Post by Stormm on Jun 18, 2018 22:45:35 GMT -5
Fire
It had been nearly a year, this particular weekend, since the Michaels had been hosted by the Matthews in Corpus Christi; yet, that morning, the sound of children laughing, running, and playing woke Johnny and Stace up at seven. Seven! Johnny slept until noon most every day, and even later on Saturday mornings following show day. Justin and Lindsay had sat in the front row of Stace’s show in San Antonio the night before, and they were staying in Texas for the weekend. A tropical storm threatened high winds and flooding downpours on Father's Day, but for the most part, Saturday was clear and, even with a brisk breeze, it was HOT!
Johnny couldn't complain about how he was awoken, his left arm asleep under the weight of Stace’s head, and besides, it was his favorite little rascals having a ball in his home. A home he had only returned to earlier this month, having set off in January to “drift state to state” and see more of the independent wrestling scene.
In doing so, he left his wife behind in Texas. To get his attention, she purchased the rights to his grandfather's defunct promotion. She worked with Lindsay to secure the proper documentation for both ownership and management of the promotion and then, she used his money to finance it. Not to mention, the partner in the Carolinas that the faithful believed Johnny had all-but abandoned. Justin had even appeared on Stace’s show, teaming with Johnny, only to be disqualified due to his actions.
Justin had every right to be slightly heated with Johnny. Sitting together on the back patio that morning, the salt off of the Gulf was on the brisk breeze, the tension could be cut with a chainsaw.
“So?” Johnny posed. “Why the fuck are they teaming you with Tyler Scott?” Justin shook his head at the thought of it, but remained silent. “Were they not watching their own pay-per-view?” He sipped his coffee while speaking rhetorically before driving it home. “You know, when your actual partner returned?”
“We should have a fire.” Justin all but moving past his brother-in-law’s thought, pointed to the pond. “Out there.”
“Okay.” The cigarette dangled in Johnny’s kisser, glowed a bright cherry red.
Justin’s gaze strayed true, focused on the pond, and the idea he had just proposed. He didn’t waver, and it started to annoy Johnny in a way that only Justin had been able to do over the years. Any number of things could have been going through his head at that moment, at least that’s what his stare made Johnny think, made obvious by the number of glances he continued to shoot Justin’s way while sucking down his death stick before shaking his head.
Johnny shook his head, and Justin knew he had ignored him just enough. He’d heard everything, but was trying to relax and keep the tension out of it, at least, that’s what Lindsay had asked of him.
“I suppose.” Johnny broke the silence. “If the storms hold off and it ain't too windy, sounds like a good time.”
Lindsay had convinced Johnny to spend most of the afternoon building a pallet log house for his niece and nephew to play in. it was most likely the longest he had ever gone without lighting up a smoke, as he chased little Joey and Remi around the structure, the yard and all the way down to The Barn. Inside, Stormm was running the ropes and bumping the old, stiff ring. Down hard, he threw dust up in the air from the canvas. Every bump shook the ring harder as he slammed against the IAWF logo in the center.
“Your Dad.” Johnny told the two little ones as they snuck in to watch. “He is probably the hardest working man I know. He travels all the world for his big time business, you know?” They both nod their heads. “He is a big time wrasslin’ champion, can you believe it?” They excitedly wrestle with one another, mimicking their Dad’s moves. “And, the best job of all, he loves the very stuffin’ out of you two rascals, you understand?” They watch as Justin runs cadence, perfect tempo, bump for bump. “Do you know that your Dad used to work with my Dad?” They both shook their heads, eyes widening as Johnny continued, “He sure did. I remember the big one. It was San Antonio, 2002, the Alamodome,” the little ones were glued as Johnny told the story with his arms, legs, whole body. “Hundreds of thousands of people there to see the biggest match in history, well, to that point any way. It was Grandmaster Speight, my Dad's first champion, this guy was British snob through and through; Marcus Cane, this guy advertised CANE IS PAIN!” They gasped, enthralled, “and your Dad! For the big time wrasslin’ title of the whole wide world. It was probably the most epic thing I had ever seen, they beat on each other and your Dad was split open above his eyes, but he fought and fought and then, with Speight on the outside, he got that Force of Nature on Cane and won!”
All three hold “championships” above their heads, celebrating like Stormm may have before Johnny led them out of The Barn and back up the hill to the house. Once the little ones were inside, he immediately lit up and headed toward the pond. He spent the late afternoon stacking pallets for the fire. The threat of a brewing storm blowing over a raging fire had him worried. So caught up in his concern, his little sister startled him when she cleared her throat behind him.
“A fire, huh?”
“Only thing he's really said to me,” Johnny caught his breath, clutching his chest, “so, yeah, a fire.”
“What's got you all worked up?”
