Rezin
Your recommended auditory companion: OUTLAW ORDER
BUN
“Say it!”
Another fist found its mark on the cheek below his right eye. The impact caused his head to hit the ground. As the world around him slowly came back into focus, so too did the sensation of pain.
Encircling the action were as many as a dozen chortling spectators, incessantly egging on the violence.
There was no escape to be had.
And a giant was standing over him.
“I said, ‘SAY IT’!”
His name was Brent Herschberger.
He was the captain of the Lebanon High School Varsity Wrestling Team (go Tigers!), and for reasons quite obvious “Hurts Burger” became something of a nickname around school.
If Erik Black ever had any aspirations of joining that team, they were certainly being dashed on this day.
There was no inciting incident that preceded this event. There was no rhyme or reason to why on this day he chose to go after a random kid who cut through the field to get home that day.
Could be that being three years his junior and a good hundred pounds lighter factored into it. For a bully, it’s only natural to target the easier prey that either can’t or won’t put up much resistance.
This was punishment for the crime of existing. Being born poor, stupid, and scrawny gifted him with all the qualities to be the perfect victim.
Again, the fist connected with his face. Again, the world briefly went blurry.
The taste of blood was now heavy in his mouth. Trying to shield himself at this point was useless; it would’ve been like trying to stop a battering ram with a pair of sticks.
He couldn’t quite say at this point how many times he had been hit.
“Say the fucking words, you pussy!”
He rolled over and attempted to push himself up off the ground. To hell with the uncaring will of nature; if he was going to die like an animal, it wouldn’t be without baring his teeth.
The circle fell silent. His arms were shaking, but somehow held out. He raised his head, looked that big redneck son of a bitch in the eye and managed to push out two words.
“Fuck you…”
His defiance was answered by a foot slamming into his ribs. Clutching his sides, he fell over onto his back once more. The laughter from the viewing party resumed.
“I can do this all day, dipshit. Just say the words, and it will all be over!”
A knee pressed down onto his chest, with close to two hundred pounds on top of it to pin him down.
Even with his lungs burning like the fires of hell, he managed to say something back.
“…F-F-FUCK Y–”
Another fist.
And another.
Then a forearm came down across the side of his head, and pushed, grinding his face into the dirt.
“COME ON! SAY IT!”
It was clear that this was no longer about the personal enjoyment of picking on something smaller. Despite being in complete control, “Hurts Burger” wasn’t getting what he wanted, and it was beginning to annoy him.
Everything up until this point had been pulling the wings off of a fly. Now, that fly was being crushed.
Why did he even continue holding out? There was clearly nothing being gained from it, other than denying them the satisfaction of knowing that at any time, they could simply squeeze him into giving a confession.
Then it again, it wouldn’t be considered a “confession” if–
“It’s the truth, and you know it…”
He did. And somehow, that stung harder than any fist.
Tears had been welling up in his eyes. Erik could feel them roll down his face as he tried to shut them.
He broke.
“MY MOM’S A WHORE!” he shrieked. “SHE’S A WHORE! JUST GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”
…
“…fuckin’ knew it, you bitch-ass bastard.”
Hurts Burger punched him again.
Something else broke.
LETTUCE
The Viking Accountant Ollie Arsvinnar is brushing his teeth and preparing for another day at the office when the text comes in.
7:38 AM
STORAGE UNIT-
NOW-
OR THEY GET TO SEE…-
– – – – C=======3-
“By Tyr’s troubled brow!” he exclaims out loud, and immediately rinses his mouth.
“Everything okay, honey?” asks Becky from the bedroom.
Ollie unexpectedly and unwittingly finds himself at that crossroads that every man finds himself at when he realizes he must lie to his partner.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he replies. “Just got a text from Morris down at the office. Looks like they’re needing me to pick up the donuts this morning, so I’ll be leaving a bit earlier than expected.”
Becky’s head peeks into the adjoined bathroom. “Donuts? That’s strange. Danielle Morris was telling me on the phone the other day how strict Evan has been about his Keto diet.”
“Oh, yeah, I know, right?!” he says, mentally scrambling for an explanation. He quickly moves back out to the bedroom and goes for his clothes. “But these are special gluten-free Keto-friendly donuts! New place that just opened! WAY across town too, I’m afraid, so I’m going have to skip breakfast, unfortunately.”
“Skip breakfast!” she echoes, and makes that disappointed frowny face that always hits him right in the feels. And probably rightfully so; she prided herself in some absolutely fantastic blueberry pancakes. “Well I sure hope these donuts are worth it!”
