“Rockbottom”
The place was nothing but a dingy sweatbox crammed with guys eager to forget themselves. Thirsty for blood. Starving for it. A dead end place where the lowest of the low came to entertain themselves with violence and gambling, where dirty money was thrown left and right while they placed their bets.
Ryan cracks his knuckles and paces the ring, jaw set, focused on the man opposite, tracking him. He squints and sweats in the spotlights. Cheering comes from all around them, Spanish and English, filling his head, raising his pulse. An empty beer can rolls out across the mat and he kicks it away.
The other guy is big. Over 6 5” for sure and wide. But big like that means slow and stupid. Means easy. Ryan’s not worried.
The bell clangs and Ryan lets the big guy unload on him for a few seconds, a barrage of inexperienced punches crashing down on his raised forearms. Frenzied. Ryan waits for the guy to tire just a little and kicks out at his left knee, bringing him to the ground with a meaty thump.
The crowd yells its dissatisfaction. They don’t want it over like this. Not so soon.
Ryan lets the guy up, wobbling on his right leg now. Lets him swing a massive fist and Ryan ducks swiftly under it, stepping back.
“Come on big guy.”, he taunts, fists barely raised. “At least try?”
The guy snarls like a wounded beast and lunges at Ryan, pushing him back into the post and knocking the air from his lungs. He coughs against the guy’s shoulder, sucking in a stinging breath and bracing himself on the ropes. He shoves his knee into the guy’s stomach, feels it swallowed momentarily by fat and the guy falls away from him, landing heavily on his back.
Ryan massages his sternum and watches the guy struggle up, breathing like he’s just run a mile, sweat pouring over his face and down his neck.
He lunges again and Ryan side steps him, catching a little of the force on his right shoulder and spinning to face the guy’s rebound from the ropes. Ryan kicks up high and catches him square under the chin and it’s lights out before he hits the ground.
The guy won’t be getting up anytime soon. He counts that as a good night’s work and bows out, ribs still aching. He hops down from the ropes and feels hands slapping at his back, roughing up his hair.
In the corridor away from the noise and heat of the ring, his mind quiets. He stretches his arms over his head and rolls his neck as he walks, feeling the adrenaline of the fight draining away and leaving a sore empty ache in its place.
He goes to the usual office to collect his pay, wanting a shower and the smell of the big guy’s sweat off him. The gym owner, a guy with too many dumb addictions and too few brain cells for Ryan to ever call him friend, sits with his feet propped up on his desk, a cigarette dangling from his lip. Security camera monitors flicker dimly in front of him, the light reflecting and glinting off the chains at his throat. He tears his eyes away and looks up.
“Hey, Ryan, that was a good fight. Ended a little too soon, but I ain’t complainin’. You always get the job done, right?” Boston accent. A little drunk.
“Danny I came for my money, not a pep talk.’”Ryan holds out his hand, hating the smoke that hangs in the room like a stale fog and fights to keep eye contact.
Danny looks at him for a moment and then smiles, taking the burning cigarette from his mouth and placing it carefully in an ashtray to his left. He pulls his feet from the desk top and pushes his chair back.“Of course. Of course you want your money. Always the business man,” he rifles in the desk drawer and Ryan can’t help but think he’s making a god damn show of it.
“See, thing is, Ryan,would you sit for Christ’s sake-”
“No thanks.’
“You’re making me nervous, standing there like that.”
“I just came for my pay, nothing else. Just wanna go home.”Ryan stares him down,blue eyes hard, hand still outstretched. He motions hurry up with his fingers.
“Look. I gotta tell you. You’re too good for these guys, okay? You don’t even give ‘em a chance-”
“Danny.” Ryan warns, something in the pit of his stomach telling him this is about to go bad somehow. Danny closes the desk drawer, cash clenched in his fist.
“This is all I can do, okay?”
He hands over the money and Ryan can see his hands shaking, marks where his yellowed fingernails have bitten into his palm. Ryan looks at the money for a few seconds, and then up at Danny. Now his stomach is sinking down through his gut.
“This is thirty dollars.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“It’s not even half. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Like I said, that’s all I can do.”He takes a stressed drag on his cigarette, maybe just to have something to do with his hands.Blowing out the foul smog he smiles. “You could always entertain people in the back for somethin’ extra. Can think of a few people that would pay for you.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Ryan says quietly, gaze not wavering from Danny’s increasingly pale face. Every word that came out of his mouth made him sick.
“I don’t want no trouble, alright? Things are a little tight right now, that’s all.”
Ryan let out a disbelieving laugh. “This is shit, Danny. How the fuck am I supposed to pay my rent? How the fuck am I gonna eat?”
