It Adds Up

“Can I talk you out of this?”

“No, I need a new car.”

Tom sat still in the passenger’s seat of Tam’s decidedly non-shitty Chevy Malibu with the stillness of a man who knew his greatest battle was ahead of him.

A battle against a used car salesman.

“I’m not talking you out of the car. I’m just saying, you’re a celebrity and I’m in the C-suite. We can buy new. Hell, it’s the end of the month, and the bills are paid and I think we can swing cash.”

He exhaled and pursed his eyelids shut.

“It’s not about being able to buy a new car. It’s the principle.”

She hit the brake, not because of her husband’s bullheadedness coming to the surface. The light turned red. Serendipity, baby.

“What principle?”

“Finding deals! Going toe-to-toe with the worst kind of capitalist and coming out on top!”

“Oh Jesus tittyfucking Christ, you men are all the same, even the good ones.”

“Hey, don’t say it like that!”

Tam dismissively shook her head as she eased on the gas with the light changing green.

“Hey, speaking of things to rethink, I still don’t think it was a good idea leaving the kids home alone.”

“Tom, they’re in high school. We don’t need to babysit them.”

“Yeah, but Vinny has been getting into some… things. Lately.”

Meanwhile back at the Battaglia residence, the living room was quiet except for a slight din emanating from the kitchen. Around the table sat three humanoid figures and a cat. Vinny Battaglia held cards while wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. Next to him, barely peeking above the table, a man in a green ape mask. Agent G. Rilla spoke little Spanish and even less English, but he had the most chips in front of him. Next in the line of players was a hulking mass of musculature in Chick Grillbreast, holding his cards backwards. Finally, the cat, a tawny mix, was licking himself with cards dealt in front of him.

“Alright gents,” said Vinny in his best card shark voice, “You in or you folding?”

Silently, the mini gorilla pushed a pile of chips into the middle.

“I’M ALL IN!” shouted Chick as he slammed down a full container of MetRX whey protein.

The cat continued to lick himself, unabated.

Back to the car.

“He’s a sophomore in high school, Tom. You gotta give him some freedom.”

He sighed as Tam pulled into the car lot. They exited the car, and Tom stretched as he slowly turned to look at the assortment of vehicles in front of him.

“That’s the other thing about new car lots,” he remarked. “You just get one make the whole way through. Here at least, you get variety. You open yourself up for some pleasant surprise. Like, where else can you find a Mustang and a Beetle on the same lot?”

She groaned.

“Are you really going to buy either one of those cars?”

“Not a chance, but it’s fun to find out what I might end up getting…”

His voice trailed off because something drew his attention.

Something green.

And SUV-shaped.

And made by the Ford Motor Vehicle Company.

“…my new dream car.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, drifting over to the green Ford Explorer the way old-timey cartoons would have floated towards a pie cooling on the windowsill. “It’s almost as if fate has conspired to make sure I had the thing I needed in my life. Almost like the gods have willed it.”

“But it’s a shitty green Explorer.  You just had one of those.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. This one is decidedly not shitty! Look! It’s in great shape. Low mileage. And look at that… price…”

His jaw dropped and eyes widened as his eyes drifted towards the sticker. He let out an annoyed, forced sigh. Tam shook her head.

“Why are you shocked? Didn’t you just do a whole segment on the last ReVival where everything you thought was cheap actually wasn’t?”

Tom put his hand on the hood and looked down.

“That’s where you’re off-base, babe.”

He turned to stand up straight, looking directly at his bride.

“You see, one can’t haggle at Wal-Mart or Shake Shack or even a new car dealership. But that’s why we’re at the used car lot.”

He grinned devilishly and started to laugh as if his name weren’t The Anglo Luchador but the Clown Prince of Crime himself.

“Okay, now you’re scaring me. Do I have to get you a 5150 for Christmas?”

He immediately stopped laughing and sighed again.

