Burning

[Smith Jones]

Smith: How do you kill a monster?

Fade up on a shot of the dust-covered right hand of a Caucasian male and the bloody left hand of a Caucasian female lying on the concrete, unmoving. The camera shot stays on their hands. The female hand reaches out to the male. The guy’s hand shoves the girl’s away and then exits the frame. Cut to a shot of Smith Jones and Mya Denton lying on the ground, beaten and bloodied by Brytain and her boys. Writhing in pain. Mya is clutching her knee with one hand while reaching out for Smith with the other. Jones is covered in the ashes that Brytain Montgomery dumped all over him. He clutches the melted and distorted faceplate of the old PCW Broadcast Championship with a feeling of great accomplishment and a feeling of great failure! The ashes are of ultimate concern to Smith. Some of the ashes have fallen to the floor around him, while much of the soot has been soaked in sweat and currently clings to Smith’s skin. He frantically looks around for something to collect the ashes in, aside from the flimsy bag Brytain brought them in. Over in the far corner Jones sees a dirty green coffee thermos that has fallen and rolled underneath a road case. Smith slowly slithers backwards on his back, trying to be careful neither to disturb the ashes on the floor beneath him nor to spill the ashes from his chest. He crawls over Mya’s limp body towards this thermos. He opens it up and the contents are rancid! The fetid stench is nearly overwhelming. Seems like that coffee has been lying there for a few days or maybe a few weeks! Blecch!!! Smith dumps the coffee on the floor and then uses an old rag nearby to wipe to insides ‘clean’. He looks at the ashen mixture that has formed in the perspiration on his chest. Smith carefully gets to his feet and scoops the gray paste off his skin and into the thermos. He then walks over to the ashes on the floor and scoops up as much of the powerdery residue as he can with his bare hands. He is borderline hyperventilating the entire time. Once the gray goop and dust is all inside the thermos, Smith seals it, picks up the warped faceplate, and holds both items close to his heart. His eyes are red and a little moist as he speaks.

Smith: What kind of a person is she? How could she do this? How could she bury me alive in the ashes of my most prized possession? What is wrong with you, Brytain Montgomery??? The very first thing I did after I was attacked by Brytain Montgomery and her masked henchmen last Rapture was to save the Broadcast Title. This goo that I’ve been forced to scoop into a dirty thermos means more to me than ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!! Everybody knows that. The obsession continues. But there are always times in a man’s life when he gets knocked down a few pegs by someone with better footing than he in that particular moment. Bryte, can you see the gray paste woven into my chest hair??? Do you realize how heartbreaking and yet poetically euphoric this is for me??!? It’s like the old Broadcast doll is dissolving into me, becoming part of my very essence for all eternity. It’s horrifying; it’s incredible; it’s perfect. It reminds me of how I felt on April 13th of this year when I stole the show in a too-close-to-call classic against the guy who would soon steal your heart, Syn. This was a truly difficult night for me. It was a true highlight in my notable career. I was the PCW Broadcast Champion at the time. I lost the non-title bout against Syn that night. After that crushing loss, I felt like I was lying in a pile of dirty ash, covered in shame even though I had done an incredible job in that ring against a true living legend. You were in the building that night too, weren’t you, Bryte? You debuted in PCW that night against SM Raye. Isn’t that the chick who dances to the ring on Monday nights? The fans actually cheered for you when you came out there for your inaugural encounter – a sound I’ve never heard before. I debuted last October (as a #heel) against Reaper and won, just to remind you, but whatevs. April 13th was the very first night of your PCW career; indeed, the very first night of the streak. You finished your match in grand fashion with The Thrillkiller, which was called Almost Golden back then. High Angle Senton. Sick finisher. Your opponent from that episode of Rapture would go on to flounder and fail while mine would become World Champion. just to keep things in proper perspective. Then after that night, you… took a month off. Hn. Battle Finale III, I worked, you didn’t. Then came the May 11th episode of Saturday Night Rapture. The night I met Mya…

