Post by Jules on Jul 12, 2013 6:26:02 GMT -4
Book IV: Pompeii
The Only Chapter
♫For he’s a jolly good fellow,
For he’s a jolly good fellow,
For he’s a jolly good feeelllloooow,
Which nobody can deny!♫
Raucous applause. Lenny Lansbury surveyed the room and he hated it already. He hated sycophants, the sort of empty platitude payers, at the best of times. In his own home, this was taking the fucking piss.
Cher took Lenny’s hand and led him into the room, through a sea of smiling cunts from whatever the fuck stood for New York’s ‘high society’, happy to come drink his champagne and eat his food, but would no doubt chat over the Frappe fucking latte-cinos at lunch tomorrow about that ghastly limey- like a horror story you save for the grand kiddies.
This wasn’t Lenny’s idea of a celebration; this wasn’t a party, it was an exhibition. I could tear into a few of these slags, undo a few of these blouses- these uptight bitches could do with being treated roughly by a real man for starts- get the plonk spraying, then we’d have a fucking party, Lenny told himself.
“Isn’t this exciting,” Cher whispered to him, “all these people came here to see you.”
“Oh yeah, love, it’s fucking grand,” Lenny said, not disguising the sarcastic lilt to his tone.
Cher gave him a sharp look, warning him to behave.
“I’ve worked with bent types my whole life, babe,” Lenny began, “and I’m telling you know I ain’t seen a bigger collection of crooks since I went to that filth charity ball with my brother. You can smell the shit these people spread into the world.”
“For me, please, be nice tonight.”
Mr. Black approached with a warm smile, arms spread for an embrace; Lenny blanked him.
“Congratulations Mr. Lansbury, you’ve done it. And tonight ‘Touchstone’ has put on this remarkable celebration for you. We’ve assembled some of New York’s finest tonight, and they are all here to celebrate your success.”
“Or for the free booze.”
“Well, what’s a party without a little champagne, eh? And ‘Touchstone’ are covering all the costs.”
“Wow, look at that, babe,” Lenny mocked, “how generous of this slag to cover the tab. It’s not like this cunt’s bulging bank account isn’t smeared in my blood.”
“Lenny!”
A busboy arrived with a tray of full champagne flutes. Mr. Black handed one to Cher and she smiled, feeling the luxury. He handed one to Lenny, then took one for himself. Lenny took a brief sniff of the wine, then handed the flute to Mr. Black
“I want a fucking beer!”
He stormed to the kitchen, snubbing the hollow, smiling faces on his way. The fridge was empty, they’d cleared all the beer out for this fizzy piss they were drinking. Lenny slammed the fridge door and punched it.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
Lenny turned to face his fiancé, slumping against the counter. Cher approached and took his hand in hers.
“Come and have a drink,” she implored, “you might find you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“With that lot of stiffs? There’s more life in the morgue, sweetheart? Come on, let’s get out of here, just me and you, we’ll go and grab a burger, a pint or ten, I’ll even by you one of them cocktails you like.”
“The waiters can do Manhattans here.”
Lenny pulled his hands from hers and walked away.
“Len, what is it? Mr. Black has come to so much troub-”
“Fuck Mr. Black,” Lenny barked. “I don’t want to hang around that slag, and I certainly don’t want to be around these people.”
“Len, are you so full of hatred that you can’t even see when you’re winning? This is success, Len. These people, this party, this is a symbol that you’ve made it.”
“Made it where? These people are leeches, they don’t care about me and they don’t care about you. This is a sideshow for them, and when they go back to their villas or wherever the fuck people like this live, they will have a laugh over their garden salads about the funny Englishman and his quaint bird.”
“We’ve had to put with people like this all our lives; they come onto our streets and patronise us with how we’re the ‘salt of the earth’, ‘the oil that keeps the cogs moving’. I seen the look in these people’s eyes a million times and they don’t like us, and they certainly won’t accept us.”
“Not everything is a big conspiracy, and not everyone is trying to drown you. Who’s got the ego now?”
Seeing the flush of anger in Lenny’s face at that jibe, Cher softens her tone.
“You’ve won, babe. You finally did it, you finally beat Sienna Harrison. Now you can move onto bigger and better things.”
“I’ve won? That’s the lies he’s telling you. I haven’t won anything, but I’ve lost everything?”
