Chapter 7:ARRIVAL

The plane touched down at San Fran International. I had slept somehow remembering my early EARLY days. My legs ached with the remembrance.

Paul leans over and slaps me upside the head. "Wake up ugly, were down."

Try that again sphincter breath. You'll pull back a stub.

We deplane. People milling around the boarding area. A girl to my left squeals and jumps into the arms of some long haired hippy freak who grabs her ass as she shoves her tongue down his throat. Young love in action. Spare me.

I have my carry-on bag over my shoulder, my shades on my eyes, and my attitude well in place. That's the one thing about this job that gets to me sometime. I have to always be ON when I'm in public. I can't even go to a Burger King without being ON. I'm always Carnage, UNDISPUTED WORLD CHAMPION now, but still Carnage. With any luck, I'll get a day or two when were in Portland later this week that I can hang at the old neighborhood and be Carnalli for awhile. I miss that guy. Course that guy is under suspicion for murder.

That thought brings it all back and I'm pissed off. Being Carnage isn't hard when I'm pissed off. I head for the luggage carrier, daring anyone to get in my way. People suddenly develop a sixth sense and steer clear of the tall guy with long black hair and bad attitude. The guy with the giant firebreathing dragon crawling down his left arm in blue ink, a villager clutched in claws, bleeding and broken. The guy with the grim reaper decapitating some poor fool with a scythe on his right arm, fire flying from under the hood as the blade swings. The guy with the scruffy black beard, and a mustache that hurls insults at razors. The guy that oozes pain to the fool that crosses him. Six feet four of mobile human destruction machine and he's gunning for disruption. Please, somebody, say something snide. Do something crass. Give me a reason to plant this size 17 wide sideways in your piehole. Give me a reason to perform impromptu exploratory surgery on your cranium. Give me a reason to find out if assholes can fly and how far.

I make it to the baggage carrier without incident. Damn.

Paul and Kurt are standing there, watching for their bags. Kurt's sporting quite the shiner this morning. Must have given him more business than I intended to.

"Kurt, how you doing?"

"I'm doing ok, Max. A bit sore. You know, you could have pulled a little last night though. You were working pretty stiff."

I apologize. I never intend to injure my co-workers. But sometimes the heat of the moment gets kicked up twenty degrees and someone's ass gets hurt. Luckily this sort of injury is minor, and makes for great story line. Knowing Kurt, when he does his promos tonight, he'll play up my badassness, but vow revenge. Now if it had been Ricky, Mr. Poofda-schtick, he'd play up his bitch boy persona, vowing to scratch my eyes out.

Paul spots his bag. Its a huge black monstrosity that you could smuggle a small child in if you so chose to. Paul's a big guy, with some funky in ring equipment. Big shoulder pads and a cape and other weird things. I haven't seen such bizarre stuff since Big Van Vader was wearing the smoking helmet getup that he brought over from Japan. Thing would spit smoke on demand. All remote control of course. I remember him putting that thing in the middle of the ring and pointing to it. Whoosh. Bizarre.

I spot my suitcase, a smallish overnight job. I don't carry much with me. Toothbrush, change or two of underwear, couple pairs of pants, shirt or three. I carry my gear with me in my carry on. That never leaves me when I travel. Especially now that I have that extra piece of equipment to keep track of. It's a hoot to be here, in a major international airport, with a giant piece of metal in my carryon bag and I'm now about to try and explain its existence without getting arrested or mobbed. Talk about a Kodak moment.

The boys and I head for the pickup area. We be a gang, shonuff. Badasses one and all. Some of us have scars on our bodies, some have scars on our psyches, some have scars on our souls. Some wear fine threads, some wear ratty jeans. Some are clean shaven pretty boys, some like me like the scuzz bucket look. Some are technical athletes with amateur backgrounds and accolades as long as an ape's arm. Some are street brawlers who don't know a headlock from a headache half the time. Hulk smash is their theme. Some are highly educated and read things by Dickens and Dumas and Asimov and Hawkings and Plato. Some have a hard time understanding Hagar the Horrible in the funnypapers. Despite the differences in background and personality, each one of these men is a wizard in the ring, showing crowds night after night after night acts of physical endurance and athleticism incomprehensible to the normal mind. Only a wrestling fan can watch what we do and fully appreciate the beauty of it all. Only a wrestling fan can watch two grown men in spandex and leather pretend to beat the holy hell out of each other and scream for more. It's my belief that if you put a real fight in front of a wrestling fan, they're going to react one of two ways. They're either going to be utterly disgusted, because its real and real is a hell of a lot more scarey than fake, even the most realistic fake. Or they're going to be bored. Real fights aren't terribly exciting because they're not designed to be. They're designed to be a catharsis for two assholes to try and beat the shit out of each other until they're too exhausted or injured to do it any more. They don't care about who's watching them usually. They're concerned about rage and frustration and anger and pain and blood and energy. If people happen to be standing around, so be it. Just don't get in the way. Now two guys fighting over a girl is a different case. That's not a fight, that's a show. Peacocks showing off to the hen. Who's the better provider, the bigger dick. And ten times out of nine, the guy that wins gets kicked in the sack and the loser gets the girl in the sack. Bizarre world.

I flag a taxi. He passes me up for Nikki whos wearing that short leather mini with the studs and fringe that always gets guys standing at full attention. I don't blame the guy, he's being played as bad as any ringside mark. Nikki's a looker and she knows it and she uses it in the worst ways sometimes. It's going to get her in trouble someday. I just feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch that crosses her. She's wicked nasty with a mean streak to boot. Little minx will bite it off if you let her. Ask Stubby.