:: Jason Helms :: He's No Superman ::

Soul searching, epiphanies, moments of clarity… we use a lot of bullshit phrases for the simple act of thinking, for weighing up options… that’s another one in it’s self isn’t it? And the truth is, not every decision is a simple one to make and we do have to put a lot of thought into some of them. For me, this wasn’t one of them.

Making the choice to come to Supreme Championship Wrestling didn’t leave me with any sleepless nights as I tossed and turned in my bed. I tend the fall asleep the moment my head hit’s a pillow and the only one doing any tossing in the bedroom is my wife Aniya. Insert wiggled eyebrows here. It was a logical fucking choice for me to come here, not just because of what I’ve already made clear about this place being the biggest company on the face of the planet right now but because out of all the companies on the planet, this one is also the company where the most people are going to know the surname that I proudly carry once again! That’s right, it was almost entirely based on ego; fuck you if you think you can judge me on that, I’d have to actually feel shame for your views to mean anything… I came here because of the simple fact that people know David and by proxy should know who the fuck I am too!

I never reached the lofty height he did… losing a few years of your life tends to put a stop to your career trajectory to say the least, but I’ll also say this; I have no fucking doubts what so ever about where my own career would have gone had I not taken that tumble that so tragically robbed me of my prime years and left those I once held dear believing me to be dead. So when I was faced with the choice of where to make my return, it just made too much sense to ignore the call of this company, because if I’m going to emulate my brother’s success, if I’m going to outdo what he achieved… then I sure as fuck plan to do so in the place where he called home! I don’t have any hatred for him or anything, not anymore anyway… I won’t bother going into detail, water under the bridge. Ha. But I know for a fact that my career was on track to go the same way as Dave’s was, I know for a fact because at one point we were one of the hottest tag teams on the scene and it’s a fucking travesty that we never got to win the tag titles while we were around in TNT wrestling, a fucking travesty!

But I’m not interested in that anymore, the tag team shit. If it comes up along the way, fair enough… but unlike the kid AJ – idealistic dumb kid, but he’ll learn – I’m not gonna go chasing after tag team gold, because I’ve got my sights set a little higher than that. Why else would I make my grant return to the business at this show? Winner of that rumble gets a world title shot… that’s the level I’m setting my sights at, not the tag titles or anything else, I’m going for the top job, the top spot in the company! I don’t believe in half measures, I believe in going all in and anything other than the winner of this battle royal will be failure… which shows you what level I’ve set my standards at, doesn’t it? And I know I may lose, there’s a very good chance I will, given I’ve got to acclimatise myself to the company and all that crap… but hey, what better way of doing that than to throw myself in at the deep end, huh?

It’s all in the name, ladies and germs… and I’m going to make sure that you remember the name not because of David, not because of the kid carrying it, but because of me. Jason Helms!

Late 2006
New Orleans, Louisiana

Rolling out of bed that morning, my to do list only had one item on it. Go to bar; drink cares away. Short hand note form, who needs all those extra words to slow you down from partaking in the actual items on the list? So you can probably imagine how surprised I was to find that I’d ended up doing far more than simply wallowing in an alcohol-induced bout of self-pity for what was probably the umpteenth day in a row. At this point I’d lost count, basically. And yet it was my attempt to wallow that had ended up with interesting results, because if there’s one thing I’ve come to realise, it’s that barfly’s tent to stick together and despite my unwillingness at first to talk to the chick who had sat next to me in that dingy little bar just outside of the French quarter, I actually realised that company who weren’t treating me as some medical problem was actually pretty fucking refreshing…

But was I getting into something that I’d come to regret? I didn’t know the answer to that one. Most people, they can just say whether they are or aren’t the kind of person that could attack another human being, whether they’re the kind of person that would break the law, it’s a moral issue and people tend to know where they stand without even having to think about it for more than a micro-second… but I didn’t have that luxury. I didn’t have the luxury of simply knowing whether I was that type of person or not, because I didn’t know what kind of person I was! But that’s what was interesting for me, as I struggled to find where I fit in the world; I got to simply throw caution to the wind and find out who I was, I got to test the water as the saying goes and figure things out along the way and hopefully have some fun! Perhaps that’s why I said what I did to Aniya in that bar, maybe that’s why we left after another drink to grab something to eat and talk about the scumbag that had cost her job simply because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. That was justification for wanting to act, at least for me anyway; scum who do that sort of thing deserved to be taught a lesson, and hitting this guy in his pocket probably wasn’t going to make a difference if he made as much bank as Aniya claimed he did… but money wasn’t everything; Aniya getting paid out by suing the creep wasn’t going to make it all alright and my offer of teaching him a lesson probably sounded more attractive because of that.

