Advice Ignored
”So….that’s it?” Austins voice broke through the haze. ”You’re done?”
Even though it broke through, even though the bass in Austin's voice was enough to shake the foundations and concentration of almost anyone. Let alone Zoey Lukas. She sat on a bench at Wolfslair, her hair in her face, her arms tired from a workout and the bar with weights still sat where she left it. She had been sitting, thinking, and in deep contemplation for the last few minutes. Minutes that felt like hours. But now, she sat silent. No idea what to say or what to do as Austin looked down. His growing hair was tied back in a bun and a few strands fell in front of his face.
He still didn’t look like the old Austin, even with the longer hair, and the shadow of a beard. He still looked like a new man, a mixture of the short-haired and even shorter-tempered man who returned last year and the honorable “good” man from years past.
But right now, he was in “older brother” mode. Standing and looking down at Zoey, a woman who he had been a mentor to, a woman whom he considered family. However, she was also someone who was at her wit's end. And Austin knew it. And this was a game of emotional chicken. Austin knew he had to wait for Zoey to talk first, to break that silence and to answer his question, he studied her, staying stoic and keeping a blank, emotionless expression on his face. But then, Zoey sighed heavily and threw her hands in the air, getting up and breaking the silence. ”I honestly…don’t know…”
Austin gave a small nod and stepped back, folding his arms over his chest. ”Your contract lapsed, so if you do want to do this, it won’t be for SCW….” He paused again, Zoey nodded at him and slowly took off her wrist supports. ” There are other companies, you’re good at this Zoey, don’t waste the prime years of your career trying to “find yourself” or some shit.” Zoey stayed silent but her look changed. A look of a teenager who was ready to be rebellious.
She backed up and shook her head, her voice changing and getting lower. ”Waste?....I’m sick of it…” Her response caught Austin off guard. Other members of Wolfslair stopped in their tracks looking over at them. Alicia, Aiden, Johanna, Alex. All of them watching and waiting. ”The grind, the waiting, the chances always being just out of reach…I need time off. So I let my contract end. I didn’t demand a title match, I didn’t throw a public tantrum on social media and then block people who beat me. I just quietly slipped away…” She shook her head and reached down grabbing her water bottle. ”I need time…this isn’t the end…but I’m going to go home…spend time with Aron…and relax.”
She shook her head again and turned moving away from Austin and the others, moving down and out of the weight room, Alicia moved up next to Austin, stopping him as he went to follow her. ”Don’t….she’s headstrong and she’s over it…we all reach that point.” She paused, Austin stopped and looked down at her. Alicia just smiled and laughed under her breath. ”Even me…it might take her some time to get over it and want to return…”
”Like you?”
”Kind of….atleast I signed a new contract…”
Austin raised an eyebrow stepping back and looking at Alicia with a confused look, this was news to him. The first time Alicia had spoken to him about the business and work. He hadn’t wanted to push or pry, he knew it took time and he knew it took a level of focus she wasn’t capable of at the time. ”So, when did that happen?” She chuckled and shook her head.
”End of last year, before SCW went on hiatus. Don’t know when I’ll be back, just waiting on them to tell me…” She backed up and moved out of the weight room, Austin followed Alicia out and into the main area, she walked slowly past the two practice rings, her eyes lighting up as she moved over them. ”You know, I didn’t originally want to do this…” She trailed off, Austin followed but stayed silent, willing to just listen to her as he reached out and let his fingertips trace the bottom rope. ”My upbringing had a lot in common with yours…my dad wasn’t really there…but while yours came in and took you away when you were a kid….mine didn’t come back into my life till I was in the business…”
”I don’t think I would have gotten into all of this if my old man hadn’t found me…you were drawn to it…it’s in your blood….in Zoey's blood.”
Alicia made a small noise as if agreeing with Austin, but she moved around the ring, studying it, looking it up and down as if she was getting familiar with it all over again. She pulled herself up and entered it before turning and calling for Austin to join her. Austin pulled himself up and stepped between the ropes. Alicia leaned on the top rope and tested the tensile strength. Austin just smiled. ”A smile?...well if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were happy…”
Austin raised an eyebrow and sighed heavily. ”Maybe, maybe I’m happy that you are getting back into something you loved. That I thought got taken away from you….” He laughed to himself, stopping and watching as Alicia bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and took off, hitting the ropes and crossing the ring to get used to it. Not the ring, she never really left that, but the idea of being a wrestler again, active and ready. ”I know your sister will be alright. But you….you were born for this…but, I suppose I understand how Zoey feels…I can’t lie and say I don’t feel the same way right now…”
Alicia slows down and turns as she comes to a light jog, looking over at Austin and shaking her head. ”Sometimes walking away is the best thing, look at me, look at Alex. We both needed it. Alex is still wondering if he should ever make a return and me? I needed that time and no one could tell me different…” Alicia stepped forward, moving to her tiptoes and kissing Austin softly. ”I want you to do something for me….I want you to close your eyes…right now.” Austin took a deep breath and did so, waiting for the next instruction. ”Now, breathe and pretend no one else is around, look inside and ask yourself one simple question…if you woke up tomorrow and you weren’t working toward something in wrestling…would it feel right?”
