“Mama, you’re getting fat,” Adina says. It seems she woke up today and chose death. Kyra smiles at her and I remember that this is a different Kyra. Otherwise, Adina would be a chalk outline. Sitting next to Adina, Chloe Hawkhurst’s eyes go wide. I take this all in, knowing I could have fun with this, but should probably stay out of it. “You needta start wrestlin’ again.”

“Squirt, I don’t think that’s going to work out very well for you.”

I look back and forth between Kyra and Adina. I know Kyra’s been less temperamental, but I wouldn’t blame her if she blew her stack. Kyra’s… is she? She’s smirking. I have got to go to Barnes and Noble and get some books on this. I am so completely baffled by this.

“We’ve got this, Chloe.”

Approximately 17 seconds ago we were all sitting around the island in our kitchen, enjoying some pizza and now, I’m not sure if Kyra’s going to open up a can of whoop ass or if she’s even opened up the proverbial fridge. I think we’re okay…

“Listen, baby girl, you better check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self.” Everyone stops what they’re doing and looks at me. “What? I’ve been getting back into 90s rap since that match with Blade. Not my fault rap went to shit after Tupac and Biggie got aced.”

The look of confusion on everyone’s face takes the air out of the conversation. I mean, my wife was only nine when Tupac was killed. Holy fuck, I am robbing the cradle. Aren’t I?

“So, why ain’t momma wrestlin’? It’s annoyin’ bein’ here all the time.”

As I inhale, Kyra shakes her head ‘no,’ so I follow her lead and back off.

“Listen here you little shit,” she says, still grinning with a twinkle in her eye. “You notice there’s been some changes going on around here?”

“Like what?”

“You know, the stuff Ken’s been doing when he’s been home.”

“Well, uh, he cleaned out his office but I thought he was just puttin’ stuff down in the studio ta make it easier. Going up and down the stairs has gots to be hard when you’re that old.”

“I’m hurt, Adina,” I say as I put my hand over my heart. “Wounded, even.”

“You’re all drama queens. You know that. Right?” Chloe chimes in. She’s not wrong. At the moment, that’s what I’m going for. “Right?”

I hop down off my chair and walk behind Kyra so I can wrap my hands around her waist, resting my hands over her belly. I wonder how long it is until I can feel a kick.

“Point being, there’s a reason Ken is making these changes.”

“I think what they’re trying to tell you is that your mom’s knocked up.”

“What’s that mean?” Adina turns and looks at her mother and I. “Are you both knocked up or just momma?”

Through this whole exchange, I’ve kept mostly quiet. We’ve been meaning to tell Adina, but we weren’t quite sure how. Guess that time is now o’clock.

“You’re going to be a big sister, Baby girl. Mommy’s pregnant.”

Adina responds by bouncing up and down and talking in some kind of gibberish that is coming out of her mouth so quickly that I can’t even tell if she’s speaking English, Spanish, or Klingon.

“Is that what ‘knocked up’ means?” is the first thing she says that I can understand.

“Yes, baby girl. It’s a not so nice way to say we’re going to have another kid.”

I just can’t find any words. It’s like I can feel the glow coming from my wife. I don’t know if it’s some chemical thing or I’m just a super emotional person now. The first time I found out I was supposed to be a father was after I lost Crystal and the baby. I know that I am going to do everything I can to keep Kyra and our mini-me in progress safe.

“So what color do you think we should paint the room, kiddo. Blue or pink?”

“Duh, mommy. Orange. It’s kinda your thing.”

I squeeze Kyra gently. “The child is right, you know.”

“Yeah, I do,” she says, leaning back and kissing the nape of my neck. There are few better feelings than this.

“You know why we’re all here, sitting at this table?” I look to Adina as I ask. “We’re lucky to have this place to be at all the time. When I was a kid, there were times I didn’t have the best place to go. Hell, there were times I didn’t have anywhere to go and slept inside of those tunnels you crawl through so I’d be protected from the weather. I know you’ve been bored lately. I do. I really and truly do. But it’s winter and I can’t have your mother falling and something happening to the baby.”

