Vestige

 They were more tiny avulsions than lacerations. Because the edges of the bleeding head wounds weren’t approximated, they could only throw in a couple of stitches or so. The rest of this botched scalping attempt would have to be medically glued together so it would close properly. A head full of stab wounds, canoed skin, and dried blood. I looked more like I’d been in a prison yard gang mugging than a wrestling match.

I laid back on the cot in a trainer’s room, a bright overhead light shining over the mess that was made of my head by my adversary. The backstage doctor sat a few inches from me, plunging peroxide covered swabs into my wounds. Each one of the tunneled stab holes burned like a grease fire the moment they were touched. 

Before we began, the backstage physician enlisted one of the trainers to go to the Spanish announce table to grab the pen. He was worried that the tip of the ballpoint might be floating around in one of the wounds. If that were the case, there was a significant likelihood that I’d end up with a secondary infection. I couldn’t have been bothered to care about that at the moment. The only thing I felt was relief. It covered for the fact that I’d probably have to bear some scars for the rest of my life.

“We’ll also have to update your Tetanus shot,” the doctor said, changing out the swab for a pair of pliers on the field set up next to the cot. He took the pliers to separate a previously unexplored wound. He spread open the edges of swollen skin. I felt a trickle of blood run down the inner canthus of my eye. “Yeah, wouldn’t want me getting Lockjaw,” I said. “The people need to hear from their favorite wrestler.” He ignored my comment and went about his work. 

A deep sense of satisfaction aren’t common feelings for most people when directly responsible for the suffering of another. But Alex Desoubrais was a special case for me. I hope he never walked again. Strangely, that sentiment wasn’t borne out of hatred. I respected that man immensely — a hell of a lot more than I’d ever respected anybody else in this business. He was a legend in every sense. He’d never hear me admit it. Nobody would. That didn’t make it any less true. 

Months ago I’d tried to use him as a stepping stone to reach the next level, a sign that I had come into my own and propelled myself into the crowded main event talent scene. I wasn’t able to put him away. Instead, it was the cagey veteran had put down the young cocky punk. Hard fought though it was, I wasn’t on his level even though he neared fifty and I was in my prime. He’d proven it on that night. He was still better than me.

Now, I had always heard from a number of would-be mentors along my path to SCW that one could learn more about yourself in defeat than in victory, and I never could understand it. I hated losing, probably even more than I loved winning. It seemed an impossible concept for me to grasp until the sole of his boot drilled it into my thick skull. CHBK had taught me what nobody else in my six year tenure as a professional wrestler was able to do.

I admit, the loss initially put me into a tailspin. That was until I realized the truth of the lesson he was so kind to bestow upon me. It was a gift, and you look a gift horse in the mouth. I needed to repay him.

So I came back at him with a full heart to put that legend down, in brutal fashion, in front of legions of fans who loved and adored him. Because that’s the only way to kill a hero. When everyone is watching.

I always thought of the SCW fan base as a herd of lobotomized buffaloes, but even the capacity Detroit crowd rose to their feet in raw shock of what I’d done. Joe Louis arena was utterly aghast. Did I enjoy it? Of course I did. Every single second of it. I even savored the things he did to me. I could place the necessity in all of it. I was grateful for every wound he’d been so kind to bestow. I was grateful for the sacrifice of his body he made, fighting ever so valiantly only to be broken by my own hand in the end. It was beautiful.

“How’s the old man?” I asked the doctor. “Did I punch his ticket to the vegetable patch or is he going to be alright?”

“Do you care?” He said. The business side of the pliers opened more aggressively. I grimaced, but stayed still. 

“For all the wrong reasons,” I said. “Call it a concern if you want. I just need to know if there’s something else that I might need to take care of down the road or if I can just assume he’s being fitted for a wheelchair.”

