopped. The bathroom door was open. Turney got out and started drying himself with a towel. Colleen could see part of him, his side, but he was not yet aware she was back. Or, if he was, he didn’t let on.

  He came out into the bedroom, dragging the towel behind him. It was the first time she had seen him naked. Really seen him. She’d seen him tangled up with that girl on the floor the night before, and there’d been that time they’d tried to do it, but for some reason he’d insisted they kept the lights off then. She had never really seen him standing before her like this, totally exposed.

  He was radiant.

  There were a few scars, but they were the only evidence of a life spent mostly on the streets. His body was mostly free of fat, and there was definitely a muscle tone that contradicted the thought of him being malnourished. His nomadic lifestyle had not reduced him to an empty shell.

  She found herself looking at his arms. Looking for tell-tale signs. Track marks. But they weren’t there. If he was an addict, he wasn’t into needles, or he’d kicked it long enough for punctures to heal. There was something about him that said addict to her, but she hadn’t seen one sign to confirm it since he’d come to stay with her. She hadn’t seen any sign of paraphernalia, either. No crack pipes; not even the discarded butt of a joint.

  “Oh, Colleen, I didn’t know you were back,” Turney said, sounding embarrassed, but she couldn’t tell if it was real, or him trying to act like he thought she wanted him to.

  “Turney, we’ve got to talk.”

  “Can I get dressed first, Col?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said. Watching him go over to the corner of the room, where his bag was. He started pulling out clothes. He made no attempt to cover his nakedness with the towel. In fact, he left the towel in the middle of the floor.

  She could not help staring at his cock. It looked larger than she remembered it being. Unscarred and half-erect. He was enjoying putting on a show for her.

  He had never seemed so beautiful before.

  He pulled on a shirt, making sure to leave his lower body exposed. And turned to look at her. A knowing smile on his lips.

  She tried to remember him in high school. A quiet, morose kid. Always sn
eaking away to smoke pot with his loser friends. She was one of the few girls who found that scene attractive. Who had hung out with them sometimes, when she wasn’t hanging out with her own clique, other girls who had the label “slut” tattooed on their foreheads in the minds of the other kids. Strangely, though she had smoked pot and hung out with him sometimes, even having long marijuana-fueled conversations with him, Colleen had never fucked Turney back then. Had never even seen him as a sexual being.

  Even that one time they’d tried to do it, years after they’d known each other in school, it just didn’t seem real. It seemed like they’d done it more out of curiosity and for something to do rather than because of real desire. And of course, it had ended disastrously.

  This was the first time she’d looked at him and really wanted him sexually.

  He pulled some jeans up over his naked ass. “What did you want to talk about, Col?”

  “It’s about this place,” she said. “It’s kind of small for two people.”

  He sat down beside her on the bed, bounced a few times, smiling at her.

  “It’s kind of homey,” he said. “I like it.”

  “Turney, I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “And I’m sorry, but I really need my space.”

  He did something then that surprised her. He reached under her skirt. He got a surprise, too, and grinned when he realized she wasn’t wearing panties.

  When he looked over at her, they were both smiling.

  He rubbed her with his fingers. Staring into her eyes.

  Then he pushed her back, kicking his jeans off. He pushed up her skirt. She did not resist. He climbed on top of her, penetrating her immediately, his cock now fully engorged.

  She stared up into his face while he was fucking her. He had his eyes closed in concentration. His jaw was clenched tight.

  He had no stamina. He came too fast. But she was on the verge of coming when he finished, and she finished herself off with her hand.

  He rolled over on his back, panting softly, watching her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  He looked across at her. Her eyes were welling up with tears. They were entering some touchy territory. This was the original reason she’d come to him, after all. The time she’d struck her daughter in a fit of rage. It had resulted in a broken arm. Who knows what could have happened next, if she hadn’t come to him for help?

  There was a time when it was too painful for her to talk about. But enough time had passed for them to confront it again. Sam was sure she was strong enough now.

  “I didn’t know what had taken hold of me,” the woman said, covering her eyes, and lowering her head in remembered shame. “I didn’t want to do it. It was like someone else was doing it.”

  “No, Brenda,” Sam said. “It wasn’t someone else. It was you.”

  He had to make her face it. Head on.

  “I know,” she said.

  “How do you feel now?” Sam asked. “These days? Do you still worry about flaring up? Are you still afraid of the rage inside you?”

  “No,” she said, between sobs. “Not anymore.”

  Of course not, Sam thought, almost smugly. Because I’m a fucking miracle worker.

  “It’s so much better now,” she said. “It’s easier to control the anger.”

  Sam almost smiled as he grabbed the tissue box and handed it to her. She plucked a tissue from the box and dabbed at her eyes.

  “So you’ve made substantial strides,” Sam said. “You should be proud of yourself.”

  “I have you to thank, Doctor Wayne,” she said.

  “I’m your guide. The actual journey is all yours.”

  Sam could feel a slight adrenaline rush.

  He rose to his feet. “We’ll talk in more detail about this next time. I’m sorry to say our time is up for today.”

