Post by the Schadenfreude on Apr 22, 2021 12:02:17 GMT -5
Following the match at Lights Out, Schadenfreude sat backstage while the doctor added two stitches above his nose to close the gash between his eyes. While packing his treatment supplies, the doctor warned that either or both eyes could bruise up within the next couple of days and then he handed Laimee a generous amount of cotton balls and bandages.
It would have been easy enough to return to their island home on Chichijima and likely highly productive, as his garden surely required tending to, but he had already decided against the tournament in Japan. There were also some really interesting things happening up in Chicago, but for the cost of the hotel, he knew it wouldn’t take much convincing before he was fully involved and likely overreaching again. So, with nothing on the books through the end of the month, not until the next match in Norfolk anyway, they returned to their two-bedroom condo in California.
Healing-up may not take as long as making-up for this double shot at the loser’s purse at the pay window. And, that latter bit, so far as Schadenfreude was concerned, was just as embarrassing as the second loss.
Schadenfreude tapped a button on the remote control in his right hand and the match restarted.
“How many times are you going to watch this?” Laimee asked, entering his bedroom with breakfast, coffee, a pair of disposable gloves, cotton balls, and a small jar of ointment on a bed tray.
“Thanks to my complimentary subscription to Battleground Network, repeatedly.”
“Why?” She sat the tray across his lap, gloved up and prepared the cotton balls with the ointment.
“You know why,” he shook his head; preparing his coffee without looking, he kept his focus on the opening moments. “To find my..."
“--Mistakes,” she finished for him, “yes, I know.”
A smug grin smirked across his face and his eyebrows nearly danced with glee, pure enjoyment, every time those glasses shattered against Johnny Violence’s face.
“Whew,” she shuddered, “so, how much did that cost?”
“Those,” he snorted, “probably fifteen-bucks from the dollar store spinner by the door. If they were real, then he should have management smart enough to get him a cut every time the match headline reads, ‘Violence’s name brand shades destroyed;’ otherwise, beat it with your ‘he owes me’ line."
“Sit back and be still,” she commanded; blocking his view with her arm and shoulder to tend to his wound.
She is the, for lack of a better word, lovechild of his two deceased best friends; her father was his Japanese business manager and her mother was a private dancer in LA that he had come up with since elementary school. Her mother being an exotic dancer was only to add brevity in explaining how her parents eventually met.
There was a birthday and money was paid for services rendered by someone that he trusted. Cue Timon and Pumba, because it was very clear what was happening in the weeks and months that followed, and ta-da...
“I told you that this would happen.”
She dabbed the cotton ball around the crisscrossing stitches, blotting the ointment between his eyes.
“What, that J-Vi would bulldog me into a chair?” Schadenfreude huffed.
“No!” She jabbed the tips of her fingers into the cotton, hard against his bruising.
Decades ago, when he started fighting for money, Schadenfreude had spent some nights like this with her mother. And, it was nights like this that he felt she most resembled her mother too. Though she picked her battles, she remained persistent in his stubbornness because she knew that he understood; now, she was going to drive it home.
“You know what I am talking about,” she added the finishing touches, “and you’ve clearly learned from it.”
He couldn’t respond or take a sip of his coffee as she applied a bandage over the gunked-over stitches.
“We’ll let that breathe tomorrow,” she finished. “You need to get something on your eyes..."
“-like what?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. Very soon,” she gestured clocking-out, “I will be a beach bum.” She cleaned up the mess of wrappers, capped the ointment, and cleared the medical supplies from the tray before turning around. Her eyes rolled up as far as they could into the rafters of her skull as the match continued for the umpteenth time.
Behind her, the same sinister glee overcame him as he watched himself obliterate Johnny Violence’s hand with the ring steps.
“SPOILER ALERT,” she startled him! “He beats you! Every single time you watch it. Because you were jet-lagged and tired. It won’t suddenly and surprisingly change.” Then, with the most exaggerated and sarcastic sweet smile she could muster, she waved as if she were in a cartoonish commercial, “BYE-EEEEE!”
In resorting to the overbooked gimmick, he had the audacity to call out others in doing so; well, there were two that received due praise. Not that he named names, though.
Listening to the fans before, during and after the match, they needed a scoundrel.
“Hmph-- they cheered for him?” Schadenfreude shook his head, a mix of disbelief as he gestured toward the screen, “Really?! This guy?”
