Short Bus Hero Read online

  Brilliant sparks and flashes of the night return to berate him as he stares at the valve behind the toilet, savoring the smooth marble reality, cold beneath his cheek. He remembers peeling out of the Ayers Rock parking lot, weaving his way down East Carson in a fury, flying through the door at Mario’s and ordering drinks for everyone.

  “Bombs on me!” he recalls yelling to the youthful baseball-capped barkeep.

  “Bombs” are the perpetual special at Mario’s, for some reason. Don’t ask me what they are.

  The crowd cheered him at the bar, just as they did at the ring. He was everyone’s friend, everyone’s hero. It was impossible to think he is being forced out of wrestling—everyone loves him.

  He yawns over the toilet again and expels a foul stream of hot chartreuse bile.

  He stood at the bar, bathed in the green neon glow, and regaled the rapt twenty-somethings that surrounded him with a slurred tale of vanquishing Gemini in the AWG’s darkest hour. When he reached the story’s conclusion, fists and cheers lifted heavenward, taking his heart to the rafters and flooding his eyes with water. He bought them another round for listening so intently, for bolstering him even as his spirit fell, for being his friends, even if only for a little while.

  The rest of the evening flew by in an unsteady blur.

  The memory of his transport home would remain just beyond the periphery of his recall faculties, although there is a flash of stuffing a French fry laden sandwich into his mouth and yarfing it up on a city sidewalk soon after. He’d still had the taste of the greasy fries in his mouth when the yellow liquid started coming up, an ultra-nasty copper-flavored bile.

  Of course, there was a girl as well, too young for Stryker, as you may well imagine. Mario’s is nothing if not a meat market for those young fools who do not fancy themselves young fools but who instead choose to think of themselves as cool and beautiful, indestructible gods and goddesses, out to celebrate their lack of innocence and their desire to leave their mark on something or someone. He doesn’t remember her name (their names are all the same to him, Hon) but, he does remember her harelip scar and her disappointment at his inability to perform out in the Navigator. He thinks he recalls a slap in the face and a retreating broken-heeled gait, but that memory could have bled through from any one of a thousand different nights.

  Some hours later, his right eye cracks open, the sticky lashes admitting a blinding thread of sunlight as the digital alarm clock sets off an intracranial maelstrom somewhere northwest of his brow. A stainless steel ceiling fan hangs from the tray ceiling, twelve feet above. He wonders if the blades are strong or sharp enough for a quick decapitation. He had somehow made it to his bed. Like I said, he can’t recall how he got there, but he finds himself alone, no sign of the hare-lipped stranger.

  The king-sized bed performs an expert carousel impression. It has such talent and it has never failed to disappoint on that front. With a painful lack of alacrity, Stryker rolls onto his shoulder and delivers a savage blow to the clock. Sweet silence. He sits up too fast and throws his legs over the edge of the mattress. He tastes the yellow, working its way up his esophagus, as he lurches past the oak dresser and stubs his toe on the marble threshold that separates bed from bath.

  After ejecting the scant fluid from his stomach, he steps into the shower and lets the steaming water scald away the night’s humiliation. In thirty minutes’ time, he pulls the Navigator into the shopping mall parking lot.

  Arthur Davis, from Stryker’s public relations firm, stands in front of the long table draped with a heavy black cloth, talking to the two wrestlers seated behind it. Gemini tips his chin and Arthur turns around to see Stryker approaching. Arthur’s mouth disappears in a grim line.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late. Damned alarm clock.” Stryker grins at Arthur, gives his hand a quick pump, and rounds the table to take a seat. “Can someone please bring me a coffee? Black,” he says to the scowling mall employee who mans the velvet rope, keeping the throngs of wrestling fans at bay with his pointed boredom. Arthur grabs Stryker’s elbow as he is about to sit down.

  “Come with me, would you,” Arthur hisses in Stryker’s ear. Stryker raises a hand and grins at the fans, who return his wave and smile, as he and Arthur step over to the fake plants in the mall’s center.

  “What do you think you’re doing? What are you doing here?” Arthur’s aggravation puzzles Stryker.

