“The only thing pretty about me is this godforsaken face. Everything else is rotted and ugly.”
― Caitlin Crews, Shameless Playboy
‘Grizzly’ Parker’s Trailer
Outskirts of Atlanta, GA
15.06.2020
1:36pm
Amber fucking hated sweet tea
Sickly. Saccharine. Nauseatingly artificial.
Apparently it was supposed to be peach flavoured... what a goddamn joke that was.
Sugar didn’t have a flavour- only a future of diabetes and single handedly financing a college education for the child of a dentist, acquired and yet surprisingly prevalent among a society ill-equipped to handle the consequences.
Supporting a crippled economic society it seemed, one fucking glass at a time.
Still, Amber pretended to sip thoughtfully if only to try and ease the unnerving awkwardness hanging as thickly as the musty aroma of the trailer seemingly permeated every surface.
Across from her, Graham ‘Grizzly’ Parker shook his head in a mild dismay at something he’d said- Amber didn’t catch it though, she was too busy trying not to accidentally ingest fucking sweet tea.
“You know, I’d never thought that I’d feel worse walking out of a doctors office than when I walked in.”
There was a faint rattle in his hearty, self-effacing chuckle as his gaunt features contorted into a grim smile, maybe there was supposed to be comfort in it however it just made Amber feel a little more nauseous. She remembered him fondly at 6’4 and 260lbs, when ribbons of muscle entwined around his robust frame and his bellowing laugh seemed to echo for miles- but the man across from her who shared his crass smile, who owned the same broken teeth flashed obscenely when he knew he was getting the better of you, who had the same mischievous glint albeit tempered with age and jaundice…
He gave her an opportunity. A chance to do something better. Trained her against his better judgement and allowed her to make mistake after mistake with the knowledge that she had something more to give.
Without him, she’d never have become- whatever the fuck she was. Ask anyone they’d have something to say, mostly inaccurate and highly derogatory of course. They’d try run her name through the mud like she hadn’t done a far better job herself and flipped them off for the lack of an effort…
Grizz, he gave a fuck. More than most anyway.
How could that man possibly be across from her now...
“... and to think I fucking paid him for it too. I gave him my hard earned dollars to tell me that I’m…”
Neither of them needed to finish that sentence, his gaunt smile fading into something a little more contemplative. Amber didn’t have words, even if she did they’d likely have gotten stuck halfway up cause they would never sound the way she imagined them inside her head.
He’d be lucky to be pushing 180lbs now she guessed, brushing some errant tresses from her face that had escaped her high ponytail, his skin didn’t even look like it fit him anymore- like a child dressing up in their parents clothing, sagging wrinkles sunken deeper with the shallow pale and darkening circles while his usually thickly overgrown beard now threatened to swallow his face whole.
Neither of them said anything, but that didn’t make any of this less confronting.
“Always thought it’d be different… Some blaze of glory nonsense, something more memorable than rotting from the inside out.”
Pancreatic cancer. Notoriously hard to diagnose until late stages. Grizz had already reached stage 4 before anyone took him seriously- they blamed the back and abdominal pains on strained muscles, the frequent nausea on his lifestyle and the jaundice and hardened bloat in his abdomen on a hard life of drinking.
They’d offered treatments to improve his quality of life, to put him into a hospice facility so that he might find comfort and care as his days grew shorter- he told them all the ways they could go fuck themselves, that if he wanted to watch people decay he’d just as easily look in the mirror and that no one gave him the time of day until he was a dead man walking.
Grizz chose the road one last time, finding a quiet town with a trailer park and settling in. He’d joked upon Amber’s arrival that he hoped he wouldn’t be found for several days just so people might cuss him out one last time...
All Amber could consider was that going out on one's own terms never seemed so lonely.
She wondered what the end… the real end… might have in store for someone like her.
“What a fucking state. Guess we all get the ending we deserve.”
It was a sobering thought if nothing else, the idea that maybe karma just waited until the end to hit people who’d seemingly avoided it all their lives, living consequence free and renting space in the collective societal mind.
She looked back on her own career to date, littered with potholes and pitfalls of her own making. Carnage and SCW wanted to give her opportunities to be better, and instead she preferred to bite at the hands that fed because opportunity never filled a girl's stomach.
