Wrestling Ambitions by Cliff Aliperti
A young man with ambitions to be a wrestler attends his local low-grade match, and has a more adventurous evening than he expected.
It was only the third time the wrestlers came to town, first since I'd left high school, where such events were always hosted. We got the dregs here. Like, our main event would be a bathroom-break prelim at a big arena show, and on that night both our main eventers no-showed anyway. But tickets were cheap, and the matches gave us an excuse to revisit our old stomping grounds, where I hadn't stomped since they'd asked me to leave for the last time, two years prior, placing this around 1991, '92 at the latest.
"Hey, look, it's Rocky Coast," I said. "Out mingling with the marks."
Yeah, I was hip to the talk. A few years earlier, I had replied to an ad in one of the newsstand magazines and bought some out-of-market matches on homemade VHS tapes; my vendors had pointed me towards some insider sheets and newsletters that I would have otherwise never heard of. And I wasn't just pissing away the labors of my $4.05 an hour shit-job-of-the-moment, I was studying. Prepping for my future profession. I thought.
"He's trying to hook up with that rat," Bob said. I had passed along my mail order lingo to the boys.
"Let's go meet him," I said. I looked at Bob and Frankie. "He's a fucking scrub, he'll be honored to shake hands."
About a year earlier, I had found a newspaper ad tucked between racing results for a semi-local wrestling school. I showed it to Bob, and we decided to sign up as soon as possible. The weeks went by. We debated the best days and times to present ourselves for enrollment. We planned for probably six months before page thirty-something of the same local newspaper dashed our dreams in reporting the murder of our prospective instructor in the parking lot of a local strip club that we never had balls enough to enter - granted, I wasn't legal yet, so I'd have needed brass ones, but given my height, I had a pretty good success rate getting in most places.
The ring rat was seated behind a table trying to sell Xeroxed four-page programs and paper-thin Rocky Coast tee-shirts. By the time we made it over to her table, Rocky Coast had disappeared.
"Hey, wasn't that Rocky Coast?" Frankie asked her.
"The man, the myth, the legend." Her voice was flat.
"Let's not get carried away," Bob said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen him win."
The woman, maybe five years our senior, her wild leftover eighties-hair likely bleached from the same bottle coloring her husband's mullet, was sexy in a trashy way, squeezed into a low-cut shirt, her face colored as brightly as her nails, all of it dashed with glitter. She looked away from Bob, to me, and said, "He's my husband."
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry," Bob said.
She shrugged. "He's gets over on these small house shows. Sometimes," she said, now gritting her teeth. "Not tonight."
"I wanted to ask him if they needed any wrestlers tonight," Bob's jaw dropped while my mouth ran. "I mean, I heard there were no-shows, and I thought maybe you could use some guys to fill in."
I was a pole back then, barely over two hundred pounds, the beers and years not yet having worked their personality into my gut. She smirked.
"The little guys traveled with us. It's supposed to be a big surprise for you sophisticated folk, but you've got some midget mayhem coming up."
"Oh," I said. What else could I say.
She took small pity on me though. "You ever work before?"
"No," I said. Should have lied, but then again, looking at me, she already knew. "But I'd do it for nothing. Hell, I'd pay you." I reached into my wallet and tugged out a fifty. I noticed that Bob and Frankie had disappeared. I was the only one left at Mrs. Coast's table.
"Look, kiddo, these guys will hurt you for shits and giggles."
"I can take a bump," I said. And I could. From Bob and Frankie in the front yard, where we convincingly beat the crap out of each other every damn time we met up. Half-work, half-shoot, all for kicks. And practice. Maybe for this very night? In retrospect, I was exactly the type any of those boys would have loved stretching till my bones snapped.
Mrs. Coast smirked. She looked around. Nobody was rushing to buy Rocky Coast tee-shirts.
"Look," she said. "I can give you a workout for that fifty."
"Oh, you train too?" There was a lump in my throat. I had caught her drift.
"You could call it that."
I was scared shitless. "You got a card?" My voice climbed an octave, but I pretended we were still talking about the same sort of mat work.
"No. But I've got ten minutes. You still looking to spend that fifty?"
We slipped from the high school gym out to the lockered hallways. I led her up to the third floor, room 307, dark and empty, last visited by me when I had flunked history, once and for all. "A" for enthusiasm on this night, but all-in-all a sloppy experience I'd rather not discuss. We returned separately, probably about ten minutes later, which, shit, I could have got more bang for my buck elsewhere, but I was too young at the time to know where elsewhere was. Bob and Frankie had disappeared.
