The next few months of my life were a blur of ups and downs. TNT got shitcanned by the booker for exposing the business in our match, and I suddenly found myself as the top draw. I won an eight man tournament to crown the new CFW Champion, and suddenly I was the guy Valentine was walking to the ring three nights a week. She was coming home with me, too. It really seemed like everything was going great for me, other than my troublesome left knee. The pain had been so bad at one point that I had to scrap a match at the last minute, and that was bad for business. You never send the crowd home pissed.
I had no choice but to take Big Tank up on his offer, and soon I was popping blues backstage before every event. Then it was on my off days, too. Eventually I was reaching for my own pill bottle every morning instead of a protein shake or a couple of vitamins like I had before. Valentine wanted some too, and I didn’t want to ever spend another night outside of her perfect thighs again, so I obliged. It started as a necessity, then became a habit, and then evolved into a completely different kind of necessity. I wouldn’t say I was totally hooked, though. I definitely wasn’t as bad off as Val was. Sometimes I just wasn’t in the mood for a pill, and on extended off days I wouldn’t touch the stuff – but then the pain was almost unbearable. It’s a tough choice.
The scouts did come back, a month or two after the TNT incident. This time they got a five star match from me and Big Tank – a ladder match. We knew I was going over, but I never expected the big guy to sell for me the way he did that night. Tank did me a solid favor, and I made sure I did right by him, too. The result was a perfectly worked match with nobody acting stiff or selfish. When I hit my bigger spots, like the jumping forearm or the top rope dropkick, Tank flopped like he had been shot. I never saw the big guy put anyone over the way he did for me that night.
“Gimme something big, Tank,”
I told him near the end of the match, when the crowd was already almost out of breath for us.
“This one’s about you, Loverboy, you ain’t got to put me over.”
“Let’s go up, Big Man, let’s do the spot we always talked about.”
“Shit, Vin, you’re crazy,”
he said, but his eyes were smiling. He heeled on me and I played the face in peril, barely getting my shoulder up before a three count after he flapjacked me in the middle of the ring. He showboated and gave me a good two minutes to catch my breath while setting up one of the prop tables out at ringside. It was quiet when Big Tank powerbombed me from the top turnbuckle and through that table on the ringside floor, and the crowd erupted with a five minute “holy shit” chant. Of course, Big Tank was right there to make sure I wasn’t dead for real, that it was all kayfabe selling on the floor, but he made it look like he was trying to finish the job, being held back by the ref.
“You crazy bastard,”
Tank said to me after I rolled back into the ring right before the ten count.
“You ready to go home?”
I asked.
“Take it, Loverboy,”
he replied, and then we went into the finishing sequence we had decided on earlier in the day. Quick moves, only one beat in between. Body slam setup reversed into a headscissor takedown, duck under a clothesline, float over into a DDT. Tank staggers, selling the move, while I run across the ring and hop onto the second rope, flipping backward onto his big frame in the highest moonsault I could muster. Then I was in the corner, slapping my thigh, and the crowd knew what was coming. Tank slowly got to a knee, then stood, shaking his head to get the cobwebs out. Just as he turned in my direction I took two big sideways steps and superkicked my boot up into his face. He sold it like a redwood falling in a forest, and I hooked his leg for the dramatic three count. The roof was booming with applause for the two of us.
After the match, the same two scouts from the previous visit approached me in the locker room and set me up with an audition, which was an unbilled dark match before the cameras were rolling at the next KAQ live event. No entrance theme, no announcement of my name, just a quick, five minute match with the greenest worker I’d been in with in years. He was a deer in headlights and I had to call every spot, but I made sure he got in his share of offense before I called the finish. Only problem was he botched the sell of the kick and I tweaked my knee pretty bad. I was in the back wrapped with ice when one of the execs found me and offered me a contract. It was my dream, and there I was with a knee swollen up and nobody to celebrate with. Two pills later and my knee was as numb as my brain.
