Post by Renaissance on Sept 5, 2020 13:22:28 GMT -5
 Despite all of those around us. All of those distractions. You and I. We were alone in the middle of that ring. You held me close. You took my breath away. And for a moment. I saw the look you gave me. You wanted more, didn’t you? Did it excite you? Did it scare you? Either way, you wanted more. Admit it. But now ours are diverging paths. When will I see you again? What will that meeting look like? Can you escape how it felt? Have you gotten what you wanted? Was it what you hope for? Or is something still missing? Do you feel satisfied? I’ll see you soon.  We’ve all seen them, haven’t we? Sometimes we see them while we’re driving distracted. Sometimes we see them on the sidewalk enroute to our next bit of extravagance. Sometimes we see them on the subway after a night of partying. We see them, but do we ever really look at them? How do you make eye contact with someone who has absolutely nothing when you have so much? Then again, what if, when you looked back into your eyes, you saw yourself? Honestly, it would only take a few circumstances falling into place and you could end up just like them. Did you know that as of January 2018, there were 552,830 homeless people in the continental United States? It’s not just the drug user, or the drunk. Many homeless people are veterans who fought for a country which never really cared about them. Many are members of the LGBTQ community who were kicked out of their homes simply because they were different. Surprisingly, many are children left homeless by parents who died, abandoned them, or are junkies who just don’t care. So many more. The mentally ill, the lost immigrant, whole families, oh my. In a world struggling with diversity, one thing is certain - the homeless community, diversity wise, has hit the jackpot. But you don’t really care, do you? Don’t feel bad, neither do I. No, we don’t care, because we do everything we can, day in and day out, to make sure we have a roof and three squares a day. Granted, it’s much easier for me than you, but let’s pretend we have common ground for the time being. You don’t care about the homeless people because there’s nothing you could do, even if you did care. The amount of time and money it would take to fix the problem is unmeasurable, so why even try? Give me a roof over my head. Give me a hand out. Give me a warm meal. Give me a pair of shoes without holes. Give me back my humanity.  The sky was full of overactive, manically twinkling stars. They pulsed with the pounding of my heart. There was a bittersweet beauty in it - I could have used my time to star gaze, instead of what I actually did that night. But slowing down to gaze at stars has never done anything for me. People feel things when they look at the night sky, but all I see is light from stars long since dead. I imagine the worlds full of life destroyed when the stars went supernova. I was in South Bronx. Mott Haven, specifically. I’d been searching for him all night and finally found him between two dumpsters around the corner from a Zap Mart convenience store. I never learned his name and I would have forgotten it, even if I had. If I were to make a bum Build-a-Bear, it would look exactly like he did. He had two sets of headphones on and I’m sure neither of them worked. His shoes were mixed. One was an Air Jordan and the other was some kind of Adidas. His jacket was disgusting and stained, but looked like something formerly Columbia. His pants I couldn’t place? His pants were an abstract expressionist’s nightmare of piss, shit, and whatever filth he had been sitting in for days and days and days. I, on the other hand, had dressed for the occasion. I was wearing a One-Shoulder Foiled Gown by Monique Lhuillier and matching Ferragamo pumps I had picked up at Saks Fifth Avenue that same day. My mini purse, also by Ferragamo, contained a 6” Italian Stiletto. All in all, I was wearing six thousand dollars in clothing alone. This decision was deliberate - I wanted him to see just how different we were. I knelt beside him, ignoring the fact that I was ruining my gown just by being near him. I pulled out a crisp new one hundred dollar bill and held it just out of his reach. I asked him if he wanted it and he nodded desperately and jumped the gun by telling me how ‘incredibly’ grateful he would be. I asked him to stand up so I could have a look at him, but when he tried to get up, he reached out to me for help. I instinctively moved away, telling him that he was pure feculence and would never be graced by my touch. I kept the bill out of his reach and asked him what he would do with the money. I asked if he’d get a shower and some clean clothes. I asked if he’d get a good meal. I asked, finally, if he’d blow it on booze and/or drugs. He went with the latter. He admitted that he’d spend it on alcohol. I appreciated his honesty. My purse felt cumbersome with the stiletto inside. I asked him what he would do to get the bill. He said he would do anything. I told him to stand on one leg. He did. I told him to bark like a dog. He did. I told him to get a job. He couldn’t. Responsibility was too much for him. He didn’t want to rise to the occasion. The opportunity I held out in front of him was far too much. I wasn’t handing it out. I wasn’t giving it to him for free. I