“Let him go. Nick, let him go,” says Diggy.
“He’s the reason we’re both so messed up.” Nick shoves Randy forward.
Randy’s forehead bongs on the brass bar rail. He raises his head. “I want you gone. Out of my house,” he says to Nick. “You’re not welcome here anymore!”
“My God, boys, this is your father,” says Charlie Frederick. “Randy, are you all right?” Charlie puts his hand under Randy’s arm.
“Charlie, let me handle this,” growls Randy. “I’ve had it. I’m making a living, paying for this party, and I have to come home to this insanity. My son assaults me, embarrasses me in front of a client.” His forehead already has a cherry on it. Randy walks to the foyer, stumbles, and catches himself on the wall. Charlie Frederick tries to help him, but Randy pulls away.
At the door, Randy stops and looks back. “You two better get your act together,” he roars.
Nick charges upstairs and enters his room. Diggy goes after him. Nick pulls on dry clothes. “I should have stopped Randy a long time ago. Mom should have done something.” Nick slips a sweatshirt over his head. “When I got hurt and couldn’t wrestle, you don’t know what I thought. Nobody knows.” Nick stuffs his duffel bag with his clothes. “I would think about killing myself. I told my professor I was a lousy son, and do you know what he said?” Nick gasps for breath and tears start in his eyes. “He said there’s no such thing as a bad son, there’s only bad fathers.”
“Stay, don’t leave me now,” pleads Diggy. “At least stay for the night.”
“I can’t. You heard Randy. If you won’t take me to the train station, I’ll call a car service.” Nick yanks the drawstring on the duffel bag and drags it into the hall. He tosses it down the oak staircase, then carries it from the house.
Diggy shouldn’t be driving. His face is swelling. He can barely see the lines on the road, but he’s got to convince Nick not to leave. Nick speed-dials their mother. Each time, the call goes to voicemail. “They must have made her turn off her cell,” he says.
They pass the Secret Keepers Motel. Nick’s eyes follow the sign. “That’s where he lives?”
Diggy nods.
“You went there and just drove off with the dog?” asks Nick.
“Gino helped me.” Diggy chokes on the lie.
“But it was you, wasn’t it, Diggy? It was all you?”
“Yes.”
They drive in silence for a few miles. South central Jersey, the exit ramps, malls, and giant box stores flash by. Diggy wants Nick to somehow understand. Diggy exhales carefully, not knowing how to ask this. “You thought about killing yourself?”
Nick stares ahead. “What was the great Nick Masters without wrestling? And Diggy, I missed it; the mats, the sweat, the moves, winning, being a wrestler. I missed it bad. I thought it was all I had.”
Diggy merges onto the parkway. Northbound traffic is light. Nick turns on the radio, finds a song, then turns it off. “College wrestling is a meat grinder. You’ve got to be dedicated to the max. You’ve got to be tough, wrestle with injuries, sit in the cafeteria eating chicken breasts and salad.” Nick keeps his face at his window. “When I got hurt, no one gave a crap, even the great Coach Randy stopped calling. Mom called, but she didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t that a part of my life had ended; it was like I had died. My coach scratched my name, and the next week he had another wrestler in for me. For a while, I went to practice and rode the team bus to matches, but being there was pointless. A cracked vertebra never really heals. At least not enough for the mat.”
“You were still the best.”
“In high school, I was a freak of nature. Nobody wins like I won. Maybe I won from sheer determination. Maybe luck. I don’t know. The more I won, the harder that first loss would have been. I knew Randy couldn’t bear to see me lose.”
“I prayed you’d win,” says Diggy. “I kept saying, ‘Our Father who art in heaven, let Nick win.’”
“Do you know what it was like going undefeated in high school? Every time I won, they wrote me up in the newspaper. You’d have thought I was the only guy wrestling in Monmouth County.”
Diggy pictures a headline from the local sport pages—Masters Records Perfect High School Record—framed and laminated in Randy’s office at the dealership.
“In college,” says Nick, “do you think the professors care if I won the Jersey Wrestling States? They never heard of it.”
