Post by 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝕰𝖓𝖉 on Jun 23, 2012 19:14:03 GMT -5
Each blow came in rapid secession, and there seemed to be no sign of gassing. Leaning into the corner, he continued to rain down the rights and lefts. Soon enough, his knees became involved and that’s when the trainer stepped in, immediately stopping the session. Alexis spit out his mouthpiece without giving the man a second glance. His entourage tried to gather around him as he climbed through the ropes but he didn’t give them the time; he had other things on his mind. To call the interaction with his father the following night a conversation would have been a lie. Once could argue that it was a verbal lashing, but even that was a stretch.
The hangover was long gone, but the bitterness always remained. Was his father right? Had the man always been right? Did it really even matter; he knew a stacked deck when he saw one.
“I’m not sure what’s going on in your head, but you need to leave at the door. You off all people should understand this.”
His trainer barked from ringside, but Alexis simply left the general area without responding. He didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with the situation at hand. The culminations of events this week, the downfalls of the week before and the ongoing struggles with his father had slowly but surely taken their toll on his mind. The problems were starting to seep into his personal life, and that is where he drew the line. His wife, his two daughters, they had done nothing to deserve his spite and haphazardness. Phone calls had been missed, Skype messages had been ignored, and to top things off he had been sleeping in the gym to avoid going home; was he becoming his father?
Of course he wasn’t sleeping with whatever ring rats he had found over the years, but in his mind the neglect was just as bad, if not more. It was hard to have a relationship with a man who was not only absent physically, but distant mentally. He didn’t mean to be, he had never meant to be, but the man Alexis became while on the road was a far different one from the family man that his friends and – of course – his family had grown to know and love. This match, this promotion, his father, his demons, they all seemed to take prominence away from the truly important moments in life, and it was something that he was slowly growing to realize.
Moments of realization always came following a night of self abuse, and it seemed like those were the only times that his head was truly clear. The intoxication was the key his clarity, and there was something obviously wrong with that line of thinking. There was something obviously wrong with the entire situation at hand. He wished he could escape into some fantasy land, hell, he wished he could be like his opponent that week. It sounded so nice to be able to live some dual life in another plane of existence, but that simply wasn’t something Alexis was capable of. He had very real problems, and he needed a very real solution to them.
For his match, it was simple: tape. Believe what you will, but he was a firm believer in preparation being ALL of the battle. You could talk about who wanted it more, you could talk about who needed it more, Alexis only believed in who had prepared more; and that was something he would focus on for this match. It was the only thing he could focus on, while he kept his family out of reach (besides his father, of course, who had a knack for forcing himself upon Alexis). He had to focus on the things he knew about his opponent; his injuries; his game plan; his weaknesses. But the last one seemed to be the hardest to come up with.
The last one, however, seemed to be the hardest thing to pinpoint. For a man who had been active for so long, he really didn’t seem to have many weaknesses. He couldn’t help but smirk, being mentally unstable could be presumed a weakness, but who knows; maybe the guy was right. Maybe it was all true, and Alexis simply wasn’t open-minded enough to believe such things. He quickly dismissed such thoughts and replaced open-minded with childish and naive. As he removed the wrappings from his hand, he couldn’t help but focus on the fact the man truly didn’t seem to have any weaknesses, at least not that he had seen and that bothered him.
“You can’t act like this, especially not in your own gym. These guys pay to train with you, learn from you, not get beaten into a bloody mess by you; what’s wrong, man?”
He could have told him, he should have told him, but he didn’t. Leaning forward on to his desk, he buried his head in his hands before running his fingers through his slick, black hair letting his mind rest, but Christian wouldn’t let it rest. He had been Alexis’ training partner since they were teenagers, and when he had opened the first gym six years ago, he had become his business partner as well.
“Alex, you’ve got to let someone in. You’ve got to let me in. If you can’t talk to your best friend, who can you talk to?”
Taking a seat across the desk from Alexis, and he looked at him with eyes full of concern. He had seen his share of dark times, and he had experienced his share while trying to help Alexis’ with some of his own. That was their bond, and that was what made their friendship so strong. His own career in wrestling had been cut short by a neck injury, and Alexis was there for him every step up of the way. When he was at his lowest, Alexis not only helped him find his strength but also fully funded his ‘vacation’ from the world. At the time it was something he didn’t want – or feel that he needed – Alexis was there every step of the way.
