Wrestling Sturbridge

by Rich Wallace

  Kim takes one and Al lets the other one down. Then he flops on the floor like he’s totally out of energy, and four more kids pile on top.

  Franken blows his whistle and says it’s time for the video, so everybody goes back to the bleachers. Franken rolls in a big-screen TV and a VCR. Somebody shuts the lights, and we watch a highlights film from the past few seasons, including Al losing last year’s state semifinal in overtime.

  Later we hand out T-shirts and certificates and the parents arrive to pick up their kids. The kids are all beaming and begging their parents to take them to our match on Saturday. A lot of them hug my legs, and one even kisses my hand.

  When I’m ready to leave, Al is sitting in the bleachers with Franken, deep in conversation. So I just catch his eye and say “See you later.” They both yell “So long,” and Jerry adds “Thanks a lot.”

  I step out into the sun and walk up toward Main Street, feeling like I’ve been bombarded with affection. It isn’t a bad sensation.

  WHERE WE STAND

  ME (135) vs. DIGIT (130), At present weights, I’d win 60 percent of the time. But dried out to 130, I’d lose 98 percent.

  AL (135) vs. DIGIT (130), Al wins 95 percent. No reason for him to cut weight, or for Digit to add.

  HATCHER (140) vs. DIGIT (130), Hatcher wins 98 percent. Too much weight difference.

  HATCHER (140) vs. AL (135), Even giving away five pounds, Al wins 90 percent. If Hatcher cut to 135, it wouldn’t even be competitive.

  HATCHER (140) vs. ME (135), At present weights, Hatcher wins 90 percent. If he had a reason to cut five pounds, I’d probably win half. Gaining five pounds wouldn’t do me much good, since the difference is all muscle. I don’t have time to put on five useful pounds.

  ME vs. AL, Stranger things have happened.

  CHAPTER 10

  January

  Kim called me on New Year’s and asked me to go to her cousin’s wedding with her a week later. Why not, I figured. Seeing a transplanted New York Puerto Rican marry a Pennsylvania dairy farmer would be an experience.

  So we’re at the Lackawanna Station hotel in Scranton, drinking 7-Up at the bar and waiting for the reception to begin. The wedding was six hours ago, but they had to schedule things around the afternoon milking. We got lunch, saw a movie, and hung around town in between.

  It’s easy enough to tell which of the guests are from which family. Aaron’s family is enormous (not that there’s so many of them, they’re just enormous individuals). One of his uncles is sitting two stools down from me, flirting with every one of Kim’s female relatives that walks past. He’s about sixty and wheezy, chain-smoking Camels, with a powder-blue polyester leisure suit and a pistol in a holster that he’s trying to show off while looking inconspicuous. I’ll assume he’s in law enforcement.

  The most attention he’s drawn so far is from one of the Brooklyn aunts, a heavily lipsticked woman about his age who must think she’s twenty-five and seems not to have realized that she’s forty pounds overweight. She has a huge, lumpy cleavage and a clingy black blouse, and I’m trying hard not to look over that way.

  Kim, on the other hand, looks so beautiful I could die.

  We finally get into the ballroom and sit with Kim’s parents, two aunts and two uncles, and an old couple that’s friends on the groom’s side. Kim’s father gets a pitcher of beer, partly for my benefit, but I go real easy on it. Kim sips white wine.

  They serve capons with stuffed potatoes and string beans. I’m sitting between Kim and her dad, so we talk about wrestling and track and swimming, and how there’s a lot of similarities, being out there all by yourself with nobody to pass the ball to or run interference. You either win or you lose, and the degree to which either happens is totally dependent on you.

  Her dad has a coach’s demeanor, but not like my coach. This guy is lean and limber, with a dark mustache and short hair and a smile that’s genuine. His wife is Kim’s size and stylish.

  When the band starts, I squirm a little. They open with “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and if they stick to that tempo I’ll be wishing they’d only just get finished. But they jump into “Satisfaction” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and the dance floor fills right up. Kim starts tugging on my arm—her parents are already up and they dance pretty well; you can tell they really enjoy each other. I roll my eyes and take off my jacket. She grabs my hand and leads me out there, and I dance about as well as I can, which ain’t good.

