Living the Gimmick

  “Get that piece of shit moving!”

  “We’re workin’ on it!” Rob groans.

  “Momentum!” Hippo grunts. “Enough momentum’ll kick it in gear.” I wipe my forehead and find it cool and dry. Even in the World Wrestling Organization, the number one wrestling promotion in the world, things go wrong. Carts can malfunction, injuries can occur, wrestlers can ignore storylines and hijack their matches. Anything can happen.

  The cart is jarred by a force that sends me tumbling against the ropes. I grab them for support and look back at Hippo Haleburg, who backs up a few steps and slams his bulk into the cart again. The cart begins moving, but as the curtain parts I’m still looking back at Hippo, who is kneeling on the ground panting and clutching his chest. “Go!” he pants, gesturing with his other arm at a spot above my left shoulder. His next words are too weak to break through the crowd’s thunderous onslaught as I pass through the curtain. My last sight before the curtain closes is of Tug and Rob Robertson kneeling over him.

  The wide red line has been passed. I’m in motion.

  Awakened the next morning by the telephone’s shrill ring, I yawned groggily and peered at the clock: 7:10. The answering machine clicked on and spewed out Muscular Mike’s greeting followed by a beep.

  “Hey, Mike. Get your ass outta bed,” commanded the voice from my machine. “It’s Hal. You know, from—”

  I plucked up the phone. “Yeah, Hal,” I slurred through the Soma-induced grogginess. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We got a tour set up. It’s five days, four shows. Gonna run through Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Fifty bucks a night and hotel’s paid for. You interested?”

  “Is Merv a weasel?” I said, shaking my head to dislodge the strands of sleep still lingering there.

  Hal laughed and went on to explain that I was being called as a last minute replacement. One half of a tag team had been in a bar last night and had blacked out. He had woken up in jail and called Hal just twenty minutes ago asking for bail money. The charge was assaulting an officer of the peace, and the bail was $100,000. Hal had gotten very upset, not at the fact that this guy was facing a possibility of twenty years in jail (he was a nasty drunk and generally rotten person, Hal explained) but that the guy’s irresponsible behavior had jeopardized the tour. Hal had promised the promoter a certain number of wrestlers. Based on Mike Maple’s handling of Merv last night, Hal had immediately thought of me.

  By this time, adrenaline had whisked me up to an acute state of consciousness in such a short time that I felt dizzy. “I’m in,” I said simply.

  “Great!” he replied. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  “Half an hour?”

  “Forty minutes, tops.” He went on, “We’re wrestling on an army base in Somerton, Arizona, at seven o’clock tonight.” I nodded dumbly at the receiver. “Oh, one more thing,” he announced hurriedly, “the tag team uses a rock-and-roll gimmick, so think up another name besides Muscular Mike Mailer.”

  “Maple,” I corrected.

  “Whatever,” he laughed. “Drop it and think up a rocker name. I’ll see you in thirty.”

  I hung up and got out of bed. The floor chilled my bare feet as I padded over to the mirror. There was a small reddish mark over my right eye, but no giant scar. I turned away from my reflection, vaguely ashamed.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, I was waiting outside, drinking a beer. Drinking a beer at 7:38 in the morning is something a rocker would do. I had left the apartment without flexing in the mirror or elbow-dropping my pillow from home. In addition to those two rituals, also left behind was Muscular Mike Maple, who was doomed to roam southern California as the ghost of a character that had enjoyed a lifetime of sixty-eight matches.

  The early morning’s tight briskness matched how I felt inside; Muscular Mike Maple’s sudden absence was causing neither sadness nor relief. All I could get a grip on was the same numbness that I experienced in Tijuana after Mike Maple had enabled me to pop my first steroids. Steroids were a given in my life now. Perhaps my lack of remorse at Muscular Mike Maple’s passing indicated that he was a gimmick I no longer needed. As simple as outgrowing a bicycle or winter coat. An excited cry fought its way up my throat but I swallowed it back with a question.

  Who will take his place?

