Ugly As Sin

by James Newman

  Lance K. McDougal III is in his late forties, just seven or eight years younger than Nick, but being born with the proverbial silver spoon in your kisser tends to slow the aging process. He could pass for thirty-something if not for his hair—it is the color of needles and razorblades, objects that will slice you to pieces if you aren’t careful with them. He wears an immaculate navy blue suit, a tie the color of freshly-spilled blood. At barely 5’ 5”, McDougal is shorter than anyone who works in his building, but thanks to the power he wields as Chief Executive Officer of the Global Wrestling Association the man is no less imposing than the sixty-plus musclemen on his payroll. He inherited the company from his father after Lance K. McDougal, Jr. succumbed to a short battle with lung cancer. The boss’s daddy had been a devout Southern Baptist; under his thumb, the Association had produced nothing so controversial as to threaten its Saturday afternoon TV time slot. Now, Lance K. McDougal III has body-slammed sports entertainment into the new millennium, with flamboyant characters and titillating scenarios that barely slip past Standards & Practices week after week.

  “Good to see you, Nick,” McDougal says. “We were all worried sick for a while.”

  “I appreciate that,” says Nick.

  “Look at you. The doctors...they tried. I’ll give them that.”

  Nick fidgets in his chair. It creaks beneath his weight. He doesn’t dig the way McDougal sits there scrutinizing his ruined features, as if they are some abstract work of art on which the boss is thinking about dropping thirty or forty grand.

  “I heard some clutz cop actually stepped on your face? Jesus.”

  Nick stares down at his snakeskin boots.

  “So how are you feeling, Nick? Ready to get back to work?”

  “I’m itching to get back in the ring. I miss it.”

  “I’m sure the other guys are glad to have you back.”

  “They seem to be.” Nick thinks it, but doesn’t say it aloud: Although none of them can stand to look at me, as if ugly is contagious and they’re afraid they’ll carry the disease home to their loved ones if they get too close.

  The phone rings.

  McDougal punches a button. “What is it, Klarissa?”

  “Your wife’s on line one, sir,” the receptionist’s voice chirps over the speakerphone. “She says it’s impor—”

  “Tell her to call back in ten.” McDougal hangs up. “Sorry about that. I’ve told the silly bimbo a thousand times not to interrupt when I’m meeting with the talent. What can you do?”

  Nick offers no suggestion. Everyone in the Association knows McDougal has been cheating on his wife with his receptionist for the last few years. Apparently Klarissa’s skills in the bedroom (rumors abound that the boss harbors an affinity for diaper play, but you can’t believe everything you hear) make up for her intellectual shortcomings.

  “Nick,” McDougal says, “I know you’re a fellow who prefers no bullshit, so I’ll cut to the chase. Due to recent...developments...we’ve decided to rethink your role in the GWA. I’ve been talking with Creative while you were recuperating, and we agreed that it might be best to drop your current character altogether.”

  “No more Widowmaker?” Nick’s already crooked features twist into something resembling a stunned expression. He had known a fresh push would be necessary once he was back to a hundred percent. Audiences are fickle, after all. But he didn’t see this coming.

  “No more Widowmaker.” The boss rests his elbows on his desk, steeples his fingers together. “And no more Nick Bullman.”

  “Let me get this straight. I flew all this way to find out you’re firing me?”

  “Not so fast, big fella.” McDougal rises now, stands in front of the huge bay window that looks out over Wilmington, North Carolina, his hands clasped behind his back like a spoiled prince admiring his kingdom. “We’ve created a brand new character for you, actually. I think it’s brilliant. Of course, I came up with it, so I admit I am a tad biased. The writing team has already begun brainstorming ideas for your first angle...”

  “I’m all ears,” says Nick.

