Daisuke Ikeda Vs. Yuki Ishikawa - 4/24/2005

II

You came to me as a ceremonial dagger. The last thing I hoped to ever see. It felt natural to see you like this, a weapon with a greater purpose. Maybe it was the way you looked tall even with your head tucked. Maybe it was how you were a fighter jet when you put your hands on your hips. I could never put my finger on it, but there was always something about you that made your capacity to hurt feel certain. But you never were cruel. You were just on the clock.

You look dapper these days, have you been taking care of yourself? You seem to have freshened up. You’ve traded grease for oil and leather for terrycloth. Maybe you always poured oil? It seemed like grease to me. Something just a little more grimey than what you have now. But you don’t look bad. You still look coy. You still look away. No, no that’s not quite right. You’re looking right at me. You’re looking into me, through me, past me. Past me? Boy, you really are a rube. There’s nothing after this. When all this dark nonsense is through, we’ll never travel again. 

I think back to the wintertime, how we felt as the cold swept through. I recall the ice that stationed us like amber, that chilling death which preserved us for the scavengers to come. Sometimes, I feel we are still suffocating under the snow. There are days where I get goosebumps and I see my own breath and I look for you but you never are there and isn’t it warm tonight? There are moments where I look for my blood but I never find it and I know you have stolen my veins to blanket you under the tundra and why aren’t I there with you now? Why aren’t I there with you now? I carry an icicle on my shoulder and I splat holly on my hip yet I feel so warm it makes me want to die and where did all the ptarmigan go? It’s lonely in the hull. It’s a mythless age on the lame vert sea. But isn’t that just the way?

Quit looking at me like that. We were both deserters. You were fantasizing with your starmongers and your stripescrubbers, but I was living, actually living, with Goliath. You sought scraps, lapping up slobber like it would get you anywhere. Was I any different? Maybe not. But I was there. I was really there. Not a guest, not a visitor, a presence. You hate me for it. I’m not blind anymore, I know where your confidence comes from. It’s because you’re standing next to me. You like me but you don’t fear me. Maybe it’s the frost in the air but I can’t keep myself from running sideways. I don’t think you’ve jogged a day in your life. You get what I mean, don’t you? It’s not my fault you found heaven in your 20s. You ought to rub your eyes and notice that there’s a real world everywhere you look. We don’t eat dreams, you know. We deserve something to show for the journey, you can’t blame me for seeking it out.

II

I’m so glad I get to do this. I woke up this morning and I visited a local confession box, because I was so excited that I felt guilty about it. Nobody should be happy in a situation like this, but I can’t help myself. I’m still smiling, even now. I figured that it was just concussion fever. A crossed wire or a loose tooth. Something. But the day grew nearer and nearer and the jubilation never dampened. It was new year’s every night. I could hardly get to sleep. 

The distance has nothing to do with it, I want to get that straight. People will tell you that the distance had something to do with it, but I need you to know that it had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t have cared less, I was happy for you, in fact. You finally got the courage to stop living in my hotel rooms, to quit tugging on my waist so damn tight. I still have the rugburn from the way you’d clutch me as we drifted down the road. You were a real sap, you know. I always figured you were trying to make us crash, but then you could’ve just messed with the bike. Maybe you just wanted it all to yourself. All this while, you’ve only ever wanted your own set of wheels. Congrats, champ, you finally got yourself a pair. Just in the nick of time.

And what a lousy ride it is. Is that why you went sailing for so long? So you could find this heap in a wreck yard off the coast? I can see the paint peeling off this thing, how much did you pay for it? Oh, that’s right. You stole it while the dogs were busy. That’s one thing you always had a knack for. You’re the leading authority in petty theft. Was it warm? Were you warm on the vert sea? I hope so. I hope you lost all the tenacity and anger you’ve ever had. All your verve, drowned in that doomed algae tide. Your rosaries tossed overboard as the lifeboats caught fire. If I were a betting man, I’d put some money on all that being true. Everything I said really happened, didn’t it. Nobody looks like you without a little panic. But what did you expect? You took a ride with two of everything, now you’re shocked to learn you’ve been split apart? Yeah, you’ve been cut down the middle, alright. You’re half the man I rode with through the north.

