Time seemed as if it stood still.  There I stood, like a statue as the skies, gray with ash like snow fell around me.  One agonizingly slow look to my right and I see my fellow brothers in arms, drenched in sweat and faces spattered with blood, rifles drawn, holding back Roman citizens.  One agonizingly slow look to my left, the remains of a war torn city, crushed and crumbled beneath the considerable might of my armed forces.  Nothing made a sound.  Nothing seems live but at the same time, it all felt too real.

Clearly I was inside a dream.  A dream I hadn't had in several years.  Placing one foot in front of the other, I took one slow step forward.  Then another.  And another as I led my soldiers through the desolate, burned out streets.  I was young then.  Far too young to be in the position I was in.  Far too young to lead men into battle but all the same, they heeded my every command.  They hung on every word I uttered.  If I said shoot, they fired.  If I said stop, they stopped.  If I said carpet bomb the city… they carpet bombed the city.  No decision was ever questioned.  No order ever went unfollowed.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I was not immune and I am not indifferent to the things I had done.

As I led my men through the Roman streets, I heard a distant cry.  I stopped and looked.  I could hear it plain as day, a child.  Yet no matter how quickly I walked, no matter how fast I chased the sound of that crying child, they never came any closer.

Buildings were toppled, crumbled, blown to pieces.  Rome was a shadow of its former self and despite being late December, the fires that raged throughout the ancient city, raised the temperature considerably.  Sweat beaded and rolled down my brow, dripping to my cheek and rolling to my lip.

In the dream, it was deathly quiet except the sound of my breath, the beat of my heart, and the cry of a strange child I'd never find.

”Gracie,” I said in my sleep.

”Baby,” Lucy shook me gently.  ”Baby wake up. You're dreaming.”

My eyes sprung open, but I laid still as the two competing parts of my brain stayed at war in my head.  One tried to convince me I was still dreaming, the other knew I was now awake.

I sat straight up and my sweat soaked hair clung to my face so tightly that dyed blond strands of curled hair stuck in my eyelashes.

”What?” I asked quietly as my conscious brain began to take hold.

”You were dreaming,” Lucy reminded me.  ”You were talking in your sleep.”

Lucy sat up beside me and looked into my eyes with worry.

”I wanted to let you go, to let it run its course, but…”

”What was I saying?”

---

The time is nigh, Yorkie.  You get to face your ‘big bad’ one last time and you call me a coward because I'm sure someone in your echo chamber of a circle jerk told you it was the right call, the wise call, the only call, really.

Because the one thing we all know about professional shoot wrestlers is that they're full of foolish pride, emboldened by ass kissing ego maniacs, and all the while they remain fragile as fuck.

That said, I'm about to school you in the world of Thaddeus Duke.  I'm about to school you in what fear is.  And it's not some supernatural scary entity.  It's not some man with a microphone whose bark has always been better than his bite.

A man only knows fear, true fear, when he lives for something other than himself…

---

”Stop,” Lucy said as she began telling me the things I said in my sleep.  ”On me,” Lucy stated.

”Take it down, the whole thing,” she said and I looked away in shame.

”Gracie,” she finished.

Instinctively, unconsciously almost, I began tracing the script tattoo on my left forearm, the body ink memorial of my daughter with Lauren that never lived.  Sitting in bed, I pulled the blankets off, revealing my lower half.  Every inch of me was drenched in sweat.

Lucy noticed my absent minded tracing and laid her hand gently on mine, tracing along with me.

”I’m soaked,” I smiled uncomfortably.  ”I’m gonna shower.”

Leaning toward her, I placed a kiss on her cheek and felt her smile.

”Go back to sleep, I’ll be back in a bit,” I promised before I stepped out of bed and scurried to the bathroom.

---

Fact is, I get a good laugh when people call me a coward.  As if professional shoot wrestling and the men and women that inhabit it are anything to fear.  What is there to fear about them?  They’re predominantly vile, vain creatures and no, I am no different.  We put on masks and smile for the cameras.  We sign items, take pics and kiss babies.  Then we go home.  Off to the clubs.  Succumb to whatever vices our creator gave us.

Ken Davidson once called me a coward for leaving a tag match.  Sure, he was my partner and yes if I could have done it differently, I would have.  But there are things more important than wrestling that should always and will always be a bigger priority.  That night in question, my oldest son took off on my Harley, then wrecked it and himself.

