The Girl, The Grail, The End (Part Three of Three) (1478 hits)
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Submitted by Isaac Bickerstaff (View user info) at 2007-07-10 03:43:29 EDT
The End
Why is disappointment the measure of hope?
I mean seriously, why do we gauge our ambition by how lousy it feels when everything goes to hell; as if the success of a thing would somehow make its attainment far less palatable?
My hope was a mountain, a galaxy; it was music and movement and breath and the rest because at the end of that tunnel was the Girl, and her loss is my litmus.
Wishful thinking, that's what it was. Wishful thinking and naivete that got me believing the Gods had nothing better to do. It takes me a long few seconds to figure out that I am actually on my back, that Maldanado's knee had put me right the fuck away and I am currently staring upward into the rock and roll lighting of the concert arena turned Coliseum; there's your Gods you witless romantic fuck, there's your salvation: spinning in mechanized halogen choreography.
I sit up slowly and shake my head before dragging my ragged skeleton to its knees.
Black and Tan is all in my face, "You okay, Zach? I'm gonna stop it... I'm gonna stop it, you okay? Zach?"
"Back off me Black and Tan, I aint been okay for twenty years," and I get one haggard hoof and then the other back underneath me.
He pauses for a second, steps back and cocks his head; then "He's okay!" and he swirls to the judges as I raise my mitts, trying to look young and spry. I raise a hand to push the hair out of my eyes before I remember that I shaved my head with the Girl, back during chemo; so why the fuck can't I see? And I realize that it's my brow ridge already swelling up, like I've got a banana taped across my forehead.
Black and Tan did it all the right way as a pup, quit fighting while he was still young and pretty, got into the referee game. He stopped by the dressing room before the fight tonight, all slick and sterile, prurient rubber gloves over each soft hand.
"Gonna be a tough one tonight, yeah?" Black and Tan had said and I felt JD turn without seeing him.
"Are you kidding?" JD had growled. "Maldanado should be making me a fucking sandwich, not climbing into the ring with a champion."
Black and Tan had laughed without smiling, like he was talking to me on the phone and thought that just making the laugh noise would be enough. "What I'm saying is... Cool out, JD. Zach, what I'm saying is..."
"Spill it, Black and Tan, some of us gotta work tonight..." JD had hissed.
"Alls I'm saying is, sometimes you get a Jap ref, right? It's just sometimes, ya get a Jap. Right, Zach?" And in the turbid stink of the following silence, he had slipped back out the door.
"What the shit is that about?" JD had barked to me. "Jesus, Zach, don't you know any normal people?" and he had bolted out into the hall to go do whatever it is JD does before a fight.
Now I've pictured the hero's death a thousand times, you know you have too, fucker, and don't pretend. But believe me that it all looks a whole lot closer when you're putting her in the ground, right; when they start reading scriptures that she never believed, and they bring you flowers and words of condolence and then send you the bill that's conveniently payable online; it all looks a whole lot fucking closer.
But no matter how tragic and poetical, my brothers, no matter how valorous, it all ends up with you dead in a box and that's the part I can't reconcile, the whole dead bit.
So I do what you do, man, I shake that shit off and dance a little and wait for Maldanado to realize that he hasn't won just yet, that the killer keeps popping back up and maybe he shouldn't celebrate 'til the credits start to roll. Maldanado turns and raises a sneer to scold me, so I smack him once and charge a big ass right that shoots past his hands and connects dead on his teeth, round elbow his punk ass and wrap his head.
Maldanado isn't having that: he unglues a sick fast spin and I just slide under a backfist that would have sent me packing. But look, I'm tired, man, and my head is all jacked and I stand up too fast and can't see past the lump over my orbs to step under that big outside hook, but I sure feel it jolt across my bean in a scatter of angry white dots; and I'm on the mat again.
A week ago they sent the cameras, they sent producers and guys with lights and pink-haired chicks with tubs of face paint and powder. They descended onto Taro's place like a squawking parliament of angry rooks. "Need a little interstitial footage of your guy in training," the HBO exec had said. "We play it before the match, you know, the whole 'road to victory' bit."
