2
On Saturday, just before six a.m., our team boarded the bus and departed from school.
Kepplemen was driving.
The sky was still black, the bus warm.
Pilchard sat at the front, behind Coach.
Atop his lap there lay a large baking tin; it was an apple crisp his mother had made, tightly covered in Saran wrap and foil, to be eaten after weigh-ins, and its just-out-of-the-oven aroma drove us mad.
We woke in a parking lot on school grounds, outside a complex of buildings.
The sky, rimmed by dawn, was blue-whale blue.
Kepplemen led us inside the nearest structure, past the cavernous gymnasium, downstairs into an even darker locker room—a vast space.
Other teams had gathered here.
There was a crush of competitors.
We heard the showers running and a skipping rope’s wet whip.
A long line had formed, leading toward a carpeted office, its interior lit.
The queue snaked toward a tall scale with an oval face, where a pair of coaches stood holding clipboards.
The moment we entered, we disrobed again.
The host team’s coach took our name and school and weight class as we stepped on the scale.
Back in the parking lot, the sky was shot through with sunlight now.
It was so bright on the horizon we covered our eyes.
The wind was fierce, the day freezing.
The Ferren bus had just arrived.
Oren, first to exit, upnodded to me; I signaled surreptitiously back as we headed in opposite directions.
We boarded our bus and went straight to McDonald’s.
The gassiness of the egg and bread in that first bite, all of it gone before I could say McMuffin .
The hash browns’ crunch and then the salty oil seeping from the mashed mouthful.
Soon we were shambling back to the bus.
Our stomachs stretched our warm-ups’ waistbands.
Pilchard, first on board, was again seated behind Kepplemen.
He had resisted breaking into his apple crisp.
If you tried to touch the tin he’d have snapped at your hand.
When we returned to the campus we took our gear this time.
In the gym, a block of bleachers had a sign above it that read Boyd Prep , and we piled our bags here.
Pilchard, seated dead center, finally removed the foil to his food and was greeted by a puff of steam.
He’d brought a box of plastic forks.
We passed these around while we let him have the first few bites and then set upon the food from every side and angle.
Pilchard looked like Dr.Octopus, with so many arms bristling from his shoulders and back and each acting independently.
But now it all was too much, now we’d done it.
We were landed fish, worm-bellied and air-engorged.
We were in so much pain the only solution was sleep.
We smushed our gear bags into pillows, some of the seniors having known to bring pillows. Kepplemen said, “I have to go to the seeding meeting.” Still, he couldn’t help it:
he paused to smile at us before departing. His love for us was palpable. He looked like he wanted to kiss us each good night.
We buttoned or zipped up our jackets to the tops of our collars; we covered our heads with our hoodies or pulled our stocking hats over our eyes. And we slept the sleep of the shipwrecked, safely ashore.
We woke.
We sat up.
We blinked at the brightness.
The gymnasium was larger in size than the one at Boyd, with high windows running its length on both sides.
Our eyes were visored from the sunshine filling these by the multiple state championship pennants in every sport hanging from the ceiling wires.
What gave the space its grandeur was, first, the mats, four of them arrayed atop the hardwood, with walking lanes in between each, a pair of foldout chairs for coaches and assistant coaches on points north and south of their circumference—a gladiatorial pit, then, given our bleacher’s elevation, with giant Roman numerals fashioned of athletic tape, denoting each and adding to the effect.
In front of these, the scoring tables, atop which sat timers and air horns and scoring charts in red and green and flipped to zero, the rolled towels taped at both ends to throw at the ref to signal each period’s conclusion.
The PA came on with a deafening buzz; it was as if lightning were attempting speech.
A voice said, “Matches will begin at nine a.m.” We were a half hour from start time, and just now, as if having been introduced, as a sort of preamble, the referees were arriving in their official outfits but still wearing jackets over their striped tops.
The event’s scale was now apparent, eight teams in attendance, their managers wandering the floor, talking to officials, to coaches.
These were girls predominantly, although Cliffnotes was acting as ours today since he wasn’t starting.
I spotted Oren, also managing, who spotted me.
