The Ropes

Saturday morning, MJ stood outside of her house feeling a little sick to her stomach. It was weird, she thought, that she’d fought so hard with both Mr. Arellano and her mother to be given this chance, and now as she waited for the old man, she was suddenly scared of what was about to happen. MJ supposed she’d been so wrapped up in convincing them to let her try that she hadn’t actually thought about what would happen if they both said yes.

She realized that she had no idea what to expect or what going to a wrestling school meant. Mr. Arellano had only told her wrestlers get hurt. She was smart enough to know that watching wrestlers on a screen didn’t mean she was ready to be one.

What if she wasn’t tough enough? What if she wasn’t smart enough to learn? What if they were both right about her being too young and too small and she got hurt? What if she embarrassed herself in front of Mr. Arellano’s other students?

MJ almost wanted to turn around and run back inside the house, but her desire to see this through was greater than her fear. Besides, she couldn’t back out, not after what she’d gone through and put her mother through to make it this far.

Mr. Arellano picked her up in his old truck as he promised. MJ was ready for him. She’d dressed in tennis shoes, yoga pants, and an athletic top she hadn’t worn since gymnastics season ended the previous year. She was also holding the forms he had given her, all of them signed by MJ’s mother.

They didn’t talk much during the drive. MJ was filled with questions, but she was afraid that asking them would reveal how scared she was.

The only question he’d asked her was, “Did you eat breakfast?”

MJ told him she’d just had a banana and some juice.

“That’s good. Your body needs fuel, but you don’t want to eat anything heavy before you train, especially the first time.”

She didn’t know what that meant, and the thought of finding out only made her more anxious.

The school was a large converted warehouse downtown. There was nothing remarkable about the outside of the old building except for two things: a small painted sign that displayed the school’s logo and the words Victory Academy spray-painted in red letters across the outside wall that faced the street.

Mr. Arellano told MJ the warehouse was once a dress factory, and that women who looked like her mother had been paid pennies to work twenty hours a day there. He also told her that was one of the reasons he had bought the building years ago. He wanted to use it to help their people achieve the dreams their parents were never given the chance to pursue. MJ wasn’t sure she knew exactly what Mr. Arellano meant, but she knew her grandparents had worked very hard at backbreaking jobs to give her mother and father the education and opportunities in life they had not been given.

Victory Academy on a Saturday morning was a beehive of activity. There were dozens of people training inside the warehouse. There was a collection of soda and snack vending machines against the wall with some tables and chairs in front of them, which seemed to be where everyone in the Academy took their breaks between classes and socialized. The school had a gym area set up in one corner with weights and exercise equipment, and all of it was being well used by the students.

A lot of them, even in their exercise clothes, looked the way MJ expected professional wrestlers to look, either attractive and athletic or hulking and menacing. However, many of the students seemed just like regular people to MJ. Seeing those students training made her feel better, less nervous about being there. It even made her start to believe she could really do this.

The Academy had three different wrestling rings. Two of them were smaller and lower to the ground than the ones MJ had always seen on TV, and they looked only a little bit newer and cleaner than the one in Mr. Arellano’s backyard. The third ring, however, was big and impressive and looked a lot like the ones MJ’s favorite wrestlers battled inside on the shows she watched. It was set up in the middle of the warehouse, and high above it, stage lights were hung from a metal rack attached to the ceiling. There was a lot of empty space around that third ring, too. MJ wondered if that space was left open to set up chairs so they could hold wrestling shows at the school.

MJ also noticed there was a thick red line painted on the cement floor a few feet away from the wall; it seemed to circle the entire warehouse. She couldn’t imagine what that was for.

“Wow,” she said, in awe as she looked around for the first time.

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Mr. Arellano told her.

“I think it’s great.”

“What’s up, Papi!” someone called from the other side of the warehouse.

It felt like suddenly walking into a brick wall, hearing the name MJ called her father yelled out like that. It stopped MJ cold and made her body tense up. She looked at Mr. Arellano as he waved casually to the student who had shouted to him.

