Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2022 0:20:24 GMT
“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air”
Charlotte O’Neal, wife and manager of “Tiger Red” Eli Buchanan gets off the phone with yet another reporter, wanting to speak with her husband. She is tired of all the media attention Eli’s recent mishap has caused. Afterall, it was only one little fireball for Christ’s sake, and it’s not like Eli had meant to hit that poor girl, Shay, with it. Yes, Eli was impulsive and when his blinders were up, he tended to get too focused on the goal ahead of him and this sometimes meant innocent people got hurt in the process.
“And it’s not like he didn’t apologize,” she says to herself.
Immediately though, she grimaces at her own words. He did have to tweet that remark about liking the smell of her burning flesh first. She really did need to consider keeping him off social media right after a match, he wasn’t always in his right mind after he competed. Then again, when was he in his right mind anymore.
“Up ahead in the distance, I saw shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night”
Charlotte looks around and frowns. He was down in the basement, singing that blasted song again. She hated it. It brought back the nightmares of the past two years; of the masked woman, dancing and singing nursery rhymes; of that horrid palace that seemed to slowly suck the life out of a person; of “the beast”.
Charlotte shivers and rubs her arms with her hands. There had been an uproar over her husband hitting his tag team partner with a fireball. Many of Shay’s friends, and even her boyfriend, Donny Mason, had threatened to attack Eli after the incident with the fireball. He had been called a lot of names, many of which were justified: fool, idiot, reckless, psycho, monster. The last two were almost humorous, to be quite honest. If any of these people had known the person her husband was before the accident that took his memory, the Eli Buchanan who caused havoc in that Seattle based company, they wouldn’t be calling him a psycho. Hell, he did worse things in that company run by the owners of that fried chicken restaurant chain, Pollo Bucket: blowing up wrestling rings, burning his boss’s face off, that unfortunate incident out in the desert with the masked guy in the bathrobe.
Charlotte shivered again. Were things going to get that bad again? She certainly hoped not. If nothing else it had become a public relations nightmare for their family. Mind you, it was kind of fun.
A warm set of arms wrapped around her. Charlotte flinched for a moment before realizing who it was. She giggled as she felt her husband kiss her neck with his bearded face. Despite herself, she moaned as he sang softly into her ear.
“There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'”
“You know how I feel about that song, Tiger,” she whispers to him, not feeling in control enough of herself to risk speaking louder.
“I know, but there was a time that you loved it, my sweet Charlie,” he whispers back. “Give it a chance, it might grow on you again.”
Charlotte wants to argue, but she’s suddenly scooped up in his strong arms. She tries to fight him off, laughing the whole time, as he carries her up the stairs to the second floor. All the way up the stairs he sings softly.
“Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say…”
The children are all at daycare or school. They have the whole house to themselves for the day. By the time they reach their bedroom door, Charlotte isn’t pretending to fight against her husband’s strong embrace anymore. In fact, she’s singing along.
“Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here”
***
“Tiger Red” Eli Buchanan sits alone in the darkness, staring at a candle. He doesn’t seem to notice the camera at first, or, perhaps more accurately, he’s ignoring it. All his focus is on the little flame in front of him and he seems to marvel at it’s light, waving his fingers over it, laughing to himself and whispering, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…”
Finally though, Eli looks up and stares straight at the camera.
“I’ve been asked by Emiliano Herman, or at least that intern of his, to say a few words about my cage match with Frank Jefferson to determine the number one contender for the APWO World Title. Part of me wants to simply say ‘Damn Flanders’ five hundred times or so, just out of sheer spite of it all and be done with it, because you see, I’m tired of talking. I’m tired of having to say ‘I’m going to hurt you, Frankie Boy’, because up to this point my words have gotten me nowhere. I said I was going to pin Frank Jefferson with a Tiger Supex in our first match and even offered him ten thousand dollars if he could kick out, and instead I lost by countout, thanks in part to a referee who should have to pass a breathalyzer every night before allowed to officiate wrestling matches. The second time we were set to meet, I promised for a week to throw a fireball in Jefferson’s face. I bragged about it on social media, I posted ridiculous GIFs, I even posted a video of the “One More Day '' from Les Miserables. Where did that get me? Nowhere! Well, I did throw the fireball, but Jefferson ducked and it hit my tag team partner by mistake, and the smell of her burnt hair and flesh was pretty good…”
“Tiger Red” pauses for a moment, a slightly sick smile crossing his face and his eyes glaze over. He suddenly shakes his head and looks back at the camera.
