Post by harvey on Nov 12, 2023 22:57:08 GMT -5
Stalingrad, U.S.S.R
Black Pyramid Universe
2002
Conrad Dukes: What’s he done?
Warden: The same thing as anyone here. Whatever I want him to have done.
Dukes: Our audience doesn’t care about details. It probably attracted attention when you grabbed him?
Warden: Plenty. He broke a man's ribs and left the other three a mess. This is a very large country. Even a man as big as him can be swallowed up. There is the matter of the injuries to my men.
Dukes: This man is my investment, not your people.
The man with the glasses exits, the warden turns to the big man and switches to Russian.
Warden: What is your name?
Marx: Harlan Ma-
Warden: Your name is on your uniform.
Dukes watches from the other side of a trick mirror and shakes his head. The language barrier isn’t hiding the wardens attempt to stroke his own ego. He knows he will need an interpreter when he returns to check progress in 4 months. He reaches for his phone and starts the long walk out of the secure area.
Marx: I’ve done nothing wrong.
Warden: Morality is complicated. I keep things simple. You are here to fight. If you lose, you fail. General population isn’t very fond of our washouts. This isn’t the sort of place where the weak last long.
Marx: Then how the fuck are you still in charge?
The look on the warden’s face was worth the beating.
**
The business side of combat sports is about reading a room. I can stand in the middle of a ring and hold 20,000 people on a string before I announce the opening bout on WGWF Monday Night Brawl, but how long they hang there isn’t up to me. They might forget the show belongs to them if I speak before they have made their presence felt. That’s bad form and bad for the bottom line.
In front of the cameras and in the arena I’m the hard-selling hype man the audience and BTE’s clients expect. Cheer The Big Ticket or heckle him. Either is fine after you have paid the price of admission.
A huge white guy making an even bigger entrance would have gotten noticed in Cambodia’s capital. But I need more than that here. These temples have been attracting millions of tourists and pilgrims long before TRIAD’s second season drew anyone into the stands. Asian cultures value subtleties. I have had to show respect to earn respect and open dialogue in state buildings. I’m more comfortable in the bars and nightclubs where the deals get done later. For trust, money, admiration, or ratings, I’ll read the room. I’ll be whoever you need me to be.
I didn’t understand that those first three days in the prison. I projected heroic scenes of defiance onto concrete walls for hours until they came for me. I was led into a large room with 4 cells and bright lights, dozens of cameras were decades newer than anything else here. Men waiting in each cell were more like fodder than fighters. The room was odd, but the heavily armed guards on a horseshoe path made it easy to read. The cameras wanted violence. They’d have their blood, mine or someone else’s. Holding back wasn’t an option. The audience did not need me to be a martyr. It needed me to be a monster.
It would make a better story if I told you I had been forged in the fire of these battles. The truth is that I was never challenged on the set. The drama of competition doesn’t move the needle where I came from. people need to see suffering to feel safe in the arms of the benevolent state. I was brought in to hurt people. I did what I told. Any good party member would, yes?
Numbers and faces blurred together for many weeks. A few witless challengers didn’t have the sense to stay down. I made an example of those, though even then I was never more brutal than I had to be to do the job. I didn’t blame them. A show of strength is meaningful on the inside. Bravery is usually very stupid.
Some months later I was taken to the set and noticed the American sitting in what passes for a skybox inside of that repurposed aircraft hangar. He was well-dressed but as always never went too far. His poker face would be the best I’d ever seen for another twelve years until I met Miss Albright. The first man put in front of me was small. I would have taken him for a new arrival even without his gloriously permed hair. He seemed off, but by then I’d learned to punch the crazy ones just as hard as the rest. He went straight down and stayed there while the guards dragged him away.
I found him waiting in my cell after I was finished fighting. He was in the floor making an origami bird. There were other paper shapes propped along the walls of the cell
The guard thanked me and said a couple of words I didn’t understand. He shoved me into the cell and buzzed the door closed. The man on the floor waited for the footsteps to fade before he spoke.
