Buck Cooper can’t remember when he
became socially invisible—probably when he hit 300 pounds. Now he’s working a
dead end job, getting no notice from his boss and no love from the cute
secretary he pines for.
But when he gets shanghaied to Tokyo, all of that changes for
the mild-mannered Buck—because this blond Texan is about to go sumo!
Peek inside the secret world of sumo, and cheer for Buck as he
fights his way through the ranks— against bullies of incredible size—to win the
heart of the girl he loves.
Go Toward the Light
“Shh! Buck! The taiko drums will start!” Hiro sat
forward. A dozen soul-penetrating drums pounded through the air. At the far
side of the ring stood a troupe of bandana-headed men wielding thick wooden
sticks and pounding on large kettledrums in rhythm. It was different from
anything Buck had ever heard. Their arms struck, hard and synchronous. The
sound vibrated into his chest and arms and past his hair. The drummers pummeled
the skins of the drums with such force it was almost like a battle.
The drumming lasted several
minutes and got the crowd warmed up. Then all was silent. Something big was
about to happen.
And it did.
From
somewhere in the darker recesses of the crowd marched the sumo wrestlers. He
speed-counted fifty-four giants, arms folded across their broad chests,
blocking their man-boobs as they entered the arena to the roar of the screaming
crowd. He wanted to avert his eyes at first. These tubbalards wore only bright
colored lava-lava wraps hanging from their non-existent waists. The aprons
looked like the upholstery from a Chinese restaurant turned into shiny bath
towels. From his seat, Buck could see just how enormous these guys were. For
the first time in his life, he didn’t feel like the Jolly Blond Giant. By
comparison, Buck was an average Joe.
Nonstop bowing ensued, followed
by more yelling on the loudspeaker, some ceremonial walking around the painted
ring on the platform, and then the wrestlers marched off again. Buck wondered
if it was over already.
Hiro explained. “They will go and
prepare for their matches, change into their fighting mawashi, the sash around their loins. Today is the sixth day of the
basho.”
Mawashi. The diaper. Yeah.
“A seven-day tournament?”
“No. Fifteen days. They each
wrestle one time per day. They match up against another rikishi in their group once only. No rematches. There is a formula,
but more or less it is this: if they beat someone higher ranked, they move up a
ranking at the next basho.”
Wait a
minute. There were statistics involved? With formulas? Buck’s interest shot up.
He needed to know about the rankings. No, he needed to know about everything.
Was it like baseball? Did someone keep the stats somewhere official? Did
individual wrestlers have scoring histories? How did they win? Were there
different moves? He barely knew where to start pumping Hiro for information.
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Author bio:
Jennifer Griffith is a wife and a
mother of five, and although she’s never seen a Jennifer Griffith is a wife and
a mother of five, and writes all manner of romantic comedy--her husband
supplies the romance, and the kids supply the comedy. She lives in Arizona now,
but in college she lived in Japan for almost two years. At 5'1" tall, she
never once sumo wrestled.
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