Yeah, you know, technically
I'm not even really supposed to be here right now
So fuck it, might as well make the most of it
August 3, 2021There's a lot they tell you about the road to recovery. It's hard. It's challenging. It's paved with good intentions. That last one is more related to Hell, but recovery is a lot like that. It's especially difficult when one doesn't have a clear goal in mind for recovering. Because Joe had decided to nullify his contract with the promotion in Reno, and wasn't sure if he'd be coming back to wrestling. So he wasn't sure what he was recovering for.
The hospital in Reno hadn't quite let him sign out, not yet anyway. While his body hadn't atrophied, because he wasn't in a coma long enough for that, he was laying in a bed for a month straight. His muscles were still weak and he hadn't eaten solid foods in a long time. So until they were satisfied with his digestive system and his ability to walk, they wouldn't let him go.
That's when he was reminded of that thing they don't tell you.
Recovery is boring.
Hospital stays are boring too, which is another thing most people don't really think about.
The only moments of respite from the soul-crushing dullness one gets are when a nurse visits, and those were becoming few and far between. After all, his muscles were merely weak, not dead, so walking wasn't a huge effort. It was just a matter of making sure he could. As far as the eating, outside of the first couple of times when he couldn't keep anything down, he was doing well there too. It was a matter of waiting for a discharge now, and that might come that day, or it might come the next day.
If he could kick every hospital bureaucrat in the face, he would start that very minute.
Things had improved on the visitation front as well. No one had come to Reno as of late, but he'd found out enough people had. His ex-wife practically stayed by his bedside for a couple of weeks. His best friend, Trent Steel, popped in almost as frequently. So much so you'd be forgiven if you forgot they had been beating the hell out of each other just a couple of months ago.
This was all in the past, while he was unconscious, however. Since he woke up four days ago, only Johnny Hitmaker came back, and that was because he had accidentally left some important contracts in his rush to leave the first time.
People he had hoped would show up didn't, nor did they make any attempt to while he was out. As far as he was concerned, that was more than enough reason to realize how much they had changed. Perhaps he dodged more than one bullet.
He lazily sat back in his chair, refusing to get back in the bed for anything other than sleep, and flipped through what passed for cable in his hospital. Daytime television was the worst, but he had found himself loving to hate what the entitled blond woman on The View had to say each morning.
It was of course, at this moment that he had a knock on the door. The nurse wasn't expected until lunch, so maybe his discharge had finally come.
"Excuse me? Is this where they keep the defrosted cavemen?"
Trent Steel barged into the room like he owned it. Joe suddenly had the horrifying realization that he could have bought it, what with his recent influx of cash. He thought he might have to strangle him if that were true.
"It's like you read my mind," Joe said. "I was just thinking things were too boring here." He reached up and turned off the television, before pushing himself up. It took some effort, as his calf muscles still didn't quite want to accept that they had to be used regularly again.
"So how are you enjoying living in the year three thousand?" Trent asked. If he saw Joe wobble while attempting to stand, he kept it to himself.
The man known better as JC stuck out a hand and it was accepted. "You joke, but I'm only just getting used to the fact that it wasn't June three days ago."
"I mean days always run together with me running all these...wait am I suppose to be in a meeting right now?" Trent pulled out his phone for a moment and checked it. "Nope. I swear if I'm not sleeping, eating, or shitting, I gotta be in an office."
Trent looked over Joe for a moment. "So this diet of yours worked but man do you look like shit."
Joe shrugged and scratched his beard, which hadn't been tended to in a bit. "Liquid diets aren't fun, especially when you suddenly have to jump back into solids. But the place I used to work for was footing the bill, last I checked. So I can't really complain."
"I was gonna ask if you needed me to spot you a few hundred thousand or not..." Trent looked over at the remains of a food tray. "No jello cup! What kinda rinky dink place is this?"
Trent grabbed a spare chair in the room and sat down.
"Well that was breakfast, for one," Joe started, before realizing Trent was joking.
"Bah, you need a real meal. I'm fixing you one of those fancy steaks you like." Trent said as he leaned back. "So...aside from my awesomeness arriving how are things? They gonna let you out of this hellhole now or...?"
Joe shrugged again, then sat back down. "That's up to the doctors, apparently. I have to walk well enough and hold food down long enough to please their standards."
"So...I should bribe them?" Trent reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of hundreds.
