Post by Salem Shepard on Aug 13, 2016 10:21:32 GMT -5
Things change with the quickness once your face gets shown on TV a couple of times; and the company you work for airs your promos and actually promotes the matches you’re in. But hey, this is big business and it’s all new to me. Nobody knew who I was when I was working these little shows drawing a handful of people. But when I got to step foot in the ring with ZT two weeks ago!!
Hooolly shit…That, man, that was the highlight of my life – for sure. See, I told yall what we was gonna do. I told yall that ZT 2.0 was comin hard and those four fools didn’t have a chance against us. Now because of some legal bullshit, I wasn’t able to make the trip with my brothers to our latch match. …But that’s ok!! Erik Black has that all worked out and it shouldn’t be an issue again!! …But like I was saying, my life has changed since that one match and the WCF…or “wssff” as my homie Cash likes to say…has been showing my face on TV. I had some KIDS come up to me and look at me like I was a fucking superstar!! Holy hell, that was some crazy shit…I mean, that used to be me running up to the old legends trying to get an autograph after shows with my little sister. ..And I got kids running up to me like that now!? That’s great and everything, but I don’t like the attention I get when I go get gas….I don’t like the attention that I get when I go to the gym. Just being a part of Zero Tolerance and the WCF has changed everything…But isn’t this what I wanted? Didn’t I want to get away from that shit I called a life before ZT? Being exposed to the world is part of the job. Getting your face in the living rooms of every house in America doesn’t come without attention, unwanted or not. …And it stresses me out. The kids don’t stress me out, but just the thought of everyone seeing me and knowing about my life, it makes me nervous. And that’s not good for my condition. This attention has changed the way I do things, and its changed the routines of my life. One day I could walk quietly into my condo and the next day there was swarms of fucking females and, like, old weird creepy guys outside in the parking lot wanting my autograph and some selfies. …And I gotta say, I take the best selfies ever!! But I didn’t like all these people around my house every day when I got home…. So, I moved, and the ZT guys helped me keep a lower profile in that sense; but all this attention that I wasn’t ready for isn’t helping my condition any. Sometimes I think the pills aren’t really helping me and my opponents have switched them out with something that’s going to kill me.. But, that’s just crazy? Right? …They say it’s just part of being a schizo and something that Im gonna have to deal with. My doc wants me to come in and adjust my meds but I’ve been soo busy training, moving, doing photo shoots and looking at merch ideas that I don’t really have the time. My life has changed and I need to learn to live around these changes….*****************
Salem locked up the doors to the ZT gym behind him and quickly walked down the steps. It was late, and a week night, but the traffic never seemed to slow down in Houston. He looked back over his shoulder to the building and made sure that he had turned all the lights off. “lights cost money” he remembered Erik Black saying earlier in the day…Erik always said shit like that, he pinched every ZT penny that he could. Salem turned his hat around backwards and started walking up the street with his bag slung over his shoulder. He only had black paint around his eyes and an upside down cross in the middle of his forehead. It was the most bare skin we had seen of Shepard so far, but it was still hard to fully put a face on the man because his eyes were a bright neon blue because of the contacts that gave him an odd look. He was glad that Erik offered him the keys to the gym because he liked to train at night unnoticed, and that was still hard to do anywhere else in Houston. So this had eased his mind, and instead of driving he had decided to jog to the gym and walk home the last several days. But on the way home he always stopped by a bar that he had seen along the way every day. The name of the bar was Celebrity Club and they had a pink neon sign of a martini glass hanging over the top; and with just a few more blocks to walk the bartender would be expecting Shepard. His pace was slower tonight and there seemed to be something bothering him. He was running low on his meds, that was part of it…But today was also the anniversary of the day his father had killed himself. Shepard knew it wasn’t his fault, but a part of him always told him that it was. He always missed his father because they were the only two males in a house of four females; and after he killed himself it was just Salem on his own. He remembered the scene as he walked….
