Post by Applesauce on Aug 6, 2022 15:58:06 GMT -5
THE COIN
There are two doors to get into Merv’s Burger Joint and Pub. The front door, the one more commonly used by tourists and families treating their kids to a post-game meal, is decorated with brass and dark brown wood trim. A pair of heavy glass doors, each with half a burger as a handle, guard the entrance. A sign in the window reads “Trivia Tuesdays, Smiles are Free!”. The second door is around the side of the building. It’s less decorated, almost blending in with the metal trim and brown brick. A green and white striped canvas awning provides shelter for the cigarett smokers under it.
Buster Gloves, goes in through the side door. The one less travelled. It circumvents the dining area and goes right to the lounge area. An L-shaped bar directly on the left. He knows about the second entrance because of one of his students. Employees sneak in and out of the building through that special exit, and Buster is hoping to sneak into the building without being noticed.
He turns the corner of the L-shaped bar and sits near the end of it, pulling out his cell phone to avoid making eye contact with anyone in the building. It’s mid-afternoon on a Thursday. The slowest part of the day. There are only a couple other customers, and one young, pretty bartender, with curly dirty blonde hair tied up in a cute red bandana.
“Hey there, Sugar. What can I get for you?” She says with dark eyes and a warm smile.
Buster looks up from his phone to shoot her a quick glance. Then, shocked by her comeliness, looks away. He’s never been good with eye contact. Especially with attractive women. She places a coaster in front of The Bull of the North. He gathers the confidence to make eye contact, noting the color of her eyes, the shade of her lips. “A Puppers Lager, whatever is the most local, and a whiskey, whatever is the most expensive. Two ice cubes.”
“Let me see. Most expensive. We have a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. But there’s a one-pour limit.”
“One should be enough.”
“You got it.”
Buster can’t help but watch her backside as the bartender walks away. He’s not interested in her sexually or romantically, she just looks nice. He already has a girlfriend. And she’s great. The more time he spends with Emily Simms, the more attracted he is to her. Each day is a new discovery. Each curve. Each quirk. The way her hair smells. The creases around the corner of her mouth when she smiles. He’s smitten. This bartender reminds him of Emily in a way. The same energy. The same bounce. She must be about 10 years younger than him. Almost the same age as Emily. It feels a little creepy dating someone so much younger than him. Like he’s some kind of predator. It feels wrong, but Emily insists that it’s ok. It doesn’t bother her or anyone of importance in his life. Buster is here at a bar, with a pretty bartender, and he can’t stop thinking about his girlfriend. Which is weird, because he’s been avoiding her calls since he hopped on the plane that morning.
Buster checks his phone. 3 missed calls. A dozen text messages. He powers it off and stuffs it in his pocket. They can wait. Nobody knows he’s back in town yet. His flight landed earlier, but he didn’t go right home. He stopped at a bar first. He isn’t ready to go home yet… to face the world after what happened in Milwaukee.
The bartender comes back with the drinks. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“Nah. I don’t think so. I’m nobody.” Replies Buster, as he rotates the cold beer bottle with his fingertips, turning the label to face him.
The girl folds her arms and squints in disbelief. “Are you sure? I’m pretty good with faces.”
“Nope. Just came here for a cold one. It’s hot out there.”
“Yeh. I’m sure it is.” She looks around to see if any other customers are at the bar. They aren’t. “So, what kind of work do you do?”
Buster half-smiles/half-frowns. “I’m a fighter, I guess.”
Validated she puts her hands on her hips and puffs out her chest. “I knew it! You’re one of those wrestling guys from that gym down the way.”
Unamused. Buster just looks at the label of his beer bottle. The brown diamond on the white label. The good boy with the floppy ears. 4.0% alcohol by volume. He doesn’t take a drink. He only studies it. A tumbler of expensive liquor sits next to it on a napkin. Taunting him.
“Are you any good?” she asks.
“I used to be.”
