Post by Downfall on Apr 19, 2013 20:39:50 GMT -5
The photograph is in my hand. It's 1997 again suddenly. Flash-freeze of a proud young man, stripped the the waist, holding up a replica championship belt over his shoulder, proudly, and an old, gray newspaper photo of his father in much the same pose, title belt slung proudly over his shoulder. A pretty young blonde is at his arm, beaming proudly at her man, herself dressed like she's on her way to a fancy modelling shoot and she was. Their faces, so innocent, knowing nothing of the trials to come. This fresh-faced kid bears so much resemblance to the man we know today, and yet none at all. It's like looking into an alternate past...
It's 1995. The young man is watching from a small nook, peeking around the corner like a child getting a glimpse of Santa. His father is screaming at his mother, face blood-red, calling her slut, harlot, dyke. Ugly words, words he hears in snickers in the locker room, but painted nightmarish colors dripping from the lips of the man who was his idol. Like Superman. Donald Fehl could do no wrong. His father backhands his mother across the face. He does it again, and again, until the boy can't take it anymore. Superman has fallen. And if the man he patterned his young life after up to this point, the man he'd watched endless hours of tapes regarding, the man he'd looked up to with stars in his eyes, was capable of falling, then what good was he? That night the young boy lay awake, disturbing thoughts churning in his head.
It's 1996, and the young man, working stockboy at a local convenience store, notices the prettiest girl he's ever seen come in. She's got the tough girl act going, leather jackets, miniskirts and boots, but she's got the face and body like he imagines angels might. His angel, with the dirty halo.
In 2001 he'd give her a locket with just that engraved on it. "To my angel with the dirty halo." In the good times.
In 1996, he's watching from the back room where all the milk is kept, peeping through the racks to get a look at her, just wishing she'd look at him. In his zeal he pushes over one of the shelves, dropping gallons and half-gallons and quarts of milk everywhere. All movement in the store ceases. All eyes are on the Fehl kid, lying in the middle of a massive trainwreck of milk. Some people give a disapproving cluck, but what can you do? Father's washed up, he was great once but no more, left their mother you know... They say his mother's into, well, funny business with girls. Usually, their unspoken pity and condescencion would stoke deep-rooted fires in him, thoughts he wouldn't dare give voice to except in his dreams. But today, even in the middle of this mess his eyes were only on her.
I shake my head at this long-ago kid. Boy, you're in for it.
It's 1995, he's looking up at the ceiling after witnessing his father leave marks on his mother that won't heal for some time. He's thinking, even if he can't vocalize it, that he's seen the dark side that is his inheritance. In his despair, he cries out for salvation.
It's the cold winters of 1996, going on 1997, and his salvation is named Michelle.
On long nights that winter, they sit, wrapped in each other, and they talk. They talk about their plans, their hopes and dreams and petty little insecurities. She wants to go to New York and start her modelling career. Despite seeing what future possibly awaits for him, he knows there's no option. He can't reconcile the man on the tapes from the man in their living room in 1995... and the man on the tapes was a god. The adulation of the crowd as they soaked in their champion, and it was good. They respected him. They acknowledged him.
In that long ago year, he first reads a poem in fifth period English class that changes his life.
In 1997, just before this photograph in fact, he drops out of school. His sister begs him not to go, but he tells her that he can't stay. "You have a gift, kiddo, you keep it up. I'll see ya around." She's fourteen.
It's 2008 and she's embracing their father, her heart cracking from the emotion. He watches with a cold, burning rage.
Jarod Iron's wrestling school wasn't anything like he expected. Wrestling seemed glam, larger than life, a ballet recital mixed with a football game, a comic book and a rock concert. At least that was how it appeared on TV. The reality was worse than any hell his burgeoning and long forgotten church days could prepare him for, because surely no hell could be more terrible than this. He's seventeen (having lied about his age in order to secure a spot...), and he feels like he's gone to war already. He's a handsome young kid with an adonis-like body and the chip on his shoulder that comes from thinking you're royalty because you have wrestling in your blood. His tutor resolves to make an example of him. And it works. Crash course after crash course, excruciating pain from "botched" moves or stiff punches, or just outright humiliation. He takes it all in with grit, not backing down. Nothing would keep him away. He wants what his father had, but unlike his father he would be great forever. He would make everyone proud. So no matter what it took, he did not back down. And through it all, Michelle's constant letters kept him grounded in reality. Kept him sane.
