“I know pain. And sometimes I share it with someone like you.”
He didn't mind the drive.
Just homesick.
"I don't want to wear a mask, but I do anyway. Because I don't want you or Mommy getting sick. Okay?"
"Okay..."
She looked down as she agreed, then a spark of an idea hit her.
"What, I'm not enough?"
"No!"
He pulled out a tiny stuffed bear from his back pocket, won out of a claw machine after twenty-plus tries, and handed it over. Lizzie squealed in delight.
She looked up at him suddenly, as if realizing something was missing.
"Yeah, I told you that she could come around now. Especially since..."
"Yeah, I know. She's...busy."
He glanced down at his daughter, then back up at his ex-wife.
Joe looked at Stacy, but all she did was shrug her shoulders.
That's okay. I'll give Jon Willis all the credit in the world. He wouldn't stay down no matter what I threw at him. Granted, I can't say I gave him my best shot, because if I had landed that boot, I'd be telling a different story. But fair play to him, he avoided it and scraped by with a win.
When you've been in the game as long as I have, you know that wins and losses aren't as important as you might think. No one stays undefeated, losing streaks don't last forever. It's an ebb and flow that keeps the best of us humble. Not that humility is my strong suit.
JC shrugged.
But hey, whatever. He got me. Good for him. I move onward and upward.
Compared to a relentless, unique entity like Willis, it's almost insulting that I get stuck with a milquetoast wrestler like Steve Matthews at Chaos 97. He looks like you took the default option of a Create-A-Wrestler mode, put hair on it and called it a day.
I'm kidding.
He stopped for a moment to think, then nodded to confirm what he just said.
Yes. Definitely kidding. Mostly. Maybe.
I will say this, though. You can say you respect me on the Twitter, and you can claim you know what you're getting into, but those would both be very dumb things to do. Go talk to Jon Willis, if you want to know.
'But he won!'
His body sure doesn't think so. And isn't that what's important? If he loses to Guyliner, you can rest assured it will be because of what I did to him. I have that kind of impact on people. Even if they beat me on one night, they know they've been in a fight. You don't just face JC like it's a normal match.
He noticed his hands balling up into fists as he spoke, not even entirely sure why. He always got aggressive when it came time for things like this. A residual effect of his quelled bloodlust, he supposed.
And look at you, coming off of an I Quit match you lost. You not only lost, you lost so bad the match had to be called off. And to a loser in stunner shades, no less. I know if I were beaten to a pulp by a guy who willingly listens to the Vengaboys, I might consider changing professions.
But not you. No, not you.
You're better than that.
You took the worst some douchebag had to offer, suffered a humiliating loss in an I Quit match by being beaten to a pulp, and the very next day said, 'Yes sir, may I have another?'
It takes guts. It lacks brains, but it takes guts. And it's very commendable. I suppose, in its own way, its admirable.
After another moment to think, he smiled and continued.
The problem, my sadomasochistic friend, is that your Dom granted your wishes. C$J is giving you another. But this time the pain is going to be a little more than you can bear. And trust me when I say I am completely deaf to safe words.
I made the mistake of thinking that this was the same Carnage I left. That I could just stroll in, plant myself among a new group of talent and pick up like things were before. Like I hadn't changed things with the New Talent Initiative. Like I hadn't created the change I was trying to make a year ago when I was breaking Jack Michaels' fingers and snapping Robert Zodiac's neck.
He didn't like bringing up the past, of course, and was never proud of what he did, but it was always fun to revel in it to sell the idea of how dangerous he was in the ring. And judging from the comments he read from Matthews on Twitter, he really didn't know what he was facing.
The casual grin became a grimace, and the facade of being a calm, nice guy was dropped. He had a lot to say, alright. A statement to send.
The changing of the guard is here, and you're looking at the man that flipped the override switch.
There's a risk in that. There's the risk that I get swept away too. I lost sight of that when I faced Jon Willis and got struck by the tide.
But I'm still here. I'm still standing.
JC stepped forward and turned off his phone's camera as he noticed a minivan begin to pull into the drive, carefully moving past his car. Inside sat a man, a woman and two kids, both boys. The man eyed him suspiciously while the boys seemed particularly excited. The man said something to his family and slowly got out of the car.
He thought the man resembled his own father a bit, but he was going from memory. After all, he hadn't seen the man in person in thirty years, give or take. Photographs of the past weren't common either.
If JC had to guess, just judging from the reactions, the kids knew who he was and the parents did not. But it didn't answer the question of why they were here.
"Can I help you?"
