The devil's in the details
May 31, 2018 12:10:30 GMT -5
A Ghost in the Wind, Joka, and 3 more like this
Post by Grimm on May 31, 2018 12:10:30 GMT -5
A frozen wasteland. Some great white horror. An inhospitable landscape, unforgiving in its vast indifference. Squeaks, as ancient ice presses against itself. A groan, a crack, and then the shotgun blast of a fracture tearing across the field of vision. Incessant winds drone on beneath the throbbing rhythm of far-off war drums. A pitiful showing of ghosts roam as lost shreds and tatters at the top of the world. One has somehow found oneself in a wretched and precarious situation, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t care who you are.
Phinehas blinks, and those pale cold eyes strive to refocus. Phinehas Dillinger, the Hangtown Horror. The Abomination of Desolation. The Phantom of the Backwoods. The Destroyer at Noonday. Where, exactly, did he come from, and who sent him? Who was his first victim? Why does this red-headed stranger burn so, and how does he not consume himself outright? Less than a handful of people can hazard anything more than a guess to these and other questions. One of them – Ruth, his sister -- sits across from him at the other end of the table. But a disembodied voice continues from the shadows to his right.
“...and now they re-emerge, after all this time…”
Ruth meets her brother’s stare from behind her own abyssal plain. “Time has nothing to do with it.”
“I think it has something to do with it,” says the voice after a weary sigh. A shake of the head in the dark. God help me, these Dillingers…
Phinehas holds up a silver pocket watch in his left hand. Its black leather glove flexes and the watch pops open to show a face with no hands. “No, she’s right. This is Hangtown. Nothing has anything to do with anything else unless we say it does.”
He stands. A deep breath of their musty chambers and leather seats. Tallow candles gutter around the room. Paraffin lanterns on the table cast all but the Dillinger siblings in gloom, with nothing visible but their fingers spread out on the table. And all of them with similar black leather gloves on their right hands, save for Ruth who sports a complete pair. A glance at a window would show Hangtown in the grasp of the gloaming. Just outside, the evening’s commerce roils in full vigor.
But up here, in this room…
Phinehas looks again at the watch and smiles. He closes it, returns it to the pocket of his juniper vest, and begins a walk around the room. The hobnails of his boots click on the floor boards, resonating off the horse skulls placed in the empty spaces below. Skulls strategically placed to amplify a well-timed treble reel for when a hooley got particularly frothy.
He walks, and comes to stand before a portrait of the Brothers Gruesome. The portrait, entitled “Puncture-Pull Feeding,” shows Sadistic and Grimm taking out an anonymous opponent with their feared Snap Crackle Pop. Sadistic and Grimm, arguably the most terrifying duo to ever roam the halls of Pure Class Wrestling. Were they able to refrain from turning on one another – and everyone knows that is impossible – they would still be displaying the tag team titles on their persons.
But those titles were retired, you say. Oh really? Would you take them from us?
That was then, though. This is now.
“They’d have you believe otherwise, of course. But at best time is a fickle whore. Just look again at his own chronology.”
Another voice from the shadows. “We have, and if I may…Dominator was named PCW’s Breakout Star last year. He’s been Underground Champion for...well, forever, it seems like. He’s undefeated in singles competition. And all that in just under a year. You have to admit it’s an impressive résumé.”
Phinehas does not turn from the painting. “Oh, I won’t discount his success in his time here. On paper. Thus far.” A breath. He looks at his hand. At the twine and burlap patches holding the glove together. A scarecrow’s rictus grin in a scorched summer field. “What else?”
Someone down near Ruth’s end clears his throat. He taps a finger on the table until she glances down, then up at the offender. The tapping stops, but in that moment he’s gathered his thoughts.
“Here’s the thing – look at those singles victories on which he’s built this career.” A shuffle of papers, despite the diminishing light. “High Tide. Crazy Boy. Alexa Black. Arica Lewitt (trouble, indeed). Wasp. Hiroshi Yukio. Notorious. Gabriel. Now, some of these were part of tag matches and fatal four ways and such, and some of them are listed several times, but as far as the one-on-one meetups are concerned, well, personally I’m a little underwhelmed. And although we all know your stance on records…”
Phinehas narrows his eyes and gives a slight crick of the head.
