Genichiro Tenryu Vs. KENTA - 10/8/2005

       I’ve lived in Virginia for 15 years. I live in the Wolf Trap. 15 years is an awful long time. You grow restless. You grow rowdy. You’re always growing. I became a florist. It felt good to watch the plants grow. We were being raised alongside one another. Nurture was a handshake. Sunlight was a dotted line. My teachers suggested botany. I declined. I never cared for the why of it all. Why we grew. That’s a question for sedated people. Everything is getting taller all the time. You’re wondering why? Hah.

 It’s finding the beauty in the age that counts. These flowers, they change for me. They bloom in ways I’d never imagine. People compliment me on my bouquets. They ask me how I always make them so pretty. I don’t do anything. The flowers grow themselves. I don’t need to know how they do it. I need to know when to make them stop. They’re always altering. I’m the one that makes the call. I’m the one that cuts the stem. 

    That is the real job of the florist. You are watching over things that have to end. Have to. You don’t get paid if they keep on going. Nobody is happy seeing a flower well-aged. You have to watch them every day. From seed to seedling to bud to bloom. You must look at the loveliest image, and you have to ask the impossible question. Can you get any better? Then you kill it in its home.

I would look over flowers for days at a time. Hunched over the planter’s box. Breathing. Listening. Taking it in. Making the call.

    The painter’s palette. The prince’s feather. The bachelor’s button. None of these are real when you don’t make the call. The beauty is born through the death. Yes, they have to die. I place them in water. I keep them in stasis. Then they get bought. They get taken home. A lover sees them in the vase and smiles. No, it is not a rose if it lives. A wilted rose is no rose at all. Rockstars understand this. Why do you think they all die so young? Soldiers come to learn this, too. There are no young soldiers holding tin cups. There are thousands told in stories during the holidays. Great tales of how wonderful they all used to be. 

In my off hours, I set fire to forests. I’m looking for the Wolf. 

It’s out there somewhere. I can hear it when the sun gets low. 

    It hunts during the night. When the streets are vacant and the town is alone, there is a Wolf walking down the cobble. People tell me that the windows get foggy in the wintertime. I know it’s because the Wolf is breathing on the panes. It is looking into the homes and schools of everyone in the Wolf Trap, watching for the man who is lighting matches. 

    Nobody ever believes me. If there is a monster, then where are the bodies? They don’t quite understand. The Wolf is in the business of slow killings. It is a leaky faucet, not a waterfall. The drip, drip, drip of its quiet growl echoes through the ear of the sleeper. The drool from its rumbling maw pelts their resting forehead. People walk into my store and they tell me their wife needs a pick-me-up. What flowers help with a bad night’s sleep? They don’t see what it’s doing to them. The heavy eyelids. Scars on the tongue. The urge to punch the mirror. The pain in their shoulder when they reel their fist back. The unmissable sense that lately, it’s taking them longer and longer to get things done.

    But they tell me I’m crazy. They say I spend too much time in the garden. They say I should look into pollen allergies. Anything to sweep my words away as the silly ramblings of an unwell mind. Where are the bodies? They’re walking into my store every day. They breathe the Wolf’s breath. They tell me that predators are swift in their maulings. The Wolf is no predator. It is a hunter just like us. Who laid the Wolf Trap? It did. It set it up for you and me.  

But I know where it hides. It keeps to the wild woods. I know I can find it. I know it lives close.

    I know all this because it told me. There was a snowfall, and I saw the Wolf on a distant hilltop. It didn’t know I was watching. The Wolf was slow. It didn’t move like anything to fear. It had a beaten gait. The Wolf sniffed at the tufts of dandelions, their heads lightly peaking out of the snow. The Wolf pawed away the snow, it exposed the dandelions bare to the storm. The Wolf gently nipped at the flowers. Calmly, it uprooted them from the hill. It kept the dandelions held in its jaws, and it doggedly slumped down into the forest.

    I bought my first matchbook that day. What I saw was an aged, frightened thing. A sensitive little monster. For years, I’ve had to watch my neighbors breathe with the Wolf. An unending line of shambling men. I thought it was a horrific thing. I thought it was dangerous. But it was weak, a thousand lashings marked its coat. Where was the nightmare that roamed through chimneys? Where was the poison that worsened our days? The care, the disgusting care that the Wolf showed those flowers, why had it never shown us? Beasts cannot retire from being beasts. The Wolf cannot just up and choose to be kind. Not after everything. Not after all the pain it’s caused others. Not after all the doubt it has cast on me.

No, I don’t accept what I’ve seen. I won’t allow the Wolf to ache. It has no right to be worn. It has no permission to hurt. 

So I strike a match. I look into the many-acre woods. I seek out the fragile agent that has bruised so many spirits. I clench dandelions in my fist. I spit the ground they held. 

There’s a snap, a low crack in the distance. The glint of its eyes reflects in the dark. The Wolf is here. It is hobbling towards the halo. 

