A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.

-Arnold H. Glasow

 

 

"She's never going to change", Sal says to me with conviction. "She's as crazy now as she was when we were teenagers."

"How many times is she going to have to fuck you over before you realize that she doesn't care about anything."

I stare at the slice of pizza sitting on the paper plate in front of me, replaying the events that took place earlier in the day. I'm listening to Sal talk, but I'm not hearing him.

"She doesn't care about you, she doesn't care about her family, and she doesn't care about herself", he continues. "The fact that you've put up with her for this long is a tribute to how much you care about her, but fuck."

I nod, though I don't agree with him. I just don't feel like fighting with him right now.

"You should get a fucking award or something. You're like the Mother Theresa of crazy bitches."

We both laugh, but the underlying hint of sadness prevents us from being able to actually enjoy the moment.

"You can't do this forever, Ace", he adds, and I detect a hint of disgust in his eyes as he says it. "How many times is this type of shit going to have to happen before you realize it?"

A good question that I don't care to answer right now. Somewhere in my subconscious, I realize that it doesn't matter. I will always let her come back, and I realize that I have more in common with a domestically abused woman than I'd have previously thought. Sal takes a bite of his pizza, then chews it blissfully, smirking while probably thinking about how much better his life is than mine.

"Fuck you, Sal!", I say, standing up with such force that my chair barrels backwards and crashes into a man sitting behind me.

Sal's eyes immediately dart back and forth as his anxieties take over. He hates public displays, be they of affection or hatred. This guy doesn't want to be noticed by anyone (Try standing in line with the dude. He won't say a fucking word to you because he doesn't want other people to hear his conversation) in the crowd, despite his staggering good looks, height, and build. Sal, to put it simply, just wants to be left alone.

But here I am, standing across the table from him with fists clenched and shoulders drawn back. Behind the counter, the owner looks on, but clearly has no intentions of intervening. He knows better.

"You think I'm not tired of this shit?", I ask him rhetorically. "You think I'm not tired of her lies, or her games, or her fucking drug problem?"

My right index finger takes on a mind of it's own and begins to poke Sal in the chest, matching the rhythm of my verbal assault.

"Of course I'm fucking tired of it! Not everyone can have the perfect wife, and the perfect kids, and always do the right fucking thing by everyone!"

As I say "do the right fucking thing", I poke his badge.

"So fuck you if you don't like the fact that I don't live up to your standards, asshole!"

I turn to leave, but Sal stands up and grabs my arm.

"Ace-"

I spin around and push him off of me, then storm out of the restaurant, not bothering to look at any of the faces sitting at the tables around us. I know I just scared the shit out of them, and in the process embarrassed Sal and myself, but I really don't give a fuck. Who the fuck are they to judge me anyway?

As I throw the door open and leave, I hear Sal apologizing to the owner, and probably handing him a couple of extra dollars for the trouble. Just like the motherfucker, making sure no one in the world thinks ill of him.

By the time I reach my car, I already regret the altercation, but there's no way in hell I'm going to apologize to him right now. I'd rather let him stew in the shit he said, and hopefully he'll realize how fucking lucky he is, and how fucking unlucky I am. Let me give you a little slice of the pie that is Big Sal.

Salvatore Joseph Padulo was born in South Philly, just like me, but had the good graces of being born to smart people who moved the fuck out of this shithole to the NorthEast part of the city. He had a normal upbringing, and a good education, then went on to join the Marines and become a fucking hero. While in the Marines, he got sent to officer school, which means fuck all to most people, but the end result was that he got a college education. The fucker finishes his time in the service, then joins the Philly PD, and gets promoted to Sergeant in like five fucking years. He has a hot ass wife who is probably the coolest chick in the world, and two kids who are certifiable geniuses. He's got a house, a pool, and a fucking dog, with a white picket fence out back, and an American flag hanging out front. He also eats coal and shits out diamonds in his spare time.

This dude is my best fucking friend in the world, but every single day, I resent him just a little more.

Why? Because my life fucking sucks, and always has. I'm sure you'd love to hear about it, but I'm not in the business of novelizing my problems. The people who do that are pieces of shit who do it for attention, and most of the time, the shit they're crying about is made up anyway. They should play in traffic more often, the world would be a better place.

