The Search for Suharto's Gold

This trip wasn’t the first time Tom Battaglia was left to his own wiles, on his own, in a foreign country where he barely spoke the native language. Oh, you think Australians speak English? Why is their word for “no” actually “naur?” Tom never got used to that, no matter how many times he heard it from touchdown at Mascot Airport, through the cab ride to his hotel, all the way down to the bar a few blocks down. Drinking at the hotel bar? Pfft, that’s for amateurs. The drinks are all overpriced anyway, and one doesn’t get the feel for the land. Yeah, Sydney and Perth were as different as, say, New York and Los Angeles, but he was going to be in this former penal colony for an entire month on this tour.

An entire fucking month.

Forget the fact that Zapp Scatino has been radio silent for the last month or so. They retained their Tag Team Championships against two Hall of Famers, and then his partner bounced before any celebrating could commence. Something about thinking he left the space heater on in his humble abode. Tom always thought the excuse bullshit, because a space heater left on in that house would’ve caused a chain reaction that would have made nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll look like firecrackers. Most of the population of Long Island would’ve been vaporized in an instant. All that would’ve been left would’ve been cockroaches and Republican Jets fans. Hard to say which one would’ve been worse.

Forget the fact that his mother had been eerily calm for the last half-year. She still hadn’t spilled anything about the photographs. “Vinny who?” she’d say before changing the subject and offering some half-assed attempt at reconciliation without ever once backing off her position that Tom should quit wrestling to be a family man. “Agree to disagree” she’d say, not knowing what the fuck that phrase even meant.

Forget the fact he started to miss his family sometime as the plane from LAX passed over the International Date Line. Yeah, all of them were as gung ho about this trip for him as they were his New Year’s dalliance in Japan. But it didn’t matter. He missed Zo and Vinny and Mikey and especially Tam. This would’ve been a hell of a vacation if PRIME decided to line this up with Tropical Turmoil and not Culture Shock. Imagine a tour of Australia and New Zealand with the big show live from some multibillionaire’s private island in Indonesia. Lindsay Troy had to know someone with that kind of ill-gotten, obscene wealth, right?

Alas, the kids had to stay back for school, and Tam had to do reviews of R&D on a new alloy for hip replacements.

No, it was the sheer, crushing listlessness he was feeling, concentrating its force into unbearable pressure on the top of his head. Unfinished business. Threads that were left dangling in the breeze. Legacies built on promise and strife.

But all of that paled in comparison to the fuckin’ ennui.

That’s right. The Anglo Luchador was bored.

The partnership with Scatino, by happenstance or because of his seedy reputation, left him alienated from a lot of the roster for large chunks of time. Was Ivan Stanislav’s propaganda working? Probably not. No one likes Ivan except his mother. That’s right. I, the semi-omniscient, disembodied narrator, don’t even think Alexei likes him. Russians don’t really like anyone to be honest. But I’m digressing here. But Nate Colton spending more and more time with the gal Zapp suckerpunched in the face at the climax of their courtship had to put strain on their relationship, whether they wanted to admit it or not. Tom spent so much time training and finishing the schooling of Hernan Garces-Tapatio and El Pulpo in every spare moment that he could find in his impossibly busy life that his opportunities for social life with his peers dwindled, only to have them attack him at Arena Mexico. Pom was a recluse until her final triumph at Clash of Aces. Coral only found time to speak to him on camera. Youngblood got caught up in Youngblood things. RIA found new besties.

So it was to one of the local watering holes he’d go in search of excitement. The worst thing that could happen, he thought, was that he’d get piss drunk and have to be escorted out. Better than watching Aussie TV in a hotel room and falling asleep mid-stroke after jet lag didn’t allow him to maintain a constant boner. The best though? Well, he thought it would be getting into a brawl with local ruffians and maybe a kangaroo that was only medium swole instead of STRONK-levels of jacked. Seriously, do kangaroos lift somewhere in the Outback away from human eyes?

He had no idea what awaited him for real though.

-

Rod Seger was a thin, sickly looking boy from Roxborough. Roman Catholic High School’s central location attracted students from all over the city. Most of the heft of the student body either came from West Philly if they were Black or the mega-parishes in the mid-Northeast, places like St. Matthew’s and St. Timothy’s, if they were white. But Roxborough, South Philly, Kensington, Olney, all of them had presence at Broad and Vine.

With pale skin, jet black hair, and an unmistakable nose, Rod was an easy target for the inter-neighborhood cliques that formed, none of which extended him an invite. His timidity was only matched by the unfathomably tall tales, none of which he ever got to finish. His personality was too contained in his frame to emit the requisite charisma for drawing even adolescent boys in with stories too good to be true, too fantastic to have occurred in their mundane lives.

Tom felt sorry for him. Like Rod, he didn’t really fit into many of the cliques. Few people from his parish of St. Monica’s chose Roman over Neumann or public school. Even worse, the ones who did were, in Tom’s estimation, “the fucking losers,” comic book nerds who argued vehemently all day about hypothetical matchups between characters like Superman and Goku. Even though he felt like telling them none of those fake fucks held a candle to El Santo or Blue Demon, he kept his mouth shut. His upbringing in the sweet spot between Generation X and Millennial taught him caring about anything too much was cringe, and although he had trouble making friends among the sea of new faces he was in class with, he knew well enough to stay off the radar.

