The Hurting Circus

by Paul O'Brien

  Jimmy watched his father walk, and a small smile broke out onto his face. A couple of steps in, and Jimmy began to mimic Lenny’s stride until their walk was identical.

  “I’m big for my age, don’t you think?” Jimmy asked. “Big shoulders.”

  “Ah—yeah. You’re—yeah.”

  Jimmy could hardly hide the excitement on his face. “I could run this neighborhood in a few years.”

  “Yeah?” Lenny said.

  “Yeah. Easy. What happened to your face?” Jimmy asked.

  “I fell,” Lenny said.

  “You fell into someone’s fist.”

  Lenny laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Japan.

  The Pacific Hotel was where all foreign wrestlers—or gaijins as they were known locally—were put up when they wrestled in the Tokyo Dome. Even though Ricky wasn’t wrestling buildings that size anymore, Mr. Asai, the Japanese promoter, made sure Ricky still had a room there. Ricky and his Japanese boss had battled each other time and again when both men were younger and making names for themselves across Japan. There was a deep respect between them, which only grew as they got older. Even though Ricky was well past his prime, he knew that Mr. Asai always had a job for him, always had a room for him. Always had a paycheck for him.

  Jet-lagged and thousands of miles away, all Ricky could wonder about was whether Ginny got his ice cream.

  As he looked out his window, he couldn’t help but reflect on his years in Japan since Danno died. When he first got there, his huge advantage was that he was white, American, and part of a tag team he formed with the huge Texan, Wild Ted Berry. Neither man liked each other much, but they had both been around long enough to know that coming to Japan and splitting the work in a tag team made sense. At least, it did until they got sick of splitting the money, too.

  They started out as a big attraction to the Japanese audience. Every night, in every venue, Ricky and Ted would find themselves well paid and at the top of the card. After a couple of years, the money and the crowds shrank. Ted did some final tours in the late seventies, but headed back to America to wrestle off and on in New York again. Ricky couldn’t return home safely, so he stayed—or maybe overstayed. That was when Ginny got real sick. Ricky had no choice but to go find the best care for him. Both men snuck back to New York. Ginny stayed; Ricky left again to make some money to pay for Ginny’s care. He found himself traveling Japan for small to mid-sized companies, wrestling for one hundred and eighty dollars a day. To supplement his money, he sold pictures and autographs from his gimmick table at the back of the halls for any fan that wanted them. He dreamed every day about going back home for good, but all he knew how to do was wrestle and book wrestling matches. After what had happened in New York, Ricky didn’t even know if he could keep getting back into the US alive, much less get employed there.

  He stayed in Japan because every penny he made was saved for Ginny. The only treat he allowed himself was a trip at the end of every tour to a small, nondescript steakhouse in Gotanda, Tokyo. Even then, he left the phone number of the restaurant with the receptionist in his hotel, in case something happened with Ginny.

  Ricky knew that he couldn’t do all that much anymore, with his body as broken down as it was, so he had turned to other means to attract an audience and keep himself employed and on the booking sheet. If he couldn’t entice the crowds with speed or skill, there was a growing market for blood in Japan; they loved their technical classics and bloody brawls equally. Technical exhibitions were many years removed from Ricky’s capabilities, so he leaned on the bloody brawls to keep the crowds interested in him. His matches weren’t about headlocks, body slams, or suplexes, but about barbed wire, blood, and sharp objects. His old body couldn’t go sixty minutes anymore, but it could bleed with the best of them, and that’s what it did to pay the bills: bleed.

  New York.

  Ginny spent however long it took for hot water to go cold looking at his plastic razor. He had no idea what it was for, so he kept looking at it until it came to him. He knew it was close to 6:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. was ice cream time. There was shaving cream on his face for a reason, but he couldn’t piece it together, so he used the now-cold water to wash it off and he threw the razor in the bin. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he’d remember what it was for, and he would hide it again.

  They didn’t like him having razors in his room.

