Post by \w/Chaosnmayhem\w/ on May 29, 2008 0:02:36 GMT -5
Axl James Slade lies on the couch passed out drunk while "watching" the Cubs/Dodgers game on WGN. He sits up and looks around to find himself in what looks like an old bar, the kind he played years ago with...
He was standing across the bar, smiling. The skinny man with Shaggy facial hair and the same sort of build and the telltale metal leg.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Mike...
The man walks over to him as some kind of classic speed metal plays all around them.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What are you...
He comes closer and smiles.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] You never said good bye.
Axl's jaw drops.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I couldn't.
Mike nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I know. It's ok man.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's good to see you, dude.
They embrace as then Mike points over to the next room.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I'm not here alone.
Axl looks at the room, glowing with bright white light nervously.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What?
Mike nods at the room and smiles.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Come on man, you gotta see this.
He starts walking to the light and Axl follows him.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Am I... dead?
Mike laughs.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] No, though you've done a helluva job of trying sometimes.
They walk into the room and Axl's heart falls through his feet. Sitting here in the room are his parents, Darrell and Tracy Slade. Next to them is the blond bombshell, Roxy Pellegrini and Roxy's friend and Keira Knightley look-alike, Amanda Helms. Also sitting here is a brunette he recognizes as his first girlfriend, Chrissy Bannon. Next to her, the last person is his late cousin, Maxx Layne. Axl takes a step back, taken aback by the sight of the seven people most close to him... that he should never be able to see again.
Mike claps his hand on Axl's shoulder and smiles again.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Don't worry, we're here to help you man.
Axl looks around feeling nausea building.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What is this?
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I suppose you could call this an intervention of sorts.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] For what?
Mike walks in front of him and stands with the others.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] We're here to remind you that bad things happen to good people. None of us deserved what we got, but you know deserve has nothing to do with it when God picks your number. Look at us man, your parents didn't deserve to be gunned down in front of you, but they were. There was nothing they could do about that. Roxy didn't deserve to die for her bad choices but once she'd snorted a bad bunch there was nothing she could do about it. Chrissy and Amanda didn't deserve the car accidents that killed them, nor did Maxx deserve to be left alone in his own despair. And cancer doesn't care what kind of person you are or what you deserve.
Maxx steps forward and nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Maxx Layne:[/glow] You need to let it go man. You need to let US go.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Holding onto the grief will kill you if you let it, just like holding onto the anger with Karen will. Do you even know why you're fighting with her anymore?
Axl stood there, thunderstruck as his parents walk up to him, hugged him and then walked through the door and disappeared. Axl falls to his knees reaching for the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] WAAAAAAAAIIITTT!!!
Amanda hugs him and then walks though the door as well. Chrissy and then Roxy walk over and kiss him before going through the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Please...don't go... don't leave me!
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] We have to man. We've been called home already.
[glow=red,2,300]Maxx Layne:[/glow] Don't worry about us anymore. We aren't the ones in trouble anymore.
Maxx hugs him and then walks through the door leaving only Mike in the room with him.
Axl starts crying like a child and looks at the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You can't... can't leave me... not again....
Mike hugs him.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] You gotta let it go man. It's time. Let it be.
Mike walks through the door and vanishes as Axl starts screaming.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] COME BAAAAAAAACK!!!!
He falls forward crying and starts tumbling through space. He lands hard on the floor of his home, next to the couch and finds himself, awake, crying and actually screaming.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Please... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
As he lies there on the floor, the familiar pain starts and he starts shaking. Cadence runs into the room, worried from the screaming and falls to her knees at his head. She cradles him and holds him close and suddenly, the pain and shaking stops. He starts crying again and holds his hands to his face.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What's wrong? Honey.. what's wrong?
He just continues to cry into his hands as she cradles his head to her chest.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Oh God...
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] Honey...
He pulls himself together and looks up into her worried eyes.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Why does Donny think you were gonna leave?
Caught off-guard she just stares at him blankly.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What?
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Why does Donny think you were gonna leave?
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] He doesn't.
He sits up, maintaining eye contact with both of them looking worried and vulnerable.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Then why did he ask?
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] He... I...
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You've done it before... haven't you?
With her bottom lip trembling she just nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You're not going to again are you?
She shakes her head.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] No... no chance... no chance in hell.
He nods and then hugs her tightly as she cries on his shoulder.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I'm sorry I've scared you so much. I never wanted to...