I slipped outside to sneak a smoke and found the boys out back of the gym, Bob sitting on Frankie's shoulders peeking in the locker room windows. Frankie polished off a Big Mac from the neighboring McDonald's, where we used to kill fifth period instead of Mr. Grobus's math class.
"Rocky Coast is going to fucking kill you," Frankie said, sucking ketchup from his fingers.
"Has he been looking for me?" I asked, ready to run if necessary.
"No, but she didn't seem the tight-lipped type," he said.
"Certainly wasn't," I whispered.
"See anything, Bob?" Frankie asked.
"Yeah," Bob said. "I see the Nairobi Nightmare's cock."
A stunned silent beat.
"What's he doing with it?" Frankie finally asked.
"It's like bobbing around in front of the Diminutive Dominican's face. I wish Nightmare would just sit the hell down."
"They got midgets wrestling tonight?" Frankie asked.
"Special surprise attraction," I said, not very energized.
"Let me down," Bob said. "This feels too close to gay porn."
"How would you know?" Frankie and I said in concert.
"Fuck you guys," Bob splashed down onto the pavement. "Let's go back in."
The matches had progressed, but we were just in time to see Mr. Terrific, the biggest star on our shitty card, finish off some nobody with a piledriver that delivered the closest thing to a pop this crowd was capable of.
"Looks like a lot of people cleared out already," I said.
"Is this the last match?" Bob asked one of the remaining patrons. We were told they had announced another two matches to follow. Bob turned back to us. "Wanna blow?" he asked.
"That's what she said," Frankie joked. "No, wait. That's what the Nightmare said... to you."
Bob punched him in the shoulder, but Frankie laughed it off.
We were just about to the exit, when I noticed a crowd gathered near the locker room entry. "Wait a minute," I said. We approached this group.
"Mr. Terrific!" a guy too old to call out had called out. "Mr. Terrific, can I have your autograph?"
"That kid ain't never getting laid," Bob said.
"Okay, okay," Terrific said, waving his hands at the crowd. "Y'all let me shower and dress, and I'll come back and sign for everyone."
This seemed to placate the masses. Mr. Terrific disappeared. So did we. We'd had enough of our lousy local wrestling show.
We were halfway to Frankie's car in the parking lot, when we damn near steamrolled the Diminutive Dominican, who was wandering between cars.
"What are you doing out here, Diminutive?" Bob asked.
"Waiting for my ride. Mr. Terrific."
We three exchanged glances.
"Where you headed?" Frankie asked. "Somewhere local?"
"Hotel. Days Inn."
"We can take you," Frankie said.
The Diminutive Dominican gazed throughout the parking lot, a gym bag damn near big as him slung over his shoulder, and finally decided Mr. Terrific had screwed him over. He nodded and joined us.
He sat in the backseat, next to me. A real live pro wrestler, who had even appeared in the movies. I was a little worried because he'd prison-raped some big dudes in his grand screen appearance, but by the time we had rolled out of the school lot, I'd decided that was just acting, this was safe.
"Beer?" the Dominican asked.
"We can get you beer," Frankie said.
"I'll buy," I said, which got an affirmative head nod from our new friend. "I was wondering," I continued. "Can you get us into the matches? I mean as wrestlers?"
"You'll get killed, kid," the Dominican said, his lack of accent betraying itself. He was no more Dominican than I was.
"Doesn't everyone, for starters?" I said.
I grabbed a cheap twelve-pack of Old Germans from the 7-Eleven, but the Dominican wasn't picky. Bob and I sipped from our cans, as our guest guzzled two quick, popped open a third, and lovingly cradled the cardboard box of leftovers.
"Hotel!" he shouted.
Frankie glanced at me from the rear view, and then turned down a road behind the school leading to some woods adjoining the property. The Diminutive Dominican didn't realize we weren't headed to the Days Inn until Frankie parked deep in those dark woods, where we'd drunk plenty a beer over the past few years.
"Give me one," Frankie said.
"Fuck you, mine."
Bob snaked a beer from the carton while the Dominican trained his death stare on Frankie. All was well once Frankie broke eye contact and opened the beer Bob had handed him. The Dominican seemed none the wiser, staring into space until he seized up before belching long and loud.
