Post by SYREN IS BEST on Mar 18, 2014 15:17:07 GMT -5
“Tamagachi, Mr. Roboto. Suzuki Kim Jong Uno, ching-chong zeeble-zabble fortune cookie soy sauce.”
“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it."
There are places, and there are the places between places. And then there are the cracks and shadows between those places—hidden places where men may fall and become lost in the void, no longer existing as men, but as invisible clouds of nothingness crawling between the weave of space-time's infinite threads. Unguided, the things that were once men may crawl through the nothing for an eternity. But with a pinch of luck and a bit of talent, men may find themselves in other places. For make no mistake, there are places on the other side...
And then there are places like a dope-ass place called Taco Haus somewhere in Alabama. It is a German-themed Mexican restaurant which offers up a variety of delicious sausage- and tortilla-based concoctions.
(Fuck you guys, it could exist.)
Scott Syren is poking listlessly at a plate of Bratwurst fajitas. Clubbin' Man attacks a plate piled high with soft tortillas and sauerkraut. Berta is a cheap fuck. He claimed he was “not hungry” when the waitress came to take their order, but now he's picking at everyone else's plates. One of his fake fingernails falls off onto Syren's plate, earning him a hateful glare.
LilJungleMan—who rarely eats anything other than human skulls, banana peels, and hard drugs—chugs a tall boot-shaped stein of Modelo Especial.
Scoot Time is stuffed awkwardly into a child's high chair. He dines on a single bratwurst, which he repeatedly shoves down his throat as far as he can before gagging it back up and starting all over again. Nobody bothers to stop him or ask him what the fuck he's doing. Scoot Time can only be Scoot Time, as we can all only be what we are.
Like how some of us can be the One True OCW World Champion and the Savior of L'Ardanth, but most of us cannot.
Maybe not even Scott Syren can be both... in fact, the latter of those two titles threatens to slip through his fingers even now, unless he can convince his skull-eating, beer-guzzling wizard friend to open the portal just one more time.
Syren stabs a sausage with a pair of chopsticks (who knows, right?) and brings up that very subject, which has already been beaten to death around this very table. “Just one more time,” he insists. “Summon the portal, we annihilate the goblin hordes, maybe get some touchy-feely time with the princess, and then we'll never go back ever again. I promise.”
LilJungleMan finishes his beer and smashes the expensive-looking stein on the floor. He screams, “Blurrgha fugg'n'DRINK!” which, in his native jungle language, means, “Perdon, my good muchacha, but could you please send another refreshing cerveza my way? Danke!”
It is roughly eleven a.m., Eastern Standard Time, but Syren, Berta, and Clubbin' Man have all been there before, many times over. They're not going to say shit about the little wizard's pre-noon inebriation. It is one of the unspoken rules of this fellowship.
“Are you listening to me?” Syren asks patiently.
“Yeah, I'm lissnen? Lissnen to your ass be STUPID?” LilJungleMan rejoins with great wit and candor. “The miscussion has been already done? So let's quit miscussing it?” Nobody asks why his sentences have all become questions.
Syren lets it go for now. They are nearing the end of the meal and are thinking of ways to sneak out without paying, but the staff is eyeballing them. They look like the type.
“Should we talk about the SUV?” Clubbin' Man asks with a hint of trepidation in his voice.
“What SUV?” Syren mumbles, his mouth full of beer-broiled sausage and fresh-pressed homestyle tortilla.
“The black SUV at Massacre... the one that almost killed Scoot Time while you just stood there. Is this something we need to be concerned about?”
Syren, shocked by Clubbin' Man's accusatory tone, half-chokes on the mouthful of food. “What's that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me that you would risk your life to save Scoot Time from a moving vehicle?”
Clubbin' Man doesn't answer. He cannot deny the validity of Syren's point.
Syren takes a big drink of Jarritos piña flavored soda. It is refreshing and delicious. “Besides,” he continues, “does it look like Scoot Time is fucking dead? Would a dead guy be sitting here giving a sausage a blowjob? You have to remember, Club... Scoot used to be a wrestler himself. It's nothing for him to pull off some basic stuntman shit like rolling over the hood of a car.”
Clubbin' Man accepts this.
“Should we talk about Kenshin then?” Berta offers. “Maybe we could help you brainstorm some strategy as long as we're all sitting down together.”
Syren shakes his head. “No thanks. But if I need advice on dancing around like a dipshit or sucking dudes' dicks, you guys will be the first ones to know. Besides, LilJungleMan is too fucked up to brainstorm much of anything.”
“I'm not fucked up? You're fucked up?” LilJungleMan retorts.
