Post by Michael Callahan on Nov 3, 2012 17:46:11 GMT -4
ISSUE ONE
A Michael Callahan Graphic Novel
Sometimes the most painful wounds we can endure in life are psychological rather than physical. That's why despite spending less than ten seconds in the hellish environment they call the Extreme Elimination Chamber and having little more than a mere roll-up inflicted upon me, I felt like I'd been dragged kicking and screaming through the fetid halls of a slaughter house and thrown feet first into a meat grinder. This kind of emotional suffering, distraught if you will carries the same impact of a bullet but with a far deeper, far more reaching type of pain than a real live round.
Worse than this though? You don't always survive the shot to feel the pain surging through you with a real life bullet. Yet with a shot to the psyche, you live to feel every single second of it and there's not a surgeon alive who can sew up a sundered ego.
As I sit here in my office chair wallowing in self-pity at my abysmal performance in the match that I'd disregarded my own code of conduct just to make it to, I tried to see the silver lining in my performance. In taking to Anthony Bailey, baseball bat in hand with the mannerisms and the grace of Al Capone I'd been instrumental in changing the landscape of the Asylum yet again. Yet in doing so I'd handed the object of my desires, the World Heavyweight Championship to my arch nemesis in tassles Sally Talfourd on a silver platter.
Steve Fukuyama slipped through the teak door slowly into the office and before he'd even opened his mouth...
Steve Fukuyama: More coffee sir?
I knew exactly what he was going to say.
Michael Callahan: No, thank you.
Steve Fukuyama: Are you sure? What about a smoothie? I got mango and passionfruit in the fridge just like they make in Starbucks!
You have to love a trier even if he's as sycophantic and neurotic as Steve. Even through my glumness I couldn't help but crack a smile. Either his enthusiasm in trying to raise my spirits or his sheer pathetic grovelling had managed to raise my spirits. Which one though I wasn't quite sure.
Michael Callahan: I'm fine, thank you Steve.
Steve Fukuyama; Man, what's the matter? I haven't seen you this down since you got slapped by Sally Talfourd at Mayhem.
Ah, memories.
Michael Callahan: Thanks for that Steve.
Steve Fukuyama: You're welcome. Is it the Elimination Chamber that's bothering you? Psht, who cares. You've got plenty more opportunities. You just had a bad night is all.
Michael Callahan: Not helping.
Steve Fukuyama: Damn it. Say Mike, have you been paid yet?
Michael Callahan: My payslip came through this morning so I imagine so.
Steve Fukuyama: What say you and me make the drive to Seattle and go to your favourite gun shop, pick yourself up a new weapon to play with? It's been a while since you did that, huh?
Hearing those words made my face light up like the night's sky on the fourth of July and Steve knew it too. The chance to visit the gun shop that my father used to take me to back when I was young was just the perfect form of nostalgic medication for blues like this. I stood up and threw on my blazer coat, pointing to the door with a planet sized grin on my face.
Michael Callahan: Fire up the engine!
At the Seattle General Hospital in Downtown Seattle, chaos had consumed the emergency department thanks mainly to a thirty car pile up on Route 99. With five confirmed deaths and a score of critical injuries, the ambulance service was under immense pressure to taxi these people to the hospital and vet the panic at the crash zone simultaneously. While a horde of junior doctors, nurses and emergency surgeons try to deal with the wake of the pile-up, five senior doctors stand around one stretcher and argue amongst themselves about the fate of the young blonde lying in it.
Dr. Roger Matheson: Is there anything we can do? Does she have insurance?
Dr. Hannah Colbert: Not with her family. She told us she'd signed a joint plan with her fiance but things went sour between the two and they're separated. He hasn't struck her off but, he might decide to on principle.
A collective sigh escapes the lips of four doctors.
Dr. Edward Sullivan: This is difficult. Do you think he'll pay for the health care of an old flame?
Dr. Malcolm Norton: Worth a go innit?
All eyes turn towards team leader, stocky Dr. Tony Morishima. He had been the executive doctor for the emergency department for five years despite having appalling beside manner and an extreme case of misanthropy. It was his ability to make the tough decisions that got him his job.
