Post by "Mr. Showtime" Johnny Holliday on Nov 27, 2010 20:27:43 GMT -6
"No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow." - Euripides
You naive little bastard.
All this time. All this ego. All this trash-talking.
Where are you now?
"...nus rhythm.."
"Mr. Hollid-..."
So what happened? Where'd you end up?
Falling.
You fell all the way.
Way down into the trash – literally.
Did you wake up this morning and think this is where you'd end up?
No, you didn't.
"...lliday, can you hear me?"
So egotistical. He threw you off and you landed in an empty f*cking trash bin.
The fall alone could have killed you.
By all things considered, it SHOULD have killed you.
Yet, here you are.
So egotistical, you think you're above dying.
It's what you want, isn't it?
Now, you're the man who cheated death.
You're getting too big for your britches, Holliday. You're practically asking to be shot in the head.
I took a gigantic gasp of air and sat up. I felt like I was on fire. My chest raged in pain, and I yelled out loud, which caused the pain to surge through even more. I panted, trying to get air in my chest. I touched my chest, but it burned. Not to my hand, but my chest burned. Hands were pushing me back to lying down. I tried kicking, but four men held my legs.
I knew what to do.
I rotated my hips to try and throw them away, but the pain in my chest roared once more and I gave up, yelling in pain.
Ander Carvetti
"STAY THE F*CK DOWN!"
Ander...
I looked up, and he was one of the people holding my shoulders down. There wasn't that fierceness in his eyes...there wasn't the look of anger...it was as if I saw right into him – I saw what he was feeling.
For the first time in my life, I saw sadness in Ander Carvetti's eyes.
There were no tears, there was no redness in them...you'd miss it if you didn't know him. It was a combination of guilt, concern, and genuine relief.
Ander Carvetti
“...You almost f*cking died...dude...I...”
“...it's not that easy...”
I stopped the struggling and was let go by everyone. A doctor came over and delivered an injection of some sort of painkiller. As I was feeling the effects kick in, I slowly began to drift in my mind as I was hoisted onto a gurney, and the last thing I heard was Carvetti's voice:
“We'll get them.”
My eyes flashed open and I sat up in bed in a cold sweat. The pain shot through my ribs again, and I, by instinct, grabbed the unopened bottle of painkillers next to me.
No.
The pain began to subside, but it went to my shoulders. I gritted my teeth as I felt it travel. It wasn't pain anymore.
It was anger.
I threw the bottle across the room, and heard it connect with the wall and then the ground.
There was going to be no painkillers that enter this body.
Live off the pain.
Let it fuel the fire.
We'll get them soon.
- - -
"The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end." - Adlai E. Stevenson
You should have finished me off when you had the chance, Jones. Squashed the very threat and hammered the final nail into my coffin.
You didn't.
How's that feel? Two boys from California...still won't go away, pestering you and Angel. Every which way you turn, something about us pops up, and you know you can't help but think when we were going to attack.
Ah, the last thing you expected, though...was no retaliation at all. Instead, we waited.
You lot claim it was a message, taking a stand for all the people who 'built' this company.
When will you learn?
Without Ander Carvetti, there really would have been no Johnny Holliday.
The same applies in reverse.
Without Ander Carvetti and Johnny Holliday, this INDUSTRY would have crumbled a long time ago.
Someone once said controversy creates cash. We're not the ones making the controversy – we're the ones who are taking a stand for talent. If you're comprised of pure talent, you're entitled to swagger. You're entitled to a little bit of breathing room. Here, having talent and boasting about it from the get-go is a no-no. I guess in order to do that, you have to have a one-on-one session with Leonard Fox behind closed doors before you're given that opportunity.
So, when Ander and I threw up two certain fingers, one on each hand, to Leonard Fox after meeting him, I can see why we were labeled as pains-in-the-ass. Here, talent isn't what makes people. No, it's that fifteen minutes in the coatroom with Leonard Fox and you hide that semen-stained wrestling outfit of yours so nobody finds out what you actually did that makes you in nCw.
It's pathetic. Little by little, those who take a stand are shot down or written off as insane as if it's some sort of disease.
It can't be denied.
It's to the left, to the right, it's in the g*ddamned air that we breathe - put there within the last thirty years so we can trudge along claiming to be ill, trying to depend on each other for help, and when those that we depend on become as frail as us, we fall deeper into this gigantic sinkhole.
What you see as green trees and grass, sunshine, flowers, and f*cking rainbows...I see black and a burnt orange. It's the post-apocalyptic world already, and the lot of you are numbed. We're not in an agrarian society, feeding off crops...but we're numbed to what is actually going on around us - thinking there's a 'magic pill' for us all - where we've fallen into a utopia thinking that if we relax, take the pills, do what we're told, and breathe...everything will be alright.
This is not an utopia. We are stuck in a dystopic society. Since the 1940's, we've degraded into such a state where we're controlled in every shape and form, being TOLD that we're better off than at any time before. When was it in the past that people popped Xanax...or any benzodiazepine for that matter, whenever they had any moment of conflict? Did anyone at that time even CONSIDER depression as a mental condition?
Yes, but it was not as blown out of proportion as it is today. To be treated then, up until the 1950's, opioids were used to treat it. Then amphetamines until the mid-1960's.
Today, your heart raises just a little bit after a disagreement, and as soon as you rise above the position you were told to be in, you're taking pills like they're a bag of Skittles. If you fall out of the expectations society has in place...no, not even society, but what the higher classes have set and deemed as 'normal', there is something wrong with you. You question authority, and you're diseased. What do they feed you?
Benzodiazepine...so we suffer disinhibition, ataxia so we slur our speech and people lose interest because it seems we're out of our minds, anterograde amnesia...we can't create new memories of being controlled, and even suicidal ideation...the very thing the medical "healers" of this day and age think they are preventing. Antidepressants...SSRI's, SNRI's, NaSSA's...the list goes on and on and on. What do those bring on? Agitation. Headaches. A major increase in suicidal behavior. Heart attack, hepatities...stroke. Increased dopamine levels in the brain lead to increased sexual drive in people...we could be feeding fire to a future generation of rapists, but we think we're "helping".
