Post by Roberto Verona on Oct 19, 2013 16:46:50 GMT
Hannah rolls over in bed, her eyes gradually creeping open as she yawns, adjusting to the darkness which has enveloped the room. Sitting up she rubs her eyes, look to the side of her to see an empty space which she strokes worryingly with her hand. Sliding her legs out from beneath the duvet she slips her feet into a pair of slippers before staggering haphazardly out of the room and down the corridor towards a warm orange glow. Poking her head around the corner she sees Roberto sitting in front of a burning fire, a glass of merlot gripped tightly in his hand, yet he seems to be transfixed on it rather than consuming any.
Hannah Reed: Are you still awake?
Roberto doesn’t respond.
Hannah Reed: You know all of these late nights aren’t going to do you any good, why don’t you come to bed?
Verona still doesn’t respond, instead he continues to gaze into the glass as the contents swill against the side.
Hannah Reed: Roberto…
Hannah walks towards him, prompting him to break his gaze and look up at her.
Roberto Verona: I thought you were asleep.
Hannah Reed: I was… but you know I find it difficult to get comfortable without you there. I never feel safe when you aren’t.
Roberto Verona: I’m only a wall away…
Hannah shrugs.
Hannah Reed: I know, call it silly feminine psychobabble, but I like to feel protected. It’s pretty difficult when you’re not even in the same room.
Roberto Verona: I won’t be much longer.
Hannah Reed: You said that three hours ago.
Roberto sighs.
Roberto Verona: I’ve got a lot to deal with.
Hannah walks over to Roberto, kneeling down next to him on the floor before resting her head on his arm.
Hannah Reed: I know that, but you’re only one man, you shouldn’t be killing yourself to please everybody.
Roberto Verona: It’s nothing to do with pleasing them.
Hannah Reed: Then what is it? You’ve been so withdrawn lately and last week…
Hannah looks away briefly, gulping as she tries to find the words.
Hannah Reed: Well, I’ve seen you hurt people before, but that was something else.
Roberto Verona: Haven’t you heard? The chairs are fake.
Verona scoffs and shakes his head.
Hannah Reed: I’m not judging you for it, everybody knows what they’re getting into in your business but… I’m just worried about you. You’re not usually distant with me, I’ve always been privileged enough to know the real you behind the façade.
Hannah pauses, almost as though she is bracing herself.
Hannah Reed: Please don’t get mad with me but is this… is this about, them?
Hannah nods towards a photo above the fireplace. Suddenly she can feel Roberto’s arm go tenses under her gentle grip.
Hannah Reed: Roberto…
Roberto Verona: Don’t.
Hannah Reed: Please I just want to help…
Roberto Verona: Hannah…
Hannah Reed: You can talk to me…
Roberto Verona: No!
Suddenly Roberto leaps up out of his seat, taking Hannah by surprise, before hurling the glass of fine furiously against the wall. Shards of glass fly across the room as Verona breathes heavily whilst Hannah backs away in fear.
Hannah Reed: Roberto… you’re scaring me!
Roberto Verona: I told you, don’t ever talk about them…
Hannah Reed: I know! I just don’t like seeing you like this!
Roberto turns, opening his mouth as if to reply before suddenly withdrawing back into himself, his shoulder slumping and his eyes closing.
Roberto Verona: I’m sorry… just… go back to bed…
Roberto turns and walks away, grabbing a set of keys from a nearby table before walking out of the front door, letting it close gently behind him as Hannah sits in silence, still in a state of shock. A few moments past before she turns and look at the fireplace again whilst the camera fades and zooms in on the picture that caused such an abrupt, uncharacteristic outburst. A simple family picture, two adoring parents, and young boy.
You’re a disappointment.
Perhaps that word has lost some venom for you, Joe, after all you hear it every single week and truth be told, the roster have eroded its impact. Yet there is not better word, no more eloquent and apt a description, to use when addressing you.
You, Joe Everyman, disappoint me, my staff, the rest of the roster and the fans who love you.
By now it should be self-evident that my disappointment has little to do with your prowess inside a wrestling ring, we all know that you’re the most bi-polar performer to walk into this business. One week you’ll look like a man who deserves to grace the same ring as men of my calibre, the next you resemble somebody who should never have advanced beyond the position of bag bitch.
No, my disappointment is entirely invested in your inability to make the most of the opportunities gifted to you.
I gave you the world, Joe, and you embraced your demons and watched it burn. Everything I invested in you, all of the faith I reserved for you and heck, even the joy that little wrestling fan in me had because you finally did it… you threw it all back in my face. You were finally granted the chance to prove yourself to the world, and to yourself, and none of it was good enough for you.