It was the first of many such greetings he received from the students in the school. MJ soon realized that everyone at the Academy called Mr. Arellano Papi. It was obviously a name they used out of affection and respect for him as their elder and their teacher.

“Oye, Papi!”

A young Mexican man with long, stringy hair jogged up to them with a big smile on his face. He was wearing gym shorts and a torn T-shirt along with old-looking knee and elbow pads, but his boots were tall and patent leather, like the ones many of the wrestlers on TV wore. MJ wondered if he was a professional rather than a new student.

Mr. Arellano hugged the younger man and patted him on the back.

“Welcome home, mijo,” he said.

When they stepped apart, Mr. Arellano turned to MJ.

“Maya, this is my nephew, Hernán.”

“What’s up, girlie?” Hernán warmly greeted her. “Call me Creepshow.”

“Is Creepshow your wrestling name?”

His face took on a wounded expression. “You mean you never heard of me?”

MJ felt trapped suddenly. She didn’t know what to say.

Creepshow quickly dropped the expression and laughed. “I’m just messing with you.”

“Oh,” MJ said, relaxing.

“Hernán works in Japan, mostly,” Papi explained. “He just got back from a sixteen-week tour with RealTime Combat, one of the big wrestling companies over there.”

MJ was impressed. “Wow, really? Japan? Is it cool?”

“Best crowds outside of Mexico,” he assured her.

“Can I look you up on YouTube?”

“Yeah, but you might not recognize me,” he warned her.

“They like gimmicks based on horror movies over there,” Mr. Arellano explained, “so they put him under an ugly Halloween mask. That’s why they call him Creepshow.”

“That’s really cool,” MJ said.

“I need to talk to this tipo for a minute,” Mr. Arellano told MJ. “Wait here.”

She nodded, and then watched as the two of them walked away. There was an area in the back of the warehouse that was separated from the rest of the space by tall black curtains. In the center of them, an archway had been erected. It looked like it had been cobbled together from rough pieces of scrap metal. A spray-painted sign reading VAWF was hung above it.

Mr. Arellano (Papi, MJ reminded herself) and Creepshow soon disappeared through the folds of black cloth beyond that archway. Those curtains certainly backed up her suspicions about the school also being used to put on real wrestling shows.

She felt awkward being left alone. MJ shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, wishing she weren’t by herself, while at the same time scared to talk to anyone new.

MJ distracted herself from her jangling nerves by watching what looked like a class taking place in one of the smaller rings. Half a dozen students were lined up against one side of the ring ropes. They each took turns rolling forward across the ring before popping back up to their feet.

One of the girls in the ring actually looked as though she wasn’t that much older than MJ. She made MJ think of the kids one or two grades ahead of her at school. The girl stood at least six inches taller than MJ and seemed even taller with the gorgeous pile of curly hair atop her head. She had long arms and legs, and MJ thought she looked really cool in her black singlet and matching knee and elbow pads. She reminded MJ of Serena Williams.

It took a second or two for MJ to realize the girl was staring back at her. When she did, MJ’s cheeks suddenly felt like they were burning. MJ knew she should look away, but instead she just blinked.

Instead of looking down at her from the ring as if she thought MJ was some kind of weird creeper, the girl just grinned and giggled. She waved down at MJ.

It took a few seconds, but MJ finally managed to wave back. She even felt her lips beginning to smile.

“Maya, come over here!” Mr. Arellano called to her.

He was standing at the edge of a collection of old gym mats spread out atop the concrete floor. He wasn’t alone. A young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, was standing next to him. She had a smile on her face and her curly hair was dyed three different shades of fiery red and orange. She wore a black and pink wrestling singlet with leggings that extended all the way down into her black workout boots. The laces of the boots were also bright pink, to match her singlet. MJ saw there was a bandana tied around the upper part of her left arm, an arm that also had several tattoos.

MJ quickly sprinted over to the gym mats to join them. Her eyes were on the older girl.

“This is Tika Powers,” Mr. Arellano introduced her. “She’s one of our top students and biggest draws here at the Academy. She just turned pro a few months ago. Tika, this is Maya.”

