Oh, for a muse of fire!
It’s about damn time a faction of brooding heartthrobs emerged in Area Code Pro Wrestling. Like really, why has the patriarchy been so squirmy about appealing to the thirsty demographic? WIth the exception of a certain refrain about a fairly tame wrestler who hails “straight from your baby-mama’s DM’s,” the local wrestling promotion has been a downright prudish affair in the year and a half it’s been running. Money has, indeed, been getting left on the table. Until January, that is, when a certain alignment of pheromones whirled into a thirst storm and just about brought me to my knees.
This all came about when Jet Lucas suddenly came out to help Jerry Bishop finish off that little skate punk Bobby Bishop after Ref Russ got himself knocked into a stupor and fell out of the ring. Bryson came out like he was going to rescue Bobby from big mean Jet, but once he got in the ring and pulled Jet off Bobby, Bryson had some kind of a lightbulb moment: people can and should do whatever they want when the ref is out. It only makes sense, because these refs aren’t paying attention half the time anyway and have screwed Bryson over countless times. So Bryson low blowed little Bobby (like damnnn bro) and then even beat the tar out of disgraced former champion AJ Radical, who got in the ring to yell at Bryson because… well, I don’t know exactly why. AJ only wishes he was as bad as these fellas.
In the end, the area code was finally graced with an alliance that is fan-fic worthy:
Jerry Bishop took it upon himself to be my friend last year when everything in my life felt toxic and hopeless in this dire city. Last summer he trusted me with his story (the first two chapters of which you can read here and here), and for that he will always be my hero. Plus, tell me this isn’t hot:
And I am so proud of the Pretty Boy Hoss. When you go bad, you wear black. That is the way of things. Look how Bryson Axl went for it! He wore the hell out of the color black. First on that fateful heel-turn evening in January, as he experienced the creepy thrill of delivering one’s first low blow:
And then at the February show, when he wore black like THIS!
Bryson Axl worked hard and put on the nice guy act for years in Area Code Pro Wrestling, and all it really got him was exhaustion and pats on the head. The lesson learned here is that there’s very little to gain from working hard and playing nice. You’ve got to piss people off to make a name for yourself in this area code. Welcome to the dark side, Mr. Axl. Tear things up. Make me proud.
And finally there is Jet Lucas, whose back I will have forever (whether he likes it or not). Big Kotzebue Sexy finally got over his curmudgeonly lone wolf attitude and let himself find friends. The tale of Jet Lucas teaches us that talent, good looks, and compliance don’t really get you anywhere. Life is all about making allies, and look what glorious allies he has found. Jet looks like a new man, and it’s not just the shiny new pants (although those are certainly worthy of note). The darkness in his eyes has finally taken on a glimmer of hope: his brief championship was not for nothing. It put him on the radar of the most venerated wrestler in the area code, who couldn’t manage to beat the guy Jet beat clean when the title was on the line.
A sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing carpetbagger like Tyler Payne can thrust his crotch all he wants, but he cannot grasp the thirst these three men—who have long since stared down the darkness of the territory that yoga weirdo has the nerve to claim he represents—are capable of evoking. Those of us who were born, washed up, or got stuck and deferred our dreams in this area code have stared into the depths of the abyss that is this 907 death trap. We have scrounged and scraped together whatever tools we could find to navigate the existential void of a failing resource extraction colony. We have dared this state to swallow us, and so far it has not had the nerve. This is how The Giver, Big Kotzebue Sexy, and the Pretty Boy Hoss can evoke such thirst for my demographic: their darkness mirrors our darkness, their pain mirrors our pain, and their reflection turns it all into something beautiful.
Because thirst is not about aesthetics, posturing, or pageantry. Thirst is when we feel the vulnerability beneath the bravado. Thirst is a taste for adversity, angst, and perseverance, not that which we are fed, but that which we intuitively know. Thirst is the passion we feel when we see what the struggle has done to their eyes. And thirst will in fact relish whatever defeat, betrayal, and burials the patriarchy lays on us. Thirst will transform disappointment into brilliance.
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