New York (joint DS/MF Role-Play)

November 2008



It was the sort of cold, early winter, day that I particularly enjoy; one where the sun hangs low in the sky but behind a milky cloud which not only dapples the harshness of its light, but stops the full force of its warmth from being released. It was a day where the air seemed to have a particular snap to it, and where the wind carried just enough chill to have the people around me pulling their collars tight around their throats. The hubbub of Christmas hadn’t yet descended, but you could sense it was coming. The town was gearing itself up for the Christmas period, and one or two shops already had their front windows decorated for the festive season.



I much prefer New York at this time of year. During the Summer the closeness of the city can make it quite unpleasant at times. It creates an air of tension and frustration which settles on the inhabitants like a film of sweat. So much concrete and glass in such a small space funnels the heat, and the already frenetic pace of the big apple seems to press on you even more. On a cold November morning, it’s much more pleasant.



I’m sitting on a bench in Bryant Park, a small oasis of peace which sits a few blocks South of Times Square, and which is unbelievably pretty in execution. At the back of the park sits an ivy-clad cafeteria with an assortment of wrought iron tables outside. Fountains and octagonal wooden huts front the place, and in the middle there is a handsome sunken square lawn which plays host to compact concerts and performances during the summer months. At the edge of the lawn, men set up Boules pitches on the gravel pathways, giving Bryant Park a much more European feeling than most spaces in New York. On the side where I am sitting now, people gather for impromptu chess games, laying out sets on small tables and benches, in the hope of finding an interested opponent.



I came across one such opponent about 20 minutes ago, and with a faint nod and a smile, he invited me to play. He’s an old man, quite possibly Eastern European in origin, with a friendly smile and just a hint of cunning in his eyes. I think he was surprised that I stopped, as most sporting the sort of business attire I have on have kept walking past. Since the game started, neither of us has said a word to each other, but it’s obvious we’re both enjoying it, so we don’t need to. I could tell from his opening moves that he was taking it easy on me at first, seeing if I actually knew how to play. I countered in the same casual manner, a slight smile on my face as I did so, and he got the message. Slowly the game has ramped up, and he isn’t messing around any more. He’s a good player, and I’m sure he could beat most of those who will wander into the park. But he’s not good enough, not by some way. Still, no need to beat him just yet. I like the man, and I have some time to kill, so I may as well enjoy the game. I move a rook – lets see what he does.



Ten minutes later, and I’m wrapping up a game I could have finished well before now. The old man has known for a while that he can’t beat me, but he’s taken it in good spirit, and played along regardless, even offering to top up my coffee with a shot of whatever lurks in a small hip flask he’s produced. I declined the drink, but enjoyed the company. I stand, and offer him my newspaper, which he accepts with a nod and a wave, and I turn and wander back out of the South-West corner of the park, heading down 6th Avenue. Within moments I am into the centre of the garment district, and a couple of blocks later I approach 34th Street. It’s the usual busy throng of people flocking around Macys, or heading a block to my left towards the Empire State building. I turn right, and head towards Penn Station.



But its not the station I’m really heading for, it’s the building that sort of sits on top of it. The enormous round cake of a structure which for some of us is just as much a landmark of the Big Apple as any of the towering skyscrapers. If you are in the business I am in, then this building may as well be the centre of the universe. I can still remember the first time I entered the place. Though I was officially a wrestler then, in truth I was a kid who had had half a dozen matches and was no more than an interested fan. I was in New York then partly for a short vacation, and partly to see if I could get a meeting with an old contact of my father’s who I knew didn’t have much love lost for him, and who I hoped might be in a position to help me now that I’d broken free of him. I’d gotten the meeting, and some useful information, and as I’d left his office I’d seen the advert. WWF (as it was then) Wrestling live from Madison Square Garden.



