The Crossing Point

by August Arrea

  So when Coach Mercer put the challenge out to see which of the boys had the chutzpah to be the first to step up to the mat and forcibly grab their spot on the team, Jacob knew it was his do or die moment.

  “Right here.”

  The coach, with a pair of cheap spectacles that he never seemed to use perched on top his head, looked up from the clipboard on which he was busily scribbling notes. When he saw the volunteer was Jacob, he let out an exasperated sigh as if he were the bouncer at some club Jacob had been tirelessly attempting to gain entrance to with a slew of phony IDs. Lowering his clipboard, he beckoned Jacob forward with two fingers.

  “Look son, I appreciate your spirit, but unless I hear from your doctor—”

  Before the coach could finish, Jacob fished the crumpled note from Dr. Gilkey from inside his pocket. The coach gave the note a quick read before turning a skeptical look back onto the boy.

  “The number’s there in case you want to verify,” said Jacob without pause.

  The coach continued to study Jacob’s face for any sign of willful deception given away by a tell-tale blink of an eye, but Jacob didn’t so much as let an eyelash flutter.

  “Alright, Parrish, choose your partner,” said the coach finally.

  Jacob’s mouth widened with a grin of victory. Only now came the hard part. Spinning around, he faced the bleachers. The first face he saw belonged to Ty, who proceeded to signal as subtly as he could with a hand across the throat for Jacob not choose him. Jacob quickly looked past Ty, as well as the other boys, toward the center of the grouping where he found his target. All heads turned in the direction of where Jacob’s finger eventually pointed and a noticeable hush descended on the gym when everyone saw it was aimed straight at Yul Dane. No one was more taken aback than Yul himself.

  “You’re actually calling me out?” questioned Yul with a chuckle of disbelief, until he saw from the serious look fixed on Jacob’s face that it was no joke.

  “No offense, Parrish, but maybe you better get yourself checked out again by your doctor. Only this time have him examine that head of yours because you’re obviously not thinking too clearly,” said Yul, rousing some snickering from the other boys.

  Even Coach Mercer, who had always enjoyed watching an underdog go up against a bigger fish, seemed to have reservations about what was shaping up to be a face-off between a modern-day David and Goliath.

  “I admire your spunk, Parrish, but I think you might want to reconsider your choice here and pick someone from your own weight class,” he advised. “I mean, no sense risking getting hurt your first time back on the mat.”

  “Better listen to coach, Parrish,” Yul’s voice came from the bleachers. “I thought you were looking to make it back on the team, not embarrass yourself in front of everybody.”

  Jacob refused to budge. “If I thought there was any chance for that, I certainly wouldn’t have picked you now, would I have, Yul?”

  There was a hushed groan of doom from the other boys and the pompous smile spread wide on Yul’s face slowly faded. Never had anyone even entertained the thought of challenging the burly jock unless they had a suicide pact. And no one certainly dared to call him by his real name. To everyone at school, he was known as Dane. Period. To call him by any other name, especially his given name, of which he hated, was to ensure a personal and painful correction.

  Yul stood up, his muscles already flexed and fists clenched. His menacing gaze locked on Jacob, he began pushing heads and bodies aside to clear a path for himself as he made his way down the bleachers, the wooden slats groaning and cracking under his weight. He sauntered up to Jacob until only a hairline of daylight separated their bodies. Jacob refused to shrink in the shadow of his rival’s threatening size that noticeably eclipsed his own or look away from the squinted glare locked on him. There was a brooding sullenness that had settled in Jacob’s eyes, absent of fear and offering a glint of the anger that had been simmering ever since the death of his mother darkened his once happy-go-lucky personality.

  “Alright boys, keep it clean,” Coach Mercer instructed after directing the two teens to the blue rubber mat spread out across the gymnasium floor. Yet even he couldn’t hide the same sick excitement he shared with the other boys who watched from the sidelines in growing anticipation for what promised to be a pay-per-view-caliber event.

  The two boys took their neutral positions facing one another at the center of the mat.

