Authors: T. Glen Coughlin
“Was it unanimous?”
“No, Diggy probably voted for himself and then you've got Bones and Gino.”
“Captain Jimmy O'Shea!” Pops's smile shines in the dark truck. “I like that.” He punches the headliner of the truck and dust falls like snow. It feels good to make his father smile. “Now all you have to do is win them all and you'll be on your way to the States.”
“Geez, Pops, you make it sound like there's nothing to it. I don't even have win number one under my belt.”
“Don't worry. You will.”
But Jimmy is worried. At his height, he can't pack on muscle and stay 160. Sometimes he feels too skinny, almost breakable. He'd like to explain to Pops that going undefeated again with every wrestler in his weight class gunning for him is going to be intense to the max. Bones called it “Mission-NOT possible.” Nick Masters did it, but he was a machine; the perfect height, the perfect weight, a natural.
Jimmy leans back, knowing explaining this to Pops is like trying to tell him to clean up his truck. All Pops knows is Jimmy went undefeated last year, until the States. That's all anyone remembers. Now the team, the school, even Greco expects him to do it again.
They cut through a new development of suburban homes, with three-car garages and brick mailboxes shaped like Egyptian pyramids. Pops slows the truck. “I put the roof on that monstrosity.”
Jimmy barely glances at the high-angled roof; instead he pictures a thick muscle-head wrestler waiting on the other side of the mat.
Pops speeds through an industrial park where the air smells like the inside of a new sneaker, then passes the faded sign for Bruney Town. Everyone in Molly Pitcher calls the square mile of identical aluminum-sided houses “Puny Town.” The O'Sheas' house is concealed behind overgrown hedges that block the sidewalk.
The house has five rooms, not counting the bathroom and the hall closet. His brother Ricky's bedroom doesn't have a window or a door. They call it “the alcove,” but his mother says it still counts as a room, that she “couldn't live in four rooms.” She tacked a carpet with camels, pyramids, and obelisks over the opening to give Ricky some privacy. He used to be into King Tut.
Oil stains shine in the street where Jimmy's mother's minivan is usually parked. Pops pulls in the driveway. “Give me a hand with some stuff in the truck.”
Jimmy jumps from the truck and heads for their house.
“Don't you dare,” yells Pops.
Jimmy whacks the front door open into the wall, sending his mother's framed Bruce Springsteen T-shirt crashing to the top of the television. He picks it up.
“Is it broken?” Ricky's face glows in the television's blue light. He's eating Cocoa Puffs from the box, one hand tapping on his laptop. He's nine, in the fourth grade, a cool little brother, smart and everything, but he stays in the house a lot.
“No.” Jimmy hangs it back on the nail.
Pops pushes the door open. “Thanks,” he says loudly.
“Don't thank me,” says Jimmy. “That's your mess.”
“Ricky, where's your mother?” asks Pops.
“I don't know.”
Pops puts his hands under Ricky's arms and snatches him off the couch like he's made of twisted pipe cleaners. Face to face, Pops says, “Think!”
Ricky's eyes are wide and white. “She didn't tell me.”
“Was she all painted with makeup?”
“Pops, stop.” Jimmy wants to grab him. “Please.”
Pops goes into his bedroom. Boots hit the wall and his mattress groans. Soon he'll be snoring. “That's the drink talking,” says Jimmy.
“I don't like when he picks me up. He's always picking me up. I think he does it to show me he's bigger than me.”
“Pretty soon you'll be too heavy. You'll give him a rupture.”
“What's a rupture?”
“That's when your balls hit the floor like a B-fifty-four, that's a rupture.” Jimmy messes his hair. “Did ya eat?”
Ricky shakes the cereal box.
“Come on. I'll make you something.” Jimmy finds a can of spaghetti and meatballs in the kitchen cupboard. He dumps the contents on a plate and sticks it in the microwave. After a minute, he smells the canned sauce. His stomach growls. He checks the refrigerator: pickles, applesauce, ketchup, an ancient-looking Tupperware of mashed potatoes.
On the bottom shelf is a strip of lutefisk. It looks like a slab of bloodless putrefied zombie meat. “I got it for nothing,” Pops had said, opening a wax paper package. “It's a Norwegian specialty. You cook it the right way and it's supposed to be delicious.” None of the O'Sheas were big fish eaters except their mother, Trish. She found a recipe online and boiled the white gunk. The house stunk like a cat died in a toilet. No one could eat it.
“Ricky, you want some lutefisk?” asks Jimmy.
Ricky grabs his throat as if he's choking.
Jimmy serves his brother a steaming plate of spaghetti. With a butter knife, he chisels a package of hot dogs from the freezer.
“Those are from the Ice Age,” says Ricky.
Jimmy melts the freezer frost in the microwave. He tries to read the nutritional chart on the package, but the gluey price tag makes it impossible. “How many calories are in a hot dog?”
Ricky shrugs. “All I know is if you eat a hot dog every day for a year, you'll die.”
“Who told you that?”
“Urban legend.” He smiles.
They eat under the round ceiling light. Headlights from the highway behind the house flash across the cabinets.
“You made it too hot,” says Ricky.
“Wait for it to cool.”
“Could you make some toast?”
“You make it,” says Jimmy.
Ricky doesn't move. “You still like Roxanne?”
“Yeah.”
“I like a girl and she doesn't like me.”
“That's because you're too young to like girls. You're supposed to be torturing them.”
“Like how?”
“I used to take their hats and run around the playground with them chasing me.”
Ricky laughs. “That's dumb. The girls in my class don't even wear hats.”
“You could invite her over to do homework,” says Jimmy.
“She lives in the new development. The one they built over the sunflower fields.”
Jimmy pictures the new development, with winding Belgian-block curbs and juiced-up houses that cost over a million each. “Meet her in the library then.”
