- Event: ICONIC 2020
Duality of Dad. Tragedy of Trinity. Those are words.
My shrink says I should write things down in a journal. So, here I am. Thanks Clarissa. Now I gotta explain it all.
The past is an interesting concept. It can’t be changed. You can’t deny it. Unless you’re in denial. Then you can deny it.
I don’t like writing. Why do people still do this. We kill trees for this?
Whatever. I had a strange month. Some of it, I can’t write in here, for fear it may become part of a future civil lawsuit.
Some of it was nice though.
**
CHRISTMAS EVE, bethlehem, pennsylvania. DECEMBER 24th, 2019
A wild crane shot of a suburban home covered in snow. There’s even a tiny four foot snowman made in the front lawn. A small dog house off to the side, with a tree and a tire swing. There’s laughter. Joyous, raucous.
Inside the house, a warmly lit dining table. Long and filled on both sides. Various dinner plates sprew and displayed along the center with a flurry of active engaged eating. A Christmas tree off in the corner, with the occasional blare of a tiny toy train. The head of the table is empty, but the sides are all full.
On one side, the tiny attorney, Mary-Lynn Mayweather. Instead of her traditional skirt suit or mma style trunks, she wore a delicate and glittering red dress that almost caused her to trip three times that night already. To her right is an early 30s man in his finest suit. Mark, Mary-Lynn’s current boyfriend. He hands a plate of potatoes to his right. Happily scooping a large swath onto his plate is the usually disinterested, but unusually for him, currently super excited Tony Davis. He’s quickly scarfing down as much meat and potatoes as he can fit into his almost slack jawed Shaggy like gullet. To his side is a brunette wearing a slick black dress and sparkling earrings. Her short curls bounce as she wraps her arm around Tony, gently rubbing his upper back as he eats.
On the other side, Carrie, late 30s, a brunette woman in an ugly Christmas sweater, just for irony’s sake. She cautiously peruses the scene, waiting for her moment to strike to grab a plate as it’s passed quickly around the table. To her left is a brunette man in his late 40s, Tim, Kate Young’s brother. He has large forearms, a physically imposing presence. He’s passing a plate down the table to Iris, 17, who has to be urged to put her phone down so she doesn’t die of starvation. Tim reaches over to Carrie on his side and gently kisses her lips.
A voice rings out from the other room.
Young Female Voice: Why does Lisa get to sit at the grown ups table.
Cutto, a small table in the corner of the living room. Victoria Sarah Harmen, Jack’s youngest child at age 13, pouts and crosses her arms over her chest. She towers over her eating companions tonight. On her immediate side is an eight year old, who has her head held down playing a Nintendo Switch. Across the way are identical twins, Jack and Jake, age 4, who simultaneously look up at her.
Victoria: Mom. They’re looking at me.
The twins smile. Walking into the room is a middle aged brunette woman wearing glasses. She’s dressed in a warm green christmas sweater and business like pants. Kate Young, Jack Harmen’s ex-wife looks up from a small piece of paper and frowns, before rubbing Victoria’s head.
Kate: Quiet down sweetie…
She looks at the twins. They wave, remaining silent but never breaking eye contact.
Kate: They… do that. Just eat your dinner Vik, kay? They aren’t bothering Nancy, are they Nancy?
Kate shaggies the hair of the Switch playing girl. Nancy finally looks up and then right back into her game. Kate reaches down and kisses Victoria on the forehead, before walking out to the other room. Victoria looks back across the table at the twins, who seem to have not blinked yet.
Victoria: Can you like, not stare at me?
The two twins continue staring.
Jack: I can stick two grapes up my nose.
Jake: That’s how you tell us apart.
In the other room, Kate Young wanders in as there’s a cheer from one side of the table. She reaches over and takes an already pre-made plate from her brother Tim, smiles to the other side, and takes a seat.
Tim: You’ve really outdone yourself here Kate.
Carrie: Yes. Everything tastes wonderful. Right Iris?
Iris doesn’t look up, and has barely touched her food.
Carrie: Iris!
Iris: Oh, yes. Thanks for inviting us over Aunt Kate.
Kate: Why you are most welcome. Everybody have enough?
A bunch of agreeing nods and murmurs from the table. Except from Tony, who raises two hands up asking for seconds. Or perhaps by this time, fourths. Mary-Lynn swats Tony’s arm down as they continue eating.
There’s a loud SLAM of a front door. Everyone stops for a moment, before a young eighteen year old with long scraggly black hair enters the room. He wears a BRAZEN t-shirt, the feeder leagues to DEFIANCE. He looks sweaty, as if he just came back from a workout. Kate is first to stand and greet him with a hug. This is Jack Harmen’s son Allocca Harmen, currently wrestling in the development league of DEFIANCE. He prefers the name Greg these days. I wonder why.
Greg: Sorry mom, we got held up in Louisiana after the show. Something about contracts. Dad took care of it.
Kate: And where is your father?
Greg: He’s on the roof.
Greg takes a seat at the table and sets himself a plate.
Greg: Said he’s gonna turn it into a bouncy castle.
Kate: He knows our roof slants, right?
The lights in the room flicker as we hear a bit of an electrical short. Then, there’s a loud crash on the outside.
Greg: He does now.
Greg takes a big bite, while everyone else stands and rushes outside.
Greg: More for me.
He continues eating.
Outside, High Flyer, aka Jack Harmen, lies in the side of a large snow bank. His knitted gloves burned to ash. His hair standing on end. Kate rushes to his side and helps him up.
Jack Harmen: I’ve done it honey.
Kate: Done what?
Jack Harmen: Turned into Clark Griswald.
