Title: Square One or: Only When it's Dark Enough
Rating: M for description of drug use, mentions of prostitution, and language.
Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the life of Mark Calaway. I have nothing to do with WWE incorporated. I make no money from them and certainly not for my fan fiction. This is fiction, and only fiction. I do not intend any defamation of character by this story. The idea was just intriguing.
Notes: Reggie the EMS guy is based on a real life encounter I had with one. He was brash, loud, hilarious, had obviously worked WAY too many hours lately, and made me think that what I was going through was no big deal, and I could indeed live through it.
Summary: The dark night of the soul for Mr. Calaway. Takes place around the '94 Royal Rumble.
Warnings: This story will contain the graphic use of drugs, and the aftermath of such.
It was late and his hands were trembling. Actually, it was rather early, and his hands were shaking uncontrollably. The girl had left, recognizing that he was spiraling down to an overdose, and she herself was too high to deal with that. It had been about three days since he'd eaten, and longer since he'd slept. He'd learned very early in life how much his body could absorb and bounce back from. In fact, he had wondered in the past if there was a limit to what he could take...
...And now he had his answer. He was dying. He knew he was dying... Unless he could get to the downers in his luggage. Reds. He needed reds if he was doing to live to see the dawn. He'd tried to tell the girl that, but she'd been too fucking stoned to understand him anymore. Somewhere within him, the responsible part of him feared for her walking the city at this odd hour. Of course, there was another part of him that could fucking care less. That was his addiction talking... He was addicted. That thought came crashing in on him. He was addicted and there was no control over his life anymore. None. Fuck, and I used to be such a control freak. He thought.
No. He thought. Don't get lost... The reds. Get to the fucking reds. He forced his breathing to slow down. He just wished his heart beat would do the same. His naturally macabre mind thought about what they'd announce the cause of his death would be. Would Vince admit that it was another drug related death caused mostly by too much time spent on the road? Probably not.
... If they'd just given him some time off. He didn't even have a home anymore. The road agent assured Mark that he maintained a condo in Florida, but Mark had never seen the damn thing. At this point in his life, he was quite literally living out of his luggage.
Luggage that he was now tearing through violently. The reds. Get to the fucking reds. Get to the reds, or your heart or brain will explode. He thought. He tossed one more rumpled pair of jeans to the side, and breathed a sigh of relief, not that it slowed down his heartbeat any... What he was looking at through his eyes which he was having quite a lot of trouble focusing was a ball of dirty socks. Never in his life had he been so glad to see a mound of dirty fucking socks. He sucked in air though his nose and tried to concentrate despite his nasal passages being so dry it felt like he was inhaling sand.
He wondered if he had any sense of smell left. It wouldn't surprise him if he'd lost it to the drug long ago. When he's started, he didn't care. The drug had taken his pain, his rarely admitted, yet rampant stage fright, and any other lingering insecurity, and made them vanish. So there is too much of a good thing. He thought.
The reasonable, responsible part of him roared to the forefront of his mind again. The reds, you fucking moron! Get to the fucking reds if you want to live! Mark started digging clumsily through the socks. He quickly concluded that he must have some sense of smell left, because they had a rank odor that brought tears to his eyes. Still, the tactic had managed to confuse and discourage every drug sniffing dog he'd encountered so far. At the bottom of the pile, he found a small, airtight box with a combination lock where the individual numbers turned, much like any brief case. He realized his idiocy then. Opening the box would be difficult, if not impossible to do with his shaking hands. He fumbled with the box, his breathing becoming more and more ragged as he got more irritated that his hands wouldn't do what he wanted them to.
More tears sprung to his eyes. "Fuck" He said. "I don't want to die like this." He knew if his words were recognizable at all, that his voice would be cracked and pathetic. He threw the box on the bed. The lamp on the bedside table was sill on, which is how the girl had realized that he was too fucked up to continue fucking her. It had started as soon as he'd snorted a line that he'd set up between her breasts. He knew almost immediately that he was done for, and told her to get dressed and call 911. She'd gotten dressed, and stolen the rest of the cocaine he had on the bedside table, but she hadn't picked up the phone. She was more then willing to let him die rather then get involved with the police...
