Confessions & Recollections II

I’ve collapsed onto a couch. Nothing fancy or expensive, one of those deals from the 1970s. A drab shade of tan interlaced with olive colored leaves and other flourishes. It’s covered in plastic, specially made for this couch in fact, and the way it crinkles, cracks, squeaks and squelches every single time I so much as think about moving is starting to get on my nerves.

But I can’t move.

My eyes strain to look down toward my right arm to see the hypo still hanging out, gravity doing its level best to pull it from the vein it fed. I groan lightly, or at least I think I do, I’m not entirely sure the capacity for language is within the realm of capability at the moment. It’s not a stupor, it’s not a fugue, but somewhere in between. No, I can’t move.

But my mind is racing.

I think about the girl back in Boston, but I don’t remember her name. Just an outline of her face, heart shaped, green eyes, black(?) hair, maybe it was chestnut(?), the crimson lips and the cuttlefish white teeth that parted them. The way everything pulled me in, swirling in the undertow feeling that long black arm with malevolently curled fingers clutching at my ankle. Its razor sharp talons scratch at my calf. Pulling me away from her.

Where was she from again?

Do you remember the sun? Do you remember how it feels when the warmth kisses your face on a summer day? Do you remember how the breeze can cut through the heat and offer respite, even if just for a moment? Do you remember the cold steel of the chains around your ankles? Around your wrists? Do you remember the burlap bag, scratchy and stuffy, forced over your head, tied with crude rope around your neck? You can still smell the oil on that rope, can’t you?

You’re getting lightheaded again, Donovan.

Steady that ship.

Boston, Massachusetts. We walked through the Commons together. It was 2004? No, 2005. May, 2005. We had met earlier in the year when an indie fed was touring at the White Eagle in Worcester. Met her on my way out of the building, don’t know if she was just looking for guys like me, or if it was kismet. As soon as we locked eyes, I felt something I hadn’t felt looking at a woman. I’m getting off the path. We walked through the Commons on our way to the Orpheum. Nine Inch Nails were playing, the Dresden Dolls were supporting. I remember she really liked their version of..

Hey, pig.

You miss her, don’t you? Not just in this catatonic state, not while you’re zooted out of your goddamn mind, but you actually miss her. A woman other than Mother, who is still locked away in the looney bin somewhere. When was the last time you saw Mother, Donovan? Don’t you miss her? She saved your life. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember the bullet she put through your father’s brain? It was for you, Donovan. Why can’t you accept that? Why can’t you be grateful that Mother protected you from the Devil, Donovan? We all have to make our sacrifices.

What are you sacrificing?

Everything. I’m sacrificing everything.

For what?

I search my mind. The fog of war is too thick to cut through. My energy wanes as the information being hurled at me from…

If you have to think about it, you’re not sacrificing anything.

Myself.

For what?

I.. I don’t know. I shouldn’t be here.

Where? Where shouldn’t you be?

In this place. With you. I shouldn’t be here.

You can’t escape me, Donovan. I am part of you. Everywhere you go, there I am.

Why can’t I see you? I want to know what you look like.

Look in the mirror, Donovan. Now focus. Why shouldn’t you be here?

I should have been the one. Not dad. I saw the hole in the poster on my wall. If I had been standing right there, peace.

Peace?

I would know peace.

Mmm. This stuff has got its hooks in you, doesn’t it? How’s the bloodstream feelin’?

I just want to move. I want to see her again. I don’t want to be this person any longer.

How much say do you think you have in any of this Donovan? You’ve seen your arm. You couldn’t even get the fucking needle out before you passed out. You stupid, useless fucking druggie. You can’t even see straight. Your eyes are floating around like bettas, trapped within their confines. Do you feel how dry your throat is? Your tongue lolling out? What a fucking mess.

Maybe you were right.

Maybe it should have been you.

Fucking look at yourself.

Pathetic.

My mind is searching for words that don’t exist anymore. I’m trying to force my eyes back open, but they won’t budge. Everything aches. I think I can hear every muscle crying as they atrophy. Molded into this plastic covered couch in a dilapidated studio apartment. Floral wallpaper cracked and peeling from the top of the wall and in spots along the sides. Their adhesive is about as useful as mine at this rate. All I can focus on are the details of the room. The wall, this couch, the threadbare office style carpet that has gone from cream to mud colored.

I am pathetic.

Her name was Jessica. I thought there was something there. A spark, something that I had never felt rise up in me before. She was the first woman, maybe the first person that made me feel like I could be something more than myself. That I was something more than the sad boy that only wore shades of black and never smiled. She made me look at things in a different light.

His Word and Light.

What is that?

The Path.

The Path?

