Crossroads
Jun 23, 2016 19:36:37 GMT -5
Post by Johnny Karma on Jun 23, 2016 19:36:37 GMT -5
6th June 2016, Florence, South Carolina
As another edition of Vertigo wraps up, outside the Florence Civic Center we see a tale of two exits: on one side of the building the fans are filing out of the arena into the parking lot to have several thousand different conversations all at the same time. Many of them are talking excitedly about various moments which took place in front of them during the night, others are discussing the merits of IHOP, Chick-fil-A or Chipotle for a post-show snack, while one particularly vociferous person is trying to order a cab and is finding himself greatly irritated by the fact several thousand people won’t be quiet for a couple of minutes so he can get what he wants
On the other side of the arena, far away from the fans, the various members of the FWA roster are making their way out to a second parking lot, one where their rental cars are parked up and a large number of arena security are stationed around to stop people rushing towards their favourite FWA stars in an effort to secure an autograph with extreme prejudice or, just as likely, use their keys to test just how scratch-resistant the paint job of Jimmy Page’s car is
Amid this scene of controlled anarchy we see Johnny Karma walk out of the arena, with Cherry Baum by his side, but the way Karma walks indicates his mind hasn’t so much wandered as decided to go on a six-month trip to Tibet in order to find itself
So what’re you thinking for after the show J-K? Outback Steakhouse? Olive Garden? Red Lobster? Oh, wait, probably not Red Lobster because of…well, you know. Shellfish. We don’t want to see a repeat of The Great Projectile Hurling of 2013, after all.
The look on Cherry’s face indicates she has vivid memories of that particular incident, not least because the stomach pain Karma was suffering was so bad he had to stand in the motel shower to let loose as he couldn’t even double over the toilet, which necessitated one heck of a hefty tip to housekeeping the following morning – yet after taking a moment to try and forget, dear Lord she would love to forget the clam-scented horror,
J-K?
Cherry turns around to see Karma has stopped walking for a moment, and instead he’s looking towards the sky once again – just like he was doing earlier tonight. Wondering what is going on, Cherry turns and approaches Karma, as he wipes the sweat off of his face
What’s on your mind?
At first Karma looks at the sweat in his palm and is about to wipe it off on his shirt, but he thinks better of it and wipes one palm against the other so he doesn’t have a sweaty mark down the front of his shirt…or make that another sweaty stain down the front of his shirt, given a certain amount of sweat is already seeping from his skin through his shirt
Looking concerned, Cherry places a hand on Karma’s forearm and looks in his eye
Is this about what you were saying earlier?
Yeah…
Upon hearing himself drawl in a thicker Noo Yawk accent than usual, even if it was just for a couple of seconds, seems to snap Karma out of his senses
It’s just…no matter how hard I tell myself otherwise, no matter how much I know otherwise, no matter how often I look at the card for ASSV I can’t help but think that I should have done something, anything, to stop those New King Ben Zonahs from somehow scraping their way into contention for the FWA Championship.
For the past couple of months I’ve been punched, kinked, stepped on and stepped over and even though in my heart of hearts I know what you and Fuji have both been telling me is true, about how things will find a way to even out and leave them looking like nothing more than a couple of opportunists whose luck will run out the moment they face any actual challenge, but no matter how much I know this I just can’t get past the fact they somehow stepped ahead of me because luck managed to be on their side. More than that, the fact that not only did I let them treat me like a piñata, but they’re now living…
Karma taps a couple of fingers to the side of his temples
…up here, rent-free, and all because I let them. I mean, I get it, there’s no way any man with a pair of beytsim to his name is just going to shrug their shoulders and give up, but it keeps gnawing at me that no matter how close I’ve come, I’ve never managed to get that moment where I show them what happens when a man is pushed too far by a couple of punks who wouldn’t know what being a man was if they looked it up online.
And this is what it comes down to: moments. The moment I reclaimed the Pride Championship, I got jumped on. The moment I looked to gain revenge by defeating Carmine a second time, I got jumped on. The moment I walked out to prevent them from dictating the Gold Rush Rumble, I got jumped on before I even got inside the ring. Time and time again they’ve taken things from me, and not only am I sick of it, I can’t work out why the hell nobody else is sick of it too. It’s like everyone wants to accept this is the way things are and just knuckle under, and that’s just the way it is.
