You Suck
Sept 1, 2016 19:57:59 GMT -5
Post by The Mason on Sept 1, 2016 19:57:59 GMT -5
August 30, 2016
HENDERSON, NV
“I’m likeable, right?”
Evan Envi posed the impossible question. It hung in the air like a stench as Sadie Jacks heard it. She drew a breath, hoping that with a long enough pause, he would move onto a different subject. Deep down, of course, Sadie knew better, but she was obligated to give it the ol’ college try. And try she did.
”SADIE!”
Nope.
“Yeah, of course you are,” Sadie replied from the couch, looking up from the magazine she’d been staring at rather than reading ever since Evan strolled into the living room. She subconsciously grabbed a hold of the cross that hung from her neck as she said it.
“THEN WHY DOES EVERY WOMAN IN MY LIFE AIM TO SCORN ME?!”
“Not sure, Evan,” Sadie responded, calmly. She winced, nonetheless, as he stomped across the living room, all the way to the sliding glass door leading to the back porch. She readied for him to rip the door open and throw it across the track, but he stopped. Evan paused before he reached the door and sighed. Shoulders slouched, he turned back to her.
“That-- that whole thing with Molly at Above & Beyond… was that all me? Was that really all my fault?” Evan asked. “Be real.”
Sadie closed her eyes for a second. She opened them, as if expecting Evan to have walked away with a loss of interest just like that. But of course, there was no such luck. She allowed her eyes to drift back down toward the pages of the open magazine before responding.
“You want me to be real?”
“Yes.”
Sadie nodded a little. “I think you should brush up on your ‘very best of Mark Storm’ catalogue, because--”
“Sadie, I’m--!”
“Because if you’re seriously prioritizing how Molly Reid feels about you instead of…” And suddenly, Sadie found that she couldn’t help it anymore. She lost direction and felt the back of her neck growing hot. “...WHY the fuck do you even care about what Molly Reid thinks?! I still think I’m lost at that part.”
”Have you seen her?” Evan responded, quietly.
“Grow up.”
“Because she’s the kind of familiar face I was telling you about,” Evan said, walking over to the couch, taking a seat on the edge as he rubbed at his temples. “Because she’s someone that I knew, someone that I could relate to. And all I was trying to do out there was show her what the world could’ve already predicted-- that I could guide her to victory. That I could help show her how to get there.”
Sadie rolled her eyes, but Evan couldn’t see. “Ev--”
“If she had just worked instead of berating me for supporting her then maybe she’d be the 2016 Frontier Lion’s Cup winner and not Gosh-Chandler-Dang-Scott.”
“Ev…” But Sadie knew it was no use. He’d worked himself, as the kids say, into a--
“Shoot!” Evan yelled out, snapping his fingers. “They didn’t even give me a shot to be in it, and I was still out there giving it a hundred and twenty-five percent, but MOLLY couldn’t even b… hrrmmm… ohohoho…” Evan chuckled a bit, tapping his index finger against his head. He turned toward Sadie with a grin. “You’re good. You were tryin’ to get me there, weren’t you?”
Sadie returned a small smile, more out of exhausted amusement than affirmation. “Is it out of your system?”
“Heck no! Do you not know me at all?” Evan scoffed. “This is gonna bug me for entirely too long and distract me from my priorities. But y’know what?” He took an uber-theatrical deep breath. “I’m gonna let it go for right now because while I was in the back, attempting to help Molly nurse her injuries against her will--”
”Strange.”
“--I saw Storm. I watched him and, as much as I hate to say it, Sadie, the guy makes me smile. I watch him go, and I’m just like, mesmerized. Know what I mean?”
Sadie nodded. “Yeah.”
“But he lost, Sadie,” Evan said, sternly. “So he kinda sucks.”
Sadie blinked. She opened her mouth to say something that you could bet your last dollar was insightful, and far more helpful than any of the voices inside Evan Harrison’s head. Common sense prevailed, and Sadie summarized her concerns into a single, “yep.”