“By the way, sorry about that Shay, feel free to get a receipt for me later.
“The point is, that nothing I’ve said, nothing I’ve promised, and nothing I’ve set out to do when I’ve been in the ring with Frank Jefferson has worked out so far. It’s only made me angrier, and more frustrated because it feels like no matter what I try to do, I can’t beat you, Frankie Boy, and I know you’re out there smiling smugly as I say this and thinking to yourself that you’re going to go up three and oh against me. It’s that very thought that threatens to drive me crazy, Frank, because I know you’re not better than me, you’re not smarter than me, and you certainly aren’t more talented to me. Up to this point though, I’ve laid out my game plan for you, like a connect the dots picture. I have told you exactly what I was planning to do and all you to do was watch out for it and counter as needed. This time around though, I’m not telling you squat! It’s a cage match, do the fucking math! There are only three ways to win: pinfall, submission, or escape the cage. That’s pretty simpy, Frankie, right? And this time, I know what your game plan is going to be, you’re going to try to escape the cage as quickly as you can. We both know you don’t want to stay in that cage with me for very long with me. You might act cool and cocky on social media, and you might brag when your behind the microphone, but we both know that when that cage door slams shut and the bell rings, you’re going to be ready to shit your pants, because suddenly you’ll be stuck in the ring with the monster you helped to unleash on APWO. You will be standing across the ring from your own personal Frankenstein monster, and as the monster said himself, ‘I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.’”
Eli Buchanan begins to chuckle.
“This is what you’ve done to me, Frank. I tried to be the ‘good guy’ that people wanted me to be. I tried to play by the rules and be someone that the fans could be proud of, but you showed me that there’s no point in any of that! The only way you get ahead in professional wrestling is by being the most vile son of a bitch possible, and I promise you this. Franklin FUCKING Jefferson, you silver tongued, slimy, no good piece of shit! When you step into that cage tomorrow night, you’re walking into hell! There will be no tag team partners to accidentally get in the way of what happens to you and if the referee is smart he won’t come close to me, if he wants to stay healthy. I’m going to tell you what I have in store for you because we both know it’s keeping you awake at night, thinking about all the ways I can torture you with the cage itself, and in the back of your head you’re already wondering if I might cash in on one of those previous promises of mine. Will I try to Tiger Suplex you? Will I FINALLY throw a fireball in your face? Or, will I pull out something new for you? Shred your face on the cage! Slam the door on your head! Hang you by the top of the cage and watch you wiggle around helplessly until YOUR BODY GOES LIMP!”
Eli Buchanan takes a few long breaths to calm himself down and stares back at the candle again. He holds his hand directly over the flame. The fire burns his skin and begins to smoke. He laughs to himself again and begins to sing once more.
“This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”
Without warning, Eli yells, “RUN!” He leaps at the camera and the screen goes dark.
***
In bed, Charlotte O’Neal lies next to her husband. She rolls onto her side and looks at him as he sleeps, wondering what he dreams about tonight. Does he have the same nightmares that she does, of that place they escaped, or does he dream of far off Barsoom like he once did when they were younger? She knows her husband is crazy, no one can go through what he has and not be just a little insane, but she loves him nonetheless.
“Please God,” she prays, “Let it be different this time. I just want us to be healthy and happy for once. Please, just give me that for a little while. Please!”
Her prayer is met with silence, and not for the first time she wonders if her family has been cut off from God somehow, as if they were blocked by some sort of barrier. Maybe God just doesn’t care about her anymore.
It’s with that sad thought Charlotte closes her eyes and slowly falls asleep. Once agains she dreams of that terrible nightmare of the dancing woman in the porcelain mask, calling out to her to come back home. Back to Hotel California.