“You’ve got to get over this, you need to get over him…”
That was when the reaction came as Alexis leaned back in his chair and stared blankly into the eyes of his dearest friend. He could see it in Alexis’ eyes; the fear; the doubt; the frustration; it was all there, at the surface, something that was quite uncharacteristic.
“Get over what? I have nothing to get over, haven’t you heard? I’ve already lost.”
The bitterness in his voice was evident, and the self-pity seemed to drip off of him as though it had replaced his natural perspiration. Christian wasn’t buying it – he couldn’t buy it – not from Alexis. This wasn’t the man he knew, and it certainly wasn’t the man who was going to win a match this week. It was time for a gut check.
“Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell happened to you, do you want to know why he’s getting to you? Because you’re letting him, that’s why! I’d love to know where my best friend went, because I remember a headstrong, stubborn, son-of-a-bitch who didn’t give a fuck what the world had to say about him and just woke up thinking that his shit didn’t stink; no matter what the odds were against him. Is he in there somewhere, because I’d like to talk to him and NOT the twelve year old girl who’s decided she’s going to camp out for a while… “
Chuckling softly, he couldn’t help but crack a smirk at the words. He couldn’t argue the points because they were valid, but at the same time he couldn’t find the path back to the strong-willed individual he had once been both inside and outside of the ring. There was a point in time where his in-ring persona and the man behind the mask weren’t really all that much different, but the dissociation had become quite evident to the world around him.
“I don’t know…”
Christian wasn’t buying it, he knew when his friend was lying. But what disturbed him the most wasn’t the fact that he was lying to him, no, he was surprised to find that Alexis was lying to himself the most.
“Bull. You know. I’m sure the bottle you slept with knows too.”
He wouldn’t hear it; he wasn’t going to listen to it. He quickly took to his feet and began to pace back and forth behind his desk as he shook his head in denial. Alcoholism had been a near and dear friend back in his younger days, and it was something that he knew he had under control.
“I had a couple drinks; I didn’t burn down a bar.”
Christian wasted very little time in jumping on Alexis’ back. He just couldn’t listen to the dribble that was dripping out of his mouth. It stank.
“Really? because I know the difference between what a single drink smells like and an entire bottle. When you walked in this morning, you smelled like you had made friends with an entire warehouse. But hey, what do I know right?”
The sarcasm was not only thick in the air; it was evident in his body language. Leaning back against the wall, he gave Alexis a cock-eyed glare while observing Alexis’ reaction to his statements. He knew the denial, and he had seen it before and it was something that seemed to rear its head anytime anxiety took its hold upon Alexis. It wasn’t pretty, but it seemed to be his coping mechanism with the problems that surrounded him. He had taken a break from the business for this very reason. Wrestling was his love, it was one of his true loves, but it was also one of his triggers. The pain, the constant pressure, it was the exact kind of situation a sponsor would avoid him against.
The high-stress, high-octane lifestyle was not something that was conducive to sobriety. It didn’t help that there really wasn’t much sobriety to begin with, in a business that was known for its various lushes and abundant overindulgence. His father had definitely been one of them, and it was something that was passed down upon him.
“I’ve got in under control I-“
Christian had hear enough, and he wasn’t going to sit there and continue to listen to whatever self-serving garbage Alexis was going to throw his way. He knew his father had been doing a number on him for years, but it seemed as though this time he had really hit a nerve.
“You don’t have anything under control. You don’t have your family under control. You don’t have your temper under control, and you certainly don’t have priorities under control. You can’t let him win. You can’t let them win…”
Of course, he knew he was right, but that was something he wasn’t ready to mentally register at the time. The self-pity and anguish was something that was going to have to run its course, and at this point in his life he was set in his ways; Christian was well aware of it. As he approached the doorway, he couldn’t help but leave him with a final thought.
“You can prove them all wrong with a win, but know how you can also prove them all wrong? By surviving a loss.”
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