YOSO - You Only Suck Once!

[shadesawyer]

The scene fades in with an above shot of me sleeping silently in my rinky dink bed, in my rinky dink apartment in the crappier parts of Detroit. By silently I mean snoring like a banshee and by rinky dink bed I mean a screeching excuse of a bed covered with stinky sheets whose original color I don't even remember. The sheet is going through my right leg, over my gorgeous crotch so it covers my mushroom tip, preventing me from being butt nekkid on camera.

The sun is trying to make its way through the blinders but only a few lucky sunrays dash across the shot, filled with tiny dust particles dancing around like Ewoks.

The shot now gets much closer, closing in on my greying moustache and my lips. Something is bothering me as I sniff in a couple of times and move my mouth left and right in quick fashion, attempting to wipe away whatever's on my nose, or whatever's irritating me. The boom mic is picking up every single sound. Even that of my breathing and wiping my moustache. Fancy shit.

A moment later, as if on que, someone starts banging on my door. With every passing second the bangs get wider, faster and more frequent to the point where I can't stand it anymore, jump out of my bed completely ignoring the fact that I'm naked, forcing the camera to shoot me Elvis Presley style from the waist up and make a bee line toward the door.

On my way to the door we can hear cans, wrappers, bottles and garbage in general being kicked around and stepped on, reassuring you of the fact that I am one untidy son of a gun. Finally, once I reach the door, I wrap my hand around the door knob, twist and pull that thing with everything I got revealing the cause for my nuisance - Jake Parker, the P.R monkey who ran this entire monologue about how I can be a great "product" last week.

There he is - a young buck. No more than 24 years old, likely an intern for a shitty media agency. Sitting there in his neat black sports coat, jeans, white sneakers and an unbuttoned white T-shirt underneath. Hair combed backwards, soaking in gel or some other sticky substance I don't wanna know about and the stupidest "like me, like me, like me" grin on his face that his stupid-ass professors told him evokes positive responses from his clients. He's about to learn that his bullshit academia has no value in the real world, real fast.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Mr.Sawyer! So glad you're home!"

Despite my obvious sleepiness and grumpiness and hangoverness, I still appear to have the ability to be sarcastic, even on an early morning such as this one. I look left and right and back at him …

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "… where else would I be?"

[Jake Parker] ::: "A bar?" - he says as he invites himself in and dashes right by me -" … put some pants on, please."

I'm way, way too sleepy to grab him by the hair and throw him out so I let him come in and ask myself …

[Slade Sawyer] :::" Why am I not in a bar right now … ?"

I must be getting soft. Oh well, let me look through the nearest piles of things for something to cover my dipper with. Meanwhile, Parker is trying his best to find ANYTHING to compliment about my home in desperate attempt of being nice to me so I wouldn't be a jerk to him.

[Jake Parker] ::: "You have a uh … a lovely … a beautiful …"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Save it, kid. Kissing my ass will do the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish."

I say as I put on a pair of dirty jeans on and go through the pockets, patting my ass praying I'll find a cigar and a lighter. I damn sure need it with this clown around.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Alright then, you don't BS - I like that."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Like I said - stop kissing my ass."

Ah, there it is. A cigar - my salvation, my savior, my love. I think I've sat on it a couple of times but who cares. I grab a lighter off the ground, shove the large cancer stick in my mouth and light this bad boy up. I take a few drags to speed up the process and a few moments later - voila. The tip of the cigar lights up like the fourth of July and the magical smell of a freshly lit cigar fillss the air and my lungs, immediately calming me down and giving me the superhuman ability to deal with this bozo.

I slowly walk up to him, taking another drag of the cigar, biting it, and get right in his mug, blowing smoke in his face to see how he'd react without taking it out of my mouth. As expected, he keeps his grin on and tries not to cough too much but I can see his eyes watering. This bastard hasn't smoked a single cigarette in his life.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "So, Parker, what do you want from me? I made it quite clear that I want nothing to do with you and your overly optimistic but ultimately useless project to make me into some kind of important wrestler who appeals to the people. I'm not into that. I told you before, I'm telling you now. My word is law."

Parker looks down and smiles as if he was anticipating my answer and looks up once again, questioning what I just said.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Is it?"

I take another drag and hold the smoke in for a while before releasing it through my nose and giving him a firm yes with a look of disgust on my face.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "…. Yes."

It appears I intimidated him a bit, but surprisingly enough he stands his ground. He must really be determined to get something out of me today.

