The Deal

[John Rabid]

1.Intro: Flight Of Echoes.

The boeing 737 hummed a delicate roar as it’s four Mcdonald Douglas engines kept the large craft aloft at a steady thirty thousand. Across it’s tail wing, just visible though a blanket of thick Chinese cloud cover was a green and black livery running across the tail.

Inside sat a single passenger; Seth Lerch had the best soft leather seat in the house. Undisturbed, but alone, the WseaF owner was returning from a successful TV deal in Beijing. Now began the long haul back to Texas, across date lines and continents, sailing above warring ideologies and terrorized nations. Yet within this speeding airplane there was an odd sense of peace, a stillness as Seth opened the manila folder poised on his suited lap; the same manila folder Hank Brown had delivered to him two weeks prior.

The information contained within had carved a cruel warning message across its deliverer’s lips and though it’s bloody mouth. Hank’s psychologist had called the incident “a risible break”; but Seth ignored the results; the folder had better insight. Dates. Times. Locations. A road map of bloodshed and conquest. Johnny Rabid was very good at getting what he wanted without recrimination, without any evidence to anchor him down. Rabid moved with a serpent’s touch, though the tall grass of a modern world that had no time for “superstition”. Shielded by science and cynicism, Rabid was in his prime; this conclusion left Seth with but a single question to answer...what to do with this particular individual?

Seth had worked with such men as Rabid before, the Logan’s and the Nathan Von Libert’s of this world. There was trust among all that mistrust. The knife was always poised for the shiv into the back, and therefore was always expected. That created a stalemate Seth felt comfortable in managing.

The folder was the kind of truth only an enlightened man such as Seth Lerch would take seriously; a twisted calling card that made the history lesson all the more explosive, for it was an ultimatum; a blueprint for how to dismantle company after company; all falling before the might of Rabid’s locust like designs. It was like a ransom note, with the price to pay being a push to the top. While Hank’s injuries? Simply an artist signing his work. A flurry of the wrist to add a shot of color.

And then, there was the incident at the train station. The referee, and...

“Sir?” A Stewardess, mid twenties, tall, blonde and slender to the eye, she was dressed in a familiar looking green and black PAN-AM style outfit. The statuesque figure leaned in on Seth with an air of comfortable intimacy while offering her single passenger a glass of rich Irish coffee. A little pick me up for the small hours that hung heavy in the oriental night sky. Seth nodded, mumbled something like a “thank you”, and drank a gulp of the beverage.

As Seth indulged his palette, the folder fell from his lap; papers and photographs cascading like wild autumn leaves onto the dark, oak colored floor. The Stewardess wasted no time as she helped to gather the evidence. She remained calm, even when greeted with the autopsy files. She handed the pictures and documents back to Seth.

Seth Lerch: Thank you. Best you forget what you see in these.

Stewardess: I’ll add them to the list. Sir?

Seth Lerch: Yes?

Stewardess: Will we be taking on any guests before our final destination? Should I have an Air Marshall stand by at Washington? In case, well..your employees at the company can be...

Seth Lerch: No, It’s just me. Nothing to fear.

The Stewardess smiled; tried to reign it back in but it was too late. The moment became somewhat awkward now, distressed. Seth liked these warped sparks of strained interaction. Now the rest of the world knew his reality twenty four seven.

Stewardess: Sorry...Sorry sir.

Seth Lerch: I’m not. Know why I don’t just sell this plane on?

Stewardess: No sir, to be honest the cost...

Seth Lerch: Is prohibitive, I know. But that's why I do it. This plane; these empty seats all around me; they’re a monument to the world I have created. The world you live in? It wants to see discord and mistrust. It wants my solders to tear each other apart. A happy plane, a plane full of fun loving athletes would be a disaster in the ratings. My company is a biohazard; it’s a chemical spill. And I like it that way. I ride on this thing, I see these empty seats, and I know...I know I have done my job right. You understand?

Stewardess: I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m paid to sir. Anything I can do?

Seth Lerch: No, no thank you. Go about looking good.

