She's Mine (Pt 2)
Nov 8, 2020 23:56:42 GMT -5
“The RevolutiDaddy” Wesley, Lissie Hope, and 5 more like this
Post by W A L T E R on Nov 8, 2020 23:56:42 GMT -5
STILL SOME TIME FROM NOW
She isn’t yours?
She isn’t yours?
Infrequently do I repeat myself.
None of us are anybody’s, you know that.
…
Nobody belongs to anybody, but everybody belongs somewhere.
She belongs nowhere but a body bag.
******************************
*************************
The Heir bursts into a wail as Etta slips into the apartment and swings the door behind her; its hinges bent from their natural position but she shoulders it shut. Roger Payton Jr. is sprawled onto his backside, palms pressed to the floor, scooting backwards from the Beast that stalks him now. Roger is no longer the Adonis AW once knew. His frame has shrunk and his eyes--though still a clearwater blue--have lost something. He is no longer a physical nor mental equal to that Beast of ever-forward motion, that Beast of now-heaving chest and balled fists; his anger crawls from its hole but the Beast remains tethered to that tiny Device in the pocket of Etta Bennett.
Release me, Etta.
The child wails and Etta measures the situation quickly, bouncing the blonde haired Heir on her hip into quietude. The apartment is small and obsessively tidied, everything is very particularly placed. She observes labels like “silverware” or “bowls” or “tupperware” on the kitchen drawers. She glances at Roger who is scooting backwards from his aggressor, eyes full of fear and confusion. There’s no recognition in them. Roger Payton Jr--in this moment--does not recognize the man standing over him, the man that ended a career that should have included multiple World Titles, the man who stole his twin sister from him.
Absolutely not. Sit down, Walter.
His lips curl but he focuses on slowing his heart rate, suppressing his blood pressure. He cannot be yanked back by the leash now, he must be calm. The Heir sputters wordless noises and the Man Evolved breathes into the bottoms of his lungs. Two chairs from the tiny dining table, one for Roger and one for himself, now face each other. Walter takes his seat and signals to the shaking Roger to take the other.
Roger is slow to move, slow to act, his mind all fog and fear but he takes his seat eventually. Roger was earmarked for prominence in Action Wrestling despite early shortcomings. But he was impatient; he was addicted to success, to perceived greatness. That addiction led him to shortcuts, to syringes full of strength and speed. That addiction led him to a ring with Walter which left his mind addled, a puddle of intellect where once there was an ocean. Our Colossus is now a cowering, huddled mass yearning to keep breathing free but without a lamp to golden door, only a Man Evolved darkening his. Addiction has torn down Roger Payton Jr.
Will it do the same to Graham Baker?
**************************************
The spoon full of miso soup looks miniature in Walter’s massive hand as it’s pulled to his mouth. Seeing 2019’s Monster of the Year perched upon a stool, bellied up to the sushi bar inside this hole-in-the-wall establishment is somehow more unnerving than seeing him inside the shipping container where he takes care of other needs; it’s like watching a bear do his taxes.
Let me speak plainly from the onset, Graham: you are not Corey Black. Your bluster and bravado will not allow you to admit it aloud but you know that simple fact as well as I do. You understand that despite his tutelage, despite crouching under his wing and his voice consistent in your ear, you are not Corey Black. Corey is a man of multitudes, of varying purposes and drives. He’s starkly outlined and colorfully filled in, a complete picture with years behind him and--if he wishes--still years ahead. Corey has done a great many things with a great many people for a great many reasons. He’s neither easily measured, nor easily bested. I knew that going in but I know it better still now.
