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Descriptions of blood and violence
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Party Girl helped herself to a hearty chortle as she posed with the chair and the championship for the camera. She seemed oblivious the arena-melting chorus of boos pouring from the crowd as she stood transfixed by the belt.
"You broke into my place?" slurred Alicia. "You killed your own cat?
"What?! Oh. My. God. My fwuffy widdle presh-presh?" cried Party Girl, planting her fists on her hips and shaking her head, aghast at the suggestion. "I made Janice do it," she said with a shrug. Her eyebrows furrowed in frustration at having her moment derailed, but not furrowed enough to give her wrinkles. The literal-not-figurative title holder cast a scowl at the silent, fallen Alicia and grumbled, "This isn't a conversation. It's a unilogue." She nuzzled her cheek to the smudged belt on her shoulder. "And I'm holding onto this until next week when we make it official. You didn't do a very good job of looking after it."
America's favorite brat paused and flashed a Look for the camera, convinced she had just assumed a cover photo pose. "Play my hype video! You guys are totally going to love it." The gloating millionaire turned and headed towards the curtain, then suddenly stopped. "Oops. I almost forgot!" Alicia could hear the smile in her voice. Party Girl looked back as she reached into her pocket and tossed something metal over her shoulder. It bounced on the ramp and clinked to a stop next to the uncrowned champions. It took a couple seconds for Alicia's eyes to focus. It was small, silver, and had a tag stuck to it.
It was a key.
"Thanks for just handing my servant your gym bag with all your stuff in it," giggled Party Girl as she turned to leave through the curtain with the blood-smeared TV Championship belt in tow. "And people call me dumb."
The arena lights dimmed as the WarMachine flickered and hummed to life. The video opened on a shot of Party Girl standing on the front lawn of her compound in a puffy, pink coat. Alicia recognized the pink playground behind the close-up. "Wasssssssssssssup to all my Party Animals! Woop-woop!"
The activity of paramedics bustled in Alicia's peripheral vision as they prepared Sabrina for the stretcher. Boos soaked the arena, although the crowd could only vent their rage at the 2,000-square foot video monitor. "I know you all missed me the week I was away, but I wanted to show you what I've been working on! Come on, follow me! It's off the chizz-ain!" Alicia winced. It wasn't because of the fishhook still lodged in her left palm.
The camera panned in a wide shot across the playground. Alicia recognized the equipment, except she didn't. Party Girl leaned sideways into shot. "Welcome to the Playground of Dreams, where all my dreams come true!" Close up. "Not so good news about yours, though." The star swung out of shot, dramatically revealing the macabre parody of childhood whimsy her imagination had wrought. "Isn't it just the cutest? Pink thumbtack swings, steel-plated rocking horses, a misery-go-round…" The enthusiastic host bounded from one pink monstrosity to the next. She even had the thumbtacks on the thumbtack swings painted to match. Beside the pair of swings swung the pair swing. Inside awaited a nest of barbed wire.
The camera opened on a pair of rocking horses in the middle of the playground encircled by the other equipment. The shot zoomed in to capture the blonde steel "hair" bolted to their heads with one side covered in rows of pink barbed wire. The misery-go-round earned its name, with each section a different unpleasant surface for a landing: thumbtacks, fluorescent light tubes, and broken glass. Floodlights surrounded the playground, and a "runway" had been rolled out from the driveway to the woodchips leading to the gazebo. The scene transitioned with an animated pink heart growing out of the center of the screen, covering the picture. A heart wipe.
Sabrina rolled through the curtain on a stretcher as another team of paramedics surrounded Alicia and prepared her for a similar exit.
"Don't forget the jungle jail!" cried Party Girl with unfaked cheer. She lowered her voice and held a hand up to the side of her mouth, "Wouldn't want to get caught in there!" The star of the show commandeered the camera and brought it in close. Everything, from the monkey bars to the parallel bars to the fireman's pole, all of it had been wrapped–woven, really–with a hostile, tangled excess of barbed wire. Heart wipe.
The shot opened once again on the Look in extreme close-up. "Of course, I saved the best for last. This is seriously tight, you guys," said Party Girl, mugging to the camera one last time before the big reveal. "My castle!"
