Post by Drakz on May 12, 2019 14:01:40 GMT -5
”The Longest Day”
(A.K.A. The Final Chapter?)
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How have I made it this far?
Somehow I’ve limped my way to another Superbrawl main event, only this time it’s the match I’ve always wanted.
The main event that should have been. The main event that never came to fruition last time, and left me defending my title against 5 other men. Because more participants means more important right?
F*ck off. This is the main event that the world has been waiting for. That I’ve been waiting for.
And yet…..I feel totally numb to it.
I’ve lost 2 of my 5 matches so far since dragging my carcass back to this place, and if patterns are to believed then this next match won’t fare much better for me. Correlation does not equate to proof though.
I’m the champion. THE champion. Not because I always have been. Not because I never lost it. None of that sh*t I used to chime on about means a f*cking thing anymore. I’m the WFWF World Heavyweight Champion because I’ve fought tooth and nail for it to stay that way. I was caught with my pants down momentarily. I lost this title. For the first time in my entire career I lost this title fair and square. Did it p*ss me off? Of course it did. But I didn’t let that cloud my judgement. I picked myself back up, wiped the sh*t out of my eyes and ran right back at Penny Shannon. Punt kicking her head for a conversion in the process. Who knows, maybe with a bit more time to recover she’d have done the double on me? Not this time though. She wasn’t ready. She’d beaten me so she dropped her guard. That’s how I know she wasn’t cut out for this life. As the champion you have to be ready always. You’re constantly in pain. Never fully at 100%. You have to learn to live with that. You need to adapt to the fact that you’ll spend the majority of your days as king feeling like sh*t. Never healthy. Always fighting from underneath, no matter what anyone thinks about the challenger’s chances. 99 times out of 100 they’ll be fresher, fitter and hungrier. So you have to be smarter, faster and a hell of a lot more ruthless.
THAT is why I beat Penny. I was still fighting as though I was the champion.
So maybe I should feel more confident than I do? I have only been pinned 3 times in God knows how many years. Only twice in singles action. And only one of those lead to my losing a match. Sorry Cameron.
Not many…..sorry…..no one can hold a candle to my resumé, and yet I’ve never felt worse. I’m on the precipice of completing my bucket list. I’m moments away from getting what I’ve wanted for years now. Finally about to face off with Michael Kyzer. One on one.
But part of me feels like we missed the boat. We’ve waited too long. We’re old men. We’re worn down, beaten and bruised. Just shadows of our former selves.
It feels like the mystique is gone now that our records are diminished. Kyzer’s no longer the terrifying myth that he had become in his long absence. He’s lost, countless times. It’s almost embarrassing. This is a man I considered my equal for the longest time. A man that most considered my superior. And now? He’s just another man.
Your Stoned Messiah?
The God of F*ck?
He’ll be lucky if anyone so much as considers him “the choir boy of f*ck” at this point.
Phillip Schneider.
Ante Whitner.
Frank Lynn.
Probably a load of others I can’t even remember.
But that’s not to say I’m without my foils as well.
If Kyzer was the story you told your kids to make sure they behaved, I was the story you told your kids if you wanted them to leave and never come back.
Untouchable. You’ve heard it all before. The longest title reign. The least losses. Blah blah blah.
All of that though is dead. The Drakz of yesteryear is no more than a box of photos in your attic.
Besides the loses of late I’ve gone from the healthiest I’ve ever been to perhaps the most broken down. All in a matter of months. That’s what I’m looking at these days. My physical peak has a half-life of less than a year before it decays to nothing once more. Mike can’t be much better.
But I suppose it’s only the pair of us that really, truly know that. We’re both still more than capable of puffing our chests out and talking enough sh*t to warrant our spot at the top of this card.
There’s something niggling in the back of my mind though. Something telling me that all of this sh*t with Mike might come to a head before I even get to Superbrawl.
But no. I have to make it.
I need to make it.
Just once more.
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1…..2…..3…..4……that should do it……for now.
40mg of Oxycodone sit in the palm of my hand. A hand that understandably isn’t as steady as it once was. A hand that doesn’t even look like mine in the cold white light of this bathroom. I slap whoever’s cupped hand this is against my open mouth, dumping the contents onto my tongue where they start to dissolve. The taste is truly f*cking horrendous, but it’s a taste. It’s a feeling, and I’ll take what I can get at the moment. I sit back onto the closed toilet seat while my dry mouth does its best impression of swallowing. A furtive glance around the room reminds me what a sh*t few nights it’s been. My pillow and duvet in the bath tub, a whole lot of blister packs (devoid of their medical passengers) scattered across the tiles, and perhaps most importantly the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship, hung up on the back of the door. I can’t leave it out there. She’d probably try and pawn it.
I should elaborate, at least a little. It’s been 5 days since I returned home from wherever the f*ck I beat Penny Shannon. 5 days I’ve been back in my apartment, and yes, 5 days that my Mother still persists in her existence……..in my bloody flat.
Why am I in here? Because it’s easier than being out there. Though I do have to wonder where she’s relieving herself given that I’m holed up in the only room with a toilet. It’s probably best not to give it much thought.
Oh I see! You mean why am I still here? In the flat. Full stop. It’s a damn good question, and one that I can only answer honestly.
I haven’t the least f*cking clue.
All I know is that I was hurting, and didn’t have the patience to find somewhere else right now. And why is she here? See my previous answer.
In fact, no don’t. It’s about time I stopped being a soft c*cked milk drinker. Besides, I’ve got about 30 minutes before those Oxies have my eyes rolling too much to focus on what she has to say.
I leave the bathroom for the first time in a long time, and set out for the spot she seems to be wearing in. A sun lounger on the balcony, cigarette seemingly superglued to her yellowed, liver spotted hand.
“So……don’t you think it’s about time you told me what’s going on?”
She takes a long drag on her smoke and doesn’t even acknowledge I’ve arrived. I stand there, a little shell shocked if I’m honest.
“Hey.”
I snatch the cigarette from her and ball it up in my hand. Probably burning me. Probably.
She moves her sunglasses down her nose, to look at her now empty hand, before opening the pack, pulling a fresh one out with her lips and lighting it.
Sunglasses back up. Still nothing as she looks out at the Chicago skyline.
“Are you going to make me slap my own Mother?”
She finally turns her head toward me.
“Can you keep it down? I’m waiting for my 5 year old son to stop hiding in the toilet, and I don’t want to miss him coming out when he finally decides he wants something.”
Should I slap her? I mean, it would feel great, but probably wouldn’t ease things any. Sour b*tch.
“Hilarious. Now…..woman……can you start being a little more forthcoming with details as to why the f*ck you’re in my house? Because once we’ve covered that we’ll be closer to me asking you to leave…….again.”
“You’ve had the best part of week to ask me that. What makes you think I want to answer now?”
Because if you don’t I’ll slap you’re face on to the back of your head? I’m really stuck on this slapping thing right now.
“Because you’re dying to tell me? You can play the Ice Queen role as long as you want, but I know deep down you’re already screaming the answer in my face. Let it out. Why not?”
She knows I’m right. Which is what makes me second guess this tactic’s chances of results. We’re both as damn stubborn as each other. Hence the years of excommunication.
“Come on. Out with it. You’ve not got long.”
She lowers her sunglasses again, peering over them at me.
“Until what?”
Until these Oxies hit and I stop paying attention.
“Never mind that. Why are you here?”
“To help co-ordinate your downfall.”
Excuse me?
“That’s what you want isn’t it? The perfect ending to your sh*t show attempt of a career. Going down in a hail of bullets.”
Well…..
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
You’re wrong?
“Jesus. Talk about a fall from f*cking grace. You can’t fight, and now you can’t even talk?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t fight?”
“Not from where I’m sitting. Didn’t you only a couple of weeks ago get your bell rung by a f*cking woman?”
Well….yes.
“Because I don’t give a f*ck how well trained she is, how scrappy and full of spunk…..”
Penny is a lot of things, but full of spunk? Come on.
……you should still have eaten her a-f*cking-live. The amount of sh*t you spew. Always banging on about how you’re the f*cking best? You’re f*cking past it. You’re done. Untouchable? Not for a long time. So, what have you got to say to that? You gonna go lock yourself in the bathroom again?
I…………erm…….
“Nothing?”
“I’m not finished.”
“Yeah you f*cking are. You’re looking for a way out. An exit that seems as though it was forced on you. Hell, you already f*cking had one of those with that busted spine of yours, but for some reason you had to go back? The f*ck is wrong with you?”
The number of times I’ve been asked that question…..
“I had unfinished business. I still HAVE unfinished business.”
“And if you lose, you get to walk away. Now all you’ve got to do is lose.”
“And what makes you think I want to lose?”
“I don’t think you want to lose. You can’t bear to leave that hole. You’re scared out of your mind by the idea of a life beyond this sh*t. I think you need to lose though. Force your own hand.”
When in my entire life have I needed to lose? I’ve never so much as entertained the idea until recently, and even that was a bit dubious. This f*cking witch doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“After all…..isn’t that what losers do?”
That boils my piss.
“Listen here you silly c*nt, you don’t know the first thing about what I’ve done. I’m a born f*cking winner. Some of these idiots think if they work hard enough they’ll be winners too. They think they can match what I’ve f*cking done for this sport. The millions of dollars I’ve put in other people’s pockets. But it’s bull sh*t. To be as good as I am, you need to be born with it.”
“As good as you were…..”
“As good as I f*cking AM!”
“As good as you are, you’ll still lose to Michael at Superbrawl.”
That f*cking dog chimes in with his ten cents.
