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Oct 13, 2016 17:32:12 GMT -5
Post by Johnny Karma on Oct 13, 2016 17:32:12 GMT -5
23rd September 2016, Queens NYC
On a warm late September day in the suburbs of Forest Hills, there’s one house with numerous cars parked outside, and although we cannot see or hear what is happening inside what we can see through the windows offer glimpses of a solemn event taking place inside, where friends and family exchange offers of support during this trying time
While those inside are trading condolences or stories of what came before, the front door quietly cracks open as a suit-clad Johnny Karma steps outside and closes the door behind him, and once he’s loosened his tie he sits on the porch’s top step to take a deep, cleansing breath – and once he’s done so, he wistfully looks out across the neighbourhood, a neighbourhood he knows well as it’s the one he grew up in many, many years ago, just as he’s wistfully looked out across the neighbourhood many, many times in the past
After taking a moment to clear his head, Karma reaches inside his suit jacket and takes out his phone, and without looking at his screen he pulls up the number he wants to call at this exact moment in time – and he gets an answer within a couple of rings, saying that the person on the other end of the line has been waiting for his call
…hey.
Hi. Are you okay?
Probably not. The past few days have been full-on, and it feels like…
Unable to quite put it into words, Karma mimes his head exploding…which mainly serves to make Cherry think his connection has dropped out
Hello? Are you still there?
I’m still here, I was just…it doesn’t matter, I was just saying it’s been manic around here the past few days, what with having to arrange internment on the one hand while on the other having to get in contact with relatives who were both local and out of town to get as many people there as we could, and that led to some relatives who are more…let’s say they’re “hardcore” when it comes to following tradition.
Karma wipes the back of his hand against his forehead as he swelters in his suit
So how are you doing today?
Well…we decided to get all the family and the old friends of the family together today for one big gathering, and it’s been one of those times where the reality hits you hard. I’ve had aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbours, long-time friends, so many people talking to me all day and it’s exhausting.
I mean, five minutes ago I was talking to someone I haven’t seen for a good dozen years as they live out in San Bernadino, and it was like we didn’t know each other. And I’ve had that happen so many times today, and I can almost see myself trying remember who people are while they’re offering their condolences, like some complete stranger is talking about someone I know and I’m a passenger in the conversation I’m supposed to be taking part in. Or then there’s the times where it’s gotten weird, like when my younger cousins wanted to talk wrestling at that moment in time, and you could almost feel the room temperature drop when he asked.
Unfastening the top button of his shirt, Karma thinks “baren dem” and removes his tie, wrapping it around his free hand
I don’t know, I just needed to hear a friendly voice rather than the voice of a friend-of-a-friend, you know?
It’s okay. I’m glad you called.
I just wish you were…
Just as Karma is about to finish what he was about to say, the door creaks open behind and a twelve year-old boy slips out of the door and scampers out onto the porch, sitting down next to Karma and tugging on his sleeve
What the…?
What is it?
It’s my cousin Joel.
Joel looks at Karma with a look which is a combination of inquisitive yet also one that looks like it’s eroding Karma’s will
Cousin Joel: So can we talk about wrestling now?
Joel continues to look directly at Karma, boring through his willpower with the persistence of the sea eroding the cliffs it lashes against day and night until the rock becomes little more than sand
I guess I’ll call you back later.
Karma pauses so he can return fire on his “precocious” cousin with a remarkable amount of side-eye
Thanks for listening.
I’ll be here when you need to talk, John.
Standing up from his perch, Karma hangs up his phone and unwraps his tie from around his hand and attempts to fasten it once more, but as with all men who hate wearing ties he does a remarkably poor job of it and just cannot be bothered to try again – so he turns and heads back towards the house
Come on.
Karma opens the door and gestures for Joel to get his tuches inside, but his cousin isn’t through asking all manner of impolite questions
Cousin Joel:Was that Cherry you were talking to? She’s so pretty, don’t you think?
