Gonna Laugh At You!

Nothing is guaranteed in the business and I am getting exhausted.

Bookers a Pro Wrestling Excellence will change on a whim to up a buyrate. They’ll stack the odds if you aren’t towing the company line and I should have known better. They work it into contract to appear on shows and yack to get ahead. They want you on TV to up advertisement revenue. You can’t just be a pro wrestler anymore – you have to be a celebrity. You have to be willing to drop everything for a talk show – a special appearance on the hottest new chef challenge in Netflix.

You have to be a fucking comedian.

At the last thrilling episode of Victory they put me up against Damian Ayla and and Issak Otto. They figured why not put me in the ring with someone who already beat me – someone who took my focus and there Otto was to come in and pin my shoulders to the mat and what… you expect me to feel fuzzy inside… to lean on the ref counting a three a little two fast.

I should have known better.

Now it's not me and Jason Long one on one like I had hoped.

I don’t make excuses like the lot of you. I’ve cut corners to be a champion, you aren’t trying if you don’t and I applaud Otto for being at the right place at the right time… and sending me possibly on the worst skid of my entire career. I’ve never lost three matches in a row, but I fell to Lissie Hope at the Denzel Porter Invitational – in one week my stock plummeted. Two losses in a row is a rarity in my career and here I am… on the verge of a losing streak being put against the top champion in this company.

They think they are sending me to the slaughter. They think they are humbling a villain.

I’ve been cut up, chopped like butchered meat – I’ve been trying to prove my worth for the last decade. Been fighting for a World Championship shot since my fingers slid off the top strap over seven years ago.

I’ve been killing giants my whole life – what's a few splinters from some jokester?

A knee length blue dress hugs Eileen's slender body, her red brunette hair flowing off the top of her head as she licks an ice cream enthusiastically.

“You ain’t really selling me on this whole wrestling thing,” she said, taking a bite out of her strawberry ice cream before licking the wound smooth.

“That’s two losses in a row and if you listen to the crowd… those people fucking hate you.”

I knew she had a different motivation then wanting to get to know the son of the serial killer that hunted Eileen's mother.

“Why did you come on this road trip with me anyway?”

Eileen smirks, licking a few trails of melted ice cream off the cone before it hits her hand. She motions for me to follow her through the line up to the big Ferris wheel at Icon Park in Orlando. It was early, the first ride of the day. It was stocked full of tourists.

“Well in each state, there are some things I think I could take care of. Travelling on my own did get pretty expensive you know. And after surviving as many wackos as I have… cutting locks of my hair while I slept and shit, driving me to secluded locations to try to have their way… well fuck maybe a pro wrestler who is the son of a serial killer ain’t the worst company I’ve had.”

“So what, you want to take a ride on the ferries wheel,” I ask as we enter the park, but veer away from the big spinning wheel.

“I’m not a big fan of heights, just came to observe.”

“Observe what?”

“The tragedy,” she said, licking her ice cream even with the top of the cone before crunching into the side.

Just as she says this I hear screaming and shoot my eyes up to the top of the Ferris wheel. One of the seats had come loose at the very top and was tumbling through the sky – people scattered as the booth launched a man out – his pants around his ankles. He hits the ground first – turning into a pile of fucking mush – he’s smeared entirely into the asphalt as the umbrellaed metal booth comes down on top of him with a loud low ding. The sound of his skull cracking sounded like an egg going into the skillet without the sizzle. Mother’s shield the eyes of the children, the face of the Ferris wheel operator is a pale white – Eileen calmly finishes her ice cream cone.

“Delicious,” she said, licking a few morsels of ice cream off the tips of her fingers sexually.

“Did you fucking see that,” I said, trying to understand why a pantless man just fell from the fucking sky and thudded into the ground. The noise played over and over in my brain. Elieen, she seemed to see the humour in it all. She smiled and spun in the sun as ambulance sirens cut through the warm afternoon air.

“Yeah. Sad. I guess… but you know maybe he had it coming,” Eileen said as she stopped spinning and slowly walked toward me – almost whispering.