  They do “Twist and Shout” and “Light My Fire,” and I start working up a sweat. At the final crash of the drums we all clap, and the lead singer announces a special request. I turn to walk off when he picks up his accordion, but Kim pulls me back. “You know how to polka, don’t you?” she asks.

  Well, sure. I’ve seen it enough on TV. Somehow I don’t feel like I’m dressed for it, but I find myself swinging awkwardly around the floor to an oompah beat. I should have expected this in Scranton.

  I have to admit that it’s fun. Not that I’ll be buying any polka tapes or anything, but bouncing around with Kim and feeling silly is a tolerable thing to do on a Sunday evening. We only stumble a couple of times.

  They take it down for “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” and my sweat suddenly turns cold. She reaches out her arms, but I wipe my forehead and nod toward the table. We walk off, close together but not touching. Kim looks a little surprised that I wanted to stop. Slow dancing doesn’t take much effort, after all.

  We sit down. “Your parents dance really good,” I say. They’re turning slowly, pressed together and gazing into each other’s eyes. I feel like people are staring at me, but no one is. I think I know how those capons must have felt. Kim seems to sense my mood change.

  She gets up and says she’s going to the ladies’ room, and I say I’ll go, too. We start walking out. “You okay?” she says.

  “Yeah. Fine.… Why?”

  She shrugs. “Nothing, I guess.”

  The pistol-packing guy in the powder-blue suit is at one of the urinals when I pull up. He’s got a cigarette behind his ear and keeps clearing his throat. He nods in greeting.

  “Good party,” I say.

  “Yep,” he says. “Lot of nice-looking broads.”

  “Sure are.”

  “Lot of hot-blooded women.” He winks at me. “Looks like you found one.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Oh, yes,” he says. “A lot of hot tamales out there, if you know what I mean.”

  I nod as if I do. I flush with my elbow. The guy is still pissing, or at least standing there trying. “See you later,” I say.

  “Yep,” he says. “Don’t catch anything.”

  Kim’s parents sip coffee and talk to the other couples about work and their kids and other family things. I listen in fascination, since I haven’t spent much time around normal, well-adjusted adults. Kim’s mom and dad sit close and he keeps rubbing her shoulder, and they tease each other and smile a lot.

  The older couple—the ones who aren’t from Kim’s family—just got back from a month in Florida. The guy—Dutch they call him—has white hair and very ruddy skin. His wife Ruth is fatter than he is, though not by much, and amplifies everything he says with a high laugh. They raised five kids, have eighteen grandchildren, and spend half the year traveling around in their motor home to visit them. They both were born in Scranton and never left. I learned all this just by sitting there. What they didn’t tell me but was obvious is that they’re best friends.

  My best friends are three guys who’ve become my main rivals in varying degrees. Al and I may survive this season as buddies, but I’m feeling the strain. I want too badly what he has, and the only way to get it is to take it away.

  My hand is on Kim’s knee all this time, and she’s gently stroking it with her own. She laughs a lot at what Dutch and Ruth have to say, especially when they talk about their littlest grandchildren. She grips my hand tighter when the band plays “Just the Way You Are.”

  After the cake and the bouquet-throwing
and all that, we get up to dance again. I’m tired. So is she. They play a couple of fast ones, but then they do “Color My World” and I hold her close for the very first time. She rests her head on my shoulder and shuts her eyes, and we sway back and forth and around.

  I run my hand along the back of her shoulder, slowly over her scapula, and down her side to her waist, and I linger there. Her bones are thinner, her muscles are smaller but no less firm than the ones I struggle against every day in practice. Sometimes I wonder why I spend more time entwined with Al every day than I’ve spent in my whole life with any female. I guess because that’s the easy part, the fighting, the physical stuff. You give everything you have, but it’s all focused on you, all internal. You don’t have to share, don’t have to figure out the harder emotions, just the easier extremes. You’re not trying to meld with somebody else. Not trying to get close.

