Be careful what you're thankful for...

[Johnny Karma]

12th November 2016, Atlantic City NJ

Ugly scenes unfold backstage at the Boardwalk Hall, as arena security stand between Johnny Karma and Cherry Baum on one side of the wall of flesh, muscle and knuckle tattoos, while on the other side of the wall we can assume Anthony Rother and The Usual Suspects are being shunted to another part of the arena by another wall of flesh, muscle and knuckle tattoos

Don’t you dare try and run away, this isn’t over!

Karma tries to make a lunge through the security, but they mass in front of him to prevent him getting through

Security: You need to step back.

You weren’t so “helpful” when that son of a bitch grabbed hold of me!

Security: You too.

Cherry turns her back on the security guards and marches away in a huff, clearly pissed off, while Karma’s still having none of it

My locker room’s not even down here, it’s over there.

Karma points down the corridor, where the other security are stood

Ask anyone, you’re not even doing your damn job right!

Cherry marches back into frame, grabbing Karma by the wrist, and marching him away from the security guards

Forget it, there’s no talking sense into these idiots.

Security: I heard that.

Cherry looks over her shoulder, giving the nearest shaved gorilla a remarkably fierce look, as she leads Karma a few feet away from arena security’s woeful inability to tell the difference between diffusing a situation and making it ten times worse

So what do we do now?

The same as what happens outside any bar when someone like this bunch realise they have the tiniest bit of power: wait it out, because they can’t stand there forever.

Hang on...where’s Noelle?

Karma can’t see where Noelle Smith went during the chaos at the end of the match, so tries asking the security guards

Do you know how Noelle Smith’s doing? Or where she got to after the match?

The security guards don’t move a muscle, let alone offer any answers

Nothing at all?

With an exasperated expression on his face, Karma gives up trying to get any common sense out of them and he too turns his back on them, walking away for the sake of his sanity, as a result Karma is having to walk the backstage area in his ring gear – and as the adrenaline wears off since it suddenly becomes very clear to him that the backstage area is not the warmest place on earth, especially not to someone not wearing any clothes on 80% of their body and covered in perspiration from the match

I can’t believe the nerve of those guys, saying they’re trying to stop things escalating yet there was no sign of them when things actually escalated, and now they’re making things worse by dumping us on the other side of the arena because they’re a bunch of dicks. So now what are we supposed to do, hang around until they decide we can go back to the locker room, because they lacked the sense to check where the hell our locker room was when they decided to get all ape on us?

Cherry clicks her tongue, still clearly annoyed with the situation, and looks towards Karma for wholehearted agreement – only to see that, instead, he’s rubbing his arms in a desperate attempt to try and warm himself up

…are you okay?

Freezing.

Taking a moment to look around, Cherry then grabs Karma by the wrist and leads him out of the backstage area and into the arena concourse – luckily with no fans milling about, as they’re in the arena watching the rest of the show, and once on the concourse Cherry leads Karma to the nearest merch vendor

Don’t suppose you have any hoodies available?

At first the vendor is taken aback by a member of the roster approaching them to buy some merch, no doubt thinking that FWA expects their roster to buy their own merch if they want to wear something to the ring – but as Cherry pulls out her contactless card, the vendor accepts a sale is imminent

Vendor: We’ve got a few. We’ve got this New Kings one…

Karma looks at the vendor with a “Seriously…?” look on his face

Keep looking.

Vendor: …this Tony Carmine one is 75% off and, oh yes, there’s a Chandler Scott one as well.

Is that all you have?

Vendor: We don’t stock many hoodies for live events, they’re bulky and take up a lot of space.

Don’t you even have a plain one, with just the company logo on it?

Vendor: We do, but it’s not a large, it’s a medium.[/font]

We’ll take it.

Cherry slaps her card on the counter as the vendor picks out the hoodie, and once payment is completed Cherry passes it to Karma so he can slip it on, although as the garment is more than a little snug he has a spot of trouble fitting into it

Thanks.

With the apparel bought and (sort of) covering Karma, albeit rapidly turning into a wearable towel as Karma’s perspiration seeps through almost the instant he has put it on, Cherry leads him backstage once again – and as they get backstage they realise the security guards are no longer blocking the hallway, allowing the pair to get back to the locker room

You can expense this, right?

Remind me to check before we get out of here.

Finally returning to the locker room, Karma almost immediately removes the hoodie and grabs a couple of towels from the bench, as the one thing he needs in his life right now is a hot shower – yet before he heads to the shower, he pauses and looks back towards Cherry

Are you okay?

I guess. Why wouldn’t I be?

Rother did grab you at ringside, so I just wanted…you know, to know if you’re okay.

Cherry looks towards Karma, before she turns her attention to the wrist that Rother grabbed during the match which still bears the marks from Rother’s grip, before looking back towards Karma

I’ll be okay, don’t worry about it.

Having assured Karma that she’s doing okay, Cherry pulls out her phone – yet rather than go for the shower he so desperately craved just a moment ago, he remains in the locker room for a few moments as he worries that Cherry might be putting on a brave face

20th November 2016, Coney Island NYC

Having performed a stone’s throw from one boardwalk, we catch up with Karma and Cherry on one that is equally famous – the one on Coney Island, in the shadow of Luna Park, the Cyclone dominating the scene just as much as the sound of the Atlantic lapping at the shoreline

As you probably saw at the last show, after so much talk and many more taunts, Anthony Rother realised that just because you post something on Twitter that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen – which is probably what was going through his mind in the moment where he ran out of the arena looking like someone had spliced Usain Bolt with a weasel…no, not a weasel, weasels are capable of taking care of themselves. No, he sprinted out of the arena like somebody had spliced the DNA of Usain Bolt with that of a ferret, desperate to get somewhere warm and safe where he can tweet things without having to worry about the consequences banging at his door wishing to discuss his multiple errors of judgment.

