Post by Stace Matthews on Feb 18, 2018 9:31:43 GMT -5
“Is this broad seriously fucking yammering at me?” Johnny Matthews asked aloud, shifting Sinister into park.
Beside him, an irate, young woman leaped from a parked red sports car. She has a ‘58 Ford body, but GMC horses under her hood and he made her growl at the fiery redhead rounding the front if her car. Then he shut her down, cutting the outlaw groove that he was bumping along to as he pulled in.
He threw the driver's door open, dropped down off of the red leather bench seat and caught her coming; all but physically spinning her around with a wristlock, before pulling her close against him with a hand on each hip. Her stylish, turquoise heels pinned inside his black, Harley¤Davidson Badlands, his Timberlands and Official WxW “Pride of the Southwest” T-shirt pressed against the back of her curve hugging dress with a coastal Hilton Head design.
“Aren't you a fucking certified, bonafide…” he smirked before pulling his face from her orange curls and waves, inhaling her scent.
She jerked free and turned herself around to face him. When her eyes met his emerald greens, they immediately led him to believe something was just right or, most likely, not, “...cold-blooded cutie.”
“Did you even hear a word that I said as I was coming over here?”
“I'm sorry,” he began again, watching intently as she dusted her shoulders, straightened her dress and fluffed her hair, “you were saying something, but I cou…”
“You couldn't hear me,” she cut him off, “ because your music was too loud and you revved the engine of your sinister looking truck over there.”
“Funny, you shou…”
“There's nothing funny here,” she stamped the pavement, “you hit my windshield with your cigarette!”
“You mean,” he corrected her, “when you came whipping into this spot here, something like a bat out of Hell,” she tried to interrupt him, but he didn't allow it, “and I had already flicked that fucker?”
“Excuse me!” She nearly blew her top, “I did not come whipping in here…”
“Don't take it personal, Firestick,” he blatantly gave her a look over, “I mean, is anything broken?”
“I don't have time for this right now,” she quickly flicked the screen of her cellular, “I am running late for a meeting.”
“Me too,” he nodded toward the building.
She turned her back to him with a “Humph!” While he took a lean on Sinister’s front driver's side panel, she headed toward the building. Turning around, she noticed he had drawn a cigarette and was lighting up.
“I thought you had a meeting,” she asked.
“I'll get around to it,” he waved her on, “besides, these people, they hate that they ever had to have met me in the first place.”
She rolled her eyes, turned and went into the building. He smoked his cigarette and considered the alternative of going into the building.
This was not his first time visiting this building. The first time he visited this building, it was not as modern as it is today. The first time he visited this building is the reason this new, state-of-the-art building awaits his presence today. The first time he visited this building, almost fifteen years ago, he burned it to the ground.
Yet, here he was, puffing on a cigarette in the parking lot of Pure Class Entertainment Headquarters in Providence (RI), a decade-and-a-half later for the same reason he visited this building the first and every time since.
Only this time, it wasn't entirely his fault.
He dropped the butt of the cigarette onto the blacktop and snuffed it with his boot before retrieving his BOSS sport jacket from Sinister’s cab. Slipping it on, he also grabbed his sunglasses hanging from the mirror and put them on.
He had moved Stace’s picture from the dash panel to the rearview, thinking he would look at it more, but instead, “Now look where you are.”
Finally, from the cup holder in the console, he grabbed a brown paper sacked bottle of Jack Daniels and put it on the roof of the cab. He lit up another cigarette before collecting his alcohol, shutting the driver's door and heading toward the main entrance of the building.
As soon as he stepped into the main lobby, his eyebrows wrinkled his forehead; this was certainly the place, but there was something very sadly missing. He also noticed that the anxiety of facing Lou for his actions didn't swell in his guts and never would again.
So, he wouldn't face him, even if he wanted to.
When he had been sent across The River, Lou was a “dad away from dad” for him and, when his father and Justin “Stormm” Michaels sold out major southwestern arenas, Lou brought him up to understand the balance between professional wrestling and sports entertainment. There are parts of him finding this loss very difficult to deal with.
