On Saturday nights we’d get Randy “Macho Man” Savage and Miss Elizabeth. André the Giant squaring off against King Kong Bundy—the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Meddling managers like Jimmy “the Mouth of the South” Hart. Scheming villains like “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Otherworldly creatures like George “the Animal” Steele. Gorilla Monsoon saying: “This place has gone bananas!” or “Ladies and gentlemen, Madison Square Garden just literally exploded!”
The only wrestler we hated was Hulk Hogan. Mister “Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, be true to yourself and your country—be a real American!” How cheeseball could you get?
To Dunk and me, wrestling made sense in an elemental way. Everything was defined and sensible within that squared circle. There were your heels and your babyfaces. Cheaters would cheat, schemers would scheme, but ultimately you paid what you owed. We understood the crest and ebb of a match, its rising and falling action. Even at ten years old we could appreciate the perfect finality to it all. When the Macho Man launched his flying elbow off the top rope, it was over. When Hulk Hogan dropped the big leg. When the Brain Busters hit their spike piledriver.
One Saturday night my dad came downstairs in his housecoat. It was around the time he’d been promoted to supervisor. Our house had been egged the week before; there was a suspicion that some guys at work had done it, though I found it impossible to believe forty-year-olds would do such a thing. Dad sat with a sigh that seemed to come less from his lungs than his bones.
“Wrestling, huh?” he said. “Those fellas can sure fill out a pair of tights.”
Hulk Hogan was fighting “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff in a steel cage match. Hulk Hogan bodyslammed Mr. Wonderful, then cupped his ear to drink in the roar of the crowd. We cheered our guts out for Mr. Wonderful, even though he was the heel.
“The Hulkster looks unstoppable,” Dad said with a sly smile. “Something tells me he’s going to win.”
“Bruiser Mahoney would beat the crud out of Hulk Hogan,” Dunk said. “Bruiser would eliminate him.”
“This Bruiser Mahoney sure sounds like something,” Dad said.
“Mr. Stuckey, Bruiser Mahoney is the greatest wrestler who has ever lived,” Dunk said with a bone-deep earnestness that my father surely found funny. “He’s fighting in two weeks at the arena.”
“Can we go?” I asked Dad.
“Is your father taking you, Duncan?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be sitting in the front row.”
Dad nodded. “Let’s go watch some wrasslin’.”
And so the first Saturday of every month became father-son wrestling night. When the lights dimmed and Bruiser Mahoney’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers—“You’re cruisin’ for a bruuuuuisin’!”—the place went electric.
Bruiser would storm down the Zamboni chute, sprinting to the ring so fast that his robe unfurled behind him like crimson wings. Vaulting over the ropes, he’d start to swing pure dynamite. He was untamed and breathtaking. His opponent didn’t know what the hell hit him. Neither did I.
“That Bruiser Mahoney really is something,” my father said that first night.
After that, Dunk’s father began to drop by on Fridays for a beer with my dad. Mr. Diggs would bring Dunk with him, or Dunk would already be over. One beer turned into five, plus a shot or two of Famous Grouse, which ran seven-fifty a bottle over the river. Our fathers would talk while we horsed around in the backyard with Sam Bovine, who had a tendency to latch onto us like a burr for days at a time. The boom of the Falls carried over the treetops to merge with the hiss of beer can pull-tabs and our fathers’ heavy, smoke-roughened laughter.
Physically they were different, my father and Mr. Diggs. Dad was taller but stoop-shouldered. As the years wore on, that stoop became more pronounced: his back bent until his body looked a little like a slender tree branch with a ripe apple hanging from it. Mr. Diggs was shorter, with the same dark hair that his son inherited; his body gave off this constant vibration, and I imagined the air closest to his arms and shoulders blurring the way it did around a hummingbird.
Other differences were harder for me to pinpoint, at least back then. One spring my father bought a new Chrysler Fifth Avenue with power locks and leather upholstery. When Mr. Diggs—who drove a second-hand Dodge Aspen—saw it, he rubbed one finger along his forehead.
“Jeez, isn’t she a beaut.”
My dad looked pained. “It’s nothing special, Jerry. The bank owns most of it.”
