Send in the Clown
Chapter 11 – Part 1: To Rise, then Fall…
It would seem the reports of my death have been somewhat exaggerated…
Heh, heh, heh. Alright, perhaps not the reports of my ‘death’ per say. After all, I highly doubt that people were questioning my survival coming out of Rise to Greatness. Not unless I, somehow, got a heart attack while making my way up the ramp from my match – OR! OR! OR! – I laughed myself to death after dumping Holly Adams onto the “Desperate Housewives” reject cast list! That would have been possible…
So perhaps no one assumed that I was dead, but after showing no signs of existence on the first Breakdown of SCW post Rise to Greatness, I certainly did hear the rumors of my “future”, as it were, within SCW.
Was this Shilo’s last match?
Was Shilo done/gone from SCW?
Would Shilo return?
And other such variants of the same question. And truthfully, I can’t blame any of you for thinking that. That WOULD be the way I’d want to retire.
Rise to Greatness.
A show-stealer of a match.
Entertaining the masses.
Leaving with the last laugh.
My efforts of that weekend certainly…
seemingly… ticked off all those boxes. A TLC match, stealing the show compared to the other fatal fourway where Christy Matthews, after her hundredth attempt to become Supreme Champion finally succeeded, and the ‘same-old-style’ main-event that Ace Marshall failed to win, giving him a RTG record that I’d never suffer from. Additionally, I clearly had entertained the masses. For gods’ sake, they had been been cheering me at some points! – A side note: I am not sure if that was because I amazed them or because it was only me they could get behind over Holly, Cassidy and Ricky… still, entertained they had been. And as for the last laugh? Well… though I hadn’t retained the championship, I certainly had a laugh at Holly’s expense…
It had seemed like a fair and decent exchange. After all, how much had Holly taken from me? The excuses? The whining? The disrespect? How much had I given her? Humored her? I mean, had I not GIVEN her a second chance, same as Datura? Had I not gifted a title shot to Cassidy, who had done NOTHING to earn it? I even allowed Ricky to take part in Datura’s place, even though he had, like the others, done ZERO to earn it.
But back to Holly, after all I had allowed and given, I feel like I was justified in dumping her off the ladder. I mean… the dumb woman was expecting me to lift the ladder and parade her around as she held the title! When, whether I was the good guy or bad guy, did I EVER parade someone around?!
But doesn’t that just enforce what I have said? How little people seem to understand who I am – how little people get “The Man Who Laughs”? I don’t play ‘supporting role’ at Rise to Greatness. I don’t let people take my spotlight when they haven’t earned it… and Holly Adams has FAR from earned MY spotlight…
But back to the present, my absence from SCW had little to do with RTG or SCW management and more to do with me. You see, my audience, I had some thinking to put together. Unlike all of you, I KNEW that I wasn’t done. I KNEW that I wasn’t finished with SCW. True, I had a decent RTG-event that ticked off the boxes I spoke of earlier… but that’s like saying you had an ‘okay’ burger rather than a burger that knocked your lights out and made you realize that you had had THE PERFECT burger in your life.
That didn’t happen to me. That was what had been missing that night. I hadn’t felt “it”. I hadn’t felt the curtain falling. Hadn’t felt the click in my mind that said “we’re done. The show is finally over…”. Even as I struggled to get to the back, so much of my body aching from the tables and chairs and ladders, I knew that I wasn’t done. I knew that wasn’t it… if I had any say.
But, as you know from my previous chapters, my ‘say’ was up in the air. After all, have you forgotten about the woman that I had asked to come with me to RTG? Of the promise I had made her earlier?
I didn’t. And I am a person that honors their word. If I say I am going to do something – if I give my word on something, then I am determined to see it through. If I fail to uphold it due to circumstances beyond my control, then that is one thing. If I deceive to entertain, that could be another (Not something I’d like to employ, but the entertainment would certainly justify such acts if necessary). But outside of wrestling, outside of being an ‘entertainer’ and just being a ‘person’, a ‘father’, if I give my word, I am hellbent in keeping it. Otherwise, what would Marina or my son think of me? A liar? Worse?