“…the fact is the numbers don’t exactly point towards anything resembling true domination, Underground reign or not.”
Phinehas’s voice trails as he makes a circuit of the room. Click, clack. Click, clack.
“Mmm, the Underground King. I suppose I’d take the title if it ever came my way, but it remains something of a hollow crown that does nothing for me.”
Ruth turns in her chair to follow the silhouette of her brother. “At this point in your career, what would do something for you, Phinehas?”
Merely matters of principle, perhaps. Dominator will find Grimm to be unlike any of his previous opponents. For one, he’s not lying broken, defenseless in the ring as he and Horatio appear to prefer them.
Don’t scoff. The facts speak for themselves.
Grimm has pieced together his legacy in PCW over the course of the last 13+ years, without even considering hopping from federation to federation. None of Horatio’s endless conjecture on his protégé can change that. Nor can it mask the fact that the Zenith’s track record consists of ridiculously inconsistent members of the roster. Some who come and go whenever it suits them. More than one who has taken leave of PCW competition altogether. And as far as the more reliable names on that list, well, those were parts of random pairings of which Dominator often found himself on the short end. Horatio could do his best to explain away the distractions of those opponents, but the numbers speak for themselves. There is nothing to interpret – no way to put a spin on it, although if given the chance Horatio would like nothing more than to give a series of lectures on the subject. How it actually isn’t a who’s who of disappointment. Or merely a list of warm bodies with which to fill out a booking sheet.
The Hangtown Horror’s career, on the other hand, speaks for itself. And if anyone hopes to put a damper on that career at Living a Legacy, it will take more than sheer rage and muscle. More than endless streams of words. It will take a perverse calculus to which few have access. Among all the rest, this night will be a contest of Grimm’s nature versus Horatio Mortimer’s nurture.
“Phinehas?”
Yes, Grimm’s career speaks for itself. But do you know who could speak to that career if forced? Those who have stepped into the ring with the Crimson Demon and managed to escape with their faculties intact, that’s who. Seeing as how these two are the ones consumed with the concept of time, how does the idea of over a baker’s dozen years’ worth of opponents from this very federation saying, “You are in for a very unpleasant evening, Dominic,” suit them?
Phinehas finds himself at an open window. He looks out at Hangtown. Down the cobblestone street, where the lamplighters have not yet made their rounds. Along the darker lanes where the first batch of lightning bugs flash their Morse codes. The river valley air hangs heavy, damp with the aroma of the surrounding hills in bloom. But there, underneath, a cooler current flowing through from out of the murkiest parcels of the woods. In flits a fly on that current and lights on the window frame. Phinehas looks, and sees a hundred different versions of himself in its eyes. A hundred different possibilities.
But there has ever only been one Grimm.
The light shifts, and in this alchemy of gas lamps, flickering candles, and the last vestiges of the fading sun he watches dust motes drift. The fly twitches when one settles nearby.
“Phinehas!
He gives Ruth a look only a sibling can decode. But the rest of the evening’s syndicate can assume its gist. The member from before, the tired one, takes it upon himself to bring them back to the matter at hand.
“I for one wouldn’t be opposed to you having your way with this Horatio character when you’ve finished with Dominator.”
Here we go with Horatio Mortimer again. They could spend the rest of the night dredging through the man’s words, turning them inside out until the banal commentary became nothing more than an undecipherable mess. The concern with the excruciating minutia of the day is pathological to the point of fetishism. They overanalyze everything as though anything left unexplained could be used against them. All that to say, you fall out of the flow of the match at your own risk.
And then there are the rumors of Dominic’s personal struggles. How he managed those while dealing with Horatio’s puppet-mastery is admirable. But time doesn’t care. For there is only this one moment. Then the next. And then the next. That’s it.
Phinehas says, “I like to think I’ve always made wise use of my opportunities. We’ll see if that one presents itself.”
A murmur ripples around the room until Ruth leans forward. Fully revealed in the lantern light, she rests her elbows on the table and makes a temple of her thumbs and forefingers. Looking through the triangle she says, “It is what it is, but this one match is only one aspect of this new development. Or old development, as the case may be. The question at the moment is, is this going to be a concern of ours outside the context of PCW? Is it all one and the same?”
