'Men With Wings again because what better title is there'

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The Wingmen huddle around a campfire. In the middle of Wingmen’s. Extremely safe.



BONONI: You really think this is end?



JD DRAKE: I ain’t ready for no end. JD Drake ain’t endin’ anytime soon. He ain’t even started yet.



AVALON: Who’s JD Drake?



Avalon’s big bug eyes reveal his confusion.



BONONI: If this is end, I just like to say.



The hulking Bononi thinks about it.



BONONI: Well, nothing will change. For me. Aside from still needing to get clean teeth. And working in same company as dentist. Now I am less likely to have clean teeth.



JD DRAKE: The hell’s the deal with your teeth? You into teeth, Bononi?



AVALON: Gentlemen, I for one have no idea what you mean about ‘the end’. For that matter, there are no such things as endings in my vocabulary. No matter how extensive it is. Pretty Peter never ends. And he never finishes. He always leaves you waiting. Craving.



JD DRAKE: …You know. The end. They keep sayin’ it’s the end.



AVALON: Who says?



JD DRAKE: They do. They say it’s the end. I don’t know where they come from. Everyone just knows it’s comin’.



BONONI: Yes, you know. The rich men who buy the WLCW. Who buy all organizations. This is it for them.



JD DRAKE: Oh. Rich men? Nah, that ain’t who I hear.



AVALON: Who are you hearing? I don’t hear anyone. What are you saying?



JD DRAKE: Well, maybe hearin’ isn’t the right word. It’s just like a feelin’. Somethin’ you feel. Deep down in the decaying cavities of your soul.



BONONI: Or of your teeth.



JD DRAKE: Yeah. Also your teeth, you god damn freak.



AVALON: I don’t understand. How could this be the end? How can you be so sure?



Pretty Pete is sad. His melancholy overtakes him.



AVALON: This can’t be the end. We’re champions. The Wingmen! The Wingmen are champions. Once and for all. We’ve found our place in the land of the titans. It is our faces on the mountains. It is our heads that look below from the skies above. It is they who worship us. We are the gods. There is no god above us!



JD DRAKE: Nah, Pete. This is it.



Avalon shakes his head, anxious.



AVALON: But everything we’ve worked for. Everything we’ve earned.



JD DRAKE: That’s right. All gone to shit. All means nothin’. All the wins. All the tribulations. All the trials. And by trials, I mean motherfuckin’ trials.



AVALON: Well, yes. But we have excellent lawyers. They won’t send us back to prison. I assure you.



JD DRAKE: In fact, this whole damn time we’re either in prison or in a trial. Fuck this shit really. Fuck it. I can’t wait for it to be over. I only wish I could’ve pounded that dumb motherfucker Kingston’s head in just a little bit more. That pansy trash-talkin’ no good simpleton piece of shit.



BONONI: You are so angry. Don’t be so angry. So much to be proud for!



JD DRAKE: Proud of what, Bononi? Bein’ Tag Team Champions? The only darn competition around here bein’ the Motor City Motorboats? Or whatever they’re called?



His head in his laurels the entire time, the bloodshot eyes of Ryan Nemeth finally meet the eyes of his fellow brethren.



His face is weathered. He has rarely spotted stubble. He clearly hasn’t been sleeping well. But he speaks with the utmost conviction.



NEMETH: Men. With Wings.



Dramatic pause.



NEMETH: Do you remember that?



He enunciates every letter.



NEMETH: Men…with Wings.



Another dramatic beat.



They hang on his every word.



Actually, Bononi is looking up ‘dentists close to your location’ on his phone. Drake is ordering a greasy burger on GrubHub. Avalon is scrolling through sexy Jessica McKay pics on instagram.



NEMETH: We are the heroes of this federation, boys. We are the ones who did our time. We are the ones who were justly sent to prison for crimes we did commit and yet we inexplicably got out for reasons nobody’s really said. None of this has to make sense, you hear? All of this. The time we’ve spent here. As champions and as not champions. As wrestlers and as not wrestlers. As businessmen. As human beings. As friends. None of it has to make sense and yet it keeps happening, in one viciously circular cycle circle cycle cycle circle circular cycle circular cycle circular cycle circular circle. But why? Why do we keep coming back? Why do we keep feigning excitement every time another one opens up? Why do we ever think it’s going to be different? …Why? Why are we blinded by the shackles of groundless optimism, when in truth we should be overcome with raw, honest cynicism? …Why do we do this to ourselves, boys? Why do we pretend? Why do we live a lie? …Does it matter that it ends? Does it matter how quickly it ends? Or does it only matter how it ended? Does it only matter the kind of journey it took to get there? …You know what I’ve realized? It’s dawned on me, and it should dawn on you, that we were never put in prison by an outside force. It is we who imprisoned us.



Collective gasp.



Not really. They’re all still doing their own things.



NEMETH: We put ourselves in the prison.



Pause.



NEMETH: We did.



His bloodshot eyes now show vigor. Life.



