St. Anger

(Listening to: Barenaked Ladies, Born on a Pirate Ship)

There was a time in my life -- around 1999, to be specific -- where I would have described myself as "full of rage." I was angry all the time, about everything. School, my friends, my family: all kept a steady stream of fury flowing around my house. Anything and everything pissed me off, and it took great effort not to show that anger to those around me.

There have been other times since then where I've felt that kind of white-hot emotion for sustained periods. (During one of them, I wrote the extremely angry "The Outlet," a rewrite of which is next on my to-do list, after the next episode of Revolver.) And I used that same phrase -- "full of rage" -- to describe my mental condition. I thought it an apt description.

But I had nothing on the Neighbors Downstairs.

Yes, the same ones who were (possibly) behind the theft of my wallet. I said earlier that they fought "all the time," but I'm not sure if you understood me. I mean all the time. They fought yesterday. They fought the night before that. And they're fighting right now.

And calling the police to stop them won't work. It's been tried. They're still here.

What the hell can a small group of people possibly disagree on so fervently -- and so often -- that they argue and scream about it once or twice a day? I mean, my friends and I have our conflicts, too -- some of which are genuine, some of which are created simply to annoy me, and some of which exist only in the paranoid, insecure recesses of my own mind (those are fun) -- but we only rarely have what I would term a fight. And we certainly don't fight every day. I dare say that if we did, we wouldn't be friends. And we certainly wouldn't be living together.

I can only assume alcohol and/or drugs are involved in this mess. It would explain a great many things. But here's the kicker -- the truly weird part of the story, the one I don't understand.

An old man lives in that apartment. He's confined to a wheelchair. If I'm up early enough in the day, I can see him leaving sometimes. We have to make sure not to park in the narrow strip of asphalt he needs to wheel out of his door into the parking lot.

Where is he during all of this COPS-episode-waiting-to-happen stuff? Is he sleeping? Is he hiding? Or does he open those vocal throttles and rage with the rest of them? Perhaps he acts as a referee?

I'd go to bed and forget about it, but I'm too experienced with the pattern for that: the second that happens, somebody go out their back door and the fight continues outside. Directly underneath my window.

Perhaps they need Dr. Phil Towle. Hey, it worked for Metallica.

All within your hands, baby.

Kill kill kill kill kill.