The fans booed loudly. The teenagers started a U-S-A chant. It took over the arena. Yegor had finally done it. He managed to get heat from the crowd. He was finally getting over. A soft rock song cut the chants short. Yegors opponent was hitting the ring.
Yegor’s opponent was a short, thin newbie I’d never seen before. He was from one of the other schools and seemed very green to the business. He rocked black tights and his brown hair was cut in a bowl style haircut. Physically, he had no business in the ring with Yegor. The fact that Yegor had already managed to get the crowd against him and behind this kid was amazing in itself.
Yegor took notice of the hecklers. “I WILL WIN THIS FOR RUSSIA!” he shouted at the kids. The USA chants began again, louder and louder.
Mark was beaming with pride. He leaned into me.
“I don’t know what you did to him. I’ve been trying to get him to address that crap for two years. You come by and all of sudden he finally gets his head out his ass. Good gob Bri.”
I smiled at Mark then glanced towards Yegor. He winked at me as the match began.
Being a seasoned performer by this point, Yegor had no problem with the rookie. The kid threw his best punches and kicks which the crowd got behind momentarily. Yegor bounced back with a big slam. He was too much for the kid. He grabbed the kid by the head, threw him off the ropes and hit him with a big boot to the face. The crowd booed again. Yegor paused and pointed at the heckling section again.
“William Paddington huh? That’s what you want?!” he called to them. They booed back mercilessly. Yegor then finished off his overmatched opponent with a power bomb and three count.
After winning the match, he rolled out of the ring and approached the fans.
“Go back to Russia! USA!” the fans shouted at him.
Yegor approached our section. He held a scowl behind his beard as he walked over and punched Mark. Mark oversold the punch and fell to the ground pretending to be knocked out. I played along and slapped Yegor. The crowd ate it up.
He quickly grabbed me by the chin, pulled me in for a forced kiss, then pushed me away as if he was disgusted. The crowd rained down more and more boos. Yegor grabbed Mark’s writing pad of notes as if it was an important document and pretended to steal it. Fans booed him and threw trash at him. “Call the police! He can’t get away with doing that!” I even heard one child cry to his parents.
Afterwards I met up with Yegor backstage. It was almost time for my debut. I already had my gear on under my sweats so I quickly dropped my clothes off in the female locker room before meeting up with Yegor. There was still no sign of a female opponent.
“Did I do good?” he asked, still dripping from perspiration. His skin illuminated under the dingy lighting.
“You did well. I was really surprised. I think Mark was impressed too,” I replied.
He nodded. “Mark was impressed. Good. Who are you wrestling?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t any one in the female locker room and I’m next,” I said uneasily.
“Probably some rookie. If she’s late tell Mark I’m wrestling you. You go over,” he instructed. I did not feel right about that. Though we had good chemistry, I wanted him to shine on his own.
“Russian spy, you have 50 kids outside waiting for your autograph,” Mark interrupted him.
Yegor shrugged and went to meet his new audience. In wrestling something funny happens. The cool bad guys are booed but they are also loved. This is called getting over. Only the very best know how to get over as a heel to the point fans think the bad guy is actually cool. Yegor had finally crossed that line.
***
I dwindled around backstage waiting for my moment. My new boots were laced all the way up to the top, while my black tights and black top hugged my new athletic body. I still didn’t know who I was going to wrestle but it didn’t matter. It was go time. Either I was going to sink or swim. I wouldn’t let a lack of familiarity with my opponent stop that.
They played a fast paced pop song for my intro. I took a deep breath. This was it.
I jogged through the curtains to a mild applause. It wasn’t the roar of a massive arena but you couldn’t tell me that. I took the time to slap every fan five as humanly possible, making sure I gave Little T his special attention before I rolled into the ring.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Brianna!” the announcer announced in the tiny gym. I closed my eyes and envisioned one day hearing my name announced in the WWW.
