The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

THE LAST KAYFABE by Ray Banks

Don’t matter what city you’re in, what town. Three hundred days a year on the road, you could be in Shitsville, Ohio or New York fuckin’ city. All it looks to you is another hotel room charging ten dollars for a stubby bottle of beer. Outside, you got the same old shit too: drizzle throwing a mist over the streets and their barred-up liquor stores. And you know if there’s a place with Martin Luther King’s name on it, that’s where you’re gonna score.

“That time you fucked up New Jack,” says Monty. “That for real?”

They don’t always recognize me. This one can’t believe a white boy pinned a former bounty hunter with four justifiables. I stare at him, wish he’d move his ass and hand over the fuckin’ dimes.

“No,” I say. “Wasn’t for real.”

“Any of that shit for real?”

Shake my head. Apart from the blood. The blood was real. The pain. Shit, you wanna talk pain, we can talk pain. I got a constant steel-band ache across the back of my neck thanks to a guitar broke over my head by an Elvis-looking motherfucker called himself The Honky Tonk Man. Then Hardcore, list it out: second-degree burns on my hands and arms; been spiked so many times with barb wire I lost count; broke all my ribs, individual and all at once; broke my sternum; eight concussions and I got a total of over six hundred stitches holding me together like a beefed-up rag doll with bad dreams.

Might’ve been sports entertainment. Might’ve been rehearsed. Bret Hart saying he never hurt anyone – fuck Bret Hart. But just ’cause you planned that three-hundred-pound grizzly dropping on your ass from fifty feet in the air, didn’t mean your damn bones didn’t shake and break.

“What about that time – shit, musta been ten years ago – you was on RAW-”

“Your name’s Monty, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Just making sure, ’cause your man up the way there, he told me I should come down here and get the shit from Monty. Now I gave him the money, but you ain’t given me shit but an interview. So how about we turn off the fuckin’ Biography Channel and do some business?”

Run the numbers: work twenty-seven days out the month, twice daily on the weekends. Nine airplane connections a week. Adds up to a couple dimes a day. In the way-back, I didn’t know a jobber who didn’t pop, snort, guzzle or spike. Pills for the pain, drink or tie off to sleep, snort to wake and grapple. Better living through chemistry, and mine came boulder-shaped.

Beat those old memories like dust from a rug. No good for me in the here and now.

“You give the money to Leon?” says Monty.

I point at a stringy guy who looks like he’s trying to shit his pants slowly. “That Leon? ’Cause that’s the motherfucker got my money.”

Monty nods. “That’s Leon.”

“Then we’re all acquainted.”

“How much you give him?”

I squint at him. He’s stalling. “What’s the problem, Monty?”

“Ain’t no problem at all, man.”

Except he’s looking over my fuckin’ shoulder.

I turn, get the picture in Hi-Def.

Leon’s quit shifting his weight, coming down on me full-bore. Got this crazy-ass chimp face on him, grin to grimace, like he’s playing heel in his own private smackdown. Hands outstretched, but I knock the lunge out of him. Grab his head, bring it to mine solid – stamp the sidewalk as I do, force of habit. Another collision, Leon totters back. Reach for his skull, grab what I can of his hair. Adjust the tape on my fingers, sneak the razor out.

In the trade, they call it a blade-job. You need to sell a pillowstrike, you cut yourself. One time I caught a gash so bad, I made a 0.7 on the Muta Scale.

Leon tries to jerk, makes me dig an artery. I let him go as he squeals and bleeds like a chiselled pig.

He ain’t the only one bleeding. I spin at a spike in my leg, see something drop to the ground as I turn and grab Monty. Motherfucker’s heavy, but I reckoned he’d carry it slow. No more bullshit: sometimes you got to close the fist and fuck somebody up. I tear into Monty, drop him to the concrete. The sidewalk opens his head at the scalp. I put my foot in his ribs, then pull back when the pain in my stuck leg is too much.

Hearing screams melt into hoarse breath now. Monty rolls onto his back. A blood bubble appears in his open mouth, pops when his lungs are empty. Look over at Leon, he can’t see through the blood in his eyes. Curled up like a fuckin’ baby on the ground. Sounds like he’s crying.

