A Lighthouse's Guide to PRIME or: Don't Forget to Shake Hands

Welcome to Earth No one ever asks to be born.

To be yanked violently from the safety of the conceptual into the terror of reality.

Especially if the umbilical cord is never cut and becomes a leash. Your source of life becoming the noose around your neck.

Okay, maybe that’s being a bit dramatic.

After all, “Blaze Claymore” wasn’t born — not in the traditional sense. Although, there are plenty of actual bastards out there whose existence was the result of less forethought and even less responsibility.

Arriving as a child who isn’t a child. A person who isn’t a person. A lump of Clay forced to mold itself.

Because even Lakes need lighthouses.

But when you’re expected to not just carry a torch, but be the one to light it in the first place?

How do you keep something like that burning if you're always one breath away from drowning?

What happens when the lake becomes an ocean?

When fire burns twice as hot and twice as fast?

And the wick turns to ash?

The flame dies.

Except for the embers.

Waiting for the right wind to blow and right spark to catch.

To turn the cinders of a young man’s dream into an eternal flame.

And finally give the Lake the lighthouse it deserves. Breaker’s Roar Ring… ring… ring…

“Come on, come on… what’s the-”

“Hello?”

“Wait… Mom?”

Blaze moves to cradle his cell phone against his shoulder as he leans down to put on a pair of sneakers. Globs of freshly-washed hair smack him on the side of the face and force their way into his mouth.

“Ack! PBBBTH”

“Well Dr. Armitage thinks very highly of my tuna casserole, thank you very much!”

Blaze pushes the hair back over his ear with a smile. His mother was sounding more and more like herself every day.

Still though…

Blaze tightens the laces of his shoes into bunny ears.

“Hah ha hah. Where is Millicent, anyways? You know you shouldn’t be answering the phone – what if…”

Blaze pauses, takes a beat, and looks around his room before whispering into the receiver.

“What if someone is listening? Wait. Are you there all alone!?”

Rather than match his lower register, his mother yells at him like he’s the one losing his hearing.

“Woah woah woah! Breathe, Nathan. In and out just like I taught you. Remember?”

Breathe in.

A pause.

Breathe out.

“Dr. Armitage said she’ll be right back. Besides, no one but you ever calls here anyways…”

Blaze moves the phone back to his hand as he stands up and grabs a light jacket casually draped over a nearby chair. He looks up and gently pushes the curtains open to reveal the New York City skyline from atop a 40-story apartment complex overlooking Central Park.

It was a “gift” from Daihm, more specifically his grandfather. A company suite that looked straight out of an episode of Mad Men.

His appreciation for the upgrade from the usual hotel fare notwithstanding, it was disconcerting that the person whose father he beat within an inch of his life, abducted, and held captive for a week just three years ago was being so… friendly.

The place had everything someone could need and far more than anyone would need. Million-thread-count sheets. Wall-to-wall oak. A refrigerator smarter than his laptop. A 100-inch plasma dominating the living room.

The whole thing easily had to be over $10 million. Maybe even $20 million. Meanwhile his mom was laying on a cot in the cellar of some abandoned church in Creepville, USA.

Better than the alternative.

“I’m sorry mom and I know Millicent isn’t the… warmest company to have around. But it’s for your own good.”

A short laugh pops through the receiver.

“And I seem to remember a certain little boy who always hated things that were for his own good.”

Nathan slides an arm into the sleeves of the jacket as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, well. I was young… And I was wrong.”

He can hear his mother sigh on the other end of the line.

“Nathan, I’m cooped up here all day like some zoo animal! Dr. Armitage is letting me cook and clean, which keeps my mind busy, but there’s no television here. No radio. And not a single book on these shelves makes any gosh dang sense! She’s got to have 200 books here and none of them are by Janet Evanovich, E.L. James, or Britt Bennett! I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re lucky you have a mind still left to lose!”

Blaze’s voice snaps far harsher than he means it to, causing an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line. One he lets hang for probably one beat too long.

“I’m just…”

“I know…”

Blaze’s eyes catch the nearby digital clock. He was going to be late.

Shit.

“Shit!”

“Nathan! Language!”

“I… ugh! Look. Can you just tell Millicent that I called? And when I’m back I promise I’ll call again and we can talk more, OK?”

Blaze can practically see his mother tapping her foot on the basement floor with her hand on her hip and that little frown she makes when she’s biting her tongue.

“I promise. A real promise, mom. A pinky promise.”

