Your name? Sir?

A young, petite woman peers over a powder blue counter, asking the man in front of her for his information. It's been a good 45 seconds of silence as the man approached her, seemingly in need of help, but at a loss for words. She sits in a black computer chair. She adorns a nylon blouse, light red, and brown khakis, white New Balance sneakers housing her feet. Her long, brown hair is held up by a ponytail with a red hair tie. She's no older than 25, manning the front desk for Fenway Health in Boston, Massachusetts. She's no further than her second job in her career... likely paying off medical school debt by taking a front desk receptionist position, working more hours than she likely should since... well, front desk jobs at small healthcare firms don't tend to pay that well.

Sir, I need your name. Sir.

Still no answer. She grows more visibly frustrated.

Sir, I'm sorry, but if you aren't able to provide me with basic information like your first and last name, you'll have to leave. We have people waiting to be seen, and we can't waste our time playing 21 questions to get there.

Ah, there's that Boston charm. Impatience, directness, with a dash of asshole really brings together a delectable stew of Boston abrasion. It doesn't help when you live in a town that's too hot or too cold, too humid or covered in snow, with a solid three days of perfect weather all year. Consuming watered down coffee from Dunkin' Donuts (I'm sorry... just "Dunkin'" now, because that will catch on), interacting with miserable townies whose knowledge of the world stops in Concord, New Hampshire, and holding in generations of emotional repression leads to a beautiful concoction of mean, even in a facility meant to take care of the ill.



The man starts to stammer.

Santos: I, uh... Santos. Tony Santos. I have a 2... 15?

The woman lets out an annoyed breath... one of those where you exhale heavily through your nose. She types at a furious pace, with the poise of a master typist, her fingers moving, but every other part of her body still. She exudes perfect posture, neck and back straight, head tilted upward, as she looks for Tony's information in their database.

Ah, yes. 2:15? I have you down for 12:30.

Tony looks down at his phone...


Santos: I, uh, shit.

She lets out that... ah, there's that annoyed breath again. She types furiously once again, moves her right hand off of the keyboard to click her mouse a good eight times, then goes back to typing. Then back to the mouse, then to the keyboard. Back and forth for what seems like ages, but also like an instant...

Santos (thinking to himself): Why is she moving so fast AND so slow? Her arms are a fucking blur, but her head is so still...

God, am I still drunk?

No no, I can't be! Can I? No no, I had my last drink a couple nights ago! Well, except for the night after... you can't turn down a handle of Jack that you find in an alley, can you? Of course you can't! It's criminal to leave it just SITTING there, waiting to thrown in the trash!

Okay, but that's still a few nights ago. I didn't drink last... no wait, I did. Shit, I had like, god, I don't even remember how many I had at the bar last night. Four? Five? Usually, if you can't remember how many you had, take your highest guess and multiply it by 2. Shit, ten drinks? That can't be ri...

Oh right, I hit the little hipster arcade bar after. Fuck, then I met those college kids, and...

Tony checks his credit card statement.

Santos (thinking to himself): God dammit, I bought them a round. Or, three rounds?? How many of them were there?!

It doesn't matter, FOCUS, Tony. You need to...

Dr. Oliveira can see you now. I just need your insurance information.

Santos: My what?

This woman has the "I was done with your shit the moment you stumbled in here" look on her face.

In...sur...ance.

She added that extra level of enunciation between syllables, just for good measure.

Do you not get that? Medical insurance, sir.

Santos: Just fucking bill me, I don't care.

Tony turns his back to the receptionist, walking towards the waiting area of the Fenway Health lobby, and plops his weight down on the back chair, sun shining in, illuminating the top of his scraggly head. Tony waits the official word from whoever will be escorting him to Dr. Melissa Oliveira, his addiction specialist. Dr. Oliveira has over a decade of experience treating everything from gambling addiction, to sex, smoking, hard drugs like heroin and meth, and what Tony's here for today... can you take a guess?

If you said "alcohol," you've read a sentence of even one of these segments, so good for you for paying attention!

