Post by DJS on Jan 16, 2017 16:23:05 GMT -5
A cold, dark night in a run-down city. We hear sirens in distance, pulsing music on the ground and propellors in the sky. Somewhere a two cats are fighting, until suddenly one of them is silent. A dog barks. Nearby, we hear a door slam open, and two very different voices. One male, angry and American- possibly Bronx- and the other female, bit shrill and Irish-flavoured, but with other dialects sort of mixed in. The American speaks first...
“Don't come back!”
“No, no, YOU don't come back!”
“It's my bar!”
“Yeah, yeah well this bar sucks and YOU suck!”
We hear the sound of the Irish girl falling with an audible 'oof!' Suddenly we come around the corner of a seedy, neon-light laced establishment, to see her face down in trash bags at the front of the building.
GUY:
“Ah, to hell with ya!”
The guy- fat, balding, has a towel over his shoulder- goes back into what is obviously HIS bar.
EMERY LAYTON:
“Oh yeah? Well you can't throw me out cause I'm leaving!”
Door shuts. Em sits up in the trash, her signature leather jacket on but her beanie hat over her eyes. With a little 'shit' under her breath, she pulls the hat up to notice us.
“Oh, nice. You got here on time...”
Suddenly she looks a little panicked, reaching for leverage somewhere but to no avail.
“I think I'm gonna be sick, you guys. No, really. I'd step back. Or gimme a hand and get a bucket. Don't just stand there. Wait...wait...oh God...”
She's gonna, she's gonna...
No she's not.
A sharp intake of breath, a little pause, and she's suddenly okay.
No she's not.
A sharp intake of breath, a little pause, and she's suddenly okay.
“I think I managed to swallow it. Stop looking at me like that! As if you've never been in this situation. Look, I was celebrating my birthday, okay? I don't really have that many friends to go out with these days. Being a traveler, you don't really get chance to make 'em but I came to this bar, I got free drinks from everyone because it was my birthday and you're not gonna turn that down, are you? Especially when no one knows that it was also your birthday last week in Philly. And the week before that in Chicago. And...I dunno, did I do the birthday trick in Boston, too? I forget. Anyway, I did hope we'd get to siddown, have a good chat about auld Hunter Grand and how much of useless twat he is but I got ahead of myself.”
She tries to get up, but falls back down again and decides to embrace her situation, putting her feet up on the bags like an armchair.
“Okay, it's fine. I'll just sit here. Okay...y'know, people look down on drunks. I mean, I wouldn't call myself a drunk so much, cause I back it up with loads of training and wrestling, but the thing about someone who's drunk is they've got no...what do you call it? Inhabitations? Inhibitions! You got no inhibitions, so nothing really matters to you. They're at the point where they've lost all care for whatever image they had before they got a single swig. That's why you see all these stupid girls on the sides of streets with their knickers round their ankles, cause they just don't care any more. Now, I'm not sayin' I'm like them by any means, but I feel like I'm kind of on the same wavelength of drunks, y'know?. I get their thinking. 'Cause I certainly don't care about image. If you could put a number on how little of a fuck I give about that it'd be...well, it'd be pretty low, I won't lie to you. And I kinda made it my thing. Look at me, I'm sat here in the trash talking to you about it. I clearly don't care.”
She looks almost pleased with this.
“See, when I ran away from my family and my traveller camp at fifteen years old, I didn't run off into wrestling and suddenly I was cleaned up and looked after. No, I was a fifteen year old hustling my way through life. I stole, I ran, I borrowed, blagged and begged. I was living on the streets of County Limerick, just waiting for an opportunity to do something better with my life. I already knew I wanted to wrestle and I'd made my choice. It took me a while, but I got into a wrestling school- only kinda schooling I ever took, mind. I got trained up, I slept on couches, I took any and every opportunity I could. Nine years on and I've been all around the world. I've learned from some of the best in places like Mexico, Japan and the UK. I have had no opportunity or drive to care about my image. There's no point when you're gonna spend your life getting your hands dirty anyway. So when I came to North America, I signed with the XWA, and I knew that was gonna be my ticket. Then I get a call from Union Battleground- they need people to represent XWA in their promotion! I never get calls, you guys. I'm usually the one doing the scouting and hustling. And then it gets even better. You mean to tell me that I, Emery Layton- Irish traveller, Lethal Lackeen, Worst of the Pavees- get to compete in the tournament to crown the first Union Battleground Champion? An opportunity I'd have given a leg and several of my limbs to get a few years back when I was stuck wrestling weekend-warriors who were teachers by day and wrestlers on Saturdays, who did this shit for a hobby? Trust me when I tell you, I get what a big deal this is.
So when Jumping Jack Flash comes along, as they tend to do in this world, with his flash suits and his life full of money...look, I don't need to tell you too much about Hunter Grand for you to see what an entitled little gobshite he is. I mean, listen to his fucking name for Christ sake, ooh...”
With a little bit of remorse, she presses her forehead, her chest, then her left and right shoulder, her head bowed.
“Grew up Catholic. Still not entirely comfortable with the 'name in vain' thing.
But Hunter, look fella...I didn't just talk about all of that a few minutes ago for nothing. I did it because I thought you needed to hear what it's like to do something you've never, ever understood. I needed you to hear what it's like to WANT something. So, so bad. You've had everything given to you, and you've just coasted through life, calm as you like. You know just as well as I do that if you lose this, you're going off somewhere else to go and win some other title elsewhere. But I have spent night lying awake, tears streaming down my face trying to figure out who I am. All I ever do is run, Hunter. I run to the next place and I never look back. Always forward, never backwards. I need to be Union Battleground Champion more than I need oxygen to live, so you look into these eyes, fella. You look into these eyes and tell me you can beat me. The truth is you can't. You just don't have as much need for it as I do. You will never understand it.
You like your catchphrases, and you like one especially “hold that thought, I don't care”, well I'm calling your bluff on that one 'cause I think you do. I think you care a lot more than you let on. I think you care too much about your image and your insecurities to give me anything CLOSE to what it's gonna take to beat me. But it's fine, you can have your theatrics. You can have your catchphrases. You can walk down that red carpet like the poncy, spoiled brat you are and it still won't be enough to beat me. You think you're so great, and you think there's no one like you, and that makes you easy to beat, because there are always men like you and I've beaten them all.”
Suddenly she stand up, dusting herself down and removing a banana skin draped over her knee, dropping it to the floor.
“Now. It's 11PM. It's dark and cold. Think I'm gonna go find my car and get some sleep.”
Pause.
She can't hold back the sly grin she's fighting to hide following her previous sentence.
“...Ah who am I kidding? Sleep is for the weak. I'm gonna go find another bar. Coming?
No?
Fair enough. I'll see you all in Arizona, then. You should see what I do to my opponent. It's gonna be Grand.”
And of she goes, into the night, throwing her hat up in the air and catching it.
Tucson's where she's headed next.
A Battleground awaits.