The thing about dreams coming true is that sometime you wish they hadn’t. Sometimes the dream is better than the real thing. When my dream came true I went from being a champion with a beautiful girl getting his name chanted night after night – “Loverboy” the rock star – to being Vinnie Lane, jobber on weekend cable TV. My pretty girl got to be the star, and she sucked her way to the prime time TV shows and out of my bed as quickly as the ink dried on her KAQ contract. I told myself we would work it out, and let her stay with me anyway. I was in limbo on the card, nowhere near the main event, jobbing to the mid-level scrubs in gyms across the country for months at a time. When I finally came home one night after dogging it in that week’s dark matches and found that she and all of her shit were gone, I didn’t even feel anything.
The phone call I got from Tuffa is really what woke me up to how much I missed the indie scene. Everyone just texts nowadays, after all, so hearing my cell phone ring caught me off guard. I had almost forgotten about the Guns N’ Roses ringtone. I answered like I’d just woken up, and Tuffa got straight to the brass tacks and broke the news.
“Big Tank’s dead, man.”
“What? What happened?”
I assumed it had been a car crash or something in his boat – Tank was always out on his boat.
“Pills, man. Big fella OD’d.”
“No way,”
I just couldn’t picture it,
“that’s not funny, dude, no way that happened.”
“I ain’t joking, man. Fucking crazy, right?”
Tank and I had gone out and scored together the night before. He went home smiling and excited to have seen me, since I had been on tour with KAQ. It was the most fun I’d had since leaving CFW, and now the guy was dead off of the junk we had bought together.
I put the shit down that day. Cold turkey. I felt like dying for three weeks, and could barely work since I had no adrenaline, but I stayed off. I asked for my release from KAQ the day after I talked to Tuffa, and Valentine moved out the same night. We both knew it was coming anyway, she had been spending more and more time on the road on tours I wasn’t booked on and the hand was writing on the wall. Big Tank’s – Jason Varnes’ – funeral was three days later. All the old CFW guys were there, even TNT. I kept my head low but he cornered me after the proceedings and just wordlessly embraced me. His eyes were wet and puffy, and he hugged like a long lost brother. I broke, cried into his huge shoulder, and we were good.
“T, I’m sorry, man,”
I started to go into it all, but he shook his head and wouldn’t have it.
“Vin, fuck it. It’s done. You need to forget that shit and let it go, like I did. Worry about now. Worry about doing the right thing right now.”
It didn’t take me more than a minute to make up my mind right there on the spot next to the big hole they were gonna lower my best friend into later that day. I needed to come back. I needed to come home.
I needed to remember who “Loverboy” was.
2016 - Los Angeles
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Roxy… it’s been a long time.”
Roxy Cotton and “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane stand outside of the Los Angeles strip club, Love on the Rox, the joint business venture they went into together as a couple with plans to be married. Back before everything took a hard left turn.
A rare thing in L.A., the rain has started to fall. The pair are standing close together beneath an awning, trying to keep themselves dry though the wind has other plans.
“Yes. Months. But Vinnie if you wanted to call you had my number. It hasn’t changed. I haven’t even changed your tone.”
“I haven’t changed yours either.”
Loverboy smiles, a genuine expression of nostalgia. And happiness.
“You look good, Rox. Fuck it, you look great. You always have.”
“Thank you, Vinnie… you look… different. Hey, where’s the belt? Don’t tell me you lost it?”
“No. No, I didn’t lose anything, babe.”
Loverboy flinches a little bit at how easily he accidentally used the old term of endearment. He grimaces as Roxy looks away, down at the asphalt between the immaculately pedicured toes sticking out from her high platform stilettos.
Roxy shivers as another gust of wind spatters cold drops of rain across her bare arms. Her dancer’s top leaves most of her skin exposed to the elements, so she grabs her elbows tight and hugs herself to stay warm. Loverboy quickly unzips his hoodie and removes it, wrapping it around Roxy and looking deep into her eyes with his arms around her for that briefest of moments.
