by Paul O'Brien
“There's no need,” Merv continued above the mostly feigned disquiet. “Sal Pellington is a good champ for us and a good draw along the west coast. So, no change.”
Merv, it just so happened, owned the west coast territory.
“What about the rest of us, Merv?” asked an aggressive Curt Magee from Texas. “How are we supposed to eat?”
“With your fucking mouth.”
Curt looked around the room for anyone as shocked as him. “Did you say ‘with your fucking mouth’ or ‘watch your fucking mouth?'“
“Both.” Merv wound up and knocked out his most worn line, “None of you are tied to this council.”
Danno knew he had been screwed over again. He brought Missus Garland and put her up in the Governor Hotel, such was his confidence this time. She even wore them under-britches that very seldom see anything but the bottom drawer.
Eight months previous, Danno had flown the whole room in to see his giant kid beat Ricky Plick in a hell of a main event in the New Jersey Armory. He knew it was a small crowd, but a great match and a true attraction wrestler gave Danno the nod over the other potential champions in line.
The giant was also a heel, or bad guy, and everybody knew the big money was to be made from the local heroes trying valiantly to take the belt from the giant bully in their hometowns.
Danno finally found a draw that could turn his ship around, and maybe even set him up for retirement. This was the type of talent that his father always talked about, but never found. All he needed was the backing of the other owners to do some serious business.
It was all sealed by a crystal clink in his office backstage. Everyone was going to get rich off this huge kid. The members of the NWC were happy and unanimous that the belt be dropped to the giant after their next official meeting in Portland, Oregon.
This meeting.
“We don't feel it's the right time to move on from Pellington,” Schiller explained. “He's pulling in some numbers that have us confident that we'd be leaving money on the table if we jobbed him out now.”
It was over fifteen years since Danno had replaced his father on the NWC and, in all that time, he never once had the belt in his territory. Even the other promoters around the table would begrudgingly admit that it made no sense for a territory like New York to go so long without the belt. It was where most every wrestler wanted to be in Danno's father's day.
“Okay, let's move on to any other business,” Merv said as he pushed his glasses onto his forehead and shuffled some papers.
Danno cleared his throat and the meeting left a respectful silence for his potential input. He stood up.
“We had a deal, Merv.” Danno looked around the room to see which of the other eight owners had knifed him in the back. “But more than that, I have someone who we know people are going to pay to see. I have someone who you all watched work a few months ago; someone who could make us all a lot of money. Now I've kept him under wraps for months, waiting for the nod today. I was going to explode this kid onto the scene and get the world talking.”
“He was green as goose shit and we need to move on to other business, Danno,” Merv interrupted.
“But I have a question,” Danno fired back.
“Make it quick,” Merv said.
Fuck it. Danno had nothing to gain anymore by being polite anyway. “Yeah, just one point. Would you still be reneging on our deal if the giant jumped to your company like you quietly asked him to do several times last week?”
The contents of the room turned squarely to Merv to hear his response. Danno simply asked what everyone else was thinking.
“In my life I've never been so insulted and... and.... what's the word...?”
Danno instinctively finished his sentence. “Crooked?”
Merv picked up his ashtray and unsuccessfully threw it at Danno's head. “You be fucking careful what you lay at my door, you Mick fuck. Where's your evidence that I tried anything of the sort? You didn't get the belt ‘cause you'd only fuck it up if you did. Simple as that.”
Danno could have been standing in front of his old man. The same old man who kept him away from the business at every turn. The same man who trusted Danno with nothing and left him even less when he died.
You didn't get the business, Danny, ‘cause you'd only fuck it up if you did.
Merv was so sure. His sentence was so definite that Danno was instantly persuaded that Merv and his father had already decided that he was a fuck up many years ago in some back room deal.
Who else in the room thought of him that way? All the hanging heads told him nothing.
“You're the worst earning member of this council, Danno. I'd keep my fucking mouth shut if I were you,” Merv warned.
Danno slowly sat down.
Merv reigned over the silence in the room. He wiped the froth from his mouth and watched everyone else's reaction, waiting to take on any more of this uprising bullshit. “In case anyone forgot the procedure in here, there was a vote taken on this decision, just like every time we have someone who thinks they have the next champ. So, please do me a favor and stop with the bleeding heart routine in here. I'm getting all fucking emotional.”
Merv was right. There were nine men who all had a say in the secret ballot. Just that none of them would say anything different than Merv. He had just enough of them on his side with backhand deals and co-promoting perks that he never had to worry about losing a ballot.
“Anyone else like to say something?” Merv asked.
As small and as old as Merv was, the whole business knew that he had come to this business from another business. If that old cunt didn't want you around anymore, you'd stop being around.
“Well?” Merv glared at Danno, “Are we moving this meeting on?”
Danno hesitantly nodded. There would be no celebration, no victory speech and no blowjob from Missus Garland that night.
Merv, in turn, sat down also. “I was going to inform the meeting that Sal was going to tour your territories again this summer as champion. Boost your gates.”
