Saturday June 2, 2001
Castleton Mall Olive Garden
Indianapolis, Indiana
6:51 PM Local Time
“Professional wrestling?! Are you serious?’
“Calm down, hon” Terrence Thompson chuckled at the expression on his girlfriends’ face, which at the moment contained an almost comical mixture of disbelief, incredulity, outrage, and confusion. “It’s not the worst job in the world.”
Wendy Briese seemed to disagree. “A bunch of muscleheads slugging each other with chairs? You actually find that appealing?”
Terrence shrugged, gnawing off the end of a breadstick, setting the remainder on his salad plate. “It’s not just that, hon. And anyways, now that I can’t race anymore, I have to do something, right?”
“You ARE doing something, Terrence! You work in your uncle’s garage. That’s a better job than most people have this day and age.” Wendy protested.
But Terrence merely shook his head. “That’s not what I want to do with my life. Growing old and fat and greasestained while trying to explain to idiots who don’t understand cars just what exactly I’m trying to do to them. I mean, I like working on them, but I loved driving them even more. I loved that rush, that thrill of competition. And, well, this wrestling thing, it has that. Now, I talked to a promoter in Boston, and-“
“BOSTON!?” This time Wendy’s outburst was too loud, and she turned crimson as she noticed that several nearby patrons had turned to stare at her. She lowered her voice, albeit not by much. “Not only are you doing this… thing. You’re moving to Boston as well?”
Terrence grimaced, and Wendy could tell that he had let something slip he hadn’t wanted to reveal to her quite yet. Knowing Terrence, he had rehearsed this dinner conversation over in his mind, and that one slight miscue had thrown him totally off the script. Good she thought. She wanted to see him squirm after bringing this news up to her.
Terrence remained quiet, chewing his bottom lip. “Yeah, Boston,” Terrence said. “There’s a new promotion out there called Revolution Wrestling, and it’s just starting to pick up steam. I talked to the promoter… he seems like a good guy. And he thinks the fans would love this whole ‘crazy auto racer who just got out of the loony bin’ thing. So yeah, he’s willing to give me a developmental deal.”
Wendy was liking this whole thing less and less. She had never thought of Terrence as crazy, even when he had willingly committed himself to eight months psychiatric care in order to have his assault charges dropped. That night at the track had burned a hole in her memory, she’d remembered it like it had just happened. The sight of her outraged boyfriend going completely out of control had terrified her, and the consequences were devastating. And now he was going to flaunt that? Turn himself into a caricature just for the sake of appealing to a bunch of weirdos who enjoyed watching grown men hurt each other? And he expected her to be okay with this?
Even worse, Terrence had been released merely a fortnight ago, and now he was moving a thousand miles away. She had visited him every time she had been able to while he was in the Indiana State Mental Hospital, but it had never been enough, and it wasn’t as if there was much fun to be had in that place anyways. But this was even worse. At least in the hospital, she COULD see him. In Boston… he was gone.
“Isn’t there ANYTHING else you could do?” Wendy pleaded. “Or at least find a place to do this wrestling stuff in closer to here? I just got you back!”
“I know,” Terrence sighed. “But this seemed like the best place, and I don’t know how long the window’s going to be open. Get while the getting is good, they say, right? And don’t worry, Wendy. Between the internet, and cellphones, and all this technology, it’s easier now to have a long-distance relationship than ever!”
“But I don’t WANT a long-distance relationship!” Wendy snapped, finding herself on the verge of tears again. “I want YOU, Terrence. I want you to be across the table from me at dinner, and in the audience at my plays, and picking me up to go to the State Fair in August.”
Terrence looked cowed from Wendy’s outburst, before suddenly finding himself way more interested in his salad than he been before. Wendy watched him as he stabbed at an olive with his fork, the olive rolling off the tines several times before frustrated, with that and everything else, Terrence abandoned all sense of table manners and reached down, grabbed the vegetable, and popped it in his mouth.
