Post by Everyday Heroes on Nov 26, 2016 22:34:21 GMT
HEROES ASSEMBLED
'A draw?! Are y'all kiddin' me?'
Walter's pacing back and forth across Jason's living room like a man possessed. I've never seen him like this. I've never even seen him close to this. This doesn't feel like my boyfriend, my Fat Man. It feels like someone else. Someone I've only just met.
It feels like 'Fat Man Beyond.'
And I like Fat Man Beyond.
A lot.
'A draw is not good enough. NOT good enough!'
'C'mon, Wally, it wasn't so bad! I mean, at least we didn't lose, right?!'
Cherry's got a point, but Wally ain't about to listen.
'At least we didn't lose?! Cherry, what the heck! What the heck kind of thinking is that?!' Walter scoffs. 'At least we didn't lose... Is that seriously what y'all are gonna be aimin' for?! Not losin'?!'
'Cherry's got a point, Walt.' Jason wouldn't be Jason if he didn't try to act as a peacekeeper. 'It was a hard match, and we managed to hold on to our titles against all odds. That's something to be proud of...'
'Proud?!' Walter snorts. 'Proud of what, Jason?! Of not having been good enough?! I mean, let's face it, buddy, if it hadn't been for you, we would have been chumps instead of Champs. If it hadn't been for you, we would have dropped the ball, and let everybody in that arena down. Is that something to be proud of, Jason?! 'Cause it sure ain't to me!'
Jason opens his mouth to say something, but Walter's in the zone, and ain't anybody about to get him out of there.
'Heck, if anything, it should be you yellin' at us for not havin' been good enough. It ought'a be you standing here feelin' embarrassed 'bout havin' just about held on to our titles by the skin of our teeth. It ought'a be us makin' up excuses 'bout how the match was hard. But instead you're sittin' there cool as a cucumber, tellin' me I should feel proud for havin' been lucky!'
Walter is so angry that his southern accent is coming out in full force, but not so angry that his voice does that thing where it becomes high-pitched and he runs out of breath and starts sounding like a wheezy twelve-year-old. Or maybe he's just learned to control it so it doesn't happen as often, I don't know. All I know is, he's dang sexy when he's mad.
'Well, guess what, Jay,' he continues, 'I ain't proud. Not the slightest bit. I'm the opposite of proud. I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed that we couldn't send these guys packin' the first time 'round, and it's gonna take a second try. Champions don't get second tries. Guys who can't get the job done get second tries!'
'Walt, calm down!' Jason goes for his 'Dad voice', but he should have known it wouldn't work; Walter just cuts across again.
'No, Jay. I ain't calmin' down. Not this time. 'Cause this time, I got a right to be mad. You know I don't get angry real often. I'm a pretty mellow guy. But this time? This time, I am angry. Angry at myself, and angry at all three of us. You know why? 'Cause we weren't good enough. Ain't no use sittin' here and tryin' to make excuses. We just weren't, and that's that!'
Jason tries to cut in again, but nope! Denied!
''Cause you know what?! You know what that wonderful draw we ought'a feel so proud of did?! It gave those guys a point. Now those guys get to go around sayin' we got lucky, we should'a lost...and you know the worst part?! They're right. We should have lost. 'Cause we weren't good enough!'
'All right, Walt!' We get it! Jeez!' Jason suddenly gets up off his chair, throwing his arms in the air. 'We weren't good enough and we shouldn't feel proud. We get it. Take it down a notch, will ya?!'
For the first time since this conversation started, Walter stops and thinks about what he's saying and doing. A moment later, his expression goes from irritation to something that looks like a mixture of regret and sympathy.
...aw, man! We were doing so well!
'Sorry, Jay.' His tone has lost all of its anger, too. This isn't Fat Man Beyond anymore; this is just plain ol' Walter who lives with his mom. 'It's just...'
Walter pauses, sighs, and walks over to sit on the chair Jason just got up from. He sits and looks at his shoes for what feels like a year before he finally speaks again:
'It's just...a year ago, I was makin' My Little Pony cosplays in Ma's basement. And now...now I'm a Champion. Defending my title on the Main Event of a supershow. Someone people actually pay attention to. Someone people actually like.'
A little of that fire is creeping back into his voice. Good.
