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Scoops McGee · (02-24-2025)

The sound of rain tapping against the windows melted away into nothing as I heard the grainy music begin to patch its way through the loudspeakers. I exhaled, looking over myself in the darkness, with only the slow, rotating blue and purple lights to help guide my hands. Straighten your tie, keep your lapel in shape. Hesitantly, I smoothed myself out one last time.

“Terry.”

The voice picks me out of my stupor. I turn around, latching onto a pair of emerald green eyes that had a magical way of cutting through the darkness. Luxurious bordeaux hair curled its way down against pale, smooth skin, and the red was shared with a pair of lips that were curled into a grin.

The woman outstretched her hand, her face eager. “Are you coming?”

That voice was the spring wind. It was the church bells. It was the birds chirping and frolicking. Just listening to it made me feel warm and tingly all over as I nodded and stepped forward. “‘Course I am. Sorry, Sabi.”

Actually feeling her hand on my skin somehow made me feel even warmer, though. Silk glided across my hand, and my heart liquified. As we stepped onto the dance floor amidst the dozens of faceless couples, the only thing that mattered to me at that moment was her. Between the smooth rhythms of the piano and the gentle yet raspy lyrics, the song guided our every movement.

I took a deep breath, and it was the clearest breath I had ever taken in my life. Being around her unlocked something within me. As I looked across into her eyes, though, I noticed they were trailing across the floor instead of looking up.

“Somethin’ wrong?” I asked, my brows neatly furrowing together.

She noticed my hesitation. Her eyes widened, looking up to meet my own as she shook her head. “No, don’t be silly.”

“You sure?” At that moment, I felt conscious about my steps. I looked down myself, watching my lumbering feet struggle to keep up with her movements that seemed like something out of a ballet recital. I grumbled, trying my best to stay in tune with her.

“I should be asking you that question now,” she teased.

“I just don’t like dancin’ all that much,” I admitted with a shrug. “Ain’t done it too much before. But, if it’s with you…”

She was laughing. I’d kill to keep hearing that again and again with how melodic it was. “It’s just like you’re in the ring wrestling again, Terry, I’m telling you. You’re the one who goes on and on about how you like getting in there…”

“Guilty as charged,” I exhaled with a sheepish grin.

She was my love. My everything. We had a way of being magnetized to even the slightest hint of self-doubt within the other. With the energy we carry along in our movements, we’re practically children again. In contrast, the act of us staring into each other’s eyes feels like it lasts a lifetime.

But that’s what love is. That bond you share that can warm you up and last even a lifetime.

The blues of the lights melded together with the floor. The longer we sway back and forth while dancing, the more it feels like we’re dancing in the sky. Her dress tangled itself with my suit. I smiled again. She buried her face in my neck, and I felt a frown tugging at her face.

The inkling of self-doubt returned. We were back on the dance floor. “Sabi, you know you can tell me anything. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

She hesitated even still, but slowly she brought her head back to look me in the eye. Anxiety crept its way into my heart like a spider web as she spoke.

“Why did you leave me, Terry?”

For a moment, it felt like that anxiety was enough of a poison to stop my heart. I blinked, before a nervous laugh crept its way out of my mouth. “...What? S-Sabi, I… I’m right here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere, y’know.”

She shook her head. “You know that’s not true. Terry, I begged you not to go back and wrestle with how it was ruining your life. You went out there and went to Japan instead and left me behind.”

“I…” A lump formed in my throat as I shook my head. “S-Sabi, that… I didn’t forget about you. I begged you to come with me. I never…”

“But me saying no didn’t stop you, did it?” She countered, her brows arching together. “What was I supposed to do? What about Danny, Terry? Going out all over the world - that’s no way to raise a family.”

I grew silent, my gaze wandering off towards the ground in shame. As if sensing my own hesitancy and pouncing on it like a cat, she continued. “And no child should have to grow up without their father anywhere.”

“I know,” I croaked.

Amidst the outdoors, the drops of rain had caught fire, turning into beautiful little embers that crashed their way into the ceiling. The fire cut its way through the darkness inside the dance hall, spreading and eating its way through the tapestries and decor all around. None of us cared about the fact that everything was burning around us. We danced to our doom as the song continued.

“You know that you can’t keep this up,” she whispered to me, her voice threatening to cut out amidst the song and the flames. I couldn’t let that happen. I shook my head, looking back up in her eyes.