“That's the only thing he has really said to me.” Johnny recognized the look on his little sister's face, as she looks at him then down to The Barn, “Nope, I already tried and nope, not down there.”
Lindsay shook her head, then offered him an lemonade on ice.
“Not enough lead.” Johnny pulled his flask from his back pocket and poured the vodka in.
“You are never going to change,” she stopped shaking her head and just looked disappointed before heading to The Barn to see her husband.
Before she could make her way in, Justin had began to make his way out. Back into sport shorts and a cut off sleeve shirt. Over one of his shoulders was a large gym bag that was stuffed full, so much so, that it was a wonder how he had got it zipped up.
“You finally done ignoring everyone?” Lindsay asked, much to Justin’s chagrin.
“I haven’t been ignoring everyone, just your brother.” He planted one on his wife’s forehead and never missed a step. “Besides, he’s trying too hard. You see how desperate he looked to smoke or drink all day while watching the kids?” It was a little sad to him that Johnny couldn’t spend time with his niece and nephew for even a day without resorting to old habits. “Yeah, sure, go have a smoke once in a while, but don’t go breathing your whiskey breath into our kid’s faces right in front of me.”
“I know. I know.” Lindsay agreed. “The sad part is, it could be a whole lot worse, and at least he is trying.” She shrugged and Justin rolled his eyes.
“Well, at least there is a plus side. I was expecting this weekend to go much worse than it has so far.” He snorted sarcastically. “So, silver linings, I guess.”
Lindsay grabbed Justin’s hand, and they made their way back to the stack of pallets where Johnny had currently occupied himself. Little Joey and Remi were inside with Isabella, the Michaels’ new live-in nanny they’d hired sometime after Justin’s parents were buried. Without any extra help in Kansas, the couple needed someone, especially with Lindsay traveling with Justin for PCW as of late.
On a shopping trip to New York several months back, Lindsay ran into Izzy while out on the town, a sought after nanny in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the two got along so well that, after several horrid interviews with nanny candidates, Lindsay gave her a call.
She wasn’t keen on leaving the big city, but the allure of traveling with the Michaels, and taking care of two adorable little hellions was too good to pass up. Plus money always talks.
Izzy was almost certainly inside the Matthews Estate with the kids, getting ready to feed them and start getting them ready for bed. It was Father’s Day, though, and after spending the morning with his children, he’d only had one other thing on his mind for the day.
“So what’s in the bag?” Lindsay questioned, barely able to contain her curiosity.
“The reason I’ve had him working on building that fire all afternoon.” Justin smiled. “You’ll see.”
“Should I be scared?” She asked back, genuinely, and Justin simply shook his head.
The sun going down behind the Old Evergreens and Matrimonial Oaks, Johnny took about ten steps back from the stack of pallets. Backing right in the arms of his wife. Watching Johnny backpedal, Lindsay and Justin just followed suit and distanced themselves from the pallets. As Stace wrapped around Johnny’s chest, he flicked his cigarette at the stack; instantly igniting an inferno, sending flames several feet into the air. The reds, yellows and oranges, both streaking the sky and consuming the wood, reflected on the pond.
“Fire!” Johnny pretty much, well, he shouted it. “There you go. You got it.” Frustrated. Patience, tested. Johnny gave, “All it does is destroy shit, you know that, right?”
In the grip of the blaze, the pallets cracked and popped. They shifted as they splintered, puffing embers higher into the air. In the humid Gulf heat the fire radiated, doubling the temperature. Johnny took the cigarette from behind his ear.
“I won't be kissin’ ya,” Stace warned, “if ya light that up.”
Johnny tucked the coffin nail behind his ear. No need to hammer down the tension any tighter.
In the distance, clouds rolled in, flickers of lightning not much different from that of the flicker of Johnny’s lighter, peaked over the horizon. No doubt that a storm was rolling in. Whether it would hit that night, or the next day, was yet to be seen, but that was of no concern to the Force of Nature as he dropped his duffle bag to the ground.
“I guess you and this fire have some things in common, then, don’t you?” Lindsay forcefully elbowed her husband in the side at the attack on Johnny and his destruction comment.
Playing it off like he didn’t hear it, much like Justin had been doing to him earlier in the day, Johnny ignored the comments. Lindsay, on the other hand did not. “Justin!”
He held still for a moment, staring at the ground with his tongue in his cheek. “The past is the past.” He murmured. “He’s not your enemy.” Words that Lindsay had spoken to him before they left Kansas for Texas late the week prior while in bed, he repeated under his breath.
Johnny being the reason Justin was back in Pure Class Wrestling was not lost on anyone in the small group standing around the fire. His absence from that very promotion was also very much well known too, but Justin did his best not to kick it up more than he had over the phone with his brother-in-law two weeks beforehand.
That wasn’t why they were there.
