CHAPTER 12
A phone was ringing. Deafening. Make it stop.
Joey rolled over. He had been dreaming about a Koala bear with peanut butter in its naval whose head exploded when the phone rang. He picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Good morning Joey, it’s Fran Wallace. I’m so sorry to wake you.”
“Good morning,” said Joey. Fran Wallace? Where was he? It was dark, and cold.
“Listen Joey, Duke has asked me to get you to Houston today for some publicity work for Monday’s show. I’ve booked a flight for you at nine-thirty.”
“Okay.” Joey had figured out he was in a hotel room.
“I’ll have a cab for you in the lobby in an hour. Do you think you can be packed, checked out, and ready to go at six thirty?”
“Yeah, um...just a second please.” Joey sat up in bed, put the phone down on the night stand, and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the digital clock next to the phone. 5:31. What day was it? He flipped through the wrestling matches in his memory and tried to put them in order. He had wrestled against Henry Dexter last night. He was in Corpus Christi, Texas. In a hotel. The Marriot. He had driven here from Austin. It was Sunday.
Now Fran Wallace was calling him. Fran Wallace, she was...Duke’s assistant. Joey had spoken to her before. He was supposed to do another house show tonight. Houston was Monday, but it was the big show, and he was in the main event. He would have to do publicity. He should have expected it.
He took a big breath and slowly exhaled. Everything was fine. He picked up the phone.
“Hi Fran, sorry, I just had to get my bearings.”
“Well that’s perfectly understandable. I’m so sorry I woke you up.” She had a heavy New York accent. Joey could picture her now. She was short and skinny, with straight brown hair that went all the way down her back. She wore business suits.
“Would you like me to start over Joey?”
“No, I’ve got it. Be in the lobby, ready to go, in an hour.”
“That’s right. Gunther Olson will be waiting for you when you arrive in Houston. He’ll take care of you.”
Damn it was cold. The air conditioner was blasting like only a hotel unit could.
“I’m scheduled to wrestle tonight,” Joey said, hoping that Fran would say his match was canceled. His back was still hurting from Crusader and Jumbo’s pounding last Monday. There was ibuprofen in the bathroom. He’d be popping a handful as soon as he got off the phone.
“Don’t worry about tonight Joey. We’ve got you covered. Don’t worry about anything. You’ll learn that I take good care of my wrestlers out on assignment. Gunther will take you back to the Houston airport this afternoon in plenty of time for you to catch a flight back to Corpus for your show. Be sure to pack everything you’ll need.”
Great. Two flights, publicity appearances, and he still had to do the show tonight. This was going to be an awful day.
“Alright. So I guess Gunther will know everything I need to know once I get there.”
“Right again Joey. You just show up in the lobby in an hour. We’ll take care of you from there.”
“Okay. Thanks Fran. I guess I’d better get moving.”
“Have a good day Joey.”
He hung up the phone and headed to the bathroom.
An hour later he was in the Corpus Christi airport, where he boarded a commercial jet to Houston. The flight was forty minutes long. On the way, he used the airplane cellular service to leave a voicemail for Duke. He still hadn’t heard anything about the booking in his match on Monday night, and was starting to get nervous. He had hoped to spend the weekend memorizing his spots.
As promised, Gunther Olson, a stocky former wrestler turned GWA gopher, was waiting at the airport. Upon seeing Joey, he took off his baseball cap and waved it over his head. He looked like a fool.
“Welcome to Houston, Joey,” he said.
They shook hands. Gunther’s palm was sticky.
“Thanks Gunther. Hey, did Duke give you a call? I’ve asked him to call you as soon as he can. I need to talk to him, and I don’t have a phone on me.”
“What are you doing traveling without a phone, Joey?”
Joey shrugged. He never could afford to have a cell phone before he signed with the GWA, and since signing, he never had time to get one. Life on the road left him no time to take care of everyday necessities like cell phone shopping.
“Well Duke hasn’t called me,” Gunther said. “I’ll keep my ear out for him. If he doesn’t call by noon, we’ll see if we can get in touch with him.”
“I appreciate it. I really want to talk to him about Monday’s booking. I haven’t heard a thing yet.”
“What makes you think he’s already got Monday’s booking figured out? This is Duke we’re talking about, right?”
Gunther laughed at his own joke. Joey forced a smile. Duke was known for last-minute changes and “booking on the fly.” He often made crucial booking decisions as he spoke with the wrestlers minutes before showtime. Joey had hoped Monday night’s match would be different. There was enough pressure on him already. He didn’t want to improvise his first title match.
Their first stop was a radio station, where Joey answered phone-in questions from fans for an hour, then recorded an interview to be aired later that day on a nationally syndicated rock and wrestling show. From there, Gunther carted Joey to a television studio to shoot a 10-second promotional clip for Monday Night’s Burn. Still in television makeup, Joey’s next appearance was at a bookstore, where he did an autograph signing and an interview for another local TV station. Noon came and went without any word from Duke. While Joey was signing autographs, Gunther called Duke’s cell phone, his office, and his home, leaving messages at each.
“Let’s leave messages for all the VPs and all the road agents. Someone has to know where he is,” Joey said to Gunther while scribbling his name on the back of a little girl’s T-shirt.
“You don’t make it far in this business by pestering the boss,” said Gunther. “We’ve left three messages. That’s enough. Nothing more we can do.”
The girl with the T-shirt giggled and stepped out of the way. Her friend stepped up next and asked if Joey would sign her hand.
Joey supposed Gunther was probably right. Duke did things on his own time. No amount of harassment would budge him.
The autograph session ended at two, and Gunther rushed Joey into the car for their final stop, an Internet media firm who wished to tape an interview with Joey for a webcast the next day. They were completely disorganized and after ten minutes Gunther announced that it was taking too long and canceled the session.
As they were driving back to Houston Intercontinental, Gunther’s phone rang. Joey sat up.
“Gunther speaking.....Hi Honey Bear.”
Gunther spoke with his wife for the rest of the drive, stopping the conversation only to shake Joey’s hand before dropping him off at the airport.
By the time Joey landed in Corpus Christi, there was only an hour left before the show started. No one was at the airport to pick him up. So much for Fran’s promise that he would be taken care of.
It took him fifteen minutes to get a taxi at the tiny airport, and another twenty to get to the arena.
Martha Tanner greeted Joey backstage.
“We didn’t know if you were gonna make it, kid. You should have called. Do you have my phone number?”
“I didn’t have a phone with me. I was doing publicity in Houston.”
“Well it would have been nice if someone had told someone. No one knew where you were. You know you’re in the main event tonight, don’t you?”
“No. I didn’t know that. Am I wrestling Goliath?”
“No, he’s not here tonight. Only a half card for this podunk town. You’re going over Gordy Goodnow. You should find him. I bet he wants to talk to you about the match.”
“Thanks
Martha.”
Joey took his bag to the locker room to change into his wrestling attire. To his disappointment, none of the other wrestlers confronted him about being late, so he didn’t have an opportunity to tell his sap story of plane trips and publicity sessions.
Joey and Gordy Goodnow worked out a simple match with Joey going over. They performed their makeshift script without any problems. The match was one that both of them, and a thousand other wrestlers, had done countless times in countless cities. Corpus Christi ate it up.