  A rocker. Hal had said a rocker so that’s what I would become. I exhaled and saw my breath frost up in the chill of the morning desert air. This reminded me of many winter mornings spent waiting for the school bus in Chicago. This memory tumbled into another and yet another until I was back at the party on the night before I left home. Motley Cruë’s “Kickstart My Heart” erupted in my ears, as though a juke box stagnating in some stale corner of my mind had just been kicked to life. “Chicago!” I flung the name at the arid chill and frowned at how strange it made my mouth feel.

  Five minutes later a minivan consumed with thin rivers of rust roared up to the curb. I tossed the empty beer can onto a patch of parched brown grass. “How’s it goin’, Mike?” Hal’s grinning face called out to me from the open driver’s window.

  “The name’s Mick,” I drawled back, “Motley Mick Starr.”

  By one that afternoon we had crossed over the Arizona border into a sea of sand populated by small islands of cacti, all of which led to mountains rising far off on either side with the imposing grandiosity of undiscovered countries. By this time I had downed ten beers from the cooler nestled at Hal’s feet (“road cocktails,” he called them), relieved myself twice in an empty Gatorade bottle, and hadn’t once felt a need to flex my neck in the rearview mirror.

  In addition to Hal and me, there were two others in the van. My future tag-team partner, “Jammin’ Jimmy Nitro,” was riding shotgun. His build was beefy without a predilection toward either muscle or fat; it seemed to be a naturally dense shield that had accumulated through his fifteen years in the business. Curly hair traveled down his head like an unruly plant, stopping just before his upper back. He had to keep it relatively short, he told me, because his day job was as a psychology and physical education teacher at a Los Angeles junior college. He had given up the idea of wrestling full-time, but still found it “physically and mentally stimulating,” even on a part-time basis.

  Our other tour companion was Summer, a girl about my age with smoldering eyes that matched the color of her sandy-brown hair. Her body was taut, and a sharply defined tricep could be seen lurking beneath the sleeve of a T-shirt that announced These Aren’t My Eyes, Pervert in bold red letters that ran across her substantial chest. A playful lilt in her voice lent everything she said a mildly sarcastic tone, but she had a kind nature. It was she who had given me her empty Gatorade bottle after Hal had sadistically cackled that he wouldn’t stop for anyone to relieve themselves until lunch.

  A half an hour into Arizona, we stopped for lunch at a truck stop that also sold supplies such as doughnuts, ephedrine, and porno magazines for travelers that were embarking on what a sign had warned us was a 170-mile stretch with no services.

  This stop on the edge of potential starvation is where Jimmy explained the dynamics of tag-team wrestling to me. He obviously enjoyed imparting information, rising to frenzied conclusions, and emphasizing his sarcastic phrases with shrill glee. “Most tag-team matches start with the faces . . . we’ll call them A and B . . . having a hot-spot,” he explained. “This means they perform several moves demonstrating their brilliant teamwork. Thus, the heels . . . we’ll refer to them for our purposes as X and Y, will be the victim of double drop-kicks, double clotheslines, double anything. After this initial burst, the pace slows down, and the heels get the advantage. Then they perform the requisite cheating, such as taunting A into the ring, then double-teaming B while the referee is distracted and struggling to get A out of the ring.”

  At one point he mentioned a “false tag” and I actually raised my hand. He paused and looked at me alertly. “What’s a false tag?” I asked.

  “A false tag involves one of the faces .
. . let’s choose A . . . struggling valiantly to get close enough to his corner in order to tag B. X is holding him back but A is making progress. The crowd is chanting, clapping, urging A on. Then just as he’s almost at the corner, Y comes trundling into the ring and is correspondingly pushed back by the referee. Now is the moment when A finally pushes X off and leaps to his corner to make the tag—!” He held his barbecued chicken sandwich in one hand and smacked it triumphantly with the other.

  “But wait!” he shouted. Through the streaking waitresses, I caught a glimpse of the truckers sitting at the counter. Some of them were watching us curiously. “The referee didn’t see the tag, of course, because he was struggling with Y. Therefore, the tag is no good. The crowd boos mightily at the injustice of it all. They are forced to stew until the hot tag, which is when A finally manages to tag B in sight of the referee and B storms in and beats on both X and Y at the same time.” He bit into his sandwich and munched with a complacent rhythm. “Cleaning house, as they say.” He smiled with lips exaggerated by the barbecue sauce clinging to their edges.

