The Hurting Circus

by Paul O'Brien

  Ade knew that what he was saying was absolutely true. She just needed to hear it for some reason. “Really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ade took a cigarette from her purse. Proctor lit a match for her.

  “Everything is just too perfect in your home, I bet?” she asked.

  “I never said that, either,” Proctor replied, as he blew gently on the used match. “Things can be sour without being disrespectful.”

  Ade sipped her drink. She didn’t even know why she was still sitting beside Proctor; there was just something in the way that he talked to her. Most of the other bosses were too scared to even look at her with Merv around.

  “So, I’m letting him treat me this way?” Ade asked.

  Proctor took his jacket from the back of his seat, and stood. “I don’t know you well enough to answer that, Mrs. Schiller. For all I know, I open my mouth, and then your problems become my problems.”

  Proctor waved good-bye to some of the other tables. “Nice to meet you again,” he said as he left Ade’s table.

  She watched him leave before something inside her made her follow him.

  In the parking lot, she could see the beam of two headlights being switched on, followed by the roar of an engine. She moved faster and her heart beat in rhythm with her march. When she got closer, she could see Proctor alone in his car. “Wait,” she said, too soft for anyone to hear. “Wait!” This time, she was louder and more confident.

  Proctor pressed his brakes and reached for his gun as he tried to make out who was approaching him. The fact that it was Ade Schiller didn’t make him comfortable enough to put his revolver away.

  Ade tapped the window, and Proctor leaned over to roll it down a little. “Why are you going home so soon?” she asked.

  “You really want to know?” he said.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  The whiskey made Proctor a little less political than he might have otherwise been. “Because my job here is done. I congratulated your husband in public. Now I have to go home and try to look at myself in the mirror.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  Proctor smiled. “Well, Mrs. Schiller, I dare say that you’re going to have to climb a lot more stairs, and walk on nicer rugs before you get to your mirror.”

  “Let’s talk,” she said. “We might both have the same problem.”

  Proctor pulled his car away from Ade slowly, until he knew that she was out of harm’s way. He then floored it.

  1969.

  Portland, Oregon.

  “I saw the giant son of a bitch, myself,” Proctor said, as he wolfed down the house special. The Old Spaghetti Factory had only opened that day, but the food was perfect, and the hospitality was great, too. “Danno flew us all in to watch him wrestle. He’s greener than goose shit, but that giant has money written all over him.”

  Ade Schiller sat opposite him in the booth and pushed her unwanted food around her plate. “And are you going to meet Danno here?”

  “Yeah. It’s out of the way, and somewhere that none of the other bosses would come in a million years.”

  Proctor looked intently at Ade. “You were right that Danno’s the missing piece of our puzzle. I’m one hundred percent sure of that, now,” he said.

  Ade smiled and thanked him.

  “Just remind me to never fuck with you,” Proctor said.

  “Why’s that?”

  Proctor wiped his mouth and leaned back in his seat. “’Cause you saw the angle long before I did. You picked Danno; you picked me.”

  Ade knew what he wanted to say, so she said it for him. “And I picked that my husband should die?”

  Proctor nodded and began eating again. “There’s no other way to do this, and that’s another thing you were right on. We can’t move in on all of Merv’s things right away. Danno gets the belt first; everyone forgets and moves on with their lives. Then we come back and get everything we want without any heat on us.”

  Proctor rubbed his last piece of bread around his plate. He was energized from having met Ade, and from listening to her plan, as well as from the trust that went with it and the risks of seeing it through. Proctor King hadn’t felt so alive in years. He knew that his mouth was kind of full, but he couldn’t resist the urge to smile, regardless. “I struck a deal with Merv to vote against Danno today. My ballot pushes the numbers back to Merv. Danno’s proposal is toast in there, and he doesn’t even know it yet. What do you think Danno is going to say when I offer him the belt after he gets humiliated?”

