Push (Fight Card)

by Jack Tunney

  Then he looked over at Thumper. The big man was climbing back over the top rope.

  And Farley must have realized how things were going for him. Not in the match – that was all set in cement beforehand – but in his wrestling career. He must have known if he was ever going to show Lou and the other people who ran things anything, it was going to have to be right then.

  So, he waited until Thumper was near enough, and then he bounced off the ropes and launched a flying dropkick. It was a damn good one, and coming from a lunk like Farley, it was a hell of a surprise.

  He bounced off the ropes and launched his feet off the floor and swiveled his middle and everything looked perfect. Thumper was turning toward him in just the right way, like he was going to take it and sell it and let Farley get in a shot. It would be a damn good shot, and Lou and the others would like it and Farley would be on his…

  Thumper swatted Farley out of the air.

  I’d never seen anything like it. One second Farley’s feet were headed right toward Thumper’s pecs, and the next Thumper had raised his arm up under Farley’s lower legs and shoved up, and those legs shot straight up. Which meant his head shot straight down. It hit the canvas maybe a foot from Thumper’s furry boot. Then his shoulder hit, and it looked to me like it got dislocated.

  Holy maloney!

  Thumper walked away.

  For just a little fraction of a second, I thought something weird had happened. Like maybe the ref had disqualified Thumper. That was the only way a jobber ever beat a star, and it did happen sometimes. They’d decided to change the ending and…

  “Is it Thumpin’ Time?” howled Thumper.

  Right. This was how Thumper ended his matches. While his opponent was lying on the canvas, beat all to crap, he’d go to a corner and climb up so his feet were on the second rope and ask the crowd if it was Thumpin’ Time. There’d be a big pop from the crowd, and then he’d get down and go to another corner and ask the same thing. This time the pop would be louder. He’d go to the third corner, and then the last one, and each time there’d be more of a pop until on the last corner you couldn’t hear yourself think.

  Thumper was somewhere between the second and third corners when Farley started trying to crawl out of the ring. He wasn’t trying to sell anything. He really just wanted to get the hell out of there. I’d seen it before. Some kid all excited about the glory of wrestling realizing, even if you did make it, your body took an awful load of punishment, and you’d never get free of the pain. A dislocated shoulder can do a lot of convincing.

  He’d almost reached the ropes when Thumper finished his routine. Then there was a hand on Farley’s ankle dragging him back to the center of the ring, and then it was Thumpin’ Time.

  Thumper hauled him up, more or less into a fireman’s carry. He went over to one corner, like he was going to power slam the kid. But there was more to it.

  Thumper ran forward, and then Farley was being turned around on Thumper’s shoulder. Then Thumper left his feet, and Farley was flying, flying like a bird, headed face first for the canvas.

  He hit it.

  He didn’t move.

  There’s not moving and there’s not moving. One is kayfabe and the other’s real.

  This was real.

  I ran to the ring and up onto the canvas, and even while the announcer was announcing Thumper’s latest victory I was kneeling by Farley. But only for a second. Because now I was sure, and I jumped up and grabbed the mic from the announcer, and I hollered, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

  Every single person in the arena thought it was part of the act.

  I finally got through to the ref that I was serious. Then a doctor did come out of the stands. And before you could say Bruno Sammartino they had a stretcher out. Then Farley was on it, and they were headed to the parking lot.

  I didn’t know if Thumper knew that this time he’d really hurt the guy. But he did like he always did. He walked along with the stretcher and acted real sorry. Then, just like he always did, he turned back before they went through the curtain and ran back to the ring. Lou handed him his damned rabbit ears. Thumper put them on, and he got a huge pop from the crowd.

  I didn’t see any of this. The noise told me what was happening.

  Then the ambulance came.

  I was going to go to the hospital with Farley. But suddenly Lou was right there by my shoulder. He said, “You still got a match left.”

  I should at least have thought about it harder. Instead, I gave him a little nod, and headed back inside.

  ROUND 2

  Most of the time, if they hung out together at all, the stars hung with the stars and the jobbers with the jobbers. Tino Terranova and I broke that rule. There was a time right near when I started when Sue came to see me and Tino’s wife Diana came to see him, and somehow we ended up going out to dinner together after. Tino had started out as a jobber, and we compared notes on how things were now with how they were eleven or twelve years back, just before he got his push and started winning matches and making some money.

  Tino said the main difference was there weren’t so many gimmicks. Wrestlers would have fake names, just like they always did – I mean, nobody was really ever named Gorilla Monsoon – but they mostly wore something that more or less looked like wrestling tights. Except for the ones who were supposed to be hillbillies, like Haystacks Calhoun, who wore overalls.

  One thing led to another, and before I knew it Sue and Diana were trading phone numbers, and afterward, every couple of months if we were anywhere near each other, we’d get together. Tino won and lost the tag team championship with Rick Finnegan twice. I never managed more than a one-count.

  But Tino was looking out for me. He couldn’t break kayfabe, of course, but he’d talk me up to people on the inside who understood how good a wrestler someone was didn’t have much to do with how often they won. It never did any good, because the only opinion which mattered was Lou’s, and Lou never listened to anyone.