Yet, still, it's not like Matthews had ever hung his head in shame for any of his actions. He certainly has no remorse for anything he has ever said.
So, across the lobby he left a wake of rising smoke clouds wafting into the drop ceiling tiles. He didn't remove the cigarette, even crash landing his approach to the counter of the receptionist’s desk. Only her eyes, over the frames of her prescriptions, acknowledged him with a glare. She simply pointed to a small screen that invited him to, “Sign in here:” and he did so.
“Do I just,” he gestured toward tell chairs, but her only response was suggesting he extinguish his cigarette, “yeah,” he nodded, “fuck you, that ain't happening.”
He plopped down on a chair in the lobby, propped his feet on a pile of past-issue PCW Magazines resting on a glass table. The closed-circuit monitor displayed an early teaser for Mass Destruction featuring every competitor in the upcoming Trauma main event.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Man?” He shook his head, disgusted.
A middle-finger salute to the monitor followed by a final swig from the brown paper sack before the receptionist stood up to call his name.
“Fuh…” she hesitated, “Kerr,” rolling her eyes like she was the lead in a stage play, “I am going to assume that this is you.”
With his hand shielding his eyes, Matthews scans the empty lobby, “I don't know, what was the name?”
“I am not saying that again,” she burned two holes through him and pointed to the opening elevator. “When it opens, go directly across the hall.”
He hopped up, leaving behind an empty whiskey bottle in a brown sack against the wall on the floor and the burn of an ashtray in the nostrils. When the elevator opened on the second floor, just as directed, an open door awaited him across the hall. He entered and found a seat, opposite the door in the middle of the conference table, in the same room he busted in on Justin Michaels signing settlement papers a few months ago.
It wasn't long and the same furious redhead from the parking lot come exploding into the room.
“You are late,” she scolded.
“Well,” he kicked the back of his seat against the wall, “ let's be fair,” and propped his boots up onto the table, “you were too,” crossing his ankles. “I mean,” smoke escaped from his nostrils, “who's to say I haven't been here all along,” he hammered the coffin nail to the filter before he finished, “waiting on you?”
“I think,” she attempted, “we both know better…”
“Firestick,” he attempted to interrupt...
“...Parker Johnson,” she corrected him, “Talent Coordinator and Public Relations Director for Pure Class Enterprises.”
“Go figure,” he shrugged, “my fucking luck, right?”
“Do you know why you were mandated to see me today?”
“Isn't that entrapment?”
Isn't it?
“If I were to take a guess,” he played along, “something to do with this recent Trauma.”
“Something?” Her rhetoric was as sharp as the slammed door. “How about four citations against our insurance that night,” she sat down across from him, “what do you know about that?”
“Nothing.”
“You know nothing about,” she opened one of many stacked manila folders on the table in front of her, and read: “Talent Johnny Matthews smoked a cigarette while participating in a sanctioned contest.”
“Guilty,” he nodded, admitting, “the stress of the moment was too much to handle.”
“We were fined one thousand, five hundred dollars for that,” she informed him.
“I'll get the next one.”
“You are going to pay this one,” he attempted to argue, but she didn't allow it, “AND that's not all. What do you know about the title being hung over the ring?”
“I set that up,” he admitted.
“On your own?”
No. He hadn't acted alone in getting the Pure Class Wrestling World Championship above the ring. Anyone that's ever worked for PCW knows, even when it's booked, nothing gets set up in the arena without going through “Big Dave”, the company’s Head of Security.
“Yes,” he lied, right to her face without hesitation, and she knew it. “I did.”
It was here, his left eyebrow twitched with his nostril, as if he had picked up a familiar scent or finally, a hint of the resemblance in her face.
“That cost us two thousand dollars,” she scowled, “in addition, they also fined us five-hundred dollars for untested equipment.”
“I'm picking,” of course she cut him off…
“You're picking up on how this is working,” she nodded with a blatant smug, “very good to see you can bend.”
With his cigarette to the filter, blood pressure peaking into the smoke, figuratively escaping his ears. She stopped him from lighting up another cigarette, by simply clearing her throat and shake of her head.
