Forged Steel's Wrestling Journal

Entry 17

As I pass by on my morning runs Glitter Jewel waves to me. She keeps asking when the next time will be, and on Saturday I finally give in, asking to make a day of it. Remarkably Glitter really re-locked the door to her shop and agreed. I do a quick shower and dress, this time not so formal.

She smiled brightly at how I noticed she changed her nail polish to baby blue from the usual snow white. Glitter had changed to it a few days ago but apparently no one else noticed, even her regular visitors. She asks me if she should change back, after all I never go without my hair braided in public. I say that if it makes her happier, I'd undo it.
Her eyes narrow and without a word, I snap the band off, running fingers through my hair and straighten out the braid that was. Of course now I have a long strand of hair standing out, but she seems okay with it. Glitter asks when the last time I got it cut was, but that's where I draw the line.

We go to the same diner as before for breakfast. Their breakfast plates are surprisingly large, but that's what she orders. I went with a fruit salad, grits, and diced potatoes. With a cute nose wrinkle she says that my order makes her look like a pig. Glitter could be fat, roll around in mud, and snort but she wouldn't look like one. I then get a giggle and am called a suck-up.

We talk about her business for a while, and it seems yesterday the biggest diamond mining operation in the land had to pay a huge penalty for massive labor violations. I wonder if it will hurt, but she says it rarely does. Diamonds aren't a big part of her sales, and she doesn't even buy from this particular company.

After food we go for a walk through the city center. She wants to know about my family. I tell her about Sister, what she does and where she lives. Apparently they've butted heads before, Glitter narrowly escaping a smear campaign, only when she took sister directly to her source. One thing Glitter says she's most proud of about her business is that her wares are never mined on the backs of illegal labor.

I then talk of Papa, his huge rise in wrestling, his unfortunate decline as injuries caught up to him, and his personal Renaissance when he became a trainer. He was the one to train me, and he went tougher on me than any other student before or since. Part was the expectations of being his son, and the other that he didn't want me to get special treatment because of him.

Wrestling runs deep in our family. I tell her of Dedushka and his long, but quiet, career in wrestling. Instead of going into training, he retired to finally marry Babushka and they started a vodka distillery together. They've run that ever since.

Babushka was a self-taught chef from having to work as a nanny. When Papa was born they were about to leave each other, but when Dedushka laid eyes on Papa, he said he'd never leave home again. When their vodka business was slow starting, Babushka gave it a crutch by opening a kitchen. Today her kitchen is open to everyone, she doesn't charge a single bit to eat.

After lunch comes the difficult question, the one I hoped to avoid but knew was coming anyway. Glitter asks me about mother. My silence appears to give her a hint of it all, making her apologize and telling me to forget about it. I say that I do want to tell it, holding this back isn't going to help me.

Mother was the worst I've ever known. She wanted me dead, never sparing any moment to tell me so, she wished she had aborted sister, she's a drunk, a self-admitted gold digger, and has never had any friends. Her own family wants nothing to do with her.

She and Papa had fought many times. She had tried giving me away to an orphanage three times. Sister was a product of an affair mother had with a mail carrier. She had also tried to talk Papa into getting rid of sister as well. He would not have any of it.

When Papa finally discovered mother to be a lost cause, he got a divorce and she went further off the rails. She lied to the court about Papa being abusive only to get both Sister and me, which she did solely to spite him. I later found out she had bribed the judge.

For 10 years I suffered under her. Shaved head, no athletics, no after school activities whatsoever. I would be beaten savagely for having one poor mark in anything, and sometimes for no other reason than she was drunk and I looked like Papa. One time she broke a bottle over my head, then said if I told anyone she'd kill me in my sleep.

She tried to groom Sister to be her mirror image. Sister had too much conscience, becoming the first of us to fight back. I came to resent sister for a time because she would tell the school teachers the truth, causing them to pay mother a visit, which I then got blamed for.

Mother was often too drunk to do anything, leeching off the unfair settlement Papa had to pay her. I was the one who cleaned everything, I cooked for everyone, I washed all our clothes, and I woke Sister up every morning for school. It was why I couldn't run away from it all, I knew that if I left, Sister would die, either from mother's malice or her drunken incompetence.

Once sister reached eight, realizing that telling the school was going nowhere, we planned to run away. For months I would sneak out of the house at night, hoping to track down Papa. I finally got lucky one night, seeing Papa leave the Stalliongrad Civic Auditorium and followed him all the way to his then-ramshackle apartment.

