Lost Heroes

THE SUMMER OF AUGHT-EIGHT

He didn’t know what he was thinking that day.

He was fifteen, enjoying the impulsive rush of freedom that came with a newly acquired learner’s permit. Finally able to go virtually anywhere, and feeling invincible to everything the world could throw at him. The thought simply found its way in his head, so he grabbed the keys and went.

The innocence of youth, really.

“Here we are, bud,” spoke the teenaged Kerry Kuroyama to his eight-year-old cousin while leading him by the hand. “This is where your dad works out.”

By now, the babysitting duty had become a regular part of his life. Not that he minded, since little Zack Daymon was the closest Kerry had to a sibling. Today was meant to be his treat. On a whim, they were paying an unannounced visit to their fathers’ wrestling school.

Kerry pulled the door open, and the two of them stepped inside. Immediately, the child’s jaw dropped.

“Wow…”

The awestruck boy took in the room with wide-eyed wonder. The squared circle, divinely lit under the ceiling lights. The shiny workout equipment lined against the wall. The collection of titles, awards, inspirational posters, and memories in the form of framed photographs hanging from the walls.

Again, Kerry didn’t know what he was thinking. Maybe a part of him just wanted to pull back the curtain and show the kid a bit more into the professional lives of their parents. His way of initiating him into the crazy and beautiful world of professional wrestling.

“Look, it’s just like the one on tee-vee!” he exclaimed, pointing insistently at the ring.

Kerry’s head skeptically tilted to the side. “Well…”

It was, in fact, nothing like the one seen on TV; just a plain, regulation-sized ring. But to a kid, seeing one up close for the first time, a rudimentary assembly of four posts, three sets of ropes, and a mat might as well have been the stage of stages.

The school, built out of a modest commercial space up in Everett, was modern, but far from flashy. Kerry’s father Zack Kuroyama (from whom the boy earned his namesake) had leased it as far back as the mid-nineties to serve as a private work-out area while he was still at least moderately active in the Pacific Northwest’s wrestling scene. But by the aughties, when things began slowing down, he partnered up with his brother-in-law--a local up-and-comer by the unique handle of Rocko Daymon--and the two formed the Dojo Wrestling Academy of Seattle.

The elder Kuroyama was satisfied with retiring from the ring into the life of an instructor. Rocko, the protege, was meant to go out and be the star talent. A fresh, two-month old photograph of him now hung on the wall, standing exhausted in the ring after a battle down in Houston, a big golden belt held triumphantly over his head.

When the shock had finally worn off, the young Zack willed himself to break away from his cousin and make a dash for the ring.

“Careful in there, Zee,” Kerry called after him, helplessly watching the child scramble in under the ropes. “It’s not a bounce house.”

The warning fell on deaf ears. By now, Zack was scurrying back and forth across the mat, delightfully bouncing off the bottom sets of ropes. Watching him, Kerry couldn’t help but crack a smile.

A sound from the back of the building caught his attention. The muffled din of a conversation.

“I’m going to look around real quick, ‘kay bud? Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Gooooot iiiiiiit!” Zack called from within the ring, barely breaking stride.

Kerry went into the short hallway leading to the back offices, following the voices toward their source. The door to his father’s office was cracked open, casting a column of light across the floor. As he neared, he could pick up on undertones of urgency and tension. Clearly, he wasn’t happening upon friendly conversation.

He stopped just short of going inside, and listened.

“Don’t bullshit me on this, Zack!”

Peering through the narrow opening, Kerry could see his uncle seated on one side of his father’s desk.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve worked for this?!”

A second voice in the room, one that Kerry could recognize belonging to his father, responded.

“Don’t insult me, Rock. I’ve been with you every step of the way.”

“And yet, there you are, telling me to walk into the ring and drop the belt! Before I even had a chance to defend it!”

Kerry felt gutted by what he was hearing. Betrayed, even. His uncle was more than just his hero. His big win two months ago in Houston had been a high point for both their families.

And now was being asked to walk away from it all. By his own father, no less.

“Look at yourself,” spoke the elder Kuroyama. “You’re in no shape to defend anything.”

Daymon’s face soured. He redirected his glare to the sling fixed on his shoulder that had been in place since the previous champion kicked him through a window weeks ago as an act of revenge.

