Post by Tearra Skye on Nov 10, 2022 16:05:43 GMT -5
I don’t know what possessed me to go out and celebrate after falling off the wagon last time, but I need to remember Leo wasn’t returning my calls. OCW wasn’t even airing a program. Honestly, even though someone hit me with a Hydrocontin capsule, I made the choice to hit up Gareth, my smack push, and at least I could pay for it instead of the old way. Not on my knees. I was lucky I didn’t fall back into it hard. I called Nikki, who has been a godsend for me, and she picked me up. Didn’t even tell Froggy because he would’ve kicked me out.
Last time I didn’t have Nikki like I do this time. She is so proud of me and excited to get going in OCW. Started off with a skilled veteran in Dylan Thomas. I have heard from others that Cass Baumer has been a champion before! I deserved these celebratory drinks, as Nikki insisted on. I could never remember the name of this place, but it was a cool club slash bar. In the center was a large, football-shaped bar with every kind of liquor you could imagine. Funny enough my favorite vodka is French and called Belvedere: It was just as smooth as OCW’s announcer’s voice was. All around the bar was the dance floor. But off to the left-hand side where Nikki and I were sitting. The vodka-cranberry in my small rocks glass sweats onto the table top as I twirl the black straw in the melting ice. Nikki is talking to a few guys, and she has a way with them.
There is no way I could just walk up to someone I found cute and strike-up a conversation, especially on stuff I know nothing about. I am pretty sure she just told him she had been doing telemarketing as well, using my past that I’m not exactly proud of but it seemed to be moving the conversation along for her.
“Oui, this one “custy” I was able to get them to send trente mille par la poste.”
Yep, hook, line and sinker. Andddddd she got his number. I lean over and tug on her dress.
“Oui, Tee. We’ll go soon. Scoop the bottle?”
“What, you think I don’t know why you said this outfit? Already scooped.”
While Nikki was getting a number, I snagged the twenty-six-ounce bottle of Belvedere and put it in my knee-high sock, shot spout in the top and all. Walking out into the cool November air of East Montréal, it took everything not to head down near the docks and pick up a balloon or even a gram of cocaine. I stared at my pinkie finger, remembering the long nail I had on it, imagining the dragon in a neat little pinkish-brown pile. My nose instinctively sniffled, but I swallowed it as I lifted up my pant leg, pulling the vodka out of my knee-high sock. Pulling the spout out of the top, I took a swig and handed the bottle to Nikki, my partner in crime. She had not only been there for me when getting clean... twice. Nikki did something no one had ever done for me before, showing me how to be social but avoid the trigger of relapse.
“Oui, Oui… mmm. Good vodka.”
Nikki gave me her wink and a “that’s right, bitch” look she had mastered. I could be walking streets not far here, for my waste of space dad like he did to my mom.
“Yes, it is. So, what was the guy’s name?”
I take a swig while I casually look over at her, trying to keep a smile back, and to be fair… it’s hard than it looks. Nikki stops suddenly, halting our journey by the sidewalks that so desperately need to be redone. Finally, she just shrugs and starts walking briskly to the car park not far.
“Matthew! No… Marc-Henri? Something M.”
We both laughed at her awful ways, but I had to know why she was like that.
“Why do it then? I mean, why make all the effort and not follow through?”
“Parce que bébé, because babe, I do remember some of them.”
Nikki’s wink was almost patronizing, but I know that’s not what she meant. Subject change was in order.
“I can’t believe I have the opportunity to wrestle Calaway AND possibly win a shot at the Craze title!”
“You mean when you win. Papa has taught us to have a winners mindset.”
“No, I know, but he also taught us not to get too far ahead of ourselves. The opportunity in front of me is huge. I didn’t think I’d find the success so soon, but it’s only two matches with a month or so in between.”
Nikki looks at me with a smirk as I see her keys in hand, pressing the button to hear where her car is.
“I agree; Calaway is a grand opportunity for you. Oui, deux wins but it’s time to make it trois, non?”
Maybe she was right. I can only pay so much respect to someone who has been doing this longer than me before it turns into self-doubt. Something in my gut is telling me to keep doing what I am doing. I have an opportunity to cement myself in OCW history. I have heard people say how important this place is in wrestling and what I do here will give me the credentials to be respected.
Respect. That’s something I never thought I would find in my life. Real respect. Not fear my pimp put into people. A life thanks to that grumpy old Frenchman who trained me and helped get me clean after I tried to rob him. Good riddance to Tabitha.
