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Cutting Ties
19th MAY 2024
OFF-Camera
I could hear her stomping through the house looking for me before she ever rounded the corner to come into the kitchen. There was no telling what she was going to be mad about today. There was always some kind of catastrophe brewing with the terrorists that masqueraded as our children. When she pushed open the door and leveled her index finger directly at me, I realized that this wasn’t something that I was going to be able to blame on the kids, and rushed through all of the things that I could have done wrong in the last couple of days.
MIKAH: Don’t play with me for social media points, Kris!
I let out an exaggerated sigh and wiped imaginary sweat from my brow. At least it wasn’t something that I was actually going to be in trouble for.
KRIS: I’d never….
With disaster averted, I turned my attention back to the countertop in front of me. I had been putting off looking at the packet of paperwork for weeks, but her tweet had forced my hand. If she was wanting to travel around the globe for a month, there was one thing that I had to finish before we could leave.
MIKAH: If you say we can leave the world behind for an entire month, I am going to hold you to it.
Luckily, whoever Jason had retained to do the legal work for Jet City had made my job incredibly easy. Each page that needed my attention had its own tab down the side. Every spot for an initial or a signature was highlighted. I flipped through it without looking back up at her.
KRIS: Cool. Let’s go then.
She crossed the kitchen to stand next to me at the countertop, but only shot a passing glance down at what I was doing. She pushed against me in an attempt to make me look up.
MIKAH: You don’t mean it.
I shrugged, finishing another one of the pages and flipping through to the next section.
KRIS: I surely do.
She took the pen out of my hand as I turned to another page, but instead of fighting with her for it, I reached into my pocket for another and kept things moving.
MIKAH: Just us and the kids? A whole month?
I nodded. There wasn’t any reason for her not to believe me, so I didn’t understand why she was making things so difficult. We had always been able to take off whenever the mood struck us. That was the main benefit of being retired to an island.
KRIS: It’s not like any of us have anything better to do.
It was the nicest way that I could put it.
MIKAH: No students?
There were always things that we could be doing. Even though I was in the process of taking care of my own gym, there was always Mikah’s and with it came Eiley, the other Eiley, Oz, and the other students. Sometimes it felt irresponsible to leave them to their own devices, but that wasn’t actually our problem. They weren’t actually our kids.
KRIS: Nope.
She still didn’t sound convinced though.
MIKAH: No last minute runs to Jet City?
I finished the last couple of pages and put the pen down before looking up at her with a smile.
KRIS: Not even a chance…
She frowned, still not buying it.
MIKAH: I still don’t believe you.
I sighed, gave up and started putting all of the papers back together into the folder.
MIKAH: What’s all of this that has more of your attention than I do?
I placed the open folder in her hands so that she could easily flip through it and get an idea of what it was.
KRIS: This is how you know I am not bullshitting you….
Her eyes started scanning across everything, and while she read she seemed to understand that there really was a chance that I was serious about the two of us running away for a month.
KRIS: ….and how I intend to pay for a month-long vacation.
I made sure to give her that line the moment that her eyes came across the offer line on my buyout from the company.
MIKAH: You are giving up Jet City?
I shrugged. It wasn’t going to be nearly as big of a deal for me as it was going to be for everyone else. I had already long written it off. That building and the students in it almost got me killed. I didn’t have a place in my life for it anymore.
KRIS: I think of it more as giving it back to Jason, and letting him do whatever he wants with it…
Mikah was there when I fought to set up Jet City South and keep it separate from what Jason was doing in Seattle. It was supposed to be a place for me to do my own thing, and now I was literally undoing all of that hard work with a few signatures.
MIKAH: ....but why?
I shook my head, the smile not fading from my face. I had been trying to talk myself out of it for so long that I really hadn’t been prepared for how good I would feel with the weight of it finally off of my shoulders.
KRIS: ...because after a whole lot of thought, I realized I didn’t care. I am done wasting my time with people that are never going to rise up to my level. It’s not like it was ever part of my dream to open a gym and teach people. I wanted to compete. I wanted to be the person in the ring, not the person that gets blamed every time some new flavor of the week flames out. I have better things to do with my time.
I could see the wheels turning as she tried desperately to connect this event to the other current source of stress in our relationship.
MIKAH: Is that what your whole little countdown is about?
The two things weren’t unrelated. One had definitely informed the other. If I really wanted to be the one competing, it wasn’t going to be enough just to get rid of the gym. I needed to get Mark and Christian on the phone, and I needed to sign a new contract.
KRIS: Something like that.
She immediately went on the offensive, trying to talk me out of it. It was part of the reason that I hadn’t even talked to her about going back as a team, or anything of the sort. I knew that her heart wasn’t in it anymore, and I didn’t want anyone saying that I needed to rely on her to make something of myself this time around. I needed this time around to be for myself.
MIKAH: You don’t have anything left to prove. Why go back?
I shook my head, but I couldn’t expect her to understand if I never gave her the chance to do so.