I open the door to my black, '09 Mustang (hey, not everything in my life sucks. If my job didn't pay buku bucks, I'd have put a gun in my mouth by now), sit down, and start the engine. It purrs like your mom when I tongue her ass, and I just listen for a moment, doing my best to cool my jets.

For most people, anger is just a feeling. They get mad about something, and ten seconds later, they forget why they were mad in the first place, and usually it takes something pretty extreme for them to feel even the slightest hint of anger. You know why? Because most people realize that 99% of the time, anger leads to confrontation, and most people are pussies. I don't have that problem, in fact, I have the opposite problem: I fucking love confrontation. If my soup is a degree too cold, I'm going to chew the waiter's ass (I'm going to yell at him, you dumb fags). If someone cuts me off in traffic and almost makes me crash my beautiful fucking car, I'm going to follow them until they stop, pull them out of their car, and teach them that it's not okay to endanger another person's well being without any type of repercussion. Seriously, if you don't think I'm doing the world a service by beating the fuck out of people who drive like assholes, then you are one of those people, and chances are, I'm going to be visiting you eventually, which will result in you visiting the hospital.

When I get mad, my blood boils and cooks my skin like a steak on a grill. I sweat like a whore in a church, and I usually do something stupid, like punch people, or in the cases where the cause of my anger is untouchable (My fucking cunt girlfriend) or inanimate (Glenn Fucking Beck), I will hit a wall. This doesn't always turn out well, and most psychologists believe that releasing your anger in this type of way only leads to you being more angry, but I don't know what else to do.

If I'd have existed two thousand years ago, I'd be the general of the Roman army, and probably a legend on the battlefield, but since I instead exist in the age of Disney channel action stars, guys who wear scarves in the summer, and "gangstas" who wear jeans tighter than their girlfriends, I am instead an enforcer for the mob and a struggling professional wrestler and MMA fighter.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking: If you're so tough, why are you a wrestler? Isn't that shit fake?

No, bitch. Look how many guys get injured wrestling compared to fighting. The odds are staggeringly in favor of professional wrestling. You should also look at the pay scale of wrestling to fighting. Once again, the odds are in favor of wrestling. That's why the fuck I wrestle, son.

In the long run, everything I do is about the money, and the money is all about my dream of one day getting the fuck out of South Philly, and my piece of shit, one bedroom apartment. It's about getting her away from here, too. She's not going to make it much longer if I don't.

My phone vibrates, and the caller ID shows the picture of a man I haven't seen in a year or so. I press the button to receive the call (and hate myself a bit for talking on the phone while driving) and place the phone to my ear.

"Drake?"

"You know anyone else by that name, bitch?"

As usual, Drake is his amusing self. His wit is something that people think is either funny or offensive, and never in between. Almost 100% of the time, his remarks are meant to serve as an ice breaker, but there have always been a few sensitive Sally's out there who can't take a fucking joke. Fuck 'em.

"What's going on, man?"

I try to hide my excitement while talking to him, mostly because he'd ridicule me for being a "faggoty fan boy" until I wanted to put a gun in my mouth. I'll never forget my first run in the XWF for many reasons, but one of the things that sticks out the most was the day I got to meet the immortal Steve Jason. Despite being a peer (and I use that term loosely) of his, I was still as excited as a 12 year old girl being invited backstage to meet Justin Bieber. That reference makes me want to kill myself, but it's true.

Like SJ, Blizzard, and many other superstars, Drake was one of my idols. The only difference between him and them is that Drake is also the man who trained me in the sport.

"Enjoying a quiet life of leisure. Doing the whole father thing."

He emphasizes the word father for my enjoyment, mostly because I used to rib him for being a dead-beat dad. While it wasn't true by any stretch of the imagination, Drake has issues with being a father that I will never understand, mostly because he would never explain them to me anyway. The only person who really gets Drake is Bliz, and for a while there, me and a few of the other guys had a pool going as to whether or not they were a couple. The jury is still out on that one.

"That's good to hear. I'm still working locally, doing MMA when I can get booked, and dealing with the boss."

