He stuck the pencil behind one ear and rose.
Dr. Boston said: “Done? Good. Now please share your story with the rest of us.”
“That’ll take some time, the whole story will.”
“Mr. Spree, just tell us why you’re here.”
“I blew up my uncle’s bank.”
Twilly’s classmates straightened and turned in their seats.
“A branch,” Twilly added, “not the main office.”
Dr. Boston said, “Why do you think you did it?”
“Well, I’d found out some things.”
“About your uncle.”
“About a loan he’d made. A very large loan to some very rotten people.”
“Did you try discussing it with your uncle?” asked Dr. Boston.
“About the loan? Several times. He wasn’t particularly interested.”
“And that made you angry?”
“No, discouraged.” Twilly squinted his eyes and locked his hands around the back of his neck. “Disappointed, frustrated, insulted, ashamed—”
“But isn’t it fair to say you were angry, too? Wouldn’t a person need to be pretty angry to blow up a bank building?”
“No. A person would need to be resolved. That I was.”
Dr. Boston felt the amused gaze of the other students, who were awaiting his reaction. He said, “I believe what I’m hearing is some denial. What do the rest of you think?”
Twilly cut in: “I’m not denying anything. I purchased the dynamite. I cut the fuses. I take full responsibility.”
Another student asked: “Did anybody get kilt?”
“Of course not,” Twilly snapped. “I did it on a Sunday, when the bank was closed. That’s my point—if I was really pissed, I would’ve done it on a Monday morning, and I would’ve made damn sure my uncle was inside at the time.”
Several other probationers nodded in agreement. Dr. Boston said: “Mr. Spree, a person can be very mad without pitching a fit or flying off the handle. Anger is one of those complicated emotions that can be close to the surface or buried deeply, so deeply we often don’t recognize it for what it is. What I’m suggesting is that at some subconscious level you must’ve been extremely angry with your uncle, and probably for reasons that had nothing to do with his banking practices.”
Twilly frowned. “You’re saying that’s not enough?”
“I’m saying—”
“Loaning fourteen million dollars to a rock-mining company that’s digging craters in the Amazon River basin. What more did I need?”
Dr. Boston said, “It sounds like you might’ve had a difficult relationship with your uncle.”
“I barely know the man. He lives in Chicago. That’s where the bank is.”
“How about when you were a boy?”
“Once he took me to a football game.”
“Ah. Did something happen that day?”
“Yeah,” said Twilly. “One team scored more points than the other team, and then we went home.”
Now the class was snickering and it was Dr. Boston’s turn to manage his anger.
“Look, it’s simple,” Twilly said. “I blew up the building to help him grow a conscience, OK? To make him think about the greedy wrongheaded direction his life was heading. I put it all in a letter.”
“Yes, the letter’s in the file,” said Dr. Boston. “But I noticed you didn’t sign your name to it.”
Twilly spread his hands. “Do I look like an idiot? It’s against the law, blowing up financial institutions.”
“And just about anything else.”
“So I’ve been advised,” Twilly muttered.
“But, still, at a subconscious level—”
“I don’t have a subconscious, Doctor. That’s what I’m trying to explain. Everything that happens in my brain happens right on the surface, like a stove, where I can see it and feel it and taste the heat.” Twilly sat down and began massaging his temples with his fingertips.
Dr. Boston said, “That would make you biologically unique in the species, Mr. Spree, not having a subconscious. Don’t you dream in your sleep?”
“Never.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously,” Twilly said.
“Never once?”
“Not ever in my whole life.”
Another probationer waved a hand. “C’mon, man, you never had no nightmares?”
“Nope,” Twilly said. “I can’t dream. Maybe if I could I wouldn’t be here now.”
He licked the tip of his pencil and resumed work on the essay, which he submitted to Dr. Boston after class. Dr. Boston did not acknowledge reading Twilly’s composition, but the next morning and every morning for the following four weeks, an armed campus security guard was posted in the rear of the classroom. Dr. Boston never again called on Twilly Spree to speak. At the end of the term, Twilly received a notarized certificate saying he’d successfully completed anger-management counseling, and was sent back to his probation officer, who commended him on his progress.