Do you remember the north? Do you remember how it felt? All comic book and supernova? The policecar lights that kept the road visible? Do you remember how we’d stop for a breakdance and how you’d always two-step without my say-so? You and your cowbells. We had a working horn, why’d you keep the cowbells? I don’t see them here. Is that how you got the ride? Did you make a deal with the salvager? Oh, I forgot. We’d already agreed that you stole the thing. How do you think the engine will hold when the frost kicks in?

II

It’s not hard to recognize the doubts. Lying comes so easy to them. The whole world circles ‘round, it doesn’t matter how you travel. The friend realizes this. Oh, how badly he wishes to tell the companion.

“Companion, don’t you see that we live on a hula hoop? We can’t go anywhere but here again!”

    But it’s not so simple these days. These days, he must use his words. He is forced to clarify what he means, to whittle it down to a definitive statement. There was never any defining the storm. They never had to do much talking at all in the storm. All the friend would have to do is point, and the companion would know instantly where he was pointing. Sometimes, it would require less than that. A single head nod could chart out their next week, all in that one blink of understanding. Sometimes, it would still require even less. They would need only live and feel and wish for the other to understand, and like prayer it would come true. They prayed so often. Always, always they would pray. To each other, to themselves, to nothing. But they would never pray to the same thing at the same time. It was as though their beliefs ran parallel.

But the cycle is long since gone now. Spring is just around the bend. Bluejays and robins will soon litter the street, their sickly saccharine tones yelling it’s not mitten season anymore. The world will be repellingly green. Heat will reign. But that is all soon to come. There are still ducks in the south, there are still carp frozen in the lake. They cannot glide anymore, but there is still time to skate. Watch again as the pact they made as children gets renewed now as men. There’s a knowing disappointment in the companion. There’s a burning submission in the friend. Bottoms up, one more for the road.

Ric Flair Vs. Big Van Vader - 12/27/1993

Bob Doyle was a little league wildfire. His friends called him Bob, but other players called him Bobby. It was a habit they were trying very hard to break. His coach, a washed-up schlub named Zachariah Hicks, planted the nickname when Doyle was still in the tee ball division. He wanted to demean him, to put the young puppy in his kennel. he wanted Doyle to be reminded of his age.

Yer a small fry, Bobby, and yer not the first. My coach used ta call me Zacky, y’know. But I grew up, son. I became a man. Who's the man in yer house? Is it yer daddy? Naw, it ain’t yer daddy. I seen him, I seen how he crawls through them corner stores. All them dollars goin’ inta a brown bag, that brown bag goin’ down his throat. You seen him too, haven’t ya Bobby? The way yer daddy moves like a slug? Was he the one who named ya? Did yer daddy give ya the name? I always hated mine fer givin' me the name. I din’t deserve it yet, ‘n’ ya don’t deserve it yet, neither. We earn our big names, Bobby. They shouldn’t be handed ta us right out the gate. When my woman got knocked up, I insisted we name the boy Sammy. He can be Samuel when he’s all up ‘n’ grown. Now, yer situation is a lil different. You get to be Bob once ya score us some goddam runs. Y’hear that? Ya don’t have ta wait till yer 30, kiddo! Ya can have yer big name in jus’ a cuppla months! Butcha gotta score us some runs. Big men get to home plate, big men bump the number up. Big men don’t take ta the bottle like yer daddy. Big men pick up the bat.

Seasons passed. Doyle would be at training most weeks, but there would be certain days where he’d have his apprehensions towards the whole ordeal. These feelings would sneak up on him, often in the innocuous hours just before leaving the house. Minding his studies, doing a chore, adventuring through his imagination, the activity made no difference. All at once, the most curious thought would creep into his mind, overpowering any amount of focus he applied towards his current situation. What was Coach Hicks up to? If he had to guess, he would assume that his Coach was getting ready to head to the field. He was probably going over the list of drills and routines, adding harder ones, striking out easier ones.

Or maybe he was already at the field, and he was already getting warmed up. Grown-ups have bigger bodies, he would need all that extra time. Or maybe, maybe Coach was already warmed up. He’s a pretty smart guy, isn’t he? He’d get all that stretching over with. No, it’s likely that he’s done warming up. Coach is already swinging the bat, he told Jimmy to arrive early, and Jimmy is throwing the ball at Coach. He’s knocking it out of the park, that’s what he’s doing. He’s winning, he’s splitting the balls at the seams and he’s winning. Gosh, maybe he’s winning so much that he’s getting bored. He’s getting tired of all this success, he needs to teach his team how to be this successful. Maybe he’s wondering where his team is. Maybe he’s wondering where Bobby is. Is he looking for him? Is Coach looking for Bobby? I bet he is. I bet he’s trying to find him right now. Doyle would stay home on those days, telling his mother that he had a stomach ache.