“How did Justin Michaels know the title was hanging above the ring,” she asked, “if you acted alone?”
“Have you heard the fucking echo in that empty arena?” He continued his redirecting insinuation, “I mean, have you ever even been to the arena?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “pretty much grew up there.”
Again, his memory just slightly sparked, even with a direct hint. Right when he thought he had placed her, a new expression makes him question his own judgement.
“You couldn't have acted alone,” she accused.
“I did,” he continued to claim, easier because he had no intention to include Michaels and no knowledge of Michaels’ awareness of his plan. “I have no idea how Stormm discovered and then ruined my initial plan.”
“So you are accepting full responsibility for the title hanging over the ring?”
“Yes.”
“Keep in mind,” her tone and certain expressions, especially this directly angry overall tone, “you claimed not to know of Justin Michaels’ awareness or involvement.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“What do you know of his dropping the World Championship title belt from the rafters?”
“I almost pissed down my leg,” he answered.
“Did he do so on purpose?”
“I cannot answer that question,” he responded.
“Is that because you have no interest in sharing the five thousand dollar fine for that safety violation?”
“I had no idea,” he answered.
“You have no idea about the fine,” she stirred, “or about your friend in the rafters?”
“I cannot answer that question,” he shook his head, he had narrowed down the expressions, “but from certain angles, I'll be damned if you don't look like” he adjusted his head and looked oddly at her, “my little sister.”
“Oh, yeah?” She smirked just like The Snot.
He had not only narrowed down the expressions, but he remembered the last time he had smelled that familiar perfume.
“Johnson, huh?” He asked, with an uncomfortable reluctance.
“I am asking the questions here,” she barked, “I'm her younger cousin any way,” she glared, “that would be as ridiculous as wrestling on the moon.”
“Tell me about it,” he nodded, getting comfortable for only a moment before the interrogation was on again.
“No,” she slapped open the last folder of the stack, “you tell me about the ladder that was thrown precariously from the ring.”
“I am responsible for that as well,” he accepted, “without my…”
“Are you claiming to have thrown the ladder from the ring?”
“That's not what I said,” he sat forward again, “but without my placing it in the ring,” he interlaced his fingers together and took a deep breath in, “that is my fault.”
“That's another five grand,” she closes the folder and places it atop of the others. “You have accepted responsibility for nine thousand dollars in fines just for that night.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “and if that is it…”
“No,” she shook her head.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
In addition to a carton of cigarettes, he was going to need to find a liquor store immediately following this meeting. The Johnsons are a Texas wrestling family, it was the only way he could figure the flashes of emotion on her face. Either way, Parker Johnson wasn't going to just allow him to fool her and it was frustrating him to no end.
“You agreed to discontinue usage of the ‘F’ word on a live microphone and to set a more posit…”
“Fuck that,” he interrupted.
“Why must you use that word?”
“Are you aware that my web-nerd did a net scan, or some shit,” he told her, “and found that I say shit, ass, damn and hell just as much as fuck,” he returned to his kicked back position, “but it's the only one to pull people's triggers?”
“That's not really an answer,” she looked down her nose at him, unable to sit across from him any longer.
“Because a man taught me how to speak,” he explained, “he taught me how to curse with intent.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly,” he nodded, “I don't say anything without a meaning. When I say, ‘fuck’ for example,” he continued, “imagine, wherever in that sentence ‘fuck’ falls, me saying, ‘I don't give a fuck.’.”
“And…”
“And,” he continued, talking over her, “when I say, ‘fucking’,” she dropped her head and allowed him to ramble, “imagine me saying, ‘I don't fucking care.’.”
“So,” she got a word in, “earlier, when you said that you had, ‘flicked that fucker’...”
“I did,” he nodded, “because I didn't give a shit about that …’fucker’. You got it. And if you ask me about my usage of ‘shit’, it's because that's what I would do on this conversation,” he slammed the bottom of his right fist down onto the table, “if that were fucking possible.”
“No,” she buried her face into her palms, “okay, well, thanks for explaining that.”