I guess it was easy to rationalise what I was offering to do, given my distaste for him as Aniya told me about what kind of man he was… and I use that term loosely because as far as I’m concerned, real men don’t touch a woman unless she wants them to. He was a pig, and that was doing a disservice to all real pig’s off the world too; the more I learned, the more rested my conscience became, because I’d basically started to think that his rights weren’t important anymore. He didn’t deserve remorse, even if it only seemed like what he did was something small in the grand scheme of things. You can’t be just a little bit rape-y, assault is assault and this guy hadn’t suffered, even if the courts forced him to pay out for what he did to this young woman! It didn’t help we were both drunk at this point, because bottled courage always results in dumb decisions but what they hell, in for a dollar in for a grand. Funny thing is, fate could have determined whether or not this guy got what he deserved; we’d been sat at the bus stop across from the law firm Aniya had formerly worked at for about fifteen minutes, sharing a bottle of liquor from a brown bag as we didn’t even know if he was in the building or not at this point. Aniya thought that his car was in the parking lot, but it was dark and these assholes all drive the same kinds of fucking car so how do you tell one from the next?! Rich bastards really have no sense of style; so long as it’s expensive and screams status, it’s good enough for them. Eventually, I decided it was probably a good idea for her to go inside and pretend she’d left something behind when she cleared her desk and that way we’d know if he really was in the building.

“He’s still in there,” Aniya told me when she came back out of the building five minutes later with a file in her hand that must have been what she claimed she’d forgotten when she made her way in and I stood up from the bus stop before offering her my arm. “Wait, we’re leaving?” she asked as she linked her arm in mine and I nodded my head as we set off down the block.

“We are,” I told her, turning the corner at the end of the block so that we could double back around the rear of the parking lot. “Because you’ve just been inside the building and I want to make sure they see you leave again,” I added by way of an explanation.

“But if we’re leaving then… I thought you were going to teach him a lesson?” she asked, almost in disappointment. Clearly she was more into the idea of this than I figured.

“And I am,” I assured her as we headed up the alley that ran between the law office and the block that backed off of it. “But not right there on the street where anyone can see… and definitely not where you’ve just been seen by anyone still in the building. Anyone watching will have seen you walk in, walk out again and then watched us leave… and now we’re going to climb over the fence here and wait for this fuck to come out to his car,” I added as the penny seemed to finally drop.

“What if he doesn’t come out alone?” she asked as I cupped my hands together so that she could use them as a step up and over the fence. It wasn’t exactly tall, about six feet at most and wood instead of metal which I could probably have kicked a plank or two out from but that would have been much noisier than I wanted. Clearly I’d learned something else about myself that I hadn’t known that morning; I’m a sneaky mother fucker it seems.

“Don’t worry, he won’t be getting away,” I said after dropping down on the other side of the fence and we huddled down behind a dumpster that provided a bit of shadow in an already dark lot. The carpark was so abysmally lit that only about three of the spaces in the whole lot were lit up and that played right into my hands. “Okay, we need to figure out which one is his… any hints?”

Aniya started to take a better look at the cars, then suddenly her arm flew out as she pointed to a dark blue BMW a few spaces over from where the light in the parking lot was actually doing its job. “That one,” she said, waving her arm. “Private plate, Elbert… a three instead of the ee!” she confirmed, wiggling her finger towards the car.

“Okay wait here,” I told her before sneaking out from behind the dumpster we were hiding behind, making my way toward the BMW as quickly as I dared without risking being seen, passing a couple of other cars which I used for cover on my way. As I reached his car, I had to actually nod my head in appreciation; M3 saloon, a nice car all things considered. Sporty enough to get a thrill out of, but still a businessman’s car when needed. Fat fuck obviously had plenty of cash to bandy about, no wonder he didn’t seem to care about being sued! Creeping to the front drivers side wheel, I twisted the dirt cap off of the valve and used my thumb to pressed down on the little button inside, smiling as the air started to rush out of the wheel, the tyre deflating rapidly until the tyre sat flat on the asphalt. I could have done it far quicker if I’d just slashed the tyre but that was messy and I didn’t want it to look like it had been done on purpose; this way, the tyre could have lost pressure in any number of ways and nobody would suspect a thing.

“Now what?” Aniya asked as I crept back to the dumpster and turned to wait, looking at the entrance to the parking lot where the fat pig of a lawyer would have to walk through to get to his car.

“We wait,” I said, not taking my eyes off the entrance as I looked for the guy… not that it really mattered, because I’d know who he was when he walked to the car, but it hit me as I knelt there waiting that I had no idea what this guy looked like… not that it changed the fact that I was going to scare the shit out of this guy regardless but it just seemed funny to me that I didn’t know anything about him. Come to think about it, I didn’t know anything about this chick either, but sometimes you have to just throw caution to the wind.

“There he is!” Aniya shrieked quietly after about fifteen minutes, her fingers grabbing my arm as she pointed towards the entrance to the parking garage with the other hand. And that’s when I got my first look at the fuck who thought it was a great idea to grab women by the ass… and let’s just say that while some people may be able to get away with doing what he did, you know, guys who look like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp… but this guy, he looked more like Jabba The Hutt than Harrison Ford, and that’s being kind about it. “Eww, even looking at him makes me want to hurl,” Aniya said as we watched him walk towards his car, talking to two of his associates as they headed in the same general direction together. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but whatever it was, Elbert had this big fucking grin on his face and that only served to piss me off even more.