I know you look at him as the future you wish to sculpt for yourself and I know you believe your current path to be the one that will leave you crowned King after the Last one lays his down. I am here to tell you, Graham, that your path is indeed already beset with impressive victories and myriad championships but it does not lead you to a castle, only to ruin. The differences between your paths are numerous but the most important is where you see its destination. You are desperate for the gold, you are enamored with the victories, you look only toward the castle that you see your fellow Man Made Gods have built. Corey Black knows that all paths lead only to death and that the best one can hope for is a Viking’s funeral. Corey has more than earned his. And perhaps in the future, I will help him reach his destination but for now I must stand before the lesser, pale imitation he calls a stablemate and expose to the whole world one undeniable truth: Graham Baker is no Corey Black.
We hear the chef run a sharpener over his blade before speaking Japanese to Walter.
<The usual?>
Yes, Itamae.
But you are Graham Baker, and that is indeed a feat; your Action Wrestling resume is impressive:, Television Champion, United States Champion and Glory Tournament winner, Tag Team Champion. Most competitors here do not list those accomplishments after years in Action Wrestling but perhaps that is because most competitors here hold onto their trinkets for more than weeks at a time. Regardless of the fact that your titles leave you as quickly as they seem to come, to win them is an achievement of itself. And the Glory Tournament was the launchpad from which I rocketed to 2019’s Monster of the Year. I am sure you have designs on the same but unfortunately for you our similarities conclude at the Glory Tournament success. The US Title was stripped from me as I tore through the Wrestler of the Year Tournament. It was stripped from you...by an actor.
If I were to lend any credence or value to what happens in other companies, your resume would be even more impressive. Those other companies, of course, exist only as asteroids temporarily drifting about in Action Wrestling’s universe so all the accolades you are so deeply proud of are so much intergalactic flotsam to me. Am I to be impressed that you’re challenging for the Splat Multiuniversal Title? The title whose inaugural holder I launched into the third row just a few weeks ago? We both know those accolades are irrelevant here, tinder in the face of an inferno. So then...why do you tout them so whenever you open your mouth? Here now, we cut to the heart of your problem: your complete, shaky-handed and skin-itching dependence on those accolades.
You, Graham Baker, are an addict.
Your affliction though is not so simple as to come in a bottle or a needle but it’s nearly as common in our business. You, Graham, live chasing the next high of “success” in the eyes of the public, of the front office, of your fellow competitors. Every word that escapes your wretched mouth belies your dependence:
"I built my own mountain off the praise of my brethren, the roar of the crowd every fucking night, and I built my footholds off every man who told me I couldn't do this…”
Your “mountain” is a mirage, Graham. There is no weight to words and roars and there is no mass to your mountain. By your own admission you are driven and satisfied only by words whether positive or negative. And when you receive them? You need only more. Ask your fellow “god” Franklin how that bone-deep lust for gold ends. Ask him what happens to a career when your motivation is the desperate need for approval and some sycophantic words from the uninformed hordes. Ask him what happens alone in the ring with a Mongrel. Franklin’s name is synonymous with an ability to capture gold and...do no more. His name is forever etched into history books not with quality but only quantity: do you wish the same for yourself? I cannot believe that would be the case.
So seek help, Graham, I implore you. Evolve, my tiny cohort! You’re a talented, young competitor with an enormous potential but you throw it away for these momentary highs. Perhaps if there are 12 steps in your future then we can reconvene and you can test your mettle again. Perhaps when you are driven not by how loudly that crowd would cheer your name for felling The Beast but instead by some greater purpose, then perhaps we can have a real fight, a true competition. But this week I know that will not be the case. This week I know you are still ruled by those base and basic desires. And I serve the same master I always have: Evolution. Yours would be so divine, Graham. But first, your weakness must be Culled.
***********************
You're not murdering this man, Walter.Why shouldn't I? Weakness has overtaken him. The once-great Roger Payton Jr shudders in my presence.
I...I'm sorry?
Your apology is fruitless.
No, I mean...I'm sorry, how do we know each other?
The Beast tilts his head.
I get a little...confused.
Walter looks around and fills in the same blanks Etta already managed to. Rogers's mind was addled, crippled with CTE. To Walter, this changed nothing.
