Songbird (Screaming Mimi): Cinderella Vindication, part 1
The Watcher
Thunderbolts site. It is set back in the period after THING #33 in which
she was still Screaming Mimi and still a wrestler in the Grapplers. All
characters copyright by Marvel Comics. Author can be contacted at
darkm...@hotmail.com
Cinderella Vindication
by DarkMark
A Tale of Songbird When She Was Screaming Mimi
“Mimi,” said Poundcakes. “Ever see All the Marbles?”
Mimi, looking at herself brushing her hair in the Motel 6 bathroom mirror,
said, “I’ve seen it.”
Poundcakes lolled back in the single bed of the room they were both
sharing. “How many times?”
“Four times. Maybe five.” Mimi held up her chin and decided that she
still looked okay. A helluva lot of face was going to be covered up by
greasepaint tomorrow night, but she damned well wanted to have something
worth looking at when she got up in the morning. She was wearing a robe
and a faded blue nightdress.
“I thought it was a great show,” said Poundcakes, whose every move made the
bed creak like a sailing ship. “All except one bit. Know what that was?”
“Mmm?”
“The bit where they look in the wrestling mag and see a list of girls’ tag
teams. Wrestling mags don’t do that. They don’t have ratings for girls’
tag teams. Only solo girls. Outside of that, it was great.”
“Yeah. Great.” Mimi took a small tying thing and tied her hair back, then
switched out the bathroom light and came out. “You can turn the light off
now.”
“‘Course, the action scenes were great,” said Poundcakes, her 350-pound
bulk almost spilling over the sides of the bed. “I was cheerin’ the Dolls
on, the only time I saw it in a theater. I mean, I knew they were going to
win it, I can smell a fix ten miles away. But the way they sold that last
match, I mean, wow. All that hammerin’ and bashin’ and dirty moves they
were takin’, made you wanna kill those Toledo Tigers. And I’m wise, I’m
not some mark. Auntie oughtta watch that last match and take notes.
Helluva show, I can tell you. Mimi?”
“Mmm?”
“You ever seen Below the Belt?”
“Go sleep, ‘Cakes.”
*****
Mimi Schwartz was unhappy, and thought she had a perfect reason to be.
Of course, she was relatively better off than she’d been at most points in
her life. Right now, she had a steady gig, she was making solid bucks as a
wrestler-cum-valet, and she even had a super-power.
The problem with that power was that it wasn’t related to strength, so she
couldn’t wrestle any of the girls in Auntie Freeze’s troupe without it
being a terribly faked wrap. Mimi’s body was not the kind which could
accept Dr. Malus’s strength augmentation without endangering her heart.
Thus, Auntie had ruled against making Mimi the kind of girl who could lift
a police squad car, though she retained the power of her sonic scream. It
was bionic, patterned after Angar the Screamer, who was a super-villain
(which term Mimi always thought was exceedingly dumb).
But Mimi could wrestle. She could wrestle really well. She and the other
girls from the original Grapplers, Titania, Poundcakes, Letha, and the
rest, had been enrolled in Mildred Burke’s wrestling school and learned the
tricks from the old mistress herself. Millie, Mimi knew, had been a champ
herself back in the 1950's (she’d even wrestled Auntie, back when Auntie
had been in the game) and had trained a horde of pro wrestlers, both male
and female. She’d trained the actresses who wrestled in All the Marbles
and that dreary Below the Belt, as well.
Mimi, who had come into the world as Melissa Joan Gold, really liked it.
The competition on the mat wasn’t like the abuse she’d had to endure from
her father. And it was a far cry from what she’d had to endure in that
damned women’s prison in which she’d done a short stint. That was where
she’d met Poundcakes, and, after they did their time, they both had
responded to an advertisement from Auntie, tried out for the new women’s
wrestling team she had proposed, and both made the grade, luckily.
She’d liked learning the holds, taking the falls, toughening herself up to
take the pain and do the maneuvers. She even learned how to utilize some
of the gymnastics she’d taken in high school with those off-the-top-rope
bits, and impressed Millie Burke mightily with her ability.