“Maybe he was a sick pervert. Maybe his dad owns this park. Maybe late at night he convinced young women too drunk to know better to come in here all alone and he took them to the tippy top and well – did what sick privileged men do. Not take no for an answer. Maybe he sometimes goes up there in the middle of the day – pulls his little pin dick out from his trousers and plays with himself at the very top of the world – because daddy took him up there as a kid and told him he owned as far as the eye can see.”

Eileen was beside me now whispering into my ear so softly it sent chills down my spine.

“Maybe someone got tired of being the victim. Maybe someone heard about all the horrible things he did. Maybe someone found out his schedule, kept an eye on him – learned that he was the first person on that ride every second Friday of the month. Maybe they sneaked in last night and twisted the bolts on the booth he loves to use knowing that by the time it got to the top…”

Eileen gestures toward the crowd, some middle aged men vomiting at the site of the mangled body.

“Maybe, travelling on the road with a professional wrestler is the perfect way to take a little power back,” she slapped me on the ass playfully and takes a few steps back. “But who knows.”

Eileen skips off playfully as I look at the carnage. I get it. She’s tired of being the victim. The best way to deal with survivors regret is to get survivors revenge. We had a lot more in common than I thought. Maybe I can tell her what really happened to my father.

Maybe it will bring her some peace.

Then again. Killing him never made anything smoother for me.

I fished for a cigarette and put it between my lips as the police arrived at the scene.

“This is the dumbest fucking thing. You sure you want me to do this?” Bash Daddy asks setting the camera up on a tripod and walking toward me with a hammer.

“Anything for the fans, for the shock value, isn’t that what everyone is doing these days,” I said, Bash just shrugs as the timed record starts on the camera.

One of those porcelain sad face drama masks you always see painted on the walls of a fancy theatre.

“This is who you are down inside right Allen. You use humour to deal with the anxiety, the panic attacks, the diagnosis… I get it. But I want you to understand you are not unique. Hell half the industry has beaten each other into early onset CTE creating a clear bridge to early onset dementia and don’t act like you're not complicit in handing down some of these death sentences. I know I won’t shy away from it. That’s what it’s all about, bruising someone else's brain before yours – letting the tissue die and rot slowly spread until you just can’t fucking remember why grandma set you off – your thumbs just happen to be knuckle deep into her eye sockets and its too fucking late.”

“We’re all complicated multi-layered people. I’m the son of a serial killer, you don’t think my chest gets tight sometimes? You don’t think I wake up in a cold sweat screaming? You don’t think I hear the news reports of my father’s trial play when the radio is turned off? The different between you and I is I am not going to use it as a crutch as a way to get all these people to root for me. As a way for me to make them forget just all the bad shit I have done. No, there is a big difference there when it comes to you and I Al. I’ve poured my heart out sure, but I haven’t left the glass so empty I expect there fans to fill me up. Nah, they don’t care about you like you want them too. I know they were happy to see you tap out to Tara. I know, the boys in the back laughed. I know they talked behind your back, I know they all thought maybe… maybe now is their chance to put you out to pasture and wrap themselves in gold.”

Bash holds the hammer back and cracks it into my forehead with a medium amount of force. The drama tragedy mask cracks and falls off my face to reveal one underneath smiling and laughing.

“It’s no secret you use humour as a coping mechanism, it’s an age old tale and to be honest I admire the way you combine it with violent fantasy. Takes the edge off a little. Less of a shot, more of a mixed drink. Palatable. You’ve worked big comedy clubs, you even had your own little sitcom laugh tracks and all so you can feed off that crowd like it’s wrestling. It all works out so well for you. You get to cut through your personal traumas and at the same time drag your opponent down with some quick quips. This right here is a man everyone loves,” I point at the comedy drama mask plastered to my own face.

