Another Battlezone. Another victory. Yawn.
Why was I still competing in Millennium Wrestling Alliance? Am I no more then Glory Braddock's “Dark Passenger” until she becomes the MWA Heavyweight Champion? She'll become the Heavyweight Champion again. Its written in stone. Its high time Steve Pinex understood where his real place in the industry was.
Retired; with a broken neck.
When Glory wins back the title, what then? Where does that leave me? I haven't thought that far ahead to be honest. My sole focus until now has been assisting Glory with using our previous victims to send a message to MWA management that we would not tolerate their blatant favoritism of Steve Pinex.
It stops, now.
One option for me is the vacant Heritage Championship. Do I want to become Heritage Champion? No, I don't care about the history or prestige of the title. Those little nuances of the business don't matter to me. To diehards like Pinex they matter. For a psychopath who doesn't care about the sentimental value of golden idols? A title can't entertain me. It can't fulfill my craving for destruction. But becoming Heritage Champion will mean Extreme Prejudice will own every major title in MWA.
Complete and utter domination. Sounds like a worthwhile plan to me.
I'll leave no doubt in the booking committees mind who should be given the Heritage Championship. In order to do that, I need to make quick work of MWA newcomer, El Demonio Negro. I can't allow El Demonio Negro to use me to make a name for himself. I can not allow him to derail my plans of becoming the Heritage Champion.
Losing to a newcomer would look bad for my public image. I do have an image to maintain. I'm a monster. I'm a harbinger of destruction. I'm 'The Final Solution.”
Today, there wasn't a wrestling match to concern myself with. Today, I could live a somewhat normal life. In the ring I could show the world my true face. Outside it? I had to toe the line to avoid going back to prison. Thats the greatness of the wrestling business, fans are naive enough to believe I'm playing a psychopath on television.
Idiots! I'm not a gimmick. I'm as real as they come.
To maintain my somewhat normal life I spent a warm, humid St. Louis day with my recently reunited daughter, Margret; and my ex-boyfriend/the father to my kid at the Gateway Arc in St. Louis. Margret was just as bored looking at the arc as I was. I told her before we left the hotel...
“What do normal kids do, sweetie?”
She snarled back, “Act happy.”
She needed to know the rules. Act normal. For me, that required acting like I had major anger management issues. For my little girl? She needed to behave like a normal, optimistic eleven year old child.
Peter, who is wearing a plain white t-shirt, white jeans and black sneakers, appeared genuinely happy.
“Margret!”
Her icy sky blue eyes sparkled when she looked at her father.
“Why don't you run along.” He pulled out his brown wallet and handed her twenty dollars. Interesting. You don't give a kid that much money unless... no... did he need a moment alone with me?
“You've been a good little girl today. Spend that on anything you want.”
She flashed the sincerest fake smile I have ever seen. She ran off to waste her money on God knows what. Peter turned his attention to me. As I suspected. He wanted a moment alone with me.
“She's a peach.” Peter beamed.
“Thank you.”
I knew that look. My “thank you”caught him off guard. But why? Oh well.
“Margret means the world to me, Peter. I feel fool missing out on..”
He waved his hand. “Don't beat yourself up. Forget the past. the only moment we can focus on is our future!”
I couldn't believe what he just said. Our future?
“Our future?”I repeated, I needed to make certain he didn't make a mistake.
He nodded. “Yes, Brittany. Our future.”
I had no clue what he meant by “our future.” A more astute human being would've caught on quickly with his subtly. Since we've established I'm a monster who lacks empathy, I had no clue what to expect.
“I... love you.”
I didn't see that coming. You'd think smashing an antique green vase would kill the last vestige of love any human being would have for their ex, apparently putting him in a coma for six weeks wasn't good enough. He still loves me? I was, shocked. This wasn't good. I had to say something.
“You, love me?” That sounded like the normal response to an unexpected bombshell.
He grabbed both my hands. I did my best to sport a sincere smile. I could've been the worst actress in the world and he wouldn't have noticed. He was undressing me with his eyes. Not in a sexual way. You've seen romantic comedies where the hapless romantic is about to sing his feelings? That look.
“Never stopped loving you” He paused. “I've screwed up more times then I can count. My biggest screw up, without question, was cheating on you. I was a blundering buffoon. I screwed up the most special relationship I ever had. Raising Margret all these years without you, continuously reminded me how badly I failed us. I failed you.”
As I continued masking my boredom, I distracted myself by thinking about my upcoming massacre of El Demonio Negro. In a sense I could relate to El Demonio. All my life I have worn a mask of normalcy. My mask involved faking human emotions. My sister, Glory, no one knows how dead and shallow I feel inside.
Domonio's mask was different. He hid behind a literal mask. Like me, he shielded the world from his ugly truth. Did I care what his ugly truth was? Not at all. All I cared about was breaking his neck.
Chalk up one more worthless human being to The Broken Neck Society.
Before I knew it, Peter was down on bended knee. He whipped out a small black box from his right jeans pocket. Was he about to do what it appeared he was going to? I've watched too many romantic comedies to predict what was going to happen next. He opened up the box. Before my eyes shined a 10 Karat diamond ring. I feigned shock to match the appropriateness of the moment.
