((The sun was just starting to breach the horizon as he ran from it towards the west...his feet pounded the pavement at an unwavering pace...unchanging and consistent. The world around him was already starting to take on a bluish gray hue to it as the morning star pushed away the black of night. He took a deep breath, expanding his lungs to their full capacity, and then very slowly released the breath. Some track in high school had taught him how to regulate his pulse and breathing. Keep your back straight, your strides long, your head up...focus, focus, focus...))

((This had been his release since his departure from the west coast. Keeping this pace he could run forever. His mind would slip into a train of thought, and before too long minutes had given away to hours. And then his thoughts would skip, and he'd find himself lost in another facet of his mind. Everything reminded him of something else...pulled forward long dead ideas, and then suddenly...violently...pushed him forward toward current events. Most of the time they were issues he didn't want to deal with...))

"Do you expect me to be embarrassed of my past?"

((He let his eyes close for a moment...shutting them tight against the words...the words that cut deeper then the loss...then the attack. Words that were so wrong...so wrong. He wanted to scream, wanted to pound his fist against the cement, and shout until they understood. Until they were finally looking him, and hearing his words, and not...not the words his family had shoved down their throats forever and ever. They could hate him...they could hate him for his hair cut, his eye color, his voice, his skin color,...they could hate him, but they wanted them to have a reason to hate him...a reason besides his last name.))

((He opened his eyes again...they'd only closed for a moment, but in that moment so many thoughts. They were pushing at his skull...they wanted to be free. He felt himself pushing the pace forward...the wind whistling through his hair blowing stronger. His breathing was starting to slip away from steadiness to panic. But he couldn't stop...not now he was almost there. Just a little further and he'd almost be there.))

"Everything you see before you now is mine. Earned. By me. Nothing was handed to me. Unlike some people."

"What exactly have you earned, in your life?"

((He gritted his teeth hard, and felt them grind. He hated that sound. And it was then suddenly that his thoughts jumped back almost twenty-one years...when his family was still young, and he a new addition by only a handful of years...He thought of that cool November afternoon at the beach house. The one they rented before any of them were rich enough to own. He could remember the warm smell of hot apple cider mixed with the aroma of homemade pumpkin pie. It would forever be a smell he'd associate with remorse for the rest of his life...))

"Why are you cryin?"

((He remembered his tiny voice saying as he grabbed his uncles twenty-year old hand in his. His uncle had always seemed so immense...so giant to him back then. And Kyle was sure then that if his uncle had commanded it the oceans would have parted for him, but of course that was such a silly idea he didn't dear speak it, but still it was there. His uncle had looked down to him them, tears swelling in his eyes, a black turtleneck hugging his torso, and tried to speak...But the words died somewhere in his throat and instead he just turned to look back out across the gray waters...))

"Where's auntie huh? Where is she?"

((He had to cringe at his childhood ignorance right then. His questions had been so bold and brutally straight forward. And he remembered watching as his uncle put a hand to his eyes, and started to shudder. He didn't understand why, but he felt at that time like he needed to get away. That he didn't want to know the answers to his questions anymore. That if he stayed there much longer he might be crying to. So he tried to pull away, but his uncles strong hand still clutched his...))

"She...she's gone now, Kyle."

((His voice had been so weak then...just barely audible above the crash of the waves some yards ahead of him. He'd turned his head then to look up at his uncle, and was surprised to find his uncles eyes looking back at him. It had sent a cool shiver down his back, and it was in that simple, sad, glance that his young mind started to understand. He could feel his throat going tight, and the tears starting to push forward...))

"She's coming later? Right?"

((His uncles head shook slowly, and it was in that moment the flood gates were opened and Kyle started to cry. But his uncle who would grow gradually more distant from that point on...reached down and scooped his young nephew up in his strong arms. They cried together for what seemed like hours to his young mind, but was in truth only a hand full of moments.))

"What if I do speak for them? What if I am speaking for the roster? The staff? What exactly is there to do about it?"

((Those words jumped so violently to his mind that he almost stumbled. He'd had to shake his head and pick up the speed that he'd lost in a memory...but still those words clung to his mind like a cancer...slowly gnawing away at his self worth. He couldn't understand why the words should matter so much to him. Why opinions of the biased weighed so heavily upon his mind, but no matter how long he reasoned with himself...he knew they did...because they had talent. He didn't. They had history. He didn't. They had success. He didn't. And so he pushed his pace up a little further...stretching his legs out as far as they'd go. And he was almost there he could almost taste it.))

