Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2013 2:16:28 GMT -5
Hi, my name is Mak Cross, and I’m asking for a big favor.
I’m asking for you to forget the last two years of my WFWF career.
Forget the winning streaks. Forget the losing streaks.
Act as if I didn’t beat champions, or nearly lose to them.
Ignore all the times my fingertips grazed the brass ring, only to slip at the last moment, whether from my own doing or not.
Pretend that my scars and marks on my body were from past ventures in this business; simply treat them as “dues paid” so that I could get a few hundred extra a night.
I know I’m asking for a lot. To be truthful, I don’t expect anyone to even comply with it, because I haven’t really given them reason to. I haven’t fulfilled my end of the bargain in quite a while. I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t.
I became “just another guy”.
Just another “talent”.
Just another “wrestler”.
You know that terribly old saying, “If you love your job, you’ll never work a day life.”
I hate clichés.
Yet I’m not good enough to subvert them.
I hate people that are subversive for the point of it, for that matter.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…give me that one last chance.
Give me the opportunity of a reset; an actual one. Delete the save and start another one.
Let me guess, you’re still waiting for that reason to allow it, right?
Alright, then.
After my first year anniversary of WFWF, I got some news that my father wasn’t doing so hot.
Yes, my father I’ve been more or less estranged from since I was born.
And the reason as I got older I grew more distant was because my father was a drunk. When he was sober, he was tolerable, but when he got drunk, he was insufferable. No, he wasn’t the violent type, he was something worse; he did nothing. Nothing but turn his liver inside out slowly. He knew that he was more a slow poison to our family than just a fast-acting one, so, with the choice of booze or his family, he left. As life would have it, my mother was diagnosed with cancer by the time I was 19. Thankfully, we caught it quickly enough for chemo to do enough and because I guess there is a God, she’s been in remission for the last few years now. They tried to reconcile, but it never got any further than a mutual respect for one another.
After a couple failed tries, he finally decided to give up the bottle. AA meetings, strict surveillance, pouring every single bottle of liquor he had, visible to us or stashed, right down the sink to the point the sink was getting alcohol poisoning.
Except the third time was the charm. He was finally clean, any gathering with family or friends he went to, he showed more control than I’d ever seen a man whose temptation was forever evident.
After Psycho Circus, my father was seen exiting a bar, completely hammered. I mean, to the point you wonder at what point did the bartender finally say stop and take his keys? Bartender batted .500 there. He stopped serving when my father couldn’t even order anything without slurring it up.
But he believed my father when he said he had a driver.
It’s a wonder how the only think he crashed into was a ditch that night.
It’s not a wonder how the car was totaled and he was found unconscious sixty feet from the car.
I was given permission to take time off, and have my only focus be solely on him, but something “clicked” as I’ll say and I said no. I used WFWF as a way to keep my mind of it.
He was in a coma for two weeks. The first thing he said upon waking was “Please tell me I’m the only person.”
If nothing else, the man had incredible self-realization.
The next week, he went missing. Two days before Battleground…
Two days before Battleground he was found dead in a motel. Beside him were a bottle of sleeping pills and a handle of Southern Comfort. Ironic f***ing name, innit?
So…yeah. I’ve become so complacent; I ignored my own father’s collapse. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in about a month. I was so concerned that I was wasting away, the person who fathered me actually did. And yet, I still haven’t taken a break. I don’t want to recharge. I just want to start over.
So, let me have this one, yeah?
April: Hello? Hello? Earth to Mak?
[She snaps in his face, and he comes to]
April: Hey, everyone’s waiting on us.
Mak: Yeah.
[The two of them exit their car and walk toward the funeral chapel. As they go inside, many people come into view that Mak hasn’t either seen in years, or can’t even remember who they are even though he’s seen a few of them at the wake. Various friends of his father and previous coworkers all come to pay their last respects, to a man who despite his issues, was well liked, if the number of people here are any indication. Mak greets as many of them as possible, each of them with their own variation of being sorry for the loss, each genuine, but each falling more flat to Mak as he moves from person to person.]