Which was exactly how unalike Rod Tom was. He didn’t need too many new friends. He just needed to skate by in class - D meant diploma, after all - and make it home to bug Mom and/or Dad if he could start wrestling school (to which they invariably said no every time). Depending on the day, he’d either hastily do his homework under the warming glow of his cathode ray tube set to Telemundo to watch lucha libre in a tongue he didn’t understand, or hastily do his homework at the kitchen table so he could play stickball or football or whatever it was he played with his neighborhood friends on nice days after school. Skate by until he got to wrestling school. That was the plan.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” - Mike Tyson

The one who received fist-driven blunt force trauma wasn’t Tom, at least not at first. That January day in 1997 was brisk. Wind chills intensified the cold, blasting the numbing air through channels created by the skyscrapers lining Broad Street towards City Hall. Tom’s face was ruddy and shiny, his stubborn bout of Philadelphia caucasian testosterone driving him to have foregone what he and his friends dubbed as “pussy shit:” scarves, hats, earmuffs. The only thing separating his school uniform-covered body from the elements was a grayed Kelly green Eagles starter jacket he’d had since he was in 6th grade. It was entirely possible he had windburn from the walk to the Broad Street Subway Station that day.

It wouldn’t be the only harm on his body before he’d get home.

“What the…”

There they were, four meatheads he recognized as part of the Northeast Philly group, all of whom eschewed Father Judge for various different reasons.

And they were all surrounding a kid on the subway platform in fetal position, trying to keep from getting stomped to death.

“YO, WHAT THE FUCK!”

Tom did his best Dr. Raptor, Jr. impersonation and sprung into action, barreling into the beatdown the best he could. The four meatheads scattered momentarily before realizing someone was coming to the aid of the pedantic little lying shit they were taking pleasure in stomping into the piss-stained tiles below.

“Who the fuck you think you are?” asked one with all the venom of a king cobra in his voice.

“Who gives a shit?” shouted another, “Let’s get him.”

They started to close in on Tom, but he was quicker than all four of them, racing out of their intended center, dropping his bookbag onto the platform and taking defensive position. He reached into his bookbag and grabbed the heaviest thing he could find, his algebra textbook. He hurled it at the first attacker’s head, knocking him back into the one right behind him. He evaded the third, and tagged the fourth with the quickest and deadliest move he could think of on the fly…

…one of his dad’s knife-edge chops.

The chop barely fazed him, but it bought Tom enough time to get their original victim up off the platform.

“You okay?”

“No, but I will be,” answered Rod.

“Get behind me then.”

Once again, the procession moved towards him, this time in a pincer. Tom tried rushing through, but one of the future Philadelphia Police Academy dropouts-turned-Philly Parking Authority pigs-lite caught him with a right cross on his windburnt cheek. It was a grazing shot, but the hypersensitivity of his red, sore cheek triggered a pain response he’d not felt since the last time Guido threw one of his pog slammers right at his head.

He was pissed.

Tom did the first thing a vengeful teenager would do when down four-to-one. He kicked his assailant right in the yambag. He fell back holding his crotch, and the stunned silence from the other three allowed Tom just enough time to close his bookbag and start swinging it like a mace over his head. The other three kept their distance, and the gambit worked long enough for salvation to arrive.

ding

“Broad Street Subway Southbound Train, stops in South Philadelphia and the Sports Complex”

Tom grabbed Rod by the scruff of his jacket onto his train home.

“Jesus. I didn’t grab my math textbook. Mr. Lyons is gonna fuckin’ kill me.”

“Yeah, well, I got worse problems,” Rod replied. “I live all the way in the other direction from where this train is going.”

Tom sighed.

“So you’ll get home late. At least it’ll be late and in one piece.”

-

Tom saw him in the corner booth of the bar as soon as he walked in. Slicked back hair, white dress pants, leather jacket, a steak with what looked like his entire glass of water spilled on top of it. In a local bar that Obi-Wan Kenobi might have termed a hive of scum and villainy, he was, or at least looked like, the biggest piece of shit in the room. The man caught the glance and thought to himself, “Crikey, I have a mark.” At least that’s what the immediate gait he used to stride towards Tom as he sat at the bar said.

“G’day.”

Tom looked at him dismissively before turning back towards the bartender, who looked every bit as interested in serving him as his American dive bar counterpart would have been back home. A night of long waits between drinks. At least there were some cultural earmarks that stretched across the vast Pacific between the two former British colonies.

“You look like a feller who croiayves advent’cha.”

Tom replied without turning his head to look.

“And you look like someone who steals empty soda cans from recycling containers.”

The reference shot straight over the man’s head.”

“Didn’t yer ma evah teach you not to judge a book by it’s covah?”

“No, she didn’t, and that’s why I only ever read Hustler.”

The man agitatedly took a seat next to Tom before signaling to the barkeep non-verbally. He moseyed over to where the two were sitting.

“What can I do ya for, mate?”

“I’ll take a Foster’s. Big one. Biggest one you got.”

The bartender shook his head.

“I guess I at least owe it to you to hear you out since you got me service real quick, especially with those lovely ladies at the other end,” Tom said, nodding his head in the direction of three blonde women whose tops barely covered their chests at the other end of the bar. They were Sydney 4s, but would probably be 7s in Adelaide and definitely 10s in the Outback. Just 2s on Gold Coast though. Have you seen the women who sunbathe there?

“What’s your deal, and your name too? Please, I am not going to listen to someone anonymous.”

He scooched his stool closer to Tom’s.

