:) pt. 2 of 3

Now (After ReV 52)

It rained. Three days he'd been back in Saint Ambrose, and, all three days, it rained. Rained and rained.

On the morning of the fourth day he left his hotel and was soaked by the time he got in his rented car. 7:47 a.m. He had googled Kitchen Care Used Appliances, where Bryce had instructed him to show up, and saw that it opened at nine. But Jason wanted some time to scout the place.

He found it at 8:04 a.m. A small store, tucked between a liquor store and a clothing shop, on Baker Street. He pulled over maybe a hundred feet away, on the opposite side of the street, and sat there with the heat on, trying to dry out his clothes, the wipers on high. He wanted to see when Bryce showed up to work. And he wanted to know if Bryce showed up to work alone.

At 8:52 he watched a small black car pull up next to the shop in front of an F-150 company truck fitted with steel rails in the box. An elderly lady exited the car and made her way up onto the sidewalk and inside the shop. The sign on the window turned from Closed to Open.

Nine o'clock came and went. No sign of Bryce.

Jason checked his phone. He hadn't heard from Emily in a few days. Not since he'd gotten back to the locker room after his match with Stetson King and found a message waiting for him: “Don't let it go to your head. You're still too old and you suck. :p”

Jason: You watched?

Emily: I also saw you're up against Daytona Diamond next. Gross.

Jason: Gross?

Emily: He seems full of bad habits. Bad habits kill you in the end. You know this better than anyone. Anyway, yeah. Gross.

Jason: It's an Intense Title shot.

Emily: Gross. Just gross.

Emily had always been able to size people up pretty quickly.

That was the last he'd heard from her.

When he looked up again he saw the shop's door opening, and there was Bryce. He'd been in there the whole time.

9:12 a.m.

Bryce, 5’5 at best, walked out into the rain. Up the sidewalk. Coming this way. Jason almost ducked out of sight. Instead he lowered his window, letting the rain in.

Bryce rolled up and raised his voice to be heard. “You comin in or you just gonna sit out here like an asshole?”

“How'd you know I was here?”

Bryce smirked. “Don't ever think I don't know where you're at. No matter where you're at. I know. Trust me on this, Mr. Idaho.”

~

Before (Before ReV 52, at a coffee shop in Idaho)

She entered the coffee shop like some figment of his imagination stepping out of a dream. She wore some sort of one-piece article that looked like a cross between a sundress and a jumpsuit. Big sunglasses. Her hair was as long as it had ever been, lively, brown curls with summer streaks in it. She looked no more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine but he knew she was close to forty now.

Danielle. He would recognize her anywhere.

~

Way Before

After Jason's wife died, her little sister, Danielle, stayed with him and the baby for a full year. It was necessary. Jason had become a ghost of himself in those days, twenty-four, twenty-five years old, and already with a two year-old daughter and a dead wife. He'd never been a stranger to a strong drink, but after Raven died, he made a full-fledged subconscious attempt at suicide by way of alcohol.

Jason lost a lot of desires in those years, and among the first to go was the desire to wrestle. There were two reasons for this: First, he  wanted to drink himself unconscious every night, and; second, the travel schedule had been brutal in those days, and he didn't want to miss any more of his daughter's childhood. Of course, he wound up missing it almost entirely anyway. Funny how that works.

He still, however, needed to make ends meet. And it turned out you could still be an effective low level mafia goon even if you were drinking yourself to death. Most nights Jason's job could be downright boring—he showed up, collected money, and then made his way to the next address on his rounds and collected more. He had already, by that point, developed a reputation for excessive violence when it was needed. So more often than not it wasn't needed. Everyone knew not to fuck with the blond kid working for the Italians.

Best of all, he slept in his own bed every night. Two doors down from Haley.

Somewhere in that time Danielle left for college.

Then she came back.

~

Now (The Used Appliance Store, after ReV 52)

Bryce said, “You picked a good day to show up,” no sooner than they'd  entered the little appliance store. “Somethin I want to talk to you about. Kick the rain off your shoes.” He pointed at the mat beneath their feet and Jason scuffed his shoes dry. On either side of the show room floor was a line of large appliances—washing machines, dryers, refrigerators—all the way up to a little counter and a cash register, beyond which Jason could see the entry to a back room.

