OF PRO-WRESTLING MARRIAGES END IN DISASTER

Hendrix College

It’s truly Chekhov’s gun, isn’t it? To stage joy in a ring designed for violence & expect violence not to barge into the rehearsal dinner drunk & sloppy. Give me a break. Nobody signs a contract without flipping the table & swinging a few fists & certainly no one is happily wed in this world. No, not without blood. You know as well as me that in this ring, wedding bells are just the same as that ring bell in the corner—when it starts ringing, someone is going to throw a punch. This time, it’s me—the beautiful / blushing / bastard / bride, dressed in white and holding an explosion of pink flowers in my hands. Backstage, I sewed a thin sheet of white lace over my white mask. That’s clever, don’t you think? You lift the veil only to find another veil. Isn’t that fitting? Doesn’t it just feel right? My family plays this game during the holidays—I’m telling you this because tonight I am welcoming you into my family—and the rules are simple: you take a $20, or a $10 if it has been a rough year, and you put it in a box covered in gift wrap. Then, you wrap that box inside another boxes & you wrap that box inside…Well, you see where this is going. Then, you slip on a pair of oven mitts & someone cranks up one of those old kitchen timers & you try your damnedest to rip these boxes open before the time runs out. Get it? Because marriage is a metaphor & pro wrestling is a metaphor & a pro wrestling marriage is a metaphor built on top of boxes within boxes of metaphors. Get it? The veil over my mask, my mask over my face, & what of this face? What lies beneath? Tell me, is it an act of intimacy or violence to step into this ring & let men in oven mits trying to rip back all my layers? What is it when I’m standing in front of the mirror doing the same thing? Don’t answer. There’s no time for that. Today is my wedding & listen, they’re playing my song.