[The Good Shepherds]

The Aftermath
Golden Ring Casino, Las Vegas, NV 5/23/2021


Pain.

I’m not sure if that’s the right word to describe it.  I can feel the sting of my father’s arm as I brush past him.  Not that he hit me, but his touch inspires so much resentment, rage, anguish, that every nerve in my arm tingles, burns, and reminds me that he touched me just seconds ago.  Like an electrical current running straight up my arm, into my chest, and then shooting through every inch of my body.  The burn is stronger than anything I’ve felt in the last couple of years.

I see myself tucked in a public bathroom stall, pressed against the door of the stall, and for the life of me, I don’t even remember coming in here.  My breaths are hard and shallow, and my face is dripping wet.  Tears.  Anxiety.  Blood.  Sweat.  And it is so cold that I can’t even manage to feel my face beyond the breeze of air flow against my cheeks.  I look around, becoming aware of my surroundings.  I stare down at the strangely luxurious toilet in front of me, and I fall to my knees.  Some taste comes over my entire mouth, and I begin retching.

Him.  Fenris.  The White Wolf.  Kristjan Blatasarsson.  The bane of my existence at the moment.  I taste him like a toxic poison that floods my mouth, washed away only by the bile, until the bile stops, and then it’s him that I taste once more.  Even though it is only seconds, it feels like I’ll never be able to wash this disgustingly sweet taste out of my mouth.  And I’m dead set on being resentful about it.  Once I get a grip of my stomach, and my heart rate slows just enough, I listen for the silence in the restroom.  I step out of the stall and walk over to the sink.

I can’t even bare to look at myself in the mirror.  I turn on the water and I spit.  Blood.  Bile. Remnants of the day’s breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries.  I wait a second and study it as it goes down the drain, and then I lean down and splash water into my mouth to wash it all away.  I clean my face up, the splashes of cold water burn more than anything until I seem to have washed it away.  I pat my face with paper towels until it is dry.  I can hear the crowd out in the venue, and it brings it all flooding back.  I can’t be here.  I can’t be anywhere.

I am quick when I go to the locker room.  I keep my head down, but all of the eyes are on me.  All of the whispers.  “The kiss” is the topic of the week.  Not the pure hell Fenris and I just put each other through with the most violent non-hardcore match on the show so far.  I just pull my jeans on over my boots and tights.  I half button up my shirt, grab my bag, and I leave.  On my way out of the venue, I quickly buy a GRIME mask to cover my face.  Ironically, it’s red.  I pull it over my face and turn it on, and I just walk.

Around the hotel, which is mostly empty as people are still at the Into the Void X event, I find some piece of mind.  I pace back and forth in the hallway in front of the fountain.  My hands go into my hair as I do so.  My emotions are arbitrary.  Hate.  Love.  Rage. Peace. Sadness. Manic.  So interchangeably that I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.  The pacing continues until I spot Virginia Mae Putnam and my mother coming down the elevator through the glass.  Mother is still in her wheelchair, and Ginny is down to one crutch now, but her face is pained more than I can bare.  I rush through the lobby and out onto the streets before they can even see me.

I’m not even sure why, but I stop and buy a pack of cigarettes for the first time in 6 years.  I walk down the Strip with a cigarette constantly burning between my lips.  Each cloud of smoke exhaled seems to relieve just a small piece of my mental anguish.  All the way until I arrive at the Las Vegas chapter of The Church of the Good Shepherds.  I walk inside after unlocking the chain.  I go straight to the steps to the altar, and I fall upon my knees.  Sobbing, begging, repenting as hard as I can.  If anyone were to be listening in, I guarantee they wouldn’t know what I was saying.  Heck, I barely did.

I look up at our savior on the cross before me, and through the wavering in vision caused by the tears, I see Him clear as day.  He stares back at me, judging me, filling me with even more self hatred.  There is nothing about mercy in that stare.  No forgiveness.  One might say this is because it’s a statue, a piece of wood, painted.  But there was definitely a reaction.  Disappointment isn’t the answer.  Rage.  Hatred.  A desire for pain and anguish, as if I haven’t been feeling enough of that.

