Mortimus Prime
The scene cuts backstage where a smiling and energetically cheerful Matt Mills, PRIME interviewer extraordinaire, stands next to a rather averagely dressed man wearing a nondescript teal luchador mask.
Matt Mills: Good evening, Matt Mills standing next to the newest member of the PRIME family, Mortimer….Uh, I apologize, but how do you pronounce your last name?
Mortimer Kjedelig: Kig-jig….Ki-jinn-dill….eh….”Smith”.
Matt Mills: Can you not pronounce your own last name?
Mortimer Kjedelig: Do I need a lawyer?
Mortimer Kjedelig pulls out of his pocket his flip phone, flips it open….
Mortimer Kjedelig: I have him on speed dial…see? Right here….
Mortimer Kjedelig shoves the open phone in Matt Mills’s face.
Mortimer Kjedelig: “ROSENCRA”….The full name wouldn’t fit. It’s the Law Offices of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Contrary to what you may have heard, they are not dead. Only Guildenstern, God bless his soul. Fishin’ accident. But Rosencrantz? He’s—-
Matt Mills: There’s no need for that. I just didn’t want to offend you and I found it odd that you couldn’t….nevermind.
Mortimer: Hey, fuhgeddaboudit.
The six-three masked wrestler ruffles Matt Mills’s hair with one part humor and three parts disrespect.
Matt Mills: So, Mortimer, it says you recently moved to Horace, North Dakota. Where are you from originally?
Mortimer Kjedelig: New—ehhhhh…Dez Moins.
Matt Mills: New Des Moines? Never heard of it.
Mortimer Kjedelig: Yeah, no, it’s a regional thing, to you it’s just Dez Moins…it’s New Dez Moins to us from, uh….Io-dah-owa
Matt Mills: You mean Iowa?
Mortimer Kjedelig: That’s what I said!
Matt Mills: You actually said—-
Mortimer Kjedelig: You callin’ me a liar? Where else did I spend the last five to five and a half years in the insurance industry sellin’ and servicin’ Property and Casualty policies, namely Home and Auto, and, before you accuse me of lyin’ again, I have the Agents License to prove it.
Matt Mills: You…sell….insurance?
Mortimer Kjedelig: Only until recently, where tragically, one day, my fiancee of three years, Esther Vander-Something….whom I met at a dog park with my dog at the time, Vampire Nuts, to which I called “Vampy” for short, left me for a yoga instructor named Lance, Esther, not Vampy, the emotional devastation that she caused me was immeasurable. I quit my job to follow my dream of becoming a wrestler. But I don’t like to dwell on things like that. It’s whaddya call it, counterproductive.
Matt Mills: Very profound, Mortimer. Now, what are your plans moving forward, here in PRIME?
Mortimer Kjedelig: To do my job.
Matt Mills: That, uh…that’s it?
Mortimer Kjedelig: What? If I kick someone’s ass or if someone kicks my ass, the money’s the same, am I right?
Matt Mills: I suppose.
Mortimer Kjedelig: Sure, there’s the adrenaline of beatin’ the shit outta some mook with a big mouth. But, Matty, the thing is, when all is said and done, green is god. A god. Not the God. Don’t need to get struck down by a lightnin’ bolt, am I right?
Mortimer Kjedilig let out an obnoxious laugh and claps Matt Mills on the back, jerking him forward. Mortimer then takes a more serious tone.
Mortimer Kjedelig: But make no mistake, I might not have the experience of a Teddy Palmer or a Doozy but whomsoever the powers that be place across that ring from me, it ain’t gonna be pretty. It’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be nasty. It’s gonna end with someone layin’ out in a pool of their own blood.
Matt Mills: Thank you, Mister…Mortimer.
Mortimer Kjedelig: Hey! No probs. Here….
The masked man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash and places some money in his hand.
Mortimer Kjedelig: Get yourself something nice.
Mortimer leaves the frame as Matt Mills looks at the cash in his hand. A single dollar bill.
Matt Mills: What am I going to do with a dollar?
Matt Mills waves the dollar bill into the air and looks off into the direction where Mortimer Kjedelig has walked off as the scene ends.