”Welcome back to… THE ACTIES!”



”Celebrating the best acting performances in the World of Professional Wrestling! Presenting our next award… Southern Gentleman Detective Clown!”


”Thank ya kindly, Disembodied Announcer. My Father… Hard-Working Peanut Farmer Clown… Not to be confused with his brother, Shiftless-Layabout Clown… My Father once said when it came to things like cityfolk awards and accolades…”

GET ON WITH IT

”Ah, excuse me, I’ll move along like a crawdad submerging into the Mississippi River to escape the Savannah heat…”

SGDC straightens his notecards against his podium.

”Our next award is… Most Convincing Micheal Graves… Our nominees are…”


Five different Micheal Graves all do very Micheal Graves-y things… One steals a drink off a serving tray before realizing it’s not alcoholic and knocking over the rest of the drinks out of spite.

Another uses his steak knife to carve a chunk out of the wooden table and bite it…

And amidst all this ghoulishly grave Grave-ery? Is Sir Lionel, holding the notecards for his award acceptance speech!

”Now, before I announce the winner of this most… prestigious award… the Academy of Actors Within the Wrestling Industry would like me to announce that whoever DOESN’T win this award is…”

“Untalented.”

“Without gifts for acting.”

“And should be personally ashamed of themselves for daring to break character.”

…Lionel breaks into a cold sweat.

“I’m, of course, meaning… SIR LIONEL.”

…Suddenly, a spotlight shines down on Pennyfarthing! He squints, shielding his face…

”Ahhhhh…” The light sears his flesh… red boils emerge… ”Please… it burns…”

”What’s wrong, L-man? Lights too bright on the big stage?”

Lionel finds himself surrounded by Graveses… pointing and laughing at him…

Lionel looks down…

He’s before the entire world, center stage…

Wearing a cheap-looking tree costume like something out of a grade school play!

”BACKGROUND EXTRA! *clap clap clapclapclap*!” The Graveses chant…

Lionel’s throat is dry… his face caked in flop sweat… His hands, wielding two branches made of construction paper, shake and flit like leaves blown in the wind…

”uh… erm… to be…” He wheezes… the air is toxic, burning in his lungs… ”To… to be… a TREE or…”

SCHWAP! A script hits him in the face! Lionel turns his awkward tree body…

To see his agent, Gene Branagh… dressed like a Stage Manager, with a clipboard and headset.

”Read your lines, Lionel!”

Lionel nods, wiping away sweat with a branch, before opening the script.

…

It’s blank.

He flips to the next page.

And the next.

Every page blank… Somehow the following pages have less than zero words…

Negative space… like a vortex, like a black hole, where dialogue should be…

Sucking Lionel into it…

”No lines for a background extra…”

---

”GAAAAAAAAAAAASP!” Lionel shoots awake off the couch!

…Of the XWF employee lounge that he’s hung a little sign over to say…

Lionel’s Dressing Room

…Darkness… The only source of light is a television…

Lionel’s got an open, half-eaten tub of Dom Durango’s Italio-Australian Ice Cream sitting upon his chest…

Lemon Jelati and VEGEMITE

FLICK! The lights come on!

Lionel’s Agent, Gene Branagh, sighs exasperatedly beside the switch. ”Lionel, for the love of God… Pull it together! Since losing to Micheal Graves, all you’ve done is eat Dom Durango Ice Cream and watch Inside the Actor’s Studio!”

Gene sighs, grabbing the remote from the couch’s arm and flipping the TV off. [grene]”Shake it off, L! You lost! Big deal! You lose all the time!”[/green]

”At ACTING, EUGEEENE?” Lionel buries the spoon into the ice cream like Brutus burying his blade into Caesar’s back… If Brutus used a spoon and Caesar’s back were half-melted goop. ”At the artform to which I dedicated my LIFE!?!”

”Lionel, the match was literally impossible! You were asked to be a more convincing Micheal Graves… than the ACTUAL Micheal Graves! And you almost pulled it off! It took a genius detective… clown… to figure out you weren’t Graves!”

”He may be a Clown… but I WAS THE FOOL!” He buries his head in his hands. ”I broke character, Eugene. The worst thing an actor can do.”

”What about what Kevin Spacey did?”

Lionel smacks Eugene’s hand, before stealing the remote back from him and flipping the television back on.

