Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 21:38:32 GMT -5
Part 1: "The Good Doctor" Is a Bad Show
The smell of clean. A gray box. Wires, stitches, and welcome desks. The steril and subdued world that flows forth from the confines of a hospital bed is not entirely unenjoyable. As immediately dreary as it may be at times - filled to the brim with notions of death and sickness - the busybody atmosphere develops into a natural hum as one watches the world move from a point of absolute stillness, but maybe that is just an idle mind trying to make work from empty hours. Through passing bodies and brief examinations, it is easy become fixated on the microcosm of worldly observance, which is to say that a peek into the lives of a numbered few is quite intoxicating for the naturally curious.
“Stop staring at them.” A curiosity my sister, Alicia, does not share.
“They’ve been quietly arguing amongst themselves for the last hour,” I planted my head back on the pillow, obscuring my view of the couple whispering angrily at each other while wildly gesticulating over a subject gone unheard. Eyes pried to find something to occupy the stare. White panel ceiling, dimpled a million times over, hopelessly detailed in a washed out environment, “I kinda wanna know what about.”
“Bills, family, sickness, any number hard decisions that need to be made in a hospital,” a shake of her head tried to dispel the train of thought, clearly put off by the topic, “it doesn’t matter, you don’t need to know everything.”
I disagree. No knowledge goes to waste, but a moment of silence descended upon us as I chose not to pursue that line of discussion. I ran my thumb over my fidget cube staring at the ceiling while she sat in a bubble of her own thoughts, stewing over a great number of things, or maybe one heavy topic that weighed her down to the point that her attention on anything else failed to overtake it.
“Hmm,” she huffed, brimming with an unobservable feeling. A strange little bird she can be at times, like a peninsula trying to be an island. How many things did she keep locked in her head for the sake of knowing they were to herself, unknowable to an external world? “Why did it have to be like this, Bobby?”
“Take a number on that question, Ally, gonna need to know a lot more about the universe before I can answer,” I snicker.
“You tore muscles in your arm!” My jokes rarely land with her. I feel the pin poke a hole in my mood, the air whistling out with my enthusiasm for conversation.
“These things happen.”
“Goddamn it,” She presses her face into the palms of her hands, “Imagine having to explain it to mom. ‘No-yeah, mother, he willingly does this to himself. No, I don’t know how many visits to the Emergency Room we’ve made in the last two years alone.’ She yells and screams,hysterical beyond all belief.”
“Not her problem.”
“You’re her son."
“You’d think so, until she talks about me, down to me, like I’m not even there. Boy, do holidays become fun when she doesn’t treat me like I can make decisions.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Families are dramatic by nature. That’s why they make good trashy TV. If what I talk about sounds soap opera-ish, then consider the subject, not the speaker.”
“You live in your own strange little world sometimes, I swear.”
“You don’t see it, because she doesn’t talk down to you,” I close my eyes tight, the only point in my body that did not suffer from a tensing of muscles, “think of it this way, if she stopped thinking anything I did was this major mistake because I could never ‘know better’, you wouldn’t have to explain it to her as if she was prepared for me to be done with this ‘phase’, and instead she could take it like a disappointed parent who at least understood I am well aware of the risks. She treats it like I’m a kid playing with a stove top.”
“She doesn’t just look at you as a diagnosis…”
“Wrestling was my choice, not being in my life after I made that decision was her’s,” now it was my turn to huff, dramatic and all, the flare of frustration too much to resist the urge for showy reactions. It had not been an easy career up to that point, as many don’t find the idea of an uncharismatic autistic wrestler too thrilling to advertise - my prowess in the ring the only factor keeping me employed - but it was hardly a matter my family could dissuade me from, and the fact that Alicia didn’t entirely try to was probably the reason she was the only one I continued to speak with. That and the fact that I slept on the couch in her apartment.
“She didn’t choose to not be in your life, you two basically screamed eachother out,” she looked up, eyes pleading to make me understand, but I came by my stubbornness honestly, and no person with it in their blood gives ground easily, “She cares, but anytime you two talk, a switch flips and you both lose it, and then I can’t even manage to get you over for Christmas, much less for lunch.”
“I don’t care,” a desperate defensiveness, a look that I never carried well, lacking the swiftness to make it appear as anything but a transparent deflection. The room transforms into a hostile mesh of electric energy neither of us want to touch. Don’t talk to me. Don’t touch me. Don’t think about me. A stone rests on top of my thoughts as I feel a restlessness kick up from the center of my being.
“Neither of you ever do,” I felt the air rush from my body. Her words, despite being aimed at both sides, felt accusatory towards me alone.
“Whatever,” stuck in a bed, I am robbed of a proper catharsis. The thoughts that come aren’t retorts or speakable things as much as a sensation; whirling of bitter winds trapped in a jar. Its unsatisfying in so many ways. Thrusted into a barrage
She refused to leave my bedside, stubborn as myself if not more-so, and her presence a reminder of a fight we both desperately wanted to escape the oppressive grasp of. The electricity buzzed deep in my head. For a span of time we remained locked in a heated stalemate.
I hated her, but I didn’t really.
I wanted to be alone, but without the solitude.
No state of being seemed truly fulfilling, and amidst pondering either back and forth, the amorphous mix of emotion and time (maybe an hour or two?) gradually worked over the hardened mood, eroding and blowing the dust, and before I knew it, my head was filled less with a charged anger and more of its lingering ache, a vacuum waiting for anything to take its place.
“Do you remember,” Alicia chuckled to herself, a slightly weighted chuckle tinted with the aforementioned ache which I now realized plagued both of us, “when the doctor came in to talk to mom and dad about your autism? You were sitting beside them, and when he mentioned that you were ‘high-functioning’, you thought that meant you were this super genius that operated on a level higher than everyone else.”
