Post by Smith Jones on Oct 28, 2019 1:38:33 GMT -5
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“My world is about to change.”
Smith Jones is standing at the corner of Victoria Street and Shuter in the heart of downtown Toronto, Canada. It's late. And Smith is more than a few hours late for brunch with his son. Smith is dressed in a long, gray wool coat, buttoned from bottom to tippy top, accented with a slightly lighter gray cotton scarf. He is also wearing dark jeans with white runners. Now almost midnight, the air is chilly as Jones stares down the street in one direction and then another direction, checking all four ways for where his son might be coming from.
He sees a young man walking towards… nope, he turned off into a shop. There is another… wait. No. Much too large and maybe female?
“Jenny says he looks just like m...”
Smitty freezes. That's gotta be him. A young man of seventeen dressed in a long, gray wool coat, topped with a steel blue scarf. His dark brown hair is tucked into a black toque. He drags his white runners ever so slightly as he rushes past Smith with his head aimed at the ground. He mumbles angrily.
“Seventeen years I waited to meet you and you couldn't make brunch?!”
He walks straight past Smith and into Fran's twenty-four hour diner with a stern smirk. Jones follows him, trying to maintain his signature stone scowl, but sporting an awkward sneer instead. Smith follows his son to his favourite booth in the corner and joins him at the table. They both shed their winter gear. Smith is wearing a light gray tee that reads on the front of it in white lettering. His son wears a black tee that says whatever across it in steel blue. They both avoid eye contact at first.
“It's much more complex than you--”
“Oh, it's complex, is it? Tell me about it, THE Smith Jones. Tell me how hard it would be for me to understand. I'm just a kid, right. YOUR kid.”
“I don't… own you, Copeland. You’re not even a Jones.”
“Why would you--?”
Copeland starts to get out of his seat.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no! Sit! Sit! I’m just not very good at this. I have a… How do I have a son? How are you here?”
Copeland inhales. Smith cuts him off.
“I mean, I know how I’m here! Just… you don’t know the life I’ve lived since I knew your mother. It was truly a lifetime ago. I am a completely different now. I was…
...your age.”
It is at this moment when Smith Jones looks at his son, Copeland Sanderson, and sees the strong resemblance Jenny had mentioned. The dark hair. The furrowed brow. Those same angry eyes Jones himself wore in younger days. Untrained rage. Dangerous energy. Smith had a healthy, respectful fear of that sort of anger, bubbling right beneath the surface, ready to explode. Smith cautions.
“Don’t let your bitterness be your motivation.”
“Don’t let my what? Smith, you need to step up and be better than you are right now. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve sat in the sixth row and watched you do you what you do, not knowing that this… incredible athlete is my very own father. That my innate draw towards the wrestling ring came from my own blood. Before knowing you as my father, I idolized you. I bought your T-shirt, more than one version of it. Your darker tweets got me through some trying times. You were my hero. You were my hero.
And then…
Mom told me. The whole crazy story of you and how you met and how she kept you from me. All my life, I thought my father was some guy who knocked mom up and bailed. Ghosted, good riddance. It was better I didn’t know the bastard anyway. And then… my father was you. My father IS you. I’ve studied your techniques, traits, and tendencies. I always put wrestling first and I always, ALWAYS wipe my feet on the ring apron before I step into a wrestling ring. I was your son long before either of us knew it. The universe led me to be just like you. If I don’t feel an overwhelming wave of love for the man who sits across from me, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
A tear spontaneously leaps from Smith’s face as if he’d popped an eyeball. He covers as much of his face as he can with his left hand while clenching his right fist on the table. He forces his own hand open and lays it flat in front of him and he slides his left hand down his face, leaving behind a resolutely tight-lipped expression. Copeland adds.
“Train me.”
Smith’s expression does not flinch.
“Hn.”
“So, what’ll it be?”
They both look up at the server.
They both look again at each other.
Silence.
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Fade up on a shot of a table lamp sitting on a side table next to a bed where there is a man in his fifties lying down to bed. The man turns off the lamp. The room is now lit by the moon and a streetlight nearby. As the camera zooms back, we see Smith Jones standing at the foot of his bed in the darkness. Smith Jones is dressed in his shiny white robe with sparkly silver trim and he has the APW World Title slung over his shoulder. He remains silent and watches the man snuggle into the mattress and brace himself from the chill with two layers of quilts. Smith walks away from the bed and over to the window. He looks out at the neighbourhood and tries to imagine each person nestling into their beds all the way down the street. He lets out a brief whispered chuckle. He then catches his own reflection in the window, but he sees it as Zion Simmons.
“I can see that you’re one of those guys who likes to hear himself talk. You think that when you bark insults in my direction that I should, what, pay attention to you like a neglected two-year-old?
You pay attention, Zy. This is HorrorKore. I did not hand the Main Event over to anyone. This is the hardcore supershow. This is a case of unfortunate scheduling, because YES I DID LOSE TO DEAN WOLF and yeah that HURTS like absolute proper crazy. But, if you think for one sacred second that I’ve allowed the prestige of this to slip from the pinnacle of Alpha Pro that it has always been, you are in for quite a ride. I’ve allowed you to feel the heat of the spotlight long enough.”
