Post by DJS on Feb 14, 2017 20:14:41 GMT -5
An abandoned 4x4 sits in a carpark next to a big building. The sky is still pitch-black but the streetlights illuminate the world around us. Somewhere, a man in a nearby apartment pulls his pillow around his ears, gritting his teeth. He's be up for work in four hours and he doesn't need this shit because somewhere out there, a shrill Irish voice calls out into the night:
“TWEEEEEEDEEERRRR!!!”
There is a hint of slur in her voice. If we didn't know who know who it was just by the accent, the slur has given it away.
“Hellooooo?!?! You around?! You gotta be here somewhere, fella! I know you're here!”
We turn the corner to find Emery Layton, hip-flask in hand looking up into the skies as she shouts. Suddenly, she turns to see us and almost dies of fright, stumbling a little.
EMERY LAYTON:
Oh! Hey there, you guys.
She stuffs the hipflask into the inside pocket of her jacket. She thinks we didn't notice. She's wrong.
“Alright, you can gimme a hand. You can help me. I just rocked up from DARC Pro in San Francisco. I just had a hard fought victory against this big monster guy, beat him pretty damn quick too. That seems to be my thing these days. But after that, I went for a few drinks, thought about this or that and I suffered a bit of what I'm gonna call Alcoholics' Guilt. 'I shouldn't be here', I said, 'I got too many things going for me right now and I'm just sat here wasting time!' So I didn't wanna faff around. I came right here!”
We look up.
The big building we alluded to earlier shows a sign- PICO RIVERA SPORTS ARENA. We look back to Em, who is now grinning manically.
“See my opponent this week is Tweeder, and I gotta get through him to get to the final and win the Union Championship, and if he's anything like me, he'll be here somewhere already. If he wants this as much as I do, he'd put everything he's doing right now in life on hold and we'd be stood here, face to face, fighting while the world burns around us. I just drove for God knows how long from San Francisco. Couldn't have been long, we're in the same state for fucks' sake! I drove right down here to Pico Rivera. Yeah, we're a few days away from LiGHTS OUT but the sun is shining, the birds are singing and it's pretty cold but it's a good day to die! I'm already AT Pico Rivera because I absolutely cannot wait to step right into that next spot, where I claim that main event at the Battle of Los Angeles, become the face of Union Battleground like I'm supposed to. I'm ready, fella! I know you're here you Scotch Whiskey-dick! Why wouldn't you be? The cutesy 'we're both Celtic' shit ain't gonna fly with me, I can barely even call myself Irish anymore but if I could, I'd be dancing a fucking jig over your body after I knock it down to the ground, cause that's what's gonna happen. And don't think the ultra-violence thing puts me off, I'll shove a fucking light-tube up your arse, see how you like ultra-violence after that. I know you---”
She looks to the side, distracted, and completely ends her sentence. Lifting off the lid of a trash can, she looks inside.
“Are you in here?”
She looks closer. And closer. And much, much closer until, with a little under-her-breath “shit”, Em falls face first into the trash-can, her entire top half being eaten alive by it. Panicking like a turtle on it's shell, her legs flail in the air as she see-saws to each side until she falls down onto the floor and noisily lifts it off her, crap flying all over the place. She kicks the can and it rolls across the pavement. She looks back to us, straightening herself out clearing her throat.
“He's not in there.”
From not too far away, we hear a voice. It appears to be coming from the apartment complex mentioned earlier.
ANGRY MAN:
“HEY! Shut the fuck up! It's two in the Goddamn morning!”
Em looks up.
EMERY LAYTON:
“Oi! Come down here and say that!”
ANGRY MAN:
“Get a job, rummy. I can smell you from up here!”
Window closed. Em smells her jacket.
EMERY LAYTON:
“Rummy? Alright that was just a good guess. There's no way he smelled that from all the way up there. And I have a job. Arse.”
She sits down, cross legged, on the floor now.
“So, he's not here, is he? Well that's a crying shame. I guess I'll just have to wait, like I had to for all the rest. I hate waiting. 'Oh it'll only be a few days.' Yeah, that's what they told Terry Waite, too, look what happened there. But I thought you'd be different, Tweedle-dee. I mean, I was told you were a fighter. I got told you were a no-nonsense fighter from Scotland. A hard-drinking no-nonsense Scot who doesn't take any shit from anyone. I thought you'd be eager. And yet, here I am and here you are not. I'm the first one here and you're off doing some other bollocks that isn't important. You know what your problem is, and what it's been this entire time? You ain't focused on the task at hand. You ain't focused on here and now. You keep talking about how you think you're gonna get in there with Dick Devereux. Like, seriously. You never shut up about him. He sits there all the time holding his earballs shouting 'make that burning pain stop', and it's every time you talk. You really think Dick vs. Tweeder is gonna happen. You think Devereux is your destiny.
Well, good. Good for you, fella. Cos that's why I'm gonna beat you.”
And once again, she shrugs, rubbing her hands together in the cold.
“What? You really think I'm gonna lose to you? To Dick? To Kyoshi? You honestly think this is my swansong from this tournament or that you're a threat? No way, you counted me out for you even begun. You already decided the odds were in your favour and were stacked against me. Well, I know the odds very, very well these days. They call me “sir”. You've already counted me out, whereas I'm taking you as seriously as you should be taken. I ain't getting in there with a brush, I know what you can do. I'm not taking you lightly whatsoever, so don't you even fucking think you're just gonna walk this one.”
She shakes her head as she sucks her teeth in.
“Nah. I've lost enough. I'm not really superstitious but my Grandma was Romanian- a real gypsy, not like us plastic Pavees- and she believed a lot in fortune and how if you fight for something hard enough, it'll make it's way to you as just a general reward for perseverence. So the Union Championship is life's way reward for all the bullshit I have had to put up with, all the lies I've had to tell and all the hustling I've had to do for these last few years. Everyone in this place likes to talk about how much they've scratched and clawed or how hard they worked like it's something that sets them apart, but a lot of the time life is just people walking into rooms and saying things, and I feel like I'm the only one walking in and telling the truth. I lost my family, I lost friends, I took the life of Emery Layton and I said 'none of this exists anymore' and I threw it all away to become the person I am today.
You are not enough to stop me. You're one person and I'm not scared of you. Life's too short to be scared of a single person. You can hurt me and beat me all you want, as if no one has ever tried before. You will never hit as hard as life. I don't care who I end up in there with at the Battle of Los Angeles, this ain't my last main event. I have too many people out there looking to me, believing I can do this and I am not gonna let those people down. I'm not gonna do it!”
Finally, she stands, although a little wobbly and out of focus for about two seconds.
“So feel free to judge. Any idiot can get summoned to be part of a jury. But if you think you're my executioner then bring it the fuck on. I'll be right here. Pretty much in a nutshell, I ain't going nowhere.
...Except right now. All this talking's making me feel sick.”
And off she walks into that cold, California night.