Jason said, “What time did you come in here?”

“Early enough to know you showed up at eight.”

A third voice: “Bryce!” It was the elderly lady who had entered earlier coming through a door that led to an office whose walls were mostly made of windows. “Bryce you'd better not track that God damn rain in my store! Bryc--” She stopped when she saw Jason. “Oh, hello,” she said with a small chuckle. “Can I help you find something?”

Bryce snickered. “Doll, doll, he's with me.”

“He's with you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, hey. Hey, is that your phone I hear ringin?”

“Oh Jesus.” She turned to hurry back to her office. Jason could hear no sign of a phone.

Bryce said, “That's Cheryl. She owns the store. Owned it since like 1980 or somethin.”

“How old is she?”

“Cheryl? Christ she must be eighty-two, eighty-three by now.”

“You're kiddin me.” Jason had assumed early sixties.

“And between me and you? She’s losin it a little. You know. Upstairs.” Bryce tapped his temple. “Last week like nine full boxes of stove elements showed up because she couldn't remember she'd already ordered one and kept orderin more. Anyway. Come on. Let me show you out back. I want to talk to you about a problem maybe you could help me with.”

~

Before (The Coffee Shop in Idaho, before ReV 52)

He stood up at his table and, when he did, Danielle stopped in her tracks to look at him. Her lips parted just slightly, as if, no matter how much she had prepared herself to see Jason, she hadn't really believed it would happen. For a moment he thought she might run away. He wondered if she was considering it. Instead she raised her sunglasses and he saw her eyes were wide. Her lips trembled ever so slightly until she tensed up her jaw. She took a breath. Looking for strength, he knew. He took a breath too.

He gestured to the seat across from him. She seemed to consider it. Then, after one more breath, she stepped forward and they both sat down.

For a few seconds they sat staring at each other. Taking each other in.

He said, “You want coffee?”

She shook her head and removed her sunglasses and put them on the table between them. Looking everywhere but his eyes.

He said, “I was expectin Emily.”

She nodded.

He said, “So,” with a breath. “Your name's Lisa Johnston now.”

Now she looked him in the eye. “You're not supposed to know that,” she said.

He held a hand up—It's okay—and then sipped his coffee.

She said, “I have questions for you,” and she said it like she had planned to say it. Maybe even rehearsed it.

“Okay.”

“Serious questions,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Before you see any of us again, I need answers. And they have to be the truth.”

He nodded.

She said, “Promise me.”

“Promise you what?”

“That you will tell me the truth,” she said, leaning forward.

He said, “Okay,” again.

“I think I deserve that much.”

She did, he knew. She absolutely did.

~

Way Before

Jason quit drinking after one night he crashed his luxury car into a telephone pole. He had passed out behind the wheel and woke up in a fight with the air bag. He had been telling Danielle and Emily that he'd been sober for months when it happened.

Legally, it was not his first offense. He served weekends in jail for a month. Danielle was disappointed, but she understood. Emily, on the other hand, subjected him to the most stubborn silent treatment in the history of humankind.

He quit drinking for real after that. He had returned to wrestling quite some time before DUI, but once he was truly sober, he began to take PRIME more seriously. Eventually he won the Universal Title.

At home, he was as happy as he had been—or could ever hope to be—since his wife died. Their household felt almost normal. For a little while. Jason and Danielle took on parental roles, Emily a teenager, Haley a child. When he was home, when he could shut the rest of the world out of his mind, he felt… he felt good.

But of course, it didn't last. How could it? It turned out that drinking, for Jason, had only been a symptom of the real problem. The real problem was the monster that lived inside of him. The monster was self-destructive, and alcohol had simply been its method of choice. For a while.

You make your choices in this life. Some of them can rot you from the inside out. Jason didn't drink anymore, didn't do drugs of any kind, but there was so much dirt on him now. The lies. He felt dirty all the time. He felt gross. He didn't take drugs, but he took money from people who sold drugs. He didn’t pay for sex but he took money from pimps. You can not keep these world's at bay. No matter how much you try. He was rotting. He could feel it. He felt gross all the time. Just gross.