Another pretend sip, although this one was more clumsy and Amber tried to stifle a cringe as the cloying manufactured swill stuck in the back of her throat. Grizz didn’t seem to pay any mind though, his gaze falling on the scattered, badly aged memorabilia haphazardly erected around the airless space.
“I doubt you just wanted to have a deep and meaningful about mortality though.”
Amber scowled internally, her tone far harsher than she had intended. Something vitriolic spat up while trying to conjure something genuine and purposeful, maybe she had become the type of person everyone seemed to naturally assume she was.
Stand-offish and abrasive on the best of days, she had never been known as an empath and found it increasingly difficult to connect to people outside of the physical contact that ensued in a match- violent, bloody and yet the closest thing she had to a meaningful bond with anyone outside her fast shrinking circle.
That's what she’d been known for, being a piece of shit human being.
Just keep living up to expectation, even if it's entirely one-dimensional cause some peoples perspective never allowed for greater definition than 8 bit opinions and a lagging comeback system.
“You never were one for small talk.”
“And you were never one for getting to a point”
Small talk was uncomfortable, an attempt at forging something temporary and fragile in a misconstrued effort to relate. Amber didn’t want to relate, she didn’t want to build bridges only to see them collapse when anything of weight was applied.
Hell, the only thing that was wasted more than her breath was her time trying to find an exit.
“Yeah well, used to think I had a lot more time back then… now I’m just killing what I’ve got.”
Another pause. This one seemed to die on his lips though, as Amber shifted slightly on her chair.
“Been doing alot of thinking about people I care about…”
“Thinking? What, are you trying to give yourself an aneurysm before the cancer gets you?”
“Well, I’d go wreck my car but you got to that one first and I’d hate for you to think you’re a trendsetter.”
“Be a good reason to not have an open casket, save us from looking at your mug one last time.”
“Didn’t you hear… I’m getting one made of glass and making sure they prop my middle finger up.”
Both of them chuckled humorlessly, as if joking about how dark things were made the whole thing feel a little less heavy.
“Seriously though, I was hoping you could do me one last favour. For old times sake.”
Amber sarcastically rolled her eyes.
“If it's got anything to do with you not wearing pants for an open casket, it's a no can do…”
Another chuckle, a little more half-hearted and dying as quickly as it took hold.
“You remember my daughter, Cassidy?”
Cassidy Parker was two years younger than Amber, pretty enough with a thick smattering of freckles against her mother's pale complexion. She had gotten her attitude from her father though, an ‘ask questions but react before they answer’ livewire with long, dark curls framing a nose slightly too small for the rest of her face.
“Well enough.”
They had been bored teenagers, impish and ill-behaved in their free time. Cassidy never took to wrestling like Amber had, her slight frame and sly smile became attuned to more charismatic endeavours. She had a flair for entertaining, captivating and regaling audiences while Amber felt more at home with the more visceral arts.
As time went on, their interests veered further apart and they lost contact not long after Amber signed her first full time contract just before her 20th birthday.
“We, uh... We had a falling out a few years back. I wanted her to consider taking over, she saw the carnival as more a shackle than an opportunity. Thought I didn’t see anything in her more than what we’d always done…”
There was a palpable sadness, regret dripping from each word that even the best hindsight couldn’t quite mop up.
“We said some things to each other, hurtful stuff. We were giving as good as we got- you know?
Clear as day, I can still hear those words… we were both in a shitty place, speaking from a worse one. Lines were crossed Bambi, lines I never even thought we could.”
Grizz tried to force something other than a pained grimace, but only succeeded in making it worse. Amber could envision them both, screaming until they were red in the face- until they had nothing left to say. Contempt bred solely for the purpose of hurting someone.
Everything clicked like she imagined an epiphany was supposed to feel but far less satisfying- Grizz didn’t need to say it, Amber knew exactly what came next… and it left the pit of her gut lying somewhere on the floor.
“Fucking damn it, Grizz. You want me to find her… don’t you.”
She’d always had a knack for it, piecing the world together like a jigsaw made up only of pieces from other puzzles and a few dice just for shits and giggles. Despite her inability to make connections, she’d somehow managed to accrue a tenuous network of contacts and innumerable people who owed favours to a redhead with a dubious moral compass.
