I'm falling down the spiral, destination unknown
Double-crossed messenger, all alone
Can't get no connection, can't get through, where are you
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March 8, 1991
The clock would not stop ticking.
The tall, lanky teenager, who had lost so much in the months prior, sat in this small, tucked away room waiting to find the right words to tell this stranger. But all he could focus on was the clock.
Tick, tick, tick. It would not stop ticking. It wasn't rational to be mad at the clock for doing its job, but somehow each tick seemed louder than the last in the overwhelming sadness. Why wouldn't the woman in front of him say anything? Wasn't she meant to help? Why was all the pressure on him to get the words out?
For newly sixteen-year-old Joe, this was the most pressing question. The only concrete idea he was able to latch onto in the swirling tornado of half-thoughts speeding around his mind. The silence. The uncomfortable lack of talking. The ticking.
Tick, tick, tick.
"Do you know why you're here?" The therapist asked. A woman in her late twenties who was new to the office but not new to the profession. At least he assumed so. As for why he was there, he knew exactly why. Because even though he had lost so much of late, there was still the main issue that had to be addressed. The meat and potatoes of what set off this chain of events to begin with. It all came back to one word, one word that would seem to follow him wherever he went.
Violence.
Violence begat pain, which begat death, which begat a funeral, moving to a new city and now a trip to get psychiatric help.
Because that was what happens when you assault someone near the porno section of a mom and pop video store.
"Because I killed my parents," he stated bluntly. Or rather he didn't, but something else. But that something else was a part of him and he would take the blame for what it convinced him to do. It would take him another 24 years to figure out what that thing was, but he didn't know that yet. All he knew was that something spoke up and now he was where he was.
Listening to a clock that wouldn't stop ticking with a woman he didn't want to talk to in a place he didn't want to be.
Tick, tick, tick.
"Well, that's part of it, except it isn't," the woman said. She had given her name but he didn't catch it. He was too busy disassociating. He didn't expect to be here long, however, so her name didn't matter. No teenager wants to talk to an adult about their mental health, especially with the looming threat of being sent away.
No matter what, he had to be allowed to leave her on his own. He would not let his brother get abandoned.
Not after what he took away.
"Joe," she urged. "Look at me."
He didn't. He couldn't. Eye contact had been very hard for him lately. He was ashamed. He simply shook his head.
"Okay, fine. You can when you're ready. But you really need to know that your parents' death was not your fault."
Except it was.
Joe visibly cringed at hearing that voice pop up. The voice that would later be diagnosed as part of his psychosis, but for now was just a thing he heard when under a lot of stress. Talking to a stranger about everything that had happened certainly qualified. Like he could ever feel comfortable with describing a voice in his head to someone that could have him locked away.
She continued uninterrupted, which made sense because the only interruption came inside Joe's head.
"You've been told multiple times you didn't cause it. I know you feel guilt and that's part of why you're here."
He nodded, not because he agreed but because he wanted to move the process along. And he knew why he was there, in spite of his current turmoil.
"You're here because of...how I do put this?" She said aloud. She was clearly being careful with her words, which made her better than other therapists he had seen. Blunt but careful not to invalidate. It was admirable.
Joe was less so.
"Because I broke some jerk's knee," he said quietly.
"Yes," she said. "No one blames you for fighting back from bullying. But it's...the way you did it that your family finds alarming."
Joe scoffed. "What family? It's my batshit insane aunt."
There had been many, many arguments between Joe and his aunt ever since he and his brother Eric had been forced to move there. She definitely blamed him for her sister's death even if she would never come out and say it. After all, saying those exact words around Eric would traumatize him. And there was an unspoken agreement that they would avoid doing anything else to upset his life.
Joe loved his brother above all else.
But the arguments were what they were, and Joe had thoughts of hurting her as well. As his well-being wasn't in danger, he never tried it. Never even entertained it. He pushed the thoughts aside, a practice he would become familiar with over the years.
He found himself lost in thought again, and when he came back, his therapist was in the middle of a sentence.
"...isn't very effective," she concluded. He didn't catch the rest and didn't bother to ask. "So of all the things you could have done, why did you do that?"
"They were bigger than me. I knew his knee was a problem. I wanted to get away. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time."
"You threw your entire body at his knee. You broke his knee. And after that, you kept punching the other one over and over until he wasn't a threat. You can hopefully see why we're concerned."
He couldn't, but that wasn't the point. He protected himself. Maybe he went a little overboard, but they would have done the same.
Except, part of him knew they wouldn't. They'd beat him up, maybe embarrass him, but a black eye or a bloody nose would have been the worst. He gave one a concussion and the other a broken femur. And then his parents in the middle of a cold January evening, racing on icy roads to come collect him from the police.
There was a funeral. There was a transfer of guardianship. There were many restless nights holding his brother as he cried himself to sleep. There were other nights where he himself found a quiet spot to sob until he was too tired to do so anymore.
