Wrestling Sturbridge

by Rich Wallace

  I tell her what the coach said on Monday, and she frowns and clicks her tongue. “That’s really unfair,” she says. “I had a teacher like that in seventh grade. She couldn’t stand me and made my life miserable. She gave me C’s and B’s until my parents went to the principal about it.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think Coach is down on me, particularly. He’s just protecting Al. He hasn’t coached a state champ yet, and he thinks I’m a threat to that.”

  “Sounds real mature.” She’s smiling when she says this; she seems to have some understanding of this rutting behavior we males go through. Most girls seem to be repelled by it; Kim just seems amused. “I guess Coach is about as grown-up as you guys are,” she says. “He’d probably jump you in the backyard too.” We both laugh at this, but I think it’s got some truth to it.

  “So … are you?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “A threat. To Al.”

  “I don’t know.” I don’t. I ought to be. But I’m not really sure.

  “He’s the best in the state?” she asks.

  “Yeah.… He could probably win at any weight from 130 to 140.”

  “Can you beat him?”

  I think about this for half a minute, then I answer yes. “I have to.”

  She folds her arms. “Why?”

  “It’s what I am.”

  “What is?”

  “A wrestler. From Sturbridge. I’m a kid from Sturbridge.”

  “That’s why you have to beat Al?”

  I don’t know. “I think so.”

  “I’m a kid from Sturbridge,” she says. Her voice is gentle, but firm. “I want to win a state title, too. I plan to. But for me.”

  “Yeah.” I bite down on my lip. I haven’t talked this much to a girl in my life. “I don’t mean nothing bad by this, but … you’re not really from here. Not like I am.”

  “I know,” she says. “But you don’t have a chain around your leg, either. I like it here, Ben. But this is a pretty small pond.”

  She brings her fist down gently on my hand, then grabs her purse and gets up to go to the bathroom. I turn as inconspicuously as I can to watch her walk away, and I see that the basketball players are watching her, too. One of them—Damon Henderson, the point guard—gives me a sly smile. He waits a few seconds to make sure she’s out of earshot, then he points toward the bathroom door and gives me a raised-fist salute. I laugh, a little embarrassed but glad to have been seen with her.

  She takes my arm on the way out and I can smell her toothpaste. I’m feeling pretty good about things. I go around and open the car door for her, then pull out to Route 6. We’re turning left, but I look the other way to check traffic and of course I can see the Mobil station up there. I’m torn for just a second, maybe even guilty, but I don’t even know that girl’s name.

  Kim slides toward me just a little to turn on the radio, but then she stays there after it comes on.

  I think I’m falling in love, but I’m not sure with who. Maybe just with the idea of it all.

  Guys I’m certain my mother has slept with:

  my father

  Guys I’m not sure about:

  somebody back in high school

  Hatcher’s dad

  CHAPTER 6

  December

  You can’t help but be electrified by the noise, though I’m trying hard not to be. The varsity guys burst out of the locker room and start circling the mat, and everybody in the stands is on their feet chanting “Stur-bridge” (stamp, stamp), “Stur-bridge.”

  I start rubbing my shoulder—it really doesn’t hurt anymore, but I’m feeling conspicuous, embarrassed to be sitting here in regular clothes in a folding chair next to the assistant coach. Al is jumping up and down out there, shoving Hatcher playfully, then making a fist toward the stands.

  The pep band is playing “On Wisconsin,” here in Pennsylvania, and there isn’t an empty seat in the whole gym. My father’s up there, and Kim is up on the very top row with her girlfriends. The guys from Weston South are warming up on the side of the gym, looking around and probably feeling intimidated. Nobody’s come in here and beat us in nine years.

  The bleachers are speckled with shiny blue Sturbridge Wrestling Boosters Association jackets. Anybody who actually wrestled has his graduation year and nickname stitched on the chest: “Spins ’83”; “Bucky ’78.” Some of them even carry old clippings from the Sturbridge Observer in their wallets to settle arguments. Everybody’s got a hat on, too. I’m the only guy in town who doesn’t wear an advertisement for a bar, a tractor, a sports team, or a cigarette on his head.