“Oh god,” an involuntary laugh escaped me as I placed a hand over my face, feeling my cheeks redden. I didn’t want to laugh, reluctant to give her the satisfaction, but a memory, akin to emotion, strikes quick and with efficiency.
“You were so proud of yourself,” her chuckle grew steadily into unstifled laughter, “you literally walked up to one of your teachers and told her you were smarter than her and that you should be teaching the class!”
“I’m not so sure I wasn’t right,” a smile breaks through.
“You used to be so boisterous when you were younger,” she slid down in her seat, “now you’re so quiet most of time.”
“That a complaint?” I lazily turn my head towards her.
“No,” a pause, “Just an observation.”
“When I was younger, the thought of being...observed never crossed my mind,” I shrug, “much like any kid I guess, but ya know, when you’re a bit louder or odder, its draws attention. Adults tell you to stop doing things, kids tell you what you do is weird, family try to keep you from embarrassing yourself. All very small things in nature, I guess, but it accumulates. You examine yourself, everything else, and try to swallow down the differences, and you get use to thinking someone is always watching, waiting to point something out.”
She went to speak, but her words caught in her throat as she looked at me.
“It sucks, but you get used to it.” I follow up.
And that’s the end of the hospital scene, I guess. No big dramatic ending, only the quiet chuckling of two temperamental people. Not sure why I brought it up, but I tend to think about it every once in a while.
Part 2: Rocky, but with Less Brain Damage
With a new mountain comes heightened stakes.
A night sky strangled of any stars dominated over head as we glided through the streets, illuminated in the eclectic passing of city lights, our lives tinged orange by their dull glow. We sat in the silence of a lesson learned; no humiliation would be spared for new talent. My first night wrestling for WCF and I stumbled into something worse than a disaster; a goddamn tragedy.
Sore and fuming, the last bit of my energy went into tapping a finger against my forehead as I peered down at the dashboard, riddled with a million flash thoughts refusing to form a coherence. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. The only constant in my head as I considered all sort of solutions, such as disappearing forever in a deep void.
“Bobby-”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’ll be al-”
“Alright. Got it. I have a lot of things to think about. Give me a bit.” Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw.
“Bobby…” She talks, but I can’t hear her. The finality of the events that have occurred sent a roaring through my ears. All external sounds, visuals, or entire existences have been devoured by the crisis. Breath shallow, heart thumping. The car is a box. Tap tap tap on my forehead as I feel the frustration well up. Whirling of bitter winds trapped in a jar.
The immensity of what has happened lowers itself upon me. For everyone else it was entertainment, or the failure to be entertained. Much like cheap pulpy novel, for the consumer to take in and then disregard, but it would never leave me so easily. The car is worse than a box, it’s a locked box, the buildings won’t stop moving. She drives and I lack control. I never drive, anything, not even my career. I sit in a locked box all my life, lead from one spot to another as the world caves in around me.
The edges of my being starts to fade and a dizziness thunders through me, nausea bubbling through me.
“Pull the car over.”
“I’m not goi-”
“PULL IT OVER!” Surprised even myself with the shriek I amit, I keep my eyes glued to the dash to not catch the startled and maybe scared reaction Alicia is giving me. Soon as the car stops, I shove the door open and stumble out onto the sidewalk for air. The cold breeze shocks the system and the openness of the entire block hits me. I regain a sense of solidness as I fumble through my pockets for a piece of gum and happen upon a card instead. Pulling it out of my pocket, I stare at it as I let my body go lax against a brick wall and slide down until my ass touches the concrete sidewalk. Tobias Gibson
-/-/-
Where is the headquarters for WCF? Some big city, filled with typical big city motifs, with slight personalizations. The building isn’t particularly striking to anyone who has seen their fair share, but rather essential as three (or four?) years after the aforementioned stint in a dreary hospital, I found myself within the bubble of a new venture.
Much like the hospital, the atmosphere spilled over with a busyness that could easily overwhelm, but none of the pretenses of a lingering calm. This was a corporation where time itself moved too slow for anyone’s tastes, and I was the meek boulder planted in the middle of it, attempting to avoid direct pathways, hovering close to a marble wall as I watched important strangers streamline their lives in movements from one room to another, holding papers, folders, and pens, all of which were relevant to any number of aspects related to the company that summoned my very presence this day; microcosms piled on top of microcosms to form a macro. For all I knew, one of those papers had my name on it, fitting as I intended to become a puzzle piece in the grander picture.
My sister stood in the direct stream of movement without hesitation, raising an eyebrow at me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Staying out of the way.”
She just stares.
“What?” I cocked an eyebrow, a bit perturbed that she didn’t just come out and tell me what I was doing wrong.
“You’re supposed to be a new talent, we can’t have you looking meek before we discuss your contract,” I couldn’t tell if this advice came from her being my sister or from being my lawyer/agent, but regardless I moved from the wall and hesitantly joined her in the way of traffic as we sauntered (well she sauntered, I kept my head down) to the elevator.
“I DEMAND a meeting!” someone yelled behind us.
“I’m sure if you called ahead, we could try to pencil you in,” replied another.
“I PERSONALLY know Corey Black! You want me to call him up and tell him you’re keeping me from entering?!” The hustle of the room stopped. As if watching a hive mind activate, all eyes slowly centered in on the confrontation brewing. I even found myself turning to catch whatever strangeness was taking place, so captivating are our little dramas, “I will have you out of a job before the lunch hour is up, so help me whatever deity allows both you and me to share the same existence!”
