So You Wanna Be A Sumo Wrestler?

“Mom, do I really have to go?”

“Yes, you do and stop complaining.  It will be fun."

It was nine o’clock at night, and I was about to board a Greyhound bus, which would be taking me to Hartford, Connecticut.  I was going to visit my Aunt Merta, Uncle Garfield, and their son Jesse.  He was fifteen years old like me, and my parents thought it was a good idea for me to spend a good chunk of my summer “getting to know him.”  They claimed that my friends were a bad influence on me, even though I knew that Jesse was a hardcore heroin addict.  My parents claimed that I was just trying to get out of the trip.  It was true, but I knew that Jesse was probably a much worse influence than my friends.  Aunt Merta and Uncle Garfield weren’t exactly what you would call model citizens either.           
         
Aunt Merta had an odd obsession with exotic birds, which she imported illegally and then sold.  I’m pretty sure Jesse used them to smuggle drugs into the country too.  My mom thinks that she’s just very ambitious.  Aunt Merta was also a bit big-boned, very short, and had a large bushel of brown hair. Uncle Garfield, a very tall and gangly, balding man, ran a barbershop in Hartford.  He collected all of the hair that he cut and stored it in large glass jars.  He had a lock of hair framed and hanging in his living room from his first customer.  I thought that certainly qualified him, not only as over-zealous about his work but downright psychotic.
         
I said good-bye to my mom and stepped onto the bus.  After cramming my bag in an overhead bin, I found my seat by a somewhat oriental looking man.  At least the seats were comfortable, I thought as I sat down.  The man looked to be around forty years old. 
         
“My name is Franz Alsherchwitz.  What’s yours laddie?” he asked with an odd accent. 
         
“Oh my name’s Jeremy Stutts,” I replied. 
         
“So where are you headed to?” he asked. 
         
“Hartford, Connecticut.  How about you?” I politely asked. 
         
“I’m off to the Big Apple to compete in one of the largest sumo wrestling tournaments in the world,” he answered proudly. 
         
I couldn’t help but start laughing, because the man was maybe 5’8 and 160 or so lbs.  He had a very slight build.  The idea of him being a sumo wrestler was ridiculous.  “You’re a sumo wrestler?” I asked, trying not to laugh. 
         
“Yes, yes I am,” he said a bit offended.

“Sorry, but how exactly did that come to happen?” I asked, amused. 
         
“It is a very long and complicated story, which would probably bore you,” he answered. 
         
“It’s a long trip, and I’m likely to be bored anyway.  Let‘s hear it.” I told him.           
               
“Fine, but please don’t interrupt, or it will take even longer.” He sighed and began his story, “I was once married and had two mischievous, unruly sons.  One was 16 and the other 19 when they died.” 
         
“They died!?”
         
“Yes, they died!  Now stop interrupting, and I will explain everything,” he snapped at me.  I sheepishly said sorry and asked him to continue.
               
“Of course being teenagers, they were constantly in trouble with the police for various petty crimes.  Most of these were for stealing from several mini-marts and convenience stores in the area.”
         
“I’m a teenager, and I don’t randomly steal from gas stations.”
         
“The devil made them do it!!!“ he hysterically screamed at me.
         
People were starting to stare at us, so I once again said sorry and asked him to continue.
         
“The most odd of these crimes was for joyriding in a golf cart down the nearby highway while being intoxicated to nearly 13 times the legal limit.  They still had enough thought to know that they wouldn’t be going fast enough. So they decided to tie the golf cart to a friend’s car to pull them along.”
         
I couldn’t help it.  I started cracking up again.  I shoved my hand in my mouth to stop laughing and motioned for him to continue.
         
“This didn’t end up too well as you can most likely guess.  My boys then proceeded to light firecrackers and throw them in the open windows of cars passing them by.  This did not make the other drivers too happy, and a 37-year-old hick did something about it.  He was angry with my boys since the incoming firecracker had surprised him and, unfortunately, caused him to drop the open Heineken that he had been drinking.  The man had been arrested for road rage 4 times in the last year, which my boys soon figured out.” 
         
“The angry driver then proceeded to bump into the back of the golf cart several times causing it to swerve all over the road.  Stupidly, the boys’ friend tried to speed up to outrun the oncoming car.  He was also highly intoxicated and had not tied the rope connecting the golf cart to his 1974 Buick effectively.  I am assuming you can easily connect what happened next.  They died 2 years ago, but I did not dwell on their deaths for a very long time.” 
         
