Alicia Goon 025: Spectator

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5:13 PM. In a few short (long) minutes, a pro wrestling legend would show up at Alicia's job and whisk her away to team together in the biggest match of her life. Essentially, the daydream of any wrestling fan who ever punched a time-clock. She wondered if Sabrina was already outside waiting. There was no way of knowing from where she sat behind the desk. The sickly, yellowing crime against botany hung in the window suffering, clinging to life, and blocking the view of the parking lot. She stared at the Boston fern doomed to photosynthesize its last this far from its native land. Dr. Pupe had already taken the last patient of the day back. She could probably just do it now. As long as she re-hung the macabre horticultural sacrifice before the doctor finished, she'd be fine. Better to die a hero than live a coward, she decided. Alicia slipped out of the office, shut the door behind her, and sauntered to the entrance. She unhooked the decorative atrocity, gritting her teeth through the pain as she cradled the hanging basket in her right hand and eased the weight off its support. The potted horror show went to its usual time-out spot between the magazine rack and a chair in the corner. Justice having been served, the office assistant headed back towards her desk.

Just as the rogue employee reached the exact midpoint between the fern and the office, she heard Dr. Pupe's honking baritone coming down the hall from the treatment area. "Your teeth are fine. I'm not even sure why you keep coming. I'm not getting them any cleaner."

She wondered if it was too late to live as a coward. Head to the office and hope he doesn't notice, or go back and try to re-hang the fern and risk getting caught? She backed up and hung that sucker like she meant it. Fern in hand, she covered the distance at a tiptoed sprint.

A man's voice replied to the doctor, "I would just feel better if I came back in six months."

Craning her head to watch for her boss, the worst fern heist-doer in Illinois struggled to re-hang the planter on its hook with her uncoordinated, bruised hand. With stiff, barely responsive fingers, Alicia managed to carefully guide the basket onto the hook just as she lost her grip on the pot in her other hand, spilling a mountain of dirt onto her cream-colored sweater. At least her pants were black. Fortunately, the dirt that fell on the carpet was barely visible beneath all the dry, brown fern leaves. Are they called fronds? It didn't matter. She would look it up later.

"Suit yourself, I guess. I'm just going to tell you the same thing," reiterated Dr. Pupe. "Maybe floss less? Hi, Alicia. How's the fern doing? So nice of you to check on it."

The back of her scalp burned hotter than the sun as her boss caught her in the act. "Yep, looks good." With quiet urgency, she returned her greatest adversary to its place of honor and office-jogged through the door and behind the reception desk. "Um, thank you. Mr. Woods. No copay today. How's July, uh, 16th? Same time okay for you?"

"Yeah, that's fine. What were you doing with the fern?" asked the immaculate patient.

"Making sure it's good," explained Alicia, knowledgeably. Bracing herself, she glanced at her boss. Stern eyes. Brow furrowed. Arms folded across his coffee-stained scrubs. Lecture locked and loaded. The young woman scribbled a date gingerly with her aching hand onto an appointment card and handed it across the desk. "See you in the summer!" Please stay, the condemned office assistant pleaded silently. Don't leave us alone. The door swung shut.

"I notice you left the office door unlocked," observed Dr. Pupe helpfully. She hated that tight, smug little grin. The gotcha face. The moonlighting wrestler hoped Sabrina brought a book. This one would be a while.

With the turn of a handle and a blast of freezing air that carried all the way to the desk, in walked Sabrina wearing a black winter coat and wool cap, casual as Alicia had ever seen her. "Hey, I thought I'd come inside instead of waiting in the car," the expert grappler looked past the man in blue scrubs with a winter tan. "You ready to go?" A flavor of confusion the young woman had never seen before settled upon the dentist's cured features. Finally, the shorter woman regarded Alicia's boss with a nod, "Hey. I'm Sabrina. Nice to meet you Doctor… uh…" she checked the bicuspid-shaped nametag, squinted, and then squinted harder before stifling a laugh. "Sorry."

"She's my ride," explained the unabashedly giddy rookie. "If you want to sit in the lobby or something, go ahead. I can't clock out until 5:30." The dentist's prominent frown bent his ash-gray mustache into an upside-down U. He seemed to wonder exactly how he lost control of the situation.