  “When you go home crying, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you,” taunted Yul.

  ~~~

  It wasn’t that Jacob thought he had a clear-cut victory in going up against Yul. In fact, it was just the opposite. Dr. Gilkey’s note may have given him a pass to try out, but it in no way secured him a spot on the team. For that, Jacob knew he had one chance in which to demonstrate to the coach in no uncertain terms he still had the makings of being a winner, despite the time-out his condition had briefly forced upon him. And, in Jacob’s head, there was only one way in which he would be able to do that; and that was by calling out the biggest and strongest wrestler on the team to go up against.

  If, however, Jacob entertained any notion he had a chance of coming out victorious in this match-up, he soon found himself second-guessing his bright idea once the two were grappling on the mat. It was there Jacob got an up-close introduction of just how strong a brute Yul was. Not to say Jacob didn’t show off more than a few impressive moments. Sure, he was smaller and couldn’t bench a small moving van the same way Yul could, but he was also wiry and quick as a cockroach caught in the light. Wrestling with Jacob was like wrestling with a greased pig at the fair, and more than once did he manage to slither his way out Yul’s frustrated attempts to pin his opponent. One such time, Yul maneuvered his way in to bring Jacob down on the mat with a double leg takedown. Yet before Yul could secure a pin Jacob was able to rotate his body out from under Yul and, with remarkable swiftness, swung himself up and around the muscled beast hovering over him.

  “How the heck did you do that?” Yul huffed with temporary bafflement in suddenly finding himself in the grip of a half nelson that had somehow been slipped on him like a hangman’s noose.

  The shouting from the bleachers grew louder eliciting a mighty groan from Yul as he fought for freedom. No way would he be taken down like this. Not this quickly. And certainly not by Jacob Parrish. He reached behind his head and grabbed hold of the hand clamped down on his neck. As he struggled to pry the arm away, he sidled forward working a knee up under himself until he was able to swing his hips around into a sitting position. Then with a loud feverish cry of exertion Yul pushed off with all the strength his legs could muster knocking Jacob off balance and sending the two of them backward onto the mat where he quickly regained his freedom.

  “Not as easy as you thought, huh?” Jacob huffed heavily as the two boys quickly got to their feet and again faced one another.

  Yet Jacob knew better than to pump himself up too much with a false sense of inflated ego. Yul was a good wrestler. He was also a dirty wrestler, especially when he was angry, and it was pretty clear he was simmering at this point.

  Yul lifted the bottom of his damp shirt to wipe away the sweat that dripped from his face. His cocky smirk had long disappeared and he shot looks of annoyance toward the bleachers where the cheers seemed to gradually grow louder in favor of Jacob. Again the two boys circled, and again they clashed. Hands clinched necks, and the sides of their faces pressed against each other as they struggled against one another like sumo wrestlers. Yul suddenly lowered himself while snaking his arm around Jacob’s neck and lifted the boy up off the ground like a firefighter carrying a victim out of a burning building. With a huge grim stretched across his face, Yul began to pirouette around the mat in showboat fashion bringing a wave of laughter from the other boys. Around and around he twirled, spinning himself to the center of the mat. Then, in a move more suitable for a cage match, he knowingly and purposefully body-slammed Jacob against the floor with his brawny weight b
ehind it.

  Jacob gasped from the flash of pain that detonated itself from somewhere in vicinity of the center of his spine. If that wasn’t enough, a deliberate and dirty jab of Yul’s fist to the solar plexus sent a burning flash of pain to explode in Jacob’s chest. If Jacob had cried out in pain, he didn’t hear it; the ringing in his ears was too loud, though not loud enough to drown out the chirping of Coach Mercer’s whistle which was frantically being blown.

