The Rules of Travel


You know you’ve been roadrunning for too many years when your stewardess thanks you for flying Delta Air and you thought you were on Jetblue. 

 

I somehow manage to get my head out of my ass, thank her with a smile, pick up my overnight and hobble out the hatch.  My watch says it’s past six, and Cody’s flight was supposed to come in at five.  So of course, the little bastard’s not waiting for me in the airport.

 

Unsure of what to do, I check my phone – two texts from Milena.  Because I don’t know where the dog food is either we spend the next five minutes fighting in chatspeak, and after ten minutes of ripping open kitchen cabinets she remembers we dumped it into a bin in the yard.  We squeak out a laugh, and as we’re saying goodbye when Cody comes.

 

He’s weaving and stinks of the too-familiar scent of beer.  “Bro,” I say, giving him as much of a hug as my bones and his breath will let me, “did they let you fly the plane?”

 

His eyes are cloudy.  “You were two hours late.”

 

“Customs,” I scold him.  “They had to go through this one guy’s bag three times because he had a sandwich bag of Astroglide and couldn’t remember what it was.  I thought they were gonna have to check his ass before they let us fly.”  I’ve seen weirder ways to store lube in my time but dad’ll kill me if I scare the kid.  “Let’s grab some dinner before we suit up.  Denny’s sound good?”

 

He nodded, throwing an arm around my neck and making every nerve in my back scream.  “You look great, man.  Wish you’d ditch the stupid hat, though.”

 

I’m wearing my favorite ten-gallon Stetson, the black one.  Putting my hand on it protectively, I say, “you can take the shirt off my back, but no one’s touching the hat.”

 

“I’m just saying it looks old-fashioned.”

 

My bro’s dressed in typical “wrestler drag”; jeans, sneakers, black tee-shirt advertising Gold’s, black fanny pack and Longhorns baseball cap.  The kid thinks he’s being original?

 

***

 

Once he’s got a sandwich in him, Little Bro sobers up and turns on the charm.  We have less to talk about thanks to Dad’s non-stop emails about their training sessions, so he starts talking about his pro debut.

 

“I wish Al’d give me the all clear,” he complains, playing with the ketchup bottle. 

 

“Do what he says,” I advise, passing the waitress my Gold Card and fifteen dollars as a tip.  “Rushing it only leads to broken bones.”

 

“You’re so laid-back,” he said with a sigh.  I know exactly how he feels but won’t be responsible for him going off half-cocked.

 

“It’s the best way to deal with this business,” I explain.  “Take care of your shit, don’t try to worry about the other guy’s, and don’t worry about what dad thinks.”

 

“Worrying about what dad thinks your thing.”

 

I wince.  The kid’s got deadly aim.  “My therapist says I need to stop doing that.”

 

“Therapist?”

 

I pick up my empty bottle of Coors and point to it.  Thank god my brother’s an easy laugher.

 

My card comes back from out waitress and as we’re headed out to the parking lot the soft, familiar squeal of an excited woman erects the hair on the back of my neck.

 

“That is him!  It is!” One squawks.

 

“I’m not going to call him, you do it,” the other giggles.

 

“GOLDUST!” The first shouts.  I paste on my best Businessman Smile and turn to face the audience.

 

“Hi, ladies,” I say to them.  I’m relieved to notice they’re two plump housewives with hand-made Hardy Boyz teeshirts – much less frightening than angry, alcoholic jocks.  That they’re Hardy fans isn’t much of a shock – I like to say that if you stated out with Goldust, you end up going Hardys.  It just means you have an addiction to nice hair.

 

“It is him!  I told you, Maybelle!” the brunette woman says.

 

“Mister Goldust, we’re just your biggest fans!  We think you’re so cute, don’t we Toni?” Maybelle asks. 

 

“And so funny!” added Toni.  “Could you please sign these?”

 

“Glad to.  Do you have pens?” They offer me two napkins and a Sharpie, and I sign them against the roof of my rented Prius.  “Would you like some pictures?”

 

“We used up our last roll at the autograph signing,” Maybelle sighed.  “Have a good WrestleMania weekend.  Thank you, Goldust!”

 

I tip my ten gallon hat for them, but then Toni taps my shoulder and asks.  “Sir?  I had a question.”

 

“Yessum?”

 

“Is Goldust…you know?” she winks and grins – I worry she’s having a stroke.

 

Her blinking and twitching eventually makes me realize she’s trying to ask about what any genteel southern lady would call “you know”.  Ahh, my least-favorite Goldust-related question!  And little bro begins honking the horn just to make me feel better.  “He’s a gender artician.”

 

She frowned.  “A what?”

