by Paul O'Brien
Danno tried to pull his jacket closed over his belly and cleared his throat. “I'm an owner of a wrestling company. The best in the US, in fact.”
“Oh really? That makes more sense.” Jonny threw his eyes to heaven and the audience played along with a laugh. “No offense.”
Danno took a drink of water. “None taken.”
“So, tell me Danno. What is the perception of professional wrestling out there at the moment?”
“I think it's great. We're on magazines and shows like this now, which kinda speaks for itself a little bit...”
“Our musical act cancelled.”
A drum beat off stage to play to the 'joke.'
“Well, maybe so, but we appreciate the chance to come and talk to America about what we do.”
“Okay, we'll get to that some more in a second. We just saw your champion in our skit before the break...” Jonny leans into Danno. “He's a big fella, is he not?”
“You're right. That's the heavyweight champion of the world. And I say 'world' because we found him in South Africa, of all places.”
“Which part?”
Danno paused. “I don't know.”
“You don't know? Why not?”
Danno was starting to get a better sense of what he was dealing with. “Because that's the other thing about our champion. He's mute.”
Some of the audience laughed.
“Okay,” Jonny said, backing off a little. “I don't know much about what you people do. If you were a wrestler, what kind of wrestler would you be?”
“Me?”
Jonny disinterestedly nodded.
“Well, Jonny. As you can see, I probably wouldn't be the most agile wrestler, or the fastest, but I would try to be the most cunning, maybe.”
“Smarts help you in there?” Jonny asked, half reading something else on his desk.
“Smarts help you everywhere, don't they? But in wrestling, in my business, you can strong-arm yourself into getting what you want or you can plan your way there. Either way, you have to work with what the good Lord gave you. So that's the kind of wrestler I would be. Smart.”
“My people tell me that all the news is about the owners of the different wrestling... places. What do you call it?”
“Yeah, there are other companies out there, but only one has the champion.”
“They tell me, though, that the only real fighting that goes on is between all you old guys behind the scenes. Is that true?”
Danno was growing more self-conscious about how uncomfortable he was looking and just how comfortable old Jonny was looking. “I didn't know this was going to be an undercover piece, Jonny. Don't you have any knock, knock jokes?”
“So this is fake though, right?”
“Excuse me?” Danno was no longer concerned about Jonny LaFleur or his questioning. He knew the second those words left his lips that they wouldn't be the only two people on set anymore.
Jonny repackaged his question. “Fake? No?”
The crowd chuckled along. Right on cue, Babu appeared in the wing and walked right into the shot. He stood over the host with that look on his face.
“No.” Danno warned his champion.
Every wrestler has been drilled on protecting the business. Babu could never step into the dressing room again if he didn't do something.
Jonny laughed. “Is this part of the double act you two have going?”
Danno knew that there was only so much that even he could do for Jonny in a situation like this. “I just wouldn't continue to talk like that if I were you. Seriously.”
“Right,” Jonny replied sarcastically.
“I mean it.” Danno warned. “This is the most dangerous man on the planet.”
“Is that right?” Jonny rose from his chair and mockingly punched Babu in the chest. “I mean, this guy is huge, but he might as well be punching a kitten for all the damage he does.”
Jonny sat back down and shuffled his cards for the next segment. He looked to his producers off camera. “Maybe next week we could get some real people on here?”
Babu grabbed Jonny around the throat and lifted him clean out of his chair. The audience gasped. Danno struggled free from his chair. “No, let him go.”
Babu walloped Jonny's head off his desk and he fell instantly unconscious to the floor. Members of the audience hurried to the exit door at the back.
Babu calmly walked into the wings and Danno followed after him. He waited until they had passed all the terrified staff backstage before whisper shouting, “What the fuck, Chrissy?”
Babu didn't answer.
Danno grabbed him by the shoulder and they both stopped in the empty hallway. “Do you know how much that's going to cost me?”
“I guess we'll have to keep the belt to pay for it then, boss.”
April 18th 1971. New York.
Danno waited in the hangar. His chartered jet stood ready and open to bring him to Texas whenever he wanted to leave. “Can we get a second?” Danno tapped the driver's seat in front of him and Ginny snapped back from his daydream.
“Of course,” Ginny said as he left the car.
“I don't want no pillow talk or whatever the fuck it is you people do,” Danno warned Ricky.
Ricky produced Rufus Shimmin's card from his pocket. “It's over, I'm done.”
“Listen to me,” Danno said with authority. “I want you to lay out a schedule that's going to take the champ out of here for a while. Send him to the other owners, but get him back to us for our big shows. Then, Japan, South America... there's even interest in taking him to Africa.”
This was a highly unusual request on Danno's part.
“Okay?” Ricky replied without any questions.
“Keep him out there and keep him earning. No fucking media.”
Babu's TV performance was going to cost Danno at least a million and also a tighter spotlight from the government.
“I don't know how long we have this belt for, but I'm going to lose a couple of year’s earnings because of last night. Fucking asshole.”
Danno left the car. Ricky got out the other side. “You want me to go down there with you?”
“No. I'd like to meet with him face to face.”
