Holt's shoes clicked on the tiled floor, then stopped. Ivan heard tapping on glass—the cracked window that looked out onto the school driveway, he figured.
"Too many cars at the front entrance," Holt said. "The damn buses won't be able to get out on time. I'm going to have to change the pickup system. That accident we had last month looks bad for the school. Maybe a few heads'll have to roll. People get complacent when they're in one position too long. It's good to muck up the water a bit. I think you understand."
"There's something to be said for continuity."
Holt chuckled. "Continuity means complacency. It means undeserved privilege. An organization needs its people to be hungry. When that desire wanes, the organization weakens..."
"And?" McClellan said.
"And it's time for practice," Holt said. "Mustn't sit on our laurels with an 0–4 season."
Ivan drew back from the door and kneeled down, pretending to rummage through his gym bag. The door opened and Holt stepped out. Then he stopped and turned back. "It's only mid-January, Lewis. Still early in the season. Enthusiasm abounds, right?"
"Sure," McClellan answered from inside the locker room.
Holt turned to Ivan. "Thanks for your patience. Good luck on Saturday. Maybe we'll get a win." He looked back inside the locker room.
Ivan watched as Holt strode down the hallway, head up, checking his lapels and the crease of his slacks as he continued away. So choreographed, so flamboyant. Ivan picked up his gym bag and was about to enter the locker room, when the door opened again.
McClellan didn't look at Ivan. He was clearly shamed. Ivan allowed a moment of pity, but that was all. McClellan's dress shirt stuck to his sweaty back and he shuffled down the corridor, head bowed slightly.
"I'll, uh, see you at practice in a few minutes," McClellan said.
19
It always started the same way.
Bobby sat on his bedroom floor, sports sections spread out around him. He had heard his parents like this before. Too many times before. Like a rumble of thunder, an ominous warning of a gathering storm. Bobby put down a pair of scissors and box-score clippings of his opponents and, for the moment, forgot about Millburn's undefeated record. He tried to close his mind to his parents' voices.
It didn't work Never did.
There was a second rumble. Louder than the first. Then another. Gaining momentum within the walls of the house, rolling in with fury, like the storms at the family's summer house down at the Shore, filling the sky with black clouds, unleashing sheets of coarse rain. There, Bobby would lean against the bay window, feeling the thunder through the glass, the walls, his body. And wait for it to be over.
It was like that now.
Bobby stared around the room, not sure what he was looking for—something to throw, something to hit, something to shelter him from the fury. There was nothing. It'll be over, he told himself. Soon. Someday.
"Bobby?"
In the doorway, Christopher stood, head lowered, nervously rolling the bottom of his pajama top in his fingers.
"Can I come in?" He pointed at the notebooks and newspaper clippings. "I could help ... maybe."
Bobby nodded. He was worried and scared, too. Christopher didn't say anything more, though Bobby knew questions would eventually make their way to his mouth. He wasn't sure how he'd answer. He couldn't explain the incessant arguments and vicious fighting, the detached coldness when it was over. His parents had been married twenty-three years—a goddamn lifetime—why now?
I can't make them stop, he wanted to say to his little brother. I wish I could, but I can't. But Christopher's eyes were welling and tears were not far off. His little brother needed comfort.
"Yeah, I can use some help," Bobby said, waving Christopher over. He pushed the newspapers aside so they could sit shoulder to shoulder. Christopher settled under his arm. Bobby held him tightly.
Downstairs, the storm quieted. Bobby opened a notebook in which he had marked the teams Millburn would face during the season. Under each, he had pasted relevant box scores and articles, and he had jotted notes in the margins.
"Why do ya do all this stuff?" Christopher asked.
"So I know about the guys I'm gonna wrestle," Bobby said. "I wanna know their records, how good they are." He ran his finger down the page to a box score. "Here are the weight classes. This says what happened in each match."
Christopher looked, but blankly. Bobby wasn't sure if it was because his little brother didn't understand or because the silence downstairs had gone on so long. Bobby thumbed through a few more pages, and for a time, it seemed the storm had come to an abrupt end. All was calm. Still, Bobby didn't relax. He waited. Always waited.
