Post by Rated R on Aug 31, 2011 11:02:06 GMT -5
KNOCK KNOCK!
Hold it together. Don’t do anything stupid. Maybe it was a lie, maybe he hasn’t done anything so stupid as to... just hold it together.
The door pushes open, Liam Taylor stepping out and suddenly all my plans to remain calm kind of... go out of the window.
Liam Taylor: Trace?
Trace Demon: What the f**k were you thinking?
Well done with that whole holding it together thing. Never really been very good at that.
I barge past him into his apartment. If I was a vampire I would have needed an invite to do that. No, not those ridiculous closeted vampires that sparkle, that’s more EBR’s thing. Those vicious ones who for some reason can’t come into a house without being invited. How amazing would that be for keeping the mother in law out?
Liam Taylor: Trace? Don’t you have a match to be training for?
Oh crap, I do. That one against... no, don’t get distracted. I’m pissed off right now! There’s your motivation, now shout at him.
Trace Demon: She came to my house Liam, the house I share with my eight month pregnant girlfriend!
Liam Taylor: What are you talking about?
Oh as if he doesn’t know. I should remind him just in case, right? It’s the civilized thing to do.
Trace Demon: Annabelle Dawson!
Liam Taylor: Oh...
Silence is always golden. A single shocked but knowing word is more than that. I don’t know exactly what it is because gold is pretty awesome. Maybe some kind of rare emerald?
Trace Demon: Yeah, oh is right.
Liam Taylor: Did you talk to her?
Did I talk to her? She comes to my house and wants to know whether I spoke with her? Where is this guys priorities? Probably in his ass with his brain!
Trace Demon: No, I wasn’t even in. So while I was off training with Wayne McGurk and some crazy Irish dude Annabelle was alone with Alexa!
Liam Taylor: Did anything happen?
Trace Demon: Did anything happen?! Did anything happen?! Well... no. She asked about me and left. But that isn’t the point.
Liam Taylor: But nothing happened, I mean...
Didn’t he hear me say that isn’t the point? This seems like one of those times where I should interrupt him to prove how serious I am.
Trace Demon: I’m not finished yet Liam. Did I sound like I was finished, because I assure you I wasn’t. You know what she said when Alexa asked how she found my house?
He knows.
Liam Taylor: No...
Oh he knows.
Trace Demon: Sure.
Sarcastic response, check.
Liam Taylor: Listen Trace...
Trace Demon: She said that she found out from her sister. You know the one – Katherine. She said Katherine was dating my best friend, a certain man named Liam Taylor.
I just dropped a knowledge bomb on your ass.
Liam Taylor: Trace...
Trace Demon: Katherine Dawson is your new girlfriend Liam! The one that you were hiding from me. You are dating the sister of a psychopath!
Liam Taylor: And this is why I didn’t want to tell you.
This is why... is he serious? Most people have objections to dating the sister of a psychopath. I mean I’ve made some bad decisions, a lot of bad decisions, more bad decisions that I can count... but that isn’t the point right now!
Trace Demon: Do you even remember who we’re talking about? I mean do you even remember what she did?
Liam Taylor: But she wasn’t always like that, was she? And she’s better now Trace. I mean she’s more like when you first met. Do you even remember when you first met...
Aw no, a trip down memory lane...
< *** >
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
There isn’t a whole lot special about a nightclub. More so now that I’m sober but back then every single one of them seemed the same. The same electronic music blaring out through the speakers, deafening anyone stupid enough to get too close. The exact same lights flashing so brightly and fast that if you weren’t epileptic when you entered the building there’s a good chance you would be when you left. The exact same drunk girls with short skirts... okay, that bit wasn’t always so bad. Yes, it was just like any other nightclub. But this particular nightclub was at the time being inhabited by a certain past version of myself, getting slowly more intoxicated at I saw in a booth with an equally past version of Liam.
Trace Demon: I can’t believe she dumped me.
Oh yeah, some context would probably be helpful. This was in the middle of my drink and drug era, where every day pretty much melded into the next. Alexa had just broken up with me for the first time and it would be another year and a half before we’d reconcile. Of course, there’d be plenty of bad stuff going on in between here and the present and a lot of it began on this very night.
Liam Taylor: Well she did give you like half a dozen warnings.
Trace Demon: Whose side are you on? Mine or Alexa’s?
Liam Taylor: You really want me to answer that one?
