i fukn quit

March 31, 2024 Cardiff, Wales

Rob has never been fond of Easter. For many, this is a great holiday filled with chocolate and bunnies. All good shit, right? Not in the Williams' household. In his house it didn’t mean egg hunts or a mythical creature leaving him a basket of goodies. No, it was just another Sunday that his dad was fighting off the onset of a violent hangover. This was usually a hangover of epic proportions due to dad having Good Friday off.

But Good Friday? Man, it was like the Super Bowl. Rob can nearly feel the carpet between his toes in the living room as he thinks back, the sound of the waves crashing at Splott beach fading away.

He hears Sinatra bellowing the final notes of "That's Life". The beginning of the bender was always sparkles and rainbows. Magic. The hope was heavy, just like mom's concealer to hide that black eye. Maybe this time will be different! Dad’s telling old Red Skelton jokes and Mom’s making catfish in the kitchen. While he was raised in Georgia, both his parents were Recovering Catholics. It’s an experience, like vintage wine or the perfectly seared cut of steak. But the first cut into that beautiful ribeye reveals maggots.

Despite all of the pleasantries, without fail, calamity would befall them by the end of the holiday weekend.

And so Rob always feels somewhat uncomfortable and melancholy around Easter.

“It’s ok to be angry at them,” The Father says, breaking the silence.

“They did the best they could.” Rob repeats once again.

Once again. How many times has he said that? To the counselors and the AA sponsors and to Charlotte. He hasn't even thought of Charlotte in weeks now.

“No, son, they didn’t.”

The wind pushes a tear out of Rob’s eye. It has to be the wind, because everyone knows men like Rob don't cry.

"You know, I'm not upset about losing. I've had my ass kicked a whole lot. Worse than the last few nights combined, even. It's just losing to him. He's so... smarmy. And now everybody is sucking his word and light. Weren't no congrats or people kissing up on Jabber when I won that title. Best I got was some third rate movie villain knock off calling me a cult leader. I'm tired, boss. It's been a long, hard road and I just don't know if I've got it in me anymore."

Rob turns his back to The Father in a childish and dramatic fashion before pushing himself to a stand and walking away.

"I fucking quit." Rob calls out without looking back.

The Father sits and watches as Rob's image becomes smaller and smaller before finally disappearing. He turns to the water, whistling a little tune to himself as he rolls another cigarette. The waves splash against the rocks, completely indiscriminate to Rob and The Father and Rob's little existential crisis. They don't stop because some manifestation of ego was passed from one self aware animal to another. The waves don't give a shit that it hurt the first animals' feelings, either. They got wave shit to do. So, they just keep on crashing into the rocks. What the fuck else would they do, anyways?

following war games the days are long and gray. rob stays in cardiff in his rv, rarely getting out of bed.

he plays "hurt" on repeat. the mr. chi pig version.

rob only gets out of bed to argue with people on reddit. nothing personal, just random people. the monday following the war games loss he picked a fight with someone kindly giving a well thought out definition of the definition of "feeling grief" over pvp video games and "griefers". from a throwaway account named "doneatscoxndix", rob unloaded on the poor bastard with the trite and basic insults you'd expect from a man trying to find meaning in a reddit comment section.

an extraordinary amount of time is spent thinking about the dog the ruskies shot into space. he doesn't even fucking know the dog's name. he feels like maybe he should. if this little pity party doesn't end with the taste of gun oil maybe he'll google it.

he thinks a lot, too, about yuri gagarin, the first man to orbit earth. or whatever the fuck it was he did. christ, we should know that much at least, right?

i digress. sacrifice.

he appreciates the dichotomy of their sacrifices: the dog walked into a sure death with a smile on his face, not knowing what he was doing for humanity. yuri stepped in for his comrade, knowing it was certain death.

what do the stars look like when you know you're dying?

probably the same.

there's nothing poetic about suicidal depression. every day is the same, every sense dulled. he tries at times to lean on the old things that brought him something resembling happiness in the past, trying to shock his system into creating some of those sweet, sweet endorphins. no dice.

when he's not thinking about the screams of yuri gagarin as he unwillingly self immolated on his death plunge, rob thinks about the way the skin sticks to the needle as you pull it out. dark days indeed.

every day a young kid, maybe 17, comes by. he says his name is doug. doug feeds boots and walks him and talks to rob. even though rob never turns over, he's listening to every word.

it takes time, as all wounds do, to heal. one day the music stops. rob can't tell you when. shortly thereafter the curtains to the rv are open. before long rob begins eating his meals with the group again. the bottle of whiskey goes back under the pillow case.

maybe there's enough here not to completely scrap it. enough parts of what make up a man to salvage something resembling the man that walked into war games proud and angry.

maybe not, who the fuck knows.

He tries his best to reintegrate with Complete Abandon discreetly.

They whisper. It's different than the whimsical whispers when the roller-coaster was click-clack-climbing the hill. Maybe they're whispering about Rob's increasingly unkempt appearance. It is kind of a problem. All of the hair above his neck has basically grown together. He looks like a fucking muppet, but a punk rock one. Maybe Animal?

OR maybe it's what Rob fears most: he couldn't close the fucking deal. Just more smoke and mirrors, man. Nothing of substance to see here, everyone, just another one trick pony outliving their useful lifespan. Like a blackened banana - the best of intentions mutated into a pile of mushy shit. They've seen what's inside and they are going to leave, just like everyone else.

And he wants to be thrown out just like that fucking banana.

But there is something in him that just won't let him do it. All the times he's driven He's a cockroach, I tell you. When the fucking bombs drop and the Ruskies decide none of us should file taxes ever again it will be Rob Williams and the cockroaches sifting through our ashes. Maybe he'll finally finish War and Peace, but probably fucking not if we're being honest.

