Post by outcast on Dec 2, 2020 12:01:31 GMT -6
If that question was a hook to the gut from Tyson, the next one was an uppercut from Lennox Lewis.
I had grown silent when she asked that body blow of a question. My knee was bouncing, my fingers weren't digging at the seam of the couch, instead, I sat stoically as a statue. I wasn't mulling over her question; in fact, I was mentally fleeing from it. She could tell I was shutting down and pulling up the draw bridge, so she moved in with an uppercut slipping through my guard.
Christian, do you think your substance abuse issues and violent outburst may be a cry for attention? You are a smart man, think of it like this subconsciously you know you only got attention from your parents when you acted out, so you continued that behavior throughout your adult life.
What the f**k am I supposed to say to that?
Yeah, I don't know either, so I don't say anything. My fingers dig into the arm of the couch as I clinch it, partly in anger and partly because somewhere deep down I know she is right. She sees me clinching up, and can see that I am uncomfortable, not wanting to push too hard too fast, she eases up.
She sits back in her chair, lays her hands and notebook on her lap, and with genuineness says, "I'm sorry Christian, that was too much".
Then there is an awkward silence. I'm angry, and worse yet I feel vulnerable for some reason. This is a feeling I haven't felt in a long time, and something I've had stalwart defenses against. Yet, here I am sitting on a couch in front of a woman probably twenty years my junior and my defenses have failed me. I feel as if I have a zipper on my chest and at any moment, she could unzip me and everything I have worked so hard to pack inside me might come spewing out.
The sense of fight or flight comes over me, and almost every time in my life I have picked the fight. But how do I fight this? If I can't fight it, then how do I flee from it. I can't just run out of the door, so I do the only thing I can and batten down the hatches and shut my shell up like a clam.
She sees me shutting down, and I see her questioning herself. She is new and hasn't yet garnered the two most important things for her field, those being the ability to read someone like a top-level poker player studying his opponent for a bluff or a read. And the second is the confidence in herself, that is needed to not second guess yourself, at least not where someone can see it.
We find ourselves sitting in this awkward silence, neither of us knows quite how to break it.
I glance at my watch, twenty more minutes to go in this court-appointed session. The breaking of my gaze gave her an opening to speak without having to see the reaction on my face.
Do you think your profession of choice is related to your childhood?
How's that?
You grew up in a violent household, do you think this drove you to a violent field of work and groomed you for an overall violent lifestyle?
Without realizing it I let out of my mouth what would normally be maintained as thoughts in my head.
All I've ever known is violence. Violence at home, school, my neighborhood, violence engulfed every aspect of my life. It swallowed my life up as if were the sea and I were a leaky ship. It's hard to escape something when it is all you've ever known. Telling me there is a way to live and act aside from being violent is akin to telling a bird he can walk instead of fly, or a fish that he can live somewhere besides the water.
Shit, did I just say that out loud? Did I just show my hand, and unzip that figurative zipper in my chest just a bit?
Her warm smile shows she is happy to be getting something out of me, but it is also reassuring for some reason. Yes, she definitely uses her attractiveness to disarm clients like me. Probably why such a pretty young thing got handed an old dirtbag like me.
Christian, is it possible that you know there is another way, but you are afraid to travel that unknown path? You’ve traveled the country and the globe, surely, by now you have learned there is another way in life besides the path of violence.
Did she really believe the bullshit that just came out of her mouth? Oh to be young and naive to the ways of the world. My zipper is fully zipped up, and my vulnerability is now covered with the armor of truth, the truth about the world. I lean forward, my tone changes, to a lower more serious one to make sure she is listening closely.
Doc, this world is nothing but violence. Think about it, take off the rose-colored glasses, and look at the world. I don’t mean to look at it with optimism, hope, or what it could be, but look at what it really is. This world was made through violence. Look at this year alone, mass riots, shootings, true rebellion against law and order, not just here but around the world. Every great empire from the Romans to the Persians, from the British to here in America, all machines of war and violence that run on the blood of their rivals. Throughout the history of this world, there has never been greater, and I mean true greatness without violence.
She looks shocked, clearly, no one has ever laid this out to her so bluntly before.
I don’t believe that at all.
I see the cross around her neck and give a little smirk. If her feathers were ruffled before I’m about to blow her top.
Christian or Catholic?
Her hand darts to her necklace covering it.
