(THE SCENE: After a STRUGGLE house show, (we have shows y’all don’t know about, honest) ZIPPITY DUDA is alone in the locker room, and he has taken great pains to assure himself that this is truly the case. He’s looked around every corner and inspected every nook and cranny, and when he’s made absolutely sure that no one else is anywhere nearby, he pulls out a Zip-Loc bag, which contains a small vial of liquid and a hypodermic needle.)

ZIP: (nervously) Okay… It’s okay, you can do this. Okay… Just one quick poke, and you’re on your way… Muscles, money, girls… Your mother will stop yelling at you… You can do this…

(Not having any idea what the hell he’s doing, ZIP starts to tie off his arm like a heroin addict, then slowly inserts the needle into the steroid vial, his hands shaking the entire time. Shaking so hard, in fact, that he ends up dropping it, and upon hitting the floor, it shatters, and its contents are immediately soaked into the indoor/outdoor carpet.)

ZIP: (With the despairing tone of a dude who just lost something he had to sell his XBox to buy, because that’s exactly what just happened) Noooo!

(ZIP drops down to his hands and knees and starts trying in vain to salvage whatever he can, when – to his horror – he starts to hear the sounds of an elderly German filmmaker bickering with a maniacal burnout pseudo-journalist; it’s COBRA HIGHWAY!)

REINHOLD KINSKI: Mein Gott… How is it zat you have come to arrive here?

ZIP: Look, this is -I mean, I-I-I

RAOUL KEMP: Better keep your distance from that one, Adolf. A junkie without his shit is liable to turn on you like a rabid dog. Give him ten minutes and that boy will become a wild-eyed, slavering brute who’d be thrown into a ditch and poked with sharp sticks if this was a decent society.

ZIP: Junkie!? No, no, no, this is-

KINSKI: It is truly an accursed thing we bear vitness to on zis day. His soul screams in agony. God himself looks down upon zis young man, and he gazes upward toward ze heavens, and he knows. Knows zat he has been chosen by the divine Himself. Chosen to be abandoned.

ZIP: No, seriously, you’ve got it all wrong! This isn’t-

KEMP: C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here. I don’t want to be the nearest potential victim when this freak’s eyes roll over white and he starts thirsting for blood.

KINSKI: Ve should get some chili dogs.

(KEMP and KINSKI disappear in a cloud of grizzly bear fur and amyl nitrate caplets, and ZIP is very confused. He then sadly starts trying to pick the broken pieces of glass out of the carpet, in order o destroy the evidence before anyone else shows up. As with most things in his life, he fails, as he suddenly smells the telltale scent of Icy Hot and regret – It’s disgraced former world’s champion ACE LA GRANGE!)

ACE: God damn, brother! How is it that you have come to arrive here!?

ZIP: Oh no…

ACE: I mean, things got pretty dark back in the day, but even I never messed around with that shit, brother.

ZIP: (sighing defeatedly) Look… It’s not what you think. That was… I was doing steroids.

(ACE pauses for a moment, as though the hamster wheel in his brain cannot process this information, then can’t help but laugh)

ACE: Ha ha ha ha ha, bullshit, brother! You ain’t on the gas! Look, I spent the entire 2000s on enough gas to fuel a fleet of buses, and that ain’t the body of someone who’s juiced up.

ZIP: It was my first time! Or.. You know… It would’ve been.

ACE: Then why’s your arm tied up like that, brother? You just stick yourself in the butt, or, you know, wherever.

ZIP: What, really? Son of a…

(ACE reaches down and picks up the piece of the vial with the label, then looks shocked.)

ACE: I’ll be damned, you weren’t lying. Brother, what the hell are you doing this for, anyway?

ZIP: Well, you know… To get bigger.

ACE: Brother, you’re a cruiserweight. You’re like four feet tall.

ZIP: i know, I know, it’s just, you know…. My mom…

ACE: (in a very serious tone) Brother, be honest with me… Are you trying to bulk up to beat up your mom?

ZIP: No! It’s just, you know, she just doesn’t respect me, and I thought that if I could win more matches…

ACE: Really? Hell, brother, you don’t need muscles to kick ass. Well, I mean, you do, but not asses as small as the ones you’re trying to kick. Come on, brother, I’m taking you under my wing.

ZIP: Do what now?

ACE: Look, brother, I’m a former world’s champion. If there’s one thing I know, it’s kicking asses professionally. And trust me brother, taking the kinda shortcuts you were gonna take is no good. Sooner or later, you’re gonna end up all messed up, like I did, or like Rockin’ Roland or Alex Kane or Damien Nova.

ZIP: Who’s Damien Nova?

ACE: Aw, brother. Probably the biggest “never was” in the history of Tri-State Area Wrestling. Huh… Heard he just got outta prison, come to think of it. Wonder what he’s up to…

NEXT TIME: We find out what he’s up to.