Red Is My Favorite Color (or In Spite of Ourselves)

I. Nine Inch Nails

He ain’t too sharp, But he gets things done. 

Backstage - Kaseva Center.

Drip, drip, drip.

Rob Williams’ forehead paints the floor like a tortured suburban kid discovering his sexuality at SCAD on his father’s dime.

Nine inch nails.

Great on stage, not so much in your dome piece.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

His gray hair looks like an at home dye job gone catastrophic. His blood slicked hands hold a flap of skin in place.

Beat in the ring, beat in his home. His failure and lies and shame are a python of his own creation and brother, it’s squeezing.

“No, he died on a cross,” The Father chuckles while picking at his fingernails. The marvel of a man who does no dirt having to clean it from under his fingernails isn’t lost on Rob.

“Boy, that’s funny. I’m so fucking glad you’re back with your funny little jokes.”

The coagulated blood begins taking form. It looks like a sad face. How fitting.

“Well, ain’t that fucking fitting,” Rob groans from the pain as he reaches for his bottle of Johnny Walker.

“You need to go see John at the hospital. Ride the momentum.”

“I - I can’t.”

“But you must, Robert.”

He knows that The Father is right.

With a sigh he concedes and The Father begins towards the door.

“Hold up.”

Rob’s head does a scan of the room looking for something.

A dusty rag sits unused in the corner. Discarded with so much life left in it. Rob snatches it up, spits on the abstract art his head created, and wipes it away. He mutters, “Sorry,” to no one in particular before joining The Father.

II. Roots

He ain’t been laid in a month of Sundays, I caught him once and he was sniffin’ my panties,

Rob stands outside the hospital pulling on a cigarette like it’s done him wrong.

He stands in front of a red maple planted in the “healing garden”. No healing to be had here.

The depth and beauty of the leaves of the maple are behind the wheel and driving his heart rate through the roof.

“Why does that bother you, Robert,” The Father questions.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Rob pulls another stoagie from the pack and lightsabers it with his current cigarette before dropping it like it called him a good guy.

Embers fly up from the cigarette under Rob’s snakeskin cowboy boots. The pavement below his heel is more crooked than his teeth were before he got his first contract.

“The roots,” The Father informs.

Rob’s eyes trace the root lines coming out of the bottom of the tree like there’s an answer in them.

“It’s miraculous, isn’t it, Robert? Look at this tree’s will - its determination. Despite having a few thousand pounds of concrete poured directly over its path to growth, it perseveres. What is a stronger substance: wood or concrete?”

That’s not what Rob sees.

No, he sees what he has been missing. An answer, oddly enough.

Roots.

Rob has given up everything that has ever reminded him of who he is.

The first time I met John we were in sixth grade. Before that we moved every year or so ‘cause, well, no matter where we went Dad’s boss was always an asshole. Not this time, though. Dad and Mom promised no more moving. 

I was just a chunky, poor kid whose parents sold the double wide for a split level. It was all smoke and mirrors, though. Credit for this, credit for that. I could tell you what utility was cut off by the color of the tag on the door. I always saw it rounding the corner on the school bus. 

Being nomads my parents never taught me to make friends - just how to run when it got hard. 

Anyways, we were sat next to each other in math class on a Monday and I happened to see a red sticker on his notebook. From the big guy - you know the one. There had just been a WrestleFest on PPV the night before. Course we couldn’t afford PPV. Mind you, this was before all this internet bullshit. 

I said, “Man, I wish I knew who won that main event.” 

His eyes lit up and he said, “We got the PPV!” 

From that moment we were inseparable. I played football ‘cause John played football. Got into fighting ‘cause he was a boxer. He had everything I wanted - his family knew he existed. And I guess I probably took that out on him over the years.

But he never left me. No matter what I did or said. And look where that fuckin' got him.

“Your cigarette went out.”

A misty-eyed Rob flicks it at the red maple.

“I’m done anyway.”

“Hmm… yes, Robert - you’re ready.”

III. Jesus In the Door

He ain’t been laid in a month of Sundays, I caught him once and he was sniffin’ my undies,

Outside room number 1222, Rob Williams stands looking at the big wooden door in front of him.

One time, when he was six, he saw Jesus’ face in the veneer of the fiberboard doors at his Aunt Wynona’s trailer. When he told his mama, she said he was born to be a prophet - touched by god himself.

