by Paul O'Brien
The shadowy mentor dropped his cigarette on the floor, and stomped it out with his foot.
“I’m going to start letting these people in, now,” shouted the front-of-house manager from the opening door.
“The hero can never give up during the Comeback phase.”
Tad sat at his perfectly placed desk in a small partitioned office. It was about twelve by twelve feet, but this was his kingdom. He particularly liked to boss women around—it made him feel good.
This morning, though, his appointment was with Lenard Long. Tad looked at his diary, and he treated himself to five women in a row, after Lenard.
“Next,” Tad shouted out the door. Lenny pushed open the door a little to make sure that it was okay to enter. “Come in, Mister Long.”
Lenny did just that, and sat opposite the greasy-haired parole officer. Tad took out a form. He had a pen holder that was populated by fifty ballpoint pens, and all of them still had their lids attached.
“Did we do a piss test the last time we met?”
“No.”
Tick.
“Are you a homosexual?”
“What?”
Tad looked up from his form sternly, but broke into a smile. “Just kidding. See, this isn’t so bad, is it? Parole doesn’t have to be me all over your ass, and you, like, hating me doing that to you.”
Lenny was just going to agree to whatever he had to, if it would get him the fuck out of there. “Okay,” Lenny said.
Tad dropped his pen, and leaned back in his chair to prove that he had a rebellious streak. “Are you doing your bit, Lenard?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“People always wonder what it is we do. Do we just look at people pissing all day, or are we checking up on people in Mexican restaurants? Neither. We give people the option to take from society, or to give back. If you’re one of the ones who gives back, then you’ll never have to worry about Tad Stolliday. However...”
“I have a job. I have a place to stay. I’m not doing any drugs, and I can even stay away from alcohol, if you want me to.”
Tad looked hurt that he didn’t get to finish his speech. “Spot checks—that’s what works. That’s what I do: I drop in on people, and make sure that they’re keeping the promises they made to this great city.”
With that, Tad packed up his rebel behavior, and picked up his pen, again. There was paperwork to be done.
Lenny knew that time was running out; he needed to start acting like a boss. It was time for him to grab this situation by the balls, and implement the plan. He needed to see if it could work, because he had no more options.
So, he called Ade.
She said she’d meet him on West 19th Street. It would be safe there, with not many people around, so they could talk.
“She’s just gone in,” Jimmy said to his father, who was hiding around the corner.
“Anyone with her?” Lenny asked.
“Nope.”
Lenny looked up and down the street for the faces of anyone who could do him harm.
“Okay, go in and scout the place. Make sure that it’s just her,” Lenny said.
Jimmy nodded, and was only too thrilled to be helping out his father. Lenny composed himself, and went over his memorized script. This was the beginning of the final play. He weighed the long list of everything that could go wrong; he also thought about staying stuck, where he was.
Lenny was more willing to roll the dice.
A couple of minutes later, Jimmy left the building, and walked past Lenny, like they’d never met. “She’s alone.”
Lenny followed her in.
It was a gallery: pure white, with various pieces of art on the walls. Ade seemed to be pulled in by the giant black and white picture of a hand. It held a card that said in red print: I SHOP, THEREFORE, I AM.
“Do you like it?” Ade asked, as if she had sensed Lenny approaching.
“No.”
She turned around. “Why not?”
“I don’t like things that try so hard to mean something when they actually mean nothing.”
Ade smiled. “You’re not going to have fun in here, today.”
“Why don’t we grab a coffee?”
“Tell me your idea, first. Then we’ll see if it’s worth a coffee or not,” Ade said, when she knew the coast was clear.
Lenny took another look at the piece on the wall to buy himself that extra second so he could make sure that he was doing the right thing. It was the only angle he had left; he might as well swing for the fences with it.
“Well, they’ve starved us of wrestlers, our TV wants content, and our booker didn’t come back to town today,” Lenny said.
“He didn’t?”
Lenny shook his head. “So, we’ve got no wrestlers, no Ricky, and that leaves me with nothing to fill my TV slot with.”
Ade could see that Lenny was desperately trying to adjust to being the boss. “So, what are you thinking?”
“I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to do champion versus champion.”
Ade was totally disappointed. This same idea had been shot down a hundred times in the last decade, and she knew that’s what Joe Lapine, the chairman of the NWC, had in mind. She wasn’t going to go directly against the National Wrestling Council—she had already learned her lesson.
“This is what you called me into the city for? They’re not going to cut us in on that deal, no matter what we offer,” she said.
“I don’t want to do business with the other wrestling bosses, Ade. I’m talking about professional wrestling heavyweight champion versus boxing heavyweight champion.”
The idea was so out of left field that Ade had to check that he wasn’t joking. “Are you serious?”
This is where Lenny’s knowledge and fandom of wrestling really came to life. He might never have run a wrestling company before, but Lenny knew wrestling history. He was like an encyclopedia of past matches, angles, winners, and losers.
