Wherein The Anglo Luchador Gets Really Drunk And Also Really Enjoys Pub Trivia And Remembering Some Guys Albeit Incorrectly

“You didn’t invite that loser Rod this time, did you?”

“Chill,” Tom replied, “he’s not a loser, he’s just got a rough upbringing, Chuck.”

Chuck glowered at him with silent disapproval.

“But no,” Tom continued, “I didn’t tell him. He couldn’t come anyway. His dad took him out of town this weekend.”

“Good, cuz I don’t need him bringin’ the mood down. Not only is there gonna be girls from Little Flower there, Sal said that G got a keg.”

Tom winced slightly. This party would be the first time he was around alcohol, although not for lack of trying. No fake IDs nor unshaven facial hair could get them served, and they didn’t have the money to afford runners. Tom had paradoxical relief each time their underage drinking was thwarted. He’d seen how his parents would react to lesser things like broken windows or curse words slipping out.

Coming home drunk?

The mere specter of those consequences kept him up at night.

But it was either the peer pressure with his old neighborhood friends and the “cool” kids from Roman, or it was hanging out with the nerds and the requisite target on his back that came with it.

Peer pressure wins. Fatality.

Gianpaolo Randazzo wasn’t one of the popular kids, but he had two things that let him in their orbit – parents who were never home and money not befitting a guy living in a tight row home in the heart of South Philly. The whispers of his dad being a made man were loud. The gossips swore it was an open secret, but G and his parents were always insistent of it being more a fabulous rumor.

At least until a few years after they all graduated high school, and both Maximo Randazzo and his side-piece Carmella Brindisi were found floating face down in the Schuylkill.

But back to G, his two advantages intersected for a massive kegger that had to be moved from his house to the local cemetery to accommodate all the people who said they were going to be there.

“Drinkin’ in a graveyard, ain’t this disrespectful?” Tom wondered aloud.

“Oh, the good lil’ Catholic boy scared of saints ‘n shit,” sneered Chuck as they walked up to the gates.

“It ain’t that, just, you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Chuck laughed heartily.

“Maybe I will after a couple of beers. Hell, you could probably get me to believe anything after a couple of beers.”

The line to get to the keg was long, but it moved fast. Chants of “Asshole! Asshole!” permeated the air every time someone spilled their beer or poured a cup that was mostly head. For a group of teenagers drinking cheap swill in the dark of a graveyard, that chant went up frequently.

Tom finally got to the front and nervously started working the pump to get the pressure up. After having fastidiously studied everyone who poured a beer, he figured out the best way to avoid the asshole chant. Tilt the red solo cup. Lean the nozzle up against lip. Let it go slowly and then gradually decrease the tilt until it’s upright and you have the right ratio of foam to liquid.

This was it.

He took his first sip.

…

Jesus Christ, he thought. People drank this on purpose? Turns out the best way to get introduced to alcohol wasn’t Milwaukee’s Best Ice. G may have been rich, but he sure was fuckin’ cheap.

But he couldn’t look weird in front of his friends, or more importantly, in front of the girls. Della Imperioli especially caught his eye, and if he made the BITTER BEER FACE from those dumbass Keystone Light ads, he could kiss his chances of making out with her goodbye.

He choked the first cup down and went back for another. And another.

Something funny happened with each successive drink. The grossness went down. He started to feel loose.

He started to feel good.

He chatted up anyone he could find, making jokes, butting into conversations, getting heated and histrionic like his father and grandfathers would. One of his friends asked him if he was really going to train to be a wrestler like his dad, and then one of the smartasses who went to Neumann shouted that wrestling was the fakest shit. Nine beers in and feeling as light as the wind, Tom shouted “FUCK YOU” and climbed a tombstone, goading the goons to call it fake now.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in the back of a paddywagon with a dull throb in his chest. He didn’t get to make out with Della. No, he did a flying press splash from the headstone onto the cold ground and knocked himself out.

Yeah, the cops dragging him home was not a good look, but Tom didn’t care. Aching chest aside, it might have been the best night of his young life to date.

