Post by lucasbalkan on Jul 21, 2020 6:09:54 GMT -5
The cold winter air tightened the skin on my face as I stood there. It was not the only physical reaction that I was experiencing but it was the only one related to the temperature. My eyes were bulging. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. My mouth lay open like some slack jawed moron. My veins felt as if on fire with rage and indignation. My fists clenched so tightly that I could feel my nails digging into my palms as my knuckles turned white.
You, again.
I had stood still on the sidewalk for several minutes. Motionless as I stared at this manifestation of the past, an opportunity to avenge where I had been wronged. Someone brushed past me and said something to me about taking up space but I was not listening. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was not in some sleep deprived psychosis.
No, it was him.
How could it be that he was right in front of me? Everything had changed since we had last met. I had almost forgotten about him. Almost. I would never truly forget what he had done to me and what he had taken from me. I exhaled and could see my breath rising in the January chill.
The old me, the angry young man who was raised through the fire and flames of ethnic cleansing, whose puberty was race hate and isolation, whose only channel for the anger and sense of injustice was violence… He knew exactly what to do. Vengeance, not justice. Punish him for what he took from you, it doesn’t matter if you get it back. He needs to be taught a lesson, fuck the consequences.
Of course, I’m older now. It has been a long time since I lived the life of despair and desperation that created him. That being said, he had a point…
“Why should I apologize for being the monster that I have become? No-one ever apologized for making me this way.”
Rarely will pop culture quotes stay with me but Heath Ledger’s character saying that has always stuck with me. I didn’t create who I am, I am just my history and my circumstances made manifest. A thirst for vengeance is never fully quenched, regardless of the time passed.
I started to move down the sidewalk but stopped after a few steps. He wasn’t alone. I had only seen his head and chest from where I was standing. He had been standing talking to a man I didn’t recognise the entire time that I stood staring at him. He was smiling and joking with him. It was completely unrealistic but I couldn’t help but think that he was laughing at my expense. I stopped not because he was in company of those who intimidated me but because he was, in this situation, a father as well as a manipulative and devious bastard.
I’d met his kids, before. Just as I won’t give their father the dignity of his real name, let’s call Frank’s children Child A and Child B. They were often around when I knew their father. I’d guess that they were around 4 and 7 but in truth, I don’t know nor care.
He said his goodbyes to the man and turned around the face the street, looking for a cab. I moved briskly back up the street to my car. He wasn’t getting away that easily. You may be thinking, why do you care so much? He left you hanging for hundreds of dollars but it’s not the world’s most heinous crime? Of course, it’s not. But it was more than this.
He got into a cab and I started to follow them. A few weeks before Frank disappeared with his family and my money, he had asked me to help him out again. He was planning on applying for a loan to expand his business but needed an additional name on the application. This would mean more work and more help, less shifts for me but still the same income. I signed and went along with this.
Then he was gone. He took the loan, the money from the jobs we were doing and he disappeared. There I was, pissed off from losing the immediate income but slowly coming to the realisation that I was the one on the hook for thousands of dollars in debt to a bank. I’m not always the keenest to commit my name to paperwork, being an immigrant who has flirted with both sides of legality since arriving in the USA, and it would take some time for me to convince this bank that I was not the one to blame for this debt.
No, Frank was to blame. And here he was, in the cab directly in front of me.
Eventually, his cab stopped at a hotel and I pulled up across the street. I watched as he took Child A and Child B into the hotel. What was I going to do here? I couldn’t exactly run headlong into the hotel to seek vengeance. I rolled down the window of my car and lit a cigarette. I could phone others to help but this was not their fight. Maybe I should just let it go and move on…
No. There he was. Walking down the front steps, lighting a cigarette and flicking the match away. He actually had matches himself nowadays, it seems. He turned to walk down the street and instinctively, I got out of the car and set off to follow him. He might have been going to meet someone, he may have been heading to the store to pick up something for his family, he may have been going a fucking strip club for all I care. This was my chance.
It wasn’t long until I had caught up to him, he turned the corner onto another street and I as I turned it too, I blurted out his name.
“Frank!”
He turned around and stared, wide-eyed at this moment of reckoning. I grabbed him by his coat and pushed him against the wall of a closed store. He didn’t struggle or try to run off. I let him go and stood in front of him.
“Lucas, I…”
I shook my head and he stopped talking. I took another cigarette from my pocket and lit it. I took a draw from it in my left hand and clenched my right fist.
“Lucas, we were friends… I respect you… I…”
If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that this vengeance need not be feared.