“Okay, they’re all getting into their cars… no matter what, stay here, okay?” I whispered to her, pointing out the obvious I know, but I felt I needed to say something as we watched them all climb into their cars. The two acquaintances were closer to the exit and they’d pulled out before Elbert even had his engine running, but as the tail lights of the other two cars, one Merc and one Lexus, disappeared from view, Elbert finally started his Beemer up and managed to reverse about two yards before breaking and climbing out of his car to look at the wheel. I was already half way towards his car by the time he’d looked down at the wheel and saw the fact that his tyre was entirely flat, and he didn’t hear me coming until it was too late for him, his face squashed up against the hood of his car as I slammed him down onto it. “Hey there pretty boy,” I said, grabbing him hard by the back of his collar and lifting his face away from the hood before smacking it back down again. It wasn’t designed to hurt him, I don’t think I even hit his face on the car, I just wanted to make sure I had his full attention. “Looks like you’ve got a flat tyre dude… you should call triple A or something, get that looked at!”

I made sure to stand behind him, not letting him get even a hint of a look at my face as I drove my knee into the side of his stomach and a pitiful grunt escaped his lips as he sagged against the side of the car, but I hauled him up by the collar again and planted him across the hood again. “Wh-who are you?!” he pleaded, sounding fucking terrified. “What do you want? You want m-money, I have… in my wallet… take it,” he blubbered, but I only applied a little more pressure on the back of his neck; I had no fucking interest in his cash, none what so ever.

“I don’t give a fuck about your money,” I told him calmly as I shifted my hand and grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking his head back. “I don’t want anything from a snivling weasel of a pig like you, man… other than to see you get what’s coming to you,” I breathed, leaning down close to his ear so that he could hear every word.

“Wh-what do you mean?” he snivelled, clearly about the crap his pants already before I’d even got started.

“You think you’re oh so great at hiding all your little secrets, don’t you fat boy?” I said, my voice remaining as calm as I could keep it to make sure he was aware of how I knew what I was doing. “But you’re not as good at hiding your secrets and covering your tracks as you think,” I went on, making this shit up on the fly; fuck knows what he thought I was talking about, I was bluffing about everything, but I couldn’t just tell him the real reason I was doing this or it would land straight back on Aniya’s doorstep and considering I was doing this shit for her in the first place, that was the last thing I wanted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-argh!” he blurted out before squealing as I yanked even harder on his hair. I pulled so hard I think I actually ripped some of it out of his head.

“Just shut up and listen,” I told him, cutting him off before he could babble any further. “I know all about you Mr. Elbert, about what you get up to when not at the office… I know all the sexy little details and where the metaphorical skeletons are hidden… and while I want you to realise how serious I am right now, I also want you to understand that for now, this is just a polite warning; cut the crap and you won’t have to ever hear from me again, but if you don’t… next time I won’t be quite so polite with how I get you to understand my point,” I told him, really taking a gamble that he was the kind of guy to get up to anything nefarious. It seemed that I’d hit the nail on the head though, because he was sweating like a pig and obviously worrying about more than just the guy who had a hold of him. “I’m going to continue watching you, man… and if I see you continue to do what you’ve been doing,” I paused, and for whatever reason I don’t know why I did this but it felt fitting despite being weird as hell but I grabbed his ass with my free hand and squeezed the butt cheek as hard as I could for the irony of it as I continued to talk. “Then you’ll realise how fucked you really are…”

I didn’t give him chance to reply before I clubbed him up the side of the head with my fist; I didn’t throw everything behind it, I didn’t want to leave him seriously injured, just enough to give us the time to escape before he probably pulled out the phone to call the cops. His body slumped down against the car under the force of the blow and he ended in a pool on the floor, but I was already hauling ass back across the parking lot to where Aniya was waiting. She opened her mouth to speak but I shook my head and stood in front of the fence with my hand cupped and quickly helped her stumble back over it before pulling myself up. I threw myself over the top and stumbled as I landed but I rolled through to my feet and grabbed Aniya’s hand before making a break for it. We didn’t stop running until we were several blocks away and only then because Aniya stopped running and my hand was still linked in hers! “I… can’t… breathe,” she said, but she was laughing as he bent over to try and catch her breath. “Fuck, did you see him squirm?!” she asked as she finally managed to get her heart rate back down enough to breathe. “Seriously, he practically crapped his pants right there in the parking lot, man I could have watched that for an hour!”

A twisted smile crept across my face at that. “I’m not sure he could have handled it for that long without having a damn heart attack,” I told her, smirking.

“At least I’d have got my job back if he did,” she told me with a scoff… I probably shouldn’t have laughed at it but it was funny. “Okay, so how the fuck are we meant to follow that up?!” she asked. “Seriously, my heart is hammering so fast right now, I’m soooo hyped… what the fuck do we follow that up with?!”

I could think of a few things, but I definitely wasn’t planning on saying them out loud. Not when I’d literally just threatened a guy for being a creep the way I had. “We could hit a club?” I suggested, not really sure what else there was to do in a city I hadn’t been living in long enough to truly explore...