“It made you who you are,” says Diggy.
“Maybe I should have lost one. Maybe that would have helped me when I hurt my back.” Nick presses his fingertips into his temples. “Diggy, don’t get me wrong, I got a lot from wrestling. When I hear guys in my dorm moaning about a test, I almost have to laugh. I don’t have that kind of anxiety. I’m never unprepared for anything. I’m never late. And I’m not afraid of anyone, ever. I don’t care how big he is, or how bad he thinks he is.”
“I wanted to feel like that.” Diggy stays in the right lane. “I wanted a little of what you have.” Cars whiz by. He doesn’t want to arrive at the train station. He doesn’t want to be without Nick.
“Dude, don’t be so hard on yourself,” says Nick. “You know, if you never wrestle again, you’ll always be a wrestler.” Nick clasps Diggy’s free right hand in his left.
“What if Trevor Crow’s not all right?”
“He’ll be okay. You saw him, he came around.” Nick puts his hand on Diggy’s leg and squeezes. “If the police get involved in this, tell them the truth.”
Diggy follows the red taillights ahead of him. “I was going to say I found the dog on the golf course. You didn’t have to call Trevor. We could have—”
“No, we couldn’t have!” shouts Nick. “Maybe I should have done it differently, but I didn’t. You shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And you’re not going to say you found the dog. That’s what Randy will want you to say,” says Nick. “You should be straight up on this one. You lost the wrestle-off, saw the dog in the cold, and you took him home. That’s it. You were going to give him back. You start lying about things, it’s going to get worse.”
“Greco will throw me off the team for sure.”
“Dig, I saw you on the mat struggling. That guy, he was nothing. Last year, you would have beaten him at any weight. Wrestling is about giving one hundred percent. When you don’t give a hundred percent, everyone knows it. You wrestle with anything less, you’re going to get hurt.” He turns in the seat. “Your last match, you were sleepwalking.”
“I stepped on the mat thinking I was going to get my ass kicked.”
“You’re my little bro, wrestling or no wrestling. I can’t forget all those nights in the basement with Randy blowing the whistle. I have nightmares about our matches. Diggy, I wake sweating like I was actually wrestling you. In one dream, I hurt you. You’re lying there on that red mat and Randy’s blowing his dumbass whistle.”
Diggy swallows hard. “I hated those practices. I could never beat you. Never.” The words get caught in his throat. “I just wanted my name on the Wall, next to yours.”
“I know that,” says Nick. “And now look what you’ve done.”
Diggy tries to laugh. “Randy thinks I’m getting a scholarship.”
“It’s not about wrestling anymore, or a scholarship! You went too far. You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Nick, I know, I shouldn’t have taken Trevor Crow’s dog. I’m a screwup, like Randy says.” Tears stream down Diggy’s cheeks.
“It’s not okay, little bro, but I’m still here for you. We’ll get through this.” Nick leans over and puts his arm around Diggy. “Turn around. I’ll go to the hospital with you and leave in the morning.”
Diggy
DIGGY WAKES ON A COUCH IN A DIM ROOM TO THE SOUND OF A baby crying. He focuses on the television and the empty fish tank under the window and remembers where he is. His head feels like there’s a jackhammer behind his eyes. Sleep
ing at Jane’s accomplished one thing: he avoided Randy. Diggy couldn’t face him without Nick.
Jane, barefoot, wearing SpongeBob pajamas, snatches a yardstick next to the end table and whacks it on the wall. The crying stops. It’s quiet. “I don’t know why that works,” she says. “Did you get any sleep?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He moves his jaw right, then left. It hurts. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”
“You look like you just rolled out of a sore asshole,” she says without smiling. She puts her finger to her lips and they tiptoe through the kitchen. Two glasses and an empty bottle of gin are on the counter. The cat, curled on the stovetop between the burners, raises his head and meows.
They continue along the hall. Jane’s mother’s door is ajar. Two bodies lay under blankets.
