Riot on Broad Street RP: Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

[CM Poor]

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Jenny: Since when do we go to church, anyway?

I'd have been a fool to not think this question was coming. It wasn't entirely without merit, either. Once upon a time, my...well, Jenny's mother and I had tried to raise her on the straight and narrow - not that I don't still try and keep her on the right side of life, mind you. It's something I think a lot of parents do, even if it wasn't necessarily a part of their own upbringing. It's only natural to want what's best for your kids, and I'm sure I'm not exactly the first wayward fool to find himself suddenly responsible for the well being of something so small and fragile - that sort of shock to the system'll make a man do all sorts of crazy things. These days? It's stepping between the ropes against men bigger, meaner, and altogether more athletic than myself, but there was a time when it meant sucking up all it was I'd seen in the world and, at least for the moment, submitting myself to the possibility of an absolute force greater than myself.

Billy: You used to go to Sunday school every week.

Jenny: Yeah, like...a hundred years ago...

Like I said - once upon a time.

When things went the way they did and it all came down to just Jenny and me, I'd decided then and there that I wasn't going to try and shield her from the world so much as help her find her way through it. Brass tacks? I wasn't a man of god. Mileage'll vary from case to case depending on which vet you turn and ask, but for my money, I'd seen and done too many things in my day to try and present myself as pious or pure of heart. I won't get into whether or not the guy upstairs is any sort of valid - I think that's one we're all just gonna have to wait out, to be honest - but at the end of it all, it just felt like too great a deal of hypocrisy to try and usher Jenny off to Sunday school to learn one interpretation of right and wrong when her mother and I, her supposed first points of moral direction, had just come out of the other side of a bitter split that defied everything she'd be learning otherwise, and so point blank, I stopped pressing the issue.

Billy: I know, I know. That was a long time ago. I haven't really pressed the issue, and I'm not going to start now. If it's making you uncomfortable or anything, we can...

Jenny: No...I mean, it's kinda weird, but I don't mind, not really. It...well, it seemed important to you. Just trying to make sense of it, you know?

Kid's don't get enough credit, at least, not enough of them do. Jenny's a bright kid - brighter than a guy like me could've ever hoped to have for a daughter. She's wise beyond her years, incredibly grounded for her age, and more inquisitive than she'll ever understand, because even if she could, she'd want to know more. It's a big part of why I do what I do - every hit I take in that ring's worth its weight in gold, knowing what the payoff is, and what a kid like Jenny'll do with it once its in her hands. She's gonna change the world - I know every father'd say the same for his kid, but damn if I don't believe it with every ounce of my being. This kid's going places, and it's by no fault of her own that she landed the genetic lottery of having a guy like me to get her there, so I figure I owe her every last bump just as much as I owe her an answer to anything she could hope to know.

I just wish I had one this time.

Jenny and me, we have ourselves a nice foundation. Just as much as I try and be the rock she can lean on when things get tough, she's played that same role more times than I can count when I dip on down from time to time. It's an awkward sort of conversation, telling your teenage daughter that you've agreed to a potential ass beating in the interest of padding her college fund a bit more, but damned if she didn't come through full circle with all the support I could've hoped for (after enough hesitation). Between us, we'd talked business just as much as we'd talked dinner, and in short order, she'd become something of a mentor to me in her own funny way. She'd watch at home, coach me on what went wrong, praise me when things went right, and was always digging up her own brand of dirt on whoever was next in line.

That, I guess, is what sort of brought us here, in the end.

Billy: Well, Jenny...well, listen...

Reverend Shadow was a bit before Jenny's time, but you'd be hard pressed to find many names in the lineage of the WFWF that came before mine. Even as the years went on, even as I forged my own journey through marriage, fatherhood, faith, and abandonment, I was never once comfortable with the type of man that Shadow'd made himself out to be, and I place a great deal of weight on that word in particular - man.

If you'd ask me my perspective on the world, in a spiritual sense, I'd give you some sort of answer that boils us all - you, me, Jenny, Ms. Sleater, Shadow, and all the rest down to that word - man. Mankind. People. I think there's a lot of potential in the human race. We've got a long way to go, but if a guy like me can step into the ring, pick up a win here and there, and create a basis for my little girl to find no limits to her own potential, then I think we've got the muster, together, to do a lot of great things. It's kinda hard to explain, in a spiritual sense, since that's not exactly the way I see it all, but I think there's a grounding sort of simplicity in all of us. I mean, take me - I'm just the f-cking janitor (and I still hate that name). That's all a lot of people see me for, and that's fine. That's just perspective, and I'm alright with it, because I know I'm doing something special. I might grab me an Uber once we get out to Philly. Odds are, on short sleep and with way too much on my mind, I'm not gonna see the guy behind the wheel for much more than a guy making his way by driving folk like me around, but he's got himself his own thing going that I might never be any wiser to, and whatever it is, I'm sure it's making a world of difference in his own right.

