The Ballad of Happy Pete

[Manhattan White]

~*~Manhattan White gets out of his taxi and meets Irish Pete on the sidewalk in front of their hotel. He gets his suitcase out of the trunk, and the two shake hands before wordlessly walk into the lobby. New Yorkers push past them on the sidewalk as the doors shut behind them and they check in without saying anything to each other. Manhattan White is clearly still nursing a couple wounds from One Night in Hell, as he moves methodically, slowly, and with purpose to avoid as much pain as possible. Manhattan gets the room keys and the two walk to the elevator, step inside and turn facing the closing doors. ~*~

IP: How’re you feelin’, laddie?

MW: Not too terrible. Still a little sore, but everything’s healed up pretty quick.

IP: Aye, ye’ll get used to that.

MW: I am. You asked.

IP: Aye.

MW: What about the big man?

IP: He’ll be here in time for the show.

MW: Yea?

IP: He just had to clear up that nasty little business with immigration when we came to find you in Mexico. He sends his best.

MW: It would have been nice to have a little bit more support in Japan.

IP: Aye, but they still won’t let him back on the islands. We’ve told you that.

MW: Yea, but you haven’t told me why.

IP: The Japanese, lad. They’re rabid wrestling fans, rabid. After he and your cousin parted ways, after that whole Enmity mess, he went back to Japan to gain some sort of balance. He wasn’t the same Happy. There was no grace, there was no flow to his matches. He wouldn’t work with his opponents. He’d just climb into the ring and run right through everyone. He was a terror.

MW: Jesus.

IP: No, lad. Jesus had nothing to do with it. He’d get in there and just demolish anyone and anything that stood in front of him. Tom Waits’ “I’m Big in Japan” would come out of the speakers and the arenas would empty out. Purists said he was a menace, a cancer on the face of the profession. And then, well, we won’t talk about that.

~*~The doors to the elevator open and the two step into the hallway.~*~

MW: No, tell me, tell me now. What happened?

IP: Lad, it was a nightmare. The Night of Iwo Jima, we don’t talk about that.

MW: What the hell happened at Iwo Jima?

IP: American soldiers stormed the rocky shores to take the island, it took days –

MW: Cut the shit.

~*~Irish Pete sighs and looks down the halls to make sure no one was around to hear what he had to say. Manhattan’s eyes grow wide and he leans down to listen.~*~

IP: There was a show that was being put on, on the island of Iwo Jima. It was being run by a rogue promoter, he was signing the most dangerous wrestlers in the world. Young guys signed on with the promise of no pay, trying to make a name for themselves. It was Happy, and criminals, and a bunch of kids. Essentially a commissioned slaughter of innocents.

MW: He…he killed people?

IP: Worse lad, way worse.

~*~Manhattan White’s eyebrows drop, as he’s now puzzled. The two get to their hotel room and walk inside. Irish Pete shuts the door behind him and he motions for Manhattan to sit.~*~

IP: As was a ritual for Happy since his return to Japan, before shows he’d find a local all you can eat sushi restaurant. He was a mere shell of his former self, an unstoppable scourge. He waddled his fat ass in to Hassan’s two blocks from the arena. He took the establishment at their word and ate every bit of food the place had. He cleared out their stocks, and when he still demanded more, the staff had to scrape from the leftovers of other customers plates. And when that wasn’t enough, the owner had to plead with other local restaurants to take whatever they could give him. He would have kept going, but word got back to the promoter of the show, and was displeased that Happy was still in the restaurant when he was due in the ring at any moment.

He sent his cousins over with a flatbed truck, they drug Happy out of the restaurant, with the help of some of the busboys and strapped him to the back of that truck. They drove into the arena, backed down the aisle and shoved him into the ring. The promoter was so disgusted with Happy, because he was essentially pulling a fat-Axl Rose, he changed the card so that everyone involved faced Happy. He thought he was going to teach the lout a lesson.

MW: How long did it take to recover from his injuries?

IP: Injuries? Lad, it was a bloodbath! The first five opponents that came down to the ring were teenagers. Happy just leaned against the corner post and stared off into space, with, like a post-coital gleam in his eye. It was sick. The five lads tried their best to pull him out of the corner to start the match, but they couldn’t move him. Finally, one of the poor sad sacks had had enough, got himself a running start and dropkicked Happy right in his bulbous gut. That right there was it.

MW: He fought back?

IP: Something like that.

~*~Irish Pete pulls himself up onto the coffee table at the foot of the bed and shook his head. His eyes glaze over as he revisits the night in his mind. A tear builds up in his eye and he wipes it away before coming back to Manhattan.~*~

IP: Son, the kick was so powerful that Happy was forced to turn around so he was facing out into the crowd. After all of that raw fish and rotten rice stewing in his stomach, that flying kick to his gut was enough to unleash all Holy-Hell.

~*~Manhattan snorts and cringes at the absurdity of what he is about to hear.~*~

IP: Happy’s ass exploded with such a forceful blast of green gas that the five boys in the ring were blown across the ring. They were clawing at their eyes, pleading for the crowd to help them, to save them. Lad, it was terrible. It was like watching footage from Vietnam, when the soldiers were playing with those old flamethrowers. Just, this blast of toxic green gas throwing them off their feet, destroying their central nervous system; the health department had to come and deem the building a public health hazard. The promoter was sued for millions on behalf of the owner’s of the building, the families of the five boys that lost their lives that night, and the people in the crowd for pain and suffering.

~*~Manhattan White chuckles and gets up to unpack. He opens his suitcase and starts taking some clothes out and lays them on the bed before putting them away. He stops laughing and looks at Irish Pete, who is still looking at him with a dead-serious face.~*~

MW: No way.

IP: Lad, I love Happy like my own son, but he’s a dangerous person. That night was one of the most horrific sights I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in the business a long, long time. I’ve seen all kinds of injuries, all kinds of bodies broken for the sake of a cheap pop. That was the foulest night I’ve ever had to survive. Happy saw what he had done and pulled into himself, stopped talking, stopped wrestling. When he gets here, you look into his eyes. You look into those sad, dead eyes of his, and you tell me that you don’t hear the screams of five scared Japanese boys, crying for their mommas.

~*~Manhattan snorts and looks away in disbelief before looking back to find Irish Pete slowly nodding.~*~

IP: It was worse than the night we made your cousin watch the first season of Teen Mom in one sitting.

MW: Holy shit…

IP: Aye…

~*~The two stare at each other for a long time. Neither move, they replay the horrors of their lives, the horrors that the world has seen over the centuries of time. Irish Pete thinks of Maci and Ryan struggling to keep their relationship alive over Bentley’s birthday cake. Manhattan tries to figure out what it would have felt like if Catelynn was his mother, and how terrible it would have been if she put him up for adoption. The two shudder before going about their business, wordlessly.

And then Irish Pete looks over his shoulder at the APW camera crew, finally acknowledging them and gives the camera a wink. He goes back to digging into his suitcase as the scene begins to fade. He finally breaks the silence without looking at Manhattan White.~*~

IP: Lad, why don’t you say something about Tommy Knoxville and Mike Morrison?

MW: Fuck them.

IP: Atta boy…