Chloe looks at me, I guess I got myself a little wound up there. It is one of those things I try to control, but never seem to manage to. She mouths the words ‘I got this,’ before taking over the conversation.

“Here’s the thing, kiddo. I haven’t gone through what Ken’s gone through or what your mom’s gone through or what you’ve gone through. But we all have things we can relate to. You know why we’re here at this table? It’s because we’re special and we’re trying to teach you to be special. For me, Jaiden Rischel saw something in me, at nine years old I was on television as my dad’s valet and I was given opportunities that no other kid had. I’d get home, go to school and see the kids and hear about how Sally went to Six Flags or how little Billy got a new bike. Then they’d ask me what I did and I got to tell them things like “Not much. Just beat Jace Valentine with a frying pan.”

“You beat someone with a frying pan?” Adina’s eyes go wide.

“He went after me first. But the point is, I was in a wrestling ring because I was special. Ken and your mother have gotten to travel the world because they are special. The one thing, now that we’ve gotten way off the topic of the new baby, is that we knew how to do it and we got that opportunity and if we didn’t get that opportunity, we MADE that opportunity.”

“That’s true. If they didn’t give us that opportunity, we’d take it.”

I just sit quietly, listening to the women talking. I swear, if we are graced with a little goddess, I am screwed. I’m already outnumbered.

“The thing is, we were all in. I know there’s more television out there. You get your A match, your B match, your C match, but the thing is, we only got one match, no matter where it was on the show.” Kyra reaches back, scratching below my ear with her nails. Since she hasn’t been wrestling, she’s grown them out just a little bit and has already learned how to use them to send a shiver up my spine. “We had a match back in Carnage. We had one match, Christ sake, I challenge anybody else to go that hard. Yeah…”

“I remember, I remember that, honestly, one of the best… I get… I get…” I hold out my arm as evidence. “I get goosebumps, chill bumps, whatever you call it, just thinking about that match. I remember that match clearly.”

“Holy shit. Now we, we went… I think my point there was after that, Ken and I got put in a program together. We were so conditioned by being in the ring, we were in the gym in the morning, wrestling that night, and back to the gym the next morning.”

“You, your mom, and Chloe, it didn’t matter how the people were. It didn’t matter if they were down, whatever it is. They just couldn’t… they had a bad night or maybe a kid they couldn’t buy some merch for. Before it was, we had them up screaming at us. In my case, throwing stuff in the ring because I was a bad guy.”

“The worst,” Chloe interjects. I continue on pretending I didn’t hear what she said.

“I remember, twenty-six stitches in the lip because of you,” pausing to kiss Kyra on the top of her head,

“Me?”

We’re all laughing together now, even Adina who probably doesn’t get how it’s funny. She’s also been around the business long enough to realize that professional wrestlers are a special kind of special.

“Yes, you. Because you threw a whiskey bottle at me. A little bitty whiskey bottle. It wasn’t even one of those full sized ones because they delivered the wrong size to the arena. Right there, split me open and I bled all over you. You were bleeding, I was bleeding, all night long.”

“And THAT, Adina, is how these two idiots fell in love.”

Another round of laughter fills the room. I wait until the room quiets before continuing.

“Things are going to be a little different for a while. I know you were an only child, but Chloe has been an amazing big sister to you since she came to live with us. I know that you’ll be an amazing big sister, just like she is.”

I grab a couple of slices of mushroom and slide it onto my paper plate.

“On that note, I’ve got something to take care of. Biggest match of my UGWC singles career coming up. Anyone want to come along?”

“No thanks, Daddy. Chloe and I are gonna play some of that game where the cats scratch people to death.”

I raise an eyebrow and Kyra lifts my chin when her head shoots up to give Adina a look.

“Skyrim. She’s playing a Khajit. I’m helping her.”

“As long as she’s supervised,” I say, kissing Kyra on the top of her head again. “You going to be up when I’m done?”

“Of course I am. It’s only 6:30.”

“Good point. All this running around for your cravings at weird hours has thrown me off.”

“Just don’t be too long. I’ll be wearing your favorite outfit.”

“Which one is that?”

“Nothing at all.”