“When I start referring to the rats and dropping the ‘c-bomb’,” he laughed, “then, you can fucking fine me for my language.”
“Moving on, Mister Matthews,” she stung a nerve in his body, he twitched inside just hearing it.
“Please,” he requested with urgency, “don't call me that.”
“Anyway,” if she acknowledged the request at all, “I have to remind you of the safety requirements of our insurance, Mister Matthews.”
“Whatever,” he threw his hands up into the air.
“As per the terms of your contract,” she bored him, “we have the right to legally fine you for costly violations where you admit or are found at fault.”
He fakes a snore.
“I also have to warn you,” she didn't stop, “further violations result in additional or compounding fines.”
He pretends to fall off of the edge of the table, asleep.
“There is also the matter of the accommodations, tickets and per diem,” she went on, “while we only have a request to setup hotel arrangements for you and your wife,” and on, “we are often charged more than three times the amount in room service and house keeping charges than would be expected; which is only strange,” and on, “because the box office hasn't issued your wife a ticket since your return.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Not even to the Iceys, Mister Matthews.”
“Please,” he shook his head, now, he needed a Xanny bar and a bag of Fun Dip, “stop calling me that.”
“Do you care to explain the hotel charges?”
“I party,” he laughed, “I throw a big ass party with Charlie fucking Sheen. Every fucking show.”
“PCW will no longer be picking up the tab for your hotel bashes with whomever you are trashing the rooms with,” she advised.
“Penny pinching bunch of fucks,” he attempted to hide his anger with his third fluently spoken language. “Look here, Firestick,” he stood up, “we are going to have to take a break.”
“Absolutely not,” she declined, “there's no guarantee that you'll return.”
Matthews drew a cigarette from the leather case retrieved from the back pocket of his jeans and lit up, snapping the Zippo open to a blue flame. She argued every second, but he paid her absolutely no attention, as he completely filled his lungs. He rode the nicotine rush, savoring that first-hit taste for nearly a minute before allowing the smoke to escape from his nostrils.
“If,” she hacked and gagged, choking in the smoke hanging over the table, “you're quite finished, I would like to get this over with.”
“Oh,” he plopped back down into the chair, “please do.”
“We noticed you did not attend the arrangements for Luis Malave.”
“Okay,” he sat back in the chair, puffing away.
“Is there a reas…”
“Yeah,” he leaped forward in the chair and smacked both palms down on the table, hard, “I said my condolences on my own time.”
“Why are you working shows outside of your contract?”
“Two reasons,” he threw up his ring and middle fingers, “they pay well,” he folds his ring finger, “and the contract is not exclusive.”
“Your partner has expressed concerns with you spreading yourself thin.”
“Let's hope not,” he shrugs, “I'm going to look into getting work in New York and Colorado too.”
“Should you get injured at one of these other events,” she worded carefully, “how do we accommodate our fans if you cannot compete?”
“That's why they pay you the big bucks, Firestick,” he golf-clapped, “here, use these thousands of dollars to manage these million-dollar personalities.”
“You really are a pr…”
“Good luck!” He smirked.
“Okay, I have to ask,” she hesitated, “and only because I have to ask,” she gathered all of her files into a stack, “is there anything that I can take back to the team as your advocate?”
“Yeah,” he stood up, following her lead, “enough with the fucking tag team matches, Man.”
Let's just consider, he certainly isn't finding any level, much less a sound level, of communication with his wife on top of the loss of the man he considered had raised him in the “family business” better than his own dad ever attempted, who exactly is the voice of reason for Johnny Matthews?
Following this most recent Trauma event it was clear that, the duo that just won Icey Awards for Biggest Return, Best Entrance and had been called most cohesive by their peers and critics, Matthews and Michaels didn't appear to be reading the same book; much less, anywhere near working on the same page most of the show.
When the embers cooled, the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the fact that Notorious were a very questionable alliance couldn't have been any clearer.
She didn't dismiss him or show any appreciation for his giving an entire Friday morning for this meeting. She turned her back and exited the room, leaving the door open behind her. He sat waiting for something that would never happen, the anxiety swelled in his chest the first he heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. They passed by and he gathered himself to leave, he had a flight to catch. Viva Las Vegas bound.
