"Howard Waldrop - Man Mountain Gentian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

Man-Mountain Gentian
By Howard Waldrop
Just after the beginning of the present century, it was realized that some of
the wrestlers were throwing their opponents from the ring without touching
them."
-Ichinaga Naya, Zen-Sumo: Sport and Ritual, Kyoto, All-Japan Zen-Sumo
Association Books, 2014.
It was the fourteenth day of the January Tokyo tournament. Seated with the
other wrestlers, Man Mountain Gentian watched as the next match began. Ground
Sloth Ikimoto was taking on Killer Kudzu, They entered the tamped-earth ring
and began their shikiris.
Ground Sloth, a sumotori of the old school, had changed over from traditional
to Zen-sumo four years before. He weighed one hundred eighty kilos in
his mawashi. He entered at the white-tassle salt corner. He clapped his huge
hands, rinsed his mouth, threw salt, rubbed his body with tissue paper, then
began his high leg lifts, stamping his feet, his hands gripping far down his
calves. The ring shook with each stamp. All the muscles rippled on his big
frame. His stomach, a flesh-colored boulder, shook and vibrated.
Killer Kudzu was small and thin, weighing barely over ninety kilos. On his
forehead was the tattoo of his homeland, the People's Republic of China, one
large star and four smaller stars blazing in a constellation. He also went
into his ritual shikiri, but as he clapped he held in one hand a small box,
ten centimeters on a side, showing his intention to bring it into the match.
Sometimes these were objects for meditation, sometimes favors from male or
female lovers, sometimes no one knew what. The only rule was that they could
not be used as weapons.
The wrestlers were separated from the onlookers by four clear walls and a roof
of plastic. Over this hung the traditional canopy and tassles, symbolizing
heaven and the four winds.
Through the plastic walls ran a mesh of fine wiring, connected to a six-volt
battery next to the north-side judge. This small charge was used to contain
the pushes of the wrestlers and to frustrate help from outside.
A large number of 600x slow-motion video cameras were strategically placed
around the auditorium to be used by the judges to replay the action if
necessary.
Killer Kudzu had placed the box on his side of the
line. He returned to his corner and threw. more salt onto the ground, part of
the ritual purification ceremony.
Ground Sloth Ikimoto stamped once more, twice, went to his line, and settled
into position like a football lineman, legs apart, knuckles to the ground. His
nearly bare buttocks looked like giant rocks. Killer Kudzu finished his
shikiri and squatted at his line, where he settled his hand near his votive
box and glared at his opponent.
The referee, in his ceremonial robes, had been standing to one side during the
preliminaries. Now he came to a position halfway between the wrestlers, his
war fan down. He leaned away from the two men, left leg back to one side as if
ready to run. He stared at the midpoint between the two and flipped his fan
downward.
Instantly sweat sprang to their foreheads and shoulders, their bodies rippled
as if pushing against great unmoving weights, their toes curled into the clay