Why I Quit Wrestling

That next afternoon I was sitting round home, I heard the bell. A slight, active sound, about the garden. I tried watching TV. The noise got nearer and farther; neither resolved nor ebbed away. This jingling got loud, resilient. It brought me outside.

And there, beneath the magnolia, the most delightful cream and apricot kitten practiced his pounce. The bell at his neck jogged with each strike. Curious, I picked him up. Perhaps used to attention, he didn’t claw but gave a juvenile, inquiring look. Beneath the bell hung a tag etched with a number. I got my phone. “You don’t know me. I have your cat.”

The woman took a second with it. An exploratory silence. “I don’t have a cat.”

“Well, you don’t right now.” My humor is often remarked-on. “He’s here with me. A charming fellow. Shall I bring him to your place?”

“You have a cat?”

“Right here.”

“Let him be.”

“Is there someone else I could ask?” Adult, with scratched bodywork, it wasn’t the first time I’d been hung up on, nor the hundredth. Perhaps I expected more concern for this small creature. But people do as they please. I left the cat on the lawn and tried watching TV. I tried it with beer, with cookies. I tried with a sense of luxury that I could watch TV on a summer day with nothing of substance to do. That this daytime chat, this regular crap, laid on for my approval, was the ideal stuffer between lunch and supper.

That was a quiet neighborhood. Everyone, that hot afternoon, zonked out. Between occasional planes and the rowdy appeal of kids cutting school, I got the bell every so often, that energetic jangle from predatory moves. The sound got close. The kitten was at my chair. Obviously, my refrigerator majored in protein. I had tuna in the drawer and a pack of fat milk. The kitten filled up and went out to sleep in the sun. I ordered takeout carbs and ate myself logy.

By the sticky late heat of a bronzed-up sky, it came back for more. And as I treat all responsibility with caution, I called that woman again.

“I thought I blocked this number.”

That was a tad antsy. “I still have your cat.”

“Did I not tell you I don’t have a cat?” Neither did she have the local drawl, that squirly ‘Hey sugar, aww lumpkin’ talk commonplace with our natural blondes. Her voice had more those coastal shapes a man might mistake for disdain.

“I think there’s some confusion.”

“I’m not confused.”

A couple beers and rash diet choices left me lagging. “I found a cat. In my garden. A kitten. It has a collar. The collar has a bell and a tag carved with this number I’m calling now. I don’t think I dialed wrong. I can get the cat and have him on this call, if you’d rather. He’s young, he needs to get home.” I was thinking some child might be fretting for their lost pet. That there might be gratitude.

“You sure it’s this number?”

People undersell me, or have done. They trash-talked my speed and commitment. Rarely, though, did a body suggest I couldn’t read a number. Maybe cops and speed signs. “I called the number on the collar. I’m thinking of the cat.” The cat’s shadow flickered as it leapt after bugs on the terrace.

Something dragged her silence. A long breath. “I bought this phone lately. A guy was clearing his garage.”

As a pivot it seemed ambitious. “So you have not had this number long?”

“How old is this cat?”

“I’m not expert with this.” That shadow, back and forth. “Seven, eight months. I don’t know. He’s small.”

“You say He.”

“I’ve not looked into that. I’m just saying.”

“You know more about this cat than I do.”

I gave some steady noise. “You have a number for this dude sold you the phone? You have his address?”

“I’m sure that’s personal information.”

“Please.” Not a word I use much. “I just want this poor mite to get home.”

I didn’t train that day. Muscles popped with neglect. Quit training, things sag. How guys turn to Jello. I felt it, as I prepped for bed. That slowness. Moved by self-interest, I filled a sneaker box with garden dirt, primped a towel around it and sat down the kitten to learn where to potty. It took more fish and milk and fell down sleepy. And there, in the morning, its shit in giddy trails round the floor.

I had to take it along. Leave it in the garden, some dog would get it. Leave it indoors, I’d be scrubbing shit evermore. It clung to the passenger seat, big blue eyes on the windshield, fur riffed with the breeze. I heard the leather rip, as its claws dug at each turn. Guess it had no idea of trucks nor where it was going. Like when Martians tap your shoulder on a heaving moonless night.

Guys sell space, their trucks decorated like racecars. It’s what management calls value-add. I bought a respray just that last week and fresh paint clung against the aircon. Guess the cat could smell it. Guess to the cat it smelled large. A daylight smell. Most of my life was nocturnal. Things don’t begin till the sweat-stained late hours. Always felt off, driving in the morning. School buses steaming back to the yard looked like they’d been driving forever. Delivery guys cut lanes, doors pinned back in hasty business. Women in shades rode high-top SUVs, mommies with scent and persuasion. Everyone cruised like a star. Granulated, packed tight, to make one smooth population. I thought about my last paycheck.

The address the woman gave me was in the hillsides with brunch on the lawn whatever the weather. Touched with the right sort of empathy, my plan was present their rescued cat, be modest about it, get a picture took with my arm around the dad’s neck. Let the story trickle through their friends. Couple days it would get picked up. Through layers of connection a buzzy site would feel it and reach out to me for a reaction. From a local thing comes a general lesson. Humility in hard times.

Those neighborhoods could be prickly. Stop beside the wrong house and it’s outdoor voices. I made sure to park pretty, under the squint of inquisitive doorbells. I made a thing with the kitten. Instead of just scruffing its neck, I went around the passenger side, scooped it from the seat like a little treasure. I hoped someone got a good shot of that: the big man and the furball.

Lawn chair veterans observed the street. Don’t think they recognized me. I expect recognition – with the truck and all – though it’s rarely more than brief excitement. In bars guys offer me fights. Those are moments of discretion. Knowing you can fold a fellow gives you confidence not to. And I never had that barfight persona. I was clean and nimble, allegedly.

By then was well into morning hours, so the guy on the driveway checking his rims I guessed had flex on his work rate. He didn’t see me straight off and in flushed, morning heat, with old geezers and doorbells watching, I got a little weak around the thoracic at the picture I must portray. Muscled-up, loose-dressed, a squirming little fluffball chewing my fingers. “Excuse me, sir.”

He didn’t jump nor yell nor reach around to a strap. He looked up, then got up. Puzzled irritation creased his tan. He checked my feet, satisfied I was on his property. “What’s your business?” He noticed the cat. He said nothing about it.