That same spring Dunk and I got our kits for the Kub Kar Rally. Our parents had forced us to join Cub Scouts the year previous; we both agreed it sucked rocks. Apart from one-match fires and knife ownership, Cubs was for shit. We’d sit around the school gym singing along to our leader’s acoustic guitar. That, or were forced to hear what berries we couldn’t eat if we got lost in the woods. Our sashes were almost naked. I got one measly badge for housecraft. Dunk earned one for … knots?
For the Kub Kar Rally we were each given a block of wood, four plastic wheels and axle pins. Our dads were allowed to help, but as my mother said: “I love your father, Dutchie, but as a handyman he’s about as useful as tits on a bull.”
Most men on our street had a tool room: a tight space in their basements where you’d find red vises, coffee cans full of nails and bolts, and corkboards with the outlines of tools marked in black Sharpie. Our basement had dusty boxes of exercise equipment my father had become frustrated trying to put together. “Some Assembly Required” was, so far as my father was concerned, the most deceitful phrase to ever be printed on a box-flap.
Still, he tried. He took a few experimental hacks at the wood block with a saw. Next he set his hands on his hips and frowned at me.
“Well, what’s your idea for this puppy?”
The next week we showed up at the rally with a lime-green thing that deviated only slightly from the block my Scout leader had given me. Dad wore a bandage between the webbing of his thumb and finger.
Thirty other boys were there with their fathers. Their cars had been lathed and routered and polished to a high shine.
“They should rename it the Daddy’s Car Rally,” my father said.
Bovine’s car was a piece of crap, too. His dad was a mortuary attendant and apparently just as clueless as mine. At least he’d been allowed to write Babe Magnet on his block of wood.
“I can’t wait to get my licence,” he whispered. “If my car’s a-rockin’, don’t you come a-knockin’.”
When I asked what he meant, Bovine shook his head as if I was too dumb for words.
I spotted Clyde Hillicker and Adam Lowery. Their dads worked at the Bisk, too. Mr. Hillicker resembled a Saint Bernard with a beer gut. Mr. Lowery looked like a weasel that had learned how to dress itself.
“You help him build it, boss?” Mr. Lowery asked my father. He said “boss” the way other people say “asshole.” “I guess some things you can’t learn in books, huh?”
“I let him figure it out for himself,” my father said. “We’re not going to be around their whole lives, are we?”
Dunk’s car had a flat black finish and flames licking off the front. He didn’t seem that proud of it.
“That’s a hell of a thing,” Dad said appreciatively. “A real fire-baller.”
“Thanks,” Dunk said. Mr. Diggs smiled sheepishly.
My car came in dead last in its first heat. A wheel spun off in the next heat, disqualifying me.
“Good to see you’re earning that big salary,” Mr. Lowery said to my father, as if one thing had anything to do with the other.
Dunk’s car came first in its preliminary heat and second in the next. Mr. Diggs sprayed WD-40 on the axle pins. It rallied past Clyde Hillicker’s car in the semi-finals.
The final came down to Dunk and Adam Lowery. Their cars raced down the incline, plastic wheels clattering on the polished ramp. When Dunk won, Mr. Lowery downed his glass of McDonald’s Orange Drink like it was a shot of Jack Daniel’s, crushed th
e wax-paper cup and sidled over to our Scout leader.
Our leader—an ashen-faced man with a prominent Adam’s apple—came over to Dunk and his father. Mr. Lowery and Mr. Hillicker flanked him.
“Mr. Diggs, these men are …” Our leader adjusted the knot on his scarf. “Well, they suspect a lack of fair play on your part. They think …”
“That car’s heavy,” Mr. Hillicker said. “It’s heavier’n wood, that’s for sure.”
As soon as Hillicker said it, I knew he was right. The truth was there in Mr. Diggs’ eyes. “I don’t … didn’t think …” he stammered. “You’re saying there’s some rule against …”
I’d never seen a full-grown man struggle so badly with his words. He shrunk two full sizes right there in the dusty gym.
