Post by Erin Fausse on Jun 26, 2016 6:32:09 GMT -6
There's an inkling of a memory -- a snippet really, all torn and tattered and stuffed at an awkward angle into the unsorted box of recollections of my early years -- floating around in my head. Something small and inconsequential and so utterly malleable, like putty in my hands. It's forced itself into the forefront of my conscious thought countless times over the course the last few days, each time framed a little differently, but the content remains. My fat, soft, Americanized slob of a father and his brother & polar opposite seated in lawn chairs, reminiscing about the days of Josip Broz Tito.
"Those were the days," one of them would say and the other would nod and and chuckle before recounting some anecdote about the old country like a Homeric bard: not a word out of place. I could recite most of them in my sleep, even all these years later. Those were the days. The words feel like poison to just think. I could never stand being around them when they got all sentimental, drunk and teary-eyed, commemorating the spirits of all their friends who didn't make it out. Fear isn't the mind-killer. It's nostalgia. It's the yearning for the way things were instead of accepting the way things are, and thinking that one of the two is somehow better than the other instead of the reality: they just are. There are no comparisons to be made. The present of the past is the past of the present which in turn become the past of a new present. There aren't two separate entities; they're different parts of the same beast. People fall into a hole when they think it's the former. They get soft. They get weak and complacent and dependent on routine. They get shot with their own gun and bleed out in the alley behind the factory they worked at for a decade.
Happy Father's Day, you fucking cunt.
MY MOTHER IS A FISH is scrawled on the otherwise blank sheet of paper in front of me in large letters with enough red ink smeared across the page to make the sentence almost illegible. The pen sits on the desk beside the paper and my right hand is stained red and I'm left wondering why. Why did I write this? Who am I writing to? Why bother writing? After all, the written word is a cancer eating away at the fine art of conversation. Not that I'm complaining; a generation full of socially awkward morons make my extracurricular activities easier, but then again why am I contributing to this? Let the drones cripple themselves; I'll have no part in it thank you very much-- then I see the envelope just a few inches to the right of the pen and everything comes flooding back.
Oh, Mark. How long have we been playing these games? I think you were the one who took it too far. After all, it doesn't matter how long I've been galavanting as Erin Fausse; the name on my driver's license -- my real one of course, not one of the many fake IDs I've racked up all over the continental US -- is still Azra Dević. You're the one who went and legally changed your name, Samir. I wish I could be there when you get this letter and see that one sentence and see the look on your face when you realize that not even the books you drowned yourself in to avoid the family business can save you now.
I turn the paper over and scribble on bottom of the page: "tell your new family I said hi".
I'll mail this in the morning.
As I inspect the spiderweb pattern of shattered glass still clinging to the mirror and a small, eldritch shape scrawled on it in black Sharpie, I can't help but feel I've been here before. That this has already happened and yet is somehow happening again. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised; this is the Eternal Return, isn't it? All existence and energy has been recurring and will continue to recur in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time and space.
Poor, poor Teddy. I feel for you. I really, really do. It has to be so hard for you, holding up the hopes and dreams of all of your adoring fans when your neck snaps with the slightest hint of pressure. When your knees buckle and your bones snap when you're faced with expectations higher than "don't embarrass yourself". You had the perfect opportunity to really send a message, to rile up hope that you might, at any point, be able to beat me with the Rising Stars championship on the line.
And you blew it.
Not taking anything away from Kyle, but everyone knows I was the prize of that match. The one you really wanted. The one your lumbering oaf of a partner wanted. After all, this belt around my waist has people lining up to get their licks in; from our esteemed Mayor and his faithful manservant tugging at my skirt all the way to pissants like Alex Richards clawing at my shoelaces, all to get Erin-senpai to notice them. And yet, here you were. I of course say all this hypothetically because, let's face it you spunky little underdog you, there was no real chance in hell that you could pull pinning me off; pinning Kemp was the smartest thing you could do. Hypothetically speaking, you could've done it. You could've joined that elite, elusive list of people who've pinned me. A list that currently only has one name: Crow McMorris. Our world champion.
