Living the Gimmick

  The alarm clock’s steady beep sent consciousness rushing at me head-on. My eyelids snapped open in horror. I pushed myself out of bed and yanked the plug out of the wall, silencing the thing. I wrapped the wire around the clock and stuffed it in the duffel bag alongside my grandfather’s mitt.

  My mom was sitting up in the rocking chair by the living room. “Here,” she said quietly, and extended a wrapped plastic bag. I peered inside and saw a brand new toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I already called the cab,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I repeated with honest surprise.

  “Kind of a late night last night, huh?” she asked, flirting with a smile.

  “I had to say goodbye to some people,” I said. I didn’t feel as hungover as I should’ve been. In the years to come I would learn all about the wonders of adrenaline.

  “Mom, I’m afraid,” I blurted. This admission took me by surprise. Her lips surrendered into a full smile. She rocked slowly in response.

  “I don’t always understand you,” she said slowly, “but I guess most parents don’t always understand their children.” I walked over and fell into her warmth. “I think this is sort of the way it’s supposed to work,” she whispered in my ear. “I hope so, anyway,” she added. My eyes wandered up the wall behind us, finally landing on Broken Dock.

  “Dusk or dawn?” I asked quietly.

  “Dawn.”

  We remained in each other’s arms until a horn came from outside. “Go,” she said.

  Union Station’s high ceilings reflecting off an immaculate floor inspired enough awe in me to keep any sort of hangover safely at bay. But once on the train, with the buildings of Chicago drifting by the window, I leapt to my feet and careened toward the bathroom. Vomit burned my throat and stained the cool gray of the toilet bowl. I knelt there, unable to move until knocking at the door forced me to stand and look at myself in the mirror.

  I had already chosen a wrestling persona for myself. I was to be a “good guy,” a la Sonny Logan. Good guys didn’t get drunk the night before they left home and then throw up in train restrooms the next morning. At least that’s what I believed then.

  “I was not drunk last night. I am not drunk now, not running from anything,” I said this out loud to the mirror, and the unshaven guy with a thin strand of puke clinging to his chin morphed into a man on his way to greatness. A date with destiny.

  As the train traveled west with the morning sun, taking me away from everything I had ever known, I concentrated on my new image.

  It would be the first of many.

  2

  WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

  After Hippo Haleburg leaves, I apply a final layer of baby oil to insure that my skin will glisten beneath the spotlights. Smearing the oil over my chest and arms makes me feel like a classic car being waxed down before a show. My skin tingles with the application of moisture; it knows this ritual means a match is coming up. I dry my slippery hands with a towel and head outside.

  The hallway is packed with wrestlers, many of whom are already starting to party. Hammer and Nale, two beefy bald men who call themselves “The Handymen,” are celebrating their winning the tag-team belts earlier in the day by downing champagne out of beer bongs. “What a waste of good champagne,” I say to them as I pass, just to be saying something. “You can’t taste it that way.”

  “Hell, that’s the point.” Hammer belches. “Champagne tastes like shit.”

  Nale finishes what’s in the bong and backs away. After swallowing, coughing, and gasping, he grins at me. “We’ll save ya a bottle.” He winks. Champagne dribbles down his chin.

  I wave and move on, returning to the uncomfortable company of my own thoughts. The towel is still clutched in my hand.

  “Look out, Mike!”

  Rob Robertson, a former pro wrestler now turned company executive, rushes up. His face, wrinkled with age yet still cherubic, seems out of place sprouting from his three-piece suit. He looks like a kid playing dress-up. As we all do.

  He pulls me over to where a group of wrestlers are gathered. “They’re brawling all the way back here!” he cries.

  For a moment I’m confused before I remember that the current bout is a strap-match between two former tag-team partners, Wild Joe Irvin and Stud Hoss Mauler. The added stipulation of the strap means the two come armed with straps that they use to lace across their backs.

