Post by Rowyn Starr on Jan 6, 2017 8:28:56 GMT
January 3, 2017
Las Vegas, NV
The combination of a high, pitched horn and the hissing of air brakes brought Rowyn out of his dark reverie of thoughts. He turned just in time to see a huge bus with an RTC Transit logo below the windshield come to a screeching halt three feet away from him. So deep in his turmoil, he hadn't noticed he'd walked straight off the sidewalk and into the street ahead of him.
"I'm walkin' here!' he yelled out, looking straight ahead, more angry at himself than anything for not paying more attention to his surroundings. He didn't feel like Dustin Hoffman playing middle man to a midnight cowboy. He felt more like a failure.
He heard a window slide open with a emphatic bang. 'Punk ass jaywalker! What'cho problem?' A female's voice, full of attitude, anger, and a small dose of fright drifted down at him. The tone caused him to turn around. The driver of the bus, an African-American woman in her mid-twenties with short hair done up in small dreadlocks wagged a finger at him in admonishment as her brown eyes blazed. Rowyn had seen anger detract from a woman's beauty before, but this anger only seemed to make the bus driver more beautiful, ethereally glowing.
Without looking, he gave the bus and its driver a backhand wave as he walked on, ignorning the reply that would have pleased a Marine senior drill instructor. The incident gave way for his dark mood to return as he walked northward along the side streets in the directon of the Stratosphere Hotel, his duffel bag hanging off his right shoulder. He'd wrestled a gentleman's match from a guy who'd wanted the same and won, but that wasn't the finish Rowyn had been hoping for.
Turning a corner, he found himself behind an IHOP restaurant and saw a figure awash under the overhanging glare of a solitary street lamp between the restaurant's back parking lot and the derelict building on the opposite side of the dividing alleyway. As he casually approached, Rowyn saw an old man warming his hands around a coffee cup, its contents steaming in the night air. The man didn't blink an eye at the unexpected company. He just reached inside a patchwork overcoat and produced a half-empty bottle of Jim Bean. Rowyn stopped and watched as the man spiked the contents of the coffee cup, capped the bottle of whiskey and stuck it back inside his coat.
"Got a light?" the man asked him as he fished out a pack of L&M's from his right pocket.
"No. I don't smoke. Causes cancer," Rowyn answered wryly. Head down, he started to walk by when his eyes fell on the bum's shoes. They were more patchwork than the overcoat and the original soles were gone, replaced entirely by duck tape. He pulled out his wallet and removed a twenty-dollar bill and held it out toward the old man.
"Here," he offered. "Go buy yourself a hot meal."
The vagrant just stared at the contents of his coffee cup. Rowyn was close enough to see the man's face was ravaged by windburn and exposure to the cold temperature. He was also close enough to see the man's eyes were devoid of hope. Waving the bill directly in front of the man, he repeated his offer.
"You seem like a kind and generous person, son," the man spoke in a gravelly tone exclusive to long-term smokers. "But there's some things no amount of money can buy," he sadly added.
"What is it that you want?" Rowyn asked, now piqued with curiosity.
The stewbum turned and looked the younger man straight in the eyes, causing him to take a half-step back. The eyes were those of a soul trapped in the world of life-in-death. "I want the house in Spring Valley that was once my home. I want my sanitation job at the Riviera that I worked for twenty-four years before it closed down and I got laid off. I want my wife Anna, the one person who always believed in me, even in the final stages of the pancreatic cancer that took her from me. Can you reach into that billfold and give me all of that?" he asked, his gravelly voice filled with pain.
Rowyn's dark mood became augmented with shame. Even his offer of money seemed even pauperish to paupers. Some helpful person I am, he thought bitterly. I can't even help a guy who's down on his luck.
"No," he said, his eyes downcast. "I wish I could."