"Okay, fuck it," the Dominican said. "You want to be wrestlers? Get out and show me what you can do."
We three jumped out and did some quick stretches, while mumbling over our usual routine, so as not to fuck it up. The Dominican was slow to join us, his gym bag over one shoulder, a beer in one hand, the carton gripped in his other.
Bob and I locked up first. I worked him into a side-headlock and then he bodyslammed me. Frankie ran at him and Bob popped him with three fists, an inch at most from connecting with his face. Frankie tumbled backwards and fell over me. I sprung up and hit Bob with a dropkick, which he sold big time. And then the lights began to dim as Frankie's car pulled away.
"You motherfuckers ain't never working in my business," the Dominican shouted as he drove off.
"I... I didn't know they could do that," Frankie said, his car disappearing from view.
"What? Drive?" Bob said. "He had that big bag with him. Probably tossed it over the accelerator."
"A midget wrestler just stole my car."
"To be fair, we kind of kidnapped him," Bob said.
"I think he's just a short guy," I said. "Not a midget."
"Mr. Politically Correct over here," Bob said.
"No, but I think he's like five feet tall. He's just short. And did you notice - he didn't have any accent. I don't even think he's Dominican."
"Gee, and I bet the Nairobi Nightmare isn't actually from Nigeria," Bob said.
"Well, at least Mr. Terrific is really terrific," I replied, mocking awe.
"Kenya, moron."
"Can I what, Frankie?"
"Whatever," Frankie replied, suddenly exasperated. "He's got my fucking ID in that car."
"I don't think they'll come for you," Bob said.
"The wrestlers? Nah," I said.
"The cops!" Frankie was incensed. "I'm not worried about the wrestlers, I'm worried about the fucking cops!"
"He's probably driving back to the school," Bob said. "Meet up with his buddies."
"We should have told him the school was right through these woods. Poor little guy probably thought we'd really taken him."
"I should call the cops," Frankie said.
"No!" Bob and I in unison this time.
"He stole my fucking car!"
"He's taking it back to the school," Bob said. "C'mon, he can barely see over the dash. He's not going far."
"We'd better get a move on," I said.
It was still a bit of a hike, out of the woods, along the entire length of the school's exterior, and towards the parking lot by the gymnasium. The show had finished a while ago, so we tensed when headlights approached from behind. We turned to make sure it wasn't the Dominican bearing down on us in Frankie's car, but it turned out worse than that. For me at least.
The car stopped and Rocky Coast climbed out. He looked back into his car and demanded, "Which one?"
I heard a female voice swear nothing had happened, call someone a limp dick; and as I ran past them, saw one of her painted fingers pointing directly at me.
Rocky Coast was a little shorter than me, but outweighed me probably by eighty pounds, and was, I really hoped, too damn fat to fit between the gap in the fence leading to the McDonald's just beyond the school. I sprinted, just hoping to reach somewhere public and maybe grab a Big Mac while I hid out. I entered Mickey D's sucking wind, and before I could even take my place in line, I heard a familiar voice call out, "That's one of them."
The Diminutive Dominican pointed at me from the nearest table, as Mr. Terrific wiped his mouth and rose from his seat. I did an about face and ran from the restaurant, back the way I had just come.
I scrambled back through the fence, hoping in this new scenario that Mr. Terrific was too jacked to follow me through. I emerged onto school property just as Rocky Coast's car slowly advanced from where he'd scared me off a few minutes earlier. I froze between my rock and hard place, praying that none of these grown men were that determined to beat me to death. They had me for fornication and kidnapping. Well, attempted, at least, in both cases.
After Rocky's car vanished, I approached the parking lot a defeated man. I would never become a professional wrestler after all this. I mean, Rocky Coast? Mr. Terrific and the world-famous Diminutive Dominican? Those guys had all been in the business forever. Everybody knew them. I'd be a locker-room punchline by their next show, the kid who ran away. And then ran away again. I could almost cry.
Neither Bob nor Frankie noticed me until I was about thirty feet from them at Frankie's car.
When I reached them, Bob punched me in the shoulder, hard. He had a black eye.
"What happened?" I asked.
"After you split, Rocky Coast punched me in the face!"
I was about to apologize when Frankie cut in. "That's not all they did."
I looked over to Frankie, standing by his Buick, and he contorted his face into this strange look of pure-fuck you, as he waved his hand in front of it. Once he stopped waving, I zeroed in and made out the busted headlight.
