Chain of Consequences

[Rory Gagnon]

It is often perplexing to most how some of the worst examples of humanity come to be the active shooter on the 6 o'clock news. Or how about the inner city gang banger? The bible thumping hate spewing zealot nut bag, the terrorists, rapists, murderers and arsonists all the way down to the lowly shoplifter. Blame is assigned and fingers pointed but the answer is essentially in the mirror were we to look hard enough. Or perhaps looking far enough would give us a better idea how our subject came to be.

One of many sideways lurches this boy experienced over the precious formative years came on a pleasant enough spring day in a backyard family garden. Within a small section of land cooped in with chicken wire and a tidy, short cement wall were neatly organized rows of vegetables: bright red tomatoes, corn, potatoes, lettuce and a variety of other miscellany took up a large amount of Jean-Paul Gagnon's time at home.

That he made his young son work that damned soil with him when Rory would rather have been off exploring in the woods or playing pretend wasn't exactly the issue. He was after all just trying to pass on knowledge he deemed valuable; it is what a parent was supposed to do. Like most things though the devil was in the details.

"Where are the keys?" That growl signaled bad things lurking in the garden. Weeds, or maybe snakes.

To the young mind came the notion of a recollection. A puff of gray dust with a muted metallic clack. Well of course that's where the keys were! Yet the answer didn't come to his tongue right away and it usually worked out that way. A fact which was one of Father's many buttons; the wiring of which was complicated and truth be told a little random.

But this is not strictly the tale of an abused boy. No, it's mostly about how the things done to us can have repercussions more vast, farther reaching and disastrous than they would appear to at first glance. Maybe more so than they have any right to be. Certainly more skewed in a wrong direction than Rory's father could have imagined; he was after all a selfishly egotistical, emotionally crippled jerk.

Everyone has heard the old saw about dropping a pebble into a pond and causing ripples.

"Where are the–" as was his style Father's voice twisted in anger and rose in pitch on the transition to cussing "–keys!? You know how important those are, where the hell did you lose them? Why were you playing with them in the first place? You must be deaf. I told you not to touch those goddamn keys!"

Well, drop enough pebbles in just so and you may end up with a tempest.


12 September, 2013
Saskatoon Correctional Centre

Claudia, the newest counselor at the prison waited patiently. Such was her style. Relatively pretty with close cropped black hair the young woman choosing to ply her trade here of all places struck some as odd. The pay was lousy and as her friends often reminded her 'look at the types of men you are surrounded by' and it was dangerous chirped her parents.

All points checked off as valid. Each also irrelevant; it was still satisfying as all get out.

Some of the inmates were beyond help and she didn't believe herself to be a divinely talented therapist like some of her classmates had assumed they'd be. Therefore, she suspected, they were still looking for work while she was in a place full to the brim with fascinating patients. Well that wasn't totally accurate; only a few were more than simple thugs. Like the one on the other side of the battle worn desk she had inherited from a basement storeroom. He was intently staring out the office's single window.

There was little need for a pre-session fact review. The particulars pertaining to one Rory C. Gagnon were few and far between. Little beyond court records and slipshod notes from others in her profession. This one would not open up easily one neatly produced line was saying. Claudia had been warned and the warnings of her colleague were spot on. Yet rather than add more pointlessly speculative drivel she would find a way. The silence hung a little longer until she slid her coffee mug away.

"So tell me... who does a girl gotta shank to get a decent cup of coffee in this place?"

[Rory Gagnon]

Truth be told the joke was weak, very much so. Humor of course was a tried and true tactic but without more information to work with Claudia was flying blind. It wasn't as if she were inclined to bring up the crimes that landed him behind bars, not quite yet. Already the lack of clinical information was making sense as he had yet to even look directly at her.

No sir-ee, he must have found what was happening outside to be more interesting. For all of a moment she almost asked him if that were so. That wasn't the approach; too easy to just say no and terminate the interaction. So, green eyes turned to the window too and landed on... a bird's nest, seemingly the only noteworthy thing out there. An old one though, from the look of it.

Pondering the possible significance of that nest is how she missed his reply of a small smile.

"I think," he said carefully "you could kill every last person and still find only that sludge."