“Forgive me for springing this on you... I... know this is the right thing to do. I couldn't imagine waking up in the morning without making you breakfast in bed. I want to hold you. Serve you. I need to be the man you needed me to be back in college. I failed you then.... I will not fail you again. We've been given a second chance to make this right.”
Brittany, will you marry me.”
If I had feelings I would've been moved by his speech. Since we've established I have the emotional depth of a shallow grave I yanked my hands from him.
“ARE YOU INSANE!”
Trying to instill fear into his heart seemed like the best option to kill the situation. It didn't work.
He continued smirking at me. “We can give our little girl a real family.”
“You can't seriously expect to come back into my life, eleven years after you cheated on me; believing we are getting back together. How dense can you be?!”
“Our daughter needs this!”
I wanted to say more but Margret came back. To my amazement; she didn't spend the twenty dollars Peter had given her. I was going to ask why. Before I had the chance, her eyes lingered on the 10 karat ring. Great.
“Are you two getting married?” she said flatly. She was supposed to beam with excitement. Oh well. That meant we had more work to do in the faking emotions department.
Peter didn't pick up on her apathy. He patted her head. “Thats up to your mother.” He smiled.
I fake smiled back. “If you really love me, give me time to think. Between Glory's upcoming Heavyweight title match and me welcoming some masked creep to MWA, I'm stressed out. Can we talk about this later?”
“But I'm flying back to San Diego in a couple of days.”
“And I have a match August twenty second!” I shot back. “I'm sorry.”
“No, no. I'm sorry. Silly me. Screwing up again. Damn it!”
I was tempted to kick his guilt into over drive. But I held back. Not because I'm in love with the man. Thats not possible. I can't feel love. This my chance to teach my daughter what normal human beings do. So I hugged him.
“There, there, sweetie. Loving me isn't a crime.” I was successful in calming the awkward situation.
I glared at my daughter. By the wink she gave me, she assured me she understood what I was teaching her by example. Fit in. Act normal. Being human does have its perks. In the wrestling business, being human can become a weakness. Feelings get in the way, they cloud your judgment. If you're not careful your feelings will lead you to making deadly errors.
My life is interesting is it not? First I'm reunited with the child I abandoned. Now a marriage proposal. Whats going to happen next week? Gloria and I making love?
Ha.
…
Wrestling was simple to me. You study your opponent. Organize a game plan. Execute it. Simple. When it comes to navigating my personal life, I'm a fish dying on dry land. As you'd guessed it, I don't have tons of life experience when it comes to men asking for my hand in marriage. For starters, I spent five years behind bars. Number two, I am going on my fifth year in the wrestling business. Ten years of my life I haven't bothered establishing a relationship that would lead to marriage. I wasn't prepared for my ex-boyfriend to propose. There's no handbook for that.
I went to the only woman I could on the matter. My tag team partner. Sweet. Asking Glory for womaningly advice? Its moments like this that made me realized I needed to expand my circle of friends. I banged feverishly on her hotel door.
“Glory. Open up. I need you. Now.”
It isn't long before the door opened. Glory's drawn face is seen behind the door. "What is it mate, I'm dead tired from the workout."
“I have a situation. In requires a womans touch... and no. I'm not hitting on you.”
"And you came to the WRONG woman for womanly advice." she sighed and steeped aside. "Come on in, but if its womanly advice you need, you'd be better off going to your sister."
I knew she was right. She was the wrong person. My sister Dawn wasn't experienced in the area I needed advice in. For starters, she's 18. Number two, she's a virgin. Three. Due to my reputation, boys are afraid of me. That makes my sister's dating prospects slim to none.
I sat down on Glory's unmade bed. “I was spending much needed quality time with my daughter and Peter. We were having a very civil conversation. I was shocked how pleasant our conversation went.”
“Then he started getting all romantic comedy like. Thats when he pulled a 10k diamond ring out of his pocket. He asked me to marry him. What am I supposed to do.”
"You answer the question. The answer is 42."
… and that was my tag team partner in a nutshell. Cracking nonsense when I needed real answers. I promised I'd stop hitting on her. The least she could have done was give me a serious answer. The only way I could react was blink twice.
"42 is the answer to life, universe, and everything."
I sighed. "Your right. You are useless. I don't know why I came to you."
"I try so hard to be useless." She smirks. "But seriously, this is an emotional question that requires you to seek out your emotions, which is a problem for someone who has no emotions."
Glory pointed at me. "That leaves you with just one alternative."
I raised my eyebrow. I had no clue what she was talking about. "And that would be?"
"Think about the child. What would be best for the child."
I pondered her question for a moment. I remembered this brochure I read. It had some interesting facts. "It's a fact a two parent household is better for the child then living in a single parent household. Girls who grow up without a male role model in the room tend to seek male validation in very, very destructive ways later in life."
"So what does that tell you?"
"That I should marry a man I don't love to spare my child from becoming a whore later in life?"
"Its either that or 42."
"But me? Marriage?” I shrugged. “I hurt people, Glory. No one is safe around me. I don't get it, why does Peter believe the second time for us will be different when I am still fundamentally the same woman."
"He loves you enough to think he can make it work. Love'll make you do crazy shit, Brittany."
"Good thing I can't feel love." I smirked. "But anyway. I have a lot of thinking to do. Thanks for the advice."
"Not a problem. Remember, the answer is 42."
"I'll... try to remember that."
….
