Accountability

They told me it would be “life-changing.” That justice would be served. That the years I spent fighting this monolith of lies and sovereign smirks would be worth it. Some lawyers used the phrase “landmark results” with a straight face. I didn’t believe it at first—Gen X instincts don’t allow for that kind of optimism—but I let myself imagine it. A small shift. A little peace. Maybe a few years off the treadmill.

Instead, I’m back at work. Same desk. Same cracked coffee mug. Same expectations that I’ll keep the machine humming—clients, kids, spouse, smile. Like nothing happened. Like I didn’t just crawl through a war zone for the promise of change, only to be handed a polite shrug and a neatly folded version of “oh well.”

The people who did the damage? Still out there. They might have a black eye, but they’re still thriving, still collecting payments and promises from weak-minded idiots and blind adoration of the faithful. They were never really at risk of being held accountable—just actors in a PR stunt, taking their bows while the audience claps because they don’t know the script was rewritten behind closed doors.

And here I am. Grateful for health, despite digging up old hurts that my protective systems had buried. For the family that rides shotgun in this life with me. But part of me—the part that still believed in something—died a quiet death when I realized the cavalry wasn’t coming. That part used to plan for a future, map out new terrain. Now it just watches the clock and avoids mirrors, so I don’t have to look past my own eyes, and recognize the banged-up kid I hid back there 40 years ago.

Accountability is a word we like to throw around when we need to make people feel seen. It’s theater. A term used to give victims the illusion of closure while the system quietly turns its back. It doesn’t mean someone takes responsibility. It doesn’t mean repair, or restorative justice, or any of the other nonsensical monikers we assign to feel-good artificial closure of poignant arguments. Most of the time, it means “we handled it in a way that costs us something we can manage to afford, and ultimately changes nothing.”

So yeah, I smile. I’m polite. I get the job done. But behind my eyes is a reel of memories that won’t shut off—what was taken, what was promised, what was never going to be. And maybe that’s just what the second half of life is for people like us: keeping the Hell fire where it belongs, even if it still scorches your soul without collecting it.. and somehow never even singes those who vainly pretend to peddle antidotes, spells, and potions to avoid it.

Justice? Like Red’s ideas of “rehabilitated,” .. it’s just a bullshit word; an empty and enigmatic concept, like flying cars and loyalty. Something they showed us on Sesame Street and in the PSA commercials between Saturday morning cartoons. And now we carry on, quietly bruised, mostly functional, waiting for something real that might never come.

Ironic, then, that accountability is consistently demanded from the broken, but never the ones who did the breaking.