“You’ve got a draft, a better contract, better opportunities.”
“No, they will take my billing and they will take my championship. Meltdown is gone and with it goes my sense of purpose. Tell me, why should I have to trade in my spot at the top of one show to fill the bottom rung on another? I got no desire to be another pawn in the pantomime put on by Terry Marvin and his cronies. I ran this show; the people came to see me.”
“They will still come to see you. You can be number one again.”
Lenny shook his head.
“You don’t understand. Imagine you’re an artist and you spent all this time creating this wonderful fresco, or whatever they call ‘em. You put your heart and soul into it and it was displayed in full view for everyone to see, and it was loved by everyone. How would you feel about that?”
“Proud?”
“Exactly. Now imagine someone comes along and says, yeah we’re moving this now over there with all them other paintings. We’re not really bothered where it goes, and oh, this nice pretty frame it’s in, we’re taking that away. Better yet, we’ll use this canvas to paint something else on.”
Cher looked confused.
“My work on Meltdown is a bit like that. I took the North American Championship and I made it something sought after. It wasn’t just some token gesture for the farm hands to fight over, it became prestigious in its own right. Look at how many people have gone on to make a career just because they lost to The Guv’nor, because they have a North American Championship challenge on their CV.”
“Len-”
“I’m not finished. Now they’ll take this body of work away from me, or they’ll simply try and merge it with something else. I’m not the Tap Out Champion, the Suicidal Champion, or any other champion they got; I’m the fucking North American Champion.”
“My belt deserves to stand alone, on its own two feet. It’s two rich and it’s too valuable to be merged into something else, or to be simply cast aside for history to forget about it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m going to Meltdown Finale, I’m going to defeat Robina Hood and keep my championship. Then I’m going to Asylum and I’ll defend my title every single night if that is what it takes for people to recognise.”
“I’m not leaving my spot behind when Meltdown closes its doors. I’m not going allow anyone in a suit to tell me where or what my place is anymore.”
Lenny looks to the door, nods to himself then heads back to the party.
“Okay you bunch of fuckwits,” Lenny addresses the party, “yeah, I’m talking about all of you miserable looking cunts.”
The party is aghast. Mr. Black approaches.
“Mr. Lansbury, what are you-”
Lenny grabs Black by the throat and pins him against a door.
“I don’t like any of you, so I’m telling you all to fuck off right now.”
Some weasel-looking man steps forward.
“Do you know who we are? I’ll see to it personally that you are finished in this town.”
Lenny let go of Black and The Guv’nor stormed into the man, slapping the head on the him, dropping him to the floor.
“You what! Who the fuck are you, sunshine!”
Two kicks to the body, then eyes blazing The Guv’nor turned to the crowd.
“Do you know who I am? I’m The Guv’nor, and if you don’t FUCK OFF lively, I swear I will do every one of you slags like these two.”
The party deserts faster than the crew of a sinking ship. The Guv’nor grabs Black and the other bloke and evicts them by hand. He turns and sees Cher watching him.
“You promised.”
Lenny Lanbsury looked at the one remaning, petrified waiter and said.
“Two Manhattans, and make it sharp sunshine.”
Cher smiled.
*
From the archives of Action Packed Wrestling: The Guv’nor’s Gab (transcript #20)
After 113 days it’s finally going to happen: The Guv’nor rampage through Meltdown will come to an end.
Sad face.
But it won’t be down to the actions of an individual: Sienna Harrison, Robina Hood, Victor Hades- nah, none of them slags gets the privilege. In one Fate’s most pathetic strategies The Guv’nor reign of terror ends because of a fucking signature. The signature of the big cheese himself: President Jeff. Like an order from The President that is. DEFCON1 – it’s that fucking serious and no going back. Like the word of God that will be obeyed.
The little princess from Bucktooth, Ohio finally out stayed her welcome. You’d probably think I’d be the first in the queue to punt Sienna Harrison’s scrawny arse out the door, but I’ll admit this is a bit of a bittersweet moment for me. There’s plenty of slags around this company, many of them wrestling on some other brand, and I could have tootled on and smashed ‘em all up a long time ago, but there was just something so satisfying about seeing that wrinkled expression of frustration on darling Sienna’s face and knowing I put it there.
I’ll miss the old dog. But every dog has it’s day and now it’s time to wring this one’s neck. But my last bit of business on Meltdown doesn’t concern Sienna, it’s instead the other one: Robina Hood.