'Jay...I sign autographs for people. Little kids come up to me with Owl Man action figures for me to sign. Action figures, Jace. Of me. Wally Stravinsky, from San Antonio, Texas. Wobbly Wally, who got picked on at school for being a dork. That guy has an action figure. That guy is a wrestling Champion. That guy is wrestlin' on Main Event in front of thousands of fans who all want him to win. You know what I mean?'
He looks up at Jason, and I'm proud to see he's not crying. Atta boy, Walter. Jason looks proud too, and his tone is much less angry as he replies:
'I know, buddy. I get ya.'
'I just...I don't wanna let everybody down.' Walter's voice is the complete opposite of what it was a couple of minutes ago; small, subdued, a whisper instead of a roar. One thing it still isn't, though, is meek; my man is calming down, not giving in. Jason sees it too, and walks over to sit by Walter and put an arm around his shoulders.
'I know, bud,' he says. 'I know.'
'No, Jason.' Walter's voice suddenly takes on that fire again. 'You don't know. If you did know, you wouldn't be telling me to feel proud. If you did know, you'd be agreeing with me!'
Walter suddenly pushes off the chair and back to his feet. In one go. My man.
'I'm sorry, Jay. You're a real pal, and you've always been there for me ever since we first met, but this time, you can't know. I mean, why would ya?! You've been a Champion before. If this fails, you can go somewhere and be a singles Champion. No sweat. No problem. But someone like me?!' Walter's tone, like his expression, is now pained. 'This is it for me, man. This is my time. This is what I've been waitin' for ever since I decided to start wrestlin'. And now that it's here, I ain't gonna screw it up. I ain't gonna let it slip away again. And even if I do, I'll be doggone if I let it happen on my first ever Main Event!'
Walter's suddenly intense again, so intense that Jason and Cherry can't even come up with anything to say. My man, though? He still has plenty to say.
'Listen, guys...y'all know I love you both. We're buddies. We're a team. But I ain't gonna let anybody screw this up for me. Not even y'all. So if y'all gonna sit there an' tell me I should be proud of a draw?' Walter shakes his head. 'Uh-uh. Sorry. I want this team to be the best it can be. I don't wanna settle for just okay. And I thought that's what y'all wanted too. But if y'all wanna think like that, count me out. I wanna do better.'
For a moment after this, no one says anything. Even the room seems to know how big this moment is, how important what just happened was to the future of the Everyday Heroes; where before it had been relatively warm, all of a sudden the temperature feels like it's dropped below zero.
And then...
...then, Jason stands up.
And walks over to Walter.
And looks him in the eye.
And Walter looks him in the eye as well.
And then Jason salutes to him.
'Awaiting your orders, boss!'
'Wait, what?! Boss?!' And just like that, Fat Man Beyond comes crashing back down into good ol' Walter, the Pollo Bucket fry cook. 'What'chu talkin' 'bout?!'
Jason grins, dropping his hand from his temple and relaxing his posture.
'Well,' he says, 'seems to me the leader of the Everyday Heroes should be someone who really cares about the future of the team. Someone who doesn't want to settle for less. Someone who wants to keep improving even when the team is doing well. And guess what?!' Jason winks. 'I see someone like that standing right in front of me.'
'Wha---' I can practically see the coin dropping in Walter's brain. '---ME?!'
Jason nods.
'But---but I can't---I'm---but you---I---'
'Leadership is flexible in this team, buddy,' Jason says, his calm and collected tone the exact opposite of Walter's random blurts. 'The leader doesn't always have to be me. And you know what?! You're right. I was wrong for wanting to settle for just okay. You were the one trying to drive the team forward. You know...the way a leader does.'
Reality is only now sinking in for Walter, and he is flustered and still babbling as Jason claps him on the shoulder.
'So, boss...what's the plan?'
For another moment afterwards, Walter is still flustered and looking like a kid who's having his birthday party at Toys'R'Us. Then, just like that, Fat Man Beyond is back, and ready to take charge in his new role as the leader of the Everyday Heroes.
'Huddle up, team,' he says, 'here's how it's gonna go down.'
THE VIDEO
Half an hour later, everyone's been briefed, and we're standing in the parking lot out back of Jason's apartment, ready to shoot the video where they talk about the match.
'So, y'all got what I said in there, right?' Walter's halfway between his old, panicky self and his new, confident Fat Man Beyond persona as he goes over the plan one last time with Jason and Cherry.
'Yeah, Walt,' Jason says. 'It's pretty straightforward...'
'Yeah, well, I'm gonna say it one more time, just in case.'