"What team's this?" Christopher pointed to a page.
Black marker outlined a half dozen box scores with "February 10" written in heavy black letters at the top. "Remember those mean guys from two years ago?" Bobby said. "That's Rampart. We're gonna—"
A crash of thunder. Punctuated with a crack of lightning.
"—beat them in a few weeks," Bobby finished.
The storm was back. And it was fierce. The faint enraged words Bobby could hardly make out before were now clear, snapping back and forth.
"Robert, goddamn you!"
"Shut up, Maggie!"
Then overlapping each other in one sustained shout.
Christopher's eyes were now wide with fear. Bobby thought of something else to say, but words were pointless.
"They fight too much," Christopher said in a hush, as if worried his mother or father might hear.
"Yeah," Bobby said, "they do."
Incessantly. His mother screaming; his father yelling. Doors slamming. Bobby wanted to blame someone, to know whose fault it was and be able some day, when he had the guts, to confront his mother, or his father. Then the rage, bottled up for so long, could spew out.
"Why're they so mad?" Christopher said.
"Don't know."
"Bobby?"
"Yeah."
"Do ya think Mom and Dad will have a divorce?"
Bobby looked oddly at his little brother. A precocious question, he thought. Then, so as not to give away his own fears, Bobby said, "Don't think about that."
"Stevie says it happens all the time. Then the dad moves away."
"Stevie's wrong. That's not gonna happen."
"Promise, Bobby?"
"Promise."
"Really promise?"
"Yes, really promise," Bobby said. "Why don't we watch TV?"
Christopher seemed happy with that. He jumped to his feet, walked over to the television on the dresser, reached up, and pressed the ON button.
"Loud," Bobby said to his little brother. "Put it up loud."
20
Ivan sat with Ellison behind the rest of the team. It was going to be a waste of a practice, he could tell right away, the kind that had to be endured, then forgotten immediately. Lennings was winless in eight matches, with the Hunterdon schools looming on the schedule. Guys were quitting, morale was out the window, and here was McClellan giving another one of his moronic speeches. Ivan thought about walking out the door.
"We've lost a number of matches, I can't sugarcoat that," McClellan said. "We should be in a better position at this point in the season. I expected a few victories. I know you guys did, too." McClellan fixed a hard stare at the team, but Ivan was sure no one gave a damn.
Except one wrestler.
As always, Phillip Hannen sat dead center in front of McClellan, following every word he said. During drills, Hannen often volunteered to practice with Ivan and Ellison, getting thrown around the mat. Yet he never quit, no matter what drill, no matter how late in practice, no matter how much punishment he was taking. It was a quality Ivan usually admired. But to Ivan, Hannen was a kiss-ass, trying too hard, too often, to impress McClellan.
"Just three dual meets left," McClellan said. "We win a couple of these, and all of a sudden, the season is ours again. It's up to you. We have a clean sl
ate. Our new season starts Thursday against North Hunterdon, then Saturday with Hunterdon Central. You guys are familiar with both teams. They're excellent, both ranked in the top twenty..."
His words were quickly drowned out by the churning of the boiler room machinery. But McClellan didn't fight it. He simply waved for the team to spread out on the mats. "Takedowns."
Ivan nodded to Ellison and said, "Let's get this going." They began alternating singles, doubles, hi-crotches. There was a familiar listless mood to the room. Ivan even felt sluggish himself.
And so, practice plodded along.
"Stand with the leg!" McClellan screamed. "Now run it!"
Ivan looked over. On the other side of the room, Jon Pico kept his head down on a single-leg, allowing his practice partner to sprawl back and counter with a quarter-nelson, driving his head to the mat.
"Damn it, Jon, you gave that position so easily," McClellan said. "At least make him work for it."