Sounds silly, perhaps, but with fate my constant tormentor and me its unwilling pawn and sometimes ‘bitch’, I found myself needing the certainty of such things I could control in my life.
And by my word, I had sworn that after Rise, I would go with Marina to see her choice of doctor regarding my left leg. Even the brace had not protected me completely during the TLC match. It had taken weeks to fully recover from the bumps and bruises from that match and now… now… now I owed Marina a full examination. More than that, I had given my word that ‘if the doctor forbade me to compete on it… I would abide’.
Did I want that? If you ask that question after all you have just heard, then you haven’t completely been paying attention and further don’t know me. Of course I didn’t want that.
I wanted my owed rematch with Holly Adams after the second title shot I had GIVEN her.
I wanted to fight more of the young talent that kept coming through the doors, if Ricky James was any indication of them.
I wanted to get comeuppance on Ace Marshall! Yes, I still wanted to put that bastard through a table – and I’d be lying if I hadn’t breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t the world champion.
I wanted to try and last another year and ‘try my hand again’ at getting that Rise to Greatness moment…
To be honest, that last part haunted me. Hurt me, actually. Let me take you back. Do you all recall the “Rise to Greatness highlights” SCW kept shoving at you at the Breakdown shows? Some of the ‘biggest moments in RTG history’ shown week after week?
None of them involved me.
None of my making history in RTG my headlining it three times in a row (a record that still stands, by the way).
None of my “match of the decade” with Syren at RTG X nearly ten years ago.
None of my victories against the likes of CHBK or Konrad Raab.
None of my war with Aaron Blackbourne in what should have been the feud of the year…
It was like… like it never happened. Like my early years in SCW meant nothing. No one understood why I felt SCW was “MY pay-per-view”. How could they know? How could they understand? When my history, my years of dominance and entertainment, were conveniently left out?
No, this isn’t me going on a tear of some ‘conspiracy theory’ about management holding me back or the boss having a vendetta against me personally after all I had given him. Even if that were true, I doubt it was relevant know with people far more deranged and disrespectful than me running around SCW like the Jackals and Lexy’s little harem.
Rather, what came to me was a sobering reality. Time was the culprit in all of this. My work, my masterpieces of wrestling and entertainment – my immortal body of work (or so I thought it was immortal) – was already fading to nothing. To mere obscurity…
And what of this year? Six months as the Adrenaline champion… The longest reigning champion of 2021 so far. How easily would THAT be forgotten? How easily would people forget about the ‘second coming’ of Shilo Valiant? Even if I, somehow, became World Champion again! If I found some way to be good enough to be back on that level! To be entertaining to the point where I created new feuds and moments to reignite the masses’ opinion and remembrance of me… would it all not fade away again after I left? After the curtain was drawn and I was, once more, gone from the ring?
There was a certain gloom to such doom. The inevitable conclusion. The cruel joke that came about the truth that ‘people forget’. And, for all intents and purposes, that should have been enough for me to want to quit. To give up and walk away. To leave SCW rather than risk my life and health over some impossible task of immortality – of eternal remembrance.
And yet… I laughed.
I did. I laughed at that. More accurately, I laughed at myself. Because… someone sane help me… I STILL wanted to wrestle! I still wanted to compete in SCW. I still WANTED to entertain, even if I would be forgotten in a few years’ time. Even if I was nothing more than a plaque or whisper in the SCW Hall of Fame. Even if I, the supposed “World’s Greatest Showman”, faded into little more than a corner of the SCW archives, pictures and DVDs gathering dust somewhere… old and forgotten… I didn’t want to stop yet.
I laughed at myself in that regard. Laughed at my own foolishness and stupidity. That I was praying, quietly, to the gods, many of whom I had forsaken long ago, that the doctor would clear me – would grant me some kind of ‘way’ to continue to compete. Some way… another laugh at myself… I was praying for some kind of ‘miracle drug’ to undo the damage that I was responsible for.
