Post by Josh Eagles on Feb 25, 2011 20:44:36 GMT -5
My head felt numb and it was spinning. I tried to feel for my body parts but it was like they weren't there, like I was floating in space just a numb, detached head. I tried to call out for help, tried to make any noise but it was like my mouth was frozen in place. Everything was dark! What was happening to me? I searched my mind and tried to recall the last place I had been but it was like there was a fog in the way of the image. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know where I was. But I heard a strange music playing in the background and it sounded so familiar, but I couldn't place it. I concentrated hard on the music listening to it's every beat trying to remember it when color appeared in front of my eyes traveling at me fast. A large square, a blur of colors the music getting louder.
I tried to close my eyes or cover my face before I was squashed but I couldn't. I couldn't move my arms or legs or even my eyelids. It was going to be the end of me, I wasn't going to survive the next couple of seconds, I prayed it was a dream and that I would wake up when it all stopped. The colored square came to a halt in front of me and the music continued to blare on. I waited for my eyes to adjust and realized there wasn't that much color, the box simply said [glow=red,2,300]SUPERMARIO BROS [/glow]. It was a game? A T.V maybe? Whatever it was it was the title screen to one of the greatest games from my childhood, it was no number three but it was still great.
The hand on the one player started to flash and I figured now I was dreaming and I was going to see some quality gaming, maybe the 8 minute Mario run, it was always impressive. Then something felt wrong, as though I was being pulled and suddenly I flashed toward the screen. The world around me became an array of colors, but it was flat, linear ... it was 8 bit. Without doing anything my body moved forward and I leaped into the air and I could see the paper flat ground below me and the colors of my own 8 bit body. I was Mario?
"What the hell is happening? Stop it!!!"
I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but no voices were escaping. I couldn't control my body as I sprinted and jumped through an 8 bit blur of Goomba Stomping and block breaking. My head was starting to hurt and it felt like my life was in the hands of someone else. I knew it was, whomever was on the other end of that controller held my fate in this world in their hands. I knew that nothing I could do was going to change the way that person played, the way that person thought.
I was doing what I could by just being here, it was all I was allowed to do. I had no choices just a reality in front of me telling me that I was on my own and that the actions of this person were beyond my control. It was frightening and I didn't like it and I wondered what would happen to me as the player clearly jumped to early and I plummeted down a gap in the 8 bit world ... I plummeted back into darkness. Would my extra life be there? Was this the end?
*THUMP*
"YAAAAAAAAA"
My head quickly became woozy and I could hear new music and I could hear myself though in a high pitched voice like I was just kicked in the balls. I felt something in my hand and glimpsed a sword, a pix-elated sword. The weird grass, the music, the green suit ... I knew it all. Now I was freaking Link? What kind of weird dream was this? I could see Link enemies closing in all around me but they didn't bare the normal 8 bit pick-elated faces of the Nintendo System ... but of my colleagues in the Kingdom of Pride. Each and everyone of their faces was contorted in a different expression, anger being the most prevalent among them.
My sword was swinging and my shield was blocking and I was cutting them down before me with no regard to anything. I realized this time I was controlling it though, they were attacking and I was fighting back. I stopped and everything halted, I turned around and could now see thousands of faces staring through a box back at me. I felt like I was covered in blood, felt the strain of what I had been doing. 8 Bit me felt the weight of the world and the weight of those faces staring at me, laughing, cheering and I realized it was no different then it was in real life. This was the extreme of what I did ... beat people and care less about them for the enjoyment of the masses. This is who I was ...
"STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The light was blaring and my eyes hurt. I put my hands to them and it actually worked, my hands were moving. I tried to hold my eyes open against my head spinning and the glare of the bright lights to see if I was still 8 bit, but I wasn't. I snapped my eyes shut and thanks the lord it seemed to only be a dream, but the funny part was I was so tired. I'd never felt more tired in my life.
"Josh ... JOSH, can you hear me?"
That voice sounds so familiar. I could feel someones hand on my arm. I tried to blink my eyes and adjust to the light. A woman was sitting by my bed, shoulder length blond hair and pretty green eyes. I knew this woman, someone close to me.
"Jenny?"
Jenny smiled, a smile of pearly white teeth that could blind any man. She seemed relieved that I was okay.
