What Really Ties The Glue Together (Jutter Ball)

“Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, I would like to welcome all of you to the inaugural Joe Fontaine’s Kickin’ Jowling Jeague.”

It’s the type of opening speech you’d never expect out of Étienne’s Bowling and Beer out in Montreal, delivered by a dipshit in a sparkling green suit wearing a tag team championship belt around his waist. He also has a basilisk green shawl, because a shawl is better and more powerful than a mere scarf. His speech isn’t being delivered in the tone of voice appropriate for a large group of children. No, this one’s being delivered while channeling the spirit of Bill Pullman from Independence Day.

“Today, we will no longer be consumed by our petty differences! We will be united in our common interest of jolf! And jowling!”

FLAMBERGE is there, too, by the way. You likely couldn’t tell if he was paying attention to Joe’s speech behind his tape-repaired sunglasses (thanks Anna for breaking another thing of Julien’s, very cool and mature move, again) but his body language suggests that he isn’t the most comfortable with this situation. After all, there are children present - children he’d like to be cool with - and none of these children were even alive when Independence Day was out. Hell, most of them weren’t alive for the shitty sequel.

If you’re wondering exactly why Joe and FLAMBERGE are in this bowling alley, talking to children about some jowling jeague, well… Today is a big day to make wishes come true, and stocks AND stonks had never been higher for Glue. So, a lot of these kids got the opportunity to meet REAL PRIME wrestlers, and naturally, you go with such a beautiful face of the company like FLAMBERGE.

And… You know, Joe Fontaine just sort of happened to be along for the ride, I guess?

He always just happens to be there.

“We’re fighting for our right to live, to exist! To jolf!”

Mind you that deep down, Joe is furious that some nerd in the graphics department thought it’d be very funny to put the ReVival logo over his face for the nice number of ReVival. It’s his first main event in nearly two years, and you can’t see him. It’s like he’s a Doozer. Nobody wants to be a Doozer. Clearly, he needs to do something to rectify this situation.

“Now, let me show you my balls!”

What.

Joe Fontaine holds up two bowling balls in his hands. One is a very light blue, with lizards covering its surface. The other is an obnoxious sparkling green, the kind that you probably shouldn’t leave out in the sun if you don’t want to blind everyone in a one-mile radius of you.

“Kids, I’m about to teach you how to jolf my balls!”

Please stop saying that.

“It’s important to allow for a proper and gentle stroke when dealing with my balls.”

Holy shit, stop.

Even FLAMBERGE seems alarmed by the direction Joe has taken this speech. Maybe. Again, it’s hard to tell what his eyes are focused on beneath those too-big, barely-holding-themselves-together sunglasses of his.

—--

Alright, I gotta step in.

Joe, it’s that scraping sound of knives in your head again. Sup. You should probably stop talking about balls. Read the room.

Anyway, I heard you’ve got some beef with Anna Daniels and Rob Williams. Again. Might as well open a butcher shop for all that beef. Powerslam Anubis knows I gotta be useful for something as your knife.

You’ve already settled that whole scarf situation with Anna in your head, I’m sure. I’m in here, after all. I know. Everything about that should’ve been evenly Stevenly Universally over ever since you jolfed the perfect game at Culture Shock and helped Glue claim all the belts in a single night. Mind you, still don’t understand the rules of jolf, how you can have a “perfect game,” or why “e” is a valid score alongside “2 under par.” Either way, you finally got that belt you couldn’t win with Sid because you teamed with someone who could do more than one goddamn move. Wahoo.

Of course, you’ve had to have heard all of that nonsense Anna keeps saying with her myriad of brain mouths, and you’re turned off by all that dank entitled nihilism. You know, the kind that reacts to losing by claiming that nothing actually matters and you didn’t really win and she acts cooler and smarter than everybody else and blahblahblah. Hence why she is The Complainer What Complains. 

She’s so up her own ass that she doesn’t even know what she’s mad about any more. The best thing you can do about it is to beat the ass which she lives in with the 6-iron, maybe the 7-iron if you’re feeling frisky, and then respond to all of her complaints on Jabber with an “ok.” 

Rob’s a bit different. That’s the guy who ran a cult, crucified a guy once, tried to set a different guy on fire, looks and acts like a doddering shell-shocked funhouse mirror version of Terry “The Draw” Woods, and is now threatening to shove your head up FLAMBERGE’s perfectly toned succulent ass. In other words, he’s an Arthur Pleasant that might actually be competent at wrestling matches.

Perfectly normal, I know. 

But I know you. 

I’m the you of knives, after all.

