Thirty-five minutes to go and I'm down a fall to Sir Cyril.
He's got the advantage.
Pinned me following a series of wild elbows that tore a portion of my mask.
Tiger Suplexed me and 1-2-3.
Down one but I'll get back.
I'm a busted mascot but I'm still looking good.
Got this insane reflective pearlescent version of my usual get-up, tonight.
I throw the light back.
"Sir" Cyril Tarrant is in cheesy Union Jack spandex trunks, looking the eternal Englishman sent to terrorize Spanish shores, tanned cordovan and gin-blossomed.
Pub-gut, sprayed on hair.
His chest is red with my hatred.
We've traded backhand chops for several minutes.
As the audience hoots the eager animal.
With each cracking swipe.
No one's entirely sure how old Cyril is.
I think he's 40 but he looks like a 55 year old from 25 years ago.
You know what I'm saying?
And sometimes I get the sense he might actually be from Australia.
Accent's weird.
Something's off.
But he claims Wolverhampton.
Enger-land.
What do I know?
Precious little.
We're all charlatans in our own way.
Catered kibble.
Mining furor for quibbles.
As for Cyril:
Against all odds he's fairly acrobatic.
Every now and then he does a moonsault.
As he's just done.
Cyril gets up there.
His finisher's an Argentine backbreaker.
Calls it the Tower of London.
I tried to convince him to call it the Argent Tower.
But he's been at this shit for a while.
The long hour.
Much longer than I.
Much.
And he's got his ways.
He doesn't use it much, these days.
Mostly puts over the younger talent.
I'm younger talent.
I'm going over, tonight.
It'll end 2-1.
They're gonna boo me.
Cuz I'm the bad guy.
Rabid.
If I do my job, they throw shit.
No shit.
Evildoing, evil done.
Cyril's blading.
There'll be blood.
Off a missed flying headbutt spot.
A botched intention.
Cyril'll pull in about ten minutes.
When he mounts the turnbuckles, revs up the crowd, goes flying, and I rollouttatheway.
Old boy's neck's busted but I'm not going to tell him what to do.
Fuck that.
Dare the devil.
And dance as well.
Cyril always smells like booze.
It's particularly pronounced when he sweats.
As he is, now.
In a front chancery.
I hold him as he catches his breath.
A pretended struggle.
Booze — booze!
Booze thins your blood.
So — there's a decent chance when Cyril goes flying again, and I'm not there, and he goes bang!-headfirst, does his downed RAF airman act, covert-as-can-be removes the razorblade from his wrist-tape and sets about The Work, really carves his ass up?
He's gonna bleed like a stuck pig.
So if he seeps the War of Roses in its entirety for the assembled mutants' entertainment?
If he's pushing sixty he won't see seventy.
The professional wrestler is not known for longevity.
Moreso head injuries and mixed memories.
But the marks will flip out.
So who gives a fuck.
I'm 21.
I "should be" in college.
I'm pretending to fight a fake aristocrat for three hundred people in a Masonic temple.
I'll pin him twice, if he survives himself.
Two times.
Pinfall victory.
Once off a brute-force kick to the face.
As he's knelt upon the mat.
Oughta open him up even more.
The gore goons'll love that.
Second time off a D.D.T. that arrives from an improbable angle.
Full faith.
Blind leap to the top rope.
No-look hover backward.
Deliver.
Credit due.
By then Cyril oughta look the proper horror-show.
The River Dwyer.
Overflowing banks.
And me, an asteroid-belt demon princeling turning Little Solomon's Key in a grapevine lock.
I'm a freak.
I don't give a fuck.
I schemed all this shit up to get away.
And it worked.
"Say uncle you rat fuck!"
I cranked back on his head.
The distorted alignment of his spine.
Recline.
Lean into it.
A tragic farce.
I'm a chiropractor.
I'm a clown.
I'm wearing a horned mask in a baseball stadium in Japan.
Me and this other gaijin they brought over here goes by Acid Greene are putting on an exhibition.