And now there was therapy, which was the compromise that kept him out of jail. Because at his age, there wouldn't have been juvenile hall. Not for long.
"Joe," she said, snapping him back out of his disassociation again. This time he actively tried to focus on the clock to stay in the moment. Even the annoying ticking from the start of the session was getting drowned out by the voice in his head, the thoughts of guilt and the desire to escape.
The clock would not stop ticking.
The tall, lanky teenager, who had lost so much in the months prior, sat in this small, tucked away room waiting to find the right words to tell this stranger. But all he could focus on was the clock.
Tick, tick, tick. It would not stop ticking. It wasn't rational to be mad at the clock for doing its job, but somehow each tick seemed louder than the last in the overwhelming sadness. Why wouldn't the woman in front of him say anything? Wasn't she meant to help? Why was all the pressure on him to get the words out?
For newly sixteen-year-old Joe, this was the most pressing question. The only concrete idea he was able to latch onto in the swirling tornado of half-thoughts speeding around his mind. The silence. The uncomfortable lack of talking. The ticking.
Tick, tick, tick.
"Do you know why you're here?" The therapist asked. A woman in her late twenties who was new to the office but not new to the profession. At least he assumed so. As for why he was there, he knew exactly why. Because even though he had lost so much of late, there was still the main issue that had to be addressed. The meat and potatoes of what set off this chain of events to begin with. It all came back to one word, one word that would seem to follow him wherever he went.
Violence.
Violence begat pain, which begat death, which begat a funeral, moving to a new city and now a trip to get psychiatric help.
Because that was what happens when you assault someone near the porno section of a mom and pop video store.
"Because I killed my parents," he stated bluntly. Or rather he didn't, but something else. But that something else was a part of him and he would take the blame for what it convinced him to do. It would take him another 24 years to figure out what that thing was, but he didn't know that yet. All he knew was that something spoke up and now he was where he was.
Listening to a clock that wouldn't stop ticking with a woman he didn't want to talk to in a place he didn't want to be.
Tick, tick, tick.
"Well, that's part of it, except it isn't," the woman said. She had given her name but he didn't catch it. He was too busy disassociating. He didn't expect to be here long, however, so her name didn't matter. No teenager wants to talk to an adult about their mental health, especially with the looming threat of being sent away.
No matter what, he had to be allowed to leave her on his own. He would not let his brother get abandoned.
Not after what he took away.
"Joe," she urged. "Look at me."
He didn't. He couldn't. Eye contact had been very hard for him lately. He was ashamed. He simply shook his head.
"Okay, fine. You can when you're ready. But you really need to know that your parents' death was not your fault."
Except it was.
Joe visibly cringed at hearing that voice pop up. The voice that would later be diagnosed as part of his psychosis, but for now was just a thing he heard when under a lot of stress. Talking to a stranger about everything that had happened certainly qualified. Like he could ever feel comfortable with describing a voice in his head to someone that could have him locked away.
She continued uninterrupted, which made sense because the only interruption came inside Joe's head.
"You've been told multiple times you didn't cause it. I know you feel guilt and that's part of why you're here."
He nodded, not because he agreed but because he wanted to move the process along. And he knew why he was there, in spite of his current turmoil.
"You're here because of...how I do put this?" She said aloud. She was clearly being careful with her words, which made her better than other therapists he had seen. Blunt but careful not to invalidate. It was admirable.
Joe was less so.
"Because I broke some jerk's knee," he said quietly.
"Yes," she said. "No one blames you for fighting back from bullying. But it's...the way you did it that your family finds alarming."
Joe scoffed. "What family? It's my batshit insane aunt."
There had been many, many arguments between Joe and his aunt ever since he and his brother Eric had been forced to move there. She definitely blamed him for her sister's death even if she would never come out and say it. After all, saying those exact words around Eric would traumatize him. And there was an unspoken agreement that they would avoid doing anything else to upset his life.
Joe loved his brother above all else.
But the arguments were what they were, and Joe had thoughts of hurting her as well. As his well-being wasn't in danger, he never tried it. Never even entertained it. He pushed the thoughts aside, a practice he would become familiar with over the years.
He found himself lost in thought again, and when he came back, his therapist was in the middle of a sentence.
"...isn't very effective," she concluded. He didn't catch the rest and didn't bother to ask. "So of all the things you could have done, why did you do that?"
"They were bigger than me. I knew his knee was a problem. I wanted to get away. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time."
"You threw your entire body at his knee. You broke his knee. And after that, you kept punching the other one over and over until he wasn't a threat. You can hopefully see why we're concerned."
He couldn't, but that wasn't the point. He protected himself. Maybe he went a little overboard, but they would have done the same.