He’s the one you have a real grudge against now.

After all, he came up with that whole cockamamie bullshit where he pretended to have cancer, and you’re big mad about it. But not for any of the reasons that most people were mad at him over it. You know, “you lied to us” and “how could you do this” and blahblahblah. That ain’t why you’re mad.

You’re mad because he thought of it first.

Think of all of the potential! What if you pretended to get some version of lymphoma (let’s call it Best Syndrome) that you could’ve conceivably still wrestled with! That could’ve been you! You could’ve ridden that cancer train all that way to Attentionsville, population YOU. You could’ve been this generation’s Kyle Lamen! Think of how much you could’ve milked that!

And then fuckin’ Rob (it’s always a fuckin’ Rob) ruined it for you!

Man, fuck Rob Williams, all my homies hate Rob Williams. And my homies are your homies, bro.

Keep in mind, though, you’re dealing with people so brainkrupt that they think “Fuck Your Tag Team” is a cool tag team name. They don’t care. They only give fucks for tax reasons. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s time for the two of you to finally audit the Poor Whoresmen. You will take those fake-ass belts they’ve been running around with and you will make a new jolf club out of them. You will take back your… ugh, fabby, because Anubis knows that that fabby really tied the room together.

And you will remind them that Anna Daniels is not the only one with a knife.

Now, for the love of Anubis, stop talking about your balls in front of the children.

—--

FLAMBERGE sees that Joe is struggling.

Well, struggling is the wrong word. More like flailing. Jlailing? It’s a lot of balls talk for him, which is fine in a surprising number of PRIME-related situations, but maybe not this one.

What with the kids, and the wishes being made for them, and - oh dear.

FLAMBO catches a sight out of the corner of his eye that he hadn’t seen before - a flyer about this event, at this bowling alley.

The Glueminati is advertised, alright, but the faces on the print-out absolutely belong to Cecilworth and Hayes. Are FLAMBO and Joe even on there? Hang on - yep, there they are, there’s text in front of them. Some of it’s covering Joe’s face, too.

Art imitating life imitating art for that guy. It’s not an ideal situation. He’s not even ugly.

It’s time to help his friend out.

“Joe - alors, Joe! Ouais, allow me to assist with this part.”

FLAMBERGE rises from his seat and, in fact, takes his rigid plastic seat with him as he walks up to the balls in Joe’s hands.

“You see, children, it’s all in the hips.”

He holds the feet of his non-sanctioned jolf club and starts swaying a bit from side to side. Joe sets the lizard ball on the ground about three or four feet behind the foul line (though it’s fair to ask if there are fouls in jowling. Are there? Who knows.)

“You keep your eyes on the target, like this -”

He whips his head down the lane. The sunglasses continue to whip past and end up falling to the ground. The tape doesn’t hold up, and they’re split in half again. It looks like a lens popped out this time.

A few kids laugh, and one of them chimes in.

“Is Cecilworth coming?”

Is he, FLAMBERGE?

FLAMBO freezes for a second, not expecting

me to be HERE, did you? Well, I get it. You’re “for the children” and all that, I know. And you’re with your pal Joe! We like Joe! We like kids!

Break the ball in half with that chair.

FLAMBERGE suddenly whips back with the chair in anticipation of the biggest jowling tee shot of his life - the chair slips out of his hands.

It flies backwards into the assembled group of kids, nurses, and volunteers. The people nearest to where the chair ends up clattering to the ground jump and spin and yelp out of instinct.

I didn’t know you played Wii Bowling.

“Alors, sorry about that kids, that’s, uh…a special jowling technique. We call it the…”

He looks to Joe for some sort of guidance. Joe’s just as wide-eyed as he is.

“...theeeee FLAMBO Yeet Troubadour Technique. Yes. That.”

You’re welcome. If it’s uncontrolled amateurish flailing about that puts innocents in harm's way, and you want to pretend it’s a very real thing that people should care about, it’s probably the ol’ FYTT.

Blame it on not having your league-approved jolf clubs. Blame it on fabby not being here to carry those clubs. Blame it on the two people who apparently kidnapped fabby like three shows ago (for real? Was it that many?) so that he’s not here to carry those clubs.

Blame it on you and Joe. You’re too good together, and you’ve made a team that loses and loses and keeps on losing get Big Mad over the way you win and will keep winning.

They kidnapped Joe’s fuckin’ fabby, dude. And it did tie the room together, did it not?

Did it not?

FLAMBERGE quickly retrieves the accidentally-tossed chair. Some of the kids are giggling about it now that they’re not in immediate danger, though one little boy is crying which is NOT great. FLAMBO approaches him.