It was true. It had been Masquerade long ago that had damaged my knee by taking a wrench to it. And part of me, for so many months, had wanted to hunt down Stephan Strange, the man you all knew as Masquerade, and hold him accountable. To say that I hated him for a span of time… well, let me put it to you this way… there was a time that I hated him more than the man who burnt my face, Jason Zero. My face, scarred on the side, had only damaged my looks. How many years had Masquerade shaved off my career – my life – with his attacks? But had I not encouraged his wrath by surpassing him? Had I not kept going despite knowing that such lingering damage existed? Had I not been foolish enough to think there’d be no ‘long-term effects’? I had survived getting BURNED for fucks’ sake! What was a metal tool to the knee supposed to do?
All of these thoughts, my past and my future, swirled through my head, like an emotional tornado as I sat there in the plastic chair of white, waiting for my name to be called, dreading it with every fiber of my being. Longing to run from this. Longing to lose myself in another “plan to entertain” – I was currently contemplating methods to deal with Ace Marshall once I returned to Breakdown and SCW. The bastard still owed me some entertainment after failing in grand fashion in my dealings with Holly Adams, and for turning on me and trying to have me removed with the use of Cassidy Carter.
Still, my musings never strayed far to keep me distracted for long. I always returned to the present. To the room I sat in. To the inevitable dread that filled me. I knew the answer – I knew the result! – and I still could not prepare for it.
The doctor, I didn’t even know his name, had advised Marina that I should wear comfortable clothes, hence, while she was dressed in black leggings and a beige cardigan, I was wearing simple black track pants and a shirt that was a good size or two larger than my frame. I must have looked like a frightened child, my gaze constantly shifting between the hallway to my right where the doctor, no doubt, was and the exit to my left, parts of me shaking nervously. Because I could just run away. I could just blindly run from this, get in my car and just continue fighting in SCW until I just…I just…
My eyes travelled down to my left leg, feeling the tightness of the metal brace wrapped around it like a straightjacket. The best form of a shield that I had.
“Shilo?” the voice made me almost jump in a panic, thinking it was the receptionist calling me in, like being called up to the guillotine. My heart leapt in my throat and, on instinct, I turned to the voice to see Marina staring back at me, her eyes wide as she saw my expression. Immediately, I felt her hands grab one of mine, holding it tightly. “Breathe…” she tried. She had tried to comfort me like this as I had stumbled my way backstage after my RTG match, all but collapsing into her arms as I reached her. She had struggled to carry my limping form to the back – thankfully, no one bothering us as we travelled. SCW management had given us a wide berth in letting Marina be there, backstage, to support me and clearing out some of the non-essential staff from the hallways as we passed them. I won’t mince words here, they had been kind to Marina and I, hence the destruction of my destructive mentality of ‘conspiracies’ and whatnot.
I could only shake my head at her advice, a smile breaking over my face – a bitter, almost laughing one. “I’m trying.” I whispered, feeling my hands shake a little in hers. “But…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence, looking down at her clasped hands. Nervous wreck would not begin to describe what I appeared to be to the average on-looker. While others, like Autumn Valentine, were dealing with their “tv-drama” or “fear of losing their title”, no one had my concerns racing through them. The very existence of their job hanging in the balance and knowing…knowing…that the guillotine blade was going to drop.
“I…” I tried to choke out, desperately fighting to get some control over myself. To act like a fucking adult rather than a scared child! Immediately, memories of the past: the Tenebrae – flashed in my mind. How pathetic I looked with a broken arm, marked with ink (the dragon tattoo that still painted my skin), needing to be held by Spider as he and the legion of members from the Kings of Shadows saved me from Ian Ryper and the Children of Eden. The poor boy, unable to save himself… returned once more here in this doctor’s lobby. Because I couldn’t save myself. I couldn’t magically fix my knee or control the doctor’s mind to make him say that I could still wrestle…
No Spider was coming to save me.
The Kings of Shadow weren’t coming to save me.
All I could do was wait for the end to come. To be returned to the lifeless husk I had been the years between my ‘retirement’ and my ‘resurrection’ of sorts.
