FORTY-THREE: AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS [OPW #2]

It was nothing like that damned Blake Shelton song would have her believe.

Three rings before the answering machine picked up, sure. That was spot-on – he was probably screening his calls against unknown numbers. There was no warmth, no pangs of nostalgia or a secret message, though.

"Hel—"

She hung up, hands shaking so bad she dropped the cordless handset on the bed. Granted, she'd only listened to that first syllable of her now-ex-husband's voice before she'd chickened out. Maybe she could just email him. Send a registered letter?

"Oh my God. Get a fuckin' grip," she admonished, looking across the room to the mirror above the dresser. She looked shell-shocked, like some terrified extra on the run from Jason Voorhees and she hated herself for being so weak, even though there was nobody else home to witness this sad little meltdown.

She had no idea where Bruce was living and calling his cell phone because it was the only number she had, had felt like a longshot until she'd heard that familiar timbre, the odd hint of an accent colouring even that little snippet of a word that she'd heard. It had been a year and a half with zero actual contact. Cold-turkey, the best way to quit on an addiction, provided one had the willpower to stick to it. She'd never really considered herself that strong. Staying away had been excruciating, especially after losing her father. She'd spent a year in what felt like a dark hole, going through the motions – it had taken her a bit of an intervention from her daughter to pull her out of it and she'd actually started back seeing the therapist that she'd tried to get Bruce to see with her back before it had all crumbled around them. She felt a lot more like the Charity she'd been before her body had betrayed her and everything had gone to shit. That is, she had until she'd picked up the phone. Now she felt a lot more like that terrified teenager who'd just found out she was pregnant.

She hated that this task had fallen to her, mostly because she'd volunteered to do it. Their daughter was set to graduate high school in just a few weeks and the last thing she wanted was to see the poor girl crushed if she'd not been able to reach her father to invite him to the event. Or worse yet, if he'd flat-out refused.

"Get it over with," Charity muttered, picking up the glass of wine from the bedside table. She drained it in one long and greedy gulp. Her hand froze over the phone, remembering the last time she'd seen him, on the ground in that gravel parking lot, bleeding from the nose that she'd broken. The sheer cowardice he'd shown to her that day still made her question every other aspect of their relationship. The fact that he'd tried to sneak out of her life after using her – even now, the memory made her chest ache.

Think about Sam. This is for her, not you.

She hit redial. Put the phone to her ear. It rang at least fifteen times before a computerized voice came on the line.

"The AT&T subscriber you're trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try your call again later."

Maybe she'd misheard that first time? Maybe this time hadn't gone through properly?

She dialled again. More than a dozen rings before it was cut off by that vaguely patronizing femme-bot again.

"Fuck." She dropped the phone on the bed and sank down next to it, head in her hands and anxiety cycling up to eleven.

Do like the song, that voice in her head said, all calm-cool-collected. Give it a few days. Try again. Maybe it's a bad time.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe...



HERE IT COMES AGAIN, the world, crashing down around your ears. And you may ask yourself, "well... how did I get here?"

The four walls don't hold answers. The Internet only contains suppositions and half-formed opinions and the sweat that's running down and burning your eyes doesn't have a voice – it doesn't care about your feelings. Putting in the work doesn't get you a bye, doesn't make you anything special. It feels the same to fall down as it does to be exalted – that's the part they don't ever advertise. You could be on the pedestal. You could be in the gutter. The only thing different is the air quality and even that's subjective. I've never been untouchable, invincible.

I have plenty of scars to serve as documentation of the scrapes I've been in and I used to take a sick sort of pride in that. I used to dare people to look – the scars on my face were there for so long that I stopped seeing them. I stopped looking in the mirror, so that shouldn't be a shock. I had women call me handsome and I knew it was a lie because I was ugly through and through. Poisoned and toxic. The funny thing about this business is how it shakes you up, rattles you around like a goddamned centrifuge. The bad bits get separated out and the quality of your character is what determines if they sink or rise to the surface.

The first time I saw the name Scotty Adams was when I looked at the roster for Anything Goes Wrestling – when I was tricked into signing on the dotted line with promises that were never kept. I went there looking for a challenge. I was given stinging silence, a wannabe demon and that insufferable twatwaffle Jerry Watts. Scotty was long gone by the time I wrestled in their ring. Christian Rivers, too. But that's another story for another time.

The company was a trial by fire, and I was out there, for every damned booking under the hot, hot lights doing the soft-shoe shuffle. Song and dance man, careful routine out there, like Bojangles working my ass off for peanuts. The whole thing was infinitely regrettable – wholly unforgettable, unfortunately. Left a bad taste in my mouth that is still making me jumpy. Paranoid.