All that bravado and not a single ounce of respect overtly shown, even though I had plenty of it to give. The game was to make sure not even a sliver of it could be detected — even when deserved. I had long ago accepted that doing what I deemed necessary and obeying my instincts would cast me as the villain. This had been my night to this point. It was special to me. More so than any other night in my career. It signified vindication. The question of whether or not one superkick had given me the yips was answered with a resounding no. Two caved in metal chairs told the story.

“What you did to a 45 year old man out there was inexcusable,” he said, aggressively pulling open the wound with the pliers. I groaned in pain, gripping the sides of the cot to stay still. “That’s not wrestling. That’s assault.”

“Right,” I snapped back. “And the ground-up raw hamburger that is currently the state of my forehead is wrestling? Please. That wasn’t wrestling. It was a fight. I was just willing to cross the line one step further than he was.”

I could tell he knew I had a point. I could also tell he really didn’t like me. I wasn’t well-liked backstage in those days for reasons that are beyond my understanding, even amongst the medical staff. 

“In any event, I’d hate to burst your sociopathic bubble,” said the doctor, “but he’s going to be alright. In fact, don’t be surprised if you see him a little later on.”

Well. You can’t win them all. 

“Why, did you see him walk on water before, or do you just think he can wrestle in a body cast?” I asked. I wasn’t interested in hearing about his potential recovery. It incensed me to consider it. “Shut up and worry about fixing me up. I have more work to do.”

He shook his head.

“Don’t mistake my thin veneer of professionalism as respect,” the doctor said. “I’ve met a hundred guys just like you who come into this business because they get off on hurting people. In a few years you’ll be out of this business and people will still be talking about that man whose injury history you exploited. I hope he walks back out there tonight and kicks your ass.”

“Like seeing a ghost,” I said through gritted teeth as he spread open one of the punctates. “Anything that happened to him tonight falls squarely on his shoulders.”

“Whatever helps you absolve yourself,” he said. 

“I don’t need absolution. He does. Such is the curse of the bad back. Everybody knows where to attack Alex. I’m not the first and I may well be the last if he’s smart enough to walk away now while he can. Whatever he carries with him for the rest of his life, he made me do. Painting that target on himself like some kind of martyr. If he wants to walk around here playing up the veteran with back issues schtick, that’s on him. But not even in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine letting an injury history be known to those people whose job it is to inflict pain on me for the sole purpose of beating me in a combat sport.” 

In a way, I almost believed what I was saying. But even to me, it felt mildly disrespectful. Even then, when I knew good and well how this sport afflicted its athletes. He’d given his body for this business. Quite literally broken his back for it. I could sense the disgust in the ringside doctor’s mannerisms as he hurriedly thrust an alcohol soaked swab into the last of my uncharted wounds. I involuntarily grimaced. 

“Well, then may you have a long, healthy, injury-free career, Mr. Hodges,” he responded dryly.

The door opened and the trainer walked into the room, holding a bloodied pen in a clear bag. My blood. It trailed down and formed a blood crusted helix down the white BIC plastic. The formed clot flakes looked like sequins to me. He said, “Looks whole. Tip of the pen is still on,” flopping it down on the table.

He put the pliers aside. “I’m not finding any debris in the wounds, so I can go ahead and close him up now,” said the doctor, snapping on a fresh set of vinyl gloves. He grabbed the hooked nylon with his gloved hand. He smiled, holding the hook close to my face, making sure I could see it. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t numb you up with lidocaine. Just seems so unnecessary to stick another needle in there considering you’ve been stabbed enough tonight.”

Gelatinous flaps of skin didn’t take kindly to the hook end of the suture wire. Exposed nerve endings make any procedure painful, especially when you have the slight reputation of being a dick and the medical staff doesn’t like you or appreciate your attempt to cripple a fellow professional. Oh well. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Five stitches and a tube full of glue finished off his work. I rose to my feet the moment he told me he was finished cob-jobbing my head together and clapped sarcastically. “Gee, thanks, Doc, I feel like a new man.” Flecks of dried blood covered my shoulders and chest. As I stood up, I felt a sharp sting in the center of my right knee and the knee felt like it was going to buckle forward. I’d been feeling it for several months by this time, little sudden weaknesses and occasional aches and pains, but this time it nearly gave out. I caught myself. Shook it off. The remnants of the sting fizzled out.

