The scene opens on the roof of the Hilton Hotel, outside of Boston's Logan Airport. It's a cloudy day in Boston, Massachusetts, with a little gust of wind passing around the mild, yet muggy, summer air. Across the street, you see this:



Plane after plane, some parking at their gates, dropping off businessmen and women, spending their next few days in soulless conference rooms, or around drinks with people in suits and bland button down shirts. They'll spend their time racking up huge tabs that will just be thrown back on the company, talking about profit margins, planning for an impending recession, and the people they'll have to lay off to cut costs in a tighter credit market...

...you know, instead of just... not flying first class, taking on four star hotel rooms, or spending hundreds of dollars on a drink tab.

Then there will be the people coming back from said work trips. Sitting in their similarly bougie airplane seats, in slacks and neatly polished shoes, on their fourth free flight drink. They sit in their chairs, gut developing from the lack of exercise and the abundance of work dinners, bags under their eyes holding down the immense pressure of maintaining a 12 hour a day desk job, two kids, a wife, and the mistress (or two) they're trying to not let their spouse know about. Their 401(k)s are drained from paying off their exorbitant mortgage payments and overall lush lifestyle, and they're just about a year or two from completely cracking.

And then there are the parents and their children, flying back from summer vacations at Disney World, or Disneyland, or some random lake in Michigan, or hell, some second rate version of one of the above. Their kids are kicking the seats in front of them, angering passengers and forcing many an apology, making a mess in the aisle that the flight attendant is none too pleased about, resulting in more apologies, and now they're just sitting in their seats, holding their kids down until the seatbelt sign turns off.

Bliss for all involved. The human condition is totally exactly what they portray in the "happy" movies...

Santos: Bliss.

Tony Santos can be seen sitting on the roof of the Hilton, a bead of sweat on his forehead, and even more beads of sweat rolling down his chest and on to his stomach, leaving a trail down his thin, gray t-shirt... the worst kind of shirt to wear on a humid day. His scraggly, thinning hair flails in the wind, his eyes darting to the sides every so often to catch a plane taking off.

Bliss.

Ah, so this is what happiness looks like, huh?

Tony turns to his right, an image of his long-deceased father appearing by his side. His father, a man in his 40s (you know, as of the time of his death 19 years ago), sits next to Tony. He has a similarly thinning mop of dark brown hair, short sideburns, and a sharp jaw. His nose has the veiny look that comes from many years of alcohol abuse, and his face, particularly his eyes, look significantly worn from the many nights at the bar, fistfights in Boston alleys, and just general wear and tear of being exposed to the elements in construction.

Tony looks at this man and is... confused. He deeply blinks his eyes as if he's seeing a... well, mirage, which he's not wrong about, but when he opens them, he still just sees Brian Sullivan, father of Anthony Sullivan (now Tony Santos), the man who did nothing more than make him feel like shit through his early childhood. The man who prioritized the bottle over his own family. The man who didn't have the decency to face a more grown up, angry Tony, because he decided to fucking die.

Tony whisks his hand through his hair and lets out a heavy breath.

Santos: D...dad? Is that...

His father smiles.

Brian: Really me? You're damn right it is! You thought I'd just leave you hanging for the rest of eternity... did you? That'd be too easy for me, Anthony...

...or should I say, Tony?

Santos: Yeah, it's Tony now. Tony Santos.

Brian's smile fades in an instant, his face compressing into a bunch of annoyed wrinkles, like a peach left in the sun for a couple of weeks. His father looks down, then back at Tony.

Brian: Tony... Santos? Damn, son, you up and tossed the entire family name, didn't ya? It was bad enough that your mother married some freak at a Citgo when I died, changing her name to... what was it...?

Santos: Murphy

Brian: Ah right, Murphy. Because there aren't already 500 different Murphys living in Dorchester alone, we just had to have another!

But you... you go ahead and change your last name to... Santos? What in the hell does that even mean? Where did that even come from?

Tony returns his gaze to the aircraft across the way. He squints his eyes, feeling a need to escape as quickly as these planes, his eyelids representing the immense pressure of talking to an ethereal figure that just so happens to be the abusive father he'd rid his conscience of the moment he died.

But here he was.

Santos: Honestly, dad, it sounded cool, alright? I wanted a fucking name that sounded cool, and made not one of the other 500 families with the last name Sullivan in this incestuous fucking city. I wanted a new identity after you died and mom remarried. I wanted to blaze my own god damn trail and...

Brian: Become a wrestler? Become a fucking pro wrestler? Those carnival idiots who toss their bodies around like untrained monkeys to get a few cheers from Cracker Barrel employees? To hold a ridiculous...

...let me look at that thing.

Tony grabs his Hart Title, which is sitting on the gravel to his left. He picks the white and pink title by his cracked fingers and holds it in front of his father. His father squints, his eyes passing along the ridges of the belt, catching every fine detail. He smiles the smile that Tony knows too well...

...The smile he gave Tony, physically, sure. But the smile he flashed Tony when he came back from the bar on a random Wednesday night, right before he smacked Tony across the face to get him into bed faster. The smile he flashed Tony while he was verbally taking his son apart for the most minor of critiques. The smile he flashed Tony...

...when he wanted to make him feel utterly worthless.

Brian: Are those... wings coming out of a... skulll? Are... you... kidding me???

Tony's father breaks into uproarious laughter, practically falling off the roof, which wouldn't be the worst thing, since he's... you know, dead.

Brian: Oh, Anthony. I clearly didn't smack you around enough, did I? A professional wrestler, holding a belt some girl in kindergarten could've made for you while you were making up mock steel cage matches in your basement, using old pillow couches? Son, you should've...