Diggy follows Jane into her bedroom. She shuts the door. Diggy feels tired all the way to his bones. She scoots into her narrow bed and lifts the covers. Diggy gets in. “Put your feet against mine,” she says.
“I’ve got to look for Whizzer,” he says.
“I know. I’ll help you.” She pushes her feet over his. Her warmth moves through him. After they left the hospital, Diggy, Nick, and Jane searched most of the night for Whizzer. They walked the golf course, one end to the other, soaking their sneakers and socks in the wet grass.
Before dawn, Diggy and Jane dropped Nick off at the train station. Nick lugged his duffel bag across his back and he and Diggy rode up the escalator while Jane waited in the car. When the train’s headlight was visible in the distance, Diggy hugged Nick. The train doors slid open at the platform. A few people stepped off the train.
“I’m sorry about everything,” whispered Diggy.
Diggy runs his hand through Jane’s hair and lets it fall to her neck. Her birthmark is almost invisible in the early light. “My head didn’t stop all night. I kept thinking about Whizzer, somewhere out there. Then I thought about Trevor challenging Jimmy, me challenging Jimmy, me beating one of them, and I just kept coming back to the same place—Trevor comes on the team and he’s challenging me.”
“You’re trying to defend your own retarded insanity.”
Her words sting. “I know.” He rolls on his back. “What if we can’t find Whizzer?”
“Do you know what I was thinking about?” She reaches over him and pulls a red and white pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket on the floor. She lights one with her tiny lighter and inhales. “You should have told me about taking the dog.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why? You don’t think I’ve had crap like this on my plate before? Go look in my mother’s room. I’m dealing with it every minute of my life. You should have trusted me.”
“I do trust you. That’s why I called you last night.” Diggy pulls her toward him.
“I’m not sure how I feel about everything yet,” she says.
“I messed up, bad, but I don’t want to lose you.”
She rests her head on his arm. “We better go before the traffic starts.”
He turns on his cell in the Mustang. Three messages, all from home. He presses delete. They drive to Gateway Hills. Jane sits with her knees pulled to her chest. A car passes that looks like Randy’s.
“What’s the matter?” asks Jane.
“I think that was Randy. He’s looking for me.” The skin on his back is crawling. He shivers and presses the gas pedal. After completing a circle around the golf course, he merges into the traffic on Route 33. In a few miles, he’ll pass Trevor’s motel.
“Stop the car,” yells Jane.
Diggy pulls to the shoulder and stomps the brake pedal.
“I just saw a little dog over there.” She’s kneeling on the seat, pointing across the road.
“Where?”
“Near that strip mall.”
Diggy takes the first jug handle and parks at a Quick Chek.
“Right there!”
Whizzer stands next to a Dumpster at the edge of the parking lot.
Diggy bursts from the car. “Here boy,” he calls. “Come here, boy.”
“Whizzer,” calls Jane.
Diggy claps his hands. The puppy stiffens, then sprints into the road. A truck passes over him at full speed. Whizzer rolls on the pavement. Diggy runs into the road, waving his arms. The traffic screeches around him.
Jane’s on the shoulder with her hands over her mouth.
Diggy carries Whizzer to the sidewalk in front of the store. Whizzer’s chest is shuddering. Diggy rubs his tan coat and massages his neck.
“Is he alive?” asks Jane. “Is he?”
Jimmy
GRECO ENDED PRACTICE EARLY SO THE TEAM COULD VISIT Trevor at the hospital, but Jimmy can’t go, not today, knowing the detectives could come and get him at any minute. He slumps in the passenger seat of Roxanne’s Volvo. She accelerates away from the school and asks him for the third time, “Are you sure you want to go home?”
“I want to sleep.” Another afternoon, another day of waiting for the police. He’d rather be practicing, running laps, doing takedown drills until his arms fall off.
“But Trevor’s going to expect you to visit him with the rest of the team.”
“I’ll go tomorrow.” He closes his eyes and sees Trevor’s cold blue face in his hands.