Now, think about how much that could've boosted you, Teddy. How that would've legitimized you. You want to be a hero to these people so fucking badly? Well, this was your chance. You could've embarrassed the UCI's biggest villain. Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not blind and I have a functioning set of ears. Despite everything I do for them, despite me being an advocate for the same God they hide behind for protection, they vilify me. They shun me in favor of people like you, Teddy.
Do you want to know why these people gravitate towards you?
I'll give you a hint: it's not because of your amazing heroics, you goofy bastard.
It's because you're just as much of a loser as they are. They see themselves in you. You and your grandiose dreams of being the hero this city needs, they look at that shit and they eat it up because their dreams died years ago. I know I sound like a broken record but I have to ask you again. Look at these people Teddy; these people you claim to love. These people you want to love you. To respect you. To give you the very thing you can't give yourself, and can't earn through any legitimate means: validation.
Are these the people you want to associate yourself with?
Do you really want to be their hero? These people, whose only specialties are in day drinking and menial labor. Who flock to a warehouse to watch other people do what they can't do themselves: fight. Who sit in judgment and hurl insults at a child of the Lord like myself and prop up evil, evil people like Andre Holmes, parade him around like the fucking Messiah? Are these people, with skewed priorities and no futures the ones you want to appeal to?
Are you that fucking desperate?
What's wrong, you little shit? Were you not hugged enough as a child? Is that why you look for love from anyone and everyone capable of human emotion; no matter how low down, scummy, and sickening they are? Or is it that you're such a spineless little doormat you don't know how to do anything but serve other people. Let others walk all over you. Let them take and take and take until you have absolutely nothing more to give. Guess what: those greedy fuckers are going to keep on taking until you're picked clean, Teddy. And you gave them permission.
For the love of God, could you be any more pathetic?
You're lucky my eyes aren't the only set watching over you right now. Looking under the skin at your massive, oversized heart and shrunken, underdeveloped brain. See, the Lord's much more forgiving than I am. He loves all his children, even sick, twisted freaks like Andre Holmes and washed up failures like Alex Richards. Even would be cynics like David Sanchez and especially doomed optimists like you. You can reverse this terrible fate you've met with.
All you have to do is see the light.
Maybe, just maybe when I knock the living daylights out of you, you'll come to this revelation on your own.
You'll know what to do.
Y'know, David, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how completely and utterly unbecoming your behavior has been. How much of an indictment is it on the city of Chicago that your mayor gets his rocks off harassing innocent women on social media, accompanied by his lackey Taylor Wright and the shit on the sole of his shoe that's somehow gained sentience, Alex Richards. You know, I had just finished washing his overbearing body odor off of me when you dragged all one thousand pounds of his dead carcass all over my poor, unsuspecting Twitter. Have I gotten a formal apology from the Mayor for him unleashing Alex Richards upon me? Nope. All I've gotten are the half-hearted threats of a delusional cunt and his lapdog barking like a Chihuahua with absolutely no bite to back it up.
Where's your boy, David? Y'know, after he threatened to beat the shit out of me and I fucking begged him to, he shut the fuck up. He tucked his tail inbetween his legs and fucked off to every other Twitter feed you were polluting because that's all he's trained to do, it seems. Step to people who actually put up a fight? Nope, not in his job description it seems. Which makes me wonder, if these are the people under your employ that you let follow you into your realm, the guy you put your reputation on the line to establish, in both wrestling and in politics, then what the fuck are you doing.
Newsflash: your boy has embarrassed you in both arenas now, hasn't he? Can't even stand up to the challenge of the woman you two have been trying to browbeat and bully into rolling over and dying so you can scoop her championship and cradle it like a babe because despite everything else you've accomplished, despite the fact that you're the Mayor of Chicago, your sense of self-worth is still ruled by shiny golden trinkets.
It'd almost be funny, if it weren't so fucking sad. Look, everyone! The "Last King of Wrestling" isn't quite sure you're still on board with that nickname that he has to come down off his perch at City Hall just to come after little ol' me. Not Crow McMorris. Not Dustin Beaver. Me. Erin Fausse. Your fucking prophet. The closest any of you will get to the Lord God himself. You know, he sees it. He sees that my worth can't be measured in gold, so he thinks I'll hand it over without too much struggle. After all, a child of God should have no issue handing things over to people who obviously need them more.
