Old Max

“Zapp, do you live with anyone?”

First place in Tag League should have felt sweeter. Maybe if Tom and Zapp were as friendly with each other as the former was with Nate Colton or RIA or literally anyone else, it might have been cause for celebration. The source of conflict didn’t just emanate from Zapp’s erratic, actually more like unhinged, actions. Guilt clawed at his conscience for his stubbornness to accept the present circumstances, to embrace a soul who was just as adrift in a mental abyss as he was circa Great American Nightmare 2022. Sub out Rob Williams for RIA, and you’d have had all four principles even.

For Zapp, however, the inquiry was sudden and perplexing. This whole situation could be categorized as sudden and perplexing. A year and a half ago, the thought of The Anglo Luchador was taking him to some unknown destination would have Zapp pissing himself in fear that Battaglia Prime was about to clip him on orders from a certain Chicago (or Philadelphia) “legitimate” business organization.  But nowadays? Scatino knew that Tommy was incapable of cold blooded murder.

“Information such as that is much like a quilt and only interwoven with family, which you have made irrevocably clear, Tommy Boy, that you are not contrary to the evidentiary exhibits that have presented to you.”

Tom sighed as he looked at his tag partner, in the passenger seat of his Shitty Green Explorer, hands over his eyes.

“I just wanted to see if my instincts were correct. And also I told you like twenty times, it’s not a surprise. You don’t need to cover your eyes.”

“Who’s to say that it is not because of your driving, Mister Dale Andretti Junior?”

Tom sighed deeply again.

“If it ain’t no surprise, then why ain’t you tellin’ me where we're goin’?”

Eyes on the road. Mom taught him always to look at people when he would talk to them, but Mom’s a bitch, and driving safely was more important than eye contact at that moment.

“I just want to do something nice. To make it up to you for the last time you were over my house. I really want this team to work.”

Zapp slowly turned his head towards Tom, opening the slot between his ring and middle fingers as if to take a peek.

“Whaddya mean you want this team to work? It ain't already been workin’?! We’re in first place! We’re the fuckin’ ruler of the roosters.”

“That’s because you keep cheating, Zapp.”

“I ain't cheatin’! I’m implementin’ what some may infer as ‘morally ambidextrous strategies’ to secure victories.”

Red light. Brakes. Tom’s head slumped onto the steering wheel.

“Either way. I want to make this team work. And I want to make a gesture.”

Zapp started to make a, well, untoward gesture to Tom, one many Italians know already, before the unmasked Luchador turned and gave his best Paulie Walnuts glower.

“NOT THAT KIND.”

-

Half-an-hour on the road. Not a long time in the grand scheme of things. Humans live for a cosmic nanosecond and then shuttle off the mortal coil with the rest of the spent carbon in the cycle of life. One’s beliefs often dictate whether they think anything extra happens to the soul.

Half-an-hour from South Philly to the border of Delaware and Chester Counties with the malapropism king of whatever Hampton Zapp said he was from that second might as well have been an eternity. Zapp finally lowered his hands from his eyes, which were now glazed over from the generic suburban sprawl outside of his passenger window, assaulting them with their lawn signs and immaculately manicured lawns.

The silence prodded Tom’s brain something fierce. A man of his mental stature - OCD, ADHD, a touch of autism, like the Malboro of mental illness sprayed him with Bad Breath and he wasn’t equipped with a Ribbon - did not take to dead air kindly. He had to break the ice again.

“Zapp, do you believe in forgiveness?”

He roused from his half-stupor.

“Why? You apologizin’?”

“No, I mean in general. Do you think the whole ‘turn-the-other-cheek’ thing they taught us in Catholic School really works? Is it the best way? Is that how good people act?”

Zapp legitimately looked perplexed. He settled on a puzzled look for a moment before shaking out of it.

“I ain't the best person to ask. Forgiveness, redemption, shit like that, I learned long ago, after some of the shit I've done, ain't no one linin’ up to forgive this mug.”

Tom nodded as he waited for the light to turn from red to green to allow him entry onto the US 30 West bypass.

“Yeah, I have been thinking about that a lot, and trying to improve myself. You know, always improving myself every day, I’ve been thinking about letting off a lot of weight from my shoulders. With people like maybe my parents, maybe Paxton Ray, maybe some others. I don’t know. But no matter how I look into my soul, I can’t, just…”

A beat. A car’s horn bleated behind him like the world’s angriest electric sheep. The light had turned green. Zapp, knowing Tommy was still within the three second rule once a light turns green before proceeding through an intersection, mmediately opened the window and poked his head out.

“FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!!”

Zapp popped his head back into the car and rolled up the window.

“Fuckin’ pricks. Sorry, Tommy, you was sayin’.”

“I can’t forgive the Red Army. Ever.”

“Well good. In the words of Ronald Reagan: ‘Fuck them Commie Fucks!’ Ivan, Max, Kenny Fuckpants, the whole fuckin’ lot of ‘em can go fuck themselves.”

“Yeah, but…”

A sigh.

“I don’t know how much you pay attention when I talk about this shit, but I want to be in a sport where two guys can get in the ring, wrestle a sporting exhibition, shake hands, and maybe have a beer afterwards.”

Zapp shook his head and looked as if he was about to interject. Tom cut him off.

“But Ivan… that motherfucker. They jumped me. They jumped me backstage and beat the shit out of me just because they didn’t like the things I said. And it wasn’t just that roided out fake Communist either. I felt their boots. Max. Kenny…”

He shook his head.

“The lying scumbags, duplicitous trash. Max, pretending like he’s some kind of victim of a conspiracy. I have no great love for guys like the Whoresmen or Farthington, but Max makes them look like choir boys. And Kenny. The disrespect. He picked my bones and then wouldn’t even mention me when he ran down the roster ahead of War Games. It’d be one thing for Ivan, that shitbag and his lapdog, to big time me, but Kenny? The Food-o-Matic fucker?”

He noticed he was drifting, which was a good thing because Zapp absolutely did not. Tom shook himself back to attention.

“That’s why this trip is so important.”

“You’re sayin’ this trip is important because you feel Kenny Fuckpants, whom I might intersect, still has an imprint of my size eleven on his left cheek the last time I kicked his ass, in some way disrespected you?”

“No, no, it’s more than that. Zapp, I have enemies. Me, a two-bit wrestler who clawed out a little bit of notoriety in a sport that rates somewhere between NASCAR and women’s beach volleyball in cultural relevance, has enemies.”

“Whoa! Don't denegate women's volleyball! It takes real skill to do what they do. And have you seen some of them? Fuckin’ hot. They could volley my balls anytime if you know what I mean. A little serve and bump action. Some—”

“I’m being serious!”

Zapp recoiled slightly from the volume of Tom’s voice.

“This trip is important because I don’t need any more enemies. I’m tired of it. I don’t want you to join the list of enemies with names from the past and the present. I don’t need a future with people who hate me because of the mask I wear or how I wrestle.”

Tom inhaled deeply, nudging the breaks and flipping the turn signal as he saw he was getting close to the bumper of a rust-bucket 1970s all-steel Ford truck treating a major limited access highway like the meandering dirt roads behind the toolshed where he lived.

“I would like friends to help me when people get a big idea to jump me in the hallways of the place where I work though.”

Zapp furrowed his brow. The concept of “friendship” was not one he was all too familiar with.

-

“The fuck???”

The unmistakable aroma of livestock manure permeating the air of Lancaster County awoke Zapp from a catnap. He could feel the acids in his stomach attempting to climb up his esophagus and erupt from his mouth. Tom sighed yet again.

“We’re getting closer to where we need to be. Welcome to Lancaster County. Home of the Amish.”

“Amish? Lancaster County??? The fuckin’ fuck you bring me here for??? You tryin’ to get me whacked???.”

“Jesus Christ, Zapp, no one’s getting whacked.”

Uncomfortable silence. Tom didn’t need to look over to his passenger to know he was in the midst of a slight anxiety attack. He decided to break the short but tense silence as Zapp began fidgeting uncontrollably.

“You got trust issues, don’t ya?”

No answer.

“Wanna talk about it, slugger?”

Zapp spun his head to the left and to the right, it was shock he did not suffer from whiplash.  Zapp took a deep breath as he considered confiding in his alleged twin brother.

“Okay, so, the year was 2002, I was doin’ some preparations on this role I just landed: Brother Jeremiah in the straight-to-DVD classic, ‘The Mennonite Monday Massacre’. The story of a young Mennonite woman whose passage into—-”

“Is this a long story?”

“Fine, fuck it. Point is, I ain't all that welcome in these parts.”

“What happened? Did you have sexual relations with a sheep?”

