Chapter 24

It was a difficult night for sleeping. Besides the unsettling effects of the beer, Zach had his injured wrist to deal with. He woke up at least once an hour in pain after rolling across it or bending it too far. At seven o’clock the next morning, three hours before he was due at the high school for the bus ride to Williamsboro, he gave up and got out of bed.

The dull ache in his head that he felt after standing up was all too familiar. It was his first hangover in nearly a year. If making weight were still an issue, eating or drinking anything would not have been an option. Since he knew he couldn’t wrestle anyway he helped himself to glass after glass of water the way he had always done to treat his hangovers. An hour later he felt fine.

The wrist felt much worse than it looked. There may have been some swelling, but not very much. It wasn’t his wrist, but his face that was going to make the biggest impression when it came to appearances. There were fresh abrasions on his nose and one near his left cheekbone. His chin was a sickening grayish purple color and was swollen into a knot on one side. He had already decided to tell Crisfield that he’d injured himself by slipping on some ice, but he was sure his always-suspicious coach would be skeptical.

The pain in his wrist bothered him enough that he considered waking his mother up to ask her what to do, but decided against it. She wouldn’t want to spend the money on a doctor visit unless he was sure something was seriously wrong. Even worse, she would probably scold him after forcing him to explain what happened and then order him to tell the entire truth to the coach. That wasn’t what Zach had in mind. Instead, he bundled up and set off on foot for the school before she woke up.

“What happened to you?” was a question Zach heard three times in five minutes after he arrived at the school. Each time he ignored it. He was early enough that the coaches and some wrestlers would still be hanging around in the locker room, so he headed in there. Most faces turned towards him but he walked straight through and into the coaches’ office, where Crisfield and Hancock were huddled over a clipboard.

“Uh oh,” Hancock said. “This doesn’t look good. What happened to you?”

“Got a second?” Zach asked.

“What in the world?” asked Crisfield.

“I slipped on some ice,” Zach said.

“And landed on your face?” Crisfield asked. “Are you hurt?”

My wrist hurts pretty bad,” Zach said. “I tried to catch myself when I fell. Now I can’t bend it.”

“So you can’t wrestle today?” Hancock asked.

“I don’t think so,” Zach answered.

“Come over here, let’s take a look at it,” Crisfield said.

As Zach crossed the room Hancock let out a long whistle. “That chin really took a beating too. Did you land on your wrist or your chin?”

Crisfield gently probed the joint with his fingers as Zach gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t feel like anything’s broken. Did you see the doctor?”

“No,” Zach answered. “I thought it might feel better in the morning. I just got up and came here.”

“Let’s see how far it bends,” Crisfield said. He slowly pushed the hand up, watching Zach’s face as he did it. When it reached a forty-five degree angle Zach grunted loudly enough to make Crisfield stop. “Not much range of motion,” Crisfield commented. “There’s no point in trying the other direction. There’s no way you’re wrestling today.”

“That really throws a monkey wrench in our plans,” Hancock said.

“Sure does,” Crisfield agreed. “It’s going to hurt big time. Where exactly did you encounter this huge sheet of ice? There hasn’t been any snow for days.”

“In front of my house,” Zach said solemnly.

“In front of your house,” Crisfield repeated. “Where do you live, the North Pole?”

“I swear, Coach,” Zach said. “There’s one little icy strip on the sidewalk.”

“We have to make sure the Williamsboro coaches don’t know he can’t wrestle,” Crisfield said to Hancock. “If they know we’re sending a sub out at 171 they’ll bump Mike Macon from 160 up to 171 to get him away from Mark. He’s not bad but Mark says he always pins him.”

“I’ll tell everybody to keep quiet,” Hancock said. “As a matter of fact, we won’t even tell anybody on our team who doesn’t already know. Right, Zach?”

“Okay,” Zach agreed.

“So we’ll weigh you in at 171 anyway, as a bluff,” Hancock said. “Try not to look like you’re injured. That way we’re not giving up too much information.”

“We better weigh Archie in, too,” Crisfield said. He was referring to Easton’s backup at 160, Archie Frederick. “If he can’t make 160 we’ll weigh him in at 171 with Zach. He may end up wrestling. But if they call our bluff and we have to put Zach out there we’ll just forfeit or default.”

That plan made Zach nervous because he didn’t think he could make weight. He didn’t want to say so until he checked his weight, which there was still time to do if he hurried. “Okay,” he replied.

