Wrestling Sturbridge (15 page)

That’s what it says on the stone above Giles Greene (Nov 9 1823–Aug 14 1892). I’m reading it while Kim tightens her shoe. She’s got on black running tights and a light-blue sweatshirt with the hood down. And big gray mittens. It’s the first day above freezing in at least a month. There’s been hardly any snow this winter, so the ground is firm and bare.

She stands up and starts running again. Most of my friends won’t run in the cemetery because of some general dread of death. I think it’s the most peaceful place in town, a great place to work out or just walk through and think. It’s in the wooded hills on the far side of the river, with blue spruce and hemlocks and some giant white pines.

We run on dirt paths between the graves, surrounded by names of families that died out a century ago—Penwarden, Farnham, Tibbetts—and names of families I see every day—Tryon, Kimble, McFarland.

Last night me and Kim and Digit just hung out on Main Street after the match, talking about little things, like TV shows or where we might get jobs this summer. And the whole time my mind was trying to figure out how to do it, how to beat Al in the wrestle-off. And I went to sleep last night
knowing I would do it, and I woke up this morning knowing that I wouldn’t.

We curve around past an old family plot with a low metal fence—just foot-high posts with a railing—and run uphill toward the Civil War area. There’s a ring of gravestones there, maybe two dozen. Sometimes in the summer we’d take Pabst Blue Ribbon from Al’s refrigerator and sit among those stones at night, looking up at the stars. Those were always good times; we’d never get rowdy in the cemetery. We’d just sit there and talk about our fathers, why we love them and why we hate them. Why we’d do anything in our power to avoid being like them, and somehow knowing that we already are.

Kim stops to read one of the stones. “ ‘John Baker, Co. C,’ ” she says. “Company C, I guess …”

She bends over to look at another, and I’m taken by the view of her slender thighs under spandex. “This one was a corporal,” she says. “ ‘Jas. Northcott.’ ”

There’s lichen on all these stones; some are cracked and chipped. We head down the hill, not saying much, just taking it in, the peace.

She runs faster down the gentle slope, opening her stride and moving away from me. I can never run that gracefully, that effortlessly. Even sprinting now she looks so smooth, like a doe pulling away from me, or a dancer, her dark hair bouncing on her shoulders.

She circles back to me after a minute, panting but smiling. “Sorry,” she says. “I just felt so good. I had to take off.”

“No problem,” I say, falling back in step with her. “You look strong.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” she says. “I love to run fast. Just to let everything go. I can’t wait to start racing this spring.”

We keep running, sticking to the older section, making half-mile loops on the paths. The newer section is flatter and less wooded, less interesting. I found my grandfather’s stone in there last summer: my father’s father. He died when I was little and nobody ever took me to the grave. It says he fell asleep in the arms of Jesus, but that isn’t the way I heard it.

My mother says she never saw the guy without a drink in his hand. I guess that’s an exaggeration, but I see her point.

Kim drives a little harder up a hill, but jogs in place at the top to wait for me. “I love it in here,” she says quietly, almost at a whisper. “I feel so connected with the past. It makes me feel so alive.”

At the bottom of the slope she stops to look at another stone, a big one. “This guy was a doctor,” she says. “ ‘Samuel E. and Lucretia B. Dunning. Died 1877, 1881.’ ” She drops to her knees and looks at a smaller stone behind it, squinting to read the faded words. “ ‘Our Charlie. June 21 1862-January 3 1863.’ … Oh.… That’s so sad.”

She stands and takes a step toward me, still staring at the little stone. She slowly brushes her hair back from her forehead. I resist an urge to put my arm around her, to hold her. I look up at the sun, then back at the stone, then over at Kim, who walks toward another marker. And I’m struck by the simplest of thoughts: how real Kim is. Real to me, I mean. Not like the images I’ve had in my head of other women; of Jody, the Mobil girl, of girls I’d watch in school or on the street, or even of Kim up to this point. Suddenly, the fantasies
are over. For the first time in my life I don’t need them just now. Because she’s real and she’s here and I can deal with it.

The sun goes behind a cloud, and I walk over to Kim, who’s studying a marker from 1844. Another simple thought; this one I say out loud: “This seems like a good place to be a hundred years from now, don’t you think? Nothing really left but some lines etched in stone.”

Kim looks up at me, just gazing at my face. “Makes you think,” she says softly, “about what has to come first.” I put my hand on top of her head and tap her gently with my fingers. She leans forward slightly and rests her forehead on my chest. And I don’t say what I’m feeling, because it seems premature, but I let out my breath and rest my chin on her head and let my arms drop down around her shoulders.

We stand there like that for a couple of minutes, silent. The workout is over. Kim raises her head. We walk back toward town, toward the future.