“I’ll make it up to you when I get home, hon!” he responds in his best bargaining voice. But even as he says it, he’s already fixing his tie and adjusting his horned helmet in the mirror. All that mattered now was getting to the storage facility as quickly as possible.
Denying her blueberry pancakes was worth it so long as she never learned of his previous pastry experiences in “Hot Buns for the Berzerker Part 5”.
A quick peck on the cheek later, he was practically out the door.
CHEESE
A half an hour and a trip across town later, he is there.
Rezin is impatiently pacing before the bay door to his temporary home-away-from-home.
“Can you BELIEVE this bullshit?” raved the Goat Bastard. “They think they can ‘PUNISH’ me? Over some disposable junk!”
He says this with zero sense of irony, standing before a storage unit that is literally full of disposable junk. Like, in what way does a poster of the Unabomber’s mugshot serve any proactive purpose to mankind?
“I mean, consider yourself fortunate that they didn’t hit you with the fine,” says Ollie, trying to find a copper lining in a shitty brown cloud. “It’s not like you can exactly afford it right now. And given how out of control you’ve been as of late, I’d say this is a good opportunity to tone things down.”
Perhaps because he was expecting the Viking to have his back on this, Rezin does the exact opposite of toning it down, and explodes in a fit of rage. “WHADDYA MEAN, outta control?! It’s my RIGHT to be outta control! Control ain’t nothing by a LIE the brain tells itself to cope with the fact that we’re all alone in this universe! How have I been outta control, Olvir!?”
The Viking glowers, annoyed that Rezin has so soon forgotten the chaotic events that followed the day after ReVival Six.
“Well I mean, other than the thing at the Pay Per View, you did kinda steal my car while I was trying to pick you up from the clinic.”
“That’s what you get for sending me to that QUACK SHOP! You should know damb well how excitable I get when I wake up in strange locations!”
“We’re damn lucky we found you at the zoo in time and got your ass out of that tiger habitat.”
“You foiled my attempts to release them!” Rezin snaps back, accusingly pointing at the Viking as if he had done something wrong. “They deserve to ROAM FREE!”
“You are psychotic. Some of those cats belonged to Siegfried and Roy, you know. They could’ve really fucked you up.”
Rezin grins like a fucking idiot. “You underestimate me, my well-endowed comrade! I can vibe with ‘em, cause I have… the HIGH of the Tiger!”
Ollie sighs, and feels a headache coming on. He really has to get to work, or Lipschitz is going to have his ass. “In any case, I apologize for sending you to that clinic. In the future, I’ll remember to never be concerned for your well being at all. But I mean, dude, you were pretty messed up. And barely conscious, for that matter. What the hell happened to you in New Orleans anyway?”
The Goat Bastard’s smile melted into a sneer. “Oh you know… that fucker Arthur Pleasant did the whole cliched Death-Valley-Driver-Through-A-Burning-Table thing.”
Ollie’s eyebrow arches. “Who is Arthur Pleasant?”
Rezin cackles. “Just some jack-off edgelord who rips off everything I do and tries too hard to be seen. But enough about him; tell me how we’re gonna ransom this Five Star Title into a quarter million dollars!”
He says this with zero sense of irony.
The Debt Dominator sighs. “Again, I’m not really sure how you expect me to formulate any sort of ‘plan’ in raising that kind of money that involves taking that title. I mean, if it’s money you’re after, have you ever thought of merchandise? Maybe setting up a GoFundMe? We have plenty of options at our disposal.”
“I ain’t interested in any of that janky materialist crap!” Rezin says, shooting it down with a fervent shake of his head. “I ain’t here to run a business; I’m here to be PUNK ROCK and BURN SHIT DOWN! These PRIME overlords are trynna stick to me for breakin’ their crap, so I’m gonna stick it to THEM by taking their fancy pants title!”
“Okay, Rezin, but how do we turn that into the money we need for this house you want?”
The Goat Bastard thoughtfully scratches his beard. He’s clearly without an answer there.
“We’ll cross that ladder when we get to it,” he says, absolutely butchering the phrase. “For now, we worry about getting our hands on that belt! And at ReVival Seven, ‘punishment’ be dambed… we make our move!”
Ollie’s eyebrow arches again. Skeptically. He didn’t know where any of this was going, but he was certain that it would not end well.
