CHAPTER THREE

 

 

Ricky woke and gingerly put his right leg out of the bed first and tried to gauge the level of pain present, before coaxing his much worse left leg to follow suit. Both actions sent a stabbing sensation to the base of his neck, which in turn rang as a squeal of pain in his ears. 

Most retired wrestlers woke up in the same way after years of taking bumps in the ring – cautiously. Knowing when you’re going to be slammed, tossed and dropped doesn’t lessen the pain of being slammed, tossed or dropped.

Pain or not, Ricky made sure not to make too much noise because he didn’t want to wake Ginny who was still asleep beside him.

Ricky many times prayed that there was never an emergency at night because neither man would be able to get out of bed in time to survive. They both had long careers and were now paying the physical price.

Mornings were the worst.

He shuffled out of their bedroom and cracked various bones along the way. He softly closed the door between their bedroom and the kitchen. He fired up the radio and news came through the speakers: 

“ … Mr. Tenenbaum left the hospital and was driven to an unknown location. Eye witnesses recounted the Senator’s struggle in simply entering the waiting vehicle because of the dressing on both his legs.”

Ricky quickly flicked the off button. Hearing the report sent a chill through his body which further reaffirmed that that side of the business was something he wanted to stay many, many miles from. 

Ricky was a wrestling man through and through. Had been all his life. He was Danno’s number two – The Booker. He was responsible for making the matches and deciding the winners. It was his responsibility to make the card new and exciting every time he entered a different town. 

Danno handled the office, contracts and business and Ricky handled everything once they were on the road.

He dearly wished that they could get back to that, but he wasn’t sure Danno was thinking the same way. Or that he ever would again. He knew that Danno’s actions were leaving the business too exposed, too open. Ricky was going to need to work smart and try to cover all the bases that Danno was missing. 

There was still the business to run. A business which fed on politics and sleight-of-hand. And a card at Madison Square Garden. 

 

Ginny stood at the sink of their small apartment. He wore a fresh white vest and his short hair was washed and slicked back with a comb. His stubbled face was half covered in soap while the other side was clean-shaven. Back in the day, Ginny used to shave with a blade, just like his father before him. Now he needed Ricky’s help to get the right side of his face done.

Ever since his car got smashed off the highway, things had been tougher for Ginny. And Ricky.

“Don’t leave the spot under my nose,” Ginny said.

Ricky looked over his glasses and gently navigated his way around his partner’s face.

Ginny pointed impatiently. “There. Under my nose. There.”

Ricky swirled the razor around in the water and tapped it twice off the side of the sink.

“I heard you,” Ricky said.

Every day was the same. Ginny liked to be fresh faced. He just couldn’t trust his own hand to stay steady anymore.

Ricky placed the razor on Ginny’s neck and Ginny tilted his head in sync. 

“The bit,” Ginny said pointing under his nose.

“I’m going to slit your throat if you don’t stop bothering me,” Ricky warned.

Ginny grabbed the small mirror and checked under his nose as Ricky continued.

“You know, it would be easier to do this if you just stayed still,” Ricky said.

Ginny burst into tears. Ricky stopped what he was doing but otherwise didn’t even acknowledge it. The first few times Ginny cried like that after he came out of the hospital, Ricky rallied around and begged Ginny to tell him what was wrong. Now, the tears just came and went. They were for nothing. They meant nothing. Neither man mentioned them anymore.

And as soon as they came, Ginny wiped his tears, and they were gone. Ricky continued his morning job.

“Under my nose,” Ginny said rubbing his eyes with his forearm.

Ricky also ignored Ginny’s orders. The head trauma left him repetitive, cognitively slower, more moody and emotional. He couldn’t reach across his body and he suffered from debilitating headaches. 

At the beginning Ricky wanted his old Ginny back. Now he just accepted the way he was. After all their years together, and remembering how close he came to losing him, Ricky was just happy to have him any way he could.

“Why is there a gun hidden under our bed?” Ginny asked with crystal clarity. 

That’s the way it went. Confusion to clarity. Neediness to independence. It changed hour to hour and minute to minute. 

“You know what the city is like out there now,” Ricky replied.

“It’s wrapped up though. Like you’re trying to hide it.”