”I am a THESPIAN! Shedding my ego to embody another… Without my art, I am hollow… not a man, but a shell… to fill with ice-ed cream..”

”Lionel, you needed to play a perfect game… And made ONE mistake! Just… get back out there! Give it another shot! This is a chance to play Vinnie Lane in the Vinnie Lane biopic! You were born for this role, L!”

”...You truly think so, Eugene?”

”Course I do! I mean, Vinnie’s lean and mean and you’re…”

…

”Mean. And Vinnie’s an elite-level athlete and you’re…”

…

”Level… headed… Look, L, you CAN play Vinnie! You’ve just gotta get back into shape. A little diet…”

Lionel takes another bite of ice cream… basically soup at this point.

”And exercise… and you’ll be a more convincing Vinnie Lane than Lane himself!”

Lionel sighs, licking a hardened vegemite chunk off his spoon…

“Feh and harumph, Eugen… The art has left me… And without my art…I am nothing.”

…

”Are you nothing, right now?”

”...Yes?”

”Feeling hollow? Instead of being a man, you’re an empty shell?”

”To fill with ice-ed cream! Yes!”

”The people around you are probably telling you that nobody’s perfect! Get back out there! Give it another shot! A little diet and exercise is all you need!”

”See? You just have t-”

”Those people are WRONG!”

”...What?”

”You will FAIL.”

”Other diet and exercise plans work TEMPORARILY. A pound lost here, a decent workout there… Minor, FLEETING successes!”

”But eventually?  YOU. WILL. SLIP.”

“YOU. WILL. FALL SHORT.”

”Any progress you make is TEMPORARY. Failure is forever. Imbued into your DNA.”

”...What the hell kinda commercial is this?”

On-screen, in her exercise studio…

Is the CEO of VilaroFit!

The Dean of VilaroU!

Marisol Vilaro!

”Oh God, this woman is insufferable…” Gene reaches for the remote.

”Don’t you dare disrupteth that vessel for truth!”

Lionel withholds the remote, enrapt by this divine goddess of wisdom

”The key to turning your wildest fantasies into reality?”

“Stop limiting yourself.”

“Why do you fail? Because you accept second best. Because you choose what’s EASY! What’s CONVENIENT! The exercise system that’s ‘Right for you’...”

Mari’s perfectly symmetrical nose wrinkles with revulsion.

”There is ONE system that GUARANTEES success. That WILL make your dreams come true! But it’s not the ‘right system for you’. But, YOU can become the right USER for it! So, why won’t YOU commit?”

”...Why won’t I commit? Commitment is the key to truly great performance!”

”We’re all about PEAK performance at VilaroFit.”

”And I am the consummate Perrrrrrrformer!”

“Stop failing yourself and choosing the second-best option!”

“Don’t Vilaro-Casual.”

“Don’t Vilaro-Bare-Minimum.”

“It’s time… to VILARO-MAXX!”

The VilaroMAXX logo flashes on screen with a number to call…

”...Pfff. She talks like a CULT LEADER. Can you believe that BS, Lionel?”

”Hello, yes?” Lionel shouts into his mobile phone… ”I’d like one Vilaro-Maxx please!”

…

”No, I don’t know what a Vilaro-Maxx is, but I WANT IT!”

---

”Basta ya! Enough!”

Vilaro stands on Lionel’s shoulders as he lays flat on his face, chest heaving… sweatstreaks running down his skull.

”*huffffffff* h-...how m-...*phew*... how many pushups… was that, Mistress?”

”You did NO pushups, Kitten-man. I commanded you to assume push-up position and you got gassed on the way to the floor.”

”*sputter*... perhaps I need… some Dom Durango cusine… for fortitude…”

Lionel unzips his exercise fanny pack, reaching for a handful of cooked linguine…

”Pendejo!” Mari raps against Lionel’s knuckles. ”All that Dom Durango trash will give you is Montezuma’s Revenge… Do you realize that Dom Durango lost his little cooking challenge show against Micheal Graves?!? MICHEAL GRAVES! Who was cooking with LITERAL TRASH! Dom Durango couldn’t make a dish better than ACTUAL GARBAGE? And HE’S supposed to be the XWF’s head chef! It’s like XVIII being called a champion.”

