Can You See Me Now?

This almost started off with some cheesy ass comeback quote.

Instead, we begin with a phone call from a familiar voice.

“DOOOOOOZY!” The unmistakable, always extremely jubilant tone of THE ‘Beautiful’ Bobby Dean fills the studio apartment via speakerphone. “Jiles told me the news!”

An already exasperated sigh releases from, you guessed it, Mr. Invisible.

“You know I hate when you call me that, Bob.”

Doozer’s not-so-bright-anymore blue eyes roll as he shakes his head. The once celebrated Dream Wrestling Hall of Famer sits, slightly annoyed in a small room littered with greasy pizza boxes and empty cans of… well, a variety of alcoholic beverage brands.

“And YOU know that I hate when YOU call me that!” Dean responds, less jubilant and more defensively.

“That’s your name, Dean.” Slightly more annoyed.

“Not with THAT attitude!” Snaps back the Beautious Blob.

With his pointer finger and thumb now pinching above the bridge of his nose, The Elder Bandit releases a groan louder than anything Jiles’ ex could’ve dreamed to reach.

“Can you just get on with why you decided to call and interrupt me getting ready to go hit the gym?” Asked He-Who’s-Got-to-Be-Good-Looking-‘Cause-He’s-So-Hard-to-See.

Come Together.

“FINE!” Retorts the tortellini eating genie who resembles the Blue Meanie. “I didn’t miss you, either!”

The awkward silent pause is awkward.

“Welllllll-” The Honnalean continues. “You’re kinda…ya know.”

Deadpan Dooze refuses to bite as he fishes up a pair of compression socks out of all the trash surrounding the cot he’s sitting up on.

“YOU’RE OLD!” The words burst through the speakerphone with mixed tones of concern and relief. “You’re just… you’re so old!”

The Former Ring General of the Bandits nods his head, still silent. He knew where this call was going from the second he saw the name flash over his phone. The continued non-response from our end of this call apparently caused Robert the Rotund, on the other end, to feel a need to elaborate.

“Your eggs probably aren’t even fertile anymore!”

A dog-like, confused head tilt of the Old Bull from Boston comes with a faint grin surrounded by wrinkled skin.

“I’m only ten years older than you, Bobby.”

“TEN YEARS IS LIKE FOREVER! You’ve heard Annabelle go on about all the crap she’s into! Nothing stays COOL for that long!”

Unamused eyebrows raise, creating more wrinkles across Doozer’s forehead.

“I’m only four years older than a friend of ours who would be very upset if he heard you say that.”

“BUT HE’S STILL GOOD!”

A familiar spark begins to form in those aged, greyish blue eyes, but quickly fades.

“We done here?”

Acknowleding Doozer’s downtrodden tone, Dean’s own tone softens.

“I didn’t mea-”

“You did. It’s fine. I get it.”

The Beautiful Bandit jumps on the surprisingly slightly submissive acknowledgment.

“Sooooo, why?” Dean pries. “I mean, with Cancer… we all know, he just can’t stop. Wrestling is all he’s ever had to hang his shades on. With me, well, I got Annabelle kicking her career off and I feel like I have to be more involved… in case she needs me, ya know? But-”

“Yeah, I got nothing.”

“That’s not wha-”

“Sure it is. And you ain’t wrong.” The Boston Bruiser’s head drops, his forehead landing on the palm of his right hand, its elbow on his knee. “I got no money. I live in this wicked shitty, little apartment that I can only afford by being Cancer’s personal bitch.” He shivers at his own admission. “I’m sick of dusting off his shades, man.. And you can’t imagine how bad those tights smell. I swear he pisses inside of them on purpose. Probably pisses on them after taking them off just to be a dick, too.”

“He doesn’t like it when you call them ti-“

The comment gets no sold like our aged hero’s ring name was The Ultimate Doozior and he tries to get back to his point.

“Hey, do you remember Annabelle’s last birthday?”

A proud Daddy Dean pipes up, “Yeah that was the best!”

“Remember how she wanted me to be there in all my old ring gear to sign autographs for her friends? And when Jiles offered to show up, too, she didn’t really care? So he offered to pay for the whole thing?”

“I sure do! Loved it! That girl’s expensive enou-”

“But King Ding Dong told you he’d only foot the bill if he could make a couple changes?”

