Working Hard: A Steve Lemieux Joint (or, No Plan Survives Contact With Lemieux’nemy)

The kosmoceratops holds the record for horniest animal to ever plod across the earth. It’s true. You can Google it, because the internet never lies. Of course, we’re talking horny in the sense that it had a lot of spiky bits sticking out of its head. Go find a picture, so that you too can revel in the glory that is this primordial uber-chicken and what passed for emo bangs in the cretaceous period.

Dolores Merriweather Pepperidge-Pembroke held the record for the other kind of horniness, at least within her gated community in Peoria, Illinois. For real, you guys, that woman worked extra hard to put the “sex” in “sexagenarian.”

She lay in a pool of her own sweat, trying to catch her breath from a rather vigorous bump ‘n grind session with a life-sized Crash Jackson body pillow. Where does someone get their naughty little mitts on something like that? No idea. Unless the PRIMEporium has suddenly gone X-rated, that ain’t the sorta thing that the blue and white brand would authorize. But don’t get gross, the pillow didn’t ship with any extra anatomy.

Dolores made those modifications herself.

Hot Dog Hero, indeed.

And why not? She was a healthy, powerful woman, and what she did in the confines of her own fuck dungeon was between her and you know what let’s just not finish the rest of this sentence. It’ll be better for all of us that way.

Instead, let’s just say that the night’s events were a bit of a celebration. Her contact at LeMoo’s Fine Sandwiches had come through, the mole having planted an idea in the head of store-owner Steve Lemieux that might help spell his early exit from both PRIME and from living. And so after hearing the news from her inside man, it was only fitting to spend some time with a different kind of inside ma…

…

Ahem, anyway.

The wheels were in motion, the gears turning on her malevolent machine. Soon, she would have what she wanted. Soon, Steve Lemieux would be paste on the pavement somewhere in Canada. Soon, the keys to his establishment would be hers.

And sooner still, she would flip that pillow back into position and…

Okay.

OKAY.

We’ll stop now.

#

Steve Lemieux had never met someone who owned their own bus before, not a fancy touring bus. Sure, there was his bread guy, Carl Smith, but that was just a Volkswagon bus. And it always smelled like it had run over a skunk the week before. But nobody baked quite like Carl, so Steve ignored the smell. What he stood in front of now was a capital-B bus.

Steve didn’t know much about Hessian, only that he looked like a lumberjack that someone had Voltron’ed together out of a half dozen Godzillas. In that regard the bus made sense, because your average mode of transportation isn’t built to accommodate a lumberzilla in his day-to-day travels.

The basket in Steve’s hands, one that might as well have been ripped clear out of Little Red Riding Hood, looked even more ridiculous in the shadow of the Hess Express. He thought about casting it aside, more because he wasn’t able to properly vet the ingredients he got from catering, but Papa Leland had always insisted on bringing something when you visit a person for the first time.

Trembling fingers rapped on the door to the Express as Steve whispered, “Hello? Mister Murder? Are you in there?”

There was no response, so Steve summoned up all the testosterone his one ball (don’t ask) could produce and knocked a little harder.

“Mister Murder, sir?”

He could hear stirring from inside the bus.

“Who the hell…,” the reaction made Steve wince, because ‘hell’ is a swear word and swear words always made him uneasy. Then, after a moment, “Stevie, let him in.”

The door to the bus swung open. Steve could feel moisture collecting at the backs of his knees. A whole-ass volley out of words fell out of his head.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mister Murder,” he started, “but we are supposed to perform later and I don’t think I’ve been performing very well so far because no one will tell me when rehearsals are taking place so I was wondering if you knew when we were supposed to rehearse.”

Steve closed his eyes, caught his breath, and held the sandwich basket out with both hands, arms fully extended.

“Umm, I brought food,” he continued. “I had to make it from what we had inside because I tried to bring meats into Canada but Canada is very strict about the meats you are allowed to bring in and I didn’t know the rules of Canada when I tried to bring in meats so they did not let me bring any meats into Canada.”

