Modern Anger and Violence

She is surprised to hear that I like listening to heavy metal:  “Really?... I wouldn’t have pictured you…”

It’s not the first time it has seemed that a female friend of mine cannot wrap their mind around anger and violence.  True, we are an evolved species and probably should be able to live without violence and war.  The American male has definitely had his sharp edges chiseled down in the popular spotlight, but aren’t we still animals, hunters, killers?  And even my immediate reaction to that last sentence is, “Well, not every man…”, thinking of scrawny nerds and pushover nice-guys.  No, every man has an animal in him.  Even women have a animal in them too, but for different reasons.  Men, however, are somehow still linked to our cavemen grandfathers, no matter how emasculinated our technological age has taken us.  We work up our company ladder, have our shirts tailored, send each other silly emojis, but still yearn for battle.  Fantasy football, WWE, hardcore porn, Game of Thrones…  is it hard to see that these are the products of men who are flailing for muscles and cries of war they have long forgotten? 

There are doubts and arguments that these remnants of a primal man are not Good, and if something like fantasy football is an outlet for that buried aggression, then that’s just fine.  “Let them go play” she says, happy that her man will be there when the neighbors come over for dinner.  She’ll roll her eyes when she overhears the guys talking about their favorite wrestlers on Monday Night Raw.  But come home with a black eye and a fractured hand?  Now you are an untamed animal.  This does not compute.  “There is no NEED for this!  We are civilized, we live in a great neighborhood in the best country in the world!  WHY would you get in a fight?!”

She wants to keep him safe, and tries to protect him in a way she thinks is right.  To her, anger and violence are things of a ancient era and should be overcome, or at best, suppressed.  She does not recognize the part of a man that has imagined turning someone’s face into a bloody mess.  “That is fine for movies, but YOU are not an action hero!” 

Hopes of a New Apartment

“I guess I should feel lucky for what I have”, he thinks as he carefully dismounts the motorcycle.  It’s no ‘Bat-cave’, but the bike fits snugly inside the gate.  Just the tip of the front tire crosses over onto the iron stairwell that leads up to his front door.  But whatever frustration he felt with the cramped ‘parking spot’ dissipates as his gaze follows the stairway upwards.  Along the wall hangs dozens of plants, a lush array in a well-kept vertical garden.  Bugs and bees fly freely above his head, and a bird is even perched at the top of the wall.  By the time he’s reached the 4^th step, he has been transported.  The smell of the greens, the drone of the insects, the lines from sun to shade.  In the heart of south Philadelphia, he is now a member of a wild jungle.

            At the landing there is a small table with three small potted plants on top.  Cactus.  Aloe.  Grass.  He pretends to be scared of the cactus, pinches the aloe, pets the grass.  With a glance over his shoulder at the city street below, he turns the key in the lock of the front door and steps inside.

            All homes have their own certain smell, and this one is no different;  old wooden cabinets, a couple pieces of ripe fruit on the counter, garbage under the lid of the can, sunlight, basil, dust.  A stained-glass window above the sink spills colored light across the small kitchen.  He absent-mindedly puts his keys in the dish, his helmet in the front hall closet.  He closes the closet door, and a beam of sunlight from the west windows is extended to meet his eye.  It feels like God, calling him to his writing room on the west side of the small apartment.  He closes his eyes, but the warmth of the light remains. 

            The apartment is quiet, still.  He loves it and hates it at the same time.  It is a part of him.  It is opportunity and it is purgatory.  It is everything he wants and needs, and because of that, he resents it.  With a jolt, he realizes the path his mind has begun to fall down, and he quickly steps outside the front door, back into the open air of the late summer afternoon.  And again, he is transported.  From the vantage on the top landing, he is able to see all of his garden; which plants have been growing the fastest, which could use some maintenance.  He inhales the smell of the garden and the dirty street, reinvigorated with beauty and energy.  He looks at his table and small pots, and wonders why he doesn’t come out here to write more often.  “Tea.  Or coffee.  Or wine,” he thinks.