A heat excuse, yes, but he hadn’t blatantly lied. Right?
The “Lights Out” logo appeared in the lower left-hand corner, indicating that the matches for the upcoming event were available for scrutiny.
In the brief moment that he hesitated, his cellular lit up.
Just as the reaction of the last show began to subside, social media was quickly revived with talk of big-time matches, unique stipulations, and intriguing implications.
Scanning the bouts, from the triple-threat main event for the Championship to the opening contest, quite a few times, he muttered the word, “Fuck.”
Genie Carlson had nudged her way into the main event and her worth of the opportunity was in question by most of the media masses. Sure, the articles and tweets made mention that she had earned her accolades once upon a time ago. It seemed nowadays, however, the mutual agreement was that she might have some receipts due.
Either way, “Who gives a fuck?” Schadenfreude didn’t care.
Considering receipts, it was more than a week before Schadenfreude came to grips with the fact, Johnny Violence has one due too.
Seated on his couch with his Chromebook opened on the coffee table in front of him, he scanned the online rags. His stitches were gone, yet another scar in the ink, and the bruise around his right eye was brown.
Initially, it bothered him deeply that his loss had catapulted Violence into a title opportunity. Violence had spread his feathers and boasted about the victory, endlessly, for days on social media. While the rags printed it differently, to hear Violence in an interview or read his tweets, Schadenfreude hit his knees in the middle of the ring and placed his hands behind his back.
Violence hadn’t walked over him.
Violence also hadn’t ducked him.
Stroking his beard, Schadenfreude knew, if presented with a rematch with Mr. Noobs or an opportunity at a hot potato, anyone would accept a shot at gold.
“Well,” he stated, “by the time I’ve earned my shot, I hope to take that strap from him.”
He was going into his second match under the eight ball. This overall comeback since returning was going to be hard enough, but facing Johnny Vachon, the longtime, ultraviolence cornerstone responsible for duping the world into believing the live broadcast of his death; well, the rags made Schadenfreude’s chances seem slimmer than none.
“So,” Laimee asked from the kitchenette, preparing their lunch, “you think Johnny is going to win?”
“I certainly hope not,” he shook his head, not looking up.
From across the room, Laimee glared at him. Hard. For several seconds, she burned a set of holes into him until he was forced to do so.
“I mean,” dead to rites, “the last thing I want is three losses.”
Laimee closed her eyes, he's in his head, this wasn’t a conversation.
With all of the hype around Vachon, even the negative press, his booking against a newcomer on the undercard raised eyebrows. Schadenfreude would never say that he was honored, but he remembered a similar gut check with Matt Deathrow King too, and, well, he also recalled how that ended.
Hell, he may as well went into that one handcuffed and blindfolded for his efforts preparing and still, he wasn’t walked over. Unlike Violence, MDK had every right to every word he had ever said about Schadenfreude.
“Do we know anything more about Vachon than this shit they’re printing?" He asked; nodding at the screen as Laimee approached with cold plate lunches.
“Most everything is out there,” she shrugged; before popping a grape in her mouth. “As he is the leader,” she spoke with her mouth full, “or pseudo-leader,” chomping one grape after another, “of the Genocidal Hate Brigade,” it was some juicy information, “you need to be most concerned by the numbers.”
He glared and she gulped before continuing, “Outside interference. Things of that nature. They are all mean and dangerous with guerilla tactics. Their radical following was shook, but still, they have enough zealots listening to trash-thrash and smoking dope that push their propagan... --sorry, their merchandise and agenda.”
“Damn,” he laughed, “so, do they travel around in a chartreuse microbus?”
“Close enough.”
“Hmph-- Sounds like the kind of people that would interact with full stalks of corn in April.”
“I thought I was in a blueberry patch once,” she admitted, “but I was just completely fucked up in the produce section.”
Finishing his lunch of yogurt, cottage cheese, nuts and fruit, Schadenfreude tried to keep the numbers game from shaking him. Jacob Kuntz is the only other of the GHB, that he knew of, to be scheduled. As is the case in this business, anything is possible, though.
One thing was for certain, neither here nor there, in Yamashi, did Schadenfreude have interest in involving himself in gang warfare --neither side of it. Regardless of the heat.
And, not that he would allow it to influence any of his decisions in the battle to come, but Schadenfreude couldn’t help but consider Vachon’s tournament chances in Japan following Lights Out. Having voluntarily kept himself from the competition, the last thing he’d want to do is eliminate someone else’s chances before it ever started.