"What are you doing here, where am I?"
Now that I seemed somewhat lucid that smile and relief disappeared to be replaced with a frown and frustration as she let me go and leaned back in her chair, arms folded. NEVER a good sign coming from a woman.
"Well first off Joshua Eagles you are in the hospital, why are you in the hospital because you nearly overdosed on mushrooms."
Mushrooms? I had never done drugs in my life, how the hell did I almost OD on mushrooms?
"I've never touched a drug ..."
"Save it mister! You've been in coma for about two days now, you were hopped up on a ton of drugs and the doctors just saved your life. Also I was your emergency contact ... after just a handful of dates, you've also not called in about a month."
This was so messed up. I suppose mushrooms would explain why my head was hurting and I guess the hallucinations I was having, but it didn't explain how I got them and it wasn't going to explain how I was going to deal with the very angry woman beside my bed who had I guess stayed by my side for the past two days.
"I'm sorry Jenny, I don't know anyone else around here and last time I was in they told me I needed someone and I don't have anyone at work who likes me enough to respond to an emergency call and I wasn't thinking."
"Oh I really don't care about that. I am just glad you are okay and you aren't hurt. You've been screaming and talking for the past two days. The doctors said you were hallucinating because of all the drugs and I was just worried."
My head was still spinning and my mouth was dry and I tried to pull myself into a sitting position.
"Be careful! You shouldn't be sitting up yet."
"Water please?"
Jenny nodded and turned around to pour some water as I finished struggling to a sitting position. This wasn't good. I had to figure out when I had taken these drugs and what it was going to do to me. I knew I was going to have a match sometime soon.
"Josh, the doctors are saying it looked like an attempted suicide."
I spit the water out all over my bed as I heard the words escape her lips.
"No, that's insane. Trust me I am not depressed, I am a very happy person and I have no desire to kill myself. I maybe a little beat up and under the weather after my last match, but I am certainly not suicidal."
If it was reported as an attempted suicide then it was going to get back to Noble and Sterling that I was on drugs and I could lose my job.
"Shit, my job ..."
"Jeremy Sterling and Kurt Noble have already been by to find out whats going on. I spoke with them and they both agreed nothing was to be done until you woke up and the whole story was found out. They don't like the publicity of a drug addict champion and they didn't feel it sounded much like you."
Well that was a small mercy, but it meant I had to figure out WHY I had these drugs in me.
"Josh, we need to figure out why you took all those drugs."
I laid my head back and started sipping water trying to remember what the hell happened two days ago.
I was sitting in a strange pizza shop, one that I had never been in before. I had gone for a job, trying to keep myself in shape and focused and I got hungry. The place looked good and I loved to try new pizza so I had stopped in. It was nice, booths and all, a family type pizza joint. I walked up to the counter and a fairly tall African American was standing there and he smiled and went to greet me, but he stopped.
"Holy shit nigga, I know you. You're Josh Eagles."
While in truth I was offended by the use of the word I didn't let it bother me. I was used to such responses after nearly seven years.
"Yes that would be me."
"Man me and my homie were just talking about you, about how you are going to get beat this Sunday when our boy Dru brings it to you."
"No doubt about it, Dru Dallins is a tough customer and a tall order. Should be a great match, hope you guys watch."
The conversation was awkward, I didn't mind people thinking I was going to lose, if you went by odds I was the clear underdog by nearly a foot and more then a good couple of pounds. I just didn't really like it being said by those who I wanted to buy food from. But fans would be fans.
"Well what can I get you ... on the house Eagles, think of it as a last meal."
"I'll have two veggie slices with extra green peppers and mushrooms and I insist that I pay please."
"Your choice dawg. That'll be $5.27 we'll make it up and bring it out in a minute."
So I walked to a booth and sat down, a few moments later the Pizza arrived and I ate it. It tasted funny, but I just through some salt on it not looking to walk out and insult those who had made it. Then I was in 8 Bit World.
"I was drugged."
Apparently I had been thinking for longer then I had thought as it caught Jenny off guard as she seemed to be dozing off.
"What do you mean? When and how?"
"I was jogging two days ago, I stopped for some pizza and the guys there were real Dru Dallins fans and my veggie pizza was extra green peppers and mushrooms. I thought it tasted funny, but I didn't question. They drugged me."