A giant paw gestured in the direction of the side counter, and Steve experienced a brief vision of having his entire head palmed like a basketball.

“Uh, thanks,” Hessian said. “Mighty kind of you. Rehearsals you say?”

Steve nodded.

“Every time I bring it up people act very confused,” he said. “I think they all mean well, but then I get in front of everyone and it all goes to heck. Just right to heck. I think I might accidentally be hitting people and then they get mad. I know that this isn’t a real sport like American Gladiators, but I still want to do my best.”

Steve raised his eyes, but inside the confined space of the bus the height differential between the two was even more pronounced. The big man nodded, a movement Steve would later say briefly blocked out the entire sun.

“I see,” came the man-mountain’s response. “Take a seat.”

Steve obliged, because when a walking god invites you into their private sanctum it’s best to observe the rules of decorum, lest one be smited where they stand. And since Steve had already had his seasonal dose of smiting, he plopped his daddy dumper on the nearest cushion.

For a moment everything was silent, and Steve felt the beginnings of a nervous tinkle coming on. If the silence went on any longer he’d for sure need to ask to be excused, and then boy howdy would his face be red.

“You’re new here Steve, so you might not be aware…but professional wrestling goes hand in hand with your Gladiators. Both sports have been around forever and, speaking for what we do at least, there’s a way to do things – and a way to conduct yourself. Some of the guys don’t appreciate it when a newcomer like yourself shows up and starts asking questions and going about their business in a certain manner before they’ve been smartened up, you get me?”

Hessian stroked his beard thoughtfully. Steve imagined a nation of tiny people trying desperately to tie the giant down, only to be stomped into good beneath his massive feet. The thought did nothing to help stem the tide of his nerves.

“What brought you here, Steve? What does being in PRIME mean to you?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean to insult anyone, Mister Murder. I’ll make sure that I apologize to everyone because the last thing I want to do is offend people.”

Steve, now a sullen lump of mustachioed laundry, took a moment to process the question. His hands wandered back to where he’d set the basket down, and he spent a few seconds fidgeting with the corner of the napkin he’d draped over the top.

“When I was younger,” he said at last,” I used to watch American Gladiators on TV. It was all reruns though. The show was canceled by the time I learned of it. All the Gladiators - all the men and women like Laser, and Gemini, and Ice... they were all superheroes like you'd see in comic books. But then there were regular people, too. They would come on the show and they would compete in all these events. And they were doing it against people who looked like superheroes which made them heroes, too.”

The tiny man shrugged.

“I’ll never be as big and strong as someone like you, Mister Murder. As far as I'm concerned you're a superhero, and I'm just a regular guy. But when the nice people from PRIME came to me it was like I'd woken up in a dream. They were giving me a chance to be what I loved.”

#

Dolores stepped out onto her balcony and let the cool night air dry the sweat that had beaded on her skin. She stood like that for a while, letting the breeze air out all the bits and places of her old, elderly, shouldn’t-you-be-playin’-bingo-or-something frame.

Soon it would be time to head back inside and flip on the ACE Network so that she could watch in real-time as Steve Lemieux, her nemesis, was ended by one of PRIME’s legendary leviathans.

Behind her, servants were busy stuffing the Crash pillow into a laundry bag. It would require a thorough cleaning, and then someone - she didn’t care who - would need to readjust the padding distribution around the pillow’s nethers. Had it been the real Crash, they would have likely needed to call an ambulance or a medevac chopper to fix his pulverized pe…

#

On the bus, there was a long silence. Steve tried to read his host’s thoughts based on his expression, but body language was never his strong suit, and nuance was a word he barely knew how to spell. His mind raced, and his bladder followed close behind. He was just about to raise his hand like a kid in school asking to use the potty when Hessian spoke again.

“Then let’s make a superhero out of you.”