As Joel walks through the door, Karma lets go and allows it to swing shut once more, and once the door closes he walks down the steps and onto the sidewalk, taking a good, long look at the neighbourhood where he grew up, and after a moment he decides to go for a walk
22nd September 2016, Coney Island NYC
Pacing around her apartment’s living room under the gaze of various framed Audrey Hepburn posters, Cherry Baum is wracked with worry at this moment in time, all because she’s worried about how Karma’s holding up during this trying time. She’s spoken with him on the phone a couple of times since he had to dash off into the Nevada night to catch the first plane home, but even though Karma said he was fine she knew he was putting up a front – because she knows him well enough to be able to spot something like that
Yet no matter how much she stares at her phone, she can’t will Karma into talking with her – not talking to her, with her – and she knows she can’t, and most importantly shouldn’t, try and make Karma talk when he isn’t ready. Knowing this, she sits herself down on the couch and fumbles for the stereo remote, and upon finding it buried deep in the gap between a cushion and the armrest she switches it on to hear the soothing rhythms of First Aid Kit as she tries to think
After distractedly tapping her finger against the side of her phone for couple of seconds, Cherry remembers that she hasn’t got around to checking the posting she made that informed the wider world of what was happening with Karma, and once she remembers she quickly goes to check what people have been saying in response…and soon wishes she hadn’t
As she stares at the responses, Cherry’s eyes fill with anger, so much that she has to remove the glasses from her face so she can rub her eyes in a desperate attempt to do something other than hurl her phone across the room – yet in spite of resisting the first urge, she cannot bottle up her feelings for a second longer
Those motherfu…
26th September 2016, Queens NYC
We find Cherry sitting on one side of a table at Sal’s Deli, yet rather than shooting the fat and chewing the breeze with Johnny Karma while she works her way through a bowl or two of chili cheese fries, instead she’s sat on her own taking tentative sips of her glass of ice tea while taking the occasional glance in the direction of her phone, waiting for a call or a text notification or something…yet that something never comes
As Cherry stares out of the window, she sighs
28th September 2016, Queens NYC
It’s a couple of days later, and yet the scene is more or less the same: Cherry is sat on her own on one side of a table at Sal’s Deli, once again her appetite isn’t as all-conquering as usual as she takes a sip from her cup of black coffee to test if it has cooled down enough to make it suitable for human consumption, when suddenly she’s interrupted…
Room for one more?
Upon hearing Karma’s voice Cherry’s face immediately brightens and she bolts out of her seat so she can give Karma a hug, albeit one where she holds on for at least four Mississippi’s too long
How’ve you been?
At this point Cherry realises she’s hung on for a fraction of an hour too long and releases her embrace, slinking a couple of steps backwards as she awkwardly looks around the deli to see if anyone’s gossiping about the pair of them, and then she slides back into her seat as Karma takes a seat opposite
You’ve eaten already?
Hmm?
Karma nods in the general direction of her cup of coffee
What, this? No, I was just…I didn’t have much of an appetite.
Karma gives Cherry a quizzical look, knowing how out of character that is for her
So how are you feeling today?
Well…there’s no getting past how there’s this big hole at the centre of what I do for a living…I mean…not a hole in what I do, why I do it or…
Karma places both his hands over his face, slowly wiping downwards as he tries to formulate what he’s actually trying to say into something that makes sense
The thing is that, buried deep in the back of my mind, there’s always going to be the knowledge that my grandfather played a big part of why I got into wrestling in the first place, from watching shows on TV to going to my first live show and thinking that maybe I might want to actually try and be a wrestler. He was there when shows came to town, he was there when I was some kid trying to remember the stuff I’d learned when I set foot in the ring and was trying not to trip over the ring skirt and break my face when I was making my entrance, he was there whenever I picked up the phone to talk about how things were going…and that’s gone now, so all that’s left is a memory of someone I knew, and loved, and supported me when the rest of my family were telling me I was wasting my time.
That’s the thing that gets me the most, he was the one person who was in my corner when everyone else was telling me to get a “real” job like the “real” job my cousin who works the phones for that home shopping network has, he was the one who was telling me to stick at it when I was filling out battle royals at the bottom of the card in some rec centre in Brooklyn…
But there are other people who care about you.
Karma is about to respond, but his attention is briefly taken by Cherry placing her hand on top of his as she looks him in the eye, hoping he gets what she’s saying
…not just me, either. Plenty of the FGA roster have said they’re worried about you, and that should tell you a thing or two, right?