-

Tom decided he would train for the Survivor bar crawl challenge by doing what he did best, well, second-best. Best being the wrestling, y’know?

Drinking. Especially at bars. Best way to get back in the game and keep that prick Dorn on his toes would be to get a lay of the land.

First stop was Merkle’s Bar and Grille, where he met former Team Avalon partner Nathan Lake. It was bar trivia night, and the two found a pretty good groove, at least until the end when their answers were derailed by them noticing a cheater in their midst. Still, third place and a basically free bar tab, thanks to Nathan’s acute trivia knowledge for a curiously early round of trivia was a great start.

Merkle’s had a decent enough vibe, but it was gentrified for his liking. Something about the faux British pub feel felt off. Despite having a ring name that literally contained a root word for the English, Tom always felt more kinship with their neighbor and target of subjugation to the west, even before he met his father-in-law.

Tiocfaidh át lá, bitches.

Tom went to hail a cabbie, but then he saw it, right down the street. The next place where he’d train for the Survivor Bar crawl.

The Cubby Bear.

The sports bar drew him close like a cartoon bear being levitated towards a pie cooling on the window. When he broke the threshold, he was even more in love. Sports memorabilia plastered on the walls. People in Cubs hats and jerseys with greasy food and somehow greasier beverages in front of them. A surly bartender. Sports bars really had become the new dives in the post-hipster era where bartenders called themselves “mixologists” and charged cocktail prices for glasses of juice for the increasingly drier and drier masses of Gen Z.

There was none of that here. Just derelict sports fans with their rum ‘n cokes and light beers. Some craft beers floated about, but that was to be expected. The beer market changed. Tom didn’t find it unwelcome for the most part, as long as bars still had his Mexican lagers.

Cheaper the better.

If Tecate or Modelo weren’t available, he could always fall back on Corona. No lime. Limes were for tourists and the vitamin-C-deficient. He may have technically been the former, but he sure as fuck wasn’t the latter.

But he couldn’t just stand around and wait. Even the least hip places in the world fill up pretty quick, so he found his spot. Right at the end of the bar. He sat on the stool, creaked his back for good measure, and nodded at the bartender. His order? Shot of tequila and a Tecate. He threw back the tequila when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an unmistakably perfect mullet at the other end of the bar.

He wasn’t the only PRIME wrestler there.

After some time, the swole man made his way down to the end of the bar where Tom was.

“Hey.”

“Hunter,” Tom replied.

-

“I’M THE FUCKIN’ EMPEROR NOW!!”

The locker room was drenched in all kinds of debauchery and adult beverages. Seated on the shoulders of two hulking men, he couldn’t remember who they were, but he definitely knew who they weren’t, was a man in a loosely-adhered mask and no other clothes but his boxer briefs and the Empire Pro World Championship.

Thomas Francis Xavier Battaglia. The Anglo Fuckin’ Luchador. World Champion. A bottle of prosecco in one hand and a poorly lit cigar in the other.

One could have told him to act like he’d been there before, but he hadn’t. His first World Championship, and it was sweet. There was no Jonathan Marx or Marcus Westcott for obvious reasons. Sean Stevens was no sore loser, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to attend the victory party of the guy who just beat him. Other than that, the rest of the roster might as well have been in that locker room.

The Founding Fathers were said to have drunk enough alcohol for a small army during George Washington’s farewell party. The Anglo Luchador and the Empire roster made them look like teetotalers. Hundreds, maybe thousands of crushed up cans, liquor bottles set up like bowling pins, knocked down by grown men and women doing Jackass-style stunts. One of the wrestlers, Tom forgot who, downed an entire bottle of grain alcohol in one chug. The roster wished that this Anglo Luchador character would win the title every single week.

“HOLD, YOUR EMPEROR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY, AS EMPEROR!”

The locker room for the first time since Tom burst in with the title fell deathly silent. From the shoulders of those wrestlers, he put his arm up, pointing his finger to the sky and opened his mouth.

And then, it all came out.

Words? No, not words.

The contents of his stomach. All of it. Brownish green and foamy.

