by Rich Wallace
The Sturbridge National Bank keeps its digital clock on all night. Right now it’s 10:51 and 42 degrees. Although we rarely talk about it, just about every kid in town has a pretty good awareness of time and temperature because of that clock. You could argue that those awarenesses contribute in some way to our wrestling success. But you’d probably lose the argument.
Kim is twisting her hair around her finger and looking out the window, and I think Digit is actually trying to make out with Marcie.
I don’t regularly talk much, but it seems I ought to be forcing along a conversation with Kim. I want to ask her to run six miles a day instead of five, or six one day and four the next. And I want to ask her what’s going on with Digit and Marcie, because I sure as hell never saw that coming, but that’ll have to wait.
So we don’t say a whole lot as I slowly drive four regular loops and two extended ones. I read the signs out on Route 6 for the thousandth time: Just listed—3 bedrooms on lake, $69,900; Sturbridge Greenhouse; Live Bait-Nightcrawlers-Always Fresh; Friday-Satday Special ROAST CHICKEN MASH POTATO 5.99; Dodge Trucks; AGWAY; Mike’s Video—BUY AMERICAN, SAVE JOBS.
The radio’s going and there are a lot of younger kids downtown—freshmen and sophomores mostly, hanging out in front of stores, wishing they had something to do. The biggest group is in front of the movie theater, which shut down about six years ago and has been vacant ever since. The cops will chase them away any minute now. There’s a place called The Fun Zone out at the strip mall next to Kmart, with pinball and video games, but it’s not cool to hang out there if you’re over twelve. They do have a couple of pool tables, though.
Nobody wants anything at McDonald’s. We go past the party house again, and Digit says, “You better let us out. I’ll get Al and drive him home.”
Digit and Marcie get out and I’m left with Kim. After a minute she asks, “Why is Al so important to you guys?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “We watch out for each other.”
I really don’t know why. “Maybe it’s because he’s got potential the rest of us don’t quite have, and we can’t bear to see it wasted,” I say. I start chewing on my lip, not really sure about this. Why should I care about Al? If he wastes his chance, it just opens the door for me.
Kim looks confused, too. “If he can’t control himself, why should you guys even try?”
“I don’t know. It’s sort of … nobody else is looking out for him. It’s just Al and his father at home, and his father is kind of lost. I think Al spends time looking out for him, instead of the other way around. And he’s not so out of control, really. He’s as dedicated as the rest of us.”
“Didn’t look that way tonight,” she says, but she seems amused rather than critical.
“We’ve been wrestling together since sixth grade, so we know where we stand with each other,” I say. “We all work hard, we all want to be the best we can, but Al’s got talents the rest of us can only think about. Great balance, unbelievable flexibility, and this ability to anticipate what the other guy’s going to do.”
Kim thinks about this a second, then gives me a half smile. “I’ve seen you wrestle, Ben,” she says. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
It’s 11:38 when we get back to Main Street (I had figured 11:36) and it’s dropped a degree to 41. Kim waves to a guy who’s standing under the clock with a bunch of his friends, guys who graduated two years ago. “My neighbor,” she says to me. “Jess. You know him?”
“A little,” I answer. “Not much.”
“He’s smart,” she says. “I don’t know why he’s still hanging around Sturbridge.”
“This is where he lives,” I say. “He lives here.”
“He’s twenty.”
“I guess.” I’m not sure what she’s getting at. He shouldn’t live here because he’s twenty? I mean, I want to get out too, but it’s not so easy. “So where do you expect to be?” I say. “When you’re twenty.”
“Villanova, I hope. Or Stanford.”
“Oh.” I think she really means it. It makes sense. More sense than the rodeo. We don’t say anything for a few more blocks. Then Kim yawns and says she’d better get home, and I do still have to get gasoline. She lives over past the hospital, I’m not sure exactly where, but I turn toward the river in that direction.
