Obsession

VICTORY VII - REACH HEAVEN
January 3, 2022
The Enterprise Center, St. Louis, MO

—

Something feels… touched.

As I push the heavy boot off the end of my tired left foot, and it clunks to the cheap linoleum floor, I look down again at the bench. My romper singlet is still folded the specific way that I’ve always folded it. The towel is still there. My bag is haphazardly hanging from a hook on the locker door. I can’t put a finger on it, but something feels off.

PWE has road agents, and they’re very good at what they do. They prepare things just how we like them. Jamie was responsible for me. I mean, a host of others, too. But that is who set up my locker ahead of time. Ophelia Knight reasoned that the less the talent needed to organise and prepare ahead of time, the more laser-focused they’d be at game time. And it made sense.

Me, though. I’m a ritualistic person.

Back in Spain, I learned to suffer for my craft. I learned to sacrifice, because the gods would look fondly down on the ones that were truly dedicated. It was something we all did, at El Reino de la Lucha Libre. We walked. For at least an hour before every show, we walked. If we could walk from the Kingdom to the Arena, even better. A pilgrimage. A journey from the poor and hungry to the promised land. I didn’t stop walking until I reached the ring, and then I’d run. I’d run until there was no gas left in the tank, and then I’d run some more. Until the race was won.

My ritual, now that I was so far from home and so far from the Kingdom, was to walk from the accommodation that had been provided to us to the venue. I would leave early and walk, it would be an opportunity in an otherwise impossible schedule to absorb some of the culture that surrounds me. I should enjoy the privilege I have earned, the sum of my work to date. Even if it means that I have to walk through some dark alleyways, some shady neighbourhoods. Nothing bothers me. Maybe I’ll find a reason to fuck someone’s world up. All I need is an excuse.

On the other hand, I could be stuck in Jaén, four kids deep and drowning in shit-stained reusable diapers. So, a few gangbangers here and there. What’s the big deal?

“I am not taking the car service.” I recall telling him in disgust. C’mon Jamie, read the audience. So stubborn. “I am not care if we are in pubic lice of the South. They can suck my chota before I taking taxi.”

After that he didn’t bother booking a car for me. We had a good understanding that I like things how I like them and it is better to leave the rest alone.

So I’d walked from the fighter hotel to the arena, and when I had arrived I found that Jamie had set everything up for me, but I was certain that somebody had done something to my equipment. I couldn’t shake the feeling, no matter how much I checked and rechecked. Maybe it was me just going crazy. Dismissing it as nothing but a wayward thought, I slumped down onto the pine slatted bench, and pushed my back against the cold steel of the locker door. I reached down to untie the right boot, my fingers digging between the knot and pulling free several rungs of lace from the steel toe-capped boots that I walk in.

Freedom, like the Bald Eagle promises. My foot throbs as blood starts to flow more freely through it. I like my boots tight, and the relief after walking for almost two hours is as good as any feeling you’re likely to experience. Trust me. Better than that inevitable feeling of dissatisfaction as your old man slumps off of you, turns over and falls asleep just as you were starting to warm up. Right, Betsy? The throbbing draws focus to my heel, and then my toe, and then the arch of my feet as different synapses fire around my body. It’s like I can feel my heartbeat through my feet. It gives me a moment for pause, and then I notice it as I’m bent over staring at the floor.

I notice what had been different all along, I notice that there’s a folded note underneath the singlet.

Like the Princess and her Pea, the double folded piece of paper has my singlet slightly pushed over to one side and no matter how I look at it, it seems wrong. Now, in my peripheral vision, the edge of the note is visible. Waiting for me to read it whilst I’m getting changed.

>> SOMETHING TO TELL YOU
>> FIRE ESCAPE, SOUTH WEST ENTRANCE
>> T

Suddenly the throbbing in my foot seemed to transcend my body. I could feel my heart pounding against the drums of my ears, and it felt hard to swallow. All kinds of thoughts fought to push through to the forefront of my cerebral cortex. Like a swarm of obsessed fans at an airport, rushing to the arrivals gate. Sometimes travelling for hours for the mere chance to catch the briefest second of eye contact with their idol. A thousand reasons, a hundred explanations, so many dreams.

Why didn’t she just tell Jamie she was looking for me?

Didn’t she want anyone to know?

Seems private. Winkface emoji.

Did she want me to read this while I was naked? Is that why it is in my singlet?

I was overthinking it. From the bag, dangling precariously from the locker door, I pulled out a pair of crocs. My thoughts on crocs as an existential entity would have to wait, but I knew Jamie would be cackling somewhere knowing that I’d be muttering obscenities under my breath.