“The fall was bad, but you got lucky. Walk into the ring like that, and you’d be throwing away your career over a mere point of pride. All to be remembered as just another name crushed beneath the boot of the so-called ‘King of the Cage’. So just move on from it.”

Daymon shook his head again.

“I said don’t bullshit me on this…”

Unable to withhold his anger any longer, his fist slammed hard against the desk. The outburst brought a wince to his face, with the pain in his injured shoulder flaring up once more. Instinctively, he reached for the orange vial of painkillers sitting nearby--

“That’s number three, Rock…”

Daymon froze. Blinked. And retracted his hand.

“...thanks.”

The conversation came to a brief pause, allowing both men to reset their emotions.

“Best you can do right now is bide your time and give your body the chance to heal,” continued Kuroyama. “There will be plenty of opportunities to take the belt back as soon as you’ve recovered. In the meantime, there are plenty of others out there that are ready, willing, and able to fight for it in your stead.”

A sneer crossed Rocko’s face.

“Like the Anglo Luchador, you mean…”

The words dripped with contempt.

“He’s a contender. Just like you. Won’t back down to anyone or for anything, and someone who’s walked a road as hard as your own. I’d say if anybody’s earned the right, it’s him.”

“He’s an asshole, Zack. He stood in my way at every opportunity, and still had the audacity to accuse me of stealing his spot. You tell me to step aside on his behalf, but I can tell you from experience that he’d never do the same for me.”

Kerry’s father groaned in frustration.

“For chrissakes, Rock… you’re thirty-one, and you can say that you’re a world champion. Nobody can take that from you. Most people work their entire careers just to get within reaching distance of where you are now. Instead of sitting here plotting your swang song, you need be at home, getting rest--”

His statement was abruptly cut off with a sudden fit of coughing. The anger in Daymon’s face melted into a look of dread.

“I should probably say the same of you…”

Kerry could tell his father’s cough had grown worse since the diagnosis was made at the start of the year. Nobody in either of their families had been talking about it openly, but the writing was plainly on the wall.

After a while, it subsided, and Zack Kuroyama cleared his throat.

“All the more reason you need to do this. Because soon, Kerry’s going to want to step in that ring himself. And when he does, he’s going to need someone to show him the way.”

“Zack--”

“You don’t want me to bullshit you? Then listen to what I’m saying. Things with me aren’t getting better any time soon. Which means at some point, you’re going to be on your own. And when that time comes, I want our boys to still have somebody around that they can look up to. Someone that can bring them into this sport the right way. And you’d be better equipped doing it with two functioning arms, instead of one.”

Daymon sighed in defeat and shrank into his seat. He had been beaten into silence.

On the other side of the door, Kerry likewise shrank away, and receded back into the main room.

He felt sick to his stomach. It wasn’t the first time he overheard the adults talking shop, but this time felt like he had stumbled upon something forbidden to him. Something he wasn’t supposed to see or hear.

And now it would remain with him for all time.

Then he turned, and his cousin was there, with a look of confusion spread across his young face.

“Where’s dad?”

Kerry took him by the hand and ushered him back to the entrance.

“Sorry, Zee, he’s not here,” he said consolingly. “I guess we just missed him.”

THE WINTER OF TWENTY-FOUR

Kerry Kuroyama’s pensive and brooding face stared back at him from the reflective surface of the dark lager that filled his stein.

“So how was jolly ol’ Deutschland?” he asked.

The question was aimed at Zack Daymon, throwing back his own mug for a hearty quaff.

“Fine, for the most part,” he answered, punctuated with a belch. “Until it wasn’t.”

Kerry nodded, having already heard the full story on Tillinghast’s Tirade podcast. “Heard” being the operative word there. Because, while he still occasionally kept tabs on his former federation, there was no way he was going to waste time watching that shit.

“Tricky business, that tag team racket,” he observed. “Lots of opportunities for shenanigans.”

They were beneath the north end of the Aurora Bridge. Kuroyama sat on the middle knuckle of the Fremont Troll’s stony right hand. Daymon was perched on the fingers of the left. They drank their imported German beer from their authentic craft steins--souvenirs brought back from Zack’s recent international tour--and together watched the dusk slowly settle in.

Over the past few years, with both of their professional careers developing on different trajectories, the wrestling cousins made it a point to meet up here as much as their schedules would allow.

