by Chris Lynch
And it crawled. I pulled it out. It crawled back up. I stretched the straps as far as possible to relieve some of the tension. They snapped back up. By the time I’d crossed the whole floor to where the team was assembled, they were all watching my crab-walking-cheek-squeezing-pick-the-thong-out-of-my-butt dance.
“Hey, man, synchronized swimming is down at the pool,” one guy called, bringing hoots of laughter. I sized him up as he smirked at me. He was a junior heavyweight, of course. Only his fat seemed to come with some muscles.
It was about evenly divided between guys who were there because they were real wrestlers and wanted to be on the school team and guys who were there just because, well, everybody’s got to be somewhere. My partner, the smart-mouth guy, was a wrestler wrestler.
“Okay, Bishop, Metzger, square off. Let’s see what we got now in junior heavy. It’s been pretty boring for poor ol’ Metz up till now.”
“How unfortunate,” I thought as I reluctantly approached the center of the mat. “My opponent has been bored, waiting for me. He’s had nobody his own size to pick on for three whole days.”
The other wrestlers gathered around the edges of the mat. Metzger stood across from me, two feet of very thin air separating us. He crouched, staring right into my eyes. I wished I was back in football. I crouched and could see my hands trembling on my knees. I thought about Frankie, for some reason. Wished he was here. Mikie too. I felt like I wanted to run. A feeling that came over me very infrequently. I couldn’t do that, I knew. So when Wolfe screeched the whistle, I blasted straight ahead.
I had no idea. All this time, and I never even knew. But now, pushed to the wall, I found out about myself, as many others in history have found their own hidden greatness, through adversity. I found my niche: I was a great wrestler.
With my initial burst, I drove Metzger backward. He was stunned by my aggressiveness. I pressed the attack, taking advantage of the situation the way all great strategists must. I blasted him again. He looked to the sidelines, stunned, for help. Too bad, Metz. I grabbed him. I twisted him. I bent him to my will.
“What the f—” he yelped.
Power like nothing else I’d ever known surged through my body. I wanted to wrestle, and I never wanted to stop wrestling.
So I didn’t. Metzger, beaten into cowardice, had his back to me by the time I caught him for the final destruction. I laughed out loud. Metzger gurgled in my grip.
I felt the footsteps pounding toward me from three sides. They’d be hoisting me to their shoulders any second. The messiah of the wrestling program.
There was a scream. “You can’t do that!”
I continued to squeeze Metzger’s windpipe.
Hands were all over me then. “You can’t do that!” There was that scream again.
I gouged the eye. I bit the top of his head.
“Cut that out. Stop it. Stop right now.” That was the coach. He joined three others in dragging me off, all pinning me down at once. Only then, looking into the coach’s soft black eyes, did I get it.
Apparently, I had the wrong kind of wrestling.
“I can’t?” I asked, when things had quieted down. I was back in the dressing kitchen, where Coach Wolfe was just now giving me the orientation he should have given me before.
“I can’t punch?”
He shook his head in disbelief. I was starting to get very familiar with this reaction around camp.
“I can’t kick? I can’t do the scissors, or the iron claw?”
He laughed. “I almost wish you could, Bishop. You’re bringing back some memories for me. But unfortunately no, this is a different kind of wrestling.”
“Well jeez, somebody could have told me,” I said, a little perturbed. Then I sank into a confidential whisper, as if what I told him next was a big secret. “Frankly, Coach, I’m not really a sports guy. I’m a TV guy. As far as I’m concerned, what I was doing was wrestling. I don’t know what the hell you people are doing.” I stared through a kitchen window, out to where the rest of the guys were practicing. “Look at that. One guy starts out on his hands and knees, and the other guy gets to jump on him. Does that seem fair to you?”
Coach walked up and slapped me on the back of the neck. It hurt like hell, but the look on his face indicated it was a friendly, sports-guys gesture, so I didn’t mind too much. With that kindly grip on my brain stem, he guided me back out to the floor. “Yes, actually it does, but you have to understand the game first. The real game. We’ll get you some coaching,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”
First order of business in my rehabilitation was apologizing to Metzger.
