Shortly thereafter, Daphne came back ringside, though without her sidemen, and took up the mic to announce the next match, though it was only moments before some music I vaguely recognized started playing over the loudspeakers, and a man in a suit and mirrored sunglasses came striding down the tunnel, a metal attaché case shackled to his wrist. If the poster was to be believed, this was Derrick Rigg.
Then I realized that the music was the theme from the old soap opera Dallas, and the pun that was his name, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or hold my head in my hands for not having gotten it sooner.
The crowd booed when Rigg tore the mic away from Daphne, but it was a lusty boo, an appreciative boo, a booing that said, yeah, you’re evil and we’re meant to boo you, but we love it.
“I understand,” he boomed into the mic, in an exaggerated Texas drawl, “that there are some ladies here who think they can take on Derrick Rigg in the ring. Now, now…as a gentleman, I do not believe it is right to inflict any violence upon the fairer sex.”
Daphne put on such a sneer as he said the fairer sex that the crowd erupted in cheers for her.
“But if I am challenged, I must also reply in order to uphold that very honor.”
I decided that Derrick Rigg sounded like what’d you’d get if J.R. Ewing and Foghorn Leghorn had a son.
“So if you’ve got…”
With that, the loudspeakers blared again. “Are they playing My Country Tis of Thee?” I wondered aloud.
The guy in the seat next to me, who’d been tapping away at a phone the size of a tablet throughout the entire match—and had shown no sign of putting it away yet—absently said, “Nah, it’s God Save the Queen. Spitfire’s entrance music.”
“Huh.”
Derrick Rigg looked as dazed as if it was the first time he’d ever heard recorded music mechanically reproduced, and then a tall redhead in a British-flag-print leotard and tall red Doc Martens came running down the tunnel.
I was suddenly interested. The guy with the giant phone took some interest in me then.
“So is that true? You a veteran?”
“Huh? Yeah,” I said. “But I didn’t sacrifice anything. I was a cook.”
He nodded and made some notes.
“What are you taking notes for?” I looked down at him, trying to see the screen of his phone, but he hunched his shoulders.
“I write for Squaring the Circle,” he said, as if I should know what that meant. I stared at him till he turned to face me.
He was probably my age, with round glasses, soft cheeks, a light dusting of stubble over his pale skin.
“And that is?” I finally said.
“A wrestling blog?” He sounded a bit indignant that he’d had to explain.
“Ah. I don’t really follow, the, uh…scene.”
“How’d you get these seats then?”
“Old friend of Grant’s.”
That got his attention. “U.S. Grant’s?”
“Well, uh, I just knew him as Grant.”
He stuck a hand out. “Tommy Wilkerson,” he said.
“Jack Dixon.” I took his hand. It was a little sweaty, but this close to the lights, so was mine. His grip had more wiry strength in it than I would’ve guessed.
“That dedicating his match to a vet thing is all part of Grant’s gimmick,” he said. “Does it at every match. I sometimes wonder if the person he singles out is even a vet.”
“Gimmick?”
“Yeah, you know, his character, his schtick, his angle.”
Meanwhile, in the ring, Spitfire was shouting in Derrick Rigg’s face, incoherently, while he looked on, amused, free hand in his pocket.
Daphne was trying to separate them, to no avail.
“They been teasing the build up between these two for so long I’m beginning to think they’re never gonna book the match,” Tommy said. “And they’d better hurry, because either one of these two is likely to get poached any day now.”
“Hrm?”
“They’re too good for DWF,” he said. “Rigg’s too solid a character, and Spitfire is, well…” He gestured at her. The heels on her Docs put her well over six feet tall, and she was in shape. Certainly she was worth gesturing at. “She’s fearless,” he said. “She’ll climb anything, fly off of anything, bleed the hard way…”
“Bleed?”
He nodded. “They’ll do weapons matches if they think the crowd will go for it.” He looked around the building and said, “Probably too much of a suburban crowd here. Too many kids. But she’ll take a bat right to the abs.”
“Jesus.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s what people want.”
Meanwhile, Rigg had just finished proclaiming that he just didn’t see one woman as a challenge. Spitfire grabbed the mic and said, “Well, you’re in luck then, yank.” She pointed to the tunnel and more music started. I recognized it, vaguely, but I could only have told you it was associated with Russia in movies.
Out came a shape in a dark cloak, hood pulled up, with what seemed like a pair of green eyes glowing underneath of it.
“Huh,” Tommy said. “Two-on-one?”
“Who’s that?”
“The Night Witch,” he said. “Been both an enemy and an ally of Spitfire but it looks like they’re teasing a team-up here.”
“That has…interesting historical connotations,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Spitfires were British WWII aircraft. The Night Witches were a unit of female Russian bomber pilots…”
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Tommy said. “Can I use that?”
“Sure,” I said.
Night Witch was making a slow and stately progress toward the ring. Rigg was backing away, having ripped his aviators off, eyes wide and wild, as if in fear. Spitfire was glaring at him with a sweet and dangerous smile on her face.
God help me, I was getting interested.
And it was just then that my old pal Glen tapped me on the shoulder.
“Grant’s ready to talk to you backstage,” he whispered.