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Angelus · (08-11-2013)

The Gnawing
Part 1: "Chronicle"

Angelus flew American Airlines into Seattle. He read a magazine on the leg from Logan to O'Hare, ate lunch on the ground, and fell asleep to the movie on the nonstop flight from Chicago to Seattle. It was a quarter to four local time when he carried his hand luggage off the plane, and then he had only an hour's wait before his connecting flight to Roslindale.

But when he got a look at the size of the plane he walked over to the Hertz desk and told them he wanted a car for a few days. He showed them a driver's license and a credit card (both in the name of Peter Lake) and they let him have a Ford Taurus with thirty-two hundred miles on the clock. He didn't bother trying to refund his plane ticket.

The Hertz clerk showed him how to get on I-5. Angelus pointed the car in the right direction and set the cruise control three miles an hour over the posted speed limit. Everybody else was going a few miles faster than that, but he was in no hurry, and he didn't want to invite a close look at his driver's license. It was probably all right, but why ask for trouble?

It was still light out when he took the off ramp for the second Roslindale exit. He had a reservation at the Best Western on High Street. He found it without any trouble. They had him in a ground floor room in the front, and he had them change it to one a flight up in the rear.

He unpacked, showered. The dusty, yellow phonebook had a street map of downtown Roslindale, and he studied it, getting his bearings, then tore it out and took it with him when he went out for a walk. The little knock-off Kinkos was only a few blocks away on Jackson, two doors in from the corner, between a Rite-Aide and a place advertising free credit loans. A sign in the window of the copy center was advertising a deal for printing business cards.

The copy center was closed, of course, as well the loan office. The Rite-Aide looked the same way, but an electronic 'Open' sign hung in the window. Angelus took a look down the block and decided not to stick around long. Two blocks away he found a Mexican restaurant that looked dingy enough to be authentic. He snatched a leftover paper out of a nearby booth and read it while he ate his chicken enchiladas. The food was good, and ridiculously inexpensive. If the place was in Boston, he thought, everything would be three or four times as much and there'd be a line in front.

The waitress was a slender blonde, not Mexican at all, but she had referred to the chef on kitchen that night as Juan. She had short hair and big Buddy Holly style glasses and an overbite. Angelus clocked the engagement ring on the appropriate finger, a diamond solitaire with a tiny stone. Maybe she and her fiance had picked it out at the jewelers that was across from the copy center. Maybe the photographer who was just a door over would take their wedding pictures and then Gary Rosenfeld at the copy center could print the invitations.

What had the slogan been in the window? Quality printing, reasonable rates, service you can count on.

Yeah, that was it.

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Do I have some sort of nemesis? Do I have a reason for why I'm here? Why I've bothered coming back to pro-wrestling? Well, no, not really. I can't think of one right now, at least. I mean, sure the money is good (Madison was practically bending over backwards to get me to reach a new deal), and yes, I did always get a kick out of making people look bad, but I can't say there's one definable reason for why I'm here.

You know what? Scratch that. I'm back for a pretty clear reason. It's to clean up this shit-hole and all these wannabe tough guys and misfits that have been trying to run the asylum since I've been gone.

Mystica, Callaway, and Stevie Tyler.

Three of the sorriest individuals this side of Caliban or Peter Gilbo Baggins.

Help me out here, because I'm trying to figure out exactly why either of you are relevant.

Seriously, can someone please start the process of making sure these three useless, worthless, plebeians find their way down the line into obscurity?

I'm not even kidding. Why are they even in this company?

I tried to sit through some of their old promos and my mind started to drift to the time I had to wait in a long line at the DMV and the A/C broke in the building and everyone was hot and miserable.

That was my personal hell until I had to watch Mystica speak.

Or watch Steven Tyler (who is apparently not related to the chick from Aerosmith) and his vanilla gorilla Gary sit around his apartment in his Crimson Dong undies eating cheese puffs while staring into the nothing space.

And don't even get me started on the time I walked in on this chick Alexandra trying to teach our pal Gilbo to read. Hey Alex, let's make sure he learns how to wipe after he takes a shit before we get too complex.

Okay, okay…

Enough fun and games. I know Duke is around, but the circus is not here.

I want you three to understand what you're stepping into the ring with on Wednesday.

I am a man of great discipline and nothing like either of you three have ever seen before.

