Hey guys, I don't really have anything too extreme on my mind, so I'd like to put a short story that I wrote on here. If you guys could read it, and let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it. I'm going to try to turn it into a book.
Thanks,
Ramblin' Sean
Anger
Management
“Thank you for allowing me to
talk. My name is Phillip Stevenson, and
I have an anger problem,” I said.
“Hi Phil,” the anger management
class responded with a well-rehearsed reply.
I began my testimony about that
fateful day which pushed me over the edge.
The issues that came to the attention of the justice system that day
began when I was much younger. Ever
since I was a young boy, I have had a lot of different obstacles that have been
placed in front of me throughout my life.
With all of the changes going on in my life, my fuse has been whittled
down until it is nearly invisible. Even
the tiniest spark at the wrong moment can catch the fuse, and blow the bomb
that lies just under the surface.
At
age 8, my parents got divorced, and I moved away from my father and all of the
friends I’d had since I was born. They
were my support group for when things got bad, such as when I thought my
parents were being unfair to me. My
friends and I were each other’s support system.
When I was younger I did not understand what was going on, and I
accepted these events. I still lived
close enough to them that I could see them every other week, because that is
what the court granted my dad for visitation rights. A couple of years later, my mom decided that
I should not be allowed to see my father anymore.
“He
is a bad influence on you and your little brother, Philly,” my mom said every
time I asked her about it, “I don’t want you to grow up to be like him”
I moved to Colorado and that is when I
developed my problem with anger. I was
an outsider, and the new kids did not like outsiders coming into the system and
potentially changing it. I went to
school with my head held high and I was determined to make some friends and try
to recapture the life I had when I was living in Kansas City. My first day at
the new school I was bullied and made to feel like a terrible person
It was during my third period class,
social studies. Some kids who sat by me
started calling me fat, and obese. I
left the room without asking for permission.
My teacher came out of the classroom and started talking to me.
“Phillip, you have to go back in the
class room. The lesson isn’t over yet,”
my teacher said.
“I don’t care. I don’t want to go back in there, the kids
are making fun of me for being big,” I said, looking at her through teary eyes.
“I will tell them to stop, let’s go
back inside, okay?”
“I don’t want to. I didn’t do anything to them.”
“I know you didn’t. Tell me who it
is, and I will send them to the Dean’s office after class.”
I
told her who it was who had been making fun of me, and she told me to sit
through it for this class, and she would talk to them afterwards. I told her okay and went back to my
seat. Everything went well for the first
ten minutes I was back in class. I
ignored the kids, but after a while it got to be too much for me to ignore.
“Hey
fatty, your belt size is the equator,” one kid said.
“Did
you go steal some kids’ lunches out of their lockers? Is that where you went
fat ass?” another kid said.
“I’m
surprised the chair is still holding him because he’s so fat,” a third kid said
to his friends.
I
turned around and told the kids to shut their mouths and quit talking about me. After each person spoke I felt my fuse
getting shorter and shorter. They were
playing with explosives that they should have been prepared to have blown up in
their faces. They said they have freedom
of speech, and they could say whatever they want. They kept calling me fat, and I lost my
self-control. I hit the two boys, and my
teacher ran over to us and held me back from the last one. I was done playing games with them. I was going to stand up for myself; I did not
care what the consequences were.
I
had to go to the Dean’s office with the kids. I was suspended for three days
for fighting. The other kids had a week
of in-house suspension for talking trash to me.
My mom got a call to pick me up from school, and she told me when we got
out to the car that she was not mad at me at all. She was proud of me for standing up to the
bullies.
After
that incident it was noticeably easier to make me angry. My fuse had been whittled down, and it was
easier to light it. I did not want to
lose control like I did then. I talked
to the counselor and she said it is easier to keep control of your anger if you
let it out in little bursts rather than keeping it all bottled up. I did as she told me, and whenever something
made me angry, I would yell about it and that made me feel better. If it didn’t, I would go to the gym and that
would help me. That little bit of advice
about releasing my anger did wonders for me.
I was able to keep it under control, for the most part.
My
new strategy of anger management did wonders for me in the world of high school
sports. I played offensive and defensive
line on the football team, I was the heavyweight wrestler, and I was the top
thrower for the school on the track and field team. After the kids in school got used to me being
there and quit teasing me about being fat and an outsider, life went fairly
well for a while.
