The Ballad of Roberta and Ten Matchbox Cars

"I feel sorry for short people, you know. When it rains, they’re the last to know." -Rodney Dangerfield

Just grin and bear it, Cooley. You’re almost there.

I’ve lived a life, people. I’m a lot like West Virginia, wild and wonderful. It was nothing new for me to draw a crowd - at the craps table, in a wrestling ring, or dressed as Bluey at some kid’s birthday party. My life has been a show.

But if you would’ve told me a few weeks - hell, a few days ago - that I would be here standing on the bar in Shot Bar Kenji'z Shinsaibashi, I wouldn’t have bought what you were selling. Yet, there I was, a mixture of some thirty or forty Japanese business men and bōryokudan shouting at me in a foreign tongue. I’ve done PCP with the UPS man and speedballs with railyard ghosts, but there isn’t a feeling in the world like the drunken power of being at the center of a fiery mob.

I’d like to see Steve Harrison or Tony Gamble command a crowd like this. They couldn’t. Can’t. This isn’t some deep, emotional existential crisis.

All that power.

They were all there to see me perform and they all wanted the same thing: for me to fit just one more matchbox car up my ass.

Apparently seven was the most any of these primates had ever seen.

Ha. Seven. I could do seven in my sleep. Your boy wasn’t always rich. There were plenty of years flying domestic before I came into the land of milk and honey.

No, that was no feat and I wasn’t just any jerk off tourist. There was currently a 69’ El Camino, a 81’ Pontiac Firebird, an ambulance, a Dodge Hellcat and a few others I couldn’t identify crammed up inside my god pocket. The ambulance hurt the worst of all - I was pretty sure it was missing a wheel. With this final push there were nine cars hanging in my garage. I was one little matchbox car away from taking it all in this high stakes game.

What would be worth shoving nine matchbox cars inside myself, you ask?

Well, other than a good time, there was a girl. There’s always a girl, isn’t there?

Atop the bar sat a genuine, one of a kind Masamune Katana. The light glimmered off it just so. It was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. I had tried fruitlessly to buy it off the barman, a sawn off retired oyuban of the Aika Gekido-dan biker gang named Kenji. But Kenji had refused even the most ridiculous offers of cash for that beautiful Viagra made of steel.

Nope, it was special. As you sometimes see with inanimate objects, cars, and animals - he had named it. It had to be something extraordinary to get Kenji to come off of it.

So I pitched the first thing that came to mind.

Did I think Kenji was going to actually give up his precious Roberta on a bet about some coked up descendent of the Caucasus mountains trying to fill the metaphorical hole in him with a bunch of toy cars in the literal hole in him? Absolutely not, but I have yet to back down from a dare and I wasn't starting here.

I was going to win that sword and then I was going to use it to lop off Tony Gamble’s stupid smile. His head, I mean, but inherently that stupid smile with it. God, it made me so uncomfortable.

The Grin.

You can tell Tony Gamble is one of those guys that smirks at his own Jabber posts. Smarmy.  Let’s see Tony Gamble put a handful of matchbox cars up his ass. I bet he’d of tapped at three.

The crowd silenced as the barman set the final hurdle down on the bar. Nervous excitement ran roughshod through the patrons as they crowded in closer to see what the final instrument of destruction would be.

A fire truck.

Wow, this son of a bitch really didn’t want to come off that sword, huh? Couldn’t blame him. That sword could be worth millions. I would be lying if I told you there wasn't part of me wondering if a fire truck could even physically fit inside my crowded ass at this point. At this point, though, I was pot committed.

Maybe I have a gambling problem.

“Good luck, Mr. Cooley,” the Kenji's gold tooth glimmered in his wicked smile as he wheeled the firetruck across the bar toward me. Another smarmy punk.

Our eyes met, neither of us flinching. This man had never met Jackson Cooley. I am a maelstrom, I am carnage, and I never lose a bet.

“I don’t need luck, Kenji. I was born lucky.”

I swiped the firetruck from under Kenji’s hand. Everyone watched in wonder as I eased the firetruck into position. The crowd collectively sucked in all the air from the room in anticipation as I rang the doorbell first.

“Nope, not yet,” I whispered, patient and deft in my approach.

