freedom is never FREE

“Have you ever even kayaked before?”

Sometimes, York asks me questions that sound very stupid to my ears, and I gotta say, that’s right up there with “Do you want to join the bowling league?”

Don’t get me wrong. He’s a very useful man. He is, after all, an avowed enemy to mankind and a professional necromancer. The only one in wrestling, I’m told. Aligning myself with him was in our mutual best interests. I give him the foothold that he’s yearned for ever since PRIME returned for its “ReVival.”

And me? I get minions.

Win-win.

Sometimes, and this might be hard to take seriously coming from a man named Math Johnson, the value of our alliance is greater than the sum of our parts. Imagine a very big number, double it, and make sure you carry the two: That’s the quality of our partnership. To wit, he’s a key part of how I was able to get rid of Anton Mendoza, as he provided me with the… bodies I needed to make that video of mine work.

Of course, I’ll admit my alliance with York hasn’t been without difficulties.

It’s difficult to bring anyone like him and his ilk along for the Math Johnson experience when they can’t even secure a manager’s license. Apparently, every licensor looks at him and says “no” without looking any deeper. Apparently, he’s caused a lot of trouble everywhere he’s gone. Apparently, that whole “enemy of mankind” thing is a lot more of a burden than I thought it’d be.

Even now, at this dock with my newly acquired kayak, he’s causing difficulties just by his mere existence.

Maybe it’s the unseasonable black robes, or the way they billowed even on a windless day like today. Maybe it’s the fact that he had the air of a man who perverted the cycle of life and death on a regular basis. Maybe it’s the fact that two of his most frequently seen acquaintances are potato sacked pirate zombies, and they’re squatting near us like gargoyles. Or Russian gangsters. People give us looks, I’m just saying.

You know, now that I’ve said all of that for everyone to see, I think I should add for the record that some days I’m glad that my sense of smell is shot to shit. Finally, a reason to be thankful that my parents were avid smokers.

Anyway, you might also be wondering what I’m doing here.

As it so happens, fortune follows the Math Johnson experience wherever it goes. That’s how the destiny I’ve seized goes sometimes. So long as I continue to carve my path forward despite all of the obstacles presented to me, good things will follow. Blessings upon me, and not for thee.

For example, let’s say you’ve decided to attend a man’s combination pizza party, crawfish boil, and raffle. You’re not there to celebrate that man’s grand accomplishment, but because you’re scouting out potential vict—I mean, opponents. Two of the men attending were champions for the company, after all, and it’s your duty to get to know all of the people you intend to dismantle in the future. You do this to run the numbers, see if the odds are in your favor.

Then you see something that calls to you, speaking to you in volumes imperceptible to the human ear.

It was a kayak.

Her name was Selma.

Big and beautiful, suitable for rowing considerable distances. I almost couldn’t take my eyes off of it. And when fortune favored me – as it always does – I got to bring that bad boy back to Jersey with me. Joy filled my heart as I took my Cybertruck™ and brought it to Lake Hopatcong. The joy didn’t leave even after I discovered that York was already there, somehow, out of the several dozen places I could’ve chosen. I didn’t even ask how he knew where I’d be.

What I’ve learned over the time I’ve spent with York is that the less I ask questions about how he works his magic, the fewer headaches I have. Fewer nosebleeds, too.

In any case, I answered his question as mysteriously as he’d answer any of mine, “Maybe.”

I get the impression that he hates it when I give him a mathematician’s answer like that. I don’t know what he expected. He knows my name, after all.

“Maybe?” he parroted.

“Yes.”

York clicked his tongue in agitation. The other thing I know about York is that when someone acts just as mysteriously as he does just to fuck with him, it bothers him.

He gestured at the kayak floating behind me, “Instead of focusing on your grand plan, you’ve chosen to… kayak.”

“Who’s to say that they aren’t one in the same, York?”

“Me. I’m saying that,” York said, as he visibly tried to contain a headache, “You’ve collected a bauble from the man at top and now you’re pleasuring yourself with it.”

“Phrasing, York.”

“My point is, are you sure that thing’s seaworthy? It came from a Whoresman.”

“Pretty sure.”

“It’s covered in rhinestones, and…” he paused, clearly trying to compose himself, “It’s got the name ‘Selma Kayak’ written on its side.”

“Yes,” I said. York had a point, of course, but I will naturally refuse to concede that he had one, “As I recall, you resurrected a jet ski for the same man that’s given me this bauble floating perfectly fine behind me.”

York winced.

Got ‘em.

“Anyway,” I continued, basking in the glory of my point, “They’ve already lined up the next tombstone. So I will greet it with open arms. Open arms that have done a lot of kayaking to build up muscle. I’m going to put everything I have into the paddle as though this entire lake is Chad Freedom’s face, until I am satisfied.”

York stared blankly at me.

Clearly, I got him so hard that he has no answer for me.

Instead, he turned his body as though his feet had no say in the matter and waved his free hand at me in departure.

“Pete and Spud’ll fish you out when you’re done.”

*.*

I’ll be honest, I was just fucking with York.

