by Paul O'Brien
“I know this must be tough for you to understand.”
“It sounds like it’s tough for you to understand.”
“I've never seen it before if that's what you're saying.”
“What do your books say? What do I have coming to me? I want to hear it. No sugarcoating, either.”
Christopher let the man in the suit across from him know that he wasn't messing around.
“Okay,” the doctor started slowly. “Several complications, most likely. Heart, lungs and severe difficulty in movement.”
The doctor stopped and looked up to double check that his patient really wanted to know.
He did.
“Maybe disfigurement of your skull... forehead and lower jaw could continue to grow disproportionately. I'm sorry. What I do know is that I'm the wrong person for you. There are huge gains being made in this field in...”
“How long till I... you know?”
“Again, it's hard to...”
“How long?”
“In my brief research, heart failure seems to be common. Some males in their mid to late forties.”
Christopher grabbed his trench coat from the seat beside him. He slipped it on and buttoned it to the neck. He then placed on a pair of sunglasses and a peaked baseball cap. “Thank you.”
He wrapped a garment around his head and walked down the corridor, ignoring the usual double-takes and staring.
“Wait,” the doctor called after him. Christopher never looked back.
A couple of hours later, he drunkenly tried to turn the key in his apartment.
“Surprise!” roared the whole wrestling company as he walked through the door. Danno stood front and center with a cake shaped like a wrestling ring in his hand. There were two fat candles in the middle of the ring' One was shaped like a 4 and the other like a 5.
“Congratulations, Chrissy.” Danno whispered in his champ’s ear. “We love ya.”
December 20th 1969. New York.
Melvin Pritchard was a golden gloves state champion. He could dance and jab all day and all night if he was allowed. He wasn't a violent man in any sense of the word, but he loved to box. The majesty of it. The strategy. The competition.
When he got married and opened his practice, he volunteered to work the corner for all the up and coming local kids.
Dr. Pritchard was always there in their ear calming them down. Walking them through what was unfolding in the match.
He was a student of the game and tried his best to pass that on to any young mind that would take it.
He put his own two sons in the ring as soon as they could stand unaided. Their whole relationship was based on the theory of a great fight.
They would talk about it at dinner and practice it before bed. Melvin spent more time with his sons than any other father in New York. He did so because they were linked by more than duty.
When his two boys got older and moved away, Melvin found that he didn't have much else in common with his boys. He didn't like using telephones anyway, and they didn't seem to keep up with the boxing world now that they were married and working.
Melvin just carried on finding new people to teach and train. It was what he did his whole life. And what he hoped to do even more now that he was instated as the Chairman of the New York Athletic State Commission.
He was effectively responsible for the laws and policies of the boxing world in New York. Well, boxing and wrestling, which also had attached to it its embarrassing cousin: professional wrestling.
“Come in, Danno,” Melvin offered as he held open his office door. Danno entered the office with his hat in his hand and took a seat at Melvin's direction.
“Where's Mort?”
Melvin took his seat. “Are you a religious man, Danno?”
“Suppose I am.”
“Then he's resting peacefully.”
“And what if I wasn't?”
“Well, then he mercifully died after three weeks of intense pain due to a cancerous system that took over most of the top half of his body.”
Danno tried to remember how to cross himself the right way. He failed.
“What can I do for you...?” Danno purposefully left his request open so Melvin would step in with his name. He didn't. He instead opened the brown file in front of him.
“I was sorry to read about your car,” Melvin said.
“Not as sorry as I was.”
“Any clue as to what happened?”
“No. But it wasn't anything as dramatic or sinister as the paper made out.”
“I'm sure.”
“Me too.”
“Do you mind if I...?” Melvin asked as he thumbed through the file’s contents. “There's a world of interesting reading in here.”
“Whatever you like.”
Melvin cleared his throat. “It seems that our two sides have crossed many times over the years, Danno. Can I call you Danno?”
Danno nodded and opened his jacket button. Melvin continued. “April 1910. A Federal court convicts John C. Maybray, Joe Carroll, Bert Warner, and other wrestlers and promoters, of using the US mail to illegally rig the results of wrestling matches.”
Melvin continued to read. “I'm sorry; it's just I'm new to this job and I was going through the business of the commission here and some of these...” Melvin follows a passage with his finger. “1934. January 2nd. The New York State Athletic Commission investigates 'secret agreements' and 'title juggling' in wrestling at a January 9th hearing. After the witnesses testify, the New York State Athletic Commission says, in a statement: 'We have heard all the testimony. We have sent it out to be translated into English. When that is done, we will consider it.'
Danno knocks Melvin's desk in the hope of lifting his eyes from his file. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Rudy Miller, Jack Curley, Jim Londos, Toots Mondt...” Melvin recites from memory, “... and Terry Garland. Isn't that your father?”
“I can't be responsible for what he did or didn't do.”
Melvin sat back into his chair. “Am I supposed to believe that what you promote, Mr. Garland, is legitimately sporting?”
