The Best American Mystery Stories 2001

Nathan Walpow Push Gomes to Shove

From A Deadly Dozen: Tales of Murder from Los Angeles

Thumper’s finishing move was called The Thump. It started out like a power slam, but then he would twirl his opponent around so the guy would go face-first into the mat. After each match, Thumper’s victim would just lie there, and they’d get a stretcher and carry him off. Thumper would act real sorry and walk halfway back to the dressing room beside the stretcher, then suddenly run back to the ring, put his rabbit ears back on, and get a big pop from the crowd.

I got mixed Up with Thumper at a TV taping. Each of the jobbers, me included, had at least three matches, so Lou Boone, the promoter, could build up enough tape to keep the fans going for a few weeks. I’d already had my matches, two squashes and one where they let me put on a few martial arts moves before getting my ass kicked.

Thumper’s match was after my last one. His opponent was some new guy whose name I never caught. A jobber. They were still building Thumper up to face some real competition.

After the Thumping I watched on the monitor in the dressing room as they carried the guy off. Then I went to take a leak before driving back to the motel. But I walked the wrong way and ended up near an exit. I saw them carry the jobber out through a door into the parking lot and dump him into a car. They were handling him like a sack of potatoes.

I forgot about going to the john and ran back to the dressing room to see what the hell happened. But when I got there, Tommy Bufone said Lou wanted me to take the Thumped guy’s place in a tag team with Tommy against the Barrister Brothers. The extra money sounded good. I could find out about the guy later.

The Barristers were major heels, so I got to be a good guy for the only time that night. I put on my good-guy tights. No one in the crowd ever noticed I wore a different outfit depending on who I was against, but I didn’t care. It helped me play the part better.

Of course, the payoff was the same. I got beat up and pinned. Tommy got to drag me out of the ring.

After the card was over I started asking around about the wrestler who’d been Thumped. I spotted Joe the Greek Pappas, the heel on the announcing team. “What happened to the new guy?”

Joe caught me with the glare they called the Evil Eye when he was still in the ring. “He’s fine,” he said.

“Where is he?”

Another Evil Eye. “He should be back next week in Springfield.” He pushed open the gray metal exit door and walked out into the rain.

I stared after him for a second, then walked back to get my stuff, and there was Lou holding my duffel bag. He’s shorter than he looks on TV, and skinnier, and paler. He tossed the bag to me.

“Good work tonight,” he said. “I really liked how you sold that double clothesline from the Barristers. The crowd ate it up.”

“Thanks.”

Lou held his glasses up to the light like he was checking if they were clean. “What do you think of Thumper?” he asked.

“He’s pretty big.” I could never think of what to say around Lou.

“The fans like him a lot.” Now he was wiping his glasses on his tie. “He’s the best thing we’ve had in a long time. I wouldn’t want anything to mess that up.”

He put on his glasses and pulled on his raincoat and said, “I was thinking maybe it’s time to give you a push.”

Talk about something coming out of the blue. I was a jobber. I made my living losing. And I knew I didn’t have whatever it was that made some wrestlers go over with the crowd. But that magic word “push” made me forget all that.

“You think so?” I said.

“I just need time to think up a gimmick for you. Probably not by Springfield, but by the taping after that I should have something. Then maybe I’ll put you in with Illegal Alien.” Illegal was a jobber-to-the-stars. He always beat the regular jobbers, but when somebody got a push Illegal was usually the first one who lost to them.

“There’s only one thing,” Lou said.

“Name it.”

“I want you to forget the new guy.” Lou gave me a stare that made Joe’s Evil Eye look wimpy.

I thought about it a second. Then I did what any jobber would have done.

“Sure, Lou,” I said. “Consider him forgot.”

People think it’s easy being a jobber. They figure all you have to do is act like you’re getting beat up for a while, then you make like you’re helpless while the superstar pins you, then you limp out of the ring and collect your pay and go home.

What they don’t think about is how you feel outside the arena. You know it’s all phony, and your friends and family know, but people on the street don’t sometimes. Some of the fans, the ones we call “marks,” think this stuff is real. They stop you on the street and say, “You should give it up” or “You’ll never win,” and they laugh a stupid little laugh and walk off. And you want to call them back and tell them it’s all fake, but you can’t, because you don’t want to mess up their dreams.