Before I could breathe in and out again the lighting dimmed. A thunderous marching-like beat of drums played. My opponent reveled themselves. Out walked El Scorpion. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Internally I was extremely nervous facing not only a veteran of that magnitude, but also a dear friend and instructor. Mark hadn’t donned his masked gimmick in years. I didn’t want to let him down.
He played the Mexican character to a tee, making slow controlled movements to the ring and bowing as he entered. I left my corner and approached him face to face. “You got this Brianna,” he whispered as he stayed true to the gimmick and bowed to my approach.
DING! DING! The bell rung and it was time to get it on. The match started off fast paced. Mark was used to wrestling the faster pace as a Mexican character and I had to keep up. I knew he wouldn’t expect anything less. He threw me off the ropes, I ran as hard as I could and bounced back into a clothesline. Mark followed it up with a quick slam and furious kicks. The crowd chanted YOU-STIL-GOT-IT to the old man. It wasn’t a secret who was under the mask.
I climbed back on my feet. It was time to mount some offense of my own. I ducked one of Mark’s punches and landed a perfect dropkick. The dropkick had become my signature move. Mark tumbled to the canvas and rolled around to sell the power of the move. I waved to the crowd. They slowly got behind me with applause.
I locked Mark in a headlock as he worked his way back to his feet. He pushed me into the corner. “Keep it going.” he whispered under the mask.
He threw me out of the corner, I ran towards the other corner. Right as I was going to hit the corner I jumped and sprung myself back off the turnbuckles into a body press. Mark caught me and tumbled to the ground.
One…two… Mark kicked out. The crowd cheered at the high flying move. “Finish it,” Mark whispered to me as he got up.
I went to throw a punch, he countered into a roll up pin. I rolled through and countered with my own roll up. One… two… three! It was over! I won my first match.
The crowd applauded as I held my hands in victory. A feeling of pride warmed me. I felt like I had finally climbed the mountain. I finally mattered. I looked out to the crowd, little boys and girls had huge smiles on their faces. Little T was jumping around and laughing. I couldn’t feel any better.
Minutes later I made my way to the backstage area. Yegor was waiting on me.
“That was good,” he said. I was so excited I couldn’t even talk. I just hugged him and smiled.
Mark made his way to the back. He was unmasked and totally exhausted. It was a hilarious sight to see this middle aged guy with a mullet in a Mexican wrestling singlet. A group of other trainers and wrestlers slowly formed around Mark to pay their respects to the old vet.
It had been a while since he performed. I quietly left for the female locker room to get dressed. When I returned the crowd was thinned out. Yegor awaited in his sweats with his gym bag.
I couldn’t find Mark. I really wanted to know how I did. Yegor hadn’t seen him either.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, “I can see if my cousin left already.”
I looked through the crowd. No Tony. I looked back in the gym, it was totally empty. We were on our own. Apparently each thought the other were giving us a ride. We were assed out.
“Let’s just walk. It’s only a few miles to my place,” Yegor suggested. I shrugged. I didn’t have any other ideas. As we made our way out of the gym a group of fans outside noticed us. It was the teenage hecklers.
“There he i
s! The Russian!” one of the boys yelled. Quickly we had a crowd of five pimply, greasy, awkward wrestling nerds surrounding us.
“Dude you rocked as William Paddington!” one of them exclaimed. Yegor’s response was timely.
“William Paddington is dead. You are being watched, you all will be the reason America is the next country to be defeated by Russia.” He was always in character.
“U-S-A! U-S-A!” the boys shouted as they played along. They followed us as we tried to walk home.
“Why do you chant for USA? Don’t you know the American flag is the most hated symbol in the world?” Yegor retorted. The boys argued back just as teenagers would.
“Hell no! Screw you. F you! USA!” Yegor was getting a rise out of them. I think he enjoyed it.
I zoned out as Yegor continued to spit out Cold War facts at the kids who now somehow had formed a group with us. All that studying was finally being used. The boys egged him on. They started singing the National Anthem.
“Ohhh say can you see….” their pitchy voices boasted.
