Jackson Black: 8th Entry Up!

Dear Journal,

I had a weekend to sleep off that match, and boy, did I ever. After disassembling the ring with a few other younger guys, I called a cab. It took me all the way back to St. Louis, which isn't the type of drive you'd like to take when the sun isn't shining. I didn't look out the window to see the dangers, though, as most of my time I spent looking in the driver's rear-view mirror. I was looking at his facial reactions as I explained every little detail of my first match. He seemed to get a kick out of it, so he discounted me the ride a little bit, and took two dollars off my fare, saying that I "needed to save up for for some emergency room visits". Nice guy. Kinda smelled.

My bed awaited me, and my skinny body smashed onto that thing like Randy Savage on a teenage Stephanie McMahon (I went there... I'm going to hell). And within moments, I was asleep. The next two days, Saturday and Sunday, were a blur. There are vague memories in my mind of talking to Mrs. Castagnoli at the front desk, buying Frito's at 7-11, and peeing in the shower. But none of that mattered, because come Monday, I'd be heading into my second wrestling practice.

I arrived to the Dynamo Gym on Monday morning, and I noticed that we were missing someone. It took me a while to do the math, but I finally figured out that big Derrick (the guy who couldn't pull off a back bump for the life of him) wasn't there. Did he quit? I don't know. But he missed a day of wrestling practice, and if he shows back up he's gonna be in a world of pain. Dingo noticed the absence, and whispered something to MsChif before we kicked things off. That kid, from my observation, is already on Dingo's sh*t list.

And then I saw Nicole. Remember her? The girl that caught my eye in my fourth entry? Her blond hair was tied up in a pony tail, showing off the pretty face that grabbed my attention at the last practice. It still amazed me that this girl is training to be a wrestler. There is a modeling agency a few blocks down, maybe she missed her turn? It seemed too good to be true, I don't know. Today, she was kind enough to not wear a hoody. This time she was sporting a nice tight tank top. Upon seeing that, my thoughts on if Nicole had some chest cannons or not was put to rest. She has 'em, Mr. Journal, don't worry. The tank top made that pretty clear. I shouldn't have worn basketball shorts.

Anywho, I grabbed a spot on the bench next to Nicole as Dingo gave us a run down for the day. He explained that the basics were key in wrestling, and today we were going to begin learning just that. I presume that this lesson was planned for last Thursday, but it couldn't go down due to the rude interruption by the tornado siren. We hopped in the ring, and began with the back bumps. Since big ol' Derrick wasn't there, this went mostly smoothly. Everyone else could do them, but I must say, mine had a little more pizazz to them. We did ten of these each, and every time I would take one I'd look up to see Nicole with a little grin on her face. Either she kept remembering some dirty jokes, or she liked what she saw. I'm gonna go with the latter, just to make myself feel good. We then ran the ropes, and it seemed like I was pretty much on the same level as the rest of the class. And holy sh*t, running the ropes hurts! Before the end of our drill, all of us had bruises on your backs and sides that would give a slave a run for his money. It looked like someone cracked open a smurf and painted us with his blood. I don't know if smurfs bleed purple, but for simile's sake, let's just assume they do.

The class ended with some wall sits, which were pretty torturous. The Dingster didn't tell us how long he was going to make us do them, but in my mind it felt like at least three weeks. A couple kids, I think one was named Nathan and the other Max, ran out of strength and fell to the ground. Believe me, I was about to, but I made it through. We were dismissed, and as I hobbled out the door, I heard a nice little voice call my name from a few feet behind me.

"Hey, Jackson!", the voice said. I whipped my head around to see that the source of the call was none other than Nicole. She was smiling, which for some reason made me turn into Tinkerbell and laugh a little bit as I cracked a smile. "You're pretty good at that back bump", she told me.

Did you hear that? A girl just told me I was good at back bumps! "Ha, thanks. You aren't too bad yourself", was the best I had.

"Nah, I need work. But hey, I'll take notes from you!" she said, playfully. I laughed and thanked her, and began my walk to the Holiday Inn. I wish I could tell you that upon my arrival I smashed beer cans over my head, watched football, chopped wood, built a house, fixed a truck, pooped, manly things like that. But I kinda just sat there, iced my back, and thought about this girl. She liked my back bump.

Traaaaaalalalala.