"We've kind of got something we need to get to," Alicia's tag partner told Dr. Pupe matter-of-factly, her scarred forehead wrinkled to convey her seriousness. "She can go, right? It's like 5:20."

Dr. Pupe clearly saw the opportunity and seized it. He spun around to address his grinning employee behind the desk. "It's fine. You can go," interjected the dentist. "I'll clock you out." It was comforting to know that nothing her opponents did tonight could floor Alicia quicker than that.

Overjoyed, Alicia sprung from her chair, reached down and grabbed her hockey equipment bag and slung the strap over her shoulder before picking up her gym bag launching it over the desk into the waiting arms of her tag partner. The liberated employee burst through the door, shut it behind her, and jogged to her friend before flipping a U-turn. "Ohhhh! Almost did it again!" said the insatiably grinning young woman, wagging her finger before trotting back to the door, keychain in hand, and locking up behind her. "Seriously, thank you Dr. Pupe," Seeing Sabrina struggling to keep a straight face made Alicia struggle, too. "Have a great weekend!" On her way out the door, the smiling, dirt-covered employee shot a quick glance at the decorative foliage. This isn't over, she threatened, in case plants can read thoughts.

Out the door, seatbelts on, hit the gas.

The veteran checked her blind spot and merged onto the highway. "At least he let you go early. But I believe the stories. Seems like the kind of guy who would rig up a bunch of mirrors so he could watch his own ass when he fucks." Face frozen in shock, the younger woman nodded in agreement. She leaned back in her seat and settled in for the drive.

"Hey, Alicia. Alicia! You've got a spider on you," said Sabrina. "Really big one."

The former trainee's eyes reflexively went to her left coat pocket where Sabrina was looking. Many more eyes stared back. Hirsute, spindly, segmented legs. Mandibles. A thorax, probably–another word to look up later. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" shrieked the courageous spider chauffeur as she squirmed and contorted in her seat. Alicia turned to the woman in the driver's seat to articulate her feelings. "AAAAA! AAAAAAA! AAAA!!" It was a toss-up who looked more shell-shocked. Maybe the spider.

The shrieking arachnophobe finally hit her limit on terror just as the eight-legged hamster the size of a drink coaster started galloping up her chest to say hello. Defaulting to the wounded right hand, she reached across her chest and gave the literal hobo spider a fatal handshake. It was full of pudding. The thorax(?) popped like a lukewarm water balloon in her sizable palm as she wrung her captive into marmalade. The survivor held her goopy mitt uncomfortably out in front of her as the aggressively nonsolid innards clung to her trembling, contorted claw. "You feel better?" asked Sabrina. The younger woman shook her head and tried not to wonder how long she had been carrying a hitchhiker.

The remainder of the drive passed a quarter to a third as eventfully. With the arena still on the horizon, she had been able to blame the butterflies in her stomach on the spider. As the functioning automobile pulled into the parking spot and came to a stop at a bearable volume, there was no more denial left. She was scared. The anxious rookie helped herself to a final moment of calm before everything mattered. Breathe in, breathe out. Sabrina popped the trunk, and the partners piled out to claim their respective gear. "What'd you bring to the potluck?" asked Alicia with an eager me-next smile.

The Professler explained her thought process, "I figured they'll have plenty of chairs under and around the ring, so I figured we're good for blunt-force." She looked up at her towering partner and slapped her bicep. "I mean, look who I'm talking to." She unzipped the side pocket of her gym bag and pulled it open to reveal a half-dozen wooden slats about the size of a man's wallet. Mousetraps. "So you know how I'm always talking about ring awareness? Might want to watch your fingers." The rookie's eyes went wide. This felt like an escalation. "And, of course, psychological warfare is just as important as the regular kind." With giddy dread, Alicia's eyes turned to the unopened pocket. The head trainer unzipped it and reached right in, withdrawing something bulky, shiny, and needless.

"A staple gun?" sputtered the lunatic's former student.

"Staple guns," corrected Sabrina. "Brought one for you, too. What about you?"

"Well, shoot," remarked Alicia. "I should've gone first. Now I'm embarrassed because yours are too good." The former hockey player shook her head. "You'll just have to see, but don't get too excited." Bag zipped, trunk shut, down the ramp, into the building.

