by Paul O'Brien
Tanner was somewhat soothed by the fact that he still had the other heavyweight champion. The record books would show that New York had a heavyweight champion, and that Tanner Blackwell managed the affairs of the other wrestler who laid claim to the title.
Tanner rolled over in the dark, and imagined what it would be like to put the titles back together, again. He sipped the hot drink that Minnie had left beside the bed for him, and imagined himself as the boss of New York.
The Carolinas were good, but Tanner Blackwell wanted the prestige.
California.
1980.
Eight years after Lenny was shot.
Tanner looked at his wife’s empty seat beside him in the middle of the room. For decades, he had wished that she’d shut up. How wrong he was.
California.
1981.
Nine years after Lenny was shot.
The room was bigger. The event was bigger. Everything had gotten bigger. As he got older, Tanner could feel himself getting lost in it all. Wrestlers were prettier and more asshole-like all of a sudden. Matches made no sense, and every fucking worker in the dressing room wanted to flip and jump around the ring. Winner after winner, Tanner didn’t recognize any of the faces.
Joe sat where Minnie would have sat, had she still been alive.
“I want New York,” Tanner said.
Joe put a consoling hand on Tanner’s shoulder; Tanner picked Joe’s fingers off of him.
California.
1982.
Ten years after Lenny was shot.
It had been ten years since the banquet first started; ten years since Lenny had gone inside, and ten years since Tanner had the world heavyweight champion. He wanted it—he wanted to win. Tanner wanted to be recognized as Promoter of the Year, for he had earned it, and he deserved it. He wanted to say his wife’s name in public—he wanted to thank her out loud. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted. He wanted. He wanted.
But he didn’t get.
California.
1983.
Eleven years after Lenny was shot.
Rusty-colored piss was no good for any man, and certainly not for a man of Tanner Blackwell’s age. Coupled with the way he had been feeling, he knew that things weren’t getting better inside his body. Only queers and sissies went to the doctor, though.
Tanner zipped himself up, and looked at himself in the mirror of the bathroom.
California.
1984.
Twelve years after Lenny was shot.
The dense Los Angeles air was adding to his frustration, and Tanner pulled open his bow-tie, and ripped at his shirt buttons. His cane was still new, and was more of an obstacle than a help.
“Fucking... fuck,” he whisper-shouted under his breath.
He was trying to temper his rage as guests came and went. He tried to look up and smile, but he simply couldn’t.
“Come back inside,” Joe Lapine said, as he held the front door for Tanner. “It’s only a stupid...”
“Terry Garland? That’s who won! Terry-fucking-Garland is Promoter of the Decade?”
“Tanner...”
“I’m done with the politics of this,” Tanner replied. “No one else is saying it, so I’m going to say it. I’m not asking you, or anyone else, anymore. New York is back in play! It has been for years.”
Joe could see that Tanner was far more upset than he had thought. “Who cares about a fucking award, Tanner? You’re making more money than everyone in that room combined.”
“You think this is about money, Joe?”
“Absolutely. And that’s all it’s about, but a lot of people in our business have forgotten that.”
Tanner downed the last mouthful of his peppermint drink, and belched loudly while rubbing his stomach. “What do you want when you’re old and rich, already?”
“I don’t know. What else do you want?” Joe replied.
“I want my fucking due.”
Joe stepped in to Tanner, and tried a more diplomatic approach. “If you go marching into New York without the approval of the NWC, what do you think will happen?”
“One way or another, I’m doing this,” Tanner answered.
“You can’t undermine the NWC, Tanner. You, me, and everyone else who have been protecting this business are suddenly going to be fighting off every spick, nigger, and Paddy who wants to get into the match-fixing game. No one can see us fracture, ‘cause if they smell weakness, we’re all fucked.”
Joe could see that his words had sobered up Tanner’s thoughts, somewhat.
“If you want New York, then you do it the right way: the right way in front of the other territory owners, the right way in front of the Athletic Commission, and the right way in front of the law. ‘Cause let me tell you this: if there’s one place in the world that we have to look legit after all the shit we’ve been through, it’s there.”
Tanner rested his empty glass on the roof of a nice new car, and walked toward the hotel door. “I’m going to get New York. Don’t fucking get in my way, Joe.”
Tanner entered the building, and slammed the door closed behind him.
New York.
1984.
Eleven months before Lenny got out.
Lenny just wanted to go home. When he crashed the VW Kombi van, when Bree kicked him out, when he drove his family to Las Vegas, and when he killed his boss, all Lenny Long ever wanted to do was go home.
He had never wanted it more than on this night, though.
He imagined his cozy log fire crackling at home, as the blood dripped off his little finger and pooled on the dirty prison floor.
He tried to focus on what he would wrap, and how he would lie on his belly with his sons to play with their presents. He could smell his kitchen, and imagine the joy of home at Christmas time.
With a flick of his tongue, he checked the inside of his mouth, and could feel that his gums were torn by the fingernails of another man.
