Excerpt Two
At the Office
Shirley heads to the office’s second meeting room, a slightly larger than the first and features a different assortment of mismatched chairs. The room is filled with a diverse crew of Anger Management and Spousal Abuse clients. Most have been sent to Shirley’s office as the result of a court order. Despite their abusive crimes, they all think of themselves as good, 150% innocent, misunderstood guys. Yup, God’s Gift to Women…
Within the room, Robbie “Oneball” Jones, is drifting in and out of sleep, his head bobs up and down. Robbie has a small picture in his lap, pointed up towards himself. Also in the room is Artur, early thirties, an extremely unstable anger management client. He sits in the corner with an unsettlingly intense look on his face, he has the demeanor of a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse – a catastrophe waiting to happen. Towards the center of the room is Tony, 30s, a handsome young Hispanic trophy husband who seems almost bored to be in the group. The rest of the group is made up of lawyers, accountants, and other comparatively everyday-looking regular folk who seem somewhat amazed that their spousal misdeeds (of course they are ALL innocent, and SHE put them here! Never recognizing that it was THEIR reaction to her that put them here) have placed them in the same room as the other more colorful characters. Shirley enters the room. She takes a seat on the highest chair at the center of the room for the sake of psychologically emphasizing her control over the group. Shirley to group, “Alrighty kids, where were we ? Tony, I think you were about to…”