Wednesday. I wrestle Al this afternoon. Winner goes to the districts, the other guy goes home. I meet Kim at lunch and we walk down to the Main Street Deli. There are some booths there, so we get sandwiches and sit down. I stare at my chicken salad on a hard roll with lettuce and tomato, and she says I better eat or I’ll be weak later.

I take a deep breath and one bite.

“That’s how I felt before the states in cross-country,” she says. “I couldn’t eat; I didn’t sleep the night before.” She makes me look up at her. “I came in a hundred and forty-sixth.”

I pick up a chunk of the chicken from my plate and eat it. There’s a pretty big crowd at the counter now, so it’s a good thing we got here early. Mostly kids from school, a couple of lawyers, some secretaries.

“You wanna know why I punched that minister?”

She raises her eyebrows a little, nods. So I tell her.

Me and my father were coaching a team in this Sunday afternoon, little-kid soccer program. Our church put it on, but anybody could play. We had a team in the first- and second-grade league. Reverend Fletcher was one of the other coaches. Four teams, you play everybody else twice. The idea was to have fun and learn something. No standings or statistics. Purely instructional. Everybody plays an equal amount and everybody rotates positions.

So we’re 1–2–1 after four weeks, and we’re going against Fletcher’s team, which is 4–0 and has clobbered everybody. He
took all the best players for his team when he made up the rosters. Plus he knows the game—played in high school and all. No big deal, right? It’s just for fun.

Anyway, after three quarters we’re actually ahead, 3–2. We’ve got eight on each team, but it’s a small field and you only play five at a time. Our best kids have already played two quarters, and so have his. So we send our subs back in.

He’s got his guys huddled up on the sidelines. They’re only about ten yards away from us, and we hear him telling these kids that if they don’t win, then nobody goes to The Fun Zone afterward. Then he sends his best players back onto the field. They score four more goals and we never even get the ball past midfield.

Now, it isn’t that we lost. The kids aren’t even upset about it, they just love to play. All the kids shake hands, and he comes over to us to do the same. He takes my hand, and I say something like “That wasn’t exactly fair to our guys.” He keeps hold of my hand and frowns, then grips it a little tighter. I’m not smiling when I ask, “Does it really mean that much to you?”

“Don’t be a poor loser, Ben,” he says, and I tell him to screw himself. He shoves me away from him, and my father steps forward and sticks an arm between us. The Reverend is standing there kind of defiantly, holding his ground, and a couple of parents who’d been watching are inching their way over.

I hold my ground, too, and I tell him he’s one hell of an example for these kids. “Darn right I am,” he says. And then he calls me a pansy.

Now, I don’t think anybody’s actually used that as an insult in the past three or four decades, but I catch his intention. So I step forward again, right in his face (he’s about five inches taller than me, but you know what I mean).

“Step back, son,” he says.

I move about two inches closer. He shoves me with both hands, and I go at him swinging. It’s over in a second, but I hit him once in the gut and a real solid right to the mouth that draws blood. I don’t think he hit me at all.

My father and some other guys drag me away, but I shake loose and just walk toward the car. My father catches up and doesn’t say anything right away, just walks alongside me, looking back once or twice. When we get in the car, he sighs and grips the wheel and nods at me nonstop for about thirty seconds. He punches me gently on the arm—I’m still seething—and says, “Well, let’s get home.” He starts the car and we’re out of there, and he’s got a hint of a smile he’s trying to hide.

He’s never mentioned it again.

Kim’s got her arms folded kind of tight and she’s looking at me like she doesn’t quite get it. But she’s got that same hint of a smile that my father had, and I don’t think I’ve ruined her image of me.

“So,” she says. “Can you call back enough of that anger to help you this afternoon against Al?”

“I’m not sure I have any of that anger left,” I say. “But I don’t have to look too far to find more. I can get set off when I need to.”

“Why do you need to?” She’s unfolded her arms.

“I’m not sure that I do. But I still have plenty. Plenty of anger. Frustration.”

I reach my hand across the table and put it on top of hers. I squeeze her hand gently and look in her eyes, and she smiles kind of stoically.

“Why don’t you put all that anger in one little package and take it onto the mat with you today?” she says. “And use it all up, every ounce of it. Then, win or lose, walk away and move on.”

I withdraw my hand but not my eyes, and I smile and let out my breath. Then I start eating what’s left of my sandwich, and she puts her foot on top of mine under the table. I put down the sandwich, wipe my mouth on my sleeve, and go around to her side of the booth, where I sit right against her, put my arm around her—probably getting chicken salad that I just wiped off my mouth on her shirt—and kiss her really nice on the lips.

Now how am I gonna get angry again by this afternoon?