In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey…

I think Lissie Hope struggled with popularity too… but not anymore. Became a plastic bitch – lost her humility along the way and it’s become my responsibility – my purpose to bring people like her back down to earth. She’s flying too close to the sun – or whatever – I’m not here to speak in riddles.

A guy like me isn’t meant to be in the Denzel Porter Invitational. I looked at the annual lists despite my own mental health and saw I’m notable – cute – give me the verified check Elon. Lissie Hope on the other hand – she’s a star baby. They put your pretty little face on the posters.

I remember before the bright lights blinded us…

My hair is long and unwashed. Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses patches unironically sewn into my jean jacket – full Canadian tuxedo – Grade 11 – in a buttfuck northern Ontario high school.

When the kids at my old school found out my father was a serial killer – the infamous Cleaver Killer – the bullying was relentless. My mother was getting tired of washing my bloody knuckles in iodine. So the genius decided to move a few towns over – but the lore just follows you sometimes.

I peeled open my locker door and I could already hear the fucker laughing behind me. You could get anything on the internet back in 2007. Pictures of Kurt Cobain's blown open skull – and well – photos of famous serial killers… dear ol’ dad included.

Pictures of young women he killed littered the inside of my locker. Split open faces – after a cleaver bashed through the center. Crime scene photo after crime scene photo. Brain matter and running makeup. In some pictures you could almost piece two halves together for some of the images. All so pretty before they died. At the bottom of my locker was a cleaver – the word ‘freak’ smeared in blood – how original.

“No one is ever going to forget how sick of a fuck your dad is – and we all know the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree,” Derek MacDonald's voice boomed through the hall way. This fucking privileged suburban kid. This dumb football playing fuck with a cop daddy always messed with me.

I tried to ignore him. The scars on my knuckles said I was tired of fighting.

“I found this blog… what is it you go by? ComatoseCasanova.”

The words from my hidden Tumblr page sent a chill down my spine. I felt exposed.. I sat there glaring at the pictures of dead young women as Derek yelled behind me to an audience.

“I peeled her clothes like it was layers of her flesh; felt a warm place to call home. Crimson on her thighs, pain replaced with pleasure in her eyes.”

The crowd laughed over him as he read on and on. I grip the cleaver and turn – holding it by my side the crowd grows silent.

“Oh, what tough guy, you're going to take after your father?,” Derek said, tucking his phone and my alter ego into his pocket.

He steps close to me and just as we are about to be chest to chest – I drop the heavy cleaver and let it fall onto his toes.

“FUCK!,” He screams, hopping around on one foot. I raise my eyebrows pulling a cigarette from my pocket, pushing my hair back and placing it between my lips.

The bell rings and kids scatter – probably saving me from some sort of ass kicking. You have to look for weakness when you least expect it. Danielle – I saw her laughing behind curly blonde locks when I hurt Derek.

If you can make a girl laugh – you can make a girl cum.

Stained the poor homecoming queens lungs with cigarettes. She liked the way they made her feel light headed like when I coked her as we fucked. For the next six months Derek spent his time on the gridiron. Trying to fulfill his dream of being a Canadian Football League starter during the summer and working the oil rigs in Alberta in the winter to bring his income up past six figures.

For the last six months I was watching Danielle’s back arch – her toes curl – picking tiny fragments of toilet paper from my teeth when I ate her out. I didn’t let the news slip until a week before the championship game.

See… a broken toe wasn’t going to do shit. It wasn’t going to hurt Derek past the moment. Heartbreak… Well that’s something entirely different.

The championship finals, first play – pig skin snapped to the quarterback. Derek grabs it through the air beautifully. He’s making a break – someone at his heels – he jukes – but his leg sticks on the turf just a little too much. Might have slipped if they were playing on grass.

Derek snapped his fibula in two placed on the play – tore a bunch of ligaments. He walked with a cane his senior year – the best dam water-boy they had in years.

Now he’s just some fat fuck sitting in a recliner in some Canadian town – his left leg aching every time it rains or snows. He’s pouring a beer and tuning in to see Lissie Hope in her underwear in the Lingerie Football League.

I’m staring at the ceiling of a shitting hotel trying to decide if the stain up there is nicotine or if someone managed to piss upward with such velocity. There’s some voice droning on, but I’m not listening. It’s getting lost in the buzz of the loose ceiling fan.

