Buddy Cooper Finds a Way Read online

  What looks like an eight-foot-tall cockroach has appeared in Alix’s path. For the camera, it turns and looks down, pumps all four of its twitching arms in the air to appear menacing. Instead of running away, Alix charges, delivers a vicious spinning side kick to the critter’s head. This maneuver sends them tumbling out of vision, back onto the roof, and I feel the old tug. I have a good life. But I want to be up there. This is a fight I want to be in. I start shouldering through the crowd.

  When the creature reappears, he’s carrying Alix in his arms, like a bride about to be brought across the threshold. Silhouetted by the false moon, the creature steps up onto the ledge. With a heave, he hoists her limp body over his head. My eyes drop to the sidewalk ahead of me. There is no air bag.

  I wish I had a copy of the script. To know for sure if this is part of Alix’s plan.

  The creature roars, and it’s a sound that terrifies me, something wounded and hopelessly lost. It seems impossible that a human being, let alone an actor in a cockroach suit, could make such a noise. That demon might be the real thing.

  My fears are confirmed a moment later, when the creature heaves Alix into the open air. Legs pump me forward, and I charge through the crowd of statues. These people are petrified by fear of catastrophe, by the awesome feeling that everything has gone terribly wrong. I’m accustomed to this. Alix’s wig trails behind her as she plummets. Her body spins end over end, like the satellite dish I plucked from the sky. A security guard’s eyes widen as I approach, and he lifts one hand like a crossing guard. I plow past, spilling him sideways, then burst out into the lights, and it’s just like in O’Leary’s basement thirteen years ago. I can feel her fragile hand in mine. My bride is falling from the heavens, but this is a catch I know I’ll make. This is why the moon pulled me here. We’re about to step back into our lives together. And they’ll have it all on film. Alix will look at it for years to come, and Brook too. The night Dad saved Mom.

  It’s a power cable, or a curb, or fate, that catches my foot and drives my jaw down into concrete. My tumbling wife is stolen from my sight and pain flashes white in my mind. One heartbeat later, I wince at the dull thud not five feet away. I would’ve made it. I wait for the screams. But instead, people start laughing. Someone, maybe Trevor, yells, “Cut.” Someone asks, “Who the hell is that?”

  I lift my head and force my eyes to my wife’s corpse. The rubbery face yells at me, ruby red lips painted in an expression of horror, like it’s still falling. The dummy is undamaged, and reminds me of the Tony Tough Guy figure Alix and I used to practice karate on at the Y. I roll over, flipping onto my back like the appointed time has come for me to be pinned once again. Above me, the false moon rises over the top of the Jacobi Warehouse, and next to it, Alix and the Creature from Beyond Tomorrow lean over the ledge.

  When I get to my feet, for some reason the people stop laughing. No one tries to stop me. Quite the opposite really, they back out of my path, press into each other to be clear of me, so I walk off the set without incident and head up the hill, back to my apartment. Thirteen years ago, at this moment, we were lying arm in arm, spent. Alix fell asleep first, I remember, but I stayed awake for a long time that night, listening to her breathing, planning the beautiful life ahead of us.

  -----

  In Which Our Hero Prepares for Combat and Disobeys

  Doctor’s Orders. The Trouble with Lumberjacks.

  Noah’s True Origin Revealed.

  If anybody here needs to be praying it’s probably me, but Hardy Appleseed’s the one who kneels in the far corner of the practice ring, putting in another express call to God. As I lean into the tight ropes of my own corner, something in me I can’t quite control paints a bull’s-eye on the back of Hardy’s prayerful head, and I find myself wondering what it would feel like to drive a knee into the base of that square skull. I shake off this impulse. Hardy is my friend, I am not a violent man, and—most importantly—it’s not part of our approved script.

  The Mad Maestro, who’s been stretching old muscles at ringside, sticks his head under the bottom rope. “I say, old chap, must he be so utterly absorbed in his character?” His handlebar mustache rolls to the edges of his face.

  “Look who’s talking,” I say quietly. Maestro’s from Jersey. He gives me a knowing look and says, “No shit,” then steps away and climbs onto the XO Byke 3500. Maestro’s the longtime centerpiece of a crew of baddie wrestlers managed by Snake Handler. At Greenville, after the Maestro got disqualified for gouging Hardy’s eyes, Snake taunted Hardy from ringside, “Sssleep well, Appleseed. Ssssoon we will have your ssssoul.” The “we” is Snake and Lucifer, an albino python he keeps looped around his neck. Recently, Lucifer has taken to whispering evil instructions to Snake, an act that sends Hardy into genuine panic. The fans love it.

