Post by CM Poor on Jul 29, 2016 21:16:57 GMT -5
"Tell me, is this how you'd always envisioned it? The triumphant demise of David Brennan?"
Exodus
If there was one thing that Chris Meyer didn't miss about his days as Chris Avalon, in spite of the perpetual longing for things to have turned out different than they had that he'd carry with him 'til the day he died, it was that all too jarring thud that resonated throughout a man's entire body when his head hit a solid, immovable surface - not too unlike the concrete floor of the Target Centre, upon which he'd just been forcefully driven. Never mind the fact that, at a very bare minimum, it hurt like there was no tomorrow, but Chris never, in all his years of training and all his efforts in the ring, had been able to quite make it past the unnervingly silent fog that always seemed to encapsulate him from that first moment of impact and kept him mindfully oblivious to any sights or sounds around him for the better part of a minute. It was a lacked degree of control that he was entirely uncomfortable falling into, and if there were to be one silver lining amid his departure from in ring activity, he'd figured for certain it'd be the fact that he'd never have to deal with any of that ever again.
That was, of course, a mentality developed prior to having been assigned to be the handler of one David Brennan.
He'd made a mental note as he tore through the backstage halls of the arena to better plot his itineraries. Had he known something so unusual was about to unfold before the eyes of an arena full of WFWF fans, he'd have been more pointed about touching base with Brennan prior to him having any opportunity to step out and do what it his that he does. Truthfully, short of what information he'd gathered years ago when Brennan first arrived on the scene paired with the well documented knowledge of David's more indulgent vices, he didn't know much at all in regard to who this guy was at his core, but that face told Chris everything he needed to know. He'd taken off running almost as quickly as the cameras had caught Brennan's reaction. While most agents and ring hands would place the utmost concern upon how someone with no business on the WFWF's stage could manage to intercept one of their talents in the midst of a performance, Chris knew the psychological toll the business took well enough to recognize the thousand yard stare on Brennan's face as a telltale sign that his mind was on the very brink of coming completely unglued. The girl, of course, would need to be addressed, as there was an overwhelmingly apparent reason that she'd selected Brennan, of all unthinkable talents, to confront, but then and there, as the bowels of the Target Centre blazed past him in an absolute blur, his only concern was intercepting his new charge before the fuse ran out.
He tried to shake the fog to no avail as a couple of ring hands pulled him to his feet. As the deafening silence that had first set in have way to a gradually increasing, high pitched ringing, the absolute chaos that had unfolded in a mere matter of seconds around him slowly came into stark focus before his eyes. The immediate draw, of course? David Brennan, only barely restrained by eight, maybe more, ring hands clad in black, 'Event Staff' polos, thrashing about with every free inch of his limbs, shouting what Chris could only imagine to be a string of profanities in the direction of focal point number two - an equivalent number of ring hands hurriedly working to escort the barely visible girl who'd just moments earlier intercepted Brennan in a stare down on his way out of the arena out of the apparent way of harm on behalf of David Brennan.
The unanswered variables cycled and swirled over and over in his head as the muffled ruckus laid out before his eyes slowly tuned into audible focus.
Who was this girl?
What did she want with David?
What would he do if he broke free?
While not unfolding in any sort of order of priority, the primary concerns that fell to Chris' line of duty became more clear than any tangible sense at the moment, and before he could even hear words exiting his own mouth in full clarity, he stepped forward to take charge, aiming with any hope to restore even the smallest modicum of order to the backstage area that had quickly become a volatile war zone.
"Get her out of here! My office, now! Keep someone on her 'til I say otherwise!"
If his voice took an unusual tone due to the fog in his head clouding his audible capabilities, it did little to deter the impact of his words - almost as soon as he'd finished spitting from the mouth, the staff surrounding the cause of this whole ruckus moved, almost in perfect synch, around the corner and out of sight, the girl disappearing alongside them.
