Chapter 10

When Saturday came Zach was as nervous about wrestling as he had ever been in his life. Even if his weight situation would have allowed it, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep any food down. After a hot shower he put on several layers of clothing and then joined his mother, who nibbled buttered toast and sipped tea as they talked.

“The match starts at twelve-thirty?” she asked. “I don’t want to miss any of it. I love when you guys burst out of the locker room and run onto the mat.”

“JV starts at eleven-thirty,” Zach said. “I guess we’ll start whenever they’re done. The schedule says twelve-thirty.”

“You know I’m really proud of you for what you’re doing this year, don’t you?” she asked. “I know how hard you’ve worked. Today it’ll start paying off.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Zach said. “I wish everybody on the team felt that way.”

“They’ll get used to you,” she said. “Of course, beating the captain probably wasn’t a good way to make friends now, was it?” she said, raising her eyebrows and laughing at the same time.

“Guess not,” Zach said.

It‘ll work out,” she said.

“Do you think you could drop me at the school?” Zach asked. “I don’t want to walk in the cold. My legs will get all tight.”

“Sure,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready. Then I’ll come back in time for the match.”

By the time Zach arrived at the school a dozen wrestlers were already at work preparing for the match. Most were involved in wheeling sections of mat in on carts, and then taping them together. Mark Easton seemed to be in charge of that group. Zach didn’t need a confrontation. He walked past and joined Bob Mendez and Glen Elg, who were pulling metal chairs from an alcove and setting them up as team benches. When that was done they retrieved some tumbling mats from a storage room and laid them behind the benches, where they would be used for warming up.

“Are you nervous?” Mendez asked Zach. “You wrestled varsity almost the whole season last year so you should be used to it.”

“I’m real nervous,” Zach said. “It’s just the way I am. I get scared before band gigs too.”

“You’ll kick butt,” Mendez predicted.

“I just hope I don’t gas out like last year,” Zach said.

“You know what?” Mendez said. “I never thought you’d be a starter. I mean, I knew you’d be on the team, because you’re always on the team. But I definitely didn’t think you’d be back on varsity this year. I have to give you credit.”

Coach Crisfield came in to check the progress of the set up. “Looking good,” he said. “After the mat’s taped up we’ll need some guys to wash it. Any volunteers?”

Zach was tempted to suggest that Easton do it, since he didn’t have anything else to do that day, but he kept his mouth shut. Some JV wrestlers were drafted for the task instead. At eleven o’clock, after the Woolwich High School wrestling team had arrived, all the wrestlers headed to the locker room for the first official weigh-in of the season.

Everybody on both sides made weight. Like most of the wrestlers, Zach had brought some food for after weigh-ins. As he sat on a locker room bench in his red and blue Chapel Forge singlet, munching Cheerios from a baggie, he noticed Easton watching him from about twenty feet away.

The varsity wrestlers drifted into the gym when the JV matches started. Having a little food in his stomach calmed Zach down some. He settled into a spot in the first row of the bleachers and stretched back against the seat behind him to watch the matches. Seconds later Beth Ellicott walked in holding a basketball. She looked around the mostly-empty gym until she spotted Zach. As she walked towards him she dribbled the basketball. The heads of annoyed coaches, wrestlers and the referee swiveled in her direction but she continued to bounce the ball.

“Aren’t you wrestling?” she asked when she reached the bleachers. Water from her hair, probably from a post-practice shower, had dripped and created dark spots on her blue shirt.

“This is JV,” Zach said. “We don’t start until they’re all done.”

“Oh, cool,” she said. “I didn’t think I missed it. I heard you beat Mark out.”

News traveled fast on the jock information network, Zach thought. Especially when things go bad for one of their own. “I beat him. We were supposed to wrestle-off again but he quit.”

“He quit?” she asked.

“He decided to go to a different weight class,” Zach said. “So yeah, I beat him.”

“Wow, Zach,” Beth said. “I had no idea.”

“No idea what?” Zach asked.

“I didn’t know you were so good,” she said. “He said you weren’t really that good.”

“Who did?” Zach asked.

“Well, Mark did,” she said.

“You know him?” Zach asked.

“Sure I do,” she said. “Everybody does. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything. We always have classes together and stuff.”

“What else did he say about me?” Zach asked, sitting up.

“Zach, you’re getting mad,” she said. “It’s nothing, really. Just what I said is all.”

He leaned back again. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I just forgot that he knows everybody, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “At least we know what not to talk about.” She sat down next to him and put the ball between her feet. “He told me how different you are from last year.”

“I just look different, that’s all,” Zach said.