[He eventually gets to the front of the chapel pews where Travis and Katy are already there, along with Mak and Travis’ mother, Alicia. He and Travis simply nod at each other, Katy grabs his hand and gives a curt smile, just as Angela gets up and tightly hugs Mak, as she attempts to hold back further tears. Everyone takes a seat as the pastor gets ready to begin the service.]
Pastor: We are not here to mourn a life of a man that succumbed to his troubles. We are not here to showcase this man as a poster boy of what alcohol does to one’s body. And we are certainly not here to give this man any more grief about the mistakes he has made.
We are here to celebrate this man, who tried his hardest to defeat his demons. We are here to remind us why we got out of bed, why we decided to take time out of our lives to show him one last modicum of respect before he is laid to rest. I will say this once, and only once: anyone, who wishes to speak ill of Ronald James Cross, can simply leave the Lord’s home now, and let the rest of us celebrate in peace.
[No one moves.]
Pastor: Let us begin in prayer.
[As everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes, Mak thinks back to a conversation he and his father had a year ago.]
Ron: Look, we both know we’re terrible at small talk. So I’ll just get right to it. You’ve been angry at me for years, because I divorced your mother.
Mak: After she was diagnosed with cancer.
Ron: Yes. Unfortunately, I did say it during a rather inopportune time.
Mak: Inopportune? That’s the word you use to describe it?
Ron: Mak, you know what I-
Mak: No, no, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’ve been trying to figure that out for YEARS.
Ron: Is that so?
Mak: Yes.
Ron: Then why is it you’ve never decided to talk like men so you can know instead of just ignoring me? Is it because you hate me? If you hate me, go ahead say it.
Mak: Dad, I don’t hate you-
Ron: Then what is it then
Mak: I…I don’t know. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I didn’t want us to become one of those families, you know?
Ron: Like what?
Mak: You know, the family barely talks to each other, nothing gets resolved, and there’s nothing but bitterness all around…except, I did just that and once I realized that, I didn’t want to admit it. Hell, do you know how long it took to tell myself you didn’t do it because she was diagnosed?
Ron: Mak, there’s not a day that goes by where I wonder whether or not anything different would happen if I didn’t divorce her, but I want to clarify something to you. I did what I did and I have to live with it, but I promise you…it was NOT because she was diagnosed with cancer. If anything, I shouldn’t have even thought about it once I heard. But I didn’t and things are what they are. The fact still remains I still love her, but for some reason at that point, marriage stopped being appealing. I love you all, and the last thing I want, is for anything bottled inside isn’t out. There’s nothing worse than regret after someone is gone, I don’t want you to have that.
[As the pastor finishes and everyone raises their heads and open their eyes, Mak took a while to do the same. April notices and asks Mak if he was fine, but he just grins and nods. ]
Pastor: We’ll now play a song for you, one of Ronald’s favorite songs, Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart”.
[The song plays on a radio/CD player that was brought forward. The microphone is placed in front of the speaker as the song begins to play.]
[Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile
If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for awhile
There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sometimes when you're doing simple things
around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on
your blouse
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for awhile
These wheels keep turning but they're running out
of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Keep me in your heart for awhile]
Pastor: We’ll now get started with the eulogies.
[Family and friends begin to reminiscence about Ronald. Many mention his smile he gave even during his roughest moments. Some recall his eagerness for any task given to him, whether he succeeded or not. There are more mentions of selfless moments, like when he gave all of the cash he had in his pocket to a homeless man, and to make sure he didn’t spend on alcohol either, went into the restaurant down the road and made sure he had a hot meal, or the time when he was in a bar, but covered everyone’s tab when the Blackhawks won the cup in 2010. Others recalled funny stories of his attempts at singing, in spite of his lack of tune. ]
[When Angela went up, she mentioned the story of when they first met: Angela was working as a waitress in a diner at the time, and she had the table Ron and a few buddies were sitting in. Everyone flirted with Angela at the table, but Ron was the only person that made Angela genuinely laugh and smile at his courting. Eventually, his buddies left and he was the only one at the table, the two talked more and eventually Ron worked up the nerve to ask her out on a date, which she actually at first rejected. However, he still gave her his number via the check, and later on she accepted.]
