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I remember as a kid, wanting something so badly that when I went to sleep at night, I'd pray to a God I didn't really believe in to have it.
I don't think the praying helped, having my parents helped in getting most of what I wanted.
Praying's not helping me now either, and I'm too old to go to my parents any more. I am a parent myself now.
Two kids with a wife who knows what it's like to be pushed to her limits. Her husband wasn't a good man when she married him and he's no better now. The last few years of my life feel like a sham. The beautiful wife I have, who I don't love in the right way, and who tolerates me because of the kids.
And those kids. God, I love them. So much. I'd do anything for them. Which makes me sadder when I think about Rebecca because I'm sure I'm supposed to feel the same about her. I'm not sure I ever did.
I never told her the truth about me and Hunter. It was too complicated to explain. There were the boys, and then everyone else. If you weren't in the biz, you didn't know. Rebecca might have been a dancer in WCW, but that's not the same.
She didn't travel every night on the road. She didn't perform in front of fans on the level we did. She certainly didn't know what it was like to hear the fans turn on you, didn't know how that made you feel.
Hunter always said that it was that turn that made me change. I guess I didn't notice it at the time, but he saw it. As the ratings dropped and I was pointed at as champ it became my burden to bare. And mine alone. Suddenly no one else worked for the company but me.
It was fine, I didn't care. I was that good I didn't need to care. The fans still liked me.... for a while.
1996's Survivor Series is where everything changed. The fans hated me, booed the heck outta me. They despised my character. Maybe because I never felt like there was a lot of difference between me and my character, I didn't take it that well. Going backstage was the worst bit. Seeing those guys who you know hated you with those cocky grins because I didn't get over with the crowd.
They didn't dare say anything but they didn't need to. I was hated by the fans, the boys. Everyone. Even Vince didn't like me, not really. He had no choice but give me the title really. He kept the belt on me because it was better to leave the blame on one guy rather then try and change things and make the whole company look like it was trash- just me would do. Sure I might be the main guy at that time, but when someone else came along, he could beat me, ratings soar and I'd be their scapegoat.
I went to the dressing room, everyone cleared out after I got there. Half because they didn't like me and the others so the could talk about my humiliation in the ring.
What did I care really?
I shouldn't have cared. But I was always too stupid to realise it really didn't matter either way. I didn't know that people just liked to hate the top guys sometimes. They certainly did with me anyway. I didn't care, so I pulled off my boots and threw them across the room.
That's when Hunter came in. He didn't say anything as he saw the boots laying across the other side of the room. Or the fact that the place was deserted.
He didn't even mention the fact that I'd pretty much been humiliated out in the ring. He just came and sat next to me.
I guess I needed him more than I thought I did. My one friend in the company. The only guy who wanted to stand by me through this crap, when everyone else left and walked out on me, he was still there. By my side.
I leaned against him. “Glad you're here.” I whispered.
**
Have you ever been accused of something that you didn't think was fair? I have. More than once.
It's strange that even now as I sit here with Rebecca, the tear's still staining her face, I'm not thinking about her. My minds always somewhere else. Anywhere but here.
I remember the day when I met Vince at the hotel in San Antonio. We were talking about my future. I wasn't happy, not at all and he knew it. I wanted out. My dad came with me. He's a great father- unlike me. I try and emulate him, but always fall short.
However, that's not what matters. We went there because of an altercation I'd had with Bret and now I didn't want to go back. A move was on the horizon. I felt that I could convince Vince to let me out of my contract.
But Vince was a dirty player. So before I got a chance to say anything he threw a drug accusation at me. What could be more humiliating? Saying something like that in front of my Dad. Bastard. I denied it, even knowing I'd downed pills before coming here. He'd never get anything over me. I'd never allow him to catch me screwing up.
If only I knew.
A quiet sob next to me brings me back to here and now. Rebecca crying.
We've been sitting in the same room, and she started crying a few minutes ago, silently, and I never said anything. I look at her and she catches my gaze. I stay neutral, say nothing. Her eyes are pools of sadness that go so deep I could drown in them. That's why I look away.
She gets up, mumbles something about going out and I let her leave. Relieved that she's gone.
I hear the front door shut after a few minutes. She's gone out somewhere. The kids are at school. I'm home alone.
I guess Vince gets the last laugh in this whole situation. He doesn't know it yet, but he has. When I came back all those years ago he was publicly welcoming, but when we were alone, he told me a leopard never changes it's spots and I'd just end up screwing my life up and the life of my wife and son.
So it hasn't happened yet, but the wheels are in motion of the wreckage that'll become me. No one knows. Just me. Well, Rebecca knows I guess.
She spent enough time married to a man who was on drugs to see the tell-tale signs of him slipping back into those bad habits again. Praying wasn't helping this time. I wasn't out of control, not like I used to be, but I could feel the momentum gaining all the time. And I didn't want to stop. The meltdown of Shawn Michaels will be the wake up call. It'll be what opens some people's eyes.