Except, part of him knew they wouldn't. They'd beat him up, maybe embarrass him, but a black eye or a bloody nose would have been the worst. He gave one a concussion and the other a broken femur. And then his parents in the middle of a cold January evening, racing on icy roads to come collect him from the police.
There was a funeral. There was a transfer of guardianship. There were many restless nights holding his brother as he cried himself to sleep. There were other nights where he himself found a quiet spot to sob until he was too tired to do so anymore.
And now there was therapy, which was the compromise that kept him out of jail. Because at his age, there wouldn't have been juvenile hall. Not for long.
"Joe," she said, snapping him back out of his disassociation again. This time he actively tried to focus on the clock to stay in the moment. Even the annoying ticking from the start of the session was getting drowned out by the voice in his head, the thoughts of guilt and the desire to escape.
"Yeah?"
"I'm trying to understand why you would do that," she replied.
"Because..."
He wondered what answer would be appropriate. 'Because a voice told me to' would almost certainly not be. 'Self-defense' wasn't cutting it. So he decided to lie by omission. Give enough of the truth to satisfy but not enough that he'd be kept from living his life.
"I was just tired," he said bitterly. Too bitter for a teenager. "Guys like me..." he trailed off, letting the words find him since he couldn't find them on his own. "Guys like that, they picked on me. Constantly. I'm the weird one that watches the weird movies. They beat me up a lot. Made school hell. I guess...I guess I just got fed up."
The therapist nodded, but did not validate his actions.
"You are aware what you did was wrong, don't you?"
He nodded. At least that was a thing they could agree on. It didn't feel wrong, but she didn't need to know that.
"It was disproportionate to the situation. They were bullying you and you put them in the hospital. And now you're having all these fights with your aunt, who is trying to..."
He scoffed at that.
"Okay, we won't talk about her right now. But my point Joe, is that level of violence...it suggests a disorder of some kind."
A flash of anxiety overcame him. He felt his skin begin to crawl and a cold feeling in his stomach. Suddenly he felt restless but as he couldn't exactly leave, his leg began to jump. She had figured him out. He hadn't said a word, but she had figured out what was wrong and now he would be sent away. He dug his fingers into his kneecap to attempt to calm the shaking. His fingertips turned white.
"Don't worry," she said, briefly grazing his hand with hers. He looked up at the touch and they made eye contact. He hadn't noticed how kind her face was, especially with the reassuring smile she now gave. The kindness made him even more uncomfortable. He turned away again.
"You clearly feel guilt over what you did. Remorse is a good thing. It means we can figure out these issues together and solve them."
He let out a shaky sigh of relief. So she didn't know exactly what was wrong, just that something was. He breathed in deep and let out another long exhale, shutting his eyes.
"I...I do feel bad about it." He did and he didn't, but right now he grabbed the life preserver she was throwing him. "I mean, they were assholes, but...I shouldn't have done that."
"We don't use that word in here," she scolded.
"Asshole?"
She then laughed. "No. Cuss all you want, I don't give a shit."
He glanced up again at hearing an authority figure swear in a professional setting and she winked. She was trying to build a rapport and it was working. He looked back down, his face turning red.
"I meant the word 'should'. You can't change the past. All you can do is work to improve your present and hopefully your future."
The clock kept ticking. This time it was his therapist, whose name he still didn't know, who looked up at it.
"Sadly, I think that's the end of this first session but Joe? I think you did very well. It's not easy to talk to someone you don't know about things like this. So I want to see you again in two weeks. We're going to fix this."
He stood up, took the appointment card without really looking at it and moved as quickly as he could towards the exit. She called out to him before he could get out of the door, and he turned around. For the third time, he made eye contact when he didn't want to.
"Don't worry, Joe. I'm not going to let them lock you away. You're a good kid. We will help you get through this."
He nodded, smiled a little in spite of himself and then, ashamed all over again, quickened his pace as he left the office.
"I'm trying to understand why you would do that," she replied.
"Because..."
He wondered what answer would be appropriate. 'Because a voice told me to' would almost certainly not be. 'Self-defense' wasn't cutting it. So he decided to lie by omission. Give enough of the truth to satisfy but not enough that he'd be kept from living his life.
"I was just tired," he said bitterly. Too bitter for a teenager. "Guys like me..." he trailed off, letting the words find him since he couldn't find them on his own. "Guys like that, they picked on me. Constantly. I'm the weird one that watches the weird movies. They beat me up a lot. Made school hell. I guess...I guess I just got fed up."
The therapist nodded, but did not validate his actions.
"You are aware what you did was wrong, don't you?"
He nodded. At least that was a thing they could agree on. It didn't feel wrong, but she didn't need to know that.
"It was disproportionate to the situation. They were bullying you and you put them in the hospital. And now you're having all these fights with your aunt, who is trying to..."
He scoffed at that.