The other owners smiled and nodded at the scrap of generosity and everyone turned attentively to his next item. Everyone except Proctor King, who winked at Danno.
Business was about to pick up.
Proctor King was a former circus strongman-turned-wrestler-turned-owner. He constantly squinted at the sun, even at night. His hair was clinically dead from years of Florida living, but he still managed to remain more blonde than a man of his years should be. He had a face made of lacquered leather and a right forearm that entertained an anchor tattoo without irony.
He was without a neck on first look. He owned a pair of freckly shoulders that connected to his head, just under the ears. This gave him a squareness that you don't usually associate with a human. Proctor was a brick that sat atop some legs.
He was also the youngest-ever owner of a territory when he got Florida in the fifties. This didn't sit well within the NWC.
The Florida State Athletic Commission had already sent in two of their officials to investigate professional wrestling after the Sun-Sentinel ran a story about a blacklisted wrestler who was willing to tell all. A week later, and after a hefty collection, the agents found that the wrestling was “true and honest in every way in every venue in Florida.” A week after that, they found most of the tell-all wrestler’s body in his home.
But the Commission had spoken and put paid to the 'fake' rumors for another couple of months and the NWC wasn't going to have a kid ruin those re-printable words. There was no way someone his age could keep a quiet locker room, and that would be bad news for them all.
One night at a charity ball, the word was given in the restroom that Proctor had to go. Merv gave the nod. The only thing that saved his life was a terrified Gilbert King who heard the whole thing by chance from his bathroom stall.
Gilbert immediately informed his father. The early tip off gave Proctor the chance to get ahead of the herd. There were only two things going to stop the o
rder – to walk away from the business, or to start earning serious money.
One night inside the Hollywood Legion Stadium, Proctor jumped the rail and blindsided that territory's owner, Niko Frann. Frann was taken out on a stretcher and filed suit against Proctor. The arena erupted at the sight of an owner from another territory jumping the rail, and many people ended up in the hospital. One was Proctor himself.
He was stabbed in the stomach by a fan as he got mauled in the back of the arena.
Proctor's territory became hotter than ever after that. Fans travelled from all over to see what the Crazy King would do next. He booked himself as his top star. The word was out – no more messing with the owner from Florida. That kid was legit.
Niko, however, never forgot. He waited.
Proctor turned half of the money made on those gates over to Merv.
“Money makes everyone forgive everything,” Merv told Proctor. “Everyone in this is here to do business. It's the first thing that we should ask ourselves every time we make a decision. Does this move make me money?”
Proctor listened.
CHAPTER TWO
January 10th 1969. Oregon.
Lenny stood at the back door of the Continental and waited for Danno to leave the Governor Hotel. He noticed that the boss was quiet and surly now, the complete opposite to how he was on the way there.
Danno just wanted to check out and take himself and Missus Garland back to New York. Not that they didn't need a break. And Portland was nice to look at. The white peak of Mount Hood looked pink when the sun was setting – which was nice, you know.
Lenny opened the door and Danno entered the car.
You didn't get that view much where Danno came from. He was kind of happy about that; nothing good ever came from anyone who lived around a mountain. Most of them were retards, in fact. People do awful things to each other in the absence of a TV.
Gimme the junkies of New York any day.
Lenny slid into his seat and started the ignition.
“What's your name again, kid?” Danno asked his driver for the day.
“Lenny, sir. Lenny Long.”
Danno quickly disconnected from any further conversation and ran the day’s events over in his head.
As different as everything was in Portland, everything was still the same in the business. Well, except that look he got from Proctor King. It was hard to shake. Hard to read.
But it was different. And the hushed invitation that followed; that was different too.
“Where are we headed, boss?” Lenny asked from the front.
Proctor and Danno had never traded a single word outside the meetings before. That was about to change.
Lenny tried to catch Danno's distracted eye in the rear view mirror. “Boss?”
Danno tuned immediately back in and answered like he was listening the whole time. “Bancroft Street. There's a new restaurant opening there. Look for the signs.”
“Yes, sir.” Lenny reversed slowly.
“Wait,” Danno said. Lenny stopped the car.
Danno watched Missus Garland walk through the lobby without turning to wave him goodbye. She still had a respectable wobble under her silk dress. He made a deal with himself to try his damnedest to investigate further when he got back – title belt or no title belt.
For now, he had to figure out how to make his giant discovery a draw without the belt. “Okay. Drive on.”
Lenny headed out of the hotel driveway.
What could Danno call his monster rookie? Something exotic. Something wild. The wrestling world had Stompers and Crushers, Mongolians and Samoans. Beasts and Barbarians.
“It's pretty nice around here, huh boss?”
Danno nodded. Maybe he should have brought a gun with him and when Merv stood up, blew his Jew fucking head off.
Danno sometimes wished he was that sort of man. Life would be easier.
“Are you the ring guy who brings the sandwiches for the Boys?” Danno asked.
Lenny was half surprised and half embarrassed that the boss knew. “Well my wife makes them, and I...”
“Sell them,” Danno said, finishing Lenny's sentence.
“Well, yes, sir. I do.”
“What's your angle?”
