The Weekly Meetings of the Damned

The Damned

My name is Miranda and when I was sixteen years of age I pushed a girl down the stairs because I was jealous of her. She was very pretty and I caught my boyfriend looking at her once. I had never even spoken to her and I don’t think she knew that I or my boyfriend existed. She has spent half her life in a wheelchair because of my jealousy.

MY NAME IS CHHAYA AND I slipped and fell down the stairs while carrying my baby. She now has severe brain damage.

MY NAME IS MERRICK and when I was high on ice I threw my baby through the window killing him.

MY NAME IS CLAUDIA and I accidently backed over my daughter when I reversed out of the driveway. She has no movement from her neck down.

The Hall

The mantra for the weekly meetings was do not judge. Everyone did, of course, even Richard and he was the counsellor for the group. Some people were more vocal about their judgment than others; some sat quietly their righteousness written all over their faces. Richard did his best to hide his thoughts from showing on his face although occasionally a flicker of emotion would momentarily show as he struggled to hide it. For fifty weeks a year Richard prepared the hall for the meetings. He thought he had heard it all and every now then a story would jolt him from his complacency.

People came and went. Some cried, some sat stony faced, some were remorseful, others resentful.  Some came because of court orders; some came to assuage their guilt. Some people remained for weeks before gathering up the courage to tell their story, others stayed only one night and were never seen again.

Richard bustled about readying the hall for the evening meeting, scraping the chairs along the dusty wooden floor. He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and a woman he had not seen before stared at him with eyes-tinged red from crying.

Is this the meeting of the damned? She asked. He coughed; dust was making its way into his lungs.

That’s not the name of the group. He corrected gently.

No, but this is what it is all about isn’t it? This is where people who have done damnable actions come for absolution.

Not exactly. Richard explained kindly. We talk about what has happened and how we feel about it and what we can do about it in the future.

She smirked as if she did not believe him. Let me guess, all crimes are forgivable?

No, He said softly, thinking of some of the confessions he had heard. Some are not. Some, however, are not crimes but accidents and people cannot forgive themselves for them. People come in an attempt to forgive themselves.

She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps to dispute this, but her words were lost when several people arrived at once, talking to each other loudly. She left him to greet the newcomers and went to find a seat and said no more.

The Hall 

For people like us , you would think the hall would be filled with fire and brimstone as judgment is rained down upon us by the Gods themselves and us, the condemned, the guilty, writhing from the never-ending torture.

Instead, this place is just a suburban hall. A circle of chairs that have seen better days are placed in the middle of the room. The room is a bit dusty and smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in a while but there is no sign of a fire pit that leads to hell. There’s weak tea and coffee on a table that someone has set out and the usual mismatch crockery sets that can be found in any community hall in the country. I look for an unchipped cup and finally settle on a teacup with pink flowers that I suspect have been donated from an estate sale.

The people here are ordinary. To look at us, you would not see the evil that lurks below the surface although could we really be called evil or are we simply people who have been pushed to do desperate things? Society judges us for our deeds, that I know.

It seems the meeting has been called to order. People are shuffling towards the chairs. I hastily pour my tea and find a chair that doesn’t look like it would be overly uncomfortable. There are more men than women and I’m surprised to see a few young attractive women. I don’t know why, I just assumed that horrible people tend to be men but it just goes to show. Do they look at me and think that a middle-aged man - no, I have long past middle age, I would be considered elderly now - could ever have been capable of a horrendous crime?

A man who is tall, thin and balding and wearing a threadbare coat that was in fashion about twenty years ago, cleared his throat. Welcome to the meeting. My name is Richard. A few smiles although most people stare glumly at their feet. I recognise a few faces and say hello to the new ones. I begin, as I always begin these meetings by saying we’re not here to judge, we are here to listen. We all have terrible stories to tell. No one makes eye contact. We found each other, perhaps we can comfort each other, maybe we can even move on from our pain.

A few shakes of the head as they listened to that last bit in disbelief. Richard continues. This is like any other meeting. Everything said here is confidential. Nothing is to be repeated outside this room. Now, who would like to go first.

More avoidance of eye contact. No one wanted to go first. No one wanted to be the first to be judged. The silence drew out and became painful, finally Richard spoke again. We all came here tonight for a reason, whether your doctor suggested you come here, or perhaps you found us on the internet. Whatever the reason, you came here willingly.

