The House the Luchador Built

“Fuck rebuilding yourself every time out.”

Brandon Youngblood’s words stuck to his brain like peanut butter on the roof of a child’s mouth during his week out in Wisconsin, in the ring in the main event of ReVival 35, in Dr. Astrid Fihlguud’s office, at DMC Central Campus, on the plane ride home. The advice was true, or it would have been for someone who felt he had a foundation to build upon. All Tom could see in his rearview were castles built upon sand, sinking slowly into the sea of irrelevance. Each wave from a merciless ocean, taking another chunk with it into the briny deep, all while the remains slowly dissolve . The elden mystique of The Anglo Luchador was washing forgotten into the tides, leaving only monuments to those with worse dispositions but superior survival instincts, not even men but neck-collecting lizards, propagandizing bears, and the worst of them all…

Remorseless golems raised from the mud pits near the delta of the Mighty Mississippi.

–

The last time Tom was in Chicago, he had just got done nailing the coffin shut on any credibility Jace Parker Davidson had left. HOW, what a skeevy locker room that was. The next time he’d enter The Best Arena would be when the doors to Mictlan flew open allowing the dead to roam the earth. He still wasn’t convinced that any version of the punitive afterlife, Mictlan, Hell, the Duat, Hades, would be a worse eternal abode than the pirate millionaire’s vanity arena. One could forgive him for not wanting ever to go back, let alone face off against the latest “toughest challenge of his career!” in a year that seemed to throw one with that same sobriquet at him every. Single. Fucking. Show. anymore. If not a challenge from someone in the upper crust of the fed, it would be a trap that would bite him in the ass. For a comeback that seemed so hopeful at the crest of 2023, every decision he’d made since that fateful day on Twitter when the storm tide breached the dike walls and convinced him to return was categorically incorrect.

“Fuck rebuilding…” Brandon, he thought to himself, have you seen the state of my life lately? He sat across from his brother, still in the hospital, closing in on a month since Paxton Ray’s home invasion made his suburban Philadelphia house another place he felt alienated and unsafe. Same as in a PRIME ring. Same as the hospital room where his brother drifted in and out of sleep while recovering. His injuries didn’t heal fast; years of overdependence on self-medication compromised his body’s ability to heal naturally.

Tom himself sat in his normal chair, wearing his own battlescars, bruising under his eye, swelling in his nose, compliments of Foster Nackedy and the Universal Championship. He could almost hear his father mocking him constantly in words he could vividly imagine him saying.

“That’s the closest you’ll ever get to the Universal Championship.”

Mike kept sleeping, tossing and turning in the hospital bed that was his home in the moment. Every minute he laid there was another shot to the face with a gold-plated belt with the force of ten-thousand shots from men stronger than Nackedy.

Mikey was the patron saint of every one of Tom’s failures since January of 2022.

–

Paxton, let me talk to you for a minute, not to the proverbial leech on your arm. He’ll get what’s coming to him, especially for attempting amateur rhinoplasty on me last show. But he’s irrelevant mostly, or at least he should be. You should treat him as such. I know you might be used to literal leeches grabbing onto you given your origins in the mud pits, but one thing’s certain.

It’s 2023. We avoid leeches, not court them.

Yet you do a lot of shit that defies logic. Paralyzing a man because you could. Using tentacled monsters to find a family that didn’t want to be found. Pushing my brother closer to death than any opioid has ever done. The fact no one’s pulled a knife on you yet feels like a miracle and a testament to how much tolerance for bullshit the tecnicos on this roster actually have. Huitzipochtli knows I considered bringing a rattlesnake to the arena instead of a shock collar. Given the options? You should count your lucky stars you only got zapped.

But all this misguided anger turned towards singular focus, it’s just pushing you away from what you want. I don’t know how things between you and Melissa could be. I’m sure my wife could given how many nights and bottles of wine they shared while watching Lifetime movies in an attempt to give her a sense of fucking normalcy. I’d rather not know what women talk about when I’m not there. That’s their time, their hard boundary.

