The Sweetheart Read online

  “How about just your name, then?” This much, you can manage. You write your name in your clear, precise hand. He attempts to read it aloud, and you correct him twice before he gives up.

  “Yowzah,” he says. “If you do become a wrestler, first thing we’re doing is changing your name.”

  “We are?”

  “Young lady, I can see you signing a lot of autographs, and trust me,” he says, waving the little pad in the air, “when that happens, you’re going to want a lot less name.”

  • • •

  The days that follow are the longest and slowest of your life. Wrestling, it now seems, may be the solution to all of life’s problems. One, it could give the sole bedroom of the little row house back to your father, a gift you aren’t sure how you might give him otherwise. Two, it’s something. What have you got going now? A whole lot of nothing, that’s what. But most of all, the memory of Rocca’s riveting performance is still fresh enough for you to imagine that this could be more than something: it just might be it. If you never hear from Costantini or his friend, you may never recover.

  Thankfully, by the end of the week, a large envelope postmarked Otherside, Florida, arrives at the diner. When the owner hands it to you, eyebrow raised, you offer no explanation before shoving it into your bag, hurrying home, and ripping it open in the privacy of your bedroom. Inside is a letter from Mr. Joe Pospisil, trainer, manager, and proprietor of the Pospisil School for Lady Grappling, in which he dangles the possibility of your coming to the Florida Panhandle (on a trial basis, of course) to learn to wrestle so that you might join the pantheon of lady grapplers he has personally trained and managed. In addition to outlining the careers of the most notable figures (Kat Fever, Screaming Mimi Hollander, and, of course, The Ragin’ Cajun), he has included a half-dozen publicity shots of wrestlers he manages: strong, beautiful ladies in pinup attire—bathing suits, platform heels. Some flex biceps and smile, their mouths stained with lipstick; others stand with their hands on their hips, staring aggressively back at whoever dares look their way. The most mesmerizing of the lot (not one of his girls, he admits, but meant to inspire) is photographed in this latter pose: a petite, brawny brunette with a deep V in the front of her suit, upswept bangs, a cleft in her chin, slightly pointed ears, and a large belt around her waist, a trophy that “with hard work and a little luck, might someday be yours.”

  This, you will soon learn, is Mildred Burke, the former (and, by some accounts, current) Women’s World Champion. True enough, the belt—a reported twenty-four-karat-gold accessory studded with seven diamonds, six amethysts, and four sapphires and weighing roughly the same as a four-month-old child—is still in her physical possession, as it has been for nearly two decades, but it is currently at the heart of a fierce custody battle. Make no mistake: Mildred Burke is one tough old broad. She is a tenacious road warrior, spending up to six nights a week defending her title, all the while suffering nose fractures, knee injuries, and the loosening and subsequent removal of all of her teeth. But in anything as duplicitous as wrestling, it takes more than grit—or talent, for that matter—to be a champion. Burke has kept the title this long for one reason, and one reason only: she’s married to Billy Wolfe, her manager. Wolfe had a vested interest in keeping his wife on top and enough force to make it so. But now, after years of exploitation and public humiliation, Burke has finally decided to part ways with him, which has led to fierce contentions over the belt and caused an already dubious championship to become even more suspect.I

  But it will be a long time before you know this history, or understand anything resembling the truth about wrestling. What matters now is that in this image, all of your vague longings find their form. You tape Mildred’s glossy to the back of your bedroom door, a place where it should not draw your father’s attention but can continue to inspire. Now you know who you want to be. You want to be the champion.

  • • •

  Last but not least, the letter invites you to answer a few questions in order to see “if you have what it takes” to be a professional wrestler. The enclosed questionnaire is brief and perplexing. Oh, it begins straightforwardly enough, with questions about your experience with athletics in general and wrestling in particular. The next few are more peculiar and more personal—questions about your relationships (“Do you have a serious boyfriend whom you intend to marry in the foreseeable future?”), your domestic skill set (“Do you cook?”), your personal habits (“Do you practice good hygiene?”), and your characterization of yourself (“Would you consider yourself a feminine woman?”). It is hard to see what any of this has to do with your qualifications to be a wrestler; still, you answer the questions easily and honestly. The only real snag you hit is when it asks for your measurements, including your height, which apparently has to be between five foot two and five foot nine.

  It was possible to imagine from the previous questions that you might in fact “have what it takes” to be a wrestler, but there is no way around this problem: you are simply too tall. But you cannot let a couple of inches keep you from realizing your destiny. And so, after scrawling a 5 in the space allotted for “feet,” you press the pen against the paper, loop around and, hand shaking, come down, creating a 9 in the space for “inches.”

  When you failed to tell your father about Bandstand, you didn’t exactly lie; you simply withheld information. This action, however, is unmistakable: you have represented yourself as something you most certainly are not. But what is the alternative? It seems a reasonable and justifiable move, but so will many that you will take over the next year, until you find yourself neither where you meant to go nor where you might turn back. Of course, that is impossible for you to imagine now, in this early leg, with all that is familiar just a turn of the head away. Only those of us burdened by hindsight can see this act as dangerous. You fold the completed questionnaire three ways, stuff it into an envelope, and send it on its way.

