"Fear & Future"


It'd taken twenty-eight hours traveling from Newfield, New York to Tampa, Florida playing the game I play. My online and televised return to the professional wrestling world is refreshing the memories of former fans and catching the eye of the formerly unfamiliar in every 1 out of 10 potential targets now. The more public the place, the greater discovery gets. Recognition with witnesses, even experienced ten percent of the time, doesn't work with this lifestyle so when necessity arose I'd detoured miles out of my way into the more secluded areas of two states. I'd been forced to spend hours on end awaiting those willing who also fit the profile I require.

'Forced is a strong word.'

True. I could've funded a few refuels off the $515.0 I'd found in Mr. and Mrs. Rogers' wallets during my post-pleasure pre-scene-purification swift search at 89 Vankirk Rd in Newfield-

'Should've taken more time. That house was large. Could've had a safe.'

-but ditching, burning and switching is safer and I'd spent enough bread stuffing myself for the first time in ages on healthy cuisine in an honest-to-God fine dining restaurant in North Carolina. And while my offensive outdoor unwashed-for-days odor didn't beat out intimidation in context with the host and staff and possible refusal of patronage, the looks of disgust I'd received from the other diners had been humiliating. I was saving the rest of the cash for food and shelter with shower.

The Travelodge right off the I-275 served my purposes perfectly. Two star or not, stained sheets, filthy floors and evidence of insect life-

'Where are Nixon's lizards when you need them?'

-may as well have been a Vegas suite when compared with my situation for the past few days. And...it was nearly empty.

Now sheltered, showered and still with a stack of samoleons I access the XWF's official site to search on the status of my Savage Saturday Night opponent and I locate Nixon's recorded responses. I sit on the end of the bed and intently investigate.

........................................................'He said he was nervous!'

"Shut it."

....................................Recognition...

'Shock.'

....................................Respect??

'Confusion.'

...................................._Intelligence_.

'Annoyance.'

....................................Confidence!

'Anger.'

....................................Class!!

'Angrier.'

....................................!!!

"MotherFUCKER!!"

Enraged, I drop my phone-

'Hey, hey, hey-hey-hey!'

-and reach out for the ludicrously heavy lamp on the dresser so I can throw it through the window.

'No! Don't you _fucking_ do it!'

"FUCK!!"

Frustration mixes with rage and I hammer the wall with the underside of my fist.

"FUUUUCK!!"

I slam a second time.

"HEY!!"

'Wonderful. Of _course_ we have a neighbor in a nearly vacant motel.'

"WHAT THE _FUCK_ ARE YOU DOING IN THERE ASSHOLE!?"

With speed that defies my age and bulk I zip onto the bed and reply in kind to my neighbor.

"SHUT THE _FUCK_ UP MOTHER_FUCKER_ OR SO HELP ME I'LL BREAK YOUR GODDAMN DOOR DOWN AND CUT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING _HEAD OFF_!!!"

'(sigh)... Are you finished?'

......I breathe.

'Are you ready to focus and funnel that into Nixon?'

......I reign it in.

"Yes I am."

'Then pick up that phone and get on it.'

..................................

"You returned my acknowledgments with your own. You offered sincere respect. You credited and you complimented. You displayed an incredible amount of class seldom seen in this business. Without a doubt Thomas, on the subject of attitude, _you_ as well are unlike _any_ opponent I've ever faced. To catch me by surprise is rare with all I've seen in this life and you...you surprised the hell outta me."

A faint, hateful snarl sneaks across my lips.

"Unfortunately...there's a problem of perilous nature that coincides with taking _me_ by surprise. A now biological imperative that translates quite well for me in combat but before I fill you in, it's important you and everyone watching understand this is not a line. This is not an exaggeration. This is not a fabrication. I've never shied away from the truth, even as an evil fucking bastard. I _own_ who I am.

A close friend of mine for many years, a skinhead and _true_ monster of a man standing six foot nine and weighing _well_ over three hundred pounds by the name of Henry Eugene Spade, allowed himself to be fooled into thinking I was the perpetrator of a crime against him by the very culprit who had burglarized his section-8 hovel. Unaware of this fact I made my way, as I always did during my days off, to Henry's to hang out.

At the time I was at the pussy-pounding partying age of twenty-three. I was also, and I'm not proud of it, heavily into meth. And by heavily...I mean the pooky."

'Are you sure you wanna tell this story?'

"For those of you more fortunate than I, the pooky is the pipe that pomp and circumstances your ass from cutting lines and snorting bullets to straight smoking it. This allows you to stay spracked for days on end, just as graduating from blunts and joints to pieces and bongs allows you to stretch your sack. With shit however, consistent long-term use leads to violent and unpredictable behavior.