Apparently, Aniya had other ideas. “I can think of something a little more exciting than that,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the sidewalk as a taxi came driving up the block. She stuck her hand out and yelled for the taxi and he stopped. “I’ve got liquor at my place that doesn’t cost anything and the music will be a damn site better than any club,” she said with a wink. Apparently I could have made those suggestions without fear of sounding like a pervy douche after all. Seems being pretty bad was pretty good after all… not that I was going to complain….

Hollywood Hills, CA
November 2016

I hate barbecues… at least I hate what people call barbecue when they do throw them at home; a few burgers tossed on a grill, burnt sausages and chicken legs, corn on the cob cooked to a crisp on one side and raw on the other… just no! I love real barbeque food, who doesn’t; brisket, burnt ends, ribs marinated in sauce, spice rub, proper barbeque food from the deep south… but the crap that gets served at the average cookout in someone’s back yard just underwhelms me so fucking badly that I get bored quickly and either want to go home, or spend more time concentrating on the beer than what’s cooking on the grill. So you can probably guess how excited I was when a few days after first meeting my holier-than-thou brother on the sidewalk outside our house, we got an invitation to beers and barbecue at his place, a ‘chance to get to know the neighbours’ as he put it when he caught us heading out for a run a few days after moving in. And it’s not like we could have said no either, is it? Oh, you want us to come around for food? Nah, sorry bro, I’d rather piss into the wind while holding my Johnson with a glove made from razorblades, but thanks all the same! That wasn’t going to fly… and even as I searched for an excuse to put such ‘bonding’ on the backburner for a little longer I knew that it was hopeless. I mean, I knew full well that this would have to happen sooner or later; the whole point of moving into the house we’d purchased was because I wanted this to happen, but that asshole is such a stand-up guy that we’d been in the neighbourhood a matter of days when he was holding out the hand of friendship and insisting that we came around to get to know him and his fucking family! Oh Dave, if only you knew just how well I know you already man…

At least the douche bag knew how to throw a true barbecue. No cheap ass burgers or chicken drumsticks, he’d splashed out and put the work in, it almost made it worthwhile to deal with the awkwardness of being sat there in the first place!

I just, the problem was that I wasn’t ready yet. I’ll be the first to admit that this was pretty rushed; as soon as I saw the house for sale, I knew that Aniya and me had to move there, it was too good a chance to pass up, living next door to the douche bag who was partially to blame for me losing everything I had lost over the years… but I hadn’t figured out exactly what I was going to do yet, which was the problem. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to fuck with him, how I was going to mess with his head or how I was going to get him to realise why I hated him. I don’t really think I know what it is I want any more anyway… I mean, I’m not Oil-Baron rich but I have money, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pay cash for a place on Mulholland with such ease, so it’s not like I really needed to get my share from the fortune David had amassed over the years where I had to make ends meet. Aniya had asked if I was sure I wanted to fuck with him when we’d met him a couple of days earlier… and I’d said that I really was sure it was what I wanted, but as I sat there on the deck, watching him cook food for people he’d met literally two days earlier and there was a part of me that was unsure about whether I was doing the right thing or not… I can’t lie about that, it was something that played on my mind, because I had to be one hundred percent sure that I wanted to go through with it, not just for his sake but for my own conscience. But when I thought about everything I’d missed out on, everything I’d gone through because I was defending his honour… I knew I was sure, I did…

“Need another?” A voice said, catching me by surprise and I realised I’d been sat staring at my brother for quite a while, lost in my own thoughts. I turned and looked up to see David’s wife Regan holding four beers in her hands, two bottles in each and she was holding one of her hands out to me for me to take a bottle from her. “Come on, I’m not drinking alone and there’s no better way to get to know the new neighbours properly than cracking open several cold ones… who knows, maybe we’ll even get you guys in the hot tub later and me and your wife can compare and contrast,” she said with a wink and I smiled before taking one of the bottles and thanking her. Winking at me, she turned before walking over to where Aniya sat on a sun lounger and handed her a beer too before walking to her husband at the grill and throwing an arm around him as he gratefully took one of the beers from her and gave her a quick kiss. Aniya, looking over at me, stood up from her seat and walked over to me before sitting down on the empty chair to my right and reaching out for my hand.

“It’s not too late to tell him the truth,” she said in a hushed whisper so that David and Regan didn’t hear what she was saying. “I know what you’re thinking, you’re trying to decide if you should go through with it or not… if you want to change your mind, I’ll support you one hundred percent…”

Twisting the cap from my beer, I just shook my head. “We’ll talk about it later,” I added and in good time because no sooner had I spoke, Regan and David turned away from the grill and made their way over to where we sat.

“Food shouldn’t be much longer now,” Regan told us, dropping down into one of the empty chairs and kicking her feet up.

“It smells delicious David,” Aniya said, a huge smile spread across her face; if I hadn’t been more than aware of what she knew about David and me, I would have believed she was being one hundred percent genuine in her role of appreciative new neighbour. “I didn’t realise how hungry I was until I started to smell what was on the grill!”

