The Passion of the COOL

[music]

-

It was a beautiful day.

Birds sang, the sun burned, and motherfuckers got to know.

And ain’t nobody in this land or the next got their knowledge on like the eGGpostles.

The eGGpostles had spoken the good word, and that word was COOLOSSUS. It was the day when the King of All Crumbs would descend from the mountaintops of COOLYMPUS to visit upon them the glory that was the COOL. They sang their hymns to the tune of Screamin’ Jay, such that the streets could be heard ringing that rapturous chorus of “I AM THE COOL”.

However, all was not well as they slouched towards COOLrusalem.

Murmurs of trouble within the city began ever since the procession of the eGGpostles arrived in the city. Eggs were disappearing. Not everyone was happy to embrace the COOL. And now, within the carton that were the eGGpostles, there would be a dinner. A little get together before they continued their pilgrimage towards their destination.

All twelve eGGpostles were there. Bobby, the first, looked forward to the feast more than the other eleven combined. Doozer was nowhere to be seen but he was there. Hessian was fighting over a turkey leg with Minion the Imp. He was losing, of course. Tony Gamble was engaged in a great philosophical debate with Cardboard Dan Ryan. Max Shell played the ukulele while RICK sang beautifully in French. Chris Chickentenders and Zeb Martin were there debating the finer workings of what it meant for someone to be a buttmunch. Also, Bryce was there for some reason. Nobody knew why.

You may note through the magic and wonder of basic arithmetic that this was only eleven of the twelve eGGpostles. Records from this era, recovered from the Dead Cecilworth Scrolls, were vague on who the twelfth eGGpostle truly was.

Some records say that it was naturally Jilesus, the once-founder of the eGGpostles who had crumbed it up one too many times and whose role had been reduced because of said crumbing. Some records say that it was Coral, the eGGpostle who’d grown too far beyond his station and had grasped that which Jiles considered his birthright as the son of COOL: the Universal championship.

But let’s set the record straight, once and for all. For it was on that night that Jilesus Crumbst stood at the head of the table and declared for all to hear, “One of you fucks are going to betray me.”

Everyone at the table stopped what they were doing, and they gawked at King Crumb. Outrage soon followed, a cacophony of many other voices who were all loud and wouldn’t fucking shut up. Fingers were being pointed in every which way. Some accused an empty space of air where they thought Doozer stood. Some accused Minion, because Minion was smarter than the rest of them and the smart ones always turned traitor. Minion was not amused.

It was the twelfth apostle himself who broke through the noise.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jilesus,” Coral Avscariot said, “Are you not the son of COOL? Are you not of the COOL? Are you not born the COOL?”

His words brought the cacophony to a quiet. He was calm and collected in this moment, perhaps the very epitome of that which is COOL. Wait, no, he didn’t have the T-shades, nevermind.

Jilesus stared at Coral through said T-shades. The mark of the COOL. They said that when he was born immaculately, three wise men gazed upon him and declared, “By the COOL! He has The Shades!” The wise men had left him the gifts of the Octane, the Jet, and Miller Lite for his journey across the world.

Finally, he produced an egg (don’t ask where he got it, some things are best left unknown), and passed it over to Coral, “Take this egg, for it is my body.”

“Gross,” a few of the other eGGpostles said, but only under their breaths. They feared that they would no longer be considered worthy of the COOL if Jilesus heard them, for his judgement was swift and his superkick swifter.

Anyway, Coral took the egg, and he did what was expected of him by all present... Which was to eat it. They’re having supper, after all. Jilesus watched as he did, like a hawk studying their prey.

“Also, Doozer will deny knowing me three times after the betrayal,” he said as an afterthought.

“I sure fucking will,” Doozer agreed, “Already denying you as we speak.”

“Great,” Jilesus said. If he wasn’t wearing The Shades, you’d have seen him roll his eyes. His gaze turned back to Coral, still grimacing from eating a raw-ass egg. “The fuck who shall betray me will take his thirty pieces of the Universal title.”

“I think it only comes in one piece.” Coral pointed out.

Minion pointed an accusatory finger towards Coral, “Spoken like someone who definitely took his thirty pieces of the Universal title!”