MEAT
Somewhere in the barren desert of Nevada, a chain link fence stretches off in either direction.
Given our perspective, it’s not immediately clear which side is which. Are we on the outside looking in? Or are we the prisoners?
All that we know is that this barrier exists, and we stand on one side of it.
On the other side, the figure of a man is looking back at us.
Regardless of where we stand, one thing is very clear just by looking at him.
He sure as hell is not a prisoner to anyone or anything.
“It’s only when your control of a situation is taken away from you, that you realize just how overrated and imaginary this sense of ‘control’ really is.”
Rezin lights a joint and takes a drag.
“Let me ask you this, PRIME…
“Does the fear of punishment really stop anyone from breaking the rules?
“Consider the millions of human beings currently stagnating in our prison system, most of whom are repeat offenders.
“Punishment did nothing to change them.
“It merely changed the world they live in.
“It’s now much smaller, and much more ruthless.
“It’s driven them into becoming every bit of the cold and hopeless outlaws they were originally seen as when the system handed down their sentences.
“This screwy idea that ‘punishment’ can somehow keep people in line has consistently failed through the eons of human history.
“It’s always been a wasted effort.
“And yet, the people in power keep going back to it.
“Kinda makes you wonder…
“If nothing ever changes, then what’s the point?”
He walks along the fence, existing simultaneously both as a hungry beast eager to be released from its cage, and as a jailer leering in at his captive with sinister intentions.
“Maybe it’s cause ‘change’ isn’t actually the desired goal.
“The satisfaction of having ‘control’…
“THAT is what this is really about.
“Cause let’s ask ourselves something…
“Does the punishment really fit the crime here?”
“In a place where incidents like the literal hijacking of production equipment for the use of joyriding around the building seems to happen on a bi-weekly basis?
“In what world do ANY of you think that crazy shit would ever be OSHA approved?
“I mean, what’s a coupla thousand measly dollars of production equipment anyway?
“I though that shit was insured.
“And it’s not like a profit-mongering plutocratic regime like PRIME is short on funds these days.
“Not with what they leech off the rubes at the gate every two weeks…
“And the cash they rake in off of sweatshop-produced merchandise…
“And the kickbacks in the form of corporate sponsorships…
“I find it hard to believe that my extremely passionate–and WHOLLY JUSTIFIED–involuntary act of property destruction at Culture Shock did little to hurt their bottom line.
“What I did was a drop in the bucket…
“And it would have gone completely unnoticed, were it not for that meddling junior reporter!
“So what here really warrants this ‘punishment’, of being fed to a three-hundred and fifty-pound monster like BALAAM, the Mask of of Malice?
“Nothing.
“Because the truth is, this is not an act of punishment.
“What this really is, is an exercise in control.
“A vain and futile attempt to send a message to the presumed ‘lower card’ talent should they ever think about getting out of line.
“A clear and naked attempt at making a scapegoat out of someone they don’t see in any was as a legitimate threat to their power.
“An unsubtle gesture of obvious PREJUDICE against this leaf-burnin’, head-turnin’, stomach-churnin’ and viewers-earnin’ Goat Bastard.
“But unlike poor JK Royko Junior, I am a force of being that exists well beyond anyone’s control.
“Let alone a corrupt and oppressive organization like PRIME.
“But honestly…
“Does anyone really think that this ‘punishment’ I’m being given at ReVival Seven is going to make me regret what I did?
“Do any of you seriously think that this is where I’m going to pause, reflect, and learn a valuable life lesson about controlling my emotions and carrying myself with a sense of dignity and professionalism?
“Maybe the overlords really think that’s the case…
“Or, more than likely, they just enjoy trampling down on those they see as beneath them.
“Those they think don’t have the power to fight back.
“Either way… they’re wrong.
“And it’s clear that this attempt at ‘punishing’ me over a victimless crime is nothing but bullshit.
“But I ain’t gripin’… cause I know this is gonna backfire spectacularly.
“Because the more anyone tries to control me…
“The more they try to dampen THIS FIRE that burns inside me…
“The harder I become…
“And the harder I REZIST!”
He lets out a dry chuckle, gray trails of smoke seeping from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth.
“They thought they were handing me ‘punishment’…
“What they’ve instead gifted me is the opportunity to prove just how powerless they really are…
“And how powerful I really am.
“They can rest assured knowing that I don’t need to wreck any more of their shit to piss in their eye.
“All I need to do is deny them the satisfaction of watching me squirm.
