Let me paint you a picture, not on the levels of Bob Ross, the man was an artistic genius, but on me own level of painting, whatever that is. You've done what ya paid to do for the night, pretty successfully too by working with the missus and defeating the people trying to grab hold of the belts. I'd call that successful. So you sit there and decide you've earned a pint, the missus has earned a drink after the night she had, it was time to turn your attention to future challenges, then you read a tweet saying you can go home, you're free from the hotel.
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!
It couldn't have hit harder if William Wallace was standing there yelling in your lug hole. That's how one little tweet sounded. It was like the chains was off a little. Not that you couldn't go home before but we were trying to do our bit to keep ourselves and others safe, can't say the same for a lot of people, but we had done our bit. Hearing those words was like saying I trust you to get back to your home and keep yourself safe. It makes sense considering everyone would be leaving Vegas in a week for Los Angeles.
I didn't need to read that message twice, the one tweet had burned in to my eyes and set in my memory instantly as I run my hand over my phone.
A smile crept over my face as I turned to Evie, sitting two stools down from me at the hotel bar.
"I've seen that smile before." She told me. "I didn't know there was football on tonight."
I do have that smile when Millwall win a game but it wasn't anything to do with that.
"Nah, seasons over for me." I said, knowing there was still one more game left. "this is something very different."
I could feel the wheels in her mind turning as she looked at me, wondering what it could possibly be. I didn't wanna keep her in suspense too long, so I looked her deep in her eyes.
"The boss just tweeted out we can go home if we want." I said, already knowing what her reaction would be.
She didn't disappoint as her eyes widened and her face turned from curious to a wide smile of her own. I watched as she quickly picked up her drink and drained the glass.
I don't think Evie was going too crazy at the hotel, there was some ropey moments, don't get me wrong where I thought she was gonna play real life prison break and try get out of this place. She knew this was important to me cause of my health issues a while ago, and every time she wanted to run, she reminded herself of this. This was our green light and she knew I wanted to get out of the hotel too.
It's not that we wanna get away from people, we've formed some unlikely friendships since we've been here. I reconnected with Max Burke, Casey Williams, Mikah. Evie had found a friend in Amber Ryan, and I even had a good night around Kris Ryans. I even had a little time around Rinoa Williams. That might not have happened without being in this place together, you wouldn't have taken any of us outside the forced environment and would have been around each other outside this situation, but who knows, you might now.
"I'll go put things in a bag." Evie said springing to her feet. "And you go find Bear."
She didn't wait for another work to come from me, she was up, she was on her way to the room and I couldn't help but smile at her. Finding Bear was never gonna be a problem. I knew how he liked to chill on a Sunday, well, most days since he's been here. All it took for me was to turn my head.
"Bear." I called out.
Bear lifts his head up from a sun lounger just behind me, turning his head slowly towards me and tilting his head.
"Time to go home." I said to him.
I watched as he put his head back down on the sun lounger.
"Not to the room." I said to him. "Back to the turtles."
That was enough for him to perk up his ears and spring to his feet too and bounce towards me and stopping in front of me, jolting his head to one side as if to tell me to get a wriggle on. I put my hand on his head and gave his fur a little ruffle.
"Yes, we're going back to Maine." I told him, just to make sure he got it.
All I got from him was a quick, short sharp nod before he took off and headed in the same direction as Evie. I turned back to the bar and picked up the glass I had, but I felt a nudge at my leg. I looked down to see Bear back with me.
"Alright, alright." I said shaking my head. "I'm coming."
I quickly drained the glass and stood up and turned to look at Bear but he was gone again. I knew where he was heading and if I knew my wife, I knew she wasn't gonna waste time throwing things in a bag to get us out of here soon.
I wasn't wrong, she was packed to go within the hour.
