The Making of Big Sandy by Michael Carter
The toughest kids I ever knew were at Big Sandy’s house. They say opposites attract, but in our neck of the woods, it was the other way around. Big Sandy’s house seemed to draw the rough-and-tumble kids, the ones that didn’t have a place to go or maybe didn’t want to go. But Sandy had a home, and, if you were good with him and he was good with you, you had a home as well.
Sandy was a smaller guy, but everyone called him “Big” because he packed a big punch. Growing up like Sandy did, with a dad who fought his way out of many smoke-filled bars and probably hit the boys too hard a few times, it was no surprise Sandy learned to punch.
But it wasn’t his heavy hitting and pugilistic skills he developed through the years that led him to the ring. It was his skills as a wrestler.
#
Sandy’s house was in the “wrong” part of town. The obligatory broken-down truck with mismatched primered hood, old camper on cinder blocks, or retired dinghy decorated most yards. Rusted oil cans nestled with purple-and-gold Crown Royal bags in the alleys, while quarts of wood lined garages. Most folks didn’t work. It was a rugged neighborhood, but most of our hometown was that way, so we never thought much about it.
When I would arrive, I’d say hello to Sandy’s dad and head downstairs. Sandy didn’t have a mom, and I never knew for sure what happened to her. From what I heard, she was a deadbeat and jammed when the boys were little.
I’d step down the creaky stairs and hear laughter in the back corner of the unfinished basement. Sandy, his older brother Troy, and younger brother Corey, set up a hang-out spot with some ripped couches and a table in an area framed off by two-by-fours. Circular stains from pop and beer cans coated the surface of the table. Playing cards and chew cans were strewn about. The centerpiece was that familiar Coke can with small holes poked in the indentation on the side.
I was an outsider, for the most part, coming from the slightly better part of town, if there was such a place. A few of the older guys, Troy’s friends I didn’t know well, would give me hard looks when I sat down. Would he narc? their eyes always seemed to say.
Eventually, they’d get bored playing cards and reliving the glory days, and hit the Coke can, passing it around the table. It wasn’t my thing, so I never took part, and that made me even more of an outsider. I told them I had asthma and that my grandmother was fighting her fifth battle with lung cancer from cigarettes. They let me slide with the latter excuse.
On this particular day—the day Sandy figured out who he wanted to be—I didn’t need an excuse, however. I was summoned by a sheer metallic noise that rang through our skulls.
Clank, clank, clank, echoed down the stairway from the backyard.
“Mikey, go see what’s going on,” Sandy instructed. Being the outsider and someone who didn’t take hits meant it was my job to investigate. I respected Sandy, and for that reason, I did what he asked.
#
On the back patio, by the Lil’ Chief Sandy’s dad used to smoke rainbows he caught out at Loon Lake, I found Troy and a kid from up the street, Garret. Troy stood behind Garret with an ax. Garret sat with his hands behind his back, and his back against the tree stump where Sandy’s dad chopped wood. Garret was posed execution style, and Troy was rearing to swing.
“What the hell?” I yelled while running up to them. As I approached, I could see why Garrett’s hands were behind his back. “Why are you in cuffs?” I asked.
“Headbutted a cop,” Garret said.
“You headbutted a cop, so he put you in cuffs? How’d you get here?”
“No, I was already in cuffs. The pig put them on me last night. I asked ‘im if he’d turn me around so I could ask somethin’. When he did, I knocked ‘im out with a headbutt. I ran here. Troy’s gonna cut off the cuffs.”
“Aren’t you worried he’s going to whack off your hands?”
They both shrugged. Troy heaved up the ax and took another swing. The blade sparked against the handcuff chains, but the chains, and Garret’s hands, remained intact.
#
I heard commotion in the front, so I headed to investigate. The early-summer breeze wafted the smell of fresh-cut grass and charcoal briquettes. A giant Weeping Willow shaded most of Sandy’s yard, making it a great place to hang out when we weren’t downstairs.
Sandy’s dad stood in the middle of the yard with Corey. A group of guys and girls surrounded them in an irregular circle. Sandy’s dad squared off against his son like they were going to fight.
I knew Sandy’s dad had a mean streak, but fighting his own son in the middle of the day, in the front yard?
As I approached, I heard Sandy’s dad explaining what was happening.
“You see, son, when you hit them in the face like this,” he said as he demonstrated a slow-motion jab, “you turn your fist at the last second to get traction on their face.”
“Ahhh,” the crowd said, almost in unison.
“Do that, and the punch will have more meaning.”
#
Sandy’s dad headed off to work at the aluminum plant, but the group remained in the front yard. Some uninvited guests arrived with 40s of Old E just as Sandy made it up from the basement.
One of them called out Corey, said he was a “pussy daddy’s boy.” The meddler sat down the brown paper bag cloaking his 40. It tipped over, but nothing came out. All forty ounces of charcoal-filtered liquid courage was in his belly, making its way to his head.
Big Sandy wouldn’t let a slight like that go unanswered in his own yard, let alone against his brother. He approached the meddler and gave him a soft tap on the face, like you might administer both to get one’s attention and degrade them at the same time.
“You should watch your mouth around here,” Big Sandy said.
The meddler raised his fists and stepped forward. Big Sandy, not usually confrontational, backed up.
“We don’t want no problems here, but you’re gonna to have to leave after what you said about my brother,” Sandy said.
The meddler continued to move forward, stalking as Sandy tried to give the guy an out.
Finally, he took a swing at Sandy. Sandy ducked, grabbed behind his opponent’s knee with both hands, and raised the knee to his chest. Sandy swept the other leg so that so that they fell to the ground with Sandy on top.
Sandy then cinched his opponent’s arms together in a double chicken wing. Sandy dug his chin through his opponent’s mullet, grinding it into his back.
“I’m gonna let you up in a sec,” Sandy said, “but you gotta jam, understand?”
No answer. Sandy released one arm, held his opponent in a single arm-bar, and placed his elbow on the nape of his opponent’s neck. He leaned into his elbow with all his weight and rubbed it back and forth.
“Okay, okay, okay, man, I’m outta here,” the guy said, as sweaty beads of pain accumulated on his forehead.
Big Sandy let him up, and the uninvited guests all fled.
#
Garrett and Troy finally made their way out front to witness part of the show.
“Where’d you learn to take down like that?” Garret said.
“Ah you know, I played a lot of Pro Wrestling on the NES, mostly as King Slender,” Sandy said.
“He wrestled in high school for a while,” Troy said. “But yeah, he’s got skills.”
“You outta get yourself a job,” Garret said.
“I have one at Heights Pizza Parlor,” Sandy said.
“No, I mean wrestling. Lots of money in it. You even got a name already: ‘Big Sandy.’ They have matches right downtown at the arena. You could be a jobber to the stars when they come to town.”
The corners of Sandy’s mouth turned up, almost in a full smile, revealing the chipped incisor he had since a kid. He blinked, and I swear I saw a sparkle in his eyes.
“‘Big Sandy.’ Yeah, I like that,” Sandy said.
Garret smiled back. “Now help me get these cuffs off, man.”
END
Michael Carter is a short fiction and creative nonfiction writer from the Western United States. He grew up in Eastern Washington and comes from an extended family of farmers and orchardists who homesteaded in Montana. When he’s not writing, he enjoys cast-iron cooking, fly fishing, and wandering remote areas of the Rocky Mountains. He’s online at michaelcarter.ink and @mcmichaelcarter
The toughest kids I ever knew were at Big Sandy’s house. They say opposites attract, but in our neck of the woods, it was the other way around. Big Sandy’s house seemed to draw the rough-and-tumble kids, the ones that didn’t have a place to go or maybe didn’t want to go. But Sandy had a home, and, if you were good with him and he was good with you, you had a home as well.
