Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
The Tulsa International Airport wasn't as busy as I would have suspected as I stepped off of the rampway and found myself weaving in between the people who were standing in line, waiting to board themselves. I imagine if I had really given it any thought, I shouldn't be too surprised. I guess more people travel during the weekend than the start of the week.
I paused only long enough to buy myself a Coke from a small vendor and I then made my way through the confines of the airport to retrieve my luggage and meet my sister who was picking me up. 'This day is going to be a long one.' I kept the private thought to myself as I stepped onto the escalator that would bring me down to the baggage area. I knew it to be true as it was almost noon, and I wouldn't get home until well into the afternoon. Then I had to make certain too contact the school officials to let them know I was back and would be in for classes again starting tomorrow. I needed to check in with Mister Parker and let him know i arrived safely, and see what he knew anything about the bookings over the course of the next few shows. I'd need to let the school officials know who were always gracious enough to work around my wrestling schedule. I imagine the substitute teachers in their employ were grateful as well. And of course, I would have to take care of any odd chores of my own and of course, my Grandmother would probably need a few things done as well if Abigail hadn't already taken care of any loose ends.
Then there would be a quick trip to the pharmacy at our local grocer. That I would not be able to put off if I intended to be able to move at all in the morning. This tour of Europe, while fun and informative, had been nothing short of a living Hell on my personal welfare. When my prescriptions got confiscated right here in this very airport, I was left to fend for myself throughout most of the time in Paris and London and elsewhere. As much as I felt my body was being racked with nagging pains, may the people at Tylenol forgive me but their products simply don't do the job when one is used to the blissful effects of a light morphine. The over-the-counter medicines helped somewhat, but not enough. Not when I was spending my time being tossed across a ring and dropped at a height of ten plus feet. It was a wonder I was even able to get out of the ring and head for the back. I think I spent more time under the hot showers than the rest of the roster combined. That and the rare occasion of a shot of Jack helped get me through another night. I didn't want that particular dependency to continue though.
On a side note, I really wish they would have put signs over the locker room doors. That rather buxom Bombshell, Brandi Shotze, 'accidentally' wandered into my shower. That was certainly an awkward moment.
I liked this airport. I arrived at the base of the escalator and it opened right into the lobby where the baggage carousels were for the many flights. I checked my ticket for the carousel number where my bags could be retrieved and headed over when a movement and familiar face caught my eye. I turned my head to spot my sister standing by the correct locale I was headed for and she was curiously bobbing a bright, neon green balloon in her hand with a smile on her face.
I frowned briefly, despite the amusement I felt inside and turned to approach her. Once I got close enough, she threw her arms around me and welcomed me with the loving embrace only family can understand.
"Oh, it is about time!" Abigail stated as we parted and she gave me a playful huff of feigned exasperation. "Your flight was due almost forty minutes ago."
"You'll have to forgive me." I replied casually with a feign of indifference in my tone. "The next time I decide to have a flight delayed due to weather, I'll make certain to check with you personally to see if it's convenient."
"See that you do Rain God." She replied without missing a beat as she slid her arm within my own and personally escorted me towards the carousel that held my flight's bags and such. My curiosity would not be contained much longer so I simply had to ask;
"What's with the balloon, anyway? Going through your second childhood finally?"
She raised her eyebrows and shot me a haughty look without deigning to turn her head to look at me directly and she shrugged, "I wasn't sure how crowded it would get in here so I wanted to make sure you saw me."
"By playing with a neon balloon?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Touche'!" She smiled, satisfied that she had won out on this particular sibling debate and passed the balloon from her hand to my own. I looked at it and said, "Well, at least I can't say that you never gave me anything."
"Yeah, wait until grams sees you with that." She smirked, pursing her lips tightly.
That little tidbit caught my attention and caused me to 'accidentally' let the balloon slip from my grasp and go floating up to wherever balloons go to pass on. I said, "Grams? You brought her with you?"
"Mm hm." Abigail murmured through her lips as we arrived at the baggage carousel and waited for my bags to arrive. "She was tired of being in the house and wanted to go with me for the drive."
I raised a brow and looked at her over my own shoulder, "Aren't you the one who chewed me a new one for taking her on these little road trips?"
Abigail shrugged noncommittally and said, "Yes, well, that was before I was aware of her little secret weapon to get youngsters like us to do what she wants us to."
"Grandma Guilt?"
"Grandma Guilt." She confirmed as my bags appeared around the bend and I grabbed at two of them while Abigail, went for the third.
I hefted them up and turned to her with a smile as she set the baggage cart down and proceeded to give it a pull. Figures my wise sister would be the one to get the bags that didn't need to be carried. She glanced up at me to meet my eyes and I shook my head, "There's no defense for that tactic."