“Hey!” Tika greeted her, waving enthusiastically as if MJ was far away and not standing right in front of her.

“She’s going to get you started training,” Mr. Arellano said.

MJ looked down at the mats on the bare floor.

“Here?” she asked.

“You start out here, on these mats, learning to wrestle,” Mr. Arellano told her seriously. “Not flying around, or throwing chairs and ladders, or doing any of that crazy stuff you see on TV. You start with wrestling. And you don’t get to put a foot in a real ring until Tika says you’re ready. Understand?”

MJ nodded.

“Speak up, girl,” he instructed her. “You didn’t have a problem doing that when you came to my door at sunrise.”

“I understand,” she said, adding quickly, “Papi.”

The old man nodded. “Good. I’ll leave y’all to it.”

He walked away without another word.

“Don’t let him scare you,” Tika said after he was gone.

“You can call me MJ. Everybody does except my mom.”

“Okay, MJ.”

“Is Tika your wrestling name?”

“My gimmick name, yeah. But that’s what everybody calls me, too.”

Tika stepped onto the mats and motioned for MJ to follow her.

“You ready to do this?” she asked.

MJ took a deep breath. “I’m nervous.”

Tika’s smile only seemed to grow bigger and brighter. “I feel you. I was too. I was terrified my first day here. And you know what? I sucked.”

MJ couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“I did!” Tika assured her. “I tripped over my own dumb feet for the first like, six months. It takes a long time before you start to get good, and I just mean getting good at doing drills and taking bumps and stuff. Working an actual match is a totally different thing. So don’t worry, okay?”

MJ nodded, trying to make her brain accept what Tika was telling her.

Tika turned slightly sideways and spread her feet out so that they were in line with her shoulders.

“All right, stand like this,” she instructed MJ.

MJ tried to copy what the older girl was doing.

“That’s really good,” Tika said, and she sounded as though she meant it. “I can already tell you pick things up quick.”

“I don’t know about that,” MJ muttered.

She grabbed MJ’s wrist and placed MJ’s hand on the top of Tika’s right shoulder. Then Tika put her own hand on MJ’s left shoulder.

“Now, put your other hand on top of my bicep, just above my elbow,” Tika instructed her.

MJ did as she was told, and then watched as Tika again mirrored her.

“This is locking up. It’s also called a collar-and-elbow tie-up. This is how you start the match ninety-nine percent of the time.”

MJ nodded. “I know. I’ve watched wrestling pretty much my whole life.”

“Good. Now, you’ll see a lot of people grab the back of the neck, but I always do the shoulder.”

She squeezed MJ’s shoulder gently for emphasis.

“From here, like you see in almost every match, you can go just about anywhere. We’re going to work on chain wrestling first, okay? I’ll show you all the basic holds, and all the counters for them.”

MJ felt a thrill rise through her body. She thought she’d be eager to start body-slamming people and jumping off the ropes as soon as she set foot inside Victory Academy, but in that moment she couldn’t think of anything more exciting than learning these seemingly simple holds from a real wrestler like Tika.

After Tika took MJ through all the basic holds and reversals, they spent an hour practicing them. MJ lost count of how many times they locked up. Tika showed her how to both apply wrist- and head- and hammerlocks and how to make it look like being in those holds was causing MJ great pain. She showed MJ how stringing together a long combination of holds and reversals could create an exciting sequence to watch, as entertaining as any high-flying or big power move.

“All right,” Tika said when they stepped apart for the last time. “I think you’re ready to take some bumps.”

MJ remembered her saying that word before, but she still wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

“Bumps?” she asked.

“Falling down and learning how to land. Taking big bumps for your opponent is pretty much all you’re going to do when you first start working matches.”

MJ’s eyes lit up. “Oh, right!”

She led MJ to one of the empty smaller rings and hopped up onto the edge of the platform just outside the ropes, an area MJ had heard called the “apron.” MJ watched as Tika carefully rubbed the bottoms of her boots against the canvas before stepping through the ropes.

