Post by Kincaid on Jul 2, 2016 19:28:02 GMT -6
It was, by his math, about six feet from the base of the RCMP officers chair to the door out of the interview room. “Interview Room” was a laugh. This was an interrogation room, no matter what the tarnished looking gold plate on the other side of the door said. Kincaid wanted to be anywhere else. He gave serious thought to making a run for it. The officer - Constable Wilton - sensed it. Every time Alex stirred in his chair, his looked near to salivating about him making a run for it. But he didn’t. He answered the questions, and he fidgeted uncomfortably and hoped it would be over soon.
“I want you to go over this with me one more time.” Wilton said “You woke up and you heard the fire?”
“I heard the horses. Scared to death. They were trying to get out, but they couldn’t. So they started screaming.”
He scribbled something on a notebook. Kincaid watched the strokes of his pen. There were no gaps. The strokes were long and certain. That meant cursive. He couldn’t help but pick that up - a product of the constant flood of information his brain took in - but he couldn’t figure out exactly what the words were. His lip twitched, and he did his best to hide his irritation with himself. Wilton must have noticed it. But he didn’t write anything else.
“Do horses scream?” Wilton asked.
“Yes.”
More writing.
“So you went outside and you got the horses out.” Wilton said “When you got out there, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“None of it was ordinary.”
“That’s not exactly what I mean. I met your wife earlier. She told me she didn’t have much of a recollection about what happened in the fire. But she says you wouldn’t forget any of it. She was...very firm about that point.”
He did remember it. The smell and the sounds and the horror of it all. This time though, he managed to keep it off his face “She’s wrong. It’s all a blur. I didn’t really see anything. I was focused on trying to get the animals out. And then catching them when they ran into the woods.”
“It’s been nearly a month. Did you ever end up getting them back?”
Kincaid shrugged “I did. But they aren’t the same. They’re shook. Frightened all the time. Alyssa spends as much time with them as she can. I think she hopes she can get through to them. I’m not sure it will work. It might have been more humane to…”
He trailed off. Wilton nodded, but didn’t pursue the matter further. Both men sat there in silence for a moment, with the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. It was Kincaid who broke the silence after nearly a minute “I don’t understand why we’re having this interview. I’ve told you everything I know. About the fire. About everything. It’s been a month.”
“It has. And to be honest, at this point, we’ve exhausted all possible directions of inquiry. But one thing I can tell you is we aren’t suspecting foul play. And that means I think you need to reexamine the incident. Think about what you saw. Think about if there’s anything that could have-”
“You’re not considering foul play?” Kincaid said “Do you think lightning struck my barn, constable?”
“I don’t remember offering a theory.”
Kincaid took a moment to collect himself. The officer gave him a smile. A fake, plastic looking thing that Alex realized hid a barely contained contempt. He hadn’t noticed it until now. He expected the officer might enjoy if he let his emotions get the best of him, and so he fought the developing edge in his tone “My job makes it easy to develop enemies. It’s expected. Accepted even, within our industry, for things to cross the line and become personal. It sells tickets.”
“Wrestling.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much about what you do, Alex.” Wilton said “I’ve never been a fan. But before I spoke to you, I asked . I heard you were thinking about retiring. It seems to me if this is true, if you did have enemies...it would have been smarter just to leave you alone. You would have taken care of yourself.”
“So you think I’m being paranoid.”
Constable Wilton considered his words, and then shrugged “I listen to this podcast...that’s like a radio show you can download on your phone, you know? Girlfriend loves ‘em. It’s this ghost story thing. And it’s got this doctor on it. Dr. Strand. And he’s not into any of the ghosts, or the mysteries or any of that. He calls what you’ve got going ‘Apophenia.’”
“Seeing meaningful patterns in unrelated data. The unmotivated seeing of connections.” Kincaid looked away “I’ve heard that before. That phrase. I know a doctor who calls it, uh, patternicity. You’re telling me I’m creating connections where there are none.”
“You’ve got one hell of a file. I looked it over before I called you. You’ve got a stretch of prior incidents, prior reports, going back to when you were a teenager. But no arrests. Not here anyway. So you were a troublemaker, but you managed to avoid actually getting in trouble. How does one pull that off?”