They’d dressed her up in a silly type of ballet suit (but, hey, all
wrestling had its inherent silliness) and given her a facepaint job that
must have been inspired by Kiss, and she had been unleashed on the circuit
as Screaming Mimi Schwartz, whose shrieks, they said, beat those of Jamie
Lee Curtis all hollow. The Grapplers, a costumed variation on GLOW and the
LPWA, were a moderate hit.
Then some guy (she’d never found out who) came to Auntie Freeze and made a
proposal. If she lent out the Grapplers to them, to be made into
super-ops, to do a special job for them, there’d be $20 grand apiece for
the girls and $50 grand for Auntie. She had her principles, but, luckily,
this didn’t cross any of them.
So Auntie had broken the news to Mimi and the rest, and gave them the
option to do it or not. But all of them had to be in it as one. They’d
talked it over for about a week. Titania was really hot on the idea, and
convinced the rest to go for it. Mimi was the last to throw in her hand.
She didn’t like the idea of risking another stint in the joint. She just
wanted to stay on with the Grapplers, as a wrestler.
But in order to stay in, she had to go along. So she did.
As part of the deal, she’d gotten a “bionic voicebox” that gave her screams
the power to make whomever she targeted suffer vertigo. It was like being
on a mildly bad acid trip, and it ruined the equilibrium of her opponents.
She could also scream so loudly, and at such a high pitch, that, if she
wanted to, she could temporarily deafen an enemy. Once, she’d even tried
the Pavarotti bit, and busted a wine glass with her voice. Since that had
been one of Auntie’s heirlooms, it did not gain her much favor.
Screaming Mimi, super-character. She had to admit she liked it.
The “special gig” had come and gone. It turned out to be a criminal
operation against something called the Pegasus Project, in which the
Grapplers were led by that big gal Thundra, a woman from another dimension.
They’d gone up against the Thing and some of his pals, and had done fairly
well, considering it was their maiden fight against super-heroes. But
they’d gotten taken down.
All of them wound up in the joint. Mimi had attacks of hysteria that
landed her regular visits with the prison shrink. But even in stir, the
Grapplers had stayed together. Within a short time, thanks to using muscle
on the other inmates and sex on the guards, they were pretty well running
the show. Luckily, Mimi stayed shy of the sex part. Then they’d
encountered the Dazzler, who had gotten jailed on some reason or another,
and who rapidly become one of Mimi’s least favorite people, and that kind
of fell apart.
Mimi would have loved a rematch with the Dazzler, but that didn’t look too
promising right now.
Auntie Freeze finally made an agreement with the Feds to turn state’s
evidence and help rat out the corporate guys behind the Project Pegasus
thing. But she hadn’t forgotten her girls, even though she had put
together a newer and bigger team of Grapplers in their abscence. She got
the old team paroled on good behavior, and reintegrated into the new
Grapplers team. For the first time in a year, Mimi breathed free air, and
was back in the show with her old friends and a new bunch of faces to
memorize: Butterball, Sushi, Magilla, and all the rest.
Around that time, the UCWF had come into being, as a result of Dr. Karl
Malus’s experiments with strength enhancement. Auntie paid for the
treatments for her girls, both the new Grapplers and the ones who’d just
gotten out of stir. All of a sudden, Titania, Letha, and Poundcakes got
the power to press thousands of pounds and toss their opponents into the
lights. They needed it, to compete in the super-wrestling arena.
Unfortunately, neither she nor any of the others had seen that 20 G’s, nor
would they ever see it.
But the strength bit was the killer for Mimi. Dr. Malus had made the tests
on her, and said that her body couldn’t accept the enhancement process
without endangering her life. So now, Mimi was once again on the outside.
She just couldn’t compete with the other girls in Auntie’s troupe, who had
been strength-enhanced.
They’d tried using some of the other girls against her in choreographed
matches, but it was painfully obvious to the audience that Mimi’s opponents
were faking it. Then Auntie hit on the idea of bringing in normal,
non-powered lady wrestlers to take her on in special matches. These
fights, for a time, were what Mimi lived for. She’d gone against Debbie
Combs, Malia Hosaka, Candi Divine, Cheryl Rusa, Bambi, and even the great
Sue Sexton. They’d considered bringing in Magnificent Mimi Lesseos for a
fight-for-the-right-to-the-name bit, but decided against it. Mimi had her
share of victories against the normal pros, and was looking forward to
matches against Tina Moretti and even, if they could swing it, Madusa
Micelli.