Lenny settled into his seat and tilted the mirror in place. “Well, I take some of the wrestlers up to their next town after my shift is done on the ring crew.”
“Why, are we not working you hard enough?”
“Well, sir, I'm new here and I'm not...” Lenny cleared his throat, “... making much.” Lenny looked to Danno for some sympathy. He didn't get any, so he continued, “One night, I did it as a favor for Oscar Dewsbury. So my wife said I should charge them two cent a mile per wrestler. It gives me some extra money and it gives them the time to do whatever it is they want to do between towns.”
Danno smiled. Both men knew what 'whatever it is they want to do' meant.
“So I did that.” Lenny continued. “And now I have a waiting list, kinda, it's so popular. Then my wife made me some meatball sandwiches and punched some holes in the bag for them all to smell. She's a great sandwich maker.”
“How much do you get?”
“Two dollars a sandwich and a dollar a soda.”
“She's a smart lady.”
“We've got a kid and another on the way. We're saving for our own place, is what I'm trying to say.”
Lenny sensed that Danno wasn't as measured as he might be back home in New York. Maybe he could walk his way through some of the legendary secrecy of the wrestling business. “They don't say much of anything around me, though. The Boys. They kinda talk in their own language.”
Danno looked Lenny in the eye just long enough for Lenny to know it was too early to try and jump that fence. “The wrestling business reveals itself slowly. There's always something happening under the table that you can't see.”
Danno smiled to himself as he heard his own words leaving his mouth. He wondered if something was happening under the table that he couldn't see himself. Proctor King was as ropey as Merv, if not more so. The kind of guy that can wait ten years to slit your throat. The sort that would be comfortably agreeable until he forked you in the eyeball.
One thing Danno did know for sure was that he was getting sick of being stepped on and passed over.
January 10th 1969. Oregon.
For an opening night, this Old Spaghetti Factory sure was quiet. Danno read the menu for the second time at a table that sat under a big stained glass window. He skimmed his gaze around the room and quickly counted the potential money at each table. It was a habit that he was sure all promoters couldn't switch off. He watched through the window as Lenny pulled the Continental into a parking spot and walked himself to a payphone.
Right on time, Proctor walked through the front door and pointed Danno out to the waitress.
“Fucking place, huh?” he said as he approached Danno's table.
“Have a seat, Proctor.”
“You in a hurry?” Proctor asked.
“I've got some things, but nothing too, you know...”
Proctor was still standing.
“Are you going to sit?" Danno asked.
Proctor took a long look around the restaurant. “No.”
“No?”
Proctor was even more sure the second time. “No.” He turned and signaled for Danno to follow. “I think we'll go outside.”
“Where are we going?”
“There's something I want to show you.”
Outside, Danno tapped on the phone booth glass. Lenny hurriedly talked into the phone, “I gotta go. Bye. Love you,” and hung up.
“I'm going somewhere with this guy,” Danno informed Lenny as he pointed Proctor out with a nod. “So, you know.”
Lenny didn't know. “Isn't that Proctor King?”
“Yeah.”
“He's on the front of the magazine this month.”
Lenny pulled a wrestling magazine from his back pocket and unrolled it to
show Danno. He wasn't impressed.
“You're not a fucking mark, are you kid?”
“A what, sir?”
“A mark. A fan. Nothing, forget it.” Danno shook his head and moved off toward Proctor.
Both men walked through the nearly empty parking lot and ducked under the hanging branches in their way. Proctor led the way into a thick bush and slid down a small bank. Danno stopped.
“Where are you going?” Danno asked from the top of the bank.
“Somewhere quiet.” Proctor continued until his feet were covered in the water from the edge of the river. “You want to make money or not?” Proctor asked.
Danno looked around and saw Lenny waving at him. He slid slowly and awkwardly on his ass down the bank. Proctor reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette. He broke the filter off and threw it into the brown water.
“Nice view huh, Danno?”
Danno tried to assess the situation and the geography without making it obvious he was doing so. He also watched the water’s edge so as not to get his feet wet.
“What did you want to see me about?” Danno asked.
“I want to do some business that will make us both rich,” Proctor replied as he inhaled. “Big money.”
“Haven't you got an office or a phone for this kind of stuff?”
“Not this kinda stuff.”
Proctor waited for Danno's response. It was like he was enjoying the power of watching Danno digest the broken information.
“Well?” Danno asked. “What are we talking about here?”
Proctor took one last look up the bank before gravitating towards Danno's ear. “I want to get you the belt.”
Danno leaned back to recapture his personal space.
“You were there today, Proctor. You saw the room go with Merv.”
“Fuck Merv and those monkeys who follow him. I can get you the belt by the end of the month. That'll give you time to put a program in place for that giant golden goose you found – you lucky bastard.”
A rush of hot and cold ran up and down Danno's back. He knew that Proctor was serious and could get it done. This both delighted and terrified him. After all these years, he could finally have the belt. But there was the other issue that was providing the coldness. “What are you planning on doing with Merv?” Danno asked, not sure if he really wanted to hear the answer.