“Think you can teach me a move or two?”
“Sure. Anybody can learn to wrestle.”
“It’s fake though, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“You look a little banged up. That from your job?”
“Uh huh.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“Fair enough. I’m gonna go have a smoke. You need anything else right now?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
“My name is Stefani, by the way. With an ‘F’. I’ll be right back to take care of you in a few.”
Buster nods as the pretty young thing skips away. She is obviously flirting with him. Giving him bedroom eyes and playing with her hair. Bouncing to pop music in the lounge. But Buster isn’t buying it. She’s either flirting to get a good tip or she’s flirting to wreck his home and dig his gold. He waits until she’s out of sight to pick up his whiskey glass.
Alcohol hasn’t touched his lips in over 5 years. But Buster doesn’t know how to deal with what’s going on with him. He needs to be strong for his kids, for his girlfriend, for his fans, but he feels weak. Years ago, his life spiraled before he took control of it. He found a way to bounce back. For a long time, he was regimented and had an iron grip on the details of his life. His schedule, his diet, his work. But things have gone off the rails since Emily and the Wisdom Title were taken by Jason Ryan. He feels helpless now. Like anything can be taken from him. Jason Ryan did that. It started when Ryan attacked Buster’s father. It continues now. Jason put Buster in a no-win situation. Offering the champ his belt back, but only under Ryan’s terms. Terms that Buster knows will get him in trouble. For all the expertise and experience Buster has in the cage and in the ring, he’s only good when operating under the rules. The controlled environment is where he thrives. When chaos and unpredictability come into play, Buster struggles. That’s what happened in Milwaukee.
For a while, Buster faked it. Dating Riley Heart and pretending to live without boundaries. But it hollowed him out. Wrestling was the only thing that kept him grounded. Now wrestling is getting out of control and he needs something else to keep him grounded. It’s asking too much for his brand-new girlfriend to take on his problems so early in the relationship. Especially after her life was endangered because of him. She has to let him figure this out on his own.
Milwaukee was a chance to prove that. Buster offered an honorable handshake to Larry Tact in an attempt to play it straight and narrow, but Tact had a better strategy. He used Buster’s weaknesses against him. Tact was singularly focused on winning, so he cheated. He used distractions and foreign objects to humiliate and beat up Buster in a marquee matchup. Buster fell right into the trap. Without the help of his teammates who were in their own trouble, Buster took every finisher the Game Changers had in their skill set. His memory of the beatdown is a little foggy, but he’s pretty sure they even used the moves of Game Changer members who aren’t even in the match. A day later and a dollar shorter, Buster’s body is surprisingly fine, but his head is a garbled mess.
Buster is being forced into a lights-out match, with no rules, against two of the most ruthless talents on the Level Up roster. The thought of the pair is what finally causes him to drink the rare bourbon. He swirls the brown liquor around the glass, clinking the ice cubes. Taking in the sweet aroma, bringing back memories of the good times he spent drinking in the army, with friends who didn’t survive the war. A tiny sip, to break his sobriety. Like cheating on your spouse. Like stealing from your parents.
The whiskey doesn’t taste good per say. It’s supposed to be a little harsh. Smooth on the front end. A little fire on the back. Just enough to wake you up and make you want to lay down. He takes a bigger drink, swishing it around his mouth, then sucking air through his teeth. It’s not a great feeling. But it is a defining moment. A turning point. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
To start off, Buster has to leave his family to go to Detroit for work. NOBODY wants to go to Detroit, for any reason. Then he has to walk into a trap just to get back his property. He has to face Jason Ryan, a man that he’s already beat, with nothing to gain in the fight. And to make matters worse, Buster’s next opponent is also in the match. Sarah Wolf will be challenging Buster for the Wisdom Championship at Combat Evolved. Buster doesn’t know her well, but who does, really? She’s proven to be mean and talented. She’s mad and motivated. And Buster is exactly the type of opponent that she would love to disembowel in front of an audience. But you don’t worry about the monster under your bed when your house is on fire. Buster doesn't even know where to begin preparing for Sarah. So, he's just going to wing it. What’s the worst that can happen? Getting a fresh look at her in a match should help him prepare for their championship match at the pay-per-view. It works both ways. Sarah’s going to learn what makes Buster tick. And if she’s smart, it gives her a chance to cripple him. A hardcore match is the least desirable format for the champ and the culmination of all these factors has him dreading going back to work
“How’s that Pappy Van Winkle treating you, Big Shoots?” says the lady bartender who sits on a stool next to him, close enough to put her hand on his thigh. Buster gets a closer look at a tattoo on her left wrist, an infinity symbol with the word ‘love’ written in cursive. It reminds him of a trashy stripper he dated after his wife died.