Joe's eyes instinctively went wide. It wasn't so much the fact that Trent had the money, but rather that he was walking around with wads of cash like a cartoon character. Then again, perhaps Trent was hoping someone would try to take it from him so he could assault them in self-defense.
"You uh," he said. "You just carry wads of cash? You can't use a card like a normal person?"
Trent reached in and grabbed his wallet. He pulled out a black corporate credit card. "IRS doesn't track cash as much as this thing."
Seeing the card made Joe simply shake his head and let out a dry laugh.
"It boggles my mind that you're this wealthy guy now," he said. "Trenton Steel, Esq."
He laughed again, the first time he had done so in months. He didn't realize it at the time, however.
"I mean, not like I wanted any of this." Trent said, smiling at bit at hearing Joe laugh. "But when you ex-in laws leave you their stock cause of..."
He stopped talking for a moment. Apparently the kidnapping situation still hadn't been resolved. Joe remembered bits and pieces of it. First they kidnapped Trent's ex-wife's family and then the same people kidnapped his kids while Trent was at a wrestling event. Trent got left with a majority share in a billion dollar company. Went from millionaire to billionaire in less than three weeks. It would be like becoming a homeowner because your grandmother died. It's technically nice, but the cost isn't exactly worth it.
"Sorry," Trent continued. "Let's not talk about my 'good fortune'. What are your plans?"
Joe had a lot of time to think of that. He had already decided that he didn't want to wrestle again, or at least any time soon. Wrestling didn't exactly put him where he was, an unlucky fall did that, but he still could have died without seeing his daughter grow up. He'd only do it if he could find away to make more time for her, and right now he couldn't see it.
But maybe Trent didn't want to know about wrestling right now. As far as Joe knew, he hadn't been in the ring since that company in Baltimore mercy killed itself.
"Right now, I just want to go home and see my kid," Joe said. That really was his first priority. He wanted to rededicate himself to being a father.
Trent smiled, not his usual, crazy, 'I'm gonna fuck this guy up' smile, but the genuine one that few people go to see. "Good answer. You don't need to rush your recovery. The wrestling world can hold on without an ass kicking from you and I for a while."
"But...I do want you to know something. If you are not wanting to do this anymore because you're worried about financials. You know I got you and the kid covered right? She's gonna be well taken care of on the financial front okay."
Joe leaned back and shut his eyes, ignoring the gesture of goodwill. He did want to see his daughter, but there was a part of him that still wanted to do what he did best. It was just quiet for now. He may have conquered death, but part of him still looked in its eyes and blinked.
He let out a long breath and looked at his friend again.
"I nearly died," he said, bringing the conversation down. "Apparently, I nearly died. Can you believe it? You're in a match one minute and the next, doctors are trying to keep enough fluids in you so you don't become another sad wrestling statistic."
"Yeah. I about sued the shit out of the place when I heard..." Trent said nodding. "Life's a fucking cunt sometimes man. One minute you're just doing what you do and the next...kerfuckery most foul. You know, I'd miss the shit out of you if you were really gone. You're about all the family I got left...as far as I know."
Trent pulled out his phone.
"Want me to pull up some old matches and reminisce over some of the assholes we use to beat the fuck out of?"
Joe smiled again. "That'd be a lot more interesting than the View."
Trent looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.
"Don't ask." he said, almost apologetically.
Rewound the future to the present, paused it, don't ask how
Fuck the past, motherfucker, he's the shit right now
February 15, 2022It was just a day after Valentine's Day. Joe spent it with his ex-wife, who he was once again dating, or whatever they called their complicated relationship. Joe tried his best to think about that, and for the most part he succeeded.
He didn't think about the fact that The Troll managed to get any offense on him. He tried not to think about the fact he felt just half a step slower. And most of all, he didn't think about Fenris, who he discovered was watching him.
He didn't think about how a fighter like Fenris awakened something in him that a mere woman couldn't. The lizard part of his brain. The primordial instinct to trade violence with someone who could take it and dish it out.
Fenris excited him in ways love and sex couldn't. And he very much wanted to play.
Now that his obligations as Joe were over, he could focus on what JC wanted to do. On who the next victim for the Bogeyman would be.