  The digital voice of the XO Byke squeaks out, “Five more miles. Feel the burn,” and Maestro pedals faster. The computerized weight machines scattered around the floor are Quinn’s babies, part of his transformation of the old gym into this, the SWC Training Facility. Despite months of sweat, it still smells like fresh paint. On the new track that loops overhead, NinJa Z, who raps about gangsta life and spins nunchuks, jogs smoothly beneath the massive air conditioner’s hum. On the floor behind Maestro, the Native American Spirit Warrior—formerly Tommy Hawk, He-Who-Scalps-by-the Midnight-Moon—strains inside the Squatmaster G2000, which urges him on, “Don’t be such a loser.”

  “Amen,” Hardy shouts, and I turn as he finally stands, rising up to his full six and a half feet. “You all set, Mr. Cooper?”

  I miss the old gym. Rusted weights. Concrete walls and cold showers. Back in those days, Mrs. Q paid us in cash. I lift my face toward Hardy’s good ear and shout out, “Affirmative.”

  To begin, we circle one another just like we’ve done ten times in the last hour. Then Hardy lunges in, bear-hugs my chest inside haybale hoisting arms, squeezes a sigh from my tired lungs. His head tucked tight to my aching ribs, Hardy asks, “You OK, sir?”

  “I’m perfect,” I say. “Couldn’t imagine being a whole lot better.”

  “Go easy on him, Hardy,” the Warrior yells behind me. “These old guys ain’t so sturdy.”

  I stay focused on Hardy. My pathetic double karate chop into his neck would disgust Alix. Still, Hardy drops me, stumbles back in feigned agony. I duck down and charge into him, but Hardy leapfrogs over me and spins fast, so when I ricochet off the ropes, Hardy’s cocked elbow clips me under the chin and my head snaps back. I don’t go down. When I look over at the Mad Maestro, I see five of him riding five exercise bikes. I’m leaning over the ropes. Hardy puts a hand on my shoulder. “I forgot about your face, sir. I’m awful sorry.”

  A tender bruise fogs my chin from last night’s sidewalk kiss.

  “Hardy,” I say, “how about we skip to the finale and call it a day?”

  “That’d be fine, sir.” He nods his head like a loyal cartoon dog. His hair is the color of rich wheat and wet with fine sweat. I take in another breath, hands posted on my hips.

  Overhead, NinJa Z shouts down, “Hey, Cooper. Maybe you should start thinking about the senior tour.”

  “Be careful,” the Warrior adds. “I hear they drug test for Ben-Gay.”

  His Squatmaster squeaks, “C’mon, Fatty! Didn’t your mother have any sons?”

  Like most of the punks around here, the Spirit Warrior and NinJa Z joined after I folded up Bull Invinso’s gold cape. They don’t understand that I’m a loser by choice.

  “Don’t pay them no mind, sir,” Hardy tells me. Moving to the center of the ring, he settles back into the linebacker stance he perfected during two scholarship seasons at NC State. Only the NCAA’s stringent academic regulations—and an inability to fathom basic math—prevented Hardy from becoming a real All-American. I collect myself, rock back deep into the ropes, bounce toward Hardy with a clothesline arm extended to the side. But Hardy shifts into me, catches my arm and spins, flipping me flat-backed onto the mat. Then he sc
rambles up over me, locking my head and arm together and planting his weight solid on my chest. At this point in the match on Friday, Barney the ref will slide to my side and slap the mat three times. I’ll be pinned. The All-American Dream will be victorious once again. The fans will scream. All will be right in the world. What could go wrong?

  “Cooper!” a voice shouts. From the mat, I turn my face. Under the bottom rope I see Cro-Magnum Man, a young up-and-comer from D.C. He’s wearing a prehistoric toga and carrying both a caveman club and an AK-47. “Quinn boss man want see friend Cooper. Quinn boss man want see friend Hardy. Before bright ball fall from sky.” The rookie’s a bit overzealous.

