Impulse

The Kingdom

Males in the gypsy social construct are defined as creatures who find their primary social identity in establishing and maintaining male-male relationships, whilst females are primarily expected to interact with their offspring. Fraternising as a female is rare, even with other females. It had taken a long time for The Girl to convince her mother that playing a sport would be good for her health and virility, that all the other girls in the mixed school played volleyball, and it was a great way to keep a good physique and make her ‘more appealing’ to potential suitors.

At fifteen, still unmarried, Mama had started to worry about how she looked to the other families. The reality, though, was that looks were irrelevant. Papa was the patriarch of the community, and he would decide who she married. He wasn’t in a hurry, the extra hands around the house were helpful, and he wasn’t convinced that his daughter was ready to lead her own family. She had always been one of the more difficult children, she was unlike her sister in every way, who was a model woman and had fallen pregnant with her husband at fourteen, four years ago, and already had two children in a hut down the way.

Papa perhaps worried that his authority in the community would be questioned if people got to see how his daughter really was.

When agreeing that The Girl could start to play volleyball with the other girls in her school, Mama enforced omerta, the code of silence. If her Papa found out, it would fall on the head of The Girl and Mama would deny all knowledge, because this wasn’t the way. This isn’t how girls behave. She was persistent, and deep down Mama knew that no matter how many times she took out the leather strap, her daughter wouldn’t give up. She never did, all through her life, she was headstrong. The Girl was driven, and would find a way, and it would always come back on her family.

“Straight back to the house after practice.” Mama demanded.

“Yes, Mama.” The Girl replied.

What her Mama would say when Papa asked after her, if he bothered to, was up to her. She would have to manage that end of it. The Girl knew now that she had three hours after school on Wednesday and Thursday to make her dreams come true. And so it continued.

Each Wednesday, she’d sit on the edge of her seat as the end of the schoolday came, her fingers drumming anxiously into the underside of the plastic seat, as the teenagers around her planned their evenings, whether they’d go to the running track or the football pitch in Jaén to watch the college boys, or whether they’d FaceTime each other and watch Vis A Vis together, who was going where, at what time. The Girl didn’t care, because she had other plans. Plans of how she’d make two miles in the eight minutes from the time the school bell rings to the bus station, when a bus would take her on a twenty minute ride to Mancha Real, and the gymnasium of Jose Antonio Reyes, “El Rey del Sur”.

A Mexican who had made a home in the picturesque Andalusian settlement of Mancha Real. He was aging - in his late forties, most likely - but he was well connected in the European professional wrestling circuit, and he ran El Reino de la Lucha Libre, “The Kingdom of Pro Wrestling” out of his basement. The Girl stood outside the house, looking it up and down pensively, checking and double checking that she had not made a mistake. Dear reader, you may be surprised to know that The Girl, despite it being 2016 did not own a smartphone. In fact, she did not own a phone at all. She did not own a laptop, she had written this information down from a bill sticker she’d seen handwritten on a noticeboard at her brother’s school.

So, as she stared up at what appeared to be any other sandstone reticulated wall home, she started to wonder whether she’d made a huge mistake.

“Miss, are you lost? Is everything okay?” A voice called out from the front window.

Turning about, she caught the eye of a fragile looking lady. “I am not so sure, Ma’am. I am looking for The Kingdom..”

The lady narrowed her eyes, peering down her nose at The Girl, “You must be, uh, mistaken. I don’t know anything like this near to here.”

And in that moment, her heart sank. It was not the longest journey, and it was not the most expensive risk, but it was her chance. Her shoulders slunk down, she pulled her school bag down from her shoulders and dropped it to the concrete floor. Dejected. How could she be so stupid?

Yet another trope of the life she was dealt. Education didn’t come easy, she just did things and hoped for the best because she had never been taught to think critically. In fact, her whole life until this point had been focused specifically on shedding any critical thinking skills that her mandatory education may have afforded her in order that she kept her head down and did as she was told in her home community. So there was no next move. She was sure she wrote the address down perfectly.

