This is a sample chapter from the first draft of my first novel, The Inheritance, about a former professional wrestler returning home to a small town to rebuild his life after killing a man in the ring. This chapter finds him in his dead end job and life in town until a chance encounter ushers him into a life in the ring.
After four months of bouncing at Ollies’, the job turned out to be less of an escape than he had hoped. Though it gave him an extended reprieve from Claire and his father, it became a trap in its own. He didn’t know if it was the bar that had changed so much—there was nothing at all he could find different about it—or if it was he himself who had changed. The pleasure the outings with his father had once given him were gone. The patrons, once amusing and childlike were now predictable, grating, pathetic. It was as though he now saw them with the same cynicism his father had. This worried him immensely and he did his best to hide it. He watched the drunks and regulars from his station at the door every night, greeting them with a smile, and watching them leave with the same teetering anesthetized resign. Dale quickly learned he didn’t like drunks. He glimpsed something different in them, something the drink set free. His father called the bottle the great corrupter. It had destroyed Dale’s mother, and his father never let him forget that fact. But Dale knew different. The drink didn’t corrupt at all—it just freed whatever was already inside.
The job became routine by the first week. Sitting alone outside, turning drunks away or turning them out, quieting the occasional argument, dissuading the rare fight, and a couple times a week, carting some unconscious customer to Horton’s for a night in the cage, or for Ollies’ more favored guests, a night in the back room adjacent the crapper. As far as he was concerned, the favored guests got the short end of the deal. At least after a sobering night’s sleep in jail, a guest woke to breakfast and coffee on the County’s bill. In Ollies’ backroom all you woke to was the stink of Alcohol-saturated urine and shit.
On this job, like everything else in town life, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Customers were as regular as their drinks and by the first month Dale knew all their routines—when they’d show, where they’d sit, when they’d leave. Nights soon ticked away as meaninglessly as his days and the escape turned into just another prison. With the clamor of a third of the town’s drunks inside, Dale sat underneath the net of stars, mind to himself, counting falling stars like they were years falling off his life. In four short months of work, he watched seven years fall out of the sky.
As far as jobs went though, the work was easy. It put extra cash in his pocket, though it went to his father or Claire. For all that the money was supposed to help, it instead seemed made things worse. His father resented Dale’s attempts to pay him back as much as Clare resented his extended absence. The only thing it bought him was precious space away from them both. The nights at least were his, and though Ollie didn’t pay the best, it was the only bar he would work for since it also kept him away from his friends. Bart, Vince and Dean were regulars of the Roadhouse, as pretty much anyone under the age of thirty was. They stuck to their turf, watching sports, making bets, trying to lay the college girl wait staff, picking fights when they failed. It was bad enough being friends with them, if he could call it that. It would be disastrous to ever bounce them.
As a falling star stole one more year off Dale’s life, a bike roared by, slowed and swung around into the lot. Dale didn’t recognize the bike—wasn’t one of Ollie’s regulars, nor one of Gordon’s J.D.'s. That wasn’t saying much though. The roadside regularly picked up stragglers from the freeway—people commuting from one place to another who were caught by its neon sign like moths to a flame. But instead it was here, under the dim light of Ollies’, that the rider peeled his goggles and jacket, and tromped towards Dale.
He was a big guy, definitely not from town, that much was from certain. He had a wide build, loping arms that couldn’t hang quite down all the way. His face was stretched wide and flat, with flared nostrils and a heavy brooding brow that masked his eyes in thick shadow. Long black hair framed dark skin patched with stubble. His face was an ugly and intimidating concoction and with his wind-tangled hair and fading impression left by the goggles he had an almost primitive look, like some Pacific Islander just landed by canoe. Strutting up to Dale, he craned his head to peer into the front door window.
“You got any TV in there?”, he asked Dale with such a deep gravely voice, that it his vocal cords sounded mangled, feral. He didn’t look at Dale, still intent on making out the inside of the place.
“No. Sorry. You want the Roadhouse, out by the freeway. Got about, I don’t know, seven, eight TV’s. Or Gordon’s across the street. But they just have the one.”
“Good.”
He looked at Dale then, acknowledging him for the first time, looking him once over in a strange way, as though sizing him up. Dale was big, taller than him, not as muscular, but probably still close in weight. Dale realized then he was sizing they guy up as well, and smiled to break the tension. Before he could say anything else, the man nodded then lumbered inside, helmet under one arm, jacket dangling from the other. The door swung closed behind him, whisking noise and the smell of the man’s B.O. into Dale’s face.