The man nodded, as if he'd expected no more and no better. Rowyn walked past him, then stopped. He set down his duffel bag and retrieved his wrestling boots from it. Turning to where he was shielding his body, he opened his wallet, took out all the bills and stuck them down into the toe of the right boot.
"I know can't give you want you want," he said. "But take these and replace those," he said, pointing at the man's Duckster Browns as he set the boots down. "They've seen ceiling in high profile locations all over the world."
"Huh?"
"Never mind," he said. "I was just saying they've been a lot of places. If they don't fit, sell them and use the money to buy some shoes that do," he said, suddenly wanted to get away from this similar shadow of himself. "Take them. It's the least I can do next to what you would like to have. Good luck."
He turned and strode away before the stewbum could say something that would change his mind. Giving away his boots only made him feel worse, another failed attempt to try to do good in the world and winding up with the same total as he had so many times before.
Zero sum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lennie thought the two of them were going to get a farm and raise rabbits, but long before Bobby got to the end of the story, he knew there would be no farms and no rabbits for George and Lennie. Why? Because people needed a beast to hunt. They found a Ralph or a Piggy or a big stupid hulk of a Lennie and then they turned into low men. They put on their yellow coats, they sharpened a stick at both ends, and then they went hunting.
STEPHEN KING,
Hearts In Atlantis
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm still in the Iron King Tournament. Unbelievable.
Shock, not surprise, was the word I'd use to discover that Stefan choose to forgo a street fight match environment and fight on equal terms when I vowed only to wrestle, not brawl. He wanted to prove himself. I had nothing to lose. Nothing to gain.
I got lucky.
Stefan did prove that he could change and still hold on to his passion for wrestling and I hope that he continues to hang on to his dream. My own dream is gone, lost in the Siberian wasteland when reality reared its ugly head. I'm a never-was that just got lucky at the right time. I could be bitter about it, but unless your Eddie Vedder or Bruce Wayne, brooding angst and sullen demeanor doesn't work if you have a Y chromosone. It won't bring friends on the run, sympathy, or encouragment. It wouldn't change the obvious and I'm not a guy who can rock Doc Martens or a batsuit.
The second round of the Iron King tournament looms ahead, the field now down to one champion, fourteen contenders and one pretender. Have you guessed who that pretender is? Is it me? Yessirreeebob, give yourself a stogie and a welding torch to light it with. My track record since returning to PW is proof of that. Laying off the self-hype juice has helped me open my eyes to everything wrong with me in this business that others already knew long before I did.
With your personality, this business will eat you alive.
If you don't reach a high level of toughness, you'll never succeed.
You're no champion and you're even less of a man.
You fucking suck.
You gave Slaine Rodrick handjobs to get an easy first round Iron King match.
I think it would surprise Johnny Rebel to know that I didn't feel like I deserved to be in this tournament. I'd done nothing but fail since coming back and I felt my spot would be worth more to someone outside of PW as chance to come in and show what they could do. But that's Johnny for you: uncensored and ornery. When it comes to Johnny, to simply effin put it, he's mean.
To paraphrase Taylor Swift, why's Johnny gotta be so mean? Throughout his career, he's held titles across multiple federations and to hear the former wrestlers in APW talk about him, his career and accomplishments there are nothing short of legendary. He's done a lot here in PW to help shape and mold it into the powerhouse brand it's become known for. I feel his frustration at not winning when it matters most but the difference is that even at his age, he still has the talent to succeed where I'm washed up ahead of my prime. I look at Johnny's impact on this business and while he's as vile as a dangerous rattlesnake, there is one thing that sets him apart from a lot of the industry's notorious characters: he's not allowed himself to be callous to a point of being sadistic toward others. He's a vile tempered man, but that aspect of his personality has helped him to survive in an industry that chews up and spits out nice people and he's got a healty respect for what wrestling is.
