I Guess, In The End It's You and Me.
Oct 22, 2018 3:05:18 GMT -5
The Anarchist, Holden Ross, and 1 more like this
Post by Kyle Shane on Oct 22, 2018 3:05:18 GMT -5
Monday, 6:10 am
(He's sitting on the balcony, one foot propped up on the rail, looking out over the city. Still functional, still standing, but looking rough. His five o clock shadow and bags under his eyes, bed head, and clothes that have been slept in. He's drinking straight from a pot of coffee absently, like a hexed cadaver clinging to the door between life and death and not sure which side to take.)
Monday 9:20 am
(He's fully dressed in a denim jacket, skinny jeans and beanie ensemble, smart, sharp, shaven, and looking fresh as a daisy, and laughing affably as he sits around a round table at a radio show in the city, the cast and production crew cracking up as he pours on the charm. He oozes poise, conviction, and the easy confidence that you would expect of the gamer king, the human platinum trophy.)
The truth is, I'm still trying to figure out how I can differentiate the two.
Or should I, even? I don't know, it feels like it's become my brand to pen these weird, fucked up drama tableaus nowadays. More than Justin Michaels and his wife or any of that drama that comes along with Dominator and trying to find his you know what honestly I start tuning out five minutes into people's promos half the time and just smile and nod until I see my name, sorry. That's their brand, and whatever it works for them fine. My brand, in turn, is probably a lot in the same vein. See who Kyle Shane will fuck things up with this week! If you want it to be Array, press one! If you want him to lose his son, press two! If you want Kyle Shane to build a promo around a big metaphor, stay on the line! But isn't that the trajectory it's been taking for me? My real life has just gotten shittier, so much so that I couldn't hide it even if I wanted to. So I air it out in the form of a promo, and -
Well, first, you have to understand that everything I do is filmed, edited, and conceptualized by me, it's an art project, even the interpretations of the drama are filtered in a way that it plays into a metaphor I'm reaching for. So honestly when I air out my dirty laundry and half of you sneer at me like I'm pathetic you're only reacting to what I wanted you to think from the start. But then, there's the other side of it where I get so personal and bare my soul and. Some asshole fucker piece of shit like Grimm or Stormm or Gabriel just sneers at it.
"I'm going to BEAT Kyle Shane so bad he runs back to his little therapist, nyaaaa!"
"All of Kyle Shane's friends have left him and his life is empty, all he does is spout game references!"... I mean... fucking, am I?
Tuesday, 8:30 pm, bell time.
(He's dressed as a Spartan, in full on cosplay mode with a plate chest airbrushed gold and a professionally made helmet, holding a titanic sword aloft. He is standing in front of an independent circuit show, having made a promotional appearance for Pure Class Wrestling and here, his his Assassins Creed cosplay armor, he's shimmering like a golden god, and he is basking in the adulation of the crowd, who are eating up his playing to them. He pokes the sword in the air.)
"So this is my ODYSSEY, to bring prestige back to the Pure Class Wrestling World Title. I showed at Deadly Intentions that I can bring down the cult that is choking the life out of the best damn company in the business today! ...Uhhh, you guys are pretty good too, I guess."
But when it all ceases, when it all goes away, I can't tell anymore which is the mask.
Sometimes it feels like it's the sadness, and the only time I'm me is when I'm performing.
And sometimes I feel like Kyle Shane is just a thin veneer I spackle over, and it is showing more cracks all the time.
And I can't help but to keep documenting it. And I tell myself that I don't care that it exposes weaknesses to my so-called enemies, because being completely frank I never actually think that someone across the ring from me is smart enough to know what to do with me. I'm a puzzle box of contradictory bullshit, an emo man child but a feral ball of barely contained rage, a narcisstic asshole and an introverted, introspective weirdo. Yeah, I'm all over the map. And that's been my ace in the hole is that I just don't care about the established rules for what makes people comfortable to see in their promos or any of the wafer thin, quien es mas macho guidelines that govern how men, rough, tough beat people up for a living men are supposed to act like. Cuz honestly, who gives a fuck?
But hand that puzzle box to a Gabriel, or even a Seromine. It would slip out of their grasp. If I handed them a gun and turned my back to them they would still drop it at my feet. I've given leagues of psychiatrists and case workers and them fumble with my head like teens at Makeout Point in a 50's movie fidgeted with a girl's bra strap.