He knew what he liked as a fan, and he knew what had drawn the big numbers in the past. Wrestling and boxing had been linked since day one, and crossing both had always meant money. It was usually using boxing champions as wrestling referees, or outside enforcers, where the boxer would come in at the end, and teach the heel wrestler a lesson. What Lenny was proposing happened a lot less frequently, but it had, historically, drawn a lot of money.
“They did it in Japan, before: boxing champ versus wrestling champ. It created a ton of interest and tickets sales. It was a terrible match—most all wrestler versus boxer matches are—but we can make it better.”
Ade began to think about it. It was genius. This was the way to put on a match that the world would be interested in, without relying on the NWC to supply the talent on the other side of the ring.
“But your champion—”
“I’ll talk to my champion.”
“Would he be up for it? He’d have to lose. No one is going to put Jinky Keeves in the ring against a rookie wrestler, and let the wrestler win.”
“I agree. But by losing, our champion has to become a star. We’ll make him valiant, and heroic; we’ll give him no chance from the start. We’ll set the story like David versus Goliath: in the end, the boxing Goliath wins, but our guy is seen and respected by millions who might want to see his next match.”
“How do we even get this sanctioned?”
“We might have to go outside the US. All I need for now are headlines—exposure. We need our champion’s face everywhere. He has to be introduced to America with a bang. Then we’re going to have stadiums and international promoters kicking our doors in.”
“Lenny.” Ade was surprised—delighted, but surprised. “This is... I can make this work. I can make money from this. We can run the video packages on your TV.”
“I want a press conference—I want this to look legit. I want our territory to come across like the crown jewel, again.”
Suddenly, the art lost its luster.
“Just one thing
.” Ade said.
“Yeah?”
She slipped a small stack of hundred dollar bills into Lenny’s pocket. “You have to start looking like a boss, if we’re to do this.”
Lenny nodded; there was no counter-argument that he could make. “I’ll re-pay you out of our take.”
“I’ll be the money, you be the boss,” Ade said. She was genuinely excited. “I could kiss you.”
“Let’s wait until this whole thing is over, and then we’ll see if you feel the same way.”
Babu filled the hotel elevator like rising bread in a hot tin. A couple of other patrons bailed out of the closing door at the last second; they weren’t going to risk being stuck in a box with an agitated giant, and Babu was agitated.
When he got to the sixth floor, he stooped, and walked as fast as his legs would carry him to the door at the end of the hallway—the same door that Donta was sitting in front of. Babu, himself, had visited this door many times over the years.
“What can I do for you?” Donta asked when he saw the giant approaching. Somewhere in his bored mind, he hoped that Babu’s wife had told him that he’d followed her to work.
“Where’s Joe?” Babu asked.
Donta was slightly disappointed that Babu wasn’t here to see him. “He’s not in there.”
Babu kept walking, until he collapsed the door with a small shoulder charge. Donta never even moved; he just stayed seated on the floor.
“Joe?” Babu shouted. “We had a fucking deal, Joe.”
He checked the rooms in the suite, and the bathroom, too, but Joe wasn’t there.
“Where is he?” Babu asked Donta.
“Don’t know.”
“What are you sitting there for?”
“There’s no chair.”
Donta shimmied himself up from the ground along the wall to a standing position. “Now, who am I going to say is paying for that door?”
“He’ll have a lot more to worry about when I see him.”
Donta stood into Babu’s range. “You making threats, now?”
Babu took a step toward Donta. “You’re fucking right, I am. Where’s Ricky Plick?”
Donta never flinched. The name didn’t even register to him.
“I said, where’s Ricky?”
Donta stepped back. “Never heard of him.”
“I saw you here with Joe before. I know you know who I’m talking about,” Babu said.
Donta lit himself a cigarette. “Did it ever cross your mind that maybe Ricky just stayed where he was?”
Babu didn’t have time to argue. He didn’t know if Ricky was dead or dying, but he knew in his gut that it was one or the other—or maybe Donta was right. What if Ricky had just stayed in Japan? What if he was coming next week? There had been no phone call, though. What if Ricky just didn’t want anything to do with New York?
“Things would be better all around if you just deliver New York back here, like you said you would,” Donta said.
“I’m working on it.” Babu lied.
He was already sick to stomach that he and Joe Lapine had a secret handshake. He needed to find out if Ricky had tried to make contact, before he started a war. He promised himself as he left that if Joe broke the terms of their long-standing deal, there wouldn’t be a building in New York big enough or strong enough to keep him alive.
New York had always been the big-time place for professional wrestling. Other territories had, at points in history, made more money, drawn bigger crowds, and owned more popular champions, but New York was where everyone wanted to be.
There were several things that bolstered this belief, beginning with the fact that, in the early days, New York City was just the place to be seen. It was creative and decadent, and the world’s entertainment capital. New York was bright and brash, and where all the names were made in theater, sport, fashion, and business.
Wrestling was there, too.