I waved him over, and he broke away so we could steal a moment to chat, although he did this furtively, guiltily; he kept checking over his shoulder as he approached.
So far as his teammates were concerned, he explained, I was a rival instead of a brother and was to be treated with extreme prejudice.
“They don’t think we should be talking,” he said, sadly, before he departed.
And then pointing to the gym’s far end, as if to provide guidance: “Seeding charts are up.”
Here, one of the managers was taping the posters of each weight class’s brackets to the wall, a mass of wrestlers forming a crescent before her.
Kepplemen appeared, along with the other coaches, at the far entrance.
He looked anxious as he joined us, as we surveyed our first-round opponents.
I’d drawn the top seed, Vince Voelker, a senior from Dalton.
I’d seen him wrestle in the weight class above mine in our dual meet a few weeks ago.
He was fearsome enough at 19—he’d destroyed my teammate Frank Swain, pinning him in the first period—but had sucked down to 11 for today’s tournament.
He would go on to win league and state later that year.
Still, looking back, what I first recall was sensing Kepplemen behind me.
He already knew my opponent but seemed to be suffering its grim reality with me.
“Can I beat him?” I asked.
Something about the question made Kepplemen smile, made his eyes twinkle.
“We’ll see,” he said.
From that point until our match, I remember being aware of exactly where Voelker was in the gym.
I had to maintain the maximum distance possible between us while keeping him in sight.
Because I hadn’t yet learned the rhythm to these tournaments, I conflated the still-reigning quiet that pervaded the space with my dread, how it shrank the gymnasium as we ran through team stretches and warm-ups.
How we counted out our reps as if we were performing them in a library.
Over the PA, the announcer said, “Matches will begin in five minutes…” and then assigned the competitors to their respective mats.
I was on highest alert, and what is so clear to me now is how diametrically opposite these anticipatory minutes were to when I was acting.
They electrified me, because the outcome was not predetermined.
In spite of how outclassed I knew I was, I sensed there was also some measure of control in the result that, unbeknownst to me, hearkened back to that dreadful moment days after the fire, hiding beneath Neal’s bed, when my father’s face appeared on the floor, when he turned away and his hand reached for me, when I kicked and fought him off until he took hold of my collar and dragged me forth.
I was overmatched then; since winning against Voelker was just as improbable, it would mean something bigger than I could comprehend to win now.
Every second the contest was forestalled was a suffering.
I knew victory would require a remarkable performance.
Those of us in the lighter classes were out of our seats, we were pacing and hopping.
We found our way to the warm-up areas behind the basketball hoops where we stretched and shadow wrestled.
By now the matches had begun, and to deflect my nervousness, I invested all my attention in them.
I eavesdropped on the upperclassmen lying on the mats’ edges discussing the competitors’ technique.
Santoro joined Kepplemen as assistant coach; Captains Adler and Dolph manned the other mats when they were occupied.
They were all top seeds and in heavier weight classes.
In comparison to us, they seemed like titans.
Soon enough, when my name was called over the PA, Kepplemen found me as I walked the lane to Mat III.
From there he led me by the elbow.
He whispered some last-minute coaching advice I did not hear.
I kept my eye on Voelker as we approached, already awaiting me at the mat’s center, hopping from foot to foot and shaking the tension from his massive arms.
I noticed certain uncanny morphological similarities we shared.
We were wild-haired, square-bodied, large-handed boys.
Two years hence, when I filled out, I’d share Voelker’s solid base, a fullback’s quads that stretched my singlet’s elastic enough it left an imprint on my legs.
I too would become an attacking wrestler, offensive-minded and emulating his relentlessness, albeit with important differences, but no matter now.
It is one of the unique aspects of the sport: You can not only absorb another wrestler’s style by physical contact but also feel the competitor you wish to become.
You are changed by how he moves you.
We fastened our anklets, shook hands, and then the ref blew his whistle.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of wrestlers.
The first might best be described as multilingual—fluent, that is, in a wide range of attacks, counters, and escapes.
Wrestlers such as these are kinesthetically creative and tend to be great athletes.
They roll like the best jazz musicians play: inventively, improvisationally.