“Tastes like back home.” admits Gloves.
“Where you from?”
“Here and there. No place worth going back to.”
“You aren’t really the talkative type, are you?”
“Just going through some things. You ever feel like just walking away from this job? Doing something else? Like none of this is worth the trouble?”
“Only every day. But it pays the bills. I hate to shatter the fantasy for you, but I have a 6-year-old at home. And her dad isn’t around much. I’d do just about anything to take care of that munchkin.”
Buster just nods in agreement as he finishes the rest of his whiskey.
“You got kids?” she asks, as she pulls close enough for Buster to smell her peach body spray.
“A couple.”
“You’d do anything for them too, I guess?”
“Probably.”
“Well, just make sure you do something for yourself once in a while.” She says with a sly look and a devious smile. “To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human.” She locates a new customer at the bar and walks about with those deep words of wisdom sitting in his lap.
He is immune to her words though. And pretty sure she just quoted The Matrix. Buster gets to work on the Puppers Lager as he watches some meaningless baseball game on the wall-mounted flat screen TV. He asks himself, ‘Who watches baseball anymore?’. What a terrible game. Sitting around, waiting for something exciting to happen. Failing 2 out of 3 times. With so many games in a season, none of them have any importance at all. Sometimes, as in baseball, a win or a loss doesn’t matter, when you consider the entirety of the season.
Buster lost his first match since March while in Milwaukee. He lost the match to the loudest mouth in the federation. He lost it in front of his teammates. And he was pinned. It’s the first time he’s ever been pinned in a singles, doubles, or trios match. And it feels awful. To be dominated like that makes him feel like he has no control over any portion of his life again. Larry Tact took that away from him. And it’ll be a long road before that sense of control comes back.
He drinks harder. Guzzles the bottle. Disgusted by himself and the situation he put himself into. Ashamed to have broken five years of sobriety over some stupid match that doesn’t mean a thing to anybody. He WAS weak. He IS a mess. And it’s time to go back home and get back to work.
Buster makes eye contact with the sexy bartender one more time. He puts up a hand and mimes a check mark in the air. The bartender brings the check over and leans in close, giving Buster a gratuitous view of the heart shaped necklace resting in her cleavage.
“Leaving me so soon?” she appeals.
“Afraid so.”
She slides the leather check book over to him as he finishes his beer. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you. You come on back any time you’re feeling thirsty.” She gives him a wink and wanders away to fill a drink order.
Buster opens the check book to reveal an overpriced bill and a bubbly message that reads ‘Stefani 555-438-2815’. What shocks Buster the most is the cost of the bill. Sure, he expected the bourbon to be pricey, but even the cost of a beer was extremely high. Much higher than he remembered paying five years ago when he was a violent alcoholic. He pulls some bills and a coin out of his pocket before getting up and walking out the secret door at the back of the lounge.
Stefani, the horny, money-hungry bartender picks up the check book and takes it over to her register. She’s surprised by two things when she opens it up. A 50% tip on the bill. Not bad. And a blue and gold AA coin that reads ‘TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. UNITY. SERVICE. RECOVERY.’ and the roman numeral ‘V’ in the middle.
