“Backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out,” – “Wonderwall” by Oasis.


My brother used to have this saying that became sort of his catchphrase to his friends and, more importantly, to what’s left of our family. He used to always say, something, something, “and the whole nine yards.” It was kind of his thing, and it grew on me. I never say it, I think it’s a stupid phrase, but when I hear that phrase, when I see it, it makes me think of him. It’s like his impact on me – it’s his voice.

What’s my voice? I wonder this every day when I rise in the city I call my home. I have a small apartment that I share with my wife, my roommate and my son, David. He’s only months old, but I sometimes feel that he, my son, is already infinitely more complex than I could ever aspire to be. He’s unaware of the world around him, of the shit, of the dangers and of the pure… fear, that has become so palpable in this world.

Michael and I have a strained relationship, to put it best. We became reliant on each other after we were already adults, and even though he was my big brother, I acted like a father to him when the time dictated its necessity. Sometimes I wonder if I had an impact on him, as he did on me. Because, if I didn’t, what more was I than his protector? A bodyguard paid on some bond forged with blood before I was anything more than a fetus in my mother’s womb. Is that all I am, in the long run?

I used to always pick on him for his stupid figure of speech. The whole nine yards. I used to make fun of him because he relied on that phrase to simplify things that were complex. One time he got fed up with me picking on him and he told me that I abused the phrase “the blood’s not on my hands.” I never really noticed it until his comment, but if his mantra was the whole nine yards, I suppose mine was that the blood isn’t on my hands.

My pilot got bought, prematurely ending the careers of many aspiring writers? Blood’s not on my hands. My brother and I took two of the last remaining slots in UCW? Blood’s not on my hands. My brother tried to throw his career away for painkillers? Blood’s not on my hands.

There came a point in my career where I became bitter. I trusted a man named Declan O’Connell, a man who I knew to be nothing short of pure evil, because he represented things that I aspired to be. He was rich, famous, he had an esteemed career, but above all else, he was a loner. Somebody who had neither the urge nor the burden of carrying other people and their expectations.

My brother wanted my forgiveness. He came to see me in North Carolina after Declan and I defeated Greg Venom and Doctor Ian at UCW’s Mind Games television show. He didn’t beg – it’s not in him to desire mercy. He asked me, in so many words, for another chance. I’d heard this from him before, nearly as many times as his little catchphrase, but for some reason I believed him. I believed that he understood he had made mistakes, legitimate mistakes. He had abandoned his ex-wife, his children, his entire life before coming to America with me.

And I realized that he was alone.

But I never said it to him. I never told him we were going to be cool, or that I forgave him for his mistakes. Instead, I just told him to wait for me after my match. I told him we would continue our conversation after I got the biggest win of my career. As much as his situation worried me, the future of my career was a bigger weight on my mind. Maybe that was my first mistake? I put business before family.

For that, the blood is on my hands.

I always hated the man that I became when I prepared for a match. I wasn’t myself, not by any leap of the imagination. From the moment the card got booked, I would have butterflies in my stomach. They wouldn’t go away for days, not during training, not while I spoke to my wife over the phone. They only went away when the cameras turned on, and I was thrust in front of a crowd of lecherous reporters. I became a hateful, sarcastic person. I became confident, but to the point where it was no longer a virtue, it was a gratuitous loathing for anything other than my own perceived greatness.

It wasn’t me who won the matches in UCW, it was this personality of mine. The bad man who emerges from within me when I need to get out of my own head so that I can find success in the ring. This is the man that I cultivated, but Declan O’Connell brought out from dormancy. The man within me is a man I loathe, but I envy him, for he is a man without fear.

The first time I realized his existence come out was at a show back in… August? Maybe July – it feels like it was so long ago. I had just signed my contract with UCW. The anger I felt toward Michael, that betrayal, it pushed me. It made me cast away the consequences and see the bigger picture. No, I never cheated or took the low road to success, but that’s not to say I wasn’t a bastard.

