“Good morning, everyone, this is Dave Alverez with Wrestlegab radio, and we are on the phone with the most recent SCW signee, Chloe Benton who is scheduled to make her debut this Sunday against another recent addition to the Bombshell roster in Adrienne Beaufort. Now technically a rookie the same as you Adrienne is a graduate of the notorious Go gym and has access to experienced trainers, managers and sparring partners. Do you have anything particular in mind to help you deal with this advantage of hers?”
It is just another lazy Monday afternoon in the cafeteria of Quannah McCall elementary school. Children grateful for the reprieve from the doldrums of study hustle about to and from the buffet style line, filling their trays with whatever appeals to their eyes, in this case spaghetti and meatballs with garlic breadsticks and the obligatory soda from a red and black automated dispenser emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo. Leaving the line they meander in between plastic picnic style tables in search of a suitable place to sit, preferably with friends, their sneakers squeaking against the freshly polished white tile floor. The chirping of their shoes intermingles with the high-pitched squeal of excited voices happily discussing their after-school plans, reverberating off the ivory hued cinderblock walls creating a makeshift echo chamber. Stationed against the far wall, several teachers line up, some leaning against the wall, and others simply folding their arms across their chests while they watch their charges mingle.
Paul Bunton, a balding, middle-aged man unimpressively decked out in a simple purple button up with grey sport jacket and matching jeans stifles a yawn, not much interested in the goings on within the cafeteria. Still, he has a job to do and attentively scans the crowd trying to locate each of his 19 students. Most are seated in proximity, with one group, the would-be athletes, assuming there is such a thing in the sixth grade having pushed their tables together. Twelve in all they playfully banter back and forth, five girls and seven boys. Cheerleaders, football players and basketball players, all of them school standouts having showed a precociousness for their chosen extracurricular activities. Scanning further along the aisle he spots another group seated together, six in all. He quickly identifies them as his academic standouts. Quieter than the rest they hover over textbooks, making use of the free time to catch up on their studies. No horseplay, no shouting, just staid concentration on the material laid out beside their mis-matched plastic food trays. He exhales another sigh, running his weathered hand through a thinning scalp. 18 have been accounted for laving one. Scanning further, his bespectacled eyes tightening under the intense glare of the ceiling mounted lights he spies a small, lone figure, seated by herself. Devouring the spaghetti, the loner pauses to wipe her mouth with a paper napkin, collecting the refuse from the corners of her lips and then takes a swig of what appears to be Coke to wash it down.
He recognizes the tender light brown tresses cascading down the middle of her back, accentuated by the gold-colored San Francisco 49ers football jacket. Chloe Benton the outcast of the bunch. A young girl with some serious problems who had already been held back a year. While the faculty attributed her problems to simple inattentiveness, Paul was not so sure. He believed there to be an underlying problem, perhaps something to do with her home life causing the issue with her schoolwork. While he looks on his mind attempts to wade deeper into the black hole of the youngster’s past, and he fails to notice a trio of his ‘athletes’ craning their heads collectively in Chloe’s direction while speaking in a decidedly more subdued manner. The trio rises from the table with their friends looking on offering encouragement as they approach the solitary girl who now has her face buried in a magazine.
“Hey there Clusterfuck”, a tall, black girl, a member of the basketball team named Denise Fry speaks up nudging the nonresponsive Chloe’s head with her hand. “Whatcha reading?” It’s just a wrestling magazine”, she replies softly, not bothering to meet the Cheshire-like gaze of her school mates. “And call me Chloe please”. Stepping beside Denise a boy sporting a sun-lit blonde crew cut reaches down and jerks the magazine from her grasp. “You don’t mind if we take a look, do you?” he asks in a non-rhetorical tone. Finally, she turns in her seat to face the trio but does not rise from it. The feathered bangs of her undulating tawny mane falling just below a pair of arced brows, masking her perturbance. “Give it back please?” Chloe asks in a soft, almost demure inflection. The trio ignores her plea, flipping through the pages of the periodical, cracking offhand jokes amongst themselves before returning their attention back to still seated Chloe. “You like watching fat guys dance in their underwear, don’t you?” Denise quips, nudging the third member of the trio, a shorter brown-haired boy sporting a wiry frame whom she recognized as Keith, another member of the football team. On queue Keith takes the magazine from Denise and holds it up high, taunting Chloe who has now risen from her seat. “You want it back?” he teases, holding it up high. Much shorter than the mirthic misfits she tries to no avail to reclaim her property, jumping as high as she can, her plain white sneakers squeaking against the tile upon landing. Another attempt is made without success before Denise snatches the magazine from her friend and takes it into both hands holding it directly in front of Chloe’s face. The smaller girl tries again but the bigger girl is faster and hoists it out of reach before tearing it into pieces. Tossing the shredded remains on the floor the group starts to laugh, high fiving one another.