  “Your name will be...REVOLTO!” As he presents his idea for Nick’s new character, McDougal’s voice deepens, becomes gruffer as if he’s narrating a bad horror movie: “No one knows where the beast comes from. Perhaps he’s not even human! Some have speculated that he was sent up from the bowels of Hell by Lucifer himself to terrorize mankind. He communicates in brainless grunts and growls. He is the most dreadful animal known to man, the epitome of ugly! I mean, this friggin’ guy makes the Elephant Man look like Brad Pitt. Known alternately as the Wretched One, the Most Repulsive Creature In Existence, Revolto strikes terror in the hearts of all who dare lay eyes upon his sorry excuse for a face...”

  The boss sits again when he’s done. Leans back in his chair. His expression hints that he might have discovered a cure for cancer, or devised a plan to eliminate world hunger. His Rolex glistens in the afternoon sunlight shining through the window behind him.

  Nick glares at the C.E.O., speechless.

  “Revolto will make his television debut in a hardcore brawl versus...the Widowmaker.”

  Nick runs a hand over his graying buzzcut, where he once sported long raven locks. He still says nothing.

  “How is this possible, I know you’re dying to ask? You’ll be working with someone disguised as your old character. Another wrestler the same size and build as you. The Redneck Gladiator should be perfect, don’t you think? We’ll throw a wig on John, give him your leather duster and the face-paint. Two minutes into the Main Event, you will interfere with this fake ’Maker’s match. His opponent will flee for his life. And you will obliterate your stand-in. There will be blood. The hard way, if necessary. That’s right, Nick, I’m giving you permission to work stiff, to shoot if that’s what it takes. I want the fans to feel every brutal, bone-shattering second of this beatdown. I want that goddamn ring to look like the floor of a slaughterhouse once the smoke has cleared. We’ll haul ‘the Widowmaker’ out in a hearse at the end of the show, never to return.

  “Right off the bat I’m thinking a feud with Man-Pretty is inevitable. That storyline will write itself, don’t you think—the whole beauty-versus-beast, gorgeous-meets-grotesque dichotomy? Before long, Revolto will replace the Son of Eternal Darkness as the Association’s most hated monster heel. And by early next year I aim to put you back on top, as our reigning Heavyweight Champ.”

  When he’s done, McDougal’s wide white grin grows wider than ever, if such a thing is possible.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “You can’t be serious,” says Nick.

  McDougal blinks. “I’m not a man who cracks jokes, Nick. You know that. What those men did to you, it’s unfortunate. Personally, I hope they burn in the hottest part of Hell for it. But it happened. So we’re forced to improvise.”

  When Nick doesn’t respond right away, the boss says, “Let me put it this way: the marks might be easy to fool most of the time, but they aren’t stupid. The last time they saw the Widowmaker, his head didn’t look like six-week-old roadkill.”

  Nick’s blood boils in his veins.

  “You wanna get back on TV, surely you didn’t think a mask would suffice. Latino Thugg has dibs on that gimmick. And give me one good reason why I would want to cover up that face! You are a promoter’s wet dream, Nick. What happened to you, it is a blessing in disguise—”

  “A blessing in disguise.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You think I’d allow you to exploit me like that, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  The boss’s smile disappears. In its place is the glare of a man whose decisions are never disputed.

  Nick stands.

  “Sit down,” McDougal commands.

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “You’re under contract with the Association for the next six years. You will do whatever
I tell you to do.”

  “I’m not your carnival freak.”

  “Is this about dignity?” McDougal’s cruel laughter is like a sword jabbed into the wrestler’s heart. “Get that out of your head, man. Any dignity you ever had died the day your face was carved into something that looks like a bowl of mashed potatoes.”

  “You piece of shit,” Nick growls.

  “I’m sure you’re harboring a lot of anger over what happened to you. But don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

  Sweat drips down the gnarled roadmap of Nick’s scarred forehead, burns in his eyes.

  He leaps over the C.E.O.’s desk.

  Lance K. McDougal III screams.

  Nick’s hands wrap around the little man’s neck. He doesn’t let go until three Security guards burst into the office and start touching him with their Tasers.

  Even then, it takes a while.

