Content Warning
Drug use.
By Thomas McEvoy
I snorted cocaine so strong that Buddha descended.
To alleviate suffering, fix your relationship with Rex.
I knew what that meant, but not how. Maybe the only way was to join my brother on the other side.
I left my Gastown apartment and scored from a dealer in East Hastings. The fentanyl epidemic was at its peak, but I didn’t care.
Buddha insisted.
I called my sponsor and threw the baggie into an alley dumpster. I went to a 24/7 café and drank flat whites, repeating Buddha’s words like a mantra.
Fix your relationship with Rex.
Like a cruel joke, Buddha had omitted a vital aspect: how. He could’ve pointed with his noble index finger, handed me a list of achievable goals.
After all, he was Buddha. He chose not to.
It drove me insane.
The next morning, I visited my childhood home in Kitsilano. It was spring, and with the pick-up truck windows lowered, the cool breeze felt like a second chance.
I detoured past our high school, where Rex had become a top provincial wrestling prospect. His medals, enshrined behind glass, decorated the school hallway, next to tournament pictures where his thick arms rose in victory.
A memorial. Rex’s body never aged, forever captured in its prime.
Before doing anything else, I made sure Mom and Dad were out—their car wasn’t in the driveway. They’d last visited me in rehab, and like every other occasion, I’d promised it was the final time, that I wouldn’t repeat what Rex did.
Once the coast was clear, I used a paper clip to crack the combination padlock on the shed.
I rummaged through stuffed boxes of his past: Rex’s crumpled report cards, a faded red hoodie, and a one-eyed teddy bear missing an arm.
I found the house keys in the small tin with pins my brother used to hang posters of WWE wrestlers—Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar.
As kids, Mom and Dad had shown us the key’s secret spot, for emergencies. Some things never changed.
We’d left home, but Mom and Dad had hoped we’d come back as we were before we grew up.
I didn’t let my throat tighten, didn’t let my bottom lip quiver.
For a minute, I was as strong as Rex.
I unlocked the backdoor and stepped inside, heading straight for Rex’s room.
It was frozen in time, just as he’d left it, the pungent smell of sweaty jockstraps and Athlete’s foot still lingering.
I sat on the edge of the bed—the same one Rex had used as a springboard to practice the aerial wrestling techniques he’d seen on TV.
As the younger one, I had lain on the floor, thick pillows surrounding me, his figure casting a shadow as he prepared for a diving chop.
His elbow never failed to land away from my cheek.
The memories clung to me like cobwebs I couldn’t shake.
The summer Rex was bound for college on a scholarship, I broke his collarbone.
For a YouTube video.
My school vlogs were gaining traction, and I wanted to steal the spotlight. He had sports; I had a camera.
As a farewell, I set up a wrestling ring in our back garden. I hit the record button and blindsided Rex from behind.
He grappled me to the ground with ease, then let me get up. I slammed him down with all my force.
The sound of his collarbone snapping marked a before and after.
If Rex hadn’t let me gain advantage…
He was never the same. We all know what happened after. How he took matters into his own hands.
I was about to leave his room when my phone vibrated.
Orla, my agent.
The last time we’d spoken, I’d called her to get out of jury duty. She’d gotten me a job doing commercials for some energy drink that never aired.
I’d ghosted her for months, but she still looked out for me even though my online presence was plummeting.
I wasn’t irrelevant yet, but I wasn’t big either.
“They want you for a fight,” Orla said, words tumbling out about Tulsa, Aiden ‘The Mouse’ Rivera, and money.
“Apparently, someone dug up that old video of you and Rex. It’s trending again— ‘The Backyard Slam.’”
I laughed bitterly. Rex would’ve found it hilarious—me, in a wrestling ring.
He’d have said I wouldn’t last a round. And maybe he’d be right.
“And they think I’ll just play along?”
“Look, it’s not WWE. But fights like this are trending—and amateur wrestling?” Orla said. “It’s something different. Just showing up gets you noticed again.”
I told her I’d do it just to get her off the line, then hung up.
Rex’s dusty headgear lay untouched in the corner.
I opened the window.
It was warm for April.
Somewhere, a lawnmower started up.
Thomas McEvoy is a Paraguayan-born British writer who has lived in Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Japan, Canada, Spain, and England. His fiction has appeared in J Journal: New Writing for Justice, Scoundrel Time, and Collateral Journal.
losing our grip on purpose 