It’s funny to me.  The same man that hasn’t shut up in a year, that hasn’t gone two weeks without dropping my name out of his cocksucker, that has my name literally in his twitter handle and has had it there for months, calls out JPD for dropping my name when they bicker back and forth on the interwebs.  It’s also funny to me that as soon as the match he begged me for for so long is on the horizon, as soon as it is booked and the promotional window for the Denzel Porter Invitational is in full swing, his bitch ass goes full ghost.

Justin York is all piss and vinegar in 180 characters but when push comes to shove, when the gas is on and the pilot is lit, when the heat and the pressure start increasing, lil Yorkie finds himself runnin’ back to the porch where it’s safe.  He loves to play with fire but he never learned that when you play with fire, you will get burned.  In typical Justin York fashion, when the goin’ gets tough, the York gets goin’.

I hate this cliche with the strength of a thousand burning stars, but Justin York has gone out of his way to write checks his ass can’t possibly cash.  Since our short time together in IIW this man has been on his knees figuratively sucking my dick and fondling my nuts just for me to acknowledge his existence.  Just for me to take a few seconds out of my busy schedule and pat his head, rub his belly and tell him he’s been a good boy.  I’m a charitable man so every now and then, I throw the little dog a bone.

---

Woolworth Tower  |  Tribeca - Lower Manhattan  |  February 14

Sat in a chair in the earliest part of a chilly Manhattan morning, I stared out the bay window into the darkness.  The sun has yet to rise but I can already feel the strain of the day.  Sipping on hot coffee, I wondered where it went awry.  Sebastian Everett-Bryce is the best friend I’d had in my entire life.  I loved him like a brother and I could tell him anything.

Why couldn’t he do the same? I wondered.

For the last year, all he ever had to do was say “bro, that’s not cool, you’re pissing me off.”  He didn’t.  I thought he was playacting.  Sloane thought so too.  We were wrong, but we didn’t know that.  Out of all of the people in the world who would want to hit on the ridiculously gorgeous Sloane Taylor, I thought I was in the safe zone.  I thought I was the one that could get away with it because none of it meant anything.  I thought he knew that.

We were just goofin’ around, I swear it!

Today marks 29 days since Seb has spoken to me.  It has also been 29 days since Sloane and I engaged in any kind of social media flirtation.  If one thing has become clear to me during these 29 days, it’s that Seb never viewed me the same way I viewed him.  I’m not saying he has no right to feel the way he feels.  He absolutely does.  But I do know if the situation were reversed and he was doing something that I didn’t like… I’d tell him that.  I’d do that so he had a chance to course correct without it coming to such childish pettiness that I no doubt have helped him fuel over these last four weeks.

He hasn’t answered a single text from me, not a single call in the last month.  We’ve been in the same place a few times since and each time, he avoids me like the plague… or Covid.

I’d die for him.  I deserve better than this.  He’s not required to resume our friendship, but I deserve a conversation at the very least.  Seb needs to know that had I known, I never would’ve kept goofing off with Sloane and letting the world think there was more to her and I than jestful flirting.

“You’re dressed like an idiot,” Lauren says, catching me off guard from her place coming down the steps.  I guess wearing fatigues in the living room probably does look kind of stupid.

“You too,” I joke without a hint of playfulness in my voice.  “Why are you even up this early?”

“You got out of bed,” she says to me before sauntering across the room.  Lauren curls up in my lap and leans her head against my shoulder.  Gently I rub her back and kiss her head.  “What time are you leaving?” she asked me.

February 14th means absolutely nothing in our house.  In the year plus that her and I have been together, we never needed a special day for romance.  She knows I love her.  I know she loves me.  This day however, does carry some importance.  Today is my parents 25th wedding anniversary.

“Soon,” I answered her.

“Tell me what you’re doing again?” she urged me.

“Target practice at the old Duke Compound,” I replied to her.  Hence, the fatigues.  My military days are behind me now but at the same time, I like to keep sharp.

“Then what?” she pushed further.

“The mausoleum,” I answered.

“What time, you think?” she asked.

“Probably around noon,” I answered after a second or so of thought.

“Then home?” she asked suggestively.

“Then home,” I agreed.

“Good,” she said as she snuggled a little closer.

“Why?  Babydoll, you got some kind of plans for me?” I asked her with a smile.

“Oh I sure do,” she said while reaching her hand between my legs.

“You keep this up, I’m canceling my day,” I joked.

“No,” she insisted before stepping off of my lap.  “Go.”

Lauren lays a kiss on my cheek and makes her way back toward the staircase.  Looking over her shoulder, she pops her hips reminding me just what awaits.

“You’re gonna earn it today,” she said before climbing the steps.