I watched as Jenny looked at me for a moment, maybe thinking I am crazy.
"Why would a couple fans do that? I don't mean any offense but I've seen Dru Dallins and it does look like he is more then capable of handling you."
"There is no doubt about it. If I'm not careful my head could be split open again. In all likely hood they didn't think it would have this kind of effect and with the pain meds I was on for my head being split open twice it made it react even worse. Odds are they just wanted to throw me off my game and teach me some respect."
I start pulling myself to the side of the bed and slowly trying to get up but Jenny is in front of me like a flash.
"Josh what are you doing? Where the heck do you think you are going?"
"I've got a match to get ready for and I've lost two days wasted in this bed."
Jenny laughs loudly and easily is able to sit me back down.
"Josh you're match is two days away and while it sucks you're losing out on valuable training time you need to be healthy first."
"You don't understand Jenny, between those guys at the pizza shop and becoming an 8 bit game character with no control over what was going on I've realized something ..."
"Becoming an 8 bit game character?"
"Yes I was Mario and I was Link, whats the problem?"
Jenny now pushed me fully back onto the bed and kept me from moving. Clearly she felt there was a problem and I gave up fighting.
"Josh you thought you were in a video game, clearly that is an issue!"
"I was hallucinating it's excusable and completely besides the point that I am trying to make."
"What's your point then? What did your drug induced hallucinations teach you?"
"You know when you put it like that it doesn't sound like its going to be nearly as profound!"
"Probably because it won't be all that profound."
I leaned back crossing my arms now. Sometimes people could be such haters.
"I learned that I can't afford to care. When I was being controlled and when I was having to fight as an 8 bit character I realized that my actions didn't change the way other people thought or reacted. If I fight and fight and fight while someone has an opinion of me it isn't going to change it isn't going to make them think I'm any better. It's just how this business works. Fans cheer me and most people backstage hate me because of WHO and HOW I am. I can't care about their respect."
"One point to nonsensical drug induced ramblings and zero to Josh. What does respect have to do with anything in a match between you and Dru Dallins?"
"That's my point is that it doesn't have anything to do with it, but he wants people to think it does. He wants to prove a point that I am not better then anyone else, that I don't deserve to be champion, and that I am worthless and don't have the respect of the people around me. When he doesn't truly know what he is talking about."
I struggle back into a sitting position and wave Jenny off as she tries to stop me.
"Dru Dallins and some of this roster believe I am better then they are and it couldn't be further from the truth. What reason do I have to think that I am better? I do the same things they do, I step into the ring and I fight and to be quite frank more then half of the roster out there is far more talented, stronger, and faster then I am. I know that I am about two years past my prime, I tell myself I am in the shape of my life but it's a lie. I've had two concussions ... likely three now, my right leg sometimes gives out and barely works and my back is in constant pain. I am nearing the end of my line and the end of my time."
"Then why do you keep fighting and why do you keep winning?"
"I keep fighting because I have something to prove I don't know to who, maybe just to myself that I can have a passion and something I love. I keep fighting because that couple of minutes that I am entertaining people a night with matches or dramatic storylines and allows them to escape their reality is worth it to me. As for how I keep winning, well there is one thing I am good at and it's taking a beating like nobody else. Watch my matches, how often do you see me walk into the ring and dominate someone the whole time? It's rare and only if I get off to a fast start, most of the time I get beat and beat and beat until my opponent makes a mistake and I manage to make a come back or capitalize. What I do isn't overly special, I just pray that my body can take the beating."
"That sounds like a dumb idea."
I chuckle because for the first time ever I had said it out loud, I had said that my career was coming close to an end and that my skills were going away. My heart is all that kept me going now.
"It probably is. I am destroying my body and shaving years off my life in all likelihood, but it's rewarding. Doing what I do makes me feel alive, it gives me hope that people who do small things can make big changes. The roar of the crowd is more then one person could ever ask for. I don't need the money I could retire happily and rich at anytime, but I believe that every penny made should be worked for and earned. Sure I wasn't always like that, but people do change. I don't believe I am better then anyone else who steps in that ring on my side or against me. I do believe that I am equal."
"If that's the case then why does Dru think that or anyone think that? Why are you not respected?"