Here's the kicker, though, David. I'm not handing shit over to you.
No, no. You're going to have to take it from me. You're going to have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands because this belt? It's mine. And I take what's rightfully mine and I hold onto it until I literally can't hold on anymore. Call it that refugee mindset; I know what having nothing's like. I don't like that feeling. So I hold tightly onto everything. A bit of overcompensation, but what can you do?
See, the way I look at it, there's three ways this goes with you as the star of the show and in each and every single one of them: I win.
First, I win the match. Easy, case closed. Bada bing, bada boom. But that's not as interesting, is it? #ERINWINSLOL seems a little obvious.
Second, you beat me down. You pry the belt from my cold dead hands and you hold it high in the air for everyone to see that deep down, for all your posturing and acting like you're oh-so-above-it-all, you're no different from the likes of Teddy Sol and Andre Holmes and Alex Richards, and that you're own sense of self-worth is measured by proving something to the fucking shaved apes in the crowd. That you can't validate yourself and the only person who offers you any sense of validation is your employee/possible fucktoy and we both know how hollow of a feeling that is. So you have to fill yourself up with the hatred of the audience, you have to fill yourself up with holding something over them.
You have to fill yourself up with the knowledge that you're just like everyone else. A puppet dancing on the strings.
Third, you beat Teddy and prove that again, for all your tough talk, all the bullshit, weak-ass intimidation tactics that you're nothing more than a scared little coward who can't make good on any of his "promises". Go ahead, beat Teddy. Beat him real good. Life's beaten that poor bastard, after all, you won't be the first or the last or even the most memorable beating of his life and you'll show off how pathetic you really are. I won't even have to lift a finger to expose you, David.
Any possible way you slice it, you're fucked. You backed yourself into this corner and there isn't any way out. How does it feel, knowing that you fucking played yourself? How does it feel knowing there isn't anything you can do to weasel your way out of this situation of your own devising?
I bet you feel fucking stupid, eh?
There's still hope for you too, David.
All you have to do, is see the light. Let the light fill you up, permanently. Avoid the temporary high from the gold.
Achieve enlightenment.
You cunt.
"Those were the days," one of them would say and the other would nod and and chuckle before recounting some anecdote about the old country like a Homeric bard: not a word out of place. I could recite most of them in my sleep, even all these years later. Those were the days. The words feel like poison to just think. I could never stand being around them when they got all sentimental, drunk and teary-eyed, commemorating the spirits of all their friends who didn't make it out. Fear isn't the mind-killer. It's nostalgia. It's the yearning for the way things were instead of accepting the way things are, and thinking that one of the two is somehow better than the other instead of the reality: they just are. There are no comparisons to be made. The present of the past is the past of the present which in turn become the past of a new present. There aren't two separate entities; they're different parts of the same beast. People fall into a hole when they think it's the former. They get soft. They get weak and complacent and dependent on routine. They get shot with their own gun and bleed out in the alley behind the factory they worked at for a decade.
Happy Father's Day, you fucking cunt.
MY MOTHER IS A FISH is scrawled on the otherwise blank sheet of paper in front of me in large letters with enough red ink smeared across the page to make the sentence almost illegible. The pen sits on the desk beside the paper and my right hand is stained red and I'm left wondering why. Why did I write this? Who am I writing to? Why bother writing? After all, the written word is a cancer eating away at the fine art of conversation. Not that I'm complaining; a generation full of socially awkward morons make my extracurricular activities easier, but then again why am I contributing to this? Let the drones cripple themselves; I'll have no part in it thank you very much-- then I see the envelope just a few inches to the right of the pen and everything comes flooding back.
Oh, Mark. How long have we been playing these games? I think you were the one who took it too far. After all, it doesn't matter how long I've been galavanting as Erin Fausse; the name on my driver's license -- my real one of course, not one of the many fake IDs I've racked up all over the continental US -- is still Azra Dević. You're the one who went and legally changed your name, Samir. I wish I could be there when you get this letter and see that one sentence and see the look on your face when you realize that not even the books you drowned yourself in to avoid the family business can save you now.
I turn the paper over and scribble on bottom of the page: "tell your new family I said hi".