Was it, Joe?
Since the day I returned to active duty I have been built in the perennial pariah, all because I have had the audacity to stand up and say what everybody else is thinking. Every one of your fans may be screaming your name when you stagger down to the ring the week, but you know as well as I do that those aren’t the tones of unwavering support anymore. You have rattled them to their core, you have betrayed their faith in you and no matter how desperate you may be to restore that, you waste your energy in perpetuating the myth that I am the devil incarnate.
What do you have to gain from “kicking my ass”, Joe?
Let’s ignore for a second that I am on another stratosphere to you professionally, because we both know that a in a brawl it rarely means shit. Do you genuinely think that expressing yourself violently will solve your problems? I am sure punching me in the face will make you feel better, but that satisfaction will only last for so long. Hurting me won’t make the pain you feel for fucking up the best thing you’ve ever had in your career by hiding from your problems.
Beating me will just be like knocking back another vodka. A temporary buzz.
You’ll celebrate with all of your Everymaniacs, get a few pats on the back from the boys in the back who want to see me laid on my ass and when you get back to your couch your little house whore might show you a little reluctant affection through pity laden tears.
Then what?
Beating me won’t help you beat the bottle, I am not the first person to use you as his personal bitch and I won’t be the last. You’ll still be Joe Everyman, alcoholic. That label defines you more than any achievement you can possibly attain inside a wrestling ring. Defeating me is just a temporary fix to a greater problem, you’re using a Band-Aid to heal a gunshot.
Since day one of this little back and forth, you have been focusing your entire efforts on portraying me as an unreasonable demagogue, abusing his powers to make your life a total misery because I get some sick kick from it. Your only end game in all of this has been to achieve some arbitrary, and rare, victory over me in a wrestling ring before you undoubtedly crawl back into your dichotomy of denial. Yet all the while…
You should have been thanking me.
Be still your indignation for a moment and actually engage your brain, if you can see through the yeast haze. Would you have ever really made any efforts to address your demons if I hadn’t plastered them all over the headlines? You would still be living a life of a fraud if I had never returned and driven my kneecap through your face.
The only person who has finally stood up and made you address your problem is me.
Yet, I am the bad guy? Because I don’t allow you to hide from your indiscretions and play professional wrestler on a weekly basis? Because I am not going to make your brush with the law simply go away? Because for the first time somebody is holding you accountable for your actions?
The only reason you are making even a token effort to beat this disease is because I have forced you to. It isn’t the mother of your children staggering around like a common tart, it isn’t the soft tones of Dr Griffiths and it sure as shit isn’t because you genuinely want to, all of these are by-products of me acting like the boss you’ve never had.
Leonard and Kelly may have been happy to ignore your years of indiscretions because they were content with milking the universal sympathy you, but in IWF the buck stops with me. You think that I am heartless yet I am the only boss you’ve ever had who cares enough about you to make you come out of the Budweiser closet and accept your deficiencies and actually work to correct them. You’ve bought into the theatrics of professional wrestling, just like everybody at home and convinced yourself that I am the problem.
Everything I have done has been to force you to fight back, to finally face your fears and address them. The only person who has forced me to do it so publically, has been you. The only person to blame for your predicament, is you. All of this could have been achieved behind closed doors.
I am just a convenient scapegoat.
Big bad Roberto, the monster under the bed, the perpetual bogeyman, it’s a tiresome and predictable typecast. I am easy to hate because I cultivate that fruit by partaking in the weekly pantomime that is our business. If you had come to me privately instead of bribing law enforcement officials, I would have helped you, but instead you decided to bring my company’s name into disrepute because you’re too little of a man to admit your mistakes. Yet, instead, you have just made me the villain, you’ve transferred you battle against the bottle to a battle against a make-believe villain.
You want the ruthless caricature I play on screen every week? You want to pander to the image of the heartless boss instead of humbling yourself and asking for my help? Then so be it.
Be careful what you wish for.
The wind whistle through the naked trees, their amber cargo laying in mounds beneath them, rotting away. A Little drizzle patters against a sea of concrete and grass as the camera zooms in to focus on a lone figure, dressed in a long coat and suit, their hair cascading down their head from the damp. As we grow closer and close through the mist we can see that the figure if Roberto Verona, standing along, looking down at the soil beneath him.
Roberto Verona: It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
Verona raises a hand and scratches the back of his head nervously.
Roberto Verona: I’d like to pretend it was because I was busy, but you could always tell when I was lying, no matter how much I tried to hide it. Well, she could anyway…
Roberto smiles.