Not everyone, J-K. We’ve seen Fujiko stand up to them, we’ve seen Ricky Valero, Molly Reid, Nero Darling and Mark Storm stand up to them, so don’t give up.
Cherry pats Karma’s arm, as his mind wonders to something else
Yeah, Fujiko, she…she has her head screwed on straight. But here’s what gets me: the pair of us are facing off for the Pride Championship, and a part of me is wondering if she’ll try to skirt the rules just that little bit in order to succeed. That’s what is getting me most of all, I’m starting to think that I can’t trust anyone around here, because there’s always somebody looking to take advantage.
Hearing the last part, Cherry leans in a little closer
You can trust me, J-K…
Cherry flashes a kittenish smile at Karma, hoping he takes the hint that maybe not everything is so bad
And you really need to trust yourself. You know how much you worked for that title, you know how much you want to have the match that everyone talks about, so no matter what else is on your mind, and I can tell there’s so much up there that it’s like Penn Station on a Monday morning, maybe you need to stop going over things in your head because there’s going to be a time when it gets too crowded up there and you end up with a couple of dozen voices shouting different things at you all at once, and you’ll just drive yourself nuts if you try and listen to all of them.
Listening to what Cherry is saying, Karma briefly turns his attention a few dozen yards ahead of where they are, as he watches arena security form a phalanx around one rental car in the parking lot – he’s not sure who’s car it is, but if security are trying to protect the person getting in their car that means they’re either very popular, or the exact opposite
Are you okay hanging back for ten minutes?
Unsure of what Karma means, Cherry looks at him in a quizzical manner
What do you mean?
It’s a madhouse around here, so making a move right now looks like it’ll get messy pretty darn quick.
Understanding what he means, Cherry nods in agreement
I see. What do you think we should do?
Look for somewhere to get a bite to eat? I’m famished.
At this point Cherry pulls out her smartphone
Any suggestions?
Definitely not Red Lobster. I’m not going through that ever again.
With that being said, the pair turn and head back inside the arena for a little while longer
23rd June 2016, Lakeland, Florida
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we see Karma and Cherry have arrived in the location of ASSV, to be more precise they are hanging out on the shores of Lake Hancock, enjoying the cool breeze coming from the water’s surface – but making sure not to get too close to the shores, as those things floating in the water may look like a piece of wood floating in the water but it’s not advisable to get too close to them, because you’ll soon find out that’s no piece of cypress bark…
Whilst among the flora and fauna of this hot and stick Floridian afternoon, Karma’s mood is as reflective as the water’s surface
You were right, it is a bit more pleasant to sit here rather than go to the beach where the other twelve million people are all piled one on top of the other…
Karma gestures in the direction of one of those not-pieces-of-cypress-bark
…sort of like how his friends are piled up at that gator ranch we passed on the way into town - although if that brat who was sat opposite me on the plane is on the beach right now, you’re probably less likely to get bitten at that ranch. You’d think he wanted membership of the New Kings or something…
The last comment makes Cherry chuckle, before she’s momentarily distracted by a bird call emanating from quite close to the pair of them
What the…?
As the bird flies from its perch overhead across the lake, Cherry calms down – before welcoming the opportunity to change the subject
So anyway, you wanted to come to some place with some peace and quiet – which is quite hard to find, given Florida is mostly freeway, strip mall and swamp, and that’s before the problem with the state being located about two miles from the sun.
Cherry fans herself with a magazine, before removing her sunglasses to wipe some of the moisture from them
I did, and for a good reason…
It suddenly dawns on Karma how that sounded
…okay, now I’ll try not to sound like a geshlekht baytsh when I answer – I needed to get away from all thoughts of wrestling for a couple of hours, because hanging around in the arena is not the best idea right now…and not just because the air con isn’t switched on, making the place about as pleasant to be inside as the back end of an elephant.
The thing is I’ve spent many hours of my life sitting in locker rooms or standing around in hallways thinking about the match I’m going to have, but last night when I was trying to get to sleep I had a thought: how about I stop thinking about my match in some small, constrained area with that friend chicken smell of dried sweat coupled with that rancid Gatorade scent of fresh sweat, and instead why don’t I just open up my world a little bit so I’m not going over strategies thinking that I’m always twenty feet away from somebody who jumped me from behind more times than I can count.