They set up a bag and covered it with talc so dust would rise when I hit it, they sprayed me with water, they tried to give me acting lessons on the spot, like training a wretched old hound to roll over for biscuits. "Can't he look more, I don't know, like, vicious?" I heard them ask JD, "He just looks sorta confused."
The producer was a Cavalli wearing ogre that smelled of cigarettes and perfume, a sick mixture of salty sweet ambiguity; a cannibal in mulberry taffeta. She perched opposite me as I sat in the training ring, and rattled off questions while reminding me not to look in the camera. "So what's gonna happen on the 7th?" she said. "Walk me through it, champ. Try not to say, 'um' so much this time."
"Okay," I said, and I told her. I told her how Maldanado was probably gonna crush my ass into snot. I told her I was expecting to take the beating of my life, almost certainly getting knocked out in the first, and that afterward I would slouch my disfigured shit back into the locker room and with any luck, disappear into obscurity. "You know," I said, "pretty much like that. Simple really."
And through sneering lips she said, "Hang on, hang on. Start again. We need to hear how you're gonna murder him, how he doesn't have a chance against your experience and skill. C'mon, Champ, Maldanado's young and green; tell us why he can't beat ya. Let's get fired up here! For the fans, right?"
And I looked at her for a long time, I looked at the camera and at the pink-haired girl and the guy with the round reflector thing. I looked at JD who was sitting stark silent in the corner, one hand over his mouth, concerned.
"I don't think she's listening," I said to him.
Maldanado does an impression of a mount and lets me guard him out. I take a breath and heave my sack of meat upright. Black and Tan hooks eyes with me for a second and can't hold the stare, he dances back out of the way and waves both hands together, "Let's go, let's go!" he trumpets.
Maldanado takes him at his word, and flies at me all razor wire and concrete. I lead him back, trying to catch a couple extra breaths, but the cage stops me and I tuck hard and try to cover from all those ill ass shots he sends at me. He's aiming for my belfry now, trying to land another rocket on that froggy growing over my eyes. I wrap lock one of his legs with mine to stop the knees from coming but I aint got the muster to do anything with it, so we stand there like we're playing twister in a gender bent dorm room as he pounds on my bucket. I should have stayed home, man, seriously. All I get to take from here is a broken nose and a broken spirit, and truth be told, I could have done without either. His elbow finds my temple and for a second the Gods show up again, but I shoo those lazy bitches away and remind myself that it's just me and him and the story and the end. I should just dive, fuckers, seriously, lay down and pack it up: roll over, for biscuits.
Black and Tan starts to step to my corner, "Your fighter's not defending himself!" he says. "I'm gonna have to stop it!" He turns to me then, "Get your hands up, Zach, or it's over. Zach, Zach!"
One time in Osaka, I don't know, ten years ago maybe, I watched Black and Tan dismantle this big Shorin Ryu fighter in a textbook overmatch. We were there representing the Olympic Wu Shu team, Chan's team, and we took a lot of guff from the Japanese fighters there, being as how we were Chinese stylists, that shit never mixed well. Now just for the record, and I know you savage bastards keep count on this kinda thing; I went home with two golds from that trip; so back off me.
Anyhow, Black and Tan was in the ring doing Lama Pai on this big fleshy bitch and he can't miss, you know? It was just one of those days when he was fucking on it, every move on fire. The guy in the ring with him never knew what happened as Black and Tan handed him his ass and stepped down without a mark on him.
Black and Tan lost that fight to points. The judges were all Japanese, and wouldn't score him. He quit fighting altogether later that year. I guess sometimes you get a Jap ref.