Danno threw the end of his cigar on the hangar floor and walked to his chartered jet.
June 19th 1971. New York.
Lenny struggled with his tie. Downstairs, the dog was barking and Luke was screaming “Bang, bang” at some invisible enemy. The blender was at high pitch, mangling his breakfast shake.
Lenny wanted fucking bacon.
Piece of shit tie. Fucking stupid house.
The only one who seemed quiet and at peace, was James Henry in the cot beside him.
“Hey,” Bree said from the bedroom doorway. “You okay? You're mumbling to yourself.”
“I'm fine,” Lenny replied with a giant fake smile. “I can feel a tap dance coming on. You want to stay and watch?”
“Does it end with you jumping out the window and killing yourself?”
“It fucking might.”
“Good.” Bree peeled herself away from the doorframe and walked her way back downstairs. Lenny exploded into a tirade of silent swear words and facial contortions into the mirror.
She reappeared. “What do you think about opening our own business?”
“Doing what?”
“I don't know yet. I've always wanted to be my own boss.”
“But honey, you're the boss of this house.”
Lenny could tell that Bree wasn't happy with that one. “The boss of my heart?”
“Are you trying to be an asshole, Lenny?”
At the breakfast table, Luke wanted his father to put up his hands and surrender.
“Where's your Mom?” Lenny asked, choking down the green sludge that was left for him in the long glass.
“She's, she's changing James Henry’s diaper, Dad. Now freeze.”
Lenny half-heartedly put up one hand and tried to hold his paper with the othe
r.
“Dad, put two of them up,” Luke said.
Lenny dropped his paper and turned to his son and his plastic space gun. “You want to play something?”
Luke nodded.
“Put the gun down.”
Luke did as he was told. Lenny quickly peeked out the kitchen door to see if the coast was clear. “Now your mother wouldn't want me to show you this stuff.”
Luke was instantly in. If he wasn't meant to do it, he wanted to do it even more.
“What is it, Dad?”
Lenny broke out his pathetic double bicep pose. “Wrestling.” He then threw a slow motion air punch at his son and added a crunching sound effect at the end.
Luke didn't move.
“You have to sell the move, son. And work the crowd. Do you know what that is?”
Luke shook his head.
“Working the crowd means you make them believe you’re injured. It's the most important thing in all of wrestling. If the audience doesn't believe you, then they don't care. Ready?”
Lenny threw another 'punch', but Luke didn't budge.
“Okay, okay.” Lenny tried a few star jumps. “You do it to me and I'll show you.”
Luke wasn't sure. “What if I hurt you, Daddy?”
“It's okay. Your old man can handle himself.”
Luke aped his father's punch and landed a soft, slow blow into Lenny's stomach. Lenny dramatically fell to his knees and acted winded. Luke excitedly got the game.
“Good. Now finish me off,” Lenny said.
Luke swung another air punch and Lenny fell over onto his back.
“Now pin me, son.”
Luke didn't understand what that meant.
“Jesus.” Lenny rose up and grabbed his boy, laying him, chest to chest, across him. “Count to three,” Lenny said.
Luke began to count. “One, two...”
Lenny kicked out and began to commentate on their 'match.' “He just kicked out, ladies and gentlemen. This man is unstoppable.”
Luke stood up and tried to figure out why his father didn't let him win. Lenny scooped Luke into the air and laid him flat on his little back.
“He's slammed him hard to the mat. It looks like Luscious Lenny is going for his finisher.” Lenny grabbed his son's arm. Luke tried to stop him, but Lenny yanked it away from his body.
“He's going to lock up that arm, and retain his championship.”
Lenny stopped and noticed that his son was desperately trying to stop himself from crying.
“What is it?” Lenny asked with dread. He looked around to make sure they were both still on their own. “Buddy?”
Luke nursed the arm that his father had just pulled on. His eyes closed and his mouth opened wide. He was crying but there was no sound. Yet.
“I'm sorry. Luke? Buddy?”
And so came the siren of a child's wailing. Lenny reached into his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Here. Look. Luke? Here, you have this. Big pocket money this week.”
His boy was inconsolable and his volume was growing louder. “You're really working your old man now, Luke. I totally believe that you’re hurt. Good job. Do you hear me? Good job, little man.”
Luke wasn't about to stop. “The crowd really cares about you now. Don't they? Huh?”
Luke only got worse. The tears poured down his cheeks as he held his little arm close to his body. Lenny panicked at the thoughts of having to explain what happened to Bree, so he picked up his lunch bag and left the house.
Luke continued to bawl on the kitchen floor.
Lenny stood at the counter of his father's small, empty grocery shop. His stomach rumbled a little. He opened up his brown paper lunch bag and sunk his hand in to get his tomato and rye. His fingers encountered the usual squishy parcel, but also something else.
Lenny opened the bag and took out a ball of material with a note attached. It read, 'Sorry you're so down,' in Bree's handwriting.
Lenny held up the material and his bewilderment started to come into focus.
“She did it.”
Lenny rushed over to the shop door and whipped the open/closed sign around.