However, he needs a win; GHB’s minions and any respect he has for Vachon be damned.
It would have been easy enough to return to their island home on Chichijima and likely highly productive, as his garden surely required tending to, but he had already decided against the tournament in Japan. There were also some really interesting things happening up in Chicago, but for the cost of the hotel, he knew it wouldn’t take much convincing before he was fully involved and likely overreaching again. So, with nothing on the books through the end of the month, not until the next match in Norfolk anyway, they returned to their two-bedroom condo in California.
Healing-up may not take as long as making-up for this double shot at the loser’s purse at the pay window. And, that latter bit, so far as Schadenfreude was concerned, was just as embarrassing as the second loss.
Schadenfreude tapped a button on the remote control in his right hand and the match restarted.
“How many times are you going to watch this?” Laimee asked, entering his bedroom with breakfast, coffee, a pair of disposable gloves, cotton balls, and a small jar of ointment on a bed tray.
“Thanks to my complimentary subscription to Battleground Network, repeatedly.”
“Why?” She sat the tray across his lap, gloved up and prepared the cotton balls with the ointment.
“You know why,” he shook his head; preparing his coffee without looking, he kept his focus on the opening moments. “To find my..."
“--Mistakes,” she finished for him, “yes, I know.”
A smug grin smirked across his face and his eyebrows nearly danced with glee, pure enjoyment, every time those glasses shattered against Johnny Violence’s face.
“Whew,” she shuddered, “so, how much did that cost?”
“Those,” he snorted, “probably fifteen-bucks from the dollar store spinner by the door. If they were real, then he should have management smart enough to get him a cut every time the match headline reads, ‘Violence’s name brand shades destroyed;’ otherwise, beat it with your ‘he owes me’ line."
“Sit back and be still,” she commanded; blocking his view with her arm and shoulder to tend to his wound.
She is the, for lack of a better word, lovechild of his two deceased best friends; her father was his Japanese business manager and her mother was a private dancer in LA that he had come up with since elementary school. Her mother being an exotic dancer was only to add brevity in explaining how her parents eventually met.
There was a birthday and money was paid for services rendered by someone that he trusted. Cue Timon and Pumba, because it was very clear what was happening in the weeks and months that followed, and ta-da...
“I told you that this would happen.”
She dabbed the cotton ball around the crisscrossing stitches, blotting the ointment between his eyes.
“What, that J-Vi would bulldog me into a chair?” Schadenfreude huffed.
“No!” She jabbed the tips of her fingers into the cotton, hard against his bruising.
Decades ago, when he started fighting for money, Schadenfreude had spent some nights like this with her mother. And, it was nights like this that he felt she most resembled her mother too. Though she picked her battles, she remained persistent in his stubbornness because she knew that he understood; now, she was going to drive it home.
“You know what I am talking about,” she added the finishing touches, “and you’ve clearly learned from it.”
He couldn’t respond or take a sip of his coffee as she applied a bandage over the gunked-over stitches.
“We’ll let that breathe tomorrow,” she finished. “You need to get something on your eyes..."
“-like what?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. Very soon,” she gestured clocking-out, “I will be a beach bum.” She cleaned up the mess of wrappers, capped the ointment, and cleared the medical supplies from the tray before turning around. Her eyes rolled up as far as they could into the rafters of her skull as the match continued for the umpteenth time.
Behind her, the same sinister glee overcame him as he watched himself obliterate Johnny Violence’s hand with the ring steps.
“SPOILER ALERT,” she startled him! “He beats you! Every single time you watch it. Because you were jet-lagged and tired. It won’t suddenly and surprisingly change.” Then, with the most exaggerated and sarcastic sweet smile she could muster, she waved as if she were in a cartoonish commercial, “BYE-EEEEE!”
In resorting to the overbooked gimmick, he had the audacity to call out others in doing so; well, there were two that received due praise. Not that he named names, though.
Listening to the fans before, during and after the match, they needed a scoundrel.
“Hmph-- they cheered for him?” Schadenfreude shook his head, a mix of disbelief as he gestured toward the screen, “Really?! This guy?”
A heat excuse, yes, but he hadn’t blatantly lied. Right?
The “Lights Out” logo appeared in the lower left-hand corner, indicating that the matches for the upcoming event were available for scrutiny.