Jason and Cherry make as if to interrupt, but they're just too late to prevent Walter from repeating the plan for the forty-fifth time:
'I'm too heavy to be climbin' up ladders, so I'm gonna stay on the ground and keep the two big guys away. Y'all two are lighter, so you go and climb up the ladder and get the titles without their third guy grabbin' you. Don't worry 'bout fighting anybody 'less you have to. Leave that to me. Got it?'
'Yeah, Wally,' Cherry groans. 'We got it the other fifty-three times, too.'
'Right.' Walter flusters a little, but manages to keep his cool. 'Just wanted to make sure everyone knew what to do. I ain't used to this leadership business yet...'
'...and there's nothing wrong with that,' Jason says, glowering at Cherry. He then turns back to Wally and claps him on the shoulder. 'You're doing good, buddy. Don't worry. We know the plan. We got your back.'
'Yeah,' Cherry says, looking and sounding embarrassed. 'We got your back, Wally.'
'I know,' Walter says, grinning. Then, turning back to me: 'Hey, Lyndsey...' He points between the three of them. 'We're ready when you are!'
'Okay...' I take a couple of steps back, find an angle where the light won't interfere with the footage, and call out to them: 'Y'all ready?'
'We're ready,' Fat Man Beyond says.
'Okay. Aaaand...go!'
'Listen up, Outliers...we ain't going to say an awful lot this time 'round.' No surprises there; Fatman Beyond takes the lead before Jason can so much as move a finger. 'Actions speak louder than words, and we're gonna let our fists do most of the talkin' on Sunday.'
I can tell by the looks on Jason's and Cherry's faces that they're as surprised as I am. We've all just seen Walter angry an hour ago, but now? Now, he's oozing confidence in a way he's never done before.
'Last time was too close,' he continues. 'We almost failed. We almost let everybody down. We were not good enough. Just because you don't lose something, doesn't mean you didn't deserve to – and last month, we deserved to have lost. We didn't, and we got a second chance to prove ourselves.
Which is why this time, we're going to make dang sure we don't even come close to failing.'
Again, Jason and Cherry can do little except for nod, as my man continues:
'Outliers...Acido...this isn't personal between us. You haven't done anything to us to make us not like you. This isn't about you. This is about ourselves. This is about two out of the three of us having our first main event ever, and wanting to make absolutely sure we don't come up short. This is about us finally having our moment, the moment we've been waiting for for years, and wanting to make sure we make the most of it. Am I right, guys?'
Here, Walter looks around at his friends for the first time since I've started recording. Jason and Cherry both nod in agreement, and a confident smile appears on Fat Man Beyond's features as he addresses the camera again:
'That's right, Outliers. This is our time. Owl Man's time, and Sailor Cherry's time, and Jason Orion's time. We have the chance of a lifetime at Mucha Lucha Senor, and we're not about to give it up! And that's why, on Sunday, we'll fight like we've never fought before.'
My man leans forward, his tone become even lower-pitched:
'You think we fought hard last month? You ain't seen nothin' yet. On Sunday, no matter how hard you come at us, we're gonna come at you harder. No matter how bad you beat us up, we're gonna beat you up worse. No matter how fast you try to climb that ladder, we're gonna climb it faster. We've got everything it takes to succeed! We've got the speed...'
Walter points at Jason.
'...the agility...'
He points at Cherry.
'...and the strength.'
He places a hand on his chest, making me swoon.
'We've got all the pieces necessary to make a champion Trios team. All the pieces necessary to win a ladder match. And we also have a secret weapon...'
Walter smirks, leaning forward again.
'...a plan.'
Behind my man, Jason and Cherry both nod, clenching their fists confidently.
'But like I said, Outliers...talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. And at Mucha Lucha Senor on Sunday...we're gonna let our actions do the talking.
Because failing is not an option.
And a draw isn't good enough.'
I barely manage to yell out 'CUT' and turn off the camera. All I want is to jump my man right now and show him what this new confident attitude does to me. It must be showing in my face, too, because Jason and Cherry make themselves scarce quick-fast, leaving me and Fat Man Beyond to make goo-goo eyes at each other alone.
'So...' he says, after a second or two. 'What did you think?'
'What did I think?' I smile, and reach down to take his hand and lead him towards the entrance to the apartment complex. 'What was it you said just then, at the end? Actions speak louder than words, right?'
He nods, and I smile wider.
'Well...why don't you let me show you?'
And, the moment we get back inside, I do.