Lucky Luciano’s Disastrous Descent into a Hopeful Hell

by Ivan Martinez

Part II: Normalcy

After walking for some time Luciano reached his apartment building, he climbed up the stairs to his dingy little apartment. Carefully, he opened the door and stepped in, everything was just how he left it the night before. He moved methodically through the apartment, careful not to wake anyone up. He put the bag where he kept his luchador mask and trunks in the far corner of his closet where none of his siblings could get to it. He tried to wash the fatigue off his face as best he could before starting on breakfast. It was around 7am and his siblings would wake up soon. Not long after, he heard alarms start going off around the home and without turning around Luciano began to hear the shuffling of feet approach the kitchen. A family of 5 lived in this small 2 bedroom apartment: Luciano, the triplets Maria, Sebastian and Jorge then finally their mother who hadn’t woken up yet. After they had finished eating, it was a mad scramble for all of them and by 8 Luciano had seen them off at the bus stop. He was almost 15 years older than his siblings so he had to step up in raising them. Luciano returned to his home in order to wake his mother up, she would have to go work soon. When he arrived she was already at the table eating what he had prepared for the family. They exchanged pleasantries before Luciano went to shower. It was only in the shower when Luciano finally began to process all that happened the night before, he had been put into a contract against his will by a man who merely saw him as another way to make money. He always knew making money in an underground fighting ring always had a chance of him leaving in a bodybag but now it seemed more likely than ever but he needed the money. The factory where his mother worked paid her peanuts and her health had been taking a sharp decline in recent years, Luciano dropped out of highschool when he was 17 to help his mom with the kids and started taking contract work on construction sites a year after that but that didn’t end up paying much either. It was when he was 20 that he had heard rumors of a fighting ring under a restaurant in the Bronx, it had been 2 years since then and Luciano no, the luchador Lucky Luz had become one of the ring’s top fighters but now all that has gone down the drain. As Luciano exited the shower, he found the house empty, his mom had gone to work. At this point it was 9 am, so Luciano had only about 3 hours to sleep before he had to go to work. He spent most of his day at some construction site shoveling gravel or moving rocks, really just any type of hard labor until he returned home late in the day. By that time, everyone else was already home. After trying his best to help his siblings with their homework and cooking dinner for the family, the day ends and it all happens over again the next day. A week passes, though on Wednesday night Luciano had a nightmare.

He woke up panicked, he rushed to grab his things and just as he’s running out the door he realized. He didn't have a fight that day. Luciano leaned against the door to his apartment, it was 1 am. Usually he would’ve already been at the venue but that wasn’t his place anymore. He looked in his bag only to find his mask looking back at him. As much as he regretted it, he did this to himself. Peering closer into the bag he noticed something at the bottom of his bag. A business card belonging to Ishiki Hebihara. It had the directions to the ring as well as a handwritten note on the back “Friday, 2 am, tardiness is considered breach of contract.” Luciano wasn’t quite sure when Ishiki had slipped it in but he didn’t really care either. He dropped onto the mattress that sat on the floor of his mother’s room when he returned and slept like a baby through the night.