“Sorry, Metzger,” I mumbled, although the sight of him still sitting slumped, rubbing his chafed throat, gave me a little rush all over again.
“Ya,” he grunted. “Well, it didn’t hurt anyway, except when you were scratching.”
“I never scratched you.”
“Yes you did, blob.”
“Oh ya, I’ll do it again if you don’t watch—” I pulled to get out of Coach’s grip, but he held me with three fingers without even trying too hard.
“We’ll pair you up with somebody else for a while,” Coach Wolfe said.
The somebody else turned out to be Eugene the Giant. In the all-important nickname industry within juvenile athletics, Eugene was known as “Eugene No-Hygiene.” At first I thought, “How cruel.” Until I worked, closely, with the guy for a day. He’d earned that nickname. By the second day I was a better wrestler simply because Eugene offended me so much. Did he change that underwear between days one and two? Legitimate question. Did he use deodorant? Not even a question. He was tough to get a hold on because of the thick layer of oil that laminated his entire person, from the top of his gargantuan, matted head along the whitehead-peaked range of his face to his long reptilian arms and legs. His coating was thick and unbreakable, like the Skin-So-Soft my mother used to slather all over me to keep the mosquitoes away. But it didn’t smell like Skin-So-Soft. No, no it did not smell like Skin-So-Soft.
The very worst of it was I liked Eugene. He was a big, powerful, gentle mutant bear, and he went out of his way to try and teach me some of what he knew about the sport. Which was considerable.
He kept setting me up in all the positions, teaching me how to break the hold or to press the attack.
“Here, put your hand here, on my wrist,” he said as he planted himself four on the floor. “The other arm around my waist. This knee up, the other one down.” He spoke slowly, the same way he walked, his legs and his words both unfolding gradually but determinedly. I put the hold on him.
“Spread your legs wider,” he said.
“I am.”
“No, wider, your balance is no good.”
“I can’t. That’s it.”
“You have to. Stretch.”
“Eugene, my legs are already further apart than they’ve ever been before. I’m afraid they’re traumatized with the whole separation thing.”
Eugene’s hands were a lot quicker than his feet or his speech. When it was clear I would not improve my balance, his left hand stabbed out behind him, seized my lower leg, and pulled. The leg came out from under me, he pushed my upper body backward with his, and I found myself thunk on the floor. When I hit, Eugene hit with me, pinning me, his glistening broad back pressed hard against my chest. He still held the leg, and used it to lever me to the floor.
“Get your shoulders up,” he grunted. “Don’t let me pin your shoulders to the floor.” It was almost comical, but that’s just what he was like. Straining to do something to me, while at the same time trying to teach me to stop him from doing it.
I tried. I pushed with whatever strength I had, but Eugene had all the angle. He had spread his big frame out in all directions, getting both feet and one hand flat on the floor, so that in addition to his strength and weight, his balance made it like trying to lift a gigantic manhole cover off of me.
“I can’t, Eugene.”
“Then get
one shoulder up. Come on, Elvin,” he yelled. “Concentrate on nothing but the ball of that one shoulder, focus on it, that you will not let anybody get that shoulder down on the mat. You got one thing, one piece of ground to hold, and nobody’s gonna take it from you.”
He was so earnest, so intense, that I had to follow his directions. I heaved, filling my head with blood as I pushed. But I got it up there. A couple inches of space opened between the floor and my right shoulder.
“Good, Elvin, good. Excellent,” Eugene said, sounding truly excited for me. I was actually making him work. Unfortunately I was making him sweat as well. Warmed, he smelled like boiling cabbage. He pushed back, slammed me back down.
I wriggled, got the other shoulder up now.
“Great move,” he said. “You’re still alive. Stay alive. That’s the thing. As long as you get it up off the mat, you’re alive. And as long as you’re still alive... you never know. Anything can happen.”
I fed on that. It wasn’t winning, certainly, being ninety percent pinned, but there was a certain amount of victory in this, holding my ground, hanging in. I was determined that I would.
