Post by adm on May 29, 2009 12:43:38 GMT -6
The sodium-vapor lights of the high rafters in the stadium burn like iridescent globes of destruction as the flesh on my body burns. My shirt is off, my body hard and chiseled, and covered in blood. It isn’t my blood, but the blood of Angel, Nero and Phillip Burns. There may be some of mine mixed in…but the match has been hard. It’s the end, the end of everything. Nero comes up to me to tag me in, but he doesn’t tag me so much as twist my neck around backwards, killing me…but yet I can still see. My wife screams in terror, and he takes her to the center of the ring. Angel and Burns are confused, as his girlfriend, his sister, holds her down as he begins to lick her face. I wake with a start, screaming…but the alarm is already ringing and I realize I’m running late…for yet another therapy session.
“So you’ve been having nightmares all week since I suggested your wife stand ringside with you. I sense you are afraid for her, afraid she’ll see you do something.”
“No, Sarah, that isn’t it. You don’t understand, my opponents, my partner, they are as unhinged as you can be without being confined to a rubber room with a straight-jacket. These guys are insane, and they are liable to bring me down with them.”
My wife looks at me with a cross expression. She feels I may be taking the things Burns said the other day out of context…but he is right. If I let my wife come to ringside in such a brutal and unstable atmosphere, it would be my fault should anything happen to her. But I can’t help that my therapist is pushing it forward so she knows just what I’m going through, despite the fact we have reconciled and made love more in the last three weeks than we had in the previous three years of marriage after our youngest, Zachary, was born.
“Kris, it’s ok. I’ll be fine, I promise. Nothing will happen while you are around.”
She comes closer to me and holds my hand. I can feel the love she feels for me, but I wish that love was replaced by the fear she had not long ago. I may have changed, for my own good after being shown the reflection I was bearing by Harold no more than three months back, but now…now…I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe the demon within me is just waiting for this chance to come back out, to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for like Angel said last week. That the only way to go up is…to forget my family and go for myself. But I’m NOT like him; I am NOT as selfish as he is.
“I…don’t know.”
“Just listen to your wife, Kristoff. Do what SHE wants. I’m sure you can protect her from whatever may come.”
God…I hope she’s right. Hours later and my wife and I are picking up the children from the babysitter, AKA Chad Lights. If I had any better options, I would definitely be taking them. But for now…I can’t trust Harold, and I can’t trust Nero…
“Kris, I would like to ask you about this…partner of yours.”
Oh god…here it comes.
“Did he really eat that kitten? I mean, if so, you should stop associating with him immediately.”
“Kendra, he’s insane, but not THAT insane. He’s not his brother, Angel, for God’s sakes.”
“But…”
“It’s ok, Kendra, he didn’t eat the kitten.”
God, my wife will scare my kids if she says that before them. But I know Nero, not as well as I’d like, but I at least have faith he wouldn’t eat a baby kitten. I have faith that, somewhere in my head, I can see him petting the kitten as he’s giving it a bowl of milk. A bowl of milk for a starving cute kitten while he eats a nice healthy breakfast of Wheaties with a glass of orange juice and maybe some bacon on the side. God I hope…he’s not eating a kitten.
“Well ok, I believe you. Just…keep an eye on him. I think he’s got the hots for me.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
God…did I just say what I thought I said? I am in so much trouble now…but actually I’m not. My wife kisses me instead. She took it as a compliment, probably the most profane and inappropriate compliment I’ve given her since we started dating and I said she had a nice ass, but it was a compliment, I assure you. The children spot us, lead by Chad, embracing. I can see them out of the corner of my eye turning away; children are so skittish about their parents being in love, even if they are the product of it.
“Mommy, Daddy, stop please.”
“Ok, children, let’s go.”
“But what about Beary McBearson?”
I forgot…my 3-year-old never leaves without his bear. Such an attachment to a stuffed animal, but yet, normal for a child that young. It is his security blanket, his rock when he hears thunder. It keeps him from having to come to Kendra or myself to comfort him when he’s feeling down.
“Ok, go get Beary and hurry back, Zach, we need to get going. Daddy has important business to attend to.”
“You’re going to go beat up the bad guys?”