    I stand with confidence in my fiery domain. Yes, this is my domain. Not yours. It was never yours. But still, the Wolf approaches. It moves slowly out of the night, the details of its existence growing clearer with each new pace. I can see all the matted fur tufts, the numerous knicks and tears on the ears and snout, the bone exposed on the rightmost leg. Cataracts in the eye. 

Look at it. Really, look at it. Look at the destruction of pride before your eyes. Head high, tail aloft, growling through chipped fangs. Too dumb to even know it.

I throw the dandelions towards its front paws. 

“ Recognize the situation. Those could have been you, once. You were perfect for a time. The Wolf Trap lived off of you. Your growl started the car engines. Your paws dug the aqueducts. The perfect hunting grounds for you to have your fill. The slow death of men in the hall. Nobody ever even knew it. Who laid the Wolf Trap? You did. You set it up for us. You became a myth, a conspiracy. You ought to see the way people look at me when I speak of you. They look at me. Oh, the way they look at me. You really should have seen it.

But you won’t. Because you’re old now. You’re no longer any sort of rose. You know it, don’t you? I’ve seen the way you care for these flowers. These weeds. You’ve been hunting us for too long, now. The flowers won’t bring your age back. The flowers won’t save you. You should’ve killed yourself when you were still in your prime. Nobody would’ve ever known you’d died. I certainly wouldn’t have. I’d still think you were out there, the great Wolf in the Wolf Trap, prowling endlessly into the night. Your image, your reputation, as pristine as the day you laid the brickwork.

When I bring you home, that’s all going to change. The people will see your broken body. They’ll see your fragile husk. They’ll know that I was right. They’ll finally see you for the first time, and this will be your legacy. A burnt pup, wounded and pitiful.

But you don’t see that. You walk tall, as best you can. You still think you’re that hunter. You still think you’re worth the risk. You aren’t worth anything anymore. I hate you for that. I hate how you’ve ruined yourself. I won’t even feel proud when I drag your carcass home. But you’ll be dead. Finally, you’ll be dead. And that is all that really matters. ”

The Wolf stood in silence. Then it stepped forward. Then it shook its head. Then it struck. That was that.

Necro Butcher Vs. Super Dragon - 9/2/2006

       I always had a thing for sparse highways. Jackie always loved when the roads were empty, he said it made him feel like a swimmer. I never got behind that. A road with nobody on it means you’re driving without witnesses. I felt free whenever I sped down a lonely road, so I knew where Jackie was comin’ from, but I never felt quite as free as when there were onlookers in the other lane. Checking the speedometer was for pussies. Lookin' in the rearview was too. But lookin' at the driver in the cube car as I careened towards Heaven, that was a distraction worth takin’ my eyes off the road.

    There’s a power in their look. It’s a fuel source. You chip away at that notion of safety they covet. The idiotic idea they’ve all got, thinkin’ that there’s a car between me and them. There’s metal. Not that I’d ever run anyone down, at least, I don’t think I would. I’m just sayin’ that they don’t realize what a road’s really worth. I catch that glance for milliseconds at a time, the perfect moment in which my eyes lock with theirs before my ride barrels on, and I know I’ve made a dent in their mind.

Sometimes, I don’t get exactly what I want. I can see that they’re surprised, but they’re angry more than anything. They’re upset that I’m being such an ass. The idea that hey, I could veer you off the road in a heartbeat, that doesn’t overpower their own self-righteous cause to tell me what an ass I am. I could hurt somebody. Some of these people honk, like I’ll even be able to hear that over the horses. I don’t like it when they do this. I feel cheated. There is one silver lining, one beautiful fact that doesn’t end my high prematurely. I didn’t get ‘em today, but someone will. One day, someone’s gonna let that holy prick know the reality of things. Metal separates you and me. That’s all it is. I couldn’t get that through your thick skull, but you’ll learn it eventually. I made it just a little easier for whoever tries to teach you the lesson next.

One time, I got a little too big for my britches. I built up a bit more speed than necessary, and I skidded down an off ramp into some podunk plot of land. The car willed itself into a parking lot. I didn’t understand how, or at least at the time I didn’t, but I’ve come to understand it nowadays. The good Lord wouldn’t let me crash before I saw this day through. I already knew that much at the time, but I figured it was just His way of awarding a man of faith for his determined nature. Now, I realize it was because He wanted to make sure I went out the proper way. With witnesses.

I stumbled out of the caddy, looking up to the establishment that I found myself in the presence of. It had a flat roof, white walls, and no signs. “AL’S CANTEEN” was painted on one wall in pure black. Strangely enough, the bars covering the windows were pristine. I didn’t see the slightest bend in any one of ‘em. There weren't even any rust.

    I kicked the door open. Force of habit. It was a shithole in there, with a low light that hid most faces from me. The kinda lighting that was meant to keep folk anonymous from one another. Nobody wanted to admit they were here. I sauntered through the place, someone queued up a jukebox diddy, but the poor thing’s speakers were so blown out that I couldn’t tell what they were playing. It felt sacrilegious, hearing that machine wheeze through the song. It didn’t make much sense to me why people still put it through the hardship. Show some damn respect.

