Wrestling Sturbridge (5 page)

The radio’s going and there are a lot of younger kids downtown—freshmen and sophomores mostly, hanging out in front of stores, wishing they had something to do. The biggest group is in front of the movie theater, which shut down about six years ago and has been vacant ever since. The cops will chase them away any minute now. There’s a place called The Fun Zone out at the strip mall next to Kmart, with pinball and video games, but it’s not cool to hang out there if you’re over twelve. They do have a couple of pool tables, though.

Nobody wants anything at McDonald’s. We go past the party house again, and Digit says, “You better let us out. I’ll get Al and drive him home.”

Digit and Marcie get out and I’m left with Kim. After a minute she asks, “Why is Al so important to you guys?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “We watch out for each other.”

I really don’t know why. “Maybe it’s because he’s got potential the rest of us don’t quite have, and we can’t bear to see it wasted,” I say. I start chewing on my lip, not really sure about this. Why should I care about Al? If he wastes his chance, it just opens the door for me.

Kim looks confused, too. “If he can’t control himself, why should you guys even try?”

“I don’t know. It’s sort of … nobody else is looking out for him. It’s just Al and his father at home, and his father is kind of lost. I think Al spends time looking out for him, instead of the other way around. And he’s not so out of control, really. He’s as dedicated as the rest of us.”

“Didn’t look that way tonight,” she says, but she seems amused rather than critical.

“We’ve been wrestling together since sixth grade, so we know where we stand with each other,” I say. “We all work hard, we all want to be the best we can, but Al’s got talents the rest of us can only think about. Great balance, unbelievable flexibility, and this ability to anticipate what the other guy’s going to do.”

Kim thinks about this a second, then gives me a half smile. “I’ve seen you wrestle, Ben,” she says. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

It’s 11:38 when we get back to Main Street (I had figured 11:36) and it’s dropped a degree to 41. Kim waves to a guy who’s standing under the clock with a bunch of his friends,
guys who graduated two years ago. “My neighbor,” she says to me. “Jess. You know him?”

“A little,” I answer. “Not much.”

“He’s smart,” she says. “I don’t know why he’s still hanging around Sturbridge.”

“This is where he lives,” I say. “He lives here.”

“He’s twenty.”

“I guess.” I’m not sure what she’s getting at. He shouldn’t live here because he’s twenty? I mean, I want to get out too, but it’s not so easy. “So where do you expect to be?” I say. “When you’re twenty.”

“Villanova, I hope. Or Stanford.”

“Oh.” I think she really means it. It makes sense. More sense than the rodeo. We don’t say anything for a few more blocks. Then Kim yawns and says she’d better get home, and I do still have to get gasoline. She lives over past the hospital, I’m not sure exactly where, but I turn toward the river in that direction.

“It’s the third one on the right,” she says when we get to Ridge Street, and I pull up there and she does a surprising thing. She slides up close to me and kisses me on the cheek, and I can’t see how I deserve that. “That’s for being such a nice guy,” she says. She looks at me like she wants to say something else, then finally she does. “Loosen up, okay?”

She says goodnight and gets out of the car, and I’m not sure if she means I should loosen up with her, or with Al, or what. I’ll have to think about it.

I watch her walk away, and I kind of shudder. She seems to
have me pretty well figured out, even if I haven’t got a clue myself.

There’s a Texaco at the corner by the light, but I think I can get it cheaper out on 6. So I head down Main Street one last time and drive out beyond the plant and the Kmart and McDonald’s.

She’s there, wearing a heavy gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and there’s only one other car at the pumps. But she’s at that car, and it’ll look pretty odd if I pull up behind her and wait. There’s a fuzzy older guy standing on the open side, and I know he’ll be filling my car if I pull over there. I consider driving up the road a mile or so and coming back when she’s free, but I’ve already turned into the station so I just say the hell with it and go to the other side.

I roll down the window and tell the guy to give me ten regular, and at least I have a good look at the girl. The other car is already pulling away, and if I’d been thirty seconds later I could be over there now, talking to her. She doesn’t look my way, standing there counting bills.

She steps over to the back of my car to talk to the older guy, who runs the place, and I can see her from mid-thigh up to neck level in my side-view mirror. Miraculously, the phone starts ringing inside the station, and the guy rushes over to get it. “He’s getting ten,” he yells to the girl, which means she’ll be completing the transaction. I get a surge of adrenaline, like when they call you onto the mat for a match.

She takes the pump out and hangs it up and screws the gas cap back in place. “Okay,” she says with a really sweet smile, and I hand her the ten. I can smell gasoline on her hands. She
takes the bills out of her pocket and folds the ten around the wad.

“How’s business tonight?” I say, surprising even myself.

She tilts her head and brushes some stray hair back into her hood. “Regular,” she says.

“Cold,” I say.

“Not too bad,” she says. “We’re outta here in ten minutes.”

“Yeah,” I say. I start the engine.

“ ’Night,” she says and turns to a guy in a pickup truck who’s pulled up on the other side. I wave to her.

I turn back onto 6 and turn up the volume on the radio, but I keep the window open and lean my elbow out. “Wooooo,” I say, pretty loud, feeling really good all of a sudden. Feeling pumped up. Thinking about Al.

Flexibility is one thing, balance is another, and strength and instinct are essential. But desire is something you can’t place a value on. Desire can overcome all those other things, can turn a sheep into a tiger. Loosen up, I tell myself. Want it. Want it more than he does.

I’m gonna kick his butt on Monday. And I’m gonna come back and talk to this girl again.

Sunday afternoons my father’s mother comes over for dinner and to watch “Pocono Polka” at six. She doesn’t have cable at her house.