Maybe that's why I interrupted that press conference. Maybe that's why I took exception to the whole damnable Minnesota Vikings locker room being paraded out as the best of the best for an INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE. Tell me that my name was about to be dropped – can't refute that, can I? We'll never know because the course of history was altered by one damnable action.

I do that a lot.

Oh, aye. Always been my nature. I feel as though history's repeating itself. First match with AGW was a dud, a wet fart at best but I resigned myself to give them another chance. Next one was even worse. First match here – no offense meant to Apathy, mind – wasn't what I'd hoped for. Makes me feel like I've gotta be a bit more primal. King of the Jungle. Claw my way back into the thick of things because the chaos makes far more sense than sitting idly by on the sidelines, waiting for the next scrap to be tossed into the pen. No. Far too hungry for that nonsense.

Feel like I'm working against the clock, now. As though I've got to take a thousand steps forward because I'm sliding arse-over-teakettle downhill every time there's another show announced. Was left on the sidelines for the Tag Fuckaroo. Now the world's forgotten my name. Momentum's buggered, and I have to reinvent myself again.

It's fine.

It comes naturally; go in there flailing, kicking and screaming like a banshee. They won't ever take me seriously against the likes of the apathetic and mediocre. They'll not take a fella seriously, after only one win, despite the fact that I've been brought into the fold by champions. Nobody cares. The numbers on the paycheck don't reflect the ego, nor should they, really. Oh, aye. Bruce McLeod will never strike fear into the hearts of man, despite my best efforts to write myself into legends like Superman. I'm the fella in the funny red sheet, coming down to kick your ass. Bulletproof. Ten feet tall. Eyes like laser beams.

Sure thing, Scotty. And anything you say, I can come up with a counter for. I can call myself the Sandman, say I'm going to BLACKOUT your lights, and it's just words. Just empty threats until the moment fist hits flesh. Everyone has a plan, fella – until they get knocked the fuck out. Paraphrasing, of course. Would never dream of plagiarism, especially not someone far above my level.

There's no claim to fame here. No pedigree of wanton damage. No careers ended at my hand, unless you count how the last BIG wrestling match Mr. Rottentreats had was against yours truly in the Triad Challenge earlier this year. Whoops. Dropped a name. Lemme just pick that up and we'll get back on our merry way here, hmm?

No careers ended. No lives torn apart outside my own. No homes wrecked. Don't seem like much of an outlaw, do I? Suppose not. The violence, though? The sheer spectacle of it all – oh fuck yeah. Used to thrive on it. And now I know better. I know what it feels like to be on the other side of that equation. I can see the bigger picture and the whole song and dance makes me sick. Makes me feel cheap and tacky.

Who do? VooDoo! Yeah you do!

Jesus wept. What a goddamned mess.

This is what happens when you mix business and pleasure. This is what you get when you're too stupid to see what you're doing to yourself. I spent too many nights alone and drunk, soaked in my own fearful sweat. Alone in a hotel room, like some honeymoon in hell. Roaches and vermin in the walls – makes me want to tear it apart and burn it all to the ground because that's the first impulse.

Crush. Maim. Destroy. Lead action, hot action cop, pump action shotgun. Yeah, it was the first thought that popped into my head. I wanted to trap the rat. To crush the roaches while they scuttled away the moment the light came on and then I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in years. I saw these lines on my face, the silver in my hair – I don't belong.

I thought of all the people who've always seen me the same way I saw the roaches. All the people who see me as a filthy, crawling piece of vermin that should be destroyed. Laughable. I think long and hard about appearances, and how I really want to be seen. Am I relentless?

Am I a self-made man?

You better believe it. I go out there, and I do what I do without giving it too much thought. I roll with the punches, I take the cheap shots, and I bottle the anger, waiting for the moment to unleash it back. Never takes long. You tire yourselves out slinging the crap my way. I may end up stinking, but you've got it all over your hands, too.

The roach is my brother. The rats are my kin. The possum rooting in your trash is my daughter. We scavenge. We do what we can to stay alive in the shadows even though we deserve the limelight far more than you ever did.

I've got a place to go. A new place. Maybe the last one?

Who knows? I've got a place. It feels nice to think that, to say it and feel the ring of truth in those words. After all the searching, all the missteps and lies – I HAVE A PLACE TO GO. I am welcomed with open arms. Embraced for who I am and it's so goddamned refreshing it's almost comforting.

