(THE SCENE: Shortly after the events of the previous episode, In the back yard of the suburban home of STRUGGLE Pro Wrestling legend YUMIKO LA GRANGE, where she and teammate JEZEBEL GRIM lounge at poolside. The ground is scattered with the spent plastic remnants of at least a dozen Otter Pops, “Police in Helicopter” by John Holt can be heard coming from a late 1990s-vintage portable boombox, and while official Invisible Backstage Camera policy discourages exposing wrestlers engaging in illegal activity, there is what is clearly a big ol’ blunt resting in an empty flower pot conveniently placed nearby, and it is fairly obvious that the two are high as fuck, you guys.)
JEZEBEL: Man, I just thought of something crazy…
YUMIKO: Oh god.
JEZEBEL: No, like… There’s been a lot of sexy-ass people in the world, right?
YUMIKO: Dozens, one would assume.
JEZEBEL: Like, you know, there’s been Sean Connery, and Marilyn Monroe, and like, fuckin’ Denzel…
YUMIKO: Right.
JEZEBEL: And you know, fuckin… Elvis and Brad Pitt, and Flo from those Progressive commercials…
YUMIKO: An unexpected choice, but I can see it.
JEZEBEL: And like, fuckin’… What’s his name, the dude that played Captain America…
YUMIKO: Chris Evans. Is there a point to all of this?
JEZEBEL: Okay, so think about it… (she waves her hand across the horizon in front of her, as though she were an old-timey director making a movie pitch) Every one of those sexy ass bastards… Every single one of those sexy motherfuckers, at least once in some point in their lives… They all had diarrhea.
YUMIKO: Why would you ever have such a thought, much less express it out loud, within earshot of another human being…
JEZEBEL: It just like… Makes you think, though, doesn’t it?
(Suddenly, there is a distant “hey mom,” followed by approaching footsteps, and the pair suddenly spring into action. JEZEBEL quickly extinguishes the smoke and hides it underneath the now-overturned flower pot, and YUMIKO scrambles to mash buttons on the boombox, and after a labored whirring as the device struggles to switch from disc one to disc two – hey, a two-disc stereo was pretty fancy in 1997 – the smooth sounds of reggae are suddenly and jarringly replaced by Kreator’s “Pleasure to Kill.” ALAN “LIL’ ACE” LA GRANGE JUNIOR rounds the corner, as the two theoretical adults try to look calm and casual in a completely unnatural manner that only two stoned individuals can achieve. Junior gives the pair a head-shaking, eye-rolling look as if to say “I guess we’re still doing this”)
YUMIKO: Oh, uhh, Junior. Hey.
JUNIOR: Hey, so I was gonna ask, is it okay if I go over to Cody’s house for a while?
YUMIKO: Cody… Is that the redneck kid with all the illegal fireworks?
JEZEBEL: (artificially thickening her accent by a factor of at least 85%) Hey mayun, ah perfer th’ term “sons o’ the soy-ul!”
JUNIOR: Hey, they’re not illegal anymore, his dad got some kinda weird explosives license.
YUMIKO: Oh… Okay… Just text me periodically and try to not blow up anything that anyone will miss. You know the drill.
JUNIOR: I can try, but I make no promises.
(JUNIOR heads through the sliding glass doors into the house)
YUMIKO: That was a close one. Ugh. Cody. Hopefully, he still has all his fingers by nightfall.
JEZEBEL: You know he knows, right?
YUMIKO: Knows what?
JEZEBEL: All this shit. “Pain management” and whatnot.
YUMIKO: Highly unlikely. I have taken every possible precaution.
JEZEBEL: Yeah, when you were high. I’m just saying, kids are more perceptive than you give ’em credit for. And hell, he probably found your stash while looking for Christmas presents or something.
YUMIKO: Bullshit. I know what I am doing.
JEZEBEL: Really? Alright, check this shit out.
YUMIKO: What are you-
JEZEBEL: Hey! Hey, Lil’ Ace! Come here for a minute!
YUMIKO: What the fuck are you doing!?
(A confused JUNIOR reappears)
JUNIOR: Uhh, yeah?
JEZEBEL: Hey, so… Alan Junior. Can I ask you something?
YUMIKO: Jezebel, I swear to fucking God…
JEZEBEL: So… Does your mom smoke weed?
(YUMIKO’s face becomes an expression of shock and terror, while JUNIOR just looks back and forth between the two with a confused and pained look, before finally sighing in a weird sort of simultaneous defeat and relief)
JUNIOR: …Like a fuckin’ chimney. Hell, you’re both high right now.
YUMIKO: (stammering in utter panic) I-I-Ah, how can you- Why would- That is- Why would you think- ALAN LAFAYETTE LA GRANGE JUNIOR, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT USING THAT KIND OF LANGUAGE!?
(JEZEBEL silently and confusedly mouths out “Lafayette?” to no one in particular)
JUNIOR: I learned it by watching you! And seriously, no one cares. It’s 2021, the shit is legal everywhere but here now. All this sneaking around is just dumb, mom.