Adam Lowery snatched Dunk’s car off the track and handed it to his dad. Mr. Lowery flipped it over and scratched its black finish with a pocketknife.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said. He sunk the knife’s tip in and popped off a square of carpenter’s putty. Out fell a cube of solid metal, landing with a metallic clink. In the ensuing silence you could have heard an ant trundle across the wooden floor.
“You cheat,” Adam said to Dunk. He pointed at Mr. Diggs and said: “Cheaters, the both of you.”
A collective gasp went round from one boy to another. You could rag another boy about his weight or the fact his mom made him wear suspenders or just about anything, really, but you never, ever ragged on a grown man—especially to accuse him of cheating. Even if it appeared that was exactly what he’d done.
Mr. Diggs spoke in a thick, choked voice. “My son didn’t know a thing about it.”
“You can only use what comes in the kit,” our leader said softly. “Plus paint and varnish. Did you read the instructions?”
Mr. Diggs ran the flat of one hand over his flushed face. Dunk was gripping his other hand so hard that his fingertips had turned white.
“I guess I didn’t. Not properly.”
“Cheating at a Kub Kar Rally,” Mr. Lowery said. “Jesus, Jerry. Of all the skunky—”
“Just a second now, Stan,” my father said. “The wheels on your son’s car are thin as pizza cutters. Been bevelled, haven’t they? You shaved them down right fine—or your boy did.”
Mr. Lowery’s lips pressed into a thin white line. His fingers twitched below the worn hem of his deerskin jacket.
“Well?” my father said to our leader. “Is that legal?”
After a moment our leader said: “Strictly speaking, no.”
“You can’t mean …” Mr. Lowery said. “The wheels are right out in the open. You can see them.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but rules are rules,” my dad said. “That’s something I learned in a book, Stan.”
The rally was won by Kevin Harley, who’d come in third. Kevin’s father kissed the stupid trophy and held it above his head, beaming, as if he’d just won the Stanley Cup.
Afterwards I overheard some of the other fathers talking about Duncan. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree …
Two weeks after the rally, as spring shaded into an early summer, the Eastern Wrestling Alliance returned to town.
The Memorial Arena was filling by the time I showed up with my father. I pushed through the turnstile, pulling on Dad’s hand like a dog straining against its leash. Dad was still in his work clothes, tie hanging from his neck like a wet noose.
“Come on, Dad.”
“Hold your horses, Dutchie.”
The ring was bathed in a halo of light thrown by a mesh-enclosed lamp burning above. Dunk waved at us from the fifth row, wearing his Bruiser Mahoney T-shirt.
“We had front row but we couldn’t save enough seats,” he told me.
“You could’ve stayed,” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “Better to sit together.”
The curtain-jerker was between Disco Dirk and the Masked Assassin. Dirk swivelled his hips and preened for the ladies, which was wasted effort seeing as there weren’t more than a handful of them there. The Assassin caught Dirk with a pumphandle slam and pinned him, much to everyone’s relief.
A few more matches, then an intermission. We stood in line at the concession stand. Further back stood Mr. Lowery and Mr. Hillicker with their sons. Mr. Lowery jutted his chin at my father and said something to Mr. Hillicker; their dark laughter drifted up the queue.
Our fathers bought two draft beers apiece, clinking their plastic cups with unambiguous grimness. Dunk was hopping from foot to foot.
“Bruiser’s up next.”
His opponent was the Boogeyman, who stalked down the aisle with his lizard-green face, stepped through the ropes and stalked around the ring flicking his bright red tongue.
“Let’s go up close,” Dunk said, tugging my sleeve. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”
We ran down the aisle as Bruiser Mahoney’s music began: John Henry was a Steel-Drivin’ Man.
“Somebody is cruisin’ for a bruuuuuisin’!”
The crowd rose to a thunderous roar as Bruiser Mahoney burst through a rainbow of sizzling fireworks. He ran with a high-kneed and almost clumsy gait, robe billowing off his heels. His face was set in an expression of controlled wrath—of joy. You could imagine a Spartan warrior running into battle with that same teeth-gritted, cockeyed look.
“Bruiser!” Dunk cried, stretching one arm over the barrier.
Bruiser Mahoney slapped Dunk’s palm on the way past. It sent Dunk reeling into me. He just sat there with a blissful expression, staring at his reddening hand.
