A Brief Semi-Public Spectacle...(cont.)

[Allen and Ollie and Raccoon]

OLLIE MAVERICK

A Brief Semi-Public Spectacle Regarding Hallucinations, Violence, and the Retrieval of Pants

“I’m backstage with IWF talent Ollie Maverick who seems to be upset about something regarding the most recent IWF broadcast, ‘Extreme Endurance’.” A correspondent backstage at IWF says. Not a face any of us recognize.

“I’m absolutely upset about something and I am going to talk about it!” Ollie says, his voice indicating he is absolutely incensed. We have to go by his voice because (and you’re going to have to get used to this) we can not see his face as it has been censored from the broadcast (at his own request. Look I’m not going to explain this right now he kind of covered it last time.)

“That…is what this interview is for, yes…” The interviewer says.

“They held a big event called Extreme Endurance with all sorts of stipulation matches and that shizz is my Jimmy-Jam! I’m all about violent shenanigans and tomfoolery! I did a moonsault off the top of a ferris wheel once! I’ve been known to light my leg on fire to kick people on occasion! Heck, I gave someone a mandible claw with a handful of tacks once and THEY WERE MY FRIEND. That’s why I brought you here to lay out this challenge for ANYONE in IWF. Let’s get weird! Come fight me at Trash Land! It’s the former landfill turned Theme Park I own. Anything goes! We blew up a bumper car last time I fought there.” Ollie says, getting excited about his memories of Trash Land.

“Seems like an open challenge has been issued by this excitable newcomer.” The Interviewer says, then gets very quiet.

“Are….are we going to cut away from this now?” Ollier asks after the silence reaches the peak of discomfort in regards to length.

“There’s nothing to cut away to.” The Interviewer says.

“Uh…okay? Why?” Ollie asks.

“Because you aren’t actually being interviewed right now. You’re standing at a bus stop at 4 AM talking to yourself. You also aren’t wearing pants. I’m not sure how that happened and I’m a figment of your imagination. I’m going to explode into a swarm of bees now.” The interviewer says before exploding into a swarm of bees as predicted in the previous sentence. The camera cuts to a wide shot and Ollie is in fact standing in front of a bus stop in a pair of boxer briefs and a t-shirt reading ‘IF YOU ARE READING THIS THEN YOU CAN READ AND I AM PROUD OF YOU’.

“Ah, beans...” Ollie says with the tone of someone who has merely been mildly inconvenienced.

“Okay, gotta talk to doc about the new meds. At least I didn’t pee myself this time.” Ollie says, seeming to take actual pride in this small victory. He looks around for any sign of where his pants may have gone before finally looking up to notice them hanging off a streetlight.

“How did you manage that, past Ollie?” Ollie asks no one in particular. He makes a clicking noise and Rocky emerges from a trash can near him. Ollie points to his pants.

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Ollie says. You can almost hear Rocky huff as he nimbly climbs the streetlight and a moment later Ollie’s tattered jeans flop unceremoniously onto the ground.

“Thanks, bud.” Ollie says, gathering his pants and putting them on. It is only after this moment that he notices the camera. Wait, hang on. We all saw the thing with the interviewer, right? So did Ollie edit this in post-production to reflect his hallucination? Or was this all set up in advance? These are the kinds of questions only nerds ask themselves. Way to be a lame nerd, nerd. Bet you’re real fun at parties. Anyway, Ollie’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket and winces at the cracked screen from the drop it took from the streetlight before answering it.

“Me am Ollie. Talk time.” Ollie says when he answers the phone.

“Hey, nutbar. It’s Allen. Management just called and asked me if you were getting a promo in. They sent a camera instead of a cameraman because… well it sounds like you scared the last cameraman pretty good.” We hear on the speakerphone.

“Yeah, that all tracks.” Ollie says, looking up to the camera filming him and remembering what he was doing before he apparently had some sort of dissociative episode that ended with no pants.

“Just try and make it maybe a little bit more normal this time? For the sake of maybe not ending back up in the…whatever you call it.” Allen says.

“The…”

Ollie sees a flicker of the place he hates the most.

“…Whacko Basket.”

“Right, that. Just focus on your opponent, get it edited, and get it sent in. Real easy. I trust you.” Allen says.

“That’s probably a mistake.”

“Yeah, no shit. Later, nutbar.”

“Take care, Chunky.” Ollie says as he hangs up. He looks directly at the camera again. He clears his throat and shakes himself out a little bit to get ready.

