Wrestling Sturbridge (2 page)

She’s somebody I could probably write a song about.

My father sits awake most nights until one or two, not really waiting up for me. Just waiting, I guess.

“Go to the game?” he asks as I walk into the living room. He leans forward in his armchair, the tan one that almost matches the sofa they bought when they got married. He’s drinking a pint can of Schaefer, but he’s not drunk.

“Nah,” I say. “We just hung out. Too keyed up.”

“Well, tomorrow’s the day,” he says, knowing what I mean. He looks back at the TV—
Cheers
in syndication. “This is your year, Benny.”

It isn’t, but I nod and kind of suck in my lips. What he doesn’t know is that Hatcher isn’t at 145 anymore, and Al didn’t bulk up to 140, like we planned. So instead of a block of the four of us from 130 to 145, it’s only three, with me as the odd man out.

“Mom asleep?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

My father works hard—you can see it in his face. He’s lean, like me, but his eyes are tired and he ought to wash his hair more often. He just seems to have shrunk into his body sort of, like there was an extra layer of muscle under the skin that melted away and now the skin’s a little too loose. He never wrestled. Played baseball at Sturbridge twenty-five years ago, and still plays softball in a summer league and goes bowling once a week. Does a job once in a while at night, on the sly.

He leans back in his chair and looks at me with something
like pride, expecting, I guess, that he’ll soon have a reason to be proud of me. He doesn’t pressure me, ever. But I’ve seen the way he looks when I win, trying to contain his smile and not yelling much, even if it isn’t a varsity match. I know it’d make him the proudest guy in town if I was winning regularly.

Like lots of others in this town, my father envisions us as this solid, unbeatable block; four straight weight classes worth four pins in nearly every match. The kind of nucleus that wins championships. The fact that we’ve been friends for so long makes it that much sweeter. At least in theory.

Suddenly, there’s not as much room in that theory. Suddenly, I’m not really sure who I’ve been friends with. Can you be best friends with a group?

You have to realize that I’ve been wrestling against Al since junior high school, and I haven’t beaten him in three years. If he wasn’t such a borderline student, he could go anywhere he wants next year.

Then there’s Hatcher up at 140. A year ago I could probably take him, even giving away a lot of weight, but a year ago he was just a little better than average (third in the district) at 145. He’s dropped weight since then, went to two camps last summer (Trenton and Penn State), wrestled in all-comers tournaments, and improved two hundred percent. And if I could dry out to 130 (I just get weak as hell), Digit would kick my butt, too.

I sigh out of frustration, but turn it into a yawn. I’m not giving up on myself, and I’ll never quit trying. But if you look at this with any objectivity at all, then you know I’ve
got just about nowhere to go this season. “See you tomorrow, Dad,” I say, and head up the stairs.

My father yawns and pulls one foot up on the chair with him, and blinks a couple of times. “Go get ’em,” he says.

Those are the same words I heard him whisper last month when I went after the minister.