This is mostly Deadman Crossing Wrestling backstory (1 of 2)
Nov 23, 2021 23:35:04 GMT -5
BRAVE1, SWAT eFed, and 1 more like this
Post by Old Line Jeff on Nov 23, 2021 23:35:04 GMT -5
It’s harder to draw a crowd than it used to be for pro wrestling. Back when Ronnie Long signed with NPW, Jeff Andrews had to pull out every connection he had to get enough people together in a room to make a respectable press conference.
However, when a new interfed starts making some waves by peeling a lot of top line talent off of a different interfed from which it split in a not-entirely friendly manner… well, that gets the attention of the masses.
And when someone mentions that Jeff Andrews might just be opening another promotion to represent this interfed…
Well, then you get a good old fashioned media scrum is what you get.
And as if that wasn’t enough.
“Holy shit, he’s got hair again!”
When a man who’s been completely bald for over a decade shows up with a fucking neck length perm…
“Mr. Andrews, are you going back to being American Wild Child or something?”
He hasn’t worn his hair like that since he was working as American Wild Child in Mexico. This was back in 1999.
“He’s lost weight too!”
Jeff Andrews - he may have his physique from 10 years ago and his hair from 20 years ago but he still radiates that good ol’ surly energy - surlies up to the podium.
“Alright, so, I’ve got a brand new promotion to shill and an important tournament to discuss. And yeah, I joined the tournament partly to shill the new promotion. But… y’all aren’t going to let me talk about any of that until I explain a couple things, huh?”
He scratches his hair.
September 12, 2021.
Jeff Andrews’ 43rd birthday.
Jeff Andrews was alone in Pikesville, Maryland.
If you’d asked him, he’d have told you that he was busy dealing with the situation that pulled him away from wrestling. Truth is, though, that situation was under control to the point that he could have come back if he wanted.
He just didn’t want.
His back hurt, all the time. But more than that… he was just out of gas. Even the old surliness engine was out of gas, and all he could manage when he tried to think about anything regarding pro wrestling was just sort of an irritated boredness, or a bored irritation. Occasional guilt pangs over having left Kirsty McKinney out to dry weren’t enough to get him out of his stupor.
He had money. He was never “fuck you” rich like some people, but as a simple man of simple comforts and pleasures, Jeff Andrews didn’t spend his money fast either, and he took care of himself. He could’ve retired then and there and never had to work again. But he didn’t want that either. ‘Nothing’ wasn’t turning out to be any more palatable than anything else he’d tried, and whether in Columbus Ohio, Braxton County West Virginia, Wheeling West Virginia or Pikesville Maryland, he was equally miserable.
Sometimes it felt like even the color was fading out of his life. But when he metaphorically looked through the loop of a noose, he didn’t see color or any solutions, just his reflection calling him any number of the various words that the pro wrestling industry had decided were no longer acceptable. Even the brown manna that most people called Jim Beam Whiskey was dull.
If he hadn’t been so used to counting the flowers that weren’t actually on the drab yellow painted walls of the house he grew up in, he would’ve felt a familiar electricity in the air. But he’d gotten so used to ignoring things - ringing phones, for example - that he ignored this too, until his doorbell went off.
He didn’t have a doorbell.
His brain fuzzy, the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam only partially responsible, he stumbled to his feet, and out into the front lawn.
“Mr. Andrews. A pleasure, a pleasure indeed.”
The man was wearing a white suit, a beaded one, over a floral dress shirt open almost to his navel. His medium brown hair hung to the top of his neck, where it was cut off straight. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, his mouth behind a beard and neatly groomed mustache. He looked like he’d been caught in the flashbang of a 1962 grenade.
“Do… I know you?”
“You don’t know me, but I know you very well. And although I hate to be confrontational, I’ve gone to an extraordinary effort to arrange this meeting between us, and I must insist you let me in.”
Somehow, the man failed to trigger Jeff Andrews’ surliness. There was only mild confusion. This man, who he was convinced he’d never met, was nonetheless damnably familiar. Andrews opened the door, and gestured for the man to sit.
“So what’s up?”
“Succinctly. My name is Laurent Haniel.”
Haniel… Jeff Andrews knew that name.
“And you are approaching what could, possibly, be your last crossroad in this crazy game we all play.”
Clarity was returning to Jeff Andrews, insomuch as he recognized a bizarre lack of clarity around him. Laurent Haniel was in clear focus. Too clear. Although he was no more than average size, he seemed to take up a great deal more room than that. Invisible waves flowed towards him and into him, magnifying him. The corners of Jeff’s vision were blurry, the further away from Laurent Haniel the blurrier.
“Is your recollection returning?” Laurent asked. His voice was mild, soothing, almost melodic.
And it returned to Jeff Andrews in a flash.
“...Are you related to Lambert?”
