Venomous Read Free

seemed about as effective as not doing anything, and the latter option involved a lot less futile effort. I wondered, later, if maybe that’s how the venom was first birthed—through my silence, through the containment of my anger. Y’know, like Michael Douglas in Falling Down , only without any of the political commentary crap.
    Anyway. One day in gym class, a basketball knocked me to the floor mid-layup, landing me right on my tailbone. At first I thought it had just bounced from the backboard to my head, but looking up, I saw three of my classmates baring three hyenas’ grins. I nearly started crying—my head, ass, and pride were in a state of stubborn agony—but if there’s one thing any elementary school kid knows about bullying, it’s that crying is like stapling a KICK ME sign to your forehead.
    The second ball hit me in the face. I saw it clear as day: One of them, Tommy Ferraro by name, called out “Yo, Locke!” in a jovial enough tone, and when I turned around, the cretin chest-passed the ball straight into my nose. The world went white, the ground went unreliable, and my nose went gruesome. I touched my face, and once I saw the crimson smear on my palm, the tears just came.
    This, as I had predicted, didn’t help the situation. Tommy jabbed one of his little sausage digits at me and brayed, “Oh, wook! He’s gonna stawt cwying! Pwoor baby!” He laughed again and reached for another basketball.
    At this point, something just…broke free.
    And it was overpowering. Irresistible. It welled up inside me, like tears well up in your eyes—only this thing was pure, liquid hate, anger and rage and depression, all in a physical manifestation. This was no simple emotional response; this was a real, honest-to-God, all-over change. It percolated up in my head, bubbling, bubbling, and then bursting, overflowing. I felt it burning in my veins; every part of my body was so alive, more alive than I’d ever felt it before. And once the feeling, the substantial emotion, had filled me and solidified, it took control. But the worst part about it was that I enjoyed it—Fuck, I loved it. This thing took me in its smooth, warm, black embrace and guided my limbs, and there was something, a voice without any sound or words, soothing and quieting. The insecurity and instability of what was happening seemed to vanish. I didn’t worry about what to do next, because it had been decided for me. Everything fell into its wicked, brutal place, and all was well.
    So then I tackled Tommy Ferraro and bit off the tip of his nose.
    Now, in the years since it went down, this story has been greatly exaggerated. People have claimed I did everything from bite off his entire nose to spit the piece back at him. Tommy Ferraro himself spouted some ridiculous yarn about me having razor-edged teeth and lapping the blood off my fingers as I rose up off of him. The true story is sort of lost to time—I was somewhere else entirely, Tommy was pretty caught up in the moment, and his friends just stood there stupefied, so all accounts are questionable. The fact remains that I managed to take a small chunk of nose off Tommy’s face with my teeth. He lay back, screaming, clutching his face (which was bleeding far worse than mine was) while I stood over him and barraged him with swear words and monstrous laughter. I know it sounds sadistic, taking the time to stand there and laugh at him, but it all felt so rapturous that I didn’t give it a second thought.
    When the teachers finally found us, I was huddled in a corner, a blubbering mess. They kept asking me what was wrong, saying not to worry, Tommy would be fine. I didn’t care about Tommy. Fuck Tommy Ferraro. Even through the weeping and shivering, it never occurred to me that what I had done was wrong; that little cretin got what was coming to him. It was just that once that pure, black energy had gone back into hiding, I was left with the sludgy residue of it. I felt empty, worthless,