*********************
He remembered coming home while everyone else was at school and his mom was at work. Salem and his best friend Nick had boosted a car earlier that day and drove all the gas out of it. They duo was getting surprisingly good at hot wiring cars and it gave Salem an adrenalin boost, the likes of which he had never had before. After they left the car Nick had gone off to smoke pot with some older guys in who had dropped out of high school and Salem went back to his house. As he turned the corner he saw his dad’s truck in the driveway and he immediately knew that something wasn’t right. His dad was a hardworking man and he had never seen him miss a day of work in his entire life. He instantly wondered if maybe something had happened to his mom, maybe that was the reason his dad was home? Maybe something bad had happened to her. Salem looked around the houses that lined the street, most of them were empty as everyone was at work and everything seemed to quiet. There was no breeze and the leaves on the trees stood silent and still. For a moment he heard no cars, no birds, no barking dogs. In that instant he wondered if he was the only living being left on earth. Salem snapped back to reality and focused on the situation at hand: His dad was home. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his old dirty Guns N Roses shirt and walked up to his house, his heartbeat pounding faster and faster…Expecting to see his mom in pain, or see that one of their family members had passed away. “Dad?” He said as he cracked open the front door and looked down the front hallway. The cold air from the AC hit him in the face and it felt good. He slinked into the house and quietly closed the door behind him. He called out for his father again as he stepped on the dark orange shag carpet that he had always hated – and there was no reply. The shag carpet was here when they moved in the house and his dad had told him shag carpet was superior to any other carpet ever made. Salem didn’t agree but his father insisted that this carpet would outlast him, …and he was right. Salem walked down the hallway as his heart raced faster and faster, and then he smelt something. It was an odd smell that his senses had never picked up in his short lifetime, but it was a smell that he would later be accustomed to later in his life. He came to the end of the hall there it split into the kitchen on one side, and the living room on the other. Salem looked into the kitchen first and didn’t see anything. The kitchen was clean and the remnants of the mornings breakfast had been cleaned up by his mother before she had gone to work. Something told him not to look, a feeling he had deep inside told him to put his head down and run from the house – but whatever you do, don’t look in the fucking living room. But Salem couldn’t help it, and the curiosity of the child got the better of him. The color drained out of his face, his arms fell to his side and his jaw went slack. He stood there in silence with the only sound to be heard was the ticking of the clock on the wall above the TV. Salem’s fathers body was slumped over on the far side of the couch, his right arm dangling over the armrest, his head…or what was left of it..was tilted down on his right shoulder. What was left of the right side of his head, the exit wound, looked like a broken bowl of spaghetti. His entire right side was covered in blood, it had pooled up in the crotch of his pants and slowly dripped down the couch and onto the floor. Salem could hear every “plop” of the blood that hit the shag carpet. The carpet that he hated so, so much. Salem surveyed the area and saw the blood splatter on the wall and pieces of skull fragment scattered across the room. He saw the gun laying on the couch, just out of reach of his fathers left hand. ..The hand that pulled the trigger. And he cried. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, it could have been three minutes or three hours (he believed it to be closer to three hours) before his mother came home with two of his sisters. It was the scream that stood out to him the most that day. The pain and anguish that came from his mothers throat as she ran to her husband and cradled his dead body in her arms, covering herself in his blood. She screamed over and over, a noise that he had never heard his mother make and the noise stuck with him forever.
****************
“What a mess the WCF has gotten themselves into. I saw all those guys laugh at us, roll their eyes and go on about they business when ZT came on board. These idiots didn’t give us the time of day, they assumed we would flake out and move on down the road after a few matches….But no, that’s not what’s happening here. Were just digging our feet in the ground, were just setting the foundation for Zero Tolerance to take the WCF to its knees. Ya see, ZT is like that bad disease you can’t get rid of…No, we aint like the shit you pick up from one them nasty hoes and go to the free clinic to take care of. No, that’s the minor shit, the annoying shit, ..Like Kevin Bishop. But hey, let’s face facts here; Bishop is the best opponent I’ve ever faced in the ring. That’s not hard to do considering I’ve had one match here and it was against the bottom feeders. And since the WCF has the greatest amount of talent I’ve ever seen and fought against, each week my opponent will be “The best I’ve ever faced” because when you win – you don’t slide down the card and face guys like my boys did last week. ZT will just climb this ladder one rung at a time and keep turning heads with every win. Unfortunately I didn’t make it to last week’s Slam due to some legal trouble, but my boss here at ZT got with the WCF and worked all that mess out!!! It didn’t hurt me to have the week off, I finally got in the ring for the first time and it wasn’t that great to go back and watch…I made a lot of mistakes, but that’s expected because I have a lot to learn and I knew I wasn’t going to perform at a World Title level….yet.
That time will come but we have a lot of work to do before we get to that point. I needed to see my mistakes and work on them, so it wasn’t like I was just kickin back chillin, taking life easy last week. Fuck no!!! I was in the gym busting my ass making sure I was prepared for this week’s match; because Bishop aint no slouch and it’s gonna take some work to put him down. I mean, let’s just be real here, let’s not pretend that his two teammates really matter in this match…Bishop will carry these two idiots on his back but he isn’t even THAT good. He can hold his own in the ring, sure, but Im not confident that he can put this three-man-team on his back and make it the distance against ZT. ..Not that it matters, were on a roll right now and were just gonna keep proving ourselves like weve been doing. I do have a problem with this match though; because I don’t really like midgets and they kinda bother me---No!!! Wait!! …Actually, those ugly little fucks freak me the fuck out!!! I cringe and my head sinks into my shoulders, and I made the worlds ugliest fucking face cause of the chills that hit when I see one of those little fuckers!! …Jesus Christ, its freaking me out just thinking about it. Damian Kaine says he’s 5’8” but I think that’s standing on his toes. Anyone under 5’9” should be moved to Australia cause you a fuckin midget!! And we don’t need to keep spreading that midget DNA around. Move them there and keep them there. …Fuckin little people, it’s like God played a cruel joke on you fools. Damian Kaine would have made a great fucking crooked cop, ya know?