He sat in in nondescript room, the same as any other any wrestler in SCW might find themselves cutting the standard wrestling promo might sit in. At least it wasn't dark with a single light swinging overhead. At least there were random chains hanging as if he walked onto the set of Hellraiser. It was just a room with no real distinguishable characteristics.
Except one.
A mask, which sat discarded next to him, not too far away from his reach.
Sin City Wrestling, I told you I wanted more competition. Did I perhaps overlook The Troll? Of course not. Yeah, I turned my back on him and yeah, he took advantage. But it ultimately proves nothing. The only way someone like that could get an advantage would be if I gave them my back. And even with that advantage, among being of similar size and smell to a barrel of stale whiskey, this Troll couldn't get the job done.
C'est la vie. We move on.
JC shrugged his shoulders and smirked. He pat the mask as he said 'we', just to give of the impression to his opponents that he might be crazier than they guessed. He had his issues, of course, but everything he was doing now was calculated.
Ideally, I'd move on to Fenris. A strong style fighter like that, someone I could really test myself against. That's the stuff you enter this business for. And maybe soon, that fight will happen. In fact, I'm sure it will. The Bogeyman is going nowhere, after all. I'm here to haunt Las Vegas until I reach the top and take the top prize you hold most dear.
Whether the cowboy holds it or someone else, that is my ultimate goal.
But Fenris would definitely be a nice challenge in the meantime. A way to stretch my legs. Because Troll marks yet another win for me. Another example of the fact that not a soul has been able to pin or submit me in a year. I don't live in the past, just the present. And in the present...I'm healed, I'm rested, I'm wild and free. I'm a whole different fighter than I was last year, or the year before that. Unless you've got a spare cinder block handy, I'm untouchable.
You'd have an easier time trying to grab vapor.
As if to prove his point, he reached out and grabbed at nothing, before making a gesture to show that, indeed, there was nothing in his hand.
It would certain be an incredible feat if you could, but there are so very few who are incredible. So very few who are, but so many who claim it anyway.
That brings me to the latest victim, Lincoln Daniels. A guy who isn't nearly as successful as the Pixar creation his nickname reminds us of. 'Mr. Incredible.'
JC scoffs as the mere name.
I've seen you call yourself that a few times. And I rolled my eyes every single time. It became more laughable when I went back and looked at the SCW archives, specifically your history. Loss to Alexander Raven. Loss to Fenris. Loss, loss, loss. 1-14 in 2021. Tsk tsk tsk. So many losses, Lincoln.
Not very credible at all, are you? It's been over a year since I've been pinned and over a year since you beat anyone. A nice parallel, but that's just a footnote to what will be business as usual for the both of us.
He shrugs again, almost a little too confident. Almost as if he's daring someone like a Fenris to come at him. He knows Lincoln Daniels won't. He can feel it.
I watched your entire year of matches here in SCW for 2021. Disappointment after disappointment for you. I spent a month of last year in a fucking coma and somehow I had a better year. I know wrestling nicknames are there mostly for show and merchandise, but perhaps we can help you out with another one. A better one. One more suited to a man with your...skill set.
How about, next?
How about, victim?
Stop me if you hear one you like.
JC can't help but laugh to himself again.
Look, I know you have a puncher's chance. And I'm not denying your skills. Not really. Anyone in this business has to have skills to be here. And you have something a lot of people may not give you credit for. You have grit. Determination. Any other wrestler would look at that 1-14 record and quit. But not you, Lincoln. That's commendable. Respectable, even. I may joke, and I may be confident in my chances, but goddamn kid. You take beatings here nearly every time out and you come back asking, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
That either makes you the biggest masochist in the business or it makes you the gutsiest.
So don't let my banter take that way from you. You've got heart. You've got that X factor that makes you cut out for this business. All you have to do is eventually put it together upstairs, and you'll be going places.
JC looks up, staring straight ahead at his audience of one.
But you won't be putting it together at Climax Control. They put you in front of a buzzsaw, Lincoln. And I'm going to cut you to splinters. I still have important matters to get to here and for now, you are not one of them. But I would love to see you try. It will make it that much sweeter for me when I put you down.
So try, Lincoln. Show me that grit. And I'll show you that same grit after I've kicked it out of you. I'm going to beat your heart right out of your chest and make you feel so much pain, you'll finally work up the nerve to quit.
Because SCW is my new haunting grounds.
Death has come to Las Vegas. And there's no stopping it.
JC kills.
