Ghosts of Christmas Past

Datura.

She’s just a tiny fragment of what I am running from.

I age with the year. December 31st. New Year's Eve. It’s supposed to be a party – but I remember 2000 - Y2K. My family huddled in the basement refusing to tell me about the impending doom.

I was about 10 years old celebrating the new year in a windowless basement and the ecstatic cheers from my family I didn’t realize until later wasn’t for the prospects of a new year – but was because their heathen souls were spared for one more night. Trains didn’t derail, the world didn’t come to a halt – well not until years later.

People think I’m the bad guy right? That I'm the one sent to kill all these things you love – the false heroes and fake monsters – but really I’m showing everyone a simple thing: every time I snatch the microphone, every time I choke the life out of someone in the center of that ring – humanity.

Like it or not I am the most accurate reflection of you… of society. It's more complicated than these black and white issues. I came into this sport to bring it to the 21st century, add some fucking living colour.

“Are you okay,” Bash Daddy said, breaking my daze as I stared dead at the Christmas Tree hanging in the hotel lobby in downtown Toronto. “They need your card.”

I pass the card to Bash, “Get a smoking room.”

I walk over to the tree, get close enough to one of the red bulbs to see my own reflection, the man I had become – headlining supercards – but sometimes I wish I was out in that Northern Ontario town I crew up in – snow covered and frozen… reminding you if you just keep pushing your boots through the snow you’re doing better than anyone else. I take the bulb up in my hand, looking at myself – and crush it in my palm. The shards of glass go deep, crimson pouring out onto the floor from between my fingers.

Back in our hotel room Bash wraps my hand with a care, pulls the white bandages tight to put pressure on the self-inflicted wound.

“What is going on?,” Bash asked me.

“The past. It’s all being brought back by Datura. That fucking bitch came hunting for me when I was fine grazing on all these sheep. But no, she has to take me back to that place… the place I made a name for myself. A World Champion for a year in a place we called Visionaries of Wrestling. She had no interest in trying to come for my head then, but here she is… banging… beating…. breaking down my front fucking door. My fortress so I didn’t have to get anymore blood on these hands,” I punched the armrest of the chair I’m sitting in the wrapped hand.

“Jesus, relax, we’ve been here before,” Bash said, for once being the calming voice. He cracks the window to let the smoke out of the room, saving his own lungs a little.

“I built CULT to keep myself isolated and safe… truth is I built it so I didn’t have to tour the world like my piece of shit serial killer daddy leaving body after body limp. So what now, I’ll turn a business I built into a slaughter house just to put a few asses in seats, just to sell some more tickets. I’ve been pimped out again by the very board I made money for,” I said.

“Maybe I should just lay down. Maybe I should just take a finger poke of doom and call it a fucking day. Maybe I don’t want to wrestle in CULT again, maybe Datura putting me out of my misery wouldn’t be a bad thing. Hell, I have been touring Pro Wrestling Excellence for the last two months and haven’t broken a fucking sweat. This game isn’t full of killers like it used to be when I was on top and Datura was looking up at me with stars in jet black eyes.”

“Why don’t you just get some rest,” Bash said, standing up to mix me a Whiskey with overpriced mini-bar ingredients.

I’m finishing off my fourth when my mind takes me back six years. Christmas dinner at the mansion I bought my mother after my first really successful run in pro wrestling.

Mom had the spread perfect, turkey, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and all the fixings we never had when I was growing up. I helped her set the table as we waited for my brother. I had spent my fortune getting my mother a house and helping her get sober. Shock therapy and other unethical treatment. I’m not sure where but something did the trick and she was in her fourth year of sobriety.

My brother on the other hand swung like a pendulum between booze and drugs – said I sucked up all the talent in the family, found success and left him with nothing. He wasn’t entirely wrong. We were dealt the same hand of cards, I just knew how to play them better and it ate away at Alexander like the meth at his teeth.

He staggered through the door as we finished pouring the water. He held himself up in the door frame, work boots still on.

“Sorry I’m late. Got caught up. You know what that’s like, eh big shot,” Alexander said, starting with me already.

He tumbled into his seat and shook his head before holding it up. He piled everything he could onto his plate, took more than his share and left my mother and I with a quarter of the food. We tried to keep it civil, my mom and I kept conversations to what we saw on Netflix and hockey games to appease Alexander – but somewhere along the way he pushed me too far.