“Name’s Angus, an’ I deal in tours, but not just any tours.”

Tom’s groan could be heard all the way in Tasmania.

“Ey, I could always tell my pal there all three a’ them sheilas wanna root him, an’ you’d be waitin’ til ya cahk it for ya beer.”

Tom groaned and slowly nodded.

“Anyway,” Angus continued, “You evah heayah of that bloke Suharto?”

“Who? Was he a fuckin’ Power Ranger villain or something?”

Now it was Angus’ turn to shake his head.

“Naur, he was the leadah of Indonesiar for yonks. Real ugly lookin’ bloke, almost like he was a walkin’ corpse at times.”

“Yonks? What the fuck, I left my Yahoo Serious-to-English dictionary back at the hotel.”

Angus stormed to his feet.

“DON’T YOU DAYAH SLANDAH YAHOO SERIOUS! HE’S A NATIONAL HERAUR!”

Tom looked at him puzzled and shocked.

“Naur,” Angus said, his anger almost immediately turning to jocularity. “I’m just fuckin’ wit’cha mate. But the slang heeyah ain’t the point. The point is, when you rule a place like Indonesiar for a long time, you probably have lotsa money, and some a’ that is rumored to be in the form a’...”

A pregnant pause. A deep rictus grin formed Angus’ lips.

“Berried treasyah.”

Tom’s face turned stone cold.

“You’re fuckin’ with me again, right?”

“Nope, I’m dead fackin’ serious. Like Yahoo.”

Tom shook his head. He knew Angus was fuckin’ with him, and he was ready not to say another word to him after his beer got there, but then it hit him. He didn’t go to the dive bar to get drunk for getting drunk’s sake. He wanted excitement. He scanned the rest of the bar. The women at other end wouldn’t have tickled him even before he met Tam, and what was he going to do, sit in the cuck chair while someone else railed them? Tom knew about the Sleaze Thread, and he didn’t want to be associated with the CSWA jobbers who liked having hookers shit on glass tables on top of them. There was an old married couple arguing over well drinks behind him, not getting involved. Other than that, everyone else in the bar was either passed out or en route.

The excitement he craved may just have lain in a wild chase for an Indonesian dictator’s nebulous buried treasure.

“Okay then. What are we talking about here? Paintings? Gems? Artifacts?”

“Naur. I’m talkin’ the only berried tresyah that mattahs, mate.”

Angus started to smile widely and nod vigorously again.

“I’m talkin’ gold.”

-

The next day at school, Tom thought he’d try talking to Rod. The skinny loner clearly needed a friend, if not for anything else but to keep him from becoming a statistic. Perhaps Rod’s overzealousness at telling his stories led him to annoying the meatheads into using him as their personal practice mat for Irish dance. Keep him contained, keep him safe. He caught him in the hallway before first period. Tom chased him down with a hearty pat on the shoulder.

“Hey bud, what’s up?”

Rod recoiled like he’d just had a pallet of bricks fall on his shoulders.

“Easy, easy, man. I’m still sore.”

“Sorry. And sorry you had to go through that. Glad I caught it in time.”

“That? Oh that wasn’t as bad as when I got home.”

Tom shot him a furrowed brow like he was Dwayne Johnson from another universe.

“What, did your house blow up? Can’t be any worse than getting jumped by four dudes who share one brain cell among them.”

Rod looked sheepishly looked away, almost like he was ashamed even to remember it.

“It’s just…”

He trailed off.

“What, man. I’m not one of those dickheads who’s gonna call you gay for sharing your feelings.”

Rod turned back around.

“It’s just my dad and I don’t have the best relationship.”

Tom furrowed his brow again.

“Neither do me and my pops. He’s on the road all the time, or he was before he got hurt the last time. And now he’s giving me a hard time about wanting to follow in his footsteps.”

“Ha, I wish my relationship was that simple.”

RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIING

The warning bell for first period rudely interrupted their conversation.

“But I don’t think I wanna talk about it. At least not now.”

Rod started to walk away, but Tom called out to him at the last minute.

“Hey, you think your relationship with your dad is too bad that he won’t let you crash at my place tonight? We got that English test tomorrow. Could use some help studying.”

“I think that’d be good,” Rod said with a smirk before the two departed for their separate first period classes.

-

“You know, I was just gonna come on this trip because I was bored, but I read the Wikipedia entry last night for this Suharto fucker.”

The Australian sun blazed high in the sky as Tom sauntered over to the slender white van.

“That son of a bitch used the CIA to run cover while he ran one of the bloodiest anti-Communist dictatorships that the world has ever seen. I didn’t even think he’d have gold stashed somewhere, but you know what?”

Tom slammed his hands on the hood of the van.

“I’m all in, baby.”

“Lovely,” replied Angus, who strode confidently, trailed by a smaller lad who walked with a slight hunch.

“Who’s this guy?”

“Oh, that’s the other member of owah advencha’in’ pahty. His name is Blinky, an’ he wants in on this deal too, he does.”

“Noice t’meet’cha, Mr. Yank, sir.”

Tom already didn’t like Blinky.

“Awwright, are you two blokes ready for some treysha huntin’?”

“YEAH!” exclaimed Blinky. “I paid 300 dollary-doos to have the time of my life!”

Tom mouthed “300” to himself in confusion.

“What about you, mate? You reahdy?”

“Yeah. Where we headed?”

“Well, pile in the van, mate. It’s 12 houahs to Bakah’s Bend. There, we’ll foind some advent’cha.”

