Never

The scene opens up inside the downtown Toronto offices of the St. Claire Management Agency during midday. Outside the window, the wind blows, rain cascades against the tempered glass, and the city of Toronto looks ever impressive. But inside the building, Ava St. Claire is storming too. Pacing around in her professional best… albeit a tad disheveled at the current time… Ava has her corded phone held under her arm, the receiver pressed to her ear. 

“Okay,” she says, breathlessly trying to cut off whomever is on the other end of the line. “I’m doing my best. When he turns up, I’ll let you know. Bye.”

Frustrated, she jams the receiver back onto the phone before slamming it on her desk. Pulling her hair, she muffles out something of a scream. 

“FUCK!” she blurts out as inner turmoil bubbles over. Turning to the door, she encounters a startled Violet Appleby, Ava’s personal assistant. “Sorry, Vi… I’m just… “

“Worried?” her assistant asks. Ava sighs, nodding her head. 

“It’s been a week now since Gavin’s checked in,” she relays. “Gavin is a tremendously high maintenance client. For him not to check in for a week is absolutely obscene. It’s so far out of his character that I can’t help but worry about him. After Under Attack, he seemed despondent… like he’s not himself. And I don’t know if we can help him because he won’t PICK UP THE PHONE!”

Ava bends over the phone, yelling at it as if that act would be enough to prompt it to ring. And ring it does. Ava jumps back a half-step as she shoots a look to Violet. The assistant shrugs her shoulders. 

“I don’t…” Violet is speechless, not knowing who would be calling directly to Ava’s personal line. Scrambling, Ava picks up the phone. 

“Gavin?” she answers, her heart speeding up. Sadly, she is ultimately let down as… “Oh… hi Jack… hi Karl.”

The disappointment from Ava’s voice is evident, as the call evidently comes from Jack and Karl Barker, Gavin’s All-Star Security. It’s Violet that picks up on this as she writes out on a notepad “ASS?”… Ava gives it a look and, squinting, reads…

“What about ass?” Ava doesn’t immediately pick up on the meaning. Violet continues holding it up, insisting upon it. Finally, Ava gets the point. “A.S.S…. A.S.S.! Jack! Karl! … Yeah, of course I know who you are… Have you guys seen Gavin lately?”

Her hope was turned to dismay. Apparently they hadn’t. 

“What do you mean you were going to ask me the same question?” she asks. “I thought you guys were supposed to be his Security force… what do you mean he gave you some time off after Under Attack? What do you mean he’s “re-evaluating himself”?”

Ava had a lot of questions, and unfortunately it appeared that the A.S.S. didn’t have the answers. Falling back into her chair, Ava holds the phone to her ear, but it was evident from her expression and posture that she wasn’t paying attention anymore. 

“Okay…” she said lifelessly, CLEARLY demonstrating her lack of care. “Just tell me if he checks in with you guys, okay? If you hear ANYTHING, I want to know.”

She doesn’t say another word, hanging up the phone feeling defeated. 

“God,” she utters to herself. “I need a fucking drink.”

“Why don’t you call Madison?” Violet asks, alerting Ava to the fact that she is still, in fact, in the offices, still holding onto Gavin’s file, and still a person who exists. Ava leans forward.

“You think that wasn’t the first thing I tried to do when Gavin didn’t check in?” Ava asks, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “They’re practically inseparable. She was the first person I called.”

“And what did she say?” Violet asks, completely innocent. 

“She said Gavin went to his special alone place,” Ava responds. The idea that Gavin had a “special alone place” seemed rather juvenile. After all, he was a grown man with responsibilities… a life… a wife… and some other stuff she didn’t particularly care to get into. “It’s hopeless. It’s utterly, utterly hopeless!”

She shakes her head, collapsing it into her arms on the desk before her….

———————————————-

I feel your heart

It’s beating time with mine

But love love love is on the line

He holds you down

But I know you want to run

You’re hot hot loaded like a gun

As the scene rises up, Gavin Taylor can be seen alone inside what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. Could he really be doing this? He takes a swig out of a glass Coke bottle before hurling it to the left, listening to it as it shatters against a nearby cement post. Then he does as one might expect in this position. 

He dances.

Oh you feel so trapped and confused

Start with nothing and you’ve got nothing to lose

For someone who has done it all… all star athlete, professional wrestling champion, toothpaste spokesman… Gavin’s dancing is relatively fluid. The man has rhythm, what can we say? Flipping around in the warehouse, doing barrel rolls, even a one-handed cartwheel, Gavin navigates his surroundings with ease. It’s kind of remarkable to watch, even if he IS shamelessly ripping off an American classic.

You can never never never ever hide your heart

Don’t you ever ever ever ever try

If you don’t give your heart wings you’ll

Never never never ever fly

After flipping around on a suspended post, landing on the ground in a single knee, Gavin looks up, spotting a camera that he likely positioned. Breathing heavily after exerting himself, he shakes his head.

“Surprised? Don’t be. We all… we all blow off steam in our own ways. And I’ve had a lot of steam to blow off. 0-2 in the Tag Team series. I failed to become Adrenaline Champion at Under Attack. Things aren’t… things aren’t going the All-Star’s way right now. So I came here… I bought this warehouse with network money after the end of NEWA for occasions just like this, where I needed to get away from it all and just be.”

Standing up again, Gavin begins to shake out his knee, pulling tape off his wrists. 

“Since Rise to Greatness, since Aubrianna left SCW, I’ve not exactly been in top form. Maybe I forgot what the All-Star needed to be. Maybe I forgot what I’ve always been. I’ve always been the greatest pure ATHLETE in any company I’ve ever been in. I mean legitimately… not in a performative manner, but in a purely athletic sense. That’s never been my problem. My problem has come with putting it all together… the timing. Maybe carrying around relics of SCW’s past hasn’t been what I needed to get ahead. Maybe I need to starve myself.”

He backs against the wall, sitting on a barrel he had clearly set in place for this purpose. 

“Instead of being the All-Star who raises the conference championship before the league championship series, maybe I need to focus on what I can be. I know… I know that I have the athletic ability to become World Champion. I know this. I’ve been doing this for almost fourteen years. I’ve reached the top in a company that is long gone now. But now, I’m in a new ballgame. “Start with nothing and you’ve got nothing to lose”… wise words. So here I am starting over… in a sense.”

Gavin hops off the barrel, approaching the camera as she stands confidently. 

“My name is Gavin Taylor, and I am the All-Star of Supreme Championship Wrestling. Whether you know it or not… whether you know me or not… my job is to go to that ring and leave you all SPEECHLESS! I am here to steal the show. And like my entrance theme suggests, there is only one word that you can use to describe my work… one word that my next opponents are going to have when it’s all said and done… and that word is…”

A shit-eating grin curls onto his face. 

“Whoa!”

Gavin steps forward, pushing the camera over. The song starts to play again as Gavin rhythmically moves away from the toppled camera. The scene goes to black.