The Saxon Hotel had a lot to offer, but there was nothing like having a bit of choice on what to do, where to go, places to eat, people to see. This is why coming back to Maine was a blessing, even if for a week, you could make choices you haven't been able to make for months. No one saw this year coming the way it has. I mean on New Years Eve, clock struck midnight, we all said happy new year, hope 2020 is a better one for you. I think I appreciate things a little more, even though this year is a rotten one.
Being back in Maine had done both Evie and I the world of good, we've been able to relax, wear less clothes and I've been able to catch up on a few things, even Bear had been able to go see his turtle friends down by the lake and things were a little more open in Bar Harbor. Life has ticked on a little since the outbreak and although still limited to what can be done, for the most part, stores and restaurants were open. There was no point coming all the way back here, flying for over eight hours to come on home if we wasn't planning on actually seeing the town again.
Thursday evening.
Being a top champion had taking a hidden toll on me, it was my first time as the top champ and I thought I've done a good enough job to lead but being cooped up had been a blessing and a curse. I could do all the media work I had to from in front of a screen, but I missed being out there around people. I was a people person and taking that away didn't help me much, so I decided that it was time to actually go out there in the world and be around people. Things had changed and social distancing was still a thing, not if you believe all you read, but the people here seemed to listen a little better.
It was six in the evening when I wandered outside the house to see Evie sitting on the porch, the cool breeze from the lake bouncing off her skin. Just hearing the door open turned her attention towards me, smiling from her eyes. You can fake a smile with your lips but your eyes, not so much. She was happy to be home and it showed.
"I was thinking..." I started.
"And now you need some aspirin for that headache you've gone?" She said with a jokingly sarcastic tone, her eye full of mischief.
"Well, it did hurt a bit." I told her as I rubbed my temples. "Smart arse."
I almost expected that answer from her, people see the good guy Ben and the evil Evie on the television and think that's how it is all the time. It's nothing like that. It's a lot lighter away from the ring.
I watched Evie smile at me as she waited for me to continue.
"We came back here, it's been a peaceful few days, I've liked it, but we can't just sit around here all night, when we could head in to town." I said as I took a seat next to her. "We should go out there and be around people, at a distance of course."
It wasn't that Evie didn't want to go out, I think we both found peace in being at home and out of the hotel with the option of going out and doing whatever we pleased. Being in a hotel with your co-workers and bosses pretty much meant you could be called upon at any time. There was peace in knowing you was thousands of miles away from them all.
"What do you have in mind?" Evie asked me as she looked in my eyes.
"Well, we haven't really been to a restaurant in a while." I said to her. "Not without being surrounded by the people we work with at least. I think we should go out."
Neither of us knew what it would be like in a restaurant after reopening so many places, and I understood that rules would be at the owners discretion, but it had to be done sooner or later. No one in this world should stay in completely and let this pass when local businesses needed help. It was alright for us, we'd been paid properly along with every other SCW, SCU and GRIME wrestler, but it's the local businesses that were suffering.
"We could do." Evie said slowly as she looked at me.
I could feel a slight hesitation in her voice as she spoke to me, but I knew it wouldn't take much to tempt her out.
"A couple of hours, a good meal, back in time before the sun goes down." I said. "I have to be back before the sun goes down anyway or I'll turn in to a pumpkin."
A smile crossed her face as I stood up and reached down to her, putting my hand out for her to grab and get to her feet.
"Go on, go get ya glad rags on." I told her. "And well go find a place. Good food, wine, whatever you want."
She nodded her head as she walked in to the house, the thought of a proper night out quickly taking away the thought of the risks a night out might bring. I know people think it takes women a long time to get ready, longer than actually being out in most cases but Evie wasn't one of those people, she was in, ready and good to go in a relatively quick time. As a fella, clean pair of clothes on and I was good too. Bear had come in from the lake and taken the chance to have nap twenty two of the day, the door was shut behind us and Evie and I were on our way.
