"Look me in the eye. It's okay if you're scared. So am I. But we're scared for different reasons. I'm scared of what I won't become, and you're scared of what I could become. Look at me. I won't let myself end where I started."
- Michael Jordan
-----
"It's where I started," I said, walking the streets with Stoya next to me. She walked to my right, arms swinging freely. I thought about taking her hand. That would be nice. That would be normal. But I didn't, because we weren't. What we were - what we had - it was the farthest thing from normal. I didn't even know who she was, really. My agent? My girlfriend? Both, really, but could she truly be both?
"It's not Paris," she said, a wry smile on her face as she looked around at the mass of people walking down the street, restaurants and bars all around either side. As she said it, a man - a kid, really, maybe 20 if that - walked past us, his shirt a graphic of the Eiffel Tower and the words "Cleveland is my Paris."
I smiled back at her, mine genuine. "Close enough for me."
Redemption being in Texas, it was pretty impractical of me to take a trip home, but something just felt like I had to. It was hardly nostalgia. I didn't dislike home, but it had its fair share of bad memories, not the least of which included my more recent ghosts in Joe and Kate. I knew that Stoya felt that, too. I could feel it from her, sometimes, in the way she looked around or looked at me - she felt threatened in some strange way. Could she really think I was here for Kate? Hadn't I proved to her exactly where I stood on that?
I wasn't here for her, anyway. She was distantly in the back of my mind, hardly even worthy of my consideration. There were older, deeper ghosts, too, but I wasn't here for them. I knew why I was here. I was here for a real, living man. I was here for flesh and blood.
I was looking for Ty Burna.
As if I didn't already see him everywhere. It didn't matter where I was - what city, what country. I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye - he was just there, but no, it was just someone with black hair. But, no, over there - no, just the way they were dressed. But, wait, that one - no, that was a woman. In Dallas, in Los Angeles, in New York City - he was everywhere, because he wouldn't leave my head. I knew he was around - living a normal life, like a normal person. I knew better. Ty could put on whatever hat he wanted - normal guy, announcer, whatever. I knew what he was, still. And I knew where he lived.
He wanted to pretend that he was from middle of nowhere, pit of hell, parts unknown, and he'd done a good job of making everyone forget. But I knew plenty well that he and I were born and raised in the same city, the same streets. Here I walked East Fourth. In a minute I'd hit Prospect, on my way to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. I'd walked here a million times in my youth, and I'd be willing to bet he'd done the same. I scanned the entire crowd, a massive flood of people, on their way to the same place I was heading, the thickest concentration of people in the city for this one night - Progressive Field, site of an MLB playoff game tonight for the first time in six years.
It was insane, of course - the notion that Ty would just walk out of the woodwork and I'd say...I'd say...what would I say?
"What would you say," I started slowly, forming a question for Stoya, "if you just ran into the person you hated most in the world on the street?"
"I'd probably just hit them," she said, shrugging.
"I'm serious," I replied. "Just...imagine it. Your worst enemy. You look at him or her and you just have a chance to say anything. What do you say?"
"Fuck you?"
"You're an English major, right?"
"Just because I can tell you about every simile in Shakespeare doesn't mean I'm a walking fountain of one liners."
I'd tell him I hated him. Was that the best I could do? I'd tell him I was better than him. That was just petty. Maybe I would just punch him in the face. But, no, that was even worse. I'd tell him...
I'd ask him a question. I didn't care about what Ty thought of me, but I did care about what he knew. He knew better than anyone else what was wrong with me. I'd ask him how he beat me, how he eluded me at every step, how he darted out of sight at the last minute, when I had finally caught him in the flesh.
I'd ask him how to win.
"So we're going to a baseball game?" Stoya was saying, as the stadium came into sight.
"Probably not," I said. "It sold out ages ago. I just wanted to see. Look around. You know."
"So we're in Cleveland to look at it? I mean, seriously, Drake, this is really not Paris."
She was smiling, so I just nodded and let the conversation die off again. She didn't really have any idea why we were here. That was fine. For now, she seemed content to roll along with it.
We sat on a stone bench in sight of the stadium and watched the crowds go by. Happy, jovial faces going in, a sea of them, a mass of them, endless and endless and endless it seemed, every face different and new. It was like watching the pattern of life go by. Soon, they were all in the stadium and we were alone. I lit a cigarette and Stoya took out her phone, and there we sat, letting the hours drift past.