"Alright... well, if it's a pinky promise."

Blaze pulls the phone from his ear to end the call, but he hears his mother keep going.

“What exactly are you so late for you can’t spend time talking to your mother? Some photoshoot, or a meet-and-greet. I swear. I can hear it in your voice, Nathan – how stressed you are. That Troy woman is going to be the death of you!”

“Mom! It’s not that.”

Blaze’s shoulders sag as he turns and places his free hand on the penthouse window and looks out over the city.

“I’m going to meet Daihm Ferguson.”

Silence fills the other end of the line and Blaze immediately begins to try and fill it.

“He joined PRIME last week and I have some things I need to ask him about. I mean we have things we need to talk about.”

Still silence. Blaze holds the phone out in front of his face and sees that the call is still very much connected.

“Mom?”

Blaze presses the phone close enough he can now hear his mother’s breathing heavily on the other end of the line. Then, a whisper. Tense and urgent.

“Nathanial Joseph Lake.”

Blaze looks up, breath stuck as he catches his reflection in the window.

“Don’t you dare do anything to hurt that child more than you already have.” In Bloom “Look, Daihm, I need you to know how sorry I am.”

A pair of red Chuck Taylors with bunny ear laces smack the broken concrete of New York’s major arteries as Blaze is lost deep in thought, barely registering his claustrophobia as layers of people on either side of him head in a million different directions.

“I wasn’t thinking straight back then… and I was scared.”

Blaze shakes his head.

“That’s not an apology. That’s an excuse. Just say what you mean and-”

He looks up, barely able to see over the sea of people.

Where am I? Better yet, where am I even going?

“Oi! Blaze. You found it! I knew you would.”

Standing there against the wall of some massive skyscraper between a homeless man resting on a cardboard box and a pair of feral cats fighting over a piece of cheese was Daihm Ferguson with a big, goofy smile on his face holding a pretzel the size of his head.

Daihm pops a piece of the salted pastry into his mouth and points eagerly at a balding man with a mustache straight out of a 1920s detective novel standing behind a garish red food cart with a sign that reads “Pete’s Pizza, Perogies, and Pretzels.”

“That’s a lot of… Ps.”

Great start Blaze. Come up with that on your own?

“I know, aye! Pete here is positively the best purveyor of pastries this side of Park Avenue.”

“For the millionth time, buddy, my name is Roger. R-O-G-E-R.”

Daihm flashes a thumbs up.

“Roger that, Pete.”

Blaze gives an apologetic shrug as he points at the stand.

“Uh… I’ll have what he’s having, I guess.”

The grumpy man reaches his hand into a massive metal box and pulls out a similarly impressive twist of bread and salt. Blaze asks for some extra mustard and sauerkraut before handing him a $5 and telling him to keep the change.

“Fifty cents. How generous. Hope you both fall into an open manhole and break your necks.”

“We’ll try our best! See you tomorrow, Pete!”

Daihm waves enthusiastically as the pastry cart begins its journey down the remainder of Park Avenue and Blaze looks over at Daihm’s street side companions.

“Maybe we should walk and talk?”

“Ach! Good idea.”

Daihm bends down and gives the rest of his pretzel to the man on the cardboard minus a singular piece he reserves for the contentious cats, splitting the pair up, at least for the time being.

Red-haired, clean-shaven, and wearing a simple black hooded sweatshirt, the young man shoves his hands in his pockets and begins to walk with Blaze following behind.

“Hey, Daihm… I. Uh. Thank you, for the apartment.”

“No worries, mate. It was sitting there empty anyways… waste no’ want no’ right?”

Blaze’s heart begins to beat faster and his face twists like the pretzel he’s holding.

“I’m just confused.”

“About what?”

God dammit.

“I don’t understand why you’d do that for me… “

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“…after everything I did to you.”

Daihm doesn’t even turn his head to look at Blaze.

“Oh. I dinnae think about it a lot, actually. I honestly forgot all about it until just recently.”

Blaze’s heart goes cold and drops from his chest, slamming against his rib cage until it shatters at the bottom of his stomach.

“You really should eat that pretzel before it gets cold.”

He does as he’s told, choosing to stuff his mouth with food rather than let any more words come out from it.

At least for a few seconds.

He can’t help himself.

“I just… I want you to know I’m sorry. To you. To Lennox.”

At the sound of his father’s name, Daihm stops and turns to look at Blaze; his Americanized accent breaking.

“What div ye want me tae do!?”

