The scene is set.
The wrestlers have arrived ready to grapple.
The handshake lasted longer than either man expected.
Out on the porch, under the silver wash of the Appalachian moon, Sonny and Doc stood at the edge of the rings that centered the old wrestling mat, their boots planted wide and solid, their thick hands clasped together in a shake of good sportsmanship. The lanterns hanging from the porch posts and scattered around on low tables and the floor threw amber light across the boards and mat, making the first sheen of sweat already gathering on their foreheads shine like oil.
An old and weathered hand-painted sign on the wall -- APPALACHIAN WRESTLING / EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT / BELL TIME 8:30 -- looked ghostly in the moonlight, like something from another century, which it was.
The mountains around were quiet except for the distant song of crickets and the low, slow creak of the porch timbers beneath their weight. Down in the holler, a dog barked once and then quieted again.
"You still favor that left knee?" Sonny asked.
Doc's eyes narrowed. "Only if you're still slow to let go of a side headlock."
That almost earned a grin from Sonny. But only almost.
They released the handshake, and each took one slow step backward, the stiff old mat crackling under their boots. Both men rolled their shoulders loose. Sonny ran thumbs under the straps of his red tank top. Doc tucked his black tank top into his black trunks, then ran thumbs inside the waistband of the trunks and released it with a snap.
D. Samson "Sonny" Hunter and Aubrey "Doc" Weaver had known each other too long for WWE theatrics or playground trash talk. The respect between them was settled years before under the auspices of the Appalachian Independent Wrestling Alliance: beneath summer suns at county fairgrounds, in town and country high school gyms, throughout the AIWA territory in National Guard armories and VFW halls, where folding chairs screeched on concrete floors when the audience got excited and lung smoke hung beneath the rafters.
The last gasp of that heyday had now been more than thirty years before. This night was different. No crowd. No announcer. No referee. Just the mountains. Just the moon. Just the men in their sixties.
A breeze drifted across the porch, carrying with it the scents of pine woods and earth dampened by an afternoon rain. It cooled skin already heating with anticipation.
Old instincts awakened in both men at once. The years disappeared. Age remained in their faces, in the gray of their beards, in the thickness of their waistlines. But not in their eyes. Their eyes revealed they were still dangerous, still brimming with wrestling vitality and desires.
Sonny made the first feint -- a quick reach toward a thick thigh meant to test Doc's reaction speed. Doc slapped the hand aside and shifted to his right, the movement causing the lantern light to swing or shiver, which in turn set the men's shadows into motion on the mat and along the walls.
"Fast enough?" Doc said.
Sonny's answer was to drive forward. Not recklessly, but with the heavy, deliberate lunge of a ring veteran who knew the potential of making the first move. Doc met him head-on, and again the old porch shook beneath the collision.
The classic collar-and-elbow.
Right hand to the back of the other's neck. Left hand on the other's forearm or elbow. Fingers and palms curled and gripped. With a dull thump, their foreheads bumped together and stayed that way.
The entire porch seemed to tighten around them. The wall with its sign. The board floor with its wrestling mat. The shaking and shivering tongues of flame. Even the old man in the moon. Everything seemed to exist for -- to be focused on -- the wrestlers.
Neither gave an inch.Sonny moved first and attempted to push Doc backward toward the edge of the mat where he could press Doc's shoulders against the APPALACHIAN WRESTLING sign. A show of strength, nothing more. But Doc did little more than step back with his right leg and plant his foot, stopping Sonny cold. Doc answered with a pull downward on Sonny's elbow at the same time as he pulled forward on the back of Sonny's neck, going for the traditional transition from the collar-and-elbow to a side headlock.
Sonny grunted and, at the same time, stepped back and pushed Doc away, breaking the initial lockup.
Doc's jaw tightened.
They circled each other one rotation around the mat, paused, and then lunged back into the collar-and-elbow. Their foreheads pressed together hard enough to hurt. The second tie-up settled into a grinding test of balance and leverage as Sonny and Doc leaned into each other in the center of the old porch mat. Their boots shuffled softly against the canvas as the lantern light flickered across broad shoulders and backs.
Out beyond the edge of the porch, the forest and mountains stood blue-black and silent beneath the moon as the two old wrestlers leaned into each other, testing strength against strength as they'd done much of their lives -- wrestling or not.
Sonny's right hand stayed tight against the back of Doc's neck. Doc's right hand pressed tight against Sonny's collarbone. Their free hands moved up and down from left forearm to elbow, feeling for the sweet spot where leverage and surprise might click into place to the advantage of one or the other.
This time it was Doc who drove first. With a sharp shove off his back foot, he pushed Sonny a step backward toward the edge of the mat--the edge of the porch. The movement rattled the old boards beneath the mat. Sonny absorbed the pressure with another grunt, lowered his hips, and widened his stance. His red tank top stretched tight across his thick frame as he dug in and stopped Doc's momentum cold.
