by Terry Davis
Gene catches me. He’s making me drink water. It’s easy, because I’m thirsty as hell.
“You’re all right, man,” Gene says. “You’re just dehydrated.”
“Victim of a fucked-up nitrogen balance,” I reply. “At least I hope that’s all, Gene. There’s no end to the terrible diseases people can get.” I’ve been reading Rare Diseases lately. It’s ghastly. Poe could have written it.
I feel a bit better. Things have changed a little since Gene wrestled in high school back in the middle sixties. I explain to him how I’ve got to have a doctor’s permission to drop down to 147. I have my appointment next Tuesday, the day after Christmas. The appointment’s in the morning; then we wrestle Lewis and Clark in the afternoon. If I’m much over fifty, I doubt the old doctor will let me go down. We have to wrestle eight matches at the weight we’ll wrestle in the state tournament. Outside of those eight, we can wrestle in any class above the one we start the season in. But if we want to drop down a class, then we have to have a doctor’s permission. I wrestled my first match this season at sixty-five; then I dropped to fifty-four. I’ll wrestle at fifty-four against Lewis and Clark Tuesday afternoon, then once or maybe twice more in the Custer-Battleground meet in Missoula next Friday and Saturday. Then Shute at 147 on the day after New Year’s.
Coach is back, stuffing yellow salt tablets down me.
“Salt,” he says.
“Sodium depletion,” I reply.
“You’re crazy,” Coach says. “Shute’ll take you apart if you ruin your health going down too fast.”
“My doctor’s appointment’s Tuesday,” I say.
“You’ll be all right if you stay about fifty, fifty-one. Take salt. Don’t start dehydrating. And don’t screw so much, for Chrissake!” Then Coach pounds me on the chest, knocking the wind out of me, and clicks off down the hall.
I feel a lot better after I get my breath. I’m hungry. I remember I haven’t mentioned Carla. Coach just gave me a good opportunity. I’m a little weak yet, but I think fast.
“God,” I moan. “A guy can deny himself only just so many needs of the flesh. I’m not sure willpower would do it, anyway. I think all this weight loss has given me priapism. The problem may be pathological, Gene.”
“Priapism?” Gene says. I can see him thinking, Priapism? Priapism? What the fuck is priapism? Gene knows a lot of stuff, but sometimes I can catch him.
“A disease of constant hard-on,” I explain. “I’ll bet Coach wouldn’t tell Carla to slack off. She’d gouge his eyes, invert his navel.” I’m getting in pretty good spirits.
“Carla!” Gene exclaims quietly. “I thought you and she didn’t get along. What happened to the black dude?”
Tower used to take Carla to the Spokes’ games. About half the time Gene didn’t know the snap, he’d be scouting the bleachers so intently for beaver. He used to love to dive for sideline tackles so he could roll under the bleachers and look up skirts.
“Gene, kind of a sad thing happened to that relationship. One day last August this black girl walked into Tower’s apartment and began to shout at Carla how she is his old lady come from New York and that Carla had best get her little red-haired ass out of there in a big hurry. Carla knows just what to do if people are leering at her, but she doesn’t react well at all to threats of physical violence. Carla grabbed on to Tower and this girl started pulling her off. Tower got between them and told Carla she’d better split. So Carla did. She doesn’t talk about it much. Elmo’s the one who told me. Carla and I get along pretty well now.”
“I’ll be damned,” Gene says.
“Listen,” I say. “How would you like to meet one of Carla’s friends? She’s better-looking than Carla—a little flashier. Her chromosomes are probably restructured, but she’s a nice girl.”
“What’s her name?” Gene asks.
“Belle,” I reply.
Gene nods. I’m sure he’s seen her around. Everybody knows cheerleaders.
X
We’re circled up on the mat and Coach is going over the scouting report for the Lewis and Clark match. L.C. is especially tough in the lower weights. Damon Thuringer, “Sausage Man,” our sophomore at 105, has a real tough one. He’s wrestling a Japanese kid named Kenuchi Mashamura. Mash is a senior who has taken the state championship at both 119 and 112. Early in the season a Spokesman Review article quoted him as saying he was beginning to think seriously about college wrestling, so he thought he’d train real hard this season and drop down to a weight where he could be more competitive. He was sincere. He’s a very humble guy. He’s also a monster, a real teratoid. He looks about thirty years old with his giant little body and his furry eyebrows and cauliflower ears even more grotesque than mine. Of course, Mash is undefeated.
