Wrestling Sturbridge (3 page)

I’ve got ten minutes. We’ve been at it for more than an hour, and there’s at least that much to go, and you can bet this is the only break he’s gonna give us.

So far it’s been okay. We’ve been going one-on-one for about twenty minutes, and of course I’m matched with Al. He’s only pinned me twice, but he’s been in control most of the way.

My shoulder’s all right; it only hurts when Al’s got leverage and I’m trying to stay off my back. He knows it hurts, and he’s got every right to exploit that. He hasn’t pinned me because of the pain, just because he’s stronger.

There’s a frantic kind of energy because we know how good we can be this year. We’re solid at every weight class except heavyweight, and there’s competition two or three deep for every spot except Al’s and Digit’s and Hatcher’s. Maybe Al will have some competition.

Hatcher is over by the window, getting some air, and he sees me leaning here by the water fountain. “Getting your ass kicked?” he wants to know, and I shrug and say, “Yeah, but not entirely.” He comes over and I get another drink.

He asks me how I’m doing, how many times I got pinned, and if I managed to score any points. I tell him, but I’m staring at the wall and getting my head together while I’m talking, thinking about maybe cutting weight.

There are about eight freshmen sprawled on the floor about ten feet away from us in the hall. Coach goes extra tough on
freshmen, especially in the first couple of weeks, so you can’t stay with this program unless you really, really want to.

“Get up, girls,” Hatcher says to them, and they all get up in a pretty big hurry because you don’t screw around with a wrestling star in this town. You just don’t.

Hatcher gets one of them in a headlock, a little kid with big ears and kind of a bowl haircut. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Tom Austin,” the kid says, smiling like he’s thinking maybe Hatcher’s just being friendly.

“No. It’s not. Not this season,” Hatcher says. “It’s Susan.” He lets the kid go. There’s a fat kid standing there looking dumb and scared in a purple T-shirt, and Hatcher grabs one of his nipples and starts twisting. The kid jerks back, but Hatcher holds tight and laughs. When he lets go, the kid looks around at the other freshmen, mostly just embarrassed. “You’ll be Claudia,” Hatcher says.

Hatcher heads back for the gym and I start to follow. I turn to Tommy Austin, who I know from church and because our mothers are friends. He gives me a raised-eyebrows look because he’s a tough enough kid and senses that this is part of the game.

“Hatcher was Eleanor for the first month of the season when we were freshmen,” I tell him. The fat kid is holding his nipple, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to make it. “I was Princess.”

The kid smiles a little.

We get back to the gym and the coach splits me and Al up so we can work with younger guys. We’re working on
takedowns, and I’ve got fat Claudia in my group. He’s soft, like he’s never wrestled before, so it’s like wrestling one of those blow-up punching bags with a Bozo face or something. Then we do leg lifts and very slow push-ups and other painful exercises for about a half hour, and hit the showers. A lot of guys look just about dead.

I reach into my locker and wipe my face on a T-shirt, sitting there in a jockstrap and still breathing extra. Al is six feet away, telling some of the new guys that you have to hate your opponent, you have to crush him or he’ll do the same to you. You never let up, he says, and he’s right, but he’s looking hard at me and I don’t feel like looking back. I take a bottle of shampoo from the shelf in my locker and strip off the jock, then pick up my towel and head for the shower.

There’s a wall of steam coming from the shower area, and about twenty-seven guys are crammed in there under the ten showerheads. Hatcher’s facing the shower in the corner, so his butt is toward me. Hatcher’s almost square, he’s so muscular, and the almost crewcut exaggerates his Marine look. Al isn’t so much muscular as angular, with just the right balance and flexibility.

Hatcher’s got his eyes closed, so I reach over and turn off the hot water and turn up the cold. He jumps and laughs and tells me I suck, then he grabs a freshman and holds him under the cold water. I duck under another shower and get my hair wet. Hatcher gets bored with the freshman, takes a piss on the wall, and walks out into the locker room.

I get back to my locker and Coach is sitting there on the bench, talking to Al. He turns to me and points, but keeps
talking to Al. “This is the reason nobody’ll beat you this year,” he says. “Benny is the best workout partner you could get.”

I give him a tight smile, and he swings his legs over the bench so they’re on my side. He’s about thirty-five and paunchy. He wrestled down at East Stroudsburg State and works out with the upper-weight guys now. He leans in like he’s about to confide something to me, taking his lower lip between his teeth and squinting some.

“You’ll get your matches,” he says. “Al and Hatch will need some work against heavier guys, so they’ll shift up a weight sometimes and you’ll handle 135.”

“Let him wrestle JV,” says Al, who’s been listening the whole time, drying his frizzy hair with a towel. “Seniors on other teams do it all the time.”

“No way,” he says. “No seniors go JV in this school. You know that.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” I say. I was 16–0 JV last winter and won a holiday tournament, but I’m not looking for consolation this year. I look at Al, then at the coach, then I turn my head to my locker. They’re both full of shit if they think I’m going to accept being a backup. I want to be state champion just as much as Al does.

There’s a party tonight, mostly because of the end of football season, but any excuse for a party will do around here. I think I’m up for it. We all get dried and dressed and pile into Al’s car—me and Hatcher and Digit and Al. I keep telling myself that I’ve won forty-two high school matches and lost only five (even though it’s mostly been JV), and you
never know who might get hurt. The coach has me listed second on the depth chart at 135 and 140, and if I really dry out, I might still have a shot at Digit down at 130. Something has to give. I’m not going to watch these guys have all the fun.