by Lisa Fenn
“I would like to, if that’s okay with you guys,” I answered.
“Fine with me,” he said as he slowly stood up. “We gotta get on the bus now. See you tomorrow.” Dartanyon retrieved Leroy’s wheelchair from under the bleachers. He walked out free of a limp, and I smiled, knowing Robinson had diagnosed correctly.
My father had been watching the scene from a few rows up in the stands, biting the insides of his cheeks. “You can’t be getting close to kids like that,” he said to me. I was tempted to ask him, Kids like what? But I already knew. He meant black kids. “You just never know what these people are thinking,” he added. I wanted to tell him that times had changed. I wanted to tell him that I had black friends, that I regularly interviewed black athletes. I wanted to tell him, Actually, Dad, you’d be surprised what you can know about a person if you just ask. Instead, I took a handful of his popcorn and stuffed it in my mouth before those fighting words came out. I was not ready to engage in this battle—not just yet.
THE NEXT MORNING, Dartanyon walked off the bus with Leroy on his back and the spring back in his step. I was struck even more by how much Dartanyon resembled a store-bought action figure. His head was planted squarely on his shoulders, rather than on a neck. He had six well-cut abdominal muscles protruding from his gray Lycra shirt, and his short sleeves were forced up under his shoulders by his ballooning biceps.
Leroy wore a white Lincoln-West T-shirt with his nickname on the back: Cripple. I reckoned he wanted to say it before anyone else could, to tell you that he knew what you were thinking and where you were looking. If he couldn’t ward off the world’s labeling system, he would embrace it and use it to make someone who stared at him feel just as uncomfortable as they were making him.
“Huddle up!” Coach Robinson called out once inside the gym. “You are all great wrestlers. There is no one and nothing that can stop you!” These were bold statements to make to kids who shared headgear and threadbare shoes and hadn’t pulled out a single win the day before. But the kids hung on his every word. They needed to believe it.
Leroy lost quickly that morning by pin, ending his wrestling career. Still, he burst into smile, and his opponent hugged him twice before they left the mat. Even with two matches in progress on other mats, the entire crowd applauded Leroy, thereby validating what I’d experienced when I first saw him in the newspaper: when Leroy smiles, it is impossible to look anywhere else.
“Two words, Crockett! Two words,” Robinson shouted as Dartanyon walked out for his first match of the day, eyes to the sky. He never returned to his mother’s grave in the years following her funeral, and his family spoke little of her death. But sometimes, when Dartanyon did something of which he was proud, or when he watched other moms pick up his friends from school, his brother Davielle would quietly remind him: “She’s watching.” Those two words anchored Dartanyon through every storm.
Dartanyon had defeated Chase Bell from Cleveland Heights earlier in the season. Chase lacked both Dartanyon’s strength and Rock’s technical proficiency. Here again, Dartanyon pinned him in less than a minute.
“Two words,” Robinson whispered to himself, as Dartanyon kissed his fist and pointed to the sky. “Only two words that matter to that boy, so we gonna ride those today.” As Dartanyon strutted into the quarterfinals, his whole body seemed to be asking, Who’s next?
“Crockett, I want you to make this next match so brutal that you send whoever you fight after him to his knees too,” Robinson said. “You hear what I’m saying? I want this kid’s mother running out of the stands yelling, ‘Ooh, stop doing that to my baby.’”
Dartanyon nodded obediently as they walked to the mat. “Be brutal, son,” Robinson reminded, then looked down at Leroy on his other side. “What are you doing down there?” Leroy paused, smiled slyly, and broke into a little dance that made Robinson chuckle. “Don’t bite any ankles down there, Sutton.”
Dartanyon’s quarterfinal match pitted him against Carl Slaton of Valley Forge High School. Redheaded with freckled skin, Carl was the type of thick, squishy kid the tournament director had alluded to the day before. Right from the whistle, Dartanyon darted around like a mouse playing games with a house cat. Once behind Carl, Dartanyon wedged his right hand under Carl’s arm and his left hand under his left thigh, flipping him upside down. Carl landed on his back with a thud.