Terrible people who did terrible things, asking someone to help them make everything okay again- Amber had never taken pride in any of it, never chosen to accept payment of a numerical tender. Quid pro quo in hopes she might never have to use it.
Grizz rustled around in his jacket, he’d loved that thing to death and now it hung limp and lethargic on a frame no longer built to carry it. With an outstretched arm, a mild shake in his hand like even the weight of it seemed to be a struggle, Grizz extended an envelope that had clearly been folded too many times, hastily smoothed to try and remove indents that ran deep and thick.
“I’ve tried calling but she changed her number, tried sending mail every holiday to all her last known addresses and it always comes back. I don’t even care if she doesn’t read it, hell she can burn it in front of you if that's what makes her happy… I just wanna know it gets into her hands.
What she does after that, it's up to her.”
Amber sighed, how the hell was she supposed to say no to him… She despised meddling in others affairs, getting sticky fingers caught where they should never have ended up. Grizz was desperate, perhap even beyond that- he was reckless and determined. Part of her wanted to agree then throw it in the nearest bin she could find, wipe her hands clean and disappear before being sucked into a black hole purely because of proximity.
Another part wanted to flat out decline, explain her standing and hope that a dying man’s final impression wasn’t of disappointment...
Fuck.
Amber accepted the envelope, before roughly shoving it into a pocket of her jacket like it might burn her fingers if she held on too long. Perhaps watching the sense of relief wash over Grizz was supposed to be fulfilling, instead it left her feeling a little more sickened than before.
“Grizz, what if I can’t find her?”
It was a fruitless question, one for her own sanity if nothing else.
“I’ll be content in the knowledge that you’ve tried.”
It was supposed to be solace, to be something that resembled reassurance. Amber never thought the pit of her stomach could fall through the floor- it wasn’t as though she didn’ have enough to contend with…
From here she’d head onto Vegas, trying to live up to a hype thrust upon her when all she rathered was to blend in and grind.
Sunday night- a match where she had no business, no reason to stick her nose in and yet someone had made the choice for her like she were a puppet of violence to be set on an unsuspecting victim.
Monday night… She’d be going 60 minutes against a man known as the ‘Son Of A Bitch’, doign her fucking damndest to break a title match voodoo that had lingered for longer than she dared recall.
Now this.
Trying to force a smile, she hoped it came across more genuine than it felt… That it didn’t look like she was questioning her existence and plotting the easiest way to get out of a dead mans errand.
“Before you go…”
Grizz’s tone dropped, as though he lamented the words before he could even get them out.
“What’s it like… you know…”
Dying.
Something inside Amber’s chest twanged, lie an echo in an empty space just reverberating endlessly.
“It's… It's peaceful. Quiet, like someone turning the volume down on background noise before you go to sleep.”
Amber broke eye contact before he could catch her eyes welling up, hoping that her lie had given him something resembling a shred of hope.
******
“Some things are better left unsaid, but be damned if you don’t go and say them anyway…
That's how that goes right?
Feel like I’ve got a pretty good idea by now, seeing as I thought I’d do some due diligence and I’d knuckle down and do some research… you know, watch some video, listen to some promos and that's when it happened Mercedes, that's when i made the most startling discovery.
Put this on par with Newton theorising gravity, Einstein and his relativity, the sheer genius and engineering prowess of Da Vinci…
Brace yourselves, cause I’m about to blow your shitty little minds.
Mercedes, sweetheart… You cut the same fucking promo literally every time.
It's borderline verbatim and it scares the fuck out of me, that someone could be so self-absorbed and oblivious to the world not revolving around them that they could get in front of a camera week after week and repeat the same boring, trite hyperbole without the poor camera person having a stroke.
Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re great… I mean you don’t get to being the ‘most decorated bombshell in history’ without being at least up to par… or perhaps scraping through some years with minimal competition.
You are great at what you do, and I’m sure at one point you might have even been the best… but between you and me, I actually couldn’t give a fuck if youhappened to be the most decorated Christmas tree in the lot…
You’ve won title after title, after goddamn title but the fact that you need to constantly remind everyone that you did a thing, makes me wonder who it is you’re really trying to convince. Is it management in hopes that they don’t start overlooking you in favour of Bombshells with brighter upsides and a future that doesn’t involve menopause, is it your peers with the expectancy that we’ll gush over your achievements and quiver in despair when we’re match up against you…
Or is it Mercedes Vargas.
