Promo: Second Chamber

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Tick, tock.

 

Tick, tock.

 

Sitting in a beat-up recliner and crouched anxiously over his desk, Stubby P. McWeed looks at the clock hanging on his wall.  It ticks, very, very loudly as the commissioner tries to attend to some paperwork.

 

Tick, tock.

 

Tick, tock.

 

Stubby shakes his head and looks down at the papers before him, frustrated at the old clock’s inanimate insolence, but thinking one conciliatory thought: at least it’s not a baseball diamond.  At least it’s not a baseball diamond.  Des Moines will have no baseball diamonds.  He’s made sure of that.  The locks at the Coliseum Center have been changed for this week.

 

The commissioner looks down and begins to scan over some developmental talent files from the Junior League and some territories.  After all, he’s got to find someone to job Kivell to before the show.  It’s a fine tradition at this point.  A few of the contracts seem mildly interesting, and he sets them aside…

 

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

 

“Blaaagh!!!”  The knock at the door catches a tense Stubby off-guard, and papers go flying all over as he pounces on the desk, half-expecting a fly-ball or a pizza or a hailstorm of cotton candy or something suitably ridiculous to come whizzing through.  Instead the door inches open as the papers settle to the floor, and a big black figure ducks under the doorframe.

 

“Yo, Stubbs?  Somethin’ wrong?”

 

“N-no, Thugg, it’s fine.  Just, uh, perusing some contracts here.”

 

“…on da floor?”

 

“Yes on the floor!”  Stubby scrambles around, picking up the papers and bringing them back to his desk, growling mildly all the while.

 

“Stubbs, you all right?  You lookin’ a little on edge, son.”

 

“I’m fine.  It’s, uh, ‘all good,’ right?  I’m just kickin’ it…here…in my office…with my contracts…and…uh…”  As Stubby scrambles for ghetto vernacular, he tries to get the papers in order, sits down in his chair, and begins to scribble on the corner of one contract with a pencil.  Thugg cocks his head and looks at Stubby as the pencil leads snaps, and soon finds itself being flung across the room beneath a veil of profanities.  “God dammit!”

 

“Come on dogg, what’s messin you?”

 

“Fine, fine,” sighs Stubby, pounding his fist on his desk.  “It’s those god-damn Carnies, that’s what!”

 

“Carnies?  Shit bro, don’t be messin on that!” laughs Thugg, grinning wide.  “They’s a buncha pussies in tights, runnin around and droppin’ pranks and shit.  We’re Da Pound, Stubbs!  We don’t drop pranks—we drop bombs!”  

 

“I know, I know, but I’ll be damned if they’re not bugging the hell out of me!  Everywhere I go, they throw their goofy shit back in my face—did you see the sign in the parking lot?  Did you see it?”

 

“You mean da one with you and that fat-ass bitch, and the big black 15-inch rubber co--”

 

“That’s the one, genius!  I got the custodial staff to take it out to the dumpster, but not before most of the guys saw it.  Trust me, the last thing you want to hear on your way to the office is a bunch of no-name jobbers snickering and shouting ‘Hey!  That’s the guy who was boinking Shamu in the Disney Enchanted Lights Neon Nights parade on that billboard that said ‘Stubby McWeed loves the Midnight Carnival—the Midnight Carnival of boinking really obese women in the Disney Enchanted Lights Neon Nights parade on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom, now with special spring offers and family rates!’  I swear that’s the last time I let those little pricks sign a big corporate endorsement deal, no matter how much publicity it gets us.”  Stubby fumes for a bit, and then looks back to his big black accomplice.  “So what do you need, Thugg?”

 

“Aw, nothin’ major.  Just been schoolin on dat Storm match, right?  It’s a good set and all, but when you break that shit down, it’s four of them on two of us, see?  I know Spider and that bitch Fallout are just some strange fucks, and those Carnies ain’t nothing but dumb kids, but I ain’t sleepin’ on nobody these days.  Me and Sacred can probably wreck their shit, but just in case—you got our backs, bro?”

 

Stubby looks up from finally getting his papers back in order.  “Yeah, whatever.  Look, can you just clear out for a bit, Thugg?  I need some time to get this done and out of the way.”

 

“Yeah, right, no prob.  You the big man, you got it.  Peace, Stubby.”  With those parting words, the monstrous World Champion covers the distance to the door with three big strides, ducks out, and closes it behind him.

 

Stubby works, and the clock ticks on.  Three minutes later…

 

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

 

“Jesus H. Christ, Thugg!  I just need some time to ‘chill’!  To drink my ‘forty’ and ‘wreck my shit’ or whatever!”

 

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK

 

The triple rap comes again, and Stubby buries his face in his hand.  “Fine, fine.  Come in, just make it fast,” he shouts.

 

No one comes in.  Stubby stares at the door, and with a pissed-off sigh, shoves his chair back and stalks towards the door.  “Whoever the hell you are, you’d better have a god-damn good reason to disturb me.”  Stubby reaches the door, grabs the knob, and pulls back violently…

 

“JESUS SHIT!”  The commish slams the door faster than he opened it and backs up against it, breathing heavily.  “What the hell was that…god…damn it…”  Huffing and puffing, Stubby turns and gets his composure back, wipes his hands of sweat, and grabs the knob again.   He pulls the door more slowly this time, and keeps his cool…

 

…in the face of a gigantic manatee.

