RTC1: Too Proud

I was there once.

A world champion.

At the very top of the mountain.


I’m ashamed it took me three days to find her. I don’t talk to my brother anymore, or my sister. Paid for the funeral myself from the flowers to the cremation.

I haven’t left the property much since it happened last year. Haven’t sat in the chair. Got a ton of use out of the home gym she promised me she’d use.

The realtor was late -- perfect -- it gave me enough time to brush my teeth and get the smell of mid-morning whiskey off my breath. I spit down the drain and wipe the residue from my lips. I pull at the bottoms of my eyelids downward stretching the bags formed underneath and sigh.

How did I get here? The world went to shit just like I said it would and I don’t even have the proper stage to say I told you so. I’m probably a couple more drunken nights away from waking up the next morning in mother's clothes like Norman fucking Bates.

Knock, knock, knock.

I don’t know why she even bothers knocking anymore -- she has been to the place more times than anyone in the last year. Picked me up smokes last week -- and up off the floor last month when I passed out and pissed myself before a showing.

“Come in,” I said, inviting the realtor inside.

She was dressed in the usually navy power suit, light make up, brunette hair loosely curled. Angela Parkins. “She’ll find you a place to park it.” Her face and the bullshit slogan were plastered over every park bench in the city.

“Look, I finally got a good offer.”

“I’ll take it,” I replied, pulling a white t-shirt on and stepping out of the bathroom.

“What, I didn’t even tell you how much.”

I grab my leather jacket off the coat rack and check the breast pocket for my cigarettes.

“What do I have to sign. Do you have it with you?”

“Yeah,” she stammers, pulling the papers from her large purse and playing them on the table. “$280,000. I know you said you’d take a little under 300K. I hope that isn’t too much off the mark.”

“It’s fine Angela,” I say grabbing my wallet and keys off the countertop.

“How long will it take to get the furniture out?”

“They can keep it.” I said grabbing my bag, walking around the house filling it with loose clothing I’ve stashed on the top of couch cushions.

“What else do you need out of here?”

“Nothing,” I said, smirking. “Wait, one more thing.”

I walk into the home gym and then to the small blue locker in the corner. Slowly I open the door to the locker and look over a pair of wrestling tights hanging from a hook. They’re gun-metal gray with "English" written down one leg and "Casanova" down the other. Leather wrestling boots to match the same colour tone sitting at the bottom of the locker. I pick the boots up, grab the tights off the hook and toss them into a black gym bag on the floor before picking it up and hanging it on my shoulder.

I walk back into the kitchen and grab a pen off the table and scribble my name on the dotted line for Angela. We don’t talk very much longer before I am out the door and down the driveway looking back at the oversized white-vinyl sided home.


It was a week before mom died sitting at her kitchen table she asked me about my career choice for what felt like the millionth time.

“Whatever happened to that wrestling thing?”

Mom asked me that over dinner I cooked, some chicken parmesan or something. I guess she didn’t like seeing me catering to her, hanging around the house with no ambition like a neutered dog.

“They didn’t respect me enough. I brought a company to new heights, nearly made myself a household name and they wouldn’t even give me a rematch at my World Championship.”

I remember clenching my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would crack.

“I poured my heart and soul into that business. That world title should have been my God damn tombstone.”

She knew how bitter I was about all this. I talked about it every chance I got. I tried to get back in the ring, but the spark wasn't there. I dogged bookers. I took payments and spent the cash on booze -- never showed up to dates, autograph signings. My name started to get put out there as "difficult to work with."

Standing outside her old home, watching the realtor close the door like a chapter in a book, clutching a bag of wrestling gear, I remembered the last two words she said to me.

“That’s always been your problem,” she said. “Too proud.”