Austin took a deep breath and laughed to himself before opening his eyes and looking at Alicia. She was happy and nonjudgmental. She got him, she got the life. She understood. She was never going to force Austin to stay or to go. Only ever asked him what he wanted. And because of that, he had an answer, taking a deep breath before pushing it out.
”No…it wouldn’t…”
Alicia smiled and stepped forward again, reaching out and taking Austin's right hand in both of hers. ”Then…you’re not done yet….and you have a fucking tournament to win…”
Down the yellow brick road.
”Contemplation often leads to breakthroughs.”
Austin opens his eyes, his hair framing his face as he stays crouched down, wearing a pair of black jeans, combat boots a black shirt with the read wolfslair logo, and a leather jacket over the top.
” I’m going to tell you a story. And I hope that you bear with me on this journey because I promise you. This story has a point and it is relevant to the current predicament I find myself in. When I was a kid, before I knew who my father was, and before I knew what the family business was. I lived with my mother. Now, I don’t like to speak of the dead, especially someone who towards the back end of their life, tried everything that they could to make up for their shortcomings. But my mother was not a good woman. She was not a good mother, she was not good at her job, and she really didn’t have any skills to speak of. she did, however, work very hard to keep clothes on my back and food on the table as well as a roof over our heads. And for that, I will be forever grateful.”
“However, she still had a lot of floors. She liked to drink, and she liked to smoke, and those two things would contribute later on to the end of her life. And when I was a child, I thought this was how all families were. And for the most part, the other kids, I grew up with took pity on me and didn’t shatter my reality. They didn’t tell me that most of them had a father in their lives, whether or not that father lived with them or lived away. They still had them there. They still knew who they were. they kept the illusion going. And again, this is something that I was grateful for at the time. But while my mother‘s efforts are deserving of that gratitude, the children’s efforts to shield me from the reality of my life and help, pathetic, it did not need to be admired or looked at in such high regard.”
“I can remember the exact moment that the reality shattered, and I realized just how bad things were.”
“I had a friend, his name was Daniel. Daniel was extremely popular in school. We were 11 years old, and while I had my friends, and while I was known around the school I was not popular. Daniel was. Everyone loved him and everyone thought he was the most amazing kid that anyone had ever met. Great sports, amazing, and academically good-looking, he had all the little 11-year-old girls that we went to school with all fussing and falling over him and passing notes to him in the hall. he was my friend.”
Austin paused and pushed up to his feet. He sighed heavily and shook his head as if struggling with the memory.
”So, one day, Daniel comes to school. Now, the night, for I knew my mother had a visitor. A male caller. I went to bed and to her credit. She tried to shield me from such things, but I wasn’t stupid. And that night, I could’ve sworn to myself that I recognized the voice in the other room. but in ignorant bliss, I simply ignored it and drifted off to sleep. Content that the bubble surrounding my reality was still intact. That was, until the next day. I didn’t even see it coming. I felt a sharp pain hit me in the side of the face, and it took me a moment to realize that my friend Daniel, a kid, who had never heard a fly, had hit Me. Tears in his eyes. I looked up at him and had one simple question. There was on my lips burning that I needed to have answered.”
“Why?”
“He looked me dead in the eye, tears streaming down his face as hateful anger rose from the pit of his stomach. He told me that his mother had found his father coming out of the small apartment building that my mother and I lived in. He told me that his mother found out that his father and my mother had been sleeping together. My mother had ruined his family, my mother had ruined his reality. and in front of Me in the entire world, with everyone we knew watching, he verbally destroyed every single part of my innocence, as he told me that in the eyes of everyone, my mother was nothing, but a common Whore. An easy life for anyone who would give her any type of attention.”
“He shook his head and said he pitted me because my father could be any number of men. He knew who his father was, and he now knew that his father wasn’t perfect. But at least he wasn’t the son of a Whore.”[color]
Austin sighed again and gave a small shrug.