Then came the word. Auntie had called Mimi into her office and told her,
“We can’t do it anymore, darling. Getting those other girls in costs us a
lot of money. Plus the fact is that the regular promotions don’t like us
very much. They’re afraid the enhanced stuff is gonna put the non-enhanced
out of biz. Plus the fact is that gals’ wrestling is always a tougher sell
than guys’. Like it or not, they don’t want to work with us anymore.”
“But, Auntie,” said Mimi, as the news sank in, “I’ve got to wrestle. I
don’t know anything else I can do.”
Auntie Freeze had paused before saying, “There’s something else you can do,
Mimi. You can be a valet.”
Mimi’s soul settled somewhere around her ankles. “A valet?”
The old woman nodded. “You’ll still get your regular pay. You’ll still be
on the team. And you’ll still be in consideration for any special gigs.
But you won’t be wrestling. What’ll it be, Mimi?”
She weighed her options for about three seconds. She could try her luck at
a regular, non-powered promotion, but that was an iffy thing, not as steady
work as in the Grapplers. Plus, she had gotten comfortable being one of
the team, even one who wasn’t allowed to wrestle the others. Job security
and team membership--those were the real issues.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
So, in the days to come, Mimi had played valet to Poundcakes, had carried
her long flowing cape, had gone over the corner of the ring with a Hoover
before she stepped in, the whole Gorgeous George bit, and had done her best
to distract the opposition, which included spraying water in Titania’s eyes
on one occasion and slipping a banana peel under Letha’s feet on another.
She had gotten fairly good at being a clown.
But a clown wasn’t what she wanted to be.
And she was still a valet. A clown.
So there was still reason for Mimi to pop Sominex some nights when the
demons wouldn’t go quietly back in the box.
And there was still reason for her to dream some big, big dreams.
*****
The matches were still some three days away, at Madison Square Garden.
Auntie was having the girls go through some of their routines in Kowalski’s
Gym on the Lower East Side. It was a bit of a dump, but it was where the
Grapplers had gotten their big start. Also, it was cheap to rent.
So Sushi had gotten it on with Vavavoom, and Butterball made the floor
vibrate with Poundcakes, and Battleaxe had taken on Magilla, and the other
girls had waited their turn and taken on their sparring partners when a mat
cleared. When the four guys using the boxing ring had gotten through, they
moved some of the action in there.
There were some guys from the wrestling rags taking photos and taping some
sound bites from the women. A stringer from a cable news outfit brought
his videocam and got enough action to piece together with what he’d take
later from the matches, and sell it to his client network. Auntie liked
the chance for publicity, and gave the scribes all they wanted.
Mimi leaned against a wall of the gym. She wore full face-paint, the green
ruffled collar, the green swimsuit with the cutout over her stomach, the
ruffled skirt, the green gloves and ballet slippers, and held a coat over
her arms as she looked at the others.
“Columbine?”
“Huh?” She turned. It was the guy with the video camera.
“I’m sorry, miss. It’s just your outfit reminds me of Columbine, Pierrot’s
lady. Do they call you that?”
She shifted the coat in her arms and pasted on a smile. “No, sorry. I’m
Mimi. Screaming Mimi Schwartz.”
“Do you wrestle, miss?” He still had the camera pointing right down her
throat.
Mimi said, “I used to. But I’m doing something else now. The valet bit.”
“Oh. Why aren’t you wrestling anymore?” He was as green as a spring
apple.
Mimi gathered herself, internally. She could let out a whoop that’d blast
his machine into a zillion pieces. She could toss him over her shoulder
like a poker chip. It’d make her feel good, for a little while.
But she’d have to pay for his camera. Auntie Freeze would be on her case
for making bad publicity. She might even have to sit out waiting on
Poundcakes this time around.
“Just waiting for the right gal, I suppose,” she said, and walked away from
the man with the camera.
He kept filming her from the back.
*****
It was a piece of luck that she looked the right way to catch a headline on
a paper a blind newsdealer had in his stall outside. She had the overcoat
thrown over her costume and knew they could still see her weirdo makeup,
but was past giving a damn.