Tears were beginning to well up within me as I shuddered. “Please, I… I can make this work, Sabi. The farm - you know that ain’t enough nowadays. I’m winning championships now, I… I can provide for all of us. I just…”

My voice trailed off. I pressed my forehead against her, our dance beginning to come to a halt as we stood in the middle of the floor. “I just don’t want this to end. I want us to go back to the way it used to be. It… it was so goddamn magical, Sabi.”

“I know,” She gave a small smile, memories tugging her along. Amidst the fiery rain, an ember caught onto her long, flowing dress. The fire began to creep along her body, her skin breaking out into blisters as she continued. “But nothing can last forever, Terry.”

She was melting in front of my eyes. I tried everything to hold in my tears, but they flowed out regardless. I brought my thumb to her cheek, gliding it across as her skin washed away like wax. “Tell me how I can make it up to you.”

A bony skull was quickly beginning to show itself, but that smile never faded. That smile that was burning itself into my memory as she whispered back to me.

“Show me you still care, Terry.”

A desperate creak from the wood beneath the dance floor interrupted us. It was a last gasp of survival from it, knowing it wasn’t allowed to survive the fire and flames. Before I could speak, it opened its great maw, claiming me into the darkness as I reached out one last time to the dying woman before me.

“SABRINA-!”

The thrashing of covers sounded throughout Scoops McGee’s ranch, drowning out the feeble noise of the sounding alarm clock. A cold sweat had formed itself along his haggard, weathered skin, and his teeth silently gnashed together. His struggles were being captured through the lens of the camera that was being shakily pointed at him, with Scoops’ newly won Xtreme Championship glimmering faintly in the background.

“Scoops!” Noah shouted again, trying to get him to wake up. “Come on, Scoops! It’s late! You need to wake up!”

Scoops’ response was grumbling in his sleep, tossing and turning once more now onto his back.

“This isn’t good,” Noah wondered aloud, trying to figure out what to do. Noah’s eye caught the Xtreme title again, and a plan quickly hatched into his brain. “Okay… maybe this can work…?”

Noah placed the camera on the bed, letting it bear witness to what was about to unfold. His feet glided across the carpeted floor, coming to Scoops’ side of the bed and letting him lay down across his abdomen. With Scoops now in a pinning position, Noah began to tap his hand against the mattress as he whispered.

“One…”

…

“Two…”

…

“Thr-”

KICKOUT!

“-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Scoops screamed as he sat up in his bed.

“-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Noah yelped just as loudly as he shot back towards the far wall of the bedroom.

It took Scoops a while to sink in what was happening, to know that the air he was breathing was finally real again. His fingers found his forearm, hesitantly pinching himself, with the slight rush of pain telling him it was all over. That was when, with droopy eyes, he found Noah.

“Boah, what the fuck are you doin’ in my room?” Scoops demanded. He looked to his side, flipping the camera that was on his bed up and over onto the floor. “Didn’t I tell you not to come film me in my sleep?!”

“Hey!” Noah exclaimed, quickly darting across the room to check on the only camera he had afforded to him. After a quick once-over to make sure nothing was broken, he looked back up to see Scoops jamming a finger in his face.

“I told you - I fuckin’ told you! And whaddya do - you come invade my privacy anyway!”

Noah backpedaled along the carpet while still in a seated position, his hands instinctively keeping the camera focused on Scoops. “B-But it’s nearly noon! You were having a nightmare, and I was trying to wake you up, and…”

Scoops’ blood ran cold at Noah’s words. His head jerked to the alarm clock on his nightstand, seeing the time of 11:54 staring back. The air visibly deflated from him, and he rubbed his temples with his fingers. “H-How long… were you… trying to wake…?”

Noah scratched at the back of his head nervously, feeling some of the tension start to release itself. At least he wasn’t yelling again. “Maybe thirty minutes? Probably more? Honestly, I was close to getting one of the workers in here to try and help…”

“No!” Scoops responded as he straightened himself in bed, and Noah felt himself jump slightly too. “No, that… that’s the last thing I want. Don’t need people fussin’ over me for nothin’. I… I had a nightmare, is all. Always happens ‘round this time of year.”

Noah furrowed his eyebrows as he reached up and behind him, using the dresser for support as he brought himself back up to his feet. This time of year… as he ruminated on those words, the dots suddenly connected in place for him.

“You mean Valentine’s Day?” he asked.

Scoops’ face fell off a cliff as he brought himself out of bed. He rolled out of bed, reached over and grabbed his newly won Xtreme title, before muttering back, “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

As Scoops shuffled his way out of the bedroom and into the rest of the spacious ranch, Noah’s brain was scrambled just trying to keep up with this. He followed along, shouting after him. “Scoops, wait!”