Wait.
What?
“It’s like she says. You need to get out. Before the veil is lifted and they see you for the fraud you really are.”
I turn and look at the animal.
“This is none of your concern.”
I look back to my Mother and she’s a little taken aback. Confused.
“What? He knows even less about it than you f*cking do!”
Is that the faintest glimmer of concern? She takes her sunglasses off her face and folds them in her hand, looking at me with eyes that peer out of her surgically enhanced face.
“What’s happened to you? What have you done to yourself? To your home? Your family?”
She’s really piling it on now.
“The only thing that’s happened to me is I’ve been beaten and ground down by every f*cker who’s name isn’t Isaac Cray. I did none of this. Michael Kyzer did this. Trace Demon did this. Phillip Schneider did this. Did I mention Michael f*cking Kyzer?”
Here we go.
“My home? I cleaned it. I f*cking cleansed it. So what if I ruined the upholstery? I got the stink of Dog out of the place, and then YOU have the audacity to bring this little….thing….in here? And suddenly he thinks he knows me well enough to be calling me out on my sh*t?
As for family. What the f*ck did I ever do to my family? As far as I’m concerned I don’t have any family left. And you know what? I was fine with that. I’ve come to terms with that. A long time ago in fact.”
“You need help Isaac.”
And she lets it hang in the air. As though that gives it more authority or something. Of course I need f*cking help. There’s no one qualified enough to give it though.
“You used to be such a brilliant little boy.”
And now I’m a brilliant big f*cking man.
“Happy. Intelligent. Cute as a button. Certainly not meant for a career in fighting.”
Luckily for her (and me), she (like everyone else in the world) doesn’t know about what happened to Karla’s baby daddy.
“I happen to be all those things, here, right now. Aged 30 something.”
“You should be using that mind of yours.”
I interject before she’s even closed her mouth.
“I AM.”
My mind is the one weapon I’ve always been able to rely on. My body’s been giving out for a while now, but at least I know I’m a damn sight sharper than any of the morons I work with. Even as a man who can feel the early tingles of an opioid dose creeping in. Even as a man who consistently has issues with talking animals. Even as a man who can visibly see his humanity draining away. I’m still the smartest f*cker in the business.
“What do you even know about me as a child anyway? You were either drunk elsewhere, or just drunk. All this talk of happy? I was never happy with you around.”
“Which is part of the reason I wasn’t. I gave you the freedom to grow. The space to discover yourself. Become the man you are today.”
Is she for real?
“Are you f*cking mental? Are you trying to sell your inept parenting as a conscious decision? With my wellbeing at the centre of it all? F*ck me! And I’m the cause for concern? Besides, what the f*ck do you care about me anyway? Why start now? I thought you were here to ‘orchestrate my demise’ or some sh*t?”
“Call it maternal instinct.”
She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body, and I’m sure you’re starting to realise I inherited that from her along with the foul mouth.
“I’ll call it total bollocks.”
“Call it whatever you like. You may not like me, God knows I don’t like you, or most of the things you’ve done, but I don’t want to see you dead. And without intervention I think that’s exactly what will happen. You’ll die in that ring. Just to prove a point.”
There’s no one capable….
“No parent should have to outlive their child.”
Of course. It’s really just about her. Figures.
“This business with Michael……… You know as well as I f*cking do why this all started. Why everything he’s done to you, you brought on yourself. It’s time you faced where it all stems from.”
“And what’s that?”
What the f*ck is she talking about?
“Come on. It was all over the news.”
“What was?”
I’m not exactly known for my transparency, but I legitimately don’t know what she means. As far as I’m concerned Mike just saw me fast approaching in his rear view mirror and took action.
“You’re a joke. A loser. How much longer can you really go on pretending you’re the innocent one? The one betrayed?”
“I thought I made myself clear before?”
I turn to the dog again.
“Keep my affairs out of your f*cking mouth!”
He doesn’t so much as flinch at my approach.
“You’re pathetic. What? Is it just easier? More convenient to forget? To force a memory out of your head any way you can? Intoxicants? Blunt trauma? None of it changes the truth. No one else has forgotten. HE hasn’t forgotten.”
I’m still clueless. I think? All I know is that everything he’s saying makes my gut churn. What does that mean?
“I’m warning you buddy.”
“Isaac?”
“I’ll say it again:
You’re a total f*cking loser Isaac.”
Those words, those exact words, feel like they burst my ear drums as I’m suddenly wracked with a deafening bout of tinnitus. A screaming ring in my head, as though a bomb in my hands just went off. I close my eyes to try and get a handle on myself. My balance wains and I stumble a little. When my eyes open I see a very different Dog. Not my Mother’s dog………but Dog. The Dog. Complete with his smug smile as he sees the trouble I’m in.
Not this time.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!”
My Mother’s voice cuts through. Not soon enough.
I snatch the dog up from the ground with both hands and it yelps, clearly terrified by this maniac in front of it. Then, before the yelp has even finished, I throw it, over arm, off of the balcony and toward the street below.
I live on the 8th floor.
“OH MY GOD!!!!”
This action breaks that faux, reserved demeanour. Margaret Cray is standing upright, her ashtray smashed on the floor and she’s just screaming. And I mean really f*cking screaming. She’s completely f*cking beside herself. The Oxies are kicking in which, combined with my maniacal, misdirected rage, is really doing a number on me right now.
I’m out of here.
F*ck.
I grab a bag.
All the physical cash I can find. Approximately………2 thousand and……my vision’s blurring.
My passport……..I think. A passport.
The championship belt from the bathroom door.
F*ck!
A handgun from my bedside table. Who f*cking knows? I just threw a f*cking dog off a balcony?! I might have killed someone……someone other than the dog. That dog is definitely dead.
I repeat.
F*CK!
“F*ck!”
I pingpong off the walls, toward the apartment door, and even through this emotional haze make the very conscious decision to leave my keys behind. I’m never coming back to this apartment.
A thick fog settles in on my brain, one with only vague flashes of a past maybe I have been doing my best to forget. Conveniently.
And before I know it I’m snapped back to reality by the sudden change in space around me. The light, the air, the temperature, all of it. But most noticeable is the noise.
Car horns are blaring at full throttle and I hear a police siren approaching from somewhere off to my right. Like a moth to a flame I have to look. I have to catch a glimpse around the corner to know where I stand.
It’s f*cking chaos.
A small crowd has already gathered. A child sobbing uncontrollably is consoled. A woman sits, shell shocked in the driver’s seat of the car that swerved to miss, and hit a parking meter. A policeman tries to keep the crowd back as witnesses shriek their version of events at him. Some point up toward my balcony. Some just want to get close.
All of these voices, these sounds of a panicked humanity, just swamp one another and merge into a single drone. My mouth dries out and I feel my skin getting clammy. Cold but wet with the sweat of a guilty party. Then, almost in slow motion. Definitely in slow motion. I see a man from the crowd glance toward me and double take, before motioning to the officer. His gesticulating is in perfect synch with the city around me starting to close in.
The drone of it getting louder, building to a crescendo as I momentarily realise my free hand is deep in my bag, fingering the body of the firearm I have concealed inside. This f*cking noise! I can feel it in my chest now, my breathing getting shallow, and suddenly I’m waving the pistol around as though it will make this all go away.
But then I’m not.
The taxi door shuts behind me and the sound is gone. Muted. The gun still firmly in the confines of the duffle, and my criminal act concealed at least for now.
I notice the driver eying me in the rear view mirror, asking me for perhaps the third time where I’m going. I must look a mess.
“A hotel.”
“Which one?”
“The closest that doesn’t stink of piss.”
Somehow, the back of my forearm wiping the sweat from my forehead, I still manage to crack wise. It’s something of a personality defect at this point I think. The driver doesn’t give a f*ck. He just starts to drive and I slump back into the seat and finally get a chance to sink into my opiate sea.
The waves crash over me and I fall deep into my own thoughts. Tumbling through a series of f*cked up decisions.
I’ve done some f*cking terrible things. Some wicked things.
And before I know it I’m systematically going through them in chronological order, as if to really drive a point home or something?
The…..assisted(?) suicide of an unsuspecting teenage boy.
The facial disfigurement of Ray Smith.
The near murder of a young transgender Justin Tyger, as he was cast, headfirst down a flight of stairs.
The absolute physical destruction of anyone who stood in the way of The New Epoch.
Breaking and entering into the Dean household, leaving proof of my presence in their child’s crib.
Manipulating Lucas Crowe into throwing his career away.
Snatching a very real chance at a title reign from Joshua.
Throwing a glass trophy into a crowded room at the awards ceremony.
Stomping a Dog to death.
This is really going on a bit isn’t it? But there’s more. Of course there is.
Abandoning the most recent woman to fall in love with me.
Destroying Penny Shannon’s dream of a memorable championship run.
And now the outright killing of a second dog.
Did you get all of that? Good. Because all of it, absolutely all of it, is nothing compared to what I did to Michael. I’m still not sure on the details, or even the main body of it, but this feeling in my stomach is a sure sign that whatever it was, it was really f*cking bad.
Deserving of being crippled bad? Perhaps.
“Alright buddy. We’re here."
Slightly more lucid now than before. Based on his tone, that’s the first time he’d said those words, which in turn means I haven’t just been sat, staring blankly in the face of his announcements.
I fumble in my bag and push far too much money through the gap in the perspex separation. He attempts to dispute it, something I should care about, but I don’t. I just get out of the taxi, again temporarily brought back to my senses by the change in atmospheric pressure. A fourth time as I enter the hotel, and a hotel with a lobby this big and shiny, sure better not smell of piss.
