The Episodes of Sparky & Banes
Sparky is a former scab pro-wrestling referee—who is unaware of this fact—with a unique sense of fashion (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is a pro-wrestling referee).  Banes is a washed-up and depressed drunken gambler with a speech impediment and is very aware of this (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is washed up and depressed).  They're two of a kind, working on a full house, just looking for a good time.  Like birds of a feather they stick together, and this is their story:

SPARKY AND BANES:  Episode 1 - “My Guy” – 5/10/03

"Howdy, kind stranger," said the man, his face shrouded in the darkness of the dimly lit bar, and by the Phantom of the Opera-esque mask that shrouded all of his face save its disfigures.  He wore a black turtleneck with a polyester cape and matching spandex slacks that stretched to transparency in places like women's pantyhose (ironic because this reveals that the man is wearing women's panties).

The man who sat with him wasn't quite so extravagantly (or outrageously) dressed.  He simply wore an 80's hair band T-Shirt (too stained to tell which band--only a decipherable part saying something about 'Satan Rocks!' and saying it in a way that, when said aloud, would be screamed in a very high-pitched and Rock!ing way).  The shirt was also skin tight, and had the sleeves cut off.  He was probably also wearing panties, but wore a pair of cut-off jeans that hid them.  How short they were cut off though, didn't help his case any.

The two sat alone in a crowded bar in a way that a clearing would form in a crowd around a man letting off a stench.  Perhaps it was fitting since the man in the mask was letting off a certain odor himself.  The man next to him didn't seem to mind or notice.

Their appearance wasn't really that strange since it had just been Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  It had been Mardi Gras, but that was two months ago, and they weren't in Louisiana.

The man in the short shorts had been sitting alone along the bar for a while.  The man in the cape had come in and sat by him in the way a guy might approach a lonely looking girl and buy her a drink—or in the way a guy would take the urinal next to you in an open row.

“Long neck bottle…let go of my hand…” said the man in short shorts.  Up the bar a ways, the bartender looked up and around with a sudden, looming feeling that Death had just walked in the door.  The man in the Phantom mask started to say something but Short Shorts decided to continue.  “It was my mother,” he said.  “She’s dead now, and I killed her.”

The masked man started to look shocked but stopped and turned his head to let out a quiet scream.  “Pardon,” he added, and went back to listening.

“She fell down the stairs—again.  I think she was trying to miscarry her baby…except I was 23…  She was screaming but I didn’t hear her.  I was too drunk…  She died instantly they say, but I didn’t hear her.  I didn’t hear her…”

The other man said nothing.

“Yeah, that was seven years ago.  I haven’t touched a drop since.”  He took a sip of his brewsky.

“That’s a crying shame señior,” said the other man, taking off his masking, and saying ‘señior’ with a long ‘e’ in a way that would have annoyed any normal person had they heard it.

The man in short shorts looked over.  “Jesus.  You’re an ugly bastard!”

The man—now unmasked—raised his voice.  “Well you ain’t no spring chicken yourself!”

The man sipped his beer again and lost any train of thought he might have had.  He let out a quiet whimper and said, “the name’s Banes, Barry Banes…” He stopped and thought to himself again.  “Barry…Brandy Banes!” he corrected, slightly.

“Nice to meet you Brandy,” the other replied.  “Folks around these parts call me Sparky.”  Somewhere, at another end of the bar someone added, ‘yeah, as if anyone calls you-‘ but stopped, because he hadn’t heard of even noticed the man anyway; just felt inclined to say that.

“Brandy…wine…creek…” Banes mumbled.

“And pardon my good looks,” Sparky added.

“Brian!” Banes climaxed finally.  “The name is Brian Banes,” he said triumphantly.  He turned on his stool towards the new acquaintance.  “Don’t I know you?” he asked.

Brian Paul Wheatus Dini III Banes was born in a forest in the northern part of the panhandle of Idaho.  His mother had been out hiking (while nine months pregnant…) and he had dropped out once when she was taking a nature call off the path.  She found him ten minutes later when she felt she was missing something and realized she was ten pounds lighter (and dragging a bloody end of an umbilical cord that had cut itself off on a loose piece of shale).  Brian was fine.  His mother—and the world—though would probably have wished he stayed there, raised by wolves or something.