I look at the ground: Monty’s weapon, the one he stuck me with. It’s a boxcutter.

Another word we use in the trade: kayfabe. Means fake. Some jobber threw for real, tried to hurt you, that was breaking kayfabe. You didn’t do it unless you wanted your fuckin’ papers.

These two: kayfabe fuckin’ dealers, no stones to back ’em up. Broke roles ’cause they reckoned me another crackhead cracker.

Thinking now, picturing these two hanging out with their pipe-hitting pals: “That whiteboy wrestler, Babyface – you remember that motherfucker? He came round my shit wanting rocks, man. Me an’ Leon, we fucked that boy up.”

“This fun to you?” I say. “You having fun, boys? ’Cause you want some more, I’ll stretch both you motherfuckers blue.”

Leon whines.

“That’s what I thought.”

Look at me now, you think I’m FUBAR. Lean and old, holding my fuckin’ leg like it’s gonna drop off. It’s why they don’t recognize me. Been a long time since I was the ultimate face in the Federation. But then, I was Babyface. The crowd popped at me, man. I put so many heels to the mat, I was a fuckin’ hero. Spin out a running DDT as a finish, hear twenty thousand people calling my name.

The ladies shouting: “Nobody puts Babyface in the corner!”

Got the men: “That Babyface ain’t for crying!”

Hear it now, the applause like a fuckin’ rainstorm.

And then wait for the lightning to strike. The Attitude years, hearing the cheers turn to jeers, the crowd turned vicious. They need a hero like they need a bag on their collective hip. I go up against Stone Cold, I do my gimmick – rip my T and throw it to the crowd – but they ain’t having it. They throw my T back. Faces are victims, there to be stomped. Some turn heel, some leave the business to sell used cars. I take flop on flop, pin on pin. Do whatever the bosses tell me ’cause I’m a good worker and I believe that people’ll want their heroes back some day.

They don’t.

Clean that from my mind as I limp over to Monty and see if he’s legit. Sure enough, the guy’s been holding. I pull two baggies of vials out of his pockets. He whistles as he breathes, tries to speak, but he don’t put up a fight. Go to Leon, get my money back and more besides. Leon’s hand clamps over mine.

I bend two fingers till they snap. Leon finds the breath to scream again.

“Hush up, Leon. Listen. You know Vince?”

Leon shakes his head.

Course he don’t know Vince. That’s what I call him. Reminds me of my old boss. It don’t matter what he’s called, though, ’cause the point’s the same:

“Vince says you deal on this corner, you gonna get fucked up. You feel me?”

Leon’s eyes get to slits.

“You know me,” I say. “I’m a good guy. That’s why I didn’t fuckin’ kill you. When you get yourself stitched, you remember that. And pass it on to Monty.”

I turn my back, go to the rental.

Every time playing out the same shit in my head.

I go to the car, there’s gonna be a gun. These guys, if they’re real dealers, they’ll have a fuckin’ piece between ’em.

Welcoming the gun, hoping for it. Some fuck wants to put this Old Yeller out his misery, they can go right ahead. I seen that movie a million times and I know. Don’t matter what a good dog Yeller was. Once you get bit by the fuckin’ wolf, you’re a short time dying.

Ain’t gonna happen with these kayfabe motherfuckers. Small time. Stick me with a boxcutter instead of shooting me. I check the leg situation as I get in the car: if I was still fighting, I’d be fucked. ’Cause the damage don’t matter – you have to do what your bosses tell you to do. Vince is the same. He wants me to fuck somebody up in Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, fuckin’ Anchorage, I do it. He got some wide-ranging business interests and a lot of ants trying to make off with his sugar.

Start the engine. The rental coughs. I check the count on the cash. Couple thou, should be good for gas.

And enough rocks in these bags to last me a while.

Vince wants me to hit a corner in Atlanta tomorrow night. Don’t know if I can do that with my leg, but I’ll see how I feel after I hit the stem.

’Cause right now I need something. All us jobbers do.