Lowlife

It was almost like a parade - protesters dragging themselves through dirty streets, traversing neighborhoods their self-proclaimed middle-class sensibilities would normally forbid them from setting foot in, hurling threats and obscenities at best and improvised firebombs at worst towards anything perceived to be remotely connected to the object of their scorn: Mayor David Sanchez. How wonderful, Erin couldn't help but think as she watched the procession go by, face almost pressed against the dirty glass window of the little slice of Hell she called home. It's almost like I'm invisible. Bringing up the rear of the procession was a particularly reckless man waving a burning Chicago flag; Erin wondered why Sanchez hadn't redesigned the flag to bear his face. As the protesters continued to march towards the next stop in their aimless search for a sense of autonomy in their self-destructive downward spiral, Erin couldn't help but feel the grin on her face growing wider and wider. The way she saw it, there was a certain beauty in chaos - humankind's primal, savage nature on full display, free of the shackles of etiquette and civility instilled at the dawn of society. Men and women of all ethnicities and creeds struggling, fighting the good fight as they saw it, scratching and clawing for the chance to regain their voice despite the fact that all of them were oblivious to one simple, damning truth: their tongues had already been cut.

The first gunshot of the night rang out, echoing loudly over the chants of protest - a series of buzzwords that blended together in an orgy of barely-organized defiance.

Erin pulled herself away from the window.

"When I was a kid, we'd get these little black ants in our house. A lot of them - I'm talking infestation-level. I'd see a bunch of them daily, so what I'd do was crush them with one finger, then roll them up into a little ball and toss the corpses on the ground for their stupid fuckin' friends to see."

She shook her head, hand drifting towards the waistband of her jeans as the sound of muffled grunts filled the room. Tsk tsk, the smile faded from her face, replaced by a blank, expressionless visage as she turned to face the source: a portly, bearded man hastily duct-taped to the broken office chair that came with the room. A strip of silver tape covered his mouth, stifling his attempts at speech.

"The things we do when we're young, eh?"

His eyes darted across the room, as if racing, desperate to look anywhere that wasn't at Erin. She scoffed and wrapped her hand around the grip of the black revolver in her waistband, though as she pulled it she couldn't help but feel a little exposed as she jammed the barrel in the man's face. As if she'd shown her hand too soon. The man's eyes fell upon the barrel, bulging out of their sockets as he felt the muzzle of the gun pressed against the bridge of his nose. He spat a series of muffled wails into the adhesive covering his mouth, peeling his eyes away from the gun long enough to look up at the ceiling - for God, perhaps. Erin knelt down in front of him, pulling the muzzle off his nose before caressing his cheek with the barrel, shushing him.

"Don't worry, I'll take the tape off. But I swear, if you fucking scream it'll be the last thing you ever do. Remember, you came up here with me voluntarily."

The man gulped, settling into his seat the best he could.

"Nod if you're not going to scream."

He felt the metal of the gun scrape against the side of his face as he nodded - yes.

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere."

The corners of her mouth curled upwards as she reached for the edge of the strip of tape forcing the man's mouth shut. He braced himself as she grabbed the corner, expecting her to just rip it off and get it over with. After a few seconds, wherein she did nothing but look him in the eye while remaining still as a statue, he finally allowed himself to let his guard down. Of course, the second he did that, she tore the tape off him with a certain fervor - as if she wanted to rip his lips off with the pesky piece of adhesive. The man violently jerked his head and winced, gritting his teeth in a silent expression of hurt and rage.

"Oh, please. Don't be such a pussy."

The man groaned weakly, knuckles white from gripping onto the arms of the chair as it wobbled side-to-side.

"What the fuck?"

He winced again as Erin forced the front sight blade into his temple, grabbing him by the hair with her other hand and shoving him into the gun. She scoffed, not even bothering to hide her amusement at the unfolding situation. Beads of perspiration formed on the man's brow, leaking down the sides of his face.

"It's okay, friend. I'm here for you."

The man scowled.

"You're insane."

"Sticks and stones."

"What do you want with me?"

"Oh, no. Tsk tsk, friend. Who do you think I am? Some kind of cackling supervillain; ready, willing, and able to go on long-winded motive rants? Get real."

She cocked her head, looking through the greasy shmuck strapped to the chair with a crooked grin.

"Besides, you'll know everything you need to before the night's done. Tell you what: since you're so curious, how about we play a little game?"

The gun seemed to sparkle in her hand - a shining, shimmering light that bore through her eyes and imprinted itself on the outer reaches of her brain. She pulled the gun away from the man's face and spun the chamber.

"There's one round in the chamber. I'm going to ask you a few questions: answer truthfully and you can ask me a question. Lie, and I'll pull this trigger."

She rose to her feet, thumb resting on the hammer.

