The Boy. Without His Necktie.

The Man lay broken at The Mountain’s feet.

Bruised and beaten, dirt-ridden and out of breath, he lay on his broad back, dark eyes glaring at the stars.

The dim, distant, treacherous stars.

Pain.

Dull, inadequate pain from his bed against the cold dirt. The glory of the summit paled against the agony of the fall, and it left him paralyzed in the dark.

The treasonous stars offered little light.

Fuck these lights.

A tired gaze turned to The Mountain, ever looming. All he could see was the climb. That long, exhausting climb. That agonizing, painful climb. That gratifying, fulfilling climb.

All it takes is one step to shift the course of destiny.

And The Man couldn’t even pull his back from the dirt.

At least he had his Glue Necktie.

Right?

He slowly reached to his forehead, fingers touching and searching along his scalp, finding only tired, dry skin along his near-black hairline.

A jump in his heart. Enough to lift his broad back from the dirt, elbows propping him up. Forcing him to face The Mountain while frantically searching about his skull.

“Are you…” he breathed, chest heaving in the cold dark. His broad frame dull against the dim starlight.

“Are you really…”

“....are you really gone?” 

The whisper pushed through his mess of a mustache surprised him as his mind met reality; elbows propping him up from the white carpet floor of his suite. His bare chest heaved gently, exposed while his black dress shirt hung unbuttoned off his shoulders.

All the lights in the suite had been left on, illuminating an all-to-familiar mess; oppressively bright. And yet, in his newly joined consciousness, he looked to the shadows of the room.

Looking for The Boy.

But reality was insistent upon its steady march, and pulled him further from the looming Mountain and its dim stars overhead.

“Really?” he asked the empty room and buzzing overhead lights, eyes stained red, voice muffled and dehydrated.

His eyes, frantic, yet wasted and wearied, fought to search the shadows.

“You’re really just…”

Even with the noise of the Las Vegas Strip coming to life through an open window, the fatigue of the year took hold, and his back fell heavy against the carpet. Eyelids fluttered shut, and his strong jaw fell slack.

“...gone?”

2005.

The metal bat clanged against the dirt inside the dugout, cartwheeling until it landed against the chain link fence that protected the West Linn Lions LIttle League team.

Young Hayes slumped on the bench, crossing his arms across his small chest with a visible pout. He tucked his green ball cap over his head to hide the tears growing in his eyes.

Zach, unsure of what to do, sat nearby on the dusty plank that served as the dugout bench.

“It’s okay, you know,” said Zach, kicking his cleats from his seat. “Coach is just mad…”

“Shut up, Zach,” spat Hayes, lip trembling underneath his ball cap.

Zach sucked in his bottom lip, and let Hayes marinate in his misery. He looked up through the chain link fence toward home plate, where Coach Brian Haverford stood rigid and tall, jaw shifting with each chew of an unreasonable amount of bubble gum; ball cap tilted low, beady eyes sharp on his little league team, and muscles pushing through his intentionally undersized jersey.

Zach kept kicking at the air, waiting for Hayes to say something.

“You’ll get out of your slump,” Zach ventured, blue eyes glancing toward his best friend since memory. “Coach will see. All you need is another home run…”

“Shut UP, ZACH!” Hayes screeched.

The outburst caught the team’s attention mid-practice, but Coach Haverford’s deep holler of “Hey! Focus!” forced a quick reset of their intention.

Hayes tucked his hat further. Zach kept kicking at the dirt.

“He won’t keep you benched forever,” said Zach, quietly, shaking his sandy  hair behind his cap.

Hayes didn’t believe him, and continued to hide his tears.

Hayes left the Long Beach Arena in a mood. He’d barely stuck around to watch FLAMBERGE choked out by Maximillain Wilhem Kael, or whatever he decided his name was this week.

He’d been a poor representative of his Brothers in Glue the last few months. That wasn’t lost on him. Truthfully, he’d barely been involved enough to earn his spot at all. Cecilworth and FLAMBEGE had made a bit of a shift with their relationship with the crowd, it seemed. But Hayes?

No.

Hayes Hanlon remained The Betrayer.

And maybe so, but even Betrayers can find themselves lost in the Ocean of Uncertainty from time to time, and Hayes was no stranger to the idea.

It had been a tough year. A tough eighteen months:

A win/loss record ping-ponging up and down.

Sidelined for “conduct unbecoming.”

Not a title shot to be seen in almost two years.

Barely a match to be had in the last two months.

And still losing. To Hessian. To Youngblood (again). To Clay. To Jonathan-Christopher fucking Hall.

And now, maybe, to some douchebag named Black Sheep Baez???