 

“What the…”  Stubby stares on with awe as the big sea cow drifts around brainlessly in front of him, flapping its fins and circling the massive rectangular aquarium that now blocks the entrance to the commissioner’s office!  Stubby pushes forward, but the aquarium tank doesn’t budge.  He backs off and drives a shoulder into the tank, but just end up with a sore back and no progress.  

 

Stubby P. McWeed, commissioner of the Smarks Wrestling Federation, is blockading into his room by a gigantic fish-tank.  He expresses this fact loudly and vociferously:

 

“I’m blockading into my office by a god-damn gigantic fish-tank!”

 

“Actually, Mr. McWeed,” says a passing Thoth, gym bag over his shoulder as he peers at Stubby from the other side of the tank, “manatees are not fish.  They live in the sea, yes, but they’re mammals just like you and me.”  With a slight smirk, the oft-slighted Clansman walks on to the gym as Stubby gapes on, wordless.  The manatee comes back around, floating stupidly and revealing its side to Stubby, a side with a message painted upon it like a dumb, drifting mural:

 

“STUBBY IS THE MAN…MANATEE, THAT IS!  LOVE, PANDASMASH PRODUCTIONS.”

 

Collapsing to the floor and staring straight into the eyes of the dopey beast, Stubby mutters to himself.

 

“God…damn…Carnies…”

 

-------------------------------

 

“They finally got it right!  They bloody well did it!  They finally got my eyes mismatched!”  Grinning through a sip of strawberry milkshake and prodding at the new SWF Edwin MacPhisto Burger King Big Kids poseable toy, complete with detachable ICTV belt, green eye, yellow eye, and union jack shirt painted over plastic torso, the Mac Daddy beams proudly.  “It took them a year, but they did it!  And my hair doesn’t look half-bad either!  Ten dollars to the noble stylist!  Now I’m actually glad that IGN folded, so they’d have a reason to make a new line of toys!  The good folks at Burger King are hence absolved of their me-butchering sins!  Oh, happy day!”

 

“Uh, isn’t me coming back kind of cool too?” mumbles Chris Raynor, choking down Whopper.

 

“Erm…well…yes.  But my eyes are right!  It’s fabuloso just like El Paso!”

 

“That doesn’t rhyme, Edwin.”

 

“I nevery said it had to, my friend.  I nevery said it had to.”  As Raynor shrugs and glomples the rest of his Whopper, a cell phone ring tone styled to the tune of “Paradise City” by Guns ‘n’ Roses echoes out from Edwin’s pocket.  With a drop of the shake and a flick of the wrist, Edwin’s on it.  “Ahoy ahoy?  Oh, already?  Wonderful, wonderful, a thousand times wonderful!  Bloody brilliant!  We’re in your debt, Roger.  Friday?  Sounds fantastic!  Until then, adieu to you!”  Edwin pockets the phone and grins widely.

 

“Who was that?”

 

“That was Roger.”

 

Raynor’s eyes go wide and he suddenly looks as eager as kid in a candy store where the clerk is blind, deaf, facing the corner, and has neither arms nor security cameras.  “Does that mean our big friend has been delivered?”

 

“Oh, that’s exactly what it means, Christopher.  I hope Stubby doesn’t need to go the bathroom any time in the near future.  To think, all the sway you can pull in the Iowa Parks and Marine Life system, with the promise of just one personal appearance!  I predict record gates at the Des Moines State Aquarium this Friday, record gates I say, as we violate the sanctity of all that is good and fishlike!”  Finishing off his cheeseburger, Edwin nods at Raynor’s Big Kid’s Meal.  “Who’d you get, Mssr. Rayn-man?  Who who?”

 

“Stevens!” says Raynor, producing a broad-shoulder heavy hitter, 5 inches tall and complete with hardcore special bat.  “I was kind of hoping for myself, but I guess when you’re out for 4 months they don’t really consider you…”

 

“Oh, it’s all right, Chris.  Series 2’ll be out in a week, and if all goes well, you’ll be headlining, I’m sure of it.”

 

“Really?  You really think so?”

 

“Well, no.  You suck harder than a robot designed especially for sucking.”

 

WHAP

 

A hash brown slaps brutally against Edwin’s forehead, catching the Mac Daddy off-balance and tumbling him back out of his chair and to the floor.  Raynor grins as he finishes off the Whopper.  

 

“I love being a Carnie.”

[Guest El Luchadore Magnifico]

Excellent. Yet another manatee appearance, a witty quip from Thoth, and a reference to "Chicken McNuggets for the Soul"!

 

I love being a Carnie too.

[Guest chirs3]

Easily the funniest thing I've read in a looooong time. I sing your praises, Edwin.

 

Take that, TeleStubby!

 

(completely unrelated note: Read "Naked Came The Manatee", by Carl Hiassen, Dave Barry, and others)

[Guest Zero_Cool]

They got it right this time....no more Edwin running and screaming "THEY DESERVE THE REAL MEEEEE!!!"

 

*coughs*  

 

good promo

[Guest]

I only wish I was involved.

 

Man I love being a carnie.

[Guest Grand Slam]

Just goes to show that the Mac Daddy rules!!  Thanks for the support in my quest, my Carnie brothers!!  

 

And yes, it is in fact, great to be a Carnie.

[Guest HVilleThugg]

Damn good one there Edwin.

 

Da "wishing he was a carnie....er....well, not really, but still" H

[Guest Ash Ketchum]

WOOOOOOO!!!!

 

Great promo f/Edwin.

 

I love being a future Carnie hopeful.