“No,” Scoops replied. “I got shit to do and I ain’t got time to dilly-dally ‘round. Shouldn’t have slept in like that.”

“B-But, Scoops, I…” Noah bit on his lower lip, watching his idol brush him off at every possible turn. “I want to help you!”

This conversation wasn’t the first time Noah had tried his best to reach out to Scoops. Silently, he ridiculed himself for thinking it’d be the difference-maker. But Scoops paused out in the middle of the hallway, scratching his bearded chin for a brief moment before bringing his belt over his shoulder.

“Come with me, boah,” Scoops nodded as he walked further along in the house.

That actually worked? Noah wondered to himself in amazement as he followed along, keeping the camera rolling. He shuffled his feet along the wooden floorboards, hearing each one of them creak as they watched the two.

As Scoops turned the corner into the living room, he stopped and stared at the wall of pictures staring back at him. The memories all stared back at him - five decades of matches, championships, successes, failures, pain, heartache. The longer he looked, the more the bags beneath his eyes tugged away at him.

He took a deep breath. “You got a dream, Noah?”

Noah blinked, taken by surprise. “Well… uh… I know I’m stuck behind the camera right now, but really? One day, I… I hope I can be a real announcer. Or maybe a backstage interviewer. Along those lines, you know?”

“Announcin’ work?” Scoops nodded slowly, closing his eyes for a minute to picture it before continuing. “Yeah. That’s good. You’d fit at it.”

“You think?” Noah gave a small exhale of a chuckle, before looking back along the pictures on the wall. Grainy photographs of Scoops sporting a not-so-balding hairline stared at the lens in unison, with crimson masks and applying toe-wrenching holds. The gleam of championship gold appeared in many of them. “It’s just… not for nothing, Scoops, but we’ve been at this for a while, you know? I’m not really a… talker. Not like you, anyway. You went into wrestling, you were a natural-”

“Who the fuck said I was a natural, boah?” Scoops scoffed as he looked back at Noah. Noah turned to him, confused, but Scoops wasn’t stopping. “Back in ‘79, I was sixteen years old, sneaking out from home and going to train in the gyms. ‘Cause you see, VHS systems, they were finally goin’ round to regular homes ‘round these parts. We were tradin’ tapes at school like they were contraband. And you know what I went and gravitated towards?”

Scoops grinned. “That’s right. Wrasslin’. I saw those moves, and I went and thought to myself, ‘I could do those things.’ Mom and Dad, they weren’t so convinced. I told ‘em to piss off anyway since I thought I was hot shit when I turned 18. So I went out to Chicago…”

“And your hard work paid off when you joined Second City?” Noah’s face lit up.

Scoops had to hold back a laugh. “Fuck no! I wasn’t even good enough to join Second City yet. I was in ring shape, but seein’ the moves and doin’ them? Those are two different things, boah. Johnny took to me since I was like a sponge, though, the way I always asked and soaked up everything he showed. I remember the first move I really started to nail like a pro was the ole’ Scoop Slam. Went to that move every match I could. I got so good at it that he started callin’ me Scoops. I fuckin’ hated it, but it caught on like wildfire, and… the name stuck. But it took more years before I could really even get to that point.”

“Wait, Joseph was the one who named you Scoops?” Noah chuckled, the thought of the moment sinking in for him. He let it linger, before trying to steer this back on course. “What does all of that have to do with me, anyway?”

“I’ll tell you,” Scoops nodded. “If you got a dream, you keep working at it. Little by little, no matter how long it takes you. No matter what it costs you. No matter how much you have to bleed and struggle along the way. That shit has to be your goddamn pride and joy, no matter what happens. You wanna get into announcin’, boah? You damn sure got the brain for it. I’ll help you learn how to talk the talk and walk the walk.”

Noah was stunned. It took a minute for Scoops’ words to really sink in, but once they did, a shiver of excitement shot down his spine. “...Really?”

“Really,” Scoops confirmed with a grin.

“That’s…” Noah gulped, trying everything to not just let himself explode into a frenzy of gratitude. “T-Thank you, Scoops…”

“‘Course. I learned decades ago you gotta learn to pave the way forward for the next generation. But there’s a guy I’m comin’ up against who never learned that lesson and doesn’t have to worry ‘bout dreams even now. ‘Cause a guy like Kieran King, he thinks he’s got it all figured out for himself.”

