The Locker Door

THE LOCKER DOOR Notes. Written down so I keep them straight. Same as always, except this time I know they're going up, and I'm writing them anyway. ———————————————— I haven't filed anything since No Escape. People noticed. The desk noticed. Rancid put it in writing that he knows I don't answer and that he's not owed a letter. He's right on both counts. This isn't a letter. It's what's on the door. ———————————————— THE DOOR Every locker I've had for fifteen years, first thing I do when they give me the key is tape an index card to the inside of the door. Same card. Same four lines. I rewrite it when the ink goes soft enough that I can't read it from the bench, which is about once a year. Memphis. Then three companies that liked me fine until they found out where my ceiling was and that I wasn't going to raise it for them. Then here. The Foundry locker got one the first day. Nobody's ever asked what it is, because nobody opens another man's locker. That's one of the few rules in this business everybody keeps without being told. This is the card. - Nothing aimed at the face with a weapon. - Nothing aimed at the throat with a weapon. - Nothing after the bell past a reasonable count. - Nothing pulled in on an innocent. That's all of it. Four lines. There's a reason behind them and the reason isn't on the card and it's not going on the card. It never has. ———————————————— THE ROOM He's right that I didn't look. Fifteen years, I walk into a place and I survey it. Where the steel is. Where the edges are. Where a man could go through something he shouldn't if somebody isn't paying attention. Then when it's over I walk out and I look again, to see what got done to it. That isn't superstition. It's the job. You don't leave a work site without checking it. I didn't check the Foundry. First time. The man on the desk said I wanted out. That's close. It isn't it. I didn't want to see the spot. Middle of the cage. Where he got down on his knees and put his chin up. Where I had that piece of housing over my head long enough for the lights to go red. I knew exactly where it was without turning round. And I didn't want to look at it with the house lights up and the ring crew already sweeping, because then it's a floor. It's just a floor. And for about four seconds it wasn't just a floor, and I wasn't ready to watch it go back to being one. That's the truth and I'm not proud of it. First site in fifteen years I left unchecked, and I've thought about that more than I've thought about the match. ———————————————— WHAT HE WANTS He says he wants to see what's on the other side. He said it at No Escape, stood at ringside with his arms folded, and he's said it every way he knows how since. He thinks it's the good stuff. I've been on the other side once. I'm not going to describe it. I never do and I'm not starting because the stipulation changed. I'll say what I always say, which is that it changed how I work, and that the card on the door is what it changed it into. It isn't the good stuff. He isn't wrong that there's a door in me. He's wrong about what's behind it, and he won't believe me, because he doesn't believe anything he hasn't hit. I understand that better than he'd think. I was about that, once. Before. ———————————————— SATURDAY Office made it hardcore. Nothing gets taken off anybody. Everything's legal. For him. The card's the same for me. It was the same when it was standard rules and it'll be the same if they ever book it in a parking lot. The man on the desk said I kept it on the easiest possible night. Winning anyway, everybody watching. That's fair. I'd have said the same thing sat where he sits. Saturday won't be the easy night. Rancid wrote that if I hold it, I lose. He's probably right. I've done the same arithmetic and I got the same number. He's going to get down on his knees again. He's going to put something in my hand again. I'm going to be tired and bleeding and ahead, and it's going to cost me however long it takes a man to open his hand, and that might be all the time there is. Here's the part he hasn't got. He thinks I'm going to decide on Saturday. That's the whole bet. He thinks he's building a room where I have to make a choice, and he wants to watch me make it. I'm not going to make a choice on Saturday. I made it fifteen years ago. That's what the card is for. You don't make that call in the room. You don't make it bleeding, with a man looking up at you and eight thousand people making a noise you can feel in your teeth, because in that room you'll make it wrong. Everybody does. So you make it once, somewhere quiet, when nobody's hurt yet, and you write it down, and you tape it to a door. And then on the night there's nothing to decide. There's just the card. If it costs me the match, it costs me the match. I've lost matches. It's the only kind of losing I know how to live with. ———————————————— FOR HIM He wrote that he's only sure of one of the four, and that he won't guess the other three out loud in case he guesses right and I change them. He doesn't have to guess. I'm not going to change them. They're up there at the top of this. A rule you keep from the man in front of you is a trick. A rule you hand him is a rule. So now he's got all four. Same as me. He can build whatever he likes out of them. ———————————————— GENERAL Body's fine. Face healed from the lid. Mostly. There's a line under the left eye that wasn't there in August and it's going to stay. Hands taped the night before, again. Started doing that before No Escape and kept it. Sleep's short. Not going to pretend otherwise. One more thing, on paper, so it counts. Saturday I look at the room. Going in and coming out. Win or lose. That one I am deciding now. He said to tell me he said hello. Hello. — C. B.