Behind the Horns

📷@satanjones is live

March 2 6:35 AM

Followers of Satan Jones’ Instagram feed will likely remark that this live stream is well outside of the normal hours. Typically one would see an overenthusiastic face with devil-horn hair and a longer than average tongue fill up their phone screens, but on this early morning the face glowers into the camera.

“Hey, my little devils. Sorry about this, but this episode isn’t for you today. You’re more than free to stick around, and if you do until the end you’ll get an exclusive promo code to use on your next order of Dr. Squatch. But if you want to drop off, I won’t mind, because this feed is for one person only.”

The camera moves unevenly for a few moments, then stabilizes. Satan walks away from it, approaching a workout bench. He reaches out, his finger dragging across the barbell.

“Jack Marley, my name is Satan Jones. I’m a virally increasing internet celebrity, a wrestler who hasn’t been pinned yet, and a goof ball who only cares about shoes and my internet following. Those are the bullet points, anyway. But there’s more to me than that, and I figured I’d tell you – and whoever else is still here – who I really am.”

He lies down on the bench, taking an exhale as he puts his hands on the bar.

“The first thing you should know about me is that I know this is only 40 pounds on the bar. I promise I can lift more than this. I just want to be able to talk and lift at the same time.”

_______

June 14, 2023

Satan Jones sat on a chair that belonged more at a middle school cafeteria table than a wrestling academy. In fact, he had looked at the back and saw that it had ST. GEORGE’S scrawled across the back in sharpie. His hands firmly placed on his lap except to occasionally move his hands through his bowl-cut hair, he kept glancing towards the door at the end of the hall with the name FOSTER NACKEDY: HEAD TRAINER, WRESTLING LEGEND on it.

After what felt like an eternity, the door flew open and Foster walked out, a reflective concussion helmet perched atop his head. He walked past the chair without stopping. “Satan? Follow me.”

Satan tripped as he tried to stand, his foot catching in the leg of the chair. He bounded back up and sped his pace to keep up with Foster. “Oh, sorry about that dumb prank. A friend gave me that name, but my real name is actually–”

“I don’t give a fuck what your real name is. You’re Satan Jones, which is a perfect name for a wrestler.” Foster looked behind him and sniffed in Satan’s direction. “Could change the look though. There’s time for that.”

Satan followed Foster through a set of double doors that led into the open space of the gym, where a cacophony of noise erupted: bodies hitting canvas, the clanging of weights, the laughter and yelling of competition. Satan lagged behind as he took everything in. “Come on, Satan,” grumbled Foster, causing him to pick up his pace.

“This is your new home, and you came at an interesting time. I’m one of the head trainers here, but there’s an asshole who’s trying to take the gym from me. So we agreed to have a tournament with all of the students, and after realizing we didn’t have enough students for a tournament, we started taking applications. Your name was at the top of my list.” Foster looked over at him. “And do you know why that is?”

Satan studied his new trainer’s face. “Because my name is Satan?”

“Because your name is Satan. Whoever Jon picked is going to see your name on the sheet and think ‘am I fighting the fucking devil?’ and boom, they’re already in their own head about it. Got to take any advantage we can get, right? Anyway, let’s go to the locker room.”

Satan followed Foster into a recently-renovated locker room with too-bright lights and a walk-in shower at the end of the walkway. Satan saw a bag with his name – not his name, just a dumb nickname, he's not Satan – and instinctively moved to grab it. “Is this my ring gear?”

“Yeah, it’s what we had lying around. Now go ahead and get changed so we can get started.”

Satan waited for Foster to leave or give him space, but the man stood there, arms crossed. After a few awkward moments of silence, Satan took off his shirt and pants, causing Foster to whistle. “Damn, that’s a body. What were you before this, a male stripper?”

Satan froze. Did that idiot put my job history on the application too?

He tried to recover and focus on changing, but his body had given himself away. “Oh, you were? I was just making a joke. No shame here, we’re super progressive.”

“Is it progressive to objectify men?” Satan asked as he tried not to look over at Foster.

“Of course, equal opportunity and all that. Listen, I know I’m being a little crude, but looks are very important in wrestling, and nobody walks in off the street with a body like this, so forgive me for being a little excited. Now sling on that nut hugger so we can look at you.”

Satan pulled up the red trunks and looked at himself in the mirror. His days at the club were less revealing. “Can we order something else? This feels a little much.”

“Sure, down the line. But you’ve got the look, and you’ve got the name. That’s all you really need.”

Satan looked up suddenly. “That’s all? What about the wrestling skill? I have some experience, not a lot, but–”

“All right, I guess the mask is going to come off early,” Foster grumbled, then got uncomfortably close to Satan. “Listen, this tournament is important to me, and I’d do anything to win and rid this place of the paralyzed asshole who I made the mistake of training all those years ago. But that desperation doesn’t make me delusional, and so I don’t want you being delusional either. I required bodies for this tournament, but the most important body is a guy named Paxton who you’ll meet later. He’s a real wrestler, been a champion in PRIME already, and he’s going to win this whole fucking thing.” Foster sends another full body look at Satan, who involuntarily shudders. “You’ve got the look, you’ve got the name, but I don’t give a shit if you spent the last ten years wrestling in every state in the country. I just need warm bodies.” Foster puts an arm on Satan’s shoulder, then takes it away and scrunches his face in exaggerated pain. “And you’re on fire!”

Sending one last clap on Satan’s shoulder, Foster turned around and walked away. “See you out there, devil boy.” Satan looked from his new trainer to the mirror in front of him, then looked down at his feet.

_______

“The person I am is the person you see today, as I said. The tongue, the devil horns, the shouting. But the person I am is also every other version of me that started this journey. When I got to wresting, I was…do you ever see those Instagram videos where they make art out of butter?”

He waits for an answer, pushing the bar up and down. The seconds pass, and it seems he’s still waiting for an answer. Listen, Satan projects himself as a little dumb, maybe even unapologetically so, but he does know that Jack Marley isn’t going to answer him, right? And he surely understands that different people have different algorithms, and not every algorithm is butter-coded?

Eventually he breaks the silence. “It always starts out with a slab of butter. Unmolded, unattractive, just a block of nothing. Waiting to be formed. But with a cut here, a shave there, and some awesome time-lapse and editing skills, voila, you’ve got a turkey made of butter!”

It’s important to note that he pronounces “voila” as “voil-a” and not the French pronunciation.

“And that’s me. Not the turkey part, but the beginning. Just a big block of butter from Kansas City, Kansas. I came to New Orleans without much – no money in my pocket, no property to my name. It’d be really cliche to finish that with ‘just a dream in my heart,’ but I don’t think I even had that. I certainly didn’t grow up wanting to be a wrestler. I only started this because – well, I have to keep some things a mystery.”

He finally shelves the bar, then sits up and stares at the phone. For his credit, he is trying very hard to act like bench pressing a low weight and cutting a promo didn’t take the air out of him.

“But no matter who you are when you show up, wrestling has a way of changing you, bit by bit, until you’re something completely different.”

_______

July 28, 2023

Satan Jones had been at a wrestling academy for little more than a month, and here he was, already at a major company’s flagship show. ReVival 32 was in Baltimore, Maryland, the northern most point in the country that Satan had been. It was his first time eating crabcakes. If this was what wrestling was about, he was going to enjoy it.

“God these are delicious,” he said, grabbing another crabcake, then using his other hand to feel the devil horns on his hair. “You sure I look okay with my hair like this?”

Foster scoffed. “You look more than okay. You look like…”

“Ya look like a fuckin’ moron,” Paxton Ray finished, grabbing a crabcake and biting into it. “Still don’t think this is a good idea,” he mumbled to Foster.

“Well your good ideas wind up paralyzing people, so let’s go with my plan for now.” The plan involved Foster, Satan, and the other students at Gray’s to rush the ring after The Anglo Luchador’s match with Brandon Youngblood, which would allow Paxton to affix a shock collar on TAL’s neck and shock him into the next week. Satan was about to suggest that a shock collar at a high enough frequency could also do permanent damage when Foster flicked one of Satan’s devil horns.

“Ow!”

