RTCIII: Tear it Down, Build it Up

More calluses formed on my hands in three months than they did my entire five year career in the ring.

Every training session in the basement of the church we would set up the ring and tear it down. The students were getting fast at it, sure they jammed a finger here and there -- but Blood said the point was to get it up as quick as possible. It’s the first thing you do on the indies, first thing you cut your teeth on. If you are quick enough, well, you might get to bounce off the ropes a little, and who knows the right eyes just might see you.

I never had that experience the first time around, got by on toughness and arrogance -- I winged it, and I did well, but I always wondered… what if I applied myself. What if I truly drank the fucking Kool-Aid I was mixing.

I am carrying the last turnbuckle with Ransom. He hoists it up from his shoulder and into the back of the trailer outside the church. I push the think black post all the way in. Ransom closes the trailer door and by the time he has it slammed I already have a cigarette lit.

“I’ll never get why you keep at those damn thing,” Ransom said.

“Hasn’t slowed me down in the ring, hasn’t stopped me from kicking your ass in there week in and week out,” I said. “Plus, it’s kind of my thing.”

“You know, you never did tell me after all this time why you really came back. Why do you want to get back in there after everything that was taken?”

I take a deep inhale and blow a plume of smoke toward the setting sun.

“I preached and preached about not running, about standing your ground, about taking action… and maybe my championship, my dignity, it wasn’t taken,” I said. “Maybe to an extent I gave it willingly. Maybe I was just fucking tired of being The Man…. hell… maybe I wasn’t even ready.”

I never opened up to Ransom like that before no matter how close we got. When you are on top of the mountain you can’t be vulnerable, the slightest wind could send you tumbling. I know that now. I take another drag off my cigarette.

“So, you think you are ready now?”

“Yeah,” I said.

There was another reason I was opening up to Ransom. I needed the muscle, I needed at least part of the army I built. I needed back up. The people in that ring -- they are better then they have ever been. While I sat on the sidelines they just got better -- smarter -- it won’t be easy.

“You ask me why I came back here, I could ask you why you are still here. You are clearly top of the class, you could be world champion in some butt fuck promotion pretty easy.”

He shakes his head he’s but I see the smile.

“You knew I’d be back. You sat here… wasting your potential… lost without me.”

All Ransom was seeing was red as he walked toward me.

“What the fuck did you just say?,” he snarled.

“It's true,” I said calmly puffing my cigarette as Ransom grew more angry. “It’s true, you became everything in this industry I hate. A lumbering pile of muscular shit… thank God you are a little agile to make up for it. The charisma though... lacking.”

I flick a few ashes off my cigarette as Ransom clenches his fists so hard I can hear his knuckles crack.

“I suppose that’s why we need each other,” I said. “I suppose that is why you haven’t ripped my head off now or in the last three months.”

We slowly walked toward the back of the church, the sun reflected off of the stained glass Christ.

“I didn’t know where else to go after you left. Who else to be. I couldn’t try to go back to my family -- that ship had sailed. So… I made a family here. I became a permanent fucking orphan. Now… now you expect me to go on the road with you? You expect me to up and leave Blood, Jason, Samantha, Steve, Voodoo… all those talented fighters.”

I glare at Ransom tossing my cigarette to the ground and bringing my boot down on top of it quickly.

“How many rotations have been through? How many students go on and don’t call and could give a fuck about the time they spent here? All of them… I bet every single one. You know why. You can slap some signs up, you can put a ring in the church… but there is no faith, no gospel without me. You're all just orphans… you're not The Orphanage.”

“At least I tried to keep it alive… what did you do? Mommy gets sick and you run away? You preach grasping your own life, of how pathetic everyone is for worshiping bronzed gods like a bunch of cucks. You drank, you cried... for two fucking years.”

He wasn’t wrong. I lost sight. I let my depression eat me alive. But it’s time. It’s time to take back what is rightfully ours. It starts in the ring and it ends with the world.

“Even the messiah may lose his way,” I said. “Alex, this isn’t a better than thou situation. Look around… the world is burning, falling apart and needs to start anew. I’m not alone in my rebirth, in my existentialism, in my lingering teenage angst. It’s about making myself believe again as much as it is making you and all the others.”

I unclench my jaw and gesture at the old church.

“This was never the way to do it. An old church… what a fucking cliche. A simple thing for spongy minds to grapple onto. I created a religion and left it without a leader and we have these wannabee warriors busting each others lips down in a basement nearly every night. Sure it’s getting the anger out, but it’s not productive. It’s time we all move on.”

“What are you talking about?,” Ransom said, walking toward me.

“It’s why i brought you here… sometimes to let new warmth into your heart… you have to start a fire first. War if you want peace… you know all that jazz.”

I brush past Ransom and back out the doorway back to the trailer to grab the ring aprons and fasten them to the side of the canvas -- leaving Ransom wondering just what I was up to.

We got in the ring. Beat the hell of each other until the sun went down. Tore the ring down. Just like the day before that and the day before that -- well you fucking get it.

I’m sure Ransom could smell the smoke weaving through the holler on the way up the hill to the church. Sirens surely chased the back of them. I could hear them ringing out in the night as I put a cigarette to the singed side of the church before it became fully involved.

Then I heard it.

Her coughing faintly in the background.

I had no idea anyone was inside.

Fuck.

I push my shoulder through the front door of the church dogging flames and keeping low to prevent the smoke from entering my lungs. I fall down the fucking steps, twist my ankle, but adrenaline keeps me going.

I can’t see shit, but I can hear her.

“Hello,” nothing in return but coughing.

There.

Sitting against the wall.

The smallest member of the training class -- 120 pounds-- I only know her as Voodoo. Her face and dreadlocks covered in sweat. I pull her by the arm, dragging her toward the stairway.

“HELLO!”

Ransom.

“Here! We’re down here.”

He has his huge hand around the back of my neck hauling me up the stairs while I am linked to Voodoo. Before I know it fresh air is entering my lungs replacing the smoke. Voodoo gasps hard regaining consciousness.

“What the hell is going on… how did this happen?”

Ransom stands over me as I let out a laugh.

“Wooo!,” I scream into the night air. “We better get out of here before I try and explain.”

“You did this?,” Ransom said, stomping toward me. “You burned down the only place I call home.”

Sometimes to give someone a true purpose you have to destroy everything they think they are.

Ransom was living Ground Hog Day. Repeating his the day day over and over -- becoming a weapon that would remain holstered and never be used. I can’t say I don’t have the same plan for him -- but it’s time he is let out of the cage. He paced, his boots stomping the ground before picking me up by the back of the neck and tossing me in the passenger seat of his truck. He sandwiches the young woman in between use, her eyes flickering open as she starts coming to.

Ransom doesn’t say another word -- he just keeps driving. I didn’t even know where at the time… but there was one thing for sure -- for better or worse we were on the road to Carnage.