Her departure, almost as if chemical in direct change, toned David's struggle down immensely. Shaking off the men who'd barely managed to restrain him to that point, he turned on a heel, pacing off away from the scene, hands on his hips, his animalistic rage reduced back to the spellbound lack of any perception he'd displayed moments earlier when she'd first stepped into his path. He defeatedly exhaled as he stopped in place, the onlookers who'd gathered left absolutely bewildered as if he'd simply just been shut off.
"David!"
Turning at the sound of his own name, David immediately meets eyes with Chris, shooting him a look that left Chris all too prepared to be put right back down to the concrete. David's assault, to the good fortune of Chris' well being, was entirely verbal this time around, and his brief moment of recuse did little to stifle the emotions that had clearly been stirred by this wrench that had been thrown into both men's evenings.
"What the f*ck was that?!"
"I was hoping you might be able to - "
"Thought it was on you to keep that sh*t from happenin'!"
"Come on, David, bring -"
"That's what you call talent relations?!"
"David, I don't even know what that was!!"
It wasn't like Chris Meyer to raise his voice - it simply wasn't in his character, nor did he find it a very effective way of communicating, as was evidenced, he thought, by how little ground David had managed to unearth in three brief exchanges thus far. David, who spent little time among the agents, seemed to know of Chris' reputation enough, as the heightened, agitated tone seemed to even briefly stifle his own outburst, at least so much that he didn't have an immediate recourse to continue his campaign of shouting down anyone who'd tried to get a word in. Instead, he looked away, huffing as he did so, before darting his eyes back at Chris, almost daring him to say the wrong thing or make the wrong move, but the reserved approach was all Chris needed to know that he now had his opening. He hadn't developed a reputation of holding his own in violent situations throughout his career in the WFWF, but he'd managed to figure out a thing or two about quelling them in short matter.
"Alright, then?"
"Sure..."
"You going to hit me again?"
"Ain't decided yet. Keep talkin'."
"I'll take what I can get. Let's go have a seat, huh? Figure all this out. C'mon - where'd you drop your stuff?"
End of the Road
"Please, don't do this..."
Meyer tossed a sideways look in her direction, his eyes following as he circled to her front as she froze in the frame of the door, sutured in place as if at the cusp of the tail end of some long and winding road upon which she'd traveled too far to only now be turned back without full realization of the ends to justify the means. She looked sad. Defeated. Pleading, and altogether desperate as the two members of security that had flanked them glanced in his direction, unwilling to make a move without explicit direction from the man they'd been charged to protect. He paused, seconds passing by like hours, before waving them along, indicating the pass card slung from his belt that would allow him access back into the facilities, allowing the door to shut behind them, the artificial lighting disappearing with the deafening thud of the steel doors closing.
Taking a lean of reprieve against the brick exterior of the building, he fished a half empty pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, drawing one in between his lips as he replaced the pack, scrambling now in his pants pocket for a lighter. Before striking the flame, he glanced back in the girl's direction, her gaze unwavering as she stood mere inches from where the shutting doors had forced her.
"You mind?"
Natalie, wide eyed and bewildered still, only shook her head as Chris lit his cigarette, taking a long, exasperated drag, staring out into the night sky before exhaling and sort of shaking his head to himself, having finally embraced a moment of quiet, even in the company of the instigator, to absorb and fully appreciate all that had just taken place.
"He's made his decision, you know. That's his call, not mine. You understand that, right?"
"You can help him...I can help him. Please, just..."
"It's not my call. If...look, if David wanted to get himself well, get cleaned up, I've got all the resources in the world to make that happen. And I would - that's what I do. What I don't do - rather, what I can't do - is tell David that he's going to get cleaned up. That's on him. I...I don't know why the people above my head saw fit to turn a blind eye to his blatant disregard to our wellness policy. Above my pay grade, I guess. Either way? They did. And that's that. It's not pretty. It's not helpful. Ask me? It's not right, but it's not my call.
"He's just a product to you. That's it, isn't it? Something you can sell? A name you can put on a t-shirt?"