Armdrags and legscissors and chain-wrestling and rope-running.
Reversals in the infinite.
Dives, bombs.
Dive-bombing.
Up-and-coming.
Show-stunning.
We're in the middle of the card.
Lower-middle, really, third match of seven —
But the audience is rapt, and 20,000 deep.
They are buying the shit out of this, and that's what really matters.
Forty-thousand hands in polite applause.
Increasing to low vacillating roars.
As the intensity of our volleyed shots rises.
I kick Acid in the face for about the fifteenth time tonight.
And he gets me right back.
And I get him, again.
And him me.
And we keep going like that.
Until it can't really go anymore.
Doesn't have anywhere else to go.
'til the tension's all-built.
Then it's time to let them breathe.
To end the suspension.
Greene's got me up for his finisher.
Predictably enough it's called the Acid Drop.
Modified Death Valley Driver.
It's a lot on the neck, but I won't be taking it tonight.
Because as he screams out "This is it!" to the parishioners gathered.
I shift from his shoulders, landing behind him.
Ceremonially cover his eyes with my taped hand.
And bring him face-forward to the mat,
With a judo-derived momentum-based inverted sweeping throw I call the Voidgaze.
'VOIDGAZER' T-shirts made that first condo payment.
And paid off the Integra.
And I just made about 20,000 new fans.
Even if they hate me.
Yen spends as well.
Even if they don't know they love me, they do.
Could be the closest I'll ever get.
But it was to my great surprise.
That when my name was called that night.
The crowd threw streamers.
Of red white and blue.
And knowing not what else to do,
I threw them back.
The can sweat cools your forehead.
You haven't bought it yet.
Twelve-ounce rush-up.
The gas station buzzes post-grunge.
Fluorescent.
From some pre-programmed radio station.
Dying.
The clerk is absentee.
Here in physical form.
Otherwise gone.
Beneath a neglect mustache.
The bathroom is outside, and you'll need a key.
The key is attached to a filthy spatula.
Why do you have to put up with this?
Trust.
The lack thereof.
You've never shit down a wall.
Littered a needle.
Sharp.
But others have.
"Well y'know he was vaxxed to the maxx so it ain't no surprise his heart gave."
"I bet he was a coke-head."
"They all on drugs."
"Looked like a drug addict."
"How would you know?"
"I seen pictures with the mask off."
"Where?"
"On the damn Inner-net, man, fuck you think."
"You always on the damn Internet."
"You always on your damn phone man fuck you think it runs off if it ain't Inner-net? Fuckin' dumb-ass."
"Aw whatever, fuck you man. I'm on there talkin' to people. You the one lookin' up wrestler realnames or whatever fuckin' dumb-ass shit then you gone tell me I'm the dumb-ass. You a hypocrite'n you know it."
"Y'all shut the fuck up unless you gone do somethin' 'bout it."
"Pull up a picture, man. Without no mask on."
"Hold on."
"I seen him wrestle once in person but it was when he was old already. He couldn't done none them moves anymore."
"You STILL gotta respect a innovator though!"
"I don't gotta respect shit."
"Don't your daughter wanna be a wrestler?"
"She said but ain't no way. I'd rather she worked the damn pole than got beat up for a living."
"Why you thinkin' bout your daughter on no pole, man, you fuckin' weirdo."
"I'm just sayin', man, that little girl's my heart and my world, and ain't NO way —"
"You'd let your son."
"Well I ain't got no son."
"Yeah and we know WHY! . . . TAKES A MAN TO MAKE A MAN!"
"Aw fuck you!"
"Shit man you givin' it to him but you'd prob'ly let your son up on that pole, too."
"Fuck you. Fuckin' dumb-ass."
"You gone have a Chip - 'em - dale's son."
"Fuck you. Fuck you."
"Alright y'all shut the fuck up here I got the picture ready on my phone."
Thank you." 💙 𝚖.𝚟.𝚍.