Luchador and the Silver Emperor
The end is just the beginning
Paul Fitzpatrick
For Made Up Words
A splash, eight fluid ounces, two pints, and a third of a cup — the four volumes that counted in my worthless, piece of shit life. A splash of cum that somehow, miraculously, didn’t leech the beauty and goodness from proud Josefina, but instead mingled inside of her to become you, my precious angel, Rosalita. Oh, Rosalita. From the moment you howled your arrival you were already better than the best of me.
Eight fluid ounces — the pewter hip flask that was my constant companion, always brimming with burning solace and worn smooth by these thick wrestler’s hands of mine. A curse and a gift from a father I never did manage to forget. Even after you were born. Baby girl — there was no amount of love that could fill the hollow man that held you then. I tried. I loved you more in your first moment than I ever loved myself. But how could I ever hope you’d love me back once awareness led you to me — the disappointment you’d carry in your veins for life? I’m sorry. Still, I remember moments of joy then, in the beginning. For a few years I got to believe in you even as I couldn’t stomach believing in myself. And then I let you slip away on the wings of a Silver Emperor.
Later they told me that you’d lost two pints of blood there on the hot asphalt before they screeched breathless to the scene. The scene — the staging of the end of everything. Hungover and aching from the night before I dozed on the bench as you tired of the sandpit and followed a butterfly blindly into the road. Your golden head was already blooming red by the time I ran towards the chaos and the horror of my negligence. I held your hand. It’s all I did. This giant frame and I could do nothing in that moment but hold your hand and mouth wordless apologies that poured from me, unending. I was still talking to you when the paramedic prised my hand from yours and made eye contact with me. A soft shake of the head and I lost my mind, trashing the interior of the ambulance, howling and pleading.
Nobody pressed charges for the damage. How could they? They smelled the drink on me. They knew my torment had only just begun. They needed me to fill out paperwork. They spared me the call to Josefina, but nobody could spare me the burrowing hate in her eyes.
A third of a cup. When all the sonnets have been sung, when all the confetti has bled its colour into the gutter, when all is said and done and all that was said and done has been sharpened over whetstone of indifferent months and years, this is what the human heart actually holds: A third of a cup of blood. And a third more. And a third more. There is no room or respite for love there.
Months after Rosalita died and Josefina had poured her keening grief and hatred into me so that it spilled down my face day and night, I knew that my ox’s body would never waste away. Wouldn’t quit. Liquor was taking its toll but stretched out on the rack of the few daylight hours that I couldn’t escape I saw decades ahead of me. And I sought to shorten my sentence. But no quick death. I told myself suicide was a sin, but the shameful truth of it is that I was simply too cowardly to do the deed.
I started taking wrestling gigs any and everywhere I could. I was worthless so I charged very little and fought often. In time, among promoters in and around Mexico City, I gained a perverse reputation for reliability, but only insomuch as I would reliably turn up, drunk and ready to humiliate myself with any ‘roided jerk with a chip on his or her shoulder. I’d let myself be set upon with chairs and bats, planks and chains. I’d dive onto light bulbs and bait the crowd with my jagged, bloody torso. I willed myself to die each time I stepped into the ring, but none of my opponents hated me with the intensity that I did, so they either pulled their punches eventually or rapidly grew disgusted at my self-loathing and took their victory before the crowd turned on them for beating on a loser.
So it was with profound surprise that, one cooling October night, I found myself looking at my body sprawled out on the canvas from the bleachers of a high-school gym. I recognised myself immediately, of course, although I’d never seen my hulking body look quite so dense and under the thrall of gravity as it appeared now. There was no tension in any of my flesh, and while I couldn’t see the face beneath the mask, I knew that, if I could, it would be similarly soft and slack. No, I knew it was me, however impossible that was. The realisation that I struggled to apprehend at first was who or what I must be to be a spectator at my own death.
As the penny dropped for my opponent and the listless promoter, as they scrabbled to gauge the damage, so my mind began to entertain what my unblinking eyes were telling me. I instinctively touched my arms and looked down at my chest. I was wearing the jeans and ripped T-shirt that I’d been wearing before the fight. I was aware of voices and movement all around me except for just to my left. In fact, I was suddenly aware of just how sharply aware I was. No liquor fog. No headache. Complete and absolutely terrifying clarity. It was then that three things happened in rapid succession: I accepted the knowledge that I was dead and now on the other side of whatever that meant, I started shaking uncontrollably, and the stillness to my left put out a hand and placed it gently but firmly on my arm.
“It’s okay, my friend,” it said. “You’ve done the hardest bit. That’s the worst of it.”
“I’m…”
“Dead. Yes. Your heart exploded in your chest. Graphic. Sorry.”
“Are you…”
“Dead? Yes. Cancer. Funny story. I was…”
“No. Not dead. An angel. Are you…”
“Oh. Oh, no. No, not an angel.”
“A demon? Am I going to hell?”
“Wait, what? No! Why would you? Oh, of course. Catholic. John Lennon. You know him? What’s the — ‘No hell below us, above us only sky.’ — That. Spot on. ‘Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower.’ Another of his. Not so accurate. Not that I’ve seen, anyway — “
I turned to look to my left. A slight man with a neat white beard and corduroy jacket. He looked like a history teacher.
“So who are you? God?”
“Is it the beard? I had it trimmed so that nobody would leap to the…”
He gestured with both hands to suggest a long wispy beard that must have once been there. He stopped. Realised I was staring and beginning to lose it.
“No. I’m not God. The Lennon thing? Just now? Looking blank. A lot to process. Never mind. I’m your case worker. I think that’s the best way to describe it. Still looking blank. Okay…”
The slight man appeared to weigh up a few options in his mind, picked up a manilla folder that had been sitting on his lap and gripped it for emphasis.
“I’m here to help you get where you want to go. So… where do you want to go? Do you know? I think you probably do.”
“Rosalita. My daughter. I want to see her. Please.”
The chaos that had erupted in the hall with my death was being abbreviated by burly security guards, although their “nothing to see here” ushering carried less weight than it might ordinarily have done. The slight man wrinkled his face and scratched his crown.
“Yes. And no. But ultimately yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not ready to see her. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
I grabbed him by his corduroy lapels with a swiftness that surprised him.
“I’ve longed for this. I’ve prayed for death. And now it’s here and you say I can’t see my baby girl? What gives you the right? Don’t you know how I’ve suffered? Who says I can’t see her? Who?”
“She does.”
I froze.
“Rosalita. She says you’re not ready. And as your next of kin, she decides.”
He shrugged. I let go and the slight man smoothed his jacket out and picked up the manilla folder from the concrete floor.
“She doesn’t want to see me?”
A shake of the head.
“That’s not what I said. You’re not ready. That. But I can help. If you want help. Help. Was that Lennon? Or McCartney? Not important. Tell me, were you a good wrestler?”
I struggled briefly to access the facts of my life. It already felt so far away.
“I guess. Stubborn. Strong. Not fancy.”
The slight man considered this for a moment.
“Good. Stubborn is good. For this thing. Shall we?”
He gestured towards the exit. I stood and took one more look at the man on the canvas. When I eventually looked away the slight man was already half way towards the door. He smiled briefly. I followed him beneath the glowing exit sign.
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Copyright 2016 | Editor Lisa Renee