The only thing I can think to do is to reach under the stairs and pull out dad’s old kit.  I grab the first thing I can, which happens to be a whip with glass embedded into it.  I clench my eyes closed as I whip it at my own back, feeling the sting of release.  The bloodletting as atonement for my sins.  I go once more.  And again.  And again.  Until I start to feel better, which doesn’t come.  I still see the judgment, the resentment from the Lord before me.  I can almost hear a roar.

”More…. More…. MORE!”

It isn’t divine or angelic.  It is straight up demonic.  I approach the statue, blood dripping down my back and through my ripped shirt.  The horns protruding through the head of my Lord, and fire filling his eyes.  I approach it slowly.  With each step, I’m flooded with a memory.  More pain.  More whippings.  More burnings.  More electrocutions.  The last was the worst, and the demon in this statue knows that.

BZZZZZZZZ!

My eyes whirl around in my head for a moment.  I almost lose my balance.  The blueish white currents dancing around in my eyes, disturbing my vision as I look over at Dax being cattle prodded.  But I catch my balance and I take another step.  His brown eyes, tears welling up in the corners, out of concern for me more than his own pain.  And the tears welling up in mine for the same reason, that only makes the dancing currents more intense.

Through the vision of the past, the anger builds up even more inside of me.  Each forced flashback of the torture that I endured just for being myself builds a barrier.  I growl back at the statue as we are met with a battle of will.  The attempts at reminding me of my own personal hell mount, but so does my resistance.  The same resistance that couldn’t hold up to the lips of Fenris, I am reminded of by the evil within this statue.  I feel it’s wrath radiating,  tearing at my nerves, but I do not stop until I wrap the whip around the neck of this demonized version of my Lord, and I choke it.  I scream at it as I feel the electricity flowing through my head, the flaying of my back, the burning on the flesh of my groin, the shocks of the cattle prods in my ribs.  And it all causes me to do one thing.  I pull on the statue, tugging on it until I can hear the plaster behind it crackling and falling to dust on the floor underneath it.  I only pull harder, and harder yet, until it comes crashing down to the ground.  I light the candelabra one wick at a time before pushing it over on top of the statue.  My memories continue to haunt me, but with the demonic roar escaping from the crucifix, it doesn’t hurt me physically anymore.  Only mentally, leaving me no better off than when I came in.  Perhaps with an arson charge on top of it.

But watching it burn only brings me a little piece of mind.  I was no longer fighting the war of my father.  I was fighting my own war now, and it was completely internal.  Undoing a lot of what was done to me was going to be hard, but it was the only way for me to truly figure it all out.  Being my authentic self was only the first step.  And whatever may come from my burning alive in this building, let it come.

I watch as the flames spread like wildfire, and the demonic roar coming from the statue only serves to bring me to my knees before them.  I feel the warmth consuming me, and it’s not a bad feeling like most would think.  Instead, I bow down before them, a wicked smile spreading across my face.  Is this really me, or has the demon wormed it’s way into my soul? It’s really hard to tell.




Revelations (Part 6)
Church of the Good Shepherds (Las Vegas Chapter); 6/4/2021


The aftermath of my mental breakdown wasn’t as horrible as I had thought it would be.  The statue was charred, yet still whole.  Flames flicked against the walls, leaving their mark, but no structural damage was done.  Burn marks scatter across the floor, but there was some sort of force protecting this place.  Sure, there is still that distinct smell of smoke wafting throughout the place, but we don’t have to close it for very long.  That’s good news to my father, I’d assume.  But part of me wanted to watch this place burn to the ground.

Flashbacks of the fire dance through my head as I look around.  Watching them all around me.  Especially when I look at the floor and see where I was kneeling.  There is a perfect circle of undamaged flooring, surrounded by whipping burn marks.  As if I were being protected.  I think back to seeing the flames come for me, but they can’t touch me.  Only the smoke.  Filling my lungs, causing me to cough, and eventually pass out.  But, before that… how did I get out?  I remember a pair of hands reaching through the flames, dragging me across the floor.  But, when I think back, I can’t see a face, or even a form.  Blinded by the light of the flames, I see nothing but the hands.