[The pastor finally calls on Mak, who is hesitant to get up, but eventually with some goading, finally gets up and walks to the front.]
Mak: What really can I say that hasn’t been said already? Everyone knows that I didn’t really have the best relationship with him, not after the divorce in particular sorry to bring it up. Earlier I had remembered something Dad told me, sometime after the divorce, he told me not to wait until it was too late to keep something bottled, and interestingly enough, I had something bottled and now here he is, in this…thing [he points towards the casket].
All throughout today I had wondered whether or not it was too late. And I don’t think it is.
My father was a perpetual drunk. A drunk who left my mother, and my brother at probably the most critical moment in our lives and although my parents patched up to some extent, I never did, and I likely never will. I can’t forgive a man for deciding his family wasn’t the most important thing in his life, even once. People can fall out of love, but that doesn’t make it OK, call me irrational all you want. Most days he took a glass to the hilt and some days he took the whole bottle, and although he never laid a finger on either of us, his other actions were more than hurtful enough.
Yet I’ve never hated him. Not once for it. I’ve resented it, I’ve resented him, but I’ve never felt hate towards him. Because he was my father, and I loved him. I still remember one Christmas, I had wanted the new Madden all year, I had followed that game like no other, and it was the one thing I wanted. I actually didn’t want anything else.
Christmas comes around and I see a present wrapped like a case. I ignore everything else and make a beeline for it. I quickly ripped the wrapping and it was a fishing game. Dad told me that the Madden had sold out, it was so popular. He could tell I was hiding some dejection, so he quickly shoved presents in my direction to take my mind off it. It worked for a while until I wanted to play my video game and saw the fishing game. The dejection settled back in, but I still decided to play it, because it was Christmas and he had tried, he just wasn’t able to. Only when I opened the case, the new Madden was in there. I rushed to my parents room and bombarded him with hugs and kisses and thank you’s. Only for Travis to be better at it than me and I gave it to him a few months later. [The crowd laughs]
My one regret was never having him see me perform live. He’s seen me on TV, he’s see YouTube videos of me, he’s read about me on the Internet, God only knows what he’s read. But he never got to see me from the front row, or the press box, or the nosebleeds…anywhere.
[Mak wipes his eyes before continuing]
I was thinking of other things to say, and I came across this, and it really made me think of Dad, because he tried, and although he died…he didn’t for even a while.
I’m happy that we all can look past the circumstances of his death, even if just for this moment. I’m sorry, Dad. You deserved to win.
{Drunks by Jack McCarthy}
We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms where they found us three days later when somebody complained about the smell.
We died against bridge abutments and nobody knew if it was suicide and we probably didn't know either except in the sense that it was always suicide.
We died in hospitals, our stomachs huge, distended and there was nothing they could do.
We died in cells, never knowing whether we were guilty or not.
We went to priests, they gave us pledges, they told us to pray, they told us to go and sin no more, but go. We tried and we died.
We died of overdoses, we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)
We died in straitjackets, in the DT's seeing God knows what, creeping skittering slithering shuffling things.
And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.
We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take that would make us sick when we drank on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess, or maybe they just shook their heads and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy's.
And when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde or maybe we lied to the doctors and they told us not to drink so much, just drink like me. And we tried, and we died.
We drowned in our own vomit or choked on it, our broken jaws wired shut. We died playing Russian roulette and people thought we'd lost, but we knew better.
We died under the hoofs of horses, under the wheels of vehicles, under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks.
We died in shame.
And you know what was even worse, was that we couldn't believe it ourselves, that we had tried.
We figured we just thought we tried and we died believing that we hadn't tried, believing that we didn't know what it meant to try.