"Oh buttons," Alicia muttered. The medical personnel surrounding her--were they EMTs or paramedics? She could never remember. "One, two, three. Lift!" came a voice behind her as she was lifted onto the stretcher.
Every railing of the two-story gazebo was wrapped in barbed wire, and the structure had been lined top to bottom with exposed rivets every twelve inches or so. The second floor of the gazebo could only be accessed by a ladder and exited to a bouncy bridge covered in fluorescent light tubes, which then connected to a standalone tower. "Chiggity-check it! I love this part!" shouted Party Girl, waving the cameraperson over. The only way down from the tower was a slide for two covered in sandpaper. Heart wipe.
"And because I'm the Queen, look! A thorn room!" The giddy socialite wrestler stepped aside from the gazebo's first-story doorway. "Get it?!" asked Party Girl, briefly pointing the camera at her face. The runway led directly to the door to the thorn room. Party Girl pointed the camera back at her masterpiece. A thumbtack mosaic adorned every inch of the walls, and at the center of the room sat a diabolical chair, wrapped - practically encrusted - in barbed wire. "What do you think? Amazing, isn't it? It's all mine… and I'm sharing it with you! Best day of your life." Heart wipe.
Back to the wide shot of the Playground of Dreams encroached upon by another Party Girl close-up. "So that's my Queen'z Decree, with a zed. My place. Your title. Playground of Dreams. 'I Quit' match. See you there! Mwa! PEACE!" Party Girl shouted and threw up the deuces.
The paramedics had stabilized the hobbled champion's leg. Before they could fit her with a neck brace, she craned her head back to see the screaming, thrashing Black Violet being taken for medical attention, lashed to a stretcher. On went Alicia's neck brace. Never say never in pro wrestling.
She was getting that belt back.
* * * * *
Sabrina greeted her guest with a rugged half-smirk. "My health has taken a serious turn for the worse since we met, Alicia Winthrop." Her forehead had been wrapped in bandages protecting stitches. Those split lips had gotten busted open again, and she sported a shiner that swallowed the whole eye socket. She clutched the freshly re-cast arm tight to her side. "Wanna know something funny? In my 30 years in the business, this is the worst I ever got hurt."
Alicia entered the hospital room in her ring gear, an old hockey jersey and a pair of jeans, and her world blurred. She put aside her crutches and eased into her seat as she tried to adjust to the knee brace. "That's not funny."
The mood turned, and Sabrina seemed to realize Alicia didn't share her levity. The patient lazily pointed at her bandaged head, explaining, "Got my bell rung."
"I am so sorry. I got you into this-" Alicia's voice started to break.
Honest-to-goodness belly laughter rose from the pit of her mentor's stomach. "You are not gonna make it in this business if you cry every time someone you know gets sent to the hospital."
"I know, but I got you hurt again. I'm so sorry," Alicia re-apologized.
"Hey!" shouted Sabrina. "What did I say about taking credit? I don't want to hear you going around bragging you put Iron Maiden in the hospital, alright? That's not how it happened."
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened," said Alicia. "Are you okay?"
The veteran reached up curiously with her hands and patted her bandaged head before answering, "No. I'm badly hurt. But if you're roundabout asking if I'm mad at you? No. I'm not mad at you. I didn't belong on that side of the curtain. That was me putting myself in the line of fire. That's not my role here anymore. So, yeah, I agree that you should've been the only one getting their ass kicked," Sabrina remarked, with a laugh. She reached up with one hand and physically waved off the conversation. "Hold on, hold on, are you alright? Party Girl-"
"-is insane," said Alicia, eyes wide. "She lied to me for weeks. She broke into my house--or had her assistant do it." The veteran seemed bewildered by the claim, shaking her head slightly in disbelief. "You didn't see the video."
Sabrina shook her head in bewilderment. "'The video?'"
Alicia gave her the spiel, "I'm about to say a lot of insane things without explaining most of them, and I just need you to do your best to keep up because there's too much."
Sabrina seemed to consider the disclaimer and replied, "I have a concussion."
A pause hung between them as Alicia briefly considered whether to continue. There were better things to talk about. "I've been thinking all week, and I don't know how I'm going to beat her. She's better than me," began the champion, not off to a great start. "She's not injured. She has homefield advantage with her demented torture playground-"
"Her what?"
