Title: "Community: Karen, part 2"        

         "We met at a bar down past Berkeley University. It has since closed down, but was a nice one at the time. Not as crazy as Gilman can sometimes be, but not as peaceful as Lucky's usually is. She was a waitress."

         Zero looked up at Erica. He hadn't realized that he had been staring down at the floor as he spoke. Mentally, he said that he was trying to jog his memory of how he and Karen had first met. In all actuality, he remembered the moments like they were yesterday.

         "A lot happened during that visit. Mainly, some men who were there started to harass her as she served them their drinks. They were drunk and didn't realize what they were doing. But, even if they were drunk, when they started grabbing her and calling her names, that's when I jumped in."

         Erica's eyes opened up at the thought of Zero being in the middle of a dispute in a bar. "You fought them? All for her?"

         Zero looked over to her. "Basically, yes. There were three of them. I think I broke one of their arms, put another unconscious."

         Erica released the pressure grip that she had held on the pillow. "Wow… that's pretty impressive! What did she say?"

         Zero was quick to clarify the situation. "Well, they were drunk. Everything they were doing seemed to be in slow motion, so it wasn't as if I came off as a superman in it. But I assume she thought so. She thanked me afterwards, giving me a slip of paper as I left." He thought back to the time that she had slipped it to him. Walking out of the bar, he had glanced down to see what had been written on it. It was her name and phone number. Then for the next three days, he had never even given it a second look.

         Erica assumed that it had been Karen's phone number in which she had given him. "So… when did you call her?"

         "Eventually, about three days after the whole ordeal." He took another drag from his cigarette, seeing as it was quickly burning down to the filter. "I had been cleaning my laundry. As I picked up the pair of pants that I had stuck the paper in, it fell out onto my floor. I had almost forgotten about, actually. But I picked it up and read it. Something inside of me told me to call her. So I did."

         It was all sounded so perfect. It seemed like something out of a dream. Erica knew that something had to have happened eventually for Zero to refer to it as a death, but she could not imagine what that could be. "What happened after you called her? Did she cheat on you or something?"

         Zero had gotten up from his chair to flick the cigarette butt out onto the yard. "No, actually," he said as he closed the door. Walking back, he looked over to Erica. "As it turned out, I think we hit it off. It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me. Me, finding someone who I could talk to and explain my thoughts to. You have to understand, before that, there was no one." He sat down on the couch, his mind feeling slightly drained as he told the Karen story once again.

         Erica knew that the story had to have a downfall in it. But the situation seemed too perfect for something to have happened. Whatever it turned out to be, she was beginning to see why Matt had never told her. Instantly, she caught herself while thinking of Matt. Again… the wall that she was working on had started to slip. She quickly spoke in order to get the thoughts to leave her mind. "I understand what you mean. Would you say it's again that way now?" She knew that she was there for him. She hoped that he recognized that fact.

         Zero didn't pause as he replied. "No," he softly said. "A lot has changed. More than anything, I think I have been the one to change. I find myself talking to more people, even if it is just meaningless babble. Since Karen, I still have you and…" He caught himself from saying it. "I have people now who I can talk to. It's no longer me versus the world." He sighed. To try and help counter the things about Matt that he had almost said, he added with a sarcastic ring, "It's now me and others… versus the world."

         She smiled to the best of her ability. Smiling was the best treatment for her. "What happened after you called her?" she asked.

         Zero thought back to the times after the phone call. "We saw each other again," he replied. He thought back to the immediate first encounters that he and Karen had had. It was slightly awkward at first. Just small talk inside of a bar was all that they had originally consisted of. The thing was, those small talks turned into daily small talks. Before Zero knew it, he was calling her on the phone at night, giving her a call from across the states if he was at a wrestling event, and would take her out to eat when he was back home. "It became pretty frequent," Zero added. "I didn't know what was happening to me. I just knew that I had to talk to this woman anytime that I had the chance."

         "That's so sweet," replied Erica, as a tone of dreaminess shown through her voice. Was he even the same man back then as he was the man who she knew now? The thoughts passed her mind. She had known Zero for a year. Still, she had a hard time seeing him be that open and affectionate to someone. But then again, love could do that to almost everyone. Besides, she concluded, look at what he was doing for her. Just by that fact alone, she could picture Zero in the story that he was describing to her.