Hes already got little man syndrome and have you watched his fucking promos!? Guy is just a fucking dickhead, ..that’s what makes a crooked asshole cop. The ones that give them all a bad name. ..But hitting you will be like hitting a fucking kid, and I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t have in my life – but I’ve never hit a kid. Its gonna be tough for me to look you in the eyes before I whoop your ass, so I hope you stand on the bottom rope before the match so I get that chance…Maybe then it’ll make me feel like Im hitting a real wrestler and not a little kid. I know this will probably piss you off because “you only respect the people who respect you..” ..And, you aint shit motherfucker. YOU would have to pin me to earn my respect because you aren’t on the top of the WCF and you never will be. There’s a whole lot of wrestlers that I have respect for and you aren’t anywhere near that list. …So, get mad. Cry about it. Whine about what an asshole I am. …I would tell you to shut the fuck up and get a tampon, but Im afraid you would trip on the string. …Those little ol legs would get all tangled up. I have to ask, do midgets get handicapped parking spots? Do you get special deals for being Gods leftovers? Cause there aint gonna be no breaks when you have to go up against ZT this week, you just get to be the next fucktwat to get left in our path of destruction. When I was watching promos the last two weeks, I see people call Crazy J and I juggalos. Or that were ICP fans. …Uumm, last I check we don’t paint our faces like clowns. Usually its white face with black around the eyes…For matches it’s a little more intricate designs. No way do we wear paint that resembles clowns or ICP at all. Crazy J fucking hates those guys, he can’t stand their shit!! Why not Kiss, or Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson? Those guys paint their faces too, why are we not trying to be those guys? We aint trying to be anyone...Cause to tell you the truth; I like rock more than I like rap anyway… When you paint your face now it automatically makes you juggalos in 2016, I get it…but we aint into that shit. Crazy J would rather listen to some Tech Nine while he snaps every bone in your body…Not IC-Fuckin-P. So, before we go any further into our WCF careers, let’s just point out that there aint no Juggalos in Zero Tolerance. …We don’t listen to that shit. We paint our faces because it’s who I am, and ---- ah fuck; I explained why I wear the paint two weeks ago and Im not doing it again!!! Bottom line is, my face don’t look like a fuckin clown and I don’t play no fuckin jokes. And if yall doubt that,…I’ll come find one of you three when you sleep…So when you wake up in the middle of the night and you hear your dog’s barkin, you better take a look cause Im creepin around your back yard… "
**********
He made it to the Celebrity Club, looked up at the pink neon sign and opened the door. The bell chimed as he did, but nobody looked up because people knew who it was. He had become a regular by this point, but he hadn’t come here to get drunk. He had always liked to have a few drinks after he worked out to take the edge off. The walls were lined with framed photos of celebrities, some with autographs, no doubt printed and not really signed. But Shep had learned the first time he was in here not to question the autographs; because the owner was proud of his collection and was convinced every picture was hand signed. Shep looked around the bar and noticed it was empty tonight except for a black gentlemen sitting at the bar. He recognized the man, it was Lucius, a dirty regular who worked late shifts at a factory. He always wore his dark blue work uniform that was stained in places and Shepard was sure that the man never washed it, ..based on the smell. Shepard walked over to the bar and put his bag on the stool to his right, and Lucius sat two stools down to his left. He didn’t have to say anything as John, the owner and bartender, pulled a clean shotglass from the shelf, filled it up and sat it in front of Shep.
“Hey Salem, how’s it going bud?” John was an older man who wore a JJ Watt Texans shirt that was a little too small around the belly and stretched out the picture of JJ Watt to an unnatural size, ..he looked deformed. John’s nose showed the classic signs of a drinker – it was big and red with small veins appearing in his chubby cheeks around his nose. “I didn’t see you on the WCF show last week? ….They decide you were too good for that place? Prolly beat ‘em all already, didn’t ya!?”
Shepard didn’t even make eye contact with John. John didn’t watch wrestling, he had only watched it to see if he had a famous customer; and Shepard was sure that one day John would have a picture of him inside the bar as well. And of course John would want him to sign it – and it would probably be the only legit autograph he had that wasn’t from a copy machine. Johns smile disappeared from his face and he stopped cleaning the glass he was working on, and he could see that something was wrong with Salem…Usually he would come in here and talk it up with John and whoever else was in here, but he wasn’t feeling it tonight. His father weighed heavily on his mind.
“I had some legal bullshit that I had to deal with, so I couldn’t make the trip with ZT last week.” Salem slammed down the shot glass and John went to refill it. “…And I just got a lot of shit on my mind tonight…Hasn’t been the best day.”
