Day 111: Cold Blue Anger Part 1 of 3

This is one of the school projects that kept me from the blog at the beginning of the month.  It is a revised draft of a story I had worked on earlier.  I had big idea to completely change it around.  There was no anger management class.  Tony was at home with Mitzy.  He was in a "grumpy" mood because he was concealing the fact that his temper that gotten him fired and Mitzy was pregnant.  Tony, their next door neighbor was going to help him come to the decision to tell Mitzy the truth (or get his job back).  Alas, I did not have enough time to rewrite the story so drastically, so I revised what I had.  I'll save the other idea for a rainy day.

Tony raised his right fist back and swung it forward with a force that made his muscles quiver. The punching bag jerked back and forth into the air as Tony swiftly threw punch after punch.  He gritted his teeth and grunted each time his fist made impact with the black bag.  Sweat sprayed the ground as he started circling around the bag while he punched.

“Good!” the instructor cheered.  “Now, focus.  Think about every situation you’ve had this week that has made you mad.  Channel all of that pent-up anger and frustration into your punches.  Imagine that you’re punching every person that has upset you.”

Tony smirked and punched harder as he imagined the punching bag to have a balding head with a bad comb-over and wearing silver-rimmed circular glasses, just like what his anger management instructor was wearing.  Whoosh!  A punch to all the ludicrous rules that were supposed to bring across healing but only made him feel more like he was participating in a three-ring circus.  Another one for all the hours he had poured into attending this irritating course and having no results to show for it.  He was sick of life and sick of everything.  Then the punching bag morphed into that man with the annoyingly high-pitched voice that sat next to him who claimed to know more about how to survive in the class, even though this was his fourth enrollment.  The obnoxious voice transformed into his former boss, whose fault it was in the first place for him having to attend this stupid course. 

Tony had been going to these anger management sessions for five grueling weeks.  His wife Mitzy had pestered him about them beforehand.  Tony had promised her that he would look into them and conveniently placed the thought out of his mind.  Unexpected circumstances, however, forced Tony to listen to reason. 

He had been at work, stuck in another one of those meetings that merely served to place the boss on a pedestal and allow the lackeys and suck-ups to surface for air and throw their co-workers under the bus.  It was during one of those speeches that Tony felt the weight of that bus tire on his chest, in the form of a heart attack.  Perhaps he couldn’t stand to hear lies being spread about his work ethic anymore and the pressure of keeping his mouth shut in front of his boss was too much for him.  So, right in the middle of the meeting, Tony stood up, strode right over to his boss, and punched him square in the nose.  This action released emotions that Tony had been harboring for months, and he continued hitting him until security came to drag him off.

Mitzy had said that he was lucky he didn’t kill his boss and only gave him a mild concussion.  Tony wasn’t so sure if he agreed.  Once his boss was out of the hospital, he promptly fired Tony and filed a restraining order against him.  He would have pressed charges, had the court not ordered Tony to complete the anger management course.  Tony’s wife still worked, so she was able to pay for it.  That was another thing that bothered him.  A man’s wife should not be supporting him.

He gave the bag one last swing and steadied it from shaking.  He was breathing heavily. 

“Excellent job, Tony!” the instructor clapped.  “Don’t you feel better?  By taking the time to channel your anger like this, you are less likely to lash out at people when you’re angry.”

Tony rolled his eyes as he walked past “Professor” and slumped back down in his seat, a few drops of sweat dripping from his forehead.

Ever since he was a boy, Tony had possessed a habit of calling people by nicknames, which were usually insulting.  This preference usually got him into trouble, usually with his mother or teachers, so he tried to keep them in his head as much as he could.  Occasionally they still managed to slip out.   

The resident anger management expert with the high-pitched voice who was sitting across from him laughed.  “You beat that punching bag to death!”

Tony didn’t answer, hoping “Squeaky” would take the hint and shut up.  Sadly, Squeaky wasn’t the brightest car on the lot.

“You know, I remember when I did the punching bag thing for the first time.  It was so exhilarating!  I even knocked the bag off the hook.  And the teacher yelled at me for being so reckless, saying I needed to control my anger.  I thought that’s what the punching was for, so I gave him a swing to show how I felt about his advice.”

“Probably missed,” he mumbled and looked at his phone.

