Cancer Jiles
MGM Grand
The Den of the eGG
Never Say Never
“Honey, I’m home!” — Jiles’ Journal, August 8th, 2022.
The rumors are true.
The boys in the back can rest easy.
Your paychecks are safe.
The MGM isn’t going out of business. In fact it is going back to being Grand.
Best of all, PRIME, by definition, can go back to being number one. I, the lauded. I, the eGGsecutioner and righteous defender of the shell and yolk. I, Cancer MOTHER_FUCKING Jiles, Conqueror of COOLYMPUS, Defamer of PRIME, have returned.
It was a long two and half weeks.
Well, not eggsactly.
See, I’m stuck out in the hallway. My keycard to the eGG Den isn’t working for some needlessly nefarious reason. Yes, that is to say I do indeed suspect foul play, but then again I didn’t really invite anyone to go tanning with me so fair is fair.
Concessions will be made.
As such, I’ve been hollering and pounding away on the door for the past minute and there’s been no answer. I know someone is home because I can smell something cooking from inside of the room. So, either Bob passed out while making a spicy dish, or his heart exploded while testing a spicy dish.
Either way, none too good for me.
Also, I should mention that it’s after 7PM so of course Doozer’s been asleep for an hour and won’t be able to provide any assistance until he wakes up in the middle of the night to take a clumpy piss.
Shocker.
And sure, they know me down there at the front desk, and I could always go and ask for a key that works.
Billboard Guy.
But I’m spiteful, and don’t want to risk losing any credibility. Imagine the tabloids: Jiles Locked Out of Den. Billboard Guy Returns and is Locked Out of Den. The Den is Closed, COOL, Find eGGs Elsewhere.
Some things are just unrecoverable.
Luckily for me all prior concerns are about to become moot.
After what seems like forever I begin to feel the ground shaking beneath me. Naturally, it means Bobby is scurrying towards the door with the haste that only a 369 pound man can manage. Seconds later, and oddly enough, I hear him whispering shady directions towards someone. My guess is he probably has a lady of the night with him and he was using my room to make funny business since his is a literal pig pen.
Presumably.
Remember, I haven’t been around.
Also, wouldn’t be the first time Bob got caught with his pants down.
Nor the last.
“Uh, who is it?” The nerve of this buffoon. Muffling his voice. Like he hasn’t heard me hollering, or checked the peephole multiple times by now.
“Who are you?” I ask like I can’t hear his laborious breathing, or his belly exhaling against the door.
“Ughh…”
“You know who it is. Open the door before you knock it down by accident.”
“What’s wrong with your key?” He snickers. I shake my head. Like I suspected, superfluous foul play.
Then, I hear her. Not the lady of the night I was expecting, but her. The Belle of the ball. “DAD! Is that Uncle C? Let him in! I want to ask him why he left you and Dooze in the trenches to go to a pity party inside the Bermuda Triangle. Ja Rule better have been there.”
This bit-.
Teens these days.
I can hear the seemingly twelve or so locks turning and beeping, and then the door to the eGG Den opens. I walk in, chin up, and ready to retake my Ivory Tower. Just as I thought, Belle, Bobby’s stereotypical shade of a daughter, the apple of his eye, which is to say the only healthy thing in his life, is here. I hadn’t seen her since Chicago. Back then she was full of piss and vinegar. I suspect from the look on her face that times haven’t changed.
“So?” She presses me before I can even put my bags down. “I know you heard me. Tell me why.”
“Why what.” No, I’m not asking. I’m implying that she knows the answer already, and it’s not meant to be taken as a friendly implication, either. “Shouldn’t you be on a bus? I thought that’s where we left you.”
“Yeah, well I got off.”
“So it would seem.’ I am none too thrilled about any of this. “Say Bob. Let me guess, she’s not staying in your room, and since Doozer sleeps in a hospital bed and goes to sleep at six I’m assuming she’s not staying in there. Which, of course, leaves…”
Hermit Crab Bob sinks. His spunky, teenage, forever annoyed daughter however, nods her head vehemently and chirps at me like she’s Jenny from the block. “I’m staying in your room because you weren’t here. And guess what? I got all my stuff in there. My bras. My underwear. My tampons. Everything. And it’s all over the place.”
I grow aghast at Female Bob.
Then, I become even more aghast.
