Savage Read Free Page B

videos we’d borrow from the library, when the rain and the movies and the thunder rolled over the house—a few cans of diet cola, a few handfuls of candy, watermelon—and how we’d tug on the Saturday-morning couch blanket until some boundary-smashing question would send me into a fit of shame: "Do you jerk off?...Yet?...You will. All guys do...But you’re not a guy."
    And now here, my birthday gift: the wrestling match.
    "Do you have their dollies?" Holly asked.
    "You mean action figures ? Yes. I have both. I want Bundy though, can’t find him anywhere."
    "So who is going to win? Ricky or Randy?"
    "I think Ricky is faster, but the Macho Man is tricky, and stronger. And smarter—maybe."
    Holly pulled out a small emery board.
    "Who else is fighting?"
    "JYD is versing King Kong Bundy," I said. I was sniffing the program, holding the page under my nose as if it were a fence to peer over.
    "You mean versus."
    "Yeah."
    "JYD? Oh wait—Junkyard God, right?" Holly said.
    "Not ‘God’—‘Dog.’"
    "That’s what I meant," Holly said, a decapitated string of red licorice dangled limp in her hand.
    "Who do you think will win that one?" She now had the program on her lap and was digging into a small stash of candy in her bag.
    She pointed at Bundy’s name. I scratched my chin. I looked into the arena’s crevices; the sparse audience looked tiny and distant.
    "Well? Bundy or Bow-wow?"
    I thought about it: Bundy had been furious since losing the cage match to Hulk Hogan in April at Wrestlemania 2, but Junkyard Dog was friends with Hulk and wouldn’t want to let the Hulkster down.
    "The God! Bow-wow-wow!" I howled, stirring with excitement. "The God Dog damn it Dog!"
    Holly tilted her neck back and offered me a piece of gum. "What time is it?"
    She rubbed both hands over her knees.
    "Eight-fifteen," I said, noticing the ring attendants fussing with a turnbuckle.
    "Where’s Dad?" I wondered, reluctant to turn my neck to look where I imagined Dad might emerge and burst into the ring in some ridiculous gardening costume.
    "Washroom," Holly answered, nodding toward the nearest exit. "Or maybe he went to the ring."
    "That would be amazing."
    "I’m a bit hungry. Where’s the popcorn geek?"
    "Did you talk to Grammy? She called yesterday."
    "No, no one told me," Holly said, pulling her gum out in a long strip and sticking it under her seat.
    "Whaddyathink Mom’s doing?" I asked.
    "Dunno. Talking to herself? Folding your underwear?"
    "Gross."
    Holly was laughing.
    "Mom’s probably vacuuming her farts," she said, howling even louder as an announcer stepped into the ring.
    Dad returned to his seat as the house lights went down.
    "OK, show time, Nate!" Holly said, squeezing my forearm. Standing up partially, I ground my feet into the Gardens’ unkempt skin.

    *

    "Goodnight Nate," Mom said, closing my basement bedroom door. "Glad you guys had a good time tonight."
    The eerie and galactic light waned to a thin slit. " Shooooooooooooo-wooooooooooooooooo-waaaaaaah-kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk ," I said in a low murmur, dubbing a spaceship door closing. "Sweet dreams," I said.
    "You too," Mom said. This specific two-word phrase, you too, was the hook I always waited for, that exchange, the back and forth.
    As I lay there, I remembered some of my Mom’s jokes from earlier in the school year when I was sick a lot. She took me for blood tests because no one knew what was wrong with me. She joked that the doctor would use a foot pump to take my blood and that I’d have to start paying rent at his office. I just got so nervous going to school and dreaded the thought of doing presentations. The work was piling up, and I faked illness for about a month straight.
    Sleeping in the basement for a year now, the enamelled luxury of my own concrete washing sink and access to the workshop gave me a sense of bounty. The floor was partially covered in an oval-shaped maroon rug; the floor