And you can go ahead and call me a nobody or hurl insults my way. It’s not going to change the fact that neither of you has what it takes. You’ve used smoke and mirrors up until this point, but I want you to know that when you step into the ring with me on Warfare, you’re not going to have any tricks or sideshow antics to keep the people from seeing the truth.

And so that’s how it’s going to happen. Just as quickly as you came to XWF, it's going to be your pal Anj sending you packing just as fast. I am just a man. Plain and simple and I don't need to claim to be otherwise.

I've kicked more ass in this business than you’ve seen in your entire life. I've bled for this business. You’re stepping into the ring not with ‘some nobody’. You’re stepping into the ring with The Whole Damn Show. You’re stepping into the ring with the best wrestler in this sport.

You’re stepping into the ring with Angelus!

And that’s where the truth will shine, because they’ll see me, Stevie. They’ll see me and they will remember, Mystica. I will make them remember what I’ve done, and prove to them that I can do it all over again… Alexandra.

And all of you? You’re a memory. A lost cause. No one cared much anyway.

You’re the one thing that people are going to be laughing at when it’s all said and done, because when you step between those ropes and into my world, you’re going to realize that you’ve just jumped off the deep end, and you’re not as big as you thought you were.

Know that when you enter my world, when you come into the ring and face Angelus one-on-one, you’re going to wind up just like every other failure who’s stepped up in the past.

You’re going to wind up flat on your back and staring up at the lights—and there will be no laughter, no cheers, no boos, there won’t be applause on your final curtain call.

The reason? Because all the people you’ve tried to fool, all the people you’ve tried to convince of your stature, your ability to compete here, they’re all going to wake up and see you for what you really are.

Curtains close.

In the morning he returned to the copy center and looked in the window. A woman with brown hair was sitting at a gray metal desk, talking on the phone. A man in shirt sleeves stood at the copying machine. He wore horn-rimmed glasses with round lenses and his hair was cropped short on his egg-shaped head. He was balding, and that made him look older, but Angelus knew he was only thirty-seven.

Anj stood in front of the jeweler's and pictured the waitress and her fiance picking out rings. They'd have a double ring ceremony, of course, and there would be something engraved on the inside of each of their wedding bands, something no one else would ever see. Would they live in an apartment? For a while, he decided, until they saved the down payment for a starter home. That was a phrase you'd see in real estate ads and Anj liked it. A starter home, like it was something you practiced until you got it under your belt.

At the Rite-Aide he bought a notepad of plain white paper and a package of felt-tipped pens. He used four sheets of paper before he was pleased with the result. Back at the copy center he showed his work to the brown-haired woman.

"My dog ran off," he explained. "I thought I'd get some flyers printed, post them around town."

LOST DOG, he'd printed. "BLACK LAB. ANSWERS TO DUKE. CALL 555-8282.

"I hope you get him back," the woman said. "Is it a him? Duke sounds like a male dog, but it doesn't say."

"It's male," Anj said. "Maybe I should have specified."

"It's probably not important. Did you want to offer a reward? People usually do, though I don't know if it makes any difference. If I found somebody's dog, I wouldn't care about a reward. I'd just want him or her to get back to their owner."

"Everybody is not as decent as you are," Anj said. "Maybe I should say something about the reward. I didn't even think of that."

He put his palms on the desk and leaned forward, looking down at the sheet of paper. "I don't know," he said. "It looks kind of homemade, doesn't it? Maybe I should have you set it in type, do it right. What do you think?"

"I don't know," she said. "Walt? Would you come and take a look at these please?"

The man in the horn rims came over and said he thought a hand-lettered look was best for a lost-dog notice. "It makes it more personal," he said. "I could do it in a type for you, but I think people would respond to it better as it is. Assuming somebody finds the dog, that is."

"I don't suppose it's a matter of national importance, anyway," Anj said. "My wife's attached to the animal and I'd like to recover him if it's possible, but I got the feeling he's not to be found. My name is Peter, by the way. Peter Lake."

"Walt Rivard," the man said. "And this is my wife Sue."

"A pleasure," Anj said. "I guess fifty of these ought to be enough. More than enough, but I'll take fifty. Will it take you long to run them?"

"I'll do it right now. Take about three minutes and set you back about three-fifty."

"Can't beat that," Anj said. He uncapped the felt-tipped pen. "Just let me put in something about the reward."

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[Image: tumblr_mjtxulHUTP1qbb3rwo1_400.gif]

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