They separate and he looks into her eyes.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's just... I need to tell you a story and then maybe I can clear things up.
She nods and they clasp hands.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It was the fall after my parents died...
High school is never easy, but especially when you're the kid nobody wants to notice. He never cared about that, hell half the time then, he was too hammered to care. I remember like it was yesterday, though it's been almost fifteen years now. He and Sean were sitting in our fourth period computer class bullshitting about what album they would play during lunch and he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them. We sat next to the auditorium while Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction" blared from these shitbox little speakers he had attached to his walkman. You could barely hear the songs but he was jamming out like he was in the front row of a concert at Madison Square Garden. Sean made fun of the speakers and then moved on to his taste in women.
He didn't care, he just sat there head banging, not even noticing that Sean had just insulted his ex.. and future girlfriend. The other two guys, Chris and J.D., both laughed, mostly because they knew he didn't care about the insults at all. I didn't care either, I was just happy to have been invited into a clique.
Pretty soon that clique broke up...
Chris left school and transferred because of an incident wherein he was allegedly caught jacking off behind the gym. Depending on who was telling the story it got wilder and more outlandish every time. First it was just him, then it was him and a chick... then it was him, a chick another dude and a camera. I half-expected somebody to add some kind of animal to the story too. God knows they got mileage out of the fact that the girl's car had a white interior. Either way, by the time that semester ended, Chris had been humiliated, branded a pariah by everyone but those of us in his small and quickly dwindling circle of friends and nearly gotten jumped until we stepped in to stop it. So he transferred away and we never heard from him again.
J.D. followed the smell of pussy away to a different clique. I guess being with the freaks didn't appeal to him anymore. He found a woman as tall as he was named Amber to take him and they were still together when we all graduated so I'd say he made the right choice. They were quite the pair, two six foot tall blondes wandering around arm in arm.
Sean wandered off to think and just never came back. He fell in with the goth crowd and discovered music outside of heavy metal. Suddenly Trent Reznor was his new god and those he'd previously thought to be the coolest were relegated to being "stupid mistakes of his misspent youth." Yeah, it sounded pretentious as hell when he said it then too...since he was still only fifteen at the time. Eventually he formed a band with a couple of his buddies hoping to play a combination of NIN and Tool and drove them all crazy because he acted like he was the Reznor of the bunch. Unfortunately, the dictator tactics combined with the fact that he was the least talented of the bunch drove the rest of them away and his Mourning Violets wilted as fast as they’d bloomed.
That left just the two of us... three when he took that girl Sean had made fun of back... or rather, she took him back.
So there we were, me and Michael Dale Duncan, Jr.... Chaos & Mayhem as our English teacher that year called us. Mike loved that name and it somehow stuck. He turned me on to heavy metal and I turned him on to music outside that. It was crazy to see a redneck like him not playing country and southern rock in addition to his rather cold speed metal fetish, but he opened up when he found out his girl liked some of the same stuff I was pushing on him.
Ah... the power of poontang...
Oh but the metal gods shined on me there too... he played me my first Megadeth and Metallica records and I opened him up to stuff like Travis Tritt. Yeah... go figure on that one right? I turned him onto professional wrestling and he taught me to play guitar.
Everyone we knew always first thought we were brothers and at the very least thought we were sort of an odd pairing at first because though we had a similar dark-haired look... on closer inspection we were total opposites. Mike was everything I wasn’t, charming, funny, skinny, outgoing and good with the ladies. The man just had a way about him that let him charm the girls right out of their pants without even trying. I, was large, quiet, shy and spent most of my time around the ladies listening to them tell me their problems because I wasn’t the kind of guy they wanted to date.
We had other differences too. Mike liked to drink, smoke and shoot his mouth off at anyone he could because he was mad at the world at the time. His home life was terrible and to piss off his father he used to smuggle in Jack Daniel’s in a thermos and tell everyone it was iced tea. Marlboros were seemingly his favorite fashion accessory. And he let his short temper get the best of him all the time. By contrast, I didn’t drink at all, kept to myself and damn near knocked Mike out when he tried to push smoking on me. I think that locker still has the dent from when I put him up against it.
