A lesson in perceptions

[Locke Helms]

(The camera starts up and we are shown a dark area that is only lit and shows us a singular blackjack table with a person dressed up in a classic dealer’s outfit with a featureless, blank white mask on it, the dealer keeps shuffling the cards)

Voice: Everyone has always laid out the long odds before me, no matter where I went or did.

The dealer puts down one card after another as the voice speaks, but picks the cards back up before he places the river card.

Voice: People thought that I couldn’t make it through pro wrestling training because I had picked the toughest wrestling school in the world.

But I succeeded.

The dealer sets down one card, face down.

Voice: In the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, they told me that I would NEVER be considered a champion because of my beliefs, lack of any real skill, and no dedication.

When that promotion folded under the weight of its own ego, I walked out with three world television, two international heavyweight, and four world tag team titles to my name.

The dealer sets down another card face down.

Voice: When I stepped into Main Event Championship Wrestling, they flatly told me to my face that I would never amount to anything and that all of my accomplishments were nothing, and that I would become the Commonwealth champion’s personal little bitch.

At that point, a man walks into the light surrounding the table to reveal that the speaker is none other than Locke Helms.

Locke: I didn’t just make it in MECW, I *THRIVED* there before I took that commonwealth title for my own. But this isn’t about bragging, this is about something much more important.

It’s about perceptions.

The dealer sets down another card, yet again face down as Locke takes a seat at the table, calmly folding his hands before him as he looks at the dealer, speaking to the faceless person like he or she is an old friend…

Locke: You see, people love to scoff at me for a number of things. People discover that I’m from New Orleans and instantly the insults about my heritage and constant jokes about me being a worthless swamp rat who’s addicted to food and what not begin… before they discover that the man that they belittle and insult has not only outpaced them, but in their own egotistical raging...has also outsmarted them.

Time and time again, I have gone to a place and had people say that I will never survive there and yet… here I am doing just that.

I have had people constantly state one of a thousand reasons why I will never make it in any given place and yet time and again I tear down their precious perceptions, show them that the only one with false hopes is the very people who view me with a faulty perception.

The faceless dealer stops and “looks” at Locke while holding the last card in his/her left hand which s/he then presents to Locke who takes it and holds it up for the camera to see without him looking at the camera.

It is the Eight of Clubs.

Locke: You see, people like say...Minerva and I are two of a kind. People see people like us and they instantly think the worst of us and yet, look at Minerva...she is the champion around here and some little floozy Kat Kelly seems to think she has her perceptions all laid out so that she’ll walk away with the title.

My perception is that Minerva has more than enough fire in her soul to burn Kelly into a black smear in the ring.

Locke then lowers the Eight of Clubs to flip over the first face down card to reveal the Eight of Spades.

Locke: But then again, perceptions could be wrong because after a fashion a “perception” is much like an “assumption”... they do make an ass out of someone.

Like dear little Rica...sorry “Miss America”.

Why is it that someone slaps a flag on their outfit and all of a sudden they automatically assume that they are better than anyone and everyone else in any given promotion?

Yes, I have a maple leaf on mine but I don’t go around pretending to be “Captain Canada” or “Major Maple Leaf” or “Corporal Calgary” or “Toronto Tom” or anything of that ilk now do I?

No.

I am just a man who enjoys, among a great many other things, shattering perceptions that people have.

Locke flips another face down card to reveal the Ace of Clubs.

Locke: Little Rica, can you feel that strange feeling? Like icy fingers crawling up and down your spine...can you see the cats watching you from across the street, slowly licking their lips like you are some kind of giant mouse for them to devour whole?

Do you feel all of these eyes upon you even when you are alone in the dark?

Locke flips over the last face down card to reveal the Ace of Spades which he then scoops up all of the cards and holds them up like a fan to show that it is the full, infamous “Dead Man’s Hand” itself.

Locke: That, little Rica, is the feeling of inevitability...and at Shotgun this week, just like everything else that must happen...so will these perceptions that the people here have about me.

I don’t fear change, I accept it. Do I claim to be an agent of change?

No, because that would be the height of arrogance.

Locke sets the Dead Man’s Hand down and then stands up, nodding to the dealer who nods back.

Locke: I’m not arrogant, ladies and gentlemen. But I am sure of one thing and that is I leave nothing to chance.

Locke walks away from the table as the light on it suddenly cuts out but then in the midst of the blackness, there is four bright flares of light as the camera then shows us the cards on the table alight with fire and from somewhere within the inky blackness, comes Locke’s words yet again.

Locke: See you all in Dallas.

(The camera fades out on the fire)