My dear old ma used to say I should be careful of women because they can create tangles and make your life complicated. I think she was just afraid when I was seventeen a dozen of the fuckers would rap on her door saying ‘your boy Lenny knocked me up’. Thankfully that never came to pass, but in a way my old ma’s prophecy came true; except this fucking crop of vagabonds has given me a different sort of earache.
Robina, sweetheart, it’s like we’re destined to do this dance for our whole lives. Honestly, I look at you sometimes and I’m never quite sure whether I want to fuck your brains out or bash them in. I guess we’re a bit like Romeo and Juliette. Love or hate? It’s not supposed to be, but we just can’t stay away from each other.
Actually, now I’ve had a chance to think about it I’ll definitely root for bashing your brains in...well, unless you throw in that red-headed popsicle as a sweetener.
You’re right though; this is how it should be: The Meltdown Finale, closed, topped off, finished, no, EXHALTED by the very best it has ever seen.
I look down the card and I see a lot of big names, and while people like C.J. Gates, Jason Kash, and even that lollipop Sally Talfourd may cause the show to sell out a little faster than it usually would, let’s not forget or get distracted that this night is about Meltdown, it is about the people who made Meltdown what it is.
It is about people like you and me. People who haven’t just competed on Meltdown, who can look back and say fondly ‘I started there’; it certainly isn’t about people who saw Meltdown as a stepping stone to something ‘better’. No, it’s about the likes of us who have bled for this brand.
I don’t like you Robina, and I doubt I ever will; there’s just too much bad blood not even leeches can fix. But I got more respect for you than I have for the rest of the Meltdown alumni combined. Not because you’re better, not because you fought harder, not even because I’ve beaten you so many times the very thought of you brings out happy feelings. It’s because you cared more.
This is a hard thing for some people to fathom. Types like Michael Jennings and Nathaniel Havok, they look at Meltdown from a distance, like they always felt they were above and beyond it. Michael Jennings, for all his hullabaloo about changing this and terrorizing that, he couldn’t wait to leave Meltdown even though the attendant who hands out soap in the gents achieved more than that fucking slag. Nathaniel Havok, that piece of filth only saw Meltdown as a pursuit of the North American Championship because he believed it would be some bargaining chip for him further down the line.
Am I glorifying what we achieved? You’re fucking right I am! People like you and me we made Meltdown not just competitive with Overdrive and Asylum, we put it up there with any show professional wrestling had to offer. It’s people like you and me that made people want to come to Meltdown. The Jerry Matthews, Jace Savages, and Chris Madisons of this world they got me and you to thank for building a show where they could expect to showcase their own talents on an even keel.
So we deserve this. We deserve this main event. C.J. Gates and Sally Talfourd will come and ride the tiger for one night to try and curry more favour with the audience, but let’s not forget this is about us. It is, as you pointed out, about our five-month battle for supremacy on this brand. So let’s not let these glory hounds take a drop of our moment, let’s take the show by the scruff of the neck and make Meltdown how we do Meltdown, and how we’ve been doing it all year long!
Let’s give one final spectacle that this brand, THE CHAMPIONSHIP, rich history and all it’s got, deserves. I don’t want people to remember the Meltdown Finale and think ‘it was when Sally Talfourd returned’ or ‘when Kash met C.J.’; I want them to remember it was the night The Guv’nor and Robina Hood put on a match that was as good as any Undisputed Championship match.
And most of all, it belonged to Meltdown.
But while I gush about what this match means, what it should mean, let’s not forget this is also about you and me.
Until you mentioned it, Robina, I never knew the score stood one-all in one on one matches. I could say you’re splitting hairs on that one, but then I can hardly stand here and say you give yourself too much credit by including tag matches as victories. But that’s all by the wayside as far as I’m concerned. We sit and talk and dissect each other’s records, who’s done what, how many you’ve wiped Sienna’s arse for here, blahblahblah.
What we both know is that none of this will be worth a penny when the bell rings, because none of this extraneous cobblers ever does when it’s The Guv’nor versus Robina Hood. It will just be me and you in the moment, one last struggle, a final decisive war from which the winner literally takes it all.
