The Hurting Circus

by Paul O'Brien

  With money drying up, her hunt for Merv’s hidden treasures took on a new importance.

  Her failing wrestling business made the other male bosses very happy; nothing brought them more glee than watching a woman slowly drown in their industry. None of them wanted her at their closed-door meetings, except maybe for Proctor King. It was hard to tell, though; he didn’t let out much, and she didn’t care to ask. All Ade could see was that Proctor and Danno were playing the game beautifully, and when the time came for Proctor to have the title belt, he would be one rich man—just like he and Ade had planned.

  Ade was supposed to be rich right alongside him. Instead, she was taking the house apart.

  “Ma’am,” said the foreman, as he walked toward Ade.

  “Yes?” Ade replied.

  The foreman looked unsure. “This is what you want?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  The foreman unfurled the plans on her table. “Can you please have another look to—?”

  Ade leaned into his view. “If I have to say ‘yes’ once more, I will find myself another contractor.”

  The foreman nodded and left the room. “Start her up, boys,” he shouted up the stairs to his crew.

  On his word, the thump of sledgehammers and the deafening squeal of electric saws began.

  1971.

  San Francisco.

  Ade Schiller—Adrienne Hulse before she married Merv—had grown up on the road. Her father was a pro wrestler, her mother was a pro wrestler, and she was their only child. Although the road took them everywhere, New York was a place that animated her child’s mind, and it did so even more when she was a teenager. It was the lights and the glamour: the big city.

  It was also the place where her father died in the ring.

  Only a couple of times in history had a wrestler actually died within the ropes. Ade’s old man had died of a heart attack, which had left him cold about sixteen minutes into a match in New York. Ade wished it had been in Madison Square Garden. She wanted her father to have at least gone out in a full house with people chanting his name. Unfortunately, he died in the back room of a bar. He never saw the big time, never made the big money, and never worked for any of the big companies.

  Ade always dreamed of putting their family name right, for him and for herself. She imagined her father taking his last breath alone, with no one caring, no one noticing, because he wasn’t top of the card. He wasn’t rich, powerful, or a star.

  Lance Root—now there was a star. Back when Ade was a younger woman, he was the guy that everyone used to pay to see get beat. She remembered his thick lips, and the palms of his hands, which were always so much whiter than the rest of his body. He grunted, mostly, and looked annoyed to be alive. Ade had figured that he might have been just the man to revive her ailing territory. Back in the day, no one drew more money as a bad guy than Lance. Mr. Root, smelling desperation, called the terms of his deal: the ludicrous, non-sustainable terms, which Ade agreed to.

  She’d figured that Merv’s money hidden in the house was about to pay out, and with Lance Root on her roster, she was sure to be covered in the wrestling business too. What she didn’t know was that Lance didn’t really feel like working all that hard. He had come to San Francisco to retire, more or less. He just never told Ade that before they both signed a multi-year deal. He was slow, old, fat, and nothing like the heat magnet that he’d been back in the day. No one, least of all Lance, cared if he wrestled or not.

  Ade had just paid out more on a guaranteed contract than she would have for the world heavyweight champion, and all she’d gotten was a useless sack of meat.

  1972.

  San Francisco.

  The house was a skeleton, with only tightly woven industrial plastic sheeting holding it together. The grounds were completely overturned, and all of the bricks that had been removed lay perfectly stacked beside the house. It was a neat destruction, but it was destruction, nonetheless.

  Ade never found a single cent.

  It became like a sickness to her. When she could afford a crew, they picked through the house. When she couldn’t afford them any longer, she gently deconstructed the house herself, piece by piece. She was so infatuated with finding the money, she neglected the wrestling company she was now in charge of. It was dying without her attention, and costing her money to run shows, because her audience was shrinking week by week. Ade was quickly nearing financial ruin.

  When the roof came off her house, she had slept in the garage for fear that someone would come along in the middle of the night and simply stumble onto the jackpot that was right under her nose, somewhere. Sleeping there just made her sick. Even when her doctor strongly advised her against it, she came back to the house and worked through the night, again and again. She was desperate for the money, but more than that, she couldn’t let Merv win. She was sure by now that the wrestling business as a whole entity was an albatross to her life, but she couldn’t get out now even if she wanted to. So she kept going, even when she didn’t want to, when she was too sick to, and when she knew better. She was already this far in; what other option did she have?

  Ade sat in the attic of her house. With the tiles gone and only the bare roof timbers left above her head, she could look down on the bay at the end of the hill. It was a beautiful night, but there was rain in the air. She needed to move soon to get back to ground level before it got too dark. She knew her way around the missing boards, but not so much that she wanted to navigate them without light. She planted her hand and pushed herself up to a standing position, but she’d moved too quickly. She hit her head on a beam, which knocked her sideways and sent her face-first to the floor.

  Ade just managed to stop herself from going through a missing section, an open gap down to the next floor. As she lay there, she could feel the pain in her head as it swelled and throbbed. She could only hang on where she was and lie there, crying.