[Jake Parker] ::: "You also said that it is unlikely that you will sign with Millenium Pro unless the pay was good and it was worth your time. So if your word is law … what happened?" - he took a small pause, squinted and looked right into my eyes - "What changed your mind? Clearly they're not paying you much since your very first match is not only a dark one, but it'll be aired on YouTube. Not exactly a fitting welcome for a veteran. So what made you break your "law"."

I stayed silent for a moment. I don't have to give an answer to this douche. I know he's trying to irk me and get something out of me. Then again, I'd love to see what his deal really is. Something isn't right here. Let's investigate then …

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "You really wanna know?"

[Jake Parker] ::: "I'm all ears."

Parker smiled even wider, thinking he's "got me". Idiot. If he wants to shove his nose in my business and uncover even a small portion of who I am, as if I'm that fucking mysterious, so be it. I cocked my head left and right and scanned the trash covered floor for my cigar case and any empty bottle of Jack. Plenty of options there.

I found exactly what I needed, picked them bot up and shoved them in his face.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "See this? "

He looked at the bottle, then at the cigar case and back at me in confusion.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Yes … ?"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "What is it?"

[Jake Parker] ::: "It's an empty cigar case and an empty bottle."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Key word - empty. You see, Mark …"

[Jake Parker] ::: "It's Jake, sir."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Apologies. You see, Mark …"

He rolls his eyes and puffs as I carelessly drop the cigar case and the bottle on the ground. It hits another bottle (what are the fucking odds) and makes a loud noise.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "… I don't care about a great many things. I don't care if my apartment looks like a Hobo's Delight, I don't care if my sheets smell like ass, I don't care if I smell like ass, I don't care if my neighbor the 89 years old Mrs. Wilkinson sees my gigantic genitalia in the morning and gets a heart attack" - I say as I point out the nearby window - "I don't care if I'm the best wrestler out there and I sure as hell don't care for the professional aspirations of a dipshit like you. Hell, you still have your umbilical cord."

I didn't continue right away. I paused. I took his emotions in. I looked into his eyes and tried to read his fear and fear is what I read. This guy has no clue who he's talking to. He thinks he does but he's far from the truth. I'll give him hell, see if he can deal with it.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "What I do care for, however, more than anything else, are my cigars and my alcohol. That's the only reason why I wake up in the morning and the only thing that keeps me from snapping someone in half due to my rather dark past. Hard to forget and live with but surprisingly easy to drown and smoke away. "

I immediately noticed that his facial expression changed. It's like he realized something or solved a problem he's been trying to figure out for a while. Why?

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "In order to get those, however, I need money. To make money I do the one thing I'm good at and that's work for some corporate or not-so-corporate schmuck who earns his paper by having two men fight in front of an audience and I not only make sure I'm one of those men but I also make sure that I'm the only one able to walk straight when it's all said and done. It's been like that for a long, long while now and it's not going to change."

"As you can see, I have no cigars, I have no alcohol therefore I have .. no .. money. If I am to get cigars, if I am to get alcohol I need to take some drastic measures and if this means working for MPW then so be it. As long as I get mine, I'm a happy camper."

Before I continue I get really close to his face, cigar still tightly placed between my teeth and eyes piercing a hole through his.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Which brings me to my next point. I don't know how you found me and I don't care. I know what you're trying to do and I know who you are and I'm telling you right now - I'm not going to be your school project, I am not going to be a product and I sure as hell am not going to adjust anything in order to fit Madd Katt's desired demographic. I'm not adapting with the times, I will not accept what has happened to the world and I won't even try to ask what the hell a YouTube is. "

"What I will ask, or more specifically DEMAND is that you get the hell out of the waste storage I call an apartment and go "brand" someone else. Brand Kuk, Jason X, one of the girls or Soulsfate. He's the World Champion, he'll pay you good. Me? I won't pay you squat. Instead I'll deposit my foot up your ass because the more you're sitting here the closer we get to the end of the last cigar I have and trust me junior …."

I remove the cigar from my mouth, blow smoke in his face again and whisper the next sentence as I lift my eyebrows and threaten him.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "… you do NOT want to be around when that happens. Have I made myself clear?"

He gulps, looks me in the eye and quickly looks away. I got him right where I want him.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Crystal."

I don't need to say anything else. He knows what he has to do. He has to leave. He once again tries to look me square in the eye but he can't. He can't control it, his eyes dart away, he's about to shit a brick so he walks toward the door and attempts one final act of courtesy.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Good luck with your match against Ace Punisher, Sawyer."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Ace what?"

A smirk and a snotty comment follows next. Figures.

