Independence Day

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February 6th, 2020

Seattle, Washington

Off Camera

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The bar is hundreds of conversations told in loud voices, all of them competing with the rock music that dominates the atmosphere. The crowd is young, mostly students from a nearby university for the most part.  Kimberly winds her way through the warm bodies to find a spot at the bar where she sits down on a soft red cushioned stool.  The Woman Scorned flags down the bartender, a brown haired woman who slowly approaches…

“What do you want to drink?” The bartender asks. Kimberly ponders the question for a moment before finally shrugging her shoulders.

“Uh, just surprise me.”

“Repeat that, miss?”

“I’ll take anything.” Kimberly says pointedly, with more emphasis this time.  The bartender sighs as she turns to prepare a drink for her strange new patron. Kimberly rests her hand on the rough paintwork that coats the door and push. Rough wooden splinters cut into my palm; shards of black paint crumble to the floor. The hinges squeal as though they are a warning, but their plea is silenced by a wall of noise. Laughter overpowers the jukebox. Conversations swirl in a dirty cloud of smoke, the stagnant stench of cigarettes hides within the collaboration of mephitic odours. A sharp smell of drink wafts towards the new SCW United States Champion, like black plumes bellowing from the windows of a burning house. There’s even a hint of sick tainting the fragrance of the room.

As she waits for her drink, The Woman Scorned turns around on her barstool to get a better look at the people behind her.  This bar is full of people; a crowd.  The nameless, as it were.  The crowd moved like a multi-headed beast that shared only one brain. Their thoughts were in lock-step as much as their feet. Hardly a person in the crowd had ever known a person who had been murdered, almost no-one had known someone to die at the hands of a terrorist and not a single person knew anyone who had died of the new and much feared disease that flooded the media. They all knew someone who had healthcare needs not being met, they all knew kids who weren't fed right and went to a bad school.

“Your drink…” The voice of the bartender startles Kimberly back to reality.  She turns to find the brown haired woman handing the alcoholic beverage over to Kim.  She quickly takes a sip of her drink before motioning to the crowd of people.

“Do you ever get to know any of them?” Williams asks the bartender.

“Excuse me?”

“Those people out there.” Kimberly points to the people, some sitting at tables and others dancing on the floor to the music, still others playing pool at the pool tables. “Do you ever get to know them?  Do they tell you their stories?”

“Oh, well of course.” The bartender nods her head. “It comes with the job, I suppose.”

“It is a massive responsibility though, don’t ya think?”

The bartender furrows her brow in confusion as she thinks over what The Woman Scorned just suggested.  Finally the brown haired bartender shakes her head.

“Not really.  I just serve drinks.”

“You just drinks?” Kimberly chuckles.  She takes another sip of her beverage before setting it down.  “You see that guy right there…”

Kimberly points to a man on the dance floor.  He is sporting a blonde mullet and is wearing torn denim jeans, brown work boots, and a white plain t-shirt.  The bartender stares at him for a moment and then nods her head. “Yes…”

“His wife just kicked him out of the house.  He loved her, truly did love her, but she didn’t love him as much and has now kicked him out.  She can do that because she is the sole owner of the property, his name was never on the deed.  Shortly after being kicked out of his own home he learned the real reason why she kicked him out…” Williams turns and looks back at the bartender, gazing quizzically at her almost as if she is awaiting an answer.  The bartender quickly picks up on this and sighs.

“His wife was having an affair.”

“That’s right.  She found someone else that she loved more.  Or would that be lust?  See, love and lust are two completely different things.  He loves her but she did not love him.  She only lusted after him because he was good in bed.  Now she has moved on to a different man, someone who is not only good in bed but also is loaded with wealth and was looking for a nice little trophy girl to hang off his arm so he can impress his buddies.  She is lusting after this new rich guy but she too will be dumped and left out in the cold when he gets bored with her, the same way she dumped that poor shmuck dancing out there, and then maybe she’ll show up at this bar to drink her sorrows away, the same way this gentleman is here, dancing away, trying to enjoy himself.  Trying to forget his troubles.”

Williams points to a woman at the far end of the bar.  She is a strawberry blonde with her head bowed, staring deep into a glass of an alcoholic beverage. “Her name is Elsa....no, not THAT Elsa, by the way…”

“I didn’t think so.” The bartender remarks sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway, Elsa over there attempted suicide earlier today.  Failed miserably.  Took it as a sign that maybe there is something left for her here on this earth, maybe her life has some sort of meaning.  She’s still quite depressed though, because she cannot for the life of her think of what that purpose is.  That’s why she is here, not necessarily drinking her sorrows away like Ralph earlier...his name was Ralph, by the way...but just to try and gain some clarity.”

