Chapter 37: Resolve

Taft paused for a second, listening as another rattle rang from the inside of Johnson’s iron prison. He lowered his gavel, placing his ear to the metal box as he heard another, then another.

Taft stepped back, noticing now that with each of these sounds, the front wall of the metal prison bent outwards slightly. The bending was gradual at first, but by the sixteenth ring, the iron plate looked just about ready to fall off its hinges. Then, with one final ring, the wall burst off and fell to the ground.

The crowd watched on in horror as a towering creature emerged from inside the prison. The monster’s head was unmistakably that of Johnson’s, but the rest of the creature’s “body” consisted only of a single, beefy arm attached to the bottom of Johnson’s neck.

“Holy smokes!” Thompson shouted. “It seems like Buchanan has transformed Johnson into some sort of hideous monster inside that prison of his!”

“It’s the opposite, actually,” Truman interjected, “Johnson turned himself into a monster.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can only conjecture based on what I’ve seen, of course,” Truman replied, tapping at his own arm, “but my guess is that Johnson severed off all his body parts and stuffed them into a single one of his arms. By doing so,” he said, tightened up the muscles in his arm, “he can quite literally put all of his weight into each of his punches!”

Grant gave a silent nod in the stands.

“Spot on, Truman,” he mumbled. “That is indeed the true nature of Johnson’s Executive Power: Reconstruction…an ability allowing him to put his body back together in terrible, twisted ways.”

In the arena, Johnson cracked what remained of his neck as he gave a sick grin. He bent down with his giant elbow, then pushed off the ground with his gigantic hand, propelling his body ahead at a rapid rate.

Buchanan grabbed at his hair, frantically looking around for a source of salvation from his desperate plight as Johnson hopped towards him.

Should I surrender? Buchanan thought. Or perhaps try talking things out? Maybe run away?

He looked behind him, gazing out at the wide open space between him and the arena wall.

Yes…running sounds good… he thought before lowering his head down into his chest. After all, running away means I don’t have to make a decision…and as long as I never make a decision…I can never be the one at fault…I can never be the one people blame for messing up…

Buchanan bit his lip.

…but wasn’t I tired of making these tired old excuses? Didn’t I decided to finally go and change myself when I choose to enter this tournament?

“Get ready, twerp!” Johnson screamed as he hastened towards him, “I’m armed to the teeth!”

Buchanan breathed out, lowering his tensed shoulders to his side.

“It would appear,” he spoke on, his head still tilted to the floor, “that I must decide for myself whether you possess enough force in that arm of yours to compel me to yield.”

The ground behind Buchanan trembled and shook, the high-intensity quaking nearly toppling the giant Taft off his feet. Taft steadied his balanced and gazed upwards, his mouth dropping at the sight of a towering iron maiden rising up just behind Buchanan.

“Ater much serious reflection,” Buchanan exclaimed, raising his head with a sharp fire burning in his eyes, “I have arrived at the conclusion…”

Buchanan stared straight ahead, taking in the full view of Johnson’s twisted, warped body as he hurtled towards him. He continued staring in silence, saying nothing until he could clearly make out every vein popping out of Johnson’s bloodshot eyes and each glob of drool dripping from his ravenous mouth. Then, in that moment, Buchanan let out his greatest scream yet.

“NOOO!” Buchanan squealed as every ounce of his resolve, along with his towering iron maiden, crumbled into dust.

Buchanan started to run away as fast he could, but Johnson crashed down on top of him from above, smashing him to the ground.

“I SURRENDER!” Buchanan screamed, “I surrender! I surrender! I surrender!”

Taft slammed his gavel down.

“The match is over!” he shouted, freezing Johnson in place.

“Tsk,” Johnson spat, clicking out his tongue, “just when we were getting to the good part too…”

“The winner,” Taft continued, “is the [Tennessee Tailor], Andre Johnson!”

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Decision. Jim Buchanan’s speech at the end of this chapter mirrors a speech James Buchanan made to congress after the southern States started to secede from the nation. Ultimately James declared that the Union had no right to stop the seceding states, specifically by telling Congress that “The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union…After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government.”

This comment he made saying that the government had no right to stop a secession infuriated the states loyal to the Union. To make things even worse, James simultaneously declared that the Southern states didn’t have the right to secede, infuriating those states that would later go on to join the Confederacy.