Vision Quest (22 page)

I wish he weren't shorter than I am and so goddamn good-looking. Why can't he be cretinous, monosyllabic, or maybe look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame instead of an anatomy sketch by Michelangelo? It makes me feel like the bad guy.

Down the street Cindy's Mazda pulls up in front of the house. Willa leaps out into the fresh snow and disappears. Cindy hauls her out and shakes her off. Dad hasn't shoveled yet. The little kid laughs like crazy and hollers for more. I fling her into the softest-looking mounds and hoist her back out until she begins to turn blue. It doesn't take long. Then the three of us head in for New Year's dinner.

*  *  *

This afternoon I ate what I believe to be the last spinach of my life. I weighed 147 after an ugly green shit, so I think I can safely look forward to a can of Nutrament for breakfast. I thought I'd go see
Jesus Christ Superstar
for a little inspiration tonight, but I finally decided against it. I ran another three miles and did a laundry-room workout instead. I got off on a great fantasy about doctoring in a space settlement. One of Jupiter's moons was just like the earth around 1800 and I got to see the land before all the people came. I inoculated the Indians against all the diseases we probably brought them. Then I took a shower
and Carla got naked with me and we looked at ourselves in the bathroom mirror like we used to do pretty often after we came back from our first camping trip. It's a little ritual we still do, but not as regularly as before. I identify my different muscles, then flex them one by one as best I can. It's how I studied for anatomy tests. I start with the thick cords in my neck, the sternocleidomastoids; then I hit the high spots all the way down to my gastrocnemius muscles. I don't have real big calves but they're pretty well defined. In fact, bodywise, I'm every bit as good-looking as Shute. We put on our Pachelbel record and looked at each other and poked different places and laughed a lot. It's kind of hard to spot some of Carla's muscles, so I have to feel around for them. She thinks I should be able to flex my cock. I grunt and strain, but she always has to lend a hand.

I've finished typing almost the last of my senior thesis. I only have the conclusion left. Maybe I can write it tomorrow night when the match is over and my nervousness is gone. It shouldn't be more than a couple paragraphs. I'm thinking hard about what Balldozer said about it all being nothing more than the process of growing up. Maybe that's what my conclusion should be. But if Balldozer's right, I bet damn few people ever really grow up.

I'm so nervous I couldn't even make love. I probably could have, but I sure wouldn't have been very good. I
told Carla and she held me and gave me lots of kisses and told me it would all be over tomorrow and that we could make love several times then. I couldn't sit still. My stomach was roiling with nervousness, so I decided to type. I called Mom this morning to wish her a Happy New Year and found out she and her husband, Arney, are driving over to see the match. I couldn't talk her out of it. I hate to have them come all that way just to watch me wrestle. I always get nervous before a match, but this is the worst ever.

It's finally stopped snowing and
the morning is beautiful. Before I finally hit the sack last night I taped a note to the coffeepot reminding Dad please not to shovel the walk. Sometimes he gets up early and shovels before work. I slept late. It's almost ten. Carla left a note telling me not to be nervous. I usually feel logy when I sleep so late, but I feel okay this morning. Aside from being nervous. Whenever I tell Dad I'm nervous he always tells me to have confidence. I have all the confidence in the fucking world. I'm just nervous is all.

I shovel slowly and with deliberation. The snow is so deep I can't push it as usual. I dig down to concrete, then take it shovelful by shovelful. Mr. Sears yells from across the street do I want to use his snow blower. I shout back no thanks. He waves through the white mist thrown up by his machine and yells me good luck tonight. When I finish, the snowbanks are so high the sidewalk seems like a tunnel. They're higher than my head.

It's three thirty. I'm just getting more and more nervous hanging around home. I can't take a nap, I don't feel like reading, and there's nothing but shit on TV, so I guess
I'll take a slow walk up to school. I call Dad to let him know I'm leaving early and that he won't need to call and wake me up.

“Good luck, Son. Do your best.”

