Silence, Pt. 3: Legend

Greg Miller’s normal weekday looks like this: He wakes up at seven or seven-thirty, meanders through breakfast, coffee, maybe checks the news on his phone, and by eight-thirty or nine he’s unlocking the front door of his wrestling school. He spends the better part of the next twelve or thirteen hours there, including clean-up at the end of the day. 

Greg is not married. Has no kids. But the way Greg thinks of it, his wife is the wrestling school and his children are the students. He takes great pride in teaching the fundamentals of the sport to eager young wrestlers who, generally, will never grasp them. While Greg himself has never possessed the physical tools to put his knowledge to full use, he truly, truly, enjoys teaching. To put it mildly, wrestling is his life.

Until he gets home. Despite more/less living at his wrestling school, Greg does have a good ability to “turn off” the moment he gets to his actual house, which is the left half of a duplex about fifteen minutes from the warehouse school.

So when, at ten-fifteen at night, while Greg is hunkering down for a marathon session of Mad About You, there comes a knock on his door, and he opens it to find Jason Snow on the other side, he–Greg–isn’t exactly annoyed, but he is far from pleased.

“What? So we’re just pals now?” Greg says.

Snow, of course, says nothing. 

Greg rolls his eyes. “What’re you doing h–” he begins, but he stops when he notices that, dangling from Snow’s right hand, is a child’s car-seat. And, in that child’s car-seat, is an actual, living, breathing, child. 

Greg is now struck just as speechless as Jason. He opens his arms like, What is happening here? 

But–surprise, surprise–Snow offers no answer.

~

The Day Before…

“You have to see this thing I found,” Mandy said the second Jason opened the door. She buzzed past Jason, into the hotel room where he had been set up since Christmas, already digging through her purse. “Look, look, look.”

Jason glanced down either side of the hotel’s hallway, as was his habit, before closing the door.

When he turned around, Mandy had a doll, still in its packaging, held up to his face. “Look at this,” she said. “It looks just like you.” No, not a doll, Jason realized, but an action figure. And, indeed, it was him–Jason Snow, circa 2009, complete with PRIME’s Universal Championship.

Jason rolled his eyes as if she’d just said something absurd.

But Mandy pressed on, tapping the action figure’s box. “Look at the photo. This guy could be your fuckin twin. Except younger. And with way better hair.”

Jason shrugged as if he didn’t see it.

“It’s totally you.”

Jason shrugged again.

“You know,” she said, “most mute people learn sign language after a fuckin while. You’re like fifty. You should’ve looked into it by now. Where’s the fucktard?”

Jason gestured with his chin toward the bedroom suite whose sliding doors were partway open, and Mandy went off to get the baby.

Mandy was a prostitute. Emphasis on ‘was,’ or so Jason hoped. She was around twenty years old, a little overweight, way under-cultured. They’d met the first night Jason had come back to Dempsy (where the wrestling school was) from Saint Ambrose (where Cheryl King was), this time to set down some roots and stay. These were the first days of 2025.

He had arrived in town well after midnight and, with nothing else open, pulled into a truckstop to change the baby’s diaper on the passenger-seat of the car he was supposed to have gotten rid of already. He was sucking down a cloud of baby powder when there came a knock on his window. And when he turned around, there was Mandy. She had come to proposition him, but then when she saw the baby she backed up as if she’d been meaning to approach some other car.

Jason rolled his window down and she said, “Sorry,” and then hesitated. She started to speak and stopped several times. Then she squinted hard and said, “You’re not–You know? Lookin for some company tonight? Or anything? Maybe?”

Jason didn’t say anything. But he just didn’t do that anymore. Say things.

She said, “Right, sorry. Sorry. I’m going.”

But Jason opened the door and stepped out of the car.

It scared her, he could tell, and she began to hurry saying, “Hey, I’m just gonna go. I’m just gonna–” but then she stopped when she glanced back and saw Jason holding up a handful of cash.