“It’s the third one on the right,” she says when we get to Ridge Street, and I pull up there and she does a surprising thing. She slides up close to me and kisses me on the cheek, and I can’t see how I deserve that. “That’s for being such a nice guy,” she says. She looks at me like she wants to say something else, then finally she does. “Loosen up, okay?”
She says goodnight and gets out of the car, and I’m not sure if she means I should loosen up with her, or with Al, or what. I’ll have to think about it.
I watch her walk away, and I kind of shudder. She seems to have me pretty well figured out, even if I haven’t got a clue myself.
There’s a Texaco at the corner by the light, but I think I can get it cheaper out on 6. So I head down Main Street one last time and drive out beyond the plant and the Kmart and McDonald’s.
She’s there, wearing a heavy gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and there’s only one other car at the pumps. But she’s at that car, and it’ll look pretty odd if I pull up behind her and wait. There’s a fuzzy older guy standing on the open side, and I know he’ll be filling my car if I pull over there. I consider driving up the road a mile or so and coming back when she’s free, but I’ve already turned into the station so I just say the hell with it and go to the other side.
I roll down the window and tell the guy to give me ten regular, and at least I have a good look at the girl. The other car is already pulling away, and if I’d been thirty seconds later I could be over there now, talking to her. She doesn’t look my way, standing there counting bills.
She steps over to the back of my car to talk to the older guy, who runs the place, and I can see her from mid-thigh up to neck level in my side-view mirror. Miraculously, the phone starts ringing inside the station, and the guy rushes over to get it. “He’s getting ten,” he yells to the girl, which means she’ll be completing the transaction. I get a surge of adrenaline, like when they call you onto the mat for a match.
She takes the pump out and hangs it up and screws the gas cap back in place. “Okay,” she says with a really sweet smile, and I hand her the ten. I can smell gasoline on her hands. She takes the bills out of her pocket and folds the ten around the wad.
“How’s business tonight?” I say, surprising even myself.
She tilts her head and brushes some stray hair back into her hood. “Regular,” she says.
“Cold,” I say.
“Not too bad,” she says. “We’re outta here in ten minutes.”
“Yeah,” I say. I start the engine.
“ ’Night,” she says and turns to a guy in a pickup truck who’s pulled up on the other side. I wave to her.
I turn back onto 6 and turn up the volume on the radio, but I keep the window open and lean my elbow out. “Wooooo,” I say, pretty loud, feeling really good all of a sudden. Feeling pumped up. Thinking about Al.
Flexibility is one thing, balance is another, and strength and instinct are essential. But desire is something you can’t place a value on. Desire can overcome all those other things, can turn a sheep into a tiger. Loosen up, I tell myself. Want it. Want it more than he does.
I’m gonna kick his butt on Monday. And I’m gonna come back and talk to this girl again.
My best matches:
won final of East Pocono JV Tournament by pin
freshman year, pinned guy from Wharton in 18 seconds
last year, lost wrestle-off to Al, 9–4
My worst:
got pinned in first period vs. Laurelton last year
puked on mat after winning a match two years ago
lost first-ever varsity match, 13–3
Not sure:
church league s
occer game last month—hit that pompous, hypocritical jerk with a couple of good ones before they dragged us apart, thought I’d be going to jail
CHAPTER 5
Sunday afternoons my father’s mother comes over for dinner and to watch “Pocono Polka” at six. She doesn’t have cable at her house.
By six my father’s ready for cheese and beer, and the three of them sit in the living room to watch people from up the valley dance to the best polka bands around. I usually stand at the edge of the room, trying to prod myself to leave but staring at the set, mesmerized as if witnessing a horrible accident: Puffy women in “Lackawanna Polka Dots” jackets dancing with their sisters, and stiff old guys in polyester bowling shirts with big guts. They televise this, I swear.
Probably the last time my parents danced was when my aunt got married ten years ago.
A commercial comes on, and I go out in the kitchen. The oven-stuffer chicken is still sitting on the counter, and I bend down to get a sheet of foil to cover it. My grandmother comes in and yanks a hunk off the bird and shoves it in her mouth. “Best part about a chicken is snitching some later,” she says.
