The Last Time I Was Me. Cathy Lamb

      The anger management class did not end well that evening.

      After the art lesson, we sat in a circle in our beanbags: Me in purple, Bradon in green, Soman in yellow, Becky in blue, Drake in orange.

      Drake opened his mouth and started farting again. “You people…” He shook his head as if we were all pathetic. “Hey, I’m sorry for earlier, but I don’t even belong here. I clearly don’t fit in.”

      “That’d be the damn truth,” Soman said. “You’re like a boil.”

      “There does appear to be some differences,” Bradon added.

      “Do you all know who I am? Do you have any clue? Well,” he scoffed. “Of course, you don’t. We don’t travel in the same social circles, do we?”

      I rolled my eyes. “No, I make it a habit not to hang out with men who buy hookers. In fact, I am rarely trolling the streets to buy sex, so we would not have rubbed elbows, or any other body part.”

      “That’s fucking it. I’m calling my lawyers-do you get that, Jeanne? That’s lawyers, in the plural-”

      “Gall. Do you get caught so often with your hookers that you need a whole phalanx of attorneys? I love that word! Phalanx.” I snuck a glance at Soman. He grinned and flipped his braids. “It’s so phallic, phalanx is.”

      “You’re defaming my character, you loose-mouthed, stuck-up-”

      “That will be all!” Bradon roared, leaping to his feet. Soman was right beside him, bright smile gone.

      “You will not be mean or rude to women!” Soman shouted. “Dammit! We already told ya this in the beginning of the class! Ya don’t get it? Ya slow or something?”

      “Sit! Sit!” Emmaline flapped, her white arms making motions like a seagull. “Sit!”

      Soman and Bradon sat, but only after Bradon leaned way down, eye to eye with Drake and said, “Never, never, in my presence, be rude to a lady.”

      “Hey!” Drake said, but his voice was a tad more conciliatory. “I’m trying to point out who I am. I own a company. Okay? You get that? I’m a CEO of a company. Ever heard of D.W. Financial Services? I started D.W. That’s me. I’m D.W.-Drake Windham. Built it from scratch two years ago. I employ seven hundred people and control two billion dollars in assets, you got that? Not million, billion. We’re growing each day by millions, nationally, internationally-”

      “Sounds like a house of cards,” Bradon said, yawning. “Any company that grows that fast is growing too fast. Not enough capital behind it. Not enough ‘real’ money, as I would say. You got debt? You owe somebody a bunch of dough that you don’t really have? You paying one debt with other loans? How fast could you really get money out of that company or is the money in thin air?”

      Drake started to squirm and twitch and his face flushed itchy red again.

      “Your face is red again,” I said helpfully. “It looks itchy.”

      Drake shot invisible spears at me with his eyes. Pow! Pow! “Debt grows a company, don’t you know that?”

      “Massive debt will sink a company and it’ll bring down all the other companies that it’s attached to. When that happens, it hurts lots of innocent people in the process. They lose money, jobs, retirement, the whole nine-yards, all because companies have no capital behind them, only debt,” said Bradon.

      “What are you, King Morality?”

      “No. I am Bradon King.”

      “But you can call him King Bradon, if you want, I should think,” I said.

      “Stop! Stop!” Emmaline yelled. “Drake, no one gives a monkey’s testicles who you think you are. You’re here because you beat up on women, because you’re a turd with an anger problem, because you won’t take responsibility for what a prick you are, and the court insisted that you come here. Now again, shut up! Shut your farting mouth!”