As her legs gave way, she slid down the wall and sat crouched. Her head in her hands. Void in her mind, she could hear the distant voices of a group of boys laughing and joking. Her eyes raised just enough to see over her folded arms as a group of four guys, none of them older than 20, approaching the same house. The first one, a confident one with coiffed brown hair and a red vest, started yelling.

“Reina, Reina… Open the door, the Wolfpack are here!”

“Yes yes yes, come in, Nilbert, you know the door is always open.” The same lady’s voice, as she waved them in.

“Tell The King that today I will powerslam him!” Nilbert laughed, as he pushed open the door.

The first two entered, but the final two were a few steps behind. They’d taken a moment to notice The Girl.

“Look, its a gypsy! IN MANCHA REAL, can you believe? Did you get lost, gypsy?” The derision in his voice dripped so much that The Girl could almost feel the moisture.

“Rodrigo! Shoo her away! She has been hanging around, probably waiting for a chance to steal something!” The lady barks.

A tear trail stains her cheek, as she stands up in her school uniform, looking over her shoulder at the boys. Assholes. She’d show them.

“What? Scared of a poor, stupid gypsy?” She said reactively. “You think I can rob all of you at the same time? What makes you think you’re so worth being robbed? Look at you, you don’t even wear nice clothes.”

Rodrigo, Nilbert, and the guy that Nilbert was joking with all turned around to The Girl and started to laugh.

“I’m sh-sh-shaking in my boots, little gypsy girl. Now why don’t you go find someone else to pickpocket. You picked the wrong place to fuck with!” Nilbert snarks.

“Let me try.” She said.

“Try what?” Came an adult male voice. The three noisy boys turned around, saw who stood in the doorway in a lucha libre mask and a light blue button down shirt, with brown slacks. They immediately bowed to him.

The Girl smiled, there stood El Rey del Sur, she’d seen him on posters and in real life he was stockier, and shorter than she’d expected, but every part as commanding as she imagined. She stared at his mask, looking at the intricacies of the stitchwork, gold thread weaving the shape of a crown into a bright red mask.

“Well?” He repeated.

She broke from her trance, her eyes wide, as she threw her hands up in the air, not acknowledging that she sent her book bag hurtling to the concrete floor.

“LUCHAAAA!!!” She exclaimed, spinning and pointing her finger towards him.

The boys burst into a fit of laughter, then immediately El Rey del Sur clapped his hands and yelled, “SILENCE. Inside. All of you.”

The three boys entered the house, and the fourth who lagged behind lingered as he stared at The Girl. She didn’t know if it was curiosity, infatuation, or something else. Eventually, he shuffled in behind the others.

“Skipping, ten minutes.” El Rey barked after them.

He looked over his shoulder at The Reina, and waved her down. She closed the blinds. He then closed the door after him. As he stepped forward, adrenaline rushed through the body of The Girl. She had no idea what she had just done, had she just disrespected one of the most famous lucha libre athletes in European pro wrestling history, to the point that he was going to punish her? As he continued to advance, she chose to stand her ground. Another bold impulsive choice. He was frighteningly close to her, so much so that she could smell the nicotine and tempranillo on his breath.

“You like lucha libre?” He spoke softly.

A moment of relief, she started to feel her heart rate slowing.

Then he reached for his belt, looping his thumbs into the waist of his slacks. “You know, I am very famous in lucha libre. And in lucha libre there is only one job for a woman.”

And then her heart rate spiked again, she could feel the palpitations in her temple. She could feel her legs starting to go to jelly.

“But I am guessing you didn’t come here to keep the boys happy.” He snorted, then mimicked her dramatic exclamation, hand signals and all, “Luuucha!?”

“I want to fight.” The Girl croaked.

“You definitely have face of a fighter.” He chuckled. Gypsies were known for their strong features, and The Girl certainly had them. A strong brow, a hooked nose. Her features were far from delicate.