Sandy was a smaller guy, but everyone called him “Big” because he packed a big punch. Growing up like Sandy did, with a dad who fought his way out of many smoke-filled bars and probably hit the boys too hard a few times, it was no surprise Sandy learned to punch.
But it wasn’t his heavy hitting and pugilistic skills he developed through the years that led him to the ring. It was his skills as a wrestler.
#
Sandy’s house was in the “wrong” part of town. The obligatory broken-down truck with mismatched primered hood, old camper on cinder blocks, or retired dinghy decorated most yards. Rusted oil cans nestled with purple-and-gold Crown Royal bags in the alleys, while quarts of wood lined garages. Most folks didn’t work. It was a rugged neighborhood, but most of our hometown was that way, so we never thought much about it.
When I would arrive, I’d say hello to Sandy’s dad and head downstairs. Sandy didn’t have a mom, and I never knew for sure what happened to her. From what I heard, she was a deadbeat and jammed when the boys were little.
I’d step down the creaky stairs and hear laughter in the back corner of the unfinished basement. Sandy, his older brother Troy, and younger brother Corey, set up a hang-out spot with some ripped couches and a table in an area framed off by two-by-fours. Circular stains from pop and beer cans coated the surface of the table. Playing cards and chew cans were strewn about. The centerpiece was that familiar Coke can with small holes poked in the indentation on the side.
I was an outsider, for the most part, coming from the slightly better part of town, if there was such a place. A few of the older guys, Troy’s friends I didn’t know well, would give me hard looks when I sat down. Would he narc? their eyes always seemed to say.
Eventually, they’d get bored playing cards and reliving the glory days, and hit the Coke can, passing it around the table. It wasn’t my thing, so I never took part, and that made me even more of an outsider. I told them I had asthma and that my grandmother was fighting her fifth battle with lung cancer from cigarettes. They let me slide with the latter excuse.
On this particular day—the day Sandy figured out who he wanted to be—I didn’t need an excuse, however. I was summoned by a sheer metallic noise that rang through our skulls.
Clank, clank, clank, echoed down the stairway from the backyard.
“Mikey, go see what’s going on,” Sandy instructed. Being the outsider and someone who didn’t take hits meant it was my job to investigate. I respected Sandy, and for that reason, I did what he asked.
#
On the back patio, by the Lil’ Chief Sandy’s dad used to smoke rainbows he caught out at Loon Lake, I found Troy and a kid from up the street, Garret. Troy stood behind Garret with an ax. Garret sat with his hands behind his back, and his back against the tree stump where Sandy’s dad chopped wood. Garret was posed execution style, and Troy was rearing to swing.
“What the hell?” I yelled while running up to them. As I approached, I could see why Garrett’s hands were behind his back. “Why are you in cuffs?” I asked.
“Headbutted a cop,” Garret said.
“You headbutted a cop, so he put you in cuffs? How’d you get here?”
“No, I was already in cuffs. The pig put them on me last night. I asked ‘im if he’d turn me around so I could ask somethin’. When he did, I knocked ‘im out with a headbutt. I ran here. Troy’s gonna cut off the cuffs.”
“Aren’t you worried he’s going to whack off your hands?”
They both shrugged. Troy heaved up the ax and took another swing. The blade sparked against the handcuff chains, but the chains, and Garret’s hands, remained intact.
#
I heard commotion in the front, so I headed to investigate. The early-summer breeze wafted the smell of fresh-cut grass and charcoal briquettes. A giant Weeping Willow shaded most of Sandy’s yard, making it a great place to hang out when we weren’t downstairs.
Sandy’s dad stood in the middle of the yard with Corey. A group of guys and girls surrounded them in an irregular circle. Sandy’s dad squared off against his son like they were going to fight.
I knew Sandy’s dad had a mean streak, but fighting his own son in the middle of the day, in the front yard?
As I approached, I heard Sandy’s dad explaining what was happening.
“You see, son, when you hit them in the face like this,” he said as he demonstrated a slow-motion jab, “you turn your fist at the last second to get traction on their face.”
“Ahhh,” the crowd said, almost in unison.
“Do that, and the punch will have more meaning.”
#
Sandy’s dad headed off to work at the aluminum plant, but the group remained in the front yard. Some uninvited guests arrived with 40s of Old E just as Sandy made it up from the basement.
One of them called out Corey, said he was a “pussy daddy’s boy.” The meddler sat down the brown paper bag cloaking his 40. It tipped over, but nothing came out. All forty ounces of charcoal-filtered liquid courage was in his belly, making its way to his head.
Big Sandy wouldn’t let a slight like that go unanswered in his own yard, let alone against his brother. He approached the meddler and gave him a soft tap on the face, like you might administer both to get one’s attention and degrade them at the same time.
“You should watch your mouth around here,” Big Sandy said.
The meddler raised his fists and stepped forward. Big Sandy, not usually confrontational, backed up.
“We don’t want no problems here, but you’re gonna to have to leave after what you said about my brother,” Sandy said.
The meddler continued to move forward, stalking as Sandy tried to give the guy an out.
Finally, he took a swing at Sandy. Sandy ducked, grabbed behind his opponent’s knee with both hands, and raised the knee to his chest. Sandy swept the other leg so that so that they fell to the ground with Sandy on top.
Sandy then cinched his opponent’s arms together in a double chicken wing. Sandy dug his chin through his opponent’s mullet, grinding it into his back.
“I’m gonna let you up in a sec,” Sandy said, “but you gotta jam, understand?”
No answer. Sandy released one arm, held his opponent in a single arm-bar, and placed his elbow on the nape of his opponent’s neck. He leaned into his elbow with all his weight and rubbed it back and forth.
“Okay, okay, okay, man, I’m outta here,” the guy said, as sweaty beads of pain accumulated on his forehead.
Big Sandy let him up, and the uninvited guests all fled.
#
Garrett and Troy finally made their way out front to witness part of the show.
“Where’d you learn to take down like that?” Garret said.
“Ah you know, I played a lot of Pro Wrestling on the NES, mostly as King Slender,” Sandy said.
“He wrestled in high school for a while,” Troy said. “But yeah, he’s got skills.”
“You outta get yourself a job,” Garret said.
“I have one at Heights Pizza Parlor,” Sandy said.
“No, I mean wrestling. Lots of money in it. You even got a name already: ‘Big Sandy.’ They have matches right downtown at the arena. You could be a jobber to the stars when they come to town.”
The corners of Sandy’s mouth turned up, almost in a full smile, revealing the chipped incisor he had since a kid. He blinked, and I swear I saw a sparkle in his eyes.
“‘Big Sandy.’ Yeah, I like that,” Sandy said.
Garret smiled back. “Now help me get these cuffs off, man.”
END
Michael Carter is a short fiction and creative nonfiction writer from the Western United States. He grew up in Eastern Washington and comes from an extended family of farmers and orchardists who homesteaded in Montana. When he’s not writing, he enjoys cast-iron cooking, fly fishing, and wandering remote areas of the Rocky Mountains. He’s online at michaelcarter.ink and @mcmichaelcarter
Pot Roast from Vance Godbey’s by Mark A. Nobles
The Hayloft on Jacksboro Highway didn’t have an outside light over the door, let alone a pole light in the parking lot. The sign atop the dilapidated building was barely recognizable as a sign at all, being as it was only half a sheet of rotted plywood on which Inez’s third husband, Dick, had scribbled ‘Hay Loft’ in black paint with a four-inch brush.
Dick had caught hell for the misspelling and Inez had kicked his ass to the curb less than two weeks later, not for that specific transgression, but it had been the next to last one she allowed. It was best for all concerned if one did as Inez instructed, exactly as Inez instructed, not part way or close.
It was a one ambulance night on Jacksboro, unusually slow for a Tuesday, and even more so in the Hayloft. Inez was behind the bar reading yesterday’s editorial page of the Fort Worth Press and smoking an unfiltered Camel which was, at this point, more curved ash than tobacco and paper. Inez was 4’ 11” and of unknown weight, but she had to be under 100 lbs. She wore whatever the hell she wanted, and her beehive was a full 15 percent as tall as she.
