Big Iron on his Hip

There before them lay the body of the outlaw on the ground. Oh he might’ve gone on living, but he made one fatal slip. When he tried to match the Ranger with the big iron on his hip.

I.

Searching through the trash.

Rob has been here before.

Well, not quite here. Here is his own apartment - rent and utilities up to date. Live in girlfriend’s shit scattered all over his bathroom counter.

Yeah, Charlotte moved in.

Nope, never here.

Still, there was an air of nostalgia to the act of dumpster diving.

“Fucking hell.”

He’s once again fallen victim to an age old trap: confidently throwing the pizza box out after putting it in the oven. Same promise every time… this time will be different, I promise.

It never is.

So here we find The Legend, Robbie One Belt, sifting through his rummage in search of direction.

Trying his damndest to find what to preheat the oven to.

Char’s diet coke can. Empty research chemicals container. Pregnancy test. Fifth of rum.

Wait.

He stops cold.

The whole world stops.

Amongst the discarded items sits a single, thin, white pregnancy test.

His heart skips like a stone across a river.

And sinks.

Two blue lines.

“What the fuck,” Rob whispers to himself.

He wishes he had the directions to the pregnancy test - because he has no idea what the fuck two lines means.

Through the paperthin, quarter inch thick drywall he can hear her humming in the shower.

The tune sounded familiar.

In a breath, Rob sees all the angles.

Is it his? Will she keep it? What if it’s a girl? How the fuck could she not tell me about this?

The last one sticks in his throat. A dry, sour pill.

He licks his lips, staring at the test… and puts the test back. He even wipes the coffee grinds from it and covers it with a paper plate before closing the lid.

The pizza in the oven will have to wait.

As he walks out the door, a line his mother often repeated clears the cobwebs from his mind.

Let he who hasn’t sinned cast the first phone.

Momma always tried…

But Daddy?

II.

Rob tried reconnecting with his dad once.

The funny thing is it never sat right with his mom that Rob grew up without a dad.

Rob couldn’t care less about the son of a bitch. Or at least, that’s what he would tell you.

They all told him he was angry. His stepdad even told him that it was ok to be angry.

But, he swore he wasn’t. All he’d say when people asked was that he would never wind up like him.

The reality is Rob never peeled back the facade quite far enough to feel the dad sized hole.

So he filled it with little white bags and cheap liquor and fast money.

Which culminated in Finn. About the time Rob had knocked up What’s Her Name (Finn’s mom), his own mother was sick.

Emphysema.

He’d never been what he would call a good son, but a boy always loves his mother, and Rob’s mother decided it was time for Rob to reconcile his dad’s absence.

And what do two men that should know each other say when they’re strangers?

Rob went into the call hopeful. And, for what it was worth, it felt like his dad did, too.

They were both looking for an answer. Some burning bush as to why they were so fucked up. The drugs and the anger.

All that pain.

Everybody told them this was the missing piece.

But it was just… awkward.

It was the second most awkward conversation Rob’d ever had. The most awkward being the first time an employee of the Georgia Correctional System told him to bend and cough.

They tried for a while. His dad mailed him a box of yellow, faded polaroids. Signed him up for the Sausage of the Month club.

He stood in the dank little kitchen of his one bedroom apartment thumbing through the polaroids eating a kielbasa filled with colby jack cheese.

There was a photo of a man who resembled him holding a baby and smiling. The smile he had looked for in every face. The pride.

Although he looked just like this man, he didn’t recognize him at all.

The photos were alien. Like watching a movie in a different language.

Rob wasn’t sure what he wanted to do at that point - with the impending child, that is. He and Char fought all the time. There was no future with What’s Her Name.

But, the mere thought of being a father had sparked something in him.

He wasn’t drinking (liquor) and had given all but the most necessary pills. Fighting became his work, not something he relished.

There was that voice, though. In the back of his head.

We’ve talked about it a lot, dear reader.

The one screaming that the other shoe is mere inches away. And did it ever fall.

The call came on an unseasonably cool August night, near Rob’s birthday. This was supposed to be the first birthday his father was there for since that phone call when he was eight.

“I’m gonna fucking kill him. I need you to back me up,” the old man said. His voice was… different.

It was some hillbilly shit. One hillbilly hurt another hillbilly and this hillbilly had to fix it. And suddenly, he needed his son.

