Find a Way (Caffrey #1)
Jan 19, 2020 0:24:33 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer, Dave D-Flipz, and 2 more like this
Post by anthonycaffrey on Jan 19, 2020 0:24:33 GMT -5
“Well usually, I’d be sitting up here talking about how I’m the fucking greatest---”
“Can you not curse for once?”
Anthony Caffrey rolls his eyes. He’s dressed in a Philadelphia 76ers cap, a black t-shirt that says “Undefeatable”, and a pair of dark jeans. He’s seated in a director’s chair on a stage, being interviewed in front of a live crowd of nerdy-looking wrestling fans. A bald man in a suit is seated next to him with a clipboard in hand.
“Isn’t this going on YouTube? I thought you could curse on YouTube.”
“There might be some kids out in the crowd---”
“Fine, fine. I’ll cut the unnecessary cursing. I don’t want to become Maverick 2.0 anyway.”
Caffrey smirks to himself as he cleans his glasses.
“Like I said, I’d be talking about how I’m an unstoppable visionary, capable of outsmarting and out-game-planning every man and woman put in front of me. There’s a reason I ruled over AXW so long that the fans marked my existence there as “Anthony Caffrey vs. AXW”. And no, it wasn’t my million-dollar smile.”
He grins.
“It was -- still is -- my intelligence. My ability to look at every situation, break through all the bullshit, and shatter someone’s ankle or knock them senseless for the three seconds I need for a pinfall. That intelligence goes hand-in-hand with an insane work ethic that allows me to double down on the claim that I’m going undefeated in 2020.”
Cameras flash. The crowd’s vocal reactions create a commotion, and Caffrey puts a hand up, shaking his head.
“Trust me: I’m aware that’s a big claim. I’ve had my fair share of texts and emails in the past two weeks asking me if I could really go undefeated in 2020. I keep seeing lots of that eye-rolling emoji, actually. ‘Unrealistic’ is what I hear, as if I haven’t pinned two of the last three X-Crown champions. Hell, Michael Storm will be competing for the AWF Prestige Championship on this show, and I’ve heard his ankle violently readjust in my grip. Granted, it was hard to hear over him screaming in pain and tapping out, but I digress.”
He laughs and shrugs off the claims. His thoughts take him away from his past and towards his future.
“Here’s my problem, though: as a man who prides myself on my intelligence, how do I beat a man -- mind you, no matter how he bills himself, just a man -- who couldn’t give a fuck about a gameplan? Yeah, we all know I can outsmart the guy, but I’m basically walking into this match fighting a modern day Lenny from Of Mice and Men. But instead of petting the rabbits, he wants to break me in half.”
Caffrey laughs again, but this time it’s clear that it’s more of a nervous laugh. He readjusts himself in his chair, suddenly incapable of finding a comfortable way to sit.
“It's funny that he was referred to as Subject #21, because he’s a half-rate Subject #42 anyway. Half the ability, half the charm, and well, less than half of an interesting catchphrase. Now maybe that assessment’s too ragh for some of you...”
Caffrey pauses, smirking as the crowd realizes the pun. They groan, moan, and boo while Caffrey keeps shifting around his seat.
“...but pair that with a two-bit manager who’s barely even worth mentioning, and I’m not worried.”
“What about him breaking that guy’s neck?”
Caffrey shoots the interviewer a look that could kill.
“Not… that worried, I should say.”
He lets out a long sigh, shaking his head. He does his best to dodge the topic and speak on something he’s more confident on. He settles back in his chair.
“You know, Michael Storm, Chris Card, Aiden ‘Outback’ Merric in a No Holds Barred Match, and now this beast of a man in a Last Man Standing match. Remember that whole criticism about me not fighting tough competition? I’m changing the narrative. Especially after match Merric gave me last week. Took two days for Aiden’s handprint to stop occupying my chest.”
He chuckles, having avoided the---
“What about Tarrasque breaking that guy’s neck?”