expected him to earn it. Looking at him, I assumed that his best wouldn’t be much. He cried as I lit the bill on fire and let it fall to the ground. The bill was flat black ash as it hit the ground and fell to bits. He took an angry step towards me and I pulled out the blade. His eyes widened and looked at the blade with, somehow, more anticipation than they did when he saw the crisp new one hundred dollar bill. I told him, if he made a move, I’d slash his eyes and cut out his tongue and that nobody would care - nobody would miss him. Fucking loser. SMASHCUT and we’re sitting on the bow of a yacht nearby an island in the Long Island Sound. I’ll never know his name and due to the fact that no one stepped forward to claim his unidentified body, no one will ever know his name. Mere days after our little one-on-one he had been found a few blocks away from the Zap Mart dead. He was just one victim in a long string of murders. Someone had been hunting the homeless. Easy victims. Did you know that when a homeless person dies in New York City and family members or loved ones can’t be found, that the corpse of the homeless person is sent to the island we’re near right now. It’s called Hart Island - a 130 acre wisp of land right here in the Long Island Sound. The corpse of the homeless person is nailed into an unmarked wooden box and placed into an unmarked mass grave. Once there, they are buried by inmates from nearby Riker’s Island at the rate of about fifty cents an hour. And that’s literally it. All of the apathy, ignorance, and squandering of opportunity is buried with him. That’s all he really deserved. And that’s where this Vagabond’s story ends. Unknown amongst other unknowns. Forgotten and yet never truly known to begin with. It’s all he deserved. I guess I’m glad I could be there for him in his final moments. I’m glad I got to look into his eyes and ensure that any remaining humanity had been drained from him.  Von Vagabond. You have the rather unfortunate privilege of being the first member of the Alpha Pro roster I mention by name. You are the resident apathetic hobo slash drinker slash everything we’d expect out of a cliché vision of what a drunken bum would look like. Yes, the cool indifference of one kneading his toes against the gutter. The disinterest of someone more interested in things like throat cancer and fatty liver, than they are in the opportunities before them. You’re more of a child’s vision of what a homeless person would be. Something seen on an episode of a lazily written police procedural. No no no. You’re not who you say you are at all. You’re just another over used and poorly played cliché. Remember when you accused Ricky Schorg of being a similar cliché? The wrestling family - the daddy complex. What do you think you are? You’re yet another in a long line of clichés seen in and out of Alpha’s revolving door. Yet another Beta trying to play Alpha. Give me hypocrisy. Give me incoherence. Insinuating your opponent is a homosexual or has homosexual tendencies is your favorite thing to do, isn’t it? Is this another example of your ground breaking approach? Does this give you the mental edge when you enter the ring? If anything, you’d expect a homosexual male to understand wrestling another man that much better. I would guess that it would behoove you to hope for the opposite. Then again, I’ve found that often times when a man accuses another man, or many men, of being closeted homosexuals, that he is the closeted homosexual. Is that what this is, Von Vagabond? Note: I don’t use, nor do I condone homophobic or racial slurs. The following is simply to highlight my opponent’s childish world view. How would you put it? It would be some kind of sophomoric pun, probably. Are you actually ‘Von Fagabond’? Do you want to ‘bond’ with some ‘fags’? Now that I’m speaking your language, which is to say, speaking as if I were only capable of childish thoughts, does it help you understand? Do you secretly want to feel a man’s erect cock slide into your tight little ass? Do you want to feel your own cock grow erect as your prostate is stimulated? Do you yearn for the feeling of another man using you as if you were a woman? How does it feel to have homophobia applied to you, Vagabond? Excuse the graphic detail and language. It was for effect. Back in reality, I wonder: What does a person’s sexual orientation have to do with professional wrestling? You fear opportunity and you showed that you clearly are incapable of getting the most out of any opportunity afforded you. You spoke of expectation as if there should ever be an expectation of a child like you. It’s laughable, really. You narrowly got past Ricky Schorg to gain an opportunity at the Junior Heavyweight Championship and then you promptly BLEW IT. You were destroyed by a man who is essentially Pennywise if all of his personality and appeal were erased. You are a failure and you don’t deserve to enter the ring with me. I will prove that this Monday night. Furthermore, I am willing to place another crisp new one hundred dollar bill on the line saying that it will be your last appearance at an Alpha Pro event. All you deserve is an unmarked grave. And when your story ends, Von Vagabond, all you’ll truly want redacted is your contribution (or lack thereof) to Alpha Pro Wrestling. Goodbye.  |