"Please don't remind me." She answered with a rather phony sense of annoyance and she led me over to a waiting area with seats where I spotted that fabulous lady who had a small book on her lap and she glanced up.
I never could tire of that shine in her eyes when she spots me showing up. There's nothing quite like the love of a grandma. I set my bags down and walked the extra few steps to gather my grandmother in my arms and she returned the embrace as fiercely as she was able.
I let loose the hug and my grams smiled like a girl quite a few years her junior and asked, "What did you bring me?"
I frowned and held my arms outward, "What? No 'hello dear grandson'?"
"Hello dear grandson." She smiled and looked at my bags and pointed at them. "What did you bring me?"
A brief bark of laughter managed to escape me and I turned around to look at my sister. I jetted a thumb back toward the older woman and asked, "Can you believe her?"
"Don't expect me to come to your defense." Abigail said, shaking her head. "I better be seeing a little something for your baby sister too."
"Wow." I said and I walked over to my 'baby sister' and relieved her of the baggage and hefted it towards me. "What chance does a man have when his sister teams up against him with his grandmother?"
"None at all." Was the answer I got from Abigail as I dropped down to one knee and winced. I tried to hide it but I was facing my sister and i could almost bet that she noticed. Yet if she did, she said nothing to alert my grams. The two little beggars moved in to hover closer as I unzipped the baggage and said aloud, "You'd think my safe return would be enough to satisfy you two."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Abigail chirped as I fished out a brown box adorned in a golden ribbon and handed it to her. I then gave a violet box over to my grandmother and hefted myself up to a vertical position and watched as these two acted the parts of 'little girls' and they practically tore off the ribbon and opened the boxes.
"Chocolates?" Abigail said with a smile. The box was filled with truffles of varied flavors; everything from champagne to key lime.
I nodded, "From Paris."
"Oh my." I heard the murmur from my grandmother as she held out the beautiful scarf I had picked up in Holland. It was a blend of several shades of purple in both light and dark hues in a floral pattern. Abigail walked over to her and took the silk accessory and draped it around our grandmother's neck and arranged it so that the tie dangled over her shoulder. She looked up at me as her fingertips draped along the soft garment and she said, "Oh it's lovely."
"I got it in Holland." I nodded. "It was so beautiful I immediately thought of you."
My grandmother rolled her eyes which caused both me and my sister to chuckle. Abigail promptly turned to me and smiled sweetly before she said, "And I suppose the chocolates reminded you of me because your sister is so sweet?"
I shrugged and replied with a simple, "Okay." and was promptly rewarded with a cuff to the arm by my so-called 'sweet sister'.
"Just for that..." She said taking one of the candies from the box for herself and holding the box over to our grandmother to pick one. "You get no chocolate."
I replied, "Big threat considering I bought enough for myself as well." I nodded toward one of the bags and said, "There's more but they can wait until we get home and I... what are you doing?" Referring to Abigail who was now on the tips of her toes and looking into my ear with one eye closed.
"Checking for any traces of dried mud." Came the short and terse response.
I exhaled and looked to our Grandmother who shook her head and said, "She's been waiting to make some joke like that since we saw your match."
I shifted my gaze to my sister and narrowed my eyes at her. I said in an accusing tone, "You recorded that blasted mud match, didn't you?"
Abigail gave me her best 'Who, me?' face and I responded as only I would be able with some opposition. I picked up my cast aside baggage and headed for the exits.
I was no fool.
"Looking back to the simpler things serves it's purpose, if you take the time to think about it. When life hands you some bitter disappointments, you like to believe that you can count your blessings to make what's bad seem not so much so."
"I thought that I was on top of the world when I went into Europe as the Roulette Champion. I believed if I could just make it past the next few weeks, I'd return to Oklahoma as the champion still, and possibly move up in the rankings for a Heavyweight Championship encounter. That all went to pot the moment they booked me in that 'Clash of the Champions' tag team match with the SCW Champion, Nick Jones, as my partner."
"Mister Ward has told me so many stories about this man and the small war of practical jokes they carried against each other, that I had a difficult time believing that any of it was possible. I mean, I admit I never understood why you'd want to even bother with such immature actions against a person who in effect, you would be working with for the foreseeable future. I heard everything from Nick picking Mister Parker's pocket to pay some outlandish hotel bill, to a bit of payback where Nick ended up at some gay leather bar surrounded by some rather intimidating men. And back then I don't think Nick had his Entourage around to protect him from exploring hands by those fetish enthusiasts. It just all sounded so ridiculous that I couldn't believe it -- until I myself ended up with Nick both as a tag team partner as well as an antagonist."
