Threads Part I
Part I: What I Wouldn’t Do… He was a spoiled brat growing up and when he finally was a man he just lived off our father’s legacy. He was given the company’s since I was nothing but a goofball back then that the family despised. He drove company after company into the ground as he lived lavishly off the sweat of other people’s backs. I care little for anyone but, everything I receive I work for. Yes, I am sure people would like to argue with me on how I expect things to be given to me but that is an argument you slope headed Neanderthals will lose. It is the usual monthly event where my brother cowers in fear of me and I threaten time and time again that everything he has is mine. He just doesn’t realize it yet. He is a braggart and sits idly by as I pour myself a drink. He points to a bottle to the left of me asking me to pour him a drink. I laugh. He frowns. I find it amusing because he still attempts to boss me around even after I told him our dad was alive. It is funny because I am not the same Steve Harrison I was a year ago when he was beating me with a baseball bat because the family did not want me embarrassing them on live TV by constantly losing in a wrestling ring. At this point in my career a loss does nothing but makes my brother scared because he believes some day I will take my anger out on him. I will look at his smug face and see Garbage Bag Johnny or TA Giles or Peyote Jones and he will be left with one eye and no teeth. It would make me smile for him to have to watch himself eating mashed bananas through a straw. Oops. I take a sip from my Crown Royal and let it slowly go down the back of my throat. The burning sensation makes me feel alive and helps me forget about being screwed against GBJ. “I saw a parrot…” I instantly stared a hole through my brother, his mouth clasped shut like he was a Venus fly trap. “You saw what?” He shrugged, “um, A---PARROT?” I paused, my left eye squinting in anger at him and suddenly the fool laughed. I was taken aback, when did I lose my grip on him? It would seem my string of bad luck in life has given this moron confidence to put me under his heel again. “Yes a fucking parrot. Do you have anything else to say?” He tapped his finger against his lip and then stopped and smiled at me, “did you happen to…give it a cracker?” I take a long sip of my Crown Royal and follow it up with a deep breath. “Of course I did, I used the same poison on the cracker I fed the parrot that I used in yours baby’s formula.” His smile faded, “shut up.” “I haven’t heard that brat cry in a while---have you?” I responded, a grin covering my face. He stood up quickly and grimaced at me, all of his arrogance and happiness fading away like an old person’s skin. “Bastard,” he said to as he ran off to find his kid. I leaned against the wall took another sip of my drink and pondered what kind of monster would actually poison a baby. I guess my brother thinks I am that type of monster. To get respect, to get power…you have to force it down the throats of those who try to keep you down. There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do to be at the peak of the mountain because that is what I have been forced to do. There is no such thing as hand shakes and smiles without deception behind your eyes. It is about doing what you need to do and manipulating everyone else to do the rest of it for you. It is about relaxing while the peons and underlings do your bidding. That is the truth. It is not a fairytale with a romantic ending… …It is a battle with causalities that will soar depending on your level of importance. Wars have been fought for less. But would I poison my own nephew? No. But after his eighteenth birthday…heh, he is fair game.
Part II: What I Will Do…
I am perturbed that on the last edition of Fresh! I was abused by some high school drop out who has more stereotypical bad one liners then a Nelly song. I am not here to be verbally and physically assaulted by a crowd pleasing sell out. VIP is the equivalent of a corpse at this point because after our match his career will be dead.
I love names that you can use an acronym for. It is something even a simple minded degenerate can understand. It would make sense then to have the retarded peasants his core target audience. Who else would root for such an ignoramus?
You must be proud Mr. Pryce for dumbing down the already dumb. Now when I order a cheeseburger they will ask if I want worms with that.
Let me make myself clear on this situation. You have no business touching me, you have no business mentioning my name, and you have no business thinking you are in my league. I am freaking Steve Harrison, you dolt. I retired Jay Terror from JUST, I forced John Johnson into hiding, and it took a screw job for GBJ to defeat me.
Do you honestly think I have even hit my stride yet?
Pfft.
I bide my time when it comes to meaningless matches and if you hadn’t decided to make things personal between us I probably would have yawned my way through this match as well.
You did yourself no favors, so when you are unconscious and bleeding profusely from the beating I give you…blame yourself, kid.
What I will do---is win.
What I will do---is hurt you.
The Club is full of members who believe their time spent here YEARS ago gives them an upper hand over the newer members. This is not a cult where your time spent in it gives you more responsibility on brain washing the new. You can not brain wash me into thinking these ‘veterans,’ deserve my respect. I look out at the landscape of AWC and see vagabonds and criminals that decided that Steve Harrison was a threat to their normal bleary lives and have decided to black ball him from succeeding.
