Description: It really does seem that the only viable career path for a man of mostly muscle and little else involves violence... something two men (and some other loudmouth guy) touch upon in brief as one asks another about the trials and tribulations of a sport that seems a dream come true for those gifted of generous musculature.
No job, previous employer was mostly covering rent costs... job prospects in the field of education in these parts remains incredibly slim for one Howard Rust. A good month or so after that day, he's been barely hanging on to a place of residence while searching for where he's going to work next - if he's going to stay here in Southtown.
Is it really time to just face facts and go home? As the days go on, hope seems slimmer and slimmer yet, as the now 41-year-old man is staring blankly at a cloudy late afternoon sky while people are just going about their way back home for the impending evening while taking a seat on a sturdy, well-maintained metal bench.
A newspaper in hand, a nearly empty cup of melted ice to one side, a warped length of pipe stuck through a toolbelt pocket, and the eternally horrible combover seem to be all this man has around him, these days, in going through classifieds. He really doesn't want to go through the process of changing the designation of his work visa, but when Taiyo and even /Gedo/ turn you down for employment, well... uh...
"Cripes," the man mutters out loud in his gravelly voice, newspaper shut closed under the crinkling of his might. He was sure when he talked to Antoine that there'd be a way, he'd find a way to make it work... who knows if that's really going to hold much of a truth now, at this rate.
Sweat. He was sweating, because he was hot. He was sweating because he was hot, because of the car engine he slung over his shoulder, with the sun bearing down on him as he walked an impossible distance. The six foot nine, three hundred pound monster walked silently with no complaint, sturdy tan gloves protecting his fingers from injury, well, as much as they could, and though it possibly made things hot, the dock cap he wore on his head looked like it was a natural part of him, hiding his eyes from view, but didn't hide that incredily ugly mug of his. Behind him, the significantly less sweaty companion of his, the scrawny wiseguy in the newspaper boy's hat, just blabbing on and on and on about his ideas and schemes for life. But Frank didn't pay no mind, just kept walkin', and kept sweatin', even with the clouds starting to provide partial relief.
It was here where Rust and Frank would cross paths, as the big, almost gorilla-ish man stopped, right in front of the pipe-wielding, unemployed powerhouse, Frank looking down, possibly blocking the construnction worker ex fighter ex teacher's light. Even with that cap obstructing his eyes, it was clear when Frank was looking at you...it was almost indescribable, the kind of intensity the near giant possessed...Finally, with a voice that sounded like an old record trying to play over jagged rocks, Frank spoke.
"Hey, yer wunna'dem...fighter fellas, aintcher?" The smaller man stopping, not even five feet, and looking at the two..."Whoah, jesus Frank, what gives? We need to hurry and get this engine outta here, yanno, before it melts, uhh or something..."
A powerhouse in build one Howard Rust might be, but in comparison to the likes of Frank, he is diminutive. Most people would be, but for one who is already a bit shorter than the stereotypical brute, well...
When the towering form of Frank looms above the sitting man, there is a squint as though the shade were somehow offensively bright to one's eyes - but what may just be more notable than anything else, given the sheer size Frank brings to the table, is that the man doesn't flinch under the intense gaze hidden behind the dock cap.
Disinterested? Maybe just... tired? Hardly annoyed, maybe just a man who has seen a whole lot. He flexes one of his elbows with a loud, disconcerting creak that might freak that friend of Frank's right out as he relieves a little bit of tension. His body's about ready to just lock up and shut down for the night, and it isn't even night yet.
"Fighter fellas? Uh... yeah, uh, actually," the middle-aged man of the awful combover confirms as he tilts his head up to make something like proper eye contact, "haven't... haven't done anything since, since KoF, been," he clears his throat loudly after a brief cough and a chest pat, "'scuse me. Haven't done much since... since then. Just, uh... between jobs."
The big behemoth nodded, instant understanding even if his face didn't register a thing. Sometimes, there was just no moving ugly. The smaller guy, though, he looked right at the stocky powerhouse, jerking back from the popping noise of that arm, but moreover just staring...at Rust's head. Toothpick dropping from his mouth, the little, skinny guy proceeded to shout at the top of his lungs, pointing right at the pipe-carrying slugger.