  I nodded and bit gently into my double cheeseburger. A row of shelving wound around the perimeter of the restaurant; toy trains, old action figures, Hot Wheels cars, and other trinkets gave the place a museum-like air. The rumble of activity in the diner was like a symphony improvised by an orchestra who has played together for years. Knowing that I was immediately going back on the road made me appreciate the diner’s intricacies even more. It was like prom night, when Charlotte and I achieved a connection fueled by a shared knowledge that our relationship had to end. Now the same thing was happening, but instead of another person, I was having a fling with a potpourri of bacon grease and chatter.

  We reached the army base around six o’clock. The first person who greeted us was Mark, the promoter. Two nervous eyes whose motion never stopped tweaked my curiosity, but the rest of his face was haphazard: a crooked nose jutting out from a thin mass of premature wrinkles supported by a weak jaw and a patchy field of hesitant whiskers. He was the victim of a vicious stutter, a hacking cough that caused his body to shake with alarming force, and a constant drool. His lips were chapped, no doubt rubbed raw from the rag with which he was constantly wiping his mouth.

  In the van that afternoon, Mark’s name had come up. “Kind of a funny name for a promoter to have.” I commented, given that fans were usually termed marks.

  “Not for this one,” Hal said mysteriously.

  Jim broke into chuckles. “He’s a little . . . unorthodox,” he began. Then Hal shushed him.

  “Let him find out on his own.” Hal smiled. “He’s gotta find out on his own.”

  But so far all I could tell was that he was one of the most agitated human beings I had ever seen and that he drooled.

  After disengaging my hand from Mark’s sticky fingers, I headed back to the dressing room for another beer. I saw the back of a longhaired woman standing in the doorway. She said something I didn’t catch, but whatever it was prompted a warm wave of laughter. This must be Shawna, I smiled.

  Shawna’s name had been mentioned in the van as well. She was going to be working with Summer on the tour. “Very cool chick,” Hal said.

  “Great worker,” Summer remarked, snapping her gum.

  “Knows how to work a crowd,” Jimmy Nitro said admiringly.

  The first thing I noticed was the pleasantly tight fit of Shawna’s jeans as they formed a second skin on her lower body. Her shape gave them an allure that managed to be provocative but not obvious. Thick red hair cascaded down her black shirt. Her clothes didn’t flatter her; she flattered them.

  I judged her height to be an inch or two shorter than my own. As I was busy taking her in, she glanced at her shoulder as though a whisper of breath touched her there, then seemed to sense my presence and turned around to face me with a curious expression.

  Smooth tan skin stretched taut over a delicate facial structure. It was a capable face; I thought, one that could manage a barroom brawl or a child on a swing set with the same ease. Though not overly muscled, her sinewy body seemed to suggest great strength. Her lips curled upward. “You planning to come in any time soon or just stand out there and look silly?” she asked in a teasing voice that kneaded every bit of gravelly temptation out of the words. Her remark prompted a round of chuckles from all present in the dressing room. Even though I was blushing, her demeanor seemed playful enough to invite my participation.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged exaggeratedly. “The view’s pretty good out here.”

  “Really?” she asked, still smiling. “I’m glad to hear that. My boyfriend’ll be really glad to hear that too.”

  She walked into the locker room to a chorus of oooooohs. I followed, and as soon as I was inside stopped very quickly. She was standing beside a behemoth seated on a stool. He had a piece of fur draped over his loins. His massive body was covered with hair. He was bald, and a vein throbbed in his scalp as he glared at me.

  “You hittin’ on my girlfriend?” he roared, and leapt to his feet with surprising agility.

  A second later he was standing before me. He was at least 6'5". “Bet you wanna fuck her, huh?” he growled, and I noticed all his visible teeth were either chipped or crooked.

  “No,” I replied too loudly. My heart was beating in my ears.

  “Then why’d you make that comment about the view, huh?”

  What would a cocky rocker say? “I appreciate great works of art,” I blurted.