Brian didn’t tell Sparky this much of course—he didn’t even know it himself—but the story will still be told for the sake of omnipotent knowledge.

Banes grew up throughout small towns over Wyoming and Montana.  He slid through high school and never aspired for anything more of an education.  He picked up odd jobs here and there but never specialized and never had a trade.  He never married and he rarely went out.  He was never all that physically weak (just terribly average) or nerdy (wasn’t smart enough) but he lived with his mother into his twenties.  She was a loving woman but didn’t have a lot of love for her son.  It didn’t matter though because he was too stupid to care or notice.

Brian had his phases.  He tried to be the jock in high school, a hippie after that (and what would seem like a queer after that).  He took up fashions but was never very fashionable.  He wore a simple shirt with simple, torn jeans.  On days when he was feeling a little feisty he would sport the headbands and the do-rags.  Most of the time though, he just wore his simple little baseball cap (too stained to make out what of).

He was a terribly average man, possessing raw talents at a little of everything but never being particularly good at anything either.  He was very moody and could go from a happy, laughing, jolly old sort to an ambitionless, careless, depressed heap of a man—and could switch these moods in just seconds.  He never had any real reason for being any of the emotions he showed except that any normal, average man would have them, and so he did too.

Brian wasn’t ugly, but wasn’t handsome by any measure.  He didn’t have that bad of a tone of voice (he sang tenor), but seemed to be quite, very annoying sounding at times.  He wasn’t dumb either, but—well, yes he was.  He was really quite stupid, and that’s what kept him average—or, in his case, just a little below average.  That was the story of his life:  he was just a below average joe.

Lately Brian had been working a janitorial (or ‘genatarian’ as he had called it) position at a local youth center.  The job was uneventful except that his boss was a black man that very much resembled Mr. T—and acted like him (it might have been him—who knows what happened to him before the 1-800-COLLECT revival).  Brian was fired, or quit, or forgot to show up, or something.  He didn’t care, and no one else did either.

“I’m a scab baby, but don’t call me one!” Sparky began.

Michael Schmidt Sparks was born into fame and fortune in the form of a basket on the doorstep of an esteemed Greenwich, Connecticut family’s home.  The head of the home, sadly, was a raging maniac (albeit a rich one) with a blood pressure problem, but luckily it was the wife (in lingerie for the mail man—but that’s another story) who found him, and wrapped him in a swaddling cloth, and placed him in a manger…on the neighbor’s doorstep, who did take him in.

“Look Dave, a manger!”

In high school Mike was fairly popular.  He was on the football team, he hung out with the ‘cool kids’ (unlike the cool cats—they liked to read), and thought he was pretty cool himself.

“I was a star baby!  A staaaaar!” Mike said obnoxiously.

Mike’s adopted parents were a pair of identical twin brothers.  Mike was never legally adopted but did end up marrying one of the brothers’ daughter (in a very predetermined, African marital ritual sort of way).  He hadn’t seen her or the family in three years.

“Since I left the business, that is.”

Mike’s ‘fathers’ were involved in a pro wrestling company, and had always been really.  They had both been referees at one point in time but now only one held the ‘esteemed’ position (due largely to the rumor that one of them was now dead—he still did house shows occasionally).  Their jobs greatly influences Mike’s first career decision, obviously, when he became a referee himself.  He worked his way up the ranks but was ultimately halted after a life-threatening incident-

Mike broke away from his story as the bartender walked by.  For the sake of a future plotline he also forgot everything he had just said, as did his audience.  Brian, taking the moment of silence as his chance, stopped Sparks.  “It’s on me, coompedra (compadre),” Brian said, signaling the bartender.  “Hey bartender!” he beckoned to him, three feet away.  The bartender looked at him, not amused.  “I’ll have the usual, and another for my friend here.”

“The usual?” the bartender asked.  He had never seen the man before, but noticed the beer in his hands,  “Oh.  Sure.”