“Remember to wipe your feet,” Tika told her.

MJ climbed up after her and did exactly what she’d just watched Tika do.

Tika stepped to the middle of the ring and motioned for MJ to join her.

“We’ll start with a basic back bump.”

MJ nodded eagerly.

“Bend your knees,” Tika told her, demonstrating. “The key thing is keep your feet planted, even when you land. Don’t move your feet. Watch.”

Tika fell back with practiced ease and grace. It wasn’t a big sound when her back hit the canvas, but the impact made MJ blink and jump just a little. She also noticed that as Tika landed, she threw her arms to the side and slapped the canvas with the flat of her hands.

She looked up at MJ from the ring floor. The bump didn’t even seem to have rattled Tika.

“Now, see how I landed, on the upper part of my back? And I kept my chin tucked so I don’t hit the back of my head on the mat. The last thing to remember is to slap out.”

To illustrate, Tika spread her arms and slapped the canvas again with both hands.

“Got it?” she asked.

“I . . . think so.”

Tika popped up to her feet with speed and a grace that made MJ jealous.

“Okay, go for it,” she said.

MJ stood the way she’d watched Tika stand, bending her knees. She took a deep breath and then let her body fall back, remembering to keep her chin tucked and her feet planted squarely in place like Tika instructed her to do. The top of her back hit the mat, or at least that’s where MJ felt the bump the most. More than any kind of pain was the shock she felt run through her whole body.

“Good!” Tika complimented her. “But remember to slap out.”

“Oh, yeah,” MJ said.

She slapped her hands against the mat.

Tika laughed. “You have to do it as you land. It helps break the bump. You don’t have to do it after. Okay?”

MJ felt her cheeks flush red. “Right. Got it.”

“Now, don’t sit up. When you take a back bump like that, remember to turn to your right and push yourself up, okay? That’s how your opponent will pick you up off the mat.”

MJ nodded, crossing one leg over the other and rolling onto her stomach before pushing her body off the mat and standing up.

Tika had her take several more back bumps, and by her fifth or sixth MJ barely had to think about slapping out at the end. After that, Tika showed her how to front bump, falling forward onto her stomach. Those, MJ found, took even more wind out of her than falling onto her back, but she was able to pick up the proper form and technique quickly.

The final bump Tika showed MJ was falling onto her side, taking most of the impact on her hip. That one was the most awkward for MJ. It felt way less natural than the other two ways of bumping, and Tika said they’d have to work on that one more later.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tika said when she saw MJ looking discouraged. “Everybody has trouble with side bumps at first.”

Hearing that helped, at least a little.

“You feel okay?” Tika asked her.

“Oh yeah,” MJ answered excitedly. “I feel great.”

“Yeah, that’s the adrenaline,” Tika warned. “You’re going to feel a lot different tomorrow, believe me.”

“It’s worth it,” MJ insisted.

Tika grinned. “I like you.”

MJ looked at her shoes. “Thanks a lot.”

“You feel like running the ropes?”

She looked up, beaming. “Totally!”

Tika nodded. “Okay. The ropes will bite you if you’re not careful. I know they feel like rubber on top, but underneath is a steel cable.”

“So they’re not really ropes?”

“Sometimes they are. The big companies use rings with real ropes. But here we train on the cables, and you gotta learn how to hit them right or they can really mess you up.”

MJ crinkled up her nose in confusion. “Why would I hit the ropes?”

Tika giggled, just a little. “You don’t really hit them. It just means when you bounce off them.”

“Oh, right, like when your opponent whips you into the ropes.”

“Exactly. Now, this is where you should make contact with the top rope.”

Tika lifted her arm and rubbed the muscle just below her armpit.

“You want to wrap your arm around the top rope as you hit it. That’s so in case the rope breaks you’ll already be holding onto it and you won’t go flying out of the ring.”

“I understand,” MJ said.

“Good. The other important thing to remember is to just use your natural momentum. Don’t throw your body against the ropes. Just kind of turn and let them take your weight and push it off on their own. And keep your feet planted flat when you hit them. Don’t rock back on your heels. I’ll show you.”