But Nora? Goddamn man, your daughter fucking loves you. And I get it. I want her to be able to have a relationship where she can express her love to her father. I want you to be able to be the dad who was on that cardboard cutout in Target, who doted over her, who looked like everything in the world was going to be okay when she was smiling. The reason isn’t only because I had a chance to bond with her for half-a-year either.

It’s because we’re alike in that regard. It’s way too fucking close for comfort, man.

–

The hospital room door opened slowly, creaking ominously as if to reveal that the person about to enter was about to destroy whatever good vibes were hanging on by a thread amongst the doom and gloom of the moment. Tom’s premonition was proven correct in short order as the figure in the foyer revealed itself to be a crotchety old man in a wheelchair.

“Hi Mom,” he said, talking past the obstruction in front to the person pushing said wheelchair.

“Hi sweetie,” replied his mother Joelle.

“What, you ain’t nothin’ for your old man?”

Tom rolled his eyes so hard that his eyeballs nearly popped out of his head as if he were auditioning for a role in the Beetlejuice sequel.

“Hey, Dad.”

His mother wheeled the old man next to his son’s bed.

“Okay, I need a cup of coffee or something,” she said. “Traffic on 76 was a mess coming in. You two play nice. You’re here for my angel. Okay?”

Old man Lorenzo merely grunted, while Tom nodded, his face contorted to show approval with the utmost reluctance. The click of the door as it shut was the last sound to be heard in the room, giving way to a tense atmosphere, pregnant with things neither man wanted to say while Michele Vincenzo lay sleeping in a hospital bed. Finally, the old man broke the silence in only the most clumsily blunt way possible.

“So how’s it feel? Knowin’ that’s the closest you’ll ever get to the Universal Championship.”

Tom grunted, trilling the grumble in his throat so hard that it registered on local seismographs.

“You know, I imagined you saying that exact fucking sentence in my head, and I thought it would brace me for you actually saying it out loud, but I STILL can’t fucking believe you’d actually say it. Like, your son is here healing from a brutal assault, and this is how you lead?”

Lorenzo let out a short, deep guffaw, the kind that sounded like a smoker’s cough.

“No wonder you didn’t win if this is the way you react to light criticism.”

Tom threw back in his chair, sighing dramatically, almost performatively.

“This is not about me, it’s about your youngest son.”

“Yeah, and he’s asleep now. What do you want me to do, sit here like there ain’t another human being in the room? I know you’re used to having your face buried in that stupid phone all the time, but back in my day, we talked to each other. For real.”

“Well, if this is the shit you’re gonna say, I’d rather you just shut your mouth.”

“That’s what’s wrong with you millennials these days. No wonder Atken was able to easy take all of you down before they cheap shotted his ass outta the fed.”

Tom’s face grew flush, no longer able to hide the full brunt of his anger, as if the flimsy attempt at holding it back before was in any way, shape, or form effective. His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened.

“Before Mike wakes up,” he said through gritted teeth, “I need to tell you this. All I have ever wanted in my life was for you to love me and accept me and support me. What have you done? Nothing but denigration in the form of ‘constructive criticism.’ Your son’s here having fought for his life, and this is the first time you came to see him. All you can do is spew shit at me. Fuck, I bet you’re going to blame me for him being here, huh?”

The color drained from Lorenzo’s face.

“Actually, son, I don’t blame you at all.”

–

Yeah, there are things she doesn’t like about you. Kids get angry at their parents. My kids get mad at me. Lord knows I’ve wanted to break the Fourth Commandment at times when my father pushed me. But deep down, there’s always something good you see in them unless they’re totally irredeemable. As funny as it sounds, Paxton, for all the pain and hatred and downright sociopathy that you leave in your wake wherever you go, I agree with that little girl.

There’s something inside you that’s worth salvaging.