Yeah, then there’s those other people, the ones who said something less supportive.
Those guys are assholes, you know that by now.
I already knew that a long time ago, long before they jumped me to take the shine off of me defeating Carmine to end his Pride Championship reign and leave him without any wiggle room to try and claim I didn’t deserve to win the match because I was simply better that he is. I knew it back when Cannon and Goodrich got in my face backstage late last year just because they wanted to make themselves feel like Big Men. It’s not new information that The New Kings are what they are…but when is this crap going to stop? Each and every one of them lining up, one after the other, all taking potshots at me because they think a death in my family is funny? There’s lines that should be left the hell alone, but not only did they cross it they set the thing on fire before running into the night cackling like a bunch of jackals at what they did, thinking what they did was so damn clever.
I mean, if that’s the game they want to play, you know what? The second I get back into the locker room it’s time they learned that I’m done playing, because I have had enough.
Karma is stewing at the thought of having to share the same postal district as The New Kings, so much so that he finds himself unable to sit in his seat a moment longer
Excuse me, I’ve got to…
Without finishing his sentence, Karma gets out of his seat and marches towards the door, shoving it open so hard it damn near comes off its hinges before it snaps back shut – and just as it snaps back into place, we hear a primal bellow of obscenities emanate from somewhere deep within Karma’s soul – an utterance that shocks the various diners within Sal’s as well as various passers-by, which also causes Cherry to climb out of her seat so she can see what the hell is going on
Having unleashed a salvo of pent-up rage and frustration upon the unsuspecting residents of Astoria, Karma turns on his heels and calmly pushes the deli’s door open and walks inside, passing the shocked gaze of various people whose lunchtimes have been interrupted by the loudest piece of profanity since God got caught in His zipper, before he returns to his seat and places his hands upon the table as Cherry looks at him with a slight hint of worry in her eyes
Are you…okay?
Looking towards Cherry, Karma thinks very, very carefully before he answers
You know, I honestly have no idea if I’m okay or not. But it’s okay not to know, because I’ve been tearing myself apart trying to hold myself together for the last week or so, and if the choice is to keep everything bottled up in the hope that everything that’s bubbling inside will calm down or to release some pressure to stop something far, far worse happening, then it’s probably good for me to turn the valve a little and release some pressure before…before I don’t know what, but it scares me to think what that could be.
So what are you thinking?
I’m thinking that I’ve got to make a couple of calls in the morning, because sitting on the sidelines isn’t doing me much good.
4th October 2016, Queens NYC
We catch up with Johnny Karma as he sits on his couch and gulps down a post-jog bottle of sports drink, and just as Karma finishes his drink he hears his phone’s notification tone, so after putting his bottle down he picks up his phone and clicks the notification icon – and is immediately greeted with the announcement of his match at Retribution
After approximately half a second, Karma lets his phone slip out of his hand and harmlessly land on his couch with a light thud and asks an important question to nobody in particular
It never gets any easier, does it?
7th October 2016, Queens NYC
Once more we return to Sal’s Deli, where Cherry appears to have regained some of her appetite as she’s picking through a bowl of chili cheese fries, while Karma is sipping on a glass of ice water, looking out of the window with his eyes focusing on something in the middle distance until Cherry interrupts his meditation to ask a very pertinent question
I know you’re probably sick of people asking you this question, but how are you doing?
Just…thinking.
Thinking? About what?
About that moment where things look like they can’t get any worse – but then you see that first glimmer of hope, telling you that step by tiny step that things might start to improve.
Pushing her bowl to one side, and then wiping the grease and everything else off her fingers, Cherry places a hand on Karma’s forearm and leans in as much as the table allows her to
Where are you going with this?
I was thinking, the moment my match was announced it looked like I was walking into a one-sided beatdown as I was going up against Cannon and Carmine all on my own, the sort of matchup that would have a betting man think it wasn’t worth placing a bet as the payoff would be so low.