“Such baseless accusations, Cyril of Parts Unknown!” Coral shouted back, standing up from the table and pointing a finger back at Minion, “Have I not been pious? Have I not been spreading the glory of the COOL this entire time?”

RICK spoke for everyone when he asked, “De quoi parle ce connard?”

Okay, so he only spoke for the French.

Coral looked around at the other eGGpostles, arms outstretched, “Was I not there when Bobby went on his heater? Did I not handpick Hessian when we went to war? Did I not take Zeb to his cousin’s wedding despite the fact that we’re all pretty sure Zeb doesn’t actually have cousins and we just reenacted the entire plot of Wedding Crashers together?”

A few sheep trotted through the supper. One stole Tony’s bread as he was trying to ignore Coral’s pleas, and Tony yelled and gave chase to it. None of the other eGGpostles, least of all Coral, paid any mind to this.

Coral continued to defend himself in the meantime, “Have I not stuck with you, through thick and thin?”

“Have you?” Jilesus asked.

Coral hesitated.

Had he?  *.* “So, why’d you stay?”

The question came out of nowhere on the long drive back from Vancouver. Franco Marchesi had taken the wheel, and Coral Avalon occasionally slept in the passenger seat of his car. More weird dreams. He’d thought he was over that. He’d been awake for a while as his eyes glazed over the sign to Mt. Vernon on their way down I-5 on a midday afternoon.

Halfway home.

Coral was a stubborn sort. His contract with PRIME and the run of a lifetime he’d been on might have set him for life, but he still drove the same car he bought seventeen years ago that sometimes rattled like a ticking time bomb when started or even if he looked at it funny. Franco frequently complained that it drifted to the right. Coral never noticed.

“I mean, I stayed behind because I knew Jiles would want to needle me one last time before UltraViolence. Figured I’d be around to hear that old alfredo windbag do the whole ‘I’m gonna beat you at UltraViolence, nyeh’ spiel before I went to the hospital.”

Franco shook his head.

Things, he thought, were going too well. Everything had been coming up Kingdom in the past few months between Coral’s victory in Lisbon and their long-dreamed Flynn Cup win. While their trip to Vancouver involved an extended stay at the hospital to check up on their old student, they were still on their way back home without much incident. In his experience, a receipt was coming due.

“Not that.” Franco said, “Why did you stay with the Bandits?”

“Oh. That.” Coral smiled vaguely and looked out the window of the car, “What do you mean? I lost to him.”

“You got kidnapped by those dipshits in the middle of the match and got counted out,” Franco said, “That’s not a real goddamn loss, even that dipshit Gavin would’ve told you that you could’ve walked away from them at any time.”

Coral chuckled, “Well, yeah.”

“So again, why stay?”

“I think you’re asking the wrong question.”

“What do you mean?”

“The real question is… Why me?”

Franco paused to think about it, and shrugged his shoulders. “Do you have an answer to that question? ‘Cuz I don’t.”

“Well, PRIME’s got a lot of cowards that complain when things don’t go well for them. Ivan, Alexei, Ellis, Fred, Kael… those guys. But a ‘conqueror’ doesn’t know any direction but forward. So if things don’t go well for me, too bad, I’ll pick myself up and keep moving forward. Never consider what’s in front of me to be insurmountable, never look back, and never dwell on my failures. Stop only long enough to mourn what I’ve lost before continuing in the one direction I know,” Avalon said, before he pointed his finger towards the road, “The only way is forward.”

“That’s our creed. Forward.” Franco said. After a long pause, he added, “But maybe I missed the road sign that told me what your point is.”

Coral watched the road for a few moments. Only halfway home.

“So, what gets me is that PRIME had no shortage of ambitionless crumbs he could’ve pressganged into the Bandits a lot easier than it took to get me. And… I’m nothing like the other Bandits in any way.”

“You are the type to keep unscrupulous company,” Franco said, “Present company included.”

Coral cast a curious glance at Franco, wondering if he was still thinking about the conversation with Cecilworth earlier in the night... before what happened with Joe.

“Jiles had to know that I’m far too ambitious to give up on my goals or take a backseat to him. He had to know that I could and would leapfrog over him to the title. Hell, he had to know that I’m the sort of person who wouldn’t fight his battles for him.”

