Post by chaos lite on Jan 14, 2013 0:25:04 GMT -4
jan.13.thirteen
”...And it was so great. After that, we put her leg in a chair and I locked her in the Sugar and Spice, and sh- oh, by the way, that’s what I call my variation of the Japanese Leg Bar... anyway, you should’ve heard her. After everything she did, it felt great to be able to get that tiny, tiny taste of revenge.”
”Haha, wow! It serves her right!”
”Mhm. Honey, pass the gravy.”
Kill me. My name is Cassandra McPherson. We’ve met.
I try to give you the rawest, most naked illustration of Aubrey J. Parker, but I’m only human... so when I tell you how annoying she was being on Tuesday, understand that it’s all just a matter of opinion and subjectivity. Maybe for the sake of neutrality, I won’t go into vivid detail about what I was imagining doing to her with my fork.
We were back in Pleasanton, having a steak-and-potato dinner with my parents, Ralph and Marlene McPherson. My dad was a wrestler throughout his college years and his twenties, but his accounting skills are what paid the bills around here.
My mom? Not so much. She looked unimpressed and disinterested by storytime tonight.
”Hey, uh Aubs.. why don’t you tell them how you won the Suicidal Championship.”
She shot me a dirty look. My mom did as well, but perhaps for different reasons.
”Suicidal?”
”It’s just the name of the title, Mrs. McPherson. It’s like... ‘hardcore’.”
”Hardcore? What kind of company is this?”
”I actually watched that match last Sunday. Shane Borderland came back and um... smashed a glass over Jason Kash’s head, if I remember correctly?”
Aubrey laughed and took a drink of water.
”Ha, yep.”
”Tell them how proud you are of how you won it.”
Another dirty look.
”Well, that’s not fair, Cassie. I’m sure Aubrey feels terrible about-”
”Actually... I’m okay with it. I mean, as often as people interfere in my matches and cost me opportunities, it feels kind of nice to have the rules bent in my favor, for once.”
”I can underst-”
”Yeah, well if you let it happen once, what’s stopping you from letting it happen again?”
”It won’t happen again...”
”How can you be sure? First it was Callahan and then it was Borderland. Ha, who do you have waiting in the wings for your Battle Royal next week... Atken?”
”Funny.”
I averted my eyes down to the remaining sections of steak on my plate, trying to hide the small smirk that broke out onto my face. Luckily, my dad eased the tension caused by the awkward silence.
”What’s the news on this Battle Royal?”
”It’s a Survive and Conquer promotional Battle Royal that they’ve decided to book. I’m in there with Anthony Bailey, Jair Hopkins, Slade Craven, and-”
”Stefan Raab, right? We like him! He’s hilarious, isn’t he honey?”
”I have no idea who that is.”
”Ha! Jokester.”
”He’s... a character.”
”Hopkins! He’s that boy that pinned you on the last pay-per-view, isn’t he? The one with the... you know, honey. The flippy-flippy one.”
”You’re reaching for something that I just don’t have.”
”Haha, yeah, that’s the one! He beat Aubrey?”
”But you pinned his brother, right?”
”They’re not brothers, Dad. This isn’t 1972. You can’t say that shit anymore.”
”Oh! Haha! Oh my...”
”Yeah, I pinned Bailey!”
”With help from that politician man, right? What’s his name, honey?”
”Michael Callahan.”
”YOU KNEW! Marlene, you devil.”
”Yeah, Aubs. Tell them about how you punched Anthony in the groin and let Callahan beat him with a baseball bat so you could pin him.”
”No need. You kinda just... put it out there.”
”Well, there’s no shame in taking advantage of a golden opportunity.”
”Exactly. Thank you, Mr. McPherson.”
Finally finished with the food on my plate, I placed the fork down on the porcelain and raised my eyes up to meet Aubrey’s, but she was already looking right at me as if she was waiting for me to say something else. So of course, being who I am, I said something else.
”How many of these ‘golden opportunities’ are you going to take before you revoke the right to bitch and moan about when somebody does something terrible to you?”
”Cassandra, relax. I told you, stuff like that isn’t going to happen again. And I’ll prove it on Asylum next week when I beat Bailey, Craven, Raab, and Hopkins. All four of them... and I won’t have any help from anybody.”