  †

  After the trials were over, the man formerly known as the Widowmaker moved back to Memphis, where he had bought his first home in the early days of his career. Of course, the best he could do these days was a cramped apartment on the Bad Side of Town. When all was said and done, his attorney had suggested he plant himself as far from that godforsaken business as possible. Nick concurred. It wasn’t as if the smaller federations were lining up to sign him following his highly-publicized assault on the GWA’s C.E.O.

  Once upon a time, Nick Bullman had been a celebrity. While he was far from a household name, the die-hard fans recognized him on the street now and then. His face appeared regularly on the cover of trade magazines like Ringside and Body Slam. He drove a Hummer, had dated a few high-class strippers and even a porn star or two during his thirty-plus years in the Biz (one of the smut queens had been his third wife, in fact, though that arrangement barely lasted a month so it didn’t really count). Before his life went spiraling down the shitter, he had been in talks with his agent and a ghostwriter about a possible autobiography.

  But then he dared to lay his hands on Lance K. McDougal III.

  When he got to thinking about it all, Nick didn’t know whether to sink into a bottomless funk or never stop laughing. He had spent the last fifteen months of his life inside a courtroom. Before that he had suffered through multiple surgeries, painstaking facial reconstruction which had been only marginally successful (and calling it that was a stretch—Nick compared it to washing an old suit and smoothing out all the wrinkles, after that suit had been set on fire then buried for a year). Meanwhile, the men responsible for his condition now resided in a cushy sanitarium, where the worst thing about their lives was an eight o’clock curfew and losing games of checkers to their fellow drooling schizos.

  In the case of The State of North Carolina vs. Nicholas James Bullman, Nick pled guilty to one count of aggravated assault. His sentence: thousands of dollars in fines, and two years’ suspended probation. The judge who presided over the case—an old pal of Lance McDougal’s daddy, it was rumored—informed Nick that he had considered tacking on some community service as well, perhaps a PSA appearance since the defendant was a celebrity. Alas, he had decided against it because the days of anyone wanting to see Nick Bullman’s mug on TV were dead and gone. Didn’t want viewers losing their dinner during prime time.

  As for the civil suit that followed, McDougal’s legal team demanded no less than one-point-five million dollars for what Nick had done to the C.E.O. The assault had resulted in little more than a stab to McDougal’s king-sized pride, maybe a bruised windpipe and a few papercuts when Nick pulled him across the desk, but that wasn’t the point. Nor was it about the money.

  McDougal had sued Nick to prove that no one fucked with Lance K. McDougal III.

  And he won.

  Nick often found himself wishing he had killed the dickhead that day. If he had applied just a few more ounces of pressure to McDougal’s pencil neck, or pitched the prick out of his twelfth-story office window...

  Prison might have been preferable to living in this shithole, with only the roaches to keep him company and nothing to fill his belly but Ramen noodles and Jim Beam.

  †

  Sometimes, before society insisted on reminding him of the inescapable truth, he could almost forget about his disfigurement. For a minute or two. He certainly didn’t feel any different. On the inside he was the same Nick Bullman he had always been, save for a newfound mistrust in his fellow man and a meek disposition that belied his muscular physique (it tends to shred a guy’s self-confidence over time, venturing into public with a face once considered ruggedly handsome now reduced to a mess that would make Frankenstein’s Monster piss his pants).

  He could almost pretend he was normal. That he looked like everyone else...until he dared to leave his apartment to embark upon the necessities of middle-class life.

  Take this morning. Nick had stepped out around six, traveling across town in his ’93 Bronco with the terminally ill transmission, as the first rays of sunlight peeked above the horizon. His destination: the 24-Hour Grocery Outlet. He needed to pick up some toilet paper, a box of Corn Flakes and some milk, maybe a six-pack of Michelob if he had a few bucks left over. Nick always planned such trips for early in the morning or late at night. It reduced the gawking, he had learned from experience. The regulars, he could handle: the bored stares of a few red-eyed stock boys stinking of sweat and marijuana, the sad-faced single mothers working the cash registers with hickeys on their necks and tattoos like JUSTIN’S GIRL barely concealed beneath their sleeves. Some of these folks he even knew by name. They weren’t the same employees every time, but they might as well have been. Nick assumed the graveyard crew had seen stranger sights than him lurching through their store. Maybe.