That was the way the previous decade in prison had been for Lenny: beating after beating, because he was quiet and wanted to stay that way.
His cellmate and attacker began to wail away with lefts and rights, and head butts and scratches and bites. He screamed in Lenny’s ear about something and nothing—it didn’t matter.
Lenny was grabbed by his hair, and dragged across the floor. The sudden jerk reminded him of the other times this had happened—times when he was petrified, and would beg for his life.
It was Christmas Eve, and Lenny wanted to be home, but no one in the wrestling business really ever got to go home—not as themselves, anyway. Only a scant few would turn up at their own door finished for good, and still recognizable.
After years on the road, in the ring and in the bars, living from a bag, a car, or a shitty motel room every night, it was no wonder that children saw a stranger at home, and that wives packed up and left.
Lenny Long knew that more than most.
In prison, he had no control over where he was going. There was no left or right, no choice of paths, and no way home.
He was moving in his head, though.
He had always been small in size, and quiet in nature. He had grown up that way, and Lenny had always kept to himself. He had never mixed much, and the only form of violence he had been exposed to was in Madison Square Garden, where he gladly paid a fair ticket price.
That was before Attica Correctional Facility became home.
After years of being terrified to move, Lenny felt different.
As his attacker’s feet and hands rained down on him, Lenny felt no soreness. He did feel an un-patchable pain, though. Each kick to the head was welcome, and each stomp on the side of his throat was invited. No words or sounds had escaped from Lenny since he had been put in that cell. He never left, and nothing ever left him, not even pain.
In Lenny’s head, pain was what he had thought he’d earned. It was what he had coming. Over the years, his fingers broke, and his teeth were made jagged and loose. His eyes were
smashed to yellow and black, and his arms were too sore to lift, and his ribs too bruised to breathe. He was in a hell that he felt he deserved, until that freeing second that he thought he had paid enough—suffered enough.
In that second, he launched from his stooped and subservient position to crack the face of his assailant.
Bang. Bang. Bang, bang, bang.
Lenny was freeing it all: every thought, and every clogged tear and word that he’d held hostage.
Bang. Bang. His attacker’s lips opened to bleed, and his cheekbones became contorted and swollen. Bang, bang, bang. Lenny’s arms struck like pistons, freeing him from his stomach-churning fear, and from his years of being nothing.
The face in front of him was beaten softer with every strike of his fist, until Lenny could do nothing, but hit himself and his own chest as he roared and wailed over his unconscious cellmate.
The power of beating someone else for a change, and the raw, unabashed option of murder—that permanent problem-solver—was there, in Lenny’s hands.
In turn, this brought calmness, and knowing to Lenny.
He swirled his chair into place, in full view of the rest of the cells, and kicked his feet up between the bars, with his handiwork downed behind him. He didn’t know whether this feeling was going to last, or not, but there and then, in that moment, Lenny knew that he was a bad motherfucker.
Such a notion earned his face its first smile since he had arrived there.
He threw a cigarette into his mouth, and lit a match, old school, along the coarse floor. He leaned back in his chair, until it reared up on its hind legs, and he horsed into him the most pleasure-filled intake of smoke that he had ever invited inside of him.
Lenny Long hadn’t suddenly become stronger, or more skilled, or deadly.
He knew that he’d get beaten again, and he knew that his fighting wasn’t nearly over. But he also knew that whoever was the next to grab his throat would be grabbing the throat of a man who just didn’t give a fuck.
And that man is the one who nobody wants to fuck with.
CHAPTER THREE
New York.
1984.
Four months before Lenny got out.
It wasn’t long before he heard from them, again, and it wasn’t long at all before an old familiar face came back into Lenny’s small world.
Wrestling had found Lenny useful, again, so it was time to put him back into play. Within twenty-four hours, their representative was standing inside the visitation area of the Attica Correctional Facility.
He was a man who knew New York well—a man who had known Lenny’s boss well. His life had also changed forever when Lenny pulled the trigger.
Troy Bartlett felt like a terminally ill man might feel in a funeral parlor: he knew that he was one dodgy deal away from being on the other side of the thick, dirty glass, himself.
As he waited for ‘the boss’ of New York to be escorted to him, Troy couldn’t help but think of how far he had fallen in the previous years.
In the twelve years since Troy had last seen Lenny, New York, his business, was ripped open by the NYPD and the federal government.
The investigation had bled Troy dry. As a lawyer of dubious moral and legal boundaries, his business had taken a massive beating. Every uniform and badge in New York had marched through, sat outside, and forensically investigated every corner and client of his business.
All of Troy’s other accounts weren’t the kind that liked attention from the cops, so they had run from him left and right, until he had just one piece of business in his whole firm: the New York Booking Agency contract.
Troy held the legal paperwork that stated clearly that Danno had signed his New York Booking Agency over to Lenny Long, his driver. It had even been used as evidence in Lenny’s trial. The prosecutors had tried to use the contract in the trial to prove that there had been a motive behind the heated argument that night.