Smith crawls over to the wall and leans on it to help himself to his feet. He looks reminiscently down at Mya and thinks about the times they’ve had over the past few months. Suntanning in Miami... Scuba diving in Hawaii... Waterboarding in Jamaica -- drat, I mean wakeboarding! Smith smiles. Mya is barely stirring on the floor as Smith now starts to scowl at her. He clutches the dirty green thermos and the faceplate close to his chest and he staggers slowly down the hall leaving Mya Denton behind. He goes into his locker room and locks the door. Smith puts the coffee mug and hunk of metal on the bathroom counter. He gets into the shower still dressed in his full ring attire and hangs his head under the hot water in the shower. He stands there for a long, long time, looking at the ashes on his chest, knowing they must soon go. His soul is deflated as water rushes over his face and down his body. All the soreness of the attack by Brytain and her goons starts to dissipate to some degree. He uses the bar of soap to lather his skin and wash away the dirt and blood. He watches it swirl around his feet and through his toes, disappearing down the drain. This is painstaking and heartbreaking. He tries to go elsewhere in his mind. He thinks about how many hot showers he’s taken with…

Smith: Mya... I may have beaten her that night, but she most definitely won me over. I think it started with that fine ass of hers! When I got into that ring with her and got one good feel of that tight ass and saw the fight in her eyes, I was hooked. That night I knew two things about Mya Denton. I knew from the way she moved her body that she would be fucking unreal in bed and I knew that I could make that dim-witted harlot do whatever the fuck I wanted her to do for me. I quite easily snatched her from the girly-armed grasp of Kai and made her an overnight celebrity faster than Twista! Everybody wanted to know why Smith chose Mya? And of course you all doubted that we would be successful together. Wrong again. As always, I had a plan and it went perfectly. But make no mistake, S&M was always about Smith Jones! And so tonight, I walked away from a lifeless pile of putrid human trash. I have finally cut the dead weight that I no longer need. You see, the fact that Brytain Montgomery chose a cage match for Anarchy negates my need for Mya. She can’t help me anymore. And even though she got me through some dark days and helped me to achieve the greatest of glory, it’s just like the skeptics have been saying all along – he’s gonna turn on her when he’s done, and I am now… done. The title means more to me than you do, Mya Denton. It always has. You shouldn’t be surprised by this at all. You know me better than anyone… don’t you? Perhaps the night we first wrestled each other I should have ended your pathetic little career by snapping your little bird neck with the Point of Controversy!!! That way people would have been buzzing about me instead of that impressive upset victory the same night by a young woman named Brytain, misspelled for coolness factor I can only assume. Defeating Reyna Carter very impressively with a Shining Wizard to the temple and a proud pin. Win number two of your streak.

Cut to a shot of Smith Jones in the front of the white limousine, driving. He looks exhausted. He’s been driving this highway for a long time. The dashboard clock reads 2:29am, but it may be stuck there. Oh there it goes. 2:30. Smith’s expression is a fallen snarl that has settled into a frozen smirk. He keeps driving the lonely highway in search of some light in the distance that never seems to come. His eyes are bereft of hope as he now ponders the possibility of life without love again.

Smith: Win number three of your streak came on a night when it was announced that you would be given a shot at the Broadcast Title that Brian Stryker had somehow managed to win from me under Triple Threat circumstances at Battle Finale III. It was now May 25th, 2013. He was now champion, and Morgan Simmons announced you, Bryte, as Stryker’s next Broadcast challenger for the coming Slamathon pay-per-view! On top of that, you ended Curtis Wilkes’ eleven-match win streak that night on Rapture by hitting The Thrillkiller twice and pinning him! Another shocking win for you! Big one. That night I took out returning superstar William Steele and beat him up so badly he’s still being spoon-fed by a hospice nurse as he watches this promo! Incidentally, this was also the night that Wilkes joined that group I used to roll with, so you pinning him on that particular night still sticks in my proverbial craw.

Smith finally sees a light in the distance that turns out to be a motel in the middle of nowhere. He signs the register as Jay Thunder and the motel clerk pulls out a briefcase and… no, no, just kidding. No briefcase. But Smith does sign in as Jay Thunder just for shits and giggles. He gets to the nasty little room and throws himself down on the bed without regard for how dirty it is. Smith’s mind is not well. He stares at the ceiling and watches the fan slowly turn round and round and round. It’s hypnotic.

