I can distinctly remember the first time I got angry.
In fact, it's one of my earliest memories. The years were 1978-79. I was five years old. We were staying with some friends of the family for about two weeks after having to prematurely move out of a house my parents just sold. I just remember riding in the back seat of the car, hearing Dad and Mom talk about going to a party that some friends from our church were having. Of course, I wanted to go, and I said so.
When Dad said no, even at that young age, something triggered in me. Perhaps it was the finality of it. Perhaps it wasn't getting my way. I don't know what it was that triggered me. But I can vividly remember becoming furious. So furious in fact that I determined that as soon as we got home, I was going to run away because it wasn't fair. As soon as the car stopped in the driveway, that's what I did. I took off as fast as I could run. I had befriended a kid up the street from where we were staying, and I ran headlong to his front door. I beat on the front door until he and his mom came to the door, and I asked his mom if I could live with them. I don't recall their reaction, but I'm sure my friend's mother was shocked. Then Dad came around the corner, calling my name.
I was bound and determined that I was not going to go home with him, so I started climbing on a metal latticework support near the front door. I was going to climb onto the roof and refuse to come down! I was not going home with Dad. It seems funny now, a five-year-old child thinking he could just climb on the roof of a house and live there just to get away from his anger. But I knew that's what I was going to do. Dad caught me before I made it very far up the lattice, and he carried me writhing and squirming back to the house. Mom told me she'd never seen me act like that, both legs kicking and arms flailing in fury. She said my response scared her, and Dad as well.
Naturally, as a non-denominational Christian family, the Bible says spare the rod and spoil the child, so I got a good whuppin'. What I remember most is this: we were probably in there for half an hour, but for what seemed like hours to me, I refused to cry. Dad would spank with the belt a few times, then he would ask me if I was going to be obedient. He seemed to be quite afraid of the way I was reacting, because I was determined not to break. I was too angry! I don't know what inside of me released me to give in. It wasn't pain, or tiredness, or lack of resolve. I think I realized it was hopeless to resist. I was the quintessential marginalized person, a kid with no power. When I finally started crying, Dad stopped spanking me. And he started crying. I could tell he was relieved that I finally gave in. I think I was relieved too. It takes a tremendous amount of personal energy to stay that angry, and an intense amount of energy to be furious like I was that day.
And that's what bothers me now.
Where did all that anger go? Answering that question is the purpose of this book. Unresolved anger is not a vapor that just evaporates away; it's a cancer that spreads throughout the body and the mind, far and wide, hiding in every crack and corner it can find. It doesn't just go away. I have titled this book "An Angry Man" because I don't have a corner on the market of anger. I'm only one angry man, but there are billions of angry men and angry women. The world is full of it... ate up with it like we say in the Deep South. And as uncontrolled anger always has, it's killing us.
-ADAPTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION
