It's a weird look, no doubt. It would seem like a regular office, drab walls, brown desk, black chair but something just seems... Grey Suited Puppet: off about it.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
No answer
A door opens, but there's something about this door. It's not the regular wooden door one would expect to see. Something's off about it, like it's made out of something you wouldn't expect, like it's made of... cardboard.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
It's not the sound of knocking on the door, rather it is the sound of little wooden feet knocking against a little wooden floor. A sad stung out little puppet in a grey suit, it's head sunken against it's chest knocks it's way across the little floor to slump itself, lifeless, into it's little chair.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Grey Suited Puppet: “Enter!”
This time the knocking represents someone wrapping on the tiny door. This time another little puppet hobbles in. It's little face, devoid of any sign of intelligent life is made all the more sad by the red scribbled all over it's head. It's little body, devoid of any clothing from the waist up, has been scribbled all over in permanent marker, no real logic or pattern to the lines that criss-cross the body, just a design of unplanned chaos.
Scribbled Puppet: “You listen up and you listen good! I'm JT Underwood and I get what I want! Give me my match of I'm going to huff and I'm going to puff and I'm going to cry all over this desk!”
Grey Suited Puppet: “Oh yes JT, sir! Right away sir!”
It's a laughable scene, and to punctuate it's laugh-ability, there is someone actually laughing. The camera pulls back to reveal that we're not in a tiny puppet's office. Quite the opposite. We're actually somewhere in Las Vegas, on one of the many roof tops. In the background can be seen an abstract canvas of Las Vegas night life just after dusk. Lights, horns, sounds of all sorts drift up and around from the city. Other shorter apartment buildings can be seen rising from the cooling streets of the city below, and overhead still sky scrapers reach up in a desperate attempt to touch the heavens above.
But our business tonight is not with them. Tonight our business with the man in the foreground. He's dressed in skinny jeans and black dress vest. One tattooed arm is outstretched, making the scribbled little puppet dance on the end of it's strings. The other hand rests half stuck in his jeans.
Blade: “It's pretty cute right? Little JT Underwood trying to act all big-bad and throw his weight around to get what he wants. And look at that one there...”
He gestures at the Grey Suited Puppet.
Blade: “Little Mark Ward. Exasperated and worn out already dealing with the ramblings of a retard. That's what it is really. A sad little scene. Sadder still is that it took more effort to make these things then it did to get the real things to jump around and do exactly what I want.”
Mercedes: “What's sad is all the TV time that JT Underwood soaks up dedicated to... Nothing as far as I can tell.”
The camera pans over to show the woman herself, a sharp business woman of fierce skill and acumen, dressed in a white executive designer business suit. Short, tight skirt, tight black vest, her white jacket open, she sits one leg crossed over the other on the ledge of the roof, a bemused look on her beautiful face as she watches her charge entertain himself.
Blade: “Hey now, it's not easy to get someone over when they have the personality of a broom handle. If Underwood had even the most base beginnings of talent I might complain, but I doubt the big retarded kid could actually figure out what the fuck was going on. He's this big idiot going off all last week about some bullshit about politics in other places he's been and shit when all he's really saying is he's god-damned petrified when it comes to facing a fucking girl in the ring. I mean come on, who gives a shit?”
“This boyscout goes on and on about wanting to create a legacy and look at the legacy he's creating this far. He gets a win over someone who's actually stupider than he is. Congratulations. Then he goes off on me being a poor loser like I actually lost anything. Jesus Christ you fucking sissy! So the fuck what if I dropped you on your head after the match?”
He makes the little scribbled puppet dance all around again, this time on top of the teeny-tiny desk as though it were agitated.
Scribbled Puppet: “But Mark! He hit me with The Final Cut after the match! He's a coward! He'll run away! Make him face me! Make me beat him! Whaaaaahhh! I'm JT Underwood! I'm a giant fruitcake that can't hack it in wrestling without crying every five minutes!”
Blade: “You're a man JT?”
Mercedes: “Bitch please!”
Blade: “A man wouldn't have to cry to his boss that he got hit after the bell and that it's unfair. No wonder you got kicked out of every other fed you were in. You're a crybaby. Oh, but men settle their differences in the ring face to face! And that's exactly what I did. I don't like your fucking face, so I drove it into the mat as hard as I could. It's that simple JT. In case you or anybody fucking else missed it, this is professional wrestling. There's no coddling and hand-holding here. This is fucking Sin City Wrestling JT, and if you think you're going to survive here then you better grow up and check that fucking attitude. I didn't come here to play nice. I came to prove to all of you spineless bitches that this is MY city and in my city professional wrestling is still fucking alive! You want everyone to play nice, then you co join some little sports entertainment company and leave the fighting to the men.”
“It's like you don't even get why you're here in the first place. It's not because you're good Underwood. It's not because you've got some great reputation as a competitor and they think you're one of the best. I know you think that's the case, but it's not. That's why I'm here. I'm the best. I have the reputation. You, you're a fucking charity case. Your manager is the brother or something of one of the owners. You, you're brothers or cousins or who gives a shit to the other owner. That's why you're here. That's what makes me laugh about you, JT. You're the first one to speak up about backstage politics, but then again, the guilty are the first to cast stones aren't they? You cried about it elsewhere, but if you didn't have that whole political thing going for you, you wouldn't have a fucking job now. But unlike you, I don't give a shit. Fuck, I think it's funny.”
“Your little friends in the front office bring you in because you're their blood and I get to watch a big ginger gorilla make an idiot out of itself as you jump around and try to cut what you think is a promo.”
He goes back to making that little puppet dance, jumping it around the little office, even getting it to scratch itself with it's little wooden hands.
