Charisma only takes you so far in this industry.
You can only keep up the facade that you are the most interesting asshole in the business until someone else comes along and redefines the entire term. I’m not the one reinventing this. No, I’m the one watching thousands of Casanova English clones roll off a conveyor belt.
Who I am was decided long before I stepped my foot in a ring. Imprints and life experiences which can’t be duplicated and they brought me all here – to an enigma – to her – Eileen.She spun her straw in her booze filled milk shake at the pale pink and blue dinner we stopped at to shoot the shit about being too sides of the same coin. The son of a serial killer and the daughter of a survivor – and we carried the traits of them both – heightened senses used to hunt or evade. We cornered each other with a blended ice cream and a domestic beer.“So you wanted to find me to tell me all this? To let me know your daddy almost killed my mom? I mean what’s the catch here,”
she asked, slurping up some milkshake.
“I just feel like maybe I owe you something,”
I said, my beer getting warm in my sweaty palm.“Do you feel guilty or something?”
“Guilty about what?”
“That the trauma your dad inflicted on my mother caused her to sink into a deep dark depression. That when I was six months old she held me underwater until I couldn’t breath before yanking me out and smacking liquid from my little lungs? I had glimpses of the mother I could have had, and maybe your dad didn’t slam a cleaver in the centre of her skull like the other women – he still took away the best parts of my mother.”
Eileen sounded calm, she said it relaxed like she had thought about it every day for the last 28 years. Something she had accepted.“I wasn’t exactly riding shotgun with the sick fuck. He did a number on my family too. Finding out your dad was a serial killer isn’t exactly a walk in the park. My mom killed herself… like yours did. On and off drugs my whole life and then she just let them… take her.”
Eileen’s eyes meet mine for a moment, but then shoot back down to her shake. She stirs it with the red striped straw – her lipstick turning the white tip to pink.“So that’s why you are such an asshole. I get it, I have my days too,”
she laughs at me and continues. “We’ve all got a story like that. I try to think my circumstances aren’t that unique, you know. There’s millions of killers out there… I should know… I’ve been at the wrong place at the right time for a lot of it. You learn fun stuff when people assume you as a target… like if I cock my thumb just right… at the end of this straw… it’ll provide enough structural integrity that I could shove it right through the soft tissue of your eyeball,” she said, thumbing the end of the straw.
I get it, she doesn’t want to feel weak. She doesn’t want to feel hunted again. I sip my beer.“I think you’d be good at wrestling. I think you’d fit in well and I think maybe we could get to know each other. Help each other through some stuff on the road.”
She almost spits out her milkshake.“You want me to go on a pro wrestling road trip with you… town to town… what the hell is in it for me.”
“You get to see the world, kid,”
That old military line they used to give in high schools before convincing kids to ship off to Afghanistan. “I just think this might give you a chance to see if there is some way to transition your skills into the ring. I know when you are backed into a corner you are capable – resilient – with a little training and maybe you stop feeling like you’re always in the cross-hairs.”
She got to the end of her shake – sucking the last bit out obnoxiously – then screwing up her face from the concentrated vodka which rested at the bottom. She lets out a little sigh and looks at me, placing her chin in her hands.
“No matter how you slice it big boy, all I hear is you feel guilty and you think you have something to offer me and well, ya don’t sugar. Look at yourself, you think I am the one that needs a helping fucking hand here? I finessed my life into a successful career, talk shows and shit… documentary offers,” She pushes her empty glass to the side and gets closer to me.
“What you are feeling sweetheart is guilt. And you don’t even know me, you hunted me down to fill some void. So I suggest you find out who you are really trying to mend relationships with.”
I have no one else. There is no relationship left to mend – I’ve got Bash and that’s about it. The relationship i am trying to mend is the one with myself. Maybe then I can figure out why I love this craft so much, love the violence. Then maybe I could love myself.“It’s not guilt,” I said one last time before taking a sip. “It’s loneliness.”
Now I was speaking her language – her eyes softened on me. Suddenly she was open to the idea. A little travelling, someone who might just understand what she’s been through. I could see it in her quivering lip.“Where to then…”
Nothing draws two people together quite like shared sorrow – or pulls them apart for that matter.Last week English was sitting in a shitty dive bar, this week he has his Sunday best on. I wear a suit, my hair slicked back, maybe a touch of make-up covering past scars. I suck some into my mouth and swish it around – pretending not to see Bash Daddy films.“Oh, pardon me,” I said, putting my glass down and dabbing the corners of my mouth with a white napkin. “I didn’t see you come in.”
I ball the napkin up and push it off to the side – take a sip of my gin martini before I continue.“This is what intelligence looks like for a lot of people. Personally, personally I think they have it all fucked up. Confuse intelligence and wealth. See you can create this grand illusion, present a package that makes people believe you must have worked for something. You must be so athletic – so smart – so cunning. People want to believe in a pull yourself up by the bootstraps story because it makes them think one day if they work hard enough – if they push hard enough – if they break their back for minimum wage long enough… it will all pay off. And Maybe they’ll be looked at as cunning for having held on to what others thought was a false dream. Dangerous game if you ask me.”