I try to imagine what Johnny would be like if he wasn't mean. Instead of being unfiltered and ugly toward people, I picture a man that's humble and kind, ready to be there to help comfort and uplift people when they feel like everything's gone in life. I see an unspoken hero with love and compassion for his fellow man. I wish I could know that version Johnny Rebel, but this is reality, not fantasy.
He'll be waiting for me in the second round in the Iron King tournament, chomping at the bit to beat me to a bloody pulp. When Johnny sees me, I want him to see Michael Morrison stealing and burning his prized automobile. When he gives me a venomous glare, I want him to see everyone that's ever crossed him in life and played a part in making him into the mean machine he's going to turn into San Diego.
I want him ready to rip me limb from limb because I'm not going to strike back when he tries to hit me.
Striking only match rules? Yes. Can't wrestle or grapple whatsoever? Yes. No punches or kicks on my part? Yes. Go all out defense by blocking, ducking, and moving?
Yes.
It's only going to delay the inevitable and that it will frustrate and anger Johnny all the more not to be able to put me away quickly. I know I won't be able to avoid him forever. When I slip up and make that one fatal mistake, he's going to be running on so much angry adrenaline that when he hits me, it will be hard enough to knock down ten men and then he'll simply ground and pound me out of existence.
No one will stop him and any enemies I've made will aid him if they can. All Johnny has to do is be himself: mean and dirty in action and word and he puts me down for good. He knew what was best for PW three years when he got me disqualified out of a championship tournament so my focus would be stopping Drake Mosa from destroying the company. He'll do what's best for PW in San Diego at Redemption by eliminating a glass pretender and make the company stronger. Hell, he'll probably get a thank-you note and a case of Johnny Walker Platinum from Legacy. Why?
I needed PW. PW didn't need me.
Against the elite, I'm mediocre at best, a loser at worst.
I know nothing that the next generation of talent wants to learn.
I'm damaged goods.
No one wants to be around me.
I'm a waste of space and oxygen on the roster.
My self-worth is zero, with no value to anyone.
I'm nothing.
I'm shit.
Take those words to heart, Johnny. Use them, show up, and do what is best for PW.
Finish it.
Las Vegas, NV
The combination of a high, pitched horn and the hissing of air brakes brought Rowyn out of his dark reverie of thoughts. He turned just in time to see a huge bus with an RTC Transit logo below the windshield come to a screeching halt three feet away from him. So deep in his turmoil, he hadn't noticed he'd walked straight off the sidewalk and into the street ahead of him.
"I'm walkin' here!' he yelled out, looking straight ahead, more angry at himself than anything for not paying more attention to his surroundings. He didn't feel like Dustin Hoffman playing middle man to a midnight cowboy. He felt more like a failure.
He heard a window slide open with a emphatic bang. 'Punk ass jaywalker! What'cho problem?' A female's voice, full of attitude, anger, and a small dose of fright drifted down at him. The tone caused him to turn around. The driver of the bus, an African-American woman in her mid-twenties with short hair done up in small dreadlocks wagged a finger at him in admonishment as her brown eyes blazed. Rowyn had seen anger detract from a woman's beauty before, but this anger only seemed to make the bus driver more beautiful, ethereally glowing.
Without looking, he gave the bus and its driver a backhand wave as he walked on, ignorning the reply that would have pleased a Marine senior drill instructor. The incident gave way for his dark mood to return as he walked northward along the side streets in the directon of the Stratosphere Hotel, his duffel bag hanging off his right shoulder. He'd wrestled a gentleman's match from a guy who'd wanted the same and won, but that wasn't the finish Rowyn had been hoping for.
Turning a corner, he found himself behind an IHOP restaurant and saw a figure awash under the overhanging glare of a solitary street lamp between the restaurant's back parking lot and the derelict building on the opposite side of the dividing alleyway. As he casually approached, Rowyn saw an old man warming his hands around a coffee cup, its contents steaming in the night air. The man didn't blink an eye at the unexpected company. He just reached inside a patchwork overcoat and produced a half-empty bottle of Jim Bean. Rowyn stopped and watched as the man spiked the contents of the coffee cup, capped the bottle of whiskey and stuck it back inside his coat.
