Published September 20, 2005
I was never a hunter, never wanted to shoot a bird out of the sky midflight or fell a majestic buck. I never had a physical fight in school, choosing words as my weapons instead of my fists. When it came time to pick a sport, I didn’t pick football because I didn’t relish hitting or being hit. Baseball seemed the safer choice.
The rage that boiled up inside me whenever I saw a photo or heard the name of the suspect in my brother’s abduction not only surprised me; it made me call into question what I’d believed about myself. To find this part of me existed—this angry, vengeful, dangerous part—was akin to learning I had horns, or a tail, or eyes in the back of my head. I was not who I fancied myself to be, and it scared me.
Because I knew this: given the opportunity, I could hurt the man I believe hurt Davy. It’s quite possible I could take his life. And I don’t know if I would even need a weapon. When I envisioned getting my hands on him, it was just that: my hands going around his neck, thin and exposed with its cords of tendons, its knobby bones, its tracks of veins. I imagined crushing it all, smashing his Adam’s apple like an egg as he gasped and coughed and tried to plead. My eyes would watch as the light dimmed in his. My face would be the last thing he ever saw. I relished this fantasy throughout my younger years the way many young men relish fantasies about nurses or maids or teachers. My fantasy, I knew, was far worse than those, and needed to be kept hidden.
That knowledge didn’t stop me from buying a hand grip strengthener, using it multiple times throughout the day as I played the fantasy out in my mind. I got as fixated as any addict, and somewhere along the way I knew I’d crossed over some line. I’d wandered into a mental terrain as pervasive and twisted as that of a person who would harm an eleven-year-old boy, my own mind consumed with hurting and killing.
The problem was, I wanted to stay there in that place in my mind. I liked my fantasy. I liked feeling the strength grow in my hands and imagining using that strength as I exacted my revenge. It fueled me, propelled me, and comforted me, as strange as that may sound. It was a buffer, a way to think about my brother without really thinking about him. For me, revenge replaced responsibility.
I wish I could tell you that eventually I abandoned the fantasy entirely. But that would not be the truth. I learned to suppress it, to bury it underneath other, more acceptable fantasies, like having a relationship, buying a house, getting a book deal. If sometimes that fantasy reentered my mental arena, I would let it stay just for a bit, like a guest you hadn’t invited but felt obligated to entertain out of politeness. And then I would usher it out, only to realize that even after the fantasy was gone from my mind, my hands were still clenched, a reminder that I was always, still, ready to do what needed to be done should the time ever come.