After he disappeared inside there was something about the man that lingered in Dale’s mind. It wasn’t just how odd, intently ugly the man looked, but rather how familiar he seemed. The voice, the gait, the build. Dale didn’t know the man, had probably never met him before, yet the guy just fit together. He picked at it in his mind, trying to figure how he knew this guy—had to know him—but nothing came, and he kept stealing glances at him through the door. The man ordered a drink from the bar then took a table at the back, farthest from the other patrons. He kept his head down and drank to himself.
As a few more regulars rolled in and out, Dale’s mental effort finally paid off. The eureka moment struck him hard, filling him with a wave of sudden excitement. Of course he knew who the guys was! Had seen him on TV a number of times, even caught him at a match in Carson about two years ago. Any of his friends would have pegged the guy the in a second. Dale just wasn’t a big enough fan of the sport to place the guy right off the bat. But there he was, Jack Browdy, the Wildman of the SWF—Southern Wrestling Federation—throwing back a beer at Ollies, out in Taft, in the middle of nowhere. Dale actually bounded from his seat, stealing a harder look at the man to confirm the discovery. The guy wasn’t a star by any means, but wrestling was popular enough in town that the moment could be equated to a celebrity sighting.
Dale wasn’t star struck. Didn’t want to ask the man for his autograph, or bore him with talk about the game. Professional wrestling he found to be a joke. Somewhere along the way Amateur and Professional Wrestling had switched names, and the real sport was lost beneath the spectacle of cartoon athletics. But still Dale was curious. Would love to learn more about the guy, how he fought. Here was a man who wrestled for a living, who crawled into a ring wearing no more than trunks, pair of boots, who acted like a wild animal, fought with fictional viciousness and crawled out of the ring bloodied and sweating, victorious or not, to the boos and leers of an audience that loved to hate him. Whatever Dale felt about the sport, there were a number of the guys who knew their stuff. Jack was one of them.
The one and only time Bart and Vince had actually dragged Dale to one of their wrestling outings was at the Carson Coliseum. Jack had been in the mid-card, sandwiched between the nobodies and the somebodies. Of them all, his was the only match Dale remembered. While the crowd responded to his growling, animalistic stage theatrics, Dale noted his mat skills and came away with a new appreciation for the sport that lasted only as far as the headline bout. Watching the Wildman in action had wetted Dale’s appetite for the ‘real’ pros to come. Maybe there were guys in the ring who real had skill, maybe all the matches weren’t fake, maybe the goons weren’t complete idiots. But they were.
The climax of the evening, the much billed, twenty-one dollar a ticket top-of-the-card match, was between Tiny Tim, the once unstoppable seven-foot-six, four-hundred-eighty pound giant and a popular newcomer by the name of Beautiful Benny. Tiny Tim was out of shape, over-the-hill, had been pulled from retirement to face the young upstart. The fight lasted exactly two minutes and ended with the preposterous defeat of Tiny Tim to a man two hundred pounds his inferior. It was not just how blatantly fake and predetermined the match was that stripped away whatever fleeting respect Dale had for the game, but it was the disbelief in watching the struggle Tiny Tim made from very minute he pulled himself into the ring.
The man could barely stand or move, flailed weakly after his opponent like a drugged elephant. Despite whatever pain or discomfort the man was obviously going through, he went on with the fight, letting his diminutive opponent work him over. As incapacitated as he was, there was nothing the Benny could have done to hurt the man. Tiny Tim was a behemoth, a legend. At the end of those tenuous two minutes, unable to hold himself up any longer, the giant finally fell, subdued by the fakest blow Dale had ever seen. He plummeted mercifully to the mat and just lies there like a downed animal.
Benny took the belt, the crowd went ape shit. It was an upset, a sham, a bold-faced lie, and the crowd ate it up. The show ended and riled, drunken fans took to the parking lot breaking beer bottles and pissing in the street. As Dale left the auditorium, he looked over his shoulder and wondered how many others saw that it took four men to drag Tiny Tim’s unmoving form from the ring. He wondered how many more would care. He didn’t know which he hated more after that—the hucksters who put on the show, or the greedy ignorant fans who ate it up.
