Why Not?

Blood.

Arteries.

Guts.

We’re all made up of the same shit, some of us just have more of the ladder than others. I’ve been trying to figure out if I still have the same iron stomach I used to. At Proving Ground I gave way to the darkness once more, let it guide me more than the lure of some golden trinket.

Bash is already recording as a suck on a cigarette.


Well… fuck… I wasn’t going to tell them to the truth. Tell them I was questioning my manhood. Tell them I stuffed some hooker full of cum during unprotected sex because I was upset my girlfriend died. I wasn’t going to tell them the reason why I wanted to essentially preform a blunt force abortion on live TV was because Tara Fenix was burning too fucking bright.

She was off to start the life I wanted – a kid – love – a white picket fence… I wanted it all… even if one day I’d look down from cleaning the gutters – leap and impale myself. I suck the cigarette after taking too long of a pause. Bash Daddy clears his throat to get my attention back.

“The last thing we need is more members of this roster reproducing. Fucking Brandon Hendrix hasn’t convinced me he knows how to do a headlock anymore, he’s too busy replacing that knowledge with how to fasten in a fucking car seat after he asked advice on Twitter. The guy’s going to take so much more brain damage over the next few years he’s going to confuse his own meals with the baby food.”

I knock the ash off my cigarette.

I blow a puff of smoke toward the camera.

“The smallest gust could send you tumbling. People ask me why… and I ask why not… you have to do something to get them talking these days.”

Bash shut the camera off and I sat there silently smoking the cigarette. He had no idea of my relationship, thought I was hitting the road to do promotion for the wrestling company we were all forced into starting together. He had no idea I was paying Rachel to call me daddy every other well – day – up until the pregnancy.

“When are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on,” Bash asks motioning for me to give him a cigarette – a habit he has picked up since working security at some indy wrestling shows. Not much else to do when you are stuck watching the door.

“I just don’t know how I get out of this one,” I said, handing him a single Marlboro. He places the cigarette in his lips past his leather gimp mask and light it for him.

“People think you are a piece of shit. I know I am not telling you anything new here, but you saved me Cas. I was a fucking twig thin heroin addict sucking off pin dicked dealers to get the junk for free. You took me off the streets.. Turned me into this monster of a man,” Bash coughed, still not used to the way tobacco smoke hits the back of your throat when you suck too hard.

“What I am saying is you forced me to open up, come to terms with my sexuality, confront my past, reach out to my ex wife – rebuild a relationship with my kids. Fuck, I got your back to the end. You just tell me what bodies need to be buried,” Bash said.

“I’ve been seeing someone one and off… a prostitute,” I said pausing to take a few puffs off the cigarette. “It honestly was therapy more than anything with a little sex attached, you know, but then I guess I fell in love or something. I just don’t know if she has… then again I think the only reason I give a fuck about her is because she is carrying a bit of me.”

Bash’s eye widen, the cigarette falls from his mouth and hits the ground. He awkwardly scoops it back up.

“Well what are you going to do?,” he asks.

“That’s up to her ain’t it. A woman’s body is her choice and all that, but I did tell her I want to keep it. I know I am beyond saving, I have established that and come to terms – but like you said – I saved you. I molded you into something bigger than you ever thought you could be. I think I could do that as a father.”

Bash just put his hand on my shoulder, for the first time in the years we have been friends he was leading me through my trauma. I didn’t have children like he did. This was one area he knew more about.

The sun is setting as I walk through the park hoping no children are still playing on the equipment. Bash follows me past the swing set and into the rusty old dome jungle gym. He flips open the camcorder and clicks record.

“So this is what professional wrestling has been reduced to by the management at Project Honor. You are putting eight blood thirsty killers inside of a make shift fucking jungle gym… you can call it hell as many times as you want – it’s a jungle gym to me – a god damn violent playground and I don’t mind giving each and everyone of the people in this match the beating they should have got in grade school to humble their asses. I tell you even scaling something like this up to 50 feet wide and 30 high it’s not near big enough to fit all these egos – so I’ll do my best to kill them off as quickly as possible.”

I pull a cigarette from it’s pack and place it between my lips, light it and run my hands along the rusted metal.

“I never played well with others, had a hard time making friends – imagine that. I was that ADHD riddled kid who climbed to the top of shit like this and jumped on this biggest fucker I could because I confused these institutional learning facilities with correctional ones. That’s the mentality that has propelled me through my career, pick out the biggest tree and chop it down – find the prettiest picture and make it fucking ugly.”

I kick my feet through the gravel and step toward the camera grinding my teeth.