I gave my Sunday name. “I brought back your cat.” Offered it up but he scowled.

“I don’t have a cat. Are you selling something?”

“I am speaking with Mr. Thomas Livermore?”

That seemed to vex him. He reached to his toolchest, selecting a wrench. “Is this one of those internet pranks? You should know I’m an attorney.”

 I should have known – he had great nails. “This is nothing untoward, sir. I found this animal in my garden.”

“You have a broken fence?”

My blood began to spin faster. “It’s not about the cat being in my garden. The garden’s incidental. This is clearly a young cat. I thought it had gotten lost. I called this number, here, on the tag. A woman answered. Said she bought the phone from you. I brought back your cat.”

“That wasn’t my phone. It was my wife’s.”

Right on that mark a bippy blonde elbowed the door from the house into the garage. Of course, she looked at me and I’m not bragging. A guy my size, with hard construction, gets looks from women who like their hair bounced up and their lashes deep. The ones with a full face of makeup to take out the trash. She had the local voice. That tenderizing, “Howdy,” already at work in my blood.

Mr. Thomas Livermore, attorney, no doubt had every reason for pride in his wife. He laid down the wrench, to claim the coffee mug she offered, running nicely turned fingers around her waist to assert his rights. “We have a visitor. And his cat.”

“Oh, but what an adorable little morsel.” She made a kissy face at the kitten. “Is this gentleman a friend of yours?”

Livermore chewed his cheeks. A breeze flicked his shirt, giving views of blameless skin. “You recall that old phone you sold?” A courtroom question, solidly weighted.

She gave a small squeak.

“Bizarre to say, it seems this kitty has the same number. This gentleman brought himself here in the belief that’s our cat.”

“We don’t have a cat. May I see?”

“It might not be vaxxed.”

She stepped around the grease pools, tipped forward on red heels. That smile she gave was one I’d seen a lot. That smile everyone gives the biggest, dumbest thing in the zoo. “He’s adorable. What’s his name?”

For self-preservation, I purposely didn’t think it might have a name. If I called it a name it might become real. “It’s not on the tag. Guess the number’s more important.”

“He’s got a little bell.” She tinkled it with her pinkie.

That woman gave off four separate scents: perfume, hair, skin, clothes. The cat fell against me, overwhelmed. I waited for it to shit in my hand. “So, this isn’t your kitten, ma’am?” I thought she might take it anyway. I was hoping that.

“I’m not certain this is the number of that old phone. We were clearing out, you know how junk builds. I must say she seemed careless. That lady.” She mouthed at me: “Flakes.”

I’d stood there hours, my brain stone cold. “Flakes?”

Mrs. Thomas Livermore gestured her dazzling curls. “Her hair. Scalp issues. So tragic.”

“And this cute little rascal isn’t your cat?”

With attorney wit, Livermore spotted my pitch. “I appreciate you seem to have some kind of a quest here.” He claimed his woman’s shoulder. “But look at that kitten. It’s an infant. Don’t you think that animal’s owner would also have an adult cat, the mother, on the premises? And as you see, we have no cat.”

Mrs. Livermore tapped the cat’s nose, pulling an outraged squeak from its little chops. “Such a cutie pie. You’re so lucky.” She gave me full blast of her cheery indifference. “Have I seen you someplace?”

“I’m seen around.”

She smiled, like that was it.

Why tell the cat to hang tight as I steered the truck from that neighborhood. Why say that, it already dug holes in the seat. These people, at home or the office, had a way to be by daytime. Process shaped their hours, while I stacked protein and punished equipment. Those things were all I expected. Deadlift, bench press, overhead and squats to build functional strength. Agility drills, box jumps. That thing like yoga we don’t call yoga. And pacing the moves with a willing stooge. Planning pins and takedowns. Never knew there were so many other hours in the day.

One thing you learn is reversal. Techniques to move to a more advantageous position. To  dodge the slam. Right there on the passenger seat, squeaking at me. Hungry or thirsty. Ready to shit. The hold I had to escape.

Heading downhill brought me close on kids fannying their dirt jumpers. Those fool-arounds were, like, twenty-five, baggy dressed, pulling stunts from their BMX, blocking the road with ludicrous precision tricks. Because of the truck and my size, I went wary. Phones-up bros filming themselves, I’d be courteous or I’d be viral. I thought I might sneak by. But mastoids notice the most.

That kid who looked like every kid – string skinny, stripe sweatshirt, backwards cap with watery reeds of hair through the pony hole – roiled his bike alongside me. “Hey, it is him. That dude. Hey dude.”

Because they didn’t have jobs and couldn’t get action, any diversion was welcome. From a loose collection of glinting metal, they were suddenly cohesive, stupidly alert, skimming me as I pushed on downhill.

“Dude,” yelled some chin fluff. “Love your show, man. If it was on fire in a dumpster.”

“Got roids, man?” Some twiglet enquired. “Got juice?”

“Yo.” The tag-along, keen for play. “You kill that guy, man? He dead?”

“Dude.” They bounced their wheels, bronco bucking, filming me the whole way.

The cat screeched in some lather of bewilderment. The stain spread on the seat.

Then a semi came off the intersection blasting its horn and they scattered, bounding high over humps of bone grass.

Fraught in the shoulders, I stopped at a pet supply barn. The security goof wouldn’t let me by.

“Good day to you, sir. Welcome today. Please refrain from bringing that instore.”

He was big in his make-believe epaulets. I was bigger. “I can’t leave it in the truck.” Suddenly I couldn’t. “It gets anxious.”

“I appreciate, sir. We’re all pet supporters. But you will appreciate we have friends and companions for sale instore. There’s a risk of infection.”

Bloated injustice nudged my chest. “You say there’s something wrong with this cat?”

His eyes traveled my face. “These are caring friends. Children and seniors welcome them into their hearts. You can see we need not disappoint them. You’re a reasonable man.”

Leaving a thumb-width of window and the kitten on a dry seat, I got litter, a bed, wet food and that formula broth makes their teeth grow. All under the heavy eyes of passers-by, who stared because I fill space in a vaguely comical manner. I went to the self-serve checkout, thinking that might look modest and got whispered commentary up my neck like gnats. Just as well I didn’t need visit the pharmacy.