Crossing the threshold into the arena felt off. Her pulse had quickened, but this was a different rhythm entirely. Alicia barely held up her end of the conversation while nervous eyes darted from corner to doorway to shadow. There was the trainer's room, only a few feet from the alcove with the locked access door. "Have you ever been in there?" asked Alicia, pointing to the alcove with her tender right hand.

"What? Why? No," answered Sabrina, eventually. Her eyes were drawn to the compression wrap surrounding Alicia's hand and wrist. "How's your hand?"

The injured powerhouse shook her head as she held up the damaged appendage. "Bad. No Gut Checks tonight. I might not be able to get you up over my head. I think even Jaime will be tough." Through the doors and into the locker room. At the sight of the locker room, her priorities righted themselves. It was gameday again. Gym bag open, ring gear out. She no longer had to pretend to be an office worker. Only one thing felt more comfortable than jeans and a hockey jersey: she knelt down by her black hockey bag and unzipped it, and there it was. Chipped, scuffed, splintered, shedding tape. Her fingers closed around the maplewood goonclub and unsheathed it from its polyester scabbard. She didn't know how she knew that word. Probably Zack's renfaire phase.

The locker room thinned considerably as the night wore on until Alicia and Sabrina sat alone side-by-side on a bench near the back. The rookie screwed the cap back on her bottle of H-Twenty and set it on the bench beside her. "Hey, Sab, thank you for everything. Training me, doing this match, you've been amazing. Whether or not I get signed, thank you."

The part-time wrestler tensed a bit, "Yeah, you too. Thank you for working hard."

Alicia didn't have a better segue. "And I'm sorry for saying you want to take my spot."

The 29-year-veteran looked at the floor in silence, "Well, it's not like it wasn't true. For what it's worth, I never thought you were ingrateful."

"Ungrateful."

"I was also going to apologize for hitting you, but one thing at a time," said the trainer.

The door creaked open and a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a headset leaned through the doorway, "Sabrina, you ready?"

The veteran bounded to her feet. "Alright, I'll see you out there."

"Aren't we going together?" asked Alicia.

"Oh! You've never seen my entrance," answered Sabrina, with a genuine glimmer in her eye. "I need to go get into my gimmick. It's a thing that comes up from the floor." Unable to find the words to describe it, she made up the difference in gestures. "It's- you'll see it. It's really cool." The crew member held the door for the veteran before they both vanished into the hallway. It was the first time she had ever seen Sabrina act like a dork. Alicia hoped they could still be friends if- she shut down the thought. One way or another, she was getting signed.

The instant she heard the door shut, she remembered her fear. A pit opened up in Alicia's stomach. She shot to her feet and sprinted for the door. "No no no no no no no" she whispered, panic rising in her voice.  Not again. She pushed the door open and prepared to step out into the hallway. She could see two doors that probably led to mainten-

CRACK

The wrestler's heart jumped into her throat at a sudden, sharp sound behind her. Alicia wheeled around 180 degrees expecting to see a sickly, pale figure loping toward her, voids of jaundiced, wild, staring eyes unblinking, wheezing the thick stench of blood and rotting teeth with each ragged breath. Instead, she saw nothing. Nothing wasn't good, either. Subconsciously holding her breath, the trembling rookie took a couple furtive steps towards what she thought was the origin of the noise. She finally let herself breathe. Her stick had fallen on the floor. Okay. Okay, I can do this. It just slid and fell. What are you scared of? You are a professional wrestler. Slowly, Alicia approached her stick and bent down to pick it up off the floor.

"Alicia!" called the raven-haired woman with the headset.

The terrified woman stood straight up and nearly went straight back down as panic seized the controls for a second. "HI! OH MY GOSH! WOW!" the rookie shouted back, eyes halfway out of her skull, stick clutched tight in both hands like a baseball bat.

"You're almost up," said the crewmember. "Did I startle you?"

"Yes," answered the wrestler, nodding earnestly. "Can I please walk with you?" The woman dressed in all black shrugged. Alicia was parched. One more swig of H-Twenty for the road. She scanned the locker room for where she set it down. "Where is it?" Her blood turned to ice.

"Where's what?" 

Only whimpering a little bit, the taller woman powerwalked anticasually past the woman in black and into the corridor. "Don't worry about it. Hurry up. I'll follow you."