My Father, the Angel of Death Read online

  My Father, the Angel of Death

  My Father, the Angel of Death

  Ray Villareal

  This volume is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through The Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County and by the Exemplar Program, a program of Americans for the Arts in Collaboration with the LarsonAllen Public Services Group, funded by the Ford Foundation.

  Piñata Books are full of surprises!

  Piñata Books

  An imprint of

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  452 Cullen Performance Hall

  Houston, Texas 77204-2004

  Illustration by Alejandro Romero

  Cover design by Giovanni Mora & Gianni Mora

  Villareal, Ray.

  My Father, the Angel of Death / by Ray Villareal.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventh-grader Jesse Baron not only misses his father, a popular professional wrestler who is often on the road, he faces simple family outings that turn into fan-frenzy events, teachers who contrive excuses for parent-teacher conferences, and friendships that are all suspect.

  ISBN: 978-1-55885-466-6

  [1. Wrestling—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Celebrities—Fiction. 4. Fame—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. San Antonio (Tex.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.V718My 2006

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006043241

  CPI

  The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  © 2006 by Ray Villareal

  Printed in the United States of America

  7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  For Sylvia, Mateo, and Ana

  &

  To the memory of my father, Fermin Villareal,

  who inspired me to write.

  The lyrics to La dueña de mi amor are from a poem my father wrote for my mother in 1932, while they were dating.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  The bright lights dimmed, leaving the coliseum bathed in an eerie, bluish glow. Strained organ chords filled the air with a haunting, discordant tune.

  Suddenly, a powerful, deafening explosion rattled the walls. Streams of orange and yellow flames shot upward in tall columns, and a cloud of smoke billowed from the mouth of the arena.

  The spectators, frenzied with anticipation, immediately leaped to their feet.

  “Death! Death! Death! Death!” they chanted in unison. “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

  Then, as in reply to their cries, a gigantic, ominous figure, dressed in black, emerged from the swirling haze. His long, wispy, dark hair hung loosely around his white, skeleton face. A hooded cloak was draped around his massive frame. In his hand, he clutched a wood-handled scythe with a razor-sharp blade.

  His presence electrified the crowd.

  “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

  The man in black paused. He gazed up at the hordes of people that surrounded him. His piercing eyes widened. Raising his scythe in the air, he unleashed a banshee-like scream.

  “Aaagghh!”

  The crowd was ecstatic. “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

  With slow, but deliberate strides, he made his way to the ring.

  His opponent, a man named Raven Starr, fearfully waited for him there, like a condemned prisoner facing a firing squad.

  The man in black climbed through the ropes. He removed his cloak and handed it and the scythe to a waiting attendant. Then he stepped to the center of the ring, stopping inches away from Raven Starr. He stood rigid, like a statue. His coal-black eyes bore deeply into Starr’s. Within moments, Raven Starr’s eyes became blank, mesmerized by the man in black’s intense, hypnotic stare.

  All at once, without warning, the man in black struck! He sprang back with a short step. Then he lunged forward, assaulting Starr with a devastating clothesline that knocked him senselessly down to the mat.

  The crowd screamed wildly in approval. “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

  The man in black responded by pounding his chest like an enraged gorilla.

  “Aaagghh!”

  Raven Starr sluggishly rolled over on all fours. He gave his head a quick shake to regain his senses. He staggered to his feet and readied himself for another wave of attack.

  The man in black charged forward. This time, Starr fired back with a short series of punches. But they were about as effective as a rabbit fending off a lion.

  The man in black, his face a grinning skull, laughed maniacally at Starr’s efforts. He forced him into a corner and pummeled Starr relentlessly with jackhammer punches. Raven Starr’s body crumpled to the floor.

  The man in black lifted him like a rag doll, and with incredible force, power-bombed him onto the mat.

  “Aaagghh!” he roared, thrusting his arms victoriously in the air.

  “Death! Death! Death! Death!” cried the crowd, now gesturing a “thumbs down.”

  Having accepted the people’s verdict, the man in black grabbed his victim, flipped him upside down, and delivered the final blow, the coup de grace, the Death Drop Pile Driver.

  “THE WINNER OF THE MATCH . . . AND STILL . . . THE ACW HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION,” the ring announcer bellowed, “THE AAANGEL OF DEAAATH!”

  Thunderous applause and cheers echoed throughout the arena. “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

  Once again, the blue lights blanketed the room and the unharmonious organ music sounded. The man in black exited the ring and marched triumphantly up the aisle.

  Despite the seemingly vicious onslaught I had just witnessed, I smiled. I knew Raven Starr would be all right. He always was.

  The man in black disappeared into the enveloping fog, withdrawing to the lower regions of the Netherworld, where he would wait until the Dark Forces summoned him once more.