“When are you getting back on the road and leaving us to rot again,” Alexander said between bites of food.

I didn’t engage, but he kept ranting. Going on and on about how I abandoned my own family. He doesn't mention how I saved our mother. She was 88 pounds three years ago sucking dick for money to feed habits. He pushed me… so I pushed a fork into his fucking hand. Instinct from deathmatches.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my mouth.

He took it out of his hand and jabbed it into my thigh. We battled through the house and out the front door into the yard. We were throwing fists, each of us connecting. I hit a huge haymaker sending my brother into the ground – blood spattering the bright white snow.

“Go ahead, kill me, just like your dad would.”

I kicked him between the eyes with the heel of my boot, knocked him out cold in the snow. My mothers screamed for me to stop. I did, but I didn’t look back as I walked to the car and pulled out of the driveway.

Always the fucking bad guy.

I am on the circular balcony of the CN Tower – the tallest building in Toronto. Usually only tourists give a fuck about the thing, climb it so they don’t feel small. Look down on the busiest city in Canada to feel significant.

“Datura has me in rose tinted glasses and I have her in my scope, cross hairs across her face ready to pull the trigger if she doesn’t move too quickly. You’ve romanticized the idea of killing Casanova English, of eliminating a demon who perched atop the mountain and laughed every single time your foot was misplaced, every time your hand didn’t group tight enough. I’m the man who laughs every inch you fall on your climb to the top. See as much as you want me to think you’ve been trying to tear me down for years you and I both know you had the will and the power to reach the summit and lock eye to eye with me, but back then you didn’t want to. I know that, back then the man I was would have torn your arms off and beat you to death with them.”

I put a cigarette between my lips and lit it. Blew a few clouds out over Toronto.

“I don’t need to sell you as some killer, for the past few years in Supreme Championship Wrestling you have proved you are on a level some of these people will never understand. You and I came up from the same underground, pushed our fingers through the earth and dragged ourselves from the soil and manure. These people already know who you are. You are the woman who has been hunting me for months. Invading my shows, headbutting me and splitting me open. You broke down the door to my fortress of solitude so don’t be mad when I use that stand my ground law the United States loves so much.”

I knock some ashes off my cigarette and let them flow out between the safety mesh staff at the tower put up to prevent high fashion jumpers.

“I’ve been watching you too, watching you lose a trios tournament and take no ownership on your own failure. It’s easy to blame other people when it comes to your failures, but we both know if you walked away the winner you’d be the reason for success. That’s what I hate about people like you Datura. There is no ownership, no failure if yours to own, but every victory is thanks to you. So what happens on New Year’s Eve when you come for me almost a decade after our last meeting? What happens if you came to humble me, but instead I give you exactly what you have been searching for… a beautiful fucking death.”

“Years ago you told me you love to tap people out, love to make them fade with a submission because they die at that moment. I see it now, I’ve done it countless times. I’ve choked people out and watched them reincarnate. Is that is what you came to Combat Unlimited for? Well know Datura I cannot save you. When we step into that ring I’ll be different than I was. I won’t be the dragon you hoped on slaying, those days of breathing fire are behind me.”

I take a few drags off my cigarette remembering my glory days, the frenzy of the crowd, the heat of battle, the hate mixed with love.

“I was The Modern Day Messiah, I crucified myself for the ignorant, but now you are looking at a man who sees beyond himself. I’m The Unprofessional, I am beyond this sport, I’m willing to do what ever it takes to make them see a whole new vision – whether that’s through building this company up – or ripping your fucking eyes out.”

Bash snaps the camera off, but my mind keeps going. Take me back to that day after Christmas six years ago. I had trouble breathing as I pulled into mom's driveway. The porch light was still on from the night before, but all the rest still off. Noon and she hadn’t got out of bed and it could only mean one thing.. a bottle… some pills.

I just didn’t think she would take it this far.

I opened the door with my own spare key. There she was a blue hued stone, eyes still open – looking into my soul as cold as ever.

From struggling in a rural trailer park on the skirts of civilization to a big old mansion. A perfect place to curl up and die.

Maybe CULT’s the place I lay my head down forever.