"Got a light?" the man asked him as he fished out a pack of L&M's from his right pocket.
"No. I don't smoke. Causes cancer," Rowyn answered wryly. Head down, he started to walk by when his eyes fell on the bum's shoes. They were more patchwork than the overcoat and the original soles were gone, replaced entirely by duck tape. He pulled out his wallet and removed a twenty-dollar bill and held it out toward the old man.
"Here," he offered. "Go buy yourself a hot meal."
The vagrant just stared at the contents of his coffee cup. Rowyn was close enough to see the man's face was ravaged by windburn and exposure to the cold temperature. He was also close enough to see the man's eyes were devoid of hope. Waving the bill directly in front of the man, he repeated his offer.
"You seem like a kind and generous person, son," the man spoke in a gravelly tone exclusive to long-term smokers. "But there's some things no amount of money can buy," he sadly added.
"What is it that you want?" Rowyn asked, now piqued with curiosity.
The stewbum turned and looked the younger man straight in the eyes, causing him to take a half-step back. The eyes were those of a soul trapped in the world of life-in-death. "I want the house in Spring Valley that was once my home. I want my sanitation job at the Riviera that I worked for twenty-four years before it closed down and I got laid off. I want my wife Anna, the one person who always believed in me, even in the final stages of the pancreatic cancer that took her from me. Can you reach into that billfold and give me all of that?" he asked, his gravelly voice filled with pain.
Rowyn's dark mood became augmented with shame. Even his offer of money seemed even pauperish to paupers. Some helpful person I am, he thought bitterly. I can't even help a guy who's down on his luck.
"No," he said, his eyes downcast. "I wish I could."
The man nodded, as if he'd expected no more and no better. Rowyn walked past him, then stopped. He set down his duffel bag and retrieved his wrestling boots from it. Turning to where he was shielding his body, he opened his wallet, took out all the bills and stuck them down into the toe of the right boot.
"I know can't give you want you want," he said. "But take these and replace those," he said, pointing at the man's Duckster Browns as he set the boots down. "They've seen ceiling in high profile locations all over the world."
"Huh?"
"Never mind," he said. "I was just saying they've been a lot of places. If they don't fit, sell them and use the money to buy some shoes that do," he said, suddenly wanted to get away from this similar shadow of himself. "Take them. It's the least I can do next to what you would like to have. Good luck."
He turned and strode away before the stewbum could say something that would change his mind. Giving away his boots only made him feel worse, another failed attempt to try to do good in the world and winding up with the same total as he had so many times before.
Zero sum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lennie thought the two of them were going to get a farm and raise rabbits, but long before Bobby got to the end of the story, he knew there would be no farms and no rabbits for George and Lennie. Why? Because people needed a beast to hunt. They found a Ralph or a Piggy or a big stupid hulk of a Lennie and then they turned into low men. They put on their yellow coats, they sharpened a stick at both ends, and then they went hunting.
STEPHEN KING,
Hearts In Atlantis
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm still in the Iron King Tournament. Unbelievable.
Shock, not surprise, was the word I'd use to discover that Stefan choose to forgo a street fight match environment and fight on equal terms when I vowed only to wrestle, not brawl. He wanted to prove himself. I had nothing to lose. Nothing to gain.
I got lucky.
Stefan did prove that he could change and still hold on to his passion for wrestling and I hope that he continues to hang on to his dream. My own dream is gone, lost in the Siberian wasteland when reality reared its ugly head. I'm a never-was that just got lucky at the right time. I could be bitter about it, but unless your Eddie Vedder or Bruce Wayne, brooding angst and sullen demeanor doesn't work if you have a Y chromosone. It won't bring friends on the run, sympathy, or encouragment. It wouldn't change the obvious and I'm not a guy who can rock Doc Martens or a batsuit.
