THUGLIT Issue Three

by Ed Kurtz

  That settled things. Called up Tommy and told him I was in. Now we were parked in a rental car right across the street from Jack’s motel.

  I looked out across the desert to the place. The motel walls sobbed cracked yellow paint, and most of the doors to the rooms had welts and scratches on their surfaces. A lone ice machine stood next to a beat-up vending machine.

  The traces of a headache skulked around my head, prompting me to turn off the radio Tommy was listening to. I popped two aspirins into my mouth and ground them up, the acidic, chalky taste familiar friends that calmed my nerves.

  “Here you go, Vic,” Tommy said, handing me a pair of gloves and a mask. I was surprised to find that he was the calmer of the two of us. No makeup for him today, his natural blond hair slicked back. Soft blue eyes reflected off the car’s window and stared back at him.

  Putting the gloves on, I glanced down to the mask and frowned. “Seriously?”

  Tommy shrugged. “They were available.” His words were muffled thanks to the colorful luchador mask he’d just put on. His mask was a tapestry of colors that evenly divided his face into pockets of red, blue, green, and black. I couldn’t see his eyes through the mesh fabric, nor his mouth.

  My own mask was a more subdued affair. At first I thought it was all white, but upon closer inspection I noted the color was closer to silver. Unlike Tommy’s gimp-like mask, mine had openings for my nose, eyes, and mouth. Took me a moment to realize why it looked so familiar. The design was based off El Santo’s mask, the most famous Mexican wrestler in history. Figured the kid would choose this mask for me.

  Tommy opened his door and said, “Let’s go.”

  The heat slammed into me the moment we left the air-conditioned car. For Texas weather, it could have been worse, but by the time we covered the distance between the car and Jack’s motel room, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what deep-sea divers must feel like walking through the ocean floor. My legs were throbbing in pain; my clothes soaked with sweat. It took all my self-control not to tear away the constricting mask.

  The headache came out of whatever hiding place in my head it normally resided in and made the day brighter and harder to take. With no more aspirins to chew, I turned to Tommy. “You ready?”

  When he nodded, I got in position in front of the door. I touched the gun tucked into my waistband, its cool grip bringing me some of the same comfort that chewing aspirins did. I might never have been a true “super soldier,” but I did serve my country at one point, taking down my fair share of squinty eyes back when killing the enemy was celebrated, not looked down upon.

  Knocking on the door, I waited. My hands instinctively opened and closed, like when I stepped into the ring. For a second, I thought that maybe I should have stretched.

  The door finally opened and I came face-to-mask with Jack. He was half-dressed, his oversized jeans unbuttoned—big, pale rolls of skin hanging like drapes from his waist. Tiny eyes widened in surprise at the sight of me. Before he could say anything, I pushed him inside the motel room.

  “Shit, come on guys,” he said in that thick southern drawl of his, “You want to try out, come to the gym. Don’t bug me at home.”

  “Shut up,” I said, pulling up my shirt so he could see the gun. “Where’s the belt?”

  Next thing I knew, pain shot up from the back of my neck and blurred my vision. At first I thought it was another headache, but when the pain continued to pound the back of my head and neck, I realized that someone was doing a pretty good job beating the crap out of me.

  The punches dropped me down to the ground, and I had just enough time to roll to my side before they were joined by kicks as well. My hands pressed against the coarse brown fibers of the carpet as I tried to stand, each punch moving the room and its beaten beige furniture an inch to the left. When I looked up, flickering images of Tommy’s colored mask stared down at me.

  “Pick him up, Oscar,” Jack said.

  Oscar? What the fuck was he doing here too? I tried to bring voice to the question, but all that came out of my mouth was blood that dribbled down my torn mask and stained the carpet.

  “Get him to the bed.”

  A set of arms grabbed me by the armpits and dragged me to the bed, propping me up so that I was sitting on its edge. They then ripped away my mask, my ears bending forward to the point that I thought they would be ripped off along with the mask.