It was nights like these that I’ve tried so hard to forget since sobering up over the past year. Nights where I was drugged up on everything that I could get my hands on (except horse tranquilizers, I wasn’t completely mental) and slowly getting drunk out of my mind. Still at this point I was still aware enough to know what was going on.
Which was always the worst part of the night because I knew what was coming and I still couldn’t stop myself.
Liam Taylor: You could always quit all of this, win her back.
Trace Demon: I don’t have a problem Liam. Everybody else has a problem because I don’t have a problem.
Liam Taylor: That doesn’t even make sense.
Trace Demon: It makes sense that it doesn’t make sense.
Wow, I was an idiot when I was popping pills. How did anyone even put up with me?
Trace Demon: Those girls are eyeing us up.
Oh that’s right. I was an amazing wingman.
Liam Taylor: They are not... okay, maybe they are eyeing us up.
They most certainly were. Two girls, sisters in fact, staring at us from the bar. They were only two years apart – one was twenty five, the other twenty three. Both had long black silky hair and deep blue eyes that you could get lost in. The elder sister was a few inches taller but neither was particularly short. On this night they were dressed up to the nines. The elder sister was in a flowing green dress. Classy but not too upper class for this club. The younger sister had a black top on and a short black skirt. The kind of style that wasted Trace Demon used to go for.
Liam Taylor: Should we go and talk to them?
Too late for such a question because I’m already up and walking over to then. Back then I didn’t have any fear, in or out of the ring. I guess that hasn’t really changed. I don’t fear anyone now. Well maybe myself, but that’s understandable. I’m still kind of insane. The girls see me walking over to them, and they see Liam rushing to his feet and stumbling over after me. Just like in the old days I usually do the talking.
Trace Demon: Ladies. My friend here had a cheesy chat up line ready for you but I figured I’d spare you the pain of listening to it.
They laughed which is how I knew they were into us. Because quite frankly that line was as cheesy as any chat up line Liam would have come up with. And I promise you I’ve heard him use some really cheesy chat up lines in my time.
Trace Demon: Name’s Trace.
Katherine Dawson: I’m Katherine, and this is my sister Annabelle.
It’s the older sister that spoke first. Katherine was the older sister, the classier one. She was the sister that if it was the present day, and I wasn’t already happy with Alexa, I’d have gone for.
Annabelle Dawson: Call me Anna.
But this wasn’t the teetotal Trace Demon. This was the rough and tumble drug addled Trace Demon. And he liked the crazy girls.
Liam Taylor: Hey... I’m Liam.
Katherine smiles at him, that nice girl smile that shows he’s got a chance but not if he keeps acting like a nervous child. It’d be another few months before I got him to properly come out of his shell with women. And right now I’m regretting it. It’s the entire reason we’re on this trip down memory lane. The entire reason I’ve got to be reminded of the idiot that I once was.
Trace Demon: Excuse Liam, he’s not used to being around beautiful women.
Katherine Dawson: Oh really?
Trace Demon: Yeah, it’s cause he doesn’t come out with me enough.
Katherine isn’t that impressed and I don’t blame her. But it wasn’t her I was trying to impress, it was Anna. And the look she gave me, the grin on her face when I spoke, that told me that she wanted me. That told me that not only did I have a shot, I had the key. I shot Liam a look. He had to do his part, I couldn’t play the entire game of seduction myself after all. I can carry a guy in a ring but when it comes to picking up girls they’ve kinda got to do some work themselves.
Liam Taylor: Um... can I buy you a drink?
Katherine Dawson: Sure, that sounds great.
Liam and Katherine walked towards the bar, myself hanging back with Anna. We don’t even speak at first, just eye each other up. It was all it took for me back then. All it took to pick up a girl in a club. The right grin, the right eye contact, a few choice words here and there. I hadn’t lost it when I was with Alexa because honestly I was still doing it. I was a jerk back then, a drugged up alcoholic douche bag. There’s no point in denying it.
Anna Dawson: So, are you going to buy me a drink?
Trace Demon: I don’t know. Are you asking me to buy you a drink.
She giggles, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me towards the bar. It was moments like this that made me think I was the man. That I could have any girl I wanted. I didn’t realize that other than Alexa the only girls I got were the insecure ones. Maybe I had some kind of radar for pinpointing the insecure girls. Maybe it was because they were so much like me?
Trace Demon: Barman, shots of whatever’s strongest!