On the bar to her right a mostly eaten plate of pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn, and pea salad sat congealing. Buddy, who spent almost as much time in the Hayloft as Inez, had brought the food to her from Vance Godbey’s Barbecue which was up Jacksboro, almost into downtown. Truth be told Godbey’s barbecue wasn’t much to write home about, but his wife’s pot roast was better than your mama’s pot roast and I don’t care who your mama is.
Willie sat at a table picking strings and bits of songs nobody knew. Buddy was molding his butt to his regular barstool and a first timer sat at a table in the furthest corner of the room. Inez was suspicious of first timers, so she kept her radar on him. She knew he sat where he did just to make her hike his Pearl across the room. That put him two strikes down and he hadn’t been in the Hayloft 45 minutes.
“Don’t you know any happy songs, Willie?” said Inez.
“No, mam,” Willie sang. Even when he talked, Willie sounded like he was singing. “But I’ll make one up for a Jax.”
“Hell,” the man in the corner interrupted, “I’ll buy you a beer and a shot if you’ll shut the hell up.”
Everyone turned and stared at the stranger in the corner except for Willie, who put down his guitar, and sat up straight in his seat.
“I’ll give Willie his beer and back but only to make you pay,” said Inez. “and I’ll thank you to be more cordial to my customers.”
“I drove in to Fort Worth from Mineola for the Fat Stock Show and heard tell this was the place to meet rasslers and ain’t nobody here but a midget barkeep and two alchies,” said the man.
The Hayloft was not lit up like Christmas because it had its own built in clientele, mostly wrestlers, roustabouts, and carnies, both from here permanent, and those traveling through. Inez hadn’t meant for the Hayloft to be a home for wrestlers and roustabouts, it just happened. She didn’t mind because they always had cash, had already got fighting out of their blood before they came in the door, and most were more polite than you’d think. They all liked Inez because she served full drinks, made fair change, and treated them like they were regular folk.
Inez drew Willie’s beer and poured his shot. Willie knew better than to make her bring the drinks to him, so he stood, grabbed his guitar and walked to the bar.
“Don’t pay him no heed, Willie. I like the way you play.”
“I know you do, Inez.” Willie threw back the shot and shook. He wasn’t used to anything but rotgut whiskey and Inez had poured a shot of the good stuff, since the man in the corner was paying the tab. “He’s right though.”
“I’m willing to bet that asshole hasn’t been right since he was shitting himself in diapers,” Inez cut her eyes at the man in the corner. “You’ve got talent, Willie, that isn’t the question,” she looked back to Willie, and gazed into his sad, hazel eyes. “Maybe the nightlife, just isn’t for you.”
“It ain’t no good life, that’s for sure.”
“It’s no way to live, Willie, out here playing songs for drinks, especially when you’ve got a good woman like Martha at home.”
Willie stood a full head taller than Inez, but that didn’t put him much more than 5’ 6.”
“I get restless when the evening sun goes down,” he said. “There’s no place for me, so I guess this is my life.”
“Well, I’ll repeat what you said back to you. It ain’t no good life, Willie, bumming around on Jacksboro. You ought to march your ass home, get Martha, and take her to the courthouse first thing in the morning and marry her before she comes to her senses.”
“Marriage hasn’t done you much good, Inez.”
Inez laughed, raised her hands in mock protest and said, “It’s done me a world of good, that’s why I do it so often.” They both laughed. “And I'm looking to marry again. It’s hard running a bar by yourself.”
"How many husbands you already had?" Willie asked.
"Four," she replied. “If you don’t count one repeat and two licenses I didn't use.”
The man in the corner suddenly began to belt out the first verse of ‘If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time.’
Inez cut him off, “What in the hell are you doing?”
“I need a drink and I figured the only way to get one around here is to squeal a country song like a stuck pig,” bellowed the man in the corner. “I’m the paying customer and I can’t get another round?” The man in the corner raised his empty mug and slammed it on the table for emphasis.
Inez pulled a Pearl from the cooler, snapped off the top and began to head around the bar. “I’ll get you another beer, but I think you best settle your tab and drink it on the road.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I meet a rassler,” the man insisted.
“It’s Tuesday,” said Inez, “we don’t get many of those boys in on Tuesdays.” Inez slapped the bottle on the man’s table. “Some are family men, home with their wives, or they’re on the road traveling to next weekend’s match or healing up from last weekend’s injuries.”
“Healing up,” the man snickered. “Ain’t none of them Nancy boys healing up.”
Inez raised up stiff as a board, it might have been the only time in her life she stood a solid five foot tall. She was taken aback. Inez is never taken aback. “What the hell did you say?”
“You heard me,” he stared Inez dead in the eyes. “None of them Nancy boys is healing up because none of them is hurt. You don’t get hurt fake rassling.”
Buddy, who had been doing the crossword out of the paper, put down his pen and slowly looked around. “Sheee,” he exhaled. Buddy ran out of breath before getting around to enunciating the ’t’. Willie grinned and pick up his guitar and softly started strumming what sounded like a cross between a hymn and a dirge.
Inez loomed over the man’s table, “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, so I’m willing to let it go.”
“I wrestled in high school and I watch a lot of TV rassling, so I do know what I’m talking about. It is fake and I’m pretty sure at least some of them just enjoy rolling around with other men and get paid for it.”
“Listen buster,”
“The name’s McGill,” the man said. “If you’d cared to ask.”
“I don’t care and I’m not interested in your name, buster,” Inez continued.
Willie’s eyes glowed as he continued to play. Buddy slid off his stool and slowly walked around behind the bar and hunkered down.
“Sure, a man can be a face in one town and a heel in another, that’s part of the show, and some are pushed more than others, but what goes on inside the ring is real.”
That, mam, is pure manure.”
“Is this manure,” said Inez. She then proceeded to grab the man and execute a perfect falling arm drag, landing the man on the bare concrete floor.
“Ooof.” The suddenness of the landing had expelled most of the air from the man’s lungs.
Inez was just warming up.
“I learned that from Ruffy Silverstein.” As the man got to his knees, she followed up with a textbook karate kick. “That ain’t exactly the way Duke Keomuka showed me but I ain’t got the heft he does.”
The man was laid out face down and slid a good four feet across the floor. Inez calmly walked over and grabbed the man’s right leg and placed his ankle between her thighs. She then laid on top of his back and locked his arms around his head. She pulled back stretching the man's back, neck, and knee in a most unnatural way. The man had not had time to refill his lungs with air, so his scream was silent but written all over his face.
“This rassling move is called the stepover toehold facelock,” Inez wasn’t even breathing hard, but her eyes betrayed her rage. “I learned it from Lou ‘Iron Man’ Thesz, and I know I’m doing it mostly right because he invented it.” She gave another fierce tug on his leg. The man inhaled, gasped, and screamed all at the same time, which seems like a physical impossibility, but it happened.
She let go his leg and he moaned and rolled over. He was attempting to get up, but he just wasn’t able. Inez rose to her feet and took four deliberate steps away. “You’re not selling the moves, buster, but that’s alright.” She turned on her heels, swung her arms back and strode towards the man, on the fourth step she leapt high in the air, slightly tucking her knees on the way up, causing a rotation of her tiny body. She landed solid on the man, her back to his stomach.
At that point it was over and too gruesome to describe.
“That fake move is called the bombs away,” Inez said getting back to her feet. “Jack the Giant Killer learned me that one.” Inez checked that her beehive was still straight on top her head as she walked back to the bar. Buddy, sensing the all clear, peeped up, and Willie changed his tune to a slow country waltz.
