Surf's Up! (1895 words vs Black, Jones, & Zolton)
Dec 29, 2021 20:58:28 GMT -5
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Post by Holden Ross on Dec 29, 2021 20:58:28 GMT -5
Tuesday, December twenty-sixth. Nine-thirty in the morning. Kelso, Washington.
He stands on the deck that wraps around Frank’s home, shivering in the snow, looking out over the Cowlitz River Valley. Snow has covered everything in a white blanket and sounds are muted. The crunching of footsteps in snow catches his attention and he turns his head to look over his shoulder. It’s Grimmy, Frank’s best friend, attorney, and manager. Grimmy stops next to Holden and places a steaming mug on the rail in front of the young man. Grimmy has a matching mug, himself, and takes a swing from it.
Grimmy: “Hot chocolate and Rumplemintz. Keep ya nice and warm.”
Holden looks at Grimmy for a moment and their eyes meet. He can see in Grimmy’s eyes that it’s going to be sooner rather than later.
Holden: ”I wish he would let go…does that make me a piece of shit?” Holden breaks he state away from Grimmy and scans the valley. “He’s dying and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”
”Theres nothing any of us can do besides keeping him comfortable and out of pain. He’s doped to the gills on morphine. He’s a tough old fucker. You gotta give him that….”
”Old? He’s not old. Barely forty-four years old. Do they know what caused it?”
Grimmy shakes his head. ”No clue, coulda been anything; painting cars with his uncle when he was a teenager without a respirator. Could be the pollutants in the air from the smoke stacks of the paper or saw mills. Could be that he rolled craps and God, or whatever, saddled him with it. What does it matter how he got it, anyways?”
Hokden takes a sip from the mug and places it back on the railing. ”I’m just curious if I need to worry about it, ya know?”
Grimmy’s meaty paw of a hand claps the younger man on the back. ”Don’t sweat the small shit, Holden, and it’s all small shit. You got a nice, long, full life ahead of you. In fact, everything you see here is yours. That’s why Frank asked me to have you come up.”[/color]
Holden stares at Grimmy for a moment, confused. Grimmy just smiles.
”What? It’s all…what?
”He’s leaving you his entire estate. You’re his only kid, his wife died almost ten years ago, and his extended family hasn’t seen or heard from him in twenty years. He wants YOU to have it all. The house. The land. His three cars. He also has a trailer on an acre of land in Bakersfield, California, as well as a dive bar; the “Pour House.” It’s all yours.”
Holden is gobsmacked. He turns to Grimmy and opens his mouth but has no words.
”Don’t worry about it right now. He’s still here. To be honest, I think he’sto mean to let this take him down but he wanted everything in order.”
”Just in case…”
Grimmy nods. ”Just in case…”
The two head back in the house. Holden’s head is swimming; his Father is going to die and his multimillion dollar estate is going to become his own. Homes, cars, businesses….he would trade them all to keep Frank in this world. He has grown to love him, like the Father he is and never had. Once inside the home the sounds of medical machinery take the place of the peaceful silence outside in the cold.
A hospital bed has been set up in the living room, taking the place of the Lay-Z-Boy that was there a month ago during Holden’s Thanksgiving visit. Tubes and wires trail from the devices keeping Frank alive to his prone, sleeping body where it has shrunken greatly in the past month. You would never know he was dubbed “The Monster” and, at his peak, was six-five, three twenty-two. Now he is barely over two hundred pounds and his skin hangs from his bones.
Thursday December twenty-eighth. Four-thirty p.m. Las Angeles, California.
Holden is riding in the passenger seat of his friends oh-nine Dodge Charger. It is jet black, windows tinted, and has every bell and whistle you can think of both, under the hood, and inside the cockpit. “Lamb of God” is on the stereo but turned down so that you can barely hear it. His friends name is Adam and he runs his grandfather’s pecan farm in San Luis Obispo. He jumped at the opportunity to pick Holden up from the airport.
Adam: “I’m glad you’re back in town, bro! I watched that Hellscape thing you were in. That shit was sick! Too bad you didn’t win…”
They merge into traffic on a freeway headed north. The car is twelve years old but looks like he bought it yesterday. When he steps on the gas, the vehicle lurches forward and accelerates quickly, the engine growl sounds satisfied. Adam weaves in and out of the lanes like a professional stunt driver, occasionally drawing a blat from another drivers horn, which draws a raised middle finger from Adam.
”Assholes need to learn to drive!”
Holden opens the glove box and, like when they were kids, finds a pack of Marlboro Red’s, only the tobacco has been replaced with ground up cannabis. They both laugh as they bump knuckles before Holden lights the joint.
