hecklongtree

I'm still working on my "Bordertown" screenplay. In particular, I've been working on the characters.

I've changed Pocho's sidekick, who was originally a nebbishy Woody Allenish character named Jon Bloom. Now he's an undersize, but gutsy grappler named Bobby Bazarov.

Bobby came from a wrestling family. His father, who started out at the height of the Cold War, changed his name from Jonathan Bloom to Boris Bazarov and pretended to be a Russian who hated Americans. He quickly became a top bad guy or "heel," traveling the country and the world, breaking box-office records wherever he went. Then tragedy struck.

When Jon was away, Jon's first-born, Jake, aged six, drowned in a pond near their Texas house. Jon blamed himself for not being there to watch his kids. From then on, he wrestled only in Texas. His career suffered, but, at least, he could stay close to his family. He gave up the pretense of being a Russian (it was too hard faking the Russian accent with a Texas drawl) and admitted he was a patriotic American from Dallas. He kept the name Bazarov, since he'd already made a name for himself as Battling Boris Bazarov.

Jon always denied forcing his sons to wrestle professionally. He was just encouraging them to exercise and stay fit. That didn't quite explain the regulation wrestling ring he had installed in the house or the professional wrestlers, like Nicolai Volkoff, he hired to coach them. But, whatever Jon' s intentions, his sons did follow him into the business and they all proved to be good wrestlers--all that is, except for the youngest, Bobby.

Bobby was small and, and compared to the others, unathletic. Nevertheless, he had what Roddy Piper calls "The Sickness." Self-destructive, impervious to pain, seemingly unconcerned with their own safety--those infected with the Sickness include Mick Foley (diving from the top of a twenty-five foot steel cage), Roddy Piper wrestling right after a wrestling spectator stabbed him in the chest, and David Von Erich wrestling with acute enteritis which he dismissed as stomach flu and then refused medical attention even after he was struck in the intestines during the match (he died that night, at the age of 26).

After one of Bobby's brothers died from an injury in the ring, he felt he had to take his place as one of the Brothers Bazarov. Bobby tried hard but couldn't compete with larger, stronger wrestlers, either as a solo, or as his brothers' tag team partner. One night, in a match at the La Frontera Arena, Pocho, sitting in the audience, watched Bobby get thrashed. When his opponent flung him, Bobby tried to break his fall by snagging the rope with his thumb, but missed. Just as he was about to fly over the ropes, his opponent grabbed him by the hair and snatched him back him into the ring, costing Bobby some hair but saving his life. The larger, stronger wrestler then pinned him, as Bobby tried in vain to escape, using a submission move similar to his father's famous "Iron Talon."

Afterward, Pocho went backstage and offered him a job at his detective agency. Bobby accepted the job offer, only after Pocho assured him that the position was only temporary, just till he recovered from his injuries and was able to get his wrestling career off the ground.

Bobby had just starting working at Pocho's agency, when Eva walked in the door and hired Pocho to investigate her husband's possible adultery, a seemingly routine matter that would become one of Pocho's greatest cases.