“Now, I ain’t saying there isn’t some show in the show,” Inez continued. She grabbed her Camels and shook one out. Buddy slid a pack of matches down the bar. She caught it, extracted a match, struck it and lit the cigarette. “There’s jobbers who’ve only ever taken a squash and they’ve made good money and had long careers, but if you don’t think the rassling is real,” she paused and looked at McGill. He had not moved in a while. “Say, are you still with me?”
A low moan was all he could muster to indicate that Inez had his attention. “Okay, good. I thought we might have lost you. As I was saying, there might be a push for one man over another but if you think the rassling is fake, well, you’re plain wrong. And if you want to see ‘real’ rassling, catch a rassler after a screwjob,” Inez chuckled heartily. “That’s some rassling. A real smark can tell.”
McGill’s voice was weak and cracked. “I don’t know what you are saying, but please believe me when I tell you I know what you mean.”
Inez took a long drag on the Camel. “I believe you do, Mr. McGill from Mineola.
The bar was silent for several moments. Buddy went back to his crossword and you could almost hear Inez’s Camel burn to ash.
“You going to drink that, mister?” Willie asked politely, pointing to the man’s beer.
The man did not speak but managed to shake his head ‘no.’
Willie looked to Inez. Inez shrugged. Willie quit playing, stepped over the man to get to the table, and picked up his Pearl.
END
The Hayloft on Jacksboro Highway didn’t have an outside light over the door, let alone a pole light in the parking lot. The sign atop the dilapidated building was barely recognizable as a sign at all, being as it was only half a sheet of rotted plywood on which Inez’s third husband, Dick, had scribbled ‘Hay Loft’ in black paint with a four-inch brush.
Dick had caught hell for the misspelling and Inez had kicked his ass to the curb less than two weeks later, not for that specific transgression, but it had been the next to last one she allowed. It was best for all concerned if one did as Inez instructed, exactly as Inez instructed, not part way or close.
It was a one ambulance night on Jacksboro, unusually slow for a Tuesday, and even more so in the Hayloft. Inez was behind the bar reading yesterday’s editorial page of the Fort Worth Press and smoking an unfiltered Camel which was, at this point, more curved ash than tobacco and paper. Inez was 4’ 11” and of unknown weight, but she had to be under 100 lbs. She wore whatever the hell she wanted, and her beehive was a full 15 percent as tall as she.
On the bar to her right a mostly eaten plate of pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn, and pea salad sat congealing. Buddy, who spent almost as much time in the Hayloft as Inez, had brought the food to her from Vance Godbey’s Barbecue which was up Jacksboro, almost into downtown. Truth be told Godbey’s barbecue wasn’t much to write home about, but his wife’s pot roast was better than your mama’s pot roast and I don’t care who your mama is.
Willie sat at a table picking strings and bits of songs nobody knew. Buddy was molding his butt to his regular barstool and a first timer sat at a table in the furthest corner of the room. Inez was suspicious of first timers, so she kept her radar on him. She knew he sat where he did just to make her hike his Pearl across the room. That put him two strikes down and he hadn’t been in the Hayloft 45 minutes.
“Don’t you know any happy songs, Willie?” said Inez.
“No, mam,” Willie sang. Even when he talked, Willie sounded like he was singing. “But I’ll make one up for a Jax.”
“Hell,” the man in the corner interrupted, “I’ll buy you a beer and a shot if you’ll shut the hell up.”
Everyone turned and stared at the stranger in the corner except for Willie, who put down his guitar, and sat up straight in his seat.
“I’ll give Willie his beer and back but only to make you pay,” said Inez. “and I’ll thank you to be more cordial to my customers.”
“I drove in to Fort Worth from Mineola for the Fat Stock Show and heard tell this was the place to meet rasslers and ain’t nobody here but a midget barkeep and two alchies,” said the man.
The Hayloft was not lit up like Christmas because it had its own built in clientele, mostly wrestlers, roustabouts, and carnies, both from here permanent, and those traveling through. Inez hadn’t meant for the Hayloft to be a home for wrestlers and roustabouts, it just happened. She didn’t mind because they always had cash, had already got fighting out of their blood before they came in the door, and most were more polite than you’d think. They all liked Inez because she served full drinks, made fair change, and treated them like they were regular folk.
Inez drew Willie’s beer and poured his shot. Willie knew better than to make her bring the drinks to him, so he stood, grabbed his guitar and walked to the bar.
“Don’t pay him no heed, Willie. I like the way you play.”
“I know you do, Inez.” Willie threw back the shot and shook. He wasn’t used to anything but rotgut whiskey and Inez had poured a shot of the good stuff, since the man in the corner was paying the tab. “He’s right though.”
“I’m willing to bet that asshole hasn’t been right since he was shitting himself in diapers,” Inez cut her eyes at the man in the corner. “You’ve got talent, Willie, that isn’t the question,” she looked back to Willie, and gazed into his sad, hazel eyes. “Maybe the nightlife, just isn’t for you.”
“It ain’t no good life, that’s for sure.”
“It’s no way to live, Willie, out here playing songs for drinks, especially when you’ve got a good woman like Martha at home.”
Willie stood a full head taller than Inez, but that didn’t put him much more than 5’ 6.”
“I get restless when the evening sun goes down,” he said. “There’s no place for me, so I guess this is my life.”
“Well, I’ll repeat what you said back to you. It ain’t no good life, Willie, bumming around on Jacksboro. You ought to march your ass home, get Martha, and take her to the courthouse first thing in the morning and marry her before she comes to her senses.”
“Marriage hasn’t done you much good, Inez.”
Inez laughed, raised her hands in mock protest and said, “It’s done me a world of good, that’s why I do it so often.” They both laughed. “And I'm looking to marry again. It’s hard running a bar by yourself.”
"How many husbands you already had?" Willie asked.
"Four," she replied. “If you don’t count one repeat and two licenses I didn't use.”
The man in the corner suddenly began to belt out the first verse of ‘If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time.’
Inez cut him off, “What in the hell are you doing?”
“I need a drink and I figured the only way to get one around here is to squeal a country song like a stuck pig,” bellowed the man in the corner. “I’m the paying customer and I can’t get another round?” The man in the corner raised his empty mug and slammed it on the table for emphasis.
Inez pulled a Pearl from the cooler, snapped off the top and began to head around the bar. “I’ll get you another beer, but I think you best settle your tab and drink it on the road.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I meet a rassler,” the man insisted.
“It’s Tuesday,” said Inez, “we don’t get many of those boys in on Tuesdays.” Inez slapped the bottle on the man’s table. “Some are family men, home with their wives, or they’re on the road traveling to next weekend’s match or healing up from last weekend’s injuries.”
“Healing up,” the man snickered. “Ain’t none of them Nancy boys healing up.”
Inez raised up stiff as a board, it might have been the only time in her life she stood a solid five foot tall. She was taken aback. Inez is never taken aback. “What the hell did you say?”
“You heard me,” he stared Inez dead in the eyes. “None of them Nancy boys is healing up because none of them is hurt. You don’t get hurt fake rassling.”
Buddy, who had been doing the crossword out of the paper, put down his pen and slowly looked around. “Sheee,” he exhaled. Buddy ran out of breath before getting around to enunciating the ’t’. Willie grinned and pick up his guitar and softly started strumming what sounded like a cross between a hymn and a dirge.
Inez loomed over the man’s table, “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, so I’m willing to let it go.”
“I wrestled in high school and I watch a lot of TV rassling, so I do know what I’m talking about. It is fake and I’m pretty sure at least some of them just enjoy rolling around with other men and get paid for it.”
“Listen buster,”
“The name’s McGill,” the man said. “If you’d cared to ask.”
“I don’t care and I’m not interested in your name, buster,” Inez continued.
Willie’s eyes glowed as he continued to play. Buddy slid off his stool and slowly walked around behind the bar and hunkered down.
“Sure, a man can be a face in one town and a heel in another, that’s part of the show, and some are pushed more than others, but what goes on inside the ring is real.”
That, mam, is pure manure.”