Days passed until finally, Friday arrived. Luciano left the apartment at midnight when everyone was sound asleep. After train hopping for some time, he arrived at the venue. The underground ring Babylon was held in an abandoned train station in Manhattan. The location was much bigger than the ring that Luciano fought in before, fitting about 5x more people by his estimate. The place was relatively empty with only a few people sitting in the stands that were set up. It seemed like the last match just finished and they wouldn’t start again for another hour and would go on until 5 or 6 am so Luciano figured that most of the people he saw there were fighters participating in the next few fights. As Luciano continued walking around the venue he could see the fresh blood still covering the mat of the ring. He kept observing his surroundings until he recognized a man approaching him. “I see you’re here early, most guys don’t get here until about 5 minutes before their match.” Ishiki spoke with the same curt indifference that he always had. “Well, it’s my first time here so I’d like to get a lay of the land before the match.” Ishiki just looked at Luciano for a moment before turning around and sighing before walking off. “C’mon, I’ll show you to the locker room.” Luciano followed Ishiki towards the backrooms of the venue before reaching a long hallway with multiple rooms attached to it. Luciano looked into some of the rooms as they passed, they all seemed to be locker rooms, some of them had a few guys in there, others had the lights off so he couldn’t look in there but Luciano could’ve sworn he heard mutterings coming from them. Eventually Ishiki stopped at one of the rooms near the end and waltzed in. “Oi! Rowan, this here’s the new guy. Whip em into shape for me eh? His first match is coming up in a bit.” Ishiki yelled into the room and from the back came probably the largest man Luciano had ever seen. Luciano was about 6’3 but this guy towered over him as if he were a child, it didn’t help that this man was about twice as wide and looked to weigh about 100 more pounds than Luciano but betraying his intimidating stature, the man simply smiled and waved to Ishiki. “Got it Mr. Hebihara!” Ishiki left the room as the man approached Luciano. “Hey the name’s Rowan Singher got anything specific you wanna ask about?” A little bit taken aback by the friendliness, Luciano tried his best to seem unfazed. “U-uh hey, I’m Luciano. So I uh… wasn’t really paying attention when Mr. Hebihara went over everything that goes down here” Luciano chuckled after he finished while Rowan cocked his head and grabbed his chin. “Well I guess this place isn’t too different from most other rings but the most I can say is that a lot of guys here aren’t exactly “normal” people. Most of the guys here either work for the mafia and do this on the side or wack-jobs that have had some pretty extreme body modifications done to them and just like violence. A few of us here, like me, were scouted out of other smaller rings as a way to steal their talent and buy them out.” “What do you mean by “body modifications”?” Luciano couldn’t help but question the way Rowan had phrased his explanation. “Well that’s about as best I can explain it to you, there’s not really another way to put it. Isn’t your next fight kinda soon? Shouldn’t you start, I don't know… warming up or something?” “O-oh yeah!” Luciano put down the bag he had been carrying this whole time and started changing. While he changed he talked a bit to Rowan. “So did you have a fight earlier?” Rowan laughed “No, no not today. I just came to figure out some details about my next fight that’s tomorrow. It’s at 1, you should come! I’ll be fighting one of the Scars!” “The what?” “Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn’t know. They’re the boss’s bodyguards and the top fighters down here, anyone can challenge them but they actually have to accept the challenge for a match to actually take place.” Luciano’s mind wandered to the scarred people that followed Enlil when he formed the contract with him. “So you must be pretty strong eh? Has anyone beaten them?” For the first time the smile on Rowan’s face faded away. “Well that's the thing, none of the Scars have been beaten by anyone who hasn’t become one immediately after.” It didn’t take long for Rowan’s smirk to come back though. “That’s just gonna make my win against them taste even sweeter!” At this point Luciano was starting on his stretches. Rowan noticed the mask Luciano took from his bag and placed it on the bench next to him and grabbed it. “What’s up with this?” Luciano laughed to himself as he started his story. “Where my family is from, luchadors are the peak of entertainment. There isn’t a kid in Mexico who hasn’t wanted to be a luchador at some point in their life, they’re not that different from wrestlers over here in the States but what I think sets them apart from regular wrestlers though, is the mask. Wrestlers use their names and show their faces but when a luchador puts on a mask, they stop being who they were before and become something else. Something more than human. So when I first joined a fighting ring, I decided that I wanted to be like that. I wanted the strength that would make me more than human.” Rowan burst out into laughter and slapped his hand against his thigh but Luciano could tell that Rowan wasn’t making fun of him. “I like that! I like that a lot! Something more than human eh? Well that’s perfect! You’re gonna fit in just fine here!” Luciano didn’t really understand what Rowan meant by that but there was something more pressing on his mind right now. Although he didn’t lie to Rowan, Luciano couldn’t bring himself to tell him the other reason why he wears a mask. As if almost on cue, one of the referee’s of the ring opened the door to the locker room. “Uh, Lucky Luz! Your match is on in 5.” Luciano got up and put his mask on. “I didn’t think they’d actually get it right.” He grumbled to himself. Rowan patted him on the back. “I was gonna leave but there’s no way I’ll go before seeing your match. I’ll be in the stands but be careful though, I don’t know who you’re up against but some of the guys here are downright evil. So I’m sure they’ll be a handful, to say the least.” “Thanks man, I appreciate it.” Luciano walked out of the room and toward the ring. All that lay between him and the ring was a long strip of the floor that divided the stands. While he waited for the ref to call him to the ring, Luciano closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could tell that the arena was much more crowded than before, the crowd began cheering as the ref walked onto the ring. Luciano was growing anxious but in the meanwhile, all he could do was wait.