It was a three month tryst, and over as quickly as it began. I wasn’t going on tour. I wasn’t going back to fWo. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was headed, I didn’t know I wouldn’t see Jessica again. It was an early September night on Tremont Street in Boston when I felt the scratchy bag, smelled the oil as I was plunged into darkness. I could feel bodies bigger than mine pulling me into a vehicle, my head cracking the top of the door frame as they shoved me inside.

Then what happened?

Then I woke up. A dimly lit warehouse. Nothing but concrete and the low hum of fluorescent lighting. Dress shoes and combat boots scraping over cement. The Man. Dressed fully in black, head to toe.

What did he look like?

I’ve recoiled at this question. I don’t know. The gas mask is all I can remember. He rarely spoke, and it was always through, well, he sounded robotic most of the time. Careful, measured words that were incisive, surgical. He knew what he wanted and how he wanted it and everyone around him complied. I even thought I saw a friend working with him once.

A friend?

Kellen Kinkade.

He was never a friend. Always working for The Man. Campbell had Kinkade in his clutches, just as he has you now. But Kinkade was always willing to do what it took. That is why he retains his autonomy. That is why you are here with a needle in your arm. They need you to comply, Donovan. They need you to be malleable. You do want to survive, don’t you? Do you want to live?

I’m not sure.

You live or you die here, Donovan.

Where is here?

The Asylum.

But I’m not… crazy.

She was beautiful. Everything I wanted in another person, but just like that she was gone. Or rather, I was gone. I’m the asshole who disappeared without a call, without a text. I don’t think the term ‘ghosting’ had been invented yet, and I’m probably too old to be using such vernacular. Why was I chosen? Why am I here? How do they…

Use your fucking brain, Donovan. Or are you too busy killing off the cells with that poison in your arm?

Kinkade.

We’ve got a bingo!

But why?

Money talks. You can fight. You could be worth your weight in gold to them.

I want to go home. I want to see Jessica again.

You are home. We are home.

I don’t belong in this place.

Others have decided differently.

It’s not their choice.

They captured you before you could evade capture. They won. You lost. The only option is to submit to their will.

Or?

Or they kill you.

I can live with that.

It will be slow, Donovan. You will waste away like a dog riddled with parasites and they will wait, and wait, and wait until the misery, the pain, the discomfort is so great to bear that you have finally accepted that cross.

Only then will they set you free.

I can’t do this.

You must. God puts trials before us. It is our duty to overcome them.

I don’t believe in God.

You will.

How can you know?

I know how desperate you are going to become. When all hope is lost, you will start seeking answers to unanswerable questions. You will find the solace you think you are so undeserving of. You must endure the trials to come. They demand it of you.

They can eat shit.

You will be the one eating shit, Donovan. As much as they tell you to. As often as they ask you to. Second and third helpings if they demand it. You are here to serve the Asylum, Joe Campbell, and Kellen Kinkade. Choice is something that free people have, Donovan. You have eschewed your freedom. You have deemed your own life forfeit.

And now? The monsters will play with their new toy.

✟✞✟✞✟

I woke up, chest heaving and drenched in cold sweat. It was nearly dawn, sunlight had started creeping in between slats in the blinds. I took a deep breath and swiveled myself on the bed, feet touching the mahogany floor, recoiling slightly at the chill. I stumbled my way down the hallway and into the bathroom, turning on the light, flipping up the toilet seat and mindlessly draining myself into it.

I flushed the toilet, quickly washed and dried my hands before splashing water onto my face. I’m not a bad looking man for forty-seven, considering everything I’ve been through. I pick at the front of my hair, tell myself it’s not thinning in the way that Lowell claims. I sigh to myself and tiptoe back down the hallway and slide back into the bedroom.

I smile in a way that I rarely smile outside of the wrestling ring or during service. I can see her outline as she sleeps on her side, back turned to me. I cautiously slip back into bed and lie on my back, arms behind my head, staring at the darkened ceiling. My mind races through Spain and Portugal, the things I’ve learned and become. The man it took to find deep within myself to defend the Five Star.

And then I think of the woman next to me, and the nearly twenty years we spent apart. I think about the revelation I made about her, maybe our son, and while I haven’t brought it up, I’ve become more comfortable with the idea. Jeremiah and I have grown close through his training. He’s a good, strong kid. I would be proud to call him my son, but would he feel the same?

I turn my head to look at Jessica’s frame slowly rising and falling with her breathing.

I think back to those endless days and nights, alternating between shooting up and fighting in a steel cage.

I think about Winter’s Port, FOOTPRINTS, Mother, finding PRIME and everything that has come my way in the last ten months.

And what do you think Donovan?

I blink twice, I’m not afraid of them anymore, not like back then. I answer calmly, in a place I can be heard, deep inside my own head.

It was all worth it.