I do like a challenge, I think to myself.  As I head out for the day, I grab the long, hard black case by the door.  Inside it rests the recently calibrated Barrett M82 rifle I used during the wars.

---

Justin York talks a big game.  He’ll tell anyone that’ll listen just how good he is.  Just how accomplished he is.  Just how big of a star he is, but reality my friends, reality betrays him at every god damn turn and I’d laugh my ass off if it wasn’t so… so… ridiculously pathetic.

He’s the kind of guy that might tack a few wins onto his resume over some low rent talent and pretend he just walked through an inferno.  He’ll pretend he just kicked, punched, clawed, and scratched his way through the gates of hell and claim he’s at the top of the mountain.  But when you zoom out on that pretty little picture he paints for himself, the truth is revealed for exactly what it is.

Bullshit.

Zoom out and you see the mountain he climbed to the top of and celebrates himself for is nothing more than a mound covering a septic tank.  All the while, the real big dogs of this sport, guys like me and Seb Bryce.  Men that have done this for decades like Chris Page and James Raven.  Guys like PIC and Peter Vaughn.  Men like Raion Kido and Mark Flynn… we’re the guys on the actual mountain to the left and to the right of the shit mound Justin York stands on.  We’re the guys that make small men big.  We’re the guys that make dull lights bright.  We’re the guys that put the asses in seats and if you’re tryna sell me on Justin York being on any of our levels, then I got some ocean front property in Montana I’d love to sell you.

---

The Razed Duke Compound  |  Old Saybrook, Connecticut

It’s been a long time, I think to myself as I steer my fathers old ‘78 Chevy truck onto the long drive from the main road.  I was born here.  For years I thought I’d die here too.  Instead, my enemies had other plans.  This compound was razed a year and a half ago.  What was once an impenetrable fortress, now lies in ruins.

Slowing the old truck to a stop in the driveway in front of the former main entrance, I kill the engine.  The main entrance still stands today, but what lies beyond it is a large mound of grass covered dirt burying the past.

Grabbing the case from the bench seat, I step out of the truck and head to the entrance.  Just as I reach the stoop beneath the sixteen foot high double doors, my phone vibrates in my pocket.  Setting the case down beside me, I retrieve my phone and look at the screen.

Sloane Taylor.

“Hey,” I say to her warmly.  “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“I know, yours too,” she says back.  “Things have been kinda complicated.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” I replied with a sigh.

“So listen… everything is in place,” she informs me.  “All you have to do is show up.”

Saying nothing immediately, I exhale a deep sigh.  “Oh I’ll be there.  It’s their anniversary.”

“Alright well… call me later when you’re on your way ok?  I’ll make sure he’s out the door,” she insists.

“Before you hang up,” I begin with a pause.  “I don’t know how this is gonna turn out.  If it goes the other way I just want you to know that I love you both.”

“I know,” she replies with some sadness in her tone.  “And so does he.  He just…” her voice trails off.

“Yeah I know,” I say to Sloane, not needing her to finish her thought.  “Alright talk later.”

“Later Thaddy.”

“See ya Sloane,” I say quietly before ending the call.

This has gone on long enough between Seb and I.  One way or another, it comes to a head today.  The idea is to provoke him enough to hit me since it’s obviously what he wants… or needs.  I just hope she can get him to show up.

For now, its back to the task at hand as I lift the case from the stoop and enter the old Compound.  Climbing the hill behind the doors, I come to stop near the crest and pull the weapon from its case.  Attaching the barrel, the high-powered scope and the 10 round magazine, I put them together in short order and lay belly down on the ground.

Peering through my scope at the nearest target, 250 yards.  Easy.  Squeezing the trigger, the human shaped target has its head blown off like Kennedy.  Next target, 350 yards.  Loading the chamber I peer through and squeeze the trigger.  Again, the targets head is blown clean off.  With a range over just over a mile, targets this close are destroyed by sheer velocity.

As the targets get further away, the damage gets a little more clean.  I’ve always been a good shot.  With years of training, I became a great shot.  At 1,000 yards today, something is amiss.  I haven’t missed a shot from this distance in four years.  After squeezing the trigger, just under a second later I see the dirt next to the target puff into the air.

“Dammit,” I mutter under my breath before reloading and trying again.

Squeezing the trigger, again the shot misses.

“Get it together Thad,” I say to myself as I reload.  Rubbing my eyes and running my hands over my buzzed hair, I recalibrate my sight.  With the head of the target slightly to the right of the crosshairs, I take a deep breath.  “York,” I say quietly with a smile before squeezing the trigger.  In under a second, the head is taken clean off.

I didn't call Sloane after like I said I would. Truth is, I lost interest in taking the heads off of targets.  All I wanted to do now was go home.  Be with my wife.  Be with my kids.  But I needed to get to the cemetery first.