YUMIKO: But… But I took every precaution… How did you know?
JUNIOR: Oh, I dunno, the way you disappear into your room and the whole house starts to smell like a skunk exploded, and then after like a solid minute of spraying air freshener everywhere – which doesn’t work, by the way – you come out with your eyes bloodshot and half closed, and then you start snarfing down pizza rolls and watching Trailer Park Boys clips on YouTube.
YUMIKO: That… That could be a giveaway… I guess…
JUNIOR: And, uhh, while we’re getting stuff out in the open, I kinda found your stash in the closet when I was looking for Christmas presents this one time…
JEZEBEL: Ha! Called it!
YUMIKO: Hey! You should not be going through people’s private things!
JUNIOR: Oh, uhh, yeah, don’t… Uhh… (His face suddenly changes expression to one of someone remembering an intensely traumatic event) You really don’t need to worry about that anymore…
YUMIKO: Junior? Are you okay?
JUNIOR: (With the empty-eyed thousand yard stare of a shell-shocked veteran reliving the memory of his best friend’s dying breaths in the jungles of Cambodia) I, uhh… You know… Ever since I… Looked in your dresser… And found… That other thing… Really hoping to forget I ever saw that… Thing… Someday… (In a desperate tone after a long, brutally awkward silence) Look, I gotta go!
(JUNIOR leaves, very much in a hurry. There is a brief moment of confused silence, until YUMIKO and JEZEBEL both suddenly realize the most likely answer for what “that other thing” could be. If you still haven’t figured out what’s going on, you’re probably too young and innocent for me to explain, so let’s just move on. All the color drains from YUMIKO’s face and her eyes open wide in expression of utter slack-jawed horror, while JEZEBEL rolls over on her stomach and explodes into the kind of painful, convulsive laughter that somehow prevents any actual sound from escaping her mouth in the process. Suddenly, the sliding glass doors fly open and TOSHIYO NAKANO appears, head wrapped in a towel, waving her phone in the air and excitedly babbling in a terrible and indecipherable new language that is a mishmash of Japanese, slightly broken English, and utter gibberish)
JEZEBEL: (struggling to catch her breath) Alright now, Toshi? Gonna new you to slow down and use your words, mmkay? Uhh, also, what the fuck are you wearing?
TOSHIYO: Oh, shirt fall in toilet, so I just grabbed first thing I saw in laundry basket and- (looks down and frowns, somehow just now realizing that she is wearing a t-shirt depicting the cover of Mortician’s Chainsaw Dismemberment album) Cousin, what the hell!?
YUMIKO: Oh yeah, that was a wild show…
JEZEBEL: So, anyway…
TOSHIYO: Right. I just get call from Crawdad!
YUMIKO: And you understood her?
TOSHIYO: Oh, she actually quite coherent in Japanese.
JEZEBEL: …Probably still super fuckin’ weird though, right?
TOSHIYO: Ohhh yeah, strange as hell. But she just find out that Nakatomi bought MOSES!
JEZEBEL: I recognize some of those words.
YUMIKO: The Nakatomi Mushroom Concern. It is one of those big mega-conglomerate corporations, involved in a thousand different unrelated things of varying levels of evil. They make really good cheese, though.
TOSHIYO: Good-ass cheese.
JEZEBEL: So what does this mean for you?
TOSHIYO: Don’t really know yet. Some people think MOSES roster are all getting raises, and Crawdad seemed to think that women’s division is getting folded into Notoriety.
JEZEBEL: Wait, what is that?
YUMIKO: One of the bigger women’s promotions that opened a few years back. A lot of the people who used to work for Olive Japan Women went there. (In a much quieter tone, with just a hint of sadness) It’s where Etsuko works now… And Meiko…
JEZEBEL: Are you okay?
YUMIKO: Nothing, just… Never mind..
TOSHIYO: Anyway… I need to call more people, so I can find out for sure what is happening, but I guess I wear more pink t-shirts than blue soon.
JEZEBEL: Waaaait, Notoriety! I know that place! My cousin Miki just signed there!
YUMIKO: You have a cousin in Japan?
JEZEBEL: Yeah, my uncle Slim worked over there for a while, and got married and had a kid while he was there. And, well, eventually got un-married, but I guess y’all know how that is.
YUMIKO: Wrestling has a tendency to do that to people…
JEZEBEL: But yeah, she’s cool as hell, probably one of the only people in my family that’s worth a damn. Kinda weird, though. Grew up in the city, but really leans into the hillbilly shit super-hard. Really likes eating possum, for some ungodly reason.
TOSHIYO: Do what now?
YUMIKO: Is that… Some sort of euphemism?
COMING SOON ON FUTURE INSTALLMENTS OF TALES OF THE INVISIBLE BACKSTAGE CAMERA:
Nate and Abdul begin an epic search for a money mark, Zippity Duda is abandoned by God, and an ex-con gets real sleazy in a filthy RV.
Also, I should probably do a wrestling show again at some point maybe, that would be nice.