It was Chris now who widened his eyes, maybe less than Natalie's look of bewilderment, but all the same. Unexpectedly, he dented the tension, chuckling at this remark as he took a seat along the ledge of a concrete planter, rocking back slightly, before looking back to meet Natalie's accusing eyes, still locked in place, almost unwilling to budge, lest she give an inch of distance against how far she'd come to this point.
"Did David ever talk to you - I mean, about all this? The business, what we do?"
This was the curve he needed to break her lack of focus and to steer the conversation in a more amicable direction. He saw the shift almost instantly - it was as if the question snapped some external hold on her, and suddenly her face dropped from a gaze of fog to an inquisitive calm. It was a trait he'd believed truly endeared him to his line of work - with enough time and the opportunity to get a word in, he felt he had the ability to break down conversational barriers with almost any sort of person at all.
Almost as if on cue, directed by some pre written script, she stepped gingerly toward his makeshift seat, not sitting herself but at the very least breaking the sort of trance she'd held herself in to that point.
"He...no. He didn't like to talk about it...said it didn't warrant discussion....I don't think he ever really liked being here - no offense...
"Heh, no, that sounds about right. You know, we see guys come through those doors, yeesh, almost weekly - new guys, that is. You can tell, the ones whose whole lives were some sort of roadmap designed to bring them here, and the ones who are just, well...here.
"David.
"Mmhmm. David. Shame, too. I don't know if you ever bothered to watch or follow, how much it grabbed your interest, but from my own standpoint? He was good. Damn good. If you don't mind me asking - what'd David do back home? Before all this?"
"For work? Whatever he could. Just...well, he could never catch that break, you know? His father, he was....well, he had his means, but David didn't want any part of that. He wanted to make his own way."
"Damn."
"He's a good person, really. He...geez, if you only knew - the Corps, the department..."
"I don't doubt it."
"Then why won't you help him?!"
"It's Natalie, is it?"
"Mmhmm."
"Right, Natalie. Look, I don't tell you these things - the people we see, the potential David had...has...for my health. If David wanted to - really wanted to - he'd run this place. Hook, line, and sinker, alright? He'd need a pay raise just to check his bags at the airport because of all the extra weight he'd be carrying around. Those belts aren't light. God as my witness, alright? I wish I could explain it better, but just go with the fact that I know - I can tell. If David Brennan wanted it, David Brennan would have it - but he doesn't. It's a two sided equation. Solve X for X. And, yeah, sad to say, that same sort of inequality goes for the negative side of the coin too. If David wanted to be better, he'd get better. But he isn't, 'cause he doesn't. I don't relish having to be this blunt, but I mean...this makes sense, right?"
"You've told him this?"
"In as much as he'd allow. Not much of a talker if he isn't in the mood, is he?"
It was Natalie now who took her turn to finally crack a smile, chuckling a bit, even as a tear streamed down her cheek. He pained for her, even if only just. David's proclivities made his job altogether more weathering than, say, a green kid fresh off the indies who needed a crash course in the way the big leagues were run. Some of the agents he shared halls with weren't so wont to acknowledge the emotional side of their work, but Chris was staunch in his belief that their job was next to impossible without some degree of emotional connection. As such, he could only just begin to imagine the agony waging a war within Natalie's heart. Nothing is quite as defeating as being told you tried your best but that your best would never be good enough unless the variables over which your exercise no control shift to change themselves.
"Should have known this'd be another fool's errand..."
"Can't knock yourself for trying. Between you and me? I'd count that son of a b*tch lucky there's a soul walking this Earth that thinks of him the way you do. Takes a good heart to look past an endless sky of black to the morning after far past the horizon. Guess you can't be all that bad."
"You won't press charges?"
"Natalie, I've been to just about every major metropolitan area in this great country of ours. I've seen a lot of things, but I haven't ever seen a local jurisdiction with as slow a response time as you and I've been sitting here chatting."
Humbled by the gesture of generosity, she looks down toward the ground, ashamed perhaps for the first time this evening over the entire manner in which she tried to go about reaching the unteachable.
