Hostage Situation (or The Fruit of the Knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil)

I.The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

A guy in an AA meeting told me one time that sometimes, you have to shoot the hostage. I had no fucking clue what it meant for a long time, but it sounded real badass. Always wanted to say that shit.

I been thinking about the bible a lot lately, what with my own impending doom and all. Lots of bullshit in that thing, but there's one story that's always grinded my fucking gears more than the rest: the original sin. Adam and Eve, loss of innocence, you know the whole jive. Now, I don't give a shit about how we humans were literally cast out of paradise immediately after god created us. Not much. What really fucking gets me is how the snake is portrayed as the bad guy.

I mean, think about it. Here you got these two newborns basically running around naked. One rule this proper cunt has - don't eat that fruit. Y’all can have whatever the fuck you want, but you’ll never know if it’s good or bad. And when they don’t play the part the big guy wants, fire and fury. Exiled from Eden, from the group. They’re bad.

Now what does that shit sound like? Don't eat this thing I've made readily available to you cause it's gonna make you think different than how I want you to. You're gonna have your own fucking feelings.

Sounds sort of like being held hostage, don't it?

II.Adam and Eve  

"Here, blow on this."

It was nineteen ninety-six the year of the lord. PRIME was still years from conception. Hell, most of the roster wasn’t even a glimmer in their milkman’s eye yet.

"What?"

Georgia. The air, though not hot, was humid. Currently, it was also filled with the smell of sensimilla. The wind respectfully danced with the changing leaves on the ground, bringing a hint of crispness, like a whispered promise of Fall.

"This," Rob Williams said, holding the mouthpiece of his interlock device out to the beautiful blonde sitting shotgun in his first love: a white Nineteen Seventy-Two Pontiac Firebird TransAm. The car was a special edition Second Generation, Cameo White with the Lucerne Blue racing stripe. With those hard and fast curves, just like the woman in the passenger seat, it fucked.

“Oh, that.” she giggled, toying with Rob. “Shame. I thought you meant something else.”

She was the vision of beauty and she always knew just how to drive him to the edge of the cliff. Her wild, curly blonde hair dangled in her face as she smiled at him from across the cabin. The retro red dash lights of the TransAm gave a warm, illuminating glow to the buttery soft features of her face.

The car and the girl had that celestial fire that said, “Careful now, Deadman's Curve ahead.”

“What are you trying to do to me, woman?”

Her hair screamed California, but her milky white skin said nobility in a hushed tone. Those big, brown eyes were a snare made to capture men who dared to look too long. She bit at her luscious bottom lip and raised her eyebrows at him.

"What do you want me to do, Rob?" Their eyes met in the dim glow of the radio. “Something in the Way” by Nirvana was static in the background.

His heart raced. Usually he was confident, arrogant even, but she always had him questioning - unsure of her intent. She had him in her sights and she wasn’t letting him slip.

“Uh, what?”

“I said what do you want me to do, Rob?” she repeated as she pursed her pillowy red lips around the breathalyzer and began to blow.

Does the wolf hear the sound of the noose tightening before he feels the pressure?

The world dissolved around them. Neither noticed the lack of light pollution and how it made the night sky look like it had been hit with buckshot. The thousand little white holes ripped through were lost on them. As she softly laid a hand on his arm, he felt like he’d been hit with a shotgun blast, too.

Rob Williams had been with women, but never had he experienced this. Their chemistry was that of physical phenomena, electrons moving and transferring in ways that man had not yet fathomed nor discovered. They closed their eyes, submitting to the forces of nature that willed their bodies to connect. Natural, effortless, as if something greater was compelling them and they were but leaves on a river, powerless to the current guiding their journey.

BEEP

The machine flashed red lights and emitted onerous noises in rapid succession. Ripped from his freefall, Rob's central nervous system took over and Rob jolted forward, smashing the breathalyzer console with the palm of his hand in a primitive and crude response. She just giggled.

“What the fuck, Charlotte? You said you weren’t drinking tonight.”

“Oops.” She smiled and put her hand on his face. “Looks like I got you where I want you.”

