My Father, the Angel of Death Read online

  “Please believe me, Molly. There’s nothing I can do about it. Listen, why don’t you take Jesse to see my folks? After all, that’s one of the reasons we moved back to San Antonio, so Jesse could get to know his grandparents better.”

  “He needs to get to know his father better!”

  “I’m sorry, honey, I really am. I’ve got good news, though. I spoke to Frank about taking some time off after the pay-per-view. He’s agreed to give me a four-week break. I’ll be able to spend more time with you and Jesse then. I promise, okay?”

  “Sure, why not? What’s one more broken promise?”

  “Try to understand my situation, Molly.”

  “I understand perfectly, Mark. Being the Angel of Death means more to you than being a husband and a father.”

  “Molly . . . ”

  “I know it’s not nearly as exciting tossing the football with Jesse as it is having millions of kids begging for your autograph.”

  “Molly . . . ”

  “And how can I possibly compete with the thousands of beautiful women who shamelessly throw themselves at you, wanting to touch you, to kiss you?”

  “Molly, that’s not fair!”

  “And what about Spirit? You said she was leaving the company. Why is she still there?”

  “Spirit? What does she have to do with . . . ?”

  Click!

  I sketched a pair of sunglasses on Davy Crockett’s face. Then I added a pencil-thin moustache and a goatee. Davy Crockett now sort of resembled one of my father’s early tag-team partners, Wild Bill Bronson.

  Reading the history test questions for the third time, I kept hoping the answers would somehow surface from the back of my brain, but I was still drawing a blank. Even with my headache gone, I couldn’t concentrate hard enough to remember what Mrs. Petrosky had talked about. How did she expect me to know all this stuff about the Texas Revolution, anyway? I’d only been here a little over a week.

  I glanced up at her. She sat at her desk, flipping through her teachers’ manual. She was sipping a Diet Coke and munching on some Oreo cookies.

  Question number one: Why is Stephen F. Austin called “The Father of Texas?”

  Stephen F. Austin? The only Steve Austin I knew of was the wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Over the years I’d heard the fans call him lots of things, but I didn’t recall “Father of Texas” being one of them.

  I skipped down to the fourth question and changed my answer. It suddenly hit me that it was William B. Travis and not Sam Houston who was the commander at the Alamo. I was on a roll now. Six answers down, only nineteen more to go.

  The Alamo was one of those places my father promised he’d take me to visit when we first moved here. So far, he hadn’t been home long enough to take me out to buy a hamburger.

  When he called this morning to tell my mom not to meet him at the airport, I was afraid she was going to leave him again, like she did a few months ago.

  Last July, right before my father left for Chicago to wrestle at the pay-per-view event, Summer Showdown, he and my mom got into a heated argument. I’m not exactly sure what it was about, but I figured it was the same stuff they’d been fighting about for the past couple of years. She refused to drive him to the airport.

  Before he returned home, my mom packed most of our clothes, and we moved out of our house. She checked us into a Holiday Inn.

  Later, when my father came by and tried to talk to her, their discussion escalated to a loud quarrel, with both of them exchanging harsh words and accusations.

  After that, my mom and I moved into a small apartment.

  Every time the phone rang, she checked the caller ID. If it was my father, she let the answering machine take a message. For a while, the only time I got to see him was when he appeared on Monday Night Mayhem on TV.

  Finally, on New Year’s Day, my parents reconciled.

  “To a new beginning,” my father toasted. The three of us clanged our champagne glasses together. Actually, my parents had the champagne. I had Seven-Up.

  It was then that my father first suggested that we move to Texas.

  Question number nine: Explain the events that led to the Goliad Massacre.

  The Goliad Massacre.

  That sounded like a possible name for an ACW pay-per-view show.

  The Angel of Death faces Ice Man Jacob Sloane in a “Texas Death Match” at the pay-per-view event of the year, The Goliad Massacre. Call your local cable company and order it now. Whatever you do, don’t miss . . . The Goliad Massacre!

  I felt like I’d been part of a massacre at home this morning.

