Post by The Gangsta on Nov 5, 2018 22:07:59 GMT -5
Ante Whitner RP
Untitled
“I couldn’t pen the name of this entry because one, I didn’t get the title, and two, I don’t know where I’m headed. For those who know me or have seen me on their TVs, you’d know this isn’t a deviation from the norm. As Philip Schneider once put it, I’m a ‘one pump chump’. I beat Schneider and Kyzer and all of these greats and yet, I face a roadblock that trips me up every time I hit it. It’s something I’ve endlessly tried to fix.
I don’t know if it’s the title that avoids me or the mistakes I blindly gloss over. For the first time ever, I had faith in this bout. I had faith that Frank Lynn would finally submit and take the L as I had many times before. I thought the championship, or at least the image of it, would fulfill this divine journey I’ve been facing. For once, I thought this was it.
God didn’t help me in all of my previous losses and yet, when he finally interjects in the match of a lifetime, I still lose. I still feel a burden of guilt for losing, despite all of my Catholic mumbo jumbo that atheists and agnostics cringe at. Faith either made me lose or made me too naive. If it made me lose, that’s understandable. But, if it made me naive, then I’m scared as hell.
I impulsively involved myself in Lynn’s affairs again. I told myself multiple times backstage that this was the right decision, the Greco Gambit of our long-storied feud. I was filled with anger, grief, ambition, and above all, faith. I knew this was my last shot at trying to get the title, to try and one-up Lynn like Kyzer did to me. Kyzer knew what he was doing. How come I didn’t?
I was naive and careless. Now, the whole world is against me once again. My message of love and healing has become a bastardization of hate and pain. The deacons at the diocese have told me that I am ‘what the crowd molds me’. That hasn’t been as clear and coherent to me as it is now. I’m the antithesis of my own sermons and evangelical desires. I’m a redeemer no more.
The crowd thinks of me as a cultist now. I spread a message that no one believes in and when I answer the call, they see me as Manson. They see me as a killer and a danger to civilization itself. I’m here to say I’m not a danger nor a killer. I’m not a cultist, I repeat, not a cultist.
But, that doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter what I think, it doesn’t matter what Lynn thinks. He feeds off of the crowd, off of their fears. Old Ante loved him. New Ante refuses to love him, even though I preach a message of embrace and forgiveness. The crowd will never see that again. They’ll never see the true meaning behind my journey. Instead, they blur it. They discolor, abuse, and break the path into an emasculated debauchery that I alone still follow.
I still have faith, however. No matter how naive or hopeless I may get, I’ll always have faith in the end of the road. If the world hates me, then so be it. I can’t change or sway their opinion again. But I have faith I’ll overcome it, despite how overwhelming it is.
I hope when you read this you’re what you have molded. I hope you become what you’ve always wanted and always dreamed of. No one’s perfect, but I’m sure as hell you’ll get close to it.
God bless and Godspeed.”
November 2, 2018
Ironworks Gym
Dell City, TX
I sit down, chuggin’ my gallon of Poland Spring. I wipe away the sweat from my eyes and spit into my rag. The bright lights in the gym make me light-headed and uneasy. I have to blink a few times before the spinning stops.
“You alright?” says Elijah.
“Yeah, just gimme a minute.” I reply.
Elijah made his stay in Dell City more permanent than I would’ve liked. I offered him a place on my couch in exchange for a half-month’s rent, but the kid has blown almost all of his money on drugs and booze so God knows how much time I have to set him straight. Luckily, I have an ounce of sympathy to let him skip a month and try to get back on track.
“What’s wrong, didn’t eat?”
“Yeah.”
I skipped lunch today to go to a prayer service for the recent shooting. All of the priests, deacons, and nuns were there thanking me for showing up. I felt glorified; more pictures were taken of me holding a candle amongst the crowd of mourners than there were mourners. I took away from the service, but Bishop Will assured me otherwise.
I’ve become more of a holy symbol than a prayer service and it scares the s**t outta me.
“Hold on a sec, let me catch up to you.” I exhaustingly say.
“Dude, you look like a ghost. Take a breather, I got this.” He replies.
