Post by Gib on May 1, 2010 13:45:12 GMT -6
(Gib sits on a couch with a remote control in his hand. On the television is a tape of Will Washington wrestling in singles competitions. On the table in front of him is the crumbled up letter we saw previously. There is a knock at the door and without looking Gib yells for the person to enter. When the camera pans over we see Adam Knite walking in the room he makes a line for the fridge grabbing a couple beers and then walks to the couch sitting next to Gib)
Adam: What’s up champ?
Gib: Not much, just trying to get ready.
Adam: Yeah, you suck at being the champion.
Gib: Tell me about it, I have these amazing rises to the top that take
years, and they when I get there things fall apart. I was a tag champ for a month, xtreme champ for a month, national champ for a month. I need to put some legs on this run, or I won’t be remembered for being anything but a joke.
Adam: Dude, you are no joke. No one will think that.
Gib: Please, I know people don’t take this seriously, that I am not top talent. I don’t know what I have to do around here to get people to realize that I am serious about this.
Adam: It just took time, you are respected now.
Gib: Yeah, we’ll see.
(Adam, notices the piece of crumbled paper on the top and instinctively reaches for it. Gib reaches out grabbing the paper and pulling it from his hand quickly)
Adam: Dude, what the hell man.
Gib: Sorry man, that’s something private.
Adam: Well, what is it?
Gib: Well, I was cleaning out a storage place of mine the other day, when I was moving into this joint and I found this letter in the bottom of an desk drawer in my storage unit. I found it and read it, and it brought back some skeletons that are in my closet, a great mistake that I made.
Adam: You gotta tell me dude, I need to know that there is extensive drama in the lives of other people.
Gib: Ok, here we go. Twenty years ago, I had a one night stand with this hot chick on the road. I mean, she was a mink. We had a good time, you know like most nights on the road…
Adam: Wait a second, you mean you were screwing around on Sophia?
Gib: No, remember I didn’t even know Xander was my son until he was four, that was when Sophia called me and told me, this was between the time I knocked up Sophia and her later contacting me.
Adam: So, what is this letter about?
Gib: Well, this woman sent me this letter explaining to me that she was pregnant, was sure the child was mine but she was married. She didn’t want to give her family up. She already had a child with this dude, called me a mistake that she regrets and that she doesn’t want me to ever talk to her or mention this again.
Adam: Holy crap dude, so there is a little Gibbolina running around out there?
Gib: Yeah, well I don’t know how little she would be but yeah, I have a daughter somewhere, I have a daughter and I am trying to decide whether or not I should find her.
Adam: Have you ever heard of a condom dude?
Gib: Do I look like a sailor?
(The two share a laugh, but it is brief before Gib stops, lowering his head)
Adam: What is really bothering you about this?
Gib: Ok, so I have these two kids. One I finally have close to me, and one that is who knows where and the thing that is really getting to me, the thing that is keeping me awake at night is what I have missed. I never held either of my children when they were born, I didn’t know either of my children existed, I have a twenty year old daughter somewhere that doesn’t even know that I am walking on this planet.
Adam: Are you going to look for her?
Gib: I don’t know. I am not the best father in the world, but you gotta promise me something here. When your child is born, when you have that little baby you make sure that you hold it, you make sure you don’t waste the time that I wasted. If you do, you will live in regret forever.
Adam: Yeah man, of course. And if you promise that you won’t drop my child, I might even let you feel what it
Gib: Can’t be any different then lifting your scrawny carcass in the
air.
(Adam punches Gib in the arm and the two laugh, Adam finally says)
Adam: You should find her dude, you should look for your daughter.
Gib: I know but there are so many problems so many regrets. What if I enter this person’s life and she needed me and I wasn’t there, what if she hates me?
Adam: What if she love you?
(Gib is silent.)
Gib: Thanks man.
(He finally opens his beer that Adam brought him and takes a pull as the scene fades)
Will, you did it. You hit the nail on the head with your scathing and amazingly original psychological review of the inner workings of my mind and parenting skills. I thought I was in the running for parent of the millennium and here you are, striking out my chances with something original…
Or maybe not.