That wasn’t why he wanted to be there.
As he unzipped his gym bag, three adults stood in quiet anticipation to see what he had brought to Texas with him. Even Lindsay wasn’t in the know.
“Eighteen years ago, I stood here, talking to your father, and he asked me why I continued to wear some plain, boring ass color to the ring.” A couple smiles appeared as they remembered the way Joe was as a promoter. Justin reflected. “I didn’t have an answer for him. It’s what I could afford. It’s what I had worn in Japan. It’s just what I had, and didn’t really think of changing it up.” He opened the flap to the gym bag to reveal a plethora of wrestling attire, all of which were the trademark orange and white attire he’s worn for years.
“What the fuck is all this?” Johnny questioned in a way that only he could.
“He looked at me and he said, ‘Son, what color do you wanna wear,’ and I thought about it.” Justin paused as he kneeled down and started to dig through the bag. “The only answer I had was the color nobody wanted me to wear in the promotions I had wrestled in before. They just wouldn’t let me, even if I paid for it. ‘Nobody wears that color,’ they’d say, or ‘We can’t market that.’” Unsatisfied with picking out his gear piece by piece, he stood up, and dumped every last thing out onto the ground.
“Babe?” Lindsay reached out and placed a hand on Justin’s back, still curious what his intentions were.
“But I grew a pair that day, and I told him, ‘I want to wear orange!’” Justin smiled as he looked deep into the fire, while the other three stood in silence at the story. The Force of Nature wasn’t officially a part of the family when Joseph Remington Matthews passed, and Justin never really talked about him. How much the man had done for his career early on. How much of a second father figure the man was to him. Just how much he really meant to him. It killed him that Joe wasn’t at his and Lindsay’s wedding. It killed him that both of the father figures in his life were gone. “You know what he said then?” Lindsay, Johnny, and Stace all three shook their heads. “He says, ‘Yer damn right yer wearin’ orange, and only orange will do. The face o’ the company should stand out!’” Justin looked like he could either throw up, or start crying, and Lindsay put her arm around him.
Stace whispered into Johnny’s ear. “Say something.” But he just shook his head, either not knowing what to say, or not caring enough to say anything.
“All that orange clad hero shit worked back then, and we sold tons of merch, and I made Joe a ton of money, and we put on some of the greatest main event matches anyone has ever seen. But what the fuck is that getting me now?” Picking up two handfuls of wrestling attire, he chucked them both into the fire. “I’m nobody’s hero in PCW.” A pair of boots were next. “I’m selling merchandise, but the arena isn’t filled with orange anymore.” Two more handfuls go into the blaze. “I’m trying to hang onto something I’m never getting back, none of us are getting back, and hoping that the same shit would continue to work two decades later.”
It was then that the trio, standing in complete shock, just let Justin have his moment. A moment that had been brewing for some time.
“I’m never going to be the face of PCW anymore, and honestly, I couldn’t fucking care less anymore. Let ‘em talk their trash on me. Let ‘em call me washed up. Boring. Undeserving. But things are about to change, and honestly, don’t care one iota if anyone notices, cares, or gets hurt in the process.” The large pile of clothing had almost all but been consumed by the fire at that point.
Justin picked up a pair of kick pads and handed them to Lindsay and nodded towards the fire. “You sure?” She questioned with a raised brow. He nodded again, and she threw them in with a giggle.
Kicking the last few pieces towards Johnny and Stace he made the same motion towards them. “Your turn, and don’t worry, they’re clean.”
“So, uh,” Johnny hesitated, “what color you planning on wearing now? I mean, come on, you stand here and tell us this heartfelt story about a moment with my Dad that you now want me to go all-in on torching?” Johnny lowered his head, “I guess, if it gets this funk off of you, damn.” Even in jest, Johnny couldn't do it. He had picked it up, drawn back, but he couldn't throw the gear into the fire. He handed it back to his friend, his partner, his brother and shook his head.
Tossing the rest of the gear into the flames, Justin picked up the black gym back that everything had traveled to Texas in. It had seen better days and may have at one point even been graced with the IAWF logo as well. The faded black, almost gray looking in spots, drew Justin’s attention in for a moment. He was not distracted long enough for Johnny to make it far, and he held the bag up higher. “You know, this will probably do, and I can show you how to wear it properly.” He then chucked the old bag into the fire as well, and gave Lindsay a kiss, Stace a hug, and caught back up to Johnny with an outstretched hand.
“Let me tell you something,” Johnny spoke as Justin approached, “you think you're gonna teach me to wear black, you got another thing coming.” Justin smiled, maybe for the first time all day. “And, let me tell you something else,” Johnny shook Justin's hand, “I ain't got a single memory of my Dad without you in it. You’ve been my brother long before you ever married the Snot.”
