Down the Rabbit Hole

El Tejolote did not want to be in Stanton. He did not want to be in Orange County. He did not want to be in California. When push came to shove, and there would be shoving, he did not want to be in el Estados Unidos. He wanted to be wrestling in Juárez. Or Chihuahua. Not now. Not today. Ill will. Ill feelings.

With a sigh, he stood from the white folding chair he had been sitting in. The air conditioning blew cool on the back of his green and gold máscara. He needed to get moving. The warmup he had done a few hours ago on the taekwondo gym floor had not been enough. Maybe a few years ago it would have been, but not today. He rolled his shoulder around, hearing the tendons pop and stretch. The grunts of the other luchadores prepping filled his ears. El Tejolote sighed again. It was going to be a long night. Wrestling night always was.

The sheer black curtain over the back door to the taekwondo gym opened into the back alley behind the industrial complex where the event was starting to take shape. He peeked through to the setup. The ring had been assembled a few hours earlier. It was almost as wide as the alley, with a three-foot space from where El Tejolote stood to up onto the ropes. Not much strut room. Not like the last show he had done in Tijuana the Friday before. Long runway down to the stage. You took what you could though. The money was better for Stanton, even though smaller. One of the jobbers was bouncing up and down on the mat, flipping off the top rope. Part of the job, making sure it didn’t collapse under the strain. No collapse. Vancouver 2002 flashed through his mind briefly. Not pretty. They had pulled a kid like sixteen out from under the corner, compound fracture just above his kneecap. He and El Molcajete. He shook his head roughly, making the memories disappear.

The crowd was starting to filter in. The far end of the alley had been cordoned off except for a brief walkway. The promoter's girlfriend was set up with a battered metal cashbox and a folding table, letting the crowd in one by one by one. Some things never changed. Guys on the guest list. Battered sweaty tens and twenties into the box. But then, they did, as swipe off the phone to pay, for some of the slumming crowd. El Tejolote could spot them, easier as the years went by, a little too flush, a little too loud on the wrong way. What was it El Molcajete used to say? They laughed at you, not with you. The ja-ja-ja was muy insincere. Shake it off, Tejolote, shake it off.

Once past the gatekeeper, the crowd grabbed a white plastic folding chair from the lined up rows on the side and found a space to set up. There was room for about twenty rows between the entrance and ringside, and most of that was filled already. Pushing past where Tejolote stood in the entranceway, the other side of the alley stretched back for almost a full city block. The show dj hadn’t started spinning yet, an organ wailed a hymn over the space. Tejolote remembered as he parked in the front that the industrial park had been anchored by three major tenants, the taekwondo gym, run by an ex-luchador out of El Centro, a rather shabby mortuary with a baby blue hearse parked out in front of it, and a church dedicated to some lesser saint. He squeezed the bridge of his nose under his mask. El cerebro no esta aquí. St. Gertrude of Nivelles. Gatos y travelers. Tejolote shook his head. If only he run with a puma gimmick so many years ago, maybe she could help.

And just like that, it was showtime.

El Tejolote looked out over a crowd he did not recognize. Some of the local luchadores harangued fans who shouted back en español y inglés. Over the phone, the promoter hoped this would be a semi-regular gig for Tejolote. If it worked out. They did a monthly show, but a second promoter, who owned the taekwondo studio ran one as well, so there was parking lot lucha every other week. And the dolares were good. Was it time for a regular gig again? Not since, well not for a long time anyway, since that had been on the menu.

"HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ORANGE COUNTY!" The announcer's deep clarion voice boomed off the walls of the alley walls, the one side a cinder block wall hiding the car shops on the other side. And the mortuary, which was closed for the night. No LA Parka coming from the dead gimmicks tonight. Tejolote shook his head. He hadn’t worked a horrorshow lucha in a few years. The announcer was good, laying it on thick for the local crowd. He knew the audience, played up the rivalries. Apparently, no one in Stanton loved people from Los Angeles County, and especially not from Covina. Who knew? Tejolote seemed to remember el Lobo Rojo taking him to a taqueria in Covina. Him and el Molcajete. His stomach grumbled. The al pastor had been fantástico. The taco cart set up near the entrance didn’t help any, with the waft of carne asada pouring over the sweating crowd. It was only late spring, but the heat was laying into SoCal already. The first bell rang at 8:10pm and it was still almost eighty out.