Alex smiled. This was familiar territory “Maybe I didn’t do anything. Maybe I just kept finding myself in bad situations.”
“I’m been doing this a while. And I don’t think anybody finds themselves in that many bad situations. Not without causing at least a little of it themselves.”
“Or maybe you’re giving in to your own apophenia. Maybe you want to see something in me that isn’t there. I know opinions of me don’t run very high in this town.”
“It isn’t like that.” Welton shook his head and pointed a finger at him, his voice gaining a bit of an edge “I know how people in Bearing treat you. I know more than a few people were happy to see that fire happen. Now I don’t care about your father, I don’t care about how your family ran this town when the mines were open and I don’t care that you don’t have time for any of these people. There’s not a damn thing illegal about being antisocial. Believe me, I would know. I think you’ve been treated unfairly. And I think because of that you see spooks. You see enemies everywhere.”
“You think that fire lit itself?”
“I think you recently rewired the lighting in that barn so you could feed the horses when it was still dark in the morning.” Welton reached under the desk and pulled a file folder out. He read through it. His lips moved when he read “Looks like you got a friend of yours to do most of the work. A Jacob Paulette. Now, I’m going to come down on you for licensing or not getting proper permits or any of that nonsense. There’s no point. You’ve been through enough. But I will suggest to you that there are things a professional might have seen and stopped. Things an amatuer wouldn’t.”
Kincaid’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing.
“The RCMP considers this matter closed, Mr. Kincaid. You should too. And you shouldn’t go looking to reopen it.”
“What?”
“Like I said, I’ve never been a fan. But I read about you. I researched. That company you work for has a lot of dangerous people. A lot of dangerous people, with a lot of money, who could do a whole lot of damage before this department could ever react to it. And even if we COULD react to it, by then the damage is done.”
“You’re telling me you think I’m going after the people I think have done this.” Alex said “And what? They’ll follow me home? They already followed me home. And yeah, you guys weren’t a ton of help.”
“A bad contractor followed you home. That’s all this is.”
“You’re wrong.”
Wilton frowned. He looked away from him and for a moment, Alex saw his own face in the officers expression “Do you know what the alternative is? Two people who hurt people for a living. Two dangerous people. In a stretch of country miles wide that I have to take care of virtually by myself. A lot of people might not understand what it is you do. But I understand some of it.”
“Some people are too close. They forget what we are. What we can do. But someone like you, with a little bit of distance? They get it.”
“Than you understand why I need you to let this die.”
“And I hope you understand why I can’t do that.”
The two men stared there at each other. Neither spoke. But there was a sort of understanding there. It was Kincaid who stood up first. The officer looked like he was going to say something to stop him at first, but then he nodded toward the door. Kincaid walked out without another word.
“I feel for Maxwell Soloke.”
The Visionaries of Wrestling camera finds Alex Kincaid at the edge of his property, standing at the fence and staring toward his home in the distance. He doesn’t look at the camera as he continues speaking.
“Twice we’ve seen him get close. Twice, Datura’s snatched it away from him instead. I know how that feels. Believe me, entire parts of my career were based on my perception that I could be something great if the fates kept conspiring against me. Always so close. Always so far away. There’s clearly talent there. Max has some of the most impressive timing I’ve ever seen. You look at that leg drop from Fate of the Gods or that absolutely pitch perfect Tornado DDT we saw at Breakthrough, you can tell this is someone who has more than just potential. This is someone who knows exactly what they need to be something special.”
Kincaid frowns and leans his arms over the fence. The sun is high in the sky, and for a moment he winces against it. There are miles and miles of peaceful country around him, but he’s in as much turmoil as he’s ever been.