  “You know better than to pull dirty stunts like that, Dane,” the coach barked. “Hit the showers!”

  Jacob managed to catch enough of a breath to voice a loud and defiant “No!” As in no way was he going to win on a technicality of dirty play. With sweat now pouring out of him and his face blazing red like a beet, Jacob struggled with all his might to keep Yul from his goal of pinning his back flat to the floor. Eyes squeezed tight, Jacob could feel every muscle in his body being straining to the breaking point. He could feel the veins in his neck popping out from beneath his skin sending more pressure to his head until he was sure it would explode and splatter his brains across the mat.

  “Ready to say uncle?” taunted Yul like an older bully of a brother tormenting his younger, weaker sibling.

  “In your dreams,” Jacob hissed back.

  Somehow he managed to slither his way onto his belly, but he gained little except maybe time before Yul inevitably would manage to wrangle him back over and claim his victory with a deflating pinning to the floor. Panting heavily as though he’d just collapsed at the finish line of a 15-mile marathon, Jacob struggled to catch his breath. His strength was spent, his arms felt like limp noodles attached to his body. There was nothing worse than the feeling of imminent defeat, especially at the hands of this meathead jock; nothing, that is, until Jacob managed to look up and spy the faces of the other boys watching from the bleachers witnessing his defeat, including Ty.

  Perhaps that was all it took—seeing such looks of pity fixed on him—that Jacob came to feel a second breath collect itself inside him. Whatever it was, he found to his surprise the floor suddenly dropping out from beneath him when he gave a last desperate push to lift himself up off it. Only it wasn’t the floor that fell away but himself rising up in the air. And in that open space, Jacob found himself rolling his way out from underneath the body crushing him from above and somehow maneuvering his way in a twisting motion and positioning himself on top the dumbfounded jock before riding him like a cowboy saddled to a bucking bull back down hard onto the floor which reared back up to meet them where he quickly pinned his noticeably stunned opponent. It was a moment that appeared lightning-quick to everyone watching but played out in surreal slowness in Jacob’s eyes.

  If there was any cheering of his victory that followed, Jacob didn’t hear it. He was far too stunned to notice anything except the heap of muscle lying defeated on the mat beneath him. He had won—he had actually won. It was how he won, however, that left him baffled, and like everyone else who had witnessed the great taking down of Yul Dane, Jacob could only stand there looking like he’d taken a hit to the side of the head with a brick and wonder to himself, What the heck just happened?

  “What in the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was that, Parrish?” barked Coach Mercer, looking like a man in need of the glasses sitting on top his head.

  “I…I don’t know,” stammered Jacob. “I was just trying to win.”

  “Well, thanks to that stunt, you did.” The coach sounded as angry as he looked. Until he smiled, that is. “You also made the team. Good job!”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they finally did Jacob was filled with a warm sense of elation. Looking down at Yul, who still had a cloudy haze over what had just happened alighting his eyes, Jacob extended his hand to the beaten jock both in a gesture of good sportsmanship and to help him to his feet. Yul wanted neither.

  “Keep away from me, Parrish!” he barked while angrily slapping away the hand held out for him to take.

  He slowly pulled himself up, his hulking body swaying unsteadily back and forth. There was a dazed look in his eyes. And an unmistakable contempt.

  “What the hell kind of freak are you?” hissed Yul while giving Jacob a look as though he was infected with some plague-like disease.

  The charge stung. And yet, as Jacob watched the jock retreat to the bleachers to lick his wounds, it was a question that rang out over and over inside his head.

  What kind of freak are you?