“No, you are right! It’s time to accept that I deserve what I am being given for the first time ever!”
“Oui! That’s the… uhh… esprit!”
April 2017 - Île de Perot - Pincourt
What have I gotten myself into? Calling people pretending I am their family member to make a buck? Am I that desperate to get off the street before I find myself with gravel embedded into my knees for fifty dollars a pop. No, I am not doing that anymore. I am twenty years old, and I can do better. This is shady as anything I have ever seen.
I follow my childhood friend Kenny up these stairs into what I am guessing is a set of offices, although it isn’t typical work. Kenny points to my office. If you can call it that, where I see a list filled out with phone numbers and last names connected to them.
“So here’s where you will sit and make your phone calls. You can listen to me until you are comfortable. There are two closers you can bring an “open” to, me or Trouble. Oh, and call me Rocket here. People are a little paranoid about their identities, ya know?”
“Totally get it. How do you shut off your conscience? Like how do I live with it? Any tips?”
“I mean, yeah, I could be slinging dope or whatever, it won't kill people… doing this. Just… you can make a lot of money by dialing phone numbers. It beats walking the streets, right?”
“Yeah, no. Absolutely. Let’s get started.”
The first day was hard, I won’t lie. I can feel the guilt turning into a hard rock inside the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like doing this telemarketing, but what’s a girl to do? I don’t have my high school diploma either, and I don’t wanna end up like my shitty parents. I guess it’s this. It was not as easy as other workers made it look. I will need to get used to that and thinks I am a natural. By the end of the week, at twenty points for me (twenty percent) on Payday, the Left Hand, as they call the tall, ruggedly handsome man that goes by Hopper, gave me five thousand dollars.
Present Day…
“Oui, quatre McDouble et un poulet junior. Oui, deux Coca-Cola moyen. Merci!”
A few moments later, car turned off, our feet up on the dash giggling and eating horrible greasy McDicks (as mom would say). I had the Junior Chicken and medium Coke, and Nikki had the pile of greasy burgers and a Coke.
Nikki leans into me, nudging me with her shoulder. The yellow food wrapper that I kept folding into a tiny square over and over until it was small. I start to make small tears all around it.
“Qu'est-ce qui on your mind, bébé?”
“How I met Tabitha. You know, when I had that sleazy job scamming money out of people. I still feel a-pang-of tremendous guilt over it, ya know?”
“Oui, but, eh, hmmm how do I say this in Anglaise… everyone has done something to put themselves outside of morality and ethics. You paid the price with drugs. Et Ryan Cooper was a part of that. You paid, bébé.”
I lean back in my seat and sigh before “Falling Leaf” comes into rotation on Nikki’s Spotify share account. Nikki turns it up a bit, giving me a smile.
“No, I know. You are right as usual you are right.”
“Oui, I am always right.”
“It’s just funny cause I had struggled with sobriety since I was 12, but when big money was being put in my hands, I went off the deep end. Just been on my mind.”
“Pourquoi?”
“I feel like I need to find closure in the past. Ryan and Tabitha… both of them just left me behind. At the time, I didn’t know that you and Froggy would fill those spots. I need closure.”
I take Nikki’s hands into mine, and I lean down, touch my forehead to her hands and look back up with a quivering smile while doing my best to not choke on my words.
“I’m beyond grateful that your dad helped me after trying to rob him to stay high with Tab for the week. She just abandoned me, never once trying to see if I was ok. I never heard from Ryan either. After all the shit I did for the two of them! Ugh! Infuriating! Not gonna let people like that take advantage of me again and lead me down the path of chasing the dragon!”
“Oui! You have a family now. Me Papa, he adores you. “Jetaime Tiara!” he is saying. All the time.”
I give Nikki my “yeah, ok” look with my brow raised and lips pursed.
“Truthfully, Papa, he was losing heart. The bonne-nuit you and Tabitha came in was almost perfect timing. That next day when I went to “Pourquoi” him into a corner, I saw a change in him. It was like when his first student won their first championship.”
“The one we aren’t allowed to talk about?”
“Oui. Non-bien. Papa still feels very betrayed.”
I didn’t know much about Froggy’s first student, barely knew the name, but I know that he was doing a good deed for the person and was burnt for his efforts. That was something I wouldn’t do to these people that have become my family, and that is I would never burn them as that student had done.
On Monday, November 7th, I will face Alexandra Calaway, earn my third victory and earn a shot at the OCW Craze Championship. I am Tearra Skye, and my time is NOW!