Strange Peons - Prologue: Forever the Brown

Ollie

Rick and I, we get asked to help out with Steve a lot. It’s not what we signed up for when we started this team, but somehow it became the way that our careers have drifted. Is it my favorite thing to do? Not really, to be honest. Do I get a little jealous every time I know that Steve has a match booked in PRIME while we’re still trying to break out into something beyond the kings of the first-round tournament exit? Sure. But Steve’s a decent guy, and he means well, so I tell myself that we’re doing a good thing by helping him out and that eases the sting a little.

Also it really chaps Rick’s ass every time Uncle Dale - who most people know as Doctor Zeke - brings us in. And I mean it really pisses Rick off. He tries to downplay it, but he’s not a very good actor.

Honestly, the fact that Steve spent the tail end of last year trying to get hints from him about how to cheat only makes it funnier. See, the thing about that is that even though Rick can’t stand him, Steve stumbled into the one way to get Rick on your side: you play to his ego. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean for it to come across that way, but at the time he was desperate to try and make something out of this journey he’s on, and it ended up working.

Of course, Blaze Claymore almost lost his privates to the business end of a deli slicer, but I guess that was a price Steve was willing to pay. Personally, I don’t get it.

I don’t get any of this.

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Rick

“It’s really fucking simple,” I told him. “You’re going to walk down to that ring. You’re going to get inside. Then you’re going to spend the entire match making sure that lardass has a trauma response for the rest of his life every time he thinks of getting his junk out. And you’re going to do it by speedbagging that porky bitch right in the taint as hard as you can, over and over again.”

It was pretty damn good advice, I think, and if Stevie-boy had paid any goddamn attention when I said it then maybe he wouldn’t be in this position. But instead of listening like a good student, or taking out a pen and paper to make some notes, that shit apparently went in one ear and right out the other. Didn’t even slow down from air friction. Just zipped right through, same as anything that dude ate after his tummy trouble incident in Mexico.

Instead, Steve did that thing where his face gets all red and he looks all sheepish, then he said something like, “Oh no, Mister Rick, I couldn’t possibly maul that man’s beans into paste with my bare hands because I am a little bitch boy and I make pissy-wisses in my bed at night.”

Look, I know that Steve doesn’t like “the swear words” or whatever-the-fuck, so I might be adding a little spice to the retelling, but the gist is the same. And for the record, he was staring at the floor when he said it, because even though he’s a grown-ass man with his own business and a second job where he is supposed to beat the unforgiving fuck out of people for money, god forbid he look you in the eyes when he talks to you. Or at you at all. Or anywhere in the same fucking zip code of where you’re standing.

Jesus Christ I am so over this guy.

How the hell did he get a PRIME contract anyway? Especially when you’ve got a bonafide future superstar sitting right in front of you in Big Ricky Dangerous?

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Prevailing Theories (Noncomprehensive) on How Steve Lemieux Ended Up with a PRIME Contract

1. Egregious clerical error coupled with an unwillingness to terminate the contract early because of the litigation it might open up.

Someone found a magic lamp buried in the depths of a Salvation Army-sponsored thrift store and purchased it for the reasonable price of $3.99, thinking that it would complement the theme of their den quite nicely. Then, while cleaning it, a genie appeared and offered a bounty of wishes as compensation for his liberation. The lamp’s owner, caught up in the uncertainty brought on by an as-yet-undiagnosed case of early onset dementia, used all of their wishes to make this a reality.

Whoever was in charge of talent relations during the period when the contract was inked, delivered, signed, and notarized had been replaced by an alien doppelganger as the first wave of an incoming invasion. The doppelganger, despite thorough mental conditioning and explicit instructions from the mothership on how to carry out this operation, called an audible and thought that the slow downfall of professional wrestling was the ideal first vector in that attack. They were incredibly high at the time.

The same as option number 2, except it was the genie suffering from cognitive decline.

The same as option number 2, except instead of the inescapable prison of slow mental decay both parties were incredibly high at the time.

The worst case of mistaken identity committed to history since the time Deuce Crimson tried to moonlight as Lance Marshall and expected everyone to just be cool with it.

That this is all some elaborate Andy Kaufman-style performance.

Deuce Crimson is trying to moonlight as a small business sandwich man from the midwest. He is incredibly high at the time.

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Ollie

I don’t know who Deuce Crimson or Lance Marshall are, unless that’s the guy uncle Dale keeps calling “Dwecky” for some reason, but I think that’s the one that makes the most sense to me. But even that’s a little far-fetched. After all, if there was another Steve Lemieux, and that Steve Lemieux actually knew how to wrestle, don’t you think it would have come to light by now? Or that there would be people talking about it?