"Now you see there is where the fun part lies. I am not respected because I am from a different age and I have different beliefs and I stand by them. I believe that what you do in the ring matters, I believe that how hard you try and how hard you fight matters. There is a brand new age that think treating woman, making jokes at the expense of cripples, or people who have less fortune then them is great. I think it's crude. We are in a generation and a time where brass jokes about raping and beating is okay to talk about and be laughed at, where murder is talked about like people are going to do it.
We are in an age where personality is all that matters to someone. You can stand up and fight, give you everything to something, but if you aren't down with a good joke or disagree with they way someone is then you're crucified. We are past the days when people had humility and didn't run in cliques or groups or have different styles. It's a new world and most believe that my older views of things don't belong. To be honest if those are the kind of people who I need to get respect from, then I don't want it."
I sat up a little straighter and reached for some water. My head was starting to feel a little less spinny.
"I may have no choice in the way people feel about me but I do have a choice in the things I do and the things I want. I want to be champion and I am and I believe that I deserve to be. Not because I am brash or because I am arrogant, but because I won. I earned the right to be champion by fighting, by showing up, and by being competitive for the past seven years. The locker room isn't who I fight for... I fight for the fans, I fight for the Kingdom, and yes I fight for me. Does that make me a bad person?"
"No I don't think it does, it makes you human. What's the point of fighting for something you don't believe in?"
"There isn't and I believe Dru Dallins is delusional about the amount of respect he gets. I fight for something right and true, he fights for his own sick pleasure. At The Knighting he destroyed a young man who just wanted to make something of himself in this business. He destroyed a man beyond reproach who was smaller, weaker, and clearly less skilled then him but had the heart to take him on. He had him beat several times and he kept the punishment coming to what make a point? Is that the kind of man people want to respect? Is that the kind of man people want to cheer? He took someones career and livelihood away from them for his own pleasure and that isn't a risk of the business unless someone makes it that way."
Jenny shies back at hearing those words and seems lost in thought.
"Could he do the same to you?"
"No. Can he beat me in a match? Yes, he can beat me he's got the talent, the size, the skill. He can make me feel pain and truly hurt me, but he can't defeat me and he can't use me to make a point. I will stand in the ring and I will look him in the eyes and I will fight him as I would fight anyone else and win, lose, draw, or intense pain I will get back up and do the same thing week after week. I'm not a man who backs down from idle threats and promises of making a point. I am not a man who believes I can control the action of others or beat respect out of people.
What I am is a man with a passion, a man who has a job that makes them feel complete and a real champion. The thing that makes me that champion is that when people like Dru Dallins stand up and call me out I answer that call. I don't cower, I don't shy away I meet them face to face and I bring it with everything I have and most of the time things just go my way and I win. But when I lose, I come back and bring it just as hard again and I don't give up. I fight to entertain and I fight to win. It's simple math."
Jenny shakes her head and takes my water glass from me and fills it up but concern still fills her eyes.
"To me Josh it sounds like you fight to survive and that you'll keep doing that until you can't survive any more."
"That might even be true. Maybe my life is like a video game and you either reach the end and win and that's the end of it, the game gets put on the shelf and you don't go back to it. Or maybe you just can't beat it and eventually it gets to painful and you give up and retire the game. I just know that unlike my drug induced hallucinations, I am the one at the controller of this game and I intend to beat it. Dru Dallins is a monster of a hard boss fight and clearly I forgot to grind or get my power up because I am at a distinct disadvantage. But the clever gamer can weather the beating until he comes up with something to turn the tides and win the fight. I am a clever wrestler and I never underestimate what my opponent is capable of and I always understand that in every match, we all make hundreds of mistakes and every choice my opponent makes could be the chance for me to win."
"And on the off chance he makes no mistakes?"
"He already has. He's made three big ones. He believes that I think of him as lesser then me, not as an equal. He believes I put myself on a pedestal above others as a superior, and finally he is thick enough to believe that I am a person you can use to make an example of or to prove a point."
Jenny shakes her head, still not totally convinced, but she didn't understand me and the size of Dallins was imposing to her.
"He's not the first monster I've faced and he won't be the last. He's not the first person who's called me down and he won't be the last. He's not even the first person whose claimed I have no respect and likely won't be the last. What he will be ... well more like it will be the last time he has no respect for me inside the ring. He wants me to earn it? I don't care about doing it, but when I beat him ... he won't find me a placeholder anymore. He'll realize that when the game is on hard, my skills rise to the next level."