Drake mutters something inaudible, which is clearly meant for himself. I can assume that it was a derogatory statement in regards to my boss, who also happens to be his cousin. Unlike me, Drake made it out of South Philly, mostly because his father did. See, Drake's dad was some kind of fucking genius, and though he isn't credited with the invention, he's the reason for the majority of the technology we enjoy these days. His parents were killed when Drake was a baby, and he was raised by his Aunt Maria, and subsequently grew up with his cousin Tony. Tony is my boss, and is better known by the name "Fast" Tony Sigleone. He's the Don of the Philadelphia mafioso these days, and since taking over the operation, he and Drake have had a falling out. They've both got enough money to have the other killed, but in my opinion, neither one of them would do it simply out of respect for Maria. They both talk about her as if she were the Virgin Mary herself. A modern day saint who passed on before her time.

"What'd you say?"

I know he won't tell me, and I'm only asking to rib him a bit.

"Nada. Listen, I'm calling about wrestling business."

I laugh.

"Wrasslin' business?"

"Yeah, bitch! Wrasslin' business!"

I try not to let on how desperate I am for a job, and block out the memory of last week's show that was held in the fucking Philadelphia Quaker Society Club. Did you know that Quaker's still exist in this fucking country? They dress up like that motherfucker on the oats, too!

"I'm listening."

I hear him laugh on the other end. He obviously isn't buying my facade of success.

"Well, if you're not too busy wrestling in bumfuck Pennsylvania, there's a contract with the XWF waiting for you."

My run in the XWF was a short, but successful one. I won the US Title, and had some amazing matches, but after a falling out with the owner, I was let go and told I wouldn't be welcomed back.

"You got Jon Brown to give me the okay?"

Drake huffs into the phone.

"Fuck that pedo-bitch! Nah, that dude is history, man. He died in an auto-erotic-asphyxiation accident like two years ago."

I realize that Drake is joking, but I couldn't imagine a better way for that asshole to go out. My hatred of Brown was never a secret, and to say that I wish horrible things upon him would be underselling it. I do, however, often wish horrible things upon people who do nothing but bump into me in the street. I might have an anger issue.

"Nah, man! Bliz is the fucking owner now!"

I laugh. Heartily. I could've accepted him being the GM, or the booker, or the trainer - but the fucking owner? I would've never imagined.

"Really? And he's going to give me a shot?"

"Listen: that place is such a shitstorm right now that Bliz would not only love to have you, but he'll probably send you a limo filled with cocaine and strippers just to get you there."

I laugh. What torture that would be.

"Why would I want to join a company that is going down the shitter?"

"No, man. The company isn't going down the shitter. The roster is. Granted, the company will follow if Bliz doesn't get his roster together, but there are a few good guys there. The problem is that there are only a few. He can't book them against each other forever."

It sounds almost too good to be true. After the events of this morning, I didn't expect anything good to happen to me ever again, but right now I'm on the phone with my idol, and he's telling me that I have a guaranteed job in the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. I'm going to finally get the fuck out of South Philly.

"When would I start?"

Drake pauses for a moment, a gesture that could only mean one thing: a catch.

"Tomorrow."

Fuck. Drake knows my situation, and Drake knows that me leaving town on 24 hours notice isn't going to be easy. In fact, it's probably not possible.

"Drake, you know that Vinny is never going to let-"

"You fucking let me talk to Vinny. All I want to know is if you want the job."

A million reasons why I can't leave tomorrow are flooding my mind, and they all have her face on them. All of my "reasons" are nothing but excuses for me to stay with her. She's never going to leave, no matter what I do, or what I say, but I have to try.

"Yeah, Drake. I want the job."

"Say word, son! I'll call you back after I talk to my people. Pack your shit, Ace. You're getting out of Philly!"

Or so I hope.

"Thanks, Drake."

I hang up the phone and pull my car over. Of all the days for her to pull her bullshit, she had to pick the day that Drake Komodo called me with a contract offer. She always claimed that one of her biggest problems with me being a wrestler is the road time, but nowadays, if you have a good enough contract, you can take your family on the road with you. High end motor homes cost as much as houses, and are usually bigger than the piece of shit apartment I grew up in.

