Scars Without Wounds
"....And this one never healed right," She flipped her bottom lip out toward him, displaying a tiny, brownish-red scar which marred the inside of her lower lip.
He winced, "Nasty,". She said something about wanting to get a tattoo to cover the botched piercing and he thought that might be a wise idea. Then he swallowed another mouthful of beer and tried to brush away a residual pocket of cigarette smoke that haloed their heads. He shot a dirty look in the direction of Paul Heyman, who simply smiled and drew in another lungful of tobacco.
Frowning, Terry looked at his own mug of beer and placed it back on the bar. His own health, which he had grown to guard with jealousy as his age advanced, only stretched so far these days.
He turned to his companion, whose distant gaze focused upon a booth a few feet away. There, Jim Fullington held court with his usual drunken brevity. He knew, and she did not, that if Jim obliged himself one more beer things would get even more entertaining, and there would be popcorn and paper airplanes clogging the air.
She turned her attention from Jim suddenly, plucking out a kernel of popcorn from a communal basket, "I know some boys back home that make him look like a first-timer."
Terry smiled; she spoke, often, of home, which to her was North Carolina. A young one like her still had a sense of home, of belonging somewhere other than a smoky barroom, claustrophobic car or tiny gym. He, a veteran of many years, knew that his life had become central to those experiences.
He studied this young woman as she ate popcorn like a zombie. Normally filled with life, spirit, a rough and normal humor that intrigued him, her expression made him a bit melancholy. Already, she was becoming one of them.
Her name was Amy (Anne? June? Renee?) Dumas, and she had a Castilian air about her. Every gesture made by her form seemed somewhat dramatic, like a gypsy selling a story, and she seemed moody until her mouth opened. Then, on a flood of 'you knows' and 'really cools' she fell into step with every other woman of her generation.
She was the child of a baby boomer who had worn a mullet at seventeen; showing him an old picture hidden away in her wallet, she laughed at her Izod shirt and demanded to see his.
But he carried no pictures of himself on his journey. He didn't even have a driver's license any more; Paul did most of the driving, and Terry didn't feel the need to keep up with the hassle his dual citizenship brought up every time he tried to renew it. All he had was a picture of his wife, Mibu.
Mibu, loyal and self-sacrificing, who had left her family back in Japan to settle into the Tolstoian darkness of rural Pennsylvania with him. Mibu, who missed him and wanted to start a family soon.
Amy smiled fondly at the photo. "Here's my boyfriend," she said, pulling out a picture of a stout brunette with roguish eyes, "Matt and the camera have been together longer than he and I have."
The only thing Terry could think of was to remark on the youthful sheen of optimism in the young boy's eyes.
"He's in the minors back in Carolina," she smiled, "His brother sent in a tape of the two of them to McMahon last week."
McMahon. That was a charred bridge. Terry smiled politely, remembering his own arrogance when he had worked for McMahon. Time and pain were taking effect on that pride; now he wished for a guaranteed contract, a promise that would keep Mibu alive and warm if the worst was to come about.
As much as he loved the business, as much as he cherished his honor, truth crept through his veins.
That truth told him that he had not yet met forty, but felt sixty. That ECW was dwindling down from its once-mighty heights. That soon he would be forced to go back on the carny circuit and the nomadic world of Japanese wrestling.
She asked him what the trouble was and he looked up from his clenched fists. Her eyes held a certain crystalline innocence that brought once more to mind a fact: to her, this life remained a game. Only recently had the dark pressure of the road began to curl itself around her, like fingers squeezing life away.
He smiled rakishly and asked again about her piercings.
There were two, hidden away upon her tongue, which she showed him before bottoming out her beer. She said that she wanted to get her eyebrows done, but then word had come from Matt about the tape. Vince didn't want any facial jewelry on his girls. Not if it wasn't 'sexy' and pleasing to the eye.
Sexy; she was that, but seemed selfless in it, and beautiful in an odd way. She strove for uniqueness, something displayed clearly in the still-tender tattoo she had received in Mexico recently. It was vaguely Gaelic in design; maybe she had Irish blood inside of her being. Yet her look whispered of late-night parties at rock clubs and raving on tabs of acid to dawn; suggestively punk with a hint of Russo-Spanish princess. That Castillian blood again...
She asked to see his piercings and, to his shame, he had none to show but the ring in his ear. His mother had insisted upon it in his childhood; all babies of Indian descent wore a loop in their ear. For good luck.
Amy smiled. Said that he had it, and asked to see his tattoos.
He didn't have any of those, either; unless one counted the endless number of healed wounds that criss-crossed his body. Somehow, as time marched on, he had lost count of the blade scars, the barbed wire and broken glass which had pierced his body.
Bittersweetly, he smiled. He should have bought some stock in SuperGlue while he had the chance.
A bartender bellowed "Last call!", disrupting the quiet harmony that had developed between them. He opened his mouth to say something; what? Give her the number to his room? As much as he admired her dancing flame of a body, he could not bring himself to cheat on Mibu.
She handed the bartender a ten-spot. He realized that she had paid for his drink, as well as her own.
He brought himself to his feet, trying not to totter on burning legs. She rested a steadying hand upon his shoulder as she retrieved her purse.
In that one moment he tried to memorize her form, understanding that he was in the presence of a great woman, a woman who would share his cult-like status in the future with fans of the business. He also understood that he would never see her again, something he considered a shame. Something that neither one of them could do a thing to change, not on their parallel and never intertwining roads.
She treated him like a kind grandfather for listening so well. Patted his back and disappeared out of a side exit, like the rising starlet in her nascent days