I have shelter from the storm and now the hatches've been battened down because all hell is about to break loose. Brace for impact, Scotty. Gonna be the bumpiest ride you've ever had. Sorry for the awkward conversation. Feel like I owe you this level of honesty, simply because you got off the merry-go-round of dumbfuckery well before I did. Kudos for that. I'll be candid here: you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. No offense intended. This is gonna get messy. 

Wouldn't have it any other way.

RING RING. Here's your wakeup call. Gonna answer it? You should. Speaking purely from experience, I would.



The sound of the cell phone ringing on the bathroom counter, blaring over the white noise of the shower was almost startling. Nobody ever called him, knowing it was far easier to reach him via text with the weird hours he kept. He waited, seeing if they would just give up – he'd removed voicemail a few weeks ago, when he'd realized that they'd started charging extra for it. It kept ringing. Insistent. A part of him worried that maybe something had happened to Grace down at the school so he turned off the water. It was still ringing.

"Goddamnit," he groused, stepping out of the stall and fumbling for the towel to dry his hands. He didn't bother to check the ID with anything more than a cursory glance to see it wasn't a Vegas area code before tapping the answer button and putting it on speaker. "Ye've got Bruce." His tone came out just a little annoyed, thanks to the intrusion, "hello?"

Absolute silence answered him but there was a faint crackle on the line. He could hear someone breathing, thinking maybe it was an accidental butt-dial. Now that he was looking at it closer, he realized that same number had called a few times over the past couple weeks. He'd written it off as a wrong number, a solicitor or debt collector. 

On the east coast, Charity sat staring at the phone, trying to find her voice. Thankfully, she'd put it on speaker.

"Hello?"

"Bruce?" She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. "Hi. It's Charity." In the past it would have been obvious just how happy she was to hear his voice. However, there was hardly any warmth in her voice now. She sounded almost cold, detached.

There was another pause before a soft clearing of his throat. "Ah, well... should've guessed. Nobody else calls these days," he chuckled, and although he didn't seem happy to hear from her, he didn't sound as irritated as he'd been when he answered. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

It took her a moment to respond, "I'm calling because Siobahn is graduating high school in a couple weeks. She wanted to invite you to the ceremony." Calling their daughter by her full name instead of her nickname gave him an idea as to how standoffish she was being. "I can have the details emailed to you, if you would like to be there."

He could hear that edge in her voice, could almost picture her pacing the floor, tense. Knowing that was entirely his fault didn't make it any easier to stomach and when he walked towards the bed, the first thing he saw was that framed photograph of Grace and he felt himself pulled in that direction, needing to flip it facedown.

"Bruce? Are you still there?"

"Oh, aye." He muttered, shuffling towards the bed. "Just got out of the shower, luv. Had tae set the phone down... dry off a little." In the past, it would have felt flirtatious to tell her that. Now it just felt mundane, like he was reciting the weather for all the warmth that radiated back from the other end. "She's graduating, hmm?"

"Top of her class."

He should have known. As much of a failure as he'd been, the girl had always taken to school like a duck to water. She'd loved to learn, had been a voracious reader and it made him feel a sense of pride to know that at least that hadn't been destroyed when everything else had gone down the shitter. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, "graduating already. Wasn't she just learnin' how tae ride without training wheels just last summer?" He sprawled across the bed, glancing at the clock to see he had plenty of time for this little chat even as he wondered what she was doing on the other end. Just hearing her voice now was like a knife in his guts, twisting. When Charity didn't react to his joke, he sighed. "Aye. Email it on. I'd like tae come, provided it won't be..." he hesitated, clearing his throat rather than finishing the thought. The fact that she was calling should have been an indication that he was welcome, shouldn't it?

Hearing that she'd be seeing him in just a few weeks caused a little flutter of excitement in her chest. Trying to ignore it, she cleared her throat. "Siobahn will be happy to see you; I know she misses you." Despite everything, their daughter wasn't the only one.

"Surprised..." He couldn't keep the thought in, "that she wants me there. Haven't really been in touch lately – guess am's much tae blame for tha'..." the welling of emotion had that accent creeping back and he forced himself to stop talking before he showed too much of that particular hand. "Could give her the number. If she wants it, mind – easier tae text, if she'd rather."

"I will." The two words came out on the heels of an exhale. "You're her still her Da and she loves you. It's not that big of a surprise that she'd want you there." She probably hadn't meant to let it happen but her tone had lost some of its ice.