Elijah continues to beat the bag harder and harder. I see the progress in his endurance and his strength; the kid’s veins are popping out of his arms for God’s sake. The bright red boxing gloves he has on are starting to wear out and rip. At this point, Elijah is punching the bag with his bare knuckles and hasn’t felt a thing.
“Elijah.” I quietly say.
He doesn’t hear and he keeps hitting the bag harder and harder.
“Elijah!” I mildly yell.
Elijah takes out his ear buds and looks at me, almost furiously. There’s an anger in between the blood vessels and the pupils of his eyes.
“You’re wasting your strength kid.”
“What?”
I point to his gloves.
“S**t, I’ll pay you back for these. I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine. Just, just save your energy. There’s no need to put all of your weight into every single punch.”
Elijah nods and puts his ear buds back in. I wipe away more sweat from my face and drink some more water. I feel like absolute garbage and it’s annoying me. I’ve felt like this since Mexico and I can’t shake the feeling. I don’t know if it’s ‘cause I lost against Lynn or because I mistakenly attacked him in London, but it’s f**kin’ me up.
I crack my knuckles and head over to the dumbbells. Elijah notices and follows me.
“Ante, I thought you were taking a-”
“I’m good now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just keep hitting the bag and I’ll-”
“Just sit out, I’ll be done in a minute and then we can-”
“Let me do some reps and I’ll get back to you.”
Elijah has this annoyed look on his face, almost as if you had told him off.
“I thought you said you were gonna train me. I let you sit out a few and s**t.”
“I know.”
He walks away and goes back to the bag. He wants to be like me, to be in the spotlight in front of millions and wear a title around his belt. To him, I’m his idol and it pisses me off. I’m no idol, not even close. I have a message I wanna spread, not a follower who will jump off a bridge at my command.
If he wants to be a wrestler, then he needs to learn on his own like I did. He needs to feel alone, pressured, and resilient through anything that is thrown at him. He can’t be like me and he most certainly can’t mimic my message. Redemption is something not everyone can just toy with. It’s something you need the utmost devotion for.
I pick up two fifty pound dumbbells to start easy. Most of the lightheadedness has gone away thanks to the absurd amount of water I’ve been drinking. If God has blessed me with wine instead, I’d probably be doing much better. As I do a few reps, I feel a sudden pop in my shoulder.
“GOD, DAMN. Fuh-”
Elijah immediately rushes over as I drop the dumbbells onto the floor, making a loud thud. Everyone around looks and someone else comes rushing over, some girl who works here.
“You alright sir?” the woman said.
“Yeah, just something in my shoulder.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs it around. Elijah takes my other arm and pulls away.
“I told you not to do it and you didn’t listen.” angrily says Elijah.
“Hold on, let him sit a minute.” says the woman.
I breathe heavily as the radiant pain goes up and down my arms and torso. Jesus, I’m so freakin’ out of shape and it’s showing. It’s god damn embarrassing. I pick up some water as the girl keeps rubbing.
“Would you mind gettin’ him some ice?”
“Yeah.”
Elijah grabs a plastic bag and heads into the back room. The woman starts to squint at me.
“You’re Ante Whitner, aren’t you?” says the woman in a heavy Texan accent.
“Yep.”
I grunt in pain and in dismay. She knows who I am and is seeing me like this. I don’t remember when I got so concerned with what people thought of me, but I had a feeling she was gonna pull that one. Absolutely embarrassing.
“S**t, I think you popped something in your tricep.”
I take a quick glance at it and it’s all purple. I either tore it or popped a vessel. Perfect timing for my match with Ryan Payne in a few weeks.
“Really?”
Elijah comes back before she can answer. She grabs the ice bag he got and wraps around my shoulder. She sighs and smiles at me.
“You should probably hit up your orthopedist or somethin’. I know you got that match in a couple of weeks.”
“What did you do?!” angrily says Elijah.
“She told me I popped something in my arm. Hopefully it ain’t too-”
“Jesus Christ Ante.”
“Here, come get up and I’ll bring you into the back.”