Dale sat at his stool, running the questions through his mind he wanted to ask Jack, playing out the scenarios in the safety of his imagination rather than asking the man in person. As much as he would like to speak to him, Dale just couldn’t muster the self-consciousness to introduce himself. The guy, it seemed, just wanted to be left alone. Two empty beer glasses, and a third going down, and he still sulked by himself in the corner.
As he went back into his thoughts, wondering what it would be like to go down on the mat with the guy—wrestler squared against wrestler, Vince’s unmistakable white pick-up swerved into the lot, limbs, laughter and Led Zeppelin spilling out of the open windows.
“Geronimooooo!!” Vince shrieked as he rolled over the barking berm and popped his beaten truck up onto the curb. Grinding it in reverse, he eased it back down across two spots and cut the engine. Vince, Bart, Dean, and a tag along from the Roadhouse Dale didn’t know, spilled out, smelling of beer, pot and sweat. Bart swayed first up to Dale, belching loud and hard into the night air, silencing the crickets.
“You got a full house tonight.”, he exhaled into the smudged glass of the front door. Dale didn’t know if it was meant as a statement or question.
“What brings you guys around here? Get kicked out of the Roadhouse?”
Vince loped up, maneuvering right into his face. “Fuck the Roadhouse man! I won’t even take a shit in that dump anymore.”
He peers around Bart’s unmoving bulk through the front door, fighting for a view. The tag-along hovered by the truck, sucking in the last of a joint.
“’Fraid there’s nothing going on in here tonight. Why don’t you try Gordon’s?”
“That’s not what we hear man. This is the place to be tonight.”
Bart pivots around like a turret, “What, you don’t want our business?”
Dale didn’t like the idea of having them around already drunk on his shift. As Vince shoved past Bart through the entrance and the new guy crowded with them at the door, Dale rose from his stool.
Vince interrupted, his voice squeaking excitedly like a girls, “Shit man, there! C’mon, let’s go!”
He powered through the door, sucking the other guy in his wake, their excited gaffaws and hoots following them inside. Bart cracked open a smile, his square pitted teeth jammed into his meaty gums like dice, patted Dale’s cheek with the fat slab of his hand. Dean recoiled in distaste and watched him disappear inside. Dean saddled up along side Dale, wearing the cold expression that had become a permanent fixture since his father pulled anchor and ran.
“We don’t see you around anymore. Old man keeping you busy.”
Dale had to turn from those lifeless eyes. He looked through the glass at the three figures coalescing around the bar.
“You know how it is. Got this job, the family.”
“Sure. Sure, I know how it is. Have to do what you have to do, right.”
“So, why’d they come? Just to give me more shit?”
Dean turns around. “No. I think you just kind of bore them now, you know.” He gestures inside. “Somebody came by J.D.'s to tell us the Wildman was here at the bar. They didn’t believe it so they wanted to see for themselves. He in there?”
He inched up on his toes to get a better view through the high window.
“Yeah, believe it or not. Pulled up on his bike, asked if we had TV, then walked right in. Figured he would have preferred J.D.’s, or even Gordon’s. But, seems content here. He’s back there in the corner, hasn’t moved since he got here.”
“Not surprised. Last place in the world he’d want to be right now is at the Roadhouse, after what we just saw.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On TV. He was just in a match--they’re pre-recorded you know. You know how he’s been teamed up with Jamis McMann?”
“Don’t watch the game. But, yeah, I know who McMann is. Been around for a while.”
“Well, middle of the match, Wildman goes fucking wild, turns on old Jamis, smashes his bloody face in the mat, then pins him for the McKenzie Brothers on the other side. Fucking awesome match. The guys in the bar lost it though. Started breaking tables and chairs. Fucking riot.” He shakes his head in pleasure. “Should’ve seen it. J.D. won’t let those guys back for a while, tell you that much.”
“Yeah, well there he is. Though doubt he wants much attention. Why don’t you guys give him some space, huh?”
Dean pushed open the door. “Don’t tell me. I’m just here to watch.”
With that he disappeared inside, leaving Dale by himself.
It was a recipe for disaster he knew. No matter how he played it. Things weren’t great between them. Ever since Graduation he had pretty much blown them off, content with never seeing any of them ever again. Though that wasn’t going to happen. Not that Dale was stuck in town himself. They were stuck together and he had to find some way of getting them out of the bar without making it worse.
He slipped inside after Dean, into the warmth and cigarette smoke. A few regulars clung to their regular seats—collecting glasses or throwing darts. Bart and Vince had just gotten their round of drinks and moseyed over to the table Jack sat hunched at. Vince’s voice cracked over the somber noise of the bar.