Wednesday, the day after his appearance, 04:36 am.
(He's sitting in silence, slopping an enormous wooden spoon into a bowl of Kix as he looks straight forward with leaden eyes. The blue light from the TV having been switched to another HDMI channel casts a pale glow, and he looks like a damned man cursed to slave aboard the Flying Dutchman swabbing decks for all eternity, washed out, drawn cheeks, tired eyes.)
Wednesday, early morning dawn, 6:52 am.
(He's full of pent-up energy, his hands gesticulating as he stands in his designated promo room/sound booth, letting rip with a furious invective. His hair is gelled into it's blades, his scruff is trimmed back and his eyes- man... his eyes are like looking into the pits of the abyss.)
"So let me tell you something Justin "Stormm, My name has to have two M's because I have the originality of a Penthouse letter writer" Michaels, I didn't need your help to beat Gabriel and Seromine and I'm honestly really fucking tired of you orbiting around the main event scene when you're so far below my actual level that the God damn weather stations in Antarctica have to core through the layers and layers of ice shelf with pneumatic drills, send submersibles down to the depths of the ocean underneath that ice and ping sonar to FIND the level that you are actually on. Let's get something straight dude, we're partnered on Trauma, ya. But while I really enjoy winning and I can think of nothing I'd rather see than Gabriel and Seromine continue to take another L and slide even further down their fall from grace; when it comes to you, I'm not going to be all that bothered if Seromine and Gabriel spend the entire match stomping you out, in fact I'll probably be so cheered up by it that I'll go out into the stands, buy me a sleeve of popcorn and one of the stadiums' watered down eight dollar beers and enjoy that shit. Sit back and watch the show as a fan of you getting the living fuck beaten out of you for a while. THEN tag in to the match and do the work that I had in mind at Deadly Intentions before you interrupted.
Why do you keep interrupting the main event, Stormm? Is it more of your brain dead, asinine ideology, the same reason you and Johnny Bitchboy had to not only jump me and STEAL my title but spraypaint over it AND run around with it backstage hiding it for weeks? The same reason you keep intersecting yourself in there against Seromine because it really means that much to you that you proclaim yourself the biggest threat to Serominism there ever has been? Here's the facts Stormm, YOU LOST. You had multiple chances to bring yourself up to me by now and you just couldn't do it. Number one contenders matches, the Icemann Invitational you fizzled out in, shit if you really wanted to prove yourself on a stage that matters instead of jumping me yet again like a little bitch and pulling me over top of the two idiots who also keep failing, why didn't you just try and win the Deadly Rumble? Oh, because there was a good chance you couldn't do it, and you've been playing it safe? Fuck you, dude.
You're going to act like I've been ducking you and doling out easy title shots to the Tyler Scotts of the world while you're the man who STALEMATED Tyler Scott! You're the man who STALEMATED GRIMM, I'm sorry it feels like I'm turning this into a three on one handicap match and I'll get to Seromine and Gabriel but dude you on a basic level cannot do even the one thing you criticize me for properly. You are the NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPION. Why don't you try defending that belt, successfully, and stay out of my fucking way and let me do what I've been doing quite well for the past year, which is beat Gabriel and Seromine. Because otherwise if you get in my way I'll just grab you by your cankles and beat both of them down with your fat body. Peace the fuck out, muchacho."
Rage.
It is the biggest component of the puzzle.
People act like I question because I don't know who I am... but I do and it scares me. I am... made of rage. Deep down, I think it colors every single perception I have of myself. I can function through the depression, the emptiness, but the anger, it makes me purr. It makes me soar. It pushes me to spit these words out because if I hold them back even for an instant it feels like it'll choke me. And it's documented where I learned it but I never, ever learned control. Not from therapy. Not from Krista. Not from love.
Monday, early morning, pre dawn.
(He lays in bed, and his thumb wavers over a call button. He knows it's possible the caller has him blocked. He throws the phone away instead.)
Monday, 9 am, in the studio with the radio show.
"Kyle, man, you are on top of the world, baby. Tell us how it feels?"
"Man, Eric, I'll tell you. When you have that title on your shoulder, and you're walking down that ring, with everyone chanting your name, the whole world falls away and nothing matters anymore."
