Post by Johnny Rebel on Apr 10, 2013 12:23:24 GMT -4
Rebel Rousing #12: "Paying the Price"
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"It's been awhile," Andrews sighed, opening the front door to his penthouse suite, and waving Johnny Rebel to come in. "I'd heard things had got tough but you look homeless!"
"That's because I am," Rebel hung his head in shame. "I'm back with the APW and looking for a fresh start... I *need* a fresh start. I've lost everything."
Michael Andrews was once Rebel's only friend and confidant. The two had gallivanted around the professional wrestling world together, conquering promotion after promotion, until Andrews finally called it quits. When Rebel signed with the APW and needed help dealing with some outside forces around Survive and Conquer 2012, Andrews was the only one he'd felt comfortable enough to call. However, Rebel chased him away after becoming the general manager of Overdrive, believing himself to be a made man, and having nothing left to worry about.
It's funny how times change.
"When's the last time you took a shower?" Andrews held his nose in disgust. "You smell like you've been digging through dumpsters. What in the world happened to you?"
"I got fired," Rebel mumbled, refusing to break eye contact with the ground. "My contract as Overdrive's general manager was coming to an end and the board of directors decided that I wasn't fit to run APW's flagship show any longer... and they gave me the boot. They gave me a decent severance, but..."
"You blew it all," Andrews said with condemnation. "There's a big shocker!"
Andrews shut the door behind Rebel, but wasn't overly excited to welcome his former friend in to the house. He slid out a stool from underneath the kitchen island and gestured towards Rebel to have a seat.
"It hasn't been the best of months," Rebel argued. "I went from having everything at my disposal to winding up digging through dumpsters for something to eat. Part of my severance with APW was a legend's contract with the company that would allow me to compete on Overdrive as I'm able... but if I'm being honest, I'm not sure how much longer I can hold up."
Andrews snickered at the thought of Rebel falling apart. He wasn't exactly a spry young man any longer. He started wrestling over twenty years ago and it was obvious to anyone with common sense that the brutality had started to take a tole on him. His escapades with homelessness and surviving on the streets didn't help his cause, either, aging him rapidly, which was something that Rebel had never dealt with before.
"I had to take drastic measures," Rebel lifted his head up, if only for a second, the desperation in his bloodshot eyes coming through, told Andrews that something was terribly wrong. "I cut a deal."
"What kind of deal?" The possibilities running through Andrews' eyes. "I've been telling you for years that the way you treat people is going to come back and bite you in the rear... and it looks like I was right! What kind of trouble are you in this time?"
"I tried to kill a man," Rebel mumbled underneath his breath, not wanting to hear those words come out of his own mouth, despite the truth behind them. "Terry Marvin offered me a deal that I couldn't refuse. I was starving and didn't know where my next meal was going to come from, so, he put together a plan for me to make a little extra money on the side. The scary part is..."
"There's a scary part you haven't already mentioned?" Andrews groans at Rebel's statement. "You attempted to take someone's life and that's not the only scary part? Good grief!"
"You weren't there!" Rebel shouted back at him, suddenly leaping from the stool and taking steps towards his old friend. "You don't know what it's like to dig through trash to try and find something to eat! You don't know what it's like to sleep on a park bench in near freezing temperatures! You wouldn't last two days in my shoes... don't try and judge me now!"
Rebel's aggressiveness didn't startle Andrews, he'd dealt with Johnny enough to know what to expect, but he would stand guard in case the former APW Overdrive champion would press forward.
"You're right," Andrews agreement caught Rebel by surprise. "I don't know what it's like to be you... and quite honestly, I don't think I ever want to find out! You've drained every last relationship that you had for everything it was worth, squeezing it completely empty, and then bailing when there wasn't anything left! Think about it, Rebel... the problem isn't everyone else! The only common denominator is you! You're worse than a Taylor Swift song!"
Rebel didn't have an immediate response, pondering Andrews' words, probably for the first time in a long time.
