by Paul O'Brien
“Hey, hey!” shouted the guy behind the counter.
Lenny had never run so fast in his life.
The railroad track was rusty-looking, and overlapped over itself. The surrounding banks were overgrown, and the eyes of a forgotten person or two were watching Jimmy and his father walking.
“He said you conned his brother.” Lenny said.
“I didn’t con anyone,” Jimmy answered matter-of-factly.
“Me and his brother con people together. I jump in the river, and pretend I’m drowning. Nine times out of ten, whoever tries to help me takes their keys and their wallets out of their pockets. That’s his job. So, I get in the water, and he robs the hero: simple.”
Lenny had no idea what to say. He wanted to scold the boy, and make him a better person, but the reality was that he had only met him because Lenny had just gotten out of the clink for killing someone.
Jimmy continued. “So, a couple of days ago, my partner tried to take an unfair split. I took what was mine. Then his brother found me, pushed me around, and kicked me in the ribcage.”
“Does your mother know about any of this?”
“Please don’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
“Cause they told her that if I get in one more piece of trouble, they’ll take me away.”
“Away where?”
“Juvie.” Jimmy smiled at his father. “Like you, Pop. I’m like you.”
Lenny stopped, grabbed Jimmy’s shoulders, and stooped to his eye level. “Don’t ever be like that.”
Jimmy had a huge grin on his face. “You’re not the only one who deals with the law.”
Lenny wondered just how wild he was. He remembered him as a little pudgy baby who wouldn’t do much for himself.
“Did you see my brother, yet?”
“Not yet,” Lenny replied.
“He took up the family business, too. The other family business.”
Before Lenny could inquire further, Jimmy was straight back in.
“Will you take me home? Mom would love to see you.”
“Not yet.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No.”
“The next day?”
Japan.
In all of Ricky’s time in Japan, he could never get used to one thing: the food. After a big match, he liked to make his way down to the little steakhouse close to his hotel. It was a treat to himself, because steak wasn’t as cheap or plentiful as it was back home.
Ricky liked to bring the owner a few gifts every time he went down there. He had never gotten to know the owner’s name, but Ricky was always treated right.
In return, the owner had given Ricky a satin red jacket with the steakhouse’s name on the front, and the silhouette of a bull’s head above it. Ricky wore the jacket at shows, and the steakhouse would look after him when he came in.
It was a small place with raw wooden stools facing a long, simple counter. There were a few tables with the same simple wood.
Ricky was sore and slow. He didn’t know what had happened in his match, but he knew that he couldn’t wait to get the fuck home.
New York had huge potential again, and, while he devoured his steak, he figured out a few different ways to bring himself back to the top. As usual his order was hanging off his plate, it was so generous.
Ricky figured that he would work with Ade another two or three times over the first couple of years to raise the profile of the territory. In the meantime, he’d build stars, make his way back into the NWC’s good books, and start to trade wrestlers.
The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He could honestly, finally go home, and be closer to Ginny. He could work from behind the scenes, and stop bleeding for money.
“You got room for one more?” Ricky turned to see his old tag-team partner, Wild Ted Berry standing behind him with a huge grin on his face.
He, too, was wearing a satin steakhouse jacket.
Ricky was surprised to see him. “Where did...”
“They paid me main event money to come over,” Ted said, as he sat down.
His beard and teeth were stained with chewing tobacco, and his eyes were puffy from the long haul over.
“I thought you were taking care of New York?”
Ted leaned in, and his face quickly turned angry. “You know what was going down, right?”
Ricky shook his head, refusing to admit to knowing anything about the territory.
“Danno got killed. You left. Joe Lapine kept the place alive through the back door. He’d put just enough money into it to keep the place alive. He’d make sure that it kept its TV.”
“Really?” Ricky asked, pretending that he hadn’t spotted Joe’s play, all along.
“Really. He paid me to make sure that it did survive.”
Ted waited for Ricky’s reaction to that revelation, but it didn’t come. Ricky simply took a drink, and left room for Ted to continue.
“And that’s what I did.”
“Did?”
“Yeah. It looks like Joe wasn’t happy to hear that you were coming back. He thought I should have known—he blackballed me. So, I came back here.”
Ted was too old to start again; he knew it, and Ricky knew it.
“Is there any way that I can convince you not to go back to New York?” Ted asked.
Ricky didn’t take any pleasure whatsoever out of shaking his head. “I have to.”
“I thought as much.”
Ted signaled to the counter for a drink. He was known enough for the staff to guess that it wasn’t water that he was looking for.
“Will you have a drink with me?” Ted asked.
“Of course.”
In the space of a day in the wrestling business, Ricky was heading home, and Ted was banished back to Japan.
“I will bring you home,” Ricky said. “I’ve got something going over there.”
“I appreciate that,” Ted said, as he held his drink up.
Ricky picked up his drink, and did the same. He could see that Ted didn’t really believe it.