Tony loudly interjects.

Santos: What, become like you? A lowly alcoholic who beat his kid, abandoned his wife, all while holding down a shitty job you hated, simply because you didn't want anything that would get in the way of your 5pm shift at corner stool in god knows what fucking bar, picking up god knows whatever STD, fathering what was likely yet another of many kids I don't know about, before coming home, making your family feel like shit, and starting the whole process up again the next day?

Is that, what I should've become, dad? A fucking loser who died in his 40s in a shitty Boston hospital, leaving my wife with bills she'd never be able to pay off, and ungodly gambling debt? Is that what I should've done, dad?

His father smiles. He takes his hand and attempts to put it on Tony's shoulder, before realizing he's just in Tony's imagination.

Brian: Oh son, don't worry... you already are.

Just then, a plane's engine roars overhead. A strong gust of wind passes over Tony's head, trailing the plane, as Tony's looks up. The plane passes over Tony, quickly climbing to 10,000 feet, on its way to Chicago. Tony watches the plane pass in the distance, getting smaller, and smaller, until it disappears.

Santos: And what is that suppo...

Tony returns his gaze to his father, but sees nothing.



Santos: Hanari Carnes.

Tony stares back at the fleet of airplanes in front of him, composing himself after his brain played tricks on him. It's been a long week, especially after even just a few days without alcohol. He'd been... seeing things... typically not a good sign for a recovering alcoholic, and this was just the tip of the iceberg. But Tony knew he had to get back into form, both mentally and physically.

It was time to focus on the task at hand.

Santos: A blustery, confident, albeit cowardly little man we have here. My next opponent at the great Leap of Faith! What an honor it must be for you, Hanari. You return to action, ready to hit the ground running, guns blazing, to take on me! Anthony Sull...

...I mean, Tony Santos!

And man, do you seem ready to go! You lavished me with incredible praise, and for that, I am SO THANKFUL! I've been getting so much praise from the higher ups in this lovely little organization, and from my opponents, that I just feel so... appreciated! As you've probably seen over the past week, or, if you've really been paying attention, which it seems you have, I don't get much appreciation from those outside of the wrestling ring. Hell! You just saw my father appear, berate me even in death, and disappear into the ether.

So, thank you, Hanari. Thank you for acknowledging how great I am. Thank you for acknowledging how worthy I am of holding this title. Thank you for acknowledging how...

I'm better than you.

See, Hanari, I love abuse! I love a good, old fashioned beating. It's how I was raised, after all! An alcoholic father who despised the ditch he dug himself in life, and a mother who hated herself for even being born. How I passed that tradition down to my own son and girlfriend, abandoning them, only to see them die in a horrific car accident. It's how I've competed in the XWF, when I haven't up and left to get drunk on a stoop in Oakland, California. You know, winning a title, only to lose it in a matter of days, or if I'm lucky, a month.

It's how I thrive, Hanari. It's what I need, Hanari.

And you're just not up to the challenge.

See, when I re-joined this company, here's what led to my dominance:

First, Peter Gilmour tripped over his own tongue, resulting in the easiest debut in the history of debuts.

Then, Bearded War Pig tired himself out oinking.

Dolly Waters barely showed up before running away from the company, scared of any real competition.

Then people tried, but just didn't have the bite to match their weak barks to take me down. They weren't fully in it, because they knew I was too much for them to handle. They came into a match with me, the GREAT TONY SANTOS, more interested in praising me for being a great competitor, and taking half hearted stabs at my physical attributes, to really show they stood a chance.

And what happened to all of them?

They hit the canvas as hard as their broken egos, notching yet another win in my return. The only time I've lost? Well, Hanari, that was when half my team didn't show half a shit of interest in War Games, and I STILL made it to the final one on one battle.

Can you say that? No, you can't. You can make all the excuses you want, but Sarah Lacklan beat you, one on one. She beat the SORT OF GREAT HANARI CARNES with a fucking finger poke and a roll-up.

Sure, Sarah is our King, but you showed you weren't even worthy of being her jester. You showed it then, and you're showing it now.

Your best insult is that one of my eyebrows is paying child support? My kid is dead, Hanari, and I left that insult in someone's high school yearbook many moons ago. You wanna talk about my hairline? While it may be fading, it sure as hell ain't fading as fast as the chance for you to hold on to the shred of opportunity you have to actually be something here. While I'm flying high, you're preparing for a fucking crash landing.

Tony smiles as he points to the planes in the distance.

Santos: See? It's a metaphor! This whole thing... is a metaphor! The fact that I'm escaping my past life, heading up into the air to take my... leap of faith, and to show that you're setting yourself up for a glorious fall.

You want to kill the king, Hanari? You couldn't kill the first you took on, and you sure as hell won't kill this one, the one you so easily proclaimed to be better than you. Not with the weak heart that beats inside of you. See, Hanari, you want to take that big leap? You want to ascend into the sky of the relevant in the XWF, rather than the basement held down by the Pigs and Gilmours of the world? You want to live up to the hype you think you deserve, with so little proof to back it up?

Then strap in, hit the gas, and get as fucking high as possible, Hanari. Take that leap. Come for the belt. Show me the respect no one else has. Hurt me. Make me feel the pain I so utterly need. Make me work for it.

But when you jump, take a good look at what you're landing on. For your sake, it better be a sweet, smooth landing on the canvas, because the alternative?

You drown in your own insecurities, just like everyone else.

The scene fades to black.

September 2013 and May 2019 Star of the Month
1x Hart Champion
1x Television Champion
1x Xtreme Champion