“I… just didn’t want to wear the belt tonight. I needed to just be me again for a bit, you know?”
“Vinnie… you wear those belts into the shower. You wear them to bed. Winning and championships and strutting around with gold belts IS being you.”
“That’s a version of me, Rox, but there’s a lot about how I’ve acted over the last six months or so that ain’t nothing like who I am at all, dude. Not the least of which is sitting there like a fucking idiot and watching you walk away.”
Roxy screws her mouth into a pucker and looks away again, stepping back from Loverboy’s one-armed embrace. Loverboy – Vinnie – is not so easily turned away this time, however.
“Roxy… baby… I fucked up. Over and over again, I fucked up. I fucked up with you, I fucked up with life. And it probably fuckin’ took doing it to realize that those two things can’t be separate to me, man. Roxy… you ARE my life. And if I need to walk away from the crowds and the cheers and whole god damn business to be the guy you need me to be again? Then dude, you just tell me that it’s what you want and I’m done. I’ll do my job one last time for the machine over there in Russia, and then I’ll fly home to you and never look back. I promise. I swear on my LIFE babe. What do you say?”
“Oh… Vinnie, I couldn’t…”
Loverboy drops to a knee on the concrete, his pant leg quickly soaking up water from the parking lot puddle he’s knelt in. He grabs one of Roxy’s delicate hands with both of his own and looks up into her wet eyes plaintively, searching for something he may have lost for good.
“Baby please don’t say you can’t. Please don’t tell me it’s too late. I’ll die right here in this parking lot, man. I’ll lie my face down into this nasty puddle and suck the filth into my lungs if you tell me no, dude… I’ll…”
But before he can continue, Roxy kneels down in front of him, her bare knee dipped into the same swirling mixture of rain water and parking lot oil as his, and she takes his face into her hands, looking right into his sky blue eyes and seeing the reflection of the only thing Loverboy cares to see. Her.
Roxy leans forward and kisses Loverboy deeply, falling into him and wrapping her arms around his neck as they both kneel on the dirty asphalt of the strip club entrance, kissing, crying, and opening themselves once again to the possibilities they’d both believed they had left behind.
“Roxy… oh, shit… hey, Roxy?”
The voice is from the blonde standing in the doorway, the hostess of the club, Minnie. She’s taken aback at the sight of the two of them on their knees kissing in the rain.
“Your turn’s coming up again. You want me to tell Jax that you’re on a break?”
“No, I’ll be right in, girl. Thanks.”
Roxy says with a smile. Minnie goes back inside as Loverboy stands and extends a hand to help Roxy to her feet. Wiping the grime from her knees, Roxy laughs and looks again at Loverboy, the both of them unable to stop smiling.
“Vinnie… I’ve got to get back to it. Half the guys in here came to see me dance. But what I was going to say is… I can’t.”
Loverboy’s face falls into a drooping scowl, his lip trembling, his shoulders slouched like a defeated boxer.
“I CAN’T ask you to walk away from all of those things, baby. I can’t be the reason you abandon your dreams. But what I can do… what I WILL do… is be right there next to you again. If you’ll let me.”
And in a flash, the energy and excitement returns to the face of the rock n’ roll megastar. He scoops Roxy up in his arms and plants another kiss onto her perfect lips, then places her back down gently next to the entrance of the club.
“Thank you baby. I’m going to do right by you this time, you’ll see. I’ll do this one… for us.”
Roxy winks and rubs a little lipstick off of the corner of Loverboy’s mouth with her thumb, then turns and walks back towards the club entrance. She turns one last time and smiles broadly to the glowing Loverboy.
“After your big match, babe… you’ll be all mine again. But tonight? Tonight I want to get you hot and bothered up on the stage like you do to me every time you get into that ring. And that little waitress of yours likes you enough to let you take it out on her. You know. If you’re into that sort of thing.”