"Okay, we won't talk about her right now. But my point Joe, is that level of violence...it suggests a disorder of some kind."
A flash of anxiety overcame him. He felt his skin begin to crawl and a cold feeling in his stomach. Suddenly he felt restless but as he couldn't exactly leave, his leg began to jump. She had figured him out. He hadn't said a word, but she had figured out what was wrong and now he would be sent away. He dug his fingers into his kneecap to attempt to calm the shaking. His fingertips turned white.
"Don't worry," she said, briefly grazing his hand with hers. He looked up at the touch and they made eye contact. He hadn't noticed how kind her face was, especially with the reassuring smile she now gave. The kindness made him even more uncomfortable. He turned away again.
"You clearly feel guilt over what you did. Remorse is a good thing. It means we can figure out these issues together and solve them."
He let out a shaky sigh of relief. So she didn't know exactly what was wrong, just that something was. He breathed in deep and let out another long exhale, shutting his eyes.
"I...I do feel bad about it." He did and he didn't, but right now he grabbed the life preserver she was throwing him. "I mean, they were assholes, but...I shouldn't have done that."
"We don't use that word in here," she scolded.
"Asshole?"
She then laughed. "No. Cuss all you want, I don't give a shit."
He glanced up again at hearing an authority figure swear in a professional setting and she winked. She was trying to build a rapport and it was working. He looked back down, his face turning red.
"I meant the word 'should'. You can't change the past. All you can do is work to improve your present and hopefully your future."
The clock kept ticking. This time it was his therapist, whose name he still didn't know, who looked up at it.
"Sadly, I think that's the end of this first session but Joe? I think you did very well. It's not easy to talk to someone you don't know about things like this. So I want to see you again in two weeks. We're going to fix this."
He stood up, took the appointment card without really looking at it and moved as quickly as he could towards the exit. She called out to him before he could get out of the door, and he turned around. For the third time, he made eye contact when he didn't want to.
"Don't worry, Joe. I'm not going to let them lock you away. You're a good kid. We will help you get through this."
He nodded, smiled a little in spite of himself and then, ashamed all over again, quickened his pace as he left the office.
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Well the night weighs heavy on his guilty mind
This far from the borderline
When the hitman comes
He knows damn well he has been cheated
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------March 8, 2022
A lot had happened in the intervening thirty-one years. He had seen been diagnosed with moderate bipolar disorder with psychotic features. A fancy way of saying that the voice he had was a hallucination brought on by what was wrong with him. He actually went a long time without it getting treated which likely made things worse.
This therapist was just the first of several. He stopped going when he got accepted into wrestling school. Then he stopped taking a general antidepressant once his prescription expired. By then, he mostly kept that voice under control on his own, the best he could, with his addiction: wrestling. A sport where he could be as violent as he wanted and even get cheered for it.
That resulted in a career of ruined friendships, destroyed relationships and various injuries. And today was his 46th birthday, a day he had been dreading. He was closer to 60 than 16, and closer to retirement than when he started training. He knew it, his family knew it, and his body definitely knew it.
But at least he was keeping his psychosis under control. Medication, occasional therapy visits and now, this cathartic outlet.
The masked peeked at him from his bag, its black, empty eyes containing all of the negativity and violent desires he bestowed into it. He would need it soon, in SCW, but he didn't need it now. So he zipped up the bag and leaned back in the chair at his desk, knowing that in mere moments, his ex-wife Stacy and his daughter Lizzie would want to celebrate another year of being alive. Eric might even be over later. Perhaps Knox or Trent would text him something annoying.
He had been feeling a sense of dread all day and he couldn't put his finger on why. It wasn't getting older. One year didn't really make a difference and he felt fine. It wasn't nearing the end of his career, not exactly. He hadn't felt he wasted anything and he was, in fact, currently a World champion.
Joe rubbed his hands over his face and then massaged his temples. The door then creaked open and a tiny face looked at him through the crack.
"Are you awake, Daddy?" Lizzie asked, clearly seeing that he was. He was tired, but definitely awake. He gave her a small smile.
"Right here, kiddo. You're up early."
She ran into his open arms, and his keen eye noticed an object of some kind in the pocket of her PJs. He didn't ask. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Daddy!" she cooed. She then reached into her pajamas and pulled out a baggie. Inside...a smashed cupcake. "Whoops," she said.
He noticed a frown beginning to form and quickly snatched the baggie away.
"Alright!" he said, mocking enthusiasm. "It's dessert and breakfast all in one. The pancupcake!"
Lizzie giggled now, and the both of them felt relief. Her birthday gift was one of her own cupcakes that she clearly hid from her mother to give to him. And her dad liked it, even if she might have smashed it while putting it in the pocket.
He was just relieved not to deal with an upset four-year-old on the morning of his birthday.
"You really like it?" she asked.
"Love it," he said. "Love you, kid."