After this, things get a little blurry. It’s the same with most of my memories from these years. The stuff I do remember from these years aren’t really worth remembering. It’s just a haze of hangovers and a different girls face every morning. Half of them I couldn’t even tell you their names. But I never felt ashamed, not back then. Probably because I was on something that blocked that feeling out.
What I do remember from this night is myself and Anna dancing, kissing, drinking and dancing some more. Liam was trying his hardest with Katherine but she just wasn’t that interested. She was focused more on looking after her sister. If she’d have managed it, if I wasn’t such an ass, then maybe Anna would have been okay, maybe none of it would have happened. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The next coherent memory is in the smoking area of the club. Myself and Anna on our own having managed to lose her sister.
Anna Dawson: So can we go back to yours?
Trace Demon: The night’s still young yet. But we can always... spice it up.
I pull out two white pills from a small see through bag in my pocket. We could always ‘spice it up’ back in those days. There was never enough. Never too much. Anna looked at the pills, unsure.
Anna Dawson: I don’t know...
Trace Demon: Suit yourself.
I down a pill without a second thought, it's become natural to me by this point. I was never one for second thoughts back then. Never one for first thoughts really.
Anna Dawson: Alright then.
She says it was a little bit of a stammer. She wasn’t sure, I can see that now. But back then I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see how I was destroying myself and everyone around me. I sure as hell couldn’t see how this was going to end up.
I placed the pill on my tongue and kissed her, passing it into her mouth in the process. I don’t like saying I had a signature seduction move, it just sounds so ridiculous, but if I did this was it. She swallowed the pill and smiled. Her smile was sweet back then. She was sweet back then.
Trace Demon: Let the night begin...
TO BE CONTINUED
< *** >
I’m tired. So very, very tired. I tired of the constant whining and the complaining and all the ridiculous claims and excuses. But I only have myself to blame. Because I’m the one making them all. Every week I come up with some new excuse, I claim I’ve come up with some new style or some new method for victory. And every single week, win or lose, I feel just as tired as I did before. And I realized I’m tired because no matter how many wins or losses I manage, it wasn’t going to solve the problem. Because the problem wasn’t that I was tired with losing, I was tired with listening to myself B***h and moan about it. So I had to make a conscious decision. I had to decide whether I just stood by and I continued moaning and crying about how everybody thinks I’ve lost my way. Or I could stop. I could stop coming up with excuses and just admit that all of that whining was my way of avoiding the truth.
The truth being that I wasn’t even trying. The truth being that I’d given up on myself. The truth being that I could have happily sat back and simply lose my way to a pay check every week. I whine and I moan and I blame everybody else when really I should just face the truth, and admit that I am the only one to blame for my own shortcomings. So that’s what I did. I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself that I was being a little b***h. I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself that I was disgracing myself with the way I was acting. And I decided that it had to stop. I decided that if I kept going I was going to end up hating myself and blaming myself for everything. So it’s done. It’s finished. It’s buried. And now I’m going to get down to business. Now I’m simply going to focus on what’s really important. And it isn’t the whining and it isn’t the excuses. What’s important is the match. What’s important is the victory. What’s important is the impact.
So this week I team with Hutton Brown, again. Hutton, I’ve talked all about how you’ve gained my respect and how that makes us such a dangerous team. I’ve talked about how I respect your talent as a competitor and your attitude as a man. I’ve talked all about how I trust you to be in my corner and get the job done when it counts. But that’s only half the story, isn’t it Hutton? Because I do respect you, and I do trust you to have my back in this match, but at the same time I want to beat you. I want to hurt you. Because Hutton we’re one match apiece and that is killing me. I sit around and it pains me to know that we still need our deciding match, that we still need to prove who the better man is. I sit there and I watch your matches and I can see where others are going wrong against you, and it kills me that it isn’t me in there getting to kick your ass. So Hutton, you need to make sure you’re prepared for me, because I am coming after you. I am going to get that match and I am going to prove that I am the better man. That I deserve to be called the better man. But sadly that time isn’t now. So for now, I’ve got your back. Because out of all the men involved in this match you are actually the one that pisses me off least.
EBR. Three letters that somehow manage to get under my skin when let’s face it, you haven’t done a damn thing to really earn that. You haven’t really done anything to earn my hate. Nothing that I didn’t force you into in the first place. Hutton Brown and Phillip Schneider, now they’ve earned my focus. But you, you EBR, you hadn’t done a damn thing to earn my attention. Sure, you’re a big star both here and in the XWA, but that doesn’t bother me. Why should I care if you’ve earned yourself the reputation of the legend... or haven’t earned it, as the case may be. You know, I simply couldn’t understand what it was. I’ll tell you the truth, when you turned your back on Alex Sean and DGX I didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less what happens to those two. In fact, I rather enjoyed watching it. But for some reason I got involved anyway. And you know what it was? Do you know why I got involved? No, probably not, because it took me so long to figure it out myself...