Yegor loved it. He sang some sort of anthem back in Russian. I had no idea he knew the language.
After about a block or two I could tell it was growing tired. I stopped the group.
“Alright guys it’s time for ya’ll to go home,” I said. We were on a seedy strip of town. It was certainly not the type of place you’d want to walk alone especially as it got darker outside. The boys frowned as they began to leave.
Out of nowhere a bum looking man approached us. He looked homeless in his knit hat, cutoff mittens, dirty shirt and pants. I had no money to give. He approached the group.
“Everyone give it up!” he yelled as he brandished a matte black nine millimeter handgun. We were being mugged.
“Everyone run!” Yegor commanded.
POW! He punched the mugger with all of his power. He hit him so hard it sounded like someone hit a baseball. The man fell down to one knee, dazed. The group kind of slowed up as Yegor continued to tackle the man.
“Get out of here! Brianna go!” he proclaimed like a general in a war. They tussled as Yegor attempted to pin down the firearm. I ran as hard as I could.
BANG! A single shot rang out.
I looked behind me.
A lonely body lay on the pavement.
CHAPTER 8
“Can you give us your names again please?” the Memphis Police Department Officer asked as I sat on the pavement. He held a large clipboard underneath his arm. His blue uniform was barely visible if it wasn’t for the reflection of street light off his gold badges.
“Brianna Hall,” I responded. The officer twitched his brown, weathered face and nodded.
“Yegor Makarov,” he said. My ears perked up. It was the first time I’d heard his full name.
I looked around. It was a scene straight out of a movie. Two squad cars were pulled up next to us, red and blue lights blaring. Paramedics hurriedly loaded the shooting victim in an ambulance. Fresh red blood was all over the pavement just fifty feet from where I sat.
The mugger was locked in handcuffs with his head jammed on the trunk of one of the squad cars as another officer read him his Miranda rights at gunpoint. To the left of me were the teenage fans, looking as if their worlds just ended. They held their heads down as nonstop tears drenched their clothing. Their buddy was the one who the bullet marked.
“So tell us again what happened?” the officer asked.
“We were walking, all of us, and he tried to mug us. The guy pulled a gun then he fought him as we tried to run away,” I replied. The officer scribbled down each word as he listened. Everyone told the same story of the night’s events as he went down the line.
“Do you want to get a police escort home?" I whispered to Yegor. He dismissed the idea instantly.
“Fear does not rule me. We will walk,” he said.
Minutes later the police had all of their work done. A detective came to collect all of the evidence and the boys were given rides home. Yegor and I walked, just as he insisted.
“What a night,” I said as we walked arm-in-arm. It felt good to be snuggled up next to him despite the circumstances. He seemed to soften up a little.
“Life is crazy. You have to learn to appreciate it, you know,” Yegor said, then looked off in the distance, “Any night anything can happen. You already know that. You’re from Memphis.”
“Actually I’m not. I’m from Nashville. My family is from Memphis but my parents raised me in Nashville,” I corrected as we strolled under the street lights.
“Either way. You have to be grateful for the moment. Never live in fear of the next. Know that. Everything that happens is just an event. It is no more important than the event before or after,” Yegor preached.
“How can you say that? That kid got shot!” I remarked.
“He’ll be alright,” Yegor dismissed. His lack of concern for the victim was alarming but it made sense to him. He wasn’t going to spend any of his moments on sympathy. To him, the kid’s fate was out of his hands one way or the other.
“Tell me about your parents. You know my story. I want to know about you,” he continued.
“Well, my dad is a truck driver and my mom is a homemaker. She runs the youth council at her church now. We, my sister and I, had a regular life. We played with the neighborhood kids, watched wrestling, went to school and off to college,” I said.
“So you are college educated? I would have never known. What do you study?” Yegor asked intently. Learning was one of his few passions in life.
“I studied liberal arts. I couldn’t find a job so I started working at Kinkos. I was going insane there and decided to up and move to Memphis and start over. Wrestling is something I always knew I could do. I’m glad I made that decision. Very glad,” I said as I squeezed his arm tight as we locked eyes.