         But as good as it was all sounding, something tragic had to have happened. After just so little of the story that he had already told her, she could understand the original comparison that he had used of the loss of her. But… how had he lost her? "How…" she started to ask, but he obviously wasn't quite ready to tell that part, as he started in with a little more of the story.

         "We eventually moved in together. She was struggling to keep up with her apartment rent. I was keeping up with my apartment rent through the income that I was making through wrestling. So, we decided it'd work out best if she just moved in with me." Zero ran his hand through his hair. "And if we could have left it as just that, then I sometimes ask myself if we'd still be together to this day." He took a deep breath, letting his gaze wonder across the house. He had to pause for a moment and let his memory and lost hopes settle back down into the reality that everything had eventually became.

         Erica had always been someone against couples living together. Even if they have sex on a steady basis, a couple living together had never seemed like the right thing to do. Marriage seemed like the only commitment that would be able to keep two people together as they shared a house. Without that definite commitment, she questioned whether or not people could hold true to their decision. But she didn't think any less of Zero because of facts that he was telling her. She just started putting the pieces together in her head and was starting to come to the conclusion that she had figured out why the two had split. It had had something to do with them living together. "It became too much for you'll to be living together, didn't it?" she asked.

         "No, no," he aloofly said. "A problem never arose from that." He looked back down to his knees, feeling the hindsight kicking him in the ass as he tried to tell the next part of the story. "It was when I decided to let her come with me to a wrestling event." He brought his face up to hers, looking her in the eyes. "A damn wrestling event." It was one of the first negatives that he had first held against wrestling. The wrestling environment tore people apart. He had been a first hand witness to it. And because of circumstances like that, it was why he had been so against wanting to return to wrestling in the form of the CWL. He knew what would lie ahead of him, and he didn't want to have to go through it again.

         Wrestling? Erica knew how he hadn't wanted to return to it. She just knew that he had not wanted to if he could possibly avoid it. But she never knew exactly why. She, herself, wasn't that big of a fan of wrestling. She would only watch it occasionally if she knew that Zero was going to be on. It wasn't that big of a deal to see him on the television, though, because she knew that it wasn't a big deal to him. She could always tell, even by just looking at him on the television, that he didn't want to be there. She felt an enormous amount of guilt rush through her as the thoughts traced through her mind. She wanted to apologize again, but she had done that so much in such a short amount of time, she knew that each time had less of effectiveness than the time before it. She wanted her emotions to matter and count to him, not just be a token toss of words.

         She was silent, unsure of what she could say.

         "She had wanted to come and see what it was like. I assume that the whole thing intrigued her. I don't know why. The backstage was always more chaotic than anything else that someone might see on the television. There was no excitement in it. But… she wanted to come to it.

         "And I let her."

         His voice drifted off as he said that last sentence. He reached into his pocket and retrieved another cigarette. Lighting it, he stirred in his seat. He was reaching the part in the story where everything suddenly blew up in his face. The worst moment of his life, and he was about to tell it to Erica. Memories from all aspects that surrounded it flooded into his mind. Not just the memories of Karen, but the faces and voices of many others who suddenly became involved in his life at that point. He inhaled for a long ten count on the cigarette.

         Erica knew that she had been wrong about the two's living together. The reason for the split had lied somewhere in the wrestling business. Somewhere, somehow… something that she could not ever guess. And, from how it sounded, she wondered if either of the two could be the one to blame for the split.

         Zero slowly pushed forward with the story. His words were slower, each picked with greater definition. The thoughts and memories, he pushed those to the back of his head so he could be done with the story. "She enjoyed the aspects of the wrestling. She enjoyed being there. I was glad that she did. In fact, I was able to get her a contract signed with the company. She began to accompany me down to the ring for my matches.

         "It seemed perfect. It almost was." He paused for another taking of his cigarette. He looked over to Erica, looking at her face as she was becoming enwrapped with how the story was progressing. He didn't want her to have an emotion in the outcome. He only hoped that she would accept it as how his reality had turned out. It was over, done for. Only he was the one who had to live with the outcome.

