- Event: Refueled XXVI
Montages are fun.
Maybe because they’re so straightforward, or maybe because they’re so short. Maybe both. Regardless, what follows is a series of fun montages with our lovable hero Bobby Dean, in a coma, lying in his hospital bed. His friends Doozer and Cancer Jiles have managed to find time to visit, each on their own. I’m not sure if it was planned that way ahead of time, or if that’s just how it managed to work out.
Grudges.
Who knew?
First up is Cancer Jiles. With a thick book tucked under one arm, he walks quietly into the room so as not to disturb his trusty friend. Pulling up a chair, he places the book snugly on his lap as he reaches up and removes his mirror-shaded sunglasses from his face. He gently places them on the bedside table, and then removes a glasses case from his pocket.
The Maestro opens the case and proceeds to put on another pair of glasses, which one must assume are his readers. I assume so because they happen to be equally as shaded as his previous pair. Opening the thick book to a previously earmarked page, Cancer clears his throat.
“Step 1, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. That’s fahrenheit, buddy.” Cancer pauses to clarify for his comatose friend. “Step two, butter a 9 by 13 inch glass baking dish. Arrange half of the brioche along the bottom of the dish, and cut or tear the slices to fit. Spread three quarters of a cup of jam on the top and cover with the remaining bread.”
Cancer stops for a moment and turns the book around, holding it up to Bobby’s face.
“Simply scrumptious, am I right?” Cancer asks.
—
A new montage begins, as Doozer, now sits in the same chair Cancer sat in before. A book rests in his lap as well, but it’s not as thick as the one from which Cancer read.
“We all can dance,” Doozer calmly recites the text, “if we find the music that we love.” He takes a moment to pause from his reading of Giraffes Can’t Dance, by Giles Andreae. “Man Bobbo, this book hits hard! Don’t worry, I’ll keep going. Only for you, bud”
—
“And finally step five, bake until the top is cracked and a cake tester inserted,” Cancer stops and chuckles, gently nudging Bobby in the hip. “Eh, inserted… you’d always giggle at that word, no matter what context.”
With no reaction from his sleeping friend, Cancer continues along, but with a slightly deflated spirit. “Cool on a wire rack for 40 minutes, then carefully…”
—
“Busty teens, sexy MILF’s, gorgeous stars. All of them featured here, with interacial sex.” Doozer stops reading from his phone and looks over at his friend. “Hey Bobby, this might be right up your alley, am I right?” Doozer looks back at his phone, “Everything you could ever want from XXX networks is here. So come, mind you they spelled it that other way, and enjoy all the action from one of our favorite adult sites. Then they have a link you can click to check it out. See.”
Doozer turns the phone around and shows Bobby, who no sells him harder than half the High Octane roster. He then takes the phone back and scrolls down reading the review of another site as Bobby continues to lie there motionless.
—
A few of the nurses sit outside Bob’s room, unable to ignore the sad sight of Cancer’s downtrodden face as he moseys into the room of his friend for the umpteenth time. Nurse Irene looks over at her friend and co-worker Nurse Sandra, who simply offers a sad head shake in return.
“Poor guy has been coming here all week, him and that older, muscular fella.” Nurse Irene says with pity.
Inside the room, Cancer sits and holds a picture up to Bobby’s peaceful face. This time it’s a picture of Cheesecake-stuffed banana bread.
—
”Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off…” Doozer puts The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams down, and with a quirky smile he says, “Think I can use that when I start to lose my hair, Bobster? It was simply loved off?” Smiling to himself, he picks the book back up and continues. “And your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.”
Doozer pauses a moment to think,
“That sounds more like what’s happened to Woodson. The Velveteen Scottywood is more like it.”
—
“Step three, you need….”
—
“Their movies feature a mix of the largest dongs-”
—
Finally, the montage comes to an end, as Doozer and Cancer’s scheduled appearances finally overlap. Jiles, sitting in the chair with the cookbook open on his lap, looks up in surprise as Doozer walks in with The Lorax by Dr. Seussin in his hands.