“Wow, were they really that bad?”
         
“No, not really, but I don’t think they were mine.  My ex-wife wasn‘t a very faithful woman.”
         
“She was once a very beautiful woman, though time is starting to get to her.  We were high school sweet hearts, but now we are going through a particularly nasty divorce.  She won’t give up all of my elephant memorabilia, which is all that I really want.  It is my dream to one day become an elephant trainer.  I never dreamed of being a mediocre rabbi as a young boy, but my half crazed uncle has forced it upon me.  Both of my parents died in a freak hot air balloon accident when I was only a young boy of 7.  My only remaining relative happened to be an uncle, often called Ernie, who lived in Germany until he turned 23, before moving to America to raise me.” 
         
“He abhorred the former Nazis with a passion, and passed most of his time trying to plot his revenge against them.  I never liked my Uncle Ernie much, but I am appreciative towards him nonetheless.  My uncle’s obsession with revenge soon drove me to extreme measures though.  I joined a neo-nazi group in high school, but, being a logical and intelligent young man, I soon saw no reason to try and bring destruction down on my own religion.” 
         
“I studied hard through school and achieved very good grades.  I was even named valedictorian of my high school class, and I was offered several scholarships to some prestigious schools.  I was even accepted into Yale, but my miserly uncle would not let me go.  He said if I went off to college that he would ruin my life.  I knew the extent of my crazed uncle’s reign, so I agreed not to go to college.  Instead, I stayed in Seattle, where I learned to be a rabbi under him.”
         
“This was never my dream though.  I have always dreamed of being an elephant trainer.  I’m amazed with their fantastic size and strength, and I read all that I can about them.  Of course, none of this was possible in the last few years due to my uncle’s lunacy.  But now I have my chance!  My divorce is almost through, my uncle died two months agp, and I have no children to weigh me down anymore.  Once I raise the money, I’m going to go back to Yale to study zoology,” he finally finished with. 
         
“Well, that still doesn’t tell me how you got into sumo wrestling,” I pointed out.           
               
“Oh. . .Yes, I did seem to just leave that out, now didn’t I?” he said, laughing.  “After my Uncle Ernie died, my boys died, and my wife demanded a divorce, I moved to Japan for two years.  I am half German and half Japanese, and I was trying to seek out my Japanese culture.  It was there that I became interested in sumo wrestling,” he said with a smile. 
         
“I see. . .Well, I’m going to get some shut eye.  Good night,” I said, since it was about eleven o’clock. 
         
“Good night, laddie.”
         
I woke up at about eight o’clock the next morning and looked out of the window to find that it was raining outside.  Franz told me that we were getting close to the New York City Bus Station soon and that he would be getting off there.  I fished a granola bar out of my bag and munched on it while talking a bit more to Franz.  He seemed to be one of the most eccentric and intelligent people I had ever met.  He seemed to know everything about everything.  He was also very well read, and we discussed a few books, since I was also a heavy reader.  He had been to over twenty-six countries including Bosnia, Italy, the Philippines, Japan, Germany, and Russia.  We came to the station by nine thirty, and Franz started to wrench his bags out of the overhead bin.
         
“Well, it was nice talking to you, and I hope you do well in your tournament," I told Franz as he readied to leave.
         
“It was a pleasure to meet you too, laddie.  It made the trip seem much shorter.”
         
I agreed with him and watched him climb out of the bus.
         
Dreading the loss of my new friend, I was hoping that the next person who sat next to me would be just as funny and enjoyable as Franz was.  The driver suddenly came over the P.A. system and announced in a tinny voice that there were mechanical problems, and we would be stuck in New York City until later that night.  It was only eleven o’clock in the morning.  A thought came to me, slowly at first, but I soon developed it into a scheme.  I could take a cab to the convention center; watch Franz compete, and then have plenty of time to get back to the bus station before nine o’clock.  I had plenty of “emergency” money that my parents had given me to get from the convention center and back.  It sure seemed like a better idea than sitting at the bus station for the next ten hours, so I grabbed my wallet out of my bag and ran outside to hail a cab.
         
