A Hyena's Belly Is Never Full (Tag title match)

[Drago]

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August 24th, of the Lord's Year 2019.
Kalamazoo, Michigan

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SANTIAGO 

Hunger… 

The camera opens up to the scene of an empty restaurant, where the XHF Tag Team championship is draped across the center of a table designated for at least twenty people. However, this member of the Cure, fresh from his performance in the Fired Up battle royale where he came inches away from winning, where he had a legendary performance, shies away from bothering himself with dealing with the general public tonight. It’s why he’s decided to rent out this restuarant, to have every inch of this rustic hospitality to himself. Sitting content in the center of this Golden Corral establishment, in front of a nutritionist approved meal consisting of a variety of the Corral’s finest steaks, steamed vegetables, and rices, Nate sits comfortable. This buffet is his. He looks over all of the vegetables and proteins approved by his coaching staff… and he immediately gets out of his chair, instead going to the desert bar to indulge in some chocolate covered strawberries and rice krispy treats. He returns to the table, fingers and face sticky, but with his tongue out in distaste. Those treats were out all day. Judging by the position of the sun and the dark hues as the day begins to close, it’s practically 6PM. While pondering why this place was his favorite as a small child, Nathan speaks: 

SANTIAGO 

Have you ever felt hungry? 

After proposing this question, his gnarled teeth mow down a roll with honey on top of it.  

SANTIAGO 

I’m not talking about poppin’ open the fridge and only seeing the ingredients to a wish sandwich, aka, a wish-you-had a sandwich. 

Nathan frowns, looking over the rest of his place. It’s hard to take himself into the mental state to directly tap into his old memories like this. This chicken is grilled, not fried. There’s no deserts on his table. His hands strum his temples as he tries to tap into his surroundings, getting used to being back home, and trying to remember. After a split second, Nate snaps his fingers. 

SANTIAGO 

I’m not talking getting back from the club at 2AM and realizing that since you’re wrestling in a weird, small-town, there’s no more restaurants open. I’m not talking about standing in line at the Golden Corral ta’ get yourself a rare steak. 

He says, pushing the hardly pink piece of meat away, very not ‘rare’. 

SANTIAGO 

The hunger I am referring to is comparable to having a hole ripped open in your torso. It’s the feeling that something is missing. It’s drive, motivation, desperation, adrenaline, whatever you want to call it. It’s what inspires that little bit of adrenaline you need to go further than everyone else who stands in your way.  

Nate thinks for a few seconds, passively twirling his silverware in his hand... 

SANTIAGO 

I have.  

SANTIAGO 

I visited this place to keep myself grounded and humble about where I was raised, and how I was brought up. The last time I was here, I was sixteen. I was an absolute failure in school - every single report card and PTA conference was filled with comments about how brilliant Nathaniel is, but he doesn’t even make an attempt at his work. From childhood, there wasn’t any amount of bruises from yardsticks on my hands, fists in my stomach from children that hated me, and threats of eternal damnation on my soul from the Catholic school I was raised in. Every day is, and forever will be, a blur. I had no concern for it. I’d sit in a class, stare out of a window, and daydream about what I could be in life once I was outside of this shithole in western Michigan.  

While saying this, he looks to a nearby waitress with a nervous smile. Hopefully, one of the nine plates in front of him gets the job done. He’s very confident about his chances of getting a side of saliva with his next meal for that comment. He carves into another piece of steak, and his eyes practically glow with satisfaction.  

SANTIAGO 

I woke up hungry. Brush my teeth, put on my uniform, grab a meal? Hungry. 

His teeth rip into that piece of steak.  

SANTIAGO 

Get to class, sleep through calculus and physics, have lunch, still hungry. 

Streaks of blood are pouring down his chin while he eats; it’s like watching a hyena tear away at carrion, ripping in such a hideous and grotesque manner.  

SANTIAGO 

Piss, smoke behind the building, finish off my day with an afternoon nap and mid-day lay of some pastors’ daughter on the stairs between floors… and finally, I found my calling. School got dismissed, I put a tennis racket in my hand, and I found the missing piece. 

