HATRED

"Alright, Sizzle, get in the ring."

Until that moment, I had no idea you even existed. You were just another face looking up at me from outside the ring. Then Darren put out the call, and the entire school started laughing. It wasn't until later that I'd find out why.

If they ever make a documentary about your career, about the rise of PRIME hall of famer Jared Sykes, then you should know I'm totally telling this story. I figure it's one of the perks as your wife. And besides, it was a pivotal moment for the both of us. I mean this is where everything started.

I had just begun my training at the Stracker family gym, but you'd already been there a few weeks, which was long enough to earn yourself an unfortunate nickname. One that everyone else in our class really enjoyed needling you with, at least for a little while.

'All sizzle, no steak.'

To this day I still wonder if 'Sizzle' was supposed to be spelled with a Y as a play on your name, but in my head-canon that's exactly what they did.

I remember the look on your face as you slid in under the bottom rope, but to this day I'm not entirely sure what the emotion behind it was. For a long time I thought that you had reach a point where you were just over the nickname. Then there would be moments when I thought you believed you were about to be the victim of an elaborate joke.

What I know for sure is what came next. Darren took a step back and said, "Alright, bell's broken, so ding ding. Let's see what you've got, Calvin. Sizzle, just try not to embarrass yourself."

Then you sighed, and started to introduce yourself. Full-on "hi, my name is" in the middle of a fight.

I shifted my weight, adjusted my footing, and then put you on the ground with one right hand. Flush across your jaw. And while you were in mid-sentence, no less. To this day, it might be the best punch I've ever thrown inside the ring. If nothing else, it's definitely the most memorable.

Not just because of what it started, but because of what I learned about you that day. And that's something that still holds true so many years later.

#

For years I watched you struggle with the idea that you didn't belong in this sport, Jared. No matter how you tried to hide it or play the whole thing off, it was obvious to everyone in your life that you were looking for some sort of validation. A reason to believe that you fit in. It was like you were looking for permission to be part of the locker room. What made this so hard to watch is that you were right to feel this way. You were right to question whether or not you had any right to be in this sport.

Just... not for the reason that you think.

We gave our lives to a violent business. Arguments that would be settled with a phone call or a conversation anywhere else on earth turn into brawls inside the rules of professional wrestling. Any standard of decorum is cast aside, because the only way to prove that your side is right is by punching the other person until they stop moving, or dropping them on their head so many times that they're not able to get up and beat the clock. Some people take it a step further and try to learn the skills necessary to almost cripple anyone they disagree with.

The rules that we have to abide by would get you arrested and thrown in jail if you pulled that shit anywhere else. Oh, Dave caused a paper jam in the office printer? Well that's fine. Just grab a chair and hit him in the head with it until he learns that you don't waste time fixing "PC Load Letter" errors. It'll be totally okay because you both have the same skip-level manager.

In any other context, it's an insane way to live.

Everyone who decides to do this for a living should be forced to take one of those psych tests like they give new recruits to the army, only it would weed out the people who're too normal for this. The ones who aren't broken enough.

After what happened in North Carolina, anyone else in your position would be using that night as an excuse to unleash all of their anger, and rage, and hate on the next person they got in the ring with. Anyone else would already have a flower arrangement in their shopping cart to send to the Fleetwood family about the impending death of their dear son, Quinn, may he rest in peace.

We would all - every single one of us - look at each other and nod and say, "Well, that kid's fucked," as if it were the most normal thing on earth. And he would be fucked, Jared.

If Brandon had been stuffed in the trunk of a car when he was trying to get home to Amy? Jesus Christ, we'd be finding pieces of Fleetwood stuck to every surface in a sixty-foot radius. The locker room would look like a scene out of The Serbian Film. You wouldn't be able to take a step backstage without plopping your foot in the remains of a silver-spoon dipshit.

If they'd done that to someone like Max, then Quinn would probably disappear, and there'd be an unspoken acceptance among the rest of the roster that the kid had likely been eaten. We would probably never see Quinn Fleetwood again, and no one in the business would bat an eye.

I don't even want to imagine the dumbfuck bullshit that Tom would pull if someone had done that to him. And it would be stupid bullshit, Jared. But he also wouldn't just let it slide. He'd be on the warpath trying to regain his honor, or looking for a new culture to appropriate, and no indie show in Mexico would be safe.

These are your colleagues, Jared.

But they'll never be your peers.

#

Interlude I - Andrea

I'm a cupcake!

Mommy said I was going to get to play dress-up, and that I was going to be a cupcake, and that made me happy because I had cake for my birthday and cake is the best. She said a cupcake is like a little cake for one person to eat, but that's silly because on my birthday they gave me a whole big cake that was just for me, and I think everyone should get the big cakes.

I got all dressed up in my cupcake costume, but it didn't taste like regular cake and I didn't get any frosting on my hands and face. Mommy said that looking like a cupcake and being a cupcake are different, but that's not as fun. If someone is going to look like cake then they should get to taste like cake, too!