He’s been looking for Jesus in every grain of every door since then.

Hasn’t found him yet.

Rob is strong, especially for his age - but the door is just too heavy. The knob must be false because it won’t budge. No, not yet.

He moves to the window. Relief closely followed by guilt for feeling relieved.

On the other side of the glass, his best friend is in the worst shape he’s ever seen. A mess of tubes and machines and gauze and cast - like something a shitty 50’s sci-fi dreamt up for eternal life.

Who would want to live forever anyways?

Roses.

Red.

“Even I fucking know they’re not supposed to be red.” Rob mutters below the beeping and bustling of the busy hospital floor.

“Hm. Why do they bother you so, Rob?”

“Because...” Rob begins before peeling back the curtain for just the briefest of introspection.

Because they’re pretty. And people appreciate them and want them. And they sit there in their stupid fucking vase doing nothing - giving nothing, yet everyone creams their pants when they get them. 

Nope. The curtain must stay closed.

“They’re lame.”

When they were two southern boys dreaming of nights in NYC, Rob would’ve used much more colorful language.

Has he not grown? Matured? When is it enough? Why isn’t it ever enough?

“Enough of the pity party. Look alive, Robert.”

Turning to respond, Rob is struck by a bolt of lightning. Every synapse screams. His reptilian brain votes to jump through the twelfth story window of John’s hospital room. Death would be better than what comes next.

It’s her perfume that hits him first.

He doesn’t hear Charlotte choke out his name. Nope, it’s all John Prine and Iris Dement.

Does she still like ketchup on her scrambled eggs?

He’s right back to that Nineteen Seventy-Two Pontiac Firebird TransAm. The one with the Lucerne Blue racing stripes they were in when he fell in love with her.

How many times did he stare into her eyes while they fought or made love? Even more, while they did the mundane shit that makes up forever? Putting the groceries away or folding laundry.

Looking in those baby blues he knows however many times it was, it wasn’t enough.

Rob wishes he had taken an insurance policy out on the life burning it to the ground.

“Char. W-what are you doing here?”

Surely she could hear his heart trying to pry its way from his chest.

“Same thing as you, Rob. John’s my friend, too.”

Rob recoils as if he touched a hot stove.

“Jealous?” The Father whispers in his ear.

“No.”

“No what?” Charlotte does that thing that always melts him where she tilts her head.

“Uh, nothing - sorry. I’m just, you know, this is a lot.”

“Jesus fuck, Rob. You’re plum split open. Come on.”

She opens the door with the strength of a free conscience. Just like old times, leading him like a puppy in training.

And he always follows.

“Here, sit.” She points to the cushion of a chair well worn from worrying asses before rummaging through her purse.

Through all the filth and self-hatred and pain, he still can’t deny her.

“Here we go,” she says and produces a sewing kit.

“Wow, you still have that, huh?” Rob laughs remembering all of the times she patched him up. Right before he joined PRIME was the last time.

“How much longer are we going to do this,” she asked me. Not long enough, babe.

She really was the thread holding his seams.

“Yeah, old habits die hard. Now stay still.”

Once again she puts him back together.

As enjoyable as having her run the needle through his skin again is, his eyes keep drifting to John there all fucked up. John’s foot is sticking out of the covers. He’s unaware of his leg is bouncing until she playfully slaps him on the shoulder.

“I’m good, Rob, but I’m not that good.”

“Sorry,” he breathes out deeply, pushing his sweaty palms into his legs to force their submission.

“You never did like sitting still.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Me either. Now sit, I’m not made of concrete, Rob. I prick myself and we have a real problem.”

Me either, babe. 

“Ok. That should do you. You know, Rob I,” She swallows hard before stuffing down whatever was about to come out, “I’ve gotta get going.  I’ve got a shift in an hour.”

Did she finish that nursing thing?

“At the hospital?”

“Oh yeah, I’m on track to be a brain surgeon if I keep running into you. No, dumbass, at the diner.”

It was her grit he fell in love with to begin with. She was about the only one who knew all the levers - humility or humiliation, she’d get what she wanted from him.

Rob notices her hand lingering in his bloody gray hair during the chasm of silence that follows. He rolls the dice and places his gnarled, stained hand on top of it.