This contrast would manifest itself for the first two years of high school in a way that would become prophetic for later. Mike would get pissed for next to no reason and shoot his mouth off at somebody riling them up something fierce. Said maniac would come after Mike and I’d have to stop him from exposing my buddy and tag team partner’s vital organs to daylight. I got lucky then that nobody at our school carried weapons and that I was big enough for intimidation to work nicely. I also got lucky when Mike’s girl took him back that he cut out the drinking and a lot of the mouthing off to spend time with her. She was a great calming influence on him.
When they broke up just after Christmas in our sophomore year, I expected him to fall off the wagon but a quick blind date that his ex and I crashed and then another girl were able to kibosh his want for the bottle.
Then summer came and with it...
Mike’s knee had been driving him crazy for a good two years. He’d said he’d hurt it playing soccer for the middle school team and just thought he’d finally popped the cartilage or something. There were days when he couldn’t stand up during lunch and would be on the verge of tears it hurt so badly. But his family’s financial state and his parents usual stance of, “shut up you pussy!” along with his own stubborn pride kept him from getting it checked out. He finally went to the doctor two weeks after school ended. He called me up in a Tuesday and I sat there in my closet as I heard him say he had cancer and the doctors had assured him he’d beat it.
I was floored but reacted the same way I always do to major bad news. I asked him if he was all right and then started cracking bad jokes that still somehow made him laugh. When he hung up, I desperately wanted to cry but knew I couldn’t because of what would be coming later. James was never happy when I talked on the phone for longer than five minutes and this call had gone on for an hour and a half. I took a beating for it that night but kept it to myself.
That was the night Mike and my drinking habits switched places. He stopped all together and I started to get a little nip every so often at night to forget what was happening around me. For the next year and a half, the combined weight of my parents’ deaths, James’ beatings, Mike’s illness and the death of my first girlfriend, Chrissy, started to get to me. By the time we were set for graduation, Mike was in remission but had lost a leg. We started two dreams then though that continued for a while. we put together a band and we started preparing for wrestling school. We planned to be a tag team, we’d call ourselves Chaos & Mayhem, of course.
When I was arrested for nearly killing James, Mike was there to support me and when I got out, we picked up where we’d left off. We started getting work in both dream places. Gradually it became obvious that the wrestling was overtaking the band and the other guys split that up.
I still have this great picture from then, our first stable with a rather young Bo standing there next to me, Mike, a guy we knew at the time as C..J. and Big Maxx. It didn’t last long as Bo quickly started to get booked by himself and Maxx figured out this wasn’t for him and just started to be out driver. Bo and I also made sure we never traveled long distances at the same time so that one of us was always home with Erik. C.J. slowly stopped coming and we lost track of him.
But just like high school, Mike and I rolled along as a team. We blew through a lot of places and even dominated in a few of them. He also got himself a girl and would encourage me to work alone sometimes figuring I could use the practice to come out of my shell. He didn’t tell me he’d been feeling crappy again.
Fast forward to Thursday night, May 23, 2003, I’m sitting in Tallahassee talking to him over the internet about plans I’m making because this place, CPW, had called and wanted us both. I told him I’d go in first and then bring him in. He said it sounded good and then dropped a bomb on me. He was going for surgery in Tampa the next day. He told me the reason he’d been working less the last few months was this heavy feeling in his chest. So he’d gone back to his doctors in Jacksonville and they’d discovered a new tumor on his lung. They’d told him they wouldn’t operate because it was too far along and that he should just enter hospice.
I wanted to die right there with him. This couldn’t be happening, you know. He couldn’t be dying then after being fine for years. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t FAIR!!! How could God just decide he deserved this when he’d been through so much and had found love with this Chinese chick from Seattle named Priscilla Wong?
So anyway, he’d found doctors in Tampa who would operate.. mostly because his father made him. I could tell he didn’t really want to do it, that he was tired of fighting and just wanted to enjoy what time he had left with Priscilla. But Dad had badgered him into one more fight... one he knew he couldn’t win but would fight anyway.
Monday morning, the phone rang and I grabbed it while still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. His stepmother Stacey’s voice met my ears and told me the operation had gone off that morning and the news was worse than before. They’d removed his lung and the tumor on it was the size of a fully-inflated regulation-sized NBA basketball. The tight feeling in his chest had been from this monster crushing everything else in his chest cavity. Then she almost broke down as she told me... they hadn’t gotten it all out and that it had spread already. He was sleeping in his recovery room and they didn’t expect him to leave there alive. She told me he probably wouldn’t make lunch which meant I wouldn’t get the chance to say good bye. She said she’d call when he’d passed.