“I guess I should get one of the salesmen then, huh.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded as Tom went off to find someone to sell him his car. He craned his neck to look among the sea of preowned vehicles to find a man in a blazer and jeans with a nametag that read “Joe” pressing down a dogeared edge of a sticker. He started over towards him, ducking and weaving between cars to get to the man who’d sell him his new vehicle.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!”

“May I help you,” Joe asked turning his head towards the frenzied customer approaching him.

“Yes, I am interested in that green Explorer over there.”

Joe nodded as they both walked over to it.

“It’s a good car, low mileage. What do you plan on using it for?”

“Oh, getting around town, possibly driving it for work on the weekends.”

“Work? Anything that you might need space for equipment or materials?”

“No, just bags and stuff. That’s why the SUV is ideal.”

“Gotcha,” Joe said as they arrived over to the Explorer. “Well, this one should serve you pretty good. Again, low mileage, clean, runs really well. I think you’ll find yourself happy with it.”

Tom nodded as he intently looked the car up and down.

“My only real concern is the price. Feels a bit high for a used car, don’t you think?”

Joe furrowed his brow. “Oh no, I think it’s a fair price. You have to realize the cost of everything is up these days.”

“I know, I know. But I mean, this is the kind of sticker you’d find on a new car.”

“Have you been to a new car lot lately? They’ve gone up even more. Hit real hard with tariffs ‘n shit..”

“I guess,” Tom said with a sigh as his wife groaned in the background. “Mind if I take a look inside?”

“Oh sure, it’s unlocked.”

Smells clean, he thought to himself as he looked around the interior for something, anything to use as a bargaining chip. He looked on the upholstery. No stains. Seating had no tears. Nothing denoting any shenanigans or hidden perils in the backseat or the hatch.

“Mind if we take it out for a test drive, Joe?”

“Not at all. Let me get the keys.”

Tom adjusted the mirrors and the seat to his liking before pressing on the brake and hitting the ignition button. As they pulled out of the driveway onto the road, his prayers were answered in the form of a yellow light popping to life on the dash.

“Check engine light? I thought you said it ran well.”

“Oh man, that’s a surprise. Why don’t we take it to the end of the street and see if it’s anything? You know, sometimes it’s just an oxygen sensor or something small.”

Tom drove down to the end of the block and hung a right on the next cross street, making a run around the block before heading back onto the lot. No other problems. Just a light.

“We’ll check out the light in a minute. Is that a non-starter for you?”

“Not really, unless there’s something worse than a sensor going on. It shouldn’t take that long, right?”

“No, no, our mechanic is here until six. We’ll get it checked out for you. But you gotta agree it ran nice, right?”

“Yeah, but I need that peace of mind.”

Joe left to go back into the garage area. Tam waited for him to leave earshot before she leaned over to her husband.

“Look, I know you think it’s a lot, but you realize even if they don’t discount anything, we can still easily afford this car, right? You’re not going to hang them up if they don’t haggle with you, right?”

Tom didn’t answer. He was too busy dissociating with the visions of dollar bills traipsing around in verdant fields in his head. There he saw it, a ring-around-the-rosy with him and the official portraits of Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, and Ulysses S. Grant, holding hands and spinning around as the sun shone down on their heads. Rainbows formed in the skies above, and AC/DC with Bon Scott played “Moneytalks” in the background, which was weird since he was long dead by the time the band wrote and recorded that song.

“Men,” she mumbled under her breath reacting to his hopeful catatonia.

The trance broke as Joe reentered the office.

“So, good news is the mechanic is looking at it now, and he seems to think it’s not even a sensor, just some loose connections. He’s tightening them up now, and we’re going to drive it to see if the light comes back on. You mind waiting, or do you want us to call you when we get it done?”

Before Tam could even speak up, Tom shot quick. “We’ll wait.”

-

“Alright,” Joe said coming back into the office after about an hour, “We drove it around, then did some more diagnostics, and my mechanic is confident that that’s all it was, a loose wire connection. I’m guessing you still want to buy it?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Good! Now since you were such good sports about the engine light, I’m going to go through everything and see if I can’t save you some money on this. Give me a few minutes, and we’ll get you a new price.”

