The crowd was ready. Doris stuck her fingers in her ears. People standing were shouted down, and the aisles filled. There were perhaps ten thousand people jammed into the place. “OKAY THEN! FIRST MATCH: BRIDE OF GERONIMO VERSUS THE RHINOCEROS!”
“I’ll be damned,” Kevin said, his words completely drowned by the uproar. The spots swung around drunkenly as their operators searched for the entering contestants. By the time they found them, they were almost to the dark green mat of the ring: two large figures in long capes, one scarlet, the other incandescent blue. The crowd roared, the two contestants shook their fists over their heads: Oscar and Sally Tallhawk, no doubt about it.
Quickly the two contestants were in the ring and mugging it up, bouncing against each other chest to chest. The Mistress of Ceremonies—also the referee—tried to separate them, at the same time holding her mike where it would catch their dire threats. Tallhawk snarled as she detailed the ravages Oscar would suffer: “I’m using your scalp as a floormop! Your skin will make good window squeegees! And I need some new dingleberries to hang from my rear-view mirror!”
The crowd roared.
Oscar puffed out his cheeks, mumbled “Prediction is always dangerous, but the Rhino is reasonably confident the match will ultimately be decided in his favor.”
The crowd gave him an ovation.
The MC let them at it.
They circled each other, knocking hands aside and snarling. The Bride grabbed the Rhino’s wrist and pulled, and the Rhino flew through space and hit the ring ropes, which were very elastic. The Rhino fell deep into them, rebounded back and was kicked in the chest—he staggered, the Bride took a flying leap across the ring and landed on his shoulders, bearing him to the mat. She got a knee across his throat and pounded her elbow into his face. When she stood and threw her arms overhead the crowd screamed “GERONIMA!” and the MC announced, “THE BIG G SEEMS TO HAVE LEVELED THE RHINO WITH HER FAMOUS BLUBBERHAWK FROM SPACE MOVE.”
But the Rhino, twitching in agony on the mat, reached out a hand and jerked both of Geronima’s feet from under her, felling her like a tree, allowing him to stagger up and away.
It happened several times: Bride of Geronimo used Rhino for a punching bag, but when Rhino was prostrate and the Bride reaping the crowd’s approval, the Rhino would resuscitate, barely, and deliver a stinging riposte. Once he pulled the rope on one side and let it go, which caused the rope on the other side to snap Geronima in the back and bring her down. In revenge she grabbed a lightbulb from the top of one of the rope poles, broke it and ground it into the Rhino’s face, until the MC knocked her away with the mike. The Rhino kept both hands to his face, grunting in agony as Geronima chased him about the ring. Clearly he was blind. It was a prime opportunity; Mrs. G. raced around the ring, revving up for truly impressive leaps off the corner poles, attempting her Blubberhawk from Space kill—but each time as she dropped from the air the Rhino would trip, or stagger, or hear something above, and neatly sidestep away, looking absurdly light-footed for all his bulk—and Geronima would land flat on her face. Time after time this happened, until Geronima was raving with frustration, and the crowd was in a frenzy. Then Rhino reached into his back pocket and smeared something over his face. “AH HA!” said the MC. “LOOKS LIKE HE’S USING SOME OF THAT NEW PLASTIC SKIN TO REPAIR HIS FACE—YES—SEE HOW FAST IT’S HEALED—WHY—LOOK AT THAT!—HE’S OKAY!”
Rhino dodged another leap and muttered into the mike. “MY ALMANAC INDICATES THAT THE TIDE MAY HAVE TURNED, MISSUS GEE.” And then he was all over the ring, sidestepping, looking right and left in grossly exaggerated glances, then leaping forward to box the Bride’s ears or twist her to the mat. Finally he got behind her and began bouncing her off his knee. “UH OH!” the MC cried. “IT’S RHINO’S ATOMIC DROP! NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT FOR LONG!”