After a short exchange, Doozer throws his arms in the air and exits. Unsatisfied, Jiles quietly stands from his chair and follows behind while whispering all sorts of kind things to his pal.
—-
All told, it’s been ten days since Bob was placed into a medically induced coma.
And it’s been three days since the Bandits updated the world on his condition.
And it’s been two days since Bobby Dean actually woke up.
GASP!
Say.
What.
That said, let’s rejoin our loveable, rusing, getting-less-fat-by-the-day friend. We pick up where the last montage concludes.
You read that right. We can’t really call him “fat” any more. Take away all the loose skin that now hangs from his body and you have a somewhat trim figure. Ya know, looks good in a wind tunnel type of build. Who knew a liquid diet (both in and out) worked better than any Jenny Craig, Weightwatchers, or whatever other weight loss sham you can think of.
Anyway.
Bobby is lying in his bed on the fourth floor of Chicago Memorial. Oddly enough, he’s hooked up to very few wires and gadgets that would typically help monitor well being. His hospital room is empty of Bandits and medical staff. The door is closed shut. He has the place all to himself.
With a quick twitch, which are words the universe would never have imagined using to describe his movement, Bobby leaps out of his bed. He snags Cancer’s T-shades from the nightstand and places them on his unkempt face. He tilts his head down as if he were in mourning. “Oh Bobby, my oh so beautiful friend. So slim, so taut, so svelte. You’re beginning to make me look like a disgrace. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see those glorious baby blues of yours open once more!”
He jolts back into bed after an evil giggle. The shades are back on the nightstand, his eyes are closed, and his hands rest one atop the other on his chest.
He starts to snore. But only for a second.
Bob is back a-scrambling again. His hospital gown flaps in the breeze as he flies from the bed to stand on the opposite end of where Beautiful Cancer Jiles stood moments ago. This time, with an Astros cap sitting backwards on his head, he once again looks down at the empty bed. His face is as somber as BCJ’s was mere minutes ago.
“Buddy. I’m so sorry we weren’t out there to protect you from… Him.” Beautiful Bobby Dooze begins to say with a tear forming in the corner of one of his electric, baby blues. “If we could roll this one back, Jiles and I would have been out there with you, and we could have helped you flush that giant turd named Mike Best. We could have then lifted you up on our shoulders, carried you around the ring as you held that ICON title higher than it’s ever been held before!”
Bobby suddenly drops the hat from his head, leaps back into the bed, and gets back in position. His arms atop his chest, his eyes closed, and his breathing quite labored. He may be skinnier than he’s ever been in the last 10 years, but he’s still not accustomed to all this action.
He snores.
Then, like a jack in the box, Bobby springs back into the shoes of Beautiful Cancer Jiles. The shades are back on, labored breathing remains, but this time his head is no longer subdued. Instead he is looking quite intently across the now empty bed, towards where Beautiful Bobby Dooze just stood weeping. His eyebrows are cocked, his head tilted slightly to one side. “What do you mean by that, old man?” Beautiful Cancer Jiles asks quite seriously, his jovial tone non-existent.
Bobby removes the shades, runs around the bed, and places the cap back on his head. In his haste it now sits quite askew and precariously on it’s perch.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Beautiful Bobby Dooze shoots back, matching BCJ’s somber delivery.
Running back around the bed, Beautiful Cancer takes over again. Shades on, he sputters, “I… mean… “ Exhausted from sleeping, atrophy, and sudden exercise, Bobby breaks character. With sweat dripping off his brow, he reaches over to the cup of ice chips sitting on his bedside table, and takes a second or two to refresh his parched throat. Satisfied, Beautiful Cancer returns back in place. “I mean, what do you mean we should have been out there to help him beat Mike? He’s beaten Mike loads of times before. I had every faith in him doing it again tonight. Do you doubt our friend’s capabilities that much? Do you even consider him a friend at this point, Doozer?”
