Stanley Elkin - Boswell

“Excuse me, did you see John Sallow?” I asked.

They looked at me and then at each other.

“It’s a masked man,” one of them said. “Ask him what he wants, Tom.”

Tom pretended to hitch up his chaps. “What do you want, masked man?”

“Do you know John Sallow? The wrestler? He’s on the card tonight. Have you seen him?”

“He went thataway, masked man,” the other said.

I walked away and went into the toilet and urinated. One of the college boys came in. “Hey, Tom,” he called. “There’s a masked man in a white cape in here peeing.”

“Knock it off,” I said.

“It’s all so corny,” the kid said.

“Knock it off,” I said again.

“Okay, champ.”

“Knock it off.”

I went back to my locker. John Sallow was there, one gray leg up on the wooden bench.

“Bogolub tells me you may try to give me some trouble night,” he said.

“This is my last match,” I said. “I’m quitting after tonight.” It was true. I hadn’t known it was true until I said it. Too often it rained; too often I had to take the streetcar; too often I sat too close to the steamy, seedy poor. I could still see the nurse. I never forgive a face.

There were excited screams and a prolonged burst of applause above us. Sallow looked up significantly. “Upstairs,” he said. “You’ll be introduced first. I’m the favorite.”

“Look,” I said, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Upstairs,” he said. “Talk upstairs.”

I took my place behind two blue uniformed ushers at gate DD. Some boys just to the right of the entrance kept turning around to look at me. They laughed and pointed and whispered to each other. The ring announcer, in a tuxedo, was climbing through the ropes far in front of me. He walked importantly to the center of the ring, stopping every few steps to turn and pull a microphone wire in snappy, snaking arcs along the surface of the canvas. He tapped the microphone with his fingernail and sent a piercing metal thunk throughout the arena. Then, shooting his cuffs and clearing his throat, he paused expectantly. The crowd watched with mild interest. “First I have some announcements,” he said. He told them of future matches, reading the names of the wrestlers from a card concealed in his palm. He spoke each wrestler’s name with a calm aplomb and familiarity so that their grotesque titles — The Butcher and Mad Russian and Wildman — sounded almost like real names.

Then there was a pause. Jerking more microphone cord into the ring as though he needed all he could get for what he would say next, the announcer began again. “Ladies and gentlemen — In the main event this evening… two tough… wrestlers… both important contenders for the heavyweight champeenship of the world. The first… that rich man’s disguised son… who has danced with debutantes and who trains on champagne… the muscled millionaire and eligible bachelor… who’d rather rough and tumble than ride to the hounds… from Nob Hill and Back Bay… from Wall Street and the French Riviera… from Newport and the fabled courts of the eastern potentates… weighing two hundred thirty-five pounds without the cape but in the mask… the one… the only… Masked Playboy!”

I pushed the ushers out of the way and bounced down the long aisle toward the ring. To everyone but the kids who had spotted me earlier it must have looked as though I had run across all the turnpikes from Wall Street, over the bridge across the Mississippi, and through the town to the Arena. Modest but good-natured applause paralleled my course down the aisle, as though I were somehow tripping it off automatically as I came abreast of each row. I leaped up the three steps leading to the ring, hurled over the ropes, unclasped the cape and, arching my shoulders, let it fall behind me in a heap. Then swelling my chest and stretching my long body, I stood on the tips of my high-top silk shoes, seemingly hatched from the cape itself, now a crumpled silken eggshell. The crowd cheered. I nodded, lifted the cape with the point of one shoe, slapped it sharply across one arm and then the other, and then tossed it casually to an attendant beneath me. I grabbed the thick ropes where they angled at the ring post. Without moving my legs I pushed, head down, against the ropes. Snapping my head up quickly I pulled against them. I could feel the muscles climbing my back. I looked like a man rowing in place. I let go of the ropes, dropped my weight solidly on my feet and did deep knee bends. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the ring announcer waiting a little impatiently, but the crowd applauded cheerfully. Suddenly I made a precise military right-face and sprang up onto the ropes, catching the upper rope neatly along my left thigh. I hooked my right foot under the lower rope for balance and folded my arms calmly. I looked like someone on a trapeze — or perhaps like a young, masked sales executive perched casually along the edge of his desk.

I smiled at the ring announcer and waved my arm grandly, indicating that he could continue.

He turned away from me and waited until the crowd was silent. When he began again he sounded oddly sad. “Meeting him in mortal…physical…one-fall…forty-five minute-time-limit combat tonight…is that grim gladiator, ancient athlete, stalking spectral superman, fierce-faced fighter…that plague prover…that hoary horror…that breath breaking…hope hampering…death dealing…mortality making…heart hemorrhaging…life letting—” For the last few seconds the crowd had been applauding in time with the announcer’s rhythms. In a way their applause incited him; they incited each other. Now as he paused, exhausted, there were a few last false claps and then silence.

“Widow making,” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Coffin counting,” someone else shouted.

“People pounding,” the announcer added weakly.

I slid off the rope. “MUR… DER… ING,” I shouted from the center of the ring. “All death is murder!”

Angrily the ring announcer motioned me to get back. By exercising the authority of his tuxedo, he seemed to have regained control. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began again more calmly, “in gray trunks, from the Lowlands, John Sallow… The Grim Reaper.”

With the rest of the crowd I glanced quickly toward the opposite entrance, but no one was standing there. Through the entrance gate I could see the long, low concession stand and someone calmly spooning mustard onto a hot dog. Then I heard a gasp from the other end of the arena. Sallow had been spotted. I looked around just in time to see him coming in through the same gate I had used. Of course, I thought. Of course.

Sallow walked slowly. As he came down the aisle toward the ring some people, more than I would have expected, began applauding. He has his fans, I thought sadly. Most of the people, though, particularly those near the aisle, seemed to shrink back as he passed them. Recognizing someone, he suddenly stopped, put his hand on the man’s shoulder and leaned down toward him, whispering something into his ear. When Sallow started again the person he had spoken to stood and left the auditorium. Sallow came up the three stairs, turned and bowed mockingly to the crowd. They looked at him; he smiled, shrugged, climbed through the ropes and walked to his corner. I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me.

“The referee will acquaint the wrestlers with the Missouri rules,” the ring announcer said.

The referee signaled for us to meet at the center of the ring. “This is a one-fall match, forty-five-minute time limit,” he said. “When I signal one of you to break I want you to break clean and break quickly. Both you men have fought in Missouri before. You’re both familiar with the rules in this state. I just want to remind you that if a man for any reason should be out of the ring and not return by the time I count twenty, that man forfeits the fight. Do both of you understand?”