Smith: After working your ass off for a few weeks, you were finally given a bit of a rest against Sjin Drako for win number four of the streak. Fair enough. I did coast a bit against Steele the week before, so who am I to talk? That same night, June 8th, I fought that crazy fucker SJ Funk. I thought he was going to be a bigger threat than he ended up being but I shook his psyche to the very core the way I tend to do and he suddenly lost his smile and dropped off the face of the Earth. Probably much safer for him than getting into the ring with ME again. If I were someone like SJ Funk or William Steele, I’d just lay around the house, masturbate, smoke weed, and get lap dances in the Premium Lounge from a dirty stripper in GTAV as much as possible! That sounds like a great life for guys likezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Smith falls asleep. Not just for an hour or even a few hours. Smith sleeps for two and a half days straight! So unlike him. Smith is not a big sleeper, but his lifestyle sometimes catches up with him and, well, he sleeps. Smith has been wearing the exact same gray tee with ‘Insomniac’ written on the front of it in black lettering with a large white X overtop of the whole thing. He’s a filthy mess and his snore is loud and obnoxious. Smith Jones suddenly wakes in a terror! He doesn’t move a muscle. Only his eyes open and he tries to look around, but he can’t even turn his head. He’s frozen from the terror. He used to have nightmares all the time as a young boy that woke him and rendered him frozen like this, unable to call his mother. Unable do anything but feel the fear. A cold sweat runs down his face as he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling fan. The feeling begins to fade as his lips become loose and his voice returns.

Smith: Slamathon. The night that changed everything. It was the first cage match I’d ever been in. The kind of abject barbarism that I feel lowers me as a competitor and puts my very life at risk. I didn’t like it one bit. Why in the world anyone would want to compete in a Barbed Wire Steel Cage Match is beyond me! And here I find myself in that very same situation again going into PCW’s final show, Anarchy. But at Slamathon, I fought Nightrain in one of the scariest matches of my career. My body was broken. My flesh was torn. I still have puncture and rip scars across my abdomen from that match. Despite my terror and my obvious reluctance to compete under such treacherous circumstances, I won that night in the match type that HE chose to die in. That match immediately followed yours. That is where it all began between us, isn’t Brytain? As I entered the ring for my cage match with Nightrain you were leaving with your shiny new belt fresh from Stryker’s grasp. I gave you a look and you gave one back. In that moment we both knew this thing was going to spiral out of control someday. Welcome to someday. The other major thing that came from that night was when Mya offered to visit me in the same hospital. It was the same hospital as Syn and you were all visiting him. None of you came. Brytain, Kai, Zee… none of you! Nobody cared about me but Mya. And that night after you won the PCW Broadcast Title belt from Stryker, you shoved it in your gym bag while you cried for Syn. How dare you, you piece of shit hussy?!!! How fucking dare you treat the belt that way???!?!!?!! That’s when I knew. That’s when the obsession sparked anew. I had to beat Brytain Montgomery for the Broadcast Championship or die trying. It all started at Slamathon.

Smith suddenly gets out of bed and changes clothes. He puts on a gray tank top that says ‘Streak’ on the front of it in black letters with that X over it, the one you’ve come to know as a symbol of excellence in Premium Championship Wrestling! He shrugs on a gray plaid button-down over the tank top. He grabs the green coffee thermos and the faceplate and he jumps into the limo. Smith drives towards the noon sun with no particular place to go. Not eager to head home to his condo in Toronto because Mya might be there. He drives a long, lonely, two-lane highway somewhere in the mid-west. He has little direction; he drives without purpose or focus.

Smith: On the July 6th edition of Saturday Night Rapture, we both did a bit of showing off. You took on SJ Funk (whom, by the way, I handed to you damaged from a few Raptures back) and I fought Totoya Tatsuya in a squash and stole Mya for a ride in my limo for the first time. It was a great night. But all good things come to an end. The following Rapture, you decided you wanted to toy with my emotions and hurt Mya so bad in your match against her that I would break down and cry and quit the biz and proclaim you as the best wrestler on Earth! That didn’t happen. In fact, I stood back and watched you damn near rip Mya’s leg clean off!!! I taunted you and haunted you and you took out your rage on my poor Mya. Hehehehehehehehe!!!!!! Silly Brytain. I never for one second gave a fuck whether you hurt that little pawn or not. It’s like I told your boy Reilly – I see people as objects to use and I use them. She was just another toy to me and I’ll have many more. But, the threat of you was becoming real to me and by this point I had to accept that if there was anyone in PCW who could really hurt me, was Brytain Montgomery. The following Rapture, on August 3rd, you got what is for me your most relevant victory by beating a man I simply cannot beat: your streak went to seven when you pinned Jerry Matthews, albeit off the distraction from The Elite. Watching you pin him… that hurt me. That sent me into a tailspin that I didn’t know if I could recover from. I had to get away. Even thinking about it now depresses me to no end.