And that’s when Blaze realizes they are in the middle of an intersection. In the distance the flashing red hand begins counting down.

Nine.

“To punish yah?”

Eight.

“To absolve yah?”

Seven.

“That’s nah somethin’ that’s up tae me.”

Six.

“That’s something you have tae do for yourself!”

Five.

“Uh, Daihm?”

Four.

“What!?”

Three.

“Oh.”

Two.

Blaze drops the pretzel he had been clenching in his hand and grabs a hold of Daihm’s arm.

One.

He throws Daihm ahead of him, feeling the air of a speeding taxi barely miss careening into his hips before tumbling hard onto the concrete curb.

“Ow.”

Blaze winces as he pushes himself on a pair of badly scraped hands and a torn hole in his jeans before his head snaps to the side, looking for Daihm.

Oh god, where is-

“WAHAHAHHAHHAHA”

Blaze’s expression freezes as he sees the newest member of the PRIME roster, and the man he was responsible for as his ‘sponsor’, having a giggle fit after just nearly getting flattened like a pancake on the streets of New York City.

He’s a lunatic. An absolute lunatic.

Then, from somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain, five words flash like a beacon.

Takes one to know one.

With a sigh, Blaze picks himself all the way up and puts a hand on Daihm’s shoulder.

“You okay?”

Daihm wipes his eyes and tries to calm his laughter, his voice settling.

“New York drivers, aye?”

Blaze almost rolls his eyes, but stops himself. Instead he closes them and nods.

“Aye.”

Daihm brushes off his pants and arms before looking at Blaze. And then keeps looking. For way too long.

“Uh… something wrong?”

“Nah. I’ve just been thinking, a lot actually, about whether or no’ I belong in PRIME. But I feel a lot better now that, at least, I won’t be figuring that out alone.”

Blaze scoffs involuntarily, then winces.

He lets the dismissive gesture sit in silence until Daihm finally speaks.

“Oh no!”

Blaze holds his palms out.

“It’s not as bad as it looks. I just need a bit of Neosporin and-”

“Not that. THAT!”

Daihm points back toward the intersection, which has switched back and shows a cheery white human figure encouraging people to cross. And laying there in the center of everything is an obliterated mound of baked dough, mustard, and sauerkraut covered in tire tracks.

“Your pretzel…”

Daihm’s face falls, but Blaze just chuckles and shrugs.

“Hey, just more for the birds to eat, right?”

Daihm looks up at Blaze as the young man’s frown turns back into that big, goofy smile. Brace for Impact (Live a Little) The sun was setting on another New York City evening with glimmers of light catching Lady Liberty’s everburning torch as Blaze Claymore watched from a distance.

The statue called to mind so many movies he watched in his childhood… Escape From New York, Titanic, Deep Impact, Batman Forever… Ghostbusters II. But seeing it in person was a different experience altogether.

Just a single figure standing in the middle of New York Harbor guiding lost souls to its safe shores.

“So how’s the jolly green giant doin’? With all due respect o’course.”

Daihm, living in New York for just over a year now, knew far more about the city than Blaze did. And he had spent the last week showing him all the touristy sights but for every moment Blaze wasn’t thinking about his and Daihm’s past he was thinking about his future with Steve and Sage.

Daihm shoves a steaming cup at him.

“I remembered you dinnae like coffee. So I got hot chocolate.”

Blaze’s cheek curls into an imperceptible smile.

“Thanks, Daihm. And thanks for… showing me around. I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t done as much to introduce you to PRIME.”

Daihm makes a raspberry with his lips, waving Blaze’s self-depreciation off like a swarm of unwanted mosquitos.

“Plenty of time for that, mate. You, on the other hand, have a match coming up in a few days.”

Blaze takes a sip of his drink before sighing.

“That I do.”

Daihm narrows his gaze as he shoves Blaze lightly.

“Dinnae tell me you’re scared.”

“It’s not that… I just. I have a lot of mixed feelings. The last time I faced Steve and Sage didn’t exactly go well… for me.”

“So you lost. What’s the big deal? Just… don’t this time.”

Blaze takes a sip from his drink as his eyes stay locked on Lady Liberty.

“Steve Lemieux defeated me for the Alias title in a match I literally designed by beating my nuts with a meat tenderizer and nearly turned them into carpaccio. So… excuse me if I have a little bit of PTSD from the last time we met.”

Daihm’s eyes go wide.

“And Sage? What did he do?”