And I know it's cost me a lot so far and in the end it may just call me everything. Rage, fear... in the final analysis, my fateful vanities.
Tuesday, after curtains at the indy show.
(He removes the cosplay helmet, his hair sticking to his head. He's breathing heavily, and as the crowd has all left and he's staying behind in the small, crowded venue, and taken off the first piece of armor, he just sits there, breathing.)
Maybe I'm going farther than I had before. Maybe I'm showing my enemies too much weakness. Maybe I've pushed myself too far and done things too similarly one too many times, maybe I've let people know the game plan a little too well. Maybe those people that see me as weak are just seeing me for what I am. And I have to pull back from myself and focus on the little voices of encouragement, my own little pieces of Eden. Johnny, Array, the positive support system I had tried to built is a ripped and torn string of netting but if I concentrate I know that I can hear what they're telling me. That I show the weaknesses on purpose, to make a point of how much stronger I prove myself when I rise above. But I don't... know... if I can rise above it this time. It's too much. It all seems like too much sometimes and I'm doing it myself. And I am losing myself to the rage as every time I take a step forward, I am pushed back.
Wednesday, hours into studio time.
(His stutters have become a little more pronounced, as he's growing tired. He's been feeding this fire for most of a morning, and now, he is weary from it. His hair is clinging in wet patches to his forehead and his shirt is soaked with sweat.)
"I have said, so much about this war against Seromine. I have spent so much energy on you, Seromine. I played up what this war meant to me from a career standpoint. I played up what I said about motivation. I did everything I could to make our battle feel like the ultimate clash of our idealogy because we're polar opposites in tactics and approach. And I'll be honest, even when Gabriel nailed me and we found ourselves in a triple threat I was focused on ending it with you and getting one last win. Because let's take Gabriel out of the occasion. He's shown himself too weak and spineless to separate from your orbit for longer than it takes to read two Psalms. This was about my faith in me versus your faith in you. And to have it end on a bullshit way with Michaels throwing us both under the bus just feels anticlimactic. It feels like the fire that raged between us at Collision Course last year just got doused like a campfire after the scouts are done. The rage, the heat between us, it just feels spoiled. And it has to feel that bittersweet, that denied conflagration of release for you too because that was your last shot and you wasted it. But in the end, it was wasted for me, too. And that does piss me off, but in an embittered, tired way. Because now this never really ended. And you're free to continue thinking the way you do, without having to really admit you were taken down by the better man.
That, is some shit to the bull.
But what more can either of us say, Seromine? We're too pig headed and arrogant to turn back from our courses and you're too up your own ass with the worship and adulation given to you by creeps like Gabriel, you're never going to willingly give that up, and without a convincing defeat I'll never get that from you, so this really will have to go on til the end of time. "Fight forever!" chant the fans, and they... are... fucking idiots. They can be. I love them. And I stand by every word I said about providing an inspiration for how they should be. But if they want to see both of us continue to go all out, firing big guns at each other, well the law of interfering Don Quixotes just proved that there won't be a point. If there ever was a logical end point, it was there, the Deadly Rumble a year from when this all began. When that was denied all because one stupid, stupid, egotistical piece of shit makes a living off of interfering in matches... it can't ever happen like that again. So if that doesn't make you just as mad as it does me... then we were never on opposite sides to begin with."
Is it too much? Or is this too little? Is this all too introspective, a bit too on the nose and making people squirm in their chairs, wondering why I can't just talk to some kids at a comic book store. The bitch of trying to innovate is that when those innovations are colored by emotional perception they become twisted. I'm always trying to do something different, something other people don't do.
But as I look deeper, that isn't the question I'm asking myself.
What lies on the other side of that rage? That fear?
How do I really define myself, as the golden paragon of DIY aesthetic, that if you provide your own moral compass, fight for yourself win for yourself and raise your game level to the challenges life gives you you can succeed? Or am I just emptiness, angriness, and the void?
Monday, 9:30, in the radio studio.
"Yeah, but, Kyle, listen... lot of our callers, man, they're- they're worried about you, man."
"Ahh, what do you mean, Eric? I'm, ha, I'm doing fine, right? I'm the champ! And listen, I'll tell all my followers, that if you stick to your goals there's no limit to what they can accomplish. I'm living proof."