We're all being forced to march down one solitary path with one end in sight.
Thymoanesthesia...the ultimate result. Emotional blunting.
Is this what we've strive to achieve in the hundreds of years of medicine? Feel nothing, experience nothing...be completely numb to the world, and once that's achieved, we feel as if we've done the world a civil duty? We've done no harm...we've actually created a barrier - a shell, a shield from everything that could POSSIBLY even be construed as an out-of-line thought, emotion, or even a rogue glance. We're drugged, they begin to put it in the air that we breathe, and we choose to follow every single order handed down to us like it was from a word of God.
God. Another word for 'fictional person that we've put blind faith in and put gentle blame onto when bad things happen'. We've created a scapegoat that set the morales of our society today...the policies and procedures of our governing bodies claim to be rooted from God, our morales...everything we do, one way or another, is put into the hands of God - as if we need this 'God' to hold our hand as we cross the streets.
Do we?
No. We look both ways.
When things go right? We can attest them to 'God'. When things go wrong...we try to analyze what WE did. What went wrong.
He gets all the credit, we take all the blame.
Am I an atheist? Of course not. I believe there is a God, but I do think the way society has headed down the sh*tter and this 'blind faith' one hundred percent of the time is absolute nonsense.
You don't dive off a cliff without a parachute hoping to float.
And yet....it came to pass that society was no more. Gone were the massive groups. Gone was the notion of 'revolution' - it was rewritten as a psychological disorder. An illness that had to be 'cured'.
That's what we were taught. We became part of a generation that attempted to cure youth revolutionaries with just a pill.
So, when Ander and I spat the pills out long ago and said 'deuces', we knew we'd have targets on our backs the size of motherf*cking Russia...no matter WHERE we went, it'd happen.
Go ahead. Ask.
I know what you're thinking.
Was I the one who 'secretly' attacked Alex Jones backstage?
Oh, I wish.
My whole life has never really been 'secret'.
Come on. Think about it. Me? Mr. Flash? Mr. Debonair? Mr. Charismatic Icon? Does that really fit my motif of being in the eye of the public?
No, not really.
The past month...
Where do I start? Where do I begin?
Should I start where Alex Jones threw me off the balcony and into an EMPTY trash can?
Yes. It was empty. I hit empty, hollow, unforgiving steel. Whether it was ten feet or twenty-five feet, I don't know. I'm not going to stand there with a f*cking tape measurer from the balcony right down to the point of impact where the steel is permanently stained with my blood. Why should I go and revisit that? I'm sure Angel's attempted to negate it and write it off like I'm playing it up like a big baby.
That's fine. Take the emotional stake out of it for a second. You know what it makes you out to be?
Scared. You're scared because your buddy did something drastic and still failed. You only delayed the inevitable in getting your f*cking teeth kicked down your throat.
Tell me, how did you feel that night?
You know what night I'm talking about.
The night I came out, down the ramp, I stood in the ring – I taunted, I said that I was still standing...I called Blood Ties out. I called out the 'mastermind'. I called out Leonard Fox.
...Speaking of – did that c*nt ever respond? I really haven't paid attention much. It doesn't really matter – Fox'll get his in due time.
That one time on television was really the only time I've been seen. I've spent most of the time seeing the doctor and doing whatever workout I can. Four broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, a black eye, a bruised kidney...and a sore left shoulder from being put back in its socket. Oh yeah, I'm sore as hell.
So...why not tell Ander? Why not tell Roxxxie how I'm feeling day-by-day?
Because it would throw off Ander's game.
That night I saw Ander's face, the look in his eyes, he was completely devoid of aggression. He honestly thought I was dead that night. If I told him my condition at this very moment, he'd throw himself off, want to call off the match for me, and go it alone. He'll put up a fight, but ultimately, he'll be sidelined with some sort of injury.
It'd be playing right into Blood Ties' hands. There's absolutely no way I'm letting that happen.
It doesn't take an idiot to know I'm banged up.
Have I ever just flat-out shrugged something off?
No, absolutely not. Not once. Pneumonia? F*ck that. Bronchitis? F*ck that too. Broken arm? Ibuprofen and put that sh*t in a plaster cast.
Pain is temporary – what you do is forever.
- - -
"The seed of revolution is repression." - Woodrow Wilson
Ah. And yet, here I am – looking out the window. The grey skies swirl around the New York sky...what's left of the leaves already are brushing themselves around the street. It's raining. It's icy. It's cold.
All of it is a metaphor for my life. The leaves are brushing the street – trying to cleanse the past away for the future, where everything will be green in just a few months time. To get to that point, though, I have to go through the bitter, unforgiving, icy cold.
With this cold comes the ridiculous pain. Every old injury aches. I'm looking out this window, and I feel it. I feel the elbow, it's dull ache. My left ankle, how it throbs. My knees, they pulsate with some sharp needle pains. And, the latest additions to the family, my shoulder and ribs ache. The shoulder's since healed itself, so it's not too bad, sans the occasional stiffness – it's the ribs that continually hurt – weather causation or not.
Broken bones don't heal in a month. That's just something that doesn't happen, and I've got to accept as a fact of life.
It was eating away at my soul. I wanted to pick up the phone, dial Ander...dial Ayako, and I wanted to tell them how I was holding up. 'Hey guys. I'm in pain, but I'll be there. Have I ever let you down?'
It'd never be that easy.
Not with Ander.
Not with Ayako.
We'd play 21 questions, which would turn to 400 questions, and eventually, everything would come spilling out.
No, I haven't taken a single pain pill they gave me. I've let the pain linger and manifest itself into anger as I lay in bed doing weights to keep the muscles limber. I let the pain turn into anger because that's what I needed. That adrenaline boost once I see the both of them will allow me to forget the fact that I'm part broken.
Why?
I'm the one feeling the pain now. Sunday will be something so much more for me. They'll be able to see Johnny Holliday. Mr. Showtime himself, taped ribs, proving he is, in fact, human. I'll wear that target around my ribs against my Doctor's orders, having Ander or Roxxxie write 'Hit here, idiot' on the tape so Blood Ties knows exactly where to go after me.
