The front doors of the Boneyard swung open.

Light burst into the dank gym and for a few seconds nobody moved.

Finally, someone shouted.

"GRAVY!"

Micheal Graves stood in the doorway.

In one hand was a gym bag.

In his other was a sealed Tupperware container.

Around his waist, one-half of the Anarchy Tag Team Titles.

"What?"

A few came running. Not all the way. Nobody ran all the way at Graves unless they had already made peace with God or had never met him and wanted to try. They crowded near him, grinning and quietly talking over each other.

"You were on Mars!"


"You defended the tag titles!"


Graves squinted at that last one.

"It smelt like pennies."

Miss Furry stood with her arms crossed, staring at Graves and looking less than impressed.

Graves stared back.

A moment quietly passed between them.

Then he lifted the plastic tub a little.

"I brought souvenirs."

Furry did not uncross her arms.

"You have not been here in months."

"I was busy."

"You were supposed to be helping with the advanced class."

"I helped save the galaxy from wimpy fart-house grits instead."

Furry's eyes dropped to the tub.

"Is that food?"

Graves looked down at it like he had forgotten he was holding a biological weapon.

"Technically."

Graves set the tub on the nearest table and popped the lid.

A rancid odor crept into the room. One student coughed. Another whispered a prayer. One guy made the sign of the cross despite not even being Catholic.

Something in the bowl twitched.

"Want a taste?"

"No."

Graves looked offended.

"That is champion food. It'll put hair on your chest."

"That is a lawsuit in a bowl."

"Potato Potahto."

One of the younger students leaned closer.

His name was Tanner. He had been at the Boneyard for a little over two months and still had the bright, stupid hope of someone who thought the pain he endured here built character instead of CTE and unpaid medical bills.

He pointed at the tub.

"Are those the grits from Mars?"

"X-TREME grits."

"Can I try some?"

Furry turned her head slowly toward him.

"Tanner."

Tanner swallowed.

"Yeah?"

"Think."

Tanner looked at the grits.

Then at Graves who was nodding him on.

Then Furry who was shaking her head no.

Then back to the grits.

He nodded and picked up a plastic spoon.

"That was not thinking."

"Let the boy become a man."

Tanner scooped a small bite. Small enough to show caution. Large enough to ruin a whole-ass weekend.

He put the spoon in his mouth as the students held their breath.

He chewed.

The color left his face.

His eyes went flat.

His shoulders dropped.

The spoon fell to the floor, and he just stood there for a second.

Finally, a single tear rolled down his cheek as he swallowed...

"I understand tax law now."

The room remained quiet as Tanner turned and picked up a medicine ball and began doing wall throws with perfect form.

Furry looked at Graves.

Graves looked proud.

"See? Nothing bad happened."

"Pretty sure you just killed part of him."

"Nah, I made him focused."

"He just said he understands tax law. Two months ago he didn't understand that you charged him triple the tuition fee."

"That's focus!"

Furry pinched the bridge of her nose.

Then naturally, the students began to line up for samples of the XWF's official new product, XTREME Grits.

Miss Furry moved fast to step between them and the grits.

"No!"

The line stopped.

Mostly.

One student still had a spoon in his hand as he approached.

"Jared."

"I just want to smell it!"

"You do not need a spoon to smell."

Jared looked down at the spoon, then he slowly lowered it as he backed away.

Graves watched with obvious disappointment.

"You're stunting their growth!"

"Good."

"Let 'em try the grits. This is how we make champions."

"No, this is how we end up in prison for involuntary manslaughter."

Meanwhile, Tanner was still throwing the medicine ball against the wall.

His eyes were dead.

Thud.

Catch.

Thud.

Catch.

"Never claim a dependent without proper documentation."

Furry pointed at him without looking.

"See?"

"He's not wrong."

"He came here to learn pro wrestling, not accounting."

"Taxes and wrestling have tons in common. Mostly anguish."

Furry closed her eyes and shook her head with a sigh. She then grabbed the lid and snapped it back onto the tub.

"Hey! That's mine!"

"More like it's evidence."

"Of victory."

"Of something..."

She picked the tub up and locked it in office 3B so that the students could not get into it.

Graves did have a key to her office, so the solution wasn't final.

Furry turned back to him, arms crossing again.

"So."

"So."

"You came back."

"Door was open."

"You know what I mean. Where have you been?"

"Uh? Mars! I brought snacks."

"You brought a war crime in a bowl."

"Tomato tomahto."

Furry stared at him for a moment.

Then her eyes shifted toward Tanner.

Thud.

Catch.

Thud.

Catch.

"That's what Dickie Watson does to people."

"Makes 'em understand tax law?"

"No."

