It Gets Easier, But It Never Gets Easy

"I felt only as a man can feel who is roaming over the prairies of the far West, well armed, and mounted on a fleet and gallant steed."

There’s a shitty song from the nineties that sums up the way Rob Williams feels about this stupid fucking pub crawl.

You know the one.

It gets in your fucking head.

It’s been in Rob’s head ever since the announcement.

Rob Williams in the midst of a self-discovery journey getting booked in a pub crawl.

Isn't it ironic?

Not to mention the tribes have now been merged - so instead of dealing with three other dudes’ farts and weird behavior, he’s got… more than that. He’s not so sure how many.

On his side flipping through YouTube Shorts, watching a highlight reel of all the best mob movies of the last twenty years just praying for a morsel of motivation.

So here he sits, toiling over his internal struggle: try to be the man he wants to be OR tear the fucking world down. Make The Appropriation Luchador, Johnny Whoever, and The VV Boys line up bent over with a bottle of Malort shoved up the caboose’s ass and make his own Human Centipede in some shitty dive bar.

But obviously that wouldn’t work.

Not because he’s becoming a good dude, or anything, but like - physically.

“Maybe if Ivan was at the end?” Rob chuckles to himself, no energy to follow through with the smile. “He’s a big guy.”

There’s no question that Rob Williams’ Cheesecake Factory Menu of addictions are his, but the life of a traveling wrestler sure made them a comfortable shoe to slip in.

What does that mean?

His back hurts. There’s a pill for that.

Rob never sleeps well in a bed that wasn’t his. A heavy handed night cap puts some weight to the eyelids.

Gonna need more than a cup of coffee to get up and hit the road after all that.

He reaches mindlessly around on the bed until he finds his little one hitter vape. Can’t even smoke in this fucking Air BnB. Every week this Survivor shit seems more like a punishment.

Maybe it’s one in the morning. Maybe it’s two.

He knows better than to look at the time. If you don’t look at it, it doesn’t exist.

The vape is just like a Tylenol for a whole rotten and cracked tooth. Enough to make him not want to jump out the window.

A bandaid on a Malort bottle in your ass.

Somewhere between the inhale and the exhale of Golden Tobacco there’s a knock at the door.

Soft at first.

“Fuck off,” Rob mumbles, refusing to get up from his little cocoon of blankets.

They do not fuck off.

In fact, the knocker swings the door open violently. The doorknob slams through the drywall on the other side. Despite the door being sans door stopper, Rob knows he’s going to catch the blame for this.

“Ah, that’s gonna come out of my check.”

Lindsay Troy stands at the end of his bed. Her hair is, obviously, perfect.

Of all the shitty AirBnB’s in Chicago.

She must be in the wrong room.

“Keyes' room is down the hall.” Rob says, unprompted and staring at her blankly.

“Hello, Robert.” Troy calls out, shaking her perfect head of curly hair.

Weird.

“My name is Rob.”

It’s enough to move the mountain. Rob sits up, rubbing his eyes. This can’t fucking be real, right?

“I need you drunk, Robert.”

“Come again?” Rob puzzles.

“The Pub Crawl. This is Chicago, Robert. We need chaos. We need eyeballs. We need someone to blow a fireball into Tom’s face and knock over a mechanical bull. Maybe even some puke.”

This can’t be real. Despite not believing in the classic trope, Rob pinches himself.

“Ow. Wait, what. No? No, I can't do that. I’m sober.”

He cannot believe he’s actually sitting in some shitty Air Bnb in Chicago arguing with Lindsay Troy that he doesn’t want to drink.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Does it fucking matter, boss? It ain’t gonna happen.”

“It matters to the hundreds of thousands of fans tuning into ReVival for hellfire and bloodshed. That’s you, Rob. Always has been you.”

Rob pinches the bridge of his nose. This must be what people feel like trying to talk to him.

“Find somebody else, Troy. I did my time being your goddamn sideshow. Bleeding for these fucking ungrateful fans. What did it ever get me, huh? They don’t love me.”

The boss smirks.

“There isn’t anybody else, Robert. That’s the whole fucking point of you.”

Silence.

Troy lets that last one marinate in the space between them.