Feeding the cat in the truck went even worse than expected. I’d bought the hype of felines as fastidious. But the kitten was a klutz. Though the bowl I purchased was bigger than its body, it still managed to spread meaty lumps around the leather. I pretty much had to tip water down its throat and then hold it out the door to pee on the parking lot, under the startled eyes of a crowd that materialized just to see that. I got filmed by a kid who looked no more than five and could barely stand up for laughing. It would be a humdinger school bulletin.

The city hit me like Mom with her gravy spoon, the nights I came late from those first bouts. I could hear her through the bells in my head, scolding me to get back to school, to stop doing this thing I couldn’t explain that I loved. The city at least was indifferent. Its spindle towers, the chlorinated air, brought no specific malice. Just another guy in an overbig truck. Around me, people earned more to do less. In corner suites, in momentary stabs of dexterity. I never could help Mom understand I needed tactile business. Uncharitable, bloody outings on the stretch floor. If you don’t feel each bone, how d’you know you’re alive?

No place to park at the building. Punctual clients took the spots. Their meetings garnished with merchandise. Their macho sponsors keen to ink a slice. I’d been that boy. Artful. Dedicated. I believed in some oriental way that experience built respect. I couldn’t say why I thought respect mattered.

I inched the truck into a spot round the block. People looked and one guy nearly said something, his eyes on my hands. Ignoring the bulked-out security bros I went up to the management suite. Lynda on reception gave a chuckle. First friendly human all day.

“Why you carrying that?”

“I’d be hours late if I walked him.”

“You’re hours late anyway.”

“That what he say?”

Lynda was one of those ladies where the lines and the grey and the headlamp glasses turn a man loose. About sixty I guessed, ridiculously attractive, her savvy green eyes always pushed me to game. Though I knew she had someone. Someone sharp as she was vivacious. “He says a lot this morning. He’s with the accountants.”

“How much did I lose him?”

That laugh again. “It’s not all you, mister. It’s mostly you.”

And that was the thing. Brace Lonnigan, my manager a decade and more, could tell the accountants come back later. He could, as he so often said, ‘prioritize the talent’. Plain enough I was on the step, left out to think about what I’d done. Even the kitten felt it. Less rowdy, it explored my sneakers, jabbing my ankle with parasitic affection.

“Is this your comeback strategy?” Lynda’s scratchy voice suggested all troubles were trifling.

“It’s the humanitarian look.”

“That likely to get uptake?” A message popped on her screen. She tapped it with the pencil. That was her prop. She never used the pencil. She twirled it through her fingers. Tucked it into her salt-pepper hair. Dabbed it at the points of her lips. Boisterous offers pushed to break cover. But she had someone. “Brace will see you now. Don’t dawdle. He scheduled lunch with a contender.”

Brace Lonnigan went all in. Committed to hitch his best years to a stable of tumble artists, he gave careful measures of glitz and sleaze to seduce investment addicts. His office was exactly that. Movie screen on the wall between tiger pelts that were real or fake, depending on who he was telling. Carpet thick and comfy. Leather couches angled to project a man’s assets. Weights in pristine shape that he obviously couldn’t lift. Brown and red liquor to float the deal. Pictures of himself gladhanding mayors and senators, upcoming actresses, uncanceled comics, handing off checks to picturesque, good causes. His gallery of all stars, in muscle shirts and costume, the good guys grinning, the bad guys mugging. The women with perfect, bouncy curls and high waist swimwear. The spirit of Brace over everything, a tight-stitched guiding star.

“What is this?”

I didn’t know what he expected. “Hey Brace.”

“Why you so late and, seriously, what is this?”

The kitten struggled against my grip, keen to shit on something tasteful. “I couldn’t leave him. He’s just a few months.”

“You cut training. Three days you cut.”

“I thought stay low-key.”

“When you joined my elite collection, those many years gone, you remember that talk we had? About a career that lasts miles. And that thing we said, that important thing, is you train. This isn’t a hobby.”

“I got an attention problem just now.”

“You do. You do have a problem. That doesn’t mean you let your muscles waste. What is that thing doing?”

The kitten was scrabbling the rug, pulling tufts with its baby claws. I detached it, a wad of thread floating off its leg. “I’m sorry for what happened. Like the statement said, it was a lapse. I been sat home because, when I go out, I go viral. I thought you might want to control the message.”

He got his old-fashioned envelope slitter, to have some sharp point between us. “Don’t you think this rather proves what I said last year? You recall what I said? Let me fix you with an actress, model, whatever. Something clean, with polish. She’d be out there pitching for you now. Mobilizing her following. But you give me some crock about needing peace like a monk. So here we are. We got a commercial crisis and you’re the sad loner in your little house for one. They’re sharing skits about you. Why is a cat biting your finger?”

“I found him in the garden.”

“So now you’re a crazy cat bro.” Brace batted his screen, to look busy. “It’s visiting time at the hospital. You need to get there.”

It wasn’t appealing. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I wanted to get around some carbs and maybe a couple lunch beers. “Might that be prejudicial? Like an admission.”

Some in Brace’s troupe weren’t exactly whip smart. They had extra coaching with moves and stood at the back in team pictures. Every outfit needs filler behind the attractions. Brace glared like I was the clown, fit only for exhibitions. “You already made an admission, or did you not notice? The statement, remember? Which we had to issue when this unfolded on primetime. And how much did I do for your partner in this dumb caper? He’s too concussed to pour milk. D’you think a jury will sit in court, watching footage in slow motion? The question isn’t whether but how many zeroes. But you may head off some of that with the magic potion called contrition. So, get to the hospital and lick the floor.”

It was horrible. Worse, it was dull. “Do I get security? In case of issues.”

“When a famous sap heads out with an entourage how does that look? No, tell me. What impression does that create? Regular people don’t travel in crews. Only saps and gangsters. You must show and be authentically humble. An error. A lapse. We rehearsed the words. You’re not taking that object, are you?”

“You want I leave him? You prefer that?”

“Jesus Christ. Why don’t you wear shades and start blessing people. You and that is a media nightmare.”

“I been trying to locate his owner. I can’t get rid.”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall.” He turned to whatever busywork made him so swell.

“You got connections, huh, Brace?”