Cut to a shot of Jones standing inside an airport staring at the clerk behind the counter. His expression declares him as somewhat hostile, or perhaps just a little disoriented.



Clerk: Sir?

Smith: The Galapagos Islands.

Clerk: Are you…?

Smith: Yes, I’m sure!!! Get me there. I need to be alone.

Cut to a shot of Smith Jones sitting in the waiting area, people-watching as always. Cut to a shot of Smith Jones sitting inside a 747, a window seat as always. There is a red-headed girl, brat that she is, kicking the back of Smith’s seat. Cut to a shot of a redheaded mother wandering the aircraft calling out Jess? Jess? A small tuft of red hair can be seen hanging out of the overhead bin. Cut to a shot of Smith Jones sitting in the back of a helicopter over the Pacific Ocean on a somewhat windy evening. They fly over the open water towards a small island covered with vegetation and curbed with a lovely beach. The pilot drops a rope ladder over the side and throws Smith’s black wheelie bag off the chopper down to the beach below. Smith gives him a dirty look and then descends the ladder. The chopper flies away just as the sun is beginning to think about setting. Cut to a shot of Smith Jones sitting on this sandy beach on this lonely little island in the middle of the ocean, shivering in the light rain that has begun to fall. He sits still and watches the sun disappear. The waves crash in the near distance and he is becoming more and more calm. The time passes without his observance of it. The sun is now gone and Smith sits in the darkness lit only by the moon above.

Smith: I’m Smith Jones and I’m so small. I was beaten by Brytain at Summertime Smash and I haven’t been the same since. I’ve become better! I’ve laughed in the face of your doubt and your words of discouragement for months and months and time after time I’ve been consistent and diligent in my ongoing mission to introduce every seat in the house with a suitable corresponding ass. Losing to that woman at Sumertime Smash lit a fire under me that will not be easily extinguished.

He opens his black wheelie bag and pulls out a bottle of lighter fluid, much like the one Brytain had used to burn the Broadcast belt. He also produces a barbecue lighter and even a few dry twigs he brought with him. He digs a small fire pit and lights a small flame by adding branches from the surrounding area, despite the light drizzle that is falling. Just then, the rain stops and the fire burns just a little hotter. He watches it dance in front of him with a growing smile creeping up his cheeks.

Smith: On August 31st, 2013, while I was beating Yoshiru Long, you were given a night off and you burned…

He reaches into his bag and grabs the green coffee thermos and the faceplate again. He can’t let them go. He stiffens his upper lip and forces himself to say it.

Smith: You burned the Broadcast Championship in a garbage can while I was handcuffed to the ropes and unable to stop you. Your blatant disrespect only made me stronger. On September 14th, when I was beating Curtis Wilkes, you had a gimme match against Derek Jacobs. Gimme a break! But hey, some people say you’re only as good as your last match, so let’s just forget about everything I’ve said in this entire promo!!!! Let’s look at what you and I did in our very last match. In my most recent match, I put away my third straight Hall of Famer, Draven Logan Kennedy. A Hall of Famer that I’ve beaten before at that! What did you do last Rapture in your last chance to tune up for the biggest match of your career? Win number ten of the streak, Paul Blair. -Blink, blink- . Paul Blair. I’m in, quite honestly, the best shape of my entire wrestling career right now. You may have held the PDW Cyber Championship, the WWECR Hardcore Strap, the WWEA Clockwork Championship, the WWEA Hardcore Belt, the WWEA World Title, the highly esteemed PCW Broadcast Championship, heck you can wear the entire goddam alphabet around your waist! Nothing you have ever been through (especially Paul Blair) will prepare you for the battle you and I are about to walk into!!!!!! Believe me, PDW Blind Fury will be nothing compared to what is about to happen to you at PCW Anarchy!!!! This is the end of you and I’m pretty sure that Rape Sloth covers two of the Seven Deadly Sins so good luck in the afterlife, angel. Life after PCW. The last show. The final countdown is on to Anarchy. It is now evident that when Premium Championship Wrestling closes its doors for the very last time, there will be no Broadcast Championship belt. There will only be this dirty green coffee thermos and this warped hunk of gold. I’ve worked my entire PCW career for this title without once ever wavering or giving in to the temptation of moving up or being pushed. I never needed to be pushed. I only ever needed to be planted in a fertile playground full of strong competitors and deep storylines and fucking fighters! That’s what I came here to PCW for one year ago at Anarchy!!! Now, exactly one year later, I will close out my PCW career by winning and retiring the championship I was always meant to have. The obsession will never die. I will always be a champion of PCW. But if I want to make good on my words, I have to kill that pesky monster.