Isn’t it weird how kids have indefatigable optimism? It’s almost like you have to give their souls seven Lafayette Lullabies and a brainbuster for that faith to even begin cracking. Hell, maybe I’m insane because I’m going to be 42 years old by the time Colossus is finished, and I still think that my dad is going to turn it around and say “hey, kid, I was just kidding for the entire time you were a pro wrestler. I love and respect your talent and career choices.”

It’s pathetic when a grown man strains for approval. I get it. No one’s ever accused me of being the model of what classy dipshits regard as stable or dignified. But we can all agree that there’s nobility in wanting to grant that for a child. And as much as I hate you right now, man, as much as I want to peel the skin off your body and tan it to make into a jacket, there’s one thing I want more.

I want, no, I need to see that little girl with a smile on her face because her dad came to his fucking senses.

–

“You’re pulling my leg, right? There’s gotta be some kind of follow-up, like you think I’m responsible for everything that has happened in PRIME, even from the ReVolution days, right?”

Lorenzo sighed and dropped his head.

“Son,” he muttered gravelly, “I ain’t got much time left.”

Tom’s face grew concerned.

“You finally seen a doctor?”

“Nah,” his dad replied, raising his head slowly. “I know my body. There ain’t much fight left in it. I can feel it.”

Tom slowly started to rise from his seat.

“I need to start being straighter with you, especially. My other boys, y’know, the other three not in this room are fuck-ups, but they’re still my fuck-ups.”

Tom had to stifle his laughter.

“But you and Mike, and Mike, it’s because of you. Like, when he was usin’, I was a terrible father. I punished him instead of being there. But you, you took him to rehab. You helped get his landscapin’ biz up and runnin’. You got him clean.”

He paused to catch his breath a minute before continuing.

“And you’se the only one of my kids to give me grandkids. You raised them right. You’re a damn good husband, a better one than I ever was. I ain’t into puttin’ blame on victims, and the way you stood up for your family, your friends when they was victimized. You’re a good man, son. I’m proud of the way you grew up, even if there’s no mark from me.”

“Dad,” Tom said as he approached, “You were my hero. And I always wanted to be the kind of man you could be at your best, even though as you got older and older, that was rarer and rarer. All I wanted was for you to love me.”

Lorenzo’s face contorted in indignance.

“Love you? Kid, why would you ever question that? I have always loved you since the moment I knew you was you. You’re a good man, maybe the best man I know. That’s a great foundation to build your life on.”

Tom leaned over and embraced his father.

“Just cuz you chose to build a house made out of chintzy ass wrestling on top of that foundation don’t take nothin’ away from it,” Lorenzo said with the bravery of a thousand troops, knowing his son was close enough to put him in a headlock.

Tom immediately pushed back and rolled his eyes.

“What?” asked his father. “It’s because I love ya that I have to be blunt honest with you.”

“You always know what buttons to push.”

The door creaked open again. Joelle walked in with a styrofoam cup filled to the brim with hospital cafeteria swill, little creamer packets, and enough Sweet-and-Lo’ to take down a bull elephant.

“You two better not have been fighting the whole time I was gone.”

“Nah, Mom, we’re good.”

Lorenzo looked back at his wife and nodded.

“We’re good now.”

–

Nora thinks there’s something to salvage in there. I want to believe she’s right. This ain’t going to be one of those surgical jobs. Your carapace is already mangled and deformed. With the help of that motherfucker Foster, you’ve taken on a cloak of mud and trash, and the only thing that breaks caked-on mud is a concussive blow from a hammer or a mattock.

Or a fist.

I’m not coming to Chicago to beat you within a fraction of an inch of your life like you did to my brother. Maybe I will beat some sense into you. Sykes couldn’t do it on his own. Daniels and Caes couldn’t either, but the thing about the armor you’re wearing, it’s not going to hold forever. Maybe I’m the one who shatters it. I sure as fuck hope that I am because I know there’s a little girl out there who is banking on someone to do it.

