Post by Rated R on Sept 18, 2011 10:35:50 GMT -5
Say what you want about Liam, but the guy knows what to do when he gets on my bad side. True, it’s probably wrong to suggest I actually have a good side so I should rephrase. Liam knows that to do when he gets on my worse side.
Just avoid me.
After our little... conversation, about how his idiotic ability to forgive brought my worst nightmare literally to my front door, he has simply tried ignoring me. Of course, in a world full of text messages and social networking and a whole host of things dedicated to making me talk with people I actually despise (Seriously Scarlet, I warned you sending me those pictures was a bad idea) it’s a little bit harder to avoid somebody than it used to be.
But still, he’s made a good attempt at it.
The problem being that despite all this technology people still go outside and see real flesh and blood people. I know, I could hardly believe it when Alexa told me either but it’s true. So when I was walking about the city, just being awesome (and escaping my hormonal pregnant girlfriend) I was more than a little surprised to spot Katherine Dawson, the sister of the friendly neighbourhood psychopath.
Trace Demon: Katherine!
She turns around at my shout. She’s seen me and she’s too close to pretend otherwise, although I’m sure she’d have tried if she could.
Katherine Dawson: Trace...
I’ve never heard anyone say my name with so much reluctance. It’d be heartbreaking if I really gave a damn.
Trace Demon: Kath, we need to talk... about Anna.
Katherine Dawson: Trace, I don’t want any trouble.
Well there goes plan A.
Trace Demon: I just want to talk. Have you eaten?
She’s a woman. They’ve never eaten.
Katherine Dawson: I was just about to get something.
Sure you were.
Trace Demon: I know a really good place just down the street. You should join me.
< *** >
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
It’s awkward at first. We sit there, trying to make small talk, sipping on coffee. She tells me that she’s working at a law firm. I joke about how she can give me some free legal advice. It’s a joke that doesn’t really hit it’s designated target audience. Talk turns to Alexa and the pregnancy. I tell her she’s due in two weeks but not that I’m freaking out about the due date. We really should come up with some kind of labour plan but every time we start something comes up. Usually something I made up on the spot to get out of it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Then talk inevitably turns to Anna.
Trace Demon: She came to my house Katherine, my house.
Katherine Dawson: I know.
Trace Demon: You know?
Katherine Dawson: She told me. Then Liam told me.
I ignore bringing up the fact that she’s dating Liam. I’m struggling enough with not screaming at her in the middle of my favourite coffee shop.
Trace Demon: So maybe you can tell me why she turned up at my door.
Katherine Dawson: It’s part of her program.
It clicks.
Trace Demon: The twelve steps...
Katherine Dawson: She wanted to apologize, to talk... about everything she did. Surely you know what that’s like?
Not really. I never went through any programs, any support groups. I was too proud, too sure of myself. Plus I’d just seen that episode of Dexter where he went to group counselling and was too worried I’d meet somebody, have an affair and it’d turn out she was crazy and she’d try burning Alexa alive.
What? That’s a very normal fear to have.
Trace Demon: She could have just called.
Katherine Dawson: And you’d have picked up the phone?
Trace Demon: Of course.
Because I wouldn’t know who it was. Then she’d speak and I’d hang up. So maybe the phone wouldn’t have worked.
Katherine Dawson: She’s just trying to make amends Trace. After everything that happened... with you... with me. She just needs to talk.
Trace Demon: The last time she wanted to talk I nearly died.
Katherine Dawson: Well after everything that happened... everything she was on... you messed her up Trace.
Trace Demon: Really, it’s all my fault? You aren’t exactly blameless in what happened Kath....
< *** >
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
EIGHTEEN DAYS AFTER MEETING ANNA & KATHERINE
Have you ever watched one of those shows about drug addicts and see the places they live? Those apartments with no lighting, a single mattress and a carpet made out of needles? Well that isn’t always the case. You see, those houses are for the crack heads who can’t balance their lives with their drugs. I was never one of those people. I managed to keep a job that paid enough to pay rent and bills in a very nice apartment, to pay for fuel and insurance on any car I wanted and still afford every pill I could ever dream of.
