The Joke Is Not Me, Mate
New York, NY
Saturday, Oct 22nd
“Pffffffffffft.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
An uproarious laughter could be heard coming from inside Miles’ room inside of Finn Whelan’s Home for Wayward Wrestlers. In the main stretch of the living room everyone turns, all with a look on their faces as they’re trying to figure out what and where that is coming from.
The door to Milo’s room burst open and he is clutching his stomach, in tears from laughing so hard. They watched as he tried to gather himself, heading into the kitchen, opening up the fridge and grabbing a beer. He takes a deep breath trying to calm himself from laughing more so he can take a drink but instead just before he gets the bottle to his lips he just clutches the counter and lets out another round of laughter before finally catching his breath.
Just as Miles can finally take a good chug of his beverage he is joined by Finn, “What’s so funny?”
Miles catches his breath for a moment trying to figure out how he wants to start this, “You ever kick back and see just how amazingly fucking delusional someone really is?”
“Oh a few times. But I take it you just discovered someone new?”
“Actually no, we all knew how delusional Barnhart was but...” Miles lets out an annoyed sigh, “This takes a whole new level of ‘What the FUCK is he on?’ because...I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Finn pulls a bottle of his own from the fridge to join in on the fun with Miles and leans against the counter inthralld in the conversation, “Try.”
“I know we’re close to Halloween and all, but I’m convinced that he got drunk or was tripping on something while listening to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and suddenly it was like a really horrible day time talk show that made Jerry Springer look Emmy worthy.” Miles leans up against the counter, “He brought a guy on that he claimed was Satan himself, and then went on a tirade about how he beat Satan and then because we couldn’t get any further out in left field...he tried to claim that I paid off the whole situation with Carter at Climax Control.”
Finn in the middle of a sip damn near spits it out when he hears this and with wide eyes say, “HOLD UP! WHAT?”
“I fucking shit you not, mate.” Miles chugs the rest of his beer to try and calm his nerves, “I had to stop it and just fucking laugh my ass off because only he could possibly believe that and now I wanna pop that fat head of his off his shoulders like a zit.”
Finn can see his friend is starting to switch in those feelings about the entire situation, “Man, this whole thing with Carter is really getting to you.”
“More than I care to admit.” he sighs, “I’ve been trying to piece together everything and trying to figure out everything and then Billy Boy just runs his cocksucker and suddenly it’s a whole new anger that boils inside me.”
The two men sit in silence for a moment before Finn nudges Miles with his elbow, “Maybe it’s time you guys figure out what is actually going on.”
“I want to, I just need the right place to start. Every red flag and alarm is going off in my head from the entire situation and I’m not about to go into this title defense fall in the hands of a man that not only makes light of a situation that he has no fucking clue about, but to call me a fraud?” with a growl he drops the bottle into the recycling bin with a clang, “Nah, the fat tub of goo is going learn the hard way about what karma is all about when I drop him in the center of that ring and just to just for shits and giggles, I hope that Bea sits at ringside and finds out what kind of beta bitch she married.”
Before Finn is able to respond we hear a tone from Miles' phone and he looks at it with a look of curiosity.
“Booty call?”
Miles laughs a bit and shakes his head, “No, it’s from Arianna. She’s asking when I can come back to Vegas.”
Finn’s eyebrow hitches, “Didn’t you just get back?”
“Yeah, Tuesday...but I was planning on making my way out again to do some media appearances. Mostly I came home to get my new gear from Mattie and get some laundry finished up,” Miles says typing a message back to her, “Looks like we’re gonna meet up tomorrow once I get in.”
“She say what it was about? Not abandoning Wolfslair, are ya?”
Miles smirks, double checking his flight, and confirming with Bombshell Roulette Champ in the process, “Not a chance, mate. I got an eerie feeling that I know what it’s about, and if my suspicions are correct, the Jack Black rip off that appeared to talk up Barnhart will look like a tiny bitch in comparison a real monster.”