And indeed Geronima collapsed to the mat, flat out. Rhino nodded shyly to the roaring crowd. The MC gave him a kiss, which gave him an idea—he tiptoed after her and took a tug at her tux, which came apart at the seams. Now the crowd really loved him.
But the MC was incensed, and turned to stalk him. He stumbled backwards across the ring, tried to wake Geronima, but to no avail. The Bride was out. The Rhino began to fly about the ring, thrown by a voluptuous woman in a fishnet body stocking, who paused only to continue in her role of commentator: “NOW I’M FINISHING THIS NOSEY RHINO OFF WITH A TRIPLE-SPIN KIDNEY HAMMER.” Rhino tried desperately to escape the ring, grasping at spectators through the ropes with eyes bugged out; but he was pulled back in and pounded. The Bride even roused herself to join the final carnage, before collapsing again after a single chop from the MC, who wanted no help. In the end the MC stood alone over the two prone wrestlers, and when she had caught her breath and straightened her hair, and tried on the torn tux and tossed it away as a bad job, she calmly announced the next bout. “UGLY GEORGE VERSUS MISTER CHICKENSHIT, COMING UP AS SOON AS WE GET THE LARD OFF THE CANVAS.”
There were several more bouts scheduled, but Kevin and Doris left their seats and struggled through the crowd to an exit, then made their way down to the locker room doors on the ground floor. Oscar was just emerging, freshly showered and back in street clothes, blinking in a kind of Clark Kentish way. After signing autographs for a gang of youngsters he joined Kevin and Doris.
“That was great!” Kevin said, grinning at Oscar’s owlish innocence.
Doris said, “Where’s Sally?”
“Thank you,” Oscar said to Kevin. “Sally has another match later in the evening. Would you care to join me for something to drink? I find I am thirsty—I could even use another dinner, to tell the truth. I have to eat lightly before a match.”
“I believe it.”
So they went back to Main Street and Huk Finns. Oscar ordered corned beef and hash, and poured whiskey over the hash, to Doris’s horror. But she joined in as they drank most of a bottle.
Kevin couldn’t stop grinning. “So Oscar, how’d you get into professional wrestling?”
“Just fell into it.”
“No, really!”
“I liked the money. Sally was already doing it, and she thought I had the necessary… talent.”
“Do you ever get hurt?” Doris asked.
“Certainly. We make mistakes all the time. Once I missed on the Atomic Drop and caught Sally on the tailbone, and a couple minutes later she popped me right on the nose. Bled all over. We both got miffed, and it turned into a serious fight for a while. But those look dull compared to the tandem stuff.”
“You really ought to join our softball team,” Kevin said. “Your footwork is great, you’d do fine!”
Oscar shook his head, mouth full.
They left a bit unsteady on their feet, but in high spirits. Main Street was not quite as crowded as before, but there were still hundreds of people wandering about. They were passing a loud group when a tall man stopped them. “Hey, ain’t you the Rhino? Hey!” he bellowed to his companions. “This here’s the Rhino, the guy who wrestles the Bride of Geronimo!”
“Fame,” Doris said.
“Hey Rhino, let’s try a takedown right here, whaddya say? I used to wrestle in high school, here, try some real wrestling moves.”
He grabbed for Oscar’s wrist, but Oscar’s wrist had moved.
“What’s a matter, Rhino? Chicken?”
“Drunk,” Oscar said.
For answer the man drove his shoulder at Oscar’s chest, and missed; turned with a roar and charged again. Oscar shuffled to one side, avoiding him in the dark. The man cannoned into Kevin.
“Hey, fuck you,” Kevin said, and punched the man in the nose.
Immediately they were in a free-for-all, swinging away amid shrieks and curses. Chaos in the dark. People came running to watch or to join the melee, and it only stopped when a whole gang of police drove up and strode among them, blowing their whistles and poking with nightsticks anyone who continued to fight. Soon the fighters were lined up and wristbanded.