I sit here in my hotel room, accompanied only by the experience of the midnight hour here in New York City. Even at this time I can hear vehicles outside, people coming to and from work, busses, trains, cars. They all mesh into a single existence, the blood through the veins of the “Empire City”, and I can hear every pump of the valve, every drop of plasma coursing.
I can hear voices……
Voices of the nightwalkers in their territory, when they are free to reveal who they really are to the world. I can hear men, they’re yelling. Yelling over some incident I cannot make out through the dozens of feet of open air between us, and through the fortress that is my room. Their words are muffled. I can hear lovers, hand in hand, walking down the sidewalk to only they know where, and what they are intending to do when they arrive only kept in their minds, yet I can tell them everything. I hear their thoughts as if they had been screamed into my ears by the haunting banshee. A shriek so vile the lords of the underbelly in this city would quake at their very mention.
I hear……music…
Yes, music. Melodies, chords, even at this time the addicting venom that is lyrical artwork holds tight on the city of New York. I can’t hear any that I’m familiar with, and yet even these raps, spoken poetry to the beat of an oppressed ancestry, somehow bring me peace. Their words are so self-serving and violent, but as I sit here drenched in my own shadow I realize that we are one and the same.
Then I hear more of my lost family through my bedroom wall….
The married couple next door, they’ve been at each other’s throat for the past three days, but this…..this is pathetic. Two people who have forever chosen to weave their lives together now at a fault zone in their lives because one didn’t look at the check at dinner. Til death do us part, indeed. Money, these idiots put it before everything. Before family, before honor, before love, before dignity. I’m convinced they’d eat each other for the right price, and now thanks to them, I’m kept awake in this blackened twilight……….though, in truth, I would most likely be awake anyway. Sleep is hard to come by in this time in my life.
I fear that this is the commonly referred to calm before the storm. This hour of quiet, peace……it’s just a precursor to the pandemonium that will be unleashed in just a few days. Released by my own will to maim. Released by my own needed to feast. Released by my selfish need to hurt my opponent. I fear for his well being.
I can feel every word I write, hear every emotion in vivid detail. I can taste sound and see scents. My instincts are in a dynamic chaos that I cannot suppress. I’ve done so much in the past few weeks I’ve walked the streets of New York. I’ve gone to battle with and defeated many great warriors, yet I too have tasted the flavor of failure. I’ve gone to war with a man who I can say is one of the most vicious competitors I have faced, and I can say that I have always bested him in our back and forth conflict. All of this, and yet……..I feel empty. Empty even though last week was a bit of a reprieve, a win to quell the hunger pains for a short while, but it’s not the victory that I seek. It’s not the performance that I desire to put out there. I am capable of better. I can do better, and I will. This coming Havoc will prove to be very interesting in that aspect on a couple of levels, and the match that I have is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
Here we are again, Altair. Face to face, battling in the ring once again. Nothing on the line other than pride and the desire to move up the ranks towards that World Heavyweight Championship. I find myself saying, frequently, of late, 'What a difference a week makes'. Yet, this week, the only difference is who is behind the barrel, as opposed to in front of the scope. And who’s behind the barrel of the gun with us now is all the rage. For better or for worse, Buff Bridges and Ronnie McNeil will fight the good fight together. That didn’t work so well last time. I’m not convinced it will be different this time around, even if Eddie and Hogan think differently. I will not take a backseat to anyone, including him, and damn sure not you AC. Damn sure not you….
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