Cut to a shot of Smith Jones in his locker room dressed to compete and sitting on his white leather couch. The camera zooms into his unlaced wrestling boots. He slowly laces them up as he stares at a printed out photograph he must have taken at the shack a few weeks back. It lies on the floor at his toes as he laces up his trademark white wrestling boots. He can’t stop staring at her.



Smith: When I look into those captivating eyes of yours, Brytain, I imagine you as that gangly little seventeen-year-old wannabe on your first day of training, trembling on the ring apron, unsure whether to get in the ring or just run the fuck home. I’ve been fighting all my life in some form or another. Whether it was amateur freestyle in high school or fending off bullies on the playground or fighting my dad off in a cloud of whisky and fists or whether it was during those couple of lean years where winning a fight literally meant eating a hot meal or going hungry. I’ve come to be successful in this great sport because I’m versatile and I’m tough. When shit breaks down, I build new shit. You and I both know that this Cage of Death Match is the kind of thing we BOTH got into this business for. I’m obviously not the kind of guy who prefers barbed wire or electrified cages or glass tables or any of that hack garbage. No, this is not the match type I would have chosen, ideally. I’m out of my element. However, we two time-tested warriors will enter this chaotic environment to prove to a watching world that I AM BETTER. My name ain’t Lifer, doll. I’m not Bennington. I’m a different breed of competitor. This is PC-fucking-W!!! And while you walk into this match with an army of support in your mental corner… Kai and Syn and Jordy and Trickee and Liam and Trissy and Mittens and Scar and Willow and Zee and even little Sprillow… I, Smith Jones, will walk into that cage all alone to finish what I started at Slamathon. I’m tired of fighting for the promise of future greatness! I want my greatness NOW!!!!!!! I have a serious question to ask you, Brytain. Take it seriously. Think about it. Is Syn really what you want anymore or is it ME? After all the things that you and I have put each other through, it’s evident that we understand each other. We are a lot more alike than you want to admit and everybody can see it besides you!!! You like sushi; I like sushi! You like Nine Inch Nails; I like Nine Inch Nails. You like The Smashing Pumpkins; Brytain, my formative years are woven into the melodies of Billy Corgan. Siamese Dream is actually my favourite complete album of all time. #TrueStory! Mellon Collie wasn’t too shabby either. When Smith Jones and Brytain Montgomery get together, we bring out the best in each other! And when we are locked inside that electrified, barb wired, glass tabled, fluorescent lightbulb-ridden, thumbtack littered Cage of Death together at PCW Anarchy in five days, I will push you as far as I know you can go. I know that body of yours inside and out. I’ve played with it like a toy and I’ve seen you on the brink of failure and at the height of success. I’ve been there for all of your triumphs and all of the little pitfalls in between that make life life. You may love him, but you need ME. Go ahead. Deny it! I have no illusions about you walking out on him. I know that won’t happen. I’ll just enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that throughout all of the incredibly intimate times we've shared with one another, we have, naturally, developed feelings for each other. Nobody else out there understands this burning like we do. I’ve touched you. I’m in your thoughts. I can see you, Bryte. You’re a genius. I’m so deep inside your head that I’m not gonna rip your pink hair out, I’m gonna rip it in! The Broadcast Title is mine, honey. You know from this moment on that every time I draw that X across my chest no matter where I go I'll be marking the true Broadcast Title's final resting place. You know there is no more streak to speak of. It is over. It is done. Wanna know what I think of the number eleven? It’s just an X that Smith Jones hasn’t crossed yet. New Broadcast Champion. Anarchy. Farewell to Brytain; farewell to all.

He stares deep into the camera with a rabid look on his face, complete with foaming mouth and piercing eyes. His forehead is deep with tracks and his scowl is damned near lethal. He thumbs through your thoughts looking for something even remotely interesting with which to occupy himself. When your feeble mind bores him, he uses his index finger to draw an X across his chest and he walks out of the camera shot. Fade to black.

Smith: What monster?