I expected more of you young William, I expected something that resembled coherent cutting edge talk and instead I received another
recycled version of the psychoanalysis that I have heard from all my
opponents in the past month. Let’s go over this, Gib is a bad Dad, Gib is old, Gib is tired, I will beat Gib. That sums it up, and go ahead
and look at what everyone has said, and look at the promises they made and then look at the biggest bit of proof, look at the crowning
achievement that sits around my waist.
Despite the constant reminders that I suck as a parent, that I am old
and that I am washed up I still pound my opponents out, I still put them to bed without their supper so, continue Will, pull yourself out of that hole again and recycle your musings about who I am as a character.
But before you do look at the situation again last week, you were
standing across from me with that crazed shell-shocked look in your eye holding a chair, you motioned to my title and I should have understood that you weren’t going to hit me with the chair next, you know that is the obvious reaction a person is going to have when a man shows up in the dark wielding a weapon and points at a possession of mine that he covets is of course to not get defensive.
Use your head man, use it. I know it is up there, because it bobs back and forth when you walk. I want you to do those things that you have promised for months, I want you to seize the day and take this title. I want my retirement to mean something; I don’t want some painted face mutant to be able to be the reason that I hung my boots up and to be honest up until this week I wouldn’t have cared if you had the honor of retiring me.
But after your actions and subsequent verbal diatribe resembling the
linguistic sophistication of a four year old whose parents are ignoring
him really makes me want to keep wrestling. You can down talk the 80’s wrestling scene all you want and pretend that the same stuff doesn’t happen today, that after our matches we don’t get together and have a couple beers or violate a couple wellness policies but that is just because you are a rookie here. You have no idea and don’t realize these things exist because you have been too busy sucking ass in the front office to pay attention to the boys in the back.
So Will, I hope you have more to bring to the table, it is time to look
at your flaws, it is time to realize that you were pulled into something that you so aren’t ready for, when it comes to Angel and I, this has gotten personal.
I know you think that Angel is some easy prey that can be taken apart with a single chair shot, but that once again shows your naivety. If you think that he is done with you, you are wrong. If by some chance the planets align and Angel and I have heart attacks and you win the world title, he is going to come after you, hard. And you will realize that he is too much for you, he might even be too much for me and believe it or not, I am not as new as you are at this thing. I have faced the biggest monsters and the nastiest victims in the wrestling world and yet Angel could be the most cerebrally gifted. And no offense, but if recycling things you saw is the best you have, then I daresay you shouldn’t bother showing up Sunday night, because things could very well get ugly, they could turn nasty and being in between the two most dominant wrestlers this company has had in the past year.
You aren’t ready. And knowing that is the biggest chance you have to walk out of here with the surprise victory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honesty is an amazing thing isn’t it Angel? It feels good getting the
truth out, and although I am not always completely one hundred percent truthful I consider myself an honest man. I never claimed that I would do something that I didn’t plan on doing. If you had legitimately hurt my son I would have done everything in my power to cripple you. All you did is rough him up a little bit, make an example of him and it would be hypocritical of me to get overtly angry at something like that.
I have done far worse to other people.
So Angel, imagine my surprise that after all the past two months for you to say something to me that was flattering, I could barely contain my excitement and tittered like a schoolgirl for all of thirty four seconds. Angel this has gone far enough, it is time to finish this one way or another. I feel, for the first time that we agree on something, the fact that Will Washington is screwed this weekend, we agree that the other person is the only person that deserves the world title.
I have never talked down your skills Angel, I have never said that I am not understanding of just how capable you are in the ring. I do see a man that is near flawless, I do see a man that has not only accepted but seemingly enjoyed the beatings that I have given him only to come back and fight more.
You talk about the others here that could defeat me, that could send me on my way and you know what? I do think you are the most capable of sending me on my way, because whereas Falcon and Knite have some respect for me and may not pull the trigger knowing that my final match lies in their hands but you, you are ruthless and if you are the man that ends my career, my storied thirty plus year career I know that you will wear that badge on your shoulder.