Driving through the main street of Bar Harbor, our eyes looked around at sights we took for granted every day. We didn't have to say a word between us to confirm a place we wanted to be, just the flashbacks of memories as we approached a certain place. Maine was known for it's lobster and the lobster rolls at The Travelin Lobster - no G on the end of that - were second to none. As soon as we saw the sign, we both knew it's where we wanted to be.
I stopped the car outside and Evie and I both stepped out after a few seconds and moved towards the door, only to be met with the hostess standing at the door, a mask on her face, her blonde hair tied back neatly.
"Mr. and Mrs. Jordan." She said with a cheery smile. "Wonderful to see you both again."
"Good to see you too." I replied. "How's business?"
I didn't need to really ask as I looked through the clear glass windows to see that business wasn't booming. The restaurant was scarcely populated, most of their tables gone from the last time we were here and customers few and far in between.
"It's been a tough few months." She said. "This virus has ruined local businesses."
I nodded in agreement with her.
"It's been tough all over." Evie added.
"It has." The hostess commented. "Table for two?"
"Yes please." I replied.
"Before you come in, I must ask you to use the hand sanitising station to the left." She said with a quick point of her hand to the left. "We have a few new rules since the last time you visited. We will need you to sign in and leave some details just in case, only one of you need to do that. We can not allow standing at the bar. The bathrooms are now single use only and we must ask you to stay at your table as much as you possibly can."
I understood why these rules were in place, but something about these added rules to everything made things uncomfortable. It felt hard to relax when you had eyes on you just waiting for you to do something wrong so someone could show a little power and scald you for it. I've generally stuck to the rules through my life, the odd fast three count being the exception, but something about this was uncomfortable for me.
"Yeah, no problem." I lied through my teeth.
Evie and I stepped in to the building and took her advice, using the hand sanitizing station to quickly clean up and taking a pen, I wrote down my contact details.
I couldn't help but feel awkward with that. There's my contact details there in a book for anyone signing in after me to see. The people around here were good people but you never could tell.
We were quickly shown to a table, a booth with a dividing screen across the table, cutting me off from Evie as we looked through the not as clear plastic.
"I guess this is what it would feel like in prison and having a visitor." I said with a slight laugh.
"It is." Evie replied seriously.
"Yeah..." I said with a laugh before my face turned slightly more serious. "Wait, what?"
Evie just smiled at me through the plastic, a devilish look on her face as she shrugged her shoulders.
"What?" She said "I had a life before you, ya know."
The smile on her face made it difficult for me to tell if she was just yanking my chain or if she was serious but I didn't have too much time to dwell on it as the waitress came to the table, presenting us with menus.
"I'll give you guys a few minutes." She said from behind a mask.
"We've been here enough not to need menus." Evie said as she placed her menu on the table.
The plastic in between us seemed to take away from the volume in her voice, like the words were hitting the high plastic and bouncing back.
"What?" I asked as I pointed to my ear. "Hard to hear ya without ya voice raised a bit."
I saw the look on Evie's face, I could tell she couldn't really hear me clearly too. We were in a place where talking discreetly was probably the best idea. There was hardly anyone here, but without the inane chatter of other people, you couldn't help but think others could hear your conversations, so we tried to keep our tones hushed.
"What was that?" She asked.
I reached to my pocket and pulled out my phone and quickly hit a few buttons on the front. Evie looked at me curiously as she reached in to her purse, her phone shaking. She hit the button.
"Why are you calling me?" She asked as she put the phone on the table and putting it on speaker.
"Only bloody way I can hear you." I said as I did the same. "Hushed tone and a big plastic divider thing is gonna do bugger all for our conversation skills."
"Is it me or is this a bit over the top?" She questioned. "We're married, we shouldn't have to worry about things like this at a table for two."
I saw her point, I mean we don't have to do social distancing with each other at home, why the hell are we doing it here? Rules, Ben, rules. It's got to be done here, not just for our safety.
"Gotta be done I guess." I said with a shrug of my shoulders and a sympathetic look. "These things are put in place for a reason."