Blade: “And it cracks me right the fuck up. Look at you with all the TV time, barging into the bosses office, getting your way. They want you to succeed, they want to push you to the moon. That's why you got that easy win over whats-his-name last week. Why did you really think there was such a dud in our match? You know as well as I do that he was going to be terrible. He was the wild card put into the match so Mark and Christian wouldn't have egg on their face by having the big white hope lose in his very first match out. One on one I'm going to eat you alive. They already knew it, but you had to open your big mouth and get what you really don't want this week.”
“But all that's coming. Why bother you with the insignificant details of your impending doom this early? Instead we can laugh together about your moron ability and your moron stupidity first. I dropped you on your head and you called me a coward. You think you beat me, but you pinned someone else. You had plenty of opportunity to defend yourself you loser, I just dropped you to prove that you didn't, you can't beat me. I did it because I could, and I got away with it because I can. You think you're my kryptonite because you pinned a football player, but you don't even see that I'm the kryptonite of every single person in SCW.”
“They give you all this time, all this opportunity to come on TV and tell everyone about your past, to introduce yourself, your friends, your family to the SCW fans to try to garner you some attention. They want to set you up as the big boy scout in SCW. That's why you're against me you big idiot. You get all this, they put all this time into you and promoting you, yet no one gives a flying fuck about you. Your little manager there gets more public reaction than you do. Yet in one short interview I set myself far and away the best god-damned thing to ever happen to SCW. Everyone is talking about me. Everyone is talking to me. A few choice words and everyone on the roster is looking to get in the ring with me and everyone in Las Vegas wants to pay to see me. That's why I'm good at my job Underwood. That's why I'm the fucking best. I can do in less than a minute what you haven't been able to do in three weeks. The only reason people are coming to see you is because you'll be across the ring from me.”
“You know what happens to people like you Underwood? You know what happens when the great white hope falls short? You know what happens when he fails to beat the best, what happens when he fails to draw people in like I do?”
He turns and throws the little scribbled doll off the roof into a tumbling free throw that will end only when the poor little doll is smashed into eternity somewhere far off in the grimy streets below.
Blade: “When he's used up and failed like you, he gets thrown away. It's a harsh lesson I know, but this is reality. This is my city JT. I'm not just talking trash here. I'm not making shit up like you do. This city isn't mine just because I say it is or because I want it to be. This city is mine because we are alike. Wild. Unbridled. Unchained. We defy the rules. But most of all we prove ourselves. We have reputations based not upon word or fiction, we have our reputations based on fact. Since I moved to Vegas I've proved time and time again that my words aren't hollow. I follow up what I say in the ring. I do what I say and these people love me for it.”
“That's why, in time, you're going to fade away into obscurity. You're trying to build a legacy one match at a time, but you might want to hurry that little plan up just a bit or you're going to run right out of time. After all, look at the facts. You claimed that I was going to get beaten by you, but you couldn't get it done. You claimed that despite my boasts, that people didn't know who I was. But even before we came out for our match, the people were talking about me, chanting my name. And you dumb shit, the funniest thing about you is how transparent you really are.”
“You came bursting into Ward's office like the big man demanding that you get a shot against me one on one to get revenge for what you called my cowardly actions, but the honest fucking truth is that you're just pissed. You're pissed that people came into Climax Control talking about me. You're pissed other people on the roster were taking their own time out to address me specifically, and even after you tried as hard as you could, everyone left the arena still talking about me and what I did. That's what pisses you off JT. That's why you're so boring and predictable. It's that after all the hard work you did to win the main event, I was still so easily able to steal your thunder. Sure you won the match, but you didn't prove anything to anyone because you didn't beat me.”
“After all your trying, after all your heart-felt shit spewing about the past, you're pissed because you thought as long as you were nice and kissed the right ass that you'd be the most over guy here and get all the attention and all the perks. It doesn't work that way in this business your dumb-ass red-headed orphan. No matter how much you get pushed down people's throats, you don't have the ability or the charisma to make anyone care about you. No matter the sob story, no matter how hard you have to try you'll never have the intangible ability I have to succeed in this business. I'll always over-shadow you and that's why you want this match.”
“Try to spin it JT. I look forward to that sad verbal car-wreck. Try to make it seem like something other than what it obviously is. Try to make it seem like you're in the drivers seat here. Make it even fucking easier for me. Anyone can see at this point that I'm not the one that has to beat you. Fuck, by now me beating you is practically a hate-crime. You have to beat me. I'm that big fucking thing that you have to overcome. You came up with some ham-fist-ed metaphor about me beating you, so let me put this in proper terms.”
He clears his throat.
Blade: “I like the comic book metaphor, so we'll stick with that.”
“It's not a Superman thing thing though. You're not my kryptonite. Obviously no one ever taught you about how to work proper prose. Moron. You're supposed to be the protagonist. You're the good guy everyone cheers for. I'm the hated villain.”
“So here's what we'll go with. Because you're so obsessed with everyone following the rules and doing what's right and the whole boring, bland, goody-two-shoes business, you're Batman.”
Mercedes gives him one of those patented 'you're out of your mind' looks.
Blade: “I know, I know... He wishes he had half the charisma of the Batman, but you see, while he's out there trying to clean up the streets making everyone so safe and boring for everyone, I'm the Joker. I'm that X factor. No matter what despicable thing I do, he just can't bring himself to do what must be done. No matter how many times he might get the upper hand and send me away to Arkham Asylum, I just keep getting out and doing it all over again. You can't beat me JT. You can't put the final nail in the coffin, not because I don't deserve it, but because you're incapable of putting me away.”
“But me?”
He grins.
Blade: “I, on the other hand, might just keep you around, because having a big dumb boyscout like you around, blundering through SCW trying to best me, your mortal enemy while I perpetually out class you... Well that's funny as fucking hell.”
Fade.
