Wrestling for Top: Part 4

Excerpt

Wrestling for Top, Part 4
Jack Stevens © 2016
All rights reserved

The three weeks the POWer crew spent in Germany turned out to be even more successful than their time in France. True, there were some changes in the group dynamic. Terry was as popular as ever, with a noticeably wider male and late teen fan base than had been the case in France. ‘Johnny Deuce’ got off to a shaky start as Germans seemed rather wary of masked wrestlers. But quite quickly they seemed to ‘get him’—most especially, and to Terry and Doug’s annoyance—when he played the brawler rather than the technician. Which merely encouraged him to do that for at least half of his bouts. Eric was dismayed that the crowds didn’t go for his good-natured clown act, so he tweaked it, becoming the kind of clown kids screamed at in nightmares rather than laughed at in circuses. Mark claimed it was just a reflection of his real mood, but it seemed to work.

The surprise hit in Germany turned out to be Jonesy. In France, he’d taken to calling himself the ‘Fifth Beatle’ and had begun to supplement his already plentiful diet with comfort eating. The Germans, however, seemed to like their wrestlers on the larger side, which was probably why even an overweight kid like Stefan Schoenfeld could be a crowd pleaser. At first, Jonesy was touchingly bemused by the way the punters took him to their hearts and cheered him on. It even got him thinking about training rather than ‘eating to keep his strength up’ which had been his mantra up until then. On a couple of occasions, he joined Terry and Baz on early morning runs. “Won’t last,” grumbled Doug, but Terry saw him taking the Welsh lad to one side on a couple of occasions to give him advice about diet and a healthy carb/protein balance. How much sank in Terry couldn’t tell, but the lad had nodded a lot, and that was at least a start.

And Baz…? Well, he was just Baz as always, happily opening the bouts or closing them, sound, reliable, and good-natured as ever.

But although, on the whole, the lads were enjoying this leg of their ‘Grand Tour’, there was no denying their relief when they reached the hiatus of four whole days without wrestling that Mark had written into their schedule. One gloriously long weekend stretched before them, without their having to get into Lycra and boots for the benefit of others, before they crossed the border into Switzerland and the last leg of what Terry was starting to refer to as their ‘first’ European tour.

From the start, Terry had had those four days circled, emboldened, and underlined in his mental diary. They’d been days, and nights, he’d intended to spend with Mark. But, after the night with Stefan, and Mark’s return thereafter to keeping his distance from him, Terry was no longer so sure that was how those days were going to turn out…or, in fact, if he still wanted them to.

“Four nights off,” Mark had said to no one in particular, as the POWer boys enjoyed a lazy breakfast in their latest B and B. “What is a boy supposed to do?”

“I’d have thought you’d have had plenty of ideas,” Doug responded tartly. “You’re the bookings whizz. Nothing booked for yourself?”