I hate the fact that you sold out. And you can ask me why I care all you want, it isn’t going to change how I feel about it. EBR, you sold out to that pathetic excuse of an owner that is King Kraig. And it’s worse than that, because you turned your back on your friends, the people you travel with. Me, I don’t really make friends, it’s not in my nature. Some will say it’s because I’m an unsociable d**k, which may very well be true, but honestly that’s the way I like it. You, you and Alex Sean and DGX, you were a group. You were the craptastic musketeers of the WFWF. And yet you still sold them out. You turned your back on the men who were closest to you. And maybe it was because I was in a bad mood when I was watching it, maybe it was because my pregnant girlfriend’s all hormonal all of the time, but I took note. It pissed me off. You walk around acting like you can do whatever you want because your with King Kraig and it just pisses me off! And you can throw anyone you want in my way, remember Calvin Lee? Ask him how retirement is for me. Because that’s where I intend to send you when I finally get my hands on you. But guess what! Out of all the men you could have teamed with you managed to find probably the only man I want to get my hands on more than I do you. Bravo, good plan...
Phillip Schneider. God am I sick of you. It’s like... everytime I come into work I have to wonder what you’re going to do to try and piss me off this time. Nobody, not even Alex Sean, has gotten under my skin like you have managed. You see Schneider, you keep claiming that you made me. I sit around and all I hear from you is “I made Trace, I made him”... BULLS**T! You didn’t f*****g make me Schneider. I’d love to know what you’re taking because it must give you some amazing hallucinations. You see I get asked a lot why I hate you and I tell them there’s a lot of reasons. And then they ask me what started it, what started my hatred for you. And I tell them it’s because you are full of s**t. I tell them because you walk around claiming that me beating you made me. I take objection to that Schneider. You keep saying that you made me, and that you want revenge for that and I’m sitting here wondering who dropped you on your head when you were a child. I got where I am because I am good at what I do. Sure, beating you helped my career, got me noticed, but to claim you made me makes me sick.
You see Schneider, you think you’re so important. That you’re the greatest thing ever to grace a wrestling ring. And sure, you’ve got talent, but the WFWF survived pretty well without you around. In fact it was a hell of a lot nicer when I got to walk through the hallway and not have to listen to people talking about whatever crazy thing you did this time. You walk around ranting and raving about how I’m coming after you when I should be thankful to have survived, about how I’m pathetic and a fraud and that everything I saw means nothing. And yet I’m meant to sit by and listen to all the crap that you’re talking? And you know what’s worse? You know what the kicker is? That you truly believe every deluded sentence that comes out of your mouth...
But hey, your nine months undefeated now. So I’ll give you a little bit of leeway. I’ll let you talk all of your s**t and preach whatever you want for now, because you haven’t got long to wait until that first loss. No, not at all. You see Schneider, it only takes one bullet to change everything. It only took one bullet to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and JFK. It only took one bullet to change the course of history. And it’s only going to take one match to do the same to your little streak. Ace Bennett, he calls himself the streak destroyer but he couldn’t get the job done with the one that really counted. Me, I intend to do what he couldn’t. I intend to finish your streak and if I’m lucky, finish you along with it. Phillip Schneider... Obo... whatever you want to call yourself, you managed to get under my skin like nobody ever has. Well done to you. But if you think that’s something that’s going to benefit you in the long run, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you otherwise. You aren’t the only one who has ended careers...
Usually I’d end one of these things with how it’s a new day and how I’m a new Trace Demon. But those times have passed. So let’s keep things simple. Hutton Brown, EBR, Phillip Schneider. The four of us are going to step into that ring in one of the biggest tag team matches in history. Now, Caturday has a lovely show name but sadly it’s also going to be the site of a massacre. The Caturday masscare... it’s got a bit of a ring to it, doesn’t it? When somebody has a bunch of kittens they don’t want they drown them in a bag. Now sadly I can’t do that to EBR and Phillip Schneider. So I’m just going to have to do the next best thing. Metaphorical kittens. Metaphorical drowning. A very... real... ending.