“Thanks, Dad. I will.”

It's all we ever say. I guess it's all there is to say. But just once I wish he'd tell me, “Go out there and make 'em remember us, Louden! Bulge and snap! Crack, zing, whip, dance, and fly! Write the name of Swain in shivers up everybody's spine!” Dad would never tell me that. But maybe he's thinking it. If he were just thinking it, I'd be happy.

*  *  *

Leeland Wain is in the gym, shooting at one of the side baskets with his two little girls. The mats have already been taped down in the middle of the floor. Carts and carts of folding chairs jam the doorway by the ticket booth. Sharon and Rosalie see me and run across the floor in that funny way little girls run. They're twins. They wear matching maroon jogging suits and tiny white Adidas shoes. Joretta tied their hair in about a zillion little cornrows. They get up to me and I turn around and open my hands, palms up, behind my back. They each slap my hands. Then they turn around. I slap their little hands solidly and the three of us shuck and jive across the gym floor to their daddy. Leeland flips me the ball. I shoot and miss the rim by ten yards. He laughs. I rebound for them awhile. Leeland asks me what I'm doing up here so early. I tell him I'm nervous. He
laughs. “Shute's the one oughta be nervous,” he says.

“Louden's gonna whup 'im! Louden's gonna whup 'im!” Sharon and Rosalie yell. They do a few cheerleader motions, run around in a couple circles, then collapse in a burst of giggles. “You girls is dummies,” Leeland says in his Bill Cosby voice. He bounces the basketball all around their heads as they continue to giggle and each tries to hide under the other.

“Good luck, man!” Leeland shouts after me, swishing one from the top of the key.

I walk around the halls awhile. I wind up on the fourth floor and stand looking out through the darkness at the park. Then it's five o'clock and time to weigh in.

*  *  *

We approach the scale in a double line of naked bodies. The ref stands behind the scale. Coach Ratta stands on our side and Charlie Swann, the Evergreen coach, stands on theirs.

The ref sets the weight at 147. Shute gets on. The ref removes his thumb and lets the balance fall. It stops in the middle. He hold it up again. I get on. The balance falls slowly to the middle and stops dead.

*  *  *

I can't get excited about the JV matches. I take a look out the window at the crowd and feel like throwing up. Chairs surround the mats ten rows deep and bleachers surround the chairs. Every seat and all standing room look taken.

*  *  *

Kuch's uniform feels weird. It's too tight. Bowden stands at the window, hollering down at Marty Ryan, who's wrestling 154 JV. Doug's name looks strange over the big 154 on the back of the warm-up top I've worn so often the past two and a half years.

Beside me Kuch squats Indian fashion in his street clothes and Otto lies with his eyes closed and his feet up on the wall as usual. Nobody says anything. I lie flat on my back on the mat. I'm so nervous I'm breathing through my mouth. I fit the little ear plug in my ear and close my eyes. I feel for the second button on my tape player and push it down. Electric wind blows in my ear for a second; then a dam bursts through my head. Mist falls and I shiver with the first few drops. I slow my breathing and fold my hands on my chest.

*  *  *

Coach comes up and says the JVs lost it. He tells us not to be nervous about the big crowd. What it sounds like down there is the goddamn Superbowl.

In our moment of silence I think about the millions of factors that combined to bring about this moment. I controlled a few, but most I had no control of. I made the decision to lose the weight and wrestle Shute and I trained hard. But I can't take credit for my birth as a healthy male in a relatively loving family with enough to eat. And it wasn't me who set things up so the wrestling bus arrived after the VW hit the gas truck near Cheney our sophomore year. A
few minutes earlier and it could have been us. I realize my eighteen years have been full of real good luck. Silently, I thank my parents for the gift of life.

*  *  *

We stand in the dark behind the gym doors. Through the little window all I see are the backs of people's heads. I'm sort of paralyzed. It sounds like they're going crazy in there.

“Whatcha waitin' for?” asks Otto from the darkness behind me.

“I can't think of anything to yell.”