“Is this an official meeting?”
“Not yet.”
“Well then, I'll see you when it becomes such.”
Danno nestled his hat back onto his head as he stood. “You have a look at the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated, and check out my heavyweight champion. Then tell me if we're legit or not.”
“Danno?”
Danno stopped and turned back.
“I don't want anything other than an honest answer. Then we go quietly from there.”
Danno pointed to the mounted picture behind Melvin. “I will put up ten thousand dollars that five of those boxers couldn't last ten minutes with any of my guys.”
Melvin cut Danno off, “That's not what I asked you.”
“We are one hundred percent more honest than fucking boxing,” Danno replied as he turned and exited Melvin's office.
Melvin picked up his file and continued to read to himself.
CHAPTER TEN
January 4th 1970. New York.
Bree wasn't sure. Well, she was, but wanted to make sure she was sure. She placed the two-for-one box back on the shelf and looked around for an exit if she needed it.
Sometimes it was sharp, and sometimes the pain was dull. She took a second to assess what was happening to her. She knew she had been overly jumpy this time around and she wanted to lessen any stress at this stage.
The aisle in front of her was empty and well polished. It ran, uninterrupted, to the exit if she needed it.
She took a second to decide if she needed it.
She needed it.
“Luke?” she called as she walked down the aisle to the door. “We gotta go.”
The sound of the over-revved engine kind of scared her a little, but there was no way she was going in there alone again this time. She could make it to The Garden in twenty minutes at this unfamiliar s
peed.
She didn't like to drive into the city, and certainly not at night, but she didn't have any choice. It was the first Sunday of the new year and that meant Madison Square Garden for Lenny.
All he talked about over Christmas was the hundred times he had been there as a fan and all the matches he had seen. About how The Sugarstick had walked down the aisle and the women's screams deafened him.
This was his first show on the other side of the railing, and he couldn't wait.
The traffic on the bridge moved to pull her into Manhattan. One way or the other, all of this was happening to her and she had very little control over any of it.
There was no way she would be in this place at this time if she didn't absolutely feel she had to. Every traffic light sent her heart racing. She just wanted to keep moving through the decaying city.
“What's wrong with those people, Mommy?” her son asked her from the back seat. Bree wasn't sure what he saw, but she could bet that it wasn't any good.
“Close your eyes and go asleep for me, baby. We're nearly there.” She could see a light hanging red in front of them. She slowed down and tried to keep moving toward it without stopping.
“That man is waving to you.”
Bree floored the pedal and gambled on the changing light. She narrowly made it.
“Jesus.” She quietly chastised herself. Her contractions were getting more intense and closer together.
“Where's Daddy?” Luke asked, getting a little jumpy by his mother's rashness.
“He's at work. We're going to find him,” Bree replied, trying not to contort her face in pain.
“Are you okay, Mommy?”
“Just a cramp in my leg, little dude.”
The young passenger was easily distracted from his mother's weirdness by the sights and sounds of the city. They turned left onto West 33rd and Bree craned her neck around the cylindrical fortress for the entrance.
She saw a bunch of people that had to be wrestling fans disappear around the corner. She quickly followed them in her car.
“Excuse me,” Bree said out her rolled down window. “Is this a wrestling... are you going to a wrestling event?”
The group whoohooooed at/to her and kept on their march.
Bree again tried to get their attention. “Sorry, excuse me?” she said to the disinterested pool of people, that ran into a bigger pool of people, that mixed with another group. “Hello?”
The pain was getting more pointed and impatient.
She pressed her car horn to its limit. “I need my husband,” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
The group stopped dead, for a second. And then they moved on into the building, laughing at the sweaty, crazy lady in the car.
Lenny was at the other side of the road with a newspaper over his face and his feet on the dashboard. He heard the commotion, but hearing car horns in Manhattan was just like hearing birds chirp in an aviary. The noise just usually wasn't this insistent and prolonged. He removed his paper mask and looked to see what nut job was causing a scene at The Garden this time.
“Bree?”
Bree continued to hold her hand on the car horn. Her son put his hands over his ears at his mother’s request. Lenny left his car and hurried across the road. He knocked on his wife's passenger window, but Bree couldn't hear him. Lenny opened the door and entered the car. Bree only caught a figure in her car from the corner of her eye. She jumped with fright and lashed out. “Lenny you nearly gave me a...”
Bree stopped and looked down at her belly.
Lenny noticed her disheveled and overwrought state. “What's wrong, what are you doing here?”
“I'm having the baby.”
“Now?”
“No. Eventually.” Bree grabbed her sides and sucked in the pain. “Yes, now. You need to drive.”
Bree could now see the panic in her husband's face. “What are you waiting for?”
“What?”
“Now.” Bree's voice rose to a moan.
“Okay.”
“Hey, Daddy.”
Lenny turned to the back seat. “Hey, little man. I didn't see you there.”
“We need to go,” Bree said.
“Okay. I just have to go inside and...”