[Jake Parker] ::: "And you say you don't need me …"

I'm done with this fool so I simply slam the door in his face and head back toward my bed in order to finish my last cigar and try not to burn myself alive.

Meanwhile, we switch to a shot beyond my door, in the hallway. Parker quickly whips out his smartphone, dials a number and talks to someone with a shaky, cracking voice.

[Jake Parker] ::: "Eddie, it's me. I've got some bad news. The old man is nothing like he used to be, should I call it off?"

The response you hear is only audio, the shot remains on Parker.

[Eddie] ::: "Not yet. Sawyer is stubborn but he's still Sawyer. Let him cool off for a week, see how he deals with Ace Punisher, then we can proceed."

[Jake Parker] ::: "You're the boss."

[Eddie] ::: "Yes I am."

A moment later we go back to my apartment where I'm just getting ready to re-light my cigar as I hear another knock, this time more subtle and weak but equally as annoying.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Aw for fuck's sake, what do you want now?!"

I growl as I bolt toward the door and open it in one sharp motion. This time around a shorter young buck is sitting there with what appears to be film equipment with him.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Oh, who are you? Where's your mother? Is she hot?"

[Camera boy] ::: "I'm the camera guy you requested and she used to be pretty when she was young."

My eyebrows curl in confusion.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "I didn't request anything. Did that pansy ass Parker send you?"

[Camera boy] ::: "Yes you did, sir, and I don't know who Parker is. Mr.Katt offered you to use a studio facility on location in Jersey but you refused with, and I quote, "shove that camera up your ass, have your turds wrestle and watch as you produce a better show than that sack of dogshit "Takdedown", I ain't walkin' nowhere!""

[Slade Sawyer] :::" I don't remember any of this, it doesn't sound like me".

[Camera boy] ::: "… bitch."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Now it sounds like me."

[Camera boy] ::: "So I was hired to come in, help you shoot your promo and upload it to our YouTube channel as soon as possible. "

I rapidly shake my head left and right and wave my hands around.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Upload .. channel … YouTube, the hell you talking about? I don't feel like shooting promos. Hit the bricks."

I order the kid to leave and try to slam the door in his face as well before he stops it with his hand.

[Camera boy] :::" No! Sir, you have to. You're contractually obligated to do so. If you refuse I will be forced to report back to Mr.Katt and this will most likely lead to your contract's immediate termination."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Termination, huh?"

I paused and thought about this for a second. Then I looked back at all the empty bottles on the floor and my lonely cigar case. The choice was easy. I turned back around with a smile on my face.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Welcome to my humble home."

[Camera boy] ::: "Thank you!"

The kid walked in and tried scanning the radioactive area of my apartment for a good spot for his tripod.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "By the way, how did you find me? "

[Camera boy] ::: "Our New York offices are not far from here and Katt pays for my plane ticket so …"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Doesn't pay for mine. Cheap bastard. So what's this YouTube thing everyone keeps yammering about? I was told I have a dark match and I get that but I blanked out after "upload"."

I say this as I kind of curiously observe as the kid is setting up his camera … things. Makes me feel old and not aptly informed on modern technology. I love that feeling.

[Camera boy] ::: "Oh, it is a website on the Internet. Very popular. People upload their videos on it."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Videos? Like what? Porn?"

[Camera boy] ::: "No, no pornographic material allowed."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Not interested then. So, tell me, what else am I doing?"

[Camera boy] ::: "You seriously don't know?" - he says as he stops and looks up in amazement.

Then I give him a "really?" look and try to hint at who he's dealng with.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Look at me, son, I'm half asleep, my head is pounding and I'm sitting here in a pair of jeans dirtier than my mother's snatch. Do I seem like a guy who keeps up with anything?"

[Camera boy] ::: "Well, for one thing you're wrestling about a week from now."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Who."

[Camera boy] ::: "You're fighting Ace Punisher."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Tell me something about that cat. "

[Camera boy] ::: "Like what?"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Size, style. All I need to know."

[Camera boy] ::: "Erm, small in size, looks like a mean guy, likes to use blades and stuff. Hardcore wrestler it would appear."

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Of course he's a hardcore wrestler. Every skinny sack of shit who can't fight or wrestle goes for the chairs and the razors first. I can swing furniture too, you know. I choose not to. Alright, I'm ready."

I finally relight my cigar, take a drag and blow the smoke out.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Turn that son of a bitch on."