SANTIAGO 

On the tennis court, I was something incredible. I never received any formal training, but I always have been a master of physiology - specifically, having an innate understanding of how bodies move, and interact with the things we come in contact with. I started off as a training dummy for some rich friends who’d had private lessons all their life. I ended ranked nationally as one of the top tennis players across the entire United States, not being the strongest or most athletic, but because I could figure out patterns and mannerisms: ‘how someone holds their racket, what foot they step on for an emergency swing, how often an opponent is willing to dive for a hard serve’, yadda yadda. I went from a student barely able to stay awake through class, or getting an A on every assignment but getting an F for participation, to a star.  

SANTIAGO 

Back then, I finally got an opportunity to put on a showcase and compete with nothing but a racket and a dream, where different leagues for developing players started. In this showcase, there was a packed room to see the magic I could do on the court: representatives from Baylor, UCLA, Wake Forest, and even some Ivy League schools came to check out the biggest thing in tennis since the Williams sisters. The lad who was on his way to the Wimbleton if it didn’t clash with his homeroom schedule! I offered up a blazing serve, it was volleyed back, and whether it was the pressure of competing knowing my future was on the line or whether it was stupid, dumb luck, I tried to return it… and I fell. 

At this moment, the few pieces of shredded steak that aren’t shoved into his mouthhole fall to the ground in front of him. Nate’s head dips. Tapping into the past is a good thing, but sinking into this feeling… this disappointment… this anger… judging by the shaking of the eating utensils in his hand and the kicking of his foot underneath the table, it truly snuck up on him. There are maybe forty seconds of silence as he calms himself, reminds himself of his current standing and where he has the chance to be, and he sighs.  

SANTIAGO 

I landed on my wrist. 

Instinctively, Nate lowers his left hand - it’s still unpleasant to think about, admittedly.  

SANTIAGO 

I fractured damn near every bone in my hand in a freak accident. I had the opportunity to turn the two hours a day in which I feel satisfied, activated, and awake scratched away. Instead, I doomed myself to die working in a grocery store, bagging groceries for minimum wage for the rest of my life. Tennis? Over. I had no future.  

Nathan sighs, sets his tools down, and pulls his championship belt in front of him, instead.  

SANTIAGO 

But I still had that god-awful hunger. 

SANTIAGO 

Nathan Santiago, sitting in his bed, listening to See You on the Other Side by Korn, uneducated, talentless, coming from a poor, Spanish family, growing up in a city split by gang violence. I had a way out in front of me. I lost it. I rehabbed my hand. I took to fighting to solve those anger and aggression problems by getting paid to do what I did to strangers for Worldstar views.  

SANTIAGO 

Every day, I look back to the match that started my career. I picked up Krav Maga from my dad, since he worked police as in Serbia, he learned a lot of very wicked tricks and tips. From there, I went into Judo and made fighting a regular thing. Every day for two years, I felt permanently asleep. 

Nate rubs his temples - he can almost feel it simply from talking about it too much. He's back. The memories are back. 

SANTIAGO 

But I felt awake when someone twice my size was beating the shit out of me, breaking my teeth, biting me, and scratching me to shit. You boys’ll never know how many of these pearly whites are from mother nature, and how many of ‘em I bought. Nate the Great and some fighter whose name is lost to the sands of time, against some indy-heartstring wannabe and… fucking Scorpy. Fucking Johnny Blaze. People who made more in advertisements than I made in a year started fighting against me… This was back in the ol’ Battle Ground days, I was 19 coming off a fracture in my hand, using fighting as my physical therapy. I hadn’t lost a match up to that point, but I wasn’t getting any title opportunities. It was easy to tell why. 

SANTIAGO 

I was a good fighter - but I wasn’t passionate. I didn’t take chances to better myself. I did the bare minimum to win my fights. I had matches where I went out into the ring, got my ass kicked for fifteen minutes, then locked in a D’arce choke when my opponent went for the pin. I got booed out of more arenas than I got to fight in : I actually had matches get cancelled because people know this lazy kid wasn’t going to give his best effort, he’d half ass it, come into a ring, survive a beating, and steal a win at the last second once his opponent was too tired to stop him. It was a script I followed, admittedly. 