She laughs as Loverboy’s jaw drops open. Roxy, making more dreams come true after all this time.
“You don’t mind if I…?”
He gesticulates a crude finger-into-fist motion, and Roxy rolls her eyes with a laugh.
“Her name is Vivian. She likes molly. Go get 'em, tiger.”
And she walks inside, leaving Loverboy excited and dumbfounded as the rain starts to clear up. The megastar stands for a minute and dusts himself off, then bounds back into the building with a newfound hustle in his step.
Desks are for dipshits, so “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane is back at his strip club booth with a complimentary bottle of Dom after having spent the past little while outside with Roxy Cotton. Anxiously awaiting his former flame’s next set with a newfound sense of potential, Loverboy pulls the tablet out of his fanny pack and finds out that, yeah, good ol’ Trax has been running his mouth again.
Loverboy snickers his way through the barely decipherable promo from the pretender champion, then just shakes his head in amazement while popping the cork form his bottle and pouring the champagne straight into his mouth, getting a little cheer from all the honeys nearby.
“Trax wants to be taken seriously by me and yet he STILL can’t even pronounce my fuckin’ name correctly. Respect your betters, Trax. It’s VINNIE. Long E sound at the end. Whatever, who gives a shit I guess.”
Loverboy swigs on his bottle of bubbly and then passes it off to a couple of girls taking a break in the booth next to his, immediately getting treated by watching the duo show off with a two hundred dollar titty bath in the Dom Perignon. Loverboy jut nods in appreciation and flags down the same cocktail waitress from before and gives her a wink, which sends her off to get him another Long Island.
“Found yourself a set of nuts, huh champ? Oh, good for you, dude, good for you. Now that you see I’m gonna jump into the ring with guns fuckin’ blazing, you wanna try and take a step back from all the dick-slobbing you were doing in your last little installment of “dumb monkey sits at a desk and pretends he ever learned to read.” Whatever. Oh, and before you get your FUBU panties in a bunch and start trying to tweet the NAACP or Jesse Jackson or your boyfriend Tyrone, trying to tell them I used a racial slur in a promo in an effort to cost me money by devaluing my brand – I called you a monkey because you dance and clap like one when your masters in the XWF offices tell you to. You’re like a little fuckin’ chimp with an adorable red suit on, bouncing up and down while the man turns the crank on his music box. THAT’s what makes you a monkey, dude, not the fact that you’re so god damn black that when you get out of your car the fuckin’ check oil light comes on. Not because the only way anyone can see you in the dark is to make you smile. I don’t give a damn about the color of your skin or the lowness of your credit score, fuckboy, all I care about is dragging you around the ring at Snow Job by your nappy roots and then dropping you on your face with a Black Label Driver to get your nose out of my ass FOR GOOD. Gimme a god damn break, man! Listen to the ways you choose to “big up” yourself, dude, and understand that all you really did was jam a “big” load of shit right “up” your own ass. You’re a former boxer? Wow, man. Cool story, dude. You must know a thing or two about reach then, right homeboy? So how the fuck are you planning on boxing me when my leg is twice as long as your arm, huh? That weak left hook of yours is gonna hit nothing but air because I’ll be in the middle of stuffing your buck teeth full of size 11 wrestling boot. Then you wanna talk about winning matches against Nico Lavey and Fontanna like that means a god damn thing. The sht that drops out of my ass could beat those two, at the same time, and not only look but SMELL better than you while doing it. So no, that shit doesn’t count as “defending” a title as important as the X. And Morbid Angel? Yeah dude, sure, almost. You ALMOST had a legit claim there until you remembered that you were bragging about a match that had fucking SCULLY in it. Congrats, you beat SCULLY. You know who else beat Scully? Life. Life beat Scully. The motherfucker is a window-licking waterhead, and he’d kill himself if he could figure out how to load a gun. But you go, Trax, you sure beat him! What happened, though, when it was time to just beat Morbid Angel straight up, huh? You remember when I mean, right dude? Just a few weeks ago at Back In Black, while I was getting paid main event money to drag around a crash test dummy and barely broke a sweat in the process, you were under me, like always, getting a face full of piss and LOSING to a fat old man, clean, in the middle of the fuckin’ ring! I heard all about the struggles, dude, so spare me the details. If you’d have prepared like a REAL champion instead of, like always, trying to take a shortcut, maybe Morbs would have been a guy you could beat… but he wasn’t, was he? You know who DOES beat Morbid Angel EVERY TIME though? ME. One on one, two on one, it doesn’t matter. In fact, I’ve beaten the motherfucker when he had help TWICE, when you couldn’t get the job done against him all by yourself. I’m sure, somewhere, whoever he might be, your daddy is REAL proud of that.”