The three and a half hour drive take just under two and a half for Adam and his juiced up Charger. When he drops Holden off at his mother’s home, they are both mildly stoned and the sun has just set. Holden’s mother’s home is a ranch style home and the biggest one in their cul-de-sac.
Holden purchased the lots on either side of his mother’s home and expanded it. It now sits on nearly two acres with a pool, hot tub, three car garage, and a large shop his stepfather uses to fix up and build custom bikes. The gate utters a soft squeal as he pushes it open but offers no resistance. The yard is perfectly manicured, something his mother prides herself on. She does it all herself without a landscaping crew. When he enters the home, a French Bulldog casually enters the foyer and utters a low growl.
”Fuck off, Jacques, where’s mom?” he asks and the dog looks over it’s shoulder towards the living room and then back at Holden. From that direction comes the sounds of a whirring mixer….the kitchen lies just beyond and is connected to the living room.
The kitchen is where he finds his Mom, making what looks like cookie dough from scratch, and nursing an open bottle or wine, one glass at a time. She sense him entering the kitchen and turns with a smile from ear-to-ear.
”My BOY!” she screams and throws out her arms in anticipation of a hug. He can’t help but smile and let’s his mother’s arms envelope him in a hug. ”I’m so glad you came by. I don’t see or hear from you enough anymore. Want a cookie? Or a sandwich? I have leftover spaghetti in the fridge, you love spaghetti! I’ll warm some up for you….”
Nobody loves you like your Mom….
Date, unknown. Time, after dark apparently.
Footage from an airborne drone shows what looks to be a scrap yard. Piles of twisted and torn metal are methodically lined up, side-by-side, in preparation for what appears to be one of those machines that compact a full sized car into a cube. From the drone shot, we can see Holden, sitting on what appears to be a large chair, between two burn barrels. Flames dance several feet above the rim of the barrels, lapping at the night sky, casting embers into the air. The camera angle suddenly cuts to a handheld shot, several feet in front of the Bastard.
He is sitting on a throne made from scraps metal and car parts. The throne stands about five feet tall and is probably four feet wide. This throne was featured in his promotions for his matches in Pure Class Wrestling. He is clad in a pair of black Dickies, black and white Chuck’s, and a black hoodie with a pentagram and the number “666” on the left breast. Atop his head sits a snug, black stocking cap.
”This week, yours truly is in a match, battling three others for the right to call themselves the ‘King of Violence.’ A more suitable title I couldn’t think of for myself. First match of the year, in Las Angeles, practically my old stomping grounds.” Holden produces a cigarette case from the hoodies front pocket and removes what appears to be a joint. He lights it and draws smoke deep into his lungs. ”Los Angeles is like my backyard, I have travelled these streets, and spilled blood on them. How appropriate that it is where I will be crowned the ‘King of Violence.’
Mason Jones is one of the men standing in my way, competing against me for the title of ‘King,' but he is just filler. The last time I saw him he was being carted out on a stretcher, in a neck brace. Why would this week be any different?”
Holden takes another long pull off of the joint and taps it with his fingertip, knocking a bit of ash off.
”Then we get to See, or Zoltan? Zoltan?” Another pull from the joint ending with twin jets of smoke pluming from his nostrils. ”Zagnut?” He shrugs. ”Doesn’t really matter, does it? We don’t know each other but we’re going to do our damnedest to cripple each other. Nice ink, by the way….”
He takes another long pull before pinching the cherry between his right index finger and thumb before flicking into the dirt. He sits up straight in the chair and his demeanor changes from seeming not to care to being serious in the blink of an eye.
”And we finally get to the ‘King of Wrestling,' Corey Black. Here not too long ago, I swore my allegiance to you in a Twitter post. I swore to back you as you rode into battle for another show. From what I was able to gather, at the time, you shared a thirst for violence that sounded as though it rivaled my own.
I looked across the landscape of your and realized that you’re more akin to a sharecropper or, at best, a Surf. Your subjects neither fear not love you and wouldn’t notice if you were to vanish, without a goodbye.
As a steward of this Kingdom you have really let your people down. I have heard whispers and rumors about you, Mister Black. And while it is spoken in hushed reverence, they don’t fear you. They can dawn about your brutality but….it’s like a fairy tale. Sounds great but unbelievable.
Show me you’re not a Surf. Bring that fire, the angry, that DRIVE that all of these knuckledraggers around here crow about. Because, looking around at your Kingdom, it’s not all that impressive. You have let mediocrity fester like a cancer. It’s time they meet the real King. Their, ‘King of Violence.’”