Ricky bites on his pencil. “I guess I could.” He goes back to his social studies book, open on the table. “I don't see why I have to know this,” he says. “I mean the Magna Carta happened in twelve-fifteen.”
“You mean it happened right after lunch?” asks Jimmy, smiling.
“Yeah, funny, right. So funny I forgot to laugh.”
Jimmy finishes his hot dogs and pulls his chair next to his brother's.
“I have to write a full page, actually write it with a pen,” says Ricky. “The teacher won't let us print it off the computer.” Snores from the rear bedroom make them glance at each other. “I smelled weed from Ma's bedroom today,” says Ricky. “She was talking in her baby voice about taking us to Disney.” Ricky grunts. “Like we're ever going to go.”
Another long snore. Ricky shuts his eyes and starts in on his pencil again.
“Don't worry, Pops is passed out for the night,” says Jimmy.
Ricky shakes his head. “He could get up, right?”
A
BREEZE RUFFLES THE LEAVES ALONG THE CURB
. T
HE AIR IS CRISP
and cold. Jimmy shivers and raises his hoodie. Today at Greco's weigh-in, he was three over. Six-foot two. 163. He spits into the street. He once spit off a quarter pound. If only he could move up to 170. He'd be able to eat. Diggy could take 160, and Trevor would fit right into 152. But Jimmy could lose at 170. One weight class makes all the difference. At 160, Greco says Jimmy's height is an advantage. “You're lean, stripped, and ripped.” At 170, he's screwed.
He needs to play it safe. In ninth and tenth grade, his seasons were just above average. Then last season happened. On the mat, there was nothing except the next move, the strength he needed, the possibility of winning. In the battle, he spun, grabbed, twisted, cranked, and listened for the whistle. His father made protein powder concoctions in their blender, mixing skim milk, ice, bananas, and strawberries. And Jimmy grew stronger. His muscles popped like rolls in an oven.
He settles into a jog and tries to imagine his weight melting off his body. Coach Greco says wrestling is cerebral, physical, and strategic. The right weight makes the difference between winning and losing. Jimmy spits.
He jogs into Roxanne's development, named Washington's Crossing, then into her cul-de-sac. Brick towers rise on each side of the driveway, topped by brass carriage lamps with real flames. Her Volvo, square and expensive, reflects the moon.
Jimmy jogs around to the back of her house to a sweeping deck with redwood furniture. He calls her cell phone.
Roxanne lets him in through the kitchen slider. She wears baggy sweats, a soccer shirt with faded numbers, and slippers. She looks fresh from the shower. Her naturally curly hair is wet, almost straight. Roxanne is like one of those American Girl dolls Jimmy's seen in her room, except for a chipped front tooth that happened when she was mountain biking. Her parents want her to fix it, but she says she's keeping it as a souvenir.
The kitchen is as large as his entire house. Copper-bottomed pots hang from a rack above a granite-topped island.
“Who is that?” yells her father.
“Don't tell him I asked you to come over. Act like you just showed up, unexpectedly, okay?” she whispers.
“Am I talking to myself?” calls her father.
“Jimmy,” she says, answering him.
“Bring him in here.”
“My father doesn't like surprises,” she whispers.
Jimmy follows her into the den and faces a humungous flat-screen playing the news. Her father mutes the sound, then gets up off a leather couch. Her mother reclines in an easy chair, pen in hand. Her lap is covered with papers. She's an English teacher at the junior high. Ricky could have her in a couple of years.
“Jimmy,” he says, thrusting his hand forward.
“Hi, sir.” Mr. Sweetapple's hand is almost mushy. “Hello, Mrs. Sweetapple,” he says.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” She smiles. “I hope nothing's wrong?”
Jimmy glances at Roxanne. “I was running and figured I'd say ⦔
“You do realize this is a school night.” Mr. Sweetapple raises his bushy eyebrows.
“Yes.”
“Well, then let's not make it too late.” He sort of smiles.
Roxanne tugs him from the room, down the hall. “My parents, they're like my private Volturi,” she whispers. “They ask me what I'm doing, where I'm going. Why are you wearing that? Who's on the phone? What time are you coming home? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but they already know the answer.”
“Volturi?”
“From Twilight, the vampire coven.”
“Oh, right.” Jimmy only saw the movie. “Maybe they just really care.”
“That's what they both say. It's really annoying.”
She leads him into a wood-paneled room. The walls are coated with law books and framed degrees. “These are all your father's?” asks Jimmy.
“Yeah, he has a PhD in economics. Sometimes people call and ask for Dr. Sweetapple. It's totally weird.” She smiles.
“My father has his PhD in Post Hole Digging.”
She laughs, then shuts the door. The floor is covered with photos, pages of stickers, colored paper, and scissors arranged around a large album. “I'm into scrapbooking,” she says. “I'm doing our entire senior year.”
He is about to kneel and look, but she takes his arm. “No one sees it until it's done, that's my rule.” She puckers her lips and kisses him. She smells like strawberry shower gel. “It's not completely safe in here,” she breathes in his ear. “I'm not allowed to lock the door.”
They share a desk chair. He twists his body until she's half on his lap. Her laptop and schoolbooks are spread across the desk's glass top. “I heard you made captain. Are you going to get it sewn on your jacket?”
“I haven't thought about it.”
“You should. I mean, I wouldn't mind showing it off. I know a place that does embroidery. I could get it done and make it our one-month anniversary present.”
“Is it one month?”
“Next week.” She sprinkles his face with kisses, then gently kisses his mouth. “I guess I should get you something,” he says.
“Your jacket is enough.” Her cheeks are already red from his shaved face. His leg is falling asleep, but he doesn't care. He goes on kissing her, running his tongue across her chipped front tooth. Roxanne is so soft and delicious.