Everything Is Fine

The Presence.

As the Five Star Champion, I am a role model for all wrestlers and fans as HOW a champion should compose himself.

I am always draped in the finest clothes an integral part of The Octopus can afford.  (Hint, it isn’t Ludacris to say we have accounts in different area codes).

I am a calm presence in the locker room. It doesn’t matter what happens to me in PRIME because nothing can suppress my focus.

The Five Star Championship is an item of excellence only further cemented by being in the clutches of yours truly: ‘The Miracle Man’ Steve Harrison.

--

April 26th   “HOW DARE THAT CUCK MAKE THE TITLE MOTION TOWARDS ME!” “Steve…” “AND THAT REF, SHE CHEATED ME OUT OF MY DESERVED WIN.” “Steve!” “DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT SICK DEPRESSING SEXUALLY HARASSING LOOK THAT JAYCEE GAVE MY TITLE. THIS ISN’T A MOM FOR YOU TO KILL OR AN ORC TO STOMP ON YOUR MANHOOD. LOOK AT THE TITLE, LOOK AT HOW CLEAN IT IS NOW. OH, SO CLEAN, I WILL MAKE IT ALL CLEAN!” ‘STEVE!” “EVERYONE IS GOING TO PAY!” “Your mom is on the phone.” “Oh, um…yes?”

--

Your Bad Guy.

I am aware of the quiet majority. Those within PRIME that stare at you from the shadows but won’t make a move until you slip up. People are always whispering about your talent, your determination, or your work ethic. They find a small thread and try to use it to unravel everything from you.

The daft.

The weak.

The people-pleasers.

These are the people who smile at your face and then flip you off when you walk away. The childish gnomes that believe, if they wish hard enough, they won’t have to go through the hardships of being human. They put on a show for themselves so they can look at themselves in the mirror and nod in satisfaction: “we tricked them again.”

Nah, I won’t be fooled again.

So, when I politely ask where the competition is, I am not surprised that someone backed by Vae Victis answered. The amount of make up each of them uses to hide their dark intentions is only exceeded by their utter lack of respect for those who don’t bow to the Queen’s throne.

Am I the bad guy?

They hate when you finally open your eyes again.

They want you to look at the shiny thing in their hand while they plot your downfall in the shadows. You can vaguely see it from the corner of your eye but are unable to take action.

We don’t like to stare into the dark because we don’t like what might stare back.

But the shadows are where I train. This is where I work. This is where I live now.

The Octopus moves in ways you cannot fathom.

I am not a bad guy. I am YOUR bad guy. You need to feel superior to something you don’t fully comprehend so you make everyone else an enemy. The dirt in your soul cannot be cleansed by exterior smiles and interior scowls. The deceptive nature of a group backed by The Management is plain to see. Any form of PR can make someone look better than they are.

The big matches.

The big pushes.

The easy apologies.

I don’t get the benefit of doubt.

I don’t have wrestling icons backing me.

I don’t have a goddamn koala.

I don’t have any friends in this business. Never again.

I don’t have a wrestling machine backing my actions because I won’t sell out my beliefs for a little shine.

Don’t give me a side eye with your little chuckles. You mass of ignorance are not better than me.

I have beliefs…

…I believe I am the good guy.