"If this is the new world." Evie said with a shake of her head, not needing to finish the sentence.
"Yeah, I ain't too comfortable with it either." I admitted. "But lets just hope it's just for a few months."
"I know it's good being out." Evie started "But I don't wanna really spend the night on the other side of a plastic screen from my husband. So takeaway and get down by the lake with a bottle of good stuff like we used to?"
I didn't wanna be the one to say it but from the second we walked in here, I was hoping this was gonna happen. Maybe I'm just not used to the world outside a hotel where things were so clean and taken care of, it was like we was in our own little bubble. Safety and hygiene was a huge thing back at the hotel, lots of testing kept us all safe. This new outside normal was gonna take a bit of time to get used to.
"You read my mind." I said with a wide smile.
So that's what we did. We got takeaway and a bottle of wine, Evie's choice, she knows more about the vino than I do, and I doubt I'd get trusted to pick a decent one considering I'm a Fosters bloke, make in Australia and every Aussie I've ever met has tried to tell me how terrible that stuff is. It's really not but they try. Within forty minutes, we was back outside the lake with a pair of glasses, a now refreshed from his nap dog running around the front of the lake and the stars making an appearance.
It might not have been the way we remembered our nights out in Maine, but it's the little things that keep us going. The precious time spent with my wife under the stars, and putting the smile on the faces of everyone I work in front of. It's what keeps us all going in an uncertain world.
It's a changed world, but not everything has and that's something I can honestly appreciate, like being able to sit at the lake outside our house in Maine with the SCW World Heavyweight championship over my shoulder and be able to talk about the upcoming match and it's a big match, a huge match, Summer XXXTreme VIII.
"Alright people." I say with a smile. "Cheers for joining me here today. It's brilliant to be able to move around again a little bit, so you're listening to me direct from Maine."
I'm sure they already knew that, wasn't my first time sitting here having a chat from Maine. It's just a beautiful setting here.
"Last Sunday, I said I was gonna beat Griffin Hawkins, I said I would make sure the champions showed challengers just what we're made of, just why we deserve the championship belts." I say with a slight glance to the World Heavyweight Championship. "I wanted to prove a point in that ring last week and I think I managed to do just that."
I knew I proved everything I set out to prove but I needed to remind Griffin of this fact. I hope he doesn't see me as a push over champion, I hope he knows what he's up against, but I felt he needed the slight reminder about just who I am.
"I said you was gonna see things up close and well, you couldn't miss it." I state. "I know you can sit and claim it was a tag match and that these things don't mean a whole lot when you get a chance one on one. Actually they do. Here's the way I see it mate, you got a chance to sit there and take stock of what was going right and wrong when you was out there on the apron. You got a chance to formulate a new plan on how to fix the mistakes while Eves and Andrea was going at it. You had a chance to breathe and consider everything. This is a thing where you don't get the chance to do that. So how good are ya at thinking on ya feet? You don't get a chance to sit there and take a little break, you don't get a chance to center yourself. You gotta keep up with the pace physically and mentally, gotta ask yourself if you couldn't do that the first time around when you faced me, nor the second time when you had the chance to gather your thoughts, do you really think you can do it a third time and actually walk away with the arm raised?"
I rated Griffin Hawkins highly as a wrestler, I wasn't overly sure about him on a personal level because frankly, I didn't know him that well. I speak to and get on with most people, but never really had the chance to sit and talk to him. I've heard stories about him being in business for himself at all times, I got a stark warning from someone away from the camera but I believed in making up my own mind.
"You're one hell of a wrestler Griffin, but I think you found your level a little lower than what this match is about." I say with a touch of seriousness. "I think everyone has their level, and I ain't saying it's a bad thing, just that we all have our limits and this is without a doubt the biggest match you've been in when it comes to SCW. You were a great Roulette champion, a great Internet champion but I don't know if this top level is the one for you. I know you'll give it everything and I feel sad in a way cause I'm at this level, you've chased and I know that when it's all said and done and I'm walking away with the SCW World Heavyweight Championship, I know that I'll be pushing you towards retirement."