“Part of what’s been so special about this place - part of the reason I can’t bring myself to walk away no matter how tempted I am - is that for the first time I feel like I’m surrounded with people I respect. So it pains me to look at someone like Maxwell and think that I’m not going to be able to give him the attention he deserves. It bothers me that when I think about this fight we’re going to have I don’t see it as an exciting chance to test myself against someone worthy. I see it as a step on a broader road. I see it as a must win not just because it’s worth winning, but because if I don’t I put myself at the worst of disadvantages for the struggle to come. I deserve better than that. Maxwell deserves better than that. But he’s not going to get it.”
A car drives by behind him and Kincaid stops speaking for a moment. He doesn’t turn to face it, but it’s clear he’s watching it out of the corner of his eye. He stays quiet for nearly a minute as it drives down the long stretch of highway and out of view.
“I’ve been called an animal before. People mean it as an insult when they say it. Sometimes it’s frustrated me. But for the most part, when I hear it, it doesn’t bother me. Animal knowledge is the best knowledge. It’s base. It’s simple. It’s undeniable. Living out here…you get a sense of how things really are. You see two moose out in the woods during the rut, and they’re in each others faces you know you’re going to see something. This giant creatures beating the daylights out of each other, either so they can get female attention or because they feel like the other one got in their way. It’s funny. You see that sort of behavior out at the bar and everyone is so quick to roll their eyes about it. Everyone is so quick to compare them to animals. Me? When I see that stuff I watch. Because it’s honest. It’s pure. Someone is going to leave with not just what they want, but what they need. You can’t change biology.
See, if the moose doesn’t do what he’s doing he doesn’t just head home with his set feeling blue. Who knows if it lasts another year? This is harsh land. A million things could happen. Every chance is the last chance. You don’t get to pass on what you are. You fade into the nothing. All because you didn’t win a fight that a bunch of better than it all people who have never had to truly push for anything would call foolish.”
He smiles the smile of a man who thinks he has secret knowledge. A man who thinks he’s figured out what everyone else has been missing.
“What happened at my home? That fire? They want me to believe it’s an accident Maxwell. They want me to believe that someone can make as many enemies as I’ve made, have something like that happen and have it just be a coincidence. I know better. I know this is about proving something. Something honest. Something pure. Something animal. Because the funny thing about animals - like me, and like the person who did this - is they can’t help but leave a bit of themselves behind. They can’t help but leave a mark. So I know that when I come back this time, it’s going to be to do what I do best. And where does that leave you?”
The smile slowly fades. He takes a few steps down the fenceline, toward his driveway, and waves for the camera to follow. When he speaks, he doesn’t sound very thrilled with what he’s saying.
“What happens if I lose to you? It’s always the weak, the sickly, that the wolves pick off first. So it’s the oldest story in the book. I need to prove myself strong. I need to prove myself capable. I need to show them that I’m more than ready for whatever they bring against me. Because the alternative is losing what I built. The alternative is that people go unpunished for ruining what could have been the end to my story. A happy ending, at that. I don’t tell people I’ll look past them. I don’t. But I am looking through you. To the path ahead. And I hate that about myself. Because you deserve better.
You don’t know me. But you’ve probably heard this speech before. You’ve probably been told a million times that you’re going to be cast aside in favor of something bigger, scarier, and more dangerous than you. And I bet every time you hear it it feels a little insulting. I’ve never heard that. You hear me? No one has ever given me that speech. Because the day I decided to walk into this industry, I put the fear into people. Because I’m like nothing you’ve ever faced. I’m someone born to do this. Bred to do this. Someone who does this not for the money, or the fame, or even because it makes him happy. But because I can’t do anything else. On your best night, in your absolute prime, I would be dangerous to you. But this...this won’t be your night. It can’t be.”
He starts heading down his driveway toward his home. The cameraman goes to follow and Kincaid stops. He turns and holds up a hand to stop the cameraman.
“The one bit of solace I can take in this is that I know you’ll come at me with everything you have. Because you’re in great company. Were I having this issue with Katie Moicelle, or with Zahara, or with any of the kids that make me so proud to be in this lockeroom I would be just as conflicted. And I would do the same thing to them that I know you’re going to force me to do to you. To beat the spirit before I beat the body. To bring such a battle to you that it’ll burn you deep in parts of yourself you’d forgotten about. To eat your heart, in front of the world, to make the forces that rally against me understand the cages they’ve rattled.