After all, it’s much easier to think about a match when I can’t hear teamsters cussing each other out as they try and put the ring together in the noisiest manner possible, or having people walk poke their head through the locker room door just long enough to realise they’re in the wrong place and have all the awkward conversation that follows, let alone overhead somebody walk past throwing a hissy fit because somebody left a red M&M in that brandy glass in their locker room. So with that in mind…my match.
Rather than continue, instead Karma searches around himself to find some pieces of bark – actual bark, not apex predators that look like bark – and when he finally manages to find some he breaks it into four pieces and arranges them on the ground between himself and Cherry in a square shape
So this right here is the ring. It’s not the best piece of engineering in history, but for a metaphor it’s pretty good.
So here’s the idea: a ring is a small space, although once you step inside the thing it looks a lot bigger than it did when you were at ringside, but it’s not some arena for gladiatorial combat as much as it’s a stage, a place where stories are told and the people telling them wish that their audience would look up from their cell phones once in a while. But while you’re on this stage, you have to decide what story you wish to tell: will it be a Greek tragedy, or a farce worthy of Basil Fawlty or Frasier Crane, or a work of Grand Guignol, or…you get the idea. The stage is set, but the actors decide the play they want to perform.
So thinking of it like this, I have to work out the plays that myself and Fuji want to perform. From what I can tell, Fujiko has been rehearsing the lines for a redemption story, picking up from last year where she and me were competing to be the top contender for the Pride Championship, which she found herself falling short while I went on to…let’s put aside the immediate aftermath of that for now. What Fujiko wants is to receive a curtain call after a starring role where she recovers from adversity and disappointment to claim the prize she sought from the very beginning, proving to herself that she could do it while others doubted her. It’s a story that sounds familiar to me, as I was in the middle of a similar production not that long ago.
But here’s the part that has me wondering: based on the narrative Fujiko wants to see play out, that casts me as the villain, the cruel-hearted person who wants to snuff out her dreams because of reasons writ large – and this isn’t the sort of villain you can sympathise with on some level, such as Michael Corleone or Magneto, instead I’m the Big Bad who is standing in the way.
Also standing on the stage is, not to put too fine a point on it, me. And from where I’m standing, the story I want to tell is one of someone who gets knocked down time and time again, but rather than stay down they will keep fighting until they clinch the victory they know in their heart of hearts they can achieve. Yes, I understand that I have technically described Freddy Krueger – but I’m also describing Rocky Balboa, and that’s the narrative I’m aiming for just as I’m sure Fuji doesn’t want to be…be…whatever Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct was called.
Karma shoots Cherry a “Don’t ask me” look
So with these scripts in hand, that means that Fuji will be looking to perform the same way as when we last faced, but the difference is that she wants everything she does to be that little bit better. She’ll want to be a little sharper with the counters, a little quicker in the transitions, every move she hits she’ll want a little extra snap to it, all knowing the margin between success and failure is razor thin – so she’ll want to turn those margins in her favour, knowing just a couple of things going her way instead of mine will turn things in her favour. And let’s be honest here, when the title starts to come a little bit closer to her grasp, she’ll throw a little bit more at me on top because she wants to prove she can win the belt.
So with her looking to be that 5% better across the board, the story I need to tell is…at the risk of sounding like that Shinsooky guy in Lion’s Den, I need to show that I can raise myself to face any challenge. We’ve all heard it at one point, somebody saying your best wasn’t good enough – just like that time in Little League where you are so close to catching the ball that you feel it on your fingertips but you just can’t reach it in time to stop the runner crossing the home plate. I don’t want that, not out of selfish reasons but because I aim to be true to my word: when I offered Fuji the match I meant every word I said, about how the best of us will be the best match of the night, and I intend to hold up my end of the match by being my best, not least because I worked so hard to win this title and went through so much because I had the nerve to do so that it will be vindication for me to walk out with the title in my hand.
The world may not be a stage just like all the people who walk upon it are thespians with a bad habit of going off-script – but the ring’s a stage, and not only do I hope to be involved in the best performance of the night, but I hope I will be receiving the plaudits as I take a bow after finishing the story I wish to tell.