A screaming pile-driver shook the mat and brought the crowd to its feet as el Tejolote rolled past the crowd. Farther to the back, not far from the portable bathroom, some of the other luchadores had set up a table to sell shirts, stickers, posters, photos y máscaras. Cash and carry here. No cards to be seen. Barker Jones eyes widened at el Tejolote as he walked up. They'd shared some cards in Mexicali a few years back. Right after Molcajete. Yeah, a long time back. Jones was good on the mic, not so good in the corners. A brawler, not a técnico. He usually tag-teamed with … with el Rey de Kaos.

And there he was. The 8x10 full color glossy was right on top. El Rey de Kaos with the deep blue and silver wings wafting of the side of his máscara, the teardrop eyes set off in a pale blue that popped so perfectly against the glitter of his eyes. The dark of the arena, no outdoor event there, with the strobe flash of the camera, glinted the sheen of sweat of his huge muscular forearms. And highlighted the gold and green of his opponent, upside down in el Rey's arms, ready to be dropped headfirst onto the mat. El Molcajete.

El Molcajete y el Tejolote. The Mortar and the Pestle. Not aerialists. Not rudos. Técnicos of the first form. They had met when they were sixteen and eighteen. In a sweaty gym on the outskirts of Tepic in Nayarit. Two kids throwing down afternoon after afternoon in the heat, working their bodies. To the mat. Off the ropes. Headlocks. Leg twists. Gold and green, and green and gold. Inverted mirror masks of each other. Twisted twins. Hammers of vengeance. You did not want to get crushed between the mortar and the pestle. It was a good gimmick. And it served them well. They had been CMLL champion for a few weeks, travelling the circuit, fighting in the arenas. There had even been talk of the Guerreros bringing them up to the US as part of their expansion into the McMahon machine. Until Rey de Kaos.

Tejolote picked the photo up. There he was in the background, holding onto the top rope, looking to get tagged in and jump over and intervene. Looking to rescue his partner. Barker Jones had not been Rey's partner that night. And that … that was not the night. This was a few years before. El Rey de Kaos y King Kong Kaos, a non-masked painted face Canadian wrestler that had followed Vampiro down to Mexico, were their rivals for years. All across Mexico and even into some border tussles in Texas and Arizona. Yuma. It had been Yuma. Their first, and only, show in Yuma.

No, the mat didn’t collapse, not like in Vancouver. No, it hadn’t been an intro gone wrong. No falling from a rope dropping him into stage. No rage in the cage, with a broken post in the cage. El Molcajete y el Tejolote had been through those. Just a simple toss of the ropes and a clothesline to knock you down. That’s all it was. Molcajete took it in the throat, flipped onto his back just like always. And never got up. Never moved. Floored and down.

The doctors were on the mat within a minute. No more. It seemed so much longer under the hot hot lights. El Rey de Kaos sunk to his knees. King Kong Kaos waving to the doctor. El Tejolote holding onto the top rope, looking to get tagged in and jump over and intervene. The tag never came. Time never moved.

King Kong Kaos changed his name. Changed his gimmick. Wrestled back in Canada under a Mountie gimmick. El Rey de Kaos went through a few tag partners, the last Barker. He'd retired somewhere, Tejolote didn’t know where. He had drifted around for a few years himself, thinking about a new gimmick, wearing a different máscara, but his green and gold always beckoned. Even without a partner.

He could see that Barker Jones had no idea el Tejolote would be there. He motioned to take the photo away. Tejolote shrugged and smiled under the hood. Barker nodded in return. Behind them, the bell was ringing. One match down, next one to go. His turn in the ring.

El Tejolote licked his lips. They were parched and dry. The dry heat of the SoCal night. The heat of the lights pounding down onto the mat. Night had fallen, although between the neon and the streetlights, it wasn’t truly dark. But lights were always needed to heighten the drama. To make the action that more extravagant. El Tejolote had known that since he was sixteen. When he had first seen el Molcajete.

He shrugged out of his robe. Slapped his biceps and his upper arms to make the veins stick out. Pumping up the musculature. As he always did, come rain, come heat. Come indoors, come outdoors. You always gave the crowd the show. It was that moment. Tonight, more than ever. Usually, the signs were small. But tonight, tonight he knew.

The bell rang again. The challenger appeared. The mat bounced as he entered the ring. The crowd, meager as it was, cheered and jeered. A local guy. The crowd knew him. They didn’t know el Tejolote. Not anymore. It didn’t matter. Time stood still.

As he crouched down to grapple with his opponent, el Tejolote took one last glance over his shoulder to the corner. El Molcajete was holding onto the top rope, looking to get tagged in and jump over and intervene. Como siempre.