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air”
Charlotte O’Neal, wife and manager of “Tiger Red” Eli Buchanan gets off the phone with yet another reporter, wanting to speak with her husband. She is tired of all the media attention Eli’s recent mishap has caused. Afterall, it was only one little fireball for Christ’s sake, and it’s not like Eli had meant to hit that poor girl, Shay, with it. Yes, Eli was impulsive and when his blinders were up, he tended to get too focused on the goal ahead of him and this sometimes meant innocent people got hurt in the process.
“And it’s not like he didn’t apologize,” she says to herself.
Immediately though, she grimaces at her own words. He did have to tweet that remark about liking the smell of her burning flesh first. She really did need to consider keeping him off social media right after a match, he wasn’t always in his right mind after he competed. Then again, when was he in his right mind anymore.
“Up ahead in the distance, I saw shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night”
Charlotte looks around and frowns. He was down in the basement, singing that blasted song again. She hated it. It brought back the nightmares of the past two years; of the masked woman, dancing and singing nursery rhymes; of that horrid palace that seemed to slowly suck the life out of a person; of “the beast”.
Charlotte shivers and rubs her arms with her hands. There had been an uproar over her husband hitting his tag team partner with a fireball. Many of Shay’s friends, and even her boyfriend, Donny Mason, had threatened to attack Eli after the incident with the fireball. He had been called a lot of names, many of which were justified: fool, idiot, reckless, psycho, monster. The last two were almost humorous, to be quite honest. If any of these people had known the person her husband was before the accident that took his memory, the Eli Buchanan who caused havoc in that Seattle based company, they wouldn’t be calling him a psycho. Hell, he did worse things in that company run by the owners of that fried chicken restaurant chain, Pollo Bucket: blowing up wrestling rings, burning his boss’s face off, that unfortunate incident out in the desert with the masked guy in the bathrobe.
Charlotte shivered again. Were things going to get that bad again? She certainly hoped not. If nothing else it had become a public relations nightmare for their family. Mind you, it was kind of fun.
A warm set of arms wrapped around her. Charlotte flinched for a moment before realizing who it was. She giggled as she felt her husband kiss her neck with his bearded face. Despite herself, she moaned as he sang softly into her ear.
“There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'”
“You know how I feel about that song, Tiger,” she whispers to him, not feeling in control enough of herself to risk speaking louder.
“I know, but there was a time that you loved it, my sweet Charlie,” he whispers back. “Give it a chance, it might grow on you again.”
Charlotte wants to argue, but she’s suddenly scooped up in his strong arms. She tries to fight him off, laughing the whole time, as he carries her up the stairs to the second floor. All the way up the stairs he sings softly.
“Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say…”
The children are all at daycare or school. They have the whole house to themselves for the day. By the time they reach their bedroom door, Charlotte isn’t pretending to fight against her husband’s strong embrace anymore. In fact, she’s singing along.
“Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here”
***
“Tiger Red” Eli Buchanan sits alone in the darkness, staring at a candle. He doesn’t seem to notice the camera at first, or, perhaps more accurately, he’s ignoring it. All his focus is on the little flame in front of him and he seems to marvel at it’s light, waving his fingers over it, laughing to himself and whispering, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…”
Finally though, Eli looks up and stares straight at the camera.
“I’ve been asked by Emiliano Herman, or at least that intern of his, to say a few words about my cage match with Frank Jefferson to determine the number one contender for the APWO World Title. Part of me wants to simply say ‘Damn Flanders’ five hundred times or so, just out of sheer spite of it all and be done with it, because you see, I’m tired of talking. I’m tired of having to say ‘I’m going to hurt you, Frankie Boy’, because up to this point my words have gotten me nowhere. I said I was going to pin Frank Jefferson with a Tiger Supex in our first match and even offered him ten thousand dollars if he could kick out, and instead I lost by countout, thanks in part to a referee who should have to pass a breathalyzer every night before allowed to officiate wrestling matches. The second time we were set to meet, I promised for a week to throw a fireball in Jefferson’s face. I bragged about it on social media, I posted ridiculous GIFs, I even posted a video of the “One More Day '' from Les Miserables. Where did that get me? Nowhere! Well, I did throw the fireball, but Jefferson ducked and it hit my tag team partner by mistake, and the smell of her burnt hair and flesh was pretty good…”
“Tiger Red” pauses for a moment, a slightly sick smile crossing his face and his eyes glaze over. He suddenly shakes his head and looks back at the camera.