"C'mon, you little faggot bitch," Maldanado lilts into my ear, "gimme something," and he lifts me off my feet and I feel the quick rush of air past my ears and then the mat slams the wind out of me. I monkey hook his knee backward just long enough to scramble away before he drops and am still bent over getting to my feet when his foot finds my nose and fuck me if that doesn't snap me right up to standing. Maldanado doesn't even have his hands up anymore. He walks over to me like he's stepping up to pay for a round of cocktails and puts one hand under my chin to lift my head. As my eyes pop up, I actually see him grinning as he sends a thunderous right hand into the side of my attic, and a white blur covers my eyes.
Why is sorrow the measure of love?
Like what are we thinking that we judge the worth of a relationship by how wrecked we are when it's over; unable the whole fucking time to simply understand that we're coming apart at the seams by how savagely, ferociously in love we are?
I remember her frustration more than anything, I guess: the cruelty and casualties of the barbarous words that got so callously strewn about when she was too angry to realize that leaving me was the best thing she could ever do for herself.
And no matter what you do, regardless of how monumentally you fuck up, her sorrow serves as a perfect reminder of the immensity of her love: and after a while, you don't have any choice but to believe her when she says it.
It's the Lady or the Tiger man, does she love you so much that she sends you to be eaten?
Now I'm not even sure if I'm standing up at this point, seriously trust me when I tell you; but check me out as Maldanado's arms wrap around me in a vindictive embrace, his lips pressed to my ear, "Zach the undefeated, Zach the unbeatable. I'm dancing on your grave, pussy. I'm fucking the corpse of your lame ass career. You were always a punk."
I wish he'd keep talking 'cause I get to rest as he waxes. But words were never really his thing and I aint kidding when I say it. He's locked both my arms to his waist and he cross elbows my cheek bone into a crunchy mush. I stumble back and am relieved to learn that at least I'm vertical. I think really hard about raising my hands, but c'mon; it looks like it's gonna be the Tiger after all.
I tuck one shoulder and try to slip but he's not even hitting me, he shoves me back, waiting for me to lose my balance and topple the fuck over; which I do with alarming artlessness. He struts over to me and stops halfway to throw his hands in the air in a fervent gesture of victory: a rockstar brazenly accepting the approbation of a concert full of overpriced ticket holders, before dropping onto my back and with his knee, shattering two of my ribs.
I roll to the other side and blink a quick look to JD; his jaw is sorta slack and he's rubbing his forehead. He looks like he might yell something to me, and then changes his mind and safely tucks in behind the security of averted eyes and silence. Not much to say anyway, I guess.
Maldanado spiders over me and gets in both hooks, moving my limbs quick and easy like a window dresser changing clothes on a store display mannequin. He's settling for the choke, I figure, and I begin the slow process of wondering what tomorrow is gonna feel like from this perspective. How will the world appear through defeated eyes, I wonder, I've never looked through them; a whole different kind of loser.
The bell startles me loud and clear, like the morning alarm waking me from a tangle of long white limbs, long white imagined limbs more like; and Maldanado wisps away from me like a troll in sunlight. The Gods are toying with me I think, drawing this out in epic splendor: the Lady or the Tiger, man; the tale that never ends.
I slowly stand up and try to pretend that I'm okay. I stand almost erect, and limp only vaguely, and I only miss the stool by a few inches, so little in fact that Taro the Hunchback deftly slides it under me so you'd hardly notice. JD has had a change of heart and as Taro checks my face, JD goes to work on my soul. "Who the fuck are you?" he demands as he climbs onto the mat. "Are you Bickerstaff?"
I look over at Maldanado, ebullient now, trying not to grin so as to ruin his facade of warriorhood. "Are you the guy who crushed Ross at the first Worlds in Greenwich?!" JD shouts into me. "Didn't I personally watch you kick the living shit of Sandman Zuniga on a fucking dare at the Palace?!" He's frothing now, spitting words at me so fucking fast that I feel like I'm in traffic.
Taro the Hunchback is poking at the rutabaga over my eyes, he prods it, lifts it, shakes his head at JD. JD scoffs. "Great! Just great, you lunkfuck meatmonkey. You've got a fucking garment bag growing over your ugly puss and that blockhead jacktard fuck over there doesn't have a scratch on him. Aren't you Bickerstaff?"
