Post by livewire on Jul 2, 2014 6:31:16 GMT -5
“Just go out there and give it your best…”
Damien Pierce said to his son Gray as he rubbed his shoulders.
The two men stood about 30 feet away from what has classically been called “The Gorilla Position” at a small Pennsylvania venue. The space was lit by fluorescent lights that made the sweat on the two men glisten, seemingly able to blind all those who stared in their direction.
“Thanks Pops.”
Gray responded. He was tense, not just because he was about to step in front of thousands of people to introduce himself. He was the front man of a relatively successful band, being on stage in front of a crowd of people exhilarated him, it didn’t scare him. He was tense because this man, his father, who has been training him for the past 6 months, was nowhere to be found in his life up until that fateful night 2 months earlier at a VPW Show in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“Your shoulders are tight, kid. You need a pick me up?”
Damien reached into his pocket to pull out an orange bottle and Gray reluctantly accepted the vicadin. The same pill that, 4 years ago, he would take recreationally to help enhance the effect of other narcotics and alcohol he was abusing his body with he now took to relieve the pain that he constantly felt in his hips since starting wrestling.
Rev Theory played through the arena and the lights shut off.
“Game on!”
Damien said as he gave his son one last pat on the shoulder before retreating back to the locker room.
Gray counted; 5…4…3…2…1… then started running. He had this entrance rehearsed perfectly, knowing that if he starts at this exact moment, stands 30 feet away and runs at 5 miles per hour, enough to look fast but without winding him, he would make it to the curtain just as the lyrics kick in and like perfection he blasts through the curtain to the sound of Rich Luzzi’s voice screaming “Gimme a HELL… gimme a YEA!”
The lights shone down upon Gray and as if he had been doing this his whole life; all anticipation faded and confidence built up inside of him. Women screamed as he unzipped his leather jacket to expose his chiseled physique. They reached as far as the barriers would let just to get a feel of his body which he proudly accepted. He made it to ringside and found one particularly attractive young blonde woman and he walked over to her. He opened his coat and the woman rubbed both of her hands down his body causing a chill to go down both of their spines.
He zipped his coat back up halfway and slid into the ring. He posed for the crowd but the whole while rehearsed his lines in his head. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen… The royal ‘they’…’ he thought just as his father had drilled into him.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the royal ‘they’ say that the unpredictability of being a relative unknown can be an advantage. Fortunately for me I am a relative unknown. Unfortunately for me so are my opponents this week in my debut match at SLAM! This week pits the four newest members of the WCF in a spectacle that is sure to get apathetic responses from the fans…
At first.
But I guarantee you, that once you see me in action the apathy will turn into urgency. The urgency will turn into excitement, and excitement into ecstasy. For I am ‘THE LIVEWIRE’ GRAYSON PIERCE and I am here to electrify the WCF.”
He poses to the crowd, and accepts the screams of the women and the spattering applause of the majority of the crowd. He isn’t eliciting the response he desired from the fans. Any response is good, his dad told him, good or bad. The women are screaming, sure, but in the arena they make up only a small fraction of the crowd. This wasn’t going to work. Clearly his dad’s old school methods weren’t playing well to the younger crowd. He threw the speech out and spoke from his heart. He knew he was going against everything his father told him to do, but didn’t give a shit. This was his life, and he wasn’t going to let his father live it.
Daddy issues? Damn straight! If he was a woman, he would be a stripper as the unfair stereotype goes.
The big smile he had on his face fades and turns to a look of determination.
“I don’t believe in unfair advantages. If my opponents want to use their mystique as an advantage so be it. But I’m an open book. I’m a true competitor, fighting for honor, and glory; fighting not for recognition, but affirmation of what I already know, and what you will soon find out.
I don’t wrestle just to hurt people; I’m not hungry for pain. The scars on my body are a portrait of what I’ve done and what I’ve been through, they are badges of honor, nothing to be ashamed of or covered up.
This scar right here, on my inner arm; a crack head cut me with a rusty piece of sheet metal when I was in my darker years, I’m not proud of it, but I accept my past as my own.
This burn mark on my back… right here… yea, that’s from a pyrotechnics accident during a concert. But I played on, just like I will through pain and adversity here.”
Pierce closes his eyes. Words aren’t escaping, rather, they’re flowing so fast through his head that his lips can’t keep up. Sifting through the crap to get to the real essence of what he’s trying to convey is the hardest part.
“I haven’t been wrestling long. I was the lead singer in a band up until 2 years ago. I played a show at Hershey Park of all places where a wrestling event was taking place. Wasn’t I surprised to hear that Damien Pierce. Yes, that is my father, a man I hadn’t seen in 20 years, was performing there, and I was playing his entrance music. He left us when I was a kid, my mother told me he died, but I could tell she was lying. I have a sixth sense for that sort of thing. But it made her happy to think that so it made me happy.
When I looked in the man’s eyes I saw the same passion and desire that I wished I had for music in them. But he had them for something different. The crowd booed him and he loved every second of it. The jeers of the crowd seemed to make him stronger as he lifted mountains on his shoulders and broke them in half on his knee. He was like a GOD and I learned everything he knows about wrestling.