“If this is you pitching a movie or projecting you as an artist, go screw. I get enough of that with these girls who can’t walk and chew gum.”

“No.” The idea formed. “I mean, you know how to find things out.”

“Are you still here?”

I maneuvered the kitten around his desk. “See this tag? This number I called. Some lady gave me a crock about not having a cat. Said she got the phone hand-me-down from these buffs in the hills. They don’t got a cat neither.”

“It’s about the cat?”

“I want to know whose number this is. Her name. Where she lives. You can find this.”

Brace got pissed with us. With the whole gang. It’s a complex business. Wins and losses should be fairly shared. Rosters get shook up and bodies traded. The brand managers carve the stables to fit the schedule. Personal representation – Brace and his cronies – had to have their reliable share of pie, over above what the brand took. All we had to deliver was outcomes. Our lives were easy next to his. He said that often.

Brace ignored the kitten pawing his chin. “Do you understand why we’re having this conversation? Do you grasp this? With humbleness and time, with contrition, you might get a few years more. Good years, before you join the carnival circuit. Whatever you may think, humbleness does not mean staying home, laying down beer till you piss jet fuel. That’s self-indulgence. You get your pudgy carcass to the hospital. You do that. There’s family to deal with besides, so stay humble. I’ll humor you on this phone thing, if it helps you not smell of cat feces.”

The hero’s best offer. “When do I get on the card? I need to work.”

Near genuine sadness in his eyes. Like a man moves rocks uphill and watches them fall. “Heels are heels for a reason. They gain heat. They rile the crowd. They do it in the game. What they do not do is break the wall. The wall of entertainment. They do not put marks to the floor, because that would be foolish. I’m speaking of heels. And you are not a heel. So don’t speak to me of the card.”

Lynda heard it all. She snooped as a matter of pride. She gave a friendly look when I shut the door and that’s the worst look from a woman. Sympathy spigots off everything else.

“I hope you can find that little one’s owner. He is adorable.”

The gas station was busy. I kept my eye on the pump, the handle – I didn’t look anyplace else. Someone cussed. Someone forgetting I got cussed out every day. I paid at the pump. Gas station guys were always smarks.

Driving down the waste road, I told the cat, “I’ve a burial coming.” The cat was washing its little face – short-legged and clumsy as yet but growing into its manners. The cat had no clue. “There’s a structure to the business, high to low. We don’t score touchdowns or home runs. To do so would suggest free will. We get moved up and down the ranking. We get pushed and buried. You up the gimmick or dial it back. You’re top of the card or feedstock. A burial might come without warning. The crowd has turned a little. Your finisher is unentertaining. You go for the bus and the bus has gone. But I’m lucky. I know exactly why it will happen.”

The cat coughed fur, pooling spew on the leather. Endlessly, he emitted foul substance. Nothing was his fault.

The waste road was waiting development. Waiting its time. Factories once, chimneys deep in the sky. The company name struck in cement, like it would be there forever. The shops decommissioned, one by one. The parking lots ruptured with saplings. My dad worked on the battery line. My mom was up in accounts. They met on the fire stairs. That plant got torn down and all the others. They built a hospital on cleaned-up land. Stores and apartments to follow. When the economy came right.

Couldn’t leave the cat. I carried it so long my hands shaped to its body, my effort calibrated not to squash its tiny toes. The hospital yard had the usual fretful women jabbing their voices at phones. The veterans hooked to tubes and vents, put out to get some sun. Kids tussled, trying smackdowns. Regular people, in irregular situations, waiting for news, digesting decisions. Accepting some filthy thing washed up at their door. And then they see me. I’d been admitted a few times. Dumped on the floor. Stretched out. Always someone to say: you were stiffed, you totally won that. Now I was in their feeds and shares. Some were filming. Some influencer – tipped by Brace – telling his slack jaws: he’s here and he’s holding a cat. The cat was my thing. I was invincible with it. Didn’t hide it as I strolled by security. What would those guys know.

Nurses were the gatekeepers. The nurse station I couldn’t avoid. A woman the exact shape of aggressive glanced from her hideous scrawl of notes. A look of specific appraisal. Of me as a specimen. A large collection of globes and cylinders. Big tubes and a high burn rate.

“In what way might I direct you?”

I gave my name. That actual name on contracts. To offer it reduced me. “I understand there’s a Mr. Medford brought here. Mr. Joel Medford.”

Nurses are smart. It took one kiss of her teeth to put me together. “Yes, the attending physician asked to be notified if you show up.” She waited time. “Are you aware there’s a kitten in your hand?”

“I didn’t want to leave him. He’s not familiar with the area.”

“You may not bring it here. This is a hospital.”

“Can I put him someplace?”

“In the vehicle in which you arrived.”

Sometimes I get a clue what it’s like to be smart. “Where may I find Mr. Medford? So I need not trouble you further.”

“I’ll message the attending physician. Trauma Twelve.”

“That’s a what?”

“Cluster twelve of the trauma suite. The rooms are clustered. You may recall. From your time here.”

When we’re in the house people know. Everyone has a take on some angle or call. Everyone wants confirmation I look bigger on TV. Those times they patched me I made a donation. That wouldn’t ever be quits. Thanking her more than was decent, I took my rolling stride to the parking lot. The pretense of stowing the kitten in the truck and the reality of folding him into my pocket, contradictory moves I delivered with clunky conviction. I told him keep still and no peeking. I gave him my finger to chew.

The security boys noticed me more without a cat in my hand. Big guys in clumsy uniforms, ready to beat on drunks and intemperate patients, they watched me with disdain. Like: sure, he’s big and all, and muscles – so are we, we’re big for service, man, we serve people. That somehow, I was less serious. I could grind my chops all day on the delightful bargain me and the fans had together. Our virtuous aim not to disappoint each other. But fancy talk can’t come from a guy my size.