  • • •

  It takes ten excruciating days for Pospisil’s response to arrive, but it is everything you hoped it would be. He is convinced that a career in wrestling is in your cards and hopes you’ll take the next southbound train so you can attend his school and get this career off the ground. When he gets the green light from you, he will wire the money for a train ticket. Not only that, he will pay you fifty dollars a week plus room and board for the first month. If, after a month, you want to return home, he will pay for that ticket as well and wish you a happy life. And, of course, he is happy to answer any questions that you or your parents might have, as he is a father himself and understands that fathers often need personal reassurances on these kinds of things. A business card is provided for this purpose.

  As thrilling as all of this is, there’s an element of ice-water-to-the-face about it. What reassurances could Pospisil possibly offer that would convince your father, a man who doesn’t even believe in eating in front of the television, to let you just pack up your bags and travel unescorted to Florida for the purpose of becoming a professional wrestler? It takes a day, and another brisket dinner, for you to summon the courage to broach the idea with him.

  His response is definite: “Women don’t wrestle.”

  You provide him with the only evidence you have to the contrary, fanning the publicity shots out in front of him like a winning card hand. As you should have expected, Franz stares at them in saucer-eyed horror.

  “This is what you want?” he says, gesturing toward them. “To parade in front of a bunch of men you don’t know in a suit like this?”

  “I want to be a wrestler,” you say with forced patience. “I want to give it a try, at least.”

  “I don’t understand,” he asks, his face pained. “Why?”

  Why? It’s an impossible question to answer. The reasons are complicated and unspeakable. Eventually, you say, “I can’t stay here and take care of you my whole life.”

  “I think you’ve got this bac
kwards, Leonie. I’m your father. I go to work, I pay the mortgage, and I keep my daughter from making bad choices. I take care of you.”

  You’ve put your foot in it now. You feel your opportunity slipping away; you have to blink your eyes and look up at the ceiling so you won’t cry. “What else can I do, Father? This is my best chance.”

  Franz looks down at his feet; you are still looking up. In another minute, you are sure, he will slam his fist on the table, and that will be that. When moments later this still hasn’t happened, you dare to look at his face, one that has always looked old to you but now seems even older. He looks up at you. You are prepared for him to say anything. You’ve never crossed your father, no matter the stakes. If he says no, you will accept it and never mention it again.

  Who can know what he is thinking in the minutes before he says his next words. I have always imagined that in this moment, he understands how little he knows about what the world has to offer, what you might need from it, and how you might get it. You are as mysterious a creature to him as he is to you and me, and none of us will know much about what is or isn’t a best chance until it has been taken.

  “I will call this man,” he says. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll call.”

  • • •

  Your father has plenty of questions for Mr. Pospisil. How safe is it? How often will you have to travel? How far? Who will go with you? A number of his questions concern men: at the school, on the cards, in the audience. Apparently he believes his entire sex is bad news from which you must be shielded. This conversation is difficult for you to endure. Complicated negotiations regarding your future are in process, and you are barely even a spectator. You have no idea what Mr. Pospisil is saying, or whether your father finds these answers satisfactory; his flat expression reveals nothing.

  At the end of this torture, Franz asks, “Tell me, Mr. Pospisil, would you let your daughter do this?” Franz listens to the answer, stone-faced, and then wordlessly hands the phone to you and steps outside. Once he is safely out of earshot, you thank Mr. Pospisil for his patience.

  “It’s my job,” he says. “I love it when I get that last question. It’s my ace in the hole.”

  “So you think he’ll say yes?”

  “You know that better than I do. But I hope so.”

  You would not typically follow your father outside, but you do it this evening, sitting quietly beside him, your arms wrapped around your knees, while he puffs on a Winston. Somewhere nearby, a group of men sit in a living room playing an improvised jazz number, and the muffled notes drift into space. A door opens; the sound has drawn Ms. Riley out of her house. She puts her hands on the small of her back and arches, thrusting her chest forward. She sees the two of you sitting there and waves down at you.

  “Leonie. Franz. How goes it?”

  Your father gestures toward you with his thumb. “My kid here wants to move to Florida and be a wrestler. What do you think of that?”

  Ms. Riley gives you a curious look and laughs in a way that strikes you as more than a little sad before turning to your father. “My kid got herself knocked up by a meathead bum. Want to trade?”

  Your father says nothing.

  Soon, the engine of a sedan drowns out the music, and Ms. Riley waves her good-byes and returns inside. When it is just the two of you, you dare to ask your father, who stares ahead, his eyes glazed, what he is thinking.

  “I’m thinking,” he says, “that you are going to Florida, and nothing will be the same.”

  He has decided; he will not give you his blessing, but he will not stand in your way. You could burst from relief, but, to your credit, you keep your feelings under wraps. This is big—as much as you could hope from him. He deserves your gratitude, which you attempt to demonstrate by following him inside and drying the dishes after he washes them. When you finish, Franz gets a beer from the refrigerator, turns on the radio, and lies down on the couch. You take your cue and disappear into your bedroom, excited by your father’s decision, but saddened by it, too. You understand his fear, that he will lose you, and this scares you as well. Not enough to drive you out of the bedroom and into his arms (if you had any idea just how complete the loss will be, you would do exactly that), but enough to keep you up well into the night, so that you are still awake when Franz turns up the volume on Perry Como and cracks open your bedroom door.

