How Low Can I Go?

“I started a joke, “Which started the whole world crying. “But I didn’t see, “That the joke was on me… (oh no)”

Robin Gibb’s vibrato croons from the speakers of the corner mounted flatscreen, set to one of those shitty oldies stations that come with every generic satellite radio package. 

“Hey, Rock… how’ve you been?”

The human-shaped carrot lying in the bed cannot answer him.

These days, Rocko Daymon’s voice is the ambience of his hospital room. 

The steady beep of the vital signs monitor. The whispered hiss of the respirator.

Awkward silence in between.

“Sorry I haven’t been by in a while.”

Wish it had been longer.

Too many days have been wasted in this miserable meat prison of sickness and death.

I had hoped that the Face would see the gift hidden within this tragedy.

All that rage---all that HUNGER--gnawing deep within him…

Instead, he buries it. 

He sits at the man’s bedside, growing slow… growing stagnant… 

All just to talk to this unresponsive sack of dead weight. 

As if he’d one day stumble across the magic words that raise him from the grip of sleep and make everything better with one of his famous empty aphorisms.

“Save the leg today so you have something to stand on when you seek to settle the score tomorrow.”

Fucking stupid.

A verbal safety blanket built to justify the shame of tapping out like a bitch in his last two outings.

“It’s… been a busy week, I guess..”

There’s no point in telling the story to a man who can’t hear him.

If anything, he’s telling it to himself.

🐉

Even at double-K-L, the fit of the shirt was tight.

But a firm tug later, Fuzzball’s head finally poked out of the opening on top.

“What do you think bud?”

The koala looked at me, half asleep and half confused, then at the “EVERYONE (HEART-WITH-HORNS) SATAN” slogan printed across his chest, and gave his answer in the form of a satisfied snort.

I’m not sure he can read as well as he can invent gadgets with super specific purposes, but it was good to know he at least seemed to appreciate the gift.

We shared a roundtable sofa in the VVIP room. As Eighty-Seven was winding down, the action in the ring was heating up, with Williams and TAL tearing the house down in the Five Star main event.

Fuzzball immediately began bespoiling his new shirt by tearing into a snackbag of euca-poofs, while I refilled my tumbler with another finger of chilled Yamazaki.

I was deliberating looking for Scott after the show went off the air, when…

“My BEAST-SENSE is tingling…”

The fragrance of plum and violet perfume hit…

And Ami was there.

She had that look.

Toe tapping. Knuckles on hips. Head cocked to the side. Mouth drawn into a pucker. Eyes narrowed into slits, like a pair of horizontal balistarias in a castle wall, and irises like archers taking aim.

“Limbo…?”

Clearly, she watched the stream with Satan.

And clearly, I had some explaining to do.

An innocent shrug and simper was the best I could come up with on short notice.

“Should I have gone with Red Rover?”

“All this does is buy us a few more lashes, Face…”

Her eye roll was fierce.

“I think you’re an idiot…” she said, striking me with her imaginary harisen.

She might’ve been onto something.

My responses to Jones’ questions were certifiably idiotic. But I knew what I signed up for; giving it the Scott Hunter treatment felt very “in the spirit of”.

“I am glad to see you enjoying yourself, though,” she added. “And trying to stay positive, given the circumstances.”

Maybe she knew as well.

I guess after all that time being miserable in the hospital, I was just looking to have a little fun?

Yet the mere mention of the “circumstances” summoned the image of Rocko, just as I found him that night.

Face down. Bleeding out.

And my uncle’s voice in my ear.

Sleep well, he said.

“We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

“Trying to, anyway…”

Instinctively, my hand clutched the tomoe pendant hanging off my neck.

Rocko’s pendant. A gift to him from my dad from many years back.

I couldn't remember exactly when I started wearing it; only that I'd never taken it off since. Holding it close brought a sense of calm to the storm raging in my skull.

“Still feels like I'm faking it half the time.”

She must have felt the weight, as the delicate touch of her hand found my shoulder.

“Hey…”

My eyes found hers.

“I know it's hard to be here,” she said softly. “But making the effort is what matters. When you’re feeling low, keep your head up. Focus on yourself. If he could right now, Rocko would say the same.”

I took a second to consider what she was telling me. Realized she was spot on.

Rocko needed nothing other than time and patience to properly heal up. Sulking around that hospital wasn’t going to speed up that process.

“Yeah… you're right,” I said to her. “Thanks.”

She melted my heart with a wink and a smile, and leaned in to peck me on the cheek.

“Don't mention it,” she said, supportively. “Anyway, are we ready to head out?”