I’d seen the WWE before of course, everyone who was interested in getting into the business had seen their matches and studied their stars. You have to remember that this was before the modern era of the WWF. Back then, just after the first few Wrestlemanias, it was still the land of the giants, and it had been suggested to me that being as large as I was, I’d be a natural fit for Vinnie’s company. I’d shaken my head every time someone had suggested it. For one I was nowhere near ready for a stage that big, but for another thing it wasn’t really the style of wrestling I was interested in. I was into the Japanese style – straighter, harder, more technical, and more like a shoot contest. To me, there wasn’t enough workrate in the WWF style of the likes of Hogan. Of course, I was suffering from “new-boy snobbishness” and over time I learnt better. Its as important to be an entertainer in our business as it is a wrestler, and the WWE is just as hard to do well as any other.



Still, I’d decided to go along to the show, and was fortunate enough to bag a seat in the fourth row. Of course I’d had a great time – 20,000 people around you all screaming at the matches just ends up getting you involved – and I’d hung back for as long as possible after the show ended to just soak up the atmosphere as the arena emptied.



I didn’t speak to anyone from the WWF that night. I wasn’t spotted in the crowd and invited to come down and talk to them. I suppose I could have pushed my luck if I’d wanted – after all it had worked in Japan and I was now on their roster, but I didn’t. I simply left with the tail end of the of the crowd. It was some years before I went back – either to the Garden or to a WWF show.



But as I walk up to the building now, that all seems like a very long time ago. Another world and another lifetime. And perhaps it was. I’ve lived enough and lost enough and done enough and regretted enough for several lifetimes over, so why shouldn’t I look back on the callow youth of that time as someone completely different from the person I am now. It’s easier to think of my existence as a series of different lives. Makes it easier to face up to who I was. Call it a coping technique if you like.



Security at the arena has been tightened in the last few years, since 9/11 and especially since other terrorist attacks around the world. However, being a celebrity helps in these situations, as does the fact that they are expecting me, and I’m virtually breezed right through. The conference facilities are near the top of the building, as are the VIP suites, but I can’t resist a walk into the auditorium at ground level first. It never gets old to look up at that domed ceiling and those tiers of seats that seem to stretch into the heavens. TV doesn’t really give you an accurate impression of this place. It distorts the angle and makes it seem wider than it is. In fact, it’s quite closed in and the seating area above the floor level quite steeply raked, so the very top seats in the arena are real nose-bleeders. This is actually a positive as it gives MSG an intensity you get in only a few buildings. I always loved it here.



Still, the place is not set up for a wrestling show today. The end stage has been erected, and on it an army of technicians and engineers scurry around throwing together the staging for this evening’s concert. The set is elaborate, the lighting rig extravagant, the pyrotechnics as large as the New York fire marshal will allow.



I’d have expected no less from him.



I smile to myself. No less indeed.



“Its good isn’t it?”



The voice stirs me from my train of thought, and I turn around in the direction it came from.



And there he is. The man the world once knew as the Vampire Antichrist, the Cyberstar, Goth 2K, and a hundred and one other personas. But a man that the world simply knows today the way I’ve known him for nearly 15 years – as Myron Fox.



For him, Myron is dressed in remarkably low-key attire. A pair of black boots of a style he’d like to refer to as Musketeeresque, black trousers with a faint pin-stripe, two belts, one of metal and the other a purple silk sash arrangement, and a black collared waistcoat from which hangs the chain of a pocket watch I bought him last year. The look is topped off by various bits of jewellery, a loosely tied scarf, and a t-shirt which signals the reason we are meeting here.



I cast a nod toward the set.



“Good, maybe, subtle, not so much”



Myron makes an exaggerated sighing gesture and shakes his head, a smile spreading across grey painted lips.



“David, really, there’s time to be subtle when we’re dead!”



“Most of the time, you look like you already are”



He feigns being hurt, despite the smile across his face, and laughs. “Oooh, you cut me. You cut me with the rapier like slash of your ready wit” He smiles and raises his eyebrows, a gesture he does when he’s trying to make light of a situation which is actually concerning him; “But actually with how busy I am at the moment, I probably will be dead by the end of this tour.”



I let the inflection go for the moment, though I’ll return to it later.



