Body Slammed!

by Ray Villareal

  The woman peered into the alley. Her eyes widened when she saw TJ’s body. Then to Jesse’s relief, she let go of the little boy’s hand, reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone.

  An hour and ten minutes later, Jesse sat in the emergency room waiting area of La Cruz Roja Mexicana Hospital. He held an ice pack to his forehead. A paramedic in the ambulance had given it to him, but it was the only treatment he had received for his injuries.

  Jesse glimpsed around the crowded room. Who knew how long he would have to wait until he would be seen by a doctor? A knot on the head was not exactly a priority. Pregnant women, crying babies and the sick and the elderly filled every seat. A man with his arm in a makeshift sling stood with his back to the wall. Jesse offered him his chair, but the man kindly declined.

  The doctors would not reveal any information to Jesse about TJ’s condition since he wasn’t a relative, but he knew it couldn’t be good. TJ hadn’t woken once since the attack, not even after the paramedics carried him into the ambulance and placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

  The police had shown up at the scene first. Between their broken English and Jesse’s broken Spanish, they were able to write a report, with descriptions of the attackers.

  Jesse’s grandmother now knew the truth. Jesse had asked the woman who found them to let him borrow her cell phone. He called his grandmother and confessed everything. To his surprise, she already knew that he was in Mexico. Jesse figured that Goose or Wendell must have snitched on him. Thank goodness for snitches. His grandmother told him to stay at the hospital until she came to pick him up. No problem there. Where else was he going to go? Looking at the number of patients ahead of him, Jesse wondered who would see him first, the doctor or his grandparents.

  A little boy about two years old with green snot bubbling inside his nostrils waddled up to Jesse and patted him on the leg. “Aba,” he said. “Aba. Aba.”

  The little boy’s mother smiled at Jesse, wanting his approval. He grimaced and pointed to his forehead to indicate that he didn’t feel well.

  The mother nodded sympathetically. “Ven acá, mi amor,” she told her son.

  The little boy looked at his mother briefly, then turned back to Jesse. “Aba,” he said and patted Jesse’s leg harder. Jesse scooted his legs to the side of his chair and crossed his arms. The little boy’s lower lip curled up and his face contorted. He ran back to his mother with his arms outstretched. She lifted him and sat him on her lap. Then she took a wrinkled handkerchief from her purse and wiped his nose.

  Jesse couldn’t believe he had allowed himself to get talked into going to Mexico. He had more sense than that—or so he thought. He should have learned his lesson about going out with TJ after getting pulled over by the cop on Halloween night and nearly getting arrested.

  But you didn’t, did you? You wanted TJ to buy you steroids. You wanted to bulk up like Lloyd Dinsmore so you could beat up that loud-mouth jerk, Riley King.

  What did it matter if Riley was a loud-mouth jerk? It occurred to Jesse that he had been spending time with an even bigger loud-mouth jerk.

  When this was over, Jesse expected his father to reprimand him for what he had done. He would probably tell him that he didn’t want him hanging out with TJ anymore. His father didn’t have to worry. Jesse decided that TJ lived way too fast for him.

  He wished he could undo the whole day and start over. He wished he had gone to church with Wally and her mother, and to lunch afterwards. He wished he had taken Wally to the movies and then watched wrestling at her house.

  Scoring a date with Wally was unlikely to happen now. She wasn’t dumb. She had to have realized that Jesse had used her as an alibi for sneaking off to Mexico. After he got back home, he would apologize and beg, if he had to, for her forgiveness. Wally was too special to lose.

  Jesse dozed on and off in his chair. Almost three hours later, his mother jostled him awake. For a second, Jesse thought he was back home, living with his parents.

  “My god, what happened?” his mother exclaimed. She brushed back Jesse’s hair from his forehead. “Mijo, how do you feel? Are you all right?”

  Jesse hugged her tightly. “What are you doing here, Mom? I thought Güelo and Güela were picking me up.”

  “They were. But when your grandmother called to tell me where you were, I told her I would come for you. I caught a flight to Laredo and rented a car there.”