For just a moment they’re just two kids in love again.

“You know, Char, I was thinking back on the walk here.”

“You walked here? PRIME isn’t all it cracked up to be, huh Legend?”

He wants to engage and knows pushing forward will end this moment, but he has no choice. He never has.

“I was thinking back on the walk here about my life with John. Through it all, though, he ain’t ever left my side. Even when I told the fucker to, he still was there. And I just,” tears well up, “can’t figure out fuckin’ why?”

Charlotte is quiet for a long time. She carefully weighs and measures all of the possible responses.

“He forgives you, you know?”

She didn't know that Rob was the reason John was in that bed. It didn't matter.

Rob lets go and pushes to a stand.

“And that’s the part that fuckin’ kills me.”

Before leaving her again, Rob reaches over to pull the sheet over John’s exposed foot.

IV. A Life Raft

She don’t like her eggs all runny, She thinks crossin’ her legs is funny. 

If seeing Charlotte was John Prine and Iris Dement, the world outside the hospital is the part about blowing through the ceiling in “Fake Plastic Trees”.

Rob’s chest heaves up and down as he wipes the tears from his face.

A horn honking in the distance. The awful cocktail of Charlotte’s perfume and the antiseptic hospital room. Some asshole walking past with roses.

As he walks through the “healing garden”, his phone dings and it’s enough to send his fist into the red maple.

PRIME

Notification: ReVival 77 - Rob Williams booked against Rose.

He wants to run. Out to sea or in the woods. Somewhere he can’t hurt anybody and nobody can hurt him.

In his haste, the point of Rob’s right cowboy boot catches in the lifted sidewalk and his face gets real intimate with the ground.

“What the fuck?”

A dribble of blood smacks the concrete from a slow leak in his nose.

Red used to be my favorite color.

Another fucking notification.

DO NOT ANSWER

Hope you got my suite ready, Brother Rob.

Be seeing you.  “Can’t run forever, Robert.”

The Father squats down beside Rob, revealing a perfectly white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his impeccable sportscoat.

He used to dress like a priest, back in the days of Donnie Winters.

“The way I see this, son, you have two options. One is you march right back in there and you break that little girl’s heart even more than you already have. Get honest about it all. Some might say that’s saving your skin at another’s expense.”

With love and care, the Father gently pats the handkerchief at Rob’s nose. The handkerchief slowly absorbs the blood, white turning to red like a cheap magic trick.

“Or.”

Rob relieves The Father’s hand and snorts the blood back into his nasal cavity.

“Or?”

“Or you commit. Make something out of this. New details have come to light and it wasn’t actually Max Kael who attacked John. You had bad info. It was just a red herring due to Max Kael’s former affiliation with The Red Army.”

If looks could kill, Rob would be doing a bid for first degree.

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“Think about it, son. You broke the Whoresaw Pact. Big Bad Ivan beat his chest in front of everyone on national television stating blood for blood. No one will question that they’re capable of such an act. Think about it - where’s the guy with the teeth these days?”

Rob has to admit, The Father was making sense. The Red Army are known baddies with a very sordid history of extracurricular violence when they don’t get their way.

The car stopped honking.

“You know, that has fuckin’ legs, man.”

V. Even Roses Die

Against all odds, honey we’re the big door prize. We’re gonna spite our noses right off our faces. There won’t be nothing but big ol’ hearts left dancing in our eyes. 

I’m sorry, Rose. 

You ain’t exactly had it easy, either. Looks like we both won the lottery in the parent department. 

And I know Ivan is basically holding you hostage. Believe me, kid - I know how that feels, too. 

Your record and mine aren’t much different. I might’ve eeked out a few more in PRIME than you, but the road to get here ain’t been martinis and blowjobs. 

You don’t deserve what I’m about to do. It ain’t personal, you’re just another scapegoat. Don’t worry, you’re in good company. Once again you’ve been made a pawn in a bad man’s game. 

The truth of it, kid, is you probably deserve that W more than I do. 

But, I need this more than you do. 

Flashes and clip on neckties and all the bullshit that goes along with a hastily created press junket.

“Holy hell, you look terrible” a random media girl bemoans as she leads him to the room holding the wolves.

She’s not random. He’s met her no less than three times.

“I know, kid. Hey, give me a beat. Sorry.”