Boris: They took my saxophone away and left me all of my sheet music. Who says art is dead?
He gestured to the paper creations around him, and I noticed notes and bars on them like tiny tattoos.
Hit me with the left next time. At least I’ll be unconscious and not have to listen to the guards complain to that suit with the glasses. They say their kickbacks are too small. They’re taking double what they did before you got here.
Marx: How do you know?
Boris: I translated for him. I think that’s why I was transferred from Petersburg a few days ago.
Marx: That guard called me something. Was that English?
Boris: Yes. He said you were “The Big Ticket”
He told me what it meant and why we were here. I was the main attraction in an underground pay-per-view fight club. That explained all of the upgrades to the hangar and why the guards were a little less enthusiastic when they beat me. “Prisoner 05101899” wasn’t good for marketing and they had already taken my name. So I gave myself a new one. Harvey Marx sounded good and the Party bigwigs thought it was some kind of tribute.
Over the next 3 years Boris helped me to learn English and the suit told me more about the operation. I fought on and Boris went down again and again. It was a kind of dream inside concrete, and we were everything the audience wanted us to be.
The dream ended with a phone call from Dukes. Six guards came into the cell the night before I was released. I don’t know how long it lasted. Twelve hands, twelve feet, six batons and a cattle prod don’t need much time. I understood then that I was weakened by three years of fighting soft competition and living in a hole without a Cuban sandwich on the menu. I had taken thousands of blows for free while others made millions. I was just a fighter. All the power had been in the hands of the promoter. Someday I would have that power. I was on the floor in the corner when they started in on me again. Boris tried to help and was sent straight down.
Then he laughed
And he got up.
Boris: Your mother hits me harder. At least I don’t have to pay you to do it.
I couldn’t see well enough to know how many times he was hit. The guards walked away when they got bored. I heard a dry crunch and then the buzzer to the cell door. Boris crawled over to what was left of one of his paper birds.
Marx: It’s ruined.
He ignored me, quietly smoothing the paper as best he could to start again. When he was done, he crawled to my corner and placed the bloodstained bird in my hand.
Boris: It is stronger.
**
The Big Ticket has been selling some main event for the last two years. And now…The card you’ve all been waiting for. On the second night of the Strength Trials, this Sexy Southpaw IS the main event! I should talk about the elephant in the room before I get to my opponents. There’s no way to spin physics. I can’t get to the top of that statue faster than anyone else in the match. if I’m wrong, they should drop out of the match and consult a physician. The only way this works is if I make sure I’m the only one who can still walk by the end of this thing.
We need to talk, Chuck. I saw your last promo and I’m not sure you know how this works. You’re supposed to put yourself over, not have the whole arena lining up to bury you. Need pointers on image? Wrestlers like Xander Crow, Matt Knox, and even my teammate Dionysus once asked me to direct their career. It’s bad when I don’t see anything I can sell. There was a lot of whining about not getting enough attention from your opponents online. Are you really surprised fans and other wrestlers don’t see you? Your own family doesn’t know who you are.
And that’s just how you like it. You’re an obnoxious, impulsive loaner who makes enemies almost as fast as you make questionable choices. You live for pain to dull the pain of life. Hardcore legends like Corey Black and Braddock make it work for a simple reason. They aren’t cowards. Of course you were passed over for the Bravery Trials. You terrorize your wife to prepare for the ring? Good thing you won your way in this season. It saved the coaches the embarrassment of drafting you and saved me another press conference.
This isn't how promos work but I'm going to give you exactly what you want on night six. I'm going to leave you just as broken as you want to be.
Sarah Wolf is acting out and I get it. You had Gomez and Morticia all to yourself during the Bravery Trials. Now Uncle Fester has come from the land of Oakland to turn you into triumvirate’s fourth wheel. Schoolyard jabs about my size play fine on social media. But this is the main event. Big dogs don’t bite small children. They’re not easily provoked. I make a lot of noise to make money. You make a lot of noise to drown out your own fear.