I just look back into the eyes of this kid. Big, bright grin. The kind of kid who should be choosing which college to go to, which career path to take. A doctor or an architect. Instead, he's bleeding from the forehead so much that it begins to permanently scar and still he won't relent. The others in the locker room give him wide berth, they won't associate with him. He has a mark on him. He knows that people will come around. He's a lot like Anne Frank, this one. He's got hope for humanity.
After six torturous months at Irons academy, he feels like he's learned all he can there. He's heard about Japan, about how for one, it's a great, fast and easy way for a wrestler to get work, but he learns about the wrestling dojos and their training regimen. He resolves to make it there, if he can.
It's 1998, and he's packing. Michelle begs him not to go, and a year ago he would have listened. But he can't make her understand, how could he? Instead, he pleads with her to come with him. Having family obligations, she can't. Tearfilled, emotional lovemaking followed. And in the pregnant dark after, he asked if she would wait for him. She said, yes.
It's 1999 and he's been there for months and never been given a break. He's been squashed every which way he can be. He's been humbled, broken down. Trainers have told him that he's too needy, that he's doing it for all the wrong reasons. He begins to doubt, but then the anger flares. What do they know? Danny Fehl was born to be in the center stage. He kept on in his course, despite being told that he just didn't have it, that he'd never win the big one.
It's 2006, and Downfall is holding up the IEW World title, the dream finally realized.
After a year wrestling opening matches for local promotions, his frustration begins to build. And his jealousy. Why was he not getting over? Wasn't he good enough? Didn't he have what it took? His interest began to wane. Letters from Michelle tempted him. All he wanted was to go back, but he couldn't. Not now.
It's 2000, and at a small show, he is squashed in fifty seconds by the champion, Dragon Mask. Walking back to the locker room, his head down in disappointment, one of his peers approached him, telling him to get out of the business. Telling him that he was a failed reflection of his father, and that his career began in disgrace as his father's had ended. Danny Fehl snapped. Downfall unloaded years worth of rage into the man's jeering mouth. Punch after punch after punch and still it didn't stop. Danny looked down at the blood on his hands and left, never contacting the promotion, the manager, again. He moved on to another prefecture in Japan.
Really, he was just running away. The man had only been saying what everybody said, how much of a failure he was. But something clicked in him, what did these people know? He was conflicted, in agony. He saw what he'd done, and what disturbed him most was that he felt cleansed. Reborn. Was he just a reflection? In that moment, he couldn't tell.
I open my fingers and release the photograph. I no longer want to look at dead things...
Over time, he began to release a bit more of himself. He would trawl through the back alleys of Japan and hit local bars, looking for trouble. Letters from Michelle went by for weeks at a time without being answered.
In 2001, he was attending a local wrestling expo when he saw her. Wrapped in a gorgeous silk kimono, hair tied up in the geisha style, she was there. His angel. She had taken a modelling contract here in Japan. Serendipity, huh? After all this time, I have to reflect that she probably didn't expect what happened either. Reunited, life was good. And if I had to get out a little more frustration, so what?
I began picking up wins... I found myself in the IGPW's Extreme division. Wasn't my cup of tea beforehand, you know, I was into "Real wrestling"... but I found the chaotic atmosphere soothing. The spilled blood was like an old friend. Winning the Extreme title also meant crippling a man for life...
The morality of such actions began to escape me.
An announcer coined a phrase that's stuck with me ever since, saying that in the ring I was like a force of nature, a "mythological beast that has been unleashed on opponents". I liked it. The Beast Unleashed. Catchy. Sold t-shirts.
But when we came home from Japan... life fell apart.
It's 2003, and Michelle is packing, tears ruining her makeup. She'd told me that while I was in Japan, she'd slept around. Including --
No. I put that thought out of my head.
I told her to get out.
I ripped the wings off an angel.
We reconcile, sort of... but things had changed. It wasn't what it was. Perhaps because I knew she wasn't the girl I fell in love with. Or perhaps because she knew that I was not that boy.
Time wore on, I gained a measure of success, but it was never enough. I looked for harder challenges, bigger thrills, harder hits. Hey, I got sloppy. And I began to fall back on failsafes, allowing minions to do my work for me. It allowed a man named Warpath to take my career and almost my health. It allowed me to be sidelined.
I had nothing. I sat alone, reflecting.
Reflecting. Hah.