My
senior year of high school I was dating a girl, and I went over to her house to
surprise her for her birthday. Due to a
wrestling tournament I was unable to see her on her birthday. I called her house and her mom answered the
phone.
“Hello,”
her mom said.
“Hey,
it’s Phil,” I said, “I can’t see Regina tomorrow because of wrestling, do you
think I could come over and surprise her?”
“Absolutely,
we’re having a family dinner tonight if you want to join us.”
“I’ll
be there. That will give me enough time to go get her some flowers.”
I showed up to their house at 6:30. Her mom let me in the house, and told me that
Regina was downstairs in her room. I
walked down the stairs and into her room.
I had her flowers behind my back.
They were her favorite, but I dropped them when I saw that she had
another guy in her room with her.
Neither had any clothes on either. The fuse I had tried so hard to build back up
vanished. I could not control myself
anymore. I punched the guy in the face until he looked like he had been hit
with a baseball bat.
I did not stop until there was more
blood than skin showing on my hand. My
girlfriend’s brother came into the room and pulled me off of the guy I had just
beaten up. I struggled against him until
he kicked my knees and I was put down on the floor. He was my partner in
wrestling, so he knew my weaknesses.
Once he had me in a choke hold I quit struggling and he felt it was safe
to let me go. I just looked at my
girlfriend with tears in my eyes.
“I’m sorry Phil, I couldn’t help
myself,” Regina said.
“I don’t care that you wanted to
have sex,” I said. “I don’t care that you wanted someone different, but you are
a bitch. You could have at least had the
courtesy to call me and tell that we were over before you went and fucked this
douche bag. Goodbye.”
Just then Regina’s mom came
downstairs with two police officers. She
looked around at the boy on the bed, the blood on my hands, and her semi-naked
daughter. The police officers grabbed me
and told me I was under arrest. They
read me my Miranda rights, and put the handcuffs on me.
“Let’s go,” the male cop said.
“Yes sir,” I said. I turned to look at all of the people in the
room, Regina, her brother Alex, her mom, and the boy lying on the bed.
I
was put in a juvenile detention facility for those waiting for their court dates.
I was in the facility for 2 days and I made my bail. My bail was set at $2,500. My court date was
two weeks after my incident, and I was found guilty of assault and
battery. While I was in the detention
facility I turned 18 but I stayed because I was a minor when the incident
occurred. I waited for my court date, and I talked to my attorney nearly every
day about my case. He said we had a good
chance to win based on the circumstances.
“The
absolute worst sentence that you could get is third degree assault,” my
attorney said, “that could put you in jail for three years and you would also
have a $10,000 fine.”
“Do
anything to make me not have to go to jail,” I said. “I freaked out, sure, but
I don’t deserve to go to jail. I’m a good person.”
“You
won’t go to jail. We’re going to win this thing.”
“Can
I have that in writing?” I said while laughing.
My
attorney had a way of making me feel better, like he had everything under
control. My court date came, and I was nervous, but I was also confident that I
would leave with nothing more than a fine.
I knew that I would have a pretty substantial fine, but with the
constant assurance from my attorney I was confident that I would not go to
jail. Since I was 18 at the time of my
court date, I was tried as an adult. The
trial took about four hours, and the jury was out for even longer. The jury was talking so long that we had to
reconvene the next day to finish the trial.
Finally the jury came out of their assembly room, and the verdict was
in.
“In
the case of Robert Browning vs. Phillip Stevenson the court finds you guilty of
assault in the third degree,” the judge said. “There will be a sentencing
hearing in a week, until that time you will sit in county jail and await your
court date. Court is adjourned.”
I
turned and looked at my attorney. He
looked back, uttered a quick “sorry” and left the courtroom as quickly as he
could, his briefcase trailing along behind him.
The bailiff came and put the handcuffs on me again and led me through
two sets of doors and into a hallway. We walked for a while, and we came to a
jail cell. He opened it up and walked in
with me. He took the handcuffs off of me
and turned around and walked out. The
only thing left behind was the ringing in my ears from the slamming of the jail
cell door.
While
I was in the jail cell I did a lot of thinking.
I thought about what I had done, what was going to happen to me, and
about my life outside of the jail cell.
I reflected on my previous relationship, and how I never wanted to see her
again. While I was incarcerated I read a law book to attempt to gather some
information about my possible sentence.
I came to the realization that I had no idea what I was going to
get. It all was determined by what the
judge thought.