“Driving? A half-a-day? Couldn’t we just, like, fly there?”

Angus walked over to Tom and put a firm but friendly hand on his shoulder.

“Naur, mate, what fun is it to floy into advent’cha? Besoides, even if Bakah’s Bend had an aiyahpawt, I’m not exactly allowed to travel by aiyah in this country.”

At that moment, Tom was just a little less than all-in.

-

Rod and Tom spent each of the days that week over the latter’s house studying for various classes they shared together. The two went over notes, took breaks to play Super Nintendo, and took turns shooting rubber bands at Guido from the stairs as he sat on the couch looking at his Game Boy. They seemed to be building a bond, two kids in an environment where they didn’t have a lot of friends. For the first time, Tom felt like he had a reason not to count the days left before he could start wrestling school like notches on the wall in a prison cell.

The dreamlike feeling of euphoria popped Monday morning. As soon as he walked into the doors at school, one of the meatheads from the subway cornered him.

“YOU!”

Tom looked like he was about to shit his pants.

“Hey, man uh…”

“OH! Sorry, uh, I don’t, like, wanna fight or nuthin’, really.”

“You sure do have a fucked up way of showing it.”

The meathead stopped tensing up, and he shook his head.

“Look, uh, I know we threw down, and I dunno if you know it, but we had a reason for kickin’ your boy’s ass last week.”

Tom shot him a side-eye.

“Your boy,” the meathead continued, “he’s a straight dickeater, yo. Fuckin’ scammer.”

“What do you mean? How did he scam you?”

“He sold me and my boys, and a lot of other people, he sold us all school tokens, ten for a buck. Real good deal. Except they was FAKE.”

The residual anger started bubbling up in the hulking young man as he punched one of the lockers, not even flinching.

“I tried usin’ one, an’ the bus driver was a real fuckin’ bitch to me. An’ then I looked at another one real close like, and, no shittin’, that jawn was just a fuckin’ penny with a white stripe painted on it. They all was!”

“That, that’s fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“I’m jus’ sayin’. I ain’t got no beef wit’ you, but you should watch yourself. That dude is bad fuckin’ news.”

Tom nodded, a little bit hurt and surprised by the revelation.

“One more thing, you the Stallion’s kid, right?”

“Yeah. That’s my dad.”

“You try’na be a wrestler like him too?”

“Yes and no. I wanna be a wrestler, but not like him.”

“Good. You hit like a pussy. You’re better off doin’ that flippy shit.”

-

The car ride north and west was boring, and neither Blinky nor Angus were great conversation. Blinky had a look on his face that screamed “I’m just happy to be here,” while Angus nervously alternated between looking at the clock on the car radio and the road ahead of him. It gave Tom time to think about things. Where the fuck was Zapp Scatino? Why was his Mom trying to shrug things off? What if he had to bail Tam out of jail when he got back from the full Western Pacific Rim tour because she finally dropkicked Edwards so hard that he turned into jelly like a drop from an adventure game? The hazy intrusive thoughts lulled him to sleep for about a half-an-hour, helped by the monotonous scenery out his window on the highway scaling the Outback.

When he woke up, the first thing that popped in his head was the treasure. Everything cleared out except for the gold. The skepticism he held at the bar and that he tried badly to hide with his enthusiasm earlier started to melt away. Against every rational thought in his head, he started to believe that there was a hidden cache of gold in Baker’s Bend that belonged to a ruthless Indonesian dictator, and that this smarmy guy he met on a cold solicitation at a dive bar wasn’t a conman. Yes, Tom Battaglia was a successful professional wrestler married to a top executive for a medical device company. Money wasn’t an issue for him. But money in a paycheck, objectively, is not nearly as cool as the money you get from a buried or sunken treasure.

Finally, 14 hours, two pit stops, and one traffic jam after a sportscar collided with an emu later, they finally reached the town of Baker’s Bend. Tom got out of the van and stretched, as Blinky looked, just as he was at embarkment, happy to be there. Angus rushed out of the van and over to a small building with no windows. The door opened, and another guy opened the door. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but both Angus and the other guy looked as if their conversation was, in a word, animated.

Angus ambled back with a weathered piece of brown paper in his hand.

“Good news, mates! I got the treysha map!”

“Map?” said Tom with sudden annoyance in his voice. “We drove all this way for a map?!”

“Yeah! You have to know whehya you’re goin’ if you wanna foind a treysha.”

“But, we drove all that time, for something you could have had overnighted, like, please. Don’t tell me you can’t use the mail in this country either.”

“Naur, naur, naur, it’s not loike that at all. It’s that I don’t TRUST the post. They steal blokes’ parcels, and this, THIS map? I wasn’t about to let some crooked postman puhhloin it!”

Tom shook his head as he held his temple.

“So where are we headed now?”

Angus smirked and nodded.

“We’re goin’ t’Dahwin.”

Tom quickly put the location in his maps app on his phone.

Darwin, NT, Australia.

29 hours driving.

29 fuckin’ hours.

Thank God he came to Australia several days before he had to be at the arena for ReVival 61.

-

Rod marked himself absent from school that day. He spent his time in class processing all the information he’d been taking in. Abusive fathers, alleged scams, what did he get himself into when he saved Rod’s ass from becoming a permanent fixture in the subway platform that day last week? “He’s probably just got a cold,” he thought to himself to assuage his obsessive thoughts about what kind of trouble his newfound friend had gotten himself into. After asking around the lunchroom from the Roxborough crowd on where Rod might have lived, and volunteering to take some worksheets home to him so he could finish his homework on time, Tom didn’t go home to South Philly after school was over.