Holden rises from his seat and steps to the side and retrieves a well-loved, well-used, battered and stained with what could be blood. The handle and business end are both heavily wrapped in tape. As the scene fades out he kisses it before giving his Father’s trademark smirk at the camera.
He stands on the deck that wraps around Frank’s home, shivering in the snow, looking out over the Cowlitz River Valley. Snow has covered everything in a white blanket and sounds are muted. The crunching of footsteps in snow catches his attention and he turns his head to look over his shoulder. It’s Grimmy, Frank’s best friend, attorney, and manager. Grimmy stops next to Holden and places a steaming mug on the rail in front of the young man. Grimmy has a matching mug, himself, and takes a swing from it.
Grimmy: “Hot chocolate and Rumplemintz. Keep ya nice and warm.”
Holden looks at Grimmy for a moment and their eyes meet. He can see in Grimmy’s eyes that it’s going to be sooner rather than later.
Holden: ”I wish he would let go…does that make me a piece of shit?” Holden breaks he state away from Grimmy and scans the valley. “He’s dying and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”
”Theres nothing any of us can do besides keeping him comfortable and out of pain. He’s doped to the gills on morphine. He’s a tough old fucker. You gotta give him that….”
”Old? He’s not old. Barely forty-four years old. Do they know what caused it?”
Grimmy shakes his head. ”No clue, coulda been anything; painting cars with his uncle when he was a teenager without a respirator. Could be the pollutants in the air from the smoke stacks of the paper or saw mills. Could be that he rolled craps and God, or whatever, saddled him with it. What does it matter how he got it, anyways?”
Hokden takes a sip from the mug and places it back on the railing. ”I’m just curious if I need to worry about it, ya know?”
Grimmy’s meaty paw of a hand claps the younger man on the back. ”Don’t sweat the small shit, Holden, and it’s all small shit. You got a nice, long, full life ahead of you. In fact, everything you see here is yours. That’s why Frank asked me to have you come up.”[/color]
Holden stares at Grimmy for a moment, confused. Grimmy just smiles.
”What? It’s all…what?
”He’s leaving you his entire estate. You’re his only kid, his wife died almost ten years ago, and his extended family hasn’t seen or heard from him in twenty years. He wants YOU to have it all. The house. The land. His three cars. He also has a trailer on an acre of land in Bakersfield, California, as well as a dive bar; the “Pour House.” It’s all yours.”
Holden is gobsmacked. He turns to Grimmy and opens his mouth but has no words.
”Don’t worry about it right now. He’s still here. To be honest, I think he’sto mean to let this take him down but he wanted everything in order.”
”Just in case…”
Grimmy nods. ”Just in case…”
The two head back in the house. Holden’s head is swimming; his Father is going to die and his multimillion dollar estate is going to become his own. Homes, cars, businesses….he would trade them all to keep Frank in this world. He has grown to love him, like the Father he is and never had. Once inside the home the sounds of medical machinery take the place of the peaceful silence outside in the cold.
A hospital bed has been set up in the living room, taking the place of the Lay-Z-Boy that was there a month ago during Holden’s Thanksgiving visit. Tubes and wires trail from the devices keeping Frank alive to his prone, sleeping body where it has shrunken greatly in the past month. You would never know he was dubbed “The Monster” and, at his peak, was six-five, three twenty-two. Now he is barely over two hundred pounds and his skin hangs from his bones.
Thursday December twenty-eighth. Four-thirty p.m. Las Angeles, California.
Holden is riding in the passenger seat of his friends oh-nine Dodge Charger. It is jet black, windows tinted, and has every bell and whistle you can think of both, under the hood, and inside the cockpit. “Lamb of God” is on the stereo but turned down so that you can barely hear it. His friends name is Adam and he runs his grandfather’s pecan farm in San Luis Obispo. He jumped at the opportunity to pick Holden up from the airport.
Adam: “I’m glad you’re back in town, bro! I watched that Hellscape thing you were in. That shit was sick! Too bad you didn’t win…”
They merge into traffic on a freeway headed north. The car is twelve years old but looks like he bought it yesterday. When he steps on the gas, the vehicle lurches forward and accelerates quickly, the engine growl sounds satisfied. Adam weaves in and out of the lanes like a professional stunt driver, occasionally drawing a blat from another drivers horn, which draws a raised middle finger from Adam.
”Assholes need to learn to drive!”
Holden opens the glove box and, like when they were kids, finds a pack of Marlboro Red’s, only the tobacco has been replaced with ground up cannabis. They both laugh as they bump knuckles before Holden lights the joint.
The three and a half hour drive take just under two and a half for Adam and his juiced up Charger. When he drops Holden off at his mother’s home, they are both mildly stoned and the sun has just set. Holden’s mother’s home is a ranch style home and the biggest one in their cul-de-sac.