Until slowly, slowly, they began to come out again. A slow stream trickling forth. One man strayed near me, his head down. He happened to look up as he past.
It was Ty.
My breath caught - but wait, no, no, just another illusion. But why had he looked so like Ty for just one moment, in a day when no one in this entire city had?
He stared at me as he walked past and caught my eye. He shrugged and mumbled, "There's always next year."
It became clear to me why the crowd was exiting so slowly - the game wasn't over, but they were losing, clearly, and these were the first "beat the traffic" fans to retreat. Over the next hour the stream grew and grew, until finally the torrent had grown to its previous size. As they walked past me, for one brief second, every single one of them had Ty's face. And I understood why.
These were losers. Every last one of them. They had gone in full of hope and optimism, and they had failed. Metaphorically, of course, but they were still failures. And I saw it clearly then why I'd really come here - I had to remind myself of something I'd forgotten. I had been telling myself to remember who I was. I sat and watched until they had all melted away and we were alone again.
After hours of our silence and a pack of cigarettes, I turned to Stoya.
"Stoya," I said slowly, "I hate this fucking city."
She smiled slowly and stood up, took my hand, and led me away.
----
"Look into my eyes, David."
The camera focused only on my face and eyes as I stood in the back of a WZCW production facility.
"This is the correct time for you to be terrified."
I took a deep breath and went on.
"You want to know something, David? I'm scared too. I'm scared that I've already seen my destiny. I'm scared that I know how this drama ends. But you should be scared that I don't. You should be scared that my destiny is still unwritten. You should be absolutely horrified about the possibility that when you and I step into the ring tonight, fate has nothing in store. Because everything about this match says I lose, David. I'm the lone wolf from Cleveland, Ohio against the dynasty, the chosen champion, the man with allies and friends. Time and time again I've lost this fight, David, and time and time again I'll lose it. That's what I'm afraid of. But you? You should be afraid that this time is when history steps aside, when prediction takes a backseat, when probability is irrelevant."
I let myself smile slowly, then.
"And you might ask yourself, David, well, why? Why should you be afraid this is the one time things are different? Why should you be afraid this is the once in a lifetime shot of me beating you?"
"The answer, David, is because I've already won. This fight we're about to have? It's meaningless. Irrelevant. I already beat you a long time ago. Because this is just the dying gasp of a war that ended before you even got here, David. This is the last glimmer of the war versus Ty Burna, and I've already won. I get it. You're asking yourself - but Drake, wait, how could this be? If El Califa Dragon is still here, then isn't that Ty, by your own accusation? No, David, no, you idiot. Because Ty Burna isn't a man. Ty Burna is a belief. Ty Burna is a way of living. Ty Burna is a poison, a cancer, a spreading and festering disease centered on a man. El Califa was an offshoot, and I knocked his head around until he was clean. The man himself took one look at me in the Lethal Lottery, turned tail, and ran out of this company. That was the day I won the war. That was the day I became a winner. That was the day I overcame the odds and won this fight. You? You're just the kicking and screaming remnants of his legacy, the last vestige. The last head on the hydra, but you've got nothing on the beast in all its glory. Just look to your sides, David, and you'll see the headless stumps you're about to join."
"This began a long time ago, what you do. Your indoctrination, your cult, your takeovers, your beatdowns, your manipulation, all of it. It began with Ty Burna and it ended with Ty Burna. You don't even know it, but he's everything to people like you. Your god, your master, your model, your golden calf and he's lying in a grave, David, and I buried him there. When you chose to join the Sacrificial Altar and when your buddies became the spiritual legacy of Ty Burna and the Apostles of Chaos, you assumed not only his image but his defeat, and that it was why tonight, David, when you and I step into the ring, you should be terrified. I beat you before you even met me."
I took one more breath as I hurtled along the wave of my words.
"A lot of people have forgotten this, but Ty Burna and I come from the same city. And my city is a million losses for every one victory. But unlucky for you, David, I'm not one of the losses. I refuse to be. I am not one of the shuffling millions like Ty Burna is. Like you already are without even knowing it. Like everyone like you is going to be for the rest of time as long as I draw breath."
"I am better than you. I am better than them. I am Drake Callahan, and I am once in a lifetime, one in a million, and absolutely going to end you and your ilk - once and for all.
