Nova
Just Like Law-Jesus
Some folks are born into a good life,
Other folks get it anyway, anyhow,
I lost my money and I lost my wife,
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.
- Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
THE NEXT CHAPTER:
“Return of the Starchild,” or “The New Wild West”
Other folks get it anyway, anyhow,
I lost my money and I lost my wife,
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.
- Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
THE NEXT CHAPTER:
“Return of the Starchild,” or “The New Wild West”
(FADEIN: A runway at Charleston International Airport. Blinking lights from a landing plane bathe the runway in bright flashes, illuminating a lawn chair and its occupier, former NFW Heavyweight Champion and recent Hall of Fame inductee, the Frontier’s own EagleSTAR…NOVA. He’s seated next to a small tent and Weber grill, which is still smoking from some recent grubbin’s. Clad in jeans and a sleeveless grey t-shirt emblazoned with a red and white Revolution star, he rests his head against the back of his chair, taking a long drag of his cigarette as his eyes follow the plane’s trajectory. A long jagged scar weaves its way around from the back of his clean-shaven head almost to his right temple. His beard has grown out into a woolly brown mass distinguished by bright white streaks running down from the base of his chin to the beard’s frazzled edge near the center of his chest.)
NOVA: “I remember when SHANE SOUTHERN was announced as the first inductee into the NFW Hall of Fame. It was Wrestlebowl II Night One. I was in the building but not on the card. Lots of drugs then, and everyone – I mean EVERYONE – was on them, but regardless, I can recall the moment it was announced at the outset of the Showstoppers/Cruise Project tag match.
(Taking a drag) “Wouldn’t y’know it, I was one night away from the biggest match of my life, competing against YORI YAKAMO JR. for the ULTRATITLE in a culmination of years of work and the fate of the Frontier on the line…and in that moment, I wanted to be Shane Southern. Because that recognition, that formal understanding of Southern’s importance to the company and his legacy…that was everything that I wanted from NFW.”
(NOVA reaches behind his lawn chair and drags the now-infamous modified Cojones Mercado steel chair into the picture.)
NOVA: “With that kind of inspiration, that idea of what such an accomplishment means…understandably I have mixed emotions about my own induction at SUPERCRASH 3. I know what it’s about. I see it for what it is. It’s EDDIE MAYFIELD getting a jab in at DAN RYAN by elevating me over him and reminding the Ego-Buster that he got schooled repeatedly by a dirty hippie.”
(Setting the steel chair down, he wraps a white rag around one of its legs.)
NOVA: (Taking a drag) “That’s fine. I’ve delivered the goods in this house in ways even Southern could not. And most importantly, I’m back, now, to live into this recent accolade…to EARN it. EDDIE, you may have put my name back out there in order to further your agenda, but you got more than you bargained for, bub. ‘Cuz now I have to show the world why I deserve a place in the pantheon. This…”
(NOVA holds the steel chair aloft, rotating it.)
NOVA: “This is the instrument of my fall from grace….the chair you used, EDDIE, to enact my unceremonious departure from NFW, from TEAM…from the face of the business I love and have sacrificed everything for. It wasn’t enough that I lost my grip on the World Heavyweight Championship at SUPERCRASH II. It wasn’t enough for me to lose the crown, you had to crown me with Mercado’s implement. You needed to punctuate the Dawn of your Revolution with the Chairshot Heard ‘Round the World.”
(He rests the edge of the chair against the grass and hoists a fifth of Jim Beam from under his seat. He takes a pull and wipes his lips.) “And I swear, on everything I still hold sacred, that before all is said and done, I WILL crack this motherf*cker over your skull and pay you back for what you did. As for ‘TEAM NFW’…” (He snorts) “…know this. Anyone who does the bidding of ‘El Presidente,’ whether they recognize it or not…they aren’t fighting for the Frontier. EDDIE MAYFIELD’s vision of NFW is a fake, a phony, a farce...”
