Post by Ash Blake on Mar 27, 2022 11:03:51 GMT -5
2/11/22
Ash's eyes darted around the ostentatiously ornate walls of the San Francisco gin bar she'd tucked herself into the back corner of, less-than-eager to meet those of her company for the evening. Her gaze drifted down towards the phone in her hand as a notification chimed:
Olivia
How's it going?
How's it going?
"You have until I finish this drink," Jonathan Backus said, jarring Ash's attention upwards as he idly stirred his
With a deep breath, she offered a familiar grin. "Have you ever truly believed in anything?"
Johnny's head cocked.
"Ashley. It’s me. Duh."
"Right," she responded, sucking her teeth. "And what would you actually do in service of that?"
"What are you doing it in service of?"
"The Rapture."
Reflexively, Johnny offered a snort of laughter in response. As Ash's eyes narrowed, locked on his, his expression steeled.
"You’re serious."
Sorry to burst your bubble, Jillybean, dubbing yourself “Vermin Queen” is textbook Vermin Pleb behavior. That’s gonna you down a couple ranks – but it’s the same song and dance for you, huh? One step forward, two steps back and onto a rake, Sideshow Bob-style. Debut hot and get dropped by yours truly – beat Frank and lose the briefcase – beat Kemp and lose the title shot – beat Shaw and get dropped by yours truly. May as well complete the shtick and get “The Johnny, The” tatted on your chest.
Regardless of whatever little problem you have with me – whether my overall sensibilities offend you, or whether you just think I’m dreamy and don’t have the social skills to do anything besides the Helga Pataki bit – I genuinely haven’t cared much about you until this point. And no, I’m not going to rehash what I said about Regan a few weeks ago – I genuinely haven’t given a shit about you. Do I think you’re a detestable gremlin woman bedecked in haut couture and drenched down in Pink perfume to disguise your dumpster soul? Yes. Has watching you fail been objectively funny and succeed been objectively miserable? Yes. But why worry about your schemes when even Lissie Hope could see through them?
That said, it’s hard for me not to have sympathy for the devil, even if you’d clench your teeth and say “don’t you dare pity me.” Because my strongest impression of you will always be your first Twitter profile picture, proudly soyfacing as you show off your cat. And sometimes I think a person that excited about a pet couldn’t truly be such a piece of shit. So to Jill the soyfacing cat lover – are you in there? It’s not too late.
"Did you think I was just in it for the paycheck?" Ash asked with a shrug.
"Go on."
"Answer the question."
Johnny shook his head. "I don’t answer rhetoricals."
"I know it's hard to understand," she began with a sigh. "But everything I did was for everyone, all of the time—"
"You hurt people," he interjected, his voice low but forceful. "You inflicted misery and suffering with no regard to the welfare of others."
"Every great step forward invariably comes down on someone's head."
"Spare me, you won a fucking wrestling belt."
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Those are the people your heart bleeds for?"
"You’re West KC trailer trash who got an MBA and learned to speak fluent code-switch, don’t look down on anyone."
As the words left his mouth, Ash's face flushed. Her cheeks stung from the blow, her gaze oddly distant but for a moment. When it returned, she forced a smile and turned her good ear towards him.
Truth be told, Jill, I can't help but feel as though I should begin this with a thank you. Sincerely. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for reminding my treacherous swine of an ex-colleague of his place in the world without Philidor there to hold him aloft. Though, I do wish you would've separated the joint from its socket, but then again, going all the way isn't exactly in your lexicon, is it?
(Right, my bad. I should've said 'vocabulary' there, right? Gotta consider the audience and all.)
I can't help but think back to something I said in November, the first time our paths crossed. The night my world died, and I held myself together, and pushed through you anyway. Something to the effect of 'I don't care much for you, but I care even less about you'.
And honey, I can't say too much has changed in that regard. Though, I'll admit the ratios have skewed. I'm much more interested in Jill Park the person these days. The validation-starved, emotionally-stunted womanchild who clings onto appellations thrust upon her by someone openly mocking her, insisting it makes her in on the joke while blissfully aware it simply makes her the punchline.
But I don't share my associate's hope for you. I'm a firm believer that when someone shows you who they are, you listen. And everything you've shown the world — the posturing, the tragedies, the bloviating — all point to one thing. You can fabricate it for the cameras all you'd like, but the only reason you wouldn't actually throttle your sister if it meant breaking through is because you're afraid you'd break your thumbs on the attempt.
So now it's back to the grind.
I'll grant you that step forward now.
Because the next two are off the cliff.
"Is that the best you got?"
Her grin bared teeth. Johnny sipped his drink, unmoved by the display.
"Just the facts, ma’am."
She shook her head, rising to her feet.
"I don’t know why I’m bothering when you’ve expressed no desire to listen."
