aggression is incredibly interesting.”
I want to tell her that human aggression is not the easy one-two punch she thinks it is. Not every form of violence is a frontal assault. Aggression can be sitting in the cafeteria with Maribeth Whitman every day at lunch. The hardened criminals I know all deal in secrets and subtext. Maribeth’s power is evident in the way that Loring hasn’t come to a single committee meeting this week.
My mom is considering the television. “Are you almost done?” she says. Saint John has Federov trapped against the cage now, bleeding and squirming. “You should go to bed.”
“I will,” I say. “In a minute.”
I know I don’t have to lie to her. If anyone understands the deleterious effects of an active mind, she does. But still, there’s a certain quiet defeat in telling the truth.
I could ask for a cure and she’d give it to me. She’d gladly point me in the direction of psychoanalysis and pills. It would feel like surrender, but it might mean sleeping through the night.
On-screen, Saint John is smothering Federov with the weight of his body.
My mom watches with her hands on her hips. This is her, Taking an Interest. “Will he give up, now that he’s being held down like that?”
I shake my head as Saint John transitions into full destruction mode, lifting Federov half off the mat, then slamming him back down, dragging him along through a trail of his own blood.
My mom stands in the middle of the room, eyebrows delicately knit. “And they won’t stop the fight?”
“Not while he can intelligently defend himself.”
“Intelligent?” she says, and I hear the wryness in her voice—I get it—but she’s not seeing everything and there are more elemental factors at work.
The fact is, blood is slippery. Blood can be a strategy all by itself. If there’s enough of it, sometimes it can turn a fight.
Suddenly, Federov slips the hold and jerks his arm out. His fist plows the side of Saint John’s head, once, twice. On the third impact, Saint John comes loose, rocking against the side of the cage and Federov is there, Federov is on his back with his arm around Saint John’s neck and his other hand clutching his bicep.
The commentators are screaming over each other now. Saint John’s face turns an ugly shade of purple, and suddenly the ref is sweeping in to save the day.
“Well,” says my mother. “That will certainly make him think twice about knocking people’s shoulders in the hall.”
I don’t answer. She means it as a joke, but the comparison is perfectly apt. High school popularity is a blood sport.
MARSHALL
Choke
I stop thinking about school somewhere in the middle of the second drink. By the sixth, I’ve stopped thinking about home.
Forget family dinners and report cards. Forget the way my dad takes about nineteen pills a day and it’s still not enough to fix the way his hands shake or the way he slumps around the house like he’s doing ninety-nine to life. Like everything is ending. Forget the way my mom ignores every shitty thing he says like she fucking owes it to him. Like she deserves it.
And yeah, the Captain can be a total asshole and his kitchen always smells like someone forgot to take out the trash, but at least with him, it’s predictable. No fighting, no crying. No English homework, no one asking why I can’t be more like my sister.
No setup for failure.
Except that’s the biggest lie of all, because if I’m drinking bourbon in the Captain’s kitchen, I’m clearly not at home applying myself.
Ollie’s slouched next to me at the counter, picking at the label on his beer. “You’re looking good,” he says, and he smiles, but it’s a slow, ironic smile and in Ollie-speak,
good
means the same thing as
wrecked.
But so what? That’s the goal, isn’t it? I’m getting there. Maybe after a few more I can even stop thinking about Waverly.
She took the lighter. I stood right in front of her in the locker bay, offered her my
I want to tell her that human aggression is not the easy one-two punch she thinks it is. Not every form of violence is a frontal assault. Aggression can be sitting in the cafeteria with Maribeth Whitman every day at lunch. The hardened criminals I know all deal in secrets and subtext. Maribeth’s power is evident in the way that Loring hasn’t come to a single committee meeting this week.
My mom is considering the television. “Are you almost done?” she says. Saint John has Federov trapped against the cage now, bleeding and squirming. “You should go to bed.”
“I will,” I say. “In a minute.”
I know I don’t have to lie to her. If anyone understands the deleterious effects of an active mind, she does. But still, there’s a certain quiet defeat in telling the truth.
I could ask for a cure and she’d give it to me. She’d gladly point me in the direction of psychoanalysis and pills. It would feel like surrender, but it might mean sleeping through the night.
On-screen, Saint John is smothering Federov with the weight of his body.
My mom watches with her hands on her hips. This is her, Taking an Interest. “Will he give up, now that he’s being held down like that?”
I shake my head as Saint John transitions into full destruction mode, lifting Federov half off the mat, then slamming him back down, dragging him along through a trail of his own blood.
My mom stands in the middle of the room, eyebrows delicately knit. “And they won’t stop the fight?”
“Not while he can intelligently defend himself.”
“Intelligent?” she says, and I hear the wryness in her voice—I get it—but she’s not seeing everything and there are more elemental factors at work.
The fact is, blood is slippery. Blood can be a strategy all by itself. If there’s enough of it, sometimes it can turn a fight.
Suddenly, Federov slips the hold and jerks his arm out. His fist plows the side of Saint John’s head, once, twice. On the third impact, Saint John comes loose, rocking against the side of the cage and Federov is there, Federov is on his back with his arm around Saint John’s neck and his other hand clutching his bicep.
The commentators are screaming over each other now. Saint John’s face turns an ugly shade of purple, and suddenly the ref is sweeping in to save the day.
“Well,” says my mother. “That will certainly make him think twice about knocking people’s shoulders in the hall.”
I don’t answer. She means it as a joke, but the comparison is perfectly apt. High school popularity is a blood sport.
MARSHALL
Choke
I stop thinking about school somewhere in the middle of the second drink. By the sixth, I’ve stopped thinking about home.
Forget family dinners and report cards. Forget the way my dad takes about nineteen pills a day and it’s still not enough to fix the way his hands shake or the way he slumps around the house like he’s doing ninety-nine to life. Like everything is ending. Forget the way my mom ignores every shitty thing he says like she fucking owes it to him. Like she deserves it.
And yeah, the Captain can be a total asshole and his kitchen always smells like someone forgot to take out the trash, but at least with him, it’s predictable. No fighting, no crying. No English homework, no one asking why I can’t be more like my sister.
No setup for failure.
Except that’s the biggest lie of all, because if I’m drinking bourbon in the Captain’s kitchen, I’m clearly not at home applying myself.
Ollie’s slouched next to me at the counter, picking at the label on his beer. “You’re looking good,” he says, and he smiles, but it’s a slow, ironic smile and in Ollie-speak,
good
means the same thing as
wrecked.
But so what? That’s the goal, isn’t it? I’m getting there. Maybe after a few more I can even stop thinking about Waverly.
She took the lighter. I stood right in front of her in the locker bay, offered her my
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