“My God . . . ,” Robinson whispered to Hons while Carl saw stars. “Is he crying? Is he crying?”
Dartanyon returned to his corner while the referee checked Carl over. “Listen, son, break him right now,” Robinson implored. “The kid you wrestle next is watching. Break this kid and you win the next match too.”
Carl chose to go on, cautiously. Less than a minute later, Dartanyon wrapped his arms around Carl’s torso and lifted him off the ground like he’d just pulled an old oak tree out of the earth, roots and all. With Carl’s legs dangling, Dartanyon walked him four seconds to his right, heaved him over, and fell on top for the easy pin.
Dartanyon hopped back to center to be declared the winner, but Carl stayed down, grimacing and grasping his shoulder.
“Leave him broken,” Robinson said. “Let’s go. And don’t put your clothes back on till you get up to the top of the bleachers. Keep your singlet straps down.” Dartanyon followed orders, walking with his chest bare, and from behind, his back looked like two seismic plates divided down the middle by a fault line an inch deep. And then Robinson got his first wish—to incite the opponent’s mother. Carl’s mom stormed out of the stands. And she was looking for me. “Are you in charge of that ESPN camera?” she demanded to know.
I smiled warmly, extending my hand. “Yes, my name is Lisa. How can I help you?”
“You can give me those tapes right now, because you didn’t have permission to film my son!” she said angrily.
This predicament was new to me: most people jumped to be on ESPN. I constructed a quick defense. “This is a public sporting event, and I do have the permission of the tournament organizer to film.”
“My son’s a minor. You can’t film him without my consent!” she yelled. “Your kid hurt him!”
I boiled at her accusation, and it was in that moment that Dartanyon became my kid. I wanted to tell her that my kid was as gentle as a dove, and that if her kid would lay off the Doritos, he might stand a chance next time. I didn’t know if either were true, and fortunately neither left my mouth, because I noticed Carl peeking at us from about ten feet behind her, standing on that thin line between humility and humiliation. I chose the kinder road instead.
“How is he doing?” I asked.
“His shoulder is all messed up from your kid acting like an animal out there!” she yelled again.
“Ma’am, Dartanyon wrestled cleanly. The ref never penalized him for unsportsmanlike conduct,” I said. “Calling him an animal is out of line.”
“What’s your name? You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” she screamed.
“Please do have him get in touch,” I said. “I would be happy to speak with him.” I pulled a business card from my bag, knowing she sorely lacked a case. ESPN made its name on lesser athletes falling at the mercy of the naturally gifted. This practice was not litigated; it was celebrated. There was no use arguing the issue any further, but as I turned away, I saw Dartanyon standing within earshot, looking touched that someone might fight for him.
DARTANYON’S SEMIFINAL OPPONENT came out like a full-court press. Peter Heggs of Shaw High School entered fresh off of a third-round loss. Both he and Dartanyon needed the win to stay in qualifying contention. Peter appeared solid and carried himself in a no-nonsense sort of way, and from the first whistle he went about his business. He capitalized on Dartanyon’s slightest mistakes, quietly ticking up the score. By the start of the third period, Peter was up 8–3. Robinson sat in the corner alternating between “Two words!” and “Come on, Crockett!” but neither pearl of coaching expertise was enough to help Dartanyon close the gap. He lost, 10–4.
; Dartanyon fell to the ground, mourning the loss of a sport that gave him a reason to get out of bed each day. “Crockett, what are you doing?” Robinson said. “Get up and pull yourself together. You lost, but you gave it everything you had. This is a life lesson. You quit here, you quit in life.”
Dartanyon took no comfort in lessons. Life had taught him all he cared to know about losing. Dartanyon looked like he’d rather crawl under the scorer’s table than be seen in the consolation match later that afternoon. The top four in each weight class advanced to the district meet, and this bout was for fifth place, or first guy staying home. Just yesterday, the man on the bus had told Dartanyon he was a hero; one day later, he was in the loser’s bracket.
“Crockett, end on a high note,” Robinson said. “Don’t die here. God’s got other plans for you today.”
Dartanyon’s heart was not in that match, but his body was all he needed. He scored an early takedown, then a reversal. Leroy sat somberly at his post, knowing there was nothing to be won here.
