Beto Gutierrez clicked “Save” on the massive spreadsheet filling his laptop’s screen and flexed his tired wrists. Whew! Another Monday of crunching numbers is done!

His buzzing cellphone broke his spreadsheet trance. INCOMING CALL: PETEY. Beto’s best friend since college often called at the end of the workday. Usually, they talked about kids, TV shows, funny memories—comfortable rhythms they both enjoyed. But on this day, the low hesitancy in Petey’s voice indicated something different. “Um, Beto. I wanted to make sure you saw the news. It’s all over the wrestling sites.”

“No, I haven’t seen. What happened?”

“Dean Driver passed today. Liver cancer.”

Dean Driver. His heart dropped to his stomach. Beto sank back in the leather captain’s chair at his home office and let his mind return to a long weekend’s road trip twelve years earlier—the first and last time he’d spoken with Dean Driver.

#

Night 1: Raleigh, NC

81 miles

“Beto! You gonna come study in the library?” Petey’s head bobbed up and down amid the swarming students packing the hall of a UNC-Greensboro classroom building.

“Can’t. Gotta make a show in Raleigh.” Beto maintained a brisk walking pace toward the parking deck exit as he stuffed his possessions into a ratty backpack.

“Dude, this exam is forty percent of our final grade! And you know Doc is going to serve up a shit sandwich.”

Beto nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll catch up Sunday night, but I gotta go wrestle.”

His friend waved a weak goodbye, not trying to hide his disappointment. But Beto couldn’t worry about that now. It was 3pm and he had towns to make.

Gary Van Rippy—a survivor in the cut-throat world of promoting pro wrestling—had a three-show loop, with shows tonight in Raleigh, tomorrow in Richmond, and Saturday in Greenville. Beto finished training just three months earlier but somehow talked his way onto these three shows. The pay would be meager, but it was an opportunity for Beto to gain experience and exposure—gold and silver to an aspiring young wrestler.

Of course, there was a catch. In exchange for getting booked, the promoter expected him to pick up Dean Driver at the airport and chauffeur him around for the next four days.

“Devilish” Dean Driver was a “Name,” as they said in independent wrestling circles. He had wrestled for the big organizations in major arenas with matches on cable and pay-per-view. Devilish Dean even had his own action figure—now a collectible. Beto was too young to remember Driver’s run in “The Show” twenty years ago, but he certainly knew the name.

This weekend, he and Beto would be wrestling in cinder block rec centers, not sparkling basketball arenas. For Beto, though, they represented the first stops on the road to wrestling under the Monday night lights.

However, by the time Beto pulled his aging Kia into the Gate D short-term parking lot, his heart threatened to thump out of his chest. Damn Raleigh rush hour traffic! Why didn’t I leave an hour earlier?  His car’s blinking LED clock read 5:23pm and the promoter expected him to have Driver in the building by six sharp.

Finding “Devilish” Dean Driver didn’t prove a problem. As Beto parked, a gruff voice he recognized from a thousand YouTube videos grabbed his attention. But instead of hyping a match, Driver directed his ire at the two security guards escorting him out of the terminal. “Get your fucking hands off me!” Driver jerked out of the guards’ grip. Shaking the sleeves of his red satin jacket, he cut his eyes to the gawking Beto.

“Mr. Driver? I-I-I’m Beto Gutierrez.”

“You’re my ride?”

Beto nodded like a bobblehead.

“In that shitbox?” Driver pointed at the Kia’s washed-out burgundy paint job and the dent in its front bumper. “Van Rippy’s still a cheapskate, I see.” Heavy bag in tow, Driver squeezed in the back seat. The stinging scent of alcohol punched Beto in the nose.

Weighing around 250 in his prime, Driver now sported an extra twenty-five pounds around the midsection, though his thick arms and thighs reflected a man who knew his way around a weight room in his younger days. He still sported his trademark mane of platinum blond hair, although the bags under his eyes and dark stubble spoke to his recent troubles.

“Those airline assholes said I was drunk on the plane!” Driver pulled a bottle of malt liquor from his bag and took a drink. “Can you believe their audacity?”

He continued to rant and imbibe on the ride to the rec center, which turned out to be a crumbling, out-of-the-way structure between a vape shop and check cashing business. Beto had to steady the man and help him from the car to the dressing room.

Gary Van Rippy scratched his balding head when he saw his star attraction’s condition. A short man with frosted hair who wore Ray-Bans, designer jeans, and a garish patterned t-shirt, Van Rippy rolled his eyes at the barely conscious Driver. “Jesus, kid—why did you let him get drunk?”