IF they can.
Because this just isn't a showcase that I'm hurt and fighting through it. I was forced to take time off. I've been given the opportunity to return, and I've taken it with no questions asked.
I can show I'm hurt...but this is the opportunity for Blood Ties to FEEL my pain. I'm not alone in this one.
Representing 'tradition' for this business? What the f*ck ever happened to the guy who whipped your ass and got the win was the best that night? Whatever happened to the people who were the moneymakers, the ones who the people PAID TO SEE being the ones who got the spotlight, as opposed to those who wanted to suck off the nearest person who had any sort of pull within the company? Did this industry seriously reduce itself to people riding each others' coattails until they make it to what they consider to be their ceiling?
You realize that we're all the same in that ring, don't you? It always comes down to people who blow their spots. We're all the same once our music dies out. We're all humans in that ring. Sure, I've got the disadvantage, looking at you guys. I'm PAINTING the target for you, literally, with a 'hit here' sign. I want you to make me hurt. I want you to beat me into the ground.
What do you have that I don't?
Don't play it dumb. The only thing on paper that makes you better is those straps around your shoulders.
Oh, yeah. Right now would be about the time where some incident would happen, and I'd have the opportunity to do or say something clever.
How's that going to happen when I'm staring out my window?
I'm watching the ice dance off of it.
Kept away...FORCED AWAY from performing for over a month.
Leonard Fox wanted to drive the message even deeper. Banned from television until the pay-per-view after defacing the nCw logo.
F*ck him.
The second he shows his face, he's getting spit on.
Holliday guaranteed.
First, it's Blood Ties.
Again.
Oh God, every time I think about Alex Jones, I don't know whether to puke, laugh, or punch the nearest person or thing. I've tried so hard to take you out of my mind, but you keep popping up, much like a nightmare about Trish Newborn and Hell's Keeper being the two top contenders in this company. No matter what I do, you keep jumping around in my head. I even hear the name 'Alex' or 'Jones', and believe me, it's all over television, your image pops right in my head...and seeing that face of yours as I was falling from the balcony.
The acidic bile builds up to my throat, and I almost want to let it loose, but I can't, because I know, in time, I can put it all to rest and repay the favor - in spades. I can make you hurt far beyond what I've felt - I can take everything you have, and more, and leave you with nothing, at the bottom of the nCw roster, once you and Angel break your ties, you're down to nothing. You wouldn't even be worthy of a web show. You'd basically be a card filler for those who couldn't make it to a match.
What makes you so great? Your ability to latch and effectively leech off of Angel for this long and get this kind of result? Where would you be without Angel? Mid-card? Angel GAVE you the spotlight, and here you sit, thinking you've earned it.
If I know Ander at all, he's pissed at you not just for what you did to me, but because this feud has gone on for too long. I'd love to do him a favor and ease his mind - pick up the phone, and tell him that I'll be there.
I'm not going to.
No, instead, I'm going to let the adrenaline, the anger, the energy surge through him, because I know how he acts...how he thinks...his true nature. He's like a pitbull that's been teased way too many times. Trust me, anytime you're in the ring, if I have to, I'll force a tag to get at you.
You've earned my attention, congratulations.
So, I survived a beating by the both of you. I survived being thrown off the balcony. Yet, no respect yet?
Oh, but you want respect. For what? Being a two-time X-Division champion? A mid-card title? A tournament winner? You posed this question to me once...let me turn it around on you: how long can you hold on to former glories before people really see you're not going to go much further than this? You said you were SUCH a big name. So, I provided the proof and shut you down. Now I've got to play archaeologist and try to dig up some tattered wrestling past of yours?
Do I look like Dr. Alan-f*cking-Grant? This isn't Jurassic-f*cking-Park. Clearly, you're holding on to your past by a thread, because that was the only time you meant anything to anyone. Sh*t, even in this match, only one person has their attention set in your direction.
Ander doesn't want you.
I'm the one that wants to see that pain twist your face into all different emotions. I want you to feel the tears the rained down my eyes as I was wincing in pain. I want you to feel that burning in the ribs that I feel. I want you to wake up the next day and not want to walk. Then, I want to throw that challenge to you and not take one painkiller the entire time.
Let that pain manifest into hate.
You're not going to be able to do it. There's a phrase: don't go near fire if you expect not to sweat. I knew what I was getting myself into by throwing myself out there...I basically threw MYSELF off that balcony. Then, you told me to walk out the proverbial door and not come back...or else we'd be thrown out.
Well, I was thrown out.
...And...?
...Wait for it...
...Oh, damn, look who threw the door back open and walked in.
Don't get me wrong, I'll give credit where it's due: I didn't think you'd have the balls to do something like that. I didn't expect it, and I paid the price for it.
But...Blood Ties is trying to repress something that is inevitable: The Rat Pack becoming champions.
With each attack on us, we get hurt, yes. Duh. That's common sense. So, why is it that every time, people don't just pull the trigger and finish the job?
It's because you're all idiots.
We'll keep coming back until we're buried and six feet under.
Our hearts have to stop beating, also. If you try burying us six feet under and we're still alive, we're going to dig our way out.
So, you made a rookie mistake - you didn't confirm the 'kill'. I got back up. I had time to brood and think. I had the opportunity to taunt, and I had the opportunity to prove that I'm still alive.
What's that do for Angel?
Is he pissed off at you for failing to finish the job? You two made the first mistake by not stopping us before we got rolling, so you thought you could try and stop a machine that's already going.
Did it work?
Analyze the situation.
Ander's in perfect health, smelling blood, and ready to strike.
I'm war-torn, but I've been through worse.
How funny is it that I can't distinguish my own thoughts, feelings, and attempting to narrate what's going on in my life? The pain's thrown everything for me up in the air.
Except for one thing.
This upcoming fight is so clear to me. Ander's going to be in the ring. He's not even going to know I'm IN the arena. He's going to think I've no-showed an event for the first time in my life, until Johnny Cash plays the song, and it's going to be the sweetest song Carvetti's ever heard. On the surface, it's going to be a joke for the both of you, Alex and Angel, but deep down, I know you'll both say 'oh ****'.