Bang bang. You’re dead. B**ch’s.
Hold it together. Don’t do anything stupid. Maybe it was a lie, maybe he hasn’t done anything so stupid as to... just hold it together.
The door pushes open, Liam Taylor stepping out and suddenly all my plans to remain calm kind of... go out of the window.
Liam Taylor: Trace?
Trace Demon: What the f**k were you thinking?
Well done with that whole holding it together thing. Never really been very good at that.
I barge past him into his apartment. If I was a vampire I would have needed an invite to do that. No, not those ridiculous closeted vampires that sparkle, that’s more EBR’s thing. Those vicious ones who for some reason can’t come into a house without being invited. How amazing would that be for keeping the mother in law out?
Liam Taylor: Trace? Don’t you have a match to be training for?
Oh crap, I do. That one against... no, don’t get distracted. I’m pissed off right now! There’s your motivation, now shout at him.
Trace Demon: She came to my house Liam, the house I share with my eight month pregnant girlfriend!
Liam Taylor: What are you talking about?
Oh as if he doesn’t know. I should remind him just in case, right? It’s the civilized thing to do.
Trace Demon: Annabelle Dawson!
Liam Taylor: Oh...
Silence is always golden. A single shocked but knowing word is more than that. I don’t know exactly what it is because gold is pretty awesome. Maybe some kind of rare emerald?
Trace Demon: Yeah, oh is right.
Liam Taylor: Did you talk to her?
Did I talk to her? She comes to my house and wants to know whether I spoke with her? Where is this guys priorities? Probably in his ass with his brain!
Trace Demon: No, I wasn’t even in. So while I was off training with Wayne McGurk and some crazy Irish dude Annabelle was alone with Alexa!
Liam Taylor: Did anything happen?
Trace Demon: Did anything happen?! Did anything happen?! Well... no. She asked about me and left. But that isn’t the point.
Liam Taylor: But nothing happened, I mean...
Didn’t he hear me say that isn’t the point? This seems like one of those times where I should interrupt him to prove how serious I am.
Trace Demon: I’m not finished yet Liam. Did I sound like I was finished, because I assure you I wasn’t. You know what she said when Alexa asked how she found my house?
He knows.
Liam Taylor: No...
Oh he knows.
Trace Demon: Sure.
Sarcastic response, check.
Liam Taylor: Listen Trace...
Trace Demon: She said that she found out from her sister. You know the one – Katherine. She said Katherine was dating my best friend, a certain man named Liam Taylor.
I just dropped a knowledge bomb on your ass.
Liam Taylor: Trace...
Trace Demon: Katherine Dawson is your new girlfriend Liam! The one that you were hiding from me. You are dating the sister of a psychopath!
Liam Taylor: And this is why I didn’t want to tell you.
This is why... is he serious? Most people have objections to dating the sister of a psychopath. I mean I’ve made some bad decisions, a lot of bad decisions, more bad decisions that I can count... but that isn’t the point right now!
Trace Demon: Do you even remember who we’re talking about? I mean do you even remember what she did?
Liam Taylor: But she wasn’t always like that, was she? And she’s better now Trace. I mean she’s more like when you first met. Do you even remember when you first met...
Aw no, a trip down memory lane...
< *** >
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
There isn’t a whole lot special about a nightclub. More so now that I’m sober but back then every single one of them seemed the same. The same electronic music blaring out through the speakers, deafening anyone stupid enough to get too close. The exact same lights flashing so brightly and fast that if you weren’t epileptic when you entered the building there’s a good chance you would be when you left. The exact same drunk girls with short skirts... okay, that bit wasn’t always so bad. Yes, it was just like any other nightclub. But this particular nightclub was at the time being inhabited by a certain past version of myself, getting slowly more intoxicated at I saw in a booth with an equally past version of Liam.
Trace Demon: I can’t believe she dumped me.
Oh yeah, some context would probably be helpful. This was in the middle of my drink and drug era, where every day pretty much melded into the next. Alexa had just broken up with me for the first time and it would be another year and a half before we’d reconcile. Of course, there’d be plenty of bad stuff going on in between here and the present and a lot of it began on this very night.
Liam Taylor: Well she did give you like half a dozen warnings.
Trace Demon: Whose side are you on? Mine or Alexa’s?
Liam Taylor: You really want me to answer that one?