For a moment they froze there like a sculpture. Strength against strength.
Then they became wrestlers again.
Doc tried to turn the lock-up clockwise, attempting to pull Sonny off balance and expose an angle for control, but Sonny felt it instantly. As years of instinct flared awake in him, he shifted with the motion instead of resisting directly, shifted just enough to destabilize Doc's right-side pressure.
That tiny opening was all Sonny needed.
Sonny's left hand shot up to the back of Doc's neck at the same time as his right hand slid down to Doc's elbow.
Doc recognized the danger a heartbeat too late.
Sonny pivoted sharply on this left boot, turned his hips clockwise, and, with Doc's left arm firmly under the control of Sonny's right hand, Sonny threaded his left arm around Doc's head and snapped a side headlock in place, pressing the right side of Doc's face hard against Sonny's powerful upper body. His right hand released Doc's left and moved to close the side headlock.
Doc bent to the pressure. "Damn," he muttered through clenched teeth.
Sonny planted his legs wide for balance, his boots gripping the mat as he locked his hands together and pulled Doc's head tight against his chest. The muscles in Sonny's forearms tightened like cables in the lantern glow.
Doc felt his head pressed securely against Sonny's left pec while one hand instinctively reached for Sonny's thigh to steady himself. His other hand grabbed at Sonny's waist, searching for stability inside the hold before Sonny further increased the pressure.
Sonny knew exactly how to apply the classic hold. Not wild. Not cruel. Precise. His hip stayed low. His chest stayed upright. His left elbow pinched inward just enough to force Doc's neck into an uncomfortable angle without fully cutting off movement.
Doc's boots shuffled for balance.
Sonny cranked the hold another notch.
The old porch groaned beneath them. Lantern light swung in the breeze while the moon cast pale silver across the darkened world around the wrestlers, who, from a distance, might have looked frozen there -- one wrestler bent low inside the other's control, both framed by darkness and weathered timber.
But up close and inside the hold, everything was movement. Doc tested Sonny's balance with a shove to the hip. Sonny widened his base. Doc tried to slip his head lower. Sonny tightened the headlock and leaned his weight downward on Doc's neck and shoulders.
The match had changed now. The feeling-out process of the collar-and-elbow tie-up was gone. Sonny had established the first real advantage, and both men knew what that meant. From here forward, every movement would become a counter, every shift a potential trap, every ounce of pressure part of a longer strategy unfolding beneath the full Appalachian moon.
Sonny bore down on the headlock with slow, punishing patience.
Doc stayed bent at the waist beside him, one hand gripping Sonny's thigh for balance while the other alternately fought at the hands and wrists that locked the hold or reached around Sonny's thick waist for stability or to pull closer to reduce the pressure. The hold forced Doc's neck and face sideways into Sonny's powerful chest, and every time he tried to straighten up, Sonny leaned his weight into him again like an oak settling deeper into the earth.
"Still got it tight," Doc muttered through clenched teeth.
Sonny's answer came with another deliberate wrench of the hold. Not enough to injure. Enough to remind Doc who was in control.
Doc grunted and shifted his footing, his boots scraping across the canvas as he searched for an escape route. He knew better than to waste energy trying to overpower the hold directly. His opponent's base was far too solid for that.
The man in red had planted himself wide in the center of the circle, knees bent, hips low, every inch of his body aligned to keep control. Old wrestler's leverage. The dangerous kind.
Doc tried another tactic. Instead of pulling backward, he stepped inward, crowding Sonny's body and forcing the bigger man to adjust his footing. He drove his right shoulder into Sonny's ribs while his hands worked at the hand-and-wrist lock beneath his jaw.
Sonny saw through the tactic immediately and widened the stance of his left leg and rotated with the pressure, keeping Doc trapped tightly against his side and chest. The motion carried them slowly across the mat, both men breathing harder now, sweat beginning to shine on their arms and necks.
The old porch creaked beneath their combined weight of over five hundred pounds.
Doc suddenly shoved hard at Sonny's hip and tried to slip his head downward beneath the crook of the elbow.
For half a second the hold loosened. Half a second -- enough for hope of escape.
But when Doc paused to assess the change, Sonny -- already ahead of him -- released his grip just enough to tuck his right fist underneath Doc's chin and push his head further up into a headlock that he then snapped tighter and more secure than before. His forearm slid deeper beneath Doc's jawline, while he turned his chest sharply toward the hold, twisting Doc sideways and stopping his escape attempt cold.
Doc's face tightened with pain and frustration.
"Thought you had daylight there, didn't you?" Sonny said quietly and tightened the headlock another notch.
Doc huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh.
The moonlight touched the forest and hills behind them with highlights of silver while Sonny kept tightening the hold notch by notch, making Doc not only suffer the grinding headlock but also carry the weight he leaned into it. This was classic old-school wrestling -- not explosive, not flashy, but exhausting in a way the WWE twigs and bodybuilders rarely, if ever, understood.
(to be continued)
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