If I knew the proper names for various parts of a suit, or the specificity of the colors outside their core categories, I’d might be able to properly describe the man’s ostentatious attire, give proper cadence to his sense of presentation and unlock a deeper idea of who he is as a human being, but sadly all such information was blocked out to make room for Gundam Wing trivia, and thus we must all contend with the fact that I can only say that he donned a rather expensive looking suit without a tie, and a gold chain. The detail I felt more relevant to the situation was the plainly irritated look of the receptionist. Note: I did not say intimidated or meek, but irritated. If the man-in-question did have an important connection, she didn’t care.
“Well, I’m sure I can get Mr. Black on the line here…” she picked up the phone on her desk and began to dial, but before she finished, the man snatched the phone from her and gently set it back on the receiver.
“Er… No need to bother such a busy man,” he laughed nervously, “There is no reason to get you reprimanded just because you didn’t know I was a friend of his. If you wouldn’t mind asking your security guard to let me through, I’m sure we can both move on with our respective day.”
“Sir, I’m going to level with you,” her glare said not a million things, but only one; ‘I’m not here to fuck around’, “You’re not getting into this building. Keep working the indys, if we like what we see, we will call you, and then I will happily let you in and not let security know you are causing a disruption here.”
“Oh come on!” He threw his hands in the air, “Do you know how hard it is for a manager? Every dumbass thinks they have charisma and a savvy business strategy, but when it comes time to deliver, they can barely stammer out a full phrase or go three seconds without rattling off a cliche or platitude.”
DING! Our elevator had arrived. Alicia shook my shoulder to get me moving, as I was still stuck gawking at the man now lamenting to a receptionist he was once demanding to be let pass.
“Look, if you have a pretty boy who talks like a skipping record, give me a c…” the elevator door closed, taking my sister and I up to a new found future.
Not much to note in the meeting. Alicia did most of the talking. I sat and made sure the chair didn’t fly away. As far as I could tell, she didn’t find anything objectionable in the contract, and her negotiating focused more on fixing details to my advantage. The only thing I can remember is that the agent we were talking to apparently felt so unnerved by my stare that he decided to voice as much. Alicia, ever the professional, remained civil, but allowed her tone to chastise the man for a lack of professionalism. We all signed, and with that, I was a ‘superstar’ or at least an employee for WCF; earning enough money to live off of for the first in my career.
Dopeness.
Upon exiting the WCF headquarters, we found almost every windshield sporting a less-than-new (apparent by bend and fray) business card:
TOBIAS GIBSON / Wrestling’s Greatest Manager
New York City, New York
ToGibson Inc. XXX-XXX-XXXX
The owner was obvious. I kept hold of it for the sake of amusement, as such memories should be recalled every now and again, thinking of it as no more than that, a trinket.
-/-/-
Now I stare at its cheap design and generic font.
“You can’t be serious,” surprise over took me as I found Alicia sitting beside me, gazing at the business card in my hand, “are you really considering giving this guy a call?”
“No,” I held the card out to her, “I’m terrible on the phone, you should be the one who calls him.”
“You don’t need a manager,” she crossed her arms, as if denying them the right to take the card from me, “Tonight was straight garbage, but…”
“I can’t have you out there with me,” I interrupted her, “I’ve revelled in the ring being the one place where I can be completely independent, where my skill outshined thousands of others, but I’m not good enough in the ring to get by on that alone anymore. I walked head first into a minefield. My mic work is shit, I have no personality to exude, I’m not going to be able to push t-shirts with just a cold stare, and if I don’t do something soon, they’re going to learn that pretty quick”
“Saying I don’t have enough charisma to be your manager?” she smiled and playfully punched my shoulder. She was always one of those types who could naturally lighten the mood with humor, unlike myself where it always comes off as nervous energy, and godless her for it, but I had no chuckle to give nor a penny to compensate her efforts.
“If you come out there with me, it’s odd, odd enough to be made note of. Then I’m the weird autistic guy who needs his sister to take care of him and wipe of spittle when he drools. Managers are nothing out of the ordinary, and then I have a fighting chance.”
“But why this guy?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, “I guess I have a soft spot for shitty people down on their luck.”
There is always a moment right before a decision is made irreversible that one stands on the precipice of a moment, peering in through a fog and try to gaze at what would happen next. The moment is usually filled with a palpable anxiety that one can almost see radiating from their body. Every time I’ve had that feeling I’ve embraced a level of hesitance in one way or another to prolong the finality of a choice. Not now. When she took that piece of paper out of my hand, the relief over took the twisting in the depths of my soul. She made the call and all I had to do was sit there.
“He said he wants to talk to you,” she hands me the phone after a few minutes of talk. I stare at it for a moment before taking it, “says he likes ‘direct communication’ ‘no middle man shit’ or something dumb like that.”
I take the phone and reluctantly answer, “hello?”
“Hey,” I could immediately hearing chewing in my ear along with him talking with his mouth full of food, “you Ron?”
“Rob, Robert Simmons, yeah,” the sound of smacking food sent my brain into furious spasms, but I bit down on my lip and kept calm.
“Yeah, you’re agent there told me (chewing) that you got this, um, brain thing,” he took a moment to swallow his food, but taking another bite before continuing this nauseating conversation, “so what, does that mean you like dinosaurs or some shit.”
“When I first saw you, you were wearing a gold chain,” I kept my voice level, flat, and without frustration, “should I surmise you have an obsession with cocaine and cheap prostitutes?”
“Bobby!” Alicia interjects, but over the line I heard a hard laugh.
“You’re alright kid,” he finally stopped chewing in my ear as he swallowed his food, “don’t care if you do have turrets or whatever. Respect anyone with that kind of wit. Know what, come over to my place in about three days and we’ll talk business.”
“Your place is in New York I assume?”