It seems like you’ve confused being hated with being feared. What does an airline spokesman in a flamenco motif suit know about intimidation? I’ve got my hands in a few different kinds of businesses. I don’t want potential advertisers and fight fans to fear me. The dancing shoes and the soundbites are for them. In other circles I need to be feared. That’s when I stop talking. I know you’ve seen guys like me. You can take the Wolf out of Brooklyn but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the Wolf. I borrowed more than this accent from your hometown. If you want to thrive in this industry, you have to stop settling for being annoying. Getting a reaction isn’t the same as getting one over on a guy. I’m ready to take things out of the schoolyard and into the streets. You’ll be down there slinging mud while I’m climbing to the win.
I was so moved by the folksy humility of your rags to riches story that I thought I might start a non-profit in your name, Sahara. Strictly to assuage elitest guilt and capitalize on the PR bump. Teaching me how to survive in a difficult world, what it means to be reduced to a number. You are as enlightening as you are resilient! Not like some people. You know the sort I mean. They go through a few things, they find a rich spouse, and they tell professional fighters what it means to hurt, to struggle and to have to overcome. I really wish those people would just stop preaching and learn to be like you.
At least I know how ridiculous that sounded. You are smart. You are tough. You are a survivor. And you're blind. All of those hard lessons, and you can’t read a room. The brass booked you with a former foster kid, an ex-con, and…whatever the hell Chuck tells himself he is. This match is about the four least-known talents here coming up out of hell still burning to ignite a dragon’s maw. They’re practically daring us to do more than they think we can. No one should have to endure what you have. But If you imagine I’ll just stand there and let you get to the top on my shoulders….
The street hasn’t taught you as well as you think.
Frank Bellwood turns off the old camcorder at a signal from Marx. He walks to a closet and opens it to find a yellowing paper bird stained with blood alone on a single shelf. Frank leaves the camera resting awkwardly on a much newer, mangled steel chair and shuts the door.
End
*Conrad Dukes appears by permission of his creator.
Black Pyramid Universe
2002
Conrad Dukes: What’s he done?
Warden: The same thing as anyone here. Whatever I want him to have done.
Dukes: Our audience doesn’t care about details. It probably attracted attention when you grabbed him?
Warden: Plenty. He broke a man's ribs and left the other three a mess. This is a very large country. Even a man as big as him can be swallowed up. There is the matter of the injuries to my men.
Dukes: This man is my investment, not your people.
The man with the glasses exits, the warden turns to the big man and switches to Russian.
Warden: What is your name?
Marx: Harlan Ma-
Warden: Your name is on your uniform.
Dukes watches from the other side of a trick mirror and shakes his head. The language barrier isn’t hiding the wardens attempt to stroke his own ego. He knows he will need an interpreter when he returns to check progress in 4 months. He reaches for his phone and starts the long walk out of the secure area.
Marx: I’ve done nothing wrong.
Warden: Morality is complicated. I keep things simple. You are here to fight. If you lose, you fail. General population isn’t very fond of our washouts. This isn’t the sort of place where the weak last long.
Marx: Then how the fuck are you still in charge?
The look on the warden’s face was worth the beating.
**
The business side of combat sports is about reading a room. I can stand in the middle of a ring and hold 20,000 people on a string before I announce the opening bout on WGWF Monday Night Brawl, but how long they hang there isn’t up to me. They might forget the show belongs to them if I speak before they have made their presence felt. That’s bad form and bad for the bottom line.
In front of the cameras and in the arena I’m the hard-selling hype man the audience and BTE’s clients expect. Cheer The Big Ticket or heckle him. Either is fine after you have paid the price of admission.
A huge white guy making an even bigger entrance would have gotten noticed in Cambodia’s capital. But I need more than that here. These temples have been attracting millions of tourists and pilgrims long before TRIAD’s second season drew anyone into the stands. Asian cultures value subtleties. I have had to show respect to earn respect and open dialogue in state buildings. I’m more comfortable in the bars and nightclubs where the deals get done later. For trust, money, admiration, or ratings, I’ll read the room. I’ll be whoever you need me to be.