I can't look at him. He's right, you know. I used to be Bickerstaff. I have a wallet full of old credit card slips that she signed. I used to be Bickerstaff.
I used to be a lot of things.
Maldanado's trainer is gesturing and speaking slowly, almost whispering. His corner is moving glacial, syrupy thick in the lethargy of victory. This fight is over to them, now it's all just mopping up. "Are you gonna cut it or what?" I say to Taro.
"Of course he's gonna fucking cut it, Twink, what do we bring him for, the madcap wit?" JD steps away from me, like he wants to pace but doesn't have the legs for it. "Didn't you once do a speed break on a clay tile at the Beijing Dim Mak showcase under Chan? No one has done that since, you know, you mincing ballerina." Taro swabs my head, and the lights catch for a moment on the scalpel as he slides it out of its pornographic rubber sheath. "Remember that bottle you kicked off of the supermodel's head at fashion week? I still have that."
The crowd is wondering now, trying to write this chapter for us. They're making side bets: knock-out or choke, submission or towel? They're here to watch the changing of the guard, I guess; to sit their new king squarely on the wobbly, wobbly throne of victory; let's watch how long he can balance, man, how long it takes him to topple over, back down into my world. "You knocked out Ephtali Boke in the first round, man, they still have your girlie little gloves hanging in the lobby of the Bomber Club in Munich to this fucking day."
Taro leans in close, the ring doctor is behind him now, watching over Taro's shoulder; waiting to decide if this fight will continue. Taro sighs, "Well," he says in his fucked up Engrish, "there goes your modeling career," and he slides the blade in, right along the inside arch of my eyebrow on the distal side.
Now maybe it's the fatigue, 'cause I'm being serious when I say that I am fucking fatigued, or maybe it's the look of surprise on JD's face. "Did Taro just make a joke?" he says. It could be the gore, the slushy gush of puss and blood that comes spilling down the outside of my face as Taro squashes the lump down to press out the goo. It might be his accent, the fact that he really said "modering caweah" and that's pretty funny, I guess. But ultimately, I blame JD.
He laughs first.
It starts slowly for me and let's be honest: it's just a tickle, like a candle lamp lit modest and unassuming in a long, dark vast.
And then my shoulders start to shake, and my lungs start to spasm; and you're not mistaking it kid, I start to really, really laugh. And then I'm guffawing, I mean really going at it. I'm holding my side cause my ribs are still in jagged pieces but the laughter keeps retching up out of me like too much tequila. JD squats down, one hand on the mat, he rolls his head forward and yalps out mad peals of laughter, hacking and gasping, drooling; lost in frenzied cackles. "Modering caweah!" he says though sobs, "holy fuck, Taro!"
And Taro is grinning, he's squeezing my head from front and back, ironing my bean. I look over at Maldanado's corner, staring and silent, they watch us like dignitaries at the zoo, scowling down their noses at the antics in the monkey cage as we howl and stomp our feet, wave our hands and clutch at each other in childish glee.
And as I laugh, the world falls away, the orange peel layers of history get pulled off by a celestial hand of giggles. I feel lighter somehow, tighter and well-oiled; I want to dance to this strange music, the unfamiliar rhythm of my own laughter, alien and odd. And I see her again, not wasted and dying, but strong and smiling, making me laugh, the memory I've longed for, the symbol of all the years.
My head hurts, my ribs kill, my belly gets taught and sore with rhythmic gasps, and Taro nods, his lazy grin turning into something else altogether; something not a grin, not a scowl: satisfied somehow, simple and complete. Yeah, complete.
With effort, JD pulls himself together. He shakes his head, rubs his eyes. "Jesus, Taro, why you gotta make me look like a jackass?" as Taro removes the ice, and towels me off. JD checks the clock, and then looks at me hard. "Hey," he says seriously. "Are you Bickerstaff?"