“Is this manure,” said Inez. She then proceeded to grab the man and execute a perfect falling arm drag, landing the man on the bare concrete floor.
“Ooof.” The suddenness of the landing had expelled most of the air from the man’s lungs.
Inez was just warming up.
“I learned that from Ruffy Silverstein.” As the man got to his knees, she followed up with a textbook karate kick. “That ain’t exactly the way Duke Keomuka showed me but I ain’t got the heft he does.”
The man was laid out face down and slid a good four feet across the floor. Inez calmly walked over and grabbed the man’s right leg and placed his ankle between her thighs. She then laid on top of his back and locked his arms around his head. She pulled back stretching the man's back, neck, and knee in a most unnatural way. The man had not had time to refill his lungs with air, so his scream was silent but written all over his face.
“This rassling move is called the stepover toehold facelock,” Inez wasn’t even breathing hard, but her eyes betrayed her rage. “I learned it from Lou ‘Iron Man’ Thesz, and I know I’m doing it mostly right because he invented it.” She gave another fierce tug on his leg. The man inhaled, gasped, and screamed all at the same time, which seems like a physical impossibility, but it happened.
She let go his leg and he moaned and rolled over. He was attempting to get up, but he just wasn’t able. Inez rose to her feet and took four deliberate steps away. “You’re not selling the moves, buster, but that’s alright.” She turned on her heels, swung her arms back and strode towards the man, on the fourth step she leapt high in the air, slightly tucking her knees on the way up, causing a rotation of her tiny body. She landed solid on the man, her back to his stomach.
At that point it was over and too gruesome to describe.
“That fake move is called the bombs away,” Inez said getting back to her feet. “Jack the Giant Killer learned me that one.” Inez checked that her beehive was still straight on top her head as she walked back to the bar. Buddy, sensing the all clear, peeped up, and Willie changed his tune to a slow country waltz.
“Now, I ain’t saying there isn’t some show in the show,” Inez continued. She grabbed her Camels and shook one out. Buddy slid a pack of matches down the bar. She caught it, extracted a match, struck it and lit the cigarette. “There’s jobbers who’ve only ever taken a squash and they’ve made good money and had long careers, but if you don’t think the rassling is real,” she paused and looked at McGill. He had not moved in a while. “Say, are you still with me?”
A low moan was all he could muster to indicate that Inez had his attention. “Okay, good. I thought we might have lost you. As I was saying, there might be a push for one man over another but if you think the rassling is fake, well, you’re plain wrong. And if you want to see ‘real’ rassling, catch a rassler after a screwjob,” Inez chuckled heartily. “That’s some rassling. A real smark can tell.”
McGill’s voice was weak and cracked. “I don’t know what you are saying, but please believe me when I tell you I know what you mean.”
Inez took a long drag on the Camel. “I believe you do, Mr. McGill from Mineola.
The bar was silent for several moments. Buddy went back to his crossword and you could almost hear Inez’s Camel burn to ash.
“You going to drink that, mister?” Willie asked politely, pointing to the man’s beer.
The man did not speak but managed to shake his head ‘no.’
Willie looked to Inez. Inez shrugged. Willie quit playing, stepped over the man to get to the table, and picked up his Pearl.
END
Abdullah the Butcher in Gotham
By Mark A. Nobles
“Dibs on Superman,” said Teeter.
“You’re always Superman,” Monk protested.
“Yep,” said Teeter. “Because I am Superman.
“Fine, I’m the Flash,” said Monk.
“I wanna be Aquaman,” piped in Rayburn.
“Aquaman is in the ocean,” said Rod with exaggerated exasperation. “There ain’t an
ocean in a hundred miles of here.”
Rayburn countered, “Aquaman can be outta the ocean, Rod.”
“Cannot,” said Monk.
“Can to,” said Rod
“Just pick someone different,” pleaded Monk.
“If Teeter always gets to be Superman, I oughta be able to be Aquaman,” said Rayburn.
“Just how is Aquaman supposed to get from the ocean all the way up here?” said Teeter. “Like Rod said, it’s got to be a hundred miles, at least.”
“We ain’t in Alvarado, Teeter, we’re in Gotham,” said Rayburn.
“Metropolis,” corrected Teeter.
“Dang it, Teeter, we’re always in Metropolis, you know I’m gonna be Batman, and I want to be in Gotham.” Rayburn
“Fine, but just this once. Never again,” said Teeter.
“Not just this once, we can be in Gotham sometimes.”
“Just this once or never.”
“That’s not fair, Teeter,” said Rayburn.
Teeter shrugs.
“Just say okay,” said Monk. “He won’t stick to it.”
“Okay,” begrudged Rayburn.
All eyes turn to Chick. There was tension. Definite tension. Everyone knew what was coming but fervently hoped it would not.
“Abdullah the Butcher,” Chick said defiantly.
All together: “Dang.” “Not again, Chick.” “Every stinking time.” “Man.”
“How many times do we have to explain that Abdullah the Butcher is not a superhero, Chick,” said Monk.
“Is too,” protested Chick. “Well,” Chick changed his mind, “he’s not a superhero, he’s a supervillain, and that’s better.” Chick took a few steps out of the circle of boys and dropped into a crouch position, arms extended, ready to wrestle anyone or even all of the good guys.
“Jeeze,” Rod exclaimed.
Monk elbowed Rod in the ribs, “Don’t say that or I can’t hang out with you.” Monk was Preacher Bonds youngest child. Never mind that his two oldest brothers were the biggest pot dealers in Johnson County. They weren’t allowed to hang out with folks who took the Lord’s name in vain either. Even Monk’s older brothers insisted on clean language from their friends and customers, who were pretty much one and the same. In a small town, it was hard to hide who was doing what with who. The teachers at the high school joked that you could tell the potheads from the binge drinkers by their language. The cleaner the language, the bigger the pothead.
“Why we got to do this every time, Chick?” Rayburn asked.
“Cause ya’ll are stubborn and won’t let me be a wrestling supervillain,” Chick stated rather matter of factly. He began to ominously stomp around the circle of boys, who were all now facing outward. “I’ve come for you, Superman,” Chick said in an unknown accent that he believed sounded Sudanese, which was the backstory for Abdullah. It really sounded like what a boy who had barely ever been outside Johnson County imagined sounded middle eastern.
“What the hell are you doing, Chick?” said Teeter.
“I am Abdullah the Butcher!” Chick screamed. “The Madman from the Sudan and I’m going to use my superpower of the Running Elbow Drop to crush you, Superman.”
“That’s not a superpower, Abdullah,” Teeter said, heavy sarcasm on Abdullah.
“Then counter with your super strength, or fly away in shame for my superpowers are greater than yours!” and with that, Chick lunged at Teeter, threw him to the dirt, stepped back and executed a perfect Running Elbow Drop to Teeter’s chest. The air whisked from Teeter’s lungs with a mighty blast.
“Ohhh!” Monk, Rod, and Rayburn screamed. “Damn,” added Rod.
“That’s it,” said Monk, “I gotta go home, I can’t play with ya’ll, Rod ruined it,” and with that, he double-timed it towards home.
“Wait, Monk,” Rod pleaded. He left the circle and took a few steps towards Monk. “I’m sorry, but,” he looked back to Teeter and Chick laying on the ground, “Did you see that? Even your dad would have cursed a little.”
Chick was feeling his oats, “Where you going in such a hurry, Flash? Come back and climb in the ring with Abdullah the Butcher.”
“I’m not allowed to play with sinners or foreigners,” shouted Monk.
“We’re all sinners, Flash,” said Chick, “your daddy says so every Sunday!” Chick was feeling his oats and on a roll. “Besides, Superman in the dirt over here is from Krypton, Aquaman is from the ocean…”
“Atlantis,” corrected Rayburn.
Chick turned to Rayburn, “What?”
“Aquaman is from Atlantis,” said Rayburn, “it’s in the ocean but a pacific place in the ocean, Atlantis.” Rayburn had a problem saying specific.