"Then I already got him beat."

"He takes people apart. Reduces them. Strips them down to nothing. Beats them before the bell rings."

Graves said nothing.

"Not like you do. Not with chairs and teeth and whatever that is."

She pointed toward the locked office and the menacing grits.

"Dickie watches. He studies. Much like me, but he listens. Listens to what people think makes them strong, then turns it sideways until it sounds stupid. Until they feel stupid."

"A mean book report?"

"An effective book report."

"Pfft—Books don't scare me."

"You once lost a fight with an instruction manual."

Graves looked offended.

"It was in Chinese!"

"Focus."

"I am focused."

"Doesn't seem like you are."

"Does it ever?"

Furry raised an eyebrow.

"...Fair, but you'd do well to take this seriously. You have students looking to you for guidance, and you have quite the challenge waiting at Warfare."

Graves waved her off.

"I don't take anything too seriously. The kids are doin' fine, and what's he gonna say to get in my head? I'm trash? Sure, but in that ring results prove otherwise. Unfocused? Maybe, but it hasn't stopped me yet."

"He'll bring up the Universal title. He'll bring up how you got there, how you lost it, how fast everyone moved on. He'll make it sound like your whole climb was a bad joke with one good punchline."

"So let him. Who cares? Gravy rose to the top against all expectations, then fell back to the gutter because one old coot had the better night. But you know what? I kinda like the gutter! I still pack gold. I hang out with vampires. I get to kick the shit out of people.

The gutter don't ask me to be pretty. The gutter don't care if I tracked blood on the carpet. The gutter don't make me stand there pretending I learned a lesson from falling down. Down here, I can breathe. Down here, I can eat trash and call it breakfast. Down here, when somebody like Dickie Watson leans over the curb to tell me what I am, I can grab him by the ankles and show him how deep the drain goes."

Graves pushed past her and unlocked the door to office 3B.

Removing the lid from the grits, he dug in and took a bite.

"What are you doing!?"

Furry stared at him, waiting for his eyes to go flat. Waiting for his shoulders to drop. Waiting for the same dead tax expert vacancy that had crawled into Tanner's skull to crawl into his.

It never did though.

Graves just chewed and swallowed.

"Needs salt."

"Of course it does nothing to you."

"Why would it?"

"Because it turned Chef Durango into a void of pain, and made Tanner understand federal deductions."

"They're both weak."

From the gym, Tanner called out without a trace of emotion.

"Accurate."

Graves pointed toward the door with the spoon.

"See? Honest now too."

Graves took another bite.

Furry watched him chew like she was watching someone casually lick the juice oozing out of an old car battery.

"This is what I mean."

"You mean lunch?"

"No. Dickie."

Graves stopped chewing for half a second.

Only half.

Then kept on going.

"He thinks if he can name the poison, he controls what it does."

Graves looked down into the tub.

Then back at Furry.

"That why you think he got tossed?"

"What?"

"Mars."

He scooped another bite, but didn't eat it yet.

"Dickie went all the way to Mars looking for a briefcase. Big monster. Big speech. Big sad floaty feelings. Then Dickie left empty handed. Must be gettin' used to comin' up empty by now."

"They needed two people to eliminate him."

"Yeah?"

Graves smiled.

"One for Dickie, and one for the dummy tryin' to save him. That's just called handling it."

Furry's expression changed.

Graves finally ate the bite.

"He wasn't killed. He wasn't exposed. He wasn't embarrassed. He was handled, and that's worse."

"Worse than embarrassed?"

"Yeah. Embarrassed means people still give a fuck how you look."

He swallowed.

"Handled means they figured out what to do with you and did it."

"Then what did they figure out?"

Graves looked at her.

"Who?"

"Betsy. Isaiah. Everyone who survived him long enough to remove him."

"Oh."

Graves looked back into the grits.

For a second, Furry thought he was going to dodge again.

Make a joke.

Say something about ladders being stairs for cowards or how briefcases were just purses with jobs.

But he didn't.

He scraped the spoon along the side of the tub, both slow and weirdly thoughtful.

"They figured out he likes doors."

"Doors?"

"Yeah."

He lifted the spoon, stared at the grits on it, then let them slide back into the tub with a wet plopping sound that made Furry regret having ears.

"Dickie likes knowing where the door is. Front door. Back door. Escape door. Door he can kick open. Door he can slam in your face. Don't matter. He likes a room where he can see the way out."

"And Mars?"

"They took the door away."

Furry's expression shifted again.

"Explain."

"Betsy had him dead to rights. Isaiah stopped the save. Rope was right there, but rope ain't a door if your hands are full of panic."

"He wasn't panicking."

"Sure he was."