“Are you serious?”
“What?”
“Unless you have to go inside to get me a hospital you better not finish that sentence.”
“No, I was just going to...”
“Fucking drive, Lenny!”
Bree opened her door and crab walked around the car, passing Lenny on the way. They both took up their new positions and Lenny paused to pull his stubborn seatbelt down into the locked position. It stuck many times but he was insistent. He also continuously looked past his struggling wife and into the entrance for somebody or something. He checked the mirrors. He put the car into drive and took off at a mile an hour from Madison Square Garden.
“You better hurry up or I'm going to kill you, Lenny.”
“Sorry.”
January 6th 1970. Memphis.
“Can we have two of everything, please?” Danno asked from the booth of Huey Burger in Midtown, Memphis.
They were in a hurry and Danno was rich.
Ricky, dressed uncomfortably in a suit and tie, sat opposite, writing something on the back of a napkin.
“You sure you want to do this, boss?”
Danno nodded and sprawled his arms across the back of his seat confidently.
Ricky still wasn't ready to commit this plan to paper. “Just think about it again. This has never been done before.”
“I’ve thought about it enough.” Danno pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and pushed the button. “Ten-four, Rubber Ducky. Come in.”
“Here. Over,” Lenny replied from his walkie-talkie outside.
“No, I mean come in here. The restaurant.”
Danno waved through the window at Lenny, who was watching them intently from the car.
“Into the restaurant? Over.”
“Yes. Over.”
Lenny excitedly jumped out from the car door and made his way through the parking lot.
“He's got another baby now. Did you know?”
“We need to talk alone, boss. This fucking guy is everywhere.”
Danno thought for a second and could see Ricky's point. He put up his hand to stop Lenny opening the door to enter. “Abort. Over.”
“Awww. Over.” Lenny disappointedly turned and headed back to the car.
“We'll get him a bag to go,” Danno reasoned to himself.
Ricky studied his scribbled notes. “Well, he's giving a hundred bucks a match down there...”
Danno interrupted, “Give them two for the night, and two fifty a week for two months if they agree to not work in that time period.”
Ricky looked up from his plan and smiled. “You're going to pay them to not work?”
“No wrestlers, no cards. Two months should be a big loss of earnings, don't you think? How much do you think a Cadillac Coupe DeVille costs?”
Ricky continued to write. Danno pulled himself closer and leaned into the table. “How much has he offered you?”
Ricky stopped writing again and dropped his pencil. “A hundred grand.”
Danno smiled. “He likes his hundreds, this man. When?”
“I'm with you, just like your father before you.”
“I know. When did he offer you to jump down there?”
“Last time was a couple of days ago. I didn't say nothing ‘cause there's nothing to talk about.”
“I'll give you a hundred and ten...”
Ricky flapped his jazz hands at Danno to stop talking about such undignified matters. “I'm happy with what we agreed when I started in the office.”
“Let me finish, Ricky. A hundred and ten. The ten is so you can pay for the program.” Danno picked up the menu for another look, just in case.
Ricky was taken totally by surprise. “What program?”
“I know what's
going on in your life. You need to stop. If the Boys hear about what you're doing, then they'll cut you out. I can't have that in the locker room.”
Ricky weighed up another act of confusion or denial.
“Have we got a deal?” his boss asked.
Ricky reluctantly nodded and Danno shook his hand from behind the oversized menu. “Look at the size of that burger. Can we get Luscious in here now?”
Danno slid over the fake leather seat and knocked on the window. He again spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Din din is a go. Over.”
Lenny looked up, but didn't believe him at first. “You mean it? Over.”
“Yes. Over.”
“Well, it was kind of humiliating the last time, so I just wanted to check. Over.”
Danno knocked on the window again and reassured Lenny with a more enthusiastic wave.
Lenny again popped out of the car and rushed to the restaurant.
Danno laughed at Lenny's commitment to burger bars. “He fucking loves them. We can name every good burger joint along the East coast between us.”
Ricky began to quickly hide the notes from the table.
“It's okay. Luscious knows how to keep kayfabe.”
That was a word that was used around Lenny a lot. Kayfabe. Over the years, Lenny grew to understand it to mean “shut the fuck up, here comes someone from outside this business” and it usually meant him.
Danno slapped Lenny in the back of the neck. “He looks like a man who can hold his water.”
“Yes, sir,” Lenny, buoyed up at the mark of respect, said as he glided into position at the table.
Ricky wiped his crumpled notes back into shape. He reluctantly began, “Okay. We're going...”
Danno cut across Ricky and spoke to Lenny, “I ordered one of everything.”
“I'm starving. Looks good in here,” Lenny said, answering his boss, but also holding his attention fully with Ricky.
“Can I...?” Ricky wanted to know that he wasn't about to talk to himself.
“Sorry,” Danno said.
“Okay,” Ricky continued. “Proctor's planning a big card down there in November. If you still want to do this, we can arrange a card...”
“A loaded card? Better than his?”