“I need a room.”
“Hello sir and welcome to the….”
“Room please.”
A less professional attendant might have let slip that I’d just been rude. She doesn’t.
“Okay sir. If I can just take some details from you?”
The bag spews its contents onto the marble reception counter. Thankfully not the gun.
“Passport.”
I hold it up as though I’m a feature in an English language educational video.
“Credit Card.”
Again.
“Tip”
The rest of the wedge of cash.
“If I just take the room keys, can you sort this for me?”
She might be a pro, but even she has her limits. Her eyes wide at the prospect of a solid 1000+ dollar backsheesh.
“Of course sir. Leave it with me. I’ll have everything sent up to your room shortly.”
She hands me the key and as I scoop the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship back out of sight I’m suddenly accosted by a bell boy. Grabbing at my bags like he f*cking owns them.
“Back the f*ck up Mr Magoo.”
I pull my bag clear of his weasel hands, and he’s definitely shaken by it. Probably more concerned that the receptionist saw it all, and might substantiate my cries for his immediate dismissal.
Luckily for him I can barley make out his face. All the same, I keep my bag pressed to my body as we walk towards the elevator together.
F*ck me. Is he still going to escort me all the way to my room?
Apparently yes.
He’s followed me into the lift (see: elevator) and we’re both just standing here like a pair of f*cking lemons. Him, probably a bit intimidated by an aggressive customer, and me doing my damnedest not to laugh at how awkward this is. Of course, I fail.
I eventually part ways with the poor sack of bones as I cackle my way out into the corridor, waving him off as the doors close behind me, taking him back down to somewhere sane.
I however stumble my way down the hotel hall, in scenes reminiscent of those that played out many years ago in Las Vegas. An equally unstable time in my life. A time in which I was consistently confused about what was and wasn’t real. Routinely giving interviews to spectres that came home to roost, right there in Sin City, when I was at my weakest. A time I was at odds with Trace Demon. The first time? Maybe.
“I wonder where Sam Clearland is now?”
The mere mention of his name brings my laughter back to eruption. Laughing at his incompetence? Laughing at my inability to escape the cycles that brought him into being?
F*ck knows.
Just laughing.
And then the bedroom door closes and I fall back against it. Slumping to the ground as I cast my bag out ahead of me, still laughing. Now at the idea that I just threw a loaded firearm onto the floor without a second thought.
Laughter. It’s the greatest medicine, or so some people seem to think. I’m personally uncertain of how a terminal leukaemia patient would react to that prognosis. For me, right now though, it feels alright I guess. Confusing though.
An uncontrollable laughter takes hold. Manic, as images flash through my mind again.
And before long the laughter turns to an unbearable weight and I find myself sobbing. Tears run down my cheeks and my breath is short again.
Was it all worth it?
All that wickedness?
All of those decisions? Conscious decisions to turn my back on a more moral, younger self.
I bury my face in my hands, pushing my fingers into my eyes in the hope that they can unsee what’s passed.
A f*cking idiocy that a more stable me would have scoffed at.
I open them again to find I’m sitting on the bed.
The table to my right proudly displays a half empty bottle of scotch, of which some of the former contents are now re-homed in a glass, in my hand. The wingmen to this bottle are a small mirror with a haphazardly chopped series of white lines atop of it, certainly not the first of the day, as well as my passport, credit card and receipt for the room.
I question nothing, and take a sip.
They will never stop pursuing you. They will never cease. Never.
Not until they catch you.
You’re the Sun King. The Father of Forever. The only constant, despite what people may say. Despite what Frank “Perennial Mid-card” Lynn might say.
There’s no escape from them.
You manage to beat Kyzer? Zmey is waiting.
You beat Zmey? Penny is waiting.
EVERYONE is waiting.
And if you lose? Then you lose everything.
Everything you’ve worked so hard to establish dies with you.
And maybe that’s not so bad?
I travel back to meeting Michael for the first time. Our taking control of the WFWF. More laughing, as we spiral into a drug induced chaos.
Constant hookers. Constant parties. Constantly at Mike’s house.
DMK trying to stab me in the guts while I hammer around the house, high as a kite.
Sitting out on the front lawn, passing a joint between us.
Car tyres screech.
A child screams………
“That’s it…..”
As though the dam has finally given up under the colossal weight, I am drowning in the memory now. The memory that has eluded me for so long.
My hands shake and I’m completely f*cking overloaded with emotion. All of them at once.
And then, as though I played no part in its getting there, my mouth is filled with the cold barrel of the gun. My grip so unsteady that I can actually hear the metal rattling against my teeth.
Am I the only man capable of finishing this? The only person truly deserving of that moniker.
A final trophy for my cabinet. Another accolade and nickname.
F*ck the lot of you. This is mine.
*Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.*
I drop the gun, the front sight chipping my tooth on its way out of my head, but I barely even notice. I finally breathe again, only now realising it had been so long. Huge gasps of air as I contemplate the fact that I spent this whole time with a weapon that was never even loaded.
That creeping laughter rears its head again.
My own mortality comes into question and I realise I have to accept what I’ve done. I don’t know who I’m talking to:
“Even I can’t get rid of me.”
I’ll drink to that.
To immortality.
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And now I remember.
I always remembered.
Of course I did.
I just chose not to.
Ignorance is bliss, and that knowledge could land me in a lot of trouble. F*ck it though.
Let’s talk.
I’d like to preface this with the statement that however Michael Kyzer tells this story, however he says it made him feel is probably true. His reasons for wanting me out of his life? It’s all probably true. At this point I simply can’t be trusted not to lie about it. Even to myself it seems.
I can only tell you what I remember. How I felt at the time, and know this, you’re probably not going to like it. Any shred of “THE Good Guy” that you might still be holding on to is about to be snatched away. You can believe me about that.
I recall it all so clearly now. All of it. The smell of petrol in my nose from the cocaine. The sticky residue on my lips from the booze. The burning feeling of the smoke in my lungs as I draw it back and hold it.
It’s hot. The sun cooks my skin as I lounge in a chair out on the front lawn. No doubt my English lack of pigment means I’ve already gone a shade of pink.
“And you’ve got to believe Jew-bo is the kind of guy who loves getting his nuts kicked.”
Mike’s sat next to me and we’re discussing the finer details of what we perceive to be the rest of the locker room’s kinks.
“Without a doubt. Barbed wire bat sticking out of his ass.”
Mike laughs whilst half way through hitting a joint, sending plumes of smoke everywhere and locking him into a coughing fit.
His kid Gavin runs over to check on his Dad I assume, but I’m too high to care and settle into just staring up into the sky. I have to wonder how different things would be right now if I hadn’t agreed to let Kyzer take the reins for the last few months. With me busying myself with the International Championship as a way to pass the time, Mike’s been free to swim in the main event scene without my intrusion.
I don’t have a problem with this set up. It was a decision I made myself and one that allowed me to fine tune things, having only recently come back to the sport.
What I do have a problem with though is the fact that I’ve done this for Mike and he’s fallen on his face. Losing to the same schlub we were just talking about.
“Here.”
I’m brought back to the here and now as Kyzer passes me the smoke.
“So, tell me, what do you think of Brennan? Honestly?”
“Honestly?”
“That’s what I f*cking said isn’t it?”
He’s right. That was a pointless question.
“I think we picked the right guy.”
“The right guy for what?”
He knows what I mean, he’s just prying for prying’s sake.
“The right guy to bolster us. Keep us strong.”
“Do you think that’s all he is? Back up?”
“I don’t see him as a threat if that’s what you mean.”
He pauses, thinking about what I just said.
“You don’t see him outgrowing his position?”
Gavin’s off running around, putting marbles up his ass, or whatever it is children do these days. He’s sure making a lot of f*cking noise though.
“Not while we’re around. He’s a good foot solider, but he knows his strengths…..and his weaknesses.”
“I think you might be underestimating him.”
I don’t want to tell you how to do the whole parenting thing Mike, but will you tell your kid to sh*t the f*ck up? Even his laughter gets on my tits.
“I think we need to pay closer attention, make sure he’s groomed in a way that curbs any desire to break away from the whole.”
“Come off it mate. You think he’s capable of it? Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he’s just not a top tier contender.”
“Hmmmm. I think you’re overlooking him. We’re smarter than that. We don’t let sh*t like this come back to bite us on the d*ck. It doesn’t do us any good to…..”
I’ve stopped listening. I’m too distracted by his kid. Screaming around the garden after a ball like a complete f*cking intellectually- disabled person. I can feel my right eye beginning to twitch every time he makes a damn noise. Why on earth does Mike keep him around? What good has having a child ever done him? It’s just a distraction. We don’t have time for distractions at the moment. The heat is on.
“……besides we’re already in a position to…..”
Another scream from Gavin and I’m really bottling up my anger now. It’s twinging in my stomach.
All I can think about is shutting him up. Keeping him quiet. I’m not a man with an ounce of paternal instinct, so my empathy towards a kid just having fun is less than zero. I just want him to stop being so socially inept and for once to think about how his incessant f*cking shrieking is effecting everyone around him. Though Michael doesn’t even seem to notice.
“….David could be a real asset if he’s kept in line. I don’t want to control him necessarily, but he definitely needs guidance amongst…..”
Michael’s words are simply that. Words. I haven’t paid enough attention to them to know what order they’re in. What meaning or purpose he’s attached to them. It’s just a series of background noises as I explore my psychological impulses. Putting my hands around the kid’s throat and just squeezing. Squeezing the f*cking life out of him. Wringing that little neck in an attempt to “keep it down”. I squeeze and squeeze and his little head begins to swell like a balloon. His already rosy cheeks flush further, through a darker red, to purple and then into a deep blue, the whole time his head growing, as though the pressure from my hands is pumping him up. I can feel a smirk streak across my face as the boy’s head reaches comedic proportions.
