Zack and the gargoyle

432 shows and 7619 days ago we did a show that was a total disaster.
I’ve talked about it in various things before.
The Roman reenactors were shooting metal spears into the faire
The knights rode their horses into the crowd and got mad people tried to pet them
The organizer hired a high school marching band as renaissance music
Several acts didn’t show up
We didn’t get paid and my wife had to borrow money from her mother to pay bills

In general if was horrible.

The final fight was supposed to be this big battle between dozens of people. Our group brought 2 dozen people.
The other group that was supposed to bring just as many brought 2.
Not 2 dozen. 2 people.
The field was the size of a soccer field, and we were supposed to fill it. A new plan was needed.
This required a lot of last minute re-writing of the final battle.

One of the changes was that Zack, one of the two of the other group, would fight Frank from Kansas, one of our guest stars.
Frank from Kansas had several black belts in a variety of martial arts and Zack had a lot of performance experience, so we sent them off to write something together.
There was not time for us to see, review or practice integrating their fight into the bigger one we were now rearranging within our group.

When the time came, the bad guys were all in heavy make up FfK made up to be like the gargoyle Goliath from the TV show, Zack as an elf.
FfK was a tall person, taller than me and I’m not short.

Zack walked out in front of him and shouted a challenge.
FfK shouted in return and charged at him. Zack ran. And, ran. And, ran.
Back and forth across the field in front of us and all the patrons at the faire.

Finally, after circling the field several times, FfK caught up with him, lifted him up into the air and slammed him down onto the ground while screaming victory.

We all stood there, not knowing if this was the plan or not thinking, and in some cases saying “did Frank just kill Zack?”

But, FfK’s wife on the good guy’s side screamed a challenged and went after FfK, finally ripping off his wig and holding up to the crowd to show she scalped the killer.
The other fighters engaged and what we had as a battle unfolded.

All this time, Zack lay on the ground, not moving.

When the act finally finished, we all went over and stood over Zack.
“Are you OK?” We all asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said, jumping up. “That was great. I couldn’t really see the rest of the battle, but it sounded cool!”
“Frank didn’t hurt you?”
“No! He was very careful and just put me on the ground. I thought I should just stay still while the rest of going on.”

We didn’t have time to linger as we had to finish the show.
We all went our different ways and I did not see Zack again for 7616 days.