"Dickie Watson?"

"Panic don't always scream."

Furry said nothing as Graves dug the spoon back into the grits.

"Sometimes panic sounds real calm. Sometimes it uses big words. Sometimes it tells everybody it had the whole thing figured out right up until its ass hit the floor."

"That is... almost smart."

"Don't say that. Makes my teeth itch."

Furry stepped behind the desk and took a seat.

"What else?"

"He don't like being made simple."

"Nobody does."

"Nah. He really don't."

Graves tapped the spoon against the rim of the tub.

"Dickie makes everybody else simple. That's his thing. He looks at you, finds the loose screw, and then tells everybody you're just that screw. Jenny's a robot. Asher's an aged-out side quest. Gator's twelve minutes of relevance.

He takes all the parts and picks the ugliest one, then acts like that's the whole person. Works good. People hate seeing the ugliest part of themselves held up by the hair."

"So how do you stop that?"

Graves smiled.

"You don't."

"Wrong answer."

"No it ain't."

He took another bite.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

Still nothing.

"You let him see the ugly part."

"Why?"

"Because mine bites."

Outside the office, fists thudded against bags, bodies hit canvas, somebody yelled after taking a bad bump, and Tanner corrected someone on deductible medical expenses.

Graves didn't pay attention to any of it.

"Dickie wants people to be embarrassed. Wants 'em to flinch when he names the thing. You were champ for twelve minutes. You lost the big one. You are old. You are washed. You are software. You are hollow, lucky, trash, temporary... you are nothing."

He shrugged.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Graves leaned forward over the tub.

The smell crawled up between them.

Furry didn't back away.

"I'm trash? Fine. I been in the gutter so long the rats got me on a Christmas card list. He can't make me ashamed of where I live if I already decorated the place."

"And lucky?"

"Sure."

"Unfocused?"

"Mostly."

"Temporary?"

Graves' smile came back.

"Everything is."

Furry studied him for a moment.

"So your plan is to let Dickie insult you and agree with him?"

"No."

"Then what is the plan?"

Graves finally set the spoon down.

"Don't give him distance."

"Distance?"

"Dickie likes space. Not just Mars space. Talking space. Thinking space. Room to walk around you and point at stuff. Room to make a list. Room to say, this is what you are, this is why it matters, this is why I already understand you better than you do."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"So don't give it to him."

"In the ring or in your head?"

"Both."

Furry went still.

"Make him answer simple things. Ugly things. Fast things.

Not whether I'm trash. I am.

Not whether I'm stupid. Look around.

Not whether I fell down the mountain after touching the top. I did.

So, make him answer why that matters if he still can't put me down.

That's what he wants, Furry. He wants to make me nothing because he thinks nothing means easy. He wants to stand on me and get some footing back. No Universal title. No briefcase. No proof. So now he needs a body under his boots that makes him feel tall again.

Don't give him that.

Don't be ground.

Be the hole.

Make him talk while he's falling. Make him think while he's getting hit. Make him explain why every piece of proof keeps slipping out of his hands while the trash he tried to step on is still wearing gold.

Dickie wants to write the story while you're standing there wondering why he knows all your soft spots. So don't stand there. Hit the desk. Kick the chair. Eat the poison. Laugh at the words he thought would cut.

Make the room stupid before he makes it smart.

Then make him prove it where it matters."

"That is..."

She stopped herself.

Graves narrowed his eyes.

"Don't."

"A good read."

"I said don't."

"It is."

"Take it back."

"No."

Graves leaned back in the chair, deeply uncomfortable with being accidentally competent.

"I don't like this conversation."

"Because you are having it correctly?"

"Because you're making me sound like I have a forehead."

"You do have a forehead."

"*Allegedly. Who knows what's behind this mask?"

Graves looked at her.

Then at the tub.

Then, finally, toward the gym.

The students were training.

His students, whether he liked them or not.

Tanner threw the medicine ball.

Thud.

Catch.

Thud.

Catch.

Graves looked back at Furry.

"He'll want to prove I'm nothing."

"And?"

"I'm gonna make him prove I'm easy."

"That is not the same thing."

"Nope."

Graves stepped out of office 3B and back into the Boneyard.

The students kept training.

Tanner kept throwing the medicine ball.

Graves looked toward nothing in particular.

Maybe Cleveland.

Maybe Dickie Watson.

"Dickie..."

He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

There was still a little red grit stuck there.

He did not notice.

Or maybe he did and just didn’t really care.

"You went all the way to Mars looking for proof and came back with nothing but bruises.

That's what that little briefcase was supposed to be, right?

Proof.

Opportunity.

Leverage.