[Camera boy] ::: "But … the lighting, the sound …"

I take the cigar out of my mouth and hold it with my fingers, gesturing with it as I tell the kid what to do.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Fuck the lighting and fuck the sound. Katt puts me in a better match with better pay then he can expect better production values. Start the YouTube."

[Camera boy] ::: "You can't "start" a YouT-…"

I bite the cigar again and growl out …

[Slade Sawyer] :::" I SAID START THE FUCKING YOUTUBE!"

[Camera boy] ::: "Okay, the YouTube … has started."

I take a drag and blow the smoke out right before he starts shooting so for the first few moments of the promo you see nothing but smoke which eventually clears up.

[Slade Sawyer] :::" Look, Ace, I'm going to spare you a lot of bullshit today. You're welcome in advance. I won't sit here and mock your name, pull stupid puns out of my ass in a desperate attempt of adding some comedic value to this. No, instead what I will do is verbally remove your balls and immasculate you by simply call you Susan. Can I call you Susan? It's much easier for me and it does fit you. From the extensive research I gathered prior to the beginning of this promo you sound like a sick, psychotic person and you do strike me as a bit of a bitch - so was my ex-wife. Guess what her name was."

"That's right - Susan. And just like Susan, I'll turn your life into a living hell, you can take that to the bank."

I start walking around, pacing left and right. I can't stay in one place when I speak. I need to move, otherwise I feel like I'm going to explode. I don't even think I'm in the shot most of the time.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Before we venture further into what I have to say about you and our … situation, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I continued this rant without forming a theoretical framework of sorts. You know, highlighting some of the key concepts we're working with here in order to better understand what exactly our predicament is. "

"The first concept would be - bitch. As I have already mentioned, bitch is what you are. I don't know you and frankly I don't have to. It literally takes me seconds to gather enough information about an individual, encode it, quantify the amount of "bitch" in them and determine whether someone is a one or not. You're a bitch, this camera guy is a bitch, Parker is a bitch, Soulsfate is a bitch, Katt is a bitch and my father was a bitch. "

"Based on this it is easy to see that I don't like bitches. In fact, I hate them. I firmly believe that the only reason why bitches are vital to our existence is so the velocity from my boot connecting with their ass can contribute to the rotation of the planet Earth, preventing it from halting its rotation and causing a global ice-age which makes me freeze my cock off."

I take another drag from the cigar and take it out of my mouth. I look at it for a bit and watch as the smoke gently lifts off the tip of it and forms nice swirly figures in the air.

[Slade Sawyer] :::" The next key concept is - trash talk. As you might've noticed, I like to talk and I'm surrounded by trash. It's safe to say that the pure nature of this concept has never been fulfilled in a truer manner than it is right now. Moreover, I think trash talk is what separates me from bitches like you and every other arse ninja I'm forced to share a company with. From my brief observation a lot of people in here prance around the issue like little ballerinas and barely mention the existence of an opponent. I don't know if times have changed or this is yet another example of me being old fashioned, but back in my day when we were supposed to get paid for kicking someone in the teeth we made sure this "someone" knew what was coming by addressing him like a man."

"Instead, the majority of the man-children around today prefer to bore us with their trials and tribulations, their problems and heart-warming life stories. It really makes me wanna go out and kill a dog or something."

I walk over to the nearby window and peep through the blinds with my back turned to the camera as I keep on ranting.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "However, fear not. You will get none of that from me, Susan. I'll address you like a man and beat you like the piss bag you really are."

"Another key concept we'll encounter is the "dark match". For those of you fans out there who don't know what this is, allow me to highlight the most important elements of a dark match. While some may think that the nature of the dark match is that it's not aired on Television, its actual definition differs slightly. The reason why it's called a dark match is because the wrestlers who fight in it get close to nothing for it so they can't pay their electricity bill, turning their homes into dark, loveless, cold, piss-smelling man-caves. "

I turn around and smirk at the camera with the cigar between my teeth.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Now you know."

"The fact that this is a dark match, juxtaposed with the fact that I wouldn't piss on you if your head was on fire AND that I'm getting paid a fraction of what the janitor who sweeps the floor in the arena is, leads me to believe that I really should not try to walk down that ramp, hell on wheels , roll into that ring and absolutely level your ass with the ground."

"Normally, I wouldn't see the potential benefits of me walking all over you. However, your luck has just run out as I am running out of alcohol, running out of cigars, running out of clean underwear and frankly running out of patience. I'd rather win this one and stack up some provisions than not. Plus, my manhood and what's left of my professional pride cannot possibly allow me to lose to a "hardcore" wrestler such as you. Not today. Not any day."

