Short Bus Hero

by Shannon Giglio

  The cheers tickle Stryker’s ears like the sweetest of all music, filling a void in his soul punched by Drake Murray’s swift and brutal buyout of the AWG. He smiles at Ally and her friends and family in their ringside seats.

  They have given him a precious gift.

  There is only one greater.

  Seated at Ally’s left elbow sits a smiling elf of a teen, done up in green and grey monster make-up, just like his dad. Stryker blows Steve a kiss, passes through the Plexiglas and climbs into the ring. Gemini stands seething in one corner as his opponent takes a microphone from the emcee at the center of the ring.

  “Thank you,” he says, his voice reverberating around the arena. “Thank you all. Ally,” he points to her, “you are an angel.”

  He doesn’t know how right he is.

  She jumps to her feet and waves at Stryker, a wide smile stretching across her round face. She pumps her fists in the air and looks genuinely happy. “Everyone, I want you to look in the seat next to Ally.” Ally pulls Steve to his feet. “That is my son. Steve.” Stryker feels his throat closing and water filling his eyes as he admits publicly, for the first time ever, that he has a child.

  A child with Down syndrome.

  A gleeful swell of cheers cascades from the second balcony all the way to the floor. Steve’s face fills the giant video screens. A tangible and heavy weight has been lifted from Stryker’s shoulders and he stands taller than he ever has before. His heart swells like the Grinch’s at the end of that cartoon. He’s a famous wrestler. With a son. And a new family.

  All the scribbled out images and blacked out text that had cluttered his mind jump into high definition. Memories that I could not interpret before are suddenly clear. I see the details of the shame he endured. I see it was a shame of his own choosing. I see the fear and the weakness, the abject selfishness on the day he abandoned his family thirteen years before. The regret, the remorse, the self-loathing. They are all there.

  I feel sick for him, for the waste of all those empty years that could have been so much more.

  Gemini, shocked and surprised by Stryker’s announcement, stalks over and grabs the mic from him.

  “You have a kid? You have a retarded kid?” Gemini shakes his head at Stryker. “This heartless bastard, this…this…piece of dog shit has been hiding that poor kid for years!”

  Stryker’s eyes and heart fall to the mat amid a hail of boos.

  He feels beaten already.

  “You know, I have known this guy for fifteen years, and never once did he even mention that he had a kid.” Gemini swivels his head around, reading random expressions, bringing the heat. “I am going to give this dog the complete beat down he deserves!” Gemini throws the microphone down and lifts his arms, gesturing for more and more noise.

  Stryker shouts, through his rubbery green lips, that he is sorry.

  No one hears him.

  The bell sounds and Gemini runs at Stryker, uttering a guttural growl, and grabs him by the neck. Gemini’s feet leave the ground and the momentum of his bodyweight buckles Stryker’s two-hundred-and-thirty-pound body to the pristine white mat. Stryker’s face leaves a green and red blot. He gets to his feet, shaking his head in order to sell the move to the crowd, and faces Gemini. His gills are coming loose, flapping in the breeze. Shoot. The make-up guy will have to figure out some stronger adhesive to use on these Heroes of Horror when they fight other promotions.

  This is Stryker’s last chance to be a legend, he has to make it count. His son is watching.

  “Nice cutter, assface.” He pulls off his torn lower lip. “That all you got? Damn, this is gonna be just like wrestling your mama,” Stryker says.

  “Just going by the script. I’d be happy to pull your fucking head off, though, you scumbag.” They each have different scripts. Each predicts a different winner.

  “Uh-huh, no script. Fuck the script. Let’s do it clean, just this once.” He pulls the rubber ridge off the top of his head and throws it into a corner. He can’t wrestle with all this rubber shit on him.

  Gemini’s eyes bore into Stryker’s own. Dude is serious. The bosses won’t like it, but what is wrong with bringing a little honesty to the sport? They left the script the second Gemini outed Stryker as a heel anyway, talking shit about him never mentioning his kid. Gemini is the face in this match, like it or not. Stryker has something to prove. So, the script is out the window. No one consulted Ally or Drake Murray, but what could they do about it anyway?