Evan shook his head. “But I’m gonna humor you. I’m gonna watch every video I can that’s got his name stamped on it. I’m gonna watch every move he does. I’m gonna count how many seconds it takes him to pull it off. How long he hesitates. All that.”
Sadie laughed dryly. “It’s only to your benefit.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He pushed himself up off of the couch, finally making his way up toward the sliding glass door. He pushed it open, stepping out into the backyard with a sigh. He lingered there in the doorway for a moment before looking back up at Sadie, asking her one last time, to her utter annoyance: “But you still think it’s my fault, don’t you?”
August 31, 2016
HENDERSON, NV
“Oh. Yeah. Bro. It’s definitely your fault.”
Mason chugged the sweet heavens out of a protein shake as he walked alongside his cousin through the neighborhood, deciding six o’clock in the morning would be the best time to power-walk three miles to the park to prepare for, in his words “hours upon hours of ridiculous life-shortening cardio, bro.” Evan drank from a bottle of Fiji, eyeing Mason out of the corner of his eye as he pounded down the thick, brown, interesting-smelling liquid.
“I mean, she said she didn’t want you out there,” Mason said. “And you were totally out there.”
“I was being supportive,” Evan said, defensively.
“You were being a cheerleader. A really bad one with no gauge for personal space.” Mason unscrewed the lid to his bottle, putting it to his lips, making sure every last drop got in his mouth. He spoke between slurps and unsavory licks. “And that’s… mmm… why you shouldn’t have even gotten involved in that. Molly Reid’s weird. Ya know? She’s sexually ambiguous. And she’s loud. And she talks funny. And she’s naked a lot. So like…” Slurp, lick. Mason made eye contact with Evan during his awkward feasting and shook his head. “So like, be glad she hates you. You never wanna be with a chick like that.”
The two walked. Evan felt his pace decreasing as his emotions took a gut-shot.
“She doesn’t hate me,” Evan said. “I don’t think anyone in this place hates me.”
Mason stopped in his tracks. Evan promptly stopped as well. Mason turned his head, looking back over his shoulder at Evan with one eye, before abruptly beginning to walk again.
“Oh-- oh, what, so NOW everyone hates me?!” Evan yelled, throwing his hands up.
Mason shrugged. “I dunno. Can you name the people that like you?”
“A--”
“Besides Annie?”
Evan paused. He tried to keep his gaze straight-ahead, but his eyes wandered as he attempted to search for names. He fell short, however, and had no witty remark to cover up for it. He had nothing disparaging to say about Mason to distract him from the fact that he was right.
“You go through a lot, pretending you like everybody,” Mason said, continuing to walk ahead of them. His tone was steady, just like his pace. “You’ve been doing it for years, but people don’t buy into it anymore. So why do you keep trying?”
Again, Evan Envi didn’t have an answer. His younger cousin asked questions that Evan wasn’t prepared for. He’d thought about them in the comfort of his own mind, sure, but he’d never been prepared to have another person stand in his face and inquire.
“It’s alright,” Mason added. “Sometimes I wonder how much I like everyone too, man.”
His pace increased as the park popped into view in the distance, in the foreground of the sunrise. Mason broke into a jog as they drew nearer, and Evan, a second behind, followed suit. Mason called something back as they trekked closer toward the park, but the same questions were still swimming through Evan’s head, blocking out everything else.
September 1, 2016
HENDERSON, NV
”Mark Storm, you suck.
Now I don’t mean that in a derogatory, we-can’t-be-cool kinda way, because we can CERTAINLY be cool! But I mean that in a ‘hey, my name is Evan Envi, and I’ll be your dance partner’, break-the-ice sort of way. Forgive me. Sometimes I come out the gates a little bold, Mark, but work with me here; I’m gonna get to why it is you actually suck, but it’s not fun if we just go headfirst in it.
The best way to ease into such an uncomfortable discussion is to start off with something everybody can understand and relate to… like me!