Finally, Loverboy’s drink arrives. Fittingly, a pair of bright red cherries are floating in the brown liquid, and they don’t escape Loverboy’s trained eye. The waitress raises her eyebrows and licks her lips before walking off with another crisp twenty slid into her palm.
Loverboy laughs just loud enough to be picked up by the mic on the unseen crew member’s camera, then returns to verbally dissecting his Snow Job opponent.
“Now Trax… you wanna try and sit here and tell me your life story about how you went from high school gym to bingo hall to YMCA wrestling for peanuts and a 20 dollar gold plated belt? Dude. Every one of us worked the indies, you fuck. But THIS is where the bright lights shine, dude. THIS is where the spotlight is the hottest, where the cheers are the loudest, and where the money is the fucking greenest. Nothing you did before you walked through those blue and black curtains the first time matters for JACK fucking SHIT. You think anyone cares about my five times as CWF Champion? My successes in KAQ or J-Pro or A1A Wrestling? FUCK no they don’t. My waist has had more gold on it than your whole family’s grills, but my relevance, AND yours, starts and stops right fucking HERE in the XWF. So no, dude, I don’t much care for spending 18 months doing things the right way, earning shots and winning them, over and over, just to watch you get handed the keys to the castle just for showing up and having the right look, dude. No, I don’t much care to hear about you “defending” a title against Nico, Fontanna, or god damn motherfucking SCULLY. And for christ’s sake, dude, unless my ears are deceiving me I could swear you are actually bragging about being able to kick out a lot. WOW. I guess the rotten apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree, because the only other bitch in the world who must be that proud of making a living lying on her back is your crackhead mother. Pretending “not losing” is the same thing as WINNING is like fucking a hole you cut in a magazine centerfold’s mouth and pretending you got a blow job. Stand up and fight like a fucking man, Trax. Like I do. Like I did when I knew you were coming down to cash in on me, even though, like you said, I could have been a PUSSY and used other resources to stop it. Instead, like a man, like a CHAMPION, I stood there and invited you into MY ring to take the easy way out. And why would I do that, dude? Simple, man. Two reasons. One, because I’m not a scared shitless who needs to buy “cash in blockers” or whatever the fuck you said, and two, because I knew I could beat you any god damn time I wanted to and just take that cheap piece of tin back from you. To put this shit into courtroom terms you’re probably more familiar with, exhibit A was me answering your bitch move after the match with Ginger. Exhibit B is in just a few more days at Snow Job.”
Wave of the hand. Delivery of drink. Smirk. Wink. Wiggle. Another Andrew Jackson for the perky lady.