Roberto Verona: Truth be told, I’ve avoided you because I simply can’t bring myself to be here. How stupid is that? I’ll burst into a room filled with a bunch of dealers with guns, but I can’t stand on a piece of grass, even if the latter would bring me here much quicker.
Verona pauses, sighing with frustration.
Roberto Verona: This is stupid, I mean it’s not like either of you can hear me. You haven’t since that night when…
Roberto gulps nervously.
Roberto Verona: When he took you from me.
Roberto shakes his head.
Roberto Verona: Look at me, I can’t even say that son of a bitch’s name, even now whenever I think about that piece of shit I am still that frightened little boy. The years have never healed the wounds, I can’t even talk about you to the woman I love, even though I know she would understand. I hate feeling weak, I hate looking weak. I live a constant lie, perhaps that’s why the wrestling business was so attractive, the allure of the carnivalé mask. I can put up a wall and be the pantomime villain and forget about my past, but then he ruined it… that selfish little…
Roberto stops himself, taking a deep breath.
Roberto Verona: I tried to make a real difference, you know, like you always wanted me to. I put away the “bad guys” for years, forcing justice on those who would avoid it. Yet, it never made up for the fact that he got to walk away a free man because he was such a coward he was able to flee long enough to destroy the evidence coursing through his veins. I had to watch him smile as he walked around like he hadn’t done anything wrong and now I have to watch it all again in the guise of a man I invested so much faith in…
Verona screws up his fist tightly around the rose in his hand, forcing a trickle of blood out between his fingers.
Roberto Verona: Yet, I can always hear your voices, begging me to be understanding and to help those less fortunate than I. But how can I forgive this man after everything he has done? How can I let one of my own employee’s behave with so little regard for the consequence of his actions? Why can’t I just let him consume himself?
Verona laughs and shakes his head.
Roberto Verona: I blame you for this. If you hadn’t raised me right I could just hurt them without any conscience… I could watch them burn. Instead, I feel responsible for dragging him out of the depths he’s got himself in and forcing himself to address his problems. It’d be much easier to just beat him senseless.
Lifting his hand, Roberto uses a handkerchief to wipe his brow.
Roberto Verona: I just hope he listens before it’s too late and he leaves another family in ruins for his own.
Roberto pauses, closing his eyes.
Roberto Verona: I’ll never forget…
Roberto leans down, placing a single white rose atop the soil before raising himself up again and turning to leave. As he moves out shot the camera slowly moves towards the headstone and the names gradually become clearer before we fade to black.
Hannah Reed: Are you still awake?
Roberto doesn’t respond.
Hannah Reed: You know all of these late nights aren’t going to do you any good, why don’t you come to bed?
Verona still doesn’t respond, instead he continues to gaze into the glass as the contents swill against the side.
Hannah Reed: Roberto…
Hannah walks towards him, prompting him to break his gaze and look up at her.
Roberto Verona: I thought you were asleep.
Hannah Reed: I was… but you know I find it difficult to get comfortable without you there. I never feel safe when you aren’t.
Roberto Verona: I’m only a wall away…
Hannah shrugs.
Hannah Reed: I know, call it silly feminine psychobabble, but I like to feel protected. It’s pretty difficult when you’re not even in the same room.
Roberto Verona: I won’t be much longer.
Hannah Reed: You said that three hours ago.
Roberto sighs.
Roberto Verona: I’ve got a lot to deal with.
Hannah walks over to Roberto, kneeling down next to him on the floor before resting her head on his arm.
Hannah Reed: I know that, but you’re only one man, you shouldn’t be killing yourself to please everybody.
Roberto Verona: It’s nothing to do with pleasing them.
Hannah Reed: Then what is it? You’ve been so withdrawn lately and last week…
Hannah looks away briefly, gulping as she tries to find the words.
Hannah Reed: Well, I’ve seen you hurt people before, but that was something else.
Roberto Verona: Haven’t you heard? The chairs are fake.
Verona scoffs and shakes his head.
Hannah Reed: I’m not judging you for it, everybody knows what they’re getting into in your business but… I’m just worried about you. You’re not usually distant with me, I’ve always been privileged enough to know the real you behind the façade.
Hannah pauses, almost as though she is bracing herself.
Hannah Reed: Please don’t get mad with me but is this… is this about, them?
Hannah nods towards a photo above the fireplace. Suddenly she can feel Roberto’s arm go tenses under her gentle grip.
Hannah Reed: Roberto…
Roberto Verona: Don’t.
Hannah Reed: Please I just want to help…
Roberto Verona: Hannah…
Hannah Reed: You can talk to me…
Roberto Verona: No!
