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| KingCast: When the War Came | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 14 2010, 07:34 PM (104 Views) | |
| Jarvis King | Feb 14 2010, 07:34 PM Post #1 |
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The Hall of Fame Hallmark
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Silence. Deadly, dastardly, deafening silence. No staccato beeping. No ticking of a clock. Just the whir of the air exchange system in Nancy McDonald’s office. The rhythmic breathing of the room’s inhabitants was the only music playing, their blinking the only movements they made. Jarvis sat in one of Nancy’s guest chairs, but he didn’t feel very welcome, nor happy to be there. The week had been terrible to him thus far – his foray into the CWF ring had netted him a rare loss, but that wasn’t what bothered him worst. His partner – Adam Something? – was a bigger waste of space than his formerly brain dead brother Ian, and Jarvis hadn’t put anything into that match. Sure, it was a tick in the L column, but it was pretty clear in his mind that Jarvis King was still unbeaten in 2010. He didn’t take the pin and so he didn’t care. No, this wasn’t what troubled the CWF champion the most. His career was still on the upswing. What bothered him was the reason for this meeting. Nancy’s cold, condemnatory expression told the story better than any words truly could. The worry lines on her forehead were criticizing and faulting King more harshly than any verbal deriding could. This was not a woman scorned, it was worse; it was a woman disappointed. Two weeks earlier, a doctor – now under review by the Nova Scotia provincial medical board and the province’s top crown prosecutor – had offered Jarvis a hefty prize for offering his comatose brother’s brain to medical study. This would have effectively meant euthanasia, a morally grey but legally black practice. The letter of the law, Dr. Brooks’ lawyer would soon argue, didn’t allow for the spirit of the practice to be taken into consideration, but the very notion of attempting such a thing had set Nancy into action. Using her vast resources, she managed to flag Brooks to the proper authorities while keeping Jarvis safe from the impending legal crossfire. Unfortunately, this didn’t save him from her judgment. She finally spoke. “Do you have any clue what could’ve happened?” Jarvis, to be frank, didn’t. He was no legal expert, and as far as he was concerned, Ian had no quality of life as it was. The younger King certainly had been cramping Jarvis’s lifestyle rather handily for quite some time now. Here it was, St. Valentine’s Day, and Jarvis hadn’t the time nor the energy to find himself a date for the evening. His plans were to work instead, hardly a preferable option but it was the best one on the table. Hell, as he thought about it, it was the only option he had at that point. Nancy bore into him with her glare. She had assumed that the man she worked for and lo...appreciated was fundamentally a good guy despite all of his flaws, but this was a step above and beyond his normal bravado, boasting and debauchery. He was willing to make a quick buck off of taking his brother’s life in a pseudo-legal arena. Sure, Jarvis had promised that the money would be put towards a non-profit organization named after Ian, but that was hardly plausible coming from the Jarvis King she had grown to know. He had justified it by saying that all potential findings from studying Ian’s now-enhanced brain would be attributed to the Ian King name, but there was no way that would be enough to validate something that...evil. Sensing that there was no response to her question forthcoming, Nancy continued her lecture. “Do you have any idea how much interference I’ve had to run over the past two weeks? The number of favors I had to call in to not have you on the damn stand for what you were conspiring, and please, don’t forget that you were essentially inches from being tried for conspiracy to commit murder...for what you were conspiring to do...it’s staggering, Jarvis. Truly and honestly staggering. I’m lucky that I’m not up for review by the bar for some of the shit I had to pull to keep you from embarrassing yourself, the CWF and me. So I’ll ask you again like I asked you that very day: What the hell were you thinking?” Jarvis looked into his hands, perhaps searching for the right words to say. He could hear Nancy’s foot lightly tapping on the floor, her impatience making him even more flustered. Was there something right to say? What else was he supposed to do? Most importantly, why did he suddenly care so much? Nancy’s foot-tapping stopped and began to border on stomping, so Jarvis opted to say the first thing that came to mind. “I thought what I was doing was kosher, okay?” The tap-stomping stopped, and Nancy’s “What?” was quite clearly an epithet for a much harsher, curse-word ridden sentence. “Well, how the hell was I supposed to know what was going on? Christ, it’s not like I ever liked Ian...I figured I was doing the guy a favor.” “By taking his life,” Nancy replied, her