  Stryker vaults high over the ring with the aid of the HHH’s usual cable system. He drops down and pistons the heel of his hand directly into Gemini’s nose, feeling the crunch of the cartilage followed by the hot gush of blood. Stryker is back up to the rafters like a yo-yo. Gemini says something that sounds like “gugg” and launches a red glob of spit onto the Plexiglas. The crowd sends up a resounding “OH!”

  Stryker touches down and waves to the crowd, unhooking his fly harness, his back exposed to his opponent.

  Gemini leaps onto Stryker’s back, forcing his neck and jaw onto the ring’s top rope. Stryker feels the front of his throat, the thyroid cartilage, cave in and pop back out as he rebounds onto the mat. He thinks, for a second, that he’s going to puke. He can’t breathe. This is for real.

  Strangely, I’m not enjoying the savagery as much as I normally do.

  Damn, I think I’ve gotten too emotionally involved. Man, what a buzzkill.

  Gemini stomps on Stryker’s hand, mashing the last three fingers on his right hand beneath the leather sole of his boot, smiling at the crowd. Stryker rolls onto his stomach and flexes his injured fingers before jumping to his feet. The two men become a cartoon image of a cat and dog fight—a blurred cloud of constant motion punctuated by the momentarily motionless extension of an arm or a leg here and there. Blood flies from the frenzied pair. No one can really tell who is winning or losing. The audience catcalls in confusion.

  “Slow it down! We can’t see a damn thing!”

  They can’t slow down. Fifteen years of friendship, envy, hatred, lies, and betrayal are at work in that ring.

  I wonder if they will kill each other.

  It’s a throwback to the times before wrestling was fake. Back when it meant something. It is a beautiful match, all the pent up primordial urges of these two humans, calling them toward a more natural destiny than crashing an engineer-designed car on an artificial tarmac road placed in an unnatural setting by some other highly trained engineer. No more flying tricks or fake blood. This is getting back to base instincts. This is real.

  I’m afraid for Stryker.

  So much of what I can’t stand about humanity revolves around the artificial worlds people manufacture for themselves. So many senseless deaths just because this one thought that material would make a stronger structure, or because that one worked himself to death so his family could have humungous televisions that stole all their precious time. You humans get so caught up in the trappings of your little materialistic lives that you don’t even know what it means to be alive anymore. Do you know what it means to fight someone with your bare hands? Fight for your life? Soldiers know, Stryker and Gemini know, Jason knows. Do you? I mean, really? This isn’t the World of Warcraft, people. Unplug yourselves and pay attention to real life for a change.

  I love watching Gemini and Stryker knock everyone back a few centuries, even though the recklessness and disregard for human safety worries me now. I would enjoy seeing all of humanity get back to its more primitive and urgent form, only without the killing.

  Gemini blasts Stryker in the side of the head with a hard roundhouse kick. Everyone in the audience jumps to their feet. Stryker doesn’t move for a good fifteen seconds. “Is he okay?” “Is he dead?” Everyone in the crowd whispers something like that. A low buzz fills the auditorium. The referee approaches Stryker, kneels down, and peers down into his face.

  Steve starts to cry. Ally puts her arm around him. “D-don’t cry, Steve. He’s gonna be okay. I hope.”


  As she finishes her sentence, Stryker moves his arms and legs in a snow angel motion.

  The crowd cheers.

  I go wild.

  Stryker turns over, getting on his hands and knees. He sets a flat foot on the mat and stands up. The applause is deafening. He raises his hand.

  He runs directly at Gemini.

  His forearm crushes Gemini’s trachea as he drives him back against the ropes. He hears the air leave Gemini’s lungs in a long whoosh.

  Then, the move.

  Stryker moves behind Gemini and picks him up, turning him as he lifts his waist above his head.

  He drops Gemini on his head, expertly playing on that Vegas neck injury. Thud!

  Gemini collapses in a rubbery heap.

  Silence.

