Bodyslam

INTERLUDE

A/N: I recently dug up some old writings of mine. That may not be anything particularly noteworthy for a writer, but in this case they're written versions of a few of my old "road stores."

If you weren't aware I'm writing Bodyslam with a hefty dose of experience. I was a professional wrestler for nearly a decade, and I wrote about it quite a bit while it was happening. A lot of what I wrote was fairly mundane day-in-the-life documentation, but I realized I had some fairly entertaining stuff mixed in.

So while I slog through real life and work on completing the next chapter of Bodyslam, I thought I'd toss a true story up here - one random day of my life in the business.

Names and locations have been changed for privacy purposes.

Here's another term for ya.

"Ribbing."

A rib is a prank. Ribs are practical jokes, often to the nth degree. Some are funny, some are rude, some are downright cruel. But they're part and parcel of this business, and just another means of showing affection.

So we were in Small Town on Saturday night.

When we're in Small Town, we hire an off-duty cop for a little "backup" security due to some past "issues" at that particular venue that may or may not have involved the locker room having to come out to help "handle" the "issue" which is another story for another time.

(can I use any more "quotes" in that sentence? I'm trying to be "nice" here...)

Our cop's name is Marty. He's pretty cool; friendly, quiet, always seems to enjoy watching the shows. We like having him around, and I'm sure he likes getting paid to watch wrestling.

We were all backstage getting changed and doing the normal pre-show stuff we always do. I'm sure someone was in their underwear still; I don't really know because I had my glasses off to put on my makeup. Regardless, it seems someone is always in their underwear at any given time before, during, and after a show.

Officer Marty arrived and came backstage to say hey.

I was sitting in my usual spot applying my aforementioned makeup. There was a minor fuss from the opposite corner of the room, and I could see people making their way away from that corner, everyone with horrified expressions and hands over their noses.

Great. Someone's Taco Bell at lunch seemed to have caught up with them.

Someone accused Alex, and I looked up in alarm because Alex was standing not 3 feet away with his back to me. Nothing had permeated my little corner of the universe yet, and I stood up quickly in preparation to either run or hit Alex for farting in my vicinity.

"Dammit Alex, you didn't, did you?? Your ass is pointed right at me!"

He vehemently denied the accusations.

Before I could say another word it washed over me like the vilest kickback of broccoli, beer, spoiled food, and lactose intolerance one couldn't even begin to fathom.

Now, we're a tough group. We really are.

A few months back someone let go in the locker room during the National Anthem. While it didn't approach the ghastliness of Saturday night's stank, it was bad. Real bad. And every single one of us stood there backstage in complete silence until the last strains of "...and the home of the braaaaaaave." faded. We were turning purple from holding our breath and holding back hysterical laughter, but dammit...we stood there in silence.

Without the constraints of civic pride and social conditioning holding us back this time, though, we did what any being with a rudimentary sense of smell would do in the same situation.