Ain't no lie baby, bye, bye, bye - It's Gonna Be Me - Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay) (feat. Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes)

For those unfamiliar with Henry Keyes, there’s far, far too much to unpack about the wild eccentricities and bizarre aspects of his life to share in a single go. Suffice to say, the FIST of DEFIANCE consistently wins DEF’s Shock of the Year award for good reason. The man generates relentless heat over mere colors, he creates chaos in the name of breaking new ground, he owns at least one of the most famous tigers in professional wrestling today.

This is all to say, the words “Truckduction Plague Doctor approaches Henry Keyes with his report” could paint a confusing picture, and that’s absolutely fair. How often do you encounter a man with an unknowable number of…(staff? associates? colleagues? underlings?) generally-helpful people in Plague Doctor outfits at his beck and call?

“A job for every Plague Doctor and a Plague Doctor for every job,” he’s been known to say.

This is literal. Lawyer Plague Doctor, Esquire takes his job very seriously, and he would not allow Henry Keyes to make such a statement publicly were it not unimpeachable.

This mechanism is how we find ourselves in a world where Truckduction Plague Doctor approaches Henry Keyes with his report. Keyes unfurls the scroll.

(it’s a scroll.)

“Clay Byrd and his Big Dumb Ford Truck have been successfully truckducted. The Ford sits on the poop deck. Laundry services deemed necessary and in progress. Beginning liftoff above Florida Keys. ETA to destination, 16 hours,” Keyes reads. The timbre of his voice is somewhere between John O’Hurley and a lawnmower running over a sheet of sandpaper - gruff, deep, boisterous, weathered. “Yes, very good.”

He rolls the scroll back up and hands it back to Truckduction Plague Doctor.

“How sober did he look?”

TPD silently gestures the generally-accepted sideways hand signal we all know to mean “ehhhhh…”

“Is he awake?”

TPD shakes their head in a definitive “no.”

“...good. He’s going to be a little confused, I wager. Better that I’m there when he perks up.”

Keyes pats TPD’s shoulder. We now get a broader sense of the physical space in which this is happening.

It’s a wooden room - as in, the floors, walls, and ceiling are all panelled wood. There is a large work desk situated on the opposite side of a large wooden ship helm, with large rounded windows pouring in the setting sun.

…

Remember how I said earlier, that there’s too much to unpack all at once to do in one go?

Bear with me here, because this is just a true thing that you need to trust is true.

…

Henry Keyes, as captain of the Airship, found himself in his pink and blue military dress coat emblazoned with ribbons, medals, and emblems, and as he departed the Captain’s Quarters, he knew he would have a lot to explain to Clay Byrd when he realizes that he and his truck are thousands of feet in the air.

—-------------

The Behemoth stirs.

His eyes flutter and he slowly drags his enormous frame across the interior of the truck. Clay snorts, his hand reaching up to the bridge of his nose as he sneezes mid-stretch. He cocks his neck to the left, letting the muscles in his neck twinge for a moment. Then back to the right, he reaches down to the floor of the truck and pulls his blanket half around his waist. He’d parked near the community showers. He looks at his basketball shorts and ponders the effort of putting them on inside the truck and shakes his head.

“Fuck that,” he grumbles out, he leans into the front seat and rustles through a black duffel bag. A small toiletries bag and a towel, Clay wraps the towel around his waist and throws the truck door open, he backs out of the truck cab and stops as his feet hit the wooden planks?

“What in the…” He takes a deep breath and turns around, a hand containing basketball shorts balled into a fist while the other holds his towel and toiletry bag. His eyes scan the horizon. Those clouds are awfully close… He spins to his left and comes chest to beak with a plague doctor.

“...”

“Yeah, I figured…” The Monster’s nose twitches with irritation, what would everyone think of him? Twice a victim of a trucknapping? Is that even a crime? Is this a victimless crime? Was he a victim? Should he throw this plague doctor off the edge of the ship to wherever that is? Last time he was a trucknapee it didn’t go that bad… The thoughts race behind Clay’s steel blue eyes. Luckily for the plague doctor, ‘last time it didn’t go that bad’ takes an early lead.