“Welcome
to the sentence hearing for Robert Browning vs. Phillip Stevenson,” the judge
said, “Would the defense like to say anything on their behalf?”
“I
would your honor,” I said, “I know that I messed up, and I can’t take back what
I did to Mr. Browning. It was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and I did not mean
for that to happen. If I could, I would definitely take back what happened, and
not because I am standing in a court about to be sentenced to jail time. Please sir, I did not do this to harm him, I
merely lost control of myself.”
“Would
the prosecution like to make a rebuttal?” the judge said.
“We
would your honor,” the prosecuting attorney said. “How can he stand there and
say that he did not mean to harm my client, Robert Browning, when he did not
stop hitting him until another man pulled him off? Your honor, this is simple,
Mr. Stevenson deserves the maximum penalty as outlined in statute 18-1.3-501.”
“Now that I have heard both sides, we will take a 15 minute
recess while I make my decision,” the judge said.
I waited with a couple of my friends who wanted to be with me
while I was going through this. My mom was also there. We talked for fifteen
minutes and the whole time they were trying to convince me that I was going to
get the minimum sentence and they would help cover the fine I had. I had tears
in my eyes as I hugged all of them. I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek, and
turned and sat back down in my chair.
The judge came in to tell everyone what his decision was.
“In the case of Robert Browning vs. Phillip Stevenson, I have
come to my decision,” the judge said. “You will receive the maximum, three
years in prison, a $10,000 fine to be paid after this hearing, and after you
are released you will have to attend a minimum of 10 anger management classes
and you will also have to do 50 hours of community service. We are adjourned.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I could not believe what I was hearing;
I was going to be in prison for 3 years and had to pay $10,000 to the court
system to cover the court costs, and the hospital bill for the kid I beat up.
My life had taken a definite turn for the worse in the past couple weeks. I looked back at my friends, and they all
said they were going to raise the money to pay my fine. I told them thank you,
and the bailiff led me through the double set of doors to the hallway where I
was going to sit in the cell while I awaited my transport to a prison facility.
“Thank you for listening to my testimony,” I said to the
group of listeners at my anger management meeting.
They all began to clap
for me and said it took a lot of guts to talk, especially since it was the
first meeting I had been to. I thanked
all of them and the last person who came up to me was the last person I had
expected to see. It was the man who was
in the room the day of the incident. He
told me that he felt I deserved an explanation, and he had been thinking about
this for three years. He started telling
me what was on his mind as he shook my hand.
“Good to see you’re out of the joint,” he said. “I had no idea she had a boyfriend. I never
would have done anything with her had I known.
I’ve been cheated on before. It sucks, I know.”
“Why the hell are you here? I’m sorry about what happened,
but I just want to get on with my life now.” I said.
“I wanted to talk to you face to face. That is why I didn’t go visit you in
prison. I didn’t want to talk to you
through the glass.”
“Well, talk.”
“Okay. The reason I came is because I felt bad. While I feel
like you should have paid my medical bills, that’s all you should have had to
do. After I got out of the hospital I
called Regina about ten times before she finally answered. I talked to her about that day, and she
didn’t seem like she was upset about it at all. She already had a new boyfriend
and she seemed like she was just able to forget everything like it never happened. I was kicked to the curb, and she told me she
never had any feelings for me. I talked
to her brother on Facebook a few times, and then we started hanging out. He is the one who kept me updated on how you
were doing in the joint. He is actually
a very good friend of mine now.”
“I’m glad you wanted to tell me this, and I’m sorry about
what happened, but we can’t change it now,” I said. “The past is the past; the future is what we
should be focused on, and no offense I don’t really want my past that put me in
prison for three years in my life. I don’t need a reminder.”
“I understand,” he said, “If you don’t want to see me again,
I understand. But, I think what happened to you is not fair. It is a very
extreme circumstance that acquainted us, and I’d like to start over fresh.”
“Why do you want to be my friend so badly?”
“I figure I am the reason you lost a big portion of your life
to prison. I wasn’t aware of the circumstances, but that doesn’t make it any
less my fault. Ultimately, I want to be your friend to get back at Regina. Can
we let bygones be bygones?”
“I see. We couldn’t really do anything because I’m still on
probation. I can only go here and to work.”
“How about I bring over some beers and we’ll kick it?”
“I’ll take a six-pack of Guinness.”
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