Foster smiled at Satan. “Don’t listen to him, the horn hair is amazing. Remember, the name and look are all that matter.” Foster gestured to El Cocodrilo and Quinn Fleetwood, who followed him down the hallway, leaving Satan and Paxton together.

Satan looked up at his classmate and frowned. He didn’t know what to make of this dangerous man, the one who had clearly done devious acts and was reviled by people across the country. But they had barely spoken, and when he stared at Paxton, as he did now, he saw something beneath the sneer.

Shit, the sneer was locked on him now. “Sorry,” Satan said, stuffing a crabcake in his mouth.

“He ain’t completely right,” Paxton said.

“What?”

“The look and name are important, but it ain’t all that matters.”

Satan nodded. “Well, yeah, you’ve got to know how to punch, and kick, and…”

“Nah, not that either. Sure, it’s important, but Rezin won the Universal. Whatcha gotta do is make sure you’re real. That ya know who ya are an’ stick to it.”

Satan nodded, though he was still frowning. “Might be hard for me.”

“Is it? Ya jus’ fuckin’ tol’ the whole goddamn world ya got a foot fetish,” Paxton replied with a grin.

“Crap, I did,” Satan said, blushing. Why had he even said that? That woman – Foster had called her Savannah Scandal – appeared, and everyone was acting witty and weird, so he just blurted out something about Anna Daniels’ shoes. “Well, I guess that ruined my career before it started.”

“Nah, if anythin’ that’ll make people like ya more.” Paxton sat down and gestured to an empty chair for Satan to follow him. “I ain’t exactly the expert on people likin’ ya, but I know people don’t like fake people. An’ the wrestlin’ world is full of performative fucks, so if ya jus’ act like yourself, you’ll be fine.”

“Satan, come here.” Satan stood up quickly and walked down the hall, where Foster was waiting for him. “Good, he didn’t paralyze you. You must be lucky. Anyway, let’s talk about what you’re going to do tonight after The Anglo Luchador’s match.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that,” Satan answered. “I have been trying a few things in the gym, so if I can get to his base, I might be able to weaken his legs which will…”

Foster held a hand up, stopping him. “Great enthusiasm, but no. Just go in there and let him wallop you.”

“What? I thought we were doing this to beat him up.”

“We are, but you’re not doing the beating up part. You and Quinn and Coco are there to get punched. Just try to block as many as you can, but let them keep wailing on you until Paxton comes down with the shock collar.”

Satan shook his head, stuttering a bit. “I don’t understand.”

“Remember what I said last month? Warm bodies. That’s all we need. Plans like this require brains–” Foster pointed to his sparkly concussion helmet, “--talent–” he pointed back to Paxton, who was still sitting alone, “--and warm bodies.” Foster finished by putting a finger in Satan’s chest. “So let Tom and Brandon use you like a training dummy until we strike, okay, shoe lover?”

Foster laughed and walked away. After a minute, Satan looked down at the rest of his crabcake, then threw it in the trash and trudged after him.

_______

“You come in with ideas. You’re gonna learn the ropes, pick everything up quickly, and within a few months you’ll be a star. You didn’t expect wrestling to be easy, but it’s not about wrestling, it’s about you. You’re special. You’re better than everyone else. You’ll be different.”

He winds his arms lazily, standing up and stretching.

“I wonder if this should become a fitness channel? My little devils would love to see my workout regimen, I’m sure. If you’re not Jack and you’re still here, hit me with a fire emoji and I’ll do more content like that!”

He transitions from pensive to influencer so fast that it seems to surprise even him. He blinks a few times, then resets.

“Anyway, what you find out is that you aren’t different. Or even if you are, you can’t be, because you’re only what people think you are. I was told when I started wrestling that the only thing that mattered was your look and your name, but I realized that what mattered more than any of that is your reputation. And once you’ve got one, it’s so hard to break out of.”

Satan quickly drops to the ground in a plank position, then begins doing push-ups.

“I’m sure that you understand exactly what I mean by that, Jack. I mean, if you ask casual viewers of PRIME, are you and I even supposed to be here in the ring? I’m clearly the less important half of the Foot Soldiers, and you’re only out of retirement because Steve Harrison went for cigarettes and never came back. We can look however we want to look, wrestle however we want to wrestle, we can be named after the devil himself, and none of that matters if people don’t believe in us. If people have already decided who we are.”