Wendy sighed. This uncertain silence was the worst thing there was. “So how long until you leave?” she asked, so quiet she was almost whispering.
“I’m not sure. Probably within the next month or so.” Terrence responded.
“What if I moved out with you?” Wendy finally asked. “I mean, I don’t know if I can be ready in a month. I’ve got to finish all my stuff first. But after that, why not? I’ve always wanted to see Boston. Although that’s never something that was smart to say when I was living in New York,” she grinned at her joke, albeit a strained one.
Terrence’s chuckle wasn’t entirely whole-hearted either. “I don’t know, Wendy. I doubt your parents would…”
“Why does everything have to come down to my parents?” Wendy hissed, her emerald eyes narrowing. “I’m twenty years old. I can live wherever I darn well please. Besides, why wouldn’t daddy want me living in Boston? He wants me under the brightest lights possible, and there’s certainly more illumination on the East Coast than there is in the heartland.”
“Because I’m there,” Terrence responded. “Your parents hate me, Wendy. They have for the two years we’ve been together. I know it’s bothered you, but I’ve been okay with it. But that doesn’t make things any easier for us right now. They won’t want you out there to be with me.”
“Well, it’s what I want that matters, Terrence. Just please, Terrence. Let me figure out how to deal with Mother and Daddy. Just… please make sure you really want to do this before you move away. I want to come out and be with you. And I want to be there for you. But I’m worried. This whole thing sounds so dangerous.”
“It probably is dangerous,” Terrence admitted. “But so’s driving a race car. So’s a lot of things in life. But thank you, Wendy. For your support. Not just now… but for everything you’ve done over the past year or so. I truly have the greatest girlfriend in the world.”
He reached forward, and clasped Wendy’s hands in his, and Wendy smiled back, although she was still trying to hold back the tears that were shining in her eyes.
==================
Thursday November 29, 2001
Massachusetts General Hospital- Room 378
Boston, Massachusetts
9:14 AM Local Time
“YOU DID WHAT?!”
Wendy Briese wince as her boyfriend’s words slammed in to her, waving her hands frantically, as if they could ward them off. “Okay, Terry. Calm down…”
“Oh, I’m calm. I’m VERY CALM!”
Wendy thought about informing Terrence that he was a very blatant liar, but decided that was hardly going to help matters at this point. Just the day before, Terrence had looked down in the dumps, helpless as he laid in his hospital bed, recovering from the injuries he had received in a brutal stretcher match that had left him very definitively the loser in the contest. Of course, it hadn’t helped that his opponents running buddies, each a massive three hundred pounder who had been a thorn in her boyfriend’s side for the better part of two months had managed to make short-lived, yet fairly destructive cameos into the match as well. Obviously a good night’s sleep had been very rousing for him.
Or maybe it was the discovery that his girlfriend had just signed a wrestling contract to face those exact same men who had put him in the hospital.
“Okay, Terry. I understand that you might be thinking I’m crazy here.”
“No, I’m not thinking that. That would imply there’s some uncertainty on the matter. Let’s talk about YOU for a second, and what the hell YOU were thinking!”
Wendy bit her lip. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had been thinking, come to think of it. She had arrived in Boston planning to attend the University there, and to earn her degree in theater, while all the while fulfilling her promise to support Terrence’s career. But since she couldn’t gain admittance to BU until January, she had found herself learning more and more about wrestling in the meantime. She thought back to a week ago, at the stretcher match, and how outraged she had been as she watched those three men pummeling Terrence into hamburger, and she had honestly wanted to run and leap at those thugs to stop them as it was going on. So when the owner of the company had called her and asked if she wouldn’t mind choosing Terrence’s replacement in the six-man tag match to finish the show, Wendy, in a moment she’d probably never understand for the rest of her life, had named herself.
“Your silence is a VERY suitable answer,” Terrence’s voice cut into her thoughts.
