The Hate Collective by James Powell (rom com books to read txt) 📕

nearby park had been a hangout for all the wasted teenagers in the area, a place where they congregated most evenings to relax and unwind after a hard day. Then get fucked up on booze. It wasn’t ideal, but nobody really cared because who goes walking in the park at that time? Out of sight, out of mind. The thing is, the council were getting sick of all the rubbish left behind, as well as the mindless vandalism, so they improved security and got the police involved, which soon solved the problem.
In reality, this didn’t solve anything. Instead, all it did was move things somewhere else, which just so happened to be where Tony and his wife lived. It could have been any of the nearby streets, but they were the unlucky ones. Somebody had to be.
It was only at this point that they realised the true nature of some of the local residents, and it was not good. The parents of these kids nearly all lived nearby, but none of them seemed to care, because as long as the trouble wasn’t on their doorsteps, it just didn’t matter. It wasn’t an issue.
Tony decided to make it an issue once, when he went to see the mother of one of the boys in a desperate attempt to reason with the people who were making life a misery. He hoped they would understand. Knocking on the front door, he waited. Patiently. About a minute later, a haggard, painfully thin and sick looking woman answered the door. Cigarette in hand, she looked at Tony.
‘Yeah?, she sneered confrontationally.
‘Hi, I’m Tony, and me and my wife live round the corner. I just came to tell you that your son and his friends have been drinking outside my house at night, making a lot of noise and keeping us awake. I thought that maybe you could have a word with him because it’s nearly every night now.’
She looked personally slighted.
‘You telling me how to raise my kids?’, she barked.
‘No, of course not. I just want a bit of quiet at night, that’s all’. Tony said calmly, hoping that this thick cunt would see sense.
‘It’s a free country mate. My kids can do what they want. They’re only having a bit of fun. Where’s the harm in that?’
‘But the shouting keeps us awake and all the broken glass is…’
‘Listen’, she snapped. ‘You need to lighten up mate. My boy can do what he likes’.
She shut the door before Tony could respond, not that he could think of anything to say at that moment, as he was far too angry to speak. He slowly walked away, only now starting to realise the scale of the problem. It’s no wonder the kids are all out getting drunk every night with parents like that. He then made a promise to himself, not that it was necessary, to be a good father who would raise his child properly so that she didn’t waste her youth hanging around with a bunch of no hopers, terrorising an innocent neighbourhood. That would never happen. Ever. Later on that evening, the woman told her son about the stranger who came to speak to her that afternoon. They both had a good laugh about it.
It was around now that Tony’s daughter was born. A beautiful baby girl. This should have been a happy time, but things had been getting progressively worse on the estate, which meant that they spent more time worrying than they did enjoying the gift of parenthood. This was because several nights a week, the group gathered outside what was the family home, to have their fun regardless of how much others suffered. It drove Tony to despair. But he had to try something. So he approached some of the neighbours, hoping they could come together and sort out this mess, but everybody was just too intimidate to do anything, accepting what had happened as though life had always been that bad, forgetting that once upon a time, the estate had been quite a nice place to live with a real sense of community. But not anymore.
Tony wouldn’t back down so easily though. That wasn’t how he lived his life. He decided to get the police on board and it turned out that they actually had a pretty good idea who was involved. They couldn’t really do much about it because most of them were very young. Too young to be harshly sentenced anyway. If the police did prosecute, nothing would happen. Maybe someone would end up in a young offenders institution, but most probably they would get ASBOs. Or a warning. Nothing which would actually stop the trouble. Still, the police had to make a token effort, so advised Tony to keep a detailed record of any incidents, and that maybe in future it could be used as evidence. Apart from that, there wasn’t much they could do. They were much to busy shuffling papers, and catching innocent people. If you dare to do thirty two miles an hour in a thirty mile an hour zone, then by God you’ll feel the full force of the law, but make someone’s life hell, and well, the police don’t have the ability to stop you. That’s just the way it worked.
One night, things got too much for Emily, and the lack of sleep and stress finally caught up with her, and she phoned 999 in hysterics. To their credit, the police turned up promptly, but no arrests were made as the boys were just forced to go home. They were told to stop their nightly meetings or they would be formally cautioned, but that was just a shallow gesture. An empty threat. Still, it did at least mean one good night’s sleep, but it came at a price. The boys now knew who called the police. Tony and Emily were targets. Targets for revenge.