  “Everyone stay behind that white line!” Rob points to a strip of tape running from one side of the hall to the other. I step back behind it, watching a cameraman hustle for position. He aims at the curtain separating backstage from the outside world. A few other wrestlers mingle around me, talking quietly and laughing. There’s Tug Tyler, a four-hundred-pound behemoth with a weakness for cats. He owns fourteen of them. Daytrader Duke, a slim cleanshaven guy with a rich kid gimmick who in reality is the lowest paid guy in the company because he just joined. Tony Martino, a Columbian drug lord gimmick. He’s got the five o’clock shadow and the rough barrio accent. You’d never guess he was born and raised in Minnesota.

  Their voices drift around and through me but their words are hard to focus on. “Seen that cute little rat in the third row. She was giving me the eye—”

  “Fuckin’ bonus for this show better be good or I swear I’m quittin’. If I don’t go over six figures this year, I’m gone.”

  “This dude came up to me at the banquet last night. Thought I was his fuckin’ long lost cousin from Cuba! I almost fell down laughing.”

  “What’s up, Champ?” Tug says to me. This gives me a jolt.

  “I’m not the champ,” I reply, trying to smile.

  “Not yet,” he laughs. “Come on, what’s the big secret? You gotta be goin’ over—”

  Thankfully, Irvin and Mauler burst through the curtain, drawing everyone’s attention. They both have straps and are belting the shit out of each other. Large welts blossom on their backs and arms. Mauler’s head and shoulders are covered with a reddish substance too thin to be blood. He boots Irvin in the stomach, throws him face first into the wall, then unleashes a flurry of blows against Irvin’s back. A series of thin explosions echo around the backstage area as the strap slaps against skin already chapped with welts. “All right!” Rob whispers. “Go!”

  Tug, Dave, and Tony launch over and separate the two. As they pull Mauler away, the cameraman subtly approaches and allows them to back into him, which makes him jerk the camera up toward the sky and wave it as though it were an out of control machine gun.

  The walkie-talkie in Rob’s hand crackles. “You’re clear!” a voice buzzes.

  “Cut it!” Rob yells. “We’re clear!”

  Immediately Mauler is released and the three wrestlers are sharing a giggle. “Yo!” Tony hoots. “We’re the peacekeepers!”

  Mauler and Irvin shake hands. “You took some good blows, pardner,” Mauler drawls.

  “Damn, I thought this shit was fake!” Irvin jokes. He winces as he tentatively feels around on his back, which is a map of angry welts. Everyone murmurs respectful comments about going all out. You always give it something extra for a live event like SlamFest. “Fuck it,” Irvin barks. “You can’t fake strap shots.” He retreats to a table by the wall, where he leans on his hands with his inflamed back to us. Every few seconds he wipes at his face.

  “He’s hurtin’,” Mauler comments quietly.

  “What’s all over your face, Hoss?” Tony asks.

  “Tobacco juice.” Mauler shakes his head. “Shit, I thought the only place where you could get tobacco juice dumped on you was Texas!”

  He looks at me. “When you go out there, watch out for the assholes in the fourth row, right side of the aisle.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him. His eyes are darting around in search of something. I toss him the towel I brought from my dressing room.

  Wild Joe Irvin turns and faces us, still using the table for support. “Boys, is this really what we wanna do when we
grow up?” he asks.

  “What else is there?” Mauler hollers.

  I stand, struck silent by both questions.

  On July 6th, three days after I left Chicago, I arrived in San Bernardino, California. San Bernardino is the hub of what is known as the Inland Empire. This area consists of several towns scattered about fifty miles east of downtown Los Angeles. An ocean of desert surrounds them, and temperatures routinely climb above 100 degrees in the summer. The train station was in an advanced state of decay. Huge chunks of the walls were missing. The other buildings on the block were in no better condition. Older American cars chugged between the potholes littering the street.

  I found a pay phone just outside the train station. Nearby, a figure in rags sat on the corner curb coughing violently. Across the street, the temperature flashed in broken yellow numbers on a display nestled above the entrance of a bank: 103. Only half of the 3 lit up, as though the electricity powering the sign was dying along with its surroundings.