“So… the Anglo Luchador, huh?”

Zack was switching topics. Kerry clicked his tongue.

“Yep. A real blast from the past…”

Daymon quietly laughed to himself.

“Man, I still remember seeing him in action back when I was just a kid. Dude could really go. Really thought he was going to be ‘the guy’ to carry the belt after Dad’s accident.”

Kerry concurred with a nod. “I thought so too. Right up until he retired, for whatever reason.”

He took a swig from his stein and made a face. The German lager was especially bitter, and he wasn’t exactly a connoisseur of brews.

“Gotta be a weird feeling, going up against someone we used to look up to,” Zack pondered out loud.

Kuroyama himself pondered it for a few brief seconds before coming to the conclusion that he didn’t really feel that way at all.

“Nah, nothing weird about it,” he said with a shrug. “I mean sure, as a wrestling fan, I used to think he was cool. But now, as an actual wrestler, I see for what he really is. Truth be told, I’m kind of looking forward to beating the shit out of him.”

He took another swig. Made another face. But now realized his cousin was now looking directly at him. Studying him.

“On that note, been wanting to ask you something about that last show…”

Kerry threw him an arched eyebrow.

“I wasn’t aware you watched PRIME, Zee.”

Zack gave his eyes a hard roll.

“Well, after I’m done skipping through all the bullshit about hotdogs and penguins and jetskis, and get around to seeing something that at least somewhat resembles a wrestling show, yeah, I manage to catch bits and pieces here and there.”

Not that Kerry disagreed with his cousin’s overt criticism of PRIME’s televised product. At the same time, he knew he could easily swat that down with the words “Teri” and “Melton”.

“But back to my point,” Daymon continued. “That attack on the Anglo Luchador. By your team…”

Kuroyama looked away, and took another embittered sip from his stein.

“What about it?”

Zack continued to look down on him.

“Did you know it was happening?”

Kerry’s head bobbed noncommittally from side to side. He gave his mug a lazy, meandering wave through the air

“I don’t know, I might’ve had a strong hunch they were planning something, yes.”

With a shake of his head, Daymon slid down from the troll statue’s oversized hand to the concrete below.

“And you did nothing to stop it?”

Kerry scoffed.

“The hell would you have me do, man? Stop all six of them by myself? Surely that would have been the perfect way to get on my team’s good side…”

Again, Zack shook his head. His stare was critical. Judging. For years, his older cousin was someone he looked up. Now, he looked as if he wasn’t so sure of that.

“Don’t act like you had no choice, Kerry. At the very least, you could’ve warned him. But to just stand aside and let it happen… man, we were brought up better than that.”

Exasperated, the Emerald Apex grunted. He didn’t see the need in explaining himself. Especially on something so trivial. Something he was completely uninvolved in. Least of which to his own flesh and blood.

“No, we were brought up to settle our affairs inside the ring. The way professionals do. And what my asshole ‘teammates’ do in their spare time on the outside is, quite frankly, none of my business.”

Kuroyama set his stein to the side and came to his feet.

“Here’s the thing about me, Zee… I don’t subscribe to this whole ‘Team Good Guys’ and ‘Team Bad Guys’ bullshit. The concept itself, I think, is completely reductive. I mean, what is it about having self-confidence and a fixed opinion about this sport that makes someone like me a ‘bad guy’? I couldn’t tell you. But then someone like the Anglo Luchador runs his mouth, and violence just happens to break out. If you ask me, that’s a sign of toxic behavior.

“Everyone in this world seems hellbent on painting this sport in black and white. I simply choose to see it as being divided on a much simpler level, between winners and losers. Because I’m not interested in whether or not some assholeout there thinks I’m ‘good’ or ‘bad’; I just want my goddamn arm raised at the end of the night. The Anglo Luchador? He’s not a ‘good guy’; he’s just another fucking loser, trying to virtue signal his way into making himself feel better.

“The shit he gets he all but invites upon himself, because he’s an annoyingly intrusive, validation-seeking do-gooder. A wannabe martyr, who one day woke up and chose to appoint himself as the moral authority of an entire wrestling company. What happened at that last show is just another case of what goes around, comes around.”