Pax, she’s suffered a lot. You only know part of it, the physical part. But she’s aching to have the father back who played with her, who took her to chemo treatments, who showed that what paid the bills wasn’t who he was. When I crack that earthen armor of yours, you’ll have a choice to make. You can dive back into those mud pits, let that leech Foster attach himself back onto the biggest, bloodiest artery he can find, and you can continue to hire goons and use intimidation to take back a little girl who’s already scared enough as it is.

Or, when I’m done smashing that armor off you, when you finally come to your senses? You can step out of it. You can smell the air around you. You can look clearly upon the memories you had and know that it wasn’t The Bayou Butcher who was there for her.

It was Paxton Ray. Nora’s father.

–

After their parents had left, Tom remained in the room with Mikey, a second home for as long as his youngest brother was in the hospital’s care. Mike hadn’t fallen back asleep, but there was a stillness, a moment of peace where both men were content not to talk about the important things in life, like the Philadelphia Eagles or why Hoyt Williams would bring a stained glass window into a wrestling ring. Tom stood at the window, looking out at the September dusk sky, while Mikey looked at his own phone. For the first time in weeks, the puffiness in his eyes subsided enough for him to get a clear look at it. After answering texts, deleting spam emails, and both thinking about and deciding against playing Candy Crush, he put his phone down.

“Yo T, you know Dad was full of shit, right?”

Tom turned around, puzzled.

“You don’t think he loves me?”

“Oh, no, not about that, buh. I know he loves you, he’s just Dad. You should know that by now. I’m sayin’, he’s full of shit about you being a bad wrestler.”

“C’mon, Mike, you don’t need to pump sunshine up my ass. He has his opinions and we have ours.”

“Yeah, but I know you put too much stock in his, always have. You’re the only one who made it in the family business, and he said you ain’t shit.”

Mike leaned forward in his bed, wincing as the weeks of atrophy made his muscles weak and sore.

“But everyone knows that the records don’t mean shit. Whatever that BTO system they use to rank people, that ain’t shit. You got that dawg in you. Shweta ain’t have picked you if you didn’t.”

“Mike, she was real secretive about it, but I don’t think I was the first choice. Who knows how many people she asked before me?”

“But she asked you. And you know why?”

Tom leaned in, brow furrowed inquisitively.

“Because,” Mike continued, “You got that dawg in you. Dad said you gots a good foundation, but the rest of the house, from what I see, is one a them mansions from when we used to watch Cribs. But you got that dawg in you. I seen it. Fuck, I felt before.”

Tom started to nod.

“That dawg, she knew it was a pitbull. And she knew that when it came down to it, you’d be enough to protect that girl and her mom. Are you gonna let some jitbag like Foster talk shit on you? You gonna let that fuckhead Pax scare you?”

Tom started flashing a smile.

“Are you gonna let our Dad tell you, a man throwin’ down with the fuckin’ HEAVYWEIGHTS in the best wrestling fed in history, that you ain’t shit?”

He shook his head.

“Nah, Mike. But I don’t think Dad really meant what he said, not the part about loving me. I think I got the validation I needed, to be honest. Now it’s time to go and get the same for a little girl who beat cancer.”

Mike threw his fists up in the air before recoiling back in pain. Tom laughed as he went back over to help his brother situate.

–

“Fuck rebuilding yourself every time out.”

Brandon was right. Tom was looking in the wrong direction the whole time. The jagged towers rising out of the ocean wouldn’t stand forever. Over a long enough period of time, glue was soluble in salt water, and onion-shaped domes styled after St. Basil’s already started showing cracks under the assault of an angry Diamond Weapon.

The monuments to sadism left behind by Paxton Ray were made of mud. Water dissolves the hardened earth, but even as those monuments followed inland, there was no way that they’d overtake the house that the Luchador built. It was on the most stable land possible, and the housing itself was a stone fortress. He’d been building it for so long he lost sight and instead allowed his mind to wander off on the sand castles he built in his distraction.

But there was no time left to ignore the legacy he’d erected from the rocky earth. A little girl’s wish was at stake, and there was nothing more that Tom wanted to do than grant her one final wish, an end to her suffering, the return of her father.