And then even more so after that.
Witch.
“Don’t make me call Mom.” My finger wags in a stern manner. “Not your Mom, but our Mom. Much scarier. The scariest, in fact.” I drop my bag, cross my arms, and smile as if I have won. “So what do you gotta say now?”
Belle, unlike her shriveling penis of a father, finds my eyes behind the mirror tint and says to me, “She already knows. She was the one who suggested it. She even said she was looking forward to telling you about it on the way back to Vegas.”
My eyes verge on popping out of their sockets. My jaw hits the floor. My aghast reserves are shot.
“Well, she never said anything to me, and it’s not like Big Poppa over there sent me a text saying you were spending the night.”
Two things. One, I wouldn’t have gotten the text. There is no cell reception out on the big boat. Two, when Mom first showed up on said big boat the first thing I asked her was if she planned on singing Danny Boy to Danny Boy in the gallows of the ship. Needless to say she was not amused, and decided to talk with her hands the rest of the way home.
So much for resting up. Fucking snoots,
“The night?” Belle smirks. Bobby further shrivels. “That’s a good one, Uncle C. You know what else is a good one?” She waits, her timing perfect. “It’s a good thing you like the couch.”
Roasted.
—
MGM Grand
The Ivory Tower
Sleeping on the Couch
“I wonder if they know. If they care. If they know I don’t care. If they care that I don’t know.” — Jiles’ Journal, August 10th, 2022.
First things first, no, I’m not living on the couch. I just happened to fall asleep there the past couple of nights while watching World’s Funniest Ways to Throw a Child Off a Bridge. That said, here I am. Back up on my perch where I belong. Hair. T-Shades. Jumpsuit… all look like they’re out of a high end space catalog from 2084.
I’d tell you to eat your hearts out but I’ve already feasted on them. Like everything else, though, you all can have at the scraps.
Lights.
Cancer.
ACTION!
“Some, the cowards, will say that I buckled and am a fraud for going back on my word.”
Crumbs.
“Some, the smart ones, will say that I’m contractually obligated to be here, so therefore I couldn’t hold out until UltraViolence or else I might not be at UltraViolence.”
It’s not like Noah has been selling the Main.
“Some, the few, the proud, the brave, might even say that your favorite COOLYMPIAN not only missed the fresh taste of oxygen, but also the joy of charging meals back to the Tower of Babel.”
And now you know how Bobby Dean keeps the weight on. And why those boys down at Cons for Cots remain well fed.
Don’t drink the punch, fellas.
“Some, the snooty medical crowd, might even say that I was using the hiatal temper tantrum as a sly way of covering up my recovery from the laundry list of injuries I’ve incurred.”
Fucking snoots. Always ruin everything.
“Some, the majority, the loyal PRIMEates, will say that against her will and better judgment, Lady Troy flew out to the USS Octane, grabbed King COOL by his salty ear, and dragged his chaffed, ailing, recovering, contractually obligated ass all the way back to Las Vegas.”
Perception is reality.
“Regardless of which you choose to believe, Pete, it doesn’t matter. As you can see, I’m here. I have found my way home. Along the way I stopped and picked up my smile, a shaker of salt, a margarita, and both of my eggs dropped back down into their carton. Good fucking luck, pal.”
I hold out my hand, as if to quell a rising tide of concern.
“I know. It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing to go out and do it.”
I crack my neck. I crack my knuckles. I crack my cracks. I don’t crack my eggs.
Too soon.
“See ya soon.”
—
MGM Grand
The Den of the eGG
A Little Help From My Friends
“I wonder if she can fly?” — Jiles’ Journal, August 9th, 2022.
If you’ve been following along at some point in time you’ve heard me say it isn’t easy being me.
The burden. The cross. The hair.
Anyway.
I want to tell you about the time I found out I was booked for ReVival 13. Lady Troy didn’t tell me, and if she did I probably didn’t hear her since she was trying to rip my ears off. No, I found out from a fifteen year old girl.
Same one from before.
There we all were. Me, Bob, Belle, and even Doozer graced us with an appearance this time around. Breakfast via room service via Tower of Babel had just gotten done. It was a good meal. Cordial. Which in retrospect means I should have known it was about to take a turn for the worse.