Franco nodded, “And yet, he took the risk anyway.”

There was a palpable silence as they drove, the only sound being the aging car’s engines. Franco then added, “Because he still needed you.”

Coral let out a “Ha!” at Franco’s comment.

“Maybe. Somebody had to make him relevant again. I remember how little Jiles mattered around here after he lost the Universal title, and how the Bandits were considered jokes and afterthoughts. God forgive me, I’m the one that changed that.” Coral shook his head, lamenting a mistake he’d made, “But maybe, just maybe… I needed him as well.”

“You mean, you needed a man who would backstab you the moment you came close to the Universal championship because he couldn’t stand the thought of being upstaged? Maybe to keep you on your toes?”

There was a yawn from the passenger seat, “No, dummy, I needed his magic cryostasis machine.”

Franco needed to keep both hands on the wheel and keep his eyes on the road, or else he’d be putting his face in his hands right about now.

“You’re a fucking idiot.”  *.*  The herald Fred Dick led the procession “singing” the hymns of “his” people. They went something like this:

 I curry the craws, if Vergun Merry had an abortshun, I’d steel be carreyed in the chareet by stampeedin’ horeses, Had ta brig it bak to New Yawk I’m happeh dat the streets is bak in New Yawk Fer ya rappahs, I curry the craws

Behind him, Jilesus Crumbst was being forced to carry a giant egg strapped to his back, as big as a boulder.

The previous night, just after supper, he was arrested by PRIME officials for accusations of sedition and heresy and “aggravated crumbing it up”. He didn’t go down easily, and three such officials found themselves yoljked and superkicked before he was finally subdued.

Now, the leader of the eGGpostles found himself in this terrible situation.

Each time Jilesus slowed down or came to a stop in order to steady himself or rest, Brandon Youngblood immediately lashed him with his whip and demanded that he continue carrying his burden. Youngblood was almost entirely naked except for a few strategically placed belts, a ghost of a loincloth, and a giant sheep’s head worn as a cloak over his head. Don’t worry about it, that’s just how it be over in Eau Claire.

“Fucking… crumb…” Jilesus muttered. That one earned him another lashing. It was almost like Youngblood enjoyed doing it. A sheep wandered into the scene and settled down on top of the egg like it was a big dumb bird, and it added to the weight Jiles had to carry. No one thought to disturb the sheep from its resting place, least of all Youngblood.

None of the eGGpostles could do anything about Jilesus’ situation. Some had fled COOLrusalem, especially Bryce. There were too many mockers and ill-wishers and mean motherfuckers surrounding Jilesus. When he was arrested, Doozer had been in his company, and he immediately denied knowing Jilesus three times in a row as predicted. He also denied knowing Bobby, CDR, Coral, or that weird floppy French fuck. Afterwards he declared, matter-of-factly, “I’m going to get on a yacht, fuck you.”

Then he got on his yacht and fucked off.

But there was an eGGpostle who was present for the trials. One that might have been partially responsible for this whole thing in the first place. Coral watched what was going on behind a shield of hecklers and stone-throwers and Rocky Horror enjoyers with a frown on his face. He followed the procession clutching the bag containing his thirty one piece of the Universal Championship close to his heart.

He watched as Jilesus got whipped a few more times by Youngblood. He was spat upon. Governor Atken personally spat upon him, as did the myriad of sticky Lieutenant Governors under him. There were hecklers, people calling him “crumb” and “scum” and other words that rhyme with those two words. Clay Byrd threw chicken bones at him and nobody stopped him, because who was going to stop that guy? Stones were cast, eggs too. The whole time, Jilesus’ smug demeanor never fully left him.

By the time the procession followed the streets and into the clearing, Jilesus was battered and exhausted, yet he remained defiant. He spat at the people tying him by the arms to the egg. He cussed at all of them. He told them all some extremely uncouth things about their wives and mothers and sheep. Everything he could to ensure that his eGGifixion would be as arduous as possible.

Praetor Hanlon said some words in-between sips of gin, mostly slurred and with copious amounts of the word “motherfucker”. Then he gave Jiles the ceremonial finger as he was hoisted up. Eggs were cast at him, there were jeers, and someone cursed loudly that they didn’t have any real nails, it was a whole thing.