Mind games became my weapon of choice – dissecting my opponents from afar my attack plan. I am not one who lays his faith in talking smack – I’m one who realizes that wrestlers are a fickle bunch. I am not so egotistical that I think it makes me better, but I do realize that I am not one of them, at heart. Though this doesn’t make me better, it does give me an advantage. If it makes me a bad person to exploit this advantage, then color me sin, because this is my fuel. Once I start my attack and my blood is replaced by pure adrenaline, I am no longer the man who offered to shake your hand backstage. I am not longer the man who calmly drew the line at the pre-show press conference. I am not Leon Desfait.

Instead, I am a machine that cannot be shut down.

After my match against Venom and Ian, like at every post-match, I returned to normal. I became myself again… and I returned to a puddle of blood and a broken man that was identifiable as my brother only in and of the fact that his driver’s license said so.

My brother, bloodied and battered, had been assaulted by members of the UCW roster. Members who had neither the courage nor the respect to show themselves to my face.

That night, I told Joey Johnson that I had to take care of my brother, and that I couldn’t continue wrestling. I told him it was a leave of absence, but it was more than that. Really, what I was announcing was my retirement. Joey’s not stupid. He knew exactly what I meant, and he refused to let me leave without granting me two gifts: one was to allow me collect the remainder of my contract. The other gift he gave me was in telling me who it was that attacked my brother. It was Damien Kahn and his group of… friends.

They didn’t attack my brother because of who he was. They didn’t attack him because he had demons, or because he neglected his family. They didn’t attack him because of fate, or destiny, or karma, or any of the other bullshit that I used to say governed the future of every man on this planet. They attacked him because he was my brother, and they wanted to send me a message: I wasn’t welcome in their world. UCW was a boy’s club, and my good intentioned efforts to break in were perceived as an attempt for me to override the status quo. I had to be muzzled, and striking down my family was exactly the way they accomplished that goal.

I don’t think that they meant to break his neck, or put him in a coma. I don’t think they cared what happened to him at all. I think they just wanted to send a message.

They did.

I looked to Treighton Falls for a new life – one where I was a family man. I took care of my brother. I visited him in the hospital and told him stories about when I was young and how childhood is so much more fair than being an adult. Even without the freedoms I enjoy as a grown man, the belief that the world was no bigger than the walls I called home was such a validating one.

And one day, he woke up.

Robyn was an angel. She was by my side for every moment of the pain, and she supported me. She raised me from the ashes and gave me the confidence to start anew, at 27. She told me of my options, of our options, and she told me that she would never abandon me, no matter how bad things became. She told me that she loved me in a way that a lover only can: she showed it, and she didn’t even have to say the words.

I would check in for the first few weeks. From what I hear, Declan left UCW as well. People on the inside tell me that he was put off by the attack on my brother. They told me he couldn’t exist in a place that was defined by hits, by family attacks. He had enough of that in his life.

His father had died right before the attack. I tell myself some fairy tale ending about him going back to Ireland to be with his family. Maybe that’s why he left. Maybe he sympathized with me, but if that’s the case, he never told me anything. He never apologized, he never sent a card, he never wished my brother well. But, after all, his relationship with me was nothing more than one of convenience, I suppose. We were a team paired together by the administration, and that was all that our relationship was. Forged.

Shortly after that, I stopped caring. Wrestling fell off the face of the planet for me, and, around October, my focus was on my family, and my family only. Perhaps this is something to be admired. However, admiration doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t feed my son.

Robyn told me to look back toward writing. She told me to see if I could pull any strings with connections in Los Angeles, or Hollywood. See if I could get any scripts marketed, or if I could get any auditions.

I hate Hollywood. I hate the similarities it has to the industry. You have to step over bodies to reach the top, and when you reach the top, you are not the same man you were when you entered the world. You are altered and, with few exceptions, you are altered for the worse.

From the moment I left UCW, the pressure had begun to build. Sure, at first the only thing on my mind was my brother’s safety. But as time went on, the realization set in that I had to do something to keep my family on the right track. I realized that I had an obligation to stop pitying myself and get to work. That feeling is atrocious, knowing that tomorrow is the day you have to make a stand, yet finding yourself in the exact same situation the next evening, the day prior having slipped through your fingers.

