Post by Old Line Jeff on Nov 12, 2022 21:41:07 GMT -5
Katie Moss knew better, of course.
Wrestlers are generally dicks, especially when they have ‘heel’ in their biography page.
When you’re a pretty female interviewer, you don’t try to make friends with them, you don’t encourage them when they flirt with you, you just smile for the camera and make sure to get that ‘help me’ look in your eyes if they get uncomfortably personal.
But she hadn’t listened, and as should’ve been obvious in retrospect, Wesley Crane had been a dick to her.
A couple days later she was busy trying to do her job for W:UK and not be mad, when she got a text.
From Carlton Gluck.
‘Got the interviewer blues? Delta blues are better. C’mon back to Mississippi, we’ll get tamales.’
Back to Mississippi it was.
When she disembarked off the airplane in New Orleans and texted Carlton that she was there, he replied ‘meat me at mikes its on the way’.
Once she got out of New Orleans and across the state line, and started seeing abandoned buildings in every direction, she kept an eye out. Soon, she saw what looked like a gas station, abandoned, repurposed, then re-abandoned. The pumps were old fashioned and rusty, a couple beater cars were parked in the lot, and although there was a sign on the building that said “Mikes” - a white sign with letters in fading red spray paint - the rest of the building was the same crumbling gray cinderblock that made up the rest of Mississippi’s commercial district. She would’ve never looked at it twice.
This time though, there was one new looking vehicle. The shining white monstrosity that was called The Gluck Truck.
And as soon as she stepped out of her rental, the smell hit her. Not mud, fuel, rust, dead grass, or stale beer.
It was fried chicken.
Good fried chicken.
Carlton Gluck jumped out of the driver’s side of the truck.
“Miss Maws, yew made it! Come rat on in, Ah’m gonna innerduce yew t’the locals, get yew some dinner too. Yew won’t give two shits ‘bout ol Crane once yew try Nancy’s tamales.”
“Er, Mr. Gluck, I can’t really eat too much, it’s-”
“Sure yew can, yer in America now.”
He threw open the front door to Mikes, and Katie looked around.
Inside it had seen better days - checkerboarded black and formerly-white tiles worn at the edges, and old metal shelves and racks holding just about everything, from the usual snacks and car accessories to sacks of feed and jigsaw puzzles. A register was huddled in one corner, and a small kitchen was set up in the other, with a couple shabby tables and a few shabbier locals sat around. Four men, each of whom could’ve been anywhere between 20 and 50, were playing cards at a battered folding table. A heavyset older woman was behind the counter of the kitchen, with a younger one, pretty in a weatherbeaten kind of way, sitting on it.
“Gentlemen and ladies, this is Miss Katie Maws. Miss Maws, welcome to Town Hall.”
Katie looked around with her eyes wide open. The men grunted in greeting, the younger woman didn’t look up from her phone. The woman at the kitchen turned and gave her a warm smile, seemingly genuine.
“Miss Maws, welcome to Town Hall. Now Ah’m gonna be honest with yew for a second. Ah invited yew here, knowin’ you was gonna be recordin’ for WUK, fer a reason. Now yall know me an’ Chapps got a match against a guy who’s a purfessional cityslicker, an’ some weasly little fruit who’s owned by Disney. An Crane an Donovan, they been showin’ everyone their little penthouses, and their little board meetins, an Ah just wanted to inject a lil reality into this whole shit show.”
“We call this place Town Hall cos, when yore community’s too small for a name, yew don’t need nothin’ fancy, yew jes need t’ be able t’ git shit done. Crane an Donovan wouldn’ be able to git nothin done roun’ here, they cain’t repair nothin, cain’t build nothin, probly can’t even cook for theyselves. Speakin a-which…”
The bigger woman has just walked around the counter with a metal plate covered in food. Pieces of fried chicken, bowls of vegetables, and a stack of some stuff that any Mississippian would recognize as delta tamales right in the middle.
“Jes help yerself Miss Maws. It’s customary to put somethin’ in the tip jar, but Ah got yew. Miss Nancy here, she don’t look like too much but she’s th’ daggone Mayor, so yew gotta show some respect.”
“Carlton Gluck hush yore fussin, leave th’girl alone and eat afore it gets cold.”
The woman laughed, swatted him on the head, and went back behind the counter. Carlton grabbed one of the bowls, a smaller bowl, poured beans out of the big one into the small one, and then out of the small one straight down the hatch.
“Miss Maws, Ah know yore a citygirl yerself, but Ah don’t mean yew no offense. Ah brought you here so yew could see, an’ the rest of WUK could see, real people livin in the real world, takin’ care of business an’ gettin’ shit done. Crane an Donovan think they’re better’n people like me, but th’ thing is… Ah KNOW every last person in this building is better’n them.”
“So what d’yew think, Katie?”
But Katie didn’t answer anything. She was looking at the fried chicken thigh in her hands, her eyes wide in shock.
She’d never imagine that fried chicken could be that good.
“Eat up, Miss Maws. We’ll get some meat on yer bones and yew’ll be able t’ headlock a hog to death yet. In’at right Nancy?”
“Ain’t too much to it” the bigger woman said with a laugh. “An’ then yew won’t have t’worry bout bein’ diserspected by wrestlers.”