KRIS: It’s not about that. It’s not like I am going back to be the face of the company or anything. After the break-in at Jet City, I didn’t think I could ever get back into the ring. Through training with Oz, Jaycee and the others, we know I was wrong. I can still move as well as I ever could.
She knocked me down a peg with an addendum to that statement.
MIKAH: For now.
I agreed with her, but didn’t let it derail me.
KRIS: You’re right. For now. I can see that the spotlight is flickering. I know that I have a very small window of time before I really do lose a step. Before too long it won’t be my decision anymore. That’s not something that I want on my mind forever, ya know?
She sighed, but maybe she thought it wasn’t going to be worth arguing over. When either of us set our minds to something, there is little that the other can do other than get dragged along for the ride. Plus, if it was really something I wanted to do, there would be no way she would really try to take it away from me no matter how much she hated the idea. I counted myself lucky that she was at least trying to understand where I was coming from without giving me too much trouble about it.
MIKAH: So how long do we have before you’re expected to start showing up on Sundays?
I pulled up my latest countdown post from social media and showed it to her with a smile.
KRIS: Long enough for your vacation.
That was all the convincing that she needed to bounce up and out of the kitchen towards the kids rooms.
MIKAH: I’ll start packing.
Once she was gone, I realized that there was no amount of packing that she could do for the whole lot of us to be gone for that long. This whole thing was going to be more complicated than I originally thought. I started up the stairs after her, thinking maybe I could negotiate the timeline down a little.
KRIS: ....but what are we even going to do for a month?
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Time to Come Home
15th June 2024
OFF-Camera
Globetrotting with the entire family hadn’t gone anywhere close to as poorly as it could have. Leighton was old enough that she was really able to enjoy being able to travel. KJ, Myles and Lindsay were just happy that every single day was some kind of new experience. Nothing ever lasted long enough for them to be bored. That just left Mikah and I to constantly trade the baby back and forth depending on which of us she was more interested in for the moment. To be honest, I think that Ridley was having a better time than all of the rest of us, and she was the only one that wasn’t going to remember a single second of it.
I had even managed to keep most of my promises to Mikah as well. We hadn’t had to bail on the vacation. I had said yes to every single wild idea that she had. I hadn’t so much as mentioned my upcoming return to Climax Control, and for the most part I had kept anyone from trying to weasel into our vacation to bother us. None of the students knew where we were. I wouldn’t even give my dad our location, even though he had been calling me relentlessly for the last few days, yet refusing to respond to texts. To make sure that nobody was dead or dying, I bought myself a small window of time where Ridley was sleeping and everyone else was shopping for the afternoon so I could call him back without having to deal with the backlash.
HOLDAN: Hey… where are you?
I rolled my eyes, thankful that he wouldn’t be able to see it even though he probably heard it in my tone of voice.
KRIS: Still on vacation. I told you that we wouldn’t be back until sometime after the 19th.
I could tell that wasn’t the answer that he wanted to hear. He was used to me dropping everything and making any excuse to run away to San Diego.
HOLDAN: Aren’t you supposed to be appearing at Climax Control in like a week?
It was a surprising way for him to try and get me to come home considering that the show was going to be in Colorado.
KRIS: Your point?
He sighed. It seemed like he was fighting with himself about whether or not he was going to tell me what was so important the he was willing to risk Mikah smothering me in my sleep for ruining the vacation.
HOLDAN: I just didn’t realize that you were going to be cutting it so close. I was trying to wait until you got back to men---
I decided to make it easy for him. If he didn’t have the self-control to keep his issues to himself, I was going to help him.
KRIS: Nah! Nah! Nah! I thought we agreed that you don’t get to call and mention any kind of problems until after I get back.
He instantly turned it back onto me like he had been prepared for me to try and shut him down.
HOLDAN: Yeah right! Then it’ll be that you’re too busy prepping for your big return.
That did sound like something that I would have done in the past, but honestly not something that had even crossed my mind in the present.
KRIS: I’d like to think I have earned a little more credit than that.
I forget that just because I can’t remember most of the bad years, doesn’t mean that others don’t remember them vividly.
HOLDAN: You have an unlimited potential for selfishness. I wouldn’t dare underestimate you.
I had to concede. There was no arguing with that. I made a career out of my selfishness. It was likely the first word people thought of when my name came up in conversation.
KRIS: That’s fair.
He wasn’t going to dwell on that though. I could tell that whatever it was that he had going on was weighing on him.
HOLDAN: There’s something important that I need to talk to you about when you get back.
At least he finally understood that he was going to lose this battle.
KRIS: Well as I have told you, I promised Mikah a whole month. There’s nothing in the entire world worth having to fight with her about shortening it by a few days.
Defeated, he let me shift the subject to Mikah so that he could ask a follow-up.
HOLDAN: She’s still not excited about you going back?
I had a feeling that he wouldn’t approve of me telling him that we were just avoiding the subject.
KRIS: She’s supportive, but I think part of that is because she knows that I would go back no matter what she thought.