Sausage is a baby-faced, flute-playing, downy-haired hobbit. Carla thinks he’s the cutest thing in the world and is always after me to stop scaring his little brother. Sausage’s record is four and four. He is well-conditioned and fierce to a fault, but I hope he’s made peace with himself. Coach has made him captain for the meet. That’ll help a little. It always give the guy a psychological boost. The whole school knows who the captain is because Coach announces it over the intercom at the beginning of the week. Kids encourage him in the halls, call him “Captain” and stuff. And when he leads us out on the mat and circles us up for our warm-ups, people ooh and aah and yell heartening sentiments because they know what a tough match the guy must have if he’s captain.
As we’re circled here on the mat listening to Coach go over the scouting report, Otto and I plot to harass the Sausage Man.
Coach is saying he’s glad Kuch and I got our wrestle-off for Shute out of the way a few days early, so now we can get down to thinking about the immediate future. We could have waited until next week, but we were too nervous and wanted to get it done. I’m glad we did. Before, I was worried about Kuch and Shute. Now I’m just worried about Shute. Both Kuch and I still officially have to wrestle off with our number-two men to see who wrestles L.C. But we’ve been beating them all season.
While Coach explains that Kuch’s man likes to work a fireman’s carry right to a fast pin, Otto and I sneak around the circle to Sausage, who peers out from beneath a pile of wool blankets. He has some trouble making weight. He’s down from 125 as a cross-country man. He spends slack time doing pushups and situps in his rubber sweat suit under his bunch of wool blankets. You’ll come off the mat after a drill and off in a corner will be a boy-sized green heap with gold trim pumping furiously up and down. We often wonder aloud about the true nature of these movements. It’s reported that his girl is denying Sausage his strokes and that Sausage has taken to throbbing his cob more frequently than may be healthy.
Otto sneaks one way and I sneak the other. Coach is talking about Romaine Lewis, L.C.’s man at fifty-four. Coach looks around for me. I stop my stealthy crawl and pop up behind Kenny Schmoozler, our man at 133. Carla thinks Schmoozler’s name is awfully cute. She says that with a name like that, Schmoozler should be a little animal. I assure her that he is.
“Lewis will take you down, you let yourself get weak!” Coach yells.
“I feel great, Coach.” I gleam. “That Romaine Lettuce is a doper. He won’t take me down. I’ll dance, sing, dice him, slice him. I’ll counsel him on the dangers of snorting hair straightener. His internal environment is polluted. Lettuce won’t take me down.”
Coach covers his eyes. He knows when the team is feeling right.
“Did you eat?” he growls.
“I ate, I ate. Two carob bars and a can of Nutrament,” I reply. “Lean and mean, Coach! Lean and mean!” I chant.
Otto snorts like a wild pig. “Lean and mean, lean and mean!” He’s worked his way around to Sausage and kicks him through his blankets.
“Lean and mean! Lean and mean!” the Sausage Man pipes.
Now all of us are rooting around the mats on all fours, bumping into each other, grunting like frenzied swine, chanting, “Lean and mean! Lean an
d mean!”
Coach lets us go for about a minute, then continues with the scouting report. We stop. We’ve got to conserve. There’s a tough practice ahead.
Otto and I sit with our arms resting on Thuringer. He peeks his head out at Otto, then leers at me. “Don’t fuck with me,” the Sausage Man warns.
“Damon,” I say. “Damon, my boy. Otto and I have only come to congratulate you on your captaincy.”
“Bite ass, Swain,” Sausage says. “Just bite ass.”
Otto is offended by this unfriendliness. He tweaks Sausage’s nose and pushes his head under the blankets.
“Sausage Man,” Otto coos. “We know what you do under your blankies. No more hacking your lizard in the privacy of your little nest. Self-abuse saps your strength, Sausage. Take heed: thou shalt not pump thy pepperoni.”
