Page 9 of Assassin Anonymous
I can feel the discomfort snaking through the room, so I clap again. No one follows, but it doesn’t matter. The silence is broken. “One day at a time, buddy,” I tell him. “One day at a time.”
Booker mutters something, but I can’t make it out.
Kenji sighs and says, “Thank you, Stuart. Now, our next meeting is going to be a special one…”
A flush of warmth spreads through my body. Doesn’t matter how far we make it in life, we’re all just little kids who want a gold star from their teacher.
“Mark is a few days out from one year,” Kenji says.
At this, everyone claps, much more enthusiastically than they did for Stuart.
Kenji has seniority here: five years and change. Valencia has four, and Booker is over three. Stuart, the new addition to the group, is still a few months in, which is a delicate time for people in recovery, and why I want to encourage him.
Everyone waits, offering me the space to speak.
“I almost can’t believe it.” I take my last prize—my six-month chip—out of my pocket. The inscription is barely legible, the hard plastic surface worn smooth from how often I need to rub it between my fingers and remind myself it’s real. “I was thinking about it today, how that feeling never goes away. The muscle memory. And it made me think, can I really change? But I guess it doesn’t matter whether I can or not, the only important thing is that I want to.”
I look up and meet everyone’s eyes in turn.
“I just want to say, I’m thankful for all of you. No one understands what taking a life does. How it screws you up, but then how even more screwed up it is that you get used to it, and then it just becomes a job. Then you go see a movie and it’s like this noble profession, but the reality is we’re just tools, so somebody with power can have even more power. I can say, with complete and total honesty, even though I still struggle with my programming, I don’t miss killing. And that feels good. From the bottom of my heart, I’m thankful for you scumbags.”
That draws a big, explosive laugh from Booker and a judgmental look from Kenji. Before he can say anything I put my hand up.
“I don’t say scumbags because you’re former killers. I say it because you always leave me alone to clean up after the meetings.”
“Okay,” Kenji says, with just the slightest roll of his eyes. “We’ve got some time left. Booker, would you like to share?”
They do, and the story remains mostly the same. Booker talks about the ghosts of past victims, the ones who follow him through the grocery store and stand by the foot of his bed at night. Valencia talks about wanting to be a mom, but not wanting to be a mom who kills people, and how one day she hopes to be worthy of the privilege. Kenji talks about the amends he made the other night, to the girlfriend of a man he killed in Kyoto.
There are no time limits. With only five of us, it can sometimes be hard to fill an hour. All it takes is for someone to be in a mood. But even on the nights we end up telling the same stories, I find comfort in being here. In seeing these people and knowing I’m not alone.
As I listen to them I consider the upcoming milestone.
One year since the biggest mistake I ever made, if you’re not counting all the others.
Contentment courses through me, and at the end of the hour, when it’s time to say the serenity prayer, I fold my hands together and speak in unison with the group, and it’s like I’m saying it for the first time:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
—
With the room cleared, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I like to bust on everyone for leaving me to clean, but really I enjoy it. It’s meditative, allowing me space to process the events of the meeting. A nice little decompress before I head back into the world, where the lights and the sounds and the people put me back on edge.
For a few moments I feel safe.
There’s a shuffle behind me. I turn to find Stuart, standing awkwardly on the other end of the room. His hands are clasped in front of him and the way he’s looking at me, eyes unblinking, makes me think of a bug, like I turned on the light and caught him and he could bolt in any direction. Maybe I’m just uneasy because I know what he used to get up to in his free time. The silence between us stretches for a beat too long, so I ask, “How you doing there, bud?”
“What is the difference between hit men and assassins?” he asks.
“A hitman gets paid by a political or criminal organization to kill someone. An assassin kills for religious or political purposes, but they don’t always get paid. The lines are blurry. Lee Harvey Oswald was an assassin, but there are guys and gals in this fellowship who changed the course of world events and you’d never know, and they got paid very well to do it. The terms are sort of interchangeable but sort of not. Kind of like how all bourbons are whiskeys, but not all whiskeys are bourbons?”
Stuart shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Yeah, I pushed that one too far. It’s the best I got at the moment, though.”
“What does that make me, then?” he asks.
“A killer, same as me,” I tell him. “Someone who belongs here, same as me.”