  “Of course,” she said, and stood.

  He escorted her to the door, and opened it. She gave him a weak smile as she went to the lobby, still dabbing at her eyes. Croix was in the waiting room. Staring at Sam in the doorway.

  “You can come in now, Mr. Croix,” Sam said, glancing over at his receptionist, Carla, who had started talking to Mrs. Carlisle about her bill.

  Sam stood aside and let Croix enter. He was a big man, and when Sam first met him, he thought he’d be a tough nut to crack. But, like all the rest, he was a rather easy victory. Already the man’s body language was different. Gone was the stalking-animal walk that he used to dominate whatever room he entered. And he had simply stared when Sam came into view. On earlier visits, he had glared. He probably hadn’t even realized he’d done it.

  Sam thought that the man’s eyes looked different. A clear sign of change.

  Croix sat down in the chair Mrs. Carlisle had just vacated. Sam sat where he always sat.

  “So tell me how you’ve been getting along,” Sam said, opening the door to their conversation.

  As the session began, Sam could feel the adrenaline rush again. Where it had been subtler with Mrs. Carlisle, it was more pronounced now. Sam could feel the hair on his body standing on end.

  “I’ve been sleeping better,” Croix said. “I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve really slept.”

  Sam smiled. “That’s a good sign. Do you remember any of your dreams?”

  As Croix spoke, Sam only half heard him. He was distracted with the energy he felt inside. Then he found himself looking around the office. It was so many steps up from his humble beginnings. The expensive carpeting, the furniture, the fine draperies that framed the windows. The sheer size of the office, compared to former ones he’d had. Even the waiting room was impeccable. Business was good.

  Other people’s rage had rewarded him well over the years.

  * * *

  There was some tension between them, despite the intimate connection. In fact, that unexpected interlude just made things more uncomfortable. Colleen still wanted Turney to move out, to give her space, but now she felt more reluctant to push it.

  The place was too small for two people, and if Turney was down on his luck when he first showed up, there was no sign that this was going to change. He was not trying to change his life at all. He was not looking for a job. He never spoke of moving on.

  I hope he doesn’t think that we have some kind of relationship now, she thought, almost shuddering at the idea. Not that Turney was all that horrible. He was nice enough to look at. But he was so devoid of ambition, so content with his meaningless lot in life,

  that she was afraid it was going to rub off on her, and make her even less likely to “take hold” of her life—as her mother had always been so fond of saying—and try to act like the adult she was.

  She was afraid Turney would drain away what little ambition she’d been able to muster lately. Like some kind of ambition vampire. Like a walking, talking joint, always lit and always filling the air with sweet smoke, threatening to take you away to “I Don’t Care” Land. That image almost made her laugh.

  He’d gone outside for a while. When he came back, she had resolved to tell him once and for all; he had to move on. Maybe she’d take him out for a drink first, and soften the blow a little. But it had to stop now. Before it was too late.

  Before she just gave up completely, and became like him. One step away from being homeless. In fact, he had gone through periods of homelessness, and would no doubt go through them again, maybe right after she gave him the heave-ho. But she couldn’t think about that too much, couldn’t worry about what happened to him. She had to be more concerned about what happened to her. She couldn’t handle being out on the streets, without a place of her own, a sanctuary. It would drive her mad.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, dressed to go out, and waited for Turney to get back from his adventures. Who knew what he was doing out there? Fucking, scoring drugs, looking for people he knew to hit up for money, maybe even panhandling.

  He got back around seven-thirty. She was still sitting on the bed. It was dark, but she ha
dn’t bothered to get up and turn on the lights. He was surprised to find her there.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked. “Sitting there in the dark?”

  “We have some stuff to talk about,” Colleen said. “How’s about we go for a drink?”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  What was he thinking? Didn’t he know she was going to ask him to leave, or did he have some half-baked idea she was going to declare her love for him?

  “I don’t want to talk here. I’ve been here awhile now. I want to go out.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Turney said. “Just let me take a piss first.”

  It was like he just came back to use the bathroom. She didn’t say anything as he walked past her. He didn’t close the door. She still made no attempt to turn on the lights.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So tell me,” Sam asked. “How’s the anger?”

  Croix lowered his head and his mouth twitched. “It’s better,” he said softly.

  “Good,” Sam said, sounding truly thrilled. “That’s very good news, isn’t it. I mean, when you first started coming here, it sounded like anger ruled your life, and now, you say it’s better. How much better?”

  “I can’t explain it,” Croix said. “It just isn’t there as much as it used to be. It’s easier to breathe now.”

  “See, I told you there would be progress, that you would notice it right away, and not after years and years of therapy. I told you it would happen quickly, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” Croix said.

  “And you’ve already seen a big change. That’s wonderful, Richard.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty good. The wife’s noticed, too. She says I seem much calmer.”

  “Exactly. She couldn’t help but notice. You were a hissing cobra before, always ready to strike. I’m surprised you never killed anyone, or got yourself killed. All these years of anger. I don’t know how you got through it all unscathed.”