When I looked to the screen, Williams was raising the belt in triumph.

Missed the finish. Damn.

“Yeah…”

I got to my feet, scooping up Fuzzball under one arm and grabbing my bag with the other. As we walked out, I scanned the suite one last time to see if Scott had slipped in at some point undetected.

Nope.

Already out on the town with Clay, I figured.

The two of them had been spending more time together since winning the tag belts.

I couldn't ignore the slight feeling of being left out, though it was an easy feeling to get over. A part of me was just happy to see Scott finally carrying some gold, and getting some long overdue recognition. And I had to begrudgingly admit that the Cowboy Colossus was a much more reliable Wingman than I was, given my current state.

“I'm eager to see these famous limbo skills in action…” Ami said cryptically as we turned in the direction of the parking garage.

I flashed her the wryest of smiles. “Interested in seeing how low I can go?”

She shot me the most sinister of smiles. “You're gonna go as low as I tell you, boy.”

I chuckled. Then winced.

“Remember to keep your head up, Face.”

The pudgy koala wrapped under my arm cleared his throat. Or laughed. I couldn’t quite tell.

“Might be the best news I’ve heard all year…”

I couldn’t mask the groan that followed that statement.

“You can still turn things around, Ker-Bear,” said Ami. “Just keep your head on straight and push through. Good things are probably right around the corner!”

Almost as soon as she said it, two-hundred pounds of pot, punk rock, and pitch came scrambling around the bend ahead of us.

“KURRY!!” exclaimed Rezin. “THERE ya are! I think I gotta NEW LEAD!!”

I sighed, and looked to Ami.

“You were saying?”

🐉

“I started to cry, “Which started the whole world laughing. “Oh, if I’d only seen, “That the joke was on me…”

It’s raining again in Seattle.

The Face stares at the window, losing himself in the raindrops on the glass.

“Newark was… fun.”

The monitor beeps. The respirator hisses.

Robin Gibb croons away.

Rocko Daymon continues to lie there, motionless and unresponsive.

“The plan was to fly back the day after…”

I tried telling him that we had no reason to be at that show. No opponent, no fight… no purpose.

I tried telling him that no amount of intermingling with those other meatsacks in the locker room was going to make him any more likeable or accepted among them.

But he’s become quite adept at ignoring me.

So he tells himself he needed to be there. To “cut loose” and “have fun”.

Making a fool of himself with the devil brat, in other words.

Bullshit.

We don’t need fun.

What we NEED is to find the cowards that did this…

And put them in the fucking dirt.

Instead, he just stares at the window, and watches the rain.

“But… well, some things went down.”

🐉

“AAAH!! AAAH!! FOR THE LOVE OF HERZOG, SHOW MERCY!!”

Rezin squirmed on the ground, limbs flailing like the legs of an overturned insect.

Ami was giving him the boots, medium-style.

“The WEED, Raisin!” she commanded. “COUGH IT UP!”

Within seconds, he was desperately pulling out joints and baggies from his pockets by the handful. Then he was holding out the bits of his disincorporated stash at arm’s length in a half-baked effort to ward off his tormentor.

“HERE!! HERE!!”

With a quick swipe of her hand, Ami claimed her bounty.

Then she turned to me, motioning for the koala. Without protest, I handed him over.

“You got five minutes,” she said.

Based on her tone, I would have put it closer to four.

She looked down at Rezin again, who immediately shrank beneath her beautifully cruel gaze.

“If you keep him longer than that, I’m telling Mom where you are.”

Readjusting her grip on Kerry Koalayama, she pivoted and stormed off toward the parking garage.

The dipshit dopesmoker remained on the floor, groaning in pain.

“GODDAMB, dawg…” he bemoaned. “HOW do ya PUT UP with her?!”

My eyes narrowed.

“'Put up with her?’”

“He has no idea…”

I shook my head.

“You completely misunderstand our dynamic, Erik,” I explained. “There’s nothing to ‘put up’ with. I just happen to like a woman who takes charge. I mean, you're a man of faith, right?”

Rezin blinked at me in confusion “...is that a surrious question?”

“Everything I do is serious, Erik,” I reiterated. “You should know that by now. Anyway, this may come as a surprise, but I happen to be a man of faith as well. Only my religion has two gods instead of one. One of them is Ami’s left leg. The other is her right. I call them 'Tsun’ and 'Dere’, respectively. They bring salvation, as well as oblivion… and I proudly serve them as their one and only humble servant.”

“Amen!”

I bowed my head in reverence to my Goddess in Purple.

Rezin said nothing, only staring up at me in wide-eyed silence.

As if I was somehow the crazy one.