Angel. What have you done that has warranted respect?
You beat Ander and I? Hey, I'll give you a pat on the back for that one. Honestly, though? It's just a tally in the 'loss' column. The ONLY tally in that column for us as a team, mind you.
You gents don't seem to have that same luxury, do you? How about your singles win/loss records? Yeah, I've touched on that already. There's no need for me to repeat the very fact that you've embellished your own records.
Please. If I were supposed to respect everybody who pulled these kind of stunts, Trish Newborn would be demanding I kiss her feet while she gets a world title shot because, despite her efforts, damn it...she tries, and that's worth expecting, no matter HOW MUCH she sucked.
Oh, yes! Lo and behold the mighty Angel! Let us bow our heads and kneel before thy greatness...thou who hast slain people in thine past to become a champion, only to lose it within a matter of a month or two. Dost thou care to share how badly thy was beaten?
No, of course you wouldn't. I could win half the time in Tekken, that doesn't make me a 70-time Tekken champion...and believe me, they have that kind of garbage around.
What makes you special?
What constitutes me to have the need to applaud you? A falsified win/loss record? You beat me ONE time but couldn't finish killing off an oncoming storm? You can talk a big game and stand tall when nobody's around...but as soon as the people show up, you grow quiet. Oh, sure, people are supposed to believe you're some giant hulking guy with delusions of destroying those who stand in your path. That's why you hide behind the mask, isn't it?
You don't want us to see the humanity in your eyes...the very fact that when you say something and someone shows up to defend themselves, you're not expecting it. Thus, the mask to hide that emotion...you try to take away the one thing that all humans have in common. You knock someone down, you see them in pain – you're satisfied. How about when that person who was supposed to be in so much pain to the point where they should have 'gotten the message', stayed down, and left...they don't do that? You hide that behind the mask too, don't you?
Am I wrong?
You know I'm not.
Damn, man...
...I know what I have to do.
Sure, it involves me getting the living sh*t kicked out of me. Sure, it involves me experiencing the absolute most pain I've experienced in roughly six years.
But, you know what?
Sometimes the truth is worth the risk.
I'm willing to pay that price if it means finally cementing Ander Carvetti's name as a solid competitor, getting the Rat Pack to be taken seriously, and living up to my promise that war...hell...a riot is coming to nCw.
I'm willing to give myself up for the very sake of being a champion one more time, riding off into the sunset into retirement as a tag-team champion, and allowing Ander Carvetti to become world champion again.
Am I too old? No.
Am I in pain? Yes.
Should I be fighting? No.
Will I be? Yes.
Will I be held accountable for what transpires on Sunday? Absolutely not.
See, I've been aching for years to have a conversations. It's panned out over and over in my head for years to deal with the person who finally would try to end not just my livelihood, what I did to pass the time...but to end my life..
Mom...
...I finally did it. I reached my point.
I...I killed a man.
His hopes, his dreams, everything he has, everything was, everything he could potentially be – it's all shattered. Humans, we're all a delicate race, and I've pushed a man beyond his threshold, and he finally cracked.
All that he said, all that he became, all that he talked himself up to be...it evaporated in mere minutes.
…
Physically dead?
No. I'm sure he wish he was, though.
He's empty inside. Everything he had was taken away.
I tell you, it was in self-defense.
…
His name?
Alex Jones.
…
I don't know where he is now, Mom. I do know that the song of his sadness plays deep within my heart, and I take a bit of pride in it. I've destroyed someone's livelihood instead of his life. He has to saunter on for the rest of his life knowing someone's crushed his potential.
...
I know. You want me to come home. You wanted me to come home that night I was thrown into that dumpster. You've wanted me to come home everytime I've had an injury. I'm not twelve anymore, Mom. Worse has had happened. You saw me thrown off the triple cage. I've gotten back up.
No. I'm sorry. I'm not coming home. I'm not done yet.
…I know. I love you too.
Oh yeah. I'm battered. I'm literally broken, when you consider bone structure. I've made some promises to raise hell in nCw, and I've not exactly delivered.
Pain is easy to show on one's face. It takes a master to be able to portray such pain through his performances, through his charisma, and through his own talent.
Sometimes, winning is no fun at all.
It's no fun when you have no stake in what you're doing. The previous time, we had a title shot...our heads weren't in the game. We were kind of just thrown into it.
Alex Jones was the catalyst that ignited the flint to roar the fire.
There's still one knot left in Blood Ties, holding them together. One that was there before, and went completely unseen by us: it wasn't personal.
Alex Jones made it personal.
Thank you, Alex.
Life is a pile of good things and bad things. I've gone through a streak of bad things. A dry spell. No titles, scarce wins. Now an injury.
But you know what?
I wouldn't change a God-damned thing. The bad things make the good things that much more rewarding. That much sweeter.
To taste the kiss of gold makes my pain worth it. I shed blood. I know I'll shed a tear when I'm hit in the ribs. For every tear that I shed, I know I'll throw a punch back.
Every tear shed is just the price I'm paying to atone for my big lucky streak in titles. Now, I'm earning it.
Ander Carvetti's fired up. He's ready to go berserk.
He's just missing one thing.
Me.
Well, maybe two things...
Me and the hype that goes along with it.
What kind of psychological effect is that going to have on you, Alex? You're going to hear every single person in that crowd roar when I come out from behind that curtain. I promise I'll be taped up. I promise I'll have that target painted on my taped-up ribs for you and Angel to pound away on. I promise that Leonard Fox will get his. Maybe not that night. Maybe not the next night.
Things will happen. I may not be close to being healthy, but I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines. I got the green light at the earliest possible time.
No more waiting.
Angel, you can stand tall and try to play Papa for little-sh*thead-that-couldn't.
He couldn't take me out for good. What makes you think you can do much better?
You're the bigger man...physically in this match, but remember: everyone's the same height on their back...and that's when you'll fade to black.
Ander...Roxxxie...I'm sorry. I don't know how to make it up...not telling you guys what I've been up to or how I've been doing...I know we're supposed to be raising hell.