"Not now. I need a gameplan. I'm not going out there next week just to lose gracefully, but I'm not beating her in a stand-up fight" said Alicia, adjusting her knee brace. "That belt isn't hers, and I'm bringing it back with me."
The teacher interrogated her student, "Do you have any ideas at all? Anything to work with?"
There was something. At least, Alicia thought it was something. "Yeah, maybe. She always protects her face."
* * * * *
Alicia had one final stop before the Party Girl compound: Sportstravaganza. Of the many sports superstores inexplicably dotted throughout Beaver, it was the only one she avoided--they were a bit too intense with the sports theme. She didn't have to drive far; Sportstravaganza deemed it necessary to have three locations within twenty miles of each other. Park the car. Into the shop. Store, really. Megastore, if she was honest. Way to the back. The hockey section never got the treatment it deserved compared to the other sports. Long limp to the back on crutches. She picked up the black disc, turned it over, and squeezed it like a melon. There we go. Brantt always did make a quality puck.
The main eventer made her way on crutches to checkout aisle 6 and placed her single item on the conveyor, or "treadmill," in the Sportstravaganza parlance. The "equipment manager" zapped the shrink-wrapped black plastic disc with his scanner thing shaped like a squirt bottle. "$2.28."
Alicia reached for her purse. Where was it? "Um." That wasn't good. At that moment, Alicia realized that while she double-checked to ensure she had her hockey stick and gym bag when she left the house, she did no such thing for her purse. Someone put a torch to the back of her head.
The nervous, bearded fellow behind the counter with a bald spot lowered his voice and asked softly, "If you can't pay for it, can you please put it back? I'm sorry, I don't want to call my coach." There went her plan's key ingredient. No time left to drive home. Wait. Back-left pocket. The emergency 20. A bandaged hand peeled free the half-crumpled currency. When you think you don't need it, that's when you'll need it. Words to live by.
The receipt printer disgorged an excessive record of transaction that reached the floor. The equipment manager stepped out from behind the "goalposts" and picked the still-connected receipt off the floor and stood aside, holding the receipt taut like a finish line. Alicia stepped through the receipt, causing it to detach at its perforation.
"Congratulations, you're our #1 customer," said the clerk, soullessly. "Have a great play."
"Hope so," replied Alicia. She would get one shot. The late February night fell early, but the hard freeze had finally relented. The night air felt cool, but not cold. It would still make every impact hurt worse, though. Alicia unlocked the door and slid carefully into the car and laid her crutches in the back. She knew where she was headed.
Miles flew by in silence. The apartments turned into houses, then into mansions, and then into manors. She turned off into a side street that led to an extravagant, swooping cul de sac of bare, grassy lots ripe for development. Not another car in sight. Alicia stood up out of her car in the impromptu parking spot on an aching knee. With hockey stick in hand and the gym bag over her shoulder containing her hockey gloves and puck, the uncrowned champ left her crutches in the car and limped out into the chilly night air. It still beat Minnesota this time of year.
Alicia locked the car door, then checked again to make sure before limping along the route she laid out. Party Girl wouldn't get the privilege of wrecking Alicia's car if she had to leave on a stretcher. Three blocks to the Party Girl compound. Two blocks, and her knee ached with every step. There was 3rd and Artricanuse Circle. Christopher Michaels supposedly lived around here. One block. Her knee screamed for her to stop. Ahead lay the pink wrought iron gate, thrown wide open to welcome in camera crew. She approached the front drive and nonchalantly tried to saunter past it. A man with a beach tan and a perfectly smooth, slicked-back helmet of blonde hair in a pink reflective vest called from the security booth, "Did they not send you a limo?" She may have received a call about a limo and hung up on it. Like she was falling for that.
The floodlights and stage lighting shone like day on the Playground of Dreams–at least mostly. She needed to expect surprises in the shadows.
A stage had even been assembled far back from the driveway, by the playground. Hosting duties appear to have shifted for the evening, with Helene commentating solo live from the Party Girl compound, with Allen probably running double-duty at the desk and backstage at the Plunj. Sabrina really did complete them. The host for the main event stood out among the dark of night in a deep red suit with an immaculate white tailored shirt. A quizzical look turned Helene's focused expression into one much more troubling as Alicia approached. "I ordered you a limo. Did they not pick you up?" she asked, eyebrows wrinkled in disbelief. "Did you walk?"
