Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Thaddeus Duke · (11-16-2021)

Lexington Avenue || Midtown Manhattan – New York City || 1:19 PM

After making my follow up appointment with Dr. DeVille’s (again, not that one) receptionist, I started to make my way to Robert Zane’s office. The two buildings are only separated by about eight blocks. In New York, eight blocks takes for god damn ever by car. Admittedly, it’s longer on foot, but it doesn’t test my patience and allows me some time to think and reflect on where I am, where I’ve been, where I came from.

With my hoodie up over my head and my earbuds in my ears, I just keep to myself and have a laugh every now and then as Adi and I text each other some really bad jokes. Adi Gold is sweet, she’s funny, she’s simultaneously beautiful and adorable and I have no idea what I ever did to deserve her. Despite the way I carry myself on television, she makes me a better me in every way possible.

With Adi alerting me that she’s getting back to work, I place my phone back in my pocket. Just as I do so, A particular song comes on my playlist and throws me back to the night after Relentless.

Dolly’s favorite song.

At Relentless, she walked into a brutal battle with Jim Caedus and didn’t do a great job coming out in one piece. I stayed behind in Chicago to see her. Since Corey and I hit the fork in our road, Dolly has, for all intents and purposes, hated me. She doesn’t return calls or texts or anything of the sort. She doesn’t even interact with me on Twitter unless it’s a drive by hit and run. All the same, I had to make sure she was okay. I just had to know. I let her rest on her first night but the next, I made several calls in to her nurse. Once she was likely out for the night, that’s when I went in.

Stepping from the elevator and turning down the hall, I stop at the nurses station, spying the large black lady seated behind.

”Can I help you?” she asks of me, barely lifting her eyes.

”Lucille, I’m Thad Duke,” I reply to her upon reading her name tag. She’s the same nurse I’ve been talking to all day.

”Ohhh! It’s nice to meet you in person,” she replies with a smile. ”She’s in room 502, babydoll.”

”Thanks,” I reply with a smile of my own and turn away. ”You’re sure she’s out?” I ask, quickly turning back toward Lucille.

”Oh yeah,” she replies with a laugh. ”The doctor has her sedated.”

”They don’t have her on too many pain meds right?” I ask. ”She has a ummm… history.”

”Only in strict moderation I assure you,” she replies quickly.

”Sedated huh?” Lucille nods confirmation. ”So if I talk, she’s not suddenly gonna wake up and throw me out of her room?”

”I thought you said you were close,” she says with a suspicious look.

”We are, she’s just… really fucking pissed at me.”

”Honey, you could scream in her ear, she ain’t wakin’ up.”

”Thanks,” I say before turning and walking further down the hall in search of 502.

Stopping in her doorway, I look on at my longtime friend. Beaten, battered, bruised and bloodied practically from head to toe.

”You’ve looked better,” I joke aloud to myself as I step in. For a moment, I wished she was awake to throw a barb right back at me. Once inside, I close the door about half way. Briefly, I just stand there looking at her. Resting peacefully, I’m reminded of the last two people I’ve seen laying in her almost exact position. My best friend Jim Edwards, and Elizabeth’s father David Tate.

Both now gone from the world.

While there’s no real risk of that happening to her- trust me, I asked- it still overwhelms me just a bit.

”There’s no where for you to go now,” I begin. ”You can’t walk in another direction. You can’t hit mute. So I’ll talk… and you’ll listen.

”You’re pissed at me and I understand that,” I say to her quietly with tears starting to well up in my eyes. ”I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this for months and you wouldn’t give me the time of fucking day.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown Dolly, and I don’t really expect anyone to truly understand my position,” I pause for a beat, arranging my thoughts. ”No one knows what it’s like to have a target on your back the way I do. To have a price on your head the way I do. To have the same target and the same price on the heads of my children.

“It’s okay that you think I’m wrong.

“What’s not okay is your refusal to even hear me. It’s not okay Dolly, to go where we’ve gone and you shut me out like my thoughts, my feelings, my position mean absolutely nothing. I’d have never done that to you and we both know it.”

Pausing some for a moment, I switch my focus to Corey.

”Not you… certainly not Corey understands how bad it hurts to go unheard. I mentioned it several times for months on end and neither of you took a minute to hear what I was saying.