Suddenly Roberto leaps up out of his seat, taking Hannah by surprise, before hurling the glass of fine furiously against the wall. Shards of glass fly across the room as Verona breathes heavily whilst Hannah backs away in fear.
Hannah Reed: Roberto… you’re scaring me!
Roberto Verona: I told you, don’t ever talk about them…
Hannah Reed: I know! I just don’t like seeing you like this!
Roberto turns, opening his mouth as if to reply before suddenly withdrawing back into himself, his shoulder slumping and his eyes closing.
Roberto Verona: I’m sorry… just… go back to bed…
Roberto turns and walks away, grabbing a set of keys from a nearby table before walking out of the front door, letting it close gently behind him as Hannah sits in silence, still in a state of shock. A few moments past before she turns and look at the fireplace again whilst the camera fades and zooms in on the picture that caused such an abrupt, uncharacteristic outburst. A simple family picture, two adoring parents, and young boy.
You’re a disappointment.
Perhaps that word has lost some venom for you, Joe, after all you hear it every single week and truth be told, the roster have eroded its impact. Yet there is not better word, no more eloquent and apt a description, to use when addressing you.
You, Joe Everyman, disappoint me, my staff, the rest of the roster and the fans who love you.
By now it should be self-evident that my disappointment has little to do with your prowess inside a wrestling ring, we all know that you’re the most bi-polar performer to walk into this business. One week you’ll look like a man who deserves to grace the same ring as men of my calibre, the next you resemble somebody who should never have advanced beyond the position of bag bitch.
No, my disappointment is entirely invested in your inability to make the most of the opportunities gifted to you.
I gave you the world, Joe, and you embraced your demons and watched it burn. Everything I invested in you, all of the faith I reserved for you and heck, even the joy that little wrestling fan in me had because you finally did it… you threw it all back in my face. You were finally granted the chance to prove yourself to the world, and to yourself, and none of it was good enough for you.
Was it, Joe?
Since the day I returned to active duty I have been built in the perennial pariah, all because I have had the audacity to stand up and say what everybody else is thinking. Every one of your fans may be screaming your name when you stagger down to the ring the week, but you know as well as I do that those aren’t the tones of unwavering support anymore. You have rattled them to their core, you have betrayed their faith in you and no matter how desperate you may be to restore that, you waste your energy in perpetuating the myth that I am the devil incarnate.
What do you have to gain from “kicking my ass”, Joe?
Let’s ignore for a second that I am on another stratosphere to you professionally, because we both know that a in a brawl it rarely means shit. Do you genuinely think that expressing yourself violently will solve your problems? I am sure punching me in the face will make you feel better, but that satisfaction will only last for so long. Hurting me won’t make the pain you feel for fucking up the best thing you’ve ever had in your career by hiding from your problems.
Beating me will just be like knocking back another vodka. A temporary buzz.
You’ll celebrate with all of your Everymaniacs, get a few pats on the back from the boys in the back who want to see me laid on my ass and when you get back to your couch your little house whore might show you a little reluctant affection through pity laden tears.
Then what?
Beating me won’t help you beat the bottle, I am not the first person to use you as his personal bitch and I won’t be the last. You’ll still be Joe Everyman, alcoholic. That label defines you more than any achievement you can possibly attain inside a wrestling ring. Defeating me is just a temporary fix to a greater problem, you’re using a Band-Aid to heal a gunshot.
Since day one of this little back and forth, you have been focusing your entire efforts on portraying me as an unreasonable demagogue, abusing his powers to make your life a total misery because I get some sick kick from it. Your only end game in all of this has been to achieve some arbitrary, and rare, victory over me in a wrestling ring before you undoubtedly crawl back into your dichotomy of denial. Yet all the while…
You should have been thanking me.
Be still your indignation for a moment and actually engage your brain, if you can see through the yeast haze. Would you have ever really made any efforts to address your demons if I hadn’t plastered them all over the headlines? You would still be living a life of a fraud if I had never returned and driven my kneecap through your face.
The only person who has finally stood up and made you address your problem is me.
Yet, I am the bad guy? Because I don’t allow you to hide from your indiscretions and play professional wrestler on a weekly basis? Because I am not going to make your brush with the law simply go away? Because for the first time somebody is holding you accountable for your actions?
The only reason you are making even a token effort to beat this disease is because I have forced you to. It isn’t the mother of your children staggering around like a common tart, it isn’t the soft tones of Dr Griffiths and it sure as shit isn’t because you genuinely want to, all of these are by-products of me acting like the boss you’ve never had.