Conditions of parole, One woman murmured. I’m not here willingly.

I don’t know why I spoke first but suddenly the words flew out of my mouth, as if I had no control. My name is John and I watched my son die, and I did nothing to save him.

John’s Story

Imet my wife, Margaret , at university. I was studying to be an engineer and she was completing her teacher’s degree. It was love at first sight. We dated until Margaret finished her degree, and then we married. Her family really hated me. They were snobs and their Margaret was their darling and I was way beneath her. I think part of the reason that Margaret was so keen to marry me was to irk her parents.

Margaret taught while I finished my degree and shortly after that, she fell pregnant. Our first child Geoffrey was born, followed by the twins Jane and Juliette two years later. The twins were four years old when Matthew was born. In the early days, Margaret referred to him as our happy accident, later on, she never said those words again.

Matthew was spoilt. I don’t deny it. Geoff and the twins had outgrown the cute baby stage and it was nice to have a baby in the house again. The twins treated him like a real live doll and gave him everything he wanted. Geoff was not enamoured with him, he didn’t have much patience for the squalling thing as he called him.

I don’t think I noticed anything different about Matty in his younger years because he seemed like any other kid. He was spoilt and he could be a bit of a brat and that was probably our fault, but there was nothing particularly bad about his behaviour and any faults he had, we assumed he would outgrow.

When Matthew was eight, Margaret fell pregnant again. Another accident. Geoff, at this time, was about fourteen and less than impressed with our news.

Aren’t you too old for that kind of thing? I think it’s disgusting that you still do it. I told Geoff that he would be my age one day and he would feel different about such things. I sincerely doubt it. Geoff said using his snobbish voice that reminded me of his maternal grandfather. His grandparents had too much influence and not always in a good way.

When Tom was born our lives changed and not just because we had a new baby after so long. Something happened to Matty. It was like a switch was thrown. When Margaret and Tom came home from the hospital, the problems began. After eight years of being the centre of attention, Matty’s whole world changed in an instant. The twins and even Geoff, rushed over to see their new brother. Matty stood in the corner watching the whole thing as if bewildered.

The attention that the twins had given Matty, now went to Tom and Matty suddenly found himself ousted and no one wanted to play with him anymore.   

Margaret and I had expected a bit of jealously from Matthew, it had been eight years and he had been the youngest of the family for a long time and as I said, he could be a bit of handful every now and then.

Family members came to visit when Margaret came home from the hospital. Everyone gushed and brought gifts and said to Matthew. Don’t you love your new brother? As they cooed over the baby.

No. He answered sullenly and picked up the doorstop, which was in the shape of a lion that had been shaped from stone and was very heavy. With one swift movement he threw the doorstop through the glass door that led from the lounge room to the outside. Margaret sheltered the baby from any falling glass, and no one was hurt. There was suddenly a lot of yelling from angry adults as I grabbed Matthew by the arm and frogmarched him to his room, all the while yelling at him. 

My sister Cathleen visited a few days after this incident and was sneaking a cigarette before entering the house to visit the baby and my wife. This was in the days before you became a pariah for smoking. Back then people smoked around babies although Cathleen politely smoked outside.

How’s Matthew taking the new addition? Cathleen asked puffing away.

You heard? I asked dryly.

A stone through a window, that’s taking jealousy to a whole new level.

That’s putting it lightly. I could have killed the little shit. We said things like that back then too. We usually didn’t mean it; it was just something you said.

If it makes you feel better Kayla threw a hell of a hissy fit when Ed was born, but she calmed down. After a while. Cath tacked on the last bit as if an afterthought. Cath hated all kids and I don’t think hers were particularly excluded from that but she seemed to hate her children less than others. Kayla was the result of a misspent youth. Cath was not like every other single mother of her generation; she didn’t automatically drop out of school and give birth and ruin her life from that moment on. She gave birth, left the kid at home with mum, and continued on with her education. She even went to university and has a degree in political science. Cath had married when she was twenty-eight and Ed was a result of that marriage. He was a year or so older than Matty.

The tantrums she threw, Cath grimaced. She spent most of that first year being sent to her room. She got over it.

Did she ever throw anything at anyone? That doorstop could have done some serious damage.