“Well, better get packin’ then. We’ll meet ya out there in a day or so.”
“Yeah I guess,” Miles says, pocketing his phone, “Thanks for the chat.”
“Anytime, my friend.”
Deepest Darkest Secrets
Las Vegas
Sunday Night
The words rattled around in his head.
He could hear Ari’s words and the story she told him, what had been seen and heard in regards to things happening between Carter and Laz had sent Miles into a proverbial talespin.
Since then he went into a familiar place, an old rundown dungeon of a gym. The kind that you felt the need for a tetanus shot just walking through the door. These were the kind of gyms that Miles found himself in to make an extra pound or two growing up back in Manchester, cleaning up and occasionally allowing him time with weights and a broken down boxing ring where he’d sneak his mates in to do stupid shit.
But for now it served a deeper purpose.
If he were a therapist, which he was lucky to graduate from grade school, some would say that Miles held on to some seriously suppressed rage stemming from being abandoned by an abusive father. People were quick to give him and his mother and sister pity but what he really needed was actual guidance. He found that in the hole in the wall that was Graiches Gym back home. The old man was cruel, he had a sense of humour about him that would never stand in normal society, but he would push a teenager that had a hold of a lot of pent up aggression.
So it came as no surprise years later, finding places like this became a great outlet. He had found it sometime ago when he needed a place to escape. He hadn’t spoken about it to anyone and he was glad. There was a lot Miles needed to sift through in that brain before he did something he would regret.
He felt like his hands were tied. His friend was involved in something he knew all too much about, and they just refused to see the truth of it. They’d just make it like nothing was wrong, not admitting what everyone else was seeing. And it was fucking frustrating.
Miles stepped up to the punching bag that had seen better days, his hands wrapped tight and just laid in punch after punch.
But the more he punched, in his head the flashes of his whole life popped in his head like it was the scene from the Avengers movie where Captain America had the same thing happen.
Him getting his ass kicked by his dad for stepping between his dad beating his mother.
Every fucking tosser at school laughing at him back in his scrawny days, walking through the halls with a black eye and fat busted lip.
The pain in his mother’s eyes when he’d show up looking like he’d been through a war.
Him collapsed on the mat and catching glimpse of his sister Brianna, seeing him beaten to a pulp.
Every single twisted thing that he had been through with Mack by his side.
Every. Failed. Relationship.
And then as one final blow, despite all the hard work, him finally proving his worth, he was still getting looked down on by pieces of shit like Billy Barnhart.
He stopped himself from throwing the final punch and realized that he wasn’t making anything better. He worked himself up into a nice sweat through his frenzy. He just stared at the bag swinging on the overhead hook, as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and he would hear the old man’s words:
“Sometimes, you can’t punch yourself out of a situation. Sometimes you just have to be a little smarter, a little faster...step back and let the shite hit the fan, my boy. Just make sure when it does, you are ready for your next move.”
So what is his next move?
You Have Never Danced With A Devil Like Me
Outskirts of Las Vegas
Sometime after midnight Thursday night
Off in the distance, out in the desert Las Vegas looks almost promising. Some would call it a modern day Sodom and Gamora, but for the SCW Roulette Champion, Miles Kasey it has turned into a second home. He’s spent a lot of time there lately. Fenris was still trying to convince the young member of Wolfslair to join them out there but Miles made it known that his place was in New York.
Miles though enjoyed the solitude for a little bit at least, he took to discovering the outskirts with his rented car and found the perfect spot to scream out into the void. That dirty blonde curly hair of his going whatever direction it wants, those blue-green eyes just focused on the city before him.
“Billy Boy, you better have a balls of fucking steel and be prepared to double down after the bullshit I fucking heard come from your mouth.”
Miles buries his head in his hands and takes a deep breath and lets it out.