“No, you fool!” Brian yelped when the bartender pulled two beers from the cooler.  “The usual!”

The bartender had the feeling he would rather kill the man than utter one word in reply about ‘the usual’.

Brian saved himself, with a sigh.  “Two milks…chocolate!”

Had the bartender needed to go behind any closed doors to get the chocolate milks, he probably would have flavored them to the liking of only a second street mistress.  He looked up and saw the reflection of Brian in the glass; his stupid grin.  He felt he should flavor it here, even if in front of everyone.  He held himself back though, because he really didn’t know why he had hated him so suddenly anyway.

“Chores (cheers),” said Brian, lifting his milk carton.

You could say Mike Sparks was a dashing young lad.

“You could say I was a beautiful man,” said Sparky.

You could say he was handsome, successful, and had his whole life in front of him, on a platter.  Sparky was rich.  It wasn’t the world’s greatest fortune but it was as big as anyone who lived in the world’s richest town would have.  He was multi-talented.  He could build a house from the ground up, he could paint a masterpiece with paints he could mix himself, and he could sing a tune.

“La la la…” Sparky shrieked to crack glass.

Sparky could do a lot of things, but things change, and people change.  Even Sparky couldn’t stop change.

(Again with the plotline, this was where Sparky’s actual story began again.  He recalled nothing of the rich lifestyle he may or may not have lived.)

Mike Sparks was found on the side of a highway in New Mexico in the dead of the night.  Two cars passed the hideous creature resembling a man before someone finally called for an ambulance.  Even then two ambulances passed picking him up and it took two more before a group of EMTs would even approach him.

Sparky had always been able to do things in excessive amounts, but people were shocked at how excessively ugly he now was.  His face and shirt was covered in mud (or manure, as the smell suggested) and his face and been bent into a strange moaning, bent look of horror.  No bones were broken, and there were really no scratches even, but something had happened to him, and it was the most horrible thing ever.

Sparky didn’t know who he was.  He could only remember pieces of a giant puzzle that had been his life as it flashed in his mind over and over, along with the annoying flashlight, checking his vision.

“Please refrain my good sir!” he had yelped at the official with the light, bursting the eardrums of the world.  His voice had found a new octave similar to people of what dogs might hear from an extremely high-pitched sound.  “I am not an old woman!  Leave me my dignity!” he yelled, for no good reason whatsoever.  Sadly, the official would beg to differ due to the fact this man on the side of the road was wearing a bright blue and flowered spring dress, like grandma would out in the garden.  Dignity had hit the fan a long time ago.

Mike had awoken some time later (after overexerting himself with an incident involving oncoming traffic) in a bed at Albuquerque Memorial Hospital in, well, Albuquerque.  He had awoken nameless and lonesome, and soon after shocked when he had gotten up to look in the mirror.  While laying in bed he had had the strange feeling and reassurance that he was a beautiful man.  It was a life-altering experience to say the least when his own image begged to differ.

“Don’t look at me!” he had screamed out the window, revealing his face for all to see.  Mike Sparks, as his name was found to be from some loose papers in his possession, found himself in the psychiatric wing of the building for the next month, until the day a mysterious sponsor covered his hospital bill (much to the hospital’s relief—more for the psychological reasons than the financial) and provided him with the funds to get back on his feet.  There was only one place for that knew Sparky (as his roommates/friends at the ward had come to call him):

“Delaware,” said Brian.

“Delaware,” verified Sparky, in awe (or perhaps even love).

Two people had found a connection between their very connected lives.  They wouldn’t know it then though, but that’s what a lifetime is for.  Sparky and Banes left the bar in a way that would become very similar to them.

“I’m going to hunt you down to the ends of the earth!” screamed the bartender, being held back by two men who seemed very disappointed they were holding him back.

“Am I?” Brian answered, with no reason to anyone but himself.

“Come on Brian!” indicated Sparky urgently, pointing him outside.

“Alright,” said Brian, giving in.  “Far wall (fair well)!” said Brian to the bartender.

A man only needs to be reasonable to himself anyway.