Leonard and Kelly may have been happy to ignore your years of indiscretions because they were content with milking the universal sympathy you, but in IWF the buck stops with me. You think that I am heartless yet I am the only boss you’ve ever had who cares enough about you to make you come out of the Budweiser closet and accept your deficiencies and actually work to correct them. You’ve bought into the theatrics of professional wrestling, just like everybody at home and convinced yourself that I am the problem.
Everything I have done has been to force you to fight back, to finally face your fears and address them. The only person who has forced me to do it so publically, has been you. The only person to blame for your predicament, is you. All of this could have been achieved behind closed doors.
I am just a convenient scapegoat.
Big bad Roberto, the monster under the bed, the perpetual bogeyman, it’s a tiresome and predictable typecast. I am easy to hate because I cultivate that fruit by partaking in the weekly pantomime that is our business. If you had come to me privately instead of bribing law enforcement officials, I would have helped you, but instead you decided to bring my company’s name into disrepute because you’re too little of a man to admit your mistakes. Yet, instead, you have just made me the villain, you’ve transferred you battle against the bottle to a battle against a make-believe villain.
You want the ruthless caricature I play on screen every week? You want to pander to the image of the heartless boss instead of humbling yourself and asking for my help? Then so be it.
Be careful what you wish for.
The wind whistle through the naked trees, their amber cargo laying in mounds beneath them, rotting away. A Little drizzle patters against a sea of concrete and grass as the camera zooms in to focus on a lone figure, dressed in a long coat and suit, their hair cascading down their head from the damp. As we grow closer and close through the mist we can see that the figure if Roberto Verona, standing along, looking down at the soil beneath him.
Roberto Verona: It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
Verona raises a hand and scratches the back of his head nervously.
Roberto Verona: I’d like to pretend it was because I was busy, but you could always tell when I was lying, no matter how much I tried to hide it. Well, she could anyway…
Roberto smiles.
Roberto Verona: Truth be told, I’ve avoided you because I simply can’t bring myself to be here. How stupid is that? I’ll burst into a room filled with a bunch of dealers with guns, but I can’t stand on a piece of grass, even if the latter would bring me here much quicker.
Verona pauses, sighing with frustration.
Roberto Verona: This is stupid, I mean it’s not like either of you can hear me. You haven’t since that night when…
Roberto gulps nervously.
Roberto Verona: When he took you from me.
Roberto shakes his head.
Roberto Verona: Look at me, I can’t even say that son of a bitch’s name, even now whenever I think about that piece of shit I am still that frightened little boy. The years have never healed the wounds, I can’t even talk about you to the woman I love, even though I know she would understand. I hate feeling weak, I hate looking weak. I live a constant lie, perhaps that’s why the wrestling business was so attractive, the allure of the carnivalé mask. I can put up a wall and be the pantomime villain and forget about my past, but then he ruined it… that selfish little…
Roberto stops himself, taking a deep breath.
Roberto Verona: I tried to make a real difference, you know, like you always wanted me to. I put away the “bad guys” for years, forcing justice on those who would avoid it. Yet, it never made up for the fact that he got to walk away a free man because he was such a coward he was able to flee long enough to destroy the evidence coursing through his veins. I had to watch him smile as he walked around like he hadn’t done anything wrong and now I have to watch it all again in the guise of a man I invested so much faith in…
Verona screws up his fist tightly around the rose in his hand, forcing a trickle of blood out between his fingers.
Roberto Verona: Yet, I can always hear your voices, begging me to be understanding and to help those less fortunate than I. But how can I forgive this man after everything he has done? How can I let one of my own employee’s behave with so little regard for the consequence of his actions? Why can’t I just let him consume himself?
Verona laughs and shakes his head.
Roberto Verona: I blame you for this. If you hadn’t raised me right I could just hurt them without any conscience… I could watch them burn. Instead, I feel responsible for dragging him out of the depths he’s got himself in and forcing himself to address his problems. It’d be much easier to just beat him senseless.
Lifting his hand, Roberto uses a handkerchief to wipe his brow.
Roberto Verona: I just hope he listens before it’s too late and he leaves another family in ruins for his own.
Roberto pauses, closing his eyes.
Roberto Verona: I’ll never forget…
Roberto leans down, placing a single white rose atop the soil before raising himself up again and turning to leave. As he moves out shot the camera slowly moves towards the headstone and the names gradually become clearer before we fade to black.
In loving memory
Paolo Verona & Maria Verona
12.1.1955 – 5.8.1990 / 24.7.1958 – 5.8.1990
Beloved father & mother
Well howdy there pardner.