I was tweaking at every opportunity two to three days a week. Henry, however, was a dealer and he definitely got high on his own supply regularly. As a functioning, dealing addict for seventeen years with a constant supply of cash he'd become a lifer who'd long ago learned how to force feed and maintain an aesthetic facade of physical and mental health. Lifers multiply the violence and unpredictability by a factor of ten.

I was making my way on foot down what turns East Cummings Lane into an alleway between 67th Way and 67th Street, heading for the sole access to Henry's uniquely stationed house. He happened to be returning from work, flying down from the opposite direction in his white '65 Ford Falcon. When he saw me, he continued past his gate to stop about fifteen feet from where I was waving much like, I'm sure in his eyes, a seal awaiting a clubbing. But Henry was my friend, I'd welded the bars together that we'd both installed onto his house's windows following the two break-ins.

I said, 'Badass, dude, I was hoping you'd be home!'

It took him three seconds to calmly clomp over to me.

I said, 'How was work bro?'

He responded by bending down to wrap his arms around my waist. I thought the burly fat-mammoth-fuck was going to bear-hug me as he'd done every time I came to tweak with him after several days of absence.

Instead, he launched me over his head and dropped me on my crown. That's the last thing I remember before waking up with temporary amnesia of the event and walking back home with a face looking like a de-cheesed slice of pizza.

The doctors told me my brain had been without oxygen for seven minutes. In every sense of the word, medically and mentally, I'd been murdered. It took two facial reconstructive surgeries to put it back together somewhat symmetrically. Via first punching, then stomping, he'd crushed my right ocular orifice, cracked my skull in several places, and there was evidence of strangulation with the heavy sterling silver large-link chain he wore. When he was arrested, he was still proudly displaying dried liquid gloves of my blood. The same blood he wrote 'STIFF' on the brickwall with beside my corpse.

Physically, I healed completely. I got clean and never looked back. And the next man who ambushed me two years later...I sent to the hospital unconscious with missing teeth and a dislocated broken jaw."

'What are you?'

"I'm a rabid, massive bull-motherfuckin'-mastiff that takes the euthanasia and pisses it right the fuck back out before I tear open a human belly for me to shit in."

'What can you do?'

"On the streets, I'm deadly, but it took me a few years to hone my reactionary talent into a controlled weapon I could wield in the business and it's been a decade running strong with several oh-so-legal maneuvers tucked safely away within. My hiatus was never based on a drop in quality or difficulty of competing, it was a family decision that turned out to be the _wrong_ decision.

Now, in _our_ game, I'm at my peak; and although it took my debut match to effectively eat away the ring rust, your PATROL pal Benito was the one who helped me do it. He helped me realize that all my barrels are swabbed and ready to open fire...all my combat effective faculties are in perfect working order.

As for you, Thomas, as much as you are _the_ greatest consistently fighting champion the XWF has seen in some time, I still won't allow you to keep me from taking that title. As apt as it is to label you a future XWF-every-champion, soon-to-be-living-legend and later heralded HOFer, and I know you will be, none of it will come to pass until after you've fallen to the horrific holocaust of Jim Caedus.

We both aim for the same goals in this, the greatest federation to ever enter the profession, in an era where some say it's enjoying it's most talented roster of, perhaps, all time and we both vie on a battleground of barbarism for a belt one of us currently holds and one of us will soon take. You love that title? Well so do I. I've held it's like before, many times, but never in the XWF where it matters most. You're head-over-heels for your first love, that gilded garb of leather and gold, but despite that suspension scare, you've never lost it. I've loved and lost; I'm the ex who continually returns to take my love _back_. I've gotten good at gettin' it done and I'm not gonna give up. It's gonna hurt, Thomas..._both_ of us...but Caedus spells the catalyst for your first breakup and heartbreak."

'First time's always the worst with a few fucked up exceptions.'

"When it comes to that title, even though you deny my accusations with arguable defense, you've shown you're simply a man afraid to face what losing that title will feel like, mean and lead to. That, even combined with your mat skill of which, again, I know will give me my most grueling ride in that ring to date, will not be enough to stop _me_. Someone told you recently and succinctly to 'let it go'. Period. I'll tell you to let it go because your fears of failure in the wake of disaster are unfounded. You won't be swept away with the dicks, douchebags and detritus unless you make that happen yourself.

In twenty years I've racked up as many wins and losses, in ideal comparative amounts, to mold me into a competitor who isn't afraid to lose, isn't afraid of _anything_...and that long-earned lack of fear in combination with every other tool and talent I've at my disposal makes me nigh unfuckingstoppable. No one is purely unbeatable...but in _our_ match this Saturday, on _that_ given night and many more to come, _I_ will stand victorious!

If this match _is_ a trap it's not the type you theorized and it's too late to avoid it. You've warily wandered your way passed the point of no return and the moment you step foot in that ring it's going to spring and I'm going to strike. Fuck what you thought. I'm Jim Caedus.