"Your choice, friend."

The man forced himself to smile. He had to, if he didn't - she'd win. He drained the fear from his face and parted his lips, exposing his rotting, yellow teeth.

"Game on."


You'll have to forgive me, Thursday; I'm at a bit of a loss for words. After all, what is there to say about you? The woman who was never meant to be a wrestler, content to sit and bask in the the sloppy seconds of fame that being attached to Jared Holmes' name brought you. But, the camera eye has always been your closest friend, hasn't it? Isn't that the meaning of all this? Sure, you can claim it's to honor your personal Jason Dean all you want, but we both know the truth at the heart of the matter: you're lost without the flashing cameras. You crave the spotlight, the attention, and yet with Jared out of the picture, there was nothing left for you. You couldn't just coast by with fame-by-association, because let's be honest hon, you never that interesting on your own. Who could be surprised that your public stock dropped to zero when your beau fell off the face of the Earth?

And so you've turned to the craft of professional wrestling to capitalize on the slightest hint of recognition people would pay you out of begrudging respect to your old flame, who I can only imagine perished blowing up his own personal school to make a statement about society, however ill-formed and ultimately self-absorbed it might've been. Something like, "Waaaaaah I'm a narcissistic sociopath all because my daddy didn't love me and somehow that's everyone else's fault but my own". To top it off, you've nestled yourself firmly in the bosom of Alessandra Malignaggi because none of Jared's old #BeachKrew contemporaries want to be attached to your name. It's always a shame to see such good friends fall out, isn't it?

Of course, it was only a matter of time before we veered into Jared Holmes' lovechild: #BeachKrew. The powerhouse stable; the most dominant stable that the WCF had seen in years; a veritable gang of all-stars… provided you could dig the diamonds out of the rough, that is. What the #BK propaganda always failed to mention was just how bloated and sprawling the #BeachKrew empire really was. How many talentless hacks infested the pillars of the group like termites, threatening to make the whole structure collapse every time they went down to the ring and found themselves smacked to the mat before they could utter out one of the #Krew's awe-inspiring catchphrases.

#BitchLivesMa-- whoops, sorry: there goes Dustin Beaver. Hard to believe he was once a rising star in the #BK hierarchy.

#BeachKrew4Sea-- Down goes Kyle Kemp! The chinks in his armor are much easier to see when he doesn't have Johnny Rabid backing him up.

#FuccboiGeno-- Sandy Coconutz has been rocked so hard she's drifting in out of existence entirely. Wasn't that the joke? She's real but then she isn't until she is?

But, it's fine. It really is. Not every person in a group has to be the most talented member of the roster; hierarchies are good after all. They keep everything in place and ensure there is a place to keep. The important thing was that #BeachKrew was a singular identity. You could look at any member of the ol' #Krew and you could just tell that they were one of the swagged-out locust horde descending upon Twitter with the might of a thousand Moby Dick-sized shitposts, you know, until you get a glance at guys like Kyle Kemp and Dustin Beaver and even everyone's favorite, Broblivseaon. Those three were all about the shitposting and the maymays and the whole #BK ethos, right?

I'm sure if I asked Kemp, he could give me a dissertation on Blank Banshee's music and its place in the larger Vaporwave spectrum.

Dustin Beaver is actually Yung Lean's biggest (and only unironic) fan.

The Dancing Obi gif provided many topkeks and giggles. A quality shitpost very much intended by the big man.

You know, if Jared really wanted to honor/lampoon the ideology of postmodernism, he ought to have just named #BK, #ThisIsNotAStable. Because, by the end that's what it really came down to; a bunch of obnoxious cunts loosely tied to each other, throwing up dank maymays and shitposts like suburban white kids making gang signs to act like they're part of something bigger. Something that doesn't really exist.

When you think about it, there wasn't a #BeachKrew, just the idea of one. Jared admitted as such when the #DagRiddickGang were set to take the trios tournament by storm. Not #BeachKrew; a new entity entirely. All because Jared didn't have the faith in his own creation to see it through to the end.

That's just Jared for you. So scared of letting people see that he offers absolutely nothing to anybody, is such a walking black hole of innovation that his most interesting moments came from him appropriating everything about his persona. Vaporwave and Seapunk, a bunch of post-internet, pretentious hipster bullshit, but even then he couldn't quite get the nuances down pat so he just flaunted that shit around like a badge of hipster-honor while glorifying the shit it criticised. Or his multitude of nicknames stolen from the likes of Chambers all the way to Drake and of course, he acknowledged this all the time.

Hanging a lampshade doesn't make it any less retarded.

Hanging a lampshade doesn't make it clever in anyway.

All it does is expose him even further. He's not even deluded enough to think those are his monikers, ones he's created or earned. He knows it's full of shit and laughs about it to deflect his own mounting insecurity and to snuff out his lucidity in the crib.

