“Jacko, you little maggot,” a tall, bald man snarls, standing over a bloody heap of a man, wrapping the collar of his jacket around his fist. “Why you gotta' waste everyone's time like this? You think I like beating the living shit out of a little punk like you?”
Old Cabaret-style theater posters decorate an otherwise grim scene. A single dark-haired man slouches, taped to a sturdy, dinner chair- every edge of definition of his face bruised or bleeding. He raises his head from it's previous defeated position, hung forward in limbo by the strength of the tape around his chest. He features are blurred, swollen and shattered. His mouth moves and releases touches blood, sparkling beautifully under vintage stage lights.
“You call this a beating?” the broken man spats, forcing his lips to words. “This is child's play compared to what I did your mother, that loose whore...” He smiles, or tries to, the corners of his mouth bleed over his lips and teeth.
“Yea, just keep talking, Goddard, you slime,” the thug replies. “That's all you do, just talk. That's why I am here, trying my best to keep your brain in that small little head of yours. You'd rather talk all fuckin' day, than pay what you owe...”
“And then when your old man came home,” Goddard desperately spouted. “I fuckin' busted his legs in, just so he could watch me and that whore go at it. If it wasn't for the excruciating pain, I imagine he was getting off on it!”
Jack's words, growing vulgar and desperate with every breath, frantically reached for flesh like blind teeth, ready to clamp down and devour upon the slightest touch.
“Shut the fuck up, you fool,” the bald man orders. “Before I accidentally break more bones than I was sent to do.”
He didn't have a plan, or a hope in the world, for that matter, but it didn't stop him from testing his luck where it felt like he already lost. His face was beyond repair, and his body only stayed upright through bondage. A wiser man would negotiate, or at worse, not ask for a harder time.
“All that was nothing compared to when your little sister stepped off the school bus...”
“Motherfucker!”
The goon charges in, takes Jack and the chair he's taped to, over backwards. He kneels over his chest, shoving a knee into his prone position, and rains down countless blows until it goes silent.
But this is Jack Goddard we are talking about. And where this man was still breathing and alive, he still has a hand to play to the end, no matter what filth he was dealt. See, it's pot odds, and once you learn the horrible reality of this equation, some people can't escape it's practicality in everything. This shipwreck is a perfect example, as I introduce the worse written tale in history- The Hazards of Knowing Jack Goddard.
“Read it, and weep, boys,” a smiling and clean Jack Goddard taunts, dropping a pair of pocket cards from his cool position, elbowing the green felted table. His cards bounce freely, hitting their corners off the soft surface, and when they finally land, they bring everyone to frowns but him.
“You are one lucky bastard, Goddard,” one older gentleman says, taking his jacket off the back of his chair with one last chug of his iced glass. “If there was one hand I wasn't hoping you had, it was that one.” He reaches over and shakes Jack's hand, who is nothing but devilish grins.
“What can you say?” a less bloody, but still arrogant Wild Card, answers, reaching out and reeling in a toppling tower of multicolored casino chips. “When it's on, its on. I guess Lady Luck finally feels bad for my bank account.”
He stares forward, poker face dialed in. He tries not to make it a read, where any slight signal could be noted mentally across the table. In this case, as his peripheral locks with a blonde's passing glance, as she deals the cards, he has to play particularly more carefully. Luckily there aren't too many watchers and not a single camera seems to be installed. Although it's not a casino game, it's still high stakes, and still far too dangerous to slow play.
The blinds are made, and the new hand is dealt. Jack peeks a small glance at his cards, peeling only one corner of each card off the table. Pretty hand- almost as pretty as the dealer, who looks over, cold as ice. Good girl, that's the plan.
He puckers his lips, gives a slight head shake, and mucks the blind pair, folding them back to the stunning blonde. It's too early for another bombshell of a hand, but the gesture was sweet.
“There went my luck,” he jokes, blending his fake misery with the rest of the table.
“Not me,” a man says a couple seats down, pushing in a decent opening bet. “I'm in.”
The hand goes through the flop, turn, and river, and Jack watches from a table length away, leaning in with a child's interest. The last two participants in the hand go the distance, and show their hands. Jack always smiles afterward with the winner pulling in his winnings. Like the sun rising, this table becomes a predictable machine, one he can rely on working to his advantage anytime he chooses.
The blonde deals again, and, with poor betting position, Jack blinds in and patiently waits for a couple more painted rounds. The come in spinning off her fingertips until they freeze under his, and he peers in, wondering if he gets anything different than dream-shattering perfection- Queen and Jack, suited in hearts. How romantic.
What a deadly hand. It's the type of hand any decent player would initially bet with, so it's realistic he bet, but has the high potential of busting home run swingers hoping there are more than four aces in the deck. He plays it slow like he should, and lets the others make their own mistakes.
