Through the Eyes of a Child

Dad,

I really couldn’t believe how cool it would be to go on a trip like this with you.

But I guess it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

You and Mom had that fight.

She left and now all I get to do is have this tutor who I can’t understand.

The internet here is sketchy at best.

You haven’t been around much.

And there’s this big Russian dude always here watching me when you’re gone.

Even the wrestlers I wanted to meet and who I thought might want to see me don’t even look in my direction.

The biggest thing is…I’m afraid to tell you I want to go home.

To Mom.

🍍🍍🍍

I faintly heard the door slam and popped one of the earbuds out while turning toward the door. The guard was still there, watching for…something, I guess? His posture relaxed as he saw Dad approach through the hallway.

“Alright, you can leave, bruh.” He nodded to the guard, who simply disappeared out of sight down the hallway. Dad didn’t even watch him, but instead approached me with a pained look on his face. “How’s it going, Nico?”

It wasn’t the expression that caught my attention. His knuckles were bone-white while he clutched some kind of thick file folder at his side.

“It’s fine. Getting a little bored, ya know? We haven’t been sightseeing in weeks.”

I’ve never seen Dad so unhappy. All I ever wanted was to spend time with him, because he’s always been so cool and fun. Not just in person, but all those times I saw him while he worked the ring and did his thing for all of his fans. I must’ve watched those old PRIME tapes hundreds of times over.

But he wasn’t the same guy anymore. His eyes lacked a spark and I don’t even know when was the last time he had anything more than stubble on his face.

Truth is, he was never like this until he was with me and I can’t help but think this is all my fault. Did I do something wrong? I can’t think of anything, but I just don’t know anymore.

“I’m sorry, buddy.” He just couldn’t seem to wipe the frown from his face. He changed the subject. “You hungry?”

As I followed him down the dim hallway, he attempted to brighten my mood. “In a few days, we can get outta here. Maybe head back to Seattle after Culture Shock? Hang out for a bit and then maybe you can join me in Canada at the end of the month.” He forced a smile as I sat down at the counter.

Canada? What the hell? I gotta get back into school.

He sat down the file and began rummaging through the fridge in search of our next meal. I craned my neck to sneak a peek at the file. It was stamped with bold red letters with two stars on either side. I’m guessing it was some kind of classified stuff. At least, that’s how it looks in the movies. I couldn’t see anything else on it before he turned around with a couple containers leftover Chinese takeout from earlier in the week.

Not exactly the kind of meal I expected to be eating on this trip. He smiled weakly as he sat the containers in front of me.

The leftovers were totally mid, but I forced them down while Dad moved the file away from me and started to look at it. It was awkward and tense. Not fun at all, like it should have been with my Dad, Bryan Dawkins.

Finally, the silence became too much.

“So Dad, uh…I was wondering if I could–”

“FUCK!” he screamed while slamming the file shut. “That son of a bitch. I’m gonna fuckin’ ki–” He stopped and stared at the counter for a moment before I saw his eyes nervously look in my direction.

I hate when parents try to make everything sound like it’s okay, like they’re not totally freaking out over something. Like I’m not old enough to understand. Like I’m stupid.

“Dad…did I do something wrong?”

I don’t know if I actually did, but he rushed over to me quicker than he would in the ring, nearly tripping over his feet in the process. “No, buddy, no,” he said. His hands were shaking and he looked like he was going to cry. “Hey, no, just…I’m under a little stress, that’s it.”

“Okay.” It’s always the ‘stress’ excuse.

“Hey, listen,” he said, and worked up a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What were you gonna say?”

“I…was wondering if I could come to Culture Shock this weekend? Would be cool to see behind the scenes, you know? Get some autographs.” I don’t think my smile was any happier though. I was scared too.

“Yeah bud, I think we can do that.” The words came out of his fake smile.

Finally! Something cool to look forward to!

“Cool! You think I could meet Cancer Jiles?”