“How the hell do you know all of this?” The bartender demands angrily. Kimberly smirks knowingly.

“Would you believe that I’m psychic?”

“No.”

“Awww, crap.  You’re not as dumb as you look.” Kimberly says with a wink. “Truth is, people open to me, kinda like they open up to you, because you knew both of their stories already, am I right?”

The bartender is growing more and more frustrated with this conversation and it shows as she sighs and quickly nods her head. “Yes, yes, they spoke with me and told me about their problems.  Now what is your point?”

“My point is that they shared their innermost secrets and problems with you.  The last you could have done was help them out, offer some sort of advice, or some words of encouragement even, but did you do any of that?”

“It isn’t my job to be a counselor.  My job is to serve drinks.”

“Therein lies the problem with society!” Kimberly exclaims as she reaches across the bar and snatches the bartender by her shirt collar. “To you we are all just a crowd of ATM machines ready to shoot money in your direction.  But if you bother to try and pay attention to anyone other than yourself you begin to realize that there is more to them than that!  They have lives!  They have meaning and purpose!”

“I’m just a bartender…” the brown haired woman says with some fear in  her eyes as she stares into Kimberly’s hate filled gaze.  Williams just smirks before releasing her grip.

“That’s right, you are a bartender.  So go and get another of whatever the hell this crap is that you made me.  I’m about to have a visitor.”

Kimberly relaxes for a moment as she watches the bartender scurry away to fill the latest order. It wasn’t long ago that she won the SCW United States Championship from Bree Lancaster at Day of Infamy and last night on Breakdown from Portland she learned that she will defend her newly won championship in a rematch against Bree.  Tonight, however, SCW is here in Seattle for a House Show.  Kimberly isn’t too excited or in a hurry to get to the event.  The new United States Champion instead is concerned with observing and learning.

“You’re gonna get yourself into trouble, y’know?” Williams hears the voice and recognizes it immediately.  The Woman Scorned turns in time to see the familiar blonde headed figure of Julianne Buchanan approaching the bar.  Julianne and Kimberly met for the first time at The Inner Peace Enlightenment Retreat.  Kim’s identical twin Marie Jones was a member of this organization at the time, as was Julianne, but Kim had her own bad feelings about the group.  So in typical Kim fashion she infiltrated the group by pretending to be Marie.

Never once did Kimberly imagine that she would find herself with Julianne.  The beautiful blonde seemed obsessed with Marie, not Kim.  But Marie was not interested in Julianne’s overtures, plus the two had some things in common; rejection from their own families.  They also want to find out where they fit in with society.  Thus being together makes sense to Kimberly.  Together they can find the answers to each other’s questions.

“Me?  Trouble?  Nah…” Kimberly’s voice trails off as she picks up her glass and drinks some more “...trust me, I’ve experienced trouble, this isn’t it.”

“Aren’t you afraid the bartender might call security?  Or the police?” Julianne asks, sounding somewhat concerned as she sits down on a stool next to Kimberly, who just simply shakes her head.

“She won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been to bars, dives, many worse than this dump.  I’ve witnessed many things in places like this.  I watched people get cut and people cut themselves.  I watched brawls and wars break out in places like this.  What happened here tonight was calm all things considered.  She won’t risk stirring the shit pot just because I upset her.”

Julianne is nowhere as confident as Kimberly.  In fact, she is stunned at how much confidence seems to exude from her every pore.  Julianne wishes she could have just half of the confidence that Williams has.  Just then the bartender interrupts her thoughts as she arrives with a drink for Julianne, sliding it over to her.  Kimberly then shoves some cash across the counter to the bartender and winks at her.

“Keep the change, consider it an apology for my behavior.” The bartender sighs as she takes the money and walks away.  Kimberly turns to face Julianne. “See?  As long as she gets paid she’s satisfied.  No harm and no foul.”

“I wish I was as confident as you.” Julianne remarks. She takes a sip of her drink.

“And maybe that’s the key for both of us.”

“What’s that?”

“Confidence!” Kimberly declares enthusiastically. “We both need the confidence to be proud of who we are!”

“Maybe I need that but you already have that confidence.”

“I clearly have you fooled as well.” Kimberly says with a light hearted laugh before taking another sip of her alcoholic beverage.  Julianne furrows her brow in confusion.

