I’ve affectionately called him “Boss Man” for goin’ on three years.  People say a lot of things about him and some of them are true.  Those that truly get to know him, learn to love him quickly.  He’s a decent man with a good and kind heart.  Once you’re in, he’s a guy that’d give you the shirt off his back or the last dollar in his account if you needed it.  I know, because he’s done it for me.  Not long after I met him, my momma died and he paid for her funeral without anyone askin’.  When the farm was strugglin’, it was he that got the tax man off my back.  As a man whose primary focus is always on his family, I only regret that momma never got to meet him before she passed on.  She surely would’ve loved him too.

People think and say a lot of things about him and his money and how sometimes things he says about material possessions or tryin’ to help out his friends is some kind of brag.  I get it.  If I didn’t really know him, I’d think the same thing, too.  See, what I know, what I’ve seen, is that he just doesn’t have experience in bein’ poor.  He doesn’t know what that’s like any more than we know what bein’ rich is like.  His generosity, in my experience, has never been in an effort to hold somethin’ over someone’s head or to quote unquote “own” anyone.  What sounds like a brag to us everyday normal folk, is just regular life to him.  He just doesn’t know any better.

When I first met Boss Man, it was through military service.  I was quiet, as I am today.  Yet I soon found that the man is a natural born leader.  Men and women from all walks of life followed him into battle.  Not because it was our job and he told us to, but because he personally, physically, led us into battle.  We followed him, we trusted him, we loved him, and any one of us would’ve died for him.

The war has long since been over and the military disbanded.  Yet I never forgot where my loyalty lies.  With him, with his family.  So when he calls me for action, whether it be protection service or wrestlin’, then hell, that’s what I do.

Quite obviously I hold him in the highest of esteem, so when I fail at my job, it gives me pause.  Great disappointment in myself soon follows and I often wonder if maybe my efforts in bein’ by his side are better used in any other capacity than in professional wrestlin’.  Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the art quite a bit but I do not have a successful track record.  It begs the question of whether I’m as cut out for this gig as Boss Man presumes me to be.  I worry that if I’m disappointin’ myself with my recent forays into the ring, then what does he think?  Like him or not, he’s been so good at it for so long, watchin’ me fall on my face every week has got to be wearin’ thin on him.

Mr. Cashe?

Mr. Everett-Bryce?

Boss Man obviously been wantin’ different outcomes, right?

Since I left Chicago and Warfare, when I’m not out on the farm, I’ve been workin’ hard, trainin’ in the gym so that I can get better at what it is he needs me to do.

”Boss Man?” I greeted his phone call after layin’ down some weights.

”What you up to Cy?”

”In the gym, just tryin’ to get better,” I replied.

”Yeah?”

”Yes sir.”

”Well I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told a thousand idiots,” he started his reply.  ”The tale is in the tape, not the gym.”

”Boss, I…”

”Study tape, Cyrus,” Thaddeus restated.  ”You’ve still got a lot to learn, but I believe in you.”

”I’m sorry I been failin’,” I said to him.

”Don’t be sorry,” he replied.  ”You’re facing some of the very best of the best.  I expect you to keep learning, nothing more.  Sooner or later, Cy, it’s gonna click and you’re gonna start putting two and two together.”

”If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to it Boss Man.”

”Yeah I’ll let you go in a minute,” Thad said.  ”First, I need you to know who you got at Warfare coming up.”

”I’m listenin’,” I replied quickly.

”This might cause you some consternation, but you’ll be facing my future ex-wife,” he informed me.

Lauren Duke.

AKA Sahara.

AKA someone I’ve spent time protectin’ over the last couple years.

”I gotta tell ya, I don’t know if I like that,” I admitted to him.  ”I know y’all got your problems but, she’s still family.”

”Frankie’s decision,” he chimed in.  ”Wasn’t my call.”

”Listen, I love Mister Frankie, Boss Man, but you do understand he’s just a child, right?”

”Yeah,” he sighed.  ”I know, I’m overcompensating for my failure to protect him in the Cypher deal a few years ago.  I just have a hard time telling him no.”

I cannot fathom bein’ in his position.  I know how much he loves that boy.  I know the lengths he’s willin’ to go to in order to protect him.  One slip, one instance of misplaced trust, one failure changed everythin’.  Most everyone now, is kept at arm's length.  Boss Man is far more guarded.  He surely won’t make that mistake again.  No one from the outside has gotten as close as Cypher before or since.

Little runt.  Let me get my hands on ya.  I surely owe ya one.

”Frankie wants to talk to you,” Thaddeus cut through my silence.

”Hey Cy?” the youngin spoke softly.  ”Dad said you’re hesitant.”

”That’s your momma, Mister Frankie,” I pleaded.  ”I know things are tough right now, but you only get one momma.”

”My mother is buried somewhere on Long Island, Cyrus,” he said coldly.  ”You owe me.”

