Post by nedkaye on Oct 8, 2023 3:53:02 GMT
Helical Scan
Part I
Within This Phase
Part I
Within This Phase
Dusk had draped over New York City, the stretching evening lightly covering the bright, neon glimmer of the city as a whole. A light rainfall washed over the swirling cacophony of lights, adding a reflective sheen to the monoliths of concrete and steel that towered over the various pedestrians in the street. However, on this night, it wasn't the millions of tiny bulbs that caused Ned to wince in surprise. Merely one.
The flash temporarily blinded him as a fan profusely apologized from a few feet away.
“Oh my god,” the fan in front of Kaye exclaimed, fumbling with her phone, attempting to quickly disable the flash, the face of her husband twisting to mild embarrassment, “I thought I remembered to turn that off! Can we please get one more photo?”
Ned blinked, his vision beginning to return as he smiled, nodding slightly.
“It’s fine, seriously. We can redo it,” Ned attempted to keep his tone light despite his minor annoyance at the temporary blinding after being stopped for a photograph in the rain. Retaining his smile, the second photo went much smoother as he shook hands with the couple, picking up the bag of groceries at his side.
“It was really cool to be able to meet you,” said the fan who was still gawking at his wife’s phone a bit, proud of the image, “you’ve really been an inspiration for us and we wouldn’t be able to hit the gym frequently without your joint, man. Thank you!”
“Hey, thanks for being fans,” He responded, feeling the slight frustration from earlier melt away. Fame brought with it many things Ned despised, but this feeling would never grace that list. It was so easy to see faces in a crowd instead of the infinitely complex human beings that cheered him on, but it was meetings like this that illuminated that fact. The paper bag of groceries sagged slightly in his grip, having been soaked at the base as he posed for the photo. It was still a block or so until he got to the aforementioned gym. He barely made enough to cover the expenses of running it, but it gave people in the neighborhood a cheap place to work out, so he ate the cost happily. Plus, it doubled as a place he could stay when matters in his personal life were especially tumultuous. The shower intensified as Ned began to pick up the pace, feeling the downpour encompass him until he was finally at the door of the gym, having been closed earlier in the day. He maneuvered himself tactfully to extract the keys from his jeans while balancing the bag on his knees. With a relieved sigh as he finally managed to open the door, Ned stepped into the building, the familiar musk of the old brownstone filling his nostrils, aggressive to the senses, yet reassuring in its consistent presence. The weight of expectation slowly lifted off of Kaye as he gripped the bag more securely once more…
Only to have the bottom collapse, spilling the contents of the bag onto the ground before Ned even had the chance to consider responding. It was just his luck, he thought, eyes gazing upon the mess he now had to clean. His neck extended backwards as he took a deep breath, walking past a mantle he had set up near the entrance. It was filled with shiny objects, trinkets he had earned in his XWF career both inside and out of the ring. Side plates, a retired belt, a few poker chips placed in display cases. He reached for none of them, instead grabbing a broom and a few rags propped against the mantle’s side, doing his best to clean up a shattered glass that had spilt salsa across the wooden boards beneath his feet. He scraped the salsa off the ground with the rag, avoiding the glass until a reflective glimmer hit his eye.
Somehow, through the way the light passed through the window, the shard of glass shined a specific hue that caught his attention.
Amber, golden and deep. It was an easily recognizable shade. It reminded him of-
He couldn’t finish the thought before a sharp sting dragged across his fingertip as he quickly pulled his hand away, a sharp breath yanked through his teeth. Distracted by the color, he had sliced himself on a glass shard, blood beginning to drip down into his palm. Finishing the cleaning took a little longer due to needing to tend to his newly acquired wound, but it was a rather easy effort after the fact. Once he had a moment to sit down in the back room, he poured a tall glass of water and decompressed a bit, his mind still dwelling upon the couple he took a photo with prior.
