On Route 66Wrestling With Karma
[The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.]
The Fat Man and Muddy Niles were hitching rides just outside Barstow when I met up with them. They were semi-professional wrestlers who would put on a show in roadside taverns and truck stops for free — well for a meal and a beer and any donations that they could squeeze out of the few who would stand around to see them suplex one another wildly over a shoulder or watch Muddy’s black face take on wild contortions when the Fat Man applied the sleeper hold. One night, the Fat Man would win the bout, and the next night Muddy would overpower his 400 lb opponent.
Every couple of months, they would meet up with Hunting Beaver and the Cisco Kidd, two midget wrestlers from California, and the four of them would put on tag team matches in a travelling carnival that would hit every small town from Bakersfield to Tubac. The dexterity and high-flying antics of the midgets would always prevail over their larger opponents. After all, Hunting Beaver and the Cisco Kidd were the undisputed tag-team champions of the SWWA — the South Western Wrestling Association — a non-existent organisation that was recognised by most of the wrestling world. After each victory, the two little men would hold up glittering championship belts with gold-coloured buckles the size of a serving platter.
It was in Tucson where Muddy met Ramona Sanchez. She was a tall Mexican girl with long black hair and an innocent look about her. She had run away from her family who lived in one of the many adobe ghettos that used to run along River Road, long before Mexican “wet backs” learned to amass Yankee “green backs” and began to build stately mansions with shiny red tile roofs.
Muddy said she had been abused by her father, and he may have been right. She had the spirit of a wild cougar, and she and Muddy spent alternate nights screaming at one another or not talking to one another at all. One night, when she and Muddy weren’t speaking, she came to my room. She said she’d come to steal my watery blue eyes because they reminded her of the ocean off Cabo San Lucas, and I fell instantly in love with her.
She curled into me easily that night, but was gone when I woke just before sunrise. Later in the day, I saw her and Muddy walking down the street, laughing, and carrying on like two honeymooners in Diego. I guess I wanted to say something, but I didn’t. I couldn’t find the words.
The Fat Man died from the heat that summer, and Muddy hitched a ride out of town to Chicago, where he apparently had family — a wife and four kids. I heard that Ramona had caught a lift to Phoenix, and for a couple of days, I worked on getting there to find her. But I was busted for cash and my truck was broke down. So I hung around Tucson looking for any kind of work I could find. I ended up mucking out stalls for a small, local rodeo set-up. By the time I had enough money to get my truck on the road, I heard that Ramona had lit out for the Oregon coast. They say she made it as far as Portland where she dropped a baby into the world, a boy, I heard, with watery eyes, blue as the ocean.
[The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.]
The Fat Man and Muddy Niles were hitching rides just outside Barstow when I met up with them. They were semi-professional wrestlers who would put on a show in roadside taverns and truck stops for free — well for a meal and a beer and any donations that they could squeeze out of the few who would stand around to see them suplex one another wildly over a shoulder or watch Muddy’s black face take on wild contortions when the Fat Man applied the sleeper hold. One night, the Fat Man would win the bout, and the next night Muddy would overpower his 400 lb opponent.
Every couple of months, they would meet up with Hunting Beaver and the Cisco Kidd, two midget wrestlers from California, and the four of them would put on tag team matches in a travelling carnival that would hit every small town from Bakersfield to Tubac. The dexterity and high-flying antics of the midgets would always prevail over their larger opponents. After all, Hunting Beaver and the Cisco Kidd were the undisputed tag-team champions of the SWWA — the South Western Wrestling Association — a non-existent organisation that was recognised by most of the wrestling world. After each victory, the two little men would hold up glittering championship belts with gold-coloured buckles the size of a serving platter.
It was in Tucson where Muddy met Ramona Sanchez. She was a tall Mexican girl with long black hair and an innocent look about her. She had run away from her family who lived in one of the many adobe ghettos that used to run along River Road, long before Mexican “wet backs” learned to amass Yankee “green backs” and began to build stately mansions with shiny red tile roofs.
Muddy said she had been abused by her father, and he may have been right. She had the spirit of a wild cougar, and she and Muddy spent alternate nights screaming at one another or not talking to one another at all. One night, when she and Muddy weren’t speaking, she came to my room. She said she’d come to steal my watery blue eyes because they reminded her of the ocean off Cabo San Lucas, and I fell instantly in love with her.