“What? Oh, nah. I live in Georgia. New York just looks better on a business card,” with that he took another bite of whatever the hell he was eating, “I’ll text you the address, see ya in three days, kiddo.”
Part 3: The Left Hand of Markness
To say that Tobias Gibson was an interesting character would be a bit of an understatement. Apparently in his six years of being a manager (after two short years of performing as a wrestler himself) he has been fired by thirteen different wrestlers. He offered this information openly in order to tell us know he is a ‘hard man to work with’, but more for the sake of letting us know that none of those who have fired him have made it to the big show, something he figured important for us to consider when employing him.
“And the way I see it, you’ve ALREADY made it to the big time,” he sipped his coffee while I looked around his cluttered studio apartment, “so half the job is done. Now you just need to make it big IN the big time.”
“Astute” Alicia rolled her eyes.
“Look, being the voice of a superstar means I don’t have to be able to articulate the most logical ideas, it means I capture people with an emotional veracity,” He pushed over a stack of magazines off of his couch and sat down
“Waiting to see if that’s true,” despite my wishes, my sister still wore her skepticism plainly upon her face.
“But, enough about me. Time to talk about the talent over there. I like to know all of client’s weaknesses. So, when did you become...autistic?”
“Well, my mom said it was after I got vaccinated,” my sister shot my a look of disbelief as I spoke, but I ignored her and continued, “math started making a lot of sense afterwards, but people got a lot more confusing.”
“Bobby!” My sister put her head in her hands, but Tobias looked at us with a level of confusion, upon realizing he didn’t get the joke, she decided to explain it to him, “Autism isn’t ‘caught’ nor does one ‘get it’ in their lives. People are born with it.”
“Like a super power,” god bless his heart for trying.
“I like to think so,” I reply sporting an obnoxiously large grin.
“Okay okay, whatever, point taken. Let’s change the subject, I hate talking about my client’s weaknesses anyways,” he sets his cup down on an ashtray right next to a coaster, “you’ve brought me in at a hell of a time. I’m not sure if the company is trying to push you or humiliate you by pitting you against former world champ Bonnie Blue.”
I felt my chest tighten. An immense respect watching from afar translated into a terrible fear as the reality of her skill pitted against mine crashed down on top of me. My hometown is unextraordinary, my life has been even less so, placed in the pathway of such a noted colossus of the industry felt like futility fastly approaching to end my career still in the crib and send me back to that unextraordinary life only moments in the spotlight.
“Scared kid?” he chuckled as he watched me.
“Scared, yes,” my eyes remained fixed upon the cup resting on the ashtray, “I’ve spent years working on building something that I can’t even call a legacy yet. Years of bruises and hospital trips. To a lot of people I am STILL just a weird kid from Wisconsin, and I look at Bonnie Blue and know that there are people out there with enough legitimacy and skill that they could take even that from me. Even before I mattered to a single person, the floor could fall out from under me. With her there is a history, a legacy, and even if I win, she is still on the fast track to a spot in the hall-of-fame. How could I compare?
“But,” I look up, “Only scared for now. Scared until the very hour I walk into the area, maybe even until I walk onto the entrance ramp, but not beyond that, and never in the ring. People gave me the nickname The Stone Crow, because of a trait I have no real control over or active awareness of. It’s honestly a stupid thing, and I’ve resented it, but I’ve found I’ve been able to keep it because in that ring I don’t shake, I don’t second guess, and I don’t fold. That’s something I’ve invested much pride into.”
“So you’re telling me you’re tough as fuck,” Tobias rolled his eyes, “well, la-di-d…”
“No, what I’m telling you is that a performer of Blue’s caliber has every right to scare me, and to claim toughness in the face of a clear disadvantage is stupidity, not strong willed,” I fidgeted with a corner of a discarded newspaper page dated some months back, trying to find my thoughts and properly express them, “what I’m telling you is I could lose and lose hard, but if I do, it won’t be because of the pressure or nerves. Blue will simply have bested me, but thats a wall no level of notoriety or fanfare can climb. If she wants to accomplish anything, it’ll be through a full force effort against someone who knows he has everything to lose.”
“You mean nothing to lose,” he took a sip from his drink and is about to place it back on the tray, Alicia reaches under and switches the tray with the actual coaster.
“People often brag about having nothing to lose, and how that’s the scariest thing about them. Maybe it does make them scary, but rarely effective. If history was ever moved by anything, its a series of people who knew what the stakes were when opposed by those of the inverse, which is to say when fighting those lost in the moment that their history encapsulates, which is to say those left ignorant in the splendor of their success. I’m nobody to Bonnie, barely shit on a shoe, and this potential landslide that is threatening to swallow up my career is beyond her. There is something bubbling under the surface she couldn’t begin to comprehend by this blank faced jobber.
“And the thing is, at one point she will see it. She will look me in the eye, past the stoney glare so many people love to take note of, and what she will see is a man that fate has left alive long enough to prove there must be a reason for that life, and that I have every intention of taking the opportunity to its fullest reach. She will realize it and it will be far beyond the point of doing her any good.”
“Sounds like you’re ready to walk into hell, kiddo,” he laughs “I love it.”
“Well, I made a choice to get into this business a long time ago, and people a lot closer to me have tried to get me out, and I feel indebted to them to prove them wrong for ever trying to stop me,” I take a moment, considering a thought before I smirk towards Tobias, “besides, I’m naturally curious, I want to know what happens when a Stone Crow flies over the shadow of a once great warrior and into that warrior’s kingdom. Nothing quite like playing off your homefield for some excitement.”
“You’ve sold me,” Tobias patted me on the shoulder, “If you wanna walk in hell, at the very least I can wait outside the doors."
I traded a glance with Alicia and shrugged, “Maybe we’ll find out I’m a genius after all, haha.”