“Where’s Keyes?” Clay half asks, half demands. He stares down into the shiny lifeless black eyes of the mask. He waits, and stares, and waits some more.

“...”

Throwing the plague doctor off the ledge tries to pass on the inside corner, but Clay takes a deep breath. Everything doesn’t always have to make sense, mute plague doctors are totally normal. Nothing creepy at all, don’t freak out big guy, deep breath… If you kill one of these doctors LT will probably be upset. The plague doctors aren’t furniture, that’s the gold one… he was learning…

“Ya could like… ya know, point ‘er somethin’” The doctor shrugs. Clay’s eyes bulge, he drops the shorts from his hand and starts plotting trajectories.

“Ah, good, you’re awake,” we hear. It’s just now that we realize Keyes is shirtless under his flamboyant military coat, though thankfully he’s got his pants on.

“Yeah… I’m up. Speaking of me, where am I? Where are we? If I throw that plague doctor off of the edge of the ship, is it a splash or a splat?” The plague doctor looks at Byrd then back to Keyes, then back to Byrd. You can almost see the slightest bit of concern in those beady big black eyes.

Keyes looks over the edge. “Splat then splash.”

“Ya coulda called and offered a ride…” Byrd holds his free hand to his ear while shaking his head.

“There’s…reasons to go off grid, friend-o. This is the only way I know how. I figure this is inconvenient for you.”

“I mean… It’s not like it hasn’t happened before…” Clay mumbles, his hand once again running from his forehead to his beard. Easy to kidnap. Are you supposed to tie your vehicle down when you go to sleep? Is it like a tent? Do you drive stakes into the ground? He hadn’t even had caffeine yet. What the fuck.

—--------

There’s honestly a moment where Keyes can’t help but elevator eyes this gargantuan cowboy standing on the deck of his Airship with a towel around his waist. Anyone would, and anyone who says they wouldn’t is a liar who isn’t to be trusted. At least, this is how Keyes justified this involuntary up-and-down to himself.

His Truckduction Plague Doctor said it in the report - laundry services were necessary. It wasn’t his business to micromanage that decision. And Keyes is far from someone who might judge a rowdy morning/day/night and its relevant stains.

Keyes motions to Hospitality Plague Doctor.

“Get him a robe. And some coffee. Hey - Clay, how do you take your coffee?”

“Black. Big cup, wide rim. And with some damn bacon and eggs.”

“Get him that.”

“With a peppermint chocolate wafer cookie. A marshmallow on the rim. With a saucer.”

“...get him all that too.”

“And do you think the mug could be black? Something about a black coffee mug just always felt right. With the Texas Longhorns logo.”

Keyes, for a second, goes to add this request to the laundry list, but then turns back to Clay.

“...well, fair the fuck enough. Come on, I need a cup too. We’ve got things to talk about.”

Keyes saunters off towards what we must assume would be an Airship’s mess hall, if we could imagine such a thing.

…

……..

Soon, Clay Byrd and Henry Keyes find themselves sitting across a wooden table from each other, each with an absurd cup of coffee; Clay with an absolute saucer of coffee with a marshmallow and a weird cookie, and Henry with what we must assume is just straight up liquor in a Garfield coffee mug.

“Clay…you haven’t by any chance been training with extra intensity these days, have you?”

“Henry, I live in a fucking truck. A gym membership is the cheapest way to get a shower.”

“...fair enough. The reason I ask this is because Miss Troy may have put you in the middle of something. Honestly, I’m not even sure that it’s best for me to bring this all up with you, but…I’m doing this tonight, and you’re probably gonna start a fight. I know this can’t be right, hey, but baby, come on.”

Clay is wide-eyed. Henry Timberlakes.

“I know that you can’t take no more, it ain’t no lie,” Keyes continues. “This is the second time you’ve been truckducted, and the second time you’ve been dragged into blood feuds that were frankly peripheral to you, and it’s not fair of me to ask you to do anything special…but I just need you to hear this.”

Keyes takes a deep sip from his cup.

