Book I | "The Swine Are Unclean"

“And the spirits prayed Jesus, and said, Send us into the swine, that we enter into them. And Jesus granted that to them.”

- Mark 5 12-13, Wycliffe’s Bible translation

Book I | “The Swine Are Unclean”

“I do not believe in Fate. It is a concept that undermines the Word of God by saying that there is a destined plan for us that is set in stone. As if our lives are given to the Creator like a parchment upon which He writes each event that shall come to pass for us, as if he were a banker checking boxes along a ledger. There are those within my Faith that do believe in this method, and there have been wars fought over that belief. For myself, I see that the Creator laid out for us a path, breathed life into the slab of marble that is Man, and allowed us to be born into the world. Once there, our Free Will determines who, or what, we become.

No, I do not believe in Fate, but often I find myself in places where I cannot help but to wonder.”

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“Pigs are disgustin’ animals, boy. They shit more ‘an any other animal, muck about in it, then spend all day lazin’ about in the sun, baking off that shit. That’s why He drove that filth into tha’ pigs, you understand?” The groundskeeper shaded his eyes from the sun beating down overhead. Sweat had begun to bead across his bald pate, rolling in rivets down to his white shirt and dirt-stained denim jeans. Beside the groundskeeper stood his son, a short boy with a dirt-smudged face and greasy hair, streaked through with mud from a hard day’s work. The groundskeeper, Jonah St. Croix, held out a shovel towards his son, pointing across the field to a collection of pigs circling a pen.

“It’s yer’ job now, boy, ta’ march over there and shovel that shit and get the pigs in for the night.” Jonah shoved out the shovel once more, a motion obviously meant for young Malcolm to take it. Malcolm reached for it, the calloused hands of the son taking the shovel from the calloused hands of the father. Before pulling it toward himself, however, Malcolm paused, glancing back to the direction of the pigs.

“Why are we shoveling their shit if we don’t have a need for it or if they’re just going to lay…” Malcolm couldn’t finish his sentence before he caught a sharp cuff to the chin from his father. The hit was hard enough to cause his ears to ring, the metallic taste of blood coming up from his teeth biting into his cheek. Malcolm spit the globule of blood onto the ground and looked up to his father. Jonah stood as if nothing had occurred.

“First off boy, watch yer’ tongue when yer’ talkin’ to me. Second off, it’s not your place ta’ question, boy. What does Ephesians tell us?” The elder St. Croix stood looking down his nose at the younger St. Croix, waiting for the younger to come up with the exact verse that the elder wanted.

“Ephesians Six-One says ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord.’” Malcolm stood back up, rubbing his chin from where the blow had landed.

“That’s right, boy,” Jonah knelt down, bringing himself eye-to-eye with Malcolm. His dark eyes shone bright in the late afternoon summer sun, the sweat starting to roll from his bald head now. The expression on the face of Jonah was that of stone, inscrutable and unbreakable. This close, Malcolm could feel the heat from his breath, and smell the stink of sour wine that had been gulped down by his father during lunch. This had become a ritual of Malcolm’s days. Wake up, make his way down to the grounds with his father, begin working to clean the grounds by cleaning stables or feeding the livestock, then closing shop for the day. At the end of each day, Jonah sat Malcolm down for his Bible readings, which usually followed a question-and-answer session and short, sharp cuffs if the answers weren’t to Jonah’s liking.

”The reason we shovel the shit is because cleanliness is godliness. Pigs are filthy animals, son. Pigs are what Jesus cast the spirits out into, because that’s what they deserved. Those beasts then went mad and threw themselves from a cliff. That’s why pigs now are symbols of the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth, for their lazin’ about. Wrath, ‘cause they will eat each other at the smallest sight of blood. Gluttons, the lot of ‘em, going through their days doin’ nothin’ but eatin’ and shittin’ all over our pens,” Jonah straightened his back and thrust the shovel into Malcolm’s hand, then pointed over to the pen of pigs snorting and shuffling about on the ground.

”Now get over there and do yer’ job, boy.”

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“Where shall we begin, as we dive into the divine readings of my arrival into Pro Wrestling Excellence. For starters, yeah, my feet will touch upon the ground of the city named San Diego for my first appearance on Victory. San Diego, the Spanish name of Saint Didacus by the Spanish conquerors who, in some ways, heralded my arrival. Their methods, their brutality, their righteous fury, these are the images that the heretics of the professional wrestling world should conjure in their brains as Malcolm St. Croix steps upon this city in California, and much like Saint Didacus before, comes as a conqueror and leading the missionaries. A guardian is what Saint Didacus was proclaimed as, and I shall be that as well.

My first match, right, is against Legion. The disgusting spirit that the Christ cast from the man of Gerasenes into a herd of pigs that, upon being touched by the spirit, leapt to their deaths in order to avoid such filth. Though the true Legion was killed in the Sea of Galilee, I’m faced with an unclean pariah using that same name, calling out to be helped in the name of the Christ. ‘The Anathema’, they call me, a curse from the papacy directly on those who we must excommunicate. If there is someone to excommunicate, to break the crown of, then who better than someone who claims to be a “Queenslayer” demon?

I’ve heard words on the wind about you, Legion. You’ve been a champion, I’ve heard. An asylum champion. That’s a remarkable feat, as I see you’re here, in Excellence, and not in an asylum. I heard that you’ve been an underground champion, which is fitting, I s’pose. Underground is where the dead are buried, where the filth hides and the souls wait to be judged. Underground is the dark place that hides from the Fire of the Lord. Your asylum? Your underground? These are places where you can shield your ears from the trumpets, the place for you to hide from the Army of the Host.

Unfortunately for you, Legion, you have been found. That gravedirt that you’ve used to hide your uncleanliness from the world, that place that you’ve slithered, after crawling from the Sea of Galilee and crossing the Atlantic Ocean, has now been dug up by the hands that will bring justice to you where you stand. Unfortunately for you, Legion, Malcolm St. Croix also crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a mission. My mission is much different than yours. While you hide in pigs’ bodies, while you shy away from the light in the body of some carnival freak, you are truly about to find that you cannot hide from ‘The Anathema’. You cannot hide from the curse that haunts you. You cannot hide from excommunication.

Another body of water awaits, Legion. When our match is finished, and I’ve cast you down like you deserve, I will toss whatever is left of you into the Pacific Ocean. Like the swine before you, dying in the Sea of Galilee, you will find the same end in the Pacific Ocean. Then my eyes turn to the rest of the dirt that is Excellence. Then my eyes turn towards the Seven Deadly Sins consuming Excellence. First, is the pride that is mounting. And that pride? That pride will be the downfall of this company… The downfall at my hands. But first, I must start by cleansing these halls by dealing with you, Legion. You are not many, you are one. And alone, you cannot stand against ‘The Patron Saint of Violence’.”