Tika demonstrated by running into the ropes several times. MJ watched a different part of Tika’s body each time it bounced against them, trying to memorize what she did with her feet, then her arms, then her torso.

When it was MJ’s turn to try, she checked off a list in her head of all the things Tika had just told her and demonstrated. She planted her feet and shook out her arms and her legs for a few seconds, then started running across the ring. The first few steps felt good and natural, but when it came time to turn her body and bounce against the ropes, MJ froze up without even meaning to. She only managed a half-turn, and it felt more like she crashed into the ropes than let her body fall into them.

Tika was right about them biting her, too. She felt the sting against her back.

“It’s okay,” Tika assured her as MJ regained her footing. “You just hesitated. Try it again. Clear your head and don’t think about it so much. Just let your body do the work.”

MJ closed her eyes and tried to let her mind go blank. She took a few more deep breaths. As soon as she opened her eyes, she took off running, and this time she didn’t freeze. She just rotated her body and let herself go. Gravity and the spring in the cables did the rest. Gravity flung her into the ropes. The ropes accepted her weight and bounced her back across the mat. MJ ran with the momentum before coming to stop right beside Tika.

“That was great!” Tika shouted. “You kept your feet flat and everything!”

MJ could feel the smile spread across her face. It felt good, even better than taking the bumps. Bouncing off those ropes made her feel free, like being fired from a giant sling shot and flying through the air, only she was running.

“Try it again,” Tika urged her.

MJ did. She ran the ropes, from one side of the ring to the other, over and over again until she was out of breath and felt like she’d sprinted a mile. By the end of it the muscle under MJ’s arm was throbbing and sore. She lifted her arm. She could already see the bruise welling up along the strip of her skin that had made contact with the top rope.

“You’ll get used to it,” Tika promised her. “You’ll get used to all of it. Don’t worry.”

“Who’s the green girl?” a new voice asked from somewhere outside the ring.

MJ recognized that voice immediately. She’d heard it on her tablet and her phone almost every week for the past two years.

She looked over and saw Corrina Que Rico standing at the edge of the ring apron on the other side of the ropes. She wasn’t wearing her wrestling gimmick, of course. She was dressed in regular street clothes, jeans and a Lucha Dominion hoodie.

“Hey, Cory,” Tika greeted her as if Corrina Que Rico wasn’t a famous luchadora on national TV.

“Hey, girl,” Corrina said back to her cheerfully.

It sounded like they were friends. Tika immediately became even cooler in MJ’s eyes.

“This is MJ,” Tika explained. “I’m breaking her in. First day.”

“How old are you?” Corrina asked MJ.

“Twelve.”

Corrina looked puzzled. “No manches! Are you a cousin I don’t know about, or something?

“Um. No?”

“Papi doesn’t usually train kids unless they’re family.”

“I, um, sorta talked him into it, I guess.”

Corrina made an impressed sound. “Then you already know more about the business than me, chica. I can’t talk that old man into nada.”

Getting such a huge compliment from one of her heroines, MJ couldn’t help but smile, though she didn’t know what to say to that.

Fortunately, Corrina didn’t wait for her to respond. “Well, you got a good teacher. Tika is going to be signed before you know it.”

“Don’t play,” Tika chastised her.

“Who’s playing? Don’t think I don’t know you’re gunning for me.”

Tika waved the entire subject off with a shake of her head.

Corrina looked back at MJ. “I’m gonna leave you to it. Good luck, mija, okay?”

“Thank you,” MJ all but squeaked.

Corrina walked away. MJ desperately wanted to say something like, “You’re my favorite!” Or even, “I love you!”

Instead, she just watched silently as one of her wrestling idols crossed the gym.

“What does ‘green girl’ mean?” MJ asked Tika when she was sure Corrina couldn’t hear them anymore.

“‘Green’ just means you’re new in the business, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

MJ was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “What color are you, Tika?”

Tika laughed long and hard at that.