I got that call the next morning, Tuesday, May 28, 2003 at 9:34 A.M. This time it was sister, Mandy, who made the call and asked me if I wanted to be a pall bearer. The funeral happened later that week and I couldn’t wait to leave. I watched them put him in the ground and play some Creed song that Priscilla had told them was his favorite song. That night was when the drinking really started for me.
It’s funny, tonight makes it five years.. and I still hadn’t cried.. until right now...
Cadi touches his cheek as he looks at her longingly, desperate for someone to understand.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You see, he was the fourth one... the third one I trusted. It's why I'm really upset with Karen... because I trusted her and it's why I've been worried about you leaving and I didn't fully trust you and I'm sorry for that.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What is?
He takes her hands in his again.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Don't you see, every time I trusted somebody, something bad happened. I trusted in my parents and they died right in front of me. I trusted Chrissy and one night she never came home from work. I trusted Dave and got abandoned. I trusted D and he let his brother physically abuse me. Trusted Dave again and got abandoned again. I trusted Eric and he hung me out to dry. I trusted Roxy and she died, trusted her sister Maxine and she chose cocaine over me. And then I trusted Karen and Maxx killed himself. Why does everyone always leave?
Cadi pulls him into an embrace as the tears flood his eyes again.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's gotten now to where I don't even know what I want from her anymore. Do I want her dead? Well no.. because no matter how mad I am or have been at her, or hurt I've been.. she's still Karen, the little sister I never had to me.
Cadi continues to hug him, nodding slightly.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] So do I want her to apologize? Well no, she's already done that and really.. what good did it do? We're still set to fight. Do I want her still to admit she's no better than me? No.. because.. one, I really don't think she ever will and two...
The tears of grief, regret and pent-up pain from over all these years just tumble out on Cadi's shoulder.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I don't want her to be no better than me. I WANT her to be the better person, I WANT her to be that great beautiful dream I always thought she was before.
He pulls back and Cadi kisses him. They look into each other's eyes, both glassy with tears.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What am I gonna do?
Cadi pulls him in and they hold each other tightly. Since neither really has an answer all they can do is cry together while hoping that eventually they come up with one before its too late.
He was standing across the bar, smiling. The skinny man with Shaggy facial hair and the same sort of build and the telltale metal leg.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Mike...
The man walks over to him as some kind of classic speed metal plays all around them.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What are you...
He comes closer and smiles.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] You never said good bye.
Axl's jaw drops.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I couldn't.
Mike nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I know. It's ok man.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's good to see you, dude.
They embrace as then Mike points over to the next room.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I'm not here alone.
Axl looks at the room, glowing with bright white light nervously.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What?
Mike nods at the room and smiles.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Come on man, you gotta see this.
He starts walking to the light and Axl follows him.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Am I... dead?
Mike laughs.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] No, though you've done a helluva job of trying sometimes.
They walk into the room and Axl's heart falls through his feet. Sitting here in the room are his parents, Darrell and Tracy Slade. Next to them is the blond bombshell, Roxy Pellegrini and Roxy's friend and Keira Knightley look-alike, Amanda Helms. Also sitting here is a brunette he recognizes as his first girlfriend, Chrissy Bannon. Next to her, the last person is his late cousin, Maxx Layne. Axl takes a step back, taken aback by the sight of the seven people most close to him... that he should never be able to see again.
Mike claps his hand on Axl's shoulder and smiles again.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Don't worry, we're here to help you man.
Axl looks around feeling nausea building.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What is this?
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] I suppose you could call this an intervention of sorts.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] For what?
Mike walks in front of him and stands with the others.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] We're here to remind you that bad things happen to good people. None of us deserved what we got, but you know deserve has nothing to do with it when God picks your number. Look at us man, your parents didn't deserve to be gunned down in front of you, but they were. There was nothing they could do about that. Roxy didn't deserve to die for her bad choices but once she'd snorted a bad bunch there was nothing she could do about it. Chrissy and Amanda didn't deserve the car accidents that killed them, nor did Maxx deserve to be left alone in his own despair. And cancer doesn't care what kind of person you are or what you deserve.
Maxx steps forward and nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Maxx Layne:[/glow] You need to let it go man. You need to let US go.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] Holding onto the grief will kill you if you let it, just like holding onto the anger with Karen will. Do you even know why you're fighting with her anymore?