“Knee giving you some trouble?” He said, washing his hands, looking back over his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I said, steadying myself on my knee. I took a couple steps to bear weight on it. It felt better already. 

“Something you want me to take a look at?” He asked with an obvious air of disinterest.

“Normal wear and tear,” I said. “Cost of doing business. I’m in that ring for this company a hundred plus times a year. I’m bound to have some normal pain. I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, “but just because you’re young doesn’t mean you’re invincible.”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

But of course I was invincible. I was in great shape. I was young. I was mostly healthy minus my penchant to be intoxicated. I reached over bloodied gauze pads and medical tools, and took the plastic bag with the bloodied pen in it as a souvenir from the night’s event. I examined it closely through the plastic.

“What the hell are you gonna do with that?” He asked. 

“I’m going to write a fucking story,” I said as I walked out of the room. 

And what a story it turned out to be. Not only did I step over a legend, but I did so en route to winning the number one contender’s spot. I dashed the hopes of my best friend in the process. I’d take that all the way to the main event at Rise to Greatness, where I became the first ever winner of the rumble to win that main event. Finally. Matt Hodges. World Champion. It felt good to wear that belt. I had used the event to launch myself to that next level where I’d never been able to ascend before, and I did it in a way that could never be replicated. I eliminated the curse of the Taking Hold of the Flame rumble main and opened up the floodgates for more battle royal winners to do the same.

That’s where my legacy ends. That’s the simple reality of torn ACL’s. Turns out there could be marked weakening and thinning over a long period of time. Little shooting pains in the knee coupled by those fleeting moments of instability could be a sign of trouble. Like a tiny tear. So all the while I’m wearing the belt, that minor twinge of discomfort in my knee was the beginning of a tremendous problem. First, a title loss to James Exeter, then, months and months on the shelf. And then again and again and again until a career that should’ve been among the greatest of all time is robbed of all its potential. You become one of the greatest what if’s of the sport.

When they think of your name, they think, what a sad story. What could have been. The sentiment makes me sick. Twelve years after my first and only rumble win, that’s exactly why I’m here. To correct the stigma that comes with that great what if.

I never expected or wanted to be in this position. It makes me respect Alex for his longevity now more than I respect him for anything else he accomplished. Makes me wonder how long my body will allow me to do this for.

How much do I have left?

It feels like a lifetime ago, but in reality it’s just twelve years. CHBK is pushing sixty now. I accused him of being a fossil all those years ago, and now I’m finding myself in his position. With the passage of another twelve years, I’ll be almost fifty. I’ve got one foot in the grave.

I’m already not the same as I once was. In previous attempts to return to the ring I made the mistake of trying to be the Matt Hodges of old. It probably didn’t help my tattered ACL. But I refused to adapt. Now, I’ve learned. I have to rely on different avenues to get the job done if I want to keep playing. Can’t be flashy. Cut to the chase. Ground and pound. Chop the match up into manageable time increments and a speed I can control. If the tempo gets too quick, be as defensive as possible. Eventually, it’ll become clear to everyone just how bad this albatross of a leg really is. 

A battle royal is not a match that works to my benefit.  A one-on-one match I can dictate the pace of for the most part. I can’t control match speed in a forty car pile-up. There are too many moving pieces, too many different styles in one ring. Too many people trying to make a name and do what I did all those years ago for the sake of that title shot. It creates an air of desperation in others that I have to be equipped to cope with — that is, if I’m going to do the unthinkable and win this bitch. I’ll have to be smarter, more aware of my position in the ring. 

All those years ago I bemoaned the Canadian HeartBreak Kid for painting a target on his back. Having been back for two matches, it’s abundantly clear to me that I was wrong. There’s already a big fat bullseye on my knee. Turns out, blood has few secrets when it disperses in shark infested waters. I can do my best to defend it, but as time goes on it will become increasingly clear that it’s the weak link. It makes me wonder how far one of these sad sacks is willing to go in order to achieve their goals. Maybe as far as I was willing to take Alex all those years ago.

