by Chad Dundas
The public address announcer was all pomade and talcum powder as he bounded into the ring to introduce the participants. Though no one had ever bothered to have Pepper step on a scale, he was announced at 155 pounds and hailing from Brooklyn, New York. When the fix was still on, Stettler no doubt hoped playing him as a hometown hero would make him even more popular with the fans in the theater. The ring announcer said Lesko hailed from Nekoosa, Wisconsin, and entered the ring at 242 rough-and-ready pounds. He made the part about the “undisputed heavyweight champion of the world” sound like it was about eleven words long. If Pepper had to guess, he’d put Lesko closer to two sixty.
The referee called them to the center so he could check their boots for loads and their hair for chemicals. He rubbed them down to make sure they weren’t greased and demanded they turn their hands over to show their fingernails were properly trimmed. Pepper kept his chin tucked into his chest, not looking up from Lesko’s knees but feeling the bigger man’s eyes burrowing into him as they faced off to receive their final instructions.
“Any questions from the champion?” the referee asked. Lesko gave the smallest possible shake of his head.
The ref turned to Pepper. “From the challenger?”
Now Pepper looked the champion in the eye. “Two trains leave Kansas City,” he said. “If the westbound train proceeds twenty miles per hour slower than the eastbound train—”
Lesko spun on his heel and stalked back to his corner without hearing the rest. Pepper shrugged at the ref and then retreated to his own side.
This moment seemed like the longest of the night as the houselights dimmed and the referee conferred briefly with the timekeeper. Lesko was still staring at him, but Pepper kept his eyes fixed on an empty spot in the middle of the canvas, his arms idly swinging at his waist. He knew that by now Moira had made her way out of the dressing room and had found her seat in the crowd. He didn’t waste time trying to find her face in the darkness, but knowing she was out there made him feel quick and strong.
When the referee came back to center, clapped his hands and shouted, “Wrestle!” it was like someone had pulled a bathtub stopper deep in his chest. The nervousness and anxiety he’d felt backstage drained away, leaving him light and nimble. From somewhere a thousand miles away he sensed the crowd rising to its feet, and Strangler Lesko charged out of his corner with such fury that all he had to do was stand his ground and let him come. When Lesko got within range, Pepper kicked him savagely in the shin and stepped out of the way, allowing the big man’s momentum to carry him crashing into the empty corner.
Lesko spun around, a wild look of pain and confusion twisting his features as the referee caught Pepper by the arm. “What the fuck was that?” he said. “No kicking. I’ll disqualify you.”
The second time Lesko came at him he was more wary. The kick—while a silly, childish gesture—had been enough to make him think twice about rushing Pepper full bore. At the center of the ring, they locked up, and for the first time Pepper felt Lesko’s power. It was like trying to budge a hunk of granite, sinewy muscles flexing beneath the downy hair of his chest and shoulders. Lesko had the expert strength of the lifelong athlete, and was solid through his legs and midsection in a way you couldn’t get from sit-ups and free weights. It was force built from years of moving other men—of lifting and throwing them, tying them up on the mat so they couldn’t move or breathe.
Luckily, Lesko’s hands were a beat slow, and before he could get a good grip Pepper wrenched free and threw a hard, slapping punch into one of his floating ribs. It landed flush and the champion grunted, eyes clouding again with anger.
“What’s your problem?” the ref yelled, but before anyone could do anything, Pepper stepped behind Lesko and stomped down hard on his Achilles tendon.
The blow sent him down on one knee, a sound escaping his lips like all the air was rushing out of his body. The boos were thick as the referee pushed Pepper into a corner on the other side of the ring. “This is your last warning,” he said, his face red, spittle collecting on his lips as he shouted to be heard above the crowd. “I’ll give this match to Lesko.”
“You won’t do shit,” Pepper said, “unless you want a riot on your hands.”
