Page 41 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

JB,

Sir, I regret to inform you I have raised my rates. Your answer regarding snack foods was so delightful that from now on, I will require you to answer one question for every question I answer from you. In addition to, you know, the money. Deal? For my next question, I have to know: Is JB your actual name, or does it just stand for Jelly Bean? I can’t stop thinking of you as Jelly Bean!

Xo,

??????

“So how much of wrestling is actually real?” Suzie asked that night as they were watching NXT. Margo’s eyes bugged out of her head, shocked that Suzie didn’t know not to ask this.

Jinx was remarkably calm as he answered: “That’s a bit of a forbidden question, Suzie. You can ask it of me, I’m not saying I’m mad, but you will get knocked unconscious for asking another wrestler that. Once, a guy started talking about how wrestling was fake in a bar, and Haku said, ‘Oh yeah? Let me show you how fake,’ and he bit the guy’s nose off.”

“Oh my God,” Suzie said. “Like off-off?”

“O-F-F,” Jinx said, and nodded emphatically. “But as to your other question, nobody knows.”

“Nobody knows?” Suzie asked.

“How much is fake. It’s all fake, it’s all real, the lines are blurry. Where does the character end and the self begin? It doesn’t help that a lot of the angles are taking real-life dynamics and making them larger than life. There was one move Vince did with Jeff Hardy that was so profoundly unethical, it made all of us uncomfortable.”

“Oh, was this the CM Punk thing?” Margo asked.

“Yes, exactly,” Jinx said, and continued explaining. “Jeff had for many years been struggling with substance abuse problems, which is common in wrestling because of the chronic injuries involved, but Jeff had a reputation for being particularly out of control and unreliable, and so Vince turns it into an angle and has him go up against this guy, CM Punk, whose whole deal is that he’s straight edge.”

“Oh, cringe!” Suzie said.

“So you can see that the line between real and not real gets a little—a little fractal.”

“But, like, in the ring. How much in the ring is real?”

“It depends. I mean, does it hurt? Yes. Do you get injured? Yes. Are they out there socking each other as hard as they can in the head? No, they wouldn’t be able to work six nights a week the way they have to. It’s more like it’s choreographed. You don’t ask if a ballet is real just because it’s choreographed.”

“Right,” Suzie said, though it was clear this answer didn’t entirely satisfy her.

“That’s the magic,” he went on. “It has to be authentic to work, but it’s also, you know, by definition fake. You’re dressed up in neon spandex and holding a microphone—that is not how fights actually happen.”

“What do you mean it has to be authentic to work?” Margo asked.

“I mean, the match, even if it has incredible acrobatic spots, still must have the psychology of a real fight. And if a persona is too fake, it doesn’t work, you’ll never get over. It has to ring true. But it can be a hard thing to understand about yourself, to say, ‘These are my defining qualities, condensed, distilled.’”

“Yeah, that seems superhard,” Margo said. Inside, her gears had already begun to whir. Maybe she’d been thinking about it all wrong. She didn’t need to become more like Arabella; Margo could never be that thrillingly, bluntly aggressive. Certainly she couldn’t ever play Fortnite that well. Maybe what Margo needed was to become more herself. “I thought you were saying, like, make up a character and then be that, but you’re saying turn myself into a character. Almost like turning yourself into a cartoon.”

“Exactly,” Jinx said. “Exactly that. But it can be hard to see yourself well enough to turn yourself into a cartoon!”

“I practically already am a cartoon,” Margo said.

Jinx squinted at her. “In what way?”

“I’m so goofy,” she said. “I’m cheesy.”

“I would never describe you as goofy or cheesy in a million years,” Suzie said.

“No?”

“No, you’re way too scary to be goofy.”

“Scary?!”

“Yes,” Jinx said, thoughtful, “you are a little scary. I mean, I’m scary! Maybe you got it from me.”

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