“Whew,” Eugene said suddenly. “What a stench. Was that you, Elvin?”
“No,” I squeezed through gritted teeth, trying to save my little remaining breath.
“Oh ya,” he said. “I forgot. It was me.”
I laughed first, and as soon as I did, all the strength ran out. I fell back and lay flattened, Eugene laughing and finishing off the pin with his shoulder blades.
“That wasn’t bad,” he said, standing over me. I still lay exhausted but satisfied and flat on my back. “I guess what we have to do with you is teach you in reverse. We start with you down for the count, try to get you unpinned, then off the mat, then maybe competitive. ...” He held his hand out to me.
“Let’s not get too ambitious,” I said.
He pulled me up off the floor and just as I reached upright position, my shoulder popped out of its socket. I wailed. Eugene checked it out, squeezed my embarrassingly soft shoulder, worked his fingers in toward the joint as if he was kneading pizza dough.
“Ah, there,” he said, gave it a little bang, and knocked it back into place.
“Thanks,” I said. It was better, though it still hurt a lot.
“You better go let the nurse look at you,” Eugene said.
“What’s wrong?” Coach Wolfe asked, making his rounds.
“Elvin’s got a—”
“Bruise,” I said, elbowing him. “No big deal, Coach.”
“Ah, you’ll have plenty of those, Elvin,” Coach said, punching the shoulder. He didn’t notice the tears this brought to my eyes. Eugene did.
“You sure you don’t want to go to sick bay?”
I was sure I did not want to go to sick bay. It was the fifth day of camp, and the first time I felt like I didn’t want to sleep the whole thing off on the injured list. I hurt, and I was more than a little nervous about what else was in store for my unprepared body, but for a change I felt like I might actually be getting somewhere.
“I’m fine, Eugene,” I said, windmilling my shoulder slowly.
“Okay, that’s it, just don’t let it stiffen up. You’re doin’ right, Elvin. When you’re ready, we’ll do some more. I’ll show you about balance, about keeping your big butt off the floor. Just don’t get stiff. That’s it. Don’t stiffen up now.”
Ma,
I suppose this is what you wanted, so don’t go bawling your eyes out. I just want you to know that things are happening here. Changes by the hour, and you might not recognize your baby.
Remember you told me not to get in any fights? I fight every single day. So what do you think of that? Several times a day. And I’m enjoying it.
Hey, here’s something I learned. Do you know what enuresis is? I do now, because the nurse explained it to me. It’s something that happens to you when the coach announces that tomorrow you’ll be fighting the guy with the axe scar across his whole cheek.
Do you know what an exercise mat tastes like? I do. But it depends who’s been sliding around on it before your mouth gets pressed into it. It does not taste like chicken.
Remember those carnival people you pointed out never to associate with? What do you know, they’ve all turned up in my Sector. Every morning we meet strip together, pull on tights, then spend the rest of the day rolling around on the floor together.
They have mass here two times a day, but they have no confession, so I’m afraid it may be too late by the time I get home.
Send postage, and I’ll send you an 8 x 10.
Elvin “The Body” Bishop
PART 2: WEEK TWO
Chapter 6: Some pain, some gain.
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR arm?” Frankie asked at Nightmeal, his wide-open mouth full of watery mashed potatoes. The potatoes were so thin, you could see through them like lemon slush.
“Nothing,” I said, picking my left arm off the table with my right hand and letting it fall to my side.
“Looks a little weak to me,” Mikie said.
“Weaker than usual even,” Frank said. He threw a fish puff in the air like a grape and swallowed it after chewing twice.
“Ya, well it’s stronger than usual even, if you really want to know,” I said, leaning over the table toward Frank.
“Whoa, I give up, I give up.” Frank put his hands up in front of his face. “Mikie, do you believe what’s happening to this guy? That wrestling thing’s making a real menace out of him.”
Mikie nodded while at the same time drinking milk out of the little carton. He finished and opened another one. “I know it. He’s getting pretty fearsome”—he tipped a glance down at my lower regions—“and large.”
