Love Notes

“I only have one more question… Do you hate your father?”

The question found a place between my rib cage like the blade of fucking knife.

I don’t know why I agreed to this young woman’s Podcast, maybe it was the former journalist in me – maybe I finally wanted to get this off my chest. She wanted to know what I remembered about my dad, about his killings and his legacy. I don’t think I owe anyone an explanation of who I am – but maybe sitting down with this young independent reporter would make it easier for me to understand myself.

Let’s start at the beginning of this interview….

I walked up three flights of stairs to get to her studio apartment. Bash Daddy, my muscle and best friend followed me up – his weight causing each stair to creak. I remember when Bash was peak heroine chic – skin and bone – a twig of a human I literally plucked from the streets. I cured the madness in his mind and helped turn his body into a pure killing machine. He’s drug free, pounding ass and getting paid well – sometimes I wish we could switch roles.

I knock on the paint chipped door and the young woman answers. The young journalism student who tracked me down before my PWE debut asking me about my father… what he did to me… what he did to all those fucking women.

The scrawny journalist answers the door, her long blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She welcomes Bash and I into the apartment. She leads us to a room and points to leather chairs for Bash and I taking a seat in another across from us. Boom microphones hang down – one for me and one for her. She wastes no time getting right into it.

“I’m Charlie Davis here with another episode of Surviving Madness. Last week I told you about Clive Jones – The Cleaver Killer – the sick fucker who would pick up hitchhiking women put a bag over their face to suffocate them and just as they were about to take their final breaths… slammed a fucking meat cleaver into the centre of their face. Truly gnarly shit,” Charlie pauses looking over at me.

“Today I am here with none other than Casanova English, you might know him from the wrestling world, but his father is the infamous Cleaver Killer. That’s right, for the first time we have the son of a serial killer we’ve talked about on this show. So tell us, what was it like when you came to realize who your dad was.”

“It’s something I have been putting together for sometime. See it was a well kept secret most of my life, up until I was about 20 I just thought my dad was some run of the mill piece of shit. When I learned about the violence, about the sick things he did it kind of made me make more sense of the darkness I felt has been following me my whole life. You can’t lock a monster like that away in a jail cell and call it a day. The damage my father left behind lingers not only with his victims but with the family he left behind,” Bash puts his hand on my shoulder, for comfort I assumed, but it felt like he was holding me back trying to protect me from being too candid about my past and what I remember.

“Did you ever get to visit him while he was in prison?”

“Yeah, I spoke with him once or twice… looked into his soulless eyes. Listened to his explanation about hearing the voices in his head. He told me if he didn’t listen, if he didn’t give in while he was out prowling back roads then it would have been my mother, it might have been my brother… it might have been me. That’s what psychopaths are good at. Pretending to be human. Manipulating people into thinking what they did was for the greater fucking good somehow. I didn’t tell him much, I just wanted him to see I was still kicking that I made something of myself – that I was selling out arenas – back when I thought that shit mattered.”

“Your dad was killed in prison… now I know in the wrestling world people think you may have had something to do with that. I’m not going to go down that route, but I mean, what do you know about it?”

I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, remove one and place one between my lips.

“You really aren’t allowed to smoke in here,” Charlie objects.

“If you want the interview kid, you are going to have to make a compromise,” Bash lights my cigarette for me and I take a few sharp puffs blowing some smoke toward Charlie. She waves her hand in front of her face pushing the smoke trail away.

“So my dad’s death… from what I heard… someone cut his throat ear to fucking ear, turned him into a limited edition serial killer Pez dispenser. I mean, that’s justice right, it never does happen in a courtroom. I’m sure my dad didn’t make many friends in prison. I wonder if someone wanted to feel righteous, you know. You take out that evil and maybe your God forgives you. I don’t know who did it, but I want to thank them.”

Maybe the man who did it sat right the fuck beside me. A final step into initiation. A boy looking for an orphanage to call home – and I was there to answer the door to take his hand – lead it to the knife. Maybe it took years to gain access to that prison, to the right guard on the right shift to let someone into the right broom closet at the right time with the right fucking shiv. I wasn’t going to tell this fucker all that.

“How often do you think about your dad and what he did? How much does it weigh in your day to day life?”

I take a long drag off my cigarette, tap the ash right onto the floor of Charlie’s apartment. What did I owe this kid? What were they giving me? I was giving them the interview of their life – I was shining the spotlight right in the centre of her forehead and for what? Because therapy is too fucking boring.