That's all, really, a long sorta roundabout way of saying that I don't take kindly to everyday folk trying to present themselves as anything greater than what it is we already take for granted. I've been mopping up the collective DNA of the WFWF for a long time. I've seen a lot of men and a lot of women spill their blood for this business of ours (and I can finally say that, having bought in a little bit myself), but I ain't ever seen any gods coming through, no matter what a guy like the Reverend would have you believe.

Billy: ...me and your mother, we tried. Not where it counts, I know, but when it was working, we tried to show you this side of the world. Maybe we didn't live it ourselves, fair point, but we wanted you to at least get yourself a glimpse so you could maybe see what it was all about, see if there was something there for you. This next guy...

Jenny: Reverend Shadow?

Billy: Ugh, yeah. Revered Shadow. It's...look, I know you've been keeping up, and I know you've already seen some things that are downright weird, but this guy? He's gonna be talking - a lot. And he's gonna be saying things, regardless of what I have or haven't tried enough to instill in you, that I just can't buy into, and I guess...y'know...I guess I just wanted you to get an idea of where I think we all fall in this great big mess, before you go hear him running his mouth about what our...and really, his role in all of it is.

Jenny was a great listener. She'd always been - that's that inquisitive nature I told you about. She sat there, listening with full intent, taking in every word as I rambled, ranted and raved for what felt like forever, and when I finally paused to take a breath, I could see her digesting it all, chopping it all up and piecing it together in her mind the way she always had.

Then she laughed, and I sank.

Jenny: Oh, dad...

Billy: Look, I know it sounds crazy, but...

Jenny: No, no, I get it. It's just...I know you forget sometimes, but I'm not seven years old anymore.

Guilty as charged.

Billy: I know, I know...and I've got not business treating you like you are...

Jenny: It's ok. I don't believe in monsters anymore, and I've already done my digging. I know Reverend Shadow's just an old-timey blow hard. Guys like him? Dad, they never have the answers. But this...

Billy: I know, it's silly.

Jenny: It's not! It's...nice. Different. We could use a little different every now and then.

What'd I tell you, huh? Smart kid, right?

Jenny: Look, I think they're starting.

**********

Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

More than I care to admit, to be honest.

I'm an imperfect man, Revered. I have flaws, I cast doubt, and I don't much like to admit it, but I've got fears.

Just like you.

The difference is, I don't hide any of that away. When you and I step into the ring at Riot on Broad Street, the man you see standing across the ring from you is the exact same man that will have walked down the ramp moments earlier, the exact same man that will walk back up - win, lose, or draw - and the exact same man that'll trade his trunks for coveralls later that night top mop up whatever mess we've managed to leave in our wake.

What you see is what you get with me, Revered. No parlor tricks. No fairy tales.

Just a man and his broom.

If this all sounds a little bragadocious, than we should probably add a bit of pride to my confessional, because if I'm perfectly honest? I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole wrestling thing. Purists might have something to say about that, but I remember a time, not all that long ago, asking better men than you to go easy on me. They never did, I thank whatever it is out there that you claim to be that they didn't. To be honest, I thought I'd peaked. I'd found solace in my place in the world. Never thought I'd amount to much more, but get a load of me now, huh? Night and day. It's almost like a whole lot smarter than me told me recently:

"I don't believe in monsters anymore"

I know someone like Michael Hickenbottom will try and say that you've got the easy edge going into this thing, Reverend, but the more I think on it, the more I find myself thinking that you and me?

We're pretty evenly matched, aren't we?

I mean, what's the saying?

"Cleanliness is next to godliness", right?

[CM Poor]

This is what it looks like when I'm sitting on a nugget of an idea since before the card goes up, and then I wait 'til deadline day to bang it out in the span of just over an hour, all said. I'm not even that down on it - it was fun to write, and it was nice to step out and sort of put word to paper with minimal consequence.

[King Richius]

No reason to wait until all the RPs are posted to give some thoughts on this. I love it. Short, sweet, and really captured what I've come to expect of Billy Broom. The religion angle was done quite nicely both as a way to address Reverend Shadow and to shed more light on Billy's character. Given that you are the third different person to write Billy, I'm really enjoying the continuity and the surprising depth of character that we are getting from a "throwaway" character.