It was always odd to interact with fans for Ned. It felt like being a big XWF star in a relatively close-knit part of Brooklyn lended itself to being easily recognizable. And with that recognition came being an object for photo opportunities and autographs and all sorts of people wanting to meet a celebrity, even for a fleeting moment. He appreciated the support and would have never have gotten this far without them, yet there seemed to be a thin sheet of glass between himself and others. He was among them, but he was not one of them. Everyone referred to New York as a sort of family, but even that rang hollow to some degree.
The emptiness of the gym felt more pronounced in the wake of his contemplation. He was its sole inhabitant at the current moment. He had plenty to call to change that, but his hands didn’t reach for his phone. Instead, he rolled out an old CRT television on two pairs of wheels, the VCR beneath it covered with dust. His eyes scanned over the many spines of tapes pointed outward before settling on one that felt appropriate.
Family.
Popping the VHS in, he was greeted by the staticy image of himself at about eight years of age, watching an old episode of Monday Night Massacre, a show that hadn’t been in production for ages at this point. There was a bright quality to eight-year-old him that was pleasant to see. He leapt around as Centurion narrowly managed to avoid a pinning attempt. He imitated an elbow drop, making sure to do so safely as his parents insisted in the background. And he smiled as the younger recording hopped up onto the vomit colored couch to sit next to his father. It was always difficult to see Dad, considering all he had were memories, frozen in time at this point. The tape ended as little Ned proclaimed his dream: that one day it would be him beating up bad guys in the ring, a blue screen filling the room with cyan light until it cut out.
The blank screen reflected Ned once more, just as he was now as opposed to then. It wasn’t a sight he wished to view indefinitely. Moving over to the shelves filled with tapes, he tried desperately to find another, until his gaze honed in on the bandage adorning his finger.
Blood.
The first match he ever bled. It wasn’t too difficult to find the tape, pulling it from the shelf and placing it in the VCR. His eyes waited patiently, anticipating the moment in which the footage would start.
May 24th, 2016
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
Ned lifted himself off of his opponent, an older fella who went by The Immovable Object in the 90s, lifting his arms upwards as the ref had to practically lift his body off of the fallen foe. Blood streamed down Kaye’s face, a healthy amount of crimson staining the upper half of his tights as the crowd cheered on. Woozily, he barely managed to make it out of the ring before collapsing into a folding chair, his older brother, Nathaniel, in the one right next to his landing spot.
“Do you really need me to record you on this old hunk of junk?” Nate asked, clearly not trusting the device with its audible whining as he pressed stop.
“Absolutely!” Ned insisted, taking the large hunk of outdated tech from Nate and placing it into a duffel bag with some of his spare ring gear, “everything looks better on VHS!”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Nate chuckled dismissively, “but as somebody who had to watch most everything on it, that shit sucked.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ned rolled his eyes a bit, wiping some of the blood off of his face, “I’m sure it’s beneficial to have a longstanding hatred of everything I like.”
Nate threw his hands up defensively, “Now that’s unfair! I came here, didn’t I?”
“And you enjoyed it?” Ned replied bluntly.
Nathaniel hesitated upon answering.
“Well, the part where you got clobbered with a wrench and starting pissing blood out of your forehead was pretty good,” he answered, forcing a jackass sort of smile.
“That’s so typical of you,” muttered Ned under his breath. He loved his brother, but it was hard not to feel a little contempt towards him based on his behavior towards Ned over the years. One scene stuck out in his head, seeing Nate present as a group of bullies hounded and harassed Ned. He could’ve stepped in and done something. He could have been an older brother.
He didn’t then and it was like he still half-assed it now.
“So, that’s it?” Nate asked as Ned picked up his duffel, turning away to go head into his car and drive towards the next booking. It wasn’t going to pay much, none of them did, but it was away from home. It was away from Nate.
“No thanks, no nothing?!” Nathaniel gave a half laugh, barely concealing the anger in his tone, “I guess you get to just throw me under the bus when you’re Dad’s favorite!”