And as I'm struggling to figure out what that means, it occurs to me that I've solved it. I've solved the equation of the Lady or the Tiger. It's finally resolved itself into a subtle shroud of warm fragrance around my battered head. I guess I just didn't think that both could ever happen, that the universe would play it that way: that I could be loved and left at the same time: the Lady AND the Tiger; and that's the answer my brothers and trust me when I say it. I smooth off the fragments of the remaining chuckles, and cough out my completion.
"Are you Bickerstaff?" he says to me again.
I stand up and push my gloves together, settling them. "Nope," I tell him.
"I'm worse."
And the bell goes clang.
Now I'd like to say, my brothers, that I shoot out of our corner like a wildcat, that I explode into the ring in a fury of demonic fire, but you and I both know that I've got two cracked pins and a wet bag of slush on top of my neck; my days of exploding are long past. Instead, I sorta gimp into the ring, my right arm tucked tight to compress my rattling lung, my head turned flirtatiously away to shield the incision. With the gore running down my face in great black mud, I feel like an extra in a bad zombie film, the guy who's been too long dead to move too quick.
But don't be fooled, kids, cause inside there's laughter, stoked and smouldering; Maldanado was fooled, and I don't want to think of you in such poor terms.
He struts into the ring, his pipes hanging loose by his sides, and steps straight up to me with a long outside right that makes a swoosh as it misses, and follows with a lazy four beat combo that would embarrass a kangaroo. I think about a jab, I even go so far as to contemplate a big right hand, but anytime my elbows move away from my waist, my ribs catch on fire and I can feel the blood inside gurgling into my lung. Pretty soon, I'll start coughing and then this is really over.
So I kick that big vascular bucket in his chin, and pek his front knee. He slams on his back like a ton of wet stone but is standing again so fast that I almost don't land my knee on his thigh. He crumples for a breath which makes him angry enough to start throwing his hands around again, but he never even sees the spin back which sinks under his rib cage like I'm drilling for oil.
And as the red mist descends, I wrap both my arms around myself in a therapeutic embrace and squeeze my bones into a semblance of workability. It's gonna have to be all feet up in here, 'cause everything above my waist is ganked, so I squeeze my torso together and hope that the bubbling stays deep. This hug will have to do for now; I got some kicks to throw.
Maldanado is a little shaken now, he's being more careful. He dances a little, pulls his hands up, almost gets an elbow on the fat shin that I lay across his temple, but not quite. As he stumbles left, I'm already there, giggling inside as I caai toi his overfed ass under his elbows and slam the door on his back thigh. The burbling in my chest is starting to get raspy and I can taste the metal in my mouth, an acrid clock reminding me that time is almost up; so I go shin to shin with him and when he cringes, throw a mad chun right up under his yap that puts him right on his back. I know I shouldn't drop an axe on his head, but restraint was never my thing, and as I do his face explodes across the mat in a glorious rupture.
I watch the twisting faces calling out, shaking their hands and squealing and yawping at this spectacle like they've done for a thousand years, and a thousand more will pass and lovers will mourn in exactly the same way. There is a hole in my heart and it's shaped like the Girl, who could ever fit it? Why would I want them to?
I pause for a moment to marvel at my own arrogance, as if somehow I had the right, had the power, to choose the way she would die. The story chooses these things, my brothers, not us. Turns out, the story had it in for Maldanado the whole damn time.
He drags his ass vertical and tries to wipe the blood from his eyes like a punk; never realizing that the blood makes you see better, puts it all in perspective. That goopy red lens is the elixir of dreams, man, fixing your astigmatism way better than any contacts ever could. He gets his hands up and weaves at me, jabs low and then high, trying to throw my timing. His big right hand is like a hope, a tarnished coin thrown down an indifferent wishing well. I watch it roll past and then tap the outside of his temple with my heal so cleanly that it almost looks gentle, and Maldanado crumples like cheap glassware. I don't even follow him, just watch him dissolve.