On the drive to the hotel where he would rent a room in which he had since resided, she had figured him for a mute. “You can hear me but you don’t talk. That’s fucked up all kinds. Hope the rest of you works.” And then after he rented the room–not the easiest process when you don’t speak–and they took the baby up to it, she had started to undress, but Jason stopped her before she got anything off. She looked confused. Jason shook his head–and he felt a little pathetic in doing so, Jason who hadn’t had sex in a decade and a half, suddenly finding the courage to stick to a moral code just a week after more/less selling his whole fucking soul–and then he nodded at the baby, who was, at that moment, lost in thought atop the bed.

Mandy had looked confused. “Why did you bring me here?”

Jason nodded at the baby again.

Mandy said, “What’s even your name?”

Jason went into his wallet and came out with his other I.D. card, from his years in hiding.

Mandy took the card, read it, and handed it back. “John Gaines?”

Jason nodded.

“Well this is really fucked up, John Gaines. You brought me here to babysit?”

Jason nodded again. And then, after Mandy took the baby into the living room, he collapsed onto the bed and got three uninterrupted hours of sleep for the first time in a week.

Jason had only intended to hire Mandy for that one night, but she returned two days later, without invitation, saying she had just come to visit the fucktard. Meaning the baby. Jason got a few more hours of sleep and gave her a fifty on her way out. She proved to be a Godsend. The next day she showed up again, this time with a couple of bottles of milk. “A friend of mine’s got twins,” she informed Jason. “And she pumps.” Jason was dubious–he could only imagine the company Mandy kept–but she said, “It’s a lot better for the baby,” with so much authority in her voice that he nodded. And, on her way out, gave her another fifty.

He really didn’t trust her in those early days. Well, he trusted her with the baby (she clearly loved the boy) but he didn’t trust her enough to, say, not duct tape the envelope of cash he kept full of PRIME money (he didn’t trust banks either) to the inside of the toilet tank. Nor did she know about the pistol, the one Bryce had given him on Christmas Eve, in the bathroom vent.

She knew it too. Early on, every time he used a password on his phone and discreetly turned its screen away from her she would huff and roll her eyes at him. Over time she got more overtly angry about it. “You know, I’m not just some dumb whore who’s gonna rob you, Gaines. Jesus. It’s been like a month.” And later, “Fuck you. Didn’t your mother teach you about judgin a book by its cover?” And then one night, after Jason went for a nap, but then came back out because he’d forgotten his wallet on the sofa, she had just looked heartbroken. And then later, when he woke up, he found her crying.

“It’s like the only thing anybody’s ever gonna see in me is my past.”

Jason knew the feeling.

She said, “Even you. Like what do I even have to do?”

The next day, when Jason went for his nap, he left his wallet out in plain sight.

The first time he left for Australia was difficult. This was before the wallet incident. He hadn’t wanted to leave the baby with her, but aside from going to the cops and admitting that he had murdered the baby’s mother, and kidnapped him (technically), he couldn’t come up with another option. So when Mandy showed up that day, there was, along with a thousand dollars in cash, a note on the table which read: “Business. 3 Days.” And then his phone number was printed below. (After that they communicated a little bit through texts, but even on the screen of his phone, Jason was mostly silent.) He had returned from Australia in a hurry, terrified of what he might find–what kind of irresponsible imbecile leaves a baby for three days with a fucking prostitute–but what he found was the two of them snuggled up on the couch, sound asleep, drooling on each other.

One more trip to Australia followed by two trips to Japan.

Once a week or so she asked what the baby’s name was. Jason would only smirk and shrug, which annoyed her. Really though, Jason was telling the truth. He didn’t know the baby’s name. And it didn’t feel right to give him a new one.

“How about you write it down?” Mandy asked once in early February.

Jason wrote down: Baby.

Mandy was annoyed. “Okay then. Well I’m just gonna keep callin him fucktard then. And that’s gonna be real cute until he learns to talk. Then it’s gonna be fuckin problem. But have it your way. Maybe someday he’ll tell me his real name and we’ll just call you fucktard. More fuckin accurate anyway.”

And such was life.

The day she came with the action figure, she came out of the bedroom in a huff. “Hope you’re not in a hurry,” she said. “I forgot some shit. Well, I forgot to bring diapers. There’s plenty of shit if we wait around long enough. Be right back.”