“Uhhhh…” Bobert isn’t quite sure he likes where this is going.

“Remember how it all ended up with me sitting above a dunk pool labeled ‘Dunk a Doozer’ but with the ‘Doozer’ scratched out and ‘Loser’ spray painted above it?”

To his credit, Bobby Dean tried his best to stifle his laugh.

“Yeah, I know. It’s silly, but it hit a little too close to home at the time, man.

Like a boot in the bum.

Well that was it for me. That’s when I realized I had to get back. Remember we all met? I was THE guy. The Man. The Myth. The Legend. The Dooze.” His old eyes glaze over, coated in nostalgia. “Then, somehow, we elevated each other even higher. It felt like we were untouchable. And it was amazing…”

A pregnant pause follows.

“Until it wasn’t.”

The glaze fades away.

“But I was too stubborn to call it quits. Watching Jiles soar like he did, while I sunk. I dunno, I guess I got jealous. I turned into something I never thought I could ever become. And I blamed you guys for bringing me down, when all you ever did was try to prop me up.”

You know when you’re at a loss for words because you don’t want to agree, but any other response would be ingenuine? That’s Bobby Dean right about now.

“I became a joke, but not the good kind. A shell of myself.”

“Heh, good one!” Dean interjected, desperate to break up his buddy’s depressing monologue.

“I can’t let that… this… be how it ends. The final chapter of The Dooze can’t be some sorry ass disappearing act.”

“Ohhhhh but I love when we preten-”

“That’s not what I meant, Bob. You know. I gotta show everyone, myself included, that I can still hang. That I still got some fight left in me. Or at the very least, that I can still put on a good show.”

“But what if it’s not there anymore, Dooze?” You could almost hear the trepidation as the words came through the speaker phone.

“Then I’ll find out how I always said I would. The Dooze doesn’t get counted out until he can’t stand anymore. His shoulders don’t stay on the canvas for that third count unless he’s knocked the fuck out. That’s how it used to be. That’s what I always promised our Yolkamaniacs.” A deep breath from Dooze ensues. “So no more rage quits. No more frosted flakes. No more disappearing acts. The next time I hang up the jorts, no one will wonder why.”

Another deep sigh.

“I gotta get back to what I always loved, man. I got to… ‘cause I got nothing else.”

The speakerphone begins to snore.

A faint grin grows from the side of Doozer’s mouth, as he shakes his head and hits the big red button on his cell.

“You’ll see.”

Fade.

~~~

Two Bandits. One fern.

“It hasn’t gotten any easier, old man. Mount COOLYMPUS is taller than ever. And steeper. And COOLer. And-” Safe to say we don’t need to describe the owner of the big mouth those words came from.

“I get it, dickhead.” The Old Bull, in his vintage Superman shirt and wrestling jorts, says with a snort.

“Alright, well, I hope you found the fountain of youth, Eggeneezer Drooge. The Bandits might be as strong as, if not stronger than, ever… thanks to yours truly, by the way. BUT we all got our own shit going on. We can’t prop you up like Cardboard Dan all the time. Not anymore.” The Count of COOLsylvania raises and shakes his prissy pointer finger to drive the point home. Or piss Dooze off.

Why not both?

“I don’t want your help. Won’t need it, either!” The Dooze declares defiantly.

“Good. ‘Cause you know where to find sympathy, right?”

The Elder Bandit’s brows scrunch, telling his old friend and co-founder of the eGG Bandits to continue.

“Right between suicide and syphilis! In any good dictionary, at least.” Cancer’s shit eating smile causes Doozer’s nose to twitch just like it always used to.

The Bostonian brushes it off.

“That… okay, whatever. I’m not looking for any of… those things. I’m ready to turn back the clock. Go back when hard work meant something. Not like what the kids think is hard work today, either.” Doozer spits off to the side, raising a single, disgusted brow on his friend’s face. “I want the sweat, the calluses, the back that ached like it was trying to teach me a lesson. I’m ready to walk to the ring upramp, both ways. In the snow!”

“That doesn’t even make any sen… Wait.” A sinister glow grows across Cancer’s face. “If I’m to allow you back, to rep our Brothers and Sisters in Shell once again, there’s one stipulation.” The pointer finger Doozer hates with a passion returns, and Jiles pokes his Bandit brother in the chest with it. “Non negotiable.”

“I can do withou-”

Skepticism increases.

“Okay, what is it?” The old man sighs in defeat.

You know that crazy Max Kael type smile? It looks even worse on Cancer.

