Fever Dream

Something something beast something something pain something something something man

-Doctor Something Or Other I Dunno

The anatomy of a trucknapping isn’t something well versed and studied. In the end, when such things occur, it’s better to simply let them...happen. Why struggle? Like a choke hold; the harder one fights, the less likely one is to survive.

A direct reference to the driver; Clay Byrd. For such a Behemoth of a man, how he could manage to be so soft footed when he needed to be is an alarmingly positive trait. Then again, the sheer chaos gremlin nature of The Monster From Plainview was part of the ticket. Might as well go for the ride.

Brandon didn’t even ask how he got there. It’s as though, the moment he crossed the Mexican border, everything was a blur, and suddenly, there he was, riding in the backseat of The Truck, alongside Hayes Hanlon, his arms folded, his eyes cast outside to the window.

Riding shotgun? RIA Lockhart. Her hands were wrapped around a chamoyada which was decidedly non-spicy. She gave a little hum as her feet kicked to and fro, given the ample boosted rise to the seat. Was she making engine noises? In truth, RIA was Vae Victis; that meant dibs on the big seat.

So let me tell you all why you’re here…

This would be as good a time as any to provide an explanation as to why, given the choices afforded, why Brandon was stepping into the ring with Team Literal Human Cancer with the group surrounding him.

There are very important and critical strategic reasons why I selected each of you when I did. 

The straw in the drink was a swirl. The suction noise emanating from Byrd as he took a swig of his much more spicy chamoyada was positively Dyson in performance.

And the reason is...why the fuck do I not have one of those drinks? They look tasty.

“Cuz you didn’t ask for one.”

Did he read my mind? What in THE FUUUCK–

“I see you eyeballing my tasty beverage. And let me tell you...it IS a tasty beverage. And I bet you are wondering if I put some whiskey in this here sombitch, just to make things...interestin’..”

“There’s no whiskey in that drink–” RIA quickly cut him off.

Hayes interjected, gruffly. “Good, because if there was, I’d be wanting some–”

“--HEY HEY HEY! BENEDICT ARNOLD OVER THERE! YOU! ZIP IT!” Clay’s eyes darted to the backseat, away from the Mexican highway. “Shoulda been Colton–”

“Bet that would make everyone here feel soooooo much better–”

"What would actually make me feel better is if we all went to the parking lot and beat the shit out of the Cybertruck that haunts it." Wait. Is that...is that the voice of Joe Fontaine?

JOE. FONTAINE?!

AND HE HAS A DELICIOUS FRUITY AND TART BEVERAGE?!

All but Hayes glower in the direction of Dick Puncher The Invincible. The Event Horizon? He just nods in affirmation to the statement.

The rest of them?

“You saw a Cybertruck?” RIA asked.

“Those things are a damn eyesore...and truck? TRUUUUCK?! How DARE them shitholes call themselves a truck?”

You think I’m going to take up for a fucking Cybertruck? Ha. Ha ha. Ha.

Pucker.

Kiss.

Wait...that’s his line. “Watch your fingers. Those shitmobiles are sharp enough to slice through your fingers–”

Sllllllllurp. And then, Joe once again spoke up. "They fucked up a perfectly good Sony Playstation, Clay. Look at it. It has anxiety."

He wasn’t wrong.

“Look...” Brandon started, “you have anything to eat or drink back there, Clay?”

“Don’t you be eyeing my stash!” Clay cut him off. “The first rule of trucking is to always have some of your basic food groups covered.”

As if on queue, Smooth Joe Cool reached over the seat and handed Youngblood a can with a pop top. The label? Wendell’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Beef and Noodleroni. The pasta was given truck like shapes, while the meatballs, somehow, someway, were fashioned akin to cowboy hats. The Diamond looked at the can in his grasp, incredulous. “Clay...”

“What? You got a problem with my vittles?”

“You been loading up on–”

“I ain’t hearing it from no damn Waffle Lovin’ Bitch!”

Uh oh.

Uh.

Oh.

Hanlon, for his part, nodded his head in agreement. Deathly serious.

The Diamond seethed. “Oh...so it’s gonna be like that…”

It’s gonna be like that.

Definitely, definitively like that.

I...should’ve known.

Look, there’s damn good reason to pick each and every one of the people on this squad goals team. Make no mistake. There is logic there. But in the world of the serious, there are questions of composition.

Look, I know what Jiles was fiending for. I know he was hoping, when the balls were rolled onto the court, that he’d have that top pick, and he could take a swing and get him The Golden Bandit. 

The one reason that piece of shit still have a head attached to his shoulders and not completely ripped off and driven through the canvas. I knew Avalon wasn’t making it past that top set of picks. And to be honest, after everything that happened at ReVival 83? Probably best that Farthington had the first pick.

Next time we meet, there’s going to be words.

All that being said…

I could have taken Clay and Scott. Their the PRIME Tag Team Champions.

I could’ve taken Kerry Kuroyama, the best 5 Star Champion of the ReVival.

Bryan Dawkins has been on the run of his life. Intense Champion and everything. Another person more than capable of hurting someone, and a man with animus toward Max Kael...who...after 83…

I could’ve tried to coax a 5 Star performance out of Elise Ares.