Hospital elevators are no place for introspection, wedged alongside some guy marked for cuts, or dismayed females, or hideously chatty nurses. Brace took the best of our hospital times and wove it to stories. We did long running work on faces going to hospital, playing injured to pay for kids’ operations. We had a couple valets in nurse drag with titties akimbo. It’s hard to explain this stuff in a regular voice. In that elevator, an old guy in a chair meticulously folded his shirt tail over and back, extracting what might have been comfort from scratchy nylon. Watched over by one of those gurney dudes – skate boy types, their eyes are black – who move the still-warm bodies. In the other corner, a tired woman in coveralls propped herself on her bucket and mop, bound for maybe the hundredth spill of her day. The piss and puke and blood of us, expressed to someone else’s inconvenience. I took more space than the three of them together. I breathed their air. I occupied their understanding of how a man looks, when he eats and trains and fights and draws the contours of his life along the lines of a story. No one I hate I really hate. No one I like is my friend.

Trauma was a place of medical excitement, each room home to a lab rat demonstrating the impact of some outlandish event. In our work we’d discuss the requisite pressure, the angle of leverage, to make a minor injury look something bad. Most injury is booked, that’s known to all. A feud put me out injured and I took two weeks at the beach. Some moves are dirt to intimidate. Some breakage is punishment. Sometimes a guy gives too much. We’d chat with the refs and box it all out. Pain was never a thing. It’s there and gone. Me and the guys took injury as a tool of our work. We dissected it. Calibrated each friendly and not-so friendly maneuver. Popular gimmicks can’t go missing long. Promoters need fan money. To actually get hurt is no good cause. So, we map the terrain where hurt begins. It’s a raucous process and no rule in that trauma suite made sense. The insistence on quiet. The encouragement to stay cheery. The glove and gown disguise. I didn’t get it. Those guys were just injured.

By then I barely felt the kitten’s teeth. Playful, I guess, his jaws found joy in my knuckles. Gnawing at them became background. It didn’t seem necessary to have him stop.

Emerged from the elevator – not gloved, not gowned – I drew attention. A young man with afternoon features, in drawstring pants and stethoscope, engaged me by name, a hold of some potency.

“Dr. Schrader. I’m the attending physician. I understand you want to see Mr. Medford.”

“If he’s not busy.” I held the kitten to stop him wriggling. Must have looked like I was playing pocket golf.

That preppy smile. “Just a word. In the office.”

I couldn’t no-sell him right there in the hall so had to go to his rinky little room with its diagrams of thoracic caves and photoshops of sunsets. He pointed me at the couch, assuming the chairs couldn’t take it.

“I’m a fan.” He dinned me with goodwill. “Watch when I can. When work allows.” Dr. Schrader named faces he cheered for. Good guys who kept the rules. “It’s fascinating,” he told me, apparently serious. “Seeing bodies perform. When you understand the impact.”

“We’re, er...” I cleared my throat. My pocket bounced. “We’re always concerned for the impact.”

“Indeed.” That’s when he sat forward, hands locked. “Mr. Medford took quite a pasting. I’m sure you appreciate. He wasn’t primed for what came his way.”

Poor sap. You should always be ready.

“We decided against inducing a coma. There are adverse effects. We try not to make things worse.”

“Good to know.”

That tight-boy smile was no doubt a hit at the bedside. “It will take time till we fully assess the damage. There’s a lot in the way just now. Lot of contusion. I understand your wish to present a full apology. I suggest you wait till we contact your office. The police, I believe, have an interest.”

I tried to look knowing while pinning back an especially healthy bite to the wrist. Brace could square the police. If he chose to. They were fans.

“I understand...” Whatever else Dr. Schrader understood got squalled by the bleat of his device. “You will excuse me. I think we’re done anyway.” As he opened the door, he gave it a little rat-tat. A little beat, playful and dismissive. “I’m surprised at what’s happened here, to be frank. I thought you had more technique.”

The closet in back of his office was unlocked, a musty cube of plastic gowns and sterile wadding. The gowns not sized any meaningful way, meant only to drape inanely across concerned shoulders. I tied on the biggest I could find and got one of those shower caps that make anyone look a nut. I gave the kitten a breath of air and it glared at me, eyes blazing with the cold lights. The blood on his mouth from my fingers a Mexican touch. I doubled gauze around my hand, the voice of Brace Lonnigan droning about liability in bleeding on sick folks. The kitten didn’t want to squash back in my pocket. It kicked around under the gown. Warmth suggested a piss of retribution. I wished I could solve things that easy.

Like the woman said, these rooms were clustered. Each nurse station kept watch on a half dozen rooms. Joel Medford had good insurance or kindly friends. Lifting a mask from the tray, struggling to stretch it around my broad face, I saw the setup would make a good bit of work. A feud lands a guy in bed and this heel fronts as a doctor to do more damage. Highly relatable. Everyone’s scared that’ll happen.

Between the clusters, little lounge spaces held relatives and loved ones, scrolling, making calls in hushed voices, staring wet-eyed at a point beyond visible light. Literally nothing any of them could do about anything. But there they sat, like that was something.

Used to when people react on my size, my errand made me sensitive. The nurse – who I guess got tipped I was roaming around – gave a slow, complete look, from the ruffled folds of the shower cap to my fat ass sneakers. Though everyone hung scrubs, her look marked me as a fraud. “Do you need directions?”

She spoke slow, with salt on her tongue, a lick of loose hair from her bangs around one eye. Chewing my jaw, the mask tight across my mouth, I’d become an exhibit. “Joel Medford. I heard he’s here. I’m visiting.”

“His family are here.” Her finger ticked toward the lounge. “He’s in and out of waking. He took a hefty strike.” She laid hands on the desk to display work-hardened knuckles. “I’m not sure he’d welcome discussion.”

“I’m keen to see him.”

“We all have things we’re keen for. Middle room, there. I won’t physically stop you.” Those clean, flinty eyes checked me again. “Is something amiss with your clothing?”

“This?” I shook the gown.

“Your coat. I hear a bell.”

“I got a stress ball. One with a ringer.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What happened to your hand?”

“Took a knock. Bruising. No blood.”

“Bruising is blood. Are your shots up to date?”

All she’d take was blind truth. “It’s fine. It’s precautionary. Thank you for your help.” I gave the ball another squeeze, coughing to cover the outraged commotion from my pocket. The nurse watched me slam a hearty palm on the cubicle door. “Mr. Medford? Visitor. Hi.” I opened the door. The room bright-lit, white-painted, stacked with equipment. Steady lines across screens. Steady draw of the robot lung. Countertop busy with Get Well cards. A pack of fruit forlornly unopened. A head of gauze. Comical arms at ten and two. Legs straight as pipes. None of it looked anything like my recollection. Nor that of my partner, who got up and walked to the dressing room straight. Who got concussed after. Should it not be him to come visit? His body did all that.