"Oh, shit, Frankie! He messed with your car?"
"Busted both headlights and flattened the tire on this side." True, his car did seem to sag a little towards him.
Again, I didn't get the opportunity to apologize, because that's when Bob said, "Oh, shit." Frankie's expression softened, but his eyes bulged.
"Anybody see Mr. Terrific?"
I turned to see who this crisp voice belonged to, and was startled by the sight of the Nairobi Nightmare, but with his face paint all washed away and shiny teeth sparkling from what was always a wide empty gap on TV. He wore slacks and a button-up shirt, and was, in other words, a perfectly normal appearing Black gentlemen, who could have been one of our friends' parents, had not we known he was the Nightmare. He was pushing six feet ten, so it didn't take Matlock to figure this one.
"You guys hear me? Has Mr. Terrific been around? He's supposed to give me a ride back to the hotel."
"Days Inn, right?" I said. I saw my chance at redemption. "We can take you there. Right, Frankie?" I extended my arms towards Frankie and his Buick, amplifying its existence like I was one of The Price Is Right models.
"Uh, no," Frankie said, staring daggers my way. He softened his approach when he looked past me to the Nightmare. "Sorry, man. Somebody busted my headlights."
"And the flat tire," I said.
"We can fix that, asshole," Frankie said.
I turned back to the Nightmare. "Sorry, Nightmare."
"Call me Don."
The Nairobi Nightmare broke kayfabe and told me to call him Don - I was in! If I wanted to be a wrestler, I'd be a wrestler. Yes, based on tonight, some of the old timers would gleefully kick my ass, but I would earn my stripes over time. I'd become a peer, and this night just a silly story that I'd wind up telling any nervous new kids. I could do this; I could even become champ one day if I worked hard enough to salvage my rep.
Faint police sirens grew nearer.
Frankie and Bob both took off running towards the McDonald's. My heart was at their heels, but I stopped my feet. I approached the Nightmare, er, Don, and gripped both his forearms in my hands.
"Mr. Terrific was over at the McDonald's with the Dominican just a few minutes ago. Follow us, and you can probably still catch a ride with him."
Don the Nightmare looked down at me, nodded, and left me in the dust. I wanted to catch up to Bob and Frankie, so I could at least warn them not to go in there and get fingered by the Dominican, because I doubt even friendly Don would save them from Terrific's wrath. Don the Nightmare made it through the fencing without issue, so I guess size didn't matter, passage all depended upon one's will. By the time I reached the fence to pass through for the third time that night, I could make out the red and blue swirling lights inside the school parking lot.
Bob and Frankie had already entered McDonald's, their fate now their own. I hid behind a dumpster, praying the police wouldn't investigate beyond Frankie's car in the school lot. I stayed back there scared out of my skin, until I finally heard Bob and Frankie's voices outside. As I emerged, I saw Mr. Terrific laughing as he shook Bob's hand, and the Nightmare patting Frankie's shoulder. The Dominican still looked pissed, but at least Rocky Coast wasn't around.
I approached thinking my pals had opened a path for me to pursue my dream. But was it still my dream? For the wrestlers, this had been an average day peppered by menace and vandalism, but I'd spent the past few hours running, hiding, and cowering. It was only then that I realized I had always known this was no life for me. It was fun to buy videos and read the inside scoops, but I hadn't jumped so fast when reality planted a wrestling school under my nose. And tonight, what would I have done had Mrs. Coast said, sure, we'll put you in the ring? Probably even less than I had wound up doing with her in that history classroom.
I had been bullshitting myself all along.
I snapped out of it when I was about fifteen feet away. "Hey, Mr. Terrific," I called.
Mr. Terrific looked up at me, just as I stopped and kicked the Diminutive Dominican square in the balls. The Dominican's cheeks puffed out, and his hands reached for cover, as his knees buckled him to the ground.
"What the fuck?" Mr. Terrific said.
Don the Nightmare just laughed. He laughed and laughed.
I ran. I ran, not back to the school, where the cops might have lingered, but towards home.
They followed. I heard them following. I must have gained speed because they sounded more distant, which gave me a chance to turn and look back. It was just Bob and Frankie. I let them catch up to me.
"You're a fucking maniac!" Bob said, laughing.
"Good for you," Frankie said. "Asshole trashed my car, right? Um..." he paused. "You think it's safe to go get it? My car?"