"Why should I listen, Ashley?" He fired back in response as Ash stood, left hand wrapped around the corner of the table between the pair. "I know your spill or spiel, why should I waste another second listening to you do mental gymnastics when the proof in the pudding is an old plane ticket to Johannesburg I still keep in my wallet?"
"If I had tipped her off and she ran," she began, eyes darting around the bar before rounding the table and approaching him, her voice a whisper, "she’d be dead right now."
"Does telling yourself that help you sleep at night?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "It fucking doesn’t!"
Don't worry Regan, you won't have to give me the same spiel you gave my associate a couple weeks ago. Spare me the indignation, the assertions, the godforsaken whining, because I see you. Truth is, even with that empty-eyed glare of yours in my periphery, I've seen you for a while, Regan Voorhees. You are nothing if not human.
Emotionally stunted.
Competitively precarious.
Reaching out for a transcendence that will forever elude your grasp.
Oh, you're human alright — no emboldening of your little misanthropic jainist shtick will free you from the meat-prison. Tell me, is this the part where I pat you on the head and tell you that you remind me so much of me? Because I'll confess:
You really.
Really.
Don't.
Sure, I guess there are some passing similarities; much in the same way that great whites and basking sharks are both lamniformes. But as I look at you, as I acknowledge your humanity, it dawns on me more and more just how hollow any comparison between the two of us rings.
Almost as hollow as those vocalized ponderings of intense physical harm of yours feel at this level; a real shame someone with such barely restrained homicidal urges lacks any sense of killer instinct the second her security blankets are ripped away. You hit Adelaide Ainsworth with a car, didn't you?
But now the best you can muster is being this season's Michelle Carter, calling out the instructions for the terror to compensate for the fact that your hand cannot create them. And lucky for you, you have an accomplice desperate enough to carry them out.
I do see your humanity, Regan. Really, I do.
But I'm sure you'll understand that right now, all I see in you is a hog ripe for the slaughter.
Oh. Right.
"So you’re conscious of the blood on their hands." His eyes darted from her own to her wrists. "On yours. And you did it anyway."
She took a deep breath, eyes scanning the other patrons, whose attention had returned to their own affairs. "I did it in service of what I truly believe in."
"Bully for you," Johnny replied as he rose from his seat, his eyes once again locked on Ash's. "What did it get you?"
She stared back, unblinking.
"I was granted a mercy I do not deserve."
"And that’s the poetry, isn’t it?"
Ash shook her head.
"They put Peter’s head in a box, and they King Henry’d you – left you excommunicated out in the snow, begging forgiveness."
"Oh, shut the fu—"
"But you’ve been out here for more than four days, and you understand they’re not opening that door back up. And that’s how they treated their loyal zealot: a fate worse than death, left all alone."
Ash slouched, her gaze darting to the floor. Though her hands balled into fists, and her heart raced inside her chest, she remained silent as his words sunk in. It wasn't until he began to turn away, and she felt a vibration in her pocket that she offered any response at all:
"I’m not alone."
Johnny paused and turned back towards her.
"Okay. Are you coming?"
lol. lmao.
That's about all the contemptuous wrath I can muster for you off the bat, Reggie. Oh sure, you gave me the reason to pull the drapery off my newfound affiliation, but rest assured, it could've just as easily been Winnie-boy in your place if not for a few elbows to the skull. I still haven't sent DanFehl a thank you note for the idea, yet – perhaps I can recycle the stationary you issued that RSVP on. I am, if not, a believer in "one man's trash is another man's treasure", even if merely treasuring the look on your face when I dumpster your stock going into Havoc.
No, Regan, aside from the necessary respect anyone needs to give the venomous bite of a serpent, I can't say I'm concerned. We squared off a few weeks ago, and I took your best shot on the chin. I let you beat, bend, and make me buckle – but I didn't break. I felt the surgical hand of Dutch Voorhees slice away at me, savoring all 999 cuts she dealt to me... and then a funny thing happened on the way to the farm: she couldn't deliver the killing blow.
Perhaps you got too cute. Perhaps I'm not Addy A. Perhaps you couldn't adjust your game plan on the fly as to whether or not I'm a Socialist or a Communist. But rest assured that when the guillotine falls, it will be our victory. Keep the "moral accomplishment" of forcing my hand to ease the sting.
There's no sympathy for the devil here. When I was a child, we once found a rattlesnake in our backyard, and my dad showed me what to do in those moments:
You get the shovel.
And you lop its fucking head off.
3/28/22
"Are you ready?"
The voice awoke Johnny from his steel-eyed trance, bringing back down to Earth and his place standing in anticipation behind the curtain in Gorilla. Olive regarded him quietly, as Ash's eyes darted from him to the curtain. Just beyond it, the crowd buzzed with anticipation. As his music began to play, the noise swelled in reaction – and it was the reaction he'd anticipated.
"They aren't going to understand," Ash continued.
"That’s okay," Johnny replied as he took a final drag of his Juul and shouldered the burden, "I understand."
They stepped forward together. It was time.