  Jesse looked around the still crowded waiting area for an extra chair, but there were no empty seats. “Let’s go out in the hallway,” he said. He knew his mother was going to chew him out, and he didn’t need an audience.

  They walked out of the room and stood against a wooden railing on the wall.

  Jesse’s mother took his head in her hands and assessed his injury. “Have you been seen by a doctor yet?”

  “No. They just told me to sit in the waiting room. A paramedic gave me this.” Jesse showed her the bag, which was now filled with melting ice.

  “Mijo, you could have a concussion,” his mother said. “They shouldn’t have let you fall asleep. Who’s in charge here, anyway?”

  “That lady, I guess.” Jesse pointed to a heavy-set woman behind the triage desk. “But it won’t do any good talking to her. I asked her when I would get to see a doctor, and all she would say was that I had to wait my turn.”

  His mother rolled her eyes, but accepted that despite Jesse’s injury, there were others in the waiting room in worse condition.

  “So tell me what happened,” she said.

  Jesse kept the details to a minimum. He explained that he and TJ had decided to spend a Sunday afternoon in Nuevo Laredo just for fun. He didn’t mention anything about steroids.

  His mother’s face hardened and her concern transformed to anger. “How could you have been so stupid, Jesse? Don’t you know the reputation this town has? About kidnappings and murders and drug cartels? And you and TJ thought you’d spend the day here? Just for fun?”

  Jesse looked nervously around the hallway to see if anyone was watching them. “We didn’t expect anything to happen, Mom,” he said.

  “But it did, didn’t it! Look what you’ve put me through,” she said, exasperated. “Look what you’ve put your güelos through.”

  “Does Dad know?” Jesse asked.

  “Of course.”

  “What did he say?”

  His mother crossed her arms and crimped her mouth in annoyance. “He said he would see you when he got back home Wednesday or Thursday. Like I’ve told you before, Jesse, his career comes first. It always will.”

  Jesse tried to accept that his father was premiering his new gimmick at an important pay-per-view event, and that he couldn’t drop everything and leave. Still, he wished his father was with him. It would be the first time he would see his parents together since their divorce.

  “Can we get out of here?” he asked hopefully.

  “Not until the doctor sees you,” his mother said. “I want to know that you’re all right. But afterwards, we’ll check into a hotel. Then I’ll contact the U.S. Consulate in the morning and let them know what happened.”

  They made their way back to the waiting area, and Jesse let her have his chair.

  A few minutes later, a man burst through the emergency room doors and hurried up to the triage desk. “My name is Brett Masters,” he told the admitting nurse. “You have my son here. His name is Tristan Masters.” The man looked like an older version of TJ.

  Jesse waited for Mr. Masters to finish speaking with the nurse, who was explaining how to get to the intensive care unit. As Mr. Masters rushed down the hallway, Jesse caught up with him and introduced himself.

  “What were you boys doing in Mexico?” Mr. Masters demanded to know.

  “It was just a weekend getaway, sir,” Jesse said. “We were only going to spend a few hours here.”

  When they arrived at the ICU, they found TJ asleep in a small room. Wires ran from his body to various monitors. An IV was attached to his a
rm, and he was breathing through a respirator. Jesse and TJ’s father learned that TJ had suffered a severe concussion, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a ruptured kidney, a broken collar bone and a broken arm.

  Mr. Masters brushed back TJ’s hair and sighed. Jesse heard him utter what sounded like a prayer. Jesse bowed his head and, in silence, offered a prayer, too.

  Mr. Masters wiped a tear from his eye. He turned to Jesse and asked, “How do you know Tristan?”

  Jesse explained their relationship.

  “You know, ever since Tristan began appearing on television, we’ve watched each one of his matches,” Mr. Masters said.

  “Really?” Jesse said, surprised. “TJ didn’t think you had. He told me that you don’t care about wrestling.”

  “Well, he’s right about that,” Mr. Masters admitted. “No disrespect toward your father, Jesse, but professional wrestling wasn’t the career we wanted for our son. But as long as Tristan’s making an honest living, and he’s doing what he wants to do, I guess that’s all that matters.”

