My Father, the Angel of Death

by Ray Villareal

  “He was mostly known in the Southwest. My father’s early career was spent in the independent circuit. He wrestled for small organizations in and around Texas. When he hired on with the ACW, Mr. Collins created the Angel of Death persona. My father grew his hair out long, past his shoulders, and dyed it a darker shade of black than it already was. A makeup artist with the company developed the design for his skeleton face.”

  “A skeleton face?” Sara asked, bemused.

  I nodded. “It generally takes about an hour to apply the makeup. But the effect is awesome. My father also wears black leather tights, a sleeveless black leather shirt, and black boots. He enters the ring draped in a black robe and carrying a scythe.”

  “He sounds fantastic!” exclaimed Sara. “How long has he been the Angel of Death?”

  “For about five years,” I told her.

  “I’d love to see him,” she said. “If only my parents would let me watch the show.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’ve got millions of photos of him. My house is up ahead. If you want to come in, I’ll . . . ”

  My voice trailed off as I remembered the scene with my mom at breakfast. I had no idea what sort of mood she’d be in.

  “Um, we’d better make it another time,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve got a ton of homework to do, and I need to get on it right away.”

  “Sure, Jesse, I understand,” said Sara, but by the tone in her voice, I wasn’t so sure she did.

  I was stupid to invite her over, then cut her off like that.

  A couple of minutes later, we arrived at my house.

  “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?” said Sara.

  “Yeah, okay. And thanks for the ice cream.”

  I opened the door and braced myself for whatever might happen inside.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Mom?” I called uneasily.

  “I’m over here in the dining room.”

  I dropped my backpack in the foyer and followed the sound of her voice.

  The dining room was cluttered with stacks of cardboard boxes. They’d been sitting there ever since we moved to our house, and up until now, my mom hadn’t gotten around to unpacking them. What few meals we ate at home, we ate at the breakfast table in the kitchen.

  She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a St. Louis Rams T-shirt. From one of the boxes, she was removing some dishes and arranging them in the china cabinet.

  “Hi.” I made my way through the maze of boxes and kissed her cheek.

  “How was school?”

  She routinely asked me that, with my expected response being “fine.” But I could sense a harshness in her voice. It didn’t have the usual warm tone. Perhaps she was still mad about the morning.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Really?” There was a definite coldness. “Did anything unusual happen at school today?”

  “Just the regular stuff. I met a girl, Sara Young. She and her family live nearby. They’re friends of the Bennetts—you know, the people we bought the house from.”

  “Jesse, sit down,” my mother said, ignoring what I was telling her.

  She cleared two large boxes of framed photos from the table. I sat down across from her.

  “First of all, I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened this morning,” she began. “I was upset that Dad’s plans were changed at the last minute and he couldn’t come home today, so I took my frustration out on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “That’s okay, Mom,” I told her. “It was my fault, too. I spilled my juice on you, and I should’ve been more careful.”

  She shut her eyes and lowered her head, as if she was praying. Maybe she was. Finally she gazed deeply at me. “Jesse, you know things have been pretty strained between Dad and me lately.”

  Suddenly my stomach tightened into a knot. Oh, no, I thought. Please don’t tell me you’re going to leave him again.

  “I’ve tried very hard to make things work for us. And I honestly believe things are going to get better. But, Jesse . . . ” Her voice grew louder. “We all have to pull together, do you understand?”

  “Sure, Mom,” I said.

  “Things are tense enough around here without you adding to the problems.”

  What did she mean by that? I was confused.

  “Mom, I said I was sorry about the juice. I don’t know what else to tell you. If you’re talking about your dress—”

  “I’m talking about your school, Jesse!” She slammed her hand on the table.

  “My school?”

  “I got a call a little while ago from your homeroom teacher, Mrs. Petrosky. She told me that you failed your history test today, that you received the lowest grade in the class.”

  Now it was my turn to get angry. “There was no way I could have passed that test, Mom, and she knew it! It was on the Texas Revolution. I know you and Dad grew up here in Texas, but I didn’t. It was impossible for me to learn all that stuff in a week and a half, when the rest of the class has been studying it forever.”

  “Your teacher didn’t seem to think so, Jesse. She told me she gave you plenty of time to prepare for it.”

  “But, Mom,” I argued, “the test covered six chapters! Look, I’ll get my book and show you if you don’t believe me.” I started to rise from the table.

  “Sit down, Jesse!” she ordered. “That’s not all. Mrs. Petrosky also told me you got into a fight today at lunchtime.”

  “What? I didn’t get in a fight!”

  My mom’s eyes widened. “Are you going to tell me that your teacher called and made all this up? Are you calling your teacher a liar?”

  “No, Mom, but—”

  “Jesse, please!”

  A flash of pain shot through my head like a charge of electricity.

  Back when I could still talk to my mom about my headaches, she diagnosed them as being “stressinduced.” I’ve never seen a doctor about them, but if I did, I’m sure he would agree with her.

  “Mrs. Petrosky wants to come by tomorrow afternoon to discuss the problems you’re having at school.”

  “But I’m not having any problems at school,” I insisted.