And now, it’s just a big ol’ fuss. My little training injury is gonna be everywhere and Ryan Payne is gonna capitalize on that. He’s gonna take my arm, break it, and send me further down the line to where even Stan McMann has a better shot than I do. Elijah and the girl lift my arms up and slowly walk me into the back. Everyone around is taking pictures and laughing at my misfortune. I can’t help but feel even more nauseated than before.
We make it to the back room and it’s piss yellow walls are staring back at me. The light is blinding and I can’t help but audibly writhe in pain as I lay down on the couch. The girl leaves briefly to get something.
“Is this what it’s like?” asks Elijah.
“What?”
“I saw everyone looking at you. They must think you’re a damned fool for lifting a dumbbell.”
“Yeah, well, being a prizefighter has its flaws. You know that.”
“You’re not a prizefighter though.”
The girl comes back and she looks more youthful than I remember. She put her hair up in a pony tail and got some kind of drug, a prescription.
“Woah, woah, what is that?” I ask.
“It’s a painkiller. You’re gonna need it if you wanna win that match of yours.”
I nod in exhaustion and dismay.
“Is there anything else I could have? I could just stick to the ice.”
“You’re probably better off with this sir.”
I begrudgingly take the orange bottle and pop two into my mouth. I immediately feel ten times more nauseous taking it. I wish it would just go away already. These injuries, this guilt, all of it. I wish it would all crawl into a hole and burn.
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
Elijah lets out a huff and a smirk and turns away.
“Cassie, y’all can call me Cass though.” she says.
“Are we free to go now?” Elijah interjects.
“Not until I write out an injury report. I gotta do it whenever anyone hurts themselves in there.”
Elijah sighs as Cass leaves the room to grab the papers.
“You’re a f**kin’ mess.”
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”
“I wish I could.”
He sighs and sits down next to me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m letting him down. He sought me out to believe in my message, to pray and heal. He thought he can train and improve his health so he can one day become a wrestler like me. He wants to be a fighter when all I’ve given him is bullet shells without any gunpowder.
I wish someone, for once, can believe in me.
“Y’know, when James told me to find you and see if your whole new outlook on life was bull, I almost didn’t go. I felt you were dead the last time I saw you. I didn’t believe that you had found God as your new compass.”
“I didn’t either.”
Elijah looks down at the ground and takes a swig of his water bottle.
“I hope one day you’ll stop fighting this uphill battle. I hope you find peace, a wife, a family, something you can harmlessly work for.”
I chuckle.
“There’s always harm in anything you work for.” I laughingly say.
“I know, but not everything involves being beaten to a bloody corpse man.” Elijah replies.
“Then, why do you want in so bad?”
I smirk as Elijah pauses. Cass comes back in with a paper and pen.
“Alright Mr. Whitner, please sign here and here.”
The lines are blurry, almost as if the drugs she gave me got me an insane head high. It’s giving me a cold sweat, just like when I relapsed a few months ago. I feel the panic, the sense of the world turning upside down as you try to stumble to your feet. It all breaks when I notice Elijah maintaining a sad and concerned stare at me.
“You alright?” Cass says, breaking the silence.
I take a moment.
“Yeah, yeah, where do I needa sign?” I say.
She points to the empty lines and I sign quickly. Cass smiles, almost like I’m giving her an autograph.
Elijah heads back into the workout area to grab our stuff and we leave after a couple of thank yous and goodbyes. I hate saying thank you because no one’s ever truly grateful.
Just guilty.
I’ve been asking myself these past few weeks “where is God?” and “why am I suffering?”. I’ve answered the questions over and over again, but yet, I still ask and ponder. I expect a different answer each time, but no. The literal definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again to expect a different outcome.
Am I going insane?
I hate to believe I am. I’d rather just say I’m hung up on my past experiences with Frank Lynn to circumvent the sinking feeling. I feel stripped, bland, lacking a God and a path to follow. I’m disconnected from those around me, those I’ve fought, and everything my life has led to thus far. It’s like I blinked and in a flash, my career began, progressed, and ended in the same short second.
I find that with you, Payne. I blink and see your career begin and end in an instant. I see where your bloodthirsty tendencies lie and wonder if it’s sinful or not. Sinful to wonder or sinful to commit what you have done. I mean, I did execute Philip Schneider in a flaming barbed wire match that I thought was impossible to do. You and I have overcome what the world has expected of us. We’ve set standards and messages many cannot comprehend.
