by Novo Dé
They got antsy, bored, lazy, the usual. Most would just stare blankly at their screens, waiting it all out; some would stare at the time display, watching it creep by, one painful minute after another. I can remember doin’ that myself when I was their age, when it was just a clock on the wall.”
“Me too,” Cohen chimes.
“But you always have a couple that, just, can’t sit still; just can’t wait it out. There’s always those few that channel that energy differently. Y’know, the ones that—”
“Act out,” Cohen says nodding.
“Exactly. Now usually I just send ‘em out of the room to someone with more of an authoritative role. Let ‘em deal with ‘em y’know. But not that day. I don’t know what came over me…I bet everyone says that.
I guess it all kinda came to a head at that moment: the no-names, just, hatin’ where I was at, how I was livin’ life, or the lack thereof, and the turbulent world at home…with Juliet. And, I snapped.”
“Try and walk me through the events.”
“Well. It was a typical disruption to start. One boy was pestering another, kinda ‘messing’ with him; wouldn’t let him focus on his work. So I instructed him to stop, and he mouthed off to me a little – nothin’ crazy.
Usually when they do this, I just warn the student of possible disciplinary action if he or she persists, and that usually diffuses the situation, but not that day. Not that day. That day, I said, ‘Shut the fuck up, and get back to work. Now!”
Immediately the whole room went wide-eyed. Stunned. Couldn’t believe what I just said. I mean, most of them had never heard an adult, let alone a teacher, lash out at a fellow kid like that before. Clearly the boy himself had never experienced it.
But as he looked around the room and at his friends for a signal for what to do next, he reacted in a way I never saw coming.”
“He fired back.”
“He fired back. Said, “Why don’t you get back to work old man? Get off your fuckin’ ass for once.”
“And I lost my shit. Almost immediately. Wasn’t stunned. Just screamed right back in his face. ‘Sit your fuckin’ ass down, get back to work, or I’ll fuckin’ make ya, ya little shit.’ I mean, just this uncontrollable rage took over. I wasn’t me after that. And it all prolly would have been over if he hadn’t decided to double-down.”
“He mouths off again?”
“Yeah, he just wouldn’t back down. And from there, it all broke loose. We just kept on takin’ jabs at each other. Tit for tat. Each one a little closer in each other’s face. I don’t even remember throwing the water bottle at ‘em until I saw the video footage of it at the trial. God, I was beet red. You could really see the anger, the fury on my face, through my body language, the movement – I clearly went off the rails.”
I pause and stare at the white walls before I continue.
“I was angry ‘n all, but I’ll never forget what really set it off, to that…ah, final level. The kid said, ‘Y’know you’re nothin’ right? Fuckin’ nothin.’ No one needs you here. Anybody can do your fuckin’ job. In fact, my dad told me about you, said you were this famous author once, long ago, but lost it. Lost your touch or somethin.’ And now you’re here. A Has-been. But really, you’re a nobody.’ And like I said, I snapped.”
I pause as the feeling of that moment washes over me.
“Try to remember it as you saw it.”
“Do you remember that moment in the surveillance footage, right after that, where I just became silent, still, began looking around the room, puzzled, and then just kind of, stared at the kid, intensely, as he continued to go off on me, before I, I—”
“I do…”
“Well what the footage, the audio, doesn’t tell you is that the no-names kicked in, hard, and a fantasy took over.”
“Really?”
And I nod.
“The classroom, the kids, they all vanished. And I was suddenly back at my childhood home, in the very room I grew up in no less. Every inch of it the same; the detail exquisite. And in the kid’s place, stood my father, yelling at me, screaming at me, the same kind of yelling and screaming I grew with up.
The no-names didn’t shy away from authenticity there either. And a boiling grew inside me; just a clash of emotions I had never felt before. And that’s when the fantasy poured into my reality, and I lunged out at my father, tackled him to the ground, placed my hands around his throat and began to take his life.
I remember seeing my father’s face as I wrenched his throat. I remember the color distinctly. Bloodshot red. His eyes in panic. Him clawing at me, screeching out sounds of agony, despair, doing the best he could to get me to stop.
But he couldn’t.
But of course, this wasn’t any ordinary fantasy. I wasn’t just along for the ride. Like usual. I was participating; I was really strangling him, but of course it wasn’t my father I was strangling, it was the, the…”
And I begin to weep at the thought of what I did.
What I became.
“That wasn’t me doc,” I say through the sobs, through the saliva. “That wasn’t me.”
He extends a box of tissues.
“I know, I know,” he calmly replies.
The weeping turns to crying. And Cohen comforts me with an embrace.
“It’s ok, it ok,” he calmly says over and over again. “It’s ok, it’s over.”
“But it’s not over,’ I say through the sobs, “I need more help. I’m afraid. I’m afraid it could happen again…” And I break down.
Cohen comforts me, and eventually, I return, and collect myself to continue.
“I would’ve killed that kid if the security guard hadn’t been walking by and heard the screams. And thank god he did. Anybody just watching the surveillance feed wouldn’t have gotten there in time. Wouldn’t have made it. And that kid, that kid, would’ve been…”
And I take in another deep breath.