In time, I realized what I'd been missing. Not just the thrill of victory but of conquest. Of crushing an opponent to dust with just your bare hands. I had gotten soft. Those last few days I was hardly Downfall at all, just a regression to that arrogant young pup of before.
Enter the TWF. Back to basics.
No more safety nets. No more failsafes. I stand or I fall on my own. Rest in peace,
Danny... you won't be missed.
It's 1995. The young man is watching from a small nook, peeking around the corner like a child getting a glimpse of Santa. His father is screaming at his mother, face blood-red, calling her slut, harlot, dyke. Ugly words, words he hears in snickers in the locker room, but painted nightmarish colors dripping from the lips of the man who was his idol. Like Superman. Donald Fehl could do no wrong. His father backhands his mother across the face. He does it again, and again, until the boy can't take it anymore. Superman has fallen. And if the man he patterned his young life after up to this point, the man he'd watched endless hours of tapes regarding, the man he'd looked up to with stars in his eyes, was capable of falling, then what good was he? That night the young boy lay awake, disturbing thoughts churning in his head.
It's 1996, and the young man, working stockboy at a local convenience store, notices the prettiest girl he's ever seen come in. She's got the tough girl act going, leather jackets, miniskirts and boots, but she's got the face and body like he imagines angels might. His angel, with the dirty halo.
In 2001 he'd give her a locket with just that engraved on it. "To my angel with the dirty halo." In the good times.
In 1996, he's watching from the back room where all the milk is kept, peeping through the racks to get a look at her, just wishing she'd look at him. In his zeal he pushes over one of the shelves, dropping gallons and half-gallons and quarts of milk everywhere. All movement in the store ceases. All eyes are on the Fehl kid, lying in the middle of a massive trainwreck of milk. Some people give a disapproving cluck, but what can you do? Father's washed up, he was great once but no more, left their mother you know... They say his mother's into, well, funny business with girls. Usually, their unspoken pity and condescencion would stoke deep-rooted fires in him, thoughts he wouldn't dare give voice to except in his dreams. But today, even in the middle of this mess his eyes were only on her.
I shake my head at this long-ago kid. Boy, you're in for it.
It's 1995, he's looking up at the ceiling after witnessing his father leave marks on his mother that won't heal for some time. He's thinking, even if he can't vocalize it, that he's seen the dark side that is his inheritance. In his despair, he cries out for salvation.
It's the cold winters of 1996, going on 1997, and his salvation is named Michelle.
On long nights that winter, they sit, wrapped in each other, and they talk. They talk about their plans, their hopes and dreams and petty little insecurities. She wants to go to New York and start her modelling career. Despite seeing what future possibly awaits for him, he knows there's no option. He can't reconcile the man on the tapes from the man in their living room in 1995... and the man on the tapes was a god. The adulation of the crowd as they soaked in their champion, and it was good. They respected him. They acknowledged him.
In that long ago year, he first reads a poem in fifth period English class that changes his life.
In 1997, just before this photograph in fact, he drops out of school. His sister begs him not to go, but he tells her that he can't stay. "You have a gift, kiddo, you keep it up. I'll see ya around." She's fourteen.
It's 2008 and she's embracing their father, her heart cracking from the emotion. He watches with a cold, burning rage.
Jarod Iron's wrestling school wasn't anything like he expected. Wrestling seemed glam, larger than life, a ballet recital mixed with a football game, a comic book and a rock concert. At least that was how it appeared on TV. The reality was worse than any hell his burgeoning and long forgotten church days could prepare him for, because surely no hell could be more terrible than this. He's seventeen (having lied about his age in order to secure a spot...), and he feels like he's gone to war already. He's a handsome young kid with an adonis-like body and the chip on his shoulder that comes from thinking you're royalty because you have wrestling in your blood. His tutor resolves to make an example of him. And it works. Crash course after crash course, excruciating pain from "botched" moves or stiff punches, or just outright humiliation. He takes it all in with grit, not backing down. Nothing would keep him away. He wants what his father had, but unlike his father he would be great forever. He would make everyone proud. So no matter what it took, he did not back down. And through it all, Michelle's constant letters kept him grounded in reality. Kept him sane.
I just look back into the eyes of this kid. Big, bright grin. The kind of kid who should be choosing which college to go to, which career path to take. A doctor or an architect. Instead, he's bleeding from the forehead so much that it begins to permanently scar and still he won't relent. The others in the locker room give him wide berth, they won't associate with him. He has a mark on him. He knows that people will come around. He's a lot like Anne Frank, this one. He's got hope for humanity.
