Laurie Boris

You climb the highest landmark you can find on the darkest of nights and scream. You scream and scream and scream. You call them idiots and murderers and morons and fascists and all of the seven words you can’t say on television. And then you stop. You’re standing on the highest rock on the highest place you could find and you are tired. Your jaw hurts from screaming, your head aches, you could use a trip to the chiropractor and wonder when they open in the morning. You take great deep breaths of the soft damp air, and for the first time look into the space you just violated with your frustrations. It’s the kind of quiet that city people think is quiet. Night insects chirrup and owls hoot and a light breeze rattles what’s left of the leaves and traffic hums from the nearby highway. All is not dark. All is not empty. You rest.

Then a voice pierces through like a knife. “Hey. Asshole.”

You flinch, nearly lose your balance atop the rock. Your shoulders tighten and you wonder if you should answer. But the words come without thought intervening. “What? Me?”

“Yeah, you, ya putz. You up there screamin’ into the void. Feel better now?”

“Um. Actually, no.”

“Didn’t think so. Nobody really does, poor bastards.”

You look all around, see nothing. “Who…are you? Where are you?”

“Doesn’t matter. All that matters is you, right? You’re scared, you’re angry, you don’t know what else to do so you come up here and piss off my dog and wake the whole freakin’ neighborhood.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” A now-embarrassed little part of you thought you were talking to God. Why God has a Southie accent and calls you names also troubles you. No. Couldn’t be.

The voice of whatever it is continues. “Of course you didn’t realize, ya schmuck. Everything’s about you. How it makes you feel, how it affects you, blah blah blah. But did you ever, just for one hot minute, put yourself in someone else’s shoes? Like mine, for instance? You ever think about what it’s like to be in my Cons? Huh? A guy’s down here trying to get a good night’s sleep and he’s got these morons screaming shit at him every other minute.”

“I’m…sorry?”

“Yeah, you’re sorry. You’re all sorry. Tell me something. You registered to vote?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t act all high and mighty about it, that’s the least you could do. You know folks who aren’t?”

You feel a little smaller now. Your voice comes out in a squeak. “Probably.”

“Then go scream at them. Maybe find a few websites about voting and shit, and make friends, and get shit done. You with me?”

You can only manage a whisper now. “Yeah.”

“Now get the fuck out of here. Scream into a pillow or something. Take an Ambien. Just leave me alone. Christ. I gotta put up a sign.”