Thinking about it like that, that’s when it struck me – the two of them are walking into a trap they can’t even see, because they’re going to be so confident in their success they don’t think it’s worth Googling the phrase “False sense of security” before they leave their locker room, and I’m sure that Diamond or The Usual Suspects will be happy to inflate their egos that little bit more. But what they haven’t thought about is what happens if their plan doesn’t work as they’d hoped? What do they do if they’re not home and dry in the five minutes they think it will take? That’s the thing: from the very first day they have thought that strength in numbers is all they need, and it’s time they learned that it doesn’t matter if they have the numerical advantage, what matters is how the person at a disadvantage counters this. After all, if their mentality is “Might makes right”, if they suddenly find themselves looking a lot less mighty and everything starts to fall apart as they didn’t bother to think of a backup plan, that’s going to do more damage to them than they can possibly imagine. It’d almost be funny if their only response to facing adversity is having to call in the cavalry to help them out, because that’ll prove just how little the pair of them have thought anything through
So, yeah, it’s probably not going to be much fun having to go up against the two of them and I’m going to have to wrestle the match of my life to stay one step ahead of them for as long as possible if I’m to have even the slimmest hope of coming out of the match on top, but the irony is that I can go into this match without fear because what’s the worst that can happen? Two guys beating me up? I’m used to having two or even three of them jump me from behind by this point it’s not as scary a prospect as they’d think – but for them the scary prospect is somehow finding themselves losing a match they should not lose in a million years, and the longer I stay ahead of them the more that the thought of it will creep into their minds. It’s funny how things work out like that, really it is.
Taking a sip from his glass of water, Karma returns to looking out of the window for a moment
I haven’t even mentioned the other variable, namely the frustration that will set in when neither of them can get the job done. Frustration makes people hasty, makes them prone to mistakes and rash judgment, the sort of things that distract them from the supposedly easy task and give me the opportunity to take advantage. When I take advantage, they start to panic, and in their panic they are prone to mistakes and rash judgment, again tipping the scales away from them – just a little bit, but enough of these little changes that can have the same effect as one large swing, it just takes a little time and tolerance and knowing what to look for. Will the pair of them even think of it? Who knows, honestly – but I’m going to do everything I can to spring an unpleasant surprise on the New Kings and show them that they’ve been wearing the Emperor’s cast-offs for longer than they realise, and with Fall setting in they really should feel that cold breeze blowing around their beytsim.
On a warm late September day in the suburbs of Forest Hills, there’s one house with numerous cars parked outside, and although we cannot see or hear what is happening inside what we can see through the windows offer glimpses of a solemn event taking place inside, where friends and family exchange offers of support during this trying time
While those inside are trading condolences or stories of what came before, the front door quietly cracks open as a suit-clad Johnny Karma steps outside and closes the door behind him, and once he’s loosened his tie he sits on the porch’s top step to take a deep, cleansing breath – and once he’s done so, he wistfully looks out across the neighbourhood, a neighbourhood he knows well as it’s the one he grew up in many, many years ago, just as he’s wistfully looked out across the neighbourhood many, many times in the past
After taking a moment to clear his head, Karma reaches inside his suit jacket and takes out his phone, and without looking at his screen he pulls up the number he wants to call at this exact moment in time – and he gets an answer within a couple of rings, saying that the person on the other end of the line has been waiting for his call
…hey.
Hi. Are you okay?
Probably not. The past few days have been full-on, and it feels like…
Unable to quite put it into words, Karma mimes his head exploding…which mainly serves to make Cherry think his connection has dropped out
Hello? Are you still there?
I’m still here, I was just…it doesn’t matter, I was just saying it’s been manic around here the past few days, what with having to arrange internment on the one hand while on the other having to get in contact with relatives who were both local and out of town to get as many people there as we could, and that led to some relatives who are more…let’s say they’re “hardcore” when it comes to following tradition.
Karma wipes the back of his hand against his forehead as he swelters in his suit
So how are you doing today?
Well…we decided to get all the family and the old friends of the family together today for one big gathering, and it’s been one of those times where the reality hits you hard. I’ve had aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbours, long-time friends, so many people talking to me all day and it’s exhausting.
