Henry Flagg

            The buzz of the audience, feverish and excited dancing of hands. The crowd is flowers for ears and honey for eyes. It was my favorite thing, as I would get into the ring in my black and yellow shorts. It was also my favorite thing afterwards too, because that’s how you know when you win. I always won, so that’s how I knew who I was.

            Right now, I am Henry Flagg. A man in a small apartment with no family. My posters remind me that I used to have a big family; fans, wrestlers, refs, and coaches. I spent every day at the ring, practicing, joking around with the guys. Here comes the busy bee, they’d say. And I would say back, all sting and no float. And we’d laugh about it, good days had. Man, I was on top then. Killa Gorilla, Man Handle, Colonel Overkill, and even Toucan Slam. I bested the lot of ‘em. Of course, this was back when themed wrestlers were big, we all had to have a backstory and we all had to sell it.

            Course, current wrestling is a little bit the same. But now there’s no character. Just backstory and a guy. We became icons, and we were spectacles, man. I mean, a grown man dressed in a bee costume wrestling a guy in a construction get-up? That’s an event, and people side with whoever they identify with, not whoever has the best record.

            I loved my story, mostly because it’s partly true. As a kid, I was picked on all the time. So, naturally I had to work out to defend myself, but I didn’t want to go to a gym. They judge you at a gym when you’re still the scrawny guy. So I went into the woods to train. And one day, the bullies followed me there, and I was just starting out. I dodged the first punch thrown, and the kid hit a tree. This angered the bees up there, and they went after the jerks who came for me. But the bees didn’t bother me. So I trained with the bees, learning how to throw each sting as if it was my last. Of course, for the show, there’s a little more of “raised by bees” and less “exercised near them.”

            So in the ring, I was Rumble Bee, idolized by children everywhere. I could go out on Halloween and see a kid or two dressed like me, act like me. Those were the days. But then, regardless of the fights you win or lose, you get old eventually. I did. The popularity of us wrestlers came quickly, and all I really knew to do was wrestle. So I put on a different costume, Henry Flagg, cashier at a plant store. In the springtime, I can shut my eyes, and listen real close, and I can feel like myself again.