Return of the Jed (18 page)

“Now here’s a chance for me to be a hero. Mendoza said I would be a good guy, that people would cheer my name. They would take my photo, they would ask for autographs. Even though I’m in a mask and costume, and I’ll know the applause is for the character rather than the person, I deserve something positive for once. Not for
who
I am, but for
what
I am.”

No response.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Tell me how stupid I am.”

“Jed,” Marisa said. “I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through, or understand what it’s like to be so different. But I guess …”

“You guess what?”

“Maybe you need this as much as you want it. If you really feel that strongly, I get it. I’m not wholly on board with the idea, but I do realize it can mean so much to someone who’s faced nothing but adversity.”

I lowered the phone from my ear and stared at the screen, still lit with Marisa’s name. Honestly, I wished it said “Anna,” but this helped. This was good.

I put the phone back to my ear.

“I appreciate that, I really do,” I said.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Promise. No lie.”

I expected a click and silence, but Marisa added one more thing.

“Be sure to tell Luke I said hi, and that he owes me a text. Better yet, a phone call. And you better be watching out after him. He’s not the fastest armadillo trying to cross the highway in a storm, but he is the cutest.”

I hit the red hang-up button, but couldn’t forget that folksy saying about armadillos and highways. There was only one other person I knew who would say something as ridiculous as that.

If I could reach my arm, I could whack Vampiro Tijuana over the head while he was still dazed from my vicious head-butt. Unfortunately, my other arm also was out of reach. And if I could reach them, just how was I supposed to pick them up?

The moment summed up perfectly the plusses and minuses of being a zombie
luchador
(wrestler, Mexican style). On one hand, I could use all of my 130 pounds as a weapon, a bash-seeking missile meant to inflict pain while feeling little in return. On the other hand, I didn’t have hands at this point. Or arms.

Against the better judgment of anyone not a zombie, I’d accepted Mendoza’s offer with one condition: Tread would be my faithful wrestling sidekick. Mendoza agreed even before I showed him how easily you could teach an undead dog new tricks.

After nearly a week of training, Mendoza declared us ready for the ring. Everything went according to script in our first few matches, complete with Tread jumping into the fray when I needed a distraction.

I also came clean about my undeadness, having a gut feeling (which proved correct) that I could trust Mendoza. He’d watched my every move and knew I was not simply a marvel of double-jointed abilities, especially when my lower arms detached a few times. When he knew the truth, he simply nodded and said, “Good news for our insurance rates.”

But based on my performance against Vampiro, perhaps I’d bitten off more than I could chew (a saying I didn’t take lightly as a zombie).

Still, I was happy about two things: Dad had no idea I was wrestling because he was so caught up in his work, and Luke stood in my corner with staples and duct tape at the ready.

A few minutes earlier, Vampiro Tijuana—310 pounds of easily agitated
luchador
—had put me in a full nelson, locking my shoulders in an iron grip from behind.

According to the script, I’d dislocate my shoulders and slide out, darting between his legs to complete the escape. But I fell victim to Vampiro’s short attention span, because he clearly didn’t read that far.

He squeezed and with a loud
pop
like that of a cork launched from a champagne bottle, my arms flew from my body. Even more impressive was how the limbs hit the mat at the same time. If synchronized dismemberment were an Olympic sport, Vampiro earned a ten.

I slid away and crawled through Vampiro’s legs, the bout’s storyline destroyed with one move. The script had me climbing Vampiro’s back, grabbing his mask and twisting it front to back, giving Vampiro two eye-holes on the back of his head. As Vampiro stumbled around the ring, I’d snap off my left forearm and beat him about the head and shoulders. Well, mostly the shoulders, because that was as high as I could reach. Vampiro would fall through the ropes, crashing onto a collapsible table that would quickly give way, the match ending when Vampiro slammed onto the concrete, out cold, and with cut-out eyes staring from the back of his head.

My faithful sidekick canine Tread was to sniff and nudge Vampiro, making it clear the wrestler was done.

When Vampiro popped off my arms, the script became meaningless. I felt as hopeless as an armless zombie trying to rescue his non-chupacabra dog from a fortified kennel. Then again, that turned out all right.

But now? Probably not so much.

My arms were on either side of a very angry looking Vampiro as he turned to stare at me. He couldn’t help but look mean, thanks to a mask featuring blood-dipped fangs, thick red lips, and eyebrows shaped as lightning bolts (I wasn’t sure how lightning went with vampires, but it worked). The forehead featured black bats flying in a red sky.

My mask was simple by comparison—silver with square eyeholes and studded with fabric nuts and bolts. It once had a series of flashing LED lights, but Ooze and electricity didn’t mix well. My first match ended after three minutes with screams of pain when batteries leaked, burning my forehead and cheeks. Thank goodness the Mexican audience didn’t understand English, especially with the words I used.

After a few alterations, I returned to the ring as Deadly Transforming Jed (Deadly Jed
Transformar
to the locals). After all, robots came with detachable limbs. People would applaud the amazing special effects should I come apart at the seams.

“I’d like to think we are a society that would be very zombie-tolerant,” Mendoza said. “But I’d rather they get to know you before revealing your true story.”

When I called Mendoza to tell him I was in, he invited me to meet the crew. A few nights after my bus-crash/
lucha libre
audition, Luke and I’d met everyone at the Kabob Cabana. Turned out wrestlers shared a love of two things—consuming large portions of meat, and beating each other senseless.

We spotted the
luchadores
as soon as we walked in. A line of servers balancing kabob towers led us right to a table of guys whose average size was “can block out the sun.”

Luke said something, but I couldn’t make it out through all his scent-induced saliva.

“What, dude?” I asked.