No, and if she had I would have beaten her into tomorrow. Behaviour like that isn’t acceptable, ever.

Neither is beating a child into tomorrow. I pointed out. She gave me a look that was more amused than annoyed.   

I have to give these up, they’re going to kill me. She stubbed out her cigarette with her shoe. It’s an adjustment John, you’ve spoilt Matthew for the last eight years and now he has to get used to not being the centre of attention. He’ll be fine, I’m sure.

I didn’t like Matty being alone with Tom and the plan was, once Tom was old enough to move out of our room, he would share with Matty. I changed my mind one afternoon when I went into the bedroom and I caught him glaring at him in the bassinet and the look of intense hatred on his face frightened me. This was more than jealousy.

Irene, the lovely mother-in-law, insisted on a christening despite the fact neither Margaret or I were religious and, in the end, I agreed just to shut her up. As Margaret pointed out, it hadn’t killed the other kids being christened and it wouldn’t hurt Tom either.

For each of the children’s christenings Irene had bought each of the children a crystal glass with their names engraved on them. They were beautiful, very expensive and completely and utterly useless. They sat behind a glass cupboard that held all the other crap people gave us that we couldn’t throw out. Both Margaret and I were not fans of knick knack stuff. It was just pointless dust collectors. No use telling Irene that, she did as she wished anyway.

Everyone was ready for the big day. The girls were wearing their pretty dresses, Geoff had (begrudgingly) dressed himself to look decent and Matthew, whom I had shoved into his nice clothes earlier, was also looking respectable. Or rather he had been. While everyone was standing in the living room, waiting to leave, Matthew had snuck out and re-entered the room. Margaret looked at me in dismay.

I thought you had dressed him John! She asked exasperated, seeing him in his shorts and filthy t-shirt. 

Matthew! Why have you changed your clothes? I demanded.

I don’t want to go.

I don’t care if you don’t want to go, I snapped. We all have to do things that we don’t like doing occasionally.

Of course you want to go. Irene said disapprovingly to Matthew. The glass that she had brought for Tom’s christening was currently sitting on the coffee table so we could all admire the engraving of the name Thomas on it. Matthew moved closer to his mother.

He’s a stupid baby and the christening is stupid.

You were christened once, Irene pointed out. And everyone went and said nice things.

I don’t want to go! His voice was near hysteria pitch now. He was going red in the face and working himself into quite a state. Margaret glanced at me. She had mentioned in passing that she felt bad for neglecting him lately and I had merely shrugged. It was normal that Margaret’s attention would be more focused on Tom for the time being and Matthew had to learn to adapt.

Calm down sweetheart. Margaret said.

Matthew had not thrown a tantrum in years and by tantrum I mean throwing himself on the floor and screaming. That was for children. Occasionally he yelled and cried, but that was about it. Now he was in full flight and the adults, and other children in the room watched appalled as he now threw himself on the floor, nearly whacking his head on the coffee table as he did so.

Matthew! My father-in-law strode into the room. He was not a man who walked, he strode into every room like he owned it. Get up off that floor now! He was a man of little patience, old Frank, and was born when a good whack around the head would solve the bad behaviour of any child. He looked at me accusingly as if to say why I, the father of this child, was standing by idly and watching my child behave in such a manner.

Matthew jumped up suddenly, his screaming stopping abruptly. Frank looked pleased with himself, as if his aggressive order had done the trick. Matthew looked at his mother reproachfully and then reached for the crystal glass that was on the coffee table and threw it. It was made of heavy glass with a thick wooden base. Whether he meant to or not, or whether it was just a good shot, the glass hit the cabinet that held all the other christening glasses and other knick knacks and shattered the glass of the cabinet.

There was a horrified silence before the rebukes began.

This was the beginning.

There was no ending.

AFTER THAT DAY, MATTHEW’S tantrums became more regular and violent. He would fling himself around the room, breaking things and no amount of punishment seemed to deter him. If we sent him to his room he would scream and scream and could keep it up for hours, until he became hoarse or the police came, whatever came first. The neighbours very quickly came to hate us.

The police suspected us of being child abusers and I don’t blame them. Social workers came to visit. The older children were interviewed and if it wasn’t for them collaborating with our stories that Matthew was a little shit (they said it in nicer terms than that, but that’s exactly what we all meant), I suspect Margaret and I would have lost all our children and ended up with some jail time. We were told to take Matthew to a psychologist.  

