Post by synn on Dec 3, 2022 18:04:24 GMT -5
It was always rainy and cold this time of year. Dreary. The sun was a minority in Anchorage during the winter, and when the wind decided to join the party it can bite into your skin like a thousand invisible knives.
Juniper Grace Leavitt sighed as she shut the door to the giant washing machine, the soap opera playing on low volume from the corner, the only noise breaking the monotony of the laundromat hum. She set a timer on her phone and put her earbuds in. She couldn’t even feel the dampness of the Alaskan air, as she was accustomed to it by this point. Her boots splashed in the puddles as she walked along the lonely county road, the light mist of rain making the entire landscape a dull blur.
She got to her mothers house in about 45 minutes. Her car was gone–she was probably at bingo again–but all Juniper needed was supposed to be sitting on the porch. She unlocked the gate and made her way up the gravel driveway that mom was supposed to get paved. She made her living on the word “supposed to”. She did, however, do what Juniper asked (this time). Sitting on the porch were two big black garbage bags and one white one. The bags, however, weren’t tied like they were supposed to be. She shook her head, but didn’t have time to waste. She tied the bags quickly and threw them over her shoulder, carrying all three over one arm with the blue strings between her fingers. She liked the sting from the weight on her arm–doing everything around the house for years has kept her in decent enough shape. They couldn’t afford a gym membership and hell, even if they could, the closest gym was in Anchorage and it wasn’t worth the drive.
Another 15 or so minutes and she arrived at the corner store. Setting the bags down she took out one of her earbuds.
“A juice and a honeybun, that all?” she cashier was pleasant enough. She was an older woman whose husband had died in an accident in the Bering Sea a few years earlier.
Juniper nodded, mustering up a smile that felt so dishonest. She handed the woman a couple of dollars and took her snacks with her. The older cashier always thought there was “something about that girl” and often referred to her as the quiet one. Nice enough, just never really said much.
Juniper made her way to the bottle and can return and set the bags down, untying them. She took a sip of her juice as she waited for the machine to become available. There wasn’t much else to do in this town and the corner store became the center of entertainment as well as commerce. The only things there are to do in Talkeenta are do drugs, have sex, do drugs while having sex, fish, hunt and go to the general store. Sometimes, if you’re really feeling adventurous, you can do all of those activities at the corner store.
She scrolled through her phone, watching highlights of various wrestling companies. She was a huge fan of wrestling, always had been. Since they didn’t have cable, she had to live off of recaps and highlights. XWF, U.G.W.C, WGWF, IIW, Action Wrestling. You named it, she consumed it. Most recently, however, she had been following OCW. She remembered the only real smile she had in months was when Sahara beat the Nickelman for the Paradigm Championship. She was obsessed with PIC’s hair, and was afraid of Solomon Cain. It was all so invigorating, and when she got that phone call from Victoria Strader she—-
Her juice was about half way gone when the can machine freed up. She looked up from her phone, and noticed that her friend, Akna, at the neighboring machine. She stood up and took a spot next to her, pulling out some cans.
“Girl…..you still collecting all them cans from ma’s house? Sheesh, you been banking off that for some time now.”
Juniper smiled, and nodded. She put the first can, a Diet Thunder from Wal-Mart, into the machine.
She liked the way they crunched.
$.05
Soda, beer, iced tea, they all crunched the same. The five cents per can was modest, but it was something. There was nothing special about a nickel.....She still remembered what her grandmother used to tell her.
“A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.”
She chuckled to herself as she put the last Diet Mountain Lightning into the machine.
Her grandmother's words rang so true, especially now. She had been in contact with management from the OCW–and she wanted more than anything to tell her best friend–but she kept quiet, nodding her head to her metal music.
It was when she opened the next bag that her soul sank.
Beer cans. Loads of them. Flashbacks of her abusive, alcoholic father crashed into her mind like a hurricane making landfall, and she felt her hand shake ever so slightly as she picked up the first Natural Ice.
Akna was talking, saying something, but Juniper was lost in her own world. She had been bullied from a young age–yes, children are assholes in Alaska, too–and she had made it a crusade of hers since middle school to stand up against bullies. She hated when people were cruel for no reason, especially in the guise of humor. She hated B.O.B for this reason. Their juvenile humor in an attempt to overcompensate for their tiny manhoods made her want to puke, and a chance to be a driving force in their destruction was one of the main reasons she accepted Victoria’s phone call.