“Fuckin’ Don Dickless over here. No. I think it should be noted that I was not adequately informed of certain situations and customs here. Ultimately, I slept with someone that perhaps I should not have which led to—”

“Who could you have possibly—”

“Her name was Mildred, I first became sexually aroused by her when I obfuscated her churnin’ butter, the sweat glitterin’ off her face, the way she was workin’ that stick, I remember gettin’ harder—-”

“NOPE! Changed my mind! I don't want to know”

“Point is, she was betrothened to another, we did….stuff….sexual stuff.”

“I figured.”

“Stuff they never showed on the Skinemax.”

“I got it! Well, not really. But I don't want to get it! Let's just agree I get the gist!”

“Our romantical interlude was uncovered.  I retroactively was sent away! Banishment! Branded as a defiler! Never to see Mildred again.  It was inferated that should I show my face around these parts again, I could potentially find myself wearin’ the Amish equalibriant of cement shoes. So, there I was, a man without a horse or a buggy, happenin’ upon, and superstitiously speakin’, perhaps called to this settle—-”

“Stop! I saw ‘Witness’, they're peaceful folk who have no idea what an air fryer is. I doubt banging some broad in the stables would be a hanging offense. Besides, it was over twenty years ago!”

Zapp nodded in silence. Tommy was right. There were two decades between the improprieties he committed and now. Hell, Mildred probably moved on….poor kid, probably spent the last twenty years pining for that forbidden fruit: The Zapple. Assuming she had not left to seek him out. And yet, while he pondered that….theory….there was one question gnawing at him like vultures on a dead deer.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Jesus, it wasn’t to get you in trouble with the Amish for fuck’s sake.”

Tom sighed again.

“Look, the place we’re going isn’t even Amish. It’s a farm, but it’s not Amish. I know you have trust issues. But believe me just this once, it’s not a trap or a scam. I know that’s hard for you because just from the little I know about you, all your entire life is nothing but traps and scams. But as hard as it is for you to see it, not everyone in this world is a two-bit crook.”

The emphasis in Tom’s voice gave Zapp a little quiet, enough to keep him from indulging too much in his most paranoid thoughts.

-

The Shitty Green Explorer kicked up dust as it turned from the paved road into a dirt driveway leading to an open gate. On the wooden logs hung a sign.

“Two Youts Farm”

“The fuck is this, Tommy Boy? ‘Two Youts’? It's inflammatory and derogatory!”

“No, no, it’s not that. You’ll see soon enough, some friends of mine from school moved out here, started a farm. They just really like My Cousin Vinny, hence the name of the farm.”

Tom slowly backed the car next to an idle tractor in front of a huge barn. As soon as he stepped out of the driver’s side, a booming voice came from the other side of the opening, from the farmhouse.

“TB, you son of a bitch!”

A graying man, a wisp of fitness around him but with a slight limp and the flab of years forming on his frame, walked out of the door, storm door slamming shut behind him. His arms were outstretched.

“Joey, the years have been kind to you, brother.”

“Don’t try to butter me up like I’m gonna give you a discount on grass-fed beef,” Joey said as the two shared a friendly embrace.

“Where’s Chuck?”

“Ah, he went to some new farm-to-table restaurant up in Hershey for the day. They’re lookin’ for farms to stock their tables. Seems real cart-before-the-horse shit if you ask me.”

“How are you two doing anyway?”

“Ever since the accident, it’s been hard for me to get around, but we have some good help. And Chuck takes care of me, y’know.”

“I would hope so. When is he gonna make an honest farmer out of you anyway?”

“It’s been so long, we might as well be common-law at this point,” he said with a hesitant chuckle. “But you ain’t here to hear about two old married hags. You asked about the puppies? You finally gettin’ one for the boys?”

“Oh, no, it’s not for me.”

Tom turned his head ever-so-slightly and pointed to the man in his passenger seat.

“How you doin’?” Zapp greeted, as he gave Joey a half-hearted wave.

“So, I hear you're in the market for a canine companion.”

Zapp cocked his brow before exiting the vehicle. Scatino power walked over to Tommy, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged to the truck for a private admonishment

“You snaky motherfucker!”

“What?”

“You know damn well I'm allergenically predisposed to dogs!”

“I didn't know that! I swear! How could I?”

“Usin’ our twin telepathy!”

“We're not twins!”

“”Then how else could you find out?!”

“Exactly!”

“So you admit it!”

“No! There's no way I could—-”

“You want me get all covered in fuckin’ rashes and die chokin’ on my tongue and shit?!”