The passage of time has thoroughly fucked me in every hole imaginable without even having the decency to offer up a compensatory kiss. I feel cheated. And yet, even still, I’ve proven that at this stage I’m a threat. At the very worst I’m a stalwart of the roster. In a few days I’ll be main eventing my first Breakdown in years. I already took the champion to her limit and I’m just getting my ring legs back. Even if thirty minutes with her fucking exhausted me and made me sore as hell. And then, the truth laid bare to her in the dying minutes of the match, she avoided defeat. Knowing she couldn’t have beaten me, she fled the scene entirely and barely escaped with her title. She was outwrestled. Some champ.

Outwrestled. 

Some people might think of phrases like ‘petulant prick’ or ‘conniving asshole’ when they think of me. I see myself first and foremost as a misunderstood wrestler triumphing over society’s expectations of men. Years ago, the physician that closed up my head made the snap judgment that I was a thug the night I tried to cripple CHBK. He, like many, didn’t understand that above all other things I am dedicated to my craft. But I’m also a man, and sometimes, men have to make unpopular choices when called upon.

It’s after 9:00pm. I put the kids to bed with my wife. My oldest son wants to be just like me, he says, just before he gives me a big bedtime hug. “I know,” I said. 

I unlock the glass door of the ‘facility’ and walk inside. All the lights are off minus one softly dying overhead light. The upkeep is shoddy, but it’s quiet and I have privacy here. A year ago when I realized a comeback was possible, I managed to pay my way to 24/7 access for use of this small warehouse building rented out by some feckless hack never-was who ran what loosely passed for a “wrestling academy”. The kind of place that smelled like the musty inside of a sweat fermented knee pad and was always on the verge of permanent closure.

“Can I tell people that you train here?” The man who runs it asked me. “It would really help us out to know a former SCW World Champion came around.”

“Fuck no. I don’t want people to know I train here. It’s a shithole. It just happens to be a convenient shithole.” I meant every word, even if it did end up costing me double. 

“God, I hope Newark doesn’t smell this bad,” I mutter to myself as I walk towards a bench that sits adjacent to a row of metallic red lockers. I sit down, set down my gym bag, and look around to make absolutely sure nobody is here. Not a single soul.

I never take my warm-up pants off unless I’m alone. I don’t want people looking at the surgical scar on my leg, the same reason I don’t wear trunks anymore and wear tights only to the ring. Over the years it has become something I’m tremendously self conscious about. It signifies a certain failure that I don’t want to explore with random people who ask me all about it when they see it. What happened there? Or, That must have sucked, they would say. Yeah, no kidding, moron. Keep walking. I remove the heavy pants and toss them to the side.

Sighing, I examine the state of my legs. The left knee is healthy with a fibrous, strong band of flesh around the capsule. It looks like the leg of an athlete, a strong calf and a mountainous quadricep overlaying a thick hamstring muscle. My right leg, however, doesn’t have anything near the same definition. It might be unnoticeable to the untrained eye, but if you pay close attention you can see the lagging behind of the quad and hamstring in size and sculpt. Markedly weaker. All as a result of the slightest of limitations in range of motion brought about by thick layers of scar tissue within the joint.

“Useleee piece of shit,” I say to myself, slapping myself on the outside of the useless shit wheel as if a little corporal punishment would spur it into good health. 

I unzip my gym bag and pull out the equipment I’ll need for today, a set of combat ropes and resistance bands. 

One last thing I always do before a workout is take out my notebook and my special pen to mark completed exercises. I carry it in a plastic bag, the bloody dried trickle less a bedazzled crust years later and more red-black intersecting stains. That’s my O-Negative on this pen. The last vestige of what once promised to be an all-time great career. Sure, I may have had to change the ink reservoir a few times over the years as pens are destined to die, but I’ll never use another for things I esteem as important. I’ve signed car titles and contracts with this pen. I even signed my mortgage with it. The realtor looked at me like I was a fucking serial killer. I could see it in her eyes. She offered me a clean one. I said, no, sorry, this is the only one I’ll use. I think that pen has blood on it, sir, she remarked, hoping that I didn’t already know.