There are two doors to get into Merv’s Burger Joint and Pub. The front door, the one more commonly used by tourists and families treating their kids to a post-game meal, is decorated with brass and dark brown wood trim. A pair of heavy glass doors, each with half a burger as a handle, guard the entrance. A sign in the window reads “Trivia Tuesdays, Smiles are Free!”. The second door is around the side of the building. It’s less decorated, almost blending in with the metal trim and brown brick. A green and white striped canvas awning provides shelter for the cigarett smokers under it.
Buster Gloves, goes in through the side door. The one less travelled. It circumvents the dining area and goes right to the lounge area. An L-shaped bar directly on the left. He knows about the second entrance because of one of his students. Employees sneak in and out of the building through that special exit, and Buster is hoping to sneak into the building without being noticed.
He turns the corner of the L-shaped bar and sits near the end of it, pulling out his cell phone to avoid making eye contact with anyone in the building. It’s mid-afternoon on a Thursday. The slowest part of the day. There are only a couple other customers, and one young, pretty bartender, with curly dirty blonde hair tied up in a cute red bandana.
“Hey there, Sugar. What can I get for you?” She says with dark eyes and a warm smile.
Buster looks up from his phone to shoot her a quick glance. Then, shocked by her comeliness, looks away. He’s never been good with eye contact. Especially with attractive women. She places a coaster in front of The Bull of the North. He gathers the confidence to make eye contact, noting the color of her eyes, the shade of her lips. “A Puppers Lager, whatever is the most local, and a whiskey, whatever is the most expensive. Two ice cubes.”
“Let me see. Most expensive. We have a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. But there’s a one-pour limit.”
“One should be enough.”
“You got it.”
Buster can’t help but watch her backside as the bartender walks away. He’s not interested in her sexually or romantically, she just looks nice. He already has a girlfriend. And she’s great. The more time he spends with Emily Simms, the more attracted he is to her. Each day is a new discovery. Each curve. Each quirk. The way her hair smells. The creases around the corner of her mouth when she smiles. He’s smitten. This bartender reminds him of Emily in a way. The same energy. The same bounce. She must be about 10 years younger than him. Almost the same age as Emily. It feels a little creepy dating someone so much younger than him. Like he’s some kind of predator. It feels wrong, but Emily insists that it’s ok. It doesn’t bother her or anyone of importance in his life. Buster is here at a bar, with a pretty bartender, and he can’t stop thinking about his girlfriend. Which is weird, because he’s been avoiding her calls since he hopped on the plane that morning.
Buster checks his phone. 3 missed calls. A dozen text messages. He powers it off and stuffs it in his pocket. They can wait. Nobody knows he’s back in town yet. His flight landed earlier, but he didn’t go right home. He stopped at a bar first. He isn’t ready to go home yet… to face the world after what happened in Milwaukee.
The bartender comes back with the drinks. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“Nah. I don’t think so. I’m nobody.” Replies Buster, as he rotates the cold beer bottle with his fingertips, turning the label to face him.
The girl folds her arms and squints in disbelief. “Are you sure? I’m pretty good with faces.”
“Nope. Just came here for a cold one. It’s hot out there.”
“Yeh. I’m sure it is.” She looks around to see if any other customers are at the bar. They aren’t. “So, what kind of work do you do?”
Buster half-smiles/half-frowns. “I’m a fighter, I guess.”
Validated she puts her hands on her hips and puffs out her chest. “I knew it! You’re one of those wrestling guys from that gym down the way.”
Unamused. Buster just looks at the label of his beer bottle. The brown diamond on the white label. The good boy with the floppy ears. 4.0% alcohol by volume. He doesn’t take a drink. He only studies it. A tumbler of expensive liquor sits next to it on a napkin. Taunting him.
“Are you any good?” she asks.
“I used to be.”
“Think you can teach me a move or two?”