Ned’s head twisted back, his eyebrows pointed inward as he stared on in plain disgust, “Maybe Dad wouldn’t have a favorite if you thought about somebody else every once and a while, Nate.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth as if to talk before swallowing the words.
“Thanks,” Ned said before returning to his old, beat up Civic outside, the paint chipping away at the finish of the car. He placed the bag carefully in the back seat, still huffing about his brother. Ned always tried to consider what the right thing was and while he wasn’t perfect, at least he gave enough of a damn to try. Nathaniel decided it wasn’t worth his time back then and never seemed to reassess. He’d been that way since high school. It just seemed like blood wasn’t a strong enough force to assist in them coexisting and nothing would change that. He hopped into the driver’s seat, turning the ignition and listening to the car struggle to start.
It… wasn’t a sound that conjured optimism. Still, it did start and Ned only had 70 miles to his next booking. He quickly checked his phone.
Two hours. He could make it.
It was ten miles in when that belief began to falter. He wasn’t sure what caused it, but the car began to overheat, accentuating the already sweltering sun overhead. Pulling over to the side of the road, he checked the engine, seeing if he could identify the problem. If it was no coolant or oil or something. Unfortunately, easy solutions seemed to be the gifts given to others.
He was no such recipient.
Sighing, he let the engine cool for a bit before cranking the heater to high and rolling the windows down. It wasn’t a great solution, but it would get him to the venue. It could last 60 miles. It needed to last 60 miles.
Unfortunately, it was only thirty miles later that his front tire blew out. The heater trick might have lasted longer, but he hadn’t gotten the opportunity to test that hypothesis. Pulling the car over and slumping against the side opposite the road, Ned thought through his options. He didn’t really have any friends near. Dad was out of town and Mom was out at the casino with her pals. That left…
After replacing the tire with the spare, Ned checked the clock again, feeling the sting of salty sweat over the still fairly recent wound. An hour to go thirty miles. Plenty of time. He could make it. Reentering the car, he firmly patted the sides of his face to hype himself up. All it took was one short drive and he’d have his second match of the day.
He got five until the final punchline of his doomed endeavor. In his hazy state after being busted open for the first time, he hadn’t put enough gas in the tank. He wasn’t going to make it. Not without…
Dialing Nate’s number was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was out of options. The delicate ringing at the other end taunted him until Nathaniel’s voice, unimpressed as usual, blurted out over the phone.
“What now?”
Ned’s head flung backwards,bouncing against the seat behind him, “My car shit out and I don’t have anybody else to ask for a ride. Could…”
“Could you help me out?”
“Jeez,” Nate’s tone was condescending as he responded, “you want me to help out with another old, useless piece of shit? You gonna thank me real well again for that?”
“Please,” Ned reiterated, not falling for his brother’s frustrated baiting.
He could hear the deliberation over the phone through his brother’s halfway coherent grunting until he heard, “Fine. Just send me the nearest address and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks, Nate,” Ned forced out, feeling a tinge of regret for his behavior earlier. The call ended as Ned waited on the side of the road, his dead car little more than a decent seat until his brother finally arrived, his SUV looking functional and cold. He hopped out of his car to step to Ned’s, gesturing towards the back.
“Bag’s back here, right?” Nate asked. Ned nodded, moving to the side so his brother could open the door. Nate had only lifted the bag up for a few seconds before Ned heard an annoyed question leave Nate’s lips.
“The fuck is this?” As Ned turned back to face him, he was met by an item in his car that had left his mind after the repeated car troubles and the earlier match. A bottle filled with amber liquid floating within, the mere sight making Ned’s lips feel dry. Whiskey. His drink of choice.
“Ned, I thought you were had quit this shit!” Nate chucked the bottle full force into the distance, shattering it and disposing of its contents in the process, albeit haphazardly.
“Look, it’s not like I’m drinking a ton any more,” Ned pushed back, looking down shamefully as Nate inspected the rest of his car for any other traces of liquor.
“I don’t care if its a single drop, it’s still too damn much!”