Claudia took up her pen as attention returned to the patient. The instinctual part of her mind (cheekily visualized by her as a Sigmund Freud cartoon) was starting to stir. No notes yet via the pen however, an idea came to mind instead. No patient was impossible to reach, or could hold fast to their defensive mechanisms without fail. "Well that seems like a lot of work for––"

She was interrupted crisply and was quite fine with it: "Diminishing returns and such..."


A few hours later Rory was stuck in a morass of cheapened returns. With a meal tray decorated by dry chicken breast, watery mashed potatoes and dryish corn, he was looking out over the cafeteria anxiously. There never really was a good place to sit, this being a prison and all, but this evening seemed worse than usual.

This was of course a cognitive distortion. All the usual suspects and cliques were present; small group of Hispanics here, contingent of Asians there, Blacks next, Whites, white supremacists and a group that could only be called Other. Those without comrades – a lousy proposition in prison – misfits, outcasts, effeminates along with the oldest members of the population.

It was to that last group Rory belonged. All well and good, the trick right now was getting there through the obstacle course. Clutching the tray of subpart food close to his body, he moved carefully past this or that person yet just shy of the half way mark a near miss! Luckily being light on his feet he pivoted out of the path of a skinny black turning blindly to go up for seconds.

"Chicken just like mama used to make," he announced with gusto, "I'll tell you what!"

Then mama liked dry *** chicken, Rory would never say back either in jest or otherwise. If he could get to the table without further incident that would be plum dandy. Things had ended on a peculiarly interesting note with Claudia. They had sat quietly for a time, in fact the rest of his "session" however long it was supposed to be. She had no clock and didn't seem to be timing things.

The cool gaze of the woman had been upon him for most of the time, he could feel it just looking to sink hooks into his scalp and peel it back. That was the first move just lay his mind bare and poke around in there. Say 'Mhhhhm' and 'how does that make you feel' until layer by layer the therapist made their way to the very core of your being. It was a boring dance, a tired cliche.

"Rory... listen," Claudia had begun simply, frankly "our chats do not have to be in diminishing return-ville unless you want them to be. You are to be released about a year from now and something tells me that you need to talk to someone. We all need to feel understood and I doubt your neighbors out there make the grade."

As he mixed the corn into the potatoes, he realized she was right and he felt weird about that.

[Rory Gagnon]

"Hey Roar-REE!!"

The night had brought restlessness. Not that such was abnormal or anything; Rory slept poorly most nights and had for years. Kept awake by this or that thought rolling around in his mind or by most of the variety of sounds from outside his cell and barring those two, the often raucous snoring of his cell mate would do the job. Claude could be helluva loud sometimes and more so when he wanted to be– like right now as he bore down with single minded, shouting, sashaying determination.

Still unsettled from yesterday, he had been off to the side of the yard and trying even harder than usual to not stand out. Problem was (shouting aside of course) that in the microcosm of a prison the exact opposite had happened. In Rory's favor though? The inmates tended to ignore him and the guards knew that he went out of his way to not start any trouble. Well, fine by them!

"Rory!" It would rightly be assumed that Claude was persistent too. "Rory!!" Theirs was an interesting dynamic: outgoingly larger than life, rambunctious and yes, quite loud versus pathologically quiet reservation. Black and white, straight and gay– they couldn't be more different and despite that Claude was the only man he had called friend in this home of the last seven years.

Hands on hips wasn't the only sign of impatience detectable from the younger man. "Yes, Claudio?"

His cell mate smiled quick at the use of his chosen name but it was a tight little thing, not very jovial at all. The small eyes were skittering this way and that and the vibe rolling off the kid ran the risk of being contagious. High strung, for sure, no doubt about it wound tight. "Can't shake this feelin' man," Claude muttered, "somethin's just not right. You hear anything today?"

What couldn't be shook was that Claude knew, somehow, that there was impending danger afoot so for the last week he was peeking around every corner so as to be ready. For his part, Rory was always eyes open for trouble; always expecting it for that matter so no big deal. His pal on the other hand wasn't used to any of the strain of constant vigilance.

"Nope. I think you need to chill dude."

"Screw that noise!" Of course. "It ain't all in my head. You got my back... right?"