“It does smell amazing dude,” I added before turning to look at Regan. “You’ve clearly got him well trained; I just hope he does this sort of thing even when you have no company around,”

“Oh, he knows who’s boss, don’t you babe?” Regan said, grinning. Wouldn’t surprise me either, Superman jobbing to Lois Lane. Sounds about right for my darling brother…

“I guess you’d call me a one hundred percent certified ‘modern man’ or whatever,” David joked and I laughed despite finding it about as funny as having a tooth pulled. “Cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, it used to be called woman’s work sixty years ago, but it’s part of being a grown up,” he added and okay, I saw where he was coming from because fuck the sexist shit, but it still irritated me at how perfect this asshole was. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t so squeaky clean or adored by everyone when we still had a relationship but from everything I’d discovered about him over the last few years, during my research, it was obvious that that was exactly how he was seen, Mr. Perfect, Mr. Never Does Wrong… and it irritated me, it really did! “Then again, you’re one to talk dude,” he went on, and I snapped out of my annoyance to look at him with a quizzical look on my face. “The other day? When you were unloading the van; didn’t you say something about how you were doing all the running around while your wife here gave directions? Looks like I’m not the only one under the thumb!” David said with a laugh and Regan and Aniya both smirked, raising their beer bottles up to one another, as if this was some celebration of our emasculation or whatever.

“Got to keep the little lady happy,” I said, patting Aniya on the back of the hand and she flipped me the bird before another round of chuckles filled the air.

“Men,” Regan said, lowering her beer having just taken a drink from it. “Got to keep them on a short leash, isn’t that right babe?” she asked Aniya and the wife nodded her head.

“Otherwise they go off thinking they’re allowed ideas of their own,” she agreed and the two women shared another knowing look, leaving me and David to grin sheepishly. Of course, I had no doubts over whether his green was legitimate or not…

“Want to give me a hand plating up the food, man?” David asked, and it was obvious that it was an attempt of male solidarity, but if the alternative was getting torn apart by the wives then I was in. Climbing out of my seat, I followed my brother to the grill and when he lifted the lid I have to concede that Aniya bang on when she said it smelled good; I was damn near drooling at the smell alone. “So what’s your story then dude?” he asked as he started to remove the bundled up parcels of foil that held the food. “I know you said you moved from Seattle, but you weren’t born there right? Because I’m from New Jersey and I swear I hear the burbs in your voice a little bit…”

“New York actually,” I lied… well, not exactly a lie. I was born in New Jersey obviously, but after our parents died, I was adopted by a family from Staten Island. So I was actually kind of telling the truth, in a roundabout way. Obviously I didn’t want to go into details though, so I tried to dodge the subject as best as I could. “Grew up on Staten Island, moved to New Orleans when I was twenty and that’s where I met Aniya… rest is history, as they say.”

At first, I worried that he was going to press me on stuff but he seemed to take me at my word without really pushing for answers; guess it was more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to look like he was interrogating the new guy more than anything though, rather than him swallowing everything I was telling him. “Funnily enough, as a Jersey guy, I was never that fond of New York,” he told me as I opened up a foil parcel to reveal a brisket that had been cooking for what looked like the last six months; the smell hit me like a brick wall, I didn’t realise I was that hungry until then. “Food’s ready,” he shouted over his shoulder and I heard the scraping of chairs behind me as Dave and me arranged the food on plates.

Five minutes later, plates of food on our laps, we were back on the chairs around the deck, talking. I can’t say I was paying as much attention as I should, I was distracted by the fact that he’d asked if I was from New Jersey; I know it may have been a coincidence, that he may have simply heard a hint of ‘burbs in my voice and was just curious, but part of me wondered if he’d started to find something a little funny, whether he may be figuring out who I was… and I wasn’t quite sure if that was a good thing or not either. Did I want him to figure out who I really was? Obviously it would be a sign that he actually did give a fuck about the memory of his brother, that he cared about me… but what was more important, him caring or me getting what I deserved? I was pulled out of my musings though, when the conversation required my input and I realised I was supposed to be playing the part of the new neighbour who was happy to be accepted into the neighbourhood. “Sorry, miles away; this really is good David,” I said, hoping the compliment of his food would explain why I was distracted.

“Glad you’re enjoying it bro,” he told me with a smile. “I was just saying that I was hoping that the whole clan would be here to meet you, but the eldest is out with his girlfriend and my ex has the little one…”

“So you’ve got two kids?” Aniya asked, like we didn’t already know.

“Yeah, one’s nineteen and the youngest is six,” David informed us, using his fork to tear off a strip of brisket.

“Wait, nineteen?” I asked, pretending that I didn’t know anything about the kid who now shared our name that he’d adopted. Perfect little prodigy to replace him in the company he last worked before he gave it all up…

“We adopted a couple of years ago,” Regan explained as she used a napkin to wipe her mouth. “We weren’t expecting a seventeen year old kid to turn up, we thought he was actually seven; there was a fuck up in the paperwork and got his date of birth wrong… but Aaron’s a great kid and he’s followed in our footsteps already, works for the company I still work for and David did before retirement…”

“And little Jason is from my first marriage,” David replied, and that hit me like a pistol shot to the heart; I knew he had a little brat that was actually his, but that it was called Jason? “He’s seven in a few months, I don’t know where the fuck the time’s gone I really don’t…”

“You’re just getting old babe,” Regan told him, clearly some sort of in-joke from the way he laughed at her, but I was still stunned by the revelation that he’d named his kid after me. I didn’t know how to respond, and I know for a fact that my face was probably registering my shock but I couldn’t do anything about it, I couldn’t stop myself from the complete surprise that this new piece of information had proven to be!