Hey, bud? Can I open the door? Okay, well, I’m gonna talk anyway, alright? Hopefully you can still hear me. I want to talk to you about baseball. Well, not baseball, but- Agh, you know what I mean. Have you still been enjoying it? Does it still feel good to swing a bat? Hah, I bet. Well anyways, I wanted to know if you still wanted to keep playing. Your mother and I thought it’d be a good way to keep you active while you were growing up, something to teach you the values of hard work and warm weather, y’know? But, well, you’re all grown now. Well, not grown fully, but you’re older, so- Agh, sorry. This would be easier if I could see you. The point is, me and your mom both think you should take up something new. It doesn’t have to be something totally new, you don’t have to join the art club or learn an instrument, you can still play sports if you want! But, well, we think it would be best if you moved on from little league. You’re not even little anymore, bud. What are you, Junior League? Or are you still in 50/70? It’s hard to keep track. Ooh, track, maybe you can take up track! I bet you’d like it. You always smile the most when you’re running the bases. Aw hell, you can still play baseball, Bob, but just join the school team, okay? Doddridge is known for having a stellar ball team, you’d be a great fit. We just don’t want you in little league anymore, okay? You’re bigger than that now. This is a compliment, I’m complimenting you right now. Can’t you open the door?

Bob Doyle grew up to become a fourth-rate businessman, operating a laundromat whose place in the town’s clothes-cleaning hierarchy was located somewhere in the low 20s. He still relied on outdated machines that had coin slots like a pinball table. Put in your quarters too fast and the machine spits it back out via a separate slot, unless of course it doesn’t, and then ol’ Doyle has to come out with a clothes hanger to tug the quarter back into the hands of the nimrod who couldn’t do it properly. It shouldn’t be that hard, you just put the coins in one at a time. Everyone should be able to do it. It’s a 24-hour laundromat which wasn’t his idea, but he can’t afford the place without the extra cash flow. Doyle mans the place until dinnertime, tagging in a broke high schooler to take over for the graveyard shift. When he arrives home, he apologizes for being so late. He has to reheat dinner, but she kept the food out as long as she could before storing it away.

How were the kids? Did they go to bed without a fuss? Good, that’s good. This meatloaf is delicious, it really is. Did they like it? That’s great. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for dinner. No, it wasn’t traffic. No, Billy was there to take over. I don’t have any excuse for being so late. I’ve been in the driveway for the past hour. I meant to come inside, left hand to God, I wanted to walk straight through the door. I got held up. I started thinking about my ball days. It froze me up, honest. I got to thinking about my time on the field and it shut me down. The car felt like a straightjacket. I know you don’t believe me. I know you’re thinking, I don’t see you freezing up when you’re telling guests about your career, but this is different. I started thinking about this boogeyman I used to have. I was a real wild kid, nothing but trouble, and that led to a particularly active imagination. It got away from me a couple of times. 

Sometimes, just before I’d go to little league practice, I’d start seeing this real disturbing figure in the room. Not just my room, but any room, wherever I was. It would tiptoe in, but it would sound like it was pounding down on the floor. I remember how it sounded real well, it sounded like a loaded question. The noise it was making, it was like it was asking me if I knew what it was. I knew better than to guess, or worse, say I don’t know. I just always ignored it, but it was always still there. One time, my dad heard me screaming and he rushed in to ask me what happened. I tried to answer him, but I kept mumbling and whining, I was a real mess. Dad got me some paper and a pen, he told me to write down what happened. He showed me the paper a couple years ago. It read “spiderweb in a bullsuit.”

Hell if I know what it meant. I mean, we’re talking about a scared little kid here. Kids are already incomprehensible, and then you add fear into the mix? It might as well be gibberish. Although, it did mean something to me back then. I really thought about it, I was terrified and I still wrote that down. Now, it makes as much sense to me as hieroglyphics. I feel like I let the kid down. I ought to remember what that meant. I remember how I felt. I still feel that way sometimes, I just felt that way right outside our house. The boogeyman still scared me, just as bad as it always has. That’s a little unfair, don’t you think? I can still feel like a child, but I can’t understand one. That just doesn’t seem right.