He takes two ends of an extension cord and plugs them into each other. He’s instantly illuminated by a large amount of varying colored lights. He drops the cords, then proceeds to fall back, passing out in the snow bank.
We see the family home lit up in a wondrous Christmas display. Enough to drain power to the entire neighborhood.
**FADEOUT**
A loud crash…
… crackling fire…
… with a rioting crowd…
… a woman shouts “My baby!” as chaos erupts.
TWO HANDS CLAP. It’s not a black screen, it’s footage.
A flame produced, illuminating the wide eyed cheshire cat like grin of Jack Harmen.
High Flyer: My name is High Flyer. I have killed the Terminator. At Iconic… there’s no stopping me. The story of Maximillian Wilhelm Kael. The end was nigh…
Harmen blows out the flame as it fades to pitch black one more time.
High Flyer: … always he dies.
**FADEIN**
2 DAYS POST NEW YEARS. chicago, illinois. THE NIGHT OF REFUELED XII.
A faded grey security camera in an old CRT TV hanging in the corner. It’s of High Flyer, sitting inside of an empty room. Only a table and a chair, windows covered by bars. It looks like he’s either in a deluxe New York City apartment or an interrogation room. He struggles in the chair. He’s cuffed to the back of it.
Walking into the room is an on duty uniformed Chicago police officer, flanked by two plain clothes detectives. High Flyer, better known to these police officers as Jack Harmen, looks up from his seat and sees the officers walk in, and smiles. He looks past them, noticing a woman who’s dressed down, wearing what looks like to be a HOW t-shirt in the hallway. The door closes as the two lock eyes, and she just waves toward Harmen.
The first detective, an early 30s filapino, Detective Olivia Batista, a woman who’s just a spunky fireball. She quickly sits across from the man known to the wrestling world as the Lunatic.
They just look at each other.
The other detective, Detective John Tenton, mid 50s, gruff, it pains him to move. This shows in every stitch of his attire, every wince in every move. From the fact he hasn’t washed his slacks in days, to his nice overcoat being a size too large for him, to even that four day no shave becoming no shave 2020. Like, the kind of sad you’d get if you spent your entire life codependent with someone else, and wound up alone.
Tenton slams his hand down on the table with a stack of papers. Harmen doesn’t move, but he sure winces. Harmen just continues to stare at Detective Batista. After a moment, he flinches.
High Flyer: That’s what you wanted, right?
Flyer just smiles. Detective Olivia studies Harmen as she lets her partner take lead.
Detective Tenton: Mister Harmen, you know these are serious charges, and it’s not a matter of proving them. It’s a matter of how serious the penalty’s gonna be.
High Flyer: Oh really? You’re a jury now?
Detective Tenton: You’re on camera, causing a man to plumet off of a roof. We have you dead to rights.
Flyer looks away from Detective Olivia for the first time. His entire body stiff as a board other than his turning head.
High Flyer: LAWYER.
Just then, the door swings open, and a familiar face is on the other side. Wearing her best traditional and professional red skirt suit is none other than Mary-Lynn Mayweather, the wrestling protege of Jack Harmen, and an accomplished litigator. A child prodigy, accelerated graduation, the works. She grabs her glasses and pushes them closer to her eyes. She holds a briefcase.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: I believe my client asked for counsel. Please vacate the room.
The two detectives are none too happy about this. Det. Batista in particular takes her time to leave, trying one last time to get Harmen to flinch. He just raises his hand and waves to her as the two exit the room.
Mary-Lynn turns to Flyer, and smacks him in the head with her briefcase.
High Flyer: Oww!
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: You threw a man off a roof?!
High Flyer: That! … was gravity.
Mary-Lynn stands, arms crossed. She taps her foot, frustrated. Her tiny nostrils flare.
High Flyer: In my defense, he may be more robot than man.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: That’s not a defe-wait what? Robot?
High Flyer: I haven’t figured it out exactly, but my best guess is that Max Kael is just a reanimated corpse in an exoskeleton. Hell, might have just stopped the zombie apocalypse.
She shakes her head no. He gets defensive, head pulled back.
High Flyer: You don’t know how it starts.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: It doesn’t, because it’s fake.
High Flyer: You don’t have a zombie survival kit?
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: Why do we always talk about zombies when you get arrested?
High Flyer: Cause I can’t defend myself when my hands are cuffed if the zombies come.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: Yeah, but you’d just break your thumbs.
High Flyer: Should I? Now?
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: No. No. Don’t. We’ll do this the legal way. They don’t have definitive footage that you’re the one that struck Max. We just have to prove you aren’t the only one that was on that roof that night.
High Flyer: That’s right. There was basically a riot. Who knows who was on that roof.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather: It doesn’t help with how HOW framed it, it basically all points to you as the only culprit. Hell, LT even texted me this.
Mary-Lynn Mayweather holds out her phone, where it says “Oh My God! He killed Kealny!” with her replying “That bastard!” and “I’ll be right there.”
High Flyer: Nice. Listen, since you’re already here, as my lawyer you can properly advise me…
She leans in, for the first time professional engaged all evening.
High Flyer: Can I use my one phone call to order a pizza?
Mary-Lynn just slowly breathes out, eyes wide. Harmen is just all smiles.
High Flyer: Cause I am STARVING.
**FADE OUT.**
I was thinking a lot about jail. That Folsom song kept creeping into my head.
I thought if… I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?
No.
I would shoot him because he beat me to a parking spot.
Who knows what I’ll do to a man who wronged me worse than that.
Hurt my friend…. Cost me the World Championship… Took our tag team title.
I won’t just take Kael’s shiny things.
I don’t just hurt his friends.
I scorch his earth.