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Even if you held a gun to his head, finger hooked around the trigger, Randy couldn’t have explained how it happened. Nothing had changed radically overnight, and he hadn't been keeping score of the minor moments that might have propelled John towards forgiveness, but it almost seemed that with the passage of time, the grudge between him and John had somehow… mellowed? That should have been impossible, but Randy couldn't rationalise the present in any other way.
To be clear, Randy and John were not friends—they never would be, never could be—and to even utter the word “forgiveness” remained presumptuous, but over the years John’s attitude had shifted enough that on that hot August evening in 2013, when he found Randy smoking on the grassy curb of the Staples Centre private parking lot, he joined him instead of walking away.
Some of the guys loved to complain; they couldn’t stand the heat, couldn't stand the drought, but to Randy, there was a unique, precious quality to the midsummer air of southern California. Warm as a hug and still as a stop sign, the whole world seemed to pause when there was quiet. From his perch on the curb, where the air held a residual salt from the nearby coast, the sunset was a hazy orange glow whispering between the distant infrastructure. He lit a cigarette.
Inhale. Exhale. Sweet respite. For a split second, that smoky tobacco was everything; any thoughts of the WWE Championship, of the Money In The Bank contract, of SummerSlam—and the fact that it was tomorrow—flickered like a flame.
The flame reignited.
According to the books, billboards, and posters, tomorrow would not be a big day for Randy; he had no SummerSlam match and little reason to even be in California until Monday. Indeed, this might have been an entirely unexciting event, but with the Money in the Bank contract in his locker and Triple H on his side, waiting backstage would actually be exciting this time around. What was best for business just so happened to be what was best for Randy, so the much-anticipated main event of Cena v. Bryan wouldn't even matter by the end of tomorrow night, when Randy was once again champion.
The brightest stars began popping into sight. A lizard in the nearby grass watched the cigarette crumble, the smoke streaming up in grey ribbons. All was quiet until there came a twist, a thrush of air, and looking to the nearest tour bus, there was John, the man of the hour, leaning against the bumper, taking his first sip from a sweaty can of Mountain Dew.
He swallowed. Almost smiled. Then, his distant figure smeared behind the veil of Randy's smoke, contorted until he was near, crouching by the curb.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked.
Randy answered with a question: “You want a smoke?”
He reached for his pocket but was stopped before he could find his Marlboros.
“Nah.” John sighed as he sat down, his knobby knees in the air, his soda gingerly placed beside his feet.
Randy was silent for a beat, searching for a reason to say hi if not to buff a smoke, but then John changed his mind.
“Just a puff, maybe?”
He extended a meaty hand and Randy hesitantly passed his cigarette.
John wore nothing but a pair of chunky flip flops, green basketball shorts, and a terribly conspicuous brace around his left elbow. Randy watched as he used that same arm to grab and pinch the cigarette. He huffed a smooth ribbon of smoke.
The elbow brace had been there a while, not a particularly unusual or worrying sight, especially when the champ acknowledged it with a dismissive calm, but whatever lurked beneath that brace would be forcing him to step aside indefinitely after SummerSlam—or so Randy had been told. Hunter hadn't been specific. An opportunity was an opportunity, and the details of John's secret injury were actually somewhat irrelevant. What mattered was that a deserving champion had to be crowned whether or not John retained at SummerSlam, and there was no better guy than Randy, Mr. Money in the Bank, to claim the gold.
“Big day tomorrow,” John said. “I love this time of the year, don't you?”
Randy retrieved his cigarette and grunted in half-hearted agreement.
“Got any weekend plans?” John asked innocently, a gentle glimmer in his gaze. His glassy blue eyes were sufficiently honest that Randy could almost see the world reflected in them, the same view that John saw through his naive, optimistic lens. Oddly enough, Randy thought he caught a glimpse of something friendly in that reflection. He must have been imagining things.
He coolly shook his head no, silently counting down the seconds until the champ would get up and scram. John had buffed his smoke, so shouldn't he have collected his soda and walked away by now? Didn’t he realise that he was sitting with the legend killer and not some mid-card wallflower? Or was he just dense?
“No way you’re doing nothing in LA,” John chuckled lightly. Sighing, he seemed to anticipate a response that Randy didn’t oblige. “Geez, it's hot, though.”
After a deep, heady drag, Randy gently fell back onto the warm carpet of prickly grass behind him. His arms crossed behind his head, he passively watched as John wiped his brow and sipped his soda clumsily, dribbling down his chin and onto his bare chest. He swatted the wetness with an even clumsier hand.
Maybe he wasn't dense, but nervous. There was no shortage of reasons to justify the feeling.
“Are you, uh — you doing Magic Mountain with the guys on Tuesday?” John asked dumbly.
At that, Randy cracked a smile. “Magic Mountain? Who the hell do you think you're talking to?”
Briefly, neither man spoke, the silence drowned by city noise and the sporadic song of summer insects. Still lying down, Randy exhaled a short, fluid ribbon and glanced up at John, not expecting that he would be grinning.