With tears welling in her chocolate frosted orbs Chloe cries out and angrily lunges at Denise “That was mine, you bitch!” With her fingers extended like talons she slashes at the big girl’s face, but Denise blocks the attempt and responds with a swift right hook catching her target square on the jaw. The force of the blow sends Chloe reeling and she crashes onto the table atop the scattered remnants of her food. The impact causes the cheap plastic to break sending Chloe and her meal to the floor landing in a tangled heap. Before Denise can pursue her assault, it is broken up by several teachers who physically place themselves between the children forcing them apart. Chloe’s teacher Paul Bunton kneels to gather the sobbing victim as security rushes in to whisk away the combatants.
Suffering from anxiety Chloe has long been acquainted with adversity, be it verbal, emotional, physical or even internal. Classified as a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness the disorder tends to creep into every facet of the individual’s life from the mundane to the extraordinary and is known to manifest itself in a variety of ways including difficulty breathing in more severe cases, to feeling weak or tired physically, to trembling and shaking and even stuttering in social settings. To the afflicted it is an omnipresent disorder which can consume the thought processes of an individual by whole, a collapsed star that takes everything with it leaving nothing but rubble in it’s wake.
“I – I’m sorry, I was d – distracted”, she offers as a subdued form of apology. “B – but yeah, s – she h – has all of th – these p – p – people to help her a – and other stuff but like M – Mike Tyson said… I forget when… I – I think it was him… anyway h – he said e – everybody has a plan until they get punched I – in the face. So, I – I don’t know, maybe A – Adri – Adri- she can b – beat me up, b – but I’m going to be t – trying to win too…”
An audible groan, while soft and low key is detected by the subject emanating from the other end of the conversation, she says nothing, allowing the thoughts fluttering about her mind to converge as birds into a flock and retreat into the sanctuary of the nest tucked away within her deeper consciousness.
Her cheek stinging, Chloe raises her right arm while sliding along the cold alabaster tile floor or her family’s kitchen to defend from a second blow. Her efforts are in vain as the arm is gripped by the fleshy claw of her stepmother, a hulking, heavyset woman in her mid-thirties who relentlessly stalks the girl and violently pulls her back to her feet by the hair only to send her crashing back onto the unforgiving surface with another stinging slap which reverberates throughout the low - rent three-bedroom apartment.
“What on Earth possessed you to start a fight at school?” The seething bear-like woman demands while closing the gap to her prey. “This family has enough problems without you adding to them!”
“I – I – I’m sorry m – momma!” the fawn wails plaintively, her cries unheard by outside world, safely separated by the concrete walls of the single-story dwelling. “D – Denise… Denise t – t - t – tore up my m – magazine and I g – got mad. I – I’m sorry momma, p – p – p – please don’t hurt m – me!”
With the fawn desperately flailing about the bear raises her arm once more, moving in for the kill, but the lamentations prove too strident prompting her to turn to another member of the household Janice, her daughter by a previous marriage looking on from the adjacent living room. Snarling at the eldest of the two half – siblings she commands the dark-haired young woman of about 16 to turn up the television set in hopes of drowning the noise.
“I’ll show you mad!”
Muffled musings can be discerned on the other end of the call but try as she may Chloe can make no sense of them. To her, someone may as well be finger drumming the device. Patiently she waits, strumming her delicate digits to the muted beat of an earworm. After several quiescent minutes her reverie is broken by the cracked voice of the moderator.