"Cooley, what in the fuck?"

"Oh, hey Nick."

That was my cue. As that piece of gutter trash that is my best friend Nick DiSalvo reentered the bar from the bathroom and the shock and horror filled his face my body shook, but I didn't break eye contact with Nick as that last matchbox car entered my atmosphere.

"Weooh, weeoh motherfucker," I grunted as my Sarlacc pit closed around the firetruck.

I'm not normally one to curse, but that felt like an appropriate response.

Chaos ensued. The entire bar erupted in cheers. One of the biker boys, undoubtedly a bōryokudan in his prime, shook their Sapporo up to send a stream of pressurized carbonation and beer through the open spaces between all my adoring fans. This caught on like masturbation at a boy scout camp, everyone spraying or just generally throwing their drinks. In the monsoon of alcohol I stood up straight, fixed my leopard print tie, and put my did a small curtsy.

I pushed past them all and to the karaoke machine. The DJ leaned in for me to whisper my song choice to him. You could've heard a pin drop while I grabbed that microphone and cleared my throat.

Those old familiar chords.

"Love hurts. Love scars."

By the time I finished the most beautiful rendition of "Love Hurts" anyone has ever done with a bunch of children's toys in their ass, there wasn't a dry eye in that bar. The bikers and the business men and everyone in between had their arms around one another swaying with that painful melody. We all experienced something special that night.

I found God. He's in Osaka.

With my pants still around my ankles, I waddled back to the bar. Why hadn't I gone to get rid of this unholy amalgamation in my rectum yet or at least even pulled my damn pants back up? A power move. Not only was I going to best you for Roberta, Kenji, but I was going to serenade you and your boys AND do it all with my freedom dangling.

Back at the bar, Kenji's face was hard to read.

Was he pissed he was going to have to part with his precious Roberta? I could imagine giving up your prized possession to some degenerate would hurt. Not as much as having ten matchbox cars in your ass. Either way, if this guy tried to back out now I'd take that sword down and make him eat it from point to hilt.

He waved a hand in the air and the entire bar went silent as a church. No one moved or spoke. I could hear Nick's heart beating across the bar. For the first time I noticed that our boy Kenji was missing a portion of his pinky.

Oh, wonderful.

"Jackson Cooley-sama, omedetō gozaimasu. Anata no subarashii okonai wa hontō ni inspirēshon desu. Watashi wa anata no yūki to chie ni fukaku kandō shite orimasu."

In unison, the entire bar let out a, "HAI!". Kenji was the first to bow and every son of a bitch besides Nick quickly followed suit.

"Thank you, thank you very much."

Whilst Kenji moved his sliding ladder over from where he kept it tucked away at the end of the bar, I fished around inside my neon green western suit for my smokes. Nothing like a cigarette after shoving three-thousand yen worth of matchbox cars in your ass. Nick pushed through the raucous crowd to sit next to me at the bar. He held his hand out to the seat beside him, but I waved him off like he was asking me to hit on a hard twenty.

"Not sure that's the best idea right now, Nick," I said with a Camel clutched between my teeth. The business men next to us were fighting over who was going to light it for me.

"Cooley, I literally went to go take a leak and I come back to... whatever the fuck that was. And will you put your goddamn pants back on?"

"Nick, life is a wave and you have to lean in."

A flame finally appeared in front of me for that Camel and I happily drew it towards the end of my cigarette. Deeply inhaling, I began watching Kenji as he carefully climbed the ladder to get to the top of the bar where my sweet Roberta waited on me.

"What the fuck are you going to do with that, Cooley?"

"Well, once I pass this gaggle of cars, I'm going to go Kuromon Ichiba Market and I'm going to pay somebody a hundred-thousand yen to let me cut a goddamn live octopus in half."

"I don't even know what half of what you just said fucking means. Why would you want to kill a goddamn octopus?"

Kenji was sure taking his sweet time up there. He seemed to be talking to the sword or praying to it or something. That's all I needed was some blood feud curse laid on Roberta. Chrissake.

"Because, Nick, I'm still upset that walking rogaine commercial Steve Harrison beat me. In fact I think I'm going to kill every octopus in there."

Two glasses appeared on the bar in between Nick and myself.