John only nodded as he slid the shotglass back to Shepard. “I like to go for a dip in the ocean when I have a lot on my mind.” John smiled, not really looking for a response. Shepard held the shotglass in his hand and noticed that Lucius was looking at him from the corner of his eye. “…what, Lucius?” He said dully. Lucius was a smartass, and Shep wasn’t really in the mood listen to his racist bullshit tonight.
“The ocean? …Don’t you know you crackers get soggy in the ocean?”
“Shut the fuck up, Lucius…I didn’t know you could buy beer with food stamps.” Shepard rolled his eyes and downed the second shot. Lucius went back to focusing his attention on the TV in the corner that was on the Olympics. Shep wasn’t sure if it was live or shit recorded earlier in the day. Not that he cared because women’s gymnastics were on - and it made him wish he had a girl as limber as some of those chic’s. He slid the empty shotglass back to John for a third round and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He suddenly felt hot and his eyes darted around the room. Sweat started to bead up around his hat as John slid the shotglass back his way. Shepard stared at the contents of the brown liquid.
“Don’t drink it” a voice inside his head told him.
Shepard closed his eyes and rubbed both temples with his fingers…”Fuck…not now. Not now...” He muttered to himself. He opened his eyes and looked back down at the drink. There was nothing wrong with it. He knew that….Didnt he? The voices returned:
“He killed your father…And he’ll kill you if you drink it. Its poison.”
“Drink it…Hurry, drink it all.”
“No! Don’t drink it! You’ll die!”
“You won’t die. It’s just alcohol. It’s ok. John didn’t kill your father. YOU killed your father.”
The last voice made him jump in the chair and he looked around the bar. Lucius was still watching the Olympics and John was cleaning up stuff behind the bar. Neither of them could see that mentally, he was losing his shit. Shepard looked around the bar, looked at the empty stools, the empty tables and tried to gather himself knowing that he was out of meds. He looked at the autographed framed picture of Diana Ross on the wall and she smiled at him, and then she waved. Shepard’s eyes got wide, a horrified look appeared on his face and he quickly turned the stool around and looked at the bar, the shotglass still in front of him. A voice in his head told him it was rude not to wave back at the great Diana Ross. He looked at the shot glass, the brown liquid inside, and saw something swimming around in the glass. He squinted his eyes and lowered his head a bit to get a better look at the contents of the shot glass. There wasn’t just something swimming around in there, there was a WHOLE LOT of somethings swimming around in his drink. He studied this for a moment and after several seconds he could clearly see what was swimming around in his drink. They were little round spots, and they had long tails that whipped back and forth in the liquid. “Fuckin jizz!!!!” he thought to himself. He looked up at John with hate filling his eyes and thought, “That bastard jacked off in my drink, didn’t he!?”
“Little bartender babbies. Drink up!”
“See, he killed your dad. And he will kill you to.”
“They’ll swim in your stomach you know.”
“Is that a knife? He has a knife!”
“choke ‘em on down, Shep!”
“Don’t drink it!!!! It’ll be the end!!!”
Shep swiped the shotglass off the bar, it flew through the large room and slammed into the opposite wall and shattered into little pieces that clinked against the hard floor. Lucius and John both froze, eyes wide and stared at Salem. He was covered in sweat and he his chest was heaving. He returned the same confused look to both the men and glanced at the TV. He saw Gabbie Douglas had just completed her floor exercise. She looked up and smiled, but when she saw her score the smile faded some. Shep noticed she scored a 14.366 and got a “yellow”…And he seemed more focused on this rather than John, who was now asking him if he was ok. He continued to watch Gabbies reaction as she looked up and into the camera and spoke to him, “You piece of shit. Do you really think John jacked off in your drink? You’re such a fucking loser.” She laughed and Shep was mortified as she continued, “You better watch out, because I think he’s going to kill you.”
Shep turned his attention back to the bar where John had been tapping him on the arm, only trying to get Shep to break out of his trance. Shep, not realizing this, only heard the fear in Gabbie Douglas’ voice that told him he was being attacked. He grabbed Johns arm, pulled him across the bar and slammed his face into the counter. There was a small “pop”..like the cracking of a knuckle as his face hit the counter. His nose shattered and blood instantly pooled there, and ran down from Johns face as he pulled back, dazed. “What the FUCK!? ..GODDAMNIT!!!”…John lurched back and grabbed the bar towel he always kept with him. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!! YA HEAR ME!?”
Shep was totally fucking confused and the voices in his head still remained; telling him one thing and then something else. John walked farther down the counter and grabbed the phone from the back and started to call the cops. He glared at Shepard as he waited for a response from the other end. Shep got off the stool and looked over at Lucius, who had pulled a gun from his back pocket at some point and tried to hide it in his hand between his legs. Shep could see the old racist bastard wanted to shoot him and he decided it was best if he left the bar. He backed his way to the door, never taking his eyes off the gun between Lucius’ legs, opened the door behind him and disappeared in the night.