A sickening thought. To jerk the curtain to Colossus. HIs third Colossus, and lose to a no-name on the greatest stage in wrestling. Another tire off the tracks in a year where he was barely hanging on to begin with.

The thoughts hung heavy all the way from Long Beach Arena to the front door of his suite at the MGM in Vegas. Tired, even after a short flight, Hayes swiped his key card and dragged his duffel bag through the threshold.

“This place is fucking gross, little bro."

His elbow slammed against the door handle as the voice caught him completely off guard, his heart immediately racing, duffel bag collapsing to the floor in an instant.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Olivia!"

Big Sister sat calmly, though, long legs crossed on his beige couch. She had clearly helped herself to the liquor cabinet as a martini glass hung from her fingertips, while the other hand scrolled through her phone.

"Don't you get like, basic cleaning service here?" she asked, turning her head over her shoulder to greet her brother.

Hayes rolled his eyes, and closed the door behind him before sitting heavily on the opposite side.

"Should I even be sitting on this thing?" she chided, inspecting the cushions and uncomfortably adjusting her pencil skirt.

"How'd you get in?"

She looked up to Hayes, rolling her blue eyes.

"I'm pretty fucking persuasive, little bro."

"Must have been Michael at the desk," Hayes replied, rolling his own dark browns before standing and thudding to the kitchenette, retrieving a glass for himself.

"So, " he continued, dropping ice in his tumbler. "If you're here, then you must be considering my offer?"

"I'm not exactly selling many houses, thanks to you."

"You're the one who ran him the fuck over."

"You're fucking welcome."

Hayes smiled behind his 'stache, filling his glass with gin before returning to the couch.

"Traveling the country does sound fun, though," she redirected, taking a sip. "And there's at least a couple guys on the roster I think I could pull into a broom closet backstage."

"Please don't name names," Younger Brother replied, almost choking on his gin.

She chuckled, and offered a genuine smile to her exhausted sibling. She could see his fatigue; the mental and the physical. It had been a hard year for him. For all the members of the Hanlon household.

"But anyway," she said, flicking her long auburn hair of her shoulder and setting her drink on the glass coffee table. "I'm still thinking about it."

Younger Brother's eyes brightened a touch, more than they had in many months.

"And there are a lot of details to work out."

Hayes couldn’t stand climbing into his father’s pickup. The shame of the day still hung heavy on the heart of a ten-year-old boy.

Gregory allowed his youngest to stew in the passenger’s seat as he rolled his blue pickup out of the middle-school parking lot, windshield wipers swiping on a low setting as errant droplets fell from a gray sky.

“So,” said Gregory with hesitation, scratching at his black beard. “Coach benched you, huh?”

Hayes avoided the question, dark eyes staring out the passenger’s side window, watching droplets race down the window.

“I’ve been there,” said The Father, peering through the gray. “Back in ‘77. I was a junior, thought I’d won the fullback job under Coach Mattson. The old bastard sidelined me for almost the whole season.”

Gregory glanced over to his third child. His anecdote had, so far, fallen on deaf ears, as Hayes kept his head turned away to watch the droplets in the window.

Gregory sighed, and turned left onto Skyline Drive.

“Listen,” he said, pressing the brake and coming to a stop in the middle of the road; the rain picking up to a steady pour.

Hayes turned his head toward his father, and Gregory placed a wide paw on his boy’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to stay on the bench,” he said, deep, dark eyes catching the matching gaze of The Boy. “You can skate along if you want, but you don’t have to.”

The young boy’s eyes furled, a touch confused.

“You get to decide,” The Father expanded. “Your coach won’t always see it. But if you want to get back on the field, and take another swing, all you have to do is show you want it.”

Hayes blinked, and flicked his eyes toward the floorboards. Gregory smiled behind his black beard, and shifted the truck back into gear.

“But it’s up to you if you do."

"Or don’t.”

Eyes had turned glassy and tired after a few too many gins. Despite their tenuous relationship, Brother and Sister enjoyed each other's company, whether they'd admit it or not.

It had been a tough year for the Hanlon family.

"So," asked Olivia behind a sip of her martini. "Why are you sweating this match?"

“I'm jerking the fucking curtain,” he exclaimed with a flourishing hand. I won the Universal Title in the Main Event years ago. Now I'm just…”

He paused, laying back heavy into the cushions, closing his eyes and exhaling long through his nose

“I dunno. I'm just, part of the fucking intro package.”

Olivia studied her troubled brother, shifting her slender frame toward him, tapping her red nails against her scalp.

“Bottom of the totem pole, huh?”

“We don't have to talk about it, you don't watch the shows anyways.”