Mari sneers with disgust, thumbing her nose at the camera. ”Disgusting! We have to stop it! And by we, I mean ME. And if I have to whip your sorry British beans-and-toast body into shape to save this company from having a pegleg division after everyone on the roster loses a foot to Type 2 Diabetes? SO BE IT!”

Mari grabs Lionel by his ample chest hair, dragging him to his feet.

”Rise, kitten-man.”

”Uh… perhaps by ‘kitten-man’, you mean Lionel! Sir Lionel! OBE!”

”Mari means the words she chooses, kitten-man! LION is a name for an apex predator, not some morbidly obese housecat! Now, drop and give me twenty!”

”If… *sigh* if you were going to tell me to drop anyway, why did you… pull me back up…?”

”CALLATE, CABRON! TWENTY! NOW!”

Lionel flops onto his chest…

And then reaches into his fannypack…

And hands over a crisp twenty dollar bill.

”BUMBLING OAF!” Mari smacks Lionel’s hand.

…Before taking the twenty.

…She bites it to verify it’s good tender.

Aaaand she pockets it.

”Many physical trainers would call you a lost cause, kitten-man! If every body is a temple? Yours is a rotted, withered bundle of rubble!”

”Bundle??!” Lionel gasps, as he rises…

”But, you know what I see when I look at that rotted temple, kitten? I see BRICKS.”

…Lionel blushes, zipping up his exercise shorts. ”A thousand pardons I beg thee, madam, I’m more accustomed to… zipperless pantaloons of the bard’s age…”

SMACK! Mari smacks Lionel’s skull. ”Cochino! Not ‘bricked up’! I mean, building material. Potential. The opportunity to recycle scrap and waste and build something of VALUE.”

“Something little Miss Granger could never do herself. She returned to the XWF with the pomp and circumstance of a conquering heroine, destined to rule… But what does she have to show for it? One title reign in over a year and a few dozen missed opportunities! Every big match, she withered like an undeveloped muscle! Untested! FLABBY!”

“And SHE pretends to embody Revolution, with her gaudy little exercise belt around her waist? The only Revolution she represents is STAGNANCY! She parades around with has-beens like Sebastian Everett-Bryce and Isaiah King! Men who nostalgically remember their glory days because they haven’t done a damn thing worth celebrating in the last TWO YEARS.”

“Betsy’s so-called Revolution is one of complacency! Of embracing the way things are…”

“VilaroMaxx is DISRUPTION”

“A TRUE Revolution! Designed to lift those who give themselves wholly and without question!”

Mari eyes Lionel disdainfully.

”What about you, kitten-man? Are you happy with the status quo?”

…Lionel grits his teeth.

”Nay, Madam! I am TIRED of being a… an understudy! A special referee! A BACKGROUND EXTRA!”

“I, Sir Lionel Pennyfarthing! WAS BORN TO STAR!”

“Like CEO Vincent Lane, I came from humble beginnings! Of being a laughingstock!”

“No one who saw Lane’s debut match could have foreseen his meteoric rise! To holding the XWF Universal championship! To one day owning this entire damn theatre company!”

“Lane AND I are underdogs! Stars who weren’t gifted the stage, but TOOK IT!”

“I was BORN to play Vinnie Lane!”

“And I won’t let some… two-bit Bobby Flay flay me!”

“I won’t let some star-gazing trollop wallop me!”

“This is MY MOMENT!”

“AndI MUST!”

“Deliver the performance…”

“OF A LIFETIME!”

…

Mari nods.

”You’re almost ready, kitten-man.”

“You’re Vilaro-ing.”

“But are you Vilaro-Maxxing?”

”I am ready, Mistress! Whatever quest you bless me with to prove my fealty, I will PERRRRRFORM! Without hesitation.”

”Excellente.”

Mari crosses the exercise floor to her desk. ”Barnardo! Precioso!”

Preesh and Barney emerge from the shadows, grabbing Lionel’s shoulders.

From a drawer, Mari retrieves…


…

”Now… when I said without hesitation…”

---

WHAM!

…

WHAM!

A mournful wail…

A metal clang against the floor.

”There… Perfecto.”

”..please… a mirror… my kingdom for a mirror…”

Mari wipes bloodspatter from her hands with an exercise towel...

”Show him.”

Barney and Preesh wheel Lionel before the gym’s exercise mirror…

”...My God…”

“I look…”

”Bodeaceous!”