"All you had to do last year was keep Blade by your side, and you'd probably still be carrying around the APW Undisputed Championship. You couldn't hold that together for more than week before you put a knife in his back and made another enemy."
"Blade had it coming to him," Rebel argued. "I couldn't let him steal my championship."
"Your championship?" Andrews laughed. "You keep talking about *your* championship but if I remember correctly, Kurt Noble walked out with the belt that night and sent you in to a tailspin! Don't even get me started on Level-One."
"What about him?" Rebel sat back down, trying to keep his blood pressure contained. "That guy is nothing but a self-righteous puppet, controlled by the hands of Felipe DeLoren!"
"You're a real piece of work... you know that?" Andrews threw his hands up in the air. "For all your talk of championships, you were paired with the guy who has won more of them than any other megastar in all of the APW! The only thing you had to do was keep your head down and you'd have waltz in to the record books as the longest reigning tag champions in this business! Congrats, though, you played that one like a champ!"
"I don't need your sarcasm," Rebel snapped back. "I'd have gone to Sarah if I wanted to be lectured."
The mention of Sarah's name drew silence in the room from both men but for different reasons.
"Johnny," Andrews said carefully, "Sarah's dead, remember?"
A tear tracked down the right side of Rebel's face, surely drawing up images of his former flame in the back of his mind. Remembrances of him being forced to watch as his apartment went down in flames with her inside. He could sometimes imagine the screams coming from inside his bedroom where she had been rendered unconscious by Mark Mease and his goons. The pain was almost unbearable; it was the reason why Rebel had started his tailspin and wasn't entirely interested in breaking free of the bondage that held him down.
He'd punish himself for allowing that to happen to her.
"I know," Rebel said. "Sometimes if I try and remember it differently, maybe it would change things."
The two sat in silence for a few moments, mourning the loss of a dear friend, and suddenly connecting the two emotionally. It had been a long road to today and the disconnect between the two of them disappeared as quickly as it came about.
"If you need a place to stay," Andrews said, "I've got a spare bedroom. Take all the time you need."
The comfort of a friend was a welcoming thought to Rebel, who had spent the last few weeks fending off other homeless folks for the park bench down at City Park in Chicago. Spring had sprung but it was never warm at night in Chicago until the middle of Summer, and the effects were starting to ware down Johnny, both physically and mentally.
"You were saying something about the effects of taking Marvin's money," Andrews brought back up the earlier part of their conversation. "Who'd he put the hit on?"
"C.J. Gates," Rebel replied. "A combination of factors contributed. I'd never beat him one-on-one and every paycheck counts. I couldn't afford to take home the losers portion of our gate. I'm sure he pulled in twice as much as I did... even in a losing effort. It was getting the monkey off my back and mentally breaking through. Something else inside of my clicked. I wanted to end him... I wanted to take his life. Sometimes I don't even know who I am anymore. It's like this monster has been created inside of me and he's drastically trying to break free, and take control. And if we're being completely honest, Michael,"
"I've never known you not to be," Andrews responded.
"It felt... good." Rebel cracked a half-smile. "What I did to C.J. wasn't an accident. If we were any other place but in the ring where others could get to him, I'd have torn that puny little head from his shoulders and punted it in to the crowd! I should have known, being Jeff's puppet, that Gates would have the calvary waiting to stop me from putting an end to him. He isn't going to be so lucky this week... Mania and Callahan are going to join him."
The sadistic smile of Rebel startled Andrews. Rebel had become his own worst enemy. An army of angels wouldn't even be able to stop him from carrying out his plans. Overdrive was going to be the last stop for Rebel, whether he'd walk out under his own power with blood on his hands, or carried out by a gaggle of police officers was to be determined. One thing was for sure - Rebel was out for blood.
#SIMPLY
#F'N
#PUT?
It was time for the APW to pay the price of the pain it had inflicted on Johnny Rebel.
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