“If you said Lambert was my brother, it would not be inaccurate. Yet, he and I have vastly different goals”
Five years ago, Lambert Haniel had showed up on Jeff’s porch, the porch of this very house, and handed him a literal treasure chest along with a massive pile of blueprints and legal documents, and requested that he open a wrestling promotion near Chillicothe, Ohio.
Lambert had also brought with him an ice cold can of Surge, which had at the time been out of production for a decade.
Before Jeff Andrews ran on beer and whiskey, he’d run on Surge.
The thing is, Lambert Haniel was black. He also had that 1962 vibe, although he was much more Jimi Hendrix than Hippie Jesus. He and Laurent couldn’t be brothers.
“Weird shit has been happening off and on again to me for my entire wrestling career. And not just me, but people close to me. He never gave me a straight answer about it, but I think the weirdness started with Kai Scott. You know how he was always saying weird things like how ‘karma owed him one’ ? Well, Kai went so far as to change his name so that no one could find him. I haven’t spoken to him since shortly after he left DEFIANCE in 2015. As for me, the weirdness started in 2001, when I happened to win my own Heavyweight Title, and as Regional Heavyweight Champion, was placed in a World Title tournament. I was fresh off the indies and didn’t think I was ready for it. Then I blundered into an abandoned church in Baltimore, and met a guy named Dionicio Torres…”
“That’s a spaceship. HOW is that a spaceship?”
At a certain point, the strangeness builds up until you’re unable to completely process it anymore. ‘Rolling with it’ is a marginally accurate description of how one proceeds forward from there, but it fails to reflect the complete lack of control. ‘Rolling’ in this case is more being rolled in random directions, buffeted by waves.
Laurent Haniel smiled, kindly but inscrutably.
“What you need, Mr. Andrews, is more time, and how else shall we find it? Come, follow.”
And Laurent, followed by the invisible waves, began walking up a shining silver gangplank, and Jeff Andrews followed him.
The inside of the spaceship was… mostly impossible to describe. It felt like it was full of things he couldn’t name because they related to concepts that he was so unfamiliar with that he couldn’t perceive them. Apocryphal accounts of primitive tribals describing an airplane as a giant bird who gave them a ride in its stomach came to mind. In fact, the harder he thought about it, the less he could remember.
However, there were smaller bits of reality inside it, and one of them was a round table. The table was covered in… things… that he supposed were some kind of control system, and he couldn’t focus on that, but he could on the men sitting around it. Most of them he didn’t remember if he remembered them, because he couldn’t focus on them. A couple, strangely, stood out like neon on monochrome.
However, when a new interfed starts making some waves by peeling a lot of top line talent off of a different interfed from which it split in a not-entirely friendly manner… well, that gets the attention of the masses.
And when someone mentions that Jeff Andrews might just be opening another promotion to represent this interfed…
Well, then you get a good old fashioned media scrum is what you get.
And as if that wasn’t enough.
“Holy shit, he’s got hair again!”
When a man who’s been completely bald for over a decade shows up with a fucking neck length perm…
“Mr. Andrews, are you going back to being American Wild Child or something?”
He hasn’t worn his hair like that since he was working as American Wild Child in Mexico. This was back in 1999.
“He’s lost weight too!”
Jeff Andrews - he may have his physique from 10 years ago and his hair from 20 years ago but he still radiates that good ol’ surly energy - surlies up to the podium.
“Alright, so, I’ve got a brand new promotion to shill and an important tournament to discuss. And yeah, I joined the tournament partly to shill the new promotion. But… y’all aren’t going to let me talk about any of that until I explain a couple things, huh?”
He scratches his hair.
“Well, y’all straight up aren’t gonna believe a word of this…”
Jeff Andrews’ 43rd birthday.
Jeff Andrews was alone in Pikesville, Maryland.
If you’d asked him, he’d have told you that he was busy dealing with the situation that pulled him away from wrestling. Truth is, though, that situation was under control to the point that he could have come back if he wanted.
He just didn’t want.
His back hurt, all the time. But more than that… he was just out of gas. Even the old surliness engine was out of gas, and all he could manage when he tried to think about anything regarding pro wrestling was just sort of an irritated boredness, or a bored irritation. Occasional guilt pangs over having left Kirsty McKinney out to dry weren’t enough to get him out of his stupor.
He had money. He was never “fuck you” rich like some people, but as a simple man of simple comforts and pleasures, Jeff Andrews didn’t spend his money fast either, and he took care of himself. He could’ve retired then and there and never had to work again. But he didn’t want that either. ‘Nothing’ wasn’t turning out to be any more palatable than anything else he’d tried, and whether in Columbus Ohio, Braxton County West Virginia, Wheeling West Virginia or Pikesville Maryland, he was equally miserable.