But, what happens when we lose that message? What happens when we feel the burden of doing the impossible, when it seems impossible to deny the impossible? That’s where you and I lie, in this void of unilateral choice. The choices prick us like the epithet you’ve become, making us bleed and toil over our respective journeys. Why bleed? Why fight?
Ryan “Needles” Payne is more than bleeding and fighting. You’re more than what the world sees you as. But, so am I. I am larger than what you have accomplished so far. I have four years under my belt without a second thought or regret. I’ve lived this life longer and seen what guys like you and I endure, what we withstand. It was only recently that you got your first win here, a win that means more to you than your eventual second one.
Your second one won’t come in our match. Your second one won’t come for a while, actually. You haven’t even taken your baby steps into the world of hurt. You think you have, but in reality, you’ve seen footprints in the sand of another man you’ve mistaken as yours.
That man is me.
We walk the same path, Payne. We will always walk the same path. The cycle of trauma, realization, more trauma, and then self-discovery is the cornerstone of what it means to be a man. The reason I think I’m insane is because of this endless cycle wearing me down like a pacmule. It never stops and will never stop for me, for you, and for anyone else that wants to be on top here. It’s why my redemption is the archetype for why you need to submit and let the winds of time pass over you.
You are going to lose. Period. You are going to suffer. Period. Everything you’ve entangled yourself in will stab you like the needle you are. Period. Blink once more and it’ll happen all over again. I hope at the end of all of this, at the end of your career, you’ll understand why I look to God. You’ll understand why despite all of the hardships I still have faith in myself.
I hope you will too. I hope you find redemption and the path I’ve undertaken as one of extreme change for the better. God has molded me into a divine weapon. God has made me see and understand why we continue to fight and suffer. He can do that to you too if you choose.
If not, then you become another name, another number in the book. You’ll become a needle in a needlestack, worthless and unable to find. When you lose to me in Seattle, a place where I was bred and grown, you will see why you will become a victim of God’s vengeance. God’s will is almighty and all powerful.
And so is mine.
Untitled
“I couldn’t pen the name of this entry because one, I didn’t get the title, and two, I don’t know where I’m headed. For those who know me or have seen me on their TVs, you’d know this isn’t a deviation from the norm. As Philip Schneider once put it, I’m a ‘one pump chump’. I beat Schneider and Kyzer and all of these greats and yet, I face a roadblock that trips me up every time I hit it. It’s something I’ve endlessly tried to fix.
I don’t know if it’s the title that avoids me or the mistakes I blindly gloss over. For the first time ever, I had faith in this bout. I had faith that Frank Lynn would finally submit and take the L as I had many times before. I thought the championship, or at least the image of it, would fulfill this divine journey I’ve been facing. For once, I thought this was it.
God didn’t help me in all of my previous losses and yet, when he finally interjects in the match of a lifetime, I still lose. I still feel a burden of guilt for losing, despite all of my Catholic mumbo jumbo that atheists and agnostics cringe at. Faith either made me lose or made me too naive. If it made me lose, that’s understandable. But, if it made me naive, then I’m scared as hell.
I impulsively involved myself in Lynn’s affairs again. I told myself multiple times backstage that this was the right decision, the Greco Gambit of our long-storied feud. I was filled with anger, grief, ambition, and above all, faith. I knew this was my last shot at trying to get the title, to try and one-up Lynn like Kyzer did to me. Kyzer knew what he was doing. How come I didn’t?
I was naive and careless. Now, the whole world is against me once again. My message of love and healing has become a bastardization of hate and pain. The deacons at the diocese have told me that I am ‘what the crowd molds me’. That hasn’t been as clear and coherent to me as it is now. I’m the antithesis of my own sermons and evangelical desires. I’m a redeemer no more.
The crowd thinks of me as a cultist now. I spread a message that no one believes in and when I answer the call, they see me as Manson. They see me as a killer and a danger to civilization itself. I’m here to say I’m not a danger nor a killer. I’m not a cultist, I repeat, not a cultist.