Wendy shot Terrence a glare, and took a deep breath. “Look, you told me over and over how those goons aren’t very good, and they just rely on strength and numbers. And I’d have been teaming with the Lone Gunmen… they’re the best tag team in the company! So… I figured.”
“What? That they’d just carry you? That you’d stand in the damn corner and look pretty while they did all the work? I’m sure they appreciated THAT, hon!”
“Yeah, well, it never really came to that.” Wendy stammered. “The Gunmen got jumped backstage, and well, they cancelled the match. Except, those jerks were already in the ring, so they decided that official match or no, they’d have a three on one handicap situation with me.”
She still trembled when she thought about that… nine hundred pounds of goon bearing down on her, while all she could really do was throw fairly ineffective punches. Thank god for ringside security…
“I’ll be a lot more effective once I actually get some training.” She offered helpfully.
“Training? You can’t be serious about doing this, Wendy! What about acting? What about your plans?”
“My parents plans,” Wendy corrected, a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “And, well, despite the fact that you’re getting the stuffing knocked out of you sometimes, you seem to have fun out there. And, I’ve always wanted to do something with you. Why not this? We could be a team!”
This time, there was no answer from her boyfriend. Just him staring at her, his jaw somewhere around a good foot from the roof of his mouth. He was shaking his head back and forth, although the movement was very slight, as if his head was merely wobbling.
“I mean, I know I’m not that big or strong. But I’ve watched a few matches, and speed and agility are as much factors as strength, and I certainly think I have that. And I’m a quick learner. I’m sure I could be able to master a few moves, and keep getting better. And I know women can be good at this too. There’s even another woman in the company!”
“Who, Atayla?” Terrence shook his head. “Wendy, she’s nuts. And not in the ‘I’m going to commit suicide and face three guys three times my weight by myself’ nuts. More like the ‘I’m going to stab you in the eyeball with this fork, pull it out of the socket, and eat it’ nuts. “
Wendy winced at the imagery. She did find the idea of using weapons to hit and gouge at people a bit disturbing, but there were plenty of matches were it didn’t happen. Still, she shrugged. “Well, either way, Terrence, its too late. I signed a developmental contract, and they have me training starting this afternoon. And they said that if you’re not cleared to compete by the next show, I could take your place there too!”
Terrence’s eyes shot to the IV in his arm, and looked as if he was seriously considering ripping it out. He grimaced, and looked up at Wendy. “Wendy, this isn’t a game. You’ve seen what happens out there. You can get hurt out there. Really, really badly. And I won’t be able to protect you- you have GOT to be able to hold your own. I really, really, REALLY don’t want you to do this.”
“Well, if you recall, I don’t want YOU doing this either. So I guess now its either we both do it. Or neither of us does.”
Terrence’s mouth opened like a fish, and he mouthed a few words with absolutely no audio, completely at a loss for a proper response. Wendy smiled. She’d been a wrestler for not even twenty four hours, and she’d already pinned her first opponent- at least verbally.
“Terrence, you know I’m capable. You know I’m smart. You know I can learn. If I do something, I put as much effort into it as I can. I can do this, Terrence. And what’s the harm in me at least trying?”
“You mean, other than you winding up here?” Terrence asked, gesturing around the hospital room.
“True,” Wendy acknowledged. “And yeah, I’m afraid of that. But that’ll just make me strive to be better, right? A bit of incentive.”
Terrence grimaced, and sighed. “If you want to do it, I can’t stop you anymore than you could stop me. Just, please… don’t do anything careless Wendy. I’m still new at this myself, and this is only going to make things more complicated. But once I get out of here, I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“Thank you, Terry.” Wendy smiled, walking across the room, and leaning over, and kissing him. “And I promise you, I won’t be a burden or a liability.”
“I know,” Terrence said, although he really didn’t sound as if he fully believed it. Finally, he broke into a grin. “So… what are you going to tell your dad?”
Wendy shrugged, and cracked a grin so evil that it forced her boyfriend to wince. “Who says he has to know?”
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