"THAT MAN'S GOT A COM-MMMPHH!" The latter part of his exclamation was muffled by Frank's left hand reaching over, grabbing the big-headed midget's hat, and shoving it down, so that it covered his entire face and thus muffling his potential disastrous statement. "Can it, Smalls, willya?" After a moment 'Smalls' managed to grab his hat and yank it back up, pointing again at Rust, clearly in shock, almost. "SERIOUS, THAT SHIT AIN'T FOOLING NOB-MPHHHHH!" This time, Frank pulled that hat down harder, stopping Smalls' outburst entirely. He turned back to Rust, gazing intently under that hat.
"Rr, de kid's gotterproblem yerknow...Yeh, work ain't easy ter comeby these days, ya ain't a fighter no more?" He asked curiously, clearly asking for a reason.
A man's hair is truly a sacred thing, the health of their scalp and fullness of their hair a measure of their health of mind, body, and soul. This combover upon this man's head... it is for all intents and purposes an abomination, a truly miserable mark of denial of the unarguable suffering of early onset male pattern baldness.
The outburst sees the ex-teacher tilting to one side, pointing a finger as if in the beginnings of asking 'what's his problem?' A low grunt follows, murmuring something inaudible when Smalls gets in his second round of oh-so true commentary.
"The hell'm I foolin'?" Rust asks, as if in legitimate confusion at this query. Perhaps he really truly does believe he isn't going bald, as if a single final shred of optimism in so many circumstances in his life. He shifts a glance over to Frank as he rubs the back of his head, and exhales loudly and clearly irritatedly.
"Just... lots of things, don't got... don't got insurance now, and trust me. M-Medical bills after fights were... they were pretty friggin' ugly after, after the fights I got." It's always those little mundane issues with Rust that, to his perception, everyone else seems to get around just fine. "And... and y'know, I'd like to think... like to think there's just, there's just more I can do 'n just... that."
This entire encounter I've been describing Frank as ugly, but it goes deeper than that, so deep that the author must momentarily break the fourth wall to get that across. It's most frequently described as the face of a man who's lived, except his face is largely unchanged from his childhood, save a gauntness, some scars, a faint shadow across his Herculean jaw where hair, wild and course grows if not conquered with a straight razor daily. It's the kind of ugliness that draws people in, something that could never be called handsome, could never be called pretty, or even attractive...but yet, there was one shining attribute about it...it was trustworthy.
And when Frank stared at you, the expression on his face didn't change. Was he passing judgment on Howard for what looked like cowardice? Was he let down that such a tough bastard would be stopped by so petty a thing? Was he silently agreeing with the wisdom that so many other fighters overlooked? Was he thinking a combination of all those things? Was he thinking about the big mama rat in his apartment that he had to run out with a sledgehammer? So many questions would arise in a normal man's head, under the continued, relentless, seemingly unblinking gaze of the barrel-chested action figure of a man, before he stepped away, clearly beginning to walk away.
"Yer were good, I was rooting fer yer when ya fought. Shame about them bills, yeh." And with that, he took a step away, Smalls finally yanking up his hat, walking away silently(though he eyeballed that abomination atop Howard's head)...however, after a moment, Frank turned around, brushing past Smalls and once again, blocking that sun.
"How der I get in?"
Fighting for a living is a thrilling prospect to young men and women of the ability. Between the glitz and glamour of carefully arranged fights... well, these particular incidents are well-storied, at this point.
To say nothing of China's stance on organized fighting as of late, and how so many other countries are looking to render their own thoughts and judgments on the matter. That particular career option is looking less and less attractive to many people every day.
It's even more scary when you are a forty-something man of a number of well-documented health problems looking at the possibility that it may be his only option, despite how much potential pay would be eaten by said medical bills.
"Yeah? Well... thanks." It was a pretty brutal fight, there in the first round of King of Fighters. In which Zangief trumped him and how it all more or less went downhill from there. Granted, that's as good as ancient history now considering everything that followed that ill-fated trip. Mr. Rust knows he's not without his fans, few in number as they might be. As Frank looks away and seems to step away, the older man thinks it's time to go rooting through the paper again, a thumb already looking to flick the page back open to the classifieds when Frank's shadow once again crowds over the man of the hair that is fooling nobody.
"Get in?" Howard looks up. "Y'mean... fightin'? 's, 's not that hard nowadays... might want to, to try SNF." If Frank watches fighting regularly, he probably already knows what it is. Saturday Night Fight.
"I've... I've never been in, in a Saturday Night Fight. Contract stuff's pretty, uh, thick though. I know there's lots of, ah... lots of bein' shuffled 'round," he makes idle circling motions with his left hand, "fancy setups. Actually, uh... one sec."