I take a sip of the dreadful martini trying to get a taste for Dixon’s affluent lifestyle.“You don’t need to spell it out for me Nathaniel Dixon. You are a wolf in sheep's clothing and I can smell you from a mile away. The so-called Intellectual Evolution…. So smart, but here you are in professional wrestling where losing just a few brian cells is a good fucking day. People sometimes mistake intelligence for manipulation. I’ve heard the line you run, that people should be embarrassed if they get beat by a business man with little combat experience. People like you haven’t been bad at a single thing in their lives. You can afford the top trainers, the top supplements, paying a referee or two – I’ve been on either side of that one. And truthfully I’m not knocking your little bag of tricks. I’m just saying, maybe, just maybe it’s actually a little easier for you to succeed in this sport than you let on. See you skipped the late nights and the early mornings. The training in the basement of local churches. Nah, you got the latest BowFlex a tin of Total T and just went to town for a few weeks before you called a guy who knew a guy in the industry and here you are – suit pressed – bright eyed and bushy tailed – trying to exaggerate every fucking feat.”
I down the rest of the martini and loosens the top button on my undershirt. I take a cigarette from my pocket and flip it around in my fingers not lighting it.
“People like you Dixion, you want to be oppressed. You want to hurt a little bit so you can be included in the conversation of those who have struggled… who have suffered… something horrible. So instead of running your business, you want to step into my world – the world of combat sports. You want the sore back, you want the brain damage, you want to fucking feel something other than the profits climbing. It gets a little too boring when everything has been handed to you. So you create a little resistance. You need to add a little excitement.You take time off of running shady businesses and you can just do this in your free time. Well for some of us, it’s a way of fucking life. It’s the only thing keeping a gun out of our mouths. It’s not some bullshit past time, it’s not a shallow pool you can dip your little toes in to. Like it or nit, this sport takes over your life. Sure you can hire someone to run your business while you are gone. Sure you can have someone cook your meals and design a workout plan. But you won’t be able to hire anyone to take the ass whooping I promise to give you at victory. The next money your estate shells out will be for your funeral. We both know you are good, but I’m going to show you what a main event looks like.”
“I’m coming off a loss from the former top guy around here, and I am not looking to be another side character in someone’s redemption story. This week I have the chance to redeem myself. The chance to set the course back on target with Jason Long and his championship firmly in my sights. I wonder what is going to happen to you, Dixon when you hit a brick wall. When the losses pile up and you have to come to terms with your worth. I wonder how that first title loss is going to hit. I wonder if you will romanticize this sport like you do now.”
I always hated how the posh ate bullshit cuts just because they were illegal in some parts of the world. Snails and shark fin soup and shit that could kill you. Like I said, rich kids add excitement to their lives. I take a spoonful of caviar and shake my head in disgust.“Pretty well fish cum, but the rich eat it – indulge because it’s expensive, a sort or rarity created, but wait until you see the main course.”
A waiter rips the top off of a platter and there it is – money brains, still in the skull. A dead monkey’s face looking into the camera. So peaceful. The top of its skull is gone, exposing a fully cooked brain.
“Dixon, you remind me of how far we will go to gain intelligence. How far we will go to say I am better than you. Since eve bit the apple for knowledge we have been in an egotistical pursuit. Be careful in that chase though, because there are different types of intelligence and well – in that ring – I’m a chess player and you are still playing checkers. In some cultures they believe eating this they will be imbued with ancient wisdom. Maybe Pro Wrestling Excellence is you own personal plate of monkey brains. Maybe if you can somehow get that intellect out of your skull and onto a canvas it will all be worth it. Maybe you can convert it all to art. Sadly for you there are people like me. There are people like me who have made an entire career about putting people like you in their fucking place and reminding them this isn’t a place for the privileged. No this is grit under your fingernails – sometimes excellence isn’t sexy. It looks like red eye flights – not luxury private jets. It looks like 100 proof fire lighting breath from a bunk batch of whiskey – not some fruit flavoured martini. See Dixon, you can study all the tape on pro wrestling you want from a comfortable chair, in a beautifully heated home, with the ocean feet from your porch – but that won’t help you in the ring with me. I’m The Unprofessional – I do this like no one else. I don’t care about any of the rules and one way or another I find a way to win. Maybe it’s not a one, two, three – maybe it’s not from you crying out for your own mother as I choke the life from you. Maybe after I am done with you that lap of luxury doesn’t hit the same. Maybe that chair is a little less comfortable, maybe – maybe this isn’t a fucking pastime for you. Maybe it’s an obsession. Maybe you can’t sleep without thinking about Pro Wrestling Excellence and its fastest rising star Casanova English.”
I look down at the brain and poke at it with a fork gently.“Ah, the things the privileged do for fun. Eating these can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It’s a neurodegenerative disorder and results in progressive dementia, impaired vision, depression, and eventually death.”
I slam my fork down into the brain as hard as possible – it sticks upright in the tender mass.“Bon Appetit.”
Bash flicks the camera off.
Even when he turns the camera off my life still feels like a fucking movie – dragging on – just waiting for the fucking credits to roll. I couldn't believe Eileen decided to come on the road with me. She must have been as lonely as I have. I’m in a business where I should be celebrated after the work I have done, but I continue to be vilified. One by one I watch their heroes change, fall, fade away. Maybe I’ll be king when no one is left.
Have you ever slept but stayed awake? You know, the thing where your body sleeps but your mind doesn’t. You even snore and shit, but your eyelids flutter as your mind paints images. I swear I heard my hotel room door creek open – but I didn’t open my eyes. Then I felt something over me – a shadow.
I open my eyes – Eileen in a pig suit, a large sharp clever over her head held in one hand. She swings it down toward my face – just like my dad had planned to do to her mother. The thing stops less than an inch before my forehead. I’m breathing deep, but I can’t hear anything behind the pig mask Eileen is wearing. She sets the cleaver on my chest. She slowly backs out of the room, a giggle escaping from the mask – followed by a little oink.I grab a cigarette off the night stand, put it between my lips and light it -- running my finger along the sharp edge of the cleaver.
