Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

all the way up. But I know how to fight, and I can give every bit as good as I get. If any of the kid’s friends wanted to throw down, I was more than ready.

But of course they didn’t. The guys in the locker room knew better. No, there was only one person who really wanted to get in my shit for beating up the kid, and I knew it was coming. I’d changed the finish, I’d beaten the shit out of one of his boys, so Fast Eddie was going to come after me. He couldn’t do it right after the match, so I went ahead and showered and got dressed. I had all my gear in my bag and was about ready to head out to my car and get out of Dodge when Edgar “Fast Eddie” Kendrick burst into the locker room.

I mentioned I’m not a big dude, but Eddie is a shrimp. He’s pushing five-six and might be a buck-thirty soaking wet. But he’s got a mouth like a sailor, and he was dropping f-bombs like he was Johnny Appleseed sprinting through New York the second he caught sight of me.

“What the fucking fuck was that, Matt? You tore Jason apart out there! He was supposed to go over, you fucking prick! What the fuck were you thinking? I should ban you from my fucking shows, you asshole! You think you’re getting paid for that shit, you’ve got another think coming.” There it was, the stiffing. By now Eddie was standing over me screaming. I had been sitting on a bench in the locker room tying my shoes, but when I felt a drop of spit land on the top of my head, I popped up to my feet. Eddie’s voice cut off like he flipped a switch, and I put a hand on his shoulder.

I leaned into his face and, keeping my voice calm and even, said, “Eddie, you know I don’t start shit. I show up on time, I do my shit, and I don’t go into business for myself. But your boy? He’s dangerous. He changed shit in the middle of the match, yanked out a fistful of my hair, and I didn’t trust him not to get me hurt. Like he got Jimmy hurt. Like he got Marlie hurt. Well, I wasn’t going to be another notch on his shitty little belt, so I whipped his ass. You got a problem with that? Then don’t book me. But you’re going to pay me for tonight. You’re going to pay me the fifty bucks we agreed on, and you’re not going to take a dime out of my merch for my trouble. Then I’m going to walk out to my car, and there won’t be anything wrong with it. If any of these things don’t happen, I’m going to slap the shit out of you just like I did that kid. We clear?”

Eddie glared up at me and opened his mouth to fire back. I put a finger vertically across his lips and said, “Shhh. You don’t need to say another goddamn word. You just reach into your pocket, give me my fifty bucks, and walk right the fuck out of here. We clear?”

I looked Eddie in the eye, and he must have seen something there that told him my bucket of fucks was slap-ass empty, because he just nodded and reached for his wallet. Two twenties and a ten went from his hand to mine, and I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Eddie. I’m glad we understand each other.”

“You know you’re never working another one of my shows again, don’t you, Stevens?” Eddie said, dropping his voice to try to sound more threatening.

“I should be so goddamn lucky, Eddie,” I said. “I should be so goddamn lucky.” I threw my duffel bag over my shoulder and walked out of the locker room, then down the hall to the double doors that led out into the gravel parking lot where my beat-up Ford Ranger sat. Before I got the doors and my freedom, though, I took a right and walked down another long hallway to a women’s bathroom I’d scouted early in the evening.

It’s not that unusual for a wrestler to walk around a venue by themselves before a show. Sometimes people just like to do pushups or stretch off by themselves, sometimes they’ve got headphones in and want to focus, or they’re looking for a quiet place to read. I knew one guy who couldn’t take a dump with anyone around, so he always found a bathroom way off to the other end of the building when he could, so he could handle his pre-match business privately.

Me, I had other reasons for needing a quiet spot away from the crowd. I needed a place to hide out for a couple hours until the building was empty so I could start my second job. The one that paid even worse than wrestling for fifty bucks a night, with no extra cash for food or gas. In case you’re wondering, that does mean that I basically work for free most nights. I can’t help it. I love it too much to quit, even if I am getting too old for this shit now, and I’ve got aches on top of my bruises every morning.

My other job is way more important than wrestling, even if the pay is worse. I’m a paranormal investigator, and I try to help people when I can. Sometimes that means I check out a house where folks are hearing weird noises, and I show them that a loose shutter on their attic window is the cause of the odd banging they hear sometimes, and Aunt Ethel is resting comfortably in her grave at the Methodist Church. Sometimes it means I check out cold spots in the floor, and I find a broken piece of duct that is spraying air from the AC unit right onto the hardwoods. But