“Forgive us for the delay, “he offers in a disingenuous tone while clearing his throat. She surmises that he is more interested in deflecting potential hearsay with an excuse than in the truth. “We were having some technical difficulties on our end, but we have them worked out now. Continuing with our conversation, Chloe, how do you see your match against The French Rose playing out? Adrienne, like yourself, is a rookie, but in addition to the advantages afforded by her team at Go gym she also holds black belts in both Judo and Karate. How do you plan on countering such a unique style?”
“I – I’m not sure j – just y – yet...,” she stammers. “I – I mean her style – style is a l – lot different th – than anything I – I – I’ve en – encountered b – before. B – b – but I do have five m – months of ex – experience to fuh – fall b – back on”.
“Describe your experience for our listeners?”
Sobbing loudly Chloe grips a red body pillow tightly, looking for the solace of a warm embrace. Tears free fall down her dimpled cheeks and onto the soft velour fabric of the casing. Wrapping her legs around the pillow she rolls onto her side into a semi – fetal position and pulls a blanket over her head, hiding behind an extra layer of security to protect her badly wounded psyche. Still, the tearful lamentations carry on through the heavy, quilted comforter resounding throughout the shared bedroom. To her left in an adjacent twin-size bed her stepsister Janice buries her face in a recent copy of Teen magazine sporting the smiling face of Khloe Kardashian on the cover. But try as she may the elder of the pair finds it troublesome at best reading the print, her concentration shattered by a hailstorm of sobbing, each distressed stone pelting the words from her thoughts before she can digest them. Angrily she tosses the periodical aside and glares at Chloe.
“Would you shut up already?” she demands. “You’ve been crying for almost an hour”.
“Th – that’s e – easy for you t – to say,” the younger one fires back through a choked whimper. “Y – you aren’t th – the one t – to get b – be – beat up twice in the s – same d – day”.
Janice, heavyset like her birth mother and much larger than her half – sibling rises, spinning onto the edge of her bed and glares through molten hazel slivers at the girl. “I’m trying to read you little bitch”, she insists. “If you’re gonna cry all fucking day then go into the bathroom and turn on the water or something because I don’t want to hear it”.
“Th – this is m – my room too… d - dummy”. Chloe fires back, clutching the body pillow more tightly. She hadn’t intended to shoot an insult at her sister, but antagonism has a decided tendency to fire indiscriminately and in delicate situations like this with the beleaguered girl trying to avoid her sister’s wrath the derelict projectile nonetheless finds its’ mark.
“What did you just call me?” Janice demands, bolting to her feet. Before a faltering reply can be offered, she savagely grabs at the younger sibling, violently jerking her from the ill – perceived security of the blanket and slams her into the wooden nightstand separating the two beds. Chloe’s head makes direct contact with the edge of the stand with her body weight collapsing against it. The brunt force of the impact sends a shared blue porcelain lamp with mis-matched tan shade toppling to the brick – colored carpeting and shattering on impact. The stand follows suit, one of its flimsy legs snapping under the weight of the victim. Janice, rather than pursuing further violence immediately stops upon noticing the broken lamp. Thinking quickly to avoid her temperamental mother’s wrath she pulls away and loudly announces, “Mom! Chloe broke the nightstand and the lamp!”
“I – I’ve been in a – a lot of fights a – and I learned a lot from – from them. I – haven’t w – won any yet b- but I – I’m g – getting better every – every t – time”.
“So.., you’ve been wrestling for five months but you have yet to win a match, is that right?”
“Y – yes… I – I mean I’m g – getting better uh all the t – time. I just h – have to uhh I mean… I – I can… I – I think I c – can..., I h – haven’t won any – any matches y – yet b – but I can… no! I – I mean… God damn it!”
The airwaves go silent, replaced by the steady hum of a dial tone. Having become frustrated with her own inability to communicate with others under pressure, perceived or otherwise, Chloe resorts to the only tactic to yield consistent, if not desirable results, running. The dial tone is greeted with laughter by the DJ on the open end who chuckles while shutting down the call for good.
“That’s one way to get out of a tough spot I guess”, he snickers before adding, “Man, this Benton girl is a train wreck, doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. This is legalized murder. Beaufort is going to murder her. Fans, I humbly suggest this match to be a good time to hit the concession stands”. He laughs again, a hearty chuckle lacking any sense of compassion or warmth, more focused on moving to his next segment. “Unless you’re a psycho like me who enjoys watching executions”.