Shades down. Back around the bed goes the exhausted, semi-naked man. Hat back in place, Beautiful Bobby Doozer looks shocked and dare I say, appalled. “You didn’t!” He reaches out and slaps the air. More importantly, the area where BCJ’s face would be.
Can’t be in two places at once.
Or three, I guess, in this case.
Bobby runs back around, throwing the hat back on the bed as he quickly places the shades back on. Mere seconds of being back in place, he forcefully shoves the glasses off his face. They go flying across the room as BCJ’s head turns violently to the side and his hand goes immediately to his cheek. He looks sideways at where Beautiful Doozer would be, and cannot believe it has resorted to assault.
“You slapped me!?” BCJ questions needlessly.
Before Beautiful Bobby Dooze can respond, there is a sudden, almost silent knock on the door. As the knob begins to turn, Bobby literally leaps back into bed. He squirms around a bit, getting comfortable, crushing the Astros hat beneath him as he returns to his “coma” position. His arms sit atop his chest. His eyes closed firmly shut. His breathing is still quite labored.
Doozer and Cancer Jiles, the actual Doozer and Cancer Jiles, cautiously tiptoe into the room as quietly as they can. Tip toeing across the room, they make their way over to the bed, standing in the exact spots Bobby had them in when he was playing pretend moments ago.
The silence becomes awkward as the two former friends share the room for the first time. They both look down on Bobby, sadness filling their eyes. Well, one can only assume with Cancer, because it’s impossible to tell with his shades firmly in place.
“He looks so peaceful.” Doozer comments, breaking the unbearable silence.
“I stand here, expecting him to randomly fart.” Cancer mutters under his breath, to himself, refusing to acknowledge Doozer’s presence.
But The Dooze replies regardless, as if Cancer were addressing him directly. “Yeah, as horrible as his gas attacks are, I can’t believe how much I wish he’d hit us with a stinker right about now.”
Cancer looks up at Doozer for the first time since the two returned to the room. His eyebrows are cocked, his head tilted to the side. Doozer matches his gaze with equal intensity as he stares back at himself through the reflection in the shades.
“Where were you?” Cancer asks in all seriousness. “Why weren’t you out there to protect him? Given all the history you and Mike have with each other, I expected you to run out there to prevent that mauling!”
“Me?” Doozer quips, taken aback by the accusation. “Where were you!?”
“Me!?” Cancer retorts, offended.
“Yeah, YOU!” Doozer repeats, going one step further by pointing a finger over Bobby’s lifeless body at Cancer. “I had a match earlier in the night, remember? I was in the shower thinking you could look after our boy. If I knew how useless you were, I woulda never left his side.”
“Useless!?” Cancer sputters as if he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
“Yeah, useless!” Doozer reiterates, lowering his finger. “So useless you couldn’t even find yourself booked on a random night of bookings! Instead of you bringing the tag titles back to the Bandits, we have Murray beating himself off. Instead of securing a slot in the War Games pool, we have you… just, well, just you being you. Useless. Rick Dickulous would be a better Bandit, for fuck’s sake!”
Cancer scoffs at the absurdity of it all. Rick. Dickulous. A Bandit!? A BETTER Bandit!? He looks at Doozer as if it were the first time seeing him. He now points a threatening finger at the muscular man facing him, who stands with his arms crossed over his massive chest. Doozer waits, looking derisively back at his friend, if he can still call him that at this point.
“If I’m so useless, and since you’ve got a new love child in Zeb fucking Martin, why don’t you just leave the Bandits to Bobby and me?” Cancer asks, though it feels more like a demand. “It’s obvious you don’t have the heart of a Bandit anymore.”