---

Yorkie said many weeks ago that he’s about to smoke me like yesterdays blunt.  It’s cute.  It’s clever.  But I don’t do cute or clever.  I don’t do backroom deals like some.  I don’t do underhanded shit like a lot of people do to gain some contrived edge when I talk.  I’m not a blowhard and I don’t suck myself off discussing my expansive resume of accomplishments.  I don’t need to because it speaks for itself.  I deal almost exclusively in facts and reality.  Once in a while I might throw in a joke.  But Justin York is already involved in this process so I really don’t need the jokes.

Him thinking he’s in my class is joke enough for everyone.

Justin, what you don’t realize is that regardless of what you have said or might say to talk yourself up and to make yourself sound better than you actually are, what you’ve failed to realize is that during the entirety of this Farewell of Failure tour you’ve been on, you haven’t faced anyone on my level yet and you’re barely surviving those contests.  Most of them, by now, I’m sure you’ve lost.  I don’t know.  I don’t pay that close attention to what it is you do.

Ryan Leaf.  Johnny Manziel.  JaMarcus Russell.  Tim Couch.  Mark Sanchez.  Justin York.

What do all of those men have in common?  Each and every one of those men busted out of their chosen profession because they bought their own hype and were never good enough to take their game to the next level.

That’s what this retirement is about.  What is he?  37?  Not super young but it’s not old either.  He’s not retiring because he’s hurt.  He’s not hanging it up because he’s been to the top of the mountain and achieved all of his goals.  He’s not retiring because he’s satisfied with his career and the journey has come to its end.

Quite the opposite actually.  He’s retiring because he knows he isn’t good enough, he never has been and he never will be.  When the smoke clears and the final bell tolls for Justin York, and the sun sets on his underwhelming career, no one will put him on their Mount Rushmore.  In a few months, he’ll return to what he’s always been: an afterthought, a footnote in history.

He faces a man just 24 years old and on the fast track for a Hall of Fame.  That’s not exaggeration, it’s just cold hard facts.  It rings true because I’ve earned it.

A lot of people will say what I just said a bit ago, that ‘you’re not on my level.’  You see it on twitter a hundred times a day from the lesser sector of this business.  Saying it, and actually being it, are two very different things.  I’m not Griff Hawkins and I’m not Jace Davidson.  And I’m damn sure not the other few nobodies you’ve filled your slate with.

I’m Thaddeus Duke.

And I am the masterclass.

---

Duke Family Mausoleum | Long Island, New York

Down, despondent and dare I say depressed, I slowed the old rig to a stop in the cemetery.  Along the narrow road rests the large black marbled structure with four columns.  In gold plate above the entrance reads: DUKE.

After killing the engine, I exit and stare at the structure.  I haven't been inside since the day my father was laid to rest here not even a year ago.  Even still, I hesitate to enter.  Before he passed I vowed to do with his remains what I did with his father's, chuck 'em in the sea.

I didn't.

I'd have been right to do it but I didn't want to compound the hurt and grief with regret later.  Instead, I allowed him to rest for eternity beside my mother that he killed not six months after my birth… and my best friend Jim Edwards.  He succumbed to cancer in the fall of '21.

I don't talk about him much.  He was just a year older than I was and he'd been my right hand for as long as I have memories.  I was lost without him and in some ways, I guess I still am.  James Edwards was the angel on my shoulder against the darkness that always threatened to consume me.  It was unfair, a cruel joke played by a merciless God.  A good man, a kind man that never smoked a day in his life, lost a battle with lung cancer.

Sebastian Everett-Bryce filled that void just a few months after Jim's demise.  I needed him.  But I never told anyone that.  Not even myself.  Certainly not him.  Without Jim, without Seb, the void left inside me is more like the Grand Canyon.  And I’ll be damned if I know my way back.

After unlocking the vault doors, I stepped inside and flicked on the light.  Taking a deep breath, I look at the two sarcophagi for my parents.  Behind me, and I can feel his presence, is my oldest pal Jim Edwards.

“Hey mate,” I say softly without looking around.  I wish I had the words to explain what’s happening right now, but I don’t.  It’s happened on and off for several years.  First my grandfather, then my mother, my father most recently.  And also Jim.  When I’m out of sorts and not myself, one of them tries to help me through it.  I could never determine whether it was a delusion, or a dream, or just an imaginary conversation inside my own head.  Regardless of what it is, it happens.

“‘Ello, been a minute,” he says in his old familiar heavy British accent as we take a seat on the bench between the rows.

Normally with an appearance from Jim, I’d be overjoyed.  Even with him here beside me, it hasn’t changed anything.

“What’s got you down mate?” he asks.