As another edition of Vertigo wraps up, outside the Florence Civic Center we see a tale of two exits: on one side of the building the fans are filing out of the arena into the parking lot to have several thousand different conversations all at the same time. Many of them are talking excitedly about various moments which took place in front of them during the night, others are discussing the merits of IHOP, Chick-fil-A or Chipotle for a post-show snack, while one particularly vociferous person is trying to order a cab and is finding himself greatly irritated by the fact several thousand people won’t be quiet for a couple of minutes so he can get what he wants
On the other side of the arena, far away from the fans, the various members of the FWA roster are making their way out to a second parking lot, one where their rental cars are parked up and a large number of arena security are stationed around to stop people rushing towards their favourite FWA stars in an effort to secure an autograph with extreme prejudice or, just as likely, use their keys to test just how scratch-resistant the paint job of Jimmy Page’s car is
Amid this scene of controlled anarchy we see Johnny Karma walk out of the arena, with Cherry Baum by his side, but the way Karma walks indicates his mind hasn’t so much wandered as decided to go on a six-month trip to Tibet in order to find itself
So what’re you thinking for after the show J-K? Outback Steakhouse? Olive Garden? Red Lobster? Oh, wait, probably not Red Lobster because of…well, you know. Shellfish. We don’t want to see a repeat of The Great Projectile Hurling of 2013, after all.
The look on Cherry’s face indicates she has vivid memories of that particular incident, not least because the stomach pain Karma was suffering was so bad he had to stand in the motel shower to let loose as he couldn’t even double over the toilet, which necessitated one heck of a hefty tip to housekeeping the following morning – yet after taking a moment to try and forget, dear Lord she would love to forget the clam-scented horror,
J-K?
Cherry turns around to see Karma has stopped walking for a moment, and instead he’s looking towards the sky once again – just like he was doing earlier tonight. Wondering what is going on, Cherry turns and approaches Karma, as he wipes the sweat off of his face
What’s on your mind?
At first Karma looks at the sweat in his palm and is about to wipe it off on his shirt, but he thinks better of it and wipes one palm against the other so he doesn’t have a sweaty mark down the front of his shirt…or make that another sweaty stain down the front of his shirt, given a certain amount of sweat is already seeping from his skin through his shirt
Looking concerned, Cherry places a hand on Karma’s forearm and looks in his eye
Is this about what you were saying earlier?
Yeah…
Upon hearing himself drawl in a thicker Noo Yawk accent than usual, even if it was just for a couple of seconds, seems to snap Karma out of his senses
It’s just…no matter how hard I tell myself otherwise, no matter how much I know otherwise, no matter how often I look at the card for ASSV I can’t help but think that I should have done something, anything, to stop those New King Ben Zonahs from somehow scraping their way into contention for the FWA Championship.
For the past couple of months I’ve been punched, kinked, stepped on and stepped over and even though in my heart of hearts I know what you and Fuji have both been telling me is true, about how things will find a way to even out and leave them looking like nothing more than a couple of opportunists whose luck will run out the moment they face any actual challenge, but no matter how much I know this I just can’t get past the fact they somehow stepped ahead of me because luck managed to be on their side. More than that, the fact that not only did I let them treat me like a piñata, but they’re now living…
Karma taps a couple of fingers to the side of his temples
…up here, rent-free, and all because I let them. I mean, I get it, there’s no way any man with a pair of beytsim to his name is just going to shrug their shoulders and give up, but it keeps gnawing at me that no matter how close I’ve come, I’ve never managed to get that moment where I show them what happens when a man is pushed too far by a couple of punks who wouldn’t know what being a man was if they looked it up online.
And this is what it comes down to: moments. The moment I reclaimed the Pride Championship, I got jumped on. The moment I looked to gain revenge by defeating Carmine a second time, I got jumped on. The moment I walked out to prevent them from dictating the Gold Rush Rumble, I got jumped on before I even got inside the ring. Time and time again they’ve taken things from me, and not only am I sick of it, I can’t work out why the hell nobody else is sick of it too. It’s like everyone wants to accept this is the way things are and just knuckle under, and that’s just the way it is.