Pico sat up on his knees. "I thought I'd—"
"Don't tell me what you thought. You're not supposed to think; you're supposed to react. It's the end of January, for god's sake; we've been doing this for over two months. This stuff has to come to you without thinking. Like breathing." McClellan blew the whistle long and hard. "Take a water break."
A water break? Ivan thought, then said out loud, "Now?"
McClellan turned in Ivan's direction. "Did you say something?"
The team held still. Ivan stared at McClellan, knowing even a blink would be a concession. He wouldn't give McClellan that satisfaction. He stood tall. Wanna start something? The pounding furnace suddenly ceased. The room was quiet.
McClellan's nostrils flared, his jaw was rigid. "Don't want a break, Ivan?"
Ivan stood, fists at his waist. "Not sure we need it," he said, then, with more than a hint of disgust, "Coach."
"Why?" McClellan said. "Not sweating enough?"
"Not sweating at all."
Trickles of sweat inched down McClellan's forehead and disappeared into the ridge of his nose. "Maybe I need to make practice harder."
"Whatever," Ivan said.
"Maybe you need to work harder."
"Harder?" Ivan laughed. "I work my ass off every practice."
"Watch your language," McClellan said. "I don't tolerate that in this room, my practice room. You have a problem with the way practice is run?"
Ivan shook his head and smirked. He saw slack-jawed faces of the other wrestlers. He drew in a breath to say something snide but didn't. That was his concession.
"Does anyone have a problem with practice?" McClellan said. He waited. "I said, does anyone else have a problem with how practice is going?"
From the back of the room came a voice, "No, Coach."
Heads turned. Ivan recognized the voice without looking. Hannen.
"Good," McClellan said. "Okay, then. Get a drink of water and let's hustle up."
A few of the wrestlers hurried out of the practice room, but most of the team lingered to see what might happen next. Ivan continued staring down McClellan. He had hated him since freshman year. Always did; always would. Teacher-of-the-year awards meant nothing in this room. The wrestling room.
Soon, practice continued. Still, nothing changed. The Lennings team drilled moves as if going through the motions, waiting for practice to end, waiting for the week to end, waiting for the season to end. Once again, Ivan thought with great satisfaction: McClellan was the loser.
Then, something happened.
Ellison hit a hi-crotch, stood up with the leg, and ran the pike flawlessly. His execution impressed Ivan. Next to them, Lawrence Wright hit an arm drag to a double-leg that caught his practice partner by surprise. Behind them, Hannen gave his usual all-out effort. Grunts filled the room. The usual plodding from drill to drill evolved into a kind of dance, each pair of wrestlers hitting one move after another without hesitation.
Practice began to flow.
"One man on his back," McClellan barked. "The other man has a reverse half in." He strode around the room. "When you're on your back, it's survival—pure and simple—that keeps you from getting pinned. None of us should get pinned. At the same time, there's no excuse for the man on top to allow his opponent off his back. You have to have that killer instinct!"
There was energy to the room, a kind of palpable excitement that something good was happening, and for a moment, Ivan imagined that this was what it was like every day in the practice rooms of schools like Paulsboro, Hunterdon Central, Phillipsburg, and Highland Regional.
"Man on top, don't let him off his back," McClellan said. "Man on bottom, get off your back by bridging up, slipping an arm through— anything to keep from being pinned."
He blew the whistle. The fifteen-second shots continued.
"We're finally coming together," McClellan shouted. He was beaming, clapping his hands. "Let's keep this going. No letdowns. No relaxing."
Ivan looked around. The Lennings Wrestling team was dancing, and McClellan was the choreographer. There wasn't a reason for what was happening. It had to be a mistake, a fluke. Nothing was "finally coming together." Blinded by five straight losing seasons, McClellan was confusing dumb luck for something greater than that.
But something was happening. Ivan couldn't deny that. Enthusiasm, tangible and sweet, filled the room.
"Damn good practice, Lennings!" McClellan shouted. "We'll finish up with a six-minute match. I want you to go hard, like this is the state finals. And we're going to practice the same way tomorrow and Wednesday, then wrestle this way against North Hunterdon on Thursday, and again in practice on Friday." He pumped his fist in the air. "And then you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna call the coach over at Hunterdon Central, and you know what I'll say? I'll say, Coach, I hope your boys have been practicing well, because Lennings is coming to town on Saturday."
