Crazy.....

::A black screen. “Crazy” by Patsy Cline starts to play.

Click here to listen.

Slowly the camera pixelates onto the following:

A small, somewhat cluttered apartment. An air conditioner in the window, nothing on the walls besides an old coat of paint. Non-matching furniture takes up most of the space. The camera zooms onto a wooden coffee table marked only by a few semi-faded white rings of hot and cold drinks long since placed and removed, partially covered by a small pile of envelopes marked past due. The camera continues to zoom in, tightly framing the only other object on the not-so-impressive coffee table: An iPhone, mid-call, speaker on.

“Crazy” fades out slowly while simultaneously an in-progress conversation is now audible.::

Voice 1: They want you back.

Voice 2: I did that.

Voice 1: You did that? You *do* that! It’s what you do. You’re a wrestler. Frankly you’re not very good at much of anything
else.

Voice 2: I can’t go back to that. I closed the door on that a long time ago. I’m happy.

Voice 1: You’re living in a basement apartment. You work a dead end job, when that is, you can keep a job. You’re not happy. You know you miss it.

Voice 2: It’s an above ground basement. It’s nice.

Voice 1: It’s embarrassing.

Voice 2: I’m not embarrassed of shit. I gave that my everything. I wrestled with broken arms, torn quads, chipped teeth and missing brains until I had nothing to give anymore. And it took… and it took. It took my marriage… my family, it took my peace of mind, it took…. What didn’t it take?

Voice 1: Liste –

Voice 2: I’m not bitter. Really, I’m OK. I left that there. I moved on. Wrestling is something I used to do. I’m not gonna be the guy selling autographs to relive the glory days.

Voice 1: What about the guy selling autographs to pay the rent?

Voice 2: That’s one of the luxuries of above ground basement apartments I suppose. Cheap rent.

Voice 1: The only luxury. You didn’t answer one thing though… do you miss it?

Voice 2: Every once a while it’s like I’m in there, you know? I can feel the thud of the chair crashing down on my skull… or the
thrill of jumping off the top rope! The roar of the crowd the moment the ref yells three…. Then I go about my day. I manage.

Voice 1: You know you can do this. You’re still relatively young. You’re still in shape. You have one more run in you.

Voice 2: I’m OLD!

Voice 1: In wrestling years you are a baby.

Voice 2: Too old to put up with the bullshit, guy. I’m too weak to deal with the pain. I’m too uninspired to cut a decent promo. Way too impatient to handle the politics. Honestly man, I’m just too hurt and too brokenhearted to care anymore. Wrestling took her from me.

Voice 1: You can’t blame yourself!

Voice 2: Driving in bad weather when the airports were delayed, trying to get to the next city to defend a title… how is it not my fault? You better believe it’s my fucking fault. I killed her. The life killed her. Fuck wrestling.

Voice 1: Would she have wanted you not to do what you love? Would she have wanted you to raise your kid in a luxurious
above ground basement apartment?

::Momentary pause.::

I know money doesn’t bring her back. But I’ve got five million reasons why your kid needs this. You’re a crazy man and you’ve always been that way. But this is beyond crazy if you turn this down. This is… this is….

Voice 2: Mad?

Voice 1: STUPID. Don’t be stupid. Make peace with the past. Do what you are best at and provide for your child. You healed physically after the accident but you’re not healed mentally. Imagine the feeling of lifting the world title! Imagine twenty, fifty, eighty thousand fans on their feet. There are maybe five or six guys in *entire* the world who are talented enough to dominate at the elite level and *YOU* just so happen to be one of them. Are you really gonna throw that away? TAKE OUT YOUR ANGER IN THE RING!!

::the music resumes ever so audibly as the screen fades.... ::