“Fucking awesome game man! You’re Jack Wildman Browdy, right? Fuck yeah you are. Told you guys.” He waved the others over. Dean hung back at the bar. “Fucking awesome man. Cheers, right!”
He waved his glass in Jack’s face, dribbling some of the foamy head on his table, breaking the man’s introspection. Browdy considered him a moment, giving him the same once over he gave Dale at the door, then nodded as though making up his mind.
“Right. Cheers.”
He held out the half empty glass, head bowed down again. Vince clinked it with his own. “All right man!” Then slugged it back. Before Jack could let his fall back to the table, Bart and the other guy approached, their own glasses outstretched. He toasted theirs as well, threw the rest of his drink back, nodded again, and waved at them with his other hand, either encouraging or dismissing them. They didn’t seem to notice, just crowded tighter around him.
“Ollie, fucking ‘nother round of drinks over here for our friend, while we get to the bottom of tonight’s shit!”
Bart dropped his empty glass next to Jack’s, put his fists on the table. “Cannot believe you are here. We just watched you on the TV, not more than an hour ago. Up at the Carson Coliseum. How the fuck you get down here so fast?”
“Games’s pre-recorded.”
“That right? Awesome fucking match.”
“Great. Thanks, guys.”
“No, thank you man. Right, Vince? Thank you!”
Vince pulls up a chair from an adjacent table, sliding it close, slinking into it. “You should a seen our faces man, what you did. Biggest fucking surprise we ever had. You mopped the floor with old man Jammis! Never seen anyone give him the beating you did. You’re fucking crazy man!!”
Jack slides back in his own chair, putting some space between himself and the cramped gathering around him.
“You are so hot, man,” offered the new guy, who then watered down his embarrassment with his beer.
Ollie strolled up with another round.
“There’s the man.” Vince jumped up, handing out glasses to the others.
“Ollie, you catch this guy’s match tonight?”
“Don’t have a TV, Vince.”
“Should have seen it…”
As Ollie scooped up Jack’s empty glasses, Jack flagged him reaching for his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
Bart puts the fat hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“No way. We’re buying. Drinks are on us.”
Vince sticks another glass in Browdy’s face, waits for him to take it.
Ollie smiles apologetically, turns tail back to the bar.
Jack tilts his head, nods again and takes the glass. “Cheers, gents.” He holds out the glass, head bowed again, tangled black hair falling over the dark crevices of his face.
They goons shout out more obscenities, toasting their guest, coating their mouths with foam.
With that, Jack put down his drink, reached for his jacket.
“Thanks for beers you guys. Gotta’ run. Hope to see you at the ring some time.”
Bart steps back. “Gotta’ go? Shit, what kind of hospitality is that, man? We just got here, now you’re gonna ditch? C’mon, least finish your drink with us.”
“It’s late for me. Just spent an hour in the ring, you know. Couple hours on the road. I got to be in Lincoln for another match tomorrow. Sure you guys understand.”
“Sure, sure. Hey, at least tell us why you did it.”
Jack pauses, “Did what?”
“You know. The smack down on Jamis.”
Vince pipes in, rising next to Bart. “Yeah man, what the fuck was with that? Jamis is our boy. You don’t just go down on your own partner without good reason. He fuck you over or something, or you just crazy for real?”
Jack shook his head, gave Vince a hard stare. “Are you guys for real?”
The new guy speaks up from behind the boys. “Why’d you do it Jack? Someone buy you off? Pay you to put a hurt on McMann? He didn’t do anything to you. You wouldn’t even be nobody, he didn’t let you team up with him. He’s a fucking star, and you put him out. It just ain’t cool man. ‘Round here we fucking love that man!”
The three of them nodded in agreement toasted each other and drank to McMann.
“Fuck, I don’t have time for this.”
Jack grabbed his jacket again, picked up his helmet.
Bart stood in his way as Jack rose to leave. “You know we got kicked out of our own fuckin’ place over what you did.”
“That right.”
“Oh great.” Dale said to himself as he stood up from his stool. Dean sat a few seats down from him, beaming like a kid in a candy store. This was enough. Dale didn’t want to fan these flames any further, but damnit they had gone far enough. Horton wasn’t on duty tonight—had a wrestle meet in the city. Only the deputy was on duty, but he would be as effective as Barney Fife. Ollie gave him a look, set a pitcher on the bar.