Any positivity in my Dad went away in a nanosecond. Maybe I went too far.

“I mean, if not, that’s cool too. Figured I’d ask!”

“I’ll see what I can do…”

🍍🍍🍍

The locker room of the vaunted Red Army was surprisingly small, especially for such a legendary group. Or maybe it was the giant steel desk that took up a third of the room.

Manhunt left Dad a beaten, bloody mess. He looked more like a car crash victim than a professional wrestler.

An ice bag and a cold bottle of water offered little relief.

“I’m proud of you, Dad. Hell of a match.”

“Thanks but it wasn’t enough. We blew it…” The towel I offered him was used as a shield as he tried to hide from the embarrassment. “...I blew it.”

For a brief moment, I forgot where I was.

The door exploded open and I realized I was in the grizzly’s den.

Saying The Bear was in a bad mood doesn’t do it justice.

I’m telling you, what you see on television doesn’t really prepare you for how huge Ivan Stanislav actually is. I’m not sure most people realize what a seven foot tall, four hundred pound behemoth really looks like.

I sat in awe for a moment.

“Dawkins!” The notorious Alexei Ruslan barked, but caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye. He stared right at me with these blazing blue eyes, and I felt like he could kill me right there. He pointed a slim, crooked finger at me like it was the barrel of a gun. “What the FUCK is he doing here?!”

Dad sprung to life and was in Alexei’s face in an instant.

“Oh, I don’t know Alexei…” The file from a few days ago appeared out of nowhere and was shoved directly into Alexei’s sternum. “Maybe if this entire fuckin’ thing wasn’t redacted to hell and back, maybe I would’ve been able to focus on the fuckin’ task at hand and you wouldn’t be worried about him!”

Seeing my Dad go from zero to one hundred in a split second was…scary? I’d always known him to be laid back and easy going. He was anything but that in this moment.

“Don’t blame me for your weak-mindedness!” Ruslan spat back as he puffed up his chest in front of Dad. Man, screw that guy, but he wasn’t backing down either. He was as tall as Dad, but there was no way he could take him. “Your bitching is exhausting! You bitch about Alias Title! You bitch about tag match! You bitch about Manhunt. You bitch about file! All your son sees in you is a bitch!”

“You wanna talk about bitchin’, huh? You’ve been bitchin’ about him,” Dad gestured to the former Universal Champion, “losin’ that fuckin’ title to FLAMBERGE since I got here! And now, you’re gonna spend the next year bitchin’ about him losin’ it AGAIN!”

It’s like a car wreck you couldn’t stop watching, because now Ivan was there with a bellow. “Enough!” I could see the ceiling tiles shake, but Ruslan was screaming in Russian now, not at Dad, but at Ivan. Ivan turned to Alexei and growled back in Russian, but Ruslan looked like he truly had murder in his eyes.

“And you…” Dad spit through gritted teeth at the Russian Bear. “You fuckin’ told me I was gonna get what I needed in that file. It’s all BULLSHIT! And he has the gall to accuse me of being a bitch? Alexei Ruslan hasn’t had balls in over twenty years. They’ve been in a jar on a shelf in your office on display for everyone to se–.” Not exactly the choice of words I’d use but…

My train of thought disappeared as a tidal wave of rage turned on Dad in an instant. I had never seen someone so big move so quickly, but before I knew it, Dad’s head was scraping the ceiling as Ivan lifted him and barreled him across the room and into the wall with a crash. He held him there by the throat and foamed at the mouth.

“Dad–” I started to scream, but steely fingers grabbed my wrist and yanked me out of the room. I watched the door shut on Dad and the Russians. 

🍍🍍🍍

Before I knew it, we were speed walking down the hallway away from where my father was facing certain death. I looked at who was pulling me, and it was Ivan’s assistant, Arina. Every few steps, she glanced at me with eyes that had a softness that reminded me of Mom.