When you get that call?

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you’re at.  Getting to that boy was my first and only priority.

That… was fear.

The thought of losing a child… that is my only real fear.

I’m a veteran of four wars, Yorkie.  From air assaults to ground invasions, I was on the front lines for all of it.  I’ve seen people I loved die.  I’ve held mens guts in their bodies as they drew their final breaths, I’ve cried with men as they cried in pain and regret.  I’ve been shot, shot at and shot down, Yorkie… And you think there’s something for me to fear about wrestling?

Silly little bitch.

If not fear, then why?

Ask yourself why I refused this match for so long, only to accept it at the eleventh hour.

Ask yourself why I refused this match for so long, only to give you what you wanted in the end.

Because… see, Yorkie… I was born into this business.  I grew up in this business.  I knew more about this business than most men two and three times my age even before I was of age myself.  And there’s another common thing about the professional wrestling genre.  Men and women that make their living in this world, they’re easy to bait when they don’t ever scratch through the surface.

I was a damn good strategist in my military days and I’m even better at it as a wrestler because while the vast majority stick to the script and adhere to the common tropes, guys like me, the few, the proud, the true greats of this business… and incidentally, not the ones that think they’re great but really only ingratiate themselves to their betters in hopes of a better spot and condemn folks for things that they themselves do… if you know, you know… They, and you, are surface dweller snakes waiting on opportunities to strike.

Greats like me, Yorkie.  We set you up like pieces on a chess board and create the opportunity.

Is it becoming clearer yet?

---

Standing and drenched with water, I allowed the hot water drops to cascade like rainfall, washing away the sleep, washing away the dream that I could never forget.  The dream itself was a recreation, a retelling, a reliving of a real scene.

War is ugly.

War is destruction.

War is a last resort political weapon to apply pressure to one’s perceived enemy.

When I say I was far too young to be in the position I was in, far too young to be barking orders, it’s because I was just a teenage kid, not much older than Frankie is now.  When I stop and think about it, I try to replace myself with Frankie.  As intelligent and savvy as he is when it comes to wrestling, I don’t think for a second that a boy his age or even close to it should be picking up arms and going to war.  And I certainly don’t think a boy his age can effectively lead thousands upon thousands of soldiers in battle.  Yet, it happened anyway.

Indoctrination is a terrible thing and no one is immune.  Rich?  Poor?  Politically savvy?  Men or women of the cloth?  Educated?  Not?  Not a single man, woman or child is immune to being taught things from early ages that are inherently wrong.

By the time I had learned the truth about our purpose, it was too late.  It was well into the Last War and by then, we were fighting strictly for the right to exist.  We were fighting for our literal lives and before I became a father, I never gave a damn whether I lived or died.  When I won the only title that mattered, being called dad, also late in the Last War, my perspective changed.  See, I went on this journey of familial discovery and found that my entire family legacy outside of wrestling was built on lies but when you have people blowing up your house and trying to down your airplanes… when you have children, you have no choice but to keep fighting until it’s over.  I didn’t have the luxury of negotiating a surrender and saying “hey actually we were wrong, sorry ‘bout that.”  If I had had that option once I learned the truth, I’d have taken it.

---

Now that you’ve had time to think, to focus, to retrace your steps and mine, is it clear, Yorkie?  Is it clear now why I accepted?  Is it clear yet why I accepted only after denying you time after time after time for months and months?

Guys like you are so laser focused on what’s right in front of you that you never see what’s miles behind you.  You never see what’s coming up along the side.

Three years ago when I signed at IIW, a promotion far below my station, it was guys like you chomping at the bit to mix it up with real talent.  You poked and prodded.  You made things personal.  I denied you time and again until you were desperate.  As soon as you were desperate, I had you where I wanted you then I dog walked you in seven minutes on Denzel Porter’s show.

You should’ve known where this was goin’, Yorkie.  In your heart of hearts you know that the last thing I am is a coward yet that’s the path you chose to take.  You know damn well how cerebral I am.  You know damn well how good I am when my head is 100% in the game.

There’s few better and we both know it.

If you wanted it, first I’d make you desperate.  Then when you knew you were close, I’d place a condition on it that I knew you would be too stupid to refuse.