"Safer in the morning," I said. "Considering your headlights."
Frankie nodded. Bob patted my shoulder. We were all good, black eye and trashed car be damned. I slept well that night.
I didn't want to be a wrestler anymore. I was cured.
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"Hey, look, it's Rocky Coast," I said. "Out mingling with the marks."
Yeah, I was hip to the talk. A few years earlier, I had replied to an ad in one of the newsstand magazines and bought some out-of-market matches on homemade VHS tapes; my vendors had pointed me towards some insider sheets and newsletters that I would have otherwise never heard of. And I wasn't just pissing away the labors of my $4.05 an hour shit-job-of-the-moment, I was studying. Prepping for my future profession. I thought.
"He's trying to hook up with that rat," Bob said. I had passed along my mail order lingo to the boys.
"Let's go meet him," I said. I looked at Bob and Frankie. "He's a fucking scrub, he'll be honored to shake hands."
About a year earlier, I had found a newspaper ad tucked between racing results for a semi-local wrestling school. I showed it to Bob, and we decided to sign up as soon as possible. The weeks went by. We debated the best days and times to present ourselves for enrollment. We planned for probably six months before page thirty-something of the same local newspaper dashed our dreams in reporting the murder of our prospective instructor in the parking lot of a local strip club that we never had balls enough to enter - granted, I wasn't legal yet, so I'd have needed brass ones, but given my height, I had a pretty good success rate getting in most places.
The ring rat was seated behind a table trying to sell Xeroxed four-page programs and paper-thin Rocky Coast tee-shirts. By the time we made it over to her table, Rocky Coast had disappeared.
"Hey, wasn't that Rocky Coast?" Frankie asked her.
"The man, the myth, the legend." Her voice was flat.
"Let's not get carried away," Bob said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen him win."
The woman, maybe five years our senior, her wild leftover eighties-hair likely bleached from the same bottle coloring her husband's mullet, was sexy in a trashy way, squeezed into a low-cut shirt, her face colored as brightly as her nails, all of it dashed with glitter. She looked away from Bob, to me, and said, "He's my husband."
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry," Bob said.
She shrugged. "He's gets over on these small house shows. Sometimes," she said, now gritting her teeth. "Not tonight."
"I wanted to ask him if they needed any wrestlers tonight," Bob's jaw dropped while my mouth ran. "I mean, I heard there were no-shows, and I thought maybe you could use some guys to fill in."
I was a pole back then, barely over two hundred pounds, the beers and years not yet having worked their personality into my gut. She smirked.
"The little guys traveled with us. It's supposed to be a big surprise for you sophisticated folk, but you've got some midget mayhem coming up."
"Oh," I said. What else could I say.
She took small pity on me though. "You ever work before?"
"No," I said. Should have lied, but then again, looking at me, she already knew. "But I'd do it for nothing. Hell, I'd pay you." I reached into my wallet and tugged out a fifty. I noticed that Bob and Frankie had disappeared. I was the only one left at Mrs. Coast's table.
"Look, kiddo, these guys will hurt you for shits and giggles."
"I can take a bump," I said. And I could. From Bob and Frankie in the front yard, where we convincingly beat the crap out of each other every damn time we met up. Half-work, half-shoot, all for kicks. And practice. Maybe for this very night? In retrospect, I was exactly the type any of those boys would have loved stretching till my bones snapped.
Mrs. Coast smirked. She looked around. Nobody was rushing to buy Rocky Coast tee-shirts.
"Look," she said. "I can give you a workout for that fifty."
"Oh, you train too?" There was a lump in my throat. I had caught her drift.
"You could call it that."
I was scared shitless. "You got a card?" My voice climbed an octave, but I pretended we were still talking about the same sort of mat work.
"No. But I've got ten minutes. You still looking to spend that fifty?"
We slipped from the high school gym out to the lockered hallways. I led her up to the third floor, room 307, dark and empty, last visited by me when I had flunked history, once and for all. "A" for enthusiasm on this night, but all-in-all a sloppy experience I'd rather not discuss. We returned separately, probably about ten minutes later, which, shit, I could have got more bang for my buck elsewhere, but I was too young at the time to know where elsewhere was. Bob and Frankie had disappeared.