"Let's you and I make ourselves a deal, yeah? You seem like one of the last good people left on Earth, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say most anyone I've called a friend is severely lacking in that whole humanity department. I can't have you jumping barriers at every waking turn, but look - this is my card. Second number's the cell, and since your beau in there is apparently going to require some advanced supervision, I imagine that'd be the best manner of reaching me nine times out of ten. Head on home, alright? Try and sort out what you need to do to get by, and if you ever need yourself an update, need to know how the big man is doing, shoot me a line. Might take me a day or two, but I'll fill you in alright? Off the record - probably best for all involved if the man in question is left in the dark on this one. Deal?"
"You'll keep him safe?"
"Best I can. Afraid my ring days are over but..."
"No, no, I know. Thank you."
"Alright then. I mean, hey - he's done it once right? It's like they say - anything can happen in the WFWF."
She couldn't help but crack a smile once more with a roll of her eyes as Chris smiled back, swiping his card at the door and offering a friendly wave as he disappeared once more into the cavernous expanse of the arena. As the doors shut behind him, the smile quickly vanished, and once more Natalie found herself alone, stranded in a strange and unfamiliar place, the burden of failure weighing upon her shoulders as she wondered how she could come so far, only to give in to resigned defeat, knowing David was mere meters away, separated from her side by the seemingly immaterial barrier is distance and brick. Turning to face the street, she sighed, pocketing Meyer's card as the glanced in all directions, contemplating which one led to her next lot in life.
Opportunity
"Opportunity's a funny word, innit?
Now, I'm not the advice givin' type. Ain't gonna find no young guns twenty years down the line spittin' a buncha sh*t about how David Brennan stepped in and altered the direction of their career - not in the traditional sense, at least. That ain't my scene and this place ain't big enough for two vile sons of b*tches the likes that would follow in my footsteps. Still...I think I know what's on your mind, Dachs.
Sh*t, you've been poised, kid. You know what it would mean to knock a piece of sh*t like me off my pedestal? F*ck, if you can't picture that sh*t, get out the business, y'know? Let's just take stock for a second, yeah? 2016 alone, even - Penny couldn't do it. Whitner couldn't do it. Nitta couldn't do it. Crowe couldn't do it. He won't do it again. Dex couldn't do it. That's a short list, but it really makes you wonder, huh?
What if Maxwell Dachs could do it?
You wanna talk about Dachselmania?
All it's gonna take is that one...two...three. Ring of the bell. Your music hits.
Dachselmania runs wild!
Come on.
You're smarter than that, right?
You know how this story ends, don't you?
Look, I don't doubt that you're a mean fist, Max. You don't walk into this joint without being able to swing some sh*t in a fight. Hell, I bet there's a mother f*cker or two out back there you could knock right the f*ck out, and any other night? I'd be primed to watch that sh*t. The problem with guys like you though? In a place like this? You buy the narrative. You've been fed a line about how you're standing on the cusp of some big, bad opportunity and all it takes from you is the effort of puttin' down ol' David Brennan. Sounds easy enough, right? Sh*t, you been takin' notes? Got that list of names up there?
I mean, look, I guess weirder sh*t has happened, right? I get that - don't forget, I am a Boston kid. 'Anything is possible', all that nonsense. Maybe you're the one, right? Come out the gate swingin', pull a stroke of luck that a thousands hands before you weren't able to grasp, and you get the jump on me, right? In theory, I guess you could write that story any way you wanna slice it. Like, I'm not much for sports analogies, but there's, what? Thirty f*ckin' teams, some sh*t like that? Maybe the odds swing way off course and Cleveland rides it all the way to February and brings home a couple diamond studded hunks of steel to brighten up that sideways sh*thole of a city. Ain't statistically likely, but in theory, it could happen. Maybe it ain't so bad after all, Max.
Find me the bookie takin' those odds.