And I don’t want it to sound like I’m down on Steve, because I’m really not. He’s a good guy, and he means well, it’s just that this isn’t something he should be doing. It’s a miracle he hasn’t been seriously hurt yet.

That’s the other thing… How is he able to keep doing this? I know he was out for a while after the Alias title match with Gamble, but that had nothing to do with any wrestling-related injuries. I know it’s not really my place to talk about this sort of thing, and he’d likely get upset that we were talking about his “bathroom parts” or whatever, but Steve’s insides got messed up pretty bad from some rancid mayo, it led to… well…

Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this.

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Dr. Zeke D. Badguy, Esq.

Hemorrhoids!

Hello, yes. Stefon Lummox needed the special butt surgery to remove the many hems that had invaded him. There was the Chris Hemmorhoids, and the Liam Hemmorhoids, and even the Luke Hemorrhoids though he is not as famous as the other two. He was in zero Hunger Games and even less movies about the thunder man from space.

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Rick

So anyway, Cade and I get the call that we’re on deck to try and help Steve through another match that he gets to wrestle in and we get to sit on the sidelines for. And do you know how the Sandwich King of Pisswhistle, Illinois gets this match? Because Cade’s fucking uncle, the weirdo in the ski mask, has some old National Wrestling Council connections. I guess he knows a guy whose wife now does talent relations for the New England Wrestling Syndicate, and so he called in a favor.

Could he have used said favor to get Cade and I a tag booking? Yes, and lord knows we fucking need it.

Well, I don’t need it. I’m a goddamn stud in this business. The type of guy you send out to breed because you know what you’re going to get is generation after generation of excellence. But Cade needs all the reps he can get. Kid’s a goddamn albatross around my neck, and if you don’t get that reference then that’s a you problem. They don’t call me Big Rick for nothing, but that don’t mean I ain’t got a big brain, too.

Turns out this guy’s wife is a looker, or as much of a looker as woman her age can be. Mid-forties, if I had to guess. Dark hair. Green eyes. Probably a total smokeshow when she was in her prime.

So, you know…

Would.

And once Cade and I got a few minutes with her and pitched our case, she said she’d get us some dates on the N.E.W.S. tour.

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Ollie

She said that we could have a match on the next show provided Rick promised to stop talking to her.

She also said that if he didn’t stop talking to her, then she was going to get the rest of the locker room to tie his dick to the back of a production truck and see how far it could make it before it tore the thing off. Even went as far as to send someone out to check the odometers.

I thought Rick was going to break down and start crying, but Uncle Dale called us away before anything happened. After all, we weren’t there for us. We were there to help Steve get back up to speed after his time away, so that he could make a decent showing against Miguel of the Lasagna Boys.

Or at least that was the plan, but the thing about N.E.W.S. is…

Well…

It’s a pretty ridiculous place as far as wrestling is concerned. The whole thing has this circus vibe, with the ring announcer dressed like a carnival barker, and the wrestling ring being in a ring of its own, like it should all be under the big top at a town fair.

I swear they even had a layer of sawdust and woodchips, or maybe that’s just what the ringside mats were made to look like.

It also has one of the more, umm, eclectic rosters I’ve seen. There’s three guys from Japan all named “Craig,” and their leader keeps challenging people to matches where if he beats you then you have to change your name to Craig and join them.

There’s a whole family of Von Killyourfamily-es: Duke, Viscount, Jesus, and Karen. Plus their cousin Doug.

Doug is just “Doug,” for the record. No last name. No idea why he’s with them, but he is.

There’s a guy named Trey Crimson who keeps misspelling his own first name.

Oh, hey, maybe he’s related to that Deuce guy!

I’m still trying to figure out what the deal is with Ebenezer Lovebiscuits.

So like I said, it’s a pretty weird place. Honestly, it’s probably for the best that Uncle Dale has some connections there, because it feels like the kind of weird that would fit a Lasagna Boy. Maybe that kind of strange would be just what Steve needed to help him get ready for his match against Miguel.

Who knows, maybe this kind of change would help Steve actually thrive.

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Rick

Stevie-boy was fucked the minute the bell rang.

All that S-tier advice that he’d been given about treating a man’s sack like his own personal punching bag? All those little nuggets of brilliance I’d tried to impart in the locker room before the match? Fucking gone as soon as he stepped in the ring.

Out of all the whackasses on the Syndicate’s roster, Pudge Gundersen was probably the closest physically he was going to get to a Lasagna Boy, in that I’m pretty sure Pudge was made of about ninety percent carbs and cheese by volume. Dude looked like a young, Norwegian Santa Claus.

So basically just Santa Claus.

Every crowd loves this guy. I mean the just go fucking apeshit for him. And I get it. If your idea of a good time is watching a happy fatass try not to die by doing flips that his body clearly isn’t made for, then Pudge is your man.