Geoff and the girls very quickly became tired of Matthew. Where once the twins had adored him, they were now yelling at him not to break their things or for the love of God, shut the fuck up (that one was from Geoff who had no patience for Matthew and his behaviour at all). Quite often when Matthew was throwing one of his famous tantrums, Geoff would turn to me in a voice much older than his fourteen years and say "Would you please, please shut that child up. He is your child, deal with him."

Problem was, neither Margaret nor I had any ideas how to shut him up. No form of discipline worked. Any memory of the Matthew before Tom was long forgotten. Everyone said he would outgrow it but if anything, he became worse. The police were called often. It was embarrassing to put the bins out on bin night because I knew what the neighbours thought.

In the end we moved to a couple of acres just outside the city. Close enough to amenities but far away from the neighbours. This wasn’t just because of Matthew, although I would be lying if I said it wasn’t one of the reasons. At the new house Matthew could scream himself blue. Our nearest neighbour was deaf as a post and it was the best thing that could have happened. We could now throw him in his room and let him scream. When no police turned up after the first couple of times he did this, he grew tired of the performance, especially when there was no one to witness it. If he was sent to his room, he would break things. First, he would destroy his toys by jumping on them, or tear the pages from any books. He then systematically destroyed the larger furniture. I refused to allow Margaret to replace anything and he had to live with the consequences of his actions, even when he set fire to his blankets. If anyone had seen the way he lived, they would have thought we were abusing him by letting him live in squalor.

I really thought he would grow out of it. No one ever acted like this because they lost a bit of attention, did they?

Now that we had moved, Cathleen visited a lot less than she used to. She had heard about Matthew’s behaviour but was yet to witness him in full flight. On the day that she visited the new house for the first time, with her son Ed in tow, both of them froze in the doorway at the sound of screaming.

What on earth is that noise? Cath asked reluctant to come in. 

Screaming. Margaret said calmly and continued folding clean laundry from the basket that was on the kitchen table. She looked unruffled. I wanted to throttle him. I should mention that I wasn’t prone to violence, I didn’t believe in hitting children even though I was born into the generation that did so. I think I had spanked Geoff once when he was about six when he had felt it necessary to paint the walls with a permanent marker when he had been specifically told not to touch them but nothing more threatening than that. Now I dreamt of throwing Matthew out the window.

Geoff was not bound by any sort of parental responsibilities. Matthew drove him mad and he would react to it. In hindsight, if we had ignored Matthew even at his worst behaviour, it might have been better as Matthew craved attention and it didn’t matter if it was good or bad. The psychologist told us this, that he was missing the attention of his parents and siblings that he had before Tom was born. I had grown angry with her, were we supposed to get rid of Tom to please Matthew?

I glanced at Cath and Ed, who were still standing in the doorway. Ed was looking very reluctant to visit with his cousin now and I can’t say I blamed him. I told him Jane and Juliette were outside in the garden and he went to find them instead of seeking out Matthew.

Margaret and Cath went to join the girls and Ed in the garden, taking Tom with them. I remained in the house. Matthew was still screaming. I don’t even know why he was screaming, there never seemed to be a good reason for it. Just because.

There was a large smash that came from Matthew’s room. I didn’t rush. At this stage I couldn’t even bring myself to care. I knew what he had done before I even entered his room. From the sounds of it, he had thrown something large and heavy through his bedroom window. I don’t know what, he didn’t have many things left these days. His room was full of broken toys. The mattress had been dragged to the floor and the blankets that had large burnt holes in them lay in a pile nearby. Why, I had screamed at him that day as he stood by watching as Margaret and I panicked as we desperately tried to put out the smouldering mess of blankets that Matthew had deliberately lit. After that we hid all the matches.

Now I merely swallowed down the urge to beat the child there and then. I merely said to him. It’s going to be cold in winter without any glass. Clean that up before you cut yourself.

My now ten-year-old son looked at me defiantly, challenging me but I refused to bite. He ran over to the window, picked up a large piece of glass, making sure that I was watching and ran it up his arm. It would have hurt. He was only ten, he knew that his actions would shock, he didn’t realise they could kill him. To my shame, I hesitated. I stood there watching him do it and did nothing to stop him. Blood was now