  When he first spotted the kid this morning, his instincts had warned him: Ignore it. No good could come of striking up a conversation. He had never liked children anyway. Doubtful he would have noticed this one if not for the boy’s loud sniffling; any time he went out these days, Nick wore sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt, which helped hide his face from the rest of the world but it killed his peripheral vision.

  The kid was four or five years old. He wore an Incredible Hulk T-shirt that was stained all over with something matching the color of his favorite hero’s flesh.

  “Where’s my mommy?” he sobbed.

  Nick approached the child against his better judgment. “Hey there. You lost? It’s okay, son. We’ll find your mama.”

  The instant the brat saw what lurked within that colossal reaper’s cowl, he started screeching at the top of his lungs.

  It was the most nerve-wracking sound the big man had ever heard. It made his teeth hurt.

  “Aww, shit.”

  “Mommy! Somebody help me! It’s...a monster!”

  A moment later, the misplaced mommy in question stumbled around the corner, her trailer-park high heels clicking out a white-trash rhythm on the store’s recently polished floor.

  When she saw Nick standing over her son, her mouth stretched into a wide black “O.” She slapped at his chest with her massive pink pocketbook, demanding to know what he was doing to her beloved Billy Junior. Was he some kinda kiddie-lovin’ pervert? He sure looked like a weirdo, weren’t no doubt about that.

  “Somebody call nine-one-one!” her voice echoed through the store. “I think he tried to touch my boy!”

  Nick didn’t wait around to hear more.

  He ran. Collided with a Cheez-Its display. Boxes flew everywhere, an avalanche of red and orange. In retrospect, he supposed his clumsy getaway made him appear guilty of something, but his only concern had been getting the hell out of there.

  To top off everything else, once he reached his Bronco in the parking lot she teased him for a minute before starting (“Come on, you twat,” Nick growled, “don’t do this to me”). Took him four tries before she caught.

  Nope, it certainly had not been his favorite morning ever.

  †

  The second he walked through the door of his apartment fo
llowing his ill-fated trip to the grocery store, his phone rang.

  He almost didn’t answer it. But he welcomed this opportunity to take out his anger on an early-bird telemarketer or some asswipe with a wrong number.

  The last thing Nick expected to hear was that single word on the other end of the line: “...Daddy?”

  †

  He fell into his recliner. Fell into it hard. Swallowed a fist-sized lump in his throat. It went down, but got stuck somewhere around his heart.

  Six years had passed since the last time he’d heard that voice. It had been nearly twice as long since he’d seen her in person.

  “Melissa?”

  She was his only child. Well, the only one he knew about. In that respect, his life on the road had been similar to a rock star’s. He remembered the ring rats scurrying backstage after every show, practically biting and clawing at one another for a chance to meet him. Even following the birth of his reviled Widowmaker character—when he had ditched his do-gooder babyface role once and for all—there had been no shortage of sluts. Sometimes he asked for their names when it was over. Usually he didn’t. He’d never given a damn anyway.

  Melissa’s mother, though...she’d been different.

  Before the fame, before the hangers-on and the skanks throwing themselves at his feet, Arlene had truly loved him.

  Once upon a time, they shared something special.

  They’d been high school sweethearts. But what really made Nick fall for her was her selfless dedication toward helping him pursue his goals. She never scoffed at his dream of becoming a professional wrestler, had stood by him as he paid his proverbial dues first as a student of Big Jim Brogan’s Five-Star Wrestling School in Midnight, North Carolina, then when he was hired on as a bottom-tier rookie in the Global Wrestling Association several years later. She never left his side, figuratively at least, even after their relationship became a long-distance affair, when he traveled from coast to coast working the dark matches. Though the lovebirds wished they could be together twenty-four seven, Nick barely made enough dough to feed himself back then. He had sworn to her that one day their sacrifices would pay off. And when that day finally came, he vowed to treat her like a queen.