If life's a joke, then everything's funny.

Right, right. Jared's gone and all but I have to keep talking about him because Thursday? There's absolutely nothing to you. After all, the biggest win to your name ought to be marked with an assist by me. Andre Holmes: the man whose head I'm renting an apartment in (not hard, I know - to get in Andre's head you pretty much have to say two words to him and the high-strung fuck will do the rest of the work for ya), whose knee I tweaked and then retweaked just before your match with him.

You're welcome.

After all, it gave you time in the camera's eye, which you love so much. Unfortunately the camera doesn't love you back, it would seem. I mean, you had your big chance - to win without Alessandra's aid and without my crusade to break Andre Holmes and rebuild him the way I want him to be - and you and the Polar Phantasm fought in a match plagued by streaming issues, with such little crowd demand to see it, that those issues were never fixed when it came to video on demand. As far as the fans who weren't in attendance know, there was no winner or loser in that match.

And no one cares enough to fix that.

That alone should show your worth, Thursday.

Wake up.

But of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't give ample time to discussing the matter of Alessandra Malignaggi. Like her dear friend and partner, Miss Malignaggi is bereaved lover of a professional wrestling icon - though this one is much more straightforward as opposed to the ill-thought out parody/cultural experiment known as Jared Holmes. And yet, as much as it hurts my heart to admit it: that's not where the similarities end. It's so sad, really: seeing so many poor fucks latching themselves to the successes and notoriety of others. My heart doesn't break for the state of professional wrestling when I see these two parade around like there's something more to them than the people they /used/ to fuck. My heart breaks for the idea of self-determination - beaten to death with a rock. Because, why bother doing anything for yourself when you can glide so far up the card based on the lovers that you used to know? Why bother chasing the American Dream - an idea I presume I'm more sympathetic towards thanks to my background - when the same level of achievement can be obtained by shacking up with someone who's already there and waiting for them to die/disappear/run off and elope underneath the warm Mexico sun?

There's a simple answer for that:

The sheer joy involved with exposing weak-willed little cunts struggling to maintain a grip on the relevance their significant others have left for them in case of emergency. Now, I know what you're thinking - there's something inherently wrong about a good Christian like myself practically salivating at the mere prospect of taking even more away from these two poor ladies. I mean, they've already lost so much and they're just trying to stick to a routine that makes sense and allows them to drift away from the ugly reality that their loved ones are gone and might not ever come back, so where do I get off being so fucking happy to have the opportunity to rip even that sanity-restoring routine from their hands - like a dingo with a baby?

Then again, I'm sure I may be neglecting my duties as a woman of God by standing with Mayor Sanchez in light of his ban on conventional religion. I'm not a perfect person, I'll admit. I sin, just like everyone. And I can't help what's in my head, telling me that there's nothing I want more than to put them down harder than life has already let them down in the past few months.

This is honesty, Alessandra. Yes, I'm talking to you, and not about your dear departed husband /Joseph Malignaggi/. Now now, calm your fingers. I know you hear his name come from my mouth and it's gone and triggered your Pavlovian response - by the time I say this, I'm sure you've already hit me up with Twitter with a thinly-veiled death threat, if I'm lucky. Who knows, you might've already forgotten the veil. Maybe Thursday stole it. She needs it. After all, with Jared gone, who's going to lampshade all his stupid shit?

But I want you to be honest, Al - may I call you Al? I know, I know. We aren't friends, cunt. But I feel Alessandra is just so - formal. Like there's some kind of inherent respect in the way the name Alessandra is pronounced. Just want to make sure you know where we stand, Al. I don't respect you. Anywho, tangent aside, I want you to be honest. If not with me, with yourself: what are you?

Il diavolo.

The Devil.

Right, Al: you're the Devil. Boldly going where every insipid coattail rider goes: to the realm of social media though I guess it's right here where there starts to be marked differences between our good friends Al and Thursday. Thursday, much like her boo, is a walking, talking, quasi-sentient shitpost so it makes sense that her social media presence is one long joke that stopped being funny before it even started, but has just now become sad. If you're not me, because the way I see it, it's just now gotten funny. Flandering, flailing, reaching out for a lifeline but no one else is around and willing to help while I watch her succumb to the waves Jared worshiped - I can feel it coming in the air tonight.

But you, Al? You're opposite of the exaggeration that is Thursday Kerrigan: you're remarkably banal. Going from inane to idiotic. From regaling us all with the social media equivalent to photo albums you awkwardly flip through at family gatherings - shit you've seen a million times before, but forget immediately - to threatening lives via Twitter.

Really, Al?