“Two words, son,” Robinson called out, and as I watched Juanita’s boy fight for dignity, I suddenly sensed her voice in my own mind, prodding me: Take care of my son.
I stopped, stock-still, my head tilted as if waiting for more. Though I could see the crowd cheering around me, this whisper was all I could hear, reverberating between my head and my heart.
“What?” I whispered aloud, leaning forward, drawn into the conversation. Her voice came to me again, like high tide washing through my body. Take care of my son. The plea could not have been clearer if she was seated beside me, and it was wrapped in an entrancing sense of peace. The rest of the match moved in slow motion, and Dartanyon got the pin just after the four-minute mark, raising his fist, as he always did, to acknowledge the woman who had left his world and entered mine. I felt like I was watching a film in which I had just been cast.
Here we were almost adults, and we still couldn’t put thoughts together with any ease, and when we could, we didn’t have the courage to tell them to anyone. It made people assume we didn’t feel anything, or that we didn’t care. But we cared a lot. It was trust that we were missing.
—LEROY
CHAPTER 5
PLAYING FOR TRUST
Let’s see whatcha got!” Victor said as I walked into the office on Monday morning. He rubbed his hands together, eager to see what his gamble had netted. I nervously rewound the first tape, feeling fifteen years old again, about to show my dad what I’d bought at the mall with his credit card and hoping he approved. The tape stopped on Dartanyon picking up Leroy for the national anthem.
“Whoa,” Victor said. And then captive silence as I scrolled through the boys’ trips up and down the bleachers, Leroy’s vigor on the mat, Dartanyon tossing the redheaded kid around like a rag doll, and their warming laughter as they headed to the bus. I skipped over Dartanyon’s losses and the woeful trash can episode.
“Are we sure the one with legs is blind?” Victor asked. “Because he seems to hunt down his opponents pretty easily.”
“His coach said everything is shadowy.”
“When do you shoot again?”
“I’m still not sure what it is that I’m shooting. Their wrestling seasons are over, although I’m not sure this is a story about wrestling anyway. I think it’s a friendship story, but I didn’t get to know them well enough to say so with certainty.”
“Can I see that anthem shot again?” Victor asked, with a hint of disbelief. The script of sports emphasizes competitive bonds and the meaning of a teammate. Dartanyon carrying Leroy legitimized that bond in a tangible way. Their connection was immediately seen and understood. And Victor’s reaction confirmed my suspicion that this was one of the most striking images I had ever seen pass through a frame of video.
“I was thinking I might go back for a few days, to learn more about their lives and figure out what I need to make this work,” I said. “I can stay with my parents. It wouldn’t cost us anything but the flight.” I conveniently omitted the part about how one half of the story refused to speak to me.
“That’s . . . just . . . wow,” he said, replaying the anthem clip over and over again. “Yah, get to know them. There’s something there.”
I had also left out the bit about hearing voices in the bleachers, even though that was the part of the weekend that had unmoored me. I believed that God desires to speak to us in different ways and through various means: dreams and visions, strangers and friends, nature and events, reason and silence. And though I had never heard audible voices, I had discerned God communicating in the form of unexpected thoughts that suddenly apprehended my own, causing me to either change direction or notice something I would not have been drawn toward otherwise. These nudges were like taps on the shoulder that whispered, “Pay attention over here.” I had grown attuned to this soft, small voice beneath the whirlwind of ordinary life, pointing me to look past the surface to the connectedness of our lives. Still, this directive was startlingly specific. It had not occurred to me that Juanita’s son needed taking care of, and yet the plea could not have been clearer.
“Maybe we’re supposed to adopt him,” I said to my husband, Navid, upon arriving home from Cleveland.
“Sure, let’s take in a seventeen-year-old blind kid for the spring, get him off to college in the fall, and then retire early,” Navid said wryly. “Those years between infancy and adulthood can be parenting nightmares anyway.”