  No one said anything for a minute. The only sound in the room was me breathing through my broken nose, sounding like a fart coming through a puckered asshole. I coughed and spat out some more blood.

  “You probably ain’t got no reason to believe me, Stone, but I sure as hell hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

  My head felt heavy, the same type of heaviness I felt the first time I held my first belt, way, way back. Back then, the belts had still been made of gold, not this plastic and cheap metal crap like the ones today. “What are you talking about?”

  “This whole plan to steal me out of a belt. You really thought it was real? That any promoter, no matter how desperate, would actually ask that of a wrestler?” Jack moved closer his pungent aftershave swatting me in the face. “That anyone would hire you?”

  He posed the question in such a simple tone of voice, the way a pimp would chide a hooker for trying to leave the business. His words burrowed inside my ears and rubbed against my brain. I lunged at him, crashing into Oscar’s chest and falling back on the hard mattress. The giant Mexican stepped forward and clocked me in the face, his knuckles scraping my skin. The popping sound of a dislocated jaw echoed inside my head.

  “Why?” I asked, saliva trailing down my chin and pooling with the blood.

  “It started as just another rib, a joke to pass the time, but---” Jack said.

  “Not you.” I pointed at Tommy, who stood by the corner of the room with his mask off, watching. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “Dude, you were an asshole to me,” he said.

  “I was?”

  Tommy nodded, balling the mask in one hand and running a hand through his hair with the other. “You were. Stiffed the hell out me and gave me bruises that would stay for days after. And never once did you made me look good out there. Even when I won, you somehow came out looking better.”

  I laughed, and it hurt. “Pussy. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. To make sure you can hack it.”

  “No, Stone, it isn’t,” Jack said, picking up a striped shirt from the floor and squeezing his fat self into it. “You just think it is.”

  “The whole thing with the bitch getting the championship belt, that was a lie?” I asked him.

  Tommy's eyes jumped from each person in the room, before locking on to me. “Don’t fucking call her that!”

  I blinked and thought back to the dinner. Way he’d reacted when I talked about the girl. His reluctance to get with the waitress, which I’d mistaken for something else. “You’re dating her.”

  “She has a name.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not the one dating her.”

  “Amy, that’s her name, Vic. But see, that’s why you’re an asshole, cause you never even bother to ask her name. Calling her ‘girl’ or ‘bitch’ or whatever. All you cared about was that she was a woman.”

  Coughing more blood on the sheets, I laughed long and hard. “You fucking taking notes on this Jack? Cause I think I got your next angle for you right here. It’s full of twists and turns, and even has romance to attract a whole new and diverse audience. Tommy the Queen and the flat-chested fag hag who turns him straight.”

  “That’s enough, Vic,” Jack said. “Amy and Tommy have a bright future in this business. Amy’s going to be our first woman champion, and Tommy here is going to have a nice run with the Border Belt.”

  I turned to Tommy. “Make sure you get that in writing, kid.”

  “They don’t need that. I keep my promises to those that help me. Ain’t that right, Oscar?”

  The Mexican grunted.

  I
looked at him, arms folded just like he’d had them in the locker room. “And that doesn’t piss you off?”

  He shrugged.

  “Come on, Oscar. You’re second generation. You think your papi would be happy with you being in a company that has a woman as a champion, and a homo holding the second most important belt? I know I’m biased and all, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say Jack here doesn’t much care for Mexicans.”

  “Long as I get paid, and not lay down for la puta, I no care.”

  Now didn’t those words sound familiar.

  “Hey!” Tommy said. “Don’t call her that.” He pushed himself off the wall and moved towards Oscar.

  “You want to go, homo?” Oscar met him halfway, chest puffed out. “Your bitch no here, so careful trying to act like a man.”

  “Don’t fucking call her that!” Tommy said again.

  Jack stepped in between them. And that’s when I pulled out the gun. I’d forgotten all about it.

  And so, it seems, had everyone else.