Soon.
You naive little bastard.
All this time. All this ego. All this trash-talking.
Where are you now?
"...nus rhythm.."
"Mr. Hollid-..."
So what happened? Where'd you end up?
Falling.
You fell all the way.
Way down into the trash – literally.
Did you wake up this morning and think this is where you'd end up?
No, you didn't.
"...lliday, can you hear me?"
So egotistical. He threw you off and you landed in an empty f*cking trash bin.
The fall alone could have killed you.
By all things considered, it SHOULD have killed you.
Yet, here you are.
So egotistical, you think you're above dying.
It's what you want, isn't it?
Now, you're the man who cheated death.
You're getting too big for your britches, Holliday. You're practically asking to be shot in the head.
I took a gigantic gasp of air and sat up. I felt like I was on fire. My chest raged in pain, and I yelled out loud, which caused the pain to surge through even more. I panted, trying to get air in my chest. I touched my chest, but it burned. Not to my hand, but my chest burned. Hands were pushing me back to lying down. I tried kicking, but four men held my legs.
I knew what to do.
I rotated my hips to try and throw them away, but the pain in my chest roared once more and I gave up, yelling in pain.
Ander Carvetti
"STAY THE F*CK DOWN!"
Ander...
I looked up, and he was one of the people holding my shoulders down. There wasn't that fierceness in his eyes...there wasn't the look of anger...it was as if I saw right into him – I saw what he was feeling.
For the first time in my life, I saw sadness in Ander Carvetti's eyes.
There were no tears, there was no redness in them...you'd miss it if you didn't know him. It was a combination of guilt, concern, and genuine relief.
Ander Carvetti
“...You almost f*cking died...dude...I...”
“...it's not that easy...”
I stopped the struggling and was let go by everyone. A doctor came over and delivered an injection of some sort of painkiller. As I was feeling the effects kick in, I slowly began to drift in my mind as I was hoisted onto a gurney, and the last thing I heard was Carvetti's voice:
“We'll get them.”
My eyes flashed open and I sat up in bed in a cold sweat. The pain shot through my ribs again, and I, by instinct, grabbed the unopened bottle of painkillers next to me.
No.
The pain began to subside, but it went to my shoulders. I gritted my teeth as I felt it travel. It wasn't pain anymore.
It was anger.
I threw the bottle across the room, and heard it connect with the wall and then the ground.
There was going to be no painkillers that enter this body.
Live off the pain.
Let it fuel the fire.
We'll get them soon.
- - -
"The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end." - Adlai E. Stevenson
You should have finished me off when you had the chance, Jones. Squashed the very threat and hammered the final nail into my coffin.
You didn't.
How's that feel? Two boys from California...still won't go away, pestering you and Angel. Every which way you turn, something about us pops up, and you know you can't help but think when we were going to attack.
Ah, the last thing you expected, though...was no retaliation at all. Instead, we waited.
You lot claim it was a message, taking a stand for all the people who 'built' this company.
When will you learn?
Without Ander Carvetti, there really would have been no Johnny Holliday.
The same applies in reverse.
Without Ander Carvetti and Johnny Holliday, this INDUSTRY would have crumbled a long time ago.
Someone once said controversy creates cash. We're not the ones making the controversy – we're the ones who are taking a stand for talent. If you're comprised of pure talent, you're entitled to swagger. You're entitled to a little bit of breathing room. Here, having talent and boasting about it from the get-go is a no-no. I guess in order to do that, you have to have a one-on-one session with Leonard Fox behind closed doors before you're given that opportunity.
So, when Ander and I threw up two certain fingers, one on each hand, to Leonard Fox after meeting him, I can see why we were labeled as pains-in-the-ass. Here, talent isn't what makes people. No, it's that fifteen minutes in the coatroom with Leonard Fox and you hide that semen-stained wrestling outfit of yours so nobody finds out what you actually did that makes you in nCw.
It's pathetic. Little by little, those who take a stand are shot down or written off as insane as if it's some sort of disease.
It can't be denied.
It's to the left, to the right, it's in the g*ddamned air that we breathe - put there within the last thirty years so we can trudge along claiming to be ill, trying to depend on each other for help, and when those that we depend on become as frail as us, we fall deeper into this gigantic sinkhole.
What you see as green trees and grass, sunshine, flowers, and f*cking rainbows...I see black and a burnt orange. It's the post-apocalyptic world already, and the lot of you are numbed. We're not in an agrarian society, feeding off crops...but we're numbed to what is actually going on around us - thinking there's a 'magic pill' for us all - where we've fallen into a utopia thinking that if we relax, take the pills, do what we're told, and breathe...everything will be alright.
This is not an utopia. We are stuck in a dystopic society. Since the 1940's, we've degraded into such a state where we're controlled in every shape and form, being TOLD that we're better off than at any time before. When was it in the past that people popped Xanax...or any benzodiazepine for that matter, whenever they had any moment of conflict? Did anyone at that time even CONSIDER depression as a mental condition?
Yes, but it was not as blown out of proportion as it is today. To be treated then, up until the 1950's, opioids were used to treat it. Then amphetamines until the mid-1960's.
Today, your heart raises just a little bit after a disagreement, and as soon as you rise above the position you were told to be in, you're taking pills like they're a bag of Skittles. If you fall out of the expectations society has in place...no, not even society, but what the higher classes have set and deemed as 'normal', there is something wrong with you. You question authority, and you're diseased. What do they feed you?
Benzodiazepine...so we suffer disinhibition, ataxia so we slur our speech and people lose interest because it seems we're out of our minds, anterograde amnesia...we can't create new memories of being controlled, and even suicidal ideation...the very thing the medical "healers" of this day and age think they are preventing. Antidepressants...SSRI's, SNRI's, NaSSA's...the list goes on and on and on. What do those bring on? Agitation. Headaches. A major increase in suicidal behavior. Heart attack, hepatities...stroke. Increased dopamine levels in the brain lead to increased sexual drive in people...we could be feeding fire to a future generation of rapists, but we think we're "helping".