“Stop asking me that.”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
A loud “ooooooooh” breaks out in the crowd. Caffrey isn’t used to being challenged on this. Some sweat begins to run from his forehead. He looks around and grabs his water bottle, screwing off the cap so rapidly that it goes flying onto the floor. He takes a long sip, hoping that the interviewer will take the hint. The interviewer purposely does not.
“You have Tarrasque, a beast who has moved a forklift truck with his bare hands, Tombstoned one of their champions into the floor and rendered him motionless, much less unable to answer a count of ten, and who broke a guy’s neck in one motion. How are you going to outwrestle him?”
“I’M NOT! NOW SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!’
Caffrey explodes back. The crowd pops and also backs the hell up for safety as Caffrey has thrown his chair across the stage, sailing it over the interviewer’s head. The chair shatters and splinters into pieces as Caffrey’s anger goes off. He begins to pace back and forth. His mind is racing and is hand is shaking.
“I’m not… I’m not gonna outwrestle him. It’s a fu… it’s a Last Man Standing Match. There’s no point. I gotta do something else. I can’t outrun him. Not long enough, anyway. Once or twice I could goad the bull, maybe. I’ve… honestly, I’ve never been good against big guys. They're my kryptonite. I used to fight a Doomtrain, 400+ pounds, and you know what… I never beat him once.”
The interviewer looks about to warn Caffrey for cursing again, but the look Caffrey gives him indicates that he’d about three more words from a broken ankle.
“ I’d go for the ankle, and because he was such a large fat fuck, he’d take his leg and shake me off like a strong wind that shakes snow off a tree branch. I imagine Tarresque can do the same. Then you have assholes like Chris Card who say I only have one move, and welp, that move’s suddenly rendered pretty fucking useless.”
Caffrey stops pacing around like a maniac to settle on one spot on the stage. He clearly has no idea what to do with his non-microphone hand, and rather than let people see the spark of nervous energy, he shoves it into his pocket.
“I was going to tell a whole goddamn story about changing the narrative and how much better I am than everyone, and now look what you’ve done. I’m standing up here looking like a goddamn maniac having a fucking moment---”
He takes a deep breath, trying to desperately get some oxygen back. He takes shakes his head and takes his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. It’s clear that this was not how he expected things to go.
“...I’m not going to outwrestle that asshole.”
One more breath. He looks around the room.
“He’s not a wrestler. This was never going to be a wrestling match. No one… fuck, very few people in the world can touch me in a wrestling ring right now. I’ve been up here--”
Caffrey shoots out an arm far above his head.
“---for over a year, and very few can knock me off. And now I see a circus sideshow freak stand in my ring, and I got people like you who don’t believe me. People who don’t believe that after a year of me being the best goddamn wrestler on the plane, that I can’t do it again. Seth Dillinger? Eat your heart out. Bobby Barratt? Old man can’t beat me! Maverick? Fuck sake. Give me a time and a place and that Crown will be comin’ home on my arm.”
Caffrey bangs his shoulder in pride.
“And Subject? Fuck that thing. Fuck Tarresque too. Yeah, he’s big, but you know what? I study anatomy for a living. He may have more muscle than you and I combined, but he’s only just one guy. And he’s got a neck like everyone else in this room right now.”
Caffrey’s hand reaches into his pocket. Instead of taking out an iPhone, instead he draws out a long object and holds it high for the crowd. The phones and cameras in the room snap pictures as Caffrey holds his object… a steel chain.
“I’m not one of these assholes like Bobby or Dylan Black that names a weapon. It’s an inanimate object for crying out loud. I watched Rocco Rose take a baseball bat out to dinner last year and couldn’t have hated him more. And hell, I was never a chain guy growing up. The last gift my father father gave me a wallet with a chain attached, and he said to me, “Anthony, if you take this chain off this wallet, you’ll lose it”. And lo and fucking behold, I lost that wallet three days after taking the chain off.”
Caffrey shakes his head.
“I was a dumb kid.”
Caffrey wraps the chain around his fist.