Dr. Tony Morishima: Ring the boyfriend. Get him down here. Don't explain the situation until he arrives otherwise he might back out. Ask a man to stare the woman he used to love in the face as she bleeds out whether he'll pay and it'd take a very callous, stubborn man to say no.
Dr. Norton, a London-born surgeon already had objections.
Dr. Malcolm Norton: Ain't that a bit manipulative?
Dr. Tony Morishima: Manipulating a simpleton or letting a girl die. I don't know how they do things in England but in Seattle? I know which one I'd consider the lesser of two evils.
The entire group nod their agreement.
Dr. Hannah Colbert: I'll ring the guy then. What's his name?
It'd been a two hour drive to Seattle which mercifully required only one rest stop. Usually when I drive to Seattle I like to make the whole journey in one sitting and then take care of any “human needs” upon arrival to save wasting time. When you're travelling with Steve Fukuyama though, you quickly learn that this is an impossible dream. I wouldn't describe him as incontinent but he most certainly has a weak bladder. The Starbucks latté's we sipped as I drove us in my obsidian black Chevrolet Cruze had gone straight through him and we had to make a stop at the gas station about halfway through the journey.
Steve seemed to pick up on my frustration at his spastic urinary tract (possibly due to me telling him to “chill the hell out on the latté's lest he wet himself like he did in Japan”) and held it in 'til we arrived within the city limits. It was another twenty minutes or so navigating the twisting back streets of The Emerald City before we could pull up to our destination, Uncle Bucky's Hunting Shack and Army Surplus Outlet, a thick slice of sizzling, meaty nostalgia for me to digest. Strolling in through the front door, I was rushed by memories of my childhood. The scent of oak wooden floor, gunpowder and that “rising” smell brought about a surge of emotional callbacks to younger, better days where I didn't have to put up with Steve.
Looking at the walls upon walls of guns, ammo, clothing and armour, I couldn't help but notice that nothing had changed since my last visit. Nothing except for the six foot seven, Polynesian looking bruiser who stood near the exit with folded arms and a permanently sour expression. It didn't take the ageing Uncle Bucky a second to recognise me, nor me him.
Uncle Bucky: Hey! Well if it isn't John's boy? Little Michael Callahan! Well ain't this a surprise? I haven't seen you or yer pappy in many a year now! How y'all doin'?
His thick Cajun drawl was but one element of the stereotype the toothless, Confederate cap wearing Uncle Bucky was a living embodiment of. His warm, gapped grin although unpleasant to look at was a friendly enough gesture I returned in due kind only with the important difference of having pearly whites to line my gums.
Michael Callahan: Bucky! My good man! Everything is good, thank you. Neither of us have been on the trail much of late. I've been busy with work and my old man and I both have been preoccupied with mourning the loss of mom.
Uncle Bucky: I heard about ol' Sylvia passin' away. I'm sorry mon amis. That girl was the saint of Kelso.
Michael Callahan: Thank you Bucky.
I turned around and pointed to the stocky doorman while still looking at Bucky, a burning question to ask about “the security detail”.
Michael Callahan: Who's the stooge anyway anyway? You've run this shop by yourself for fifty years, what's the need with the assistance?
He didn't take too kindly to my jesting comment and cracked his knuckles as he made a bee-line for me. Bucky quickly intervened to prevent him separating my head and my neck..
Uncle Bucky: Easy Luau, Mike's good people. He don't mean ya' no harm.
He stopped dead in his tracks and begrudgingly returned to his post. I couldn't help but think he'd probably try and kick my feet out from underneath me on the way out but that wasn't one of my immediate concerns.
Uncle Bucky: They call him Luau. He's my assistant and my shop guard. Times are getting on and Bucky's eyes don't work too good. I ain't in the same position I used to be to whip a gun out on some punk kid no more and my arms are gettin' weaker too so Luau helps with the heavy liftin' round these parts.
Michael Callahan: Why do they call him Luau?
Bucky gestured an arm at the stone-faced, cross-armed giant who's disgruntled expression hadn't twitched at all since Michael and Steve had entered the shop.
Uncle Bucky: Because, as you can see my boy by his enormous grin and festive demeanour that Luau here is the life and soul of the party!