My mom’s eyebrows perked with interest.
”Four men?”
Now my mother sounded interested. Feminist through and through, she was.
”Four guys. All of them have a different element that they bring into the match. Stefan is the brawler and more tech-savvy of them all, but he’s not really the most effective. Jair is the high-flyer and he gets better every week. He’s scary good sometimes... and I hate him for it, ha.”
I wasn’t convinced by the lighthearted laugh that placated my parents. A large part of me thought, and still thinks that she meant that.
”Anthony is pretty versatile and dabbles in a little bit of everything but even though he’s more effective than Raab... he’s hit or miss. He’s an inconsistent guy.”
”Like an inconsistent wrestler?”
”No, an inconsistent guy...”
She was silent for a few seconds and then looked up at Ralph.
”And Slade Craven is the unorthodox one. He decided recently that he wanted to be a badass and stab his friend in the back. He’s proven to be untrustworthy and he’s not going to have any notable allies in this match so I think I’ve quickly identified the odd man out... what I can do to capitalize on that, I don’t yet know.”
”Tell me more about Bailey. I want to know what makes him, as you say, so inconsistent.”
”Same things that make Aubs inconsistent.”
”Ha! Yeah. No. Last week, Bailey did something he wouldn’t normally do and he took advantage of a beaten man. Sure it was a World champion but... that’s something I would do, not Anthony. In a Battle Royal everything is different though. There’s no shame in capitalizing on things like that. There’s no shame in working with somebody else...”
Aubrey looked up around the table at each of us, and I saw for a fraction of a second that she looked uncertain.
”Bailey and Hopkins are a tag team. Raab and Craven have worked together... maybe I should reconsider my statement about Craven being the odd man out.”
”Maybe.”
”Tell me something...”
”Yeah?”
”Who do you think’s going to win this match?”
”Ha. What?”
”Next Sunday night... who’s walking away as the winner?”
I looked up at Ralph and in the reflection of his rectangular-framed glasses, I saw Aubrey’s perplexed expression. I didn’t need to look at her to tell she was in a stunned sort of silence. It wasn’t the most provocative question in the world, but it was still weird to be asked that with such brevity regarding your own match.
”I... me. I’m going to win.”
”Why? Why does this match matter?”
Oh dear. An old indy wrestler that never made it, interrogating the cocky young upstart. It was like this shit was made for film.
”Because it’s preparation for Survive and Conquer.”
”Is it? You have to beat ninety nine other people in that. On Asylum, you only need to beat four... why should I, as an AJP fan believe that you care about winning this match, or that it means anything beyond bragging rights for a few days?”
”Oh, Ralph-”
”Ssshhhhhh, I want to hear this.”
”Well... the way I see this... if I can’t beat four guys in a Battle Royal next week, then I’m in bad shape for the 27th.”
”Real bad shape.”
”Thanks, Cass.”
”And you really, really have a problem with this Hopkins one. Don’t you?”
”I wouldn’t call it a problem-”
”Just bitter jealousy.”
Aubrey flipped me off for a second, but Ralph and Marlene were ass-deep in red wine at this point and conveniently missed the rude little affair.
”You want to prove something to him and Bailey in this match. They’re probably the favorites... aren’t they?”
”Probably. But...”
She sighed and paused for a second.
”I guess... I feel like I should be one half of the Tag Team Champions right now. I think that for as phenomenal Jair is, and how great Anthony can be-- and I know that-- I think that I’m better. I think Jair got lucky at Christmas Chaos and it’s not something that they’ll repeat on Sunday, or at Survive and Conquer.
My luck in Battle Royals isn’t the best. I was the first one eliminated in the Battle Royal portion when Overdrive hosted APW’s version of the Turkey Bowl. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have, and paid for it.”
Her eyes met Ralph’s and he showed a mild sympathy.
”That won’t happen next Sunday, especially with the Dying Breed in the ring.”
”Because you don’t want to lose to them again.”
”Uh...”
She wouldn’t say it, but she didn’t need to. My father and I shared a look and his mouth crept into a small smile, realizing that I knew what he knew.
”Aubrey and Logan have to face the Dying Breed for the Tag Team Titles the night after.”
”Ooooo! So there’s even more at stake than I thought.”
”Yeah...”