“What about the two of you, no kids?” Regan asked and I just shook my head; I didn’t trust myself to speak and hoped that Aniya would cover for me.

She did. “Not yet,” she told them both calmly, giving my hand a gentle squeeze to try and get me to pull myself together. “We want kids someday, but we wanted to get to a point where we’re happy with what we can provide them, so it’s one of those ‘someday’ kind of things,” she added, explaining why.

“Yeah, want to make sure we’re ready,” I said, before turning the conversation back a little bit. “So you said you’re little boy is called Jason?”

I was probably playing a dangerous game, dragging the conversation up, turning the subject back to his boy, but David didn’t seem to even question it, jumping into an explanation. “Yeah, me and his mom split when he was still a baby… we named him after my younger brother who died around ten years ago… we both agreed it would be a nice way to keep his memory alive, you know?” he asked and suddenly I wished I hadn’t brought the conversation up.

“You uh, you mind if I use the restroom?” I asked, standing up all of a sudden; I was half expecting to get strange puzzled looks from the two of them and Aniya was definitely looking at me with concern but David just nodded.

“Through the kitchen, into the hallway, door on your left,” he said before taking another bite of brisket and Regan simply turned back to Aniya, keeping the conversation going. I didn’t need the restroom, I just needed an excuse to get out of there for a moment, to pull myself together. I locked the bathroom door behind me and span around on the spot almost feeling like I was about to vomit; I planted my hands on the edge of the counter and took a few deep breaths, sucking the air in so deeply that it actually hurt. This wasn’t part of the plan, it didn’t fit the image I’d built up of what David did after I disappeared and suddenly I was questioning everything I’d planned for until that point. Turning the faucet on, I splashed some cold water onto my face once I was sure I wasn’t going to be sick, before towelling myself down and staring at my reflection in the mirror. And I mean really staring at myself, I took in every detail… looking at my face that reflected back at me, I started to see why David didn’t recognise me. Time had definitely had its way with me over the eleven years since I disappeared, I looked nothing like I once did… should I really blame David when it had been more than a decade since I’d gone missing, and he’d gone through so much over the years that followed? Was I being overly harsh about everything… that was the question and I was starting to second guess everything, which I couldn’t afford to do because I’d already started selling the bullshit story and he’d fallen for it. No, I had to hold it together, and that’s what I told myself as I looked at my reflection. Hold it together dude… hold it together, put your friendly neighbour face back on and get out there…

[Rec]

We click play on the video and as we do, a small loading icon appears in the middle of the blank screen, turning slowly as the video buffers for a moment before fading as the video begins to play. And now that it's loaded, we see a sight that hasn’t been seen by SCW audiences for more than eighteen months, or a variation upon that image at any rate, as we find ourselves in the home office of a certain former SCW Superstar who has not been seen in the company for more than eighteen months now, following his retirement from active competition. We see the desk which features in many of this individuals videos, and the same black chair sits behind it, though the chair is facing to the large picture window in the back of the shot instead of at the camera… but after a moment, the chair begins to spin around on its base and as it revolves, the man in question - David Helms - finally spins into view. Wearing a “Next F’n Level” baseball t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, David smiles into the camera as he gives a quick wave, almost as if he never missed a beat with these videos since his retirement towards the end of two thousand fifteen. “Hey guys,” he says enthusiastically, as he lowers his arm and sits back in his chair, which rolls back from the desk slightly. “So tell me folks… have you missed me?” he says, grinning a little as he does so. “I’m not going to lie, when I first stepped away from the ring, I questioned whether I’d made a big mistake, giving up all I’ve ever really known throughout my adult life… even now, I wonder how much longer I could have gone on for, because I know I had my fair share of injuries over the years and I admit that those same years took their toll on me, but I went out on my own terms when I was still in good shape, so I guess it’s only natural that I start to question whether I could have gone on for longer, right? Honestly, right now I’m feeling better than I ever have, my fitness is probably the best it’s been in years and I could probably climb through those ropes on Sunday night and give as good as I got if I really wanted to, that’s how good I feel right now… and it would have been a hell of a time to come back, wouldn’t it? Taking Hold of the Flame, one of Supreme Championship Wrestling’s iconic nights on the calendar year, a show that people find themselves almost as excited about as Rise to Greatness its self. Everybody has their questions, they want to know who’ll return, who’ll shock everyone, who’ll perform above and beyond their spot on the hierarchy… so many questions that need answers, least of all the question of who the fuck is heading to that main event spot at the granddaddy of them all, Rise to freaking Greatness!” he says, and his eyes are lit up like a child at Christmas as he talks fondly about the biggest show of the calendar year, years’ worth of fond memories no doubt playing through his minds eye as he speaks.