  There’s one rather large person in the front row with a jacket labeled “Mom,” which I’m sure she thinks is cute. But it’s actually useful information, because otherwise it’d be hard to tell if she’s a man, a woman, or a Bulgarian shot-putter.

  Hatcher’s father is walking out to the mat with a microphone for the announcements. They do this every year at the first match—the booster club president introduces the local dignitaries, who are always the same: Peter Valdez and Jerry Franken, the town’s state champions; Mayor Andrew Watt (“Who?” we all say. “No, Watt.”); the principal; the wrestling coaches; the captains (Al and Hatcher).

  I catch Al’s father looking at me and I nod. He gives me a thumbs-up signal. The band starts playing their other song (“Louie, Louie”) and little Anthony Terranova—our man at 103—starts putting on his headgear and talking to the coach.

  Anthony races onto the mat—he’s a sophomore but just barely beat Tommy Austin in their wrestle-off two days ago. (Al beat me 9–2 in ours.) He takes down the guy from South in about four seconds, and has him on his back right away. He’s got him cradled and he’s driving hard with his legs. The ref slams the mat for a pin, and the place erupts as the first match of the season ends in twenty-eight seconds.

  Al and Digit leap off the bench and start hugging Anthony, and he goes down the line slapping five with everybody. The “Stur-bridge” chant starts again, and the music, and somebody tosses a roll of toilet paper onto the mat, which is another one of the traditions. It unravels maybe forty sheets and comes to a stop at the edge of the mat. The referee picks it up and carries it over to our coach, who grins and sends the next wrestler out.

  By the time Digit gets out there we’re up 15–3, and it gets better. He and his opponent circle around each other for about thirty seconds, then Digit shoots in and flips the guy and it’s over almost before you realize it.

  Digit puts a towel around his neck, picks up a squirt bottle, and sits next to me. He yells the whole time while Al and Hatcher pin their guys in the first period, then sits back and watches the rest of the match. We wind up winning 54–9.

  People pour out of the stands onto the mat, and the guys who wrestled start working their way toward the locker room. I just stand there, looking around and looking dumb. Al’s father wanders up to me and grabs my arm. “Nice job out there tonight,” he says to me, and I don’t think he’s being sarcastic.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I mean, they did really good.”

  “You kicked their asses,” he says, looking around, probably for Al. He’s skinny, with kind of long hair for a guy as old as he is, and it’s curly and dark with streaks of gray. He sticks a finger in his ear and starts scratching with it. It’s just the two of them; Al’s mother died a couple of years ago. Cancer. Al’s got an older brother in the army who I haven’t seen in a long time.

  Kim waves at me from over by the exit, and I put up two fingers like a wave. I start walking toward the locker room. Tommy Austin is standing under the basket talking to three girls who wouldn’t normally have given him the time of day. But he’s wrestling JV and pinned his opponent, and everybody figures he’ll be varsity pretty soon. We’ve already stopped calling him Susan.

  Tim Royce—171 two years ago—sticks out his hand to me and I shake it. “You hurt?” he asks.

  “Nah.”

  “What’s up?”

  I shrug. �
��Kind of a bottleneck. I’m odd man out right now.”

  “Too bad.” He starts rubbing his chin. His T-shirt says PENN STATE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT, but he goes to Weston Community College. And he’s obviously not wrestling there, as he’s up to at least 200 pounds. “Get tougher,” he says.

  “Yeah. See ya around.”

  I reach the door to the lockers, but I don’t have any reason to go in. Kim’s talking to one of her friends, but I know she’s waiting for me, even though we didn’t make any plans or anything.

  I duck into the door and head down the stairs to the locker room, which is already thick with steam. Music is blaring and guys are whooping it up. Coach spots me and he’s all smiles. “Ben-jee,” he says. “Benny-man. Great show tonight, huh?”

  “Fantastic,” I say, but my voice is flat.