But, that doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter what I think, it doesn’t matter what Lynn thinks. He feeds off of the crowd, off of their fears. Old Ante loved him. New Ante refuses to love him, even though I preach a message of embrace and forgiveness. The crowd will never see that again. They’ll never see the true meaning behind my journey. Instead, they blur it. They discolor, abuse, and break the path into an emasculated debauchery that I alone still follow.
I still have faith, however. No matter how naive or hopeless I may get, I’ll always have faith in the end of the road. If the world hates me, then so be it. I can’t change or sway their opinion again. But I have faith I’ll overcome it, despite how overwhelming it is.
I hope when you read this you’re what you have molded. I hope you become what you’ve always wanted and always dreamed of. No one’s perfect, but I’m sure as hell you’ll get close to it.
God bless and Godspeed.”
November 2, 2018
Ironworks Gym
Dell City, TX
I sit down, chuggin’ my gallon of Poland Spring. I wipe away the sweat from my eyes and spit into my rag. The bright lights in the gym make me light-headed and uneasy. I have to blink a few times before the spinning stops.
“You alright?” says Elijah.
“Yeah, just gimme a minute.” I reply.
Elijah made his stay in Dell City more permanent than I would’ve liked. I offered him a place on my couch in exchange for a half-month’s rent, but the kid has blown almost all of his money on drugs and booze so God knows how much time I have to set him straight. Luckily, I have an ounce of sympathy to let him skip a month and try to get back on track.
“What’s wrong, didn’t eat?”
“Yeah.”
I skipped lunch today to go to a prayer service for the recent shooting. All of the priests, deacons, and nuns were there thanking me for showing up. I felt glorified; more pictures were taken of me holding a candle amongst the crowd of mourners than there were mourners. I took away from the service, but Bishop Will assured me otherwise.
I’ve become more of a holy symbol than a prayer service and it scares the s**t outta me.
“Hold on a sec, let me catch up to you.” I exhaustingly say.
“Dude, you look like a ghost. Take a breather, I got this.” He replies.
Elijah continues to beat the bag harder and harder. I see the progress in his endurance and his strength; the kid’s veins are popping out of his arms for God’s sake. The bright red boxing gloves he has on are starting to wear out and rip. At this point, Elijah is punching the bag with his bare knuckles and hasn’t felt a thing.
“Elijah.” I quietly say.
He doesn’t hear and he keeps hitting the bag harder and harder.
“Elijah!” I mildly yell.
Elijah takes out his ear buds and looks at me, almost furiously. There’s an anger in between the blood vessels and the pupils of his eyes.
“You’re wasting your strength kid.”
“What?”
I point to his gloves.
“S**t, I’ll pay you back for these. I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine. Just, just save your energy. There’s no need to put all of your weight into every single punch.”
Elijah nods and puts his ear buds back in. I wipe away more sweat from my face and drink some more water. I feel like absolute garbage and it’s annoying me. I’ve felt like this since Mexico and I can’t shake the feeling. I don’t know if it’s ‘cause I lost against Lynn or because I mistakenly attacked him in London, but it’s f**kin’ me up.
I crack my knuckles and head over to the dumbbells. Elijah notices and follows me.
“Ante, I thought you were taking a-”
“I’m good now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just keep hitting the bag and I’ll-”
“Just sit out, I’ll be done in a minute and then we can-”
“Let me do some reps and I’ll get back to you.”
Elijah has this annoyed look on his face, almost as if you had told him off.
“I thought you said you were gonna train me. I let you sit out a few and s**t.”
“I know.”
He walks away and goes back to the bag. He wants to be like me, to be in the spotlight in front of millions and wear a title around his belt. To him, I’m his idol and it pisses me off. I’m no idol, not even close. I have a message I wanna spread, not a follower who will jump off a bridge at my command.
If he wants to be a wrestler, then he needs to learn on his own like I did. He needs to feel alone, pressured, and resilient through anything that is thrown at him. He can’t be like me and he most certainly can’t mimic my message. Redemption is something not everyone can just toy with. It’s something you need the utmost devotion for.
