Just Say It

Anger to order
The teacher has been working on emotions again. Last week we had love.
‘For your next assignment do anger,’ she said.
‘like?’ said monosyllable Maloney. I could kill him the way he can say a single word and the teacher knows it’s an important question.
‘Good question Maloney,’ said the teacher, ‘Write in any literary form about something that makes you angry.’
‘No bother,’ said tough nut Tom, well out of earshot of the teacher, ‘I’ll write about you, ya feck.’
I headed home and for once I was going to do my homework. Wouldn’t you? Write about what makes you angry; piece of cake, thank you very much. All the way home and on into the evening I thought about what makes me angry. I gave Maloney permission to tell me what he thought made me angry. I promised I wouldn’t hit him no matter what he said.
‘Me,’ he said with that one word again.
‘Yes, I know that, but what about you?’ I asked.
‘Everythin’,’ was Maloney’s useless contribution, getting me nowhere.
The mother was putting on her coat when I arrived in.
‘What makes me angry?’ I asked.
‘You’re just a little bollix,’ she said.
‘Fair enough,’ I said, ‘but it’s homework, so I’ll need more.’
‘Well I’m getting my nails done and I’m late.’ She said.
I waited until my father came back from the bookies and I asked him.
‘Have people been saying stuff about our family?’ he asked.
I explained to him about the homework. Problem with having a mental defective for an auld fella is you can explain to him, but you can’t understand for him.
‘So, what makes me angry?’ I repeat.
‘You’re nature’ he said.
‘What about my nature?’ I asked.
‘You don’t have any.’
Waster. First time I ask him for help with my homework, and that’s as good as it gets. I started to think about places that piss me off.
‘Where would I get angry?’ I asked Mrs Malone next door as she cleaned her windows.
‘The cop shop,’ she said, squeezing her squeegee. All the neighbours know about my relations with the police, but they don’t know how they wind me up and make me say the wrong thing so they can thump me.
I couldn’t really write about pulling the notice board off the wall in the police station, so I tried to think of other places, but apart from the cop shop I couldn’t come up with anything. My sister came in.
‘Why do you think I get angry?’ I asked. She ignored me and I remembered that she’s not speaking to me since I told her she should consider a new hair style.
The more I tried the harder it got. You know how it is when you are bursting for a slash, maybe after stashing a flagon of cider inside you? You go into the gents toilets and there’s a geezer standing either side of you at the bowls. Your bladder is so close to exploding, that you are thinking of calling in the bomb disposal squad to render the device safe. But you just know, though the bladder may burst, there is no way you can go while those two miserables manipulate their genitals on either side of you.
‘Excuse me, I need my space to pee,’ is hardly something you could chance saying at such an unguarded moment, when your boxers are half way to your knees. Anyways, that’s what it was like trying to produce anger to order.
I mean, only that day the little tosser from Mother Akenhead Mansions was staring at me. Bloody freaks me out that does. In fairness, I think he was only trying to count the number of body piercings I have visible to the public, because his lips and his finger was moving. No matter; I’m freaked out, so I bend down and nut the little tool right between the eyes. That stopped the lips moving, like, instant.
‘I didn’t say nothing’ he said.
‘I know, that’s the problem,’ I said. ‘Just say it next time’
I really was trying to do the homework, and of course you know what happened. I finally realised there is nothing makes me angry. I know I get ratty about stuff, but there is no anger about anything.
So tomorrow I’ll tell that thick teacher what she can do with her ‘show me emotion, tra la la la, la….’ If she doesn’t like it, I’m telling you, I’ll clock the bleddin’ waster, and I’m out of that stupid kip of a school. Forever.