This is it. There isn’t going to be the hope of a 350th chance for you to beat me, or a re-match clause for the title. We’re playing gods on Monday, dabbling and controlling destiny, because I can guarantee after Monday nobody is going to remember Rasslemania IX; nobody will care that you threw me off the cage at Mayhem, but I still dragged myself up to put you through a table and win the match; that I have beat you in every match that has ever mattered will mean fuck all to me if I don’t beat you on Monday.
I feel the weight of history pressing against me, like everything that has ever happened to me has come together in this one decisive moment. That’s how big this match is. The only memory will be the Meltdown Finale; the only fact to draw people’s attention will be who won the last one, who was the last one: who was the last ever North American Champion.
I’m going to drag out the cliché and say this is our Waterloo. I don’t give a monkey’s bollocks for who is Napoleon and who is Wellington. This isn’t some childish game where we argue who gets to be the goody and who gets to be the baddy. This is war. It’s about two warriors. Unstoppable force, immovable object – all that waffle. There’s no good and bad to be decided here. I leave that for politicians and the self-righteous to decide. This about justice, and in war justice is about the strong prevailing and the weak crawling.
I have been the strong my whole life, and I’m not about to break the habit; not for anyone, and especially not for a rotten slag like you Robina. For five months I have dominated Meltdown from top to bottom, and I am one match away from being the best North American Champion there ever was. Yeah, I hear the platitudes, 100+ days and all that, and I’ll admit I have been caught in a moment of pride about that, but I also know none of that is true if I don’t end the best.
Monday night isn’t about one more time showing how I was MADE IN HACKNEY, this one is for Monday nights and the memory of how The Guv’nor the wrestler was MADE IN MELTDOWN!
End.
From the archives of Action Packed Wrestling: The Guv’nor’s Gab (transcript #20)
After 113 days it’s finally going to happen: The Guv’nor rampage through Meltdown will come to an end.
Sad face.
But it won’t be down to the actions of an individual: Sienna Harrison, Robina Hood, Victor Hades- nah, none of them slags gets the privilege. In one Fate’s most pathetic strategies The Guv’nor reign of terror ends because of a fucking signature. The signature of the big cheese himself: President Jeff. Like an order from The President that is. DEFCON1 – it’s that fucking serious and no going back. Like the word of God that will be obeyed.
The little princess from Bucktooth, Ohio finally out stayed her welcome. You’d probably think I’d be the first in the queue to punt Sienna Harrison’s scrawny arse out the door, but I’ll admit this is a bit of a bittersweet moment for me. There’s plenty of slags around this company, many of them wrestling on some other brand, and I could have tootled on and smashed ‘em all up a long time ago, but there was just something so satisfying about seeing that wrinkled expression of frustration on darling Sienna’s face and knowing I put it there.
I’ll miss the old dog. But every dog has it’s day and now it’s time to wring this one’s neck. But my last bit of business on Meltdown doesn’t concern Sienna, it’s instead the other one: Robina Hood.
My dear old ma used to say I should be careful of women because they can create tangles and make your life complicated. I think she was just afraid when I was seventeen a dozen of the fuckers would rap on her door saying ‘your boy Lenny knocked me up’. Thankfully that never came to pass, but in a way my old ma’s prophecy came true; except this fucking crop of vagabonds has given me a different sort of earache.
Robina, sweetheart, it’s like we’re destined to do this dance for our whole lives. Honestly, I look at you sometimes and I’m never quite sure whether I want to fuck your brains out or bash them in. I guess we’re a bit like Romeo and Juliette. Love or hate? It’s not supposed to be, but we just can’t stay away from each other.
Actually, now I’ve had a chance to think about it I’ll definitely root for bashing your brains in...well, unless you throw in that red-headed popsicle as a sweetener.
You’re right though; this is how it should be: The Meltdown Finale, closed, topped off, finished, no, EXHALTED by the very best it has ever seen.
I look down the card and I see a lot of big names, and while people like C.J. Gates, Jason Kash, and even that lollipop Sally Talfourd may cause the show to sell out a little faster than it usually would, let’s not forget or get distracted that this night is about Meltdown, it is about the people who made Meltdown what it is.
It is about people like you and me. People who haven’t just competed on Meltdown, who can look back and say fondly ‘I started there’; it certainly isn’t about people who saw Meltdown as a stepping stone to something ‘better’. No, it’s about the likes of us who have bled for this brand.