Yet in spite of seeing him head for the hills, doing so took something from me, something that I need: retribution.

For months I’ve had the New Kings coming at me from all sides. Sometimes I’ve held them at bay, but more often than not I’ve been at their mercy, yet lately I have realised that trying to go it alone was a fool’s errand that was always going to fail. I have realised this now…and yet still the feeling of pushing back eludes me, as it did at the last show where I found myself once again frustrated by how I cannot ever finish what I have started.

Pausing for a moment to look out to sea, Karma rubs his hand on his chin as he thinks about his next words

However, rather than once again find myself thinking of what could or should have been, I find myself once again standing on one side of the ring, while cowering at ringside as he hopes I haven’t spotted him is Anthony Rother, not only using Marx and Tryon as a human shield, but now he’s got Evan Envi roped in to his shady business – while I find myself once again paired with Noelle Smith, while Chris Madison has been introduced into my hell which isn’t as personal as I used to think.

I’m not quite sure how whoever-it-was informed Envi of what he was getting roped into, and I’m sure he wouldn’t be happy to know that the one person on his side of the ring who is guaranteed to not enter the ring is intent on poking the bear every chance he gets – and if I’m not mistaken, he has a past issue or two with Noelle, which means that I should feel jealous of Chris Madison as he’s going into this match without having any previous issues with anyone on the other team, but it also means that there’s a lot of animosity headed in the opponents’ direction for things they have said and done, and I have to wonder if they realise that they brought it on themselves. Come to think of it, has Rother noticed that, by having to ask someone who isn’t a member of the New Kings for help, maybe the numbers game isn’t quite as stacked in their favour as he first thought?

That would imply Rother was capable of engaging with the really real world, rather than the bubble he lives in which he hasn’t noticed will just take one…

Cherry mimes giving something a sharp poke

…and there’s no more bubble.

That’s the thing that pisses me off about Rother: say what you will about Cannon et al, but at least they have the capacity to back up what they’re saying or, if you prefer, they don’t have a problem putting themselves at the risk of having someone show them what happens if they cross a line. But that’s not Rother, he’s hiding behind Tryon and Marx the whole time, and on those rare occasions he does more than mooch around outside the ring leaving a trail of slime behind him, rather than face whoever he’s messing with he always goes for the cheapshot and gets the hell out of there before he can get a receipt.

Exactly, he thinks he’s some great general leading his troops to war – but the second a war breaks out, where is he? As far away from it as possible, placing his own safety above anything that happens to Marx or Tryon, be it a devastating loss or an opening to sound the retreat so you can live to do anything but fight another day.

Yet no matter how much Rother wants to say he’s manipulating events so things happen the way he wants them to, rather than spend a few weeks getting some R&R in the safety of…I don’t know, the used car dealership he probably should be running, he has to march back into battle against the same foes, and those foes want to finish what they started.

Retribution is the damndest thing, because no matter how much you look forward to receiving it, nothing can match the feeling that comes when you achieve it. There’s no replicating it, no faking it, you have to experience it – yet I know that if I have my hand raised at the end of this match I won’t have retribution, not because of anything that I do in this match, but because it’s a battle and not the war: the war is with the New Kings, and a victory over the Usual Suspects isn’t a victory over the New Kings because no matter what, I know that Evan Envi is not Johnny Cannon just as I know that regardless of their affiliation neither Jason Marx or Chris Tryon are Johnny Cannon.

The feeling of retribution can only come when I can say that I was victorious against each and every one of those who have made my life a living hell for so long, and it’s time for me to stop talking about doing this and actually go through with it – starting now.

23rd November 2016, Queens NYC

Having had some time to cool off after the heated scenes at the last Vertigo taping, we catch up with Johnny Karma as he steps out of the family home due to that other most stressful of ordeals – Thanksgiving preparations

Taking a moment to stand on the porch, aimlessly kicking the air as he mentally counts to one multiple of ten or another, Karma is suddenly caught off guard by his phone vibrating in his pocket, and as he manoeuvres the phone out of his pocket he sees that Cherry’s calling

…hey.

Is this a good time?

Well the annual scenes of my mom getting possessed by the kitchen Dybbuk hasn’t occurred yet, as I managed to walk into the room without a tongue lashing or a basting spoon across the knuckles, but give it another half hour and we’ll all be cowering behind the furniture.

Sounds fun.

You know how hectic Thanksgiving can get at Casa del Karma, and because of…you know.

Do you want to talk about it?

Karma sighs

I…uh…I guess…I guess it’s something that I, that all of us, just have to get through. The next year will be one “The first X without him” after another, and I doubt that sting will ever fade like I wish it would.

…

Misinterpreting the silence, Karma looks at his phone to check that he’s still getting reception

Are you there?

I’m here.

You never can tell, given how lame the connection is around here.

Listen…do you want me to come over? You sound like you need a friend right now.

Karma pauses, mulling over the offer in his mind for a moment – which in turn leads to Cherry believing the connection has dropped out

Hello? Can you hear me?
 
Yeah, I can hear you.

Taking a look around the neighbourhood as he contemplates the offer, Karma thinks “vos de genem” before giving his response

Sure, it’s probably a good idea. You remember how to get here, right?

Sure.

Okay, I’ll see you in a while.

Once he hangs up his phone, Karma opens the front door and looks over his shoulder to call into the house

Can someone set another place around the table? I've invited a guest...