Should I just leave my boots on, crack a beer and put my feet up on the coffee table?
I’m undefeated since I have started wrestling at PWE. Sure, my first match was a draw in a triple threat but we’ll call that ring rust. Since then… well… I’ve put myself in line for a little bit of gold.
Wraith turned out to be exactly what I said – a ghost of demons I have already slayed. I know how significant that win was at Magnificence II. Wraith was the favorite going into this. He’s the one, after all, who has been putting the work in here. I’m just the new kid who kicked in the door and decided to rearrange the furniture.
When he went limp I felt alive.
Now, I have been given an opportunity. A chance to shuffle the entire deck. It's the return of the king… the first top dog… the first person to wear the Excellence Championship around their waist.
All it takes is three short seconds – and the crown falls off. Damian Ayla conquered this land when fucking peasants stood in his way. It’s a whole different landscape now. The foundation you believe you put in place has crumbled.
And Ayla abandoned it. Lost the top strap, couldn't get it back and vanished. It’s my duty to welcome him back.
I sipped whisky from a glass at a seedy bar, pink neon silhouettes of women glow along the walls as men bite their upper lip – thinking about fucking the light blur a few too many drinks deep. Bash sits across from me, sipping some virgin cocktail. He was always terrified to break his sobriety. A beer leads to a shot, a shot leads to the ER room eyes rolling in the back of his head from shooting too much horse.“So what’s the plan?”
I sighed, took another sip of whisky.“Well, we stalk her to put it bluntly. I think she can help me somehow. I think Eileen is the key to me finding a way to get back to world championship status. I’m not some novelty to be shoved around the card for guaranteed ratings… I belong back on top and I am going to prove that every second I am in the ring at PWE. I know I have that killer instinct, it’s in my blood thanks to good ol’ daddy.”
When my father was on trial they had him up for over a dozen murders – he never did till them how many times he took a cleaver and drove it into the center of a young woman’s skull.“Eileen walks by this bar every week, every time she finishes an episode of that fucking podcast. She talks about surviving all those run-ins with killers then forgets to change her route.”
“Maybe that’s part of her plan,”
Bash said. “I mean she has survived shootings and hatchet wielding psychopaths – what does she have left to be afraid of?”
Bash had a point. It was that lack of fear in Eileen I was chasing – I cherished it. The way she destroyed the trope of damsel. Her mother did that when my father tried to kill her – she passed that trait hereditarily – and here I was on the opposite side. I wonder if we see the same pools of blood forming our names when we close our eyes. The whiskey always made it better, it warmed my stomach with another sip.“She has no idea who I am. It’s not like I am one of those idiots who decided to take on an acting career with Splat or got involved in reality TV like Lissie Hope. I’m no household name and it’s not like I make it too known that my dad was The Cleaver Killer. She knows I was on the same podcast – but I doubt she thinks I would come hunting for her.”
“What can she even teach you?,”
Bash asked.“Like I have said, I know how to be a killer. I know how to take out the top dog – but if I want to be a world champion again I have to learn how to survive the onslaught of people bigger and better than me. I have to learn how to outsmart them, use my unorthodox technique to subdue them. I think Eileen has those answers.”
“That sounds fucking ridiculous,” Bash said, his big hands wrapping around his mocktail hiding it’s pink hue completely as he took a sip. “I think you are lying. I’ve been your best friend for over 10 years… There was only one reason you plucked me off the streets when I was a bone thin heroin addict. You didn’t do this out of the kindness of your heart… you we’re lonely. And now you lost that baby – lost that woman… well you need to expand the family. Need to add to The Orphanage so you can feel like you didn’t destroy everything around you.”
I smirk. Put a cigarette between my lips – one of the few bars I found that doesn’t kick me out for smoking as long as I crack the window at the booth and stay to my side of the room – and don’t expect table service.“Is that what you think, Bash,”
I said, taking a few puffs and blowing my smoke into the bar.“Loneliness will drive a man to insanity.”