When we were desperate enough or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them, never suspecting the terrifying truth, that the right words, as simple as they were, had not been written yet.
We died falling off girders on high buildings, because of course ironworkers drink, of course they do.
We died with a shotgun in our mouth, or jumping off a bridge, and everybody knew it was suicide.
We died under the Southeast Expressway, with our hands tied behind us and a bullet in the back of our head, because this time the people that we disappointed were the wrong people.
We died in convulsions, or of "insult to the brain", we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned .
If we were women, we died degraded, because women have so much more to live up to.
We tried and we died and nobody cried. And the very worst thing was that for every one of us that died, there were another hundred of us, or another thousand, who wished that we could die, who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up because what we were enduring was intolerable and we knew in our hearts it wasn't ever gonna change.
One day in a hospital room in New York City, one of us had what the books call a transforming spiritual experience, and he said to himself "I've got it ." (no, you haven't you've only got part of it) " and I have to share it." (now you've ALMOST got it) and he kept trying to give it away, but we couldn't hear it. We tried and we died.
We died of one last cigarette, the comfort of its glowing in the dark. We passed out and the bed caught fire. They said we suffocated before our body burned, they said we never felt a thing , that was the best way maybe that we died, except sometimes we took our family with us.
And the man in New York was so sure he had it, he tried to love us into sobriety, but that didn't work either, love confuses drunks and he tried and we still died.
One after another we got his hopes up and we broke his heart,
Because that's what we do.
And the worst thing was that every time we thought we knew what the worst thing was something happened that was worse.
Until a day came in a hotel lobby and it wasn't in Rome, or Jerusalem, Or Mecca or even Dublin, or South Boston, it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ's sake.
A day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I need him As much as he needs me (NOW you've got it).
And the transmission line, after all those years, was open, the transmission line was open. And now we don't go to priests, and we don't go to doctors and people with letters after their names.
We come to people who have been there, we come to each other. We come to try and we don't have to die.
[The service ends with one final viewing of Ronald before the burial.]
[At the burial.]
Pastor: He that raised up Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in us. Wherefore my heart is glad, and my spirit rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope.
Thou shalt show me the path of life; in thy presence is the fullness of joy, and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore.
[The Cross family grabs handfuls of dirt]
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother Cross and we commit his body to the ground
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
[One by one, the family places the dirt on the coffin]
The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him, the Lord lift up his countenance upon him and give him peace. Amen.
Now I guess would be the part where I say I’m better than Dave Demento and Ace Andrews. Where I claim that they couldn’t beat me if I was deaf, dumb and blind. Here I mention Andrews’ lack of experience and bring up how Ripp Jackson was just a one-time thing, and he isn’t even in this business anymore, never mind this company.
Here, I mention how Demento’s even worse off than I am, and how I’ve pinned him before, so I have the advantage there.
Why bother? They’re looking to do the same, right? Mention they’re hungrier, they’ve not got as much to prove like I do, or maybe they do, and that’s their inspiration. And then it just becomes a battle of “inspiration”. Because who and what you’re fighting for is the most important. It’s what drives you to get up in the morning, drive to the arena (or be picked up if you’re pretentious) and wait the hours it takes to get the show started.
Then you have to wait for your match to come up, get bugged by Trace because he’s a batsh*t crazy dictator, get bugged by the interviewers because they need a paycheck too. Then your match comes up, and you fight, and someone wins and gets a bigger paycheck and someone loses and prays their base paycheck can pay their bills and get them food if you aren’t guaranteed a certain amount, because even the WFWF likes to skimp on the pay.
So let’s get it out of the way.
I’m fighting for a reset.
I’m fighting for a chance to say I can actually be one of the best guys here again.
I’m fighting so my fans who haven’t given up on me yet can still say the moment I get a fair match for the title, I’m as soon as crowned champion.
I’m fighting for my dad.
Will I lose, maybe.
Should I lose, depends.
Am I at least going to make sure I’m not complacent and make this damn match the best match of the night? Damn straight.