--

May 23rd   The chairs are scattered on the floor of the locker room. Bent and broken, they still give a glare from the lights that blind and suspend the attack being placed upon them from Steve Harrison. The grunt is followed by a swift right kick that Alessandro Del Piero (Go Juventus!) would be proud of. The last remaining chair, in a long line of wrestling chairs was killed in action that day. Nobody cared but maybe it could have been used for jowling. It will never be known as its leg is bent backwards by the right foot of Steve Harrison. He stares down at the chair with empty eyes but a smirk that gives off a knife to your back vibe. “He made me do it.” With nowhere to sit now because of…reasons. The Miracle Man plops down on the floor and leans against the wall. He begins rubbing his head as he goes over everything that just occurred with the rude Montreal crowd and that pest Kerry Kuroyama. The door opens and Doc and Jack Marley slowly enter as they attempt to avoid the carnage that litters the room. “I gave this city the best…well not best…okayest? No…well, I was here dammit!” “Steve, what has gotten into you?” Doc walked over and looked down at Harrison. The Octopus executive stared down at the Five Star Championship that sat in his lap. “It’s the belt, Doc.” “What?” “IT IS ALWAYS DIRTY!” Jack Marley walked over and stared down at the title and gave Doc a confused look. Doc nodded back to him in agreement. “Boss-mon…I think it looks wonderful.” “You say that and then someone forces me to hit them with it. I didn’t want to do that but there is only so much a man can take. His arrogance was nauseating and the next thing I knew was the little miracle careening off that annoying face of his.” Doc picks the title off the lap of Steve and Jack helps lift the Immortal Jellyfish back to his feet. “You don’t have to be what they always said you were, Steve.” “I will be whatever it takes to reach my goals, Doc.” Doc shook his head at Steve and pointed to the title, “this is worth being the bad guy, huh?” Steve rips the title out of Jack’s hands and tosses it over his right shoulder, “you don’t get it, Doc.” Harrison looks at the title and then whispers, “the pressure is enormous.” “What?” Doc asks but then pauses as his phone begins to ring. He looks down at it and then back up to Steve, “I think this is for you,” he shows Ol’ Banditsbane the phone and it takes less than a breath to see Steve’s face contort into worry, as he sees his moms name on the phone. He takes the phone, “Oh, um…yes?”

--

This Was Your First Choice.

Good old Montreal.

I hadn’t been able to get to the farmhouse in a long time. The Octopus had limited my freedom but since my initiation had concluded I had been given a bit of rope. Believe me, I am positive they always have eyes and ears on me.

It wouldn’t be a family without a complete lack of trust, right?

I don’t even have privacy at a wrestling event. The tentacles extend to all corners of the globe and as I begin to understand the situation, I find myself in, I plan my ambush.

Unfortunately, I have no plans.

Ellis Jackson.

He couldn’t run forever, could he?

It was starting to feel like the only ambush would be against me. I don’t have the luxury to take my time, but I don’t have the information to act intelligently. Not like that seems to have ever stopped me before. Unfortunately, any misstep could be the difference in catching him and never seeing himself again.

I could not afford that.

No…seriously, I, in no means can fucking afford this roach galivanting around the globe.

I shuddered to myself as I thought about what could happen if I failed to find him. The anxiety finally dispersed as I escaped through the trees and the farmhouse came into view. It was comforting, and that feeling was not something I had wished to feel. I needed to defeat my weaknesses, but I continued to find more as I struggled to differentiate my Octopus mask and my personal ambitions.

The pressure is everywhere and multiplying.

I can’t forget what it’s all for.

I parked and walked slowly up the stairs, moving my head from side to side like a normal paranoid man does.

I put the key in the door and then pulled the doorknob, the noise the door made gave me a knowing smile. It was a noise that would ring out and announce my time off from my worries had begun.

Heh.

Was I really that ridiculous just months ago?

The door closed behind me and I stood in the hallway just breathing in every little detail that I had begun to forget. I chuckled to myself as I forced myself to walk. I found myself in the living room staring at a small wine stain that occurred the night I was taken in by my…family.

I sat down on my couch. I found my favorite spot for my butt and let out a long breath. It felt like I exhaled a hundred pounds of air out of my lungs.

I felt loose.

I felt calm.

I felt like nothing could stress me out.

Cell phone rings…  

Montreal has brought me nothing but gloom and doom recently, but this house knew how to center me. I didn’t care that the crowd insulted me and backed my opponent, Kerry Kuroyama.

Cell phone continues…  

How dare they treat me like that and cheer on the management’s choice. The chosen one. The perennial ‘ah shucks,’ guy who is always surprised he is given title matches. Hey…goofy, you are part of Vae Victis you get everything handed to you.

Cell phone continues…

“SHUT UP!” Cell phone stops…

I nodded, “yep, I am so serene. I can be water. I can travel from the clouds down a drain…”

Cell phone dings…

“Nope, nope, you aren’t ruining my relaxing time” I grabbed my phone from my pocket with my left hand, this voice text message better be important, “I am not letting you ruin my mood,” I said to it as I pointed at it with my right index finger.

