Send in the Clown
Chapter 14: So many ways to say goodbye…
That’s right. You heard that chapter title accurately. This isn’t some fake-out that I have yet to explain like that cemetery in the Kings of Shadows where all the members of my family and past seemingly are buried. Yes, I haven’t forgotten about that. Nor have I forgotten my tale to you that this was the story where I die at the end. Did you all forget that? I can’t blame you. I’m not what you would call a consistent story-teller, as it were.
But I haven’t forgotten any of it – we just haven’t reached the point where either of those things are to be explained. Perhaps they never will be explained. As I said, this may be a way to say ‘goodbye’.
I mean, does anyone remember where we last left off? When my last match was? Almost two months ago back in last year of 2021 against Katie Steward. Ah, now THAT was an eyeopener. There I was, telling you all the part of my life where I felt scared to take the surgery for my knee, not because it was expensive or could go wrong. Quite the opposite – I had been scared that it could go right.
It was still true, even as we began the new year…
I shall be as honest as I can with all of you. I was never meant to make it this far this go around. I wasn’t. I was supposed to be some sort of ‘enhancement talent’ – what a drop for me – to Aaron Blackbourne years ago. That’s why I was brought in to become his ‘secret challenger’ while he held the Television title over a year ago. They had wanted to build a program around him and I where I, inevitably, ‘passed the torch of creativity and entertainment’ over to him – making him the ‘new showman’, as it were. That’s what management wanted. They wanted to package Aaron as their ‘next star’ and wanted to use me and my legacy to do it.
And I agreed.
Why not? The boy was talented! I had done enough! You tell me I hadn’t! I fucking dare you! Tell me I haven’t done enough in my career with SCW! Maybe someone like Autumn or Ace will mock it or even say I’ll never reach it again – she fails to see how the latter is such a compliment to me! And it proves my point! Because she’s probably right! The titles I’ve won, the main-events I held, the history I created! People are still talking about me when they compare me to such greats as Christian Savior and Selena Frost – and I usually win over who they prefer, at least compared to those two…
But Aaron was everything I wasn’t. Young, strong and fast, and creative in ways that I wasn’t. So, I agreed to promote him, to push him, to make the feud entertaining and then, whether he beat me or I beat him when it was all over, I’d simply disappear back to the shadows…
It hadn’t happened that way…
I had ended up driving the poor boy out. Breaking his momentum, his confidence, everything in that Under the Big Top match. Did I feel guilty? In a way – like breaking your friend’s favourite toy on the school playground. If all the kid could do was be there when he won but not when he suffered massive loss, than SCW needed to see that – and there was no way I was going to hand off my namesake as ‘the entertainer’ to a flake that bailed when things got tough. Would you? Would you bequeath your legacy – someone you a good portion of your life to build - to someone that would drop it into the dirt the second things turned tough?
So what was meant to be less than a year of a return transformed into…something else. And the more that I worked hard to regain some semblance of respect to my name and legacy, the more my knee became a factor. And the more my knee became a factor, the more and more I started using it as a crutch, an excuse.
Not to SCW, you understand, I didn’t want superstars knowing about it. You saw what Glory Braddock and Holly Adams and Ricky James did to it when they realized it was a weakness. It became more and more about being “the one that put Shilo Valiant on the shelf”. Heh heh… such an achievement! I should be flattered by that. That someone would take delight in being the one that took me out of SCW for good. I think I may have done that a few times, like I had with Blackbourne, but I honestly can’t remember anyone I had knocked out of SCW.
Except, perhaps, Masquerade… but don’t I have a right to remember that one?
When I learned that I could take the surgery – I realized how much I needed my knee to be in its worse condition. Isn’t that fucked up? But if I had a bad leg, I had an excuse. An excuse to justify why I lost the Adrenaline title to Holly Adams. Why I had failed inside the chamber to Ace Marshall once again pinning me. Why I couldn’t really ever be considered for the World title despite my desire to reach for it, being overshadowed by more impressive names like Glory and Kandis and a few others.