The headline read: SHANNA “SHE-DEVIL” ARRIVES IN NEW YORK.
That, and the photo of the tall, well-built woman in the long coat and
pillbox hat, deplaning at JFK, plastered side-by-side with a shot of her
swinging from a vine in a leopard bikini.
Naturally, the paper was USA Today, and the pics were in color.
“Afternoon, lady,” said the newsie, conversationally.
She gave a start. “How’d you know I was a lady?”
He stubbed out the cigar he’d been smoking. “Your steps. You walk like a
woman. You’re not wearing heels, even flats, am I right?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m in ballet slippers.” She laughed, half-consciously.
“That’s really neat. I mean, can all blind people make out sounds that
well?”
“Oh, some can,” he said. “It’s not just makin’ out the sounds, we can all
do that. It’s knowin’ what they mean. If you’d been in high heels, I’d
hear you clickin’ a half block down. If it was flats, they make a clack.
If you’d been in tennies, joggin’, you could hear that slap-slap-slap like
beaver’s tails and you’d be pantin’. But I can hear you kinda slip along.
Figured you were in something like slippers. Too cold for bare feet.”
She looked at the paper. “Maybe not. This gal on page one usually goes
around in a lot less.”
“Is that Shanna you’re talkin’ about? They told me about her, when I
popped the bundles today. Say she runs around in a bikini in the jungle.”
He gave a lecherous smile. “That lady’d be something to hear.”
Mimi dropped her jaw for a moment, then smiled. “You mean, you size up
women by how they sound? That’s a new bit on me. I’m used to guys looking
hard at me, but listening--”
“Yeah, I listen. That’s what turns me on, lady, no offense. Guys don’t
listen to you much, huh?”
“Only when I yell at ‘em,” she said. “My name’s Mimi. Nice meeting you.”
He stuck his hand out and she shook it. “Sid Giles,” he said. “Been here
for the past year. Are you from the gym?”
“Yeah. Guess you figured that from my slippers, right?”
“Just kind’ve a guess. You wear low shoes, you’ve probably been working
out. But you ain’t breathin’ heavy. You just been with a friend?”
“Yep,” she said. “With a lot of my friends. They wrestle.” She took one
of the papers, and took some money from the change purse in her coat pocket
and gave it to him.
“Really? Son of a gun,” he said. “My dad used to watch the wrestling
matches. I used to listen. Lotta fun. Do you wrestle, miss?”
“I used to,” said Mimi, scrutinizing the front page. “Maybe I will again.”
“Hey, have a nice day, Mimi,” he said, as she walked off.
“Thanks, same to you,” she said, over her shoulder.
Sid was glad. She was down-and-out when she first walked up, he could
tell. Then she was curious. Now, she sounded like she was on top of the
ball again.
It was great, not having to see.
*****
As it happened, Shanna had come to the Big Apple from someplace called the
Savage Land (Mimi knew enough neighborhoods in town that fit the monicker)
and was rumored to be on the trail of somebody while her significant other,
Ka-Zar, did some TCB back come. But she was also giving a speech at a
fundraiser at the Bronx Zoo at 3:00. It was 12 noon.
“Cripes,” Mimi said, and ran back into the gym. The girls were still
going through the paces. Sushi was using a body scissors-full nelson combo
on Cowgirl and really working it. Mimi ran right up to the edge of the
mat. “Susie, you’ve gotta lend me some money,” she said. “I’ve gotta get
across town real fast.”
Sushi, the Asian wrestlerette in a red swimsuit, grunted and said, “Mimi,
this is not the time to dun me.”
Cowgirl groaned and said, “Whattya gotta go across town for, Meem?
Can’tcha get the money from Auntie?”
The others were starting to notice the conversation. Sotto voce, Mimi
said, “It’s gotta be secret. But it’s like important to the max. If it
works, it could be something good for us...and for me. C’mon, Sushi, I’ll
owe ya one, I really will.”
Sushi, aka Susan Hayakawa, sighed. “Scout’s honor?”
“Pinky square.”
“Deb, don’t let ‘em take our place,” said Sushi, and released Cowgirl from
the hold. The Oklahoma redhead in the purple and white outfit took five,
lying on the mat and twiddling her thumbs. Sushi hustled to the locker
room and came back with cash. Auntie was ambling over towards them.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“I’ll tell you later, Auntie, but don’t worry,” said Mimi, hiding her hands
in her coat pockets. She was crossing both sets of forefingers.