Holden purchased the lots on either side of his mother’s home and expanded it. It now sits on nearly two acres with a pool, hot tub, three car garage, and a large shop his stepfather uses to fix up and build custom bikes. The gate utters a soft squeal as he pushes it open but offers no resistance. The yard is perfectly manicured, something his mother prides herself on. She does it all herself without a landscaping crew. When he enters the home, a French Bulldog casually enters the foyer and utters a low growl.
”Fuck off, Jacques, where’s mom?” he asks and the dog looks over it’s shoulder towards the living room and then back at Holden. From that direction comes the sounds of a whirring mixer….the kitchen lies just beyond and is connected to the living room.
The kitchen is where he finds his Mom, making what looks like cookie dough from scratch, and nursing an open bottle or wine, one glass at a time. She sense him entering the kitchen and turns with a smile from ear-to-ear.
”My BOY!” she screams and throws out her arms in anticipation of a hug. He can’t help but smile and let’s his mother’s arms envelope him in a hug. ”I’m so glad you came by. I don’t see or hear from you enough anymore. Want a cookie? Or a sandwich? I have leftover spaghetti in the fridge, you love spaghetti! I’ll warm some up for you….”
Nobody loves you like your Mom….
Date, unknown. Time, after dark apparently.
Footage from an airborne drone shows what looks to be a scrap yard. Piles of twisted and torn metal are methodically lined up, side-by-side, in preparation for what appears to be one of those machines that compact a full sized car into a cube. From the drone shot, we can see Holden, sitting on what appears to be a large chair, between two burn barrels. Flames dance several feet above the rim of the barrels, lapping at the night sky, casting embers into the air. The camera angle suddenly cuts to a handheld shot, several feet in front of the Bastard.
He is sitting on a throne made from scraps metal and car parts. The throne stands about five feet tall and is probably four feet wide. This throne was featured in his promotions for his matches in Pure Class Wrestling. He is clad in a pair of black Dickies, black and white Chuck’s, and a black hoodie with a pentagram and the number “666” on the left breast. Atop his head sits a snug, black stocking cap.
”This week, yours truly is in a match, battling three others for the right to call themselves the ‘King of Violence.’ A more suitable title I couldn’t think of for myself. First match of the year, in Las Angeles, practically my old stomping grounds.” Holden produces a cigarette case from the hoodies front pocket and removes what appears to be a joint. He lights it and draws smoke deep into his lungs. ”Los Angeles is like my backyard, I have travelled these streets, and spilled blood on them. How appropriate that it is where I will be crowned the ‘King of Violence.’
Mason Jones is one of the men standing in my way, competing against me for the title of ‘King,' but he is just filler. The last time I saw him he was being carted out on a stretcher, in a neck brace. Why would this week be any different?”
Holden takes another long pull off of the joint and taps it with his fingertip, knocking a bit of ash off.
”Then we get to See, or Zoltan? Zoltan?” Another pull from the joint ending with twin jets of smoke pluming from his nostrils. ”Zagnut?” He shrugs. ”Doesn’t really matter, does it? We don’t know each other but we’re going to do our damnedest to cripple each other. Nice ink, by the way….”
He takes another long pull before pinching the cherry between his right index finger and thumb before flicking into the dirt. He sits up straight in the chair and his demeanor changes from seeming not to care to being serious in the blink of an eye.
”And we finally get to the ‘King of Wrestling,' Corey Black. Here not too long ago, I swore my allegiance to you in a Twitter post. I swore to back you as you rode into battle for another show. From what I was able to gather, at the time, you shared a thirst for violence that sounded as though it rivaled my own.
I looked across the landscape of your and realized that you’re more akin to a sharecropper or, at best, a Surf. Your subjects neither fear not love you and wouldn’t notice if you were to vanish, without a goodbye.
As a steward of this Kingdom you have really let your people down. I have heard whispers and rumors about you, Mister Black. And while it is spoken in hushed reverence, they don’t fear you. They can dawn about your brutality but….it’s like a fairy tale. Sounds great but unbelievable.
Show me you’re not a Surf. Bring that fire, the angry, that DRIVE that all of these knuckledraggers around here crow about. Because, looking around at your Kingdom, it’s not all that impressive. You have let mediocrity fester like a cancer. It’s time they meet the real King. Their, ‘King of Violence.’”
Holden rises from his seat and steps to the side and retrieves a well-loved, well-used, battered and stained with what could be blood. The handle and business end are both heavily wrapped in tape. As the scene fades out he kisses it before giving his Father’s trademark smirk at the camera.