Beside him, an irate, young woman leaped from a parked red sports car. She has a ‘58 Ford body, but GMC horses under her hood and he made her growl at the fiery redhead rounding the front if her car. Then he shut her down, cutting the outlaw groove that he was bumping along to as he pulled in.
He threw the driver's door open, dropped down off of the red leather bench seat and caught her coming; all but physically spinning her around with a wristlock, before pulling her close against him with a hand on each hip. Her stylish, turquoise heels pinned inside his black, Harley¤Davidson Badlands, his Timberlands and Official WxW “Pride of the Southwest” T-shirt pressed against the back of her curve hugging dress with a coastal Hilton Head design.
“Aren't you a fucking certified, bonafide…” he smirked before pulling his face from her orange curls and waves, inhaling her scent.
She jerked free and turned herself around to face him. When her eyes met his emerald greens, they immediately led him to believe something was just right or, most likely, not, “...cold-blooded cutie.”
“Did you even hear a word that I said as I was coming over here?”
“I'm sorry,” he began again, watching intently as she dusted her shoulders, straightened her dress and fluffed her hair, “you were saying something, but I cou…”
“You couldn't hear me,” she cut him off, “ because your music was too loud and you revved the engine of your sinister looking truck over there.”
“Funny, you shou…”
“There's nothing funny here,” she stamped the pavement, “you hit my windshield with your cigarette!”
“You mean,” he corrected her, “when you came whipping into this spot here, something like a bat out of Hell,” she tried to interrupt him, but he didn't allow it, “and I had already flicked that fucker?”
“Excuse me!” She nearly blew her top, “I did not come whipping in here…”
“Don't take it personal, Firestick,” he blatantly gave her a look over, “I mean, is anything broken?”
“I don't have time for this right now,” she quickly flicked the screen of her cellular, “I am running late for a meeting.”
“Me too,” he nodded toward the building.
She turned her back to him with a “Humph!” While he took a lean on Sinister’s front driver's side panel, she headed toward the building. Turning around, she noticed he had drawn a cigarette and was lighting up.
“I thought you had a meeting,” she asked.
“I'll get around to it,” he waved her on, “besides, these people, they hate that they ever had to have met me in the first place.”
She rolled her eyes, turned and went into the building. He smoked his cigarette and considered the alternative of going into the building.
This was not his first time visiting this building. The first time he visited this building, it was not as modern as it is today. The first time he visited this building is the reason this new, state-of-the-art building awaits his presence today. The first time he visited this building, almost fifteen years ago, he burned it to the ground.
Yet, here he was, puffing on a cigarette in the parking lot of Pure Class Entertainment Headquarters in Providence (RI), a decade-and-a-half later for the same reason he visited this building the first and every time since.
Only this time, it wasn't entirely his fault.
He dropped the butt of the cigarette onto the blacktop and snuffed it with his boot before retrieving his BOSS sport jacket from Sinister’s cab. Slipping it on, he also grabbed his sunglasses hanging from the mirror and put them on.
He had moved Stace’s picture from the dash panel to the rearview, thinking he would look at it more, but instead, “Now look where you are.”
Finally, from the cup holder in the console, he grabbed a brown paper sacked bottle of Jack Daniels and put it on the roof of the cab. He lit up another cigarette before collecting his alcohol, shutting the driver's door and heading toward the main entrance of the building.
As soon as he stepped into the main lobby, his eyebrows wrinkled his forehead; this was certainly the place, but there was something very sadly missing. He also noticed that the anxiety of facing Lou for his actions didn't swell in his guts and never would again.
So, he wouldn't face him, even if he wanted to.
When he had been sent across The River, Lou was a “dad away from dad” for him and, when his father and Justin “Stormm” Michaels sold out major southwestern arenas, Lou brought him up to understand the balance between professional wrestling and sports entertainment. There are parts of him finding this loss very difficult to deal with.
Yet, still, it's not like Matthews had ever hung his head in shame for any of his actions. He certainly has no remorse for anything he has ever said.
