Saturday Night’s Main Event
“Time to get drunky!”
This is Lo’s mantra, her battle cry, every time we’ve been up slamming alcohol and doing drugs all night (and all morning) and she finally wants to go to bed.
Even after our nights (and mornings) of toxic indiscretion, I can still conk out pretty easily, which Lo gives me shit about because she ritualistically has to chug, and often times shotgun, several cans of Coors Light in order to improperly slumber, which I suppose is safer than if she instead took pills.
Soon following Lo’s signature catch phrase—in between the chugging and shotgunning—her little chant begins: “Wrestle-ing! Wrestle-ing! Wrestle-ling!”
This is my cue to pull up a classic pro wrestling match on the internet, for us to pass out to. The stuff I watched as a kid. The 1980s stuff. The good stuff. The stuff Lo was not yet alive for and missed out on, like when the “Mega Powers” exploded in 1989 and the faux ménage à trois involving “Macho Man” Randy Savage, his manager Elizabeth and Hulk Hogan shook the wrestling world. (I was seven or eight years old in 1989, whereas Lo was negative I-don’t-even-want-to-say.) Still. I find a good one from 1988, right before President George Sr. took over Reagan’s presidential seat; Lo is just barely a Clinton baby, to give you some sad perspective.
Another Coors gets crushed as “Ravishing” Rick Rude flashes his greasy washboard abs to a packed crowd who boo his ass good after he calls them fat, lazy “sweat hogs.”
“Who’s that babe?”
Lo is referring to the woman’s face currently airbrushed on the crotch of “Ravishing” Rick Rude’s wrestling tights.
“That’s his opponent’s wife, Cheryl,” I tell her. “Dirty war tactics. Mind games. I’d be pissed too if Mateo had your face painted on his coke nail.”
Mateo is our drug dealer, and Lo and I both laugh at the thought of her cherub-like face immortalized on the tip of his pinky acrylic.
“Ravishing” Rick Rude suggestively swivels his hips, like he’s trying to make his archenemy’s better half wink at all the fat, lazy “sweat hogs.”
“For real?” Lo pops open a Coors. “I thought it was his wife. I was gonna say, ‘How romantic.’”
We then watch “Ravishing” Rick Rude’s opponent, Jake “the Snake” Roberts, come drag-assing towards the ring, carrying with him a huge snake in what looks like a pillowcase, ready to defend the honor of his bae’s crotch visage.
Lo nearly spits her beer out and says, “Ewwww, they both have the same shitty mustache. Why do all these ’80s wrestlers have mullets and gross porn ’staches? And they’re all tan and slimy-like.”
“Coke and pills,” I tell her.
“Ah,” she says, tossing an empty Coors into a nearby wastebasket, “makes sense.”
I tell Lo the alleged story about how my stepdad, when he was a sheriff in Georgia, once arrested “Ravishing” Rick Rude for a DUI; my stepdad, mostly a fat and lazy sweat hog himself (also with gross ’80s facial accoutrement) happily informed me that the wrestling star wasn’t as big or as ripped as he looked on TV.
I’m now highly invested in the spectacle, especially when Andre the Giant, “Ravishing” Rick Rude’s buddy/muscle, has a scripted heart attack after Jake “the Snake” Roberts literally tosses him Damien (the python), his buddy/muscle.
I do my hilarious “Andre the Giant scared of snakes” impression, which doesn’t elicit its usual response, so I look over and see that Lo has already fallen asleep, which seems like a first.
Lo sometimes sleeps with her eyes partially open, like even though she’s probably dreaming of cat TikTok videos and RuPaul’s Drag Race finales, part of her still wants to catch my hilarious “Andre” impression, though it’s doubtful.
I think about drawing a shitty ’80s wrestling mustache on Lo’s face with Sharpie. “Don’t worry,” I’d say, “it’s not as gross as it looks on TV.” Then I consider pummeling her with a pillow, pretending it’s the bag with Jake’s python (Damien) in it, but I think better of it, and try falling asleep also, eyes all-the-way closed, hoping I don’t have an actual heart attack.
BRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Press, and is the author of several books, including Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Fanzine, Monkeybicycle, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Yes Poetry, among other places. He lives in Florida.