And she whizzed by him and out the door with the keys to Jason’s rented car in hand. She didn’t have a driver’s license, he was pretty sure, but, after the wallet incident, he had begun letting her take the car on short drives.

When she was gone, Jason went over to the table. Where the action figure was. Like it was waiting for him.

He looked down at it.

It seemed to look up at him.

The box read PRIME LEGENDS, a limited edition series of some sort, and, beneath an old photo, it read, Jason Snow. The figure didn’t look like Jason–well, he didn’t think so–but it had all of his old signature features. The thick blond hair. The leather pants. Snake Skin boots. And, most signature at all, it had a little rubber replica of PRIME’s Universal Title.

The baby started crying.

Sometimes when the baby cried, it made Jason want to cry too. Because there was something so desperate in his little screams that Jason was sure–he was absolutely sure–the boy was crying for his mother. These little screams were more annoyed than desperate, so Jason grabbed a fresh bottle and went into the bedroom.

The baby quieted when he saw Jason. Or when he saw the bottle. Jason handed it over. The baby had recently begun holding it himself, which he did now, and Jason sat him up in his crib. The baby watched Jason while he sucked a stranger’s milk.

Jason leaned over the crib’s bars. He still had the action figure in hand. He glanced at it for a moment and then he showed it to the baby. Who seemed completely disinterested.

You see this guy? Jason thought, as if his thoughts might reach the baby. That was me. A long time ago, that’s what I looked like.

The sucked eagerly at his bottle and then paused long enough to yell at Jason.

Jason smiled. I know. Hard to believe. He rubbed his bald scalp.

They spent some time like that. Jason touched the baby’s cheek. His wispy hair.

You know I’ve got to leave for Japan again. And I’ve got a chance over there to… to do something special. You see this? Jason held the box up and the baby looked. Jason tapped at his likeness’s waist, around which was wrapped the little PRIME Universal Title. That was mine. For a long time. A man named Ivan Stanislav has it now. A bad, terrible man. Jason couldn’t help but chuckle. But don’t worry. I’m worse.

There were times, when Jason spoke psychically to the baby like this, he would swear that the baby understood. The baby giggled now, giving Jason exactly that feeling. And he looked Jason in the eye, sucking his bottle, like he was waiting to hear more.

I’m gonna get it back, Jason thought to the baby. I’m gonna get it back for you.

The baby paid undivided attention.

This coming weekend, I’m gonna win a chance to get it back. Nobody believes I can do it. Do you believe I can do it? I swear to God, I’ll go to UltraViolence, and I’ll go through ten Ivan Stanislavs for you. That’s like eighty feet of Ivan Stanislavs.

The baby gurgled and then sucked his bottle all the harder. He was not good at sitting, the baby, and he fell over to one side, which amused him greatly.

It wasn’t long after that Mandy returned with a box of diapers under her arm. She picked up most of the supplies. She did so without ever mentioning the money, but Jason never left her wanting for cash.

“So,” she said, “is this one of your weekends out of town?” She picked the baby up and gave him a sniff.

Jason nodded.

He pulled his phone from his jeans and sent her a quick text. It read: Gotta go out now. Back in a couple of hours.

Out in the suite’s living room, while Mandy was still in the bedroom, Jason slid PRIME’s Intense Title from under the sofa, stuffed it in his duffle bag, and then grabbed the keys off the table and headed out to Greg Miller’s wrestling school for an afternoon of hard training.

He spent that session running a gauntlet of the school’s more senior, advanced wrestlers. That didn’t mean they knew what they were doing. A couple of them were genuinely tough kids, but nobody at the school had anything close to the prowess required to rise beyond high school gyms and dingy warehouses. For most of them, trading arm-drags with the great Jason Snow, was the closest thing they would ever get to fame.

When it was over Jason lay flat in the makeshift ring and listened to Greg Miller prattle on about not letting Hayes Hanlon get to him. Hayes had been, in recent weeks, prodding Jason about his former status as the industry’s most ruthless villain, a reputation he, according to Hanlon, was no longer living up to.