  She managed to make it down to the ground floor and was walking to her car when it began to rain. She had a warm coat and a flashlight. When she reached into her pocket she realized that her car keys had fallen out of her pocket in the house. She wasn’t going back up there in the dark and the rain.

  She beat the lock off of her garage with a rock, but by now, she was bleeding from her head, dizzy, sore, wet to the bone, and physically weak. She was glad to get in out of the rain. She tried the overhead light in the garage, but knew that she hadn’t paid the bill. The space was packed to the gills with Merv’s old things, but in the corner was the mattress that Ade slept on. She lay down gently and pulled her wet sweater over her head. She had very little left in her. She was just about done until she heard a noise outside.

  One eye shot open as she felt around the mattress to see if there was anything that she could use as a weapon if she needed one. She quietly sat up and tiptoed to the door to see what was outside. She saw a heavy candlestick that Merv had loved. It would certainly do to crack a head if she needed to. She slowly peeked out the door only to see the neighbor’s dog taking a shit right beside her car.

  Ade stomped her foot and shouted at the dog, which made it run away into the night. In anger, she threw Merv’s candlestick holder into his pile of possessions, which started a noisy mini-avalanche. Ade didn’t care. She fell back onto her mattress, where the contents of Merv’s overturned desk were now waiting for her. There were pens, unopened bills, a Rolodex, and some cufflinks. Ade just swiped it all into a box and fired it back into Merv’s pile of crap. But not before checking it for cash.

  Ade lay down again. She didn’t want to think—thinking kept her awake more nights than she cared to remember. But she knew that Danno was making a fortune, and that Proctor would soon get his turn. What did she have? She would just wait for sleep, and start again tomorrow.

  Ade looked around and was yet again surrounded by Merv and his mountain of useless things. Only this time, she was in a small musty garage instead of a mansion.

  Among all the crap, something kept drawi
ng her to an envelope that was stuck against the wall, which read:

  SAUSALITO YACHT HARBOR

  She had no idea what that was, but it was chipping away at her. Something familiar about that name. She lay, cold and wet, looking at it. Something wouldn’t let her thoughts move on. She reached to grab it and opened the envelope. It held nothing of interest. She dropped it on the floor, rolled over, and tried to sleep.

  She got a minute or two of rest, until it hit her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1972.

  San Francisco.

  Morning couldn’t come soon enough. Ade waited for the pier to open. She had been this excited before, but it had always led to nothing. Merv’s hide-and-go-seek game always won out. She timed her journey from her house; Merv could have easily done the same.

  At the pier, she waited patiently for a middle-aged woman to open her small wooden office. Shortly after her came what was obviously her twin sister, who also walked into the hutch. It was showtime. Ade darted from her car. “Hello?” she called.

  The twin ladies turned to see a disheveled, bleary-eyed woman in bloodstained, slept-in clothes approach them. Ade saw that their name tags read Emma and Sarah.

  “Emma, Sarah, how do you do?” Ade said.

  “Good, thank you,” they both replied together in perfect synchronicity.

  Sarah pushed Emma forward to talk to Ade alone, while she tiptoed off in the background. “Can I help you, ma’am?” Emma asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Ade said, suddenly becoming self-conscious about her appearance. “But, I think my husband had a boat down here.”

  “You think, ma’am?” Emma asked.

  “He was … a secretive man. He didn’t say much about things. But I got this—” Ade reached into her pocket and pulled out the letter from the garage. “Sausalito Yacht Harbor. That’s you guys, isn’t it?” Ade asked, as she pointed to the sign above them.

  “That’s us, ma’am, yes.”

  Ade began to let herself get a little excited. “And I’m presuming that there would be no point in paying club fees here, unless there was a boat somewhere?”

  “Some people just join for the clubhouse and tennis courts,” Emma replied. “But charges of this nature would be mooring fees.”

  Ade could feel it. “Can you check? His name was Merv Schiller.”

  As Ade said his name, she could tell that the woman had heard of him. Her face noticeably shifted.

  “Do you know my husband?” Ade asked.

  Emma nodded. “Mr. Schiller was a regular here, up until a while ago. He worked long hours and needed to get to his boat pretty late at night, if I remember.”

  Ade could have cried with joy. This was it, she knew it. “Can you show me that boat?”

  Emma could see the relief on Ade’s face. It was hard for her to realize that the woman in front of her was Merv Schiller’s wife. “Do you know the name of the boat, at least?” Emma asked.

  Ade shook her head. “He never even told me that he had a fucking boat.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m not really supposed to—”

  “April something,” Ade said emphatically.

  “Let me go check,” Emma said reluctantly. She entered the hutch.

  Ade’s whole body was flooding with adrenaline. Even if she wasn’t allowed to see the boat right now, she knew that it could be overcome with some ID. Ade ran to her car and got her driver’s license. It still said Schiller on it.

  “Ma’am?”

  Ade could see the woman waiting outside the hutch for her. She looked the same, but her nametag said Sarah.

  “Where’s the other—where’s your sister gone?” Ade asked.

  “She’s on the phone, ma’am.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait.”

  “There’s a problem,” Sarah said.