“Not yet…”
No, not until Sunday will I actually face these two maniacs in the ring. No, I have a few more days of taking their bad-mouthing and promos before I even can consider myself done with them. And I have to think hard about what to say, what to do…because they aren’t realizing I’m trying not to go down the same nasty-speaking route they are. I try to take the high road, I try…
An hour and a half has passed, and I am back at the gym. I have apologized to the man who I nearly killed thinking he was Phillip Burns, and he realizes, after seeing the promos posted on www.newchampionshipwrestling.com/, exactly what I’m dealing with. Men who aren’t afraid to threaten my family, or think that because they have lost theirs, they are better. But I know exactly what I must do here. I know that I must use this gym as my backdrop once again. My wife is at home, safe…for now.
“I don’t even know where to begin; with the two people I can only call Opponents this week. Angel…I thought we would try to have some respect for one another but…I can obviously see that by ignoring what you said last week, you have a lot of anger toward me. But I am NOT you. I am no “God of the Ring” as you may call yourself. No…I’m just PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates. I will do the best I can to win in that ring, and I will try to be as polite as possible while out of the ring against my opponents. I still believe in respect, unlike what you think, I only disrespected hearing you because…I couldn’t deal with what you had to say. You suggested that my intent on fixing my family, on doing what Harold set me on the path to do by showing me a reflection of my horrible self, is the WRONG thing? It is obvious I actually am trying to do what so very few have done, and is actually lead a relatively normal life without the drugs, debauchery and other problems that plague so many professional wrestlers.”
Indeed, even looking at the independent wrestlers here in this facility in Wisconsin, I realize how much it has seeped into even the lowest paid people. Prescription painkillers and alcohol…something I pray to god I don’t truly fall into myself. I look around; the sodium-vapor lights here are not even on, only when they hold events. Here, it is the eerie greenish glow of fluorescent bulbs. And under these glowing UV lights of cancer-inducing mercury-filled dread, I am to address the men who I am to face on Sunday.
“I don’t understand, Angel, why one man, my partner, would turn you inside out over the course of two weeks. You USED to have some respect for people, even as a member of the so-called Revolution. But I figure you think if you intimidate me, I’ll just hand you another victory and make you guys the only remaining tag-team after Dirty Deal and Lords of Destruction disintegrate in the Xtreme Championship match. We are the only ones LEFT for you…the only CHALLENGE. But you don’t realize that this could go on forever, now that Nero has come out as your brother. As long as I stay with him, his fight will ALWAYS be with you, Angel. His fight will always to be BETTER than you. And he is, because though he is cryptic and dark, and insinuates he eats kittens…at least he has SOME class, at least he doesn’t go down the low road and diss his opponents in every way imaginable. There isn’t much else to say to you, is there…other than that you have become so much less respectable since you beat me and I have tried, so VERY hard to learn how to be the one to take the high road. And all you do is say I should desert my family, my wife and kids, to pursue accolades that even YOU haven’t been given despite your “Legendary” history here in nCw. Yes…you are SO awesome, yet you carry Burns through this façade of a tag team and keep winning because you alone are so great you can beat everyone else here, I know, I know. You are so great you should have been World Champion twenty times already, but you HAVEN’T and seeing guys like Ace, Adam, Hammond, Xavier and soon AJ…well it burns you. And I can see why.”
Indeed, seeing your wife run off with AJ and win the World Title this week against Adam Knite is enough to drive any man insane. Let alone the brother that has recently come out. I see where you come from, Angel…and you need to take a few chill pills and calm down before you find yourself in the padded rubber room for your own safety, with only the Tag Title to comfort you at night while the Devil Himself continues to whisper in your ear.
“And Burns…where do I even START with you? You dream of being in the Hall of Fame yet you have a wounded leg that could possibly keep you sidelined permanently. I’m sorry, Burns, but…continuing on in that condition is the first way to an early retirement, the second is facing Nero and I in this match. You realize, with a wounded leg, and explicitly saying so, men of technical skill like Nero and I, and even your PARTNER would know that’s where to go. We don’t aim to cripple you; we aim to win a match. And if crippling you will do it, we will. I know more submissions than Ace, and you realize half of them could put you on the shelf. You are afraid, and then…you talk about Angel being a FRIEND by being enough of a freak to…scare you? Sure…scaring you may give you an adrenaline rush enough to cope with the pain for a while, but what then? You hurt MORE the day after. There isn’t a single thing you can do but feel that pain, Burns, and you are injured, take time off…take care of your body before we lose another great wrestler to injury like we lose so many in this business because of arrogance and stupidity about major injuries.”
