Post by "The Asshole" Whitey Ford on Mar 19, 2017 16:31:07 GMT -5
"THREE CHEERS FOR FORD! HIP HIP, HOORAY!"
Revelers raised their glasses in unison, toasting the former PCW World Heavyweight and International Champion. They stood shoulder to shoulder near the bartop, mingled between the tables, and crowded around the pool tables in the back room of The Cage, Whitey's favorite watering hole in his home town of Lewiston, Maine. The crowd hooted and cheered three more times, as loudly declared by the bartender, Fish, ecstatic about the amount of tip money coming on this day. His personal income was not the only reason for celebrating; a banner was hung on the back wall, proclaiming the real reason for all to see. It read, in bold, simple letters, "Happy Whitey Ford Is Winning, Forever and Ever, For a Hundred Years, All The Time, Every Day, .Com"
The crowd was a motley mix of long time staunch supporters of Ford, a gaggle of men and women who believed that Whitey's 'I don't give a give' attitude embodied the very spirit of Lewiston from the start, where their meager earnings and life often tied into scraping by and doing whatever it took to do so. He had been their anti-hero from the start, and nobody could question their loyalty to one of PCW's brightest stars. There were also bandwagon fans, hopping on the coattails of Whitey's second or third rise to fame in PCW, claiming in boasting voices that they had been behind him the whole time, but not really fooling anyone.
"I always liked Whitey, I fucking swear it! But admit it, if you...y'know, ADMITTED that you liked him a year or so ago you'd be socially martyred and slandered for supporting a murderer, woman beater, and degenerate!" One man in his early thirties said loudly to a group of the old Ford supporters. He was met with groans and eye rolls.
"Aren't you an open Donald Trump supporter?" One of the old schoolers asked.
"Yeah, I think he's--"
"Then shut the fuck up. You obviously never cared if people knew you supported degenerates."
There was a third group amongst the drinkers in the bar that day, and the most surprising of the three. Young people, of all races, genders, and creeds, were genuinely talking in support of Whitey's actions as of late. They never claimed to have liked him before, but in the last month or so Ford had won them over. "He's fighting the good fight now," they'd say in more words than necessary. It was an odd sight and something even odder to comprehend: Whitey Ford had started to change peoples minds.
The man of the hour himself had made his post out on the back porch, soaking in the afternoon sun and ignoring the cold New England air. The door was blocked by a red velvet rope, barring entry to anyone who Ford deemed unworthy of his company that day, and the irony of such a lavish structure in a dive bar wasn't lost on the patrons. He wore nothing but a pair of black shorts and a plain white T-shirt, his dirty and knotted blonde hair hanging down around his shoulders. While the last few weeks Ford had been known to get lost in deep thought about his current situation, today Whitey was all smiles, knocking back beer after beer in true Whitey Ford fashion. There were a few others sharing the porch with him, a dozen or so seated at a green plastic table near the steps, and one other man seated at his own table in the corner. Together, they raised their drinking glasses. "To a better world, a better PCW, and to whatever the fuck I deem fit at the moment!" Whitey exclaimed loudly.
With a clink of the glasses, Ford and his tablemate downed their beers, and set them to the side of the table. There were no bartenders on the porch, or even waitresses inside, but nonetheless a young man, barely 21, rushed over to fill the cups again with his own pitcher, obviously trying to gain favor of the local celebrity. Ford nodded and smiled, but his eyes were contemptuous. "I need to take a shit in an hour, boy. Are you going to follow me to try and wipe my ass too?" When the man stammered out half a response, Whitey only waved his hand to send him scurrying away, embarrassed.
"To you, my friend!" The man at the table with Whitey took a sip of his fresh drink. He was a soft spoken yet deep voiced man, wiry and lean and hairier than most, except the top of his head. Not that you could have noticed at first glance, since he wore a filthy Nike hat to go along with his Slayer T-shirt, patched denim vest, and work boots. His face donned an impressive handlebar moustache/goatee combination that only partially hid his friendly smile.
