“You’re no daisy at all” - Doc Holiday, Tombstone
{Baltimore, MD - Carnage Arena - Post Show - “Reflection”}
The smell of the blood, the sweat, and the beer were still very strong in my sense of smell. It was another tag team loss but you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried. Just a few hours previous, Amber had accepted my proposal of marriage. I guess there are days that even if you lose, sometimes you win. I can’t help but laugh a little as I scrub the dampness from my hair. I was fresh from the shower and still hadn’t dressed yet. One towel around my waist and another in my hand to dry my hair. I sit down on the folding chair.
“Funny how things happen sometimes. I shouldn’t be this happy after a loss but there are more important things in life.”
I set the towel aside as I hear the vibration of my phone emanating from the general direction of my gym bag. I look down and it’s from the Carnage booking team.
Carnage #103
Mac Bane and Amber Ryan
Vs.
“Godly” Ken Davison and Alex Winter
“Two birds, one stone. I’ll take that all day, every day.”
I quip to myself, as I confirm the message with booking. I lean back and smile.
“Today has been a banner day. I paid that little shit back for his attack on Amber and now I get him and Ken in the ring? Red agreed to marry me...I must be living right or something.”
I lace my fingers behind my head and smile a little, allowing my mind to relax for the first time in a long time. My mind traveled back in time as I leaned forward and looked at the “Suicidal Saints” tattoo on my right forearm. My brothers in arms then were Ken and Myke. We always swore that we were brothers to the bone. Wrapping my mind around the things that Ken had done here in Carnage was difficult for me right now.
“Doesn’t matter why he did what he did. I’m going to straighten his ass out like a piece of god damned wire. As for little Alex Winter, well his nightmare will continue. He’s not capable of fighting a war on this many fronts.”
Fade
{Baltimore, MD - Bane’s House - “In-Studio Part 1”}
I walked into the recording studio, which used to be a den. I really liked this house, it was large, right around twenty-six hundred square feet. This room though was becoming one of my favorites. This was a part of the job that I enjoyed. Talking to the legion, they always give great feedback on my promos. Things they liked and didn’t like. The flood of emails that had come in when they found out who Amber and I were facing was hilarious. Some of the artwork showing Alex impaled on a very long sword, now that made me giggle.
“Well Legion, a long-overdue match. Red and I have a match with Alex Winter and Ken Davison. Now then, Alex is one of those people in this business that I take great pleasure in dismantling in the ring. He believes with every ounce of whatever serves as a soul that he is better than everyone else on the roster.”
Smirking at the camera, I stand up, albeit a bit slow considering the beating I had received from Mitch and the Rat.
“How did that feel, Alex, to be so soundly defeated by our great Baltimore City Champion? More importantly, how’s the knee holding up? How did it feel to be outsmarted, and outgunned by some dumb cowpoke as Matt likes to refer to me.”
My smirk changes to a genuine smile as I continue.
“Oh, you know, I’m just some dumb redneck who doesn’t know how to wrestle right?
Right
The one thing that was true that Ken said to you recently. You’re getting a chance to step into the ring with greatness.”
I bark a laugh but then allow that amusement to slide away.
“Too bad it’s not your tag team partner. The greatness you’re stepping into the ring with is Amber fucking Ryan. When I told you I was going to end you, you had better take that shit deadly serious. But how can you, how can I expect a dime store version of Ken Davison to understand what’s happening around him.”
I shake my head in disgust.
“From the scarf to the I’m simply better than you. Did you go back and watch UCWA re-runs? That screams of the old “Godly” Ken Davison schtick. The only problem is, he was good at it. You’re simply not good at anything, outside of losing matches.”
I harden my gaze towards the camera.
“I hope you take this personally, kid, I hope you come to fight. I hope you bring an additional back up and a fucking lunch. You’re going to need all of it to stop the pain that’s coming your way. You hurt one of mine and I’ll put one of yours in the ground son. Ask your tag team partner about my reputation, about my track record. I know you’re not fearful of consequences Alex, that’s great, that means you won’t run. Make no mistake about it kiddo, I’m gonna straight fuck your shit up.”
Fade.
{Baltimore MD, Bane’s House - “God Damnit Jack!”}
I almost choked on the hot coffee I was drinking as the tweet from Jack came across. I hurriedly put the coffee cup down and read it again….I continued to stare at it incredulously, I was so dumbfounded I read it out loud.”
“What a great win for Mac and me!”
I look at it again….
“Unfucking believable….No, Jack, we lost that match…”
The rest of it was just as dumbfounding.
“On the road now with my beautiful wife to the mid-south coliseum for a Friday at 7 PM bell time to defend the world title against the charismatic star for EWE.”