Olivia straightened her posture, feigning offense

“Oh I don't, huh?”

“I mean it's cool, it's never been your thing…”

“Then why do I remember you pinning that Vietnamese guy? You had his poster on your wall when you were a kid, I think.”

Hayes lifted an eyebrow, caught off guard and uncrossing his arms.

“And I definitely remember you kicking Nate Colton’s ass. I remember that one. Isn’t his corn-fed ass supposed to be some big deal?”

Hayes almost didn’t believe what he was hearing. Olivia smirked, lifting a taunting eyebrow.

“Yes, I watch my superstar little brother’s big, stupid soap opera for men. Sometimes.”

Hayes smiled weakly, and laughed through his nostrils.

“Then you've seen me get my ass kicked all year, too.”

“This is supposed to be the big time, right? she deflected. “Like, this is the promotion?”

“The only one that matters.”

“Then, yeah. I think it's safe to say you're gonna get beat up on once in a while. Lindsay Troy obviously has no idea how to manage that fucking circus, but I didn't think she's going to hire a bunch of amateurs. Everyone's gonna have a bad year.”

Younger Brother could only nod, eyes turned to the floor, elbows heavy on his knees.

“I just thought it would be…different for me.”

“Newsflash, idiot,” she teased, reaching forward and tousling his dark hair. “You're just like the rest of those oiled-up morons “

He retreated, and surrendered a grin, pushing a hand through his hair to fix it.

“So,” she continued, brushing her own locks off her shoulder. “You can go out and ‘jerk the curtain’ or whatever with this Black Sheep guy. Or…”

She punched him in the shoulder to keep his attention.

“...you can take the opportunity, and remind everyone of exactly who the fuck you are.”

“Oh yeah?” he snorted, unwilling to take any compliments just yet. “And who the fuck am I, exactly?”

Olivia smiled at her brother; a genuine, devilish, but heartfelt grin.

“You're Hayes fucking…”

“...HANLON!”

Hayes shuttered; lurching from his stretching routine, head whipping left and right until he found Coach Haverford; the source of the bellow calling his name.

He stood, leaving his teammates to finish their butterfly and turtle stretches, trotting across the dirt toward left field, where Coach Haverford stood broad, with arms crossed against his barrel chest, staring hard at the visiting opponents warming up along first base.

“Yeah, coach?’ Hayes asked, adjusting his sleeves on his skinny arms.

“You’re playin’ first,” said Brian Haverford, beady eyes locked on the purple jerseys of his opponent; jaw shifting left and right.

“...first, Coach?” asked Hayes, voice cautious and trembling

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?” Haverford replied, shifting his chin toward his new first baseman.

Hayes nodded quickly, but stood visibly confused, shifting from cleat to cleat.

“Hey…coach?” he mustered the courage to ask?

Haverford replied with a scowling, curious eyebrow.

“Why…why are you putting me at first? You benched me last week…”

“You not up for it, son?”

“I…I don’t know…”

“Because if you’re not up for it you’d better tell me right now.”

Hayes, aged ten, felt his heart beat through his jersey.

And yet, he mustered the strength to respond.

“Yes,” he declared, nodding his head vividly. “I’m up for it.”

“Good,” said Coach Haverford, shifting his bubblegum from one cheek to the next, turning his eyes back toward the opponent’s dugout.

He followed by jerking his head toward the collection of ten-year-olds behind him.

“Go get some swings in.”

Hayes lit up, an energy rushing through his young limbs.

“Yes, coach!”

“What was that, now??”

“YES, COACH!”

The Man had found his feet, rising within the rubble at the foot of The Mountain.

Dress shirt torn and frayed, he drew a long gaze along its looming shape.

He could see it even from so low. The Climb.

His dark eyes could follow the path, tracing the route The Boy took just two years ago.

He could even see that Boy, clambering for grip, sliding down slick cliff faces.

But still...climbing.

In truth, he couldn't see The Boy anymore. Or The Mountain's peak.

Only The Climb.

But maybe that was the point all along.

The Man breathed heavy into his broad chest, and reached to his forehead. The Necktie, whether it was blue or white, was gone, too.

He looked for the stars, panning the black sky.

All it takes is reaching out your hand, and hoping it doesn’t get bit.

The dim stars flashed their treacherous flicker. And yet, they somehow seemed brighter. If only a little.

Reach out.

Take just one step. 

Just...

One...

Step...

_______

Colossus.

2024.

Hayes stands in Argyle. Mustache gleaming, eyes bright. And looking at his boots.

There's the guitar. There go the lights.

Showtime.

He rips the curtain aside.

And steps through.  Livin' life. I hope you whip my ass, Al.