“Whatever,” Chick waived Rayburn off and turned back to Monk, “Atlantis is not in America, let alone Texas, and you can play with them. Why can’t you play with Abdullah the Butcher, the mad man from the Sudan!”
“You leave my daddy out of this, Chick. At least I have a daddy, you’re crazy, that’s why your daddy left. I’m not supposed to even play with you because my daddy says divorce is a sin and your momma is either a fornicator or didn’t put her husband at the head of the household. Either way, we only play with you because you won’t leave us alone and Teeter says it would be rude to tell you to leave.” After issuing that mouthful Monk was a little winded.
Chick stood frozen in the moment. Slowly his fists clenched and he let out a yell that can best be described as a war cry and began to run straight at Monk.
“Shit is on now,” said Rod. Both Rod and Rayburn lit out after Chick.
Poor Teeter was only now catching his breath and climbing to his feet.
Monk stood frozen like a spotlit deer as Chick screamed towards him. Rod and Rayburn had no chance of intercepting Chick and thwarting the waylay. When Chick was about five feet from Monk he went airborne and executed a clean leaping clothesline. The force of the blow from Chick’s forearm to Monk’s throat and chest knocked the air and consciousness clean out of him. Monk was out before his legs buckled.
Chick blew right past Monk, landed on the dirt in a clean tuck and roll, then bounded to his feet. He was both kinds of mad, bull and hatter. Chick turned and faced the boys, red-faced and breathing deep. He resumed his wrestling crouch.
“Take it easy, Chick,” said Rod. “We were only playing.”
“Then why can’t I play the way I want to play,” Chick seethed. “What does it matter to ya’ll if I want to be Abdullah?”
Teeter had regained his feet and most of his senses. “Those are just the rules, Chick.”
“I want to know who made these rules. Bring them to me!” shouted Chick.
Everyone just stood and stared, except for Monk. He was still out like a light.
“Maybe my momma can’t buy me every comic every time a new one comes out but I can watch wrestling on channel 11 with my gramps. It’s the same kinda stories, you morons! Good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Truth, justice and the American way. Don’t ya’ll get it?”
They didn’t get it but Chick went on anyway, “Kennedy said, not just three months ago, ‘we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.’” He paused, waiting to see if a light would go off in any of them. Any one of them. “Good needs evil or there are no stories. I may be different, but I am real, and ya’ll need me.”
Monk made a noise and attempted to roll over. He was slowly regaining consciousness. Rod, Rayburn, and Teeter went to attend to him.
Chick turned and walked home.
Mark A. Nobles is a sixth generation Texan born on Fort Worth’s infamous Jacksboro Highway and proudly claims blood and kinship with Thunder Road’s gamblers, outlaws, and wastrels. His work has appeared in Sleeping Panther Review, Crimson Streets, Cleaver Magazine, Curating Alexandria, and other publications. He has produced and/or directed three feature documentaries and several short, experimental films. Mark lives in Fort Worth but hopes to die in the desert. He loves his two dogs, two daughters, and Texas, but not necessarily in that order. He can be found and followed on Facebook @ Flyin Shoes Films.
By Mark A. Nobles
“Dibs on Superman,” said Teeter.
“You’re always Superman,” Monk protested.
“Yep,” said Teeter. “Because I am Superman.
“Fine, I’m the Flash,” said Monk.
“I wanna be Aquaman,” piped in Rayburn.
“Aquaman is in the ocean,” said Rod with exaggerated exasperation. “There ain’t an
ocean in a hundred miles of here.”
Rayburn countered, “Aquaman can be outta the ocean, Rod.”
“Cannot,” said Monk.
“Can to,” said Rod
“Just pick someone different,” pleaded Monk.
“If Teeter always gets to be Superman, I oughta be able to be Aquaman,” said Rayburn.
“Just how is Aquaman supposed to get from the ocean all the way up here?” said Teeter. “Like Rod said, it’s got to be a hundred miles, at least.”
“We ain’t in Alvarado, Teeter, we’re in Gotham,” said Rayburn.
“Metropolis,” corrected Teeter.
“Dang it, Teeter, we’re always in Metropolis, you know I’m gonna be Batman, and I want to be in Gotham.” Rayburn
“Fine, but just this once. Never again,” said Teeter.
“Not just this once, we can be in Gotham sometimes.”
“Just this once or never.”
“That’s not fair, Teeter,” said Rayburn.
Teeter shrugs.
“Just say okay,” said Monk. “He won’t stick to it.”
“Okay,” begrudged Rayburn.
All eyes turn to Chick. There was tension. Definite tension. Everyone knew what was coming but fervently hoped it would not.
“Abdullah the Butcher,” Chick said defiantly.
All together: “Dang.” “Not again, Chick.” “Every stinking time.” “Man.”
“How many times do we have to explain that Abdullah the Butcher is not a superhero, Chick,” said Monk.
“Is too,” protested Chick. “Well,” Chick changed his mind, “he’s not a superhero, he’s a supervillain, and that’s better.” Chick took a few steps out of the circle of boys and dropped into a crouch position, arms extended, ready to wrestle anyone or even all of the good guys.
“Jeeze,” Rod exclaimed.
Monk elbowed Rod in the ribs, “Don’t say that or I can’t hang out with you.” Monk was Preacher Bonds youngest child. Never mind that his two oldest brothers were the biggest pot dealers in Johnson County. They weren’t allowed to hang out with folks who took the Lord’s name in vain either. Even Monk’s older brothers insisted on clean language from their friends and customers, who were pretty much one and the same. In a small town, it was hard to hide who was doing what with who. The teachers at the high school joked that you could tell the potheads from the binge drinkers by their language. The cleaner the language, the bigger the pothead.
“Why we got to do this every time, Chick?” Rayburn asked.
“Cause ya’ll are stubborn and won’t let me be a wrestling supervillain,” Chick stated rather matter of factly. He began to ominously stomp around the circle of boys, who were all now facing outward. “I’ve come for you, Superman,” Chick said in an unknown accent that he believed sounded Sudanese, which was the backstory for Abdullah. It really sounded like what a boy who had barely ever been outside Johnson County imagined sounded middle eastern.
“What the hell are you doing, Chick?” said Teeter.
“I am Abdullah the Butcher!” Chick screamed. “The Madman from the Sudan and I’m going to use my superpower of the Running Elbow Drop to crush you, Superman.”
“That’s not a superpower, Abdullah,” Teeter said, heavy sarcasm on Abdullah.
“Then counter with your super strength, or fly away in shame for my superpowers are greater than yours!” and with that, Chick lunged at Teeter, threw him to the dirt, stepped back and executed a perfect Running Elbow Drop to Teeter’s chest. The air whisked from Teeter’s lungs with a mighty blast.
“Ohhh!” Monk, Rod, and Rayburn screamed. “Damn,” added Rod.
“That’s it,” said Monk, “I gotta go home, I can’t play with ya’ll, Rod ruined it,” and with that, he double-timed it towards home.
“Wait, Monk,” Rod pleaded. He left the circle and took a few steps towards Monk. “I’m sorry, but,” he looked back to Teeter and Chick laying on the ground, “Did you see that? Even your dad would have cursed a little.”
Chick was feeling his oats, “Where you going in such a hurry, Flash? Come back and climb in the ring with Abdullah the Butcher.”
“I’m not allowed to play with sinners or foreigners,” shouted Monk.
“We’re all sinners, Flash,” said Chick, “your daddy says so every Sunday!” Chick was feeling his oats and on a roll. “Besides, Superman in the dirt over here is from Krypton, Aquaman is from the ocean…”
“Atlantis,” corrected Rayburn.
Chick turned to Rayburn, “What?”
“Aquaman is from Atlantis,” said Rayburn, “it’s in the ocean but a pacific place in the ocean, Atlantis.” Rayburn had a problem saying specific.