"Are you?" "Yeah, brother, it's fine to say that, but there's nothing wrong with asking for a little help now and then," "Just reach out, ya know, let them all know."
"I'm FINE," he says, with a little too much force.
Tuesday night, in the darkness of the shut down auditorium.
(He's removed his chestplate, and his empty chest is pierced with pain, crushing in on him. It feels like the walls are caving in, and he has to get out. He strips the tights and sandals off, getting down to his skivvies, and he makes his way into a shower. The gymnasium is dark, sterile and empty, everyone, every member of staff has gone home and the locker room has a horror movie vibe to it, as one occupant stands in a freezing cold shower, head down, teeth gritted.)
I'm not afraid of you all...
I'm...
Not...
Afraid...
I'm the man without fear.
And yes, I'm aware of how crazy it sounds. I'm aware of how it looks that I unravel in promos but still present a character who bases himself on the perfection of his game. And I leave it entirely up to the chance and the faith that I have in what I do. When I set myself on a motion, when I start a promo I trust myself to show only the facets that I want people to see. As much or as little as I want. Whatever people think of it from there on in, that's their bag. I do have faith in my skill. I do have the utmost belief that I can overcome anything. Even the things that I live with, but not limited to that. The petty backstabbing, the gambling for my position, the pressure of being champion. I have put myself through hell to prove my worth for this title. Mental anguish of being good enough to stack up to any name has eaten at me. But I've still stayed here, and stayed proving. So if I carry my demons with me and nothing else, well guess in the end it's just me and them.
But I also know that it doesn't have to be that way.
Monday, as Kyle is leaving the studio.
(They give him concerned looks, because of course they do, but the hosts all clap him on the shoulder and thank him for being a good guest. He smirks, putting his devil may care face on for the world. The cool, cocky champion, no cracks shown.)
Tuesday, as Kyle sits, in the locker room of the gymnasium he hasn't left.
(He holds the helmet between his hands, looking into the forked mask, the black void of eye holes. He throws the helmet across the room, letting it clatter into the garbage.)
Wednesday, as Kyle, recovering his fire, stands tall, nearly roaring as he's closing off his promo.
"So this week, on Trauma, I am going to show up to that arena, with asshole serpents on every side of me. I don't even care what happens after the match, Stormm, you can catch these hands in the Got damn parking lot or you can let this shit go, but you are gonna move on from this. And I am going to move on from this. This entire war with Gabriel, Seromine, and their clique has to end and if it doesn't die down now, it never will. So you just do your part, Michaels. I don't need any coaching, any attacks from behind and certainly don't need help to do what I do, and that is continue to prove why I am and have been since day one in Pure Class Wrestling, a paragon of unrivalled prowess and skill, on a level that scrubs like those Followers just can't reach. I AM the God of Game, the Game Changer, the World Champion, and when I beat Seromine and Gabriel, yet again in the center of that ring, with or without the back slapping hand of Justin Michaels it's going to be yet another - "
And Saturday...
11:55 pm.
(He's standing outside his car. His thick wool peacoat is pulled close against the cold, even here in the ochre light of the parking garage. Dull lumps of dark cars speckle the parking spots now and again, but there is nobody else here. He takes a drag on the cigarette but looks around, obviously waiting for someone. And then, he hears a repeated click. It is the sound of a tapping from a crutch used to support a palsied limb of a weak person that has never known the ability to walk. The crutch and the slide of the other foot make a shambling, uneven step. He listens to it as it comes close.)
"I thought you weren't going to come," Kyle says, tersely.
"When I got your call, after so many months of radio silence?" Comes a voice familiar. It's amused in it's taunting.
"It's funny how a few attempts to kill me will strain relations, you know," Kyle says, looking elsewhere, arms pulling the sleeves of the peacoat tight against the cold.
"Kill you? Kyle, I don't wanna kill you," the voice seems honestly a little shocked, although it had certainly tried it's best sometimes. "No... I don't know what I would be without you."
"Yeah, well..." He grimaced. "I've been thinking about us a lot. And you are... possibly one of the only people I know with the same life experiences. The same frames of reference."
"They don't know you like I know you, do they? How hard it is to live with the emptiness, the rage, the back and forth of pull between what you are and what you want to present to the world?"
"Yeah."
There is a sinister titter in his voice. "I can help. You just have to come with me. And take my hand, and I'll tell you all about how I make it by, dear brother."