And there I am; panting now, wheezing maybe even, standing in the center of this pentacle, summoned here with Maldanado by the crowd of magicians; and I see the fear on their faces, terror that maybe one of us will break out; that their incantations might fail and we demons may walk out of this ring to feast on their parts. Their screams and cheers bind me, hold me within the ropes of this spell, and for a moment I feel the familiar, what is it, gratitude?
Maldanado is on his knees in the corner, where his face once was is a peeled away scab. His corner bellows at him and he shakes his head, paws at his eyes, leans and then rolls onto a hip. I wonder if he knows where he is.
It takes a second before I hear JD's voice, he's shouting at Black and Tan who stands stunned in the center of the ring, blinking and shaking his head. JD keeps yelling, "Call it, Black and Tan! Call it, you dirty, grafting fuck!" But Black and Tan doesn't call it. He looks at me, then at Maldanado, then back to me, then at JD. "Call it! Zach beat him! Call it!"
Black and Tan goes over to Maldanado and does a half hearted eye check. But Maldanado won't stand up, keeps shaking his head, digging at his eyes. His corner shrieks bloody wails at him, but he won't stand up. Black and Tan says, "C'mon, Vic. You okay? I'm gonna have to get the doctor, Vic, you okay? Get your hands up or I'm gonna have to stop it... Vic? Get your hands up."
The crowd knows that he's not okay. Their chorus of guttural cries confirm that they know it. They cry out their confusion and dismay, and the dyn of it keeps me on my feet. "Call it, Black and Tan!" JD calls out again and again, never realizing that, sometimes you get a Jap ref, or one that has been merely paid off.
I walk a slow circle, holding my guts together in a maudlin display of self congratulation. I see all their faces, the rabid, foaming fans, the shuddering girlfriends, the senators and pimps and wannabes and rednecks; the Crowd. I look at Maldanado's corner, they're almost pleading with him now to get up, to try, to even look at Black and Tan, or for fuck's sake, to quit shaking his head. I turn to my corner and see JD, quiet now, resigned, pleased somehow and satisfied. He nods imperceptibly and rocks back on his heels, sighs; Taro the Hunchback a round shadow behind him.
"Get your hands up, Vic. Vic... You gotta get your hands up or I'm gonna have to call it. Vic? Vic?"
It's time to leave the easy part behind, man, this melodrama of paltry players. It's time to grow up past the black and white schemes of facile conquests and swaggering trivialities. It's a complex fucking world my brothers, and don't I fucking know it. And as I bend my legs and crouch down on one knee, the audience pauses, their sucked breath a vacuum of perception.
Why is consequence the measure of courage?
Why is my virtue measured in slain beasts or bedded women? Can't my courage come in smaller bits; in days survived and meals eaten without sobbing? Isn't the monstrous ache of the ticking minutes enough to prove my own warriorhood against? I've no more dragons to best, no more spectral armies to tear asunder, or jackass tough guys to school. The great medals of my courage will from here on out come in the form of getting out of bed in the morning and facing an uncertain day.
As I crouch there, I look up once more at JD. Give me a reason not to, my face says to him, and he shrugs his approval. Taro the Hunchback has turned now and makes his way to the steps, stopping under the red glow of the Exit sign to glance back at me over his shoulder, and then disappear down the dark corridor. Maldanado's corner shrieks, he shakes his head, Black and Tan stands befuddled, lost.
And as I lower my hand, I shrug in the face of this mighty new challenge, the life that approaches. My face feels strange, unfamiliar and taught, like a morning stretch. I tap the mat once, and realize that the strangeness is my smile, not a monstrous simper or arrogant grin, just the beginning impulse, the seed of a smile, lazy in it's honesty.
It's just three more taps, man, three wishes, three stooges, three wisemen, to end this chapter, this story; end it the right way, the way I want to. And the first one came so easy, the last three are a piece of cake.
User Reviews
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:48:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ahhh, Bickerstaff.
::weeeeeeps for loss of Bickerstaff::
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:20:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The real Bickerstaff that is, mind. Not that hack Jonathan Swift.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:15:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well great. Now I've got to re-read the entire series before I can go home again.