“Hey Uncle C, why don’t you take one of your walls down and help my Dad out with Hayes. I know he beat you so you can’t offer much, but anything is better than nothing.” Doozer did his vanishing trick. Bobby did his shriveling trick. I did my salty trick where the lenses on my T-Shades fog up. Belle casually continued, “Just because you’re going on before him doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it. He doesn’t make the card. It’s not his fault he’s higher than you on it.”
Instantly I felt my breakfast tumbling around inside my stomach like clothes inside a washing machine. I had just gotten back last night after spending two and half weeks out on the boat. I was in the dark about the whole thing. I had no idea Bobby was facing Homerun Hayes and that it would be happening after my match. I was rendered speechless. Me. But, I am still a pro. So, out of sheer instinct I responded, “Try shaking his hand before the match.”
Ha.
The worst part? The first thing that did come to mind? The VERY FIRST THING. Of course I couldn’t say it…
BUT..
…What if Bobby beats him?
I know. Belle was right. I am a dick.
—
MGM Grand
The Ivory Tower
He Wasn’t Lying(This is Soon)
“I remember him from Defiance. Him and Dargon Jonses were buddies. Neither of them could beat me back then, either.” — Jiles’ Journal, August 10th, 2022.
Still seated. Still T-Shaded. Still COOL.
“Hey, do me a favor, Pete. Would you wear a shirt with your name on it to the show? I still have no idea what you look like after all these years.”
HA. Fucking. HA.
Gutted.
“Just kidding. I know exactly what you look like, Pete.”
I reassuringly nod my head to let Peter the Pathetic know it’s going to be okay, and he doesn’t have to wear the shirt.
“Truth be told, I know your look so well there’s no reason for me to even threaten you with a swift, embarrassing, eGGsecution. Sure, it might happen, and yes it would be as bad as it sounds, but for someone as lowly as you… for someone as downtrodden as you… for someone as aimless as you… the thought of my foot massacring your face isn’t going to keep you up at night so why waste my breath?”
I shrug. I do know where Pathetic Pete is. It’s why I fled Chicago in the middle of the night.
He’s stuck. Pee Pee is. In a zipper.
Hurts, don’t it?
“To make matters all the more worse, I can’t even threaten you with the worst part of losing to me. It’s not the kick to the noggin and the headache soon thereafter, it’s the egg I leave on your face.”
I sigh. My work is cut out for me.
“That Pete, that stain, that which haunts most doesn’t haunt you. Which, if I must say, is a problem. A big part of my game is winning the match before it begins. Right here. From the comforts of my couch.”
Again, I shrug. Bewildered. But not astonished.
I’ve dealt with worse.
Bolamba.
“But, you’re so pathetic my impressive parlor tricks have no effect on you. In other words I guess that makes you scary, unpredictable, dangerous, and therefore I should probably be taking you a bit more seriously than I am. We do go back, too, so there’s always old time’s sake to account for. Not to mention, I hardly ever work that early in the night so the match could be a bit jarring for me.”
Billboard Guy.
“Who knows? Could be your night, Pete.”
A snort. More like a choke.
“I have been laying the fuck down as of late.”
I laugh. Not in a friendly, pizza party, mathletes– I can’t believe the other team didn’t know algebra type of way. No, my laugh is sinister. It is born from disgust, anguish, loss, and the fact that no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to climb out of the pit.
Fuck Hayes Hanlon.
FUCK BRANDON YOUNGBLOOD.
AND FUCK NOAH HANSON.
“Well, that is, it could be your night– if I weren’t coming off of a brutal loss I’m still trying to get over. And if I had never found out that Bobby was going on after I was. And if I weren’t absolutely seething over my lowly position on the card. And if the PWA wasn’t looking for a spark. And if water somehow became unwet. And if ‘E’ didn’t equal Sweet Pete’s a square. And if there wasn’t a situation in the Den– I won’t bore you with the horrific details but just know I’m ready to kill someone because of it.”
You take one trip on an aircraft carrier.
I take a deep breath. I need to cleanse my palate of nuisance. Remember, she’s not even your kid. Bobby is a moron. I’ll have her back on a bus to Who Gives a Fuck Convent in no time at all.
“Sorry to inform, and not to sound threatening, but when you add up all those ifs you get Pathetic Pete is that someone.”
Pucker.
Kiss.
Goodbye.