Indeed, I only want to face you in your prime, Burns, like this it isn’t even funny. I can see you as an equal on any other day but now, you are injured, not at full capacity and on the verge of doing one botched move that turns your body into nothing more than a wheelchair-bound machine that will rust and stagnate for the remainder of your days. Hall of Fame isn’t something to shoot for yet, shoot for recovery first, that can always come later.
“But of course, you need to continue the badgering about my nightmares…about the fact that I think you may hurt my wife in our match. I don’t think it would be intentional…yet, but now that I hear the tone in your voice I begin to question whether the time I spend in this gym the rest of the week wouldn’t be as well-served as you taking a few days with your injured leg up and wrapped in ice packs followed by heating pads. But I consider your words marked, Burns, because if this doesn’t end at Reborn, things could and probably will spiral out of control until Picture Perfect where the picture, would not be as perfect as it would seem. We will not end until this is over, Nero and I. Should something PERSONAL happen at Reborn, there’s only one thing to think…that we wouldn’t stop until both you and Angel are sidelined.”
Indeed, we would go for that. Should my dream come true, both Angel and Burns may be dealing with another loose-cannon to accompany them and my partner. If I lose my grip on the sanity and NORMALCY I have come to embrace through therapy and reconciliation with my wife, well…I don’t even want to THINK about what would happen.
“I don’t know about you two, Burns and Angel, but…I’m TRYING my hardest not to be mean about it. I respect you, and your abilities, but the more you push me toward the edge, the more you drive me to the past. The more you drive me to THINK about the things I did to and against Harold because he had said things about my wife…things I could never prove, but they drove me INSANE. They drove me to THINK of killing. They drove me to THINK about jumping off the tron and onto Harold with a super-high-impact Shooting Star Press. Just think of what would happen…if you actually did hurt my wife, before my eyes. I may…do more. I may…get revenge. I may…THINK about turning into the thing I was about to become at my old job.”
They always told me I was unhinged, ABNORMAL. I try to be NORMAL. I try to be PERFECTLY NORMAL. I try to be myself…but what the demons inside me want is different from that. And now…I am faced by outer demons in Burns and Angel. I could become a psychopath…I could go POSTAL. So please…don’t push me too far, Angel and Burns. Don’t push me over the edge…because I’d rather…show you what PERFECTLY NORMAL can do.
“So you’ve been having nightmares all week since I suggested your wife stand ringside with you. I sense you are afraid for her, afraid she’ll see you do something.”
“No, Sarah, that isn’t it. You don’t understand, my opponents, my partner, they are as unhinged as you can be without being confined to a rubber room with a straight-jacket. These guys are insane, and they are liable to bring me down with them.”
My wife looks at me with a cross expression. She feels I may be taking the things Burns said the other day out of context…but he is right. If I let my wife come to ringside in such a brutal and unstable atmosphere, it would be my fault should anything happen to her. But I can’t help that my therapist is pushing it forward so she knows just what I’m going through, despite the fact we have reconciled and made love more in the last three weeks than we had in the previous three years of marriage after our youngest, Zachary, was born.
“Kris, it’s ok. I’ll be fine, I promise. Nothing will happen while you are around.”
She comes closer to me and holds my hand. I can feel the love she feels for me, but I wish that love was replaced by the fear she had not long ago. I may have changed, for my own good after being shown the reflection I was bearing by Harold no more than three months back, but now…now…I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe the demon within me is just waiting for this chance to come back out, to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for like Angel said last week. That the only way to go up is…to forget my family and go for myself. But I’m NOT like him; I am NOT as selfish as he is.
“I…don’t know.”
“Just listen to your wife, Kristoff. Do what SHE wants. I’m sure you can protect her from whatever may come.”
God…I hope she’s right. Hours later and my wife and I are picking up the children from the babysitter, AKA Chad Lights. If I had any better options, I would definitely be taking them. But for now…I can’t trust Harold, and I can’t trust Nero…
“Kris, I would like to ask you about this…partner of yours.”
Oh god…here it comes.
“Did he really eat that kitten? I mean, if so, you should stop associating with him immediately.”