I resisted, pulling my hand away from hers and giving myself dead legs in an attempt to stop our getaway. “I need to get back there! They’re going to kill him!” I hated that I was crying in front of a girl. She pulled me into another room, shut the door, and sat me down.

“Your Papa will be okay,” she said softly, pulling a chair over to sit across from me. “I promise.” She didn’t speak English very well, but I wanted to believe her.

I wiped my eyes and didn’t dare look at her. Hopefully she missed that I was crying, but how could she? She didn’t say anything, and just let the silence hang between us. I think that was even worse. Knowing that while it was so quiet in this room, just down the hallway it seemed like all Hell's breaking loose and Dad was in the middle of it.

“Look at this,” Arina finally said as she reached into the pocket of her olive uniform. She pulled out a weird kind of egg that was painted like a person. “Do you know what this is?”

“No.” I still didn’t look up at her. She took my hand and placed it in my palm.

“We call this Matryoshka Doll,” she said. When Alexei spoke Russian, it sounded like daggers, but when Arina spoke, it was so different.

Gentle.

“Go on, open it,” she said, “see how many there are inside.”

They can really put a lot of dolls in there! By the time I was done, there were nine of them, and the last one was no bigger than my thumb! I laughed, and she laughed too. She was pretty, but my eyes went to the scar on her left cheek and it made her blush.

“Thank you, Arina.” This was the first time I had felt seen in weeks. At least, since Mom left. I’m not sure why, but I felt compelled to open up to this woman I just met. My eyes drifted to the scar again. “How’d that happen? Get in a fight?”

“Not quite,” she said, “bad men tried to hurt me, but Ivan protected me.” I think her response was supposed to comfort me, but it was a reminder of the frightening capability of Ivan Stanislav.

The last time I saw Dad, Ivan had him hanging three feet off the ground. I didn’t want to talk anymore, so I began putting the dolls back together to pass the time.

A warm hand on my shoulder was a prelude to the silence ending. “My Papa is missing. It is very frightening. But Ivan is going to find him for me…” The smile was warm but something about the statement set butterflies loose in my stomach. “...and I know he will find your Mama too.”

A cold sweat covered my exposed skin almost immediately as the butterflies multiplied and took up residence in the entirety of my body.

“Why… why would you say something like that?” The kindness melted from her face and she seemed to go even paler, as if she realized what she had just said to me.

“Oh no…” she stammered and she looked… frightened? “What I mean…”

I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Somewhere inside my brain, sirens were blaring and somehow making it hard to both hear and see. I swallowed hard in an attempt to get my heartbeat back into my chest where it belonged before pulling away from Arina in a dead sprint in the direction from which we came.

I needed answers.

🍍🍍🍍

Pure adrenaline kicked the door open. Tears blurred my vision and the sirens dulled my hearing.

“WHERE IS MOM?” I screamed, tears running down my face. “I know she’s not at home! Tell me where she is!”

Ruslan sprung from a chair with athleticism I couldn’t believe he possessed. He charged fiercely, like an enraged tiger that had reached the end of its patience. He was all teeth and claws as he lunged directly at me, but some invisible force stopped him and snatched him backwards, like a magnet that drew him away by the neck.

The Russian Bear himself had his huge paw around the back of Alexei’s collar and had saved me from a mauling. If Alexei was pent up rage, somehow, Stanislav was unsettlingly calm. He deposited Alexei at his side and growled.

“What are you talking about, child?” He asked softly. It made me think about those mob movies I wasn’t supposed to watch. How the bad guys are scariest when they’re calm.

“She…” Between gasps of air, I attempted to answer the behemoth. “She said that Mom is lost!” Arina slipped into the room without a sound, but she had her mouth covered. “Where is she?!” I screamed to the entire room.

Out of nowhere, my Dad appeared as a buffer between Arina and I. I didn’t see him when I burst into the room, but he certainly wasn’t dead. “You told him what, Arina?”

