A Salutatory on...(cont.)

[Allen and Ollie and Raccoon]

I haven’t told them all about The Empty yet.

It’s a place I go sometimes when I need to be in another place.

Other people can’t see it though. I swear sometimes people catch a glimpse.

Anyway, I’m sitting on top of a rusted out car that stands out as one of the few things in what seems to be an endless void. The only other discerning features of this place… the only indicator of a ‘floor’ in this void is what covers it.

Broken mirrors.

Loose shards of reflective glass litter the area in huge heaps.

I feel my face. No facial features. Smooth. Nothing there.

No face. No mirrors.

Perfect.

I spot something sticking out of the pile and tilt my head in confusion. I hop off of the car and the broken glass crackles harmlessly under my beat up red Converse sneakers.

My wife got me those.

Ex-Wife.

She got them for Old Ollie.

He dead.

‘Killed himself with his own mind’ as the Bad Religion song goes.

Anyway, screw those thoughts. We come here to get away from those.

I lower to a squat and move some of the broken mirrors shards around to dig the item of interest out and discover a pill bottle. Clear orange plastic. White lid.

That’s a new find in here.

Name on the label is Oliver Fitzsimmons. Hey, that me.

I give it a bit of a shake to hear if there’s any in there and sure enough here the shikka-shikka of pills moving in the container and….something else?

Oh dang, there’s a beat.

It’s simple. Just some drums and a little bass but it’s something I can easily dance to.

Dancing is good. This is good. I begin moving with the rhythm and letting everything but that start to fade away.

Almost everything.

I’m feeling the groove and dancing my ass off here alone in the void as I shake my ‘shaker’ to create the beat.

But there’s a part of me that can’t stop thinking about the shoes.

And in the middle of my dancing I feel two powerful hands wrap around my throat, lift me off the ground, and start squeezing.

I can’t breathe. I desperately pound on the creature's forearms but they don't even react. It’s like slamming against concrete wrapped around rebar. This place was supposed to be safe.

Its face keeps shifting between Old Ollie, my father, my brother, both of my exes… Sometimes a terrifying Croenenbergian amalgam of several faces.

If I could breathe I’d definitely scream.

It leans in and whispers something very simple to me.

‘You’ll never escape. You’ll never be safe.’

I feel tears stinging my cheeks as I start to black out.

“Fitzsimmons?” I hear. I look up and the woman at the pharmacy counter looks a little pissed.

Oh, this was definitely not the first time she said ‘Fitzsimmons’. Oops. I grab the big bag of stuff that’s supposed to make me more person and leave for my RV to start arranging all the pills into my stupid huge pill organizer.

The Empty is supposed to be safe.

I hope that was just a one-time thing.

---

OLLIE MAVERICK

A Salutatory on the Negative Effects of Public Desperation and a Rare Invitation.

We find Ollie Maverick seated atop a dumpster, kicking his dangling legs a little bit and wearing his ring gear and jacket.

“As I sit here, TJ Alexander’s saliva still drying on my kickpad from when my foot mixed his spinal fluid up like a well-shaken cocktail…I find myself in a position even the man who brought me to this company has had trouble securing. I have an opportunity for a title shot. To my knowledge that man is currently spending his time training for the eventual fight of his life when he cashes in his briefcase… but we aren’t here to talk about him. We’re here to talk about me. Hi, I’m Ollie. Ollie has a match. Ollie gonna win. Yay, Ollie.” Ollie says before giving the camera two big thumbs up. He taps the dumpster as if to check on something and Rocky pokes his head out of the side of it.

“I find myself both partnered with AND at odds with Logan Sky in this endeavor, as both of us seek the pinfall and advancement while only one of us seeks Early Bird specials I’M SORRY THAT WAS MY ONLY ONE. You got a little mad at me, didn’t ya? Sorry. Really. If these jokes about you being old are really getting under your skin then uh… Well they aren’t going to stop or anything but… I lost where I was going with this. I respect you. I just also need to finish a book report on the Civil War and it’d help to hear about it from someone who was the-BAD OLLIE. STOP IT.” Ollie says, interrupting himself before he continues.

“Anyway, then we got Teej again. It was the most important thing in the WORLD for you to beat me last week and you stressed you’d be giving me everything you had and I’d be so embarrassed and uh… that ain’t how that went, did it? So what’s gonna be different this time? Nick Danger? Nick Danger who has to remind everyone once a week that he’s the hardest working man in IWF? Piece of advice for Nick that might sting… If you have to tell everyone how hard you are working and you still are only doing just sorta okay…then maybe you aren’t really very good at this.” Ollie says, pausing and shaking his head a bit.

“Man, being mean sucks. How does Allen do this all the time? We should all hang out in my RV and play Super Smash Bros and Goldeneye after this. I’ve got a big 5-Gallon Igloo Beverage dispenser full of homemade Ecto Cooler and waaaaay too many snacks if anyone wants to vibe who doesn’t mind I’ll be in an N95 mask and sunglasses the whole time because brain bad.” Ollie says.

“Ultimately it comes down to one simple fact here. If you go back and look at all these video packages my opponents and my sorta partner sorta opponent have made you’ll start to notice a pattern. All this talk of NEEDING a win and NEEDING to be taken seriously. That must be so tough, guys. Me? I’m a dude who blurs out his face and has a pet raccoon…or the raccoon has a pet human it’s hard to tell sometimes honestly.. I’m not terribly bothered by the idea of being considered legitimate and you’ll never find me in front of this camera desperately pleading to the God of Fancy Belts for a big win. I’m a tornado. I just show up and I wreck everything put in my path and I do that because it’s what I exist to do even if some find it senseless. Alternatively, I recognize that I require value papers to pay for many of the comforts in my life and if a fancy belt means more value papers then I’ll take one of thems. I’ve got an RV to pay off. It’s Gladiatorial combat there’s almost no need to complicate it to the degree some of you have. I give you blood. You give me claps and cheers. You give value papers to my bosses. They give me some of those value papers. I spend it all at Buc-ee's on Gas and Beaver Nuggets and Jerky. Have you seen the jerky wall? You’ll question your religious beliefs.” Ollie says.

“Adding more to it than that seems dishonest and in some cases…maybe a touch desperate. If you have a problem with me saying that please maybe consider the source and also consider maybe crawling out of your own backside and playing Diddy Kong Racing with me. I also have Diddy Kong Racing. It’s not often that I feel social so take advantage of my hospitality while you can.” Ollie says. Mostly he just wants to kick people's asses at old N64 games.

“Logan knows. TJ knows. I guess it’s time for Nick Danger to learn. Don’t worry bud, I like to spell it out as best as I can for people and the only reason I word it as vaguely as I do is because…not even I know what I’m going to do once the bell rings. I’m giving you the best warning I can every time I say it… maybe some of you are starting to catch on and can say it with me.” Ollie says before clearing his throat to give this moment the attention he feels it deserves.

“My name is Ollie Maverick… You should be concerned.” Ollie says. He hops off the top of the dumpster and brushes his pants off a bit before making a clicking noise. Rocky hops out of the dumpster and climbs onto Ollie’s shoulder before Ollie walks offscreen.