THE SCENE: The STRUGGLE Pro offices in the former Blockbuster Video next to the bingo hall/wrestling arena. Head booker/building superintendent UNCLE ABDUL stands on a ladder, poking around in a ceiling panel next to a non-functional fluorescent light. The front door chimes as it swings open, and former women’s world champion/Hoss Dojo assistant head trainer YUMIKO LA GRANGE enters
YUMIKO: Abdul? Hoss said you needed to see me about something?
ABDUL: Oh hey, just a second. Goddamn rats have been chewing the wires again.
(The light comes on with an audible buzz and ABDUL climbs down)
ABDUL: So uhh, yeah. I hate to drop this on you on short notice like this, and I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, what with the Dojo and school starting back up and all, and –
YUMIKO: Just spill it.
ABDUL: (sighs) Okay, look. So we got these wrestlers on loan from MOSES in Japan, right? Well, we finally managed to hunt down that Hoshino girl and get her over here, and yeah, there was a pretty good reason she got lost on the way here.
YUMIKO: Already do not like where this is going.
ABDUL: But yeah, this girl, I mean god damn, her English is terrible. She ain’t gonna make it out there by herself.
YUMIKO: Really do not like where this is going.
ABDUL: I haven’t even said it yet!
YUMIKO: Get to the point.
ABDUL: Dammit. Okay. We need you to let her stay with you for a while, and I guess keep her from wandering off again.
YUMIKO: What!? No! No, no, no, no, are you crazy!?
ABDUL: Yumiko, the girl is helpless! We just needed her to catch a bus, and she ended up wandering the west coast for months and damn near joining the Hell’s Angels! Come on, you got a spare bedroom!
YUMIKO: That is not my problem! And besides, I already have enough going on as it is! How am I supposed to be that woman’s caretaker when ever since Evil dumped Ace on his head, I am having to be a single mother to a fat, lazy, slovenly, horny ingrate and also his delinquent son?
ABDUL: Alan Junior is your son too, you know.
YUMIKO: Yeah, well, he is much more of his father’s son than he is mine. Do you even realize what kind of insane bullshit I will have to deal with if Junior is sharing a house with a skinny 20 year old? For fuck’s sake, he is thirteen! It will be less than a week before I have to start pulling her underwear out from beneath his mattress! I will be lucky if he does not drill a hole in the wall between his bedroom and the bathroom, and Abdul, I am never lucky.
ABDUL: Aw come on, it wouldn’t be that bad.
YUMIKO: It would! Everything always turns out badly! The answer is no!
ABDUL: There’s no one else we can go to! If we don’t set her up up with someone who can actually communicate with her, there’s no telling what kinda bullshit is gonna break out. She can’t survive on her own.
YUMIKO: She is not the only wrestler who came here! Why can she not stay with Toshiyo or the old, bald guy?
ABDUL: Well, ah… Aw, hell. Y’see, your cousin, well, she’s kinda just getting out there again after her divorce, and she figured having someone younger tagging along might kinda get in the way of… things. Like I guess it might cramp her style or something.
YUMIKO: Cramp her style!? What style!? She is the most fucking boring person I have ever met! Even in wrestling, the only thing she can do to stand out is to dress and act like me! And what about me? Maybe I might want to “get out there again,” you know?
ABDUL: Have you even had a date in the last five years?
YUMIKO: (frowns)
ABDUL: Okay yeah, that was… Sorry.
YUMIKO; (keeps frowning so very hard)
ABDUL: So, uhh, anyway… Yeah, she’s a no-go, and well, as for Kaz… He… Yeah, he doesn’t… Mix well with other humans. Or animals. Or certain plants.
YUMIKO: Understandable. But okay, then what about Captain STRUGGLE? That fucking idiot speaks Japanese; ask him.
ABDUL: Have you ever seen the way that man lives? It’s an efficiency apartment roughly the size of a matchbook, and it’s filled from floor to ceiling with greasy pizza boxes, dirty laundry, and baseball cards. It’s a staph infection waiting to happen.
YUMIKO: Oh, come on… Okay… What about Rage Man?
ABDUL: What!? Are you serious? He’s a complete maniac!
YUMIKO: Not my problem.
ABDUL: Besides, hell, I don’t even know if he’s even Japanese.
YUMIKO: (menacingly) Are you saying all Asian people look alike, Abdul?
ABDUL: No, goddammit, I’m saying that the fucker is pretty much nonverbal, and as such, we got absolutely no biographical info on the man. As far as we can tell, he speaks no known human language. Fucker might be from Hoboken or something. Also – again – he’s a complete maniac.
YUMIKO: (growing increasibly more desperate) Okay, fuck… What about… EVIL! President Evil speaks Japanese! Ha!
ABDUL: He does?
YUMIKO: He wrestled there for years after he quit. I mean, he is not what I would call fluent, but he could keep Crawfish or whatever from starving to death.