  It wasn’t till Oscar threw me to the bed the second time and its handle happened to press against my side that I remembered I had it.

  “No one fucking move,” I said.

  They all froze and stared at me. I smiled, or tried to anyways, I’m not sure the effect came through, what with the fucked-up jaw and all.

  “Now, be careful here, Vic. Don’t do nothing stupid,” Jack said, eyes locked on the barrel.

  “We’re way past that, asshole.”

  “This was all just a rib,” he said. “A joke to see how far you would go to avoid losing to Amy. Ain’t no need to go farther than this.”

  I waved the gun in their direction and said, “Seeing as I have the gun, why don’t you shut the fuck up?”

  To his credit, he did.

  “I take it that it you got the belt here somewhere, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Why don’t you go get it for me?”

  Jack squeezed his hands and fixed his gaze on me, but then moved to the closet and, while standing on tiptoes, reached for a small brown bag on the top shelf.

  Oscar must have noticed that I had my attention on Jack, because that’s when he threw himself at me. A good three hundred pounds of angry brown muscle fell on top of me, sinking us deep into the mattress. The overpowering smell of recently done sheets enveloped us both as Oscar tried to get the gun away from me.

  “Dame la pistola,” Oscar demanded, alternately hitting my face and side and reaching for the gun with his other hand. His knee slammed into my groin and I saw black. I didn’t let go of the gun though.

  We continued to roll around the bed for what felt like minutes, but was probably only seconds. I kept trying to push him off me, but no matter how hard I shoved, kicked, and punched, he didn’t react. Oscar would have ended up with the gun if it wasn’t for him moving too close to the edge of the bed, sending us both spilling onto the floor.

  Any sound our bodies made when they hit the floor was drowned out by the gun going off. It sounded like when I used to practice falling on the mat in an empty auditorium. It filled the entire room and froze us all in place—except for Tommy, who managed to make a sad little sound before the bullet tore into his face.

  His head jerked back, pink and red matter spraying on the wall. Tommy’s last thoughts contrasted sharply with the beige paint. His body remained standing for a split second and then fell, the carpet cushioning whatever sound it would have made.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Jack said, cradling the bag as if it was a newborn. He looked at Tommy’s body, and then to us. Then he ran, jumping over the body and running barefoot out of the hotel room.

  Oscar didn’t even say anything. Just pushed himself off and ran without a second look back. He tripped over the body and let out a scream, scampering on all fours out of the door, leaving me alone with Tommy.

  Strange that it was the calmest I'd felt in a long time. After a few minutes, I got up and walked over to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. I avoided the mirror, figuring there wasn’t much to look at. Then I walked back to the bedroom and closed the front door.

  Sitting at the edge of the bed, I looked down at Tommy and tried to figure out if he deserved this. He was just a kid, and had wanted the same thing we all did when we started in the business. Make some money and maybe, if we were lucky, get to hear crowds chant our name.

  Looking up to the fluorescent ceiling lights, I felt wetness slide down my cheeks. Blinking, I thought about a lot of things in that room. Thought of the man I used to be, and the man I was now. Thought some more about Tommy, and the man he would never get to be. I even tried to think of Amy, the girl that started it all, but nothing came to mind.

  So I thought of everything every promoter I’d known had put me through. All the lies and promises that were never kept. All the checks that bounced, and payments that were light due to ‘small crowds.’ And because that still wasn’t enough, I thought of every kid that I signed photos for and took pictures with back in my good…no, great days, when I still had muscles and a smile that made women wet. Now, the muscles I had left were quickly turning into mounds of fat, and when I smiled my whole face cracked like tanned leather. I thought of all those kids and the way they’d looked at me like I was a god, only to turn away from their religion a year or two later.

  Had a good run, all things considered, I decided. Plus, this way I wouldn’t end up like so many of the other wrestlers. Has-beens and never-weres that clung to the business and went out there with sagging tits and mush for brains, still trying to put on a show when they were past their prime. No, that wouldn’t happen to Super Soldier Stone.