She was momentarily shocked, because she had not previously experienced an adult appraising her looks. She hated the fact that he called her ugly, but ultimately it didn’t matter in this context, did it?

“Do you have pantyhose? It’s part of your uniform, yes?” He asked.

The Girl shifted uncomfortably. What kind of question was this? She wasn’t sure if she should answer or not. Eventually, she half nodded. She was in this deep, what was one more risk?

“Follow me.”

And that was the start. He instructed The Reina to take The Girl into the family room, where she cut the crotch out of a pair of pantyhose, took off the legs, and used the tight elastic waistband to strap down her breasts. The Reina used a roll of bandage to wrap them further, then tied up her jet black hair into a ponytail. She took a luchadore mask from a cupboard, it was dark green, and had a black gecko embroidered across one of the eyes. The process was slow, as she adapted the mask to accommodate the ponytail, and found a green singlet that did not reveal the bandaging beneath.

The King smiled at his wife’s tireless handiwork. She was still unsure, untrusting of the gypsy. He explained that if the others knew she was a girl, they wouldn’t let her learn. They’d be distracted and it would turn into a competition to impress her. And she had to keep her belongings separate on account of being untrustworthy. That was the caveat the wife insisted on. She couldn’t go near the other peoples’ things, she couldn’t be left unsupervised in the Kingdom.

“I present to you, El Lagarto.” The King presented The Girl to the class. They’d ask why El Lagarto was already in a mask, they’d ask a lot of questions all at the same time. He raised his hand, and the students became silent immediately. “This is my nephew. Son of the Lizard King. Do not speak to him. He is learning the way of the lucha and there is no place for fraternising. Only learning.”

She was certain that they knew, but they could not question The King. That would spell the end of their tenure as students of the best to ever do it in Spain, so they lived in ignorance, and as she ran the ropes for the first time, she felt for the first time the greatest relief in the world.


Slaves

“Impulse is dangerous.” She says, staring down from the bleachers toward the bright white canvas lit up in the centre of Centre Bell. The set lights beamed down on the showpiece, and the otherwise empty arena seemed like it carried the echo of her words.

“How is it that you can be sure, that a risk you take without good research, will lead to success?”

The ring crew were tirelessly working on various aspects of the ring. Ophelia Knight paced back and forth. Charlie Jones sat on a chair, clipboard in hand, nervously tapping her pen against it. It was a few hours until the opening bell.

“I mean, what if you just did something, and you didn’t really think much about it? And then it turned out that you found yourself in the ring with me. And three more. And you are looking in the barrel of a really bad time, wondering if being a wrestler was worth it all after all.

Lot of things come from impulse. Not all bad. If I don’t take a risk, I am on child number four already and have ankles size of Damian Ayla’s god complex. Maybe life is simpler that way, but simple is boring. Maybe I just marry the man Papa told me I should, problem solved. No worry for Annihilation, then. No more Andalucera to worry about.

But every minute, our minds go crazy. One thousand and a millions of things going in the brain, adrenaline, excitement, fear, happy. So many things that we have to control, but we can’t. Sometimes, impulse takes over. Sometimes we wish it didnt. Sometimes we wish we could control the impulses, because then we wouldn’t be in such a mess.

But that is the problem, isn’t it? We are slaves to our impulses. Fighting or flight. Something take over your brain and immediately to have to do something. All my life, I confront everything. Much trouble, and difficulties. But no regret, because I break a few egg and now I have a tortilla. Everyone is mad with me, but me? I am happy. I wonder if they can say the same? Did the twist and turns in their life lead them to happiness? Or maybe the proverb that the story is not over yet.

One day they can find happiness if they still have a story to tell. That is how the saying goes? Maybe they are just not the protagonist, did they ever think of that? Sometimes people make bad choice, take bad turn, sometimes people have to be the conquered. Not everyone can be the conqueror.

Why I am talking about this?