And I know that you will wear it with pride, and that is what I want. I want someone to flaunt the fact that they beat me, that they sent me on my way because when I was a kid, when I was trying to establish myself the stars of yesteryear gave me the rub, and that is what I am doing. Waiting to give someone the rub Angel, and maybe, just maybe after your honesty this week I won’t feel completely upset giving the rub to you. At this point I have no more hate for you, I feel that I have burned all of that up over the past two months, and in the end, in retrospect I wonder why I wasted the energy over something as petty as a title belt.
The battle may be over Angel, but I have far from come up on the short end. I have had a feud that is the send off a champion deserves, and if I am able to make it through this weekend still the champion, if I have the strength and resolve to finish what I started when I pinned Jimmy Zane to the mat then I will move forward, if not I will understand that my time has passed.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that it is better to burn out then to fade away.
And Angel, I think the biggest problem I have had with you, and the biggest difficulty I have faced and maybe I am just realizing this right now is that fact that you don’t lie, you don’t say things you don’t plan to do you don’t make threats that you don’t plan to keep. And at the end of the day, if it is you that takes the torch from my hand, if it is indeed you that can do the deed that people have been talking about for the past two years then…
My head won’t sag…
I won’t be upset.
Because at the end of the day, you, not the character you play on television, not the face paint that you smear on your face, not the very real threats you make…
But you…
are deserving to be the man that ends me. And I think I have known that all along, I think that is why I wanted the title shot so bad, I think that is why I have pushed you so hard for so long…
Because you can, and have offered me something that I have needed.
Salvation.
(scene fades)
If this is really it, if this is really the last time that I will ever lace these boots up I will hold no regrets. When I embarked on the professional world of wrestling 30 years ago, when I was a mere nineteen year old baby, when Dusty Rhodes showed me the ropes in the Midwest, when Jerry Lawler busted my head open for the first time because I was a cocky punk I never thought that my career would have been what it is now. I never would have imagined that at the crowd would chant my name 30 years later, that at the age of forty nine I would still be at the pinnacle of this business.
Nothing left undone…
Nothing to be ashamed of…
No regrets…
But I will not go softly into my good death, I will not traverse the most hellacious three months of my life only to fall into the catacombs on the last path…
This time Angel, and Will…
Adam: What’s up champ?
Gib: Not much, just trying to get ready.
Adam: Yeah, you suck at being the champion.
Gib: Tell me about it, I have these amazing rises to the top that take
years, and they when I get there things fall apart. I was a tag champ for a month, xtreme champ for a month, national champ for a month. I need to put some legs on this run, or I won’t be remembered for being anything but a joke.
Adam: Dude, you are no joke. No one will think that.
Gib: Please, I know people don’t take this seriously, that I am not top talent. I don’t know what I have to do around here to get people to realize that I am serious about this.
Adam: It just took time, you are respected now.
Gib: Yeah, we’ll see.
(Adam, notices the piece of crumbled paper on the top and instinctively reaches for it. Gib reaches out grabbing the paper and pulling it from his hand quickly)
Adam: Dude, what the hell man.
Gib: Sorry man, that’s something private.
Adam: Well, what is it?
Gib: Well, I was cleaning out a storage place of mine the other day, when I was moving into this joint and I found this letter in the bottom of an desk drawer in my storage unit. I found it and read it, and it brought back some skeletons that are in my closet, a great mistake that I made.
Adam: You gotta tell me dude, I need to know that there is extensive drama in the lives of other people.
Gib: Ok, here we go. Twenty years ago, I had a one night stand with this hot chick on the road. I mean, she was a mink. We had a good time, you know like most nights on the road…
Adam: Wait a second, you mean you were screwing around on Sophia?
Gib: No, remember I didn’t even know Xander was my son until he was four, that was when Sophia called me and told me, this was between the time I knocked up Sophia and her later contacting me.
Adam: So, what is this letter about?
Gib: Well, this woman sent me this letter explaining to me that she was pregnant, was sure the child was mine but she was married. She didn’t want to give her family up. She already had a child with this dude, called me a mistake that she regrets and that she doesn’t want me to ever talk to her or mention this again.