"No, Mr. King, to you." Whitey took another drink himself. "I'm glad you came down, I haven't seen you in a long time."
"I've been working a lot."
"So have I."
Mr. King smiled again. He was a man near 40, but had a seemingly older soul the way he carried himself. He had indeed been working a lot, as he had his whole life, with calloused and scarred hands to prove it. "I wake up at 4am 6 days a week to work 12 hours days. You wake up when you feel like it, dude. And then, aparrantly, it's only to continue with this popularity contest that you've started for yourself. I've never known you to care about what other people thought about you, and I've never heard you make claims to want to change the world by wrestling inside of a ring in South Carolina."
It was Whitey's turn to smile. His infamous bouts of rage rarely came out when he was with his old friend, Bob King. He was one of his oldest and trusted friends, but they both took very different paths. "I don't care what people think, and I don't care about the world. If I become a senator after this, MAYBE I'll do right by the world. As for now, I'm doing right by my home. Homes, rather. Maine, and Pure Class Wrestling."
"Right, right. So is that what you're going to do all day today? Try and convince me that you're a good man now and bore me with how nobody believes that you've changed?"
"Look around you, Bob. People already believe me. I'm done and over that. I've proved that I can do whatever the fuck I want. If I want to cheat and win, I can. And if I want to follow the rules and win, I will. I'm an unstoppable force, and I knew I needed time to remind people of that. Now is the time for the next phase of my plan to restore the 'class' in PCW." Whitey glanced over at the only other table on the porch. "Look over there, Bob. Who do you see?"
"Well..." Bob spoke slowly, running his fingers over his beard. "Sarah and Nick. Adam, Khiron, Monty, Brian...Ashley, Amber, Devan, Luke...uhm..."
"Lorraine, Joe, and Steve. Every one of them has had my back in the past. Drug dealers, fences, street fighters, people with money, people who'll lie for me, kill, steal, and fight for me. People who'll give me alibis if I need them...all of them are people I can use. But their biggest downfall is that when push comes to shove, they'll get their hands dirty, but they're terrible fucking people and I would never trust them to make the right decision." Without warning, Whitey sent his beer glass flying through the air. With a crack, it broke into a hundred pieces on the back of the head of one of the men sitting with his back to his table.
"What'd you do that for, dude?!" Bob exclaimed, eyes wide in shock. "Danny was an all right guy!"
Whitey shook his head, grabbing Bob's beer then and taking a long swallow. "No he wasn't. He stole from me years ago, I just let him think I forgot about it because he always had the good ecstacy hookup.
Everyone at the table had been in a stunned silence, staring at their now unconscious friend, who lay face down on the table where he sat. The largest of the group, coincidentally the best dressed in a suit and tie, jolted up to his feet. "Mother fucker," was the only warning he gave before rounding the table and beelining it straight for Whitey Ford. He had only made it a few steps across the deck when he was set upon, but not by Ford, who sat and studied his fingernails calmly. Bob King had gotten up from his seat.
King was a good five or six inches shorter than the charging suit, but it isn't always size that matters. With a quickness that shouldn't be possible for such a calm, soft spoken man of his age Bob had shot his right hand out, fishhooking the attacker with his ring and index finger roughly. Surprised by the sudden and violent pull on his cheek, the suit was pulled unceromoniously off balance and slammed face first into the seat of Bob's vacant chair. Driving one knee into the vertebrae right underneath the neck and fishhoooking the other side of the man's face with his free hand, Bob pulled back with force. Not enough to break a neck or to rip his face off the skull, but enough to cause pain and to stop any further aggression. The suit lay as still as possible, trying hard not to groan in pain.
"That's my friend, dude. He might not have been right in what he did, but he's my friend and I don't let people hurt my friends, right or wrong." Bob gave Whitey a look, as if to ask him permission to let the suit go. It took a second for Whitey to realize what was going on, but when he did he only waved his hands in an uncaring fashion. "I don't care what you do with him Bob. That's your fight, not mine. I've always liked Monty, in a way."
