CHAPTER I
I'd just got done with a PPV, or Pay Per View, and was as wore out and battered as a human could get and still be ambulatory. I was dispirited from the death of a friend, angry because he was being treated as
persona non grata
, or perhaps,
non futurus alio
, sorry, if I try to keep from shouting about something, I tend to over intellectualize, like translating into Latin, for instance.
Si vos can lego is, tunc vos es super erudio.
What really got me into trouble though was telling the boss, Mr. McMahon how fucking tacky his death story line was, though. That's what lead to a stiff, shoot match with a wrecking machine known for ending careers, well that and I refused to be turned into a jobber for expressing an opinion. For those who don't know, a jobber, a.k.a. ham and egger, a.k.a. jabroni, is a wrestler who, "does the job," or "puts the other guy over," in short, he loses to make someone else look good, and while I don't have a problem doing it for legit, story-line reasons, I do have a problem with b.s. punishment for not stroking the boss's ego. One good thing about my buddy's death, it brought about an end to that story line.
So, I'm coming home, bruised, battered, folded, spindled, mutilated, and stapled, (and I was the winner!), when I see forms on my sofa. I immediately feel my blood pressure raise by a few thousand degrees, then I hear something that puts me into full battle mode: My
au pair
telling the other form "No."
"Rick, stop! I really don't want to do this! Rick, please, Rick! RICK, STOP IT!"
I reached out and grabbed his hair, lifting him off of her, and over the back of the sofa, smiling into his eyes, "Yeah, Ricky-boy, stop it." I didn't like what I saw, her blouse was torn, and she looked near to tears. Right then I was walking a very fine line between sanity and madness, and was hoping Rick would push me over. *
Come on, Ricky-boy,
* I thought, *
Do something stupid, you know you wanna'.
* Right then, I saw my dead friend, who for some reason went rabid and offed his family and himself, I saw his lovely wife, and his precious son, the same age as mine, I saw Vince, usually a friend, but recently an antagonist, and a thousand other things that had pissed me off. I wanted, no,
needed
for Rick to do something stupid, and then I saw his fist coming, like slow motion, towards me. *
BINGO!
* Before Rick knew what happened, he was face down on the ground, in an arm bar, with me stepping on his shoulder. "Wow, Ricky-poo! Sexual assault
and
assault and battery! Just FUCKING amazing! If I let you up, will you do something else to go to prison? Anya, call the cops, while I decide if I want to dis-arm Ricky, here."
"I don't have any weapons!"
"That's not what I meant." I smiled when what little I could see of his face turned the same color as cottage cheese. "You're under citizen's arrest, please resist."
CHAPTER II
1
The police had left with my
au pair
's (hopefully ex) boyfriend in custody. My body, so recently abused in a Last Man Standing match that was a stiff shoot, was singing arias with the torn muscle in my back making vows of pain to come on top of that, as the adrenaline and endorphins faded from it. I limped over to the bar and made a pitcher of martinis.
"You gonna' be okay, Anya?" I asked as I poured two, making one a dirty martini by adding a little of the juice from the olive jar. I handed one to Anya.
"I'll be fine, thanks. I don't drink, Mr. H., but thanks anyway." I observed the way she was still trembling, and the hitching in her voice.
"You do tonight, alcohol's a depressant, you know, a sedative, and you need one right now. You know, Rick ain't a thing like you told me he was." She laughed at the joke, shakily, but it was still a laugh, and took a sip of the 'tini.
"Tell me about it. I mean, we'd only been dating a few weeks, but you think you get to know a guy. He dropped by, and like a...like a..., like a big dumb boob I let him in and he thinks it's playtime, whether I want to play or not!" She burst into tears, and I hold her. A part of my mind is making promises of great physical violence, crimes against humanity stuff, for Ricky-boy, but most of me is busy comforting the kid in my arms. She's a good girl, and smart too, going to college, and helping me raise my kid.
"Shhhh, hey, you ain't a big dumb boob. I'm sure he seemed sweeter'n honey, guys like that always do. Hey, it's okay. Shhhhh." She just cried harder. "Shhhh. Like I said, you ain't a big dumb boob; you're like, what, maybe a B cup?" She stopped crying and
looked
at me for a moment, then started laughing.
"You ASSHOLE!" She gasped between tears and laughter.
"Yup."
"God, only you would make a joke right now, and know I needed both the release from laughter and crying."
"Laughter releases anti-stress hormones, natural happy drugs. It's also got health benefits. Plus you were getting snot all over my shirt." She released another weak and watery chuckle.
"I'm done in, I'm goin' on up to bed, Mr. H. I'll see you at breakfast. You know, you really are a decent guy."
"Yeah, yeah. Just don't let it get out, I have a reputation to maintain, oh, and it's