So, across the lobby he left a wake of rising smoke clouds wafting into the drop ceiling tiles. He didn't remove the cigarette, even crash landing his approach to the counter of the receptionist’s desk. Only her eyes, over the frames of her prescriptions, acknowledged him with a glare. She simply pointed to a small screen that invited him to, “Sign in here:” and he did so.
“Do I just,” he gestured toward tell chairs, but her only response was suggesting he extinguish his cigarette, “yeah,” he nodded, “fuck you, that ain't happening.”
He plopped down on a chair in the lobby, propped his feet on a pile of past-issue PCW Magazines resting on a glass table. The closed-circuit monitor displayed an early teaser for Mass Destruction featuring every competitor in the upcoming Trauma main event.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Man?” He shook his head, disgusted.
A middle-finger salute to the monitor followed by a final swig from the brown paper sack before the receptionist stood up to call his name.
“Fuh…” she hesitated, “Kerr,” rolling her eyes like she was the lead in a stage play, “I am going to assume that this is you.”
With his hand shielding his eyes, Matthews scans the empty lobby, “I don't know, what was the name?”
“I am not saying that again,” she burned two holes through him and pointed to the opening elevator. “When it opens, go directly across the hall.”
He hopped up, leaving behind an empty whiskey bottle in a brown sack against the wall on the floor and the burn of an ashtray in the nostrils. When the elevator opened on the second floor, just as directed, an open door awaited him across the hall. He entered and found a seat, opposite the door in the middle of the conference table, in the same room he busted in on Justin Michaels signing settlement papers a few months ago.
It wasn't long and the same furious redhead from the parking lot come exploding into the room.
“You are late,” she scolded.
“Well,” he kicked the back of his seat against the wall, “ let's be fair,” and propped his boots up onto the table, “you were too,” crossing his ankles. “I mean,” smoke escaped from his nostrils, “who's to say I haven't been here all along,” he hammered the coffin nail to the filter before he finished, “waiting on you?”
“I think,” she attempted, “we both know better…”
“Firestick,” he attempted to interrupt...
“...Parker Johnson,” she corrected him, “Talent Coordinator and Public Relations Director for Pure Class Enterprises.”
“Go figure,” he shrugged, “my fucking luck, right?”
“Do you know why you were mandated to see me today?”
“Isn't that entrapment?”
Isn't it?
“If I were to take a guess,” he played along, “something to do with this recent Trauma.”
“Something?” Her rhetoric was as sharp as the slammed door. “How about four citations against our insurance that night,” she sat down across from him, “what do you know about that?”
“Nothing.”
“You know nothing about,” she opened one of many stacked manila folders on the table in front of her, and read: “Talent Johnny Matthews smoked a cigarette while participating in a sanctioned contest.”
“Guilty,” he nodded, admitting, “the stress of the moment was too much to handle.”
“We were fined one thousand, five hundred dollars for that,” she informed him.
“I'll get the next one.”
“You are going to pay this one,” he attempted to argue, but she didn't allow it, “AND that's not all. What do you know about the title being hung over the ring?”
“I set that up,” he admitted.
“On your own?”
No. He hadn't acted alone in getting the Pure Class Wrestling World Championship above the ring. Anyone that's ever worked for PCW knows, even when it's booked, nothing gets set up in the arena without going through “Big Dave”, the company’s Head of Security.
“Yes,” he lied, right to her face without hesitation, and she knew it. “I did.”
It was here, his left eyebrow twitched with his nostril, as if he had picked up a familiar scent or finally, a hint of the resemblance in her face.
“That cost us two thousand dollars,” she scowled, “in addition, they also fined us five-hundred dollars for untested equipment.”
“I'm picking,” of course she cut him off…
“You're picking up on how this is working,” she nodded with a blatant smug, “very good to see you can bend.”
With his cigarette to the filter, blood pressure peaking into the smoke, figuratively escaping his ears. She stopped him from lighting up another cigarette, by simply clearing her throat and shake of her head.
“How did Justin Michaels know the title was hanging above the ring,” she asked, “if you acted alone?”