The Stewardess smiled as Seth’s mind moved on, he concentrated his thoughts back on more administrate matters, such as the card he had posted for next week’s show prior to his plane taxing off for China. Now, on the return flight back; Seth pondered that decision. Mikey eXtreme, Chelsea Armstrong, Kyle Kemp and Johnny Rabid. In their own unique ways; all four had aggrieved Seth; #beachkrew were a bane in Lerch’s side, disrupting matches, causing intricate planning to be destabilized with ham fisted run-ins. They had talent, but they where also a schizem of two warring factions. Wade Moor lead one, and he wasn’t playing by the Seth Lerch rulebook, a rash decision. Wade had brought Seth's wrath upon all of #beachkrew, they would need to suffer in some small, finite way now. A gentle push back into the light of true authority. Only Rabid and Kemp seemed to be on board with Seth, Rabid’s apparent foresight into planning for a post #beachkrew world meant he could easily have fitted into a vapor kings or a poondocks paradigm. A touch of class for an imperium perhaps? Yet here he was, the serpent in the tall grass of #beachkrew, slumming it with cocktails and cocaine binges until all the pieces fitted. Rabid’s ambition was useful to Seth however, perhaps the only card he could play against him; but would Kyle also fall into line? After all; he was a true #beachkrew neophyte; a former baseball star with the scars of greed upon his tarnished career, a fall from grace that made him the perfect zealot for the cause of #Beachkrew. Coke and bottle service. Nihilism and chaos. Fine in practice, but without the guile of a Buddy Roman or a Seth Lerch? Rudderless.

Jimpohy Thuggin’ was not in control; he might have brought Rabid into the fold, but Seth suspected that the truth was far more devious. Who worked for whom? Did any of them truly know? Was that Rabid’s plan all along? Worlds within worlds. The folder, just another distraction? Such deviousness. Perhaps Rabid was more like Roman than even Seth had previously thought.

And that brought Lerch to Chelsea Armstrong; the succubus that germinated the false seeds of family and hope into Seth’s perfect weapons. Some fell; such as Seifer Black; other resisted, such as Beckman. But in truth, her entanglements could never be fully undone. Beckman, for all his drunken misadventures and masterful talent, fell into line eventually; just another name on a chalkboard, the latest in a long line of surrogate step fathers for poor Shelly Armstrong. Ice, reduced to being a doting actor for an insufferable child that endured much before her untimely death; bounced from faction to faction, from the Pack to Pantheon to Imperium; used as a pawn in a war against Isaiah Chavis; a pawn for all her short life it seemed. A device to ensnare and entrap others into Chelsea’s tight web of suffocating domesticity; whether that was by design or coincidence Seth was unsure, but he knew one thing: that now, seemingly, the tables where turned upon her.

With Shelly’s vehicular homicide, Chelsea was stranded in a single stroke of time. An endless moment of anguish that Armstrong would never escape from. And in that eternal, horrific moment, Seth preyed for Chelsea to suffer, suffer as he had suffered the night Dune destroyed Ice, and sent Seth’s imperious plans spiraling out of control. WCF was Seth’s child, his son, his daughter. With a Dune holding the World title, that child suffered. Chelsea had caused that suffering; she made ICE Beckman soft; indecisive. Chelsea needed to pay for that, in a way only Chavis at Payback had previously managed; with a chorus of EMT’s at her side, tending to her near fatal wounds.

If he could trust Mikey eXtreme to be the instigator of such an attack he would; this week would be his chance to prove himself. But in truth, Seth held little hope for Mikey; he was too unstable; his obsession with “ a darkness” covering America was unsaleable to the public and awkward to manage. What was this darkness he spoke of? A shroud of evil? A enigmatic landscape of contorted possibility? What was Mikey’s demographic? Corpse paint wearing meth heads? No, none of this would do.

And then there was the matter of Mikey’s past. The champ was a suspected rapist; his cohort “Freakshow” had certainly pulled the trigger on that atrocity not so long ago. Seth could never market such a man as the figurehead he needed. Mikey had no chance of pursuing the main title; his run with the United States belt was a fluke of circumstance rather than a calculated ascent by design; Mikey was simply the wrong man at the right place at the wrong time...for the WCF. Over and over again. And yet, Seth could never rely upon such a strange, twisted state of good fortune. He knew that from first hand experience - good luck always expired in the end. For every win in a nightmare chamber, there would be an imperium implosion just around the corner. Seth needed someone at the wheel could could navigate those rough waves. A cat with the lives to survive and emerge victorious. Logan had that knack; so did Torture. Mikey? Not so much; what Mikey had was gusto, perseverance; Steeltoe Joe had the same admirable quality, yet it never won him the top prize. You can’t back a horse that needs flat track odds. Seth could orchestrate those odds; he could rig a tournament or surround Mikey with a stable of talent. But in the end, the center would collapse. Seth had just promised China a new era of talent. Not a decent into mediocrity. Seth needed numbers. The only figure Mikey could conjure up would be a big, fat zero.