See, man, I made my pro debut in the spring of 2007 at the tender-baby age of seventeen and a lot of people sell me short, because they think those ten years on the road have jaded me or something. I’ve had guys that I used to travel with, and used to share stories with in the locker-room tell me I’ve changed because I found my confidence and my swagger in front of the masses a little after I found the spotlight. My skills were the highlight of the show before I, Evan Envi, as a person, ever was. I’ve had people tell me that my mission to rebuild a foundation for hope and give the masses a hero is a publicity stunt… that I don’t care about the people, as if I’m portraying a character for attention or something! As if becoming a wrestling hero and legitimizing the sport I’ve trained in since the age of five is a joke!
It’s so darn serious though! I’m not just a quirky face on the roster but in MY eyes, I’m the best technician that FGA’s signed in the better part of forever and I might only be two matches deep but I haven’t seen anything to convince me that it’s NOT the case. For twenty-two years, I’ve killed myself for this business and I’m not gonna have my momentum stopped and my path derailed by the guy that didn’t even make it to the final round of the Cup.
I’m not gonna get dropped by the guy who has such little faith in his own skills that he constantly reminds us that he’s willing to play dirty to get ahead. It’s not gonna happen, World! He puts on this great show and takes all these monumental risks that have put much better athletes out of a career, out of a livelihood, but he still has the audacity to say that no matter how much effort both parties put in, he’s willing to dig deep below the belt and screw the opposition for a chance to stand at the top of the mountain!
Yet, for all these warnings, and all that preparation, and the willingness to go outside the rules to find a win, he DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT TO THE FINAL TWO. Because at the end of the day, as flashy as Mark Storm is, Mark Storm undeniably sucks.
And you would never catch Evan Envi doing shady, nasty stuff like that Mark Storm does! See, I’m a hero. And when Mark Storm first came into FGA back in January, he made it clear what he thinks about people like me. He told Peterson ’that’s the problem with this generation... everyone wants to be a hero… this isn't Gotham city, nor is it Starling city. They're fictional and so are heroes.’ That’s what you said. Because you’ve never been treated like a hero anywhere you’ve gone. No one has ever viewed you as a hero, Mark Storm, so you say they’re fictitious and the world is stupid for holding out for one. You pretend they can’t exist.
No one’s ever called you a hero because you suck. You suck, Mark Storm. You suck.
Me, on the other hand? I get the hero’s welcome every place I go because I INSPIRE people. I give people HOPE for the future of a business that jerks like YOU and my groupie ex-girlfriend Noelle are trying to kill. And beyond that? Yo, beyond that I give people hope for themselves. For their own lives. Because they look at me, and they aspire to BE me! It’s not really an attainable goal, but just gettin’ a little sip of what almost could be is enough to convince people to change their lives and try to model themselves after my image. And you would know a lot about what almost could be Mark Storm, because you suck.
Unlike me.
I don’t do almost. I’m not gonna almost beat the socks off you at Vertigo. I’m gonna do it. Socks all the way off.
And I know you have this thing with stealing the show and all, and I get it, but honestly the only kind of people that need to talk like that are the same kind of people that remind you how well-rounded they are at the art of cheating-- they suck. Because if you didn’t suck, stealing the show wouldn’t be enough for you. You’d have to bring it to a screeching halt because your victory was that dominant. That beautiful. A victory so emphatic that for just a few fleeting moments, the crowd is lost in the sight of your hand raised in the air, and they briefly… JUST BRIEFLY forget about the twenty minutes that came before.
That’s going all the way, Mark Storm. And that’s a feeling you’re not gonna experience when we meet on Vertigo. Because I’m gonna keep that from you and hold onto it for myself. Because I’m a winner, Mark. And because you suck.
We’ll have the five star match you want to have. It’s important that we send everybody home happy, man. I’m a good guy. I care about stuff like that. Trust me-- it’s important. Technical wrestling? It’s my art form man. And I’m inspiring the whole freakin’ world with it.