“As usual, I'm beginning to wonder if you're taking this seriously,” Berta scolds. “People are talking about Kenshin. He's the hottest commodity in OCW right now, and people are calling this title defense a career-defining match for him. Every message board, every podcast, every newsletter... they're all high on this guy right now. Three different wrestling blogs are publishing feature pieces on his background this week, and just totally pumping up his hype level going into this pay-per-view. His back story is remarkably complex and fascinating... really, it's no wonder the wrestling world is falling in love with the guy. Hell, I'd suck his dick.”
Syren makes a disdainful snorting sound. “Are we talking about the same Kenji Yamahama?! I'm well aware of his back story, you mustachioed slut. His dad is Jackie Chan and his mom got raped by a ninja or something. What's so fascinating about that? Scoot Time here has been raped by dozens of ninjas. And if defending a fake title is going to define his career, I feel downright fucking sorry for the dude.” He takes a last bite of fajita and a sly grin spreads across his face while he chews. “Besides,” he says, “I already have my strategy figured out.”
“I don't suppose you'd care to share it with a couple of lowly pawns like us,” Clubbin' Man says bitterly.
“Since you asked so nice... it's simple really.” After all these years, Syren still gets jacked up discussing an upcoming match with a worthy opponent. He begins to gesture enthusiastically with his chopsticks while he speaks. “You see, I'm all for OCW being equal opportunity, you know, letting retards and cripples and whatever have their hilarious shots at glory... but that doesn't mean I won't take advantage of an opponent's handicap. So with Kenji, all I have to do is attack from the sides instead of facing him head-on. Staying in his periphery should give me a major edge because of his eye disease!”
Clubbin' Man and Berta exchange confused looks.
Syren frowns. “You don't like my plan? Or, what, you think its unethical to take advantage of his ocular disability? Since when do you creeps have ethics?”
Clubbin' Man finally asks, “What the fuck are you talking about? Kenshin doesn't have an eye disease.”
“Of course he does! Why else would his eyes be all weird and squinty like that?!”
“For the sake of all the fucks!” Berta exclaims. “That's not an eye disease, Scott! He looks like that because he's fucking Japanese!”
A look of understanding slowly spreads across Syren's face. “Well I'll be a horse's dick,” he swears, “there goes that plan. Maybe I can just wear a Godzilla costume or something.” He has grown bored of talking about the match, and he is done with his meal. “Why do all these fucking Germexicans keep looking at us? Hey, people, it's a little hard for us to sneak away without paying you for our food when you keep staring... what the fuck ever happened to common courtesy? Seems like basic manners these days are as obsolete and meaningless as the Internet Title.”
Eventually they give in and just call for the check. Syren puts the last of his meager OCW earnings towards the meal but he's still several dollars short. He asks the waitress—an attractive twenty-something named Carmen Esperanza Lopez-Hitler—if a stack of autographed 8” x 10” glossy photos would make up the difference. Unfortunately, the girl has no fucking clue who any of them are, and she's never heard of the OCW.
“Yous are, like, sooo estoopid,” she says with an offensively stereotypical Rosie Perez accent. “I mean wha' kin'a person does that, go to a res'rant wit' no money? Yous better get some money or I'ma hafta, like, get my cousin Paco over here and yous, like, ain't gonna like him. Achtung!!!” She hikes up her lederhosen, adjusts her sombrero, and stomps away.
“Clubbin' Man?” Syren pleads, fluttering his eyelashes. “Do you have like three bucks? And by three I mean ten.”
Clubbin' Man removes a thick gold chain from his neck, mumbling under his breath. He slaps it down on top of their receipt. “That's the best I can do. I don't have any actual cash. Hopefully we're long gone by the time they realize it isn't real gold.” He exchanges meaningful glances with LilJungleMan and Berta. None of them have received any sort of compensation since they started working on Scott Syren's Glorious Return of the One True World Champion Campaign Committee.
Scoot Time hasn't gotten paid either. Rest assured he never will.
Scott Syren is not oblivious to the tension within his crew.
“I'm gonna get money soon,” he promises them, “In fact, I have some stuff lined up today. And yes, you'll each get a share.”
Everybody starts muttering amongst themselves like, “Yeah! Right on! That's cool! Now we are all in a good mood again because money!”
“Under one condition...”
All of the happy muttering instantly turns into the angry muttering of bad pottymouth words like “damn” and “fart”, even though Taco Haus is CLEARLY a family restaurant. Fucking inconsiderate dickheads.
Syren looks directly at LilJungleMan. “After I take care of our financials, you open the portal and come to L'Ardanth with me. One last time.”
