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Sami Zayn winced slightly as the pickup truck went over another bump in the rutted dirt road and jolted his shoulder. His eyes scanned the horizon, but there was little to look at--desert and cacti, and over it all the vast blue dome of the cloudless sky. The plume of dust kicked up by the truck rose into the air behind them, and Sami watched it climb and dissipate and tried not to think about anything too much.
The truck rolled to a stop. “It’s up there,” called the driver, pointing up a side road even more rugged than the one they were on. “About twenty more minutes on foot.”
“Thanks,” said Sami. “Gracias,” he added, although the driver’s English was fine and he knew his accent was terrible.
“I hope you can make sense of him,” said the driver with a gap-toothed smile. “He don’t really speak even Spanish very well, you know? Odd guy. Never takes that mask off, as far as I can tell.”
“Yeah, well,” said Sami. “He took some bad shots to the head.”
“He gets by,” said the driver. “Everyone likes him.”
“Yeah,” said Sami.
He watched as the truck rumbled away, then started to climb up into the barren hills.
He was beginning to worry he’d been given wrong directions when he came around a corner and there it was: a low, brown building, partly shaded from the sun by a few trees. As he drew close he could hear children laughing and the sound of an axe hitting wood.
Someone was singing. A familiar song.
El Generico looked up from the wood he was chopping and saw Sami. He smiled in surprise and delight and loped over to Sami, throwing his arms around him. “Amigo!”
“Amigo,” said Sami, and he was smiling, and he had no idea how long it had been since he’d done that.
He started to say something, but Generico shook his head, throwing his arms up in pantomime that made clear there was still wood to be chopped, turnips to harvest, clothing to wash. And so Sami found himself pulling turnips with four solemn-eyed children (“Paolo,” Generico said, laying his hand on each head in turn in introduction. “Estrellita. Juan. Carmina.”), losing himself in the simple exertion of it, the satisfaction of tugging each fat round root from the ground, the feeling of dirt under his nails. Generico finished chopping the wood and sat under a tree scrubbing what seemed an endless pile of tiny clothes on an ancient washboard, soap bubbles flying everywhere. Various livestock wandered by, and for a time it seemed that a goat was going to steal and consume a pair of pants. The children shrieked with laughter as Generico chased the goat around, finally extricating the pants from it with surprising gentleness.
Sami finished with the turnips and Carmina made it clear that the next chore was sweeping, so off they went to sweep out the building. The children sang as they worked--first Generico’s theme, and then they surprised Sami by singing his theme too, in high-pitched sweet voices, without seeming to realize it was connected to this strange gawky foreigner. He blinked back tears and tried to tell himself it was from the dust raised by sweeping, but he knew better.
The sun was starting to set as Generico finished scooping out the last plate of beans and rice--”Pablo,” he said to Sami, smoothing the child’s curly hair. Sami was exhausted and dirty, but there was a bone-deep satisfaction to it too. Children were fed because of him, their world safer and cleaner and happier. He’d made a difference.
He’d always kind of thought, with a small and petty part of his mind, that Generico was crazy to just walk away from it all, to give up wrestling forever. Now he looked at the luchador, beaming at all his well-fed orphans, and he wasn’t so sure.
After dinner, the children scattered into the dusk, playing jump rope and cat’s cradle and hide and seek, their small high voices drifting up into the sunset-streaked sky. Sami and Generico stood at the sink, doing the dishes, steam rising from the hot water and the scent of rough soap in the air.
They worked in silence for a time, until Generico looked over at him and made a small, questioning noise, tilting his head. Then he waited.
“I just--” Sami finished drying the pot Generico handed him before he went on. “I’m not as strong as you were,” he said. “I don’t want to fight him. Every time I try, he beats me. How many times will I have to get up again, fight him again? And why should I bother? It seems so pointless.”
Generico handed him a tin platter; Sami could see their faces in it, distorted and wavering, as he dried it.
“You’re stronger than I am. You’re better than I am. You beat him. You--” Sami shook his head. “They need you to come back, Generico. They sing for you. They say it’s for me, but it’s your song. It’s you that they want, you that they need. And I’m not you!”