Yet, all the while, his smile remained smug. *.* Wait. Wait, wait, wait. This dream gives me an idea… *.* The scene was different now.

The crowd had dispersed. The sheep had disappeared from the top of the egg. The figure tied to the egg was Jilesus, but looked different. Jilesus had shrunk a few inches. The tattoos were different. He was not as COOL. The egg looked more like a prop on a set.

Standing before him, though, was Coral. The betrayer himself dressed in his ring gear, wearing his wolfish entrance cloak and carrying the Universal championship belt in his hand.

“Friend of mine,” Coral said to the man as he hung from the egg, the symbol of his COOLdom.

“What a world we live in that you’d be here. So, let me guess. After this long passion of yours, walking the path of irrelevance to find your way to me once again… You intended to have your big resurrection at COOLossus. Makes sense, I guess. It’s where this whole mess started for you after you were knocked down from the mountain.”

The man who would be Jilesus looked up at Coral with a scorn only reserved for the worst of traitors, which was pretty impressive to see considering that the T-shades somehow stayed on his face through the entire passion.

“For the last two years, I’ve wondered why you were the way you were. That mystique that you held. Your COOL, so to speak. I questioned why you did what you did to Atken when we already had so many enemies and didn’t need any more distractions before I challenged for the Universal title, and all you did was goad me into punching you. Every decision you’ve made was one of madness. It’s certainly not for the good of the carton. Self-destructive. Dangerous. Nothing about you made sense to me, not before I joined the Bandits nor after.”

Coral let his one piece of the Universal championship slip from his grip and fall to the ground.

“Then it finally hit me.”

He did this so he could produce a knife. Long, terrible, and serrated. The kind you used for harm.

“You want this.”

Using the knife, he gestured not at Jilesus, but at the egg that held him.

“Hell, I think maybe you get off on it. All of the hatred and the scorn that you sponge up. All your petty grudges. Even a masochist would know when to use their safeword. But then, I had a moment of clarity.” Coral said as he took a single deliberate step towards Jilesus, “You desperately need people to hate you.”

Jilesus gritted his teeth.

“You need that validation. If you can’t be the best man in the ring, then the only way you can make your mark is to be the worst man in everyone’s life.”

Coral’s deliberate steps became a march as he brandished the knife from hand to hand.

“And honestly, oh friend of mine? Even after all of this crap you’ve put me through? I don’t hate you. Not really. Without you, do I even win the Universal title? Without me, would you have even been relevant again? My friend, we needed each other. So even if you were to somehow cheat me out of my prize, I’d probably laugh that I didn’t see it coming even after seeing every trick at your disposal,” Coral said with a chuckle, “I don’t hate you, no...”

He took the knife and cut the ropes binding Jilesus to his egg. He’d been freed. He collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees, and his limbs simply couldn’t muster the strength to carry his weight. Coral smiled, knelt down, and leaned in close to Jilesus’ ear, whispering.

“No, my brother, I pity you.”

The entire visage of Jilesus burst into flames. Rage in its purest form. So suddenly that it might’ve been a trick of the eye… or the camera. Coral backed away slowly but calmly, undaunted by the pure heat of it.

“I pity that you’ve got nothing but grudges to fill the emptiness inside you.”

The burning visage lurched towards Coral, who calmly took another step backwards. Jilesus was now nothing but fire and T-shades and, bizarrely, his still-immaculate alfredo hair. He moved mechanically, on autopilot.

“I pity that the only way you can even see the summit is because I stand upon it.”

Coral smiled as the conflagration before him lost all of its momentum and laid still, a curse of his name uttered before it did. The T-shades fell from the visage and landed by Coral’s feet.

“And I pity that this is all that you can ever be.”

He stooped over to pick up the T-shades and gave them a long look.

“But don’t worry, oh friend of mine. You don’t have to worry at all. Once a Bandit, always a Bandit, right? I’ll still be a Bandit. You wanted that, after all. I’ll just be my own kind of Bandit.”

Then, with a casual flick, he tossed them back into the flames.

“Because for a conqueror among Bandits, the only way is forward.”