I'll mail this in the morning.
This is not an existential crisis.
As I inspect the spiderweb pattern of shattered glass still clinging to the mirror and a small, eldritch shape scrawled on it in black Sharpie, I can't help but feel I've been here before. That this has already happened and yet is somehow happening again. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised; this is the Eternal Return, isn't it? All existence and energy has been recurring and will continue to recur in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time and space.
I am nothing but a speck in the grand scheme of the Universe. No matter how much I try and extend beyond that, I never will.
Bile rises in my throat, and before I can even turn to face the toilet of this bleach-odored bathroom, I vomit a stream of blood across the room, stumbling back and sliding down the wall until I'm seated, head resting on my knees, a puddle of blood on the floor in front of me. Sweat drips down my face, blurring my vision as I grope wildly for the basin and shakily pull myself up to my feet under the watchful eye of the coiled, reptilian lightbulb above me.
"Fuck…" I mutter under my breath as I stumble through the puddle, leaving red footprints with every step. I push the door open and shake the cobwebs loose. Straightening myself out, I reach out to my better half, the one more suited to tasks like these, as I approach the counter of this rundown hellhole of a gas station.
I reach out, only to get no response.
There's an old man at the counter, face rough and worn with age. Well, the bits of it that aren't hidden by a thick layer of white facial hair, that is.
Then I see it.
My championship belt, hanging on the wall behind the cashier, like a fucking souvenir to ogle.
"That isn't yours," the man says.
"The fuck did you say?"
"That belt up there isn't yours. You ain't no champion."
I scoff. "Why? Because I didn't uphold your bullshit view of morality? Because I'm not some kind of populist hero, puppet on a string type? Because you don't like me?"
The man smiles, and for the briefest of moments his face contorts until it becomes David Sanchez's.
"No, because it's mine."
Y'know, Teddy, you had a golden opportunity. Something you didn't deserve in the slightest of course, but still. Just think about it; you could be coming into this match with all the momentum in the world. You had the once in a lifetime opportunity to reverse all of your shortcomings, to do something meaningful about your winless record in UCI, and on some level you took advantage of it… by pinning Kyle Kemp.
Poor, poor Teddy. I feel for you. I really, really do. It has to be so hard for you, holding up the hopes and dreams of all of your adoring fans when your neck snaps with the slightest hint of pressure. When your knees buckle and your bones snap when you're faced with expectations higher than "don't embarrass yourself". You had the perfect opportunity to really send a message, to rile up hope that you might, at any point, be able to beat me with the Rising Stars championship on the line.
And you blew it.
Not taking anything away from Kyle, but everyone knows I was the prize of that match. The one you really wanted. The one your lumbering oaf of a partner wanted. After all, this belt around my waist has people lining up to get their licks in; from our esteemed Mayor and his faithful manservant tugging at my skirt all the way to pissants like Alex Richards clawing at my shoelaces, all to get Erin-senpai to notice them. And yet, here you were. I of course say all this hypothetically because, let's face it you spunky little underdog you, there was no real chance in hell that you could pull pinning me off; pinning Kemp was the smartest thing you could do. Hypothetically speaking, you could've done it. You could've joined that elite, elusive list of people who've pinned me. A list that currently only has one name: Crow McMorris. Our world champion.
Now, think about how much that could've boosted you, Teddy. How that would've legitimized you. You want to be a hero to these people so fucking badly? Well, this was your chance. You could've embarrassed the UCI's biggest villain. Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not blind and I have a functioning set of ears. Despite everything I do for them, despite me being an advocate for the same God they hide behind for protection, they vilify me. They shun me in favor of people like you, Teddy.
Do you want to know why these people gravitate towards you?
I'll give you a hint: it's not because of your amazing heroics, you goofy bastard.
It's because you're just as much of a loser as they are. They see themselves in you. You and your grandiose dreams of being the hero this city needs, they look at that shit and they eat it up because their dreams died years ago. I know I sound like a broken record but I have to ask you again. Look at these people Teddy; these people you claim to love. These people you want to love you. To respect you. To give you the very thing you can't give yourself, and can't earn through any legitimate means: validation.