Joe scribbled on his pad, furiously working out costs, taxes, taking out what he could and furrowing his brow every time he came across a cost or a fee that he thought hard about waiving. Tom held his wife’s hand like he was waiting to find out the gender of their baby, while Tam alternated between checking her phone and rolling her eyes. Finally, Joe shook his head and wiped his brow.

“I know it’s not much, but it’s best I could do.”

He slid the paper across the table. Tam looked first, and her face contorted in disbelief. Tom looked at it next.

“Well?”

“Are you kidding? It’s only twenty bucks less than the original sticker price,” Tam shrieked.

“I know it seems insulting but it’s…”

“I’ll take it,” Tom interjected.

-

“Hey, you wanna see dad’s new car?” Tom shouted into the foyer of his home.

“I still can’t believe you jumped on him saving you only twenty bucks. Even after twenty-five years together, you still confuse me sometimes.”

“Hey, twenty bucks here and twenty bucks there adds up. Just think, after Colossus, I’ll have forty bucks I didn’t have before, and before you know it, we can go on vacation.”

“We can already go on vacation,” she muttered as their oldest son popped into the doorway leading outside.

“It’s the same as your old car,” Zo said in teenage apathetic deadpan.

“No it’s not! The paint is nicer, and it’s got Android Connect inside so I don’t need an aux cable anymore. And it’s clean!”

Tom looked around.

“Where’s your brother?”

Zo jerked his head back towards the house indicating he was still inside as he slowly descended the South Philly stoop to inspect his father’s new ride. Tom went inside and saw Vinny sitting on the couch looking at his phone next to the tawny cat, who was still licking himself only this time with a huge stack of chips in front of him.

“What the… why is there a cat in my house?”

Vinny looked up from his phone.

“Oh, that’s just El Gato, the neighborhood cat. It was my turn to give him a little slommy and then he just followed me home and joined my poker game. He’s shockingly good at it too for being a cat.”

“Poker ga… who were you gambling with?!?! Please don’t say that kid Chiggy Steve, the last time he was here, it smelt like raw onions for days.”

“One, it’s Cheugy Steve, and two, no, he had to bail. It was me, the cat, Chick, and Rilla.”

Tom facepalmed.

“That’s even worse.”

“Speaking of which, I need twenty bucks.”

“Why? I thought you had your own money to gamble?”

“I did, but I lost it all to El Gato. I owe Gavin a lawyer’s fee, mainly because I asked him if it was legal for cats to win at poker.”

“NO! Gavin is not your lawyer.”

Vinny took his father’s answer and furiously tapped on his phone again. A few moments passed before it buzzed again.

“Gav said if you don’t give me the money, he’s going to give Roderick your new phone number.”

Tom groaned as he reached into his wallet and handed his son a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

“Thanks,” Vinny said as he got off the couch and motioned to the cat, who immediately stopped licking himself. The two rushed out the front door, past his mother who had been standing there.

“There go those savings,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm laced in her tone. Tom sighed.

“It’s alright. I’ll get the twenty from beating Kenny at Colossus, and then we start over again. I get a few bucks here and some more money there, and…”

He trailed off as he turned in one motion and flopped on his couch, sighing with his hand rubbing his temple. Tam approached him.

“This isn’t about the money, is it?”

“Of course it is! You’ve seen how prices are going up and…”

Tam sat next to him and threw her arm around his shoulder.

“It’s not. I know how you get when you deflect.”

He sighed deeply.

“I… I don’t think I have much time left.”

She furrowed her brow and tried looking at her husband eye-to-eye, but he turned away.

“What, did you find colon cancer when you had your head up your ass earlier?” she said trying to get a laugh out of her husband. It didn’t work.

“No, I mean my career. My comeback.”

He turned around to face his wife.

