Return of the Jed (19 page)

Time to find out.

I focused all my energy (at least what was left) on that arm, imagining it still attached.

“Brain, I need you to do this. Stretch those fingers, curl the wrist.”

The fingers moved, extending. The wrist curled, the index finger so close to the snag. I felt my finger touch the fabric.

“Excellent, Brain, now push. Push that bit of cape up and over the wire.”

Ooze slicked my forehead as I reconnected with the wayward arm. I pushed up with my index finger, felt the sharp point of the wire.

Success.

Tread sprang free and fetched my right arm, dropping it at my feet. As he circled back for the other arm, I wedged my toes under the limb and flipped it to Luke, my always-prepared corner man already peeling silver duct tape from one of the dozen rolls he carried.

Luke caught the arm in mid-air. Vampiro struggled to life, planting one foot, then the other, and pushing himself upright, shaking his head free of the cobwebs.

I had a minute. Maybe.

Tread dropped the other limb at my feet and leapt from the ring, all that training paying off. I flipped that one to Luke as well and raced to the corner.

Luke popped an arm into my right shoulder socket, wrapping it in tape, the roll a blur as it went around and around.

“
Eres hombre muerto
!” screamed a voice behind me.

I didn’t need a translator to figure that one out. I was a dead man. No argument.

With one arm secure, I asked for the other limb.

“Hold on a sec,” Luke said.

“I don’t have a—”

Luke disappeared. One second he was there, the next he was gone, his space taken by Vampiro’s enormous, and very hairy, back.

My opponent cold-cocked my corner man, sending Luke to the concrete floor two feet below.

My right shoulder tingled, but it would still be several more minutes before my right arm was full strength.

Only it wasn’t my right arm. Luke had fused my left arm to my right shoulder. I couldn’t move it at all. It was like trying to download Android on an iPhone. The two were incompatible, like cross-wiring the right and left brain and causing a short.

I did the only thing I could.

I ran.

Vampiro lunged left. I dodged right. Vampiro dove right. I jumped left. He zigged. I zagged. I could do this all day.

“You can’t do that all day!” Mendoza’s voice. In addition to wrestling, he booked our appearances and was in charge of the shows. And this match’s entertainment value plummeted the more I evaded attacks.

“You have to face him and fight,” Mendoza yelled over the booing crowd.

I stopped undead in my tracks. Prepared for my doom, I turned to face Vampiro.

A silver flash to the right caught both our eyes. Tread dashed into the ring, my right arm in his jaws.

Vampiro had no idea my left arm (on my right side) was useless. I called to Tread, hoping my opponent would focus on Tread. Vampiro had little chance of catching me when I was in Flee Mode. He had no chance at grabbing Tread.

Tread zipped between Vampiro’s legs, the lumbering giant swiping at the space Tread had occupied two seconds before.

I whistled three sharp bursts, Tread’s command to play keep-away.

Determined to keep me from my other arm, knowing it could come in handy as a club, Vampiro focused his energy on Tread. The crowd stood as the zombie terrier mix dashed about, Vampiro lurching about as if he were the zombie.

I waited for just the right opening, a small window where Vampiro would—

My concentration broke at a sharp squeal of pain. Tread had cut too sharply, his left rear leg snarling on a stray bit of canvas.

My dog was uncatchable on four legs. But with three remaining, Vampiro had a chance, especially as Tread stopped in an effort to reboot and adjust to the missing limb.

My window opened.

Vampiro cornered Tread, leaning down with both heavily muscled arms out to his side. Tread could have ducked under the ropes and escaped, but his doggie brain was still playing keep-away, and surrender was not allowed.

Just fifteen feet away from the two of them, I envisioned my line of attack. Vampiro closed in on Tread when I whistled, calling Tread to me as I ran toward the hulking
luchador
.

Tread ducked just enough to get under Vampiro’s arm. Vampiro twisted his upper body toward me at the same time I launched, our heads connecting with a loud, somewhat sickening, thud.

I bounced off intact. Vampiro slumped to the mat.

Tread trotted over to the fallen wrestler and dropped the arm on him.

Just as scripted.

“So then Tread drops my arm on top of Vampiro, and everybody goes nuts.” I hoped it didn’t sound as if I was bragging as I told Anna all about the match that made me feel semi-famous in the
lucha libre
community.

Her face lit up my computer screen like it did my life (which I’d never admit to her, or even say aloud since it was so corny).

I realized my popularity was extremely limited. It was like being well known in the Scrabble community, or being a cosplay star. You’re cool when with like-minded friends, but everyone else sees a group of nerds with nothing better to do.

But it felt every bit as good as I’d imagined.

As the only
luchador
whose weight rarely exceeded that of the meat platters consumed each night by the wrestlers, my success did shock a lot of people.

“Jed, I’m just happy he didn’t pop your head off,” Anna said from so far away, yet so close. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch the screen. “Wait, what are you doing?”

I hadn’t resisted the urge after all. “Sorry, just, you know, stretching.”

“Just glad you still have arms to stretch,” Anna said. “They go back on OK?”

“Luke got them back on just fine. We even invested in better duct tape and longer staples, as often as my limbs are coming off.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing, Jed. Like snapping the cap back on toothpaste. By the end of the tube, the cap is barely holding on. Aren’t you afraid there might come a time when your arms come off with a slight tug?”

I didn’t tell Anna it’d already happened. Three nights a week for the last three weeks, I was either plucking an arm from a socket, or another
luchador
was doing me the favor. I alternated left and right with each match, but yesterday I had been digging deep through
aguas frescas
looking for one with a recognizable color, and grasped one at the bottom of the cooler. I straightened, lifting it through many cold layers of vegetable- and candy-flavored waters.

