North invites Jake over to watch a new pay per view television special his brother South ordered called High Noon At Midnight. Of course, it starts at 8 pm. It's a gundown show, where 16 death row inmates face off against one another in various showdowns until only 1 is left alive. The winner gets released from prison, and goes on a tour of duty serving in the United States military overseas. If the winner is still alive after seeing combat duty in Iraq or wherever, than the prisoner's record is completely expunged and he or she is released back into society. Apparently it's all legal because the federal government and the states save money on executions and the armed forces get to advertise to a bloodthirsty demographic, so the promoters are allowed to make fistfuls of money (according to rumors on the Internet, in advance orders alone, this pay per view already has twice as many households tuning in as the biggest wrestling pay per view ever) by giving the audience televised bloodletting.
"And this isn't staged like wrestling?" Jake asks North, watching the first showdown, a knifefight.
"Not as far as I know," North says, munching on some corn chips.
"Sssssh," one of South's friends says.
On the television, one of the inmates gets gutted by the other. He walks away from his fallen opponent, dropping the knife on the ground, as the announcer says, "And, Raoul the Razor lives up to his nickname and makes it to the next round. Chester "The Cheese Grater" Dauber isn't so lucky. I'd say 'Rest in peace' but he was a death row scumbag so I say 'Good riddance' instead."
As the camera veers in for a closeup of Dauber's fatal wound, Jake says, "I don't know if I can watch this."
"Why not? I've seen more blood in a steel cage match. This guy's just dead, that's all," North says, before yelling at his brother, "Hey, do we have anymore of this cheesedip?"
"Yeah, but wrestling's like theater. Nobody is supposed to get to hurt. They might be fighting in the storyline but in reality they're all working together. It gives you action, but the actual nature of the artform subverts competition and machoism, or machismo. It's more like ballet than boxing ultimately. This stuff is brutal. These people are literally killing one another."
"I know what you mean, but you have to remember these aren't nice guys. Dauber was a serial rapist and murderer. And, they all signed up for this too. No one forced them into it. They could still be sitting on death row waiting for their appeals to finish, but they all thought they were badass enough to kill the others so they signed up for it."
Next up is an old-fashioned duel with pistols. The contestants stand back to back and then start walking ten paces away from one another, but one contestant just turns around immediately and shoots the other contestant in the back, killing him. The announcer says, "Well, that was a blatant disqualification."
The surviving contestant starts shooting at the referees, but a guard tower sniper blows his head off his shoulders. After some huddling, the referees rule that the contestant who died first won the round, and, as a consequence, his opponent in the next round automatically advances.
Jake leaves when the announcer notes that the next round will be a hand grenade juggling competition.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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