After six torturous months at Irons academy, he feels like he's learned all he can there. He's heard about Japan, about how for one, it's a great, fast and easy way for a wrestler to get work, but he learns about the wrestling dojos and their training regimen. He resolves to make it there, if he can.
It's 1998, and he's packing. Michelle begs him not to go, and a year ago he would have listened. But he can't make her understand, how could he? Instead, he pleads with her to come with him. Having family obligations, she can't. Tearfilled, emotional lovemaking followed. And in the pregnant dark after, he asked if she would wait for him. She said, yes.
It's 1999 and he's been there for months and never been given a break. He's been squashed every which way he can be. He's been humbled, broken down. Trainers have told him that he's too needy, that he's doing it for all the wrong reasons. He begins to doubt, but then the anger flares. What do they know? Danny Fehl was born to be in the center stage. He kept on in his course, despite being told that he just didn't have it, that he'd never win the big one.
It's 2006, and Downfall is holding up the IEW World title, the dream finally realized.
After a year wrestling opening matches for local promotions, his frustration begins to build. And his jealousy. Why was he not getting over? Wasn't he good enough? Didn't he have what it took? His interest began to wane. Letters from Michelle tempted him. All he wanted was to go back, but he couldn't. Not now.
It's 2000, and at a small show, he is squashed in fifty seconds by the champion, Dragon Mask. Walking back to the locker room, his head down in disappointment, one of his peers approached him, telling him to get out of the business. Telling him that he was a failed reflection of his father, and that his career began in disgrace as his father's had ended. Danny Fehl snapped. Downfall unloaded years worth of rage into the man's jeering mouth. Punch after punch after punch and still it didn't stop. Danny looked down at the blood on his hands and left, never contacting the promotion, the manager, again. He moved on to another prefecture in Japan.
Really, he was just running away. The man had only been saying what everybody said, how much of a failure he was. But something clicked in him, what did these people know? He was conflicted, in agony. He saw what he'd done, and what disturbed him most was that he felt cleansed. Reborn. Was he just a reflection? In that moment, he couldn't tell.
I open my fingers and release the photograph. I no longer want to look at dead things...
Over time, he began to release a bit more of himself. He would trawl through the back alleys of Japan and hit local bars, looking for trouble. Letters from Michelle went by for weeks at a time without being answered.
In 2001, he was attending a local wrestling expo when he saw her. Wrapped in a gorgeous silk kimono, hair tied up in the geisha style, she was there. His angel. She had taken a modelling contract here in Japan. Serendipity, huh? After all this time, I have to reflect that she probably didn't expect what happened either. Reunited, life was good. And if I had to get out a little more frustration, so what?
I began picking up wins... I found myself in the IGPW's Extreme division. Wasn't my cup of tea beforehand, you know, I was into "Real wrestling"... but I found the chaotic atmosphere soothing. The spilled blood was like an old friend. Winning the Extreme title also meant crippling a man for life...
The morality of such actions began to escape me.
An announcer coined a phrase that's stuck with me ever since, saying that in the ring I was like a force of nature, a "mythological beast that has been unleashed on opponents". I liked it. The Beast Unleashed. Catchy. Sold t-shirts.
But when we came home from Japan... life fell apart.
It's 2003, and Michelle is packing, tears ruining her makeup. She'd told me that while I was in Japan, she'd slept around. Including --
No. I put that thought out of my head.
I told her to get out.
I ripped the wings off an angel.
We reconcile, sort of... but things had changed. It wasn't what it was. Perhaps because I knew she wasn't the girl I fell in love with. Or perhaps because she knew that I was not that boy.
Time wore on, I gained a measure of success, but it was never enough. I looked for harder challenges, bigger thrills, harder hits. Hey, I got sloppy. And I began to fall back on failsafes, allowing minions to do my work for me. It allowed a man named Warpath to take my career and almost my health. It allowed me to be sidelined.
I had nothing. I sat alone, reflecting.
Reflecting. Hah.
In time, I realized what I'd been missing. Not just the thrill of victory but of conquest. Of crushing an opponent to dust with just your bare hands. I had gotten soft. Those last few days I was hardly Downfall at all, just a regression to that arrogant young pup of before.
Enter the TWF. Back to basics.
No more safety nets. No more failsafes. I stand or I fall on my own. Rest in peace,
Danny... you won't be missed.