Jenny smiled and laughed at my lame joke as the doctors walked into check on my and I found myself drifting to sleep and back into my little 8 bit world where everything was just so much more ... basic.
I tried to close my eyes or cover my face before I was squashed but I couldn't. I couldn't move my arms or legs or even my eyelids. It was going to be the end of me, I wasn't going to survive the next couple of seconds, I prayed it was a dream and that I would wake up when it all stopped. The colored square came to a halt in front of me and the music continued to blare on. I waited for my eyes to adjust and realized there wasn't that much color, the box simply said [glow=red,2,300]SUPERMARIO BROS [/glow]. It was a game? A T.V maybe? Whatever it was it was the title screen to one of the greatest games from my childhood, it was no number three but it was still great.
The hand on the one player started to flash and I figured now I was dreaming and I was going to see some quality gaming, maybe the 8 minute Mario run, it was always impressive. Then something felt wrong, as though I was being pulled and suddenly I flashed toward the screen. The world around me became an array of colors, but it was flat, linear ... it was 8 bit. Without doing anything my body moved forward and I leaped into the air and I could see the paper flat ground below me and the colors of my own 8 bit body. I was Mario?
"What the hell is happening? Stop it!!!"
I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but no voices were escaping. I couldn't control my body as I sprinted and jumped through an 8 bit blur of Goomba Stomping and block breaking. My head was starting to hurt and it felt like my life was in the hands of someone else. I knew it was, whomever was on the other end of that controller held my fate in this world in their hands. I knew that nothing I could do was going to change the way that person played, the way that person thought.
I was doing what I could by just being here, it was all I was allowed to do. I had no choices just a reality in front of me telling me that I was on my own and that the actions of this person were beyond my control. It was frightening and I didn't like it and I wondered what would happen to me as the player clearly jumped to early and I plummeted down a gap in the 8 bit world ... I plummeted back into darkness. Would my extra life be there? Was this the end?
*THUMP*
"YAAAAAAAAA"
My head quickly became woozy and I could hear new music and I could hear myself though in a high pitched voice like I was just kicked in the balls. I felt something in my hand and glimpsed a sword, a pix-elated sword. The weird grass, the music, the green suit ... I knew it all. Now I was freaking Link? What kind of weird dream was this? I could see Link enemies closing in all around me but they didn't bare the normal 8 bit pick-elated faces of the Nintendo System ... but of my colleagues in the Kingdom of Pride. Each and everyone of their faces was contorted in a different expression, anger being the most prevalent among them.
My sword was swinging and my shield was blocking and I was cutting them down before me with no regard to anything. I realized this time I was controlling it though, they were attacking and I was fighting back. I stopped and everything halted, I turned around and could now see thousands of faces staring through a box back at me. I felt like I was covered in blood, felt the strain of what I had been doing. 8 Bit me felt the weight of the world and the weight of those faces staring at me, laughing, cheering and I realized it was no different then it was in real life. This was the extreme of what I did ... beat people and care less about them for the enjoyment of the masses. This is who I was ...
"STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The light was blaring and my eyes hurt. I put my hands to them and it actually worked, my hands were moving. I tried to hold my eyes open against my head spinning and the glare of the bright lights to see if I was still 8 bit, but I wasn't. I snapped my eyes shut and thanks the lord it seemed to only be a dream, but the funny part was I was so tired. I'd never felt more tired in my life.
"Josh ... JOSH, can you hear me?"
That voice sounds so familiar. I could feel someones hand on my arm. I tried to blink my eyes and adjust to the light. A woman was sitting by my bed, shoulder length blond hair and pretty green eyes. I knew this woman, someone close to me.
"Jenny?"
Jenny smiled, a smile of pearly white teeth that could blind any man. She seemed relieved that I was okay.
"What are you doing here, where am I?"
Now that I seemed somewhat lucid that smile and relief disappeared to be replaced with a frown and frustration as she let me go and leaned back in her chair, arms folded. NEVER a good sign coming from a woman.
"Well first off Joshua Eagles you are in the hospital, why are you in the hospital because you nearly overdosed on mushrooms."