Hand came down onto the bony shoulder to deliver a reassuring squeeze. That Rory was okay with delivering such a gesture would be shocking to those that knew him back home in Harper Rock. Those few whom he actually let close enough to know him, which was really to say the single person. One more squeeze and he lifted his hand away with a nod then a smile. "So long as you watch mine, yep."

Claude grinned. "Well... you do have a nice tokus... which looking at would help pass the time.. so yeah, I guess."

With a roll of his eyes, Rory chuckled. "And you're a smart ***."

Wait a beat and they completed the joke together. "Better than dumb baby!"

[Rory Gagnon]

The next several days proved uneventful which was great for Claudio but not so good for Rory.

In that way familiar to folks like Claudia and also to the emotionally intelligent, the process of osmosis had unfurled. Simple enough but beyond that Rory seemed to absorb Claudio's anxiety like a sponge. Or maybe like a sin eater would be more accurate; a freak out gobbler. At any rate the sponge needed to be wrung out by the middle of day two.

Perfect fodder for a session with Ms. Claudia Headshrinker! One would think that, Rory should have thought it but was having trouble with the whole concept of therapy. Even though the woman's purpose was ostensibly to assist inmates in transition to freedom, the dam was going to burst. A constant threat that was, a state which was the result of the dogma of M. Gagnon.

Good ol' J.P. always had a diatribe on tongue for most anything but especially any notions of mental health services. 'Goddamn crooks' being a favorite for really anything that did not fit into his narrowed world view. Besides that, he had done a damn fine job raising his children and damn well knew how to raise them better than anyone else! Youngster misbehaves? Glare at them by way of warning. Problems with self esteem? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Young one continues to misbehave? Hit them. Back talk? Slap them. Catch them lying? Glare, scream then smack them. Spare the rod, spoil the child.

So it was that Rory had an innate distrust of Claudia. The sad part was he didn't realize it was because of his father's ranting over the years that he felt this way and would deny it to high heaven if confronted. Such was the often insidious nature of abusive interpersonal relationships. It was a sign of weakness his dad insisted; the macho refrain of a patently insecure man Rory would eventually realize

Another of his bad habits was grabbing hold of a thought and shaking it dog with a bone style. It was distracting, usually happening at inopportune times. Like when he needed to be observing the other inmates in a search for clues that could point in either direction when it came to Claudio's creepy feeling. Blink, blink and back on task. To be fair Rory was starting to think maybe there was something to the suspicions of his cell mate.

The predators in the prison were well known; their clues weren't subtle at all. But they weren't the worst threat– if they were after Claudio they'd just drive a shank into his throat. Quick. Very messy. Not too noisy. Difficult to treat fast enough to make any difference. Finito, problem solved. Were an attack to come, it wouldn't be them.

Loud, blusteringly extravagant A-holes were predictable, if nothing else...


Early Summer, 1978
Harper Rock

Jean-Paul Gagnon was waiting for an answer, the temperature was rising and not in an amusing steam coming out of the ears carttoonish sort of way. Internally Rory was dealing with a ball of cold fear that had formed in his belly. His face would change becoming more expressively animalistic. The snarl grew in timbre while fight or flight was leaning toward the latter, most definitely.

Still Rory couldn't speak.

That glare communicated several varieties of hell in its hazel depths. The one time he had tried to stare his father down there had been just enough time to imagine that a demon was soaring at him before he was hit. A part of him cried out to be defended and no one came. Another part of him whimpered to disappear but of course he could not. Couldn't get to the woods either; the connard was blocking the way, dominating the area around them as always.

At least he was not unbuckling his belt. Not that he even needed it. Rory's jaw clenched.

"The keys. Now!"

Tears starting to well up and he dumbly shook his head.

The ******** sometimes seemed to smile Cheshire at Rory's obstinacies. Not this time. "Oh really?"

No, no, no! That was not what he meant to convey at all! Only that he couldn't just make the keys appear out of thin air. But of course he was misunderstood, intimidated, cornered and scared witless. This had always been the case, would always be the way things were. In this garden, on this day what other conclusion could a young boy draw? Anyway there was not going to be time to mull it over had he been capable of such since Jean-Paul slapped him. Quick and stinging, the least injurious of his blows it none the less rocked Rory.