“It’s funny for me though, because the Taking Hold of the Flame battle royal is something that I never really associated myself with during my time in SCW,” he continues, still smiling warmly none the less. “I entered the thing twice during my time with the company, the first back in twenty ten and the second was twenty fourteen when I was looking for a final shot at the big one on the road to retirement, my retirement tour as many dubbed it. I don’t even remember where I placed back in twenty ten, I know it wasn’t great at any rate, but that gave me the kick up the ass I’d needed to truly make my name in SCW because at Rise To Greatness that same year I won the scaffold scramble match that began the rise of the Dangerous one in SCW and believe me bro, that was a fun fucking time for me, it really was!” he says, his eyes twinkling at the memories. “And twenty fourteen wasn’t a bad night for me, I placed in the final five but didn’t quite make it to the end. I never got my dream of competing in the main event of Rise to Greatness, but I made a point of proving I still had it in the battle royal that year, and I look back on fourteen with a hell of a lot more happiness than I do when I think of the following year, losing in the world title match to Kennedy… not that she isn’t a talent, because we all know she is. It’s just a bitter pill to swallow compared to the battle royal, you know? But that’s why I’ve always loved Taking Hold of the Flame, even if I rarely competed in the battle royal, because not only is it the show that kicks off the road to Rise to Greatness but it’s just an exciting as all fuck show to be a part of in any way, even if that only means wrestling on the undercard or even watching from home! And I don’t think I need to talk about the importance of the battle royal, what an opportunity it provides for everyone who competes in it, do I? We all know what’s at stake for the winner of this battle royal and I’d be preaching to the converted if I went into any great amount of detail in this video, because those who enter do so for the exact same reason… they want to stand in that spotlight at the biggest show of the year, knowing they outlasted everybody else in that battle royal to earn that spot!”

The eighteen months away from the act of filming these videos doesn’t seem to have resulted in an awkwardness creeping in as he still radiates an affability with the camera that most would sell a limb to possess. “In fact, looking back on my time in Supreme Championship Wrestling, I actually have to admit that Taking Hold of the Flame is one of the regrets I have,” he admits, bringing an arm up to rub at the back of his neck in slight embarrassment as he continues to talk. “I’m not talking about opportunities I wish I’d had, like a final world title run or a main event spot at Greatness, I’m talking about the fact that I genuinely wish I’d taken the opportunity to compete in the battle royal at Taking Hold of the Flame on a more consistent basis… some things you come to regret straight away and others those regrets creep in after the fact, but not entering that battle royal every damn year is one of them, and I hope that each and every one of you that’s entering this thing this year appreciates just how big this could be for your career, because you can’t take these moments for granted guys, you can’t just assume you’ll rise to the very top without being prepared to try and make your own good luck from time to time! Sunday night, one of you has the chance to elevate themselves to the brightest spotlight there is, and some of you may have been there before and some of you will have only dreamt about but regardless of whether you’ve been there before or dream of making it there, the one thing that is without doubt is that one person is going to that hallowed main event spot and I hope to god that you’re prepared for what that means!” he says, somewhat more seriously than some of what he’s said up to that point. “I know exactly what it means, and a part of me wishes I was one of the people that was involved, like the rumours have sugg--” he continues before his chair is suddenly and violently shoved away from desk, sliding to the right and out of shot, followed shortly by a loud crash as the chair collides with something off screen and a laughing Jason Helms stands slightly doubled up at the spasms from his laughing.

Wiping tears from his eyes, he straightens up and turns to face the camera, planting his hands on the edge of the desk as he leans down against it and looks directly into the lens of the camera.“Sorry about the interruption but the older brother was boring the ever living fuck out of me and I assume that most people agree with me at the best of times and couldn’t give a fuck about those who don’t so I figured I’d do something about it,” he says, ignoring the call of “asshole” from off camera as he smiles crookedly into the lens before continuing. “Okay, so I get that all that crap is important to guys like the one who was just boring you all to tears, but seriously this match isn’t about honor or pride or achieving dreams, it’s about beating thirty-nine other douche bags on your road to proving you’re better than everybody else on the night! And even then it’s only a fleeting moment in the sunshine, a short moment to bask in the glory of victory before you leave the ring and the task turns to making damn sure that you can whoop the ass of whoever is holding that beautiful shining fucking belt when Rise to Dorkness rolls around… sorry, I’m well aware that I’m meant to revere Greatness as the phenomenal show that it is, and in my own special way I do hold that night in great esteem, but with how huge a boner my dork of a brother just got while talking about it, you’ll forgive me for feeling like I have to mock it relentlessly just to remind you that at least one member of the Helms family still has an edge and isn’t a complete lame-ass!” he says, smirking again as David can be heard grumbling in the background. “Not I don’t want to do the guy a disservice, especially with him in the room where he can hear me and is likely to swing for me if I get any bitchier, but unlike my wonderful brother I don’t plan on revelling in the prestige of this event, because it doesn’t matter how prestigious the battle royal at Taking Hold of the Flame may or may not be, unless you’re numero uno when the curtain falls, it doesn’t mean a fucking thing! Riddick, Angel, Hodges, Exeter, Cherry, Winters, Zero, Valiant, Wallace, Taylor and Evans, every winner of the Taking Hold of the Flame battle royal since two thousand and six… see, I do my damn research. And you know, each and every one of those people, they went on to greatness not just literally but metaphorically too; eleven people who each did amazing things in this company, winning that battle royal just one of them… but when you think of this pay per view, it’s those people you remember, those eleven people. Go ahead, try and think about who finished second in each of those years; who did Jason Zero eliminate last in twenty twelve to claim the crown? Who did James Exeter dump on their ass in two thousand nine to grab that spot in the main event of Rise to Greatness? Unless we’re talking about last year and maybe the year before, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that nobody remembers the also-ran’s, the runner’s up… because only winning matters!”

