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**Vincent Lane** · **10-07-2014, 08:23 PM** "Loverboy" - Kickstart My Heart -->

Kickstart my heart

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see –

- Emily Dickinson

What do you see when you die? Where do you go? What does it feel like? Does it hurt?

Those are the questions I’ve always asked myself since as long as I can remember. Part of really understanding you’re alive is understanding that eventually you’ll die. When you’re a kid you start to learn all of the typical stereotypes – even Saturday morning cartoons tell you that when the coyote finally falls off of the cliff, his little coyote soul springs out of him and starts floating into the sky.

Not knowing what happens to us and not wanting to just be a hole full of worm food gave birth to gods. It was easier when we just worshipped the sun, but the sun didn’t give us the answers we needed because even that golden orb or life died every single night and simply disappeared until it was reborn the next day. The in between was still a mystery.

That was what I was thinking about when I got into the bathtub. Well, after I got in the bathtub. When I got in the bathtub I thought I was just going to try and cool off, since my heart started pumping slow fire up and down my arms and legs. The chill of the porcelain started talking to me from the other room after I sweated the sheets through and kicked them onto the floor, then sweated a deep puddle into the bare mattress too.

Most of the stories aren’t true. The only light I saw was the fluorescent bulb flickering over the bathroom sink. The specters of light reflecting in each white tile, a hundred hundred manmade candles in a restroom funeral. I didn’t feel myself lifting out of my body, but I felt my body settling in to the basin. I felt the temperature of my back and thighs chill until they no longer felt separate from the cool tub. As I sat and stared, between bouts of heavy eyelids I watched the color of my arm shift from vibrant, tan and human into a lifeless alabaster shell. The lava flow slows and stops. The fluorescent light turns into a flicker at the end of a faraway tunnel.

I think I’m going to sleep.

They got one part right. I see things from “Ago.” They started recently, though. I see the match at Relentless. I see when I signed my XWF contract. I go to when I chose to drop out of High School and chase my dreams in Florida. I even see the haunted house I went to on Halloween in the fifth grade.

Then it changes, and I see that same morning. I hear Roxy trying to wake me up before she left.

Baby?

She said. I remember it in my death throes and it’s like a bolt of lightning. A shock snapping my spine straight like a bullwhip.

Baby!

And I remember how urgent she sounded when she was wrapped around me in the hotel bed, begging my eyes to open. The memory zaps me like another burst of electric fingers reaching through my chest and holding my heart, palpating in AC/DC rhythm.

BABY!

And it rings my ears. For a second I stop feeling like I’m floating down to the bottom of a cold ocean, and a heat in my chest throbs like an ember in the first winter fireplace. Then again, a punch in the chest with a cattle prod of thunder, and my skin comes back to life, tingling like I’m sitting in an electric chair. The smell of burnt ozone is suddenly in my nose, and I hadn’t even realized I’d already forgotten what it felt like to breathe.

One more.

One more.

And finally…

[Image: tumblr_moxav03IvA1r0ii93o1_500.gif]

Loverboy: Oh, fuck…

Roxy: Oh my god, he’s awake!

Loverboy: What’s going on?

I have a pretty good idea, but there are some times when it’s easier to play dumb, even when everyone knows you’re lying. Coming back to life naked in a bathtub with an empty syringe still dangling out of your arm is one of those moments, if you ask me. I don’t even fool the complete stranger in a blue jumpsuit with metal paddles hovering over my chest, so I know I didn’t fool Roxy.

Roxy: You stupid motherfucker! You OD’ed!

Loverboy: Are you sure?

Smooth, Loverboy, smooth. I take one of my suddenly fifty pound hands and swat the needle away from me and it scratches across the tile floor. I watch it spin like a compass in a hurricane until it comes to rest behind Roxy’s glittering heels. Right next to two shining gold belts, lit on fire by the bathroom lights.

Loverboy: Hey… my belts…

Roxy: I saw some bitch at the airport getting picked up by some guy wearing a turban, and she was trying to rock these things like a fucking accessory to her knockoff Louboutins. I clocked that cunt with my loaded purse and came back here because I knew something had to have been wrong… Jesus Christ Vinnie, you’re lucky I forgot to turn in my key!

I feel my hand get even warmer and I realize she’s grabbing it with both of hers. I don’t know when I started to cry, but I wasn’t going to stop now. I just look up at her and see a ghost of my face looking back at me in the pools of her eyes.

Loverboy: You’re right. I am lucky.

She kisses me, and I finally feel like my heart can beat again.

Roxy: Promise me Vinnie… promise me you weren’t trying to kill yourself.

Loverboy: I promise, Roxy. I don’t want to die, dude.

Roxy: Promise me something else.

Loverboy: Anything.

Roxy: Promise me you’re going to win.

So here we are, man.

This is the eve of the moment I kept hearing I couldn’t ever achieve. Everyone in the locker room, everyone on the internet, everyone in the fucking dirt sheets. Guppy Parsh doesn’t lose. Guppy Parsh is amazing. Guppy Parsh is better than “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane. I heard it so many times I started to believe it.

Then, something incredible happened. I remembered who I was. It took having a near death experience, sure, but it reminded me that I’ve beaten others that everybody told me were better than me. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard about how I talk about beating guys like Azrael and Duke too much, right? But who do Guppy and his sister Stevil talk about? What, Barney Green? He wants to throw Barney Green at me like I should be offended to be mentioned in that category now?

Barney Green is a former world champion. Barney Green was important enough for the Russians to imprison like they did with Pussy Riot. Barney Green can put Guppy Parsh into a coma with his sleeper hold that feels like you jumped out of a burning building onto a rescue cushion. Barney Green could swallow Guppy Parsh like a French fry in a single gulp of a chocolate and peanut butter milkshake. Barney God Damn Green fought Peter Gilmour TWICE – what did Guppy Parsh do? Get bossed around by a dom in his own house? Get scared away by the N word and give up being a REAL hero, a doctor, to go be a FAKE hero? Oh, what, do you really think some smurf only three apples high is really out there fighting the Riddler? Maybe Frank Gorshin, sure, but that guy’s got to be 80. Scratch that, I Googled it. He’d dead. He died of another word that starts with C, Guppy, so maybe if you still had your license you could have saved him. But, no, Peter Gilmour called a football player a dirty word and you ran away, right into the arms of a guy who throws more racial terms around than a census.

Yeah, Stevil, good call man, keep checking those rape stats. What, you got a warrant? You sound so much like Pest that I can almost see the dildos on your face. Is it really you playing guest referee this Wednesday? Why are you so worried about who’s out fucking who during my TV specials, are you jealous? Are you out on the streets every night poking your ass out behind you like a cat in heat and getting rejected by every rapist you find? Are you mad that my cheekbones are sharper and more defined than any muscle on your body? Is my skin that looks airbrushed 24 hours a day too perfect for you to handle? Spit me out of your mouth like your mother should have spit your father out and kept us from having to hear your mouth running all day long, and let Guppy stand up like a man and talk for himself. Get him a booster seat or something, dude, so he finally go face to face with me.

You, Stevil, are officially the first American I hope dies from ebola. I’m assuming that’s what Darkwing Dick there is taking you to the hospital for. I hope he stops in for some antivirals of his own, because I’m planning on getting his blood all over me tomorrow night.

Guppy – good luck tomorrow, dude. You’re definitely going to need it.

Loverboy FIN.

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