  “Best team this school ever had,” he says, which may be so, but they’ve got an awful lot to prove first. Coach turns into his office and I head for the exit.

  Al’s by his locker, naked, with one foot up on the bench, and he’s drying between his toes with a towel. “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say back. “Your old man was looking for you.”

  “Oh, yeah? He still upstairs?”

  “I think so.”

  “Would you tell him I’ll be right up? I’ll meet him outside.”

  “Sure.”

  Hatcher’s standing there half-dressed, staring at Al. “You’re going home with your father?” he says, as if it’s the most unbelievable thing he’s ever heard.

  “Yeah,” Al says. “I had to cut weight today, remember? I ain’t eaten anything since six o’clock this morning. He probably hasn’t either.”

  “I thought we were gonna hang out,” Hatcher says.

  “Guess not,” Al says, drying his armpits as he walks away from Hatcher. Hatcher looks after him with a screwed-up frown, then yells over to Digit to see if he’s up for hanging out.

  I go upstairs and tell Al’s father he’s coming, then finally get out of there.

  In the parking lot I bump into Jerry Franken, which really sucks because I’m trying to get away from this. He puts a beefy arm around me, and I can tell he had garlic for dinner.

  “That Al is something, huh?” he says to me.

  “Sure is.”

  “Must be tough to watch.”

  I start nodding my head. “It is.”

  “Can’t you move up?”

  I’ve been through this a thousand times—with my father, with some of the teachers, with my non-wrestling friends.

  “It’d be a big jump in weight, up or down,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “You got two, three really tough people there.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  He shakes his head. “Just hang in there. You need a ride?”

  “Nah. I wanna walk.” I do. I could have gotten a ride from Al or Kim or my father or just about anybody, but I want to walk. I want to get out of here. I want to think about winning the state championship. About destroying Al.

  “See ya,” I say, and start crossing the lawn. Franken’s okay. He puts on wrestling clinics for the elementary school kids every year, which is how I first got into the sport.

  The school is down my end of town, but it’s on the other side of Main, a block up from the plant. I start walking up toward the other end—the end where the hospital is and the Turkey Hill store, but I stay on Maple Street, the block parallel to Main. It’s dark and quiet. I’m not going anywhere in particular. Just away from that bullshit behind me.

  Maple is above Main as you climb the hill on this side, so you can look down on the stores and stuff. Sturbridge is almost like a stadium—there’s a flat two-block-wide valley down the spine of the town, then it rises up on both sides. It’s a pit only the strongest crawl out of.

  I live on the hill on the other side from where I’m walking, across the Pocono River. Most of the homes are on the hills, with six blocks of stores and stone churches and a couple of bars on the flats. The traffic lights on either end define the business section.

  On the one end of town, behind me as I’m walking, is Route 6. Up beyond the other light you cross the river again—it sort of snakes around the town—and Main becomes North Main, a section of bigger houses and bigger yards, some doctors and lawyers and families that go way back. Hatcher lives out there.

  Kim lives out that way, too. Both of her parents are elementary school teachers over in Weston, and they coach the swimming teams at North.

  It’s a decent night—52 degrees at 9:48. Kids who were at the match are already gathered down on Main. Rite Aid is still open—they do a good business in the half hour after a match.

  I walk into Turkey Hill, past the magazine rack and down the cupcake and potato chip aisle, toward the refrigerated section in the back. I stare through the glass door at the drinks: bottles of Hawaiian Punch and Pepsi and Gatorade, cartons of iced tea and milk, cans of Coke and 7-Up. After about a minute I take out a carton of orange drink and walk back toward the register, shaking the carton as I go.

  I have to wait behind a fat girl about twelve buying Seventeen magazine and a bag of popcorn, and a guy about forty with glasses and a tie on carrying a giant Styrofoam cup of coffee, The New York Times, a box of chocolate doughnut gems, and a copy of Penthouse. He has exact change, but it takes him a while to dig it out. I grab a straw and finish the orange drink before I even pay for it.