Are these the people you want to associate yourself with?
Do you really want to be their hero? These people, whose only specialties are in day drinking and menial labor. Who flock to a warehouse to watch other people do what they can't do themselves: fight. Who sit in judgment and hurl insults at a child of the Lord like myself and prop up evil, evil people like Andre Holmes, parade him around like the fucking Messiah? Are these people, with skewed priorities and no futures the ones you want to appeal to?
Are you that fucking desperate?
What's wrong, you little shit? Were you not hugged enough as a child? Is that why you look for love from anyone and everyone capable of human emotion; no matter how low down, scummy, and sickening they are? Or is it that you're such a spineless little doormat you don't know how to do anything but serve other people. Let others walk all over you. Let them take and take and take until you have absolutely nothing more to give. Guess what: those greedy fuckers are going to keep on taking until you're picked clean, Teddy. And you gave them permission.
For the love of God, could you be any more pathetic?
You're lucky my eyes aren't the only set watching over you right now. Looking under the skin at your massive, oversized heart and shrunken, underdeveloped brain. See, the Lord's much more forgiving than I am. He loves all his children, even sick, twisted freaks like Andre Holmes and washed up failures like Alex Richards. Even would be cynics like David Sanchez and especially doomed optimists like you. You can reverse this terrible fate you've met with.
All you have to do is see the light.
Maybe, just maybe when I knock the living daylights out of you, you'll come to this revelation on your own.
You'll know what to do.
Jack Pembry thought back to his first night in Chicago since the incident -- so named because he didn't know of any other word that appropriately described "the night some Serbian cunt took ruined my life" -- how as if by pure happenstance he'd been placed right where he needed to be to exact his revenge. A plot that had been a long time coming, indeed. He recognized her instantly, delighting when the scrawny whelp of a ring announcer called her name. Erin Fausse. Fitting.
He didn't approach her that first night. He'd contemplated it, but something felt off about the whole affair. It would be anticlimactic to get it over with so soon, he reasoned. He'd been fantasizing about it for long enough, he figured he might as well enjoy it.
Still, he couldn't deny his urges. Voyeurism could only get him so far, after all.
As he walked to his car he slicked his hair back and stood, idle on the sidewalk for a moment, inspecting his hand. He should've gotten used to it by now, but every time he saw that distinct lack of a wedding ring, it floored him. Not that he particularly cared much for his ex-wife. As far as he was concerned she was just another interchangeable fuck toy; no better and no worse than the women he'd left six feet under all across the US. Still, he couldn't help but miss the respect that marriage gave him. The world seemed to look at him different after the divorce, and not because of the factors leading up to it.
"Fuckin' cunt," he muttered under his breath as he approached the driver's side door, when out the corner of his eyes he saw a blonde woman rushing to the car parked next to his. He took a quick look around to affirm that there wasn't anyone else in sight before approaching her, hand gripped around the handle of his trusty switchblade, which seemed to howl and scream at the prospect of fresh blood. He shushed the beast in the blade and asked the woman, "You from around here?"
She responded but all he heard as he drew closer and began to pull the blade from his pocket as a wall of white noise grating against his eardrums.
The next morning Jack Pembry was on a flight back to New York. Erin Fausse lingered in his mind.
She was going to get what was coming to her, he told himself.
Y'know, David, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how completely and utterly unbecoming your behavior has been. How much of an indictment is it on the city of Chicago that your mayor gets his rocks off harassing innocent women on social media, accompanied by his lackey Taylor Wright and the shit on the sole of his shoe that's somehow gained sentience, Alex Richards. You know, I had just finished washing his overbearing body odor off of me when you dragged all one thousand pounds of his dead carcass all over my poor, unsuspecting Twitter. Have I gotten a formal apology from the Mayor for him unleashing Alex Richards upon me? Nope. All I've gotten are the half-hearted threats of a delusional cunt and his lapdog barking like a Chihuahua with absolutely no bite to back it up.
Where's your boy, David? Y'know, after he threatened to beat the shit out of me and I fucking begged him to, he shut the fuck up. He tucked his tail inbetween his legs and fucked off to every other Twitter feed you were polluting because that's all he's trained to do, it seems. Step to people who actually put up a fight? Nope, not in his job description it seems. Which makes me wonder, if these are the people under your employ that you let follow you into your realm, the guy you put your reputation on the line to establish, in both wrestling and in politics, then what the fuck are you doing.