  Ade smiled at Proctor’s underhandedness. She could have stayed there talking for hours, but Proctor always made sure that they were careful. Any conversations between them were under thirty minutes, and they were always face to face. That meant that getting to talk to him was a rare thing. He never wrote anything down, either: he had memorized phone numbers, addresses, and people’s names.

  “What about the guy?” she asked. “You know, the guy from Florida?” Ade wanted to know the answer, but she really just wanted Proctor to stay longer.

  “Just like we discussed. He’ll go to San Francisco and take care of Merv after I get Danno signed up.” Proctor dabbed both sides of his mouth. “You better go back to the hotel. The NWC meeting is in a couple of hours.” Proctor put out his hand and smiled. Ade wished it was more, but a handshake would have to do for now. She rose from her seat and walked away from the table, as if she and Proctor had never met.

  He took a matchbook with the restaurant’s name printed on it and slid from his seat. He noticed that one of the waitresses who was taking a break had sat right up against his booth. She politely nodded, and he returned her gesture. He was sure that she hadn’t heard anything, but not sure enough.

  The NWC meeting went just as Proctor had told Ade it would. Danno’s proposal to make Babu the heavyweight champion was ruled out. Proctor was the “no” vote in the secret ballot that had killed Danno’s chances. Voting against Danno did two things for Proctor: it made him more of an ally in Merv’s eyes, and it made Danno seem vulnerable, and therefore more open to a plan B.

  After the meeting, when no one could see, Proctor arranged a time to meet Danno in The Old Spaghetti Factory. That was where Ade and Proctor’s plan would come into being; that was where she would get what she wanted, and Proctor would get what he wanted. All he needed to do was get the unsuspecting Danno Garland to hold the hot potato—the world title—until Proctor was ready to take it from him.

  1969.

  San Francisco.

  There were midgets, beauty queens, tattooed faces, gold sunglasses, new white suits, hugely obese twins, a bald old woman, toothless mountain men, islanders, a one-legged man, and a widow. San Francisco welcomed difference admirably. But even it raised an eyebrow at this funeral.

  The outer fence was lined with people who wanted to know what the spectacle was. Some younger voices chanted their favorite wrestler’s name. When the time came, they all tried, with varying degrees of success, to bless themselves.

  “John Merv O’Reilly, may you rest in peace.”

  Ade watched not the grave, and not the priest, but the other promoters. As her husband’s body was being covered, the reins of the San Francisco territory were transferred to her. She’d had no choice: her husband was wealthy, but she was not. Such was his cloak-and-dagger mentality that she had no idea where he’d put his money.

  Merv Schiller, like all the other wrestling bosses, wasn’t the kind of man to use bank accounts; they would only let it be known just how much he was worth. The only paper trail that any of them left on the surface for scrutiny by the law was their ownership of their wrestling companies. Everything else was cash, secret handshakes, illegal, or buried somewhere safe.

  In Ade’s case, it was too safe.

  So fucking smart, but so fucking stupid, she kept thinking over and over.

  The crowd turned and walked away from the grave. A few people touched her arm as they passed, or offered their help if she ever needed
anything. Ade nodded, like she thought a grieving wife should do. In reality, she wanted to tell them all to shove their fake condolences.

  A few hours later, her backyard was filled with black clothes and somber people. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, and trays flew around like silver frisbees. Ade sat on her back step, smoking and running her years with Merv through her head. She had no idea why she’d stayed with him. She had consoled herself by saying that it was easier to get into that bed, turn on her side, and convince herself that tomorrow would be better. With Merv, though, tomorrow was never better.

  Danno Garland walked down the steps past her and made his way to the quiet huddle. Ade liked Danno. Or at least she certainly didn’t dislike him, and she was happy to think that his life had changed for the better. She watched Danno’s lips as he spoke to his slight, out-of-place driver.

  “Where did you put the car?” Danno mouthed.

  Lenny answered, but Ade stayed focused on Danno.

