The Leisurely Fall (and Infernal Summer) of CDL

At heart, I suppose I’m what one might call a man of leisure -- or, more accurately, a man who aspires to leisure with an increasingly implausible persistence. I've always relished time spent in my own company -- the opportunity to ponder life's great mysteries (why do Mediterranean types insist on wearing dress shoes without socks? Is it the heat that impairs their sartorial instincts?), read the great books of our time (Jacob Rees-Mogg’s* weighty tome on the Victorians had long invited my perusal), and enjoy the bucolic delights of Northern Illinois (ha!).

That’s why, while some had responded to the sudden closing of HOW’s hallowed doors with shock and disbelief, I’d initially welcomed it as opportunity to indulge in a few recreational activities professional wrestling rarely allowed me time for: a round or two of golf, a spot of lunch at the Drake, maybe a trip to Aunt Dot’s place on Martha’s Vineyard.

One look at the old bank balance swiftly dashed any hopes of such frivolity.

No, the first days of summer were not spent luxuriating in my bachelordom but rather flagellating myself via a series of demeaning jobs.

First there was my stint working for Benny’s Burgers as a short-order cook. Unfortunately, the stench of fried onions and sallow regret proved too much for my delicate constitution, and the titular Benny took exception to me inoculating myself against these barbarities with regular fortifying sips from my sterling silver hip flask.

A brief spell in pest control, I regret to say, ended in a similar fashion.

My turn as janitor at Harper High School, however, proved somewhat more bearable. The work itself was as unfulfilling as that of my previous posts, but when one of the students recognised me, the subsequent gossip and chatter earned me a celebrity that went some way to nursing my bruised and fragile ego.

Regrettably, this role was to end as abruptly as the others.

When one particularly bullish sophomore questioned the legitimacy of my former profession, I felt it only sporting to offer a practical demonstration of my patented Stretch Muffler. How was I to know of his unfortunate calcium deficiency? The lad had the brawny air of a welterweight. Alas, the sickening snap of his femur echoed through the halls like a gunshot, and I was unceremoniously relieved of my duties.

They say we’re all living quiet lives of desperation, or some such rot. I can’t remember exactly who said it -- Mickey insists it was Louis Theroux, but I have my doubts. Possibly his father. Maybe the Brontës.

Either way, I’ve never placed much stock in that brand of hand-wringing fatalism. Yet with the bills mounting and my bank account as bare as a vicar's wine cellar, I had to admit: something drastic was required.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I find myself once more within the fluorescently lit confines of a wrestling arena.

It’s been months, but all the familiar sights and sounds are present and correct: the baying of the bovine crowd, the cloying scent of hot dogs and other unspeakable American “delicacies” wafting over from the vendors’ stalls.

And yet... something is amiss.

The surroundings are a little too polished, the lighting a touch too forgiving. No, this isn’t the grimy underbelly of the Lee Best Arena through which I am presently sauntering, but rather the sleek, corporate corridors of the Minneapolis Target Center.

The reason? A shot at redemption.

“Close your mouth, Mickey,” I murmur to my trusty manservant, catching sight of his wide-eyed expression. “You stick out like a Geordie** at a spelling contest.”

“Sorry, Mr Charlie,” he says, hastily straightening up. “It’s just, this place is all bells and whistles, 'innit? Finally, we’re movin’ up in the world.”

Now, it’s important you understand, dear reader, that while Mickey might resemble a Hell’s Angel chewing on a thistle, his character -- by and large -- is touchingly childlike. It’s not that he’s stupid. It’s just that when the big man upstairs was handing out brains, he made up for Mickey’s undersized bean by stashing the lot in his oversized fists.

“Hold your horses, Mick. Remember, this is just a courtesy call -- nothing more, nothing less. If an opportunity arises, we’ll give it the consideration it merits. The goal is to let the powers that be know that Charles de Lacy is in tip-top condition and ready for action.”

The more discerning amongst you will have realised by now that my visit to the Target Center coincided with PRIME’s REVIVAL 70.

What’s more, as you may have inferred, my distinguished history with High Octane Wrestling would, under ordinary circumstances, render me persona non grata at such an affair. Indeed, most of my former colleagues would sooner be discovered in flagrante delicto at a family funeral than caught fraternising with the old enemy.

But I, dear reader, am not most men. That is, I hasten to add, I harbour no such tribal grudges (not the bit about shagging at funerals).

PRIME, to my mind, was simply another potential employer -- albeit one with a rather more illustrious reputation and significantly less mildew in the locker rooms.