“I thought you were a thrill seeker,” he said, his dimples deep with good humour.
Maybe he really was an idiot. Randy paused, for a second scarcely remembering what they were even talking about.
Magic Mountain. Of course. Weird thing to mention when everything and everyone stood on the cusp of immense change, but to each their own. Randy had more crucial matters to ponder.
“So, what about the Full Throttle?” John asked.
“The what?” Randy grunted.
“Oh, shut up,” John teased. “Like you don't know about the Full Throttle.”
Randy hoisted himself onto his elbows and shook his head coolly. “I’ve got no clue what you're talking about.”
“Yes you do. The Full Throttle. The new ride at Magic Mountain.” John babbled. “Just opened this summer. I was all psyched about it — I mean, it’s supposed to be fucking crazy.” He was grinning like a child, his dimples still deep with whimsy as he fiddled with the tab of his soda. Only half a second passed before he asked, incredulous, “You really haven't heard of it?”
Randy responded with a half-smirk and a mouthful of smoke. A distant whir of police sirens cut the silence.
“You're a terrible liar,” John snorted, and yet he proceeded to describe it anyway.
“Look. Look here. Imagine this.”
He began gesturing a hand around in enthusiastic loops, not noticing how Randy analysed the smooth motion of his mysteriously injured arm, until he came to a sudden halt. Briefly, Randy considered that his staring might have been excessive, but this halt was part of the performance.
“Then,” John continued, “for a couple of seconds, you're moving so smoothly it's like time has stopped, and you're kind of waiting for what happens next. Waiting. Waiting… And all of the sudden you're being launched like a rocket ship again!” — he thrust his hand forward — “I think the ride has two or three launches like that. Most roller coasters only have one at the start.”
“Sounds like one hell of a ride,” Randy deadpanned, but when John shoved him he cracked a smile.
“Yeah. We — You should try it out next time,” John said, and when Randy's eyes narrowed skeptically, he quickly clarified, “I mean, you really should join us next year. You know, ‘cause SummerSlam’s been in this arena for a few years now.”
The first SummerSlam in LA had been in 2009, a fact that the pair seemed to remember synchronously, as John's cheeky smile briefly and subtly quivered.
2009. What a year that had been.
Emotionally speaking, there had been decades, heck there had been entire lifetimes since that first brutal SummerSlam in LA, and the quiver of John's smile corroborated that maybe this really was the inexplicable cause that had Randy scratching his head lately: all of the subsequent time wasted on other people's bullshit—from the idiocy of Nexus to The Rock’s massive ego and CM Punk’s inability to shut up—all of that had ushered John's past with Randy from the forefront of his mind. Nevertheless, even as Randy's mental state drifted towards something like neutrality, even as he infrequently found himself sharing an opinion with the franchise’s golden boy, it didn't make sense that John would ever ask him about local amusement parks, would ever even think to sit beside or smile at him. He never used to do that.
Likewise, John never gave up on his ambitions, never bowed out of a fight, and maybe he never gave up on the men around him either. The naive heart he wore on his sleeve was not the badge of a hero, but rather a symptom of a starry-eyed fool. His pale blue eyes were still a distorted mirror to his surroundings, and in that reflection Randy still saw a peachy fantasyland, though at a second glance it was now guarded by an underlying apprehension.
“It's kind of a given that we'll be here again next year,” John continued, still toying with the tab of his soda. The twilit sky was dimming by the minute, paling to a washed-out violet, the white lampposts intensifying, amplifying the paleness of his cheek like a vivid spectre. “So next time we're in LA, we’ll check out the Full Throttle. No take-backs.”
Randy paused, frankly baffled by the warmth of John's invitation as he snuffed the butt of his cigarette in the crunchy grass.
"What is this?” he asked.
“Huh? What is what?”
If John was allowed to talk crazy on account of the SummerSlam scaries, on account of the big secret beneath his elbow brace, then so was everyone else, especially guys with brighter horizons and bigger secrets. Randy continued casually, as if the thought just occurred to him.
“You know what, John? I have a hunch.”
John’s brow creased, a weird cocktail of confusion in the lines, though his pale eyes betrayed his simmering anxiety, like a child stopped after stealing from a candy store.
“A hunch?”
“Yeah. About that elbow brace you're wearing. You’re hiding something much worse than you're letting on, aren't you?” Randy postulated, though he knew the truth—well, he knew half of it. And he couldn't deny his curiosity for the other elusive half. What exactly was John dealing with under that brace? What was taking him out of commission, and for how long would he be away? The truth, or at least a new fraction of it, seemed a fair price to pay for choosing to sit with Randy, for borrowing a cigarette and disturbing a moment of quietude.
He reached for John’s elbow, curious if he would flinch under a press of his fingers, but John withdrew fast enough to avoid his grasp.
“Hey.” John’s face hardened, his posture clenching.
“Am I wrong?”
Randy searched John's eyes for the entire truth, though the champ turned away, pretending to watch the dull tableau of the parking lot. Randy’s focus sharpened, not aggressive but intent, aware that John felt his gaze like a pair of lasers slowly burning through his face.