When I think about who can share the ring with me, I think about how their impulse feed their reality. How Chelsea make choices that end up exploding in her face, how her boyfriend run away from her because despite all evidence in fact he could not stand the crazy. How she fail to see how she cause this with everything that she does, how she will go into deep water and tell everyone she is scuba diving but she only have snorkel. She talk herself to a grave.

I think about William and Beth, who had stage fright. Who stand in front of whole world, opportunity for their life, and they shit it. Shrink away. Maybe when the fist is thrown, it will wake them up. It would be sad to see something otherwise.”

La Andalucera taps the base of a brown bottle of Molson onto the seat in front of her. She puts a Doc Marten boot down into the concrete, and then slides off the back of the chair and onto her feet.


Ghost

As her feet click into the ground, she builds up a pace that is hard to follow. La Andalucera is walking through the concourse, past merchandise stands and into a corridor. She hops down one flight of stairs after another until eventually she finds herself in the locker room area beneath the seating. Walking past doors, she sees one that says “male talent”, another that says “female talent”, then a third door that says “invitational”.

No, no, no. She is muttering to herself, and then she rounds the corner, fingers dragging on the worn blue, white and red stripes that line the walls.

“Ahí esta! Buuuuenissimo!” She exclaims.

The blue door has a red stripe down the middle, bordered by two thick white lines. On a white sheet of paper, the word Ayla has been printed. Her fingertip runs along the frame, and then she grips the handle.

Impulse.

She has no idea what is on the other side of the door, but she has a fairly reasonable expectation that it is empty. The Ayla’s, in the past, have not tended to arrive early for events. La Andalucera likes to be there, to soak in the enormity of her accomplishments. To them, this is old news. But to her, to come from where she came from, well, she smells the roses.

Her temples bang as the synapses fire, hormones rushing through her. She could turn back now, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. The handle clicks, and the door swings open. This is the locker room of the Montreal Canadiens, a large sprawling space with benches around the circumference. In the centre is a large table that has been prepared with fruit. Next to a whiteboard, there is a wooden stand with essential oils burning, and on the benches near to the showers there are fresh towels laid out. Two bags have been chauffeured ahead of time, one with DA embroidered in small letters on near the handle, and predictably TA on the other.

Her slender digit traces the letters “TA” on the case, as she places herself down in their locker room.

“It is admiring, to see that you trained your dog well. But disappointing that you cannot accomplish for yourself. I said it before. I did take an interest, when I came to EXCELLENCE, and maybe you can label me voyeur, because I keep close eye on things that are interesting. But when I see that you are just tail who wags dog, I lose interest.

Between you, you think you have everything figured out, and that you know what matters most to me. You repeat that I have lost twice since arriving in EXCELLENCE, but a keen eye notice that it isn’t what is written in the record book. You think I want to disrupt and disturb in order to obtain victory, and you think that my failing is indicating of what is to come.

You tell that recurring theme of how nobody can win. How nobody is value or worth to be in the ring with you, how the great and glory Tara Ayla will walk through opponent and they will turn to dust, forgotten forever in fabric of EXCELLENCE. But then I think about something. How fitting, that all along, I said Tara only won one time in her life when she break spirit of poor Damian, because she too only win when he carry her.

A twisting of the fate and two imbeciles eliminate each other allow Tara to advance on Victory I to semi final, but then Betsy Granger make easy work. Since that sycophant embarrass her, she didn’t fight on her own, she had him doing her dirty work.

Yes, I was there. Maybe without me, even they lose that too. It wasn’t my plans, it just happened like that. Impulse, or something they say? So, it seem mighty prophetic to stand in altar and sermonise who permit what, but premature.

Nobody stand and worship at the altar of Judas. Nobody follow the footsteps of Rameses. Entiendes?

Perhaps it won’t be La Andalucera who vanish, but after Annihilation it will be Tara grasping nothing but smoke.”

La Andalucera takes off her boots, and sets them next to the suitcases. Carefully, she lays out pieces of her equipment from her bag that she slung to the floor. She took the towel laid out next to Tara’s belongings, and then walked to the shower.

Fade to black.