The smell of clean. A gray box. Wires, stitches, and welcome desks. The steril and subdued world that flows forth from the confines of a hospital bed is not entirely unenjoyable. As immediately dreary as it may be at times - filled to the brim with notions of death and sickness - the busybody atmosphere develops into a natural hum as one watches the world move from a point of absolute stillness, but maybe that is just an idle mind trying to make work from empty hours. Through passing bodies and brief examinations, it is easy become fixated on the microcosm of worldly observance, which is to say that a peek into the lives of a numbered few is quite intoxicating for the naturally curious.
“Stop staring at them.” A curiosity my sister, Alicia, does not share.
“They’ve been quietly arguing amongst themselves for the last hour,” I planted my head back on the pillow, obscuring my view of the couple whispering angrily at each other while wildly gesticulating over a subject gone unheard. Eyes pried to find something to occupy the stare. White panel ceiling, dimpled a million times over, hopelessly detailed in a washed out environment, “I kinda wanna know what about.”
“Bills, family, sickness, any number hard decisions that need to be made in a hospital,” a shake of her head tried to dispel the train of thought, clearly put off by the topic, “it doesn’t matter, you don’t need to know everything.”
I disagree. No knowledge goes to waste, but a moment of silence descended upon us as I chose not to pursue that line of discussion. I ran my thumb over my fidget cube staring at the ceiling while she sat in a bubble of her own thoughts, stewing over a great number of things, or maybe one heavy topic that weighed her down to the point that her attention on anything else failed to overtake it.
“Hmm,” she huffed, brimming with an unobservable feeling. A strange little bird she can be at times, like a peninsula trying to be an island. How many things did she keep locked in her head for the sake of knowing they were to herself, unknowable to an external world? “Why did it have to be like this, Bobby?”
“Take a number on that question, Ally, gonna need to know a lot more about the universe before I can answer,” I snicker.
“You tore muscles in your arm!” My jokes rarely land with her. I feel the pin poke a hole in my mood, the air whistling out with my enthusiasm for conversation.
“These things happen.”
“Goddamn it,” She presses her face into the palms of her hands, “Imagine having to explain it to mom. ‘No-yeah, mother, he willingly does this to himself. No, I don’t know how many visits to the Emergency Room we’ve made in the last two years alone.’ She yells and screams,hysterical beyond all belief.”
“Not her problem.”
“You’re her son."
“You’d think so, until she talks about me, down to me, like I’m not even there. Boy, do holidays become fun when she doesn’t treat me like I can make decisions.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Families are dramatic by nature. That’s why they make good trashy TV. If what I talk about sounds soap opera-ish, then consider the subject, not the speaker.”
“You live in your own strange little world sometimes, I swear.”
“You don’t see it, because she doesn’t talk down to you,” I close my eyes tight, the only point in my body that did not suffer from a tensing of muscles, “think of it this way, if she stopped thinking anything I did was this major mistake because I could never ‘know better’, you wouldn’t have to explain it to her as if she was prepared for me to be done with this ‘phase’, and instead she could take it like a disappointed parent who at least understood I am well aware of the risks. She treats it like I’m a kid playing with a stove top.”
“She doesn’t just look at you as a diagnosis…”
“Wrestling was my choice, not being in my life after I made that decision was her’s,” now it was my turn to huff, dramatic and all, the flare of frustration too much to resist the urge for showy reactions. It had not been an easy career up to that point, as many don’t find the idea of an uncharismatic autistic wrestler too thrilling to advertise - my prowess in the ring the only factor keeping me employed - but it was hardly a matter my family could dissuade me from, and the fact that Alicia didn’t entirely try to was probably the reason she was the only one I continued to speak with. That and the fact that I slept on the couch in her apartment.
“She didn’t choose to not be in your life, you two basically screamed eachother out,” she looked up, eyes pleading to make me understand, but I came by my stubbornness honestly, and no person with it in their blood gives ground easily, “She cares, but anytime you two talk, a switch flips and you both lose it, and then I can’t even manage to get you over for Christmas, much less for lunch.”
“I don’t care,” a desperate defensiveness, a look that I never carried well, lacking the swiftness to make it appear as anything but a transparent deflection. The room transforms into a hostile mesh of electric energy neither of us want to touch. Don’t talk to me. Don’t touch me. Don’t think about me. A stone rests on top of my thoughts as I feel a restlessness kick up from the center of my being.
“Neither of you ever do,” I felt the air rush from my body. Her words, despite being aimed at both sides, felt accusatory towards me alone.
“Whatever,” stuck in a bed, I am robbed of a proper catharsis. The thoughts that come aren’t retorts or speakable things as much as a sensation; whirling of bitter winds trapped in a jar. Its unsatisfying in so many ways. Thrusted into a barrage
She refused to leave my bedside, stubborn as myself if not more-so, and her presence a reminder of a fight we both desperately wanted to escape the oppressive grasp of. The electricity buzzed deep in my head. For a span of time we remained locked in a heated stalemate.
I hated her, but I didn’t really.
I wanted to be alone, but without the solitude.
No state of being seemed truly fulfilling, and amidst pondering either back and forth, the amorphous mix of emotion and time (maybe an hour or two?) gradually worked over the hardened mood, eroding and blowing the dust, and before I knew it, my head was filled less with a charged anger and more of its lingering ache, a vacuum waiting for anything to take its place.
“Do you remember,” Alicia chuckled to herself, a slightly weighted chuckle tinted with the aforementioned ache which I now realized plagued both of us, “when the doctor came in to talk to mom and dad about your autism? You were sitting beside them, and when he mentioned that you were ‘high-functioning’, you thought that meant you were this super genius that operated on a level higher than everyone else.”