************
(4:17am)
“They want you to kill yourself.”
“We think you should do it.”
“You killed your dad and now you can kill yourself.”
“Please! ..Dont!”
“Fuckin do it, damnit! There is nothing here for us”
“Shep, please…just back away.”
Salem didn’t even realize that he had walked back to the edge of the building and stood on its ledge. The wind blew hard, but it blew back toward the building – so no threat of Shep accidently falling before he decided to jump. He didn’t want his life to end, but if this is how the public wanted it, then that’s what he would do. How did these people know he was here, he wondered? And why do they hate him like this? Shep looked up at the moon in the sky but the night was cloudy and it remained mostly hidden. When he decided that he was ready to jump he looked back down at the street below – and it was empty. There were no people chanting for him to jump, nobody down there holding up signs… there were no cars going by. “Holy shit..” muttered to himself. “Im losing my fucking mind…it wasn’t real.”
A voice came from behind, “But I am.”
Sheps heart raced and he jumped as he spun around to see who was on the rooftop with him. He gazed around but didn’t see anything other than the AC units and the massive electrical boxes.
“Over here…C’mon..”
The voice came again and Shep balled his fists, waiting for whoever it was to jump out and attack him. The attack never came as he slowly took one step at a time, approaching each box with caution – certain his attacker was waiting on him. As he passed several AC units and electrical boxes he froze, and he saw who was talking to him. Setup on the rooftop was a small table, the kind of table kids eat on during Thanksgiving. The material on the table was ripped in pieces and a cake sat on the table. There was two chairs, and in one chair sat his father. He was wearing the same flannel shirt he wore the day he killed himself. His skin was pale gray and he had a massive wound on the right side of his head, ..the exit wound. Shep could see the ragged pieces of flesh that hung down over the exit wound, little hairs matted down with dried blood on the shriveling flesh. The outside of his right eye socket was gone and Shep could see the eyeball moving inside and his stomach churned, and then he vomited on the rooftop. His father still sat there in the chair, half his entire body covered in dry blood..He never blinked, but he only smiled as those cold purple lips stretched out across his face. He sat with his hands in his lap, his head cocked to the side allowing the right eyeball to slide in its socket that was half gone from the gunshot. Shepard took in the scene once again as he sat on his knees, vomit and saliva hanging down in long strands from his chin blowing in the wind. “This can’t be real” he thought, “None of this is fucking real…” He closed his eyes, shook his head a few times and reopened them. His father still at there in the chair next to the table with the cake on it, and he started to laugh… Chills went up Salems spine as his father continued to laugh and he got to his feet. His father, never moving his hands from his lap, told Salem to have a seat across from him. After a few moments of hesitation, Shep pulled the chair from the table and sat down as the voices returned.
“Hes back for revenge, Salem…Hes going to kill you.”
“Hes your father. He wouldn’t do that to you. Don’t listen.”
“Have some cake! …You know you want it.”
“Don’t eat the cake. Its been ground up with Rat poison.”
“Bullshit! Your father wouldn’t do that to you!!”
Salem tried to keep his calm and he wasn’t sure if this whole thing was real or not. Hadn’t he busted Johns nose at the bar earlier? He wasn’t sure if that was real either. He was confused, very confused. And he was scared. He looked at the cake, and it looked like a normal cake but he could see something in it…Small tiny green specs seemed to be all in the cake. What was it?” The voice replied:
“We told you. Rat poison.”
“Go ahead and eat it.”
“NO!!”
His father pulled his hand up from his lap, his fingernails were encrusted in dirt as he reached for the knife on the table. Fear struck Salems heart…Was this the end??? Was his father going to kill him after all these years!? His question was answered as his father plunged the knife into the cake and started to cut squares out. He set one on Shepards end of the table and shoved the other in his mouth. Sheps stomach turned again as he watched his father eat and saw pieces of the cake fall from the open wound on the right side of his face. His father’s cold, dead purple lips stretched across his face in a smile again, “Cake?” He asked. Shepard didn’t move - he only replied, “None of this is real…Its my condition. See, you’re fucking dead, so none of this can be real. ..Its just my mind..Im a schizo.”
His father stopped chewing the cake and a serious look came over his face. “Is it, Shep?” He asked. “How can you be certain?” Neither of the men spoke and Sheps father pulled something from under his shirt that was tucked into his jeans. He pulled out a gun, the end scratching his belly as he pulled it up. Shep could see the skin on is belly tear open, but no blood came out. He slammed the gun down on the little table, causing the table to bounce – and Shepard to jump. Shep stared at the gun on the table and he could see splatters of blood around the end of the barrel where his father had shot himself with it.