It took Lesko a minute to compose himself, standing in a neutral corner, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his arms as he glared across the ring. When they locked up once again in a collar-and-elbow, the champion was just as Pepper wanted him, furious and thoughtless. Spitting a curse into his ear, he sucked Pepper forward into a vise-grip bear hug. It was the setup for his signature hip throw, the one he had used to defeat most of his opponents, the one Pepper had scouted and spent countless hours drilling with Taft in Montana.
Pepper knew it was coming: he’d been waiting for it. He knew if Lesko’s mind was clouded with rage, he’d go back to his bread-and-butter attacks. It would be instinct for him to retreat to what he knew best, the animal memory of his muscles reverting to the move he’d spent years perfecting. But Pepper and Taft had worked out a counter. When the champion caught him in his favorite move, Taft would drop his weight and step between Lesko’s legs for an inside trip tackle. He would kick one of Lesko’s feet out from under him and send the champion sprawling to the mat on his ass. It was a risky move, but once they pulled it off, Lesko would be demoralized—hurting from the kick to the shin and the punch to the ribs and now knowing his best move was useless in the match.
Except when Lesko locked him up, Pepper felt powerless to drop his weight. The man was too strong, his grip too tight. He inched his way forward and went for the trip, but when he attempted to kick Lesko’s foot off the mat, the impact sent a shiver of pain shooting through his own leg. The bone he’d broken years earlier glowed like a white-hot wire and he cried out in pain.
His stomach flip-flopped as Lesko lifted him off the canvas and tossed him head over heels. For a moment he was weightless, plucked from the earth and heaved through the air like a small dog ousted from its owner’s lap. He landed flat on his back, the air crushed from his lungs. It felt as though he were drowning, and he opened his mouth for air just as Lesko’s weight collapsed on top of him. The champion cradled his head and legs and the referee slapped the mat hard with an open palm.
His chest was screaming and his head throbbed with each beat of his heart as he limped back to his corner for the second fall, his leg feeling numb and dead. As the crowd trumpeted Lesko’s victory in the first Pepper squatted on the mat and pretended to retie his boots. Really, he untied them and then set about tying them again as slowly as he could, making a mental check of every part of his body. Gripping his leg with both hands, he slid his palms from knee to ankle, finally deciding the leg was not broken.
He steadied his breathing. This was fine, he told himself, it would pass. He would work through it. He could stall Lesko until the feeling returned and then he’d be as good as new. Jesus, though, that man was strong. And big. Lesko’s arms were longer than he’d anticipated, his movement around the ring catlike for such a hulk. Pepper would have to be careful. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake. That was okay. That was what he’d been trained to do since he was a boy in the orphanage—to wrestle match after match without making an error. He reminded himself that he was the technically superior athlete. There was more science to his game. He just needed time to let his leg recover, and once Lesko’s wind failed him, Pepper would make his move.
When he looked up, the referee was waiting for him.
Exactly as he expected, Lesko started the second fall with more urgency, and for the first few minutes Pepper would not let the champion lay a hand on him. With Lesko controlling the center, he bounced just in and out of his reach, periodically stomping his foot on the mat to try to knock some feeling back into it. As Lesko lurched forward, Pepper slapped his hands away and backed off. A couple of times when it looked like Lesko had finally trapped him in one of the corners, Pepper
slipped to the side to avoid him. This drew some catcalls from the crowd, but still he refused all of Lesko’s efforts to tie up.
The champion’s face remained impassive, but Pepper knew his patience would wear thin. After a few minutes he saw sweat beading on Lesko’s brow, frustrated by Pepper’s agility and his refusal to wrestle with him. “Come on,” Lesko said a couple of times after failing to corral him with ponderous lunges. “Come on.”
Soon the big man started to slow down. The adrenaline had drained off during the first fall and his wind was beginning to falter. After spending his training preparing for just a single fall in a rigged match against Taft, he was in no condition to keep up. Seeing that, Pepper increased his tempo, dodging to the right when Lesko advanced left, going left when the champion went right. A couple of times his leg seized up on him, pain piercing up his side, but he managed to stay out of Lesko’s long reach. When the champion got irritated and shot straight in for a tackle, Pepper sprawled out of it easily, hopping away as Lesko came up from the mat with clenched teeth.