Bruiser Mahoney booted the Boogeyman in the breadbasket, stunned him with a shot to the solar plexus, flung him into the ropes and tagged him with a dropkick, then hauled him up and delivered a mat-shaking German suplex. The crowd was mad for blood and Bruiser was happy to oblige.
Looking back now, I could see why the guys we watched those nights never hit the big time—even Mahoney, who’d wrestled for six months in the WWF as Jimmy Falcone, working as a trail horse: a guy whose sole job is to lose and make his opponent look good while doing so. After that stint the promotion sent him packing to the carnival-tent and county fair circuit.
It wasn’t that guys like Mahoney were any less muscular than the men who made their livings in the big league; it was more that their bodies lacked the requisite speed and grace. Their limbs seemed slightly disconnected from their brains. They moved at a plodding pace, more like durable tractors than souped-up race cars. And sure, there would always be a place for tractors, but it was not under the bright lights of Maple Leaf Gardens. The Garden City Arena in St. Catharines with its two-thousand-seat capacity was a better fit.
But we were too young to understand how men might be held back by their physical limitations—we figured these guys were fighting each other because they hated each other. We were fortunate that this was the arena they’d chosen to settle their blood feuds.
It was a see-saw of a match. The Boogeyman sprayed poisonous green mist—in fact, lime Jell-O—into Mahoney’s face, then smashed him with a powerbomb. Normally that would be enough to put away the stoutest challenger, but the crowd rallied Mahoney back. He blocked the Boogeyman’s double axe-handle chop and slung him into the ropes, tagging him with a crippling lariat clothesline on the rebound. He climbed the top turnbuckle. The lights hit every contour of his superhuman physique. Mahoney paused in that silvery fall of light—a showman aware of the moment—before spreading his arms and leaping.
He was only ten feet off the ground but from my vantage he could have had wings. For a moment he remained motionless—the whole world did—then the gears clicked and everything accelerated and Bruiser Mahoney slammed the Boogeyman, spiking him to the canvas.
One. Two. Three.
Bruiser Mahoney grabbed the microphone. “Yeah?” A wild cheer went up. He grinned. “Ohhh yeeeeah!”
The cheer was louder this time. It rose up and up, the sound of three thousand lungs emptying towards the roof beams.
“And I
’ll be here, I’ll … be … right … here,” Bruiser said, stomping his foot on the mat. Three thousand mouths repeated his words—we all knew his mantra by heart. “I’ll be here for you, fighting for you, always with you!”
Bruiser Mahoney’s head swivelled towards the ceiling as he unleashed a mad-dog howl.
“Thank you! Good night!”
Next we were filing down the aisles, feet crunching over stale popcorn and paper cups. Lifeless, inert, shuffling like zombies under a buzzing Orange Crush sign.
Our fathers bought another beer as the arena emptied. I saw Mr. Hillicker lingering beyond the arena doors. He glanced inside, spotted my father, then turned over his shoulder and spoke to someone I couldn’t see.
“Hey,” Mr. Diggs said to my father, nodding towards the dressing room door. “You figure Bruiser Mahoney’s in there?”
Dad chuckled. “I’d guess so.”
“How would you like to talk to the Bruiser?” Mr. Diggs asked the two of us. “He’s just a man.” I caught an edge of irritation in his voice. “A man like any other man.”
“Like us,” my father said.
Saying this, he turned and walked towards the dressing room, striding purposefully albeit with a noticeable wobble, pulling me behind him.
The wrestlers sat on folding chairs arrayed haphazardly around a wide tiled room. Here and there were open duffel bags, knee braces, piles of sodden towels and grimy balls of tape. The room was foggy from the steam billowing out from the shower stalls. It smelled of Tiger Balm and something to which I could give no name.
“Hey, can I borrow your deodorant?” Disco Dirk said to the Masked Assassin.
“I wouldn’t give it to him,” one of the Lucky Aces said. “He’s got that rash on his dick he picked up in the Sioux.”
“Ah, go fuck your hat,” Disco Dirk said as the other men roared.
One by one they took notice of us. None made any effort to cover up. The Brain Smasher brushed the tangles out of his hair, naked in front of the mirror.
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