When I started, I was just this husky guy who knew a little martial arts and didn’t want to work in a lumberyard all his life. I jumped at the chance to be a pro wrestler. Back then, all that losing bugged me a lot. Back then, I worried girls would think I was a loser.

Then one day I realized, the hell with that, if they’re so dumb they think it’s real I don’t want anything to do with them. So I became a jobber, and I do six or seven matches a month, and, with what Sue makes, we have enough to get by.

They aired one of my matches that weekend, and I watched it at home with Sue. They showed the match with the Barristers, and when I took that double clothesline, I took a really poor bump. Even Sue knew it.

“You were falling down before they even touched you,” she said. “If they ever did touch you, that is.”

I looked into her big blue eyes and told her how Lou said I’d done such a good job of selling it.

She crinkled up her nose and got up for more beers. From the kitchen she said, “You’ve got to get away from Lou. Find yourself another outfit to work with.”

“There’s not a whole lot of call for jobbers, Hon,” I said. “You go where the work is. That’s with Lou.”

She came back in and sat on my lap and kissed my nose. Then she downed some of her beer and said, “Let’s not worry about it now,” and she put her head on my shoulder and got all content like she does. But a minute later wrestling was over and Gilligan’s Island, came on, and I jumped up to turn it off — the clicker was broken — and I dumped her on the sofa. Because I really hate that show.

I didn’t tell Sue what Lou had said about a push. I figured I’d let it be a surprise when — if — it happened.

In Springfield the next week they had Tommy Bufone and me against the Barrister Brothers again. But the Brothers had turned babyface in the meantime. Lou was short of good-guy tag teams, so he changed their name to Pro Bono and turned them by having them bounce their manager, Sammy the Muskrat Deegan, around the ring after he lost them a match by interference against Frick and Frack, a couple of jobbers-to-the-stars. So now Tommy and I had to act mean when we were announced, making faces at the crowd and all, then Pearl-Harboring Pro Bono while they were taking their jackets off. Of course, it didn’t do any good. Tommy got pinned, and I got knocked out of the ring when I went to rescue him. I sold that bump pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.

I was scheduled for one more match that day, against Man Mountain Beazel, and since he was a heel I changed into my good-guy tights. Then I watched the next match on the monitor. It was Lenny Lemaire against Thumper. Lenny would do stuff like call himself Larry Levine in New York, or Luis Larriva anywhere there were a lot of Mexicans, but that night he was using his real name.

After a couple of minutes Thumper put the Thump on Lenny, and the crowd went wild. They were shaking the dressing room, they were so worked up. I mean, this Thumper guy was over. I’d heard they were setting him up to challenge Beast Benton for the title, and right then I knew it was true. Beast had held the belt for a month, since he’d won it from Terry Casino by using what they liked to call a foreign object, and Lou never liked to let a heel be champ too long.

The monitor showed them carting Lenny out, and Thumper went with him. Everybody but me was watching Thumper. I was watching Lenny. He wasn’t moving at all. Then they did the bit where Thumper runs back to the ring, and Lenny went off camera, but just before he did I saw a guy in the corner of the screen opening a door. It wasn’t the door to the dressing room. It led somewhere under the stands.

I slipped out into the corridor, and after a bit found myself in a dark hallway that smelled like old beer. Somebody opened a door that led outside, and I could see someone else sling something over his shoulder. It was Lenny. They threw him in the trunk of a car and slammed the lid. The guy walked back in, and Lou was right behind him. Somebody’s headlights shone in through the door, and there I was right in the beam. Lou saw me. He put his hands out in front of him and made a pushing motion, then disappeared into the dark.

I found my way back to the dressing room, and there was Thumper. I’d never seen him up close before. He must’ve been six foot six. Real buff. Nowhere near the 380 pounds they announced him at, but a solid 300 at least. He was still wearing his outfit, the furry white tights and boots, and he had the damn rabbit ears on his head. His face was real pink, one of those faces that looked like he never had to shave.

He saw me and smiled. “Hey, little buddy,” he said, just like the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. Now, I’m not usually anyone’s little buddy. I’m six-three and 235. So I especially hated when he called me that. “Didja see me Thump?”

I drifted over to the massage table and got it between me and him. “On the monitor.”

