Post by The Nickleman on Dec 4, 2022 0:59:35 GMT -5
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
We open with a shot of a one-sided window, similar to those seen in police dramas. On one side we see The Nickleman hard at work, hammering rusty nails into planks of wood. He wipes the sweat off his brow as he fans his chest with his black t-shirt. His jean shorts constrict his thighs above the knee, but at least they allow his lower legs some room to breathe. He takes a short break from his mysterious machinations as he picks up an ice-cold bottle of ‘water’.
“Ahhhhhh, delicious.”
The Nickleman wipes some excess liquid off his lips before he sets the bottle back down.
“Vodka always makes the day go by so much quicker!”
Looks like it wasn’t water afterall!
“So, what’s next…..”
The Nickleman turns around and looks at a far wall that has up until now been left off camera. We see pages upon pages taped to the wall with various instructions for the construction of some elaborate design.
“Oh, ok….so I need to secure the rope next.”
The Nickleman walks towards a pile of construction materials placed in the corner. The camera zooms out to showcase the other side of this one-sided window, where we see Thunder Knuckles and Bobby Bourbon sitting at a table drinking lattes from Starbucks. It looks like they’re in the break room at BOBHQ, and they’re just watching The Nickleman’s wild antics for fun! You get the sense that this is a common BOB pastime, and one that perhaps The Nickleman himself is unaware of.
“So what do you think he’s doing in there anyways?”
TK puts his coffee down as he looks back to Bourbon with anger and disappointment in his eyes.
“I don’t know, but he’s been hard at work in there ever since he sold out for Sahara Duke.”
“You think Thad paid Nickleman to lay down for Sahara?”
“I know he did! There’s no other way he would lose to that stupid cockholster.”
Bobby just shrugs before he goes back to sipping that sweet, sweet Starbucks latte.
“This stuff tastes better when the workers are on strike.”
“Scabs make the best coffee, bro.”
The Bastards perfectly execute their patented no-look fistbump before they walk towards the exit door of the breakroom. Bobby turns back for a moment, looking over his shoulder at The Nickleman, who is now holding a long piece of rope in his hands while grinning like a madman.
“Do you think he’s going to be ok?”
“Of course not! He’s fucking Charlie! But that’s his problem, we can’t worry about that right now.…we got a railroad strike to go break!”
Them No Good Bastards throw their emptied cups in the trash before walking out of the BOBHQ breakroom. That’s when the camera slowly zooms back in on the one-sided glass window, where we see The Nickleman on his knees, wrapping the length of the rope around a sturdy wooden plank.
“Oh yeah, this rope is definitely going to hold…..”
We fade into a recent flashback inside the interior of a Home Depot. We see The Nickleman pushing an orange cart down the aisles, still wearing jorts and a black shirt, but with far less sweat on him. We see ½ of the OCW tag-team championships secured in the child’s seat of the cart and a set of workman’s tools in the basket. The Nickleman stops the cart and pauses in front of a collection of industrial-strength ropes. Some of the ropes are double-braided and some of them are tow ropes, but none of them seem to be quite what The Nickleman is looking for. He pauses and places a calloused hand under his chin as he looks at the wall of ropes rather cluelessly.
“Can I help you find anything, sir?”
A pudgy little man with a receding hairline walks into view, wearing that sexy orange Home Depot attire. He walks with a limp after years of breaking his body down for bare minimum wages. The fresh scratch marks across his face show just how unsafe his working conditions are, or perhaps they are mere symptoms of this man’s extracurricular activities.
“Yeah, I’m looking for a rope!”
The worker looks to The Nickleman, then back to the wall filled with ropes.
“Anyone in particular?”
“Yeah….”
The Nickleman looks the worker up and down skeptically, carefully considering how much to tell this man. That’s when the worker notices the championship.
“Oh crap, are you a wrestler?!”
The worker turns to the wall with excitement, quickly scouring through the collection of ropes as if he were looking for one specific product. The Nickleman grins like a dog as he responds.
“I prefer the term blood-letter.”
The worker with the fresh scars on his face turns back towards The Nickleman with an equally sick smirk. He pulls a blue ring-rope off the wall and presents it to ⅕ of the OCW tag-team champions.
“Is this what you’re looking for? Something sturdy yet flexible that can withstand the pressures of the ring?”
The Nickleman waves his hand dismissively.
“No, they got plenty of those at BOBHQ already! I need something totally different. I need something that can hold up the weight of a body without ever snapping, I don’t care how flexible it is.”
The worker puts the rope back on the display rack.
“So wait, what’s this project you’re doing again? You’re not thinking of….”
The worker runs his thumb across his throat as he makes a clicking sound, which is the classic ‘unalived’ gesture. The Nickleman looks him dead in the eyes with the most neutral of expressions etched onto his face.
“Well someone’s gotta do it, don’t they? Everyone’s time ends eventually. Why shouldn’t I be in control of it?”
“Wait man…you don’t gotta…..there’s like a phone number you can call for this kind of thing….”
The Nickleman rolled his eyes as he reached up to the wall and picked out a familiar rope, one that you know you’ve scene before. Light brown and double-braided, The Nickleman can tell that this nylon rope definitely has some heft to it as he tosses it around in his hand. The worker looks the tag champion up and down before cracking a seriously sadistic smile. The worker places a guiding hand on The Nickleman’s wrist, causing the champion to turn back to him.
“Well look, if you’re going to go through with this….you don’t want to use a nylon rope. You should get yourself a jute rope instead. Nylon gives friction burns all across the neck, a lot of people who use nylon can’t go through with it because the searing pain on their skin is too much.”