I don’t like you Robina, and I doubt I ever will; there’s just too much bad blood not even leeches can fix. But I got more respect for you than I have for the rest of the Meltdown alumni combined. Not because you’re better, not because you fought harder, not even because I’ve beaten you so many times the very thought of you brings out happy feelings. It’s because you cared more.
This is a hard thing for some people to fathom. Types like Michael Jennings and Nathaniel Havok, they look at Meltdown from a distance, like they always felt they were above and beyond it. Michael Jennings, for all his hullabaloo about changing this and terrorizing that, he couldn’t wait to leave Meltdown even though the attendant who hands out soap in the gents achieved more than that fucking slag. Nathaniel Havok, that piece of filth only saw Meltdown as a pursuit of the North American Championship because he believed it would be some bargaining chip for him further down the line.
Am I glorifying what we achieved? You’re fucking right I am! People like you and me we made Meltdown not just competitive with Overdrive and Asylum, we put it up there with any show professional wrestling had to offer. It’s people like you and me that made people want to come to Meltdown. The Jerry Matthews, Jace Savages, and Chris Madisons of this world they got me and you to thank for building a show where they could expect to showcase their own talents on an even keel.
So we deserve this. We deserve this main event. C.J. Gates and Sally Talfourd will come and ride the tiger for one night to try and curry more favour with the audience, but let’s not forget this is about us. It is, as you pointed out, about our five-month battle for supremacy on this brand. So let’s not let these glory hounds take a drop of our moment, let’s take the show by the scruff of the neck and make Meltdown how we do Meltdown, and how we’ve been doing it all year long!
Let’s give one final spectacle that this brand, THE CHAMPIONSHIP, rich history and all it’s got, deserves. I don’t want people to remember the Meltdown Finale and think ‘it was when Sally Talfourd returned’ or ‘when Kash met C.J.’; I want them to remember it was the night The Guv’nor and Robina Hood put on a match that was as good as any Undisputed Championship match.
And most of all, it belonged to Meltdown.
But while I gush about what this match means, what it should mean, let’s not forget this is also about you and me.
Until you mentioned it, Robina, I never knew the score stood one-all in one on one matches. I could say you’re splitting hairs on that one, but then I can hardly stand here and say you give yourself too much credit by including tag matches as victories. But that’s all by the wayside as far as I’m concerned. We sit and talk and dissect each other’s records, who’s done what, how many you’ve wiped Sienna’s arse for here, blahblahblah.
What we both know is that none of this will be worth a penny when the bell rings, because none of this extraneous cobblers ever does when it’s The Guv’nor versus Robina Hood. It will just be me and you in the moment, one last struggle, a final decisive war from which the winner literally takes it all.
This is it. There isn’t going to be the hope of a 350th chance for you to beat me, or a re-match clause for the title. We’re playing gods on Monday, dabbling and controlling destiny, because I can guarantee after Monday nobody is going to remember Rasslemania IX; nobody will care that you threw me off the cage at Mayhem, but I still dragged myself up to put you through a table and win the match; that I have beat you in every match that has ever mattered will mean fuck all to me if I don’t beat you on Monday.
I feel the weight of history pressing against me, like everything that has ever happened to me has come together in this one decisive moment. That’s how big this match is. The only memory will be the Meltdown Finale; the only fact to draw people’s attention will be who won the last one, who was the last one: who was the last ever North American Champion.
I’m going to drag out the cliché and say this is our Waterloo. I don’t give a monkey’s bollocks for who is Napoleon and who is Wellington. This isn’t some childish game where we argue who gets to be the goody and who gets to be the baddy. This is war. It’s about two warriors. Unstoppable force, immovable object – all that waffle. There’s no good and bad to be decided here. I leave that for politicians and the self-righteous to decide. This about justice, and in war justice is about the strong prevailing and the weak crawling.
I have been the strong my whole life, and I’m not about to break the habit; not for anyone, and especially not for a rotten slag like you Robina. For five months I have dominated Meltdown from top to bottom, and I am one match away from being the best North American Champion there ever was. Yeah, I hear the platitudes, 100+ days and all that, and I’ll admit I have been caught in a moment of pride about that, but I also know none of that is true if I don’t end the best.
Monday night isn’t about one more time showing how I was MADE IN HACKNEY, this one is for Monday nights and the memory of how The Guv’nor the wrestler was MADE IN MELTDOWN!
End.