  Still, the couple of times I’d wrestled Tino, he tried to make me look good. Which I really appreciated, because when you’re a jobber you don’t get to look good very often.

  But that night in Baker City, my match against Tino was a drag. My heart wasn’t in it, and I took a couple of really poor bumps. I’d been getting the crap knocked out of me for three or four minutes when Tino threw me into the corner, then ran at me and squished me into the turnbuckles. You know how that works. If the guy in the corner is a star, sometimes he moves, and the guy who’s running at him crashes his chest into the turnbuckles. This is always played as if it hurts like hell, so the guy who smacks himself in the corner loses the upper hand to the one who moved out of the way.

  But when it’s a jobber like me in the corner, he always takes the hit. So Tino smashed me and backed off a step and I fell face-first to the canvas, and then he went to pick me up and said, real low, “Lou said you were supposed to get something going.”

  “Right. I forgot.”

  “Might be time to start.”

  So I punched him in the stomach. Then again, and a third time. He sold it really well, and I was able to stand up and give him one to the jaw. And down went Tino.

  The crowd started to wake up. They do anytime a face jobber starts to get some shots in on a heel star.

  That woke me up too. I looked at the crowd, and I nodded slowly, as if asking, you want to see some more? They did, judging from the cheers, so I waited until Tino got to his feet and I gave him one of the kicks Stephan taught me when I was a teenager. Stand on one foot, point your side at the guy, shoot the leg up and then out, and pow. Tino went down again. I went for the pin.

  It scared the crap out of me. Tino let the ref get to two before he kicked out, and for a second I thought he’d go to three and both Tino and I would be in big trouble. But Tino kicked out in time, and then when I went to dish out more punishment, he pulled my legs out from under me, and gave me his signature Senor Suplex move, and that was that.

/>   ***

  “It’s not so bad,” I told Sue.

  “How bad is it?”

  It was a couple of hours later. I was on a pay phone at the arena, and Sue was at home. She was my girlfriend. I figured she’d be my wife someday, if we ever got around to it. I’d headed to the hospital right after the match with Tino. Just threw my street clothes over my wrestling duds. I’d made a nuisance of myself until I was sure Farley was going to be okay, then came back to shower and stuff.

  “They popped his shoulder back in,” I said. “It hurts like hell, but no permanent damage. The concussion is the main thing. They’re keeping him overnight.”

  “Does he have anybody there with him?”

  “Yeah, his wife and kids. He’s just a kid himself, but he’s got three of his own.”

  The operator came on, asking for more money. I found a bunch of change and shoved it in.

  “How’d you do today?” Sue said.

  “Not good. My timing was off or something. And you know what? Lou asked me to show my stuff during the last match, and I was so shook about Farley that I nearly forgot. Tino had to remind me.”

  “How is Tino?”

  “Good. Diana had another kid. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. She didn’t look pregnant last time we saw them. Jeez, everybody’s having kids.”

  Which led to a real nice silence. Because it was about the only thing Sue and I disagreed on. She was older than me, almost thirty-seven, and she wanted a couple. Kept saying her safe baby-making years were almost over, which she heard in a play at the community theater, where she liked to work on the sets sometimes.

  As for me, let’s just say I wasn’t crazy about the world, and didn’t know how I felt about bringing kids into it. Blame Desert Storm, if you want. Sue’s mother did.

  Finally, Sue said, “So you didn’t get to get in any moves?”

  “One of my kicks. It went over really well. I got a two-count out of it.”

  “Really? Your first two-count. How exciting! I’m going to tell Charlie.”

  You’re probably thinking Sue was making fun of me. But she wasn’t. She understood where I stood as a jobber, and how my dream was to get a push and wrestle during all the house shows.

  Charlie’s my uncle. A wrestler himself, a while back, and the guy who did most of my upbringing. Sometimes, he came with me to my matches, but this time around they were having a big sale at his Ford dealership and he couldn’t get away. He used his wrestling in a lot of his ads. He’d come on TV wearing one of those singlets like Andre the Giant and say stuff like, “Wrestle down some big savings.”

  “One away from the big time,” I said. “Hey, Sue? You mind if I hang here and come home in the morning?”

  “You meet one of those front-row chicks with the big boobs?”

  “Yours are plenty big enough for me. No, it’s late and I’m tired and I don’t know that I want to drive five hours in the dark. I’m gonna see if I can get another night in the motel.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep your side of the bed warm.”

  “You better. I’ll call you in the morning before I leave.”

  I went back to the locker room. Most everyone had cleared out a long time ago. Just Barry Silver was there. He was watching basketball on the monitor. He didn’t have much of a life.

  What he did have was a gimmick, and he was one of the only jobbers who did. They didn’t play it up a lot, but he was known as the Jewish wrestler. He had a Jewish star on his robe. He was working his way up to jobber-to-the-stars. The guy who won a match once in a while, so when some new guy came along and they were giving him a push, he could beat Barry and it was a little more impressive than beating someone like Farley…or me.