I slipped outside to sneak a smoke and found the boys out back of the gym, Bob sitting on Frankie's shoulders peeking in the locker room windows. Frankie polished off a Big Mac from the neighboring McDonald's, where we used to kill fifth period instead of Mr. Grobus's math class.
"Rocky Coast is going to fucking kill you," Frankie said, sucking ketchup from his fingers.
"Has he been looking for me?" I asked, ready to run if necessary.
"No, but she didn't seem the tight-lipped type," he said.
"Certainly wasn't," I whispered.
"See anything, Bob?" Frankie asked.
"Yeah," Bob said. "I see the Nairobi Nightmare's cock."
A stunned silent beat.
"What's he doing with it?" Frankie finally asked.
"It's like bobbing around in front of the Diminutive Dominican's face. I wish Nightmare would just sit the hell down."
"They got midgets wrestling tonight?" Frankie asked.
"Special surprise attraction," I said, not very energized.
"Let me down," Bob said. "This feels too close to gay porn."
"How would you know?" Frankie and I said in concert.
"Fuck you guys," Bob splashed down onto the pavement. "Let's go back in."
The matches had progressed, but we were just in time to see Mr. Terrific, the biggest star on our shitty card, finish off some nobody with a piledriver that delivered the closest thing to a pop this crowd was capable of.
"Looks like a lot of people cleared out already," I said.
"Is this the last match?" Bob asked one of the remaining patrons. We were told they had announced another two matches to follow. Bob turned back to us. "Wanna blow?" he asked.
"That's what she said," Frankie joked. "No, wait. That's what the Nightmare said... to you."
Bob punched him in the shoulder, but Frankie laughed it off.
We were just about to the exit, when I noticed a crowd gathered near the locker room entry. "Wait a minute," I said. We approached this group.
"Mr. Terrific!" a guy too old to call out had called out. "Mr. Terrific, can I have your autograph?"
"That kid ain't never getting laid," Bob said.
"Okay, okay," Terrific said, waving his hands at the crowd. "Y'all let me shower and dress, and I'll come back and sign for everyone."
This seemed to placate the masses. Mr. Terrific disappeared. So did we. We'd had enough of our lousy local wrestling show.
We were halfway to Frankie's car in the parking lot, when we damn near steamrolled the Diminutive Dominican, who was wandering between cars.
"What are you doing out here, Diminutive?" Bob asked.
"Waiting for my ride. Mr. Terrific."
We three exchanged glances.
"Where you headed?" Frankie asked. "Somewhere local?"
"Hotel. Days Inn."
"We can take you," Frankie said.
The Diminutive Dominican gazed throughout the parking lot, a gym bag damn near big as him slung over his shoulder, and finally decided Mr. Terrific had screwed him over. He nodded and joined us.
He sat in the backseat, next to me. A real live pro wrestler, who had even appeared in the movies. I was a little worried because he'd prison-raped some big dudes in his grand screen appearance, but by the time we had rolled out of the school lot, I'd decided that was just acting, this was safe.
"Beer?" the Dominican asked.
"We can get you beer," Frankie said.
"I'll buy," I said, which got an affirmative head nod from our new friend. "I was wondering," I continued. "Can you get us into the matches? I mean as wrestlers?"
"You'll get killed, kid," the Dominican said, his lack of accent betraying itself. He was no more Dominican than I was.
"Doesn't everyone, for starters?" I said.
I grabbed a cheap twelve-pack of Old Germans from the 7-Eleven, but the Dominican wasn't picky. Bob and I sipped from our cans, as our guest guzzled two quick, popped open a third, and lovingly cradled the cardboard box of leftovers.
"Hotel!" he shouted.
Frankie glanced at me from the rear view, and then turned down a road behind the school leading to some woods adjoining the property. The Diminutive Dominican didn't realize we weren't headed to the Days Inn until Frankie parked deep in those dark woods, where we'd drunk plenty a beer over the past few years.
"Give me one," Frankie said.
"Fuck you, mine."
Bob snaked a beer from the carton while the Dominican trained his death stare on Frankie. All was well once Frankie broke eye contact and opened the beer Bob had handed him. The Dominican seemed none the wiser, staring into space until he seized up before belching long and loud.
"Okay, fuck it," the Dominican said. "You want to be wrestlers? Get out and show me what you can do."
We three jumped out and did some quick stretches, while mumbling over our usual routine, so as not to fuck it up. The Dominican was slow to join us, his gym bag over one shoulder, a beer in one hand, the carton gripped in his other.
