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Sebastian Duke · (10-07-2020)

Galileo Drive || Old Saybrook, Connecticut

Alone with my thoughts, it occurs to me that I don’t get back home here nearly enough. My boy is here, his foster kid too. It’s sometimes surreal coming back. I have a lot of memories of the time I’ve spent here. Mostly good. Some not so good.

Steering my big ass Lincoln into the long driveway I can’t help but think of my father, dead now going on five years. As large as the ‘big house’ is, he didn’t prefer to sleep there. Instead, he used an old rundown three room farmhouse as his private place. He was rather reclusive and he liked to keep to himself when he wasn’t bitching at me for doing this or that wrong.

He was a hard man. Cold. Unforgiving. Uncaring. He was a hard man to love, but we did it anyway. Sometimes, I do wonder why. He pretty much gutted my wife to bring Thaddeus into the world on Christmas. The boy will be the one to “lead us in the future,” he would say. His vitriol for the Catholic Church led him to some odd conclusions. Asmodeus put my son on a pedestal before he was even born, insisting he share a birthday with the Church’s savior. Low and behold, several months later, I killed her myself.

I should have done better by him.

I was never a good father to him. Today, I try a lot harder than I did when he was still a teenager. I’m not really sure how, but Thaddeus is the exact opposite of me in almost every way. That’s a good thing. I’m not a good person. He is. I don’t give a fuck about your feelings, he does. I don’t show much emotion aside from anger, he wears his emotions on his sleeve. I was never much in the personality department, he’s got an infectious one. I was never loved or adored by millions of people around the world, yet he is. I didn’t do much laughing or smiling, he laughs all the time, smiles constantly.

Maybe it’s a good thing after all that I was an absent father for most of his upbringing. Had I done my job as a father, maybe he wouldn’t be so damn happy all the time. Imagining him not the way he is currently would be a tragic occurrence for this world. This world could use more Thaddeus’s, and less of people like me.

Rounding the last bend of the driveway, the gates come into view. Rifles are drawn and pointed at me and my car. You’d think by now they’d recognize the fuckin’ car, but at least they still take security seriously. Coming to a stop at the gates, I put down the window and lower my shades a touch.

”Open the gates!” shouts the woman, recognizing me instantly. Women in the Illuminatus? So much for a ‘brotherhood.’

Passing through the gates, the gigantic Illuminatus flag flies in the wind above the big house. It’s blue and white now, replacing the red and black flag used in times long since passed- when I was on the throne. I guess that’s what happens when you lose a civil war to your son and his lethal air force. Had he not had that air force, I’d still be on the throne, but in a lot of ways, the Illuminatus is in better, far more capable hands now.

Asmodeus was right all along. ‘There will come a time when peace, not war, is paramount to our survival.’ Thaddeus is far better at making peace than I am, though I don’t think that either of us presumed there would be a need for peace so soon.

Stepping out of the car and looking up at the monstrous facade of the Compound and its giant flag high atop, I can’t help but think about what condition the Illuminatus would be in had the civil war not have taken place, had I still sat the throne. It’s impossible to know for certain, but it might be in total ruins by now.

I was wrong.

He was right.

Walking in the door, I’m greeted by my boy and his family, which seems so strange to me to even say.

”Grandpa!” shouts the little tyke.

”The fuck did you just call me?” I ask of him as he runs toward me. I put my palm up on his forehead and stop him from getting too close to me.

”Grandpa,” he repeats, backing up a step to remove my hand from his skull.

”Do I look like a fuckin’ grandpa to you?” I ask of the boy.

The kid smirks and god dammit I know that smirk.

”Yes,” he says with a light laugh.

”Get the fuck outta here before I kick your little ass,” I warn him. I’m kidding with him. I know, Sebastian Duke kidding around with someone!? The horror! ”You’re starting to act like Thad,” I tell him as he runs off.

”Hey thanks!” he shouts as he disappears around a corner.

”That… that wasn’t a compliment!” I shout after him as I turn my attention to the boy wonder himself standing in the hallway with the aid of crutches.

”Yes it was,” Thad says with a straight face.

”You put him up to that, didn’t you?”

”Bitch I might have,” he says with a smile.

”Hows the knee? What’s the prognosis?” I ask as we make our way slowly into the sitting room up the hallway. It pisses me off to no end and sooner or later, I will get my hands on Chris Page. To try and end the kids career when it’s just taking off? Fuck no. I got no time, no respect for that.

”Sprained ACL,” he says as he plops down in a chair. His girl Liz places a pillow on an ottoman and helps him lift his injured leg upon it.

”How long you out?”

”Four to six weeks,” he replies, laying the crutches at his side.

”Take the full six, man,” I advise him. Yeah, he’s young and resilient, and he’d probably be ready to get back to it in three, but if he comes back too early he runs the risk of tearing the ACL and being out a god damn year.

”Nope. I’ll give it four.”

”Baby!” Elizabeth yells at him. ”Let yourself heal! The XWF will still be there in six. What’s two more weeks?”

”Wrestling fans have short memories,” he answers her. He’s right… and he’s wrong. If you’re someone like Nathaniel Idenhaus, then yeah, fans have short memories because they never cared about you to begin with. If you’re a guy named Duke… they don’t forget.

Looking at my left shoulder, I bring my right hand up, brushing off the imaginary debris resting upon it.

”You sayin’ I gotta chip on my shoulder?”

”No,” I reply to him with a rare smile. ”I’m saying you’re a chip off the old block.”

”Emphasis on old,” Thad jokes.