“Have you heard the fucking echo in that empty arena?” He continued his redirecting insinuation, “I mean, have you ever even been to the arena?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “pretty much grew up there.”
Again, his memory just slightly sparked, even with a direct hint. Right when he thought he had placed her, a new expression makes him question his own judgement.
“You couldn't have acted alone,” she accused.
“I did,” he continued to claim, easier because he had no intention to include Michaels and no knowledge of Michaels’ awareness of his plan. “I have no idea how Stormm discovered and then ruined my initial plan.”
“So you are accepting full responsibility for the title hanging over the ring?”
“Yes.”
“Keep in mind,” her tone and certain expressions, especially this directly angry overall tone, “you claimed not to know of Justin Michaels’ awareness or involvement.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“What do you know of his dropping the World Championship title belt from the rafters?”
“I almost pissed down my leg,” he answered.
“Did he do so on purpose?”
“I cannot answer that question,” he responded.
“Is that because you have no interest in sharing the five thousand dollar fine for that safety violation?”
“I had no idea,” he answered.
“You have no idea about the fine,” she stirred, “or about your friend in the rafters?”
“I cannot answer that question,” he shook his head, he had narrowed down the expressions, “but from certain angles, I'll be damned if you don't look like” he adjusted his head and looked oddly at her, “my little sister.”
“Oh, yeah?” She smirked just like The Snot.
He had not only narrowed down the expressions, but he remembered the last time he had smelled that familiar perfume.
“Johnson, huh?” He asked, with an uncomfortable reluctance.
“I am asking the questions here,” she barked, “I'm her younger cousin any way,” she glared, “that would be as ridiculous as wrestling on the moon.”
“Tell me about it,” he nodded, getting comfortable for only a moment before the interrogation was on again.
“No,” she slapped open the last folder of the stack, “you tell me about the ladder that was thrown precariously from the ring.”
“I am responsible for that as well,” he accepted, “without my…”
“Are you claiming to have thrown the ladder from the ring?”
“That's not what I said,” he sat forward again, “but without my placing it in the ring,” he interlaced his fingers together and took a deep breath in, “that is my fault.”
“That's another five grand,” she closes the folder and places it atop of the others. “You have accepted responsibility for nine thousand dollars in fines just for that night.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “and if that is it…”
“No,” she shook her head.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
In addition to a carton of cigarettes, he was going to need to find a liquor store immediately following this meeting. The Johnsons are a Texas wrestling family, it was the only way he could figure the flashes of emotion on her face. Either way, Parker Johnson wasn't going to just allow him to fool her and it was frustrating him to no end.
“You agreed to discontinue usage of the ‘F’ word on a live microphone and to set a more posit…”
“Fuck that,” he interrupted.
“Why must you use that word?”
“Are you aware that my web-nerd did a net scan, or some shit,” he told her, “and found that I say shit, ass, damn and hell just as much as fuck,” he returned to his kicked back position, “but it's the only one to pull people's triggers?”
“That's not really an answer,” she looked down her nose at him, unable to sit across from him any longer.
“Because a man taught me how to speak,” he explained, “he taught me how to curse with intent.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly,” he nodded, “I don't say anything without a meaning. When I say, ‘fuck’ for example,” he continued, “imagine, wherever in that sentence ‘fuck’ falls, me saying, ‘I don't give a fuck.’.”
“And…”
“And,” he continued, talking over her, “when I say, ‘fucking’,” she dropped her head and allowed him to ramble, “imagine me saying, ‘I don't fucking care.’.”
“So,” she got a word in, “earlier, when you said that you had, ‘flicked that fucker’...”
“I did,” he nodded, “because I didn't give a shit about that …’fucker’. You got it. And if you ask me about my usage of ‘shit’, it's because that's what I would do on this conversation,” he slammed the bottom of his right fist down onto the table, “if that were fucking possible.”
“No,” she buried her face into her palms, “okay, well, thanks for explaining that.”
“When I start referring to the rats and dropping the ‘c-bomb’,” he laughed, “then, you can fucking fine me for my language.”
