Crippled

If you've been watching CNN, you might know, as I know, that over this past weekend a professional wrestler (allegedly) went crazy, killed his wife and son, and then hung himself. This wrestler, Chris Benoit, was a big favorite among many knowledgeable wrestling fans, and in fact I was a fan of his. I've followed his career since the early 90's, I've seen him wrestle live more than once, and the dvd retrospective of his career is one of the few wrestling dvds that survived the big purge I made last year. I've spent the last 24 hours hoping that the story wouldn't turn out the way all the evidence seems to be pointing, but the more details that keep coming in ... the worse it gets. I don't understand it.

Even in the context of professional wrestlers, Benoit always seemed like a straight-up normal guy. Everyone liked and respected him. I guess sometimes you just don't know someone. I know we're all human and we all have darkness inside of us, but to do something like that, to me, is just inconceivable. I can understand rage, but I can't understand anything that comes down to harming your own children under any circumstances.

I've dealt with my own darkness. I do have a temper, and I can get into some pretty intense fights, but there's always a limit and a line I won't cross. My ex-wife is the only person I've met with the ability to bring me to such a rage that I was willing to cross that line, and she and I had some fights that went way down into the trenches. She was able to bring out the beast within. Jude, although similar in some ways, couldn't do it. Neither could anyone else. Even as angry as I was at work the last few weeks, it was a focused and controlled anger. Only my ex-wife, ever, has brought that out of me. Even so, there's a limit.

Shannon and I had a private joke, if you can call it a joke, but she and I shared a certain dark sense of humor on the subject of my ex-wife. We would speculate on what might have happened if my ex-wife and I had a kid together and then things broke down as they did. It wasn't hard to see into the future of that scenario, how X would have made every moment of the rest of my life an excruciating hell, how she would use that kid (in my mind, once again, it's a girl) against me in every possible way, and most importantly ... what she would put that child through. I've seen her with Jason and Amanda, and there were numerous times I had to step in and intervene before something bad happened. I would be afraid for that little baby like you wouldn't believe. So I thought about the question for all of ten seconds, and gave Shannon my answer.

"I'd have to kill her and take the kid and raise it myself."

It's only kind of a joke.

Somewhere in there, this one time Shannon, Kelsie (her first born), and I were out driving around, she floated out the idea that we (the three of us) should just up and move to Texas. I don't exactly remember why it was specifically Texas, unless that's where Brandy (her big sis) had moved to. But the idea was the three of us, not including Kenny, and in all honesty I gave that idea a lot of thought. Remember, I was in love with that girl *hard* by that time, and if I really thought she meant that we should go there and be together as a little family ... if I REALLY believed that's what she wanted ... I might have done it. I was that vulnerable at the time, and I might have jumped at that chance. But I couldn't believe that's what she really wanted, and it seemed too halfhearted, so I couldn't committ to the idea.

In the alternate reality where I had to kill X and take the baby, sure, I imagine I would have disappeared to Texas with Shannon and our children. Of course, it would have been three children soon enough, as she was preggers that summer I knew her. The fact that her 2nd kid came out looking nothing like her, nothing like Kenny, and a lot like me is just one of those weird mysteries of life, because a) she was already preggers before I met her, and b) I never touched the girl.

I think I might have my second book out of this material somehow. Somebody remind me I said that later on when I forget.

Sometimes you don't really know what's inside of a person. This news story really drives that home for me. It's just very disturbing and troubling for me to think about.