Bob released one side of the man's face, pulling it up so he could look him in the eye. "Go and sit down, and let your friend sit there. I don't like thieves either. Don't cause any more trouble or I'll really hurt you. I don't want to, but I will." With those calm words said plain and clearly, in a matter of fact tone rather than a threatening one, Bob released Monty from the hold. The poor man stood up slowly, holding both of his cheeks, and without a word went back inside of the bar. Bob adjusted his denim vest before returning to his seat. "Give me a warning next time. If you didn't like Danny, why did you have him out on your...uh...'private' deck?"
Whitey leaned in close, a mischievous smile on his face. "Because I like you, Bob, and I wanted to see if you still had it." When Bob raised his eyebrows and gave Ford a quizzical look, Whitey rolled his eyes. "Listen, I'm only going to say this once so you don't think I'm stroking your ego. Those guys at that table...WHAT? IT'S MY FUCKING PARTY, AND DANNY IS A THIEF!" Ford screamed at the gawkers at the adjacent table, forcing them to snap back to their previous conversation and stop staring at Ford incredulously. "...they're not trustworthy. You are. You're a genuinely good guy, you care about people, you're loyal...but you fight. And you fight god damned dirty. Fish hooks, Bob? What is this, Gangs of New York? I need help, Bob, and you're the guy I need it from."
"MJW?" Bob asked in a dry tone. He had never had much of a taste for his British friend, Whitey recalled.
"He's helped me a million times and he'll help me a million more, hopefully. But everything he does is only to benefit me and him, and fuck everybody else. He wants no part of my idea. I need someone I can trust to do the right thing at Mass Destruction."
"You want me...to help you? With Eira?"
"Fuck you." Whitey finished the last of the beer, and instantly regretted sending his little 'servant' away with an insult. "And fuck that idea. I need your help, and I'll pay you well...but the first rule of this new partnership is you do not interfere with my matches, unless you're running down to fuck up someone ELSE who interfered in my match. Eira and I...well, we have a complicated little relationship. She hates me, and I'm not exactly fond of her for what her and her husband have done to me over the years...but fact is, she's an important part of my plan. We're going to have a match for the ages, we're going to do it right, and we're going to make sure the world hears us. As much as I dislike her, she's as much of a PCW original as I am, and...well, I need her. If she wins, she wins. If she loses...I want it to be a clean fight."
"Good, dude. Good." Bob nodded his head, almost sage like. "But if you want me to agree to help you, I need you to tell me what I'm going to be doing, dude."
Whitey slapped his hand on the table with a raucous laugh. "You still say dude like it's a fucking punctuation mark, huh! Ha! I'm glad you haven't changed, man. But here's the deal. I returned and told everyone who would listen I was going to change things in PCW. I was going to go against those who were putting a taint on the glory that...well, SHOULD be Pure Class Wrestling. But I've only been booked against people who aren't a part of the problem. Eira, Andy D, Saniti, Dan Fierce...the only person I enjoyed beating up since I've been back is Grimm since he fucking deserves it for what The Black Hand did. They were the ones who started the decline of PCW, forcing me out of competition."
"They didn't force you out, you just gave up."
"You're right...I gave up. I was sick and fucking tired of the entire world against but, but if that's what it'll take this time around then I'll fight everyone in the federation and the next four federations who have a bunch of little shits in it. There's only one problem; I've been focusing on the big fight, and not the ones currently in front of me. I've been cheated out of clean victories by a choice few names, and that doesn't sit well. Before I move on to my main goal, I need to make a statement. But it has to be done my way, the right way, for it to have any real effect."
Bob was silent, but nodded his head in agreement. Whitey nodded back. "I've been chasing the ones that I want to stop for too long, and now it's painfully obvious someone is putting hurdles in my path. There's only one thing that the real problems in PCW want, and that's World Title gold. So for me to reach them...I need to make them chase ME. C'mon, let's go get a shot."
Whitey slapped his friend and new partner on the shoulder, and stood up to get another beer. His head was swimming and his shoulders were numb; this was another big step towards his goal, and with help from someone he could trust, Whitey knew deep down that his story was about to have a grand new chapter written in it.