The twisted worker starts looking for a jute rope on the wall, but he stops when The Nickleman huffs.
“Why wouldn’t I want it to burn? The more pain the better. It’s well deserved!”
The worker shakes his head from side to side as he sighs softly.
“See you think that, but when push comes to shove a lot of people can’t seal the deal with nylon. Trust me on this one, I have a lot of experience guiding people into the river styx.”
The man with the fresh scars on his face gives a sly wink to the thoroughly annoyed Nickleman.
“How about you TRUST ME, and let me finish this the way I want!”
The Nickleman throws the nylon rope into his cart and storms away from the slack-jawed worker with hatred in his heart and malice in his mind…..but who’s heart, and who’s mind? Either way, the worker follows him and tries to slow him down.
“Woah, I’m just trying to help.”
The Nickleman stops his cart in its tracks and turns around to set the record straight.
“This sinful bitch has been following ME around and trying to ride MY dick, so bugger off and let ME break HER neck the way I fucking want to! This harlot has been stalking me from promotion to promotion talking about taking belts off my waist, spouting off on my good name anytime she walks through the door of a house show. Every segment she’s ever done has been about how much she wants ME. She’s completely obsessed. Her entire personality revolves around trying to get me off so I’ll shoot on her!
I swear to God if you give your two cents to a whore she’ll keep coming back for more until you give her the whole nickel! I got an awful lap dance from this bitch ONE time in the back of a strip joint and she hasn’t been able to leave me alone since.I can’t be having that. I got a family, doncha’ know?
Loose lips sink ships, and I’m not going to let this bitch’s loose pussy lips fuck with my shit anymore!”
“Oh this is for a sex worker…well that’s all you had to say! Good luck and have a good day, sir!”
The two sick freaks exchange knowing nods before we fade back into a shot of the BOBHQ breakroom. Corey Smith and Harmon are sitting at the table making smalltalk. After strategizing the gameplan for Solomon Cain, the unbeaten Bastard and his manager are taking a break to watch Charles Nichols do his thing from behind one-sided glass.
“Wow, so this is what he does all day? I suppose I don’t know what I expected.”
Corey Smith sips his tea as the camera zooms out to show the entire window panel of the mirror, giving us a complete view of The Nickleman’s ‘private quarters’. In the middle of the room stands a tall wooden contraption, and resting against it we see a singular pine plank with a nylon rope wrapped around it. An empty ‘water’ bottle rolls around on the floor while we see The Nickleman scrawling the words ‘FOR MY SYNN’ across every wall in blood.
Rat’s blood.
The drained corpses of several rats are scattered across the floor, with one last rat still showing signs of life in The Nickleman’s scarlet coated hand. The rat squirms and squeals, begging for her freedom, but The Nickleman never relents. He bashes the rat’s head against the wall, spilling it’s brains to the floor as he wipes the wall with crimson ink.
Harmon writes a note on his pad and shows it to Corey Smith and, inadvertently, the camera.
‘Is this ethical?’
“Watching Nickleman through the mirror, or what he’s making in there?”
‘Both.’
Smith shrugs, still sipping on that classic Corey tea.
“Eh, probably not…but it looks like he’s making good progress!”
The Nickleman is pounding the last plank into place with his trusty hammer. He mutters to himself as he puts the finishing touches on what appears to be a hangman’s platform. The Nickleman smiles with pride as he steps away from his finished product.
Harmon writes another note on his pad, a look of worry flashing across his face.
‘What do you think that’s for?’
“My best guess? He’s probably going to kill himself.”
Harmon’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, but Corey just shrugs.
“I’ve known the guy for years, he never takes losses well. He used to cut himself after every loss, one cut for every defeat, every time he was defeated. His wrists used to be like ski slopes for razor blades! A championship loss to a Duke on a Premium Live Event might’ve been enough to push him all the way over the edge…he always takes it so personally.”
TK and Bourbon walk back into the breakroom after convincing Joe Biden to fuck over the railroad workers and ‘avert’ a union strike. That’s right: BOB owns a serious stake in the railroad companies! Bobby walks over to the fridge while TK looks through the window.
“What the fuck is he still doing in there?”
Harmon writes on his notepad and flashes his answer, but TK looks over to Bobby too quickly to see.
‘Corey thinks he’s going to kill himself. Should we go stop him?’
“Bobby, what do you think he’s doing with that thing?”
Bobby turns around with a soda can. He drops the cola to the floor when he sees what’s happening through the window. The can explodes everywhere.
“It looks like he’s trying to hang himself!”
“Oh FUCK, not again!”
TK pulls a letter from the Ohio family court system out of his pocket.
“He probably found out that he’s not allowed to see his kids for Christmas! I tried to hide the news and hoped he would just forget about his kids like he usually does, but he must have found out!”
Harmon rushes out of the breakroom, quickly followed by TK and Bourbon. Corey continues sipping his tea with a smirk as he sees all the Bastards suddenly assemble in Nickleman’s ‘private quarters’.
“You don’t have to do this! You don’t have to kill yourself! I know someone who can help you get your kids back!”
The Nickleman turns towards Bobby, TK, and Harmon curiously.
“What? I’m not going to ki-....wait, did you say you know how to get my kids back?”
“Yeah, I know a guy. Now put that hammer down, we’ll give him a call.”
TK reaches out for the hammer and The Nickleman gives it to him happily.
“Who do you know?”
“He’s a young kid, but he’s got a lot of potential and a lot of expertise in this area…..they call him ‘E.A. Nasty’ on the streets…..”