“’Just ignore him,’ you’d say. Or Corey would say ‘Oh that’s just the way he is,’ totally ignoring the very real ramifications that exist if that whack job ever gets his wish and I’m put in the fucking ground. Part of me wishes both of you knew what it was like to have that weight on your shoulders so at least you would fucking understand where the hell I’m coming from.

“Even today, with things the way they are… A bigger part of me is grateful neither of you can understand it.”

Stepping to her bedside, I look down at her bruised and scarred up face. Holding her hand in mine, I’m sure I felt a slight squeeze. Inside, I wanted it to be real but as it usually does, reality wins out in the end. It was likely just a reflex.

”Maybe I am wrong about things, but even if I am… you’re wrong for shutting me out when all I’ve ever done is love you unconditionally. And Corey’s wrong for giving me no other option.”

Leaning over toward her, I give her a light kiss on her cheek and a tear falls from my eye to hers. Upright again and using my thumb, I wipe my tear from her eye.

”I love you Dolly,” I say before turning for the door. Standing in the doorway, and I’m not sure how long he’s been there, is R.L. Edgar.

”She’d probably like to know you were here,” he says to me as I’m stopped at the foot of her bed. ”Don’t mind me though, I’m just dropping by.”

Part of me wants to ask him how long he’s been there. Another part of me doesn’t want to know if he heard me pouring my heart out to her.

I think the other part won.

”Nah man, she hates me right now,” I reply to him.

Edgar steps inside the room and approaches the foot of her bed beside me, he facing her and me facing the door. He looks over at me a moment. ”No she doesn’t.”

”I gotta go man,” I say, ignoring the awkwardness. They’re family, but I don’t know R.L. Edgar from Schism.

”Thad?” he calls out as I reach the door, causing me to stop and turn. ”Want me to tell her you were here?”

Thinking for a moment, ”Tell her whatever you want, I don’t care.” Without another word, I’m in the wind.

Entering the building at 601 Lexington, my thoughts, naturally, switch from the incomparable Adi Gold and the somberness of a friendship put on hold by Dolly Waters, to my ruthless attorney Robert Zane. Him calling while I’m in session is unusual. The fact he has some news regarding Keith Rickle, Frankie’s biological father, is concerning. The man is in prison. Unless he was killed in a prison riot, there should be no Keith Rickle news.

Maybe he was killed and I’m worrying too much?

Stepping from the elevator, I make may way through the large law firm. I guess it’s New York City and large is the only way they come. Nevertheless, Robert catches me with a look from inside his corner office and waves me in just as he’s finishing up a call.

”C’mon in Thaddeus,” he greets me. Before I can even sit, he’s already at his wet bar making a couple drinks. ”Ice?” he asks, peering at me over his shoulder.

”Uhhh, no thanks, I got some...”

”Trust me, you’re gonna want it when I tell you why you’re here,” he interrupts.

”Ice,” I relent.

Turning to retake his seat, he sets a tumbler in front of me and offers me a seat of my own. ”You get your check from OCW?”

”Yep,” I say with a mischievous grin.

”Put it away for a rainy day?” he asks me with a smile knowing damn well I didn’t.

”Fuck no,” I return his grin. ”Some of its sitting in my garage in the form of a Ferrari, a Bentley and a Jeep Grand Wagoneer...”

Zane cocks an eyeball at me at the mention of the Jeep.

”What? I’m still a family man.”

”Interesting isn’t it?” he begins as he leans back and throws his ankle up on his knee. ”We first met, I didn’t like you. I thought you were an obnoxious spoiled asshole and here you are and here I am… and you just keep feeding me money.”

”To be fair, I actually am a spoiled asshole and I’m definitely obnoxious,” I retort.

”I’ve been practicing corporate law for almost forty years, most of that right here in New York City… Do you have any idea the kind of billables is takes to make someone my top client?”

Saying nothing, I just shake my head.

”Thaddeus, I represent dozens on the Fortune 500 and you, a single person and his ungodly wealth have reached the top of my billables list and that by itself calls for a drink.”

”Robert I really don’t know what any of that means or why I should care, but I’m pretty sure none of it has anything to do with why you wanted to see me,” I say to him, having still not taken a drink of whatever he gave me. Vodka probably. Hopefully not the Arby’s Curly Fries Vodka.

For fucks sake, America!

”It’s important, because your money bought my loyalty,” he explains. I roll my eyes in response. ”When you hired me, it was to protect your investments. Financially and otherwise, correct?”