“After everything that I’ve been through, and I know you have paid attention before, you actually accusing me of paying off the refs and Carter in that match has to be the lowest of the low...even for you. You even making light of that whole situation just goes to show you exactly what kind of piece of shit you are. In fact, you aren’t even a piece of shit, you are more like watery diarrhea that you get when you get food poisoning.” he peaks up and gives a wicked little smirk, “You ever ask yourself as to why absolutely no one except your wife remotely likes you? I know Malachi O’Connell and at least he’s tolerable to hang around once in a while and it’s not because his wife happens to be a stablemate and a friend. Look, everyone that knows me knows that I’m a pretty likable guy that gets along with pretty much anyone and if I don’t like you there is a damn good reason, and Billy I just do not like you.”
He slides off the hood, trying to hold that anger in. Running his hands through his hair he kicks at the rocks at his feet.
“There has been something about you that always rubbed me the wrong way with you and I think I know why. You think that the world of SCW revolves around you. And while I’m fairly certain your size does come with your own gravitational pull, I can tell you for a fact that you are not that important, bruv. I’ve been here for just over 2 years and let me tell you flat out....There have been people that have been here for a cuppa that have had more of an impact than you and considering that you are a former Roulette Champion, that is saying a lot.”
He stops and points directly at himself, slamming his own finger into his chest.
“I’ve said it once already, this head to head we’re about to have at High Stakes is more of a redemption for me. There are times that I have gotten my arse kicked by the likes of you, when I never saw my worth. Instead you seem to think like nothing has changed since all of that.”
He straightens himself out and takes a few steps forward, his gaze off towards the city again.
“When I finally reclaimed my life and then claimed the Roulette Title in India, I finally realized that despite my whole life telling me I was lesser, I was really just holding myself back. I’m not just something you can step on because you think I’m still that kid that walked in here and kept getting his ass kicked. Now I’m the one that is handing them out and if you think that you can just drag your knuckles, beat your chest and tell me that you are better while accusing me of my whole reign being a fraud, I am more than happy to take that bulbous head off your non-existent neck and give the fans one of the best things that I could possibly think of and knock your ass down several pegs.”
He shakes out his arm and peaks over his shoulder, the devilish smirk returning to go with that glimmer in those eyes, “I’m bloodthirsty, bruv. More so than I have been in quite some time. You actually sat there and claimed that you beat the devil....mate, you have no idea. That was just one demon in your story. Me? I have spit in the face of so many demons that I’m more than sure that Lucifer himself has me at the top of his hit list. I’m a defiant sod with the inability to know when to stop which will be the name of my autobiography when it’s all said and done. But I’m not done being the SCW Roulette Champion. But I’m not done being the SCW Roulette Champion, I don’t plan on that title going anywhere....especially to a joke like you.”
Turning on his heels, he stands taller than he ever has. That little boy that slumped and stammered, that got beaten up in the school yard for his father being a loser has grown into a man that won’t be pushed around by the schoolyard bully.
“You think that you faced and beat the devil himself? Mate, the last I heard when the devil went down to Georgia he lost to a better man than the two of us. But don’t think you’re not playing with a demon that you know. I’m not that stepping stool for you anymore Billy Boy and I’m sure as hell not going to let you just walk into this match and think that you’re going to have an easy night.”
A laugh crosses his lips, maybe not as big as when we started this little tale but still just as bright. Miles shakes his head, “I don’t play that way anymore, and I really don’t give a shit as to where that wheel lands...for what you said, for how light you made the whole situation and just the general way you talked down to me...mate...I’m gonna fuck you up beyond repair. We are not going to come out of this match the same men that entered it.”
He steps even closer and glares down, “You are nothing more than an asshole, just like me mate. You have never been better than me and the only nightmare I’m going to have is the off chance that you’re gonna lose your drawers somewhere in the match and I have to see that lily white ass of yours swinging in the breeze. You wanna talk about karma?” He holds up his hands and raises the W, the sign he gives to tribute his group and looks through like he’s looking at a bullseye...
“I’ll bring yours 10-fold and I’ll still be the Roulette Champion and you can hobble your ass to the back of the line.”
W’s up. Bulldogs down.