Syren has effectively killed LilJungleMan's booze buzz by bringing this up again—well, to some extent. “No. NO. It's too easy to lose track of time there—you could miss your match! What if, now what if, whaaaat if we just open up the portal and throw a bunch of guns through it! So then they can defend themselves. Or better yet, we keep the guns for ourselves to rob a liquor store and then we have a fancy cocktailing party with red velvet cupcakes, ohhhhhh can we get cupcakes?!”
Syren ignores the last half of the rant. “Don't be a dumbass. If we just throw a bunch of guns through the portal, there's a three-zillion-to-one chance that the goblins will get them instead of the L'Ardanthians. No shortcuts. Not this time.”
LilJungleMan pouts and mumbles something intelligent like, “Fuck soup.”
Having avoided a run-in with Paco (thanks to Clubbin' Man's sacrifice of his favorite piece of gold-spraypainted tin jewelry) the gang gets up from their table. Syren pulls Scoot Time out of his high chair with one arm and clips the freakish little man to his leather leash.
Out in the parking lot, some meat-head chode that smells of Axe hair product runs up to them all like, “Scott Syren! Holy shit, you're really you!”
Scott Syren doesn't respond because the kid didn't technically offer a proper greeting nor did he ask a question.
“Bro! Holy shit, I can't believe I ran into you! You were awesome back when you used to wrestle!”
“Yeah,” agrees Syren, not bothering to mention that he still wrestles.
The kid sticks out his hand for a handshake. Syren fist-bumps the kid's fingertips super-awkwardly, which doesn't diminish his enthusiasm a bit. “My name is Jock Spalding, and its an honor to meet you, bro. Hey, maybe this is like fate and shit that we're meeting, because my frat—Gamma Gamma Party—could really use some help with something. You wanna make a quick hundred bucks?”
“No thanks, kid, I'm not that hard up. Berta here would be happy to suck all your friends' dicks for a hundred dollars though.”
Berta looks the kid up and down. He licks his lips, hums, “Mmmm-hmmm,” and nods in acquiescence of the proposal.
The kid laughs, way too loudly and obnoxiously. “Bro! No, nothing like that, bro. No offense, but we're just way into girl pussy. Bro, you bros are fucking hilarious though, seriously, bro. So here's the real deal: me and my brothers are making a sick recruiting video to put on the YouTube, and if you could just say a couple of lines into my phone camera so I can edit it in, I'll give you a hundred dollars cash, right here. Just like, Don't be a little bitch, pledge Gamma Gamma Party this semester! or something. And then, I'm Scott Syren and I approve this message! Ha! Ha! Ha! Get it, bro? Just like in those commercials for senators and mayors and librarians or whatever? Bro, I can't believe I thought of that off the top of my head! Epic win!”
Scott Syren is getting bored with the conversation so he casually punches Jock Spalding right in the fucking nose. Blood explodes from the dickwad's stupid face. The kid grabs his face with his hands; crimson liquid pours down through his fingers, soaking his Dave Matthews Band tour t-shirt, his white Crocs footwear, and the gravel of the Taco Haus parking lot.
“Bro!!!” Jock Spalding shrieks in disbelief. “Bro!!! Bro!!! What the fuck, bro!!! You bro fucking bro punched me bro?!”
Scott Syren shrugs like “sorry man” even though he's not sorry. Then he does a cool-ass spinning ninja kick and lands a vicious strike to Jock Spalding's kneecap, sending him down in a pool of his own blood. Because hey, fucking frat guys, am I right?
Syren lets Scoot Time off of his leather leash. The demented semi-human scampers over to the badly-beaten mess that is Jock Spalding. He sniffs at Jock's butt like a dog, then circles back to the front and immediately begins raping the boy's bloody mouth. He finishes in six pumps, a new record.
Scoot Time stuffs his bloody, withered dick back between his thighs proudly and says, “Scoot Time? No, no, noooo! More like Skeet Time!”
Clubbin' Man kicks Scoot Time in the ribs viciously. “Don't you ever try to make a fucking joke. You're not Richard and you never fucking will be, do you understand?”
Scoot Time yelps, and scurries behind Syren's legs, whimpering, “Bad Club-Man!” in his warbly, high-pitched voice. Syren pats the poor little guy on the head affectionately a few times, but then rips a huge clump of Scoot's hair out when the little freak is least expecting it. Scoot Time shrieks and covers up the bloody patch of scalp with his filthy hand-feet. “Bad everyone!” he whines.
Another classic prank by Scott Syren. Or is it a poignant lesson as to the duality of life? Better yet, who the fuck cares?