And that, my friend, is why on Sunday in Miami, that fledgling little rinky dink company you built, belongs to the XWF.

I don’t have foolish pride, Yorkie.  I couldn’t care less about when I win or lose because it doesn’t affect me.  If I win?  So what.  Beating you does nothing for my hall of fame, legendary career.  Losing to you wouldn’t have hurt me or helped me so the only thing left was the ability to take the one thing you loved.  To take the one thing that makes you stand out, that makes you unique.  To take the only thing left that makes you you.

Pro Wrestling Valor.

When I take it from you… what’s left?

---

After my shower, I dressed then gave my once again asleep fiance another kiss on her cheek before proceeding through the house.  On my way downstairs, I stopped to check on the three things that have given my life its true purpose.  Three kids that depend on my staying alive.  The three reasons I have the best, most prestigious title in the world.

Downstairs, I cracked open a beer and turned on one of the 24/7 news channels.  The television was muted, but I didn’t need sound to know what I was seeing.  The once beautiful and full of life Gaza, now a war torn and decimated hellhole with bodies of non-combatant men, women and children strewn about.

But it’s not a genocide, they say.

It’s not a war crime.

Just then, I saw headlights pass across the windows at the front of my palatial Long Island home.  I knew who it was and with Laika, the female King Carles Cavalier pup at my feet, I opened the front door then returned to the sofa and resumed watching.  Moments later, Doctor Lewis DeVille stood at the doorway.

”Thanks for comin’ out,” I greeted him without taking my eyes from the screen.

”Well, you don’t drop by the office much anymore,” he said as he crossed the threshold and closed the front door behind him.  ”I figured if you were calling me at two in the morning, you probably needed to talk.”

DeVille sat in a chair in the sitting room and directed his gaze to the TV.

”Terrible thing,” he sighed.

I merely nodded.

”They expect us to believe it’s not what it is because,” his voice trailed off.

”Because when you’re in a position of power,” I began.  ”When you make life and death decisions like these, it’s easier to sleep at night when you tell yourself that those kids they’re killing would have one day picked up a gun or strapped on a vest and killed some of your people.”

DeVille observed, but said nothing as his eyes switched back and forth every few seconds from me to the television screen.

”We lie to ourselves, Doc,” I looked at him briefly, then back to the screen.  ”It’s easier to detach from reality when you stop thinking of people as human beings and start thinking of them as vermin.  As something that needs squashed.”

”I see some people rationalizing it,” Lewis began.  ”That in Gaza, the Palestinian people would take people like you, Thaddeus.  People on the rainbow spectrum and toss them off buildings.”

”I’ve seen that too,” I agreed.  ”Maybe they would but it’s just how people convince themselves that genocide is okay.”

”It isn’t.”

”No,” I sighed.  ”But we wrap in an Israeli flag and it’s okay because Israel.”

”You had the dream again?” he questioned with more inference than asking.

I nodded.

”The war torn Rome one.”

Again I nodded.

”What brought that about you think?”

”After dinner I was helping Frankie with his civics homework,” I told him.  ”They’re covering world war two and the holocaust and he asked me why what Germany did in the 30’s and 40’s was condemned and called genocide but what was going on in Gaza wasn’t.”

”What did you tell him?” DeVille asked.

”The truth,” I looked at Doc.  ”Because their skin is brown, not white.”

”It’s an uncomfortable truth, isn’t it?”

”It’s a fucked up truth is what it is.”

”How does that relate to the dream?” he asked.

---

What’s left after I beat you, York is… what you’ve always been and what you’ll always be… nothing.

Let’s circle back to cowardice for a minute, York.  You called me a coward because for months and months I refused your challenge.  Yet as soon as I accept and the stakes are raised to a level you never anticipated… you tank Pro Wrestling Valor and announce its closure.  Do I have that right?

Nothing screams cowardice and knowing defeat louder and more profoundly than killing your company so I can’t take it from you.

So what happens next, Yorkie?  After the sun sets, after the dust settles, after the lights go out and night three of Relentless goes quiet?  What happens when all your friends are gone, your company is gone… and there’s nothing left for you?

You’ll do what you always do.

You’ll do the only thing you’ve ever done when the lights were too bright, when the spotlight shined its brightest… slink away because the little dog can not, has not, will never hang with the big dog.