They were suddenly the last two people on Earth.

And so they kissed, unknowingly damning one another to a lifetime of heartache. But not then. Hell and all its retribution could wait. For right then, underneath that raging night sky, those two kids were innocent and in love.

III.Forbidden Fruit

The Nineties were coming to a close. While everyone worried about how some 0 in the code was going to topple nations, Rob Williams was riding a rocket ship to the moon. Y2K be damned. Shakey days and incredible nights, the young man was on fire. Cocaine and a litany of prescription drugs assisted him with keeping up the balancing act, but the seams were beginning to show. He knew in his bones that this was his one chance and he wasn't going to let it slip by - he'd sleep when he was dead.

In the beginning, life was grand in the little trailer his modest financial success had purchased. They pined for one another in moments of absence and were inseparable when in proximity. Evening shows, soulful love making, and shared ice cream every night. Rob’s schedule began demanding more of him as the success grew. She wanted to beg him to stay and he told himself he was doing this for their future.

After a time, they were both caught between two worlds.

Sure, they dressed up and played the parts they thought the other wanted of them, but the absences weighed on them. While he was working she got to play her music, go out with her girlfriends, and generally live her own life. She tried to hide her growing discern when he was home, but inevitably there would be an epic argument. The funny thing is t was never about the tripwire that caused the explosion, but a buildup from the everpresent annotance with him living in her space.

And Rob? Well, he missed her when he was on the road. The silent encouragement that comes along with the love of a strong woman. Often he found himself laying awake in the wee hours watching the moonlight cascade off the curves of whatever loose woman he had brought him, wishing it were Charlotte. But a man can only take so much and Charlotte’s pressure was always implied. The huff when he didn’t race to take the trash out or the weight of her glare when he didn’t put shit away right. Little actions with immense weight. After a few days, he had one eye on the door. Charlotte became just another bitch trying to control him with her demands.

When they were apart, in the early morning hours when each longed for the other, they wondered how long they could keep up this farce. Rob thought maybe he should just put a gun in his mouth and add a sunroof to his skull. Charlotte considered leaving without even a Dear Rob note.

No, they would tell themselves, because deep down inside, they saw one another’s image of themselves as their anchor. The totem carved by the other was the good both thought they needed, holding any goodness that may have existed inside them.

They could keep it together. He could keep it all going. It would be different. He’d cut back on the booze, no more women. She would be more patient with the insufferable brute when he was home.

Everyone would see.

IV. Paradise Lost

"How could you do this?” she belted out between sobs.

It was Two-Thousand and Four. Rob was a superstar, the world champion of UCW. He was also a soon-to-be father, but not with Charlotte.

“I…”

For the first time in his life, Rob Williams was at a loss for words. His quick tongue and knife-edge wit had kept him from much in his life, but there was no amount of filibuster to keep the impending doom at bay. He could see it in her eyes: her entire world had just come crashing down around her. All of the lies she’d told herself about what they were, what their future was to be, lay in a pile of rubble at their feet - and it was him who had pulled it down around them.

“You fucking what?”

She wasn’t letting him off, not that she ever did. It was something that he used to love about her.

Some wounds are too deep to heal. They had been trying to conceive. Every month she excitedly waited, hoping and praying. She had even tried some weird redneck vooodoo shit the ladies in the trailer park said, burying an egg in their yard. But every month brought only heartbreak for her.

They stood there like that for a long time, Rob with that stupid fucking look on his face and her bawling. She was only a few feet away from his giant, outstretched arms, but it may as well have been a lifetime.

“You will sign your rights away and you will get sober.” she cried in quiet defeat.

And so he did. Sort of. He did his best, staying sober on and off, but the relapses were often and grand. They'd be comical if they weren't so sad.

They suffered like this for years. Rob refused to leave out of some misshapen idea of honor and shame. Charlotte was so crushed that she believed this was as good as she could do, feeling herself broken or defective. Why leave him? She couldn't have kids of her own anyways and he was always on the road.