“Wellington Dunne wrapped this around my throat eight months ago. I walked into the match against him, a fuckin’ bruiser like Tarresque, and I underestimated him because I was smarter. More intelligent. I thought there was no way I could lose that match because I knew more than things than he did. It was an I Quit Match and I vowed to not quit. And it was for my AXW Undisputed Championship, and if you know me…”
Caffrey moves the microphone away from his mouth for a few seconds.
“...you know how much that meant to me. I wouldn’t have given that up for the world. But when you get a chain wrapped around your throat, as you feel the world start to fade as you struggle for air, it doesn’t fucking matter how much anything means to you. It doesn’t matter that you’re the Wrestling Emperor, none of your accomplishments mean shit. All that matters is you find a way to breathe again. “
He holds up his fist.
“Aiden Merric learned that lesson the hard way. I bent his body like a pretzel and he had no way out. He had to tap or I would’ve broken him or suffocated him. The problem for Tarresque is that Aiden Merric was a thinking man who could realize when he was beat. Tarresque can’t even form a sentence correctly.”
He unwinds the chain from his fist and grabs it with his other hand as well, showing how he’s going to wrap the chain around the beast’s throat.
“When I wrap this chain around that beast’s throat, I expect him to throttle me. I expect him to try to whip me around the ring, crash me into a turnbuckle or a barricade, do anything in its power to escape. But I will hold on for dear life as his life begins to slip away. And this isn’t a regular match or an I Quit Match. There will be no tapping out, no quitting. At Supremacy, I will wrap this chain around Tarresque’s throat. I will unwrap it when he stops moving.”
The camera zooms in and captures the look of seriousness in Caffrey’s eyes as he examines the chain. He has stopped rambling and raving. He speaks slower, more methodically. He looks down at the floor.
“I will stand back up, and the referee will begin his count. He will count to ten, the bell will ring, and my hand will be raised. And then I will turn and leave my fucking ring while thousands of people boo me. And just like all those times in the past… I’ll have won. Again.”
Caffrey looks up one more time. There is no sinister smile...
“I will have found a way. Again.”
...just a look of determination. The camera cuts.
“Can you not curse for once?”
Anthony Caffrey rolls his eyes. He’s dressed in a Philadelphia 76ers cap, a black t-shirt that says “Undefeatable”, and a pair of dark jeans. He’s seated in a director’s chair on a stage, being interviewed in front of a live crowd of nerdy-looking wrestling fans. A bald man in a suit is seated next to him with a clipboard in hand.
“Isn’t this going on YouTube? I thought you could curse on YouTube.”
“There might be some kids out in the crowd---”
“Fine, fine. I’ll cut the unnecessary cursing. I don’t want to become Maverick 2.0 anyway.”
Caffrey smirks to himself as he cleans his glasses.
“Like I said, I’d be talking about how I’m an unstoppable visionary, capable of outsmarting and out-game-planning every man and woman put in front of me. There’s a reason I ruled over AXW so long that the fans marked my existence there as “Anthony Caffrey vs. AXW”. And no, it wasn’t my million-dollar smile.”
He grins.
“It was -- still is -- my intelligence. My ability to look at every situation, break through all the bullshit, and shatter someone’s ankle or knock them senseless for the three seconds I need for a pinfall. That intelligence goes hand-in-hand with an insane work ethic that allows me to double down on the claim that I’m going undefeated in 2020.”
Cameras flash. The crowd’s vocal reactions create a commotion, and Caffrey puts a hand up, shaking his head.
“Trust me: I’m aware that’s a big claim. I’ve had my fair share of texts and emails in the past two weeks asking me if I could really go undefeated in 2020. I keep seeing lots of that eye-rolling emoji, actually. ‘Unrealistic’ is what I hear, as if I haven’t pinned two of the last three X-Crown champions. Hell, Michael Storm will be competing for the AWF Prestige Championship on this show, and I’ve heard his ankle violently readjust in my grip. Granted, it was hard to hear over him screaming in pain and tapping out, but I digress.”
