The Cathartic Act Of Swimming To the Surface.

[Kyle Shane]

"I'm In The Business of Catharsis"

"You know, if I had to stop to think about it, I'd say I'm in the business of catharsis", I heard myself saying from a million miles away. The blonde girl I was hitting on laughed like it was the most profound observation she'd ever heard in her life, but in my heart of hearts it was just an easy line that sounded good. I mean, I'm nothing if not self-aware; even I know I'm full of pretentious shit half the time. She giggles, saying "That's cute but I was asking what site you work for..." the girl is wasted, not even paying me the critical thought of what my words meant. She was just at the party to be at the party.

I was leaning against the wall of the party yacht, chugging along from the Boston Harbor into the icy mid-March Atlantic. It almost wasn't the night for such a party, but Hiro was celebrating his new stake in the hot new social media site everyone was supposed to be looking for. It was why the party on the deck was loud and full of a DJ's mixed beats and why it was filled with pretty, white millenials. Hiro was in the center, under a string of lightbulbs strewn around the main veranda, which was serving as the hip bull session and nightclub. It would have been my kind of place, if it were 2 years ago and I was still the type to give out little prize bags at parties. Now I just marveled at the fact that Hiro had bought so fully in to the sleazy douchebro social media designer world of a David Karp or Kevin Systrom. But I felt out of place. Who said the Game Boy never grew up?

All of this in my head took less time to mope about than to tell, which is why the blonde who's name I still hadn't gotten was leaning on me, one hand slipped into my front pocket, the other resting on my shoulder, playfully. "Why don't you come back to the party, and tell us about your business."

"You wouldn't be interested," I say, finally giving her the littlest bit of attention she was looking for. "It can be cutthroat stuff."

"Oooh," she said, squirming against me, tittering, "Real rough trade, huh? You have to deal with people trying to kick your spot out from under you?"

She had no idea how right she was. Unbidden, I thought about the job ahead in the next few days, defending a Pure Class Wrestling World Championship that had finally be made whole. Ever since I'd won it back at Collision Course I'd had to deal with the disdain of having the title stolen, of leaving me laying, and the whole charade ended up making my maiden voyage with the belt an exercise in relentless frustration and satisfaction being withheld. So maybe catharsis was as good a word as any, in the real sense. Wrestling was a coping mechanism for me, and coping mechanisms by definition are a way for you to blow some shit off at the end of the day.

Except that it almost didn't matter at this point, because the general feeling was that Grimm was coming back for his spot that he never should have been out of. Yeah. Seven time champion, the so scary Hangtown Horror, the guy who'd managed to beat me three times now. That was the big bugaboo that I couldn't shake.

"There he is, c'mon killer, we're gonna do karaoke", Hiro nudged, as he came over, shoving a tumbler of gin straight into my hand. The blonde pouted. "Hiroooo, your friend is all broody. I just wanted to have some fun."

"It's okay Jeannie, go on back to the deck and see if they can't give you another margarita." Hiro said, a broad, schmoozing grin splitting his face. Hiro looked every bit the part of the slick douchenozzle we would have made fun of, pink boating shirt, shorts, mocassins. The girl didn't even have to think hard about getting another drink. And Hiro looked after her, ever the hound. It was a little disappointing, and it was hard to tell if it was an act for the sake of the party or if he had regressed. Hiro leaned against the rail with me, one elbow cocked casually. The frigid air and spray from the sea whipped at our hair.

"I'm really surprised that you came out tonight, man," Hiro said at length. "Things between us have gotten weird lately..."

"You wanna talk weird," I grunted, gesturing back to the dozens of people packed under the light bulb enclosed veranda in the middle of the boat, "You've really thrown all in with this party, you've got expensive booze, a DJ, cheap and airheaded girls... does your wife know about this party?"

Hiro's lip curls in disbelief, "I really can't believe you'd go there, Azumi is at home with the little one."

"And she's okay with you passing around bottles of bubbly to dump on women's tits?"

"Don't you get judgemental with me, Shane," Hiro snapped irritably and wearily. "Fact is that you would have loved this sort of thing. I thought you were going to be on board. Vero is going global and more people are signing up every day."

"Right, because launching a new site is as easy as telling people your feed is chronological. And the investors paying for the site, the creepy guys camped out at the edge of the party... Yakuza money?"

Hiro fudged a little, then he said sotto voce, "Russian deep web."

"Jesus Christ, Hiro, you're getting in bed with those creeps? For what, a bubble that's gonna burst?"