“Lets see how real this really is then, shall we?” The dead man asked as he picked up the gun and shoved the barrel into his own mouth. His pale gray finger pulled the trigger and nothing happened. He set the gun back down on the table and looked at Shep. Salem was still very confused and wanted to believe that this wasn’t real as he watched his father dig around for something in his pocket, and he fished out two bullets. He picked up the gun, popped out the magazine and inserted the two bullets. He slowly held the gun out across the table to Shep who didn’t take it…He only sat there looking on with a horrified look on his face. “Ya got two options son, you can stick the barrel in your mouth, or get to walkin over that ledge over there….C’mon and join me….I’ll show you how real this shit is."
Salem reached out with his left hand and picked the gun up off the table and gave it an odd look. (HEY!!) ..He heard something, but not sure what it was. It wasn’t the voices in his head, he was sure of that. His father sat at the table with his arms crossed and he smiled, then nodded his head at Shep as he stood up with the gun in his hand (HEY!!!) ….There it was again…What was that??
“C’mon son, pull the trigger and be with your pops..”
(Hey!!!)
Shepard raised the gun to the side of his head, the left side of his head, just like his father had. He looked at the old dead man who had a nasty grin on his face (HEY!!!) and nodded with satisfaction. Shepard closed his eyes and thought of his siblings, thought of his (HEY!!!) friends and his new career as he began to squeeze the trigger. Just before he did, he looked back up and didn’t see anything. His father was gone, the table and the cake were gone as well. …And that’s when he felt it. Something, or someone, had just hit him over the back of the head with force he had never felt in his entire life and he went facedown on the concrete building. …..“Hey!!!” It was the person who had hit him. And he knew that voice. Enter: Jaymz.
Shepard rolled over on his back and looked at the big Russian. He was over seven foot tall but he looked about 300 feet tall from down here. He saw Jaymz reach down and grab something lying next to him. It was the gun. ..But, if none of that was real – then how the fuck did he end up with a gun!? Jaymz popped out the clip and put the gun in his jacket pocket. He extended his huge hand out for Salem and he took it, and the giant picked him up off the floor and back to his feet. Jaymz was a beast of a man, he had deep scars and crevices in his face from all the razor wire and other weapons that had been in the ring when he fought Hardcore matches. He had a huge square face that never showed any emotion except for when he was angry. And you didn’t want to piss Jaymz off, because it wasn’t just Jaymz that you had to worry about it. It was the darkness that claimed his soul many years ago that men feared. He wore a long black coat that came down to his ankles and a cigarette that hung from the end of his mouth. Jaymz was fifty now and eight years retired from the ring, but he was a legend and proclaimed himself to be “the most dominate singles wrestler of all time.” Though he was old, there was never any doubt in anyone’s mind that he could come back to the ring and dominate like he had for soo many years. Shepard couldn’t look the giant in his eyes, and he didn’t want to look the giant in his eyes. He feared the darkness inside the man had taken over and he would see nothing but an eternity of blackness inside his eye sockets. …And the voices came again:
“Push him over the ledge. End him.”
“No, he is your friend.”
“Push him now, while you still have a chance!!”
"You cant kill Jaymz!"
Jaymz grunted, exhaled smoke from his nostrils and spoke in his deep, low voice. “Go ahead and try it kid. …See what happens.” Shepard didn’t know what to say…He hadn’t said a word, but it was obvious that Jaymz could hear the voices in his head; he could hear the threats being made to him in voices that weren’t his own. Salem wasn’t sure how this was possible and he was even surer that he didn’t want to know…at all. “Im, ..Im sorry. I didn’t say anything.”
“I know ya didn’t” Jaymz said as he flicked the end of the cigarette off the ledge of the building. “Its them voices ya hear….Were not that much different kid. You take a lot of the same meds that I do, you have a lot of the same issues that I do.”
Shepard looked confused, “How did you know I was here?”
Jaymz shrugged, “I know a lot of things…and I also know that you aren’t gonna come with me willingly. You look like you seen a ghost, and I reckon you have.” He took a step toward Shepard who recoiled because he still wasn’t sure what was real, and who was and wasn’t out to get him. Jaymz started to look irritated as the light from the moon hit the deep scars on his face and made them look like dark canyons on a foreign planet. He grabbed Shep by the Jersey sleeve and pulled him close. Shep tried to pull back, but he quickly realized the strength of Jaymz and he had no chance whatsoever to pull away. His feet skidded across the concrete as Jaymz pulled him close; he pushed back against Jaymz chest that felt like a wall of bricks (impressive for a fifty year old man) and he screamed out for Jaymz to let him go. He didn’t want to die like his father had and begged Jaymz not to shoot him. Jaymz had killed his father and now he was here to kill him!! ZT was all a setup, it was just a way for them to get him comfortable before they killed him!!