“Oh god,” an involuntary laugh escaped me as I placed a hand over my face, feeling my cheeks redden. I didn’t want to laugh, reluctant to give her the satisfaction, but a memory, akin to emotion, strikes quick and with efficiency.
“You were so proud of yourself,” her chuckle grew steadily into unstifled laughter, “you literally walked up to one of your teachers and told her you were smarter than her and that you should be teaching the class!”
“I’m not so sure I wasn’t right,” a smile breaks through.
“You used to be so boisterous when you were younger,” she slid down in her seat, “now you’re so quiet most of time.”
“That a complaint?” I lazily turn my head towards her.
“No,” a pause, “Just an observation.”
“When I was younger, the thought of being...observed never crossed my mind,” I shrug, “much like any kid I guess, but ya know, when you’re a bit louder or odder, its draws attention. Adults tell you to stop doing things, kids tell you what you do is weird, family try to keep you from embarrassing yourself. All very small things in nature, I guess, but it accumulates. You examine yourself, everything else, and try to swallow down the differences, and you get use to thinking someone is always watching, waiting to point something out.”
She went to speak, but her words caught in her throat as she looked at me.
“It sucks, but you get used to it.” I follow up.
And that’s the end of the hospital scene, I guess. No big dramatic ending, only the quiet chuckling of two temperamental people. Not sure why I brought it up, but I tend to think about it every once in a while.
Part 2: Rocky, but with Less Brain Damage
With a new mountain comes heightened stakes.
A night sky strangled of any stars dominated over head as we glided through the streets, illuminated in the eclectic passing of city lights, our lives tinged orange by their dull glow. We sat in the silence of a lesson learned; no humiliation would be spared for new talent. My first night wrestling for WCF and I stumbled into something worse than a disaster; a goddamn tragedy.
Sore and fuming, the last bit of my energy went into tapping a finger against my forehead as I peered down at the dashboard, riddled with a million flash thoughts refusing to form a coherence. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. The only constant in my head as I considered all sort of solutions, such as disappearing forever in a deep void.
“Bobby-”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’ll be al-”
“Alright. Got it. I have a lot of things to think about. Give me a bit.” Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone saw.
“Bobby…” She talks, but I can’t hear her. The finality of the events that have occurred sent a roaring through my ears. All external sounds, visuals, or entire existences have been devoured by the crisis. Breath shallow, heart thumping. The car is a box. Tap tap tap on my forehead as I feel the frustration well up. Whirling of bitter winds trapped in a jar.
The immensity of what has happened lowers itself upon me. For everyone else it was entertainment, or the failure to be entertained. Much like cheap pulpy novel, for the consumer to take in and then disregard, but it would never leave me so easily. The car is worse than a box, it’s a locked box, the buildings won’t stop moving. She drives and I lack control. I never drive, anything, not even my career. I sit in a locked box all my life, lead from one spot to another as the world caves in around me.
The edges of my being starts to fade and a dizziness thunders through me, nausea bubbling through me.
“Pull the car over.”
“I’m not goi-”
“PULL IT OVER!” Surprised even myself with the shriek I amit, I keep my eyes glued to the dash to not catch the startled and maybe scared reaction Alicia is giving me. Soon as the car stops, I shove the door open and stumble out onto the sidewalk for air. The cold breeze shocks the system and the openness of the entire block hits me. I regain a sense of solidness as I fumble through my pockets for a piece of gum and happen upon a card instead. Pulling it out of my pocket, I stare at it as I let my body go lax against a brick wall and slide down until my ass touches the concrete sidewalk. Tobias Gibson
-/-/-
Where is the headquarters for WCF? Some big city, filled with typical big city motifs, with slight personalizations. The building isn’t particularly striking to anyone who has seen their fair share, but rather essential as three (or four?) years after the aforementioned stint in a dreary hospital, I found myself within the bubble of a new venture.
Much like the hospital, the atmosphere spilled over with a busyness that could easily overwhelm, but none of the pretenses of a lingering calm. This was a corporation where time itself moved too slow for anyone’s tastes, and I was the meek boulder planted in the middle of it, attempting to avoid direct pathways, hovering close to a marble wall as I watched important strangers streamline their lives in movements from one room to another, holding papers, folders, and pens, all of which were relevant to any number of aspects related to the company that summoned my very presence this day; microcosms piled on top of microcosms to form a macro. For all I knew, one of those papers had my name on it, fitting as I intended to become a puzzle piece in the grander picture.
My sister stood in the direct stream of movement without hesitation, raising an eyebrow at me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Staying out of the way.”
She just stares.
“What?” I cocked an eyebrow, a bit perturbed that she didn’t just come out and tell me what I was doing wrong.
“You’re supposed to be a new talent, we can’t have you looking meek before we discuss your contract,” I couldn’t tell if this advice came from her being my sister or from being my lawyer/agent, but regardless I moved from the wall and hesitantly joined her in the way of traffic as we sauntered (well she sauntered, I kept my head down) to the elevator.
“I DEMAND a meeting!” someone yelled behind us.
“I’m sure if you called ahead, we could try to pencil you in,” replied another.
“I PERSONALLY know Corey Black! You want me to call him up and tell him you’re keeping me from entering?!” The hustle of the room stopped. As if watching a hive mind activate, all eyes slowly centered in on the confrontation brewing. I even found myself turning to catch whatever strangeness was taking place, so captivating are our little dramas, “I will have you out of a job before the lunch hour is up, so help me whatever deity allows both you and me to share the same existence!”