The tragic fact was that physical blows did indeed tend to clear up these mental logjams. Therefore, vindication for his father's undereducated, narcissistic and arrogant stance on the matter. The man truly believed in his way and that was the end of it. The reality however was that if he had just been calm and reasonable with his aloof son the same results would come to pass.

It would be many years before Rory understood and accepted the dynamics and particulars of that though.

"The keys are in the ash bucket..." An accessory of their wood stove. Puff of gray ash, muted clack.

[Rory Gagnon]

September 23rd

If the office of the principal was not intimidating enough, the fearsome reputation of the denizen therein would do it. To intimidate the most headstrong students Sister Anne kept a paddle hanging prominently on the wall and back in those days there were no compunction to be found inside a catholic school when it came to corporal punishment. That goddamn thing looked like a goddamn canoe paddle to most of the student body; yet to Rory it gained no extra psychological size or weight.

To do so would be pointless since the simple truth was that past a basic size profile, momentum mattered more. It wasn't terribly often that J.P. turned to weapons but when he did, they were wielded with a surprisingly clumsy flair for the most part. So no, the paddle was not a big deal. Neither was Sister Anne for that matter.

"Why Monsieur Gagnon would you do such a thing?" An excellent question really, but one an eight year old boy could not easily answer. Of course it was a largely rhetorical exercise as a weathered and liver spotted hand was already reaching for the wooden disciplinary implement.

Because really, what would a Good Catholic Boy be stabbing a classmate in the hand with a pencil for?


December 7th

More times than he would care to either admit or recall, the boy wished with all his might to turn in on himself and just disappear. Red-faced, on the verge of tears and with a hand caught in the cookie jar shame warped face was a particularly acute instance. He was trying to hide, literally and not whimsically– just getting even a little respite would be good because EVERYONE in the store was staring. Naturally that amplified the emotions he was grappling with by an order of magnitude.

Except it was no jar Rory had been a'rummagin in and he hadn't gotten caught red handed either. Colleen, his mother, was no slouch upstairs and knew right away that the candy he was counting while sitting Indian style on his bed was not a purchased commodity and her eyebrows turned down in disapproval. "Rory."

That usually did it; just his name with the weight of that disappointed look souring her pretty face. All boys wanted the approval of those who brought their howling little asses into the ever loving world, right? The combo of look and word had more of an affect; did more, faster than the paddle could hope to. Yet she moved closer to him and his level of alert ticked up a notch. Instead of whacking him one though, she sat on his bed too and laced her fingers together.

A discussion was had at a perfectly normal volume. She was patient, thoughtful and capable of getting a point across with ease; all the things her husband was not and so her style worked quite well indeed. Rory was not technically a mama's boy but he most certainly loved the heck outta that woman.

Ultimately proving that one typically will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar she got him to reveal a small toy airplane he had deftly been maneuvering around the airspace of his bedroom also misappropriated earlier that day. Bless her heart she listened to his reasoning for taking it. He wanted to be a pilot when he grew up!

Colleen smiled at the enthusiasm but only just. "I dun think a pilot should be taking thins that are not theirs. Yes?"

And that's how he ended up being presented to the store manager and the growing audience (enter the distortion of youthful memory, nobody was paying all that much mind) and compelled to admit his crime. A very embarrassing psychodrama. Colleen stood firm by stepping away from her son so that he couldn't turn to her for support of any kind. It was a simple maneuver and one that made the point pretty damn well: he never shoplifted again.

Mum never told J.P. which was just as well considering the fit he had pitched back in September.


July, 1979 – June, 1982

Patterns repeat without some outside influence. No such luck in the Gagnon house; Jean-Paul was always right and each year that would pass would only steel his resolve to that fait accompli. End of discussion. To call that frustrating would be putting it too simply while saying it was limiti–– whack! ––it was like that usually. The spirit-shredding rut did get a little more bearable though, eventually, in the final summer of the 70's.

The Gagnons moved to a more upscale part of town; not where the well-to-do rich were of course but where the upper middle class folks dwelt. Jean-Paul and Colleen were blue collar to the bone but also very good with money (read: quite cheap) which was how they afforded the lifestyle upgrade. But catholic school was out; Sister Anne and her ilk therefore could go take a flying leap.