In front of me Mike’s mouth is moving but all I can hear is the muted gasps of his child. The head growing and growing until……
*BANG*
The sudden bursting of the head snaps me back to the here and now. I suddenly feel quite uneasy, as though the noise were loud enough for Michael to actually hear it and stumble upon my thought process. My entire mental fantasy laid bare. I adjust in my seat, crossing my legs and nodding at Mike as though I’ve been hooked on every word.
“…..but I suppose that all depends on where you stand.”
Stand on what?
“So?”
I’m spared having to answer by a sudden ear splitting noise.
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE*
The focus of my vision shifts from Mike’s face to over his shoulder, toward the road. Just in time to see the rag doll motions of a child being cartwheeled into the air. His child.
In slow motion I see the sprawling limbs clawing at the air, before hitting the top of the windshield and rolling over the roof. He yelps like a dog then slams hard onto the hot tarmac, the car skidding to a halt. Michael now turns his head to see what’s happened, only to then look around the front yard with an urgency that only a Father could muster.
“Gavin?!”
He must have seen the little body in the street. I suppose he’s just hoping he’s wrong? He looks back now, having established that Gavin’s no where to be seen. Michael jumps to his feet, knocking the chair over and then races across the lawn and into the road. He almost slides on his knees to the heap of mangled limbs, scooping it up into his arms.
The driver is out of the car now, completely shell shocked. His eyes wide. His hand over his mouth as the realisation hits him. There will surely be a bid to follow.
I honestly don’t know that I ever even heard what Mike was saying at this point. Even the accident I’d just witnessed didn’t change that. I just heard noises. I saw him shaking. I heard him pleading. I think my brain was filling the gaps as I too was dumb founded.
“SOMEBODY CALL 911!!”
I’m still sat in my chair, watching this all play out in front of me, whilst neighbours are starting to join the fray, having heard the terrible noise. A woman from across the street comes running, a mobile phone already pressed against her ear. Is this really happening? Or am I about to zone back into the conversation we’re having? Is this just another mental attempt from myself to quiet the play of an annoyance? I’ve not had the same burst of adrenaline as Kyzer, and the cocktail of drugs and alcohol in my system is making it very hard to focus keenly enough to take this all in. It seems as much like a dream as it does a reality, and still I watch on. Michael holds the boy’s head in the crook of his arm, their foreheads pressed together. I can hear him wailing. Sobbing. Crying for his child. His dead child? Certainly his injured child.
And it’s only now I take Michael’s previous question and apply it to this very situation. Where do I stand on all this? I have to take some kind of stance surely? For one I’m startled at my remaining seated. Even now I find myself on auto pilot, taking a puff on the spliff and drawing the smoke into my lungs as my eyes narrow on the image of a Father cradling his dying son. He’s got to be dying. There’s not much coming back from an impact like that. Not when you’re that size.
I watch on and ask myself again how I feel about all of this.
I don’t think I actually wanted the kid to get hurt. I certainly didn’t want him to die. It seems like more hassle than it’s worth. Regardless of all that though, I notice that I actually feel resentment creeping in. Seeing Michael on his knees like that. Tears streaming down his face as he begs, I don’t know who, that Gavin will be okay. The neighbours are closing in around him now, faces aghast at the junkie from across the street’s negligence. How could he have let this happen?
There’s a lot of panic in the air, but not an iota of it on my part. I feel that I’m sneering at the scene before me. An insight into the real Michael Kyzer. The man. The father. The human being behind the steely exterior.
And I hate it.
It makes me sick to my f*cking stomach to see this man I’ve considered my equal crying over something so damn trivial. Kyzer’s words of guidance and control now mirror back on himself as I realise the extent of the knock on effect this is bound to have. If Kyzer was already letting the team down, he’s about to drop off a cliff. I need to quell the storm to come. Keep this maelstrom of parental grief from our door. Control and guide the situation.
Listen to me. The kid’s not even cold yet and I’m sat here thinking about how to sweep this all under the rug. I suppose I should get up and at least pretend to be concerned. It won’t serve me well to have Mike remember this moment, and remember I was absent for the entirety of it. I need to keep him onside if I’m going to keep him on course.
F*cking kids. They always have to be the centre of attention.
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I never wanted any of this Mike.
I never intended for us to be at war.
My entire thought process from the start was to keep this very thing from happening. Keep us strong. Keep us on track. All of us. The unit. Not the individual.
We could have dominated this world together, as brothers. Me, you and David. The New Epoch.
But instead you chose to let your emotions take hold. Cloud your judgement. And ultimately, make your decisions for you.
I’d tried to curb that. I’d tried to keep you from falling into that trap but for some reason you took this as a personal attack.
You tried to end my career. You tried to murder me!
You thought that separating Drakz from Isaac would make it easier on you.
Drakz dies.
Isaac exists forever in a chair. A cripple.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to wake up? Maybe the plan was for Isaac to exist forever in a hospital bed. Sh*tting into a bag. Eating intravenously.
Whatever the outcome, you thought I deserved it, and more.
All of this because I tried to rationalise the death of a child you weren’t even f*cking interested in until it was nice and tragic? It’s easy to care once all the responsibility has gone.
I tried to help you. Get you to move on and just ignore it. We didn’t have time for it and you know it. We had important work to do, and now, because of you, we’ll always be remembered as just another group that couldn’t get it done. Just like all the rest.
That whole time, outwardly playing along, acting as though you were on board. When in reality you were just internalising that want to grieve. Letting it build up until you saw an opportunity. An out.
Like a coward.
It’s convenient though isn’t it? That ever since you threw me off that stage 7 years ago, I’ve never once let the truth be known. I was too busy playing the victim.
People like victim’s Mike.
People buy victim’s merch, because people want to heal and support victims. Make them rich. Help them forget.
Heh.
I must say though that I’ve never been 100% convinced by your reasons. It’s also very convenient that your little temper tantrum came at the same time your steady decline in form really started to accelerate. It makes me wonder if there’s actually a lot of truth in the lies I’ve peddled over the years? Maybe the lies I’ve told hit a little too close to the bone? Now, be honest. Did you dump me onto the concrete because I deserved it? Because I was a callous piece of sh*t? Or was it because you knew what I’d become? Who I’d become?
If anything, what you did made me who I am today. That time away, the drive I cultivated during my rehabilitation and return to the ring, that’s part of the reason I eclipsed you. Urgh. I need to stop saying that. It implies you were ever bigger than me to begin with. People seem to forget that I was WFWF World Heavyweight Champion before you. In fact the only reason you ever won that title to begin with was because I vacated it. Once again stepping aside, to give you a chance to show the world who you were.
And yet I still took everything you’ve ever done in this sport and made it look like child’s play. Everything.
Your title reigns paled in comparison to mine. I took on all comers and sat atop that mountain, undisturbed, for longer than most people last in this business full stop.
Those embarrassing loses of yours. Two in a row at the hands of Phillip Schneider, after everything you said? Luckily I reinstated everything you destroyed. You made us look like f*cking bums, so in return I beat Obo so badly he retired. For good.
Everything of note that I’ve done can be traced back to you dumping me off that stage. So if you ask me, all that I did to protect our spot was completely justified. I wanted us to march on to greatness together. You instead chose to opt out, and guess what? I just did it on my own instead. Without the dead weight holding me down.
Hell, if it got me to where I wanted to go, if it propelled my rise above the quagmire even further, even faster……I’d do it all again. I’d even kill the little f*cker myself if it had meant forcing your hand right away, instead of you festering on your hurt feelings until it just got too much to take.
Unfortunately though I fear what everyone says about me now might be true. That I’ve peaked. That I’m past it.
I’m entering the 5th and final act, and you know what? I think I’m ready for it. I’m not at peace with it. No. There is no peace. Not for people like us.
I’m not going into this hoping for an easy way out. A graceful grand finale.
I’m a raging bull. Running head long into it, and you have the opportunity to end this. To end me. I’ve given you this shot. The whole time, or most of it at least, everybody willing me on. Thinking I’m the man to be cheered. Thinking you’re the enemy. The real villain.
And yet all along it’s I who am the darkness.
Who gives a f*ck anymore though, right Mike? There’s no need for me to hide it. There’s no need for me to keep them from the truth. I’m sure you won’t.
I’m ready to be put to rest.
I’ve given you the loaded gun. (It’s actually loaded this time….honest.)
It’s pressed against my head. All you need to do is pull the trigger. Don’t miss though buddy. Don’t give me an opportunity, because I’ll happily rip you apart before I go down in flames. And I WILL go down in flames. I intend on ending this career in the ring. I won’t be walking away from it with my head held high. Someone, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s Zmey, sh*t maybe it’s even Penny Shannon, but someone is taking my scalp. The scalp to end all scalps.
Hang me up high for all to see. The hide of the beast that used to terrify but now is no more than a story.
It’s funny how we’re so intrinsically linked, even now. Even though we’ve been at odds with each other for longer than we were ever allied. We’re still part of the same sentence. That bugs me. You don’t deserve to be mentioned alongside me. Not anymore. Not unless you can finally take back everything you’ve lost over the years.
Show them that you’re still worthy of their fear. Worthy of their respect.
Show them why I stepped aside for you on so many occasions. Show them that you’re still the God of F*ck.
Show ME.