I mean, five minutes ago I was talking to someone I haven’t seen for a good dozen years as they live out in San Bernadino, and it was like we didn’t know each other. And I’ve had that happen so many times today, and I can almost see myself trying remember who people are while they’re offering their condolences, like some complete stranger is talking about someone I know and I’m a passenger in the conversation I’m supposed to be taking part in. Or then there’s the times where it’s gotten weird, like when my younger cousins wanted to talk wrestling at that moment in time, and you could almost feel the room temperature drop when he asked.
Unfastening the top button of his shirt, Karma thinks “baren dem” and removes his tie, wrapping it around his free hand
I don’t know, I just needed to hear a friendly voice rather than the voice of a friend-of-a-friend, you know?
It’s okay. I’m glad you called.
I just wish you were…
Just as Karma is about to finish what he was about to say, the door creaks open behind and a twelve year-old boy slips out of the door and scampers out onto the porch, sitting down next to Karma and tugging on his sleeve
What the…?
What is it?
It’s my cousin Joel.
Joel looks at Karma with a look which is a combination of inquisitive yet also one that looks like it’s eroding Karma’s will
Cousin Joel: So can we talk about wrestling now?
Joel continues to look directly at Karma, boring through his willpower with the persistence of the sea eroding the cliffs it lashes against day and night until the rock becomes little more than sand
I guess I’ll call you back later.
Karma pauses so he can return fire on his “precocious” cousin with a remarkable amount of side-eye
Thanks for listening.
I’ll be here when you need to talk, John.
Standing up from his perch, Karma hangs up his phone and unwraps his tie from around his hand and attempts to fasten it once more, but as with all men who hate wearing ties he does a remarkably poor job of it and just cannot be bothered to try again – so he turns and heads back towards the house
Come on.
Karma opens the door and gestures for Joel to get his tuches inside, but his cousin isn’t through asking all manner of impolite questions
Cousin Joel:Was that Cherry you were talking to? She’s so pretty, don’t you think?
As Joel walks through the door, Karma lets go and allows it to swing shut once more, and once the door closes he walks down the steps and onto the sidewalk, taking a good, long look at the neighbourhood where he grew up, and after a moment he decides to go for a walk
22nd September 2016, Coney Island NYC
Pacing around her apartment’s living room under the gaze of various framed Audrey Hepburn posters, Cherry Baum is wracked with worry at this moment in time, all because she’s worried about how Karma’s holding up during this trying time. She’s spoken with him on the phone a couple of times since he had to dash off into the Nevada night to catch the first plane home, but even though Karma said he was fine she knew he was putting up a front – because she knows him well enough to be able to spot something like that
Yet no matter how much she stares at her phone, she can’t will Karma into talking with her – not talking to her, with her – and she knows she can’t, and most importantly shouldn’t, try and make Karma talk when he isn’t ready. Knowing this, she sits herself down on the couch and fumbles for the stereo remote, and upon finding it buried deep in the gap between a cushion and the armrest she switches it on to hear the soothing rhythms of First Aid Kit as she tries to think
After distractedly tapping her finger against the side of her phone for couple of seconds, Cherry remembers that she hasn’t got around to checking the posting she made that informed the wider world of what was happening with Karma, and once she remembers she quickly goes to check what people have been saying in response…and soon wishes she hadn’t
As she stares at the responses, Cherry’s eyes fill with anger, so much that she has to remove the glasses from her face so she can rub her eyes in a desperate attempt to do something other than hurl her phone across the room – yet in spite of resisting the first urge, she cannot bottle up her feelings for a second longer
Those motherfu…
26th September 2016, Queens NYC
We find Cherry sitting on one side of a table at Sal’s Deli, yet rather than shooting the fat and chewing the breeze with Johnny Karma while she works her way through a bowl or two of chili cheese fries, instead she’s sat on her own taking tentative sips of her glass of ice tea while taking the occasional glance in the direction of her phone, waiting for a call or a text notification or something…yet that something never comes
As Cherry stares out of the window, she sighs
28th September 2016, Queens NYC
It’s a couple of days later, and yet the scene is more or less the same: Cherry is sat on her own on one side of a table at Sal’s Deli, once again her appetite isn’t as all-conquering as usual as she takes a sip from her cup of black coffee to test if it has cooled down enough to make it suitable for human consumption, when suddenly she’s interrupted…
Room for one more?