When Myron quit professional wrestling 18 months ago, many people wondered where he might divert his talents. Music was an obvious avenue for him to pursue, given that he’d experimented with his own bands during his off-time for the business. But not many expected such an exhibitionist showman to decide to spend his life behind the curtain as a producer and promoter, and certainly not to go right back to basics and bring on unnamed bands in small venues.



However, people tend to underestimate Myron. I’ve said before that people tend to notice the image and not bother to dig any deeper, and that they do so at their peril. This wasn’t something he just woke up one morning and decided he wanted to have a go at. It had been on his mind for years. He’d done his research and studied his market, and he knew exactly what he was doing. Myron was – is - a master in self-promotion. Anyone that bothered to study his career should have realised that. It was something we shared during our careers. Myron and I could talk wrestling fans into a building for a show, and he simply transferred those skills to promoting someone else.



He had indeed started small, signing a couple of bands only (one out of Sheffield and the other out of Los Angeles) and recording them on a small record label he’d bought up on the quiet through a contact of mine. They’d played small gigs, with little pre-promotion or warning, and information had been extremely scarce. This was actually genius on his part. Everyone expected this big celeb to come out all guns blazing and shove his bands down people’s throats until they were sick of him. Instead, Myron trusted in the loyalty of his fans in wanting to know what he was doing, and made them do the work. They had to find out when and where his bands were playing, what they were doing, and then spread that through word of mouth in their own networks. It created a buzz of intrigue around his acts, a slow burn that built and built around an almost fanatical core. Myron bid his time, allowed expectation to grow, and then – only when the time was right – he opened the floodgates.



The reaction was massive. His bands went from being underground sensations to the hottest acts on the planet. Inside a year both had released 2 multi-platinum selling albums, other bands had been signed to the label and the arena tour showcasing his two biggest bands, headlining on alternate nights, was in full swing across Europe, Asia, and the US. There were barely enough arenas of sufficient capacity to meet demand, and tonight Madison Square Garden would become the latest venue to rock out to the best the rapidly growing music company - Cyberstar Promotions - could offer.



So, had he wanted to do so, my old friend could simply have sat back, allowed his employees to do their jobs, collected the money, and basked in the glory of a relaxed retirement. However, that wasn’t really his style. Myron was in the music business because he loved it, and that meant he had to be involved. He was at every show, overseeing the lighting set up, testing the effects, on safety wires on the cat-walks, and walking the band through their performances. He choreographed all the stage shows, taught the bands how to do interviews and conduct themselves on stage, and ran the production from start to finish. Backstage he was a blur of motion from the moment he arrived at the arena – which was always before the first truck did – to the moment he was gone – which was after the last one had left.



Of course I knew why he did it. I’d been there myself. Except that my stage was the board room and the office, and my band were my vice-presidents and heads of Department. I knew what he was doing alright.



Which was why I knew I had to stop him before it sent him crazy. Trouble is, holding Myron back has never been an easy task. Still, I’ll try.



“I told you it was too many dates. You know, maybe you should back off a bit. You could slow down you know, occasionally let someone you are paying actually do some work”



His smile indicated he appreciated the jibe.



“David, as much as I trust people around me, this is a Myron Fox production, and there’s only one Myron Fox”



I trail my answer slowly, softly



“Precisely. But don’t you think, sometimes you try to spread him too thin?”



“There’s enough Myron to go around!”



“Maybe, maybe not.” I let that hang for a moment before continuing. Just long enough to make the point.



“Look, I just think you could afford to back off and concentrate on fewer things – don’t you sometimes at least wonder if you are too controlling over all this? I think it is in danger of becoming unhealthy”



I’m pushing here, more than I mean to. Myron never liked it when I tried to lecture him. Sometimes I occasionally forget that it’s a long time since he was anything like my pupil, and he has long-since stopped needing to seek my approval for his actions. But then, as friends, we still seek each other’s advice, so I can’t stop myself offering it. Still, he’s obviously not going to let me tell him what to do, as the exasperated look on his face suggests.