No, if one has even a trace of ambition, one should aim for the top. Failing that, one must simply go where the money is.

And between you and me, PRIME’s vaults are positively bursting at the seams.

I won’t bore you with the details of my meeting with Lindsay Troy. A gentleman always respects the confidentiality of these matters. And, in any case, much of it was broadcast live.

But I will say this of the aftermath: Mickey’s predictably buoyant mood was hardly out of keeping with my own.

“Bye bye, TV dinners! Bye bye, bedbugs! Bye bye, Mrs Kowalski’s creepy son watching me sleep!”

Mickey threw his arms in the air like a televangelist appealing to the camera, all wide eyes and sweaty conviction.

“Mr Charlie, we’re back in business!”

I allowed myself the faintest of smiles. It was difficult not to be swept away by the man’s enthusiasm, even if I suspected we were getting rather ahead of ourselves.

“Mickey, has no one ever told you not to put the cart before the horse?” I said, noting with some alarm that it was my second horse-based metaphor in nearly as many minutes. I really ought to get my head checked -- possibly for hay.

He paused his celebrations, giving the question some thought.

“I think so. It’s like telling chickens not to count their eggs, right?”

“Well -- yes, close enough.”

“I know, I know. It’s just, we’ve been living in that roach-infested hole for so long…”

“I’m well aware of that, but no sense getting worked up before we’ve even seen a contract -- let alone signed it.”

“‘Spose you’re right, boss. Still, I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

I’ve always found Mickey’s boundless faith in good fortune, karma, and other such mystical poppycock utterly infuriating. The man is incorrigibly optimistic, even in the most dismal of circumstances, a trait wholly antithetical to my keen sensibilities as a man of reason.

Tell a sane man he has a month to live and he’ll pass through the usual stages of grief before pulling himself together and getting his affairs in order. Tell Mickey, and he’ll ask if that’s a calendar month or working days, then set about planning a beach holiday.

But once again, Mickey’s ceaseless optimism was vindicated, as I was officially announced for my PRIME debut at REVIVAL 72 -- proof, if ever it were needed, that reason is no match for blind faith.

***

Nate Colton was a name with which I was only on nodding terms. But really, you can’t judge me too harshly. Having been tethered to a two-year contract with HOW, my knowledge of the wider wrestling world was limited at best.

I did what I could, of course. I kept my oar in, made a point of glancing at the weeklies, and occasionally cast a critical eye over the top tens. Still, one can hardly be expected to stay abreast of every indie darling and hot-shot up-and-comer. When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you tend to grow rather inured to the endless parade of so-called prodigies.

Unless the name in question is preceded by “reigning champion” or followed by “hall of famer,” I fail to see why I should be expected to take an interest.

Fortunately for me, Mickey showed no such discretion and, having more time on his hands than I (and a keener interest in American sports -- the poor bugger even subjected himself to NASCAR), had a working knowledge of the less glamaorous names on the roster.

“Nate Colton?” he said, eyebrows raised. “You’re kidding, right? You've got a match with Nate Colton? That’s Jake Colton’s boy!”

This meant very little to me.

Mickey, sensing my ignorance, launched into a breathless precis of the Colton lineage. Jake, it seemed, was something of a technical wizard during the late ’90s and early 2000s -- the kind of wrestler who never needed to raise his voice (or a chair) to get the job done. Since retiring, he'd set up his own academy and turned it into a veritable factory of talent. Nate, his eldest, had graduated top of his class and carried credentials from both the amateur ranks and the University of Indiana. A blue-chipper, I believe the term is.

“Lost to Fontaine at Revival 70,” Mickey added, more reflective now. “But still. The kid’s good. Really good.”

I regarded him for a moment. Mickey, not Colton. There are few things in life more disconcerting than one’s manservant offering unprompted, insightful commentary on technical wrestling.

“Well,” I said at last, searching (and failing) for something intelligent to say, “we must all find meaning where we can.”

I’ve never quite understood all this second-generation, third-generation fuss. Why should I be impressed that you’ve followed your old man into the family business? If I’d taken my father’s lead and broken into back-bench politics, would that somehow make my achievements more impressive? Of course not. It would simply mean I’d inherited a Rolodex and a fondness for complimentary vol-au-vents.

Nevertheless, I trusted Mickey's assesment of the Colton lad and resolved to conduct a spot of reconnaissance before our proposed encounter.

***

The hotel television was a sorry sight, one of those boxy contraptions where the bulk of the casing dwarfed the screen itself, as if it had been designed by someone with a deep mistrust of entertainment. What's more, a portion of the screen was obscured by the metal bars of a cage intended to deter hotel patrons from theft, although the reward one might expect for such a feat could hardly justify the effort of lugging its cubic mass down twelve flights of stairs. Did I mention there was no functioning elevator?

