Post by Kincaid on Jan 31, 2016 19:38:31 GMT -6
It's the old days. The dark days. I know it right away. There's blood in my hands.
Half of this apartment building is being rented out to other wrestlers. It's a dive. An absolute hellhole in the worst part of Toronto. Oh, I can see you rolling your eyes. Toronto? Toronto, Canada? There are no rough neighborhoods in Canada. Spend some time in Rexdale at three in the morning. Make eye contact with the wrong person for too long and you find out real quick just how mean the great white north can get. And me? I'm as mean a cuss as anyone out there.
Bernido sold us out. It's an old story. He's a dumb kid who drove up from Mexico to get a chance to train. There's a thousand wrestlers who never make it to the big time. It's a rough industry, a rough industry built on bone and blood. In 2006, everybody's pretending they've finally cleaned my business up. I'm not dumb enough to fall for it. Because I know how this goes. I know that just a few short hours ago, I dug a broken chair leg into that little mexican kid's forehead and watched him scream up at the ceiling. And I did it without a single bit of fear because of the most magical word in the wrestling business: Fake.
Fake's what lets people get away with things in the backroom of smoky, ugly little community centers and arenas all over the world. Fake's what lets the vets make sure the rookies pay their dues. Fake's what we tell the cops when somebody's stupid enough to ask how we got away with breaking their friends arm in front of a hundred people. It's fake. It's a show. Things happen. Things go wrong. You can't blame us for that. You haul any of us in, everybody in the locker room's going to cover for you. That's the rules. That's the code. Fake is as deliberate as anything else we do. Fake is everything we need it to be.
So everyone's going to say that it was fake, what I did to that kid. I didn't clean my hands. I wanted everybody to see what I took from him. Had to make an example. Most of all, most of all I wanted the man who dealt the cards in Toronto to see everything. Because he had to know who was in charge. He had to know I was the only one pulling my strings. Everything I did to that kid, I did because I wanted it. Not him. He might have sold the tickets, but it's my show.
I live in the basement. Fear of heights.
I wonder an awful lot about the folks who aren't in the business who live in that building. If they know the kind of people who live in the apartment across from them. I realized real young what kind of business we worked in. The fans never give it much thought. Two guys fight. Someone wins. After all, the guy's only down for three seconds. How bad could it be? Truth is, you're not normally knocked out those three seconds. You've just had such an asskicking on you that you can't get your body to move no matter how bad you need it to. Torture. Every time we go out there. Believe me folks, no matter how nice your favorite looks we're a little fucked up to do that to somebody else.
I'm the perfect guy to run into everyday scumbags. Because I'm an exceptional sort of scumbag. I hear those choke, this gurgle and a yelp that can't quite get free of a forcibly closed throat. I just have to go take a look. So I take an extra turn past the stairs and I'm standing in the hall. There's the scene that burns itself into my brain forever. Alyssa's small. She's this tiny ball of fear, wide eyed behind a mop of brown hair. There's the bottom of sneaker pressed against her throat, she's slapping at the gorilla's leg who's got her pinned down but he isn't moving. I walk down the hall and pull my coat out. Maybe she thinks I'm coming to save her. But I don't know she's worth it yet.
“Walk away.” The Gorilla gives me an order. Maybe the name doesn't fit. He's all lean, wiry muscle. More swimmer or soccer player than fighter. And that ugly, black thing rises in my belly at the temerity of this guy giving me an order. I keep walking toward him and he takes his boot off her. She gags, and gasps. I see the thing I want to see in her eyes as The Gorilla issues another order I don't give a good goddamn about.
She's up a second later. She's small, she's slight, but she might as well by a goddamn grizzly bear by the way she goes at him. I gave her the second she needed and she explodes up off the floor. Alyssa doesn't know what she's doing, but she throws headbutts and punches. Once or twice I think I see her shoot for a bite. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The purest expression of emotion I've ever seen. It wasn't going to stop because she waited for it to stop, it was going to stop because Fuck You, I'm Making It Stop. Nothing prettier in the whole world than that.