Yeah, Grandma. And it’s real appetizing for the rest of us when you get your fingers in there, too.
“Good strong sermon this morning,” she says to me with a tight smile.
The sermon seemed to be about vulgarity, and obscenity, and adultery, and hanging out on Main Street at night. The key thing you have to know about this town is that it disapproves. You don’t have to know much else, just remember that the higher powers—cops, council, parents, clergy—disapprove. My grandmother knows this and supports it.
“He’s a forgiving God,” she reminds me, tearing another bit off the chicken and dipping it in the congealed grease at the bottom of the pan. Grandma’s a great hinter. She just knows I’m up to the most vile, perverse activities any neighborhood kid ever dreamed up, and she’s waiting for me to see the light.
To her, I think, God is this force perched just above the town of Sturbridge, watching with a heavy hand, ready to strike us down if we sneak a beer by the river or touch a willing girlfriend below the neck. Somehow he gets his word across through the pale Reverend Fletcher, who grips my hand with a giant smile every Sunday—as if everything’s forgotten—and says he hopes I’ll be at the youth group meeting that night. I won’t be.
Grandma heads back to the living room. I cover the chicken with the foil and shove it into the refrigerator.
Al’s already dressed for practice when I get to the gym Monday, sitting on the bench by our lockers. “He wants to see us,” he says, pointing to the coach’s office. So we go in and sit down, and Coach has what I’d call his understanding frown on. Like he’s disappointed in us about something, but he’s ready to talk man to man.
“I heard you guys had a fight?” He’s looking at me.
I shake my head kind of slowly. “No.”
He looks at Al.
Al lowers his chin and raises his eyebrows. “No.”
“Were you guys drinking Saturday night?”
“Just Pepsi,” Al says.
Coach looks at me again. “No way,” I say. We’re all quiet for about twenty seconds. “There was no fight.”
“That’s not how I heard it.”
“I wouldn’t fight this guy,” Al says. “No way. We just worked some on takedowns. We were psyched up.”
Coach says, “Mm-hmm.”
He looks at me. I say that’s all it was.
“Al, you can go,” he says.
Al shuts the door and Coach still has that look on, a little more intense maybe. “I know this is tough on you, Benny,” he says.
“What is?”
“I’m the one who told Hatcher to cut to 140,” he says. “I made Al stay at 135. It’s real nice that they wanted to make room for you, but this isn’t about being buddies.” He picks up a pen from the desk and starts clicking it on and off, keeping his eyes right on mine. “The both of those guys could win state titles this year. You know how incredible that would be? They need every advantage they can get, and they’re staying at those weight classes.”
“I know.” I don’t get this lecture at all.
“I know you don’t like it,” he says. “But I better not hear about you taking any cheap shots at Al.”
Now I get it. He’s got to be kidding. “I never took a cheap shot at anybody.”
“That’s not how I heard it.” His favorite phrase.
He heard wrong, but I can’t say that to him. I just stare at him until he tells me to get ready for practice.
I’m numb for the rest of the day.
My grandmother comes over again on Wednesdays, but she doesn’t stay long. She and my mother, sometimes my father, go to the weekly covered-dish supper at the church. Eighteen different varieties of macaroni and cheese. And as an added bonus, the Reverend Fletcher offers a delightful and informative talk on how evil and sinful we all are, just in case the message didn’t get through on Sunday.
I walk into the kitchen as they’re getting ready to go. My mom is looking for her oven mitt to get the casserole out, and I catch Grandma saying, “He sure is a patient God.” Just about anything my mother or anybody else might have said could have triggered that response.
“Won’t you join us, Benjy?” Mom says.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “The movie’s at eight. I think I’ll shave.”
I’m taking Kim to the movies over in Weston. I asked her yesterday afternoon before practice, and she didn’t hesitate or anything.
“You’re going to a movie on a school night?” Grandma asks, as if it’s any of her business.