It was nights like these that I’ve tried so hard to forget since sobering up over the past year. Nights where I was drugged up on everything that I could get my hands on (except horse tranquilizers, I wasn’t completely mental) and slowly getting drunk out of my mind. Still at this point I was still aware enough to know what was going on.
Which was always the worst part of the night because I knew what was coming and I still couldn’t stop myself.
Liam Taylor: You could always quit all of this, win her back.
Trace Demon: I don’t have a problem Liam. Everybody else has a problem because I don’t have a problem.
Liam Taylor: That doesn’t even make sense.
Trace Demon: It makes sense that it doesn’t make sense.
Wow, I was an idiot when I was popping pills. How did anyone even put up with me?
Trace Demon: Those girls are eyeing us up.
Oh that’s right. I was an amazing wingman.
Liam Taylor: They are not... okay, maybe they are eyeing us up.
They most certainly were. Two girls, sisters in fact, staring at us from the bar. They were only two years apart – one was twenty five, the other twenty three. Both had long black silky hair and deep blue eyes that you could get lost in. The elder sister was a few inches taller but neither was particularly short. On this night they were dressed up to the nines. The elder sister was in a flowing green dress. Classy but not too upper class for this club. The younger sister had a black top on and a short black skirt. The kind of style that wasted Trace Demon used to go for.
Liam Taylor: Should we go and talk to them?
Too late for such a question because I’m already up and walking over to then. Back then I didn’t have any fear, in or out of the ring. I guess that hasn’t really changed. I don’t fear anyone now. Well maybe myself, but that’s understandable. I’m still kind of insane. The girls see me walking over to them, and they see Liam rushing to his feet and stumbling over after me. Just like in the old days I usually do the talking.
Trace Demon: Ladies. My friend here had a cheesy chat up line ready for you but I figured I’d spare you the pain of listening to it.
They laughed which is how I knew they were into us. Because quite frankly that line was as cheesy as any chat up line Liam would have come up with. And I promise you I’ve heard him use some really cheesy chat up lines in my time.
Trace Demon: Name’s Trace.
Katherine Dawson: I’m Katherine, and this is my sister Annabelle.
It’s the older sister that spoke first. Katherine was the older sister, the classier one. She was the sister that if it was the present day, and I wasn’t already happy with Alexa, I’d have gone for.
Annabelle Dawson: Call me Anna.
But this wasn’t the teetotal Trace Demon. This was the rough and tumble drug addled Trace Demon. And he liked the crazy girls.
Liam Taylor: Hey... I’m Liam.
Katherine smiles at him, that nice girl smile that shows he’s got a chance but not if he keeps acting like a nervous child. It’d be another few months before I got him to properly come out of his shell with women. And right now I’m regretting it. It’s the entire reason we’re on this trip down memory lane. The entire reason I’ve got to be reminded of the idiot that I once was.
Trace Demon: Excuse Liam, he’s not used to being around beautiful women.
Katherine Dawson: Oh really?
Trace Demon: Yeah, it’s cause he doesn’t come out with me enough.
Katherine isn’t that impressed and I don’t blame her. But it wasn’t her I was trying to impress, it was Anna. And the look she gave me, the grin on her face when I spoke, that told me that she wanted me. That told me that not only did I have a shot, I had the key. I shot Liam a look. He had to do his part, I couldn’t play the entire game of seduction myself after all. I can carry a guy in a ring but when it comes to picking up girls they’ve kinda got to do some work themselves.
Liam Taylor: Um... can I buy you a drink?
Katherine Dawson: Sure, that sounds great.
Liam and Katherine walked towards the bar, myself hanging back with Anna. We don’t even speak at first, just eye each other up. It was all it took for me back then. All it took to pick up a girl in a club. The right grin, the right eye contact, a few choice words here and there. I hadn’t lost it when I was with Alexa because honestly I was still doing it. I was a jerk back then, a drugged up alcoholic douche bag. There’s no point in denying it.
Anna Dawson: So, are you going to buy me a drink?
Trace Demon: I don’t know. Are you asking me to buy you a drink.
She giggles, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me towards the bar. It was moments like this that made me think I was the man. That I could have any girl I wanted. I didn’t realize that other than Alexa the only girls I got were the insecure ones. Maybe I had some kind of radar for pinpointing the insecure girls. Maybe it was because they were so much like me?
Trace Demon: Barman, shots of whatever’s strongest!
After this, things get a little blurry. It’s the same with most of my memories from these years. The stuff I do remember from these years aren’t really worth remembering. It’s just a haze of hangovers and a different girls face every morning. Half of them I couldn’t even tell you their names. But I never felt ashamed, not back then. Probably because I was on something that blocked that feeling out.