“Anyway, you were blathering something earlier about a new lead?”

“AH, right!”

In a flash, he was back up on his feet.

“I MET sumbuddy tonight, Kurry!” he yammered excitedly. “Told him ‘bout yer sitch, and he’s RULLY, RULLY INNERESTED in meetin’ ya! Have ya met BOBBY NEPTUNE yet?”

In my mind, the image appeared of the blue-haired “space guy” with questionable choices in body ink.

“Like you’re one to judge…”

“Can’t say that I have,” I said. “I try to keep my distance from you weird gimmick types.”

Rezin scoffed.

“Heh, yeah… says the guy who’s whole life has basically turned into a yakuza flick as directed by David Lynch…”

…

Ouch.

“So Neptune…” I said, ignoring the clapback. “He can help us out?”

Rezin enthusiastically nodded.

“YEAH, he’s got this thing, like a… I dunno, like a LEVAR BURTON VISOR, only how it works is it, like, PROJECTS yer INTERNALIZED PERCEPTIONS, and shit! I mean, okay, honestly I really have NO IDEA how it works--fuggin’ ALIEN TECH, and alla that shit--but yeah, I’m thinkin’, we strap ya into this thing, get up into that NOGGIN’, and have us a lil’ SMOKE-SESH with ol’ BEASTIE! Now WHADDYA SAY?!”

Rezin stammered and ranted his way through the entire explanation, and I struggled to separate the wheat from chaff as it pertained to the bits that made actual sense.

Space visors that projected internalized thoughts?

A “smoke-sesh” with the beast?

“This is stupid. Even for the both of you.”

I’ve already been outed as an idiot.

Might as well follow this rabbithole to the end.

“Okay… how do I get a hold of him?”

“Your funeral. Speaking of, two minutes left…”

Of course it would be keeping time.

Meanwhile, Rezin’s hand went into his pants.

Because I consider myself a sane person, I immediately looked away.

“He gave me THIS!”

Peeking from the corner of my eye, I could see him holding out to me a blue, grapefruit-sized sphere.

“...what is it?”

The glow enthralled me immediately. Without thinking, I extended my hand, and allowed him to drop it into my palm.

It felt cold to the touch.

“He said it’s like some kinda summonin’ stone?,” said Rezin. “Said to jus’ hit him up when ya had a minnit to HASH out the details.”

Swirls of light shades of blue drifted across the surface like moving weather patterns.

At the center, a dark, cyclonic eye stared back at me.

It looked almost exactly like a miniature planet Neptune, encased within glass.

“So how does it work?”

Rezin opened his mouth to speak, then noticed something further up the hallway.

“WHOOOAAA SHUCKS!!”

Immediately, he was running like a bat out of hell.

I looked the other way, and saw the quatrain of Enemigos charging towards us.

Or, more specifically, toward him.

“SORRYKERRYGOTTAGOCATCHYALATER!!”

With that, the Goat Bastard disappeared around the corner. A moment later, the Enemigos flew by me in pursuit.

I stared into the blue “summoning” orb he had left me a moment longer before finally breaking away and stowing it away in my bag, and I continued on to the parking garage.

Did “Starboy” Bobby Neptune really have the solution I was looking for?

Could I really put my faith in this "alien" technology?

It felt almost like a betrayal to my belief in pure wrestling.

“It’s not like you didn’t already compromise those beliefs when you took ownership of a tank-driving koala bear.”

Fuck it.

What did I really stand to lose?

The door to the parking area appeared ahead of me.

Clay Byrd, the Cowboy Colossus, stood before it.

With his shoulders slumped and his eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat, I instantly saw that something was off.

In his hand, he held a crumpled paper note.

His typically stone-like face wore the signs of someone who had just received bad news.

And I knew I was just about to receive that news myself.

I sucked in a breath, and braced myself for the worst.

Deep down, it felt like I already knew.

“Okay… hit me with it.”

🐉

“I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes. “And I fell out of bed, hurting my head, from things that I said…”

“I can’t say I knew Scott’s dad very well. Only met Frank the few times.”

Somehow, that justified spending the rest of the week in the hell that is Florida. 

To be a part of humanity’s sad, strange ritual of mourning the fallen.

“It was… a weird feeling, being there. You know, seeing Scott going through all that…”

The same thing he went through himself, twenty years ago.

“I guess… it caused some old, painful memories to resurface.”

Rocko lies in his bed, unresponsive.

Those haunting images of his father lying in one of his own, slowly wilting into nothing, flow freely. Like blood from a freshly picked scab on his mind.

