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> | The Angry Guy | | | -- By CasidheMcClone - 29 Mar 2016 | |
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< | This is fiction, loosely based on a story a grad told me, and a first year associate's rant. The names are fake. | | | | |
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> | Remember the DA from “Robinson’s Metamorphosis?” The one who beat up the kid? I’m afraid of turning into him instead of Robinson. | | | | |
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> | When I was playing water polo, I used to be able to hate the other team. I didn’t have to hate them, but I could if I wanted to. There was a switch, at the base of the back of my neck. If I touched it, a warm, red strength would flow from my neck. It felt like the blood in my face was flowing down into my arms, narrowing my eyes and fueling my body.
I never played better angry. But I usually played harder. | | | | |
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< | Jennifer left O’Malveny & Smith more like a runner than a dissatisfied employee. Her two-week notice came in early May, but there didn’t really seem to be any warning. She simply shifted her stance, and accelerated into a memory. | >
> | After reading “Something Split,” I think I have a theory of what was going on. My mind gets pulled a little tighter when I jump in the pool, and everyone inside me starts thinking about the same objective. There’s some limited level of internal teamwork: the analyst and the opportunist get especially close, the true primate gets in the pilot’s chair, everybody starts telling the coward to please, for fuck’s sake dude, just shut up. And the angry guy, the fighter, the asshole, just stands in the back with his arms crossed, silently reminding us he’s there if we need him. | | | | |
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< | Patrick believed he was the only one who kept that memory. There was a period of water cooler discussions in early March, suggestions that she couldn’t quite cut it or that she probably wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway. To Patrick, even this period seemed brief, and he was surprised when his coworkers stopped talking about her altogether. It wasn’t even a week before Jennifer’s departure was considered old news. Patrick couldn’t help but wonder how long his coworkers would have discussed his departure. | >
> | He wasn’t used every game, or even often, but I can honestly say number of plays would have gone much worse without him. And, interestingly, he’d usually step back after doing his job. I’m starting to realize I took that for granted. Because, out of the pool, the people inside me rarely get close to each other. And out of the pool, when the angry guy takes over, he doesn’t back away. He needs opponents to hate, and if he can’t find any, he’ll create them. Like the DA from Robinson’s Metamorphosis, he looks for challenges. He seeks slights to overreact to. He wants that kid to try and climb in through his bedroom window, because he’ll have an excuse to hit something. | | | | |
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< | With a breath of vexation, he reclined away from his computer screen, and absently gazed at the calendar on his desk. It was mid-July; Patrick had been at the firm for around a year now. His girlfriend of two years had left him last October. He couldn’t remember the details of the final argument, but it had something to do with loans, and work-hours. After she left, Patrick had dared to hope for something with Jennifer... She seemed so together... | >
> | As I’ve been writing motions for a DA’s office over the summer, I’ve started to imagine how that angry DA got to where he is. Maybe he lost a case he could have won, or someone got off with a light sentence. He feels guilty at first, and then angry at the criminal who took his peace from him, took peace from the state. He starts to think he was the victim. It’s now us against them, the state against criminals. His job is to make changes with words, but his mind approaches it violently. So when his home turf is invaded in a literal sense, the violence becomes literal as well... | | | | |
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< | “Look alive, kid.” | >
> | In “Robinson’s Metamorphosis,” Robinson muses that the DA might have had some “pent-up anger.” If I’m not careful, I think I could become that DA— the kind of metamorphosis I don’t want. I won’t claim to be particularly self-aware, but I know I’m capable of some pretty extreme anger. | | | | |
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< | His musings were interrupted by a nauseatingly energetic presence, and Richard Martin clapped a pair of heavy hands onto Patrick’s shoulders. | >
> | I want to make sure that I don’t end up with a dangerous man lurking in the shadows of my mind. That’s the kind of guy who will deliberately drive a sports car into a telephone pole; indeed, that’s the guy who would want me to buy a sports car in the first place. But stopping him doesn’t have an easy solution, at least not one that’s super visible to me. I feel like Levin near the end of Anna Karenina: aware of a fundamental problem concerning who I am, but lost as to how to solve it. | | | | |
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< | “Can’t be zoning out on the clock. Client pays for your full attention.” The older man flashed an intimidating set of teeth. “If you don’t provide your full attention, how can we charge full price?” | >
> | Eben mentioned in office hours that meditation can be particularly important for people who don’t have a lot of patience. Maybe I can use a similar concept. Playing music and swimming both have rhythmic and methodical qualities that help to keep my mind organized. The angry guy doesn’t do so well in an organized mind. He likes it dimly lit, with sharp memories scattered haphazardly across the floor for him to bump into fume at. If I keep my mind clear, there’s nothing for him to be mad at, and he’ll just sit in the corner, daydreaming about some crisis where I’ll need him again. The problem is that keeping him shoved down doesn’t get rid of him, and may make him less predictable. | | | | |