The blonde pools the bets, pulls the top three cards off the deck, and reveals them for all the table to see. Ace, Jack, a seven, and a deuce- a rather got it or leave it flop. Which means, it's safe to assume every betting player has strong cards, and once committed with following bets, may go all the way to the exit doors.
Jack limps with more confident, stronger, players betting and dictating the action and pace of the hand. People will assume he is playing something weak and merely coming along for the ride with smaller pairs and outs because he can afford the gamble from his towering chip lead.
A large bet comes his way, a bet he has to sell calling.
“I shouldn't be doing this, but,” he jests, matching the bet with smiles. “But, whatever.”
The dealer drops the fourth card- nine of hearts and Jack bats his eyes. Hopefully, that wasn't too much.
Still in poor position, he bets first, adding his own flair to his reasoning, trying not to look at the woman playing with all this effeminate paint. After all, it's all about the game. Who really cares who knows who dealing cards?
“All in,” a man down the table answers to Jack's possum wager. Normally, this is a great play, as Jack isn't holding a single high card, but, in this case, this is him bringing a knife to a gun fight.
“Call,” Goddard reacts, tossing his cards face up. His opponent does the same, and, to his lack of surprise, was milking his Ace for everything it was worth, just like he thought. Just like they did so many times before. “Jay, Queen, suited. Pair of Jacks.”
“Pair of Aces.”
“Ouch,” Jack taunts. “I was hoping to didn't have that, and was just betting high to scare me off your low pair.”
“Nope.”
Fourth Street comes and, with Fourth Street, everything comes to a climax. The woman comes back in one piece. The crushed dove flies away. Everything is open to view, but the magician's sleeves.
As far as the table knows, this man on Jack's left is going to get paid. There isn't much left in the deck Jack can hope to get, but who knows? He could always get lucky as get another chance card.
“Queen! Oh, wow,” Jack shouts, coming out of his seat, as if the director just started rolling the film.
The other man wasn't in any place for a pleasant reaction, for his top, unbreakable, pair got shattered but a lucky flop and two pair.
“Bad beat, man,” Jack consoles, dragging in his chips and adding them along his monstrous collection of dead opponents. “You really should have won that one. I was dead.”
“Well,” the man says, reaching over the table and shaking Jack's hand. “What can you do against The Wild Card, a man who can literally win any hand with any card? I didn't have The Nuts, so I knew I had a chance of losing to you.” He slings his jacket around his shoulders. “Watch out for this one boys, he has the devil's luck...”
He comes to artificial lighting and a sore body. His head bobs back and forth uncontrollably, as he quickly tries to surveys his surroundings. A hand is placed on him, pressing hard on his ribs. He cringes in response, gritting his teeth.
“Katie?” He looks over, but she's not there. That's weird, he thought. He could have just sworn visions of his beloved wife laid fresh in his mind, but maybe not. If they are no longer at the poker game, or counting their nightly winnings back home, where was she, and, oddly enough, where was he?
“Careful, sir, please keep yourself still for just a moment more,” an unfamiliar voice requests, followed by a hot pitch over his brow.
He twitches, and watches as a needle pierces through his vision.
“You were banged up something nice,” the voice continues, reentering the needle. “Do you know how you got here?”
“No.”
“Well, if I can speak so freely,” the voice requests, snipping the line and revealing his long white sleeve. “It seems like someone like you, in the shape you are, didn’t come here on your own very easily. In fact, we found you collapsed just outside the lobby doors. I don’t mean to insinuate, sir, but this sounds something like one of those mobster movie scenes, where…”
A hard twinge of warping metal rolls through a garbage-walled alley way, followed by the sounds of scattering debris. A green bottle bounces off it’s home, takes a lucky bounce of the tar, and rolls away, snapping on the uneven surface.
“That’s enough. He’s learned his lesson,” an older gentleman in think glasses orders, placing his hands on the shoulders of this sweaty, bald strong-arm.
“Doubt it , Baby,” the thug returns, wiping the blood off his knuckles. “His type never learns- they never pay, they never learn. They just get their bones broken, faces smashed, and tossed into shit until they stop breathing one day. If I just kill the ignorant cur, it would us the time and the hassle.”
“No, he’s better to us alive,” Baby says whisking his hand in the heap’s direction. “Now go recover his stupid ass. We need him around for a little longer.”
The thug cringes, but obeys, walking over to a collapsed garbage pile and removing Jack Goddard, bloodied and unconscious, solely by the back the spine of his jacket.
“You’re lucky Goddard,” the thug threats, lifting him and tossing towards an open door of a black limousine. “You’re lucky Baby has some need for you or I’d kill you, without a moment of hesitation.”