We're all being forced to march down one solitary path with one end in sight.
Thymoanesthesia...the ultimate result. Emotional blunting.
Is this what we've strive to achieve in the hundreds of years of medicine? Feel nothing, experience nothing...be completely numb to the world, and once that's achieved, we feel as if we've done the world a civil duty? We've done no harm...we've actually created a barrier - a shell, a shield from everything that could POSSIBLY even be construed as an out-of-line thought, emotion, or even a rogue glance. We're drugged, they begin to put it in the air that we breathe, and we choose to follow every single order handed down to us like it was from a word of God.
God. Another word for 'fictional person that we've put blind faith in and put gentle blame onto when bad things happen'. We've created a scapegoat that set the morales of our society today...the policies and procedures of our governing bodies claim to be rooted from God, our morales...everything we do, one way or another, is put into the hands of God - as if we need this 'God' to hold our hand as we cross the streets.
Do we?
No. We look both ways.
When things go right? We can attest them to 'God'. When things go wrong...we try to analyze what WE did. What went wrong.
He gets all the credit, we take all the blame.
Am I an atheist? Of course not. I believe there is a God, but I do think the way society has headed down the sh*tter and this 'blind faith' one hundred percent of the time is absolute nonsense.
You don't dive off a cliff without a parachute hoping to float.
And yet....it came to pass that society was no more. Gone were the massive groups. Gone was the notion of 'revolution' - it was rewritten as a psychological disorder. An illness that had to be 'cured'.
That's what we were taught. We became part of a generation that attempted to cure youth revolutionaries with just a pill.
So, when Ander and I spat the pills out long ago and said 'deuces', we knew we'd have targets on our backs the size of motherf*cking Russia...no matter WHERE we went, it'd happen.
Go ahead. Ask.
I know what you're thinking.
Was I the one who 'secretly' attacked Alex Jones backstage?
Oh, I wish.
My whole life has never really been 'secret'.
Come on. Think about it. Me? Mr. Flash? Mr. Debonair? Mr. Charismatic Icon? Does that really fit my motif of being in the eye of the public?
No, not really.
The past month...
Where do I start? Where do I begin?
Should I start where Alex Jones threw me off the balcony and into an EMPTY trash can?
Yes. It was empty. I hit empty, hollow, unforgiving steel. Whether it was ten feet or twenty-five feet, I don't know. I'm not going to stand there with a f*cking tape measurer from the balcony right down to the point of impact where the steel is permanently stained with my blood. Why should I go and revisit that? I'm sure Angel's attempted to negate it and write it off like I'm playing it up like a big baby.
That's fine. Take the emotional stake out of it for a second. You know what it makes you out to be?
Scared. You're scared because your buddy did something drastic and still failed. You only delayed the inevitable in getting your f*cking teeth kicked down your throat.
Tell me, how did you feel that night?
You know what night I'm talking about.
The night I came out, down the ramp, I stood in the ring – I taunted, I said that I was still standing...I called Blood Ties out. I called out the 'mastermind'. I called out Leonard Fox.
...Speaking of – did that c*nt ever respond? I really haven't paid attention much. It doesn't really matter – Fox'll get his in due time.
That one time on television was really the only time I've been seen. I've spent most of the time seeing the doctor and doing whatever workout I can. Four broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, a black eye, a bruised kidney...and a sore left shoulder from being put back in its socket. Oh yeah, I'm sore as hell.
So...why not tell Ander? Why not tell Roxxxie how I'm feeling day-by-day?
Because it would throw off Ander's game.
That night I saw Ander's face, the look in his eyes, he was completely devoid of aggression. He honestly thought I was dead that night. If I told him my condition at this very moment, he'd throw himself off, want to call off the match for me, and go it alone. He'll put up a fight, but ultimately, he'll be sidelined with some sort of injury.
It'd be playing right into Blood Ties' hands. There's absolutely no way I'm letting that happen.
It doesn't take an idiot to know I'm banged up.
Have I ever just flat-out shrugged something off?
No, absolutely not. Not once. Pneumonia? F*ck that. Bronchitis? F*ck that too. Broken arm? Ibuprofen and put that sh*t in a plaster cast.
Pain is temporary – what you do is forever.
- - -
"The seed of revolution is repression." - Woodrow Wilson
Ah. And yet, here I am – looking out the window. The grey skies swirl around the New York sky...what's left of the leaves already are brushing themselves around the street. It's raining. It's icy. It's cold.
All of it is a metaphor for my life. The leaves are brushing the street – trying to cleanse the past away for the future, where everything will be green in just a few months time. To get to that point, though, I have to go through the bitter, unforgiving, icy cold.
With this cold comes the ridiculous pain. Every old injury aches. I'm looking out this window, and I feel it. I feel the elbow, it's dull ache. My left ankle, how it throbs. My knees, they pulsate with some sharp needle pains. And, the latest additions to the family, my shoulder and ribs ache. The shoulder's since healed itself, so it's not too bad, sans the occasional stiffness – it's the ribs that continually hurt – weather causation or not.
Broken bones don't heal in a month. That's just something that doesn't happen, and I've got to accept as a fact of life.
It was eating away at my soul. I wanted to pick up the phone, dial Ander...dial Ayako, and I wanted to tell them how I was holding up. 'Hey guys. I'm in pain, but I'll be there. Have I ever let you down?'
It'd never be that easy.
Not with Ander.
Not with Ayako.
We'd play 21 questions, which would turn to 400 questions, and eventually, everything would come spilling out.
No, I haven't taken a single pain pill they gave me. I've let the pain linger and manifest itself into anger as I lay in bed doing weights to keep the muscles limber. I let the pain turn into anger because that's what I needed. That adrenaline boost once I see the both of them will allow me to forget the fact that I'm part broken.
Why?
I'm the one feeling the pain now. Sunday will be something so much more for me. They'll be able to see Johnny Holliday. Mr. Showtime himself, taped ribs, proving he is, in fact, human. I'll wear that target around my ribs against my Doctor's orders, having Ander or Roxxxie write 'Hit here, idiot' on the tape so Blood Ties knows exactly where to go after me.