Yeah, I know, I told her, and signed the deed. My wife begrudgingly allows me to keep it in spite of her desperate wishes to throw it away. Evidently it’s gross or some kind of health hazard or something. In hindsight, I suppose it probably could be stored in a glass case if I absolutely had to keep it. But where’s the fun in that. What’s the use of a pen that doesn’t write? Isn’t it the same thing as a wrestler who can’t wrestle?

I take my time and stretch out. I’m feeling alright today. I make sure that I feel absolutely primed and ready before I do anything. A few sets of body weight squats load the muscle group with blood. Afterwards, I set my notebook and equipment in the corner of the ring and roll a large sandbag inside. Removing my pen from its bag, I pick it up and cross off my stretching routine. Today’s training session includes defensive and footwork drills, tumbling drills, and some ring cardio.

I climb up the steps and get into the ring. Everything I do today will be geared towards keeping my sieve of a knee joint lubricated and ready.

I run the ropes a few times, shaking off the remaining rust in my wasted ass leg, and then I assume a defensive stance and practice avoiding an opponent lunging for my legs. 

How much do I have left in the tank? Good question to ask myself. Mentally, I always feel prepared. It isn’t a question of desire. The question now is whether or not my body wants to cooperate. So far, so good. But when you’ve got such a storied injury history, ‘so far, so good’ hinges on a split second in the ring, where a string of good health and a healthy ACL could split into a whole new nightmare. 

Most orthopedic surgeons recommend that post-ACL repair you spend somewhere in the range of six months on the shelf. Nine months if you opt to do the full reconstruction.

I evidently didn’t have the option. My own ligament had been fixed so many times that it was deemed a futile procedure. Arthroscopic surgery had failed me many times over. During a pre-surgical consult, he showed me the MRI of what my knee looked like on the computer in his office.

“This is your femur,” he said, “and this is your tibia. And right here is your ACL, the structure that connects the two.”

“I don’t see anything.” I inched towards the screen, looking closely.

“Exactly.”

I couldn’t bend my leg at this point. I was taking too many Vicodin. The leg buckled under even the lightest amount of weight. I could barely function. Couldn’t get anywhere without crutches. 

“What we’re going to do is take a donor ACL,” the surgeon told me the third time I tore it, “meaning from a cadaver, and swap it out with what’s left of yours.”

So evidently I’d be a little more dead on the inside. 

The surgery went off without a hitch, but the surgeon told me there was a lot of corrosion in the joint. Some of the bone was worn down and weakened from friction. Bone on bone. “Like a rusted out ball bearing joint on a car,” he said. 

“Will I be able to wrestle again?” I asked this question all the way back in April 2016. I was 33. Still hopeful for a return to the ring.

Standing there in the post-op suite, he pursed his lips and briefly hesitated before giving his answer.

“I’m going to be blunt, Matt. The chances are slim. The risks for you are pretty significant at this point. It’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to step into the ring with other professional wrestlers on a full time basis again. A wrestler requires stability of the base, and…”

I trailed off. The wrong thing. Stability. That’s never been my strong suit. 

After every training session I ace wrap my knee to keep the inflammation down. On the way home, I stop at a convenience store and grab four large bags of ice.

When I walk into the bedroom, it’s almost 11:30 and Hannah is sitting up in the bed with her laptop situated on her legs. She smiles but doesn’t pull her head away from her computer screen. 

“Please make sure you put that weird blood pen back in the office. I don’t want to look at it,” she said. 

“Fair,” I say. “I’ll take it there in a few minutes.”

“How was your workout?” She asks with a majority of her interest presumably sucked into a Pinterest board. 