I didn’t understand that those first three days in the prison. I projected heroic scenes of defiance onto concrete walls for hours until they came for me. I was led into a large room with 4 cells and bright lights, dozens of cameras were decades newer than anything else here. Men waiting in each cell were more like fodder than fighters. The room was odd, but the heavily armed guards on a horseshoe path made it easy to read. The cameras wanted violence. They’d have their blood, mine or someone else’s. Holding back wasn’t an option. The audience did not need me to be a martyr. It needed me to be a monster.
It would make a better story if I told you I had been forged in the fire of these battles. The truth is that I was never challenged on the set. The drama of competition doesn’t move the needle where I came from. people need to see suffering to feel safe in the arms of the benevolent state. I was brought in to hurt people. I did what I told. Any good party member would, yes?
Numbers and faces blurred together for many weeks. A few witless challengers didn’t have the sense to stay down. I made an example of those, though even then I was never more brutal than I had to be to do the job. I didn’t blame them. A show of strength is meaningful on the inside. Bravery is usually very stupid.
Some months later I was taken to the set and noticed the American sitting in what passes for a skybox inside of that repurposed aircraft hangar. He was well-dressed but as always never went too far. His poker face would be the best I’d ever seen for another twelve years until I met Miss Albright. The first man put in front of me was small. I would have taken him for a new arrival even without his gloriously permed hair. He seemed off, but by then I’d learned to punch the crazy ones just as hard as the rest. He went straight down and stayed there while the guards dragged him away.
I found him waiting in my cell after I was finished fighting. He was in the floor making an origami bird. There were other paper shapes propped along the walls of the cell
The guard thanked me and said a couple of words I didn’t understand. He shoved me into the cell and buzzed the door closed. The man on the floor waited for the footsteps to fade before he spoke.
Boris: They took my saxophone away and left me all of my sheet music. Who says art is dead?
He gestured to the paper creations around him, and I noticed notes and bars on them like tiny tattoos.
Hit me with the left next time. At least I’ll be unconscious and not have to listen to the guards complain to that suit with the glasses. They say their kickbacks are too small. They’re taking double what they did before you got here.
Marx: How do you know?
Boris: I translated for him. I think that’s why I was transferred from Petersburg a few days ago.
Marx: That guard called me something. Was that English?
Boris: Yes. He said you were “The Big Ticket”
He told me what it meant and why we were here. I was the main attraction in an underground pay-per-view fight club. That explained all of the upgrades to the hangar and why the guards were a little less enthusiastic when they beat me. “Prisoner 05101899” wasn’t good for marketing and they had already taken my name. So I gave myself a new one. Harvey Marx sounded good and the Party bigwigs thought it was some kind of tribute.
Over the next 3 years Boris helped me to learn English and the suit told me more about the operation. I fought on and Boris went down again and again. It was a kind of dream inside concrete, and we were everything the audience wanted us to be.
The dream ended with a phone call from Dukes. Six guards came into the cell the night before I was released. I don’t know how long it lasted. Twelve hands, twelve feet, six batons and a cattle prod don’t need much time. I understood then that I was weakened by three years of fighting soft competition and living in a hole without a Cuban sandwich on the menu. I had taken thousands of blows for free while others made millions. I was just a fighter. All the power had been in the hands of the promoter. Someday I would have that power. I was on the floor in the corner when they started in on me again. Boris tried to help and was sent straight down.
Then he laughed
And he got up.
Boris: Your mother hits me harder. At least I don’t have to pay you to do it.
I couldn’t see well enough to know how many times he was hit. The guards walked away when they got bored. I heard a dry crunch and then the buzzer to the cell door. Boris crawled over to what was left of one of his paper birds.
Marx: It’s ruined.