  “I’m showing up for our autograph signing, what do you think I’m doing?” Stryker sees Gemini watching him like a snake trying to hypnotize its prey. He tries to ignore him and turns his attention back to Arthur. “I’m doing my job. Jeez, what’s wrong with you, Art? You feeling okay?”

  Art heaves an exasperated sigh. “In case you haven’t heard, you’ve been canned, dude. Look at the banner—the WWC Presents New Stars Gemini and The Annihilator. I don’t see your name on there anywhere, do you?” He waves his hand toward the dais.

  This is not happening. It’s a dream. A nightmare.

  “Hey, I like your jacket,” Stryker says, smoothing Art’s black leather shoulder. “Where’d you get it? I want one.”

  Arthur swats Stryker’s hand away. “Stryker, you’ve been fired. F-I-R-E-D, get it? I’m sorry, but we don’t need you for the signing anymore.” God, what is wrong with this guy, Art thinks.

  “You’re in breach of contract, then, son,” Stryker drawls, still smiling. “This here’s my signing, per our agreement dated more than one month ago.”

  Arthur closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath. “If you read the contract, you’ll see that it says something about us not needing you if you’ve been terminated by the AWG. And, you have been terminated. The AWG is no longer in existence. And, you might be interested to know that I talked to Alan Rush last night. I know you had dinner with him.” He checks his watch.

  Stryker shifts his gaze to the long queue behind the velvet rope and pumps his arms in the air. A collective “Yeah!” fills the atrium and echoes through the shiny granite mall. Stryker looks back at Art, as if he’s made an undeniable argument.

  “I can get security, if that’s what you want,” Art says, scanning the floor for the mall cops. He wonders if those part-time wannabes can handle a pro wrestler.

  Stryker thinks about it for half a minute. He pictures two fat mall cops flanking him, a greasy death grip on each of his biceps, escorting him out of the shopping center amid boos and catcalls from his waiting fans. He pictures the three of them in a line, walking toward the glass doors at the end of the two-story hallway, as if they are making their way down death row. The guard on the left would yank the door open with his left hand and pull Stryker through with his right, while the other guy shoved. Once outside in the blinding crisp autumn air, they would release their grip on the wrestler’s arms and issue a weak warning for him to stay away. Or, perhaps they would say nothing and just trudge back inside, leaving him on the curb.

  Or maybe, once they got him outside, Stryker would fling his arms skyward and bring his steel-tipped elbows down square on the tops of their flat heads, folding them into the pavement like broken eggs. Then, he’d start kicking, driving the toes of his vintage Asics wrestling boots into their soft guts and butts, making them cry out in pain while they fumbled for their little mall-cop walkie-talkies.

  “Yeah,” he finally says to Art, with a slight nod of the head, “yeah, why don’t you get security, then.”

  So, he does, and they escort the wrestler outside.

  Wordlessly.

  The cowards, Stryker thinks.

  Well, one was a chick.

  5. Atychiphobia / at-iˈ-kə-fōˈ-bē-ə / fear of failure

  “Ally,” Lois calls up the stairs. “It’s almost time to go to work. If you want me to wash your hair, you’re going to have to get down here.” She’s folding laundry and sets aside a towel for Ally’s hair. She doesn’t notice that she sets it on top of the mess of crumpled paper from one of Kevin’s fast-food lunches.

  She hears her mother, but
she just doesn’t have the energy to answer. She is so tired. Barbie will understand. She picks up Race Car Driver Barbie from the ring of dolls that encircles her on the floor.

  “I don’t want to go to work,” Ally says, wiggling Driver Barbie, as if the doll is the one speaking. “Nobody understands how I feel. I mean… he is, like, so awesome.”

  Ally considers Driver Barbie’s statement.

  “Yeah,” she says in reply, “I know. I understand, Barbie. Sometimes it’s just too sad. Like, I don’t even… even… even wa-want to go to work either. And I don’t care if my hair is dirty.” She gives a half-hearted laugh and looks in the mirror on her closet door. Her bobbed hair lies in lank greasy knots, dark circles underscore her red eyes, and her mouth sags in a pitiful frown. She looks like an erased after-image of her former self. “I need a nap.” For some reason, Barbie is not very entertaining today. Ally shoves Skipper, Window Washer Barbie, Vixelle (the AWG star), High School Musical’s Gabriella, Butcher Barbie, and an unfortunate headless, nameless, naked, and—worst of all—jobless Barbie out of the way and stretches out on the pink carpet. As soon as her eyes close, her bedroom door flies open with a bang.