Some shiny little box you could hold up and say, see? See, I'm still here. See, I still matter. See, the monster is official now because the monster got himself a business purse."

Graves tilted his head.

"Then all that big monster shit went right over the rope."

He smiled.

"Now I know. I know. They needed two people. That's what everybody said. They needed two people to get rid of Dickie Watson. He was a nightmare in there. He was dangerous. He was a problem. He was a real mean little bastard with tattoos and trauma and a head full of sad music."

Graves nodded like he agreed.

Because he did.

"Yeah. You were a problem."

His eyes narrowed.

"Then they solved you.

They took the door away. Then the nightmare hit the floor ass first."

Graves pointed toward the ring.

"Now you come to Cleveland and you get me.

And I know what you probably wanna do. You wanna do the Dickie Watson thing. You wanna look at Gravy and make me simple. That is what you do.

So go ahead."

He slapped his chest.

"Make me simple.

Say I'm trash. Cut me down to my smallest. Try to get in my head, but remember, I don't need you to point at the dirt, Dickie, because I live there. I get mail there."

He shrugged.

"Say I'm stupid. Probably. I brought space grits into a wrestling school and let Tanner eat 'em. Now he knows tax law and might never love again. That weren't smart. But it happened. Just like most things I do.

Say I'm lucky. Sure. Luck's real. You don't survive as long as I have without luck crawling up your ass and biting anybody that tries to kick it. But luck don't explain all of it. Luck don't outcook Dom Durango twice. Luck don't walk into a tag title defense where Centurion is subbed in last second and come back still champion. Luck don't keep dragging this rotten body through match after match after match while better looking, smarter sounding, more marketable little heroes keep finding new ways to fall down in front of me.

And temporary?

Yeah, buddy. Everything is. Good intentions. Bad marriages. Unlimited breadsticks. Mars trips. Little briefcases. Big dreams. That feeling somebody gets when they look at a ladder and think maybe God finally noticed their sad little ass.

Temporary ain't an insult.

It's a warning.

A bite's temporary. Shit still leaves ya foaming at the mouth.

So call me temporary if ya want, because you still gotta stand there while I'm happening.

That's the thing I don't think you understand, Dickie. You keep looking for proof. You keep looking for something outside of you to explain you. Belt, briefcase, war, friend, enemy, monster, survivor. Whatever fits you best that week. You grab it, hold it up, and hope everybody stops asking why you look so damn tired."

Graves tapped the side of his own head with two fingers.

"You got too many Dickie's walking around up there with keys, arguing over which one gets to drive. That's why you like space. Talking space. Thinking space. Room to walk around a man and make him smaller before he touches you. Makes you feel big.

Well, I ain't giving you space."

He shook his head.

"Not in Cleveland. Not in that ring. Not in my head. You wanna make the room smart? I'm gonna make it stupid. You wanna make a list? I'm gonna eat the paper. You wanna name the poison? I'm gonna swallow that shit and ask for salt. You wanna stand there and tell everybody what Micheal Graves really is?

I'll pull your ass down here and show you real good.

Everybody thinks they know what I am after they find the ugly part. But the ugly part ain't hidden, Dickie. It ain't buried under layers. It ain't some secret wound you get to expose with a pretty sentence and a sad little grin. The ugly part is standing right up front waving at people with a spoon full of Mars grits.

You can't shame me with trash. You can't scare me with nothing. You can't kill me with temporary. You can't make me flinch by telling me I fell back into the gutter after touching the top, because I like the gutter. The gutter don't lie to me. The gutter don't make me dress nice and pretend I ain't still hungry."

He looked toward office 3B.

Toward the grits.

Toward the poison that did nothing to him.

"And I am still hungry."

Graves turned back.

"That's what oughta bother you.

Because you ain't fighting the Universal Champion this week. You ain't fighting a symbol. You ain't fighting the story people told two months ago, or the one they stopped telling after someone else had the better night. You ain't fighting some clean little mountain for you to climb and prove you still belong at the top."

Graves reached down and slapped one of the tag title plates.

"You're fighting one half of the Anarchy Tag Team Champions. You're fighting the guy who went to Mars, outcooked a chef, defended gold, and came back with leftovers that can remove a soul from a teenager."

He looked toward Tanner.

"Sorry."

"Accepted."

Graves nodded like that settled it.

"You once called me a scavenger, but I went to Mars and came back with more than I left with. You went to Mars and came back empty handed.

Same Mars. Different souvenirs.

So study me. Shrink me. Cut me down to nothing.

I ain't stopping you.

But when that bell rings, you're gonna have to prove the one thing nobody gets to say from a safe distance.

You're gonna have to prove I'm easy.

Because nothing can still ruin your life, Dickie.

Easy can't."