Hot Seller

The Detective was like a drug dealer. Fiending for more information he went back to Casanova’s home town once again, to meet with her in the little cafe downtown where she handed over the information.

He had compiled what was needed up to this point in a tidy document. Organized by date and time despite his appetite for alcohol. He needed that last book -- and he needed her for it. The high school sweetheart. The one who loved Casanova when no one else would. The one he ran away from… wouldn’t take with him on his bloody journeys. Men do strange things when they break.

The Detective isn't recording for once. He told her it would all be confidential, their secret. The bell above the door chimed as she walked through. The Detective swallowed his coffee and put the mug back down on the table gently.

Her long blonde hair hung past her shoulder, her dimples haven’t faded, but you could tell her smile had -- slight bags under the eyes, but makeup was doing a good job of hiding.

She had the last diary in her purse, the one he wrote in the day he found out about the truth about his father. The final page which said he wanted to kill him -- that Casanova couldn’t rest til his serial killer dad was dead. Her mouth dried out as she sat across from The Detective.

“This is the last one,” she said, her eyes shooting to the table top.

“No small talk eh, straight to the point,” The Detective laughed.

“You know I am only doing this for him.”

The Detective told her he was building evidence to have Casanova put into a psych ward for evaluation. She had no idea he had committed the murder, figured, like everyone else Casanova’s dad was killed in prison by another inmate. Which could be true, but The Detective was determined to prove English had something to do with it.

“I know Sara. I am only doing this for his own good too. You saw how violent he has become since returning to the ring. With others… with himself. He’s reckless, careless and self destructive and he needs proper treatment.”

Tears filled her eyes every time The Detective spoke of Casanova like that.

“I just want him to be better. I just want to see him again,” she said, shoving her hand into her purse. She put the last journal on the table. Slide it across.

The Detective scooped it up.


It wasn’t hard to find a vacant mall in America.

Capitalism ate it. Damn thing eats his young all the time when something new and flashy arises. The next big thing. The internet boom. You’re fat ass can sit on the couch and order a pizza through your Xbox. Get a goddamn mattress in a box shipped to the door in such a tight light expandable package you cut out the jobs of department store movers.

Bash Daddy flicks the camera on.

I sat on the edge of a now dry fountain, shards of a toilet tossed from the top floor at my feet. Every window to every old store smashed out, graffiti as wallpaper. People speaking over one another with louder and louder art. Hypodermic needles, bloody rags, piss puddles all through the rundown mega mall.

“I really shouldn’t be fucking with your stupid shit Project Honor. Look at this, a Mall Mayhem match, an easy way to get all your endorsements in is it? Someone getting smothered with a KitKat bar, a Tempur-Pedic mattress saving an unfortunate fall. I know what all this is truly about. This company, like the wrestlers which make it up, are fucking sell outs. Let me guess someone is going to get dunked in some Starbucks coffee. Strategically placed items ripe for the picking all so Project Honor can raise its stock value and I am sickened I am going to have to be part of it.”

I spit onto the filthy tile floor of the decaying mall. I reach behind me and pull the Warrior Rising Championship from behind the brick of the broken fountain.

“I should be defending this championship. I should be defending it every week on Proving Ground, but I am scared the powers that be don’t want me shattering any records too quickly around here. I might make all the work done before I walk through the doors look too much like child's play. I’ll take Willy Wonka’s golden ticket, find out what’s in the box like the end of Seven and continue my walk toward the hall of fame.”

“I could spend my time talking about each and every opponent in the match, but what’s the point. Let’s focus on society for a second. Do you think this going to be the most violent thing ever seen in an American mall? There’s been massacres and I’m not just talking about the shootings. No, I'm talking about grandma’s knocking each other out for a Furbee in the 90’s. People trampled alive. We can go in there and tear each other apart, but what these average people did just for a taste of popularity turns my fucking stomach. Hell people have probably been assaulted trying to get posters of the Project Honor assholes they love. That’s the good thing about being hated… when you look at the blood on your hands -- you have the piece of mind knowing you put it there yourself.”

I place a cigarette between my lips and light it. Tapping it on the championship lightly.

“See, my stock is rising. I did exactly what I said I was going to do to John Blade at the PPV. I made him look like the joke he was, manipulated him like the action figure he’s built like. And I am going to continue to do it to all the stars the fans know and love and keep proving my point. It's a new age. It’s brain over brawn. It’s strategy over style. I’ll gladly introduce the concept to the veterans and new blood alike. After all, I represent the most important rung on the ladder to success.”

I raise the championship up, before letting it drop back onto my lap. I blow a smoke ring toward the camera.

“Soon, this title is going to mean more than the Legacy Championship. This title is going to represent the future of this entire company. You can put whoever you want in the main event, but you see it week after week -- between those ropes I am a once in a lifetime artist. And trust me when I say people are starting to recognize it. I’ve got more friends than you think and when the time is right the whole wrestling society will shift.”

“I’m the hot seller, I’m the money, I’m the prize in this game this week… right? I’m the guy that can get people talking about John Blade when I’m not sure the idiot knows what room to walk into to cut a promo. If you think for a second I am going to sit back and let these guys find the box or whatever the fuck that is going to have a sot at my championship -- you are dead wrong. I am looking to level up around here. I’m looking to balance out this other fucking shoulder.”

“You know, I have never been one for shopping. I enjoy something hand made. Something someone put their heart and soul into. A bit of themselves and maybe a bit of someone else.”

I hop up off the edge of the fountain and move down a hall of shops. A single yellow light in one still intact window. Bash follows me down the hallway as I whistle.

“Ah, a shop, still open. Perfect.”

Voodoo stood proud behind a counter, he dreads pinned up, her in a suit as if she was working a jewelry display. I get closer and let the camera zoom in. TJ, Blade, Petey, champions, jobbers, mid-carders and the like -- all small voodoo dolls made of bits of hair collected by Bash at ringside over the months.