What I do remember from this night is myself and Anna dancing, kissing, drinking and dancing some more. Liam was trying his hardest with Katherine but she just wasn’t that interested. She was focused more on looking after her sister. If she’d have managed it, if I wasn’t such an ass, then maybe Anna would have been okay, maybe none of it would have happened. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The next coherent memory is in the smoking area of the club. Myself and Anna on our own having managed to lose her sister.
Anna Dawson: So can we go back to yours?
Trace Demon: The night’s still young yet. But we can always... spice it up.
I pull out two white pills from a small see through bag in my pocket. We could always ‘spice it up’ back in those days. There was never enough. Never too much. Anna looked at the pills, unsure.
Anna Dawson: I don’t know...
Trace Demon: Suit yourself.
I down a pill without a second thought, it's become natural to me by this point. I was never one for second thoughts back then. Never one for first thoughts really.
Anna Dawson: Alright then.
She says it was a little bit of a stammer. She wasn’t sure, I can see that now. But back then I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see how I was destroying myself and everyone around me. I sure as hell couldn’t see how this was going to end up.
I placed the pill on my tongue and kissed her, passing it into her mouth in the process. I don’t like saying I had a signature seduction move, it just sounds so ridiculous, but if I did this was it. She swallowed the pill and smiled. Her smile was sweet back then. She was sweet back then.
Trace Demon: Let the night begin...
TO BE CONTINUED
< *** >
I’m tired. So very, very tired. I tired of the constant whining and the complaining and all the ridiculous claims and excuses. But I only have myself to blame. Because I’m the one making them all. Every week I come up with some new excuse, I claim I’ve come up with some new style or some new method for victory. And every single week, win or lose, I feel just as tired as I did before. And I realized I’m tired because no matter how many wins or losses I manage, it wasn’t going to solve the problem. Because the problem wasn’t that I was tired with losing, I was tired with listening to myself B***h and moan about it. So I had to make a conscious decision. I had to decide whether I just stood by and I continued moaning and crying about how everybody thinks I’ve lost my way. Or I could stop. I could stop coming up with excuses and just admit that all of that whining was my way of avoiding the truth.
The truth being that I wasn’t even trying. The truth being that I’d given up on myself. The truth being that I could have happily sat back and simply lose my way to a pay check every week. I whine and I moan and I blame everybody else when really I should just face the truth, and admit that I am the only one to blame for my own shortcomings. So that’s what I did. I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself that I was being a little b***h. I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself that I was disgracing myself with the way I was acting. And I decided that it had to stop. I decided that if I kept going I was going to end up hating myself and blaming myself for everything. So it’s done. It’s finished. It’s buried. And now I’m going to get down to business. Now I’m simply going to focus on what’s really important. And it isn’t the whining and it isn’t the excuses. What’s important is the match. What’s important is the victory. What’s important is the impact.
So this week I team with Hutton Brown, again. Hutton, I’ve talked all about how you’ve gained my respect and how that makes us such a dangerous team. I’ve talked about how I respect your talent as a competitor and your attitude as a man. I’ve talked all about how I trust you to be in my corner and get the job done when it counts. But that’s only half the story, isn’t it Hutton? Because I do respect you, and I do trust you to have my back in this match, but at the same time I want to beat you. I want to hurt you. Because Hutton we’re one match apiece and that is killing me. I sit around and it pains me to know that we still need our deciding match, that we still need to prove who the better man is. I sit there and I watch your matches and I can see where others are going wrong against you, and it kills me that it isn’t me in there getting to kick your ass. So Hutton, you need to make sure you’re prepared for me, because I am coming after you. I am going to get that match and I am going to prove that I am the better man. That I deserve to be called the better man. But sadly that time isn’t now. So for now, I’ve got your back. Because out of all the men involved in this match you are actually the one that pisses me off least.
EBR. Three letters that somehow manage to get under my skin when let’s face it, you haven’t done a damn thing to really earn that. You haven’t really done anything to earn my hate. Nothing that I didn’t force you into in the first place. Hutton Brown and Phillip Schneider, now they’ve earned my focus. But you, you EBR, you hadn’t done a damn thing to earn my attention. Sure, you’re a big star both here and in the XWA, but that doesn’t bother me. Why should I care if you’ve earned yourself the reputation of the legend... or haven’t earned it, as the case may be. You know, I simply couldn’t understand what it was. I’ll tell you the truth, when you turned your back on Alex Sean and DGX I didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less what happens to those two. In fact, I rather enjoyed watching it. But for some reason I got involved anyway. And you know what it was? Do you know why I got involved? No, probably not, because it took me so long to figure it out myself...
