Charlotte by Tony Earley
"Charlotte" by Tony Earley is a narrative that explores themes of love, ambition, and the transformation of a city through the lens of professional wrestling. The story is narrated by an unnamed character who grapples with his relationship with his girlfriend, Starla, while also recounting a rivalry between two wrestlers, Lord Poetry and Bob Noxious, vying for the affection of a woman named Darling Donnis. Set in Charlotte, North Carolina, the narrator reflects on the city's evolution from a wrestling stronghold to a basketball-centric culture, revealing a sense of loss and disappointment among its residents.
As the narrator works at a local bar, he struggles to elicit a genuine acknowledgment of love from Starla, who views their relationship more as a physical connection than an emotional one. Against this personal backdrop, the wrestling match serves as a metaphor for conflict in love, with Lord Poetry representing hope and creativity through his poetry, and Bob Noxious embodying brute physicality and raw desire. The juxtaposition of these characters highlights the complexities of attraction and the often unfulfilled search for deeper connections in a rapidly changing urban landscape. The story ultimately raises questions about the nature of love, the allure of superficiality, and the longing for meaningful relationships amidst the backdrop of a city that has lost sight of its true essence.
On this Page
Charlotte by Tony Earley
First published: 1993
Type of plot: Realism
Time of work: The early 1990's
Locale: Charlotte, North Carolina
Principal Characters:
The narrator, , a manager at P. J. O'Mulligan's bar and grillStarla , his girlfriendLord Poetry , ,Bob Noxious , andRockin' Robbie Frazier , professional wrestlersDarling Donnis , Lord Poetry's sweetheart
The Story
"Charlotte" is told in the first person by an unnamed narrator who interweaves the story of a contest of strength and wills between two professional wrestlers for the affection of a woman with his own attempts to win an acknowledgment of the power and even existence of love from his girlfriend, Starla. At the same time, he ponders the nature of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, itself. He begins by describing how Charlotte has changed. Once a city ruled by its allegiance to professional wrestling, the city is now obsessed with its new professional basketball team, the Hornets. Instead of seeing men in tight pants with giant biceps, strange haircuts, snakeskin boots, and thick gold chains, the city's residents see tall graceful men who seem alien to them. Frannie Belk, owner of the Southeastern Wrestling Alliance, has sold the franchise to cable television magnate Ted Turner, and the wrestlers have relocated to Atlanta, Georgia.
At various times throughout his story, the narrator digresses to focus on the character of the city of Charlotte; everyone who now lives in Charlotte, he says, was originally from somewhere else. They have all flocked to the big city to remake their lives over into something wonderful, something sublime, but they all inevitably meet with disappointment. Rather than the city of dreams, as the narrator points out, Charlotte is a city that once housed a crooked television evangelist who fleeced his flock out of millions of dollars. Somehow, the people of Charlotte have lost sight of the things in life that truly matter and make the mistake of buying into the false glitter of the skyline of Charlotte and the decorations of bars like P. J. O'Mulligan's.
Against this canvas, the narrator, a manager at P. J. O'Mulligan's, tells the story of his love for Starla. He has tried constantly to make her acknowledge the fact that she loves him, but she does so only grudgingly and only after harsh and almost violent bouts of sex. She tells him over and over that all they have together and all that truly exists between men and women is sex; love in itself is mythical, nonexistent, a ruse intended to keep lovers from sleeping around. She tells the narrator that he should be satisfied with their sexual relationship, yet he wants more.
Juxtaposed against the story of the narrator and Starla is the recounting of the battle between professional wrestlers Lord Poetry and Bob Noxious for the affections of the so-called sweetheart of the wrestling alliance, Darling Donnis. Lord Poetry is aligned with the forces of "good" in the wrestling world and has often been almost defeated by the "evil" Bob Noxious's misdeeds in the ring, as when he struck Lord Poetry with a folding chair while the referee's back was turned. Although Darling Donnis seems to love Lord Poetry in her heart, she is fascinated on a different level by Bob Noxious's animal physicality. In several of their earlier battles, Noxious knocked Lord Poetry down and started flexing his pectoral muscles, the quivering of his chest almost hypnotizing Darling Donnis. Each time this happened, Lord Poetry's ally Rockin' Robbie Frazier brought Lord Poetry's book of poetry to him; each time, the wrestler read a poem that swayed Darling Donnis's heart and brought her back to him.
Lord Poetry and Bob Noxious have one last showdown in the wrestling alliance's finale before the wrestlers are to be relocated. A few days before the fight, while visiting P. J. O'Mulligan's, Lord Poetry shares a poem he has memorized, part of "Adam's Curse" (1902) by Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The poem at least partly hints at the futility of love, a sentiment shared in a less wistful sense a few days later by Starla as she roots and screams for Bob Noxious to destroy Lord Poetry and all for which he hopes to stand. The wrestlers grapple, each grasping the other man's throat; finally at an impasse, Bob Noxious breaks free and again begins to make his pectoral muscles quiver for Darling Donnis. As before, Rockin' Robbie Frazier comes to Lord Poetry's aid with the book of poems. Lord Poetry tries to break the spell over Donnis by reading a William Shakespeare sonnet and is even aided by the announcer, Big Bill Boscoe, but to no avail. Bob Noxious takes Darling Donnis by the shoulders, claiming her for his own, as Starla takes her seat in triumph.