“I have personally destroyed Elise Ares and The D at every turn and at every opportunity in DEFIANCE for the last 3 years. There are very few people on the planet Earth who want to see me destroyed more than Elise Ares. The truth is…Elise deserves her vengeance, and I deserve to be destroyed.”

He chuckles.

“...but then again, so does she. And so, we are at an impasse.”

—------------

“So what yer sayin’ is I’m gettin’ dropped in a shit storm?” Being the dropee is an awkward experience. It’s not exactly unpleasant, almost expected? He’d dropped Kerry into the middle of his feud with Farthington.

“It’s not YOUR shitstorm,” Keyes responds.

“I mean, we can just call it what it is. It was gonna happen sooner or later…”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Henry responds.

“Normally I’m the one draggin’ the boys inta my issues. It’s just different, ya know. Bein’ the guy put in the middle of a blood feud,” Clay swirls his cup while shaking his head. He’d also put Scott and Kerry firmly in the crosshairs of the Whoresmen. They’d been so busy, it’d been so easy. “I mean, I’ll be honest with ya, I don’t flip the channel much. Ya know, like, I pay for the service and buy the events. But, ya know…”

“I know you wondered if my world championship title was a fancy drink coaster and I know we worked through that disagreement, but you really should watch more DEFtv,” Keyes replies.

“Listen… I get to ‘em. Ya know, watch ‘em real good.” Other than the fast forward button, or that 30 second skip feature… But why else are they there?

“And of course I watch the best parts.” Byrd gives the FIST a finger gun and a little wink before diving headfirst into the safety of the warm brown liquid.

“Elise and The D think they get ta settle a grievance with the Co-Consul of Vae Victis?” A sneer from The Monster from Plainview. His lip curls into a snarl of agreement.

“That’s not gonna fuckin’ happen.”

“Clay, listen…I think you need to understand something about the Pop Culture Phenoms…”

“Say Bye, Bye, Bye to Elise and The D.”

—--------------

Henry sips deeply from his cup, which again, is not coffee. It’s a good thing we’re in neutral airspace at this point, and that there are not airship traffic cops. Would this qualify as a DUI? Is Keyes driving if he’s delegated the route to First Mate Plague Doctor? Questions for side chats.

He stared into the golden glow of the sun over the horizon. Surely, there was meaning in it - the setting sun, the golden hour, the raucous and uncontrollable cloud coverage that might change on a dime. Keyes, a man growing deeper into his 40’s, graying beyond his years, Just For Men-ing his beard beyond his years, feeling aches and strains in his bones and ligaments as wrestlers do beyond their years; but with the body fat, tan, and chemically-improved energy of a man half his age. He’s a stalwart warrior, an iron-clad Mean Girl through and through, but one who knew how time came for such metals.

He was DEFIANCE’s most infamous SOHER, an abbreviation of an already-infamous Southern Heritage Championship; he broke records previously held by Elise Ares and even shattered her face in a title defense for that belt.

And then he became DEFIANCE’s top champion. The FIST. Elise Ares always imagined herself to be of that caliber. She dedicated over a decade of her life in the pursuit of this glory.

And then, like a lunatic, she gave herself an ultimatum. If she couldn’t win the FIST at DEFIANCE’s ACTS of DEFIANCE pay-per-view, she would leave the company forever.

Some might blame the referee. Some might blame Henry. Some might blame the unforgiving churn of inevitability.

Elise, for her part, has enough wrath for all of it.

As often as Henry Keyes has crushed Elise Ares’s dreams, he’s known that he’s built himself a ledger of debt that could realistically one day mean the end of his career.

And this, friends. This is why.

This is why Henry Capital N Needed to have Clay Byrd snatched away from whatever pit he happened to find himself in this evening and brought to a location nigh untraceable.

The two of them had been paired up to fight a team that really, truly, wished to see the end of Henry Keyes’s career.

…

Thankfully, there had always been one thing these two gruff goats had found common ground on.

Hatred.