“I—I’m sorry!” Beto couldn’t look the promoter in the face. My first big break and I’ve already ruined my chances! Might as well head back to Greensboro now.

Van Rippy sighed. “Forget it, kid. Just get ready for your match.” Meanwhile, Driver curled up on a cot in the rec center’s health room for an impromptu nap.

Beto worked the opener, losing to—or “putting over,” in wrestling parlance—the Master of Disaster. The audience reacted with disinterested applause. At one point in the match, Beto botched a simple move, breaking the groaning crowd’s suspension of disbelief. His masked opponent kept working but muttered under his breath. “Greener than goose shit.”

Beto showered quickly, avoiding the other wrestlers, who would undoubtedly hear about his mistake. Head down, he collected his $25 payoff, then took a spot by the curtain separating the locker room from the crowd. In addition to hiding, he wanted to see the main event—assuming Driver sobered up enough to make it to the ring.

The opening strains of Loverboy’s “Lovin’ Every Minute of It” rumbled through the loudspeaker and the 300 or so fans oohed. Holding their collective breath, they let it go when “Devilish” Dean Driver broke through the curtain in synchronicity to the song’s opening verse. Somehow, the Monday night hero from two decades past replaced the stumbling drunk Beto brought to the arena.

Driver strutted to the ring, slapping hands with kids who reached across the thin piece of rope that served as the ringside barrier. He raised two fingers over his head in a peace sign. The crowd responded in kind, as if they were in a Pentecostal church and Driver was the evangelist.

He took his time getting into the ring, and even when the bell rang, he paced himself. His opponent—a skater punk named Anarky—charged at him, only to have Driver deftly dodge to the left and scoop Anarky up for a bodyslam. The veteran performer then theatrically dusted off his hands. The finish saw Anarky hoist Driver over his shoulder like a sack of flour—the precursor to his version of the tombstone piledriver. The Raleigh fans had seen him pin dozens of opponents with this move and leaned forward to see if it could finish the legendary Dean Driver.

Instead, he slipped down Anarky’s back, pushed him into the ropes, and pulled him down to the mat from behind. Sitting atop his opponent’s sprawling legs, he yanked the man’s trunks, exposing the villain’s bare ass to the crowd. The referee’s hand slapped the mat—one-two-three! The fans roared their approval and laughed at the vanquished Anarky, who stumbled around the ring, his cheeks flapping.

“That was amazing!” Beto told Driver when he returned through the black felt curtain. “How did you come up with that finish?”

He wiped the sweat from his face and waved Beto off. “Not now, kid. I’m doing business.” Driver donned a t-shirt with his own face emblazoned across the chest and grabbed his black duffel bag. The other wrestlers still milling around the tiny dressing room just looked away, leaving the chastised rookie to sit with his embarrassment.

Driver rushed back out into the gym. Parking himself at a folding table beside the exit, he hawked autographed 8x10s and black t-shirts to the fans leaving the building. Once the final transaction was complete, Driver shoved the wad of cash into his omnipresent fanny pack and gave his duffel bag to Beto. “Take this to the car.”

Beto did as he was told, and moments later, Driver stretched out across the back seat of the Kia. Before Beto could get to I-85 North, Driver pointed to a twenty-four-hour gas station. “Pull in and get me a case of Coors. The real stuff—not that light swill.” He threw two twenty dollar bills over the front seat. “And make sure it’s cold.”

Driver cradled the case like a football and cracked open his first can; Beto resumed driving. His efforts to chat up Driver were met with grunts at best, silence at worst. Before long, he stopped trying. They passed the rest of the two-and-a-half hour drive to Richmond in silence.

The promoter had booked Driver into a roadside inn—a “no-tell motel” if there ever was one. Half the light bulbs in the motel’s sign were dark, and three people congregated by the outdoor stairwell under a red NO LOITERING sign. Still, one of the few perks of the trip was that as Driver’s chauffeur, Beto didn’t have to pay for a room. He checked them in and found Driver asleep in the backseat amid a mountain of empty beer cans.

“Um, Dean…er, Mr. Driver? We’re at the motel.” Beto nudged Driver, hoping he wouldn’t have to carry a 275-pound unconscious man to their room, but Driver jolted awake. He unfolded himself from the car, his joints popping and cracking from twenty-five years of taking flatback bumps.