“I’ll handle this,” says Phinehas. “All of this. You seem to have forgotten one thing.”
He moves and stands behind his chair. Shadows from the dying of the light dance in and out of the Beard. His fingers grip the back of the seat and he tilts his head. A flash of something phosphorescent streaks across an arctic sky.
“I’m Grimm.”
Phinehas blinks, and those pale cold eyes strive to refocus. Phinehas Dillinger, the Hangtown Horror. The Abomination of Desolation. The Phantom of the Backwoods. The Destroyer at Noonday. Where, exactly, did he come from, and who sent him? Who was his first victim? Why does this red-headed stranger burn so, and how does he not consume himself outright? Less than a handful of people can hazard anything more than a guess to these and other questions. One of them – Ruth, his sister -- sits across from him at the other end of the table. But a disembodied voice continues from the shadows to his right.
“...and now they re-emerge, after all this time…”
Ruth meets her brother’s stare from behind her own abyssal plain. “Time has nothing to do with it.”
“I think it has something to do with it,” says the voice after a weary sigh. A shake of the head in the dark. God help me, these Dillingers…
Phinehas holds up a silver pocket watch in his left hand. Its black leather glove flexes and the watch pops open to show a face with no hands. “No, she’s right. This is Hangtown. Nothing has anything to do with anything else unless we say it does.”
He stands. A deep breath of their musty chambers and leather seats. Tallow candles gutter around the room. Paraffin lanterns on the table cast all but the Dillinger siblings in gloom, with nothing visible but their fingers spread out on the table. And all of them with similar black leather gloves on their right hands, save for Ruth who sports a complete pair. A glance at a window would show Hangtown in the grasp of the gloaming. Just outside, the evening’s commerce roils in full vigor.
But up here, in this room…
Phinehas looks again at the watch and smiles. He closes it, returns it to the pocket of his juniper vest, and begins a walk around the room. The hobnails of his boots click on the floor boards, resonating off the horse skulls placed in the empty spaces below. Skulls strategically placed to amplify a well-timed treble reel for when a hooley got particularly frothy.
He walks, and comes to stand before a portrait of the Brothers Gruesome. The portrait, entitled “Puncture-Pull Feeding,” shows Sadistic and Grimm taking out an anonymous opponent with their feared Snap Crackle Pop. Sadistic and Grimm, arguably the most terrifying duo to ever roam the halls of Pure Class Wrestling. Were they able to refrain from turning on one another – and everyone knows that is impossible – they would still be displaying the tag team titles on their persons.
But those titles were retired, you say. Oh really? Would you take them from us?
That was then, though. This is now.
“They’d have you believe otherwise, of course. But at best time is a fickle whore. Just look again at his own chronology.”
Another voice from the shadows. “We have, and if I may…Dominator was named PCW’s Breakout Star last year. He’s been Underground Champion for...well, forever, it seems like. He’s undefeated in singles competition. And all that in just under a year. You have to admit it’s an impressive résumé.”
Phinehas does not turn from the painting. “Oh, I won’t discount his success in his time here. On paper. Thus far.” A breath. He looks at his hand. At the twine and burlap patches holding the glove together. A scarecrow’s rictus grin in a scorched summer field. “What else?”
Someone down near Ruth’s end clears his throat. He taps a finger on the table until she glances down, then up at the offender. The tapping stops, but in that moment he’s gathered his thoughts.
“Here’s the thing – look at those singles victories on which he’s built this career.” A shuffle of papers, despite the diminishing light. “High Tide. Crazy Boy. Alexa Black. Arica Lewitt (trouble, indeed). Wasp. Hiroshi Yukio. Notorious. Gabriel. Now, some of these were part of tag matches and fatal four ways and such, and some of them are listed several times, but as far as the one-on-one meetups are concerned, well, personally I’m a little underwhelmed. And although we all know your stance on records…”
Phinehas narrows his eyes and gives a slight crick of the head.
“…the fact is the numbers don’t exactly point towards anything resembling true domination, Underground reign or not.”
Phinehas’s voice trails as he makes a circuit of the room. Click, clack. Click, clack.
“Mmm, the Underground King. I suppose I’d take the title if it ever came my way, but it remains something of a hollow crown that does nothing for me.”
