“What about the IWC appeals to you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You returned to them. Why do you think that you went back to that sort of lifestyle?”
An audible sigh.
“I don’t know, doc. I just wanted a paycheck, and it was a way that I knew I could make one easily and without having to develop any new skills and start over at the bottom.”
“Yes, but from what you’ve told me you’re having to do those things anyway.”
A long pause.
“I thought the point of this was to cheer me up?”
***
I’m not even going to bother setting up a scene for this. It’s not worth the effort (sort of like Hurse, badum-ching.) Ultimately no one cares anyways. So do whatever you feel like with this, Steve. I know you and Kingdom are on this new stint where you need to get on everyone’s case for not doing orthodox, sit-down, interview promos (which is hysterical, to be honest.) If you want to picture me in some dingy, dank basement with one spotlight shining overhead, do that. Or hey, maybe I could be in a back alley. Or if you want me to be in freaking Disneyworld, go for it. It won’t make any difference to me, and frankly the audience could probably give a shit as well.
Also, I’m not going to start putting the brackets around things that happen in between the things I’m saying. As interesting as it is to put in [AWOL scratches his ass] between all my comments about you and your general inadequacies regarding the areas of competing in the wrestling ring, acquiring and achieving a stable relationship, or any of your other failures as a human being, they don’t add anything. They’re a crutch, a means of adding in a pause to try and control the pace of the promo. They’re a hackneyed device that people who can’t manage to create temp any other way rely on to turn what would otherwise be one long stream of literary diarrhea into something that can actually be read without inducing narcolepsy. I’m better than that. To be honest, so are you.
[AWOL inserts a bracketed phrase anyway, mostly just to screw with you.]
This is just going to be a monologue, so you can picture whatever you feel like. The important thing is that I let you know how much I am truly not looking forward to this terrible match. Admittedly, there are very few things about coming to work at the IWC that I really enjoy anyways. As much as I wait breathlessly to go out to the ring, crush some waste of genetic material like Sean Johnson, collect my check, and spend the rest of the night enjoying the kind of cutting, witty banter that can only be supplied by the genius that is Porno Lad, it could be said that there are places I would rather be than competing in the wrestling ring. Trapped inside one of the freezer drawers of a morgue with a naked dead ninety year old man comes to mind as an example.
But still, even more than usual, I don’t want anything to do with this match with you on Friday. It’s not that I don’t like hurting you, Steve, because I assure you that I do. Really, the numerous times I beat you in the ULW ring are some of my fondest memories. You were sort of like the Pete Rose to my Kane, an easy match that was sure to create a high spot and a cheap pop from the crowd, ultimately making me look tough and unbeatable without having to break much of a sweat. It was truly a sweet arrangement. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to work up the old enthusiasm anymore. For a time, I thought that perhaps it was simply that I was tired of going back to the same old well. Yawn, another victory over Hurse. Whoopteedoo. I guess I should be happy that you actually bothered to promo, that puts you ahead of the rest of the “opponents” I’ve had thus far.
But no, I decided, that’s not quite it. In any case it was never a problem before. So I sat myself down and thought about it, and ultimately all I could come up with was this: I’m disgusted with you. I know this is more or less a re-hash of what I ranted at you about earlier in the week, but it truly deserves underscoring. This “Please kill me AWOL” bit has to go. It’s nauseating. It used to be said that committing suicide is the most cowardly thing that you can do, and in a way I agree, but you’ve come along and demonstrated that in truth there is one thing that is more pathetic: getting someone else to kill you because you don’t have the nerve to do it yourself.
Now, I know what you’re thinking (this is what we call anticipating the rebuttal. Rhetorical argumentation 101, people. Give it a try sometime.) “But AWOL, your life is just as messed up as mine is. In your Up the Ante promo you smashed the hell out of your cell phone and started crying. How can you look down your nose at me for trying to pull the same sympathy angle on the crowd?” Well, number one, I’m looking down my nose at you for giving up and for making me do the dirty work for you. But more importantly, number two, my life has been shit for weeks. I lost a relationship I was in for years and which I was planning on staying in for many decades to come. I was happy. You, by contrast, lost a girl you married to irritate your ex. Can you see the difference here? Can you see why I’m having a hard time drudging up any tears for you here?
So beating you doesn’t even feel like it would be satisfying, because to be honest it would be giving you what you want. Heaping more of this ridiculous sympathy onto you would just make the situation more ridiculous. So we’re going to try something different this week, starting now. We’re going to use the Ferber method on you from here on out. You can cry and wail all you like, and we’ll ignore you. We’ll hold you out at arm’s length and, hopefully, eventually you’ll learn to self-soothe, and then we won’t have to listen to you anymore.
And if that doesn’t work, I guess you can roll around in whatever big pile of money you’ve conveniently acquired. I’m sure that will get you through the hard times.
***
“I have a theory, if you’d like to hear it.”
“Sure, why not. That is more or less what I’m paying you for.”
“I think violence is the only way for you to show that you’re strong. What happened with Vivian has thoroughly unnerved you. Throughout all this time you’ve been the character AWOL, you’ve been untouchable. Nothing could hurt you. But now, all of a sudden this thing has happened in your life, and you find yourself in an unfamiliar position of vulnerability. And so, the violence is your coping method, the means through which you’re able to deny that this has actually hurt you.”
“So what the hell do I do about it?”
“There’s going to come a time when hurting people in the ring stops working. Every night it’s going to get a little bit less satisfying until finally you’re chasing the sensation and pushing yourself to more and more extremes to find it.”
“So I’m going to end up like Mickey Rourke from ‘The Wrestler’?”
“Make jokes if you want, Anthony, but you’re going to have to come to grips with this eventually. You’ll have to sit down and ask yourself ‘Do I want to get better?’”
***
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