Jaymz frowned and knew the kid was still out of his mind. He could hear Shepard’s thoughts inside his own head, and he actually found them quite amusing. None of it was true, of course, and Jaymz felt a little pity for the kid – something he had never felt for anyone in his life except for his sweet Julie – while she was still alive. He grabbed Shep up by the front of the jersey and lifted him into the air, and found it amusing that Shep kicked and fought…Believing he actually had a chance to escape from Jaymz grip….but nobody did. The beginnings of a smile formed on Jaymz face as he looked Shepard in the eye, “Sorry kid, ..but we gotta get you outta here. ..You have a meeting to attend…”
With a deep yell, Jaymz slammed his head into Shepards with a dull thud and the fight from young Salem instantly stopped and his body went limp. Jaymz flung Shepard over his shoulder with ease, paused and pulled another cigarette from his jacket pocket. The flame from the lighter lit up his face, and it was a face marked with evil, death and the look of a man who had lived a lot, lot longer than fifty years on this planet. With the Exception of his Julie, Jaymz had never cared if people lived or died, not even his own friends…But there was something about Shepard, something special about him; something that interested the giant Russian ZT Enforcer. He had seen it early on when Crazy J and Erik Black told him they had a superstar in the making at the ZT wrestling school several months ago. This kid had skill and possessed the mindset that Jaymz himself had back in the day. The mindset that made the giant Russian one of the most deadly men the wrestling business had ever seen. …He saw it in Salem and Jaymz wanted to help mold him; he wanted to help make Salem into the next ZT superstar that would soon rule the world. Just like he had.
*************
"Besides being in the ring with a midget like I was saying eariler, were stuck in the ring with a guy who runs a group that looks a lot like the people from The Hills Have Eyes. Have you seen these fuckin idiots that follow Bishop around like a false God? I mean, here I am with fucked up yellow teeth and I PAINT MY FUCKIN FACE, and IM calling THEM fucked up lookin!? Yeah, if I can say that, then you KNOW they look like Louisiana swamp donkeys. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Why are they following him around like he’s going to improve their lives any? Looks to me like a bunch of fucking losers who are just hanging around waiting for the hand out. Or does he run one of those …oohhh…who were they? …oh yeah!!! ..The Heavens Gate people!! Those fucking idiots that went and killed themselves!! I don’t know if that’s the same thing that Bishop has going on, but if it is, go ahead and kill yourselves. Please. Just do the world a favor and take that posse of yours and put them out of their misery. …Jesus fuck, the overall IQ of the world would increase and there would be less welfare mooches. You can’t fuckin tell me those greasy, nasty bitches actually have fuckin jobs!!! Yall live in a big ass compound raping each other more than likely. Bishop walks around with his chin up high like he’s a fuckin King around those people, but were slap that look right the fuck off his face. All those little welfare followers won’t be around to save his ass when ZT gets ahold of him.
Bishop hasn’t been around here much longer than we have, so he’s still kinda new, but he’s about to find out that he’s old news. That he’s not the new guy that’s gonna come into the WCF and make a difference…Nope, not while ZT is hanging around. So I hope that he’s accomplished everything he wanted to here in the WCF; and I hope he made the impact he was hoping to when he arrived – cause were about to take the fucking wind out of his sails. Hes about to realize that it doesn’t matter where ZT is placed on the card; and it doesn’t matter who’s in the ring with us because we’re shining right now and there aint a damn thing stopping us from winning the match this week. You guys still aint even got to see the real Freekshow tag team yet, because in my first match it was all four of us in the ring together. Now it’s just me and the two ZT legends as Kira has his own battle to fight this week. One day Crazy J and I will get to show the world what’s up with the Freekshow tag team, but having Cash in our corner is just as good. That sonofabitch is fuckin crazy, you should see the fucker during the week when we train…That hillbilly is out of control, but he always got something funny to say. I doubt I see any of yall three laughing when Cash is in the ring though, you motherfuckers won’t smile for a week after Cash is done with yall. ..You wouldn’t want to smile anyway with all the missing teeth yall gonna have….I doubt that’s a problem for Bishop though, he looks like the guy that has to gum a sandwich cause he lost all this teeth ten years ago.
Again, does it look like anyone from the incest crew brushes their teeth or really cares about personal hygiene… Bishop prolly gonna be the smelliest motherfucker we’ve ever faced too; that old beard of his gonna have old tater tots in it …or some shit!! It’s like one of them Mexican girls that pull the knife out they titties, except Bishop pulls old snacks from his beard. ..Prolly where the posse’s food stamp card is hidden too! Yall just need to take ..”The Baron..” with you to, because he’s fucking useless. The Barons a German? I did Nazi that coming….har, har, ..yeah ok, I got lame jokes..... All that guy does is bitch and whine about Seth, and I’ve watched a few of his matches and there isn’t a damn thing Hes done to impress me. No, Im not real experienced and I have a long way to go to reach my potential – but I know the Baron aint even worth our fucking time, he should be easier to beat than the midget…At least the midget is a fast little bastard so he has that going for him…But the Baron is the weak link and if Bishop is smart he’ll keep his ass on the sideline…Im sure he can convince him to, then add him to his flock of retards…So go ahead and take him, drink your death drink or whatever it is, and you all can go to that burnt up warehouse and die together. Please. Do. The cops didn’t take you seriously last week because they probably thought the same thing – and that’s why they laughed at you.
