Cosmo by Spencer Gordon Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m just a pale and flabby jobber, laid out on the mat. I imagine ‘Kaw-Liga’ blasting from secret speakers as Keith makes his exit. I hear him grab the extension cord, plug in his paint-stained stereo and fumble around with his Hank Williams cassette. I hear him haul the green garden hose from around the side of the house and hear the hollow crash of cold hose water filling up our Aqua Nova kiddie pool. I listen to him pull up his lawn chair, dunk his fat feet into the water and hammer a bottle cap onto a block of wood. The first strains of ‘There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight’ blast out trebly and flat and the puppy starts to howl.
    Eddy pounds into the kitchen, almost tearing the screen door off its hinges. The jar’s crawling with black spiders, his eyes filling with tears.
    â€˜Gorilla Mon soon ,’ he says, little chin trembling.

    So Eddy and I watch the WWF on our tint-distorting TV . Eddy’s hunched forward in a Maple Leafs jogging suit, an empty McDonald’s carton in his lap, with the last few McNugget crumbs caught in a thick smear of plum sauce. He breathes heavily, his mouth open, playing with the spit between his tongue and his lips, blowing tiny bubbles.
    Today The Ultimate Warrior is wrestling a nobody, a total jobber. The first notes of his entrance music send the audience into a frenzy. A very blurry and purply Warrior sprints to the ring. The Warrior wears red spandex trunks, shimmering tassels tied around his boots and his elbows, and bright yellow, almost tribal face paint. His gimmick is hard to follow: he snorts a lot, speaks in outrageous grunts about mystical powers and the harmony of the spheres, and says things like, ‘Now you must deal with the creation of all the unpleasantries in the entire universe, as I feel the attention of the gods above!’ People love him; he’s a huge face.
    â€˜WARRI-OR!’ Eddy yells. He thrusts his fists into the air, imitating the huge, oiled body on the screen. He’s so excited over his Warri- or , or the TV ’s so loud, that he doesn’t notice the dog’s whimpering. I do, but pretend not to; instead, I act like I’m interested in the match. Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts has been helping The Warrior face the dark side lately; it’s the only way he’ll ever defeat his current enemy, The Undertaker, who’s still undefeated by pinfall or submission. When the ’Taker defeats other wrestlers, he crosses their arms over their chests. Sometimes, if he’s wrestling jobbers, he drags their unconscious bodies into body bags, zips them up and carries them out of the arena. Nobody knows what he does with them, but kids like Eddy suspect that he buries them alive.
    A few months ago, The Undertaker ambushed The Warrior and sealed him inside a casket. While we watched, a host of inept backstage attendants spent precious minutes fiddling with the casket’s locks before they could finally crack the lid. Once they got it open, they had to perform CPR on The Warrior to revive him – he was apparently unconscious from a lack of oxygen.
    Being such a mark, Eddy was accordingly traumatized. He screamed in a kind of agonized warble, sat on the ground and started rocking his head in his hands, back and forth. You’d think he would’ve seen this type of shit before, but for some reason this was different. Mom stormed in from the kitchen and screamed at us to ‘Turn that faggoty shit off, it’ll give him nightmares,’ so I had to shut off the TV before Eddy could witness the happy ending: The Warrior being lifted from the coffin – unconscious, but alive.
    Today, things seem fine, or forgotten. Eddy loves the good guys. He loves Hulkamania and Macho Madness. His top three favourite things in the world are wrestling, Gorilla Monsoon and Chicken McNuggets. Eddy’s least favourite things are Halloween (rubber masks specifically), needles and nightmares –