“I like to Thump,” he said. “‘Course, sometimes I Thump a little too hard. I used to hate to do that, but now I’m gettin’ to kind of like it. ‘Cause the fans like it. And Lou, he likes it a lot, too, and Lou says if I keep Thumpin’ I might just get to be champ someday.”

He pulled off his boots and stripped off his tights and laid them real careful into an army green duffel bag. Then he said, “Better watch out, little buddy. I might just have to Thump you sometime.” He grinned, but the grin was all around his mouth. His eyes were little pig eyes in that pink bunny face.

Still wearing his ears, he went off toward the showers. “Don’t call me ‘little buddy,”‘ I said.

A week later Lou called. “I’m calling about your push,” he said. “I haven’t figured out all the angles yet, but I just wanted you to know it’s still coming.”

“That’s good, Lou.”

He gave this funny high laugh. “Did you see Thumper on TV the other day?”

“I must have missed it.”

“Best thing that’s happened to this federation in a long, long time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Speaking of Thumper, I haven’t seen Lenny Lemaire lately.”

It was only a second before he said, “Didn’t you hear? His mother’s real sick, and he’s gone back to Alabama to take care of her.”

“That’s a damn shame,” I said.

“That it is.” Lou cleared his throat. “Now, we’ve got a card coming up in Easton…”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’ll job there, but by the next taping I think I’ll have a big surprise ready for you.”

“That’ll be great, Lou,” I said. “I like surprises.”

Easton was on a Friday night. It was a house card, which meant most of the matches didn’t have jobbers in them but instead had heel stars against face stars. There were only two jobbers in the dressing room. I was scheduled to go against Monster Madigan, and Paul Tompkins was up against Thumper.

Paul wore black tights and a mask with big white felt teeth and went on as The Shark. Sometimes we’d be a tag team together, and they let me wear the same getup, and we were The Sharks. I never got around to making a mask with teeth and would always have to scotch tape some on at the last minute. When we were The Sharks, Lou would let us do a little better, actually pound our opponents for a little while, with me getting in some martial arts stuff, before one of us ended on our back — one, two, three.

I found Paul sitting in a corner of the dressing room. He was real sweaty already, even though they had the air conditioning on way high. He filled his cheeks with air and blew it out slow. “You know much about Thumper?”

“Enough,” I said.

“Nobody knows his real name,” he said. “No one’s even sure where he came from.”

“Lou must know.”

The Michigan Men ambled into the dressing room. They’d just been beaten by Pro Bono. They were laughing and talking about some girl in Cleveland.

“I’m up,” Paul said.

“Do good.”

He nodded and pulled on his Shark mask and walked through the curtain into the arena. I sat down by the monitor. Funny things, those monitors. During the parts of the show when the folks at home see all the commercials, the monitors still show what’s going on ringside. So I watched Paul walk down the aisle, past all the fans who didn’t know him from Adam, and on past the broadcasting booth.

Something happened there I’m sure no one but me saw. As Paul walked by the booth, he turned in Joe and Lou’s direction. And Lou put his hands out in front of him and gave a little push. After that, Paul walked to the ring a little faster and a little straighter. The thing is, he didn’t walk out of it again.

Later I was sitting in the dark in my motel room. I’d just told the guy at the desk to give me a wake-up call at six. That way I’d be home to Sue by one or so the next afternoon. Since it was Saturday, we could have most of the day together.

I was rubbing my right knee, which I’d bruised during my three and a half minutes in the ring with Monster Madigan, thinking about finding some ice to pack around it. Somebody knocked on the door. “It’s Lou.”

I slowly walked to the door and pulled it open. “It’s late, Lou.”

“I’ll just be a minute.”

He came in. He had on that damn raincoat. His eyes scanned the place. “Kind of a pit,” he said.

“It’s a jobber room.”

He nodded and sat on one of the rickety wooden chairs. “Once you get your push, you’ll be able to afford better than this.”

“And that’ll be…”

“Next week, at the taping in Grandville. We’re going to call you Samson Sanders. You’ll come out in this strongman getup.”

“Face or heel?”

“I’m not sure yet. Probably face. I’ve got a couple of contract negotiations in the next few days, and I have to see what the balance is after that.”

I couldn’t help myself. This big stupid smile grew on my face.