The beer cans crunched in the machine. She was already up to almost $5 with a bag and a half left. Something inside her couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually have money, when that first OCW paycheck came through—-
“Girl…..June……you listening to anything I said?”
She pulled an earbud out.
“I—uh—no…..no sorry.”
Akna shook her head. “I was just saying that my father got a spot on a crab boat this winter and I am super worried–”
Akna was a great girl, and Juniper’s best friend, but her mind was not on small talk right now. Her mind was on what the heck she was gonna do….just pack up and leave her entire family behind to embark on an adventure that, to this point, was just a source of entertainment for her? Her family, psssht. A junkie mother who cared more about bingo nights and happy hour than keeping the lights on, and a father who…….
Her lip quivered as she put another Natural Ice into the crusher.
…….a father who made her a woman long before she was ready to be.
She cut off Akna mid sentence.
“I am going to be a wrestler.”
Her friend looked at her with a raised eyebrow, her Inuit skin looked good in the store’s fluorescent lights.
“You’re what?!”
“I am going to be a professional wrestler, A.”
Her friend stopped putting her cans away, and turned her body to face her.
“You know there isn’t any professional wrestling companies in Alaska. Where are you gonna go? And how the hell do you plan to get there?”
She had a point. The money she would get from these cans is all she had to her name. How WOULD she get to wherever this adventure would take her? Better yet, what the heck would she do when she got there? The Florida Keys?! She’d never been more than an hour away from Anchorage!
“I got a call from OCW. They wanted to put me into their developmental program. Remember when I said I wasn’t around last week? I really wasn’t. I was fighting my first ever match on Massacre.”
Her friend's bushy eyebrow raised again.
“And?”
“I won, decisively.”
“That I figured, you’re far too cheery to have lost. I meant more, how did you get there?”
“I hitchhiked.”
“I see.”
“Took me 3 days but I got there.”
“They didn’t fly you out?”
“They did not.”
“I wouldn’t have went.”
“Ank, you grew up in a mud hut and had the opportunity to \o something you love in front of a national audience…..you wouldn’t do whatever it takes to get there?”
Her friend didn’t respond.
“You know how much I love wrestling.”
“Too much.”
“And this is a dream that not everyone gets. I applied on a whim, expecting to be let down, and I got a call back! Now it's my turn to not let them down!”
The final can from the bag of horrors crushed inside the whirring belt. $.05 showed up on the screen. She began to open the third bag.
“So you won…….I assume they will fly you out this time?”
“You’re stuck on that.”
“It’s a big deal!”
“I assume they will…..”
“Where is it?”
“The Florida Keys.”
“WHAT!”
People in the store turned and looked at the two now. Juniper blushed, she still wasn’t used to attention. She had always just blended in, never really mattered to anyone.
“You’re telling me you get to live your dream AND be warm?”
Juniper nodded sheepishly. It was going to feel weird to get out of Alaska. She wasn’t sure how she felt, truthfully. It was all such a big change for her!
Neither of them said anything for a while. They finished their can bags and collected the money, walking out of the store. It was Akna who spoke up first.
“We need to come up with a name for you.”
“I need to get back to the laundromat.”
“Forget the laundromat! You’re gonna be a celebrity! You can buy and re-buy all the clothing and bedding you’d ever need!”
“Let's not get too ahead of ourselves.”
She looked down at the pavement as she walked. There was a nickel on the road, and it wasn’t the first one she’d seen that day. These things were everywhere.
A dime a dozen.
Boring.
Just as the two of them were about to split, and go their separate ways, Juniper’s eyes shot towards an alleyway by the local school house.
A group of boys was holding the hat of another over his head, passing it around and laughing as they shoved him.
“Come on! Please! My grampa gave me that hat before he died! Please give it back!”
“Shut up twerp!”
They laughed and made crying symbols with their hands.
Before Akna could blink, June had taken off. She charged towards the group like a bullet out of a hunter’s rifle. She checked one of the bullies out of the way and snatched the hat from the main one, pinning him to the ground.
She hands the hat back to the boy who cradles it to his chest and runs away. The boy has fear in his eyes as the grown woman sits atop of him.
“What is your name?”
The boy didn’t answer, frozen in fear.
“I asked you what your name is, punk!”
“Ch—ch—Charlie.”
She snarls as she gets off.
“Get out of here Charlie and don’t come back. If I see you bullying anyone else, you won’t be able to bull anyone anymore!”
“OKAY! OKAY!”
She walked back over to Akna, dusting herself off.
