"Picnic on the Hillside" (Emery Layton)

"Picnic on the Hillside" (Emery Layton) Feb 25, 2017 13:31:55 GMT -5

Post by DJS on Feb 25, 2017 13:31:55 GMT -5

You'd think we start our story in Los Angeles, but we're clearly not there yet.

No, we're on a hillside. A big, green hill. It might be chilly but the sky is blue and the grass is nice and dry. We close in upon what appears to be a big checkered-blanket with a basket. There's small snack-foods and drinks lying around, half-eaten, sat right next to the red-headed “Worst of the Pavees” herself, Emery Layton. She sits cross-legged, facing us with a flask to her side. She shows her most winning smile and points directly towards us.

EMERY LAYTON:

"You guys! How you doing? Well- this is it. The night Union Battleground gets to shout from the top of the mountain to everyone with ears that we've arrived. There's no going back for any of us now. Time to take the stablisers off your bikes, kids, and leaving the light at night ain't gonna stop the monsters getting in any more. The Battle of Los Angeles is here...and I'm having a picnic up a hill. Why not? Fancy a sandwich?"

She pauses as she holds out a ham and cheese sandwich.

"Nah? Suit yourself. Offers open. Well, when I say it's “here”...not here exactly. Like, location-wise. I mean, this don't look like Los Angeles, does it now? Nah. It's not. Too green. Sorry, but I had to show you something first. Really put things in perspective. Look down there. No, really, go look. Go on. Soak in the great view!"

So we do. And peaking over the side of the hill, we can see, in the near distance, a small, quiet collection of caravans, recreational vehicles and mobile homes. It's then we realise as we pull back, and Emery is no longer smiling. She nods her head, almost like she's confirming our suspicions. Her back is facing the entire thing. She is making a conscious effort not to look herself.

“Yeah.

That's where it all started, right down there. We're in County Limerick, and for the last five years of being a kid, that rubbish-tip down there is where I lived. That is the Laytons' settlement. Probably. But that is the exact place I ran from. Sometimes, like today, I like to come back. Just sit up here, in this spot I'm sat in right now. I just watch it, bustling and living on without me with brand new memories. It's fine- they never know. I'm all the way up here, and they're down there.”

She pulls the flask towards her, opening it up and pouring it's contents into the lid. You might expect coffee or hot tea to come tumbling out, but this is Emery Layton. The contents are definitely not coffee or tea.

“My mantra in life has been 'Always Forward'. Don't ever look back, just keep on running. But when you lose, like I did to Tweeder in Pico Rivera, that ain't always the best idea. Sometimes you gotta go back to the very first place you ever said 'I want this' and remind yourself all over again why. People misunderstand sometimes why I ran away. They think I wanna forget all of that stuff, but that's bollocks. I ain't running from things. That ain't me. I'm running to them. I'm running to opportunities that a little Pavee girl down there, a sheltered little lackeen, wasn't even really aware existed for many years because her Ma kept her from the real world. Because her Da was always too beat up to show her, even though he wanted to. Even though he'd take her out to his fights rather than one of the lads, it was never gonna be enough and he knew that. And I felt like I was missing out. Yeah, I go out there and I wrestle and sometimes I even get beat but it's a pain that I myself have chosen, y'know? If I'd stuck around, I'd have had no choice. They'd have never let me. They let me do so little when I knew I could do so much more.

I could be so much more.

She reflects on this statement for a few seconds, taking a sip from her flask.

I guess when I wrestle, I do it to prove it to myself that I was meant to be more than people used to gimme credit for. That I got sometime to fight for. That's when the Trench War Championship comes in. I had a lot of people saying 'oh, well done getting that match, but what IS the Trench War title?' and y'know, the fact I get what it is what makes me think 'this is what I was made to do first'. Y'know, Tweedle-Dee and Dickface can fight for that Union Battleground title all they want, I'll get to that point one day, but in Los Angeles, they gotta follow ME and they gotta follow Sakaguchi Kyoshi and I wouldn't wanna be them. Kyoshi and me, we're fighters. We got to this point being real, proper fighters. Forget Justin King, he's a snake that Kyoshi's gotta shed before he gets bitten, it's about us two, in that ring, just fighting away.”

She puts her flask to the side and reaches into the picnic basket now, pulling out a tangerine and beginning to peel it as she talks.

“That's what the Battle of Los Angeles is. It's the night Emery Layton and Sakaguchi Kyoshi made the Trench War Championship the title for fighters. People think we're the underdogs, fella. They think we're the ones that the odds are stacked against but here, we got a chance to say “No. Fuck You. We're the best here.” We are gonna be the ones people talk about after this is all said and done. I ain't gonna do the thing everyone else has done and count you out as a 'rookie' cos obviously, you made it to this point, you got something. And for me, after spending so long in obscurity this is the opportunity to finally change all of that and win my first ever title in North America. See, you and me, we're similar. You took everything you used to be and you banished it to become something bigger, something better. You jumped in at the deep-end and you put your flag in the ground and said "I Am Here", and you made it here. But so did I.

Everyone out there calls us the underdogs, and this is our time right now to prove we are worth so much more than that. This is an opportunity to take something brand new. Something really, really new and turn it into the Best Thing Going in Union Battleground. It's up to us to define what this title is, so I hope losing to Dick Devereaux has you good and fired up, because yeah we didn't win the Union Battleground title, yeah we're not there yet, but that's cos we gotta do something first. We were given that Second Chance- and trust me young fella, you don't get many in this industry- and I think we sent here for a reason. I believe that this very match, this very night in Los Angeles was our destiny. Before you do anything in this world, you gotta put a stamp on it an Kyoshi, which ever one of us comes outta this one with that big shiny title will be The Bar by which future champs are measured. How fucking amazing is that?

You and me, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna prove to Union Battleground, to...”

She points behind her shoulder.

“to them down there...”

And with the exact same hand, she pulls a segment of tangerine and jams it into her mouth as she continues to talk.

“And to the world, that the big guys can fight their war out in the open where everyone can get to them, but mavericks like us fight ours in trenches. But those trenches aren't down there. They never were. They're in Los Angeles right now. And speaking of which, I gotta to my flight in...ooh...”

Tangerine to the side, as she checks her wrist-watch quickly. Her eyes bulge with alarm for a few seconds.

“...oh cock. Well, pretty soon actually. Shouldn't have drunk that, I gotta drive. I better be off, can't have any of the guys down there know I was here again. Meet me in LA, fella. We're gonna set the standard for Union Battleground's future.”

And off she goes, almost tripping over the picnic, making a massive racket as she escapes the scene. But we linger on it for a moment. We linger, slowly moving over the end of the hill, looking at the settlement again. It's unmoving. Stagnant. It's going nowhere and it's content with that.

But around it, the birds are flying and singing, the clouds are moving, there's the distant sound of cars and traffic.

The settlement stays silent. The world keeps moving on.