The Shine

X+1 upon a time in Mexico

After my match with Rudo Anaranjado I went back into a little dressing room area under the arena. I wonder that the rodeo people do to get ready to ride bulls. I glad it was there but what do rodeo people need a dressing room for? Getting dressed I guess.

I was a little shaken up by what had just happened. I took a seat, I needed a minute. I've been knocked around plenty but was my first match where I got the crap kicked out of me. The crowd was getting nuts and I was worried that there was going to be a riot. I don't claim to be a badass but I don't get shaken easy. What had happened caught me just right to rattle me.

There was no one else back there. Where was everyone? There should have been other people back there getting ready. There were a bunch more matches on the card. I became convinced that the group I had come with had bolted back across the border when the crowd turned ugly. I got myself all ginned up that they left me there.

Like I said in my last post I never saw knock-off SoCal Val again after she ran from the ring. She hadn't come down with us anyway, I was more concerned about the people who had been in the van with me and where they were. I just about had enough of my courage back to look for someone that spoke English when a man walked in wearing a suit and sunglasses.

He tossed me a set of car keys and told me in heavily accented English to give Obaluaiye a ride. To this day I have I have no clue why this happened. Did he think that I was someone else? How could he have mistaken a blonde white girl in boxing trunks for anyone he might have been looking for? Why would he give his car keys to someone at random and ask them to give someone else a ride? I would pay a lot of money to know what happened. I would if I had a lot of money. I do not.

Before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, he was gone. Adding confusion to my anxiety I came up with the great plan of just sitting there and seeing if anyone else came in that could tell me what the fuck was happening. A few minutes later another man came in carrying a gym bag, wearing sweatpants and a windbreaker and his mask. It's not as crazy as it sounds, some of the guys down here wear their masks all the time. Well not all the time really, probably not at home, but all the time in public.

I had seen his match earlier in the show. It's hard to say with the mask and because wrestling tears people up but I think he was older, maybe in his late 40s or 50s. In the ring he looked good, outside the ring he walked like someone with fucked up knees, every step very careful. He had thick arms and was solid through the body but with skinny girl legs. That's a classic luchador look, barrel-chested I think people call it.

We looked at each other and he asked me in a very quiet voice if I was his driver. He explained that his vision was very poor and his son drives him to the matches, but his son was having a match later. He needed to go somewhere and couldn't wait for his son so that's why he needed a driver. I said that I was his driver. I don't know why.

Maybe I said that because it was a task that made some sense. Drive someone somewhere. Easy. This was stupid for couple of reasons, number one of which being that if I hadn't already been left behind in by the people I came down with, leaving a was a good way to get left behind. Maybe destiny was guiding me to do it and I was chosen to learn about magic. Probably not that.

We walked out of the arena to a 2002 Lincoln Continental in the talent parking lot. Aside from being dusty it looked to be in great shape for how old it was. Great shape being awful in this case since it was super old. Still wearing my ring gear I got in and drove an old luchador down a bunch of dirt roads.

He talked so quietly half the time I didn't hear his directions and he had to repeat them. Other than that neither one of us said anything. When he told me to pull pver I thought it was because he was going to take a leak because we were nowhere, but we were there.

Obaluaiye got out of the car and stood by a pile of rocks for a while, close to half an hour probably. Which is a long time to stand by rocks doing nothing. I stayed in the car and thought about how driving out into the country in a strange place with a man I don't know was not the best idea. Eventually he got back in the car and I drove him back to the rodeo arena.

That was it. As far as I could tell he hadn't done anything.

I didn't ask, I just wanted to get the hell out of there and get back across the border. If he hadn't said anything I never would have thought anything other than that he was a crazy old man. I wonder sometimes why he did say something. I would pay a lot of money to know why he did that. I would if I had a lot of money anyway. I do not.

He told me that he was making a spell. Obaluaiye never said casting a spell, he always said making a spell. He said that it was a spell to protect himself from another magician who was trying to hurt him. I believed him. I didn't see him do anything, he didn't levitate into the air or predict the future or anything obviously magic but I knew that he was telling the truth.

When we got back to the arena, the crew from the US was waiting for me. I think the guy in the suit and sunglasses had told them I was running an errand for him and they had to wait if they wanted to get paid. Most of them looked pissed that they had to wait for me. The driver in particular gave me a look like I had personally wronged him. The drive back wasn't long but we still managed to have an issue on the way.

That's when I created my number one personal rule.  Always drive myself. 

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