Katie took another bite of fried chicken.
Wrestlers are generally dicks, especially when they have ‘heel’ in their biography page.
When you’re a pretty female interviewer, you don’t try to make friends with them, you don’t encourage them when they flirt with you, you just smile for the camera and make sure to get that ‘help me’ look in your eyes if they get uncomfortably personal.
But she hadn’t listened, and as should’ve been obvious in retrospect, Wesley Crane had been a dick to her.
A couple days later she was busy trying to do her job for W:UK and not be mad, when she got a text.
From Carlton Gluck.
‘Got the interviewer blues? Delta blues are better. C’mon back to Mississippi, we’ll get tamales.’
Back to Mississippi it was.
When she disembarked off the airplane in New Orleans and texted Carlton that she was there, he replied ‘meat me at mikes its on the way’.
Once she got out of New Orleans and across the state line, and started seeing abandoned buildings in every direction, she kept an eye out. Soon, she saw what looked like a gas station, abandoned, repurposed, then re-abandoned. The pumps were old fashioned and rusty, a couple beater cars were parked in the lot, and although there was a sign on the building that said “Mikes” - a white sign with letters in fading red spray paint - the rest of the building was the same crumbling gray cinderblock that made up the rest of Mississippi’s commercial district. She would’ve never looked at it twice.
This time though, there was one new looking vehicle. The shining white monstrosity that was called The Gluck Truck.
And as soon as she stepped out of her rental, the smell hit her. Not mud, fuel, rust, dead grass, or stale beer.
It was fried chicken.
Good fried chicken.
Carlton Gluck jumped out of the driver’s side of the truck.
“Miss Maws, yew made it! Come rat on in, Ah’m gonna innerduce yew t’the locals, get yew some dinner too. Yew won’t give two shits ‘bout ol Crane once yew try Nancy’s tamales.”
“Er, Mr. Gluck, I can’t really eat too much, it’s-”
“Sure yew can, yer in America now.”
He threw open the front door to Mikes, and Katie looked around.
Inside it had seen better days - checkerboarded black and formerly-white tiles worn at the edges, and old metal shelves and racks holding just about everything, from the usual snacks and car accessories to sacks of feed and jigsaw puzzles. A register was huddled in one corner, and a small kitchen was set up in the other, with a couple shabby tables and a few shabbier locals sat around. Four men, each of whom could’ve been anywhere between 20 and 50, were playing cards at a battered folding table. A heavyset older woman was behind the counter of the kitchen, with a younger one, pretty in a weatherbeaten kind of way, sitting on it.
“Gentlemen and ladies, this is Miss Katie Maws. Miss Maws, welcome to Town Hall.”
Katie looked around with her eyes wide open. The men grunted in greeting, the younger woman didn’t look up from her phone. The woman at the kitchen turned and gave her a warm smile, seemingly genuine.
“Miss Maws, welcome to Town Hall. Now Ah’m gonna be honest with yew for a second. Ah invited yew here, knowin’ you was gonna be recordin’ for WUK, fer a reason. Now yall know me an’ Chapps got a match against a guy who’s a purfessional cityslicker, an’ some weasly little fruit who’s owned by Disney. An Crane an Donovan, they been showin’ everyone their little penthouses, and their little board meetins, an Ah just wanted to inject a lil reality into this whole shit show.”
“We call this place Town Hall cos, when yore community’s too small for a name, yew don’t need nothin’ fancy, yew jes need t’ be able t’ git shit done. Crane an Donovan wouldn’ be able to git nothin done roun’ here, they cain’t repair nothin, cain’t build nothin, probly can’t even cook for theyselves. Speakin a-which…”
The bigger woman has just walked around the counter with a metal plate covered in food. Pieces of fried chicken, bowls of vegetables, and a stack of some stuff that any Mississippian would recognize as delta tamales right in the middle.
“Jes help yerself Miss Maws. It’s customary to put somethin’ in the tip jar, but Ah got yew. Miss Nancy here, she don’t look like too much but she’s th’ daggone Mayor, so yew gotta show some respect.”
“Carlton Gluck hush yore fussin, leave th’girl alone and eat afore it gets cold.”
The woman laughed, swatted him on the head, and went back behind the counter. Carlton grabbed one of the bowls, a smaller bowl, poured beans out of the big one into the small one, and then out of the small one straight down the hatch.
“Miss Maws, Ah know yore a citygirl yerself, but Ah don’t mean yew no offense. Ah brought you here so yew could see, an’ the rest of WUK could see, real people livin in the real world, takin’ care of business an’ gettin’ shit done. Crane an Donovan think they’re better’n people like me, but th’ thing is… Ah KNOW every last person in this building is better’n them.”
The men at the card table grunted, and the girl at the register giggled.
But Katie didn’t answer anything. She was looking at the fried chicken thigh in her hands, her eyes wide in shock.
She’d never imagine that fried chicken could be that good.
“Eat up, Miss Maws. We’ll get some meat on yer bones and yew’ll be able t’ headlock a hog to death yet. In’at right Nancy?”
“Ain’t too much to it” the bigger woman said with a laugh. “An’ then yew won’t have t’worry bout bein’ diserspected by wrestlers.”
Katie took another bite of fried chicken.