“I know a thing or two about redemption.”

 

“Or at least, I’ve been down that road before. And I... eh....”

 

“Lord almighty I don’t even know where to start.”

 

Jeff Andrews is seated in his customary armchair, that ever-present green and yellow mesh John Deere trucker’s cap perched lopsided on his head and a glass of amber liquid cradled in his right hand. Russell’s Reserve Rye Whiskey, most likely.

 

“I mean, there’s the whole accusing me of not caring about the Ultratitle thing - that’s some straight up bullshit there man. And there’s the part where you compared us, and truth is it’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot of similarities there. I was thinkin’, before the brackets and the lineup got announced all official like, you were the kind of dude I could see eye to eye with. Maybe one of the few who’d actually understand who I am, and why I do what I do, and not make that same damn mistake that so many people do.”

 

“You know the one I mean. Mistaking weariness for disinterest, mistaking haste for stupidity, lookin at the Jeffman and assuming that, cos he’s wearin a trucker’s cap and can’t always be bothered to wrestle, he must be a lazy retarded hick not fit to tote bales and squish spiders for the woman he loves… oh yeah, there’s another one of them similarity things.”

 

Andrews tilts his head back, looks off into the distance. 

 

“I guess guys like us, Voss, we tend to go headfirst into things without really thinkin’ about the future too much. Whether it be coming out with the express intent of making the fans hate you so much they legitimately want to see you ended, or whether it’s proceeding through your wrestling career with the intent to piss off as many of the ‘boys’ as you can manage, when people are yellin at you, it feels like success, it really does.”

 

“Seein’ as though a whole lot of people don’t know me and can’t really think of anything I’ve done to call me out on, I’m gonna tell you a story. It’s about me...”

 

Andrews points at himself.

 

“And my good friend the Demon Drink.”

 

Andrews lifts the glass of whiskey, gently swirls it and takes a long slow sip.

 

“It was... 2007, I do believe. WWA Summer Games. They numbered the things numerically, I never could get the numericals straight, I just call it SG07. Anyway. I was representing a fed called Wrestlecoast Cascadia, but I was more interested in being a loose cannon. Or THE Loose Cannon, really. As long as people were talkin and saying ‘what the hell’, I was happy.”

 

“So I buy myself a couple foties. Jamaican red stripe, I do believe. And by the time my match, and it was a survivor series kinda thing happened, I was drunk as holy dumb fuck. I miss the curtain call. Team Cascadia, they’re doing just fine without me, the other team had one good wrestler on it and one decent one, and the decent one was a chick. And Noah Hanson. I dunno if you know that guy, but he’s an idiot, makes an idiot of himself everywhere he goes.”

 

“I hear the fans booing, and I realize it must be Team Cascadia out in the ring, so I grab my bottles and I go running out. I see this one dude who I didn’t like, and I busted the bottle over top his head, then I charged the ring. I superkicked Noah Hanson in his dumb fucking face, but I fell down doing it, because, y’know, I wasn’t real coordinated. And the chick puts me in a bodyscissor while I’m lying there too dizzy to get back up.”

 

Andrews laughs, takes another drink of whiskey.

 

“I know what you’re thinkin, that might as well be a vacation. But when you’re that messed up, having your stomach compressed is not a good thing. She locks the scissor on, and someone dials Ralph, if you know what I’m saying. So I want to get out of the ring, straight, and I bang on the mat and she lets me go, and I just barely make it. I puke all over ringside. And the ref calls it a submission. That was the first time I’d tapped out since the year 2000.”

 

“And I’m sure you’re thinking, ‘why on earth would that stupid hick tell me that story, doesn’t he realize it makes him look like an idiot’?”

 

Tipping the brim of his hat back with one finger, Andrews smiles broadly.

 

“Because if you wanna go on about seeking redemption, you’ve got to have something you’re trying to redeem. Bad choices, my friend. But that was a while ago, and since then I got to thinking.”

 

“You ever heard the name Jane Lora Katze?”

 

“Of course not. First person to make Jeff Andrews tap in a decade and she couldn’t do anything with it.”

 

“Did it stop me from succeeding at wrestling when I put the effort in? Well gee, uh, I don’t know, why don’t you ask Dr. Curiosity?”