No, fuck it. It can’t wait. Crocs are the whole reason the world is going to shit. Who would invent such an abomination, such an aesthetically offensive item of fashionwear, and market it to the public? A deviant. A masochist. Because not only are they an offense to the ocular sense (and I don’t think any further elaboration is required on that aspect), they are an offense to the olfactory senses too. Because they’re rubber, your feet can’t breathe. They are vessels of suffocation, and the unfortunate idiot who was duped into setting up their own grow-at-home fungus vivarium on the end of each leg will absolutely draw the ire of every person in or around them for the rest of the day. Who? Who approved this? This is how we know we’re in a simulation. I’m calling it on this. This is the irrefutable proof.

My rant was rattling around in my head as I approached the southernmost entrance of the arena, and then dipped into the fire escape. Like a soap opera, I checked that nobody was following or watching me. In the midst of my strong feelings on shower-friendly footwear, I had forgotten about the rush of adrenaline that I got when I read the note from Tara. I forgot about all of the other thoughts that had crossed my mind in the moments as I rushed through dressing myself again.

There she was, a smirk curling at one side of her mouth. Her full lips pale as she pulled at the corner with her teeth. Her smirk rippled and emanated into a full smile as she saw my approach. Her hazel eyes pierce through me.

I feel like everything she feels, everything she wants to say but stops short of, she communicates through her eyes. There is a warmth there, a comfort, when she looks directly into my own deep brown eyes. A connection. She is speaking to me. It is intoxicating, being in her aura. Alone in silence, losing myself in the ocean of her consciousness. I can hear the oxygen perforating the soft membrane in my septum as it enters through my nose and goes down my windpipe to my lungs. I can feel the microscopic hairs in my nostrils pushing aside as I exhale. My chest expands, and then withdraws.

I am speechless, as I stare at her. Awestruck. Captivated in her wake. She gives up at least a few inches in height to me and is lithe and slender in her build, but yet seems so monolithic and substantial as I stand before her. She has a commanding aura.

As she begins to nervously fidget with her hands, perhaps her muscle memory is trying to kick in and she is going to start communicating with sign language. I reach forward to interject, and my wrist presses against her shoulder. She frowns a little, taken back momentarily, and then gestures for me to wait. From a small bag inside of her black jacket, she withdrew a cellphone, and began to tap with each of her thumbs into the device.

After a moment, she moved closer to me and showed the screen to me.

>> LETS GET DINNER
>> AFTER THE SHOW?

It felt like a tumour formed immediately in my throat and I choked on it, spluttering as I read. I couldn’t speak and all of a sudden I wished I knew sign language, too. She was always too busy, rushing to get back to her family, to consider spending time with me. But it was not for me to question why. It was clear there was something that had been bothering her for the last couple of weeks in particular and perhaps she needed a friendly ear. Or eye. Because of the whole mute thing.

For me, feelings weren't something I dealt with in that soft way. In fact, for the most part, my soft skills were probably quite limited. Firstly, I was a gypsy. Secondly, Latin. Feelings get buried. Feelings get drowned in wine or tequila. Maybe that was more her speed, too. Hopefully. I would be lost if she wanted to get into the complexities of emotion. So, praying hands emoji.

Eventually I mustered the ability to croak, “are you serious?!” whilst reaching out toward her.

Her smile grew yet wider and lines extended from the corner of her eyes into her cheeks as she couldn’t stifle a genuine smile. She reaches back and grabbed my shoulders in the same way that I braced hers.

She was soft and delicate, yet through her jacket I could feel her well-toned triceps as she held out her phone again.

>> WAIT FOR ME HERE
>> AFTER THE CURTAIN

I nod my head, as we make eye contact again. Just briefly, but it is enough. I can’t wipe the smile off my face, as I turn on my ridiculous foamy plastic heel, which I feel could really dampen the moment. If I let it.

I ignore the urge to kick the crocs off my feet and run like an excited preschooler through the hallways that take me back to the locker room. In fact, I hold most of my emotion inside of me as I attempt to nonchalantly walk away, almost sashaying as I go, my narrow hips shifting from side to side. I wonder if she is watching me as I walk, and as I round the corner I look over my shoulder to check but she has disappeared.