All Troy was left with was that piece of paper, and, for now, the people who wanted that piece of paper were willing to attain it in the right and legal way.
“The offer is sixty thousand, this time,” Troy said. “I can draw up the paperwork, and we can all just move on.”
Lenny was unresponsive, and could hardly look up from the floor. Seeing how much Troy had aged just made Lenny more aware that time was marching on without him.
Troy continued, “The New York Booking Agency has other financial considerations, which they’re also willing to deal with. I think you should kiss their feet, personally. This is money to you for absolutely nothing.”
Lenny cleared his throat, as he hadn’t spoken to anyone who he didn’t have to in days. “Why?”
“Why, what?” Troy asked.
“Why have they raised their offer?” Lenny asked.
Troy rubbed the phone on his cheap suit jacket. “Why?” he asked in disbelief, “Because who gives a fuck why?”
Troy waited for some appreciation; it didn’t come.
“You know,” Troy said. “Danno signed the company over to you because he thought he was going down. Now you can earn sixty-fucking-thousand, if you sign those same papers over to someone else.”
“You’re telling me that it’s as simple as that?”
“Mr. Long, I get the distinct impression that this is the last time these people are going to ask. Do you understand? They will get this territory one way or another. Now, word is that your family isn’t doing very well financially, at the moment. Even if you don’t want it, I’m sure that your wife could do with that substantial amount of money.”
Lenny held up his hand to stop Troy in his tracks. “I’m done.”
“Excuse me?”
“In here. I’ve served enough time. I want out.”
Lenny wanted to bring that money home; he wanted to be the one who handed it to Bree.
Troy smiled at the steepness of Lenny’s request. “How...”
“I didn’t fight the charges, or anything that anyone said in the trial. I deserved everything I got. But I’ve paid enough, and I want to try to go home and help my own family. That’s the only deal I’ll take.”
“Lenny, this isn’t a bargaining position you’ve got here.”
Lenny was unflinching: he wanted out. “They don’t allow representation for appeals in here. You could do something. The night that it happened, Danno was an intruder in my parents’ house, and it was his gun. I was just defending myself. You’re all dirty pricks who know other dirty pricks. Now, get to someone on the parole board, and get me the fuck out of here. That, plus sixty grand, and we have a deal in the morning, if they like.”
Troy could only shake his head in disbelief. “You did nothing to earn New York, you little fuck. You know that the only reason Danno put it in your name was because he looked around at everyone he knew, and saw that you would be the easiest one to get it back off, if things got sticky.”
Lenny stood up to leave. “And how is that working out for you?”
Troy stuttered as he looked for an answer. Lenny’s sudden display of confidence had knocked the crooked lawyer off his guard.
“One more thing,” Lenny continued, “I want the original copy of that contract posted here for my attention. I will only leave here when I have it in my hands. You understand?”
Lenny considered that piece of paper his bulletproof jacket. He knew that by negotiating, he was already pissing someone off. It was better to have something that they wanted as he left.
“When I get that, and you get me out of here, then I’ll sign it over to whoever wants it.” Lenny hung up. He wasn’t sure if he’d get what he wanted, but he was sure that he’d at least get their attention.
Lenny had all day to think about his meeting. If he was going to allow himself to even dream about getting out, he wanted to make sure that he was as ready as he could be. The wrestling business was different: it ran on a different mind-set, and it was one that Lenny hadn’t attempted to conjure up in a long time.
Wrestling w
as all about what was happening where you could see it. It was a sport where you played checkers on the table, and chess underneath it, at the same time.
He needed to get out. It was too much knowing that his family was struggling. Lenny planned every day the same scenario: he’d leave Attica, sign the piece of paper, and arrive at his ex-wife’s house with enough money for a brand new start.
As he walked and daydreamed, he could still hear the thump of the metal press in his head as he left the workshop floor. He moved with the small huddle of men along the hallway, toward the first of their guarded stops. They waited. The key was turned, and the heavy metal prison gate opened to let them through.
Lenny knew that he was just a number to them, but they also became faceless and nameless to him. All he saw was their grey trousers, light blue shirts, and dark blue jackets. All the guards were the same, all the hallways were the same—every day was the same.
Lenny continued along the sandy brick hallway, up two steps, and then four steps down. As he heard the voices and general chatter get louder, he stayed close to the wall, as always. He’d run his hands along the tall white radiators every ten or so paces, and he looked out the arched windows for the sun.
As he got closer, the guard with the pipe, the grey trousers, the light blue shirt, and the dark blue jacket, opened the last of their gates. The shapeless dotting of men was now forced into a concentrated line to make it through the door.
The mess hall gate was different than the others. It had turned bars with little ornamental curls welded on them for effect—it was about as pretty as metal and men could get.
Inside, the room was huge, bright, and separated into three sections by giant white columns. The kitchen ran along the back wall, and then there was the first row of columns. Past that, the white tables and mushroom seats were in the middle of the room, sandwiched in with another row of columns.