It was on one of the coldest nights in recent history when the insomnia struck. I had gone years without having trouble sleeping, but this was a particularly horrible night. At 3 a.m. I decided that my rolling around would do nothing but keep Robyn awake and prevent her from getting sleep, before she had to go to work in the morning. So I left the bedroom. I went to the living room and opened up a small box that my father bought me for my 18th birthday.

Inside was a typewriter. Through it, I unbottled all of my stress, my worry, my fear. I cried that night, I laughed until my stomach hurt. I heard my father’s voice, I heard my brother’s condescension, and I saw something within myself that I had been missing.

My identity.

I wrote a 75-page story treatment that, modesty intact, was the greatest work I had ever put on paper. Almost no rewrites needed, and not a drop of alcohol consumed to oil the wheels of production.

On October 17th, I picked up the phone and called my former agent out in Burbank. I let him know that I was sending him a script, and that it was my best work. I hadn’t talked to him since July of 2005, since he asked me not to “throw my career away on some stupid sport.” I remember thinking he was completely unfaithful for that comment, but when I called him back, years after we had last talked, it felt like I was the same person I was three years ago… but reinvigorated, refocused on what truly mattered. It felt like I was returning that phone call, and that the time in between was just simply a cease-fire.

He agreed, reluctantly, and within days he told me that he had found a potential buyer for the script.

Life is different when your future is out of your hands. You have that feeling that you’ve done the most you can do, and the dice will land however they land, and you have done as much as possible to ensure your best outcome. But, to me, that was ominously close to saying that, if things went sour, the blood wasn’t on my hands. So I decided to push my luck.

I flew out to California on the 22nd.

I made a stop in my former agent’s office and I had a long talk with him. I apologized for the mistakes I made, I asked about his family, he asked about mine, and we returned to business as usual. He was a slimy bastard, the kind who talks out of both sides of his mouth, as people like to say.

But for some reason I loved the bastard for being so stereotypically slimy. I knew that I could trust this man because my success was his success. In fact, I believed with my whole heart that he would be the one to resurrect my career up until the moment he offered me a contract and a golden fountain pen. That’s when I hit that bump in the road that, while I didn’t know it at the time, derailed all my progress.

I told him I couldn’t sign a contract until the script sold, and I told him to contact me at my hotel as soon as he received confirmation from his people at the studio. With that, we shook hands and parted way.

Outside, the California sky was blue, like it always is. The streets were alive, filled with color. I hailed a cab and returned to the Hilton, where I had reserved a room.

In the lobby I bought a pack of cigarettes, a habit I had to kick when I entered wrestling, and I returned to my room.

That was when my cell phone rang.

The number was blocked, as is the beginning to any good story. I apologized to my soon-to-be agent, and I answered.

“I’m in a meeting,” I said.

“No, you aren’t,” a woman’s voice replied. Her voice was calm, muffled by the sound of traffic in the distance.

“Who is this?” I asked. Her voice sounded ominously familiar.

“It’s your old friend,” she said. “Aurora. Don’t you remember me?”

Aurora explained, as only she could, that I was making a huge mistake. She was waiting outside in a limousine, and she wanted to see me before I signed my life away.

With that phone call, all the progress I had made was erased.

Outside, Aurora worked her silver tongue over my fears, my plans, my future, and she convinced me that I was returning to a life that wasn’t fit for me. She told me that my destiny was in my own hands, and that my future was meant to be carved out through sacrifice at the ground level.

I called her crazy. I told her I was done with wrestling, that I was done with that world. She smiled, like a parent smiles at a child who just professed that they would grow up to be a rock star. She handed me her card and told me to call her. She said she had an offer I couldn’t refuse, though she wouldn’t explain it then.

I told her that I had made my choice. I was going to make a living as a writer, and I would take care of my family, instead of going from state to state, cutting my body up for the entertainment of thousands of faithless fans.