From across the table, I hear two different and distinct fake barfing noises.

“I’ll see you in a bit, babe.”

I grab a napkin or two before turning around and heading downstairs to my studio. I’ve got a piece of pizza hanging out of my mouth while trying to remove the Sin City Wrestling logo off the wall so I can hang the UGWC logo up. Figuring that having cheese grease stains on my shirt is a bad look, I put the pizza back down on the plate and complete switching things to the appropriate company. I am a professional, after all. I finish eating and wash my hands

“Before I get started, I just want to have a word with you, Travis Pierce. You are a hell of a talent, and I respect you. That’s why I had to interfere in your match, to make one hundred percent certain that my hard work paid off. If you should decide that I’ve got a receipt coming, I understand. I am just not the kind of man who can sit back and watch things unfolds when I should be in control of the situation.”

“Back in September of 1996, I walked into the offices of the Cybernetic Wrestling Federation² and I looked at Lex Victor, the man who ran the company, I looked him in the eye and I said, “All I want is an opportunity.” Though I wasn’t the greatest wrestler in the company at the time, I stand here almost twenty-seven years later as the alumnus with the greatest legacy. All because I asked for an opportunity. When I came here to UGWC with Kyra, we told the company, from the suits in the back to fans in the arena, that all we wanted was an opportunity. I have been here a year and a half since then. I tried to do whatever I could do to ask for opportunities. At Wrestlestock, I did something differently. I chose to TAKE the opportunity and enter the District Conquest match and I won that match. I don’t know what it was that got into me, but I saw an opening when this year’s Global Challenge came around and I chose to once again TAKE the opportunity that was presented to me. Now, here I stand and the Block B winner and the UGWC Conquest Championship. It’s like the Motörhead song “The Game” says, “It’s all about control and if you can take it. All of my greatest successes have come when I have taken control.”

“Be that as it may, Zane Scott, I am going to admit that I didn’t expect to be in this position. I especially didn’t expect to be in this position against you. Most people expected to see JC or Tempest here, myself included. But looking at you, your resume, the type of person you are, I may not have expected you to be here, but I’m not surprised, either. I also know that you are going try to get under my skin, much in the same way I used to do to people. I understand how you work. I understand how you operate, you and your ilk, men like Tempest and Cervantes, when facing an opponent. I’m sure that I could ask my sister-in-law how to deal with someone like you.”

I quickly glance down at the notebook where my outline is written. Hopefully, I remember most of this.

“There is a fungus I learned about a long time ago, which reminds me an awful lot of you, Zane. It is called the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus. I haven’t watched the show, but from what I understand, it’s pretty much what “The Last of Us” is based off of. This fungus does exactly what I expect to happen if you win the Global Challenge and potentially win the World Championship. This fungus has just one goal: self-propagation and dispersal. This place would literally go to hell in a handbasket if we anointed a diet Astrocreep as the World Champion.”

“Now, this fungus, it gets into the air, and given the right circumstances, will embed itself in the body of an ant. It infests not just it’s body, but his brain. As the infection advances, the enthralled ant is compelled to leave its nest for a more humid microclimate that’s favorable to the fungus’s growth. The ant is compelled to descend to a vantage point about 10 inches off the ground, sink its jaws into a leaf vein on the north side of a plant, and wait for death. That is what would happen to this company. That’s who you are as a person. You are a parasite. Like the fungus, you would slowly destroy this company from the inside out. The fungus feeds on its victims insides until the ant dies.”

“I know the games you play, Zane. I’m not going to let you infest my thoughts.”

I motion to my attire, my Baltimore Elite t-shirt and plain black jeans. It’s not spectacular. It’s not meant to be.

“I stand before you as a man, just like any other. I’ve had my share of moments, but I know that I don’t have the resume you have, not here at least. You are going to try to use anything you can to come at me, but I really couldn’t give to shits. For once there’s no underlying theme. The issue between you and myself is simply this, the Global Challenge Series. You want to be the Global Series Winner once again and I want to win this for the first time. I’m not hungry. I’m starving. My victories so far have been appetizers and you’re the main course. It’s obvious that you don’t respect me, it’s obvious that you don’t respect anyone. We come out of Block A with the competition there and then you look at me and I know you think you’re looking at what you feel is an easy win. It’s obvious.”