  He laid his shirt on his bed and his shoes on the floor. His neck and ears still had a little shaving cream on them. He decided to go with a tie. He dragged his favorite soft chair into the middle of the room and had the TV ready to go on his channel. Sometimes he’d forget to turn on the TV, and sometimes he’d forget to get fully dressed, but he never forgot that 6:00 p.m. was ice cream time.

  He just didn’t know that it was coming from Ricky.

  Shirt on, tie on, pants on—his shoes were forgotten this time. Ginny waited, facing the door. He watched the seconds tick by on the clock. It wasn’t a minute past, or a minute before; the ice cream always came at six. The second hand made its way around and excitement made Ginny want to pee, but he dared not move. The mixture was the same every Wednesday, but it still seemed like Christmas to him. It reminded Ginny of being a boy or something, and it made him happy. It made the stressful day of remembering and forgetting a little less terrible.

  Tick, tick. Tap, tap. It was six o’clock, and there was a tap on the window. Ginny was facing the wrong way due to months of getting his delivery through his door.

  Tap, tap. Ginny tried to identify where the sound was coming from, and then it hit him.

  Ginny stood and walked to where the man was standing outside his window. He put his two fingers underneath the slim frame and pulled up. There it was: Pagladoni’s twelve scoops, four bananas, three candy toppings, whipped cream, and a long spoon. He could hardly control himself as he took it. He never looked around to see who had left it, and he never bothered closing his window. It was ice cream time, and nothing else mattered.

  “See you next week, Ginny,” the ice cream guy said as he walked away.

  Ginny’s mouth was too full to reply, but he tried.

  Japan.

  Ricky usually rode the bullet train. He did so at his own risk. He was a heel bad guy in Japan, and the Japanese took their wrestling very seriously. Even though he covered up and wore a hat, he stood out pretty easily among the Japanese commuters. The promotion hired a bus for the heels and a separate bus for the babyfaces to get them to the buildings—but Ricky preferred to keep to himself. He was usually one of the only gaijins onboard those buses, so he always felt a little like an outsider. He knew that it was his own fault for not learning the language, but when Ricky arrived in Japan, he had never imagined that he’d still be there ten years later.

  At first Mr. Asai knew that Ricky might be a little isolated, so they insisted that Ricky take their English-speaking referee, Masa Kido, as his travel partner. Masa was a veteran who had been designated to look after the foreigners, to make sure that they made their bookings on time. Now, Masa was one of Ricky’s most trusted friends on the road. The foreign wrestler and the local referee had spent hundreds of hours around each other. Ricky had met Masa’s family and slept at their house anytime Ricky was working a match close by. In Japan, at this point in his career, Ricky turned nothing down—no matter how violent or dangerous the match. He knew that Mr. Asai was running out of ways to hide his broken-down body, so he appreciated every single booking he got.

  In the locker room, Ricky watched as a “young boy” took the boots off a Japanese veteran who had just finished his match. Sometimes these young boys were indeed just that, but more universally, they were rookies looking to get into the business. They slept on floors, carried bags, and washed the ring gear of the established wrestlers.

  In the showers, a forty-year-old young boy sumo wrestler—who wanted into the business—washed the feet of the Japanese champion. It made Ricky uncomfortable to see, but to everyone e
lse in the locker room, it was a sign of respect and tradition.

  “You ready?” Masa asked Ricky from the door of the locker room.

  Ricky nodded. It was show time.

  The hall was full with a good main event on top. Ricky walked through the curtain, and his presence garnered an audible “ahh” from the crowd. He was a New Yorker, but his gimmick in Japan was that of a cowboy. He made his way to the ring with black ropes and white turnbuckles as the crowd patted him on the back and showered him in paper confetti. Ricky tried to heel it up a little by threatening to punch the fans who leaned out to touch him. They still applauded him; they liked Ricky, and they knew that he was a “one hundred percent” kind of wrestler. They wanted blood, they wanted effort, and they wanted the right man to win. Ricky had mastered all three of those categories in Japan.