But I was never fooling anybody. Not really. Everyone backstage knew what I was like, what I was on. Every show somebody, usually Thunder, Malakai or Keri would come up to me and make sure I was in a state to wrestle. But I was very good at fooling people. My landlord, my co-workers, my family. I never seemed as bad as I was. To them I was a little bit out of it. Inside my heart felt like it was going to explode, my head felt like it was going to melt. I was the Houdini of drug addicts.
Anna Dawson: Are you working today?
We’d woken up side by side, still strung out from the night before. It hadn’t even taken two weeks before this became a regular occurrence after meeting her in the bar. She’d taken to pills like I’d taken to being a semi-delusional bunghole. If there was one good thing about these days was that I was no longer seeing things. I was lucid, more in my right mind than I had been a year prior. I don’t know whether it was the fact that I’d become so used to all the pills I was on or simply because my mind just didn’t have what it took to keep up all the crazy, but at least I was lucid.
That didn’t help me much though.
Trace Demon: Na, bosses told me to take a few days off from the live shows.
They’d actually told me to get my head together for Loaded. They wanted me as sober as I could be for the televised events. Figured that if I didn’t have all the wear and tear from constant events then I’d be less likely to turn up on something. That’s what some people don’t seem to realize about addicts in the wrestling business. Some of us don’t take things because we’re hurt and need some relief, some of us are just really messed up.
But knowing that now didn’t stop me from knocking back a pill and handing the bottle to Anna.
Anna Dawson: Thanks.
Thinking back on it now it’s these moments that mess me up the most. The thought that she honestly believed I was a good guy, that I was doing her a favour by giving her all of this crap. I still wonder about her motivations behind the whole thing, about why she kept it up. There’s always a moment with potential addicts where they can still get out. Where they can fight the urges and forget it had ever happened. It’s that red pill, blue pill choice. Although to an addict, all pills are the same I guess.
I still don’t get it. Why she followed me down the rabbit hole.
Anna Dawson: So what’re we doing today?
She knows the answer before she asks it. We’re doing the same thing we did every time we were left alone. We’d pop some pills, watch some crappy tv. Then we’d go out, with or without Liam and some other friends, and get trashed. Maybe I’d find some time to work out, but it was doubtful. It was always harder being productive when there was somebody with me. On my own I had no excuse not to go out. With Anna there... well, it wasn’t a real excuse. It was an addict’s excuse.
The thing about Anna was... she was beautiful, she was amazing. She was everything I could have wanted in a girl. Smart, funny, pretty. She’d have been the type of girl I’d have gone after sober. But when I was in this state she was simply a girl who didn’t care what I was taking. She was a girl I could use to forget that Alexa had kicked me to the curb because I couldn’t control my addiction. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s the truth.
Trace Demon: How about this...
I moved in to kiss her, our lips connecting in a haze of limbs and heat. Things get heavier when the doorbell rings, breaking me from a daydream of decadence. I ignored it at first, hoping whoever it was would simply leave us to the destruction that I wrought upon my body. But they didn’t, the bell rung again. I don’t say a word, just break away from Anna and get out of bed. Slipping some jeans on I walked to the door. The apartment was pristine. If it was some random salesperson they’d never guess that this was the apartment of a pill addict. That was the way I liked it. I couldn’t stand answering awkward questions.
I opened the door and on the other side stood the last person I wanted to see.
Katherine Dawson: Where’s Anna?
Trace Demon: What?
Katherine Dawson: I know she’s here Trace, but she’s not answering her phone.
Anna Dawson: Katherine?
She stood in the doorway to my bedroom, wearing my shirt. I was in the middle of some crazy family drama that probably belonged on The CW rather than in my apartment.
Katherine Dawson: Did you forget we’re meant to be meeting mum and dad for lunch?
Anna Dawson: Can’t you do it without me?
Katherine Dawson: It’s dad’s birthday!
You’d think things like that would have fazed me. The idea that knowing me seemed to be enough to make a girl want to miss her own fathers birthday. But no, it was just another thing back then. Another thing stopping me from getting off my skull.
Anna Dawson: Alright. Let me shower.
She walked into the bathroom and I hoped that was the end of it all. That I could go and pass out in piece.
Katherine Dawson: What is she on?
I, of course, was so very wrong.
Trace Demon: What?
Katherine Dawson: Come on Trace, I’m not stupid. What has she taken?