Hiro's eyes flashed as he looked up at me. "Listen to me, at least I am trying to secure my future and that of my family." He gave an embarassed look back to the party, where some goers had started craning their necks to see what was going on by the railings. When Hiro looked back, his voice was tight and quiet, but his eyes searched mine with a pleading intensity. "What are you doing to make sure your future's secure?"

He threw his hands in front of him, his lips becoming tight and his demeanor saying he wanted no more of this shit, "Whatever. Enjoy the boat ride, dick." And he walked back, greeting his constituents uproariously and leaving me to my thoughts, swirling a tumbler of gin by the tips of my fingers hanging over the rail to the Atlantic Ocean. At this time of night, the churning water pushed by our wake was black, with only a thin ribbon of wavering light on the waves from the moon.

What was I doing to secure my future?

It was a fair question.

The build up of negative attention and the ongoing struggle of being a new champion made the belt feel like a weight at times. I know it's customary to project strength and the ideal that you're unbreakable but when you have precious little to brag about in your recent past and it feels like scrap by scrap it's getting taken away from you, it's hard for the twenty pounds of gold you carry not to feel like it's dragging you underwater.

The boat juddered and shifted, and my hip hit the railing. I grunted in pain. That bump was harder than I'd liked. I heard Hiro from the party, "Sorry about that, folks, I think we just bumped a buoy... but it's all gewd, party people, let's kick this into international waters!" This, punctuated by the DJ giving a triple blast of the air horn. I looked at my shirt, the gin had splashed onto the silk. I set the glass on the railing with a sigh.

On the other hand it was hard not to feel bitter about the whole thing with my World title situation. Because it was bullshit. I didn't want to be the face that whined about competition being unfair, but the fact was that Grimm was just sort of... given a title shot arbitrarily two Traumas ago without the single bit of merit to proclaim that he should be in line. He was a former World champion? Super. Awesome. Except Whitey Ford submitted him way the hell back in July. His grimness also lost multiple rematches and chances to get back in contention. And yet I'd had to scratch and claw my way past a disappointing Rumble result, past a jealous Notorious band and countless interference to gain this title while Grimm was... being utterly directionless. I'd paid my god damn dues and, stolen title or no, it should not be erased just because the company wanted to give Grimm his chance at number whatever. Grimm wouldn't even BE in line if Seromine hadn't decided to waste his rematch slot in a meaningless feud with Brenna Gordon that she's put no effort into.

But there it all was. It was as implacable as the tides. As inexorable as Grimm himself. It was always going to come down to this and that ultimately is what depressed me a little bit about it. I'd tried everything in facing Grimm. I'd gone comedic, I'd gone high concept sci-fi, I'd talked about my feelings. And still I remained frustrated. Fuck, Whitey Ford managed to beat the dipshit while talking about skinny dipping in a river, but the biggest point of frustration for me was -

Another jump and the boat rocked, someone complained "What was that? An iceberg?" If I was closer to him, I'd have slapped him. Hiro called to the steerage on his radio, trying to see from the captain why the ride had gotten rocky. The wind was fighting us as we sailed on.

So maybe it was all of this in my head as I stopped paying attention to my positioning by the rail. Maybe my last thoughts were that it would feel truly gratifying if I just said fuck it and took out all of my frustrations about Grimm and the World title situation out on the man in the ring. A truly purgative act of getting past my demons and setting the ship right once and all. But, speaking of ships...

The crosswinds we were sailing into sloshed against the little party yacht, and the captain, ill prepared for a gig like this, didn't compensate well for it. The boat shook again.

And I was still thinking about taking out my frustrations when another shake made me bump the rail and flip over, into the icy Atlantic.

As I sank into the black, deep water, my last thought was that shit out of my control was dragging me under yet again.

Coming Up For Air

I know we were talking about drowning before, but the real act of going under hurts more than anything I can describe. As the fluid fills your lungs and expells the air, and you instinctively open your mouth to let more air in but only succeed in sucking down more salt water. Your lungs burn as they fill. Your vision starts going red, and you're sinking...

So imagine my surprise when I snap to consciousness and I'm on an island, a little rocky atoll among the numerous that litter the entrance to the harbor, such as Deer Island, Grapes, Outer Brewster. Where I woke, spitting and coughing out liters of gritty, sickening water was little more than a little shelf in the waves, big enough for a bus, perhaps. If the state didn't reclaim the land for building the water eventually would. I gagged and spit some more, but as I reclined, I came upon the fact that I was being watched.