He looked at the smile emerging from the darkness, the face so like his, and he looked away. "Alright, Patrick. Lead the way."
(He's sitting on the balcony, one foot propped up on the rail, looking out over the city. Still functional, still standing, but looking rough. His five o clock shadow and bags under his eyes, bed head, and clothes that have been slept in. He's drinking straight from a pot of coffee absently, like a hexed cadaver clinging to the door between life and death and not sure which side to take.)
Monday 9:20 am
(He's fully dressed in a denim jacket, skinny jeans and beanie ensemble, smart, sharp, shaven, and looking fresh as a daisy, and laughing affably as he sits around a round table at a radio show in the city, the cast and production crew cracking up as he pours on the charm. He oozes poise, conviction, and the easy confidence that you would expect of the gamer king, the human platinum trophy.)
The truth is, I'm still trying to figure out how I can differentiate the two.
Or should I, even? I don't know, it feels like it's become my brand to pen these weird, fucked up drama tableaus nowadays. More than Justin Michaels and his wife or any of that drama that comes along with Dominator and trying to find his you know what honestly I start tuning out five minutes into people's promos half the time and just smile and nod until I see my name, sorry. That's their brand, and whatever it works for them fine. My brand, in turn, is probably a lot in the same vein. See who Kyle Shane will fuck things up with this week! If you want it to be Array, press one! If you want him to lose his son, press two! If you want Kyle Shane to build a promo around a big metaphor, stay on the line! But isn't that the trajectory it's been taking for me? My real life has just gotten shittier, so much so that I couldn't hide it even if I wanted to. So I air it out in the form of a promo, and -
Well, first, you have to understand that everything I do is filmed, edited, and conceptualized by me, it's an art project, even the interpretations of the drama are filtered in a way that it plays into a metaphor I'm reaching for. So honestly when I air out my dirty laundry and half of you sneer at me like I'm pathetic you're only reacting to what I wanted you to think from the start. But then, there's the other side of it where I get so personal and bare my soul and. Some asshole fucker piece of shit like Grimm or Stormm or Gabriel just sneers at it.
"I'm going to BEAT Kyle Shane so bad he runs back to his little therapist, nyaaaa!"
"All of Kyle Shane's friends have left him and his life is empty, all he does is spout game references!"... I mean... fucking, am I?
Tuesday, 8:30 pm, bell time.
(He's dressed as a Spartan, in full on cosplay mode with a plate chest airbrushed gold and a professionally made helmet, holding a titanic sword aloft. He is standing in front of an independent circuit show, having made a promotional appearance for Pure Class Wrestling and here, his his Assassins Creed cosplay armor, he's shimmering like a golden god, and he is basking in the adulation of the crowd, who are eating up his playing to them. He pokes the sword in the air.)
"So this is my ODYSSEY, to bring prestige back to the Pure Class Wrestling World Title. I showed at Deadly Intentions that I can bring down the cult that is choking the life out of the best damn company in the business today! ...Uhhh, you guys are pretty good too, I guess."
But when it all ceases, when it all goes away, I can't tell anymore which is the mask.
Sometimes it feels like it's the sadness, and the only time I'm me is when I'm performing.
And sometimes I feel like Kyle Shane is just a thin veneer I spackle over, and it is showing more cracks all the time.
And I can't help but to keep documenting it. And I tell myself that I don't care that it exposes weaknesses to my so-called enemies, because being completely frank I never actually think that someone across the ring from me is smart enough to know what to do with me. I'm a puzzle box of contradictory bullshit, an emo man child but a feral ball of barely contained rage, a narcisstic asshole and an introverted, introspective weirdo. Yeah, I'm all over the map. And that's been my ace in the hole is that I just don't care about the established rules for what makes people comfortable to see in their promos or any of the wafer thin, quien es mas macho guidelines that govern how men, rough, tough beat people up for a living men are supposed to act like. Cuz honestly, who gives a fuck?
But hand that puzzle box to a Gabriel, or even a Seromine. It would slip out of their grasp. If I handed them a gun and turned my back to them they would still drop it at my feet. I've given leagues of psychiatrists and case workers and them fumble with my head like teens at Makeout Point in a 50's movie fidgeted with a girl's bra strap.
Wednesday, the day after his appearance, 04:36 am.