“That’s not what Mark said,” she replied.

“So,” Zach said, deliberately changing the subject. “Did you just get done practicing?”

“Yeah,” she said. “We beat Haddonboro last night, so I thought we might get the day off, but nope. Here we are. Haddonboro was ranked number five.”

“You can’t just skip practice,” Zach said. “You’ve got to keep moving, to stay on-weight,” Zach said, failing to keep a straight face.

“Thank God we don’t have to deal with that,” she said. “We’re not even done yet today, though. The JV’s don’t play until tonight. Coach asked me to come by and help out. I’ll probably be doing the scorebook.”

“Wild Saturday night,” Zach said.

~~~

When the varsity team emerged from the locker room for warm-ups, Zach was disappointed to see that not many more people had come. The loudest sound he could hear as they ran onto the mat was his own footsteps. He was able to inspect the bleachers while doing jumping jacks. He located his mother quickly, directly behind the scorer’s table with a camera in her hand. Beth was seated near the end of the bleachers, surrounded by what Zach assumed were other members of the girls basketball team. Other than that it looked like a crowd of parents and close friends of wrestlers.

Except, that is, for one person that Zach noticed while switching from pushups to sit-ups. Jeanine. He was sure it was Jeanine, as odd as it was to see her there. She was standing against the wall in a long, flowing sweater beneath an electronic scoreboard and a series of colorful basketball championship banners. Her hair looked much lighter than the last time he’d seen her, whenever that was. He looked away rather than return her smile. That wouldn’t have looked right during warmups.

His nervousness faded away quickly, the way it always did when the whistle was blown to start his match. Just as he had planned, he began by trying for a double-leg takedown. His opponent, whose name was Morgan Ocala, hardly seemed fazed by the quick start. He sprawled, kicking his legs out of Zach’s reach and landing on Zach’s back. Before Zach had a chance to back out of the failed shot Ocala zipped behind him and earned two points for a takedown.

Even before Zach had solidified his base position Ocala went on the attack. He moved out and tried for a front headlock. When that didn’t work he scooted back to the side and inserted a far-side cradle. It was only then, as Ocala head-butted Zach all the way onto his back, that Zach realized how quick his opponent was. The cradle wasn’t tight enough to pin Zach, but Ocala held him long enough to earn three back points. At the end of the first period Zach was behind by 5-0. In the seconds between periods Zach suddenly had doubts about whether he had improved much at all since the previous season.

It didn’t get much better for Zach as the second period unfolded. Again Ocala tried for the front headlock. When that failed he went back to the cradle, this time from the near side. He managed to lock hands just below Zach’s chin. Zach found himself on his back in a tight pinning combination, with nearly a minute and a half left before the period would end. He desperately tried to peel Ocala’s grip off, while at the same time rolling away from the pin as best he could. After what seemed like years he heard his teammates yelling that there were only thirty seconds remaining. For the rest of the period, until the buzzer thankfully sounded, he rolled and thrashed violently, not caring what it looked like as long as the referee didn’t call the pin.

When he stood up to walk back to the center of the mat for the final period Zach was alarmed at his condition. His vision was blurry and the room seemed to be spinning. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs now matter how fast he sucked it in. None of the training he’d done seemed to matter. After reaching the center Zach pretended to retie a shoelace, stalling for more rest time.

It didn’t work. The referee bent down and got in his face to ask what starting position he would choose for the third period. Bottom position against this guy isn’t where I want to be, Zach thought before signaling that he chose to begin in neutral position. He wasn’t very optimistic about cutting down the eight-point deficit. He was hoping just to survive.

When the period started Zach tried for his favorite takedown, the fireman’s carry. He quickly got bogged down underneath Ocala, who countered by pancaking Zach onto his back. This time Zach was unable to avoid being pinned. The wrestlers untangled after the referee slapped the mat, and Ocala quickly stood up. Zach struggled to his feet and shook his opponent’s hand. He hoped he could manage his way back to the bench without falling.

It was a good ten minutes before Zach’s vision cleared up, but he was still breathing hard when Assistant Coach Hancock plopped down in the chair next to him. “Tough one, huh?” he said.

“Tough one, my butt,” Zach said as he sucked air. “I thought I was in shape but when I got out there it was like I’d never trained at all.”

Hancock smiled. “You are in shape, Zach. I’ve been watching you. Sometimes when you’re agitated or nervous, that’s what happens. It happened to me plenty of times. If you were as out of shape as you looked out there we’d have seen it at practice. You’ll settle down and then you’ll be fine.”