“No,” Rob replied.

“The fuck do you mean no?”

“I’m trying to be different, man.”

“You’re a fucking pussy. Wishy-washy like your mother. That’s ‘cause I wasn’t there to teach you about family.”

Chickamagua.

“If you ever call me or my mother again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

That was the last time they spoke.

Every now and then Rob searched obituaries for his name.

Somehow the bastard outlasted both Rob’s mom and stepdad. A real cockroach.

It was some shitty memorial page hosted on a Geocities vibe website. The one southern funeral homes put up automatically.

There was nothing there but the dates he was born and died.

An entire life and nothing to say other than you were born and you died.

He wasn’t remembered by anyone.

III.

“What do you remember?”

John Gordon was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Had he died?

“John,” Charlotte laid a hand on his shoulder, ”what do you remember?”

The last person John expected to see when he woke up: Charlotte.

Rob and Charlotte were Plato’s Symposium - a single thing split in two, forever fated to be drawn back to one another.

“W-what are you doing here?”

He felt like a hundred pounds of shit in a fifty pound bag. Everything hurt.

His body was swollen - tight. A failed attempt to sit up revealed the litany of stitches holding him together.

“A lot has happened, John.”

He knew why she was there: Rob Williams was dead.

His best friend was dead.

John suddenly became acutely aware of how raw his throat was as it tightened, trying to hold back the tears pooling in his eyes.

“What did it,” John choked and stopped. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “How did he die?”

It took Charlotte a second to register what John was talking about.

“What? Oh, god no. Rob is… fine. Actually, he’s okay. I mean he’s still drinking, but he’s been - he keeps making me dinner, John. It’s always shitty oven-bake pizza… but he’s trying. He’s winning. And he seems… happy?”

She almost questions it herself. Could it be real? As much as she wanted to believe it, she had to protect herself.

Rob Williams could be a cancer.

Nodding, John let it all settle.

“He’s in trouble, Char.”

“I figured. He’s gone a bit ape shit, holding all these press conferences blaming the attack on each of his opponents. But, I don’t know John, it’s working? I haven’t seen him like this since UCW.”

That brought a flood of memories. Most of them good.

A time where the drinks were faster than the hangovers and every sunset whispered hope.

Before the little white bags and crack pipes and all the sweet promises to never do it again.

Do what?

Any of it.

The women. The drinking. The drugs. The violence he wasn’t paid for.

Sure, John mused, Rob showed signs of what was to come back then - but Rob always seemed to hold it together by his fingernails.

They were all having fun.

Now?

Outside a tiny, red bird lands on the windowsill.

For a moment, John swore it was looking through him.

“A cardinal is someone from beyond reaching out to say hello,” Mrs. Gordon always used to say.

John thought of his father. His six foot seven father who drove that awful green Toyota Tacoma two hours there and two hours home every day.

Atlanta paid better and with John and his five sisters, it was all they could ever afford.

How fucking uncomfortable was that sacrifice?

“John,” Charlotte interrupted, “the police are here. Some real hard ass looking detective. They’re already asking questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like who did this.”

She didn’t need to tell John that she had already pieced it together.

Anyone who knew Rob would’ve. John shows up to Rob’s house and leaves in a coma.

No matter how well Rob had been dancing with all these press conferences, he couldn’t talk his way out of this one.

John’s nod left Charlotte wondering what cards he was holding.

“So what are we going to tell them, John?”

“We” wasn’t lost on John.

The little chuckle was stronger than his stoicism.

If you had asked little John Gordon to write down his “perfect future”, this was actually pretty fucking close to what it would’ve been. Besides being stitched up worse than a civil war amputee, of course.

All John had ever wanted was his friend to be happy. To find success and some measure of self-worth. To stop hurting.

And to be a part of that happiness himself.

Sure, this wasn’t the story John would’ve written, but that’s life.

The cardinal flew away.

John thought about what his father would do.

“I can’t put that man in prison, Char. We tell them I don’t remember anything. And we take it to our graves.”

IV.

“John, I need you.”

That was the same line that had set all of this in motion.

Yet here Rob was, saying it again.

“Meet you at Sweetwater,” John instinctually replies.

He’s sober enough to know that tone means Rob needed a few.