Who knows about Jack Marley? Big John Pepper is a literal brick shithouse.

No.

This group.

This team.

Others might not see it.

I do.

I know why I picked each and every one of them.

Why are there so many colors and shapes on this balcony? Hayes! HAYES YOU’RE GOING TO FALL! It’s okay.

Wait.

No.

No it isn’t.

Brandon drafted Hanlon.

He didn’t draft fabby.

That accessory is sold separately. At Ikea. Are the meatballs any good there?

Hayes didn’t think he knew how to party. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch, I was making an ass out of myself on your parent’s dime because them PPV buckaroos came my way.

Jesus…

When did it get so goddamn hot outside?

Twice over, Clay Byrd has been a burr in my ass.

Better than that.

He’s beaten me twice. 

Practically no one can say that in this sport.

And part of me would love to say it’s some sort of fluke. That when we first faced off, all the way back during the first PWA clusterfucking mess...there was some tilted pinball there. I don’t know how I could say that...we wrestled a straight up shit kicker. He battered and smashed each other. We laced into each other blow for blow. And in the end, he pinned my shoulders to the canvas. And he did that with only his pride at stake. He’d had his heart ripped out in The Pit, got fucked out of being World Champion.

Like it matters what that shithole and that eye patch wearing fuck think. He’s dead. They’re dead. 

I know.

I saw a Christmas Special where Cecilworth Farthington shit in the crater that was its resting place.

It’s more than that. Clay Byrd came to PRIME, and given the track record, he is a marauder. A destroyer. Look at the wins he’s put up. Look at the people he’s beaten. But more than that...he is one of the few men...the few men…in this sport that I know...truly know, is down to fight on my side if it makes sense. Tony Gamble is one of the few men that have beaten him.

He has a long and sordid past with Max Kael.

When it comes to the most physical, the most powerful, the literal human wrecking ball truck...it’s Clay Byrd.

I wanted no one else.

Not only that, he’s someone that I know will make me feel a level of discomfort. He’s not tamed; he’s a Behemoth. And Monster. You can’t gild that. Can’t slow it down.

And I don’t want to.

I want him whiskey fueled and Hell bound.

Rev up that engine.

Vroom vroom.

WAFFLES!

PANCAKES!

HOW IN THE FUUUUUCK IS CLAY BYRD ON TOP OF ME?!

I AM SUPLEX!

I AM SUPLEX INCARNATE!

I CAN LIFT PEOPLE UP AND SLAM THEM TO CANVAS REALLY HARD!

AND YOU’RE HITTING ME WITH FLUFFY FLUFFY PANCAKE TALK?

Look...pancakes are FINE enough. But waffles have pockets, okay? To collect the syrup. They don’t get soggy as fast. Put a bit of butter between each little bit? Glorious. And not those eggo bastards either.

Not Kodiak cakes either.

No bears here.

This whole thing is a fever dream, and Brandon Youngblood, super serious wrestler man about to go to battle against Team Cancer Jiles, against a team filled to the brim with people he hates (yes, even Daytona Diamonds, since he keyed off and Jason Snow came back and it was the start of The Year of Shit That Ended With A Colossus Main Event Appearance Guess It Wasn’t That Bad)...

WHY IS CLYD BREAD SO GODDAMN LOUD?!

The controversial pick.

Hayes Hanlon.

The Event Horizon.

Look, let’s be real; on the surface, there’s no good reason to pick him.

He peaked in his first year and change.

We’ve thrown down, twice, and the last time was immensely personal.

He sold himself and sold his soul to join Glue.

He’s an unmitigated asshole, a razor tongued dick, someone who goads others and struts about like he has the shoulders to be demanding of everyone around him.

That Hanlon even achieved such heights is telling of his capabilities. And to do so? He traumatized Jiles. In the empty space that crumb calls a head, Hanlon will always be the one that ruined COOLossus. 

That’s reason enough. He’s on a team and he’s dealing with unfamiliar situations from where he has been as of the last few years. That...well…

Hayes Hanlon is someone I know, from personal experience, his capabilities.

But I also am not going to moralize and sermonize about the choices he’s made. He has his own life. His own circumstances. And he made the choices, at the moments, that he thought were the right ones to make. Everyone in goddamn PRIME has some hatred on constructed mythology on why they loathe Glue.

And practically all of PRIME doesn’t even understand them.

This...is coming from a man who is patient fucking zero in what should loathe them. Multiple times over. But that’s a cross for me to bear. That’s something I have to reconcile. I’m sorry that, for the rest of PRIME, the fact that a group of really talented and unified wrestlers having success pisses you off. I am sorry that you commit crimes and act like glory hogs and think they’re the enemy.

I’m sorry, but if Jared Sykes was ho humming and being a self aggrandizing shitbag like he was to Hayes, you don’t think I would have done the same to him if those were the circumstances I fell in? Oh yeah, controversial; the good guys are all supposed to get along. Look...if I am looking toward a man for moral arbiter, I am going to pick someone who isn’t going to just forgive someone who crippled Jonathan Rhine and cut me to ribbons with gator teeth. I’m not going to acquiesce and have some sort of combat respect for someone who menaced my fucking wife.