Prove me wrong and send me on my way.
I’m ready.
(A.K.A. The Final Chapter?)
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How have I made it this far?
Somehow I’ve limped my way to another Superbrawl main event, only this time it’s the match I’ve always wanted.
The main event that should have been. The main event that never came to fruition last time, and left me defending my title against 5 other men. Because more participants means more important right?
F*ck off. This is the main event that the world has been waiting for. That I’ve been waiting for.
And yet…..I feel totally numb to it.
I’ve lost 2 of my 5 matches so far since dragging my carcass back to this place, and if patterns are to believed then this next match won’t fare much better for me. Correlation does not equate to proof though.
I’m the champion. THE champion. Not because I always have been. Not because I never lost it. None of that sh*t I used to chime on about means a f*cking thing anymore. I’m the WFWF World Heavyweight Champion because I’ve fought tooth and nail for it to stay that way. I was caught with my pants down momentarily. I lost this title. For the first time in my entire career I lost this title fair and square. Did it p*ss me off? Of course it did. But I didn’t let that cloud my judgement. I picked myself back up, wiped the sh*t out of my eyes and ran right back at Penny Shannon. Punt kicking her head for a conversion in the process. Who knows, maybe with a bit more time to recover she’d have done the double on me? Not this time though. She wasn’t ready. She’d beaten me so she dropped her guard. That’s how I know she wasn’t cut out for this life. As the champion you have to be ready always. You’re constantly in pain. Never fully at 100%. You have to learn to live with that. You need to adapt to the fact that you’ll spend the majority of your days as king feeling like sh*t. Never healthy. Always fighting from underneath, no matter what anyone thinks about the challenger’s chances. 99 times out of 100 they’ll be fresher, fitter and hungrier. So you have to be smarter, faster and a hell of a lot more ruthless.
THAT is why I beat Penny. I was still fighting as though I was the champion.
So maybe I should feel more confident than I do? I have only been pinned 3 times in God knows how many years. Only twice in singles action. And only one of those lead to my losing a match. Sorry Cameron.
Not many…..sorry…..no one can hold a candle to my resumé, and yet I’ve never felt worse. I’m on the precipice of completing my bucket list. I’m moments away from getting what I’ve wanted for years now. Finally about to face off with Michael Kyzer. One on one.
But part of me feels like we missed the boat. We’ve waited too long. We’re old men. We’re worn down, beaten and bruised. Just shadows of our former selves.
It feels like the mystique is gone now that our records are diminished. Kyzer’s no longer the terrifying myth that he had become in his long absence. He’s lost, countless times. It’s almost embarrassing. This is a man I considered my equal for the longest time. A man that most considered my superior. And now? He’s just another man.
Your Stoned Messiah?
The God of F*ck?
He’ll be lucky if anyone so much as considers him “the choir boy of f*ck” at this point.
Phillip Schneider.
Ante Whitner.
Frank Lynn.
Probably a load of others I can’t even remember.
But that’s not to say I’m without my foils as well.
If Kyzer was the story you told your kids to make sure they behaved, I was the story you told your kids if you wanted them to leave and never come back.
Untouchable. You’ve heard it all before. The longest title reign. The least losses. Blah blah blah.
All of that though is dead. The Drakz of yesteryear is no more than a box of photos in your attic.
Besides the loses of late I’ve gone from the healthiest I’ve ever been to perhaps the most broken down. All in a matter of months. That’s what I’m looking at these days. My physical peak has a half-life of less than a year before it decays to nothing once more. Mike can’t be much better.
But I suppose it’s only the pair of us that really, truly know that. We’re both still more than capable of puffing our chests out and talking enough sh*t to warrant our spot at the top of this card.
There’s something niggling in the back of my mind though. Something telling me that all of this sh*t with Mike might come to a head before I even get to Superbrawl.
But no. I have to make it.
I need to make it.
Just once more.
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1…..2…..3…..4……that should do it……for now.
40mg of Oxycodone sit in the palm of my hand. A hand that understandably isn’t as steady as it once was. A hand that doesn’t even look like mine in the cold white light of this bathroom. I slap whoever’s cupped hand this is against my open mouth, dumping the contents onto my tongue where they start to dissolve. The taste is truly f*cking horrendous, but it’s a taste. It’s a feeling, and I’ll take what I can get at the moment. I sit back onto the closed toilet seat while my dry mouth does its best impression of swallowing. A furtive glance around the room reminds me what a sh*t few nights it’s been. My pillow and duvet in the bath tub, a whole lot of blister packs (devoid of their medical passengers) scattered across the tiles, and perhaps most importantly the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship, hung up on the back of the door. I can’t leave it out there. She’d probably try and pawn it.
I should elaborate, at least a little. It’s been 5 days since I returned home from wherever the f*ck I beat Penny Shannon. 5 days I’ve been back in my apartment, and yes, 5 days that my Mother still persists in her existence……..in my bloody flat.
Why am I in here? Because it’s easier than being out there. Though I do have to wonder where she’s relieving herself given that I’m holed up in the only room with a toilet. It’s probably best not to give it much thought.
Oh I see! You mean why am I still here? In the flat. Full stop. It’s a damn good question, and one that I can only answer honestly.
I haven’t the least f*cking clue.
All I know is that I was hurting, and didn’t have the patience to find somewhere else right now. And why is she here? See my previous answer.
In fact, no don’t. It’s about time I stopped being a soft c*cked milk drinker. Besides, I’ve got about 30 minutes before those Oxies have my eyes rolling too much to focus on what she has to say.
I leave the bathroom for the first time in a long time, and set out for the spot she seems to be wearing in. A sun lounger on the balcony, cigarette seemingly superglued to her yellowed, liver spotted hand.
“So……don’t you think it’s about time you told me what’s going on?”
She takes a long drag on her smoke and doesn’t even acknowledge I’ve arrived. I stand there, a little shell shocked if I’m honest.
“Hey.”
I snatch the cigarette from her and ball it up in my hand. Probably burning me. Probably.
She moves her sunglasses down her nose, to look at her now empty hand, before opening the pack, pulling a fresh one out with her lips and lighting it.
Sunglasses back up. Still nothing as she looks out at the Chicago skyline.
“Are you going to make me slap my own Mother?”
She finally turns her head toward me.
“Can you keep it down? I’m waiting for my 5 year old son to stop hiding in the toilet, and I don’t want to miss him coming out when he finally decides he wants something.”
Should I slap her? I mean, it would feel great, but probably wouldn’t ease things any. Sour b*tch.
“Hilarious. Now…..woman……can you start being a little more forthcoming with details as to why the f*ck you’re in my house? Because once we’ve covered that we’ll be closer to me asking you to leave…….again.”
“You’ve had the best part of week to ask me that. What makes you think I want to answer now?”
Because if you don’t I’ll slap you’re face on to the back of your head? I’m really stuck on this slapping thing right now.
“Because you’re dying to tell me? You can play the Ice Queen role as long as you want, but I know deep down you’re already screaming the answer in my face. Let it out. Why not?”
She knows I’m right. Which is what makes me second guess this tactic’s chances of results. We’re both as damn stubborn as each other. Hence the years of excommunication.
“Come on. Out with it. You’ve not got long.”
She lowers her sunglasses again, peering over them at me.
“Until what?”
Until these Oxies hit and I stop paying attention.
“Never mind that. Why are you here?”
“To help co-ordinate your downfall.”
Excuse me?
“That’s what you want isn’t it? The perfect ending to your sh*t show attempt of a career. Going down in a hail of bullets.”
Well…..
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
You’re wrong?
“Jesus. Talk about a fall from f*cking grace. You can’t fight, and now you can’t even talk?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t fight?”
“Not from where I’m sitting. Didn’t you only a couple of weeks ago get your bell rung by a f*cking woman?”
Well….yes.
“Because I don’t give a f*ck how well trained she is, how scrappy and full of spunk…..”
Penny is a lot of things, but full of spunk? Come on.
……you should still have eaten her a-f*cking-live. The amount of sh*t you spew. Always banging on about how you’re the f*cking best? You’re f*cking past it. You’re done. Untouchable? Not for a long time. So, what have you got to say to that? You gonna go lock yourself in the bathroom again?
I…………erm…….
“Nothing?”
“I’m not finished.”
“Yeah you f*cking are. You’re looking for a way out. An exit that seems as though it was forced on you. Hell, you already f*cking had one of those with that busted spine of yours, but for some reason you had to go back? The f*ck is wrong with you?”
The number of times I’ve been asked that question…..
“I had unfinished business. I still HAVE unfinished business.”
“And if you lose, you get to walk away. Now all you’ve got to do is lose.”
“And what makes you think I want to lose?”
“I don’t think you want to lose. You can’t bear to leave that hole. You’re scared out of your mind by the idea of a life beyond this sh*t. I think you need to lose though. Force your own hand.”
When in my entire life have I needed to lose? I’ve never so much as entertained the idea until recently, and even that was a bit dubious. This f*cking witch doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“After all…..isn’t that what losers do?”
That boils my piss.
“Listen here you silly c*nt, you don’t know the first thing about what I’ve done. I’m a born f*cking winner. Some of these idiots think if they work hard enough they’ll be winners too. They think they can match what I’ve f*cking done for this sport. The millions of dollars I’ve put in other people’s pockets. But it’s bull sh*t. To be as good as I am, you need to be born with it.”
“As good as you were…..”
“As good as I f*cking AM!”
“As good as you are, you’ll still lose to Michael at Superbrawl.”
That f*cking dog chimes in with his ten cents.
Wait.
What?