Bob and I locked up first. I worked him into a side-headlock and then he bodyslammed me. Frankie ran at him and Bob popped him with three fists, an inch at most from connecting with his face. Frankie tumbled backwards and fell over me. I sprung up and hit Bob with a dropkick, which he sold big time. And then the lights began to dim as Frankie's car pulled away.
"You motherfuckers ain't never working in my business," the Dominican shouted as he drove off.
"I... I didn't know they could do that," Frankie said, his car disappearing from view.
"What? Drive?" Bob said. "He had that big bag with him. Probably tossed it over the accelerator."
"A midget wrestler just stole my car."
"To be fair, we kind of kidnapped him," Bob said.
"I think he's just a short guy," I said. "Not a midget."
"Mr. Politically Correct over here," Bob said.
"No, but I think he's like five feet tall. He's just short. And did you notice - he didn't have any accent. I don't even think he's Dominican."
"Gee, and I bet the Nairobi Nightmare isn't actually from Nigeria," Bob said.
"Well, at least Mr. Terrific is really terrific," I replied, mocking awe.
"Kenya, moron."
"Can I what, Frankie?"
"Whatever," Frankie replied, suddenly exasperated. "He's got my fucking ID in that car."
"I don't think they'll come for you," Bob said.
"The wrestlers? Nah," I said.
"The cops!" Frankie was incensed. "I'm not worried about the wrestlers, I'm worried about the fucking cops!"
"He's probably driving back to the school," Bob said. "Meet up with his buddies."
"We should have told him the school was right through these woods. Poor little guy probably thought we'd really taken him."
"I should call the cops," Frankie said.
"No!" Bob and I in unison this time.
"He stole my fucking car!"
"He's taking it back to the school," Bob said. "C'mon, he can barely see over the dash. He's not going far."
"We'd better get a move on," I said.
It was still a bit of a hike, out of the woods, along the entire length of the school's exterior, and towards the parking lot by the gymnasium. The show had finished a while ago, so we tensed when headlights approached from behind. We turned to make sure it wasn't the Dominican bearing down on us in Frankie's car, but it turned out worse than that. For me at least.
The car stopped and Rocky Coast climbed out. He looked back into his car and demanded, "Which one?"
I heard a female voice swear nothing had happened, call someone a limp dick; and as I ran past them, saw one of her painted fingers pointing directly at me.
Rocky Coast was a little shorter than me, but outweighed me probably by eighty pounds, and was, I really hoped, too damn fat to fit between the gap in the fence leading to the McDonald's just beyond the school. I sprinted, just hoping to reach somewhere public and maybe grab a Big Mac while I hid out. I entered Mickey D's sucking wind, and before I could even take my place in line, I heard a familiar voice call out, "That's one of them."
The Diminutive Dominican pointed at me from the nearest table, as Mr. Terrific wiped his mouth and rose from his seat. I did an about face and ran from the restaurant, back the way I had just come.
I scrambled back through the fence, hoping in this new scenario that Mr. Terrific was too jacked to follow me through. I emerged onto school property just as Rocky Coast's car slowly advanced from where he'd scared me off a few minutes earlier. I froze between my rock and hard place, praying that none of these grown men were that determined to beat me to death. They had me for fornication and kidnapping. Well, attempted, at least, in both cases.
After Rocky's car vanished, I approached the parking lot a defeated man. I would never become a professional wrestler after all this. I mean, Rocky Coast? Mr. Terrific and the world-famous Diminutive Dominican? Those guys had all been in the business forever. Everybody knew them. I'd be a locker-room punchline by their next show, the kid who ran away. And then ran away again. I could almost cry.
Neither Bob nor Frankie noticed me until I was about thirty feet from them at Frankie's car.
When I reached them, Bob punched me in the shoulder, hard. He had a black eye.
"What happened?" I asked.
"After you split, Rocky Coast punched me in the face!"
I was about to apologize when Frankie cut in. "That's not all they did."
I looked over to Frankie, standing by his Buick, and he contorted his face into this strange look of pure-fuck you, as he waved his hand in front of it. Once he stopped waving, I zeroed in and made out the busted headlight.
"Oh, shit, Frankie! He messed with your car?"
"Busted both headlights and flattened the tire on this side." True, his car did seem to sag a little towards him.