“Wrestling is a tough business. You’re a smart girl and you know that. But you have to learn. It’s a business where you cannot stop studying. It’s all about people. If you cannot read people then you will not make it,” he proclaimed.
“So why were you having such a hard time getting a crowd reaction?” I asked.
“I wasn’t letting it come through. A part of me still holds on to that feeling. You can’t understand,” he replied, then continued, “When I was in WWW everything was different. They loved me. I was being pushed hard. Kids wore my t shirt. I thought everything was going to continue on that path, then it just happened. After the injury the push ended. I was just another guy. Slowly but surely they gave up on me. But I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll prove them all wrong.”
“What are you going to do differently when you get back down there?” I said.
“I won’t know until I’m in the moment. But it will be something magnificent,” he boasted. We turned a corner and there was his apartment building about two blocks away. The walk went by quicker than we expected. Yegor turned face-to-face with me.
“You are going to stay over?” he said bluntly. I couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question. Either way the answer was yes, of course. We approached his apartment slowly as we enjoyed every moment of the end of our evening walk.
The night was capped off with an amazing love making session. Everything was perfect. There was no music, no grunts, no candles, none of that. Our time together was just skin-to-skin, uncut, passion. I clinched his strong back for what felt like hours as every thrust was deeper than the previous. Every kiss lasted longer than the one before. Everything was in a word, perfect. When two people have a connection you don’t need all of the bells and whistles. That’s one of the things I was beginning to learn.
***
The feeling in the air was pretty somber that following Monday as training started.
“I heard about what happened. That was some crazy stuff,” Mark said, then went on, “I’m just glad you two weren’t hurt. I already called the kid’s family and arranged to send him some of my classic memorabilia. His family see
med pretty stoked about it.”
“I’m just glad no one was killed,” I said.
I was still shaken up by the whole ordeal. It showed as I moved around with a heavy heart. A lot was on my mind. Thoughts of mortality, friendship, love, whatever Yegor and I had, and the uncertainty of my career all swirled in and out of my consciousness. I couldn’t find the ability to focus on what I was doing. My workout suffered.
“Yegor, where did you get off trying to fight? Next time that happens just give it up. I know you’re a tough guy but tough guys get killed all the time,” Mark said to the bearded one. Yegor’s mindset was night and day compared to mind.
“In Russia, we fight,” Yegor proclaimed. He was already over the situation. Mark dropped it. He was smart enough to know this conversation wasn’t going anywhere.
“Well guys, if you want to cut it short we can ride over to the hospital around lunchtime. I talked to the kid’s family and they said that he’s alright. He just had a wound to the leg. They did surgery last night. He’s going to be alright. They expect him to bounce back in about four to six weeks.”
Yegor cut his eyes at me. He was right. Everything was out of our control. “Sure, we can ride over there. It’s the least we can do,” he said to Mark.
I hated hospitals. The last time I’d been in one was when my niece was born. The Memphis hospital was just like any other hospital. Everything was clean, dreary, and somber. It was a real sobering experience walking through the halls glancing at sick patients, and worried families.
Mark hit up the front desk and got the directions to where the boy was being kept. We went up to his room on the second floor for our visit.
The boy’s parents were with him bedside. He sat upright, watching television. His black hair was matted down from sleeping, his pimped face showed all of his maybe sixteen years. When we walked in his eyes lit up.
“Knock, knock!” Mark said as we slowly walked in.
“Yegor!” the boy raised his small voice. His parents were disturbed by the boy’s enthusiasm.
“Mom, Dad, that’s him! He saved us.” the boy said.
Mark introduced himself to the boy’s parents. They seemed put off at first that a bunch of wrestlers were here to see their son. In their mind, had the boy not had an interest in wrestling he’d probably be in a much safer position in life. I would have probably thought the same if it wasn’t for Yegor. There is no such thing as safe. I was beginning to learn.