“And sometimes my friend” he replies “I think you are becoming an old man. We’ve been here before David, you telling me hold back and to slow down. The business changes, but the advice stays the same? Is that how it works?”



I hold a hand up in defence “Hey, no lectures, not why I’m here. But, after all, you brought up being tired, and that’s certainly not like you. So look, I’m just concerned is all. I know what you’re like when you’re into something. You commit to it totally and want to be at it 24/7, and you have to be involved in all parts of it. I just want to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons”



As much as he’s not about to concede it immediately, I can see by the flicker in his eyes that something I’ve said has resonated. Still, the comeback comes fast, with a laugh.



“David, look around you – can you think of anything that’s more me than this sort of set-up?”



He knows I won’t fall for that sort of thing, and so now he looks more straight-forward, open. Less the showman, more the friend.



“Look, I’m fine, really. Yes, I’ve had a lot on and maybe it has got to me a little. I am a little tired, that’s true. But I can deal with that. I will deal with that. So, why are here?”



Before I reply I pause just long enough to make the point that I don’t quite believe him.



“Lets go somewhere a little quieter and talk”



He casts me a look which has a lot of questions in it, but decides to say nothing and simply nods. So we walk together out of the auditorium into a waiting elevator in the lobby which takes us to the level of one of the skyboxes. Once inside he places his ever-present laptop on the coffee table, and takes a seat.



“So, David, what’s all this really about? You didn’t come all the way here to talk music or my involvement with the bands”



“Actually, in a round-about way, I did.”



He shakes his head, annoyed



“I thought we’d stopped doing that?”



“What?”



“Talking in riddles. David, this is me you’re talking to. I heard the lectures, the monologues. That’s for out there. There’s no need for hyperbole. I know, I know – that’s rich coming from me. But, for once, let’s just cut to the chase…”



I sit down in the seat directly facing him. He’s right; I ought to just tell him the truth. I nod.



“OK, here goes. Put simply, I think you’re making a huge mistake with all this. I think it’s a smokescreen to hide something that’s been eating away at you for months. I think you miss the wrestling business. Not just the little you admit in interviews or when you and I are discussing the old days. I think you REALLY miss it, deep down beyond the smile and the facepaint.”



He doesn’t say anything, just sits back in his chair and gestures for me to go on. To do so risks offending him, but it needs saying, so I continue.



“I think when you walked away you enjoyed the novelty for a while, but then you woke up one morning and there was suddenly an enormous hole where your life used to be. I think that scared you. I think it terrified you in fact. I think you panicked because you had no idea how to live the rest of your life, and then I think you scrabbled to find something to fill it as fast as you could before the hole opened up and swallowed you.



I think you involve yourself far more than you should and work far more than you should and maintain such a tight grip because you’re afraid that if you stop even for a moment, you’ll be staring at that hole again, and this time you won’t be able to fill it.



For you, the wrestling business was always more than just a profession, or something you did to fill the time. Your persistence in coming back time and again when better sense would have told you to walk away proves that. But I don’t think it’s the actual wrestling you miss, per-se. I think it’s the life – or more accurately the escape from the life. I think you need an escape Myron. I think you always have. And I don’t think promoting bands is that escape”



As I’ve talked through these words, my eyes have never left his, and I’ve seen the look in them change. The friendly and slightly mischievous look has gone. Now they are cold, hard, and anger is in the look he’s casting me. He’s trying to appear calm, but I’m not surprised that his voice is harsh as he responds.



“So that’s what you think? Well, Mr Freud, thank you for the analysis. But you want to know what I think? I think you ought to not judge people by your own standards! Because it doesn’t sound like me you are talking about, it sounds like you. Just remember that not all of us were that screwed up David. Now, if we’re done, I’m busy”



He goes to rise out of his chair.



“No, we aren’t done. Sit down”



He casts me a look of pure stone, and I can see the muscles in the arms flex. We both know that I’ve no right to speak to him like that.