"Here's another concept you need to familiarize yourself with …"

I take the cigar out, blow the smoke out as quick as possible, look dead in the camera and get serious enough for that moron to get the point.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "…. fuck hardcore wrestlers."

"There is literally nothing more annoying I've encountered over my many years in this business, than one of you talentless, hapless, toothless, dickless sickos running around with your war faces on, trying to slash the shit out of people because you're not men enough to do it the old fashioned way. Nothing more annoying. Not even high flyers and don't even get me started on these evasive sons of bitches."

"Just the thought of dealing with these bastards again makes my brain itch."

I take the cigar out and start rubbing my temples slowly. Then I lean back against the window and educate everybody on the plight that hardcore wrestlers are.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "If you've seen one hardcore wrestler you've seen all of 'um. That's why I had Pee Wee over here tell me so little about you. I didn't need to know anything beyond what you try to portray yourself as. You're all the fucking same. You all like blood, you all like violence, you usually cover yourselves with your own blood or someone else's blood and get a sitffy as soon as you do, you squirm around the ring for thirty minutes until you pull some hidden blade or barbed wire or a weird spit thing in your case or an odd anal dwelling contraption that looks like it came straight out of Fifty Shades of Gray and hope that it'll do the trick. You all claim to be crazy, a lot of you probably are, more are delusional and you all graduated from the American Psycho's School of Shit-fucks."

"It's the same old story, over and over again. However, not only are you all equally as annoying, you're equally as inefficient in the ring, too. As soon as some stocky cat like me jumps in that ring you fuckers drop like flies. And no, not because I'm so damn good, it's because you're that damn bad. "

"I hear kids today say "YOLO". That's supposed to mean "You Only Live Once", right? Well let me change that a bit and do my own version of it. "YOSO". "You Only Suck Once". Except, that's not true, is it? You don't suck once. You suck many times over and over again trying to make people bleed and missing the point of the whole contest. "

"This isn't Friday the 13th, this isn't Plastic Surgery for the mentally crippled. If by the end of the match the ring looks like some lucky gal lost her virginity on it you know you did something wrong. Wrestling's not supposed to be about blades and needles. This isn't a damn Ozzy Osbourne concert."

I'm arriving to a point I feel strongly about. There was a time when I valued the general principles of professional wrestling like I valued my own life and there appears to be a bit of this left in me. I take a drag of the cigar and hold it in my right hand, pointing it toward the camera as it zooms in on me.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "It's about one man making another man his bitch through his own strength and domination and as we already clarified - this week you're the bitch and you'll see exactly what I'm running my gums about once I hug you by the neck, with my hands, and squeeze every single bit of life outta ya until your eyes hop out of your sockets and your head pops like a grape."

"Remember, Susan. I talk the talk but I also ..."

I bite the cigar once more

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "… walk the walk!"

The shot from the kid's camera ends and we switch to another one which fits both of us in it.

[Camera boy] ::: "Beautiful! Wow, Slade, you can really talk the talk huh?"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "I'd rather walk the walk. Are we done here? "

The kid looks at the camera and then his equipment and gives me a thumbs up.

[Camera boy] ::: "Pretty much."

Finally, some peace. I need to get the hell out of this apartment. As the kid is picking his gear off the floor and getting ready to dash I put on a white wife beater, a black leather jacket and strap on my smiley face badge on my left side. He appeared to have noticed it.

[Camera boy] :::" What's that?"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "What's what?"

[Camera boy] ::: "The smiley face. The badge."

I look down at it and shift to the side so he only sees my right side, breaking his line of sight for the badge.

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "It's none of your damn business."

[Camera boy] ::: "Why is there blood on it?"

[Slade Sawyer] ::: "Did you not hear what I said? It's none . of . your . damn . business. Come on, pick up your toys and beat it. SCRAM!"

I growl at the kid, maybe for no reason as he hastily gathers all of his equipment and sees himself out the door. The badge is a … sensitive subject. I walk over to the window once more and lift up the blinds so the sun lights up the entire room. I take the badge off, look at it and get a quick flashback for a second.

A flashback of me, many years ago. Years before my hair started graying, years before my life was such a mess. Years when I was happy, passionate, full of life and even love. The flashback included me standing in the corner of a wrestling wring with blood dripping down from my forehead onto my badge as a strange man walks off with a Championship. I haven't thought about this in so long, I barely remember it.

For some unknown reason the flashback triggers something in my brain and I snap, seeing my reflection in the window and punching right through it, ending the promo immediately.