Generico looked at him quickly, as if startled by the anguish in his voice.
Sami’s hands were shaking, and he put the platter down carefully. “You were strong enough to beat Kevin. And you were strong enough to forgive Kevin. I don’t think...I can do either of those things.”
Generico sighed and turned off the water. He dried his hands and put one hand on Sami’s shoulder. “Sami,” he said with deep emotion. He thought for a moment and added, “Kevin.” He nodded slowly, lost in thought.
Then he grinned and announced with vast cheer, “El Generico numero uno!”
Sami couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing. “You haven’t understood a word I’ve said, have you?” he sputtered.
Generico beamed at him, so patently and ridiculously pleased with himself that Sami couldn’t stop laughing and had to stagger over to a chair, holding his sides.
“Amigo!” Generico said, overjoyed at the sight. “El Generico numero uno!”
“You are,” Sami said between gasps. “Oh, you are.” When was the last time he had laughed like that? Generico could always make people laugh--another thing Sami didn’t seem to be very good at. Making people laugh, fighting sociopaths, and forgiving former best friends, quite the trifecta of failure. “Ah well,” he said out loud, and found he was smiling at Generico. It felt good to laugh. That alone was worth the trip here, he supposed. “Thank you.”
”De nada,” said Generico with a sweeping bow.
The children slept in one large room, with rows of neat white beds, like a children’s book or a fairy tale. The room smelled of lavender, and there were colored streamers tied to the bedposts. A chorus of sleepy voices rose as Generico tucked the last child into bed, and Sami managed to piece together that they were asking for something. A story? Something like that.
Generico nodded solemnly. He winked at Sami.
Then he stood in the middle of the room, and he told a story.
He didn’t tell it with words--words had never been how Generico told a story. He told it with his body, with the way his hands danced and the way he bowed his head, the way his legs traced arcs across the floor. Outside it had grown dark, and the shadows lapped around Generico; he made them part of the story too, and they loomed over him, crushing him to his knees. Kneeling, swaying, he looked up into the darkness, and the darkness struck at him, knocking him over with such cruel suddenness that Sami caught his breath and heard small sobs from some of the beds. But he rose again, and again, and again, grappling with the shadows, dodging them, his body twisting and turning in something that was not quite violence, not quite a dance. He fought back, and the shadows faltered, and Generico gathered them up and embraced them, then threw his arms wide and they were gone. The story was over.
“Olé,” murmured the children, a benediction and a blessing. “Olé.”
Generico turned and smiled at Sami, gesturing to take in the song, and the children, and the light, and both of them. Not my song, said his smile.
The song of anyone who struggles against the dark, said his body.
Your song too, said the eyes behind the mask.
And Sami knew that the story wasn’t over. Generico would tell this story--or a story like it--every night for the listening children, again and again. Every night he would banish the shadows. Every night he would conquer the darkness. There was no end. There was only the fight, and the triumph, and the resolution to do it anew every time.
Had he grieved that El Generico had left wrestling behind? He had been a fool.
Generico bowed--to Sami, to the children, to the light and the shadows.
“Olé,” whispered Sami.
A blanket fell across Sami’s shoulders, and he looked up from the porch steps to find El Generico standing above him, smiling. Generico mimed that the children had all fallen asleep, then sat down next to him. Sami pulled the blanket around him, shivering a little. The stars seemed brighter and sharper, this far from city lights. Somewhere a coyote howled, then fell silent.
“I thought you didn’t understand me,” Sami said after a while. “But you did, didn’t you?”
Generico shrugged, and for the first time looked uncertain. He frowned and batted at the air vaguely, as if struggling to put thoughts into words. “Muy good,” he said at last. His hands stopped fluttering, and one came to rest on Sami’s shoulder. “Sami,” he said. “Generico. Kevin.” His other hand traced an arc that included the horizon, the world, the sky full of stars.
“Muy good,” he said again. “Muy, muy good. Comprende?”
Sami gazed up at the infinite greedy blackness of the sky, at the tiny, indomitable stars pouring their light out endlessly into the dark.
“I understand,” he said. “I think...maybe I do.”