Eileen pushed her hair back behind her ears – put in some ear buds – and walked out into the rain front he lobby of the shitty old apartment building she was being recorded in. Low Cut Connie played in her earphones carrying her back to her hotel.
She was tired of reliving all the nightmares she had survived. The school shooting in Maine, the summer camp slasher who hacked up some of her friends, the stalker she stabbed 16 times when he opened the trunk – forgetting he has left a carpentry knife in the back. She wanted to leave it all behind her – but talking about this shit paid the bills a fuck of a lot more than waiting tables like she used to. Some of those truck stop bastards were just as bad as any of the killers she ran into in the past.
Eileen hoped her mom would be proud of her for talking about her trials and tribulations. Her mother never gave it the same opportunity. She didn’t talk about the nigh she slept in the woods after escaping The Cleaver Killer.
And that’s what did her in.
Those memories formed like tumours in her brain, pushed the sickness throughout her body, kept her up at night. She taught Eileen to suspect everyone, to be fearful of strangers. Sure, it’s kept her alive but she hasn’t made many close friends.
She looked through the window of Tom’s Tavern – the pink neon silhouette of a woman catching her eye. Her music was switching to another song and she could swear she heard someone exit the bar. She shook the feeling off – surviving a few murder attempts has made her a little more paranoid than the average person.
As she trotted along – she felt eyes on her – and being in the situations she has she could tell they belonged to a predator. She imagined some sick fuck licking his lips as her hips swang with every step. She turned her music off. Often those leers are harmless – uncomfortable but only result in a handful of jizz when the poor sap makes it home.She took some false turns and sped up – and so did the feet behind her. Then an alley – she bolts down it – hinds behind a dumpster. Soon the feet pass her where she is crouched. It’s time for a little role reversal. Elieen is tired of being attacked first. She stood up behind them – unfolded her switchblade.******
I’m halfway through my cigarette when I tell Bash to flick the camera on. I’m sitting across the wooden table, the red padded booth cushioning my ass. I smirk, holding the cancer stick in the corner of my mouth.“People like you always want it easy. Damian Ayla, the first Excellence Champion. I should idolize you right? I should look at you as an essential piece of lore. I should thank you for creating something that provides me a paycheck and a means to eat on a bi-weekly basis. Somewhere where Excellence thrives… somewhere setting a new standard. I should thank you for a stage to spread my rhetoric – to reshape young minds into little missiles and aim them directly at the establishment.”
I knock the knife and fork out from its red napkin wrapping and roll the napkin out across the table toward Bash and the camera.“Roll the fucking red carpet out. This is a huge moment for Damian Ayla. It’s the first Excellence Champion’s return to the ring. He’s back at PWE to shake things up and establish it even further. Damian is here to destroy all the atrocities in PWE to cleanse it into the elite combat sport company it truly is. And what better gift for him… what better test than a complete abomination… a man who wants to see the former champions in this sport rot… The Unprofessional… Casanova English.”
I pause, pulling the cigarette from my lips and filling my mouth with a gulp of whisky. I crumble up the make-shift red carpet and set it to the side.“If you are looking to set an example, to have a triumphant return… who better than the man who has been undefeated in a company where it claims in its very name it is the standard of excellent wrestling. Now, I hope since you have taken a little vacation after The Comedian turned you into a laughing stock that you have been watching at home – that you have seen what I have done. You claim to be the foundation of this company, well I’m adding doors and windows and fine turning the fucking trim every time I go out there and put one of those PWE originals to fucking shame. I’ve choked out Jeawoo, Hate and Wraith. Hell I had Landerson tapping out and Lyons hopped on my glory train to claim a fucking win. I know you haven’t been paying attention though, people like you are so far up your own ass you’ve learned to enjoy the darkness. You prefer ignorance because stepping outside of that little anal cavity means a big mean world – and suddenly you're not the baddest bowel mover around. Suddenly you’re scared shitless – and well when all the crap washes off of you – you're just another angry at the world professional wrestler. You’re plain. Vanilla – and having a wife in the sport doesn’t make you any more interesting. Speaking of toilet talk, it’s never smart to eat where you defecate.”