He ignored me, quietly smoothing the paper as best he could to start again. When he was done, he crawled to my corner and placed the bloodstained bird in my hand.
Boris: It is stronger.
**
The Big Ticket has been selling some main event for the last two years. And now…The card you’ve all been waiting for. On the second night of the Strength Trials, this Sexy Southpaw IS the main event! I should talk about the elephant in the room before I get to my opponents. There’s no way to spin physics. I can’t get to the top of that statue faster than anyone else in the match. if I’m wrong, they should drop out of the match and consult a physician. The only way this works is if I make sure I’m the only one who can still walk by the end of this thing.
We need to talk, Chuck. I saw your last promo and I’m not sure you know how this works. You’re supposed to put yourself over, not have the whole arena lining up to bury you. Need pointers on image? Wrestlers like Xander Crow, Matt Knox, and even my teammate Dionysus once asked me to direct their career. It’s bad when I don’t see anything I can sell. There was a lot of whining about not getting enough attention from your opponents online. Are you really surprised fans and other wrestlers don’t see you? Your own family doesn’t know who you are.
And that’s just how you like it. You’re an obnoxious, impulsive loaner who makes enemies almost as fast as you make questionable choices. You live for pain to dull the pain of life. Hardcore legends like Corey Black and Braddock make it work for a simple reason. They aren’t cowards. Of course you were passed over for the Bravery Trials. You terrorize your wife to prepare for the ring? Good thing you won your way in this season. It saved the coaches the embarrassment of drafting you and saved me another press conference.
This isn't how promos work but I'm going to give you exactly what you want on night six. I'm going to leave you just as broken as you want to be.
Sarah Wolf is acting out and I get it. You had Gomez and Morticia all to yourself during the Bravery Trials. Now Uncle Fester has come from the land of Oakland to turn you into triumvirate’s fourth wheel. Schoolyard jabs about my size play fine on social media. But this is the main event. Big dogs don’t bite small children. They’re not easily provoked. I make a lot of noise to make money. You make a lot of noise to drown out your own fear.
It seems like you’ve confused being hated with being feared. What does an airline spokesman in a flamenco motif suit know about intimidation? I’ve got my hands in a few different kinds of businesses. I don’t want potential advertisers and fight fans to fear me. The dancing shoes and the soundbites are for them. In other circles I need to be feared. That’s when I stop talking. I know you’ve seen guys like me. You can take the Wolf out of Brooklyn but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the Wolf. I borrowed more than this accent from your hometown. If you want to thrive in this industry, you have to stop settling for being annoying. Getting a reaction isn’t the same as getting one over on a guy. I’m ready to take things out of the schoolyard and into the streets. You’ll be down there slinging mud while I’m climbing to the win.
I was so moved by the folksy humility of your rags to riches story that I thought I might start a non-profit in your name, Sahara. Strictly to assuage elitest guilt and capitalize on the PR bump. Teaching me how to survive in a difficult world, what it means to be reduced to a number. You are as enlightening as you are resilient! Not like some people. You know the sort I mean. They go through a few things, they find a rich spouse, and they tell professional fighters what it means to hurt, to struggle and to have to overcome. I really wish those people would just stop preaching and learn to be like you.
At least I know how ridiculous that sounded. You are smart. You are tough. You are a survivor. And you're blind. All of those hard lessons, and you can’t read a room. The brass booked you with a former foster kid, an ex-con, and…whatever the hell Chuck tells himself he is. This match is about the four least-known talents here coming up out of hell still burning to ignite a dragon’s maw. They’re practically daring us to do more than they think we can. No one should have to endure what you have. But If you imagine I’ll just stand there and let you get to the top on my shoulders….
The street hasn’t taught you as well as you think.
Frank Bellwood turns off the old camcorder at a signal from Marx. He walks to a closet and opens it to find a yellowing paper bird stained with blood alone on a single shelf. Frank leaves the camera resting awkwardly on a much newer, mangled steel chair and shuts the door.
End
*Conrad Dukes appears by permission of his creator.