It’s funny how life can affect you in a sport. How deep psychology plays into it all. Derek MacDonald, I hadn’t thought of that asshole in years. He may have gone on to be something, but he couldn’t take the fact I had been sleeping with his girl. He tried to take that anger out on the field with him and it caused him to slip up. It caused a distraction. It fucking broke him.

I haven’t changed the playbook up too much. It’s what I have done to Hope. I gave her a spot on my roster and she – she thought she was going to rule the world just like she had elsewhere. But I have already worked my way into her head. I’ve already got her chasing me across the country and losing so much focus she took a loss to Craig Cogan. Now, her boyfriend is working for me once again… it’s all been leading to this… The Denzel Porter Invitational.

“You get it though,” the woman I met last night at the bar said – bed sheets wrapped to her naked skin adding mystery to what I was inside.

“You’re a psychopath too.”

That’s the only part of the conversation I remember hearing. Too lost in my own story. Sometimes you’re the main character in someone else's tale.

And they’re just a footnote.

I nodded, put a cigarette in my mouth – blew smoke into the hotel room and offered her a drag. She waved her hand, gesturing to move it away from her.

I don’t trust people not trying to speed this all up. If you want to live so bad you turn down a smoke – you’re not paying attention to the same apocalypse.

I’ve got my Sunday best on for one of the biggest supershows of the year. I’m an economical man, so why not use it twice to host my very own show! I know Hope loves being the center of attention so much, so lets play with that kink a little. I stand on a TV set – behind me is one larger screen and about a hundred smaller screens surrounding it. On each screen is a picture of Lissie Hope at a different stage of her life. Some of them are her wrestling career – others her moments from Big Brother – so on. The large retro camera’s red light is on and a clear my throat walking toward it slowly.

“I’m Casanova English and you are here for VH1 presents… Who the Fuck Is Lissie Hope? That's right, Lissie is having an identity crisis and it’s time we take a deep look at just who this social media influencer is… what are here roots? Does she even like wrestling? What won’t she do to garner, as the kids say, clout?”

I pace along a sea of images of Lissie Hope behind me. I click one of those remotes you see at every TedTalk. The main image snaps to a picture of Lissie with the Action Wrestling World Championship, around her the images have switched to highlights of her career – accolade after accolade – moment after moment.

“The first face of Lissie Hope, the professional wrestler. This is how a lot of people know and want to remember you as. You ascended the ladder quick, snatched the top title in your home company, but when you rise like a phoenix, you burn up quick. You know that now. I get it, your little head can get big when you come from a small Texas town and butterfly into a World Champion, to AW Woman of the Year twice. One has to question if you even like professional wrestling, or if it was just a catalyst to finding yourself some fame. See Lissie, I know deep down you just want to be loved – so you sold your soul at auction to all these fucking people… all these drones that call themselves fans. It didn’t take much, you have a quick tongue and a tight body. They fucking love bitches like you. See you and I started off the same place Lissie, we were losers walking this earth – the difference is you tasted the fame and drank it on up – it left my mouth bitter. I realize just how fickle each of these fans truly are. They didn’t want to hear the gospel, the prophecies I spoke – no they want to be up there with you – head in the clouds – toxic positivity and self pity. You speak their language too well now.”

I turn to look at the image of Lisse holding up the Action Wrestling World Championship and spit on the ground. I shake my head pulling a cigarette from my pocket and toying it with my fingers.

“People probably think I myself hate pro wrestling, I call myself The Unprofessional… I’ve called for the defunding of the sport – but it’s only because the term has become so dirty – so rancid – so far from what the intention was. It’s become a place where people like you thrive, pseudo social media influences with a wrestling ring as a fucking backdrop. This mainstream bubble gum shit needs to be deflated. That’s what I am all about Lissie and I even gave you a chance in CULT. Two shots at the New World Championship – I even produced the setting for one of the biggest wins of your career… beating Chris Page. It was a trash talk battle of slut this and fatso that and at this point the wrestling industry might turn me into a saint for shutting both of you the fuck up for a few minutes. Now I guess it’s time to do early community service in 2023 when I offer up one of the greatest upsets in the history of supershows when I destroy all Hope… in name and in spirit."

I point at the image of Lisse at the top of Action Wrestling. I place the cigarette in my lips before spinning back to the camera.