Newsflash: your boy has embarrassed you in both arenas now, hasn't he? Can't even stand up to the challenge of the woman you two have been trying to browbeat and bully into rolling over and dying so you can scoop her championship and cradle it like a babe because despite everything else you've accomplished, despite the fact that you're the Mayor of Chicago, your sense of self-worth is still ruled by shiny golden trinkets.
It'd almost be funny, if it weren't so fucking sad. Look, everyone! The "Last King of Wrestling" isn't quite sure you're still on board with that nickname that he has to come down off his perch at City Hall just to come after little ol' me. Not Crow McMorris. Not Dustin Beaver. Me. Erin Fausse. Your fucking prophet. The closest any of you will get to the Lord God himself. You know, he sees it. He sees that my worth can't be measured in gold, so he thinks I'll hand it over without too much struggle. After all, a child of God should have no issue handing things over to people who obviously need them more.
Here's the kicker, though, David. I'm not handing shit over to you.
No, no. You're going to have to take it from me. You're going to have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands because this belt? It's mine. And I take what's rightfully mine and I hold onto it until I literally can't hold on anymore. Call it that refugee mindset; I know what having nothing's like. I don't like that feeling. So I hold tightly onto everything. A bit of overcompensation, but what can you do?
See, the way I look at it, there's three ways this goes with you as the star of the show and in each and every single one of them: I win.
First, I win the match. Easy, case closed. Bada bing, bada boom. But that's not as interesting, is it? #ERINWINSLOL seems a little obvious.
Second, you beat me down. You pry the belt from my cold dead hands and you hold it high in the air for everyone to see that deep down, for all your posturing and acting like you're oh-so-above-it-all, you're no different from the likes of Teddy Sol and Andre Holmes and Alex Richards, and that you're own sense of self-worth is measured by proving something to the fucking shaved apes in the crowd. That you can't validate yourself and the only person who offers you any sense of validation is your employee/possible fucktoy and we both know how hollow of a feeling that is. So you have to fill yourself up with the hatred of the audience, you have to fill yourself up with holding something over them.
You have to fill yourself up with the knowledge that you're just like everyone else. A puppet dancing on the strings.
Third, you beat Teddy and prove that again, for all your tough talk, all the bullshit, weak-ass intimidation tactics that you're nothing more than a scared little coward who can't make good on any of his "promises". Go ahead, beat Teddy. Beat him real good. Life's beaten that poor bastard, after all, you won't be the first or the last or even the most memorable beating of his life and you'll show off how pathetic you really are. I won't even have to lift a finger to expose you, David.
Any possible way you slice it, you're fucked. You backed yourself into this corner and there isn't any way out. How does it feel, knowing that you fucking played yourself? How does it feel knowing there isn't anything you can do to weasel your way out of this situation of your own devising?
I bet you feel fucking stupid, eh?
There's still hope for you too, David.
All you have to do, is see the light. Let the light fill you up, permanently. Avoid the temporary high from the gold.
Achieve enlightenment.
You cunt.
I don't have a soul. I just don't. Underneath my eccentricities and my ego and my desire to burn every bridge I've ever built and then a few more, there isn't anything. I remember how my father would look at me, how my uncle would look at me, how anyone would look at me like deep down the scarred, broken Bosnian refugee girl was still there, hidden behind a callous exterior. Fucking idiots. I strangled that bitch and left her rotting corpse in Sarajevo. But you know me better than all of them, don't you?
Yes, you. Oh, don't act so coy, like you kept yourself hidden from me. No no no, I can always feel you, poking and prodding along the inside of my skull. Erin thinks you're God. Of course she does, right? But I, no, I think you're something else entirely. You don't tell me anything, you just sit there and you observe. Like a fly on the wall. Annoying like one too. Can't seem to get rid of you, can I? Every time I think you're out, you buzz right on by like nothing ever happened and I'm right back to sharing head space with something I don't quite understand.
Well, anyway, since you're here, would you like to hear a story?