Ruth turns in her chair to follow the silhouette of her brother. “At this point in your career, what would do something for you, Phinehas?”
Merely matters of principle, perhaps. Dominator will find Grimm to be unlike any of his previous opponents. For one, he’s not lying broken, defenseless in the ring as he and Horatio appear to prefer them.
Don’t scoff. The facts speak for themselves.
Grimm has pieced together his legacy in PCW over the course of the last 13+ years, without even considering hopping from federation to federation. None of Horatio’s endless conjecture on his protégé can change that. Nor can it mask the fact that the Zenith’s track record consists of ridiculously inconsistent members of the roster. Some who come and go whenever it suits them. More than one who has taken leave of PCW competition altogether. And as far as the more reliable names on that list, well, those were parts of random pairings of which Dominator often found himself on the short end. Horatio could do his best to explain away the distractions of those opponents, but the numbers speak for themselves. There is nothing to interpret – no way to put a spin on it, although if given the chance Horatio would like nothing more than to give a series of lectures on the subject. How it actually isn’t a who’s who of disappointment. Or merely a list of warm bodies with which to fill out a booking sheet.
The Hangtown Horror’s career, on the other hand, speaks for itself. And if anyone hopes to put a damper on that career at Living a Legacy, it will take more than sheer rage and muscle. More than endless streams of words. It will take a perverse calculus to which few have access. Among all the rest, this night will be a contest of Grimm’s nature versus Horatio Mortimer’s nurture.
“Phinehas?”
Yes, Grimm’s career speaks for itself. But do you know who could speak to that career if forced? Those who have stepped into the ring with the Crimson Demon and managed to escape with their faculties intact, that’s who. Seeing as how these two are the ones consumed with the concept of time, how does the idea of over a baker’s dozen years’ worth of opponents from this very federation saying, “You are in for a very unpleasant evening, Dominic,” suit them?
Phinehas finds himself at an open window. He looks out at Hangtown. Down the cobblestone street, where the lamplighters have not yet made their rounds. Along the darker lanes where the first batch of lightning bugs flash their Morse codes. The river valley air hangs heavy, damp with the aroma of the surrounding hills in bloom. But there, underneath, a cooler current flowing through from out of the murkiest parcels of the woods. In flits a fly on that current and lights on the window frame. Phinehas looks, and sees a hundred different versions of himself in its eyes. A hundred different possibilities.
But there has ever only been one Grimm.
The light shifts, and in this alchemy of gas lamps, flickering candles, and the last vestiges of the fading sun he watches dust motes drift. The fly twitches when one settles nearby.
“Phinehas!
He gives Ruth a look only a sibling can decode. But the rest of the evening’s syndicate can assume its gist. The member from before, the tired one, takes it upon himself to bring them back to the matter at hand.
“I for one wouldn’t be opposed to you having your way with this Horatio character when you’ve finished with Dominator.”
Here we go with Horatio Mortimer again. They could spend the rest of the night dredging through the man’s words, turning them inside out until the banal commentary became nothing more than an undecipherable mess. The concern with the excruciating minutia of the day is pathological to the point of fetishism. They overanalyze everything as though anything left unexplained could be used against them. All that to say, you fall out of the flow of the match at your own risk.
And then there are the rumors of Dominic’s personal struggles. How he managed those while dealing with Horatio’s puppet-mastery is admirable. But time doesn’t care. For there is only this one moment. Then the next. And then the next. That’s it.
Phinehas says, “I like to think I’ve always made wise use of my opportunities. We’ll see if that one presents itself.”
A murmur ripples around the room until Ruth leans forward. Fully revealed in the lantern light, she rests her elbows on the table and makes a temple of her thumbs and forefingers. Looking through the triangle she says, “It is what it is, but this one match is only one aspect of this new development. Or old development, as the case may be. The question at the moment is, is this going to be a concern of ours outside the context of PCW? Is it all one and the same?”
“I’ll handle this,” says Phinehas. “All of this. You seem to have forgotten one thing.”
He moves and stands behind his chair. Shadows from the dying of the light dance in and out of the Beard. His fingers grip the back of the seat and he tilts his head. A flash of something phosphorescent streaks across an arctic sky.
“I’m Grimm.”