As I clambered into the back seat, I told the cabbie to head for the Manhattan Convention Center. After about twenty minutes, we pulled up to the curb.  I paid the driver and headed into the enormous stone building.  Glancing around the room, I immediately noticed seven miniature stadium-like constructions and lots of big-boned people milling around.  The stadiums had several openings in the sides to let people in, and they all had a large patch of padded floor in the center.  These had larges circles on them for the matches.  The bracket for when and at which arena each match was to take place was hanging on the wall.  I saw Franz’s name on it and noticed that he was competing against the #1 seed in the tournament.  This really didn’t surprise me, since he was the smallest one in the tournament.  His match was going to be in arena #7, the largest and most sophisticated of them all.  It was supposed to be like the center court for tennis.  I picked up a brochure, which was sitting by the bracket, and leafed through it.  I followed the map inside to the correct arena, buying souvenirs on my way.
         
I stopped at Sumo Paradise to buy a T-shirt, which would be proof that I had indeed been at one of the largest sumo wrestling tournaments in the world.  Of course, they would probably crack a few jokes about me liking to watch a bunch of fat guys in diaper things fight each other too.  After buying my souvenirs, I headed over to the arena for Franz’s match.  He was going to be fighting the defending champion, Rizad Illushi, who was ranked second in the world.  He was also 6’4 and weighed around 400 lbs, according to the announcer.  I was really starting to wonder what Franz’s strategy was going to be.
         
As Franz entered the arena, I yelled to him and gave him thumbs up.  I got a few dirty looks, since most people were rooting for Rizad.  I always liked to root for the underdog.  The match started, and Franz immediately ran behind Rizad.  He let Rizad back him up to the edge of the ring and then quickly grabbed him and swung him around so that the roles were reversed.  It was a very surprising show of strength, and I doubt that anyone expected it, least of all Rizad.  Franz gave him a hard shove in the back, which was enough to make Rizad stumble out of the ring.  Franz had actually won.
         
Looking more surprised than anyone, Franz threw his arms into the air in celebration.  The announcer was babbling on about how huge of an upset it was, and I was clapping loudly with the rest of the crowd.  I followed him from match to match, watching him win again and again.  He seemed unstoppable, and people continued to be amazed at his success.  A few of his opponents had heard of his strategy and would try to avoid him.  He won all of those matches because his opponents were called for stalling.  He was drawing quite a crowd by the last match of the day.  His last challenger was Billy Hillocks, a hillbilly from Southern Tennessee who weighed over 520 lbs.  He was the biggest man in the tournament by nearly 100 lbs.  Franz looked extremely nervous before his last match.  If he won, he would have enough money to go to Yale for his zoology degree.  He would also win a date with Julia Roberts, who was at the match watching the championship.  This was part of the grand prize.

"Big" Billy Hillocks screamed and ran at Franz when the match started.  He always tried to intimidate his opponents, and it usually worked.  Who wouldn't be afraid of 520 lbs. of pure hillbilly flesh barrelling towards you?  Franz crouched down and quickly side-stepped his charge.  The crowd gave a loud roar as Billy turned to charge again.  Franz backed up until he was right on the edge of the ring.  When Billy was nearly on top op him, Franz reached out and grabbed one of his arms.  He fell on his back and pulled Billy down onto his out-stretched and ready legs.  Billy seemed to hang in mid-air for a moment before Franz kicked him out of the ring.  He flew for three feet and landed on his back. 
           
It was immediately considered the biggest sumo wrestling upset of all time.  Balloons and confetti were flying all over, and the crowd picked up Franz and hoisted him into the air.  He was a symbol of underdogs everywhere, and we all know that the crowd loves an underdog.  I looked at the time and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock!  I hurried over to Franz, congratulated him, gave him my e-mail address, and asked him to tell me how things worked out for him sometime.  I grabbed a cab back to the bus station and got there just in time.  I stepped onto the bus and sat back down in my regular seat.  We took off for Hartford at nine o’clock on the dot, and I wasn’t looking forward to getting there. 
         
The only way I survived through the next two weeks was by keeping in touch with Franz.  My cousin, Jesse, got arrested four times while I was there.  Two times for stealing from gas stations and one time for egging a police car.  The last time he got arrested was for causing $10,000 in water damage to the mayor's house.  He thought it would be funny to fill a garbage can with water and lean it against the mayor's door.  He rang the door bell and ran.  He hadn't noticed that he dropped his wallet with his school I.D. inside of it on the porch.  I thought this was funnier than the prank that my cousin decided to pull.

Franz had won $500,000 from the tournament, and he had gone on several more dates with Julia Roberts.  On the last day of my visit, he told me that Julia and him were getting married.  He asked me to come and serve as his best man.  If I managed to get out of Hartford with out being arrested for association with a drug dealer, it would be quite a question to ask my parents.