Happy now?
I’m asking for you to forget the last two years of my WFWF career.
Forget the winning streaks. Forget the losing streaks.
Act as if I didn’t beat champions, or nearly lose to them.
Ignore all the times my fingertips grazed the brass ring, only to slip at the last moment, whether from my own doing or not.
Pretend that my scars and marks on my body were from past ventures in this business; simply treat them as “dues paid” so that I could get a few hundred extra a night.
I know I’m asking for a lot. To be truthful, I don’t expect anyone to even comply with it, because I haven’t really given them reason to. I haven’t fulfilled my end of the bargain in quite a while. I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t.
I became “just another guy”.
Just another “talent”.
Just another “wrestler”.
You know that terribly old saying, “If you love your job, you’ll never work a day life.”
I hate clichés.
Yet I’m not good enough to subvert them.
I hate people that are subversive for the point of it, for that matter.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…give me that one last chance.
Give me the opportunity of a reset; an actual one. Delete the save and start another one.
Let me guess, you’re still waiting for that reason to allow it, right?
Alright, then.
After my first year anniversary of WFWF, I got some news that my father wasn’t doing so hot.
Yes, my father I’ve been more or less estranged from since I was born.
And the reason as I got older I grew more distant was because my father was a drunk. When he was sober, he was tolerable, but when he got drunk, he was insufferable. No, he wasn’t the violent type, he was something worse; he did nothing. Nothing but turn his liver inside out slowly. He knew that he was more a slow poison to our family than just a fast-acting one, so, with the choice of booze or his family, he left. As life would have it, my mother was diagnosed with cancer by the time I was 19. Thankfully, we caught it quickly enough for chemo to do enough and because I guess there is a God, she’s been in remission for the last few years now. They tried to reconcile, but it never got any further than a mutual respect for one another.
After a couple failed tries, he finally decided to give up the bottle. AA meetings, strict surveillance, pouring every single bottle of liquor he had, visible to us or stashed, right down the sink to the point the sink was getting alcohol poisoning.
Except the third time was the charm. He was finally clean, any gathering with family or friends he went to, he showed more control than I’d ever seen a man whose temptation was forever evident.
After Psycho Circus, my father was seen exiting a bar, completely hammered. I mean, to the point you wonder at what point did the bartender finally say stop and take his keys? Bartender batted .500 there. He stopped serving when my father couldn’t even order anything without slurring it up.
But he believed my father when he said he had a driver.
It’s a wonder how the only think he crashed into was a ditch that night.
It’s not a wonder how the car was totaled and he was found unconscious sixty feet from the car.
I was given permission to take time off, and have my only focus be solely on him, but something “clicked” as I’ll say and I said no. I used WFWF as a way to keep my mind of it.
He was in a coma for two weeks. The first thing he said upon waking was “Please tell me I’m the only person.”
If nothing else, the man had incredible self-realization.
The next week, he went missing. Two days before Battleground…
Two days before Battleground he was found dead in a motel. Beside him were a bottle of sleeping pills and a handle of Southern Comfort. Ironic f***ing name, innit?
So…yeah. I’ve become so complacent; I ignored my own father’s collapse. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in about a month. I was so concerned that I was wasting away, the person who fathered me actually did. And yet, I still haven’t taken a break. I don’t want to recharge. I just want to start over.
So, let me have this one, yeah?
April: Hello? Hello? Earth to Mak?
[She snaps in his face, and he comes to]
April: Hey, everyone’s waiting on us.
Mak: Yeah.
[The two of them exit their car and walk toward the funeral chapel. As they go inside, many people come into view that Mak hasn’t either seen in years, or can’t even remember who they are even though he’s seen a few of them at the wake. Various friends of his father and previous coworkers all come to pay their last respects, to a man who despite his issues, was well liked, if the number of people here are any indication. Mak greets as many of them as possible, each of them with their own variation of being sorry for the loss, each genuine, but each falling more flat to Mak as he moves from person to person.]