(He's sitting in silence, slopping an enormous wooden spoon into a bowl of Kix as he looks straight forward with leaden eyes. The blue light from the TV having been switched to another HDMI channel casts a pale glow, and he looks like a damned man cursed to slave aboard the Flying Dutchman swabbing decks for all eternity, washed out, drawn cheeks, tired eyes.)
Wednesday, early morning dawn, 6:52 am.
(He's full of pent-up energy, his hands gesticulating as he stands in his designated promo room/sound booth, letting rip with a furious invective. His hair is gelled into it's blades, his scruff is trimmed back and his eyes- man... his eyes are like looking into the pits of the abyss.)
"So let me tell you something Justin "Stormm, My name has to have two M's because I have the originality of a Penthouse letter writer" Michaels, I didn't need your help to beat Gabriel and Seromine and I'm honestly really fucking tired of you orbiting around the main event scene when you're so far below my actual level that the God damn weather stations in Antarctica have to core through the layers and layers of ice shelf with pneumatic drills, send submersibles down to the depths of the ocean underneath that ice and ping sonar to FIND the level that you are actually on. Let's get something straight dude, we're partnered on Trauma, ya. But while I really enjoy winning and I can think of nothing I'd rather see than Gabriel and Seromine continue to take another L and slide even further down their fall from grace; when it comes to you, I'm not going to be all that bothered if Seromine and Gabriel spend the entire match stomping you out, in fact I'll probably be so cheered up by it that I'll go out into the stands, buy me a sleeve of popcorn and one of the stadiums' watered down eight dollar beers and enjoy that shit. Sit back and watch the show as a fan of you getting the living fuck beaten out of you for a while. THEN tag in to the match and do the work that I had in mind at Deadly Intentions before you interrupted.
Why do you keep interrupting the main event, Stormm? Is it more of your brain dead, asinine ideology, the same reason you and Johnny Bitchboy had to not only jump me and STEAL my title but spraypaint over it AND run around with it backstage hiding it for weeks? The same reason you keep intersecting yourself in there against Seromine because it really means that much to you that you proclaim yourself the biggest threat to Serominism there ever has been? Here's the facts Stormm, YOU LOST. You had multiple chances to bring yourself up to me by now and you just couldn't do it. Number one contenders matches, the Icemann Invitational you fizzled out in, shit if you really wanted to prove yourself on a stage that matters instead of jumping me yet again like a little bitch and pulling me over top of the two idiots who also keep failing, why didn't you just try and win the Deadly Rumble? Oh, because there was a good chance you couldn't do it, and you've been playing it safe? Fuck you, dude.
You're going to act like I've been ducking you and doling out easy title shots to the Tyler Scotts of the world while you're the man who STALEMATED Tyler Scott! You're the man who STALEMATED GRIMM, I'm sorry it feels like I'm turning this into a three on one handicap match and I'll get to Seromine and Gabriel but dude you on a basic level cannot do even the one thing you criticize me for properly. You are the NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPION. Why don't you try defending that belt, successfully, and stay out of my fucking way and let me do what I've been doing quite well for the past year, which is beat Gabriel and Seromine. Because otherwise if you get in my way I'll just grab you by your cankles and beat both of them down with your fat body. Peace the fuck out, muchacho."
Rage.
It is the biggest component of the puzzle.
People act like I question because I don't know who I am... but I do and it scares me. I am... made of rage. Deep down, I think it colors every single perception I have of myself. I can function through the depression, the emptiness, but the anger, it makes me purr. It makes me soar. It pushes me to spit these words out because if I hold them back even for an instant it feels like it'll choke me. And it's documented where I learned it but I never, ever learned control. Not from therapy. Not from Krista. Not from love.
Monday, early morning, pre dawn.
(He lays in bed, and his thumb wavers over a call button. He knows it's possible the caller has him blocked. He throws the phone away instead.)
Monday, 9 am, in the studio with the radio show.
"Kyle, man, you are on top of the world, baby. Tell us how it feels?"
"Man, Eric, I'll tell you. When you have that title on your shoulder, and you're walking down that ring, with everyone chanting your name, the whole world falls away and nothing matters anymore."
And I know it's cost me a lot so far and in the end it may just call me everything. Rage, fear... in the final analysis, my fateful vanities.
Tuesday, after curtains at the indy show.