Sometimes it felt like even the color was fading out of his life. But when he metaphorically looked through the loop of a noose, he didn’t see color or any solutions, just his reflection calling him any number of the various words that the pro wrestling industry had decided were no longer acceptable. Even the brown manna that most people called Jim Beam Whiskey was dull.
If he hadn’t been so used to counting the flowers that weren’t actually on the drab yellow painted walls of the house he grew up in, he would’ve felt a familiar electricity in the air. But he’d gotten so used to ignoring things - ringing phones, for example - that he ignored this too, until his doorbell went off.
He didn’t have a doorbell.
His brain fuzzy, the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam only partially responsible, he stumbled to his feet, and out into the front lawn.
“Mr. Andrews. A pleasure, a pleasure indeed.”
The man was wearing a white suit, a beaded one, over a floral dress shirt open almost to his navel. His medium brown hair hung to the top of his neck, where it was cut off straight. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, his mouth behind a beard and neatly groomed mustache. He looked like he’d been caught in the flashbang of a 1962 grenade.
“Do… I know you?”
“You don’t know me, but I know you very well. And although I hate to be confrontational, I’ve gone to an extraordinary effort to arrange this meeting between us, and I must insist you let me in.”
Somehow, the man failed to trigger Jeff Andrews’ surliness. There was only mild confusion. This man, who he was convinced he’d never met, was nonetheless damnably familiar. Andrews opened the door, and gestured for the man to sit.
“So what’s up?”
“Succinctly. My name is Laurent Haniel.”
Haniel… Jeff Andrews knew that name.
“And you are approaching what could, possibly, be your last crossroad in this crazy game we all play.”
Clarity was returning to Jeff Andrews, insomuch as he recognized a bizarre lack of clarity around him. Laurent Haniel was in clear focus. Too clear. Although he was no more than average size, he seemed to take up a great deal more room than that. Invisible waves flowed towards him and into him, magnifying him. The corners of Jeff’s vision were blurry, the further away from Laurent Haniel the blurrier.
“Is your recollection returning?” Laurent asked. His voice was mild, soothing, almost melodic.
And it returned to Jeff Andrews in a flash.
“...Are you related to Lambert?”
“If you said Lambert was my brother, it would not be inaccurate. Yet, he and I have vastly different goals”
Five years ago, Lambert Haniel had showed up on Jeff’s porch, the porch of this very house, and handed him a literal treasure chest along with a massive pile of blueprints and legal documents, and requested that he open a wrestling promotion near Chillicothe, Ohio.
Lambert had also brought with him an ice cold can of Surge, which had at the time been out of production for a decade.
Before Jeff Andrews ran on beer and whiskey, he’d run on Surge.
The thing is, Lambert Haniel was black. He also had that 1962 vibe, although he was much more Jimi Hendrix than Hippie Jesus. He and Laurent couldn’t be brothers.
Could they?
“Weird shit has been happening off and on again to me for my entire wrestling career. And not just me, but people close to me. He never gave me a straight answer about it, but I think the weirdness started with Kai Scott. You know how he was always saying weird things like how ‘karma owed him one’ ? Well, Kai went so far as to change his name so that no one could find him. I haven’t spoken to him since shortly after he left DEFIANCE in 2015. As for me, the weirdness started in 2001, when I happened to win my own Heavyweight Title, and as Regional Heavyweight Champion, was placed in a World Title tournament. I was fresh off the indies and didn’t think I was ready for it. Then I blundered into an abandoned church in Baltimore, and met a guy named Dionicio Torres…”
“That’s a spaceship. HOW is that a spaceship?”
At a certain point, the strangeness builds up until you’re unable to completely process it anymore. ‘Rolling with it’ is a marginally accurate description of how one proceeds forward from there, but it fails to reflect the complete lack of control. ‘Rolling’ in this case is more being rolled in random directions, buffeted by waves.
Laurent Haniel smiled, kindly but inscrutably.
“What you need, Mr. Andrews, is more time, and how else shall we find it? Come, follow.”
And Laurent, followed by the invisible waves, began walking up a shining silver gangplank, and Jeff Andrews followed him.
The inside of the spaceship was… mostly impossible to describe. It felt like it was full of things he couldn’t name because they related to concepts that he was so unfamiliar with that he couldn’t perceive them. Apocryphal accounts of primitive tribals describing an airplane as a giant bird who gave them a ride in its stomach came to mind. In fact, the harder he thought about it, the less he could remember.
However, there were smaller bits of reality inside it, and one of them was a round table. The table was covered in… things… that he supposed were some kind of control system, and he couldn’t focus on that, but he could on the men sitting around it. Most of them he didn’t remember if he remembered them, because he couldn’t focus on them. A couple, strangely, stood out like neon on monochrome.
“Our organization is known as the Grains of Sand, Mr. Andrews.” Laurent said mildly. “And I am only the second of us that you’ve met before. I believe you are already acquainted with Mr. Torres.”
~contd~