  “Roger-dodger!” Hardy shouts. After getting off my chest, he tugs me to my feet. We climb out of the ring and squirt bottled water into our mouths. Cro-Magnum and Maestro step into the ring and start circling one another. “Cro-Mag smash!” the caveman shouts, stomping both feet onto the canvas and sending a ba-wang reverberating through the gym. Maestro gives me a look, shakes his head. He’s old school. Above us, NinJa Z starts rapping. Can’t you feel that I’m keepin’ it real? C’mon! Can’t you feel that I’m keepin’ it real?

  Hardy reaches into his gym bag and pulls out his Miracle Ear, then fixes it into place. “I don’t figure a caveman for understanding how to use a gun,” he says, mostly to himself. He lost hearing in that ear during the sailing accident that claimed his father. This was when he was just a kid. Eight or so.

  When Brook was eight, after she was finally released from New Hanover, we put a trip to Disney on our new Visa. Alix was mad because the Pirates of the Caribbean were out of commission. And then there was that business with Paul Bunyan. Alix swore I was imagining things, but when a lumberjack puts his arm around your wife, there’s only so much room for interpretation. Luckily for me, that axe was only a prop.

  “You did good, sir,” Hardy says, flashing me a smile. For a moment I think he’s approving how I handled Bunyan. “We’re gonna be great on Friday.”

  “The best,” I tell him.

  The Spirit Warrior steps over and asks Hardy if he wants to work through a few moves. “Now that you’re done warming up and all.”

  I give him the finger. “Kiss my ass, Tonto.”

  Hardy tells the Warrior he’d be happy to work out some, and they head for flat practice mats in the far corner. With a towel around my neck, I weave through the graveyard of weight machines. Just as I reach the hallway, the Abdominator 2600 squeaks out, “Hey, Tubby, don’t give up now.”

  Waiting for the elevator, I consider the worst-case scenario: I’m fired. In the last few months, The Salty Dog walked the plank for the final time and The Mental Maniac was forced to hang up his straitjacket. As it’s gotten more lucrative, even regional pro wrestling has become a young man’s game. Nobody’s said anything to me, but I’ve lost a few steps—I’m not quite the loser I was in my prime. And with all that Quinn’s got going on, the magazine, the pay-per-view action, the interactive website, I’m kind of a dinosaur around here.

  Of course it could just be that he wants to chat about my next incarnation. After I lose Friday’s high-profile match, it’ll be time for a new identity. Just a few weeks ago Quinn told me he wanted something fresh for a marquee event at the Civic Center. I’d been watching late-night reruns of Mysteries of the Unknown Universe, a show that has improved my understanding of the spontaneous combustion of humans, the Tunguska blast of 1908, and the Old Testament evidence for extraterrestrial life. Noah, it appears, may well have been a Martian. What makes the program unnerving is that despite all the evidence and theories their experts come up with, nobody ever proves a damn thing. So, with no better idea for a new identity that day, I offered Quinn, “The Unknown Mystery.”

  “Strikes me as a tad redundant,” he said. “Besides, who’s afraid of mystery?”

  “How about the Unknown Horror? That’s scary.”

  “Very much so. If you’re four years old and your name is Sally. It conjures an image of a black-and-white low-budget. I’m picturing Vincent Price on a creepy island.”

  I had to concede the point. “Terror?” I tried. “The Unknown Terror.”

  “Better, better. But abstract. It lacks something specific for the fans to latch onto.”

  When he brought up Kentucky I was against it. Too often, this business relies on stereotypes and clichés, the easy shorthand of the middle class mind. Besides, I couldn’t do that country twang, and I was worried that the fans wouldn’t buy my accent.

  “Buddy,” Quinn said. “Nobody’s paying you to be Meryl Streep here. As for the fans—they don’t want to believe. They want to pretend to believe.”

  And that’s the absolute one true origin of the Unknown Kentucky Terror.

  On the fourth floor, the door to Quinn’s office at the end of the hallway is open. As I approach, I hear his voice—only I can’t understand what he’s saying because he’s not speaking English. Could be Chinese, I guess, or Japanese maybe. Inside, he’s leaning back in the leather chair, one thumb sliding inside his suspenders, feet propped up on his sleek black desk, a cut piece of granite. Fitted to Quinn’s head is one of those walkie-talkie headsets the management uses at McDonald’s, but it’s real cutting-edge, James Bond issue. Quinn’s eyes meet mine and he sits up, waves me in. Along the wall lies the tanning bed he had installed a few months back. A thin glow escapes along the cracked lid, and I imagine the box to be some kind of sunlight-filled coffin. When I draw closer to Quinn, I can see the pie charts and graphs spread across the massive desk, an altar to the gods of big business. He covers his tiny microphone with a fist and says, “I need one minute here, B. C. Things are unfolding in Jakarta. Relax.”

