LEAVING THE PAST

The game was over. The final buzzer had sounded and people were already piling onto to field. He could still feel the warm pigskin on his fingertips....he could still remember the sound it made as it collided with the damp grass.

He didn't want to look at anyone. All he could see was his cleats as he walked, making imprints on the turf below. His entire body ached. He could hear his coach telling him it was okay and that he was proud of him, but the voice seemed distant. A million miles away. He could feel the hand on his back, but it felt like an ant on his shoulder pads. His entire world was a blur. He kept walking, through the crowds, and before long he could hear the clicking of his metal cleats on the tile of the locker room floor.

He heard the clicking of his lock and the thud it made as it hit the floor. The fleece rubbing sound of everything inside the aluminum locker being shoved into a duffel bag, and the familiar sound of an emotinal sigh.

His own.

"Where are you going?" the voice was his teammate and friend Louis Smith. Ironically, he was the one who threw the pass.

Chris new it was a perfect pass, but he was so quick to place blame on Smith for him "not putting it in the right spot".

"I'm done." His voice sounded snappier than he even meant it to. "I'm fucking done. Fuck football."

"Are you serious?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

"Come on man......it's just a game. You're our best player. Everyone makes a mistake from time to time."

He wasn't trying to hear it.

His sandals flopped on the tile as he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

The walk home was serene, peaceful. The breeze off Tampa Bay was nice, and the air wasn't too hot. The bag over his shoulder had his entire life in it. Headlights flew by, the engine sounds almost deafening at points.

Damn Florida souped up cars.

He didn't even have a car. He shared a 1982 Monte Carlo with his mother, and she had bingo tonight. So here he was walking home.

His first instinct when the going got tough was to quit. To leave. To walk away. To say fuck it. Running from his problems was so much easier than facing them.

As he crossed Martin Luther King Boulevard off Dale Mabry, he looked up at the street lights. Would he ever play football again?

The overgrown weeds invading the sidewalk swayed in the breeze. They were taunting him, almost. Laughing at him. Looking at this hands---he hated his hands. He couldn't catch that pass. His hands were useless. His ticket to college was hampered by these hamhocks. He would never be anything.

As he got to his house, he walked up the steps. The porch wiggled underneath him, and the banister was loose. He never fixed it, despite his mother asking him to. Why couldn't that bitch do it? If she spent less time on her back or at bingo she'd have time........

Whatever. He set his bag down and sat in the ripped cushioned lounge chair. Another sigh ripped through the air.

---

---

Caedus hooks the leg of Chaos!






The winner of this match…






...ANNND STILLLLLLLLL XWF UUUUNIVERSALLLLL CHAMPIONNNNNN….. JJJJJIIMMMMMM! CAAAAAAAEDUUUUUUSSS!

---

---

Chris sat in a dark room, only lit, dimly, by a candle sitting on the table.

The clink of a glass being set on a wooden table could be heard, before before the swirling of ice cubes and a sucking sound as another sip was taken.

Chris couldn't beat Jim Caedus. That had torn at him for some time. He thought the Reno match was a fluke, a screw job, and he would get the title back and all would be right in the world.

But that didn't happen. Something in his mind snapped, had been torn open and re-wired, and put back out of order.

Another sip.......a sigh, as he looked down at the letter that sat on the table in front of him, handwritten. His eyes scanned it, beginning to water.

What had he become?

This wasn't him.

"Mr. Lane, It has been a hell of a ride, and I thank you for the opportunity and the second chance you gave my by signing me to a lucrative contract here in the XWF. I gave you my all for 7 months, but I fear the well may have run dry. I just don't know if there is anything left. I strive to perform at the highest level possible, and bring my A game every time I step into that ring. I expect the best. Demand the best. Right now, I simply cannot give my best. That pains me, and this pains me, but I think this has to be it. Consider this my official resignation and release of my XWF contract. My lawyers will be in touch with yours to pay off the remainder as to avoid a breech, but this is where the buck stops. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience, but due to personal reasons, at this moment, the XWF is better off without Chris Chaos. Thank you, Chris."

[i]He had even put it in an envelope, bought a stamp and licked the glue. He had set it on Vinnie's desk.......

It sat in front of him.......mocking him like those weeds did all those years ago.

But unlike the weeds, this letter actually opened his eyes. It made him listen to, if no one else, himself.

Sometimes it is better to run from your problems than to face them.

NO!

Ripping the letter, he slammed the glass roughly down on the wood desk.

---

---

"For far too long, I have been obsessed with the past. Too obsessed. I have let it consume me. I have let it dominate me. I have let it change me. I have been too consumed with being the former Universal Champion and the status that it brings, that anything less was unacceptable. Nothing but the Universal Title was acceptable. I let my experiences in Phoenix Wrestling and the fact that Auora Jansen is still wearing a jewelry made from my molars get into my head. I didn't have a long term goal in mind, because I was too consumed with the past and was too stubborn to look to the future. Too stubborn and quite honestly.....too afraid.

I let all the fame and the glory get to my head. I let being the Universal Champion in four short months get to my head. It clouded my vision. It made me forget who I truly was, and what I had worked for my entire life. It made me forget what integrity was. It made me look down on others who I deemed below me---simply because my gold standard mentality wouldn't let me think anyone who wasn't in Heyman's top 5 was a threat. I thought I was untouchable, and that I couldn't be thwarted, no matter the foe. I expected the Uni title to fall into my lap, that everyone was going to just step aside because when I was the champion the ratings were the highest they had ever been. I was a fool. The Universal Title picture is more fucked up than an LGBT rally at a Semper Fi recruting session. And I am on the outside looking in.

