Post by Old Line Jeff on Dec 4, 2022 22:56:53 GMT -5
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022.
CHI Memorial Hospital, Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.
“So Mr. Long, what we’re dealing with here is a hairline fracture.” A nondescript doctor was holding an x-ray to a projector, pointing at a small black line. “These kinds of injuries aren’t overly severe, and it should heal with no long-lasting ill effects. The catch is, they need time to heal. The cracked bone is more fragile than it normally would be, which makes it much more prone to injury.”
Ronnie Long sat, glum as glum can be, on a… whatever those bed-bench things in doctor’s offices are called, his right arm in a sling. Deanna stood next to him, looking very much like someone trying to keep a poker face on in the name of not making a scene in public.
“I’ll give the two of you a minute.” The doctor said, and quickly left.
And then there was awkward silence.
Ronnie looked sideways at his wife as she stared a thousand yard stare past the x-ray display.
“Well-”
“This is going to be that thing, isn’t it.” She didn’t even phrase it as a question. “You’re not going to take time off, are you.”
“...I hate fighting martial artists.” He was dodging it, he knew it, she knew it, but like usual, he vaguely hoped that if he filled the awkward silence with noise, she’d abandon her train of thought. “Even if the lumberjack doesn’t fell the tree, it doesn’t mean that the axe didn’t cut deep.”
“Fft.”
‘Fft’ was the second most dangerous word in Deanna’s vocabulary, behind only ‘fine.’
“I mean, I’ve been working every other show at best since Daeriq brought the Glucks on board.”
She just side eyed him.
No helping it.
“Yes, I’m going to keep working. The Commonwealth division is absolutely packed. Hunter was the best NPW had, I don’t even know why he’s down here. But with DiMaria and Crane and Wentzel and fucking Rob Riot…”
He couldn’t help curling his lip in disgust.
“That fucking…”
And he couldn’t think of an appropriately vile thing to call him.
“And who knows who else, just waiting in the wings… Deanna I’m sorry, but I need to keep going.”
”Fine.”
…
…
She turned with a flourish and walked out of the room, not even deigning to slam the door behind her.
The doctor was back in the room only seconds later, handing Long a prescription for painkillers and a thick stack of ‘informative’ papers about his condition, apparently designed for someone who didn’t know that heat was hot and that forks don’t belong in electrical outlets. And then he was on his way out the door, into the pickup truck where Deanna was waiting - staring pointedly out the passenger window - and on the way back home.
He hated this. He could count the number of times he’d fought with Deanna about something that had nothing to do with pro wrestling on one hand.
They rode in silence.
As they turned off the main road onto the gravel, Deanna sighed.
“Ron, I don’t want to go into the house when we’re mad at each other.”
“I’m not mad at you. How could I be? I’ve said ever since this run of mine started that I’ll quit if you want me to. Just say the word. But…”
He took a deep breath. Criticizing her never came easy.
“It seems like you want me to, but you won’t actually say it.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I like watching you wrestle when you do well at it? This run, especially back at the beginning, was something I’d wanted to see for years. You know I like him, but you can’t be friends with Jeff Andrews in the professional wrestling business and not end up in his shadow, and then after all this time you somehow got motivated to do something in wrestling that had nothing to do with him? I was happy for you. And me, too. I like being the wife of a World Champion, but I’d love to be the wife of a two time World Champion.”
“Who didn’t get a title shot mostly because he was feuding with Jeff Andrews at the time.”
“Exactly. And listen to me. No, look at me.”
He finished driving to the top of the driveway, put the pickup in park but didn’t kill the engine, and looked at her.
“I don’t know why you always find an excuse to act like Daeriq Damien isn’t as bad as he actually is.”
“I’m just…”
“You’re sliding down the slippery slope, Ron. First you used a distraction. Then you let those Gluck boys interfere in your match. Then you’re beating people with a chain. And then you lost to Hunter, and Ron, it wasn’t a good loss. Do you realize he thinks you threw the match?”
He looked down. There wasn’t an excuse he could make worth the oxygen it would’ve taken to make it.
“You didn’t. You just listened to Daeriq, and just like every other time you listened to him, he turned out to be wrong!”
In spite of himself, he nodded.
“So why don’t you just tell him you’re done and you’re going back to doing things your own way?”
He didn’t answer.
Really, he was starting to think there wasn’t one.
Deanna laid a hand on his arm.
“Everything would be easier if it was all just black and white. But don’t let anyone tell you you’re a bad person, Ronnie - you’re a mostly good man, most of the time. Your fatal flaw is that you’d rather be told what to do than figure it out for yourself, and so you’re easily led astray. I know you’d quit if I told you, but I don’t want you to do anything because I tell you. Or because Daeriq or Jeff or Heidi or anyone else tells you.”
She went to bed, and although he hadn’t been explicitly exiled to the couch, Ronnie lay down on it and stared at the ceiling.
Something was going to have to change.
The only problem is, for change to be effective you have to figure out exactly what’s wrong, and then, what to do about it.
He sighed.
