As a child I was treated to several styles of rage as part of my regular diet.  I’m just thinking about a few of them now and thought I’d try to make a concise list.

There was screaming, of course, that loud venting that would leap into flame after the aggravations had mounted sufficiently.   What must the neighbors have thought of this pleasant, bright young family who went into their house to scream at each other?

There’s physical violence, of course.  My parents were both survivors of it and had inhibitions about inflicting it on their own children.   As a result my sister and I saw little of this in our house.  My mother hit me two or three times, a remarkable feat of restraint if you consider all the provocation she had.   Each time she had cause to weep afterwards.  

Once she swung at me wildly, knocked a hanging lamp off the wall over my bed, where I was ducking, and sent the rickety appliance flying, hot light-bulb down, to burn my cheek and the corner of an eye lid.   You can bet she cried after that.   The only other time I remember her lashing out with her hands her wedding ring turned the wrong way on her hand and the diamond wound up cutting me right next to an eye.  Oh, boy, was she upset after that.  You know, it’s funny til someone loses an eye.

My father, who my sister accurately dubbed the Dreaded Unit, was not much of a hitter either.  The DU’d grab you, sometimes, reach back from the driver’s seat to squeeze a wrist with anaconda-like force, but he didn’t hit much.   He didn’t need to, really, his verbal violence, while probably embarrassing to him if he’d ever heard it played back later, was exceptionally powerful.

Of course, the most eloquent of all is perfectly placed silence.