The love Joe had for his daughter was unrivaled by anyone. He would have ended every relationship in his life, and ended several lives in general if it meant she would be happy. A violent way of looking at it, but violence was a part of him. It was one of those things that he and others had to accept.
"Aren't you going to eat it?" she asked again. "It's part-breakfast! You said!"
He sighed a little, but not enough that she would catch on. "Well, I'd love to but...I don't have any milk."
Her eyes lit up, apparently excited about this, and slid off his lap before darting out of the room. He wondered where her mother was, then remembered that she worked during the day and would be back that night. So it was Joe and his daughter, all day. He assumed she was going to get milk. He also assumed he'd be cleaning up puddles of milk as she raced back with it, but that was a situation to handle later.
Before he could think about where the paper towels were, his phone began to ring. He decided to pick it up, against his better judgment.
"Hello?"
"Happy birthday, old geezer," his brother half-sang over the phone. "Happy birthday to you!"
"Oh god, must we make this a thing? I got half of the business telling me I'm old on a daily basis. I don't need the reminder."
Eric, better known as GI before he retired, laughed. "You're only as old as you feel, I've been told."
"In that case, my neck feels sixty and my knees are only a little younger than that. Are you coming over later?"
Joe stood up as he talked, carrying the phone with him to take a peek outside. Somehow, it was snowing. A gift from nature, he guessed. Unbeknownst to him, Lizzie had re-entered the room, but upon seeing him on the phone, she set down her carton of lunch box milk and waited patiently. She waited patiently...for all of a minute. Then she crept over to his bag and decided to be an inquisitive child.
"Yeah, I should be over tonight. I did get you something." Eric said, as the phone conversation continued.
"Of course you did," Joe replied.
Meanwhile, Lizzie unzipped the bag slowly, eager to see what it was her father kept hidden in there. The first thing she saw was actually Joe's PWV World title, but she slowly lifted that up, as best she could, because a face was looking at her from underneath.
"Hell yes I did," Eric said on the phone. "It's not every day that your big brother turns...100?"
Joe laughed. "46, assh..." he then realized Lizzie might be in the room. "Actually, I just realized the kid is up too, I should probably cut this short."
"Oh yeah, it's just you two today. Give her a hug for me."
Joe smiled. "I will, bro. Later."
"Love you, Joe. Happy birthday."
"Love you too," Joe replied automatically, before hanging up. He then turned around and what he saw horrified him.
The sight itself was comical. It was a child, no bigger than three or four feet, wearing an adult-sized Halloween mask. She made scary motions with her arms, pretending to be a monster. She growled. But all Joe could see was the mask. The blank, expressionless mask with its black eyes staring back at him.
The mask. The mask he had been using for a side of himself he didn't want her to ever see.
And her it was, mocking him, all that negativity and rage wrapped around his daughter's head.
"TAKE THAT OFF RIGHT NOW!" he bellowed, not even realizing that JC had come out a little in the process. The words shook him just as they shook her. He had never yelled at his daughter before. Not once. And suddenly he had, and it had frightened her. She immediately ripped the mask from her face and and slammed it on the floor.
Lizzie was already in tears.
"I'm...Lizzie, I'm sorry. You just..."
"You AREN'T SUPPOSED TO YELL," she shrieked through tears, before turning to the door to leave. He was faster, and made strides to her. He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around, hugging her as gently and lovingly as he could.
"Lizzie, I'm so sorry. Daddy's sorry. I didn't mean to yell. It's just, that mask..."
"It's just a stupid COSTUME," she said. "I was being funny!"
"Yes," he agreed, still hugging and not realizing she was frantically pushing against him. She wanted to run off and he wasn't letting her. "But it's a very...there's something wrong with it and..."
He didn't get a chance to finish. Because at that moment, his four-year-old daughter balled up her tiny fist and put him in the cheek. Before he could even register it, she peeled away and ran down the hallway, likely to her room. "I'M TELLING MOM!" she shrieked again, before disappearing past a turn.
Violence. Her first instinct was violence.
Joe, who had been on his knees hugging his daughter just moments before, let himself fall back to a seated position. He gripped the mask with his hands, now shaking, and stared at it. He had put so much value into this thing, so much of that other side of himself, that it was now this "thing", this "other", and her seeing it was like seeing him as JC.
And when she saw JC, she responded with violence.
The thoughts he was having, all negative, rocked him. Once again, the all-too-familiar tornado of negative thoughts raged in his head. He would have to deal with this immediately, and later. Something wasn't right, and this definitely wasn't right.
Joe sighed and pressed the mask to his face, breathing into it as he tried to calm down. He then pulled his head back and looked at it. The mask said nothing, but somehow mocked him all the same.
"Shit," he said, before throwing the mask at the wall. He then got up to leave the room and console his daughter as best he could. "Happy fucking birthday."