That's not good enough for Lidiya, the spoiled fucking brat that she is. The idea of living in a motor home, no matter how high the price or how great the features, would probably make her laugh her ass off. It must be nice to be the daughter of a rich and powerful man, to have your own personal army of maids, cooks, and assistants. Christ, the girl doesn't even have to shop for herself if she doesn't want to. I mean, who are we kidding, she's a rich, attractive, insecure woman, so of course she goes shopping, but that's not the point. If she wanted to, she could lie in bed all fucking day and not move, and her world wouldn't change at all. She'd still be rich, and through the miracle of modern plastic surgery and amazing genetics, she'd still be a goddess.

Will she come with me? I know what I want her to do, but the things I want her to do, and the things she ends up doing are usually miles apart on a spectrum.

Take it from me on this one: If you want good companionship that results in the both of you growing together and becoming better people, don't date a fucking Russian trust fund baby, and if you just happen to be a Russian trust fund baby, don't date a poor, Irish mob enforcer who works for a bunch of greasy, fat, Italian pieces of shit who wouldn't have been able to take over this country if it weren't for the fact that they did it on the muscled backs of the Irish.

It's an hour drive to her house, and by now (I look at my watch. It's 3 in the afternoon) she's wasted. I guess the best I can hope for is that she's been doing a lot of coke today. She's usually in a good mood when she does coke.

 

 

I sneak into one of the many backdoors of Lidiya's mansion (yes, she has her own personal mansion, bought by her father of course) and tiptoe my way through the house, hiding in the kitchen and listening for any sign of life. I'm telling myself that I'm just trying to feel the mood, but what I'm really doing is making sure that she's not fucking someone else.

I don't hear anything, and as I leave the kitchen, I accidentally bump into someone as they back out of the laundry room. I grab her instinctively (I think about how many times I've had to grab a guy and knock him out after sneaking into his house in the night) and cover her mouth. As her hand reaches up and grabs my own, I notice the caramel skin and let her go, calming her as I do so.

"Ana, it's me", I whisper quietly, hoping she follows suit.

She pins around quickly, the fighter inside of her burns a hole in me with her eyes, but she quickly cools off, adjusts her blouse, then raises her eyebrows in annoyance.

"Breaking into your girlfriend's house and assaulting her maid is a good way of winning back her heart", she playfully says.

 

 

Ana is Lidiya's maid, personal assistant, indentured servant, slave, or any other term along those lines that could be applied. Ana takes care of her, cleans up after her, plans her fucking day, and does more things for Lidiya than I can think of. Things Lidiya should be doing for herself.

I don't know a whole lot about Ana, mostly due to the fact that Lidiya gets insanely jealous any time she catches us speaking to one another (though she won't fire her because of it, mostly because she likes having a reason to be pissed off at me, and my wanting to fuck Ana is her go-to argument if nothing else will do), but what she's told me is that she moved to this country from Mexico when she was a teenager, was orphaned at some point, and wound up working in Philadelphia for a powerful Russian family. I don't want to say she was trafficked, but I'm pretty sure that was the case, as it is in most of these cases.

Her heavy Mexican accent made it hard to understand her at times, and when she was first assigned to work as Lidiya's maid, she spoke only a few words in English. I heavily suspect that before she was brought in to be Lidiya's maid, they had her working in North Philly as a prostitute, which is what they do with most of the girls they bring up from down there. See, in Philly, we don't have a lot of Mexican's, so it's almost a delicacy, and after one look at Ana, the only thing most men are going to want to do is taste the goods. If she was a hooker, then she was a top earner, and if she was a top earner, there was only one reason to take her off the streets: someone caught feelings, and judging by who's daughter she ended up becoming primary caretaker of, I'd have to assume that Lidiya's father is the guilty party. Seriously, what better place to hide your fucking mistress than under you wife's nose?

"How is she?"

Ana shrugs, then closes the laundry room door and stares at it for a moment.

"She is asleep right now", she says. "After you left this morning, she took some painkillers, and threatened suicide as usual, but then fell asleep an hour ago."