  I can’t read any of the charts on his desk because the room is windowless and the lighting is low. Most of the illumination comes from the wall behind Quinn—a tic-tac-toe board of nine TVs—like you see in Sears or JCPenney. The volume is off. Each one has a different man at a different desk. But, strangely, they all seem to be wearing the same blue suit. Beneath each analyst runs a continuous stream of letters and numbers, teeming symbols I can’t interpret. I wonder if these guys know what those astronomers in Borneo see coming our way.

  What I hear Quinn say into the headset is, “Cheek jo. Fun Bobby. Ken shee noho Cooper jay. Sign in horror.” Then he fingers a button on his desk and slides the James Bond headset off, folding it with one hand into the pocket of his white shirt. He sees me eyeing the screens and shows me his business school smile. “Ever dabble in the stock market?”

  I’ve got ninety-seven dollars in my checking account. “Not lately.”

  From his desk, he pulls out a Palm Pilot and uses the pen to tap in something important. “Where the little brains see just a jumble of random numbers, those with the eye detect heartbeats, pulses, patterns that can guide you. Do you follow me?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  Quinn throws a hand at a cushioned chair across from him and I sit. In the dim light, his deep tan seems even darker. I wonder if, in addition to the tanning bed, he’s using chemicals. I also suspect the wisps of gray in his iron black hair to be artificially maintained.

  “How’d things go in Greenville?” he asks.

  Saturday night at the Greenville Armory was my fourth appearance as the Unknown Kentucky Terror. Jambalaya, the Creole King, knocked me out with his Mardi Gras Mauler twenty minutes into the match. He scattered corn on my unconscious body for his rooster mascot Gumbo, whose enthusiastic pecking led me to believe he hadn’t been fed all day.

  “Greenville went perfectly,” I say. “I got beat up.”

  Quinn forces a laugh and says, “Well, there’s the story of life.” Leaning forward in his big leather throne, he opens a desk drawer and pulls out a box of Triscuits. He waves the box at me but I decline. He steps over to the birds, two parrots side by side in their hanging cage, the only evidence that Mrs. Q ever ran the SWC. Only guilt made Quinn keep the parrots, though he’s developed an unnatural attachme
nt to them over the last year, calling them his “babies,” pretending they call him “Daddy.” Only someone who isn’t a father would throw around terms like these.

  Offering a Triscuit up, he starts coaxing them. “Who wants a Triscuit? Would Shirley share a Triscuit? Wouldn’t Laverne love a Triscuit?”

  In grade school we made fun of kids like Quinn. In the Army we did worse.

  “Triscuits make a tasty treat!”

  Listening to Quinn’s voice, I start calculating just how many folding wooden chairs I’ve taken across my back for him and his family. That entitles a man to something. I find myself contemplating the scenario in which he tells me he’ll have to let me go after the match Friday and in a red flash Quinn’s body lies crumbled beneath the wall of TVs, his nose pounded to hamburger and one ear hanging on by a meaty thread of flesh. I’ve stuffed Laverne down the hatch, and I’ve got Shirley by the throat. And then the red flash is gone. It’s just a flash is all. Dr. Collins is exaggerating when he calls them “episodes.” Planet Foodville was a fluke.

  “Should I set you free?” Quinn asks the birds. “Would you like to fly around Daddy’s office?”

  The birds are safe from me.

  “Wouldn’t Laverne love to leave her little cage?”

  Because I don’t get angry.

  “Surely Shirley wouldn’t leave Daddy, would she?”

  I took my pink pill this morning like a good boy.

  “You know Daddy loves you.”

  “Mr. Quinn,” I say, “is there something we needed to talk about?”

  And one of the parrots finally lets loose. “You betcha!” it squawks. “You betcha!”

  Quinn beams at the new trick, then comes over and slides one cheek onto the edge of his desk, a bona fide business school move. Up close, I can see the cartoon characters parading down his suspenders. Bugs. Tweety. Foghorn Leghorn. He says, “We’re contemplating a significant change in your match with Hardy.”