Chapter 1 #2
Pulling Asher in for a one-armed hug, Bate leans down and whispers into Asher’s ear the way she always does before a match. “Kick his ass.”
MONTVILLE, CONNECTICUT
“Hey, Siri, pick up the phone!” Asher’s mom says over FaceTime, held aloft in Asher’s hand.
“Ma. The call’s already connected. You—”
Asher groans when his mom’s thumb blurs half the screen in aborted little haphazard jabs. The audio feed cuts off. He scrubs a free hand over his face, dragging his cheeks up and down as his mom peers into the camera, the knit of her brow perplexed.
“You’re muted,” he grumbles, shaking a hand by his ear.
A head of gray hair pokes into frame and Asher watches both his parents squeeze around the phone in what must be the world’s most technologically inept huddle. Eventually, after much prodding, the speakers crackle to life, and Asher’s dad’s voice filters through. “Ah. Kěyǐ le,” he says in Mandarin.
Asher slowly pans the camera around the arena, showing off the gigantic four-sided Titantron suspended above the ring, flashing with various wrestlers’ entrance videos as music blares through the speakers.
To the side, a member of GEW’s tech unit barks into a walkie-talkie, running through a series of checks to ensure everything is in working order before Friday’s show.
Rows and rows of plastic seats fill the arena, stretching so far back that they blend into a large blur of black.
A ramp connects the side stage to the ring erected in the middle of the arena, lined by a flurry of lights that blink down the aisle in a rapid stream of color.
His dad lets out a low whistle. “Impressive.”
“It’s huge,” his mom remarks. She’s shoved her face back into the camera, squinting past the large oval glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose. “And this Friday everyone here will watch you prance around in your underwear?”
“Mom!”
“What?”
“It’s not . . .” Asher buries his face in his palm. “They’re tights! You know this!”
His mom waves a hand. “You know what I mean,” she says.
“You look like a sheepdog,” his dad pipes up.
“Excuse me?”
“Your hair,” his father continues, completely oblivious to the fact that Asher is getting absolutely dunked on. “It’s too unruly. Go get it trimmed. How do you even see in the ring?”
Asher shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Mr. Prichard has to sign off on any changes to my appearance.”
His dad mutters a string of expletives in Hokkien, their family’s dialect that Asher is just barely able to parse, before he asks, “What’s next? Is the chairman going to control what you eat too?”
“Not as long as I remain fit,” Asher mumbles. “Look, Mr. Prichard owns the Mount Everest of sports entertainment, so I will suck it up.”
His dad seems to wrestle with this for a moment, but must decide against continuing to argue over it as he changes the topic and asks “Who is this Caleb person again?”
Asher’s mom raises her hand like she’s a student in class. “Isn’t he that brown-haired guy? Kind of blocky? Chipped tooth?”
“No, ma. That’s Alexei.”
“Ooh, what about that redhead?” his dad asks.
His mom scrunches up her nose. “Are you sure? Didn’t he dislocate his shoulder during last week’s match?”
“Really? I can never tell when it’s just an act.”
Asher lets his parents continue to debate and climbs up a flight of stairs, taking in the view from above as their overlapping voices soothe him.
It’s nice, he thinks, to look over and see his parents gesturing animatedly at one another, code-switching back and forth between a rapid-fire mix of Mandarin and Singlish, even if through a screen.
The real thing would be better, but travelling from city to city is a luxury they can’t afford.
They wouldn’t understand much of it anyway.
From flashing billboards throughout Times Square to sold out crowds at Madison Square Garden, you could turn a corner and easily bump into wrestling fans, people who know the industry inside and out.
If you bumped into Sujin and Raymond Ross, you’d probably be met with a confused stare, but not for a lack of trying.
Both of Asher’s parents migrated from Singapore, working odd jobs around the Bay Area before ultimately putting down roots in Los Angeles where they raised Asher.
It took them some time to wrap their heads around the fact that, unlike all his cousins, Asher did not want to go to law or medical school, but once they did, they were more than willing to spend annual family reunions explaining to their relatives that, yes, Asher’s communications degree currently collects dust at the bottom of a drawer.
And, no, Asher isn’t mindlessly grappling other men.
It's totally Shakespearean. Just . . . with steel chairs.