I nod.

”You’d consider Frankie a rather sizable investment, would you not?”

”He’s the most important investment I’ve ever made,” I confirm his inquiry.

”Do you consider Keith Rickle a danger to that investment?” he asks and to be honest, I’m getting tired of the song and dance.

”How could he be? He’s in prison and he will be for the next twenty years.”

”What if he wasn’t?” he poses.

Silently, I sit in thought for a few moments before taking the tumbler and swallowing the entire contents. ”You were right, I was gonna need it.”

”Where do we go from here?” he asks and I hesitate to answer. ”What I’m hearing from my colleagues is he was convicted on circumstantial evidence which is why he got a light sentence. He’s appealing that conviction and he’s in front of one of the most liberal appellate judges in the state.

“If he’s awarded a new trial, Thaddeus… there’s a chance he walks,” Robert warns.

”That can’t happen,” I say to Zane as I stand up and help myself to his wet bar. For the moment, he sits in silence and observes. ”If he gets out, he’ll try and contact Frankie. I can’t have it,” I say to him as I take a swallow and return to my seat.

”Even if he gets freed, Thaddeus, the adoption won’t be overturned,” he advises me.

”I’ll take my chances in a lot of different areas Robert, but never with my kids,” I say to him with sweat beads forming on my forehead. ”All he’ll do is cause trouble and undo months of Frankie’s therapy.

“It cant…

“...be allowed…

“...to happen.”

”What do you suggest?” he inquires. The normally confident and collected Robert Zane, shifts uncomfortably in his chair as he stares across his desk at me.

”If you like my money, you’ll figure out how to keep him behind bars,” I answer him with a cold stare. ”I don’t care if you have to bribe, blackmail, or twist arms from their fucking sockets.”

Standing up, I start for the door.

”Keep him locked up, or I’ll make sure he never sees daylight again,” I say to him. ”I fucking mean that.”

”Consider Frankie, Thaddeus,” he calls out, halting my exit.

”What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” I ask rhetorically. ”What I just told you, is with taking Frankie into consideration.”

”What I mean, is part of Frankie’s problems are due to the fact that he lost control of his life,” Robert explains. ”Letting him have a say in how we proceed… isn’t that allowing him the opportunity to take back a little control?”

I hadn’t really thought of that. At the same time, I’m not sure Frankie needs to be aware of this sudden turn of events. At least, not until we know the likely outcome of the courts decisions.

Then again… by then, it’ll be too late to do much of anything.

If I’m being honest, I don’t know whether to congratulate you for being smart enough… or lazy enough, whichever… to not promote this match. Or if I should feel sorry for you for focusing all of your time and energy in beating Marfy Jannetty.

I mean, at least you achieved your goal.

You can fly onto an aircraft carrier like George Bush Junior flying the mission accomplished banner if you like but what did it get you? What did beating Marf really get you except a one way ticket to the back of the Television title line at the hands of Charlie Nickels…

I guess that last line kind of answers my question, doesn’t it?

If you can’t beat Charlie… a guy I’ve beaten every single time I’ve been in the ring with him… then why would you waste your time promoting a match you have little to no chance in winning anyway? Why would you want people to tune in and watch you get embarrassed and humiliated? Your answer doesn’t matter because facts being what they are, the marks tune in to watch me work… and they love to hate every single second of it.

That’s what makes me me, and what makes you… pretty much anyone else entirely.

Now, I’m not saying I’m gonna make quick work of you. I’ll make average work of you. Fact is, I haven’t stepped into the ring in almost a month and a half and I need to stretch out. I need to get the blood flowing and I need to get my legs back beneath me.

All you are Schism, all you were ever gonna be… is a tune up. A run of the mill nobody opponent that doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell in really challenging me, so here we are. Roughly 48 hours out from you getting schooled by the Lionheart and it’s a lesson, you won’t ever forget.

If you do, ask your other personality to remind you.

Or call me.

I’ll remind you personally.

Let the word go forth, from this time and place… That the torch has been… lit, beneath the career of Schism. Watch LIVE on Warfare from the Big Easy as my star sets for to the fledgling little startup career of Schism. Watch me engulf you… simply because I can.

Simply because I'm Thaddeus Duke.... and you're not.

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Backward & Forward: RP #2
Author	Message