But my victory's gonna overshadow all of that. Because of who I am. And what I do."
HENDERSON, NV
“I’m likeable, right?”
Evan Envi posed the impossible question. It hung in the air like a stench as Sadie Jacks heard it. She drew a breath, hoping that with a long enough pause, he would move onto a different subject. Deep down, of course, Sadie knew better, but she was obligated to give it the ol’ college try. And try she did.
”SADIE!”
Nope.
“Yeah, of course you are,” Sadie replied from the couch, looking up from the magazine she’d been staring at rather than reading ever since Evan strolled into the living room. She subconsciously grabbed a hold of the cross that hung from her neck as she said it.
“THEN WHY DOES EVERY WOMAN IN MY LIFE AIM TO SCORN ME?!”
“Not sure, Evan,” Sadie responded, calmly. She winced, nonetheless, as he stomped across the living room, all the way to the sliding glass door leading to the back porch. She readied for him to rip the door open and throw it across the track, but he stopped. Evan paused before he reached the door and sighed. Shoulders slouched, he turned back to her.
“That-- that whole thing with Molly at Above & Beyond… was that all me? Was that really all my fault?” Evan asked. “Be real.”
Sadie closed her eyes for a second. She opened them, as if expecting Evan to have walked away with a loss of interest just like that. But of course, there was no such luck. She allowed her eyes to drift back down toward the pages of the open magazine before responding.
“You want me to be real?”
“Yes.”
Sadie nodded a little. “I think you should brush up on your ‘very best of Mark Storm’ catalogue, because--”
“Sadie, I’m--!”
“Because if you’re seriously prioritizing how Molly Reid feels about you instead of…” And suddenly, Sadie found that she couldn’t help it anymore. She lost direction and felt the back of her neck growing hot. “...WHY the fuck do you even care about what Molly Reid thinks?! I still think I’m lost at that part.”
”Have you seen her?” Evan responded, quietly.
“Grow up.”
“Because she’s the kind of familiar face I was telling you about,” Evan said, walking over to the couch, taking a seat on the edge as he rubbed at his temples. “Because she’s someone that I knew, someone that I could relate to. And all I was trying to do out there was show her what the world could’ve already predicted-- that I could guide her to victory. That I could help show her how to get there.”
Sadie rolled her eyes, but Evan couldn’t see. “Ev--”
“If she had just worked instead of berating me for supporting her then maybe she’d be the 2016 Frontier Lion’s Cup winner and not Gosh-Chandler-Dang-Scott.”
“Ev…” But Sadie knew it was no use. He’d worked himself, as the kids say, into a--
“Shoot!” Evan yelled out, snapping his fingers. “They didn’t even give me a shot to be in it, and I was still out there giving it a hundred and twenty-five percent, but MOLLY couldn’t even b… hrrmmm… ohohoho…” Evan chuckled a bit, tapping his index finger against his head. He turned toward Sadie with a grin. “You’re good. You were tryin’ to get me there, weren’t you?”
Sadie returned a small smile, more out of exhausted amusement than affirmation. “Is it out of your system?”
“Heck no! Do you not know me at all?” Evan scoffed. “This is gonna bug me for entirely too long and distract me from my priorities. But y’know what?” He took an uber-theatrical deep breath. “I’m gonna let it go for right now because while I was in the back, attempting to help Molly nurse her injuries against her will--”
”Strange.”
“--I saw Storm. I watched him and, as much as I hate to say it, Sadie, the guy makes me smile. I watch him go, and I’m just like, mesmerized. Know what I mean?”
Sadie nodded. “Yeah.”
“But he lost, Sadie,” Evan said, sternly. “So he kinda sucks.”
Sadie blinked. She opened her mouth to say something that you could bet your last dollar was insightful, and far more helpful than any of the voices inside Evan Harrison’s head. Common sense prevailed, and Sadie summarized her concerns into a single, “yep.”