“All right you guys, c’mon, leave the man alone. Ollie’s setting up another round on the house.”
Bart steps in it again. “Shit, you’re not going to give us an answer, least you can do is buy our drinks.”
Other guy piped in. “Yeah, man. Fuckin’ apologize for beating Jamis too.”
Dale strode to the table, putting himself between them and Jack, trying to usher them to the bar.
“Give him some air guys. Sorry about this. People get excited about the game around here is all.”
Bart turned on him. “Hey Dale! Shut your fucking hole. We’ve had it with your--what’d you call his fucking attitude? Condensation?”
“Fuckin’ condescending, man. Condescending attitude.”
“That’s it.”
“All right. Come on with me over to the bar, you can tell me all about my condensation, Bart.”
He put his hands to them then, knowing it wasn’t the wisest thing to do. They were already charged. Touching them was like opening the circuit. But fuck it. It had been a while since they last tumbled. They wanted to go to the floor with him again, he’d oblige. Big as they were, they still weren’t a match for him.
It was the new guy that set it all in motion. As Jack squeezed past, he emptied his beer down the guy’s shirt and jacket. Must have seemed like a good idea to him at the time—got a laugh out of it for a second before Jack’s helmet took the place his teeth. Bart and Vince both went for Jack then, shoving Dale out of the way. Dale didn’t know what happened exactly. Neither did the goons. Both just ended sprawled on the floor underneath Jack’s table. When they came up for him again, Dale was on them. He dropped Vince first, the lighter of the two, with a knee press, locked his arm behind his back and popped his jaw down on the table. Bart lumbered into Jack, who just spun him around and sent him tumbling back at Dale. It would have been easy enough to side step, let him crash into Vince, but it wouldn’t have felt as good. He caught him instead, using his momentum to flip Bart over his shoulder and crashing down onto the hard wood floor. Dale fell on him in the same instant, knocking all of the air from Bart’s over inflated lungs. He pinned him there for good measure, applying enough pressure to a shoulder lock that as soon as Bart got a breath back in him it went right into screaming. He thrashed as much as he could and though he had the advantage of weight over Dale, there was nothing that could break Dale’s grip on him, save losing the arm.
“Get off me!” Bart wheezed in broken, straining breaths.
Vince was trying to break a glass against the table, but the glass wouldn’t break, and he just pounded it like a gavel. Dropping it, he hefted one of the bar chairs over his head. Jack laughed at the sight. The guy had seen a lot of chairs in his career. This one must have been especially amusing. Ollie was shouting something from the bar, probably on the phone trying to phone the sheriff’s office, but Dale had it under control. Hefting Bart off the ground, using pain as leverage, Dale angled him towards Vince’s. Shoving full force into Vince’s back, he sent them both careening towards the door. Vince stumbled, dropping the chair, caught by his friend. Dale shoved again using their momentum to keep them going. Catching his footing, Bart whipped around, knocking Dale’s arms away. But he kept backing towards the door.
“That’s it Dale. It’s fucking over. You’re on your own from now on you cocky piece of shit.”
Vince wanted his say too. “Yeah, fuck you man! We’re fucking done with you! C’mon Bart. We don’t need this asshole anymore.” He slapped Bart on the back; they turned and went out the door.
Dale turned to the other guy, who having collected his senses was talking to Jack, accented by his busted mouth.
“Oh, dude. Thorry man. Don’t know what the fuck I wath thinking. Will you forgive me? I’m one of your biggest fanth, really. Thit, I, gotta go with those guys. I need a ride.” He reaches across, shakes Jack’s hand, then jogged towards the door, beaming proudly. “Itth so fucking awthom! I was fucking taken out by the Wildman!”
They watched in disbelief the guy jog out the door like some kind of contender. Dale realized he never saw what became of Dean. Somewhere in the scuffle he’d simply disappeared.
The silence in the bar became noticeable again. Ollie was still waiting on the phone, the other patrons faded back into the picture, in their same spots with their same drinks. Jack stood by his table, looking at Dale, as calm as he had been when he first walked in.
Dale didn’t know what to say. Everything he had wanted to say was gone, the complements and questions replaced by the need for apologies, explanations. He had somehow fucked everything up.
“Look, I, uh, I’m really sorry about all of this.”
Jack waved a hand, brushing Dale’s gesture off.