Smith walks out of their room and makes his way downstairs. He ends up in the kitchen where he pulls a glass from the cupboard and pours himself a tall glass of cold milk from the fridge. After taking a long, slow drink, he rests the now half empty glass on the counter and lets out a sigh. He looks directly into camera as he speaks on.
“I knew when the Heavyweight Contendership Tournament began that I would be facing some like Night or maybe a rematch against ZMAC. Never did I ever imagine that it’d be you standing up and shouting my name all week while I provide you the required silence to make you feel as big and powerful as you can in my absence.
I have beaten the best of the best in this locker room. You know that. You watched it all from the back every week. One loss against one man does not discredit my ability to amply dismantle you and show you parts of yourself you’ve never seen before; take a stroll through your psyche while fracturing your frame. That one loss is not the definition of Smith Jones. We all lose. It’s a fact of the career we’ve chosen.”
He pats the faceplate of the belt with a smug smirk.
“This already belongs to you, eh? You’re the one carrying it around the continent. You’re the one carrying it over your shoulder, flying in your private jet with your beautiful girlfriend to yet another autograph signing or photo shoot or talk show appearance or training session or hospital visit or radio hit or production meeting or… man, do you really need me to explain to you what it’s like to be champion? To constantly perform at the top level not just this week, not just the week that I happen to be facing you, but every week? I gently remind you, Zy, that I am still your champion whether or not I spend my every waking moment thumbing your social media.
You know as well as everyone in this company from the bottom of the barrel all the way to the heights of the Alpha office that Smith Jones has been and will continue to be a top level performer; a championship level professional. Inside that ring, there is simply NO ONE like me. There truly is only one Smith Jones and I’m right here. I don’t feel the need to jump and reply to every single word you say. You talk too much and I am already sick of you. Lucky for me, I get to be the one to shut you up with these two tenacious and technically terrifying hands.
I’m a placeholder? Yeah. I’m the placeholder who just handed the Hardcore Champion’s number one contender a loss just last week. I’m the paper champion that brings eyes to this product every time I open my mouth. I miss a few steps here and there along the way, but my imperfection doesn’t render everything I’ve ever done as null and void. I’m the reason they had to hold a tournament in the first place. I’m such a strong fighter that the office couldn’t throw just anyone my way. They needed to throw every eligible entrant they could find into the ring and let them all battle it out for the chance to do what you now have the unenviable duty of doing.
You gotta dance with the incredible Smith Jones.
Wipe…
Your…
feet.
While I did lose to Wolf a few weeks back, you’re still in for a treat because I’m just that much more fired up to eviscerate the aspirations of hopeful wannabe champions like you. Don’t take me wrong. I can see that you are legit. You had an efficient victory over Silvan in unbelievably swift measure in your debut match at Supremacy. You shockingly won your first round match against Charmaine. I half expected to be meeting her in the finals. I hadn’t even considered you. You stole your semi-final win over Wesley using your innovative frog splash into elbow drop finisher and a little extra leverage. And most recently, you won that incredible tournament final with a particularly powerful frog splash into an elbow drop. You’re four and oh.
You must feel unstoppable right now.”
Smitty walks into the living room and grabs a cushion from the couch. He heads back upstairs to the bedroom and walks to the head of the bed to stand next to the sleeping man who now snores obliviously.
“I’m going to show you what fear truly feels like.
Believe it or not, we will be competing in a match where the ring is surrounded by zombies. True story. Zombies. The McMorris family reunion right outside the ring and you and I are invited… for dinner. They may be hungry for brains, but this right here... ”
He taps his temple.
“This is the gourmet stuff. This is not to be wasted on random riff raff. I’m Smith Jones! No, I’m going to be the one to get my hands clamped around your throat and hurl you over the top rope to where a horde of hungry corpses will consume you from toe to head, savouring every single morsel of you along the way while your screams fill the arena with the sounds of true horror and desperation. And your only respite will be to claw yourself away from the pack and into the ring where I’ll be waiting to laugh in your face when you try to use your bloody stumps to beat me into submission.
At HorrorKore, your dream of becoming an undefeated champion will die.
I’m not going to be the next to fall victim to your spectacular frog splash / elbow. I’ve seen it enough times to know how to avoid it. Keep you off that top rope at all costs. There are many ways that I could accomplish this. I could break your legs. I could unscrew a turnbuckle and beat you senseless with it. I could put my thumbs in your eyes and shove your eyeballs in through their sockets until you can see the inside of your skull. I could toss you clear over the zombie lumberjacks and shatter your femur on the retaining wall. When you dream, dream of me chasing you through a graveyard where every tombstone is your own. Dream of me digging your grave using your hands as gloves, burying you half dead in a random desert. Dream of me harming you, Zy, because if you have the audacity to dream of anything else, I will transform your outlandish dream into the unmitigated impossibility it really is right before your eyes. And when it is all said and done, you will be another name I can spout off when I speak of my great history here in APW.
Dream of me knocking you out with the Point of Controversy and then suffocating you in your sleep with a turnbuckle pad like a pillow over and unwanted child. This is the end of your fairytale. I am and will continue to be your APW World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion... ”
He lays the belt across the waist of the sleeping man with one hand. He then puts both hands on the pillow and raises it toward the man’s face. Fade to black
“...and there is NOTHING you can do about it.”