 

“And besides... I’ll put it this way maybe. One of my old theme songs, ‘Catarax’ by Reveille, they had a lyric that went ‘but I’d rather be hated than forgotten’. And you know... it works. Jane’s forgotten. Aaron Vasquez is practically forgotten, and he was the Inaugural Defiance World Champ. Dan Easton? Forgotten. Caleb Wallace, Dusty Griffith, Johnny Lightning, all forgotten. Jeff Andrews?”

 

“Remembered.”

 

“Redemption, Voss... it has a way of tricking you, you see.”

 

Andrews lifts the glass of whiskey again, but instead of drinking it, holds it up to the light. The light streaming in the window behind him lights up the amber liquid, casting a glow on his hand and the floor in front of him.

 

“Too many of my redemption runs ended the same way, with me in thrall, once again, to the Demon Drink. It’s like... I dried myself out, and it was like I defeated the demon. Only thing left to do was prove my mastery of it. I could have a drink if I wanted, and somehow, that turned into I could drink whenever I wanted, and I got myself fired from a little fed up in Canada called International Influence. Too bad too, I liked that place. But, here’s the real funny thing. The person who negotiated my release was my girlfriend. The one who became one of the first women ever to hold a World Title in an interfed, the one I’d been begging to start wrestling again ever since she quit in ‘05.”

 

“And that little incident lead to us reuniting in the ring, and from there to me turning on the WfWA and helping make sure that Defiance won that battle.”

 

“And after all that, hell if I know what redemption had to do with that.”

 

“Point is...”

 

Andrews upends the whiskey glass again, but instead of drinking, fishes out an icecube.

 

“If this is all about redemption to you, Voss, if it’s about redemption and winning, and redeeming yourself through winning... well, like you said, I’m a little older, I’ve had a little more experience, and unlike you I have, on a few occasions, been the one everyone was routing for. And so I can tell you from first hand experience that redemption isn’t really about winning matches. I’m not entirely sure they help.”

 

He shrugs, and spits the ice cube back into the glass.

 

“And another thing. I’m not tryin’ to take a thing away from your win over Mark Maverick. But before you go talkin’ about redemption and how it’s what means everything to you, I wanna see what happens when it comes down to the wire and you can take that shortcut, do that despicable deed, and if you don’t it’s probably gonna cost you the match.”

 

“It’ll happen man, sooner or later. If I can’t get up to speed in time and you walk over top of me, you’ll end up staring down someone that good. You always do. Maybe it’ll be Triple X next round. Or Joey Melton, that guy’s got some hype behind him. Whoever. When that happens, and the old J. Leslie Voss starts scratching at the walls of your brain, and not only that but you know he’s got a damn good point...”

 

“You tell him to shut up, and then you come talk to me about Redemption.”

 

Andrews slams back the last of his whiskey, then lowers his brim.

 

“And when you do that, I want you to do me a favor, and apologize for accusing me of having no guts and no heart. That... well, man, it really kinda pisses me off. It’s god damn disrespectful, and it proves that either you didn’t listen to what I told the good Doctor last round, which is bad, or you listened but you didn’t get it, which is worse.”

 

“Don’t confuse two things that aren’t the same, man. Don’t confuse me tryin’ to get the old rusty motor that is my drive to succeed in the ring started, as me takin’ the whole tournament too easy. Or failing to respect it.”

 

“Man, last card I went in, and beat a guy who’s made a career out of winning tournaments. I beat a guy that people were predicting to make the elite eight, that a few thought was gonna win the entire damn thing! Maybe you made the same mistake Dr. C made, thought that looking down on someone was the same as looking past them.”

 

Jeff Andrews doesn’t always roar and bellow when he’s angry. I mean, sometimes he does, but that’s more effective in the actual ring when you’re dressed and ready to wrestle. But his voice does get rougher, and he digs his fingers into the armrest of his chair.

 

“You call me out... no, you don’t just call me out, you berate me, for what seems like a god damn hour, on some bullshit point about me not respecting the tournament? About me not wanting to work?”

 

“Fool, if I don’t want to work, I DON’T. FUCKING. WORK!”

 

“The fact that I am here in the first place should’ve been more than enough proof that I want to be here, and then I go and put one of the favorites, guy who’s supposed to crush me, flat on his back? I do all that, and you question my drive? You think I, and I quote, don’t give a damn?”

 

“You stupid son of a bitch.”