She gave me a bucket that looked like a happy pumpkin and we went in the car to Grampa and Grandma's house. Then Mommy rang the doorbell and when Grampa and Grandma opened the door Mommy said, "Trick or treat," and they put a candy in my pumpkin! A whole candy all for me! Mommy said that this is Halloween and Halloween means playing dress-up and getting candy and it is my new favorite day.

Grampa asked Mommy where Daddy was, and Mommy told him that Daddy had to go away for work, and that made me sad. Mommy said that he would be back tomorrow before I woke up, and that made me happy.

Mommy talked to Grampa and Grandma for a while and then we got back in the car and went to Grammy's house.

Mommy rang her doorbell, and when Grammy opened the door Mommy said, "Trick or treat," and then Grammy put another candy in my pumpkin! I had so many candies, and it was my new favorite day.

Grammy took a picture and sent it to Mommy, and Mommy said she was going to send it to Daddy so he could see his little cupcake all dressed up.

I was so tired when we got home, but Mommy still read me a bedtime story and tucked me in. It wasn't like the ones that Daddy tells me because he makes those up just for me, but Mommy read from a book. She said that reading is her favorite, and that Daddy made her a special libary which is a room for books, and I want to have a libary too one day.

Mommy kissed me and said, "Goodnight, little cupcake. You're the sweetest thing ever!"

Daddy was supposed to be there when I woke up, but Mommy said Daddy had got stuck at work. Mommy looked very tired, and her hair was all messy, and her eyes were very red which means she had been sad. My eyes get red when I get sad and I cry a lot, so I knew that Mommy had been crying, too.

Mommy told me that everything was okay, and that Daddy would be home soon, but Mommy is not good at playing pretend.

"Where is Daddy?" I tried to say, but I can't say all my words yet so it came out as crying.

Then Mommy cried too.

#

I will probably never understand just what you had to endure at the hands of Wyatt Connors all those years ago. Even if things are different now, it's still a topic I don't want to bring up. I only know what you've told me, or what I've seen online. I know the reason you started wearing a sleeve on your left arm is because you were self-conscious about the string of burns he left there when you were tied to a chair. I know that you still wear it despite covering that arm in ink. And hidden in that tattoo, where the green starts to fade and leaves turn into thorns near your wrist, is a small scorpion because that was one of his old nicknames.

That one I found on my own one night while you were asleep.

I don't know the full chain of events that brought the two of you up onto that scaffold one night in Las Vegas, only what the aftermath did to you.

Honestly, I hoped that he was someone you would never need to think about again. But I guess the universe has a way of making fools of us all. My mom would say that's divine intervention, or the Lord working in mysterious ways. So there he was, hiding out somewhere he probably never expected to be found, somewhere that you were probably never meant to be. Maybe my mother is right.

But you found peace. To be honest, If I hadn't been there to see it I'm not sure I would believe it. That was three years ago, and now you're checking in every so often to make sure that he's okay, and that he has everything he needs. You were tortured for years by an absolute monster, and now it's your mission to make sure that he finds his own peace.

I wasn't surprised when you said you wanted to send him an invitation to our wedding. What surprised me was seeing him sitting in the back row. I remember your mother saying that we should get him a seat up front, because she saw that he had trouble moving around and wanting him to be comfortable.

"It's okay," you told her. "Trust me, he wouldn't want us to make a fuss."

In a room full of wrestlers, you let one of history's most notorious bastards keep his dignity. You made sure that he wouldn't need to answer any awkward questions.

Because you never hated Wyatt Connors, Jared. You hated the man that followed him up onto that catwalk; the one who blamed himself for not being able to hold on and pull a monster back to safety.

#

And then there's Paxton Ray.

I don't know that I'll ever really be able to describe what that was like to live through. Knowing that you were hellbent on having that fight all while knowing there wasn't a single goddamn thing I or anyone else could do to try and convince you otherwise. Thinking you were doomed to fight him whether it was in a ring or in the Mud Pits.

What happened next?

Three months, Jared.

Three months of having your ass handed to you week in and week out by a psychopath. Someone with so little regard for anyone else's wellbeing that he literally paralyzed one of your oldest friends just because he could.

I had to stand by and watch him trap you in a conference room. I watched him barricade the door so there would be no one to help as he wrapped a chain around his hand, and...

And...

I had to watch you soldier on despite all the fear that Colossus might be the last birthday you ever got to celebrate while still living a normal life, because after that it might have been you that was never supposed to walk again.

And yet, when he came to you years later and asked for your forgiveness, you gave it to him. I figure that was probably easy for you to do, because despite everything that he put you through... everything he put us both through... you never hated him. You didn't hate him for trying to break you with your own mannequin, or for the fact that he damn near ended Jon's life.

You hated the person that wasn't fast enough to stop him from hurting Jon in the first place.