“Dammit, Mike, would you please leave me alone.” I looked away, at nothing in particular, but he was right. The first real physical activity of my life was actually making me fatter. I was famished all the time.
“You going to finish that?” I asked, pointing at Frank’s briquette of corn bread. He rolled it off his tray toward mine. I scooped it up and bit it. It sounded like an apple.
“You lifting weights, El?” Mike asked.
“Some.”
“You running?”
I got some corn bread granules stuck in my nose laughing at that one.
“Maybe you should run a little. Just for a balanced program.”
“Listen, I appreciate your interest, Mike, but I have to remain strong. Look at this.” I gave him the traditional Muscle Beach one-biceps flex.
“I don’t see it, El,” Frankie said, straining to get a look.
“I don’t either,” Mikie said.
I looked at it myself. I didn’t see it either. I let it go slack, then tightened it again. There, there was a difference.
“Give it a squeeze,” I said. They both did. Then they nodded, but they had to sort of fish around in there to find it.
“Still,” Mikie said, “it might be good to get some cardiovascular action, you know, just so...”
“So you don’t have a heart attack,” Frank finished.
“Don’t worry about me—I’m fine. Anyway, I have to keep my weight up, or I won’t be a junior heavyweight anymore.”
“Gonna be a senior heavyweight pretty soon,” Mike said.
“Yo, Franko,” Obie, the senior football stud, said, putting both hands on Frankie’s shoulders.
“Hey, Obie,” Frank gushed. “What’s happening?”
“You wanna come out tomorrow night? We’re goin’ out.”
I looked at Mikie at the same time Mikie looked at me. Then we both turned and looked at Obie. Obie was one of the upperclassmen I had seen down in the clearing with Frank. A very big muck among mucks around here. He was a football star at the school but didn’t bother much with the Football Sector here. He mostly marched around camp just being awesome and too cool. The way football stars do.
“Out?” Frank asked. “What kind of out? They don’t let me out.”
Obie laughed. “Just out. Me and some of the other counselor boys just thought we’d get out for a while, stretch our legs. But don’t worry. You’re with us, then nobody’s got a problem with it, I guarantee.”
Frank turned back to us. We both shrugged.
“Sounds like fun,” Frank said up over his shoulder. Obie loomed over him like a big square billboard for beef. “How ’bout them?” Frank asked, meaning us.
Obie looked our way, made a sour face. “No way,” he said.
I was relieved, actually. Mike showed no feeling about it one way or the other.
“Ah, it’s movie night tomorrow anyhow,” Frank said, but he looked pained saying it. “Maybe I’ll just hang out here.”
Obie’s lips tightened. I guessed Obie wasn’t used to hearing no. “Y’know, if you gotta have your little friends with ya, I s’pose you can bring ’em,” he said.
Frank’s face brightened. “Okay, Obie, let me talk to them, and I’ll catch you later.”
“Okay, good. I’ll be there at the movies, and when the lights go out we take off.”
“Cool,” Frankie said, offering up a flat palm above his head for Obie to slap.
“He’s not there anymore,” Mike said.
Frankie pulled the hand down. “Oh. Well anyway, he’s great. Him, and his boys too. You guys are really lucky. This is a major social move here, to be hanging out with them.”
“Ah... I don’t know...” I started.
“You can’t say no,” Frank insisted.
“Well,” Mikie said, “let’s just give it a try. Ummmm... No. See, there, I can so say it.”
Frank got desperate. “Hey, you guys. I worked hard. You saw. ... How can you just turn it down? Don’t embarrass me now.”
Mike enjoyed this. “Hey, Franko, the movie might be great. Might be a must see. If it is, then I must see it. Elvin, you know what the movie is tomorrow night?”
“Ya, I think it’s Ernest Goes to Camp.”
“Oh, see that, Frankie, it’s out of my hands now. Ernest Goes to Camp. Need I say more?”
“Stop it. You’ll go, right?” Frank said hopefully. “I’m not joking now. I mean, I want to get in the right circle, that’s key, but I always figured you guys were coming with me. You know, like we all jump together, and it’ll be the best, right?”