The middle-aged man digs his right hand into his pocket for one of those cellphones. Cellphones that are, assuredly, far too tiny for the hands for Frank, and it's even a stretch for someone like Howard there to be able to touch a button without touching a bunch of buttons at once.
Damn the miniaturization of technology, full speed ahead.
"Got their number if... if you might be up for it, I mean," the man shrugs as he pulls it out and promptly drops it atop the bench, "god damn these things're too small," he grouses before he picks it up with the opposite hand and flips it open.
Frank grunted, kneeling down slowly, and bringing the car engine down, to rest it gently against the concrete ground. The big lug stood back up, wincing slightly as he rolled his great big neck and shoulders, looking at Howard underneath that cap of his. Reaching out massive, calloused worker's hands, his left outstretched to take the micro piece of technology, itself a testament to the changing times. It looked out of place on a guy like Frank, but he looked down at it, then at Rust. He nodded slow, taking care not to crush the fragile piece of "progress"....
"Thank yer yah. I'll govem a call torday, yeah. Any advice?"
When you're built like either of these men here, it takes a certain amount of delicate precision and care not to /break/ half the things people consider indispensable to a quality modern life. Howard's awareness of this fact sees him a little worried about actually letting Frank handle it, to the point he's wondering if maybe he should've just asked that small guy over there to put it on his.
Small guy there has a phone, doesn't he? With a mouth as big as he seems to, the ex-shop teacher would imagine he'd spend most of his time yakking on the phone like pretty much every youngster he sees nowadays.
"Y'mean... as, uh, as a fighter? Well," the older man clears his throat, "'scuse me, think, uh, think I got the bug goin' 'round. Anyway... I dunno, you kinda look like you'd take care of yourself, uh... just fine. I mean, ya got insurance, right? You wanna be careful with, with travel fees too. And... they make you pay for... for damages, too, like, if you tear open an old rug... or somethin'."
Ah, collateral damage. So fun to indulge in, so much less fun to clean up after. The older man coughs once again, realizing just how dry his throat's gotten - maybe he's going to have to spare the increasingly smaller amount of cash he has on hand for another drink.
"Gotta remember all the... the li'l things, y'know what I mean?"
Frank looked right at Howard the entire time he spoke, and it was at this point, probably obvious that Frank did that sort of thing. Not looking away, presumably not blinking, Frank gently gave the phone to Smalls, who carefully wrote it down in his notepad, tongue hanging out comically from the concentration...finally, Frank offered his large hand, removing the tan glove to reveal a mit that was made for building things up, or smashing them down. Knuckles calloused, veins running all through the back of the hand, he clearly offered it in a handshake, that grip of his enough to turn iron into rubber it was so hard, if Howard accepted, anyway.
"Th' name's Frank, thank yer fer this, yeh!" He noted Smalls' fidgeting, knowing that they'd best hurry, if they wanted to get the rest of the little man's car out of that tow yard before anyone noticed...They had work to do, and Frank aimed to do it.
Of course, now there's the trepidation that the guy might be pulling a lot more numbers than just /that/ one, based on the tongue. Just as the man of the hair that is assuredly withering away at an agonizingly ugly pace thinks to reach out and maybe take it back, Frank is offering his hand.
With a brief nod, he pulls his own work glove off his own right hand with his teeth. His right hand is no softer than that massive hand Frank offers. They are, after all, both working men.
Peculiarly, there is a very notable burn scar running down his right palm and a bit past his wrist. When hands meet, Howard's right hand clearly does not have the strength to match Frank's cast-iron bear trap grip. This might be an immediate sign of disappointment.
Yet... even with the vast difference in their handshake strengths, Howard does not flinch. He does not wince. He seems perfectly patient to let a good shake happen, leaning into it a bit better for politeness' sake.
"I'm Howard, but... but you knew that already, right." For a guy who claimed to cheer him on, they're probably already aware. "'s not always easy to, to get in. But I think you're gonna... you're gonna do fine."
As Rust sits back after taking back his phone, he's already looking back into the paper for a job. Of course, meeting Frank here... it's kind of like seeing himself a couple years back. A man built for fighting, but stuck with making the necessary steps to get inside...
Of course, he's in a bad place right now too. No job, no insurance, running out of options... it's unlikely he's going to get another job in education given everything his former employer would have to say about his performance later on. Being able to fight without restriction of having a day job would be amazing were it not for all the financial baggage that came with it.
Surely... there's a happy medium just waiting out there, somewhere.
Log created on 19:42:53 10/21/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 23:06:50 10/21/2011.