  My mom had gotten up unusually early. At five thirty, she and the Beatles woke me up with the song “A Hard Day’s Night.”

  Half asleep, I rolled over and glanced at my digital clock. It was still another two and a half hours before I had to report to school.

  With my pillow over my head, I tried to block out the noise, but she had her radio on at full blast. So I lay there in the dark, no longer able to go back to sleep. A collage of thoughts and half dreams lazily swam through my head.

  Finally, about an hour later, there was a knock at my door. My mom stepped inside and switched on the light.

  “Rise and shine, kiddo,” she sang. “Time to get ready for school.”

  “Ahh, you’re blinding me!” I cried, throwing my blanket over my face. Then it dawned on me what I had just seen. I brought the blanket back down and gazed up at my mom. She was wearing the sleeveless, shiny-blue dress she’d bought for Aunt Gracie’s wedding. Her long, dark-brown hair hung in waves around her shoulders. The air in my room was swallowed up by the strong scent of her perfume.

  “Whoa, Mom,” I said. “What are you doing dressed up like that? Did Hollywood call?”

  “Even better,” she replied coyly. “I’m picking Dad up at the airport in a little while.”

  That didn’t make any sense. Normally, whenever she went to meet him, she usually wore jeans and a simple top.

  “What happened? Did they toughen the dress code at the airport?” I joked.

  My mom glanced at her reflection in my dresser mirror. She rubbed her lips together to spread her lipstick more evenly. “Your father doesn’t know it yet, but I’m taking him out for breakfast at this terrific restaurant I discovered at the Riverwalk. Afterwards, we’re going shopping. He needs new suits.”

  I sat up on my bed. “What’s the occasion?” I asked. “It’s not your anniversary, is it? Because I know it’s not his birthday.”

  She collected my dirty clothes from the floor and tossed them into the hamper. “Nothing special, sweetheart. I just thought I’d surprise him, let him know how much I love him.”

  Love is not exactly the word I’d use to describe how she felt about him after their phone conversation a short while later.

  I showered, got dressed, and made my way to the kitchen. My mom served me a plate of scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice. She was heating up a flour tortilla when the phone rang.

  After she hung up, she sat silently next to me. Her eyes welled up with tears. I felt awkward, not knowing whether I should say anything.

  Then I spotted smoke coming from the stove. “Mom, I think the tortilla’s burning,” I said.

  But her mind was miles away. She sat there staring, stone-faced, at the wall. Her lips tightened into an angry, straight line. Her eyes, still filled with tears, widened with rage. I could only imagine the thoughts that were running through her head.

  “D-Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” I nervously offered. As I rose from my chair, I accidentally bumped my orange juice glass with my arm. It fell off the table and spilled onto her lap.

  “Ay!” she screamed, bolting from her chair. The glass slid off her lap and hit the ceramic tile floor. It shattered into a million pieces. She leaped away from the splattering shards. The juice formed a dark blue stain on her dress and more of it dripped down her legs. She gave her dress a few quick swipes with her hand. “Why don’t you watch
what you’re doing!”

  “I–I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t see the glass.”

  I grabbed a dishtowel from the kitchen island and handed it to her.

  She snatched it gruffly from me and dabbed her dress with it. “Do you have any idea how much this dress cost? And now look at it! You’ve completely ruined it!” She burst into heavy sobs.

  “I–I’m sorry, Mom, I really am. It was an accident,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

  Behind her I saw that the top of the stove was completely engulfed in smoke.

  “Mom!” I cried. “The tortilla’s on fire!”

  She spun around. We both rushed to the stove, colliding into each other.

  “Get out of my way!” she yelled.

  Without hesitation, I jumped back.

  My mom lifted the charred, smoldering mess from the griddle, burning her fingers. She jerked her hand back, dropping the tortilla on the floor. Then she spewed out a string of words I’d never heard come from her mouth. The kinds of words I’m used to hearing from wrestling fans at the arenas whenever they don’t like a particular wrestler, but not from my mom.

  When she was done, she stood by the stove, crying. She stuffed her fingers in her mouth and tried to suck away the pain. Her mascara streaked down her face like spiderwebs.