Such were the conditions in Chicago’s cheapest hotel, a dubious establishment I had been forced to endure thanks to a booking made in haste (no fault of my own) and a threadbare budget (somewhat my fault).

Yes, in a cruel twist of fate, I was dismayed to discover that my first appearance in a PRIME ring would take place in Chicago, home of my previous employers.

The same Chicago I had departed scarcely three weeks earlier.

The very Chicago that had bundled me out with all the ceremony of a bouncer heaving a lager-lout from a wine bar with a no-jeans policy.

My departure had not been so much a fond farewell as a quiet absconding, carried out under cover of night and the rattling cough of an ageing taxi. This, I should add, came after a series of unfortunate misunderstandings with certain gentlemen of the short-term lending persuasion ("Loanshark" is such a vulgar term, don't you think?).

And then there was Mrs Kowalski’s creepy son, who, for reasons I neither understood nor wished to explore, had taken a shine to Mickey and watching him sleep. With a bowl of cereal. From the doorway.

So it was with no small measure of satisfaction that I had waved farewell to the Windy City and headed for greener, or at least less hostile, pastures.

Imagine my delight, then, when the great wheel of fortune spun once more and deposited me back in the city limits.

But I digress.

Back in our dingy hotel room, Mickey sat on the end of the bed, propped up on one elbow, remote in hand, squinting at the flickering image behind the bars. As he continued to coax the television into displaying something other than static, I began to see what may or may not have been a wrestling match.

"There we go." He beamed with some satisfaction.

As the image came into sharper focus I could now decipher two men grappling in the centre of a ring emblazoned with the PRIME logo. One of the men, an effeminate looking creature of slight stature and build, was in the process of getting his rather pretty nose enthusiastically relocated across his face. His opponent, several inches taller and a good deal heavier, appeared to be enjoying the task immensely, delivering each architectural adjustment with the air of a man putting up shelves after a row with his wife.

The penny finally dropped. Mickey was prepping me for my upcoming match. One of these two men was clearly my scheduled opponent and, on the basis of what I was seeing, I knew which one I fancied.

"See the guy getting his face rearranged?" Mickey said, with unconcealed glee.

"Yes?"

"Well, that's Joe Fontaine. He's one half of the tag team champions."

"And the chap doing the rearranging?" I enquired, hopefully.

He grinned. "That's Nate Colton."

I sighed.

"Thought it might be."

Colton was not much taller than I, and not perceptibly heavier. But where my midsection bore the noble curve of a life well-fed, a diet rich in lobster bisque and port-glazed figs, his was all sinew and abdominals, carved with the joyless precision of a man who lifts furniture for sport.

"Mick," I confided with uncharacteristic candour. "I fear I've made a terrible mistake".

"C'mon, Mr Charlie. He ain't so bad."

"If I were twenty years younger, I might be inclined to agree. As things stand, I am a forty-eighty year old man with a paunch and a chronic bad back. That young man," I pointed at the screen, "has an insatiable appetite for violence. I, on the other hand, have an insatiable appetite for beluga caviar and Château Margaux."

"You're forgetting one thing, boss."

"And what's that?"

Mickey tapped the remote, sending the footage lurching forward until the wrestlers moved at double speed -- like a particularly bloodthirsty episode of The Benny Hill Show.

When he resumed play, Colton had Fontaine tangled in some sort of modified STF.

“This is hardly bolstering my confidence, Mick.”

“Wait for it.”

“Listen, I'm no masochist. Sure, I dabbled a bit at college, didn't we all, but that's all firmly behind me now. If the lad starts choking me like that, I’ll tap quicker than Fred Astaire, let me assure you of that.”

"Keep watching."

Just as I was about to avert my gaze, sickened by the sight of Fontaine’s bulging eyes and beetroot-hued face, a third party made his presence known, bursting onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere. Clutching a garish gold-plated belt, he brought it down upon Colton’s skull with all the force of a minor royal christening a ship, though with decidedly less champagne.

"BAM!" Mickey swung his arms down suddenly, mimicing the brutality taking place on the screen.

I watched on as Fontaine, his delicate features now barely recogniseable, instinctively draped an arm over his opponents chest.

“What did I tell you, Mr Charlie!”

I blinked.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Well," he responded, a tad too impatiently for my liking. "Notice anything?"

“That Colton has a suspiciously soft skull?”

“That Fontaine won!”