A half hour later the two sit face to face at Sweetwater Bar and Grille. The floors were sticky and the waitresses were ugly, but they used to let them drink underage and loyalty is hard to come by.

A shot and a beer sit in front of Rob. John nurses his soda water.

“They’re always trying to fuck me, John. I tell ya it’s fucking criminal. Last time I won the 5 Star and knocked off their golden boy they immediately put me up against Dongy Wieners. This time for my first defense they pit me against my own fucking guy?”

Rob anxiously twists the shot glass around in between his index finger and thumb. It’s a weird little dance they’ve played anytime Rob is drinking: Rob pretends to act like it’s hard to decide and John acts like it doesn’t get on his last nerve.

“Yeah, that’s a tough booking,” John says from behind the menu.

The thought of food turns Rob’s stomach into a piping bag.

Am I about to shit myself at Sweetwater? 

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“A tough booking hell. They’re trying to make me look like shit. You know who Dong Wieners’ first defense was?”

“Yeah I-”

The corners of John’s peach lips roll up. For someone who falls apart when he’s interrupted, Rob sure doesn’t mind cutting John off.

But John just smiles.

His dad always said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.”

“Towel. Look, Towel is a competitor - he’s beat me two times in tag, but he ain’t no fucking ‘Tone.”

John knows what he wants to order, but doesn’t want to subject the waitress to this nervous fucking mess across from him.

Besides, Rob has that desperate look in his eye.

He’s looking for an answer. A blankie. Something to tell him not to be scared of the monster in his closet.

None of this new, this time the monster is just named Daytona.

"Say," Rob asks stupidly, "what does two lines on a pregnancy test mean?"

John eyes Rob from over the menu. Fuck, he thinks to himself.

"It means congrats, Rob."

"Right. Anyways, fucking Daytona."

“Say, who was Kerry’s first defense?”

Rob’s mouth opens before the synapses connect.

For a moment he’s deflated and John capitalizes, waving the waitress over.

“Philly cheesesteak and sweet potato fries.”

“Sweet potato fries? Are you on your period?”

Unbothered, John doesn’t take his eyes off the waitress,”And a side of ranch. Thank you so much.”

“What the fuck do I know about being a dad, John,” Rob asks before knocking back the shot. He immediately points to the glass for the waitress. “One more, thanks.”.

John loves how Rob never says please, but always says thank you. Something to be derived from it, but he’s too tired.

“I mean - you know how shit was with my dad. You were there.”

“Your step dad was a pretty solid guy, Rob.”

“Whatever. He had to put up with me. Package deal, bud,” the liquor is talking now. “And what the fuck did he ever teach me? You know that man didn’t even teach me how to start a goddamn weed whacker?”

John nods, absorbing it all.

“Now your dad, John, was a real man.”

People stare in disgust and awe as Rob lights up a cigarette. But he’s big and angry and half lit, so nobody is going to say anything.

“He taught you how to handle your money. Your emotions. How to fix shit. What to do and what not to do.”

“Jesus Christ, Rob.”

“What,” Rob cocks an eyebrow and ashes his cigarette on the floor.

“You remember Chickamagua?”

Rob’s jaw is doing that thing again.

Click. Click.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“What of it? Dumbass. You don’t remember how obsessed you got with the Civil War in middle school? Fucking ninety-eight degree weather and a thousand percent humidity, Terry got his ass up at the crack of dawn to drive two hours down to Chickamagua to watch a bunch of fat, volunteer firefighters pretend to shoot each other.”

“Yeah. He was just scared of pissing off my mom. That fucker was clipped - she had him by the balls.”

“No, dipshit. He loved you. And he didn’t fucking have to. He chose it. He chose it when he took on your mom,” John holds a hand to his heart and one to the air, “God love her, but she was a mess and you know it. And she had some whiny little brat that wasn’t his.”

His teeth sound like a buzzsaw.

He never did that before the drugs, John thought to himself.

“So Charlotte is pregnant. And you’re booked against Daytona. And your daddy never taught you to start a lawnmower-”

“Weedwhacker,” Rob tries.

“Aw shut the fuck up. Man up, Rob. You think you’re the first champion to ever be scared he can’t keep his arms wrapped around success? Goddamn man, the only thing that is sure is you’re gonna lose it. Me, Charlotte, the belt - all of it. Did Cooley take any of that money with him when he died? Better yet, did it keep that needle out his arm?”