He laughs and shrugs off the claims. His thoughts take him away from his past and towards his future.
“Here’s my problem, though: as a man who prides myself on my intelligence, how do I beat a man -- mind you, no matter how he bills himself, just a man -- who couldn’t give a fuck about a gameplan? Yeah, we all know I can outsmart the guy, but I’m basically walking into this match fighting a modern day Lenny from Of Mice and Men. But instead of petting the rabbits, he wants to break me in half.”
Caffrey laughs again, but this time it’s clear that it’s more of a nervous laugh. He readjusts himself in his chair, suddenly incapable of finding a comfortable way to sit.
“It's funny that he was referred to as Subject #21, because he’s a half-rate Subject #42 anyway. Half the ability, half the charm, and well, less than half of an interesting catchphrase. Now maybe that assessment’s too ragh for some of you...”
Caffrey pauses, smirking as the crowd realizes the pun. They groan, moan, and boo while Caffrey keeps shifting around his seat.
“...but pair that with a two-bit manager who’s barely even worth mentioning, and I’m not worried.”
“What about him breaking that guy’s neck?”
Caffrey shoots the interviewer a look that could kill.
“Not… that worried, I should say.”
He lets out a long sigh, shaking his head. He does his best to dodge the topic and speak on something he’s more confident on. He settles back in his chair.
“You know, Michael Storm, Chris Card, Aiden ‘Outback’ Merric in a No Holds Barred Match, and now this beast of a man in a Last Man Standing match. Remember that whole criticism about me not fighting tough competition? I’m changing the narrative. Especially after match Merric gave me last week. Took two days for Aiden’s handprint to stop occupying my chest.”
He chuckles, having avoided the---
“What about Tarrasque breaking that guy’s neck?”
“Stop asking me that.”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
A loud “ooooooooh” breaks out in the crowd. Caffrey isn’t used to being challenged on this. Some sweat begins to run from his forehead. He looks around and grabs his water bottle, screwing off the cap so rapidly that it goes flying onto the floor. He takes a long sip, hoping that the interviewer will take the hint. The interviewer purposely does not.
“You have Tarrasque, a beast who has moved a forklift truck with his bare hands, Tombstoned one of their champions into the floor and rendered him motionless, much less unable to answer a count of ten, and who broke a guy’s neck in one motion. How are you going to outwrestle him?”
“I’M NOT! NOW SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!’
Caffrey explodes back. The crowd pops and also backs the hell up for safety as Caffrey has thrown his chair across the stage, sailing it over the interviewer’s head. The chair shatters and splinters into pieces as Caffrey’s anger goes off. He begins to pace back and forth. His mind is racing and is hand is shaking.
“I’m not… I’m not gonna outwrestle him. It’s a fu… it’s a Last Man Standing Match. There’s no point. I gotta do something else. I can’t outrun him. Not long enough, anyway. Once or twice I could goad the bull, maybe. I’ve… honestly, I’ve never been good against big guys. They're my kryptonite. I used to fight a Doomtrain, 400+ pounds, and you know what… I never beat him once.”
The interviewer looks about to warn Caffrey for cursing again, but the look Caffrey gives him indicates that he’d about three more words from a broken ankle.
“ I’d go for the ankle, and because he was such a large fat fuck, he’d take his leg and shake me off like a strong wind that shakes snow off a tree branch. I imagine Tarresque can do the same. Then you have assholes like Chris Card who say I only have one move, and welp, that move’s suddenly rendered pretty fucking useless.”
Caffrey stops pacing around like a maniac to settle on one spot on the stage. He clearly has no idea what to do with his non-microphone hand, and rather than let people see the spark of nervous energy, he shoves it into his pocket.
“I was going to tell a whole goddamn story about changing the narrative and how much better I am than everyone, and now look what you’ve done. I’m standing up here looking like a goddamn maniac having a fucking moment---”
He takes a deep breath, trying to desperately get some oxygen back. He takes shakes his head and takes his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. It’s clear that this was not how he expected things to go.