“Chicago needs to remember why Rob Williams is scary. You want them to love you? People love nothing more than a good sideshow. Give them the high octane shit show machine you know you really are, not some guy crying in a parking lot.”

That lands.

“Get some sleep, Rob - you’re going to need it.”

She turns for the door.

“Wait-” Rob calls out.

But she doesn’t.

He remembers the smell of the cocaine in the casino bathroom in that North Carolina Native American Casino.

And the sick feeling from a week or two of liquid diet. An Atlanta Braves game. Being carried out of his cousin’s bedroom where the wife’s best friend was sleeping because she refused to sleep with him.

The smell of the guy blowing his guts out in the stall next to him.

Burning your fingers trying to get the remaining junk off the rims of the pipe when you’re plum out.

Coming down on a Sunday in a dry town.

This is the man that Lindsay Troy wants?

He thinks of his unborn child sitting in Charlotte’s belly. How is he supposed to do this? With one foot in one yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, he’s pissing all over today.

Maybe she’s right.

Who is he kidding? What would that even look like? A man like him trying to play fucking house.

Home for a few days in between trips. Trying to change diapers and make formula between unpacking and changing to go train with Finn.

He sighs.

Maybe what he gets from this is a form of the love he’s been looking for.

“Where’s my fucking shovel?”

Rob Williams August 26 1986 - August 07, 2026

The rain falls in big, heavy drops.

The kind you can’t seem to escape - no matter how you stand or move you’re constantly catching one.

Dirt and water soak through the knees of Rob Williams’ jeans. Honestly, it’s an improvement. He’s been having a tough couple of days.

Water runs from Williams’ beard and hair and trickles cold down his neck.

A man should be more bothered by his own grave.

Rob is bothered, but not by that.

“They couldn’t even give me a cool fucking quote.” He shakes his head, grunting along with the crackle of his knees as he pushes himself up to a stand.

The shovel slides through the wet earth like a hot knife through a Vegas wedding cake.

At first.

Somewhere around three feet it gets hard. He reaches a part not yet softened by the rainfall.

“Fucking dry summers.”

Still, he digs.

The thick callouses on his hand rip and peel off and blood begins to drip off his fingertips, diluted to nothing by the rain by the time it reaches the metal.

Still, he digs.

At some point it stops raining. You wouldn’t know it from the sheen of sweat and blood Williams wears.

He’s panting. Exhausted. Ready to give up this hopeless endeavor.

Still, he digs.

Until finally.

KNOCK

“Pay day.”

Neck high down in the hole, Rob puts the finishing touches on his excavation job, wildly lobbing big clumps of mud and dirt up out of the hole.

It’s a simple casket. Nice enough, but nothing fancy about it.

He sits for a moment, digging a half crumpled pack of Camel Unfiltered cigarettes from his pocket.

“Nothing like taking a cigarette break in your own grave.”

Rob smirks, exhaling the smoke through his nose and looking up at the stars.

Too cloudy.

“Fucking light pollution. God damn if we don’t ruin everything.”

He sighs, knees and back popping as he stands up. Shoveling is hell on the back.

“Time to make the doughnuts.”

The cigarette spits little sparks as it hits the casket lid and Rob uses the point of his Tecovas boot to snuff it out. It takes a minute to get the lid open.

Rob takes a deep breath, inventorying the contents.

Inside: A plastic handle of cheap vodka Eightball of Booger Sugar A tank of laughing gas Some tin foil and a straw (for basing the booger sugar, naturally)

This is what they want.

The fans. Troy. PRIME. VV.

Rob reaches a hand inside to grab the “I’m blowing this rehab” go bag…

And stops.

“Fuck you, Troy.”

It’s a whisper, inaudible over the wind.

“Fuck you, PRIME.”

A little louder now. It’s not waking any of his neighbors in this space, but it’s audible.

“Fuck the fans. Fuck Johnny Dorn.”

The lion is roaring now.

“And fuck you, Chicago.”

In a swift motion he pops up from the squat he’s been in and kicks the lid of the casket shut.

“I’m going home.”

He can feel the dirt pushing underneath his fingernails as he claws and grasps at the sides of the hole he has dug to pull himself out.

DING

The first thing he does is check his fingernails.

No dirt.

“What the fuck, man?”