In the brief moment that he hesitated, his cellular lit up.
Just as the reaction of the last show began to subside, social media was quickly revived with talk of big-time matches, unique stipulations, and intriguing implications.
Scanning the bouts, from the triple-threat main event for the Championship to the opening contest, quite a few times, he muttered the word, “Fuck.”
Genie Carlson had nudged her way into the main event and her worth of the opportunity was in question by most of the media masses. Sure, the articles and tweets made mention that she had earned her accolades once upon a time ago. It seemed nowadays, however, the mutual agreement was that she might have some receipts due.
Either way, “Who gives a fuck?” Schadenfreude didn’t care.
Considering receipts, it was more than a week before Schadenfreude came to grips with the fact, Johnny Violence has one due too.
Seated on his couch with his Chromebook opened on the coffee table in front of him, he scanned the online rags. His stitches were gone, yet another scar in the ink, and the bruise around his right eye was brown.
Initially, it bothered him deeply that his loss had catapulted Violence into a title opportunity. Violence had spread his feathers and boasted about the victory, endlessly, for days on social media. While the rags printed it differently, to hear Violence in an interview or read his tweets, Schadenfreude hit his knees in the middle of the ring and placed his hands behind his back.
Violence hadn’t walked over him.
Violence also hadn’t ducked him.
Stroking his beard, Schadenfreude knew, if presented with a rematch with Mr. Noobs or an opportunity at a hot potato, anyone would accept a shot at gold.
“Well,” he stated, “by the time I’ve earned my shot, I hope to take that strap from him.”
He was going into his second match under the eight ball. This overall comeback since returning was going to be hard enough, but facing Johnny Vachon, the longtime, ultraviolence cornerstone responsible for duping the world into believing the live broadcast of his death; well, the rags made Schadenfreude’s chances seem slimmer than none.
“So,” Laimee asked from the kitchenette, preparing their lunch, “you think Johnny is going to win?”
“I certainly hope not,” he shook his head, not looking up.
From across the room, Laimee glared at him. Hard. For several seconds, she burned a set of holes into him until he was forced to do so.
“I mean,” dead to rites, “the last thing I want is three losses.”
Laimee closed her eyes, he's in his head, this wasn’t a conversation.
With all of the hype around Vachon, even the negative press, his booking against a newcomer on the undercard raised eyebrows. Schadenfreude would never say that he was honored, but he remembered a similar gut check with Matt Deathrow King too, and, well, he also recalled how that ended.
Hell, he may as well went into that one handcuffed and blindfolded for his efforts preparing and still, he wasn’t walked over. Unlike Violence, MDK had every right to every word he had ever said about Schadenfreude.
“Do we know anything more about Vachon than this shit they’re printing?" He asked; nodding at the screen as Laimee approached with cold plate lunches.
“Most everything is out there,” she shrugged; before popping a grape in her mouth. “As he is the leader,” she spoke with her mouth full, “or pseudo-leader,” chomping one grape after another, “of the Genocidal Hate Brigade,” it was some juicy information, “you need to be most concerned by the numbers.”
He glared and she gulped before continuing, “Outside interference. Things of that nature. They are all mean and dangerous with guerilla tactics. Their radical following was shook, but still, they have enough zealots listening to trash-thrash and smoking dope that push their propagan... --sorry, their merchandise and agenda.”
“Damn,” he laughed, “so, do they travel around in a chartreuse microbus?”
“Close enough.”
“Hmph-- Sounds like the kind of people that would interact with full stalks of corn in April.”
“I thought I was in a blueberry patch once,” she admitted, “but I was just completely fucked up in the produce section.”
Finishing his lunch of yogurt, cottage cheese, nuts and fruit, Schadenfreude tried to keep the numbers game from shaking him. Jacob Kuntz is the only other of the GHB, that he knew of, to be scheduled. As is the case in this business, anything is possible, though.
One thing was for certain, neither here nor there, in Yamashi, did Schadenfreude have interest in involving himself in gang warfare --neither side of it. Regardless of the heat.
And, not that he would allow it to influence any of his decisions in the battle to come, but Schadenfreude couldn’t help but consider Vachon’s tournament chances in Japan following Lights Out. Having voluntarily kept himself from the competition, the last thing he’d want to do is eliminate someone else’s chances before it ever started.
However, he needs a win; GHB’s minions and any respect he has for Vachon be damned.