That aside, Asher’s their only child, and they are always in his corner of the metaphorical ring.
Not literally, though. It seems to physically pain his mom whenever he hurts too—when he recoils from a punch, so does she.
Asher supposes their hearts are bound together that way.
Point is, his parents understand the basics: the fights hurt, but they aren’t real in the technical sense; most of each show is scripted and predetermined, except in special cases; and a concerning amount of baby oil is used.
Despite tuning in to most episodes of Friday Night Fight, they never seem to retain any names.
“Oh, I know!” his mom says. “That blond boy! The one with the championship belt. He’s very handsome. Should smile more though.”
Asher scowls. “Caleb is not handsome.” An acidic taste fills in his mouth, accompanied by a pulse of red-hot anger at the mere shape of that name on his tongue.
She hums, only half listening. “You used to tape and rewatch his matches all the time, remember?”
“No,” Asher replies pointedly.
“We wasted so much money buying you his merchandise—”
“All right. This part of the conversation is over. We’re moving on. Thank you.”
“Aiya, you must be professional,” his mom chides. Asher finds himself on the receiving end of an emphatic finger wag. “Everyone’s going to see you on TV. Remember the most important part—”
“Be a safe performer.”
“And?”
“Don’t besmirch the family name.”
“Good,” his mom says. Something in the background beeps and her face lights up. “Ooh, that’s my broth. We should go. Your father and I have invited some of our neighbors over for a hot pot this weekend. Are you able to come?”
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Asher thumbs through his calendar. “Ugh, I can’t. Ava and I have a training session on Sunday.”
His mom purses her lips. “Are you sure? We haven’t seen you in months.”
Briefly, Asher entertains the thought of ditching training.
He misses his parents immensely. It is so deeply coded in his being, an intense ache further heightened by his inability to verbalize the way he feels.
Despite that, he wants to make them proud.
To live up to the height of his potential, no matter what it takes.
To prove to both himself and his family that everything they have given up for him will be worth it.
He needs to. He swallows. “Sorry. Last minute flight tickets are, like, insane, and I’d have to be back at the airport in less than six hours.
Besides, I need to be at the top of my game for my debut.
I can’t afford to be anything but flawless. ”
His dad nods. “Xiǎoxīn, zhàogù zìjǐ. Jìdé dǎ diànhuà. Ai nǐ.”
Love you too, Asher mouths to himself as his parents hang up, leaving him with the hum of machinery that fills the arena and the knowledge that his mother, of all people, thinks Caleb Knight is good-looking. Ugh, barf. Factually incorrect. Go straight to jail and do not collect two hundred dollars.
Here’s the thing: Asher hasn’t thought about Caleb in years.
What he will never admit, even when in mortal peril, is that there was a time when, unfortunately for everyone around him, all he would do was talk about Caleb.
But all that changed mid-winter five years ago when Asher first met Caleb Knight and finally understood why his mom always advised him never to meet his idols.
Eighteen and wide-eyed, Asher had just been plucked from a wrestling academy in downtown LA and dropped ass-first into a full-time training program at the Performance Center in Orlando.
Together with a new training center came a new apartment: a dingy rental unit located a convenient five blocks away. He didn’t take much along with him, not that much could fit into that shithole apartment anyway.
By the radiator: two pairs of running shoes and five sets of workout clothes, one for each day of the week. Yes, Asher will make very passionate cases for (a) why Saturdays and Sundays should be considered liminal spaces, and (b) why time is a construct.
In a corner with the leaky ceiling: a set of weights handed down by his father.
Other miscellaneous items included: his motorcycle and a ruby pendant blessed by monks at a Buddhist temple in Singapore strung on a thin gold chain.
Oh, and the pièce de résistance. Above the bed: a poster of one Caleb fucking Knight.
It was a centerfold pulled from the July issue of GEW’s monthly SLAM!
magazine, the photo shoot taken right after Caleb captured the GEW World Championship from Bron “The Minister of Mayhem” Lashley.
Ever the young prince of a dynasty, Caleb sat poised on his throne, head cocked and gaze piercing as he held the glittering belt high above his head, sunbeam-like streaks delicately texturing a guilloché gold surface.
Asher had eased the poster out with trembling fingers, taking extra care to ensure the flimsy paper did not snag on the stapler bullets the way his other clumsy classmates' frequently did.