Revelers raised their glasses in unison, toasting the former PCW World Heavyweight and International Champion. They stood shoulder to shoulder near the bartop, mingled between the tables, and crowded around the pool tables in the back room of The Cage, Whitey's favorite watering hole in his home town of Lewiston, Maine. The crowd hooted and cheered three more times, as loudly declared by the bartender, Fish, ecstatic about the amount of tip money coming on this day. His personal income was not the only reason for celebrating; a banner was hung on the back wall, proclaiming the real reason for all to see. It read, in bold, simple letters, "Happy Whitey Ford Is Winning, Forever and Ever, For a Hundred Years, All The Time, Every Day, .Com"
The crowd was a motley mix of long time staunch supporters of Ford, a gaggle of men and women who believed that Whitey's 'I don't give a give' attitude embodied the very spirit of Lewiston from the start, where their meager earnings and life often tied into scraping by and doing whatever it took to do so. He had been their anti-hero from the start, and nobody could question their loyalty to one of PCW's brightest stars. There were also bandwagon fans, hopping on the coattails of Whitey's second or third rise to fame in PCW, claiming in boasting voices that they had been behind him the whole time, but not really fooling anyone.
"I always liked Whitey, I fucking swear it! But admit it, if you...y'know, ADMITTED that you liked him a year or so ago you'd be socially martyred and slandered for supporting a murderer, woman beater, and degenerate!" One man in his early thirties said loudly to a group of the old Ford supporters. He was met with groans and eye rolls.
"Aren't you an open Donald Trump supporter?" One of the old schoolers asked.
"Yeah, I think he's--"
"Then shut the fuck up. You obviously never cared if people knew you supported degenerates."
There was a third group amongst the drinkers in the bar that day, and the most surprising of the three. Young people, of all races, genders, and creeds, were genuinely talking in support of Whitey's actions as of late. They never claimed to have liked him before, but in the last month or so Ford had won them over. "He's fighting the good fight now," they'd say in more words than necessary. It was an odd sight and something even odder to comprehend: Whitey Ford had started to change peoples minds.
The man of the hour himself had made his post out on the back porch, soaking in the afternoon sun and ignoring the cold New England air. The door was blocked by a red velvet rope, barring entry to anyone who Ford deemed unworthy of his company that day, and the irony of such a lavish structure in a dive bar wasn't lost on the patrons. He wore nothing but a pair of black shorts and a plain white T-shirt, his dirty and knotted blonde hair hanging down around his shoulders. While the last few weeks Ford had been known to get lost in deep thought about his current situation, today Whitey was all smiles, knocking back beer after beer in true Whitey Ford fashion. There were a few others sharing the porch with him, a dozen or so seated at a green plastic table near the steps, and one other man seated at his own table in the corner. Together, they raised their drinking glasses. "To a better world, a better PCW, and to whatever the fuck I deem fit at the moment!" Whitey exclaimed loudly.
With a clink of the glasses, Ford and his tablemate downed their beers, and set them to the side of the table. There were no bartenders on the porch, or even waitresses inside, but nonetheless a young man, barely 21, rushed over to fill the cups again with his own pitcher, obviously trying to gain favor of the local celebrity. Ford nodded and smiled, but his eyes were contemptuous. "I need to take a shit in an hour, boy. Are you going to follow me to try and wipe my ass too?" When the man stammered out half a response, Whitey only waved his hand to send him scurrying away, embarrassed.
"To you, my friend!" The man at the table with Whitey took a sip of his fresh drink. He was a soft spoken yet deep voiced man, wiry and lean and hairier than most, except the top of his head. Not that you could have noticed at first glance, since he wore a filthy Nike hat to go along with his Slayer T-shirt, patched denim vest, and work boots. His face donned an impressive handlebar moustache/goatee combination that only partially hid his friendly smile.
"No, Mr. King, to you." Whitey took another drink himself. "I'm glad you came down, I haven't seen you in a long time."