“Mr. Medford?” I approached the bed. “You don’t know me. Not personally. I just want to say this was an unfortunate set of events. Things were not as intended.”

Blood pressure maybe. Some spike to his pulse. The alarm insisted at my brain. The cat threw loops, scratching through the goose down. The door filled with the nurse.

“Get out.” She said it most clearly, lips pulled back from glaring teeth. She bustled about the machines, soothing their panic. Tapped on Medford’s plaster limbs an encouraging way. She gave me a neat look. “Get the fuck out.”

Schrader steamed along the hall, two nurses trotting after, breaking blister packs and nodding at his commands. I cut a sharp turn to the visitor lounge as his posse piled into Medford’s room.

Visitors, gowns open across regular clothes. One guy played his surgeon cap around and around his fingers. Women on calls spilled what they’d heard in weary, accepting voices. One slept, head crooked in her arm. Beside her, a young girl’s busy thumbs smooched a phone while she kicked the chair legs. She had those sparkle sneakers young girls wear, white socks heaped down with the vigor of kicking.

“Excuse me.”

She looked with frank indifference.

“Are you with Mr. Medford?”

“He’s my Dad.” Her body buzzed with repeat momentum. “Are you a doctor? You’re very big.”

“Sculpted. I’m sculpted. I have some connection with your Dad.”

“You don’t look like his friends.” She creased her nose. “You look like that guy from TV.”

My big tube arms waved hopelessly. “I’m sorry for what went down here.”

“You’re him. You did it. And it’s my birthday.” Tears came with impressive precision. Two glycerin streaks on her outdoorsy skin. I expected noise but she discharged sadness a prim way, heaving her skinny diaphragm, her nasally sobs muted.

A dormant colossus I could only fill space. “Everything was fine till it wasn’t. My partner, that other guy, we worked that move a thousand times. He wasn’t meant to struggle. My job: spin and toss him out, like in practice. Dumb bastard put up a show because his contract’s due. He thinks they’ll bury him, so he plays it up. Thrashing about. Puts me off balance. I never meant to hurl him at your dad.” Something kicked my rib. Some useful reminder. “It’s your birthday, huh? See this. I got a kitten. A good one.” I dangled it by the scruff. Incensed, it clawed my fingers. “He means a lot to me. You can have him.”

Those glitter eyes. “I hate cats. You got a puppy?”

“What?”

“I’ll cry again.” She gave the chair a triumphant kick. “Dad always falls for it. I get everything I want.”

I met sharks in the business. Precision tools. I never got no sold by a body so skinny. “So, it’s not your birthday?”

“You’re so big you fall easy.” That joyous snark.

The sleeping woman stirred, an untidy shiver as muscles came back from cramped rest. Her eyes took my dimensions. “Who are you?”

“It’s him, Mom. He did it.”

I tensed, expecting heat. But she looked bemused. “What you doing here?”

Borrowed gallantry evaporated. “I guess you’re Mr. Medford’s...?”

“I’m his wife. What you doing here?”

Brace said show my human side. Time on my knees, catching garbage. That was the silver in the band-aid: speed the healing, restrict infection. They looked at me: Mom’s crinkled sweater and bedsore eyes, Child Medford filming me under her thumb, making ugly faces to stop herself laughing. In those moments, you tell the heel: just punch me. “We go to work with care. That’s what I’m saying. We plan risk a responsible way. My partner, that other guy, the fault was his also, not deploying himself as scheduled. His head’s bust, that’s why he can’t be here. But I understand my involvement. I could have cutoff.” That notion often bothered me, never so much as then. I could stop the move. Set the other guy down. Tell a heated crowd: this carry slam isn’t required. No need to sling that guy across the ropes, not today. Stand and take the heat, while warehouse hands and insurance men pelted folding chairs at me.

“He tried giving me that kitten,” the girl said. “Like to make right for Dad’s spine.”

The kitten, wriggling between my fists, grew outsize in Mom’s vision. “You offered my daughter that? As what? To buy silence? My husband is on a frame. He’ll need a year’s physio.”

What did she want? I couldn’t salve the guy’s wounds. “I didn’t mean to offend. It was clumsy. I’m here to say sorry.”

She shot me down with a flick of her pinkie. “Your sorry is like a compress on cancer.”

Child goggled, loading up her store of adolescent snark.

Mrs. Medford folded her limbs to regal ease. “Bringing that thing here is a clear infection risk and violation. Here’s the nurse now. Nurse!”

Under antiseptic light that nurse was a pack of treasure. Older, upright, tuned to buried rhythms of repair and departure. Her diagnosis swift and surgical. “Are you still here? You were told to leave this area. What are you doing with that?”

She beeped security. They must have been just down the hall.

As large, self-satisfied men piloted me from the vicinity, Mrs. Medford’s voice turned every head. “We will see you in court. Make no mistake. Every word of your abject bribery will be raised.”

A skitter of sneakers on the scrubbed floor. The girl cut between those guys to measure her foot on my shinbone. Though a beanpole, discernable force drove her kick into my leg. A great deal of pleasure propelled that kick. I’m glad I made someone happy.

Security stuck to me like accounts unpaid the whole way to the parking lot. Past the tubed-up veterans on the porch. Past the rummies in the trash. Security explained, in pointed vocabulary, I should only return to those premises on a gurney. As they moved off, one winked. “Love the show, man.”

I drove just beyond the perimeter, outside the cameras. Parked by the waste where a factory came down. The kitten soiled the seat. It seemed to have no concern for my situation. I could have slung it from the window. Why worry? Cats are survivors. Got my hand to its neck and it chewed me. Tiny teeth sharp as a shark. Then my phone beeped.

Lynda was exactly a secretary. No exec assistant nor life coordinator working remote for a dozen guys, she was part of the deal when Brace rented the office and took to his unseemly business as she’d taken to a dozen before. Her voice that unmistakable cozy rattle. Little clicks of the pencil counting her teeth. Mr. Lonnigan’s secretary. She called herself that. She’d paint her nails, read magazines, browse stockings in that one particular catalogue. Unlike my worthy compadres, she didn’t put on a costume nor swallow a script nor plan how to hold her body weeks from now. Entirely what she appeared to be, no faking. I knew she had someone. I hated them with that special venom distilled for inconvenient strangers.