This isn’t going the way I hoped. I’ve gone in too hard. So I need to pull back and apologise.



“Please, Myron, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Just, please sit down and let me explain”



He’s not giving an inch, and now the tone is mocking. Nevertheless, he does retake his seat, this time swinging his feet onto the table and leaning back in his chair. It’s a classic gesture from him – it means he’s telling you he’s not really interested in what you have to say.



“Explain? Oh I would really love to hear you explain this!”



I sit back in the chair for a moment, looking out across the arena. I’m finding the right words. He doesn’t hurry me to speak, but I can feel him watching me. I’m not getting out of this easily.



“Ok, what you just said there about judging other people by my standards, and about how that description sounded a lot like me? You’re right, it does sound a lot like me – it was me – and that’s how come I know what I’m talking about. When all is said and done, my friend, you and I aren’t so very different”



The eyes are hard, the tone clipped



“Oh I beg to differ. There are times when we are very alike. Too much time, some would say. But I also think there we’re VERY different sometimes. This being one of them!”



“Really? Think about it. We come from different directions, but we’ve both given our entire adult lives to the same business, we both used that business as a means to escape the reality we saw in front of us – in my case a life being dictated by my family and in your case the grey grasp of a youth spent in a depressed town like Sheffield – we both created characters which at times we struggled to really control, and we both went far further allowing those characters to infest us than was healthy for either of us. We both stuck around far longer than we needed to in the business, and we both allowed it to do us far more damage than was good for us. We both had personal relationships which suffered as a result of the business.



And – most tellingly – despite all that we both still love it with all our hearts. Now, look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”



For a long while Myron just stares at me. I can feel his mind working, trying to find a way to deny what I have said. Eventually he just settles for



“That doesn’t make the rest of your psych analysis correct”



“It does my friend, it does. You see, I did the same thing you did when I left the business. I sat around for a while and I enjoyed the peace and the spare time. I enjoyed the pace being slower and having time to relax and take stock. I enjoyed reading a book listening to the ticking of a clock, taking a walk with Rachel, just being around her. It was fantastic. But that’s because I was treating it like a holiday, like it wasn’t going to last. It was a novelty, to be enjoyed because it was different.



But novelty wears off. Pretty soon you start noticing how long it’s taking between each tick of the clock. You’ve done all the things you said you wanted to do when you got some time, and a whole long stretch of empty days opens up before you. That’s when it gets scary, because you don’t know what to do with them. That’s when you realise what retirement really means – the end of things. And you realise, you aren’t ready for that yet. And when you reach that realisation, it scares the hell out you that there may be no way back.



Myron, to do the things we do in that ring, to live that life, takes a very special sort of personality. An obsessive personality with a voracious appetite, and once you spend the sort of time we have feeding that appetite, and tasting the rewards it brings, you can’t just switch it off and be content with anything else. Real life just has no taste to it”.



“Ooh, very poetic. And now its tales of forbidden fruit?”



“For us it was never forbidden, that was the difference, we had the means to taste all the fruit we wanted.”



He lets out a humourless laugh and shakes his head



“I think you’re becoming too poetic now – getting a little confused between performance and art with reality”



“No, I’m not, and I’m surprised to hear that coming from someone who never ever acknowledged the line between the two”



“I was a professional wrestler, David. Sure, I’ve always believed in what I was saying. The Cyberstar. The Vampire. They are real to me, part of my life as much as getting up in the morning. I just built the show around that. Extended parts of it. I blurred where my lifestyle and the work began and ended and built a CHARACTER. Now I’ve cut that away. It’s locked in a cupboard much like your trophy room. What’s that saying, something about ‘when I became a man I put aside childish things…I’m a different person these days…’



I stare at him



“Bullshit”



“I beg your pardon”



“You heard me Fox, Bullshit. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”



His nostrils flare “Rich, no?”