For the first time, I looked at him.  The last I saw him alive, he had withered away to nothing with his face sunken in so much you could see the outline of his entire skull.  Here, he was as if he were fully healthy and full of life.  I just wish that I could remember him like this instead of that.

“Sebastian?” he asked.  To which I merely nod once.  “Let me guess.  You used your boyish good looks to flirt with the woman he loves until he couldn’t take it anymore and now he’s mad at you?”

“Something like that,” I say while cracking the slightest of smiles.

“I hope one day you’ll learn that the entire universe doesn’t revolve around you,” he says curtly.

“I never thought that,” I protested.

“But you acted like it did,” he retorts.  “It’s not all your fault mate.  You were born into unfathomable wealth and privilege.  The fact that you’ve adjusted as well as you have to living in the real world, and as quickly as you have is a rather remarkable feat.”

“I guess I'll get a gold star by my name then,” I say with sarcasm.

“Thad, mate,” he begins.  “Was there anything…”

“There was nothing going on between Sloane and I, Jim!” I interrupted him.  “Neither of us would ever do that to him.

“I know I’m in the wrong here.  Ignorance doesn’t equal innocence.”

“What if Sebastian were removed from the situation?” he poses.

For the moment, I look at him angrily.  “That’s a loaded question.”

“Is it really?” he asks.

“Yes,” I insist.  “Assuming Seb is removed from the equation automatically assumes that Sloane and Thad are a given.  I’m not saying she’s not attractive.  Of fucking course she is.  In a different world I absolutely would have pursued more with her…”

“And there it is,” he interrupted me mid-sentence.

“...she’s,” I paused at his interruption.  “There what is?”

“That’s the part he sees and you don’t,” Jim answered.  “Mate, imagine if it were he and Lauren thinking of a world where you didn’t exist.”

“That’s not…” I begin to protest but stop myself.  It’s hard to argue that logic.  That’s not how it is, but I understand now why he might think so.

Outside, I can hear a car door close which grabs my attention.  Looking back, Jim has returned to the immortal plane leaving me here to deal with whatever comes my way.  Standing from the stone bench inside, I make my way outside.  Seb rounds the front of my truck with his eyes locked on me.

“Christ! Even your fuckin’ graves are mansions,” Seb cries out angrily.

Saying nothing, I remove the chest holster, dropping my weapons to the ground.  Reaching for my belt, I unsheath and drop the long sharp hunting knife to the ground as well.  With Seb steadily coming closer, I bend down and lift my left pant leg to remove my emergency blade and drop it too.

“Expecting an invasion?” Seb jokes but not really while I advance toward him.  “Cunt.”

“I want you to beat me up,” I replied to him.  “Not kill me.”

“I’m not beating you up!” he shouts angrily as he stands face to face with me.

“Why not?” I asked with a hint of sadness in my voice.  “That’s why I did all this.”

“You wasted your fuckin’ time mate,” he says.

“You sure?” I ask him, knowing full well I’m about to provoke him.

“You’re not worth it,” he says as he starts to back away.

“I’m sorry Seb,” I call out to him and he stops.  With his back to me, I know I got him.  “I don’t mind the heat.  I don’t mind taking 100% of the blame in public but you know damn well there is enough guilt to share between the three of us.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says as he resumes walking away.  “We’re done.”

Pfft, yeah right.  Lunging in a full sprint, I catch up with him and slam him into the right fender of the truck before trapping him in a sort of standing headlock.

“Get off me!” he yells out, but even still he won’t fight me.

“The other night when Sloane came to the Rabbit with me and I had to carry her back in your house,” I begin my provocation.  “She wasn’t wearing underwear with that tight little dress she was wearing.  I saw it Seb!”

I’m lying through my teeth, but he doesn’t know that.  I didn’t see a damn thing and even if I could’ve, I wouldn’t have.  He says nothing as he struggles to wrestle my arm from his head.

“That perfect little pu…”  He bends and contorts himself before placing me in a similar headlock.

“You’re lying!” he shouts out.

I can’t answer him.  His hand is covering my mouth and nose.

“AHHH!  WHAT THE!” he yells as I bite his finger.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t breathe!” I yell as we’re both still trapped in ridiculous dual headlocks.  “And of course I was lying dumbass!  She was dressed properly and even if I could’ve peeked I wouldn’t have!”

Both of us fall to the ground, stuck in dueling headlocks and rolling around like kids in a schoolyard scuffle.  During a lull in the stupidity, we rest to catch our breath when we hear a loud twig snap near us.  After it, a number of clicks.  Looking up, and still locked together, there are gun barrels pointed at us.

“Hmmm… This wasn’t part of the plan,” I think to myself aloud.

“What plan?” my unwitting partner asks.