”A few weeks later, they found his body. Underneath the Eighth Street overpass. Apparently, he argued with the wrong people. In his depressed ignorance, he had walked down the wrong street and made a comment about something he should not have seen. His short life was ended in a moment of anger that he had nothing to do with. so what is the moral of the story? Why am I choosing to bring this up in this context? Well, it’s very simple. Sometimes you have to go through the worst things in your life and watch as your reality is shattered before realizing that other people's realities are just as fragile as yours. And that all you need to do to succeed in life, is to let go. because you never know how bad the other person has it..”
“So, would that being said I know most of you are sitting here, waiting for me to make excuses about my loss to Miles Kasey. After all, that’s what everyone else seems to do in this company. And if I’m being honest this business. People lose, like my opponent this week, did when he lost his mixed, tag team championships, they make excuses, but never really live up to the reality of it. They never accept it. Oliver can sit there and say that he accepts it and that he needed to do something to move on, but the truth is he never did, and that’s why he’s never been able to rise above the biggest win in his career.”
“His win against me.”
“And contrary to popular belief when someone beats me, especially someone like Oliver, I don’t get angry. I feel a small surge of pride. I was proud of Oliver when he beat me the first time, I was proud that this young upstart with a huge ego was not all talk and all bluster. just like I am exceedingly proud of Miles. Miles beat me at my own game. We went out there, and we went to war, and when the dust settled, Miles was the one with his arm raised and the championship around his waist. Miles showed the world what he was capable of. But Oliver? What have you done Oliver?”
Austin moves out of the dimly lit hallway, pulling a hood up from under his leather jacket as the snow crunches under his feet.
”You had a golden opportunity to usher in a new age for mixed tag-team wrestling with your partner. But it seems like those dreams dissolved in your hands. Luckily, through your apparent talent and the potential that everyone sees in you, you have been offered an opportunity to become the champion of this company. now, that is a position that I’ve held before. I’m proud to say that I was once the champion of this great organization and I was able to hold that championship for over 100 days and beat some of the best that this company had at the time. maybe you have the potential to do it. I don’t know.”
“Am I disappointed that no one is going to win the championship off the former champion? Well, of course, I am. But if this is what the company had to do with the title, then we all need to respect it. So some of the best names in this company are going to be fighting for the right to call themselves a champion. and trust me on this, I was as surprised as anyone else to hear my name was going to be involved. And I get it, why would anyone expect me to be here? I didn’t ask for this opportunity and deep down. I don’t even think I’ve earned it.”
“Just being honest.”
“But if I’m being honest about you. You do deserve it. Despite your losses, you have still had a good showing, and you still have a massive upside Oliver. You could be someone who leads this company into the future and becomes a champion to be proud of. Someone who can overlook their own ego for the betterment of this business and this company. just not now. With the eight of us in this tournament, I can see that one of us will end up being a champion worthy of the title. You can’t go through a murderous row like this and not come out the other side feeling like you deserve to be the champion.”
“If you get passed me, I’ll be the first one to shake your hand.”
“The problem for you is simple. I’m not done yet. And I get it, I do. Most people believe I should just walk away. I win some. I lose some, but in the end, I just can’t seem to get over the hump and become a champion again. Whether that’s the Internet championship or the roulette championship or the world championship or even the mixed tag team championships, I just cannot seem to hold gold again in this company. I face other people in sporadic matches and come out with my hand held high yet whenever I step foot in the ring for anything that is worth a damn I seem to stumble and fall. Much like you have in the past.”
Austin looks down at something on the ground. His eyes narrow and his jaw clenches.
”But Oliver, the measure of a man and the measure of a champion is never looked at when he falls. Anyone can fall. And whether you fall, one time, or 100 times, what matters you keep getting up. I understand that is cliche, and I understand that you are probably rolling your eyes right now. and if I’m being honest, I’m sure you’re also kind of pissed off that I admitted to the fact I’m not sure I should even be here, but I’m prepared to fight Famai right to stay. No doubt that was the majority of your argument?”
“You can get up Oliver. As long as there is breath in your lungs, you can stand up just like I can. We have both suffered losses and we’ve both watched as our championship dreams and glory have slipped through our fingers but as long as we are breathing. We can do everything in our power to regain it. as long as we are breathing. Keep that in mind. Because one day, you won’t be breathing anymore. And then it really will be over.”
“Carpe diem…”
Austin turned and walked away as it’s revealed what caught Austin's eye. A small gravestone with a simple engraving.
Here lies Daniel Montogomery, a beloved son.