The Father moves from the shadows as the girl (Lizzy) goes in to prep the room.

“I’m nervous.”

“You don’t know what you are. All of that about roots and forgetting what grounds you. You’re “The Legend”. Remember you’re doing this for her. You are a bad man, not a bad man, right?”

“I’m a bad man,” Rob soothes himself with a reassuring nod in affirmation.

“We’ve rehearsed every word. It’s perfect. Now. get out there and do what God made you to.”

Rob closes his eyes and rolls his head around, humming to himself.

“Yeah. Yeah, I fuckin’ got this.”

He puts a hand on the door handle, but The Father quickly interrupts with, “Are you forgetting something?”

The fluorescent bulbs gleam off the barbed wire bat just right.

“You need to name it, you know?”

That old, familiar cocky smirk fits Rob’s face like his favorite leather jacket as he breezes to the table in the front of the room. He sets the bat on the table, refusing to sit at the chair Lizzy so sweetly placed for him.

“Thank you all for coming tonight. I owe all of you an apology. Before ReVival 75 I came in here and I blamed Max Kael for the savage, cowardly attack on my best friend John Gordon. Now, don’t get me wrong, Max Kael is a cowardly piece of shit. We all saw that when he attacked me after his pool boys did his dirty work. But, I’m sorry. It wasn’t Max Kael - I was given bad info.”

He’s in his element. Working the crowd with a pregnant pause.

“No, good folks, it was bad info. I can’t fault my sources, though. Max was called out as the prime suspect because of his past associations.”

A few murmurs. They’re getting there.

“That’s right - it was none other than The Red Army.”

A jolt of electricity flows through the crowd.

Bingo.

“Ivan Stanislav and his group of commie pinko thugs stood in front of the world and demanded retribution for me braining Dawkins and breaking the Whoresaw Pact.”

A few heads nod as the crowd of reporters recalls the scene from ReVival 70.

And he sticks the landing.

“That Ruskie bastard said, and I quote: one of you pay in blood one way or another or I will see to it. So what did Stanislob and his merry band of Socialists do? Just like their weak motherland they waited until my guard was down, my defenses softened - and they struck. Isn’t that the way of the Reds? Hit you where it hurts. They’re not going to take you head on, no they’re going to destroy those you care about. Don’t you think it’s convenient I wind up booked against the Red Darling shortly after this despicable act? When Alexei isn’t picking corn out of Ivan’s shit he’s trying to undermine the honor of our promotion by hustling the brass for an edge. But that ends at ReVival 77.”

Everyone in the room jumps at the resounding smack of baseball bat against folding table. Rob relishes how easy they all give it up.

“I don’t know about Rose or any of those pinko bastards, but I grew up in a country that believed in fair fights. Do you know what the Reds did at Stalingrad? They sent men in three deep with only the front man having a rifle. Cannon fodder. When the man in front of you fell, you pick up the rifle and take his place. Cold and heartless. Rose, you’re nothing but Stanislob’s cannon fodder.”

“Grab the barbed wire. Give 'em a show, son.”  He can’t tell if it’s The Father whispering in his ear or the part of him that still craves the pop. But he trusts the process, willingly letting the barbed wire bite into the flesh of his free hand.

“Someone told me I need to name this bat. I hereby dub this instrument of retribution Judgement. You will bleed, Rose. I don’t care if it was you or Alexei or Ivan himself that hurt my friend. YOU will be judged, Rose, and you will pay the bill in your blood. And when I’m done with Rose, me and Judgement are coming for all of the rest of the scum in this company. I’m going to clean fuckin’ house.”

The room lights up with flashes as Rob holds his bloodied hand high above him.

“See you at ReVival.”

It’s quiet in the green room.

Rob would normally be uncomfortable in that kind of silence, the kind that cranks up the volume between the ears.

But tonight, he’s just right.

He holds two fingers up to his neck.

Alive.

The iron stench of blood.

The shooting pain in his palm.

That humming in his skull.

Alive.

“The Legend” Rob Williams feels alive for the first time since… who knows?

All that energy, it just has to go somewhere.

Charlotte

I need you.

A drop of blood falls from his shaking thumb as it hovers over the little blue arrow.

It’s not Rob who pushes the screen of the phone.

“In spite of ourselves,” The Father smiles.

My favorite color is red again.