NEMETH: Only so we’d have something to fight for. Something to live for. That’s what it was about all along. We needed a reason. We weren’t enough. Surrounding ourselves with each other…wasn’t enough. THIS BAR. WINGMEN’S. The premier bar and grill and strip club and arcade and bowling alley and tax accounting service and matchmaking dating helper and illegal money laundering business in all of Carson City, Nevada. …It wasn’t enough for us. And why?



Nemeth shakes his head, disappointed in himself. In his brothers. Definitely his brother.



NEMETH: Because that’s the real question. Why?



Avalon finally glares up at Nemeth, his interest piqued.



AVALON: Because why not?



JD DRAKE: Yeah. Why not?



BONONI: Why…not?



NEMETH: Why not?...



Nemeth quizzically contemplates the answer.



AVALON: Actually, if I’m not misremembering, wasn’t it because Nic signed us up for it? As some kind of practical gag? Because he’s just lonely and bored and sad that his free vacation in Japan was over?



NEMETH: Well-said. Yeah, that was basically it. I kind of just got too high. I’m all good now. We have championships to retain, kiddos. Bigtime championships. The most prestigious titles in all the land. In all the sea. And we only have to beat the Motor City Nincompoops to do it! To go down in the history books forever as champions! The forever champions! The only champions! Absolute monarchy. An endless reign. Boundless rule! Basically dictators running an empire!



JD DRAKE: Considerin’ there’s only the Motorboats in this division, does that kind of make us North Korea? Ain’t too much we’re emperors of, if I’m bein’ honest here, Ry.



AVALON: Wow, sir. You are very politically informed!



JD DRAKE: Yeah. I turned down a role to be a correspondent in the Ukraine just the other day. I finished up my PhD in Political Science at Oxford University and I’m hopin’ I can materialize it into a tenured professor gig. We’ll see. …For what it’s worth, this job at Wingmen’s has been keepin’ me afloat. I got serious gratitude for y’all.



NEMETH: And us to you, JD.



BONONI: Yes. Us to you!



Bononi smiles encouragingly and his teeth are revealed to be like Snitsky’s during his “I’m bald and albino” gimmick.



NEMETH: But hey. Look. We didn’t go to prison for nothing. I mean it. We didn’t kidnap an innocent woman because she didn’t show for her match and people who don’t show deserve the worst hotel rooms in Hell. …We didn’t do that for nothing, okay? We haven’t laundered money from various powerful folks for no reason. We haven’t been serving alcohol and various hard drugs to the underaged because we could use the money, or really, just because we can and it’s a little extra profitable. We didn’t do all that to walk out without the Tag Team straps, alright? Those straps mean everything to us! …Okay. They mean a lot to us! …Okay. They mean something to us! …Okay. They barely mean anything to us! …Okay. THEY DON’T MEAN ANYTHING TO US BUT DAMN IT WE’RE THE WINGMEN AND WE BUILT THIS COMPANY FROM THE GROUND-UP AND EVEN THOUGH THAT’S NOT TRUE, IT SOUNDS COOL AND THE WRITERS OF HISTORY ARE THOSE WHO WIN! WE LIVE IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD AND IF WE WIN THAT MEANS WE WERE THE BEST FUCKING TAG TEAM IN THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP L-SOMETHING FEDERATION AND YOU CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM US! YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO EVER TAKE THAT AWAY FROM US! SO WHAT DO YOU SAY, MOTOR CITY MACHINE MUPPETS? WHAT DO YOU SAY, STEVE BORDEN? THE SAME STEVE BORDEN WHO CHANGED HIS NAME AND COMPLETELY RE-INVENTED HIS IDENTITY PROBABLY BECAUSE HE LOST A BET TO BE YOUR MANAGER WHEN THE ALTERNATIVE WOULD’VE BEEN TO EAT LITERAL TURDS FROM DARBY ALLIN’S TOILET, OR SOMETHING! WHAT SAY YOU, STEVE BORDEN? WHATCHA GONNA DO, WHEN THE WINGMEN RUN WILD ALL OVER YOUR MOTOR CITY MACHINE NUNS? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE COMPARED TO US, BORDEN! THEY’RE NUNS! THEY’RE AFRAID! THEY LIVE THEIR LIVES IN FEAR! BUT WE TAKE RISKS! WE’RE MEN! WE ARE MEN WITH GOD. DAMN. WINGS. AND I CAN’T STOP SAYING IT AND IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH TIMES THAT I’VE SAID IT! WE. ARE. MEN. WITH. WINGS. SO GOD. DAMN. TRY US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



We draw back from Ryan Nemeth and his magnanimous speech and realize that Wingmen’s is on fire.



By now, his three compadres have left. They had better things to do. He was surrounded by nothing but flames.



Nic Nemeth looms behind him. The elder statesman stands over the potentially devastating fire soon unyielding and out of control. Nic, wearing an “RQM 4 LYFE” t-shirt and wielding a fire extinguisher, knows he has the means to put it out if he needs to.



Will the tale of Wingmen’s continue?