  “Maybe you should tell him that, sir,” Jesse said, though looking down at TJ, he thought it would be a long time before TJ would step inside a wrestling ring again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “You look absolutely devilish, Mark,” Cassandra said, peeling off a piece of thread from the back of his coat.

  Mark Baron studied his reflection in his dressing room mirror. The white contact lenses completed his new look. He buttoned his coat and brushed back his white hair.

  “I wouldn’t use devilish to describe him, Cassandra,” Carlos said with a wink. “Mark’s a holy man, now. He’s a reverend.”

  “Oh, excuse me.” Cassandra stretched out her arms and bowed.

  Mark tried not to show it, but his ex-wife’s phone call had left him shaken. He hadn’t told anyone about what had happened to Jesse and TJ, except for Frank Collins because Mark needed TJ’s emergency number so he could notify his family.

  He had wanted to leave the building to catch an early flight home as soon as he heard the news, but he couldn’t. The ACW was counting on him to sell his new persona. His storyline had already been written. In a few minutes he and Cassandra, Marv and Carlos would be walking out in front of thousands of rabid fans, and he couldn’t let them down.

  “My suit itches,” Marv complained. “I hate this thing.” He removed his coat and draped it on a chair. “I think I’d rather wear that ratty, moth-eaten poncho I wore to the ring as Devlin Dredd than this dad-gum monkey suit.”

  “At least you guys get to wear suits,” Cassandra said. “This dress is so tight I can barely breathe in it.”

  “I don’t mind the suit,” Carlos said, adjusting his tie. “The only thing is, this’ll be the first time I’ll appear in the ring without my mask since my early days. I feel kind of naked without it.”

  Mark stepped out of his dressing room and walked down a corridor of the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. He needed to be alone for a few minutes.

  His love for the business, he realized, was slowly dwindling. And it wasn’t because of the Elijah Nightshade gimmick. He had learned to accept his new role. But at his age, his body couldn’t take the beatings it once did. His injuries took longer to heal. There was a time when goose-bumps filled his arms each time his music hit. Mark used to thrive on the showmanship and the raw energy of stepping into a ring to perform in front of thousands of fans in attendance and millions more watching at home.

  Lately, though, he had found himself merely going through the motions. Even during his last promo as the Angel of Death, he had difficulty staying focused, and his mind drifted off as he delivered his lines.

  Professional wrestling had given him a great life. Mark had accomplished things most people could only dream of. He had traveled around the world, met countless fans and had made more money than he would ever need.

  But his career had also cost him his marriage. And almost his son. Perhaps if he had been home more often, Jesse wouldn’t have felt the need to find new excitement in his life.

  It dawned on him that he knew very little about his son. He couldn’t even remember his age. When Jesse corrected him on it, Mark felt like crawling under a rock.

  Sixteen, not fifteen. And Jesse’s birthday is . . . Mark knew it was sometime in December, but he couldn’t remember if it was the twelfth or the thirteenth. Or was it the ninth? Molly had always handled their son’s birthday celebrations.

  Jesse had grown up, and somehow Mark had missed it. He couldn’t believe Jesse was driving. When did that happen? He had told Jesse that he’d buy him a car once he got his license, but he didn’t anticipate that happening for years.

  He wished he had attended Jesse’s football games. Maybe if he had pushed hard enough, Frank would have given him those days off. But in the end, Mark had allowed his ego to come first. Entertaining a bunch of strangers had become more important to him than cheering on his son.

  Out in the arena, he heard the roar of the crowd. Black Mamba had just defeated Solomon Grimm to retain his Iron Fist title. Elijah Nightshade and the Assembly were next.

  Following his match, Black Mamba walked down the corridor on his way to his dressing room. He was drenched in perspiration and breathing heavily.

  “How did it go, Karl?” Mark asked.

  Black Mamba gaped at him, pop-eyed. “Whoa, Mark. You look awesome. Those white contacts are creepy, man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Here, help me undo my mask.” Mamba lowered his head. “What did Jesse think when he saw you in that get-up?”