Thank you in advance Maxwell. You’ll be worth the price we pay.”
He nods to the camera on those last words and turns, heading down the long dirt road and away from the scene. The camera moves up to the brightly shining sun before it slowly fades...to...black….
“I want you to go over this with me one more time.” Wilton said “You woke up and you heard the fire?”
“I heard the horses. Scared to death. They were trying to get out, but they couldn’t. So they started screaming.”
He scribbled something on a notebook. Kincaid watched the strokes of his pen. There were no gaps. The strokes were long and certain. That meant cursive. He couldn’t help but pick that up - a product of the constant flood of information his brain took in - but he couldn’t figure out exactly what the words were. His lip twitched, and he did his best to hide his irritation with himself. Wilton must have noticed it. But he didn’t write anything else.
“Do horses scream?” Wilton asked.
“Yes.”
More writing.
“So you went outside and you got the horses out.” Wilton said “When you got out there, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“None of it was ordinary.”
“That’s not exactly what I mean. I met your wife earlier. She told me she didn’t have much of a recollection about what happened in the fire. But she says you wouldn’t forget any of it. She was...very firm about that point.”
He did remember it. The smell and the sounds and the horror of it all. This time though, he managed to keep it off his face “She’s wrong. It’s all a blur. I didn’t really see anything. I was focused on trying to get the animals out. And then catching them when they ran into the woods.”
“It’s been nearly a month. Did you ever end up getting them back?”
Kincaid shrugged “I did. But they aren’t the same. They’re shook. Frightened all the time. Alyssa spends as much time with them as she can. I think she hopes she can get through to them. I’m not sure it will work. It might have been more humane to…”
He trailed off. Wilton nodded, but didn’t pursue the matter further. Both men sat there in silence for a moment, with the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. It was Kincaid who broke the silence after nearly a minute “I don’t understand why we’re having this interview. I’ve told you everything I know. About the fire. About everything. It’s been a month.”
“It has. And to be honest, at this point, we’ve exhausted all possible directions of inquiry. But one thing I can tell you is we aren’t suspecting foul play. And that means I think you need to reexamine the incident. Think about what you saw. Think about if there’s anything that could have-”
“You’re not considering foul play?” Kincaid said “Do you think lightning struck my barn, constable?”
“I don’t remember offering a theory.”
Kincaid took a moment to collect himself. The officer gave him a smile. A fake, plastic looking thing that Alex realized hid a barely contained contempt. He hadn’t noticed it until now. He expected the officer might enjoy if he let his emotions get the best of him, and so he fought the developing edge in his tone “My job makes it easy to develop enemies. It’s expected. Accepted even, within our industry, for things to cross the line and become personal. It sells tickets.”
“Wrestling.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much about what you do, Alex.” Wilton said “I’ve never been a fan. But before I spoke to you, I asked . I heard you were thinking about retiring. It seems to me if this is true, if you did have enemies...it would have been smarter just to leave you alone. You would have taken care of yourself.”
“So you think I’m being paranoid.”
Constable Wilton considered his words, and then shrugged “I listen to this podcast...that’s like a radio show you can download on your phone, you know? Girlfriend loves ‘em. It’s this ghost story thing. And it’s got this doctor on it. Dr. Strand. And he’s not into any of the ghosts, or the mysteries or any of that. He calls what you’ve got going ‘Apophenia.’”
“Seeing meaningful patterns in unrelated data. The unmotivated seeing of connections.” Kincaid looked away “I’ve heard that before. That phrase. I know a doctor who calls it, uh, patternicity. You’re telling me I’m creating connections where there are none.”
“You’ve got one hell of a file. I looked it over before I called you. You’ve got a stretch of prior incidents, prior reports, going back to when you were a teenager. But no arrests. Not here anyway. So you were a troublemaker, but you managed to avoid actually getting in trouble. How does one pull that off?”
Alex smiled. This was familiar territory “Maybe I didn’t do anything. Maybe I just kept finding myself in bad situations.”