The rattling of the train cars were replaced by the slow amble of the bus through the narrow, hilly streets of lower northwest Philadelphia. Tom got off at the stop closest to the address given to him in the cafeteria and sized up the rowhomes on Rector Street as well as he could until he got to the address. He meekly walked up the steps to the front door, then rang the bell. After a few tense moments, the large oak door creaked open. A larger man with jet black hair and a scruffy five o’clock shadow peered at Tom with his bloodshot yellow eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Uh, I’m Tom, one of Rod’s classmates. I brought him the assignments he missed from school today.”

“You brought him homework?”

The sinister-looking man guffawed louder than anything Tom had heard since his Mom took him and his four brothers to see The Nutty Professor. Guido loved that movie. He was the only one.

“What a fuckin’ nerd! You square, bahahaha. I don’t think I want Roddy associating with a loser like you.”

Tom’s face turned red, and not just because of the chilly January air.

“I was just trying to help him not fall behind. Is he feeling okay?”

“The little shit’s fine. I kept him home today if you gotta know.”

“So can I talk to him?”

“No, he’s busy.”

The man flung open the storm door with no concern whether it was going to hit Tom in the face and snatched the papers out of his hand.

“I’ll make sure he gets this nerd shit though. Go home and study, loser.”

The oak door slammed shut in his face. Rod’s dad really was a goddamn piece of shit.

-

Australia is a beautiful country, Tom thought during the times on the trip where he stayed awake. The crew only stopped for gas, which Tom paid for every time out of sympathy for Blinky, who again paid 300 “dollary-doos” for the privilege of being there. However, he resisted driving because he’s an American, goddammit. We drive on the right side of the road, not the left like these degen Brit descendents. Blinky and Angus took turns driving. While Blinky drove, Angus nervously checked his phone to the point of doomscrolling. Doomscrolling what was anyone’s guess because he kept the screen close to his vest. When Angus drove, Blinky surreally kept his “happy to be there” aura shining bright. Tom was almost jealous of how oblivious, almost innocent, the third in their party seemed.

Something about the whole thing started to feel off in the silence. Neither of the two in the car answered more than a partial clause at Tom’s attempts to start conversation. After hour four, he stopped trying. He wasn’t there to make friends though. The allure of found money, found gold even, tugged at him too much for him to be sociable or even logical. The skeptic in his brain that kept telling him “This is a scam, a capital S-C-A-M” could not raise its voice ahead of the hillbilly lizard portion of his brain screaming “THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!”

Finally, after more than a day of driving, they arrived at their destination. Clear blue skies, azure ocean in front of them, a marina full of boats. The destination was clear. They weren’t searching for buried treasure. They were going diving for sunken treasure. The salt in the air energized Tom. He breathed it in deep as he closed his eyes with the sun beating down on his face. His faith in found gold started to restore itself. He opened his eyes and saw a fleet shiny, well-kept boats, all more than seaworthy. They were luxurious. Did he accidentally stumble into a miracle?

“Awright mates!” shouted Angus. “We ahh gonna hit the open ocean!”

“Kick-ass! Which one of these boats is yours?”

“That one ovah yowndah!”

Angus pointed to a boat on the end of the marina. The bow looked like it was a collision with a hard raindrop away from disintegrating into a miasma of dust. The steampipe rising out of the back had several metal plates haphazardly bolted onto it. The windshield in front of the wheelhouse was cracked. Overall, it was undoubtedly a gigantic floating piece of shit.

It was at this moment Tom started to doubt that any such treasure existed.

-

Rod returned to school the next day, and Tom was there waiting for him.

“Yo, you okay, man?”

Rod shook his head with an exasperated sigh.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Yeah, I get it, but you kinda do. Did your dad give you the papers I dropped off?”

“Huh? What papers? You came to my house yesterday?”

“Yeah, I wanted to check in, and your dad answered the door. He was a real dick.”

“Yeah, I know he’s a dick. But you…”

“And then one of the Northeast meatheads said you were selling scam school tokens, and that’s why they pummeled you?”

“Dude, fuck you.”

Rod started to walk off, but Tom grabbed him by the shoulder.

“No, I’m not gonna fuck off, dude. What’s going on?”

Rod closed his eyes and looked away.

“Look, it’s complicated, alright?”

“No, it’s not. Just tell me, did you sell those guys bum tokens?”

Rod looked him in the face.

“I mean, yeah, I did, but that’s because they were picking on me since I got here. I wanted to get back at them.”

“Okay but that doesn’t explain your dad being a dickhead to me. Why did he say you weren’t sick and you were busy yesterday?”

“Look, man, it’s complicated, okay?”

“Well, if you’re not gonna talk to me about it…”

“Hey, no offense, but I just started hanging out with you for a week. Just, it’s gonna take some time for me to really warm up, y’know?”

Yeah, just started hanging out after I saved your fucking life, thought Tom, but he thought better of saying it out loud.

“You still want to hang out after school then?”

“I’ll think about it. Again, complicated.”

School let out, and Tom was ready to head back home until he checked his pockets. He had only grabbed one school token from his nightstand in the morning, and he had no cash on him. He had to start bumming for tokens. The most likely person to give him one was the one he didn’t want to ask until he exhausted every other option. The accusations from that meathead the other day stuck with him. Rod couldn’t be trusted completely.