She curled into me easily that night, but was gone when I woke just before sunrise. Later in the day, I saw her and Muddy walking down the street, laughing, and carrying on like two honeymooners in Diego. I guess I wanted to say something, but I didn’t. I couldn’t find the words.
The Fat Man died from the heat that summer, and Muddy hitched a ride out of town to Chicago, where he apparently had family — a wife and four kids. I heard that Ramona had caught a lift to Phoenix, and for a couple of days, I worked on getting there to find her. But I was busted for cash and my truck was broke down. So I hung around Tucson looking for any kind of work I could find. I ended up mucking out stalls for a small, local rodeo set-up. By the time I had enough money to get my truck on the road, I heard that Ramona had lit out for the Oregon coast. They say she made it as far as Portland where she dropped a baby into the world, a boy, I heard, with watery eyes, blue as the ocean.
The Back Story:
This was the sixth story in a collection of stories that I wrote about people whom I met or imagined I met along Route 66, that famous highway that runs from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Of all the stories in this collection, the title of this story does not use a central character's name as its title. Instead, I somehow got hooked on using the idea that we are all wrestlers in this world and that our main opponent in our fight to find love and happiness is karma. So, "Wrestling With Karma," which was first the working title of the story, remained its final title as well.
When my son was young, he was a fan of professional wrestling, the kind you would see on Saturday morning television, featuring the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ravishing Rick Rude, and Rowdy Roddy Piper. At some point, I took my son to see a live wrestling match at Maple Leaf Gardens, here in Toronto. I must admit that, during the event, I was fascinated with the characters that played out the drama of a wrestling match. These men seemed larger than life, and their antics in the ring parodied the great Greek tragedies, in which good fought against evil, with the outcome always uncertain, right to the final pinfall.
So wrestling became a part of my experience, and it was only natural that I would someday write a story based on wrestlers.
Still, this is only vaguely about wrestling. In the story, the narrator falls in love with Ramona Sanchez, after a one-night stand, and he mistakes the sexual experience for love. Or maybe, it was love. Who can say for sure? At any rate, his hopes to be reunited with her are fairly short-lived, unless he somehow manages to find her in Oregon. To be honest, that doesn't seem likely to me, which seems a shame, considering ...
This was the sixth story in a collection of stories that I wrote about people whom I met or imagined I met along Route 66, that famous highway that runs from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Of all the stories in this collection, the title of this story does not use a central character's name as its title. Instead, I somehow got hooked on using the idea that we are all wrestlers in this world and that our main opponent in our fight to find love and happiness is karma. So, "Wrestling With Karma," which was first the working title of the story, remained its final title as well.
When my son was young, he was a fan of professional wrestling, the kind you would see on Saturday morning television, featuring the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ravishing Rick Rude, and Rowdy Roddy Piper. At some point, I took my son to see a live wrestling match at Maple Leaf Gardens, here in Toronto. I must admit that, during the event, I was fascinated with the characters that played out the drama of a wrestling match. These men seemed larger than life, and their antics in the ring parodied the great Greek tragedies, in which good fought against evil, with the outcome always uncertain, right to the final pinfall.
So wrestling became a part of my experience, and it was only natural that I would someday write a story based on wrestlers.
Still, this is only vaguely about wrestling. In the story, the narrator falls in love with Ramona Sanchez, after a one-night stand, and he mistakes the sexual experience for love. Or maybe, it was love. Who can say for sure? At any rate, his hopes to be reunited with her are fairly short-lived, unless he somehow manages to find her in Oregon. To be honest, that doesn't seem likely to me, which seems a shame, considering ...
Let's hear it for the Rolling Stones!
ReplyDeleteOh my ... your story is a good one. Somewhere out there is a boy (well, now a man) with watery eyes as blue as the ocean. Who's his daddy?
Haha ... who's your daddy?
ReplyDelete;o}
My lips are sealed ... :)
Deleteeveryone was connected and then it all fell apart, just like life...another enjoyable story
ReplyDeleteThanks, Danette, I'm glad you liked it.
DeleteThe idea that Ramona "dropped" a baby speaks volumes about her--and the main character. The midget wrestlers were a tasty dessert to this story.
ReplyDeleteYes, I quite liked creating the wrestlers and especially the midget wrestlers ... as for the other characters, well they were from a different time and were certainly by no means genteel ... :o)
Delete