“By the way, sorry about that Shay, feel free to get a receipt for me later.
“The point is, that nothing I’ve said, nothing I’ve promised, and nothing I’ve set out to do when I’ve been in the ring with Frank Jefferson has worked out so far. It’s only made me angrier, and more frustrated because it feels like no matter what I try to do, I can’t beat you, Frankie Boy, and I know you’re out there smiling smugly as I say this and thinking to yourself that you’re going to go up three and oh against me. It’s that very thought that threatens to drive me crazy, Frank, because I know you’re not better than me, you’re not smarter than me, and you certainly aren’t more talented to me. Up to this point though, I’ve laid out my game plan for you, like a connect the dots picture. I have told you exactly what I was planning to do and all you to do was watch out for it and counter as needed. This time around though, I’m not telling you squat! It’s a cage match, do the fucking math! There are only three ways to win: pinfall, submission, or escape the cage. That’s pretty simpy, Frankie, right? And this time, I know what your game plan is going to be, you’re going to try to escape the cage as quickly as you can. We both know you don’t want to stay in that cage with me for very long with me. You might act cool and cocky on social media, and you might brag when your behind the microphone, but we both know that when that cage door slams shut and the bell rings, you’re going to be ready to shit your pants, because suddenly you’ll be stuck in the ring with the monster you helped to unleash on APWO. You will be standing across the ring from your own personal Frankenstein monster, and as the monster said himself, ‘I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.’”
Eli Buchanan begins to chuckle.
“This is what you’ve done to me, Frank. I tried to be the ‘good guy’ that people wanted me to be. I tried to play by the rules and be someone that the fans could be proud of, but you showed me that there’s no point in any of that! The only way you get ahead in professional wrestling is by being the most vile son of a bitch possible, and I promise you this. Franklin FUCKING Jefferson, you silver tongued, slimy, no good piece of shit! When you step into that cage tomorrow night, you’re walking into hell! There will be no tag team partners to accidentally get in the way of what happens to you and if the referee is smart he won’t come close to me, if he wants to stay healthy. I’m going to tell you what I have in store for you because we both know it’s keeping you awake at night, thinking about all the ways I can torture you with the cage itself, and in the back of your head you’re already wondering if I might cash in on one of those previous promises of mine. Will I try to Tiger Suplex you? Will I FINALLY throw a fireball in your face? Or, will I pull out something new for you? Shred your face on the cage! Slam the door on your head! Hang you by the top of the cage and watch you wiggle around helplessly until YOUR BODY GOES LIMP!”
Eli Buchanan takes a few long breaths to calm himself down and stares back at the candle again. He holds his hand directly over the flame. The fire burns his skin and begins to smoke. He laughs to himself again and begins to sing once more.
“This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”
Without warning, Eli yells, “RUN!” He leaps at the camera and the screen goes dark.
***
In bed, Charlotte O’Neal lies next to her husband. She rolls onto her side and looks at him as he sleeps, wondering what he dreams about tonight. Does he have the same nightmares that she does, of that place they escaped, or does he dream of far off Barsoom like he once did when they were younger? She knows her husband is crazy, no one can go through what he has and not be just a little insane, but she loves him nonetheless.
“Please God,” she prays, “Let it be different this time. I just want us to be healthy and happy for once. Please, just give me that for a little while. Please!”
Her prayer is met with silence, and not for the first time she wonders if her family has been cut off from God somehow, as if they were blocked by some sort of barrier. Maybe God just doesn’t care about her anymore.
It’s with that sad thought Charlotte closes her eyes and slowly falls asleep. Once agains she dreams of that terrible nightmare of the dancing woman in the porcelain mask, calling out to her to come back home. Back to Hotel California.