“Kendra, he’s insane, but not THAT insane. He’s not his brother, Angel, for God’s sakes.”
“But…”
“It’s ok, Kendra, he didn’t eat the kitten.”
God, my wife will scare my kids if she says that before them. But I know Nero, not as well as I’d like, but I at least have faith he wouldn’t eat a baby kitten. I have faith that, somewhere in my head, I can see him petting the kitten as he’s giving it a bowl of milk. A bowl of milk for a starving cute kitten while he eats a nice healthy breakfast of Wheaties with a glass of orange juice and maybe some bacon on the side. God I hope…he’s not eating a kitten.
“Well ok, I believe you. Just…keep an eye on him. I think he’s got the hots for me.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
God…did I just say what I thought I said? I am in so much trouble now…but actually I’m not. My wife kisses me instead. She took it as a compliment, probably the most profane and inappropriate compliment I’ve given her since we started dating and I said she had a nice ass, but it was a compliment, I assure you. The children spot us, lead by Chad, embracing. I can see them out of the corner of my eye turning away; children are so skittish about their parents being in love, even if they are the product of it.
“Mommy, Daddy, stop please.”
“Ok, children, let’s go.”
“But what about Beary McBearson?”
I forgot…my 3-year-old never leaves without his bear. Such an attachment to a stuffed animal, but yet, normal for a child that young. It is his security blanket, his rock when he hears thunder. It keeps him from having to come to Kendra or myself to comfort him when he’s feeling down.
“Ok, go get Beary and hurry back, Zach, we need to get going. Daddy has important business to attend to.”
“You’re going to go beat up the bad guys?”
“Not yet…”
No, not until Sunday will I actually face these two maniacs in the ring. No, I have a few more days of taking their bad-mouthing and promos before I even can consider myself done with them. And I have to think hard about what to say, what to do…because they aren’t realizing I’m trying not to go down the same nasty-speaking route they are. I try to take the high road, I try…
An hour and a half has passed, and I am back at the gym. I have apologized to the man who I nearly killed thinking he was Phillip Burns, and he realizes, after seeing the promos posted on www.newchampionshipwrestling.com/, exactly what I’m dealing with. Men who aren’t afraid to threaten my family, or think that because they have lost theirs, they are better. But I know exactly what I must do here. I know that I must use this gym as my backdrop once again. My wife is at home, safe…for now.
“I don’t even know where to begin; with the two people I can only call Opponents this week. Angel…I thought we would try to have some respect for one another but…I can obviously see that by ignoring what you said last week, you have a lot of anger toward me. But I am NOT you. I am no “God of the Ring” as you may call yourself. No…I’m just PERFECTLY NORMAL Kristoff Liam Bates. I will do the best I can to win in that ring, and I will try to be as polite as possible while out of the ring against my opponents. I still believe in respect, unlike what you think, I only disrespected hearing you because…I couldn’t deal with what you had to say. You suggested that my intent on fixing my family, on doing what Harold set me on the path to do by showing me a reflection of my horrible self, is the WRONG thing? It is obvious I actually am trying to do what so very few have done, and is actually lead a relatively normal life without the drugs, debauchery and other problems that plague so many professional wrestlers.”
Indeed, even looking at the independent wrestlers here in this facility in Wisconsin, I realize how much it has seeped into even the lowest paid people. Prescription painkillers and alcohol…something I pray to god I don’t truly fall into myself. I look around; the sodium-vapor lights here are not even on, only when they hold events. Here, it is the eerie greenish glow of fluorescent bulbs. And under these glowing UV lights of cancer-inducing mercury-filled dread, I am to address the men who I am to face on Sunday.