I pressed the button to listen to the voice text.

Ugh.

  “Looking relaxed, nephew. Last time I saw you so peaceful you were being humiliated by the Montreal crowd and Kerry.”

I stood up and looked around the room and the phone went off again.

“Are you looking for me? Check the sound bar on the TV. You see it? Oh, great, your eyes look like they were bombarded with so much weed it would make Jack blush.”  

I spent the next thirty seconds repeatedly flipping off the sound bar until my fingers started to cramp.  Of course, it didn’t take long for the phone to go off several times.

“Real classy. Then again what should I expect from someone who stopped here first instead of visiting the woman he supposedly loves, who you know… is a vegetable in a hospital nearby.”

Good.

Great.

This is fine.

EVERYTHING IS FINE.

I stomped away from the sound bar as the gears in my tangled brain started to spin rapidly as it attempted to contain the sweltering anger that was stabbing my frontal lobe.

How dare he question my commitment to Rebecca.

How dare he put cameras in my sanctuary.

How dare he make a mockery of me.

HOW DARE HE…

“HOW DARE HE,” I yelled to the ceiling of the farmhouse. My mind had yielded to the anger, and I had to let it out like the whistle from a boiling teapot. The phone begins ringing again…   I looked at my phone and gave it an annoyed smirk, “hah, guess I am out of your view now.” But it kept ringing, and I could no longer move. The rage inside me just could not let this go and I let it take over again and I answered the phone and put the speaker on, “WHAT?”

“Such a toddler, nephew, and did you think that was the only camera?” He laughed.

I shrugged and shook my head at wherever the damn camera was that he was taunting me from. “You are obviously scared, Uncle Sea Roach or you wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble. You couldn’t help yourself though, could you…you had to let me in on your ingenious plan.” I had calmed down and figured I had just given him a quick jab to the ribs that he would have trouble recovering from.

There was a pause, and I heard a deep breath.

“I know why, you came here first.”

That was unexpected.

I don’t know where this Ellis Jackson had been hiding but he just defended my blow and full countered me into silence. What a crumb.

“If I was in your shoes I would have done the same thing. It does make your claim about protecting her as your top priority a bold-faced lie. Heh, you really are part of the family.”

I rolled my eyes and then sprinted upstairs to my room. I flung the door open to see my safe lying on its side with the door blown off. I froze in place as I stared at the carnage that had enveloped my former bedroom.

“Well, see you soon,” he laughed before he continued, “maybe.”

He hung up and I shook my head, as I attempted to rid my mind of the cobwebs, “wait…what does he mean see you soon?”

I turned from my room and ran down the stairs, “SHIT!”

--

You ever feel like you are always swimming against the current?

If I didn’t know any better some sort of sentient creature enjoys watching me flail around like a fish on a line.

First and foremost, how giddy it must have felt when it watched me rage when Vae Victis’s own Kerry Kuroyama emerged from the curtain.

It watched from the corner giving its best Monty Burns ‘excellent’ as I had to listen to such vile attacks on my greatness.

Oh, you think otherwise?

Am I not serious enough?

Am I not talented enough?

Am I not the most beautiful bald man alive?

That’s not it, though, right?

It’s because I am not an alumnus…least not from PRIME.  Heh.

It’s because I don’t tell LT daily that her decisions are always correct.

It’s because I do things on my own terms.

It’s because these wrestlers feel like I was lucky to beat Cancer Jiles. Lucky to even get a title match. They live in a bubble because if they ever decided to walk outside, they would have known that I was never the underdog in that match.

That’s it, that’s the big one.

Jealousy. These ignorant fucks are jealous of Steve Harrison. Oh, that must piss them off, everyday seeing me holding a title in PRIME.

I don’t think you need to worry about that though, Kerry. You beat me in the past, so I am sure I barely register on your radar. If I was to talk about waking a sleeping dragon, we would both just laugh because all I ever did back then was hold his rusting sword and tell him he was good.

Everyone is probably already popping the champagne for you in the Vae Victis locker room for your destined victory over an undeserving champion.

I am sick of being an afterthought.

I am sick of being disrespected.