"Um-" answered the pedestrian. "Oh." Helene waited, seeming to expect an explanation. Too bad about that. "Is the match starting soon?"
"The lim-" A long, frustrated blast of air puffed from Helene's nose. She took the easier route, "Hold your horses. They just started the match before yours."
She couldn't focus, and the steady buzzing noise in the distance wasn't helping. Breathe in, breathe out. Alicia shook her nerves out through her hands. "Who's it between?"
Helene turned her head slightly as she listened to something over her earpiece. "Jill McKill versus Hellion." She lifted a finger, asking for a moment as she listened to her earpiece again. "It's over. Are you about ready?"
Alicia's answer came naturally, "What?" The distant buzz overhead had grown closer and louder. Position lights grew in the night sky as it approached. Of the many helicopters Alicia had seen, this was the pinkest.
Helene slapped the rookie on the shoulder to get her attention. "Goon, focus. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," answered the former hockey player, then paused for a beat. "Can you announce me as something else?"
Helene rolled her forest green eyes. "You're changing your name again? What is it? Please don't make this a thing."
"I won't change it again, I promise. This is the one I've always wanted. Can you announce me as Alicia Goon?" requested the wounded champion. An organized mob of stagehands converged upon the stage and shooed her aside, but at least she got a nod from Helene.
Alicia adjusted her delicate grip on her stick and tucked the gym bag snug against her side as a tall, muscular member of the stage crew ushered her toward nowhere in particular. She would apparently make her entrance from the empty lawn. "Wait, then why'd she roll out the pink carpet?" The expensive-looking sound system projected Helene's sharp, brassy voice into the night air despite the propeller noise. "Your main event for the evening is an 'I Quit' match scheduled for one fall-"
One fall! Alicia called back in her mind.
"-With no time limit. There are no rules, no count outs, and anything goes. The match can only end when one of the competitors says the words, 'I quit.'"
The cacophonous beating of helicopter blades drowned out Helene's introduction over the stage loudspeakers. "Hailing __om the pa___ capital of ___ world, __icago, Illinois" The fashion/wrestling crossover star descended from the sky on a pink rope ladder, gliding to the ground with the misappropriated title belt slung over her shoulder. "_at __east _en _ounds ___ier than you__ ____ __." And coming in pretty hot. "award-deser_ing single, ke__ s_7_n's three-time ___lfriend, and has a gre__ deal on half _ __llion bottles __ _arty perm at _ hu__ _iscount! She is PAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTYYYYYY GIIIIIIIRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!" The celebrity slammed hard into the wood chips as the helicopter lowered her ungently to the ground. Party Girl hit the wood chips right as Helene hit the -irrrrllll! almost hard enough to bounce and throw up a shower of debris. The title belt clattered to a stop a few feet away. She stumbled to her feet, loopy from the impact and snatched up her stolen prize.
Even from this distance, Alicia could clearly read the malice on the socialite's face following her gravity overdose as she glared up at the pink chopper above. The crack in the mask mended itself by the time the camera light turned on. Party Girl posed while stylishly removing the wood chips from her hair and pink tracksuit. The slender, gray-haired referee chased the TV Championship belt as the self-appointed champion sashayed around him, intent on keeping the belt out of his hands as long as possible. Finally, the official managed to coax the title belt from Party Girl's hands. The din of helicopter blades finally subsided as the camera and a lonely spotlight focused on Alicia, standing at the edge of the floodlights on the grass. "Her opponent, wrestling out of Longstat, Minnesota and weighing in at 193 pounds, she is the tooth collector. She is the one-woman power play. She is the new Queens of War TV Champion, ALLLLIIIIIIIIICCCIIIIIIIAAAAAAA GOOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!"
Polite little wave.
She opened the zipper of the neon nylon gym bag and pulled out a set of well-worn maroon and white hockey gloves. Only one thing left inside. Her eyes darted to the hockey puck in the corner of the bag. Alicia stepped over the plastic retaining barrier keeping the wood chips inside the playground area. In the middle of the playground, the steady, rusty whine of a rocking horse pierced the night air again and again and again as Party Girl rocked back and forth. Her face was frozen in that tabloid Look for the cameras, but there was ecstasy in her eyes.
Ding!
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