The Gorilla puts his palm over her face and throws everything into it. She spins on her heel and her face smacks into the wall. That ugly black thing boils up so hard I'm not even thinking when I surge forward and hammer my elbow into his face. Because who's he to shut her down? Who's he to suck all that out of her? You don't get to put a person's fire out unless they damn well deserve it, and I wanted to see this girl burn. So did I hit him too much? Define too much. I hit him enough to scare him, and to scare her. By the time it was over there was no way staying in that building in Toronto would be an option.
I turn and look at her. She's crawling back in a sort of crab walk, eyes wide again on the blood on my hand.
“Kid, if you're going to run you might as well run with me.”
She did.
*~*~*~*~*
“It's time.”
Kincaid opened his eyes. He was sitting backstage on a bench, waiting for his time to go out there and get his shots in on Desmond Knight. He rolled his neck back and forth. Something in it ground and cracked. Old parts against old parts. Scar tissue and bone chips. He didn't move right away. He folded his arms across his chest and stared grimly at the wall ahead of him.
Alyssa walked over and dropped to her knees in front of him. He looked at her. At the eyes, the same eyes he'd seen all those years ago in that hall in Toronto. The fear had long since faded. Now, she looked at him with steely confidence. His gut was doing flips. But she believed in him more than he did. With her, there was nothing he couldn't do.
“You win this and you've got to be back in the title picture.” She said softly, taking his hands “And I know I keep saying it. But you should remember it. Because if you win that belt, everything else opens up to you. This is honest. This a hundred percent you getting a shot because you EARNED it. You go out there, you beat him and you come back here proudly.”
He knew why she'd asked for the separation and he knew why they were still working out the terms of an ongoing divorce. She'd been a soldier in his war to make wrestling what he thought it should be. She'd gotten hurt. She'd seen her friends suffer, often at his hands when he thought they weren't committed enough. And even if he told her a thousand times that he'd changed it wouldn't matter. You couldn't wash away that many memories. She wanted to get clean, and he wouldn't hold it against her for having to do that without him. He was a terrible husband, but he could be a good client. He could be the best wrestler she could manage. She deserved to manage a champion.
He pulled himself up and walked past her, heading for the door. She offered some final encouragement “It's wrestling. It's a title shot. Just remember what you're fighting for out there.”
He did.
Half of this apartment building is being rented out to other wrestlers. It's a dive. An absolute hellhole in the worst part of Toronto. Oh, I can see you rolling your eyes. Toronto? Toronto, Canada? There are no rough neighborhoods in Canada. Spend some time in Rexdale at three in the morning. Make eye contact with the wrong person for too long and you find out real quick just how mean the great white north can get. And me? I'm as mean a cuss as anyone out there.
Bernido sold us out. It's an old story. He's a dumb kid who drove up from Mexico to get a chance to train. There's a thousand wrestlers who never make it to the big time. It's a rough industry, a rough industry built on bone and blood. In 2006, everybody's pretending they've finally cleaned my business up. I'm not dumb enough to fall for it. Because I know how this goes. I know that just a few short hours ago, I dug a broken chair leg into that little mexican kid's forehead and watched him scream up at the ceiling. And I did it without a single bit of fear because of the most magical word in the wrestling business: Fake.
Fake's what lets people get away with things in the backroom of smoky, ugly little community centers and arenas all over the world. Fake's what lets the vets make sure the rookies pay their dues. Fake's what we tell the cops when somebody's stupid enough to ask how we got away with breaking their friends arm in front of a hundred people. It's fake. It's a show. Things happen. Things go wrong. You can't blame us for that. You haul any of us in, everybody in the locker room's going to cover for you. That's the rules. That's the code. Fake is as deliberate as anything else we do. Fake is everything we need it to be.
So everyone's going to say that it was fake, what I did to that kid. I didn't clean my hands. I wanted everybody to see what I took from him. Had to make an example. Most of all, most of all I wanted the man who dealt the cards in Toronto to see everything. Because he had to know who was in charge. He had to know I was the only one pulling my strings. Everything I did to that kid, I did because I wanted it. Not him. He might have sold the tickets, but it's my show.
I live in the basement. Fear of heights.
