Maybe Harlan Payne is their tiger king, but at least their living situation is clean and no one’s gotten injured yet, much less had an arm bitten clean off. They’ve only had one more Violence storm, and everybody just jumped on top of Steve like it was normal and flopped there, chatting amiably, until he came back to himself. Over the past few weeks, they’ve somehow become a family.
And in about an hour, Chelsea’s job is to fight Steve in front of…well, whoever the hell showed up. Maybe a few people, maybe a hundred, maybe just a couple of strategically placed cameras. Their greenroom is in the back of one of the tractor trailers she first saw when she drove up in George’s truck for her interview. Turns out they were full of metal stands, plastic chairs, a thousand seats, a cushy wrestling ring, and nicer versions of all the props they’ve been training with. Rehearsing in that big warehouse made it real. The mats smelled so new when her cheek was pressed up against them. The ropes were so springy as she leapt from a corner. Now she has to do all that but make it look real.
Has to embody the Violence even though she can’t remember how it feels.
“Maryellen, Matt. You’re up.”
Chris stands on the loading dock, calling up into the back of the semi. He’s dressed in VFR-branded sweats and looks like a wrestler who quit to become a trainer, which is exactly what he is. When Chelsea first saw him, she thought he was going to be a hard-ass drill sergeant, but she’s come to see him as the CrossFit leader she’d always dreamed of, gently encouraging yet sternly threatening as needed, turning her body into a weapon. Maryellen finishes powdering her gray hair to look whiter and grins at Matt, who looks like The Crow in his long black duster and heavy black eyeliner. They’ve got Maryellen dolled up like a grandma so no one can see her huge muscles—Mildred the Magnificent. Tonight she battles The Raven.
Maryellen is going to win because that’s how Harlan planned it.
But Chelsea—and everyone else, including Matt—knows that she’d beat Matt in a real fight, too.
They walk off side by side, and Maryellen punches the air as everyone else whoops and shouts encouragement. After they disappear through a heavy metal door, it’s anyone’s guess what happens on the other side. Harlan will introduce them, their fight songs will play, and they’ll…perform. It’s not quite fighting; more like sparring with some acting thrown in. Chelsea watches on Arlene’s laptop screen as they appear in the ring, seen from the overhead camera. Matt is in the ropes first, flapping around like an angel of death and shaking his fist along with the music’s beat, then Maryellen appears, acting confused and clutching her purse and extremely unnecessary cane like she’s not quite sure why she’s there. It’s a trip, the way Harlan has them all set up, some as villains and some as heroes and others, like Maryellen, almost as innocent bystanders.
Once Maryellen starts tugging at the ropes like she’s trying to climb out, Matt sneaks up like he’s going to rob her, and a cloud of glittering gray descends from the ceiling. It’s gray chalk, but it’s meant to look like pepper. They both inhale it and go still like robots booting up, and then the fight begins.
Because that’s the biggest difference between the VFR and all the pro wrestling that’s gone before: Whereas pro wrestlers are actors pretending to fight, Chelsea and her friends are normal people pretending to go insane and try to kill each other. That means that, just like when they’re under the spell of the Violence, they don’t make a noise. No threats, grunts, shouts, curses. Just vicious attacks, each one barely stopped by an opponent until somebody gets supposedly lucky. Harlan has the stage rigged with heavy, pounding music, lights, and fog. If an actor slips up, if something isn’t believable, there’s a chance the audience will miss it.
It helps, actually. The thumping metal and techno make it real, bring a physical sensation to the backdrop. Performing these moves in a silent building makes it almost embarrassing, makes them look like children going through badly learned dance moves. But there’s something about the loud, angry music and the shifting lights that viscerally represents what it’s like to watch the Violence happening.
From the outside, that is.
From the inside, time simply ceases to exist, and then you wake up.
It’s like being anesthetized, really.
How many people in the audience know that? Chelsea wonders.
How many people know firsthand that the Violence doesn’t feel like Fight Club—it feels like waking up after a colonoscopy?
Maryellen and Matt get through their match without any major mistakes, just a few stumbles that Matt fights with dramatic posing and Maryellen covers by pretending to be a fragile old woman—right up until she pins him and the refs have to pull her off. The music stops, the lights come back on, and they act like they’ve just woken up from a confusing dream. Matt gallantly helps Maryellen out of the ring as if she’s infirm, subtly but noticeably stealing her purse in the process.
Chris is already at the door, calling out the next pair. Chelsea and Steve go third. She helps him with his eyeliner—he’s got some weird thing about touching his own eyeballs—and then they stand by the door instead of watching the next match.
“You worried?” Steve asks her. He’s the silver fox she met on her first day. They’ve got him dressed up like a very dapper businessman. There’s no AC, and it’s hot in the trailer, and he’s got to be dying in the suit, but he looks cool and calm.
“I just wish I knew what was out there,” she says, staring at the door, waiting for Matt and Maryellen to come back. They should be here by now, but they’re not.
Steve shrugs. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? The way I see things, Harlan Payne is our audience. If he’s happy, who cares what some hypothetical audience thinks? He could film it and post it on YouTube and still make a million dollars, if he does it right. Which he probably will.” He shakes his head. “It really is a genius idea.”
Chelsea compulsively tugs at her tank top, the padding awkwardly giving her those boobs David always offered to pay for. “You think people won’t be able to tell we’re not really peppered up and storming?”
Steve grins. “I don’t think they care. They’re here for the madness, not the reality.”
Chris appears in the doorway, looking annoyed.
“Joy got mad at TJ and yelled, and Harlan pulled it. You guys ready to go?”