Trace Demon: Just some stuff. It’ll wear off in an hour or so. Just don’t let her have any alcohol if you want a sentient family gathering.
She shakes her head but I don’t care. I lean against the wall looking at her.
Trace Demon: Spoken with Liam recently?
Katherine Dawson: Should I?
I shrugged my shoulders. Liam had tried making a second date with Katherine but it didn’t really pan out. I’d like to say it was because he was useless with girls or because they weren’t compatible or any of the dozen excuses I gave him when he told me that she hadn’t called him back. Truth was, Katherine wasn’t the perfect girl she wanted to be.
Trace Demon: What you should do... is kiss me.
She does. Katherine needed a rebellion of her own. She was in law school, trying to make something of herself while slowly watching her little sister fall apart in front of her. She wasn’t about to start popping pills so she did the next worst thing.
She betrayed her sister and kissed her bunghole of a boyfriend, if that’s what you wanted to call me.
Katherine Dawson: We need to stop this.
Trace Demon: Why?
Did I really say that? Could I really not see everything that was wrong with this, with me, with her, with us? Could I really not tell how messed up this entire thing was?
The shower switched off and as Anna walked through into the bedroom Katherine looked away, ashamed. Anna doesn’t notice, the pills having kicked in.
Trace Demon: Tell your parents I said hello.
She won’t and rightfully so. Right now she wants me gone just as much as she wants me all to herself. Me? I just wish I could have gone back, and stopped it all here and now.
But it was only just beginning.
TO BE CONTINUED
< *** >
They say that you can’t bury the past. That it comes back to haunt you every single time. My life is a testament to that. My past is a mix of disgrace and hatred, or blood and haze. My past is everything that is wrong with the world. Everything that is wrong with me. But surely it’s exactly that, right? It’s the past. It’s what has been done and what should be forgotten... no. Because I live with my past every day. It sits there in the back of my mind. It screams at me, laughs at me, haunts me. Every day I try to atone for it and it disregards my efforts in the same way I disregard King Kraig’s ownership.
And it’s just as bad when I step into the ring. Because as much as I try to leave the past behind it comes back, tries to screw with me. But you see, the latest attempt isn’t from my past, it’s simply from THE past. Yes, I’m talking about you Kyzer. Michael Kyzer thinks that just because people knew his name one that he has the right to come into my ring when I’m talking and smack me upside the head with that pathetic piece of plastic he calls a title belt. But here’s the dirty little secret Kyzer... you’re nothing but a washed up piece of s**t who belongs in a retirement home, not a wrestling ring.
You’ve been away a long time Kyzer so let me tell you something about me. My name is Trace Demon and in the time you’ve been away I’ve kind of taken your place as the WFWF’s resident straight talking self absorbed up and coming piece of s**t. But hey, who am I to say that you don’t deserve a chance to come out of retirement, to throw your walker to one side and actually try to do something in your old age? So just this once I’ll make an exception to my rule of not beating up old men. I just hope your hip replacement can hold out.
But you aren’t the only aspect of the past looking to get in my way. Not this week. Isn’t that right...
Reckless.
Or is that Kirk Trujillo? No matter, it’s not like you’re the first guy to try and make yourself seem cool by dropping the one word name and adopting a real human moniker. But just like him the change is nothing more than superficial. Because you are still the same guy I left in the dust last time you were here. A little history for you all. Me and Reckless, we fought each other a few times back when I first started here. But whereas I went on and became a world champion, a tag team champion, a national champion, the Survival of the Fittest winner he... did absolutely nothing.
There was this one time, back when I was running the place, that I took pity of him. Figured I could use him to beat on Yukio Blaze a bit. What was the harm in sending one nobody to take out another nobody? But he couldn’t even do that right... he couldn’t even wear a bloody mask correctly. That’s the kind of guy I’m dealing with here, a man who can’t even wear a mask with f*****g it up! But then again, every company needs a guy like that, right? A guy who you can throw in the ring with a real star in order to give them a win.
Because that’s all you are to me Reckless. A guy I can get an easy win over. A guy I don’t even have to worry about. One thing the past has taught me is to give respect where respect is due. So that’s exactly what I’m giving you Reckless. I’m giving you the respect you deserve.