When Tony got home a few days later, there was a police car was parked outside. His heart sank as he walked up the garden path and saw where the window had been smashed. Smashed by a brick, thrown while his wife and child were alone in the house, defenceless and unable to retaliate. He regretted not being there when it happened. Maybe he could have stopped it, or at the very least, caught the person responsible. None of this was his fault, but it was still hard to take. He hadn’t been able to protect his family when they needed him most.
Emily was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching Jessica, their daughter, close to her chest. She was telling the two officers what had happened. Displaying remarkable dignity and reminding Tony why he fell in love, she told the policemen that there was no point pressing charges because all she wanted was some peace and quiet. They nodded sympathetically, thanked her for the coffee and promised to do their best to bring calm to the neighbourhood. Tony was unconvinced but kept quiet, relieved that nobody was hurt. He was amazed that Emily seemed so unaffected by the whole ordeal. It was almost as if she was expecting it to happen. Maybe it was inevitable, but still, what kind of person throws a brick through a new mother’s window? It was sick. These kids had no boundaries, no limits and no discipline. Look what had happened.
Two weeks later, they had moved out, having stayed with Tony’s mother in the meantime. The house was on the market for less money than they paid, smashing their dreams of a quick climb up the property ladder, but it was worth it. They quickly found rented accommodation, which cost more than they could really afford, but guaranteed a peaceful night’s sleep, which was all they really wanted at this stage. In fact, it was a small price to pay to keep their sanity and a small price to pay to have a life free from crime. Looking back, their time on the estate had been a disaster. A failed experiment. But Tony could not let it lie. He could not forgive and he could not forget. Surely there were other people in his situation? He had to find them.


Chapter 4
Brenda was overweight, middle aged and jaded. As is the case for most people, life simply hadn’t turned out the way she planned. She still dyed her hair in the hope of attracting a husband, but it was a long shot, as she felt almost compelled to spend the rest of her life in almost exactly the same routine as now. Stuck in a rut. This hadn’t always been the case though, because at the start of her career, she had set out to make a difference, knowing that although she might not be saving lives, at the very least she would be making them better and giving people hope. However, this youthful idealism had gone, and she now found herself conducting various group therapy sessions for people she didn’t really like and didn’t really respect. Tonight was her victims of crime support group held every two weeks for people who weren’t so badly affected by crime that they needed intense one on one emotional support, yet still needed to talk to a professional, as well as other people in similar situations. Basically, it was for people who had been on the receiving end of middle ranking crimes. Nothing so serious that a person would have their lives completely ruined, but bad enough for someone to need help. This presented an interesting group dynamic. What should have been a caring, nurturing, sensitive environment where people opened up to reveal their innermost feelings, inevitably turned into a bitching session about how incompetent the government was, or how there was no respect in society anymore, or how the police were useless. Many sentences began with the wonderful opening ‘If I ran the country...’. An outsider might find some of these discussions quite amusing, but Brenda thought they were pointless, convinced that most of the group members didn’t really need any counselling and that they were just using these sessions as an opportunity to have a good old moan.
However, this wasn’t the case. Several people saw these meetings as a lifeline, virtually their only contact with the outside world and a place to let off steam after two weeks of built up anger and regret. They never said it, but Brenda was one of the most important people in their lives, someone they could trust and rely upon, someone who understood their troubles and could help. She really was making a difference, but tragically, she would never know this and would continue to feel like she’d missed her way in life.
It wasn’t too late to do anything about it though because she was a qualified counsellor who could always go back to school and train for a better position, but a chronic lack of motivation meant that she stayed where she was and would probably never change.
She was busy setting up the chairs for the meeting, arranging them into a neat circle, across which people would bear their souls, or at the very least, mouth off a bit, when a shy looking man popped his head round the door.
‘Hi, are you Brenda?’, he asked nervously.
‘Yes I am’, she replied, putting down the chair and walking towards him. She extended a hand.
‘And you must be Michael’
‘Yes, that’s right’. He looked relieved.
‘I came early to make sure that this was the right place. Do you need any help there?’.
‘No, you’re alright there love. I’m nearly done thanks.’
‘How many people usually come to these meetings?’, he asked, desperately trying to think of something to say, already regretting his early arrival. He always felt awkward in these situations.
‘Oh, about ten or