  She grabbed a tissue from a box on top of the buffet table and wiped her eyes. We don’t ordinarily keep a tissue box in the dining room, which made me wonder how much crying she’d done all day.

  “Well, your teacher seems to think you do.” The tension in her voice had begun to fade. “I suggested having a conference with her at school, but she kindly offered to come here. Mrs. Petrosky wants to share some ideas that might help you bring up your grade. She seems to be a very caring teacher, Jesse. Please don’t give her any trouble.”

  “But I don’t.”

  The pounding in my head grew stronger. There was no point in arguing with her. She had made up her mind about what I was going through at school, and nothing I could say was going to make her think otherwise.

  “I need to get started on my homework,” I said.

  As I rose from the table, I spotted a box of photo albums on the floor. I thought I’d pick out a few pictures to show Sara tomorrow. “Is it all right if I take this to my room?”

  “Be my guest. I need to get all this mess put away before your teacher’s visit. I don’t want her to get the impression that we’re a bunch of slobs.”

  I grabbed the box and retreated to my room.

  It had been a long time since I’d gone through our photo albums. I fished out a couple of them and stretched across my bed on my stomach. My headache eased a little, but still remained, keeping a steady, metronome-like beat.

  The first album I flipped through had pictures of my father in his Mangler days. There was one of him shaking hands with Ox Mulligan, a wrestler my father used to watch when he was little. There was another one of my father holding the Texas Heavyweight belt. It was his first championship title.

  After flipping through a few more pages, I closed the book and tossed it back in the box. I opened a blue and gold album. This on
e had more recent photographs. On the first page was an 8x10 glossy of my father in his Angel of Death outfit, surrounded by flames. The words, ANGEL OF DEATH, were formed with black, smoky letters. It was the same picture often found on lunch boxes, backpacks, and T-shirts. I would definitely share this one with Sara. I slipped it out of its clear plastic cover and set it on top of my nightstand.

  The next two pages had pictures of him wrestling Jumbo Jefferson. In a couple of them, Jefferson’s face was masked with blood. Too gory, I decided. Sara wouldn’t understand.

  When I turned the page, I was stunned by what I saw. There was a photo of my father, as the Angel of Death, posed with a blank space. The blank space should’ve been his former valet, Spirit, but her picture had been ripped out. I flipped through the other pages. Every image of Spirit was missing, torn off each photograph.

  My mom had done it, of course.

  She’d never been comfortable with Spirit being teamed with my father. The pairing had been Frank Collins’ idea.

  When my father first signed on with the American Championship Wrestling organization, he wrestled as a “mid-carder”—a wrestler who hasn’t yet been elevated to main event status. He wrestled “jobbers” like Wally Armstrong and Johnny Surfer. Jobbers are wrestlers who “lose” every match. Their job is to help push mid-carders to become top-tier wrestlers. That is, if the promoters feel that the mid-carders have the potential to headline a show. My father did.

  Once he became a featured star, Mr. Collins decided that my father needed a valet, someone to escort him to the ring, to hold his robe and scythe during his match.

  A woman named Cassandra Richardson had just begun to work for the ACW. She primarily wrestled “house shows,” so she wasn’t familiar to most fans. House shows are wrestling events that aren’t shown on television. Only the Monday night shows are televised. She wasn’t a very good wrestler, and Mr. Collins knew it.

  But rather than letting her go, he created the character of Spirit and paired her up with my father.

  Spirit has long, wavy, red hair. She wears a white, shiny, skintight, leather jumpsuit with light-blue high-heeled boots and gloves. Her character is a sharp contrast to my father’s dark, brooding, sinister-looking presence. Everyone instantly fell in love with Spirit.

  Everyone, except my mom.

  At first she didn’t say much. But as the popularity of the Angel of Death and Spirit continued to grow, the ACW increased their number of public appearances, both at TV tapings and at house shows.

  “You spend more time with that woman than you do with me,” my mom would often complain to my father.

  “It’s just business, Molly, you know that,” he tried to assure her. “The gimmick is working well for the company.”

  “Well, it’s not working well for us!”

  This was one of the reasons she left him.

  Before my parents got back together again, my mom demanded that my father get rid of Spirit as his valet. After discussing the situation with his boss, Mr. Collins reluctantly agreed to separate them.

  The Angel of Death now enters the ring alone. An ACW staff member meets him inside the ring. My father hands him the accessories to his costume, and the worker carries them back to the dressing room once the match begins.

  As for Spirit, she returned to wrestling. But Terrance was right. She can’t wrestle worth a dime.

  While I dug in the box for another album, I came across a plastic action figure of the Angel of Death. It was one of the first models the ACW put on the market. There have been six different Angel of Death toys in all, but I don’t think any of them look like him.

  I stood the action figure on my bed’s headboard shelf, then drew another album from the box. This one didn’t contain any wrestling photographs. They were only family pictures. My mom insists on keeping the photos separate.

  There was one of me sitting naked in the bathtub. I must’ve been about two years old. Still, there was no way Sara would ever see this one.

  I turned a few pages. There were pictures of my mom, Aunt Gracie, and me at Disney World. My father was supposed to go with us, but the ACW had him wrestle a number of matches that week, so Aunt Gracie took his place.

