Just Being Himself

This is from northern Portugal. What first grabbed me here is the name of the wrestler on the right. I thought maybe Mr. Mahoney was trying to get away with something in a foreign land—the kind of thing I might be trying to get away with if I called myself “Huevos” Geer back home. If you didn’t happen to know that huevos is slang for balls, you might look up huevo in the dictionary, and find egg. While you might think me, Eggs Geer, a little odd, you wouldn’t necessarily think me presumptuous and vulgar. Likewise, a Portuguese looking up ball would find a reference to a spherical, sometimes-inflated piece of sports equipment. Insomuch as pro wrestling can be considered a sport, the name “Balls” might then be deemed appropriate in some not-entirely-accurate way, and yes, with a wink and a grin Balls Mahoney gets away with something he could not get away with back home, in the puritanical U.S. of A. So I was thinking, anyway. In fact, a little research reveals that Balls Mahoney goes by “Balls” in the States, too, at least on stage. He is, it seems, rather well known in the pro-wrestling world. So he’s not trying to get away with anything, after all. He’s just being himself. As for Rey Misterio…that translates as “Mystery King.”

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.