“Myron I’m not some hack interviewing you for a dirt sheet. This is me you are talking to. Your ring persona – personas - were no more a character for you that mine were for me. They weren’t costumes. There was no hard line where Batman ended and Bruce Wayne began. When you went out there in front of that crowd, that person those people saw was every bit as much the real you as the person sitting in front of me right now. Don’t you dare insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise. That prancing peacock you were in the ring was you, is you. It’s another side of you, perhaps not the same one I’m talking to now, but its there, it always has been. Just remember the stories you told me about your childhood; the dreaming, the taunting. It was no character.



And it doesn’t go away. It might be dormant for a while, temporarily satisfied by a quick fix like all this, but its never going to go away. It will come back, and it will be stronger, and hungrier, and burn us until we feed it again. I’ve come to realise it’s our obsession, and our addiction”



”You make it sound like we were some sort of junkies”



“We were, in a way. Tell me you didn’t feel some sort of high when you were out there performing. What does a junkie do when he needs a fix? He abandon’s logic, rational thought, friendships and loyalties. He pushes things further and further, takes more and more risks; he will do anything to get that rush again because it’s all that matters to him.”



“And you’re saying we were like that – that the wrestling business was our drug, that we became consumed with it that same way?”



“Can you say we didn’t?”



He doesn’t answer directly. Instead he gets up and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge at the back of the room. His tone is still semi-sarcastic, but laced with just enough interest and question for me to know this is sinking in



“So, what, I’m substituting now?”



“I think so, yes, in some sort of a way. You can’t just cold-turkey that obsessive side to your nature. You need something to latch onto, something which feeds that monster, and provides that kick again. Call it your super-ego if you like….”



He scoffs, his defence mechanisms kicking in



“Oh, now I’m an ego-maniac on top of everything else!”



“Myron, that isn’t what I’m saying and you know it. All I’m saying that that you should be careful and that you should make sure this is what you really want. Not what will temporarily give you a fix, not what will flatter to deceive your ego, not what will fill a temporary hole, but what you really honestly, deep down in your soul, want…I guess, need. Because if its not – and my friend I really don’t think it is - then all any of this is going to be is smoke and mirrors, and all it will do is make that big hole in your life deeper, and darker, until it’s a bottomless pit you can’t crawl out of. What I’m saying Fox is take a look at yourself, all yourselves, and ask yourself if you are really being true to them. Because if you aren’t, then this will destroy you in the end.”



He’s staring down, boring a hole in the wood with his eyes. But his voice has lost the hostility. Now it’s simply questioning.



“And let’s suppose I say it is that I’ve thought about all you said and this, here, it is what I want?”



“You want me to answer that?”



He nods, slowly, and so I do



“I’m afraid I’d say you were lying.”



I watch his chest rise and fall. A deep, deep breath



“Myron, you always told me that what was most important to you was being true to yourself. Look me in the eye right now”



He doesn’t look up, and so to get him to do so I bang my fist down on the table. He jolts upright, and now his look is hard. But not just from anger. There’s something else there, maybe embarrassment, maybe sadness, maybe acceptance.



“Fox, look at me across this table, as my friend for 15 years, as someone I’d trust and respect and you tell me that all this really makes you happy. You tell me that all this is really the real you and what you really want. Tell me this is everything Myron Fox needs”.



His stare seems to go on for eons. He’s not going to actually reply to that question, but both of us know he doesn’t have to. He finally runs his fingers through his hair, and springs back to his feet. He walks to the window and looks down at the arena. He talks without turning around.



“How did we get here?” he sighs



“How does anybody get anywhere my friend? It happens while you aren’t paying attention.”



“Why do you do this?”



“Do what?”



“Every time I think my life is going along on a straight little road, you come along and run me off it”



“That isn’t why I’m here, and you know it. Stop being childish, it’s unfair”



Now he does turn, and some of the old anger is back in his eyes



“Unfair? Unfair? You think IM being unfair. I’m the bad guy here? Well then I may as well be. So just tell me, have you asked yourself the same questions you just asked me, David?”



“Yes, yes I have”



“And?”