I heard you
You heard me?
Weeks ago. I heard you.
Roger looks to Etta.
I'm...I'm sorry I'm just confused. You both look familiar but I'm having trouble--
I heard you with your sister.
Roger meets his eyes now.
Alyssa.
Something changes in Roger, his shoulders are pulled back and his torso properly upright again. His ice blue eyes are still cloudy but in them is exactly what was lacking before: recognition. His words are pointed and dripping with hate.
Walter. She's mine, you know.
She wasn't.
She always was, always will be.
She...is a disappointment amidst a world of them.
A disappointment?
Yes, your precious Alyssa is--
Alyssa?
I thought you were with us, don't lose the thread now, Roger.
He hadn't but the men were speaking past each other. In the meantime, Etta jostled the blue-eyed heir and spied an already-opened envelope from a doctor's office. She quickly, quietly skimmed its contents. Her eyes grew wide and she pocketed it.
It doesn't matter if she's mine or yours, Roger. I did not come here to jockey with your for that position. Your sister broke our rules and there are consequences to that. I am here now to enact those consequences, Roger.
Roger cocks an eyebrow.
I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to kill her. Loretta--
Walter looked toward Etta holding The Heir and began to demand the Leash be deactivated but before more than his keeper's name came out, Roger leapt onto Walter. Every ounce of mindless rage and hate coursing through Roger's addled brain came raining down through his fists onto Walter.
************************
Etta Bennett leans on the wall outside the dingy sushi place. She drags a cigarette then pulls it from her lips and blows the smoke upward.
I don’t know a goddamn thing about you, Graham. I mean, I know the basics: you’re a mean fucker with enough talent to run through half the damn roster here, you work your ladyfingers down to their dainty bones so people might piss out the two drops of respect for your career you never got for your daddy, and...Well actually that’s about it, I guess.
You’re a fuckin cipher, Baker. You don’t ever say a goddamn thing worth a damn outside about how hard you’re gonna fight, how much ass you’re gonna kick and how much respect you don’t have. You been here damn near a year and haven’t put together three sentences worth their weight in hog shit. All that wasted breath, all those empty fuckin’ threads and you’re facing that loquacious cocksucker in there who sees right through to yoru empty fuckin’ soul. He’s hearin’ every word you spit out out of that gaptoothed fuckin’ hole in your head and smiling because he knows there ain’t two squirts of substance in all your style.
Set aside the fans, Howard Hughes. Set aside the gold and the “respect of your peers.” What the fuck are you? You’re just some multi-monikered rebel-without-a-cause, cucktard-without-a-purpose, bird-flipping 25 years too late “badass” in shutter shades. You’re a fighter, Baker, we know that. You’re angry enough and loud enough to blast through the chest of most hoopleheads in this place but a shotgun ain’t the tool for this job. You’re in a firefight with a guy who has a red dot trained right in the middle of your fuckin’ forehead. Your scattershot focus drug you this far but Walter’s is a fucking laser. He’s not here counting wins or titles or accolades. He’s not clout-hopping across the fuckin’ world from company-to-company hoping a somebody blows him just the right way so he can finally feels like he fuckin’ matters. This is the only fuckin’ place that matters and you’re facin’ the biggest fuckin’ Beast in it.
You’re a blank slate, Baker but don’t worry. Walter’s going to paint a masterpiece in fuckin’ crimson.
She ashes her cigarette on the ground.
Don’t pretend you’re here setting goals and ticking ‘em off one-by-one. You’re just blasting away in whatever direction the big brains in back point you.
“I'm not going to be finished until people respect the cruiserweights, until that cruiserweight championship can main event a pay-per-view.”