“Look guy—Dale. That’s you’re name right? Don’t sweat it. What can I say—these guys asked for trouble and they got it. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but they’re my friends…”
“Now that’s fucked up if they’re you’re friends.”
“Well, were my friends. Look, I should have done something…”
“ You did something--you dealt with it. Right. What they did was their business. Don’t apologize for their actions.”
“Okay. Sorr--.” Dale winced.
Jack shook his head, wiping the beer from his jacket. “Whatever. You got a towel or something back there, pops”, he shouted over to Ollie talking on the phone. Hanging up, he slung a towel over his shoulder and walked over to them, navigating through the fallen chairs.
“Look sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I just talked to the sheriff’s station and they’re coming over to file a report. Now I know you were harassed, we all saw it, but just the same you threw the first punch, busted up the place some and I’m sure the sheriff will want to have a word with you about that. So, it’d really be best if you just got on your way.”
“Suits me. I’ve had enough shit for one night.” He reaches for his wallet, pulls out a couple of twenties. “Figured those guys don’t plan to pick up my tab. This should cover the beer and some of the trouble.”
“Don’t worry about the money, just get on out before the sheriff shows up.”
“Horton’s leaving the game?”
“Yup.”
That was bad. He’d be pissed. Give the goons a hard time about it too. Which meant more trouble between them.
Jack dropped the bills on a table picked up his helmet. “Money’s yours. I pay my way.”
He reaches a thick hairy hand out to Dale. “Glad to have you in my corner. Handled yourself pretty well there.”
With that he shuffled out the door, and Dale kicked himself in the ass. Chance encounter blown. Somehow it felt as though Jack had brought with him a gust a fresh air, and his leaving turned the room stale and still.
“Sorry about the mess, Ollie.”
“There you go again. Don’t apologize. Just clean up.”
Dale got a few claps on the back from the other patrons, couple of laughs. Made up for not having a TV he supposed. Besides, most everyone agreed the goons had it coming. Dale, they said, was just the guy to give it to them. Only he was the worst guy to give it. Things had been awkward enough between them; he’d been sick of them for a while, but now it was a two-way street and that would only make things worse. Trying to avoid them before, he would try even harder now.
A couple of chairs rightened, some glasses stacked on the bar and Dale went back to his post outside the door. He needed the air. The bar was suffocating him. Outside, Jack was there, bouncing up and down on his starter. It wouldn’t turn over. Dale walked over.
“Having trouble?”
“No trouble. Bike’s a piece of shit.”
Dale stood there watching. Jack pulled the throttle, kicked it again. Nothing. He swung off to take a look.
“You know bikes?” he asked Dale.
Dale leant in, spotting the problem immediately.
“Your fuel line’s cut.”
“How the hell does that happen?”
Dale stood, looking down the street. “With a knife I’d say.”
Jack kicked the bike. “That’s fucked up.”
Seeing the pay phone, Jack dug in his pocket for change.
“You got a garage around here I can call for a tow?”
Dale turned towards the bar. “Save your change. It’s closed.” He disappeared inside a minute, leaving Jack swearing in the clear night air.
Dale came back out wearing a long jacket. “Down the street is a garage. We can fix you up there.” He pulled out a set of keys, dangling them.
“What, you work at the garage too?”
“Geronimo’s Hardware and Automotive Supply, serving Taft for over thirty years.”
Jack nodded. “Right on.”
Kicking the bike off its stand they rolled it down the street.
Dale switched on the lights, banks of flickering yellow and white fluorescents stabbed through the darkness. At night the store possessed a vastness that seemed diminished by day as though it expanded in the absence of others. It was a feeling Dale was used to. Jack stood outside, awash in the light from the windows. Dale cranked the garage door open just enough for Jack to push the bike inside. Dropping tools on a counter, Dale held up a small plastic wrapped part.
“Gas line”, he explained, then pulled out a beer can from in his coat pocket. “Beer. Ollies’ way of apologizing.”
“Like I said, don’t need any apologies. Take the beer, though. Shit.”
Dale handed him the can, Jack popped it, toasted and drank. Dale went to work on the bike. Jack kicked back against the corner, took in the shop.
“How long you work here?”
“All my life, believe it or not.”
“I believe it. You walk around here like it’s home. Family business?”
“Yeah, but you know, I’d rather not talk about it. Can ever get away from it, know what I mean?”
“No problem.” He slugged the beer back in a long gulp and crapped out a thunderous burp that ricocheted off the walls around them.