When TV became part of home life, New York used its venue, Madison Square Garden, to make stars. One night, a kid would see the coolest band in the world play there, and the next night, he would watch the world heavyweight wrestling champion. The optics of the venue made stars of people.
Terry Garland, Danno’s father, had understood that more than most. That’s why he’d signed an exclusive deal with the Garden that prevented any other professional wrestling company from performing there.
That deal in and of itself had proved to be a huge pillar for his wrestling company to stand on. With access to the Garden, New York promoters were also great at getting their wrestlers into photo opportunities with trendsetters, chart-toppers, and even world leaders.
On one famous occasion, a champion had been photographed having a private audience with the Pope, and that picture, alone, had sold out the Garden for months.
Apart from housing the world’s most famous venue, New York was built on money. Everything cost more in New York, and wrestling wasn’t any different. A promoter in New York could charge an easy thirty percent more on his ticket than a southern promoter could for the same match; it just came with the place.
If, for any reason, New York wasn’t hot enough, then the Northeast was big enough that New York had the freedom of spreading its wings to find money, as well.
Simply put, it was perfectly placed both geographically and historically, and to those in the wrestling business, New York was worth backstabbing, conning, and killing for.
With New York so open and vulnerable, it had a line of people waiting to take the reins.
As if that wasn’t enough, there was one more thing coming that was going to make New York absolutely irresistible.
Atlanta, Georgia.
This was the meeting that Joe hoped no one else in the business had heard about. It was a giant leap that he needed New York for. Soon, they’d all hear about it, and they’d all want it for themselves. This was the patient build up that Joe had been preaching about.
This was the biggest opportunity of them all.
He was nervous as he waited for his host’s car to pull up and park. A driver came around to the back door, and opened it.
Sean Peak exited the car, and walked directly to Joe with his hand outstretched, as if they had known each other for twenty years.
“Joe Lapine,” Sean said. “My pleasure.”
“Mr. Peak,” Joe replied.
Sean stopped him right there. “It’s Sean. Let’s continue as we mean to.”
Joe smiled and nodded in agreement, as Sean’s guiding hand turned Joe around to show him why they were both there.
“You see that?” Sean asked.
Joe looked for a second before the tall, red, skeletal structure became obvious to his eye.
“I do,” Joe said with a huge smile.
“That’s it,” Sean said. “That’s what gets me from coast to coast, from state to state, and beyond.”
Joe had known about it, and had even studied it, but he hadn’t wanted to think of the potential until he saw it.
Now he could see the potential, and it was huge.
“Back in Florida, I ran a little station where Proctor King taped his weekly wrestling show. He was an asshole, but his numbers were consistently huge. With all due respect, this piece-of-shit wrestling show was outdrawing everything we had there. Then, one thing led to another, and Proctor never came home.”
Joe pretended that he had no idea what Sean was talking about.
“I’m thinking about putting professional wrestling on my station, here.”
Joe could hardly contain his excitement, and this didn’t happen very often, for a man who had seen all that he had seen. He knew that whoever got this chance was going to be the King of wrestling for a long, long time. A spot on a national cable station would take whichever territory that got itself out of the regional muck, into the mainstream. This would mean that more money than was ever imagined would be beating the roads around the same small loop.
Why own a piece of America when you could now lay claim
to it all?
“My concern is that, in the past, your business hasn’t been a united front,” Sean said. “I had some dealings with Danno Garland that damn nearly made me shit my pants.”
“Those days are gone,” Joe said. “As a matter of fact, we’re having a heavyweight title unification match in about a week’s time to solidify the whole country, again.”
Joe felt that he was able to speak with such clarity because, by then, he was sure that he would have Tanner’s territory, his own in Memphis, and New York on his books, too. That would give Joe the most powerful pieces of the puzzle—pieces that Joe would kill to show on a national station.
“Well, let’s see how you get on, Joe. I’d love to put wrestling on WSPS, but I have no interest in the old fractured way, with one wrestling league on one station. We could have it all.”
It was music to Joe’s ears.
“These people will buy you and sell you back to yourself,” Maw Maw Vosbury said, as he stepped off the elevator. He was accompanied by Jinky Keeves, the smartly dressed heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
“I know these guys,” Jinky said. “We don’t have anything to worry about.”
Maw Maw stopped him in his tracks. “You know the three cups scam? Three cups: they mix them around, and you guess where the money is.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, these guys’ whole business plan is to pick your pocket while you’re looking at the cups.”
Maw Maw started to walk again; Jinky followed.
“So, what are we talking to them for?” Jinky asked.
“I attend a yearly event in Los Angeles with these people, and one thing that I’ve learned is that they attract money,” Maw Maw replied. “Big fucking money, and we like money. Do you like money? I like money.”
Jinky nodded. Both men stood at the entrance of the restaurant, and took in its majesty. One hundred and ten feet above the dark and twinkling Manhattan streets, The Window to the World was the place to impress. It had glass, intersected with white columns, booths, and tables, freshly polished brass rails, soft lighting, and the best view of Manhattan: the river and the bridges in all of New York City.