Hoping she'd do coke was a little much to ask for. Most people would hope their girlfriend just stopped doing drugs all together, but most people aren't realists. Lidiya isn't going to stop doing drugs cold turkey, and if I let myself think she would, I'd just be setting myself up for a serious letdown. I have to take her recovery one step at a time, and right now all I'm hoping she'll do is go to fucking rehab, or at the very least, a meeting.

"What did you say to her to set her off like that?"

 

My eyes open slowly, and the fog of a hangover quickly sets in. My mouth is dryer than Betty White's cooter, and the remnants of whiskey still linger in the back of my throat. A lesser man would puke, but Ace Vincent has an iron gut and a liver lined with lead. Chalk it up to my strong Irish heritage and to the fact that my tolerance for alcohol is higher than Snoop Dogg on 4/20. It helps that I drink almost every night.

I clear my throat, then sit up, blocking the sun that floods the room with my right hand. Normally there are curtains to prevent the intruder, but for some reason they're on the floor. I look around the room slowly as my vision clears, discovering the fucking mess that only a hurricane could leave behind. For a second I feel bad for Ana, who will have to clean up this fucking mess, but then I remember that she's not going to be able to clean all this shit up herself. This is going to take a fucking army of maids and servants. The curtains have been ripped out of the wall, there's an entire bottle of red wine lying on it's side (the contents having already spilled onto the white carpet), there are holes in the walls (which, for once, aren't in the shapes of my fists and look more like the markings of elbows), and the gigantic mirror that hangs over on the wall on the other side of the room is fucking broken.

Once again, we had a wild night, but right now I can't remember a single fucking second of them. This is Wednesday morning, and so far, it's been pretty much the norm, save for the destruction.

I have to take piss so bad that my taint hurts, and as I throw the cover off of me, I realize that I'm naked.

Mostly.

I look down at my feet and stare at the cowboy boots that they're currently inside of, bewildered. I reach slowly towards my head, half expecting to find a fucking ten gallon hat. Fortunately, all I feel is my short, black hair.

I pry the stupid fucking boots off, then scour the room for my shorts, finding them behind an overturned dresser. As I slip them on, I notice another thing that's out of place: my abdomen is covered in blood.

"What the fuck?", I ask myself out loud. Lidiya is on the shot, which means that she doesn't get a period, which means that I haven't had to break out my red wings since we were in high school, so something is seriously wrong if she was the one who was bleeding.

I turn back to the bed, then shake the sleeping beauty, who I can only imagine is dressed up like a fucking bull, and she groans in a way that says, "Get the fuck off me".

I rip the blanket away from her, then examine her naked body as if I've seen it about a million times (we've been together for almost fourteen years, and if I were to count, it'd probably be close), scanning for gashes or wounds, then look at her legs and still see nothing.

"Babe, I've got blood all over me", I say as I take one last look at her body (I'd be lying if I said the last look was anything more than sexual), then I look up at her face and realize where the fucking blood was coming from: her nose.

There are two parallel streaks of blood that are running from her nose to her chin, outlining the outsides of her lips on the way.

"Jesus Christ, Lid!"

She opens her eyes and looks at me, far beyond annoyed. She's fucking furious.

"Leave me the fuck alone!"

 

 

Most people wouldn't enjoy being talked to like that, but I'm not an insecure little bitch.

"Would you look at your fucking nose?"

She reactively snorts, then looks at me like I'm retarded. Then she tastes the blood.

"Fuck!"

She throws herself out of bed, then stops dead in her tracks when she looks at the damage we did to her room last night. Her mouth is open, her eyebrows are raised, and she's breathing heavily.

"What the fuck happened last night?"

I shrug. She walks over to the overturned dresser, shaking her head as she goes, and yanks a drawer open. Underwear spills out, and she quickly grabs a pair of panties and a t-shirt, throws them on, then looks in the broken mirror at her face.

"Do you remember anything?" I ask her. "Because I sure as hell don't."

She shakes her head, then heads into the bathroom without a word. I follow her in and walk over to the toilet as she washes her face in the sink.

"I fucking woke up with cowboy boots on", I say as I piss. "None of this is ringing any bells?"