“Enough of that talk, Crib,” Baby warns, motioning a physical rejection. “Just get him in the car, in one piece. We are going for a ride.”
Passing in and out of consciousness, Jack half hears conversations, crumbled like rag doll along the edge of the back seat. His receptive functions, spotty at best, were the only things tuned in at all.
“You can never underestimate the depths of filth a beaten man can plummet,” Baby says, turning to his enforcer doing double-duty as a chauffeur. “He’s the type of man who has given up on a reasonable and rational explanation for his plight, and now chooses to be in a perpetual cycle of damage control, just for another day.”
“It would have been so much more easy,” the thug replies, sickened with the extent of his boss’s etiquette and restraint. “None of this would have happened if he just paid what he owed.”
“Oh,” Baby responds, showing his fiendish desires. “This isn’t about a chunk of owed pocket change…”
“It’s not?”
“No,” Baby answers. “Well, at least not for us. See, this is how this business plan works. Until Mr. Goddard here pays what satisfies us, he’s going to give us everything he has to stay alive- bit by bit, until he has no way to come from under our boot.”
The limo pulls along a giant, white structure, and reduces speed, yet continues to roll forward.
“Okay, here,” Baby instructs, signaling a few mobsters in the rear portion of the vehicle to open the door and recklessly hurl the bankrupt hitcher from his free fare.
A blur of unrestrained physical movement hits the pavement and rolls to the doors, as if there wasn’t a single unbroken bone in his body. The next thing he can surely recall is a body-less voice, a white sleeve, and a needle stitching him back together.
“…Where the gangster guys rough of this one man that, like, knows too much, and toss him on the steps of some random hospital. Sorry, it’s cliché, but I loved the Sopranos. I was a giant fan.”
Jack lifts his head, and slowly turns to a older, bearded gentleman with a kind smile. The medication coursing through his veins shredded away any delicacies he would have used. “What?”
“Oh, I am sorry,” the doctor apologizes. “I was just making an off-color comment about your arrival here, never mind it. It seemed so strange and unreal, it’s like from television or movies. For all intensive purposes, you shouldn’t have woken back up. It’s like you have the devil’s luck.”
Salutations from the new guy. My name is Jack Goddard, and, by no means, do I expect any of you fine individuals to remember that. Mostly, in fact, because my voice will be broadcasted from outside of a rectal cavity- someplace most of the superstars here have a hard time accomplishing.
This is my first attempt at professional wrestling, so bring on the rookie jokes, although I am no stranger to a proper scrap. Tell me I’m too small or whatever, lack experience, and fashion it altogether to the best vocal ability a muscle-bound professional wrestler can. I’ll pretend I haven’t heard it before- maybe I’ll clap.
See, you might not have ever heard of me before. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one in this whole business did, unless you also played some cards. I am a blind spot to this world because every fist I took and landed was in a pair of torn jeans, not in tights. My name wasn’t glorified over television and radio, yet, at times, I made more in one night than some of your do in a year. I too have popularity, if that matters to mention- just not here.
Before the last few egomaniacs remaining leave, allow me to tell you I am proud to be here. In fact, as I look around, I guess this is the type of employment that suites the type of person I am. I have an ocean of fresh fish and a tower of dead money here to reel in. Somewhere between the gibbering, nonsensical, attention whores and louder, gibbering, nonsensical, attention whores, I stood in the boss’s office, smiling, and put pen to paper.
Because, really, I’m not going to be seeing anything new, despite everyone’s most harshest promises. This career is a sport, and, like other sports, have predictability to them. Some sports perform on particular days with particular time restraints, others just have strict guidelines determining it’s final outcome. Sports, like other things, are equal parts brains and brawns, and, I am happy to announce, I’d like to see how I can apply all these books smarts to a wave of instinctual goons and blockheads.
Now, I apologize, I must have came off a bit rude to most of you, as, looking over the locker room areas again, I can tell quickly there are some of you are I am going to have the privilege lacing my boots with. The other mess of you, it’s going to be my pleasure making my paycheck out maneuvering, out performing, and out thinking you- doing what I do best, and choosing the most opportune time to capitalize on your mistakes.
This week, I make my debut and under my name are the words Nightmare Child, and, really, that’s all I have to work with. I don’t know you. You don’t know me, and all of that is just fine.
I could try to muster some hostility, trying to pull you off your training regiment with some hateful words, like others, but I don’t see a sense at the moment. Not knowing one bit of you really doesn’t speak out to that type of strategy.
Instead, I am thinking this get together is more like a track meet than a wrestling bout. Two strangers, rookies even, who knows, are dropped into the pit and the quicker and fastest of the two makes a splash around the wrestling world. So, as long as I have no reason to think otherwise, good luck, Nightmare Child. As for me, I won’t be hard to find- I’ll be the thorn in your side until the second bell rings.