  A ringing bell finally brings the carnage to a merciful halt. Gemini lays face down on the mat as Stryker stalks the perimeter of the ring and waves to the crowd. Stryker sees his smiling son bouncing in his chair, waving a Stryker Nash pennant above his green face. Ally leans over and hugs him, smiling.

  Stryker’s heart is full.

  Gemini doesn’t get up. A pair of emergency medical technicians climb through the Plexiglas and ropes and flip the wrestler’s beaten body over. Gemini’s arm shoots straight up and he gives the crowd a thumbs-up. His neck is just broken, no biggie.

  A renewed cheer wafts to the rafters.

  Drake Murray storms onto the stage, grabbing the emcee’s mic.

  “Wait just a minute, bro, this ain’t over yet,” Drake shouts. “All you idiots, shut up! This was a screwjob of the first order.” Ten thousand hushed conversations ripple through the crowd. “I demand a rematch! You hear that, Short Bus?” He looks over to Ally. Her smile transforms to a look of confusion. Stryker waves her up into the ring. She finally climbs up and stands next to him, staring at Drake Murray. “It took you long enough to haul that fat can up here, Short Bus.”

  The crowd is stunned back into silence.

  Then they begin booing and throwing stuff. Full souvenir cups full of beer and Coke smash and splash against the Plexiglas. Gemini is loaded onto a stretcher and dragged down the aisle, to the dressing room. Someone dumps their beer over his head. It gets in his eyes and mixes with his tears.

  “Short Bus, I am going to kick your ass!” Yeah, this is what his staff of pansy writers came up with. Weak. Murray wants a full invasion storyline, but they’re still working on that. He’s working on finding new writers, ones who know what the fuck they’re doing. Ally just hired some that he let go years ago. Those guys have gotten better. She’s got a great storyline going with Raven and Lestat. It has given Murray his first peptic ulcer.

  The crowd doesn’t like the way he’s talking to Ally.

  Neither do I.

  But Ally struts to a corner and does her best bodybuilder’s pose.

  Cheers and laughter fly from the crowd.

  “You blew me off before, but I’m not kidding around this time. You fight me like an honest human being.” Heh.

  Ally giggles and slaps her thigh. She still has a hard time believing any of this is real, that winning the lottery, and everything that’s happened since then, wasn’t just a dream. She runs over to Murray in mincing little steps, her hands flapping.

  “Ah…ah…alright, Dr-Dra-Drake. I’ll take you on,” she says into the microphone. She smiles around the auditorium, then makes her meanest face, sticking out her bottom teeth, crunching her eyebrows together.

  Oh, man, this is craziness. Too funny.

  “But if I w-w-win…I g-get the WWC,” she says.

  Drake looks around the arena with an over-the-top “can-you-believe-this” expression.

  “Okay, Short Bus, and if you lose—like you’re gonna—I get the HHH.”

  And so begins a new era in the gut-busting trash-talking world of professional wrestling, the money-making machine that is the rivalry between Ally Forman and Drake Murray, starring America’s latest sweethearts: vampires, werewolves, and—ahem—angels (the way they still portray us, with halos and wings… gag). The fight between Ally and Drake Forman never actually happens, but they talk about it ad nauseum, and have even had costumes made up (Ally’s character, Short Bus Hero, is outfitted in a costume with a cape, which she absolutely adores). They make appearances together, dressed in costume, and people eat that stuff right up, man. It’s not a formal alliance, it’s mostly just spur-of-the-moment stuff. It’s an awesome marketing tool for both of them. Someday, the fight will happen, but not until they really need it to keep business going.

  Hmmm, how about a reality show, focusing solely on their rivalry?

  How ghastly.

  “Short Bus Hero”—I love it!

  46. Rapture / răp'-chər / transporting of a person from one place to another, especially to heaven

  Lois stands on her tiptoes and tightens her arms around Stryker’s neck. He savors the squeeze as a warm springtime breeze blows Lois’s fragrant locks around, tickling his nose. She drops her arms and takes a step back.

