Chapter 5: RECRUITMENT

I'm on an airplane heading north toward San Francisco. I'm sitting in a chair that can barely surround my big ass. I'm sitting next to the window. Two seats over is Paul. Paul's asleep because he hates flying and sleeping is the only way he can travel this way. Wish I could sleep. Paul you chud muncher. Sleep for me guy.

I'm sitting by the window staring out at the clouds and the sun and the sky. I'm sitting wishing my eyes would close and that I would go to sleep. I'm sitting here wondering who it is that would want to frame me for murder. Murder of someone I don't even know. Murder after the biggest moment of my life.

A stew named Malinda appears and offers me a cocktail. Not now sweetcheeks, I'm trying to figure out who framed me for murder.

"No thank you."

Malinda disappears.

I stare out the window and remember. I remember what I was before I started wrestling. I remember being a punk kid on the streets of Portland stealing cars and lighting fires and basically raising hell. I grin briefly. I remember the hood, the fellas, the dudes I hung with. I was one messed up mofo. Still am. Never wanted to hurt anyone really. But people get hurt when you live life on the edge. Lots of people.

I remember this one punk who got in my face over something stupid. I remember having a chain wrapped around my hand. I remember slamming my hand with a chain wrapped around it into the punk's mouth and feeling and hearing his teeth break off. I remember him screaming and spitting blood and teeth and him wetting himself and passing out. Some guys can take pain. Some guys can't. This guy couldn't.

I remember running like hell and hearing sirens and screams and yells and feet running and ducking into an alley and hiding in a garbage bin. I remember being fifteen years old and hiding in a dumpster and listening to people run past the dumpster and feeling my heart beat in my throat and smelling dead fish and old diapers and breathing in old TV dinners and cat food and breathing out vomit barfing all over myself in the dark in the enclosed stinking dark cold and alone and afraid and bloody and I never wanted to feel that way again. I never wanted to feel afraid again. I never wanted to feel alone again.

I remember crawling out of the dumpster about an hour later and wandering around the city. The lights the sounds the people the noise the smells the shit. I remember wondering to myself if this was all I was ever going to be good for. If all I was going to be able to do would be wander around aimless and hurt people who get in my face. Fifteen years old I'm thinking this stuff.

I must have ambled around for a good hour and a half just going nowhere and doing nothing. I remember this sick looking hooker kinda winking at me, giving me the business. I don't fuckin' think so. She spit on me. I kept walking. I might have been a punk, but I didn't hit women. Not unless they earned it. Spitting on me doesn't earn it. Not in my book.

I remember wandering past this gym and seeing guys working out. I stick my head inside to get a better look. There's guys jumping rope and working on heavy bag and working speed bag and lifting weights and doing sit-ups and push-ups and chin-ups and stretches and all sorts of stuff. And there's a boxing ring. Only the guys in the ring aren't boxing, they're wrestling. Or practicing wrestling. They'd lock up, then one guy would throw the other guy to the ropes, and then that guy would run to the other set of ropes, and they,d crisscross for about six or seven cycles, then one guy would stop and hip toss the other guy and they'd do it again. And again. And again.

I couldn't believe they would do this over and over like this for what seemed like forever. Suddenly, this tall guy with long black hair down to his ass grabs my shoulder from behind and spins me around. "Hey," he says, "you're not supposed to be here."

"I'm just watching," I say. I'm not scared of him and he knows it and doesn't know what to do. This guy is huge - six six at least and probably in the neighborhood of 275. He's not wearing a shirt and he has tattoos all over his arms. Hes got a scraggly black beard. The beard has white stuff in it that looks like chicken and rice.

"Watching huh?" He lets go of my shoulder. He says "Watch this."

He gets in the ring. Talks a little to the two guys. I can't hear what he's saying. Next thing I know the two guys are fighting with the big guy, but the big guy is taking them on just fine. He punches one guy and he goes flying across the ring. He blocks a punch from the other guy and grabs him by the throat, lifts him up over his head and chokeslams him straight to hell.

"Cool," I say.

The big guy gets out of the ring and comes over to me. "Like that?"

"Not bad," I say nodding approval. "You can kick ass."

"You don't impress much, do you?"

"You bust em open doing stuff like that, you might impress me."

"Little dude, you are into some serious carnage. What's your name?"

"Max."

"Max Carnage. Geeze. How could you go wrong in the ring with a name like that?"

"Dunno."

"Wanna learn how to kick some serious ass?"

"What? You gonna teach me?"

"If you want."

"How much it gonna cost me, cause I don't have anything to give you. And I don't do weird favors." I started to back away, letting him know with body language that weird favors were definitely out of the question.

"Tell you what. I work with you for six weeks for free. After that, we talk payment, okay?"

"Why six weeks?"

"In six weeks I'll know if you're ready to move on and be a real performer or if you're just a punk kid with puke on your shirt and nothing better to do than crash out at a gym and watch guys beat their brains out."

"I'm not a punk."

"You could be."

"I'm not a punk!" I was starting to get heated.

"Prove it. Be here tomorrow night. Six sharp. Be here and prove you're not a punk."

I remember that night like it was yesterday. Hell, it could have been yesterday. I'm still a punk. But I'm the UNDISPUTED WORLD CHAMPION.

I have to grin again. Its just too funny to pass up.