Post by Immanuel Taylor on Jan 8, 2011 1:06:43 GMT -5
Far From Modest
If you could make it to the 14th floor of the EUW Headquarters building located in the Mission District of San Francisco, you stand a good chance of being able to gain access to EUW CEO and GM of Sunday Night Vengeance Chad Kennedy’s office. But you wouldn’t be able to. Kennedy’s office is barricaded with an extravagant vestibule preceding it, a rigid visiting schedule, security guards with rotating shifts, the customary irritating secretary with the low-skirt, and, the most important aspect of having a prestigious office, the gigantic doors separating the real world from the world of a CEO.
After the debacle og the trial match, where Immanuel Taylor accidentally crippled one of the EUW trainers by intensifying a reverse keylock well beyond the normal threshold, the victimized trainer was taken to the San Francisco Chinese Hospital, in Chinatown, which harbors a special agreement with EUW. In return from funding and generous donations from the EUW, the San Francisco Chinese Hospital will quietly administer the injuries of all those related to EUW. This is very useful when you don’t want the vulture-like media to get a whiff of anything that might stain your business, and when your business involves professional wrestling then the opportunities for bad publicity are endless.
Chad Kennedy understood this perfectly and a fully written report of the incident, spell-checked and all, was delivered to his home address in the same night after the victimized trainer was admitted to the San Francisco Chinese Hospital. Kennedy, enjoying an evening with a glass of wine and a young lady, did not appreciate the urgent report arriving when it did. For this, he held the head trainer responsible and made him wait outside his office for an hour before buzzing the secretary and instructing her to let him in.
The office itself is far from modest. “Far From Modest” is something you can also use to describe Chad Kennedy himself. Pompous, big, expensive, handsome enough, and the owner of multiple Armani and Valentino suits. He chose an individually tailored suit for today. Grey jacket and pants, black buttoned shirt with a pink tie. It made him look older and more mature than he genuinely was, and it also had the additional effect of making the summoned trainer look and feel inferior in the presence of Chad Kennedy, EUW’s CEO and the General Manager of Sunday Night Vengeance who truly, truly does enjoy his torments and insults.
“He dislocated both his shoulder and elbow? How in fuck did he accomplish that?”
“It actually has an amusing story behind it, sir.”
“Pray”
“Well as you can see from the report, sir, Immanuel had locked in a reverse keylock which the trainer was not familiar with. He panicked and began…”
“The idiot panicked? During the trial match itself? He fucking panicked? And he’s supposed a trainer?”
“Yes sir and…uh…well Immanuel’s submission hold had placed Immanuel’s chest on top of the trainer’s mouth so he couldn’t really speak or scream. All he could do is bite into Immanuel’s chest which Immanuel mistook for a defensive maneuver and....”
“And he fucking intensified the hold until the elbow and shoulder snapped. Jesus Christ, this is bloody ridiculous. Why didn’t you guys jump in? Wait.” Kennedy’s finger shot up, disallowing the trainer from salvaging his role in the trial match debacle. “You gentlemen did not notice it either, yes?”
“Yes sir.”
“And this strikes you as an amusing story? That’s how you would describe a situation that is liable to amount to a multitude of lawsuits and negative publicity?”
“Well sir….”
“How could this incident ever be controversial, you ask?” Chad Kennedy had a nasty habit of neglecting the other side of the conversation and continuing on with his subjective view in full focus. Being the CEO of a company gives you that kind of power. Reciprocal questions were a frequent with Kennedy’s rhetoric speeches.“Well, firstly, let’s put aside the fact that every suburban mother in America believes Professional Wrestling to be the devil’s work and let’s also put aside the fact that some kid is going to inevitably imitate what he sees on EUW, get himself killed and the media will paint us as Nazis. Now, even with these pitfalls out of the way, a story leaking out to the press of a 40 year old Gulf War Veteran being an official member of our roster after hospitalizing one of our senior trainers will trample the public’s view of us.”
10 seconds of silence as Kennedy stops for breath. The opposite party, one of the six trainers from the Trial Matches, gets a whiff of a couple of words that don’t match up in Kennedy’s verbal discharge. Par
“..uh…Mr. Kennedy”
“What?”
“What do you mean by ‘An Official Member of Our Roster’?” No response from Kennedy. “Sir…did you sign Immanuel Taylor?”
“My secretary did”
“Sir?”