“Whatever,” Chick waived Rayburn off and turned back to Monk, “Atlantis is not in America, let alone Texas, and you can play with them. Why can’t you play with Abdullah the Butcher, the mad man from the Sudan!”
“You leave my daddy out of this, Chick. At least I have a daddy, you’re crazy, that’s why your daddy left. I’m not supposed to even play with you because my daddy says divorce is a sin and your momma is either a fornicator or didn’t put her husband at the head of the household. Either way, we only play with you because you won’t leave us alone and Teeter says it would be rude to tell you to leave.” After issuing that mouthful Monk was a little winded.
Chick stood frozen in the moment. Slowly his fists clenched and he let out a yell that can best be described as a war cry and began to run straight at Monk.
“Shit is on now,” said Rod. Both Rod and Rayburn lit out after Chick.
Poor Teeter was only now catching his breath and climbing to his feet.
Monk stood frozen like a spotlit deer as Chick screamed towards him. Rod and Rayburn had no chance of intercepting Chick and thwarting the waylay. When Chick was about five feet from Monk he went airborne and executed a clean leaping clothesline. The force of the blow from Chick’s forearm to Monk’s throat and chest knocked the air and consciousness clean out of him. Monk was out before his legs buckled.
Chick blew right past Monk, landed on the dirt in a clean tuck and roll, then bounded to his feet. He was both kinds of mad, bull and hatter. Chick turned and faced the boys, red-faced and breathing deep. He resumed his wrestling crouch.
“Take it easy, Chick,” said Rod. “We were only playing.”
“Then why can’t I play the way I want to play,” Chick seethed. “What does it matter to ya’ll if I want to be Abdullah?”
Teeter had regained his feet and most of his senses. “Those are just the rules, Chick.”
“I want to know who made these rules. Bring them to me!” shouted Chick.
Everyone just stood and stared, except for Monk. He was still out like a light.
“Maybe my momma can’t buy me every comic every time a new one comes out but I can watch wrestling on channel 11 with my gramps. It’s the same kinda stories, you morons! Good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Truth, justice and the American way. Don’t ya’ll get it?”
They didn’t get it but Chick went on anyway, “Kennedy said, not just three months ago, ‘we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.’” He paused, waiting to see if a light would go off in any of them. Any one of them. “Good needs evil or there are no stories. I may be different, but I am real, and ya’ll need me.”
Monk made a noise and attempted to roll over. He was slowly regaining consciousness. Rod, Rayburn, and Teeter went to attend to him.
Chick turned and walked home.
Mark A. Nobles is a sixth generation Texan born on Fort Worth’s infamous Jacksboro Highway and proudly claims blood and kinship with Thunder Road’s gamblers, outlaws, and wastrels. His work has appeared in Sleeping Panther Review, Crimson Streets, Cleaver Magazine, Curating Alexandria, and other publications. He has produced and/or directed three feature documentaries and several short, experimental films. Mark lives in Fort Worth but hopes to die in the desert. He loves his two dogs, two daughters, and Texas, but not necessarily in that order. He can be found and followed on Facebook @ Flyin Shoes Films.
PWI
by Josh Olsen
I used to take regular trips alone with my grandparents. We would usually drive, the three of us together in my grandfather’s car, to visit my grandfather’s family in Waukesha, Wisconsin, or my grandmother’s family in Chicago, but my grandmother and I would occasionally travel by ourselves, just the two of us, and since she never learned to drive we would take the Amtrak from LaCrosse, Wisconsin to Union Station, in Chicago. At the time, the 5 or 6 hour train ride felt excruciatingly long, an eternity, and being without the luxury of a Walkman or Gameboy, most of my time was spent staring out the window, coping with motion sickness, while my grandmother smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes, occasionally dropping ashes on my thigh. But on one such occasion, when I was about the age of 10, around the year 1989, my grandmother must have taken notice of just how bored I was, and she purchased something from a newsstand to keep me occupied. It was an issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a magazine dedicated to exploring the subject of, you guessed it, professional wrestling. Now, the purchase of such a magazine, in and of itself, wasn’t necessarily an odd choice. I was then, like many if not most children at the time, a fan of professional wrestling. I was, in essence, a Hulkamaniac, saying my prayers and taking my vitamins. But unlike the more readily known WWF Magazine, which I was a frequent reader of, Pro Wrestling Illustrated did not exclusively focus on the goings-on of Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation. Pro Wrestling Illustrated was not a promotional product owned and published by the WWF, and so it did not feature glossy color pictorials celebrating the greatness of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. In addition to Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Shawn Michaels, Pro Wrestling Illustrated seemed just as invested in discussing “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich and “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, years before they made their big leap to WWF. There was frequent mention of WWF’s regional and global competition, such as WCW, NWA, AWA, NJPW, and AAA. There were gritty, black and white photographs of bloodied and battered men, such as Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, and Abdullah the Butcher, in the midst of brutal “hardcore” barbed-wire matches. The pages of Pro Wrestling Illustrated were of newsprint quality, and the magazine, as a whole, portrayed an almost obscene tone, in my 10-year-old mind. I cannot lie, at the time, I preferred WWF Magazine. Pro Wrestling Illustrated made me uncomfortable, even slightly nauseous, like the first time I saw a pornographic movie, in the 7th grade (Gazongas 2). There was a gritty honesty to Pro Wrestling Illustrated that I just was not prepared for. If WWF Magazine was analogous to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, air-brushed and commercial and virginal, Pro Wrestling Illustrated was the waterlogged issue of Hustler discovered under an conspicuously-placed rock, hidden in the woods, and at the age of 10, riding the Amtrak with my grandmother, I wasn’t quite ready for Hustler.
Josh Olsen is a librarian in Flint, Michigan and the co-creator of Gimmick Press.
TWO STORIES
by Michael Chin
GETTING READY
Erica used the grass as a mat for sit ups, the back-deck railing for a chin-ups. In lieu of a sparring partner, she wrestled the air. Her imagination might produce an opponent of any size, any strength level, and if she couldn’t power out of full nelson, she learned to drop down and slip free from the hold.
She never practiced in front of her mother when she came home. It was counterintuitive not to want Mom, the wrestler’s help. But Erica wanted to be ready not because of, but for Mom. To see Mom’s lower lip tremble the way it did when Erica first showed her she knew how to read, or the time she handed her the brown paper bag with the turkey sandwich with the crusts cut off she’d made her for her next road trip.
Erica’s stepsister, Val, had aspirations of going to college, and Erica had heard her talk on the phone about how she’d leave this Podunk town and this Podunk family and never have to hear a bunch of mouth breathers talk about wrestling again.
The two of them didn’t have much in common, just parents who were married, and the same rotted roof overhead. Mom told her in confidence they’d meant for the girls to share a bedroom, but Val threw a fit, so Erica wound up sleeping in her stepfather’s old office, that still held his motley assortment of paperbacks and VHS tapes. Erica hid her shoplifted copies of Pro Wrestling Illustrated behind rows of dusty books.
One day, Erica practiced flipping into a fall in the grass. She was smart enough to the wrestling business to understand that when she fell, it was as much about pitching her body as it was anyone throwing her, and a safe landing was her responsibility. She’d advanced from falling flat, to somersaults, to a front flip, but tended to over-rotate and land on her butt instead of her back. Get enough height, like she did a couple times, and she could feel her spine contracting, and knew she couldn’t get in the habit of taking falls like that.
That afternoon, after her sixth or seventh fall, she heard the laughter Val’s window. Val and her chubby friend with the freckles and the prettier one who always wore blouses instead of t-shirts, and wore lipstick that made her mouth look like she were bleeding.
Erica might have let it go. Instead, she asked, You think this is funny?