I scratched my head and sighed. So, in a series of tweets, I let him know that first and foremost we got beat. His wife had been dead for several years and the coliseum had been demoed years ago.
“Goddammit, Jack.”
It’s all I could think of to say. I mean, we have to go find him, this is bad, really bad. I don’t know if it’s early dementia or something else. I pick up my phone once again, I call Amber but there’s no answer. Jack is also not responding to Twitter. I leave her a message.
“Hey Sweetheart, it’s about Jack...I’m not sure what’s going on with him.”
I don’t have to wait very long before a text comes through.
“I’m on it.”
That was all that she said. In the meantime, I would continue to try and call him and raise him any way I could. Once I made sure he was okay, he and I would have a long discussion. That is if his daughters didn’t kill him first.
“Jack, I’m going to pray you to survive the conversation with those two. The only way you don’t end up seriously hurt or dead is divine intervention.”
Fade
{Baltimore MD - In Studio Part 2]
Before I begin the second session and easily the more important of the two. I stand near the projector and turn it on. On the wall is the “Suicide Saints”, it was our last run together in “Alpha”. Myke, Ken, and myself. I allow a long sigh to escape me and then begin…
“Not so long ago, there were three men who ran the roads together. We are or were as the case may be, “Brothers to the Bone”. Many who are watching this or listening to my voice right now, have no idea what that truly means. Those two men are men I would take a bullet for. They still are, even though I owe one of them a receipt right now.”
Feeling disgusted I turn the projector back off. My back to the camera, I continue to speak.
“Ken Davison, he was always my friend, my brother from another mother. Then one day, my brother tried to take something away from me. He tried to take my tag team partner and fiance, Amber Ryan, away from me. A shot to the base of the skull with brass knuckles.”
I turn back around, my gaze hard, and my jaw set.
“A lot of people have wondered why I didn’t seek out immediate retribution. Why I didn’t take matters into my own hands. The answer is more simple than you might imagine. Amber asked me not to. See people like Alex Winter don’t get it. She can take care of herself. She doesn’t need me to come riding in like the calvary in some old John Wayne movie. When I called you out on it Ken, all you could say was that it wasn’t anything that Amber wouldn’t have done.”
I exhale slowly, keeping my gaze steady and trying my best not to allow my voice to crack.
“That was the single most…cowardly answer I’ve ever heard you give. It doesn’t matter what Amber would or wouldn’t do. You took the low road when you didn’t have to, Ken. You tried to take her out, to soften her up when you simply didn’t have to. To throw away almost two decades of friendship for fourteen pounds of gold? Damn sure not the guy I remember. Sure as fuck ain’t the guy who I called brother for almost two decades. Yes, I’m repeating that word decades for fucking emphasis.”
I can feel my pulse racing, and I know I’m turning red in the face as I continue, but I simply do not care.
“I gave you fair warning about what comes next, not that I had to because you already know. I know that either preparing for this match or another one down the road that you’ll throw out there that the last time we faced each other you put me through a table. The thing you won’t talk about though is the fact…”
I pause there and allow my gaze to soften and a smile to cross my face.
“Ten years ago.”
I hold up two fingers.
“I had been a world champion there twice.”
I allow one of the fingers to drop, leaving only the middle one.
“We were two very different people. You wanna keep living on that memory, go right the fuck ahead. My mind is on the present and paying people what they’re owed. The receipt I owe you, not only for Amber or Jack but for myself. You threw away our relationship as brothers for a gold strap. This match though, it’s a tag team match, not a one on one encounter.”
I look back at the picture of Amber and me together one last time.
“Amber and I are a team in every sense of the word. We’ve been in the ring as a team on more than one occasion. You boys already have a division that can’t be overcome. Watching the two of you interact is like watching an Austin Powers movie. Dr. Evil and mini-me are trying his best to be Dr. Evil. It’s a fucking comedy at best and pathetic at it’s worst. Amber and I have everything we need to be successful in this match. We have each other, and a trust that can’t be broken. Certainly not by the likes of you two.
I pause for a moment allowing my expression to soften once again.
“It seems that the industry at large has forgotten who I am.
What I’m capable of.
Alex, you got a super small dose of that. Your partner in this match knows me very well. It’s time for him to learn something new as well.
We are not the same.
So, Alex while you are pretending to be GKD from ten years ago, remember this. If I go back to being that guy. Should I chose to flip that switch, there won’t be anything left of either of you but a fucking greasy spot on the mat where you used to be.”
As I turn off the camera, I see a message from Amber. She’s on her way to Memphis, cussing and grabbing my overnight bag. I sent her a message back saying I’d meet her at the hotel.
“Don’t wait up? She has got to be kidding.”
Fade