It killed me. But what killed me more was that part of me wanted to be done with it all. What killed me most was that part of me wanted to quit, to call it a career, and to leave professional wrestling in the rearview. How ignorant is that? I couldn't be Universal Champion, so I didn't want to be anything. I put on that tough exterior, and told people I didn't care---but inside, I was empty. Naked. In PW, I never even sniffed the World Title based on what I convinced myself was politics and string pulling from the powers that be. But the truth, honestly, is that I wasn't good enough. Was I top 10 there? Sure I was, hell I was top 5, but I never quite made it over the hump. I held every title in the company except that one. They CREATED a title for me. I know, this dead horse doesn't have any skin left to beat, but it is true. So when I came here, I figured I would give a title shot the old college try. I beat Doc, which was equivalent to me beating Jinx, and I was on my way. I defended my spot week in and week out, but unlike PW---I got the job done. It was like waiting in line for hours in the Florida heat waiting to ride the newest newest ride, then finally getting on and never wanting to get off. You get to the top and can see everything around you--everything below you--and you feel like you're on top of the world. But what you fail to realize is that the only place left to go is down.

Then comes the drop.

Weeeeee.

It all seems fun, fine, and dandy. But when that ride comes to an end, the truth is that you need to get back in line again.

You need to start from the back and work to the front. And who knows, maybe you will get back to the front of the line sometime. A month ago, I wouldn't have been able to compete in this tournament because I would have deemed it two bit and petty. I would have made fun of the participants and told them the Tag Team Titles don't matter. Told them that nobody cares.

But those days are over, and I have learned, and grown. I have matured. I have become an even better wrestler than I was before. I have become more dangerous, and more tactical. More opportunistic, but even worse for all of you----more patient.

But to think---I was inches away from saying fuck it. Inches away from pulling a Gabe Reno and taking my ball and going home. Looking back at that, I hate myself for it. Ever since Reno walked out of that cage with my belt, I haven't been the same. I have felt.....off. I have felt like something has been missing. Since then, I thought maybe it was me. I thought I had fallen off. I thought I was done, that I didn't have anything left--that it was curtains for ole' Chaos. But there is one person who kept me from riding off into the sunset with memories in my back pocket and a few scars to add to the story collection.....

And that person, is Jenny Myst.


People can say what they want. They can question the relationship, but not a single one can break us. You see, Jenny will claim I am her inspiration, her savior, her teacher, her.....daddy......but in all honesty we have rescued each other. I have created the monster that you see today, and she has taught me how to set my sights on other goals in order to take power back here. She is an evil little genius. You're welcome. But Robbie and Jack, two men who put lipstick on the inside of their thumb and index finger and give themselves a handjob---they probably name it something stupid like Blue or some shit--- think that our relationship isn't strong because we "allow each other to get beat on"?

The XWF's Favorite Butter Slug Said:Chaos just lets his significant other out there to get slaughtered and beat on, especially by the likes of myself and Jack Cain? Shit, they can't be married. And Myst just lets her significant other out ther to get beat on and slaughtered, particularly by the likes of Jack Cain and myself? Damn, they're definitely not married.

First off, who said we were married? You can be a "power couple" and not be married. Your shallow attempt to throw shade at our relationship is shallow and weak. Your attempt to trash talk is shallow and weak. Robbie, your strength is your charm. You make people smile, you make them laugh. You're shenanigans are entertaining, and that is why anyone gives more than a shit about your lard ass. You're just the charming chubby guy. That doesn't make you successful in the ring, it makes you successful on the X-Tron. So go ahead, say what you will, but none of it affects me anymore. So go ahead, make up lies about late night phone calls and seedy interactions all you want. Make up all the lies you want about Jenny and her permanent venereal diseases, none of it has any merit outside you being just the charming chubby guy with a peculiar sense of humor.

Robbie Bourbon touches small children in the park then goes home to the trailer park and beats on his color-named mail-order bride and partakes in a game of rock'em-sock'em robots with his cat to let his stress out.

See, I can make up stupid shit too, Robbie. It doesn't make you intimidating, it makes you cunning. And cunning only gets you a few golf claps and some snickers, and not the kind of snickers you get at 711.

Robbie, keep your day job. You're not impressing anyone. What makes you think you're fit for this? Hell, even if you guys do advance and go on to face the Kings™, noone can trust you to come through. You haven't proven to be clutch. You'll probably just no show promo again---I mean, you no-showed as a champion, what makes anyone think you have any sort of drive other than your hourly trip to the convinient store? You're legacy here will be "almost", but never "it".

I am ready to put the past behind me. I am not going to mention you having to cheat to pin me because you can't hold a candle stick to me in the ring, and you know it. I am not going to mention you jumping off the top of the chamber and causing a 9 on the Richter scale earthquake in Haiti---I guess pigs really can fly, huh? I am not going to mention anything from our past, because I am ready to leave the past in the past and set a new trend for the future. You can't beat me, you haven't beat me, and you won't beat me.

He holds his glass up to the screen in a cheers motion.

"So here's to the future, big man. Here is to being pudgy and funny but never amounting to anything other than comic relief. Here's to the future, to the XWF's Resident Power Couple being the new Tag Team Champions, and to Jack Cain finally beating Neville after the Englishman goes on a Scotch bender and shows up to Savage hung over. Here's to leaving the past.......

Chaos is coming.

Run.