“You fuckers better not hurt my lip. I haven’t got my mouthpiece,” Sausage informs us. Being a good flute player, Sausage really has to take care of his lip.
“Your mouthpiece is in a safe place, Damon,” I reply.
The Sausage Man groans from beneath his blankets. He knows where that safe place is. Every chance I get I stuff his mouthpiece down my jock. He’s usually more careful with it. He must be worried about his match. He left it on the windowsill.
Coach is demonstrating to Jean-Pierre Baldosier, our number-one man at 185, how his L.C. man likes to stack people up with a double chicken wing. We call him “Balldozer” half out of fun and respect for the way he munches people and about half because we can’t pronounce his name right.
Coach’s arms are hooked deeply under Jean-Pierre’s armpits, and Coach has driven him forward on the mat so that his neck has bent underneath him and he is now “stacked up” on his shoulders, his feet waving in the air. Coach asks if Balldozer understands the move. Balldozer can’t breathe, let alone speak, and he tries to communicate that idea with gasps and grunts. Coach thinks he’s requesting further demonstration, so he reefs some more on the double chicken wing. Balldozer is pinned. His scapulae rest on the mat. His nose is buried in his hairy chest. Coach cinches up good on his chicken wing, scrunching Jean-Pierre even further into the shape of an upside-down question mark, and asks again if he understands. Taking advantage of Coach’s inattention, Otto flops down on Sausage, who is mashed from lump to patty. He squeals unintelligibly. Otto watches attentively as Balldozer’s head turns purple and blue, while I reach under the blankets and pull off Sausage’s shoes and socks.
Coach is finished with Balldozer, who gasps and nods that he understands about the double-chicken-wing-stackup series.
Coach waives comment on Otto’s L.C. man in favor of some brief predictions about the damage the Montana heavyweights are likely to do him when we travel there next Friday. Coach isn’t kidding. Those cowpokers really can be mean.
“Cowboys and miners!” Otto giggles, trembling in mock fear.
Behind him I stuff two sweat socks in Thuringer’s mouth, being careful not to damage his lip. Then I begin to tie his head between his knees with his shoelaces. I finish just as Coach does, and we all jump up to begin exercises. All except the Sausage Man. We quickly heave him deep in his favorite corner and cover him up good.
We’re in our warm-up lines and Coach opens his mouth to scream the first exercise at us when a light but persistent knocking sounds at the door.
Coach screams at the knocking and the door opens hesitantly, revealing red curls. It’s Carla.
Coach points at me and points at the door. Coach knows of my semimarital state. Carla babysits Coach’s kids sometimes. I trot over. Behind me Coach screams, “On your backs! Neck drill!”
I hear the flops and grunts and straining as the guys bridge on their necks, navels ceilingward, hands pounding bellies. The chanting starts, a steady “ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh” in time with the pounding hands. A simple tribal song, the sound of clean lungs. I close the door on this familiar rumbling and see that Carla is worried.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I heard you fainted in class,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“Okay,” I say. “Just a little light-headed.”
“You should have let me know you were all right,” Carla says sternly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think that someone might tell you,” I reply. “I’m sorry—really!” I repeat, going close to kiss her.
Carla’s worry has changed to mild pissed-offness. We kiss and part. She sniffs. She moves close again and sniffs my sweat clothes. She wilts, swoons. I lean her against the wall.
“That smell is not human.” She gasps, rubbing her eyes and wrinkling her nose.
Carla pinches the cloth of my sweatshirt delicately, as though she were examining the texture of a turd. The salt crystals crinkle lightly beneath her fingertips. “Ouhhh!” she says with a grimace. “Don’t you ever wash this stuff?” This is Carla’s first trip up to the wrestling room. She must be skipping her child development class.
“Of course not,” I reply indignantly. “You wash practice sweats before the season starts and that’s it,” I explain. “Each time you put them on you’re reminded of all the fat you sweated out the day before. You can feel it. Besides, the smell deadens your mucous membranes, reducing the occurrence of bloody nose. Much healthier than cocaine.”