  I stooped down to pick up the tortilla from the floor.

  “Leave it there!” she snapped.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I said so!”

  “I–I’ll clear the table then.”

  “No! Just . . . just go to school.” She waved the back of her hand across her face, as if doing so would make the whole incident vanish.

  “But I don’t have to be in class for another hour,” I said against my better judgment.

  My mom glared at me. “Get out of this house, Jesse!” she shrieked. “Get out of here now!”

  Her screams automatically triggered my headache, but I didn’t dare say anything about it. Instead I slowly dragged myself out of the house.

  I read through the rest of the questions one more time before deciding there was nothing else I could add to my paper.

  This test was impossible. Certainly Mrs. Petrosky would give me a break since I’d been here such a short time.

  I turned and stared at Wendell Cooley. He glanced up from his test, grinned, and gave me a “thumbs up.”

  Wendell really wasn’t so bad. He was only trying to be friendly. Still, I couldn’t help wonder how chummy he and the other guys would be toward me if my father was Mark Baron, shoe salesman or Mark Baron, construction worker.

  A few minutes later, the bell rang. My test paper looked pretty pathetic. But then, I suppose it only reflected how my whole morning had gone so far.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At lunchtime my new “friends” swarmed my table. Wendell led the pack, followed by Terrance Colby, Abel “Goose” Guzman, and a bunch of other guys whose names I didn’t know. As usual, the conversation centered on wrestling.

  “What do you want to bet that Kronos is gonna win the Mask vs. Mask match?” Wendell asked the crowd. From what I’d gathered, next to the Angel of Death, Kronos was Wendell’s favorite wrestler. “He nearly yanked Black Mamba’s mask off the last time they fought,” Wendell continued. “And at The Final Stand, I’ll bet you we’re gonna see what Mamba really looks like.”

  Goose slurped a deep drink of milk from his straw. Then he let out a vicious burp. “No way, Wendy. As soon as Black Mamba clamps the Mamba Stinger on Kronos, it’ll be lights out for him. Then Mamba will easily tear off his mask.”

  “Quit calling me Wendy!” said Wendell, crossly. “And watch your manners, Goose. You act like you don’t have any home training.”

  “Lighten up, Wendy. You call me Goose, and you don’t hear me crying about it.” Goose burped again.

  “No one has to pull anybody’s mask off,” Terrance broke in. “The loser of the match has to remove his mask. That’s the stipulation, right, Jesse?”

  He asked me as if somehow I was an authority on Mask vs. Mask matches.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said flatly.

  This discussion was pointless to me since I already knew who was going to “win” the match. Although I held my tongue, Wendell was in for a big disappointment. At The Final Stand, it was Kronos whose face was going to be exposed.

  A few weeks ago, Kronos began complaining to Frank Collins, the ACW bookmaker and promoter, about an awful rash on his face. He told Mr. Collins that, according to his doctor, the combination of perspiration, the heat, and the fabric of his mask were causing the thick red welts on his skin. His doctor had advised him to wrestle without it.

  Mr. Collins understood and assured Kronos, whose real name is Herman Berkowitz, that as soon as he came up with a new gimmick for him, he could get rid of the mask.

  A couple of days after that, he approached Kronos with an idea.

  “I’ve got it, Herman,” Mr. Collins said. “Listen, after The Final Stand, you’ll be known as Professor Grimm. We’ll run some promos of you standing in front of Harvard University, wearing a cap and gown. You’ll explain to the viewers that your real name is Solomon Grimm and that you’re a Harvard graduate. As Professor Grimm, you’re going to take your opponents to school. Get it? You know, give them a lesson in wrestling. What do you think?”

  Kronos heartily laughed off the suggestion. “But boss, I dint even finish da ninth grade,” he told Mr. Collins. “I caint read no better den a toid grader. How’m I supposed ta be Professa Grimm? No tanks, I tink I’d radda wear da mask. Or how ‘bout I just call myself Hoiman Boikowitz?”

