Purging

****Spoiler Alert****  If you have any interest in watching The Purge:  Anarchy, you may not want to read this post.

So you remember how I told you I've become a much more permissive and inconsistent parent since Cory's death?  Yeah, I totally let Jacob go to rated R movie with me last week.  We'd seen The Purge together last year, and the sequel was out.  Wrong or right, that boy has me completely under his spell, and a bid from him for us to spend time together cannot be denied.

So the movie itself was pretty good for a sequel.  There was a moral question of class that ran behind all the violence, woven into the basis of a social experiment:  what would happen if you held everything in, but one day a year, could act out however you wished, with no consequences?  Would this reduce crimes of passion?  Who would purge?  Who would hole up in their home, behind boards and bars, just waiting it out?

The first movie showed the annual event taking place from the perspective of a family waiting in their home for it to pass.  The sequel asked what might happen if you were caught out on the streets after the siren had gone off?  An unlikely hero appeared in the sequel, who tried to help those unfortunate souls who found themselves moving targets.  He seemed to be one of those more realistic blends of hero:  some good and some evil- after all, what exactly what his business on the streets this particular night?  The viewer gradually gathered that he meant to purge and purge mightily at someone who had wronged him.  He was far from unstable, as he showed compassion and selflessness over and over again, picking up a band of frightened people along his way.  He protected them, even when they slowed his errand, even when they put him in danger.  I found this angle very thought provoking, as it has been my experience that people seldom come in moral colors of black or white, but every variance of gray that you can imagine.

Jake and I had heartily enjoyed the movie, jumping at the scary bits and giggling nervously, right up until the last ten minutes or so.

Here's what happened:

There was five minutes left of the purge.  A woman and her daughter crouched in the back of the hero's car as he rolled up to a beautiful suburban home, and gathered his weapons.  His passengers begged him not to do it, murder is wrong no matter what the situation.  Finally one them cried, "Why do you have to purge?"

He covered his face, and spoke from behind his hands.  He told them that one year ago to the day, his son, who'd been walking home from school, had been struck and killed by a car.  The driver did no time, simply went back to his life while he, the father, descended into a hell he had never even imagined.

My intake of breath was matched by Jake's.

We watched, dumbstruck, as the hero of the movie forced his way into that house, pulled the driver, still sleeping from his bed, and held a knife to his throat, tears streaming down his dirty face as he screamed full into the startled man's face, "You stole my son!  You took him from me!  And you're gonna pay!"

Goosebumps broke out all over my body.  Tears streamed down my own face as I launched myself into this situation.  Hazily, I could feel Jake's small hand grasping for mine, as the hero brandished the weapon above the driver, completely overtaken by his grief.  God help me, but I wanted to do this soooo badly.

Another five minutes later, the movie ended.  I won't completely spoil it for you by telling you what happened to the hero and the driver.  Instead, I'll tell you what happened to Jake and I.

We stumbled out of that movie theater, blinking owlishly in the bright lights, completely unnerved by the unexpected personal turn of the plot.  In the car, we kept exclaiming how we couldn't believe the coincidence.  On the way home, I picked Jake's brain.

"Jacob, what do you think about the hero guy wanting revenge?  Is that wrong or right?  What do you think?"  I asked.

Jacob answered immediately.  "Fifty-fifty."

"Tell me more."  I said.

"Well, first of all, it's just wrong because it's against the law, but if you take the law out of it, like on that movie..."  he paused, thinking.

I waited, so curious to what he would say.

"Half of you would want revenge, and that's understandable.  That guy in the movie got off with no consequences."  He turned to me, "So did the driver who killed Cory."

I nodded.

"And it's just not fair.  She should've had some consequence.  What if it happened again to someone else?"  he asked reasonably.

"But..." he trailed off.

"But?"  I prodded.

"But I don't think killing someone who wronged you would ever give you what you really wanted.  Like for us, all we want is Cory back."

How old is this child?