She pretended to listen, then told me to call her if things didn’t work out.

The next ten days were a roller coaster.

I got the call the next day from my soon-to-be agent. He told me that he had gotten word from the studios – the script was a no go.

With that, my soon-to-be agent became my former contact within Hollywood.

I remember sitting in the hotel room, hands on my head, cigarette smoking between my lips, imagining what my future held. Imagining the shame I would find in telling Robyn that we had to start from the ground floor all over again. And, in a moment of weakness, I called Aurora.

My fate sealed, she had me by the balls. She knew it, too. This call was less cordial, and there were no details explained. Just inspiring words and the declaration that I was to arrive in the Netherlands a week and a half later to perform at a wrestling event hosted by a group called the Wrestling Asylum.

I didn’t tell Robyn. I just told her that I had to stay out of town for a little while to clear my head. I don’t know why I lied, but it seemed like the right thing to do… but now I see it for what it truly was: it was the last act of a desperate man. This little white lie wasn’t so little, it was a perfidious lie by omission that put my relationship in jeopardy.

On the flight to Wrestling Asylum I drank a lot. I drank, and I worried about how I would compete after months on the inactive list. I wondered whether I would leave the arena like my brother, on a stretcher, and the thought of victory never crossed my mind.

And when I got to the arena, the butterflies started up again. I called Robyn from backstage and I told her the truth. I told her that I had lied, and that I had gone back to my addiction – the sport that had nearly killed my brother.

She hasn’t spoken to me since.

From the moment I hung up the phone, the butterflies stopped. They dare not venture into this vessel, this body from which there is no exit. I felt myself fade to nothing, and the bad man came to life. The man with no fear returned.

I left the arena that night with WA’s Suicidal Title. Yet another trite piece of gold with an ominous title and a lack of legacy and lore.

I called Robyn five times from the hotel, but there was no answer. The next morning I received a return phone call, but it wasn’t from the woman I wanted to speak to.

Aurora explained that I had passed some test, and that she was ready to reveal this grand plan of hers to me, and she would do it for me in person, in my hometown.

I returned to Treighton Falls empty. I had betrayed myself and my family, and I had become desperate. The money I had earned from my one night at WA was enough to feed my family for a month, but what after that? I began to realize that I was caught in an endless spiral, and I damned Aurora for being the one to help me realize that.

That’s what brought me to Harry’s Bar. A little pub outside of Treighton where Aurora and I are supposed to meet.

After I leave here, I’m going home to my wife, and I’m going to beg her like my brother never had the courage to beg me. I’m going to beg for forgiveness, and I’m going to pray that she meant it when she said she would stand by me, even though I’ve never stood by her with the same faith in us like she has. I’m lost, and though I can hold myself up, occasionally, on the crutch of this emerging personality, this man with no fear, I am destitute to a future of loneliness unless I can help straighten my life out. I can no longer search for the answers at Robyn’s expense.

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The bar is filled with smoke, a remnant of a time long since passed when there were no smoking bans and pubs were nothing more than a host to amorality. Leon Desfait sits on a stool near the end of the bar, the seats to either side of him remain empty, but the rest of the bar is crowded with life. Mostly couples, friends or groups of people meeting after work for a drink to knock the edge off. Leon tilts a tumbler in his hand, watching the brown liquid inside swish around the insides of the glass.

She’s late, Leon thinks to himself as he lifts the tumbler to his lips and drinks from the glass. He grimaces as the drink purges his throat, and he sets the tumbler onto the bar. He checks his watch and tells himself five more minutes. That’s all he’s giving it.

Five minutes pass, and the only person to enter the bar is a man, about Leon’s height, wearing a suit, a tie, and a plastered smile that reads just as smarmy as it does false. He sits two seats to Leon’s right.

Leon’s patience vanishes and he quickly finishes his drink.

“Had a bad day?” the man asks Leon.