That part of town was closer to the wilderness and that was a giant checkmark in the positive column for Rory. Literally, in his backyard was all the forest he could ever want! It was marvelous and he spent any and all free moments in the epic sweep of it all. This was so much better! Instead of having to ride his bike to the trees it was practically literally the backyard. Forest and lots of it.

The other important event was his father's shift change at the factory. So, during the school year for most of the weekdays he didn't have to see his old man since Mum worked days and J.P. the reverse. Such was all well and good but public school was only a marginal improvement in the sense that the religious claptrap was gone– the rest pretty much continued to suck.

Colleen had smacked into the glass ceiling a good stretch of time before the term was in popular use. Between her schedule at work, the duties of a housewife and Jean-Paul's naysaying her dream of becoming a schoolteacher never came to pass, which would have serious repercussions in years to come. But hey, his immigrant parents did pretty well for themselves and worked hard while Rory didn't, in school at least.

As summer began in the third year the routine was rout. Jean-Paul and Colleen bickered more and more frequently. On the day after the last day of school a bicker-brawl over the family car, a '76 Chevrolet Malibu's failing transmission was the sideshow. While the squabbles of his parents thickened and twisted as days festered into months Rory had learned that these times were ripe for an escape attempt.

Eventually, as the months had congealed into years he had gotten better at the slip, or they cared more about the bitching and playing their roles. Either way his escapes became so easy as to be boring. Always, the smell of pine lured him into the forest. Colorful leaves in the fall, icicles hanging on a tree branch, the murmured burble of a stream- even the texture of dirt, all of these were something near divine to him. Any were the perfect balm for his bruised sentiments.

Sadly though, at this time of year there was very little soul moving beauty to see and what little he could find was made all the more pallid by his favorite spot. Why it was such nobody would be able to say; it was a pond (barely) with a tortured looking tree growing out of it. The fetid water was thick with lilypads that usually got all jacked up by now. Even wildlife seemed to avoid it, save for the occasional salamander braving the wastes.

"What the ****?!" Yeah, subtle Rory was not at that age; the words flew out at the unknown person that was staring at the muck. Contemplatively it would seem, not that he would have thought to express it that way. The oriental man –– he was able to register that much before his perception got all wonky –– spun quickly and looked ready to pounce, drawing a huge knife most of the way out of its sheath.

The whole thing, all second and a half of it, made an impression: Rory almost answered his own question.

[Rory Gagnon]

The subtly intimidating young Oriental knew it without the almost though. Seeing this white boy nearly soil himself, reading the body language and facial expressions was rightly hilarious. Yet he could not laugh. The natives were not terribly trusting of his people and the reverse was perhaps doubly true. East and west had a hard time meeting in the middle; or on the left or right, or up and down in any way, shape, or form basically.

All that aside, he was still on guard since many tales of all kinds of trouble at the hands and mouths of whites had slithered into his ears. The man's position did not relax, nor did the grip on or the status of his blade; half drawn and he was sighted in with narrowed eyes. For most Caucasians those posturings would lead to anxiousness or just plain old retreat but this kid's eyes were flinty back at him. He squared up his stance and the boy's sharp eyes took it in. In a clumsy flourish the child reacted. With a weapon of his own!

Rory knew it was not much of a weapon. Several dozen hour spread out over a couple of weeks, a half dozen steel pipes, one hammer and a rock had led to the implement. Of particular difficulty had been learning how to sharpen it; the hammered flat steel of a pipe was a poor substitute for a steel bar. But as his mouth was dry and the muscles of his crotch had pulled tight to guard the family jewels it was better than nothing.

When the stranger shifted his position, that was all the prompting required. Rory leapt forward with a pitiful (ferocious godamnit!!) battle yell (more of a frightened squeal) as the punctuation, shoes squishing in the mud. The footwork wasn't half bad, the spirit of the attack was strong even if the youth would never believe it was panic instead of focused intent, but the execution was crap. All swinging arm and wide arcs.