Mushrooms? I had never done drugs in my life, how the hell did I almost OD on mushrooms?
"I've never touched a drug ..."
"Save it mister! You've been in coma for about two days now, you were hopped up on a ton of drugs and the doctors just saved your life. Also I was your emergency contact ... after just a handful of dates, you've also not called in about a month."
This was so messed up. I suppose mushrooms would explain why my head was hurting and I guess the hallucinations I was having, but it didn't explain how I got them and it wasn't going to explain how I was going to deal with the very angry woman beside my bed who had I guess stayed by my side for the past two days.
"I'm sorry Jenny, I don't know anyone else around here and last time I was in they told me I needed someone and I don't have anyone at work who likes me enough to respond to an emergency call and I wasn't thinking."
"Oh I really don't care about that. I am just glad you are okay and you aren't hurt. You've been screaming and talking for the past two days. The doctors said you were hallucinating because of all the drugs and I was just worried."
My head was still spinning and my mouth was dry and I tried to pull myself into a sitting position.
"Be careful! You shouldn't be sitting up yet."
"Water please?"
Jenny nodded and turned around to pour some water as I finished struggling to a sitting position. This wasn't good. I had to figure out when I had taken these drugs and what it was going to do to me. I knew I was going to have a match sometime soon.
"Josh, the doctors are saying it looked like an attempted suicide."
I spit the water out all over my bed as I heard the words escape her lips.
"No, that's insane. Trust me I am not depressed, I am a very happy person and I have no desire to kill myself. I maybe a little beat up and under the weather after my last match, but I am certainly not suicidal."
If it was reported as an attempted suicide then it was going to get back to Noble and Sterling that I was on drugs and I could lose my job.
"Shit, my job ..."
"Jeremy Sterling and Kurt Noble have already been by to find out whats going on. I spoke with them and they both agreed nothing was to be done until you woke up and the whole story was found out. They don't like the publicity of a drug addict champion and they didn't feel it sounded much like you."
Well that was a small mercy, but it meant I had to figure out WHY I had these drugs in me.
"Josh, we need to figure out why you took all those drugs."
I laid my head back and started sipping water trying to remember what the hell happened two days ago.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Two Days Earlier ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I was sitting in a strange pizza shop, one that I had never been in before. I had gone for a job, trying to keep myself in shape and focused and I got hungry. The place looked good and I loved to try new pizza so I had stopped in. It was nice, booths and all, a family type pizza joint. I walked up to the counter and a fairly tall African American was standing there and he smiled and went to greet me, but he stopped.
"Holy shit nigga, I know you. You're Josh Eagles."
While in truth I was offended by the use of the word I didn't let it bother me. I was used to such responses after nearly seven years.
"Yes that would be me."
"Man me and my homie were just talking about you, about how you are going to get beat this Sunday when our boy Dru brings it to you."
"No doubt about it, Dru Dallins is a tough customer and a tall order. Should be a great match, hope you guys watch."
The conversation was awkward, I didn't mind people thinking I was going to lose, if you went by odds I was the clear underdog by nearly a foot and more then a good couple of pounds. I just didn't really like it being said by those who I wanted to buy food from. But fans would be fans.
"Well what can I get you ... on the house Eagles, think of it as a last meal."
"I'll have two veggie slices with extra green peppers and mushrooms and I insist that I pay please."
"Your choice dawg. That'll be $5.27 we'll make it up and bring it out in a minute."
So I walked to a booth and sat down, a few moments later the Pizza arrived and I ate it. It tasted funny, but I just through some salt on it not looking to walk out and insult those who had made it. Then I was in 8 Bit World.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Present ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"I was drugged."
Apparently I had been thinking for longer then I had thought as it caught Jenny off guard as she seemed to be dozing off.
"What do you mean? When and how?"
"I was jogging two days ago, I stopped for some pizza and the guys there were real Dru Dallins fans and my veggie pizza was extra green peppers and mushrooms. I thought it tasted funny, but I didn't question. They drugged me."
I watched as Jenny looked at me for a moment, maybe thinking I am crazy.
"Why would a couple fans do that? I don't mean any offense but I've seen Dru Dallins and it does look like he is more then capable of handling you."