“I told Scott that I knew what he was going through. That he wasn’t alone. That I’ll always have my Wingman’s back. I don’t know if it made him feel any better, but… felt like I needed to say it to him. Same as when you said it to me, all those years ago.”

He idly passes the Space Man’s funny, blue stone from hand to hand, clueless as to how to use it.

“Losing someone you love has to be one of the hardest things for anyone to go through.”

He gazes deeply into the orb.

“But sometimes… accepting loss is necessary. It reminds us of what we still have. What we shouldn’t be taking for granted.”

The eye of Neptune stares back.

“...and it reminds me of what I’m fighting for.”

“Shooooouuuullda… been therrrrre…”

…the words are not his.

Nor are they mine.

The Face turns to the source, and sees that someone else has entered the room.

Floral shirt. Beach shorts. Hoodie. Flip-flops. All covered in grime.

An expression hidden beneath a mop of matted brown hair and an unkempt beard that extends to the chest. 

A reek of alcohol wafting heavily off of him.

He looks like a bum that had just wandered in off the street.

But when the Face notices the glazed eyes staring out beneath the veil of greasy bangs, he finally recognizes who it is.

“...Zee?”

His dipshit cousin.

Out of the blue, after months of radio silence.

“SHOULDA… BEEN… THERE…”

He repeats the words in a listless slur.

Even the luster of the blue orb can’t pull the Face away from this. He sets it aside, and rises to his feet.

“Zack, where have you b--”

The younger Daymon seizes him by the collar and furiously shakes him.

Because sentimentality is his greatest weakness, the Face is too dumbstruck to even think of defending himself.

“SHOULDA BEEN THERE, KAY! I’ SHOULDA BEEN ME! SHOULD BE ME LYIN’ THERE! G’DAMNIT, KAY, WHY WHUZN’T I THERE?! WHY WHUZN’T I THERE?!”

The kid breaks away and throws himself across his father’s chest, where he begins bawling like a baby.

“‘M SORR-REE… ‘m sorry…”

The Face stands there with his mouth hanging open.

There’s so many questions he wants to ask.

For now, they’ll have to wait.

The palm of one hand pats his sobbing cousin on the back.

The palm of the other grasps the tomoe around his neck.

“It’s fine, Zee….”

He looks out the window.

For now, the rain has stopped falling.

“You’re here now.”

Over their heads, Robin Gibb takes it home.

“‘Til I finally died, “Which started the whole world living. “Oh, if I’d only seen… (oh yeah) “That the joke was on me… (oh no) “That the joke was on me!”

…I really hate the fucking Bee Gees.

🐉

John.

Ian.

Whatever you call yourself.

Let me lay out the situation for you…

I came into this year as the Five Star Champion of PRIME. And after a banner run with that title, I had ambitions of rising even further than that.

Fast forward to right now, and I’m standing here with only a single win to my name in the past five months.

That ambition quickly evaporated after tapping out in back-to-back matches.

It was more than simply being denied a path to the Pinnacle.

It was a punishment.

For the crime of having the audacity to reach for it.

It was a message.

One that says Kerry Kuroyama isn’t ready for PRIME-time.

That he is “unworthy” of that place.

So be it.

The gate was kept.

The ceiling remained intact.

The rail was just out of reach.

And all the trials and tribulations that brought me here… the peaks… the valleys… the conquests and defeats that have defined me as a PRIME wrestler… apparently, none of that shit ever mattered.

Now, I’m the next rung in the ladder for a star that’s on the rise.

As if I’m stupid to the fact that I’m a star that’s slowly slipping from view.

I won’t patronize you by suggesting I have everything riding on one match.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t desperate for some sort of shot in the arm.

Not just for a win.

For a reaffirmation. In myself, Ian. In who I am.

Because right now, whatever it is I do between those ropes is the only thing I have control over in my life.

I have to show my enemies that I won't capitulate to fear. That I won't give in to this despair.

I know firsthand that you can go.

At least, Big John Pepper could.

Your squad leader saw something in him. A resurgent fount of positivity. One that stood apart from a locker room of headhunters chasing personal glory.

Knowing the difference you made in that match at Culture Shock, I can’t say he was wrong in that assessment.

But Big Ian Salt?

I don’t know him.

And I don’t want to know the train of thought that brought you around to embracing that aspect.

Life hands us all shit.

No one is immune to being changed by it.

But we decide how that change shapes us.

Either you allow it to consume you, or you rise above it.

Maybe it’s already consumed you, Ian.

It won’t consume me.

No matter how low it drags me down, I’m holding my head above it.

That’s the true pinnacle in this industry, Ian.

And whatever may come...

You can’t deny me of that.