Quicksilver runs through their veins.
They appear to eschew strategy, flow with the go, but there is method in their fluidity: they are chasing beauty, something close to a dance, the purpose of which is to create a chain of movements so ironclad for their opponents it is a form of inevitability.
They are often late bloomers but more formidable in their maturity.
They bristle with weapons; they are expert in all.
I aspired to this style but didn’t know it at the time.
The second type builds his entire strategy around an unstoppable move.
These wrestlers are blitzkriegers, tsunamists.
Their modus operandi is avalanche, overwhelm.
Like tornadoes, they elicit the desire to take shelter or run.
There is a seeming simplicity to their games, but this is a mistake: an incredibly complex set of operations is required to direct you into their wheelhouse.
They are most dangerous at a match’s outset.
Their efficiency is nasty, brutish, and often produces contests that are short.
To immovable objects they bring unstoppable force.
Given the choice, they’d finish off their opponent in ten seconds and happily call it a day.
This was how Voelker wrestled.
He took you down with a brutal ankle pick or foot sweep, flattened you out, and then chased what’s called a double arm-bar series.
You should picture it thus: Imagine you’re lying facedown on a mat.
Place your wrists against your lower back, like you’re about to be cuffed.
Next retract your shoulders, so that your arms stick up to form what look like dorsal fins.
Now imagine someone lying perpendicularly atop your back with his arms threaded through the two triangles yours have formed.
With his interlocked hands, he is driving this single fist into your spine.
Properly applied, a double arm bar touches your elbows together, so that your shoulders stretch until you think they might be torn from your torso.
Pinning you from here is a simple matter of leverage and torque.
Your opponent walks in a circle around your head.
This action flips you onto your back.
If he meets resistance going in one direction, he spins counterclockwise and walks around your head in the other.
The pivot point is your face.
The only counter to this is to not let your opponent collect both your arms.
I spent the next three periods trying to post my free hand and far leg to stop the orbit Voelker tried to walk around my head with a single arm bar.
This required an enormous amount of energy, redlining my aerobic capacity from go.
Less than a minute into the match, I was gassed.
This effort also abraded the skin from my cheek and, when Voelker reversed course, buffed it from the other.
Picture a drill bit boring into wood, the curlicue shavings worming from the deepening hole: on a microdermic level, this was what was happening to my face.
Intertwined thus, Voelker and I sidewinded out of bounds, after which the ref broke his clinch and directed us back to the mat’s center.
I took the down position on my hands and knees, Voelker placing one hand on my elbow, the other on my belly.
The ref blew his whistle to restart us.
And once again I was flattened out, my near arm immediately resecured in his bar, the fight ensuing for my free wrist, me doing everything I could to resist his rotation while he tried to secure it.
I felt regressed to some desperate, pre-upright state, my entire will directed toward the effort to stand, tripoding, like some determined and evolving creature, against Voelker’s pressure, to briefly achieve footing—which I did—only to be slammed to the mat again.
My face broke my fall.
And yet I refused to succumb.
Whether this was born out of a sense of injustice at my seeding or a newfound determination to wage a losing battle—to draw out this experience so early in what I’d hoped would be a much longer, more successful day—I mustered the entirety of my resoluteness and resisted.
Whatever fury I’d accessed tapped adrenal reserves, and like the boy who lifts the burning car from his unconscious brother’s body, I fought off the attack; and if I found myself on my back, I bridged using my neck and feet to keep at least one scapula off the mat with Hulk-like strength.
This may still be the single most concentrated effort I have ever expended to prevent something from happening in my entire life.
At the start of the second period, there was a coin toss, which I won.
I chose the top position, and the ref indicated Voelker take bottom; I placed my palm to Voelker’s elbow, my other to his iron stomach, which expanded and contracted with his breathing.
There was the uncanny sense that, in spite of the fact we were the same weight, he seemed double my size.
The ref blew his whistle, and for several seconds I experienced what it must be like to be dragged by a bull or a horse, or, more accurately, I suffered that first blind panic as you make your maiden attempt at waterskiing, which for nearly everyone ends with a mouthful of lake and the tow rope being ripped from your hands.
