FORTY: A Banner Exit [AGW departure]

"Suppose I've put this off long enough, haven't I?"

The image on screen fades up from twilight blue-black to show the silver-haired Scot Bruce McLeod sitting on the diving board, feet dangling inches above the pristine aqua depths of his backyard swimming pool. There's a glint of something shiny in his hand – at first it looks like a coin and he keeps turning it over and over between his fingers. It's a sort of modified coin trick, rolling it across his skinned knuckles before flipping it into his palm, caught by that hitchhiker's thumb of his. Over and over, the letters that spell out the name JERRY WATTS blurred by the motion before it slips from his hand and drops into the deep end of the pool. He watches it sink for a moment, as if there's a sort of symbolism in that before he speaks again, his voice a little raspier than usual.

"Make sure I put this across as plainly as I can. Grab a seat, lovelies. Promise I won't take too much of your time with this little missive."

He bows his head again, eyes on that dark blur beneath the surface.

"I'll fetch that later – it's the nameplate off the championship. They let me take it home, the whole damnable thing. Pried the fucker's name off when I got back here, like that was the part that was wrong in all this. Wasn't though. Ten seconds after it was pushed into my hands, I knew. Knuckle up. Buckle up, folks. Ride's about tae get a wee bit bumpy."

With a sigh, he rakes his right hand through his hair, pushing the unruly strands from his face. Devoid of the product he usually has in there, it simply flops back down over his brow the moment he lets his hand fall. His eyes are restless, shifting back and forth, not really settling on the camera for any length of time.

"Ground Zer0 was the last event under the Anything Goes Wrestling brand. Oh aye, the doors will remain open. The letters will stand for something else, in due time. Allow me to paint an image for you… if you'll indulge an old man for a moment. There was an old show on TV that I used to love, and this one scene always got me. Sad music playing and this shot of a lonesome highway. There's a man walking the wrong way along the blacktop, thumb out like he's looking to catch a ride – his name is Dr. David Banner. The show was The Incredible Hulk and that end scene always stuck with me. That lonesome fella looking tae hitch a ride, one tae the next stop down the road – anywhere but here. Last part's important. Anywhere. But. Here."

He hesitates, shaking his head.

"Am sure this will get all manner of twisted the moment it airs, folks all up in their feelings over something that shouldn't have a damned thing tae do with them in the first place. Call it misplaced ego. Call it a slap in the face tae the grand poobah of bullshit hisself, King Jesse Styles, the fella who took a chance on signing these old bones. Appreciated? Surely. Didn't sign away my soul – or my bleedin' sanity – along with that little John Hancock on the dotted line. Worked my arse off every show I was on. And for what? Tae have an illiterate dipshit as an opponent whilst someone who signed with the company two damn months after I did, walks right into World Title contention?"

He shakes his head, clearly embittered about the whole thing. It's clear he's making the effort to keep his accent in check so every word is crystal clear and understood.

"Wanted to face the best before the sands in the top half of that hourglass of my career've run out. Didn't come here to tread water in the kiddie pool. Oh, aye. Know how this comes off. Self-righteous masturbation… nice clean strokes like that's all I've got goin' for me. Have to prove am not impotent, right? Every week feels like a goddamned repeat of the last. Groundhog Day and it's October now and it'd be sad if it weren't true, if I wasn't toiling day in and day out to shuck this goddamned image that's been stuck on me for the past year. Every time I do, this chameleon curse adapts. Challenger flips to feeble old man. Try-hard to has-been. Champion tae usurper – Jesusfuck."

The epithet slips out and he shakes his head slowly, sucking his teeth before he continues.

"Main Eventer? Oh heavens, no. Never that. Absolutely daft tae even think, let alone articulate. Nae. We leave that coveted spot for the habitual line-steppers."

His voice isn't quite steady, the negative emotions he's been trying to hold back for too long are threatening to overflow.

"It's a lull now. Downtime shift. Got nothing planned for the next five days except catching up on all the sleep I've missed – you didn't deserve it, AGW. Gave you the best of me and you spit in my face over and over again. Prioritized this hell hole at the cost of what I had going for me in Canada. Oh, aye. And for what? I came tae the table hungry. You fed me tainted scraps. Poisoned me and then made me pay for the bellyache the gluttonous hyenas got when they gobbled up MY lion's share."

The eye roll is just barely visible behind those amber-tinted aviators he's got on.

"Shame on the lot of you for squandering the talent you had in your midst. Shame. On. You."

The scorn oozes from every word.

"Right now, am so damned tired. Inside an' out – you gutted me – all I can hear is the world crashing down 'round my ears. I can hear the clock ticking away in another room, reminding me of all the seconds wasted on you. I can hear voices whispering off in the wings but when I lift my head, all I see's the sun breaking through the clouds for another day full of promise, ultimately squandered. The circle's closing; am pretty sure it's a noose that's been custom-made for my neck. Quite certain I'll never outrun that fate. Rather fight tooth and nail, right to the bitter end."

A dark chuckle slips past his thinned lips.

"Anyone else ever have days like this, feeling like you've got the world in the palm of your hands but they're greased and you're fumbling in this desperate attempt not tae drop it? What happens when you do, though? Is that the end of everything?"

He looks down at that nameplate at the bottom of the pool again.

"Or is it when you let go that you're finally able tae find the true beginning?"

Lifting his head, those dark eyes beneath those furrowed brows are intense and dead black with barely suppressed fury.

"Guess we'll find out, won't we?"