Post by HNDRXX on May 28, 2021 20:32:23 GMT -5
A single light.
An old school incandescent bulb. Yellowed from time, and a thin mixture of dust coating it.
A single steel folding chair, at one point a uniform blue, but not a mottled mess of grey, rust orange and chipped archipelagos of color. The dents in the chair speak of a history of hard use.
Beyond the light is a shoebox sized window, only visible, barred from the weak sunlight penetrating into the subterranean space.
The clack of shoe soles on concrete reverberates in the space. The sounds ricochet off walls and ceiling. The grey concrete floor is a resonating chamber for unseen walls of what must surely be the same material.
Just outside of the cast of light, a hand reaches out and spins the chair around, raw steel scraping and marking concrete, the chair groans audibly as DeAndre Simms slides into the seat.
His black “Jim Breaks” hoodie obscures his face, and the hint of knee length cut off shorts is visible in the pale yellow light.
“Not a bettin’ man in the house has much right to be expectin’ nothin’ from me now.”
His voice has been tamed in a way that wasn’t present during his time in SWAT.
“When SWAT cut me loose, thinkin’ I was a bust free agent that they had been conned into signing.
I almost gave up.
I threw my gear in the closet.
I put my wrestling shoes up outta reach and outta sight.”
His arms cross on the back of the chair, brown eyes peering out from under his hood.
“And who cared? I went out there every show, and I came up short at every show. Only man I beat was some other nobody ain’t no one got the sense to rate.
And hey, I could be a smaller man and lie, say I wasn’t jealous that dudes like Donzig rolled through the door, smiled real pretty and spouted some middle school poetry and they was the next hot item on the come up, while I was helping tear down the ring.
But I was.
You can’t watch a 6ix9ine type all glitz and glitter and not feel like the art, the sport of professional wrestling ain’t trying to tell you that your time, come and gone.
You know I listened too. SWAT gave me every opportunity, and I came up short. It hard not to listen.
What did all that fire amount to?
I amounted to nothin’.
Look around you.”
He gestures broadly at the room, palm up offering the emptiness.
“Ereything I got to show for my time in SWAT here. So I put the shoes up, the kit up, and I got my ass back on the computer lookin’ at community college. But you know what..”
A single pointer finger up, not accusing, not wagging.
“I got a call from a dude in NPW. After he got done listening to me pour my heart out, my dude managed to reach through the phone, and give me the five reasons you need to wake. I needed out that Charlie Murphy stupor, and he delivered it Dave Chapelle.
So I’m in NPW. I ain’t about to start touting who send out that call. Let’s just say there is a buzz going ‘round and I couldn’t say no. Not when the man listened to me. Not when I listened to him.
But it looks like I ain’t comin’ into the land of milk and honey. Excuse me my dude Gus Arnold, That ain’t a shot at Canada, I’m talking about what’s going on. You got dudes gettin’ fat off the land. You got dudes racin’ as hard as they can at the bottom, chin out.
I ain’t about the join that game.
But I am gonna stand against it. Not cause it’s easy. Way easier to flip it and start actin’ like ‘em. I ain’t in a rush to be numb. I ain’t in a rush to not get in that ring and do it the way it’s supposed to be done.
Brick.
By.
Brick.
I ain’t about to say I wasn’t thinking too big in SWAT, trying to build the roof ‘fore the foundation. I ain’t about to make that same mistake in NPW, naw my dudes.
Startin’ at the foundation on June 8th. Layin’ the first brick of what’s to come.
That’s it. I’m done.”
HNDRXX stood up and walked back the way he came, leaving the chair despondent and alone in the middle of his previous time in XHF.
Black.
An old school incandescent bulb. Yellowed from time, and a thin mixture of dust coating it.
A single steel folding chair, at one point a uniform blue, but not a mottled mess of grey, rust orange and chipped archipelagos of color. The dents in the chair speak of a history of hard use.
Beyond the light is a shoebox sized window, only visible, barred from the weak sunlight penetrating into the subterranean space.
The clack of shoe soles on concrete reverberates in the space. The sounds ricochet off walls and ceiling. The grey concrete floor is a resonating chamber for unseen walls of what must surely be the same material.
Just outside of the cast of light, a hand reaches out and spins the chair around, raw steel scraping and marking concrete, the chair groans audibly as DeAndre Simms slides into the seat.
His black “Jim Breaks” hoodie obscures his face, and the hint of knee length cut off shorts is visible in the pale yellow light.
“Not a bettin’ man in the house has much right to be expectin’ nothin’ from me now.”
His voice has been tamed in a way that wasn’t present during his time in SWAT.
“When SWAT cut me loose, thinkin’ I was a bust free agent that they had been conned into signing.
I almost gave up.
I threw my gear in the closet.
I put my wrestling shoes up outta reach and outta sight.”
His arms cross on the back of the chair, brown eyes peering out from under his hood.
“And who cared? I went out there every show, and I came up short at every show. Only man I beat was some other nobody ain’t no one got the sense to rate.
And hey, I could be a smaller man and lie, say I wasn’t jealous that dudes like Donzig rolled through the door, smiled real pretty and spouted some middle school poetry and they was the next hot item on the come up, while I was helping tear down the ring.
But I was.
You can’t watch a 6ix9ine type all glitz and glitter and not feel like the art, the sport of professional wrestling ain’t trying to tell you that your time, come and gone.
You know I listened too. SWAT gave me every opportunity, and I came up short. It hard not to listen.
What did all that fire amount to?
I amounted to nothin’.
Look around you.”
He gestures broadly at the room, palm up offering the emptiness.
“Ereything I got to show for my time in SWAT here. So I put the shoes up, the kit up, and I got my ass back on the computer lookin’ at community college. But you know what..”
A single pointer finger up, not accusing, not wagging.
“I got a call from a dude in NPW. After he got done listening to me pour my heart out, my dude managed to reach through the phone, and give me the five reasons you need to wake. I needed out that Charlie Murphy stupor, and he delivered it Dave Chapelle.
So I’m in NPW. I ain’t about to start touting who send out that call. Let’s just say there is a buzz going ‘round and I couldn’t say no. Not when the man listened to me. Not when I listened to him.
But it looks like I ain’t comin’ into the land of milk and honey. Excuse me my dude Gus Arnold, That ain’t a shot at Canada, I’m talking about what’s going on. You got dudes gettin’ fat off the land. You got dudes racin’ as hard as they can at the bottom, chin out.
I ain’t about the join that game.
But I am gonna stand against it. Not cause it’s easy. Way easier to flip it and start actin’ like ‘em. I ain’t in a rush to be numb. I ain’t in a rush to not get in that ring and do it the way it’s supposed to be done.
Brick.
By.
Brick.
I ain’t about to say I wasn’t thinking too big in SWAT, trying to build the roof ‘fore the foundation. I ain’t about to make that same mistake in NPW, naw my dudes.
Startin’ at the foundation on June 8th. Layin’ the first brick of what’s to come.
That’s it. I’m done.”
HNDRXX stood up and walked back the way he came, leaving the chair despondent and alone in the middle of his previous time in XHF.
Black.