Erica had been scraps at school. Two years earlier, fifth grade, Johnny Reds pinned down a girl and kissed her. Erica punched his nose bloody. The principal told her stepfather this was the first time he’d ever suspended any fifth grader for a full week, and her stepfather assured him she’d face consequences at home, but that was the last she’d heard of it from him. When she got home, Mom sat Erica down and asked her to tell her the whole thing. At the end of the story, Mom said, You shouldn’t have done that, but could barely keep from grinning.
Mom wouldn’t like her fighting her stepsister, but she was already hot in the face and felt blood flowing to her fists. Sometimes she could defuse that feeling by cussing, but she didn’t want to cuss out Val, because that would only make them all laugh.
Her stepsister said, I think you’re a joke.
Erica knew to be careful. Lay the bait, and let Val at least equally start the fight. Erica knew she’d wind up in trouble, but she could spit the blame.
You think you could take me? Erica was always taller, but Val was two years older, probably forty pounds heavier. She probably meant to sit on Erica, punch her a few times and humiliate her while her friends laughed. Or are you chicken?
The last bit was improvised, born out of a wrestling fan’s vocabulary of insulting someone’s courage to lure her into something foolish. Val clumsily climbed from her window, directly into the yard. Her friends didn’t come with her, but did lean out to get a better look.
Val came at her quickly, both hands shoved forward.
Erica took a step to the side, caught Val’s left arm and tripped her legs so her momentum pitched her to the ground. It was Val’s own fault that she broke her fall with her right hand, the instant that Erica would, in retrospect, know broke her wrist. Erica pinned her back against Val’s left shoulder and crank up on the arm. In wrestling, they always applied the Fujiwara armbar slowly, but Erica pulled Val’s arm as hard as she could as straight as she could and felt Val’s shoulder dislocate.
All right, I give, freak! Get off of me!
Erica thought she’d enjoy the moment more, but it was there and it was gone and soon Val’s friends were out the window and holding her, the chubbier one eyeing Erica as if wondering if she ought to fight, too.
Mom came home early. She never cut trips short, but as Erica would understand years later, she had an agreement with her husband that they’d each parent their own daughter and leave the other. Her stepfather must have called, and must have told her to get home.
Mom listened again, and, after Erica was done with her story, said, You can’t go breaking people’s arms.
Erica started to explain, but Mom knew everything she was going to say. Erica could sense it then, a way she never had before.
You’ve got to get ready for this world. This world’s going to give you every opportunity to screw up. You’ve got to learn not to if you’re going to make something of yourself.
Erica couldn’t look her mother in the eye. She said she was sorry.
But Mom wasn’t interested in apologies. Erica understood this, too, not as a reprimand but a lesson, when Mom repeated, You’ve got to get ready.
COWBOY
Halloween Horror sounded cheesy. It was the only show booked each year at the Single Star Arena, an unofficially closed dump. No one wanted to buy the land, so the dilapidated arena remained available year after year for an event flyers said offered Frightful Family Fun. The year Erica was booked, the show featured a match in which the winner sealed his opponent in a wooden coffin, plus a main event Barbed Wire Match that guaranteed gore, strategically positioned past ten o’clock, after families took their kids home.
Erica’s match was a standard one-on-one with Debbie Doom, though they’d each wear witch hats and carry brooms to the ring. The bookers offered minimal guidance, besides that Debbie would win by clocking Erica with one of those broomsticks when the referee wasn’t looking.
It’s hard to believe people still pay for shows like this, Erica said to Tigress Numero Uno.
Maybe they want to see a ghost.
It wasn’t the first time Tigress smartened up Erica to some aspect of the business. Tigress’s base of knowledge came from first-hand experience, working a variety of wrestlers, a variety of towns. The knowledge came back practical, like don’t drink the tap water at this casino, and don’t go to the east side of this town.
He went by Cowboy, she explained. He wore the hat, the spurs, the whole gimmick. A small crowd gathered around them. Fair enough, because Tigress had flipped the switch from conversation to storytelling mode.
His opponent was a rookie. A roughneck who hadn’t finished his training, but had the right look to get on shows. Cowboy figured out he didn’t know what he was doing, so he put him in a chinlock to buy time and figure out what to do next.
Old timers loved their chinlocks to build drama and catch their breath. Erica always thought chinlocks were lazy.
The rookie used a chokehold, and didn’t know his own strength. Before Cowboy could even signal the ref, he was hurting.
So, Cowboy died at the hands of a novice. The legend went on—Erica should have seen it coming—that Cowboy haunted the arena to this day. She paused at the end of the story, eyes widening before she pointed forward, over Erica’s shoulder.
They all looked. They had to, certain the apparition had materialized behind her.
And Tigress laughed. Happy Halloween, ninos.
Perhaps Erica should have seen it coming, then, when she sat down to pee and heard the sound of spurs from the hallway. Soft and slow first. Enough to register that it was probably her mind playing tricks on her, until the sound got louder. Then the cowboy boots appeared on the other side of the stall door.
The cowboy outside kicked the stall door open. The door hit her knees and they smarted, but she was much more concerned with covering her privates. It wasn’t Cowboy on the other side, just Juan Riviero, a fringe main event talent who would turn out to be one of a half dozen veterans who knew the Cowboy tale and broke out their own cowboy boots annually to terrorize the uninitiated.
Sometimes Cowboy will show up in the arena. He loves to watch wrestling, Tigress explained later. They say sometimes he’ll even get in a wrestler’s body and take over for a minute.
Erica decided Tigress was just trying to scare her and that she wouldn’t be duped, but a baby-faced young man with a roman haircut and big blue eyes asked what happened then.
He’s out for revenge.
In the ring, Debbie ad-libbed not striking Erica with the broomstick, but rather choking her with it. Erica mouthed to ease up.
Debbie didn’t ease up.
Erica saw a man in the front row. Portly, bare-chested with a leather vest. He slouched in his chair. A foot propped up on the railing. A foot in a cowboy boot. Cowboy hat on his head.
She thought to point him out to Debbie. That’s the last thing she remembered thinking.
Debbie had pinned her, after improvising a minute-long choke rather hitting her with the broomstick. I thought I’d save you a concussion, she explained backstage. I didn’t mean to choke you out for real.
Erica was past that, even if Tigress wasn’t and wanted to fight Debbie on her behalf. Erica asked if Debbie had seen the cowboy in the front row.
Debbie hadn’t seen a thing.
Tigress didn’t see him either when she wrestled. Neither did the men after that, and Erica peeked around the curtain, trying to get a look at where he’d been. She heard two of the younger boys saying they thought Erica was ribbing them with this ghost talk.
Sometimes you see things. When you’re hurt. When you can’t breathe. Tigress stood by her side. Behind them, the crew disassembled the ring. All that clinking and clatter of removing scaffolding, unhooking turnbuckles from ring posts. You could hear the clicking spurs in that if you listened for it. But Erica wasn’t listening. She was looking.
No one believed her. Not Tigress. Not the young boys. Not the veterans in their own cowboy boots.
Why does it matter to you so much? Tigress asked, back in their car with the windows down. Erica searched on her phone for Cowboy and the Single Star Arena until she found the picture. The man from the front row. Cowboy, days before he’d been choked to death. Nobody got charged; it was all deemed an accident, part of the liability every wrestler assumed.
Did you find a picture? Tigress alternated between watching the road and peering into Erica’s lap. Is it him?
The man in the photo propped his foot on an overturned bucket. The spur on the boot reflected light from the camera’s flash.
What do you think?
Tigress hesitated. A car drove past, high beams on, lighting their car for a moment, blinding them.
Yes.
Erica closed her eyes, content in this moment of belief.
Michael Chin was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Georgia with his wife and son. He has published three chapbooks: Autopsy and Everything After with Burrow press, Distance Traveled with Bent Window Books, and The Leo Burke Finish with Gimmick Press, and he has previously published short work with journals including The Normal School and Passages North. He works as a contributing editor for Moss. Find him online at miketchin.com or follow him on Twitter @miketchin.
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