“So you care all of a sudden?! What about enjoying watching me get my head busted open?” Ned retorted angrily.
“Your dream is to get concussions! You wanna do that? BE MY GUEST. But you didn’t have to see what Dad and Mom were like when you were a drunken fucking mess each night, so I don’t wanna hear it!”
“Don’t lecture me about them! You never did anything with us! You never wanted to feel like a family when you could be looking out for number one, Nate!”
“Don’t tell me what I wanted! You and Dad went all in on that wrestling bullshit I didn’t even care about and it was just another way for you all to cut me out of my own family! You think it’s so easy living there just because every mistake doesn’t get held over your head! You don’t have to be the failure!” Nate threw the bag to the ground, the camera within crunching as it connected with the concrete.
“Oh fuck,” Nate whispered as he knelt down, opening the bag up to confirm that the camera within had been rendered inoperable by his previous action, “Shit-I… I’m sorry, Ned.”
“Look, it’s fine,” Ned sighed, picking the bag up and heading towards Nate’s vehicle. Once Nate got in and they began heading towards the venue, they kept silent for a while, merely trying to keep the air more calm than they’d allowed it to get. It was Ned who broke the silence.
“I didn’t realize how much it bothered you… I just assumed you didn’t care,” Ned admitted.
“Yeah, well, I’d like it if you stopped assuming stuff like that about me.”
“You know who got me my first drink, right?” Ned asked, realizing it might have come off differently than he intended. Nate remained quiet.
But he knew.
Changing the subject, Nate asked a question while adjusting his rearview mirror, turning the AC on blast to give his sweaty, bloody younger brother a bit of relief after the rough day, “So, why do you bother rushing around from place to place to wrestle, anyway? I’m sure it’d be a lot easier to stick around and do a few shows locally.”
“Probably,” Ned admitted in agreement, “but I don’t want to be a part of just any wrestling promotion. I want to be an XWF wrestler. That means, until I’m there, going out and following the fights wherever they are. If they want a piece of me, I’ll be there and that’s how I’ll prove I’m good enough to be there with the best of them.”
Nate smiled. Despite their differences, it was always a treat to see Ned discuss something he loved and he might not have loved anything more than pro-wrestling. The drive there and back was nice, even if Ned ended up losing the match that evening.
The tape cut as soon as Ned stumbled his way out of the ring. He glanced over at his phone, feeling a stir of emotions storm in his chest as he reached over and dialed a number.
“What’s up?” Nate’s voice rang out, a little more gruff than it was back then.
“Hey,” Ned said, feeling the thin glass between him and others shatter, if only for a second, “can… can we talk for a bit?”
“Sure,” Nate answered, “tell me about your day.”
Sitting in the gentle, momentary glow of the CRT, Ned spoke, explaining the incident earlier with the fans and his unreliable grocery bag. But mostly, he merely enjoyed hearing his brother’s voice. And in talking, his reflection on the television screen faded into the background.
“Shadows.”
“You can cast them or live confined within them.”
“Y'know, when I first entered the wrestling world, it seemed every other day that I had someone coming up to me to mock my name or my style or recite the myriad of reasons they believed I wasn't cut out for what I did. Hell, that started a long time before I even laced my boots up. I love New York as much as the next Brooklynite, but I didn't feel that love from the kids in the neighborhood when they were pushing me face first into mud. When I came home most nights with bruises, you're damn right that I didn't put much stock into “city togetherness” and as soon as I stepped in a ring all those feelings came flooding back. I'd walk out and read an article or overhear someone demanding to know why they would ever book a scrawny looking punk kid who wasn't their ideal of a professional wrestler. Where's the vocal volume and mountains of muscles? Where's the lack of empathy? Where's the incessant need to be the center of attention at all times? See, I wasn't like everyone else and my worst critics called me boring for that.”
“I'll let you at home unpack that particular criticism.”