“Sure. Anybody can learn to wrestle.”
“It’s fake though, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“You look a little banged up. That from your job?”
“Uh huh.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“Fair enough. I’m gonna go have a smoke. You need anything else right now?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
“My name is Stefani, by the way. With an ‘F’. I’ll be right back to take care of you in a few.”
Buster nods as the pretty young thing skips away. She is obviously flirting with him. Giving him bedroom eyes and playing with her hair. Bouncing to pop music in the lounge. But Buster isn’t buying it. She’s either flirting to get a good tip or she’s flirting to wreck his home and dig his gold. He waits until she’s out of sight to pick up his whiskey glass.
Alcohol hasn’t touched his lips in over 5 years. But Buster doesn’t know how to deal with what’s going on with him. He needs to be strong for his kids, for his girlfriend, for his fans, but he feels weak. Years ago, his life spiraled before he took control of it. He found a way to bounce back. For a long time, he was regimented and had an iron grip on the details of his life. His schedule, his diet, his work. But things have gone off the rails since Emily and the Wisdom Title were taken by Jason Ryan. He feels helpless now. Like anything can be taken from him. Jason Ryan did that. It started when Ryan attacked Buster’s father. It continues now. Jason put Buster in a no-win situation. Offering the champ his belt back, but only under Ryan’s terms. Terms that Buster knows will get him in trouble. For all the expertise and experience Buster has in the cage and in the ring, he’s only good when operating under the rules. The controlled environment is where he thrives. When chaos and unpredictability come into play, Buster struggles. That’s what happened in Milwaukee.
For a while, Buster faked it. Dating Riley Heart and pretending to live without boundaries. But it hollowed him out. Wrestling was the only thing that kept him grounded. Now wrestling is getting out of control and he needs something else to keep him grounded. It’s asking too much for his brand-new girlfriend to take on his problems so early in the relationship. Especially after her life was endangered because of him. She has to let him figure this out on his own.
Milwaukee was a chance to prove that. Buster offered an honorable handshake to Larry Tact in an attempt to play it straight and narrow, but Tact had a better strategy. He used Buster’s weaknesses against him. Tact was singularly focused on winning, so he cheated. He used distractions and foreign objects to humiliate and beat up Buster in a marquee matchup. Buster fell right into the trap. Without the help of his teammates who were in their own trouble, Buster took every finisher the Game Changers had in their skill set. His memory of the beatdown is a little foggy, but he’s pretty sure they even used the moves of Game Changer members who aren’t even in the match. A day later and a dollar shorter, Buster’s body is surprisingly fine, but his head is a garbled mess.
Buster is being forced into a lights-out match, with no rules, against two of the most ruthless talents on the Level Up roster. The thought of the pair is what finally causes him to drink the rare bourbon. He swirls the brown liquor around the glass, clinking the ice cubes. Taking in the sweet aroma, bringing back memories of the good times he spent drinking in the army, with friends who didn’t survive the war. A tiny sip, to break his sobriety. Like cheating on your spouse. Like stealing from your parents.
The whiskey doesn’t taste good per say. It’s supposed to be a little harsh. Smooth on the front end. A little fire on the back. Just enough to wake you up and make you want to lay down. He takes a bigger drink, swishing it around his mouth, then sucking air through his teeth. It’s not a great feeling. But it is a defining moment. A turning point. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
To start off, Buster has to leave his family to go to Detroit for work. NOBODY wants to go to Detroit, for any reason. Then he has to walk into a trap just to get back his property. He has to face Jason Ryan, a man that he’s already beat, with nothing to gain in the fight. And to make matters worse, Buster’s next opponent is also in the match. Sarah Wolf will be challenging Buster for the Wisdom Championship at Combat Evolved. Buster doesn’t know her well, but who does, really? She’s proven to be mean and talented. She’s mad and motivated. And Buster is exactly the type of opponent that she would love to disembowel in front of an audience. But you don’t worry about the monster under your bed when your house is on fire. Buster doesn't even know where to begin preparing for Sarah. So, he's just going to wing it. What’s the worst that can happen? Getting a fresh look at her in a match should help him prepare for their championship match at the pay-per-view. It works both ways. Sarah’s going to learn what makes Buster tick. And if she’s smart, it gives her a chance to cripple him. A hardcore match is the least desirable format for the champ and the culmination of all these factors has him dreading going back to work
“How’s that Pappy Van Winkle treating you, Big Shoots?” says the lady bartender who sits on a stool next to him, close enough to put her hand on his thigh. Buster gets a closer look at a tattoo on her left wrist, an infinity symbol with the word ‘love’ written in cursive. It reminds him of a trashy stripper he dated after his wife died.
