People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of

Host: The night was restless. The city glowed beneath a low ceiling of smog, its lights flickering like tired eyes refusing to sleep. From a third-floor apartment window, the world looked both infinite and unbearably close — car horns, sirens, laughter, and the low hum of a thousand conversations bleeding through the humid air.

Inside, a record spun lazily, an old jazz tune scratching through the speakers, soft and uneven. The living room was dim — one lamp, two glasses of whiskey, and two people who knew each other too well to pretend calm.

Jack stood near the open window, a cigarette in one hand, his other gesturing wildly as he spoke. Jeeny sat cross-legged on the worn sofa, her hair loose, her eyes alight with the same fire she was about to try and put out.

Jack: “Philip Roth said it right: ‘People are unjust to anger — it can be enlivening and a lot of fun.’ Finally, someone who doesn’t treat it like a disease.”

Jeeny: (half-smiling) “Fun? You make it sound like a night out.”

Jack: “It is! You ever shout so hard you feel your blood wake up? It’s like a rush — pure, electric. For once, you’re not bottling anything. You’re alive.”

Jeeny: “Alive or reckless?”

Jack: “Same thing, half the time.”

Host: The smoke curled around him like a restless ghost. He looked like a man halfway between confession and defense, and enjoying both.

Jeeny: “So that’s your philosophy? Anger as entertainment?”

Jack: “No — anger as truth. Look, people spend their whole lives pretending. Smiling through disappointment, swallowing insults. But when you’re angry — really angry — there’s no disguise. It’s the only time you mean every word you say.”

Jeeny: “Until you regret them.”

Jack: “Regret’s just the hangover after honesty.”

Host: Jeeny took a slow sip of her whiskey, the amber light catching the glass. She didn’t argue yet. She was waiting — letting him build his own fire.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how much damage ‘honest anger’ leaves behind?”

Jack: “You sound like a therapist.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because I’ve seen what it does. My father used to get ‘honestly angry’ — threw plates, broke doors, called it ‘expression.’ He said it was healthy. It wasn’t. It was cruelty wrapped in passion.”

Jack: “That’s not anger, Jeeny. That’s control pretending to be chaos.”

Jeeny: “And what’s yours pretending to be?”

Jack: (pausing) “Freedom.”

Host: The air between them trembled — not from volume, but from the weight of truth unwrapping itself, slowly and dangerously.

Jeeny: “You think rage makes you free?”

Jack: “It cuts the leash. For a second, everything’s real. All the politeness, the pretense — gone. It’s clarity.”

Jeeny: “Clarity or illusion? Because you can’t see straight through a fire, Jack.”

Host: A car horn blared outside, a dog barked, the world went on — unaware of the small battle being fought in that dim-lit room.

Jack: “You know what people forget? Anger built things. It started revolutions, toppled kings, made art, made music. You think Coltrane played Love Supreme out of serenity? You think Baldwin wrote about America out of peace? Anger is fuel.”

Jeeny: “Fuel, yes. But fire doesn’t care what it burns.”

Host: The record ended with a soft scratch, leaving the room suspended in a silence that was somehow louder than sound. Jeeny set her glass down. Her eyes softened, but her voice didn’t.

Jeeny: “There’s a difference between anger that builds and anger that consumes. Baldwin’s anger was aimed — precise, moral. Yours…” (she gestures at him) “…yours feels like it’s looking for a wall to break.”

Jack: (grinning) “Better to break a wall than let it cage me.”

Jeeny: “You always confuse destruction with liberation.”

Jack: “You always confuse calm with strength.”

Host: The tension cracked, like thunder before rain. She stood now, facing him fully.

Jeeny: “I don’t want calm, Jack. I want direction. Anger that means something. The kind that pushes the world forward, not one that just keeps you spinning.”

Jack: “You’re saying I waste it.”

Jeeny: “I’m saying you worship it.”

Host: He turned away, staring out the window. Below, the city’s lights smeared across puddles like scattered stars. His reflection stared back at him — older, angrier, tired.

Jack: “You know what’s worse than anger? Apathy. That’s the real death. At least anger means you still give a damn.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But it’s not meant to be home. It’s meant to be a door.”

Jack: (turning slowly) “A door to what?”

Jeeny: “To change. To healing. To everything that comes after the shouting.”

Host: The rain began to fall — sudden, hard, cleansing. The window fogged, and the air filled with the scent of wet earth and cigarettes.

Jack stubbed his cigarette out, the ember dying in a soft hiss.

Jack: “You know, I used to think anger made me invincible. Every fight, every outburst — it gave me control. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just… motion. A storm without a compass.”

Jeeny: “You can’t steer wind, Jack. You can only decide whether to stand in it.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “And what about you? You never get angry?”

Jeeny: “Of course I do. But I’ve learned to dance with it. Not worship it.”

Host: Her words came like rain on hot pavement — cooling, but alive with steam.

Jeeny: “There’s a kind of joy in anger, yes. It wakes you up. But it can’t be the only way you feel alive.”

Jack: “You’re saying Roth was wrong.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying he was half right. Anger can be enlivening — if it’s the start of something, not the whole story.”

Host: The storm outside deepened. The two stood by the window now, side by side, watching lightning flicker across the city skyline — brief, beautiful, dangerous.

Jack: “You ever miss that rush though? The spark before it burns?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. But I’ve learned to find that same spark in gentleness too.”

Jack: “Gentleness doesn’t get you heard.”

Jeeny: “No. But it gets you remembered.”

Host: The words hung in the air like smoke that refused to fade. Jack let them sit, his breathing steady now. The fight had drained out of him, but something else had taken its place — something softer, still warm, but less destructive.

Jack: “Maybe anger’s just a loud way of asking to be understood.”

Jeeny: “And maybe understanding’s the quiet way of answering back.”

Host: The rain began to ease. The city lights glimmered again through the thinning storm, reflections dancing across the glass.

Jack reached for his glass, lifted it halfway, and stopped.

Jack: “To anger — the world’s worst teacher, and somehow still the best motivator.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “And to learning when the lesson’s over.”

Host: Their glasses clinked softly — not in triumph, but in recognition.

The record started again, a new song, low and slow. The air smelled of rain and redemption.

And as they stood there — two souls who’d both burned and been burned — the city outside seemed to sigh with them, exhausted but alive.

Host: In that quiet, golden pause between storms, they understood Roth’s mischief and his wisdom both:
Anger could indeed enliven —
but only when it left room for the life that came after it.