Well anyway, I don’t want to go to bed on a sour note. The wildest thing happened at work today, let me tell you to lighten the mood.

Just before I left, a couple of hooligans brought their laundry into the store. It was a small load, they were literally carrying handfuls of clothes, no bins or anything. The first guy was a real gangly type and the other looked quite average, all things considered. They split their haul into two different washers, which was a real waste of money since one washer could’ve held everything, but the first guy whipped out a pill bottle and that’s when I understood. He split up the bottle’s share between him and his buddy, that gave them five dollars apiece.

His buddy took a quick glance at me before readying one quarter in the slot, and his friend did the same. Then they counted down from three, and when they got to “go!” they started throwing the quarters into their washer as fast as they could. The lanky guy kept trying to find a rhythm, but he would always mess up the pacing and the quarters would roll back out over and over. His buddy just kept shooting them in rapid-fire, which wasn’t actually that bad of a technique. Their washers would get jammed, of course, and they’d have to do the wave of shame to get me over there with the hanger. I must have un-jammed those washers seven times before the night was through.

Eventually, the lanky fella finds his rhythm, and he starts getting quarter after quarter. His buddy is getting stressed so he starts going even faster, jamming up his washer again, and the skinny guy wins by the time I get his quarter back. Was I a little annoyed at the two of them for causing such a racket? Well, sure, but I gotta be honest. That was some of the best fun I’ve had in a long while, and I was just the referee! And the cherry on top? The right man won. Slow and steady, that’s how you get things done. You get a plan, you execute that plan smoothly, and you don’t get discouraged when the bumps start coming. He’s got a winner’s mentality, that kid. It really was a hoot, watching them play their little game. Yup, slow and steady. One step at a time.

Daisuke Ikeda Vs. Yuki Ishikawa - 12/15/1994

I

    I remember the day you tore up my notebook. You rode in on a motorbike and yanked it right out of my hands. You read the cover, flipped halfway in, and you took an honest look at my work. You rolled your toothpick back and forth, like a pendulum tracking your progress through my dotty outlines and vague ideas. I couldn’t see you through the haze of you but I like to think I saw you anyway. You saw me, at least.

    I remember how composed you were. You had grease dripping from your aviators that I knew came from your hair and your ride simultaneously. I figured that maybe the bike ran off of you, I don’t know. You sweat the kind of stuff that makes the cogs whir. The certain sorta something that makes motion possible. Whatever you wanna call it, that’s what I’d call it too. For now, I call it grease. 

    And you were grease, in the beginning. You soothed me and fed me and you talked to me about things I already knew. Maybe you didn’t get that far in the notebook, so you didn’t know that I knew. But I remember you getting pretty invested before you ripped it all up, so I’m not sure how much I believe that. I remember you holding the book with both hands clenched, visibly moving your entire head in agreement. You let out an audible “yes!” three different times. You even said “exactly!” as your toothpick dropped out of your mouth. Then you looked at me and you saw me and you nodded and you smiled and you tore my notebook clear in half. At least, I think you saw me.

    That’s what I never could like about you. You were always looking somewhere else. You have these flagpole eyes, the sort of vision that would kill other men, were they ever the ones responsible for seeing things the way you do. You knew it too, that’s what bugged me. That’s what’s always bugged me. You haven’t ever heard a joke before, and the things I’m serious about, you think that I’m kidding. You can’t even see the humor in that. I’d do anything to make you stop fucking preaching for the rest of our natural lives. But if you still wanted to write a little, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. Also, I wish you’d get rid of the greaser look. It was charming at first, but I’m beginning to think you don’t know who you are.

    You threw what was once my notebook high in the air, all of the assorted papers fluttering in their own unhindered directions. You pointed up towards the book and made a finger gun, gripping your wrist with your other hand for stability. All the papers made their silent departure with the wind. The hardcover fell back into your lap, heavier than when it left. It was only then that you fired.

“I’ve lived a photograph’s life.”

I didn’t know if you were speaking to me. 