So often you see these would-be Noble People who try to see good in every soul, but Henry and Clay shared a common bond of understanding that some people are just bastard people. It didn’t matter that Clay was a Texan Cowboy and that Henry was a San Fransiscan Weirdo - they both sought out a path where they could find out just how physically strong their bodies would allow them to become, and they both had tremendous bullshit detectors. The clean readings they found on each other added extra layers of trust.

Because, let it be clear - Henry is aware that there were times when Clay Byrd smashed Lindsay Troy across the spine with a steel chair…but right now, today, Lindsay Troy is perfectly happy with Clay Byrd, so by extension, Henry Keyes is as well.

Hatred works that way sometimes. As in, it can have a shelf life. Sometimes, all you need is that resolution, and you can move on with your life. In a lot of ways, it’s one of the most honest ways you can interact with another human - let your negativity with each other be perfectly known, fight and end a war, learn who can say It’s Gonna Be Me, and then find your new peace.

Because hatred only exists when you care.

Clay and Henry are people who care. They care a fucking lot. They’re gruff goats who stand as obstinate obstacles when others get in the way of what Vae Victis could and should be…

…which is interesting in another light. In DEFIANCE, Vae Victis has almost been a dark cloud looming over the entire company for years, an all-powerful entity that has dominated the company to a chorus of boos, where in PRIME they’re a beloved gang on the rise.

To Clay and Henry, both statements are half-true.

They should dominate, and they should always be on the rise.

Elise Ares and The D finding themselves in Henry Keyes’s crosshairs once again…it presents two divergent paths.

One, where Vae Victis stakes further claim as the dominant group in all of professional wrestling. One where Elise Ares finally gets her ultimate revenge against a man who’s really and truly kneecapped her career over and over and over again.

…

Keyes takes another deep sip, blinking his eyes hard and almost rolling his eyes back. Is that green in his cup?

“I’ve never doubted your loyalty, and I’ve never doubted that you’d be ready for a fight. I just need you to understand, deep in your soul, that every ounce of venom the Pop Culture Phenoms possesses is likely to come my way, and I need you to understand that I’m desperately counting on you to take on more of this war than you ever signed up for.”

—-------------------

It all felt so distant, the day Lindsay Troy had suggested becoming a member of Vae Victis. They wanted to take over DEFIANCE, rule the known wrestling world. Her bestie Keyes, Kerry, the credit card man, Burns. It was all a blur. An Absinthe filled blur.

These grievances aren’t mine. This isn’t my yoke. This isn’t my field of feelings to plow. I’ve been through my wars, I’ve fought my battles. But one thing was always there for me, one thing stepped in when nobody else would. When I marched into Fred Dick’s little whorehouse, who walked through those doors with me?

Vae Victis.

When I wanted to fight every dickhead in that place?  Who had my back?

Vae Victis.

I’ll be damned if you think you’re going to handle your bullshit with my boy Henry while I’m anywhere near that fucking ring. I don’t give a fuck what your problem with him is. I don’t care if he slapped your mother. I don’t give a fuck if he pulled down his lovely trousers and defecated on your career. I don’t care how many title belts he beat you for, I don’t care how bad he embarrassed you. I don’t care if he slept with your sister. He’s Henry Keyes. He’s the Co-Consul. He’s Lindsay Troy’s right hand.

You got a problem with him?

You got a problem with me.

And I wouldn’t recommend havin’ problems with me. It doesn’t end well fer the other folks, normally some ruined necks, broken careers, and a lot of pain.

A lot of violence.

We’re Vae Victis.

You can’t sit with us.

—-------------------

Keyes leans back in his chair, locking eyes with the hulking behemoth in front of him.

Yeah. That’s a dog you take with you to the front lines. That’s a dog who will take a bullet for you.

That’s a dog who might let you survive the wrath of a woman whose career you’ve kneecapped for years.

…

He polishes off his cup and hands it off to Attendant Plague Doctor.

The sun has fully dipped beneath the horizon. His white tiger, Helen, is on the deck for her nightly stroll. There’s a Ford on deck, Plague Doctors in the hole, and the shining night lights of Puerto Rico in the distance. He wonders if there might be cowboys rocketing through space in the night sky around him.

It’s good to be Co-Consul.