Not everyone, J-K. We’ve seen Fujiko stand up to them, we’ve seen Ricky Valero, Molly Reid, Nero Darling and Mark Storm stand up to them, so don’t give up.
Cherry pats Karma’s arm, as his mind wonders to something else
Yeah, Fujiko, she…she has her head screwed on straight. But here’s what gets me: the pair of us are facing off for the Pride Championship, and a part of me is wondering if she’ll try to skirt the rules just that little bit in order to succeed. That’s what is getting me most of all, I’m starting to think that I can’t trust anyone around here, because there’s always somebody looking to take advantage.
Hearing the last part, Cherry leans in a little closer
You can trust me, J-K…
Cherry flashes a kittenish smile at Karma, hoping he takes the hint that maybe not everything is so bad
And you really need to trust yourself. You know how much you worked for that title, you know how much you want to have the match that everyone talks about, so no matter what else is on your mind, and I can tell there’s so much up there that it’s like Penn Station on a Monday morning, maybe you need to stop going over things in your head because there’s going to be a time when it gets too crowded up there and you end up with a couple of dozen voices shouting different things at you all at once, and you’ll just drive yourself nuts if you try and listen to all of them.
Listening to what Cherry is saying, Karma briefly turns his attention a few dozen yards ahead of where they are, as he watches arena security form a phalanx around one rental car in the parking lot – he’s not sure who’s car it is, but if security are trying to protect the person getting in their car that means they’re either very popular, or the exact opposite
Are you okay hanging back for ten minutes?
Unsure of what Karma means, Cherry looks at him in a quizzical manner
What do you mean?
It’s a madhouse around here, so making a move right now looks like it’ll get messy pretty darn quick.
Understanding what he means, Cherry nods in agreement
I see. What do you think we should do?
Look for somewhere to get a bite to eat? I’m famished.
At this point Cherry pulls out her smartphone
Any suggestions?
Definitely not Red Lobster. I’m not going through that ever again.
With that being said, the pair turn and head back inside the arena for a little while longer
- - -
23rd June 2016, Lakeland, Florida
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we see Karma and Cherry have arrived in the location of ASSV, to be more precise they are hanging out on the shores of Lake Hancock, enjoying the cool breeze coming from the water’s surface – but making sure not to get too close to the shores, as those things floating in the water may look like a piece of wood floating in the water but it’s not advisable to get too close to them, because you’ll soon find out that’s no piece of cypress bark…
Whilst among the flora and fauna of this hot and stick Floridian afternoon, Karma’s mood is as reflective as the water’s surface
You were right, it is a bit more pleasant to sit here rather than go to the beach where the other twelve million people are all piled one on top of the other…
Karma gestures in the direction of one of those not-pieces-of-cypress-bark
…sort of like how his friends are piled up at that gator ranch we passed on the way into town - although if that brat who was sat opposite me on the plane is on the beach right now, you’re probably less likely to get bitten at that ranch. You’d think he wanted membership of the New Kings or something…
The last comment makes Cherry chuckle, before she’s momentarily distracted by a bird call emanating from quite close to the pair of them
What the…?
As the bird flies from its perch overhead across the lake, Cherry calms down – before welcoming the opportunity to change the subject
So anyway, you wanted to come to some place with some peace and quiet – which is quite hard to find, given Florida is mostly freeway, strip mall and swamp, and that’s before the problem with the state being located about two miles from the sun.
Cherry fans herself with a magazine, before removing her sunglasses to wipe some of the moisture from them
I did, and for a good reason…
It suddenly dawns on Karma how that sounded
…okay, now I’ll try not to sound like a geshlekht baytsh when I answer – I needed to get away from all thoughts of wrestling for a couple of hours, because hanging around in the arena is not the best idea right now…and not just because the air con isn’t switched on, making the place about as pleasant to be inside as the back end of an elephant.
The thing is I’ve spent many hours of my life sitting in locker rooms or standing around in hallways thinking about the match I’m going to have, but last night when I was trying to get to sleep I had a thought: how about I stop thinking about my match in some small, constrained area with that friend chicken smell of dried sweat coupled with that rancid Gatorade scent of fresh sweat, and instead why don’t I just open up my world a little bit so I’m not going over strategies thinking that I’m always twenty feet away from somebody who jumped me from behind more times than I can count.
