White Space Season 2

call bullshit on the meeting, expose it for what it really was. This was his second one, and they were supposed to help grieving parents. They were supposed to offer solace.
    All they were doing was fueling his anger.
    Finally, Bruce erupted.
    He stood, fists clenched, and shouted, “Why aren’t any of you complaining about Roger Heller?”
    “Sir,” Connie Fawcett, the woman who’d started the missing children’s survivor group years ago, went to the microphone and said. “If you’d like to come up and talk, please wait your turn.”
    “Talk? All you people do is fucking talk!” Bruce yelled, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have emptied so many glasses before the meeting, but fuck, it was too late to turn back now. “Meanwhile nobody’s doing anything. You got Heller’s kid still going here, ya’ know? Did you all hear what he did to Jake Brewster and Ray Wilson? He nearly killed them, left that Brewster kid in a fucking coma! Am I the only one who thinks maybe the lunatic nut didn’t fall too far from the crazy tree?”
    “What is there to do, Mr. Henderson?” Connie asked. “We’re all here to support one another. That’s all we’re here to do. The police and school handled the other situation.”
    “You all just wanna sit here and wait for another tragedy, go ahead, but I’m done listening to you all fucking whine about this shit.”
    Jerry Barlow, the 60 year-old school maintenance worker stood three rows up and said, “Please, Bruce.”
    “Please, what?” Bruce shouted as he moved down his aisle and up three rows to meet Jerry face-to-face. “Please what, Jerry?” Bruce said, standing inches from Jerry, close enough for the maintenance man to smell his soured breath.
    “Jesus, Bruce, you’re drunk!” Jerry said, the righteous tone of his voice digging into Bruce’s skin like a cat’s claws into carpet. Before Bruce could give thought to action, he swung hard and slammed his fist into Jerry’s jaw.
    The maintenance man fell to the ground, throwing his hands over his face, “Please, Bruce, I don’t want to fight.”
    Bruce did. He’d been wanting someone to hit for a month, looking for someone he could beat to a pulp. Someone to pay for what happened to Teddy.
    Suddenly, he felt the entire room full of people staring at him. People he’d known all his life. People who were looking at him with an even mix of pity and fear.
    He looked down at Jerry, and felt a twinge of guilt for decking a man 20 years older than himself. He shook his head, then turned around, meeting the eyes of all who were staring. Part of him wanted to apologize, the rest wanted to finish saying what had to be said.
    “You all act like God allowed this shit to happen to our kids. And I ain’t talkin’ about missing kids and crap. I’m talking about the shootings. They ain’t got nothin’ to do with God. Roger Heller pulled the trigger. Roger Heller, a man you all trusted, shot these poor kids without even thinking. You all deserve this shit to happen again if you don’t wake the fuck up and do something about it now.”
    With the words finally out of his mouth, Bruce turned and stormed from the auditorium, then outside, and to the parking lot. He climbed in his truck, slammed his thumb on the button to turn the ignition, and tore into the street, headed home.
    Halfway there, Bruce decided he wasn’t ready to walk through the door, especially so drunk. Linda would still be awake. She’d smell his breath and give him more shit than he was currently willing to take. He was a bit tipsy, but not so drunk he couldn’t drive. He headed to Shipwrecked, then went inside, determined to get good and wasted.

    **

    “Fine, fuck you, too,” Bruce said as Lewis, the bartender, escorted him out from the bar and into the parking lot. “I called you a cab.”
    “No, I’ll walk,” Bruce said, waving the bartender away.
    Once he saw Lewis head back inside, Bruce made his way back to his truck, hopped in, and fumbled under the seat for his emergency bottle of Smirnoff. His hand found nothing.
    “Mother fucker,” he said as he leaned over and fished for the bottle from among the cigarette wrappers and empty McDonald’s bags littering the floor of the truck. He finally found it, not under a bag but under the passenger seat. He twisted the cap, took a massive swig, then replaced the cap and started the car, catching a glance in the mirror and realizing just how sloshed he actually was.
    Bruce thought of Teddy,