Each plea for a token fell feebly to the floor. Either deaf ears or “I don’t have a spare token” or an exorbitant asking price. He had no choice but to ask.

“Yo, Rod, you got an extra school token I can borrow? I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got you,” Rod replied, fumbling in his pockets. He grabbed one and flicked it over to Tom before starting off in the other direction. Tom examined the coin to find that Rod had flicked him one of his fake ones.

“YO! What the fuck dude!”

Rod startled to the volume of Tom’s voice.

“You gave me one of your fake ones!”

“OH! I didn’t mean to, I swear,” he said while fumbling in his pocket again, pulling out a legit token and flipping it over. Tom checked it out again.

“You know, you’re gonna keep getting your ass kicked if you try to pass these tokens off as real. Or worse. They’re gonna send you to Bobby O’s office.”

Bobby O, for record, was Mr. O’Neill, the vice-principal for discipline. You didn’t want to cross Bobby O.

“I know, but, like, it’s my dad, okay? Ever since my mom left us, and he’s been in and out of work, we’ve been trying to scrape by. I don’t like it, but he makes me do it. People do fucked up shit when they need money.”

And at that moment, Tom felt like an enormous turd.

-

“Alright, alright, I spent close to two fucking days non-stop in a van with you and Captain Smiley over here to get lured out to a watery grave on this fucking rustbucket? Jesus tittyfucking Christ!”

“Hey noaur, the HMS Minge-Slayah is the most seaworthy vessel known to man! I mean, I’ve taken dozens if not hundreds a’ blokes out on this for advent’cha for a modest fee, of course.”

“And that fee is?”

“Ten-thousand dollahs, mate.”

“TEN TH… JESUS.”

Tom rubbed his temples. A hundred here and a hundred there didn’t raise questions at home, but five figures would probably have made Tam speed dial the divorce lawyer.

“Can you at least let me see the map.”

“Naur, unless you know how to read Javanese.”

“Buddy, I learned Nahuatl because I was hallucinating Aztec gods. I will learn how to read Javanese if I have to.”

“You still cahn’t see it, mate. It’s faw my oiyes only.”

Tom went to advance on Angus before he felt something cold and sharp pressed against his neck.

“Now mate, you’re gonna let Angus here keep that map for himself and get on that boat noice and quiet,” said Blinky, who was at that moment holding a knife to Tom’s jugular.

-’

It was an unseasonably warm winter day when Tom paid Rod another visit, this time not unannounced. He hurried up the steps to his house to find the window open to let in some air. However, the warm air allowed inside through the window was forced outside by the hot air blowing out.

“I told you, ya little shit, we can’t afford to up the overhead on these.”

“But Dad, they’re not believable looking. I already got my ass beat once and I got threatened to go to the principal’s office. And no one’s gonna buy em from me now.”

“You just gotta be persuasive, not the pompous little shit you are all the time.”

Tom shirked back so they didn’t see that he was listening to their conversation, but to be real, people were hearing them argue in Germantown.

“Where do you think I learned that from, huh?”

“Oh you gonna start quotin’ them TV ads again? Look, we need enough money for…”

“For what, Dad, WHAT?”

“So we can move onto the next big move! We gotta keep movin’...”

“To where though? Like, I just wanna relax.”

“You can’t relax! When you relax, that’s when they get’cha!”

The arguing stopped. Tom waited a good minute or two to let the tension completely diffuse before he rang the doorbell. To his slight surprise, it was Rod who answered.

“Hey. Did you hear any of that?”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. Your dad is pretty… uh, he can’t hear me, can he?”

“Nah, he’s gonna go take one of his percs with a bottle of Jacquin’s and go comatose. Let’s go upstairs to my room. I got the new Mario Kart game.”

“Oh wow, cool.”

A few weeks went past, and Tom didn’t hear anything about Rod trying to scam or scheme. In an attempt to shield himself from Rod’s father’s vitriol, he suggested hanging out in South Philly. One day, Tom was running late to get to the subway station after forgetting his algebra textbook in his locker. He hurried across Vine Street as fast as the lights and traffic would let him and saw Rod was already there, talking to the Northeast Philly meatheads again.

This time, the conversation was a touch less violent.

“Yo, this is the good shit. Had you pegged wrong, dude,” said one of them.

“Hey, look, the tokens, that was just a mistake, but I wouldn’t ever sell you bad pills, man. My d, I mean, supplier gets the strong ones too, the 10 mg tabs.”

“Fuckin’ A, man. Thanks. How many can you get me Friday? Me and the rest of the crew guys wanna party.”

“Probably ten. But I’m getting a fresh supply next Thursday.”

“That’s what’s up.”

The four of them took turns slapping each other’s hands, and then the meatheads got on the northbound train towards City Hall. Tom waited until they cleared out before he came down.

“Yooo! What’s up, ready to whip this algebra exam’s ass tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tom said with uncharacteristic sheepishness. “Aces.”

“Hey, what’s wrong? You seem a bit spaced out.”

Tom collected himself quickly so he didn’t give Rod the impression he just saw what he’d seen.

“Nah, just, you know how it is. School takes a lot out of you.”

“Haha, yeah, but you just gotta remember nothing you learn here is gonna matter. You’re gonna be a wrestler. Famous too, probably.”

“And what about you?”

Rod smirked.

“I got my own path. And I think it’s a pretty good one.”