“It’s like she says. You need to get out. Before the veil is lifted and they see you for the fraud you really are.”
I turn and look at the animal.
“This is none of your concern.”
I look back to my Mother and she’s a little taken aback. Confused.
“What? He knows even less about it than you f*cking do!”
Is that the faintest glimmer of concern? She takes her sunglasses off her face and folds them in her hand, looking at me with eyes that peer out of her surgically enhanced face.
“What’s happened to you? What have you done to yourself? To your home? Your family?”
She’s really piling it on now.
“The only thing that’s happened to me is I’ve been beaten and ground down by every f*cker who’s name isn’t Isaac Cray. I did none of this. Michael Kyzer did this. Trace Demon did this. Phillip Schneider did this. Did I mention Michael f*cking Kyzer?”
Here we go.
“My home? I cleaned it. I f*cking cleansed it. So what if I ruined the upholstery? I got the stink of Dog out of the place, and then YOU have the audacity to bring this little….thing….in here? And suddenly he thinks he knows me well enough to be calling me out on my sh*t?
As for family. What the f*ck did I ever do to my family? As far as I’m concerned I don’t have any family left. And you know what? I was fine with that. I’ve come to terms with that. A long time ago in fact.”
“You need help Isaac.”
And she lets it hang in the air. As though that gives it more authority or something. Of course I need f*cking help. There’s no one qualified enough to give it though.
“You used to be such a brilliant little boy.”
And now I’m a brilliant big f*cking man.
“Happy. Intelligent. Cute as a button. Certainly not meant for a career in fighting.”
Luckily for her (and me), she (like everyone else in the world) doesn’t know about what happened to Karla’s baby daddy.
“I happen to be all those things, here, right now. Aged 30 something.”
“You should be using that mind of yours.”
I interject before she’s even closed her mouth.
“I AM.”
My mind is the one weapon I’ve always been able to rely on. My body’s been giving out for a while now, but at least I know I’m a damn sight sharper than any of the morons I work with. Even as a man who can feel the early tingles of an opioid dose creeping in. Even as a man who consistently has issues with talking animals. Even as a man who can visibly see his humanity draining away. I’m still the smartest f*cker in the business.
“What do you even know about me as a child anyway? You were either drunk elsewhere, or just drunk. All this talk of happy? I was never happy with you around.”
“Which is part of the reason I wasn’t. I gave you the freedom to grow. The space to discover yourself. Become the man you are today.”
Is she for real?
“Are you f*cking mental? Are you trying to sell your inept parenting as a conscious decision? With my wellbeing at the centre of it all? F*ck me! And I’m the cause for concern? Besides, what the f*ck do you care about me anyway? Why start now? I thought you were here to ‘orchestrate my demise’ or some sh*t?”
“Call it maternal instinct.”
She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body, and I’m sure you’re starting to realise I inherited that from her along with the foul mouth.
“I’ll call it total bollocks.”
“Call it whatever you like. You may not like me, God knows I don’t like you, or most of the things you’ve done, but I don’t want to see you dead. And without intervention I think that’s exactly what will happen. You’ll die in that ring. Just to prove a point.”
There’s no one capable….
“No parent should have to outlive their child.”
Of course. It’s really just about her. Figures.
“This business with Michael……… You know as well as I f*cking do why this all started. Why everything he’s done to you, you brought on yourself. It’s time you faced where it all stems from.”
“And what’s that?”
What the f*ck is she talking about?
“Come on. It was all over the news.”
“What was?”
I’m not exactly known for my transparency, but I legitimately don’t know what she means. As far as I’m concerned Mike just saw me fast approaching in his rear view mirror and took action.
“You’re a joke. A loser. How much longer can you really go on pretending you’re the innocent one? The one betrayed?”
“I thought I made myself clear before?”
I turn to the dog again.
“Keep my affairs out of your f*cking mouth!”
He doesn’t so much as flinch at my approach.
“You’re pathetic. What? Is it just easier? More convenient to forget? To force a memory out of your head any way you can? Intoxicants? Blunt trauma? None of it changes the truth. No one else has forgotten. HE hasn’t forgotten.”
I’m still clueless. I think? All I know is that everything he’s saying makes my gut churn. What does that mean?
“I’m warning you buddy.”
“Isaac?”
“I’ll say it again:
You’re a total f*cking loser Isaac.”
Those words, those exact words, feel like they burst my ear drums as I’m suddenly wracked with a deafening bout of tinnitus. A screaming ring in my head, as though a bomb in my hands just went off. I close my eyes to try and get a handle on myself. My balance wains and I stumble a little. When my eyes open I see a very different Dog. Not my Mother’s dog………but Dog. The Dog. Complete with his smug smile as he sees the trouble I’m in.
Not this time.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!”
My Mother’s voice cuts through. Not soon enough.
I snatch the dog up from the ground with both hands and it yelps, clearly terrified by this maniac in front of it. Then, before the yelp has even finished, I throw it, over arm, off of the balcony and toward the street below.
I live on the 8th floor.
“OH MY GOD!!!!”
This action breaks that faux, reserved demeanour. Margaret Cray is standing upright, her ashtray smashed on the floor and she’s just screaming. And I mean really f*cking screaming. She’s completely f*cking beside herself. The Oxies are kicking in which, combined with my maniacal, misdirected rage, is really doing a number on me right now.
I’m out of here.
F*ck.
I grab a bag.
All the physical cash I can find. Approximately………2 thousand and……my vision’s blurring.
My passport……..I think. A passport.
The championship belt from the bathroom door.
F*ck!
A handgun from my bedside table. Who f*cking knows? I just threw a f*cking dog off a balcony?! I might have killed someone……someone other than the dog. That dog is definitely dead.
I repeat.
F*CK!
“F*ck!”
I pingpong off the walls, toward the apartment door, and even through this emotional haze make the very conscious decision to leave my keys behind. I’m never coming back to this apartment.
A thick fog settles in on my brain, one with only vague flashes of a past maybe I have been doing my best to forget. Conveniently.
And before I know it I’m snapped back to reality by the sudden change in space around me. The light, the air, the temperature, all of it. But most noticeable is the noise.
Car horns are blaring at full throttle and I hear a police siren approaching from somewhere off to my right. Like a moth to a flame I have to look. I have to catch a glimpse around the corner to know where I stand.
It’s f*cking chaos.
A small crowd has already gathered. A child sobbing uncontrollably is consoled. A woman sits, shell shocked in the driver’s seat of the car that swerved to miss, and hit a parking meter. A policeman tries to keep the crowd back as witnesses shriek their version of events at him. Some point up toward my balcony. Some just want to get close.
All of these voices, these sounds of a panicked humanity, just swamp one another and merge into a single drone. My mouth dries out and I feel my skin getting clammy. Cold but wet with the sweat of a guilty party. Then, almost in slow motion. Definitely in slow motion. I see a man from the crowd glance toward me and double take, before motioning to the officer. His gesticulating is in perfect synch with the city around me starting to close in.
The drone of it getting louder, building to a crescendo as I momentarily realise my free hand is deep in my bag, fingering the body of the firearm I have concealed inside. This f*cking noise! I can feel it in my chest now, my breathing getting shallow, and suddenly I’m waving the pistol around as though it will make this all go away.
But then I’m not.
The taxi door shuts behind me and the sound is gone. Muted. The gun still firmly in the confines of the duffle, and my criminal act concealed at least for now.
I notice the driver eying me in the rear view mirror, asking me for perhaps the third time where I’m going. I must look a mess.
“A hotel.”
“Which one?”
“The closest that doesn’t stink of piss.”
Somehow, the back of my forearm wiping the sweat from my forehead, I still manage to crack wise. It’s something of a personality defect at this point I think. The driver doesn’t give a f*ck. He just starts to drive and I slump back into the seat and finally get a chance to sink into my opiate sea.
The waves crash over me and I fall deep into my own thoughts. Tumbling through a series of f*cked up decisions.
I’ve done some f*cking terrible things. Some wicked things.
And before I know it I’m systematically going through them in chronological order, as if to really drive a point home or something?
The…..assisted(?) suicide of an unsuspecting teenage boy.
The facial disfigurement of Ray Smith.
The near murder of a young transgender Justin Tyger, as he was cast, headfirst down a flight of stairs.
The absolute physical destruction of anyone who stood in the way of The New Epoch.
Breaking and entering into the Dean household, leaving proof of my presence in their child’s crib.
Manipulating Lucas Crowe into throwing his career away.
Snatching a very real chance at a title reign from Joshua.
Throwing a glass trophy into a crowded room at the awards ceremony.
Stomping a Dog to death.
This is really going on a bit isn’t it? But there’s more. Of course there is.
Abandoning the most recent woman to fall in love with me.
Destroying Penny Shannon’s dream of a memorable championship run.
And now the outright killing of a second dog.
Did you get all of that? Good. Because all of it, absolutely all of it, is nothing compared to what I did to Michael. I’m still not sure on the details, or even the main body of it, but this feeling in my stomach is a sure sign that whatever it was, it was really f*cking bad.
Deserving of being crippled bad? Perhaps.
“Alright buddy. We’re here."
Slightly more lucid now than before. Based on his tone, that’s the first time he’d said those words, which in turn means I haven’t just been sat, staring blankly in the face of his announcements.
I fumble in my bag and push far too much money through the gap in the perspex separation. He attempts to dispute it, something I should care about, but I don’t. I just get out of the taxi, again temporarily brought back to my senses by the change in atmospheric pressure. A fourth time as I enter the hotel, and a hotel with a lobby this big and shiny, sure better not smell of piss.