Does Bickerstaff have any published stuff? I could then give up my job and roam the streets of Britian telling people how awesome he is, eating out of rubbish bins and being deliriously happy forever.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:00:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2008-01-21 00:27:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bickerstaff:
You arrived on the uber scene during one of my hiatuses, I never read your work before this weekend.
I have since read every single post.
Gritty and real...and six maybe seven kinds of awesome.
Dig your style man.
B
Submitted by Creepy_guy (user info) at 2007-12-01 18:09:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck The Uniter
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-12-01 17:13:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
christ
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2007-12-01 16:57:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-09-14 23:39:02 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:42:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:34:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE THINK YOU'RE A FUCK. YOU HAVE GIVEN ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT A +2 AND THEN YOU DO THIS CUTE LITTLE BULLSHIT HERE JUST TO SHOW YOUR ASS.
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Yep, proves you're a cunt. You are wrong. Plain and simple. Your opinion is wrong. You american gobshite.
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-12-01 09:49:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
still badass.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-10-11 02:06:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-11 00:51:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
beautifully written
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2007-10-11 00:30:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just read this again.
One of my teachers just told my class the other day that the greatest insult a reader can pay a writer isnt to tear his shit to shreds, but to just say it was good. It's better, she said, to know people have invested time and effort in analyzing your piece even if they rip it the fuck apart than to just read it and give some half assed review like, I really liked this, good job.
I thought of Bickerstaff when she said that. I'm left so literally speechless when I read this stuff that I sometimes have a hard time bringing myself to rate it at all. It's almost not worth it. Like this writing is on such a plane that I wont ever reach, so far beyond my critical capabilities that I cant do anything but sit back and fucking reflect. I have nothing to offer in terms of a response except that this story means more to me than almost anything else I have ever read. I hope that's enough to not be insulting.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-09-14 18:39:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:42:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:34:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE THINK YOU'RE A FUCK. YOU HAVE GIVEN ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT A +2 AND THEN YOU DO THIS CUTE LITTLE BULLSHIT HERE JUST TO SHOW YOUR ASS.
Submitted by SiskelandFatboy (user info) at 2007-09-14 18:05:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
When I read something like this and think back at some of the stuff that I have given +2s, I feel embarrassed.
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-07-22 19:34:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
holy fucking christ i've been waiting for this for ages.
dude, i'll always remember your stories and i've loved reading them.
thanks for finishing it.
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2007-07-18 22:22:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
believable.
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2007-07-18 22:22:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
fuckin'
Submitted by Snare (user info) at 2007-07-18 22:21:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Un
Submitted by gina (user info) at 2007-07-18 21:09:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I still want to know what happens next. Circe says that she can let him go. I don't know if I can. Hmmm, no I can, I just don't want to.
Submitted by Charlilot (user info) at 2007-07-15 20:24:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Now I don't want to do any work.
And I need a cigarette.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2007-07-14 06:26:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good gravy. What more could you want than to affect people like this:
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2007-07-10 08:44:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
He...gave up? He fucking gave up?!?! All that - the girl, the lives, the sorrow - and he fucking hands the story to Maldonado? I can't even think of the words to describe how unworthy Maldonado is. He's a cocky cheating coward and he can never...
This story has come to mean so much to me. I didn't even realize how powerful a hold it has on my heart. Nothing I've ever read here has affected my emotions to the point that I've actually felt a connection to the hero, to the story. Beautiful, ugly, raw, passionate, and just downright fucking good. Thank you.
?
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2007-07-14 05:44:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't want to read this. I didn't want it to end.
I really don't have the words my friend, except, thank you.
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2007-07-12 18:31:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:42:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:34:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-07-11 01:28:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm going to miss him. I liked him an awful lot. If you'd ended this with glory, I would have been very upset with you. Thanks for letting him finish it, and move on to being someone else. If you'd left him as the undefeated hero, the fighter, the warrior, I never would have been able to let him go. This is better.