Tom winced a little at how gleeful Rod’s response was. But as much as he saw that maybe, just maybe, Rod bought into what he was doing a little too easily, he remembered how much of a sucking asshole his father was.

Weeks past, turning into months. Tom knew Rod was dealing in pills but kept his mouth shut each time one of the crew guys had been absent from school the Monday after a hard party because they had to get their stomach pumped or how many times other kids got caught with percs but wouldn’t give up from whom they bought them. Rod pretended nothing had changed, but Tom’s disposition grew colder towards him.

There was a time when Tom thought that maybe Rod would change. Somewhere in the beginning of sophomore year, Rod’s father died. No one told him how, not even Rod, but rumors started flying around that he had gotten involved with Amway and lured in the wrong housewife. Others suspected he got too high on his own supply. Either way, Rod went to stay with his aunt and uncle in the suburbs. No want for anything, and yet he seemed to relish his back alley transactions even more.

He kept his father’s old contacts for prescriptions and even found new ones when those docs ended up getting indicted. And there was nothing more that rich boys on the Main Line wanted to do more than get high. Tom still didn’t say anything. Even as his relationship with Rod grew colder and colder by the day, he still couldn’t shake that this life was thrust on him.

Tom started with Pedro Santamaria at wrestling school his junior year of high school. The infrequence of his hangouts with Rod went completely dry. They were friendly in school. I mean, you still needed to be on the good side of the cool kids, and Rod had morphed into one of the cool kids, if not by personality than by his sheer facilitation of a good time.

Through his own inaction, Tom allowed the most notorious scammer and drug dealer in his graduating class become too big to fail.

-

“I would expect that if you were trying to extort me, you’d have a gun at least. I mean, why take chances?”

“Who do you think I am, mate,” growled Blinky, “A bloody American?”

Tom groaned as Blinky pressed the knife a little more into his neck skin.

“Okay, okay, I get the picture.”

Tom’s life flashed before his eyes as he was held at knifepoint: watching his father on television, getting his ass kicked at school because he kept saying “HORNET WINZ!!!11!!!1” to everyone at recess, graduating first in his class at Boricua Academia de Lucha Libre, his first date with Tam, signing with the Empire, his World Championship wins, his wedding day, the birth of his sons, his PRIME career. But one thing stood out to him, as if the gods were letting him know why he got into this situation in the first place.

He saw his dealings with Rod Seger flash before his eyes.

All of them.

“Okay, now I can’t possibly pay you your money while you have me at knifepoint, okay? Let me go and I’ll make the arrangements.”

Blinky was hesitant, but Angus nodded to him. As he let Tom go, he could not be prepared for what was to come next.

You see, professional wrestlers learn a veritable cornucopia of ways to inflict damage on people, especially on the region betwixt their opponents’ legs. While most people would only expect a MMA-style cock-punch while on the ground or a forward facing thrust kick, only seasoned pro wrestlers would think to throw back the mule kick blindly or to expect said mule kick.

Tom swiftly threw back that mule kick. Blinky dropped the knife and fell to the ground holding his groin while Tom thought fast and kicked the knife into the water. Angus pulled his own knife, but he stopped in his tracks after Tom jolted forward into fight position.

“What are you gonna do, throw it at me?”

He did. And he missed.

“FACK! Okay, okay, well, man, I, listen, I, hey uh.”

“Shut the fuck up or I’m going to haul off and kick you in the nuts too. Give me the treasure map.”

Angus meekly handed over the piece of paper to Tom, who examined it, crumpled it up, and threw it into the water behind him.

“You had a fucking menu for a seafood restaurant that you were trying to pawn off as a treasure map?”

“I can, I can…”

“No, it’s okay. It’s on me. I’m the dumbass here. But you two. Hoo boy, not only is your scam just like, ludicrous and overly complicated and not well-thought out, but you two got so unlucky.”

“And why’s that,” Blinky groaned from the ground in pained tones.

“Because you picked me, of course.”

Tom looked around for something heavy.

“And I am kinda done with scammers.”

-

Tom didn’t think much about Rod after Pedro gave him the thumbs up for having passed his most rigorous training possible. Tom would be his best student ever, at least until a scrappy Puertorriquena from Staten Island would come along about 20 years later. He did some shows in San Juan, toured some indies in Mexico, had his big breakout stint in Bloody Japan Grappling Arts, and got a few breaks here and there in the states. Even though he’d just miss out on the 1999 Belmont Classic, he’d taken some bookings against competitors from that field and acquitted himself well enough that a big continental-wide promotion based out of Canada was interested.

After a couple of months in the company, he came back to his locker room after an unsuccessful challenge for the Cyber Championship against Torment, a hulking mass of muscle with a fetish for Jesus imagery, to find a missed call on his newly acquired cell phone from an unknown number. He called it back almost immediately, as in those days, telemarketers did not exist to choke the airwaves of the newly established cellular network.

“Hello?”

“Hey Tom! I didn’t think you’d call me back!”

“Rod? Is this Rod?”

“Yeah man, how have you been?”

“Pretty good, pretty good. I just got done wrestling on TV.”

“Yeah, I know you got into that, but no one looks like you.”

“That’s because I wear a mask.”

“That would be a good reason why. Anyway, wrestling is why I called you. Do you think you could recommend me to the school you went to?”

“Huh? You? Wrestling? No way man. Besides, didn’t you tell me years ago that your path was gonna be good to you?”