“Heart!?” Doozer shouts while still trying to keep his voice low, so as to not disturb their comatose friend. “I’ve got more heart than you in my fucking pinky! You cut me, yolk oozes out. And Zeb fucking Martin was a result of a random generated drawing. Go ask Cecilworth Farthington. I hear he’s done the math showing the likelihood of each drawing. But don’t you dare question my Banditry! If anything, we should question yours!”
There is an audible gasp while Cancer takes a step back, as if he were actually slapped across the face. His hand goes to his heart to cover the wound. Then his visage grows darker as he steps forward into the conflict.
“How. Dare. You.” Cancer says each syllable with emphasis. “If it weren’t for me there would be no eGG Bandits! I am the originator. The creator. The mother fucking Maestro of all that is eGG or Banditry!”
“Cool story, bro.” Dooze scathes while miming a huge yawn. “Why don’t you just leave the eGG Bandits to the true blues, me and Bobby. You go ride off into the sunset, and see how far you get on your own. Y’know, without us there to carry your sorry ass.”
Once more, Cancer is forced to scoff in disbelief. “You carry me?” Scoff. “Don’t make me laugh.” Another one. “How about you put your money where your mouth is, Blamer?”
“Who would do that, do you realize how disgusting money actually is?” Doozer asks in exasperation, causing Cancer to roll his eyes. At least, we have to assume his eyes are rolling. You know, because of the shades.
“You know what I mean.” Cancer retorts. “How about you and me settle this once and for all?”
“What about Bobbo?” Doozer asks, causing both men to glance down at the man in question.
“What about him?” Cancer asks, clearly confused at why Doozer would include their friend.
“Shouldn’t we include him in this?” Doozer asks simply. “I’d hate to leave him out of it. You know how antsy he gets when we exclude him from things.”
Jiles sighs. Then he takes a moment to ponder, and suddenly nods his head. He turns his attention back to Dooze and continues, “Fine. You, me… and Bobby. We settle this! Once and for….”
Cancer is interrupted as suddenly there is a BEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeep sound throughout the room. But it doesn’t appear to be quite right, because after a bit, there is a bit of a pause in the sound before it picks up again. After a second pause, and what sounds like a huge intake of air, the sound continues.
Both men look at Bobby alarmed, neither notice the slight skew in Bobby’s mouth as his lips twist to the side. So they think he’s flatlining, putting each man at a complete loss for words. They frantically scan the halls outside the room, wondering why none of the nurses are rushing in to help their friend. Then they both do the one thing you’re not supposed to do. They come forward and crowd the limited space over Bobby’s bed.
“BOBBY, NOOOOOO!” Doozer wails in shock. His electric, blue eyes look up and lock on Jiles. “You killed him!”
Cancer, once again, gasps in disbelief. “I killed him!? What!? Wait, is the Blamer not good enough. You had to add Murderer to your list of monikers!?”
“Murder…” Doozer asks in disbelief. “Me!? This is all on you, Jiles! You couldn’t protect him from Mike!”
“Why should I?” Cancer yells back. “You’re the one with the hard on for that guy. I swear if I have to hear about how you and Mike feuded back in DREAM one more fucking time I’m going to stick a Q-Tip so far in my ear I’ll bang whatever drum is inside there so loud I won’t be able to hear you flap your gums ever again!”
Suddenly there is a cacophony of sounds to which a handful of nurses pour into the room. The beeping suddenly sounds authentic. Two of the nurses begin to forcefully escort the interlopers out of the room, as two more rush to Bobby’s bedside, checking the machines whirring, and buzzing, and beeping.
Doozer and Cancer say nothing more as they exit the room with shock and concern covering their faces. The nurses get to work on their patient.
Amongst the madness on both fronts, Cancer forgot about his sunglasses. He would later go on to find them, after accusing every person in the building of stealing them.
Even Bob.
Turns out he wasn’t wrong there.
Ironically, those same shades would be the pair Scott Woodson ruined. They were subsequently thrown into a lava pit.
—
Yeah.
I did it.
Me.
Bobby Dean.
I caused the code red.