(He removes the cosplay helmet, his hair sticking to his head. He's breathing heavily, and as the crowd has all left and he's staying behind in the small, crowded venue, and taken off the first piece of armor, he just sits there, breathing.)
Maybe I'm going farther than I had before. Maybe I'm showing my enemies too much weakness. Maybe I've pushed myself too far and done things too similarly one too many times, maybe I've let people know the game plan a little too well. Maybe those people that see me as weak are just seeing me for what I am. And I have to pull back from myself and focus on the little voices of encouragement, my own little pieces of Eden. Johnny, Array, the positive support system I had tried to built is a ripped and torn string of netting but if I concentrate I know that I can hear what they're telling me. That I show the weaknesses on purpose, to make a point of how much stronger I prove myself when I rise above. But I don't... know... if I can rise above it this time. It's too much. It all seems like too much sometimes and I'm doing it myself. And I am losing myself to the rage as every time I take a step forward, I am pushed back.
Wednesday, hours into studio time.
(His stutters have become a little more pronounced, as he's growing tired. He's been feeding this fire for most of a morning, and now, he is weary from it. His hair is clinging in wet patches to his forehead and his shirt is soaked with sweat.)
"I have said, so much about this war against Seromine. I have spent so much energy on you, Seromine. I played up what this war meant to me from a career standpoint. I played up what I said about motivation. I did everything I could to make our battle feel like the ultimate clash of our idealogy because we're polar opposites in tactics and approach. And I'll be honest, even when Gabriel nailed me and we found ourselves in a triple threat I was focused on ending it with you and getting one last win. Because let's take Gabriel out of the occasion. He's shown himself too weak and spineless to separate from your orbit for longer than it takes to read two Psalms. This was about my faith in me versus your faith in you. And to have it end on a bullshit way with Michaels throwing us both under the bus just feels anticlimactic. It feels like the fire that raged between us at Collision Course last year just got doused like a campfire after the scouts are done. The rage, the heat between us, it just feels spoiled. And it has to feel that bittersweet, that denied conflagration of release for you too because that was your last shot and you wasted it. But in the end, it was wasted for me, too. And that does piss me off, but in an embittered, tired way. Because now this never really ended. And you're free to continue thinking the way you do, without having to really admit you were taken down by the better man.
That, is some shit to the bull.
But what more can either of us say, Seromine? We're too pig headed and arrogant to turn back from our courses and you're too up your own ass with the worship and adulation given to you by creeps like Gabriel, you're never going to willingly give that up, and without a convincing defeat I'll never get that from you, so this really will have to go on til the end of time. "Fight forever!" chant the fans, and they... are... fucking idiots. They can be. I love them. And I stand by every word I said about providing an inspiration for how they should be. But if they want to see both of us continue to go all out, firing big guns at each other, well the law of interfering Don Quixotes just proved that there won't be a point. If there ever was a logical end point, it was there, the Deadly Rumble a year from when this all began. When that was denied all because one stupid, stupid, egotistical piece of shit makes a living off of interfering in matches... it can't ever happen like that again. So if that doesn't make you just as mad as it does me... then we were never on opposite sides to begin with."
Is it too much? Or is this too little? Is this all too introspective, a bit too on the nose and making people squirm in their chairs, wondering why I can't just talk to some kids at a comic book store. The bitch of trying to innovate is that when those innovations are colored by emotional perception they become twisted. I'm always trying to do something different, something other people don't do.
But as I look deeper, that isn't the question I'm asking myself.
What lies on the other side of that rage? That fear?
How do I really define myself, as the golden paragon of DIY aesthetic, that if you provide your own moral compass, fight for yourself win for yourself and raise your game level to the challenges life gives you you can succeed? Or am I just emptiness, angriness, and the void?
Monday, 9:30, in the radio studio.
"Yeah, but, Kyle, listen... lot of our callers, man, they're- they're worried about you, man."
"Ahh, what do you mean, Eric? I'm, ha, I'm doing fine, right? I'm the champ! And listen, I'll tell all my followers, that if you stick to your goals there's no limit to what they can accomplish. I'm living proof."
"Are you?" "Yeah, brother, it's fine to say that, but there's nothing wrong with asking for a little help now and then," "Just reach out, ya know, let them all know."
"I'm FINE," he says, with a little too much force.