ABDUL: Yumiko… The man is fuckin’ evil. Hyper Pro Wrestling MOSES did us a huge favor by lending us the wrestler they’re hoping can carry their women’s division for the next decade. I am not sending her back to Japan with a teardrop tattoo and a hook for a hand. I’m sorry. You. Are. Our. Only. Option.
YUMIKO: Okay, goddammit, FINE. But you will owe me for –
(CRAWDAD HOSHINO bursts into the room, and grabs YUMIKO in what was probably intended as a warm hug, but effectively became a full-on Steve-Atwater-vs-Christian-Okoye tackle)
CRAWDAD: Yumi-chan!
YUMIKO: AH! WHAT THE HELL!?
CRAWDAD: Happy to meet you! You my avocado favorite! Reason I dumpling become chainsaw wrestler!
YUMIKO: Who did what to the what now?
CRAWDAD: I watch you on scorpion bucket, when wrestle for OJW!
YUMIKO: S… Scorpion… Bucket?
(CRAWDAD nods enthusiastically, pantomiming a remote control)
CRAWDAD: I watch you since I tiny baby child!
YUMIKO: Since you were a… Tiny… Baby child… Thank you, that… That makes me feel… Young. So very young. (using that “married couple arguing at a party” gritted-teeth whisper-yelling voice) Abdul, can I speak to you for a moment?
(They kind of step off to the side, but CRAWDAD follows, with a big, oblivious grin the whole time. YUMIKO starts to say something, the notices CRAWDAD standing there)
YUMIKO: <translated from Japanese> GO. OVER. THERE.
(CRAWDAD kind of mouths out “ohhh” then just sort of speed-walks to the other side of the room)
YUMIKO: Abdul… What the fuck is wrong with that girl!?
ABDUL: What, that? Aw hell, she’s just bad at English, you know how it is.
YUMIKO: No! No, that is not how it is! I have been there before, Abdul. Your sentence structure is all garbled, you struggle with verb tense and pronoun forms, there is that whole L and R thing-
ABDUL: And you know, you never really did get the hang of contractions.
YUMIKO: (angrily) I am well aware of this.
ABDUL: Just saying.
YUMIKO: Well, I dind- didnut- didtint-
ABDUL: Didn’t. It’s didn’t.
YUMIKO: (just mad as all hell) DIDN’T fucking need to be reminded!
ABDUL: …And sometimes, you cuss like a sailor with his dick in a hornet’s nest.
YUMIKO: (frowns)
ABDUL: So anyway…
YUMIKO: As I was saying, being new to the language makes you speak awkwardly and go “uhhh, how you say” a lot. It does not make you refer to a television as a fucking scorpion bucket. That is not bad at English, Abdul, that is fucking deranged.
ABDUL: I think you’re overreacting here. It’s gonna be fine.
YUMIKO: Easy to say when you are not the one taking in a psychopath.
ABDUL: Hey, if she turns out to be a lunatic who wants to kill you and wear your skin, I owe you a Coke.
YUMIKO: Not funny.
ABDUL: We really will owe you one for this, though.
YUMIKO: I expect a title shot sooner than later.
ABDUL: Can’t make you number one contender this close to dropping one to Tiger in the tournament, but yeah, I think we can make that happen pretty quick.
YUMIKO: You had better. Crawdad –I can not believe I am calling another human being that – come on.
(CRAWDAD runs over excitedly, just as the door swings open with a loud electronic dinging sound – this used to be a Blockbuster, after all – and PRESIDENT EVIL enters. ABDUL is instantly furious, YUMIKO is just kind of like “ugh, this guy,” and CRAWDAD reacts with the same “hey, I know you” reception she gave YUMIKO)
CRAWDAD: Oh! You President of Evil! I corrugated watch you fight for Olive Japan! Toaster hopscotch pouch!
PRESIDENT EVIL: Who did what to the what now?
YUMIKO: (sighs) Just come on, Crawdad, I think we need to leave.
EVIL: Oh, hi! Fancy seeing you here! So, how’s ol’ Ace doing? Is he dead yet? No? Eh, well, that’s a real shame.
YUMIKO: Goddammit, Evil.
CRAWDAD: Koala semen!
YUMIKO: Oh my fucking god.
(EVIL stands, quietly puzzled for a moment, pondering this completely insane new development, then speaks, barely not losing his shit laughing the entire time)
EVIL: Why, yes! Koala semen, indeed! You should tell the kids all about koala semen during the next Twitch stream!
(CRAWDAD smiles from ear to ear and nods furiously)
YUMIKO: Jesus fucking Christ. <To Crawdad, in Japanese> Let’s GO.
(She grabs CRAWDAD by the arm and leads her out of the building, as Crawdad looks back at EVIL with a big, shit-eating grin, waving the whole time.)
ABDUL: EVIL! Nate’s office! Right fucking now!
TO BE CONTINUED…