SANTIAGO 

But the day I stood in a ring with a TBG Legend in Scorpy, everything changed for me. I started slacking like I normally did, but I started having a few subtle realizations - my coffee in the morning didn’t taste as good. All Faygo, even the grape Faygo, tasted bitter and acrid. Weed smelled like rat poison, and even the best chicken dinner felt like dust once it hit my tongue. I realized that I had this… hunger that touched the root of my being. That moment I had from tennis? It came back. I was bored of stupid streetfights and death matches, but everytime I matched up with elite competition… I could see. More importantly... I could eat. It wasn’t a fight anymore- it was choreography - fighters who dedicated their lives to honing a craft that’s been perfected over the course of centuries… and it was my job to figure it out. I can’t think of anything as exciting and invigorating as taking apart century old fighting styles and mastering them enough to beat their practitioners…  

Nate raises his hands above his head - sarcastically deferring so some gods of wrestling or history for their contributions, which he will undermine every opportunity he can. 

SANTIAGO 

Now in AWF, I am proud to say that in addition to being the longman AND ironman in the Fired Up Battle Royale, I am also one of the most active wrestlers on the network. I fight on nearly every PPV I can appear, and I fight elite talent every time I get a chance, spanning from AWF, AXW, SSS, MCCW, and various global shows. I am driven by this hunger to face all of the top competition to better myself as a fighter. I’ve fought my way up from the opening of AWF, to being on major matches on the XHF Network, fighting anyone put in front of me. That’s hunger. 

SANTIAGO 

When I see SAKURA GUN, I don’t see this. I see people who’ve never starved. These are the kinds of people who earn a title shot for my XHF Tag Titles by losing, without facing any opponents with comparable styles to prepare. These are the kinds of people who you don’t see fighting from federation to federation putting on ground-breaking performances you’ll talk about for years… the most famous match these guys have had was a disappointing loss. I see people who are comfortable being the best team in SSS, because SSS doesn’t have any teams that are even close to being impressive. They’re sitting in mediocrity on a roster who doesn’t have any stars that really take your breath away… isolated…. Well-fed. Bento boxes consisting of being spoon-fed competition that amounts to little in SSS, and absolutely nothing on the network. On a network about creating the hungriest, most talented fighters by competing across federations, SSS sits well-fed. Losing the X-Crown once again? Who cares. Not having any teams competitive for the XHF Tag titles? Who cares. Lose the rumble, lose the rise of the rookies challenge, lose damn near every single competition between federations? SSS doesn’t care.  

Nathan’s eyes light up with that signature excitement that doesn’t appear on his scowling face.  

SANTIAGO 

Because they’re not hungry, they don’t feel that impulse to survive. They don’t have that killer instinct to scratch, claw, kick, scrap, kill, bite, and stab to find something to drive them… they’re sitting comfortably on a roster that is never a real threat to the X-Crown, to the XHF Tag Titles, and to the standard of wrestling on the network. Hell - Kira and Raiden, two guys hailing from Japanese origin, aren’t even interested in joining SSS since they stepped out of Japan and got a taste of real competition. They’re too hungry, and there’s nothing to feed on in SSS. Kai feels my hunger. He’s terrorizing Japan out of boredom. He’s fought against all of the top talents in the network and made a name for himself sheerly from his in ring performances… but he’s never content. He’s never full. He consumes. He’s famine. Next to me, he’ll always have targets to eat, but he’ll never have enough. 

Nathan looks down to the bread knife at his table, bringing himself to wondering exactly how far Kai’s hunger took him to earn the nickname of Killa.  

SANTIAGO 

Sakura Gun… have you ever been hungry? I know one main method of brainwashing in cults is forced starvation, but I don’t know if any of you’ve ever felt hunger to the core of your being before. 

Nate shakes his head, and strums his chin, playing coy as he begins to ponder out loud.  

SANTIAGO 

Have you ever been in a match with the Pillars of the AWF and eliminated them both? 

SANTIAGO 

Have you fought with the best talents in the network for over two hours and thirty minutes, throwing out more men than anyone else in the match? 

SANTIAGO 

Have you ever been so hungry to win a match that you’d cripple a person in the process? 

SANTIAGO 

I have. I am. And when we fight, I’ll prove that I’ll do it again. 

Nathan pushes away from his seat - despite cutting through nine plates of food, he hasn't found anything that can sate his hunger. Instead, he shall look elsewhere, the nature of which is only revealed by him sneaking the steak knife into his pocket as he leaves. The scene fades to black.