“Alors, sorry guy. Would you like to take a swing? Ouais? What is your name?”

In between sniffling sobs, he responds.

“D…Don…”

“Don! Everybody, give it up for Donnie!”

FLAMBO gives young Don a couple pats on the back, and the kid quickly wipes away any new tears that may be forming. A smattering of claps from the assembled. He’s not looking like he’s in GREAT shape health-wise, but he’s ambulatory, and that’s honestly all you really need in order to go jowling. If that.

“Alright Donnie, go ahead. Give it a shot.”

FLAMBERGE hands the kid the chair, legs-first of course. Don takes them with some hesitation.

“Uh…excuse me, sir? Mssr. Berge?”

FLAMBO blinks at this.

“Ouais?”

“What am I supposed to do? What are the rules?”

FLAMBO locks eyes with Joe. Joe mouths: “Rules?”

FLAMBO shrugs. Joe shrugs back.

You teach them how to bend the rules, THEN you teach them the rules. It’s Glueminati Jolf 101, which is taught in the Glonference Room next to the Guite with the VENDBERGE in it, which contains parts from the Farthington Manor maze where the end is never the end. Make sure it’s not booked for a funeral.

Stock tip: Funeral futures are HIGH. Funertures.

Junertures.

…ahem.

“Donnie, just…remember what I taught you, ouais?”

He looks upon his young ward with hope.

Don, stone faced and expressionless, nods with determination.

And he starts to swizzle his hips.

We’re pretty sure if someone tossed a hula hoop over his head right now, he’d keep it spinning.

“It’s all in the hips, Mssr. Berge.”

As serious as a heart attack, Don focuses his attention on the lizard-covered bowling ball, still sitting on the ground.

“And eyes on the target.”

FLAMBO was sure there was supposed to be more to it than that, and remembered that future tips and tricks were planned after first completing a successful jowl of the ball; how we’re changing the future of sports, the way the world views the smashing of two things together to make one singular broken and better thing, and the criminally under-researched possibilities that projectiles offer to the world of professional wrestling.

Which is a lot of words! There’s not enough time to share all those words! And Donnie’s already on his way forward, charging the bowling ball - and it has to be said - with a less slippery grip than our lizard friend’s.

FLAMBO only has a split second to try to get any last advice out before Donnie breaks something. He blurts:

“GLUFRENSTIKTOGETH!”

This breaks Don’s focus at an inopportune time, which is to say the forward-swing of the impromptu jolf club. He almost slips, but catches himself enough to

THUNK!

the bowling ball - probably not at the angle he wanted, though.

…

It’s true. A worst-case scenario. It’s a Jutter Ball.

Joe pipes up.

“Maybe he should’ve been wearing his jowling jhoes, right, kids? And that’s an important reminder - safety. It’s a word. So is jafety.”

…

Jutter Balls are interesting things, in that they’re very very similar to gutter balls - just slow as FUCK.

Old men rolling a ball down a lane after their third beer have slow gutter balls, if they should ever roll one down a bowling lane. Ten-year-old Wish Makee’s, they too have slow gutter balls.

But at least they’re rolling a ball with their hands and arms in an intentional swinging motion. A Wish-Receiving Child hitting a stationary ball with a plastic chair at an off angle? That one, a true Jutter Ball, has about as much forward momentum as a snail riding a surfboard on molasses - slowness recontextualized.

And so we are forced to watch this ball roll down the jutter, and roll, little by little, as agonizing seconds pass.

…

I’ve seen worse.

From you, actually. And that’s fine.

At least your failures are spectacular.

…

All your bravado and swagger in the ring, all your aloofness that can turn on a dime into relentless in-your-face aggression outside of it, all the ludicrous coats and the attention-grabbing antics - it seems to do something to certain members of this roster.

Why is that, FLAMBERGE?

Is it fear of their own mortality? With Rob and Anna, is it fear at all? 

The first one tracks and makes sense for most of these people - your Brandon Youngbloods, your Anglue Gluechadors. Notorious olds with bones held together with a rubber band and a prayer, perpetually one match away from the end of it all. You’ve helped both of them inch closer to that finish line just by your presence, let alone with what you and the Glue Crew have done to them inside and outside the ring.

Anna’s bricked enough in the head to think she’s going to live forever, or that all death is meaningless, or whatever new way she finds to say the same thing she says again and again when she thinks she’s earned something she hasn’t: “nothing matters”. She’s infected the Gend with that shit, too.

I’d say “Fucking Whoresmen”, but Rob and Anna really are just weak, Nihilist, olds. 