Fumbling in the dark, he’s momentarily blinded by the light of his phone.

Char 🐧

I miss u

Dr shantz wants to meet u at Lincoln Park.

Miss u too Ok getting cleaned up and heading over.

Fuck. He forgot about the meeting with the head shrinker. Fucking Dr. Shantz. What a prick.

With his cornflower blue shirt and pressed jacket and white leather seats in his Audi.

Rob never had white leather seats cause his life was full of stains. Everything he owned seemed to be wrinkled the moment it came out of the dryer.

If he was being honest, it bothered him.

DING

Char 🐧

U doing ok? Thought about the names anymore?

Doing fine, love u

Still, as much of a schmarmy fuck the guy was… Rob has been thinking a lot about what he said. Victim versus volunteer.

Most of Rob’s problems in life have been a) his own goddamn doing and b) something he felt was completely unjust. Maybe he has actually been signing himself up for it.

There’s just so much to do. To figure out.

The baby names. How to talk to Finn. What the fuck is up with Daytona?

“One day at a time.”

Fuck.

There was a whole lot he didn’t like about AA. Often when they said God, he heard Jesus. And some of the patrons were just a tad too clean for him.

Like one time, when he was coming off of relapse number umpteen, he scraped himself off the bathroom floor and to a noon meeting at some strip mall in Shiloh, Georgia. Here he was fighting off delirium tremens and the lady who led was talking about how she felt guilty about lying to her boss.

She told him she was going to the doctor to get out of work and come to the meeting.

Maybe that was the day he decided he was all alone in the world.

But, he knows he’s not. Charlotte loves him unconditionally. John keeps picking up the phone. Anna let the iron curtain down to show him what hurt her.

Maybe Rob Williams volunteered to be all alone and that was just the moment he turned in his card.

If summer in Georgia is hell, summer in Chicago is also hell. But with meaner people and more hot dogs.

The park is sweltering.

Rob can’t tell if it’s his growing pit stains or the heat, but he’s having serious second thoughts about this meeting place.

“I’m sure this guy knows some really cool coffee place I ain’t heard of. Why the fuck did he pick this place?”

“Hoping to disarm you, Rob. And of course I know a cool coffee place you’ve never heard of.” Dr. Shantz blocks the sun, the rays coming from behind his off red suit striking Rob as mighty religious.

“Job well fucking done,” Rob wipes sweat from his brow.

“Mind if I sit?” Shantz glances towards the other side of the park bench from behind those thick black framed glasses.

“By all means,” Rob feigns a smile and holds his hands out.

Everything Shantz does is intentional. He sits, with perfect posture, uncomfortably close to Rob - folding a leg to let it rest on his knee.

Of course he doesn’t have socks with his loafers. The mere thought of bare foot sliding across the leather makes Rob squirm.

“How have you been, Rob?”

Shantz still doesn’t look directly at him.

“Well, I got some problems, Doc.”

“You don’t say?”

“Funny. I don’t know, man. I been thinking about what you said last time we met. It ain’t lost on me. In fact, I been hearing that shit my whole life one way or another - whether it was AA or John or some parole officer. I’m my own goddamn problem, right?”

“And wherever you go…”

“There I am.”

They sit in silence for a moment watching all of the civilians living their lives.

“So what’s keeping you up at night, Rob?”

Rob wants to unload. Tell the nerd all about it. Daytona is a raving fucking lunatic who probably roofied him. Charlotte is about to give him another kid and he hasn’t even told the first, who he’s training by the way, that he’s his dad. He also put his best friend in a wheelchair. And he has to pick a fucking baby name.

But, he doesn’t feel the need to.

There’s something about Shantz that makes Rob feel confident he already knows it. He knows how fucked up this hulking brute on the bench next to him is. And with time, he’ll help him unpack all of those other things.

So start with the fire that’s burning the brightest.

What is keeping me up at night?

“This fucking match. A pub crawl? It’s like, you know, running into your high school sweetheart when you’re both married. This is my shit, man. And they know that. The brass knows it, the fans know it, my competitors know it. Everyone is expecting Rob Williams the bastard who will get drunk, get in a fight, get naked, and cry. You can jumble the order up, but that’s what I do best.”

Shantz nods his head slowly.

“Isn’t it ironic?”