Tony takes in a few deep breaths. Beads of sweat sprinkle the corners of his forehead, a mixture of the heat within the room and the anxiety of actually talking through the problems that have plagued him since he was 17. He was no longer a teenager sneaking some booze into his Coke at school, to make class more "interesting," or a 20-something kid just partying before he would have to settle down. Nope, Tony was a full blown alcoholic, and his hand was being forced by his longtime mentor, and past enabler, Lou, to get help.

So here he was. He looked to his left, and sees a tall, skinny (very young) man with a patchy beard, in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants. He's sitting next to what looks like his mom. Her hand rests on his leg, which he's bouncing up and down rapidly. He has what looks like acne, until he talks...



Let's just say an animation was as far as we wanted to take this image, for your sake.

Santos: Most definitely meth.

To his right, a young woman is pale as a ghost, bags under her eyes, arms folded as she mutters incoherent, but angry thoughts under her breath.

Santos: Cocaine, I guess? Or meth again?

And then straight ahead, a dapper looking man, in fantastic shape. He has long, flowing brown hair, and a smile that cuts through all four walls of the room. He's about as tall as Tony, but much leaner, with some incredible muscle definition. He can be seen laying back in his seat, dressed to the nines in perfectly tailored dress pants, with a beige sweater sitting over a white dress shirt.

What could he be here for?, Tony wonders. Gambling? Sex? He sure as hell isn't a drug addict. Hell, if he IS one, he does a damn good job covering it up.

Tony's eyes are fixated on this man, seemingly too perfect to be in a place filled with degenerates. Tony's confused glare catches the man's attention, his spare front tooth seemingly pointing at the man ahead as if to say...

Are you a god damn plant? An undercover DEA agent here to take down the miscreants of the state, all under the guise of "fighting crime?"

The man smiles wide back at Tony...



Tony doesn't return the favor. Instead, Tony averts his gaze, staring out the window, a view practically into Fenway Park, Boston's iconic baseball stadium, in the distance. He turns to his left, to the also iconic "Citgo sign," a literal ad for the oil and gas company that is propped up by the Venezuelan government, but is somehow a proud fixture in this otherwise xenophobic and not-so-subtly-racist city.



He traces the edges of the triangular logo.

Santos (thinking to himself): So many god damn nights fixated on this stupid sign as a kid. My uncle would take me to ballgames religiously, trying to turn me into a diehard fan, because all he knew was fucking sports. But I fucking HATED baseball. I fucking HATED sitting in tiny seats... tiny even for a freaking child, while watching overpaid dudes on steroids took 5 minutes between pitches, only to strike out. I fucking HATED the sound of the 30,000 other Boston dickheads heckling players like they were sub-human. I fucking HATED the fact that in Boston, a town with some of the smartest god damn people in the world, religion was this stupid fucking game created in the 19th Century to help people forget that their loved ones were dying from fucking jaundice.

Sure, I wasn't thinking that at 7 years old... but it was still a fucking terrible game, in a terrible town, with terrible people. So I'd stare. Stare at this sign, well before it turned into a mini-neon light show, and I would just follow the path around that stupid fucking triangle to kill time. To distract myself from the trivial bullshit in front of me.

I wanted a drink then...

It only took me ten years to get there.

Maybe that's the problem.

Tony comes to from his flashback, shaking his head once from side to side, his one front tooth feeling ready to pop loose. Just as he looks back towards the desk, during the longest wait for an appointment that was expected to take place the moment he said his name, he sees the man, sitting right in front of him. Chair pulled up to Tony, the man stares, his unnerving smile wide as ever. It's almost as if Brad Pitt's face met Fabio's hair, but they sacrificed looks for a personality that verged on creepy televangelist...

Tony, I see you. Everything is... okay.

Tony leans back in his chair, his head practically trying to slide into his neck, his body shrinking from within.

Tony, it's okay. It... it really is! Wait, do you... do you not... know me?

Tony shakes his head, his mouth now starting to also sink into his neck. The man in front of him smiles, placing his hand on Tony's knee.