What commitment! What wherewithal! What sticktoitiveness! Graham Baker of the great resolve, of all that relentless fire after blathering on and on for months about the Cruiserweight Title and what he was going to do for it, for the division, for the company. After making excuse after excuse for his failure after failure...Finally did it! He finally got that title and revolutionized the whole damn division! I almost shit my damn self when I saw that Cruiserweight Title main event that PPV all them months back. Get George Dubya on the phone and cue up that MISSION FUCKIN’ ACCOMPLISHED banner!
Right? That must be what happened, Graham. Because if you’re such a tough nut, such a focused little shitkicker you certainly wouldn’t have skipped out on that division. You certainly wouldn’t have your eye caught by the gleam of some bigger better deal and then just struck off after that despite never being able to put Quixote’s shoulders to the mat properly. A simple feat which, of course, that Mongrel completed last year without too much of a sweat.
The worst part is you might’ve really been able to do it, Baker. You might’ve been able to set that damn division on fire and have people not related to its superstars actually watching it. You’re that kind of talented. But you ain’t that kind of focused and you ain’t that kind of smart. So you’re off chasing whatever shiny thing you might’ve seen in the distance instead of standing in the pocket like a man and trading blows until you see through the plan you committed to. That’s how I know Walter’s moving onto the next round. No matter how much coaching you get from FPV and Corey--two of four men who’ve actually chopped down the Beast--you ain’t got the stones to withstand the type of punishment it takes to do that. Because when the going got tough, Baker got going out the fuckin’ door.
********************
ROGER!
It was the third time Etta screamed his name but he was in another place. The baby screamed now, witnessing the violence. Roger was all rage, raining blows onto Walter, not even realizing the man who ended his career was unable to even fight back. The leash was engaged and Walter convulsed as Roger drew blood from his nose. The Heir bellows at the violence her father is a part of. Etta disengages The Device. Walter’s body rests a moment but another blow from Roger snaps him awake. Walter launches Roger from him. Roger charges him again but Walter grabs his head and sends it through a closet door. Walter pulls him quickly back out and roars into his face.
I HEARD YOU!
I know what happens next.
(We all do.)
I unleashed him knowing what happens next...and why? To save him? Does he deserve to be saved? Why does Roger deserve to die?
He doesn’t.
Did I want this? Is this where my grief has led me? Am I like him?
Walter is atop Roger now. Etta fingers the device, considering; it’s shaped like the morphine dispensing button her boy was given in the hospital. Maybe he was addicted. Maybe she is.
I HEARD YOU!
A blow to the face.
I HEARD YOU!
Another strike to his face. Etta grips The Device tighter, still considering.
**************
Walter is handed a large plate of sushi from the chef who bows with a smile. With surprising dexterity in his enormous paws, Walter chopsticks a piece of sashimi into his mouth.
This is fugu. Prepared incorrectly, its natural poison, tetrodotoxin, will kill you. Blowfish are usually small but frequently contain enough neurotoxin to kill 30 humans. The sushi is harmless if prepared correctly by a highly skilled chef. My friend behind the bar is not a highly skilled chef. When I first ate this dish, my mouth tingled and I felt strangely light...I had been poisoned. It left me in a fetal position next a toilet that evening. But...I survived. And then I came back time and time again for the same thing. Each time was a bit easier, my body growing accustomed to what must be done. If I could be undone by something so small, what kind of Man Evolved was I? These creatures remind me of men like Corey Black and yourself, Graham. You are slight but with your strength and your will can down beings far your superior, as you have. As you will again. But I am inoculated, Graham. You see, everything I’ve done in this place has been at the top of the card. Every man I’ve faced has been at the top of the food chain. Everyone that I have stood toe-to-toe with and BESTED has destroyed or maimed dozens upon dozens of men before me. Every time I compete in Action Wrestling the person across from me is fighting as hard as they ever have because that is their moment, their best shot at quick glory and respect here is a victory over Action Wrestling’s Great Monster. All these tiny fish have sought to poison me at every turn and I am all the stronger for it.
Walter eats another piece.
But you, dear Graham, your addiction has made you weak. Your body remains strong but your mind is susceptible to the poisons of addiction and you are too foolhardy to see it.