If I knew the proper names for various parts of a suit, or the specificity of the colors outside their core categories, I’d might be able to properly describe the man’s ostentatious attire, give proper cadence to his sense of presentation and unlock a deeper idea of who he is as a human being, but sadly all such information was blocked out to make room for Gundam Wing trivia, and thus we must all contend with the fact that I can only say that he donned a rather expensive looking suit without a tie, and a gold chain. The detail I felt more relevant to the situation was the plainly irritated look of the receptionist. Note: I did not say intimidated or meek, but irritated. If the man-in-question did have an important connection, she didn’t care.
“Well, I’m sure I can get Mr. Black on the line here…” she picked up the phone on her desk and began to dial, but before she finished, the man snatched the phone from her and gently set it back on the receiver.
“Er… No need to bother such a busy man,” he laughed nervously, “There is no reason to get you reprimanded just because you didn’t know I was a friend of his. If you wouldn’t mind asking your security guard to let me through, I’m sure we can both move on with our respective day.”
“Sir, I’m going to level with you,” her glare said not a million things, but only one; ‘I’m not here to fuck around’, “You’re not getting into this building. Keep working the indys, if we like what we see, we will call you, and then I will happily let you in and not let security know you are causing a disruption here.”
“Oh come on!” He threw his hands in the air, “Do you know how hard it is for a manager? Every dumbass thinks they have charisma and a savvy business strategy, but when it comes time to deliver, they can barely stammer out a full phrase or go three seconds without rattling off a cliche or platitude.”
DING! Our elevator had arrived. Alicia shook my shoulder to get me moving, as I was still stuck gawking at the man now lamenting to a receptionist he was once demanding to be let pass.
“Look, if you have a pretty boy who talks like a skipping record, give me a c…” the elevator door closed, taking my sister and I up to a new found future.
Not much to note in the meeting. Alicia did most of the talking. I sat and made sure the chair didn’t fly away. As far as I could tell, she didn’t find anything objectionable in the contract, and her negotiating focused more on fixing details to my advantage. The only thing I can remember is that the agent we were talking to apparently felt so unnerved by my stare that he decided to voice as much. Alicia, ever the professional, remained civil, but allowed her tone to chastise the man for a lack of professionalism. We all signed, and with that, I was a ‘superstar’ or at least an employee for WCF; earning enough money to live off of for the first in my career.
Dopeness.
Upon exiting the WCF headquarters, we found almost every windshield sporting a less-than-new (apparent by bend and fray) business card:
TOBIAS GIBSON / Wrestling’s Greatest Manager
New York City, New York
ToGibson Inc. XXX-XXX-XXXX
The owner was obvious. I kept hold of it for the sake of amusement, as such memories should be recalled every now and again, thinking of it as no more than that, a trinket.
-/-/-
Now I stare at its cheap design and generic font.
“You can’t be serious,” surprise over took me as I found Alicia sitting beside me, gazing at the business card in my hand, “are you really considering giving this guy a call?”
“No,” I held the card out to her, “I’m terrible on the phone, you should be the one who calls him.”
“You don’t need a manager,” she crossed her arms, as if denying them the right to take the card from me, “Tonight was straight garbage, but…”
“I can’t have you out there with me,” I interrupted her, “I’ve revelled in the ring being the one place where I can be completely independent, where my skill outshined thousands of others, but I’m not good enough in the ring to get by on that alone anymore. I walked head first into a minefield. My mic work is shit, I have no personality to exude, I’m not going to be able to push t-shirts with just a cold stare, and if I don’t do something soon, they’re going to learn that pretty quick”
“Saying I don’t have enough charisma to be your manager?” she smiled and playfully punched my shoulder. She was always one of those types who could naturally lighten the mood with humor, unlike myself where it always comes off as nervous energy, and godless her for it, but I had no chuckle to give nor a penny to compensate her efforts.
“If you come out there with me, it’s odd, odd enough to be made note of. Then I’m the weird autistic guy who needs his sister to take care of him and wipe of spittle when he drools. Managers are nothing out of the ordinary, and then I have a fighting chance.”
“But why this guy?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, “I guess I have a soft spot for shitty people down on their luck.”
There is always a moment right before a decision is made irreversible that one stands on the precipice of a moment, peering in through a fog and try to gaze at what would happen next. The moment is usually filled with a palpable anxiety that one can almost see radiating from their body. Every time I’ve had that feeling I’ve embraced a level of hesitance in one way or another to prolong the finality of a choice. Not now. When she took that piece of paper out of my hand, the relief over took the twisting in the depths of my soul. She made the call and all I had to do was sit there.
“He said he wants to talk to you,” she hands me the phone after a few minutes of talk. I stare at it for a moment before taking it, “says he likes ‘direct communication’ ‘no middle man shit’ or something dumb like that.”
I take the phone and reluctantly answer, “hello?”
“Hey,” I could immediately hearing chewing in my ear along with him talking with his mouth full of food, “you Ron?”
“Rob, Robert Simmons, yeah,” the sound of smacking food sent my brain into furious spasms, but I bit down on my lip and kept calm.
“Yeah, you’re agent there told me (chewing) that you got this, um, brain thing,” he took a moment to swallow his food, but taking another bite before continuing this nauseating conversation, “so what, does that mean you like dinosaurs or some shit.”
“When I first saw you, you were wearing a gold chain,” I kept my voice level, flat, and without frustration, “should I surmise you have an obsession with cocaine and cheap prostitutes?”
“Bobby!” Alicia interjects, but over the line I heard a hard laugh.
“You’re alright kid,” he finally stopped chewing in my ear as he swallowed his food, “don’t care if you do have turrets or whatever. Respect anyone with that kind of wit. Know what, come over to my place in about three days and we’ll talk business.”
“Your place is in New York I assume?”