It'll be what brings Hunter back to me.
**
I'm going out there with a purpose.
To make a statement. To define myself to everyone here. To let Rebecca know the truth. Even though she's back at home. But she'll know.
To let Hunter know what he should already know. I'm not afraid of it. I'm sinking anyway and I might as well go out my way. I always said I'd go down in a blaze of glory, I guess I just didn't think that I'd be dowsing myself in petrol, the match in my hand.
I stood, waiting to go out when a hand landed on my shoulder and spun me round. I knew who it would be... or I thought I did. I expected Vince, I got Hunter. My lips almost turned up into a smile, before I saw the look on his face. He was majorly pissed and the anger was aimed at me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What?” I shot back, confused. Okay, so I might be planning to do something crazy but Hunter didn't know that and I refuse to believe he knows me well enough to know what I'm thinking. No one knows me that well. No one ever will. I'll always keep my guard up. It's when you're unprepared that you always end up getting hurt. Like a game of poker, I was determined to keep my cards close to my chest.
“What are these?” Hunter shoves a bottle of pills at me. I know they aren't mine because I left my stash back at the hotel. I'm not an idiot.
“Look like pills to me.”
“They're yours.” Hunter accuses.
“No they're not.” I reply cooly, poker face in play.
“Oh, right, so your name being on them is just a coincidence then, huh?”
I snatched them off him. I knew these couldn't be mine. But as I turned the bottle round there was the name Michael S. Hickenbottom staring back at me. “These aren't mine.” I deny pointlessly.
“It's your name, Shawn. Doing drugs again might be stupid enough but you're gonna lie to me as well.”
“What does it even matter.” I say, turning back around to face away from Hunter and back towards the curtain that I should be going through any minute.
“No, this isn't over because you turn your back on me.” Hunter turns me back around aggressively. “We've left 1998 way behind us.”
“What, you're the big man now?” I say, holding myself back from getting in his face. I can see eyes upon us, watching the 'best buds' have a fight.
“A bigger man than you'll ever be.” He shoots back. He's firing his shots to wound me and he's done it. I'm deny the pain his words cause.
In the face of death, I'll be proud and noble.
As if he's reading my mind, he shakes the bottle of pills at me, like he's telling me this isn't honourable.
Like I don't know that anyway.
“Scrap all plans to have him go out live, he's not doing it.” Hunter says, pulling me away from the curtain.
“Hey!” I say as he half drags me away from my demise. It was my professional suicide he was stopping me from committing, dragging me away from the edge of the cliff, diving in front of the bullet and everyone watching his heroics.
He doesn't stop until he finds a deserted room, shoves me through, slams the door behind him. I can't remember ever seeing him look so angry before. I don't care though.
Opening the bottles he tips the pills all over the floor, his eyes fixed on me. “Whatcha gonna do? Crawl around and shove them down your throat? Wouldn't be the first time you did that would it?”
“Shut up.” I say. Stupid. Might as well stay silent.
“No, fuck you! I didn't go through this once before just for you to make me believe that you were better, you were saved. And you're just as disgusting as you always were....”
“SHUT UP!” I yell like some kind of psycho. I see something nearing fright in his eyes. He didn't except to hear that level of anger in me. Don't wanna hear those words, not from him....
The brief fear disappears from his eyes and something else replaces it. Not sure what it is though, if only my brain wasn't working so slowly, fuzzy.
When he speaks, his voice is calm in the most unnatural way. “You just do what you like.”
Without a second glance, he leaves me in the room, slamming the door behind him. With nothing in my head but the paranoia and his words buzzing round, 'disgusting', I realise how fucked up everything is.
My plans have been shot down. I can't let the world know what I was going to become. They'd never see. Rebecca would never know. Hunter wouldn't...
My shaking hands see the bottle that Hunter discarded on the floor and I stoop down, picking up my precious pills and pouring them back in the bottle. They're all I have now. I need them. My way out.
I'll let someone find me. At the hotel. I can be another statistic. Damn it if I don't get some steroids just so Vince gets his ass busted too. That'd teach him for never really believing in me.
I denied the tears, if I didn't acknowledge them, they weren't really there, but fuck it they were annoying as they trickled down my face. I can still see pills scattered here and there on the floor, but I have enough for what I need to do.
Washed down with some vodka, I'd never have to see another sunrise. Never have to plaster that fake smile on my face as I played the happy family man.
It was what I wanted. I'd never wanted the end to come more than I did now.
Only one man could have saved me tonight and he'd just spurned me.
I'd make sure that Hunter would never be able to live with the guilt of what he'd done
And it would be the last thing I ever did.
**
There was nothing left to do.
I'd got the bottle of vodka on the way to the hotel, the pills were in my pocket. I hadn't bothered to bring anything else back from the arena. What did I need with clothes and possessions. Tomorrow it'd all be over.
The cleaners could throw my stuff in the trash- less for someone else to go through when they found out what I'd done.