”There’s nothing more exciting than a good old fashioned rivalry, right honey?”
My mom pushed her chair back and got up to her feet.
”The muffins should be ready. I’ll take everybody’s plates if we’re done.”
So Marlene, like the pleasant housewife she has become accustomed to portraying, took all of our dishes, but Ralph’s eyes never left Aubrey.
”You had problems with Raab too, didn’t you?”
”Yeah. He enjoys running his mouth about things he doesn’t know anything about... about how I don’t deserve the things I’ve gotten in APW and how Logan has carried me so far and... just, a lot of shit. He thinks he’s one of the greatest things to happen to the world of wrestling and no matter how many times this guys gets beaten or outclassed, he always has something else to complain about. Something else to whine about, or some other excuse.
He tears down everybody around him, pointing out their faults and flaws as if it’s going to make him any better. And he’s convinced himself that it does... and if you keep convincing yourself of something over, and over, you really start to value it as... the truth. So he has gotten better and he has picked up a couple of wins as a result of this... his mind games. It won’t work on me though.”
”Wow!”
Ralph clapped and I smirked, looking between them. Ralph finished off the wine in his glass, lowered it, and looked across the table at Aubrey once again.
”Do you have a similar speech lined up for the last one?”
I could tell she looked a little embarrassed. What a diatribe, eh?
”Craven? No...”
”So he’s the one you’re afraid of, right?”
Aubrey didn’t speak, but she looked up at Ralph like he’d just smacked her.
”You know nothing about him... you’ve never faced him, and you might not have even met him before. You said his style is unorthodox. And he betrayed his friend so, clearly... his behavior is erratic. Mhm?”
”I-”
”That makes him dangerous. And that’s what keeps you on edge.”
Ralph smiled brightly and poured some more red wine into his glass.
”And that’s what makes you dangerous. Haha.”
Marlene returned to the dining room table with a fresh tray full of the muffins she’d prided herself on since long before I was born, but it didn’t interrupt Ralph and Aubs.
”Craven is good, and there’s no way I’m going to underestimate him now that he has this fire lit under his ass. He was only considered relevant when he was in a tag team with Shadow over on Overdrive, and I think it really fucks with him that people only took him seriously back then... that’s why he had to challenge him to a match at Rasslemania. He has something to prove to everyone that watches, and it clearly goes deeper than just Shadow, right? Why else would he be in Survive and Conquer?
He wants to win and he doesn’t care who he has to go through to get the spotlight. He took out his friend... his partner. I’m sure he’ll have no problem trying to do it to me.”
She lifted her wine glass.
”I don’t trust any of them. If you ask me, all of them are erratic. All of them have ticks.”
Aubrey took a sip of her wine and turned, meeting my eyes, although I’m sure she was still talking to my father.
”It’s just a matter of finding out which one of them is the best at controlling and utilizing it. Craven hasn’t been able to, and neither has Raab. They have flashes of brilliance, but for the most part they’ve done nothing to prove that they can win a match like this... or the Survive and Conquer match.”
She paused.
”Hopkins hasn’t. Bailey hasn’t.”
”Have you?”
Fuck it. If she’s gonna stare at me, then I’ll ask the hard hitting questions. Why should Ralph have all the fun?
”Have I?”
”Mhm...”
She took another sip of her wine and smiled at me very coyly.
”I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve given too many people a reason to think I’m anything more than another name on the sign-ups... but that’ll change. I promise.”
”How? How will it change?”
”Because I’m going to outshine everybody else in that match.”
Ralph chimed in.
”Why?”
”Because... ha, I want something bigger than the opening match on Asylum. I want to be back in the main event. I want my rematch for the World Heavyweight Title. I want to be the best Suicidal Champion ever... I want to beat Jair Hopkins. I want to beat Anthony Bailey. I want the Tag Team Championships. I want to win Survive and Conquer. I want everything.”
Ralph smiled fondly at Aubrey.
”You want the world.”
She nodded after a while.
”I want the world.”
”And with that attitude, you’re gonna get it. Get it however you can! And don’t let anyone take anything from you.”
Once more, her eyes moved over to meet mine and I felt a little chill run down my spine as she smirked at me.
”Mr. McPherson, I would never let anyone do that.”
fin.