Say what you will about Fred Dick, at least doing something completely insane like chopping off your dick to prove you aren’t cowardly is an ethos. But Nihilists? Fuck me.

Shrug off your make-believe chains of oppression and return to the roster the precious minutes and seconds of their lives you steal with your constant bitching about how other people are “chosen”, or how you’re “held back”, or that other people are “just given opportunities for no reason”.

You want to know the reason JOEBERGE got a championship opportunity so quickly? It’s the same reason they won the championships.

The Glueminati is the best team in PRIME. Period, end of story, that’s it.

Pick any two. Call it the Gluebird Grule if you’d like. It’s honestly why the gang thought it wouldn’t be a big deal for Joe and FLAMBO to represent the Glues at this wishmaking thing.

(Speaking of - how’s that ball doing?)

(Still rolling? Hasn’t stopped. Huh. Mesmerizing.)

(It’s about halfway down the lane, now. If it stops, we’ll definitely have to call over someone who works here.)

(I wonder if this is fast enough to even be one kilometer an hour?)

(...)

(The slow, determined roll of a ball that may or may not ever make it to its destination. The roll of a ball who may not have meant to be there at all, but damn it - it’s determined to at least press on, on, either forward or not at all.)

(A ball with grit. A ball that’s not asking for any favors, at least not yet. Driven along by forces that may be beyond its comprehension, even in the face of inevitable failure; this ball will never knock down those pins on this roll, but at least if it keeps going, it could reinvent itself next time. It could do better.)

(...)

(THAT ball)

(has about 1000 times more character)

(than Anna Daniels and Rob Williams.)

…

Because at least that ball never kidnapped an innocent piece of furniture, the lowest of the Glues, the burdensome but occasionally necessary bag man that makes jolfing more convenient.

At least that ball never pushed a Lamborghini worth 6-figures into the bottom of the San Diego Bay, and then years later snapped your sunglasses in half. The most petulant immortal being ever, the choke artist who’s lost every major match of her life since War Games and blames everything but herself (lest we fucking forget - who actually sealed the victory for Team Farthington? Her, or…you?)

At least that ball isn’t so disturbingly old-fashioned with the way he interacts with men in general, particularly LGBTQIA+ men like yourself and Joe Fontaine, that it would go on and on and on about how it would like to use your asshole via another man’s forceful entry, then see nothing wrong with it.

…

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! 

What’s that clapping?

FLAMBERGE looks around. It looks like Joe’s leading it.

A few kids are joining in. Rhythmic clapping, slowly, then a little quicker, then a little quicker.

He turns back to the Jutter Ball. It’s almost at the end.

The kids are willing it forward, or at least trying to.

Joe chimes in.

“You handled my balls well, Don! Come on, ball! Into the ball hole! The jall jole!”

CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP

It’s running out of steam.

…

The ball doesn’t make it.

Everyone in the room reacts with the same cry:

“AWWWWWWWW!”

Some kids have their hands on their heads, one or two are giggling. FLAMBERGE is about two seconds away from badly slamming more words of encouragement together before finding a manager to retrieve the jowling ball that’s now stuck 90% of the way down the lane.

But the thought is interrupted.

“I got this.”

It’s Joe, in his resplendently stupid green coat. During the Jutter Ball’s slow roll, he apparently came up with a plan.

There were some real, honest-to-goodness steel folding chairs on the other side of the bowling alley, not too far from the concessions area. After somehow resisting the primal urge to eat a big plate of cheesy and/or fried alley food that would send him straight to the shitter, he spotted the perfect makeshift 9-iron.

And he has it now. Steadily striding forward, he loudly drops his dazzlingly green ball on the ground and beasts out an absolutely John Daly-esque power swing…

PANGGGG!!

…which sends the emerald ball whirling down the lane!

It’s got a good line…

…CLONK!

“YEAHHHHH!”

Joe’s green ball perfectly connects with the lizard ball! The Jutter Ball completes its journey while Joe’s sparkly ball bounces off, knocking over three pins in the back corner.

“JOE! JOE! JOE! JOE!”

It’s an authentic chant. Disease isn’t cured, but fists are pumping - at least that’s a fulfillable wish.

Joe and FLAMBERGE high-five.

“Glue friends stick together, FLAMBO.”

“Ouais, they do.”

…

Don comes up to them.

“How do we score that, Mssr. Berge?”

The Frenchman looks at Don, and then looks at Joe. They know exactly the weight that THIS moment holds as they compare jowling to the bigger picture.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Here, it’s ACTUALLY true.

…