Greco held a team meeting in the wrestling room. He talked about Diggy stealing Trevor’s dog and how sorry Diggy was about everything. Jimmy looked into his lap, remembering Diggy crawling on the wet cement. “This is a setback for the entire team,” said Greco. “But we’re going to be stronger from it. Trevor is recovering and will be able to rejoin us.” It was all just empty words. Then Greco went right into his “The Minute Men are still a team” speech. Jimmy groaned loudly and Greco shot him a look. You call this a team? Jimmy wanted to yell. The word no longer applies. Trevor’s in the hospital. Gino’s a little lying bastard. Diggy’s a two-faced, thieving dirtbag. “Varsity Dad” Pops, with all the answers—he can go to hell. Jimmy doesn’t want to be captain anymore. His captain title is a joke.
Plus, Roxanne is pissing him off. Suddenly she’s become aware of Trevor’s existence? Twelve and a half years of school and she never made eye contact, and now she’s insisting on visiting him. Totally bogus.
“I don’t think that’s very fair to Trevor,” says Roxanne.
“Stop saying that,” he says. “What do you know about being fair? Huh? Your car is worth as much as my house. You call that fair?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t,” he says.
“This car was a gift for getting my license. I didn’t ask for it.”
“My family may not have earned everything they have, but I earned my wins on the mat, every one of them.” Jimmy knows he sounds like an idiot.
“All I did was ask you to go to the hospital with me. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.” She gives him a side glance, keeping her hands on the steering wheel.
“I don’t want twenty guys pounding me on the back for allegedly saving Trevor’s life.”
“What do you mean by ‘allegedly’?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t like to think that if I hadn’t been there, Trevor would have …” He doesn’t want to say died. “Trevor would have been saved no matter what, that’s all I’m saying.”
“That’s not what everyone at school thinks.”
“Obviously.” The entire day was full of congratulations and hand shaking, even from the teachers. Just wait until they learn that he’s about to be arrested, that his father is a thief and he’s his accomplice.
“It’s just a good thing Trevor is getting better,” she says.
“What is it with you,” he snorts. “Are you going to make Trevor your next pet project?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He takes a quivering breath through his teeth. “Nothing. I just want to go home.”
“Then I’ll go see Trevor by myself.”
“Stop
being such a poser. You hardly know him. I bet you’ve never spoken to him.” His voice is icy, but he can’t stop.
“I’ve talked to him. He’s in some of my classes.”
“Did you know he lives in a motel room?”
“I heard the rumors.”
“They’re not rumors. He lives in a motel. A place you’ll never have to go!” He’s surprised at how he’s lashing out at her.
“Jimmy, why are you being like this?”
Where should he start? The perfect picture she had of him has already been trashed. One thing is for sure—she never made a midnight trip with her father to steal building supplies. And, the truth is, Jimmy did know, he knew his father was stealing them. He covers his face with his hands.
“I think I know what’s bothering you,” she says in a matter-of-fact way. “You’re in big trouble, aren’t you?”
They stop at a red light in front of the Starbucks that replaced an Italian deli. “You want to get a mocha, my treat?” asks Roxanne. Jimmy doesn’t answer. The light changes and the car behind beeps. She takes off.
“Do you remember when I told you I was going to be a gym teacher? You laughed and just about told me I was wasting my time.”
“I wasn’t trying to be mean.”
“Why are you going premed, to make money or to help people?”
“Fine, become a teacher,” she snaps. “Maybe you could write a book on volleyball.” Her words are thick with sarcasm and they cut into him.
“I want to go to school and actually learn something, be something. I’m not going to college because my daddy is making me!”
“I wouldn’t call a gym teacher being something. Besides, you’re going to college to escape Molly Pitcher. You told me that yourself.”
“Why are you dating me?” asks Jimmy.
“I thought we’d have a good senior year. I thought we’d be going to the prom together.”
“That’s pretty weak,” he says.
“Why are you dating me, if I’m so horrible?” She faces him.
“I thought you had everything I wanted.”
“But not anymore, right? Is that what you’re saying?”
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