“No,” Ricky lied. “I got it for us. Do you want to leave your life in the hands of the cops we got?”

The morning light highlighted all of Ginny’s scarring. The back of his head. Across his right shoulder, down the triceps and around the forearm. He was already too beat up to continue wrestling before he got rammed off the highway.

“I want us out,” Ginny said as he flung the hand towel onto his shoulder and rubbed the side of his face dry. 

“Out of what?” Ricky asked, knowing perfectly well what Ginny was talking about. 

The phone on the wall in the kitchen began to ring. Ricky hurried, like an old person hurries, to answer the call. “Hello?”

“We got to meet up,” the voice on the line said plainly.

Ricky immediately recognized the voice. “Okay,” he answered.

“At the end of the bridge tonight at 10.”

“Can’t. I’ve got to tape our TV shows. How about four?”

“Is Danno going to be there?” the voice asked.

“I doubt it,” Ricky replied.

The caller hung up.

 

Nevada.

Lenny lay unconscious on the pink carpet of his motel room. James Henry silently watched his father intently from behind the prison bars of his crib.

“Do it,” Lenny whispered without moving his lips.

“I don’t want to,”  Luke answered anxiously from his standing position on the bed.

Lenny squinted an eye open. “You’ve laid me out son. Now finish me.” 

Luke didn’t really like wrestling anymore but he missed playing with his father. “I ...”

“Big splash or elbow son, this is your big finish. Listen to that crowd chant your name and you pick your spot,” Lenny said as he reprised his role of prone wrestler.

Luke awkwardly jumped/fell and landed with a double knee drop right across his father’s face. An angry and wounded noise escaped from Lenny as he rolled into the fetal position and cradled his own head in pain. It was so intense that he was afraid to breathe. 

Luke stood and walked backwards until he felt the multi-colored  bed at the back of his legs. He watched his father eventually draw in narrow, short painful breaths. “Dad?”

Lenny rocked back and forth and moaned a little. 

“I’m sorry,” Luke said.

Lenny wanted to let his son know he was fine but it felt like his jaw, nose and skull were broken. “S’fine,” is all he could release from his lungs. 

Luke came closer and put a little hand on his father’s shoulder. The baby in the cot threw his bottle and clapped and gurgled at nothing in particular.

“You have to protect the people you work with,” Lenny said and tapped his little boy’s hand.

Luke cuddled into his father’s back and whispered into his ear, “I don’t like wrestling anymore.”

That was even more painful to Lenny. All he could do was lie there and retrain his sight around the room. Pea green seats. Check. Wood paneling. Check. Uneven wardrobe. Check. Stacks of cash underneath that same wardrobe. 

What the fuck? Lenny thought to himself.

Luke nestled the top of his head into his father’s neck and figured out a comfortable spot to snuggle.

“Bath time,” Lenny said shrugging him off. “Take your brother.”

“I don’t want to …”

“Do it,” Lenny ordered. “Fill up the tub and put your little brother in it.”

“I don’t know how. Mom does that,” Luke argued.

“Get in there now and close the door.”

Luke struggled to lift his little brother from the crib. He managed to drag his legs over the top bar and awkwardly walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Lenny pulled himself closer to the money.

He knew he had just found his wife’s stash. The same one she told him she didn’t have anymore. The same stash she took from a bag that Lenny had been hiding in their garage. She took it because she thought it was Lenny’s. She thought it was theirs.

It wasn’t.

 

The short journey fittingly took Lenny along Paradise Road. Bree was working the second day of her new job and he knew he could be there and back to the motel before she got off her shift. He didn’t tell her where he was going - or more importantly - why he was going there because he made a promise. 

A promise he was going to break.

The night before Lenny lay in his new, rock hard bed and watched his wife sleeping. He hadn’t got to do that much over the previous four years. He was reminded why he loved her. And he hoped that she wasn’t coming to the realization that she might have just settled for him.

He adored her and his boys. 

But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to lie to them.

He pulled into the curb and stalked the little store on the other side of the busy Vegas street. “I’ll be back in a second,” he told his young sons as he cracked open his car door.

“Where are you going Daddy?” Luke asked from the backseat, trying to move his little brother from his lap. 

He too could see clearly across the road and in his seven short years he had never had to wait in the car while his mother went into a store.