“You've gotta yell somethin'. You're the fucking captain!”

Coach pokes his head in to see what's holding us up. “What you guys doing?”

“Swain can't think of anything to yell,” says Otto.

“I can't think of a thing, Coach,” I confess.

“Banzai! Banzai!” yells Coach as he shoves me through the doors and runs beside me, weaving through the people and between the bleachers and the chairs. He drops off when we hit the mats. I lead the guys around the big circle a couple times, then into our exercises. The sound of Kuch's braid slapping the mat is notably absent.

*  *  *

I'm watching Shute lead Evergreen through their exercises when I'm tapped on the shoulder. It's Mom and her husband. I get up and give Mom a kiss and shake hands with Arney. She looks good. I think maybe she's put on weight. But she'll melt away to nothing if she doesn't take off that
dumb fur coat. I take them to the bleachers, where Mr. and Mrs. Konigi promised to save them seats. The Konigis squinch one way and the people next to them squinch the other way, creating a space. Dad spots Mom and Arney and Mom spots Dad and Cindy. For a second nothing happens. Then they both put on smiles and wave. I go back to the bench. Carla waves to Mom from her seat with Tanneran and the Wain family. Belle sits on the floor, leaning back into Gene's lap. She's wearing her Rolling Stones panties. They're gold and they've got that big red Rolling Stones tongue sewn on the crotch.

Shute and I go out for the coin toss. He looks serene. I suppose I look the same. Gary calls heads, but the ref's quarter comes up tails. I win the toss. Shit. That means our first wrestler gets his choice of top or bottom in the second round. It will work out so that Gary'll have the choice in our match. And he'll choose top so he'll be on bottom in the third round. If there is a third round. Shit. I wanted the choice. I guess I'll have to score my points in rounds one and two. The David Thompson fans scream happily as Gary and I shake hands and return to our benches.

I twist my jump rope into knots watching Little Konigi and the Sausage Man lose. Raska wins and Mike Konigi pins his man.

The closer it gets to my match, the calmer I become. Even in this madhouse. That's the way it always is.

Seeley gets pinned. Schmooz beats Terry Muzzy,
who beat him for the district championship last year. Williamson is doing okay in the first round as I walk behind the bench to get warm. I glance over and see Gary get up, too.

It seems like the crowd cheers every step I take, every whack of my rope against the warm-up mat. Evergreen cheers Gary just as crazily.

I reverse the rope a time or two and our fans yell and stomp as though I were scoring points. Some Evergreen fans jeer and call me a hot dog.

I do a few pushups and stretch my groin. Bridging from my back to my neck, I see a Channel 4 camera guy shooting videotape of me. He shoots me while I look upside down. He's balding and he reminds me of Lemon Pie. And Lemon Pie reminds me that in about seven minutes my life will be back to normal. I'll study during the day and work at night. I'll develop a new routine and maybe make some new friends and enlarge my world a little.

Williamson lets his man escape just at the buzzer and loses by a point.

“Shit to the thirteenth, man!” shouts Balldozer as I walk out to the mats.

“Banzai, man! Banzai!” yells the Big Konig. “May you live a thousand years!”

I hear everything, as I always do.

Kuch yelps and yips and screams, “Munch 'im up, Swain! Munch 'im up!”

“It's dinnertime!” yells Otto. “Eat 'im, eat 'im, eat 'im, eat 'im!” All the guys chime in.

From the bleachers Leeland and Joretta and Sharon and Rosalie wave clenched fists. Tanneran screams unintelligibly. Dad claps and Cindy chants, “WIN . . . WIN . . .” along with the cheerleaders. Mom looks worried. Arney claps along with the chant. Carla smiles and shines and doesn't make a sound.

I'm calm as I enter the circle. Behind me trails a brief tradition. It's made up, but it's mine. Win or lose, the river flows again.

Shute and I cross and shake hands. The whistle blows. Through me flows the power to blast Grand Coulee Dam to smithereens.