“What? Oh, nah. I live in Georgia. New York just looks better on a business card,” with that he took another bite of whatever the hell he was eating, “I’ll text you the address, see ya in three days, kiddo.”
Part 3: The Left Hand of Markness
To say that Tobias Gibson was an interesting character would be a bit of an understatement. Apparently in his six years of being a manager (after two short years of performing as a wrestler himself) he has been fired by thirteen different wrestlers. He offered this information openly in order to tell us know he is a ‘hard man to work with’, but more for the sake of letting us know that none of those who have fired him have made it to the big show, something he figured important for us to consider when employing him.
“And the way I see it, you’ve ALREADY made it to the big time,” he sipped his coffee while I looked around his cluttered studio apartment, “so half the job is done. Now you just need to make it big IN the big time.”
“Astute” Alicia rolled her eyes.
“Look, being the voice of a superstar means I don’t have to be able to articulate the most logical ideas, it means I capture people with an emotional veracity,” He pushed over a stack of magazines off of his couch and sat down
“Waiting to see if that’s true,” despite my wishes, my sister still wore her skepticism plainly upon her face.
“But, enough about me. Time to talk about the talent over there. I like to know all of client’s weaknesses. So, when did you become...autistic?”
“Well, my mom said it was after I got vaccinated,” my sister shot my a look of disbelief as I spoke, but I ignored her and continued, “math started making a lot of sense afterwards, but people got a lot more confusing.”
“Bobby!” My sister put her head in her hands, but Tobias looked at us with a level of confusion, upon realizing he didn’t get the joke, she decided to explain it to him, “Autism isn’t ‘caught’ nor does one ‘get it’ in their lives. People are born with it.”
“Like a super power,” god bless his heart for trying.
“I like to think so,” I reply sporting an obnoxiously large grin.
“Okay okay, whatever, point taken. Let’s change the subject, I hate talking about my client’s weaknesses anyways,” he sets his cup down on an ashtray right next to a coaster, “you’ve brought me in at a hell of a time. I’m not sure if the company is trying to push you or humiliate you by pitting you against former world champ Bonnie Blue.”
I felt my chest tighten. An immense respect watching from afar translated into a terrible fear as the reality of her skill pitted against mine crashed down on top of me. My hometown is unextraordinary, my life has been even less so, placed in the pathway of such a noted colossus of the industry felt like futility fastly approaching to end my career still in the crib and send me back to that unextraordinary life only moments in the spotlight.
“Scared kid?” he chuckled as he watched me.
“Scared, yes,” my eyes remained fixed upon the cup resting on the ashtray, “I’ve spent years working on building something that I can’t even call a legacy yet. Years of bruises and hospital trips. To a lot of people I am STILL just a weird kid from Wisconsin, and I look at Bonnie Blue and know that there are people out there with enough legitimacy and skill that they could take even that from me. Even before I mattered to a single person, the floor could fall out from under me. With her there is a history, a legacy, and even if I win, she is still on the fast track to a spot in the hall-of-fame. How could I compare?
“But,” I look up, “Only scared for now. Scared until the very hour I walk into the area, maybe even until I walk onto the entrance ramp, but not beyond that, and never in the ring. People gave me the nickname The Stone Crow, because of a trait I have no real control over or active awareness of. It’s honestly a stupid thing, and I’ve resented it, but I’ve found I’ve been able to keep it because in that ring I don’t shake, I don’t second guess, and I don’t fold. That’s something I’ve invested much pride into.”
“So you’re telling me you’re tough as fuck,” Tobias rolled his eyes, “well, la-di-d…”
“No, what I’m telling you is that a performer of Blue’s caliber has every right to scare me, and to claim toughness in the face of a clear disadvantage is stupidity, not strong willed,” I fidgeted with a corner of a discarded newspaper page dated some months back, trying to find my thoughts and properly express them, “what I’m telling you is I could lose and lose hard, but if I do, it won’t be because of the pressure or nerves. Blue will simply have bested me, but thats a wall no level of notoriety or fanfare can climb. If she wants to accomplish anything, it’ll be through a full force effort against someone who knows he has everything to lose.”
“You mean nothing to lose,” he took a sip from his drink and is about to place it back on the tray, Alicia reaches under and switches the tray with the actual coaster.
“People often brag about having nothing to lose, and how that’s the scariest thing about them. Maybe it does make them scary, but rarely effective. If history was ever moved by anything, its a series of people who knew what the stakes were when opposed by those of the inverse, which is to say when fighting those lost in the moment that their history encapsulates, which is to say those left ignorant in the splendor of their success. I’m nobody to Bonnie, barely shit on a shoe, and this potential landslide that is threatening to swallow up my career is beyond her. There is something bubbling under the surface she couldn’t begin to comprehend by this blank faced jobber.
“And the thing is, at one point she will see it. She will look me in the eye, past the stoney glare so many people love to take note of, and what she will see is a man that fate has left alive long enough to prove there must be a reason for that life, and that I have every intention of taking the opportunity to its fullest reach. She will realize it and it will be far beyond the point of doing her any good.”
“Sounds like you’re ready to walk into hell, kiddo,” he laughs “I love it.”
“Well, I made a choice to get into this business a long time ago, and people a lot closer to me have tried to get me out, and I feel indebted to them to prove them wrong for ever trying to stop me,” I take a moment, considering a thought before I smirk towards Tobias, “besides, I’m naturally curious, I want to know what happens when a Stone Crow flies over the shadow of a once great warrior and into that warrior’s kingdom. Nothing quite like playing off your homefield for some excitement.”
“You’ve sold me,” Tobias patted me on the shoulder, “If you wanna walk in hell, at the very least I can wait outside the doors."
I traded a glance with Alicia and shrugged, “Maybe we’ll find out I’m a genius after all, haha.”