#

Interlude II - Barrett

The thing about my Tina is she don't like asking for nothing. She's always been that way. Stubborn as a bull, that girl. Safe to say she got that from me. It ain't that she's not grateful or thinks she's above it, it's just that she don't wanna be handed nothing. Doesn't matter how big or how small.

Take her first marriage for example. I was talking to her on the phone when I found out and she says to me, she says, "I'm not telling you this because I'm looking for help. I just thought you should know what's going on."

"Tina," I said to her, "You might not be asking, but you know you've got room here until you get back on your feet."

My girl turned forty-five this year, and that's the only time I can remember that she didn't fight me for trying to help.

I'm not saying this because my daughter is some kind of hard-ass. She is, but that's not the point. It's to put in context how surprised I was when she came to me and her mom to ask if we could watch little AJ.

"It's just for a couple days," she said. And you could tell just by looking at her that she hated asking; like she wished she could do this on her own.

Now Junie was over the moon. You ask a grandmother to watch her granddaughter? Hell, that's like telling them they just won the lottery. Tina had barely got the words out of her mouth and already Junie's making plans to spoil the kid rotten.

Don't get me wrong, I was just as happy as my wife. AJ's the spitting image of her mother. Green eyes and everything. If I'm lucky, she'll also inherit her mom's right cross. Maybe teach the boys a thing or two just like her mom. Babysitting meant getting to relive all the best memories of my Tina with her own little girl.

But I'm a curious guy, and Tina's never asked for anything, so there's a little voice in my head saying, "Barry, you gotta find out why."

I waited. Then waited a few minutes more until Junie was out of earshot.

"So you're goin' away?" I says to her.

"Just something I need to take care of," Tina said. Hey, no shit, Tina. "There's someone I need to talk to."

"Now when you say talk, do you mean a conversation, or you mean like A Talk?" I tapped my fists together to make my point. Tina, she's a fighter just like me, and sometimes we do our talking with our hands.

"Guess that depends on how the conversation goes," she said.

"This about Jared?" She didn't say anything, which was as good as an answer. "He know you're doing this?" Again she hits me with nothing but silence.

I've never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but I've got four kids and fifty-plus years of marriage under my belt, so I know you don't get very far keeping secrets from your partner. I don't say that, of course. Ain't my place.

"You're not going out there to beat up the lawyer's kid, are ya?"

"Who? Fleetwood? No."

"Well that's a relief," I said. "Because it'd be real weird for that guy's dad to be chasing the same ambulance his kid is riding in."

She didn't laugh, and that's when I got a little worried. Tina's always been good about at least pretending my jokes are funny.

"You're starting to worry me, Tina." I was never the quickest on my feet back when I was a boxer. 'Leadfoot' they called me. Couldn't dance around the ring then, can't dance around the point now. "You know, I saw what happened on that last show, too."

Which was about the nicest way I could think to tell my only daughter that I watched my son-in-law get stuffed in the trunk of a rental car.

"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"Stupid? No. But there are some answers I need, and a few conversations I need to have."

"A few? Minute ago you said it was just the one."

"Like I said, it depends on how that goes."

"Do I have to worry about you picking fights with the Russians now?"

"No. Just one of them."

"And the other chats you've got planned?"

"Well, I guess that depends on whether anyone tries to get in my way."

#

This is what I don't understand. This is what I'm struggling with and have been ever since you showed up on television to punch Ivan right in the goddamn mouth.

These people, all these men who say and do horrible things, you don't hate them the way that anyone else in your position would. There's no bitter grudge that you carry, or revenge that you're seeking. At least not with the people who've hurt you.

This is why I’m confused.

You went back to PRIME without telling me. You picked a fight with your newest monster without letting me know. And now I have to sit at home and try to put the pieces of this puzzle together, because you won’t explain it.

You don’t hate Ivan Stanislav, Jared. I know it. When I said we should send him a wedding invitation as a joke to see if he’d show up, you told me that we should do it not to mock the man, but “so he knows there’s a future when the fighting is over.”

You wanted him to know it was never too late to stop being the warrior and start being a human being.

You don’t hate Ivan Stanislav. But I wonder if you hate the person who believes he wasn’t able to protect me, and keep me safe.

Nothing.

Because you don’t hate Ivan, or Arina, or even that rat fuck Alexei. You said it wasn’t her fault because…

Because you hate the person who broke a promise to his little girl, and you think that person deserves everything they got that night.

This sport, it isn’t made for you, Jared. It never was.

There’s something that the rest of us have that you’re missing, and it’s the little voice in the back of your head that says it’s okay to hate the person standing across the ring. That whatever happens, hey, they were going to try to do it to you first, so it’s no big deal, right? They asked for this. They wanted this. So it’s only right that they get what they have coming.

I’ve known you for twenty-five years, Jared. More than half of our lives have been spent as friends, as lovers, as family. We’re not as young as we used to be, and there are only so many ‘firsts’ that we get to spend with little AJ.

I need you.

She needs you.

It’s time for you to let go and stop punishing the only person you have ever truly hated.

Because he’s the only person to ever deserve your grace.