“That kid made me look like I’d never wrestled before,” Zach said. His tone masked his relief about what Hancock had just said to him.

“He does that a lot,” Hancock said. Zach didn’t respond. “Don’t you know who you just wrestled?” Hancock asked.

“Not really,” answered a puzzled Zach.

“That’s Morgan Ocala,” Hancock said. “He lost in the state finals last year. This past summer he won the freestyle nationals out at Fargo. He’s one of the best in the country. What’s the matter with your coaches, boy? Don’t they tell you anything?” he laughed.

Zach kept to himself in the locker room after the dual meet was over. The last person he wanted to see after what had happened was Mark Easton. Coach Crisfield spent a few minutes talking about the match after everybody was showered. A few wrestlers got up to leave when the coach appeared to be finished, but he called them back.

“Gentlemen, before you go,” Crisfield said. “One thing. I hope you’re all free tomorrow. I know you’ve all blocked out time for your mandatory Sunday run.” When nobody responded he added “The correct answer is ‘Yes, Coach.’”

Crisfield continued when the faint laughter had stopped. “We’ve got a great opportunity tomorrow. Joe Melchiore is running a takedown clinic just for our team over at Patriot Wrestling Club. Is there anybody here who doesn’t know who Joe Melchiore is?”

One or two hands went up around the locker room. Zach was surprised. Even he knew who Melchiore was, and he hadn’t spent years engrossed in the sport the way most of these guys had. “Melchiore is maybe the best wrestler ever to come out of South Jersey,” Crisfield said. “He was a three-time state champion from Blackwood, the next town over. He was an All-American in college, too.”

“I trained with him over the summer,” volunteered Dan Frederick, the 145-pound varsity starter. “He’ll hurt you but you learn a lot.” Zach wondered how much it had cost Frederick’s father to have his son trained by a college All-American. And Frederick isn’t even that good, he thought.

“I don’t know why they’re doing this for us,” Crisfield said. “But we’re going to take them up on it. The clinic will be at two-o’clock. I wouldn’t be too happy if everybody, at least the starters, didn’t make it. This can take the place of your run, just this once. Really, you should be able find time to do both. Understood?”

Zach understood it very clearly, and knew it was going to a problem. There was a band practice scheduled for the next afternoon, at exactly the same time as the clinic. He’d made a big deal to Joe about Sunday being the day that he would absolutely, positively always be available. Now, even that was changing.

After the morning’s wrestling disaster Zach hoped he wouldn’t run into anybody on his way out of the school. It didn’t take long, however, before he did. He had only taken a step or two after coming out of the locker room when Jeanine appeared, looking like she was about to cry. “Zach, Honey,” she said, putting her arms around him. “Sorry about what happened. Are you okay?”

Zach was shocked that she was still there, shocked that she even understood that he had lost badly and shocked that she hugged him. Mostly he was shocked that she called him ‘Honey’. She is one strange girl, he thought as he waited patiently for the hug to end.

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just wrestling. He clobbered me, it happens.”

“You weren’t hurt?” she asked. “I thought you were hurt so it ended. Then you could hardly walk after you got up.”

He grinned. “I was just tired, and embarrassed, but I’m fine.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. Just like that, her concerns had vanished. “Was that your girlfriend you were with before the match?” she asked.

“You were here that early?” Zach asked. “Why didn’t you come over?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“That was Beth,” he said. “She’s just a friend. She’s on the basketball team.”

“I saw the ball,” Jeanine said.

Suddenly Zach had had enough of her for the day. Sometimes he enjoyed her company but at times like this he found her so hard to understand that it was exhausting. All he wanted to do was get away. “Look, I’ve got to get home. My mom already left, and she’s waiting on me.”

“Okay,” she said. “I could give you a ride if you want.”

“No thanks,” he said. “I feel like walking some. I’m a little stiff.”

“Okay,” she said again. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow then. You’re practicing at Joe’s, right?”

“Yup,” Zach said after making a split-second decision that it would be too complicated to explain why he might not be there. “Two o’clock.” When she didn’t move, he thought of another way to create some separation. “I just remembered,” he said. “I left my jump rope in my locker.” It was a lie, of course, but it was all he could think of. Jeanine was too complicated a person for him to have to deal with right then. With any luck at all, she’d be gone when he came back out of the locker room.

~~~

Beth had waited by the main gym lobby door for nearly an hour for Zach to come out after the dual meet. As she waited she watched a blond hippy-like girl who was walking around nervously near the locker room door. Kind of looks like Stevie Nicks, she thought with a laugh. But when the hippy girl ran to Zach and threw her arms around him as soon as she saw him, it didn’t seem funny at all to Beth anymore.