Hayes fell into a peer group that is there to hopefully grow his wrestling abilities, rather than cruising on the couches of the Revolutionaries who have all upped and abandoned him or disappointed him. At least he knows where he stands with me.

I don’t look at him as a boy. I look at him as a peer. Rival.

The Thresher of Hooves.

And one of the men that is going to take PRIME and make it their own.

“CASH PRIZES!” There is no hesitation in Brandon’s crazed shouting. The beach. It’s light out. And he...is in a flannel shirt and jean overalls with the legs rolled up to the knee. Barefoot. Because of course. “I DIDN’T THINK THERE WAS ANYONE WHO WOULD MAKE ME DO WHAT I AM ABOUT TO DO...BUT JILES...KAEL...DIOMITATES OR WHATEVER YOUR GODDAMN NAME IS...TOOOOOOOOOOONY! But YOU have PUSHED me AS far A you’re GOING to PUSH!”

On a pedestal, on display...a halliburton briefcase with wads of cash bundled together. Is it real? Probably. Except there’s no cash. Pancakes stacked sky high. And Clay Byrd? His eyes menace as he pours ample amounts of syrup down them.

“SQUAD GOALS ISN’T ABOUT WRESTLING! IT’S A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL! AND WITH ME HERE...IS CASH PRIZES OFFERED TO ANYONE IN PRIME WHO CAN HELP US ELIMINATE TEAM JILES FROM WRESTLING!”

Hayes Hanlon, with his impeccable mustache, is right at home in his Lumberjack get up. Oh la la. Looks like someone is a hit with the ladies on the beach!

“TAKE A LOOK AT IT! ALEXEI, YOU AND YOUR WHOLE ENTOURAGE OF PEOPLE! CECILWORTH FARTHINGTON!”

Lumberjacks aplenty…but we are inclusionary here. RIA Lockhart is a LUMBERJILL, and she is taking big swipes at a log just poking out onto the beach with an axe. She’s dangerous with a fork. Think about how much worse she can be with super sharp weapons!

Brandon is about to speak, but for whatever reason, the words he is about to say remain locked in his throat, until, finally… “KABUKI!” Having gotten it out, he continues on. “THE NAMES...THE LIST...IT GOES ON AND ON! TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR EACH AND EVERY TOOTH! FIVE THOUSAND FOR EVERY BROKEN BONE! TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS CASH FOR EVERY TORN LIGAMENT! NINETY-SEVEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY EYE! NO EYE PATCHES!”

Youngblood’s eyes, crazed as ever, stare deep into the camera lens, as his hands violently pantomime toward the briefcase filled with pancakes.

“CORAL AVALON…YOU ARE UNIVERSAL CHAMPION! YOU TOOK THE BELT FROM ME! YOU’RE THE MAN…YOU CAN DO IT! IT’S HERE FOR YA! COME AND GET IT PLEASE, SOMEBODY TAKE THE DAMN MONEY! PRIME NEEDS RID OF CANCER JILES!”

RIA Lockhart has every reason to be here.

Oh, here’s something.

This is her first PRIME main event.

Let’s set up streamers for her. I know one crumb piece of shit that would gladly use that as a cudgel like it matters in this circumstance.

I’ve been rooting for RIA since Day One.

She’s been in the ReVival since Day One.

And I do not know why she hasn’t gotten anywhere near the opportunities as some of the people from Day One have gotten.

How many more titles does Anna Daniels need to get a shot at?

Oh hey, look, Sage Pontiff showed a pulse, let’s get him into the title mix somewhere.

Whomp.

Whomp.

I see her, getting potshots taken at her from Max Kael. From fucking Tony Gamble. All the time. And she puts on this upbeat face and goes into the fray…

And I want her to be more.

I have wanted the chance to get in the ring and help shape her. Mold her. Someone who comes from where she comes from, who has the feelings they do, that has their story? I find that inspiring. Legitimately inspiring.

And I want her to be more than just a positive footnote in the history of the ReVival.

I want her to work and become a goddamn Universal Champion.

Can you imagine it?

I can.

But that’s all it is right now, right? Imagination? Sort of butting up against comers and goers. 

There is animus there.

There is hunger there.

She has never had an opportunity like this. 

You’re welcome.

Because four years has been too goddamn long for you to have your first main event.

But here you are. And it’s time to go out and show. Not for me. Not for Kael or Gamble are any of the dickish comments and garbage thrown at you.

Go out and do it for your fucking self.

Go out there and make it mean something.

Headache.

Hellacious.

Fucking.

Headache.

Every single one of them, strewn about, laid out, haphazard in the suite. The sun was barely coming up. Brandon brushed his eyes, getting rid of the crust.

They were all in flannel.

There were so many plates of goddamn pancakes.

Housekeeping would have to scrub the floors clean of syrup for ages.

Thank god for having fuck you money.

To be clear, that’s fuck you money…

Not jet money.

Nobody has jet money.

You fools.

Might as well get up. Be the first to get a shower.

The hot water was critical to survival. “Just…not going to tell Amy anything about this.”