I’ve indeed been kayaking before.

The time when I’d first kayaked happened when I’d just gotten out of high school with a beautiful 3.0 GPA to my name. In terms of college prospects, I had no college prospects. My future was a murky little thing where I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, but I wanted to do something that made my name feel alive. I just never figured it out for myself until the day Mendoza scouted me out.

In any case, for the first time in my life, I had the freedom to choose what I wanted to do for myself.

And so, with freedom on my mind, I chose to try kayaking for the first time in my life.

Mind you, I had no idea what I was doing at the time because I had no plan but freedom.

I got myself a boat and a paddle, found a river, and set myself to the task of getting myself from point A to point B. It was a simple plan.

The problem with having no plan except freedom, though, is not quite knowing where you’re going. You don’t know how far you’re planning to go. You don’t know when to stop. You don’t understand that consequences are a big reason why not everyone wants real freedom. So sometimes, you realize that you need to stop and consider the consequences right around the time that the calm waters turn into rapids.

Sometimes, you consider the notion of stopping only after you’ve somehow turned your kayak upside down and your lungs are having a disagreement with the water over how much air they should have. And when you finally come to and realize someone’s rescued you, you consider the notion that having no oxygen is not any kind of freedom at all.

I’ve never forgotten this day, nor the humiliation I felt in having it happen to me.

And so you see, the reason I had joy in my heart and the real motivation for coming out here to row around in this boat is because this is about revenge.

I paddled out to the lake with the fury of a man whose time for vengeance against mother nature and freshwater has finally come. I kept it cool at first. Calm strokes, with the kind of anger that you have when you’re so white-hot pissed at something that it circles back around to dead calm.

Fuck this lake.

Then, as your desire for revenge continues to consume you, you start cursing the lake you’re floating upon. You might think me mad, but I assure you that this is part of the proper way to conduct vengeance against a body of water. You must curse it so that generations to come that step into its waters will come to hate it as I have. You must hate it like it killed your children. You must spit upon its very concept, such that future lakes that will be formed through erosion and time will feel it.

The curses will eventually become obscenities, of course.

I embrace that.

Fuck the people staring at me from afar as I scream obscenities at it.

Now that tranquil bit of fury has become a berserker rage, as my ancestors before me would don their bear skins and charge headlong into battle. Visions of war and battle filled my head as I began attacking my enemy with a fervor and a bloodlust that I should sooner be saving for my opponent in Detroit.

I would make this lake suffer like none have ever before, and my steed to carry out this task is a kayak with enough rhinestones encrusted on it that I wondered if Daytona single-handedly keeps the rhinestone market alive.

I raised my arms and my paddle into the sky, and I bellowed to the skies and for all to hear me.

“MY NAME! IS MATH! JOHNSON!”

It’s important to me to let people know what my name is when I’m about to tell someone or something to fuck off.

“AND FUCK THIS LAKE!”

I smashed my paddle into the lake with a fury best described in Viking terms, splashing up water. In my head, epic music is swelling to its fever pitch. We’re talking “Duel of the Fates “ here and I’m Darth Maul, except much cooler and not losing to some jabroni Jedi.

“I HOPE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE CLAIMS YOUR BONES, YOU DUMB MOIST FUCK!”

Now that I’ve clearly told the lake how stupid it was, I continued paddling against it to make my words come true and show it who the boss was. Not the lake. Fuck no. I’m the boss here. I’m the king of this fucking lake.

Fuck anyone who says otherwise, especially the lake itself.

I admit that sometimes you go a little overboard.

And sometimes, the lake itself responds to your challenges to make that statement literal.

Something struck the back of my kayak with enough force to pitch the front up into the air a good two feet. I’m thrown off-balance, and my paddle goes flying out of my hands. I’m bewildered, and all of my righteous anger and fury at this body of water suddenly melts away. Suddenly, I’m in a panic.

The kayak’s threatening to tip over.

I look around for the source of my dilemma.

And there, in the water behind me, lies the source.

The nation’s anniversary is over, but people still shoot fireworks a week later and people still fly their shitty drones two weeks later. Some asshole had been flying the American Flag over the lake with a drone, and I could see him out there on the shore looking at me like I’m the fucking problem. An asshole with an American flag tank top and jorts and a beer gut that might have its own gravitational pull.

There’s a hole in Selma Kayak.

There’s a hole in my fucking world.

I glared at this piece of human garbage from my sinking vessel with my arms crossed. He’s leaving, or more like running away from the consequences of his actions. I commit his face to memory. I would bring ruin to this man. I would find him and visit upon him such agonies that he’d wish he’d never existed. I’ll take my time too, because a quality amount of revenge is one that is savored.

When I find that motherfucker - and believe me, Math Johnson is nothing if not resourceful - I’ll start by subjecting him tBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUB

BLUB

BLUB

BLUB

blub

blub

blub

...

...

...

I came to my senses on the shores of the lake as I’m being dragged by my arms by two enormous men.

It took me a few moments to remember what had happened, and then that ancestral berserker rage tried to make some noise somewhere deep inside my head. Ugh. So annoying.