“I need a room.”
“Hello sir and welcome to the….”
“Room please.”
A less professional attendant might have let slip that I’d just been rude. She doesn’t.
“Okay sir. If I can just take some details from you?”
The bag spews its contents onto the marble reception counter. Thankfully not the gun.
“Passport.”
I hold it up as though I’m a feature in an English language educational video.
“Credit Card.”
Again.
“Tip”
The rest of the wedge of cash.
“If I just take the room keys, can you sort this for me?”
She might be a pro, but even she has her limits. Her eyes wide at the prospect of a solid 1000+ dollar backsheesh.
“Of course sir. Leave it with me. I’ll have everything sent up to your room shortly.”
She hands me the key and as I scoop the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship back out of sight I’m suddenly accosted by a bell boy. Grabbing at my bags like he f*cking owns them.
“Back the f*ck up Mr Magoo.”
I pull my bag clear of his weasel hands, and he’s definitely shaken by it. Probably more concerned that the receptionist saw it all, and might substantiate my cries for his immediate dismissal.
Luckily for him I can barley make out his face. All the same, I keep my bag pressed to my body as we walk towards the elevator together.
F*ck me. Is he still going to escort me all the way to my room?
Apparently yes.
He’s followed me into the lift (see: elevator) and we’re both just standing here like a pair of f*cking lemons. Him, probably a bit intimidated by an aggressive customer, and me doing my damnedest not to laugh at how awkward this is. Of course, I fail.
I eventually part ways with the poor sack of bones as I cackle my way out into the corridor, waving him off as the doors close behind me, taking him back down to somewhere sane.
I however stumble my way down the hotel hall, in scenes reminiscent of those that played out many years ago in Las Vegas. An equally unstable time in my life. A time in which I was consistently confused about what was and wasn’t real. Routinely giving interviews to spectres that came home to roost, right there in Sin City, when I was at my weakest. A time I was at odds with Trace Demon. The first time? Maybe.
“I wonder where Sam Clearland is now?”
The mere mention of his name brings my laughter back to eruption. Laughing at his incompetence? Laughing at my inability to escape the cycles that brought him into being?
F*ck knows.
Just laughing.
And then the bedroom door closes and I fall back against it. Slumping to the ground as I cast my bag out ahead of me, still laughing. Now at the idea that I just threw a loaded firearm onto the floor without a second thought.
Laughter. It’s the greatest medicine, or so some people seem to think. I’m personally uncertain of how a terminal leukaemia patient would react to that prognosis. For me, right now though, it feels alright I guess. Confusing though.
An uncontrollable laughter takes hold. Manic, as images flash through my mind again.
And before long the laughter turns to an unbearable weight and I find myself sobbing. Tears run down my cheeks and my breath is short again.
Was it all worth it?
All that wickedness?
All of those decisions? Conscious decisions to turn my back on a more moral, younger self.
I bury my face in my hands, pushing my fingers into my eyes in the hope that they can unsee what’s passed.
A f*cking idiocy that a more stable me would have scoffed at.
I open them again to find I’m sitting on the bed.
The table to my right proudly displays a half empty bottle of scotch, of which some of the former contents are now re-homed in a glass, in my hand. The wingmen to this bottle are a small mirror with a haphazardly chopped series of white lines atop of it, certainly not the first of the day, as well as my passport, credit card and receipt for the room.
I question nothing, and take a sip.
They will never stop pursuing you. They will never cease. Never.
Not until they catch you.
You’re the Sun King. The Father of Forever. The only constant, despite what people may say. Despite what Frank “Perennial Mid-card” Lynn might say.
There’s no escape from them.
You manage to beat Kyzer? Zmey is waiting.
You beat Zmey? Penny is waiting.
EVERYONE is waiting.
And if you lose? Then you lose everything.
Everything you’ve worked so hard to establish dies with you.
And maybe that’s not so bad?
I travel back to meeting Michael for the first time. Our taking control of the WFWF. More laughing, as we spiral into a drug induced chaos.
Constant hookers. Constant parties. Constantly at Mike’s house.
DMK trying to stab me in the guts while I hammer around the house, high as a kite.
Sitting out on the front lawn, passing a joint between us.
Car tyres screech.
A child screams………
“That’s it…..”
As though the dam has finally given up under the colossal weight, I am drowning in the memory now. The memory that has eluded me for so long.
My hands shake and I’m completely f*cking overloaded with emotion. All of them at once.
And then, as though I played no part in its getting there, my mouth is filled with the cold barrel of the gun. My grip so unsteady that I can actually hear the metal rattling against my teeth.
Am I the only man capable of finishing this? The only person truly deserving of that moniker.
A final trophy for my cabinet. Another accolade and nickname.
F*ck the lot of you. This is mine.
*Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.*
I drop the gun, the front sight chipping my tooth on its way out of my head, but I barely even notice. I finally breathe again, only now realising it had been so long. Huge gasps of air as I contemplate the fact that I spent this whole time with a weapon that was never even loaded.
That creeping laughter rears its head again.
My own mortality comes into question and I realise I have to accept what I’ve done. I don’t know who I’m talking to:
“Even I can’t get rid of me.”
I’ll drink to that.
To immortality.
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And now I remember.
I always remembered.
Of course I did.
I just chose not to.
Ignorance is bliss, and that knowledge could land me in a lot of trouble. F*ck it though.
Let’s talk.
I’d like to preface this with the statement that however Michael Kyzer tells this story, however he says it made him feel is probably true. His reasons for wanting me out of his life? It’s all probably true. At this point I simply can’t be trusted not to lie about it. Even to myself it seems.
I can only tell you what I remember. How I felt at the time, and know this, you’re probably not going to like it. Any shred of “THE Good Guy” that you might still be holding on to is about to be snatched away. You can believe me about that.
I recall it all so clearly now. All of it. The smell of petrol in my nose from the cocaine. The sticky residue on my lips from the booze. The burning feeling of the smoke in my lungs as I draw it back and hold it.
It’s hot. The sun cooks my skin as I lounge in a chair out on the front lawn. No doubt my English lack of pigment means I’ve already gone a shade of pink.
“And you’ve got to believe Jew-bo is the kind of guy who loves getting his nuts kicked.”
Mike’s sat next to me and we’re discussing the finer details of what we perceive to be the rest of the locker room’s kinks.
“Without a doubt. Barbed wire bat sticking out of his ass.”
Mike laughs whilst half way through hitting a joint, sending plumes of smoke everywhere and locking him into a coughing fit.
His kid Gavin runs over to check on his Dad I assume, but I’m too high to care and settle into just staring up into the sky. I have to wonder how different things would be right now if I hadn’t agreed to let Kyzer take the reins for the last few months. With me busying myself with the International Championship as a way to pass the time, Mike’s been free to swim in the main event scene without my intrusion.
I don’t have a problem with this set up. It was a decision I made myself and one that allowed me to fine tune things, having only recently come back to the sport.
What I do have a problem with though is the fact that I’ve done this for Mike and he’s fallen on his face. Losing to the same schlub we were just talking about.
“Here.”
I’m brought back to the here and now as Kyzer passes me the smoke.
“So, tell me, what do you think of Brennan? Honestly?”
“Honestly?”
“That’s what I f*cking said isn’t it?”
He’s right. That was a pointless question.
“I think we picked the right guy.”
“The right guy for what?”
He knows what I mean, he’s just prying for prying’s sake.
“The right guy to bolster us. Keep us strong.”
“Do you think that’s all he is? Back up?”
“I don’t see him as a threat if that’s what you mean.”
He pauses, thinking about what I just said.
“You don’t see him outgrowing his position?”
Gavin’s off running around, putting marbles up his ass, or whatever it is children do these days. He’s sure making a lot of f*cking noise though.
“Not while we’re around. He’s a good foot solider, but he knows his strengths…..and his weaknesses.”
“I think you might be underestimating him.”
I don’t want to tell you how to do the whole parenting thing Mike, but will you tell your kid to sh*t the f*ck up? Even his laughter gets on my tits.
“I think we need to pay closer attention, make sure he’s groomed in a way that curbs any desire to break away from the whole.”
“Come off it mate. You think he’s capable of it? Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he’s just not a top tier contender.”
“Hmmmm. I think you’re overlooking him. We’re smarter than that. We don’t let sh*t like this come back to bite us on the d*ck. It doesn’t do us any good to…..”
I’ve stopped listening. I’m too distracted by his kid. Screaming around the garden after a ball like a complete f*cking intellectually- disabled person. I can feel my right eye beginning to twitch every time he makes a damn noise. Why on earth does Mike keep him around? What good has having a child ever done him? It’s just a distraction. We don’t have time for distractions at the moment. The heat is on.
“……besides we’re already in a position to…..”
Another scream from Gavin and I’m really bottling up my anger now. It’s twinging in my stomach.
All I can think about is shutting him up. Keeping him quiet. I’m not a man with an ounce of paternal instinct, so my empathy towards a kid just having fun is less than zero. I just want him to stop being so socially inept and for once to think about how his incessant f*cking shrieking is effecting everyone around him. Though Michael doesn’t even seem to notice.
“….David could be a real asset if he’s kept in line. I don’t want to control him necessarily, but he definitely needs guidance amongst…..”
Michael’s words are simply that. Words. I haven’t paid enough attention to them to know what order they’re in. What meaning or purpose he’s attached to them. It’s just a series of background noises as I explore my psychological impulses. Putting my hands around the kid’s throat and just squeezing. Squeezing the f*cking life out of him. Wringing that little neck in an attempt to “keep it down”. I squeeze and squeeze and his little head begins to swell like a balloon. His already rosy cheeks flush further, through a darker red, to purple and then into a deep blue, the whole time his head growing, as though the pressure from my hands is pumping him up. I can feel a smirk streak across my face as the boy’s head reaches comedic proportions.