"I've been working a lot."
"So have I."
Mr. King smiled again. He was a man near 40, but had a seemingly older soul the way he carried himself. He had indeed been working a lot, as he had his whole life, with calloused and scarred hands to prove it. "I wake up at 4am 6 days a week to work 12 hours days. You wake up when you feel like it, dude. And then, aparrantly, it's only to continue with this popularity contest that you've started for yourself. I've never known you to care about what other people thought about you, and I've never heard you make claims to want to change the world by wrestling inside of a ring in South Carolina."
It was Whitey's turn to smile. His infamous bouts of rage rarely came out when he was with his old friend, Bob King. He was one of his oldest and trusted friends, but they both took very different paths. "I don't care what people think, and I don't care about the world. If I become a senator after this, MAYBE I'll do right by the world. As for now, I'm doing right by my home. Homes, rather. Maine, and Pure Class Wrestling."
"Right, right. So is that what you're going to do all day today? Try and convince me that you're a good man now and bore me with how nobody believes that you've changed?"
"Look around you, Bob. People already believe me. I'm done and over that. I've proved that I can do whatever the fuck I want. If I want to cheat and win, I can. And if I want to follow the rules and win, I will. I'm an unstoppable force, and I knew I needed time to remind people of that. Now is the time for the next phase of my plan to restore the 'class' in PCW." Whitey glanced over at the only other table on the porch. "Look over there, Bob. Who do you see?"
"Well..." Bob spoke slowly, running his fingers over his beard. "Sarah and Nick. Adam, Khiron, Monty, Brian...Ashley, Amber, Devan, Luke...uhm..."
"Lorraine, Joe, and Steve. Every one of them has had my back in the past. Drug dealers, fences, street fighters, people with money, people who'll lie for me, kill, steal, and fight for me. People who'll give me alibis if I need them...all of them are people I can use. But their biggest downfall is that when push comes to shove, they'll get their hands dirty, but they're terrible fucking people and I would never trust them to make the right decision." Without warning, Whitey sent his beer glass flying through the air. With a crack, it broke into a hundred pieces on the back of the head of one of the men sitting with his back to his table.
"What'd you do that for, dude?!" Bob exclaimed, eyes wide in shock. "Danny was an all right guy!"
Whitey shook his head, grabbing Bob's beer then and taking a long swallow. "No he wasn't. He stole from me years ago, I just let him think I forgot about it because he always had the good ecstacy hookup.
Everyone at the table had been in a stunned silence, staring at their now unconscious friend, who lay face down on the table where he sat. The largest of the group, coincidentally the best dressed in a suit and tie, jolted up to his feet. "Mother fucker," was the only warning he gave before rounding the table and beelining it straight for Whitey Ford. He had only made it a few steps across the deck when he was set upon, but not by Ford, who sat and studied his fingernails calmly. Bob King had gotten up from his seat.
King was a good five or six inches shorter than the charging suit, but it isn't always size that matters. With a quickness that shouldn't be possible for such a calm, soft spoken man of his age Bob had shot his right hand out, fishhooking the attacker with his ring and index finger roughly. Surprised by the sudden and violent pull on his cheek, the suit was pulled unceromoniously off balance and slammed face first into the seat of Bob's vacant chair. Driving one knee into the vertebrae right underneath the neck and fishhoooking the other side of the man's face with his free hand, Bob pulled back with force. Not enough to break a neck or to rip his face off the skull, but enough to cause pain and to stop any further aggression. The suit lay as still as possible, trying hard not to groan in pain.
"That's my friend, dude. He might not have been right in what he did, but he's my friend and I don't let people hurt my friends, right or wrong." Bob gave Whitey a look, as if to ask him permission to let the suit go. It took a second for Whitey to realize what was going on, but when he did he only waved his hands in an uncaring fashion. "I don't care what you do with him Bob. That's your fight, not mine. I've always liked Monty, in a way."