She finishes wiping her face off, then looks at me and leaves the water on, which is something only a long term girlfriend would do. I walk over to the sink and wash my hands, and she wraps her arms around my waist and hugs herself to my back.

"My head is pounding and I hurt", she whines. "I hurt" is her way of saying that her pussy hurts, which usually only happens after a night of crazy sex. After surveying the damage to the room, and to her fucking septum, I'm just going to assume that we did a ton of coke, drank a ton of alcohol, and then fucked all night.

And this is normal for us. The thing is, I'm fucking sick to death of it.

No, I'm not saying that I'm tired of Lidiya. I fucking love Lidiya to death and I always will. I'm tired of the alcohol. I'm tired of the drugs. I'm tired of the blackouts, and the nosebleeds, and the fact that I can at least give it up during the day, but Lidiya is non-stop with this shit. No matter how bad the nosebleed, in about an hour, Lidiya is going to forget about it, have a snooter, then start drinking.

She's only twenty-three years old, and if she keeps going like she's going, the girl isn't going to make it to thirty.

"Are you sure you're okay?", I ask as I look at her reflection.

"What do you mean?"

I shrug.

"Well with the nosebleed and everything-"

She lets go of me and storms out of the bathroom.

"Lid!"

I follow her into the bedroom and grab her arm, which she responds to by spinning around and pushing me.

"Don't fucking start this again", she screams at me. "I don't have a fucking problem and I don't need to go to rehab!"

"That's not what I'm fucking saying", I yell back. "All I asked is if you were okay."

She raises her arms in the air like I'm completely out of line.

"You don't have to fucking say it!", she screams as she sticks a finger in my face. "You're thinking it!"

It's at this point I decide to just go for it and tell her what I've been wanting to tell her for the past few months.

"I can't fucking do this anymore", I say as I point around the room. "This isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life!"

The shock on her face tells me immediately that she takes it exactly how I don't mean it.

"Then why don't you get the fuck out?", she asks, pushing me as she does so. "Why the fuck are you still with me if you hate me so much?"

"When the fuck did I say anything about hating you?"

As usual, she's hearing what she wants to hear. What she's afraid I'll say instead of what I'm actually saying.

"Do you even love me anymore?", she asks with such a sincerity that I nearly laugh.

"Of course I fucking love you! If I didn't love you, I wouldn't give a fuck about your health, or our future. I'd just ditch you!"

She shakes her head in disbelief. This is going well

"Then fucking ditch me!"

And now the tears are coming.

"You don't love me anymore, all you love is my money!", she cries, then collapses onto the bed, bawling.

Lidiya's greatest fear is, and always has been, that no one will ever love her for who she is, and will instead use her for sex and money. We've been together since we were 13 or so, and I've never once used her for money, cheated on her, or really wronged her in any serious way. The fear isn't rooted in the sex and money, but the lack of love, and that's all the fault of her father, who treats her like a pet instead of a child.

"Stop being fucking stupid!"

And right there, the argument has gone from being a potential discussion about us going to rehab, to a shouting match between two hungover young adults.

"Get the fuck out! I fucking hate you!"

She grabs my car keys off of the nightstand and throws them at me. I catch them with my hand and chest (I'll have a nice bruise there later).

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

I throw my shoulder into her door then storm out of the house with my head down. I pass by Ana, who opens her mouth to ask me something, but rethinks it when she sees the rage in my eyes, and am outside, in my car, and on 95 (the interstate that runs from North to South Philly) before I start to calm down. I think about calling her, but right now I'd rather punch her in the face, so I instead call Sal, who agrees to meet up with me at a local pizza shop. If anyone can calm me down, it's Sal.

 

 

"And that's what set her off?"

I nod, having finished my story. Of course, in retelling it to Ana, I left out the parts about the boots and the vagina soreness, and just skipped to the argument.

"She say anything to you?"

Ana laughs.

"Just that I should call the police if you show up."

I smile.

"Good thing I got the drop on you, then."

Ana pats me on the back.

"She's calmed down by now. You should go up and talk to her."

"Thanks, Ana. Sorry for scaring you."