The rest of the evening felt like a blur, in fact I found it difficult to concentrate at all, as I stood in the ring. I was looking out into the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of Tara, some validation that she too was taken with me as I was with her. Acid Beth ran through me in something of an upset, in a match that few people had predicted would turn out like this. I was off my game from the first moment and by the time I had snapped out of it, it was too late and she had mounted insurmountable momentum. I sleepwalked through the encounter and paid the price dearly. For somebody who spoke so clearly and directly about the need for results over dominant performances that ultimately lead nowhere, I did myself no favours when I appeared as indecisive and off my game as I did at VICTORY VII. From nowhere, she managed to wrap her fingers around my taped wrist and pull me into an LSDDT, and from there it was over.

As her music echoed through the arena, I felt a wave of dejection. A rush of disappointment wash through me. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the hard work that had gone into snuffing out Nathaniel Cartwright, the hard work that I’d put in to make certain that Holly Rhodes was written down in the annals of time as a nearly girl. I felt myself become diluted. My strength, my colour, my taste, weakened and soon unpalatable.

I wondered if Tara had seen the match, and if she had, did it make her think any less of me? This was the one and only primary concern at that moment.

I knew that by the time I’d be able to find her, her husband would be in the ring in a match of his own, and she would be preoccupied as she typically was when he was fighting. And it was straight forward, she worried because he spoke a much bigger game than he delivered. He made hard work out of mediocre opposition. Not that I was doing much different at this point, distracted to the point that I may as well not have even shown up.

The minutes felt like hours and as Lewis Chad Pinkston ran literal laps of the ring trying to get inside of Ayla’s head, my patience wore thin. I wanted to go out there and choke the little nerd out myself, outcome be damned. I knew as Damian’s frustrations grew, Tara’s would, too. The sooner the charade was over, we could move on with our lives.

—

PRESENT DAY
Ball Arena
Denver, CO

Losing hurts.

I know, because I’ve lost a few.

I can make excuses. I was distracted, I had something on my mind, this, that, whatever. What difference does it make? I fucked up. I did. For the first time since I arrived at Pro Wrestling EXCELLENCE, I was pinned to the mat and I lost. Not my first loss, of course, but the first time I was beaten conclusively.

I can learn from my mistake.

I told Ophelia Knight when I was pacing back and forth backstage during Pinkston vs Ayla that I wanted to get straight back on the horse, I wanted to start winning back the defeats. Beat the ones that had taken a piece of me with them. My eye was firmly on Acid Beth, if I was honest. I knew I could win that one, in the right frame of mind. But Ophelia had other ideas.

“William Blake Mason,” was the first name that slipped out of her mouth.

Derision was all that I could muster. Surely I had not fallen this far, I sighed. She saw the sigh, even though I felt like I disguised it well. She knew that disappointed look, and she reassured me that he wasn’t to be overlooked. I laughed to myself. The Blake Mason Experience. What was that? The only thing I could see was a disappointing two minutes before he folded. A victim of his own anger problems, driving himself headfirst into a world of bad choices. And this is me, throwing rocks in glass houses, but that is him. Grandiose ideas and zero execution. I was dismissive, and I knew where that got me with Beth, but somehow I felt that I had things covered this time.

Just as I was about to turn away and prepare for what felt like a huge step backward, she raised her hand in the air and then added to her original sentence.

“In addition to William, you will also be fighting Betsy in Denver.”

I spat on the floor.

Yes, she piqued my interest. That much was true.

I had her dead to rights in the middle of the ring at VICTORY III, before her shadow Kayla Richards appeared and got her disqualified. A running, predictable, theme. She has drawn the ire of an unpleasant adversary and now she has to pay for it at every turn. At VICTORY VII, she paid the price and got the victory due to Kayla sticking her nose in again. I am sure everybody is captivated by their petty squabble, but it is absolutely on Granger for not putting paid to that inconvenience months ago. She has done nothing but ruin her run in Pro Wrestling EXCELLENCE and the blond haired siren has repeatedly rolled over and allowed it to happen because he is nothing like the person she thinks she is. She is weak, and pathetic. And Kayla knows it, so she continues to come, continues to tug at the heels of Granger because she knows she is starting to crack, starting to fall apart at the seams.

I won’t make the mistake I made when I let Holly Rhodes get the victory in the previous three way. There are no disqualifications, right? So should Kayla choose to impose herself on proceedings yet again, I’ll just let her. I’ll make certain William Blake Mason is not a factor and when the time is right, I’ll finish them all off.