A wadded-up program bounced across the canvas and disappeared underneath the ropes on the far side of the ring. The crowd wanted action and now even the referee was getting anxious, clapping his hands together and reminding them they weren’t there for a footrace.
Pepper could see the fatigue building in Lesko’s posture. He was starting to get sloppy with his attacks, his normally fearsome blend of power and technique deserting him as the frustration continued to mount. He began telegraphing his shots, reaching high with his right hand before stepping in to go low on the left side. Each time, he came up empty as Pepper slunk out of the way. The muscles in Lesko’s jaw fluttered as he tried to walk Pepper into a corner, fidgeting, his fingers twiddling like a man who couldn’t figure out the final answer to his morning crossword.
For nearly twenty more minutes Pepper was a ghost floating just out of the champion’s reach. When Lesko grabbed for him, he slapped his hands away. When he lunged, Pepper slid to one side, dancing and circling, smiling all the while. He wouldn’t be suckered in and he wouldn’t be trapped, just moving, evading and waiting, waiting, waiting. Eventually the feeling in his leg began to return. The tingling in his toes faded and he felt whole again, the nerves no longer on fire, his bones no longer numb and clumsy.
When Lesko’s frustration finally got the better of him, Pepper saw it first in his eyes. The champion’s last desperate dive at his legs came from too far away, nearly the opposite side of the ring. It was slow and careless and he circled deftly away from it. As Lesko spun to follow, Pepper finally darted in, scooping up one of the big man’s legs at the knee. Lesko grunted in surprise. The ankle that now bore his weight was the one Pepper had stomped on during the first fall, and it buckled under the strain. Lesko crashed to the canvas in a heap, landing hard on one hip.
The impact shook the ring, but it was lost in an explosion of cheers. Lesko was not used to fighting from his back, and Pepper could feel the panic in him as soon as he hit the mat. He kicked and thrashed, trying to scramble free, but Pepper would not let him go. With Lesko up on his hip to avoid a pin, he put his knee into the champion’s ribs and leaned with all his weight. Lesko grimaced, and as he did Pepper seized him by the wrist and rolled for a straight armlock. Rearing back with the full power of his torso, he felt Lesko’s elbow stretch and then lock as it began to bend the wrong way.
Pepper thought Lesko would concede the fall, but somehow the champion struggled to his feet. He stood tall and dropped Pepper headfirst onto the canvas, the impact rattling his vision once, then twice. Still he held tight to the arm, each impact only strengthening the lock. He pulled harder, popping his hips forward and arching his back as a gasp and a shudder escaped Lesko’s lips. Something cracked in his arm, the sound like a piece of driftwood breaking over someone’s knee, and the champion sank to the mat, swatting the canvas with his free hand to concede the fall.
The referee separated them and Lesko sat back on his heels, his right arm folded protectively across his belly. His look was a mixture of pain, resignation and anger. Pepper stood over him and, putting one foot on Lesko’s shoulder, toppled him backward onto his ass. The crowd roared, and as Pepper walked back to his corner, he raised his arms, the first man ever to win a concession from Stanislaw “Strangler” Lesko.
The referee asked Lesko if he wanted an intermission before the final fall, but the champion shook his head. Getting his hands on Pepper did not seem to be the kind of pleasure he was willing to put off another fifteen minutes. Pepper bent at the waist and stretched, every joint in his body hurting now, his muscles aching the way they did just before they started to cramp on him. Just a little bit further, he told himself, almost there.
He expected a stern lecture from the referee before the final restart, but instead the man just stood in the center of the ring and looked at him with flat, dispassionate eyes.
“Fillipelli’s is a fine place for small-timers,” Pepper shouted at him. “But you ought to try the Broken Spoke on the South Side. Really, you’ll thank me for it.”
The ref just shook his head in wonder. Pepper glanced across the ring at Lesko, who was bouncing and sucking in big breaths. He winked, and when Lesko grinned back, there were flecks of blood on his teeth.