Still, Seth did feel some loyalty towards Zombie at least, if Seth could not protect the United states title from slipping beneath the waves; he’d be damned if he would allow the Internet and Hardcore to fall victim on the same night to #Beachkrew. Such a loss would cement Rabid’s force as an unstoppable entity. The wound they would inflict could fester over time, become infected with their influence. The house of cards that the titles represented would be in danger of collapsing.

Seth had to make a choice. Mikey or ZMAC, of the two; Mikey was far more expendable. He didn’t have the pedigree or the presence of mind to go on to bigger and better things, He was a lucky son of a bitch, true; and in that regards, he had plateaued.

No, best to protect the true talent; after a while Zmac would understand and the “Hawt American Darkness” would lumber out of sight. A dinosaur, whose bones would rot the way of a “Hot Dog Kings” or a “Rabid Billy”; just a failed design that never had the legs to run. A simple shot to the back of the head of an Edsel and it’s Factory Black all over again.

Seth caught a glance of the stewardess again as she checked her uniform to pass the time. Just a tinge of regret appeared on his face now. A slight inflection of doubt. That speech he delivered to her earlier was a lie. He wished he could tell her the truth. But to reminisce fondly of bygone times was a weakness he could not abide.

Still, those echoes...those names.. so many of them; Rick Madd, Hell’s Angel, Logan, Greenfever, Ice, Cairo...there was a time when this plane used to ferry the maddest, most insane competitors across America. From state to state it would fly. The hull still carried the evidence; blood stains, blunts half smoked. The odd, rotting body part.

In that silent moment of reflectiveness, he saw it. The addition. A new folder had found it’s way into the manila.

Seth opened it as his world turned cold.

2.The Devil Takes Care Of His Own.

No one saw the accident; not even while the AMTRAK station was packed with busy Texan commuters on heightened alert during a packed mid morning rush hour. It was as if the world had become blind for a moment, then the magic trick happened, before the world returned, snapped back into focus, surprised and confused.

First of course there was the screams as the train applied the breaks, metal sparking against metal; each moving part oiled now with a shroud of bone and flesh as insuring chaos set in. Was this a terrorist attack? A lone suicide? Questions darted left and right as helplessness rose to the surface, shortly followed by a perverse state of voyeurism, the kind that lives and thrives inside us all; that's when the camera phones flashed into life, the eyes to a collective soul, feeding on disasters for substance. Such is the way of the world these days.

So, it was of no surprise to Kyle Kemp that the horrible aftermath of referee Adam Jennings (26) death was captured on Camera. Adam was the second referee that arrived during their match last week against Preecha and Mikey. Jennings had failed to call it a DQ. Counted the three and condemned Kyle to a loss. Now, Jennings was being shoveled into a body bag dripping with human matter.

Kyle Kemp: He’s dead.

The stationary WINO-bago looked collectively towards kemp who held up his cell phone like a torch for a few moments; the image of the shovel and the human matter frozen in space for all to see. Wade tilted his head to one side to see if there was anything recognizable left as he placed a straight flush down on a large wooden table; Dustin Beaver could not match the hand, nor the expression on Wade’s face which was somewhere between confused and amused.

Wade Moor: Strange, I don’t remember authorizing a suicide.

Dustin Beaver: Jesus, they’re shoveling him in? That’s no way to die.

Kyle Kemp: Where is he? Where's Rabid?

“Business my boy.”

Jimpohy Thuggin leaned back in his large inflatable chair and smoked his stooge with due care. The WINEO-bago was currently at a rest stop; Thursday had arrived and so had a fan axess at the Alamo later that day. But Rabid was nowhere to be seen, having vowed to join back up with the krew once he had attended to important matters back in Pennsylvania.