“I don’t understand, Angel, why one man, my partner, would turn you inside out over the course of two weeks. You USED to have some respect for people, even as a member of the so-called Revolution. But I figure you think if you intimidate me, I’ll just hand you another victory and make you guys the only remaining tag-team after Dirty Deal and Lords of Destruction disintegrate in the Xtreme Championship match. We are the only ones LEFT for you…the only CHALLENGE. But you don’t realize that this could go on forever, now that Nero has come out as your brother. As long as I stay with him, his fight will ALWAYS be with you, Angel. His fight will always to be BETTER than you. And he is, because though he is cryptic and dark, and insinuates he eats kittens…at least he has SOME class, at least he doesn’t go down the low road and diss his opponents in every way imaginable. There isn’t much else to say to you, is there…other than that you have become so much less respectable since you beat me and I have tried, so VERY hard to learn how to be the one to take the high road. And all you do is say I should desert my family, my wife and kids, to pursue accolades that even YOU haven’t been given despite your “Legendary” history here in nCw. Yes…you are SO awesome, yet you carry Burns through this façade of a tag team and keep winning because you alone are so great you can beat everyone else here, I know, I know. You are so great you should have been World Champion twenty times already, but you HAVEN’T and seeing guys like Ace, Adam, Hammond, Xavier and soon AJ…well it burns you. And I can see why.”
Indeed, seeing your wife run off with AJ and win the World Title this week against Adam Knite is enough to drive any man insane. Let alone the brother that has recently come out. I see where you come from, Angel…and you need to take a few chill pills and calm down before you find yourself in the padded rubber room for your own safety, with only the Tag Title to comfort you at night while the Devil Himself continues to whisper in your ear.
“And Burns…where do I even START with you? You dream of being in the Hall of Fame yet you have a wounded leg that could possibly keep you sidelined permanently. I’m sorry, Burns, but…continuing on in that condition is the first way to an early retirement, the second is facing Nero and I in this match. You realize, with a wounded leg, and explicitly saying so, men of technical skill like Nero and I, and even your PARTNER would know that’s where to go. We don’t aim to cripple you; we aim to win a match. And if crippling you will do it, we will. I know more submissions than Ace, and you realize half of them could put you on the shelf. You are afraid, and then…you talk about Angel being a FRIEND by being enough of a freak to…scare you? Sure…scaring you may give you an adrenaline rush enough to cope with the pain for a while, but what then? You hurt MORE the day after. There isn’t a single thing you can do but feel that pain, Burns, and you are injured, take time off…take care of your body before we lose another great wrestler to injury like we lose so many in this business because of arrogance and stupidity about major injuries.”
Indeed, I only want to face you in your prime, Burns, like this it isn’t even funny. I can see you as an equal on any other day but now, you are injured, not at full capacity and on the verge of doing one botched move that turns your body into nothing more than a wheelchair-bound machine that will rust and stagnate for the remainder of your days. Hall of Fame isn’t something to shoot for yet, shoot for recovery first, that can always come later.
“But of course, you need to continue the badgering about my nightmares…about the fact that I think you may hurt my wife in our match. I don’t think it would be intentional…yet, but now that I hear the tone in your voice I begin to question whether the time I spend in this gym the rest of the week wouldn’t be as well-served as you taking a few days with your injured leg up and wrapped in ice packs followed by heating pads. But I consider your words marked, Burns, because if this doesn’t end at Reborn, things could and probably will spiral out of control until Picture Perfect where the picture, would not be as perfect as it would seem. We will not end until this is over, Nero and I. Should something PERSONAL happen at Reborn, there’s only one thing to think…that we wouldn’t stop until both you and Angel are sidelined.”
Indeed, we would go for that. Should my dream come true, both Angel and Burns may be dealing with another loose-cannon to accompany them and my partner. If I lose my grip on the sanity and NORMALCY I have come to embrace through therapy and reconciliation with my wife, well…I don’t even want to THINK about what would happen.
“I don’t know about you two, Burns and Angel, but…I’m TRYING my hardest not to be mean about it. I respect you, and your abilities, but the more you push me toward the edge, the more you drive me to the past. The more you drive me to THINK about the things I did to and against Harold because he had said things about my wife…things I could never prove, but they drove me INSANE. They drove me to THINK of killing. They drove me to THINK about jumping off the tron and onto Harold with a super-high-impact Shooting Star Press. Just think of what would happen…if you actually did hurt my wife, before my eyes. I may…do more. I may…get revenge. I may…THINK about turning into the thing I was about to become at my old job.”
They always told me I was unhinged, ABNORMAL. I try to be NORMAL. I try to be PERFECTLY NORMAL. I try to be myself…but what the demons inside me want is different from that. And now…I am faced by outer demons in Burns and Angel. I could become a psychopath…I could go POSTAL. So please…don’t push me too far, Angel and Burns. Don’t push me over the edge…because I’d rather…show you what PERFECTLY NORMAL can do.