...And Mark figured that it was no less then he deserved. He'd done this to himself. Maybe he should die here, naked in this hotel room. He was ready to lie down on the thin carpet and fall asleep for the last time.
Then a strange image came to him. He thought he could see his mother through his unfocused eyes. It was odd, because he always figured that the dying would see the already dead, and both of his parents were still very much alive and living in a Houston suburb. He tried to focus on her. It appeared she was talking and it took Mark some time to figure out what she was trying to say. He finally recognized the words from his early teen years. He'd been picked on because of his large size, a stutter which plagued him, and red hair. "Mark, you've got to learn to use your brain and mouth to fight instead of your fists. You could really hurt someone." She'd told him after Mark had exploded in anger at someone, and sent them to the hospital. Mark had been lucky that the person he'd lost it on was bullying someone else at the time, and the family opted not to have charges pressed against Mark.
But Mark had always known his physical strength. He knew when he was hurting someone, and when he was hurting someone so they wouldn't be getting up again. He'd always known. His mother had inspired him that day though, she really had, but not in the way she'd hoped for. Mark had taken that plea and twisted it. He'd made his mind just as an effective weapon as his fists. His mouth was another matter. Mark wasn't much for talking even back then. That had other causes, and he'd thought it somewhat cruel of his mother to tell him that. He didn't talk then because he couldn't without a least a minor stutter. It got worse when he was nervous or upset. It was the worst around his father, but he'd exacerbated it in Mark's mind. It had certainly fostered Mark's obsessive streak. Planning out every word precisely before he'd made his mouth pronounce it...
His mouth... He could use his mouth. It took everything in him to haul his dying body up against the bed. The only thing he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. His entire skull vibrated with its racing. The finish line of course was his untimely demise. His mouth. He could use his mouth. He braced the box up against his right forearm and put his mouth to the turning digit lock so common on brief cases.
His hands were useless, but his jaw and teeth could move the dials quite effectively. 3. He pulled his head back enough, and his vision was just clear enough to make sure that he'd gotten the dial to 3. He was relieved to see that it was, and this could work. 2 was next. Clicking up the dial one number at a time was painstaking, and possibly too late of an effort to save himself. But who cared?
4 was the last number. His birthday was far too easy of a combination, but it had to be something that he could remember easily in circumstances like this. Besides, nobody had found the box yet, so no one had any reason to try and figure out the combination. A couple of clicks with his jaw, and he would be on his way. His mother was still talking to him in his head though. She was repeating every piece of advice she'd ever given him. It was comforting and terrifying at the same time for Mark. His mother was an incredibly strong woman to have raised about half a dozen boys, but so strong that sometimes it bordered on overbearing. He tried to block out all the words that made entirely too much sense in his current situation, and concentrate on the lock. And when he'd done it, it took a long period of staring at the box and listening to his heart pound in his chest to make sure the number was right.
When was absolutely sure in his mind that it was, he nosed at the box's lid. He gasped in breath when it opened, and fought the urge to scream loudly, just to drown out his heartbeat. Reds. That responsible voice in him said again. REDS!
Mercifully, the bottle wasn't childproof. He pinned it between his forearms, and twisted the cap open with his teeth, while his hands shook uselessly in front of him. The large red pills spilled out on the rumpled bed spread and Mark had a hard time concentrating on any particular one... This was it. He was going to die, right here on the brink of his salvation. "Fuck" He gasped, thinking this time might have been better spent convulsing on the floor now.