  “I have ID,” Ade replied, as she flashed her license. “I’m his wife.”

  Sarah drew a large breath. “It’s not that. The April Showers isn’t here anymore, ma’am.”

  Ade heard, but didn’t understand. “Excuse me?”

  “It was taken away.”

  “To where?”

  “We wrote to you several times. We called. I even personally went to your house,” Sarah said.

  “For what?”

  Sarah pointed to the white sign that was posted on the outside wall of the hutch. It read:

  ALL FEES MUST BE PAID ON TIME

  “What?” Ade asked. “Are you serious?”

  Sarah could hardly look up from the ground. “We tried everything to get you, ma’am. I personally put you—” Sarah stopped and looked around to see if anyone was listening. She continued with a hushed tone, “I personally put you down as paid for over a year, because Mr. Schiller was such a longtime member.”

  Ade grabbed Sarah by the shirt. “Where’s his boat?”

  “It’s gone. They get taken away, if—”

  Ade screamed, “Where is it?”

  “Waldon’s. They take the boats from here and impound them.”

  Ade collected herself somewhat. The boat wasn’t there, but at least she could find out where it was. “Where are they? Where’s Waldon’s place?”

  Sarah didn’t want to answer. “I—I—”

  Ade could feel her stomach turning. She knew something was wrong. “Answer me, please,” she said calmly.

  Sarah could hardly get the words out. “They closed down suddenly.”

  “They did what?” Ade asked.

  “They’re gone.”

  Ade tried to laugh, but no sound came out. Her shoulders shook and her eyes filled with tears. “You know what happened?”

  Sarah was scared of the look in Ade’s eye. “No ma’am. They were in business for twenty years and then they disappeared. Didn’t tell anyone. Just left.”

  Ade laughed as she hunched over and slapped her own thigh. “They got my fucking money,” Ade said to no one in particular. “They got to it before I did.”

  Emma emerged from the hutch. “Ma’am, the boat was impounded due to lack of—” Sarah stopped her sister from talking. Both women watched Ade gently lower herself into a sitting position on the dock, laughing and crying and curling herself up into a ball.

  1972.

  New York.

  Ade traveled to New York as quickly as she could. She’d heard about what had happened to Proctor’s son and she wanted to see if he was doing okay. She also wanted to see a friendly face.

  Ade wanted to get away from San Francisco.

  She wanted to see Proctor.

  After pooling everything she had and selling anything she had left, she bought herself a ticket. At this stage, she was hardly going to wrestling shows at all. Venues were looking for her, and wrestlers were looking to get paid. She needed a break; she needed someone to put their arm around her.

  When she arrived at the hospital in New York, she immediately saw Proctor at the pay phone in the lobby. “Put me through to Danno,” she heard him tell whoever was on the other end of the call.

  Ade looked around until she found her reflection in the glass doorway. She looked good: confident, not desperate.

  “You fucking cunt. I swear to God, I’m going to kill them, Danno. Then you,” Proctor said into the phone. “This is how you keep your fat, greasy hands on the belt? You take out my boy? Is that where we’ve gone in all of this?”

  Ade waited before advancing any further. Proctor was ready to blow, and she didn’t want that to be the backdrop when he finally saw her again.

  He removed the phone from his ear and screamed into the mouthpiece. “Where’s his fucking foot, Danno?” Proctor slapped the phone back on the hook and fired a potted plant through the candy dispenser glass in front of him.

  “Move him,” Proctor shouted to no one in particular. “I want to bring my boy home to Florida with me.”

  Ade watched as Proctor stormed down the hallway. She followed him. She watched as Proctor turned left and right and walked past door after door until event
ually he came to his son’s room. She walked up and listened for quiet in the room. The whole building was quiet. No visitors and no staff to be seen. She also heard no voices inside the room, so she was sure Proctor was alone. Ade peered around the doorway and saw Proctor sitting alone at the side of his son’s bed. Gilbert King was bandaged and unconscious.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  Proctor turned and looked at Ade. She could see he was confused. He didn’t look too thrilled to see her, either.

  “Sorry to—” In that second, she knew that it was all a big mistake. She turned to leave.

  “What are you doing here?” Proctor asked as he stood up.

  Ade couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound crazy. She had built their story up in her head while she was tearing her house down. Maybe after a couple of years, she would reintroduce herself to Proctor and he would be delighted to see her. Maybe he would even want to be with her. It was fucking crazy, all of it. Ade knew it and felt it, but she couldn’t do anything to change it now that she was in front of him.

  Proctor marched her roughly into the hallway. “My wife is here,” he said looking around to see if anyone could see her.

  She shrugged him off. “You’re hurting me.”

  Proctor leaned aggressively into her ear. “I don’t want you around her; she doesn’t have anything to do with this fucking business.”

  “But there’s nothing going—”

  Proctor shoved Ade headfirst toward the door. She landed badly, but all he did was kick her shoes after her. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Ade’s head was bleeding, her shoe heel was broken, and her eyes were blurring with tears. She tried to scream, but he put his hand over her mouth, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her away from his son’s door like she was less than human.