Nixon had one. J. Edgar Hoover had one. McCarthy had one. G. Gordon Liddy likely had one, too, but he was smart enough not to talk about it. John Wick had the longest one of all. I suspect everyone, except the saintliest of people (are they really saints, though?), has something like it somewhere; written down or in their mind. Some call it their shit list, some just the list of people they never want to see again. I call it The Ledger.
Nothing happens with this Ledger. From time to time, I’ll think about it; wondering what would happen if I could let the people on it know, in various ways, that they have made that list. Sometimes it changes as people pass on, fade away, lose power, or die. It’s a tale that’s been told innumerable times; a man is wronged in some egregious way and becomes sad, devastated, or lost. A man gains strength through anger. This man decides to seek revenge.
John Wick did it for his dog. Jose Wales did it for his family (I understand that one.) Paul Kersey of the Death Wish movies back in the 70s did it for his family. Hell, even Moses sort of did it. Maybe not overtly, but there was that tang of, “Hey, Pharoh, I’m coming for you and I’m packing a God.” But it’s a good one and has a certain appeal. Who among us mortals hasn’t wanted to right a wrong they’d suffered in some way?
I’m sure not everyone has a list like those characters do. Perhaps I’m a little more vindictive than others; maybe I have a tad more spite for those who have committed injustices than most. I don’t know. I have heard at least one other person talk about “the list” though. So it does exist beyond my twisted mind.
Everyone has a lover who jilted them, a bully at school who just wouldn’t move on, even the world leader who is a particularly toxic person and, simply by being generally psychopathic, has motives so insane that the decisions they make are never good and possibly dangerous.
There’s one world leader who, I am certain, has a fairly long list. The issue with him is he’s got so much power, that his list is changing all the time … perhaps even daily. The people on that man’s list tend to have their planes shot out of the sky or accidentally fall out a window many stories above the sidewalk. Anyone this fella doesn’t like doesn’t tend to stick around.
I’m reminded of the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales. In one of my favorite scenes, Wales and Mr. Lone Watie are riding through the prairie; just entering Texas after having narrowly escaped a gunfight in town. Lone Watie is a little sad because they had to leave behind a Native American woman in their hasty exit. He had liked her and said as much. Wales agrees but, with the acceptance of someone who’s lost a lot, laments, “any time I get to likin’ someone they ain’t around long.” But Lone Watie points out the other side of the coin, “I noticed that when you get to dislikin’ someone, they ain’t around for long neither.” If the toxic, insane leader likes you, you’re safe. But what kind of life is that? Because if he gets to disliking you, perhaps it’s your turn to see if you can fly. Two sides of the same coin. Very different outcomes. People like that tend to make my Ledger. Their toxicity reaches a point where having them removed from the planet would do us all good.
It takes a lot to get on my Ledger. You must be a pretty toxic person or someone who’s done me a pretty deep wrong. The guy who handed me my ass is on it. Maybe I deserved that a little but he’s still on the list, although his name is hard to read. The girl in college who was a serial cheater. Yeah, she’s on the list but her name is fading, too. I kept taking her back so what’s that say about me? My dad was even on the list for a while (longer that needed probably), but we finally sorted that out, thankfully. I had some issues there, too, and it takes a while to figure it all out.
There is one person, though, who does tend to fade in and out depending on my mood. The person who was there when my life was a train wreck. The person who only made it worse.
It was a woman. Of course it was. Life was falling apart and she’d kicked me to the curb; drunkenly flirting with a co-worker right there in front of me; standing alone with him by her car as I left the parking lot that night after a ski trip with co-workers; later, me finding out the co-worker had used me as an unwitting alibi, saying we’d gone skiing when he and Ms. Dumpster Fire had gone together, his wife calling me and asking if I was with him. I think that call put an end to their little thing. I wish I’d been there at each turn to see the fear in her, the pain. But I was alone. So alone….until Darla, thankfully, reached in and saved me.
I read somewhere that memories are kind of weird. Sometimes, we still actually feel the embarrassment or emotional “pain” over a memory when oftentimes, it was not as large an event as it might have felt in our mind then or now. I have heard stories on podcasts about people who wanted to correct a wrong they’d done or ask a bully about why they were the way they were. But when it came to the actual recounting of the events, the seeker found that it was completely different from the other person’s perspective and there was no there there.
I’ve also read that each time we visit a memory and replay it in our minds, it changes just a little. The neuronal connections and chemical makeup of the memory alter just a little bit with each mental recounting. Over time, it becomes like a long game of telephone, and decades later, when you think on the memory, it’s nothing like what actually happened (but the pain or embarrassment are still real, aren’t they?) The frustrating part is being unable to verify whether what you’re thinking now is real or a fabrication due to the passage of time.
But there is that memory you’re convinced is real. That conversation in the car, when I switched over to rage and vindictiveness; her getting out of the car; me driving out and catching up to her as she crossed the lot and name-dropping the husband’s place of work; me threatening to dime her out (yes, yes, I’m no saint, I get that.) I’m pretty sure I remember that. I remember feeling good that I was hurting her. (I know! I know. Not a nice guy…let it go. I’m much better now with much water under the bridge.)
I didn’t want anything. I didn’t want her back. I just wanted her to hurt and unless you’re the cold one on the other side, you’ve felt it too. That raw desire for vengeance when there’s nothing left inside and you just want someone else to hurt for a minute so it’s not just you alone out there in the dark.
But her name is fading, too. It’s still there, though. Maybe with a small asterisk.
My list has actually never really been long because I’m not a vengeful nor hateful person for the most part. But it does exist (in my head.) There are a few really bad people on it.
And we’ll just gloss over the core of the problem; me finding the women who would cheat on me and ruin my life for a while. That’s a story that will require a lot of therapy to write. And what’s the point? I’m good.
There is that old saying that’s often attributed to Confucius but is not his. I know Walter Winchell’s version, “Before you seek revenge with someone be sure and dig two graves.” No matter how hard you try to sidestep any consequence, if you’re seeking revenge, you’re going to get dirty. Whether it’s a relationship that went up in flames, or something else that you look back on with anger or resentment, you always have to ask if there was some part you played in putting yourself in the situation. When one is so inclined to create The Ledger, consideration should be made to put oneself first on the list.
Golden, 2025