It was Machiavelli who said that, Emerson. His name has become shorthand in psychology for people’s personalities where they are unemotionally cold, manipulative and indifferent to morality. People use his name when talking about evil scheming and working in the background to their own ends. Of the two of us, it’s clear which one that might describe.
You see, while poor “Frank” recovered from his injuries that he happened to sustain back in January 2019, it took him some time. I could not have risked the revenge of a part-time crook impacting on me as I returned to my true path. I don’t fear redemption or revenge but I prefer to make sure that it is not an option. I prefer to be the one dealing the cards of vengeance. In fact, I prefer to stack the deck in my favour.
Now, like when I saw Frank, I look at you my opponent for the World Title on the next SFT show and think “you, again”.
I can still close my eyes and hear the bell ringing. I try hard to shut out the cheers and the chants of the SFT fans from that night every time I step into a ring.
We have some history, you and I. I’m sure there are others whose stories are more intertwined with yours but I don’t care much for them. Our careers have taken different paths since then. You are a multi time champion in SFT, with long reigns and your place in history assured. I left SFT a few months after that dispiriting loss and it took me a long time to be back on the correct path. Through drink, menial jobs, betrayal, solidarity and change, I found my way back to SFT and through the Lethal Lottery tournament. And here I am, at the end point, after fighting my way back to contention and to relevance. And who am I to stand across the ring from? You, again.
You talk about liking and respecting me often.
That I do not say the same to you is not a slight on your character. You are not a bad person, Emerson. Far from it. You are too good, in many ways. A father, a role model, a man of faith… You have many who look up to you, more than you look up to me.
I don’t seek adulation or popularity. I have no family. I have no faith. I have goals and I have a firm belief in my own ability. That is all. I have no real need for titles and trinkets but I do seek vengeance where I see that it is needed.
You took something from me, a long time ago. That was wrong. You are, however, right on many things.
You are right that it is time to right that wrong.
You are right that life has made me strong.
You are right that the world is running out of time.
But, you see, Emerson, I don’t care about saving the world. I care about completing my journey and my redemption. The way that cards have been dealt, you are just the next who needs to fall in order for that journey to be complete.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Trust me, I have been learning from you taking the World Title from me every day since.
It will not be you, again.
You, again.
I had stood still on the sidewalk for several minutes. Motionless as I stared at this manifestation of the past, an opportunity to avenge where I had been wronged. Someone brushed past me and said something to me about taking up space but I was not listening. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was not in some sleep deprived psychosis.
No, it was him.
How could it be that he was right in front of me? Everything had changed since we had last met. I had almost forgotten about him. Almost. I would never truly forget what he had done to me and what he had taken from me. I exhaled and could see my breath rising in the January chill.
The old me, the angry young man who was raised through the fire and flames of ethnic cleansing, whose puberty was race hate and isolation, whose only channel for the anger and sense of injustice was violence… He knew exactly what to do. Vengeance, not justice. Punish him for what he took from you, it doesn’t matter if you get it back. He needs to be taught a lesson, fuck the consequences.
Of course, I’m older now. It has been a long time since I lived the life of despair and desperation that created him. That being said, he had a point…
“Why should I apologize for being the monster that I have become? No-one ever apologized for making me this way.”
Rarely will pop culture quotes stay with me but Heath Ledger’s character saying that has always stuck with me. I didn’t create who I am, I am just my history and my circumstances made manifest. A thirst for vengeance is never fully quenched, regardless of the time passed.
I started to move down the sidewalk but stopped after a few steps. He wasn’t alone. I had only seen his head and chest from where I was standing. He had been standing talking to a man I didn’t recognise the entire time that I stood staring at him. He was smiling and joking with him. It was completely unrealistic but I couldn’t help but think that he was laughing at my expense. I stopped not because he was in company of those who intimidated me but because he was, in this situation, a father as well as a manipulative and devious bastard.
I’d met his kids, before. Just as I won’t give their father the dignity of his real name, let’s call Frank’s children Child A and Child B. They were often around when I knew their father. I’d guess that they were around 4 and 7 but in truth, I don’t know nor care.
He said his goodbyes to the man and turned around the face the street, looking for a cab. I moved briskly back up the street to my car. He wasn’t getting away that easily. You may be thinking, why do you care so much? He left you hanging for hundreds of dollars but it’s not the world’s most heinous crime? Of course, it’s not. But it was more than this.