IF they can.
Because this just isn't a showcase that I'm hurt and fighting through it. I was forced to take time off. I've been given the opportunity to return, and I've taken it with no questions asked.
I can show I'm hurt...but this is the opportunity for Blood Ties to FEEL my pain. I'm not alone in this one.
Representing 'tradition' for this business? What the f*ck ever happened to the guy who whipped your ass and got the win was the best that night? Whatever happened to the people who were the moneymakers, the ones who the people PAID TO SEE being the ones who got the spotlight, as opposed to those who wanted to suck off the nearest person who had any sort of pull within the company? Did this industry seriously reduce itself to people riding each others' coattails until they make it to what they consider to be their ceiling?
You realize that we're all the same in that ring, don't you? It always comes down to people who blow their spots. We're all the same once our music dies out. We're all humans in that ring. Sure, I've got the disadvantage, looking at you guys. I'm PAINTING the target for you, literally, with a 'hit here' sign. I want you to make me hurt. I want you to beat me into the ground.
What do you have that I don't?
Don't play it dumb. The only thing on paper that makes you better is those straps around your shoulders.
Oh, yeah. Right now would be about the time where some incident would happen, and I'd have the opportunity to do or say something clever.
How's that going to happen when I'm staring out my window?
I'm watching the ice dance off of it.
Kept away...FORCED AWAY from performing for over a month.
Leonard Fox wanted to drive the message even deeper. Banned from television until the pay-per-view after defacing the nCw logo.
F*ck him.
The second he shows his face, he's getting spit on.
Holliday guaranteed.
First, it's Blood Ties.
Again.
Oh God, every time I think about Alex Jones, I don't know whether to puke, laugh, or punch the nearest person or thing. I've tried so hard to take you out of my mind, but you keep popping up, much like a nightmare about Trish Newborn and Hell's Keeper being the two top contenders in this company. No matter what I do, you keep jumping around in my head. I even hear the name 'Alex' or 'Jones', and believe me, it's all over television, your image pops right in my head...and seeing that face of yours as I was falling from the balcony.
The acidic bile builds up to my throat, and I almost want to let it loose, but I can't, because I know, in time, I can put it all to rest and repay the favor - in spades. I can make you hurt far beyond what I've felt - I can take everything you have, and more, and leave you with nothing, at the bottom of the nCw roster, once you and Angel break your ties, you're down to nothing. You wouldn't even be worthy of a web show. You'd basically be a card filler for those who couldn't make it to a match.
What makes you so great? Your ability to latch and effectively leech off of Angel for this long and get this kind of result? Where would you be without Angel? Mid-card? Angel GAVE you the spotlight, and here you sit, thinking you've earned it.
If I know Ander at all, he's pissed at you not just for what you did to me, but because this feud has gone on for too long. I'd love to do him a favor and ease his mind - pick up the phone, and tell him that I'll be there.
I'm not going to.
No, instead, I'm going to let the adrenaline, the anger, the energy surge through him, because I know how he acts...how he thinks...his true nature. He's like a pitbull that's been teased way too many times. Trust me, anytime you're in the ring, if I have to, I'll force a tag to get at you.
You've earned my attention, congratulations.
So, I survived a beating by the both of you. I survived being thrown off the balcony. Yet, no respect yet?
Oh, but you want respect. For what? Being a two-time X-Division champion? A mid-card title? A tournament winner? You posed this question to me once...let me turn it around on you: how long can you hold on to former glories before people really see you're not going to go much further than this? You said you were SUCH a big name. So, I provided the proof and shut you down. Now I've got to play archaeologist and try to dig up some tattered wrestling past of yours?
Do I look like Dr. Alan-f*cking-Grant? This isn't Jurassic-f*cking-Park. Clearly, you're holding on to your past by a thread, because that was the only time you meant anything to anyone. Sh*t, even in this match, only one person has their attention set in your direction.
Ander doesn't want you.
I'm the one that wants to see that pain twist your face into all different emotions. I want you to feel the tears the rained down my eyes as I was wincing in pain. I want you to feel that burning in the ribs that I feel. I want you to wake up the next day and not want to walk. Then, I want to throw that challenge to you and not take one painkiller the entire time.
Let that pain manifest into hate.
You're not going to be able to do it. There's a phrase: don't go near fire if you expect not to sweat. I knew what I was getting myself into by throwing myself out there...I basically threw MYSELF off that balcony. Then, you told me to walk out the proverbial door and not come back...or else we'd be thrown out.
Well, I was thrown out.
...And...?
...Wait for it...
...Oh, damn, look who threw the door back open and walked in.
Don't get me wrong, I'll give credit where it's due: I didn't think you'd have the balls to do something like that. I didn't expect it, and I paid the price for it.
But...Blood Ties is trying to repress something that is inevitable: The Rat Pack becoming champions.
With each attack on us, we get hurt, yes. Duh. That's common sense. So, why is it that every time, people don't just pull the trigger and finish the job?
It's because you're all idiots.
We'll keep coming back until we're buried and six feet under.
Our hearts have to stop beating, also. If you try burying us six feet under and we're still alive, we're going to dig our way out.
So, you made a rookie mistake - you didn't confirm the 'kill'. I got back up. I had time to brood and think. I had the opportunity to taunt, and I had the opportunity to prove that I'm still alive.
What's that do for Angel?
Is he pissed off at you for failing to finish the job? You two made the first mistake by not stopping us before we got rolling, so you thought you could try and stop a machine that's already going.
Did it work?
Analyze the situation.
Ander's in perfect health, smelling blood, and ready to strike.
I'm war-torn, but I've been through worse.
How funny is it that I can't distinguish my own thoughts, feelings, and attempting to narrate what's going on in my life? The pain's thrown everything for me up in the air.
Except for one thing.
This upcoming fight is so clear to me. Ander's going to be in the ring. He's not even going to know I'm IN the arena. He's going to think I've no-showed an event for the first time in my life, until Johnny Cash plays the song, and it's going to be the sweetest song Carvetti's ever heard. On the surface, it's going to be a joke for the both of you, Alex and Angel, but deep down, I know you'll both say 'oh ****'.