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< | Patrick felt a faint splitting sensation in the back of his skull. His temper burned, and retorts rose to the top of his mind. Yeah, he was on the clock, but it wasn’t like he was actually contributing anything. He was staring into documents he barely understood, and was utterly failing to find connections between them or to the client’s case. He and Richard both knew that all he was giving the firm at the moment was a wad of billable hours. Nobody actually cared whether or not Patrick zoned out. | >
> | Another solution could be to pacify him. “Work out my anger,” so to speak. The only thing he loves more than throwing punches is getting punched, and if he gets hit enough he’ll settle into a satisfied sleep. He enjoys pain, and he knows that nobody else inside of me can handle it like he can. So if he takes enough of it, he feels useful, and doesn’t fight for control. Of course, it’s not exactly easy to find a safe way to get roughed up— and if it’s self-inflicted pain, he’s not going to feel useful at all. He’ll just get angrier. | | | | |
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< | That is, they wouldn’t care until performance reviews rolled around. And if he wanted to move up the ranks... With a barely audible grunt, Patrick swallowed his anger and straightened his back, pulling away from Richard’s hands. He had an inner image of a man who was comfortable with the work in front of him, and he wanted to look like that man. But his correction in posture did little for his ego. When he spoke, he was caught off guard by his own high pitched and apologetic voice. “Yeah,” he replied, “just thinking.” | >
> | Either way, I guess I’ve got some issues. Personal change isn’t something that seems obvious to me, or easy to control. I guess the good news is that I can look to other sources before I attempt it— I picked up a used hardcopy of an idea called Kafka the other day, and I’m going to see if it helps. | | | | |
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< | Richard leaned forward to squint at Patrick’s computer screen. “Well, think productively. You’re still going through receipts from the Grant case? Gotta pick up the pace, kid. We just got word from Oxy that something big is in the pipeline. Get it? Looks like we’re going to have ourselves a little fire drill.” | >
> | In the meantime, I’ll try and walk a middle path between pacifying and shunning the angry guy. Surfing is rhythmic enough to relax me, and rough enough to beat me up a little. I’ll keep my mind in order, so he can’t find things to get mad at. And when I get thrown off my board and against the reef, he’ll be the one to take the pain. He’ll be the one who gets us back above water. Maybe that can bring him a little closer to the rest of the team. | | | | |
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< | “All hands on deck?”
“All hands on deck.”
All hands on deck didn’t necessarily mean “all hands” so much as “your team,” but it did mean “Patrick,” and “work over the weekend.” He wasn’t allowed to protest. If he had weekend plans, he wasn’t allowed to mention them. He was allowed to groan, but not frequently.
Patrick groaned. “I haven’t gotten anything about it. When did you find out?”
Richard tapped his ear as he started backing out of the room. “Just heard it from Mr. Walden, right after he got off the phone. You’ve got an email on the way, don’t you worry.”
“Alright, I’ll look for it.”
“Do what you can with that in the meantime,” Richard added, indicating Patrick’s computer. “It’s less of a priority, but we’ll be there next week.” Richard blissfully rapped his fingers against the door on the way out. He was gone too quick to notice that the noise had made Patrick flinch.
With Richard gone, Patrick sighed and leaned back again. He was uncomfortably aware of how much space his body was taking up. He hadn’t been running in weeks. He had a vague feeling of immobility, and was self-conscious about being touched. He couldn’t shake the sensation of Richard’s hands on his shoulders. Some ghostly weight was holding him back against the chair, too close to his neck...
Rubbing his eyes, he tried to remember if he had any plans he’d need to cancel. “Shit.” Dinner with his brother. Well, Jim would understand, they’d done the same dance three months prior. Although, that time, Patrick had at least been able to spend the weekend with Jennifer.
With a sigh, he wondered what she was working on. He’d seen some facebook posts of her a few weeks after she quit. Looked like something in the District Attorney’s office... or was it the Attorney General’s office? There had been a picture of her, beaming besides the government seal in her new building.
With what he hoped was a discreet movement, he opened facebook on his phone and glanced down at it. After a second unfruitful search, he frowned and locked his phone. Had she deleted her account? Why would she do that? The mystery of her new life annoyed him. It teased him. A small muscle of envy flexed in his chest, and he glanced out the window at Mr. Walden’s Ferrari in the parking lot, low against the asphalt, angry and tense as a loaded weapon.
It's well put together, like the elusive object of desire, or the Ferrari. But the problem with fiction at this length is making something happen, which it doesn't here. So we're left with a guy in a place he shouldn't be who isn't yet even thinking about getting out. No mobile phone from Morpheus being delivered here.
I don't think this one is going to turn into some other story. I think you should leave it for what it is. There will be another one around the corner.
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