He got into a cab and I started to follow them. A few weeks before Frank disappeared with his family and my money, he had asked me to help him out again. He was planning on applying for a loan to expand his business but needed an additional name on the application. This would mean more work and more help, less shifts for me but still the same income. I signed and went along with this.
Then he was gone. He took the loan, the money from the jobs we were doing and he disappeared. There I was, pissed off from losing the immediate income but slowly coming to the realisation that I was the one on the hook for thousands of dollars in debt to a bank. I’m not always the keenest to commit my name to paperwork, being an immigrant who has flirted with both sides of legality since arriving in the USA, and it would take some time for me to convince this bank that I was not the one to blame for this debt.
No, Frank was to blame. And here he was, in the cab directly in front of me.
Eventually, his cab stopped at a hotel and I pulled up across the street. I watched as he took Child A and Child B into the hotel. What was I going to do here? I couldn’t exactly run headlong into the hotel to seek vengeance. I rolled down the window of my car and lit a cigarette. I could phone others to help but this was not their fight. Maybe I should just let it go and move on…
No. There he was. Walking down the front steps, lighting a cigarette and flicking the match away. He actually had matches himself nowadays, it seems. He turned to walk down the street and instinctively, I got out of the car and set off to follow him. He might have been going to meet someone, he may have been heading to the store to pick up something for his family, he may have been going a fucking strip club for all I care. This was my chance.
It wasn’t long until I had caught up to him, he turned the corner onto another street and I as I turned it too, I blurted out his name.
“Frank!”
He turned around and stared, wide-eyed at this moment of reckoning. I grabbed him by his coat and pushed him against the wall of a closed store. He didn’t struggle or try to run off. I let him go and stood in front of him.
“Lucas, I…”
I shook my head and he stopped talking. I took another cigarette from my pocket and lit it. I took a draw from it in my left hand and clenched my right fist.
“Lucas, we were friends… I respect you… I…”
If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that this vengeance need not be feared.
It was Machiavelli who said that, Emerson. His name has become shorthand in psychology for people’s personalities where they are unemotionally cold, manipulative and indifferent to morality. People use his name when talking about evil scheming and working in the background to their own ends. Of the two of us, it’s clear which one that might describe.
You see, while poor “Frank” recovered from his injuries that he happened to sustain back in January 2019, it took him some time. I could not have risked the revenge of a part-time crook impacting on me as I returned to my true path. I don’t fear redemption or revenge but I prefer to make sure that it is not an option. I prefer to be the one dealing the cards of vengeance. In fact, I prefer to stack the deck in my favour.
Now, like when I saw Frank, I look at you my opponent for the World Title on the next SFT show and think “you, again”.
Emerson counters the roll up and ends up pinning Lucas.
Ref: 1… 2… 3!
WINNER: EMERSON EMBRY
Lucas kicks out after the 3rd count, he holds onto his head in shock while the crowd erupts in cheers and chants for the new World Champion.
JC: Oh my! Emerson did it! He's the new World champion!
Ref: 1… 2… 3!
WINNER: EMERSON EMBRY
Lucas kicks out after the 3rd count, he holds onto his head in shock while the crowd erupts in cheers and chants for the new World Champion.
JC: Oh my! Emerson did it! He's the new World champion!
We have some history, you and I. I’m sure there are others whose stories are more intertwined with yours but I don’t care much for them. Our careers have taken different paths since then. You are a multi time champion in SFT, with long reigns and your place in history assured. I left SFT a few months after that dispiriting loss and it took me a long time to be back on the correct path. Through drink, menial jobs, betrayal, solidarity and change, I found my way back to SFT and through the Lethal Lottery tournament. And here I am, at the end point, after fighting my way back to contention and to relevance. And who am I to stand across the ring from? You, again.
You talk about liking and respecting me often.
That I do not say the same to you is not a slight on your character. You are not a bad person, Emerson. Far from it. You are too good, in many ways. A father, a role model, a man of faith… You have many who look up to you, more than you look up to me.
I don’t seek adulation or popularity. I have no family. I have no faith. I have goals and I have a firm belief in my own ability. That is all. I have no real need for titles and trinkets but I do seek vengeance where I see that it is needed.
You took something from me, a long time ago. That was wrong. You are, however, right on many things.
You are right that it is time to right that wrong.
You are right that life has made me strong.
You are right that the world is running out of time.
But, you see, Emerson, I don’t care about saving the world. I care about completing my journey and my redemption. The way that cards have been dealt, you are just the next who needs to fall in order for that journey to be complete.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Trust me, I have been learning from you taking the World Title from me every day since.
It will not be you, again.