  The man slammed a fist into his other hand, holding me there with a killer’s gaze. If I tried to run he would catch me and tear me apart. My eyes began to creep over to Hal, when suddenly the giant broke down into scattered giggles. “Sorry, Shawna,” he said to the woman, “he got me with that one.”

  Everyone in the room started to laugh. The monster clutched my limp hand with a gentle grip, introducing himself as Taz and assuring me he wasn’t Shawna’s boyfriend. I had been ribbed. My heart was still pounding as I glanced over at Shawna, who smiled, cocked her finger, and simulated shooting me. I gripped my chest and smiled back, feeling special and singled out.

  Two of the wrestlers on the show were old pros. They had been in the WWO for some years, and now wrestled only part-time in main events of independent shows such as this one. The heel was named “Allah Abdullah Khan.” His real name was Errol Whittaker, and he had been an amateur wrestling champion in England back in the 1970s. He had started with the WWO in 1980; his first gimmick being that of a haughty English lord. This had failed to go over. When the Iran hostage crisis occurred in 1983, the WWO had, as he put it, “given him an overhaul.” He grew a moustache, shaved his head, and began barking out pro-Iran proclamations in a halting Middle Eastern accent. This new gimmick was a whopping success. In the first month, Allah had been attacked twice with bats, three times with knives, and shot at once by an ex-army general who had served in World War Two. Errol confessed to us that he wasn’t entirely at ease wrestling on an army camp as Allah. “Bloody Americans,” he scowled, “so damned emotional.”

  The face was a man who had enjoyed a brief stint as the national champion in the WWO, where he had been known as Richie “Golden Boy” Rutger. His brown hair had been repeatedly bleached to a brittle white. He used makeup to cover the scars in his forehead and kept a perpetual wad of chewing tobacco tucked in his gums. Richie traveled these small tours with a Polaroid camera and posed with fans for five dollars a picture. I had seen him wrestle many times at the Rosemont Horizon, and he had even been on the card the night I met Sonny Logan.

  During the intermission, I went out with Richie and took pictures of him posing with fans for five bucks a pop. Two blue jean clad girls approached me. Although neither of them appeared to be over sixteen, their faces were thick with makeup. “Can we get a picture with you?” the slightly taller one asked me, fluttering her mascara-crusted eyelids. The shyness in her voice surprised me and led me to offer them a picture for free. But Richie insisted that he needed the
five dollars for film. It was with more than a little surprise that I watched the two girls cough up five singles. I posed with my arm around each of their slender hips, then autographed the picture: Motley Mick Starr. Immediately after I handed them the picture, they both turned very bashful. They thanked me and quickly retreated into the crowd.

  When we got backstage Richie slipped me a five dollar bill. “Here you go, brotha. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t give yourself away for free.” He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder with awkward abruptness. “You always charge them. The more you charge, the more they’ll think you’re worth.”

  In spite of his hand laying gently on my shoulder, his voice sounded more resigned than fatherly. His eyes were focused not on me but on a section of the white wall that was slathered with streaks of red paint. I nodded mutely as he spat a wad of tobacco juice onto the ground. Then the hand on my shoulder was gone. I eased away, the bill clutched in my hand, leaving Richie still staring at the wall.

  During Shawna’s match with Summer, I stood just behind the curtain watching her. She maintained the advantage for most of the match. Her moves came fast and with a crispness that engaged the crowd and got her over with them almost immediately. Every gesture she gave them elicited cheers.

  “She’s great,” I said to Hal, who stepped up beside me.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed, “she’s a hell of a worker all right.”

  “Where is she from?”

  “Arizona, as far as I know.” He shrugged. “Somewhere around Phoenix. Trained back east at the Power Camp. Rogers says she came in one day and started taking bumps like she’d been doin’ it for years.”

  “Maybe she had,” I suggested, recalling the many wrestling “matches” I had conducted on my bed as a teenager.

  “Yeah, maybe. He said it was like she was born to be a pro wrestler,” he mused. “By the way,” he added, “you might wanta forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  “Whatever move you’re thinkin’ about putting on her.” Hal chuckled. “She doesn’t fool around with wrestlers.”