Does Miguel do flips? I know Toddrick loves a nice suicide dive every now and again.

Speaking of useless sacks of cellulite, you know who really fucking sucks? Fred Dick. Total fucking asshat, that guy. I mean prime, USDA grade-A bitch. A bitch salad with bitch croutons and thousand island dressing, because fuck that shit. Grown-ass-adult-drinking-movie-theater-Coke-through-a-Twizzler havin’ ass. I swear, if I ever see that motherfucker again I’m going to…

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Ollie

Despite him trying to convince Steve to cheat his way through the match, Rick held it together pretty well. He didn’t fly off the handle at Steve like he usually does. Didn’t insult him. It was the closest I’d seen him come to actually wanting the guy to win, aside from the time he convinced him that genital mutilation via deli slicer was a good idea.

Look, I don’t know that Rick actually suggested that one to Steve, but I have assumptions.

It was like he has a vested personal interest in the outcome of this one for some reason.

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Rick

…that ass juice they give you before a colonoscopy and glue his fucking mouth shut so he violently shits bees all goddamn day! Maybe a few will still be alive on the way out to sting his asshole so every time he sits down…

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Ollie

The problem is that despite being kind of a goofball, Pudge is no joke. Also he tends to bend the rules a little bit.

A lotta bit, actually.

His finish, if you can even call it that, is to summon his kids into the ring. “Sons of a Gundersen” I’ve heard it called. The man has seven kids, all between like five and twelve years old, and they just swarm on you from all sides. A couple of them don’t really know what’s going on. I think they just think it’s fun and they’re playing, kinda like Steve did for the first six months or so. But there are a few you have to watch out for.

Vebjorn, the oldest, is right at that age where he thinks hitting people in the crotch is funny.

Emil, who I’d say is about seven or eight years old, is a biter. Left a hell of a bruise on Kelvin Zero a couple months ago. I think it’s probably because he still has a bunch of his baby teeth that it hurts more, but I’m not looking to find out any time soon.

Haldor, the youngest (I think), is sneaky. I don’t know many five-year-olds who can tie their own shoes, nevermind creep around and untie someone else’s. Or tie them together. I saw a video of a match Pudge had in Kentucky earlier this year, and a scrum breaks out because all the kids rush the ring. His opponent, some local guy, stumbles out of his and just falls flat on his face because his boot laces had been all knotted together.

This is the warm-up match that Uncle Dale booked for Steve, so that he would be ready to deal with whatever nonsense the Whoresmen or Lasaga Boys would throw at him, but Steve is…

Well…

He’s Steve. It took him forever to figure out that professional wrestling is real, and that he would have to maybe throw a punch at a grown man. There’s no way he’s going to try and defend himself against a bunch of kids.

Needless to say, it didn’t go very well.

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Dr. Zeke D. Badguy, Esq.

Stefon Lummox browned his trousers and everybody laughed at him!

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Ollie

Eventually all the kids are ushered out of the ring, and by the time that’s happened Steve’s laying on the mat like a starfish. At first I thought his shoes had been stolen, but then I realized that they’d just been taken off of his feet and put on his hands, but for the life of me I can’t tell you when or how that happened. It just… did.

Pudge comes off the top with a moonsault. He’s got pretty decent agility for a guy his size, but it was still a little awkward. And because Steve had shoes on his hands he wasn’t really able to defend against it the right way.

Come to think of it, I don’t know that he’d have been able to do that regardless.

The poor guy gets absolutely crushed under three hundred-plus pounds of Pudge and there’s nothing he can do about it. Both of his legs went stiff and shot up into the air on impact, and a dark spot appeared on the back of his pants.

God, I felt so bad for him, especially after everything that he’s had to deal with the last couple of months. I know that the…

Well, again, not my place to say what he had to go through while he was away from PRIME, but it’s not something that I’d want to deal with, if you follow my meaning.

And then he gets squashed like a grape and has an accident in his pants. It must have been so embarrassing.

But if I know Steve, then I know he’s going to try to shrug it off and put it behind him, and then he’ll do his very best to try and not let the same thing happen against Miguel on ReVival.

Honestly though? I don’t like his chances.

The poor guy really isn’t cut out for this, and I think it’s time someone had that conversation with him. Maybe we’ll see how this match goes, and then I’ll take him aside and see what I can do.

Seriously. How the hell does someone like Steve get a contract with the biggest pro wrestling company on the planet?

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Rick

…and once he’s recovered from a long, grueling, invasive surgery to have it reattached, he decided to get hot dogs to celebrate. And I hope that fuck has a hot dog with too much mustard on it, and there are no napkins so that there’s still spicy mustard on his hands when he pisses, and he gets mustard in his pee hole, and it burns so fucking bad that he’s got no choice but to chop it off again…