“I’m been doing this a while. And I don’t think anybody finds themselves in that many bad situations. Not without causing at least a little of it themselves.”
“Or maybe you’re giving in to your own apophenia. Maybe you want to see something in me that isn’t there. I know opinions of me don’t run very high in this town.”
“It isn’t like that.” Welton shook his head and pointed a finger at him, his voice gaining a bit of an edge “I know how people in Bearing treat you. I know more than a few people were happy to see that fire happen. Now I don’t care about your father, I don’t care about how your family ran this town when the mines were open and I don’t care that you don’t have time for any of these people. There’s not a damn thing illegal about being antisocial. Believe me, I would know. I think you’ve been treated unfairly. And I think because of that you see spooks. You see enemies everywhere.”
“You think that fire lit itself?”
“I think you recently rewired the lighting in that barn so you could feed the horses when it was still dark in the morning.” Welton reached under the desk and pulled a file folder out. He read through it. His lips moved when he read “Looks like you got a friend of yours to do most of the work. A Jacob Paulette. Now, I’m going to come down on you for licensing or not getting proper permits or any of that nonsense. There’s no point. You’ve been through enough. But I will suggest to you that there are things a professional might have seen and stopped. Things an amatuer wouldn’t.”
Kincaid’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing.
“The RCMP considers this matter closed, Mr. Kincaid. You should too. And you shouldn’t go looking to reopen it.”
“What?”
“Like I said, I’ve never been a fan. But I read about you. I researched. That company you work for has a lot of dangerous people. A lot of dangerous people, with a lot of money, who could do a whole lot of damage before this department could ever react to it. And even if we COULD react to it, by then the damage is done.”
“You’re telling me you think I’m going after the people I think have done this.” Alex said “And what? They’ll follow me home? They already followed me home. And yeah, you guys weren’t a ton of help.”
“A bad contractor followed you home. That’s all this is.”
“You’re wrong.”
Wilton frowned. He looked away from him and for a moment, Alex saw his own face in the officers expression “Do you know what the alternative is? Two people who hurt people for a living. Two dangerous people. In a stretch of country miles wide that I have to take care of virtually by myself. A lot of people might not understand what it is you do. But I understand some of it.”
“Some people are too close. They forget what we are. What we can do. But someone like you, with a little bit of distance? They get it.”
“Than you understand why I need you to let this die.”
“And I hope you understand why I can’t do that.”
The two men stared there at each other. Neither spoke. But there was a sort of understanding there. It was Kincaid who stood up first. The officer looked like he was going to say something to stop him at first, but then he nodded toward the door. Kincaid walked out without another word.
*~*~*~*~*
“I feel for Maxwell Soloke.”
The Visionaries of Wrestling camera finds Alex Kincaid at the edge of his property, standing at the fence and staring toward his home in the distance. He doesn’t look at the camera as he continues speaking.
“Twice we’ve seen him get close. Twice, Datura’s snatched it away from him instead. I know how that feels. Believe me, entire parts of my career were based on my perception that I could be something great if the fates kept conspiring against me. Always so close. Always so far away. There’s clearly talent there. Max has some of the most impressive timing I’ve ever seen. You look at that leg drop from Fate of the Gods or that absolutely pitch perfect Tornado DDT we saw at Breakthrough, you can tell this is someone who has more than just potential. This is someone who knows exactly what they need to be something special.”
Kincaid frowns and leans his arms over the fence. The sun is high in the sky, and for a moment he winces against it. There are miles and miles of peaceful country around him, but he’s in as much turmoil as he’s ever been.
“Part of what’s been so special about this place - part of the reason I can’t bring myself to walk away no matter how tempted I am - is that for the first time I feel like I’m surrounded with people I respect. So it pains me to look at someone like Maxwell and think that I’m not going to be able to give him the attention he deserves. It bothers me that when I think about this fight we’re going to have I don’t see it as an exciting chance to test myself against someone worthy. I see it as a step on a broader road. I see it as a must win not just because it’s worth winning, but because if I don’t I put myself at the worst of disadvantages for the struggle to come. I deserve better than that. Maxwell deserves better than that. But he’s not going to get it.”