Cohen nods in concurrence.
“And as soon he tore me off the kid, I was back. Instantly. I saw the classroom. I saw the kids. And I saw what I’d just done, the scene I’d been torn away from, this child, left on the ground, clawing for life, writhing in pain, in anguish. The sight, hideous, doc. Just. The thing of nightmares. A couple of more minutes, and he would’ve been gone. Thank god thank god that security guard came when he did. Thank god thank god thank god.”
And I let out a sigh, shaking my head to and fro.
“I was quickly restrained of course. And that’s when the real cops showed up. Didn’t take long. And I became…speechless. I guess, I went into shock or somethin.’ I mean, it was probably for the best. Didn’t say a word to the cops because of it. But I also didn’t need to. Five minutes with that surveillance feed and they were already reading me my rights.
I was in the back of a squad car soon after and rushed over to the nearing precinct. And from there, like you’ve seen in all the movies, it went from bad to worse…to worse.
Fingerprints, interrogations, full body evidence acquisition, which, lemme tell ya, is fuckin' awful, and then on to a jail cell, left only with my thoughts again.
It wasn’t until later that I found out that, as I was being rushed off to jail, the kid was being rushed off to the hospital, and then quickly to ICU.
They were almost a minute too late I was later told. Any more loss of oxygen to the brain and there could have been permanent damage. Possibly even death.
But the kid, luckily, came to, made it, and with time, regained what he almost lost. The bruising around the neck took a little longer than expected to heal, but eventually, he showed no signs of trauma. And at first I was relieved, I really was, but that was all wiped away when I heard the report that, though he eventually showed no signs of trauma, the psychological damage from the event…would last…a lifetime. As you probably know. That the kid would never be the same. Would never have a normal childhood. Or what remained of his childhood. Never have a normal life. Because of that one moment.
&
nbsp; And I was the one that did it.”
“I’m sorry Tybalt. But. Let’s rewind a bit. What happened after those initial police procedures?”
“It was...god the long ‘wait.’ The first visit was with the lawyers, where we talked strategy. They first tried to convince me to plead ‘insanity,’ given that I was high on Anonymous and in the middle of a hallucination, but I knew the truth. I wasn’t insane; I was just an addict. Before the arraignment, I came to a lot of truths in that jail cell.”
“What kind of truths?”
“Upon my request, I pleaded with my legal team to convince the judge to let me see the surveillance feed from the incident. Eventually, they succeeded, and upon viewing it, my god, it was, was…I finally got to see what everyone else was seeing – what I had become.”
“And?”
“And. I didn’t recognize myself. That wasn’t me anymore. I don’t know who that was. But it wasn’t me. Wasn’t who I used to be. But it didn’t matter because by the end of the feed, I knew the answer.”
“You pleaded guilty.”
“I pleaded guilty,” I say, nodding. “But not without a plea bargain thanks to my legal team. They lowered the charges to assault and battery, and attempted strangulation. Don’t even remember the initial indictment charges come to think of it.”
“And nothing else came in between? No visits? Nobody else tried to contact you? Juliet?”
“I actually didn’t see Juliet for the first time since the incident until the arraignment. Even then, she only spoke to me with her eyes. And those were not so gentle. Not by any stretch. The look on her face was, just, soaked in scorn. It was hard to look at her in fact. And because I didn’t post bail, we didn’t get to talk until a month later, before the hearings began, separated by…a window of course…” I say, with a bit of a chuckle. “There’s always a window,” I then say, nodding.
Cohen gives me a kind of side-ways gaze on that note, clearly confused with the inside joke I say to myself.
“But she still showed up?” he continues.
“She still showed up,” I respond nodding again.
“And the talk?”
“It was pretty one-sided. I tried to explain myself, and apologize, and plead, and beg for forgiveness, and she just, stared at me. And then the tears began.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She almost said something to me, but couldn’t quite get the words out. It was just this ‘…I…can’t…I…,’ before dropping the phone and hobbling out of the room in tears. I didn’t see her again until the first hearing.”
“But she came back, showed herself again?”
“She did. But I dunno. Maybe she just wanted to watch it all go down. See what was to come. Because, since we had a life together, my sentencing would be kind of her sentencing as well.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe she came to support you.”
“Maybe so…I dunno.”
“How many hearings did you have?”
“Just three surprisingly. The system ended up working faster than I thought.”
“And how were they?”
“Ugly. All of ‘em. The prosecution did everything in their power to land me the maximum sentence. They knew some sort of punishment was comin’ given my plea. And. I think they wanted to make an example out of me doc – they wanted to say, ‘fuck Anonymous and anybody that takes it; look what it can do to our community, and most importantly, to our kids.’”
“But the sentencing gave no maximum—”
“Not even close. I mean, I still don’t know exactly what happened; why it ended that way. The evidence was there; the prosecution was flawless. I mean our defense was good, but not that good. I should have done some time doc. I should’ve.”