  The building was industrial looking, with different levels separated by exposed concrete. The ring sat on a perfectly shiny wooden floor, and the audience around the ring was cordoned off to give the wrestlers a pathway around it to work. Inside the ropes stood Masa, the ref, in his lime green trousers and his lemon yellow shirt. Beside him stood some pretty local girls, waiting to hand their bouquet of flowers over to the combatants. Of course, Ricky, in character, wouldn’t take his, and this made the crowd finally boo him.

  Ricky’s opponent, Genji Shin, made his entrance, and the crowd became noticeably more excited. Genji had once been the face of the company, but a betting scandal had rocked him out of the top spot. He was still a good worker, but he was the sleaziest man in the company—not an easy feat. Genji was always on the end of his nerves, with his nails bitten down to nubs and his greasy hair barely clinging to his head. He took delight in ripping the fans off at the bar, his merchandise stand, or wherever he could. He was also not shy about taking advantage of the female fans in every town he worked in. He was a classic example of a holier-than-thou persona in public, but a scumbag in private.

  Ricky wasn’t the only man in the match who was past his prime and needed money. The two men needed it for diametrically different purposes, but in wrestling, that didn’t matter. The ring announcer began to introduce both Ricky and Genji Shin, but Genji smashed Ricky in the back of the head before his name could be read out. Ricky could tell by the snugness of Genji’s punch that there was going to be very little acting involved in their match. Genji was supposed to be the babyface good guy in the match, so his attack from behind made no sense to Ricky. He stomped down on Ricky’s head, and all he could hear was the piercing high-pitched squeal of an eardrum blowing. Ricky quickly got out of there and took a knee while he tried to figure out what was going on.

  “Are we working, here?” Ricky asked Masa.

  “Be careful of this guy,” Masa whispered.

  Ricky knew that his opponent was going to use Ricky in the territory to make himself look like a killer. Genji wanted people and the promoter talking about him. And he was going to take liberties with the broken-down foreigner to do it. Especially now that there was a rumor that Ricky was going back to New York for good. If you wanted to make yourself look good at Ricky Plick’s expense, now was the time.

  Ricky rose as fast as he could, but the blow to the ear made it harder for him to stand straight. Genji rushed Ricky backward into the turnbuckle and began to “potato” the shit out of him with punches. Every strike, usually measured and careful, bounced directly off of Ricky’s skull for real. Ricky fish-hooked his overzealous opponent and spun him into the corner. He gave his receipt in strong right hands: one, two, three hard shots just above Genji’s eyebrow. Ricky could see the scar tissue there, and he went to work on it. Genji raked Ricky’s eyes, giving Ricky a hard time both hearing and seeing what was coming for him. After a stiff elbow to the jaw, Ricky was down in the corner.

  Genji slid into the corner with Ricky. He wormed his way in and brought his face close to Ricky’s. Ricky could see that the Japanese wrestler was trying to bite him in the clinch. There wasn’t much room to move, as Ricky was trapped between the turnbuckles in the corner and a crazed-looking wrestler in front of him. Ricky grabbed Genji’s head and slowed everything down. He felt a measure of control come back to the match—that was until Ricky felt the sting of a blade above his eye, and then the resulting warmth of his own fresh blood running down his face and neck. Fuck that. Genji had cut Ricky, without Ricky’s permission. This was a practice that old-timers used to practice with greenhorns who didn’t know how to blade properly. But Ricky Plick was no greenhorn.

  Ricky bullied his way back to his feet and stood away from Genji. It was totally disrespectful to “get color”—to blade a veteran—and it was a killable offense to draw blood from them if they didn’t know it was coming.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Ricky shouted to his smiling opponent.

  “That’s a bad cut,” Masa said as he flew by.

  “You fucking think?” Ricky replied as he dabbed the blood running down his face. Ricky advanced to Genji and stiffed him with a forearm across the face. He then head-butted Genji for real across the bridge of the nose, and the local wrestler stumbled back into the ropes. Ricky could see blood. And not just his own. He then grabbed Genji by the throat and fired him as hard as could between the ropes, out to the shiny wood floor. Ricky followed. He wiped away his own flowing blood so he could see where to grab a chair. Genji watched as Ricky approached with his new weapon, so Genji “fed” Ricky his back to hit. He bent over, and made his back as long and straight as possible for Ricky to aim for. Ricky wasn’t having any of Genji’s sudden wish to work together; he swung as hard as he could toward the back of Genji’s head. The chair bounced off the back of his skull, and blood immediately squirted out into the audience from the resulting gash. Genji went down hard. Ricky kicked his opponent’s head and stomped on his face as Genji lay unconscious on the ground.