“You just can’t help yourself, can ya?”
She began to walk towards the laundry.
“JUNIPER! JUNE! Wait!”
She turns around.
“Who are you facing this week?”
“Charlie Nickels."
“Who the hell is that?”
“A sinner…..a devil…..a terrible man……..”
“Your father?”
They all the way back to the laundromat. Juniper took two nickels out of her pocket, unlocking the door.
Nickels were expendable.
Juniper was taking the laundry out of the machine when her mother texted her. It was about her father. Police were there, and EMT’s. Come quickly.
Juniper swiped the message away, looking down. After a few moments she looked up at Akna.
“Synn.”
“Charlie……I am not sure you understand exactly who I am. I am sure you are sleeping on me, just like you do with everyone else. In your eyes, you’re untouchable. You think that because you have aligned yourself with the other mean kids, that you can get away with whatever you want with no consequences.
I am your consequence.
You saw what happened when your actions couldn’t back up your words. Now, you’re going to see what happens when karma decides it's your time. Company after company I have watched you do and say terrible things. I saw you align yourself with B.0.B AND the No Good Bastards just so you had a little back up for when the butt-kicking is a bit too spicy for your liking. You call it a business strategy, I call it being a coward. You know you can’t hack it in the ring, so you fall back on your brothers to cover your six, taking full credit for a foundation that they established. You’re a loser, Charlie, and always have been. You’re a loser in the ring and a loser in life. You’d think you’d be at least A champion, the way you talk about yourself. Instead, everyone else around you holds gold and you’ve been reduced to nothing more than an overweight mouthpiece. A megaphone with ducktape over the off switch. I am here to rip that tape off.
This is my dream, my passion, my only real hope. I have made a living of doing the right thing, and I will be damned if someone like you ruins all of that for me. I will not stop until B.O.B is disbanded, the Brotherhood is reduced to rubble, and Charlie Nickels is bagging groceries back in Stubenville Ohio, reminiscing about what went wrong.
I’ll tell you what went wrong.
Your synns caught up to you, and I am here to absolve you of anymore pain.
Learn my name, study my face, because you’re going to be seeing a lot of it in the near future. When I pin you 1, 2, 3 at Massacre, the OCW gets their much needed wake up call and the face of tyranny gets a much needed makeover.
And I love eating faces…..
Juniper Grace Leavitt sighed as she shut the door to the giant washing machine, the soap opera playing on low volume from the corner, the only noise breaking the monotony of the laundromat hum. She set a timer on her phone and put her earbuds in. She couldn’t even feel the dampness of the Alaskan air, as she was accustomed to it by this point. Her boots splashed in the puddles as she walked along the lonely county road, the light mist of rain making the entire landscape a dull blur.
She got to her mothers house in about 45 minutes. Her car was gone–she was probably at bingo again–but all Juniper needed was supposed to be sitting on the porch. She unlocked the gate and made her way up the gravel driveway that mom was supposed to get paved. She made her living on the word “supposed to”. She did, however, do what Juniper asked (this time). Sitting on the porch were two big black garbage bags and one white one. The bags, however, weren’t tied like they were supposed to be. She shook her head, but didn’t have time to waste. She tied the bags quickly and threw them over her shoulder, carrying all three over one arm with the blue strings between her fingers. She liked the sting from the weight on her arm–doing everything around the house for years has kept her in decent enough shape. They couldn’t afford a gym membership and hell, even if they could, the closest gym was in Anchorage and it wasn’t worth the drive.
Another 15 or so minutes and she arrived at the corner store. Setting the bags down she took out one of her earbuds.
“A juice and a honeybun, that all?” she cashier was pleasant enough. She was an older woman whose husband had died in an accident in the Bering Sea a few years earlier.
Juniper nodded, mustering up a smile that felt so dishonest. She handed the woman a couple of dollars and took her snacks with her. The older cashier always thought there was “something about that girl” and often referred to her as the quiet one. Nice enough, just never really said much.
Juniper made her way to the bottle and can return and set the bags down, untying them. She took a sip of her juice as she waited for the machine to become available. There wasn’t much else to do in this town and the corner store became the center of entertainment as well as commerce. The only things there are to do in Talkeenta are do drugs, have sex, do drugs while having sex, fish, hunt and go to the general store. Sometimes, if you’re really feeling adventurous, you can do all of those activities at the corner store.