  “This one’s for you, Leonie,” he whispers into the darkness, barely audible above the crooner.

  * * *

  I. In wrestling, even the asterisks have asterisks.

  THREE

  And so begins your unlikely transformation into an icon of the golden age of wrestling.

  Perhaps the only thing more incredible than the wild success you will achieve is the amount of faith you place in this possibility. You know almost nothing of the sport, and yet you are so capable of imagining yourself as its champion that before the week is out, you bid your father good-bye, board a train, and head toward an alien world on the invitation of a stranger. On the first leg of the journey south, this dream sustains you. You see nothing of the passing landscape, only the bright future you are headed toward. Your surroundings begin to come into view only after you cross the Mason-Dixon Line, when the passengers with darker skin are relegated to the cars farthest from the engine, the shoeboxes carrying their dinners bouncing in their laps. Later, when your books are read, your sandwiches eaten, and sleep is still eluding you despite a restless night, you watch the sun set over endless fields of farmland. In this moment, it occurs to you that the only givens are that it is late in the day and you are far from home. By the time you step out onto the near-empty platform, the vision that propelled you here is almost impossible to recall.

  One of the few people waiting is a square-shouldered, jut-jawed gentleman with dark-rimmed glasses held up by cauliflower ears. While an attendant heads off to retrieve your trunk, he approaches you with an outstretched hand.

  “Leonie Putzkammer, I presume,” he says.

  “Hello, Mr. Pospisil.” He gives you a quick once-over, as he might any newly acquired merchandise. You hope that in whatever assessment he is making, he isn’t wondering about your height. You might have some newfound doubts about your decision, but you don’t want this man to tell you that you don’t belong.

  Whatever conclusions he draws, he keeps to himself, offering instead a well-rehearsed “Hot enough for you?” Soon after, the attendant arrives with your trunk, and in no time, you and Joe have hauled it into the back of his DeSoto and are heading down the highway. In the quiet of the car, you try to recall the sights and sounds of Rocca in the ring, details that might reinforce your faith and steady your nerves, but it is difficult to ignore the endless miles of slash pines. Just as you begin to wonder if you will ever again see anything besides trees, a light appears in the distance.

  “Welcome to Otherside,” says Joe as he rockets past the illuminated sign.

  It is hard to believe this place merits identification. When you finally see houses, they are few and far between, and set so far back from the road they seem like shadows of themselves. Those old Victorians must retain a hint of what made them grand in their day, but all you can see are the sunken porches, the boarded windows, the yards littered with trucks and boats in various stages of repair. The only signs of life are a few mangy dogs and the occasional scratching chicken. To you, it seems like the land that time forgot, halfway between nowhere and nothing.

  Shortly thereafter, Joe’s car turns off the highway, crosses over a set of train tracks, and rattles along an old shell road that takes you through a scrubby forest into a clearing, where the dozen weather-worn cabins that make up the Pospisil School for Lady Grappling stand in a semicircle near the river. Not that you can see much. It is dark out here, purple dark, which makes it difficult to see anything other than whatever lies directly in the path of Joe’s headlights. Eventually,
these are aimed toward your new home: something more than a shack but less than a motel room, its wooden siding scabby with green growth. As Joe nears the cabin, he spins around and backs the DeSoto up to the door, which sweeps the headlights toward the cypress knees in the river.

  After he parks, you step out of the car to investigate. You have lived near the Schuylkill all your life, but this belongs to another category of nature altogether. You can’t see much in the dark, but you can smell its ripeness and hear its laps against the boat ramp. You also hear something chirping—frogs, or maybe crickets.

  “Why Otherside?” you ask. “Other side of what?”

  “I guess that depends on who you ask.”

  You slap at a mosquito. “I’m asking you.”

  “Me?” Joe walks around to the back of his car, unlocks the trunk. “I think this place is the other side of heaven, but I suspect some of the girls will say differently. Hey, you going to help me with this or what?”

  Joe lifts one end of your trunk out of the DeSoto and motions for you to take the other. “Your training begins now,” he jokes, and the two of you hoist it out of the car and into the dark, wood-paneled room where you will live. Joe wasn’t lying about the heat. It sure doesn’t feel like September in that room—not any September you’ve ever known, anyway. By the time Joe locks the room up and hands you the key, your dress is drenched in sweat.

  “Living out here might be a bit of an adjustment for you. Was for me, too. I’m from Cleveland myself. But I love it now. Winter’s a lot easier, and living on the water has its perks. Mullet will be running soon. Sometimes I catch ten, twelve with one throw.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” you say, and Joe laughs.

  “I didn’t used to, either. Here’s something else that’s nice.”

  Joe points over your head and you look up. Through the flags of Spanish moss, you discover one more thing that makes it clear just how far you are from home: a hazeless sky thick with stars.