“Right on acoustics in here” He nodded appreciably to himself.
Dale had to laugh at that. With the perpetually juvenile goons burping was a competitive sport done for effect—to disgust, shock or impress. Jack seemed to do it just to please himself.
As he worked on the bike a silence weighed down on them. It seemed Jack was as content with silence as he was with talking. Dale finally forced the courage to speak up.
“You know, when I recognized you back at the bar, I wanted to introduce myself to you. Say hi, talk.”
“Yeah? Why didn’t you?”
Dale wasn’t sure. “Embarrassed, I guess.”
“Your friends weren’t embarrassed.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of my point.”
“I get you. So talk now.”
“Well…,” he fished for whatever it was he had wanted to say but couldn’t find it.
“You’re my biggest fan.”
“Actually no. I hate the game.”
Jack laughed at that. A deep cracking sound, Dale enjoyed hearing.
It sounded, like everything about Jack, to the point and sincere.
“Go on.”
“Well, I wrestle—used to. Amateur wrestling in high school. I was actually the divisional champion four years ago.”
“I can buy that, the way you handled your friends back there. And you hate professional wrestling because it’s fake. Amateur wrestling’s for real athletes. Professional’s for actor’s.”
“Something like that.”
“That’s all right. Don’t be coy. I’ve had this talk with a lot of guys come out of ‘real’ wrestling. Played with a few in the ring. I won’t tell you what I told them--you seem too nice a guy. But I will tell you this, it’s a lot more real than it looks. What you see in the ring is not about whose hurting who. It’s about whose not hurting whom. Night after night, fight after fight, we go in that ring, get hit, kicked, dropped, slammed, thrown, turn-buckled, twisted and chaired. And nobody gets hurt. You know why? Because we are ‘real’, ‘professional’ athletes.”
“So what did you tell the others you’re not telling me?”
“Let’s just say I showed them what I meant. I guarantee you, every one of them got it. There’s a world of difference between our sports. In the ring, you understand those differences real quick.”
Dale nodded, putting the final adjustments to the bike.
“Well, you’re good to go. Guess should get back to the bar.”
“You want to go back?”
“Not really.”
“Then what’s the hurry? Fuck it. We’re here having a good talk, drinking a beer. Enjoy it for a minute.”
“All right.” Stood from the bike, leaned against a counter letting a momentary silence ease among them. Jack swigged down the last of his beer.
They talked more, about wrestling, professional and amateur. They talked about their families—Dale’s father, and Jack’s mother, who based on their character alone, would have made a formidable match in the ring. To Dale’s surprise he opened up to Jack. The man had opinions, opinions on everything, but he never once forced them upon Dale, and never once judged Dale’s opinions. There was an ease to talking with him that he had rarely found in any of his friends. Even with Dean, when they had been close, their relationship was more about what was not said than what was. The evening pressed on and Jack finally bid Dale farewell. He swallowed Dale’s hand in his own. It was like shaking hands with a circus bear.
“Next time we have a match in the city, you have to come down. I’ll
hold a seat for you. Show you around the back, introduce you to some of the guys. You’ll get a kick out of it.”
It was a great offer. The fact Dale had sworn to himself to never go to another game was lost to him. He told him sure. Then the red eye of Jack’s bike disappeared into the darkness of Taft, and Dale cut the lights to the shop then walked back to his post outside the bar. The night air seemed lighter, the stars further away as though all of space had expanded to give the world a little more breathing room.
He returned home, late as always, though later tonight for he had not want to give up the small liberation he felt just yet. When at last he slipped back into his own house they way he used to years ago, not wanting to be caught by his father for sneaking away in the middle of the night. He scavenged off some scraps in the refrigerator, as had become routine since, Claire so resentful of his moonlighting that she no longer cooked his dinner. He didn’t go to his own room that night, didn’t even check on Claire. Instead, he grabbed a spare blanket from the closet and went to Hailey’s room. He sat next to her thinking about the night’s events—the chance encounter with Jack Browdy and the end of his friendship with the goons, and felt for the first time in years that he had a little more space to breath. That it was over between he and his friends was a greater relief than he ever imagined. Yet it had taken a stranger to sever it. He could never have done it on his own, he realized, no matter how much it atrophied. He would have let it rot and fester until they fell away on their own, just so he would not have to be the one to do the deed. Just before dawn he fell asleep on the floor next to his daughter. By morning it was all forgotten.
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