“...I’m not going to outwrestle that asshole.”
One more breath. He looks around the room.
“He’s not a wrestler. This was never going to be a wrestling match. No one… fuck, very few people in the world can touch me in a wrestling ring right now. I’ve been up here--”
Caffrey shoots out an arm far above his head.
“---for over a year, and very few can knock me off. And now I see a circus sideshow freak stand in my ring, and I got people like you who don’t believe me. People who don’t believe that after a year of me being the best goddamn wrestler on the plane, that I can’t do it again. Seth Dillinger? Eat your heart out. Bobby Barratt? Old man can’t beat me! Maverick? Fuck sake. Give me a time and a place and that Crown will be comin’ home on my arm.”
Caffrey bangs his shoulder in pride.
“And Subject? Fuck that thing. Fuck Tarresque too. Yeah, he’s big, but you know what? I study anatomy for a living. He may have more muscle than you and I combined, but he’s only just one guy. And he’s got a neck like everyone else in this room right now.”
Caffrey’s hand reaches into his pocket. Instead of taking out an iPhone, instead he draws out a long object and holds it high for the crowd. The phones and cameras in the room snap pictures as Caffrey holds his object… a steel chain.
“I’m not one of these assholes like Bobby or Dylan Black that names a weapon. It’s an inanimate object for crying out loud. I watched Rocco Rose take a baseball bat out to dinner last year and couldn’t have hated him more. And hell, I was never a chain guy growing up. The last gift my father father gave me a wallet with a chain attached, and he said to me, “Anthony, if you take this chain off this wallet, you’ll lose it”. And lo and fucking behold, I lost that wallet three days after taking the chain off.”
Caffrey shakes his head.
“I was a dumb kid.”
Caffrey wraps the chain around his fist.
“Wellington Dunne wrapped this around my throat eight months ago. I walked into the match against him, a fuckin’ bruiser like Tarresque, and I underestimated him because I was smarter. More intelligent. I thought there was no way I could lose that match because I knew more than things than he did. It was an I Quit Match and I vowed to not quit. And it was for my AXW Undisputed Championship, and if you know me…”
Caffrey moves the microphone away from his mouth for a few seconds.
“...you know how much that meant to me. I wouldn’t have given that up for the world. But when you get a chain wrapped around your throat, as you feel the world start to fade as you struggle for air, it doesn’t fucking matter how much anything means to you. It doesn’t matter that you’re the Wrestling Emperor, none of your accomplishments mean shit. All that matters is you find a way to breathe again. “
He holds up his fist.
“Aiden Merric learned that lesson the hard way. I bent his body like a pretzel and he had no way out. He had to tap or I would’ve broken him or suffocated him. The problem for Tarresque is that Aiden Merric was a thinking man who could realize when he was beat. Tarresque can’t even form a sentence correctly.”
He unwinds the chain from his fist and grabs it with his other hand as well, showing how he’s going to wrap the chain around the beast’s throat.
“When I wrap this chain around that beast’s throat, I expect him to throttle me. I expect him to try to whip me around the ring, crash me into a turnbuckle or a barricade, do anything in its power to escape. But I will hold on for dear life as his life begins to slip away. And this isn’t a regular match or an I Quit Match. There will be no tapping out, no quitting. At Supremacy, I will wrap this chain around Tarresque’s throat. I will unwrap it when he stops moving.”
The camera zooms in and captures the look of seriousness in Caffrey’s eyes as he examines the chain. He has stopped rambling and raving. He speaks slower, more methodically. He looks down at the floor.
“I will stand back up, and the referee will begin his count. He will count to ten, the bell will ring, and my hand will be raised. And then I will turn and leave my fucking ring while thousands of people boo me. And just like all those times in the past… I’ll have won. Again.”
Caffrey looks up one more time. There is no sinister smile...
“I will have found a way. Again.”
...just a look of determination. The camera cuts.
