Poor virgil

New York area Virgil fans can almost always find Virgil at the Coney Island boardwalk on summer weekends. I've been there a handful of times over the last couple of summers, and each time there he is: idling the lonely minutes away as summer reveler after summer reveler walks past his lonely table as if he were just another grain of sand on the beach and not an accessible, once-proud member of Vince McMahon's stable of talent. Having been a young boy and avid wrestling fan at the time of Virgil's "heyday," I was excited when I saw him on the boardwalk the first time. This wasn't the excitement one might get from seeing a ballplayer they once idolized as a child. Nay, it was similar to the excitement I might get if I happened to see Jerry Supiran sleeping under a bridge in that box he now calls home or if I drove past a garage in southern California and happened to see Tom Sizemore sleeping on a cot inside. Some dancing bears are just more entertaining when the music stops, I suppose. But if revelers follow my example and do stop by to talk to Virgil (I spoke to him, but made it clear I didn't want an autograph, which didn't even bother him; in hindsight, it seems he really did just want someone to talk to), they can expect to hear some vitriol directed at McMahon and Madison Square Garden. Years later, I still can't make sense of Virgil's ramblings about McMahon and MSG (suffice to say he feels both the CEO and the arena owe him a substantial amount of money, though his explanation as to why that is was unclear), but I do know that after the initial 60 seconds of speaking to Virgil both my friend and I were deeply regretting initiating the conversation and slowly backing away toward the wisely indifferent men, women and children enjoying their time on the boardwalk.