That's not to say I didn't sit here, spellbound, for three re-reads and then cry like a bitch.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2007-07-10 23:49:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What is there to say? Would he even care?
This 'Bickerstaff' seems like maybe he wouldn't. But then why post?
To finish, perhaps? To let us all in on the owed end? To keep his promise?
To satisfy his ego?
It's something of a prophecy, this series -- foretold by wiser ones than you or I.
And like diligent little Christians, we all made sure we had popcorn and empty bladders and good seats.
But the end is never as good as the beginning (or the middle for that matter) -- with all their inherent anticipation. The end is a sad unraveling, and the mysteries and maybe the magic escapes at the utterance of those final words.
Could that be why it took so long to post this?
I could see it a troubling task, letting this go, and at some points I felt like the story were aware of itself and its looming end, and that it had a chuckle about it, and let the reader in on it too.
Good stuff, as always.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-07-10 22:47:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Is your source on this reliable?
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-07-10 22:43:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Uber was never in front of the shark, that shark sat back when uber was created in 1999 and said "fuck this noise, I'm gonna go bang the shit out of some dolphin bitches".
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-07-10 22:02:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
22 reviews. Uber has jumped the shark.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2007-07-10 20:15:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
He drags his ass vertical and tries to wipe the blood from his eyes like a punk; never realizing that the blood makes you see better, puts it all in perspective. That goopy red lens is the elixir of dreams, man, fixing your astigmatism way better than any contacts ever could.
Dude.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2007-07-10 19:26:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i will come back and read this in two minutes. i am uncomfortable and must properly adjust my britches for this epic event.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-07-10 17:58:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-07-10 02:02:27 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Issac Bickerstaff is to Ubersite what Chuck Norris is to the internet. Only, you know, with more substance and bigger hands.
----------
NOT TO MENTION THE MOTHER OF ALL ROUND-HOUSE KICKS
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-07-10 17:43:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Haven't read it yet.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-07-10 13:48:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2007-07-10 13:24:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking brilliant. Really really good. I am most pleased.
Submitted by ih8u2man (user info) at 2007-07-10 12:43:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this.
But you already knew that.
Because of the +2.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2007-07-10 12:26:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hell fuckin yeah
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2007-07-10 10:57:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
But don't be fooled, kids, cause inside there's laughter, stoked and smouldering.
That is a clean line, and (to me) the most fitting description of the whole character, the whole series.
I really liked the ending. I like that he never lost even when he lost. I'll miss these, and probably read them from time to time.
Submitted by interloper (user info) at 2007-07-10 10:37:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was beginning to think there wasn't going to be a third part.
This ended the way it should have.
Submitted by EmoJean (user info) at 2007-07-10 10:04:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2007-07-10 09:59:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-07-10 09:53:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
already read it yesterday
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2007-07-10 09:19:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yay. I mean not yay, but you know. Yay.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-07-10 09:09:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't have the words.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-07-10 08:56:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2007-07-10 08:44:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
He...gave up? He fucking gave up?!?! All that - the girl, the lives, the sorrow - and he fucking hands the story to Maldonado? I can't even think of the words to describe how unworthy Maldonado is. He's a cocky cheating coward and he can never...
This story has come to mean so much to me. I didn't even realize how powerful a hold it has on my heart. Nothing I've ever read here has affected my emotions to the point that I've actually felt a connection to the hero, to the story. Beautiful, ugly, raw, passionate, and just downright fucking good. Thank you.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-07-10 05:02:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Issac Bickerstaff is to Ubersite what Chuck Norris is to the internet. Only, you know, with more substance and bigger hands.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-07-10 04:11:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yep you are right, it is very good, im just Lazy and have to print things like this off to read.
Otherwise I go cross eyed.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-07-10 04:09:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's only 5000 words or so. I mean, I know that's about 500 times longer than a regular uber post, but I'd hardly say "going on forever."
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-07-10 04:01:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Holy going on forever batman.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-07-10 04:00:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2