“Moving on, Mister Matthews,” she stung a nerve in his body, he twitched inside just hearing it.
“Please,” he requested with urgency, “don't call me that.”
“Anyway,” if she acknowledged the request at all, “I have to remind you of the safety requirements of our insurance, Mister Matthews.”
“Whatever,” he threw his hands up into the air.
“As per the terms of your contract,” she bored him, “we have the right to legally fine you for costly violations where you admit or are found at fault.”
He fakes a snore.
“I also have to warn you,” she didn't stop, “further violations result in additional or compounding fines.”
He pretends to fall off of the edge of the table, asleep.
“There is also the matter of the accommodations, tickets and per diem,” she went on, “while we only have a request to setup hotel arrangements for you and your wife,” and on, “we are often charged more than three times the amount in room service and house keeping charges than would be expected; which is only strange,” and on, “because the box office hasn't issued your wife a ticket since your return.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Not even to the Iceys, Mister Matthews.”
“Please,” he shook his head, now, he needed a Xanny bar and a bag of Fun Dip, “stop calling me that.”
“Do you care to explain the hotel charges?”
“I party,” he laughed, “I throw a big ass party with Charlie fucking Sheen. Every fucking show.”
“PCW will no longer be picking up the tab for your hotel bashes with whomever you are trashing the rooms with,” she advised.
“Penny pinching bunch of fucks,” he attempted to hide his anger with his third fluently spoken language. “Look here, Firestick,” he stood up, “we are going to have to take a break.”
“Absolutely not,” she declined, “there's no guarantee that you'll return.”
Matthews drew a cigarette from the leather case retrieved from the back pocket of his jeans and lit up, snapping the Zippo open to a blue flame. She argued every second, but he paid her absolutely no attention, as he completely filled his lungs. He rode the nicotine rush, savoring that first-hit taste for nearly a minute before allowing the smoke to escape from his nostrils.
“If,” she hacked and gagged, choking in the smoke hanging over the table, “you're quite finished, I would like to get this over with.”
“Oh,” he plopped back down into the chair, “please do.”
“We noticed you did not attend the arrangements for Luis Malave.”
“Okay,” he sat back in the chair, puffing away.
“Is there a reas…”
“Yeah,” he leaped forward in the chair and smacked both palms down on the table, hard, “I said my condolences on my own time.”
“Why are you working shows outside of your contract?”
“Two reasons,” he threw up his ring and middle fingers, “they pay well,” he folds his ring finger, “and the contract is not exclusive.”
“Your partner has expressed concerns with you spreading yourself thin.”
“Let's hope not,” he shrugs, “I'm going to look into getting work in New York and Colorado too.”
“Should you get injured at one of these other events,” she worded carefully, “how do we accommodate our fans if you cannot compete?”
“That's why they pay you the big bucks, Firestick,” he golf-clapped, “here, use these thousands of dollars to manage these million-dollar personalities.”
“You really are a pr…”
“Good luck!” He smirked.
“Okay, I have to ask,” she hesitated, “and only because I have to ask,” she gathered all of her files into a stack, “is there anything that I can take back to the team as your advocate?”
“Yeah,” he stood up, following her lead, “enough with the fucking tag team matches, Man.”
Let's just consider, he certainly isn't finding any level, much less a sound level, of communication with his wife on top of the loss of the man he considered had raised him in the “family business” better than his own dad ever attempted, who exactly is the voice of reason for Johnny Matthews?
Following this most recent Trauma event it was clear that, the duo that just won Icey Awards for Biggest Return, Best Entrance and had been called most cohesive by their peers and critics, Matthews and Michaels didn't appear to be reading the same book; much less, anywhere near working on the same page most of the show.
When the embers cooled, the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the fact that Notorious were a very questionable alliance couldn't have been any clearer.
She didn't dismiss him or show any appreciation for his giving an entire Friday morning for this meeting. She turned her back and exited the room, leaving the door open behind her. He sat waiting for something that would never happen, the anxiety swelled in his chest the first he heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. They passed by and he gathered himself to leave, he had a flight to catch. Viva Las Vegas bound.