I am putting everyone on warning, if you dare to look down at me I will poke your eyes out.
It is that simple, much like the fans that enjoy rooting for dirty rotten smelly men like GBJ and then root for jive turkeys like VIP. Yea you heard me right---mother fucking Jive Turkeys.
Morons…the lot of you.
Part III: What I Asked For
“A loan, are you serious?” The dumbfounded look on Sandy Lawson’s face was priceless.
I nodded my head.
“You do know Rebecca does not want to work with you anymore, right?”
I nodded my head.
“And this doesn’t bother you?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“You are on very thin ice at the moment with the judge. I do not know how you managed to convince him that working with Peyote counted as community service. Now that he has gone missing, while on your watch you have some explaining to do.” Her eyebrows were rising at an alarming rate at this point. She sat across from me in her office and my reactions were no doubt angering her but I had other things on my mind then a crack head and some stupid community service.
“That isn’t important.”
“What isn’t important?”
I laughed as I rolled my eyes.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It is.”
Her frown started giving her wrinkles in her forehead, one small vein began to poke out farther and farther off her head and it had drawn my attention. Her frown meant nothing but the vein made me chuckle.
“Are you an idiot?”
I shook my head, “the judge does not know about Peyote’s disappearance. All I need is for someone to sign the form as Peyote and I will be completely done with this shit.”
She sighed, “Yea…that’s going to fly.”
I shook my head, “you seem to be unaware of the fact any moron with a GED could write Mr. Jones’s name. What I am worried about is why you have changed the subject.”
“Hmmm?”
“Don’t ‘hmm’ me, Sandy. The tides are turning and not entirely in my favor. I need to finally get control of the family business. This is when WE make moves so that I do not have to worry about making money or being stabbed in the back by my brother.”
“We?”
I took my Camel Lights out of my pocket and began packing them. The noise that followed irritated Sandy, her teeth ground together but all I could do is stare at her, my smile never fading.
“I cannot trust the banks.”
“Paranoid?”
“Realistic.”
She relaxed a little as a cigarette now hung from the side of my mouth. “You are asking me to invest money to buy your brother out of the business and you believe this won’t result in you getting stabbed? You are actually more comfortable with ALL the power?”
I lit the Camel Light and smoke covered my face. Thankfully she could not see my grimace as what she had said was very true but at the same time I am a wanted man either way. “If I am going to go down, I may as well go down as the number one.”
She waved smoke from her face. “My husband learned that it isn’t worth it.”
“So you are denying me the needed funds?”
“I…”
I interrupted her, I no longer cared for her excuses they were wasting time. “I have been through too much bullshit in the last year to not triumphant in the end. I am not asking for you to be a part of anything…all I am asking for is for you to help me buy him out. I will pay you monthly to pay off the debt with interest.”
She waved smoke from her face and sighed, “What will you do when you finally get control?”
I flicked the cigarette ash into an empty coffee cup in front of me and smiled through the smoke. “It is a means to an end.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You are crazy, Steve,” she responded with a worried tone to her voice.
I stood up and walked to the window, I opened it a crack and tossed my cigarette outside and watched as it flew eleven flights to the road below. I sighed and turned back to Sandy. “There are many threads to one sweater.”
“Huh?”
I put my hands out, “imagine that these two hands of mine were actually an infinite number of hands. In each hand I hold a different thread that all goes to the same sweater. To create the sweater all the threads need to be sewed in, correct?”
“Yea.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t understand…”
I laughed, “You don’t need to. You are a very small thread to this, but, one that has to be used.”
She stood up and smacked me across the face, “you are making no sense.”
I held my cheek and sat back down across from the now standing Sandy Lawson. “Why do you even care?”
“What?”
“About me…why do you even care?”
“It is my job.”
“Heh, stop being frightened about the unknown,” I responded. “If you cannot give me what I need then tell me where I can get it. I will not allow you to ruin my sweater.”
She began writing on a piece of paper and then threw it at my face. I caught it before it hit my nose and then looked back at her. “That’s it, I am done helping you. You better knock on wood because I doubt Rebecca will be back either.”
I opened the piece of paper and looked down at it and then put it in my pocket. “I don’t think the two of us will ever be done, Sandy. As for Rebecca she cannot resist my charm.”
I stood up and began walking out of the office a new strut to my step.
“Idiot,” Sandy said.
I turned and smiled, “I guess I am but, I came to the realization nine months ago that to get the respect I have always yearned for I have to get power, I have to get money, and I cannot care about anyone in my way.”
I walked out of the door and slammed the door and heard Sandy mumbled loudly, “I hope it is worth it.”
It is.
My sweater will be the best.
All will envy me.
“Respect,” I muttered, “respect.”