In some ways, I think Betsy Granger and myself are very alike. All the potential in the world and yet we get in our own way more than others ruin it for us. Me, with the distraction, with the master plan where winning doesn’t matter until it matters and then falling short at an inopportune time. With her, her life crumbling around her, with a million pieces of a thousand different puzzles all flying off in different trajectories at different speeds.. Why would she care about me, or William Blake Mason? She should be worrying about where the next knee to the back of the head is coming from, or whether her lover is going to wake up next to her in bed or beneath a Grecian.

If only I had a time machine where I could go back and right the wrongs. Hindsight is really something, isn’t it?

In only some ways we are alike, of course. Because in others we are vastly different. I am not worried about how people perceive me. Generally speaking, at least. I am not materialistic. I don’t live a separate life on social media to the one that I live in reality. I don’t gather my acquaintances into a huddle and act like we are a family going back 15 years in photos for my Twitter account. I don’t dust off the action figure that has been acting as my beard for the last several years to keep up appearances. I don’t have the tiresome charade.

Maybe I wouldn’t want a time machine after all. I am happy to take my licks, earn my stripes. I don’t want to put myself up on a pedestal that I am not ready for. I don’t want to have the pedestal kicked out from under me to prove that I can’t stand on my own two feet. I wouldn’t trade the hard lessons I’ve learned for anything in the world, I wouldn’t be who I am without the adversity I’ve overcome.

Somehow I don’t feel the same about Betsy. She looks for excuses instead of lessons. She looks at everything she has on her plate and if she falls short she has an out. I have a point to prove, again. I had to take a step back to make another two forward. This week, it is an opportunity to prove to those that’re watching that I am capable. More than capable. If Richards thinks Granger is vulnerable and has a weak fleshy underbelly, I will tear it open. I won’t take three months to get the job done.

One and done.

—

JANUARY 3rd, 2022
SOMEWHERE DOWNTOWN, ST. LOUIS, MO

Communicating with Tara was not straightforward. Communicating when you don’t speak the same language, at least explicitly, is complicated. But I felt like I understood her. She had been frustrated, and from what I understand, the source of her frustration was her husband. Over dinner - which she ordered by pointing at items on the menu and nodding or shaking her head, or trying to describe things with pointing and air-drawing - she told me she understood a lot better. I think she was talking about him, and something he’d said earlier, but perhaps not.

Between us, we managed to drink almost two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc whilst eating some of St. Louis’ finest delicacies. And by fine delicacies, I mean toasted ravioli. It was an experience, but I went along with what she suggested and she always liked to try the house special. By the time we were ordering dessert, neither one of us seemed to be screwed on tight. In fact, everything felt loose, everything felt easy. We didn’t need words, at least, it didn’t feel like it. We had caught a vibe, we were moving to the hum of our own vibration.

She paid for the food, for the drink, before I could even offer. She threw a few hundreds on the table and grabbed my wrist. I thanked the maitre’d, if you can even call him that - he wore a backwards cap and a filthy white apron - as we left and we spilled out onto the street laughing.

My fingers crept up and laced into hers, her delicate touch weaving into mine. Our shoulders crashed into each other with each odd step as we tipsily staggered through the midnight street, hopeful of finding a cab or another means to get back to the accommodation.

She continued walking with purpose, and I was following but I didn’t look straight ahead. No, my eyes were trained solely on her. Her profile, her smile and her relaxedness. She was at ease with me, comfortable. Her small facial features contrasted against the street lights and her lips moved just briefly as she caught a glimpse of a taxi rounding a corner. She wanted to call for it, I could tell.

“Hey! TAXI!” I shouted, a proxy for her.

As I sat with her in the taxi, my thigh pressed against hers, I contemplated the muteness, and the clues that I’d encountered whilst out with her, and I wondered whether it had something to do with Damian, whether she was okay, or whether there was more to the story.

We travelled the ten minute journey back to the hotel in silence, watching as the city passed us by through the window of the vehicle. I could feel my heart pumping in anticipation, I could feel synapses shooting all over my body, adrenaline like the most potent drug fuelling me. I traced a finger along the back of her hand, just as we were arriving at the hotel.

She turned to me. The look on her face was one of intrigue, or curiosity. She didn’t reciprocate, but she didn’t pull away either.

“Do you.. A small drink.. In my room? Before bed?” I offer, weakly.

As the cab arrived at the hotel she looked away toward the hotel, and then from the doorway, her husband stepped forward. She smiled back at me, and then shook her head no.

All of the adrenaline was immediately sucked straight out of me like I’d been gutted with a bat, and I sank back into the seat of the taxi as I watched her embrace him with a loving kiss on the lips. She smiled back at me and waved, but Damian barely made eye contact. He turned her and himself away and they began walking towards the doors.