A car drives by behind him and Kincaid stops speaking for a moment. He doesn’t turn to face it, but it’s clear he’s watching it out of the corner of his eye. He stays quiet for nearly a minute as it drives down the long stretch of highway and out of view.
“I’ve been called an animal before. People mean it as an insult when they say it. Sometimes it’s frustrated me. But for the most part, when I hear it, it doesn’t bother me. Animal knowledge is the best knowledge. It’s base. It’s simple. It’s undeniable. Living out here…you get a sense of how things really are. You see two moose out in the woods during the rut, and they’re in each others faces you know you’re going to see something. This giant creatures beating the daylights out of each other, either so they can get female attention or because they feel like the other one got in their way. It’s funny. You see that sort of behavior out at the bar and everyone is so quick to roll their eyes about it. Everyone is so quick to compare them to animals. Me? When I see that stuff I watch. Because it’s honest. It’s pure. Someone is going to leave with not just what they want, but what they need. You can’t change biology.
See, if the moose doesn’t do what he’s doing he doesn’t just head home with his set feeling blue. Who knows if it lasts another year? This is harsh land. A million things could happen. Every chance is the last chance. You don’t get to pass on what you are. You fade into the nothing. All because you didn’t win a fight that a bunch of better than it all people who have never had to truly push for anything would call foolish.”
He smiles the smile of a man who thinks he has secret knowledge. A man who thinks he’s figured out what everyone else has been missing.
“What happened at my home? That fire? They want me to believe it’s an accident Maxwell. They want me to believe that someone can make as many enemies as I’ve made, have something like that happen and have it just be a coincidence. I know better. I know this is about proving something. Something honest. Something pure. Something animal. Because the funny thing about animals - like me, and like the person who did this - is they can’t help but leave a bit of themselves behind. They can’t help but leave a mark. So I know that when I come back this time, it’s going to be to do what I do best. And where does that leave you?”
The smile slowly fades. He takes a few steps down the fenceline, toward his driveway, and waves for the camera to follow. When he speaks, he doesn’t sound very thrilled with what he’s saying.
“What happens if I lose to you? It’s always the weak, the sickly, that the wolves pick off first. So it’s the oldest story in the book. I need to prove myself strong. I need to prove myself capable. I need to show them that I’m more than ready for whatever they bring against me. Because the alternative is losing what I built. The alternative is that people go unpunished for ruining what could have been the end to my story. A happy ending, at that. I don’t tell people I’ll look past them. I don’t. But I am looking through you. To the path ahead. And I hate that about myself. Because you deserve better.
You don’t know me. But you’ve probably heard this speech before. You’ve probably been told a million times that you’re going to be cast aside in favor of something bigger, scarier, and more dangerous than you. And I bet every time you hear it it feels a little insulting. I’ve never heard that. You hear me? No one has ever given me that speech. Because the day I decided to walk into this industry, I put the fear into people. Because I’m like nothing you’ve ever faced. I’m someone born to do this. Bred to do this. Someone who does this not for the money, or the fame, or even because it makes him happy. But because I can’t do anything else. On your best night, in your absolute prime, I would be dangerous to you. But this...this won’t be your night. It can’t be.”
He starts heading down his driveway toward his home. The cameraman goes to follow and Kincaid stops. He turns and holds up a hand to stop the cameraman.
“The one bit of solace I can take in this is that I know you’ll come at me with everything you have. Because you’re in great company. Were I having this issue with Katie Moicelle, or with Zahara, or with any of the kids that make me so proud to be in this lockeroom I would be just as conflicted. And I would do the same thing to them that I know you’re going to force me to do to you. To beat the spirit before I beat the body. To bring such a battle to you that it’ll burn you deep in parts of yourself you’d forgotten about. To eat your heart, in front of the world, to make the forces that rally against me understand the cages they’ve rattled.
Thank you in advance Maxwell. You’ll be worth the price we pay.”
He nods to the camera on those last words and turns, heading down the long dirt road and away from the scene. The camera moves up to the brightly shining sun before it slowly fades...to...black….