Cosmo by Spencer Gordon Page B

forming on Keith’s forehead, and from the way he lies there, groaning, I figure he’s gotta be at least partway hurt. Mom’s so drunk she can’t find a handhold, can’t get to her feet, so she lies there panting atop his hulking belly.
    Please be over , I think. Please be finished. Let this be done . But there’s no logical end to this, no one to raise a victor’s hand in the air.
    But then there’s Eddy, out of the corner of my eye, on all fours on the carpet. He must have crawled down the stairs while they were grappling each other. Mom looks up with tears in her eyes, spotting him, her face tormented and ugly. ‘Honey,’ she’s trying to say, but Eddy drops to one elbow, his legs splayed out behind him, and raises his right hand in the air.
    No , I think …
    Eddy slaps his hand down on the floor. ‘ONE!’ he screams, then raises it again.
    And I close my eyes. I close my eyes and imagine Mom blowing the hair off her face and starting to laugh. She laughs so hard that she rouses Keith from his groaning daze, and he screws around his head to stare at what’s so funny, and seeing Eddy there on the floor counting them out, well, it sends Keith into hysterics, too. And I laugh with them from the doorway, and when Eddy’s finally finished pounding the floor he looks around, confused, but then that grin ripples over his lips as he sees real smiles and real laughs around him, and he leaps up and sprints over to Mom and raises her wrist in victory, points at her with his other hand, and this just kills everyone, and the joke gets bigger and fuller and richer because this was a work after all – that after the bloody performance we all find ourselves in the locker room slapping backs and swigging beers, giving respect and love for the broken bones and pulled muscles, for everything sacrificed and offered up in the middle of the ring, all the fake animosity and hatred for a common cause. And Mom kisses Keith, still on top of him, and they stand and Keith lifts up Eddy into his arms for the first time and swings him around the room while a big rock song plays for our victory.
    And I keep my eyes shut, seeing it all work itself into happiness. Eddy goes to school in the fall and gets help from the counsellors and gets changed to a different school where he gets the kind of classes and therapy he needs, the kind of meds his fucked-up brain is thirsting for, and he grows up to be one of those kids who’re popular even though they’re challenged and the high school jocks defend him and give him rides and the girls kiss his cheeks in the halls and the teachers all love him because Eddy’s heart is fucking pure and simple, and one day he goes to work for a local wrestling show maybe selling popcorn and sweeping up the aisles (even if it’s just some borrowed gymnasium), but he’s there every night, exactly where he wants to be, watching from the stands as the indie-show wrestlers tell their minor-league stories and mirror the big guys into the next century. And I visit Eddy in his own place every weekend, and we grab McDonald’s fries and nuggets together and watch old WWF reruns on his crappy TV and laugh about how we were a tag team once, how we had so many cruel opponents and never had a chance at a title but we were the people’s favourites, the underdogs everyone screamed for in the dark matches of our youth, and Eddy never worked for Tim Hortons until his forties mopping floors, living without assistance, and he never had his accident on the slick stairs and he never ended up where he did, worse than ever, and I never became this crater that lies awake thinking of him, I’m back there in the living room watching him pound the carpet, I’m back there watching him in his pyjamas before the show went off the air and the bad guys won.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF SOMETHING
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