Mother fucker.

In my acceptance speech for the Hall of Legends, I admitted my reluctance to see him participate in the world I became famous in. I feared, and foolishly so, that he’d somehow tarnish the legacy I left behind me when I stopped competing regularly. Maybe that’s me taking my work in the XWF too seriously. He’s just 21 though and he’s taking the world I created, and making it his own. He’s selling out arenas, putting on amazing matches, kicking ass and taking names- just like his old man. As a father, I can’t even begin to explain the pride I have in him being my son and doing my name the justice that he is. Some might question his slow burn rise to the top of this industry or question why he’s not gunning for the top spot right now, right away. I don’t. I know exactly what he’s doing.

It can’t be easy, stepping out of the shadow of greatness. Robbie Bourbon tried to take him to task for having the audacity to be my son. He’s building his career the way he sees fit. He’s forging his own path and paving his own way as he goes. The day he does reach the top of the mountain, he’ll know he did it on his own terms. He’ll know it was his own hard work that got him there. He’ll know it wasn’t just because he has my last name. One day, when he is finally crowned Universal Champion, it will be the proudest day of my job as his dad. Naturally, aside from the day he was born.

”You might want to reconsider jumping off the X-Tron in the future,” I advise him knowing full well he’ll never listen to me.

”Don’t be ridiculous!” he feigns his shock. ”Besides, that’s not what fucked up my knee.”

”No, but jumping from sixteen feet in the air and smashing your knee against the stage… I don’t imagine that helped.”

”Worst. Pain. Ever.

“And it was Chris Chaos. He doesn’t deserve to even be in the XWF. He doesn’t deserve to be the number one contender. All he ever does is shit on the integrity of what we do and beg people to tell him his recorded promos are great when really, they’re hot steamy garbage rotting away in the Arizona sun.

“He should just quit. Period. He sucks that fucking bad. He should be fucking embarrassed to even call himself an

der. I mean, I’m embarrassed that we happen to call the same company home.

“Moreover, dad, his entrance music sucks big fucking donkey dick and I don’t even know if donkeys have big dicks! I bet he dresses up in drag before he even films his recorded promos in order to get ‘in the mood.’ Fuckin’ psycho probably has bodies hidden in his fuckin’ crawl space and everything.

“Fuckin’ John Wayne Gacy of god damn Florida.

“And another thing! This! This is a good one! I literally scale down my ability in the ring with him, to make him look fucking credible out of the KINDNESS of my heart when I own him all the fucking time! If I’m EVER in the ring with him again, I can GUARANTEE you, guarantee… that his in-ring ability against me will match his recorded promo ability and I promise you, he won’t look like a credible fucking competitor.

“Dumb fucking cunt.”

Well now… that seems a little out of character for Thaddeus Duke, huh? Tell us how you really feel, kid. It needed to be said, no matter the consequences.

"It's the painkillers. Gotta be."

Nathaniel Idenhaus!

How ya doin’ buddy? It’s been such a long time and we have so much catching up to do. Seven years ago we were ridin’ the highways together as part of the vaunted The Black Circle. You were the glue that held us together. It’s true, I’m not making that up, I’m not setting up some kind of joke. If not for Nate, John Madison and I would have killed each other a long time ago.

Still hate him actually.

Wonder what he’s up to these days… probably 300 pounds of Burger King.

Anyway, Nate, what happened to you man? I’m not sayin’ you were ever settin’ the world on fire back in the day but you used to command some kind of respect. You used to dream of the day you could take over Germany and establish a new Reich. Once upon a time, Nate, we ruled the land of the Xtreme Wrestling Federation.

With J-Mad as the King of the XWF, me with the United States title until a shovel to my skull changed all that, Shane doing...whatever the fuck Shane did and Luca Arzegotti carrying our bags from town to town while you...were the calm, rational one that held it all together like an underachieving mechanic fixing a malfunctioning piece of heavy equipment.

That was no easy task, yet you did it as long as you could.

Yet here you are seven years later, a werewolf instead of a NAZI and to top it off, you’re the XWF Hart Champion with not an ounce of fucking heart. You had the audacity to lose something so coveted to an overgrown talentless ape from another fucking company? Not just another company, but one far inferior to the Xtreme Wrestling Federation?

I don’t care what people think of titles that aren’t the Universal title. The Hart championship is a prestigious part of XWF history and you let it slip away? I should kill you just for that alone, Nate. How fucking big of an embarrassment have you become? How bad do you hate this place for you to shit the bed like you did against that giant fucking sloth?

That was an embarrassment of epic proportions.

You are an embarrassment of epic proportions.

You let this entire fuckin’ company down, Nate and while that’s not the reason I’ve been angling to get in the ring with you, it sure does make it a lot more satisfying. A lot more gratifying.

Why the change man?

Why’d you drop your superior race shit?

Is it because someone beat you to the punch?

Is it because I took the military from Theo Pryce that was always meant for you, put my kid at the head of it, then watched him pummel nations into submission? Is it because it’s impossible to top what’s already been done to perfection? The fact is, I took your game, lock, stock, and fuckin’ barrel, and went pro.

You?

You’ve been the same as you always have. Nothing more than a middling underachiever trying your hardest to fuckin’ matter. Your hardest was just never good enough though, was it Nate? Nah… you rode the coattails of your betters like the inferior piece of shit you’ve always been. Always hanging around the bigger and better stars, never quite able to break out and make it on your own.

Maybe it’s a good thing you changed, Nathtan… Master race, my ass.

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