A moment later they were off.
They faced off in the middle of the ring with five feet between them, Lesko looking more cautious this time. The champion circled left and so did Pepper, keeping his distance. Slowly, Lesko began trying to walk him down, cutting off the ring, taking little bites out of the space between them with every pass. But he was exhausted now, his arm certainly injured, and his feet dragging on the canvas with each step, as if there were cinder blocks tied to his boots. For the first few minutes Pepper managed to escape his grasp, edging away each time it looked like the champion had him trapped. The crowd was openly jeering both of them now, and Pepper could tell it bothered Lesko. His face betrayed nothing, his jaw still set in the same hard line as when they’d started, but his eyes were clouded with frustration and fatigue. Once Lesko had decided Pepper wasn’t going to attack—that he was just going to stall and continue to run until the referee declared a draw—his hands dropped a bit and his shoulders went slack.
As he did, Pepper saw a drop of sweat roll out of Lesko’s hairline and across his forehead. An inch at a time, it ran the length of his nose and settled at the tip, and when the champion reached to brush it away, Pepper finally charged him. He shot in on a tackle, quick and perfect, slipping under Lesko’s defenses and locking his hands around his hips. Lesko grunted in surprise and he tried to sprawl out, but Pepper had him. As he planted his weight and tried to hoist Lesko off his feet, something snapped in his leg again. The side of his body went numb from armpit to ankle and his momentum faltered. Lesko powered out of his grip and, putting a hand on the back of Pepper’s neck, drove him face-first into the canvas.
Before Pepper could get off his hands and knees, Lesko circled behind him and climbed on his back, looping his legs around him like a baby monkey riding its mother. The crowd gasped. This was not a position you came back from, especially against Lesko, who had earned his nickname with one of the deadliest choke attacks in wrestling history. As Lesko wrapped a thick arm across his face, Pepper tucked his chin into his chest, hiding his neck and taking the full force of the champion’s squeeze on his jaw.
It fucking hurt.
“You wanted it this way,” Lesko whispered to him, his breath hot in Pepper’s ear. “Just remember that.”
Even though he’d done some damage to Lesko with the armlock during the second fall, it still felt like someone was trying to fold a steel bar across his face. It was not unheard-of for Lesko to break a man’s jaw if he couldn’t get the choke sunk in around the throat, and Pepper hoped the champion didn’t have that kind of strength left. The referee hovered over them, hands at his waist, ready to dive in and separate them as
soon as Pepper tapped the mat to concede.
The whole arena seemed to be thinking the same thought: It wouldn’t be long now.
Lesko put his meaty left hand across Pepper’s forehead and yanked his head back, trying to gain the few inches he needed to sink the chokehold under his chin. There was no real use fighting it, but Pepper held out as long as he could before his head rocked back, his jaw popped up and Lesko’s grip slid into place. He could feel the heaving of the champion’s chest against his back as he put everything he had into the squeeze. The crowd was on its feet again, cheering for the climax of the match. From his position facedown on the mat, Pepper could see men in the front row gathering up their hats, tucking them under their arms and clapping expectantly while Lesko cinched the hold tighter and tighter.
The cheering reached its crescendo and plateaued. The moment stretched, and stretched.
And stretched.
Lesko’s victory was at hand, but still it didn’t come, and as the crowd waited, the applause wavered and the cheering died away. Suddenly it got very quiet. The referee took a step forward as if to call a halt to the match, but Pepper stopped him in his tracks with an outstretched hand. Slowly he raised his index finger, the referee regarding it as if it might be a poisonous snake. The finger waggled back and forth reproachfully, and some in the crowd began to laugh.
Lesko struggled to redouble his grip, and Pepper felt the pressure wall up across his throat. Each time Lesko locked the hold in tight, he felt himself start to fade, his vision collapsing in on itself, and he shifted his weight just a bit to either side. He moved into the pressure of Lesko’s grip, finding just enough space to breathe and to keep the blood trickling into his brain. When the champion corrected his grip, Pepper moved with him.