After all, it’s much easier to think about a match when I can’t hear teamsters cussing each other out as they try and put the ring together in the noisiest manner possible, or having people walk poke their head through the locker room door just long enough to realise they’re in the wrong place and have all the awkward conversation that follows, let alone overhead somebody walk past throwing a hissy fit because somebody left a red M&M in that brandy glass in their locker room. So with that in mind…my match.
Rather than continue, instead Karma searches around himself to find some pieces of bark – actual bark, not apex predators that look like bark – and when he finally manages to find some he breaks it into four pieces and arranges them on the ground between himself and Cherry in a square shape
So this right here is the ring. It’s not the best piece of engineering in history, but for a metaphor it’s pretty good.
So here’s the idea: a ring is a small space, although once you step inside the thing it looks a lot bigger than it did when you were at ringside, but it’s not some arena for gladiatorial combat as much as it’s a stage, a place where stories are told and the people telling them wish that their audience would look up from their cell phones once in a while. But while you’re on this stage, you have to decide what story you wish to tell: will it be a Greek tragedy, or a farce worthy of Basil Fawlty or Frasier Crane, or a work of Grand Guignol, or…you get the idea. The stage is set, but the actors decide the play they want to perform.
So thinking of it like this, I have to work out the plays that myself and Fuji want to perform. From what I can tell, Fujiko has been rehearsing the lines for a redemption story, picking up from last year where she and me were competing to be the top contender for the Pride Championship, which she found herself falling short while I went on to…let’s put aside the immediate aftermath of that for now. What Fujiko wants is to receive a curtain call after a starring role where she recovers from adversity and disappointment to claim the prize she sought from the very beginning, proving to herself that she could do it while others doubted her. It’s a story that sounds familiar to me, as I was in the middle of a similar production not that long ago.
But here’s the part that has me wondering: based on the narrative Fujiko wants to see play out, that casts me as the villain, the cruel-hearted person who wants to snuff out her dreams because of reasons writ large – and this isn’t the sort of villain you can sympathise with on some level, such as Michael Corleone or Magneto, instead I’m the Big Bad who is standing in the way.
Also standing on the stage is, not to put too fine a point on it, me. And from where I’m standing, the story I want to tell is one of someone who gets knocked down time and time again, but rather than stay down they will keep fighting until they clinch the victory they know in their heart of hearts they can achieve. Yes, I understand that I have technically described Freddy Krueger – but I’m also describing Rocky Balboa, and that’s the narrative I’m aiming for just as I’m sure Fuji doesn’t want to be…be…whatever Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct was called.
Karma shoots Cherry a “Don’t ask me” look
So with these scripts in hand, that means that Fuji will be looking to perform the same way as when we last faced, but the difference is that she wants everything she does to be that little bit better. She’ll want to be a little sharper with the counters, a little quicker in the transitions, every move she hits she’ll want a little extra snap to it, all knowing the margin between success and failure is razor thin – so she’ll want to turn those margins in her favour, knowing just a couple of things going her way instead of mine will turn things in her favour. And let’s be honest here, when the title starts to come a little bit closer to her grasp, she’ll throw a little bit more at me on top because she wants to prove she can win the belt.
So with her looking to be that 5% better across the board, the story I need to tell is…at the risk of sounding like that Shinsooky guy in Lion’s Den, I need to show that I can raise myself to face any challenge. We’ve all heard it at one point, somebody saying your best wasn’t good enough – just like that time in Little League where you are so close to catching the ball that you feel it on your fingertips but you just can’t reach it in time to stop the runner crossing the home plate. I don’t want that, not out of selfish reasons but because I aim to be true to my word: when I offered Fuji the match I meant every word I said, about how the best of us will be the best match of the night, and I intend to hold up my end of the match by being my best, not least because I worked so hard to win this title and went through so much because I had the nerve to do so that it will be vindication for me to walk out with the title in my hand.
The world may not be a stage just like all the people who walk upon it are thespians with a bad habit of going off-script – but the ring’s a stage, and not only do I hope to be involved in the best performance of the night, but I hope I will be receiving the plaudits as I take a bow after finishing the story I wish to tell.