The second round of the Iron King tournament looms ahead, the field now down to one champion, fourteen contenders and one pretender. Have you guessed who that pretender is? Is it me? Yessirreeebob, give yourself a stogie and a welding torch to light it with. My track record since returning to PW is proof of that. Laying off the self-hype juice has helped me open my eyes to everything wrong with me in this business that others already knew long before I did.
With your personality, this business will eat you alive.
If you don't reach a high level of toughness, you'll never succeed.
You're no champion and you're even less of a man.
You fucking suck.
You gave Slaine Rodrick handjobs to get an easy first round Iron King match.
I think it would surprise Johnny Rebel to know that I didn't feel like I deserved to be in this tournament. I'd done nothing but fail since coming back and I felt my spot would be worth more to someone outside of PW as chance to come in and show what they could do. But that's Johnny for you: uncensored and ornery. When it comes to Johnny, to simply effin put it, he's mean.
To paraphrase Taylor Swift, why's Johnny gotta be so mean? Throughout his career, he's held titles across multiple federations and to hear the former wrestlers in APW talk about him, his career and accomplishments there are nothing short of legendary. He's done a lot here in PW to help shape and mold it into the powerhouse brand it's become known for. I feel his frustration at not winning when it matters most but the difference is that even at his age, he still has the talent to succeed where I'm washed up ahead of my prime. I look at Johnny's impact on this business and while he's as vile as a dangerous rattlesnake, there is one thing that sets him apart from a lot of the industry's notorious characters: he's not allowed himself to be callous to a point of being sadistic toward others. He's a vile tempered man, but that aspect of his personality has helped him to survive in an industry that chews up and spits out nice people and he's got a healty respect for what wrestling is.
I try to imagine what Johnny would be like if he wasn't mean. Instead of being unfiltered and ugly toward people, I picture a man that's humble and kind, ready to be there to help comfort and uplift people when they feel like everything's gone in life. I see an unspoken hero with love and compassion for his fellow man. I wish I could know that version Johnny Rebel, but this is reality, not fantasy.
He'll be waiting for me in the second round in the Iron King tournament, chomping at the bit to beat me to a bloody pulp. When Johnny sees me, I want him to see Michael Morrison stealing and burning his prized automobile. When he gives me a venomous glare, I want him to see everyone that's ever crossed him in life and played a part in making him into the mean machine he's going to turn into San Diego.
I want him ready to rip me limb from limb because I'm not going to strike back when he tries to hit me.
Striking only match rules? Yes. Can't wrestle or grapple whatsoever? Yes. No punches or kicks on my part? Yes. Go all out defense by blocking, ducking, and moving?
Yes.
It's only going to delay the inevitable and that it will frustrate and anger Johnny all the more not to be able to put me away quickly. I know I won't be able to avoid him forever. When I slip up and make that one fatal mistake, he's going to be running on so much angry adrenaline that when he hits me, it will be hard enough to knock down ten men and then he'll simply ground and pound me out of existence.
No one will stop him and any enemies I've made will aid him if they can. All Johnny has to do is be himself: mean and dirty in action and word and he puts me down for good. He knew what was best for PW three years when he got me disqualified out of a championship tournament so my focus would be stopping Drake Mosa from destroying the company. He'll do what's best for PW in San Diego at Redemption by eliminating a glass pretender and make the company stronger. Hell, he'll probably get a thank-you note and a case of Johnny Walker Platinum from Legacy. Why?
I needed PW. PW didn't need me.
Against the elite, I'm mediocre at best, a loser at worst.
I know nothing that the next generation of talent wants to learn.
I'm damaged goods.
No one wants to be around me.
I'm a waste of space and oxygen on the roster.
My self-worth is zero, with no value to anyone.
I'm nothing.
I'm shit.
Take those words to heart, Johnny. Use them, show up, and do what is best for PW.
Finish it.