  “Mom’s yelling at you, dummy,” her brother says, pulling on an old black hoodie. “Go wash your dirty hair. Pig.”

  “Kevin! Get out of here,” Ally shouts, launching the naked jobless Barbie at him. It’s his fault that she’s headless. Can’t blame the unemployment on him, though. “You’re the p-p-pi-pig.”

  “Aren’t you gonna yell for Mom, p-p-pi-pig?” His lips stretch diagonally, his eyes roll up into his head, his eyelids flutter. He lives for picking on her.

  She shocks Kevin by not yelling for Mom. He thinks she must be sick.

  She drops back on the floor, pulling a pillow from the bed over her face.

  “Now that’s an improvement,” Kevin says as he turns and picks his way down the steps. “Get your fat, lazy ass to work,” he calls back up to her. As if he has room to talk. Kevin floats from one part-time job to another. Over the past seven years he’s had no less than twenty jobs. On the subject of fat asses: he’d also gained twenty-four pounds in that same time frame.

  “Where are you going?” Lois asks him when he lands in the family room. He has to dig through a bowlful of safety pins and bottle caps to find his keys on the oak end table next to his mom. He ignores the clutter as best he can. He loves his mom, feels sorry for her, and who is he to complain when he doesn’t even pay rent?

  “Hockey,” he says, opening the front door. Kevin is five years older than Ally, but sometimes he acts much younger. He delivers pizzas for one of the big chains but frequently calls in sick so he can play hockey or go to band practice. Sometimes Lois calls for him. She does it out of guilt. For the first five years of Kevin’s life, he had starred as the center of Lois’s universe. Their house had been comfortable, spotless, safe, and filled with friends and laughter. His mom and dad played with him, took him to museums and zoos, and loved him more than anything. He used to be happy.

  Then Ally was born.

  Lois feels that she had somehow cheated her son out of his childhood.

  There had been a time when he’d wanted to be an architect, but once he got to college and found out that he’d have to spend many long nights working in the studio while his friends partied, he dropped out and lowered his ambitions. He was always what they call a gifted student, but he “lacked focus and motivation.” His parents were always too focused on Ally to pay much attention to what he was doing. He’d come to terms with being a twenty-nine-year-old hipster living in his parents’ basement. Not that he doesn’t wish he could afford to move out.

  “Is she coming down?” Lois asks, looking at her tattooed son.

  “Nah, she’s laying on the floor with her lesbo Barbies,” he says. “Later.” And he’s gone.

  Lois sighs, puts down her last folded article of clothing, and heaves herself up from the sagging couch. Their cat, a former stray, launches itself off the top of a five-foot stack of newspapers next to the television, sending the whole mess cascading to the floor. Lois will have to deal with that later. Or not. “Ally,” she calls.

  No response as she scales the stairs. She leans in Ally’s doorway and looks at her daughter, whose pillow still covers her face. Barbies lay strewn everywhere, limbs askew, like car bomb victims. Another sigh escapes her as she sits on the neatly made double bed.

  “Honey,” she says. No reply. “Ally?” Nothing. She pokes her toe into Ally’s ribs.

  “Ow!” Ally sits up, about to cry. “Mom, that hurt.”

  “Oh, it did not, you drama queen.” She smiles at Ally. Ally turns away. “Come on, kiddo, it’s time to get ready for work.” She put her hand out to help Ally up. Ally ignores it. She stares at her collection of Stryker Nash posters and at the wrestling championship belt one of the lady wrestlers (Finella?) had given her at a match up in Cleveland last year.

  She doesn’t have the words to tell her mother how badly she feels.

  Seeing that her light, jocular attitude isn’t helping, Lois changes her tack. “Ally, come on,” she says, putting a harsh edge in her voice. “You have to go to work. You’ve had your days off, now it’s time to get back to it. Come on, get up.”