I pick up two fifty pound dumbbells to start easy. Most of the lightheadedness has gone away thanks to the absurd amount of water I’ve been drinking. If God has blessed me with wine instead, I’d probably be doing much better. As I do a few reps, I feel a sudden pop in my shoulder.
“GOD, DAMN. Fuh-”
Elijah immediately rushes over as I drop the dumbbells onto the floor, making a loud thud. Everyone around looks and someone else comes rushing over, some girl who works here.
“You alright sir?” the woman said.
“Yeah, just something in my shoulder.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs it around. Elijah takes my other arm and pulls away.
“I told you not to do it and you didn’t listen.” angrily says Elijah.
“Hold on, let him sit a minute.” says the woman.
I breathe heavily as the radiant pain goes up and down my arms and torso. Jesus, I’m so freakin’ out of shape and it’s showing. It’s god damn embarrassing. I pick up some water as the girl keeps rubbing.
“Would you mind gettin’ him some ice?”
“Yeah.”
Elijah grabs a plastic bag and heads into the back room. The woman starts to squint at me.
“You’re Ante Whitner, aren’t you?” says the woman in a heavy Texan accent.
“Yep.”
I grunt in pain and in dismay. She knows who I am and is seeing me like this. I don’t remember when I got so concerned with what people thought of me, but I had a feeling she was gonna pull that one. Absolutely embarrassing.
“S**t, I think you popped something in your tricep.”
I take a quick glance at it and it’s all purple. I either tore it or popped a vessel. Perfect timing for my match with Ryan Payne in a few weeks.
“Really?”
Elijah comes back before she can answer. She grabs the ice bag he got and wraps around my shoulder. She sighs and smiles at me.
“You should probably hit up your orthopedist or somethin’. I know you got that match in a couple of weeks.”
“What did you do?!” angrily says Elijah.
“She told me I popped something in my arm. Hopefully it ain’t too-”
“Jesus Christ Ante.”
“Here, come get up and I’ll bring you into the back.”
And now, it’s just a big ol’ fuss. My little training injury is gonna be everywhere and Ryan Payne is gonna capitalize on that. He’s gonna take my arm, break it, and send me further down the line to where even Stan McMann has a better shot than I do. Elijah and the girl lift my arms up and slowly walk me into the back. Everyone around is taking pictures and laughing at my misfortune. I can’t help but feel even more nauseated than before.
We make it to the back room and it’s piss yellow walls are staring back at me. The light is blinding and I can’t help but audibly writhe in pain as I lay down on the couch. The girl leaves briefly to get something.
“Is this what it’s like?” asks Elijah.
“What?”
“I saw everyone looking at you. They must think you’re a damned fool for lifting a dumbbell.”
“Yeah, well, being a prizefighter has its flaws. You know that.”
“You’re not a prizefighter though.”
The girl comes back and she looks more youthful than I remember. She put her hair up in a pony tail and got some kind of drug, a prescription.
“Woah, woah, what is that?” I ask.
“It’s a painkiller. You’re gonna need it if you wanna win that match of yours.”
I nod in exhaustion and dismay.
“Is there anything else I could have? I could just stick to the ice.”
“You’re probably better off with this sir.”
I begrudgingly take the orange bottle and pop two into my mouth. I immediately feel ten times more nauseous taking it. I wish it would just go away already. These injuries, this guilt, all of it. I wish it would all crawl into a hole and burn.
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
Elijah lets out a huff and a smirk and turns away.
“Cassie, y’all can call me Cass though.” she says.
“Are we free to go now?” Elijah interjects.
“Not until I write out an injury report. I gotta do it whenever anyone hurts themselves in there.”
Elijah sighs as Cass leaves the room to grab the papers.
“You’re a f**kin’ mess.”
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”
“I wish I could.”
He sighs and sits down next to me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m letting him down. He sought me out to believe in my message, to pray and heal. He thought he can train and improve his health so he can one day become a wrestler like me. He wants to be a fighter when all I’ve given him is bullet shells without any gunpowder.
I wish someone, for once, can believe in me.
“Y’know, when James told me to find you and see if your whole new outlook on life was bull, I almost didn’t go. I felt you were dead the last time I saw you. I didn’t believe that you had found God as your new compass.”
“I didn’t either.”