  The next page had pictures of me in the dinosaur program our second grade class performed when we lived in Atlanta. Or was it Memphis? My mom had sewn my stegosaurus costume. I remember thinking that the bony plates on the back looked more like tiny wings. I also remember that my father didn’t see the show.

  He also missed my performance in “Jack and the Beanstalk” when I was in the fourth grade. I had a tiny part, just one of the town folks in the background that Jack passed as he went to sell his cow. We had just moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. The kids were practicing for the program when I was enrolled in the class. My teacher, Mrs. Harrison, didn’t want to exclude me from the production, so she stuck me in the crowd scene where kids who couldn’t act were placed.

  Last year we moved to St. Louis. There, I joined the school band. The band director assigned me to play the drums. I told him I wanted to learn to play the trumpet, but he said that I would better serve the band by being in the percussion section. I think he must have seen my school records and figured I wouldn’t last long in that school, anyway. He probably didn’t want to invest the time to teach me how to play the trumpet since I’d probably be gone before the school year was out. We had two band concerts. My father didn’t attend either one.

  I closed the album and dumped it in with the others. I picked up the 8x10 photo I’d set aside for Sara and studied it.

  What was it Wendell had said to me? “You must be the luckiest kid in the world to have the Angel of Death for a father.”

  Somehow, I didn’t feel all that lucky.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Psst!”

  It was my third try but I still couldn’t get Adela Crager’s attention. She had her nose deeply buried in her book.

  My English teacher, Mr. Gillette, begins his class with silent reading time. For the first fifteen minutes of the period, all students are required to read quietly from a book of their choice.

  Adela must be reading a great story, I thought, although I didn’t recall her being much of a reader.

  “Psst! Adela!” I shouted in a loud whisper. Adela’s head jerked up. She glanced around the room, startled, her eyelids at half-mast.

  I should’ve known Adela was asleep. I’d heard her read aloud. Adela Crager was no reader.

  “Psst!” I said again.

  She turned and stared at me, her eyelids fluttering.

  “Pass this down to Sara,” I whispered, handing her a green pocket folder.

  Adela glared at me, irritated that I’d woken her up. Looking down at the folder, she grudgingly snatched it from my hand and tossed it onto Sara’s desk.

  Sara turned away from her book, Something Wicked This Way Comes. She stared at the folder. She glanced over, first at Adela, then at me. I grinned, pointed at my chest, then at the folder to indicate that it had come from me. Sara smiled and nodded.

  Adela reopened her book and went back to sleep.

  I watched for Sara’s reaction as she drew out the 8 x 10 glossy from the folder. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes widened in surprise. She turned to me and mouthed the words “He’s incredible!”

  I smiled. For the first time in quite a while I was proud to let someone know that the Angel of Death was my father. Since she didn’t watch wrestling, I had worried about what Sara would think when she saw the photo. I was glad she liked it.

  While Sara studied the picture and I studied Sara, neither one of us noticed Mr. Gillette approaching her desk. Suddenly his hand reached down and snatched the photograph away from her.

  He stared at the picture and wrinkled his nose as if he’d just detected a foul odor.

  “Quite frankly, Miss Young, I find it disappointing that you would take an interest in this type of vulgar entertainment.” He folded the photograph in half and stuffed it into his blaz
er pocket. “Now, I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to spend the rest of the allotted silent reading time doing what you are supposed to be doing—reading!”

  So strongly did he emphasize the word “reading” that it nearly jolted Adela Crager out of her seat. Her book flew out of her hands and fell on the floor. Dazed, Adela searched around her desk, trying to spot where her book had landed.

  Mr. Gillette scowled at me. “Mr. Baron, your father’s celebrity status does not impress me, whatsoever. If you want to peddle these tasteless, disgusting photographs, I suggest you do it on your own time. Not mine!”

  He wheeled around and headed back to his desk.

  I looked at Sara and shrugged.

  She smiled and returned the shrug.

  How could I have been so dumb? I knew I should’ve waited until lunchtime to give her the picture. The last thing I wanted was to see Sara get in trouble, especially on my account.

  I looked up at Mr. Gillette. He had perched himself on his desk, his arms folded across his chest, and was eyeing us like a hawk. I figured he’d probably hand the photograph over to my homeroom teacher, which would give Mrs. Petrosky something else to discuss with my mom about all the “problems” I was having in school.

  Interestingly, during history class earlier in the day, Mrs. Petrosky didn’t mention a word to me about her upcoming visit to my house or about my failing grade. She simply went about her business, talking about the Battle of San Jacinto and of Mexican President Santa Anna’s eventual capture.

  The only time she spoke to me was while the class was copying down notes from the chalkboard. She strolled up to my desk and asked, “Will your father be home this evening?”

  When I told her he wouldn’t, she looked disappointed. Then she composed herself and continued teaching.

  As soon as my English class had ended, I caught up with Sara in the hallway.

  “Sara, listen, I’m sorry I got you in trouble with Mr. Gillette. I shouldn’t have given you the picture until after class.”

  “That’s okay, Jesse. Your dad’s absolutely amazing! He looks like a comic book superhero.”