The Sledgehammer was sweating and it was slippery on his shoulders—I thought I would slide off, but then he ducked his head and heaved me onto the canvas. I fell hard, and the impact traveled up my spine and exploded in my head, and for one delicious second, everything went black. But then it all came back—the crowd noise, the thundering music, and the lights flashing above. The Hippo was in the corner of the ring, leaning back with his arms spread on the ropes like he was relaxing in a hot tub. His belly pushed out against his grey suit, and the upper half of his face was covered by a mask meant to resemble a Hippo, though it reminded me more of a teddy bear, with round little ears on top. The Hippo charged Darius, but Darius maneuvered out of his path, grabbed his arm, and whipped him into the ropes and clotheslined him, smacking him down to the floor in one quick drop. Then it was my turn. I pulled myself up and ran at Darius. He grabbed my arm and swung me around in a full circle, and then he let go, flinging me into the Hippo, who was just getting to his feet. The Hippo and I both crashed to the canvas in a tangled heap. The crowd went nuts. They couldn’t take it. They booed, they screamed at us to get our asses up, to fucking finish those guys. Because we were the faces, Hippo and I, and Darius and the Sledge were the heels.
Everything about it felt good, the crowd’s energy, the sting up and down my body when I fell. I had done the right thing by coming back, I thought, but then it all changed. I fucked up. As I got to my feet, I glanced down at the crowd and caught sight of a black-haired woman, and for a second I thought it was April, because she was standing in the same place April had been standing in on that terrible night. It wasn’t really April, but I felt sick, like liquid tar was flowing in my veins. The Sledgehammer was squatting with his arms out, ready. He was beckoning me with wiggling fingers, shouting, “Bring it, you little twerp!” He was tall and bulky, with a dark goatee and long hair shaved above his ears. He had gone to school for two years as a biology major before getting into wrestling. He had wanted his stage name to be The Anesthetist, which was his original career ambition, but they called him the Sledgehammer instead. I liked The Sledge, so it wasn’t personal, what happened next. When I glanced down in the crowd and saw someone I thought was April, I became a rage-infused animal. I charged, and instead of jumping at the Sledge’s shoulder and bringing him down like I was supposed to, I tucked my head and rammed into his belly, sending him flying back. He landed hard, his head hitting the corner post at a bad angle. He didn’t move, and for a second I thought I had broken his neck, but then he rolled to his side and got up slowly. He was hurt, and he was pissed, I could tell. He charged. Darius rescued me by reaching his arms around me from behind—none of this was on-script—and swinging me clear, out of the Sledge’s path. But something about being squeezed from behind and lifted up didn’t sit well. I lost it in a chaotic, little-kid way, flailing, kicking, and then—an idea—throwing my head back into Darius’ face. You could hear the plasticky crack of skull against skull. He let go and when I turned around, he was staggering sideways, shaking his head, a rivulet of blood flying out of his nose, and there was blood issuing out of his mouth, flowing down over his beard. He wiped his lips and looked at his red fingers, then he came at me and threw me into the ropes and clotheslined me harder than he ever had. He jumped above me and came down, pile-driver, slamming his elbow into my chest. I rolled onto my belly, pushing myself up slowly. When I made it to all fours, the Sledge grabbed my hair and yanked my head upward. I was sure he was going to beat the shit out of me. But he started fake punching my face, stomping the floor for full effect, and like that we were back on script. Which felt strange, but we all just went along with it as if nothing had happened, though Darius’ nose kept juicing until the end. I felt bad for that.
Officially, we weren’t supposed to do anything that caused bloodshed, but the truth is it was good for ticket sales, so no one in management reprimanded me. But Darius wouldn’t speak to me. He and Christoph had offered to take me out later for a burger and a beer, but after I changed into my clothes, he just looked at me and said, “Wait outside.”
I walked through the parking lot, looking for my car because I couldn’t remember where I had left it. The lot was poorly lit and I couldn’t see well. I heard a car door slam behind me, and someone running, and suddenly a massive arm was locked around my throat. I fought back, trying to punch over my shoulder. He released me and I staggered away, turned, and there was the Sledge, and there was his fist coming at me, hitting me in the face so hard it knocked me down and my head whacked the concrete.
“You little shit!” he shouted. “You almost broke my neck!” He started kicking me and I couldn’t do anything at that point, I rolled to my side and curled up like a bug and held my head, trying to protect myself, and I was thinking, this is it. This is how I go. Who would have thought? Goodbye world, tell Pill I love her. But then the kicking stopped, and I could hear a scuffle, and when I opened my eyes I saw Christoph and Darius pulling the Sledge off me and dragging him back. They slammed him down onto the hood of a car and Christoph leaned over him, beard to beard, and he said, “Okay, enough. You taught him lesson. Now go.”