  Kim drives past as I come out of the store, but she isn’t looking this way. Digit is in the passenger seat, and I can interpret that several ways. I head toward Court Street, because they’ll be coming back along Main any minute. Court runs parallel to Main on the other side, hugging the river most of the way.

  I have this dumb idea of where I’m headed, and I let myself think it’s because I’m still thirsty. The river moves faster along here; the drop in elevation isn’t great, but it’s enough to cause some rapids. So it’s a different town here, just two blocks in from Main, and it’s dark and quiet and sleepy.

  Sometimes late at night I run through here, past the houses and the courthouse and the jail. The town’s fast asleep between one-thirty and six, and you can run through like you’re in another dimension.

  I start walking a little faster when I reach Route 6, since I’m out in the open now. I just don’t feel like seeing anybody connected with the wrestling team or the school. Or the whole town. I’ll deal with them all later.

  What is it with Kim anyway? I think she’s got her head together too much for me to handle. She makes me want to find answers about myself, but I don’t even know the right questions.

  I’ve had one girlfriend to speak of in my life. We started hanging around together the summer before our junior year, and started making out one night in August. Noreen Califano. I can’t even look her in the face anymore.

  I was shy. I didn’t really feel comfortable being with her except in private. Our dates were football games that fall, and after the third one I told her I didn’t think it was working out.

  Two weeks later I started calling her on the phone again. I’d see her in school and she’d ignore me, but I’d call her as soon as I got home. And she’d be polite as can be, and sometimes we even had some decent conversations. And finally I asked her to go to the movies. She’d have to drive because I didn’t have my license yet. She said okay.

  The next day she said forget it. Her friends told her I was using her because she could drive. And no way should she lower herself after I dumped her for no reason.

  I kept calling. She kept being okay to me on the phone.

  Then the year’s first edition of The Lions’ Roar came out. That’s the school paper. I read the very first line in the gossip column, for all the world to see: Urgent message from NC to Big Ben—“Leave me alone!”

  I laugh about it now. Ha, ha.

  I reach the Mobil station, and the girl is inside the office, talking on the phone. The older guy is at the pumps.

  I stick my hand i
n my pocket to keep all the change from rattling, and go up to the door and look inside. She puts her hand over the phone and looks up and says “Yeah?”

  “Could I get some change?” I say, waving a dollar.

  She opens a drawer and takes out four quarters, handing them to me and taking the dollar. The guy outside yells “Jody,” and I see that there’s three cars waiting for service. She says “I gotta go” into the phone and hangs up.

  The vending machines are off to the side by the diesel pumps in an open, rectangular aluminum shed: three drink machines (Coke, Pepsi, and juices) and a food one with candy, pretzels, and stuff like that. I get a can of orange soda and a package of six Oreo cookies. Then I leave, because the girl is busy and looks too beautiful for me.

  My father is not waiting up; my mother is home from work. I climb the stairs and hear them talking softly in their bedroom. Their door is closed and the light is off.

  I close my door and lie in the dark on my own bed. It occurs to me that Digit and Kim may still be out driving around, or worse. I kick off my shoes. I am empty.

  What I might be doing in a year:

  wrestling at Penn State (right)

  wrestling at Weston CC

  wrestling with my sanity

  What I definitely won’t be doing:

  working at the plant

  enlisting in the army

  joining the boosters association

  CHAPTER 7

  I get a pass to the library on Monday out of study hall and pull out the yearbooks from the past few years. I finally find her in the graduating class of two years ago: Jody Mullins. I think I remember her vaguely, but not the way I see her now.

  In the yearbook photo she looks different, repressed. Her hair is short, not flowing and full like it is now, and her face is rigid and squinty. Under Activities she’s got Band 1, 2; Tennis 1; Distributive Education 4. There’s no nickname listed.

  I flip to the section of candid photos and search in vain for another shot of her. I think I see the side of her head in a picture from the senior awards luncheon, but that doesn’t tell me much except that she might have been there.