Call it a gut feeling if you want but something in me told me that when I beat Griffin Hawkins, his jacobs will go and he'll look at retiring. I'm decent at reading people and everything about me feels that vibe that if I beat Griffin, this will be his last match. Maybe that's the vibe he's trying to put across to me to make me feel bad for him. Pretty cheap way to get an advantage.
"I should feel bad that I'll be pushing you towards retirement." I say with a frown. "But the fact is, we've all gotta retire at some point, we can't do this forever and frankly, I'm not convinced you wouldn't consider retirement after winning, and then losing the belt. The fans need Griffin Hawkins around and SCW have treated you well, but I ain't gonna feel guilty if I push ya towards putting ya feet up. If it would be a retirement, part of me thinks it'll be just leave SCW and work elsewhere. Curse of being a good judge of character and trusting my gut, but I can't feel bad. The fact is Griffin, we both have these careers, a short career and you need to make the most out of it. Saint Ben might have been nice and risked wrecking his own career so that yours can flourish, but my halo got tainted a while ago and ain't exactly worked out how to get that shine back."
Ever since Kedron and that rivalry, I haven't felt so saintly completely. It used to be a running tap but now it's just fits and spurts. Made a few questionable moves since then - like saint ruining fast counts.
"If you was someone who needed the push up, then I would consider it, if it was a younger wrestler who didn't have your accolades, I'd considering it." I say thinking about it, the thoughtful look translating to my face. "I think they would appreciate it more, cause I could see your celebrations if you win. Right to Twitter, no respect for anything I've done."
I'm only basing that on the fact that the first time Griffin got a shot at me, soon as the card hit the Internet, he was off to Twitter like a shot to announce to the world he was gonna be SCW World Heavyweight champion, not even an ounce of respect in my direction. He's meant to be a good guy and I got more respect out of the bad guys. I got more respect out of O'Malley and that git whacked me on the head from behind.
"But you're Griffin Hawkins." I say firmly. "I could beat you ten times in a row and you'll still come up smelling like roses because you'll still be Griffin Hawkins. The man who held the SCW Roulette and Internet titles for an eternity. You'll still be that rockstar people crave attention from. You'll still be thought of highly in SCW and the wrestling world in general, so the vibe I get from you about all or nothing for this one match is a silly way of thinking because if you've done your homework, if you've sat and looked at the people I've faced and beat and the form I've been in lately, you'd know you're a huge underdog. Throw in the two times I've beat you and you know that people are expecting me to walk out with the championship belt."
Seriously, call some of the places in Vegas, I'm the real heavy favourite.
"And I don't wanna disappoint them all." I say with a slight shrug. "And I know you have your goal to be the top man himself, but my goal is to get to a year with this thing."
I could never help but look at the championship at this point. I've worked so hard to even be sitting here with this belt. I've been blessed but I've put in the work, I've done everything I can to be the best damn champion I can be. I've showed up every week, I've spoke every week even when things have been, or at least felt one sided. I have offered title shots to everyone and never said no to them. I felt like what a champion should be.
"And Griffin, I'm gonna go for that." I say with a sharp nod. "They say the hardest thing to do as a champion is find the motivation to find new goals and push on and do more and more. That's not a problem I have. I want that year Griffin and trust me, I'm gonna go get that year. I'm sorry if that disappoints you but I didn't become champion to not hit the goals I set. I didn't sit here doing nothing, I worked the hardest a champion has worked in a long time at any level to make sure I hit every goal I wanna hit and trust me Griffin, I'm going for that year."
It's been a goal since day one and it's a goal I am determined to hit.
"Anyway, I think I've taken up enough of your time for one day." I say as I stand up. "I'll be talking much more next week. Till then...."
I nod towards the camera.
"Laters people!"
And with that, another promo ends. I'll see you all next week.