Read Murderers Anonymous for Free Online Page A

it; but as soon as you've emptied your sacs you look at her and wonder what you were doing. Or when you're hungry and eat any old mince just to fill your belly. It might leave a bad taste in the mouth, and you can't believe you were so hungry that you needed to eat some shite like that, but you did. Same with rage. After I'd done it, I was a bit embarrassed. Felt really guilty. Even phoned the polis.'
    He stopped and looked around the room; slowly shrugged. They were all staring at him; some with wonder, some with sympathy. But they were all killers here, and none of them stared in judgement. That was not their game.
    'That's it, really. Don't know what else to say. Got some amount of years in the slammer. Can't even remember how many the old bastard of a judge sent me down for. Anyway, got out a couple of year ago. Thought I was OK at first, but I have to admit I still feel rage. I think the jail's made it worse. Can't be sure. They probably shouldn't have let me out, but you're no' going to say no, are you? So when I heard about youse lot I thought I'd give it a go. And youse've been a big help to me. I mean, it was a bit intimidating at first, what with being in Bearsden, but I think I fit in.'
    There were several nods around the room. One or two of the company thought he fitted in like a forest fire in the Amazon, but they nodded anyway in case he decided to kill them.
    'So why do you keep the nickname?' asked Dillinger. 'Doesn't it always remind you of what happened?'
    Socrates shrugged.
    'It's a really cool name. Birds love it. Course, most of the birds I hang out with have never heard of the fitba' player, and they're too thick to know about the Greek bastard, but it still makes me sound all exotic and foreign, you know.'
    'Don't you think you'd be better off just being yourself?'
    Socrates McCartney stared at Katie Dillinger. He rested his back against the chair, and for the first time in his entire life considered that question. Was it not just better to be yourself? It was a question he'd heard asked within this group before, but he never thought that it applied to him. But of course it did, and now this baring of his soul, this outing of his past and telling of his secrets, was forcing him to think about it. Was it better to be yourself, laid naked and bare to the world, hidden behind no sophistry and no tricks, than to put up a front, a brick wall of deceit and subterfuge?
    'Nah,' he said, after giving it due thought, 'I'm a total arsehole in real life.'
    And that, a few relevant details concerning the present day and the continuing juxtaposition of rage against relaxation aside, was the story of Socrates McCartney.

A New Beginning
     

    Late afternoon, the seventeenth day in December. A robin or a bell or a ball behind the door on the advent calendar; a dark chocolate turned white. Still mild and grey, no sign of winter. As Socrates McCartney told all, Barney Thomson stood on a pavement, staring across a busy road at a small barber's shop.
    He didn't know how long he stood there. People came and went around him; some bumped him, some told him to move, most passed on by and noticed nothing. Grey lives on a grey day, no one with time for anyone else. This was life in the new millennium. But Barney felt the beating of his heart and an unexpected dryness at the back of his throat. A barber's shop.
    It was now almost a year since he'd picked up a pair of scissors in anger. He had carried them around with him all this time, but he had been traumatised; no question of that. The shock of the unremitting murder and mutilation had had its effect, and it was many months since he had even thought of barbery, never mind attempted to practice it.
    Yet here he was, standing no more than fifteen yards from a shop. He could smell it; the shampoo, the hair oil, the warm air from the dryer, the hair itself. Dirty sometimes, clean others, but never odourless. And he stared at the small sign in the window, which he'd passed by an