“I’m sorry man,” and he looked it. “You’re just not bringin’ in enough money anymore. No one wants to see you tear a guy apart in two fuckin’ seconds. It's not sportin’. Like I said, you’re too good for these guys now.” Another puff of smoke drifts up to join the rest. “Maybe show off a little for the crowd, show some skin. Maybe that will bring in the money.”
Anger sparks up through Ryan’s body like lightning. White hot and sudden. He flings the money back at Danny and it drifts lazily through the air.
“Keep it, you useless piece of shit.” Ryan points a finger at Danny, dead still in the silence and smoke. “You’re lucky I don’t knock your teeth down your throat for this.”[/color]
He can hear Danny calling out to him as the office door crashes shut behind him. Can hear his voice following him down the hall to the changing rooms like a bad smell. Fifty eight steps of peeling green paint and worn lino to the showers. If he can get that far he might make it the rest of the way home without committing murder. He slams the changing room door open and comes to a dead stop.
“Welcome to Fabulous Sin City Wrestling.”
A flyer that he had somehow missed was now staring at him dead in the face. His anger grew mild as his thoughts ran. Anywhere was better than a dead end place like this one. The only problem is, Ryan wasn’t a wrestler. At least, not yet.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Second RP
On Camera
Los Angeles, California
“My Chance”
High Stakes IV, Ryan’s next chance to go up in the ranks has come and he was going to take it. It was going to be an all out match, a high gamble with the promise of a prize still up for debate. Yet no matter what it was it came second compared to what this rising star was thinking about. This was his chance at redemption. A step in the right direction after the spiral of defeat that plagued him for the past weeks. He needed this win, he wants this win. He is going to get this win. And no one was going to stop him.
Ryan looked at himself in the mirror, the look of determination was radiating off of him. This was his chance. Stretching out his arms above his head he loosened his tensed muscles after another long day of training. The gym had become his home for the passed couple of days, not really distracting himself with all the fun California had to offer just yet. He had something to do first.
“High stakes is in a few days. And I can’t really say that I am not ready. It’s very much the opposite.I’m ecstatic for this Sunday to come. With each passing day I grow even more anxious. This will be my time to come back to where I was, and continue where I left off. It can feel it. It’s going to be one hell of a match, but I can say for sure that I am going to win. I’ve come this far, climbed this high, and I am not going to go back down. Not again, not ever again.”
He was dead serious. Shrugging off the losses he has suffered he can finally look forward to the future.
“I have already said my piece and what I really think of my opponents for this Sunday. I know that this is going to be a fight like no other, maybe my past can help out here. Because I want to end this as soon as possible so that I can move on to the next, until I can finally say that I have beaten every eligible competitor in my way to becoming someone in this business. And that is something that I can’t pass up.”
His eyes focused to the image of himself in the mirror, and empty space where a title should be was bothering the young future star. In his warped reality he was already a champion, but with no belt to his name. Maybe that could change, soon.
“Samuel devereux, JT Midas, two men that stand in my way in this high stakes game. Both with impressive pasts and triumphs, that have carried them along the way to where they are now. But I am different. A clean slate when it came to being recognized. A minor whisper of a mention here and there is what I am to most. Yet that isn’t stopping me anytime soon. People will scream my name. And I will be right there making every right more that will get me that tite opportunity that I have been looking for.”
The road for the SCW Roulette championship was not closed, but a new road might be opening soon by the end of this match. Any championship would be considered for Ryan to challenge after this Sunday. Ant it was only a matter of time until he knew where to go.
“Things are looking up for me, things should be looking up for me. That little spiral down to rock bottom is over for me. It’s time to climb back up and make myself a force to be reckoned with. I have come so close for too many occasions, and that stops now. Now I will go all out and focus in both mind and body to make sure that I win. Once I do the road in front of me will be clear. Whether I stay going up against the SCW roulette championship, or I just to a whole knew path. Either way the name ‘Ryan Keys Is going to get heard. Whether people like it or not.”
Ryan lips changed to an arrogant smirk as in his own warped reality he was already on the other side, with a win under his belt. Any champion should keep a close eye on him. Maybe not now, but soon this young future star will rise up to challenge the strongest in the building. And that champion could be anyone.
“ So call me warped, call me an arrogant psycho. Because at the end of the day it may be true. But truth or now my actions speak louder than words do. So I am going to sit back and see what my opponents have to offer me. After all, it’s a high stakes match. They knew what they were getting themselves into when they accepted it. And now they should take the consequences if stepping into the ring with the one and only, Ryan keys.”
With a smirk still on his face Ryan slowly walked off of view as his words still lingered around. This Sunday was his comeback, and Ryan will not let that chance fall out of his hands. No matter what happens, Ryan will make sure that he comes out on top.