  At least that’s how my father related the story to my mom and me, perfectly capturing Kronos’ Bronx accent.

  Mr. Collins still hasn’t come up with another gimmick for Kronos. But he created a “rivalry” between Kronos and Black Mamba through a series of matches and interviews. This has led up to the Mask vs. Mask match that’s set to take place at The Final Stand.

  “Even after you’re unmasked, we’ll continue to call you Kronos until we can come up with something we can both agree on,” Mr. Collins told him.

  Sure, the bouts are all scripted. It’s always decided ahead of time who’s going to win each match. That’s not a big secret anymore.

  It bugs me, though, when people say that wrestling is fake and that wrestlers aren’t real athletes.

  Every time my father gets smacked with a metal folding chair, he really does get hit. Hard! When he gets thrown out of the ring and lands on the floor with a sickening thud, wrestling’s critics dismiss it, saying, “But they know how to fall.”

  All wrestlers learn how to take bumps, that’s a given. It’s taught at every wrestling school. But no matter how well they may “know how to fall,” that’s still a concrete floor they’re dropped on, with absolutely no give to it.

  I sat at the lunch table trying to finish my plate of salmon patties—or at least what the cafeteria manager insisted were salmon patties—while a debate arose as to which wrestler was the toughest in the ACW.

  “That’s a no-brainer,” said Terrance. “Bronko Savage, because he’s the Iron Fist champion.”

  “Only until The Final Stand,” said a curly-haired kid with glasses. “Jumbo Jefferson’s gonna flatten him like a pancake with the Jumbo Splash.”

  “What about Butcher Murdock?” Goose asked, his mouth full of bread. “He’s been the ACW champ three different times.”

  “Why don’t you swallow your food before you talk?” Wendell scolded. “Murdock’s never even beaten Ice Man Jacob Sloane.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Wendy, ‘cause he’s beaten the Angel of Death twice,” replied Goose.

  “Quit calling me . . . ” Suddenly Wendell became quiet. Everyone stared at Goose, then at me.

  I smiled and shrugged to indicate that no offense had been taken.

  Satisfied with my reaction, the guys rattled on with their discussion.

  All around the cafeteria, groups
of kids sat together, visiting, laughing, and talking about a zillion other things besides wrestling—movies, music, TV shows, books, video games. I wished I could leave my table and join them.

  Then I spotted her. She was sitting near a window, spooning out a cup of yogurt, talking with a couple of other girls. What was her name? She sat in the third row in my English class. Samantha . . . Sandra . . . Sara . . . Sara! That’s it. Sara with the straight, silky-smooth, light-brown hair, eyes as green as spring, and an inviting, dimpled smile that seemed to say, “Sure, Jesse, I’d love to spend some time with you.”

  Except that I hadn’t gotten the nerve to even say “hi” to her yet.

  She’d given a biographical oral presentation on the life of Edgar Allan Poe on my first day in that class. I was immediately blown away by her beauty and poise as she confidently shared her report.

  A few days later, at the school library, I checked out a book of Edgar Allan Poe short stories. Up until then, the only one I was familiar with was “A Tell-Tale Heart.” We’d read that one in my English class in St. Louis earlier in the year. But I wanted to be prepared to have something to talk about with Sara in case I ever mustered up the nerve to approach her. Besides, discussing “The Cask of Amontillado” or “The Pit and the Pendulum” would surely be more interesting to her than saying that my father was going to wrestle Prince Romulus at the next ACW pay-per-view event.

  My daydream of Sara instantly vanished when I heard Goose mention Spirit’s name.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “Hello? Anybody home?” Goose teased. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I’ve asked you twice already. What happened to Spirit? How come she’s no longer your dad’s valet?”

  I could feel the early stages of a headache coming on.

  Back! Just get back! I mentally ordered it.

  “I guess the ACW management decided they’d rather have her wrestle,” I lied.

  Terrance snorted. “She needs to go back to being a valet. She can’t wrestle worth a dime.”

  “But you’ve gotta admit, guys,” said Wendell with a goofy grin. “She is one hot babe.”