Upon hearing Karma’s voice Cherry’s face immediately brightens and she bolts out of her seat so she can give Karma a hug, albeit one where she holds on for at least four Mississippi’s too long
How’ve you been?
At this point Cherry realises she’s hung on for a fraction of an hour too long and releases her embrace, slinking a couple of steps backwards as she awkwardly looks around the deli to see if anyone’s gossiping about the pair of them, and then she slides back into her seat as Karma takes a seat opposite
You’ve eaten already?
Hmm?
Karma nods in the general direction of her cup of coffee
What, this? No, I was just…I didn’t have much of an appetite.
Karma gives Cherry a quizzical look, knowing how out of character that is for her
So how are you feeling today?
Well…there’s no getting past how there’s this big hole at the centre of what I do for a living…I mean…not a hole in what I do, why I do it or…
Karma places both his hands over his face, slowly wiping downwards as he tries to formulate what he’s actually trying to say into something that makes sense
The thing is that, buried deep in the back of my mind, there’s always going to be the knowledge that my grandfather played a big part of why I got into wrestling in the first place, from watching shows on TV to going to my first live show and thinking that maybe I might want to actually try and be a wrestler. He was there when shows came to town, he was there when I was some kid trying to remember the stuff I’d learned when I set foot in the ring and was trying not to trip over the ring skirt and break my face when I was making my entrance, he was there whenever I picked up the phone to talk about how things were going…and that’s gone now, so all that’s left is a memory of someone I knew, and loved, and supported me when the rest of my family were telling me I was wasting my time.
That’s the thing that gets me the most, he was the one person who was in my corner when everyone else was telling me to get a “real” job like the “real” job my cousin who works the phones for that home shopping network has, he was the one who was telling me to stick at it when I was filling out battle royals at the bottom of the card in some rec centre in Brooklyn…
But there are other people who care about you.
Karma is about to respond, but his attention is briefly taken by Cherry placing her hand on top of his as she looks him in the eye, hoping he gets what she’s saying
…not just me, either. Plenty of the FGA roster have said they’re worried about you, and that should tell you a thing or two, right?
Yeah, then there’s those other people, the ones who said something less supportive.
Those guys are assholes, you know that by now.
I already knew that a long time ago, long before they jumped me to take the shine off of me defeating Carmine to end his Pride Championship reign and leave him without any wiggle room to try and claim I didn’t deserve to win the match because I was simply better that he is. I knew it back when Cannon and Goodrich got in my face backstage late last year just because they wanted to make themselves feel like Big Men. It’s not new information that The New Kings are what they are…but when is this crap going to stop? Each and every one of them lining up, one after the other, all taking potshots at me because they think a death in my family is funny? There’s lines that should be left the hell alone, but not only did they cross it they set the thing on fire before running into the night cackling like a bunch of jackals at what they did, thinking what they did was so damn clever.
I mean, if that’s the game they want to play, you know what? The second I get back into the locker room it’s time they learned that I’m done playing, because I have had enough.
Karma is stewing at the thought of having to share the same postal district as The New Kings, so much so that he finds himself unable to sit in his seat a moment longer
Excuse me, I’ve got to…
Without finishing his sentence, Karma gets out of his seat and marches towards the door, shoving it open so hard it damn near comes off its hinges before it snaps back shut – and just as it snaps back into place, we hear a primal bellow of obscenities emanate from somewhere deep within Karma’s soul – an utterance that shocks the various diners within Sal’s as well as various passers-by, which also causes Cherry to climb out of her seat so she can see what the hell is going on
Having unleashed a salvo of pent-up rage and frustration upon the unsuspecting residents of Astoria, Karma turns on his heels and calmly pushes the deli’s door open and walks inside, passing the shocked gaze of various people whose lunchtimes have been interrupted by the loudest piece of profanity since God got caught in His zipper, before he returns to his seat and places his hands upon the table as Cherry looks at him with a slight hint of worry in her eyes
Are you…okay?
Looking towards Cherry, Karma thinks very, very carefully before he answers
You know, I honestly have no idea if I’m okay or not. But it’s okay not to know, because I’ve been tearing myself apart trying to hold myself together for the last week or so, and if the choice is to keep everything bottled up in the hope that everything that’s bubbling inside will calm down or to release some pressure to stop something far, far worse happening, then it’s probably good for me to turn the valve a little and release some pressure before…before I don’t know what, but it scares me to think what that could be.