“Goddamnit, Shantz. Come on.”

“I couldn’t help myself. Ok, so once again you’re faced with the idea that you won’t be loved if you don’t play by what you think the rules are.”

“No, this is outright. That dipshit Johnny Dorn has sworn he will kick the shit out of anyone who doesn’t drink.”

“Are you scared of Johnny Dorn?”

Rob scoffs so hard they hear it at Yankee Stadium.

“Of that puke fuck?”

“Ok. Are you scared of getting your ass kicked?”

A scoff that registers at Dodgers Stadium.

“I was getting my ass kicked when you were nothing but a twinkle in your daddy’s eyes, Doc.”

Shantz nods thoughtfully once again.

“So what is the problem, Rob?”

Instead of answering, Rob thinks about it.

What is the problem?

Johnny Dorn is a pissant. He sure ain’t throwing any worse an ass whipping than Cancer Jiles or Henry Keyes or Double D did.

“I’m scared I’m going to let everybody down.”

“You’re afraid of letting people you don’t know down when doing so would inherently let down everyone that loves you.”

Shantz stands, putting a hand on Rob’s shoulder.

“Time’s up, Rob. Maybe you should reach out directly to schedule next time - might give us a bit more to work with. And in between, try to think about why you need the approval of strangers over having integrity with your own people.”

And with that the shrink strolls away, whistling a familiar tune and leaving Rob a little less confused than when they began.

“My name is Rob and I’m an alcoholic.”

“HI ROB”

“I, uh, I ain’t been to a meeting in a long time. And I ain’t been sober long - this time. You know what I hate? How fucking movies portray AA meetings. Like we all are sitting in a circle in some high school gym.”

They’re in neatly arranged rows of those blue, plastic chairs in a church basement.

“And that we gotta stand up in front of everyone when we talk.”

Rob, like everyone else, is seated. Some people have turned to look at the person sharing, but not because of who he is.

If they know that he’s “The Legend”, they’re not showing it.

Instead they’re showing warm smiles - proof of listening. Respect that he didn’t earn and hasn’t asked for.

“Anyways, I uh, I am dealing with some shit at work right now. Basically I got this situation where my boss has put me in a work obligation where my career could be fucked up and… well, that ain’t true. I volunteered for this obligation where my career could be fucked up and it involves drinking. Like it’s a requirement.”

The old fire in his belly is coming back. That energy he felt during the press conferences. Like cutting a real good promo.

“And the guy that’s hosting it, no offense to y’all nice people from Chicago, but he’s a stereotypical Chi-town shitbag. He’s basically said that he’s gonna kick the shit out of anyone that ain’t drinking on this pub crawl, right?”

The crowd is confused, but they’re not lost. They’ve all experienced something similar. Maybe it’s their first sober work trip or first sober party. Likely none of them were going to get their asses kicked for not drinking… but they sure felt like it.

“So I thought real hard about doing it, you know? Getting the kit out and just really showing them the fucking monster. Letting these amateurs see what a pro does.”

A few people chuckle.

“But then I thought about my girlfriend. That ring I got burning a hole in my pocket and that kid she’s got in her belly. My kid. And like… fuck my boss. And fuck the host, too. If they want to try and get a pound of flesh out of me for not being their whipping boy… let ‘em come fucking try.”

Rob nods and receives a few warm nods in return.

“Too many times I’ve given up my sobriety for people I ain’t gonna know in five years. Not this time. And if it means I lose… well, I lost before. Anyways, I appreciate y’all letting me share.”

“THANKS ROB!”

Nervous energy generates heat. Rob can feel it. His face and neck are flushed and his throat is sandpaper.

An old man sitting next to him smirks and laughs a little, leaning in close.

The guy has big Clint Eastwood vibes.

His polo shirt is tucked into his classic Levi jeans. He’s clean. Much cleaner than Rob.

But there’s something that affirms this dude has been right where Rob is. This guy was once a big, bad wolf.

“Good job, kid.” The guy whispers to him, leaning in close.

“Thanks, oldtimer.” Rob whispers back, holding out his hand.

The old man takes it and grips hard enough to break stone.

“Trey.”

“Rob.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

They both chuckle.

“Listen, son. It gets easier, but it never gets easy."