“There’s just one thing,” Lou said.

The stupid smile went back where it belonged. “What’s that?”

“Nothing much,” he said. “I just need you to job once more. It’ll be early in the card. The crowd won’t even remember you by the time Samson Sanders shows up.” He got up and walked out without saying another word.

I got undressed and into bed. I had the radio on low, because sometimes that helps me fall asleep. A Tom Petty song came on, and that’s when I remembered Lenny Lemaire didn’t come from Alabama. He always used to sing that song. “Louisiana Rain,” it was called.

The getup came by UPS a couple of days later. This fake fur loincloth thing, leather arm and leg bands, and the dumbest wig I’d ever seen. Sue saw it and got a laughing fit. I put it on, and soon she was rolling on the floor laughing. Then I went into a muscleman pose, and she pulled me down on top of her. I kept the wig on while we did it.

The TV taping was the next Saturday. I let Sue sleep and slipped out before seven. I drove slow and careful and still got to the arena with two hours to spare.

I put on my new outfit, checked it out in the crummy old mirror, and put it away. I sat there in my underwear for a little while, then put on my bad-guy tights. I just had a feeling I was going to be the heel in that jobber match.

Joe wandered into the dressing room with the card. Seventeen matches, enough to feed the TV audience for weeks, enough to keep the arena crowd happy even if most of the matches were squashes. I started at the bottom and looked for Samson Sanders. He wasn’t there. I kept scanning until I got to the first match on the card. There was my name. My real name.

Across from it was Thumper’s.

The rest of the gang began to trickle in. Everyone but Thumper. At three o’clock somebody stuck his head in and called me to the ring. I zipped up my bag and tossed it on the floor and slowly walked out of the dressing room, then down that long walkway. The place was only about half full, though lots of folks were still streaming in. As I passed the broadcast booth I thought of looking for Lou, then said the hell with it. If he was giving me that damn push sign I didn’t want to know about it.

The ring announcer introed me, and I did my heel gig, throwing my fists up in the air, beating my chest, howling at the one or two people who’d noticed me.

The announcer drew in a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “his opponent, weighing in at three hundred and ninety pounds, from Green Meadow, Nebraska… Thump — per!”

He came marching down the aisle, looking more pumped than ever, getting a huge pop from the crowd. They yelled. They screamed. Ladies blew kisses. Men held up their kids.

He came down to ringside, wearing that big Green Meadow smile, the one that stopped somewhere around his nose. He hopped up the metal steps and stepped over all three ring ropes. He glared at me across the ring, pointed his big finger, and shouted, “You’re going down, little buddy!”

I said, “Don’t call me that.” He just laughed.

We started with a collar-and-elbow tie-up. He tossed me away. As the heel, it was up to me to make the first illegal move. Once I did that, he could pound me, and finally Thump me. I locked up with him a couple more times, letting him throw me all the way out of the ring after the last one. I complained to the ref about a hair pull, and he rambled over to Thumper like they always do and told him not to do it again. We tangled again, and I came out of it with my left arm in a wringer.

It was about time to elbow him in the face. I put a little more into it than I had to to sell it, and he got a little surprised expression. Not enough so the crowd would notice. He kicked me in the stomach, and I went down. I got up a little faster than he expected. He threw a couple of lefts, a couple of rights, and I went down again. He body-slammed me and dragged me up by my hair, suplexed me, and pulled me up again. Then he threw me over his shoulder.

“This is it, little buddy,” he whispered. “Thumpin’ time.” He ran forward and started to twist me around so my face would smash the mat.

It was the little buddy stuff that did it.

I broke his neck.

It’s easy when you know how. When you’ve had the right kind of martial arts. While he was tossing me around his head, I just threw out a hand, and then the other, and grabbed and twisted. Nobody in the crowd saw anything except me trying to catch onto something. And they were yelling so loud none of them heard the crack.

I sold the rest of the move and hit the mat just in time to have Thumper come crashing down on top of me. I managed to get both my shoulders down before he hit me like a big sack of cement. Right then, he really did feel like the 380 or 390 or whatever they were saying that week.

The ref didn’t know what to do. “Count,” I whispered. He finally did — one, two, three, and there it was, Thumper had won. Just like he was supposed to.

And that’s what really counts, isn’t it?