My good spirits persist in spite of my light-headedness, maybe even aided by the condition. But Carla isn’t having any of my jive.
“Does everyone do it that way?” she asks, cringing away.
“Not everyone,” I reply. “Mostly just Otto and Kuch and Schmoozler and me—we’re the seasoned veterans.”
“Jesus,” Carla retorts. “You should be seasoned. You should be pickled from wearing this stuff.”
The team is past pushups and into sits now. “Stick your head in and take a whiff,” I encourage her.
She does. “Glaaah!” She retches, slamming the door. “It’s like ammonia. You can feel it in the air. Eyccch!” She shimmies and hops, wiping her nose on her pinafore. “It’s on me!” she shrieks.
I laugh.
“I’ll pick you up at a quarter after,” Carla says, starting down the stairs.
I lean down after her and pooch my lips out for a kiss. “Glaaah!” She shudders and flees.
Behind me I hear the team running in place, the tiny rapid steps, the chant going strong. I’ll miss the wrestling room, stuck up here in the rafters of the gym. I’ll miss climbing the stairs, throwing Kuch’s headgear out the window at basketball players, hiding Sausage’s mouthpiece in my jock. I’ll miss the air, so full of sweat it stings. The walls dripping with it. Coach keeps the wrestling room at eighty degrees. We’ve got mats wall to wall and five feet up the sides so nobody gets smashed into the concrete. Now that the team is so big we have to do our drills in shifts. Coach won’t cut anybody. Every guy who comes to practice gets to be on the team. If he’s the best he gets to wrestle number one varsity. If he’s second best he gets to wrestle number two varsity or number one junior varsity. If he’s third best he gets to wrestle number one JV or number two JV. It depends on how tough the matches are and how bad the team needs to win. Coach remembers when he had to go through the halls grabbing guys, asking them if they wanted to turn out for the wrestling team. After we won the state championship last year, the PTA wanted to build us a new wrestling room. Otto and Schmooz and Kuch and I had to threaten to move to Moses Lake before they’d leave us alone.
I slip through the door and find myself some moving room. Soon I’m lost in the thunder.
* * *
We’re about to begin our wrestle-offs. Coach walks to a corner of the wrestling room to watch. Coach never referees the wrestle-offs or participates in any way. Guys who aren’t wrestling at the time do all the refereeing. We all know Coach has his favorites among us, but it’s not Coach’s opinion that determines the first team. In wrestling, unlike football or basketball, there’s none of this crap about how good so-and-so looked in practice. If a wrestler beats everybody in his weig
ht class, he’s number one. That’s all there is to it. In wrestle-offs Coach roots for nobody. Coach walks to a corner and takes a seat on a pile of green-and-gold blankets. I look across the room at Otto, whose big face contorts into giggles. We’re about to have a diversion.
Coach sits down and his face immediately goes quizzical. He bends his head between his legs and lifts the blankets a bit to check the source of the tremors he feels. Coach finds he is sitting on the Sausage Man.
Untied, Sausage leaps up and down and spits all over. He has this tendency to spit when he gets excited. He’s like a lawn sprinkler when he plays his flute. If you’re in the audience you’ve either got to stand way back or wear a raincoat. I doubt the problem is pathological.
Sausage pulls his headgear on sideways and gets his nose stuck in an ear hole. He rips it off and flings it at Otto, who convulses in the center of the mat. “Fucking lardass Lafte!” the Sausage spits.
I pull his mouthpiece out of my jock and toss it to him gently.
“Fucking Swain!” he slavers. “You muscle-bound dog turd!”
Sausage spits lint and chunks of sweat sock. He pops the wretched mouthpiece into his mouth. We all laugh. Coach, too. It’s ten minutes before we can get the wrestle-offs started.
* * *
Practice is over. I sit on the shower floor, turning pink under the hottest spray I can endure. We’ve got the drains plugged with towels and the water is about six inches deep. Visibility is about a foot through the steam. The effect is strange. You hear shouts and splashing, but you seldom see anybody, except when they come up to use your shower and fall over you or when they go sliding by in a seal race.