The bottle came out much easier than I’d anticipated. Until I realized the bottle was still at the bottom, my arm with it, fingers still grasping the plastic.

Bottle one, right arm zero.

The proprietor cleared his throat, pointing to a sign above the cooler. It was in Spanish, but with an English translation in fine print at the bottom.

It said, “Do not leave limbs unattended in cooler.”

Obviously the owner of our favorite bodega had heard of me.

If I shared this story with Anna, she’d only worry more. Which would be kind of cool. The anger that came with it, however, would not.

“No, I’m fine, as fit as ever,” I said. “If zombies were built for one thing, it’s to come apart in comical ways. The pratfall has nothing on the severing of a leg when it comes to physical comedy.”

“Have to say nothing cracks me up like you going to pieces. If your sarcasm detector just went off, it means it’s working just fine.”

“Anna, I promise I’m fine. And Luke has gotten really fast at putting me back together. You know the pit crews that can change all four tires in less than ten seconds?”

“Luke is that fast?”

“No. Not even close. But when he tapes on a limb, he makes these whirring sounds as if using a pneumatic drill.”

“Good to know that at least Luke hasn’t changed. But I’m not sure I like this wrestling thing. Villagers aren’t known for being very kind to the undead. Bullets to the head and such.”

“Two things,” I said. “First, Guadalajara is a sprawling metropolis. They’ve had electricity and indoor plumbing for decades. True story. If your sarcasm detector is going off—”

“It is.”

“—then it works. Secondly, we’re downplaying the whole zombie thing. I’m a robot with detachable arms.”

“Robots don’t have detachable arms. You know what has detachable arms? Dolls.”

“I doubt many people would want to see, hold on …”

I plugged a phrase into the translate app on my phone.

“Jed
el Muñeca Muchacho
.”

“I would, I love the sound,” Anna said. “What does it mean?”

“Jed the Doll Boy.”

“Instead of a doll, maybe you could be an action figure. G.I. Humpty Dumpty.” Anna giggled.

“Really? And would all the king’s tanks and all the king’s soldiers put me together again?” I laughed back.

“Exactly. It makes about as much sense as a robot.” Anna looked down and spoke so softly I could barely hear her. “Jed, promise me you’ll be careful. You’ve worked so hard here to be taken seriously, to be seen as more than just another zombie.”

That reminded me of my conversation with Marisa, when I’d admitted to seeking glory because of what I was rather than who I was. I pushed the thought aside, knowing Anna would disagree. She cared about the “who,” not the “what,” which was why I cared for her so much.

I quickly deployed my invincible “humor as a self-defense mechanism” shield and smiled broadly, saying, “The fact I don’t particularly care for brains gives me an edge there.”

“You also have decent health care coverage, and you know that’s not what I mean by ‘just another zombie.’ You’ve been battling stereotypes all your life, and now you seem to be embracing them. And why? Fame? Fortune?”

“Both.” I smiled. “And vast amounts of Mexican pastries, which are way better than any donut. And did you know Mexico has an entire day devoted to the dead? I’d want to be the grand marshal of that parade.”

“Jed, if you keep this up I’m signing off. You need to take this seriously.”

I wasn’t so sure. Nothing about
lucha libre
was supposed to be taken seriously. It was a ballet of body slams performed by masked men and women who rarely watched their diets. They worked together, played together, rode buses together. The only argument I ever saw involved the last bottle of gold glitter (they went through an alarming amount of gold glitter).

The other
luchadores
respected me and loved Tread. Except for Vampiro, who everyone thought was a
burro estupido
, whose off-script moves were never appreciated.

“I’m not being taken advantage of, I’m playing a character,” I said. “And they like what I do. They told me that on a good night, they’d get maybe a hundred people. Now we’re getting twice that. My character’s name is even on the poster. No one’s ever had a canine sidekick before.”

“So there’s the fame. Great. I suppose fortune is just around the corner.”

“Hardly, since we charge maybe a hundred pesos, which is about seven bucks. Luke and I get paid a few thousand pesos, which barely covers our duct tape bill. So maybe fame and misfortune.”

“All that just for getting your arms ripped off,” Anna spit out. “Sounds like a fair deal to me.”

“I know you may not believe me, but I feel like I fit in here.”

“With a bunch of costumed adults who should know better than to employ someone not old enough to drive.”

“They’re not forcing me into anything,” I said, wondering why I suddenly had to defend myself. “I knew what this was all about. I have certain talents, and they want to use them.”

“A talent? Really? Singing’s a talent. Hitting a baseball’s a talent. Letting someone treat your body as if it were made of
LEGOS
isn’t a talent. It’s a … I don’t know.”

“A condition?” I filled in.

“Don’t you dare, Jed Rivers. Don’t you dare go there.”

I didn’t know where I was going. Where we were going? How had this conversation gone so wrong so fast?

I took the kind of deep breath I never needed.

“Look, this is a temporary thing,” I said. “There are only a few more matches to go. Then they leave town, and Luke and I go back to spending days playing basketball and drinking water with flavors never meant for liquid form.”

“And what does your dad think? He can’t be crazy about this. Wait, does he even know?”

“Nope. He’s been so busy I hardly ever see him. He’s putting in around twelve to fourteen hours a day, so we almost never see him for dinner these days.”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t know about this, Jed. Even one more match is too much if you’re losing limbs each time. Ask yourself, if you didn’t have this talent, would you be wrestling? Because we both know the answer.”

“It’s not like that, everyone—”

“I know. Everyone loves you. Did you ever just for one second think that I might … oh, never mind, Jed.”

Before enough time passed for that to sink in, the computer screen jumped as Anna shifted positions. She leaned close to the camera.