Adam: Holy crap dude, so there is a little Gibbolina running around out there?
Gib: Yeah, well I don’t know how little she would be but yeah, I have a daughter somewhere, I have a daughter and I am trying to decide whether or not I should find her.
Adam: Have you ever heard of a condom dude?
Gib: Do I look like a sailor?
(The two share a laugh, but it is brief before Gib stops, lowering his head)
Adam: What is really bothering you about this?
Gib: Ok, so I have these two kids. One I finally have close to me, and one that is who knows where and the thing that is really getting to me, the thing that is keeping me awake at night is what I have missed. I never held either of my children when they were born, I didn’t know either of my children existed, I have a twenty year old daughter somewhere that doesn’t even know that I am walking on this planet.
Adam: Are you going to look for her?
Gib: I don’t know. I am not the best father in the world, but you gotta promise me something here. When your child is born, when you have that little baby you make sure that you hold it, you make sure you don’t waste the time that I wasted. If you do, you will live in regret forever.
Adam: Yeah man, of course. And if you promise that you won’t drop my child, I might even let you feel what it
Gib: Can’t be any different then lifting your scrawny carcass in the
air.
(Adam punches Gib in the arm and the two laugh, Adam finally says)
Adam: You should find her dude, you should look for your daughter.
Gib: I know but there are so many problems so many regrets. What if I enter this person’s life and she needed me and I wasn’t there, what if she hates me?
Adam: What if she love you?
(Gib is silent.)
Gib: Thanks man.
(He finally opens his beer that Adam brought him and takes a pull as the scene fades)
Will, you did it. You hit the nail on the head with your scathing and amazingly original psychological review of the inner workings of my mind and parenting skills. I thought I was in the running for parent of the millennium and here you are, striking out my chances with something original…
Or maybe not.
I expected more of you young William, I expected something that resembled coherent cutting edge talk and instead I received another
recycled version of the psychoanalysis that I have heard from all my
opponents in the past month. Let’s go over this, Gib is a bad Dad, Gib is old, Gib is tired, I will beat Gib. That sums it up, and go ahead
and look at what everyone has said, and look at the promises they made and then look at the biggest bit of proof, look at the crowning
achievement that sits around my waist.
Despite the constant reminders that I suck as a parent, that I am old
and that I am washed up I still pound my opponents out, I still put them to bed without their supper so, continue Will, pull yourself out of that hole again and recycle your musings about who I am as a character.
But before you do look at the situation again last week, you were
standing across from me with that crazed shell-shocked look in your eye holding a chair, you motioned to my title and I should have understood that you weren’t going to hit me with the chair next, you know that is the obvious reaction a person is going to have when a man shows up in the dark wielding a weapon and points at a possession of mine that he covets is of course to not get defensive.
Use your head man, use it. I know it is up there, because it bobs back and forth when you walk. I want you to do those things that you have promised for months, I want you to seize the day and take this title. I want my retirement to mean something; I don’t want some painted face mutant to be able to be the reason that I hung my boots up and to be honest up until this week I wouldn’t have cared if you had the honor of retiring me.
But after your actions and subsequent verbal diatribe resembling the
linguistic sophistication of a four year old whose parents are ignoring
him really makes me want to keep wrestling. You can down talk the 80’s wrestling scene all you want and pretend that the same stuff doesn’t happen today, that after our matches we don’t get together and have a couple beers or violate a couple wellness policies but that is just because you are a rookie here. You have no idea and don’t realize these things exist because you have been too busy sucking ass in the front office to pay attention to the boys in the back.
So Will, I hope you have more to bring to the table, it is time to look
at your flaws, it is time to realize that you were pulled into something that you so aren’t ready for, when it comes to Angel and I, this has gotten personal.