“Are you sure there’s no way I can talk you out of going home? Please?” Ted asked, this time with the clear sound of desperation in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” Ricky said.
He was tapped on the shoulder, and, through a series of hand signals, nods, and smiles, Ricky found that there was a call for him. In all his years leaving the steakhouse’s number at his hotel, he’d never received a call there.
His blood ran cold.
“Everything alright?” Ted asked.
Ricky slowly stood, and walked to the waiting receiver. It was Ginny, he thought. Something had happened. His hand was trembling a little, as he put the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Leave now,” said a familiar-sounding voice.
Ricky looked around the steakhouse. Everything seemed normal: everyone was minding their own business. Could it be a rib by some of the other wrestlers?
“Who is this?” Ricky asked.
The phone on the other side had been hung up. Ricky put his phone down, too. It sounded like Masa, who was great for letting Ricky know what was really going on. Ricky wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was him, though.
“Everything okay?” Ted asked, as he signaled for another round of drinks.
Ricky didn’t know what to make of what had just happened, but Japan just felt off this time to him in general. He probably never should have come back, but what choice did he have?
“Back in a sec,” Ricky said, as he went to the restroom.
It was a tiny pale green room down a small corridor off of the main restaurant. As he tried to not splash his boots, he was now pretty sure that Masa was the one who had called him, and he wasn’t the type to fuck around.
Ricky finished up, and didn’t hang around to wash his hands; something wasn’t right.
He opened the door into the short hallway, and was immediately struck by how full and energetic the steakhouse had become.
He took a couple of steps, but he heard someone approach him from behind. Just as he was about to turn, he could feel the sharp, cold blade of a knife in his lower back. His assailant tried removing the knife to strike again, but Ricky lashed back with everything he had, and cracked his attacker in the face with his elbow.
He could feel the cold sensation of shock run up his spine; Ricky tried to reach back to get a sense of how bad it was, but he couldn’t reach. He knew without touching anything that he was in real trouble: blood was spilling from him to the floor.
Ricky turned to his attacker, but his face was unknown to him. He was Asian—nobody Ricky knew, although, in wrestling, it’s never the person you can see that you need to be worried about.
Ricky’s thoughts weren’t of killing the man who had attacked him, but of making it out of the steakhouse with his own life.
He partially slid into the restaurant proper on his own blood, and saw that Ted was gone from his table. Ricky had no idea who was who, or what was what, so he backed into the little corridor, again.
As his attacker began to get up, Ricky kicked him as hard as he could in the throat. He then stepped over the man, and cracked open the back door. Ricky fell outside the restaurant, where it was dark.
Across the narrow road was a gas station. Ricky knew he didn’t have much time, so he tried to move to where passersby might see him. He threw his right arm out in front, and dragged his faltering body a few inches.
He wasn’t going to make it—he knew it.
Ricky tried to roll over: he wanted to see the sky above him, rather than the dirty street under him. He couldn’t, though. He felt his eyes getting heavier, and the sounds around him getting softer.
He had never experienced a stranger feeling than knowing it was his time, and knowing that there was no one around to tell. No one was there to put him at ease, or to see him off. He was so far from the wall he’d held onto when he tried out his first bike, and so far from his first best friend with the tee shirt that was too small for him. All of his friends had died before him.
He felt a calmness come over him.
He stopped trying to move, and he stopped panicking. He just waited until his eyes closed, and he could open them no mor
CHAPTER TEN
San Francisco.
1970.
It started as a little thing: a few floorboards here, a few floorboards there. Merv was old school, which meant no banks, no checkbook, and no accountant. He’d made millions between the wrestling business and other deals, but Ade couldn’t find a single fucking cent—not yet.
She was sure that he’d put it all underneath the floorboards in the attic. So, she started removing one board at a time, herself. She struggled to lift the first one, and every single one after that, until she had the whole space taken up.
She found nothing, but signs of mice.
After a couple of months of living in the big mansion on her own, Ade sat listening to absolutely nothing. She watched her house, big and full of things, do absolutely nothing, too. Merv was gone, but she felt that he was watching her, and judging her.
He was still everywhere: in every picture, every seat, and every lamp. Merv’s awful taste in design, decor, art, and wives was causing Ade to panic.
Fuck it.
She entered her dusty gardening shed, and emerged with a wheelbarrow. Her garden was full of tiny test sites, where Ade had been digging for Merv’s money. She just had another nine acres to go before she covered the whole garden.
In the kitchen, her cupboards had been totally emptied, and her hallways had floorboards missing.
She was randomly testing parts of her house, too.
She had tried to coax the money’s whereabouts from a drunken Merv, one night, but all he had replied with was, “I put it in April.”
Ade had no idea what he’d meant. She wasn’t even sure if that’s what he’d said. She had no other choice, but to look for it, herself. April is the fourth month, so she tried every fourth room, every fourth step, every fourth floorboard, and every fourth foot outside. There were millions of dollars hiding somewhere, and Ade knew it.