“Sure Project Honor locks me in a violent playground with this pack and even if I don’t walk out the winner I promise to do what I have done the past year in this company and that is weed out the weak, keep the little piggies separate from the wolves. I see some killers in this match like Douglas Crane, the man and I have been flirting like school girls and have yet to lock it up. See Douggy, I’d love nothing more than to choke some life into your fucking eyes. You are a badass – but when your wind is cut off, there is a small glimmer of cowardice in every man’s eye and I’ll do whatever it takes to rip it out of you even if I have to go knuckle deep into the socket to get into your head.”

I grab the rusted metal of the playground and pick off a few pieces of the yellow paint revealing a tiny bit of still shiny steel.

“Speaking of big egos, I never understand how the fans get behind these guys who think their shit don’t stink. They put god and shit in their nickname like I didn’t do it as an slightly edgy joke fifteen years ago. I get it you think you are the next big thing, Hendrix popped on the scene in 2020 won a championship in a big promotion and it all went to through your thick fucking skull. Well Brando you’ve never been in the ring with a motherfucker quite like me. I prey on people like you, I made a career of chopping down false icons like you. The jacked up tower of a man, chest hair galore, probably swinging a sword to make a nod to the said of your phallus. It’s all such theatrical toxic masculine bullshit. Maybe I’ll do you a favor by beating some personality into your bland value brand ass at Disputed Territory. I became famous tearing down false Idols – but if you’re not careful I will immortalize you – as the second most famous Hendrix to join the 27 club.”

I take a sharp puff off my cigarette trying to remember the pile of names I am up against at the upcoming show. I knock the ash off my cigarette then walk toward the camera again. A thin layer of smoke billows in front of my face.

“Declan, you Irish little car bomb you. Tiny as a little leprechaun and just as fucking quick. Rest assured this kid doesn’t come with a pot of gold, his accolades are so scarce you’d mistake it for the fucking potato famine. I know, I am sure you’d give me this spiel on how the smallest things can be the mightiest in some dumb fucking accent, but I already know – you got this weird spider fetish. And I get it I do. The whole venom thing, the fact a small bite from some spiders can bring down an elephant or some shit you saw on the nature channel as a kid. But if I know I am going down with it – rest assure I'll stomp and mangle – I rip each leg off that spider enjoying every second of it til my dying seconds looking into all eight eyes of the insect as we both fade away.”

A spider makes it’s way across one of the thin metal beans and I just miss it with the burning ember of my cigarette. I take a few quick puffs to keep the cigarette burning.

“Raymond, I get you.. Just here to wrestle break some skulls, bend some arms and go home with a pay check on your quest to become the best. A tale as old as fucking time, a wrestler who wrestles and fuck you – but that just doesn’t cut it there days does it. It doesn’t sell the tee shirts, it doesn’t buy mommy a house. It doesn’t rake in the fucking pussy. All it gets you is your knees knocking together as you make your way up a set of steps in an irrelevant hall of fame ceremony as the greatest technical wrestler to never win the top title at the big promotion.”

“Jade I understand you are no typical rookie, you got this legendary training from some Project Honor alum, but look how I have picked through this roster over the last year, you think the approach around here is really going to work against a wrestler like me. I’m the devil your tarot cards have been warning you about and despite what that little book tells you matching bullshit symbols to bullshit descriptions I’m not a good omen Jade. I am not a good man at all, but I think your naive deer eyed ass is even smart enough to decipher that. I’ve got my own personal witch… and if you aren’t careful I’ll let voodoo come out and play. Wicca is fun and all, but pure black magic – well – that's a passion that takes over your soul. You’re mantra of harm none – we’ll that philosophy won’t hold up walking through the gates of hell with Casanova English.”

Suddenly, I feel like I am being watched. I look around for a second as a cool chill runs down my spine.

“And Silas, you sick weird fuck… I might have a job for you. Get my card at Disputed Territory. We should talk.”

Bash snaps the camera off as I throw my cigarette to the ground and grind into the gravel.


Rachel never felt any shame in doing her job before. Selling her body was her god given right – but right now it isn’t just hers. She’s sharing all the things pumped into her body and she couldn’t help but think about the strange cocks entering her weekly.

She puked in the toilet again – stress not the pregnancy yet. She was getting to the point where she would have to pull the trigger. She quit smoking, and hadn't drank since English confronted her at the clinic weeks ago.

She wasn't sure if she saw a future with him – but what he said got to her about giving a kid a chance they both didn’t have – of creating something great from two completely broken souls.

She was getting tired. Pleasing criminals, politicians, police, and they all tasted the god damn same. Sad. Emotionally malnourished.


Don't we all deserve a chance, a second one – a third – infinite…

Why not?