         "I'm sure you still remember the Balmores," he rhetorically said.

         Inside of her, her hatred towards Patrick and his family and friends rose up. No, she had not forgotten them. They were all still in jail, but it served no less of a sentence than what she had given to them in her thoughts and memories. "I don't think I will ever forget them," she said. A hint of contained contempt shown through her voice.

         "Then you remember what Theodore done to me; how he had framed me." Zero looked over to her, waiting for her acknowledgement of how she remembered.

         "I remember the whole story. He killed those men, but you got the blame for it a year before we ever met." She questioned where this detour of the story was leading. Wrestling… to the Balmores?

         "About a month after the time that Karen had started to accompany me to the wrestling shows," Zero slowly said, "I was accused of those crimes."

         Erica sat in her chair. She didn't move. Everything had happened in an order. She asked herself why she had not seen where he was leading. She knew in her mind that Zero had been framed during that stretch of time. Her mouth opened slowly, but it took her a moment longer before finally emitting something from it. "And… that's how you lost her?"

         "No, that was just the beginning." Zero sighed as he took another drag from his cigarette. As the smoke swarmed him, he questioned why he smoked. Was it just for moments like then? Times where he had to discuss things that could rattle any man's nerves? Regardless, he took another drag, as those nerves had been shaken pretty bad during the next part that he was about to tell Erica.

         "I was on the road when I had found out about the warrant. It was one time that she had decided to stay home. I think she needed the rest. She wasn't used to the travelling. Well, I was in a hotel room when I found out about the warrant. I knew that the police would be at the event to arrest me. I couldn't be there. I held the companies' Hardcore title and I knew I wouldn't be able to show up in order to defend it.

         "I tried to call back home. I called her many times, letting the phone ring over and over… and over. But she was not there to get it. She was away. I wasn't able to get in touch with her. I wasn't able to speak to her and let her know what was happening…" He stopped at that point. For the next two months, he remembered his life being nothing but a moving hell. He had had to drive the states, always avoiding a confrontation with the law. He knew that he had been framed. Who else would believe him? He had told Erica just moments before that he didn't talk to anyone back then. How would anyone know him well enough to know that he wouldn't commit a crime such as a triple murder? Who else would know… other than Karen? But who would know Karen well enough to believe her word?

         Erica sat there and tried to soak everything in slowly. He hadn't been able to get in touch with her. She knew that he had evaded the police during that summer. She hadn't known that he had had a woman -Karen-, during that whole time who was left in the aftershocks of it. The emotions, she thought, that Karen had went through must have been horrible. Knowing that her lover had to escape from the police due to being framed. Erica knew that Karen must have missed him tremendously… and that was what had caused him to lose her? "But you never got in touch with her?" she asked. "What did she say when you finally were able to get back to her?"

         What did she say? What did Karen say to him when he had, in fact, returned? He didn't know. It was a much later time before he ever even saw her again, even after he had once again returned to Berkeley and was acquitted of the accusations of the homicide. "No, I never got in touch with her," Zero replied. "At the arena, I was able to leave a small VHS tape that I had recorded before I left the hotel. In it, I explained what was happening to me and what I had to do. Before I stopped recording, I told Karen, directly, what was happening and to not worry. I'd be back for her." He took a deep drag from his cigarette. "I left the tape there and was then on my way, far from any police that would be looking for me."

         He looked over to Erica. He thought about the second question that she had asked. It felt like he was hot-boxing that cigarette, as he took another drag from it before responding. "And once I returned… once the trial was over and I was declared a free man, I tried to get in touch with her again. But she had moved out of the apartment. She was gone. I couldn't trace her. I didn't know where she could be. She had simply vanished from my life.

         "The only thing that I knew to do was go back to work. Hopefully, I thought, if she saw me on television, she'd know that I was back and she would get in touch with me. But even after a month of being back on television, I never received a phone call. Not one from her."

         Erica was speechless. What had happened to being there for someone? What had happened that had caused Karen to go off as she had done? Erica could see the part about Zero not contacting her, but had it been his fault? No… he had tried to. He had attempted anyway he could to get in touch with her. And what was he left with? Questions… nothing but questions. "Did you… have you ever seen her since?" Erica's voice was soft as she asked him.

