Post by Odin Balfore on Dec 9, 2023 21:22:00 GMT -5
The Culture IX
Bridgeport, CT
Mayor: Joe Ganin.
2nd in command: John Fabrizi.
Shot Caller: Roger Heathcoat Cairo.
Bridgeport was a town stewing in corruption like a Saigon bloodbath. It always has been and always will be. Like everything else, here's the veneer. Here's the billion-dollar high rises, the “Seattle fabulous” where you think some scum bag mayor thumps a kickback for laying concrete. Some call that corruption. Odin just calls that the general principles of economics.
Yah, you can go to the mayor. He can go to his second. Or you can go to Roger Heathcoat Cairo; the real mayor of BP. Down in the ghetto, in a Craig of broken brick and forgotten dreams, Roger ran the port city underworld after his brother decided that stackin boxes for TJ Maxx was a more lucrative career move than building a real empire. That could have Od_n but Od_n was a K_LL_R, not a K_NG.
It is easy to sit in a warehouse, smoke cigars, drink brandy, and make decisions. Easy, but not THR_LL_NG. Island nations, clandestine empires. Cloak and Dagger Enterprises. It all could have been his - all he had to do was leave behind the 16 x 16.
However, the itch always called him. Moreover, it was the gun that always called him.. It was .. the Culture. Wrestling was a poor substitution for the K_LL but spectres of the past were always there waiting for him to slip up. This is a dangerous game but that THR_LL was worth it. Even going to visit Roger was a risk.
Odin pulled up in his Range Rover to a broken-down warehouse on Canal St. Needless to say, there were better places for a Range Rover. As Odin got out of the car with a breifcase, he beeped the alarm and kept on waking only to be stopped by three guys in blue.
“ 34th street Crips. Represent”
Immediately Odin hung his head in shame and rubbed his eye out of irritation.
“You’re on Canal Street, you fucking idiot.”
“Yo, what chu say tah us. 34th street crip. We go where we want.”
“You’re two whole blocks away.”
“ We saw you roll up in that Range Rover and we figure we come take it for ourselves.”
“I’m a seven-foot tall white guy in a range rover and shoes worth more than your collective lives. What Samford and Son episode made you think this was a good idea?”
“The fuck is that?”
‘ The Culture, huh? We aint evah gonna make it.’ Odin thought.
“Again.” Odin replied, “ This is Canal Street. You think I’m here to buy art and open a hedge fund; why don’t you go back to 34th street. Go eat some Ramen noodles and jerk off to lil Boosey SKRT before you single-handedly create a surplus in the hood’s T-shirts sales. Is that what you want to be, a lame ass T-shirt that ya baby mama wears while your boys pipe her down, or worse, I come back through here and pipe her down myself.”
One of the gangsters pulls a gun almost as fast as Odin.
“You almost beat me.” Says Odin.
BANG!
Odin shoots the man dead.
“Almost.” He nods, as he puts the gun away then pulls out his wallet, throwing a few hundred bucks on his body.” Here. Go put his face on some Hanes.” Odin proceeds to walk between the other two men and inside the warehouse.
Inside the warehouse, Roger sat alone, looking like a Londoner doing his taxes after a bomb destroyed his home. He sat there quiet and undisturbed, staring down one end of his glasses as Odin approached with the briefcase.
“I got your case.” Says Odin skidding it across the cement floor.
_______________________
Gloster, RI
Calling Gloster a ‘wooded hamlet’ would be an insult but it is still one of the more secluded parts of Rhode Island. It’s here we find Odin bare-chested and digging a hole in the corner of a dilapidated barn.
“I heard,” Replied Roger, not looking up from his paperwork. “Stealing from Keanu Reeves,” Roger sucks his tongue in disapproval. “Tsk,tsk,tsk. It was all over the news. You were sloppy.”
Odin was focused and digging with purpose.
“It was just a 9mm, nothing special about it.”
“At this point, it’s a game.”
“ You’re lucky he and I are friends.”
Odins been digging for nearly an hour with a garden spade and has crept toward the middle of the barn.
“Am I?”
“Don’t get cocky, Roger. Remember who gave all of this to you.”