~~~

The throne. Yeah, his throne.

What Jiles don’t know can’t hurt him.

Luc Labelle, huh?

Look, I don’t have a single clue who you are. I don’t know where you’re from. I don’t know how you fight. And I don’t care.

As much as I’d love to dig into whatever tape is out there on you, I’m not going to. It’s a waste of my time. Because this isn’t about you. This is about me. You could be Intruder #1 or Cecilworth Fuckin’ Farthington. I’m coming at you in my first match after all these years like a fuckin’ phoenix.

Reborn from the ashes of the dumpster fire that was my former self’s undoing.

Sorry, Luc. But at least you know it’s not personal.

You know, I actually knew a Labelle once. Absolutely hated that kid. He was always strutting around like he was some hot ticket. The best player on the field. The smartest student in the class. The lady killer.

Sounds really familiar…

He went out with a girl. Can’t quite remember her name, but she was far from anything you’d classify as a “looker.” Ines? No, that was Frank’s main squeeze. Frank, what a motherfucker that guy was. Frank once-

-Bzzt-

The fuck was that? Just got a shiver or something. Did Jiles forget to turn the heat on for me or something?

I guess that’s better than back in the day when he used to leave the thermostat at room temp. Even when he’d go out for a smoke and forget to close the damn door. Talk about a clueless kid just blowing out a bunch of hot air. Like we were trying to heat the outdoors, ya-

-Bzzt-

What in the blue blazes?!?

-Bzzt-

Well I’ll be a monke-

-Bzzt-

Did Cancer possess this room or something? It’s been a while, but I don’t remember feeling the buzzer when someone intercommed in.

By the way, what a time, when you had to buzz a room to get someone. Not like now, where everyone has a damn portable phone and no one respects anyone’s privacy-

-Bzzt-

Okay I gotta get outta here. Let’s get this wrapped up. Where was I?

Right!

Labelle’s fugly girlfriend! Debbie! That’s right! We called her Big Debbie, ‘cause she sure wasn’t little or sweet like any of those tasty little boxed pastries.

-Bzzt-

Fuck! I actually remember hearing through the grapevine that it was a big box. That pompous Labelle prick was throwing a hot dog into the ocean, ya know. Not like the girls I dated. Real dames, them-

-Bzzt-

JUMPED UP JESUS!

-Bzzt-

It’s like I got fire ants in my pantalo-

-Bzzt-

Okay, focus. Frank, Ines, Big Deb… Labelle… ahhh, right, Luc!

Who even spells Luc without a K and E at the end anyway? What’s made everyone feel like they gotta be so damn special and different. I remember, back when Pepperidge farm made good cakes and Budweiser only made beer-

-Bzzt-

No one talked about putting boots in other people’s bums-

-Bzzt-

Boots were made for walkin!

-Bzzt-

Fuck you, Cancer Jiles! Wait a second…

Cool Cancer Jiles… Cool Hand LuKE…

I think I know what’s going on here!

You better strap in, Labelle! Whatever’s going on here, you’re gonna pay the price! Call me the Tax Collector. You probably don’t even know that was an actual thing since all you good for nothin’s use Turbo Tax or some shit like that now-

-Bzzt-

Fuck this, Alexa, call Cancer Jiles!

…

…

For crying out loud. This thing never, oh maybe it’s one of those droid-doo-hickies.

-Bzzt-

HEY GOO-GOO!

-Bzzt-

Seriou-

Uh huh?

‘Bout time! Call Cancer Jiles!

You’ve reached The King Crumb. I’m too cool to answer my phone, so leave a message. Or don’t.

Call screening sonuva… I remember when you didn’t know who was calling until you picked up your fuckin phone! And yeah, you actually had to pick it up! You couldn’t just tap on buttons that aren’t even actual butto-

-Bzzt-

I’m done with this shit.

Labelle, I hope you see me.

In your nightmares.

Come Revival 67.

I’M GONNA DOOZE YOU-

AND ABUSE YOU!