See, before you go gettin' yourself a big ol' head and gearin' up to ride this big non-victory right into the golden shower contendership, think about what opportunity really means to you, in the shoes you currently find yourself in. Is it really the chance to 'usurp' a path of destruction and ride the wave of momentum all the way to the top, or are you maybe being afforded the once in a lifetime chance to step aside, save your f*ckin' breath, and live to fight another day?
Heh.
I ain't known for bein' the most generous son of a b*tch around here Maxwell, but just this once, I'ma hand you the answer on this one.
This match, as it stands, isn't your opportunity, unless, of course, your end result goal is a one and done beatin' of a lifetime that leaves you at the very bottom of a f*ckin' pile of men better than you who've stepped up and failed to get the job done. In that sense? Step right up, here's you chance, but I'm guessing, crazy as it sounds, that you didn't come here lookin' to serve as my personal f*ckin' treadmill. That really leaves only one option, less I'm losin' my sense of the one-two-threes.
See, there's certain inevitabilities in life. The sky is blue. Grass is green. Drakz is a f*ckin' tit. You look like a frat house bag of douche. Y'know? Not so variables. Dex was a paper champion. Lucas Crowe's reign as champion is tied to a f*ckin stopwatch. Sh*t like that. In that sense, you've got a real opportunity to alter the entire f*ckin' narrative. As it stands - you step into the ring at Defiance, you're gonna get your ass beat. Plain as day. Blue sky. Green grass.
But you have a choice.
Step aside.
Save your breath.
Live to fight another day.
I got no problem beatin' your ass from here 'til the end of time - check your notes and call any last one of 'em, I'm sure they're willin' to share, but, y'know, all this talk of Golden Opportunities, change in the air, I guess I'm just feelin' generous.
So what's it gonna be, Max?"
Requiem
"What are you running from?"
The downpour of a pop-up thunderstorm pelted David's face as he tore through the city streets, turning on a heel every time he saw a road that looked to lead further out from any semblance of civilization. With each turn, the light that shined through the black of night and the sudden onset of rain dimmed further and further from sight, and before long, he found himself on what could only be the outskirts of town - still populated, still occupied, but less so. The expanse of an industrial park afforded less opportunity to be hounded by the presence of others - strangers, fans, agents, lovers - and he slowed, perhaps intentionally, perhaps as a side effect of fatigue, before finally collapsing in a heap alongside a field of sun burnt, dead thatch. He rolled to his side, dirt caking his face as his chest heaved, and for the first time in seemingly ever since he first re-indulged his weakness for the bottle, his stomach buckled, and David vomited in a most violent and turbulent fashion, before letting his head fall to a rest amid the dirt and gravel upon which he'd landed.
"Pathetic."
"F*ck you."
"And predictable. Tell me, is this how you'd always envisioned it? The triumphant demise of David Brennan? It's not exactly a blaze of glory, is it?"
"F*CK YOU!!!"
"Look, if this isn't a good time, I can leave. All you've got to do is say the word."
"You're not even real. You're...f*ck...you're supposed to be dead..."
"Then why are you wasting your breath?! Jesus Christ, David, look at the state of you. You call yourself a Brennan? Help me out with something here - I'm having a real hard time with this one."
"Oh yeah?"
"It's troubling, really, but tell me - at what point did I begin raising you to be a complete f*cking idiot?"
"Get f*cked..."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
David pulled himself to a sitting position, wiping a hot mess of bile and dirt from his chest, the pouring rain doing well enough to act as an impromptu shower to rid him of the rest of the esophageal contents he'd just managed to spew all over himself. Reeling almost instantly from the change in position, he hurled himself backward, landing with no sense of grace head first against a marking stone set along the road to act as a natural barrier between development and open land.
"Didn't think so. See, I know I'm right. I always am. Unlike you, I'm not beholden to the alternative voice of some piss warm vile at the bottom of some month old bottle. You haven't managed to drown me out with that sh*t yet, and unlike the last soul on earth that could ever give a rat's ass about the likes of someone like you, you can't throw some suit at me or run off into the night and try to escape me, so the way I see it, the guy lying in a heap of his own puke and dirt's really only got two choices, right? He could, oh, I don't know, grow half a pair, buck up and listen to that dwindling voice of reason he can't seem to booze away, or he can stay there and become another in memoriam package at the start of next year's award show. What's it gonna be, David?"