Eh, doesn’t matter either way, in the end, they got the same boss. Jesus, even Jesus wouldn’t have been possible without violence.
I see her brow slope forward, and her body becomes rigid.
Jesus was not violent and did not promote violence.
Yeah, but the Bible is full of acts of violence. David chopping off Goliaths's heads, the storming of Jericho, even the pinnacle of Christian faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus, had to have violence for completion. If Jesus wasn’t brutally murdered by the Romans, he could not have paid for your sins. So, whatever the question is, whatever the problem is, violence is always the answer.
I sit back with a smug look on my face and a feeling of justification in my belly. What had I really justified though? Her face showed she was confused and upset. I see her eyes dart to the clock on the wall, and I move mine to the clock as well. Ten minutes in the session.
I look from the clock back to her, and she sighs a sigh of relief.
I think this is a good place to stop today.
I nod in agreeance. I need a smoke anyway.
And when we were good
You just closed your eyes
So when we are bad
We'll scar your minds
You just closed your eyes
So when we are bad
We'll scar your minds
(As the smoke clears the darkness is taken over again. The slight glow of the ember on the Newport gives a slight indication that Outcast stands in the darkness.)
Bombs and guns are just toys, the signs of bravery for boys. Immature brains with violence fed to them, make them all completely numb. But what about the countrymen? You see them crying now and then, does that make you immune to violence? Well, that just describes your height of ignorance.
(The orange ember glows brightly as an inhale is taken, and then fades as the smoke is exhaled.)
Lucas, we are not the same. We may both be men who have fought in the squared circle for years and years, but we are cut from a different cloth entirely. You fight because you like it, while I fight because it is all I have ever known. Since birth, I have had to fight. Do you know what a nuchal cord is? It’s when the umbilical cord is wrapped around a baby's neck in utero.
Even before I popped out my momma I was sentenced to death. Do you know what I did though? I said f**k death and I fought. I’m sure many people over my lifetime wish I had lost that fight, but death couldn’t beat me then and you can’t be me at Inferno. Yeah, it is quite a leap to go from beating death before I ever saw the light of day to talk about our match at Inferno, but that was quite literally the fight of my life, and Inferno will be the fight of your life.
No, I’m not saying I’m going to attempt to strangle you to death with a cord… well I might, but what I am saying is that you are going to be fighting as you have never fought before in your life. This may not be the biggest match of your life and I may not be the biggest star you’ve ever fought, but I can guarantee you have never been in the ring with a motherf**ker quite like me.
Darkness eventually falls on every man and everything. There is a possibility that it will fall on my Unified X-Division championship reign at Inferno, but it will take everything you have and much more for it to happen Lucas. I will fight against that darkness; I will rage against the dying of the light. When the light is gone and the darkness falls on my reign as Unified X-Division champion it will be a hell of a man that snuffs that light out. I do not believe you are that man Lucas.
Lucas your claim of my championship reign being tainted, is as false as your claim that you will defeat me. I didn’t take John Boy Barrows offer to get an easy road to a championship, I did it to get my long-awaited and long-deserved revenge on TLS. The way I won the championship cannot be disputed, as I won it in an all-out war. Since that win, I have proven myself to be the rightful and undisputed champion. If you think my title reign is tainted then take it from me, that is… if you can take it from me.
Restore the Unified X-Division championship to its rightful glory, the glory of when your new tag team partner Mike Zybala held it. Is that what this is really about? The fact that your new-found best buddy let the title slip through his fingers and has been floundering ever since, so this is some sort of revenge mission to restore the “good name” of Mike Zybala. Let it slip through his fingers… no wonder you two have become partners, you are one and the same, you deserve each other.
(A few footsteps are heard moving closer. A drop light flashes on revealing a shadowy Outcast.)
I’m not saying you have zero chance, Lucas, because I know we are both built of flesh and bone and on any given day one-man can defeat another, but I wouldn’t be on the phone with your bookie placing bets if I were you. You have a history of losing the big one, and this is a big one Lucas. Don’t let it discourage you though, don’t come in already being mentally defeated. Come in thinking and believing you can win. Come in at your physical and mental peak, because I want the best Lucas Thames there has ever been. And you will need to be the best Lucas Thames you have ever been if you plan to survive.
Lucas, you’re not winning this match, and you’re not taking the Unified X-Division championship from me. You’re hopes and dreams of becoming a champion will end just like you will end at Inferno. They will end going down in flames as you burnout.