I am going to knee you so hard that I transfer some charisma into you, Kerry. This isn’t business anymore. This has become personal. Not because of you, but because of this godforsaken industry always trying to control me under their foot.

I will break it. The sound of the pop and snap will be replaced with a gasp and a call to the manager. Vae Victis…known Karens.

I will break you…your will that is. I am not going to rely on a timeout. I am going to rely on dropping you repeatedly on your neck. You fancy yourself a wrestling machine, but you are just a stout little man to me. After I am done with you, you will not only have to look up to see me but also look up as I pass you by in PRIME.

That is what matters to me, Kerry. I want you to give up before you feel the Enlightenment. I want you to have that thought ‘I’m just not good enough,’ when you look at the ceiling of the Rogers Centre. Close your eyes and accept your fate as another steppingstone in The Miracle Man’s way.

Trust me, I have a bit of doubt that any referee will give me a fair shake. I am not blind, I see how you ‘act’ around them and then of course SHE is assigned to our match.  They always try to stack the deck against anyone who doesn’t submit to their queen.

I bring forth Miracle’s though, Kerry.

It will be a Miracle if you make out of this match conscious and It’s a Harracle will be the reason why…

…You scum.

Oh, and fuck you, Clay Byrd.

--

The Dreams We Have.

I blink and I am sitting in a run-down treehouse. “They never did finish it.” I looked up to see that young rapscallion again. I blinked again and then looked at the decaying floorboards and old hornet nests in each corner.

“Why am I here?”

He shrugged and sat down next to me. The boards creaked but neither of us even budged. “I mean, not all memories are wanted, right?”

I groaned, just another annoyance to add on to all the other ones, “I don’t have the patience to decipher this conversation.”

“I am only here because you wished for it. It isn’t like I am an actual physical presence that can force you to listen,” he chuckled. “But it probably means you have to.”

I stared up at the multiple holes in the ceiling where branches have begun to stick through now. “They never did finish anything for me, did they?”

“Is the family everything you wanted?”

If I had been drinking anything it would have been flying out of my nose and nostrils from that question. “What?”

“Is regressing back to who you once were working for you?”

“Enough riddles,” I said defiantly, as an acorn fell and landed right on my forehead and rolled across the dilapidated floorboards.

“Just know…you did that,” he smiled as he pointed at the acorn and then persisted, “I am asking you if being back with mom and giving up on your redemption is worth it?”

I rolled my eyes, “yes.”

“Liar.”

“Well, you tell me since you seem to know everything,” I roared. I didn’t let him respond though, “no, nix that. I don’t care what you…I…whatever the hell this is thinks about what I have done. I have executed what is required for me to succeed in this crumbling world. Wrestling is a microcosm of the world and its telling US that nobody is good. You look after yourself. You look after your allies. You look after your loved ones.”

He put his finger up in the air, “ding.”

“Ding? Am I supposed to find some sort of meaning in that?”

He nodded, “not my ding, but what you said. You said loved ones which means you still have matured, some redemption remains.”

I slammed my left fist to the decrepit wood and watched it splinter in half. This conversation was absurd, and I was getting annoyed having to explain myself to… myself. “Just stop. I am not sure what part of me is still obsessed with reasons for my behavior, but I don’t care if I have matured. I don’t care if anyone thinks I am good. Loving someone just makes you a human, not a good person. I am naïve to think otherwise and what a surprise that my naivety has put what is important to me in danger.”

“Ah, that’s it.”

Before I could answer the treehouse began to shake and the floorboards all broke. I fell through the space and fell to the ground.

THUMP  

Suddenly I opened my eyes and realized my shoulder was shaking. “Sir, visiting hours are over,” a female’s voice said.

I didn’t move to look at her. I knew where I was now. I had rushed to the hospital after Ellis’s threat to see me soon. I looked down and my right hand was holding Rebecca’s hand. I let go to turn to see the nurse who was holding a piece of paper in her hands. “I was told to give this to you when you were done.”

I grabbed the paper and opened it. I read it to myself after the nurse walked away.

“Wrong guess, but I bet my sister would enjoy a picture of this. Smile.”

“SHIT.”