Squeaky didn’t seem to hear.  “When it’s my turn to punch the bag, I plan on seeing how many times I can punch it in a minute.  Maybe I’ll beat my record!”

“And maybe I’ll punch your head in if you don’t be quiet.”

Indignation blazed in the man’s eyes.  “Are you threatening me?  I swear if you move a finger I’ll-“

Tony’s mouth curled upwards.  “I dare you.”

Squeaky rose from his seat and strode forward.

“Hey,” a deep voice warned from behind them, stopping Squeaky in his tracks.  It was Andrew, a volunteer teacher’s aide.  “Knock it off, guys.  Aren’t you learning anything in this course?  Anger does not solve any problems.  Both of you walk away for a minute and take some deep breaths to cool off.”

Tony wasn’t about to get anywhere to go “cool off,” so Squeaky stood up, still glaring at him, and began pacing in a corner of the room and cursing in Spanish.  Tony, still stewing in his anger, watched as Andrew walked over to assist a group of men with an exercise that the instructor had assigned them to work on while they waited for their turn in the punching bag activity.   

Tony had not always been an angry person.  In fact, he was always smiling as a kid.  He was also constantly in the principal’s office so often that the principal considered making him a nameplate for the front of the door.  Tony loved pranks and did all sorts of things to make himself laugh.  One of his finest personal achievements was when he managed to lock all the teachers out of their computers.  They had to cancel a few classes and call in an IT guy to fix it.  He was into sports, and his easy-going, jovial nature made him popular in school.  He was voted most likely to succeed in high school despite the “bad boy” reputation he had developed, which caused him to always have a girlfriend of some sort at his arm.  At graduation, his future looked bright.  He had no idea he’d find himself at one of these anger management classes.

“Okay, everyone!” Larry announced fifteen minutes after Tony’s altercation, “we’re going to wrap things up now.” 

Fourteen men filled the empty seats.  Tony put away his phone, the worksheet he had been told to work on still sitting blank on his thigh.  His mind wandered as everyone took turns sharing something they learned that day or stating what they would try to work on during the week. 

When his turn came, Tony cleared his throat.  “The punching bag technique is a great idea.  I’m sure it’ll help me next time I want to yell at someone.  All I have to do is walk away from the argument and punch the bag for a few minutes.”  He added to himself, “As if that would actually happen.”

The instructor nodded.  “Everyone is making excellent progress.  Before we go today, I’d like to give Andrew a few minutes to speak to us.  As you all know, he completed this course about a year ago, and I thought it would be nice if he gave us a few pointers.”

Tony groaned as Andrew walked to the center of the group.  Andrew was abnormally tall, 6’5, with a black beard extending two inches beyond the chin.  Tony thought he could pull off being a modern day Abe Lincoln if he lost twenty or thirty pounds.  Abe looked out of place in the old high school gym, since he was the only guy in the group wearing a suit.  It was too warm for suit weather anyways, and it irked Tony that he’d consider wearing it in the first place.  Abe also wore annoying loud ties that distracted him whenever Abe spoke.  The thing that bugged Tony the most was that the man wouldn’t stop smiling.  Abe was smiling every time Tony saw him.  There were even faint traces of a smile when he reprimanded the group.  When he wasn’t smiling, he would whistle.  It was unnatural for a person to be that happy, and the perpetual emotion sickened Tony.

“Hi,” he began in a mellow tone.  “Like most of you here, I used to have one of the worst tempers you’d ever seen.  I’d get impatient and yell all the time.  Eventually, my temper led to drinking, which got me involved in bar fights.  I’ve had my fair share of police car rides.  One time I broke three of a guy’s ribs.”

This remark made a few men chuckle.

“This course turned my life around.  It showed me how I could interact with people again without biting their heads off at anything they’d say.  I learned tips on how to be more patient.  I know it’s hard work, but this program does pay off in the end.  I haven’t had a major blow-up in over seven months, and I know that every one of you is capable of doing that too.”

His eyes locked on Tony’s eyes for a second then looked away as he sat back down.  The members clapped politely.

“Thank you for that, Andrew,” the instructor said.  “Any other thoughts before we conclude today’s meeting?”

Feet scuffled.

“Alright.  Thank you, all, and have a great week.  Remember to stay calm!”