This was one of those things where things are only going to get worse before they get better.
CHI Memorial Hospital, Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.
“So Mr. Long, what we’re dealing with here is a hairline fracture.” A nondescript doctor was holding an x-ray to a projector, pointing at a small black line. “These kinds of injuries aren’t overly severe, and it should heal with no long-lasting ill effects. The catch is, they need time to heal. The cracked bone is more fragile than it normally would be, which makes it much more prone to injury.”
Ronnie Long sat, glum as glum can be, on a… whatever those bed-bench things in doctor’s offices are called, his right arm in a sling. Deanna stood next to him, looking very much like someone trying to keep a poker face on in the name of not making a scene in public.
“I’ll give the two of you a minute.” The doctor said, and quickly left.
And then there was awkward silence.
Ronnie looked sideways at his wife as she stared a thousand yard stare past the x-ray display.
“Well-”
“This is going to be that thing, isn’t it.” She didn’t even phrase it as a question. “You’re not going to take time off, are you.”
“...I hate fighting martial artists.” He was dodging it, he knew it, she knew it, but like usual, he vaguely hoped that if he filled the awkward silence with noise, she’d abandon her train of thought. “Even if the lumberjack doesn’t fell the tree, it doesn’t mean that the axe didn’t cut deep.”
“Fft.”
‘Fft’ was the second most dangerous word in Deanna’s vocabulary, behind only ‘fine.’
“I mean, I’ve been working every other show at best since Daeriq brought the Glucks on board.”
She just side eyed him.
No helping it.
“Yes, I’m going to keep working. The Commonwealth division is absolutely packed. Hunter was the best NPW had, I don’t even know why he’s down here. But with DiMaria and Crane and Wentzel and fucking Rob Riot…”
He couldn’t help curling his lip in disgust.
“That fucking…”
And he couldn’t think of an appropriately vile thing to call him.
“And who knows who else, just waiting in the wings… Deanna I’m sorry, but I need to keep going.”
”Fine.”
…
…
She turned with a flourish and walked out of the room, not even deigning to slam the door behind her.
The doctor was back in the room only seconds later, handing Long a prescription for painkillers and a thick stack of ‘informative’ papers about his condition, apparently designed for someone who didn’t know that heat was hot and that forks don’t belong in electrical outlets. And then he was on his way out the door, into the pickup truck where Deanna was waiting - staring pointedly out the passenger window - and on the way back home.
He hated this. He could count the number of times he’d fought with Deanna about something that had nothing to do with pro wrestling on one hand.
They rode in silence.
As they turned off the main road onto the gravel, Deanna sighed.
“Ron, I don’t want to go into the house when we’re mad at each other.”
“I’m not mad at you. How could I be? I’ve said ever since this run of mine started that I’ll quit if you want me to. Just say the word. But…”
He took a deep breath. Criticizing her never came easy.
“It seems like you want me to, but you won’t actually say it.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I like watching you wrestle when you do well at it? This run, especially back at the beginning, was something I’d wanted to see for years. You know I like him, but you can’t be friends with Jeff Andrews in the professional wrestling business and not end up in his shadow, and then after all this time you somehow got motivated to do something in wrestling that had nothing to do with him? I was happy for you. And me, too. I like being the wife of a World Champion, but I’d love to be the wife of a two time World Champion.”
“Who didn’t get a title shot mostly because he was feuding with Jeff Andrews at the time.”
“Exactly. And listen to me. No, look at me.”
He finished driving to the top of the driveway, put the pickup in park but didn’t kill the engine, and looked at her.
“I don’t know why you always find an excuse to act like Daeriq Damien isn’t as bad as he actually is.”
“I’m just…”
“You’re sliding down the slippery slope, Ron. First you used a distraction. Then you let those Gluck boys interfere in your match. Then you’re beating people with a chain. And then you lost to Hunter, and Ron, it wasn’t a good loss. Do you realize he thinks you threw the match?”
He looked down. There wasn’t an excuse he could make worth the oxygen it would’ve taken to make it.
“You didn’t. You just listened to Daeriq, and just like every other time you listened to him, he turned out to be wrong!”
In spite of himself, he nodded.
“So why don’t you just tell him you’re done and you’re going back to doing things your own way?”
He didn’t answer.
Really, he was starting to think there wasn’t one.
Deanna laid a hand on his arm.
“Everything would be easier if it was all just black and white. But don’t let anyone tell you you’re a bad person, Ronnie - you’re a mostly good man, most of the time. Your fatal flaw is that you’d rather be told what to do than figure it out for yourself, and so you’re easily led astray. I know you’d quit if I told you, but I don’t want you to do anything because I tell you. Or because Daeriq or Jeff or Heidi or anyone else tells you.”
She went to bed, and although he hadn’t been explicitly exiled to the couch, Ronnie lay down on it and stared at the ceiling.
Something was going to have to change.
The only problem is, for change to be effective you have to figure out exactly what’s wrong, and then, what to do about it.
He sighed.
This was one of those things where things are only going to get worse before they get better.