  “Good. I want to get out of here soon. Have you seen Proctor anywhere?”

  Ade wondered the same thing: where was Proctor?

  As if on cue, he emerged from the crowd on the other side of the garden and made his way over to Danno. Lenny was dismissed as he and Proctor discussed something that wasn’t for everyone’s ears. To Ade, Proctor seemed fine about what had just happened to Merv. She knew that she’d wished for Proctor to get rid of him, but maybe she would have liked to have seen a little bit of remorse. The more Proctor and Danno spoke, the more uneasy Ade felt about being left out of the loop. She finished her drink, rose uneasily from the steps, and navigated through all the fake heartbreak to get to where Danno and Proctor were talking.

  Proctor nodded over Danno’s shoulder, and let him know with one simple carny word that someone from outside the business was approaching: “Kayfabe.”

  As if she hadn’t heard that word before; as if she hadn’t been around the wrestling business long enough to know what it meant. She instantly knew that Proctor saw her as an outsider, and it cut her. That word had immediately let Ade know that she was always going to be excluded from the boys’ club, but she did what she always did: she smiled.

  Danno immediately changed the subject. “You can’t say that Nixon doesn’t have that something that Johnson didn’t. He’s clean, and on the—”

  Ade locked onto Proctor, ignoring Danno. “You staying?”

  Proctor warned Ade with his eyes. “No. Why would I do that?”

  She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. She shook her head with disgust. Maybe it was the drink, or maybe it was the day, but Ade Schiller couldn’t smile any longer. “Fuck you,” she said as she walked away.

  “Is everything alright here?” Danno asked to break the tension.

  “It must be the shock, or something,” Proctor said as he watched her leave.

  “Yeah, shock,” Danno half-heartedly agreed.

  Inside the house, Ade threw back another drink. Proctor entered and stood behind her. “Leave me alone.” Ade poured another.

  “I need to know if you’re going to hold this together,” Proctor said.

  He gently closed the door. Ade didn’t respond, so he turned her around. She tried to kiss him, and he backed off.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She picked up an empty glass from her sink and fired it at him. Proctor lunged at Ade, wrapped her hands up, and held her tight, with her back against his chest. He looked out the window to make sure that everyone was still oblivious to what was happening.

  “We didn’t do this, do you hear me?” he said.

  Ade tried to bite his face as it came over her shoulder. Proctor squeezed her tighter, until she was wrapped up completely. She stopped struggling and began to cry. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said.

  “I thought this was what you wanted,” he said.

  “Well, you certainly got what you wanted.”

  Proctor put his lips to her ear and hushed her. “I sent a guy to get to Merv, but Merv had already been dealt with by someone else. That’s the truth. You got free from him, without having to—”

  Ade didn’t know what to believe. “I wanted us to be together.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “What did I get?” she shouted. “You’re getting the belt next, that brings the money, and the power. All of these fucking men will be kissing your feet in due time. What did I get from all of this?”

  Proctor covered her mouth with his hand. “You got exactly what you asked for,” he said. “You got this house, the money, and more importantly, you got yourself a clean slate. You are a beautiful, single, filthy rich woman who can do whatever she likes.”

  Ade shook herself free, took a huge breath, and wiped her face. She could only smile with embarrassment as she fixed herself up. “Of all the bosses, I had to grow fond of the one who doesn’t cheat.”

  Ade wanted Proctor to forget himself and be with her. She didn’t care about sex; he could be with her all of his life without being unfaithful to his wife. That would suit her, too, because a woman like Ade wasn’t looking for sex, or certainly not just sex.

  He said, “You should take whatever you can and get out of this business, Ade. You’re too soft for it.” Proctor put out his hand for her to shake. She felt odd taking it, but shake Proctor’s hand she did.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong here, and we still got what we wanted,” he said as he turned and left.

  Ade stood in her kitchen with mascara on her cheeks and a head full of regrets.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1984.