“Throughout this entire competition, you have come out here week after week and you did what you did best. You made some explosive remarks. You got the people to take notice. But you saw that that red light was on and you grabbed the spotlight. That’s all fine and good, but there is more it than that. I used to be that person. I used to be just like you, more style than substance, not in it for the fame, not in it for the glory, not in it for the wrestling. I was in it for no reason other than the fact that it gave me the chance to hurt people. It didn’t matter if it was mentally or physically. As long as I was putting someone in pain, it was a good day at the office. The thing is, I learned that there was more to wrestling, hell, more to life than this. I was a parody of wrestling. And guess what? I didn’t want to be a parody. I wanted to be a world champion. I want to be the UGWC Heavyweight Champion for one reason and one reason only. And it’s not for the fame, it’s not for the glory, it’s so that everybody knows that “Godly” Ken Davison is the one wrestler who will give it everything he has each and every time that I step in the ring. You want to continue to be a parody? Be my guest.”

I can feel that one vein in my forehead that goes hyperactive when I get worked up pulsating a mile a minute. I can hear Kyra in the kitchen, stomping to let me know that I’m getting loud.

“You hear that? That’s the other reason I do all of this. I don’t want personal glory. I don’t want personal fame. I want to be able to get up every morning and be the kind of man that my wife is proud to be married to. I want to be the kind of man that my children will get asked about at school and they can tell their classmates that, yeah, I’m a wrestler, but I’m also one of the coolest dads around. The reason I’m here is this. All of this. I will say it again, all of this. I like to hope that you are smart enough to understand that. I want the fans to be like my family. I want the fans to bring their signs and chant my name because they believe in me. You hear that? When you hear that and you notice someone believes in you, it empowers you, it gives you emotion, and all I wanna do is come out in this ring every single night, sick, tired or hurt, and put my body on the line as a way to say I believe in you as much as you believe in me! That’s what this is for me. It’s not grabbing the spotlight. It is getting people to believe in you and if I don’t give it everything I have, if I don’t defeat you after all of this talk, then what am I here for?”

I slap my chest, hopefully not wincing too much because I know I felt that one. Might have to see the cardiologist and that is the last thing I want to do.

“This, yeah, this means more to me than the vestiges I usually wear. To most people this is just a t-shirt. To me, that’s like saying the American flag is just a cloth. It is not about the cloth, it is about the message that this shirt represents. The shirt represents everything I believe in, the entire reason I do what I do. I know I am red hot right now. I know that I am the unexpectation that walked into this match when most people didn’t think I would. I will continue to stand up for what I believe in. I will continue to fight to put food on my family’s table. I am proud… proud of every single thing I’ve accomplished here. But you should be smart enough to know that I am proud of what I’ve done here, I am proud of who I am and I am proud of what I’ve become. Because what I’ve become is a man who has spent the last twenty seven years wrestling around the world. From Mumbai to Shanghai. From the Isle of Capri to the beaches of Waikiki. From Tokyo right here to the Coalition’s home in Chicago. I’ve been cheered and I’ve been booed but everyone knows what I can do. I’ve wrestled in the most hostile environments, in front of the biggest names this business has to offer. To me, your name is no different. And the difference between you and me is that you are a facade, but I am exactly who I claim to be.”

“Clear and simple, plain as day, you don’t respect me. Not only that, you are not treating this like you treated your matches with JC, like you treated your matches with Tempest because you respected those men. And why should you treat me like that, huh? You have held the World championship here three. You’re a Grand Slam Champion. How could you, how the hell could you understand the hunger, understand the desire that I have for holding the UGWC World Championship JUST ONCE? THAT’S ALL I WANT, IS ONCE! HOW COULD YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? You can’t. Because for you this is just another Global Challenge, but for me this is the biggest match of my KENDAMNED LIFE!”

I’m done. I’ve got nothing left in the tank. ‘I just hope that my best is enough’ I think as I use the remote to turn off the camera.