“My brother.” Says Roger with defiance. “Do not make empty threats with an army you do not have, an island you do not control, a head of French foot fighting that hates your guts, or a son that loathes you even more so. This is an empire you left behind tens years ago. It is no longer yours. You have no claim to it. However, I’ll tell you where the stash is, and let's be done with it.
“Roger told me that you would be here.” Rang a weary mans voice.
“Keanu?” Odin thought to himself, before looking up for confirmation. “ Are you going to shoot me; huh? Keanu Reeves kills a man in bum fuck Rhode Island.”
“No one would believe you.”
“It was just a gun. There's a whole stash of them buried here.”
“We’re both men of simple tastes. Why did you steal mine, only to be digging in the dirt.”
“Roger has your gun. He said it was a game.”
“Interesting. Does it look like I’m playing?”
“This isn't how I die, Keanu.”
“You’re right. It’s not. I need a favor.”
_______________________
Jackies Galaxey
Providence, RI.
Keanu and Odin sat at Jackie's; an up-scale Chinese restaurant in downtown Providence. They sipped their drinks and were catching up after their mutual misunderstanding.
“So you’re a wrestler; for how long.” Keanu asked.
“Since like, the Matrix.”
“That was a long time ago.” Keanu smiled and nodded, realizing how much time had passed since then. “You any good. That seems so fascinating.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“No,no. I’m serious. It must be a lot of work. Are you any good?”
“The best.”
“Do you do it every week?”
“Every week.”
“Do you have a match this week.”
“ Yah, I got a match this week. I have to fight two people in the same match this week. Cipher and Vespertine. “
Are you going to win? I - I don’t know how this works.”
“Yah, I’m gonna win. I have some unfinished business to attend to first but I’m gonna beat the breaks off of them. This puts me on course for the United States Championship.”
“What kind of unfinished business?”
Odin sniff and stirs his drink a moment. “Our kind. The kind where our lessers pay for the crimes of being our lessers. What do you want to do about Roger?”
“Eh, we’re both millionaires. If he wants it that bad, then he can keep it.”
“How do you feel about getting back into the life?”
“I’m burned.”
“Arnt we all; sounds like the perfect opportunity.”
“I’m pretty high profile. I mean, we both, are pretty high profile.”
“You think someone will bump you at a wrestling show at the Amica Pavillion down the street in front of seventeen thousand people or at the Kennedy Plaza station; Bah! It’s all politics. I ride the subway every day by myself and have no security and no one comes after me.”
“I came after you.”
“For politics. The world is too small for anything unsanctioned.”
“Ever been to the Baha, Odin?”
“What the hell for?”
“I know a guy down there. A demolitions expert. A Frog man.”
“Politics?” Odin asks.
“Politics.” Keanu replies.
_______________
“Cipher, I’m not gonna tell you that you got lucky. All you did was out class a bum. Foolish of me to think that my prence alone could elevate the game of Cedrone but here we are. Odin Balfore stomping through the mud of the lessers. Fighting for scraps to be the third man in a triple threat for the US title. Who are you. Who is Vespertine, just to cuckle-fucks talkin' about whos got the balls, whos got the nuts and whos gonna take who to the limit. Do ya’ll hear yourselves talk. Each of you talkin out your ass because both of you are in over your head. This aint anywhere where either of you been. Vespertine, at least you’re makin a splash and I can't take that away from you but I can snuff out that momentum and walk into the PLE with your spot. Although, admittedly, fighting Doc Holiday is like fighting John Black. John the Baptist. John the Revelator. You’re just another person whos going to herald the coming of another historic Odin Balfore championship run.
The world title is what I’m about. The tag belts has been my bread and butter but yet, I get saddled with losers and suckers who cant manage to tie their own shoes, let alone manage a tag match. Shit happens, Cipher. Be glad this could very well be the end of it. I cant stand those who can't pull their weight. Dead weight, dragging the others down with incompetence.
I’m going to smother you both this week and beat you with the very experience that you boast about like it’s yours. Beat you with the tongue that you think you earned. Beat you with 25 years of smash people like you every week for fun.
I’m not here for you, no. However, you are in my way.