Jason slaps his hands on the top of the desk again before straightening up and starting to pace back and forth, almost straying beyond the boundaries of the cameras lens before turning and walking back to the other side, talking as he walks. “I look at the list of confirmed entrants for this thing, the one’s that you know about rather than the one’s you’ve all spent the last few weeks guessing at like the sad losers you are, and I see a list of what, ten or so former SCW world champions, probably as many of each belt that this company has… there’s current champions in there, a Supreme champion, a Hall of Famer… and then there’s all those unrevealed spots, the one’s you’re all just bursting at the seams to wax lyrical about, one of which is yours truly obviously… but I’m going to assume that we’ll see a fair few surprises once that battle royal gets underway and yet here I am, the guy who stands in his own brothers shadow – sorry David – and probably isn’t even remembered by a single person in that arena on Sunday because most of you are about ten years old or have the memory of a damn goldfish, and yet I’m flat out claiming that I’m going for that spotlight, that infamy that comes with winning. I plan to make those other thirty nine people forgettable in the months and years that follow, because the only thing you’ll be talking about is how Jason Helms walked into this company, shocked everyone in it and walked out with a stamped ticket to the hottest show of the year!” he says, arrogant beyond belief and yet confident with it. It’s not as if he’s bragging, but simply stating facts or discussing something which has already taken place. “I don’t want to place, I don’t want to be an also-ran like thirty eight other people will be this Sunday when the night is over with; I’m the prick with the arrogance to walk straight into this company and set my sights on the fucking top, bro! I’m the fucking douche bag that’s coming in here expecting the respect befitting of the name I was born with, not just because of what that asshole you saw before I took over and everything he’s done here, but because of what it means in this business! Not just in this company, but every company David has been a part of, my own work in TNT Wrestling where David was a world champion and I held the European Championship. I have the fucking audacity to believe I have what it takes to go the entire way in this competition and the onus isn’t just on me to back up everything I said, but on those other thirty nine people too, to stop it from happening!”

Pausing in his pacing, Jason steps back into the centre of the frame and looks directly into the camera again, leaning on the desk with his hands again as he leers into the lens. “The key is to not give a fuck what people think about you,” Jason says, smirking. “I mean, think about all those people you hate, the ones who’ve had success here in SCW despite how much abuse you’ve hurled their way… do you honestly think that they give a rats ass about what you guys at home think about them? Do you think they care about what the rest of the roster think about them? Newsflash idiots, they don’t! Take Regan as an example, my sister-in-law who for reasons known only to herself decided to full in love with my dumbass brother, do you think that she cares that you boo her out of the building every night or that people don’t want anything to do with her backstage? Of course she fucking doesn’t; she’s busy taking names and grabbing opportunities for herself, which will pay dividends when she becomes United States champion this Sunday night, mark my words on that. And right now, I couldn’t give a fuck about what anyone else on this roster thinks of my claims, I couldn’t care less about whether they’re laughing at me, annoyed by what I’ve said or look past me entirely… that’s on them and it’s none of my fucking concern. Regardless of what the popular consensus is going to be now that I’ve shown my face here in SCW, my job remains the same. Win. Win at all costs and fuck the bystanders,” he says, smirking a little as he folds his arms in front of his chest and finishes up his video. “Believe me or not, boo me or cheer me, I don’t care… but you will respect me when that bell rings, you will respect me because like it or not, the name I carry means a lot around here and I’m going to not just live up to it, but--” he pauses, walking out of the shot, only to re-appear a split second later with his brother in tow, who stands there with a mixture of annoyance, embarrassment and a hint of laughter on his face as Jason continues. “I’m not just going to live up to this assholes legacy, but I’m going to show him how it’s really done. He may be a Supreme Champion, he may be loved by each and every one of you idiots out there, but Sunday night? There’s a new Helms in town ladies and germs, and this one didn’t come here to play games. Wanna finish it up, bro?” Jason asks, and David shakes his head with a sigh.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” David says to his brother and Jason simply laughs, nodding his head in agreement that he does indeed know that. Sighing again, David turns back to the camera and, with a slight unwillingness and several reservations, he looks down the camera’s lens and mutters a word that has been synonymous with his career since the early days in Boston and one that has featured on merchandise all over the world. “Bang!” he mutters, and though it lacks his usual enthusiasm, it’s clear that he enjoys being able to say that on a promo video for the first time in SCW in a long time. Next to him, Jason mockingly throws up a Self High Five before breaking his hands apart and throwing an arm around his older brother’s shoulder and David rolls his eyes at the grinning Jason as the video comes to an end. The still frame dims slightly as a replay button appears in the middle of the screen.

[/Rec]