John’s glassy eyes remained a tell-tale mirror. The reflection had shifted, though, had rippled and re-settled like a stone tossed in a puddle. The shift signified a thought—not a realisation, but a thought—and quite suddenly, a realisation washed over Randy: that despite his casual front, John might have long ago surmised a Money in the Bank cash-in plan for SummerSlam. Behind his starry-eyed optimism he might have possessed some vague intuition of Randy's selfishness, of his hunger to win on one of the grandest stages of all, and maybe even of management's callous commitment to what was “best for business”, but even then there was simply no chance he had any idea what exactly was to come.
Regardless of how much he knew, whether it was a jumble of vague intuitions or simply the knowledge of Randy's past, John could have grimaced, could have escalated things, probably should have walked away without ever bumming a smoke, but no—instead, he just smiled: a straight sort of smile that didn't flourish on his lips or the squint of his eyes, but in the dimples of his cheeks. It was a terribly sad expression. Back and forth, round and round, he twisted the tab on his soda until it fell off.
“Okay,” he finally murmured. “I understand. You're a perceptive guy. I've got a problem with my tricep. But so what?” He met Randy's eyes, vainly hoping for a response. “I’ve got more fight in me than ever,” he forced a laugh, "‘You wanna cash in right now? You've already had plenty of legit chances, y'know.”
Randy paused, pretending his quiet surprise pertained to John's words and not his frankness.
“Hm. Tempting. God knows I love taking a belt off you.”
John's expression softened for a beat, when he raised a suggestive brow, his lips quirking into a lighthearted smile.
“Shut up,” Randy barked.
John shook his head calmly, his grin slowly collapsing back into a line, tightening, as if he was straining to prevent more unwanted words from tumbling out.
He held that taught expression for a while, and then he took a long, long gulp of his soda, so comically draining it seemed either a desperate attempt to keep his mouth shut, a demonstration of his unimpeded vigor, or perhaps just a reflex as simple and pitiful as a baby suckling a bottle of milk.
Randy was almost sorry for him. That was a rare occurrence, this twinge of remorse, but on the other hand, sitting on the curb as the sun set before an historic day, Randy was also compelled to do something he might regret. Seeing John's terribly sad smile, that pathetic soda can in his massive hands, he was struck by a formidable itch for violence. To be clear, John's interruption of the calm, summer sunset had not pushed Randy to the brink of an explosive episode—he had developed a moderate control of himself over the years—but he deeply craved to have his hands on John one last time. Call it what you want—a bit of violence for old time's sake, the residue of a somewhat interminable grudge—but for whatever reason he ached to do it, to harm John while he was on his way out. After all, he sensed it would be Bryan he would be cashing in on tomorrow, and after that, John would be out of the ring indefinitely.
“Don't mention it to the guys, but I'll be out after tomorrow,” John murmured, glancing sheepishly at Randy, who pretended not to notice the awkward hitch in his voice. “I really am in no pain, though.”
The request was humorously null: he hadn't admitted to anything Randy didn't already know from management, so Randy didn't dignify the plea with an answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and extended his pack of cigarettes, pushing one out for John to take. He flicked his lighter on while John caught the spark.
There was no justifying impulsive violence—for the time being, at least. Hopefully, that pesky itch would subside fast enough for Randy to appreciate the sunset before it was too late. He decided to not prod further about the injury, but he kept a curious eye on John's arm as he smoked.
“I’m excited for the Full Throttle. I think we'll have fun,” John said later on, breaking a spell of silence that had solidified over the course of two cigarettes, a silence that rebounded immediately afterwards. The sky had nearly faded to black, the darkness straining against violet puddles of urban light pollution.
Once again, there was that mention of we, of a hypothetical us. Randy considered denying that improbable entity, outright rejecting this distant, sunny fantasy, but he opted not to. Otherwise, John might have smiled sadly again, his eyes glossy when he asked why he would refuse such a benign idea, and then Randy would have to wonder where this messy timeline had really begun and why there was no use denying its inevitable progress. Had the irreparable damage been done in 2009, during that first SummerSlam in LA, perhaps? Or was it prior to that? Could it have been in 2008, 2004, or maybe all the way back in OVW?
John's expression softened, as if to plead some implied case, to bargain that nothing change in his absence or for time to completely hold still. Honestly, bargaining down these avenues would be somewhat vain; in one year's time, John would probably be recovered, complaining about the heat again, chugging a Mountain Dew, and fanning himself with a SummerSlam poster outside the Staples Centre. None of that would change, and maybe even after all those months he would still care about the Full Throttle, too. All of that was up to him. Randy wouldn't know, wouldn't care. Life as a champion was always busy, too busy for small talk about weekend plans and shared cigarettes with colleagues. That was how Randy learned all he needed to know about John's injury.
There were few words spoken after that, and when John finally walked away, he left behind Randy, the sizzling corpses of a few cigarettes, and the empty can of Mountain Dew. Randy wouldn't see him again until months later.