  Three days after Lenny got out.

  New York.

  Lenny stood across the road from his father’s house. He was wearing fresh new clothes, and the cut around his eye was starting to heal a little, too. He wasn’t sure if Edgar was home, so he didn’t want to go in. Lenny just wanted some room to himself. For the last few days his father had been following him around, talking nonstop. When Lenny was growing up his father hardly even looked at him. Now Lenny couldn’t get his old man to shut up. He didn’t know if it was because his father was getting older, or because he was nervous about having Lenny in the house.

  The new neighborhood was nice, but it wasn’t home. Home was somewhere else—somewhere Lenny hadn’t really asked about yet. He imagined walking up to Bree’s house and knocking on the door. He’d have a way out. Be done with the wrestling business. Maybe even have a little money. He remembered the house he and his wife started out in, with the stubborn back door and the front door that was slightly too small for their couch to fit through. They would talk at night about what kind of people they wanted to be, and about what kind of people they wanted to raise. Back then, Lenny dreamed of making it in the wrestling business, and Bree talked about going back to singing when their sons were a little older. Even though it was all said in earnest, Lenny couldn’t shake the feeling that they were both lying to themselves.

  He had so much to say he was sorry for—so much to try to make better. He just didn’t feel like he deserved his wife’s forgiveness, or that of his ex-wife, as she had come to be.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Lenny saw his father appear from the side of the house. Lenny covertly walked away before Edgar could see him. He knew that his father liked his space, too. Both men were just sitting on top of each other while Lenny waited for something to happen with the business.

  “Hey!” called a voice from behind him.

  Lenny kept walking.

  “Hey!” the voice called again.

  Lenny turned slowly.

  “Got a light?” a boy standing behind him asked.

  Lenny shook his head and began to walk. The boy kept pace with him. “Why are you so interested in that house?”

  Lenny didn’t want to make a scene, so he cut down a side street between two buildings. When the boy turned the corner to follow him, he found Lenny waiting for him. The boy stopped, but didn’t back off.
/>   “What’s your name?” Lenny tentatively asked.

  “What’s your name?” the boy replied.

  He was about thirteen or fourteen, with a mullet, a sleeveless denim jacket, and a pack of cigarettes hanging out of his pocket. Lenny immediately knew the boy’s eyes, his mouth. They were the same as his mother’s.

  “I’m Mike,” Lenny replied.

  “No, you’re not,” the boy replied.

  It was a standoff; Lenny took a second to figure out how to proceed.

  “How do you know?” Lenny asked.

  “’Cause I’ve seen picture of you. You’re Lenny.”

  “And you’re James Henry.”

  “Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Do you know what happens to kids with two first names around here?”

  Lenny laughed; Jimmy didn’t.

  “Okay, Jimmy,” Lenny said. “Nice to meet—”

  Before Lenny could finish his sentence the boy walked over and hugged him, like it was the most natural thing to do in the world. It was a soft, innocent hug—one with no anger or resentment. Lenny was a little uncomfortable at first, but he soon settled into the embrace. The last time Lenny had seen his youngest son, he couldn’t even talk yet.

  “How have you been?” Lenny asked. He couldn’t think of anything else. What do you say to your son after twelve years?

  Jimmy let go of his father and looked him right in the eye. “I need you to help me.” The sincerity in his request knocked Lenny off guard a little.

  “Okay,” Lenny said. “What can I do?”

  “Can we get out of here?” Jimmy asked.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Working. She’s picking me up at Granddad’s later.”

  Jimmy could see that Lenny wasn’t totally sold on following him. “There’s a place on the corner, down here.”

  “It’s not a bar, is it, Jimmy?” Lenny asked, smiling.

  “I don’t drink,” Jimmy replied very matter-of-factly.

  “Okay,” Lenny said. “This way?”

  Lenny took a second to look around for Bree.

  “This way,” Jimmy said, as he gestured for Lenny to walk ahead.