Axl stood there, thunderstruck as his parents walk up to him, hugged him and then walked through the door and disappeared. Axl falls to his knees reaching for the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] WAAAAAAAAIIITTT!!!
Amanda hugs him and then walks though the door as well. Chrissy and then Roxy walk over and kiss him before going through the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Please...don't go... don't leave me!
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] We have to man. We've been called home already.
[glow=red,2,300]Maxx Layne:[/glow] Don't worry about us anymore. We aren't the ones in trouble anymore.
Maxx hugs him and then walks through the door leaving only Mike in the room with him.
Axl starts crying like a child and looks at the door.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You can't... can't leave me... not again....
Mike hugs him.
[glow=red,2,300]Mike Duncan:[/glow] You gotta let it go man. It's time. Let it be.
Mike walks through the door and vanishes as Axl starts screaming.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] COME BAAAAAAAACK!!!!
He falls forward crying and starts tumbling through space. He lands hard on the floor of his home, next to the couch and finds himself, awake, crying and actually screaming.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Please... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
As he lies there on the floor, the familiar pain starts and he starts shaking. Cadence runs into the room, worried from the screaming and falls to her knees at his head. She cradles him and holds him close and suddenly, the pain and shaking stops. He starts crying again and holds his hands to his face.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What's wrong? Honey.. what's wrong?
He just continues to cry into his hands as she cradles his head to her chest.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Oh God...
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] Honey...
He pulls himself together and looks up into her worried eyes.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Why does Donny think you were gonna leave?
Caught off-guard she just stares at him blankly.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What?
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Why does Donny think you were gonna leave?
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] He doesn't.
He sits up, maintaining eye contact with both of them looking worried and vulnerable.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Then why did he ask?
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] He... I...
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You've done it before... haven't you?
With her bottom lip trembling she just nods.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You're not going to again are you?
She shakes her head.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] No... no chance... no chance in hell.
He nods and then hugs her tightly as she cries on his shoulder.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I'm sorry I've scared you so much. I never wanted to...
They separate and he looks into her eyes.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's just... I need to tell you a story and then maybe I can clear things up.
She nods and they clasp hands.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It was the fall after my parents died...
High school is never easy, but especially when you're the kid nobody wants to notice. He never cared about that, hell half the time then, he was too hammered to care. I remember like it was yesterday, though it's been almost fifteen years now. He and Sean were sitting in our fourth period computer class bullshitting about what album they would play during lunch and he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them. We sat next to the auditorium while Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction" blared from these shitbox little speakers he had attached to his walkman. You could barely hear the songs but he was jamming out like he was in the front row of a concert at Madison Square Garden. Sean made fun of the speakers and then moved on to his taste in women.
He didn't care, he just sat there head banging, not even noticing that Sean had just insulted his ex.. and future girlfriend. The other two guys, Chris and J.D., both laughed, mostly because they knew he didn't care about the insults at all. I didn't care either, I was just happy to have been invited into a clique.
Pretty soon that clique broke up...
Chris left school and transferred because of an incident wherein he was allegedly caught jacking off behind the gym. Depending on who was telling the story it got wilder and more outlandish every time. First it was just him, then it was him and a chick... then it was him, a chick another dude and a camera. I half-expected somebody to add some kind of animal to the story too. God knows they got mileage out of the fact that the girl's car had a white interior. Either way, by the time that semester ended, Chris had been humiliated, branded a pariah by everyone but those of us in his small and quickly dwindling circle of friends and nearly gotten jumped until we stepped in to stop it. So he transferred away and we never heard from him again.
J.D. followed the smell of pussy away to a different clique. I guess being with the freaks didn't appeal to him anymore. He found a woman as tall as he was named Amber to take him and they were still together when we all graduated so I'd say he made the right choice. They were quite the pair, two six foot tall blondes wandering around arm in arm.
Sean wandered off to think and just never came back. He fell in with the goth crowd and discovered music outside of heavy metal. Suddenly Trent Reznor was his new god and those he'd previously thought to be the coolest were relegated to being "stupid mistakes of his misspent youth." Yeah, it sounded pretentious as hell when he said it then too...since he was still only fifteen at the time. Eventually he formed a band with a couple of his buddies hoping to play a combination of NIN and Tool and drove them all crazy because he acted like he was the Reznor of the bunch. Unfortunately, the dictator tactics combined with the fact that he was the least talented of the bunch drove the rest of them away and his Mourning Violets wilted as fast as they’d bloomed.