A woman so wrapped up in her past achievements that she can’t see the light fading in her near future cause, after all, nostalgia is a far prettier reality. A woman who could do so much good for so many but chooses to continually big note herself thinking that she’s still good enough to hang with a fast evolving division.
A woman more dedicated to hypocrisy and self-promotion than actually putting in a real effort anymore.
See, that's the thing, isn’t it… Every time you open your mouth you wanna criticize others for being on their own hype train, that they have to talk themselves up in hopes of standing a chance and how pathetic those who feel the need to do so come across…
And then you do exactly that.
Excuse me while I go and throw up my bowels cause I’m really just kinda sick of this shit.
Realistically, you don't care who I am- but you’ll pretend to, you’ll make a big show of saying you know all about me, about what I’ve done like you’re reading straight off a poorly edited wikipedia page and passing it off as gospel.
You have no reason to care aside from the fact that Christina Rose thought it pertinent to match us up cause she thinks I need a reason to go and punch someone squarely in the mouth. Jokes on her though, I’d happily to it for free if only for the fact I’ve been told I’m a sociopath.
Whether I am or not is irrelevant, which ironically enough, describes whatever jumped up assumption you’d like to pass off as an opinion.
I’m just another ‘pretty face’ looking to follow in your footsteps, that I have the potential to be successful but not at Climax Control cause this is your house and I’m not wiping my feet at the door. That you’ve been here too long for some nobody from a garbage wrestling company to come in and steal a spotlight you’ve been hot on the heels of since your last chance at a title.
I’m a passing fad of management, a thorn too preoccupied with being prickly and stuck in the side of a goody-two shoes to take advantage of this opportunity versus a… legend?
Let me take a raincheck on that one.
We could go into details about my SCW record, it ain’t sparkling like my personality but I like to think of it as a work in progress, a slow burn and a build to an undeniable ascension. See, I come into this place and I don’t need a world title to assert my dominance- I just want one to put the shits up everyone else.
I mean your 2020 so far… Not exactly looking much better, is it?
That's why we’re in this situation… and I know damn well Christina Rose is listening to this, and she’d also wanna know that I’m completely unopposed to committing regicide should the opportunity happen to present itself.
Maybe you seem to forget, I’m not some pawn or puppet in others games. I’m not here to entertain and smile for children, I might not be the boogeyman, but you can be damn sure he’s looking for me beneath his bed every night.
I come from a background of ultraviolence, being sick is my specialty and yet I feel like there are people here who want to test the boundaries, like I found my moral compass as I walked in the door.
Go ask Roxi Johnson who the fuck I am, she seems to be one of the few throwing out a level of respect I can get behind.
Truth be told though, I’m not looking for you to like me Mercedes… I’m not looking for us to become buddies after all this like a traumatic experience happens to bond strangers, no sweetheart that's not how this works.
You sit back with your luxury car, fans blowing your hair back dramatically and sun shining on that perfect Argentine skin- and I’ll continue to go about my business and do what it is that I’m known for… cutting a damn swathe through every place I walk into simply cause I’m kind of a shitty person.
Coming out of Into The Void- we’re all looking to make statements, to assert ourselevs as the heirarchy reestablishes itself, and I’m not stupid enough to put myself up on a pedastal at this stage. I’m not gonna sit here and declare I deserve anything cause I turned Jessie Salco into a tourettes ridden child, that I deserve anything cause a match with me made Myra Rivers more motivated than she had been in months.
So where do you stand Mercedes…
I know where you’ll put yourself cause lets face it, you’re nothing if not wildly predictable and entirely narcissistic to the point that your mirror is probably jealous of the amount of praise you continually heap on yourself.
I’m astounded you can even stay upright with that level of expectation on your shoulders, and even more so that you were the one to put it there and then pass it off like the world cares enough to make you feel more important.
You put yourself where you think you belong, maybe that's why Christina put me in this match with you… cause she knows I’m quite happy to drag you back down where everyone else think you belong.
Call it my civic duty, and tell the court I did it with a smile.
Come Climax Control, if you get through me… well that's sure to get people putting your name in their mouths, but lose to me… oh darling, lose to me and I’ll make you famous all over again.
After all, no one ever loves you more than when you’ve died.”