“I’ll be a second. You wait here and look out for your little brother.”

James Henry immediately put out his arms for his father to pick him up. He was a lazy child who didn’t speak much for a two year old. He just kinda sat there – cute, with clear skin and a blonde, round, doughy head. 

“He wants to go with you,” Luke said, volunteering himself as translator. 

“Just tell him I’ll be a second. Can you do that?” Lenny replied, taking him up on his offer.

“He’s going to cry, Dad.”

“No, he’s not.” Lenny closed his door and wiped the sweat of the desert from his brow.

James Henry immediately began to bawl. Lenny couldn’t believe his luck. A crying child instantly stressed him out. He thought about pulling Bree out of her job and marching her home. 

What kind of man looks after the kids while the wife works? 

He looked at the two little distressed faces looking out from the dirty back window. “I just wanted to go to the store – right there – to get you both some candy,” he shouted and mimed in an attempt to cross the road guilt free.

It wasn’t going to work. James Henry’s bottom lip grew bigger with sorrow.

How does Bree calm them down? 

Lenny remembered her saying something to him about cassettes one night after he came off the road. 

“Do something Dad,” an equally flustered older brother said from the backseat.

Lenny got back in the car and rummaged in the glove compartment. He pulled out a few battered eight-tracks and turned on the ignition. He slipped a tape into the player and soon a sweet a capella children’s song came on. Lenny watched his youngest son’s face turn from despair to curiosity. 

“Mom,” Luke joyfully pronounced.

Lenny panicked a little before he realized his boy was talking about the song. The little one was right – it was Bree. She was singing a song in that beautiful voice that Lenny hadn’t heard in a lot of years.

“I will get you something nice,” he mouthed to the older one as he put his finger to his lips and slipped out of the car.

Luke watched as his father dodged the heavy traffic to get to the store. He desperately tried to see further but couldn’t with his brother on his lap. He rolled down the window and the cars outside sped past inches from his face. 

The waiting was agony. Luke pushed James Henry off his legs and rose to his knees and peeked slightly out the window. Lenny was still nowhere to be seen. 

He peeked again. 

Maybe he’s buying me a new Etch-a-Sketch like Dory Pike has back home?

James Henry was ‘singing’ along with his mother and happily waving his See n’ Say around. 

Luke thought his brother would be fine there alone if he went and had a closer look. He carefully opened his own door and dropped his small foot onto the sticky Vegas road. His opened door was way too tall for him to see over so he couldn’t judge the oncoming traffic. He stooped for a better view and watched the cars hurtling towards him. 

On the back seat, James Henry was also crawling towards the door. The sounds, and adventure his big brother was taking, were even more curious than the song. 

“Stay there, James Henry,” Luke demanded, to no avail. “Do you hear me? Only I’m big enough,” he said.

The baby propped himself up in a seated position in front of Luke and playfully threw his toy into the road. Luke turned and absentmindedly followed the course of the toy.

“Luke,” Lenny shouted as he stuffed a brown paper bag into his shirt from the other side of the road. 

Luke froze with fear a foot into the road. 

“Go back to the car,” Lenny shouted. 

He knew by his son’s face that he was shocked and confused. Lenny could also see a red Pontiac speeding closer to his child. 

He manically tried to jostle with the traffic on his side to make it to his boy.

“Luke, get back to the car now,” Lenny ordered.

Luke didn’t move. He couldn’t.

“Run.”

The little boy just stood in place, totally helpless. 

“Turn around Luke,” Lenny screamed.

Luke turned to face the oncoming car. Lenny launched himself through the small, dangerous gaps in the traffic and snatched his son up into his arms, just as the red Pontiac sped past.

“I’m sorry Daddy. I wanted to see where you went to,” Luke said as he cried with fright on his father’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, little man,” Lenny said as he moved his baby back safely into the seat. Luke was vined around his body as Lenny got in himself. “It’s okay.”

Lenny, Luke and James Henry sat in the back of the Long family car listening to Bree sing them a lullaby as the craziness of Las Vegas rumbled outside their windows.

Lenny began the stomach churning audit of events, detailing the very narrow miss. 

“What have you got in the bag, Daddy?” Luke asked through his floods of tears.

“Nothing son,” Lenny lied.