---

[gold]”All wars are crimes, Doc,” I began.

”Are they?” he questioned.

I sat quietly for a few moments and reflected on days gone by.  Yes, it’s true, I rebelled against my father because he acted on faulty, unconfirmed intelligence and targeted a building that turned out to be a school.  Yes, I ordered the bombing of cities and towns.  No, I never once and would never target civilian buildings but what we call collateral damage, were living breathing human beings.

”You take in so much information,” I began.  ”You’re quite literally fighting for your very right to survive, to live among the other people and nations of the world.  You receive the best advice from the best advisers, you have the most concrete intelligence that you can gather…”

I paused further.

”Even in the most righteous of conflicts, civilians die.”

”Wouldn’t you say that…”

”I don’t try and rationalize it, Doc.  I don’t spin it,” I looked over to him again.  ”Missile strikes or bombings in isolated areas are one thing.  When you start sending missiles and bombs into towns, villages and cities, the cost of war isn’t measured in flag draped coffins but in the destroyed lives and decimated families of the peaceful.”

”There are those that say that an atheist can’t have a moral compass,” he suggested.

”Those people are idiots,” I dismissed the rhetoric.  ”I don’t need a book to tell me what’s right and wrong.  I don’t use the power that a book holds to justify my hate and bigotry.  I don’t need military intelligence reports to know that when you send missiles into a densely populated city that no matter how much you wish it weren’t the case, innocent people die.  Absent a declaration of war altogether, it’s unavoidable.”

”And in…”

”They’ve razed cities to the fucking ground, Doc.  No one can tell me that it’s not genocide.  They’re intentionally targeting civilians and no matter how much they deny it, no matter how righteous and what idiotic transparent excuse they use…”

”They were attacked, Thaddeus,” he argued for arguments sake.

”Have you ever been to Israel, Doc?” I asked.  ”I’ve never been inside the walls, but I’ve been to their borders.  You can’t even get close to the border without encountering segments of the Israeli Defense Force.”

”What are you saying?”

”I’m saying they let it happen in order to justify the ethnic cleansing, and that’s what it is, of Gaza.”

”Does it make you feel better or worse about your own wars?”

”All wars are crimes Doc.  Civilians die.  It’s an unavoidable cost of war and the world looks the other way when the perpetrators are western aligned.”

”If you could go back and do it differently?

”That’s the question, isn’t it?” I replied.  ”If I knew then what I know now?  I’d have left my family business.  But I didn’t know, so I couldn’t.”

”You can’t change what happened Thaddeus,” he reminded me.  ”Like you said, you gather…”

’War is ugly, Doc,” I interrupted.  ”It’s easy to sit behind a computer screen in judgment of those making these decisions.  When you’re in the thick of it, you don’t have the luxury of time.  You don’t have the luxury of confirming everything.

”Thing is… even though my perspective of things have changed and my views are far more liberal than they were when I was a teenager, I’m not sure I could choose differently.  I was responsible for the right to live of more than a quarter million people and while that pales in comparison to Gaza, Israel, the U.S., it's still one hefty burden.  Especially for a kid that shouldn’t have been where he was.

[gold]”If I don’t deliver those orders, what happens to me?” I asked rhetorically.  ”It’s not about my own self preservation.  Frankie’s birth parents are dead.  If I’m gone, then what happened to him?  If I’m gone, Livvy and T.J. don’t exist.”

”But you’re not gone, so why think about it?”

”I don’t know,” I sat in thought.  ”Lucy woke me up while I was dreaming.  In the dream, I chased a young scream.  Lucy said I said Gracie.”

”Your daughter with Lauren?”

I nodded.

”I think your brain is melding the two things together,” he explained.  ”You’re equating the loss of Gracie to the loss of other people's children.”

”Maybe it was karma,” I suggested.  ”I knew the risks and sent them anyway.  I no doubt took kids away from their parents for all time.  Maybe I was meant to know how it felt to have a child taken from you.”

”For an atheist, you sure do put a lot of thought into divine intervention.”

”I don’t call it divine.  The Universe has its way of eventually equaling things out.”

He stood up, preparing to leave.

”You had all the answers, Thaddeus,” he suggested.  ”Why’d you call me?”

”I just wanted to talk but I didn’t want to wake Lucy again.”

”Good night, Thaddeus.”

”G’night Doc.”