“I think about my father every fucking day, maybe not in the way you think. See I do think about the horrible things he did, the young women he murdered. I sometimes imagine what the snap of their skulls sounded like as he broke the pressure between their eyes with a stainless steel blade,” I take a few more puffs shaking my head.

“But I think about him the most right before I enter a wrestling ring. I have this violent tendency just inherited. This need to hurt – myself and others. The only place I know where to do that and still pay the bills is professional wrestling. I somehow channelled this darkness I have into something productive. I make violence beautiful, paint abstract with the blood of my opponent and I relish every minute of it. My dad left me with one thing and one thing only and it’s that need, that thirst to feel alive. Some of us only get that feeling taking each other out. Now… I am not as sick as him, I’m not touring Northern Canada hunting women, but I am not so different… I’m touring the country choking out little bitches like Alexander Hate.”

“I only have one more question…. Do you hate your father?”

“Hate.. that’s such a strong word. I hate everything he was, I hate everything he’s done, but I don’t hate what he turned me into. See the world is full of bad men and I can sniff them out. I can see them… I understand them… hell… maybe I am one of them. The best thing I can do for society, to protect it from people like me is to be in the world of wrestling. To hope and pray I off a couple of these fucking fake badasses and hell, maybe along the way someone puts me out of my own misery.”

Charlie just looks at me with wide eyes as drop the cigarette on the floor and stomps it into her carpet. Bash and I get up and walk toward the door – but I can hear her promo for the next episode.

“What a wild few minutes we got with the son of a serial killer and they are as well adjusted as you would think… That said, next week we will explore the other side of the coin. While the lone survivor of the Cleaver Killer died a few years ago we will speak with her daughter. The kicker, her daughter is the lone survivor of five violent incidents herself. Tune into Surviving Madness next week.”

Bash Daddy holds the camera steady clicking record, he focuses the camera until I am in frame. A massive Mickey Mouse head comes down to my shoulders – the face is smeared with blood – an oversized cartoon cleaver slammed into the middle of the forehead. I shuffle playfully toward the camera getting really close.

“Well hello! What were you expecting from a different type of fairy tale? I know we are right here near Disney this week for Pro Wrestling Excellence, but sadly even in the world of pro wrestling stories don’t go quite as they are supposed to. Like my Victory debut… I had to share my win with Victoria Lyons. It was supposed to be streamers from the sky, pyro from the corner posts Casanova English is back on the big stage. Instead I wasn’t able to deliver, I wasn’t able to leave no doubt in the minds of these fans that I am here to kill their heroes at best and mortally wound them at worst. Don’t worry, I’ll run it back to tame Lyons, but this week we have a new mission.”

I twist the head to the side and smoke starts billowing out of the beady back eyes of the mouse head.

“This week at Victory I will go one on one with Alexander Hate… ooo… scary. Hate is a strong word, a strong thing to attach your name to. It’s a hard thing to carry around. I can’t stand people like you Alex. You grew up much the same as I did right? You had it tough – but instead of taking things down a dark path like some suggest I have – you decided to pander to these fans, you look for that acceptance mommy and daddy didn’t give you through each and every one of these audience members. It’s kind of pathetic.”

I start coughing inside the mask and rip it off, placing it on the ground. I take a few puffs off my cigarette and continue.

“See while people like you obsessed with their own fucking vanity are busy in the gym turning your body to stone, I was busy building my mind into a brick fortress. While you think this is all about Hate, fuelled by anger bottled into something positive. I see if it's different. I don’t view pro wrestling as a grand tragedy, Alex. To me it’s a romance. I am not pouring out my hatred every night in that ring, no I am leaving behind love notes. Violence is my love language. And I know my poetry is hard to interpret and understand – it’s all guts and blood and fucking beauty – but I do it all for the select few who can read between the lines. Alex, you are a great professional wrestler, I will give you that. You are a perfect little stencil of a perfect little cookie cutter and that works for a while. Me I am none of that, I’m not even supposed to be here – Pro Wrestling Excellence is another word for the pro wrestling elite and that crew has chewed me up spit me out and locked me into holding some bullshit under card title for too long. I’m not the poster boy, the all American – I’m The Unprofessional and this week and Victory I start to destroy and pick away at this wholesome image of pro wrestling… it’s ain't ballet… and it sure as fuck isn’t Disney – but it still teaches tough life lessons… like sometimes the bad guy wins.”

I flick my cigarette down at the head of Mickey Mouse and slowly the flame engulfs the whole thing.