“Everyone loves the smiling laughing big guy class clown type. These people can relate to you and you have used humour to bridge that gap. I mean you are a comedian who needs anger management playing a movie as a professional wrestler. That’s what I see when I look at you Chaney. I can’t say I am mad… hell I advocated for people who look like you… I called these waxed muscled uncharismatic phony fucks out as the true fakes they are. Fucking popcorn muscles here for entertainment. You are different Chaney and I respect that. A five time World Champion laughing from the top of the mountain I can hear you all the way down here as I keep trying to claw and scratch my way back up to a top championship. If you think I am one of your run if the mill punchlines you can just set up and knock down… well… how did that fair out for you at the last Victory? It’s hard to laugh at your own jokes when I’ve got a triangle choke locked deep. Tara exposed some things last week. She wrote the blueprint and all I have to do is look at it to find the vulnerabilities in your design. So go ahead, waist your time yucking it up in comedy halls making fun of who I am… trying to drag me down with bathroom humour.”

Bash Daddy smashes the hammer into my face again. The comedy drama mash shatters, but some splinter into my forehead - blood slowly starts to trickle down the middle of my face – running into my lips. I didn’t blink through the whole process, but I left my eyes close and open, pushed a hand into my breast pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes letting out a sigh.

“But this right here… this is who we both are right. Chip away a few mask and down in our core we just want to fucking hurt people till we cum… well you know what I mean. Some therapist along the way laid it out in those turns. And maybe that sexual gratification isn’t sexual at all, maybe it’s the roar of the fans that gets that mojo in motion. My demons are well known, a killer daddy and a drug addicted mommy. Sad stuff eh?”

I smirk and push a cigarette between my blood stained lips. Pieces of porcelain stick out of my forehead and I shake a few loose before lighting my cigarette.

“Truth is we're killers. But I see something different in you. See, I’m not out there trying to invent ways to make my death look like an accident. See the only person who hates Allen Chaney is Allen Chaney. Think about it… a bouncer in your past career… putting yourself between drunks with switchblades. You are a comedian… up there on stage being heckled, bombing week after week before something hits. I don’t know anyone who hates themselves more than someone who sold out to do a sitcom only for it to be cancelled under the guise of a pandemic. Chaney I know you are going to kick my ass post to post. I know you’ll splinter me with tables. I know you’ll cut me open – chew me up – spit me the fuck out. It’s what you've been doing for the past few years to everyone who crosses paths with you. But men like me, punishment is a comfort. I’ll keep on coming, I’ll keep on fighting because Casanova English isn’t letting his fucking shoulders get pinned to the canvas two matches in a row. And all I need to do is out last you a little, and lord knows my cardio is better.. My ring presence is unmatched and I know the truth these other fuckers don’t. The truth is I’m not the person you want to hurt… Allen Chaney is the person out to hurt Allen Chaney.”

I blow a few plumes of smoke into the air, brushing some of the blood from my eyes to make contact with the red light on the camera.

“And well if you give a man like you enough rope… you better make sure the rafters are sturdy.”

I knock some ash off the end of my cigarette letting it hit the stage floor.

“Truth be told you and I… we shouldn’t be main eventing some bi-weekly bullshit. No you and I should be the headliner at the biggest show of the year. Instead, PWE has decided to pit us against each other at our most desperate. Two men scared to fall to the bottom of the card. Maybe I’m speaking out of turn, but I think the both of us would rather fall from a high building than be stuck dispatching jobbers. Isn't that your thing? You long for a good fight or whatever the fuck. Need the beating your daddy never gave you. I’m right there with you with that weird Freudian shit. The only difference is I’m not dumb enough to put too much stock into these fans. Allen all it is going to take to have another mental breakdown is a joke gone bad. See I heard the laughs in the crowd then Tara made you quit… I know you did too… and right now I know the laughter is soothing. These people have been laughing with you for so long now. But all it will take is one mistake, one misplaced punchline, two losses in a row while holding the Excellence Champion and well at that point they won’t be laughing with you… they’re all gonna laugh AT you.”

I take a few sharp drags off my cigarette blowing smoke from my bloody maw.