  “Shane Stratford’s Wrestling Academy,” a deep voice boomed from the receiver.

  “Shane, it’s me, Michael.” I exhaled. “I’m here.”

  “Michael?” he said. Then he immediately exclaimed, “Michael!” as though it were the answer to a riddle. “You’re where?”

  “Downtown,” I said. “Outside the train station. I wanna come over there.”

  “Right now?” he asked. “Sure you don’t want to rest up or—”

  “No,” I said. More intense even than my fatigue was my need to see what I had traveled all this way to find. Scratch marks crisscrossed my forearms, evidence of anxiety-ridden hours spent on the train. If some proof of this journey’s validity wasn’t provided soon, the identity I had nursed throughout the trip (that of a Young Man Going After His Dream) would implode.

  The shape in rags spewed forth a series of deep moist coughs. “I’d like to come over now, if I could,” I told Shane.

  Shane told me which buses to take and I boarded the first with renewed vigor, happy to be leaving the crumbling train station behind. But each time I transferred to a new bus the city outside my window grew more depressed. The promotional packet Shane had sent me bore an address, but when I got off the bus and found myself standing before an auto repair shop, I sighed inwardly, assuming there had been some mistake. Then I saw the group of bandana-wearing kids loitering on the corner. They glared at me, and the duffel bags in my hands immediately became a hundred pounds heavier. I hurried around to the side of the building and saw a brick addition. Above the door was a white sign whose red letters proclaimed this to be SHANE STRATFORD’S WRESTLING ACADEMY.

  The door, its paint peeled long ago, was answered by a bearded 6'4" Coke machine with human features. I recognized Shane Stratford from his picture in the pamphlet, but I wasn’t prepared for the sheer size of the man. He was as wide as the doorway, with no discernable neck and an inflated belly that nevertheless suggested strength earned by some exercise other than eating. His scalp was covered with a mass of long tangled hair that disappeared below his shoulders.

  He looked me up and down and nodded, his mouth stretching into a grin that revealed a set of perfect teeth. “You must be Michael,” he said.

  I extended my hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Stratford.”

  He let out a strange matronly giggle. “Mr. Stratford!” he exclaimed. “Been a while since I been called that.”

  We shook hands and I told him my situation. I had just arrived in town, had no place to stay, no car, and no immediate plans other than to learn what it took to be a pro wrestler. He listened patiently, then shrugged. “Well, how about a tour of the place?”

  “How about a lesson?” I countered. His eyes narrowed.

  “You on the level?” he asked.

  “You bet,” I nodded.

  Slowly he removed from his pocket a folded piece of paper. I recognized the handwriting on it as my own; it was the completed application. “You say here that Chuck ‘The Stud’ Beastie is your favorite wrestler.” He tapped the sheet with a thick scarred finger. “Why is that?” he asked.

  Chuck “The Stud” Beastie, the current WWO International Champion, was a man about my height whose tight musculature and long frizzy black hair suggested that an electric current whipped through his body at all times. He spoke in a guttural rasp that I was able to imitate to a degree which had always amazed Bryan and Marty. But the voice wasn’t the only thing that made him “The Stud,” there was also his beautiful valet, Mimi. She was a woman with gentle features; her honey-blond hair and small face gave off a radiance that appeared as mild as Beastie’s demeanor seemed savage.

  While “The American Dream” Sonny Logan was my idol, Chuck Beastie occupied a different place in my mind. When I was eleven I had written him a couple of times, inviting him to upcoming Father-Son events. Once I hit thirteen I realized how silly those letters had been and by that time had quit the Boy Scouts anyway. But since then I still allowed myself to indulge in the occasional fantasy that there was some deep significance behind my ability to imitate Chuck Beastie’s voice, not to mention the fact that we had the same color hair. Ridiculous, sure. But all these years later this hopeful ember still refused to go out.

  I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about this, particularly Shane Stratford, who was still studying me with curious eyes and my application in hand. “Chuck Beastie incorporates visual flair and style with a gut-level intensity,” I heard myself explaining. “The same juxtaposition can also be found in his combining high-flying maneuvers with a bareknuckle brawling approach.” The answer sounded as prepared as any essay answer I had completed on a high school test.