Because of those last two and for a reason that would only make complete sense after much reflection the stranger was able to easily parry the strike with two hands palm open and positioned as if he had decided to shrug with them instead of bringing them together in prayer. Rory was smally proud to have hung onto his weapon for all of a second until one hand slid fast to just above his elbow and the other slapped at his wrist, sending the metal off in an arc to land in the muck.

Such a mystery like how it had been so effortless to disarm him did not register in the youngster's mind as he lunged forward in actual fury this time. A sharp and grim satisfaction rippled through him as he realized the stranger was caught off guard. With a thud they both hit the ground. Rory pressed his advantage by pouncing at the oriental's face. He suspected that he was not doing much damage and did not give much of a damn; there was a satisfaction in it, a primal variety of emotional content that would prove quite intoxicating indeed.

The high was short lived this time though as once again Rory's looping hook to the oriental's face was parried. That move turned into a crushing grab of his arm, then a similar application of force clamped onto the scruff of his neck. In that flash moment he fully expected the crack of bone but when it did not come he flailed with his knees as they tussled.

"Cut it out you stupid assh–" Just like that the world went topsy-turvy as the stranger used his lower body in a twisting lever motion and grips to catapult Rory into the muck. The resulting splotch sound would have been amusing in different context; a comedy movie or a cartoon. Somehow the oriental rolled after bucking him off and finished on his feet.

Out flew a globule of muck, "––the hell are you?"

Gibberish! He was Mr. Gibberish.

A bemused smirk flitted across his face. "But you can call me Edward. I like that name. It sounds dignified, non?" He took in the youth with more relaxes eyes. The inclination to laugh at the kid's plight had by now slipped away... well maybe not completely. A kind of jovial guffaw spun loose as he turned and started walking in the direction of the trail. "See you around kid."

Rory, with his airway now clear of pond muck, launched a good barrage of cuss words at the jerk.

[Rory Gagnon]

18 September, 2013

Oliver Edwards was the latest rookie guard at the Centre and so he was getting hazed, playfully for the most part. That was okay since his coworkers were a good bunch of guys but the inmates had him on edge. How could they not have that affect? These were bad men plain and simple. Hell, even the old timers and the ones gussied up to look like women needed watching; he had heard stories. Bad men.

So the stories went but reality was far more complicated than that. In his month long orientation shadowing rotation with a few more senior guards he had learned that surprise, surprise most of the inmates they were tasked with guarding were half decent people. But never let your guard down, his trainers had emphasized. Check. Oliver was scared of some of these guys, glad to have crossed paths with them here instead of on the outside.

Friendships were obviously a no-go and for that matter, the trend he had noticed of cordiality was a non-starter in Oliver's opinion. They had to be hard when locked in a den of thieves and animals. Nobody had ever believed him to be tough, the folks in school had bullied him relentlessly it had seemed. Because he had not been hard. But now Oliver was a vastly different man than that kid. Large muscles draped his bones and the whole package was better than lanky for sure.

Gagnon and Dupree, those two were always together which was simple and plain to see. Scuttlebutt around the break room was that they were up to hanky panky after lights out, but Oliver wasn't so sure about that. And anyway, the two were entitled to their secrets, just like Oliver had a right to keep the reason why he doubted the chatter to himself. If nobody was being hurt then what was the harm in it?

The thrice daily meal routine was underway and the hallway to the cafeteria was a lightly organized river of bodies in motion. Oliver was watching intently for any one of the many red flags. Breaks in routine, intent stares, too casual a demeanor, sudden motions, incongruous groupings, known associates suddenly splitting up or coming together, brush passes of contraband, the ever present thoigh uncommon danger of attacks on guards and dozens–– no hundreds of other dire risks.

Rookies got posted to areas and zones within those areas least likely to see drama, simple and sound tactics that was. The system worked rather well but it could get predictable and dull for the guards during times of peace, two things inmates thrived on in their opportunistic way. Unknown to him the Nazi contingent of the population had learnt the rotation pattern and which personnel were the least vigilant. So perhaps it was being unable to see the forest for the trees that made it so Oliver didn't notice that two of the white supremacist set had lingered just a little and that they were angling to intercept the not-lovers.

Sudden and violent rapidity typical of prison attacks sliced through what had been a relatively quiet time at the Centre. Impossible to precisely track the motion and with the hallway packed Dupree and Gagnon found themselves fighting off an ambush. Oliver had enough time to note that Gagnon knew some kind of karate before the men collided in a tangle of bodies.