I snap back to reality when I look down to see the buckets of paint for the walls, and the sander, buffer, and stains for the floor.  Afterall, this was my domain.  I had my father’s blessing to open this chapter of the church, and I am known to these patrons as Father David, unless in the presence of Father Gerald, out of respect only.  Therefore, my father doesn’t know about this situation, and he does not need to.  I will restore this place on my own.  This is my sin, and this is what I am signalled to do to repent.

I pick up one of the paint cans and I put it on one of the rows of pews.  I pry the top off and I begin to stir it.  Of course, I wanted a camera here for this, so I finally acknowledge that it is rolling.

Me:  Do you know what’s funny?

I wait for a response from the cameraman, but I don’t get one right away.  After some hesitation, he answers.

Cameraman:  Looking around, I don’t see anything funny about this.  I’m sorry for this happening to you.

I shake my head, because this isn’t at all where I was going.  I continue stirring, almost as if channeling my anger through that stick, like churning butter.  Once I’m satisfied, I give the stick a few swats against the bucket.

Me:  Really?  I think the whole thing is funny.  The fact that I was driven insane by one simple action.  The fact that this action served as the only thing people will actually remember about Into the Void.  The kiss that launched a thousand ships.  I never got that expression until just now.  It wasn’t about beauty, or power.  It was about jealousy achieved by those two things, at least I thought.  But now?  On the precipice of what I just found out is an entire month dedicated to such acts, I’ve launched hundreds of Twitterers into a frenzy.  People can’t stop talking about it.  “The Shepherd who was led astray.” they say…

I chuckle.  Of course I chuckle, because it’s ironic.  Something I worked so hard to build just comes tumbling down in a misdirected lashing out of buried emotions, like a zombie reaching out from the grave and grabbing onto Fenris.  I tried to kill it so much that it became undead and primal.

Me:  Isn’t that funny?  Even in the slightest?

Again, the cameraman doesn’t speak.  Only this time, it’s not a delay, it’s flat out ignorant in nature.  I don’t take offense though.  Instead, I pick up a paintbrush and begin to paint.

Me:  Nevertheless, this event has changed the way I look at life.  I’m questioning so many things.  A near death experience will do that to someone.  I’m questioning the rationale of literally everything.  What’s real?  What’s manipulation from demonic forces?  Can love be wicked and evil?  Can hate be pure as snow?  Lies are true, and truths are lies.  Nothing is what it seems anymore.  Am I mad as a hatter?  Am I sane as… well, what exactly is sane anymore?

I dip the brush back into the paint, and I begin stroking across the wall in a nonsensical fashion.  I feel myself getting angry, but my face is smiling.

Me:  “And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” Hmmm… “How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think…” Indeed. “Curiouser and curiouser!” this entire thing becomes.

Cameraman:  Are you alright?  What’s going on?

I turned back to the camera, my lips curled into a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat.  The paintbrush drips onto the floor as I slowly walk closer.

Me: “I'm afraid i can't explain myself sir. because i am not myself you see.”  I’ve gone down the rabbithole, and I can’t find my way back out.  Up is down, and down is up here.  Nothing makes sense, yet everything is sensical.  Blips of my past are becoming part of my present.  In just a few short days, I will have Butterfly Effected my way back to former Internet Champion, Agostino Romano.  What a story that was, and will be.

I turn again, silently, and begin to paint a patch of the wall.  I continue to see the char marks bleeding through the paint, as if I can never escape them.

Me:  I fell victim to Agostino once before.  And I’d bet my bottom dollar that he thinks it will happen again.  He likely sees it like he’s witnessed my moves.  He knows when I will punch, kick, Clothesline, Ray of Light.  And under any other circumstance, I would say that it’s true. And if, by chance, he didn’t see what happened at Into the Void X, and since he has no Twitter presence, nor a peek into my personal life since, I could easily see his logic.

These damned spots won’t go away, so I begin painting harder, as if that will somehow make it better instead of worse.  I bang my head against the wall a few times before resting it there, and turning slightly.