Elijah looks down at the ground and takes a swig of his water bottle.
“I hope one day you’ll stop fighting this uphill battle. I hope you find peace, a wife, a family, something you can harmlessly work for.”
I chuckle.
“There’s always harm in anything you work for.” I laughingly say.
“I know, but not everything involves being beaten to a bloody corpse man.” Elijah replies.
“Then, why do you want in so bad?”
I smirk as Elijah pauses. Cass comes back in with a paper and pen.
“Alright Mr. Whitner, please sign here and here.”
The lines are blurry, almost as if the drugs she gave me got me an insane head high. It’s giving me a cold sweat, just like when I relapsed a few months ago. I feel the panic, the sense of the world turning upside down as you try to stumble to your feet. It all breaks when I notice Elijah maintaining a sad and concerned stare at me.
“You alright?” Cass says, breaking the silence.
I take a moment.
“Yeah, yeah, where do I needa sign?” I say.
She points to the empty lines and I sign quickly. Cass smiles, almost like I’m giving her an autograph.
Elijah heads back into the workout area to grab our stuff and we leave after a couple of thank yous and goodbyes. I hate saying thank you because no one’s ever truly grateful.
Just guilty.
I’ve been asking myself these past few weeks “where is God?” and “why am I suffering?”. I’ve answered the questions over and over again, but yet, I still ask and ponder. I expect a different answer each time, but no. The literal definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again to expect a different outcome.
Am I going insane?
I hate to believe I am. I’d rather just say I’m hung up on my past experiences with Frank Lynn to circumvent the sinking feeling. I feel stripped, bland, lacking a God and a path to follow. I’m disconnected from those around me, those I’ve fought, and everything my life has led to thus far. It’s like I blinked and in a flash, my career began, progressed, and ended in the same short second.
I find that with you, Payne. I blink and see your career begin and end in an instant. I see where your bloodthirsty tendencies lie and wonder if it’s sinful or not. Sinful to wonder or sinful to commit what you have done. I mean, I did execute Philip Schneider in a flaming barbed wire match that I thought was impossible to do. You and I have overcome what the world has expected of us. We’ve set standards and messages many cannot comprehend.
But, what happens when we lose that message? What happens when we feel the burden of doing the impossible, when it seems impossible to deny the impossible? That’s where you and I lie, in this void of unilateral choice. The choices prick us like the epithet you’ve become, making us bleed and toil over our respective journeys. Why bleed? Why fight?
Ryan “Needles” Payne is more than bleeding and fighting. You’re more than what the world sees you as. But, so am I. I am larger than what you have accomplished so far. I have four years under my belt without a second thought or regret. I’ve lived this life longer and seen what guys like you and I endure, what we withstand. It was only recently that you got your first win here, a win that means more to you than your eventual second one.
Your second one won’t come in our match. Your second one won’t come for a while, actually. You haven’t even taken your baby steps into the world of hurt. You think you have, but in reality, you’ve seen footprints in the sand of another man you’ve mistaken as yours.
That man is me.
We walk the same path, Payne. We will always walk the same path. The cycle of trauma, realization, more trauma, and then self-discovery is the cornerstone of what it means to be a man. The reason I think I’m insane is because of this endless cycle wearing me down like a pacmule. It never stops and will never stop for me, for you, and for anyone else that wants to be on top here. It’s why my redemption is the archetype for why you need to submit and let the winds of time pass over you.
You are going to lose. Period. You are going to suffer. Period. Everything you’ve entangled yourself in will stab you like the needle you are. Period. Blink once more and it’ll happen all over again. I hope at the end of all of this, at the end of your career, you’ll understand why I look to God. You’ll understand why despite all of the hardships I still have faith in myself.
I hope you will too. I hope you find redemption and the path I’ve undertaken as one of extreme change for the better. God has molded me into a divine weapon. God has made me see and understand why we continue to fight and suffer. He can do that to you too if you choose.
If not, then you become another name, another number in the book. You’ll become a needle in a needlestack, worthless and unable to find. When you lose to me in Seattle, a place where I was bred and grown, you will see why you will become a victim of God’s vengeance. God’s will is almighty and all powerful.
And so is mine.