It becomes obvious in short order that there are two camps: the one that thinks Rob is still the bees knees and the other group. The other group has apparently appointed Lem their de facto leader. As close as he was to Rob, this is really just something akin to natural selection playing out. Lem couldn't be more different than Rob here, either.

Where Rob ran from being a "leader", Lem leans in. Wears it like a fine mink, even. Rob never wanted to make rules or tell people what they should be doing with themselves. Who the fuck would he be to tell anyone else what to do? Lem revels in it - especially pushing the envelope with the weaker members. Like a child holding his magnifying glass over an ant hill. But, if you've paid attention to recent history, people will run to any port in a storm. Even if that port is on fire.

Lem promises a lot to the group. Salvation. A new way of life. Internal peace and all of that shit. He's really bastardized the AA program to work the downtrodden ranks of the group, prosphelizing bits and pieces he's read in the meetings he's used to get a warm cup of coffee between jumping trains. It all feels familiar to Rob in a way that makes him wholly uncomfortable.

Rob avidly avoids anything like confrontation with Lem. He makes himself a shadow on the wall anytime Lem and his group bustle through the camp or dining hall. The half of the group that still believes in Rob seems to catch the worst of it. Their eyes cry out for him to stand up to Lem, to grab the reins of this motley crew and yank the fuck out of them. Balance the force and shit. With everything in him, Rob tries his best to just go with the flow. A man among men, a worker among workers and all that shit.

The collision happened before either man ever said a cross word to one another though. Like Rob's many relapses, the table is set long before the cataclysm occurs. Just like the waves crashing into the rocks.

It's the first day Rob remembers seeing the sun since Culture Shock. Go fucking figure.

Our boy Rob finishes his assigned chores and starts to head down to the beach. Probably to consider how he could get away with self immolating at Winters' Port. Who the fuck knows, he's a mad lad. Anyways, he's gathering some provisions to take along at one of the communal tables that somebody likely stole. There are maybe 6 or 8 of them and they're just raggedy ass park benches laid out in what can only be described as a blind person's best picture of a circle.

Lem is doing his thing, which lately is just shoveling heaping piles of shit on people in the group. Doug happens to be the closest to Lem when the shit starts flying. He's screaming at Doug about not tending the fire. Or something, Rob is trying his best to not listen, but he just can't ignore it. Lem grabs ahold of Doug's arm, not enough to hurt him by any means, but enough to scare him.

"Let him go." Rob says without raising his head, his face obscured by his hanging, mangey gray locks.

"What was that?" Lem asks in a voice that is SO loud, it's evident he has been dying for this moment. He quickly lets go of Doug's arm and begins moving towards Rob, who refuses to turn around.

"Who are you to tell me what to do? You just took three L's in a row. Maybe you're not the one to lead us."

Rob can hear his heartbeat in his ears, the veins bulging from his tired arms as he grips the edge of the table. He holds on as if it were the only thing left keeping him from falling off the face of the fucking Earth. Maybe it is. Three consecutive losses, that saccharine son of a bitch Don Winters involved in all of them. Maybe Rob wants to fall of the face of the Earth right now, fade back into obscurity. Have a fucking one man seance and free the spirits from that gorgeous bottle of Gentleman's Jack he's been hiding under his pillow. Just go all fucking rock and roll again. A bag of Charlie Sheen and a bag of Kurt Cobain and he might just feel like "The Legend" again.

"Show them." The Father whispers in his ear.

That's all it takes. With an precision usually attributed to apex predators, Rob spins from the table and grabs a handful of Lem's throat.

Few times in Robert Dean Williams' life has he expressed such complex violence. Teeth are evicted, skin clawed, and the whole scene made into some fucking abstract painting of gore.

A cacophony of shrieks and gasps is emitted by the populus unlucky enough to witness this primal brutality. Rob firsts are an invading force that lay a constant siege to Lem's cranium. If he could reach in there and pull his fucking brain out he would, and then he'd eat a handful of it for good measure. Lem lifts his hands in a vain attempt to even just slow the pain being rained down upon him, slicking Rob's face with blood as he mindlessly pushes them down.

At the end of it all, he sits on Lem's chest, his heart rate slowly descending the mountain peak of fucking heart attack to a subtle ba-dum.

Ba-dum.

Ba-dum.

Lem resembles a disfigured, bloody mass of tragedy that God forsook in the delivery room. Rob has turned Lem face into something of a Mr. Potato Head. Something in the center of Lem's face is swelling quickly, already bluing as the blood vessels leak into the soft tissue at what is most likely a nose. His eyes are tiny slits, almost completely obscured by the cartoonish skin surrounding them. A gurgle follows each labored breath.

Rob? He feels... liberated. His nostrils are finally open and his alveoli fill for the first time since night one of Culture Shock. The pain sensors in his knuckles and fingers screech somewhere between 140 and 150 decibels, but it doesn't even register.

"Welcome back." The Father belts out with an exhausted sigh.

"SHIT!" Rob yells to no one in particular, sending the nearby spectators into fight or flight. "That felt good. Now, what the fuck is for lunch. I am fucking starving!"

He hoists himself up, wiping the blood from one of his knuckles on Lem's shirt. No one rushes to Lem's aid as he now lies in the bed he's made full of his own bodily fluids. At some point they'll pull him up and dust him off. Rob will let him know that he's still his favorite. Maybe Rob will even tell him that it hurt him a lot more than it did Lem. But the roadkill will stay in the road until there are resources to devote. Right now, it's time to celebrate. 'The Legend' is back.

Rob's mouth opens broad and wide with the type of smile you can't deny.

Even if you want to.

fin