That makes me technically sound, and ring savvy. But there are a few things he couldn’t teach me. My never say die attitude, my fearless nature, and my desire to succeed. He wasn’t around to teach me that, I had to learn those things on my own. And it’s those attributes, among others, that make me dangerous.
When I started playing music, I didn’t have big dreams. I wanted to play a show at Jones’ Beach Amphitheatre. After just 2 years Emily’s Prayer did just that opening for Queens of the Stone Age in 2005. We went on to be the opening band at Nassau Coliseum for two years and opened for bands like Taking Back Sunday, and Angels and Airwaves, Blink-182. Then we were the opening band at MSG where we opened for Foo Fighters, Godsmack and Metallica!
My dreams there were small, but I exceeded them beyond my wildest imagination. Now I dream big. Now my dream is to be the WCF Word Champion! I know it’s an uphill battle, and the odds are stacked against me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll have to earn the respect of the roster, of the crowd, and of the higher ups in back. I’ll have to take out each champion below to make my way to the top of the mountain. And that quest begins this Sunday at Slam when I step into the ring with Hyena, Douglas and Maroda.”
He looked directly at the camera which was being walked around the ring in circles, trying to keep up with Gray’s motions. His deep blue eyes pierce the lens, and appear to delve into the subconscious of those watching. His voice gets louder and his passion grows stronger with each passing word.
“It costs nothing to dream, but are you willing to pay the price to make it a reality? I sure as fuck know that I am.
I know you three are watching this. And I hope your listening, because unlike you all, I want you to have all the ammo you need to take me down. I want you to be as prepared as you can be for this match. I want you to go into this match with all of your hunger to hunt and kill; all of your lust to burn and destroy; ALL OF YOUR longing to make up for your past atrocities; all of your desire to win. I want the very best of all of you at SLAM because when the dust settles and the smoke clears, and I stand on top of the mountain of bodies that I created I don’t want any excuses of being caught by surprise, or ring rust. I want it to be PERFECTLY CLEAR to the three of you, to the roster in the back, the thousands here and the MILLIONS WATCHING AT HOME that it’s time for some HIGH VOLTAGE up in this piece.”
The crowd starts to cheer loudly and those welcome butterflies enter his stomach. The same butterflies that give him the power to go on and ensure to him that he’s doing what he’s meant to be doing. He smiles and nods before continuing.
“Slam this week, ladies and gentlemen… will be ELECTRIFYING!”
Rev Theory’s “Hell Yea” blasted through the arena as he climbed out of the ring and back to the attractive blonde woman. He helped her over the top and she giggled to her friends as she exited ringside area with him. Gray made it to the back and security showed him back to his locker room.
He opened the door marked ‘Grey Pearce’ and smiled at the misspelling of the name. He opened the door, showed the woman in first and followed her. The room had a bed in it, at least they got that part right. It looked like a bare college dormitory. The two started making out immediately, and it got hot and heavy quick. Their sweat combined on the floor beneath them when there was a loud knock on the door. She looked up but Gray said,
“Ignore it.”
And the passion continued. She ripped his coat off and rubbed his body but the knocking on the door continued, and got louder and angrier. He released his hold on her and told her to give him a moment. She smiled and whispered in his ear,
“Don’t make me wait long…”
As she kissed his earlobe before he left her side. He got to the door to see the furious face of Damien Pierce.
“What the fuck was that all about?”
Suddenly rushes of memory from his past filled him, memories he didn’t know he had. That anger was familiar to him and the fear of a 3 year old boy filled him before being replaced by the frustration of an abandoned adolescent and ultimately supplanted was the rage of a man who finally realized that he deserved better than that. But he let his father finish after slamming the door shut behind him.
“I wrestled for 30 years! I know what it takes to become a champion, I was a champion time and time again, and I know how to pump the crowd up. You failed me today, son. You embarrassed me and you embarrassed yourself! And what was that with the girl, rubbing your chest? You don’t want to be the pretty boy; you want to be the enforcer. You want to be the guy who puts fear into people. This ‘ladies’ man’ bit has to stop and it has to stop NOW! They’re gonna think you’re a FUCKING JOKE! The name Pierce used to mean something, you know...”
Gray waited a moment to make sure his dad was done. He quelled the anger within him… he’ll use that frustration and focus on Sunday… he took a deep breath and what could have been, and very well SHOULD have been an equal reaction towards his father turned into an equally effective opposite reaction. His calm and cool demeanor caught his dad off guard, which he could tell by the quizzical look in his eyes. Just the reaction he desired.
“You can teach me how to wrestle, but you can’t teach me how to be me. You lost that right a LONG time ago. When you chose wrestling over me and mom you lost your right to be my father, and the only reason… THE ONLY REASON I’ve let you back into my life is to pursue a dream that I never realized that I had. All those nice things I said about you in the ring; that was all BULLSHIT!”