A couple of minutes later and Luscious Lenny Long was standing in full wrestling gear at the back of the shop. It was an outfit worthy of the Luscious moniker. A ladies pink swimming outfit had been carefully cut into pink trunks and the torso was cut in the shape of a heart from pelvis to neck.
There was even a pink headband to give him some real heat with the audience. Lenny posed in a musty corner shop in Long Island and let the world's cameras take his picture.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
September 27th 1971. New York.
The yellow cab screeched to a halt outside the large grey walls of Attica Correctional Facility.
Over the last few weeks, stories of vicious killings, beatings and torture had crept out over its walls. Thirty-nine people had been killed in a botched attempt by soldiers and prison guards to reclaim the prison from the inmates. Twenty-nine prisoners and ten officers who were taken hostage were killed in the end. Weeks later and the remaining inmates were being stripped and beaten on a daily basis for their part in the uprising. Attica Correctional Facility was the most dangerous and volatile prison in America.
Today was the day Gilbert King would go home.
“Thanks, Sheiky,” the man said to the Hindu cab driver as he took a neat roll of small bills from the crack of his ass.
The disgusted cab driver thought hard about taking the cash, but times were tough and it was a huge fare. He had driven the silent man for hours to get to this destination before noon. Even with traffic and sparse directions, he made it on time. Ass crack or no ass crack, money was money.
The passenger slid on his jacket and pointed to his bag beside him on the back seat. “Now, you take this to the address on that piece of paper I gave you,” said the man as he peeled off another twenty, “It's not a head or gun or anything. Just some everyday things that I want to meet me there when I arrive later. When you get there and the woman there checks that all my shit is present and correct, she has another hundred for you. Okay?”
The cab driver nodded.
“Good.” The man got out of the cab and stared at the intimidating grey structure in front of him. “Fuck me.”
The cab drove away.
A car horn sounded across the lot. The passenger from the cab checked his watch and realized time was tight. The car door opened and Proctor got out. “Hurry, you fucking lemon.”
The man began to trot. He tried to act unfazed, but couldn't help smiling when he saw Proctor was standing beside the car.
“Hey, Pop,” the man said as he slowed down. “How you doing?”
“Hurry the fuck up,” Proctor ordered as he looked around to see if anyone could see them.
“Nice to see you, too.” The man kissed Proctor on the forehead and held him at arm’s length to get a good look at him.
“You want to take a fucking picture?” Proctor asked, stuffing the man in the back seat.
In the car, both men watched each other through the rear view mirror.
“You look good, Pop,” the man said.
“Did anyone see you?” Proctor asked.
“No. Fuck. Do you think I'm fucking stupid or something? Jesus.”
“You're late. You're lucky they aren't here yet.”
“Fucking Raghead driving me. We killed the wrong Indians.”
Proctor strained around to see his son. “You look good too.”
“Thanks, Pop.”
“No, that's not a good thing. Lean in between the seats.”
“Why?”
“'Cause I want to smell a cake I just baked. Never fucking mind why. Just do it.”
Gilbert King slowly leaned in and his father elbowed him hard in the face.
“What the fuck? What did you do that for?”
Proctor adjusted the mirror to try and see what damage was done. “Look where you were for the last few years,” Proctor said
with a nod of his head toward the prison.
“Your elbow bone... what's that called?”
“An elbow.”
“It hit me in the eyeball.”
Proctor could see a car arriving in the distance. “That's them. Go.”
Gilbert opened the car door and snuck out. He tiptoed between the parked cars and carefully made his way up the main gate of the prison to stoop out of sight.
Proctor walked out into the road and flapped his arms to distract the occupants of the oncoming car.
“You're late,” Proctor said into the rolled down window as the car slowed down. Beguiling Barry Banner was driving with Flawless Franco in the passenger seat and Pee Chu Ming sitting beside a big-boobed blonde in the back.
“Sorry, boss. I thought you said twelve,” Barry said, looking at his watch.
“We got him a coming out present, boss,” Pee Chu giggled from the back.
“Hi, Lizzie,” Proctor said.
“Hi, Proctor,” Lizzie, the big-boobed blonde replied. “We've been driving forever to get here.”
“Just make Gilbert King happy when you see him come out of that hell hole,” Pee Chu warned Lizzie.
Then Flawless Franco suddenly remembered himself and jumped out of the car. “Sorry. Sit in there, boss.”
Gilbert whistled from the gate and walked towards the full car.
“Is that him?” Pee Chu asked. “That's fucking him,” he confirmed for himself. “Gilbert King, everybody.”
Barry stuck his hand on the car horn and whooped it up through his open window. Proctor walked slowly to his son like he hadn't seen him in years and held out his arms. Gilbert King hugged his father and leaned into his ear. “What's the name of this place again?” he whispered.
“Fucking Attica, you retard.”
“I just want you to know that your personal insults to me have an effect. Alright?”
Both men turned to the waiting troop with their arms around each other. The car emptied and the traveling wrestlers rushed their newly freed champ-in-waiting.
“I hope those fucks didn't go too rough on you in there, man,” Pee Chu said, checking the swelling under Gilbert's eye.