“He just beat me… I thought he was going to hit me with a chair, so I tried to stop him and it left him open for a cheap shot to my still-recovering groin.”

Daihm winces.

“Is that why you wear red pants all the time?”

Blaze chokes back a laugh.

“Funny. Just about as funny as getting teamed up with Sage a couple months later in a four on four match against some of the meanest fuckers in the company. As part of a ‘team building’ exercise I ended up furnishing a house for a family living on his compound.”

Daihm nods along, clearly trying to avoid looking over at Blaze’s crotch.

“Any tips for the apartment?”

“Several.”

“Oh.”

“Dozen.”

“Right.”

Daihm turns from the Statue of Liberty to Blaze, leaning against the pier and slowly sips his coffee.

“So what’s your strategy this time?”

There’s a pained, pregnant pause as Blaze closes his eyes and sinks slowly against the edge of the pier.

“That good, huh?”

The Lighthouse pushes himself up and turns to Daihm briefly before silently walking over to a nearby bench and dropping down onto it. The young man known as “The Dragon” watches… and then follows, gently positioning himself next to Blaze.

“When I was a kid my mom thought I could be a hockey player.”

Daihm perks up.

“Like in Heated Rivalry?”

“I was a kid, Daihm.”

“Right. Right. Sorry.”

“Just listen, okay?”

Daihm nods, his eyes locked on to Blaze’s as he continues.

“There wasn’t a mom in the entire state of Minnesota in the 1990s that didn’t think their son was going to be the next Neal Broten or Jamie Langenbrunner… but I was every inch of my six-foot-one frame by time I was 14 and weighed 120 pounds soaking wet. Not to mention I couldn’t skate more than five feet on my own without grabbing onto the boards for dear life.”

Blaze leans back, a smile on his face.

“Still though, my mom was stubborn. Even if I didn’t have the physical makeup to be a hockey player she was going to make damned sure I knew the rules of the game on the off chance I could swing a job as a commentator or play-by-play announcer or something.”

“There was one game she took me to… the Gophers against the Huskies. Interstate game. I remember walking into the arena and just being hit by a sea of maroon and gold. Everyone was there to cheer for the home team.”

“Eventually we made our way up, step after step after step, to the nosebleed seats. They were what we could afford at the time… but I could still see all the players, hear every whistle, and feel every hit against the boards.”

“And goddamn St. Cloud was dominant in that game. They seemed to have the Gophers’ number every play. But the team never got sloppy. They never lashed out. As much as the fans want the players to check someone into the boards a little too hard or start a fight… they didn’t. And even though they could have given up, being down by three goals with 10 minutes left in the game being outshot and out skated, they still took every shift and fought for every puck.”

Daihm claps his hands together.

“And they came back and won!”

Blaze shakes his head.

“No. They lost... Pulled the goaltender at the end and the Huskies scored an empty netter just to add insult to injury. But when the Gophers came out, they still shook hands with the other team and at the end they slapped their sticks on the ice, raised them up to the crowd, and got a standing ovation.”

“I asked my mom afterwards why they were cheering for the team even though they lost.”

Blaze sighs.

“She said ‘Nathan… it’s not important whether they won or lost, what is important is that they didn’t sacrifice who they were just to win. Ten years and even twenty years from now no one is going to remember what plays they missed or what calls weren’t made, but they will remember they didn’t hold anything back – even in a loss.’”

Blaze reaches up and wipes at his eyes. Daihm leans forward and puts an arm around Blaze’s shoulder. The Lighthouse tenses up immediately and begins to slide to the right.

“Your mom sounds like a real smart lady.”

Blaze nods, eyes still wet, as he slides left and lets Daihm’s arm sit on his shoulder.

“Yeah. She is.”

Daihm lets his arm drop as he looks out toward the harbor.

“So what is your strategy, then, Blaze?”

The Lighthouse looks up, watching as the sun finally sinks below the horizon illuminating the Statue of Liberty’s flame as it glows bright against the city skyline. He stands up and walks slowly back to the pier.

“If I’m going to beat Sage and Steve, I can’t be afraid of losing. I need to start playing for the win rather than trying to prevent a loss.”

Blaze clenches a fist, but drops it as he feels Daihm approach, smiling. Not a goofy or over exaggerated grin; something warmer.

“Just remember — don’t forget to shake hands afterwards.”

Blaze laughs and shakes his head, but sees something serious behind the Dragon’s eyes. The Lighthouse steadies his feet, and then nods back in affirmation.

“Aye.”