Navid was in the final four months of his family medicine residency at Middlesex Hospital in central Connecticut. From an early age, my husband had believed he had two callings in life, both strongly influenced by his own upbringing: doctoring and fathering. When I met him in 2003, Navid was pressing through medical school and came from a family that could have started its own health care system, boasting a pediatrician, a dentist, a pathologist, an immunologist, an occupational therapist, a public health specialist, and a pharmaceutical salesman.
Navid’s mother, Shirin Mahooti, practiced pediatrics for forty-eight years and was still running a solo office at the age of sixty-eight. Born in Iran, Shirin did her schooling in England. Upon returning to Iran after medical school, she married Navid’s father, a petroleum engineer for the National Iranian Oil Company, and together they applied for green cards to the United States. Seven years later, their requests were granted. The family immigrated in the summer of 1976.
The Mahootis settled in Woodbury, Connecticut, near the only hospital that offered Shirin a chance to repeat her residency. Then, in 1979, political hell broke loose in the shape of the Iranian Revolution, and the rebels seized sixty American diplomats in Tehran. The Iran hostage crisis dominated the headlines, as helpless, blindfolded Americans were paraded through the streets and the images were aired across American news outlets. The hostages were held for 444 days. Potent surges of anti-Iranian sentiment swept through the United States. The value of the Iranian rial plummeted against the US dollar, and the family’s net worth, which they had maintained in the Bank of Iran, was decimated. The Mahootis were forced to start over in every way.
Shirin slaved through hundred-hour workweeks in a residency program that embraced neither Middle Easterners nor women. Navid’s father, a Fulbright scholar, worked factory jobs to make ends meet. Teachers targeted the Mahooti children with public humiliation and wore anti-Iranian armbands in support of the hostages. The family led an insular life, with no one to depend on but one another. And as they did, they found that togetherness was all the sustenance they needed.
The family unit was therefore sacred to Navid, and he longed for a gaggle of kids of his own, to replicate the closeness that had emerged from the trenches of his childhood. Though I too desired children, birthing them was not a priority. I was ten years old when my mother relented and bought me my first Cabbage Patch Kid, the must-have doll of my childhood era. She was a perky redhead named Hedda Kate. Hedda came with her own birth certificate, and my mom said that when I clutched that piece of paper, I cried re
al tears, rejoicing that this orphan doll finally had a home. Hedda Kate was soon followed by Lindy Ana and Emma Courtney. Each addition further stirred my interest in adoption. Serving in inner-city shelters throughout my teen years and in Eastern European orphanages during college cemented my conviction that with such a surplus of children in need of parents, the world didn’t need me to make more.
Navid and I talked about these issues on our first few dates. I found that, as certain as I was that I would one day adopt, he was equally certain that he would not. “I don’t know if I will be able to love an adopted child as fully as a biological child,” he confessed. “It’s not a risk I want to take, for either me or the child.” His concerns were honest and thoughtful, and I prayed for Navid’s desires to one day merge with mine.
Four years into our marriage, we conceived. And then we miscarried. One miscarriage led to another, which led to a total of four. Each occurred early in their terms, eight weeks or fewer, with the last miscarriage falling on Christmas Eve of 2008. The havoc that the miscarriages wreaked on my body paled in comparison with how they ravaged Navid’s heart. Why would he be denied this cherished gift of fatherhood, a role he would hold so fiercely and so tenderly?
One week before meeting Leroy and Dartanyon, I drove with Navid through Woodbury, toward the bucolic ball field where he had pitched Little League. He pulled over, missing his own father, who had passed away a year before, and on a snow-capped mound, our wishes converged. “I just want to be a dad, however it’s meant to happen,” Navid said.
I wrapped my arms tightly around my husband and his dream. “We can continue trying,” I responded, “but perhaps we can start looking into adoption as well.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Maybe there is someone out there who needs us just as much as we need them.”
MY FATHER WAS adamant that I not go to Lincoln-West High School alone on my first Monday morning back in Cleveland. I had returned on a five-day scouting expedition of sorts, to gain a clearer picture of Leroy and Dartanyon’s lives and personalities. I needed to decide if they possessed a story that would make for powerful television, and if so, begin laying the groundwork for future shoots. “Let me drive you over there,” my father said. “I’ll bring the newspaper and wait for you in the car.”