"Jackson Cooley-sama, I would be honored to share a drink with you."

"Well, I've never been one to turn down a free drink, Kenji. What's on deck?"

"Only the finest for you, Cooley-sama."

A beautiful Miyaki Odori Geisha adorned the label of this majestic looking bottle. I couldn't read a damn thing on the label, but there was something special about that bottle of juice. Inside the whiskey was a shade of gold I'd never seen. There was no way a degenerate like myself deserved to even smell the contents of that Karuizawa Distillery bottle.

"Oh, you're wasting that on me, Kenji. I've shot up with puddle water more than once."

"I'll take his," Nick replied, beaming at the prospect of sampling this nectar of the Japanese Gods.

If looks could kill, I would've been sending Nick's sister an arrangement of flowers. Kenji reached under the bar and for a fleeting moment Nick looked like he was about to bolt. Instead of bringing up a shotgun, Kenji retrieved a four liter plastic jug that looked fairly like canola oil left out in the sun and just said "Whiskey".

"Nick, this isn't America. I don't think they even have guns here."

A third glass was lined up and immediately filled with that viscous abortion in the four liter jug. Nick put on that famous awkward white guy smile and accepted his drib with a nod. The other two glasses, Kenji filled with whatever was in that sexy Geisha bottle.

Once we had all collected a glass and held them out in front of us, Kenji cheersed us with a firm, "Otsukaresama desu!"

Of course Nick and I butchered the mimicry of this, but hey, when in Osaka, right?

"Jesus fucking Christ," I remarked as the remarkable Japanese Whiskey worked its way down my gullet.

"Cooley?"

"I'm sorry, you give me some Jesus fucking Christ whiskey and I'm going to have to say Jesus fucking Christ."

With a single tear in his eye, Kenji laid Roberta on the bar in between us. Overwhelmed with grief, respect, and confusion at his smorgasboard of feelings, the barman bowed again before leaving.

I grabbed the sword in its beautiful plum sheath and slid it an inch out to inspect the steel.

"Come on, Nick. After I evacuate the toy garage living in my ass I've gotta go see a man about an octopus."

It was almost professional. Respectable even.

PRIME was holding a press junket backstage at the Osaka-Jo Hall.

"The enemy."

From behind the curtain I scanned the rows of journalists in their chairs. Wrestling is still alive and well in Japan and these people give a damn about it. There were cameras and microphones and the journalists seemed genuinely interested in whatever harebrain crap the mongoloid before me was spouting. Shortly after he finished and Nick and myself were ushered to the two seats in front of the room at a little white table. Our handler was a gorgeous young Japanese girl in a white button up shirt.

It took me a moment to set my things down and arrange them how I wanted. Roberta, the firetruck, a fresh bag of octopus, and my four liter jug of Whiskey. There had to be a proper feng-shui.

"Please, Mr. Cooley-san, have a seat," our handler held her hand out over the seat in front of the microphones.

"I'll stand, thanks."

I took a big swig of whiskey and looked out at the sea of marks. Sucking my teeth, I pointed to the one that looked the friendliest. Always start with a softball.

"Cooley-san, what do you think of Tony Gamble?"

"I don't think of him at all. He is, at best, the least remarkable character in the entire cadre of clowns that make up the egg bandits. Oh no he has a scar on his face. If you want my honest read this is a really sad guy, eaten up by all of the things he never accomplished."

The crowd looked confused by this, but I am not the type to give anything away for free.

"Respectfully, Cooley, what do you mean what he never accomplished? Tony Gamble is a storied wrestler with multiple title wins and long term holds.  You have had a collective ten matches and lost most of them."

Why is it that everytime someone says "respectfully", it is immediately followed by the most disrespectful thing they could possibly say?

You have to love journalists.

"I don't mean his career. He has had an amazing career and he is probably a better wrassler than me. The Grin is a failure as a man. As a father, a husband, and as a friend. The worst part of all of this is that he knows it. I was there for Rob Williams when he needed me. Nick DiSalvo has never gone hungry while I've been around. I take care of those around me and have lived with zero regrets. Can Tony Gamble say the same?"

I retrieved the Camels from inside my jacket pocket and slid one from the pack with my teeth. Nick cut the manager off at the pass before he could chastise me for smoking in the building. He's worth every penny.