In front of me Mike’s mouth is moving but all I can hear is the muted gasps of his child. The head growing and growing until……
*BANG*
The sudden bursting of the head snaps me back to the here and now. I suddenly feel quite uneasy, as though the noise were loud enough for Michael to actually hear it and stumble upon my thought process. My entire mental fantasy laid bare. I adjust in my seat, crossing my legs and nodding at Mike as though I’ve been hooked on every word.
“…..but I suppose that all depends on where you stand.”
Stand on what?
“So?”
I’m spared having to answer by a sudden ear splitting noise.
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE*
The focus of my vision shifts from Mike’s face to over his shoulder, toward the road. Just in time to see the rag doll motions of a child being cartwheeled into the air. His child.
In slow motion I see the sprawling limbs clawing at the air, before hitting the top of the windshield and rolling over the roof. He yelps like a dog then slams hard onto the hot tarmac, the car skidding to a halt. Michael now turns his head to see what’s happened, only to then look around the front yard with an urgency that only a Father could muster.
“Gavin?!”
He must have seen the little body in the street. I suppose he’s just hoping he’s wrong? He looks back now, having established that Gavin’s no where to be seen. Michael jumps to his feet, knocking the chair over and then races across the lawn and into the road. He almost slides on his knees to the heap of mangled limbs, scooping it up into his arms.
The driver is out of the car now, completely shell shocked. His eyes wide. His hand over his mouth as the realisation hits him. There will surely be a bid to follow.
I honestly don’t know that I ever even heard what Mike was saying at this point. Even the accident I’d just witnessed didn’t change that. I just heard noises. I saw him shaking. I heard him pleading. I think my brain was filling the gaps as I too was dumb founded.
“SOMEBODY CALL 911!!”
I’m still sat in my chair, watching this all play out in front of me, whilst neighbours are starting to join the fray, having heard the terrible noise. A woman from across the street comes running, a mobile phone already pressed against her ear. Is this really happening? Or am I about to zone back into the conversation we’re having? Is this just another mental attempt from myself to quiet the play of an annoyance? I’ve not had the same burst of adrenaline as Kyzer, and the cocktail of drugs and alcohol in my system is making it very hard to focus keenly enough to take this all in. It seems as much like a dream as it does a reality, and still I watch on. Michael holds the boy’s head in the crook of his arm, their foreheads pressed together. I can hear him wailing. Sobbing. Crying for his child. His dead child? Certainly his injured child.
And it’s only now I take Michael’s previous question and apply it to this very situation. Where do I stand on all this? I have to take some kind of stance surely? For one I’m startled at my remaining seated. Even now I find myself on auto pilot, taking a puff on the spliff and drawing the smoke into my lungs as my eyes narrow on the image of a Father cradling his dying son. He’s got to be dying. There’s not much coming back from an impact like that. Not when you’re that size.
I watch on and ask myself again how I feel about all of this.
I don’t think I actually wanted the kid to get hurt. I certainly didn’t want him to die. It seems like more hassle than it’s worth. Regardless of all that though, I notice that I actually feel resentment creeping in. Seeing Michael on his knees like that. Tears streaming down his face as he begs, I don’t know who, that Gavin will be okay. The neighbours are closing in around him now, faces aghast at the junkie from across the street’s negligence. How could he have let this happen?
There’s a lot of panic in the air, but not an iota of it on my part. I feel that I’m sneering at the scene before me. An insight into the real Michael Kyzer. The man. The father. The human being behind the steely exterior.
And I hate it.
It makes me sick to my f*cking stomach to see this man I’ve considered my equal crying over something so damn trivial. Kyzer’s words of guidance and control now mirror back on himself as I realise the extent of the knock on effect this is bound to have. If Kyzer was already letting the team down, he’s about to drop off a cliff. I need to quell the storm to come. Keep this maelstrom of parental grief from our door. Control and guide the situation.
Listen to me. The kid’s not even cold yet and I’m sat here thinking about how to sweep this all under the rug. I suppose I should get up and at least pretend to be concerned. It won’t serve me well to have Mike remember this moment, and remember I was absent for the entirety of it. I need to keep him onside if I’m going to keep him on course.
F*cking kids. They always have to be the centre of attention.
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I never wanted any of this Mike.
I never intended for us to be at war.
My entire thought process from the start was to keep this very thing from happening. Keep us strong. Keep us on track. All of us. The unit. Not the individual.
We could have dominated this world together, as brothers. Me, you and David. The New Epoch.
But instead you chose to let your emotions take hold. Cloud your judgement. And ultimately, make your decisions for you.
I’d tried to curb that. I’d tried to keep you from falling into that trap but for some reason you took this as a personal attack.
You tried to end my career. You tried to murder me!
You thought that separating Drakz from Isaac would make it easier on you.
Drakz dies.
Isaac exists forever in a chair. A cripple.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to wake up? Maybe the plan was for Isaac to exist forever in a hospital bed. Sh*tting into a bag. Eating intravenously.
Whatever the outcome, you thought I deserved it, and more.
All of this because I tried to rationalise the death of a child you weren’t even f*cking interested in until it was nice and tragic? It’s easy to care once all the responsibility has gone.
I tried to help you. Get you to move on and just ignore it. We didn’t have time for it and you know it. We had important work to do, and now, because of you, we’ll always be remembered as just another group that couldn’t get it done. Just like all the rest.
That whole time, outwardly playing along, acting as though you were on board. When in reality you were just internalising that want to grieve. Letting it build up until you saw an opportunity. An out.
Like a coward.
It’s convenient though isn’t it? That ever since you threw me off that stage 7 years ago, I’ve never once let the truth be known. I was too busy playing the victim.
People like victim’s Mike.
People buy victim’s merch, because people want to heal and support victims. Make them rich. Help them forget.
Heh.
I must say though that I’ve never been 100% convinced by your reasons. It’s also very convenient that your little temper tantrum came at the same time your steady decline in form really started to accelerate. It makes me wonder if there’s actually a lot of truth in the lies I’ve peddled over the years? Maybe the lies I’ve told hit a little too close to the bone? Now, be honest. Did you dump me onto the concrete because I deserved it? Because I was a callous piece of sh*t? Or was it because you knew what I’d become? Who I’d become?
If anything, what you did made me who I am today. That time away, the drive I cultivated during my rehabilitation and return to the ring, that’s part of the reason I eclipsed you. Urgh. I need to stop saying that. It implies you were ever bigger than me to begin with. People seem to forget that I was WFWF World Heavyweight Champion before you. In fact the only reason you ever won that title to begin with was because I vacated it. Once again stepping aside, to give you a chance to show the world who you were.
And yet I still took everything you’ve ever done in this sport and made it look like child’s play. Everything.
Your title reigns paled in comparison to mine. I took on all comers and sat atop that mountain, undisturbed, for longer than most people last in this business full stop.
Those embarrassing loses of yours. Two in a row at the hands of Phillip Schneider, after everything you said? Luckily I reinstated everything you destroyed. You made us look like f*cking bums, so in return I beat Obo so badly he retired. For good.
Everything of note that I’ve done can be traced back to you dumping me off that stage. So if you ask me, all that I did to protect our spot was completely justified. I wanted us to march on to greatness together. You instead chose to opt out, and guess what? I just did it on my own instead. Without the dead weight holding me down.
Hell, if it got me to where I wanted to go, if it propelled my rise above the quagmire even further, even faster……I’d do it all again. I’d even kill the little f*cker myself if it had meant forcing your hand right away, instead of you festering on your hurt feelings until it just got too much to take.
Unfortunately though I fear what everyone says about me now might be true. That I’ve peaked. That I’m past it.
I’m entering the 5th and final act, and you know what? I think I’m ready for it. I’m not at peace with it. No. There is no peace. Not for people like us.
I’m not going into this hoping for an easy way out. A graceful grand finale.
I’m a raging bull. Running head long into it, and you have the opportunity to end this. To end me. I’ve given you this shot. The whole time, or most of it at least, everybody willing me on. Thinking I’m the man to be cheered. Thinking you’re the enemy. The real villain.
And yet all along it’s I who am the darkness.
Who gives a f*ck anymore though, right Mike? There’s no need for me to hide it. There’s no need for me to keep them from the truth. I’m sure you won’t.
I’m ready to be put to rest.
I’ve given you the loaded gun. (It’s actually loaded this time….honest.)
It’s pressed against my head. All you need to do is pull the trigger. Don’t miss though buddy. Don’t give me an opportunity, because I’ll happily rip you apart before I go down in flames. And I WILL go down in flames. I intend on ending this career in the ring. I won’t be walking away from it with my head held high. Someone, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s Zmey, sh*t maybe it’s even Penny Shannon, but someone is taking my scalp. The scalp to end all scalps.
Hang me up high for all to see. The hide of the beast that used to terrify but now is no more than a story.
It’s funny how we’re so intrinsically linked, even now. Even though we’ve been at odds with each other for longer than we were ever allied. We’re still part of the same sentence. That bugs me. You don’t deserve to be mentioned alongside me. Not anymore. Not unless you can finally take back everything you’ve lost over the years.
Show them that you’re still worthy of their fear. Worthy of their respect.
Show them why I stepped aside for you on so many occasions. Show them that you’re still the God of F*ck.
Show ME.
Prove me wrong and send me on my way.
I’m ready.