Satan stops his pushups, then sits back on the bench again. He grabs a towel and begins to wipe his face. As he does so, a bit of the hold on his devil horns gives way, and a few strands start to stray. He must be able to see himself in the corner of his screen, because he quickly twists it until it’s a whole horn again.

“But something special has happened for me and Kris over the past few months, Jack. We’ve been given a chance to change our reputations. To take the initial opinion of us and make it whatever we want it to be. And I got to tell you, I’m not letting that chance go.”

_______

January 3, 2026

“I can just buy a Speedo,” Satan said as he followed Kris Roswell out of the locker room. Kris had just kicked Foster in the side of his head after Foster called them enhancement talent. “Hey, wait up!”

Kris was already in the office hallway, opening the door to one of the unused offices. Inside there were dozens of outfits hanging on clotheshangers – shirts, tights, trunks, and all other sorts of wrestling wardrobe necessities. He was sorting through the pants when Satan followed him and put a hand on his arm.

“That was pretty bad ass, but he’s going to get you back for that,” Satan said.

“He will, yeah,” Kris said. “But I had to.”

Satan doesn’t need to ask why. “Yeah, you did.” Satan watched Kris move pair after pair of pants out of the way. “So do you really think we stand a chance against this Moscowverse team?”

Kris looked over at him and shook his head. “I have no idea. We’re rookies. We’ve never done any of this before. And I’m pretty sure they have an eighty year old Russian monster who could rip our heads off of our bodies. But I’m not about to let the old man back there tell me my career is over before it begins.”

Kris grabbed a pair of black trunks and then moved over to a box of fabric, going through the different pieces of cloth. Satan sat down next to him. “I’ve let him tell me who I am since I got here,” Satan said. Kris’s arms stopped moving as he turned to face his tag team partner, who kept talking. “He’s called me a warm body, a nobody for almost three years now. And I just…took it. You came here for less than half a year and you stood up for yourself. I wish I could do that.”

“You can,” Kris responded. “And you will.” Kris went through another box full of wrestling trunks. “Foster told me the same thing when I signed. That wrestling is a name and a look, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, it’s bullshit. He has one of the dumbest names in history, and he won titles in his prime. The look thing might be true, but if you look at a place like PRIME you’ll see a million different looks.”

“An old friend also told me it’s about being genuine.”

Kris nodded. “That’s part of it too. But there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Belief. I left a whole life behind for this, and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t believe it was going to work out. All the work I’ve put in just to come here – and I’m sure you’re the same way. So you ask me if I think we can beat the Moscowverse team, and my answer is I don’t know, but I believe we can. I have to. I have to believe we can win every single match we’re in, or else none of this matters.”

Kris lifted a small red pair of trunks up. “Oh wow, this is way too small.”

“That’s the pair Foster gave me when I got here,” Satan said, laughing. “When he first told me how useless I was.”

“Oh, well never mind, then. Don’t want to bring back those memories.”

Satan stared at the trunks for a moment before grabbing them. “Nah, I’m going to take them back and make them mine. It’s almost a Speedo, anyway.” He looked from the trunks to his new tag team partner. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For making me finally understand what it takes to be a wrestler,” he said, holding his hand out for Kris to shake.

_______

“When we face off in Mexico City, Jack, we’re both going to be trying to prove something. You’ll want to show you can win by yourself against someone more imposing than a Lasagna Boy. You’ll want to show you’re more than just Steve’s manager. And I want to show I’m not just a pair of devil horns, or an evil name, or an Instagram account. I’m a professional wrestler who believes that any time he gets in that ring, he’s walking out with a victory.

“I also really, really like shoes.”

He finishes drying himself with a towel, then walks over to the phone and picks it up. “Thanks for watching, and if any of my little devils are still here, be sure to use the promo code DEVIL for thirty percent off any soap package that includes my new brand Devil’s in the De-toes. Bye for now – I’ll see you all on March 13th.”

The stream cuts.