Absolutely f**k all.
I’ll see you out there Reckless. Don’t cry too much when I embarrass you and send you on your merry way for the umpteenth time.
Just avoid me.
After our little... conversation, about how his idiotic ability to forgive brought my worst nightmare literally to my front door, he has simply tried ignoring me. Of course, in a world full of text messages and social networking and a whole host of things dedicated to making me talk with people I actually despise (Seriously Scarlet, I warned you sending me those pictures was a bad idea) it’s a little bit harder to avoid somebody than it used to be.
But still, he’s made a good attempt at it.
The problem being that despite all this technology people still go outside and see real flesh and blood people. I know, I could hardly believe it when Alexa told me either but it’s true. So when I was walking about the city, just being awesome (and escaping my hormonal pregnant girlfriend) I was more than a little surprised to spot Katherine Dawson, the sister of the friendly neighbourhood psychopath.
Trace Demon: Katherine!
She turns around at my shout. She’s seen me and she’s too close to pretend otherwise, although I’m sure she’d have tried if she could.
Katherine Dawson: Trace...
I’ve never heard anyone say my name with so much reluctance. It’d be heartbreaking if I really gave a damn.
Trace Demon: Kath, we need to talk... about Anna.
Katherine Dawson: Trace, I don’t want any trouble.
Well there goes plan A.
Trace Demon: I just want to talk. Have you eaten?
She’s a woman. They’ve never eaten.
Katherine Dawson: I was just about to get something.
Sure you were.
Trace Demon: I know a really good place just down the street. You should join me.
< *** >
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
It’s awkward at first. We sit there, trying to make small talk, sipping on coffee. She tells me that she’s working at a law firm. I joke about how she can give me some free legal advice. It’s a joke that doesn’t really hit it’s designated target audience. Talk turns to Alexa and the pregnancy. I tell her she’s due in two weeks but not that I’m freaking out about the due date. We really should come up with some kind of labour plan but every time we start something comes up. Usually something I made up on the spot to get out of it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Then talk inevitably turns to Anna.
Trace Demon: She came to my house Katherine, my house.
Katherine Dawson: I know.
Trace Demon: You know?
Katherine Dawson: She told me. Then Liam told me.
I ignore bringing up the fact that she’s dating Liam. I’m struggling enough with not screaming at her in the middle of my favourite coffee shop.
Trace Demon: So maybe you can tell me why she turned up at my door.
Katherine Dawson: It’s part of her program.
It clicks.
Trace Demon: The twelve steps...
Katherine Dawson: She wanted to apologize, to talk... about everything she did. Surely you know what that’s like?
Not really. I never went through any programs, any support groups. I was too proud, too sure of myself. Plus I’d just seen that episode of Dexter where he went to group counselling and was too worried I’d meet somebody, have an affair and it’d turn out she was crazy and she’d try burning Alexa alive.
What? That’s a very normal fear to have.
Trace Demon: She could have just called.
Katherine Dawson: And you’d have picked up the phone?
Trace Demon: Of course.
Because I wouldn’t know who it was. Then she’d speak and I’d hang up. So maybe the phone wouldn’t have worked.
Katherine Dawson: She’s just trying to make amends Trace. After everything that happened... with you... with me. She just needs to talk.
Trace Demon: The last time she wanted to talk I nearly died.
Katherine Dawson: Well after everything that happened... everything she was on... you messed her up Trace.
Trace Demon: Really, it’s all my fault? You aren’t exactly blameless in what happened Kath....
< *** >
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
EIGHTEEN DAYS AFTER MEETING ANNA & KATHERINE
Have you ever watched one of those shows about drug addicts and see the places they live? Those apartments with no lighting, a single mattress and a carpet made out of needles? Well that isn’t always the case. You see, those houses are for the crack heads who can’t balance their lives with their drugs. I was never one of those people. I managed to keep a job that paid enough to pay rent and bills in a very nice apartment, to pay for fuel and insurance on any car I wanted and still afford every pill I could ever dream of.
But I was never fooling anybody. Not really. Everyone backstage knew what I was like, what I was on. Every show somebody, usually Thunder, Malakai or Keri would come up to me and make sure I was in a state to wrestle. But I was very good at fooling people. My landlord, my co-workers, my family. I never seemed as bad as I was. To them I was a little bit out of it. Inside my heart felt like it was going to explode, my head felt like it was going to melt. I was the Houdini of drug addicts.