"Right here, kiddo. You're up early."
She ran into his open arms, and his keen eye noticed an object of some kind in the pocket of her PJs. He didn't ask. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Daddy!" she cooed. She then reached into her pajamas and pulled out a baggie. Inside...a smashed cupcake. "Whoops," she said.
He noticed a frown beginning to form and quickly snatched the baggie away.
"Alright!" he said, mocking enthusiasm. "It's dessert and breakfast all in one. The pancupcake!"
Lizzie giggled now, and the both of them felt relief. Her birthday gift was one of her own cupcakes that she clearly hid from her mother to give to him. And her dad liked it, even if she might have smashed it while putting it in the pocket.
He was just relieved not to deal with an upset four-year-old on the morning of his birthday.
"You really like it?" she asked.
"Love it," he said. "Love you, kid."
The love Joe had for his daughter was unrivaled by anyone. He would have ended every relationship in his life, and ended several lives in general if it meant she would be happy. A violent way of looking at it, but violence was a part of him. It was one of those things that he and others had to accept.
"Aren't you going to eat it?" she asked again. "It's part-breakfast! You said!"
He sighed a little, but not enough that she would catch on. "Well, I'd love to but...I don't have any milk."
Her eyes lit up, apparently excited about this, and slid off his lap before darting out of the room. He wondered where her mother was, then remembered that she worked during the day and would be back that night. So it was Joe and his daughter, all day. He assumed she was going to get milk. He also assumed he'd be cleaning up puddles of milk as she raced back with it, but that was a situation to handle later.
Before he could think about where the paper towels were, his phone began to ring. He decided to pick it up, against his better judgment.
"Hello?"
"Happy birthday, old geezer," his brother half-sang over the phone. "Happy birthday to you!"
"Oh god, must we make this a thing? I got half of the business telling me I'm old on a daily basis. I don't need the reminder."
Eric, better known as GI before he retired, laughed. "You're only as old as you feel, I've been told."
"In that case, my neck feels sixty and my knees are only a little younger than that. Are you coming over later?"
Joe stood up as he talked, carrying the phone with him to take a peek outside. Somehow, it was snowing. A gift from nature, he guessed. Unbeknownst to him, Lizzie had re-entered the room, but upon seeing him on the phone, she set down her carton of lunch box milk and waited patiently. She waited patiently...for all of a minute. Then she crept over to his bag and decided to be an inquisitive child.
"Yeah, I should be over tonight. I did get you something." Eric said, as the phone conversation continued.
"Of course you did," Joe replied.
Meanwhile, Lizzie unzipped the bag slowly, eager to see what it was her father kept hidden in there. The first thing she saw was actually Joe's PWV World title, but she slowly lifted that up, as best she could, because a face was looking at her from underneath.
"Hell yes I did," Eric said on the phone. "It's not every day that your big brother turns...100?"
Joe laughed. "46, assh..." he then realized Lizzie might be in the room. "Actually, I just realized the kid is up too, I should probably cut this short."
"Oh yeah, it's just you two today. Give her a hug for me."
Joe smiled. "I will, bro. Later."
"Love you, Joe. Happy birthday."
"Love you too," Joe replied automatically, before hanging up. He then turned around and what he saw horrified him.
The sight itself was comical. It was a child, no bigger than three or four feet, wearing an adult-sized Halloween mask. She made scary motions with her arms, pretending to be a monster. She growled. But all Joe could see was the mask. The blank, expressionless mask with its black eyes staring back at him.
The mask. The mask he had been using for a side of himself he didn't want her to ever see.
And her it was, mocking him, all that negativity and rage wrapped around his daughter's head.
"TAKE THAT OFF RIGHT NOW!" he bellowed, not even realizing that JC had come out a little in the process. The words shook him just as they shook her. He had never yelled at his daughter before. Not once. And suddenly he had, and it had frightened her. She immediately ripped the mask from her face and and slammed it on the floor.
Lizzie was already in tears.
"I'm...Lizzie, I'm sorry. You just..."
"You AREN'T SUPPOSED TO YELL," she shrieked through tears, before turning to the door to leave. He was faster, and made strides to her. He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around, hugging her as gently and lovingly as he could.
"Lizzie, I'm so sorry. Daddy's sorry. I didn't mean to yell. It's just, that mask..."
"It's just a stupid COSTUME," she said. "I was being funny!"
"Yes," he agreed, still hugging and not realizing she was frantically pushing against him. She wanted to run off and he wasn't letting her. "But it's a very...there's something wrong with it and..."
He didn't get a chance to finish. Because at that moment, his four-year-old daughter balled up her tiny fist and put him in the cheek. Before he could even register it, she peeled away and ran down the hallway, likely to her room. "I'M TELLING MOM!" she shrieked again, before disappearing past a turn.
Violence. Her first instinct was violence.