"No, he can't," I continued through an exhale of smoke. "The sun is setting on Gamble. He's fading. There is nothing sadder than a man hanging on past his prime. Next question."

A young man stood and introduced himself. I have this problem where I don't pay attention to the things other people say, so I missed his opener.

"Mr. Cooley, are you worried about losing to Tony Gamble?"

"Am I worried about losing to Tony Gamble? No. It doesn't matter to me if I lose to Tony Gamble. I am a millionaire - I don't need this. Tony Gamble does. The only thing worse than losing to Jason Snow is following it up with a loss to some no-name who, according to Tony, should be facing someone like Quinn or MD Storm. If I lose I'll just get back on my private jet with a couple ten thousand dollar hookers and play a few games of King Kong. If Gamble loses, though. Oof."

The best part of the four liter jug of whiskey was the wide mouth. Most liquor bottles have that little mouth made for pouring. This thing was made to cook in an industrial kitchen. I took a big swig and nodded towards an attractive young woman with a voice recorder.

"Thank you, Mr. Cooley-san. What will you be doing to avoid a repeat of your match with Steve Harrison?"

"Well, that's a very good question. For starters, I am going to do a speedball before the match this time instead of after. I think that was the miss in my strategy. Look, like I said, I'm not here for the paycheck or glory. I could be sitting on some beach somewhere spooning cocaine into some stripper's buttcrack and reenacting that scene from Scarface. Instead I'm going to climb into the ring to fight Cancer Jiles' two-bit gimp next week. Why? I just want to fight. Win, lose, or draw I'm going to hurt and he's going to hurt me and that's all I'm really looking for out of this."

It seemed to satisfy them. On to the next.

"What about Sean O'Neill?"

"Aw, he's my little buddy. I tell you what, blue is really that guy's color!"

The dust of the day was beginning to settle. I felt like the Hulk when they were trying to turn him back into Bruce Banner. Sun's going down, big guy.

"I got a joke I want to close with. Cancer Jiles. Coral Avalon, and Hessian are sitting around jerking each other off. Cancer turns to the other two and says, Hey you know I'm pretty stupid. I bet I'm the stupidest man of all time. So they take a picture of his stupid kissy face he makes and send it off to the Guiness Book of World Records. Well, this gets Coral thinking and he says, I've got a pretty big forehead. I bet it's the biggest forehead of all time. They measure his forehead and send it into the Guiness Book of World Records. Now big Hessian knows he has to keep pace with his buddies so he says, I've got a really small weiner. I bet it's the smallest of all time. So the boys break out their magnifying glass and measuring tape and send a photo off to Guiness."

I took a sip of whiskey and let them simmer.

"A week later the boys are jerking each other off again and Cancer says, Hey I got my letter back. He opens it and says, Holy shit guys I am the stupidest person that ever lived. Coral gets all excited and says, I got mine too! So he opens his letter and sure enough, he's got the biggest forehead anyone has ever seen. Well, you know that only leaves Big Hess. He's nervous because he's scared about being overshadowed by Cancer's stupidity and Coral's giant forehead. But they egg him on, so he reluctantly opens the envelope. His face drops and he says..."

One more sip of whiskey.

"Who the fuck is Tony Gamble?"

Cue the laughter. That one always kills. Of course Hessian would know who Tony is and that he has the worlds smallest dick, but it makes for a great joke.

"You've been wonderful and I hope you all enjoy this next week. I hope that Tony Gamble has enough gas left in the tank to bring the guy who beat Jason Snow once upon a time to the ring. I hope he has some fire in his belly and gravel in his teeth. If the same sad, brooding man that has suffered loss after loss shows up, I don't want any part in it. Come on old girl, I know you got one more in you."

I bow to the crowd and put my arm around Nick.

"Take me home, Nick. I'm tired."

Was it enough to prepare for a monster like The Grin? I'd drank eighteen year old Japanese single malt whiskey, shoved a bunch of cars in my ass (more than Cecilworth could), committed a genocide on octopus, and called Tony Gamble's dick small in front of a room full of people. I didn't know, but if it wasn't enough, at least I laid my head on the pillow knowing I'd done all I could to prepare.