“Yes, Mickey. But only thanks to an act of egregious skulduggery!” I gestured vaguely at the screen. “The poor lad was already thumbing through the heavenly hymnbook and queueing up for his chat with old St Pete before that third chap brained Colton with what I can only assume is a sorry excuse for a title belt.”

Mickey shrugged. “A win’s a win.”

“A win’s a win?” I stared at him, aghast. “You make it sound like a simple matter of arithmetic! That man was being reduced to pulp until someone else stepped in and finished the job. It’s hardly cause for celbration.”

He gave me that irritatingly earnest grin of his.

“Just saying, boss… if Fontaine can beat him, maybe you can too.”

“Provided I’m accompanied by a belt-wielding lunatic with questionable principles?”

He nodded cheerfully. “Exactly.”

I sank back into the creaking armchair and rubbed my greying temples.

“Mickey,” I said at last, “remind me again why I brought you.”

“To carry your bags and gee you up.”

“You’re doing a bang-up job of the former.”

***

I should clarify, at this juncture, that my previous ignorance of Nate Colton and his standing in the world of professional wrestling is no reflection whatsoever on his abilities. Indeed, upon viewing his match with Fontaine, my interest was sufficiently piqued that I sought to learn more about him. Further inspection revealed that he was, in fact, ranked amongst the top 5 wrestlers in the company -- no mean feat in a talent pool the size of PRIME -- and upon trawling through more of his tapes, I was duly impressed. Not only did he exhibit the keen wrestling mind and technical prowess required to thrive amongst today’s elite, but also the nous and wherewithal to hold his own against the sport’s more seasoned veterans.

This did not bode well for me.

Old Father Time had, without question, rendered my once Adonis-like figure into something rather less than tip-top, and while I had long prided myself on my cunning and instinct -- qualities that served me admirably in the twilight of my career -- it seemed Colton had me matched there, too.

No, this was shaping up to be quite the challenge. Perhaps one match too far in a retirement tour that had already dragged on some three years longer than intended -- ever since I’d reluctantly signed on the dotted line with… what was it Ms Troy had called him? Leecifer?

Very droll.

And yet, the heart Mickey had taken in seeing Fontaine snatch the win with such a simple act of brutal jiggery-pokery... well, it gave me a glimmer of hope, however slim.

***

"Mick," I said one morning over a refreshing cup of Assam.

We were seated in what the locals might generously have described as a diner. The table bore a faint sticky sheen, the exact origin of which I dared not speculate, and a plucky little ant was making its way across the gingham tablecloth between us, undeterred by the towering sugar bowl.

"Yes, Mr Charlie?"

"I'm going to need you in my corner next Friday."

"When am I not, sir?"

"Yes, yes. Quite. I suppose what I’m trying to say is..." I faltered, struggling to frame the matter delicately.

"Ah. I think I understand."

"You do?" I asked, with some relief.

"Yes, sir. You told me last time --" He straightened slightly, adopting a moronic monotone as if reciting holy writ: 'Don’t involve yourself in the matches. A gentleman fights his own battles.'

"Did I really say that?" I asked, a little guiltily.

"You did, sir. I even wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget."

He produced a crumpled slip of paper from his breast pocket and slid it across the table. I unfolded it and squinted at the doggerel scrawl. No use -- utterly illegible. Still, I had no reason to doubt him. I remembered uttering those words perfectly well.

"Hmm..." I offered, inadequately, while hoping against hope he hadn’t noticed me tearing the note to pieces beneath the tablecloth.

"You see, Mickey, the code of the gentleman is a complex one. There aren’t rules, exactly -- more guiding principles. And, as I’m sure you know only too well, different scenarios call for different responses."

He stared at me, mouth agape, like a Labrador confronted with algebra.

"You don’t mean --"

"I sincerely believe," I whispered through gritted teeth, glancing around to ensure no one was within earshot, "that we take every precaution necessary."

"And by every precaution necessary you mean --"

He picked up his teacup and brought it crashing down onto the table, flattening the ant with theatrical finality.

"Any precaution necessary," I repeated.

A sinister smile spread across Mickey’s lips.

"Mr Charlie, I thought you’d never ask."

Fin

---

*Jacob Rees-Mogg: A modern British politician of the old school. Prone to monogrammed pyjamas, classical quotations, and the firm belief that the Empire was rather a good idea on balance.

**Geordie (n.): A species of Northerner, hailing from the misty regions beyond Yorkshire, identifiable by their unique dialect, indifference to trousers in sub-zero temperatures, and charming inability to pronounce vowels in the manner God and Received Pronunciation intended.