"There is no doubt about it. If I'm not careful my head could be split open again. In all likely hood they didn't think it would have this kind of effect and with the pain meds I was on for my head being split open twice it made it react even worse. Odds are they just wanted to throw me off my game and teach me some respect."
I start pulling myself to the side of the bed and slowly trying to get up but Jenny is in front of me like a flash.
"Josh what are you doing? Where the heck do you think you are going?"
"I've got a match to get ready for and I've lost two days wasted in this bed."
Jenny laughs loudly and easily is able to sit me back down.
"Josh you're match is two days away and while it sucks you're losing out on valuable training time you need to be healthy first."
"You don't understand Jenny, between those guys at the pizza shop and becoming an 8 bit game character with no control over what was going on I've realized something ..."
"Becoming an 8 bit game character?"
"Yes I was Mario and I was Link, whats the problem?"
Jenny now pushed me fully back onto the bed and kept me from moving. Clearly she felt there was a problem and I gave up fighting.
"Josh you thought you were in a video game, clearly that is an issue!"
"I was hallucinating it's excusable and completely besides the point that I am trying to make."
"What's your point then? What did your drug induced hallucinations teach you?"
"You know when you put it like that it doesn't sound like its going to be nearly as profound!"
"Probably because it won't be all that profound."
I leaned back crossing my arms now. Sometimes people could be such haters.
"I learned that I can't afford to care. When I was being controlled and when I was having to fight as an 8 bit character I realized that my actions didn't change the way other people thought or reacted. If I fight and fight and fight while someone has an opinion of me it isn't going to change it isn't going to make them think I'm any better. It's just how this business works. Fans cheer me and most people backstage hate me because of WHO and HOW I am. I can't care about their respect."
"One point to nonsensical drug induced ramblings and zero to Josh. What does respect have to do with anything in a match between you and Dru Dallins?"
"That's my point is that it doesn't have anything to do with it, but he wants people to think it does. He wants to prove a point that I am not better then anyone else, that I don't deserve to be champion, and that I am worthless and don't have the respect of the people around me. When he doesn't truly know what he is talking about."
I struggle back into a sitting position and wave Jenny off as she tries to stop me.
"Dru Dallins and some of this roster believe I am better then they are and it couldn't be further from the truth. What reason do I have to think that I am better? I do the same things they do, I step into the ring and I fight and to be quite frank more then half of the roster out there is far more talented, stronger, and faster then I am. I know that I am about two years past my prime, I tell myself I am in the shape of my life but it's a lie. I've had two concussions ... likely three now, my right leg sometimes gives out and barely works and my back is in constant pain. I am nearing the end of my line and the end of my time."
"Then why do you keep fighting and why do you keep winning?"
"I keep fighting because I have something to prove I don't know to who, maybe just to myself that I can have a passion and something I love. I keep fighting because that couple of minutes that I am entertaining people a night with matches or dramatic storylines and allows them to escape their reality is worth it to me. As for how I keep winning, well there is one thing I am good at and it's taking a beating like nobody else. Watch my matches, how often do you see me walk into the ring and dominate someone the whole time? It's rare and only if I get off to a fast start, most of the time I get beat and beat and beat until my opponent makes a mistake and I manage to make a come back or capitalize. What I do isn't overly special, I just pray that my body can take the beating."
"That sounds like a dumb idea."
I chuckle because for the first time ever I had said it out loud, I had said that my career was coming close to an end and that my skills were going away. My heart is all that kept me going now.
"It probably is. I am destroying my body and shaving years off my life in all likelihood, but it's rewarding. Doing what I do makes me feel alive, it gives me hope that people who do small things can make big changes. The roar of the crowd is more then one person could ever ask for. I don't need the money I could retire happily and rich at anytime, but I believe that every penny made should be worked for and earned. Sure I wasn't always like that, but people do change. I don't believe I am better then anyone else who steps in that ring on my side or against me. I do believe that I am equal."
"If that's the case then why does Dru think that or anyone think that? Why are you not respected?"
"Now you see there is where the fun part lies. I am not respected because I am from a different age and I have different beliefs and I stand by them. I believe that what you do in the ring matters, I believe that how hard you try and how hard you fight matters. There is a brand new age that think treating woman, making jokes at the expense of cripples, or people who have less fortune then them is great. I think it's crude. We are in a generation and a time where brass jokes about raping and beating is okay to talk about and be laughed at, where murder is talked about like people are going to do it.