Money over money over money over money. He couldn’t remember when he last cared where it came from. The organized crime family for which he worked was itself getting so big, so full of demons, that, in the end, it rotted from the inside out too. Just like Jason. That's how it happens. You trick yourself into believing you can keep your demons compartmentalized. But you can't. Sooner or later they burn you down. And they take everything you've ever loved away from you.

~

Now (The Used Appliance Store, after ReV 52)

The showroom of the appliance store was pristine. Each of the appliances had been cleaned to a glossy shine, as did shine the floors and windows. You could smell the cleaning supplies.

There was nothing glossy whatsoever about the shop's backroom, which was three times as large, where the work was done. As huge as the space was, it was full. Washers and dryers were stacked three high, leaving just enough room for aisles, and behind them were bins full of parts. Shelves. It smelled like dust and oven cleaner.

Jason followed Bryce until they stopped at a dryer in a relatively open space. Bryce opened its door and then shut it again.

Jason said, “You said there were people back here?”

“There are. Wanted to show you somethin first. You know what this is?”

Jason looked at the dryer. Plain white. Scuffed up. “A dryer,” he said.

“Right. Yeah. And it's a beauty. Built in like 1982, 1983 somethin like that. But you know what else it is?”

Jason didn't say anything.

Bryce said, “It's a disaster waitin to happen. Well. It could've been. Come here.” He waved Jason around to the rear of the dryer where he had several screws already loosened. He took them the rest of the way out now with a screwdriver and removed the back vent cover. “Look right here. You see this?” Inside, the vent was so packed with dryer lint that it came out like a solid snake. “Look at this. Look at this bullshit.”

“I don't know what you're tryin to say to me.”

“Guy who owned this? He calls us up, tells us his dryer won't throw heat. Now, that's usually a burnt out element. Happens. But every once in a while what it is, is it's someone ain't been cleanin the lint trap as much as they think they have. And it gets down in the system until, voila, you get this bullshit. Now it can't blow hot air, meanin it can't cool down, meanin the only thing keepin it from burnin your whole fuckin house down and burnin everybody you love up with it. And you know what the only thing stoppin that from happenin is?”

“Are you threatenin me?”

Bryce cocked his head. “What? I'm talkin about fuckin dryers here.”

Jason didn't say anything.

Bryce said, “Jesus Christ. And here I thought I needed to relax a bit. You need to fuckin relax.” Said the man who not a month ago had held a pistol in Jason's mouth. “Where was I?”

“The only thing stoppin an over-heating dryer from burnin your house down.”

“Right, right, yeah. There's a little thermostat in here, and it's got a safety on it. Dryer gets too hot, safety switch goes off, and the element inside turns off. Dryer won't blow nothin but cold air. But you know what happens if that safety switch ain't there? You know what happens if all this gunk builds up inside here, and this thing overheats, if there ain't no safety switch.”

“It catches fire.”

“Right. Usually when you least expect it. While you're sleepin or somethin. And then you lose everything.” He lowered his brow. “You understand what I'm sayin to you here?”

It sounded like he was talking about Jason. About the way Jason used to be. Back when he didn't have a safety switch and, after enough lint of his lifestyle had clogged his ventilation system, he'd lost everything he had. Everything he cared about. He had, over the years, tried many times to pin-point exactly the moment when it had been too late to save himself, too late to walk away. But the truth was it had been an accumulation of moments, of choices, one building onto the next, and eventually those choices overheated and burned down Jason's whole life.

If he didn't know better, he thought Bryce might have been talking about Daytona Diamond too.

Gross, Emily had texted. Just gross.

Bryce was waiting for an answer.

“I think you're tellin me be careful what I let get inside my system. Like bad habits. Like the bad habits I used to have. Because if the safety switch breaks, I lose everything.”