“Fooled?  What are you talking about?  You are very confident.  You won the United States Championship at Day of Infamy.  You marched in there and…”

“...and I beat Bree Lancaster for the SCW United States Championship.  But you know what was the best part of beating Bree?  It was the fact that I out-wrestled her.  No stabby, no stapling, none of the classic “Crazy Kim” tactics.  Classic wrestling won me that title.  That’s the thing I liked most about that win because it proved to everyone that there was more to me than Crazy Kim...which is all an act, as you should know by now…”

Julianne nods her head.  Very few have gotten to know Kimberly well enough to figure out that the “Crazy Kim” stuff is all an act.  In fact, up until recently only Marie Jones knew that it was all an act.  Even her own mother was out of the loop.  Having spent some time on the road with Kimberly, Julianne now is in on that secret as well.

“Why do you let people think you’re crazy?” Julianne asks curiously.

“That ties into the other thing I liked about winning the championship at Day of Infamy.  The cheers that I heard after I pinned little miss priss...did you hear those cheers?” Julianne quickly nods her head. “Well Julianne, those cheers were for me.  Mostly...I mean, there were some who were cheering just for the fact that Bree lost and didn’t really care who took the title away from her...but the majority were genuinely happy for me.  And that made me feel good.  The fans accepted me, Julianne and that’s part of what I’ve been searching for...acceptance.”

Julianne pauses as she considers her friend’s words.  Acceptance is what brought these two together.  They both want to be accepted, and for Julianne the reason why she doesn’t feel accepted is obvious.  She was born into a traditional conservative family and she herself is homosexual.  Kimberly though still remains a mystery for the blonde.

“Why doesn’t your family accept you, Kim?”

“Loaded question and that goes back a long way, all the way to my birth.  My mother was a nun in the Catholic Church when she gave birth to twin girls.  A woman named Emma used manipulation and fear to convince her to hide the pregnancy and then give up the twins.  Emma would end up with me.  She was a sociopath, Julianne, and just to illustrate how much of a sociopath she was she spent the first eighteen years of my life raising me to hate my own biological family.  She also spent the first eighteen years of my life training me to be a warrior, an assassin.  I never had a childhood, Julianne.  I never got to determine what I wanted to do because growing up I knew I had to murder my own family and that was what I tried to do.  And that is what put me in a psychiatric ward.”

Julianne stares in complete shock at Kimberly’s story. “Kim, I...I had no idea…”

“Marie was the only one who took a chance on me.  She visited me in the psychiatric ward and we eventually became friends.  She eventually accepted me as her sister even if I was a little crazy due to Emma’s influence.  Marie’s influence would overtake Emma’s influence as she convinced me to give the treatment from the psychiatric ward a chance.  Had it not been for Marie I would still be locked up in the loony bin to this day.  Marie gave me a chance but the rest of my family, even my own mother, they still would not trust me.  It took a long time before I earned my family’s trust.  But everyone else still looked at me as a loose cannon.  Oh but Day of Infamy…”

Julianne watches as Kimberly’s voice trails off.  A smile forms upon her face “...Day of Infamy was great because that felt like true acceptance.  And while it felt real, and I do think it is real, I still want to be sure that this is it, that the people do accept me now for who I am and it isn’t just all because I ended the reign of an insufferable little worm.” Kimberly then points a finger at Julianne.

“But what about you?  Have you tried to reach out to your family yet?”

“Being on the road with you makes seeing my family difficult.”

“Excuses.” Kimberly remarks, shaking her head. “I mean, you could pick up the phone and call them.  Have you at least spoke to your brother?  What is his name again?”

“Brandon.”

“Yeah, that’s it.  Brandon.  He seemed to accept you but have you spoken to him?”

“I call him from time to time.” Julianne answers with a nod of her head.

“Then what’s keeping you from talking to your mom and dad?”

“It isn’t as simple as that.  It may be simple for you but for me it is very hard.  Mom and dad were my whole life but when they found out that I was gay they...they…”

“I know.” Kimberly reaches out and grasps Julianne’s hand. “But that was a long time ago.  You should give them a chance, just like Marie gave me a chance, and just like how I gave my family a chance.  That’s the only way you can forgive and move on.”

“It’s just frightening, Kim.  You are confident but me...I’m not…”

“I know it’s frightening.  But I’ll be there with you if you need me.”