Along with systems there were rules, foremost among them being to always have at least one backup man.

In his zeal to be Hard it was ignored. Which is how his carotid artery got ripped open and why Oliver died.

[Rory Gagnon]

"How about you tell me how you felt during the review?"

This chick is getting desperate, Rory thought. Asking a question she should well know the answers to was a stalling tactic to cope with his still resolute refusal to open up. But the powers that be had decided that meeting with Claudia would no longer be optional. Fine. Rory could deal with that but it did not mean he had to play along. Besides, he still had deep seated reservations about letting anyone in.

"How do you think it felt?" The question came out with a sharpness that was an old defense mechanism and one that ultimately he wanted to lose, had to shed it really if there was to be any hope of righting the ship. Rory took a deep breath and started again, "Solitary is usually meant to be a punishment. But for me, it's... nice. Tranquil. Relaxing."

Claudia nodded sagely. "No social interaction. No anxiety. I get it."

Rory forced his hands to stay still on the arms of the chair. "Yeah, that is part of it."

Another nod, but with a small and quick smile of satisfaction. Rory missed it as his gaze was elsewhere.

"The fact that I don't have to worry about getting stabbed helps too, just a bit."

She leafed through the pages of the incident report for the fight precipitating Oliver's death. A manicured nail traced steadily across the text, looking for a specific line. But this was not the correct page. Claudia looked up, directing her gaze along Rory's profile. He was rather handsome she finally allowed herself to decide. The life in prison had weighed heavily on that face though, but no that was assuming. Must not do that and back to the report.

"Ah, here it is: Gagnon attempted to avoid trouble but when attacked, defended himself with some sort of karate moves." Claudia let the sheaf of paper flop over and drape on her knee as she looked at Rory. "The police reports of your various scuffles over the year do not talk about that; the results of your beat downs were all they had. What style do you practice?"

He sat up a little straighter, "Wing Chun kung-fu, with some... dirty street fighting type stuff thrown in."

Mental note of his rising to the topic. "There are a significant amount of arrests for fighting on your sheet. Why?"

Rory shrugged casually. "I like beating the **** out of people."

Logical some would say all things considered. Well practiced in obfuscation though he was holding back part of the truth. There was a strong thread of western fencing running through his style. The repercussions of that side of things weren't on his record. If they were parole would not be a possibility he was eagerly yearning for. So no M'am, those shadier occurrences he would be keeping to himself.

When you had quite literally gotten away with an act that with all the window dressing stripped away was murder, it was in your best interests to guard your words and what you revealed with them. Loose lips sinks ships, that kind of thing. Kill or be killed be damned, determined intention beforehand elevated that event above self defense; a spin a crafty enough defense attorney could successfully weave, maybe.

Rory pulled his mind back to the task at hand just as Claudia cleared her throat and ruffled the papers.

Steeling herself, she decided to go bold. "Have you finally learned... can you return back to the world without reoffending? How long will you use the abuse at the hands of your father as an excise for why you are a criminal? Do you honestly believe that's all you are good for?"

Such a move was defiantly not in the therapist playbook–– well it was actually; under the things you most definitely don't do category. And it got just the rise she was looking for. His eyes narrowed, the muscles of his neck tensed. For just a moment she was glad there was a guard watching a video feed in the next room. No audio and their backs were to the camera but that guard would be in the room (hopefully) in time to prevent serious injury to her.

But nah, what she didn't know about this one she suspected and one off the list was confirmed as he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stated to relaxed. Through a process she was not exactly consciously aware of Claudia knew Rory Gagnon to be a dangerous man, a lethal one.. but God help her she was so immensely curious about this man and as she calmly stared down his anger display, it was pretty hard to deny that he was a sexy beast and she had this compulsion to know him. Intimately, so to speak.

"It is the only thing I've ever been any good at." You *****, Claudia imagined him thinking.

With a dramatic sigh, she smoothed a lock of hair up over her right ear. "You want me to believe that."