“I think my demon was different. A different sort of animal which attacked me in a different way. It was born of my anger and my guilt and I had to confront it sooner and more aggressively than you did. I think….I think I came to terms with it”



He scoffs “Really? To use your own terminology, bullshit”



“You think?”



“Yes, I do. Tell me David, what’s it like being the embers of the man I knew?”



I half expected this. What I didn’t expect is that I’d be annoyed when it happened.



“What do you mean by that?”



“I mean it’s sad when you look at a man who was once a great inferno, and all you see is that the fire has gone out. What happened to you David isn’t that you fought your demon and won. It’s that you simply GAVE UP…”



“How can you even say that?”



“Because it’s true David. You think you’re the only one who’s watched the change in a friend and had to bite his tongue this last couple of years? No, you aren’t. I’ve seen the change in you, but I decided to keep my own counsel, because I know you don’t like people interfering in your business. But what the hell, cards on the table now. Here goes. This person sitting before me now, this isn’t David Shand. This is some hollow ghost who talks with a pale echo of his voice. You caution me over a new outlet for my passion my fire and my energy, well at least I still have some to vent. Where has yours gone? When David Shand swept into a room you could feel his presence before you even saw him. You had an energy, a life force which was indescribable. People met David Shand, and they were in awe. Now what do they feel, pity?”



“Pity?”



“Yes, I think so. You were right that the demon inside you filled you with hate and anger, and I know you had to rid yourself of it, but in doing so you threw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. You let go of ALL your anger, of ALL your fire. You forgot how to be angry David. And when you did that, you might as well have jumped into your coffin. I mean, what are you now? A rich playboy antique collector in an expensive suit.



“No Myron, what I am, is happy”



He laughs at the suggestion “Happy? You aren’t happy David. Examine your own words, your own accusations.”



“Myron…”



“No, you opened Pandora’s Box, David. It’s too late to try and put everything back inside. You can’t just come in here and hold a mirror up to MY life and then expect me to not to do the same with yours.”



Myron’s is beginning to get a little louder, he eyes a little wilder. Never one to sit still Myron’s hands are now carving shapes in the air, emphasising his words just a little more.



“Don’t forget, David, I’ve been around you for a looong time. The early days of master and pupil, the friendship that followed. The glory days of The Trinity. Hell, David, I was the one who stood on the top of that cell and watched your eyes as you threw me off it! THAT was the David Shand I knew. That was the fire I’m talking about…”



Myron starts to pace the room. I remain seated. I can see I’ve left a mark on him. That he’s been bothered by what I’ve said. While the words are coming in my direction I can see they are as much to stop him thinking about something, something that I’ve made him look at.



“Are you LISTENING to me?!?!”



I snap back from my own thoughts, suddenly realising that Myron has stopped moving and is looking at me. I’ve drifted away from the conversation I started. Why?



“I look at you and you know what I feel? I feel sick. From the bottom of my stomach…sick. To think I once looked up to the pathetic shell of a man I see in front on me…”



“Now just hold on…”



“No, I won’t. You think I like saying this? Do you think I enjoy ripping into you? I don’t. It shouldn’t have come to this. OK, maybe I may have something to think about. Something to consider. But so do you, David...”



Myron’s voice drops again but the words are no less passionate.



“Listen…listen to me as a friend. You might think that you’re happy but I think I’m not the only one fooling himself about what he wants. About who he is. I think we both need to go away and think about that. David, you said I was The Cyberstar as much as I was Myron. Well, you also said you were The Reaper as much as you were yourself. I think YOU need to remember that, David. I think you’ve forgotten who you are…”



He gets up, walks to the door, and doesn’t turn to face me. Doesn’t want to even look at me.



“Stay for the show if you like. I’ll let them know to sort you out some tickets. Like I said, I’m busy and I need to get on…”



Myron leaves, not another word, not another look.



It’s a couple of minutes before I can actually release my grip on the arms of the chair and follow him out of the room, stretching my fingers to release the cramp from gripping so hard.



I hear the show went well. I don’t stay for it. I have things to think about.