#johnchoe

All little boys have heroes. Ultimate Warrior was one of mine. He died tonight and I will miss him. 

Growing up, traditional sports were never a part of my life. I didn’t inherit my dad’s favorite baseball team or hear stories about Grandad’s glory days as an All-American. For all the first generation immigrant moxie my parents handed down, I missed out on the library of life lessons most kids get by watching sports in this country. 

What I did have, however, was wrestling.

Saturday afternoons with the WWF. I’d go to my cousins’ house after church every week and wait for my aunt and uncle to take their post-Jesus naps before turning on the TV (a forbidden activity on Sabbath). We had to keep the volume low and restrain ourselves from getting too riled up, but you can imagine how successful three boys under 10 would be at such a thing. We stomped around the living room like Bushwhackers and put on sunglasses like Macho Man. We’d wear white trash bags as shirts and rip them off like Hulk Hogan. We each had our heroes and they were almost always babyfaces (good guys) - we were nice little Christian boys after all. But for me, Ultimate Warrior was it. THE guy. 

Warrior was intense. Intense in a way that felt real. Yes, he had a ridiculous body and an unreal poof of hair and bright neon face paint, but he always felt honest to me. There was something in his brand of crazy that passed my eyeball test: this guy means it. I don’t know what “it” is, but he is 100% about it. He was a good guy, but not like the other good guys. He didn’t smile all the time like Hulk Hogan or bleed chivalry like Macho Man. Warrior just sprinted down the platform, restored justice in the ring and sprinted back from whence he came. No speech. No pandering. No “Look at me! Love me!” Everyone thought he was crazy and he didn’t care. He didn’t embrace or run from himself. He was always just the Warrior. And I remember wanting to be that. 

I know wrestling is fake or pre-determined or fixed or whatever you want to call it. And I get that it’s easy to dismiss as terrible. But just remember: all little boys have heroes. And at six years old, most of us can’t grasp the nuances of “greatness” and “character” exemplified in a person like Peyton Manning or Derek Jeter or whatever “real” athlete Nike is selling on TV. Sometimes the best hero is the guy who looks nothing like anything or anyone you’ve ever seen in real life but uses everything he’s got to sprint towards the ring and do the right thing. That’s what the WWF did for me. It taught me about everyday life with a cast of characters who were bigger than everyday life. In wrestling, the good guy doesn’t always win, but what’s important is that he’s the good guy. And in wrestling, good guys come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and tremendous hairstyles. In wrestling, if you try hard enough, you can body slam Andre the Giant. In wrestling, sometimes your friend will betray you and try to steal your girlfriend, the most beautiful woman in your six-year-old world, Miss Elizabeth, but then you move on with your head held high and become the “heavyweight champion of the woooorld!” What wrestling taught me, is still real to me dammit. To this day, my first and most lasting image of sportsmanship is Warrior and Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania VI. Ultimate Warrior, the beast from Parts Unknown, embracing the most known All-American Good Guy ever made. Warrior taught me about tenacity and getting back up even when all your facepaint has rubbed off and you’re dry heaving from exhaustion. “Get up. Please get up,” I’d say. And you know what? He would. Every time. The Warrior was unstoppable and true to himself. I can’t think of a better pair of values to teach a six year old - from a guy dressed like a girl’s bicycle, no less. 

Sometimes a man gets everything he wants and sometimes he wants to give it back. Sometimes a man puts the crazy ideas to bed and sometimes his thoughts won’t sleep.

Sometimes a man believes in himself and sometimes he pines for a god. Sometimes a man lives in fear of a reckoning and sometimes a man lives free. 

Sometimes a man feels he’s wasted his life and sometimes he shrugs it off. Sometimes a man cannot suffer injustice and sometimes he lets it be.

Sometimes a man loves the woman he loves and sometimes he wishes he hadn't. Sometimes a man wants to lay down strong roots and sometimes a man wants to flee. 

A young boy teeters on the ledge of a loading dock behind Safeway. His father stands at the ready just beneath him at street level.

"Come closer!"

"You can do it, Son." 

"Daddy, come closer. It's too far." 

"Come on, Sport. It'll be alright. I'll catch you." 

"No. Closer." 

"Come on, son. Just jump. You're a big boy now. Four years old. You can do this." 

The boy is crying now. 

"Son, look at me. You can spend this time wondering if you could... or a lifetime knowing that you did. You decide."

He parked the car and clutched her wrist as she unbuckled the seatbelt.

"Hold on," he said, "this is the best part."

They sat frozen while the last two notes played on the radio. He gave her wrist a gentle squeeze then turned off the ignition.

"So good," she said.

"Ok, now we can go. Time to drink," he said.

They stepped out to fresh snow fluttering about - thick flakes, the ones that lingered in the air and feathered down hanging on to the spaces in between. They walked silently into the diner and headed for the back corner booth. 

"How is this table always open for us?" she asked. 

"Fate." 

"Yeah it is. Three times now," she replied. 

She widened her eyes with playful excitement. He returned the look and they laughed.

They settled into opposite sides of the booth as a blonde waitress arrived dressed in white. "How yall doin? Can I get yall anything to drink? It's cold out there isn't it?" she asked. 

"I'll have a vodka tonic," she said.

"A double scotch - neat, for me please. That should warm me up."

"That it? Anything to eat tonight, darlin?" the waitress asked him. 

"No, thank you. Just the drinks for now please," he said. 

The waitress walked away and the two turned back to watch the snow through the window. He caught her reflection in the glass and could see her eyes were tired. He wanted to be needed. She caught him staring. He lowered his head and winked his eyebrows up and down. 

She laughed. "Stupid...!" 

She turned to face him and let out a small sigh. 

"What am I gonna do when you leave?" she asked. 

"You know I'll still be around." he said

She looked square into his eyes. "Not really. It'll just be me by myself again. Alone again." 

"It won't be that bad. It's not like we'll stop talking," he said.

"I know. I'm just sick of being alone. It's the worst." She looked away as the waitress returned with their drinks.    

He sipped his scotch and held it, letting it coat his mouth before speaking.

"There are worse things than being alone," he said.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Like being torn between two," he said.

She looked away, back out the window, watching the flight of snowflakes on the night's canvas. 

He lost her eyes, but continued. "There's nothing worse than two loves. Neither can know the whole truth. Neither can have all of you. Neither are getting what they deserve. You're in limbo between them. Alone."

She glanced back at him. "Whatever. You still get to go home to someone."

"True. But for what?" he asked. "To fantasize about the other? To go half the way with both? It's beyond loneliness. It's guilt and regret hanging between two hearts and you face it alone."

He blinked hard twice and averted his eyes back out to the snow.   

"There are worse things than being alone," he said. 

They sat and watched the snow. He took another drink - bigger this time.

to live is to pass time. to be happy is a state of mind that comes with knowing what you want and the games played to attain them. so put your face on. mount up. stretch. run yourself ragged ‘til your legs give out and your mind clears enough to reveal the fog of lies that surrounds you.  a smog filled dew of greed and sleaze  in the so-called city of angels.