    I heard a cough from behind me, and I swiveled around to see someone sitting on a barstool. It was hard to make ‘em out in that light, but I didn’t have to see everything to know who I was lookin’ at.

“Jesus, Jackie, did you at least sue the bus driver who did that to your face?”

    That’s what I wanted to say. I planned it all out. See, I hadn’t seen Jackie in my entire life. For as long as I rode the Earth, I never met my true best friend. I knew him from before all this. Back when the two of us were nothin’ more than mildewy essence. Oh, we had a wonderful time as mildew. The most fun you could ever have bein’ anything at all. We rolled and we swayed and we rocked and we mostly swayed but I promise you there was never anything to it. It was all so natural. It felt like I knew Jackie long before even that. However far back things go, that’s where I felt we first met. When my mama first held me in her arms, I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. I didn’t wanna see her. I didn’t wanna let Jackie go. 

    I roamed and I wandered, lookin’ for him. All my life, I’d been thinkin’ of introductions. What I’d finally tell him when I saw him for the first time. I had a whole speech all planned out, once. It got beaten outta me over the years. I took what I remembered and I shortened it down to about a paragraph, but the bastards kicked that outta me, too. I settled for just a sentence. Something short and succinct. I didn’t know what Jackie looked like, just what he felt like. It was hard, comin’ up with something to say to a feeling. I decided on one thing. Wherever Jackie was, I knew he looked a helluva lot like me. And I looked like the most broken man. I stood in front of the mirror, must’ve been hours before I left that bathroom. I stood and I looked and I talked to myself as if I were Jackie. I tried out all the lines, every one I could think of. I didn’t wanna leave nothin’ to chance. I’d been waiting for longer than life itself to meet Jackie. If you were me, you’d be picky too.

    I saw Jackie sittin there, working down a beer there on his stool. The damn lights made it impossible to really get a good look at him, but I knew it had to be my ol’ buddy Jackie. I saw myself, like I was lookin’ at a fogged up mirror after a good shower. All the particulars were missin’, but you couldn’t mistake the figure. Jackie didn’t seem to recognize me. I didn’t take offense to it, I’d been through a lot in my day, so maybe the idea Jackie had of me got real scrambled-like since he first thought me up.

“Jesus, Jackie, did y-”

    I got no further in my introduction before Jackie whipped his beer bottle across my head. I didn’t feel it, but the blood told me that it hurt. We both didn’t do much talkin’ after that. I grabbed him by his hair, and I headbutted him clean across the nose. Jackie stumbled off his stool, and we brawled out of the canteen into the parking lot.

    I knew I found the right man. Every time he hit me, I lurched back in time. I felt myself intertwined with how we used to be. When I hit him, I could tell he was goin’ through the very same thing. We fought and we fought and we swayed and we moved and we fought some more and I swear to Christ I never felt anything so easy. Jackie came rushin’ after me, slammin’ me onto the hood of my own car. I was splayed out on the windshield, trying to regain my bearings, but he hopped up on the hood and stood over me.

“Tell me.” Jackie said.

“What separates you from the ground?”

“It sure as shit ain’t no car.”

I let out a laugh. My cackle rang out through the holes in my smile.

“You got that right, Jackie. It ain’t no car.”

“It’s metal.”

“Metal keeps me from the ground.”

Jackie leaned down, he grabbed me by my shirt and he held me up to his face.

“What makes you think I can’t put you through this? Huh?”

He spat at me. Spittle ran out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

“There is nothing made of man’s design that could keep me from sending you into the Earth.”

He slammed me down into the glass.

“Don’t look at me like that. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He punched me across the jaw.

“I will make you into a widowed fawn. I will slaughter the idea of you. You are sick. A nameless, red-eyed hobo, trying to get handouts in my fucking town. You don’t scare me. I don’t even know who you are. Who are you to me?”

“I-”

He slammed me against the windshield again.

“Do you know who I am to you? I ain’t your friend, and I ain’t your Jackie. I’m your reminder. I’m your wake-up call to understand one thing: You’re one step from death every time you leave the house. Do you know why? Because people like me know you’re out. People like me know you're coming for what's mine. You're coming for what's mine, ain't cha? You want what's mine? Fuck you. You can have my words, and whatever specks of my blood made it onto your clothes. You want anything else? You'll have to get up and try again."

    Jackie let go of my shirt, hopped off the car, and walked back through the door of Al’s Canteen. I hobbled up off my hood, and I slowly got back in my caddy. I tried to start it up, but the engine wouldn't get goin'. I decided to hoof it. I limped down the streets of this nothin' town, tryin' to find my way back to the highway. I walked for days and days without rest, and eventually I had to take a breather in an alley. I vomited up bits of Jackie onto the floor. I leaned up against a dumpster, and I collapsed down into my own spew. I never felt anything even half as good. I closed my weary eyes, and I dreamt of the parking lot where I found my best friend.