Joe, who had been on his knees hugging his daughter just moments before, let himself fall back to a seated position. He gripped the mask with his hands, now shaking, and stared at it. He had put so much value into this thing, so much of that other side of himself, that it was now this "thing", this "other", and her seeing it was like seeing him as JC.
And when she saw JC, she responded with violence.
The thoughts he was having, all negative, rocked him. Once again, the all-too-familiar tornado of negative thoughts raged in his head. He would have to deal with this immediately, and later. Something wasn't right, and this definitely wasn't right.
Joe sighed and pressed the mask to his face, breathing into it as he tried to calm down. He then pulled his head back and looked at it. The mask said nothing, but somehow mocked him all the same.
"Shit," he said, before throwing the mask at the wall. He then got up to leave the room and console his daughter as best he could. "Happy fucking birthday."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------JC sat in the corner of a dark room inside an arena. It was a wrestling arena like any other, especially these days when wrestling arenas really were like any other. That was the thing about modern times. Everything became uniform. Everything was the same.
In his hands, the mask. The mask that he had decided was his outlet, his way to channel all of the violent urges he'd ever had in his life. Channel them through his job so that he didn't have to deal with them in the rest of his life.
Except those two lives were starting to bleed into each other already.
He let out a deep sigh before looking up at Fenris, who he knew would be watching.
"Submitted for your approval," he said, not trying to imitate Rod Serling but doing so anyway. "The wrestler known as JC. A man known as Joe. A man of two identities, possibly more, who thinks he can handle them both. This journey follows him at a point in his career, when he starts embracing new philosophies. Is Joe wearing JC as a mask, or is JC wearing Joe? The lines between his two selves grows ever thinner and will eventually dissolve...in the Twilight Zone."
A dark smile grew on his lips. One that was completely devoid of humor.
"I want to talk to you, Fenris. White Wolf. Kristjan Baltasarsson. Let's talk about trauma."
His hands grazed over the synthetic hairs at the top of the mask, absentmindedly.
"Trauma is an interesting thing. Because there are traumatic events and then there is actual trauma, that cripples us and prevents us from living our lives. Which is which? Who's to say? I'm not a psychiatrist, and I know that the word itself, without proper context, is as glib as you can get. But here's what I know. I know that you can just as easily give yourself trauma as someone else can. Your own actions can create a chain of events that can alter your worldview and change you fundamentally as a person."
His hands gripped the mask tighter now, squeezing it. His fingers began to go white.
"You see Fenris, I've had trauma in my life. I've been in a coma. I've experienced heartbreak, betrayal, near-insanity. I've beat my own best friend to the brink of death. I let that same friend throw a fireball into the face of my own brother. I've put people in comas. I've ended careers. I've done horrible, unspeakable things all in the grand pursuit of violence. And it was all from one single incident caused by mental illness. It can all be traced back to one cold, winter night in 1991."
JC shook his head, choosing not to divulge much else, as he felt no one would care anyway.
"That night doesn't matter much to you, and honestly, it's not really important to our match. But it's trauma. It was trauma for me. It was trauma for my family. It was trauma for...others involved. And the ways we processed that trauma were different. My brother did so in a healthy way. As for me..."
JC clutched the mask by the hair and held it up so whoever was watching could get a good look at it.
"...I did so in the way that you and I know best. Violence, Fenris. A cycle of it. Violence was inflicted on me, so I inflicted it right back. Not just on those who started it, but everyone else after. I've hurt so many people and done so many awful things. And all I've wanted out of my life is to make amends for those I've wrongly hurt...and find others to hurt even worse. It doesn't stop, this cycle. I created my own trauma and then I force it onto others. The specter of JC will haunt this business long after the body of JC has left it."
JC then tossed the mask down.
"That's the Bogeyman persona. It's all that negativity, that trauma, that hostility, that I created. Either I created on my own or others created it in response to me. I took all of that and put it into this persona. This persona that represents the basest part of me. The most animalistic. The most primal. Here's your fucking window into the soul of this ghoul you face at Blaze of Glory. There is something fundamentally wrong with JC. I enjoy hurting people perhaps a little too much and The Bogeyman allows me to show it."
"I want to talk to you, Fenris. White Wolf. Kristjan Baltasarsson. Let's talk about trauma."
His hands grazed over the synthetic hairs at the top of the mask, absentmindedly.
"Trauma is an interesting thing. Because there are traumatic events and then there is actual trauma, that cripples us and prevents us from living our lives. Which is which? Who's to say? I'm not a psychiatrist, and I know that the word itself, without proper context, is as glib as you can get. But here's what I know. I know that you can just as easily give yourself trauma as someone else can. Your own actions can create a chain of events that can alter your worldview and change you fundamentally as a person."
His hands gripped the mask tighter now, squeezing it. His fingers began to go white.