[Rory Gagnon]

"True altruism does not exist, Ed had proclaimed several weeks after they had met, "everyone has an angle to play... something they get out of what they do for others." He was sipping from a flask while Rory puffed away on some wacky tabaccy that the older man provided occasionally in small amounts. "It is a good idea to never let that reality drift too far from your mind."

He coughed after a particularly heavy rip by that pond of fetid water; just as brackish as ever but at the same time... it was more than that in a way Rory could not readily explain. Maybe it was the weed. This was the way it went sometimes, their weekly meetings having less training and more philosophizing. "So everyone is full of ****?"

That guffaw, a sound Rory would come to love over the years was let loose at that.

"You can believe whatever you want for all I care." Okay, less sharp and more matter of fact but if it was a tactic on her part, it damn well worked. "I'm fed up with people saying that I have to rise above," with that he made a pantomime of being bigger and badder than he perhaps felt, "the abuse and the bullying. That is in the past and does not have anything to do with today. That's all bull and if your plan is to recycle that **** with me, I'd rather read a magazine or something instead of hearin' that crap again."

"So because you've heard it all before I'm automatically supposed to say it all again? Hm."

Another deep breath first and... hold it. There. "My father was an ***, my mother enabled his being an ***, the bullies are now fat losers or dead, the chicks that laughed at me when I was trying to get my groove on? Also fat and with crappy husbands that treat them like garbage and mouths to feed. They did all that crap to me and I survived damnit!" Realizing he had taken the woman's bait, Rory willed his tongue to stop wagging only to quickly realize he would have had to bite it off to make that happen.

"I did the best I could, you smug *****. It's great for you that you got all edumacated and what not."

Claudia tipped her head to the side, nonplussed apparently. "Why didn't you go to school Rory?"

He shook his head. "More of the same. The cliques and all that. No way."

The therapist closed the folder and laid it on the oblong table between their two chairs. She then pushed a small ashtray across to him. "C'mon, you must have known college is different." With a deliberate slowness she removed a pack of cigarettes and lighter from her purse and placed those a slight bit closer to him in relation to the center of the table. "At some point anyway..."

The hesitation was plain to see. Rory knew all these tricks and should have been immune to them but she was playing her cards well. The smokes were those thin girly ones, but he could sure have him some nicotine about now thanks in large part to the light being leaked into his past. Rory did not like that sort of thing; or the fact that this woman was doing it so skillfully. There was more going on, deeper below the surface–– three decades of unresolved anger stirring.

All the same he lit one of those slim smokes up quickly as if the lighter might explode in his hand.

"Except by then I was making good money. Stealing cars, selling some pot; eventually harder stuff... breaking into places, stealing stuff." He grinned. "I was an entrepreneur! My own boss! Why the hell would I want to go sit through classes, do homework." Rory shook his head sharply. "Be around people? Hell no.. Set my own hours, spent my free time in the woods."

"Interesting," Claudia slipped in when he paused, "that you managed to sell with your disorder."

Rory scoffed. "At the time, I didn't know I even had a disorder. It was years before your kind started naming normal crap. I put on a mask Claudia, a false bravado and confidence I never really felt in here," he patted his chest softly, "or in my head. My customers never noticed. They had more important things to worry about.

"Oh the stories I used to tell on top of it!" Rory took an extremely long pull on the slim before flicking into the ashtray. "If nobody else was going to make me feel good about myself it was up to me. So I lied, alot." He paused there and looked off into the distance. It became a stop and one of those cliche long silences. Except there was no clock ticking. The last puff curled up and the cigarette was rubbed out.

The silence actually started to bother Claudia. He had been talking, showing signs of little chinks in his armor and that was grand. The standard move to break the quiet pall would be to ask a question but none came; it was as if there were nothing more to be said after the logical story he had just told. Was it a bad thing that she could see that logic, or moreso, that some part of her found the lifestyle born of his choices appealing?

"Oh look, time's up." And he stood, looked like he wanted to say something more but left without doing so.

No, she decided as the door closed and he was escorted away– it was empathy. Rory really did believe these things he was saying. The trick was to help him see the pale untruth of it all. That he was worth something, that he was capable of rising above his past. Claudia felt great! Now there was a plan all she had to do was guard against what she suspected had been holding this man back for years and he did it to himself: sabotage.