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On Camera

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The camera begins to roll as we open in front of an American flag backdrop.  The chorus to Martina McBride’s “Independence Day” is heard starting up as Kimberly Williams marches into the shot from stage left.  The Woman Scorned is wearing a black ankle length skirt, black leather boots underneath, and a long sleeve red sweater.  Her long red hair hangs unrestrained to shoulder length.  She has her newly won SCW United States Championship title belt wrapped around her waist.  As the chorus to “Independence Day” starts up, Kimberly begins to sing it herself…

“Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing!  Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning!  Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong!  Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay!  It's Independence Day!”

Kimberly stops in the center of the shot and turns to face the camera.  She uses her hand and slides it across her throat, signaling for the music to be cut and sure enough, “Independence Day” suddenly stops playing.

“Yes, it is independence day.  It is independence day because I ended Breemerica.  I marched into Day of Infamy and I did exactly what I knew what I could do but what no one else in that arena...especially not Little Miss Priss...thought I could do.  I wrestled.  I straight up wrestled.  No stabbing, no stapling, no blood, and gore, no maiming.  I just straight up wrestled.”  She pats the championship belt around her waist.

“And I won.  That’s what makes this victory all that much sweeter, because I could have done all of that violent crap I spoke of earlier.  I could of maimed her and bloodied her.  I could have left her a pathetic quivering mass at my feet.  And I’m sure she thought that was what I was going to do, because everyone thinks that is what Kimberly Williams is all about…” a low bit of laughter escapes the champion’s lips.

“...but just when you think you have me figured out, I surprise you, and surprise!  It turns out that Kimberly Williams CAN wrestle after all!  And I think that’s part of why Bree is still so pissed off.  It isn’t just about losing the title and losing the bullshit Breemerica garbage.  She’s mad because I was smarter than her.  I knew she would prepare for a maniac so I did the exact opposite, because I can mat wrestle just as good as I can fight in a hardcore war.  And she fell right into my trap, allowing me to beat her.”

The Woman Scorned takes the championship belt off of her waist and then sets it over her right shoulder. “I think I will name him William Henry Harrison.  And I suppose this is where I am supposed to make some fanciful remarks about a new era, a new day dawning, blah, blah, blah.  Hell, I could even call this Kimerica because God know that self-centered plastic ass bitch shoved that lame ass fuck gimmick down everyone’s throats day in and day out, so why can’t I?”

The new champion pauses to let her words sink in.  Eventually she shakes her head. “I cannot and will not because unlike certain former US Champions who will remain nameless, I know that I am a faulty human being.  I know that I am far from perfect and that I am nowhere near the kind of role model and figurehead that this company needs.  Hell, do I even deserve to be in this position right now?  I know Bree-Fake-ia will argue I’m not but then again no one gives a shit about her opinions anyway.  I just know that Rachel Tatum Lee was supposed to have this title match but Bree took her out.  Out of cowardice, out of fear, she injured Rachel and took her title opportunity away from her.  I was lucky to get her spot in this match, I will admit that, and I hope what I did by taking this championship away from Bree in some way put a smile on her face.  Furthermore I hope to prove myself worthy of being in this spot as the champion.  I have a lot of black marks on my record, I’ve been a naughty girl in the past you know, and I would love to make up for some of my past.  And to be a fighting champion, to be a champion this company and its fans can be proud of, if that’s what it takes then I will take on anyone and everyone Sasha decides to place in front of me.”

Kimberly shrugs her shoulders. “And I guess that Sasha agreed with me because she started me off with one hell of a test.  Lucas Knight, a true legend...in the alcoholic beverage industry!  Seriously, the stuff you and Dave sell is AWESOME!  If I win can I have a few kegs of your stuff?  That’d be great because you are a hell of distiller!  Oh and I hear you’re kind of a good wrestler too, am I right?”

The SCW United States Champion winks. “Seriously though, you are an SCW legend and knowing that you have returned to action can only be a good thing for this great sport.  I already told the world that I am more than just a hardcore blood letting stabby stapling maniac.  I told the world that I can wrestle and Bree found that out the hard way first thing and she paid the price at Day of Infamy.  Now if there are any further doubters, if there are any other critics out there who think I am just a one trick pony, I look forward to proving them wrong by taking you to your physical limit, not with violence or brutality, but with pure and simple wrestling.  And I look forward to proving that I deserve this…” she holds up the SCW United States Championship title belt

“...and that winning this was no fluke, that I deserve to be right here where I am today.  I will have to do so at your expense, Lucas.  So yeah, welcome back, it is great to see you back, but the bad news for you is that now you face a woman on a mission, a woman hell bent on proving the entire world wrong.”

Kimberly chuckles lightly. “Happy Independence Day, Lucas!”

The scene fades.