LilJungleMan starts to laugh, which devolves into a gross gagging sound. He vomits foamy beer-puke all over Jock Spalding's badly-used body. “Ohhhh fuck, that feels better.”
They leave Jock Spalding flopping around in the gravel and blood and puke and jizz and head to their vehicle, which is a “rented” Mercury Mariner, which they “rented” two weeks ago from a suburban street outside of Shreveport for the very reasonable price of zero dollars when they noticed the keys had been left in the ignition.
Syren takes the driver's seat, because he is the best at everything, and driving is a thing. He heads in some direction like maybe north by northeast or left or "yonder" or something.
He hooks up an mp3 player to the car's auxiliary jack and they all chill the fuck out and listen to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album Spectre at the Feast. Everybody smokes some weed and gets into the music (except for Clubbin' Man, on account of he only listens to fucking Kylie Minogue or whatever.)
Scoot Time (who is not allowed to smoke weed, but has a heavy contact buzz from riding along in the hot-boxed car) repeatedly flings his body forward and back against his seat, like a psychotic trying to break free of a straightjacket. He attempts to sing along to the music as he "dances", but he gets all the words wrong, because he is reciting the lyrics to some terrible Avril Lavigne song instead of the song that is actually playing.
“That was cool as shit how you almost killed that kid back there,” Clubbin' Man says, never afraid to state the obvious.
“Yeah, no shit it was,” Syren agrees humbly.
“But on the other hand, we were just talking about the money situation, and, I mean, he offered you a hundred bucks to do basically nothing, and— ”
Syren reaches back and gives Clubbin' Man a stiff taste of his pimp hand. “I said I have our fucking finances handled, didn't I?”
Clubbin' Man doesn't respond, he just rubs his red, swollen cheek where Syren bitch-smacked him. He has learned his lesson, for now... but Clubbin' Man is a base knave, and insolence in a knave is like cum in a street whore's hair: even if you wash it out on Monday, be assured you'll find it there again on Tuesday.
* * *
“So could I maybe get paid beforehand?” Syren asks the middle-school principal. “And could it maybe be in cash? I'm not super into banks.”
The principal seems slightly put off by the questions. He shuffles his Chinese-made Wal-Mart loafers on a fake-tile floor that is a couple decades overdue for replacement. “Umm, well, you're supposed to start in... well... now, actually. The kids have been waiting.” He gestures to the nearby gymnasium doors. Inside the gym, the bleachers are filled with two- or three-hundred fifth through seventh graders—about thirty to forty percent ethnics, not that it matters.
“Oh, it's cool,” says Syren. “They can wait for you to go get the money. They're just fucking kids, it's not like they have anything important to do.”
“Ummmmm, ooooookay, let me just go check with the lunch lady. Maybe she has the three hundred in her cash box. While I do that, why don't you go on in and get start—”
“Good idea, I'll just wait here. See if she has any of that greasy rectangle pizza while you're at it. That shit is totes bomb.”
“Right,” says the dipshit. “Three hundred dollars and some 'bomb' pizza.” He laughs a wet, gurgly giggle that makes him sound like a stupid nerd, then heads for the cafeteria with purpose in his step.
While he waits for the money, Syren occupies himself by trying to halt Berta's advances on a seventh-grade boy with a wardrobe lifted from a One Direction band photo.
“Do you like professional wrestling, cutie?” Berta asks the kid.
The kid laughs. “Fuck no,” he says, “that shit is stupid.” And so that's that.
“Berta, why don't you just wait in the car with the others,” Syren suggests. “And maybe try to keep your dick a minimum hundred yards away from any minors.”
The swaggy youngster gapes at Berta in shock. “Your dick?! Wait, you're a dude?!” he yelps, his voice cracking like that of a little bitch. He runs away down the hall, yelling, “Yuck! I can't believe I got a boner from talking to a dude!”
Syren takes a good look at Berta as the transvestite exits to the parking lot, dejected and sexually frustrated. (No doubt Scoot Time will bear the brunt of that frustration when Berta returns to the car.) The bushy black mustache and the tits made out of haphazardly-stuffed Kleenex should have been a dead giveaway, Syren figures. But then, kids are fucking stupid nowadays.
The principal finally returns. His pace is set to power-walk, and he's gasping for breath. He shoves a stack of ketchup-stained fives and ones into Syren's hand. “There's no pizza left, but here's two hundred and forty six dollars,” he explains. “I'll have to write you a check for the other fifty-four.”
“Just keep it,” Syren advises, “and I'll cut my speaking time in half.”