Me:  I’m not going to sit here and say that my opponent is trash.  I do not view myself as trash, so why would I call him such?  He did beat me, fair and square, inside of the ring.  I’m not trying to be a nice guy, but instead a logical one, as much as I can right now.  He beat me, and frankly, it wasn’t hard.  I’m embarrassed by that fact, and I would be regardless of who it was that treated me as such inside of that ring.  I didn’t step up to SCW to have everyone run roughshod over me.  I’ve had the occasional victory over O’Malley, a current champion.  Bill Barnhart, another current champion.  Lincoln Daniels.  I’ve got nothing to say about that one… I’m oh and one with Agostino.  And I’m man enough to admit that.  And in a few short days, it’s very likely that I’ll be oh and two.

I shrug my shoulders as I turn away from the wall.  Paint sticks to my forehead and the side of my face. It is on my shoulder, down part of my upper arm.  I drop the paintbrush and start walking toward the camera, and the cameraman slowly backs away with each forward step that I take.

Me:  But this time, it will not be from a lack of trying.  It won’t be because I held back.  If I lose, I can bow down and accept that defeat.  But, whose to say that I won’t just beat the living fuck out of him, causing a disqualification?  I’m certainly not above doing that right now.  A loss, but a street justice victory.  Win-win.  I’m not myself right now, so one could not blame me for losing my cool.  My entire match against Fenris was fueled by rage.  I got inside of his head, and I played around until I got lost in it.  It turns out I’m really good at cerebral torture.  I wonder where I got that from.

My grin returns, more wicked than ever.  Of course, I am speaking of my father, and the hellfire he has dragged me through over the last 20 something years.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.  A little chuckle precedes my next words.

Me:  Since evil is kind, and good is unmerciful, I feel comfortable admitting that I like it.  I shudder to think of what I’m truly capable of inside of that ring.  As disgusting as it might seem, I like it.  And if all else fails, at least I showed this new level of brutality inside of the ring.  Finding more creative ways to inflict pain, being more inventive in the process.  It’s truly invigorating to think about.

I dip my fingers into the paint and slowly begin to drag them across the wall.  The camera follows me, even though I really just wish they would stay in place.

Me:  What is not fun to think about is the fact that people think I am distracted.  I’m not distracted at all.  If anything, I’m hyper focused on my in-ring work.  My performance inside of that ring is my distraction from all of the things I’d rather not think about.  Yes, the kiss.  Yes, the impact it has on my standing in The Church of the Good Shepherds.  Yes, the failed engagement.  Yes, literally everything BUT my upcoming match.  I can confidently say that Agostino will be in for a real treat when we come face to face with one another.  All hope of an easy match flies right out of the window.  If he’s going to win, he’s going to have to work at least three times as hard as he did last time, because of the hyper focus.  You’re my distraction, Agostino, but not in a good way, my friend.  Not at all.  So go ahead and tell me that you’re ready for what’s to come.  Tell me about how you are going to beat me.  Tell me how you’re going to get inside of my head, because neither one of us is pretty, but you’re pretty enough to give the Fenris treatment to.  The accent.  The “real dude” look.  I dig it.  I’ve done things only Fenris could dream of with a guy like you, and…

I glare at the camera.  I begin to quiver at the thought of a brief yet intimate interaction with Romano, but my impulses are instantly affected by the conversion therapy, and I begin to shudder in pain.  I hunch over and take a deep breath as I hold myself steady on one of the pews.  I then growl and begin throwing the paint and the stain across the chapel area.  It bursts and splashes everywhere.  I find myself grabbing onto the sides of my head, my eyes clenching closed.  I sink down the wall, and the paint and stain drips down my entire body, but I can’t find it in me to even care about that.  Only the pain radiating through my fucking skull, burning at my brain.  I feel one of the empty paint cans roll against my leg, and I violently kick it away, causing it to splatter the remnants once again.  As my eyes open, I see the cameraman right on me, focusing in.

Me:  I’m FINISHED HERE!!!

I push him away, and that’s where the camera feed ends.  For fuck’s sake, it should have ended much sooner.  I couldn’t even muster up the train of thought to come to an actual conclusion.  Instead, the thought of kissing my opponent was enough to make me go haywire.  But, it could be my key to mental warfare, and to winning this match.  Either way, this is where the story ends, for now. Tune in next time for another edition of “David Shepherd’s Fucked Up Life”.