And then Voelker was on my back again.
He pinned me at the very end of the third period, with three seconds left in the match.
I remember when Voelker rolled away from me.
Before getting up, before joining the ref at the mat’s center to have his arm raised, he remained there, on one knee, his other hand pressed to his bent leg and shoulders heaving, waiting until I sat up and faced him.
When I did, he considered me with an expression at once exasperated and appreciative, narrowing his eyes with a guarded affection.
Then, to acknowledge the effort I’d cost him, he shook his head in annoyance, and honored me with a quick laugh.
Which was the first time all season I felt something like victory.
Then I went to find somewhere private to cry.
—
By the time I got myself together, the tournament’s first round had concluded.
“Competition will resume at ten thirty,” the PA said.
In the lull between rounds, wrestlers from different schools drifted and then intermingled and socialized on the four mats. It was a sort of reprieve, a pause in the battle;
it was like the soccer games I’d read were played in no-man’s-land during World War I.
It was also a chance to ask other wrestlers to walk you through a technique or to discuss counters against the combinations they had thwarted you with earlier.
To try out new moves.
To get close to some of the league’s ascendant gods.
To study, without fear, the cables of their neck tendons and the size of their hands; to inventory their birthmarks and pimples and scars, which was a way of making them seem mortal.
Some consciously cultivated distance; some were friendlier than others.
Some shared key details that unlocked mysteries.
But there were a few who distinguished themselves, in spite of their approachability, by something they could not communicate, that went beyond their physical vocabulary, the moves they so perfectly executed themselves.
It was contained within them, held in abeyance during this break, secreted away in some area of their brains, a kinesthesia dormant but instantly accessible, emerging only when they competed and approaching the ineffable.
It was in the way that Poly Prep’s Carmelo, a 148-pounder, stood facing his opponent, bent at his hips, his palms to his knees, not merely waiting but almost inviting an attack as he calculated his combinations of counters in the milliseconds before reacting.
It was revealed in Voelker’s juggernaut determination, from any position, to secure his opponent’s arms.
It was evident when James Polk, mid-entanglement, would almost professorially pause to consider the pretzeled state in which he and his opponent found themselves deadlocked, to spy a new opening and release them from their Gordian knot, but to his advantage.
It was, in short, their style, fully realized, expressed as control of the moment, of their lives, which I, forced to play parts I did not seek, emulated.
This seemed an utterly daunting enterprise and also one entirely worthy of aspiring to.
It would take years of sacrifice to achieve; it might never be expressed; it guaranteed failures; and I might finally emerge victorious if I succeeded at it—might finally break free.
But like Voelker’s laugh at our match’s conclusion—the tiny recognition that he too had once mustered all his power to stave off defeat—it waved to me, secretly, intimately, fraternally, as Oren did occasionally, across the gym’s span.
Upon my arrival at such proficiency, it promised what I wanted most, which was to dictate my own destiny, no matter who the opponent standing before me was, and amid all the tumult, it felt like an assurance from the future, a half whisper that said, Keep going.
Later that afternoon, I won my first wrestling match.
Because of my first-round loss, I participated in the consolation rounds—a mini-tournament that was essentially a battle for third place. These matches were contested in the lull before dinner and the tournament finals that evening.
Before my opponent—he was from Horace Mann—even stepped onto the mat, his coach spoke into his charge’s ear insistently, almost grimly.
He registered these instructions without expression, nodding occasionally but not facing his coach, sizing me up, perhaps, although he did this with the same impassivity he considered the last-minute input.
Our ref, whom I recognized from several of our dual meets, was tall, broad-bellied.
His thick hair was combed in a pompadour; his glasses were square-framed and secured behind his ear by a band of black elastic.
He’d signaled I’d been pinned at least three times this month.
My opponent approached me, but his coach took his elbow again and, as if he’d forgotten something crucial, spoke some more.
The ref waved him on with such firm impatience it was clear that further delay would lead to disqualification.