Daymon stared at the ground, lost in thought. Then felt his cousin’ palm clap him on the shoulder

“I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you, Zee, cause you’ve only been in that ring for a few years, and if you don’t get this through your head now, then I don’t think it will ever fully sink in. Guys like us in this sport are a dying breed. These days, the modern wrestling fans have little time or interest in the ‘pure’ wrestlers.

“They don’t want a sport; they want a circus. They want the guys with fancy hats. The clowns and trapeze artists. Everything else is just window dressing.

“I thought by going to PRIME, I’d be getting away from it. Maybe all I ended up doing was leaving one circus for another, but it doesn’t matter to me anymore. I found in PRIME what I was always missing over in that other place: matches that actually fucking matter, and have some real stakes to them. I can tolerate the circus, so long as I can live with the sensation of having real competition.”

Kerry scooped up his stein from where he left it on the troll’s massive fingers and sloshed the remainder of his lager.

“So it is what it is. Best guys like us can do is just stick to what we do, and persist in our own way, for better or worse. Because no circus would be complete without a few lions to go with it.”

He took a swig. And for once, he didn’t make a face.

After a moment, his cousin chuckled lightly.

“Sounds like something Dad would say.”

Kerry blinked, then finally nodded in agreement. Despite knowing Rocko to be an expert proliferator of bullshit, the statement wasn’t entirely far from the truth.

“Saw him a couple months ago at Dad’s grave.”

Zack drew in a deep breath, and his head slumped downward.

Kerry could only feel pity for his younger cousin. When leukemia claimed his own father in aught-eight, it forced him to grow up earlier than he might have wanted.

Zack’s situation, obviously, was different. His father was very much still alive, and he was forced to watch his slow and gradual disintegration in real time.

Losing your hero was one thing. Watching him become an absolute shadow of his former self was something else entirely.

“Was he clean?” he asked, after a moment of contemplation.

Kerry thought back to the encounter, still able to recall the words given to him by his uncle and former trainer. About there being more to his life than this sport.

After a moment, he shrugged with uncertainty.

“Man, who really knows anymore?”

MEANWHILE, BACK AT CASA DEL KUROYAMA…

A fire blazes within the stone-lined hearth. A hand sets a German beer stein on the mantle.

“Confession time…”

The Emerald Apex falls into his chair, ready for a fireside chat.

“Growing up, my household didn’t get PRIME. I grew up watching other wrestlers in other companies.

“As it just so happened, the Anglo Luchador was one of those wrestlers.”

Granted, he was known as something else then. But we can all be thankful to be living in the age of retroactive continuity.

“It’s crazy to think how much my perspective has changed, now that I’ve grown from fan to talent.

“You used to be someone I respected, Tom. Someone I felt I could aspire to be, when I one day became a wrestler myself. But seeing the man you are now, a decade on the other side of your random and unnecessary retirement, normalizing man-children dressed in dinosaur pajamas, I can honestly say I’m ashamed at myself for having ever felt that way about you.

“So here’s the deal…

“I didn’t choose the team I’m on. But I’ll be damned if I don’t pull my weight for them.

“And at ReVival, I’m doing my part in Ivan’s ‘team-building exercise’.

“Only I’m doing it my way.”

His right hand balls into his fist and pounds into the palm of his left like a gavel of judgment.

“Because when I beat someone’s ass, I do it in the ring. Not necessarily out of personal respect or because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do, but because I’d rather not listen to anyone bitch about ‘not seeing me coming’ or ‘being outnumbered’.

“I’d rather leave you without the freedom to make excuses. Because in my experience, nothing quite compliments physical pain like a bit of emotional pain to go with it. Broken bones eventually heal. A broken spirit? Not so much.

“Attacking you when you’re vulnerable would just make you angry. But making you angry going into the War Games is the last thing I want. What I want, Tom, is to make you despondent.

“I want you to leave that ring knowing that even in a fair fight, you couldn’t stack up to the Pacific Blitzkrieg. I want you to dread the possibility of a second encounter inside the cage.

“I want to leave you doubtful of your own ability to carry your weight for your team. Likewise, I want to leave the rest of them worried that you might be more of an asset than a liability.

“Because regardless of how any of you see yourselves, nobody gets remembered for being a ‘good guy’.

“All anyone remembers… are the winners.”

Kerry nods, and raises his tumbler.

“You know what side I’m on.”