[He eventually gets to the front of the chapel pews where Travis and Katy are already there, along with Mak and Travis’ mother, Alicia. He and Travis simply nod at each other, Katy grabs his hand and gives a curt smile, just as Angela gets up and tightly hugs Mak, as she attempts to hold back further tears. Everyone takes a seat as the pastor gets ready to begin the service.]
Pastor: We are not here to mourn a life of a man that succumbed to his troubles. We are not here to showcase this man as a poster boy of what alcohol does to one’s body. And we are certainly not here to give this man any more grief about the mistakes he has made.
We are here to celebrate this man, who tried his hardest to defeat his demons. We are here to remind us why we got out of bed, why we decided to take time out of our lives to show him one last modicum of respect before he is laid to rest. I will say this once, and only once: anyone, who wishes to speak ill of Ronald James Cross, can simply leave the Lord’s home now, and let the rest of us celebrate in peace.
[No one moves.]
Pastor: Let us begin in prayer.
[As everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes, Mak thinks back to a conversation he and his father had a year ago.]
Ron: Look, we both know we’re terrible at small talk. So I’ll just get right to it. You’ve been angry at me for years, because I divorced your mother.
Mak: After she was diagnosed with cancer.
Ron: Yes. Unfortunately, I did say it during a rather inopportune time.
Mak: Inopportune? That’s the word you use to describe it?
Ron: Mak, you know what I-
Mak: No, no, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’ve been trying to figure that out for YEARS.
Ron: Is that so?
Mak: Yes.
Ron: Then why is it you’ve never decided to talk like men so you can know instead of just ignoring me? Is it because you hate me? If you hate me, go ahead say it.
Mak: Dad, I don’t hate you-
Ron: Then what is it then
Mak: I…I don’t know. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I didn’t want us to become one of those families, you know?
Ron: Like what?
Mak: You know, the family barely talks to each other, nothing gets resolved, and there’s nothing but bitterness all around…except, I did just that and once I realized that, I didn’t want to admit it. Hell, do you know how long it took to tell myself you didn’t do it because she was diagnosed?
Ron: Mak, there’s not a day that goes by where I wonder whether or not anything different would happen if I didn’t divorce her, but I want to clarify something to you. I did what I did and I have to live with it, but I promise you…it was NOT because she was diagnosed with cancer. If anything, I shouldn’t have even thought about it once I heard. But I didn’t and things are what they are. The fact still remains I still love her, but for some reason at that point, marriage stopped being appealing. I love you all, and the last thing I want, is for anything bottled inside isn’t out. There’s nothing worse than regret after someone is gone, I don’t want you to have that.
[As the pastor finishes and everyone raises their heads and open their eyes, Mak took a while to do the same. April notices and asks Mak if he was fine, but he just grins and nods. ]
Pastor: We’ll now play a song for you, one of Ronald’s favorite songs, Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart”.
[The song plays on a radio/CD player that was brought forward. The microphone is placed in front of the speaker as the song begins to play.]
[Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile
If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for awhile
There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sometimes when you're doing simple things
around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on
your blouse
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for awhile
These wheels keep turning but they're running out
of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Keep me in your heart for awhile]
Pastor: We’ll now get started with the eulogies.
[Family and friends begin to reminiscence about Ronald. Many mention his smile he gave even during his roughest moments. Some recall his eagerness for any task given to him, whether he succeeded or not. There are more mentions of selfless moments, like when he gave all of the cash he had in his pocket to a homeless man, and to make sure he didn’t spend on alcohol either, went into the restaurant down the road and made sure he had a hot meal, or the time when he was in a bar, but covered everyone’s tab when the Blackhawks won the cup in 2010. Others recalled funny stories of his attempts at singing, in spite of his lack of tune. ]
[When Angela went up, she mentioned the story of when they first met: Angela was working as a waitress in a diner at the time, and she had the table Ron and a few buddies were sitting in. Everyone flirted with Angela at the table, but Ron was the only person that made Angela genuinely laugh and smile at his courting. Eventually, his buddies left and he was the only one at the table, the two talked more and eventually Ron worked up the nerve to ask her out on a date, which she actually at first rejected. However, he still gave her his number via the check, and later on she accepted.]