“Trax, you ignorant sack of shit, you’re bringing up the CCWF like they have any god damn thing to do with this match at all. Austin Fernando and Luca found happiness together and are probably skipping through some field holding hands or some shit. No judgment, man, it’s 2016, let them be themselves, but they ain’t gonna be doing my light work for me come Snow Job. K-Money and Sitre didn’t win any matches for me either, man, check the tape. It was always ME making the pin, wasn’t it? It was always ME in the ring, putting asses in seats, and running the marathons for this company right here. You don’t need to worry about any of them getting involved, and you DEFINITLY don’t need to worry about the Goddess Sitre seducing you, because that chick doesn’t fuck black dudes anyway. She likes her sex to be consensual. No man, at Snow Job on January 30th, in front of the whole fucking world, I’m going to do what I ALWAYS do, which is put a cherry on top of the sundae by being the MAIN EVENT and WINNING, all… by… myself. You won’t have any excuses after I kick your ass, Trax. You won’t have anywhere to point and place blame unless it’s squarely at your reflection in the mirror dude, because the reason you won’t win is simple. You ain’t good enough to beat me. In fact, that’s giving you too much credit, dude, because NO ONE is good enough to beat me. Nah, you ain’t good enough to lick the shit off my boot. Not as long as you’re hanging on to wins over wannabes instead of looking for the next big challenge and making yourself better. Until then, you’re as sad as Alexis Riot and her 0-1 record claiming to have ever been more that a mannequin – something you put jewelry on until someone REAL shows up to do it justice. Do yourself a favor and quit while you’ve still got some name value, dude, because your stock is gonna hit rock bottom at Snow Job. I’m so high above you that all you can see is my fucking balls swinging in the sky over your head.”
Loverboy mimes the metaphor by cupping his hands high up over his face into two rounded semi-circles, then works his mouth open and closes like a baby calf suckling on its mother’s udders.
He laughs out loud and repeats the gesture for the girls next to him, who oblige their sugar daddy with some extra laughs and jiggles.
“Look around you, dude. Look at what “Universal Champion Trax” has done to the status of this company. Before I had to share the spotlight with you, I was bringing top names back into the fold. Sid Feders and K-Moneys and so on. Your name in lights has brought in winners like The Meme Machine for the love of CHRIST, you even made it possible for TUSH to come back. You aren’t the savior of the XWF, dude, you’re the fucking executioner. And where are they now, man? All those top draws I just mentioned, where did they go as soon as Trax’s XWF was established? Gone. Because anyplace that wants to call a guy like you their champion is no place for REAL talent. THAT’S why I’d never crawl on my belly and beg for a contract extension, you dumb fucker. I’M the talent. I’M the attraction. And if Tyrone and his goons want to sit on their hands instead of driving a dump truck full of dollars up to me and keep their show legitimate, that’s THEIR loss. Only problem for them is, they won’t be able to just pretend I’m not their marquee player after Snow Job, because I’ll be the guy walking out of the arena after the biggest show so far in 2016 holding all the gold. Guess they’ll be a little quicker to get those contracts printed up then, huh genius? It’s called strategy, Trax. Look it up. Top free agents don’t stay when they don’t get paid. Not that I expect you to know what being a REAL megastar is like, man, but when you’re the hottest star in the sky, you tell the sun when to shine… get it? My life, MY terms. The only thing they’ve got left on the bargaining table is you and your faux title, and this week at Snow Job I get to fix the mistake and put everything right in my favor. Just like always.”
The cocktail waitress comes back to the table, this time without a drink. She’s off the clock, it seems, and she slides right onto the rocker’s lap and buries her face into the platinum blond hair sticking out from around his hot pink bandanna, whispering into his ear.
Loverboy’s eyes pop open wide and he smiles.
“Now Trax, dude, if you don’t mind… business is done. It’s time for pleasure.”
Loverboy waves off the cameraman and the scene fades to black.
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who needs to buy “cash in blockers” or whatever the fuck you said, and two, because I knew I could beat you any god damn time I wanted to and just take that cheap piece of tin back from you. To put this shit into courtroom terms you’re probably more familiar with, exhibit A was me answering your bitch move after the match with Ginger. Exhibit B is in just a few more days at Snow Job.”![[Image: Gz87KnQ.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/Gz87KnQ.jpg)