Charlotte tried to find peace, went to Al-Anon and got therapy and even looked the boy up one time thinking it would somehow aid in her process. Nothing helped. Every I love you she said had an invisible "but" attached. Her wounds never fully healed from the betrayal. At times she would rip the dressings off herself, seemingly out of nowhere. She got close to asking herself if she hated him more for sacrificing what they could've had or because he at least got to make a child. It was the latter. She wouldn't touch it for years, but the agony of knowing he could be a father if she hadn't... no, close that door. She wouldn't go in there. Not while she still had him.

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

V.Exile

ReVival Fifty-Six is over. America has won, once again proving that the recipe for American Apple Pie is kicking pinko-Commie ass.

Backstage the media scrum is a room of dichotomy. The lions sit with lambs explaining why they do lion shit. These warriors leave the arena, often slick with the blood and sweat of their craft, to a crowd of the most dangerous of enemies: journalists.

Rob sits in the little, uncomfortable chair at the front of the room. These things always make him feel exposed. Nothing unearths a the buried nasty like vulnerability. He has been on a strange journey lately and he's trying to play nice, but all these fucks do is take. Demand. Rob pushes this down and scans the outstretched hands. Second row, nerdy guy in a quarterzip. Who wears a quarterzip over a polo? Rob nods at him.

“How do you feel about your booking against RIA being right after the opener?” the man asks while pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

A lively bunch tonight. No pleasantries, no vaseline. Rob grits his teeth, forcing a smile. Play the game.

“Woe to the vanquished. I feel like I ought to be out there parading my dick around with a tag belt wrapped around my waist. I’m sure RIA feels she ought to be picking which belt she’s seeding from the Alias title. We’re both losers here. So it’s back to the bottom of the deck for us both.”

The young man isn’t done yet. He smells blood in the water, but that one didn't produce meat, so he presses even harder much to Rob's chagrin.

“RIA has been very critical of you. She was skeptical of Anna Daniels partnering with you. Any bad blood for this match?”

His skin gets hot as he thinks of RIA's snide comments. She didn’t accept him because he didn’t fit into the little box RIA thinks Anna’s partner should fit into. He wasn't good enough. Of course he gets no credit for trying. The cocky smirk of the reporter snaps Rob back - he’s here to pay the piper and he knows who butters his biscuits.

“I… I came out hot towards RIA early on. That’s on me. I have no ill will towards RIA. Next question.”

A high pitched voice in the back calls out, “What are your thoughts on your former partner Anna Daniels going against your Daytona Diamonds next week?”

He's gutshot. His former partner? That dizzy feeling is back. Like an animal being pushed into a corner, he sees his outs disappearing as he stares at this room of rabid journalists. They’re hanging on every word now. They want him to play the part, act a fool.

“Who the fuck said my former partner? I’m still one hundred and twenty fucking percent Team Anna Daniels. Just because I’m a Whoresman doesn’t mean that I’m not the other half of Fuck Your Tag Team. Correlation versus causation, dipshit. And it’s not my match for me to have feelings on. Next question.”

A lie. He does have feelings, in fact, big ones - about the card as a whole. It feels personal. Maybe this is Troy’s way of getting him back for lying about the cancer. He is no stranger to angering the wrestling gods. But he sure as shit ain’t going to get into that with this bunch. Bob and weave.

“What are your thoughts on Sebastian Gold?” an elderly man in the front beckons.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“The up-and-comer you traded blows with earlier tonight.”

Another fucking judgemental paragon. RIA. Sebastian Gold. Charlotte. Always nipping at his goddamn heels, demanding he change. His temper is beginning to boil - not yet at risk of roiling, but teeny little bubbles are floating to the surface.

“My dad died when I was young and the priest gave me a special communion when I was six. You want to ask me about that, too,” he wants to say. It tastes bad going down as he swallows the comment. Push it all down, keep it together. Be who they want you to be.

“Fuck that guy. Alright, I’m done. Thanks.”

Rob stands to leave, but a pretty young blonde in the front row mirrors his movement. She is striking and reminds him of Charlotte before he ruined everything. The rest of the room notices his eyes shifting, trying not to connect with hers.