Again, I didn't get the opportunity to apologize, because that's when Bob said, "Oh, shit." Frankie's expression softened, but his eyes bulged.
"Anybody see Mr. Terrific?"
I turned to see who this crisp voice belonged to, and was startled by the sight of the Nairobi Nightmare, but with his face paint all washed away and shiny teeth sparkling from what was always a wide empty gap on TV. He wore slacks and a button-up shirt, and was, in other words, a perfectly normal appearing Black gentlemen, who could have been one of our friends' parents, had not we known he was the Nightmare. He was pushing six feet ten, so it didn't take Matlock to figure this one.
"You guys hear me? Has Mr. Terrific been around? He's supposed to give me a ride back to the hotel."
"Days Inn, right?" I said. I saw my chance at redemption. "We can take you there. Right, Frankie?" I extended my arms towards Frankie and his Buick, amplifying its existence like I was one of The Price Is Right models.
"Uh, no," Frankie said, staring daggers my way. He softened his approach when he looked past me to the Nightmare. "Sorry, man. Somebody busted my headlights."
"And the flat tire," I said.
"We can fix that, asshole," Frankie said.
I turned back to the Nightmare. "Sorry, Nightmare."
"Call me Don."
The Nairobi Nightmare broke kayfabe and told me to call him Don - I was in! If I wanted to be a wrestler, I'd be a wrestler. Yes, based on tonight, some of the old timers would gleefully kick my ass, but I would earn my stripes over time. I'd become a peer, and this night just a silly story that I'd wind up telling any nervous new kids. I could do this; I could even become champ one day if I worked hard enough to salvage my rep.
Faint police sirens grew nearer.
Frankie and Bob both took off running towards the McDonald's. My heart was at their heels, but I stopped my feet. I approached the Nightmare, er, Don, and gripped both his forearms in my hands.
"Mr. Terrific was over at the McDonald's with the Dominican just a few minutes ago. Follow us, and you can probably still catch a ride with him."
Don the Nightmare looked down at me, nodded, and left me in the dust. I wanted to catch up to Bob and Frankie, so I could at least warn them not to go in there and get fingered by the Dominican, because I doubt even friendly Don would save them from Terrific's wrath. Don the Nightmare made it through the fencing without issue, so I guess size didn't matter, passage all depended upon one's will. By the time I reached the fence to pass through for the third time that night, I could make out the red and blue swirling lights inside the school parking lot.
Bob and Frankie had already entered McDonald's, their fate now their own. I hid behind a dumpster, praying the police wouldn't investigate beyond Frankie's car in the school lot. I stayed back there scared out of my skin, until I finally heard Bob and Frankie's voices outside. As I emerged, I saw Mr. Terrific laughing as he shook Bob's hand, and the Nightmare patting Frankie's shoulder. The Dominican still looked pissed, but at least Rocky Coast wasn't around.
I approached thinking my pals had opened a path for me to pursue my dream. But was it still my dream? For the wrestlers, this had been an average day peppered by menace and vandalism, but I'd spent the past few hours running, hiding, and cowering. It was only then that I realized I had always known this was no life for me. It was fun to buy videos and read the inside scoops, but I hadn't jumped so fast when reality planted a wrestling school under my nose. And tonight, what would I have done had Mrs. Coast said, sure, we'll put you in the ring? Probably even less than I had wound up doing with her in that history classroom.
I had been bullshitting myself all along.
I snapped out of it when I was about fifteen feet away. "Hey, Mr. Terrific," I called.
Mr. Terrific looked up at me, just as I stopped and kicked the Diminutive Dominican square in the balls. The Dominican's cheeks puffed out, and his hands reached for cover, as his knees buckled him to the ground.
"What the fuck?" Mr. Terrific said.
Don the Nightmare just laughed. He laughed and laughed.
I ran. I ran, not back to the school, where the cops might have lingered, but towards home.
They followed. I heard them following. I must have gained speed because they sounded more distant, which gave me a chance to turn and look back. It was just Bob and Frankie. I let them catch up to me.
"You're a fucking maniac!" Bob said, laughing.
"Good for you," Frankie said. "Asshole trashed my car, right? Um..." he paused. "You think it's safe to go get it? My car?"
"Safer in the morning," I said. "Considering your headlights."
Frankie nodded. Bob patted my shoulder. We were all good, black eye and trashed car be damned. I slept well that night.
I didn't want to be a wrestler anymore. I was cured.
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