That left just the two of us... three when he took that girl Sean had made fun of back... or rather, she took him back.
So there we were, me and Michael Dale Duncan, Jr.... Chaos & Mayhem as our English teacher that year called us. Mike loved that name and it somehow stuck. He turned me on to heavy metal and I turned him on to music outside that. It was crazy to see a redneck like him not playing country and southern rock in addition to his rather cold speed metal fetish, but he opened up when he found out his girl liked some of the same stuff I was pushing on him.
Ah... the power of poontang...
Oh but the metal gods shined on me there too... he played me my first Megadeth and Metallica records and I opened him up to stuff like Travis Tritt. Yeah... go figure on that one right? I turned him onto professional wrestling and he taught me to play guitar.
Everyone we knew always first thought we were brothers and at the very least thought we were sort of an odd pairing at first because though we had a similar dark-haired look... on closer inspection we were total opposites. Mike was everything I wasn’t, charming, funny, skinny, outgoing and good with the ladies. The man just had a way about him that let him charm the girls right out of their pants without even trying. I, was large, quiet, shy and spent most of my time around the ladies listening to them tell me their problems because I wasn’t the kind of guy they wanted to date.
We had other differences too. Mike liked to drink, smoke and shoot his mouth off at anyone he could because he was mad at the world at the time. His home life was terrible and to piss off his father he used to smuggle in Jack Daniel’s in a thermos and tell everyone it was iced tea. Marlboros were seemingly his favorite fashion accessory. And he let his short temper get the best of him all the time. By contrast, I didn’t drink at all, kept to myself and damn near knocked Mike out when he tried to push smoking on me. I think that locker still has the dent from when I put him up against it.
This contrast would manifest itself for the first two years of high school in a way that would become prophetic for later. Mike would get pissed for next to no reason and shoot his mouth off at somebody riling them up something fierce. Said maniac would come after Mike and I’d have to stop him from exposing my buddy and tag team partner’s vital organs to daylight. I got lucky then that nobody at our school carried weapons and that I was big enough for intimidation to work nicely. I also got lucky when Mike’s girl took him back that he cut out the drinking and a lot of the mouthing off to spend time with her. She was a great calming influence on him.
When they broke up just after Christmas in our sophomore year, I expected him to fall off the wagon but a quick blind date that his ex and I crashed and then another girl were able to kibosh his want for the bottle.
Then summer came and with it...
Mike’s knee had been driving him crazy for a good two years. He’d said he’d hurt it playing soccer for the middle school team and just thought he’d finally popped the cartilage or something. There were days when he couldn’t stand up during lunch and would be on the verge of tears it hurt so badly. But his family’s financial state and his parents usual stance of, “shut up you pussy!” along with his own stubborn pride kept him from getting it checked out. He finally went to the doctor two weeks after school ended. He called me up in a Tuesday and I sat there in my closet as I heard him say he had cancer and the doctors had assured him he’d beat it.
I was floored but reacted the same way I always do to major bad news. I asked him if he was all right and then started cracking bad jokes that still somehow made him laugh. When he hung up, I desperately wanted to cry but knew I couldn’t because of what would be coming later. James was never happy when I talked on the phone for longer than five minutes and this call had gone on for an hour and a half. I took a beating for it that night but kept it to myself.
That was the night Mike and my drinking habits switched places. He stopped all together and I started to get a little nip every so often at night to forget what was happening around me. For the next year and a half, the combined weight of my parents’ deaths, James’ beatings, Mike’s illness and the death of my first girlfriend, Chrissy, started to get to me. By the time we were set for graduation, Mike was in remission but had lost a leg. We started two dreams then though that continued for a while. we put together a band and we started preparing for wrestling school. We planned to be a tag team, we’d call ourselves Chaos & Mayhem, of course.
When I was arrested for nearly killing James, Mike was there to support me and when I got out, we picked up where we’d left off. We started getting work in both dream places. Gradually it became obvious that the wrestling was overtaking the band and the other guys split that up.
I still have this great picture from then, our first stable with a rather young Bo standing there next to me, Mike, a guy we knew at the time as C..J. and Big Maxx. It didn’t last long as Bo quickly started to get booked by himself and Maxx figured out this wasn’t for him and just started to be out driver. Bo and I also made sure we never traveled long distances at the same time so that one of us was always home with Erik. C.J. slowly stopped coming and we lost track of him.