  ~~~

  The question repeated itself inside Jacob’s head long after the wresting tryouts ended and the other boys disappeared into the locker room. Alone in the darkened gym, Jacob circled the now vacant blue mat while replaying the match between Yul and himself in his mind, revisiting each move. Moment by moment.

  Stepping inside the gold-colored circle in the center of the mat, he stared down into the sea of blue envisioning himself sprawled out on his belly struggling with all his might against Yul’s attempt to twist him over onto his back like a crocodile hunter grappling with an uncooperative swamp beast. The smell of dried sweat and rubber met Jacob as he sank to his knees and positioned himself face-down in the exact same spot on the mat. A lingering burn in the muscles in his arms served as a reminder of the exertion he spent trying to escape Yul’s strong, vice-like grasp as Jacob placed his hands palms down against the mat just outside his chest to mirror the moment playing out inside his head when gravity somehow reached down, grabbed hold of him and pulled him—and Yul—off the floor.

  How had he managed to pull off such an acrobatic feat? Jacob questioned himself for the umpteenth time. There wasn’t even a name for such a wrestling move because, as far as Jacob knew, such a wrestling move didn’t even exist. All he could remember was an intense need to get out from underneath the crushing weight of muscle pressing down on him from above. And so he did what had to be done then; he pressed his hands firmly against the mat and pushed off with all his might. The floor left him, but only for a split second, and then just by only a foot or two before his body fell flat against the mat with a sounding splat. Again he attempted to recreate the winning move that had stunned all who had seen it, not least of all himself, and again he failed. Over and over he tried, accomplishing nothing but repeated reps of what appeared to be a spastic demonstration of a most awkward concept of an extreme pushup until a mixture of fatigue and frustration caused him to falter before the laws of physics drove him face-first into the mat. A familiar metallic taste was quick to greet his tongue. Sitting up, Jacob brought his fingers to his bottom lip to reveal the stain of blood which he wiped away on his shorts.

  “You really are a freak, aren’t you, Parrish?” Jacob muttered to himself.

  “You’re trying too hard,” a voice suddenly echoed from somewhere behind him.

  Thinking he was alone in the now vacant gym, Jacob was startled at first. He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder toward the wall of bleachers behind him. Scanning the seats, he didn’t see anybody, at first.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  Then, under the dim lights, he caught sight of the lone shadowy figure of a man near the top. He was stretched out casually, lying on his back across one of the wooden slats, eyes closed with one leg crossing the other and hands folded on top his chest looking as though he were enjoying a nice afternoon of sunning himself in the park.

  “You’re focusing all your energy on the muscles in your limbs, when the problem you’re having rests solely in your mind. It’s not yet in sync with what the rest of your body already knows,” continued the man.

  Jacob’s first instinct was to not engage the stranger, but he couldn’t help himself. “And just what exactly is it the rest of my body knows that my mind doesn’t?” he asked.

  “My guess would be not so much in how you managed to take down someone like Yul Dane, but the manner in which you did. That is why I find you here, is it not, beating your head against a rock, so to speak, trying to make some semblance of sense in how it�
��s possible for you to sometimes not be constrained by the laws of motion that govern other boys your age? Therein lies the disconnect between mind and body, and why you now find yourself frustrated and struggling to try and replicate the movements you managed to perform earlier without so much as a thought,” said the man. “But fret not, most boys like you find it to be a bit awkward at first, even those who grow up with the knowledge of knowing from which tree they’ve sprouted. All you are in need of is some training, from the right teachers, to mend the disconnect you’re feeling.”

  The words coming from the man’s mouth met Jacob’s ears like some indecipherable riddle. Not only was he nowhere closer to understanding this “disconnect” of which the man spoke, but talk of training and sprouting from trees only complicated the confusion. And what exactly did the man mean by “most boys like you?”

  “Alright then...thanks a lot for the tip,” said Jacob with a friendly nod of the head and half a smile thinking better than to engage the man any further.

  Most likely some crazy street person who found his way into the gymnasium to make use of the bleachers to sleep off the alcoholic haze brought on from whatever cheap bottle of booze he’d managed to save up for from a morning of panhandling, Jacob thought to himself as he was about to start for the locker room.

  “No need to hurry off, Jacob,” the man called out after him. “I can assure you I’m quite sane. And quite sober. Though I guess I’ll have to rethink my choice of wardrobe if my fashion sense is giving off a transient vibe.”

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” asked Jacob at hearing his name while straining his eyes to get a better look at the figure lying supine on the bleachers.

  “From a distance, one could say,” said the man sitting himself upright and slowly getting to his feet. “But I guess I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself, haven’t I?”

  Jacob kept a fixed eye on the man who proceeded to make his way down the bleachers, slowly emerging from the shadows with each step and into the reach of the few lights left on inside the gymnasium. When the man’s face finally came into view, Jacob could see right away he did not recognize the stranger, and yet there was something strangely familiar about him.