 

“He doesn’t lean one way or the other.  All that Goldust is is just one, big mindfuck.”

 

She made a gesture of frustration.  “I’m trying to ask if he’s…YOU KNOW.”

 

I tip my hat.  “He’s a gender artician.  Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

 

***

 

My dad has a motto: “you can tell a Rhodes by the way he carries himself.”  I’ve spent thirty years living up to it, and I’d like to think I’m one through-and-through; I walk like a cowboy, think like a man, ride like John Wayne, and act the way my mama raised me.  I had to prove – to dad and to myself – that I was a real Rhodes, and when I look at Cody and Jessie I know they didn’t have to fight for dad’s attention.  I started losing him before I was three; for them he wasn’t some far-off figure but a daddy-on-a-business-trip. 

 

The three of us – Dad, Cody and me – sit backstage waiting for introductions at the Hall of Fame dinner.  Someone offers me a glass of wine and I turn it down for another Coors.

 

“That’s my boy!” Dad hollers to Harley Race.  He’s all pride and eloquence tonight, thanks to his last six beers.

 

I remember a reporter sticking a microphone in his face down in the press room – some guy from Texas asking how he felt about having a bonafide dynasty now.  He just smiled and said, “Thankyaverymuch, but we ain’t the Von Erichs.”

 

That was Dad’s big goal as a father – not turning into Fritz and shoving his kids into early graves.  “What ever you do, lil’ Dust,” he’d say, after I’d done my first blade job or was exhausted from my first road trip, “don’t worry about living up to me.”  He had no way of knowing it was something I worry about constantly.  I remind myself that there’s nothing wrong like that with us Rhodes kids.  We don’t die.  We dance.

 

When I take the stage with my kid brother, his pride’s on full blast.  I rant on, then turn the mic over to the kid, who makes me feel like an old man but a happy one.  And for once, Dad seems thrilled with us both.

 

Backstage, Vince corners me and I realize how many months it’s been since we’ve seen each other.  Vince is turning grey – in the face and at the temples – and he wears a sour, puckered look, as if  he’s getting an ulcer.

 

“Good job, Dust,” he says to me.

 

“We’ren’t no trouble,” I say.

 

He puts his hand on my shoulder.  “If you ever want to come back, remember you’re always  welcome.”

 

I know what that spot is – as a comedy figure, or a…legend.  I smile politely and try not to think of the offer I have tabled from TNA.  “Thank you, Mister McMahon.”

 

He punches me in the shoulder – I see stars but he gets his little jock-beating thrill – and walks over to Flair.

 

***

 

Cody asks me to come to the bar with him, but I scored a midnight seat out of town on a red-eye.  He’s disappointed because he wants to catch up – or so he tells me – and because Vince’s offered us comps for tomorrow night.  After five hours of business-related BS and talking shop, I’m not in the mood to mingle.  Instead I check out, take back the car and board two minutes before the gate closes.  I’m so grateful that I fall asleep on the plane and wake up back in Texas.

 

“Thank you for flying Jetblue,” the stewardess clears my fogged mind; I’d dreamed I was back on a Pan Am jet to Tokyo.  I disembark with my carry-on at Sam Houston and by three I’m driving the back roads to the sticks I love.  At four I’m in my own bed at my own ranch, in the arms of my wife. 

 

In the morning, I get up and drive to Terri’s place.

 

She’s sitting on the porch with her Cubano and a cup of coffee, and I try to stay collected as we hug hello.  “How was the trip?” she asks, her calm expression a comfort to me.

 

Retirement has been pretty good to her.  Terri always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom, and now she pours all of her energy into Dakota.  “All right.  Where’s the baby?”

 

“Out back with Magic.”  She plucks the hat off of my head and puts it on hers.  “You’re going to go bald if you don’t watch out,” she teases.

 

I rub my head. “Too late.”  I remember the early days of our divorce and my desperate attempts at winning her back, one of which the entire world found out about.  But we let go of one another – HAD to let go of each other – to become the people we needed to be.

 

Out back, my thirteen-year-old rides her horse, whooping like a wild cowgirl.   Now there’s a lucky one.  Her daddy never left, he never will leave – he actually works hard to make sure she can keep that damn horse, her private school, her soccer club.  I see her and understand my father’s determination to get me out of the sticks and into a ring.

 

“Daddy!” she cries out, “watch this!”

 

She takes a barrel jump and tumbles off, and for a moment my heart clogs my throat.  Slowly she stands and brushes off her knees – no tears in her eyes, no shake in her voice.  She’s a Runnels.  She doesn’t cry.  Instead she gets up on that horse and rides like a champ toward the jump and meets it head on. 

 

And sails on over it.


The End