You want my opinion? I think anger is addictive. But that ain't necessarily bad.

Example: My neighbour, Al, is an amateur auto mechanic. He thinks he can fix cars. Ha! He "fixes" 'em, all right. They don't never run right again when he's been under the hood. So anyways, Al tends to lose his temper when he's workin' on a car and he starts swearin' and yellin' a lot and bangin' things around. This was goin' on the other day in the alley below my office.

"Goddammit!" "You stubborn son of a b---" "Where the f--- did I put that goddamn f---ing wrench!" Bang! Crash! Bang! And so on, and so on, for about 3 hours. Al don't give up easy.

Well, I got sick of it. I was tryin' to get some work done and I couldn't concentrate. Here I am fightin' crime, crackin' tough cases, makin' society safer for decent people and apes, and I can't concentrate cos I have an idiot for a neighbour.

So I start yellin' out the window back at him, "HEY!!! Why don't you shut up? Give the car and us quiet people some mercy for a change and go rob some parkin' meters, you jerk!"

He pops out from under the car, all covered in grease, and starts hurlin' racial slurs at me, callin' me a "goddamn monkey"...

Well, I'm not gonna stand for that. He's got me mad now. "You want me to come down there?" I yell at him. "If that's what you want, just tell me, cos I will come down there, but one thing...make sure your will is up to date, Al. I wouldn't want yer wife and kids to get left out in the cold when the judge divvies up yer valuable collection of old Penthouse mags and the little plastic trophy you won for bein' number one jerk in yer graduatin' class back in '83."

I thought maybe that would shut him up, but it didn't. Nope. He got madder than ever. We both got mad. We yelled at each other for the next five minutes or so, until I got bored with it and shut the window on him. He was down on the ground floor, I'm on the third.

Well, I could soon hear him bangin' and cursin' away at the car again. I tried to ignore it, but I was goin into a slow burn.

Then I discovered that I was outta cigars. That means a trip to the smoke shop on the corner.

I went to the smoke shop and got some cigars. On my way back I figgered I'd take a peep in the alleyway and see how Al was doin'. He was still there all right, underneath the car, swearin' and sweatin' and crankin' away on some stuck bolt. I could see his big fat feet stickin' out. That gave me an idea.

I walked over and took a look at his ugly old work boots. The laces were hangin' loose. I bent down quietly and tied 'em together. So far so good. He didn't notice a thing.

Then I got in the car. He didn't notice that either. The key was on the seat. I put in in the ignition and turned it. The car coughed and stumbled to life, spluttering and smoking and making some grinding sounds.

"HEY!!!" yells Al. I hop outta the car and go take a seat on a bench over to one side and watch as Al tries to get out from under and see what's goin' on. Well, he had a struggle, cos of his boots bein' tied together, but he finally got out from under that car, stood up, tried to take a step and fell flat on his face. Har! Har! I really started laughin' then.

Man, I laughed and laughed. The dumb jerk had figured out by now that his boots were tied together and he tried to untie them, but he made a mess of that, so he finally whipped out a knife and cut the laces. Then he looks at me. I can see his temperature goin' up like a thermometer in the Sahara. He's gonna explode any second now.

"You got that car fixed yet, Al?" I says, lightin' up a stogie real casual.

"You're the one that's gonna get fixed, you stinkin' ape!" he roars, and he charges me, swingin' the knife.

I'm off the bench in a flash, and I get him in a wristlock and make him drop the knife, and I pick it up and pitch it at a telephone pole, where it sticks in about 20 feet up, quivering.

"You gotta control your temper, Al," I say, as I pitch him gently headfirst into the brick wall of my building. "If you was to get mad, you might hurt somebody, and I wouldn't want you to feel guilty later and have bad dreams about it."

He bounces off that wall like a big sack of potatoes, and comes at me swingin' like a crazy man.

"See?" I say, as I wrap my big long chimp arms around him, and slap a headlock on the silly bastard. "You're losin' your temper right now. What will the neighbours think? What will yer priest think?"

We go rollin' all over the place in the alleyway, kickin', bitin', gougin', and I'm thinkin' "this is a man who definitely does not know how to control his temper...it's sad." I have to say this guy fights dirty. It's a damn good thing he ain't as strong as a gorilla, that's all.

"Have you ever thought of takin' an anger management course?" I ask him politely as I throttle him with one hand and bust him in the chops with the other.

About the time he gets hold of a monkey wrench and brains me with it I realize he probably has not.

Well neither have I. It's the sad truth. I took that monkey wrench and I readjusted his nose with it. Al's nose has always kinda had a leftward tilt, but now it tilts to the right instead, courtesy of yours truly. A free nose job. No one can say I ain't generous.

He somehow gets hold of a 2 x 4 and we proceed to beat hell out of each other for the next few minutes, him with the 2 x 4, and me with the monkey wrench. "If I didn't know better," I says, "I would think you don't like me." (WHACK!) "And I am even beginnin' to think you don't respect me..." (BLAP!) "...but that's just not possible..." (CRUNCH!) The stuff he said back ain't worth repeatin'. Trust me.

Well, the upshot of it all was, someone finally called the cops and they broke it up. A good thing, cos I might've eventually got really angry and hurt Al. We wouldn't want that, would we? No, we wouldn't want that.

I am tryin' to think of a nice gesture I could make now. Extend an olive branch. Neighbours should always try to get along, shouldn't they?

Should I pitch a hand grenade in his window or just do a quick pass with the tommy gun some time as I'm drivin' by? Decisions, decisions.

Do I think anger is addictive? Yeah, I think you can make a good argument that it is.

- Chongo