Angel. What have you done that has warranted respect?
You beat Ander and I? Hey, I'll give you a pat on the back for that one. Honestly, though? It's just a tally in the 'loss' column. The ONLY tally in that column for us as a team, mind you.
You gents don't seem to have that same luxury, do you? How about your singles win/loss records? Yeah, I've touched on that already. There's no need for me to repeat the very fact that you've embellished your own records.
Please. If I were supposed to respect everybody who pulled these kind of stunts, Trish Newborn would be demanding I kiss her feet while she gets a world title shot because, despite her efforts, damn it...she tries, and that's worth expecting, no matter HOW MUCH she sucked.
Oh, yes! Lo and behold the mighty Angel! Let us bow our heads and kneel before thy greatness...thou who hast slain people in thine past to become a champion, only to lose it within a matter of a month or two. Dost thou care to share how badly thy was beaten?
No, of course you wouldn't. I could win half the time in Tekken, that doesn't make me a 70-time Tekken champion...and believe me, they have that kind of garbage around.
What makes you special?
What constitutes me to have the need to applaud you? A falsified win/loss record? You beat me ONE time but couldn't finish killing off an oncoming storm? You can talk a big game and stand tall when nobody's around...but as soon as the people show up, you grow quiet. Oh, sure, people are supposed to believe you're some giant hulking guy with delusions of destroying those who stand in your path. That's why you hide behind the mask, isn't it?
You don't want us to see the humanity in your eyes...the very fact that when you say something and someone shows up to defend themselves, you're not expecting it. Thus, the mask to hide that emotion...you try to take away the one thing that all humans have in common. You knock someone down, you see them in pain – you're satisfied. How about when that person who was supposed to be in so much pain to the point where they should have 'gotten the message', stayed down, and left...they don't do that? You hide that behind the mask too, don't you?
Am I wrong?
You know I'm not.
Damn, man...
...I know what I have to do.
Sure, it involves me getting the living sh*t kicked out of me. Sure, it involves me experiencing the absolute most pain I've experienced in roughly six years.
But, you know what?
Sometimes the truth is worth the risk.
I'm willing to pay that price if it means finally cementing Ander Carvetti's name as a solid competitor, getting the Rat Pack to be taken seriously, and living up to my promise that war...hell...a riot is coming to nCw.
I'm willing to give myself up for the very sake of being a champion one more time, riding off into the sunset into retirement as a tag-team champion, and allowing Ander Carvetti to become world champion again.
Am I too old? No.
Am I in pain? Yes.
Should I be fighting? No.
Will I be? Yes.
Will I be held accountable for what transpires on Sunday? Absolutely not.
See, I've been aching for years to have a conversations. It's panned out over and over in my head for years to deal with the person who finally would try to end not just my livelihood, what I did to pass the time...but to end my life..
Mom...
...I finally did it. I reached my point.
I...I killed a man.
His hopes, his dreams, everything he has, everything was, everything he could potentially be – it's all shattered. Humans, we're all a delicate race, and I've pushed a man beyond his threshold, and he finally cracked.
All that he said, all that he became, all that he talked himself up to be...it evaporated in mere minutes.
…
Physically dead?
No. I'm sure he wish he was, though.
He's empty inside. Everything he had was taken away.
I tell you, it was in self-defense.
…
His name?
Alex Jones.
…
I don't know where he is now, Mom. I do know that the song of his sadness plays deep within my heart, and I take a bit of pride in it. I've destroyed someone's livelihood instead of his life. He has to saunter on for the rest of his life knowing someone's crushed his potential.
...
I know. You want me to come home. You wanted me to come home that night I was thrown into that dumpster. You've wanted me to come home everytime I've had an injury. I'm not twelve anymore, Mom. Worse has had happened. You saw me thrown off the triple cage. I've gotten back up.
No. I'm sorry. I'm not coming home. I'm not done yet.
…I know. I love you too.
Oh yeah. I'm battered. I'm literally broken, when you consider bone structure. I've made some promises to raise hell in nCw, and I've not exactly delivered.
Pain is easy to show on one's face. It takes a master to be able to portray such pain through his performances, through his charisma, and through his own talent.
Sometimes, winning is no fun at all.
It's no fun when you have no stake in what you're doing. The previous time, we had a title shot...our heads weren't in the game. We were kind of just thrown into it.
Alex Jones was the catalyst that ignited the flint to roar the fire.
There's still one knot left in Blood Ties, holding them together. One that was there before, and went completely unseen by us: it wasn't personal.
Alex Jones made it personal.
Thank you, Alex.
Life is a pile of good things and bad things. I've gone through a streak of bad things. A dry spell. No titles, scarce wins. Now an injury.
But you know what?
I wouldn't change a God-damned thing. The bad things make the good things that much more rewarding. That much sweeter.
To taste the kiss of gold makes my pain worth it. I shed blood. I know I'll shed a tear when I'm hit in the ribs. For every tear that I shed, I know I'll throw a punch back.
Every tear shed is just the price I'm paying to atone for my big lucky streak in titles. Now, I'm earning it.
Ander Carvetti's fired up. He's ready to go berserk.
He's just missing one thing.
Me.
Well, maybe two things...
Me and the hype that goes along with it.
What kind of psychological effect is that going to have on you, Alex? You're going to hear every single person in that crowd roar when I come out from behind that curtain. I promise I'll be taped up. I promise I'll have that target painted on my taped-up ribs for you and Angel to pound away on. I promise that Leonard Fox will get his. Maybe not that night. Maybe not the next night.
Things will happen. I may not be close to being healthy, but I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines. I got the green light at the earliest possible time.
No more waiting.
Angel, you can stand tall and try to play Papa for little-sh*thead-that-couldn't.
He couldn't take me out for good. What makes you think you can do much better?
You're the bigger man...physically in this match, but remember: everyone's the same height on their back...and that's when you'll fade to black.
Ander...Roxxxie...I'm sorry. I don't know how to make it up...not telling you guys what I've been up to or how I've been doing...I know we're supposed to be raising hell.
Soon.