But if the surgery took that away, even if it made me faster and stronger again – made me something akin to my old self in terms of ability… and I still failed? What did that say about Shilo Valiant – in his best form – against the current crop of SCW’s best?
Truthfully, had it not been for Katie Steward, that mindset might not have changed. I may still be making excuses for you as to why I needed to put off the surgery – why I still needed to ‘wait’ because ‘things were happening in SCW’…
But you know you’ve reached a certain “bottom of the barrel” when the supposed ‘legend’, the ‘Queen of Queens’ is about to face you and she doesn’t deem you ‘worthy’ enough to hype a match against you with a promo.
I think that rocked my world more than anything she could have said against me. I mean, here I am, with far more accolades than her – SHILO VALIANT! – and she felt I wasn’t worth her time to go in front of a camera and promote a match with me.
Defeating her soundly had done little to alleviate that feeling. Very little. I felt like a joke going through the weeks – hell, Ricky James, the man that I was supposedly in a bit of a feud with, up and left SCW too… apparently facing me in a feud held as much of appeal to him as it had for Katie…
It left me to wonder…what happened?
Truthfully, guys. There was a time when facing me – beating me – actually meant something. Someone like Regan Street would praise my name before she beat me at Rise to Greatness. Someone like Kelcey Wallace would put a statue of my likeness in her entrance as someone that she had conquered! An actual statue!
Truthfully, it hurt guys. That facing me, beating me, was seen as nothing – not worth an effort. Than to be told by management that they had ‘nothing for me’ all of January while they scrambled to adjust to the new year and all the controversy – controversy I couldn’t even be part of…
Last time that happened, I had blamed them up and down. This time? I couldn’t even do that.
What did the name of Shilo Valiant hold for their cards now compared to Selena Frost and Cid Turner? Compared to Glory Braddock and, hell, even Syren with her lackluster record of late? Was my name even mentioned on those shows? I hadn’t heard anything as I had waited, sitting through the weeks from my home in Guelph.
I think rock-bottom hit me – like all of that I had just spoke of – hit after sitting by and watching Body, Heart and Soul. Ironically, enough, it had been watching Autumn Valentine make her entrance with Ace Marshall. I had watched Autumn both gracefully dance her way through her weeks as Television Champion and also stumble her way through her partnership with LexyCorp or whatever name they were using.
It was both amazing – her talent – and pathetically boring as hell – her ‘entertainment’. I won’t waste my thoughts on the ‘wedding’ that happened at End of the Year just yet. I’ll simply say: I would have done SO MUCH better. Forget an outrage from a person in a bear costume. Oh no! Imagine an actual bear – the ring-BEAR-er! YES! That’s what I could have done, just as a starter!
I remember dwelling on such thoughts as I watched Autumn with the Television and tag titles, handing one off to Lexy… and then I turned off the television. I didn’t want to see the rest of the pay-per-view. What did I care about the tag titles? Or some wrestlers with ‘hurt feelings’ over DQ finishes? I didn’t. If SCW couldn’t control their damn stables after how many years, then let the world title be mired in controversy. Controversy equalled ratings, so they should have been happy.
But turning off the television with the remote, my eyes took in the black screen, medium-sized – long gone was the big-screen I use to have in Toronto where I could watch it all ‘in HD!’. Now? It was a small-sized 33-inch that barely took up part of the wall. Hell, there were more ‘decorate books and crystals and photos on the shelves that thing stood on – THEY took up more space than the damn TV and that was what was used more than anything else in that entire section.
But on the black screen, I spied my own reflection. I could see the face, the brown sweater I wore, the black trackpants I had on, my short hair and trimmed-goatee sticking out against my paler/scarred skin of my face.
“What happened to you?”
The question came from me but I had not realized it for several seconds, even as my ears picked it up and logically pieced the information together – my son, the only other man in the house, did not yet have the timbre in his voice that I did, go figure.
I didn’t answer myself out loud. I was not in front of a camera. Acting ‘crazy’ by talking to myself was not going to win me any points. Instead, I just looked at my reflection. I allowed those thoughts, the ones I described to you earlier, to run through my mind – my match with Katie, my absences, all of it. They all ran through my mind as I slipped towards that ‘rock-bottom’.