  There he goes, I thought, as I watched him leave. My father . . . the Angel of Death.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  The kettledrums pounded unmercifully inside my head. I pressed my fingers against my temples to try to ease the pain, but it didn’t do any good.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  If only I had an aspirin or something I could take to get rid of this excruciating headache. I knew there’d be no point in asking the school nurse for one. The best she could offer was a few minutes’ rest on one of the cots in the clinic. I learned that on my first day of school when I asked for permission to see the nurse, after developing another one of my now, all too frequently occurring headaches.

  “Hey, Jesse, wait up!” a voice called from behind me.

  Oh, no, Wendell, I thought. Please, not right now.

  A moment later Wendell Cooley bounded up to me, gasping for air, even though he couldn’t have run more than a few yards. I don’t know how much Wendell weighed, but I would estimate that he was closing in on three hundred
pounds.

  “I watched your dad on TV last night,” he said excitedly. “He was awesome!” Wendell took a couple of breaths to steady himself. “I can hardly wait ’til he fights Prince Romulus at the pay-per-view. That’s gonna be the best match on the card.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said with a shrug. I hoped Wendell would take the hint that I didn’t feel like talking about it.

  “You must be the luckiest kid in the world to have the Angel of Death for a father,” Wendell gushed.

  Instantly my headache skipped up to the next level of pain.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-THUMP!

  My head felt as if it was going to split open, like a watermelon dropped on the sidewalk.

  “Look, Wendell,” I said as politely as I could. “I don’t feel too well right now, okay?”

  Wendell looked at me with concern. Then his mouth stretched into a wide, ‘possum grin. “Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. I’ll bet you didn’t have a lot of time to study for the Texas history test, did you? Tell you the truth, neither did I.” He patted me on the back with a chubby hand. “But I wasn’t about to miss Monday Night Mayhem to study for a stupid test, that’s for sure. Anyway, I know we’ll both do just fine.”

  We continued walking to school with Wendell jabbering about last night’s matches. The pain-driven drumbeats in my head drowned out most of everything he said. If only I could get rid of this maddening headache—it, and Wendell Cooley.

  Wendell paused to catch his breath after rattling off something about why Wally Armstrong was still wrestling, even though he hadn’t won a match in over three months.

  “Um, listen, Jesse,” he said. “Me and Terrance and Goose and some of the other guys were wondering if we could come over to your house some time. You know, to meet your dad and get his autograph and stuff.”

  Here it comes, I thought. The same thing as in Omaha, Atlanta, Tampa, St. Louis, and just about every other city in between. How long had we been in San Antonio? A week, going on two?

  When we first moved here, I decided, from past experience, not to let anyone know who my father was. At least not right away. Not until the kids got to know me first. I knew what their reaction would be. I’d gone through it plenty of times. So I wasn’t the one who blabbed it out to the whole class. No, that honor went to my new seventh grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Petrosky.

  “It appears that we have the son of a famous celebrity in our class,” my teacher announced on my first day at Sidney Lanier Middle School. “Would anyone like to guess who Jesse Baron’s father is?”

  “The Red Baron?” a kid shouted from the back of the room. The class laughed.

  Mrs. Petrosky ignored him. She glanced down at the pink enrollment form in her hand. Then with a grin on her face that would’ve made the Cheshire Cat envious, she blurted out, “Jesse’s father is the American Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Champion, the Angel of Death!”

  For a second the whole class fell silent, as if someone had aimed a remote control at them and pressed the MUTE button. The next moment, they exploded with skeptical jeers and laughter. Perhaps they thought Mrs. Petrosky was playing an early joke on them, since April Fool’s Day was coming up that Friday.

  “I’m serious,” she said, still smiling. “Jesse’s father is Mark Baron, otherwise known in professional wrestling as the Angel of Death. They’ve just moved here from St. Louis.”

  She turned and gazed dreamily at me, her grin still pasted firmly on her face. Apparently she was a wrestling fan. I didn’t realize until later just how big a fan she really was.

  “Maybe you’d like to share with us what it’s like to be the son of a wrestling superstar, Jesse,” she said.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  I stared at the sea of strange faces in the room, anxiously waiting for me to say something. My palms got sweaty. My legs felt like spaghetti. The class became one gigantic blur.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  “I-I don’t feel . . . I mean . . . my head hurts, ma’am,” I muttered. “It hurts a lot.” I looked up at her with pleading eyes.

  Mrs. Petrosky’s smile melted.

  “Well,” she said with obvious disappointment. “I’m sure you’re a little nervous, with this being your first day and everything. Let’s find you a seat, and later, after you feel a little better, maybe you can tell us all about your amazing father.”