Jimophy Thuggin’: He is with his second family. Rabid is... a nostalgic individual, who still performs the redundant rituals of a dying planet; that's why--

Kyke interjected; teeth clenched as he did so.

Kyle Kemp: Are you sure?

Jimpohy Thuggin: Rabid would never lie to me, my now third favorite Earth child.

Kyle Kemp: Really? Does your famed Slovakian sense of character tell you this to be true? Because I’m of the option that he’s lied to you, and us. Again. Know what I think? I think Rabid went to Texas instead of Pennsylvania...I think he said some choice words to Adam, just enough to instill an idea into his weak, little skull...that idea, it grows and germinates until it becomes a scream the referee couldn’t escape from. The mist descends. The man dies.

Jimpohy Thuggin: And what?

Kyle Kemp: Excuse me?

Jimpohy Thuggin: Your actions last week cost Rabid the match; that will always lead to repercussions. Death, you see...death, it follows him. Not always by design, but it’s there. You have to understand, a man like Rabid? He’s born...designed to be something perfect. You tamper with that idea of perfection my Earth child? And something dark and terrible emerges. You always claimed to be better, did you not think those words would be believed and counted upon? A man like Rabid, he needs trust by his side, so that the burden of loss is avoided. A burden that’s suffered by small men like that referee. When you fail that trust, Earth child Kemp? When you fail, elements of the equation are...abstracted upon. Removed. This week you have a match with Mikey eXtreme and Chelsea Armstrong. You fail, and the abstraction will continue, until you learn a valuable lesson.

Kyle Kemp: Which is?

Jimpohy Thuggin: Remember to be Kyle Kemp. Remember to be better. You forget that? And others will suffer. I don’t think I can make it more clearer than that. Do you?

Kyle Kemp looked at Wade. Moor had no words of comfort to offer. He simply shuffled the deck. Then, as Kemp was heading for the door, managed to sum up the situation.

Wade Moor: Sometimes Boi, you need a devil by your side to guide you though hell. Have you checked your mail?

Kyle Kemp: What, why?

Dustin Beaver: Check it.

Kyle opened his email account to see an unopened file. Kemp instantly recognized the name of the sender.

DUNE.

Kyle Kemp: What is it?

Wade Moor: What the hell do you think it is, Boi?

Dustin Beaver: Its our obituaries. He wrote them, Dune wrote every last one of them.

Kyle threw the cell phone against the wall and marched out into the night air. He looked up and saw a sky full of blinking stars and a world that was counting on him to be everything he had claimed he was. Kyle Kemp...the man who was better. The alternative? Was too horrific to contemplate.

3.Family Matters.

Dorian Rush was hanging upside down by his feet on the climbing frame. His six year old form was agile and alone as he swung with reckless ease. Dressed in a smart winters coat and slacks; Dorian was a well taken care of child. Emily, his mother, was a model and received good will gifts from designers after shows; the child had all the right labels, which of course, made him a target in school.

Yet, since he was a Rush, which in turn, made him a Rabid. Those challenges never did seem to last for long.

“Daddy...daddy look at me!”

Rabid sat idly by on a swing, rocking gently backward and forwards, the metal holding the structure in place winced while Johnny was waiting for “an acquaintance” to arrive. Rabid shuffled his feet in the dirt with impatience and gave that smile one more try. Strangely, it actually seemed to be working this time as Dorian eagerly reciprocated. Rabid wondered if that was a good thing. To be this submersed. To be like a normal human being, living on the surface and enjoying small, quiet days. Could he live with the revulsion he felt at the thought of it all? Or was that now just second nature to him? In matters involving his family, and especially his child, the question was becoming more and more of a moot point. He did care; but the reasons would never be understood. That was one burden he could never shake. Or share.

Rabid checked his phone, he saw Dune’s Obituary directed towards him. It was a slightly overly dramatic affair. Too much pomp and circumstance for Rabid’s scalpel sharp sense of taste, still, he imagined it functioned as intended in regards to the rest of #beachkrew. Dune had made promises; it was rare for him not to enact upon them.