Evan shook his head. “But I’m gonna humor you. I’m gonna watch every video I can that’s got his name stamped on it. I’m gonna watch every move he does. I’m gonna count how many seconds it takes him to pull it off. How long he hesitates. All that.”
Sadie laughed dryly. “It’s only to your benefit.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He pushed himself up off of the couch, finally making his way up toward the sliding glass door. He pushed it open, stepping out into the backyard with a sigh. He lingered there in the doorway for a moment before looking back up at Sadie, asking her one last time, to her utter annoyance: “But you still think it’s my fault, don’t you?”
August 31, 2016
HENDERSON, NV
“Oh. Yeah. Bro. It’s definitely your fault.”
Mason chugged the sweet heavens out of a protein shake as he walked alongside his cousin through the neighborhood, deciding six o’clock in the morning would be the best time to power-walk three miles to the park to prepare for, in his words “hours upon hours of ridiculous life-shortening cardio, bro.” Evan drank from a bottle of Fiji, eyeing Mason out of the corner of his eye as he pounded down the thick, brown, interesting-smelling liquid.
“I mean, she said she didn’t want you out there,” Mason said. “And you were totally out there.”
“I was being supportive,” Evan said, defensively.
“You were being a cheerleader. A really bad one with no gauge for personal space.” Mason unscrewed the lid to his bottle, putting it to his lips, making sure every last drop got in his mouth. He spoke between slurps and unsavory licks. “And that’s… mmm… why you shouldn’t have even gotten involved in that. Molly Reid’s weird. Ya know? She’s sexually ambiguous. And she’s loud. And she talks funny. And she’s naked a lot. So like…” Slurp, lick. Mason made eye contact with Evan during his awkward feasting and shook his head. “So like, be glad she hates you. You never wanna be with a chick like that.”
The two walked. Evan felt his pace decreasing as his emotions took a gut-shot.
“She doesn’t hate me,” Evan said. “I don’t think anyone in this place hates me.”
Mason stopped in his tracks. Evan promptly stopped as well. Mason turned his head, looking back over his shoulder at Evan with one eye, before abruptly beginning to walk again.
“Oh-- oh, what, so NOW everyone hates me?!” Evan yelled, throwing his hands up.
Mason shrugged. “I dunno. Can you name the people that like you?”
“A--”
“Besides Annie?”
Evan paused. He tried to keep his gaze straight-ahead, but his eyes wandered as he attempted to search for names. He fell short, however, and had no witty remark to cover up for it. He had nothing disparaging to say about Mason to distract him from the fact that he was right.
“You go through a lot, pretending you like everybody,” Mason said, continuing to walk ahead of them. His tone was steady, just like his pace. “You’ve been doing it for years, but people don’t buy into it anymore. So why do you keep trying?”
Again, Evan Envi didn’t have an answer. His younger cousin asked questions that Evan wasn’t prepared for. He’d thought about them in the comfort of his own mind, sure, but he’d never been prepared to have another person stand in his face and inquire.
“It’s alright,” Mason added. “Sometimes I wonder how much I like everyone too, man.”
His pace increased as the park popped into view in the distance, in the foreground of the sunrise. Mason broke into a jog as they drew nearer, and Evan, a second behind, followed suit. Mason called something back as they trekked closer toward the park, but the same questions were still swimming through Evan’s head, blocking out everything else.
September 1, 2016
HENDERSON, NV
”Mark Storm, you suck.
Now I don’t mean that in a derogatory, we-can’t-be-cool kinda way, because we can CERTAINLY be cool! But I mean that in a ‘hey, my name is Evan Envi, and I’ll be your dance partner’, break-the-ice sort of way. Forgive me. Sometimes I come out the gates a little bold, Mark, but work with me here; I’m gonna get to why it is you actually suck, but it’s not fun if we just go headfirst in it.
The best way to ease into such an uncomfortable discussion is to start off with something everybody can understand and relate to… like me!
