Nightmare Carnival

“So tell me, Mr. Black. I mean, Mr. Raja. Do you engage in unsanctioned, nonpermitted fights, or fixed matches?” The cop had landed on the classic question: is pro wrestling a shoot, or is it a work? Are you really dressing up in panties and booties and beating one another up, or is it all just a show? The cop tucked his truncheon into his belt and pulled out a pad and pencil. He brought the graphite point to his tongue and flipped open the pad with a flick of his left wrist.

“I exhibit my grappling skills,” the Raja said, his voice like a truck. “I perform with fellow professional wrestlers, and with members of the community who wish to understand the nature of scientific wrestling via a hands-on display.”

The cop lowered his pad and squinted his eyes. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Hehehe,” Gordon said, sliding between the cop and the Raja. “Why, the Black Raja is from the black hole of Calcutta itself! He struggled his way, with nothing but the power of his limbs, and an understanding of the human joint system, from the depths of squalor to the heights of the world championship in just eight years!”

“World champion, huh?” the cop said. “So, if I were to ask your Raja for some identification, he’d produce an eight-year-old passport from the old Indian Empire, stamped by the viceroy and governor-general and all that.”

Gordon found his patter leaving him. This cop was an unusual one — he was more with it than his big white pie face suggested. The Black Raja stepped in. “I can do exactly that. I do not normally carry a passport in my trunks, but you are welcome to pat me down now.” With a flourish of his cape, the Raja revealed his body — skin taut and leathery over well-defined muscles. The cop looked a little pudgy next to him. The pad went back into the belt and the truncheon was slipped out. The cop twirled it by the leather loop, casually.

“I’ll just have to come and observe the exhibition of grappling skills this evening, then.”

“So we can stay open?” Gordon asked, too excited for his own good.

“This evening, gentlemen,” the cop said. And he left without giving Gordon a citation.

Gordon glared at the Black Raja. “Kalamatas, why the hell did you have to go and live your gimmick and tell him that you had an Indian passport? How are we going to get a reader that looks like that?” he said. A reader was a fake ID. So many words for bullshit in the carnival business. “You know they’re going to drag us in — on fraud charges or battery — and you’ll need ID.”

The Raja only said, “Don’t worry about it, boss.”

This particular carnival was a real fireball show, so crooked it never even used the same name twice. Poor ol’ Jeff Gordon was stuck with his real name on his trailer, and as carny wrestling was being displaced by Gorgeous George and the DuMont Television Network, there wasn’t much other truck and traffic for Jeff and his crew. He could no longer even show boxing, though there was a white pugilist, dukes up, painted on the side of his trailer.

All he had left now was the Black Raja, and Johnny the Plant. So many layers of kayfabe — fakery, or ake-fery, or plain old bullshit — so hard to keep track. Kayfabe was the key — never let anyone know that wrestling, and everything about it, from the origins of the wrestlers to the outcome of the matches, was a lie. Fake wrestling was harder than the real thing; that’s why the boys always called it work. Always keep kayfabe up, even if you had to wrestle for real — to shoot—to keep the marks bamboozled by the worked matches. The Black Raja had always told his bosses, at All-Star All-Comers, at Midwestern Entertainments Inc., and Big-Time Pro Wrestling, that his name was Kalamatas — that’s how deep into kayfabe he was. Once in a while, back when he was touring the territories and showing up on local Saturday morning TV, the brass would have a bit of an education, and stick him in a toga and call him Atlas or Ajax the Great.

But mostly Chattopadhyay was the Black Raja. An Indian pretending to be a Greek pretending to be an Indian. So he did have an Indian Empire passport, with the photo of his younger self, before the cauliflower ear and smashed nose, staring out into the world. And he had another secret as well. He could actually fight. Work or shoot? Fraud or battery? Chattopadhyay could pick and choose.

The carnies had a meeting in the beer tent about the afternoon’s heat. Almost all the joints had been shut down, for either safety violations or fraud charges. All the carnival had left was the big ol’ simp heister of a Ferris wheel, the dodge-’em cars, the usual cheap shit food from the butchers, and the penny balloons for two bits each from the rubbermen.

Chattopadhyay wasn’t at the big meeting. He was working out with Johnny the Plant. “Hey, Greek,” Johnny the Plant said. “Should I say from over yonder, or from down the holler? Should I even say anything? I mean, can the police arrest me for lying?”