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to take you to the airport? Or at least have our driver take you?” She is sad. The emotion is unexpected. This guy had ripped them off for half a million bucks and skipped town, remember? But that was months ago and it hardly matters anymore. He has more than made up for it by helping Ally to find her place in the world, helping her find her way back to happiness, helping her through some of the darkest days of her life.

  Ally stands a few feet from her mother, father, brother, and Stryker. She stares at the ground, talking softly to some unseen confidant, nodding her head every couple of seconds. She is a famous lady now, rich beyond her wildest dreams. More importantly, though, she is capable of making the majority of her own decisions, and her controlling mother trusts her to do so. She did what she’d set out to do—she made Stryker a star. She would miss him. Almost as much as she misses Jason. She doesn’t want to think about it. She sings David Archuleta’s “Crush” in her head.

  Stryker gazes at the moon face that had so greatly disturbed him when he’d first met her. He feels disgusted with himself for ever feeling disgust for her. He is ashamed of how he used to be, of who he used to be. He loves the Formans. They gave him a courage he never thought he’d have. Ally gave him his life back. She gave him his son and his integrity, too.

  “Nah,” he says, shaking Earl’s hand, then thumping the yellow roof of the waiting taxi. “It’s better this way. I don’t want you guys to see me cry.” He laughs. They all do, but it isn’t a joke.

  The taxi pulls him away from the original Jason Gibson Cool People’s Group Home, popping more than a few heartstrings on its descent down the hill. Stryker’s going to set up the Home’s second location. He stares straight ahead, blinking back the tears.

  Debra takes his hand.

  “Boston is a great town,” she says, smiling.

  Great, now Ally needs to find a new nurse.

  * * *

  “Get a-a-away from me, y-you butthead!” Ally gives Kevin a shove. “Don’t you have to…to…to go to w-work or s-something?”

  “Nah, you gave me the day off, remember?” Kevin is Ally’s Vice President of Marketing. He’s surprisingly good at it. Even if he is a butthead. He may take his band on that world tour someday, but for now, he’s good just chilling with his little sister.

  Kevin grabs Ally’s Prada purse and runs up the front steps. “Come and get it. You got any good CDs in here, or is it all Justin Bieber and Frozen crap?”

  Ally stomps into the house after her brother.

  “I’m t-t-telling Mom, Kevin.”

  Lois is glad they still need her.

  Kevin’s smartass response is lost somewhere behind the towering double front door.

  Lois holds Earl’s hand as they watch Stryker’s taxi wind down the hill.

  An urge to purge the house of her moving boxes filled with magazines and junk begins to reveal itself to Lois. She’ll make a run to Goodwill tomorrow, maybe visit the d
ump, too.

  It’s time to let go, and she’s okay with that.

  It is what it is.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Ally gets a phone call. Drake Murray himself calls to offer to buy her out for an unbelievable amount of money, an amount even greater than what she’d won in the Megalomillions lottery.

  “Listen, missy, if you won’t sell to me,” he says, “how about this? We form an alliance. Make it official. Contracts, jointly licensed consumer products, the works. Huh, huh?”

  “What do you m-m-mean? Li-like work to-together?”

  “Yeah, you know, like we’ll work out one of those invasion storylines, kind of merge the WWC and the HHH. You can even be a central character, how about that? Short Bus Hero. Well?”

  Ally thinks they could probably make a ton of money that way, but she’d have to talk to Tony to be sure. She really didn’t care for Murray, though. He was so mean to Stryker.

  “What about Stryker?” she asks into her Bluetooth headset as she pulls out strand after strand of Window Washer Barbie’s sparse yellow hair.

  “Come on,” Murray purrs. “You don’t need that lying scumbag. I’ll make you a star, baby!”

  She doesn’t need Murray. She is doing just fine on her own. She will stand by Stryker. He’s a good guy. He is her friend. No one thinks she ever doubted Stryker, not even when he took her money and lied about going to Vegas, but she did. She worried just as much as Lois did. And she worried about Lois. Her mother’s hoarding, drinking, and controlling behavior all affected Ally. But, she never gave up hope. And it changed the lives of everyone around her. It helped them grow into better people.