Trained good as a monkey I entered the call with vigor. “You may tell Mr. Lonnigan I took his advice. I made apology to Mrs. Medford, her husband being occupied in medical relief. Litigation remains likely.”

I heard her smile. “Your regrets weren’t accepted?”

“I was requested to leave the premises.” Kind of goofy, getting tossed from a hospital. I laughed. “You may tell Mr. Lonnigan when he’s looking for stooges to beat on, he’d do worse than the security jerks at that blood farm.”

Lynda’s laughter was a sharp-breathed, miraculous thing. “I’m sure you kept your composure. Your partner, by the by, remains oblivious. His girlfriend, though, is vocal on your negligence.”

For sure, Parvati would be. Those girls got wolfy around their men. She was teaching him nice things. She didn’t want that elegance knocked from his head by some old slugger’s wrong move. Nothing of her, five foot nothing, but I seen Parvati drag him down the street like one of them tugboats with a fat ass liner. She could easy persuade him to court. “Please give him my best, if he calls.”

“You don’t plan on visiting?”

Another stiff taking it easy on the tin lung. “Getting slung from one hospital in a day is enough.”

“You still have that delicious kitty cat?”

“I think there’s something amiss. He eats and spews.”

The pencil rattled around her mouth. “Perhaps get him back to his rightful home. This may help. That favor you asked Mr. Lonnigan – he said not to bother. But I had snooping to do anyhow.”

This was why I’d get nowhere with Lynda. “You traced the number? You found it?”

“Cool your moves.” A pitch so deep I felt more than heard it. “It’s not difficult to find who a number’s assigned to. Doesn’t mean they have the number. Not today. Those digits on kitty’s collar are a Mr. Steventon Summers. Yeah, I read that twice. Quite the handle. You say a woman answered?”

“She wasn’t talky.” Traffic to the hospital moved obedient between cruisers. Police would be regular visitors, sifting cause from effect, unearthing who people were and how they got there. I did nothing illegal. I pulled to the side to make that call: safe and responsible. No need for the cops to slow drive, to get a good look at my face. Nor to point and make gestures of that kind. When the snafu occurred, the cops didn’t seem engaged. More focused on calming the crowd to get the gurney through. The whole of it so woefully accidental, there scarcely seemed much for law enforcement to bite on. But in the days after, when Brace’s attorney folded my mouth round that statement, I stepped into the knowledge nothing happens by chance.

“Perhaps she’s something to do with this Mr. Summers. A relative or whatnot.”

The cruiser shrank in the rearview. Already in a future where that momentary glance didn’t matter. “She bought the phone from a character called Livermore. Snaky bastard. His boffo wife remembered the lady. She has no cat.”

“I have the address Mr. Summers used when he took on that number.”

Either side, busted bricks from buildings torn down. Hospital traffic arrived in haste and left at leisure. The kitten tore strips from the trim. “You’re a wonder,” I said. It sounded weak.

“Don’t tell me what you’ll do. I don’t want information I can’t share with Mr. Lonnigan.”

“Please tell Mr. Lonnigan I’m ready to work whenever he needs me.”

“That may not be your regular spot on the bill.”

“Doesn’t matter.” And I regretted it when she closed the call, because I shouldn’t lie to Lynda.

The address given by Mr. Steventon Summers was at my end of town. The last couple blocks of apartments before streets got low and spacious. Late afternoon, I hadn’t eaten, my body perplexed at change to its iron routine. Fueled at a café where people knew me enough to keep out my way. But their mood changed now my name was inflated. More than a bundle of tricks, I was that guy that did something. The waitress took my order. The cook fried the steak. Nothing overt, but I didn’t feel I could linger. I wasn’t the homespun gimmick no more. Didn’t help that I ladled the cat from my pocket. I’d come to expect its company, gnawing and wriggling, complaining in its sharp voice.

The waitress watched its belligerent moves. “You really shouldn’t have that. Assistance animals only.”

“He helps me focus.”

For a friendly woman, her look struck hard. “I’ll get your check.”

Damp light haloed tall buildings, their windows in shadow. Afternoon remained, perhaps, in the next street or the next. But beneath those buildings, sticky dust rose from the sidewalk, becoming night. Sometimes, on vacation, I’d cut training. Skip a few circuits. Miss out the weights. Let my muscles ponder life without spin or slam. I hadn’t trained five days. Aching with my last substantial move. The stress in my arms, tension where I stood on the ropes, my partner sweetly rotating above my head before he got restless. My teetering stance. The botched launch. The change in the crowd from glee to riot. The sidekicks hauling me out. I been beaten. I been booed. It’s worked business. But that moment, I stumbled in the material world.

As I left the truck a guy started cussing across the street. First, I thought he was drunk. Then he comes stumping over and I see it’s me he’s cussing. Not life in general, not fate. Me. With gambler’s anger, he tears me one about that thing I did. Such mockery I made of entertainment, his rage precise and defined. I did what I should never do, he told me. And I could easy have tipped that guy down, set him to sleep on the blacktop. Got another headline on my name and fall further down the card. Some go to local rings. Some to Mexico. Some to the circus. Down and down. Grappling. Hitting the dust. A few spin it out, get a movie, do stunts. A lot of guys get rinsed. Set up tables at conventions, panhandling their glories. So I reached to my pocket and took out the kitten. Held it how a hypnotist holds a charm. “See, buddy?” I told his popped eyes. “See the kitten?” I wafted the small warm body to and fro. It spun, legs climbing imaginary heights. “I’m going now, buddy, okay? You remember. You remember you saw this.” Snapped around and jogged into the building. Its smell of dust and warm metal closed like a web.

Six flights. I don’t like elevators. I never like that little bounce they give when I step in. Six flights and I’m breathing natural. The most I’d done in days. Glad of it. Old wounds need to move. No one cleaned the windows nor the lights, grubby and dim. Usually, an apartment building has noise. Voices, music, kids, dogs. That place was quiet. Special quiet, waiting for something. Behind each door I saw figures, trained at spyholes. Watching my bulky maneuvers. Waiting my next mistake.