I wonder an awful lot about the folks who aren't in the business who live in that building. If they know the kind of people who live in the apartment across from them. I realized real young what kind of business we worked in. The fans never give it much thought. Two guys fight. Someone wins. After all, the guy's only down for three seconds. How bad could it be? Truth is, you're not normally knocked out those three seconds. You've just had such an asskicking on you that you can't get your body to move no matter how bad you need it to. Torture. Every time we go out there. Believe me folks, no matter how nice your favorite looks we're a little fucked up to do that to somebody else.
I'm the perfect guy to run into everyday scumbags. Because I'm an exceptional sort of scumbag. I hear those choke, this gurgle and a yelp that can't quite get free of a forcibly closed throat. I just have to go take a look. So I take an extra turn past the stairs and I'm standing in the hall. There's the scene that burns itself into my brain forever. Alyssa's small. She's this tiny ball of fear, wide eyed behind a mop of brown hair. There's the bottom of sneaker pressed against her throat, she's slapping at the gorilla's leg who's got her pinned down but he isn't moving. I walk down the hall and pull my coat out. Maybe she thinks I'm coming to save her. But I don't know she's worth it yet.
“Walk away.” The Gorilla gives me an order. Maybe the name doesn't fit. He's all lean, wiry muscle. More swimmer or soccer player than fighter. And that ugly, black thing rises in my belly at the temerity of this guy giving me an order. I keep walking toward him and he takes his boot off her. She gags, and gasps. I see the thing I want to see in her eyes as The Gorilla issues another order I don't give a good goddamn about.
She's up a second later. She's small, she's slight, but she might as well by a goddamn grizzly bear by the way she goes at him. I gave her the second she needed and she explodes up off the floor. Alyssa doesn't know what she's doing, but she throws headbutts and punches. Once or twice I think I see her shoot for a bite. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The purest expression of emotion I've ever seen. It wasn't going to stop because she waited for it to stop, it was going to stop because Fuck You, I'm Making It Stop. Nothing prettier in the whole world than that.
The Gorilla puts his palm over her face and throws everything into it. She spins on her heel and her face smacks into the wall. That ugly black thing boils up so hard I'm not even thinking when I surge forward and hammer my elbow into his face. Because who's he to shut her down? Who's he to suck all that out of her? You don't get to put a person's fire out unless they damn well deserve it, and I wanted to see this girl burn. So did I hit him too much? Define too much. I hit him enough to scare him, and to scare her. By the time it was over there was no way staying in that building in Toronto would be an option.
I turn and look at her. She's crawling back in a sort of crab walk, eyes wide again on the blood on my hand.
“Kid, if you're going to run you might as well run with me.”
She did.
*~*~*~*~*
“It's time.”
Kincaid opened his eyes. He was sitting backstage on a bench, waiting for his time to go out there and get his shots in on Desmond Knight. He rolled his neck back and forth. Something in it ground and cracked. Old parts against old parts. Scar tissue and bone chips. He didn't move right away. He folded his arms across his chest and stared grimly at the wall ahead of him.
Alyssa walked over and dropped to her knees in front of him. He looked at her. At the eyes, the same eyes he'd seen all those years ago in that hall in Toronto. The fear had long since faded. Now, she looked at him with steely confidence. His gut was doing flips. But she believed in him more than he did. With her, there was nothing he couldn't do.
“You win this and you've got to be back in the title picture.” She said softly, taking his hands “And I know I keep saying it. But you should remember it. Because if you win that belt, everything else opens up to you. This is honest. This a hundred percent you getting a shot because you EARNED it. You go out there, you beat him and you come back here proudly.”
He knew why she'd asked for the separation and he knew why they were still working out the terms of an ongoing divorce. She'd been a soldier in his war to make wrestling what he thought it should be. She'd gotten hurt. She'd seen her friends suffer, often at his hands when he thought they weren't committed enough. And even if he told her a thousand times that he'd changed it wouldn't matter. You couldn't wash away that many memories. She wanted to get clean, and he wouldn't hold it against her for having to do that without him. He was a terrible husband, but he could be a good client. He could be the best wrestler she could manage. She deserved to manage a champion.
He pulled himself up and walked past her, heading for the door. She offered some final encouragement “It's wrestling. It's a title shot. Just remember what you're fighting for out there.”
He did.