“No no, my boy,” Bogolub said gently, “you miss my meaning. You shouldn’t catch cold. You missed a spot on your back. Where the yellow streak is, that’s still wet!”
I turned to face him. “Look,” I said.
“Show me your ass again. I can’t stand to look at your face,” Bogolub said.
I shrugged.
“Why did Felix Bush beat you?” Bogolub demanded.
“I guess I was just bushed,” I said.
“Schmuck,” he said. “Pig-fart.”
“Get out of here, Mr. Bogolub.”
“Get out of here, Mr. Bogolub,” he mimicked. “Get out of here, Mr. Bogolub.” And then, in his own voice, “No tanker tells me to get out of my own place. You get out. You get dressed and get out. And that reminds me, I meant to tell you before. Why do you wear those crummy clothes? You look like something in a playground. I pay you. Wrestlers make good money. Ain’t you proud of your profession?”
“Wrestling is not my profession,” I yelled.
“That’s right. Not no more. Not in Los Angeles it ain’t.”
“Okay.”
“Okay! You bet okay! A tanker who can’t win a fight that I go to the trouble to fix it for him. With rehearsals yet. Let me tell you something, Mr. America, let me tell you something about the economics of this profession.”
I looked up at once. There was fixing beyond fixing, and I was going to hear about it. It was all I could do to keep from putting my arm around Bogolub, from offering him a swallow of the mineral water that was in all locker rooms.
“You don’t know yet the damage you done tonight, do you, tanker?”
Better remain sullen, I thought. He explains because he thinks you’re sullen. Even in retreat, I thought, even in retreat I pursue. Even when I avoid them I embrace insiders, their silly trade secrets, their lousy shop talk.
“Contracts have been made, do you understand that? How am I going to juggle all those contracts? Bush was supposed to fight Fat Smith here next month. Maybe he won’t. Maybe you ruined it for him, too. It’s something I got to figure it out. How can Smith go up against him now? He was on the card right here last week and lost to the Chink. Maybe you don’t remember the terrific beating you give to the Chink yourself last time you was here, but the public remembers. So right away, it’s an overmatch. A winner against a loser. It’s inconsistent. Where’s the interest? A guy like Bush is supposed to lose in Los Angeles. All of a sudden he beats a contender.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. In the long-range geometry I had plans for you. Clean-cut. A Mr. Universe type.”
“I didn’t know about that,” I said.
“Big shot. Vigilante. Takes things into his own hands and doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“What difference does it make? So Bush wins one fight. Who’s going to think about it that way?”
“Think about it? Think about it? Who said anything about anyone thinking about it? It’s the feeling of the thing. The balance. That’s what makes a good card. You queered that. Now I’ll have to readjust outcomes all the way up the line to get the balance back. And who pays for all that? I pay for it. It means new routines, new choreography, new identities, new costumes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bogolub wasn’t listening. He wasn’t even mad any more; he was just thinking out loud. “Maybe I could mask somebody. Maybe some old tanker could come in masked. A new personality. That might fix things.”
“I could go against Fat Smith if I wore a mask,” I said. “Bush could fight my man.”
Bogolub was silent.
“That would restore the balance,” I said.
“Who you supposed to be fighting?” he asked finally. “The Grim Reaper, ain’t it?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see. I won’t make promises. You’re still on my shit list.”
“I’m really sorry about tonight,” I said. “I was sick.”
He looked at me. He didn’t believe my excuse, but was grateful that I made one. “You’d have to change your style,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d have to change my style.”
It was because of Sandusky that I was wrestling. After our interview I returned to the only home I had: the gym. I stayed there, working out desultorily in the afternoons, sleeping there in the evenings. For about a week I simply drifted like that, knowing, I think, that sooner or later I would have to go back to my Uncle Myles. I was running out of money, I was getting bored. But mostly I was running out of money, since there is always something vaguely exciting about being on the bum. There wasn’t much I could do to make money. I couldn’t continue to throw cars into the snow and then pull them out — the work was seasonal. I stayed away from Uncle Myles because I believed, as I still do, that things happen. But lying on the tumblers’ mats at night, my only covers a half dozen volley ball nets (so that I felt oddly like a captured fish and dreamt of the sea), I knew that whatever was going to happen had better happen soon.
Then a week after I had seen Sandusky I got a letter from him. It was odd to think that the only being in the world who knew my address was The Great Sandusky. I opened the envelope.
My dear Boswell,
I have been thinking over your problem. I think it’s better to face things right off then to deceive yourself for a while only to find out when it’s already too late that you’ve just been kidding yourself along. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I can tell you that right now and for a long time to come probably the strong man game is dead. Now I say that speaking from a background of experience which covers I don’t like to think how many years. The facts are this: 1) That Vaudeville is dead and that let’s face it it was in Vaudeville that the real muscle money was made. It isn’t only strong men of course. Acrobats, animal trainers, all that crowd I used to tour the circuits with are in the same sinking boat. 2) There are still circuses and while it’s true that circuses have absorbed a certain number of the acts there was never any real demand for a strong man in a circus. Now I know, I know you always hear the term “Circus Strong Man,” but think about that for a minute. Did you ever see a strong man put on an act in the big ring? If you’re honest with yourself you’ll have to admit you did not. His apparatus is too costly and clumsy (and anyway who could set it up unless it was another strong man). No, your “Circus Strong Man” if the term means anything at all was a guy in a side show in a tiger suit, a freak with a bald head and a phony mustache. His size came more from good German beer than it did from training. You don’t want any part of that. 3) The carnival or “carny” as it is called does still use a strong man act, but more often than not it is faked and as with the side show it is not a good life. It is not clean and the traveling is not interesting. All towns you never heard of in N. Minnesota and etc.
So all the old showcases for a strong man act are gone, Vaudeville being the main one. (Now some of my friends think that television may bring new inroads but, frankly, I cannot agree and I think they are just kidding themselves and whistling in the dark. What would be more ridiculous than a guy claiming to have force lifting weights on a little tiny television screen? Those weights would look like six- ounce balls. No, definitely not. Besides, in an act like mine was, there had to be audience contact and on television you couldn’t have that.) Now there’s one other thing to think about as you probably know yourself. I am referring to the so-called “physical fitness magazine.” Well go ahead if you want to but if I had my way they wouldn’t be allowed to sell them. That world is just inhabited by a bunch of queers and fags. How would you like to have it on your conscience that some nut is using your picture in a magazine to jerk off in front of? It’s worse than the carny and more filthy and I wouldn’t think you’d want to touch it.