(Taking a drag) “…a PLASTIC CACTUS.”
(He wraps another white rag around the base of the chair.)
NOVA: “It’s still MAYFIELD at the end of the day, y’see? But me? I fight for the REAL Frontier. I speak for it. If I were gone ten years and came back, I would still know this place, understand it.” (Closing his eyes) “I can feel it breathing. I can hear its pulse.”
(NOVA grabs at the neckline of his t-shirt and yanks it down, ripping it and revealing the eagle brand on his chest.)
NOVA: “It’s literally branded over my heart. It’s home. And I will fight, bleed, and die for home. That brings me to the WINDHAM CLAN.”
(He flicks away his cigarette and raises a middle finger to the camera.)
NOVA: “This is for you.”
(He sets the chair down and raises his other one.)
NOVA: “This one too. You’ll pardon the cliché, but this is MY house. This is the WILD WEST. Not some decrepit husk of a stomping ground desperately willing to entertain TROY WINDHAM’s delusions of grandeur because he’s the Only Game in Town. Your ‘ownership?’” (Spits) “It’s a legal fiction, a construct, something man-made, whereas my place at the table in this Oddballs’ Wonderland was seemingly set for me before I ever arrived…like fate.”
(Another pull from the bottle) “You can fill the ring with Windhams. Troy, Mark, Timmy, Tommy, Peter, Bobby Jack, Lucy Mae, Phineas T. Knobgobbler, doesn’t matter. I’m HOME. You f*ckers’ll never belong. This will never be your home. You’re an invasive species, like the kudzu vine or the Asian longhorn beetle.”
(NOVA holds up his arms in a shrug.)
NOVA: “And the Frontier will ride you out, or find a way to kick you out.”
(NOVA takes a pull off the bourbon and then focuses on some scribblings on his wrist. Gripping a Sharpie deliberately, he marks through several lines of rudimentary text on his hand and then stares into the camera.)
NOVA: “So, I have to cover this. JOE THE PLUMBER. My re-emergence, after two-and-a-half years. Joe, I’m gonna get right to it. I respect the HELL out of you. You beat it out of me. You’re a disgusting, disease-ridden degenerate. You’re a true competitor. You’re a TRUE FRONTIERSMAN.” (Shaking his head) “Joe, I can’t say I was the best World Heavyweight Champion this company has ever seen – you earned that accolade.”
(He lights another cigarette.) “But I LIVED that belt, Joe. You know that. I breathed it. It was everything. It was all I cared about. I was the Champion of the Frontier, and when you took it from me, you had to beat me within an inch of my life. That was the thing. You had to TAKE it. And spitting blood through my teeth, gasping for air, I could live with that. What I couldn’t live with…”
(NOVA shakes his head, taking a pull and then taking a drag from his cigarette.)
NOVA: “…was your DISAPPEARING ACT after DAN RYAN and DORCHESTER STRATTON wore you and your resolve down to a knub. You abandoned EVERYTHING, Joe. Everything we bled and snot and killed ourselves for. You gave it up, and now two men fight for a belt they never had to hold your shoulders down in order to get. They didn’t have to do what everyone said couldn’t be done. Joe, YOU ABANDONED THE FRONTIER AND YOU DESERVE EVERY IOTA OF STEEL I GAVE YA!”
(He holds the fifth up, and several large bubbles pop over the up-ended bottom of the bottle before he turns it back down. He shakes his head vociferously and wraps another length of white cloth around the base of the steel chair he’s re-possessed.)
NOVA: “Shouldn’t’a done that, Joe. No, no. Shouldn’t’a left that Championship behind, to be bid on by lesser men. They called me outta the shadows, I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you or anybody else.” (Grinning) “But they’ve entered the Hellmouth now. And you and I both know the only place that leads is down…”
“…down...”
“…down…”
“…down…”
(FADETOBLACK.)