She scrolled through her phone, watching highlights of various wrestling companies. She was a huge fan of wrestling, always had been. Since they didn’t have cable, she had to live off of recaps and highlights. XWF, U.G.W.C, WGWF, IIW, Action Wrestling. You named it, she consumed it. Most recently, however, she had been following OCW. She remembered the only real smile she had in months was when Sahara beat the Nickelman for the Paradigm Championship. She was obsessed with PIC’s hair, and was afraid of Solomon Cain. It was all so invigorating, and when she got that phone call from Victoria Strader she—-
Her juice was about half way gone when the can machine freed up. She looked up from her phone, and noticed that her friend, Akna, at the neighboring machine. She stood up and took a spot next to her, pulling out some cans.
“Girl…..you still collecting all them cans from ma’s house? Sheesh, you been banking off that for some time now.”
Juniper smiled, and nodded. She put the first can, a Diet Thunder from Wal-Mart, into the machine.
She liked the way they crunched.
$.05
$.05
$.05
$.05$.05
$.05
$.05$.05
Soda, beer, iced tea, they all crunched the same. The five cents per can was modest, but it was something. There was nothing special about a nickel.....She still remembered what her grandmother used to tell her.
“A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.”
She chuckled to herself as she put the last Diet Mountain Lightning into the machine.
Her grandmother's words rang so true, especially now. She had been in contact with management from the OCW–and she wanted more than anything to tell her best friend–but she kept quiet, nodding her head to her metal music.
It was when she opened the next bag that her soul sank.
Beer cans. Loads of them. Flashbacks of her abusive, alcoholic father crashed into her mind like a hurricane making landfall, and she felt her hand shake ever so slightly as she picked up the first Natural Ice.
Akna was talking, saying something, but Juniper was lost in her own world. She had been bullied from a young age–yes, children are assholes in Alaska, too–and she had made it a crusade of hers since middle school to stand up against bullies. She hated when people were cruel for no reason, especially in the guise of humor. She hated B.O.B for this reason. Their juvenile humor in an attempt to overcompensate for their tiny manhoods made her want to puke, and a chance to be a driving force in their destruction was one of the main reasons she accepted Victoria’s phone call.
The beer cans crunched in the machine. She was already up to almost $5 with a bag and a half left. Something inside her couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually have money, when that first OCW paycheck came through—-
“Girl…..June……you listening to anything I said?”
She pulled an earbud out.
“I—uh—no…..no sorry.”
Akna shook her head. “I was just saying that my father got a spot on a crab boat this winter and I am super worried–”
Akna was a great girl, and Juniper’s best friend, but her mind was not on small talk right now. Her mind was on what the heck she was gonna do….just pack up and leave her entire family behind to embark on an adventure that, to this point, was just a source of entertainment for her? Her family, psssht. A junkie mother who cared more about bingo nights and happy hour than keeping the lights on, and a father who…….
Her lip quivered as she put another Natural Ice into the crusher.
…….a father who made her a woman long before she was ready to be.
She cut off Akna mid sentence.
“I am going to be a wrestler.”
Her friend looked at her with a raised eyebrow, her Inuit skin looked good in the store’s fluorescent lights.
“You’re what?!”
“I am going to be a professional wrestler, A.”
Her friend stopped putting her cans away, and turned her body to face her.
“You know there isn’t any professional wrestling companies in Alaska. Where are you gonna go? And how the hell do you plan to get there?”
She had a point. The money she would get from these cans is all she had to her name. How WOULD she get to wherever this adventure would take her? Better yet, what the heck would she do when she got there? The Florida Keys?! She’d never been more than an hour away from Anchorage!
“I got a call from OCW. They wanted to put me into their developmental program. Remember when I said I wasn’t around last week? I really wasn’t. I was fighting my first ever match on Massacre.”
Her friend's bushy eyebrow raised again.
“And?”
“I won, decisively.”
“That I figured, you’re far too cheery to have lost. I meant more, how did you get there?”
“I hitchhiked.”
“I see.”
“Took me 3 days but I got there.”
“They didn’t fly you out?”
“They did not.”
“I wouldn’t have went.”
“Ank, you grew up in a mud hut and had the opportunity to \o something you love in front of a national audience…..you wouldn’t do whatever it takes to get there?”
Her friend didn’t respond.
“You know how much I love wrestling.”
“Too much.”
“And this is a dream that not everyone gets. I applied on a whim, expecting to be let down, and I got a call back! Now it's my turn to not let them down!”