If you take the clippy thing off your finger, turns out the whole place goes into a panic. The nurses weren’t happy with me, not in the least. But I could take a scolding from a Candy Striper over hearing those two so busy planning to kill each other. I had no other choice than to risk blowing my cover.
Whoever knew you could suffer from a broken heart?
Surprisingly, I know. Like a hospital being a bad time. Sarcastic thoughts help lighten the mood, at least.
Seriously though. Laying there, fake coma-ing, listening to two of my closest friends fighting over my bed side like they did… well, it simply ripped me to shreds. I knew if I didn’t do something soon, the mounting HATE and the overwhelming secrets that were forming between us threatened to be the very end of the eGG Bandits.
For example, I know Doozer secretly enjoyed teaming with Zeb Martin. I also know he HATES, no pun intended, the old-man jokes Jiles makes at his expense. I’m still not quite sure why, considering how old he is, but yeah… he really dislikes them.
I also know ole Jiles’ shades are actually prescribed by his optometrist because he’s got REALLY bad vision. BUT, especially with all the old jokes he throws at Dooze, he’s afraid people will make fun of him for it. That’s actually one of the reasons why he created the Bandits, in the first place. He figured either Doozer or myself would drive him to the shows. It also perfectly explains why he is ALWAYS wearing them.
They aren’t the only ones with secrets. No one knows, but I’ve got a food allergy to eGGS… I wasn’t aware of it, until I started down the path to my weight loss. Apparently physical exercise triggered it. At least, that’s what I learned after 5 seconds on Wikipedia under “egg allergy.”
You may now refer to me as Bobby Dean, PhD. Doctor Beautiful is also acceptable.
I digress.
As much as I wanted to rise from my slumber just then, and try to fix their tormented minds, I could not.
Laying there I realized drastic measures would have to be taken.
That I needed to stay put.
What started out as an attempt to gain sympathy and steal a bit of the spotlight for myself, has now turned into a rallying point to save a friendship on the verge of destruction.
I needed to play my hand all the way to the showdown.
I was betting the future of the Bandits with my gambit.
I couldn’t fold now.
They weren’t there yet.
Obviously.
And if the Bandits broke up, I honestly don’t know what I would do with my life. I’ve been a Bandit for so long, I would have to start over from scratch. Just because I’m skinny now doesn’t mean I’m not still lazy.
Thankfully, for my beautiful ass, the ruse was working. The Bandits were in recovery. Doozer and Cancer rallied around my condition, eliciting an outpouring of support. It brought them back inside the carton, and reminded them of what it truly means to be a Bandit.
Since then, we’ve added another to our ranks, after some heavy pushing by Doozer. I think his exact words were, “With Bobby out of the picture for however long, we really need to bring in a fresh face. We don’t want to be a pathetic tag team, demanding that everyone still refer to us as a stable. I mean seriously, a two man stable… Who would ever want that!? And the last thing we need is to hold on to the semblance of nothing being wrong with Bob, like Woodson and crew tried to do with Deacon.”
Cancer Jiles had to agree, both at the absurdity of a two man stable, and at the idea of bringing in Zeb Martin. And especially not wanting to be compared to HATE in any way, shape, or form.
What Doozer didn’t know was that it also solved a festering problem for the Maestro. He’d grown tired of teaming with the old man, being blamed for the losses, and more importantly being blamed for not taking things seriously.
Two birds.
One Zeb.
And after that, we made our intentions known with Mother Queen, who left the door open from what I was told. I think, all we have to do is wait for the inevitable implosion of G.o.D. and she’ll be ours! Her Majesty! Then, that same night, The Qualifying Quantum of COOL got us all passports to Normandy.
But even that wasn’t enough to make us completely whole.
You know how a broken bone heals back ten times stronger?
Well, thanks to me and the final act of my ruse, the cracks in our shells will heal back one hundred times over.
It was time to return.
Better.
As Beautiful as ever.
And ready to tear down the HATE.