Anna Dawson: Are you working today?
We’d woken up side by side, still strung out from the night before. It hadn’t even taken two weeks before this became a regular occurrence after meeting her in the bar. She’d taken to pills like I’d taken to being a semi-delusional bunghole. If there was one good thing about these days was that I was no longer seeing things. I was lucid, more in my right mind than I had been a year prior. I don’t know whether it was the fact that I’d become so used to all the pills I was on or simply because my mind just didn’t have what it took to keep up all the crazy, but at least I was lucid.
That didn’t help me much though.
Trace Demon: Na, bosses told me to take a few days off from the live shows.
They’d actually told me to get my head together for Loaded. They wanted me as sober as I could be for the televised events. Figured that if I didn’t have all the wear and tear from constant events then I’d be less likely to turn up on something. That’s what some people don’t seem to realize about addicts in the wrestling business. Some of us don’t take things because we’re hurt and need some relief, some of us are just really messed up.
But knowing that now didn’t stop me from knocking back a pill and handing the bottle to Anna.
Anna Dawson: Thanks.
Thinking back on it now it’s these moments that mess me up the most. The thought that she honestly believed I was a good guy, that I was doing her a favour by giving her all of this crap. I still wonder about her motivations behind the whole thing, about why she kept it up. There’s always a moment with potential addicts where they can still get out. Where they can fight the urges and forget it had ever happened. It’s that red pill, blue pill choice. Although to an addict, all pills are the same I guess.
I still don’t get it. Why she followed me down the rabbit hole.
Anna Dawson: So what’re we doing today?
She knows the answer before she asks it. We’re doing the same thing we did every time we were left alone. We’d pop some pills, watch some crappy tv. Then we’d go out, with or without Liam and some other friends, and get trashed. Maybe I’d find some time to work out, but it was doubtful. It was always harder being productive when there was somebody with me. On my own I had no excuse not to go out. With Anna there... well, it wasn’t a real excuse. It was an addict’s excuse.
The thing about Anna was... she was beautiful, she was amazing. She was everything I could have wanted in a girl. Smart, funny, pretty. She’d have been the type of girl I’d have gone after sober. But when I was in this state she was simply a girl who didn’t care what I was taking. She was a girl I could use to forget that Alexa had kicked me to the curb because I couldn’t control my addiction. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s the truth.
Trace Demon: How about this...
I moved in to kiss her, our lips connecting in a haze of limbs and heat. Things get heavier when the doorbell rings, breaking me from a daydream of decadence. I ignored it at first, hoping whoever it was would simply leave us to the destruction that I wrought upon my body. But they didn’t, the bell rung again. I don’t say a word, just break away from Anna and get out of bed. Slipping some jeans on I walked to the door. The apartment was pristine. If it was some random salesperson they’d never guess that this was the apartment of a pill addict. That was the way I liked it. I couldn’t stand answering awkward questions.
I opened the door and on the other side stood the last person I wanted to see.
Katherine Dawson: Where’s Anna?
Trace Demon: What?
Katherine Dawson: I know she’s here Trace, but she’s not answering her phone.
Anna Dawson: Katherine?
She stood in the doorway to my bedroom, wearing my shirt. I was in the middle of some crazy family drama that probably belonged on The CW rather than in my apartment.
Katherine Dawson: Did you forget we’re meant to be meeting mum and dad for lunch?
Anna Dawson: Can’t you do it without me?
Katherine Dawson: It’s dad’s birthday!
You’d think things like that would have fazed me. The idea that knowing me seemed to be enough to make a girl want to miss her own fathers birthday. But no, it was just another thing back then. Another thing stopping me from getting off my skull.
Anna Dawson: Alright. Let me shower.
She walked into the bathroom and I hoped that was the end of it all. That I could go and pass out in piece.
Katherine Dawson: What is she on?
I, of course, was so very wrong.
Trace Demon: What?
Katherine Dawson: Come on Trace, I’m not stupid. What has she taken?
Trace Demon: Just some stuff. It’ll wear off in an hour or so. Just don’t let her have any alcohol if you want a sentient family gathering.