“A few,” Leon says. He glances at the man and studies his disposition. “Glad to see somebody in here has a smile on their face.” Leon stands and grabs his wallet from his pocket.

“Life is good,” the man says. “Why don’t you sit back down, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Thanks,” Leon says, grabbing a $10 from his wallet and placing it on the counter. “I’m not “that way” though. No offense.”

“You read me wrong,” the man says. “Just, it seems like I’ve offended you and I wanted to buy you a drink.”

“By what, being perky? No, you didn’t offend me.” Leon says.

“No,” the man says. “By being late. I hate making people wait, Leon.”

Leon stares at the man, and what was earlier a complacent smile has become a look of confusion.

“Who are you?” Leon asks.

“That’s right,” the man says, realizing an error in his tact. “You were expecting Aurora, weren’t you? Please, sit, I’ll explain things to you.” The man turns to the bartender and raises his hand. “Two drinks down here – whatever my friend was drinking.”

The bartender approaches Leon’s end of the bar. He grabs a fresh tumbler and picks up Leon’s used one.

“Maker’s Mark,” Leon says.

“Whiskey, eh?” the man says. “Interesting choice.”

“Can we cut to the part where you tell me who you are and why I’m supposed to listen to whatever offer Aurora has been flaunting lately?” Leon asks.

“We can,” the man says. “But you have to sit down first.”

Leon sits back down in his stool.

“Right now you’re wondering where Aurora is,” the man says. “That’s understandable, she’s been your go-to contact. You like some reliability, some consistency.”

“I also like names,” Leon says. “I assume you have one.”

“My apologies,” the man says. “I’ve heard so much about you that I forgot we’ve never spoken face-to-face. My name is Daniel. Daniel Foster.”

“And what are you,” Leon asks. “Aurora’s secretary?”

“No,” Foster replies. “I’m her boss.”

“Her boss?” Leon asks. “At her talent agency?”

“Aurora doesn’t work for a sports agency,” Foster says. “That was merely her cover while she got to know the UCW roster.”

Leon smiles and laughs to himself.

“You’re laughing,” Foster says.

“Everybody’s just so duplicitous,” Leon says. “All these elaborate schemes, the cloak-and-dagger games. And I’m what, to you? Some manipulated tool??

“I apologize. You must think I’m some sort of perfidious prick, don’t you?” Foster says. “Look, I’ll come clean. I know a lot about you. And I’ll explain everything. It’s not fair to keep you out of the loop as we have.”

“How considerate,” Leon says. The bartender returns with a glass of whiskey for Leon and Daniel. Leon smiles and takes a sip from his tumbler.

“I have a lot of friends in this world, but Aurora is one of six people that I trust,” Foster says. He takes a sip of whiskey and smiles. “She’s told me a lot about you, brought me tapes of all of your matches.”

“All my UCW matches?” Leon asks.

“No,” Daniel says. “Those are just your greatest hits. But one would be remiss to neglect your history before that short run. I’ve seen every match. I’ve scoured the bootleggers, the archives, YouTube, all of it. At least, my people have. From all of that, do you know what I’ve learned?”

“What’s that?” Leon asks.

“That you don’t belong,” Foster says. “Doctor Ian, Randall Raines, Declan O’Connell, you were able to beat them because you’re not one of them. UCW is just a big toolbox for a bunch of simple-minded hammers. Tools with no tact – the means of production, where that production is entertainment. You stick out. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Leon asks.

“This sport epitomizes the culture,” Foster says. “It evolves and it bends to fit the world around it. It is carried not by a gold standard, but by the forerunners of the day. All these people, these fans, they’re used to narcissists who pretend to fight over these aesthetic, semantic differences, but in the end, they’re all the same. Do you know what makes you better than them?”

“What?” Leon asks.

“Motivation,” Foster says. “You’re not motivated by greed, and you’re damn sure not into this sport for your ego.”

“I’m not in this sport at all,” Leon says. “I quit! I left this place to be with my family. It’s because of you – because of Aurora – that I even considered coming back. And it’s not because of anything other than the fact that my family needs a roof over their heads.”