“You are never going to get there ever again without going through a man like me Lissie. And win lose or draw I hope that darkness – that pain you had to overcome – you come face to face with it and you stop ignoring the dark parts of yourself… the parts you should embrace. I get it… you are busy… you are a reality star after all… right?”

I light my cigarette casually, blow a few clouds into the TV studio – then click the button again. All the images in the room change. They are Lissie Hope as a cast member on Big Brother. The last one on the bigger screen is just a close up of when she was announced as for the “celebrity” version of the show.

“Vote for me America! Vote for me! She’s been screaming that with her fucking eyes since day one – inside and outside the ring. Where I embrace the idea of being an outsider, you on the other hand have done everything you possibly can to fit in with straight society – taking a prominent place in it all while at the same time trying to critique the status quo. There is no greater example of chasing fame than being cast in a show along other D list celebrities like a talking fucking sock. The idea of America watching your every moment, of them having the chance to see you bounce beneath some bed sheets on some 24 hour special access online stream. There is no one who loves attention, good or bad, more than Lissie fucking Hope. The ironic thing is there is not a single real thing about you. You’re a fucking caricature of redemption. Truth is, I’m the reality in the cartoon world of professional wrestling. I’m as real as it gets. I’m writing the story of redemption whether these fans choose to enjoy it or not. When I step between those ropes there is no talk of this sport being fake – no – I’ll drag you face to face with the first snot nosed brat I see – peel open the skin on your forehead – dig my fingernails on either side and ruin their whole Spring break by reminding them of frog dissection. The mutilation I put you through will endear you even more to these disfigured ugly fucks who shell out their hard earned cash to look up to idiots like Lissie Hope. And hey, if reality TV doesn’t bring you the fame you desire… you always have a back up plan.”

I click the fucking clicker thing again and the image changes to Lissie Hope half naked on the screens behind me, the big middle screen shot is Lissie playing a game in the Lingerie Football League.

“You can be a role model on the gridiron prancing around in a thong and bra. Hope is probably such a root cause to chafed cock that she should be sponsored by a lotion. So let me get this straight, you are a wrestler, a reality star and an amateur athlete – it’s the most pathetic combination of triple threat skills I have ever seen in my life. But you don’t care – you gave up chasing awards and championships a long time ago – hell you gave up on chasing relevance. All you are chasing now is an identity. No one knows who Lissie Hope is, because she will chameleon into anything. People are constantly confused on if you are the realest of fakest bitch that has ever existed. I do know this… I do know you will do whatever it takes… you’ll sell your body and soul to a contact if you feel it might get you one step further from being a small town Texas girl and one step closer to becoming a household name. I’ll do you a favor at the Denzel Porter Invitational, because you name might make it to every door way through the obituary section of every major North American newspaper. You don’t even need to take your shirt off for this one.”

I puff on my cigarette slowly before flicking the images over one more time. This time it is Lissie Hope through various stages of her youth – a picture of her strung out on drugs on the big screen now.

“That’s probably when you were at the peak of your creativity. It’s really sad isn’t it. How sometimes our best moments come when we are the worst versions of ourselves. And while I am glad you delayed your demons… I’m glad you became a champion, bravo, bravo. You killed a little too much of the darkness didn’t you? You lost a reason to find a spark and well now here you are… facing off against a has-been like me. And I’ve been such a good villain for you Lissie. I have been such a bad, bad man – but I worry – when I drag you in the the darkness at DPI – well you are just going to be as lost as ever.”

“In all this there is no pressure on me. You’ve already blasted it all over social media, you don't care about a win… you are coming to hurt me. It’s David vs Goliath… Lissie Hope against her own ego. I know what I am. I’m The Unprofessional, not by choice, but by exile. I’m not good in locker rooms… I don’t get these impressionable kids to tug on mommy and daddy’s pant leg asking to by the next PPV. No… I’m just here because I have been a big enough thorn in your side… I’m here piggy backing off the name you made for yourself. I’m cashing a pay check on your fucking hard work… I didn’t even get an invite to the first Denzel Porter invitation. It’s time I flip the script… Lissie Hope works hard reaching for fame and all I have to do… to get my name in lights… is to pull your image down.”

The screens behind me start exploding one by one as I walk into the camera – my cigarette ember burning as I take a few drags with each stride. I blow a smoke cloud into the camera and walk past.

“I’m a loser baby… so why don’t you kill me?”

When the smoke dissipates the camera zooms in on the big screen buzzing static – every few times the image holds on Lissie Hope – then goes black.