  Shane nodded and broke into a smile. “Good answer.” He folded the application and tucked it back in the pocket of his floppy pants. From another pocket he pulled out an unlabeled brown bottle. “Well, all right!” he exclaimed, uncapping the bottle and taking a long whiff. “Let’s get goin’ with this SlezamFest!” he howled.

  I wondered briefly if I had imagined his bizarre pronunciation of that last word. Later I would learn it was an example of “carni,” a language every pro wrestler learned sooner or later. I changed into spandex pants and he lent me a pair of wrestling boots. “They’ll make ya two inches taller.” He winked. Then for the first time in my life I was climbing into a wrestling ring. Even though I could see that I was in a small, stuffy low-ceilinged gym, my adrenaline was whisking me into a battleground as grand as Madison Square Garden or even the Rosemont Horizon itself. Posters of wrestlers lined one wall of the gym, with the other three joined by a strip of mirrored glass six feet high. I caught a glimpse of myself in that glass and a strange fear burrowed into my stomach. I regarded my reflection as one would that of an imposter.

  “First thing.” Shane’s voice brought me back to the ring. “Falls. If you gotta know one thing in this crezazy business, it’s how to take a fall.”

  He then hurled himself backward and ended up sprawled face up on the mat. The resounding thud was eaten up by the stuffy air. He leaped to his feet and ordered me to try it. Pro wrestlers fell countless times during a match, how much could it hurt? I threw myself backward and found out: one hell of a lot. A cloud of pain poured across my neck as the back of my head recoiled off the mat, which boasted a surface much harder than the high jump mats my friends and I had wrestled on a lifetime ago.

  Shane laughed. “Not bad for the first time,” he said. He helped me up and explained that the key was to always keep my neck tucked so as to avoid giving myself “a permanent hezeadache.” I also learned to always arch my back, thus allowing my shoulders to absorb the full brunt of the blow.

  “’Course, you’ll get head and backaches anyway.” He chuckled as I rose dizzily to my feet after yet another fall. “But that’s what pezainkillers are for.”

  I forced a laugh, my head and back throbbing.

  But soon I was kicking my feet up into the air and managing to slam my shoulders into the mat, all while keeping my neck tucked a
gainst my chest, thus sparing the back of my head any actual contact with the mat. “Good!” Shane exclaimed after one particular fall, and the exhilaration his compliment caused vanquished my headache. Soon he was launching off the ropes and plowing into me, and by the end of the hour, I could absorb his three-hundred-pound blow and fall correctly. When he announced the hour was over, I rolled out of the ring and settled unsteadily onto a folding chair. Shane hopped out of the ring and ambled up to me. “How ya fezeelin’?” he asked.

  “Tremendous.” I lied. “Could do this all day long.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he hooted, sitting down next to me. “How this works is, I usually give people three free lessons. If at any time they wanna quezit, no problem. But if they wanna continue, I collect for those lessons.”

  “Fifty bucks per, right?” I asked, leaning down to retrieve my jeans, which lay folded by the chair.

  “Yeah. But like I said, wait until the third—”

  I had already plucked a fifty dollar bill from the back pocket and was holding it out to him. “I’m not gonna quit,” I said. “Take it.”

  He took it.

  “Mind if I ask you something?” I said.

  “Sure.” He shrugged.

  “Are you mispronouncing these wezords on purpose, or is it just me?”

  “Next couple lessons.” He chuckled with gentle dismissal. He pulled out the brown bottle once again and inhaled deeply. “Nail polish remover,” he explained, “better than Valium. Want a hit?”

  I took a tentative sniff.

  “Nah,” he corrected, “You gotta smell it like you would a woman!”

  I snorted violently and tilted my head as the liquid’s sharp sterility penetrated my nostrils. Head spinning, I sat back in the chair with a jagged smile. Shane nodded and tucked the bottle back into his pocket. “You said you had no place to stay, right?” he asked.