“Exactly,” Daniel says. “But you didn’t always hate this sport.”

“You don’t know that,” Leon says. “It’s filled with sycophants, master manipulators and cold-blooded sociopaths. It’s the bottom of the barrel – it’s a collection of thugs that makes the NBA look like a group of missionaries.”

“Then why did you compete?” Daniel asks. “It wasn’t to make your wife proud. It was for the paycheck. That makes sense. I mean, yeah, you could’ve gone back to California and continued to write, but instea you stayed in an industry that forced you to put your life and limb in harm’s way on a nightly basis. Makes sense.” Daniel sips from his tumbler and recoils in agony. “This is terrible. Bartender, a beer please.”

The bartender hears Daniel’s plea and moves to a nearby refrigerator.

“Not a whiskey drinker?” Leon asks.

“No. I’m just not a bad whiskey drinker,” Foster says. “But let’s not change the subject.”

“Is there a point you’re driving at?” Leon asks.

“Why did you stick with wrestling?” Daniel asks.

“It was easy money.”

“So is McDonalds.”

“Look, I don’t need to have my motivations questioned.”

“I’m not questioning your motivations. I just want to hear you admit that the only reason you stayed in this business was to make your brother proud of you.”

Leon glares at Daniel.

“You know nothing about me,” Desfait says. “I suggest you reconsider where you get your information.” Leon reaches again for his wallet. “I’m leaving now, Mr. Foster.”

“I’m paying,” Foster says.

“Fine,” Leon says. “Then good evening.” Leon stands up and walks around the bar, past Daniel.”

“You’ve got a lot of talent,” Daniel says. “I’ve seen what you can do when you take the weight of the world off your shoulders.”

“How inspiring,” Leon says, grabbing his jacket from a coat rack near the front of the bar. He nears the front door.

"When was the last time you were out of debt, Leon?” Foster asks. “When was the last time you didn't owe anything to someone else? That is the measure of true freedom and I am willing to give it to you."

Leon stops at the door and turns to face Daniel Foster.

“All of your debt, your living expenses, your brother’s rehab and unpaid medical bills? I’ll pay them all, and do you know what that means for you?” Foster asks.

“What?” Desfait asks, otherwise speechless.

“It means you can stop hating yourself for being good,” Foster says. “You can stop hating yourself, because you will not be in wrestling for the paycheck, or to support your family, but because you deserve to be recognized for your talent.”

“I don’t need recognition,” Leon says.

“You’ll also be free to get your revenge without fear of being fired, and you’ll actually have a friend to cover your back, and take care of your family,” Foster says.

Leon frowns. He knows when an offer is too good to be true.

“And in exchange?” Leon asks.

“You were right from the moment you opened your mouth at your first press conference,” Daniel says. “The wrestling industry is corrupt. It’s full of cliques and power-mad sycophants. Together, you and I, we can revitalize this sport. We can give it back its soul. I will free you from your fear, from your stress, from your anxiety. You will be able to be that confident, infallible talent that we both know you can be… and you won’t have to compartmentalize. You won’t have to do anything but live up to your potential.”

“And in exchange?” Leon asks.

“In exchange, you will be my army,” Foster says. “I’m walking into GoldRush, their next Pay-Per-View, looking to make a statement. One man can defeat the entire roster twice over and not gain an inch of respect, similar to how you defeated all of their champions and never once got an ounce of acknowledgement. But together, you and I can put a chokehold on the establishment. We can redeem your brother, and together, we can revolutionize this entire industry.”

“What’s in it for you?” Leon asks. “You’re not altruistic, nobody is.”

“I’m not altruistic at all,” Daniel says. “But I am interested in justice. Come with me, Leon, and give me your faith that I will have your best intentions at heart, and I will fill you in on my entire gameplan. You will know my end game, and together, we can make a difference.”

Leon looks away from Daniel, toward the other barflies who have picked up on their conversation.

“You have to say ‘yes,’ though,” Foster says.

Leon opens his mouth, considering his options.

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