No.

The waitress earns her twenty-five percent, using the awkward silence to drop the cheesesteak and Rob’s shot.

Rob stares at it, but he doesn’t throw it back.

John raises an eyebrow.

That’s new.

“Terry was a good man, Rob. He loved you. The shit we put him through? You remember that time we stole your grandma’s Mazda and hit that big ass puddle?”

The slightest smirk.

“I know.”

“Chickamagua, bud. There’s a million dudes your mom could’ve wound up with. Most of them would’ve just ignored you or, worse, beat the shit out of you like your dad did. One in a million.”

John lets him have his silence. If he knows anything about Rob, it’s that he needs it.

“You know the steps, right?”

He waits to see Rob’s reaction.

Is he going to take the shot? Turn cold and shut him down?

“Of course,” Rob mumbles.

“You know, I had some things happen in my childhood that I couldn't reconcile with the steps. There wasn’t a way to let go of the resentment and I couldn’t make amends because they were genuinely in the wrong.”

“What did you do,” there’s a different type of desperation in Rob’s eyes.

“I realized my part in it. I didn’t ask for any of that shit, just like you didn’t ask for your real dad to be a shitbag who left you. But I realized I’d let it form the blueprint for every relationship I had after that.”

John lathers the last sweet potato fry in ranch.

“Go finish dinner for Char. Defend your title. Be a dad to both your kids. Get your shit together. Don’t stop digging three feet from fucking gold.”

Rob drops the cigarette in the shotglass.

“What do I do, John?”

John clears his sinuses, picks up half of the cheesesteak, and looks Rob dead in the soul.

“Finish the fucking job, Rob.”

V.

Somehow Charlotte is still in the bathroom when Rob gets home.

He puts the oven to four-hundred.

Fuck it, close enough.

As he looks up she floats into the room, one towel wrapped around her body and another around her hair.

“What’cha doin,” she stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“I threw away the directions. Can’t remember what to preheat the pizza to.”

This is his woman and she is carrying his child. And he is going to let her tell him on her time.

Pushing fifty, he knows the song of regret. It’s his crackling knees when he squats. The popping noise his back makes when he sits down to piss in the morning before the blood gets flowing.

A second chance he won’t squander.

He swears you can see whole galaxies in those big, brown eyes.

“Oh, three-seventy-five. Duh,” those eyes smile at him.

“Right.”

One kiss on her rosy lips and two on her milky forehead.

“Right.”

Epilogue

The last time we were booked against each other I wrote you a letter, ‘Tone. Do you remember that?

I wrote a lot of pretty words, but I didn’t mean them. 

I tried to give you advice about being a dad. Ironic, right. 

What I should’ve written is that you’re great. Really, you are. But for me, ‘Tone, you’re just the current guy. 

A carbon copy of every relationship I’ve ever had with another man. 

See, I have to be King of the Hill or bottom of the heap. There’s no in between for me. The moment I walk in a room I’m sizing everyone up. Weighing them all. 

Not on your actions, but against mine. 

You’ve been King of the Hill for a long time, ‘Tone. 

I think I’m ready for that shit. 

This match isn’t about the title for me. Look, I want to etch that first defense in the books so I’m not One Trick Pony Rob. But if that’s what I am, that’s what I am. 

The truth is that I’ve always kind of looked to be a father figure or to have a father figure. We don’t need to pay three-hundred an hour to some shrink in a quarter-zip to know that’s just my daddy issues. We all got ‘em, I guess. 

I’m about to be a dad again, ‘Tone. 

This life is funny. I spent so long running from trying to be my real dad that I fucking lapped him, ‘Tone. 

But I’ve got time. I’ve been given a second chance - hell, a rack of ‘em. 

This title means something to me. It ain’t just a hunk of metal and it ain’t about the history. It’s symbolic. 

My second chance. 

I can be different, ‘Tone. 

I love you, but you’re a weight. You’re me a decade ago and the cost of being your crutch is one I can’t pay anymore. I want to be different, ‘Tone.

I have to be. 

No letter this time, ‘Tone. 

Just know that no matter what happens, I love you.

But I'm gonna finish the fucking job.