“Tastes like back home.” admits Gloves.
“Where you from?”
“Here and there. No place worth going back to.”
“You aren’t really the talkative type, are you?”
“Just going through some things. You ever feel like just walking away from this job? Doing something else? Like none of this is worth the trouble?”
“Only every day. But it pays the bills. I hate to shatter the fantasy for you, but I have a 6-year-old at home. And her dad isn’t around much. I’d do just about anything to take care of that munchkin.”
Buster just nods in agreement as he finishes the rest of his whiskey.
“You got kids?” she asks, as she pulls close enough for Buster to smell her peach body spray.
“A couple.”
“You’d do anything for them too, I guess?”
“Probably.”
“Well, just make sure you do something for yourself once in a while.” She says with a sly look and a devious smile. “To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human.” She locates a new customer at the bar and walks about with those deep words of wisdom sitting in his lap.
He is immune to her words though. And pretty sure she just quoted The Matrix. Buster gets to work on the Puppers Lager as he watches some meaningless baseball game on the wall-mounted flat screen TV. He asks himself, ‘Who watches baseball anymore?’. What a terrible game. Sitting around, waiting for something exciting to happen. Failing 2 out of 3 times. With so many games in a season, none of them have any importance at all. Sometimes, as in baseball, a win or a loss doesn’t matter, when you consider the entirety of the season.
Buster lost his first match since March while in Milwaukee. He lost the match to the loudest mouth in the federation. He lost it in front of his teammates. And he was pinned. It’s the first time he’s ever been pinned in a singles, doubles, or trios match. And it feels awful. To be dominated like that makes him feel like he has no control over any portion of his life again. Larry Tact took that away from him. And it’ll be a long road before that sense of control comes back.
He drinks harder. Guzzles the bottle. Disgusted by himself and the situation he put himself into. Ashamed to have broken five years of sobriety over some stupid match that doesn’t mean a thing to anybody. He WAS weak. He IS a mess. And it’s time to go back home and get back to work.
Buster makes eye contact with the sexy bartender one more time. He puts up a hand and mimes a check mark in the air. The bartender brings the check over and leans in close, giving Buster a gratuitous view of the heart shaped necklace resting in her cleavage.
“Leaving me so soon?” she appeals.
“Afraid so.”
She slides the leather check book over to him as he finishes his beer. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you. You come on back any time you’re feeling thirsty.” She gives him a wink and wanders away to fill a drink order.
Buster opens the check book to reveal an overpriced bill and a bubbly message that reads ‘Stefani 555-438-2815’. What shocks Buster the most is the cost of the bill. Sure, he expected the bourbon to be pricey, but even the cost of a beer was extremely high. Much higher than he remembered paying five years ago when he was a violent alcoholic. He pulls some bills and a coin out of his pocket before getting up and walking out the secret door at the back of the lounge.
Stefani, the horny, money-hungry bartender picks up the check book and takes it over to her register. She’s surprised by two things when she opens it up. A 50% tip on the bill. Not bad. And a blue and gold AA coin that reads ‘TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. UNITY. SERVICE. RECOVERY.’ and the roman numeral ‘V’ in the middle.
