Post by Lessien Melwasul on Nov 28, 2009 0:11:07 GMT -5
Part I:
I'm not quite sure if she was difficult to find or not. On the one hand once famous people usually like to be found, even if they say otherwise. It's in their basic nature. But on the other hand, this current assignment was hard to pigeon hole as simply "once famous" or "once a champion" or even "once sane". Google had proven to be of little help with her name vanishing from public record with the close of Global Championship Wrestling. She had no blog. She had no twitter. She had no cell. She had no hotmail. We were obviously dealing with a complete lunatic, I thought. At least a throwback from another era.
A month went by, then two. She was officially placed on the back burner as deadlines came and went: other names that were far easier to track down and interview. But her name stayed posted to my monitor, even if it was off to the side. It was by pure chance, while hunting for a line on the whereabouts of another lady of the ring, that I found a P.O. Box hastily scrawled in the margins of a slip. I decided it was now or never. moved the post-it back to the front of the monitor.
Four days later I arrived at the WSDOT Ferry Terminal and postal branch in Seattle, Washington. Maybe I was secretly hoping she would be there checking her mail or was living in one of the many high priced condeminiums that lined the shore. But any hopes of an easy find were dashed, as the P.O. Box had been paid for in cash and had expired 30 days after. No forwarding address.
"Two kinds of people try to find me." She would tell me later. "You're one of a kind. The other is even worse."
Having traveled this far, I felt obligated to put several days on the ground in search of her. The first place was obviously the local wrestling company, but a 5 second phone call ended that trail cold. The next was to check with the cities 20 or so bail/bounty collectors, another past occupation of Ms. Melwasul and another dead end.
"Too many rules. Too many loopholes closed. I bring them in broken and dying, they throw me in jail? Trust me. Oh, please do. I still have my Hong Kong citizenship, Lover. I may just go to mainland China where justice is served just right. Ice. Blood. Cold."
Cold like all of my leads so far.
I'm not quite sure if she was difficult to find or not. On the one hand once famous people usually like to be found, even if they say otherwise. It's in their basic nature. But on the other hand, this current assignment was hard to pigeon hole as simply "once famous" or "once a champion" or even "once sane". Google had proven to be of little help with her name vanishing from public record with the close of Global Championship Wrestling. She had no blog. She had no twitter. She had no cell. She had no hotmail. We were obviously dealing with a complete lunatic, I thought. At least a throwback from another era.
A month went by, then two. She was officially placed on the back burner as deadlines came and went: other names that were far easier to track down and interview. But her name stayed posted to my monitor, even if it was off to the side. It was by pure chance, while hunting for a line on the whereabouts of another lady of the ring, that I found a P.O. Box hastily scrawled in the margins of a slip. I decided it was now or never. moved the post-it back to the front of the monitor.
Four days later I arrived at the WSDOT Ferry Terminal and postal branch in Seattle, Washington. Maybe I was secretly hoping she would be there checking her mail or was living in one of the many high priced condeminiums that lined the shore. But any hopes of an easy find were dashed, as the P.O. Box had been paid for in cash and had expired 30 days after. No forwarding address.
"Two kinds of people try to find me." She would tell me later. "You're one of a kind. The other is even worse."
Having traveled this far, I felt obligated to put several days on the ground in search of her. The first place was obviously the local wrestling company, but a 5 second phone call ended that trail cold. The next was to check with the cities 20 or so bail/bounty collectors, another past occupation of Ms. Melwasul and another dead end.
"Too many rules. Too many loopholes closed. I bring them in broken and dying, they throw me in jail? Trust me. Oh, please do. I still have my Hong Kong citizenship, Lover. I may just go to mainland China where justice is served just right. Ice. Blood. Cold."
Cold like all of my leads so far.
