The heat from the day has baked into the asphalt streets of Duncan, SC. Ichabod walks up Fairmont Rd. toward Master's Mark, El Mexicano, and the Money Tree. He looks around himself, and then stops. He is at the fork to Sunset Circle... He turns and walks down Sunset toward the gravel yard. He keeps walking, turning through the neighborhood as it gets older and the road gets narrower. Eventually, he sees it... the blind lady's hill. The days that he, Marcus, and Thomas spent here in their youth. Now they were all big superstars... Ichabod, Smoke Dawg, and Bigg Wafer.
I remember everything. I remember every little thing as if it had happened only yesterday. I was barely seventeen, and I nearly killed that boy with my first ever Bitch Thump. I remember it was perfect, the execution was beautiful, and the thirty or forty friends watching gasped it horror.
Ichabod closes his eyes as the scene plays over in his head. Micheal "Doggy" Scott swings a powerful clothesline at Ichabod, but Ichabod ducks and spins. Just as Doggy turns, Ichabod kicks him square in the gut. Doggy pitches foward as Ichabod turns and wraps his arms around his head like a diamond cutter. He uses his momentum and plants his right foot while bringing Doggy's nose down on his knee. Doggy ricochets as an arc of blood issues forth out of his knows. He lies flat on his back and just looks upward... and then slowly closes his eyes as Ichabod pins him for the three count. But as Ichabod pulls off of him, everyone gets that sinking feeling in their stomachs as Doggy doesn't get up.
His nose was broken, the bridge driven nearly into the brain. The sinuses bled for about a week afterward. They threatened me with assault and battery even though Doggy told them it was an accident. It was eventually dropped and I didn't give the charge a second thought. But the memory that stuck with me, the thing I couldn't shake, was the pleasure, the pure enjoyment of hurting another person. The ecstasy of blood spurting through the air like sexual climax. There is no equal for it. From that day, I made it my personal guilty pleasure, hurting people. That's why I'm in this business.
The door to the house on the bank of the river nearby opens and out steps a well built man of about twenty-four.
Ichabod! How's it going ya cock?
Eddie... how's it going man?
Man everyone is looking for you.
What? Why?
ICE. The newest federation around.
Hmm.. Never heard of it. Sounds like a Conner thing.
Ever heard of Dick Gazinya?
Of course, he's the WOW World Champion... I wrestled him a week ago. Why?
He's in ICE now too. And he's not even involved in the World Title match on the opening show.
Oh yeah? Anybody I know in that?
Word has it on ICEfed.com that top booking will go out if you decide to wrestle in that match. They want you to wrestle someone called X-Rated for it!
Really?!
So are you going to do it?
Are you kidding me? Of course. I never back down from a great challenge like this! So who is this X-Rated?
Some nobody as far as anyone knows. There is some speculation that you know him from somewhere else, but no one is sure.
You know what? It doesn't even matter. Know him or not, come Monday, it looks like I'm going to have another federations World Title to tuck under my record. X-Rated, I don't know who he is, nor do I care. Am I underestimating him? No, I'm overestimating him. I'm giving him credit even believing he is going to show up. The word is out. Ichabod is a hot commodity in the wrestling business. They seeked me out from another federation, and you know why? Its because everyone knows I'm top draw for any event. X-Rated will come to find out why they call me the evil redneck. This love I have of hurting people, its going to continue, and X-Rated is going to be ICE's first victim of my guilty pleasure. I hope he's ready.
Thats the Ichabod everyone knows and loves. Good luck man.
Luck? Come on Eddie. You know better than that.
Yeah I know man. Kick his ass dude.
Eddie invites Ichabod in for a beer as the moon rises high over the blind lady's hill. The river bubbles powerfully in its bed as the summer crickets chirp in the otherwise quiet night.
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