The woman opened the door halfway. Her dark dress split the light. “I’m calling the police.”

My body couldn’t express humility easy. “It’s nothing like that. I brought him to show you.” The kitten in my palm, washing its tiny paws.

“I have no cat. How you get this address?”

“The number. His collar, here. Mr. Steventon Summers.”

She kicked back the door. “Five minutes.”

Her apartment wasn’t clean nor comfortable. Trailing plants – which I dislike – drew messy shapes on walls pleated with old paper. Sports trophies bathed in dust – paddle sports, crossed rackets. A phone turned inside out, its chips unhitched. Old, heavy furniture creaked from me walking around. The light low and a crooked blind shut half the window. Unhappy fingers pointed me at the couch. “I have nothing to drink.”

The couch didn’t want to receive me. Any second, I’d hit the deck. The kitten tottered along my leg, its busy nose exploring.

“Is that thing housebroken?”

“I’ve not fed him in hours.” I petted the thing. It jabbed my hand. “Is Mr. Summers expected?”

“I shouldn’t think it.” She called me by my gimmick. Said it like a for-real name. “How did you find this address?”

“It’s registered. To this number.” I tickled the collar. The little bell struck a dead note. “I only want to get him home. Someone may miss him.”

She stretched across the window, tugging the blind’s skewed edge. A quiet street. A quiet building. “Does this concern for animals excuse your behavior?”

Brace might spin it that way. “You heard about it, huh?”

She gave a look.

“People like skill, the moves. They like pace and strength. People like drama, feuds, back and forth, weeks and months. Always one last showdown. People like good and bad. They like to cheer and to hiss. It’s a cool thing to watch. It’s cool to do.”

“And I don’t fit those brackets?”

Something with her. The freeze I’ve seen from a heel. The static before the strike. The way she held herself, game in her upper arms. “Really, it’s about the cat.”

“Remind me.” She perched on a chairback. “How you got your gimmick.”

Interview chatter. Post-match replays. “Trial and error, like most. You try this look and that look. This person or that. Get fan reaction. Promoter reaction. Mine that little niche among everyone else. When people say: ‘I like that guy because...’ ‘I hate him because...’ It’s that ‘because’ that makes you more than an undercard stiff.”

“If Mr. Summers was here he might agree.” She smoothed her dress south of the knee. “It’s finding the right personality. To make less dissonant choices.”

The kitten picked at my pants. Digging in and pulling threads. “Mrs. Livermore remembers you buying the phone.”

“Did you find her attractive? Mrs. Livermore.” She scratched along her parting, shedding debris in the room’s dusty light.

“That gassed-up type. See it too much at ringside.”

“You like the more workaday?”

“I’m not involved.” Anytime, Brace could fix me up with an actress, model, whatever. Someone to cheerlead. To post love every time I got beat.

“Mr. Steventon Summers. Now there’s a gimmick. He’s not expected today. You never know when you might meet him.”

Sluggish and restless. Exhausted-seeming, she couldn’t keep still. Behind the window was properly dark. At the hospital they’d wheel dinner around. Then sedation. “If you’re likely to see Mr. Summers, I could leave this little fellow with you. He needs to get back where he belongs. I don’t want him getting attached.”

“In case you go to prison?”

I hurt Medford, not an intentional way. Negligent, reckless, all that. The solution to Medford was pay his treatment plus lost earnings plus whatever cream his attorney could churn. Folding money balmed wounds. And for me, a spell upcountry might not be the worst. My punishment would be slow and hard to bear.

“You can’t leave that here. I don’t have a cat. I’m not set up for it.” In another time she would have sparked a smoke. She had those restive hands.

“Maybe you could tell Mr. Summers?”

“He knows all about you.”

I never claimed perfection. There’s a lot I never did well and never attempted. I give respect. I’m grateful. So, it’s no hissy fit to say I wasn’t comfortable in her apartment. It was dirty. There likely were bugs. The ceiling was low. Light didn’t reach the corners. The moment was gone to ask her name and she wouldn’t stop moving. Window to chair, chair to table, crushed with fatigue and unable to rest. The kitten stopped its destruction and tracked her moves, sensing things I couldn’t imagine.

“In kayfabe you found a lost kitten. A big man, hard fisted, you had to recalibrate to this delicate life. Tried to feed it. Wouldn’t leave it in your car. Made yourself ridiculous with it while the world feuded against you. Mr. Summers knew this would entail you. Otherwise, it’s too easy.”

I churned on the busted couch. The cat’s claws dug deep. “How could Mr. Summers know this would come to my door?”

“He sent it out a few trial times. Claimed it back when people called. It hardly took much resource to introduce it to your garden. It’s not hard to know where people live.”

For someone to travel lengths to run me around was the real story. “Is there a place I can meet Mr. Summers? To congratulate him on his skill.”

“You’re close as you like. My gimmick. I change it up. I pull the plug when it’s going too well. Every once in a while, you need to self-destruct or become a cartoon. You’ll be back with a new gimmick.”

“When the hoo-ha dies.” She moved toward me and I stood, comically laboring against the couch’s shot springs. The kitten did its meeping noise, stripping flesh from bone.

“I’ll take the tag, if you don’t mind. That number’s dead but I don’t like souvenirs.”

“And if I took a picture of it?”

“What in the world would that prove?”

I asked Brace Lonnigan to swap me to a territory far side of flyover country. He told me that maybe worked in the old days. But everyone was everywhere now. Medford’s recovery hit complications. His wife helmed a drive on giving. His kid got invited to theme parks. I saw a news report, the girl getting hugs from some prequal princess, and I paused the clip to admire those wicked eyes. The cat didn’t like to uproot, but the cat didn’t pay the mortgage. Truck driving keeps me moving. The cat seems okay with it. He’s still a mean temper, but now he projects it outwards. He’s sleek and bristly and sleeps on the shotgun seat. I never gave him a name. No need. A bulky guy in greasy denim I’m not recognized these days. Not so much. At the truck stop I chow down in the corner. Keep to myself. Maybe chat with the guys about loads and scales and hitchers and dangerous women. Once a year, maybe, someone says I look like that guy who disappeared off the promotion. What happened to that guy. Each few months I change my phone. I’m wary of unknown numbers. I don’t want to get caught between here and there. When Mr. Summers calls.