He didn't know why, perhaps it was the muscle spasms caused by the overdose, but he found himself suddenly cast up further on the bed. While his mind had given up, this remarkably strong body of his had not. His vision made out several small red shapes in front of his face. The pills were inches away from his mouth. His hands were still shaking, but he managed to get one up and pick up several of the pills. He clutched them tightly in his hand, and he could hear them ratting around inside of his fist. He got his hand to his mouth and used his tongue to make sure that he got the pills into his mouth.
His other arm flailed about behind him, searching for the bedside table and the open beer bottles on it. He knew some of them were fresh, while others had been used to put out cigarettes with the dregs left in them. He was too out of it to bother to test the weight of the bottles. He just needed to be able to grip on to one of them... And he chose wrong. The liquid that filled his mouth was full of ash and a few filters. Desperately, he fought his gag reflex and swallowed the vile concoction down. He forced the pills down his throat... And with that, knowing he'd done all he could do for himself, he slipped down to the floor to let himself die in peace, or at least choke on his own vomit.
Sleep didn't come for him. He laid there, unfocused eyes open, and only blinking rarely. He listened to his heartbeat pound, and tried not to focus on the shapes that were moving in the periphery of his vision. Dark things were lurking there, waiting for him if he let himself focus on them. This holding pattern kept on until the first streaks of dawn came in through the hotel window. He was shocked that he'd lived this long in this state. Unless he was already dead, and this was hell. Now that was a possibility...
But he figured the sun didn't rise in hell, and it was most certainly getting lighter and lighter outside of his window. By the amount of light in the sky, he knew that Bill, "Uncle Paul", would be up and moving. He'd have gotten coffee and called his wife back home, as was his routine, which Mark usually slumbered through. For the life of him, he couldn't remember when Bill had said he'd be coming to wake him up and get him moving so they could get to the next show...
Mark hoped that the merciful thing would happen and that he would be dead by the time Bill unlocked the door with the extra key Mark always gave him. If he was dead, or at least too far gone to be saved by the time he got here, the clean up would be much less costly and time consuming. Also, Bill was a friend and Mark didn't want him to have to see him like this... And that was because Bill cared about him, and Mark no longer cared about much of anything in any meaningful way. He'd sucked any good left in him up his nose long ago. At least that's how he felt anyways.
So when the room's door unlocked and swung upon, Mark cursed inwardly. He'd lived through the night. Fucking reds. He thought.
"Time to start moving, Mark. I swear you're like an overgrown teenager most days." Bill said in his natural Alabama twang. Mark managed a strained groan from his position on the floor. The beer bottle was blocking part of his view, and he figured that had made for some of his more frightening hallucinations over night. "Mark?" Bill repeated, now looking into the room and seeing it in shambles and Mark lying prostrate on the floor. Normally he avoided looking into Mark's room for the sake of the modesty of the girl he'd usually have in the bed with him. Mark, with his seemingly endless energy would usually say "Sure boss" and be up and moving in seconds. Today there was no movement.
Bill smelled the vomit, the spilled beer, and stale cigarette smoke. He then locked on Mark's blank, dilated eyes. His arms and legs twitched in random spasm, and that was only how Bill knew that Mark was still alive. He was mostly naked, save for a pair of boxer shorts and a single sock, with only his ever growing collection of tattoos to cover the rest of him.
Mark had rarely heard Bill swear during their few years working together. He was a polite, southern gentleman most of the time, but had strong opinions on how things should be. That was why he had handled the care and feeding of the Undertaker so well... Until now apparently.
"Mark, you fucking idiot." Bill said quietly as he walked into the room. He was no stranger to Mark's ever increasing drug habit, but the kid had never missed a show or even been late, so Bill hadn't ever come down on him for it yet. He put it up to Mark's youth and impetuousness. He stepped over Mark, and went for the phone. Mark was only vaguely aware of Bill's presence when he was out of sight. He was absolutely dumbfounded that he was still breathing at this point.
Fucking reds. He thought again as he stared away from the door and into the light coming in from the window. He wondered what had possessed him to save his own life last night. Death by heart attack caused from a drug over dose sounded mighty restful about now.
To be continued...