“Greetings and salutations, fellow citizens of Starship Earth. It’s Ollie, again. Fresh off of putting grandpappy to bed I now find myself stepping into the ring with Thomas Jhomas Alexander. TJ for short. Mr. Alexander if you’re nasty. Or formal. Formally nasty. Nastily Formal?” Ollie says, taking a moment to consider what any of that might mean before shrugging.

“Timmy Jimmy. Wait, no sorry… Tommy Jommy. Hi. I understand you also know how to fly and kick but what I got and you ain’t got is the way to make folks care about it. When Teej throws a kick? The world sees a kick. When Ollie Maverick calls for the Gravy Train? The whole world hops on and acknowledges him as the conductor. You may not like that but pretty soon you’ll be Choo Choo-sing to acknowledge me as the superior kick monster… and if I hit you right you may not be able to Chew-Chew properly anymore. Homonyms are dope, y’all.” Ollie says. Bet you didn’t think you were gonna learn something from this, did you? You probably already knew that, actually. Sorry for insulting your intelligence. You look nice today.

“I’ve really only given you guys a taste of who I am by beating that dude with the clickity clackity knees. I know so many folks out there right or are like ‘Ollie is the guy that does silly things and has a tie raccoon!’ but I’m so damn good at violence, you guys have no idea. The things I find fun worry me sometimes. I think it’d be really fun to set JT Applesander on fire and then stomp him out but unfortunately I haven’t been booked in a match that’ll let me do that… yet. Probably a reason for that. Now it only exists in my dream journal.” Ollie says, taking out a composition notebook which shows a crude drawing of a man with no face stomping on a guy who is on fire. You’re probably wondering where Ollie grabbed the notebook from. Shut up. Just shut up. You’re ruining this with your logic.

“I’m sorry to have misled you all so far but at some point people always have the same realization about me. I’m not ‘fun crazy’. People like ‘fun crazy’. People wanna throw money at Ryan Reynolds to wink at the camera and be a living cartoon because that makes the violence more palatable and all the important people have healing factors so there’s no real consequences. I like the consequences. I like taking pieces off folks. That’s a legacy. I choose not to be remembered by my face. I choose to be remembered by the scars I leave. I want Tijuana Alejandro to look at some mark on his body for the rest of his life and think ‘Ollie Maverick’. That’s more permanent than any title reign.” Ollie says, his voice getting a bit…intense.

“So if you’re expecting a silly gimmick guy to show up and do schtick at you then you might be in a bit of trouble. Maybe you think they’ve finally lined up an easy win for you but man oh man oh man...” Ollie says, a pause. He was going for the new catchphrase a third time to see if maybe it’ll stick. Final test!

“…You should be concerned.” Ollie says. The blue on his face flickers for a few moments, almost as if glitching out. It’s actually a little frightening. Rocky tugs on his pants leg. Ollie looks down and Rocky holds his arms up in the universal request pose for ‘Want uppies’.

“Oops. Sorry if that got a little scary my dude.” Ollie says, bending down and picking Rocky up. Rocky kinda snuggles into a resting position in Ollie’s arms. Almost like Rocky was a service animal and knew that it was time to help mellow Ollie out a bit.

“I certainly hope this match clears things up for everybody in regards to what I’m about. The Faceless Face of Violence. Maybe next time I’ll finally get around to showing you guys The Empty but… nah you aren’t ready for that, yet. That’s the real weird shit. Some of you may know what I’m talking about. Just imagine how wild shizz will get when me and Allen start tagging again. Anyway uh… how do I end this?” Ollie asks no one in particular she looks at Rocky.

“Wait, did Chainsaw say I had to edit this myself? I don’t know diddly about editing software. I couldn't figure out the Air Fryer yesterday so i punched it.” Ollie says. Rocky blinks.

“I said ‘Diddly’ not ‘Diddy’. I’m sure Allen has a few Diddy jokes lined up for whenever he gets back… an editor… hm… oh! I’ve had a brain pregnancy! An idea! Forget that last thing I called it.” Ollie says.

We cut to Ollie looking over the shoulder of presumably his new editor at their desktop.

“So yeah. Think you can get that edited in like… an hour?” Ollie says.

The new editor just glares at him from his computer.

“Sounds great! There’s a stack of Pizza Pringles waiting when you’re done, bud. You earned it.” Ollie leaves Rocky to his own devices. Rocky kind of just looks around at things in the room for a few moments before batting at the computer mouse a little right before the scene abruptly cuts out.