  And Barry was one of the first guys who Thumper had wrestled.

  I went over, sat down on a bench. Said, “Who’s winning?”

  He looked up at the screen. Then over at me. “You care?”

  “Not really.”

  “So, what’s up?”

  “I wanted to ask you about Thumper.”

  “What’s about him?”

  “You were up against him once, right?”

  “Twice. Springfield and, I think, Arlington.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Gonna go places.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s just got it, is all.”

  “Yeah.” I let a few seconds go by. “I know what you mean.”

  “Son of a bitch is strong as hell. You see how he threw Farley over the top rope from the floor?”

  “Yeah. Is he a good worker? He know how to sell stuff?”

  “He doesn’t have to sell stuff. The guy against him has to sell stuff.”

  “Did he hurt you any?”

  “No more than anybody else. What’s this about?”

  “You ever look in his eyes?”

  He held back just a whit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know.”

  Barry didn’t want to answer. Too bad.

  “Come on, tell me.”

  A shrug, and then he said, “Guy’s eyes are spooky.”

  I waited for more. There wasn’t any. I said, “See you,” and picked up my gear, and got the hell out of there.

  ROUND 3

  I was able to get another night at the Motel 7. I dropped off my gear and went out. There were some decent places to eat downtown, but I didn’t want to drive. So I found a pizza place and ordered an extra-large with pepperoni and mushrooms. Then I found a 7-Eleven and got a six-pack of Black Label. I’m not much of a drinker, for sure not a six-pack in one night. But by the time I got back and was halfway through the pizza, I was halfway through the six-pack.

  I turned on the TV and found a Bonanza rerun. People said I looked a little like Dan Blocker. Feeling the beer a little, I imagined myself on top of a horse. This started me laughing at the picture in my head, and then I had a laughing fit. Only somewhere along the line it turned into crying.

  It happened sometimes. I’d get to thinking about my life and the fact that I lost wrestling matches for a living, and I’d start bawling like a baby. Other stuff set me off too. A picture of my dad. The smell of fertilizer on a lawn, which completely had me stumped.

  Sue thought I had PTSD. Not real bad, not bring a shotgun to the post office bad, but bad enough that fixing it could make my life a decent amount better. She’d asked me to try to get help from the VA, and once or twice I’d gone so far as to call them, but as soon as I got put on hold I hung up. One of two things was going on. Either I wasn’t willing to admit anything was wrong, or I wasn’t willing to believe it could get fixed.

  I got up and poured the rest of the beers down the sink. I went back into the bedroom and switched the channel and surprise, there I was on the TV. It was a tag team match about a month back, with Tommy Bufone and me up against the Barrister Brothers. They’d run it back home in Avon City a couple of weeks ago, but there was no telling when the local stations would show the matches from the TV tapings. I’d might catch myself the next day or three months later.

  I’d been a heel in all my singles matches that afternoon, but in the one showing on the TV, Tommy and I were the good guys, because the Barristers were major heels. So I had on my good-guy tights. No one in the crowd ever noticed I wore a different outfit depending on who I was against, but I didn't care. It helped me play my part better.

  The show got to a part where Tommy and I had one of the Barristers in their corner and were double-teaming him. Half the beers were down the drain, but the other half were still in me, and for just a second I thought Tommy and me might win.

  We didn’t. I got pinned and Tommy got to drag me out of the ring.

  I changed the channel and found a James Bond movie and ate the rest of the pizza. Then I went to sleep.

  ***

  I decided on another trip to the hospital before I left town. Farley was already sitting up in bed. His wife Helen was there with him, and their
three rugrats. Helen was a skinny girl with big blue eyes, and she had a giant cross hanging around her neck. The kids – a boy around five and three-year-old girl twins – were blond and way better-behaved than kids that age should be.

  We made chatter for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then Farley said, “I’m going to quit wrestling.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “It doesn’t seem like your thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe there’s not room for God in the locker room.”

  I didn’t know where that came from, but both Farley and Diana smiled, so I stuck with it. In fact, built on it some.

  “Besides,” I said. “A guy like you, they shouldn’t have made you a heel. God-fearing man ought to be a face.” I got up. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m going to head on home.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Farley said.

  Uh-oh, I thought. This is the part where he asks if I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.

  But it was nothing so heavy. “Say good-bye to all the guys for me.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  I called Sue to let her know I was hitting the road, did the five-hour drive in four and a quarter, with just one break for a burger and a leak.

  When I got home, she led me to the sofa and sat down with me and put her arms around me. It was always funny how she did that, because I was a big guy and she was on the small side of average, but somehow it worked.

  We sat there for fifteen or twenty minutes, not saying a word. Then I cleared my throat.

  “Yes?” Sue said.

  “Did we ever talk about Thumper?”

  “No. Are we going to now?”

  “Let’s.”

  “Okay. I saw a match where he was against Barry What’s-His-Name. You don’t remember? You were sitting right here.”

  “They start to run together. What did you think?”

  “Dumbest gimmick ever.”

  “Probably not, but it’s up there.”