"I know you all are familiar with what went down, if you'll pardon my pun, in Europe. As far as the jokes I mean. So there's really no need to go into further detail. That's for my own sake as well because I don't think I will ever get over the humiliation of being stripped naked by two transvestite prostitutes and come that close to being molested in ways I wouldn't want to explore with the female of the species -- well, maybe. All these incidents between us proved to me only one thing when it came to the Champion. And that's the fact that Nick Jones is perhaps the most spoiled, immature child that is on the SCW roster. True, so many people refer to Despayre as a child in a man's body, or James Huntington-Hawked III as a spoiled 'brat prince', but to me Nick has each one beat."
"Of course that could be because I haven't really dealt with either Despayre or the rich kid before."
"Nick has it in his head that being who he is, champion or otherwise, he should be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants -- without the fear of reprisal. He thinks his jokes and actions are funny, and nobody has the right to get upset or deal him a little payback. That's because then it's no longer funny -- to him. That's all I did after all. Just a little payback, but not much. I nearly get gang banged and I was painted blue, so compared to that, getting tossed out onto the streets of Berlin buck naked isn't nearly so bad, is it?"
"Well, Nick certainly thought so and his actions proved that he's not man enough to endure a taste of his own medicine. Our trading insults and jokes wasn't enough for him. Not by a long shot. He had to up the stakes in London when he cost me the Roulette championship and prevented me from returning home with gold around my waist to make my family proud. I think deep down he knew what he was doing in that regard, and even if he didn't, the damage was clear. I think Nick thought that would be the end of it. That costing me my match against Kennedy would be the end of what was going on between us. He probably believed that there wasn't much else that I could do after that. But oh how wrong I want to prove him to being."
"I'm more than willing to bet that he didn't think I'd go to Mister Ward and ask for a match against him. Any match, so long as it allowed me to get my hands on that smug jackass. Nick doesn't have to pretend any longer. I know he called Mister Parker whining and complaining about what I did and what he needed to do to get me under control. You know what Mister Parker told me, Nick? He just told me to get out there and prove to you that you're not as invulnerable as you like to think yourself to being. Anybody's shoulders are capable of being pinned to the mat, including that of a champion's. Including your own. But when we finally get into the ring with each other, I'm not going to be trying to put your shoulders down for the three count, Nick. I don't think I'll be quite satisfied until I tie you up into so many knots you'll find yourself tapping out to the tune of your own theme music. Hearing you squeal in pain and telling the referee you give up will be sweet, sweet music to my ears, and it'll vindicate everything that has happened in the shared past of Mister Parker and myself."
"When you cost me the Roulette title, you proved an old adage to be true; that every champion has one thing in common, and that they will all one day be a former champion. Personally Nick, I would love to be the man that unseats you from that lofty throne that you've put yourself on. I've never held the top singles championship of any promotion I've worked for, and doing it at your expense and seeing the smug look melt off that kisser of yours will be all the reward I need. You started something Nick, so I want you to sit back, relax, and wait for the inevitable. Because I intend to finish it."
"I knew the moment my tag team partners were announced that the win would be in the proverbial bag. You just don't get any more dominant than the combination of Gabriel and Despayre. These two have never tasted defeat in tag team competition, and this will not be the first blemish on an otherwise spotless record. They wouldn't be holding the Tag titles if they didn't know how to work as a team, and now I have to enter somewhat unfamiliar territory as I find myself in their 'sinful' midst. Plus it has more to do than just with their quality work inside of the ring. It also has to do with the mentality of who you're dealing with when you're facing Sinful Obsession."
"Despayre's reckless antics make it almost impossible to prepare any strategy in the ring against him. I should know. On a hunch I tried coming up with something if the time ever came I would find myself facing him and Gabriel. I got nothing. I spoke to Mister Parker and he told me with an opponent like that, all you can do is play it by ear and try to ground him. And as far as Gabriel goes? The distinction of being the first SCW Heavyweight Champion speaks all that need be said. I say with no doubt that if a rather tainted backstage deal had never taken place, Gabriel would still be the champion -- and you wouldn't Nick. So I admit to looking forward to what will be happening in the ring when the former champion faces the current."
"That brings me back to Nick. Don't think I haven't noticed how this man acts whenever Despayre is anywhere near him. Anger. resentment. perhaps a tinge of fear mixed in that mind of yours, Nick? Well, don't you worry. I want to occupy as much of your ring time as possible in our six man tag, but I won't be selfish. I know how much you look forward to spending some quality time with your friend, Despayre. I'm sure I can sacrifice a little time for him to play with you."
