Chimney Sweep

On Sundays, This Chimney Sweep Is a Wrestler

On Monday, Cesar Granados, 39, dragged his aching body two stories up a rickety aluminum ladder onto the pitched roof of a house in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx and began sweeping the chimney.

He grimaced and said he was not in optimal shape to work given his violent brawl the day before at a wrestling show at a Queens nightclub.

Next to his truck, which advertised chimney cleaning for $ 29.95, Mr. Granados took off his shirt in the cold rain to reveal the bruises on his upper back.

About the unusual duality of his life – chimney sweep-wrestler – he said: “Everyone tells me that I’m getting too old to do both.”

Six days a week, Mr. Granados works climbing the roofs of houses and apartment buildings across New York City. Cleaning chimneys that lead to boilers or chimneys leaves him with a sooty mess.

But on Sundays he’ll be Super Astro. He puts on his bodysuit, cape and colorful mask. He lace up his knee-high wrestling shoes and walks into the ring for lucha libre-style fights popular with Mexicans and other Latinos.

Growing up as an orphan on the outskirts of San Salvador, Mr. Granados began wrestling at the age of 15 and got his ring name for his soaring jumps from the turnbuckle onto his opponents.

“I was named by a promoter because I could fly through the air,” said Mr. Granados, who participates monthly in competitions organized by the Bronx Wrestling Federation and other groups.

He emigrated to New York at the age of 23, quickly learned the chimney trade there and founded his own company.

Mr. Granados works out at a Bronx gym several evenings a week. When he has a job as a chimney sweep in the Bronx, he often parks his truck in front of the gym and does another quick workout.

In a locker room before a match last Sunday, he mingled with more than a dozen other wrestlers, all younger than him. He wore a cape modeled after the blue and white design of the Salvadoran flag and a mask with a half Spider-Man, half Batman design.

The announcer called to Mr. Granados and his black masked opponent, Jabali Jr., and the crowd roared as they rumbled in and out of the ring and Mr. Granados made his signature jumps.

Afterward, Mr. Granados said it had become difficult to get from the ring to the roof these days, especially as the cold weather that set in meant the busy season for chimney work.

His injured back was still sore Wednesday morning as he sat in the kitchen of his Queens Village apartment before going to work. His companion Elizabeth Garcia, who dries the dishes next to him, said she objected to the roughly $ 150 a week he spends on wrestling equipment and training. Mr. Granados’ outfit alone cost $ 500. All for performance fees, often less than $ 100 per game.

She pointed out the scars on Mr. Granados’ scalp and forehead, beaten by opponents with folding chairs and beaten into metal barricades, in staged fights that often get pretty tough to look real.

Ms. Garcia said she stopped participating in his fights and banned her 6-year-old son and teenage daughter from participating.

Sounds like Mickey Rourke’s character from “The Wrestler,” Mr. Granados said he tried to limit his signature move, a reckless blow from the turnbuckle to the back. “But when you hear the crowd sing your name,” he said, “you wanna do crazy things.”

A tearful Mr Granados told of his difficult childhood. “I raised myself and wrestling saved me,” he said, adding that the activity kept him away from vice and brought him to local fame.

“Wrestling has given me a lot and now I have to give something back,” he said.

At work in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Mr. Granados pulled his chimney sweep, a long pole with stiff plastic bristles, out of the back of his truck and climbed onto the roof of an attached brick house.

He stretched the pole to 25 feet, stuffed the brush into a tubular metal chimney, and brushed off the soot. It fell on a horizontal pipe that led to the kettle, which he later vacuumed clean.

Mr Granados said he routinely hired new Latino immigrants to wrestle. Luchadores make excellent sweeps when climbing the turnbuckle because of their agility, balance, and advanced ladder skills, he said.

Mr. Granados said he was starting his own wrestling league. In his shop in Queens he builds a ring that he wants to transport in his truck to events he organizes.

“Then I can stop without actually stopping,” he said.

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