I felt my hand reach out to grip the injured knee hard – gripped so hard that the fingers and knuckles turned an even paler color. Why wasn’t I there? Why hadn’t I been booked in over a month? Why was I watching Body, Heart and Soul instead of performing in it?! What had happened to the show?! What had happened to my feud?! What the fuck had happened to me?!!
“Leaked” sex videos?!
‘Packaged’ products of $X9.99?!
Guys in bear costumes?!
Fake weddings with the most obvious of swerves?!
Wrestlers crying on Twitter to have titles change hands over disqualification?!
“HOW THE FUCK IS THIS ENTERTAINING?!”
My voice rang throughout the family room and I immediately heard movement from down the hall from the bedroom, causing me to instantly regret my sudden, and temporary, loss of control. I knew better than to curse in the house like that! I was a father after all, with a very impressionable eight-year old son sleeping in the basement.
Stupid Shilo… I thought
You’re not in the Kings of Shadows anymore! You’re not in those big hotels and fancy towers of The Empress. You’re not in the high life of being the biggest name of SCW anymore… you’re just a common Joe – working his shifts and living in a small, three-bedroom house…
I heard the footsteps closing in on me but I did not look away from the spot on the floor that my eyes were locked on. I had left the lights off while I had been watching the pay-per-view, leaving the only illumination coming from the adjacent kitchen, its soft white lightbulb sending some light through the large window-gaps of space from the semi-wall that ‘separated’ it from this room.
First thing I saw were a pair of bare feet as they walked to where I was looking, along with the billowing of the nightgown of dark blue. Then, it all lowered itself until I could see her kneeling before me, her soft, brown eyes gazing at me through round reading glasses.
“Sorry.” I whispered, looking at her but not really looking at her, you know? “Didn’t mean to yell.”
“I know.” She sighed, a hand reaching out to run its fingers along the scarred flesh of my face. “What is it this time?”
“Everything.” I sighed, sitting back into the plush chair I had been sitting on.
“I told you not to watch the pay-per-view.” She sighed, a gentle chastising, more sad than irritated.
“I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”
“After the End of the Year?” she sighed. “Really?”
Yes, that night had been bad for me. It wasn’t that I had been snubbed from any match at that point, but rather that I had to sit through and watch that fake wedding between Lexy Chapel and “Ryan Watson”. The whole thing was so…so… cliché! Oh my god, what the hell had management been thinking?! When had weddings EVER gone well in this business? There was always some kind of “SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER- DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUH!”. Gods, it had been so painfully obvious and yet on and on it went!
Now, Marina was wondering why I had expected things to be better in the new year and the first pay-per-view of 2022… and I didn’t have an answer for her other than to shrug my shoulders.
“I’m just…” I sighed, unable to finish the sentence.
Truthfully, guys? I wasn’t even that mad. I mean, the material alone this kind of lame-ass ‘entertainment’ could give me in my ‘Carnival of Rust’ promos? Oh! The shit I could say! I could tear the entire LexyCorp into a hundred pieces simply by how lame they were as entertainers. I could laugh at how bad their product was… so why wasn’t I? Why was I angry instead of amused? Why was I bitter instead of incited?
Because it was really my fault.
How long had I known of this surgery to ‘fix’ me? Since my last match with Autumn Valentine? And how many months had I put it off? Three? Maybe four? I could have had it and skipped the Elimination chamber and been back in time to crash the wedding myself! Gods! The Ring-BEAR-er! I could have sicked him on Marshall while Marina subbed in a bouquet of Venus-Flytraps for the bride! What? That fit Lexy, right?!
But I had put it off and put it off – content to stay in this ‘semi-effective’ form of ‘maybe he’ll wrestle well and maybe he won’t’. Content to half-ass my way through my matches with such limitations rather than take the time off I needed to get better and take a risk at failing even at my best!
The Brand and LexyCorp had run roughshod over MY show – MY entertainment – because I had been too much of a chickenshit to get rid of my crutch and stand before them as I was before – as good as I was before.