That's the best you got? Newsflash, hon, it's 2016: who doesn't get death threats regularly? But I guess I can't really blame Al for that: again, it's a reflex. A conditioned response. She hears/sees the name Joseph "Joey Flash" Malignaggi and she sees red - she lashes out the only way she can: with threats of violence via the internet.

This is the real sad part, people.

Alessandra Malignaggi, who wants us all to believe that she is the Devil, is really nothing more than a scared little bitch clinging so tightly to her husband's memory that she can't help herself from desperately wanting to control every mention of him after he's gone. Maybe a little indicative of the type of relationship they shared before he went the way of the dinosaurs?

Face it: you're not the big bad wolf.

You're stuck in your little, straw hut.

You're not Keyser Soze.

You're Keaton. You think you're calling the shots, you think you're the one in control until it dawns on you way too late, that you've been a puppet on a string this whole time - going down the paths someone else wanted you to, given the illusion of a choice, of control. Only to have it ripped away from you by the person you least expect. Who you put yourself above, who you not only didn't see coming, but couldn't.

God created the Devil.

Then he sent him into the abyss.

Lucifer really should've seen it coming.

Ciao Bella.

I'll pray for both of you - may your significant others come home soon enough so that you can fade away, back to the relative obscurity you both deserve so thoroughly.

"Question one: what's your name?"

Her thumb caressed the hammer, cocking it back with a soft /click/.

"Remember, honesty is the best policy."

The poor bastard was truly a sight to behold: cold beads of sweat ran down the sides of his fat face, disappearing in the forest of unkempt facial hair that littered his neck like the debris scattered on the same streets the protesters continued to march down. His clothes were tattered and torn, caked with dirt and stained by grass and mud. He mumbled hysterically to himself before stammering out the first answer in this little 'game', as the psycho with the gun called it:

"Tommy McIlroy."

"Well, that was a freebie but rules are rules. Go on, ask me any question you want - with the exception of the hideously on the nose 'why are you doing this to me?' - be creative with it!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She tried her hardest to stifle a laugh - failing miserably in the process.

"You want the list? Well, shit: where do I start? I have found that I am functionally unable to empathize with others. I have a bit of an ego problem. One time I scored a thirty-five on the Hare checklist. Oh, and there's the fact that I go by two different aliases - one a self-proclaimed child of God and the other well, a little closer to the big man downstairs if you catch my drift and the kicker is I don't know which is talking right now! Plus, I'm acutely aware that I'm being watched right this very second by some vague, otherworldly force. Though, normally they're even further in my head. I'm sure I missed some bits and pieces here and there but I think you get it."

[beat]

"Oh, but don't worry I have a very sympathetic backstory."

With that, she descending back into a giggling fit.

"Okay, I'm lying. I wouldn't dare try to excuse this. That's what cowards do."

In the blink of an eye, her giggling, joking expression melted back into an ice-cold glare at the bound man.

"Enough of that. Second question: do you believe in God?"

"N-n-no."

/Click/. She pulled the trigger and for a moment, Tommy whole world stopped. He saw his life flash before his eyes - birth and the orgy of hedonistic debauchery that inevitably landed him right in this very position. Then he gasped and realized that he was still alive. Still trapped. He lucked out was his initial thought, though he couldn't help but wonder if that was true.

"Come on, Tommy. We're friends. You can be honest. Go on, answer truthfully: do you believe in God?"

Tommy hung his head, sheepishly mumbling under his breath.

"You already know the answer."

"Yes, but I want to hear you say it."

Tommy sighed.

"Yes, I believe in God. Happy now, bitch?"

Erin knelt down once more, grabbing Tommy's chin and pushing it up so his eyes met her's.

"You made me the happiest woman in the world, and you don't even know it."

She made her way behind the chair and turned it, so that Tommy could see the scene unfolding just outside the window in all its firebombing, anarchic glory.

"See that? That's the power of faith, Tommy. Faith can turn even the most dutiful of citizens into a bloodthirsty maniac - the type who'd rather see the city they live in, the city they love, the city their fathers and grandfathers built, reduced to ash before they entertain the idea of losing their faith. That's devotion. Foolish pride, sure. Broken people grasping onto the frayed ends of sanity to keep from turning into the type of animal that can thrive in this brave new world of ours. Trying to keep the good ol' days intact. Now, why'd you lie to me?"

"I, I guess it's cuz I don't think God believes in me anymore."

"Don't be silly. God will never leave his children. He's been with you the whole time, the clawing voice in your head telling you to get your shit together and stop living on the street. God sent you to me. See, those people out there don't know this so I'm filling you in on this little secret with hopes that you'll keep it between us: they're a choir without tongues. Screaming gurgling attempts at broken English to a man who's already foreseen all of this. These people need a voice - the chosen one of both God and man."

"And that's you?"

"You're goddamned right."