Read an Excerpt

1. Ernesto Vega ERNESTO VEGA
A friend once told me the dead tell the best lies. I will try to be honest even though I never learned how.

No, I wasn’t born a luchador. I was shaped into one by circumstance, by a life lived without tenderness or sympathy, by my father’s beatings when I was a boy, his constant attempts to toughen me up, to make me a man. Un hombre valiente, he’d say. El Rey Coyote was my lucha libre persona. The long and flowing cape with its wide shoulder pads and furry collar, the spandex tights, the boots, and the mask, bright white fabric inlaid with thick gold borders outlining the eyes, nose, and mouth... it was an act and I got lost in it. I can’t be blamed, though. I only wanted to be seen and recognized. And I got my wish; all over Mexico, throngs of people packed those vast stadiums. They stood on their seats, raised their voices. They cheered for him, for me, and I was truly loved. But I didn’t choose to become El Rey Coyote. When I moved to Mexico City with my wife, he found me. We were destined for each other. Either good guy técnicos or bad boy rudos, we do it for la gloria, for the honor, for the sacrifice.

The punches to the stomach, the chest, the groin. The smacks on the back from an opponent or the mat as I leapt from the top cord, pivoting in the air, then falling so hard the sensation sent shocks like bursts of lightning from the base of my spine, up and down the column, from my fingers to my toes. The choke holds. Broken noses. Head injuries. Busted lips. Black eyes. Cracked fingers. Snapped wrists. Pulled tendons. Hands yanking my hair and twisting my arms. Legs wrapping around my neck, crushing my larynx, nearly suffocating me. Boot soles stomping my face. Scratch. Punch. Pound. Break. Blood running. Always the blood running.

Yes, the feuds are scripted, penned to hype up the drama, to get the audiences invested in our characters, to keep them coming back. And even though the fights are choreographed to avoid injuries, they still happen. Some think it’s all fake, but they’re wrong. You just need to look to our bodies for proof.

Like me, it was circumstance that led my son, Alfredo, to follow in my footsteps and become a luchador. Unlike me, it was his choice to do so. This was the 1980s, so all everyone talked about besides nuclear war with the Rusos was Satanic messages hidden in songs, cocaine, and teen suicide. After his mother died back when he was in high school, he started drinking, smoking mota, getting into car wrecks, and nearly killing himself.

Something needed to be done, so I got him into the ring and trained him in the tradition of lucha libre. That changed him, and he surpassed even my expectations. He followed in my footsteps, donned boots, tights, and a cape with bright colored stones. He covered his identity in a mask of shiny fabric adorned with jewels and beads, flashier than mine. As it is in our tradition, he took my name. Alfredo became El Rey Coyote Jr., the toughest luchador in all of Los Angeles. My grandson, Julián, was born to wage a different kind of battle, born to don a different type of mask.

I want to tell them I know how divine it can be, all that fame and adoration, all the ways they crave bodies like ours. But this can also ruin us, lead to our demise.

My children, Alfredo and Mercedes.

Julián.

Elena, my wife, my only real love.

Even him, that other me, El Rey Coyote.

I want them to know I understand now. I see what parts of us are forever lost in all this beautiful chaos. But I’m more dead than alive at this moment, so it’s too late for me anyway.