“Look” Kennedy leant forward, elbows squarely on the top of his obviously expensive cherry oak desk, his pink Valentino tie swinging down in-between the gray flaps of his jacket. “I interviewed that asshole when we were touring in San Diego. I mean, this guy is like 40 years old and I was surprised when I saw his application so I decided I had to see if this thing was for real or not so I brought him along our stop in San Diego. Now I’m sitting behind my desk in one of those rental offices interviewing this guy and the whole thing was horribly weird. I mean, this guy sat there staring at a fucking vase while I’m trying to figure out his role here. Now this freak served in the Gulf War back in 1990 so out of pure pity I gave him the trial match. Now when that freak got up and left, I pushed his application into the pile of papers that I approve of and my secretary then signs off on as a witness. Procedural stuff. Now my secretary gets a hold of that pile before we got out of San Diego and sent it back here to our HQ. I come in at the next Monday and find out that we’ve just signed Immanuel Taylor to five fucking years”
“Can’t you just fire him, sir?”
Kennedy retreated from his hunched position and took comfort in his leather chair, leaning backwards and emitting squeaking sounds. The nameless trainer on the opposite side of Kennedy’s desk in his spacious office in EUW’s San Francisco Headquarters entertained the thought that Kennedy always kept a bottle of liquor in his desk.
This is true but he didn’t know that for a certain.
Kennedy always went the figurative extra mile to ensure that nobody found out. The cliché of the powerful authority figure nursing some kind of dependency, whether on pills or prostitutes, is true for a reason. Kennedy has a lot on his plate, has all the other wrestlers to deal with on a bi-weekly basis and now the accidental hiring of Immanuel Taylor, a creepy 42 year old Gulf War veteran, is going to throw more fuel on the volatile fire of EUW.
“No.” Kennedy finally answered. “The five year contract guarantees that cocksucker a year with us. After he serves his year, we can choose not to renew for another year from the overall five years.”
“Oh….well sir why didn’t you just…say that you accidentally hired and….”
“And look like an idiot? You want me to slither on my knees to the Board of Directors and explain to them how I have managed to accidentally hire someone?”
Kennedy’s agitation grew and the humbled trainer, seeing this vividly, kept quiet. He nodded and eschewed eye contact with the boss. Kennedy himself took a deep breath and rubbed the palm of his hands on his temple. A brief interlude of silence as Kennedy’s mind wandered past his window with the terrific view of the Mission District of San Francisco.
“Ok” Kennedy sprung back into action. “This is what we do. The crippled trainer, you got a relationship with the man?”
“Yes”
“Then what do you know about him?”
“He’s open-minded”
“To what degree? To what sum of money will he retain that open-mindedness of his?”
“I’m not sure about that, sir, but I do know he has a nasty habit”
“Nasty enough to keep him quiet?”
“Nasty enough to keep him yearning for more money, sir”
“But not dramatic enough to blow back on us?”
“Yes, sir”
“Ok. Money and both a job and a plane ticket away from San Francisco. That should shut him up. As for the story, bury it. Do you understand me? Bury it. ”
“Yes, sir”
“Any moral crusaders in that room on that day?”
“From my staff? No. But the kids there, sir, I’m not sure about them”
“That’s not a problem. They’re kids for a reason. So, other than the trainers and the kids, do you foresee any other drama popping up?”
“Well…no but there is….the guy himself”
“That cocksucker shouldn’t be hard to tame” Kennedy shot back, his speech fluid and loud like a leader. “He wants to be booked? I’ll book him for a year. Let the other animals here tear him apart then after the year is over I’ll personally spit in his face and tell him to fuck off. One year of Immanuel Taylor is more than manageable”
“That sounds like a good plan, sir”
“Get out of my office” Kennedy blurted out as soon as the trainer had outlived his usefulness. Chad Kennedy had a short attention span which, given the fact that his job was to deal with innumerable issues and dilemmas, was a pure gift to him. He had snipped this Immanuel Taylor problem rather quickly and, as he relished in the few moments of relief, he spared some minutes into trying to pinpoint exactly what Immanuel Taylor is supposed to be. Beside him, on the palate of his spacious oak desk, was Immanuel’s application, processed and accidentally green-lit.
Kennedy’s eyesight converged through his office windows and onto the day-to-day activities of the residents of San Francisco. Immanuel Taylor and the debacle of the Trial match has become an after-thought by now. The city of San Francisco itself mirrored EUW. Innovative, hectic, apathetic and always prone to catastrophes. Even with all the looming dramas waiting to happen, being CEO of this company was worth it for Chad Kennedy. It was worth his trouble in dealing with the freaks, the assholes, the egotists and whatever other brand of “professional” wrestlers EUW housed. It was all worth it for the prestige alone.
The view alone from Chad Kennedy’s office was worth all the shit he had to stomach.