I hate the fact that you sold out. And you can ask me why I care all you want, it isn’t going to change how I feel about it. EBR, you sold out to that pathetic excuse of an owner that is King Kraig. And it’s worse than that, because you turned your back on your friends, the people you travel with. Me, I don’t really make friends, it’s not in my nature. Some will say it’s because I’m an unsociable d**k, which may very well be true, but honestly that’s the way I like it. You, you and Alex Sean and DGX, you were a group. You were the craptastic musketeers of the WFWF. And yet you still sold them out. You turned your back on the men who were closest to you. And maybe it was because I was in a bad mood when I was watching it, maybe it was because my pregnant girlfriend’s all hormonal all of the time, but I took note. It pissed me off. You walk around acting like you can do whatever you want because your with King Kraig and it just pisses me off! And you can throw anyone you want in my way, remember Calvin Lee? Ask him how retirement is for me. Because that’s where I intend to send you when I finally get my hands on you. But guess what! Out of all the men you could have teamed with you managed to find probably the only man I want to get my hands on more than I do you. Bravo, good plan...
Phillip Schneider. God am I sick of you. It’s like... everytime I come into work I have to wonder what you’re going to do to try and piss me off this time. Nobody, not even Alex Sean, has gotten under my skin like you have managed. You see Schneider, you keep claiming that you made me. I sit around and all I hear from you is “I made Trace, I made him”... BULLS**T! You didn’t f*****g make me Schneider. I’d love to know what you’re taking because it must give you some amazing hallucinations. You see I get asked a lot why I hate you and I tell them there’s a lot of reasons. And then they ask me what started it, what started my hatred for you. And I tell them it’s because you are full of s**t. I tell them because you walk around claiming that me beating you made me. I take objection to that Schneider. You keep saying that you made me, and that you want revenge for that and I’m sitting here wondering who dropped you on your head when you were a child. I got where I am because I am good at what I do. Sure, beating you helped my career, got me noticed, but to claim you made me makes me sick.
You see Schneider, you think you’re so important. That you’re the greatest thing ever to grace a wrestling ring. And sure, you’ve got talent, but the WFWF survived pretty well without you around. In fact it was a hell of a lot nicer when I got to walk through the hallway and not have to listen to people talking about whatever crazy thing you did this time. You walk around ranting and raving about how I’m coming after you when I should be thankful to have survived, about how I’m pathetic and a fraud and that everything I saw means nothing. And yet I’m meant to sit by and listen to all the crap that you’re talking? And you know what’s worse? You know what the kicker is? That you truly believe every deluded sentence that comes out of your mouth...
But hey, your nine months undefeated now. So I’ll give you a little bit of leeway. I’ll let you talk all of your s**t and preach whatever you want for now, because you haven’t got long to wait until that first loss. No, not at all. You see Schneider, it only takes one bullet to change everything. It only took one bullet to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and JFK. It only took one bullet to change the course of history. And it’s only going to take one match to do the same to your little streak. Ace Bennett, he calls himself the streak destroyer but he couldn’t get the job done with the one that really counted. Me, I intend to do what he couldn’t. I intend to finish your streak and if I’m lucky, finish you along with it. Phillip Schneider... Obo... whatever you want to call yourself, you managed to get under my skin like nobody ever has. Well done to you. But if you think that’s something that’s going to benefit you in the long run, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you otherwise. You aren’t the only one who has ended careers...
Usually I’d end one of these things with how it’s a new day and how I’m a new Trace Demon. But those times have passed. So let’s keep things simple. Hutton Brown, EBR, Phillip Schneider. The four of us are going to step into that ring in one of the biggest tag team matches in history. Now, Caturday has a lovely show name but sadly it’s also going to be the site of a massacre. The Caturday masscare... it’s got a bit of a ring to it, doesn’t it? When somebody has a bunch of kittens they don’t want they drown them in a bag. Now sadly I can’t do that to EBR and Phillip Schneider. So I’m just going to have to do the next best thing. Metaphorical kittens. Metaphorical drowning. A very... real... ending.
Bang bang. You’re dead. B**ch’s.