“It’s a date, Grandma,” I say. I turn to my mother. “Dad going?”
“He hasn’t come in yet,” she says, “so I doubt it. They’re very busy at work for some reason. Let me get you some of this,” she says as she lifts the stuff out of the oven.
“Nah. I’m gonna stop at McDonald’s with Kim.”
“Kim what?” Grandma wants to know.
“Chavez,” I say very clearly, knowing it will spoil her week.
“Sounds Catholic,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Sounds even worse than that, doesn’t it?”
Grandma doesn’t mind the few black people in the area, but if you’re Catholic and/or Puerto Rican, you’d better keep out of her way. I guess she figures that as long as her God is patient and wise and forgiving, she doesn’t have to be.
“Watch it, Ben,” Mom says, but she isn’t much more tolerant of Grandma than I am. Mom’s tough; she’s a nurse part-time at the hospital, and she stays in shape with jogging and cycling and stuff. She used to work at Hatcher’s dad’s office, but she walked out on him last summer. I never did figure out why.
“I’ll drive you down,” I say. It’s only a few blocks, but she’s got the dinner to carry and it’s pretty cold out.
I back out the driveway, and Dad’s walking up the hill so I stop for a minute. Mom rolls down her window and he comes over and kisses her.
“We’ll be back about eight,” she says. “There’s food in the oven.”
“I’m just dropping them off,” I say to him. “I’ll be right back.”
When I get back, he’s at the kitchen table in his undershirt with a beer and the plate from the oven. He’s picking at his teeth with his index finger. “What’s with you?” he says.
I shrug. “Got a date tonight.”
He nods approvingly. “Somebody I know?”
“I dunno. Kim Chavez. She’s a junior.”
“Oh.… How’d practice go?”
“Not bad.” It wasn’t. “I’m gettin’ there.” I am. I’m not sure where I’m getting to, but I’m holding my own, even with Al at times. “You guys are busy, huh?”
“Yeah. Some big deal went through.” He takes a swig of the beer, finishing it. He needs a shave a heck of a lot more than I do, even though it’s only been twelve hours. Last time I shaved was Saturday.
; “Where you going?”
“Movies.”
I open the refrigerator and get a glass of milk, and hand him another bottle of Schaefer. He was out last night, doing one of his jobs, I think. “We got a scrimmage on Saturday,” I say.
“I know. I’ll be there.”
McDonald’s is crowded, and we get on the line nearest the door. There’s a skinny old lady in a violet kerchief and a big heavy coat standing to the side, looking flustered. “Speak up, Harold,” she says to a guy, her husband, who’s at the counter trying to get somebody’s attention; needing ketchup or something else they forgot. “He just stands there,” she says to me, shaking her head. “He stands there and they ignore him.… Speak up, Harold.”
Kim meets my eyes with a smile. She’s got on a white-and-pink striped button-down shirt, with designer jeans and running shoes. The silver chain’s there, too. We’re third on line, and I catch Chrissy Lane’s eye behind the counter and wave with two fingers. I motion toward Harold with my head, and Chrissy looks over at him attentively. She smiles and reaches under the counter for McNugget sauce, and he thanks her and moves away.
We get our food and head for a booth. A little kid in a purple YMCA SOCCER T-shirt comes racing around the corner and I have to juggle the tray to keep from dumping it. Kim grabs my arm and she feels pretty strong for such a little thing. Some guys from the basketball team are at one of the booths, and I nod in greeting and sit with my back to them.
She eats a lot, so we don’t talk too much during dinner. “You know that guy in the Syracuse sweatshirt?” I ask, referring to one of the guys at the basketball table.
“Yeah?”
“I heard his brother deals coke.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that,” she says. “People jump to conclusions. It’s not true.”
“No?”
She shakes her head. “Some of his friends. Danny’s okay.”
Kim’s only lived here about two years, but she knows more about certain aspects of the town than I do. She knows who’s getting what from who, and who’s into drugs and anorexia and things like that. I offer her a french fry because she’s already finished hers. She takes it.