She looked on the verge of a panic attack, “I am sorry,” but her eyes looked terrified. Not from me, or Dad, or even Alexei, but from Ivan. Stanislav let out another growl which drew the attention from her back to him with ease.

“Sinister elements have taken your mother, son,” I felt like I wouldn’t have been able to hear Ivan’s words, except I could feel them move through me. “Your father has been working very hard to get her back. And we have been helping him.”

Ivan looked past me, at Dad.

“Isn’t that right, Bryan?”

After what felt like an hour, Dad croaked “…yeah, that’s right. Helping.”

Here’s the thing. I’m not stupid. I might only be sixteen but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I’ve heard what my Dad has said about Ivan in the past. And especially about Alexei. Well, mostly about Alexei.

But one word he’s never used to describe either of them: helpful.

Maybe that’s changed? I don’t know. All I know is when I met him, he talked about The Red Army as if they were the enemy. Now he was one of them.I couldn’t think more on this, even with everything I just learned, because Ivan spoke again.

“I bet if your father wins more matches and does Red Army proud, someone might even help to find her. Publicity and all that. Maybe he start with his next match, whoever it might be.”

It wasn’t a question. After his things were gathered, Dad turned to me and mouthed “let’s go”.

I led the way. As I opened the door, I heard Dad’s voice. “Don’t you ever talk to him again.” Tears welled up in Arina’s eyes as he blew past her and ushered me into the hallway. Alexei was already at the door, glaring daggers at Arina as he shut the door and trapped her inside.

I still had so many unanswered questions. What were the sinister elements Ivan was talking about? Are they going to actually help? How were they going to help? Is she okay? Where was she?

I did know one thing.

“Dad, I want to go home.”

🍍🍍🍍

Dad managed to book us the first flight out of Tokyo the day after Culture Shock. Our flight was jam packed - a far cry from the private jet that took us to Australia for the first leg of the trip. Leg room was at a premium on this flight…well, not so much for me, but definitely for him.

The plane had hardly made liftoff before Dad succumbed to the exhaustion of the weekend. Throwing an impromptu beach party, failing to help Ivan retain his title and then failing to help him win Manhunt turned out to be too much, even for him.

His breathing was deep and his body almost melted into the uncomfortable, small seat.

I was tired too but the hamster on the wheel in my brain just kept running.

Dad’s phone suddenly illuminated the dark cabin. A glance at him confirmed he was out cold.

“Dawkins v. Fleetwood. Don’t fuck this up. -A.R.”

He should really use Face ID or at least a passcode…jeez.

It was at that moment I realized that while Ivan had claimed he was helping him, my father was nothing more than a pawn in the Russian Bear’s game of 3D chess. The only way Dad was of any use to him was if he kept doing The Red Army’s bidding.

The display went black and I didn’t want to take a chance and have Dad catch me snooping. My mind immediately drifted to Quinn Fleetwood. I’d say he was in PRIME thanks to his Dad but if you’ve ever seen Chet Fleetwood on TV, you’d know that’s not true. I couldn’t convince myself that Quinn Fleetwood was a real threat but Alexei’s message continued to echo in my brain.

Don't fuck this up.

Before I knew it, the nine nesting dolls were spread on the fold down table and I was mindlessly tinkering with the smallest doll as we cruised at thirty thousand feet over the Pacific.

🍍🍍🍍

Dad…

I know you have a lot going on.

I’m scared about what Arina told me.

I’m even more scared that what Ivan told me is true.

I know you aren’t telling me everything because you think I’m not gonna understand.

And maybe you’re right.

Maybe I won’t understand.

But I do know you’re trying.

I know you never wanted this to happen, Dad.

I know you love Mom (even though she’d never let you admit it).

I know you love me.

You never wanted it to be this way.

I know you want to be strong and I want to be strong for you.

You have to go out there and beat Quinn Fleetwood.

Maybe it’s for The Red Army so they can help you.

Or maybe it’s just for Mom.

Either way…you need to beat Quinn Fleetwood to within an inch of his life.