We are in an age where personality is all that matters to someone. You can stand up and fight, give you everything to something, but if you aren't down with a good joke or disagree with they way someone is then you're crucified. We are past the days when people had humility and didn't run in cliques or groups or have different styles. It's a new world and most believe that my older views of things don't belong. To be honest if those are the kind of people who I need to get respect from, then I don't want it."
I sat up a little straighter and reached for some water. My head was starting to feel a little less spinny.
"I may have no choice in the way people feel about me but I do have a choice in the things I do and the things I want. I want to be champion and I am and I believe that I deserve to be. Not because I am brash or because I am arrogant, but because I won. I earned the right to be champion by fighting, by showing up, and by being competitive for the past seven years. The locker room isn't who I fight for... I fight for the fans, I fight for the Kingdom, and yes I fight for me. Does that make me a bad person?"
"No I don't think it does, it makes you human. What's the point of fighting for something you don't believe in?"
"There isn't and I believe Dru Dallins is delusional about the amount of respect he gets. I fight for something right and true, he fights for his own sick pleasure. At The Knighting he destroyed a young man who just wanted to make something of himself in this business. He destroyed a man beyond reproach who was smaller, weaker, and clearly less skilled then him but had the heart to take him on. He had him beat several times and he kept the punishment coming to what make a point? Is that the kind of man people want to respect? Is that the kind of man people want to cheer? He took someones career and livelihood away from them for his own pleasure and that isn't a risk of the business unless someone makes it that way."
Jenny shies back at hearing those words and seems lost in thought.
"Could he do the same to you?"
"No. Can he beat me in a match? Yes, he can beat me he's got the talent, the size, the skill. He can make me feel pain and truly hurt me, but he can't defeat me and he can't use me to make a point. I will stand in the ring and I will look him in the eyes and I will fight him as I would fight anyone else and win, lose, draw, or intense pain I will get back up and do the same thing week after week. I'm not a man who backs down from idle threats and promises of making a point. I am not a man who believes I can control the action of others or beat respect out of people.
What I am is a man with a passion, a man who has a job that makes them feel complete and a real champion. The thing that makes me that champion is that when people like Dru Dallins stand up and call me out I answer that call. I don't cower, I don't shy away I meet them face to face and I bring it with everything I have and most of the time things just go my way and I win. But when I lose, I come back and bring it just as hard again and I don't give up. I fight to entertain and I fight to win. It's simple math."
Jenny shakes her head and takes my water glass from me and fills it up but concern still fills her eyes.
"To me Josh it sounds like you fight to survive and that you'll keep doing that until you can't survive any more."
"That might even be true. Maybe my life is like a video game and you either reach the end and win and that's the end of it, the game gets put on the shelf and you don't go back to it. Or maybe you just can't beat it and eventually it gets to painful and you give up and retire the game. I just know that unlike my drug induced hallucinations, I am the one at the controller of this game and I intend to beat it. Dru Dallins is a monster of a hard boss fight and clearly I forgot to grind or get my power up because I am at a distinct disadvantage. But the clever gamer can weather the beating until he comes up with something to turn the tides and win the fight. I am a clever wrestler and I never underestimate what my opponent is capable of and I always understand that in every match, we all make hundreds of mistakes and every choice my opponent makes could be the chance for me to win."
"And on the off chance he makes no mistakes?"
"He already has. He's made three big ones. He believes that I think of him as lesser then me, not as an equal. He believes I put myself on a pedestal above others as a superior, and finally he is thick enough to believe that I am a person you can use to make an example of or to prove a point."
Jenny shakes her head, still not totally convinced, but she didn't understand me and the size of Dallins was imposing to her.
"He's not the first monster I've faced and he won't be the last. He's not the first person who's called me down and he won't be the last. He's not even the first person whose claimed I have no respect and likely won't be the last. What he will be ... well more like it will be the last time he has no respect for me inside the ring. He wants me to earn it? I don't care about doing it, but when I beat him ... he won't find me a placeholder anymore. He'll realize that when the game is on hard, my skills rise to the next level."
Jenny smiled and laughed at my lame joke as the doctors walked into check on my and I found myself drifting to sleep and back into my little 8 bit world where everything was just so much more ... basic.
