Januariad

Revenge. I took it. ‘Forgive and forget,’ our weak-stomached society teaches us (ignoring the endless films and novels glorifying the act). ‘Turn the other cheek.’ No one would offer such trite condolences had they suffered, like I suffered, at the hands of John McNamara.

This is not the place to recount my ordeal in his shadow. Enough to say: from first through sixth class my life was misery, largely due to him. Due to his brawny arms, his dull-eyed cruelty, his dangerous boredom. Much worse than the daily prods, pushes and pilferings was the fear, the all-consuming, nauseating fear that came up out of my gut like a twisting vine, encircling my diaphragm tightly while I slept, waking me up in clenched-chest panic in the hours before dawn. The tyrants of this world are primarily boys, under twelve.

When we moved into secondary school we drifted apart like estranged lovers, him glancing wistfully at me across a crowded refectory, me hiding behind lockers when I saw him coming. Our relationship floundered, but the fear took a lot longer to die. The fear hung around, I can tell you that.

It wasn’t until my final year in school that my back straightened, my face hardened, and I could pass John in the hall without flinching. While I should have been happy, should have rejoiced to finally walk away as summer drew close, my only thought was to hurt him. To return some of it to him.

On the school bus home on a hot May evening I saw my opportunity, and it looked at my with huge brown eyes and the kind of interest I was not yet used to receiving. I walked my opportunity home the next day, carrying her books, not knowing any other way to express my interest but teen movie cliches. At her front door she turned to me and put a flat palm on my chest and looked me seriously in the eye. The opportunity’s name was Jane McNamara.

I had kissed her many times before we ran into John in the kitchen that summer. He glanced at me and said hello, indifferent, unproprietorial. My hands shook with equal fear and satisfaction. He betrayed little anguish at my conquest of his younger sister, but I could detect the flicker in his eyes. That dull hatred reborn.

While I considered my revenge essentially complete, the pleasure of continuing it was too much to abandon. And Jane’s attentions were not altogether unwelcome. I accompanied the McNamaras on family outings, ate dinner at their table, helped their father install his new dishwasher. John grew more able to conceal his disgust at my presence, even assuming a friendly demeanour towards me. He never let the mask slip, but I knew the horror in him. His childhood victim, taking his sister to bed every Friday when her parents went to film society! How he must have choked back the rage.

And it continued. I could never quite bring myself to drop either Jane or the hold I had on John. As the years passed, he behaved for all the world as if I were a friend of his, even when we were alone. He stood by the altar at our wedding and I knew he could barely contain his bile as the priest blessed us. His speech at the dinner afterwards could only be seen for the insincerity it was with my own perspective.

I remember one August afternoon last year he arrived at the house and insisted on helping me assemble the girls’ new swingset in the back garden. We worked all afternoon in the hot sun, taking breaks to sip lemonade from a tray Jane had left on the table. The girls did constant, laughing laps around us, trailing streamered batons behind them. ‘Anthony,’ he said, resting a meaty hand on my shoulder. ‘I envy what you’ve built here. Thank you for making my sister so happy.’ The poor, fuming bastard. Powerless.