  She led me to a desk next to the fattest seventh grader I’d ever seen. As I sat down, the fat kid smiled proudly, like he’d just won the drawing for the Grand Prize at the Jesse Baron Giveaway Contest.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  “So, what do you think, Jesse?” Wendell asked hopefully. “Is it okay if we come over?”

  I shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”

  “We wouldn’t take up a lot of your dad’s time,” Wendell persisted. “We just want to see the Angel of Death up close. You know, in person.”

  “I understand, Wendell, it’s just that . . . ”

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  “I’m never really sure when my father’s going to be home.”

  By the expression on Wendell’s face, I’m sure he thought I was trying to brush him off. To a certain extent, I was. Still, I wasn’t making that part up. I lowered my eyes and squeezed the sides of my head tightly, but the pain refused to go away.

  “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the Angel of Dorks and his fat sidekick, El Blubber.”

  I glanced up and saw Manny Alvarez and his goons, Chester Leonard and Hugo Sanchez, approaching us.

  “I watched your old man wrestle yesterday,” Manny said with a sneer. “What a joke! The only reason the ACW puts him up against jobbers like Raven Starr is ’cause everyone knows the Angel of Death can’t carry a full match anymore. Not against the top talent, anyway. Guys like Ice Man Jacob Sloane and Bronko Savage would easily expose him for the washed up has-been he is.”

  Wendell glared indignantly at them. “He’s fighting Prince Romulus at The Final Stand in two weeks, isn’t he?” he said, coming to my father’s defense.

  “Shut your pie hole, panzón, before I shut it for you,” Manny threatened. Chester and Hugo giggled like a couple of first grade girls. “Romulus is a mid-carder at best. He doesn’t have any business even fighting for the heavyweight title. Anyway,” Manny continued, “the only reason to order The Final Stand is to watch Ice Man Sloane against Butcher Murdock in the Steel Cage Match. Nobody wants to watch The Angel of Dead Meat wrestle anymore.”

  Manny paused and waited for my reaction, but I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to say anything to provoke him any further. For whatever reason, he’d disliked me from the beginning.

  On April Fool’s Day, he and Chester and Hugo burst into the classroom that morning and frantically announced that they’d just heard on the news that the Angel of Death and several other wrestlers had been killed in a car crash outside of Denver. My father had wrestled a “house show” there the night before, and I hadn’t heard from him since he’d left for his match.

  There was a collective gasp of horror from everyone. My eyes flooded with tears, and my heart dropped down to my toes.

  Suddenly Manny exclaimed, “April Fool!”

  Chester and Hugo howled with laughter.

  Mrs. Petrosky, who had been nearly as devastated as I was at their shocking announcement, angrily scolded them. Then she lectured the class about playing sick jokes.

  “The wrestling web sites on the Internet say your dad’s knees are shot,” said Manny. “That’s why the ACW doesn’t match him up against the faster wrestlers like Kid Dynamo or Red Lassiter. Is that true?” His voice softened with what seemed genuine concern.

  Can you believe this guy? After ripping into my father, Manny thought I’d be all too happy to share some inside information with him that the Internet fans only speculated about.

  “My fa
ther’s knees are fine,” I said coldly.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  I lowered my head, grimacing in pain.

  “Look, I think he’s gonna cry,” I heard Chester say in a singsong voice.

  “You hurt his feelings talking about his daddy that way,” added Hugo. “Boo, hoo, hoo.” He balled up his hands and pretended to rub his eyes.

  Manny Alvarez chuckled. “Your old man doesn’t deserve to hold the heavyweight belt.” His voice changed back to its mocking tone. “If the head honchos at the ACW ever listen to what the fans really want, they’ll strip him of it and give it to a better, more worthy wrestler.”

  He shoved Wendell out of the way and headed toward the school blacktop. Chester and Hugo strutted behind him like a couple of obedient poodles.

  We stood silently watching them for a few seconds. Finally Wendell rested a fat hand on my shoulder. “I don’t care what Manny or anyone else says. The Angel of Death is the coolest wrestler in the whole ACW. He’s still the champ, right? The greatest champion of all time, if you ask me.”

  I suppose his comments were meant to make me feel better. They didn’t.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “But Mark, you promised me you wouldn’t work the house show today. You said you were flying home this morning after last night’s TV tapings.”

  “I know, Molly, but Frank Collins dropped this on us at the last minute. He’s worried about the potential low buy rates for The Final Stand. Frank wants the top-tier wrestlers to work all the house shows between now and then to help generate sales.”

  “All the house shows? So when are you planning to come home?”

  “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “Wednesday? Thursday?”

  “Maybe Friday night after the show in Birmingham.”

  “Friday? Mark, you assured me that things were going to be different once we moved to San Antonio. So tell me how they’re different, Mark, would you? How are things different?”