She waves me off, and I head upstairs to see The Ice Queen. There's absolutely no reason to think that anything is going to change in her attitude because of my recent luck, so all I can do is hope. I have never given this girl an ultimatum, but right now I'm about to hit her with one: I'm leaving and she can either come with and stay sober, or stay here alone and use. It's not going to be easy, which would be a first for her, but I can't stand watching her poison herself anymore.

I open her door slowly, eyeing the crack caused by my earlier shouldering of it. To my surprise, she is actually awake, sitting on the bed and flipping through an old photo album. A tissue box lies next to her, half of it's contents already having been emptied and thrown onto the floor in front of the bed.

She looks up slowly at me, her eyes reddened by the continuous weeping, her cheeks flush with emotion, and it breaks my heart.

"What happened to us?"

I shake my head and slowly walk over to the bed and sit down next to her. I look at the album sitting on her lap, then laugh when I see the 17 year old version of Ace Vincent, donning a purple wrestling singlet (yeah, my fucking school colors were purple. It's a sign of regality, bitch), with my arm wrapped around Lidiya. We were crazy about eachother back then.

"I don't know, Lid."

She turns the page and we both laugh when we see a photo she took of me in NYC, after a bum had just threatened to stab me because I was singing the "Married With Children" theme song. I was terrified, so I picked her up and took off running, not setting her down for quite a few blocks, and the subsequent picture is of me hunched over, puking from the adrenaline surge and ten block sprint with the extra 135 pounds. No, Lidiya is not fat. She's fucking 5'10 and curvy, so it wasn't the easiest escape, but I got the job done nonetheless. She laughed her ass off at me as I puked, and snapped the picture we're both staring at, which is of me puking and flipping her off somewhere in Times Square.

"Do you really still love me, or are you just with me because of something else?"

"If you're referring to the money that I've never once asked you for, then no, I'm not with you for your fucking money. And if it was just about the sex, I would just go pick up some random chick for that."

She didn't like the last part, and is about to attack me over it, but I hold up a hand (not threateningly, you Chris Brown loving fuckers) and she stops.

"You're the love of my life, and I can't imagine living without you. What I was trying to say to you this morning, is that I can't stand by while you kill yourself, and if I'm going to be fair, I can't keep on killing myself with you. This was fun when you were in college, but now I'm getting older, and I'm tired of the haze."

She nods, which means that she agrees. Could this actually work out?

"But I need to tell you something right now: Drake called me a few hours ago, and he offered me a new contract."

Her eyes take on a confused state.

"What? Fighting?"

"No, with the XWF. You remember Drake, right? The guy who trained me?"

She nods, still unsure about how she feels.

"And he just called you out of nowhere to offer you a contract with the XWF? Today?"

Of course she's taking it the wrong way. There is no right way for this fucking woman.

"It's not like that, Lid."

"Sure it is! This morning you dump me, and then you take a job that involves you traveling the world! How the fuck is it not like that?"

I huff and stand up and head for the door, turning around to take one last shot before I leave.

"I want you to come with me, but you have to get off the drugs. If you don't cut the shit, then we're really done. For fucking good."

She wipes her face, and is eerily calm within a few seconds of me saying this.

"Well then I guess we're done."

I stand there for what seems like hours, clenching my jaw and staring her down. To her credit, she sits on the bed and stares right back at me, sure in her convictions. Somehow, in that crazy head of hers, Lidiya has convinced myself that I don't love her anymore, and that me taking this job was all part of one grand scheme for me to finally rid myself of her.

What a fucking psycho.

"You're out of your fucking mind", I say, turning and leaving afterwards. I don't bother to shut the door behind me. On the way out of the house, I bump into Ana again.

"Did you work it out with her?"

"I think our days of working things out are over."

She shrugs.

"Maybe this is for the best."

I don't see how that could be possible.

"Goodbye, Ace."

She gives me a quick hug, and I realize that I'm probably never going to see her again, and for some crazy fucking reason, all of the pain hits me. Most guys would cry, but I can't. What I can do, is smash someone's fucking face in, and in a few days, I'm going to be getting paid to do it. Sucks to be them.

"Goodbye, Ana."