He tried to turn his more aggressive, more confident JC persona off, to revert back to Joe. Sometimes they were one in the same. Sometimes there was a third, but that third, that dark passenger, was locked away. They were all faces he wore, but he'd be unable to tell anyone which were the masks and which was his real face.
That third would probably attack this man on principle, so having it locked away was for the best.
"You pulled up on me, man. If your kids want an autograph, that's a weird way to ask."
"Autograph?"
The man shook his head. Nope, definitely not a wrestling fan.
"You're in our driveway, sir."
"You're...you must be mistaken. This is my house. This house has been in my family for years."
There was no way. Absolutely no way that Eric would have sold it. At the very least he would have told him first, wouldn't he? JC would have bought it outright if that were the case. This was the one thing from his past he still cherished, and he had already lost enough in his life thus far.
"Are you...Joe?"
Joe raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by the question, as if this day wasn't confusing enough.
"Yes..."
"Ah, that makes sense."
He turned towards the car at his wife.
"Honey, it's okay. He used to live here."
She gave him a quick nod and turned back to her kids, who were alternating between trying to sneak out of the car and jumping up and down in excitement. He wasn't sure who they were or what company they watched to see them, but he almost wished had some merch on hand to give to them.
"Yes, I used to live here but..."
"Look, your brother told us this might happen, we just didn't know when. He sold us this place after you moved out and said you were...indisposed, but may drop by asking about it."
"He sold it?"
He sighed in frustration. That indisposed period was is time at an inpatient clinic. He was in and out of consciousness, adjusting to new medicine and generally trying to get over losing his mind. In all likelihood, Eric had told him and he simply forgot.
The problem with anti-psychotic medications was the brain fog, which left you in a daze and prone to forget things. And in a period where he was starting to adjust to them...it was very likely that was the case.
But still, it wouldn't have killed him to let him know later, if he ever did at all. It was definitely something they needed to discuss.
"Yes, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. He said he'd let you know but I guess it slipped his mind."
Or mine, Joe thought bitterly.
"It's...fine. I haven't actually lived here in years. Did he say what he did with the items in the basement?"
"No, he didn't. I'm sorry."
Eric had talked about selling the place for a while and JC had been too far gone to even entertain the idea. Neither of them used it, and it mostly served as storage for old photos and family heirlooms. Let the past stay in the past, JC thought at the time. He had been applying that line of thought to his career as well, although he did (and still was) stubbornly tried to remain in the present.
All in all, he kind of wished he could have the last two years of his life back.
Instead, he simply tilted his head in the man's direction and offered a hand. They awkwardly shook and JC opened up the driver's side door of the car he didn't own, in the driveway of the house he no longer had any claim to.
"Thanks for not calling the cops, I guess. Oh and...your kids know who I am. Tell them to expect some autographed merchandise in the mail."
"Are you famous, or something?"
"Yeah..."
He chucked sadly to himself.
"Or something."
He climbed into his car and watched the man pull up the rest of the way and go into the house with his family. The kids had to be practically dragged and even as they were inside, he could see them peeking out the windows.
He stared at his phone, thought for a moment, and decided he had more to say, so he turned it on.
We don't always know how to prepare for change. It can overwhelm us, override our senses and everything we were can get erased as the world changes around us. But change is different from growth.
As Carnage grows, that spirit of Ultraviolence will remain the same. No, violence doesn't change and the violent aren't changed. They just get more creative. It took me a long time to realize that I belong in Carnage because I am ultraviolence. I don't need a weapon or a shitty catchphrase to make it so. It's just who I am.
So I will remain in the present to build the future. Unlike some, who clutched their power until they no longer had it and then went back into the shadows, I will not be swept away with the tides of change.
Because that's the thing about me. I'm not Jack Michaels. I'm not Amber Ryan. I'm not Kyra Johnson. I'm not part of the old guard. I'm not part of the new guard.
I am the Answer. I am a Rogue. I am an Anomaly. I just keep on ticking, because I am forever.
Too bad you're not, Steve Matthews.
As the song goes, they 'ain't found a way to kill me yet.' You can come to snuff the rooster, but you know he ain't gonna die.
Not when he has so much killing of his own to do.
He shut off the camera again and simply sat back in his seat and sighed heavily. It had been an exhausting day. Being forced to deal with a lot mentally had just as much of a toll as physical labor and he had been dealing with a lot.
His eyes turned to the side, where a piece of white construction paper with a crayon drawing sat in the seat.
At least he hadn't lost everything.
Joe found himself momentarily smiling a sad, melancholic smile, before he put the key in the ignition and left his childhood behind forever.