The principal frowns. “That math doesn't exactly—”
Syren shoves three fingers inside the principle's mouth, effectively muting him. “It wasn't a question, fuckwaxer.”
Syren struts through the gym doors to a mild “who the fuck is that guy?” buzz as the principal is left in the hallway mumbling to himself, “How do you wax a fuck?”
Syren makes his way to a podium that has been set up at half-court, right on the school's logo, which is two bloody daggers over a huge fucking swastika—no, just kidding it's actually the “Fightin' Manatee.” The school colors are black and teal, the gym floor is made of local hardwoods, and the humidity is at forty percent, give or take a few points. Overall, it's an incredibly detailed setting.
The children don't stop their murmuring, and their trading Lisa Frank stickers, and their SnapChatting each other nudes, and whatever other shit disrespectful kids do. So Scott Syren simply starts talking over their racket. Within a word or two, his commanding voice has dominated the large room, and the kids have consequently shutted the fuck up.
“I'm here to talk to you about drugs,” Syren begins. The kids groan, but their attention holds for the time being. “Now I'm not going to stand up here and tell you how drugs take away all of the bad and sad feelings in the world, or how they make homework easier and more interesting. I'm not going to talk about how drugs are delicious, or how they basically give you superpowers, or how you should never pay more than twenty bucks for an oxy thirty, because some of those high school kids will tell you they go for double that, but I know for a fact that Old Lady Jackson, who lives just down the street over there, has been getting off hers for fifteen a pop, and if you go there after five p.m., she's liable to be blasted on Xanax and pass the fuck out, and then you can just steal as many as you want.”
Some of the kids pull out writing implements and make a note of this information for later.
“But that's not what we're here to talk about. No,” Syren continues, “I'm here to talk about what drugs do to your life. And what exactly is that, you ask? Well, they really fart it up. Drugs will fart your life all to heck. How do I know this? Me—a hip, neato guy who has obviously never touched an illegal substance or underage girl in his life? Well, because I'm a professional wrestler. And it turns out wrestling and drugs are the same thing.”
Syren takes the microphone off its stand on the podium. He steps closer to the bleachers and starts to stroll back and forth in front of his audience.
“You start out smoking a joint and chewing up half of a vicodin. It's the same thing as doing your first shitty backyard tape, or curtain jerking some bum-fuck indy show. You get that first sweet buzz and you want more. You need more. When you win, you feel great. When you find the drugs, you feel great. But the stakes become higher and higher each time. As the buzz becomes greater and greater, so does the cost of losing. You need bigger wins, just like you need more drugs, stronger drugs. As long as you keep scoring drugs, scoring wins, everything is fine.”
Syren stops walking and stares intensely into the eyes of a sixth grader in the front row who is wearing a pot leaf necklace.
“Then one day it stops. You lose a match. Or you can't find drugs. And its not just a bummer. Its mother-farting crippling. Physically, of course, its a hard thing to get through. But mentally, emotionally, spiritually... the void is just absolutely devastating. One day you're on top of the world. You're fartin' Mayor McRadical of Hip-Hop City riding your neon skateboard down Pizza Mountain. The next day its all taken away from you. And it hurts twice as bad because you never even realized you were addicted to drugs and/or winning wrestling matches until the moment it all fell apart. Now some people seem to have all the luck... they have a steady supply of narcotics from their doctor, or they win seven wrestling matches in a row, maybe even grab themselves a meaningless title belt, and they get high as fuck on it. But it can't last. It can never last. And in the end, that sustained success... it's only going to make the inevitable detox that much harsher.”
Syren heads back to the podium and returns the microphone to its stand, quite proud of the badly disjointed metaphor he's slapped together off the top of his head.
“In closing, I guess all I'm trying to get through to you kids is, like, never run out of drugs. And never become OCW Internet Champion. Because both of those things suck really fuckin' bad.”
The children all begin to cheer loudly. Some of them are moved to tears by the poignancy of the oratory. Others begin to chant, "Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!" In the faculty seating section, a hot young math teacher is so turned on by the passionate nature of Syren's speech that she takes off her shirt and starts making out with the librarian, who is all dumpy and gross-looking and covered in green warts until she takes the bun out of her hair and removes her glasses, which instantly causes her to morph into an Alice Knight look-alike, except even hotter than Alice Knight and with less of that dead cat smell.
Syren winks at the slutty bitches. He briefly considers trying to put his penis inside one or both of them, but it would most likely require a lot of dull conversation to arrange such an event, and there is no time to pursue such frivolous flights of fancy. His lackeys are awaiting their cut of the money.
Just as the L'Ardanthians await the return of their champion...