“You abandoned Anna,” the young woman states as if it were a fact.

He gives in. Damn if she doesn’t have Charlotte’s eyes. A discreet trap - the noose is firmly around his neck. We are roiling now, over the sides and onto the floor.

“How could you do this?” she asks him.

We're roiling. In fact, the whole house is on fire. Scratch that, the town is napalm.

What did any of them expect from him? Why was he never good enough for any of them?

Enough of the charades. He enjoyed crucifying Don Winters, slapping Sebastian Gold around, and has fun with the Whoresmen. Buttrock is fuckign cool, smoking crack is fun. We are all programmed by divine by-god intervention to find our herd, our people. Apes gather together or die alone. It’s in our chemical make up. Maybe none of them could see Rob for what he really is: a bad man.

“OH, is that what the fuck I did? The truth for you and all the Ria fucking Lockharts out there is that y'all fucking need me. Without me to balance the scales of your morality - who the fuck would you all be then? What did you expect from me? Go on, point your fingers at Rob Williams - he’s bad. You’re fucking right I am. I’m a bad man looking for takers and it would serve you all well to fucking remember that. Especially you, RIA Lockhart."

The room is silent. A few reporters in the front row lean back as if they were retracting from a dog’s cage after they tried to pet it but got a nip instead. Rob is seething, spit flies from his mouth as he continues.

“I’m fucking dying, y’all, and I ain’t gonna let you make me feel bad for being who I am anymore. I’m a big black dildo and y’all are a bunch of virgin buttholes. Not my problem - I’m made to fuck and I intend to use the talents I was given.”

Fuck RIA. Fuck Sebastian. Hell, fuck Charlotte.

He didn’t mean to abandon Anna and he didn’t mean to hurt RIA’s feelings and he never meant to hurt Charlotte. But they all want him to be the Rob Williams that satisfied them. No more, he decide right there. To hell with their shame.

Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

“You can call it whatever you want, lady. Abandoned her? Whatever. I don’t need to explain myself to the likes of you or Gold or RIA. Just like I told Troy - I ain’t out here looking for forgiveness. Y'all let RIA know the fucking gloves are off and I'm gonna tapdance on that fucking wig next Friday. Print that shit, we’re done here.”

Rob stands so quickly his legs knock the table over - things go flying to the ground in a moment of chaos. He stares at the mess for a moment, considering picking it all up. Maybe he should apologize. Across the room everyone’s face is full of fear, assuming he toppled the table intentionally. Rob smiles and flicks off the reporters.

"Fuck y'all."

No more demands.

Sebastian Gold and RIA would be the first stop on the Rob Williams Reckoning Tour at ReVival 56.

The Father waits in the hallway, smiling in approval.

"You are ready."

VI.Shoot the Hostage

Dear Charlotte

Been thinking about you and our life together. All the shit we've done. You probably know what's coming. I’m so sorry for all the things I did to hurt you. You deserved so much better than what I did. It was so wrong of me to get that girl pregnant. Everything you ever did was justified. 

There was a time where I’d sit here ashamed and try that bullshit on you. But I don’t believe any of that.

I love you, but you weren’t a victim. You were a volunteer. I am not the man that you wanted me to be. I’m not really sure I ever wanted to be. I’ve never been no good and never will be. Flat out bad, and that is ok. Sometimes you need to be bad, else this world will just keep taking from you. 

Both us being trailer park royalty we are, it’s only natural we feel bad about receiving life's spoils. Too easy to say “Oh, no, not me. I'm not entitled to feeling good and enjoying this.” Us poor folk are taught early on our plight is to suffer quietly.

No more. I’m running out of road and I intend to take all that’s fucking owed me with the time I got left.

I'm gonna meet my boy before I clock out. He's the only one I owe shit to. For years I thought he was better off without me, but that's a cop out. He is worthy of the knowledge of good and evil. We had no right to take that from him.

You deserve good things, too, woman. Go find them. Whatever it is you want… you deserve it. Don’t let yourself be stuck trying to be what you think someone else wants you to. 

We ain't each others’ hostages anymore. 

-RW

fin