“Deny them the peace of mind that ‘punishment’ was received, and justice was served.
“Deny Hoyt Williams his need for a sacrifice.
“Deny Balaam the Mask of Malice the victory in the ring.”
He stops pacing, and turns to face us, fingers clung to the fence.
“Make no mistake…
“I know I’m in for a rough night.
“When I look at Balaam, I see every bit of the monster he’s made out to be.
“I can say this, because I’ve been around monsters my whole life.
“I’ve endured many years of suffering, thanks to monsters, both physical and psychological.
“But it’s thanks to those experiences that I can also say that I know exactly how to survive them.
“I wouldn’t be standing before you here today if that wasn’t the case.”
“So I know that Hoyt has a dangerous man at the end of his chain…
“But even he is delusional if he really thinks he has any ‘control’ over the man under that mask.
“He’s simply fortunate that his beast hasn’t yet realized how easy it is for him break that chain and to ESCAPE.
“Believe me, I have every reason to be worried about what that FREAK may do to me in the ring…
“But I have no fear of what may come.
“Because I’ve survived scarier shit.
“And I can get pretty goddamb scary in my own way, when properly motivated.
“You can believe me when I say that right now more than ever, with this company trying to bring the boot down on my neck, I’m prepared to take myself to that place.
“I wouldn’t be escalating this uprising if I wasn’t willing to become a monster in my own right.
“Maybe not a big and bombastic monster like Balaam…
“But more of a slow and silent monster that creeps in and whittles you down over time.
“A poison.
“A sickness.
“That’s what we have here.
“Royko Junior is the monster Godzilla.
“I am the monster of radioactive fallout.
“I may not tear down as many buildings, but I leave twice as many bodies in my wake.
“And in setting off this BOMB, the PRIME overlords have set themselves up to be embarrassed by the one man in that locker room foolishly believed they could control.
“Well, they kicked the wrong the fuckin’ dog this time around.
“The monster they think they’re feeding is gonna choke on its meal.
“If they haven’t figured it out by now, at ReVival Seven, when this Dirty David topples their Grisly Goliath, maybe they’ll come to finally understand…”
His hand firmly rubs his neck as he cranes his head to the side and sneers into the cold face of authority.
“No matter how hard or how swift that axe comes down…
“The blade will always break before anyone sees this ugly head roll.”
Fade to VOID
BUN
There was barely a celebratory cheer from the circle of spectators.
Just the quiet chuckle of smug satisfaction that comes with seeing someone “less” than them broken down to their lowest point.
Brent Herschberger had finally risen off of him, but not as an act of mercy.
His attention was now directed toward his aching hand. Hissing in pain, he shook it through the air and flexed his fingers.
His friends had gathered around him, sensing something was amiss.
“Dude, Brent… are you okay?
“Fuck, man, I don’t know… I might’ve broke it.”
A foreboding realization was beginning to sink in.
“Dude… conference finals are tomorrow.”
“You think I don’t know that!?”
“How are you going to compete if your hand is broken, dude? You gotta tell Coach Thompson…”
“…nah, fuck that. He’ll just start asking what I did to it. I’ll be fine.”
“But Brent–”
“I’ll be fine! Drop it! Let’s just get the fuck out of here…”
They left him there in the dirt. A while later, with his head throbbing and his heart burning, Erik picked himself up and limped home.
It would only be the first of many occasions in life where he would experience a thorough ass-beating.
But life moved on, and so did he.
Wiser. Harder.
And thoroughly convinced that the only way to get anywhere in this world was to fight his way through it.
As expected, the conference finals didn’t go well for the Tigers that year.
It was something of a major disappointment to the community.
Brent Herschberger was in the running to be a state champion. Had a good number of scholarships waiting in the wings.
But “Hurts Burger” would instead live a life that burned through many tumultuous years of rampant alcoholism, a failed construction business, three unhappy marriages, just as many illegitimate children, and several run-ins with the law involving domestic disputes.
Erik always dreamed of settling the score. But before that could happen, the Burger’s life abruptly ended one night in 2014 when, after a long day of drinking, he unexpectedly lost control of his vehicle on the highway, crossed the median, and slammed headlong into a Freightliner.
All it took to flush away all his hopes and aspirations at a professional career was a broken hand, earned through something as meaningless and trifling as trying to pick the wings off of a fly.
The insect got over his loss of wings and learned how to moonsault like a motherfucker. And thus, Erik Black became the small town of Lebanon, Indiana’s gift to the wrestling world.