“Mr. Driver, let me help you to the room—”

“Naw, I’m good, kid. Don’t wait up.” Driver walked toward the biker bar next door, his dollar store flip-flops smacking a rhythm against the parking lot blacktop. Beto thought about following to keep an eye on him, but he figured a brown kid in the Iron Stallion Saloon might not be welcomed. Instead, he chose sleep, and, sure enough, Beto slept soundly—until 4 a.m. That’s when Driver flopped into bed, nearly landing on top of Beto, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

What the—? A wetness pressed against Beto’s thigh and he jumped out of the bed. It was bad enough that Driver reeked of cheap beer, but, sometime during the past three hours, he pissed himself as well. Any chance Beto could have gotten back to sleep despite the snoring, semi-legendary wrestler disappeared with this realization. So, he laid on the floor and wrapped himself up in a musty bedspread.

Great job, Beto. A student, a wrestler, a driver—and you’re doing lousy at all three. He sighed and buried his face in his hands.

Night 2: Richmond, VA

172 miles

By 10am, his neck, already aching from a German suplex he’d taken the night before, now absolutely barked at him. Driver continued sleeping off God knows what he did the night before. Instead of waking him, Beto decided to visit a fast food restaurant down the street for two chicken biscuits and an orange juice.

When he returned, Driver stood in the middle of the dingy carpet, clad only in a pair of tighty-whities that may have been older than Beto. “Hey, kid! Let’s go on down to the building. Maybe I can show you how to set up that finish, if you like.” Beto’s eyebrows raised, but he nodded. If Dean Driver was Mr. Hyde last night, he transformed back into Dr. Jekyll in the morning sunlight.

On the way to the West Richmond Middle School gym, Driver instructed Beto to stop at a gas station for coffee. They walked in and found no other customers and a lone employee sitting behind the register.

Driver leaned over to whisper. “Go ask that guy for directions.”

“Huh? I got it in my GPS. I don’t need—”

“Just ask him for directions!” Driver hissed under his breath. Beto did as asked. While he chatted with the cashier, he eyed Driver stuffing a handful of candy bars into the pockets of his baggy gray sweatpants. The veteran wrestler then took a small black coffee to the counter.

“That’ll be…hey! Aren’t you “Devilish” Dean Driver? Man, I used to watch you every Monday as a kid!” The laconic cashier lit up in a broad grin, then slid a phone from his back pocket. “Do you mind if we get a photo?”

“No problem, brother!” Driver leaned over the counter and both men flashed a two-fingered peace sign.

The cashier waved off Driver when he reached for his wallet. “Coffee’s on the house. Wish you were still wrestling, man. The fans miss you.”

Beto craned forward. “Actually, we’re both going to—”

“C’mon, kid. Let’s go.” Before Beto could continue, Driver grabbed his arm and marched him to the car. He munched one of the purloined Snickers bars on the drive to the building.

As promised, Driver took Beto to a corner of the gym while Van Rippy’s crew set up the ring and unfolded chairs. “Kid, the trick is you’ve got to make the fans think the heel has you. Don’t reverse it right away—you’ve got to flail and struggle. Then, when they believe he’s got you, that’s when you turn the tables.”

Beto jerked the curtain once again, this time dropping a seven-minute affair to “Gentleman” Gerry McTavish, a Canadian transplant who did a British nobleman gimmick. Once more, Beto did the honors, losing clean to McTavish’s “London Calling” finishing hold. But this time, he took Driver’s advice and slowed down a beat between moves. After hitting a decent dropkick, he looked at a fan in the front row and smiled. She stood to cheer and a few others joined her.

Okay, I’m not ready for the big time. But at least I’m getting some type of reaction. Although his muscles ached from the match, he nearly floated back to the locker room.

Driver and Anarky had the same basic match as the night before, except Beto noticed a few subtle tweaks. On this evening, a leather-lunged spectator in the tiny crowd yelled obscenities from the metal bleachers. He was a “heel fan,” someone who cheered the villains. Driver made sure to needle the man, particularly as he delivered punishment to Anarky. They did the same finish as the previous night and Driver yelled to the heel fan, “Your boy’s waiting—go kiss his ass!” The man slammed his trucker hat to the floor, but the other patrons ate up the improvised antics.

On the long drive to South Carolina, and once Driver drank half that night’s case of beer, he leaned forward and rested his forearms against the front seat.

“So what do you do, kid? When you aren’t driving has-beens around, that is?”

Beto smiled. “I’m in school—studying accounting. But I was thinking I’d take time off from college, get a part-time job at Fitness World, and try to get bookings in Philly, NYC, Chicago. In two years, I want to be wrestling on Monday night.”

That brought a raspy chuckle to Driver’s throat. “Kid…you must be a special kind of stupid.”

Not turning his eyes from the road, Beto blinked and white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Sure, you’ve got some potential,” Driver went on, “but so do a thousand other dreamers. And of those thousand, maybe four or five will end up in the big time. Yeah, the money’s good. But unless you’re a real top talent, it ain’t ‘fuck you’ money—the kind where you can say ‘Fuck you, I don’t ever have to work again.’ So get your ass back in that classroom, get a real job, and forget this lousy business. Unless you want to end up like me.”