Sushi handed over the bills. Mimi pecked her on the cheek. “Thanks. Back
later.” She ran out.
Auntie Freeze sighed. “I’m really beginning to worry about that broad.”
“I will too, Auntie,” said Sushi, “if she doesn’t bring me back change.
You ready, Deb?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Cowgirl.
And Sushi put her back in the scissors and full nelson, and Cowgirl resumed
her groaning.
*****
Mimi caught the subway to the zoo and was forced to make conversation with
the lady beside her, who wondered if she was a mime. Finally, she was
allowed to go back to reading the newspaper, and trying to firm up what she
had in the way of a plan.
The Bronx Zoo was a fun place to go in a part of the city that wasn’t
exactly picturesque. Mimi wished she had the time to check it out in full,
but she’d been there before. And the prey she was hunting wouldn’t take
long to find. She hoped.
She paid her $7.75 at the front gate. “Are you a clown?” asked the ticket
seller.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly right,” said Mimi. “This is my day off. It’s
just too much of a hassle to take off the makeup in between shows.”
“Oh,” said the lady, and handed Mimi her ticket.
Mimi scurried through the crowds, thankful she’d been there before.
Africa, the section where Shanna was giving her talk, was way the hell on
the other end of the park. She checked her watch. She wouldn’t be in time
for the start of it, but she’d be there pretty soon after. So Mimi
broken-field-ran her way through the throng of kids, adults, and oldsters,
and tried not to bowl too many people over, especially if they were tour
guides.
When she did jostle one such person and was grabbed by the arm, she put on
her best desperation act and waved the newspaper before him, saying, “I’m a
fan of Shanna’s! You’ve just got to let me go see her!”
“Well, all right, but don’t go charging off like a rhinoceros,” said the
guide. “She’ll be talking for at least an hour. Now, be careful.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mimi gushed, and was gone.
Finally, panting, she made her way to the Carter Giraffe Building and went
inside. She was sweaty, and looked less than her best, but she took a seat
as close to the front of the room as she could get. Ms. O’Hara had drawn a
decent-sized crowd. She was wearing a regular pantsuit, which must have
been disappointing to the men.
Shanna was gorgeous.
Acres of red locks framed her face and waterfell down her back. Full lips,
green eyes, high cheekbones, all the fashion model’s standard equipment.
Not too much makeup. She didn’t look like she needed it. She wore gold
bangle earrings (Mimi wondered if those would get caught in tree branches
when she swung through them, somehow) and her face gave an impression of
confidence and strength, under all that prettiness.
Below that, what Mimi could see beneath the fashionable black pantsuit
suggested that she had the standard bathing suit model’s equipment, too.
She was probably muscled more like a fitness competitor than a bodybuilder.
Mimi liked that. It was the kind of build she had, as well, though she
wondered how her body would compare to Shanna’s.
Her reaction surprised her. Instead of being jealous of Shanna’s looks,
mien, and status, Mimi found herself appreciating the woman.
But she checked herself. To make this bit work, she was going to have to
be a bitch. At least, on the surface.
“I used to work at the Municipal Zoo,” Shanna was saying. “But I made it a
point to visit every facility in the city, and as many as I could in the
state and Jersey. One of the things that drove me, both as a zoo worker
and a visitor, was the realization that some of the animals I worked with
or saw would be gone, as a whole species, if somebody didn’t care for them
properly or see to it that they gave birth and their offspring survived.
One of the greatest pleasures I’ve had today is going to your ‘dark’
section and seeing the snow leopards. I’ve never even seen their kind in
Africa. You have a duty to help them stay alive, to help all animals stay
alive. Whether in the wild, in preserves, or in zoos such as this one, we
don’t have the right to arrogate survival to just our own kind.”