We shared a chuckle. Luau didn't particularly like this light-hearted ribbing but Bucky was putting money in his wallet so was biting his tongue.
Uncle Bucky: Anyway, what can I do ya' for? Guns? Ammo? Grenades?
Michael Callahan: I'm open to anything.
Uncle Bucky: Well that's interestin', y'see I got somethin' in a little while ago and I thought “Damn, Mike or at least John would be interested in that” but as it happens? None of ya's ever came in. I was gettin' to the point of just givin' up an' sellin' it but I knew you'd come back eventually. I think you'll like it. Wanna see?
Michael Callahan: Sounds great!
Uncle Bucky slipped behind a tattered camouflage tarpaulin and into the back of his shop while I casually observed my surroundings. Sometimes I envied Uncle Bucky, his merchandising of death to the disgruntled, paranoid and the keen hunters a far simpler plan for life than what I have to deal with. Plus coming to work every day to see walls upon walls of weaponry? I don't think that could ever get old. As Bucky returned through the old army tent material he'd used to partition the back of his shop, I noticed a dangling chain hanging from the ceiling and my curiosity was piqued. Bucky placed the rifle on the counter and pulled away the bagging.
Uncle Bucky: Here ya go monsieur, a-
Michael Callahan: What's that on your wall? Do you still sell spiked foothold traps here?
Uncle Bucky: What, that old thing? That's been on my wall for a decade now Mike. I'm not even sure if the state'll let me sell it no more. Why, you want it? Those things'll take a big, hairy bastard down in a heartbeat.
Michael Callahan: Nah... Just a curious little thing.
As Bucky said “big, hairy bastard” I couldn't help but cast my mind forward to the next episode of Asylum and how in a TLC match for the Number One Contendership match with amongst others, “The Soul of Philly” TJ. I made a mental note to try and sabotage his leg in the fight and prevent him climbing up that ladder and as I turned to the rifle I tried to cook up ways that I could do this effectively...
Amongst the towering skyscrapers of Seattle protruding into the sky like so many iron fingers reaching for God, one building of importance, the headquarters of The Seattle Press remained indistinguishable from the rest but of tremendous importance. On the thirty fifth floor of the historic building two department journalists were locking horns over a story that the younger, more bright-eyed of the two, Jonathan Edison wanted to run with while the senior editor Alexander Caine had other ideas.
Jonathan Edison: This is news Mr. Caine. This is things people want to hear about. Aside from that huge pile-up on Route 99? It's been a very quiet day. I think we should run with this angle. Callahan's a local celebrity and people will want this insight.
Alexander Caine: We're still in hot water with his people over that time we published “The Secret Life of The Pro Life Champion” when we had that tattooed broad give us the supposed inside scoop. Do we really wanna risk another lawsuit?
Jonathan Edison: We have evidence that can back this story up though. Think about it. At last years Washington State Republican convention he was the key note speaker. Now? He was barely a figment in the fifth row. And on the other side, his wrestling career is suffering too. Could it be that his failure in one is causing the same in the other, or that his twin careers are ruining each other?
Alexander was becoming restless and had grown rather weary of this conversation. His worn eyes told the tale.
Alexander Caine: Look, you do what you want. I'm going home. Just make sure you proof-read this one.
Jonathan Edison: Alright, good night Mr. Caine.
Alexander Caine: G'night, skipper.
The rifle that Uncle Bucky had been saving back for me was a Mosin Nagant bolt action rifle issued and recovered from the Vietnam War. He knew I had a soft spot for what many would consider America's most embarrassing hour if only because it symbolised the sheer might and power of our military. The craftsmanship was impeccable and clearly it had been looked after by its owners since the war. Although it wasn't going to be my first choice to defend myself with should a burglar enter my home, it would look fantastic over my mantle. I was polishing the fine wooden finish of the rifle when suddenly, my cell phone rang. An unknown number always spelt trouble for me but reluctantly I answered.
Michael Callahan: Hello, Michael Callahan speaking. Who am I speaking to?
Dr. Hannah Colbert: Hi, this is Dr. Hannah Colbert of Seattle General Hospital. We need you to come in immediately Mr. Callahan. It's urgent.
And to think... I'd only just got home.