It was party girl. Jeannie. Also waterlogged, her tight pants and the billowy halter top she wore to the party clinging to her pathetically. She looked like a miserable, wet rat, alone and scared, and when she noticed me sitting up her eyes widened. She walked over on her knees to quickly grab me in her arms, frantically happy that someone else had gotten off the boat. I endured her witless blubbering for another few moments as she talked about getting swept off the ship.

"So this is weird," Jeannie said, looking around our tiny little shore. "It's like we're shipwrecked."

"We're close to the mainland and fishing boats come past the islands to the bay and back every day. We aren't going Robinson Crusoe here," I said sardonically.

"I know that," she said with enough of a bite to make me back off. "At least, I think so... but how long until someone passes by? Can they even see us?"

I didn't have a comfortable answer for her.

So the night passed. The moonlight over the water began to wane. And Jeannie and I traded small talk. I was laughing wildly as she continued telling a story, " - So when I got on the boat, Hiro slides his arm around my waist and whispers in my ear, saying 'Just pretend to by my arm candy for the night and I'll make sure you get hooked up at the party, all of my investor friends brought their side pieces with them. Just don't tell my wife.'"

I clapped my hands in a bravo, laughing, "Jesus that is so cringy. I'm sorry, girl."

Jeannie had a sad quirk of the mouth written on her visage as she looked out over the water. "Like I like to come to these high society parties and all but I'm not an escort. You know? It frustrates me."

I gave a sympathetic grunt, although I too played into that preconceived notion. "So what do you do?"

She looked like she didn't want to say at first, but then she said "I sell handmade tote bags and purses online."

"Oh, that's... a cool job." I say, giving my all into forming those words. Jeannie laughed, and shoved me over into the sand. "Shut up, it's not."

"You're making something for yourself. And if you're in this crowd, even as a girl at the party, you obviously have some client base. Don't sell yourself short."

She looked at me with big, shining eyes, the moonlight making them look watery. She was looking at me in a way that was special. She crept closer to me. "And earlier, when you told me what you do... what did you mean by that?"

I thought about giving her the big answer, the pretentious answer, the kind that comes easily and with great wind. But I had a stone in my hand and I flung it sidearm into the sea, waiting for the sploosh. It didn't come. I marvelled at that. "I want to be proud of what I do, because what I do takes fortitude that my detractors will never have. But the truth is I was thinking a lot about how it weighs me down. My old mentor once told me that he couldn't think of a bigger headache than being a champion, because you have to consistently prove yourself, even when you should have already been a proven commodity. There's always going to be someone who looks down on you, there is always going to be shitty booking or bad circumstances or luck that make the road harder, make you want to give up. But for so long I'd prided myself on DIY, rising to any challenge, overcoming any odd, being your own hero and your own deity. But..." another rock plucked up, and another throw out into the water. No sploosh. That was weird...

"But," Jeannie finished for me, picking up a stone, rolling it between her manicured fingers for a second, "If you feel tired, like the grind is getting to you, it makes you feel like you're not living up?"

"Yes, that." I admitted.

Jeannie threw her pebble out across the water. It skipped, three times, soundlessly, and I lost sight of it. I marvelled at her throw. "So what you told me is basically true. Yours is a job of constant catharsis. Of being pushed down again and again and still rising back up. It always will be like that, is the bad news."

I didn't know that I would have put it that way, but when she did, I had to admire her connection. Jeannie was looking at me, her strange eyes intent on me, searching my face. She reached up and stroked a cheek. "But the true release of what holds you back is when you swim against the current, you push your way back up through the water and break for air. That's true catharsis. And you can do it at any time. All you need to do is put your effort into swimming... and not letting the weight sink you. Especially if you're adrift."

"Wait -" I said, and the phrasing of her words opened my eyes. I looked around me, and the island atoll we both sat on was going away. Instead, for a second, we hung in a void, two luminescent beings like deep sea fish swimming against an undercurrent. And then, Jeannie was gone, and my eyes fully snapped open. Everything was burning, and bursting, and pushing down on me fit to explode. But I kicked as hard as I could, orienting myself to the wake of what I hoped were boats passing overhead.

The dream Jeannie, the Jeannie I remembered from the vision of the island, her words run in my head as my aching muscles threatened to lock up fatally and drown me in the icy tomb.

And when my head broke the surface, that first gasp of air was the sweetest taste I had ever felt on my tongue.