I let go of her, then walk quickly to my car. As I start the engine, I take one last look at the house, hoping that for just a moment, Lidiya would sober up and realize what she was doing. She'd run out of the house and stop me from leaving, but as of right now, she's not even watching me leave through the window.

"Fuck!"

I slam my palm on the steering wheel, then put my car in reverse and slam my foot on the gas pedal, backing out of her driveway at sixty miles an hour and rockfishing (When you spin the car so you're facing front) the car into the street.

This should be the happiest day of my life. I should be celebrating right now instead of mourning the death of my relationship. Leave it to Lidiya to take the joy out of the one thing I've always wanted: to escape Philly. But, if I'm going to be honest, I really don't think I could've left with her.

There's only one other person that could keep me here, and unfortunately, if he wants me to stay then that's what I'm doing. I just hope to God that Drake's convinced him otherwise.

 

 

"Have a seat", he says with a smirk on his face.

 

 

Inside of his house, Tony sits on the couch with his legs crossed, watching Jeopardy with a glass of scotch in his hand.

"You want a drink?"

I shake my head as I sit down.

"No thanks."

I make sure to use my manners, as I don't want to offend Mrs. Sigleone at the risk that it'll cost me this job.

"So, I got a call from my cousin earlier, that motherfucker."

I nod, not bothering to interrupt or defend Drake.

"And he says that this wrestling promotion, the XWF, wants you to come and work for them."

He takes a sip of his scotch, then yells at a contestant who gives a wrong answer on the game show.

"You fucking retard!"

He looks back at me.

"Anyway, like I was saying, they want you to work for them, which is obviously a problem since you work for me."

Fuck. I knew that the biggest hurdle in this whole plan would be the success I've had with the mob. I might describe myself as your typical muscle man, but I'm just being modest. Excuse me while I become egotistical for a second, but I am the best fucking tracker in the country. If a motherfucker goes missing, goes into hiding, or goes into the program (witness protection, dumbfuck), I'm the guy who's tasked with finding him, and luckily, that's it. Tony knows I don't have the stomach to kill. You've got to have ice water running through your veins to be able to kill a defenseless man, and Tony recognized that a guy has been - er, was with the same girl for ten years isn't a cold, calculated killer. He usually has one of his boys tag along with me, and they do the dirtiest of the work.

Sure, I'm still an accessory, and yeah, I directly contribute to the death of another human being, but let's be real here: it's not like we're killing innocent women and children. The only people I've ever had the pleasure of finding are pieces of shit who've usually done a little too much coke, a little too many whores, and have killed a few too many people, and sloppily, which is how the feds get to them in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, I could give a fuck as to whether these dudes live or die.

"I figured it would be."

I hang my head in disappointment.

"Whoa, I never said no."

I look up at him and raise an eyebrow.

"Now, you're obviously one of my best, and you have a very unique skill that simply can't be taught, so if I need you, you'll be getting a call, and you'll already be on the road, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal."

I nod. It'll be interesting to try and find the time to track someone down in between shows, autograph signings, press events, interviews, and the such, but if this is what I've got to do, then this is what I'll do. Hell, some women will suck a dick just to get on TV, so I guess everyone makes their sacrifices.

"And as far as your collections go, don't worry about it. Drake has offered to cover any expense that I may come across because of your absence, so you should thank the piece of shit when you see him, and kick him in the balls for me afterwards."

I laugh.

"Anything else?"

Tony shrugs.

"Just throw me a tip every once and a while just to let me know you're still my boy."

What he means is that he wants a cut of the money I make. Fucking typical.

"You got it."

I smile and shake Tony's hand.

"Good luck."

"Thanks", I say, but he waves me off.

"Get the fuck outta here already. I'd like to watch Wheel of Fortune in peace."

I nod and head out, suddenly feeling as if my life isn't so bad. Sure, my apartment is still a shit hole, and sure, the love of my life is a coke-addicted narcissist, but at least I can finally say that I'm going to get the motherfuck out of Philadelphia. Once I clear my head of this piece of shit city, maybe I'll be able to fix all of the other stuff.

Fuck you, Philadelphia. Don't call or write.