"I mean, telling people your family history, I can live with that… but when you hype it up, and drop names, and say Charm this and Charm that…"

((Now his mind swam in a shallow pool of self doubt. What was he doing here? Why was he trying so hard? Did it matter anymore? Did it matter to his family? And the only answer that kept coming back was no. It only mattered to him. Like a mother passing on a wedding ring to her daughter...he needed that name. He needed it to belong to a Lee. To someone who still cared about it. Because his family and its traditions were a part of him.)) 

"Kyle...please come home. I miss you, your father misses you, she misses you."

((It was a phone call from his mother that leapt to his mind. She'd sounded so dismissive of his goals and dreams. And he'd had to bite down all the rage longing to jump out of his throat and berate her for her shallowness...but instead all that came out were the words of a child.))

"But I have to do this mom. I have to."

((His lungs were burning now...his breathing had become sporadic sometime between then and now...He tried to regain his composure, but his body revolted against him, and instead started to push him faster and harder. His head started to tilt back as his breaths started to come in short gasps...His heart was pounding so hard...Why couldn't they understand?))

"I mean, when you took the time out to tease, and laugh at Cicatriz at One Night Only."

((He didn't? He did...why did he? Look at me! Look am me! Look at me! His heart was going to explode. He could feel it pumping so much faster then it should be. He couldn't catch his breath, but he couldn't stop either. Why had he laughed? He hadn't meant to...maybe it was just the way the production crew spliced the footage...maybe he was scared...Why couldn't they understand?))

"The understated insinuations that a mere name made you so much better than me. Your implying how you'd beat me, if I ever swept low enough to fight you."

((He couldn't...he knew he couldn't, but he couldn't stop trying. His legs felt as if on fire...the muscles going tight begging him to stop, but if he just kept pushing he'd almost be there. It was right there he could see it right there in front of him. He just needed to reach it. Why couldn't he understand?))

"Well, did he ever stop to think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, it was his whining and his bitching that caused his family to slightly outcast him?"

((The truth of the statement finally broke him, and he felt his body tumble forward...He felt a searing pain in his right knee as his world was turned up side down...His shoulder struck the pavement, and his stomach lurched...Later he wouldn't recall how he tried to push back up to his feet, how the world blacked out, and he fell back down to his hands and knees...dry heaving until they finally subsided and he rolled onto his back...breathing deeply of the fresh, cool, air... ))

((He felt his breathing slow...his heart beat return to a normal soft thud-thud pattern...He'd reached it again. For the briefest of seconds he had tasted it, and just like that it was gone again. He blinked his eyes opened and looked up into a morning sky...when he'd left his front door this morning it had still been dark...just the faintest of glows off to the east, and now...))

((He'd ended up in this position last Tuesday...sprawled out on the mat barely aware of the lights over head...or of the cheering crowd around him. He'd been taught a lesson...a lesson he wouldn't allow himself to forget. He was still learning to crawl. While the rest of them were walking...he was just starting to crawl. All of that training...all of that practice meant nothing when you didn't have the experience. He slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, feeling the loose gravel digging into his palms as he did so. He turned his head just slightly to look up at us...to look up at a camera that had been moving beside him in a vehicle. Maybe you heard the dull whine of the engine as it accelerated? Maybe not...))

((Pushing up to his feet he suddenly winced and grabbed at his ribs...Angel had left a subtle reminder behind. One that he wasn't about to forget. Rubbing at his ribs gently he finally pushed to his full height. He supposed he'd start heading back home now. Catch a shower and then maybe a movie down town. He'd heard that Spider-Man was worth a look, but then again how good could a comic book movie be?))

((Again he looked back up to the camera. He let a few moments pass as he collected his thoughts...))

November: Have you ever just sometimes wondered why you're in this profession? Why the only way we can make a living is retreating to our most primal of urges and beat on one another? I've turned the question over and over and over again in my mind so many times...so many times, and I was never able to find an answer. Not to say that you don't have your own answers to this very question, but I still haven't found mine. I use to think it was because of something to do with my past, but I've been told recently that that isn't a good enough reason to be here. So maybe...maybe now the only reason to be here, and the reason that has been starring me in the face for the last couple of months...is to hurt others. Nothing poetic or romantic about that at all now is there? Despite the fact I called myself a wrestler...I still thought there was some deeper meaning to the word, but there isn't. The media still laughs at wrestlers...and dismisses them as anything worthwhile. There are still people out there afraid to admit to their friends that they watch this sport on TV...and there I was trying to find a deeper meaning to my profession. How stupid.

I'll stop looking now and just do what I'm paid to do...wrestle.

((He wasn't quite sure where all of that came from. It just found a way to creep out of his mouth, and broadcast itself to the world, but he was sure that's how he felt now. He was sure there was nothing special about his profession. He was sure of it. Wasn't he? black.))