“Every match is more of a struggle, and I’m making boneheaded mistakes. It’s one thing if this was still the Empire and I had years left on my body facing guys like Dodd and Benjamin, but against Kuroyama? Harrison? Even Kenny?”

“So what does that have to do with saving money?”

He shook his head.

“It’s about finding the small victories. Trying to get wins where I can get them if I’m not going to win another title or get a chance to headline a pay-per-view again. I have to go out on a high note, you know?”

“What makes you think you’re at the end though? I mean, you’re in far better shape now than you were when you were in the first Almasy. You even got your mom back in your life, which I’m still not 100 percent sold on as a good idea, but…”

She finally got that laugh.

“But seriously, you have to look at the big picture,” she continued.

“I am,” he replied with the mirth already drained from his voice. “And it’s the picture where my past just dwarfs the present.”

Again, her brow furrowed.

“Like, how much longer can I ride on an Intense Championship or the Tag Titles, on Manhunt or beating Snow? I can’t. Not when Jared’s back and immediately gets a chance to get a pound of flesh off Ivan’s rancid ass. You know I still lay awake at night sometimes with a dull throb in my neck from when that lummox threw me through a wall in Brooklyn?”

Her face softened.

“And the best I got was that I made him bleed, and he still got the pin on me. It’s just the emblem of all the work I know I have left to do while my body screams, just berates me on a daily basis telling me it doesn’t have much time left to be able to do it.”

Tam looked away momentarily, trying to fight tears, to stay strong for her husband.

“So when that prick Randall barged into my locker room screaming about a sandwich, a motherfucking sandwich, I realized I was at a point where any shit-for-brains could step to me and think they were getting ahead. I’m no one until someone needs to get a shot in the arm, right? So let the Masters come for me. I don’t need to headline Colossus. I can open night one because I’ll be showing people like Ivan’s remoras I’m not your path to glory. Small wins are still wins.”

He bowed his head and let out a muted laugh.

“Look at me. I came show I could still be on top, and I’m here talking about small wins.”

Tam leaned in closer to her husband.

“You didn’t come back because you wanted to show anyone else anything. You came back because wrestling is in your blood. How can you not see that when I can?”

Tom looked up. It was his turn to furrow his brow.

“Probably for the same reason I couldn’t see it when I had that pimple on my ass that really hurt, but you could.”

Tam smacked her husband upside his head, playfully of course. He laughed as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Being on top never mattered before when you had flies and beasts who weren’t fit to tie the laces on the back of your mask bothering you and draining your life so you were weakened in the fights that mattered. It doesn’t matter now. You’re a wrestler, and you’re going to put Kenny in his place simply because you don’t fight for anyone’s approval but your own.”

“Well, that and because I really want twenty bucks. That’s why I humor his videos and let him talk forever about ‘best of one fall’ or whatever it is. I know it’s not much money, but…”

Tam’s face lit up.

“…it adds up,” she said, finishing his sentence. “I’ll be right back.”

She hurried out the front door. Tom shrugged and pulled his phone out of his pocket to check his emails, but no sooner did he open his app than did Tam appear again with their younger son, her hand on the collar of his shirt.

“Vincenzo, do you have something to say to your father?”

Vinny sighed as he held out his hand with the twenty-dollar bill his father had given him earlier outstretched towards said father.

“I’m sorry for blackmailing you so I could pay legal fees.”

Tam rolled her eyes and shook her head as Tom took the bill back.

“It’s alright. Just don’t make a habit of it. Not everyone is as forgiving of this kind of thing as I am.”

Vinny hung his head in shame as he went back upstairs.

“All of that bargaining and soul-baring has left me hungry. I’m gonna go make a turkey sandwich. You want anything, babe?”

“No thanks,” Tam replied as her husband shrugged and moved towards the kitchen. He opened the fridge looking for the premium lunchmeat turkey he’d bought but only found the plastic bag messily torn open with several tiny morsels strewn about a shelf that had cracking in it that Tom had not noticed before.

“Goddammit, Chick, I’m gonna kill you.”