I take a few puffs on my cigarette and blow it toward Bash and the camera.
“I get it, you talk about being the foundation but it’s not just you is it. It’s a family business. Tara Ayla, she’s done petty much just as much as you have to establish this company and put it on the map. I know how much you love that woman… but the question you have to ask yourself is a man like me concerned with hurting you physically… when I think about Tara… the things I could do to her… you’d feel it as I crushed her throat… you’d here it echo as she squeezed out half your name in laboured breaths before fading off to a nice little nap with Casanova English.”
I laugh a little thinking about Bash holding Damian back while I triangle choke his wife.“When you wear your heart on your sleeve it’s easy to drive a stake through it Ayla. That’s the thing, you want to mean so much to this business. You want it to remember you as a standard of what a top wrestler looks and acts like. But the world you left behind has changed. There are new tenants in the house Ayla thinks he built – and I live rent fucking free. When I am done with you The Damian Ayla Foundation will refer to a charity for people with crushed esophaguses and obliterated tracias.”
I take my last drink of whisky leaving nothing but rocks behind. I take a few more puffs off my cigarette to wash it down.“The stars can align for me at Victory Ayla and I’m not going to let you affect that. Jason Long just needs to hold up his side of the deal here. Soon he and I will face off for the Impulse Championship – but if he can beat The Comedian and I can beat the man who thinks he is the reason this place still thrives – then doesn’t that elevate the Impulse Championship to being the most important title in this company. Well, reshuffling the deck here in PWE isn’t just my responsibility. Long has an opportunity – a chance to help restructure this entire company. Don’t let me down.”
I take a final puff off my cigarette and toss it into the glass atop melting cubes.“Damian I know you hit hard, you are a technically gifted wrestler – you are probably a cliche where your weaknesses are strengths and your strengths weaknesses – how cute. I can promise, you can break your hand pounding me into the ground because I won’t stop. I am not taking an eviction notice – I’m not signing a new fucking lease. I am taking over, I’m kicking my feet up, I’m raiding the fridge… I’m slamming your fucking cupboards boy.”
I sniff around the room, waft an aroma into my own face, smiling and moaning a bit taking it all in.“You smell that Ayla – it’s that new home smell – and you just can’t afford the mortgage here anymore. You think I am impressed with two title defences in 172 days as top champion? Your bark is a hell of a lot bigger than your bite. And when you lock in Silence of the Lamb the last thing you will hear before your little world goes dark is the howl of the new alpha wolf who's keeping this whole pack in line – Damian Ayla included.”
I catch the back of Eileen's head as she walks past the windows – rain obscuring her a little – but a six sense kicks in. Bash flicks the camera off as we slowly walk out into the street.
We keep our distance, rain pouring so hard it wraps around the soles of our boots. Bash stays a few paces behind me as I watch Elieen walk fearlessly – her headphones blocking out the world as she makes her way back to her hotel room.
Suddenly she picks up pace – maybe she caught my face in the reflection of a shop window. She has her hood pulled tight to block the rain from destroying her hair and the tiny bit of make-up she layers around her eyes.Eileen turns down an alley way I know leads nowhere. What the fuck. I turn the corner and no one is there.
I turn around as the sound of a switchblade unfolding lights up my senses.
And there she was, rain soaked hair stuck to her face, soggy Doc Martens – Eileen with a switchblade pushing on my stomach.“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want,”
She said, knife still pointed at me – her hands not shaking at all.Bash grabs her by the back of the neck the near seven foot monster tossing her back a few feet. She skips across a puddle like a rock before standing up – knife still drawn.“Our parents used to be friends,” I said – she looked into my eyes, pressing pause on both our lives.
She folded the switchblade down.