Bryce cocked his head again. Squinted. “What?” he said. Then he threw the screwdriver in disgust. “Jesus Christ, it's like you ain't even fuckin listenin to me. What I'm tryin to tell you is old shit is better than new shit. The safety thermostat goes on an old girl like this, you're talkin maybe a twenty dollar fix. Somethin like that happens to a new dryer?” He rolled his eyes at the insanity of it. “They ain't designed to be fixed. They're designed to be replaced.”

Jason held his hands up. “Look, right now I don't know if you're speakin in metaphors or just teach me about dryers.”

“You know people used to say you ain't as dumb as you look but I'm really startin to question that.”

"Okay well just please stop talkin about dryers then."

“Bryce?” It was the elderly lady’s voice, calling from out front. “Bryce what’s going on back there? I heard a noise.”

Bryce pinched the bridge of his nose. To Jason, he said, “Ah fuck.” And then he called out, “It’s okay Cheryl. It’s–I just dropped a screwdriver. That’s all it was.”

“Bryce?”

Jason looked over her shoulder just in time to see the little woman exit the hallway into the work space. She had black hair clipped to her jawline that somehow made her look like a doll.

“Cheryl,” Bryce said, “seriously. Just go back out front. Nothin’s goin–”

“What’s going on back here?” She looked Jason up and down. “Is he playin games?” she said. “Because if he is–”

“Cheryl, everything’s all right.”

She kept right on looking at Jason. “Is this the one you said could fix it?” she said to Bryce without ever moving her eyes.

“Cheryl. Just let me handle it. I think I hear a customer out front. You hear that?”

Cheryl’s little brown eyes narrowed. She pointed at Jason. “You’d better not be playin games,” she said. And then she turned and wandered back out, glancing occasionally over her shoulder.

Jason said, “What the hell was that?”

Bryce sighed. “That,” he said, “is the most powerful person you’ve ever met in your life. And right now she’s got a problem across town that I’m pretty sure you are particularly suited to handle. And I was tryin to explain that to you–like how you’re old now?--but you were bein too much of a dumb ass talkin about bad habits to understand.”

Jason took this all in while staring down the hallway where Cheryl had disappeared. “Are you tellin me…”

“Yeah,” Bryce said. “That’s King. The one you’ve been hearin about. That’s who took over once the Italians imploded. I guess you could say they had some bad habits. Wait. Is that what you took from my thermostat story? Jesus. I was talkin about you bein old.”

Jason looked back at him. "That's King?"

Bryce shrugged. “Cheryl King. The one and only.”

~

Before

“First question,” Danielle said, her voice quiet. Her hands were flat on the table between them, and he could see her fingers trembling.

Jason nodded.

Danielle said, “Have you ever killed someone?”

Jason looked out the window at the parking lot.

Danielle said, “Jason,” through clenched teeth.

“Is this really somethin you want to know?”

“I need to know.”

Jason ran a hand down his beard. “If you're askin, you already know.”

“Maybe I just need to hear you say it.”

Jason closed his eyes. When he opened them he found her staring directly at him, trying her best to look strong. He closed his eyes again and said, “Yes,” softly, slowly, in defeat.

This time when he opened his eyes he found Danielle losing the fight to keep her face composed. Finally she gave it up and she sucked in her bottom lip and put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said.

“Danielle, can we please--”

“How many?”

Jason blinked slow and shook his head.

Danielle said, “You promised me answe--”

“Six.”

Her eyes went just a little bit wider. Now she was crying. She raised her hand to her mouth again. People were beginning to look. Danielle said, “Six? Oh my God, Jason.” Every word whined. “While you were living with us? You were going out and doing that and then just coming home like nothing happened? What else were you doing?”

He shrugged. “A lot,” he said.

Now it was Danielle's turn to close her eyes. She bit her lip. “Were there other women?”

Jason tilted his head, hurt. He almost said, How could you ask me that? But then he realized it would have been absurd to ask that.

“No,” he said. “I loved your sister. More than anything. I could never--”

“And what about after that?” She was gathering courage again. He could see it in her face.

“What do you mean?”

“Please, Jason. Please. Don't do this.”

“Don't do what?”

“Just don’t, okay?”

“Don’t what?”

“Jason.”

“What?”

“Don't…” She shook her head. “Don’t pretend nothing happened between us.”