  Masa slipped in between the two men and tried to push Ricky off. “Enough,” Masa shouted. “He’s out. He’s out!”

  Ricky spat on Genji as he lay on the floor with a pool of blood growing beside his skull. The audience booed and heckled Ricky. He was in no mood for working. He was pissed off and there was no way he could act any other way.

  As he stood there and looked around, Ricky couldn’t come up with a solid reason to stay in Japan anymore. He was tired and beat up, and he missed Ginny more than anything else in the world. With New York showing seeds of growth back home, Ricky didn’t feel the choking pressure to stay here.

  “I’m going home,” Ricky said to himself. He walked, in peace, in the middle of a chaotic building.

  New York.

  Jimmy was on a mission to impress his old man. He was known around the neighborhood, and he wanted Lenny to know he was known. Jimmy saluted, greeted, and nodded coolly to anyone in sight as he and his father walked by.

  “I’m well known around here,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good,” Lenny said.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy replied.

  “Yeah.”

  Jimmy continued to lead the way.

  “So, where are we going?” Lenny asked.

  “Just another block.” Jimmy crossed the road between traffic. Waiting for cars to stop was for little babies, and Jimmy Long was no baby.

  Lenny could finally see where his boy was bringing him. “I … uh … we should go somewhere else.”

  “What, you don’t like pie?” Jimmy asked, with a look of utter confusion on his face. “Who doesn’t like pie?”

  Then Jimmy realized that Lenny had no money.

  “It’s my treat,” the boy said, as he continued walking.

  Lenny followed. “Your treat?”

  “Yeah, I got my pocket money.”

  Lenny noticed that the guy behind the counter in Pizza Pizza didn’t smile at Jimmy, even though Jimmy was polite and smiled back. The guy didn’t look like he wanted to hand over the slices of pizza, but Jimmy pointed to Lenny, and the guy behind
the counter reluctantly slid the slices to the boy.

  “Here you go, Pop,” Jimmy said, as he slid the cheese supreme over to Lenny.

  “He saying something to you?” Lenny asked.

  “He just wanted to make sure I wasn’t in here on my own.”

  Jimmy didn’t seem to notice, or care, about the guy who served him, so Lenny left it alone.

  “Thank you,” Lenny said.

  Even though it felt all-around weird to meet his son for the first time in twelve years, and not have the money to treat him, Lenny couldn’t help but feel a joy in actually getting a chance to study his boy’s face.

  “You shouldn’t eat it all at once—it’ll burn your mouth,” Jimmy said.

  Lenny wasn’t sure if Jimmy was advising Lenny, or if he was reminding himself that it would burn him.

  “Can we keep this to ourselves?” Lenny asked.

  “Yes,” Jimmy replied, very matter-of-factly. “I won’t say anything to Mom.”

  Lenny felt the need to explain. “It’s just that I haven’t seen your mother in—”

  “Twelve years.” Jimmy looked up from his slice for the first time. His eyes were identical to Bree’s. “You haven’t been home in twelve years.”

  Lenny nodded. “What I’m trying to say,” he continued, “is that I want to be different when I see her.”

  “You want your face to be better?” Jimmy asked.

  Lenny took a bite. So did Jimmy.

  “Yeah, I want to look a little better. But I want to show your mom that I’m … not the same. It’s hard to explain. Like I have prospects, you know. Like I can look after you guys. Like I’m a fucking man.”

  Jimmy took a second to let Lenny’s words settle in. “I understand,” he said as he took another bite.

  “How—how is she?” Lenny asked.

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How good?”

  “What?”

  Lenny paused. “Is she happy?”

  “She cries sometimes. I don’t know whether that’s because she misses you or not.”