  I sat with the gun in my hand, working up the courage for one last job.

  In the Neighborhood

  By Ed Kurtz

  Me and Gil were sucking down Schlitz bottlenecks and talking mostly about broads, but a little about the gig he’d just lost. The two seemed to go hand in hand, as far as conversational topics went, since with no job, Gil didn’t figure on getting much from the skirts anytime soon. I wasn’t sure which of the two tragedies pissed him off more, but they both weighed heavily on his mind, even as loaded as he was.

  “Blue,” he said, on account of he always called me that when he was smashed, “a man, he can only take so much, do you know?”

  I said I knew.

  “You gotta work hard, so you do, you work your ass off, you work your goddamn fingers to the bone.”

  I nodded. I’d been nodding all night. I nodded so much I thought my fucking head might fall off if I kept nodding.

  “But what for, Blue? Me, I got nothing. Worked all my life—got my first job at fourteen, for Christ’s sakes—and me forty-two and I got nothing.”

  I muttered something about the recession, but I wasn’t really sure if we were still supposed to be in one or not. It seemed like they came around about once per President, and we’d just gotten a new one who seemed pretty much the same as the last one so maybe it was the same recession, and this guy hadn’t gotten his yet. I just couldn’t tell.

  Somebody put Credence on the juke and I pointed at the barback, then made a hippie-dippie peace sign because I wanted two more. It took the guy a while, but by the time he finally slid a couple more bottles our way the door swung open and a new crop came shivering in from the snow. These were guys we knew, me and Gil, good old guys from the neighborhood, guys who’d always been around. I waved them over and smiled at Gil, a sort of the-more-the-merrier kind of smile that he didn’t reciprocate. He was still bummed out about the job.

  Jackson and Little Frank and Junior Taylor plopped down on the stools around us, chipper compared to our slumped-over selves, and in a minute or two we all had beers and loud voices and everybody slapped everybody else’s back like it was a party, which it sort of was.

  Then Gil said, “A man can only take so much,” and the guys wanted to know what he meant. I told them he’d gotten the shaft at the warehouse, shitcanned withou
t so much as a watch or a handshake, and the whole mood turned right down into things are tough all over. So much for the party.

  Junior said he’d gotten laid off after almost ten years at the state, and even though he was working now, he got pissed off about it all over again. Next thing I knew, Jackson was practically crying in his beer about his old lady, who’d run off with a younger guy. I hadn’t known about that. It seemed like every one of us had something stuck in our craw, and like the man says, misery loves company. So it turned into a great bitch-fest and we ended up like a bunch of tousled hens at a beauty parlor. Pathetic.

  Round about nine o’clock a couple of the guys, Little Frank and Jackson, got sloppy as hell and started trading war stories. Both of them had been in the Nam, though Frank got shipped home early on with a bullet in his spleen or something, while Jackson stayed the long haul, right up to the fall of Saigon. Each of them had a heap of medals, the way they told it. And the way they told it, you’d think they actually missed the damn war.

  Junior was no vet—he was 4-F and would never say why—but halfway into Frank’s bit about the whores he and a colored guy saved from the VC, Junior’s face lit up and he slammed the bar with his palm.

  “Hey!” he hollered. “You fellas remember that one gook, hell I don’t know what his name was, you know the one…”

  “I remember tons of gooks,” was Jackson’s reply, and everyone laughed at that.

  “Sure, sure,” Junior said, waving his hands around manically. “But the one, the guy—shit, you know. Had that one POW with his hands tied behind his back, cut his throat with a KA-BAR. They got a picture with the poor bastard’s blood running all over his shirt, put it in all the papers.”

  It wasn’t the kind of picture you forgot, and right away I knew what Junior was talking about. Jackson knew more still; he bunched his face up and said, “Van Duong.”

  Junior snapped his fingers, grinned wildly. “That’s him, that’s the one.”