So plan on making room for one more, because The Baron is your type of guy. But for real though, what kind of white trash shit you running up there anyway!? Ya know, from one white trash brother to another – that shits fucked up, even for whitetrash like me. Do you have that whole Warren Jeffs thing going on? You know, that dude in jail for having like twenty wives and 300 kids and marrying a 12 year old…For real, the dude has 300 kids. But he marries the girls off to their uncles, cousins, nephews…They want to keep that family bloodline closed…And have you seen how fucked up lookin some of those kids are these days!? Holy shit!!! I swear you got the same thing going on down there. It’s just one big nasty wife swapping incest orgy….Jesus Christ, Im gonna be sick… I guess Im just high-class whitetrash then, but I wasn’t aware we had levels of whitetrash-ness…..is that a word? Whitetrash-ness? ..Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Im just glad we weren’t raised like Bishop and his band of Brousins, Duncles and whatever incest shit they come up with. Im gonna try to avoid moves this week that have my face ANYWHERE near Bishops face….I don’t want that greasy, nasty beard touching me…uuggghhh…Shit freaks me out!! It reminds me of the first vagina I ever saw when I was about to get laid for the first time..uuuugghhhh…someone needed to take a lawnmower to that shit. It scared me. You know what it’s like seeing something like that for the first time!? Bitch look like she had Whoopi Goldberg between her legs…uuggghhh….Shit freaked me out. So when I see a big nasty beard like that fuckin thing on Bishops face – it reminds me of that horrible hairy thing I encountered. Bad memories.
ZT just gonna turn up the fire and make bitch biscuits out of yall this week, and we’ll keep on plowing through the WCF until we enter the group of the WCF elite. ..None of our opponents would know anything about the group of elite wrestlers here; two of them will spend a lifetime fighting at the midcard level and taking on the new guys trying to come up every week. Trump talks about this wall that he wants to build if he gets elected, but the only wall he gonna build is a wall between ZT and the rest of yall. After this match and we keep rolling, yall about to be more scared of ZT than Trump is of Mexicans, than Jews are of The Baron. I bet the Baron has one of those sweet new German microwaves, it seats 25 I hear. I bet the Baron can go ahead and get the toe tags and body bags ready for yall, ..Im sure he has a few hookups in that department. Go ahead and find someone to come identify your bodies because I don’t know if we’ll leave anything recognizable…So I hope you three have some tattoos that set you apart from the rest, ..it’ll make it easier on your families after we end your careers in the ring this week. I know you guys laugh at the hillbilly and the two guys with their faces painted, and I see Kiras opponent doing the same thing…But like I said, get your laughs in while you can…Make all the jokes you want now, because theres going to be a time when none of you will be laughing, you’ll move out of our way backstage when we pass by and you’ll do whatever it takes to avoid us in and out of the ring. Were just getting started, and you three boys are just part of the warmup for Zero Tolerance"
*************
He wasn’t quite sure where he was when he came to; but he was extremely aware of the throbbing pain in his head as he groaned and his eyes adjusted to the light. ..The ZT building. Eriks office. Comfortable leather couch. He remembered Jaymz saying something about a meeting. He was instantly scared he would get fired, …but they had worked so hard all week for this match!!! He sat up and looked around at the massive room filled with the finest furniture that money could buy, and there was Jaymz. Slumped back in the couch on the opposite wall with his head tilted back looking at the ceiling. The cigarette between his massive fingers needed to be ashed 5 minutes ago, but who was gonna say anything? Salem got up from the couch but before his ass could actually leave the expensive leather, Jaymz spoke up in the deep voice that echoed throughout the room.
“Sit yer ass down!”
Fuck yeah!!! You better believe Shepard set his ass down!! And he wasn’t about to say a fucking word!! Not to Jaymz. Nope. Fuck that. He would rather stab his own eyeballs out with a spork than backtalk Jaymz. The giant finally moved, sat up right on the couch, smashing the cigarette in the ashtray and rose to his feet. He adjusted his jacket and started to walk toward Shepard who couldn’t do anything but freeze. “I should just throw your ass out the fucking window and---“
Jaymz was cut off as the office door closed behind them. “Settle down old man..” It was Erik Black. “And quit scaring the kid. Were not gonna kill him, …yet.”
A grin formed over Jaymz face, and Shepard wanted to run. Erik came in and sat down behind his desk, never looking at Jaymz but only at Shepard. And Shepard didn’t like this look either. ..It wasn’t good. He didn’t know what the fuck he had done, but whatever it was – it had really pissed them off.
“I’ll tell you what” Erik said confidently as he relaxed into his chair, “I’ll give you a stay of execution until your two teammates get here…”