Merv used to come home from events with his bag heavy with cash. He’d leave it in their sitting room, and by the next morning, the bag was always empty. It would be waiting by his car keys, ready to be filled again.
Ade tried to follow Merv once, but she had only gotten halfway down the stairs when he caught her.
“You ever try to follow me again, and I’ll break your jaw,” he said.
She believed him, too.
That’s why floor after floor, she tossed his every belonging down the stairs. Clothes, old title belts, replica boats, watches, bed sheets, and records all went tumbling down to the waiting wheelbarrow.
She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she just knew that she had to get rid of him this second, or the guilt would sit inside her and become permanently comfortable.
Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, she dumped his stuff onto their nighttime lawn. She was angry, guilty, sweaty, and without a plan. She knew that just simply dumping it outside would mean she would only have to deal with it the next morning, so she filled the garage with it.
From now on, she lived in the house, and what was left of him lived in the garage.
The car company came, and took the car back. Then they came again, and took the second car. All of the bills stayed in their envelopes by the door, and Ade hid from anyone who knocked.
She didn’t know who any of the people knocking were, and she didn’t care. At first, she’d hear them knock, and would hide under her bed. But the more that she got used to it, the more she hid in plain sight.
She didn’t panic, because she knew that there was money. She had seen it brimming out over Merv’s overnight bag for decades.
Their house was big, with a lot of under floor options, and crawl spaces in the walls. She thought that it might take her a while, but Ade had time.
At least, she felt like she had time, until the wrestling company she was left with began to lose their crowds in droves. Ade was in charge, now, but she wasn’t a wrestling person, and didn’t understand how to draw people into her territory over a sustained period of time.
Her hunt for Merv’s hidden treasures took on a new importance.
Her failing wrestling business made the other male bosses very happy; nothing brought them more glee than watching a woman drown slowly in their industry. None of them wanted her at their closed-door meetings, except maybe for Proctor King. It was hard to tell, though; he didn’t let out much, and she didn’t care to ask.
All Ade could see was that Proctor and Danno were playing the game beautifully, and when the time came for Proctor to have the title belt, he would be one rich man, just like they had both planned. Ade was supposed to be rich right there alongside him.
“Ma’am,” said the foreman, as he walked toward Ade.
“Yes?” Ade replied, thinking that this was the moment.
“Are you sure?”
Ade’s heart dropped a little. “Yes.”
The foreman unfurled the plans on her table. “You’re sure?”
Ade leaned into his view. “If I have to say yes once more, I will find myself another contractor.”
The foreman nodded, and left the room. “Start her up boys,” he shouted up the stairs.
On his word, the thump of sledgehammers and the deafening squeal of electric saws began.
San Francisco.
1971.
Ade Schiller, known then as Adrienne Hulse, grew up on the road. Her father was a pro-wrestler, her mother was a pro-wrestler, and she was the only child.
Although the road took them everywhere, New York was a place that animated her adolescent mind, and it did so even more as a teenager. It was the lights and the glamour: the big city.
It was also the place where her father had died in the ring.
Only a couple of times in history had a wrestler actually died within the
ropes. Ade’s old man had died of a heart attack, which had left him cold about sixteen minutes into a match in New York.
Ade wished it had been in Madison Square Garden. She wanted her father to have at least gone out in a full house with people chanting his name. Unfortunately, he died in the back room of a bar. He never saw the big time, never made the big money, and never worked for any of the big companies.
Ade always dreamed of putting their family name right, for him, and for herself. She wanted to fill the hole that she felt as she imagined him taking his last breath with no one looking, and no one caring, because he wasn’t top of the card. He wasn’t rich, powerful, or a star.
Lance Root—now there was a star. Back when Ade was a younger woman, he was the guy that everyone used to pay to see get beat. She remembered his thick lips, and the palm of his hands, which were always so much whiter than the rest of his body. He grunted, mostly, and looked annoyed to be alive.
Ade had figured that he might just have been the man to revive her ailing territory. Back in the day, no one drew more money as a bad guy than Lance.
So, Mr. Root, smelling desperation, had called the terms of his deal: the ludicrous, non-sustainable terms, which Ade had agreed to.
She’d figured that the house was about to pay out, and with Lance Root on her roster, she was sure to be covered there, too.
What she hadn’t known was that Lance didn’t really feel like working all that hard. He had come to San Francisco to more or less retire. He just hadn’t told Ade that before they both signed a multi-year deal.
He was slow, old, fat, and nothing like the heat magnet that he was back in the day. No one cared, least of all Lance, if he wrestled or not.
Ade had just paid out more than she would have for the world heavyweight champion, and all she’d gotten was a useless sack of meat.
San Francisco.
1972.
The house was a skeleton, with only tightly-woven industrial plastic sheeting holding it together. The grounds were overturned completely, and all of the bricks that were removed lay perfectly stacked beside the house. It was a neat destruction, but it was destruction, nonetheless.
