After my match with R, I think I went more than a year without wrestling. I traveled to a large Midwestern city in December 1999, and there I wrestled a fellow named Tom. Probably I ran across him online sometime that autumn and convinced him to meet me for a match. Not that I recall his being reluctant to meet.
He arrived at my hotel room door at the appointed time. I remember that he was a handsome man about the same age as I was then—right around 40. If I remember correctly, his hair was kind of a light brown, but he was dark of skin and eye. Again, I'm stretching my memory here, but I think that he was around 5'10" and in the neighborhood of 210-220. When he took off his shirt to wrestle, he was broad in the chest, maybe medium hairy and had great pecs. He didn't talk much, and we had a good quiet wrestling match there on the bedspread in the space between the bed and the wall, just beneath a window looking out on the city.
The one thing I remember is that I used a lot of head scissors variations on Tom, and he indulged me and remained patient. I seem to recall working him over with a figure-4 head scissors, sitting there leaning back on my hands and just being able to look over the windowsill at the city. After such a long break from wrestling, I enjoyed having my hands on Tom and my legs wrapped around his head in various ways. I don't remember any particular holds that he used. Maybe he was a jobber. But I kept him in a head scissors for so long that when we were finished wrestling I thanked him for being so patient with my special interest.
I've had very few matches that I didn't enjoy. And I haven't often gotten the impression that when a wrestler and I parted ways he was disappointed for having wasted time on me. But I think that Tom must've been disappointed in our match. He didn't talk much, as I said, but I don't remember any great enthusiasm from him for the experience we'd just shared. I might be remembering this all wrong, but I generally can recall those impressions that have been part of my matches and their aftermath.
I lost touch with Tom pretty quickly after we wrestled—another reason that I think he probably didn't enjoy the experience much. But I've always wished we could get together again and maybe make it more about him this time.