Bob released one side of the man's face, pulling it up so he could look him in the eye. "Go and sit down, and let your friend sit there. I don't like thieves either. Don't cause any more trouble or I'll really hurt you. I don't want to, but I will." With those calm words said plain and clearly, in a matter of fact tone rather than a threatening one, Bob released Monty from the hold. The poor man stood up slowly, holding both of his cheeks, and without a word went back inside of the bar. Bob adjusted his denim vest before returning to his seat. "Give me a warning next time. If you didn't like Danny, why did you have him out on your...uh...'private' deck?"
Whitey leaned in close, a mischievous smile on his face. "Because I like you, Bob, and I wanted to see if you still had it." When Bob raised his eyebrows and gave Ford a quizzical look, Whitey rolled his eyes. "Listen, I'm only going to say this once so you don't think I'm stroking your ego. Those guys at that table...WHAT? IT'S MY FUCKING PARTY, AND DANNY IS A THIEF!" Ford screamed at the gawkers at the adjacent table, forcing them to snap back to their previous conversation and stop staring at Ford incredulously. "...they're not trustworthy. You are. You're a genuinely good guy, you care about people, you're loyal...but you fight. And you fight god damned dirty. Fish hooks, Bob? What is this, Gangs of New York? I need help, Bob, and you're the guy I need it from."
"MJW?" Bob asked in a dry tone. He had never had much of a taste for his British friend, Whitey recalled.
"He's helped me a million times and he'll help me a million more, hopefully. But everything he does is only to benefit me and him, and fuck everybody else. He wants no part of my idea. I need someone I can trust to do the right thing at Mass Destruction."
"You want me...to help you? With Eira?"
"Fuck you." Whitey finished the last of the beer, and instantly regretted sending his little 'servant' away with an insult. "And fuck that idea. I need your help, and I'll pay you well...but the first rule of this new partnership is you do not interfere with my matches, unless you're running down to fuck up someone ELSE who interfered in my match. Eira and I...well, we have a complicated little relationship. She hates me, and I'm not exactly fond of her for what her and her husband have done to me over the years...but fact is, she's an important part of my plan. We're going to have a match for the ages, we're going to do it right, and we're going to make sure the world hears us. As much as I dislike her, she's as much of a PCW original as I am, and...well, I need her. If she wins, she wins. If she loses...I want it to be a clean fight."
"Good, dude. Good." Bob nodded his head, almost sage like. "But if you want me to agree to help you, I need you to tell me what I'm going to be doing, dude."
Whitey slapped his hand on the table with a raucous laugh. "You still say dude like it's a fucking punctuation mark, huh! Ha! I'm glad you haven't changed, man. But here's the deal. I returned and told everyone who would listen I was going to change things in PCW. I was going to go against those who were putting a taint on the glory that...well, SHOULD be Pure Class Wrestling. But I've only been booked against people who aren't a part of the problem. Eira, Andy D, Saniti, Dan Fierce...the only person I enjoyed beating up since I've been back is Grimm since he fucking deserves it for what The Black Hand did. They were the ones who started the decline of PCW, forcing me out of competition."
"They didn't force you out, you just gave up."
"You're right...I gave up. I was sick and fucking tired of the entire world against but, but if that's what it'll take this time around then I'll fight everyone in the federation and the next four federations who have a bunch of little shits in it. There's only one problem; I've been focusing on the big fight, and not the ones currently in front of me. I've been cheated out of clean victories by a choice few names, and that doesn't sit well. Before I move on to my main goal, I need to make a statement. But it has to be done my way, the right way, for it to have any real effect."
Bob was silent, but nodded his head in agreement. Whitey nodded back. "I've been chasing the ones that I want to stop for too long, and now it's painfully obvious someone is putting hurdles in my path. There's only one thing that the real problems in PCW want, and that's World Title gold. So for me to reach them...I need to make them chase ME. C'mon, let's go get a shot."
Whitey slapped his friend and new partner on the shoulder, and stood up to get another beer. His head was swimming and his shoulders were numb; this was another big step towards his goal, and with help from someone he could trust, Whitey knew deep down that his story was about to have a grand new chapter written in it.