Scoops turned to the camera, his face darkened as a haggard sigh slipped between his lips. “Havin’ dreams is the way we aspire to be human. The way we slip and stumble and fall on the way to that dream, that’s what actually teaches us to be human. Kieran don’t know a goddamn thing about struggling. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and got hotshot all the way up the rankings, and he made the most of it.”

“That don’t make a human, though. That makes a lazy little husk of an SOB that never knew what it was like to fall. The only thing Kieran has is his stardom. The crown? My Xtreme title? You people don’t think he really gives a shit ‘bout those things, do you? He just does it ‘cause he can. For shits, for giggles. The man said it himself in the past, he’s just off to do a bunch of little fuckin’ side quests. The feat of maybe goin’ back-to-back is the only thing that gets his little rocks off, and it’s just destiny to him that he’s gonna trounce through this whole thing.”

“You wanna know what’s gonna happen when we step in that ring, Kieran? I’m gonna walk up to you, I’m gonna face you down, man-to-man, take a deep breath…”

“AND I’M GONNA SPIT RIGHT IN THE EYE OF THAT GODFORSAKEN BEAST YOU WANNA CALL ‘DESTINY!’”

Scoops’ face turned red with rage as he grabbed the sides of the camera, staring down the lens as a vein throbbed in his forehead. “Because you wanna know somethin’, Kieran, all the times and years I’ve struggled? The hard bumps I’ve taken, those life-threatening injuries, they made me the man who I am today! I got to travel the world! I made a goddamn family for myself once upon a time! I made this family farm as big as it is! I got plenty of friends I can go back to! I can look back at everything I’ve done, and I can know I’ve done anything and everything most men have ever wanted to do, and no matter how much I want to climb that damn mountain and take that Universal Championship one of these days, I know there ain’t nothing that’s gonna change that! Just like there ain’t nothing that’s gonna change all the shit, all the titles you’ve gotten!”

“And you know somethin’ - yeah, yer’ goddamn right you’ve accomplished the last goal I’ve set out for myself in my life, reachin’ the top of that mountain and winnin’ the top belt. But the shit I’ve done? How I built a fuckin’ life for myself? That’s somethin’ yer’ NEVER gonna do in yer’ miserable little existence. ‘Cause right now, Kieran, you ain’t shit but a miserable little fuckin’ drunk. It’s a pathetic excuse of a life. You just never learned how to live.”

Scoops backpedaled, letting go of the camera as he chuckled. “But I’m gonna teach you, boah. We’re gonna go ‘round-and-’round that ring together, oh yes we are. When we step into the Main Event, for gettin’ one step closer to the crown, for this special little Xtreme title that needs some love and stability for once in its life, yer’ gonna learn what it’s like to live. I’m gonna make you slip. Make you trip. Make you bleed. For once in yer’ life, Kieran King, yer’ gonna learn what it’s like to struggle. And you are gonna watch as you can’t scratch off a goal for the first time in yer’ life.”

“Because I haven’t taken bumps through flamin’ tables, jumped off of story-high balconies, gone through however many fuckin’ thumbtacks in my life just to let some godforsaken part-timin’ TRASH take what I earned without a fight!”

Scoops brought his Xtreme title into the view of the camera, jabbing his finger right into the silver. “You want this shit, you stupid sumbitch? You really want that crown? Show me you still care, Kieran King. Because I sure as hell do. This shit’s your little bonus side quest - this shit is what I’m continuing to live for right now. I’ve been in vidya games now, boah, you walk in there expectin’ a side quest and I’ll turn into your goddamn final boss.”

Scoops was breathing haggard deep breaths at the camera as his words lingered in the air. After a short while, he rubbed his tired face and walked off, stomps pounding against the creaky floorboards as they groaned and complained.

“Woah.” Noah’s voice escaped as a ragged breath, the intensity of the promo having washed over him. He blinked, his feet slow to recover and follow after Scoops. As he focused the camera on him again, he watched as the old man threw open the door, drinking in the cold, winter breeze and the endless blue sky from the outdoors.

Scoops was silent. The wind whipped through his balding hair and he closed his eyes, enjoying the moment. Without opening them, his hand shuffled into his pocket, pulling out his phone as he turned it on.

“W-Who’re you calling…?” Noah asked with trepidation in his voice.

Scoops looked over his shoulder, a ghost of a smile present. “An old friend. Talkin’ ‘bout past lives and dreams… reminded me of somethin’ I’ve been trying to do for a while now.”

As Scoops looked down along his phone contacts, one name peeked out at him among the rest.

Sabrina ❤️

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode Scoops McGee in... “The Heart of a King”
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