  Ally curls into a fetal position on the carpet, clutching her pillow over her face. Lois grabs it and pulls. Ally clings to it, not wanting her mom to see her face. Lois grasps the pillow in both hands and yanks, to no avail. Ally is super strong when she wants to be.

  “Come on, what’s the matter? Are you sick?” Lois thinks Ally has been looking a little flushed ever since her extended tantrum. She hopes she isn’t getting that darned swine flu that has been going all around the country. Someone at church had it, and wouldn’t that be just her luck, to have Ally come down with it, too? “I’m calling the doctor.”

  “No!” Going to the doctor means getting poked with needles. She’d rather poke out her own eyes. “I’m not sick!” She doesn’t think her mother would ever understand. Ever since Stryker left wrestling, she just doesn’t feel like doing anything. Not even watching wrestling on TV. Getting out of bed in the morning has become a major chore. Ally doesn’t know why she’s so sad, but she can’t help it. A drowning sensation has washed over her and is holding her down.

  “Oh, well, good. Let’s go wash your hair. I even found your ear plugs. You know where they were?” Ally needed to wear ear plugs whenever she got her hair washed because getting even so much as a single drop of water in her ear caused Ally to get horrible ear infections—narrow ear canals are one of Down syndrome’s unique physiological features—but they were always losing them. “They were on the counter, underneath the paper towel holder. How silly is that?” It was even sillier that they could find those things at all with Lois’s Home Landfill Kit laying in pieces all over the house. Some assembly required.

  Ally bursts into tears. Damn the ear plugs and damn washing her hair and damn everything else. She just wants to go to sleep. Forever.

  Lois sits on the floor, pushing Barbies under the bed and wraps her arms around her daughter. She pushes her face into Ally’s hair, whispering “ssshhhh” as they rock side to side. Lois remembers the day Ally’s favorite grandfather died. Ally was about fourteen, fifteen and they sat together, rocking and crying and shushing, in the exact same spot. The memory fills Lois’s own eyes with tears and burns her throat.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers to Ally. When the crying stops, Lois finds Ally’s uniform in her tidy closet and helps her into it. “Looks like we’re not going to have time to wash your hair now, but maybe we can do it after work, okay?”

  “I don’t want to go to work.” Ally drops on the bed and stares at the wall. “I don’t feel like it, Mom.” Lois thinks it unusual for Ally not to want to go to work. She enjoys joking with her co-workers and chatting with all the customers. She likes the feeling of independence it affords her. Having a job makes her feel “normal.”

  But, Lois only kn
ows half the story. Ally doesn’t tell her the rest. It would make her mom sad to know how Doug picks on her and the customers treat her like she’s diseased.

  “Honey, I’m sorry you don’t feel like it, but they’re counting on you to be there.” Lois tugs the uniform apron over Ally’s head and stands her up. Ally flops back down. “Ally.”

  Lois picks her way down the goat path along the edge of the stairs to find Earl. He is reading a newspaper in the kitchen. He doesn’t know whether it’s today’s paper or last year’s. He doesn’t have his glasses on so the print is all fuzzy.

  “She says she doesn’t want to go to work,” she says to him, taking note of his reading material. “Why are you reading a paper from 1999?”

  He looks at her, tossing the newspaper aside. He knew Bush wasn’t in office anymore. “What do you want me to do?” He shrugs.

  “Help me get her out to the car,” Lois says, throwing her purse over her shoulder.

  Oh, hell, here comes the drama, Earl thinks, following his wife up the junk-lined stairs and into Ally’s room.

  “Hey, princess, time to go to work,” Earl says, trying to be cheerful. He knows that with Lois, the situation could become explosive at any second.

  Ally had removed her apron and crawled under her blankets. She covers her head when her dad speaks to her.

  “Ally, you’re going to be late,” Lois says through clenched teeth. Sure, she understands that Ally is sad over the wrestling deal, but she’s had enough. She pulls the blankets off of the bed and piles them on the floor. It’s ridiculous to carry on like this. Over wrestling, for God’s sake. When Ally doesn’t move, Lois nods at Earl, and wraps her hand around Ally’s wrist. Earl grabs the other wrist and an ankle, and they yank her off the bed. She refuses to stand on her feet and, with the help of gravity, she folds to the floor in a pear-shaped heap.