So what are you thinking?
I’m thinking that I’ve got to make a couple of calls in the morning, because sitting on the sidelines isn’t doing me much good.
4th October 2016, Queens NYC
We catch up with Johnny Karma as he sits on his couch and gulps down a post-jog bottle of sports drink, and just as Karma finishes his drink he hears his phone’s notification tone, so after putting his bottle down he picks up his phone and clicks the notification icon – and is immediately greeted with the announcement of his match at Retribution
After approximately half a second, Karma lets his phone slip out of his hand and harmlessly land on his couch with a light thud and asks an important question to nobody in particular
It never gets any easier, does it?
7th October 2016, Queens NYC
Once more we return to Sal’s Deli, where Cherry appears to have regained some of her appetite as she’s picking through a bowl of chili cheese fries, while Karma is sipping on a glass of ice water, looking out of the window with his eyes focusing on something in the middle distance until Cherry interrupts his meditation to ask a very pertinent question
I know you’re probably sick of people asking you this question, but how are you doing?
Just…thinking.
Thinking? About what?
About that moment where things look like they can’t get any worse – but then you see that first glimmer of hope, telling you that step by tiny step that things might start to improve.
Pushing her bowl to one side, and then wiping the grease and everything else off her fingers, Cherry places a hand on Karma’s forearm and leans in as much as the table allows her to
Where are you going with this?
I was thinking, the moment my match was announced it looked like I was walking into a one-sided beatdown as I was going up against Cannon and Carmine all on my own, the sort of matchup that would have a betting man think it wasn’t worth placing a bet as the payoff would be so low.
Thinking about it like that, that’s when it struck me – the two of them are walking into a trap they can’t even see, because they’re going to be so confident in their success they don’t think it’s worth Googling the phrase “False sense of security” before they leave their locker room, and I’m sure that Diamond or The Usual Suspects will be happy to inflate their egos that little bit more. But what they haven’t thought about is what happens if their plan doesn’t work as they’d hoped? What do they do if they’re not home and dry in the five minutes they think it will take? That’s the thing: from the very first day they have thought that strength in numbers is all they need, and it’s time they learned that it doesn’t matter if they have the numerical advantage, what matters is how the person at a disadvantage counters this. After all, if their mentality is “Might makes right”, if they suddenly find themselves looking a lot less mighty and everything starts to fall apart as they didn’t bother to think of a backup plan, that’s going to do more damage to them than they can possibly imagine. It’d almost be funny if their only response to facing adversity is having to call in the cavalry to help them out, because that’ll prove just how little the pair of them have thought anything through
So, yeah, it’s probably not going to be much fun having to go up against the two of them and I’m going to have to wrestle the match of my life to stay one step ahead of them for as long as possible if I’m to have even the slimmest hope of coming out of the match on top, but the irony is that I can go into this match without fear because what’s the worst that can happen? Two guys beating me up? I’m used to having two or even three of them jump me from behind by this point it’s not as scary a prospect as they’d think – but for them the scary prospect is somehow finding themselves losing a match they should not lose in a million years, and the longer I stay ahead of them the more that the thought of it will creep into their minds. It’s funny how things work out like that, really it is.
Taking a sip from his glass of water, Karma returns to looking out of the window for a moment
I haven’t even mentioned the other variable, namely the frustration that will set in when neither of them can get the job done. Frustration makes people hasty, makes them prone to mistakes and rash judgment, the sort of things that distract them from the supposedly easy task and give me the opportunity to take advantage. When I take advantage, they start to panic, and in their panic they are prone to mistakes and rash judgment, again tipping the scales away from them – just a little bit, but enough of these little changes that can have the same effect as one large swing, it just takes a little time and tolerance and knowing what to look for. Will the pair of them even think of it? Who knows, honestly – but I’m going to do everything I can to spring an unpleasant surprise on the New Kings and show them that they’ve been wearing the Emperor’s cast-offs for longer than they realise, and with Fall setting in they really should feel that cold breeze blowing around their beytsim.