“Because it’s come as a surprise to me to finally get what I fucking deserve from this company after I’ve already given them so-fucking much.”
Those were your words three months into your career here. You speak of “finally” after a piddly three months? You rant about what you “deserve?” I thought you were the grinder, Graham? I thought you would never stop coming, battle every week relentlessly until you had their “respect” and adoration? The fiend knows not his words; he seeks only his next fix.
“Y’know, just over a month and change ago, I was on top of the fucking world. King of the fucking mountain, having won Glory II, gone from nothing to champion in a matter of days. I saw what the peak of this company looked like twice, from different mountains as I inevitably ascend to the fucking peak of the whole goddamn thing-but this feels like wasted time, now.”
You hear them, don’t you? The shivering words of an addict who can oh-so-briefly view the futility of their existence through the smoke of that dragon they’re chasing. What peaks have you seen, boy? What “mountains” have you been atop? I do not know if your vision is so limited as to believe those are the actual pinnacles of success here or if your addiction has led you to self-delusion. Or perhaps I discredit you. Perhaps you DO see, Graham. Perhaps you see that for a reliant, pathetic creature such as yourself: those are the peaks. You will never win a Wrestler of the Year Tournament even after I have left this place. And you will not wear that World Title that you so obviously covet on your mentor’s shoulder.
Do you know why your mentor, your confidant has put my name alongside his at XIII? Your mentor saw his comrades-in-arms beaten and battered by Philidor until I made my presence known. Your mentor CLEARLY already knows what I am going to show the world at Clash: GRAHAM BAKER IS NOT ENOUGH. XIII needs Walter. The Man Gods need Walter. This tournament needs me. Action Wrestling needs me. No one needs you, Graham. Those two champions you stand alongside barely want you, much less need you. Graham Baker is no more than the Man Made God’s latest failed experiment. Pray it does not end the way the Kaiju’s did. You are such a busy man, Graham, so busy attempting to prove your worth all across this world. Your plate is so full, I do hope your appetite is apace.
Walter pushes his own empty plate forward away from him and places a few bills down on top of it. He stands and faces the camera.
They hold their breath now, all those watching. It is the same as they do every time The Beast steps into the ring, they hope and they pray for someone to put down the Mongrel, to FINALLY slay their great Monster. It is the same bated breath this country had for days on end. But votes are already cast and counted, people can no longer affect the outcome no matter how desperate they are to see “evil” dispersed, for a monster to receive his comeuppance. Unfortunately all the thoughts and prayers are as weightless and meaningless as I will soon render your every moment prior to Clash. The world rejoiced when a man who made a career of being a monster was defeated, finally falling after reaching an unparalleled height of power. That is how stories end, don’t they Graham? Don’t answer, I wouldn’t expect you to know; you’ve likely never told a story, that wasn’t about one of the four matches you had just last week. That “monster” was a man but this one is Man Evolved. I will not be felled by the likes of you and I will not be removed from this tournament.
I’ll let your father finish the story of our time together, Graham.
“He told me to hold my dream close no matter what level I would compete at, as those bigger...would eventually close their hands around its throat and choke the life from it.”
How prophetic.
BURN IT DOWN
BE REBORN
THIS IS THE YEAR...OF EVOLUTION
****************
We are again with Walter, his ear pressed to Roger Payton Jr’s door weeks ago just after Alyssa had entered. We hear now what he heard but still see only his face.
Roger! I missed you!
Too long of a pause.
It’s Alyssa.
Alyssa! I’m sorry--
I know, hun. It’s okay.
I just get confused.
Of course you do, love. Do you remember me now?
Yes...Mostly...I don’t know...God fucking dammit!
The sound of a fist slamming into a wall.
Shhhhh…
A muffled noise. Some rustling.
How about now?
I think so. What...what do you want?
I want you to fuck me, Roger.