“Can you…” I lifted my head to look at Marina as she was kneeling before me. “Can you come here please?”
She gave a tilt of her head before standing up to her feet. She made to move around me to sit beside me on the armrest, but I was faster, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into my lap. Immediately, as her light form fell on my legs, I felt the one knee seize up and lock – of course it did.
“Shilo!” she whispered in worry, not wanting to wake Memphis like I probably had. “Your knee!”
“It’s fine.” I bit through clenched teeth, my head slammed back into the back cushion of the chair, eyes sealed shut as my head pointed upward towards the ceiling, though my arms tightened around my soulmate.
I let the seconds ticked by and Marina, too afraid of agitating my knee, did not move from her spot – thank goodness. I felt her pressed up next to me as I held her and breathed through the pain as it ebbed and dulled away. One last inhale and exhale and I opened my eyes.
She was the first thing I saw, staring down at me with the utmost worry etched into her features. Twelve years guys. Over twelve years of a wrestling career, hers a little shorter than mine but no less violent and dangerous. In the dimly lit room, I didn’t see that as I reached up to gently remove the glasses from her face, placing them down before reaching back up to caress her cheek with my hand. I didn’t see the lines of aging that I knew were there on her face as they were on mine. I didn’t see the lines of worry that had etched themselves into her features. I didn’t see how she was smaller now than she was back then, a combination of a different training and stress of being a mother and soulmate.
No, in that moment, despite knowing the light was playing a trick on my eyes, I saw Marina as she had looked those 12 years ago. A rascal, my partner in crime, partners in the Underground, selling Necro on the streets in Toronto…
“Remember when I would catch you like this?” I asked, holding her tight. “When we would run on the rooftops.”
“You never caught me like this.” I saw her smile in the shadows and dim light, her hand reaching up to touch the hand that held her face, her head turning into my warm hand. “You always wanted to carry me bridal-style. Said you needed the practice-“
“For when I made you my soulmate in Solgemia.” I finished, smiling. “Least I wasn’t lying.”
“I never believed you were.” Marina whispered. “Though you sure took your sweet time with asking me.”
“Life.” I shrugged my shoulders.
Maybe it was seeing the sham of a wedding at End of the Year that was making me reflective of the one that had meant the most to me. No one in SCW had seen our Solgemia. In fact, few, to this day, really knew about it. Even if they did, no one really understood it. It wasn’t for their world – but one Marina and I had been part of… so long ago.
“It’s time.” I sighed. “I’m going to have the surgery.”
She stiffened a little in my lap, understandably. “Another promise?” she whispered. “One you’ll change with an added word like ‘soon’ later?”
“No.” I sighed, looking up to smile at her. “I’ve got one more match – whatever it is… and then I’m done.”
“Done?” there was a worry in her voice but I still smiled up at her.
“Done.” I sighed. “I can’t keep half-assing this, Marina. I just can’t. It’s hurting too much – I have to either be thriving there… or not there at all… and I can’t do that with this knee. So… one more match… and then I’m done.”
She said nothing at first, moving in to lean her head into the crook of my neck. “Nomas said you’ll be out for three or four months – maybe longer.” She whispered in reminder.
“I know.” I whispered, reaching up to stroke her bare arm with my hand. “But I can’t keep putting it off. I need to get back to what I was – what we were.”
Leaning up to gaze at me, I saw her eyes shining in the dim light. “I’ll retrain with you.” She whispered. “We’ll do it together.”
“We always have…” I smiled back. “No couple in SCW has shit on us.”
“Shilo!” she whispered. “There is a child living here.”
“What?” I grinned. “I’m just saying 12 years and going strong!”
“Ish.” Marina teased before cuddling up next to me. “So, you think you’ll have another match soon?”
“Probably.” I laughed. “Maybe I’ll start the same way I started! Against some nobodies like Mignona…”
Marina laughed with me, resting against my form as I held her. “You’ll be alright.” She whispered.
It was a statement that, a week later, we would not be so sure of…