  I move my hand back up her side, over the shoulder and down her spine, as low as I dare. I could reach lower, and God knows I want to, but this isn’t the place or the time.

  Her dress is soft cotton, black, almost sweatshirt material, and clings to her fine body like a glove. She’s wearing nothing under it, at least not up top. I kiss her on the tip of the ear, and she opens her eyes and smiles. She reaches up and kisses me on the mouth, then puts her head back down and hugs tighter.

  The song ends. I don’t know what I’m so scared of. She runs her hand up the back of my thigh as we walk toward the table. I sit down and she sits on my lap.

  We came over with her parents, so of course we’re driving back with them, too. They sit closer in the front seat than we do in the back, and Kim and her mother both fall asleep. So I shut my eyes and lie back and listen to the radio all the way to town. Her dad sings softly to the classic rock of WRAZ-FM. I wonder if he used to drive around with other Puerto Rican kids and find American stations to make fun of.

  They drop me off and I shake Kim’s father’s hand, say goodnight to her mother, and give Kim (who is awake now) a very quick kiss at about the level of her eyes. Of course I am wondering what might have been if we’d driven back from Scranton alone. Or if the wedding had been in our town, in warmer weather, with the woods or the cemetery to walk home through.

  I noted when we passed the bank that it was 17 degrees at 10:51. Warm summer evenings are too many months away.

  I open the door. I walk up the stairs and shut my door. I take off every piece of clothing and get under my covers, and call back the feel of her muscle, the soft smell of cotton, and the tip of her ear against my mouth.

  I’m shivering.

  Things we hate in this town:

  summer people from New York

  disrespectful teenagers

  anti-hunters

  Things we hold dear to our hearts:

  American brotherhood

  family values

  fashionable haircuts

  CHAPTER 11

  The guy I had tonight was slow and soft; maybe a 125er with ten pounds of fat. I pinned him in forty-eight seconds. We won ten of the thirteen matches by pin, and the other three by decision. Sturbridge 69, West Pocono 0.

  I sit in front of my locker for a long time, letting the music and the towel snapping and the yelling go on around me. I’m up to 3–0, but it’s hard to stay sharp when you’re only competing every other week. Plus, if the other team has anybody good at 135 or 140, then Al and Hatcher stay put. I only get out there against stiffs.

  I wrestled off with Al two days ago, and he beat me 10–3. I fell behind early and lost my drive, but the difference between us isn’t as great as people think. I’m even starting to think I could take him.

  But this season is slipping away. If I’m lucky, I’ll get three more dual meets, and that will be it. A career that never was, unless I can get past Al.

  Digit’s already dressed; I haven’t even showered yet. “You coming?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, and start taking off my uniform. “Yeah.”

  We’re headed for McDonald’s—everybody who can afford to gain a pound or two—to celebrate our new ranking. USA Today has us up to eighth nationally, with no other Pennsylvania schools in the top ten. Keystone Wrestling News will be out in three days, and we expect to be number one in the state.

  I shower in a hurry, and find Hatcher and Digit and Al waiting in Al’s car in the parking lot. I wasn’t sure they’d still be around; our foursome seems to be slowly dissolving.

  I’ve spent so many nights with these guys in the past six years that I could tell you everything they dream about, every girl they’ve ever been interested in, every time their fathers smacked them around. But I’m not sure we even know each other this season. I’m not sure I even know myself.

  Ever since junior high school we’ve talked about winning it all. Not just as a team, but as individuals, taking the state. Every time we’d lift weights we’d be pushing each other, busting on each other and making us work.

  Or we’d stand on Main Street in the evening, watching the traffic, always with wrestling on the edge of our consciousness no matter what was going on. Being on top was a fantasy, but we were working our way into it, one workout at a time.

  Even last year, when these three guys were solidly on the varsity, I still was a part of it. But now I’m like a leper, watching from the outside.

  “Hey, man, we’re number one,” Hatcher says as I get into the car.