"Which brings me to the other two members of Nick's team, and that's Bobby Cage and Johnny Brown. Now see, I thought that since Nick and I would be on opposing teams, then the two men on Nick's team would be a pairing that might soon be facing the Sins for the tag gold. If that's true, I can't think of a more unlikely combination to challenge Gabriel and Despayre than Cage and Brown. And even if it isn't, I am more than familiar with at least one of these two guys."
"The True Brit has already opened his mouth and promptly stuck his foot in it. He can talk all the trash he wants, make all the Indian taunts and jokes that he thinks will turn an ear to his direction, but it'll all be for naught when the bell rings because there's a big difference between Johnny and myself. I've been a champion. He hasn't. I'll be a champion again, and before he even gets his first taste of SCW gold. He has got a pretty solid win/loss record, that I can't deny. But he hasn't exactly been in there at a main event level by his own admission. And it's not the fault of the staff of SCW, either. It's quite simply because he hasn't earned it yet. So let him run his mouth all he wants. Let everyone in Sparks, Nevada sit back and watch the big man choke on everything he spewed. All it'll get is a smile of satisfaction from me. Johnny, the only end result of all this bravado on your end will be you being tossed right out of the main event picture because you proved that you just were not ready."
"Bobby Cage on the other hand, has seen action in the upper echelon of the shows in Sin City Wrestling. He's had chances and even if he hasn't been able to grasp that brass ring, the time will come. His time will come. I know because I've been in the ring with him at least once or twice and the man has one of the roughest, stiffest styles I've ever had to try to adapt to. I'm man enough to admit that I can't go in there with the Convict and expect to trade fisticuffs with him and come out on top. If I tried, he'd most likely hit me with enough shots that my head would be spinning faster than Linda Blair's in the Exorcist. So it's all going to come down to an age old debate of who is the better athlete ... a boxer versus a wrestler. There have been a number of times in history when these two sports have met, and a boxer stepped into a match officially against a wrestler. And more often than not, it was the wrestler who walked away with his held high. Because if a boxer can't stand, and can't have the use of his arms, then he's useless in a fight. This time won't be any different, Bobby. Unlike your two partners, you do have my respect. I would certainly be willing to shake your hand, but during the match? It's all business. I'm not letting anything come between me and putting my foot up the backside of your partner, the Heavyweight Champion."
May 16, 2002
I watched as the last of the students filed out of my class room with their bags and books. I took a small degree of amusement from their grumbling at the stack of homework I had assigned because I knew that years ago, I was one of those complaining students. It's funny how time changes these things. How I used to hate the mere aspect of homework itself, only to find myself discovering the wisdom behind it when I discovered my hidden desire to be a teacher and set out on the path to achieve it.
There was an after school function that I had to get ready for, a spaghetti dinner to help raise funds for our school choir to make a trip to the regional competitions. A lofty goal my family and I heartily would endorse. My sister was planning to come to this 'feast' and bring our grandmother along. I imagine too both get her out of the house as well as keep either of them from having to make dinner tonight. The worthy cause was just icing on the cake.
But I picked up my phone to see if I had any calls. I saw that there was just the one, from Abigail. Her husband, Darius, had went to New York on some business trip with his banking associates. I strongly suspected that was just a ruse to get a paid vacation from their employers and time away from the so-called nagging wives. Abigail could have went along but she told me herself she'd sooner dance naked with our mailman than hang out with a bunch of boring bank accountants -- and that included her own husband.
Have I ever said how much I loved my sister?
She surprised me even more so when she announced that she and my grandmother would be accompanying me on my trip to Nevada for the next Sin City Wrestling show. Now I have to confess that Abigail said she quite honestly detests professional wrestling. She finds it barbaric, but she also supports her big brother and wants to cheer him on at least once before the drag aka her husband, gets home and whisks her back home to Texas.
I clicked onto my phone to check my messages, thinking all the while she also had some hidden agenda to wanting to tag along. Most likely it has something to do with the not-so-hidden amusement she got at my expense with the wanton attentions I seem to have earned from an SCW co-worker in Brandi Shotze. She also said she wants to meet some of my wrestling friends. Mister Parker I can understand. I almost shudder to think of her meeting Mister Ward.
The message played, and my sister's voice piped up, "Bo, I just wanted to remind you that Grams and I would be there around half past three. I know the dinner doesn't start until four or so but I thought it would give Grams a chance to rest while I can help you and the other school staff set things up. Bye."
The call ended and the timing was perfect as I heard a rap on the classroom window. I looked up to see the two smiling faces of my beloved family looking in on me and waving. I couldn't help but laugh as I beckoned them inside from the Oklahoma heat outside. They turned and vanished towards the school entrance and I started to pack up the papers on my desk into my briefcase with a light heart.
Family really was everything.