And the Sledge obeyed. He turned and walked away, shaking out his hand like it was hurting from punching me. Darius pulled me up.
“He almost kill you,” he said. “Is good we get here in time.”
I hoped this meant we were okay again, that he wasn’t still mad at me for what happened on stage.
They took me to a bar in the basement of an old building. It was dark and musty, the floor covered with worn green carpet. Stained-glass lights hung low over the tables, illuminating half-eaten sandwiches and french fries and ketchup. The people at one table stopped talking when I walked by. I could feel their stares. My eye was swollen and tender from where the Sledge had punched me. It probably looked terrible. Darius and Christoph sat me on a bar stool and said something to the bartender in Romanian, and he came back with a bag of ice. Darius wrapped the ice in a towel and placed it on my eye, so gently.
“Is no serious,” he said. “But is ugly as shit. A cold steak is better for something like this. But we just got ice.” He slid a mug of beer before me. “Take sip, will help.” The beer was bitter but cold and bubbly in my mouth, and it felt good going down. I took another drink, and another, and soon there was a magical lightness in my head. Ebullient, I thought. Which came from where, I don’t know. AP English maybe. But ebullience, I realized, is what I needed, more than therapy, more than wrestling—I just needed more beer.
“Woh, slow down,” Darius said. “Ursus is not American beer. You drink too fast, you wake up with headache right here.” He pressed the middle of his forehead with one finger. “Headache so bad could kill small child,” he said.
He ordered hamburgers that turned out to be gigantic. I didn’t know if my stomach would actually accept so much meat. Lately I’d been living on rice mixed with a little bit of eggs and tofu. My body seemed to reject anything substantial. But the beer flipped a hunger switch somewhere, and I started wolfing down my hamburger, and I found it sat very well.
“Look at how hungry he is,” the bartender said. “What you guys do to him?”
“He has eating disease,” Darius said. “Like college gurl.”
“I don’t have an eating disorder,” I said. “And Darius, do you even know any college girls?”
“No. But I see them sometimes, jogging down street. They got the college name painted on their ass. I love that, those big words on the little ass. Normally, I like a woman with more body, you know? Someone you can throw down—if she’s the kind that like to be throwed a little.” He held up a finger in front of my face. “Only if that’s what she like. But the college girls you see jogging—they so skinny. You probably break them if you just give them little hug.”
As if summoned by this monologue, a large, curvy woman got up from a booth where she had been eating with some people who were talking loudly, and she approached us. Her yellow hair was pulled back, a few spirals hanging over her ears. She smiled and raised her glass to me, and I clinked my mug against hers.
“You the Samurai guy?” she said. I nodded. “I saw you in show a couple weeks ago. And then I didn’t see you again and I wonder what happen to you. You was good. What happened your face?”
I opened my mouth to answer but then I noticed her breasts, which were welling up against the neckline of her red shirt. They were a quivering pillow of sumptuous flesh, and I wanted to drop my face into them. I couldn’t speak.
“He get in fight,” Darius said.
“Over gurl?” She smiled at me and leaned in, and she took a piece of my hair and pushed it back behind my ear, her nail scraping the skin. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t think. My brain was gone, replaced by an electric buzz.
“He get shit kicked out of him,” Christoph said.
She seemed to find that funny. “So you partner with these guys?” she said. I nodded yes, but then Darius said something to her in Romanian, and she looked surprised, and Christoph added to it, an explanation, and her face became serious. She asked them something, they answered, and she looked at me, her face somber. “Was nice to meet you,” she said. And she turned and went back to her booth.
“What did you say to her?” I asked.
At first Darius didn’t answer. He held onto his beer mug with both hands like he was praying over it. “She ask if you my partner, and I tell her no, not no more.” His eyes were soft when he said this. “I like you, Sam. You good guy, good athlete. You can still be wrestler. But it can’t be with me no more. Wrestling is my only way to make money. I can do shit-pay job, like washing dishes or killing chickens—can you imagine? All day, every day, killing chickens. If I get injured, that’s what I become. No more wrestling, just full-time chicken killer man.” Christoph mumbled something in Romanian. “Christoph think I’m overreacting. Maybe. But I don’t like to take risks. I love you like brother, Sam, but I don’t want to be your partner no more. You got some crazy ideas when you wrestle.”
Those words—I don’t want to be your partner—opened a wound in me. He squeezed my shoulder. “We still friends, okay? And we still drink beer with you—tonight, any night.” And he lifted three fingers toward the bartender, who put more beer in front of us. Darius threw his arm over my shoulders and pulled me toward him, and he lifted his mug and tapped it against mine, and Christoph’s glass was there too, and it was jolly on the surface, but underneath I was bleeding out.
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