voice dripping in sarcastic rage. “Listen, the doc was on board. Hell, he put the thought in my head in the first place. How the hell was I supposed to know that something was up?” ”Jarvis, you didn’t even technically have the legal authority to make that decision. Your father maintains power of attorney and medical authority over your brother. Hell, taking him to the hospital without consent is technically against the rulebooks if you look at it the right way.” “Well, Ernie isn’t around, is he? He’s still in his own fucking coma, so what the hell was I supposed to do.” Silence once again sweeps over the office, but this time it’s Nancy looking into her hands searching for an answer of sorts. Jarvis looked up and started to study her, hoping that she didn’t say the inevitable, but it was only a matter of moments. “He woke up this morning. He wants to see you.” *** Beep. Beep. Beep. Jarvis had been here before. But not like this. The silence wasn’t there like it had been in Nancy’s office, but the painful atmosphere was the same. Jarvis sat uncomfortably at Ernie King’s bedside, this time feeling the icy glare of his estranged father and his lawyer boring into his soul. This wasn’t a case of disappointment, this was pure animosity. Ernie reached over to the far side of his bed, the side closest to the window, and took a sip from a glass of water. After a few more moments of stillness, the storm finally began. “You know…You always had the tools, Jarvis. You were always skilled at this and that…you could’ve done anything. You were smart. You were driven. But you were always a screw up, boy.” Ernie’s tone was slow and deliberate; his Cape Breton lilt only peeked through his words as he continued to lay into his eldest son. “But I tried to be proud nonetheless. You were in line to take over the business, boy. You were gonna be the great hope for the family, boy.” Jarvis was barely listening at this point. It was a lecture that he had heard before; it was paint by numbers. Ernie never approved of Jarvis choosing to be a professional wrestler, and he never took any interest in his passion. Sure, Jarvis was the most successful rookie in the CWF to date – possibly in history – but even the top prize of his company wouldn’t be enough to stop his father’s diatribe. Wasting his life…could be fixing engines…most successful independent body shop in Canada. Each word was like a repetition of some past performance, like a washed up rapper simply calling out past hits in his newer songs. It was an old story. It was the part specific to his most recent indiscretions that concerned him at this point. “…so, you know what? I give you yet another chance to prove yourself. I knew that it was frankly a matter of time till I hurt myself somehow…I’m not getting any younger. So I decide that in my living will, you’d be in charge of taking care of your brother. Something that I would have figured that even you could do, Jarvis, taking care of your own flesh and blood. I figured that I was father of the year, here.” “Then what happens, boy? What the hell happens? You not only endanger his life multiple times by exposing him to that shark tank of an industry that you call a job, you burn down my house…the house that I spent 30 years paying off, the house where your mother took her last damn breaths, the house where you and your little brother took your first steps. You burn down your childhood home and damn-near kill your brother.” “Now, as if that ain’t enough, you decided that, hell, you sure didn’t finish the job; better get to work on that, huh boy? Can’t have anyone callin’ you a quitter, boy. Can’t be a screw up at being a screw up.” Ernie smirked, an expression that Jarvis clearly learned to mimic throughout his childhood. “So, Mr. Banks here pays me a visit when I wake up. Not my own flesh and blood. Not you, Jarvis. You’re too busy with your body-slams and your moon-twirls and your suplexes to pay your own old man a visit in the damn hospital. He tells me that the only person in your life with enough sense to keep you from being a damn murderer is your hack of a lawyer.” Nancy made a face at Ernie’s lawyer, Mr. Banks. Banks smiled at her in a professional but biting way. He opened his briefcase on a nearby bureau and produced a few documents that he looked over as he addressed Jarvis directly. “Now, Mr. King left you with partial custody of Ian, Jarvis, under the condition that you would act as his personal guardian or risk losing the inheritance of your mother’s assets. Technically speaking, you have grievously breached this contract, and as such, my client has full legal authority to withhold any and all assets described therein.” Jarvis’s somber expression shifted quickly to a smirk of his own. He even sniggers under his breath before launching into his own diatribe. “There you go. Big friggin’ surprise, Ernie. You managed to finally get what you wanted. You get to take Mom away from me. You get to break me. How does it feel? Is it as marvelous as you thought it would be? How does victory feel, pop? How does it feel, for once in your miserable