Still, Rabid felt no fear as the cold December day found a new shape approaching on the horizon. A well dressed woman, walking at a steady pace towards the deserted park as a dog barked in the distance. A large Labrador bounded quickly forward, black and familiar, it’s pace was determined by a silent command to stand by it’s new master. The pet licked Rabid’s hand as it arrived. Snarling as the woman came fully into view.

Johnny Rabid: Chelsea Armstrong.

Chelsea was dressed in a long trench coat; Dorian looked on and frowned. Chelsea turned away; she wanted to wave, to act normal in front of the child. But this meeting felt leaden with menace. This was Johnny Rabid. He played games. Whatever he promised, it would carry recompense. She knew that and yet here she was. Ready to make a deal to see her daughter again.

Chelsea Armstrong: I didn’t know he would be here.

Johnny Rabid: Dorian? He’s harmless, Well, sometimes he’s harmless. He takes after his old man occasionally. That’s when I get the call to attend one of those “consultancy meetings” about his behavior in school. I’m supposed to sit there, in front of these idiot teachers, nod politely, act apologetically; agreeing with every nonsensical argument they make, signing forms that agree that my son going though the rest of his school life as some kind of shrinking wallflower. Just another day, just another game; afterwards I buy Dorian ice cream and tell him how proud I am of him...but to remember, next time? Make sure those fools in school know fear. That’s how you stay free in life you see...make sure they all know fear. Fear buys silence...I try to keep the rules simple, after all, he's only a boy.  

Johnny waves at his son again. Tries that smile.

Johnny Rabid: Now, shall we talk about the arrangement? Keep things on point?

Chelsea nods.

Johnny Rabid: Good. When the time comes you’ll receive a phone call; don’t bother replying, just listen. A car will pull up shortly after. A limo, black. You’ll get inside and say nothing. Dress well for the occasion. Something black is often appropriate. The main attendant at the door will show you inside once the limo arrives at your destination, don’t look into his face, just bow and enter...it’s all about respect. That’s the first rule.

Chelsea Armstrong: Rule, of what?

Johnny Rabid: The Ceremony. Once you arrive, it will begin. There’s one last thing. No matter what you see or hear...you tell no one. I can’t save you from these people if you scream, you understand? I can only put you forward as a candidate. The rest is out of my hands.

Chelsea Armstrong: And what do you get out of this?

Rabid smiles a different smile; one that’s easier to execute. It radiates regal menace.

Johnny Rabid: Time will tell, Ma’am. Perhaps a mutually beneficial exchange? I wouldn't bother too much with detective work on the matter, Miss Armstrong, you're way past trying to unravel this. The deal has been struck. I’d suggest you simply find those words you wanted to say to Shelly and memorize them. Keep them close, as a reminder of why you’re doing this. You’re going to need them, when the dark days arrive.

Chelsea looks at the dog as it licks it’s master’s hand.

Johnny Rabid: See this dog? It had an owner once, a bad one. Now, let’s just say that this owner, he used to call the dog...Mikey. Now, Mikey’s owner was an angry man. A stubborn man that treated his pet with disdain. He used to abandon his dog, leave it all alone for days on end. Alone with the predators hugging the shadows; poised to strike. That dog; it had nothing but fear to look forward to. Until one of those shadows in the darkness took pity on poor Mikey, peeled itself away from the night. Gave that Dog a home. But instead of bringing that dog up right, the shadow, it tried to bully and change that dog. Poor Mikey...when all you have is the darkness, then you trick yourself into believing that’s all you ever wanted. But the darkness, Miss Armstrong. It’s hollow, an illusion. Because there’s always something lurking inside waiting to bring terror. Still, in the end, Mikey found a new home away from the shadows. No more terrible owner to treat him badly. No more shadow to use and abuse him. Mikey’s been liberated from that dark and terrible world. He's safe now. Free.

Chelsea Armstrong: And the owner?

Johnny Rabid: He died. Terrible accident. Happens sometimes.

4. Outro: The Addition.

...Seth opened the new manila envelope as his world turned cold.

Inside was a picture; Hank Brown, two lines of blood oozing down his face as he writhed in agony on the floor inside Rabid’s office. A single line was written on the back.

“You forgot your ending”

- R.

Seth looked up. The Stewardess smiled; or at least she tried to. Her master was still training her to be human.

Fin.