         Zero didn't respond. He sat there and looked at his cigarette, letting it burn down to the filter. Oh, he had seen her again. That was the part that he was up to. But the actual spoken word of it was the hardest to tell. It was visual… it was mental… and it was all still in the back of his mind, always ready to come out and replay itself to him in his dreams.

         "I…" he started. He took the last drag from his cigarette before it finally burned down into the filter. "I was having some backstage problems with another wrestler. His name was Mason Xavier. Unfortunately, it all spilled over to the onscreen and before I knew it, we were both apart of a big angle for the company. People have their differences. That's nothing new. To bottle it and sell it as an angle… well, that's been done a lot of times before, too. But to involve someone's personal life…"

         Erica's eyes opened up wide. She gasped. "She came back then?" was what she instantly blurted out.

         Zero nodded. "She came back during a match I was in. It had been nearly four months since I had last seen her. And then, before I knew it, she was walking down the aisle, heading towards the ring where Mason -Havoc-, and I were in a match against each other. I stopped all that I was doing, ecstatic to finally see her again. She climbed onto the ring and stood beside the ropes. I went to talk to her, but she just smiled at me and told me 'Everything's ok now.'" Zero paused for just a moment, letting his mouth catch up with his thoughts and arranging them all to work together in unison. "I turned back around to meet a charging Havoc. And it was then that I suddenly learned what all had happened. Mason tossed her a chair and she swung it at me, hitting me across the head."

         She was shocked. She… she couldn't believe what he had just told her. Instantly, the fictitiousness of wrestling popped into her head. "But it's fake, though. Wrestling is all scripted, isn't it?"

         Zero shook his head. "Most of the times, yes. It's a form of entertainment. For who, I have no clue. But her coming to the ring was something that was never announced or informed to me. And when she hit me across the head… that was definitely not something that was planned. It was what some people call 'shoots.' And there I was, a chair against my head, and my body screaming out in 'why.' I did not know what was happening, or why it was happening."

         "Oh my God. I can't believe that." Erica noticed that the death grip that she had held on the pillow had once again returned. She loosened up her hold, but was still in shock of what had really happened. She had no clue that the story would have came to that. "Did you talk to her afterwards? What did she say?"

         Zero sighed. "I talked to her, although I had Mason in-between us when we spoke. What I learnt was that, while away, she had been hit with depression pretty bad. She had accused me of running out on her. It wasn't true, but that was her view of it. She couldn't afford the apartment with me away. So she had had to move out… and in with Mason Xavier."

         "The wrestler? How did that come about?" It was a twisting story that Erica was doing her best to keep up with.

         "They had obviously met before I had the warrant out on me. I never found out the entire story. All I know is that she knew him before I went away. Then after I left and she was someone in need, he was there for her. Once that happened… he stole her from me, almost as if he brainwashed her into hating me. I was never able to speak to her, one on one, again after that.

         "I have since heard that she walked out on Mason, too. It would figure that the very thing he done to me, she would do to him. But ever since that all had happened, my hate for that man went from common backstage quarrels, to a full-blown personal attack on who I was. Who I was, away from that stupid industry.

         "That is why I have never offered to take anyone else with me to those shows." Zero looked up at Erica. He got out of his seat to throw the butt out of the door. Her words stopped him, though.

         "You were right," she said.

         He looked back to her. "When I said what?"

         "When you described it as a living death." She looked up to him. "After hearing the story, even I cannot believe that had happened. To be in that place, I can only imagine what it must have been like."

         Zero paused for a moment. He thought back to Matt. He thought about her pregnancy. He then shook his head. "No, you can't imagine. You can now relate." He walked over to the door and flicked his cigarette out onto the lawn. He stood there for a moment and grabbed some fresh air. The story of Karen had drained him. Erica was the first he had told it to in over a year and a half. It never made it any easier to tell it. It only confirmed the facts, facts that he had managed to move on from. But they were facts that had shaped both his life… and his opinions.

         The trip to Ohio would be soon. He had to see Nodar once he got there. The story that he had just told was something that he did not want to repeat in his life again.