life, to finally win? You saddled me with a ticking time bomb and only asked me to make sure it didn’t explode. Congratu-fucking-lations. We done here?” Jarvis got up to leave, but Ernie’s own laughter stops him. “Really, boy? You think that this is it? Christ, boy, you’re lucky you’ve got that lawyer on your side. Hey, sweet-cheeks: tell my idiot son what Mr. Banks meant when he said that I have full legal authority to withhold any and all assets.” Jarvis turns to Nancy and she strikes him with a curious expression. “Well, technically speaking,” she began tentatively, “he has the legal authority to either act or not act based on your…erm…breaching of the agreement.” “Bingo.” “So?” asked Jarvis. “So,” Ernie said with a smirk, “I own your ass, boy.” *** Cut from Wired’s coverage of the King Family Reunion to the KingCast feed. Jarvis King stands in studio with the CWF title around his waist, providing a golden accent to his sharp black suit. He smiles widely at the camera as Colton Mace and Mark Carlton, his Entourage, step out from behind him, each with their newly earned Tag Title shining on their shoulders. The three reach down to the ground, out of the camera’s view, and each produce a military helmet. They, in unison, put them on (not without a sour expression on Carlton’s face). Jarvis’s smile changes to his trademark smirk and he simply says “So, there’s gonna be a war? Reporting for duty. This is KingCast.” With that, the newest edition of KingCast launches with the usual fanfare. The highlights package this week features a very rare appearance of footage not featuring Jarvis King. Indeed, the package is primarily a nod to the Entourage’s success in the main event of Massacre the week before. That’s not to say that shots of Jarvis aren’t present at all, as the package climaxes as it traditionally does, with a montage of big moves by King himself. The very ending of “Edge of Seventeen” is punctuated with his latest addition, the Shooting Star Senton, performed on Angel from two weeks prior. With that, the KingCast logo swoops in, and takes the show to the KingCast studio, with canned applause already in progress. “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen,” says the familiar but still cheesy voiceover guy, “it is time once again for your presence to be graced by Perfection. This is the star of KingCast, the most decorated champion in the CWF’s present iteration. He is the Golden God of Greatness, the Regal Ruler of In-Ring Radness, the Charismatic Canadian Champion, your Sanctimonious Savior, and the Entertaining Enigma known around the world as simply better than you. Ladies and Gentlemen, bow down, for you are not worthy of the International Icon, JARVIS KIIIIING!” Jarvis walks on stage with a purpose and quickly takes his seat and calls for the applause, despite its enthusiasm, to be stopped. He smiles, setting the World Title on the desk for all to see and lets out a deep, measured breath before launching into his show. “Alright, alright, alright…Time once again to be edu-tained people…that’s entertained and educated, because if I don’t tell you how to think, who will?” Someone off-stage shouts “Glenn Beck!” prompting Jarvis to make a face at him. “Fire that guy. Anyhow, big show this week, a lot of important ground to cover, so I don’t have time for a guest this week. I know, it’s a blessing that you’ll have 100% unfiltered Jarvis-time, but I do feel bad for my scheduled guest this week…” he says as he reaches into his blazer’s inner pocket to retrieve a piece of paper with the guest’s name written on it. “Chester Taylor? Wow. Dodged a bullet there.” “Anyhow, nerds with no fashion sense aside, we’ve got a big show this week. I finally got a letter from one of you idiots written in coherent English, so we’ll get to that soon…CWF is on the brink of a war with the GCWA, and I’ve got to face some joker that I’ve never heard of before. Big night, so let’s get right to it. “ Someone off-screen hands Jarvis a stack of note cards and while accepting them, Jarvis gets fully into newsman mode. “Alright, let’s get everyone up to speed here. It seems that, and big surprise here, kids, CWF President J. Rish hasn’t been providing a satisfactory work environment to some of his employees. Two weeks ago on the GCWA’s Friday Night Inferno, former CWF Tag Champ Angelica signed with ‘The Other Guys’ to show that the CWF can’t function without her or something.” Jarvis tosses the first cue card away. “Alright, let’s make one thing clear. If there’s a glue holding this company together, it certainly isn’t the dried up ‘veterans’ of the CWF. I’m the very fabric of the company, and the loss of Angelica is a gee-dee blessing as far as I’m concerned – one less person around who is associated with the Insurgency…that brings it down to 49% of the roster.” “Anyhow, this has, of course, had unexpected consequences. Turns out that a bunch of the GCWA used to sleep with J. Rish, and now they’re coming back with love children and demanding a chance to compete with real wrestlers. Looks like we’ve got another war on our hands folks; batten