Tommy had no choice but to put hands over his face.  Zapp stood there, delusionally feeling the welts form on his arms and had begun to scratch. Zapp always had a problem with certain animals, mostly due to some of the stories his grandmother would tell: cats steal souls, owls suck the blood of babies, removing bees from their beehive to another is bad luck except on Good Friday. Part of him believed it was bullshit, but on the other hand….why take chances? It's why he says “Rabbit” three times on the first of each month.

“It doesn't have to be a dog.” Tommy said.

Zapp was just staring and scratching.  Tommy turned around to see what caught Zapp’s eye. It was a black three legged goat. Zapp and this goat were locked into an intense staring competition. Joey strode up to Tommy.

“What's going on?”

“Well, Joey, it seems my compadre over there isn't too keen on dogs.”

“What’s his name?”

Joey and Tommy both turned towards the former Mortimer Knightingale.

“That's Old Max.”

“Perfect. I'll take him.”

Joey leaned in towards Tommy as Zapp Scatino smirked at the horned creature glaring at him.

“He’s not, you know, funny about animals, is he?”

“He's allergic to dogs, apparently.”

“No, I mean, he's ain’t a pervert, is he?”

“No. But if I'm being honest, I don't think so. A little maladjusted, but not a sociopath.”

“He's shifty looking. He's got the look of, a, well, you know.”

“Look, like I said, I'm reasonably sure he's not, but if he is, I'll post it online.”

“Fair enough.”

Tom turned towards Zapp, who was still staring at the goat like he was taking the title of a George Clooney film a little too literally.

“One question though, Zapp. How the fuck am I gonna transport this goat home?”

-

The drive home was far less tense than the trip up. Old Max’s head peeked over the center console as he laid his three legs down on the seats Tom had folded down to allow him comfortable passage back to Philadelphia. The goat’s head alternated between looking straight ahead and turning towards his newest friend, seeing if Zapp had any more of those tasty lettuce leaves Joey gave him before they left Two Youts Farm.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Tom said somewhere between Parkesburg and Coatesville on US 30.

“Just thinkin’, sorry.”

“Goat, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Zapp refrained from sharing what was going on his mind as he and Max stared each other down. The fear, the dread, the anxiety. The battle for each other's souls. Zapp knew what had to be done and did not believe that Tommy was open-minded enough for an explanation….yet.  Zapp believed that Max was the key to the victory they sought (if his Nonna taught him anything, it was to recognize the signs from beyond). If Zapp were to explain it to his alleged twin, Tommy would scoff at him.  They were one match away from guaranteeing themselves the Tag Team Championship match at “Ultraviolence” and Zapp was not about to jeopardize that.

“I just hope you didn’t find the trip to be too much of a hassle. I thought it would be a good way to build camaraderie.”

“I don't speak French, Tommy. Is my name Zappierre???  No. You said it yourself. We ain’t got that twinlepathy shit goin’ on.”

“No, no, I meant teamwork.”

Zapp said nothing, but his face showed evidence of the epiphany unraveling in his head.

“So if we’re gonna do this team thing, maybe let me have some input without givin' me the side eye?”

Tom waited a few beats before answering. Even Old Max felt the silence weigh on him enough to turn and aim his eyes at the driver.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Besides, I’m tired of being the one who always bears the responsibility, y’know?”

Zapp chuckled. Old Max bleated, almost as if he understood what Tom just said. He didn’t. He’s a goat, after all.

“So you ain’t gonna get all bitchy if I, maybe, clobber Maxie in the yambag or give Kenny Fuckpants a swift kick to his unmentionables?”

Tom chuckled.

“Oh, I hope you do worse than that, Zapp.”

Tom exhaled, almost in a sigh.

“I told you. I’m tired of having enemies. And if these enemies aren’t gonna be friends, then we gotta end them, once and for all. Stamp them out.”

Zapp smiled.

“Maybe I could do it alongside a friend?”

Zapp’s smile left his face, clear he still didn’t totally trust the concept of “friendship” after all the hardships, self-inflicted or otherwise, he’d endured. But then he nodded, as if to say “ah, fuck it” in spite of Tommy’s overdramatic piece of Lifetime Movie of the Week dialogue he had just dropped.

“Fuckin’-A, Tommy Boy.”

Tom smiled.

“Fuck the Red Army!”

“Fuck the Red Army!” repeated Zapp.

Old Max bleated again, almost as if on cue.