“Fine,” I say, getting into the drawer on my dresser that holds my compression shirt and pants. Stripping down, I take off the ace wrap and put on two pairs of briefs and start to put the compression gear on. 

“So it’s an ice bath night.” Finally removing her attention from her computer, she sets it off to the side, swings her legs over, and stands up. “Feeling that good, huh?”

“Just a precaution,” I said, now dressed. I move towards the bed, sit down, and pull on a long pair of socks. “Helps keep the inflammation down. Plus, my back is a little sore. It’ll help with pretty much everything, actually. I’ll come out of this feeling incredible and ready for a long week of wrestling.”

I pick up the bags of ice, two in each hand, and lug them into our bathroom. She follows me, stopping in the doorway. 

“Will you please at least try the essential oils my friend Martha suggested?” Hannah asks. “She says her husband has knee pain and rubbing some of them on it makes it feel a lot better.”

“Sure,” I lied. I hate the essential oils instant that has overtaken this society. If you haven’t been paying attention, now every single ailment can be fixed with a little lavender and eucalyptus. Skin problems, joint pain, you name it. What a revelation. Martha was a bored housewife who made and sold her own essential oils. She didn’t know anything, and her husband didn’t have anything close to my problem. I asked her the last time she tried to sell my wife and I on the virtues of essential oils at a dinner party if she had one that undid over a decade of degeneration. Or, failing that, one that would make Martha shut the hell up. 

He’s joking, Hannah told the rest of the dinner party. Everybody laughed awkwardly. I most assuredly was not.

I start the bath on the coldest possible setting and flip the drain, then extend my hand to make sure the water is cold enough to keep the ice chunks whole.

“I don’t know how you do this to yourself,” she says. “You always moan like a sick animal whenever you do this.”

“You’ve been married to me long enough to know I’m a very, very sick animal,” I make my way over to her, putting my wet hand against her cheek and grab her ass with my other hand. She shrieks with laughter and tries to pull away from me at first, then I move my hands to her hips and she puts her arms around me and pulls me close.

“If I haven’t told you today,” she says, “I love you very much.”

“And I love you,” I respond with all the sincerity I can muster, allowing her to hug me for a few moments before I tap her on the shoulder, the universal sign that I’m ready to end the embrace. She obliges, kisses me on the cheek, then releases me.

She smiles. “Oh, honey, I almost forgot. When you’re done can you look at paint samples with me?”

Paint samples? I just look at her, frozen in place. It seems an out of place time to ask such a question. I’m about to dunk myself into a frigid, watery grave and this bitch wants me to be concerned about different shades of paint. 

“I want to repaint the kitchen.”

Of course she does. “Sure, honey,” I say, mostly to get her to leave. I take a deep breath and close the door. Then I tear open the plastic and dump each bag in.  The kerplunk of the ice as it settles to the bottom of the porcelain.

This exercise in therapeutic self-torture is a necessary survival tactic, kind of like tapping out before your knee can be badly damaged an Ironman match. 

If I don’t do this almost every time I train, even on my best days, the slight gnaw that exists in my knee will grow to an overwhelming pound. It could be next to impossible to stand up out of bed in the morning if I don’t do this. Then I’ll have to explain to Hannah why I can’t get on the floor to play with my sons. Or why I can’t climb a ladder and paint some fucking walls. I’m already lagging behind as it is due to the fact that Lancaster managed to damage my knee. 

Here goes nothing. The tub is full now. I stop the water, dip my sock covered foot into the bathtub slowly and gasp. Then I step over into the rest of the tub. Fuck that’s cold. Lowering myself down into the water, I can feel the water rush through the thin armor of the compression clothing and to the up the insides of my legs. I’m already in a full blown shiver, and then I slowly lower myself the rest of the way into the bath.

Taking a deep breath is hard. The muscles in my back contract and make drawing air a challenge. But I feel my knee relax moments later, and once I feel that faint relief, I remember why it is I do this.

Fuck paint samples, fuck my busted ass body, and fuck ice baths. I’m going to win Taking Hold of the Flame.