To be sure, Boss Man’s failure falls squarely on my shoulders.  Yet not once has he brought it up.  Not once has he blamed me.  The fact is, it was I with the protection mandate of young Mister Frankie.  It was I that guarded that door that the boy was safely behind.  It was I that let my guard down.  Not Boss Man.  Never Boss Man.

I had my back to the door that night.  That’s standard protocol.  As soon as the door opened behind me, I should’ve stepped to my side and turned inside.  Instead, I hesitated and got knocked out as a result.

”I do,” I admitted.  ”Mister Frankie, I’m sorry I let you down…”

”Are you really gonna do it again?” he asked.

”No sir,” I replied.  ”Never.”

”Then you’re going to stand in that ring, and you’re going to teach Lauren MacKay a lesson in betrayal.  Is that understood?”

”Yes sir.”

Mister Frankie is manipulative.  Now I get it.  Boss Man is an emotionally volatile person, there’s no secret about that.  Mister Frankie uses that against him.  He knows I feel guilty, as I should, for my failure to protect him.  Now, he uses that against me.

”What is it you’d like me to do to her?” I asked.

”I don’t care what you do,” Mister Frankie began.  ”Just make sure Justice is delivered one way or the other.”

”Yes sir.”

My mandate was clear.  Though I do not endorse this… grudge… and Mister Frankie’s role in it, I will do what it is I’m paid to do.  I surely won’t be happy about it.  I won’t take pleasure in it.  Boss Man needs to reign that boy in and bring him to heel before it’s too late.  The boy is young and volatile.  His lust for vengeance, even at such a young age, frightens me.  Not because I’m afraid what might happen if he ever turns his sights on me, but for how bad it might get if he’s not set straight.

”You there?” Thaddeus asked.

”Yes sir,” I replied.  ”Was just thinkin’.”

”May I ask about what?”

”Mister Frankie still on the line?”

”No.”

”Far be it for me to tell you how to run your household, Boss Man, but…” I began but could not immediately finish my thoughts.

”But what?”

”I understand the want, sometimes the need for vengeance,” I continued.  ”I fear what Mister Frankie might one day become if you don’t sit that boy down and give him a what for.”

”Braddock, I know he’s manipulating me,” Thaddeus admitted.  ”I have a war on several fronts.  Frankie’s desire to hurt people is somehow the least of my worries.”

”Should it be?” I asked without an immediate reply.  ”Mister Fankie shows signs of darkness, of bloodlust, of fascist tyrannical dictatorial tendencies.  Left unchecked, I fear what it may one day lead to, sir.”

We both sat silently for some time.  Part of me wondered just what was goin’ through his mind.  To be a father is a tall job for any man.  To be the father of that young man, especially so.  Boss Man saddles himself with guilt for all that Mister Frankie has gone through in his not yet 14 years of life.  A lot of it on his watch, no doubt.  But not all of it.  There comes a time when a dad has to set his friendship with his son aside and be a parent.  I fear Thaddeus is coming to that conclusion, too.  Just too slowly for my likin’.

”I know you’re right,” Boss Man said.  ”I just don’t know how.”

”Can I give you some advice?  It’s somethin’ my momma liked to say when I was actin’ a fool when I was his age.”

”Sure,” he replied.

I could tell he was disinterested.  But I care about him.  I care about Mister Frankie.  So, I gotta try.

”Momma always came down real hard on me, Boss Man,” I began.  ”I was always big but I never sassed my momma.  I had too much respect for her because if I didn’t, I knew I’d be on the receivin’ end of a cane switch.  Whenever I wasn’t right she’d tell me ‘Cyrus, I love you enough to let you hate me.’

“I’ll admit, Boss Man, it took me a long time to figure out what she meant.”

”I know what she meant Cy,” he began to reply.  ”Everything is a world altering, life changing traumatic event when you’re Frankie’s age.  From the miniscule things to the major.  I think that’s what Mrs. Braddock was referring to.

“She loved you enough to right your wrongs no matter how much, at the time, you thought you hated her for it.”

”That’s exactly right,” I told him.  ”I’d never suggest you beat on your child, Boss Man.  The world is different now than when I was young.  I’mma do this for him because I do owe him.  I failed him and I’ll live with that regret until my dyin’ day.

“But this is it.  You can’t allow him to continue to manipulate you to get you to do his biddin’.”

”You’re right.”

I’ll admit, I was uncomfortable tryin’ to give him advice.  Like animals, unruly kids gotta be taken down a peg sometimes.  You gotta let ‘em know what’s appropriate and when.  What isn’t and why.  He does an admirable job 95% of the time.  But right now, despite his own innocence on the matter, he still feels guilty because his wife, his son’s mother, left them both high and dry.  As a result, he’s allowed Mister Frankie to pull all the strings and call all the shots.

It’s high time daddy cut those strings and put that young man back in his place as a child.