But just like high school, Mike and I rolled along as a team. We blew through a lot of places and even dominated in a few of them. He also got himself a girl and would encourage me to work alone sometimes figuring I could use the practice to come out of my shell. He didn’t tell me he’d been feeling crappy again.
Fast forward to Thursday night, May 23, 2003, I’m sitting in Tallahassee talking to him over the internet about plans I’m making because this place, CPW, had called and wanted us both. I told him I’d go in first and then bring him in. He said it sounded good and then dropped a bomb on me. He was going for surgery in Tampa the next day. He told me the reason he’d been working less the last few months was this heavy feeling in his chest. So he’d gone back to his doctors in Jacksonville and they’d discovered a new tumor on his lung. They’d told him they wouldn’t operate because it was too far along and that he should just enter hospice.
I wanted to die right there with him. This couldn’t be happening, you know. He couldn’t be dying then after being fine for years. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t FAIR!!! How could God just decide he deserved this when he’d been through so much and had found love with this Chinese chick from Seattle named Priscilla Wong?
So anyway, he’d found doctors in Tampa who would operate.. mostly because his father made him. I could tell he didn’t really want to do it, that he was tired of fighting and just wanted to enjoy what time he had left with Priscilla. But Dad had badgered him into one more fight... one he knew he couldn’t win but would fight anyway.
Monday morning, the phone rang and I grabbed it while still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. His stepmother Stacey’s voice met my ears and told me the operation had gone off that morning and the news was worse than before. They’d removed his lung and the tumor on it was the size of a fully-inflated regulation-sized NBA basketball. The tight feeling in his chest had been from this monster crushing everything else in his chest cavity. Then she almost broke down as she told me... they hadn’t gotten it all out and that it had spread already. He was sleeping in his recovery room and they didn’t expect him to leave there alive. She told me he probably wouldn’t make lunch which meant I wouldn’t get the chance to say good bye. She said she’d call when he’d passed.
I got that call the next morning, Tuesday, May 28, 2003 at 9:34 A.M. This time it was sister, Mandy, who made the call and asked me if I wanted to be a pall bearer. The funeral happened later that week and I couldn’t wait to leave. I watched them put him in the ground and play some Creed song that Priscilla had told them was his favorite song. That night was when the drinking really started for me.
It’s funny, tonight makes it five years.. and I still hadn’t cried.. until right now...
Cadi touches his cheek as he looks at her longingly, desperate for someone to understand.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] You see, he was the fourth one... the third one I trusted. It's why I'm really upset with Karen... because I trusted her and it's why I've been worried about you leaving and I didn't fully trust you and I'm sorry for that.
[glow=red,2,300]Cadence Canella:[/glow] What is?
He takes her hands in his again.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] Don't you see, every time I trusted somebody, something bad happened. I trusted in my parents and they died right in front of me. I trusted Chrissy and one night she never came home from work. I trusted Dave and got abandoned. I trusted D and he let his brother physically abuse me. Trusted Dave again and got abandoned again. I trusted Eric and he hung me out to dry. I trusted Roxy and she died, trusted her sister Maxine and she chose cocaine over me. And then I trusted Karen and Maxx killed himself. Why does everyone always leave?
Cadi pulls him into an embrace as the tears flood his eyes again.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] It's gotten now to where I don't even know what I want from her anymore. Do I want her dead? Well no.. because no matter how mad I am or have been at her, or hurt I've been.. she's still Karen, the little sister I never had to me.
Cadi continues to hug him, nodding slightly.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] So do I want her to apologize? Well no, she's already done that and really.. what good did it do? We're still set to fight. Do I want her still to admit she's no better than me? No.. because.. one, I really don't think she ever will and two...
The tears of grief, regret and pent-up pain from over all these years just tumble out on Cadi's shoulder.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] I don't want her to be no better than me. I WANT her to be the better person, I WANT her to be that great beautiful dream I always thought she was before.
He pulls back and Cadi kisses him. They look into each other's eyes, both glassy with tears.
[glow=red,2,300]Axl James Slade:[/glow] What am I gonna do?
Cadi pulls him in and they hold each other tightly. Since neither really has an answer all they can do is cry together while hoping that eventually they come up with one before its too late.