All over the guys carrying him. And the folks directly in front. There was an even deader silence for a moment, but they were too drunk to care they were just puked on or at.

A mighty cheer went up, and they just went back to drinking.

-

“Gentlemen, good evening.”

Tom and Scott were interrupted by a familiar voice and face. The Kraken, Henry Keyes descended upon the quiet chaos of the Cubby Bear dressed as the captain of an airship should be: three-piece suit, Bruno Magli loafers, hair coiffed meticulously. He was a sore thumb sticking out, but for men of such stature, the only way to act in a crowd was to stand out.

Tom was only slightly disappointed not to see Helen, the majestic white tiger and Keyes’ first mate.

“Haha, you son of a bitch,” Tom greeted, already a dozen drinks in him with all the gregariousness that came with it. “You got here just in time.”

“They’re doing pub trivia,” interjected Scott. “With you on the team, I think we’ll be unstoppable.”

“I’ve been telling Scott,” Tom said, awkwardly throwing his arm around a visibly disinterested Keyes’ shoulder, “I’m all we need to take home the gold. Hell, me and Blaze, uh, I mean Nate, we took third place earlier down the street, and that was after leaving a third of the page blank cuz we were makin’ fun of a dang CHEATER.”

“Jesus, Tom, how much have you had already?” asked the Kraken.

“Not enough,” he replied with boisterous laughter. “I get smarter as I drink. LET’S FUCKIN’ GO.”

Tom scuttled over to the setup where the emcee had all the signups for pub trivia and grabbed a sheet and a pencil.

-

Darkness permeated the kitchen, seeping into every nook and cranny. Tom couldn’t bother turning the lights on. The day prior, he gave his notice to Dan Ryan that he had to leave his backstage job with Empire. Temptation to get back in the ring clawed at him, scratching the skin and exposing the bare desire to do the only thing he was ever good at, even as every doctor told him his body was not ready for that grind again, that it might be a long time before it ever could be again.

He was alone. When Tam decided she didn’t want life on the road anymore, she took a job in healthcare that allowed her to act as the tether for their budding attempt of a family while Tom could continue to be the satellite.

Then the injury happened.

Lucky for him, Tam got promoted twice in short order. The pay allowed them to continue the life they were planning with Tom at home. Dan was generous and kept Tom’s merch on sale at Empire shows and on their new-fangled website that allowed purchases to happen without leaving the comfort of home. Science! But Tom knew as the memory of The Anglo Luchador grew fainter and fainter in the hearts and minds of wrestling fans, those t-shirt and mask sales would dwindle with diminishing return.

But leaving the only life he’d known as an adult, one he’d thrust himself into right out of high school, no fallback, no failsafe. Just him, makin’ towns, whether in America or Mexico or even Japan.

The only thing left he was good at was drinking.

There he sat, the only thing in front of him a shot glass and a bottle of añejo tequila. He poured himself a generous shot, almost spilling out of the glass, and threw it down with reckless abandon.

As he slammed the glass down on the table, he shed a tear. It wouldn’t be long before the sobbing became uncontrollable.

-

“I swear to every god in the Mexica pantheon, it’s Sarunas Marciulonis.”

“No, no, no, he’s still alive! He didn’t die in a car accident, and he surely did not play for the New Jersey Nets either! Drazen Petrovic is the one who tragically passed!”

The Kraken and the Luchador argued like this for almost every single question. The bar patrons were actually invested in them more than they were their own answers. It was like an old-school promo battle, when the wrestling companies would have their own syndicated shows to telecast bombastic interviews back and forth before the wrestling happened once a week. The only person for whom it was awkward in that bar was Scott.

“You can’t just ask me to be part of your team and then argue every answer I give,” barked Keyes, sounding more and more like Snidely Whiplash, or at least Sea Hawk from the latest She-Ra show with every repartee with Tom.

“Well, maybe you should’ve gone to get the pencil!” he replied, his voice only slightly slurred. Given the sheer number of drinks in him by now, Scott thought it impressive that he didn’t sound like a blithering idiot.

At least yet.