My opponent walked on the mat as if it were made of the thinnest ice; the ref handed him his anklet, and as he secured its Velcro, I took my last opportunity to study him, searching for any clue as to what sort of combatant he might be, how strong he was—some hint, some key, that would unlock his secret weakness.
We shook hands, took our ready positions.
His grip was light, his palms moist.
He fixed his gaze up and over my shoulder; his eyes caught the sunset’s light, as if he were awaiting a revelation.
The ref blew his whistle.
And then, before we even began to hand fight, my opponent fell to his back and seized up, snapping taut in what appeared to be a full-body cramp.
His coach, who was now on his knees by his charge’s ear, confirmed that my opponent was unable to continue, and after helping him to sit up; after his assistant coach secured a banana and some Gatorade, fed him a bite of the former and made him drink a few sips of the latter; after he helped him limp off the mat, I was declared the winner by default, my arm raised in victory.
With the exception of Kepplemen and Santoro, who was assistant coaching, no one in the entire gymnasium—not even Oren—noticed the result.
The consolation round finals wouldn’t take place for another half hour. My match’s brevity, however, made it possible to scout my possible opponents, since they were competing on the adjacent mat. It became obvious that third place and its medal ran through Peter Goldburn.
He was a senior at Ferren, Oren’s school, and he was overwhelming his opponent, just now bringing the match to a conclusion with a violent throw that he followed up with a quick pin.
I spotted Oren in the bleachers. He caught my eye, and his expression was dire.
What struck me about Goldburn was not his physique, which was as Apollonian an expression of anatomy as any of the athletes in the tournament possessed, but rather the force and command of his moves, his blazing transitions through these combinations, which made me feel both slow and small. Shaken, I consulted the bracket sheets taped to the gymnasium’s wall and saw he’d lost to Voelker 4– in the semis, the pair of points separating them like the span between subway platforms: a leap that was possible to contemplate but unlikely to be completed. Still, I wanted to win—to win would be to medal—and in the half hour before the match I consulted the experts.
Our team captains were seated in the bleachers, watching these contests as a triumvirate while automatically eating the remainder of Pilchard’s apple crisp.
There remained in the giant, flimsy pan only a third of the food left, its aluminum buckling and deformed.
It was positioned on the bench so that each captain had equal access to it: Pat Santoro seated to its left, Roy Adler to its right, and Brian Dolph above.
“He goes for throws from standing,” Santoro said, anticipating my question. “He’s going to tie you up at the start, you’re going to have to fight off his underhooks, or else he’ll try to hip toss you or hit a Pancake from a Whizzer.”
“He also likes a Super Duck to take you down,” said Adler. “Then if you stand-up escape, he’ll Suplex you.”
“Ferren guys love that Greco-Roman shit,” said Dolph.
“I thought a Suplex was illegal,” I said.
“It is if you take the guy straight over your head,” said Santoro. “Not if you take him over your shoulder.”
“They’re assholes like that,” said Dolph, “it’s all about scoring amplitude and showing off. But here’s the thing. He gasses easily. Make him work.”
Santoro nodded. “His wind is shit.”
“Make him earn every fucking inch he takes,” said Adler.
“Like you did against Voelker.”
“You watched my match against Voelker?”
“Don’t play to his strength.”
“Put him on the defensive. Initiate, don’t defend.”
“Shoot your double or single leg.”
“Because he’ll kill you if you go upper body.”
“And only hit that switch of yours from the down position.”
“Because if you try a stand-up escape—”
“He’ll Suplex you.”
There was a long silence during which all three chewed ruminatively. The last matches before the consolation finals were going on.
These were the heavier weights, the future offensive linemen and rugby players, the Little Johns and Ajaxes, the Men among Boys.
Their contact generated shockwaves; their bodies hit the mats like fluke slaps. Our three captains watched them as a unit. Their eyes were all drawn to the same sequences.
When one of the competitors pulled an exceptional move they said “Nice” or “Slick” or whistled in appreciation.
Or they made mid-match predictions with the disinterestedness of oracles: “He’s going to sell a Snap Down and then hit an ankle pick,” or “He’s going to crab ride this guy into a Stack.” And then, just seconds later, he would.