The next day, after school we never went home. I took Sister and we went to Papa’s apartment. He broke down in tears upon seeing us, telling us everything about what happened. Unfortunately, it only took a day before mother sent police to find us. By sheer dumb luck she had sent them to Papa.

Both Sister and I told them everything we suffered for years. While we did, mother barged in. One officer intervened, saying they were handling the situation. Mother wouldn't have any of it, she told Papa he could keep me but that Sister was hers, pushing past the cop and jerking Sister by her arm, causing Sister to scream.

It's hard to say what came over me. I can only guess it was 14 years of torture and anger boiling over. It genuinely felt like an out-of-body moment. I could see everything happen in slow motion, knew what I was doing but was wholly powerless to stop it. I ripped mother's arm off Sister and spun her around. Mother grabbed a nearby chair, raising it over her head, but in one swift motion I struck her across the face with every ounce of strength. She dropped instantly, getting cut on the head when the chair fell on her.

I only saw her one last time. It was a custody hearing and she was in an orange gulag jumpsuit. She sat at the table, clearly seething as I told the court everything here. Sister did the same, but I found out something I didn't know. I found out that night when I tracked down Papa, mother had “sold” Sister and a drinking bum mother knew forced himself upon Sister.

Once she related that story to the court, mother made one last lunge at sister, was beaten severely by the police in court, removed and I have never seen her since. If I ever do, knowing what she did to my sister, I will finish what I was going to start with that slap.

This is why I never talk about mother. She is the most vile, hateful, despicable form of life in this world. Her whole life is dedicated to ruining others. Tears run down my face after recalling the horrors.

Glitter Jewel is on the bench next to me as evening twilight sets in. All she can do is bury her head into my chest, sobbing at my story. She is only the second one I've ever told this to. I don't say anything more, only watching the sky turn from orange to purple.

The evening wind blows, and my hand meets Glitter's. I ask if she wants to do dinner or if she would rather go. She's astonished, thinking I would have just walked after she made me relive a horrendous memory. I stand up, letting her stand with me and take her to dinner.

As we wait for a table, I ask what she does after work. She says that she's dangerously addicted to soap operas, especially the Telenovela ones. The one she's been watching lately is Yo Soy Betty, La Fea. I'm amazed her grasp of Spanish to be able to follow the show, but then I remember her school. She's more astounded that I even have interest in them, saying literally ever stallion she's met rolls their eyes at soaps.

We get seated and she tells me not only of Betty, but also of a dozen other great soaps she's seen and follows. Judging by her enthusiasm to talk about them and her happiness at my interest, there probably aren't many mares who like soaps either. We spend all dinner talking about them. At the end I once again pay for everything, despite her protest.

We then take a long evening walk back through the cent of the city, then back to her house. When we get there, I prepare to say goodbye but she asks if I'd like to stay a while. It's not even a question what I decide.

Glitter lives simple like me. She has a well-stocked kitchen, a large TV, and little else in the way of furnishings. We get situated on the couch, her soap about to start, and she offers me vodka. I settle with just water for tonight.

As we watch the show, I don't get the dialogue, since I never learned Spanish. Even with the language barrier, I still can follow most of the show through their motions, tone, and other visual cues. It’s a lot like wrestling in that sense, almost no one can hear you in the ring so you have to exaggerate yourself so they know what you said. I wonder if it’s intentional.

“Don’t tell me you’re watching this” says Glitter, snapping me out of it. Absolutely not, I respond almost instantly. “You can’t fool me, you big goof! Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.” We then go back to watching and now I notice she has her head on my chest. I slide my hand over towards hers, almost ready to take hold but pull back, not wanting to force the issue. She has no such inhibitions, reaching over and grabbing my hand, holding on for the rest of the evening.

The show ends and I notice she’s dozed off. I wake her up, saying that the show’s over and I should probably get going. She gives a long sigh, a hesitant nod, and stands up. We walk to the door, say goodbye and as I’m about to go she jerks my head down and kisses my cheek again, telling me that I better not make her wait a week for another date. I suggest tomorrow at my place, and she agrees.

The walk home seems unusually quick and I’m back in my bed. There’s really no confusion at this point, she really does like me. But then, she would obviously know who I am, so now I get nagging doubts that it’s just a scheme to get at my wealth… Until I smack myself. That sack of shit who is my mother is one of a kind, no one else tries to hurt someone like that, and especially not Glitter.

Please don’t let my past issues get in the way of this.