“Have you even written down anything I’ve suggested, you lumbering lout?”

Tom didn’t answer. He looked around skittishly before deciding to ignore the Kraken’s question and signal to the bartender for another two drinks before turning back around.

“If I buy you a drink, will you stop getting on my case?”

Henry stroked his chin deciding if one free drink was worth every one of his suggestions being met with ignorance and dismissal.

-

“Aye, turn a light on, laddy.”

Angus Mooney walked through the front door of his daughter’s house aghast at how dark things were. He’d always planned to make the visit, whether or not Tam was at home. He knew the long hours that came in the world of American industry, be it on the sales or operations side.

He also knew his son-in-law had just left the only world he’d ever known.

Angus ventured through the living room to get to the kitchen with all the grace of a bear hit with a tranquilizer dart. The only person in the house less graceful was Tom after his father-in-law hit the lights in the kitchen.

“Ahhh, too bright.”

“Nonsense, my boy. Just bright enough.”

Angus saw his son-in-law’s face, red and streaked from tears, and a half-empty bottle of tequila by his hand.

“Aye, you know they say you shouldn’t really drink alone, right son?”

Tom looked up, bleary-eyed and brain-fogged.

“They say if you’re good at something, you should practice by yourself. Or something…”

Angus shook his head.

“Boy, drinking ain’t something you’re good at. It’s something you do with friends, or if yer trying to bury something.”

He took a seat next to his son-in-law.

“An’ I don’t think burying anything you’ve got festering inside’a ya is healthy at all.”

Tom sighed.

“I just don’t know what I’m gonna do now.”

Angus nodded.

“Well, son, you can start by being the best husband you can be, and down the road, the best father, since I’m sure you two are gonna give me and Eileen a grandbaby or two.”

Tom laughed.

“In fact, why don’tcha get me a glass, and we can drink together. Maybe I can help ya through all this.”

Tom got up to get his father-in-law a shot glass when it hit him. All the times he felt invincible when drinking. It wasn’t the alcohol. Not in the cemetery the first time, or at all the house parties and bars, hole-in-the-wall cantinas or dive bars, locker rooms or hotel parking lots.

It was the company.

-

Pub trivia finally reached the end of the round. The emcee read off the answers.

“Who was the New Jersey Nets player who died in a car accident after the 1992-93 season? That’s Drazen Petrovic!”

Keyes groaned as his answer was right, but Tom groaned louder because he was damn sure it was Sarunas Marciulonis. SURE.

But something peculiar happened with each answer read off. Every answer that their team got right was one Tom decided on. Every one they got wrong? Henry had provided the correct answer.

The final tally for their team was five questions correct. Five questions that would have been correct if Tom had just fuckin’ listened to Henry Keyes.

As the final answer was announced, the Kraken and the Luchador looked at each other as if they were going to kill each other. The tension appeared so hot that it would ignite the powder keg that was the Cubby Bear. Scott Hunter looked for all available exits, fire extinguishers, maybe even some ninja stars as a last resort.

But then, something strange had happened.

Henry Keyes and Tom Battaglia both burst out laughing at the same time.

Tension diffused. Scott no longer had to look for ninja weapons. Just the same, he placed the grenade he had pulled from his pocket back where it came from.

Henry this time threw his arm around Tom as their laughter grew contagious with the patrons observing them and their histrionic arguments all through the hour or so they were playing pub trivia.

“Hey Kraken, how about I buy you that drink now?”

“That sounds delightful, old mate.”

“How about you too, Hunter?”

Scott nodded quietly, just thankful he didn’t see his friend and the Luchador man come to blows.

-

“Sure you don’t want to come with us to Sluggers?” asked Scott.

“Yeah, I think I’ve had enough training for Survivor for tonight,” Tom replied. “Besides, this body isn’t getting any younger. I should probably sleep off whatever hangover is coming.”

Scott and Henry laughed as Tom hailed a taxi cab. Sure, he didn’t jump off a headstone or hold court over an entire locker room, but he entered the cab headed back for the BNB feeling that this could have been the best time he ever had out drinking.