[The pastor finally calls on Mak, who is hesitant to get up, but eventually with some goading, finally gets up and walks to the front.]
Mak: What really can I say that hasn’t been said already? Everyone knows that I didn’t really have the best relationship with him, not after the divorce in particular sorry to bring it up. Earlier I had remembered something Dad told me, sometime after the divorce, he told me not to wait until it was too late to keep something bottled, and interestingly enough, I had something bottled and now here he is, in this…thing [he points towards the casket].
All throughout today I had wondered whether or not it was too late. And I don’t think it is.
My father was a perpetual drunk. A drunk who left my mother, and my brother at probably the most critical moment in our lives and although my parents patched up to some extent, I never did, and I likely never will. I can’t forgive a man for deciding his family wasn’t the most important thing in his life, even once. People can fall out of love, but that doesn’t make it OK, call me irrational all you want. Most days he took a glass to the hilt and some days he took the whole bottle, and although he never laid a finger on either of us, his other actions were more than hurtful enough.
Yet I’ve never hated him. Not once for it. I’ve resented it, I’ve resented him, but I’ve never felt hate towards him. Because he was my father, and I loved him. I still remember one Christmas, I had wanted the new Madden all year, I had followed that game like no other, and it was the one thing I wanted. I actually didn’t want anything else.
Christmas comes around and I see a present wrapped like a case. I ignore everything else and make a beeline for it. I quickly ripped the wrapping and it was a fishing game. Dad told me that the Madden had sold out, it was so popular. He could tell I was hiding some dejection, so he quickly shoved presents in my direction to take my mind off it. It worked for a while until I wanted to play my video game and saw the fishing game. The dejection settled back in, but I still decided to play it, because it was Christmas and he had tried, he just wasn’t able to. Only when I opened the case, the new Madden was in there. I rushed to my parents room and bombarded him with hugs and kisses and thank you’s. Only for Travis to be better at it than me and I gave it to him a few months later. [The crowd laughs]
My one regret was never having him see me perform live. He’s seen me on TV, he’s see YouTube videos of me, he’s read about me on the Internet, God only knows what he’s read. But he never got to see me from the front row, or the press box, or the nosebleeds…anywhere.
[Mak wipes his eyes before continuing]
I was thinking of other things to say, and I came across this, and it really made me think of Dad, because he tried, and although he died…he didn’t for even a while.
I’m happy that we all can look past the circumstances of his death, even if just for this moment. I’m sorry, Dad. You deserved to win.
{Drunks by Jack McCarthy}
We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms where they found us three days later when somebody complained about the smell.
We died against bridge abutments and nobody knew if it was suicide and we probably didn't know either except in the sense that it was always suicide.
We died in hospitals, our stomachs huge, distended and there was nothing they could do.
We died in cells, never knowing whether we were guilty or not.
We went to priests, they gave us pledges, they told us to pray, they told us to go and sin no more, but go. We tried and we died.
We died of overdoses, we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)
We died in straitjackets, in the DT's seeing God knows what, creeping skittering slithering shuffling things.
And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.
We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take that would make us sick when we drank on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess, or maybe they just shook their heads and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy's.
And when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde or maybe we lied to the doctors and they told us not to drink so much, just drink like me. And we tried, and we died.
We drowned in our own vomit or choked on it, our broken jaws wired shut. We died playing Russian roulette and people thought we'd lost, but we knew better.
We died under the hoofs of horses, under the wheels of vehicles, under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks.
We died in shame.
And you know what was even worse, was that we couldn't believe it ourselves, that we had tried.
We figured we just thought we tried and we died believing that we hadn't tried, believing that we didn't know what it meant to try.