The final can from the bag of horrors crushed inside the whirring belt. $.05 showed up on the screen. She began to open the third bag.
“So you won…….I assume they will fly you out this time?”
“You’re stuck on that.”
“It’s a big deal!”
“I assume they will…..”
“Where is it?”
“The Florida Keys.”
“WHAT!”
People in the store turned and looked at the two now. Juniper blushed, she still wasn’t used to attention. She had always just blended in, never really mattered to anyone.
“You’re telling me you get to live your dream AND be warm?”
Juniper nodded sheepishly. It was going to feel weird to get out of Alaska. She wasn’t sure how she felt, truthfully. It was all such a big change for her!
Neither of them said anything for a while. They finished their can bags and collected the money, walking out of the store. It was Akna who spoke up first.
“We need to come up with a name for you.”
“I need to get back to the laundromat.”
“Forget the laundromat! You’re gonna be a celebrity! You can buy and re-buy all the clothing and bedding you’d ever need!”
“Let's not get too ahead of ourselves.”
She looked down at the pavement as she walked. There was a nickel on the road, and it wasn’t the first one she’d seen that day. These things were everywhere.
A dime a dozen.
Boring.
Just as the two of them were about to split, and go their separate ways, Juniper’s eyes shot towards an alleyway by the local school house.
A group of boys was holding the hat of another over his head, passing it around and laughing as they shoved him.
“Come on! Please! My grampa gave me that hat before he died! Please give it back!”
“Shut up twerp!”
They laughed and made crying symbols with their hands.
Before Akna could blink, June had taken off. She charged towards the group like a bullet out of a hunter’s rifle. She checked one of the bullies out of the way and snatched the hat from the main one, pinning him to the ground.
She hands the hat back to the boy who cradles it to his chest and runs away. The boy has fear in his eyes as the grown woman sits atop of him.
“What is your name?”
The boy didn’t answer, frozen in fear.
“I asked you what your name is, punk!”
“Ch—ch—Charlie.”
She snarls as she gets off.
“Get out of here Charlie and don’t come back. If I see you bullying anyone else, you won’t be able to bull anyone anymore!”
“OKAY! OKAY!”
She walked back over to Akna, dusting herself off.
“You just can’t help yourself, can ya?”
She began to walk towards the laundry.
“JUNIPER! JUNE! Wait!”
She turns around.
“Who are you facing this week?”
“Charlie Nickels."
“Who the hell is that?”
“A sinner…..a devil…..a terrible man……..”
“Your father?”
They all the way back to the laundromat. Juniper took two nickels out of her pocket, unlocking the door.
Nickels were expendable.
Juniper was taking the laundry out of the machine when her mother texted her. It was about her father. Police were there, and EMT’s. Come quickly.
Juniper swiped the message away, looking down. After a few moments she looked up at Akna.
“Synn.”
“Charlie……I am not sure you understand exactly who I am. I am sure you are sleeping on me, just like you do with everyone else. In your eyes, you’re untouchable. You think that because you have aligned yourself with the other mean kids, that you can get away with whatever you want with no consequences.
I am your consequence.
You saw what happened when your actions couldn’t back up your words. Now, you’re going to see what happens when karma decides it's your time. Company after company I have watched you do and say terrible things. I saw you align yourself with B.0.B AND the No Good Bastards just so you had a little back up for when the butt-kicking is a bit too spicy for your liking. You call it a business strategy, I call it being a coward. You know you can’t hack it in the ring, so you fall back on your brothers to cover your six, taking full credit for a foundation that they established. You’re a loser, Charlie, and always have been. You’re a loser in the ring and a loser in life. You’d think you’d be at least A champion, the way you talk about yourself. Instead, everyone else around you holds gold and you’ve been reduced to nothing more than an overweight mouthpiece. A megaphone with ducktape over the off switch. I am here to rip that tape off.
This is my dream, my passion, my only real hope. I have made a living of doing the right thing, and I will be damned if someone like you ruins all of that for me. I will not stop until B.O.B is disbanded, the Brotherhood is reduced to rubble, and Charlie Nickels is bagging groceries back in Stubenville Ohio, reminiscing about what went wrong.
I’ll tell you what went wrong.
Your synns caught up to you, and I am here to absolve you of anymore pain.
Learn my name, study my face, because you’re going to be seeing a lot of it in the near future. When I pin you 1, 2, 3 at Massacre, the OCW gets their much needed wake up call and the face of tyranny gets a much needed makeover.
And I love eating faces…..