Somewhere in that time, lying flat in the ring, Jason had a flash back to the night on Forrest Street. Inside the little bungalow. Where he’d found the baby. After he’d killed the baby’s mother.

The flashes were coming less frequently lately. Something about that made him feel guilty.

At around seven-thirty he left the warehouse gym and got in his car and drove back to the hotel. The staff greeted him on site lately. “Evening, Mr. Gaines,” a bell-hop who knew he was actually Jason Snow said with a nod as they passed in the hallway.

It took Jason a moment to find his key card in his wallet. Eventually he pulled it out and waved it in front of the card-reader and, after the beep, he opened the door.

The first thing he noticed was the couch cushions on the floor. Mandy and the baby must have played some rambunctious game. But then he saw, in the kitchen, all of the cupboard doors were open and most of the dishes had been removed. The oven door and its drawer was opened.

The place had been ransacked.

Jason’s stomach felt like it had fallen right to his knees. His breath caught in his throat.

The baby.

The baby.

The baby.

Jason hurried into the bedroom. The bed had been stripped and its sheets and blankets were strewn about the floor and all of the dresser drawers had been pulled and emptied and even the smoke detector was dangling from its casing.One of the bedside endtables was overturned and the other’s drawer was missing.

But the baby was right there in his crib. Sleeping soundly,

Jason went over, calmly, and picked him up and held him close. The baby stirred. Then he began to cry.

Jason looked around the room. For a second he thought this might have been Bryce. But no. Bryce wouldn’t come here to rob him. Bryce would simply have waited for Jason to return home and then he would have gotten two shots off before Jason ever realized what was happening. No. This was Mandy.

With the baby crying against his shoulder, Jason, very calmly, went over to the bathroom door and pushed it open with his foot. The vent looked untouched but the toilet tank’s cover was in the sink. And the money was gone.

Jason sighed.

He went out through the bedroom and back into the living room and looked around at the mess. On the floor was the action figure in its box. He secured the baby tight to his chest and bent low to pick it up. And looked at it.

Aside from the lack of hair and the new beard, Jason hadn’t changed that much in fifteen years. And Mandy had a phone. A quick google search would have rendered all of his shrugs and eye rolls useless. He was Jason Snow. Pretty famous. Plenty of money. He was pretty sure he had put the story together as it had happened.

The baby cried all the harder, so Jason took him back to the bedroom and laid him back down. Sometimes he could look so sad, this little boy. And Jason knew a thing or two about being sad.

Jason reached into the crib and put his hand on the little boy’s chest, the same way he’d done so often on their first drive, the one that had taken them, in a stolen car, out of Saint Ambrose. He could feel the baby’s pounding heart.

“Hey,” Jason said. Just a whisper.

The baby paused it’s crying for only an instant before resuming.

“Hey come on,” Jason said.

The baby seemed to make the attempt to stop crying.

Jason leaned a little closer. “This is our little secret,” he said of the talking. “I don’t think counts as breaking any promises. Just me and you.”

The baby yelled angrily. As if he were yelling at Jason for what happened to his mother.

Jason shook his head. Then he sturdied himself and said, “We’re gonna be all right, me and you. No matter what I have to do.”

Finally, the baby began to quiet.

Jason realized now that he was still holding the action figure box. He looked at it again, at the photo, at the figure. He placed it in the crib next to the baby.

“I made so many mistakes the first time around. When I was that guy. You know I had a little girl? And when she wasn’t so much older than you, she lost her mother too.” Jason had to close his eyes. For only a moment though. “I did everything wrong. I did it all so wrong. But maybe this time… maybe I can do it better, you know?”

The baby reached out for him.

“I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. You don’t know it, and I hope you never do, but I am. And I’m never gonna be able to pay back what I owe you. But I’m gonna spend the rest of my life tryin to at least make a start on it. I’m gonna make you the happiest little boy. I might ruin the rest of the world–I always seem to do that–but you? I’m gonna make you happy.”

The baby yelled again.

“How bout we start by gettin my belt back?” He looked around the room. “We probably won’t see Mandy again. So.” He looked at the baby. “But what’m I gonna do with you while I’m in Japan?”

And then it struck Jason. He only had one option.

Greg Miller.