“But you didn’t—”
“I prepared myself for the worst. At the sentencing, when the judge told us to stand, I couldn’t even look at ‘em. Too scared, too ashamed. There was no way I could hang my head that high. Not that day, no way. All I could do was listen; listen to those horrid things he had to say about me, about what I did, about what I’d become.
All those poignant words standing out: reckless, careless, negligent, vile. But as soon as he said, ‘But in light of…’ I knew there’d be a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“In light of your…” Cohen says, leading.
“Clean criminal record up to that point; No past brushes with the law, except a couple of speeding tickets here and there. The fact that I owned up to the incident, pleading guilty. And surprisingly my contribution to society at the peak of my writing career and former charitable donations,” I quickly chime. “With that, I got four years probation and court-ordered, mandatory psychiatric care and counseling.”
Finishing, I look down at the floor, my head hanging low.
“You seem. You seem almost displeased…with that verdict. Anybody else would have been jumping for joy, Tybalt. That was the closest thing to ‘winning’ anybody could have gotten with your plea.”
“But. I know what I deserved.”
“Apparently not in the eyes of the law.”
“But why? None of it makes any sense. The verdict doesn’t match the act at all.”
“I’m sorry Tybalt; I’m not a lawyer. I can’t—”
“I know I know. I just. I’m just tryin’ to make sense of it all. My clean past shouldn’t have made up for what I did. I was an adult in sound mind. Well semi-sound. I just. It doesn’t add up is all.”
“Well our legal system also understands that we’re not perfect, that we make mistakes, and that sometimes, people deserve second chances.”
“I guess. I just. I don’t think I deserved one—”
“But here we are. You can’t undo the past now,” he says with a closed lip smile. “You can only learn from it.”
“But I never learn doc…”
February 1st, 2052
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February 2nd, 2052
“…dreaded coming into this god-awful room those first couple of months. Hated looking at your fucking face. Still not a big fan,” I say smiling, implying I was only kidding. Cohen smiles back to say, ‘I know.’
“But as I was hating your face…Juliet was hating mine at home.”
“I hope, I hope you two were doing a little more talking than we were initially,” Cohen says with a chuckle.
“I can assure you, it wasn’t by much, but she was weird about it all. She just couldn’t confront it at first. Just went on pretending like nothing happened.
But, eventually, I just, made her, made her speak up. I mean I had to. We needed to talk about it. But it always ended up the same way – one fight after another.”
“So I assumed.”
“You assumed correct doc. But we eventually found our way back to what we knew – routine and schedules. And the fighting, the fighting dwindled. But. It still was just. Somethin’ wasn’t right. Still isn’t right. Just like the trial. I was expecting something different out of her…I mean I deserved—”
“You were expecting the worst there too…”
“Maybe a divorce. A reckoning. Something, monumental, I dunno.”
“Maybe the love is still there after all Tybalt.”
“You can keep saying that doc, but I’m not buying it.”
“Maybe this is something we don’t have to go on analyzing – maybe – it just was what it was; and it is what it is now,” he says nodding.
“Fuck – you of all people sayin’ that – fuck.”
“I just think…we’re getting so close to full recovery here…maybe it’s in our best interest that we don’t dwell on the bad.”
“Ah maybe you’re right. I dunno doc.”
“Why do you think it took so long for you to open up…to me?” Cohen then says.
�
��Just like that. Jesus doc. Well, I mean, isn’t it obvious? I didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to be here. Didn’t think it’d help. Hated your fucking face. Hated this fucking room. Still hate this fuckin’ room actually,” I say looking around the room. “And then there was the withdrawals. It was just…ah. I just wanted to do my time and go home. Find some sort of normalcy again, before this fucking shit storm, and I didn’t think this was gonna be the place to do it.”
“You definitely didn’t at first,” Cohen says, pausing. “But, you came around. I was just hoping you’d come around a little sooner. I hoped you’d eventually find some refuge here. Like a little escape from the escape. Like a safe place. Where you could say anything you wanted—”
“You gotta funny way of showing it then doc. Cuz it didn’t seem that way; didn’t feel that way at all in the beginning. Almost the opposite. You just seemed…all business. Cold. Seemed like you were just goin’ through the motions, the grind. Didn’t care.”
“But I do care…”
“So I learned,” I say pausing. “So. Are all your patients like me?” I say, changing subjects.
And Cohen begins to shake his head.
“No, Tybalt, most people, want to talk, like to talk even, when they’re here.”
“I guess I’m just not most people then huh doc?”
“No…you are not,” Cohen says slowly.
“But we got there…”
“We did indeed. So tell me, how’d you find your normalcy again?
“Just tried to get back…to my life…before the addiction I guess.”
“How?”
“I took a lot of walks. Still do actually. Just took the time to clear my head.”
“Any writing?”
“God no. Haven’t even written a word since the trial. Can’t. It’s tied up too much…with anonymous, kind of a trigger now.”
“Of course.”
“Bottom line: I just tried to stay outta trouble.”
“Of course. And Juliet?”
“Drowned herself in work. And when she was home, kept up the charade that everything was fine, and that she wasn’t a ticking time bomb.”