“The fact is I’ve had a chip on my shoulder for a long time. In my first few months in the XWF, I was spotlighted by the Universal Champion, Robert Main, a man who dared to see something in a kid who everyone swore was just some indie novelty. And because of that, I became wrapped up in the shadow of Robert Main. Everything I did, compared to him. It was only the moment that I stopped listening to those around me, who mistook recognition for charity that I became my own person. But Jennie Fenix, as much as you attempt to do the same, you’re still caught up in the shadow of Tara.”
“And I don’t blame you for that. The fact is we have a lot in common. You and I mostly stick to our given promotions and we try to hone the blade of our craft on our terms. The problem for you is that you are not facing some homegrown, above-average wrestler. The XWF has been home to legends from across the industry. If you throw a dart at an accomplished wrestler, odds are they have an XWF run under their belt because there are few greater proving grounds and I am here to proudly represent the company I dreamed of joining since I was building rings out of pillows and blankets! I’m not your run of the mill opponent. I am the best kept secret in professional wrestling. I defeated one of the front-runners in this tournament at Relentless when I pinned Chris Page after a bloodbath of a grudge match. I kicked out of Bobby Bourbon, one half of a legendary tag-team- I kicked out of his finisher to join a list of one. I didn’t get the luxury of choosing a name that had history built into it, I had to give this name meaning with my own two hands and you’re goddamn right I did!”
“Fact is Jennie, you don’t want to face me or win this tournament, you want a path out of the shadow of your elder sister. You’re fighting her and yourself far more than you’re swinging at me and the fact that you chose to go by a different surname than her is proof of that. Yes, it’s your birth name, but you’re not adopting it out of pride, but shame. You’re afraid you won’t be able to live up to it and that fear ensures you won’t. I’m going to show you what happens when that fear dissipates, Jennie. Because with all of my quarrels and qualms with my brother, I would never set aside my name or try to not be associated with him. Blood carries a lot of weight in what we do and I am proud to let people know who’s blood I share. Wrestling more than anything else is a celebration of community and our community begins with our families. Yours is little more than a mention and a looming reminder of what you aren’t. Do I want to win? Sure, I do, but moreso than that, I want to show you what it means to be your own person. To carve your own path.”
“Sure, people will crack jokes about my name or try and obsess over the numbers, but this isn’t a sport decided in your mouth or on a calculator. It takes heart! It takes the persistence to break through every expectation people set for you, expecting them to be a prison that confines your career. I am not defined by Chris Page or Robert Main or anyone else who has cast a shadow in my direction.”
“I am the flame.”
“You can bring your best, Docherty, but the best you have is coals long since burnt out and I don’t see you trying to resurrect the phoenix. Make your wishes and make them count because you might be Djinnie, but the only genie coming out of its bottle is this: Ned Kaye is one of the best professional wrestlers in this industry. You might not know my name now, but you won’t soon forget it. You talk of rebuilding, but you’ve never known what it’s like to be broken. You wax lyrical on falling, but you’ve never had heights tall enough to rock your core. You think you know what it’s like to be young and fighting for respect, but I’m almost two years younger than you and I’ve fought way more in my career than you have. Like any djinn, you talk of great power, but you’re little more than a nice display on the shelf. All sparks, no fire. And y’know, I’m not someone with a fancy name and extravagant clothes and someone else pulling me through the industry through their hopeful nepotism. I’m not loud and bombastic and marketably shallow. I’m not the sizzle reel or the steak dinner.”
“I’m the man who appears when the image outshines the talent. When the audience begins to believe more in the shadows on the wall then where they originate from. I have plenty of regrets, I’ve been a wall when I should have been a door for plenty of people, but I pull myself up and I make more of it. Because I will never sacrifice being a genuine person to be a nice outfit standing next to someone with a similar face. My bonds sometimes sear, they sometimes sing, but they always push me forward. Because I can look my brother in the eye and put all the sibling shit aside and say I love him. I do this out of love, not spite or a need to prove myself better than someone close to me. I do this for me. I chase the burning image of myself at the peak of the mountain.”
“And you chase shadows.”