I’m definitely fucking that guy up later.

I’m dumped on the ground in front of a familiar set of billowing black robes, and the two huge men - or rather, potato sack pirate zombies - walked past me to stand at his side.

York’s sitting down at a bench, his staff on a lean behind him. In his hand is a good old American hot dog. The man was already a dead ringer for Guy Fieri, but I didn’t realize he also lived the whole Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives life on the side.

He gestured at me with the hot dog in his hand, “Bad luck, mate?”

I didn’t say anything in response, except for one very important point that I needed to articulate.

COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH

I’m a wordsmith, I know.

“Shame about Selma Kayak,” York said without pity, “On the bright side, it’s a net neutral loss, innit? We can go back to our plans about PRIME now, yeah?”

I had a lot I needed to say about York’s callousness over the loss of Selma Kayak, and I decided to articulate it right then.

COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH

Well, fuck.

York took a bite out of his hot dog, and then, like the rude and uncouth man that he was, he talked with his mouth full, “You know, you’re lucky.”

He took a careful swallow.

“After all, if I didn’t need a living person to get a foothold into PRIME, I might’ve just left you out there,” York said.

He tossed the hot dog into the hands of the one he called Potato Pete. Or tried to. Motor skills aren’t really a zombie’s thing, so it just bounced off his chest and clattered to the ground.

York didn’t care. Instead, he reached back to pick up his staff, and tapped the bottom on the ground with a ominous thunk. York watched as I spat out lake water and thanked the lord and the stars above that I didn't actually go through with my plan to piss in it.

He smiled mirthlessly, “That’s now twice you owe me, Mr. Johnson. I'd advise you to carefully consider your options on how to pay me back.”

Then he and his guys walked away to leave me to resolve all of that disagreement my lungs and I are having about water intake.

Yeah.

Okay.

So maybe this partnership isn’t going as swimmingly as I thought.

*.*

Salutations!

I’ve been meaning to address you directly for some time, Mr. Freedom.

So now that I’ve told my whimsical tale about kayaking past and present, let me ask you a question.

Do you think the odds are in your favor?

I don’t mean our match. You’ll need a miracle to get out of our little contest without a visit to a hospital or a morgue, depending on how sunny my mood is. Who can really predict the weather of the Math Johnson experience? You could be in for some cloudy skies, with a chance of impossible division. 

No, I ask in terms of PRIME as a whole.

You see, my humble self is everything Mrs. Troy could ever want for the soon-to-be sole thing that matters in this company: Handsome. Marketable. The type of skill that comes with hard work. Full of enough petty spite to make every man and woman in this company ever regret stepping into the ring with me (and you’d best believe that will include you, sunshine). Good at arithmetic puns. Acquainted with people who will know exactly what to do with all of these graves I’m planning to dig in my wake.

And all that is just the pre-work for solving the greater problem: To become a self-sustaining economic boom for PRIME.

The me checks out.

And yet, I went to that ridiculous celebratory pizza party with all of the extra activities in Pittsburgh. I ran the numbers, as I said before, and… I’ve found myself realizing that the odds aren’t exactly in my favor.

PRIME is full of the best wrestlers that money can buy (and also Steve Lemieux for some reason, the poor thing). Hundreds of wrestlers have darkened the halls of this establishment to get that bag, and you and I are but two of them, Mr. Freedom. What I am is but an average, ordinary man compared to some of these monsters, and what you are is a guy whose only identity is, if I've got your measure right enough, "America, Fuck Yeah."

We don’t have RIA Lockhart’s desire for mutual mutilation. We don’t have Ivan Stanislav’s size or hair-trigger temper. We don’t have Rob Williams’ experience and cunning. We don’t even have access to whatever chemicals helped to forge whatever Daytona Diamonds has become.

All four of them are champions for one reason or another, Chadwick (I can call you that, right? I’m going to call you that. Your silence tells me “yes”). Sometimes, when I’m not carefully aurafarming all of my confidence into PRIME numbers divisible only by itself and me, I’ll ask myself… What do I have that they don’t?

And what I have is two things:

Opportunity and D E S I R E.

The opportunity part is obvious. I must bide my time. Strike when the time is right. Do the hard work of digging graves until the opportunity comes to put those champions right in the dirt where they belong. Every person who holds a title took their opportunity. But now, that opportunity’s been spent. They took what they wanted, and now have to face the cavalcade of men (and women) who have opportunities for themselves.

But that single word that requires six to properly express?

It’s what I have in spades.

You see, Chadwick, I was put on this earth for a reason, and no man or woman or inhospitable backwater is going to stop me from making my name feel alive. I want every fan and wrestler on this planet to know my name, and speak it in awe. The lakes, too. And the assholes with drones. Especially those guys.

I want the freedom that comes with being the man at the top, in the room where it happens. I want the freedom of being able to do what I want and when I want to do it. I want the freedom to be the one percent instead of the ninety-nine.

But all that has a cost, sunshine.

Freedom isn’t free, after all.

So I’m paying for mine with your blood.