“I haven’t met any of these guys,” he said. “But they are already my heroes.”

Luke gestured to the growing pile of kabobs in the center of the table.

“Behold, Meat Mountain,” he said. “I’ve always dreamed of climbing it. Tonight, I shall.”

I reminded Luke the only reason he was there was as my agent. If I decided to join the troupe, I left it to Luke to negotiate the best deal.

But now he only had eyes for Meat Mountain. I’d lost my best friend to his food fantasy.

“
Hola,
Jed
, venga aquí
,” a voice called from behind Meat Mountain.

Mendoza rose from behind the Eighth Wonder of the carnivore world. “Join us,
mi amigo
. Partake of the spoils of strained muscles and torn ligaments. Or, in your case, severed limbs.”

As soon as “severed limbs” echoed on the walls, every eye around the table was on me. A quick count revealed eleven wrestlers, thus twenty-one eyes (and one eye patch featuring a flaming skull).

“¿Este es el gringo que nos estabas hablando en Mendoza?”
said one wrestler, who then saw my quizzical look. “I asked Mendoza if you’re the new wrestler he’s been talking about. But you look more like the toothpick we’ll need later.”

The table erupted in laughter. Mendoza had warned me my welcome would be less than warm, so I did precisely what he’d asked me to.

I strode to the biggest guy at the table—who also happened to be the guy who’d compared me to a toothpick—detached my left forearm and slapped him with it.

The table fell silent. The single-eyed wrestler lifted his eye-patch (revealing a perfectly normal orb).

Awkward.

Luke, who had trailed behind as I made my way to my target, whispered in my ear, “If you leave here in fewer than four pieces, moral victory.”

The wrestler, who showed no pain when I slapped him, snatched my forearm. Would he snap it into several pieces before scattering it over my grave, or stick it on one of the skewers littering the table and send it to the kitchen to be burnt to a cinder?

Neither, it turned out. He held it over his head with one hand and slapped his palm to mine.

He’d just delivered my very first disembodied high-five. He tossed the arm across the table to another wrestler, who did the same, thwacking my left hand with his meaty palm.

The arm traveled around the table, each
luchador
offering the same salute. These guys could bench-press three hundred pounds, consume a side of beef in one sitting, and clear a room with three angry words.

But none of them could take off a limb as easily as detaching
LEGO
blocks.

Mendoza beamed. I was in. Happiest of all was the guy I’d slapped—
Diablo Verde
, the Green Devil. Over the next hour, the dozen of us concocted scenarios that would best take advantage of my talents. I’d also be the only
luchador
with a sidekick—Tread, who I boasted about when it came to detachment of limbs.

And my name would be Deadly Jed, the Transformer. Two things worried me. First, would fans freak out when an arm came off?

“Fans want to see us pummeled,” Mendoza, known as
El Mercenario
, said. “Severed limbs only add to the entertainment value.”

Secondly, would the makers of the Transformer toys and movies sue us, especially if their brand was represented by a zombie?

“Point taken,” Mendoza said. “We can defeat all types of foes, but not copyright infringement.”

My name was altered to Deadly Transforming Jed, the wrestling robot. My mask reflected the mechanical nature of my character, and Tread would wear a silver cape. He specialized in limb retrieval, fetching arms and legs just in time to save the match (but since I was the rookie, victories would be few).

Mendoza and Luke negotiated my contract. Sort of. The process went like this.

Mendoza: “We will pay Jed two hundred pesos per match.”

Luke: “Does that include meals?”

Mendoza: “No. But we can do one hundred pesos and a plate of nachos.”

Luke: “Do I get as much cheese on the nachos as I want?”

Mendoza: “No.”

Luke: “Deal.”

When I told Luke that one hundred pesos equaled about eight bucks, he shrugged. “Nachos, baby. I landed us nachos!”

As I now faced an angry Vampiro, it occurred to me: Are nachos as tasty when fed to you? I counted on Luke to shovel them in my mouth, thanks to my armless state.

Vampiro stood in the middle of the ring staring at me with those dead eyes. His villainous character often drew jeers, and I reminded myself that the man inside the costume was a decent guy. Ernesto Villalobos had been a
luchador
for more than fifteen years, a long career in a field where broken bones, ripped tendons, and ruptured internal organs shortened careers.

Ernesto changed when he pulled on his mask. He grappled to win, wrestling as much with the script as his opponent. Those matched up with him remained wary, knowing serious injury might result. His desire and effort made him one of the more popular villains, so the crowd roared when he popped off my arms. Never mind they roared with boos, emphasizing their displeasure with words I fortunately did not understand. Still, such strong reactions usually swelled Vampiro with pride, energizing him to commit deeds more atrocious than the last.

He threw his hands up and roared, handing me the opportunity I needed. I ran toward him, head down, and slammed right into his most sensitive spot like a below-the-waist-seeking missile.

Bull’s-eye. Vampiro dropped to his knees, the resulting ring-quake registering at least a 6.4 on the
lucha libre
Richter scale. He clutched the targeted area.

As he gasped for air, I whistled twice, and Tread leaped into the ring. Just one problem.

His cape caught on a turnbuckle in the corner. Tread strained to free himself, but the fabric of the taut cape held firm. I could see where the cape had snagged, catching on a frayed wire that connected the ropes to the padding.

Luck, and one of my detached arms, was on my side. My left arm had landed in that corner, propped against the ropes and so very close to the snag. Tread hadn’t noticed it when he leapt in, focused instead on my right arm on the other side of the ring.

I thought back to that moment in the kennels, when I was able to move my detached fingers just enough to make a difference.

Could that possibly happen again? Or was it merely a fluke of unpredictable zombieness?