I know you think that Angel is some easy prey that can be taken apart with a single chair shot, but that once again shows your naivety. If you think that he is done with you, you are wrong. If by some chance the planets align and Angel and I have heart attacks and you win the world title, he is going to come after you, hard. And you will realize that he is too much for you, he might even be too much for me and believe it or not, I am not as new as you are at this thing. I have faced the biggest monsters and the nastiest victims in the wrestling world and yet Angel could be the most cerebrally gifted. And no offense, but if recycling things you saw is the best you have, then I daresay you shouldn’t bother showing up Sunday night, because things could very well get ugly, they could turn nasty and being in between the two most dominant wrestlers this company has had in the past year.
You aren’t ready. And knowing that is the biggest chance you have to walk out of here with the surprise victory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honesty is an amazing thing isn’t it Angel? It feels good getting the
truth out, and although I am not always completely one hundred percent truthful I consider myself an honest man. I never claimed that I would do something that I didn’t plan on doing. If you had legitimately hurt my son I would have done everything in my power to cripple you. All you did is rough him up a little bit, make an example of him and it would be hypocritical of me to get overtly angry at something like that.
I have done far worse to other people.
So Angel, imagine my surprise that after all the past two months for you to say something to me that was flattering, I could barely contain my excitement and tittered like a schoolgirl for all of thirty four seconds. Angel this has gone far enough, it is time to finish this one way or another. I feel, for the first time that we agree on something, the fact that Will Washington is screwed this weekend, we agree that the other person is the only person that deserves the world title.
I have never talked down your skills Angel, I have never said that I am not understanding of just how capable you are in the ring. I do see a man that is near flawless, I do see a man that has not only accepted but seemingly enjoyed the beatings that I have given him only to come back and fight more.
You talk about the others here that could defeat me, that could send me on my way and you know what? I do think you are the most capable of sending me on my way, because whereas Falcon and Knite have some respect for me and may not pull the trigger knowing that my final match lies in their hands but you, you are ruthless and if you are the man that ends my career, my storied thirty plus year career I know that you will wear that badge on your shoulder.
And I know that you will wear it with pride, and that is what I want. I want someone to flaunt the fact that they beat me, that they sent me on my way because when I was a kid, when I was trying to establish myself the stars of yesteryear gave me the rub, and that is what I am doing. Waiting to give someone the rub Angel, and maybe, just maybe after your honesty this week I won’t feel completely upset giving the rub to you. At this point I have no more hate for you, I feel that I have burned all of that up over the past two months, and in the end, in retrospect I wonder why I wasted the energy over something as petty as a title belt.
The battle may be over Angel, but I have far from come up on the short end. I have had a feud that is the send off a champion deserves, and if I am able to make it through this weekend still the champion, if I have the strength and resolve to finish what I started when I pinned Jimmy Zane to the mat then I will move forward, if not I will understand that my time has passed.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that it is better to burn out then to fade away.
And Angel, I think the biggest problem I have had with you, and the biggest difficulty I have faced and maybe I am just realizing this right now is that fact that you don’t lie, you don’t say things you don’t plan to do you don’t make threats that you don’t plan to keep. And at the end of the day, if it is you that takes the torch from my hand, if it is indeed you that can do the deed that people have been talking about for the past two years then…
My head won’t sag…
I won’t be upset.
Because at the end of the day, you, not the character you play on television, not the face paint that you smear on your face, not the very real threats you make…
But you…
are deserving to be the man that ends me. And I think I have known that all along, I think that is why I wanted the title shot so bad, I think that is why I have pushed you so hard for so long…
Because you can, and have offered me something that I have needed.
Salvation.
(scene fades)
If this is really it, if this is really the last time that I will ever lace these boots up I will hold no regrets. When I embarked on the professional world of wrestling 30 years ago, when I was a mere nineteen year old baby, when Dusty Rhodes showed me the ropes in the Midwest, when Jerry Lawler busted my head open for the first time because I was a cocky punk I never thought that my career would have been what it is now. I never would have imagined that at the crowd would chant my name 30 years later, that at the age of forty nine I would still be at the pinnacle of this business.
Nothing left undone…
Nothing to be ashamed of…
No regrets…
But I will not go softly into my good death, I will not traverse the most hellacious three months of my life only to fall into the catacombs on the last path…
This time Angel, and Will…
It will be I who will rise.