Nodding even though he knew she couldn't see it, Bruce replied, "aye, Babyl-" he stopped himself in the middle of that pet name. It had slipped out all on its own and he cleared his throat awkwardly, closing his eyes and pressing a hand over them for a moment. The guilt was crashing over him like waves, dragging him under. He'd come here to reinvent himself and now he was slipping right back into those old toxic patterns. Truth was, he wanted them. What he had with Grace was sweet, unsullied and pure like a first snowfall but wasn't built to last. It lacked the sort of passion that would lead to a brawl in a parking lot, for instance. Sighing, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, that ridge that had healed slightly askew – he hadn't bothered to have it set. Had felt like it was another scar like the ones on his cheeks that needed to be on display. Scarlet letters to advertise a lifetime of poor choices.

"I should-"

"I miss-"

They started talking at the same time and he broke off with a ragged chuckle. "Goan then... what?"

"No," Charity's voice was softer now, almost hesitant, "what were you going to say?"

"Was just thinkin' aloud," he replied, "miss those days when we used tae be thick as thieves. Not that I blame her – or feel like she's picked a side. It's just... come tae realize've missed out on a lot of things."

"There aren't sides. At least there shouldn't be. She doesn't know anything about Dad's funeral or what happened after her birthday. So... yeah." She hadn't wanted to cause their daughter to have a tainted view of her father.

"Ah, well..." Bruce paused, his voice coming out hollow, "suppose I owe ye thanks for that, then." There was a moment of silence before his next words slipped out, as though he didn't want to let the conversation end. "How've you been? Still working?"

Charity was silent for a few moments, and he heard her swallowing, wondering if she was drinking water or something stronger. "Yeah, here and there. Enough to pay the bills and be comfortable. So... yeah."

He could feel the awkward deep down to the bone and it was making him ache in a way that he hadn't in a very long time. "I've been wrestling again. Nothing televised, mind. Workin' for this training school in Vegas. Larry Gowan got me the job. Dunno if you remember him. It's a steady gig. Enhancement, really. Am the body in the ring that the youngins fight. Help them hone the skills they learned all week. They pin me, I get paid. They get good enough, they move to the Sin City roster." He was rambling, he knew, but a part of him wanted her to know that he'd gone legit, that he wasn't doing underground nonsense that was liable to get him killed and dumped in a shallow grave in some Siberian wasteland – not that she even knew anything about The Circuit, or the fact that he'd mortgaged his soul to the Russians for fifty-thousand dollars and a year long contract. "It's..." he turned onto his side, smelling Grace's perfume on the pillow.

"Sounds great," Charity replied when he trailed off into that awkward and pained silence again.

"Aye. Nothin' real glamorous but..." he chuckled, "pays the bills."

"Well as long as you're happy, that's what matters right?" She sounded strained again and it made him want to start blurting out apologies that he knew would never be good enough. "Larry's a good guy, I'm sure he's taking care of you."

"Aye... he is." He didn't bother to answer the first question, knowing it was mostly rhetorical. He'd given up on happiness years ago. Now he was just trying to survive and have a decent time while doing it. "It's..." he hesitated a fraction of a second, trying to keep his voice steady, "it's been nice tae hear from ya."

"Really?" She sounded hopeful in that instant and he wasn't sure how to process that. Wasn't even sure how to unpack everything he was feeling, or rather, struggling NOT to feel. "That's good I guess?"

"Better than good, I'd wager." That old familiar chuckle slipped past his lips as he lay back on the bed, knowing she could probably hear the springs in the old mattress creaking under his weight. "But am sure you've got plenty of other things tae do than listen to this ol' fool prattle on. Tell our girl I miss her, aye?"

"Or you could call and tell her yourself." The words came out harsher than expected and he closed his eyes, waiting to see what else she said. She didn't pull them back and he didn't blame her. He deserved that.

There was a long, awkward pause before he replied, feeling like an absolute ass for trying to keep things light. "Suppose I could, at that. I should." He found himself nodding again, "I will."

"I'll text you her number." He could hear the quiver in her voice now, wondering what that meant. Was she trying to hold back tears? Anger?

"Sounds good," he heard the unsteadiness of her voice, wasn't sure what he could do to fix whatever she was feeling and a part of him wondered if this was what it was going to be from now on? Was every interaction going to be a minefield? "Should get going..." he said the words even though he had nowhere he needed to be for hours. "Goodnight, Cherry. Take care."

"You too." The call ended and he felt as hollow as that click was before the phone's screen went dark.

He let the phone fall to the floor from his open hand, sighing as he closed his eyes against the prickle of tears and now he was thinking of a song that he hadn't heard in a very long time – it was cutting far too deep.