"You see Fenris, I've had trauma in my life. I've been in a coma. I've experienced heartbreak, betrayal, near-insanity. I've beat my own best friend to the brink of death. I let that same friend throw a fireball into the face of my own brother. I've put people in comas. I've ended careers. I've done horrible, unspeakable things all in the grand pursuit of violence. And it was all from one single incident caused by mental illness. It can all be traced back to one cold, winter night in 1991."
JC shook his head, choosing not to divulge much else, as he felt no one would care anyway.
"That night doesn't matter much to you, and honestly, it's not really important to our match. But it's trauma. It was trauma for me. It was trauma for my family. It was trauma for...others involved. And the ways we processed that trauma were different. My brother did so in a healthy way. As for me..."
JC clutched the mask by the hair and held it up so whoever was watching could get a good look at it.
"...I did so in the way that you and I know best. Violence, Fenris. A cycle of it. Violence was inflicted on me, so I inflicted it right back. Not just on those who started it, but everyone else after. I've hurt so many people and done so many awful things. And all I've wanted out of my life is to make amends for those I've wrongly hurt...and find others to hurt even worse. It doesn't stop, this cycle. I created my own trauma and then I force it onto others. The specter of JC will haunt this business long after the body of JC has left it."
JC then tossed the mask down.
"That's the Bogeyman persona. It's all that negativity, that trauma, that hostility, that I created. Either I created on my own or others created it in response to me. I took all of that and put it into this persona. This persona that represents the basest part of me. The most animalistic. The most primal. Here's your fucking window into the soul of this ghoul you face at Blaze of Glory. There is something fundamentally wrong with JC. I enjoy hurting people perhaps a little too much and The Bogeyman allows me to show it."
Another grin, in spite of himself.
"That's what I have to accept at the end of the day. Because I can sit here and tell you that this one incident and this one mental illness are responsible for the carnage I've wrought over the years but we both know that's a lie. I'm responsible for that. I could have broken the wheel of violence before it ever started spinning, and I didn't. Those things that I did, I'll have to live with them for the rest of my life. But before I meet my sure-to-be violent end, I'm going to indulge in a few more violent delights first."
JC stood up now, the eyeline of his audience following him, and he moved closer to glare at those who maybe watching. He wanted them to see his eyes. The eyes of the man who would be bringing that violence to them.
"You kept saying, over and over, that you weren't scared, Fenris. The White Wolf is not afraid. I don't tell you this to make you afraid. As I'll say over and over, I don't give a shit if people are afraid. Fear doesn't get me off, you understand? This isn't some fucking psychological warfare I'm trying to perpetuate on you. The fact that people getting trapped in that always makes them miss the point. I just want to hurt you. And I want to be hurt back in kind. I want the thrill of competition. The symphony of destruction."
JC reached down and picked up the mask again, staring at it instead of his captive audience.
"Because at the end of the day, I know I don't deserve any of this. I don't deserve to be a champion. I don't deserve to be in this business. I didn't deserve to wake up from that coma. The things I did deserve, already happened. My surgically repaired neck. My history of concussions. The people who have their fill of me and leave. I deserve all of that. I deserve to be stopped. I deserve to have my career ended. Someone as awful as me, who has done such awful things as me, doesn't deserve to be unpinned for over a year."
He then, without really thinking about it, slipped the mask over his head.
"Your Internet Champion, Ken Davison, made some snarky comment a few months ago that has stuck with me. Something about not changing. I guess he would know, because he's the same asshole he's always been, just tamer. Except he was wrong. Because things that happened in 2021 changed me to my core. It made me worse. If the name 'Death Wish' hadn't already been taken by someone better, perhaps that would have been what I adopted."
Even though he had a mask over his head, his voice was still booming. Hardly muffled.
"I have been searching for someone to put me out of my misery, but let's face it. I'm just too damn good. Is that conceited? Too egotistical? Who cares? I'm good at what I do. If I was put on this earth to maim other people, then goddamnit, I'm going to maim as many as I can for as long as I am able. That's the Bogeyman. That's this ghoul that haunts Las Vegas. That's what you have to deal with, White Wolf. The time for being humble is over."
Unlike most wearers of the mask, his eyes could also be seen. And they were wide and bloodshot.
"I dare you to come at me, Fenris. Try to put me down. Try to make me taste defeat again. Because other than that one time a bird dropped a brick on my face, I've forgotten. Perhaps I need to be humbled. Perhaps this monster needs to be vanquished for good. But it won't be you. You're great at your craft and since you first came on my radar, I wanted to test myself against you. You are a great fighter, Fenris. You will be my greatest test to SCW to date, perhaps ever. But you will be a test that I pass."
He ripped the mask off and stared out, that maniacal grin coming back to haunt his face once again."
"Because while you're good, JC is the best in the world at what he does.
JC Kills."