When we were desperate enough or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them, never suspecting the terrifying truth, that the right words, as simple as they were, had not been written yet.
We died falling off girders on high buildings, because of course ironworkers drink, of course they do.
We died with a shotgun in our mouth, or jumping off a bridge, and everybody knew it was suicide.
We died under the Southeast Expressway, with our hands tied behind us and a bullet in the back of our head, because this time the people that we disappointed were the wrong people.
We died in convulsions, or of "insult to the brain", we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned .
If we were women, we died degraded, because women have so much more to live up to.
We tried and we died and nobody cried. And the very worst thing was that for every one of us that died, there were another hundred of us, or another thousand, who wished that we could die, who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up because what we were enduring was intolerable and we knew in our hearts it wasn't ever gonna change.
One day in a hospital room in New York City, one of us had what the books call a transforming spiritual experience, and he said to himself "I've got it ." (no, you haven't you've only got part of it) " and I have to share it." (now you've ALMOST got it) and he kept trying to give it away, but we couldn't hear it. We tried and we died.
We died of one last cigarette, the comfort of its glowing in the dark. We passed out and the bed caught fire. They said we suffocated before our body burned, they said we never felt a thing , that was the best way maybe that we died, except sometimes we took our family with us.
And the man in New York was so sure he had it, he tried to love us into sobriety, but that didn't work either, love confuses drunks and he tried and we still died.
One after another we got his hopes up and we broke his heart,
Because that's what we do.
And the worst thing was that every time we thought we knew what the worst thing was something happened that was worse.
Until a day came in a hotel lobby and it wasn't in Rome, or Jerusalem, Or Mecca or even Dublin, or South Boston, it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ's sake.
A day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I need him As much as he needs me (NOW you've got it).
And the transmission line, after all those years, was open, the transmission line was open. And now we don't go to priests, and we don't go to doctors and people with letters after their names.
We come to people who have been there, we come to each other. We come to try and we don't have to die.
[The service ends with one final viewing of Ronald before the burial.]
[At the burial.]
Pastor: He that raised up Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in us. Wherefore my heart is glad, and my spirit rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope.
Thou shalt show me the path of life; in thy presence is the fullness of joy, and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore.
[The Cross family grabs handfuls of dirt]
In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother Cross and we commit his body to the ground
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
[One by one, the family places the dirt on the coffin]
The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him, the Lord lift up his countenance upon him and give him peace. Amen.
Now I guess would be the part where I say I’m better than Dave Demento and Ace Andrews. Where I claim that they couldn’t beat me if I was deaf, dumb and blind. Here I mention Andrews’ lack of experience and bring up how Ripp Jackson was just a one-time thing, and he isn’t even in this business anymore, never mind this company.
Here, I mention how Demento’s even worse off than I am, and how I’ve pinned him before, so I have the advantage there.
Why bother? They’re looking to do the same, right? Mention they’re hungrier, they’ve not got as much to prove like I do, or maybe they do, and that’s their inspiration. And then it just becomes a battle of “inspiration”. Because who and what you’re fighting for is the most important. It’s what drives you to get up in the morning, drive to the arena (or be picked up if you’re pretentious) and wait the hours it takes to get the show started.
Then you have to wait for your match to come up, get bugged by Trace because he’s a batsh*t crazy dictator, get bugged by the interviewers because they need a paycheck too. Then your match comes up, and you fight, and someone wins and gets a bigger paycheck and someone loses and prays their base paycheck can pay their bills and get them food if you aren’t guaranteed a certain amount, because even the WFWF likes to skimp on the pay.
So let’s get it out of the way.
I’m fighting for a reset.
I’m fighting for a chance to say I can actually be one of the best guys here again.
I’m fighting so my fans who haven’t given up on me yet can still say the moment I get a fair match for the title, I’m as soon as crowned champion.
I’m fighting for my dad.
Will I lose, maybe.
Should I lose, depends.
Am I at least going to make sure I’m not complacent and make this damn match the best match of the night? Damn straight.
Happy now?