She shakes her head but I don’t care. I lean against the wall looking at her.
Trace Demon: Spoken with Liam recently?
Katherine Dawson: Should I?
I shrugged my shoulders. Liam had tried making a second date with Katherine but it didn’t really pan out. I’d like to say it was because he was useless with girls or because they weren’t compatible or any of the dozen excuses I gave him when he told me that she hadn’t called him back. Truth was, Katherine wasn’t the perfect girl she wanted to be.
Trace Demon: What you should do... is kiss me.
She does. Katherine needed a rebellion of her own. She was in law school, trying to make something of herself while slowly watching her little sister fall apart in front of her. She wasn’t about to start popping pills so she did the next worst thing.
She betrayed her sister and kissed her bunghole of a boyfriend, if that’s what you wanted to call me.
Katherine Dawson: We need to stop this.
Trace Demon: Why?
Did I really say that? Could I really not see everything that was wrong with this, with me, with her, with us? Could I really not tell how messed up this entire thing was?
The shower switched off and as Anna walked through into the bedroom Katherine looked away, ashamed. Anna doesn’t notice, the pills having kicked in.
Trace Demon: Tell your parents I said hello.
She won’t and rightfully so. Right now she wants me gone just as much as she wants me all to herself. Me? I just wish I could have gone back, and stopped it all here and now.
But it was only just beginning.
TO BE CONTINUED
< *** >
They say that you can’t bury the past. That it comes back to haunt you every single time. My life is a testament to that. My past is a mix of disgrace and hatred, or blood and haze. My past is everything that is wrong with the world. Everything that is wrong with me. But surely it’s exactly that, right? It’s the past. It’s what has been done and what should be forgotten... no. Because I live with my past every day. It sits there in the back of my mind. It screams at me, laughs at me, haunts me. Every day I try to atone for it and it disregards my efforts in the same way I disregard King Kraig’s ownership.
And it’s just as bad when I step into the ring. Because as much as I try to leave the past behind it comes back, tries to screw with me. But you see, the latest attempt isn’t from my past, it’s simply from THE past. Yes, I’m talking about you Kyzer. Michael Kyzer thinks that just because people knew his name one that he has the right to come into my ring when I’m talking and smack me upside the head with that pathetic piece of plastic he calls a title belt. But here’s the dirty little secret Kyzer... you’re nothing but a washed up piece of s**t who belongs in a retirement home, not a wrestling ring.
You’ve been away a long time Kyzer so let me tell you something about me. My name is Trace Demon and in the time you’ve been away I’ve kind of taken your place as the WFWF’s resident straight talking self absorbed up and coming piece of s**t. But hey, who am I to say that you don’t deserve a chance to come out of retirement, to throw your walker to one side and actually try to do something in your old age? So just this once I’ll make an exception to my rule of not beating up old men. I just hope your hip replacement can hold out.
But you aren’t the only aspect of the past looking to get in my way. Not this week. Isn’t that right...
Reckless.
Or is that Kirk Trujillo? No matter, it’s not like you’re the first guy to try and make yourself seem cool by dropping the one word name and adopting a real human moniker. But just like him the change is nothing more than superficial. Because you are still the same guy I left in the dust last time you were here. A little history for you all. Me and Reckless, we fought each other a few times back when I first started here. But whereas I went on and became a world champion, a tag team champion, a national champion, the Survival of the Fittest winner he... did absolutely nothing.
There was this one time, back when I was running the place, that I took pity of him. Figured I could use him to beat on Yukio Blaze a bit. What was the harm in sending one nobody to take out another nobody? But he couldn’t even do that right... he couldn’t even wear a bloody mask correctly. That’s the kind of guy I’m dealing with here, a man who can’t even wear a mask with f*****g it up! But then again, every company needs a guy like that, right? A guy who you can throw in the ring with a real star in order to give them a win.
Because that’s all you are to me Reckless. A guy I can get an easy win over. A guy I don’t even have to worry about. One thing the past has taught me is to give respect where respect is due. So that’s exactly what I’m giving you Reckless. I’m giving you the respect you deserve.
Absolutely f**k all.
I’ll see you out there Reckless. Don’t cry too much when I embarrass you and send you on your merry way for the umpteenth time.