See, man, I made my pro debut in the spring of 2007 at the tender-baby age of seventeen and a lot of people sell me short, because they think those ten years on the road have jaded me or something. I’ve had guys that I used to travel with, and used to share stories with in the locker-room tell me I’ve changed because I found my confidence and my swagger in front of the masses a little after I found the spotlight. My skills were the highlight of the show before I, Evan Envi, as a person, ever was. I’ve had people tell me that my mission to rebuild a foundation for hope and give the masses a hero is a publicity stunt… that I don’t care about the people, as if I’m portraying a character for attention or something! As if becoming a wrestling hero and legitimizing the sport I’ve trained in since the age of five is a joke!
It’s so darn serious though! I’m not just a quirky face on the roster but in MY eyes, I’m the best technician that FGA’s signed in the better part of forever and I might only be two matches deep but I haven’t seen anything to convince me that it’s NOT the case. For twenty-two years, I’ve killed myself for this business and I’m not gonna have my momentum stopped and my path derailed by the guy that didn’t even make it to the final round of the Cup.
I’m not gonna get dropped by the guy who has such little faith in his own skills that he constantly reminds us that he’s willing to play dirty to get ahead. It’s not gonna happen, World! He puts on this great show and takes all these monumental risks that have put much better athletes out of a career, out of a livelihood, but he still has the audacity to say that no matter how much effort both parties put in, he’s willing to dig deep below the belt and screw the opposition for a chance to stand at the top of the mountain!
Yet, for all these warnings, and all that preparation, and the willingness to go outside the rules to find a win, he DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT TO THE FINAL TWO. Because at the end of the day, as flashy as Mark Storm is, Mark Storm undeniably sucks.
And you would never catch Evan Envi doing shady, nasty stuff like that Mark Storm does! See, I’m a hero. And when Mark Storm first came into FGA back in January, he made it clear what he thinks about people like me. He told Peterson ’that’s the problem with this generation... everyone wants to be a hero… this isn't Gotham city, nor is it Starling city. They're fictional and so are heroes.’ That’s what you said. Because you’ve never been treated like a hero anywhere you’ve gone. No one has ever viewed you as a hero, Mark Storm, so you say they’re fictitious and the world is stupid for holding out for one. You pretend they can’t exist.
No one’s ever called you a hero because you suck. You suck, Mark Storm. You suck.
Me, on the other hand? I get the hero’s welcome every place I go because I INSPIRE people. I give people HOPE for the future of a business that jerks like YOU and my groupie ex-girlfriend Noelle are trying to kill. And beyond that? Yo, beyond that I give people hope for themselves. For their own lives. Because they look at me, and they aspire to BE me! It’s not really an attainable goal, but just gettin’ a little sip of what almost could be is enough to convince people to change their lives and try to model themselves after my image. And you would know a lot about what almost could be Mark Storm, because you suck.
Unlike me.
I don’t do almost. I’m not gonna almost beat the socks off you at Vertigo. I’m gonna do it. Socks all the way off.
And I know you have this thing with stealing the show and all, and I get it, but honestly the only kind of people that need to talk like that are the same kind of people that remind you how well-rounded they are at the art of cheating-- they suck. Because if you didn’t suck, stealing the show wouldn’t be enough for you. You’d have to bring it to a screeching halt because your victory was that dominant. That beautiful. A victory so emphatic that for just a few fleeting moments, the crowd is lost in the sight of your hand raised in the air, and they briefly… JUST BRIEFLY forget about the twenty minutes that came before.
That’s going all the way, Mark Storm. And that’s a feeling you’re not gonna experience when we meet on Vertigo. Because I’m gonna keep that from you and hold onto it for myself. Because I’m a winner, Mark. And because you suck.
We’ll have the five star match you want to have. It’s important that we send everybody home happy, man. I’m a good guy. I care about stuff like that. Trust me-- it’s important. Technical wrestling? It’s my art form man. And I’m inspiring the whole freakin’ world with it.
But my victory's gonna overshadow all of that. Because of who I am. And what I do."