Night 3: Greenville, SC

253 miles

The third night of the loop went the same as the first two—at least in the ring. Beto once more opened the show in a losing cause, but he employed more of the tricks Driver taught him and found the crowd response encouraging.

Driver and Anarky again received the biggest reactions of the night, but when Beto went to gather Driver after the main event, he found him in a back corner of the National Guard armory, counting a stack of cash. “Two twenty. Two forty. Two fifty. Two fucking fifty.”

He stomped away to find Van Rippy, who sat behind a folding table in a janitor’s closet that served as his office for the evening. Driver slammed his fists into the makeshift desk, cracking the pressboard. “You cheap sonuvabitch! Fuck me on a payoff? I was main eventing Monday nights when you were still in high school!”

Van Rippy jumped back and raised his open hands. “Dean…calm down. I’ll get you next time. Just go work the gimmick table. You’ll still walk away with more money than anybody else tonight, including me.”

Driver shook his head. “That’s bullshit, Gary. After all these years of making towns, risking my health, you’d think I’d get a bit of respect.”

He marched back through the curtain, where about fifty fans still milled around.

“Listen up! Gary Van Rippy is a lying snake! He cheated me on my money tonight, and he’s cheated a lot of other wrestlers, too. I won’t be signing tonight, and it’s all his fault!” Driver stormed out the side door.

Beto followed Driver outside and found him waiting by the car. Hands plunged into his pockets, Driver’s lower lip quivered. “Let’s go, kid,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Those were three of the few words Driver spoke that night. In addition to downing his nightly case of beer, Beto heard the rattle of a pill bottle from the back seat. Driver passed out around an hour into the trip back to Raleigh; Beto pulled off the interstate a couple of times to make sure he hadn’t died. They made it to the economy hotel near the Raleigh-Durham airport shortly before 3am, but when Beto went to check in, the clerk glanced at her monitor then shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry Mister…Gutierrez, did you say it was? The hotel room was booked under ‘Gary Van Rippy’ and Mr. Rippy cancelled a couple of hours ago.”

Of course he did. Beto’s three $25 payoffs weren’t enough to cover the cost of a room—even if he hadn’t already spent a good chunk of it on meals. So, with Driver still unconscious in the back seat, Beto drove to a nearby Waffle House and parked. He slid a baseball cap down over his eyes, and went to sleep, his arms wrapped around his body to keep warm.

********************

“Ooooh...this business is gonna be the death of me kid,” a red-eyed Driver said over coffee, bacon, and waffles. He still had an hour until he had to be at the terminal, and treated Beto to breakfast. “Anyway, you’ve been a good road brother. But don’t forget what I taught you, okay?”

Beto wolfed down a forkful of eggs. “Oh, I won’t! I’ve been listening to the crowd like you said and—”

“No, not that bullshit, kid. The part about getting your degree, making a real life for yourself. That’s the part I want you to hear.”

He put his hand on Beto’s shoulder, tears welling in his eyes. “You probably already figured out that I’m an addict, but it’s not what you think, kid. The booze, the pills—those are just symptoms of the disease. My real addiction is to those bright lights. I get in that ring and, for twenty minutes, all is right with my life. But just for those twenty minutes. Those bright lights will lure you into the water and pull you under the sea.”

#

After ending the call with Petey, Beto powered down his laptop as a little boy with bright brown eyes and a puff of curly black hair raced into the room. A smile returning to his face, Beto scooped up the child mid-stride and kissed him on the top of his head.

“Eddie! Slow down, son! Why are you in such a hurry?”

“‘Cause you’re watching wrestling with me, Daddy!” the boy said.

Beto laughed. “True. But it’s only five o’clock and wrestling doesn’t start for another three hours. Mommy is on her way and I’m making pizza.”

“Yay!” The boy jumped down and pretended to dropkick an invisible opponent. “Daddy? Do you ever wish you had kept being a wrestler? Instead of a…‘countant?”

“Ha! You might just become a reporter, because you ask tough questions!” Beto squatted down to his son’s eye level. “No. I don’t regret it. Someday, if you’re lucky, you’ll understand why.”

He heard the garage door open. “Mommy’s home! Give her a hug then help me set the table.”

After supper, the Gutierrez boys piled up on the couch to watch wrestling until Eddie fell asleep in the crook of Beto’s arm, as was their Monday night tradition.

Beto carried Eddie to his bedroom and tucked him in. Thank you, Dean.