“Heh, yeah, about that. All my docs got put away. Clients dried up. It’s hard out here. I figured I’d make an honest living.”

“Ha, that was funny.”

“I’m serious! So do you got a hookup for me or what?”

Tom sat on the bench in the locker room thinking about what he’d say. He thought about how much he protected Rod in high school, about how much Rod lied to him about everything, especially that it was his dad that forced him into his life when really, he relished it just as much as his father did. He wanted to believe Rod, but track record dictated otherwise.

“C’mon man,” Rod said, interrupting Tom’s train of thought. “I really do want to go straight. Please.”

Tom relented.

“Okay. I know of a few wrestling schools you could go to. But not the one I went to primarily. I don’t think your body would stand up to lucha libre. But if you really want it, I’ll get you in touch with someone who can get you up to speed with your skillset.”

“Hell yeah. Thanks buddy!”

Tom’s stomach tied into a knot as soon as he hung up. Years of Catholic guilt made the decision for him, to make him believe Rod was telling the truth, but deep down, something gnawed at him like he was continuing to be an enabler.

-

Tom’s scan for something heavy bore him the best fruit it could, a 12-volt battery, sitting on the marina with rusted terminals and faded lettering on the front. He picked it up and walked towards the HMS Min… you know what folks, I am not repeating that boat’s name, nope. He walked towards the boat, and using a combination of “dad strength,” “older luchador strength,” and “just did arm day before getting on the plane strength,” tossed the battery into the ocean. This by itself would’ve been a safe and legal activity, but the battery did not simply land into the water with the map and the knife.

Tom threw the battery far enough that collided with the hull of the ship.

The hull of the ship that looked like it was one really bad squall away from rusting into nothing.

And the impact of the battery with the hull causedit to disintegrate into a miasma of iron oxide and years of people’s ruined hopes and dreams.

The HMS Extremely Misogynist Name started taking on water. Blinky screamed in even more agony than his sore nuts were causing him. Angus’ face looked like the Greek tragedy mask as his aquatic conveyance started sinking in the harbor.

“NAAAURRRRRRR!!!!” cried Angus. “Now what am I gonna tell Big Scotty?”

“One,” replied Tom, “Who the fuck is Big Scotty? And two, I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to get on the first flight out of here back to Sydney, and I’m going to forget you two ever existed.”

“We’re gonna get back at you,” muttered Blinky, who was struggling back to his feet.

“No you’re not. Because I never told you my name, I paid cash for everything, and you’re not going to know where I am once I get on the plane.”

Tom turned around one last time to face them.

“Besides, I get the feeling that boat I just sank? That didn’t belong to Big Scotty. And I don’t think he’s gonna care about a mark that you let get away.”

Tom turned around and walked into the direction of town, probably to look for someone who could get him contact info for a cab, relieved that he escaped unscathed, annoyed at himself for buying too much into the scam, but satisfied that he had found a unique adventure, one that let him get his mind off his mom, his life, and the disappearance of his tag team partner.

-

As soon as Tom switched off of airplane mode back at Mascot in Sydney, the phone rang. An unfamiliar number. It could have been one of two things. A telemarketer or Rod Seger. Either one was bad, but he still picked up anyway out of some obsessive compulsive reason, like the one call he denied would be something important.

“Hello.”

“Tom! Tom! You won’t believe what happened! I finally got rid of the necrotic flesh. The rot from York Taterton is finally all gone.”

“That’s great. I thought I told you never to call this number again.”

“Yeah, but I really am in a bind. It turns out that I violated a lot of Cryptid Code when I allowed myself to be captured by the sphinx. I need another booking in Mexico. Please.”

Tom thought to himself, I should’ve done this a long time ago.

“Look, enough’s enough, Rod. You got me in trouble in A1E. You’re 75 percent of the reason why Lindsay gets mad at me here. There’s a not-insignificant increase in local crime when I book you in Mexico, and Gavin Yum of all people thinks you’re unpleasant. Gavin. Yum. Do you know how abrasive you have to be to get him to hate you?”

“Come on man, you can’t…”

“No. Rod. It’s over. Lose my number. In fact, first thing I do when I get back to the states is change my phone number. I can’t do this anymore. You’ve been dragging me down for too long.”

“Ple…”

Beep.

The call ended.

Tom blocked the number as he did with all the numbers Rod used to call him over the years. His thoughts went back to Zapp and where the hell he was, but given the events of the last week, the last few months, his entire lifetime, a not-insignificant part of Tom’s psyche would’ve been relieved if his tag partner had never turned up again.

-

Many miles away, something beneath the mire, in the bottom of a dark, Scottish laaaaaake.

Two young rowed their boat out on the stillness of Loch Morlich. They have their fishing permits attached to their belts and their rods and tackle boxes loaded, ready to catch some fish on the unusually warm January afternoon in Scotland. They cast their lines. The one boy sat back and relaxed, cracking the seal on his bottle of Irn Bru. The second one caught a snag right away. Thinking he landed a big one, he pulled back on his line and reeled it with hectic force. The line snapped however.

“My word, that fish must’ve been a right bellend.”

“Ya weapon, no way that fish’a broke the line that quick, you probably got caught on some driftwood or somethin’.”

“Maybe.”

However, if one were to follow the part of the line that had broken, they would find the hook attached to a padlock on a lockbox with sporadic paint chipped from it. The wear and rust, however, could not obscure the markings on the box.

The markings of the official seal of the Presidency of Indonesia…