Any sense of pride that Damien felt for his son vanished… or perhaps it grew… it wasn’t easy to tell, and Gray wasn’t in the right frame of mind to accurately read his face, nor did he care enough to want to.
“The truth is that every time I step into the ring, since I started in ‘The Honorable Ring’ 2 years ago until I finished my contract with ‘Too Much Action’ 2 months ago, when I face my opponent and I see you. I see a man who abandoned me and I seek revenge. But it’s not just you I see, I see my mother, and the nights she spent crying, the nights she came home from her second job at midnight after going to her first job at 6 in the morning just to repeat the next day, so I didn’t have to work and I could focus on my own life. That selfless woman gave her life and soul so I could succeed and when she died 3 years ago you didn’t even have the balls to come to her funeral.
You are a coward and I don’t want to be anything like you. That being said, your success and ability in the ring is unquestionable and your knowledge… your WRESTLING KNOWLEDGE is welcome. When it comes to telling the crowd and my opponents who I am and what I intend to do to them, that comes from me. That comes from my heart, and won’t be a speech that you write.
I’m not wrestling ‘The Mighty Ruski’ or ‘Bulldog Mckenzie.’ I’m not facing people with strict wrestling backgrounds. Life isn’t like that anymore. I’m facing people who want to literally tear me limb from limb. When they say they want to burn the world down, they don’t mean metaphorically, they literally want to burn the mother fucker down! When they say that they feed off pain, they actually do get arousal from hurting people… masochism and sadism are actual conditions now, and when they can’t be satisfied people like that get into professions like this.”
Damien, for the first time that Gray can remember, is hanging onto his every word. He’s not just waiting for the next thing to say, he’s listening and, can it be? He’s learning.
“When a man says that he thrives for respect it makes him just as dangerous as a man ready to pounce to kill. Respect needs to be earned; it needs to be forged in the ring with warriors just like us. It is my job to tame the wild Wolverine, to slay the Hyena, to earn respect from the severest branch of the military. When I step into the ring with those monsters of men they will see a pretty boy who can get all the girls, but when they exit the ring they will see a man not afraid to get hurt, and not afraid to hurt other people.
Let them think I’m a ladies man, because if THAT’S the message that they got from what I said out there tonight, then they’re not ready for the WCF and they’re certainly not ready for me. If that’s the message you got, then you have to stop hearing what you want to hear and knowing only what you heard. The message I want to get across is not to take me lightly, and I can say it all I want but it won’t be until I get into the ring with them on Sunday that I can make that message clear.
I know what I’ve done. I’ve put my entire self into wrestling, wresting for 650 day; wrestling in 780 matches. I’ve won tournaments, I’ve won battle royals, I’ve won hardcore matches, Never say Die matches, and the list goes on. And all those matches that I’ve won, I’ve lost as well. I’ve taken my experiences and helped mold myself into the competitor I am today, and your name alone didn’t get me into the WCF, my reputation preceded me, and my willingness to succeed will take me to the top.”
Damien nodded. Message received. He didn’t say sorry, but he didn’t have to, sorrow was in his eyes.
“Have fun with that girl, Grayson.”
Damien said as he patted his son on the shoulder one last time before walking away. Gray turned around and opened the door to his room, and slammed it shut behind him. The girl was sitting on his bed, wearing nothing but his leather jacket.
“Take that coat off, you’re gonna get your skank all over it!”
The girl looked surprised.
“But… what about…”
“Take my coat off and get the fuck out of my room.”
She slowly did as she was told; the look in Gray’s eyes showed that he shouldn’t repeat himself for a third time. She put her clothes on and Gray sat on the bed and put his head on his hands. He didn’t look up as she walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her. He just thought to himself: This was a beautiful woman ready to ravage him, and the acceptance of his father turned him off. He can’t let him have control over him like that… he WON’T let his father have control over him like that.
He was surprised to hear breathing and an ‘ahem.’ He looked up and saw the dark hair and striking hazel eyes of Katrina Ruiz, his personal assistant. She must have sneaked in as the other woman left. She was quiet like a mouse, but damn good at her job.
“Hey Kat, I know. They didn’t pay me like I thought for my appearance at Blast, all the money had to go to the rest of the band. But after this week, after I win I’ll get the big payday. Then I’ll pay you for the last 2 months that I’ve been out of work.”
“Oh, that... that's not why I'm here. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a privilege seeing you work. I know I’ll get what I deserve.”
She tried to give him eyes but looked down at papers in her hand instead. She shuffled them, straightened them and handed them to Gray.
“These are the final contracts for Sunday. Just cross the T’s and dot the I’s and we’ll be set to go.”
She giggled nervously as he signed the papers and handed them back to her.
“Thanks for everything you’ve done for me Kat. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I’m sure you’d get by just fine.”
She exited the room, with a shy smile on her lips, but before she left she turned back towards Gray.
“For what it’s worth, I think your gonna kick ass on Sunday”
She left but her scent was left in the room. He was surprised he hadn’t smelled it before…
fin