"God, I f*ckin' hate you..."
"Telling, isn't it? The man you hate more than life itself draws his last breath, and you dance in the moonlight whilst burying him atop some overpriced hill in Mount Cavalry only to have the bitter old bastard manifest himself as - Christ Almighty - your voice of conscience and reason?! I suppose the miracle that you're still with us at all is greater than we could have possibly imagined."
Having heard quite enough, David hauled down with all his might, trying to push the earth away so that he might walk away from all this as he'd done so many times before, but inexplicably, perhaps by some unnatural force or some as yet unknown injury sustained in his own roadside spill, he found himself bound to the earth, as if someone had suddenly driven their heel into the back of his neck, deliberately holding him in place there against the dirt and the bile.
"Ah, ah, ah! Not so fast, kiddo. Time for running's 'bout come to an end. You've got yourself a choice to make."
"Yeah? And what's that?"
"Jesus, I really did raise an invalid, didn't I? Did you ever stop to wonder why the angel on your shoulder appears to you in the form of the biggest piece of sh*t that ever lived?"
"Least you admit it..."
"Your words, not mine - remember? Christ, David - doesn't it say anything to you about just how far down the well you've fallen that the only semblance of a conscience you've got left is some rat bastard, murdering, maligning, not to mention DEAD son of a b*tch? You know what? Maybe you'd be better off..."
"Better off?"
"Dead. Done. Over with. Right there, where you lie. I mean, if you can't see it, what's the point? Just say the word, and I'll leave you to it, but Christ, would you give it a second look?!"
"It? What the f*ck is 'it'?"
"Good god...it! The situation you're in - the road? The puke? The -"
"Not that, assh*le - it. I can't see it. What's that all about?"
"You're serious?"
"Dead."
"David...you've spent the better part of three decades wasting carbon. You draw air that better men who've come and gone could be breathing in your place. These little spurts of light in your life? The good things you've done? The marines, the fire department thing? Tokens. Trifles. Too little, too late - not good enough. You're a Brennan, through and through. You don't need me to tell you that by token of sheer existence, that makes you the worst of the worst. You'd turn no heads and leave no shocked expressions if your very next breath were your last and you simply ceased to exist right here on the side of some godforsaken road in who the hell even knows where. You've let down every last soul that ever placed any faith in you, you're a legacy that your mother will never live down and I've only managed to stifle by being the very worst me that I can be, and quite frankly, the sun'd shine a whole lot brighter tomorrow morning if you'd just step aside and let some other willing soul take a whack at this whole meaning of life thing."
"That...wow, that's a hell of a eulogy Jack."
As if on cue, an eighteen wheeler barreled down the side of the road, passing within inches of David's face as he recoiled, sprayed by the force of thousands of little bits of gravel pelting him like shots from a well poised firing squad. The force was enough to send him reeling, recoiling on his back as the truck disappeared beyond the horizon and out of sight.
"You dumb son of a b*tch! Can't you put it together?! You're the most rotten piece of sh*t walking this earth and there's a girl back there that still thinks you're the greatest thing since the death of Shawn Malakai! God, dammit! The bane of stupidity just doesn't end with you, does it! Thirty years, you've walked this earth, offering nothing in return! You've never been good at anything or good FOR anything, and all at once the world of opportunity falls face first, mouth agape into your lap, and you run away from it! For the first time in your godforsaken life you've found yourself good at something and you treat it just like every other venture in life - like a joke. The state you're in? You'll get your ass handed right back to you by another god damned rookie, and don't even act like it hasn't happened before. You're nothing! You're no one! And that's how you're about to die because you've been so preoccupied with escaping the shadow I've cast over your life that you've fallen deeper into the darkness of depravity than I could have ever hoped to have seen!"
"Sh*t, that was beautiful Jack."
"Your words, not mine. Time's up, kid."