She’d given a slide-show presentation after that, of some of the endangered
species she’d encountered in Africa, and Mimi was impressed with how many
animals were on that list. A few minutes into the show, a shot of her
posing beside a rhino came up. She was dressed only in a leopard-skin
bikini, with a bracelet of the big cat’s teeth about one calf, and she was
barefoot, smiling for the camera, a female Tarzan. The room erupted in a
chorus of sighs, whistles, and cheers. When the ruckus died down, Shanna
brought down the house by saying, “Yes, I agree. That is a very attractive
rhino, isn’t it?”
After the slides were done, she did the questions-from-the-audience bit.
No, she couldn’t say much about the Savage Land, other than that it was her
favorite place to live, followed by Africa and New York. Yes, she and
Ka-Zar, her Kevin, were an item, but that was all she cared to say about
it. Her “working outfit” really was leopard skin, made from the pelt of a
dead female. She’d made it and worn it to gain the trust of the female’s
two cubs, and it had worked. “Dr. Jane Goodall wrote and said that, all
the same, she didn’t think a gorilla bikini would work for her,” Shanna
said, and cracked the house up again.
About her “heroic” career, Shanna admitted that it was exciting, but also
tragic in many ways. Her parents, one of her first lovers, and her
leopards Ina and Biri, had all been killed in the course of her adventures.
“And after meeting Nekra, I thought I’d be on the extinct species list,
too,” she admitted. Luckily, she’d beaten back her powerful foe on several
occasions.
When asked about the mission she was said to be undertaking, Shanna
responded, “Sorry, I can’t talk about that right now.” Another rube asked
if she’d be posing for pictures later. “Well,” said Shanna, drawing out
the word to about four syllables, for another laugh, “I’m not in my
‘working clothes’ today, but I do have a stack of photos at the signing
table, and I’ll autograph them for five dollars apiece. All the cash goes
to the good old Bronx Zoo.” More cheers. “If you’ve brought your cameras,
I’ll pose with you for the same charge...but you have to settle for what
I’m wearing now.” The roll of chuckles came back.
“Any more questions? No? Okay, then, if you’ll form a line by the table
here--”
“Excuse me, Miss Shanna?”
The jungle girl looked in the direction from which the voice had come.
She did a double take.
A woman in the craziest face-paint she’d seen this side of a war party in
the Savage Land was standing there, her coat over one arm, in some kind of
bathing suit-cum-ballerina getup. Shanna tensed, getting ready to roll up
her pants leg and go for the knife she had strapped to her calf, if she had
to.
“I’m not a super-villain. I’m a wrestler. The name is Screaming Mimi
Schwartz. And I’m challenging you to meet me later on in a match. My pay
can go to the zoo fund. You can do what you want with yours. But where I
come from, the asphalt jungle’s a lot tougher than any hidden jungle. And
I want a piece of you, baby!”
Before she’d finished the speech, the flashcubes started going off and the
videocams were in action.
Feeling her guts turn to water, Mimi nonetheless summoned her showgirl’s
pizzazz and sauntered over to Shanna, who was in a combat stance. She
stood with her hands on her hips, her coat dropped on the floor behind her.
She looked defiant. The shots of this scene would make the cover of the
Post tomorrow.
But she said something to Shanna low enough that only the jungle girl could
hear her.
“Please, honey, I need your help. Maybe I can help you, too. Will you let
me explain, after you’re done here?”
In the same low tone, Shanna asked, “Are you on drugs or something?”
“No.”
Then she sighed and said, “All right. All right. Please, go sit back
down, and I’ll talk with you after the session. Okay?”
“Absolutely. Thank you.”
And Mimi picked up her coat and went back to her seat, with a cluster of
newsies homing in on her in a feeding frenzy.
After a couple of minutes, Shanna said, “Mimi, come over here.”
Obediently, the girl in the facepaint went over to Shanna’s table, and sat
beside her and the zoo official and a redheaded guy in shades who,
apparently, was her escort.
“For ten bucks, you can get a shot of Mimi and I together,” said Shanna.
Out of the side of her mouth, she said, “This had better be good, kid, or
I’ll turn you over to the mercies of my friend, here.”
Mimi swallowed. “Is he your bodyguard?”
“Worse. He’s my lawyer.”
“Oh.”
And Mimi and Shanna posed and signed pictures for a solid hour afterwards.
The Watcher
it works, this will be one of four (or maybe five). It's written in
response to Jim Smith's Songbird fic challenge on his Thunderbolts site.