Tuesday night, in the darkness of the shut down auditorium.
(He's removed his chestplate, and his empty chest is pierced with pain, crushing in on him. It feels like the walls are caving in, and he has to get out. He strips the tights and sandals off, getting down to his skivvies, and he makes his way into a shower. The gymnasium is dark, sterile and empty, everyone, every member of staff has gone home and the locker room has a horror movie vibe to it, as one occupant stands in a freezing cold shower, head down, teeth gritted.)
I'm not afraid of you all...
I'm...
Not...
Afraid...
I'm the man without fear.
And yes, I'm aware of how crazy it sounds. I'm aware of how it looks that I unravel in promos but still present a character who bases himself on the perfection of his game. And I leave it entirely up to the chance and the faith that I have in what I do. When I set myself on a motion, when I start a promo I trust myself to show only the facets that I want people to see. As much or as little as I want. Whatever people think of it from there on in, that's their bag. I do have faith in my skill. I do have the utmost belief that I can overcome anything. Even the things that I live with, but not limited to that. The petty backstabbing, the gambling for my position, the pressure of being champion. I have put myself through hell to prove my worth for this title. Mental anguish of being good enough to stack up to any name has eaten at me. But I've still stayed here, and stayed proving. So if I carry my demons with me and nothing else, well guess in the end it's just me and them.
But I also know that it doesn't have to be that way.
Monday, as Kyle is leaving the studio.
(They give him concerned looks, because of course they do, but the hosts all clap him on the shoulder and thank him for being a good guest. He smirks, putting his devil may care face on for the world. The cool, cocky champion, no cracks shown.)
Tuesday, as Kyle sits, in the locker room of the gymnasium he hasn't left.
(He holds the helmet between his hands, looking into the forked mask, the black void of eye holes. He throws the helmet across the room, letting it clatter into the garbage.)
Wednesday, as Kyle, recovering his fire, stands tall, nearly roaring as he's closing off his promo.
"So this week, on Trauma, I am going to show up to that arena, with asshole serpents on every side of me. I don't even care what happens after the match, Stormm, you can catch these hands in the Got damn parking lot or you can let this shit go, but you are gonna move on from this. And I am going to move on from this. This entire war with Gabriel, Seromine, and their clique has to end and if it doesn't die down now, it never will. So you just do your part, Michaels. I don't need any coaching, any attacks from behind and certainly don't need help to do what I do, and that is continue to prove why I am and have been since day one in Pure Class Wrestling, a paragon of unrivalled prowess and skill, on a level that scrubs like those Followers just can't reach. I AM the God of Game, the Game Changer, the World Champion, and when I beat Seromine and Gabriel, yet again in the center of that ring, with or without the back slapping hand of Justin Michaels it's going to be yet another - "
And Saturday...
11:55 pm.
(He's standing outside his car. His thick wool peacoat is pulled close against the cold, even here in the ochre light of the parking garage. Dull lumps of dark cars speckle the parking spots now and again, but there is nobody else here. He takes a drag on the cigarette but looks around, obviously waiting for someone. And then, he hears a repeated click. It is the sound of a tapping from a crutch used to support a palsied limb of a weak person that has never known the ability to walk. The crutch and the slide of the other foot make a shambling, uneven step. He listens to it as it comes close.)
"I thought you weren't going to come," Kyle says, tersely.
"When I got your call, after so many months of radio silence?" Comes a voice familiar. It's amused in it's taunting.
"It's funny how a few attempts to kill me will strain relations, you know," Kyle says, looking elsewhere, arms pulling the sleeves of the peacoat tight against the cold.
"Kill you? Kyle, I don't wanna kill you," the voice seems honestly a little shocked, although it had certainly tried it's best sometimes. "No... I don't know what I would be without you."
"Yeah, well..." He grimaced. "I've been thinking about us a lot. And you are... possibly one of the only people I know with the same life experiences. The same frames of reference."
"They don't know you like I know you, do they? How hard it is to live with the emptiness, the rage, the back and forth of pull between what you are and what you want to present to the world?"
"Yeah."
There is a sinister titter in his voice. "I can help. You just have to come with me. And take my hand, and I'll tell you all about how I make it by, dear brother."
He looked at the smile emerging from the darkness, the face so like his, and he looked away. "Alright, Patrick. Lead the way."