down the hatches, sound the alarm, because the CWF is under attack.” “So, naturally as the company’s top guy, I’m in charge of the frontline. I can’t say that I’m happy about it: I’ve got to face off against former GCWA Champion and otherwise decent seeming guy Shane Donovan in the main event of Massacre this Tuesday…before I get into that, however, I thought it might be helpful to share a bit of information on war.” “This is a little assortment of facts about war that I have compiled for you. Hope you enjoy.” A picture of Casablanca star Humphrey Bogart pops up to the left of Jarvis’s head. “Okay, so I’m sure you recognize this guy. Turns out that Boggie was a navy man…somewhere, Mark Carlton is squealing. Anyhow, his trademark lisp was the result of a straight punch to the mouth by a prisoner of war. Jury’s still out on why Rick was too much of a wimp to bang Ilsa one more time, though.” “Next,” he says, tossing a cue card away. The photo changes to one of the World Trade Centre, mid-explosion, and Jarvis jumps back a little bit. “Next is a little bit more recent. Of course, you recognize these images, unless you’re 8, which leads me to ask…what are you doing on the internet? Anyhow, these famous images from 9/11/2001 were the trigger of the War on Terror. Now, there’s a group of people who claim that the actions of 9/11 were perpetrated by the US government. They point to a lot of ‘evidence’ of government conspiracy to make their sad lives a little more exciting. They go by a couple names…primarily they’re known as ‘9/11 Truthers’, or more commonly, ‘Idiots.’ Moving on.” An image of Shane Donovan replaces the Twin Towers. “On to the most recent war. CWF versus GCWA. Shots have been fired, and on Tuesday night, the first casualty will be claimed. I’ve looked over some tapes, Shane. I’ve asked some questions about you…and I think that under different circumstances, you and I might get along. We’ve got a lot in common – when we want something, it’s a foregone conclusion that it belongs to us. I have to admit, I like that about you. You’ve got drive.” “Here’s where it becomes a problem, though. Drive doesn’t mean a damn thing when you’re clashing with Jarvis King. Take a look at my record, Donovan. Take a look at my credentials. Take a look at my victim list. I am the most decorated champion in the CWF. I’m a career slayer. While you’re taking your time being driven to win the GCWA World title back, I’m proudly defending my CWF World strap. Of course, comparing the two is like comparing RC Cola and Coke, but that’s beside the point.” “See, Donovan, you’ve coming into my backyard and trying to embarrass me. You’re going to come into my playground and try and claim the jungle gym. Uh-uh. Not going to happen. See, I’ve got a fair amount of pressure going into this thing; I’m not going to cover it up. You’re coming into the CWF locker room, going on a CWF show and trying to pin the CWF champion. The impetus isn’t just on me to succeed for my sake, no no no…I have to succeed on behalf of the entire Championship Wrestling Federation. I have to beat your ass on behalf of my employer…and, here’s the thing, Shane, I’m a good employee.” Jarvis tosses the remainder of the cue cards and picks up a letter with a grimace. “Alright, so…unfortunately, it’s time once again for me to read your letters. This one comes from Nick in Vancouver. Nick writes: ‘Dear Jarvis, With the beginning of the 2010 Olympics here in Vancouver, a lot of sports fans from around the globe are gathering to watch the games. How does it feel to be an international star and have absolutely no fans?’” Jarvis laughs. “OK, Nick…Let me tell you a little something about the origin of the word ‘fan.’ Fan was initially used by baseball journalists to describe over-zealous Yankees devotees. Reporters called them fanatics. Know what I don’t need? Fanatics. Enjoy your life of sad anonymity and hero worship of people you couldn’t ever hope to emulate to the slightest degree, Nicky.” “Anyhow, that’s all for me for tonight. I’m off to the trenches. Happy VD, everyone!” With that, Stevie Nicks’s famous guitar riff kicks off, and KingCast draws to a close. *** Jarvis was pretty happy with his broadcast, but the post-game high was short-lived. He immediately left the set of KingCast and got into Nancy’s car with as little hesitation as he could muster. She had the engine running and the two drove off towards her office without any delay. “So,” he began, “what are you going to do about the conspiracy to commit extortion?” “Jarvis, don’t. You know that your father is acting fully within his rights.” “Whatever. What are you up to now?” “I don’t know. Going home. Why?” “Let’s get dinner.” *** BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. The alarm hammered at Nancy’s alcohol soaked brain the next morning. She slapped the clock, quieting the buzzing, before rolling over to bask in the silence for a few moments longer. Her head was pounding, but not nearly as badly as it would when her arm draped over Jarvis King’s sleeping body. |
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