Ah, I guess I should've figured. Why would you know me, after all? I'm a complete stranger! I walked into this place, as foreign as the woman you were so eloquently conversing with at the front desk! I'm nothing like you, and you sure as hell have never embodied any of the qualities you see in me! You dress like a West Coast hobo, I dress like I'm closing a million dollar sale. You mutter and stutter your way through conversation, I cut lines as smooth as butter. You drink yourself to shit every night, crawling around in dirt and concrete, I know how to enjoy just enough to enjoy time out with a woman, while not getting so shitfaced that she kicks me out of her cab and I spend the night in an alley.

You frown...

...I smile.

The man smiles once again, then holds his index finger up to Tony. He places a bluetooth headset in his left ear.

Hello? Ah, Tommy! What's going on, my friend?

What?

No, no Tommy! Tell them I'll settle for no more than $500k in consulting services.

What?

$1.5 million? Why would they negotiate up on me? No, Tommy, I need you to put your foot down here! $500k is the most I'll agree to. If they're...

What?

Okay, here's the deal. If they want to pay me $2 million, that's fine, but I'm only taking $250k up front, with the rest on the backend. And Tommy... I need you to promise me you'll throw $500k to Habitat for Humanity, immediately. Well, actually, $100k installments for five years... for tax purposes. Then, Tommy, and this is really important...

...I need you to promise me that you'll put the other $1 million in escrow. We'll need to update my will to have this go to my three children, equally, upon my passing.

Can you have the final contract to me for review next week? Oh, you can do it tomorrow? But Tommy! Thank you! I'll take you out for a fantastic dinner when I return. Okay, talk to you soon!

Tony looks at the man, puzzled. The man smiles, once again, as he removes the headset from his ear.

You don't get it, do you, Tony? See, I'm you! Well, I'm what could've been you. What could've been you if you'd taken the hint six years ago and quit the "wrestling" business. What could've been you if you'd put your foot down and told alcohol it had no power over you. What could've been you if you'd taken that passion, however misguided it can be, and turned it into something productive.

But you didn't, and here you sit.

An addict. But you're taking the first step to recovery, and that's great!

But let's be real, you might make it through today, but I watched you in that airplane last month. I watched you just a few nights ago in that shitty little dive in Boston. I've watched you ever since I separated from you. Ever since I realized I needed to carve my own path, however fictional it was, because... fiction is as good as it gets with your pathetic life.

Today, you'll walk in, talk to that glorified shrink, and tell her about all of your problems, and how you really, really are ready to change.

But when you leave, what will you do? Go home and read a good book? You hate reading.

Okay, then maybe pick up a pen and paper, writing your thoughts? Your cravings? Your desires? I'm sure that's exactly what the doc will tell you to do, right? Take your immediate instincts and quell them by releasing some creative juices.

But you hate writing too, don't you, Tony? You hate everything that's not a bottle. [Every place that doesn't have a shitty jukebox and old, salty bartenders who pretend to seem interested in you, simply so they can get better tips. That's why Lou was your pal, right? Ask yourself this, Tony: Was Lou really your friend and mentor because he liked your drunk ass taking up the corner of his bar for hours on end, or because he knew you'd tip well, or that'd you'd leave a tab that could never be fully paid off? He had you at his fingertips then, and he fucking does now. You temporarily left California because he fucking told you so, you spineless creature.

Tony... Tony. Let's just be real. As real as you claim to be. You hate yourself. That's why you're in this town. That's why you're in this loony bin.

That's why you clench on to that title you know you don't deserve.

The man leans towards a sweaty, confused, Tony, his smile still cutting through his cheeks.

Just end it now, Santos. Just... do it. I'll keep living the life you so badly wish you had. A... fantasy, that's all it is, but that's all it'll ever be for you.

That's all it'll ever be.



Santos? Mr. Tony Santos? Dr. Oliveira will see you now.

The scene fades to black.

September 2013 and May 2019 Star of the Month
1x Hart Champion
1x Television Champion
1x Xtreme Champion