I didn’t even have to see the smirk on his face to know it was there. I could hear it through the little laugh he let out before tearing into me a little.
HOLDAN: Oh, so it’s the full mid-life crisis return? You need to prove to yourself that you can still run with the best?
I couldn’t be upset that he saw it that way. I assume that a lot of people are going to come to that conclusion. I already knew what I was going to say to all of them though.
KRIS: Look, I have gotten to have a whole lot of endings with Sin City, and there haven’t really been many of them that I got to do my way. If I would have never gotten back into the ring after going into the Hall of Fame, it would be different. That’s not what happened.
He took over and took the thought to its logical conclusion for me.
HOLDAN: So it got taken from you, and now you’re going to go try and get it back?
I was just glad that he understood where I was coming from. If he got it, the people buying the tickets to be at the shows should be able to wrap their heads around it too.
KRIS: Might as well live the dream for as long as I can, right?
There was a long pause while he considered how best to put his next words.
HOLDAN: Depends on what it costs you.
I tried to push that thought out of my head before it could infect every positive feeling that I had about returning.
KRIS: That’s not something I want to think about right now. I will call you when I get back.
I could tell that he didn’t like it, but he knew it was the only answer that he was going to get from me.
HOLDAN: Don’t conveniently forget.
Still no faith in me. I should have been more insulted.
KRIS: I won’t. Just give me a couple of days.
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>Flicker
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”Mark and Christian really hit it out of the park with this return match….”
”Granted, I kind of fucked all of that up last week. It’s awfully embarrassing to end up thousands of miles away from your big return match. It doesn’t really send a good message. It made me look like maybe I wasn’t taking all of this seriously. It was definitely disrespectful for me to leave LJ all dressed up with nobody to take him to the dance.”
”...but I can’t do shit about that now, can I?”
”I guess I should count myself lucky that Mark and Christian were willing to just push the match for a week instead of canceling it altogether. Hell, I couldn’t have even really blamed them if they punished me with a match meant to teach me a lesson for making them look bad. I could have ended up in a handicap match. I could have ended up blindfolded, or with my hands tied behind my back. Hell, it could have been all three. The fact that it’s still me against LJ Kasey is a blessing. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that. ”
”...and I know what some of you might be thinking…”
”...but no. I know that I have a reputation of being sarcastic. I know that I have built a career off of being just as demeaning in front of a camera as I am undeniable inside the ring. I know that you people expect me to cut this kid to ribbons before we ever step into the ring, but I’ve grown up. See, I don’t see his lack of experience as a negative. I have seen some of what the kid is capable of inside the ring, and I know there is probably a whole lot more that we have yet to see. I don’t think a handful of matches can really tell you who a person is going to be in this business, but I know that I see the potential that got him hired.”
”...and that is what I think is exciting. I know, that come Sunday night, I am going to be looking across that ring at someone so green that they are unpredictable. I am going to be trying to run with someone younger, and maybe even a step faster than I am. LJ may have only had a few matches in Sin City, but that is a few more than I have had in the last couple of years. From the moment that bell rings, I am on the clock, because I am not delusional enough to think that I am going to be able to outlast him in a marathon.”
”...and yeah. I am a Grand Slam Champion. Yeah, I have done everything in this business. I have been in the ring with all of the big names. I have main-evented all of the big shows. All of those things are true, and every single one of them happened a long time ago. With everything that has happened since the last time I competed in this company, those accomplishments don’t even feel like they are mine anymore. They feel like they belong to another person. It’s in the past. I’m more worried about the present. And the present is me standing across the ring from another man that just wants his fair chance to work his way up the ladder.”
”I don’t want to be one of the ‘legends’ of this company that show back up after forever away and start demanding things that they haven’t earned. I have made a career out of making a return, and fighting my way back into the mix. And this won’t be the first time that I walk through the door and people tell me that my best days are probably behind me. I have heard it before, and I have proved everyone wrong each and every time. It would be miraculous if I could find a way to bottle that feeling just one more time. That’s what I want more than anything in the world, and that’s why I am here.”
”I could have kept sitting at home, looking at the championships on the wall, and telling myself that I could still do it if I wanted to. Instead, I decided to bet on myself and give it another shot.”
”LJ Kasey seems like a guy in a similar spot.”
”Things haven’t quite gone to plan for him. He hasn’t accomplished the things that he has set out to do in this company. Everytime he takes a step forward, he falters, and there are certain those that think that he is never going to put it all together. Yet, he shows up. He gives it another shot. He tells himself that it is going to get better next time. He tells himself that he is going to be great.”
”I’m just a guy trying to do the exact same thing. And LJ, I just so happen to think that the combination of our styles could tear the house down regardless of who wins.”
”A few months ago I asked the world if they saw their spotlight flicker, could they just sit by and watch it go out? I decided that I couldn't. I decided that I wanted one last shot at doing something great.”
”...and greatness is going to be waiting for us down in the Climax Control ring on Sunday, LJ. Let’s not let anyone down this time.”