“Shilo Valiant”. The voice was like that of the reaper, calling me to stand up and make my way towards the nurse, every step taking longer. I felt my feet dragging a little on the carpet as the woman, wearing a mask as Marina and I did, lead us through the hall and into a room that was decorated similarly to the lobby. Same color of walls, carpet, etc. I simply walked in and sat down, unable to look anywhere but at the floor. Marina spoke to the nurse (or was it really a receptionist) for me. There was something seemingly familiar in the voices that spoke, but I dismissed it, too wrapped up in my own dread to really pay attention. I had no doubt that I would remember this moment for the rest of my life….
And it made sense.
How many times had I defied the end of my career? How many times had things occurred in which I should have been retired but, somehow, survived?
“You can only outrun the end for so long…” my voice whispered to no one.
“Shilo…” I heard Marina’s voice but before I could react to it, a different voice beat me to it.
“So fatalistic…”
The voice shook me to my core – to the depths of my soul. Shook me so hard that, for a moment, the fear and dread left me, shock and disbelief replacing them in a ferocious assault! My head jerked and I was on my feet faster than a spring, almost falling over into the wall. Fortunately, Marina was there to catch me.
Before my eyes stood the doctor Marina had chosen for me. He wore dark pants and a light-blue shirt, casual yet professional at the same time. Like the rest of us, his face was partially covered with a mask for the sake of government by-laws… but his voice? His voice rang through the room – a voice I’d recognize anywhere!
“N…” my voice shook as I stood there, grasping onto Marina for dear life. “Nomas?”
Slowly, the doctor removed the mask, revealing the dark-skinned, broad smile of the former Merchant of Life. “Hello, my boy.” He greeted gently.
I truly was a child again, rushing to the old, yet broad man and embracing him. I felt his arms, withered from age but still strong, as he wrapped them around me. It felt so similar to before – for it was Nomas, himself, that had pulled me out of the Tenebrae before handing me over to Spider. “My god…” I half-laughed, half-cried – I didn’t even really know why, to be honest. Was it happiness? Joy? Sure… but it didn’t feel like relief or ‘salvation’ from my inevitable doom. Rather, it was joy at seeing my old friend, the man that had been like an uncle or second-father to me for so much of my life.
I heard him laugh a little as he patted my back. “I am beyond happy to see you too.” He distanced himself from our embrace to regard me. “Oh, Shilo.” I could see tears forming behind his eyes. “I look at you and…” he swiped a free hand at his eyes. “Oh for crying out loud.” He laughed. “I see you and instantly I get teary-eyed.” He turned to smile at Marina in the same kindness and love. “You and Marina…” he held out a hand, which she quickly took, her small, pale hand disappearing into his larger one. “Happier times.” He sighed at our reunion. “How I miss them.”
“We all do.” Marina smiled before turning her attention towards me, a knowing smile crossing her features. Suddenly, my mind burned with realizations, like a massive set of fireworks going off in my mind.
“He’s the doctor?” I asked, earning a nod from Marina. “How long did you know he was here?”
“It was not her, Shilo.” Nomas quickly replied. “I was the one that contacted her months ago.”
“You?” I asked in disbelief. “Why?”
“Because what else could I do but watch over you? I could see immediately what was happening to you as you fought.” His eyes travelled to my knee, and I immediately felt the dread return and the panic of doom grip me. “I called Marina and she told me everything.”
“I-“ I gazed between the two of them: my Solgemia soulmate and my second-father-figure and felt part of the dam burst, wiping at my teary eyes as Nomas had done. “I am so fucking scared.” I whispered. “I don’t want to lose being a wrestler… I don’t want to stop being part of SCW…”
“Well…” Nomas sighed, moving to a section of the room to grab some items. “I cannot promise you a miracle, Shilo. But…” he smiled at me. “I can promise you that, if I have the power, I will help you. One way or another…”
Slowly, I felt Marina squeeze my hand with hers, my eyes seeking hers first, then Nomas’ before taking a deep breath.
“Let’s get it over with.” Was all I could say with a dry laugh…