  “Looks that way,” I say.

  “I was pretty worried tonight, though,” Al says, not at all serious. “Especially after Coach gave that pep talk.”

  Coach had warned us about getting big heads, about letting down because the other team was winless. We know better than that.

  “We should have lost,” Digit says with a laugh. “Let the town go home crying for once.”

  Al giggles. “We should do that. Next week against Wharton.”

  “Get out,” Hatcher says. “No way.”

  “Not lose the whole match,” Digit says. “Just scare ’em. The three of us will get pinned. We’ll still win the match.”

  “Coach would shit in his pants,” Al says. He laughs. “But screw him. I’d do it if there wasn’t so much at stake.”

  “Number one ranking,” Hatcher says.

  “Top ten nationally,” Digit offers.

  “Immortality for the rest of our lives,” Al says. “And executive positions at the cinder block factory.”

  “Can’t wait for that,” Digit says.

  We pull into the McDonald’s lot, and it seems almost like old times. We used to bust on our town every chance we got—the cops who’ve got nothing better to do than clear us off the street corners; the men who labor every weekday at the plant and cap the workday at the bars, with us—a group of sweaty kids in leotards—providing their only source of pride; the ex-wrestlers who get fat and never grow up; the oppression of the churches and the schools and the parents.

  For tonight we’re not part of that—we can stand back and laugh at it. But there’s that feeling we all share, a feeling we don’t quite give voice to. A feeling that grows stronger every day.

  We won’t be high school wrestlers much longer. I guess we’d better enjoy it.

  Sunday morning. Mom and Dad and me and Grandma slide into a pew about three-quarters of the way back, behind two old ladies in blue coats and the Stockman family: Five well-mannered blond kids, all younger than ten, and a mom and a dad who smile too much. This week’s message—I can’t wait—is entitled “Our Wayward Youth.”

  There’s a blurb on the back of the bulletin labeled “The Philadelphia Story.” It tells how the youth group (“decidedly not wayward”) is planning a three-day “ministry” in Philadelphia during Easter week, under the leadership of Youth Pastor Paul Long. I see that I’m listed as one of seventeen active members of the youth group, each of whom “has a solid relationship with Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord!”

  Now, I know at least half of us are far from being active, but Grandma nudges me and points
to my name, beaming. She should know better than that. I just look away. The service hasn’t started yet. I look back and see the Reverend in the hallway, just about ready to glide into the sanctuary, so I shove the bulletin into my pocket.

  I hurry to my feet as the organist starts the prelude, and I walk out past Fletcher and Long. Fletcher notices me and seems to flinch, a defensive reflex, no doubt. They can think I’m on my way to the bathroom, but I’m leaving for real.

  Just a lost, wayward youth checking out.

  I will never, ever return. Not in a million, trillion years. Praise the Lord, I’m finished.

  On Wisconsin.

  We’ve only just begun.

  I am out of here.

  ORDER OF WORSHIP

  9:15 A.M., January 22

  ORGAN PRELUDE

  CALL TO WORSHIP

  PASTOR: Let us place ourselves in His presence.

  RESPONSE: Let us be at peace.

  PASTOR: Let us halt the churning of our desires.

  RESPONSE: Let us empty all our cares.

  PASTOR: When we stop our internal fighting, then the healing will begin.

  CHAPTER 12

  Kim’s taking me out tonight—she asked and she paid. She picked me up in her mom’s car after practice and we ate at McDonald’s. Now she wants to play pool over at The Fun Zone.

  It’s never crowded in here this early in the evening—just some little kids with their parents burning off dinner at Skee-Ball or video games. We get a table and rack up the balls, and I break but don’t sink anything. Kim walks completely around the table twice, looking for a shot, and I hold my cue kind of perpendicular to the floor and lean on it. You get to see girls from interesting angles when they’re lining up a pool shot, and Kim is among the most interesting I’ve seen. She’s got on a soft black polo shirt, slightly oversized, with PASSAIC TRACK stitched in red on the left chest.