I

        I came to you from the couch of God. You looked like a military child. A jovial little war machine. There was sacrificial blood on your shins, not that you noticed. I wondered: How did a youngster like you get so eager to hurt? Yes, you were a youngster. We were the same age, but you were young in your spirit. You prayed to doughkneaders and trumpet salesmen. I could see their rosaries around your neck, although you tucked them into your shirt when you saw me coming. That type of faith is the mark of any young man. A man who doesn't know God truly. Little children with diced brains would admire the same things as you do. Surely, you can see that.

    You had a bruised book in your hands. All things are bruised with you. You squinted toward me, struggling to make out just who you saw. You saw a man of higher power. A man right with the Lord. I saw “grand ideas” stenciled on the front of your book. I’ll be the judge of that.

…

    I tossed the cover off of my lap, which you stumbled to catch before it hit the ground. I offered you a ride. I wanted to know more about you. There was only one condition: You had to leave that flimsy cover behind. You flipped me off and started to walk away. I revved the engine, its sweet music stopped you in place. You know what it’s like to hear the roar, don’t you? It’s a fishing hook skewered into both of our hearts. All we can do is wait and be reeled. All good men are minnows, being tugged out of the sea by the great roar of desire. I knew as you walked back to me that you understood this. 

“You know, I don’t appreciate the distaste you’ve shown for my dream.”

“It’s bad work, you should respect honesty.”

“I do respect honesty. I said I didn’t appreciate it.”

“Then I don’t really know what it is that you want.”

“I want to accept your ride.”

You hopped on the back of the bike, your empty cover still held in your arms. I guess there’s some things nobody can let go of.

    You called it a dream. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about you. Dreams? We do not live in a dreamlike manner. We are real men with beating wills. Passion is what moves us, not dreams. You talk of cowboys and strongmen, crop circles and sausage links. You move like windmills and you balk at peace. You want for a carnival more than you ever could a monastery. It makes it so damn frustrating to know you as I have.

    I suggested to drop the cover one last time, if only to have a safer grip on the motorcycle. You waved me away, a superhero glean in your eye. You pulled the rosaries out from under your shirt, they were candied red, and you let them hang free atop your tee. I get the message. But believe me, this doesn't mean I'll stop trying. I love you too much to let you be so wrong.

I

    See these men, who are young in the way of loving things, as they share this road together. It is frozen over, and the wheels of their cycle skids and scrapes. Eventually, they’ll crash. They know that they will crash. But it’s okay, because they are gliding now. Right now, they are gliding. They are rocketing down the mirrored highway, and they are free. More importantly, they are together. Sternness and splendor. Mountains and oceans. Both on the same world.

    Together, they ride into the progenic hibernal. They share winter mouths as the cold breeze wafts in. It is frightening, facing the inevitable on the frozen road. But there are many great gifts waiting for them, and it is for these gifts that they keep on. The cycle will lapse against the ice, but it hasn’t yet, and for now they glide. Each with a silent prayer, one they will never tell the other they have made, wishing that they may glide only a little further, until the very last gift has been picked up from the brush. 

    There is another prayer between the two. One that neither even knows they want. As they huddle together in the chilled night, a faux-leather jacket as their only blanket, they wish for the road to thaw. They wish that one day, there will be puddles beneath their wheels. It is “their” wheels now. It’s been so long since the cycle was only his. That is precisely what scares him. When the road thaws, will his friend still need to bum a ride? When the sun comes out, will his cycle be lonely once again? 

    The friend is scared, too. If the road thawed, would he have to admit the awful truth? The truth that he has always wanted a little more than what the road provides? Or rather, their life on the road together. Yes, he dreams of more. He wants to see the land of mythologies. The silly fables that his companion always ridiculed him about loving. It would make his blood boil when his companion laughed about this. It was enough to make him hope for the crash to arrive. 

    The truth was they needed the cold. They needed the pressure that comes with the thin edge of total annihilation. They could survive alone, but it wouldn’t be as easy. And of course, it wouldn’t be as fun. But the road was indeed thawing out. Day by day, the weather got a little warmer. A third prayer, one that they said aloud together:

“May the cycle crash before the road melts. May we always be forever riding into the new white north.”

    Together, they would mark this prayer with a blood pact. One more drop upon the friend’s shin, one more scar upon the companion’s brow. This blood, the warmest thing in the world.

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.