  The laces were wet with perspiration, and Mark was having difficulty untying the knot. “He, uh . . . ”

  “I bet he freaked out, right?” Mamba laughed. “I remember when he was a little kid, Jesse used to run away whenever he saw you with the skeleton face make-up. How’s he doing? Still playing football?”

  Solomon Grimm came up the same corridor. He and Mamba shook hands, as wrestlers typically do, after they’ve fought each other.

  “Good match, Karl.”

  “Yeah, likewise.” Mamba rubbed his chest. “Next time, go a little easier on those chops, Herman. Would ya? They’re brutal.”

  “Hey, dat’s how I play da game,” Grimm replied without apologies. “I owe it to my fans to . . . Geez, Mark, is dat you?”

  “You’re looking at the newest addition to the roster, Herman,” Mamba said. “Meet Elijah Nightshade.”

  While they were talking, Wes Meir walked up to Mark and said, “Get ready. You’re on in three minutes.”

  “Here, Herman. Help Karl with his mask,” Mark said. “I’ve got to go.”

  He followed Wes down the hall and stopped in front of his dressing room. Before he turned the knob, he lowered his head and took a deep breath. “I can’t do this, Wes.”

  Wes Meir wheeled around. “What’s the matter, Mark? Is the door locked?”

  “No. I . . . I can’t do this anymore.”

  Wes blinked with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t go out there. I’ve had it. I need to go home.”

  “What? Come on, Mark. Quit kidding around. You’re up in less than two minutes.”

  Mark opened his dressing room door and trudged inside.

  “Go get Frank!” Wes frantically told a crew member. “Hurry!”

  Mark’s dressing room was empty. Marv, Cassandra and Carlos had gone to the main dressing room with the other performers. Mark picked up his cell phone and started to make a call when Frank and Wes burst into the room.

  “What’s the problem, Mark?” Frank asked.

  “I’m done, Frank. I’ve got to go home. Jesse needs me.”

  “But, Mark, we’ve got a show to put on. Jesse will be okay. Didn’t you say he and TJ were in a hospital? You can leave here right after the show.”

  “Hospital?” Wes said. “What are Jesse and TJ doing in a hospital? Were they in an accident or something?”

  Ignoring him, Mark said, “You d
on’t understand, Frank. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not in any shape to go out in front of the audience.”

  “Okay, um . . . we’ll kill the promo,” Frank said, realizing he had no choice. He turned to Wes. “Find Carlos and Marv and Cassandra. Tell them that we’re putting off the Elijah Nightshade segment until tomorrow. We’ll do it on Monday Night Mayhem.”

  “No, Frank. You’re not hearing me,” Mark said. “I’m quitting. I’m retiring. As of right now, I no longer work for the ACW.”

  Frank’s jaw dropped. “Mark, you’re not being sensible. We’ve got big plans for you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Sorry, Frank, but I need to be with my boy.”

  Frank had known this day was coming. Mark had talked about it many times. He just hadn’t expected for it to happen this way. But by the look in Mark’s eyes, and the tone in his voice, he knew that nothing he said was going to change Mark’s mind. No need to berate him. No need to threaten him with talk about a breach of contract.

  Frank embraced his long-time friend and said, “That’s okay, Mark. Go home. Take care of Jesse. We’ll figure something out.”

  EPILOGUE

  On Monday, December twelfth, Jesse celebrated his seventeenth birthday. His grandmother had told him he could invite a few friends over after school for dinner and birthday cake.

  Jesse and Wally walked hand in hand down the sidewalk. Goose, Wendell and Bucky trailed behind them.

  When Jesse arrived home, he saw a black Dodge Challenger sitting in his grandparents’ driveway. He couldn’t believe TJ had driven all the way from Amarillo to visit him on his birthday.

  “Come on, I want you to meet someone,” Jesse told Wally.

  They hurried up the walkway. But just as they reached the steps, Jesse’s parents and grandparents came out of the house.

  “Surprise!” they shouted.

  Jesse looked at them, confused. He had known that his mother would be flying in from Dallas for his birthday so that wasn’t really a surprise. He greeted her with a hug and a kiss, then introduced her to Wally.