When practice ended a half hour later, the team crowded McClellan, clapping wildly, hooting, hollering, drowning out the clanking pipes and banging boiler. Long faces were replaced with smiles.
Ivan stood to the side, neither clapping nor smiling. He grabbed his headgear and walked out of the room.
21
The top section of the Sunday Daily Record fluttered open and closed. Ivan stepped out onto the porch, then down the walkway. The cold did little to awaken him. With the newspaper under his arm, he scanned the horizon, disgusted by the thought that even the slightest hint of spring was buried well beneath the frozen ground and would be for some months.
Inside, warmth from the kitchen baseboard heater quelled the goose bumps that dotted his skin. Ivan handed the newspaper to his father after pulling out the sports section for himself.
"Will you eat today?" his father asked.
"Maybe tonight."
On the stove, a teakettle gurgled, then whistled. Ivan poured a cup of water over a tea bag, dropped in a sugar cube, and passed it to his father.
He wondered what McClellan was doing right now. He wondered if McClellan had hoped in some far-off corner of his most wishful thinking to open the sports section and see, in bold letters: LENNINGS SHOCKS POWERHOUSE HUNTERDON CENTRAL. The article would hail the match as one of the great upsets in New Jersey scholastic Wrestling history. It would be the pinnacle of McClellan's coaching career. Of his entire Wrestling career. Of his life.
Ivan turned to the High School Wrestling results. He wondered if McClellan had yet done the same. He wondered how reality hit McClellan. In print, it had to be even more devastating: HUNTERDON CENTRAL ROLLS 47–4.
Great job, McClellan, you really got the team ready. Oh, yeah, were they ready.
Ivan pictured McClellan sitting, disgusted, shoving the newspaper off a table, rubbing his fingers into his forehead to smooth the frustration.
Monday's practice had surely given McClellan a glimmer of hope that he had made into a floodlight of improbabilities. He and the team had been blinded by a flash of unexpected excellence—a mistake, really—that could never have been maintai
ned. How stupid, Ivan thought. Lennings on their touched-by-God best day couldn't beat Hunterdon Central, or North Hunterdon, on its absolute worst day.
"We have work to do," his father said. He tipped back the mug, then set it down.
Ivan stood up and moved to the kitchen window. Why waste an ounce of energy thinking about McClellan, or the team, or the team's record? What's the point? Nothing changed last season, or this season. Or would next season. Not until McClellan is gone.
Ivan looked up. His breath had fogged the glass. Beyond that, a ceiling of thunderclouds swept low over Lennings.
22
Bobby opened his crusted eyes and blinked. He took a moment to orient himself to the high school nurse's office. The air was stifling, his lips were cracked, his tongue as rough as sandpaper. He tried to swallow away the sour taste in his mouth, but his throat was too swollen. Pushing off a blanket, Bobby struggled to sit up.
He coughed, then coughed again—a throaty, hoarse cough that wouldn't stop, building to a crescendo that left him gasping for breath and his stomach muscles twisted in a wicked knot. A residue of sweat outlined an area on the green vinyl couch where he had lain down. He wiped it away with his hand.
Beyond the closed door, the hallway buzzed. He looked up at the wall clock. It was quarter after one—between periods. He had napped restlessly for two hours, perhaps a little more. A chill crawled over him. He bent forward, head in his hands, and flexed his muscles. Yet, in spite of the physical misery, only one thought filled his head. Rampart.
Yesterday's Star-Ledger headlined the upcoming match as A CLASH OF UNBEATENS, with an article highlighting "a key bout at 129 pounds between seniors Bobby Zane of Millburn, 8–1, and Rampart's Jim Caruso, 10–0." It went on to say, "The team emerging victorious on Saturday afternoon will undoubtedly earn the top spot in Essex County and a certain top-twenty state ranking."
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