After leaving the office Zach walked around the corner, heading for the scale. If only I hadn’t drunk so much water, he thought. He didn’t find the scale where it usually was. There was no use trying to find somebody to pull it out of the storage room. By then it would be time to leave. He would have to wait.

“Did you get in a fight?” Kevin Salisbury asked as he passed by Zach’s locker.

“I slipped on a patch of ice,” Zach answered.

“Oh, some ice,” Salisbury said sarcastically. “I heard you’re not wrestling today.”

“I can’t,” Zach said. “I twisted my wrist up when I fell.”

“Who’s wrestling 171?” Salisbury asked. “I really want to beat this team. A couple of their guys at the wrestling club are shooting their mouths off.” Williamsboro was the next town over from Chapel Forge, so many of the wrestlers from the two teams knew each other well. Local bragging rights were at stake.

“Archie’s weighing in,” Zach said. “I’m not sure what weight.”

Salisbury didn’t say anything else before walking away but Zach could tell he was upset. Zach couldn’t blame him. He’d behaved stupidly the night before and now it was hurting the team. Nothing seemed to be going right for him anymore.

On the short bus ride to Williamsboro Zach considered walking to the front of the bus and confessing to his coaches that there was no way he could make weight. If he did that they’d at least have time to figure out some alternate strategy. In the end he elected to keep quiet. It might lead to a discussion of why he drank so much water, and he didn’t want to divulge that he had been out late drinking. Even worse, he would risk having to explain how the injury had really happened.

~~~

“We’re up to 160,” Vice Principal Calhoun of Williamsboro High School said. An old wrestler himself, Calhoun always supervised weigh-ins at home dual meets. He adjusted the mechanical scale appropriately and gestured to Coach Crisfield to send a wrestler. “This is Mark Easton,” Crisfield said. Easton, in white cotton briefs and with ribs and hip bones protruding from his tight skin, stepped onto the scale and made weight easily. After Williamsboro’s Macon also made weight Calhoun moved on to 171.

“This is Zach Bowie,” Crisfield said. Zach walked forward and carefully stepped onto the scale. The metal bar immediately shot upwards until it clanked with a thud. He hadn’t even been close. Zach leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his clamped lips betraying the worry and disgust he felt. At that moment he wished he could be anyplace else but where he was. Now he would have even more explaining to do. Coach Crisfield maintained his calm demeanor as he sent Archie Frederick to the scale. He was able to make 171, but the damage had been done. Williamsboro’s coach now knew that an inexperienced backup wrestler would be wrestling 171 rather than Zach, the regular starter.

“Drank a little water, did you?” Crisfield said angrily after the team returned to their locker room to dress for the match. “Why didn’t you tell me you were so far over? I could have weighed in another 160-pounder and then bumped Mark to 171.” He walked away without saying another word.

Zach prayed that one team would be way ahead of the other by the time the match reached the upper weights. That way his gaffe wouldn’t matter much. It was not to be. Heading into the 160 pound match Williamsboro held a slim 24-21 lead. The match was still very much on the line when Mark Easton stepped onto the mat. Nobody was surprised when Williamsboro didn’t send out Macon. Instead, they sent out Nicky Fulton. They knew Easton would pin him too, but at least they would still have Macon saved for 171 where he’d have a chance of earning a pin against Frederick.

Easton made quick work of Fulton, pinning him in less than one minute. After Macon did the same to Frederick, the nightmare scenario had come true for Zach. Instead of earning at least nine team points in the two weight classes, Chapel Forge had earned only six while surrendering the same number. Williamsboro took two of the final three matches. Despite a pin by Bob Mendez at heavyweight, Williamsboro won the dual meet by the score of 36-33.

“Slipped on some ice my butt,” Salisbury said bitterly to Zach in the locker room. “We all know you were partying. You don’t give a rat’s ass about this team. I wish Coach would kick you off. You can kiss our Top Twenty ranking goodbye now.”

Normally Zach would have fired back at Salisbury but he knew Salisbury was right. He had let the team down. Unable to look Salisbury in the eye, Zach turned and walked away wishing he could somehow undo all the mistakes he’d made in the previous twelve hours.

The ride back to Chapel Forge was quiet. It lasted only fifteen minutes but it felt like hours to Zach. He moved up against the window and stared out the entire time because it was the easiest way to avoid eye contact with his angry and disappointed teammates. His wrist pulsed with pain, but that paled in comparison to the hurt he was feeling over what had happened to his team because of his actions. When the bus pulled up to the curb at the school he didn’t move until he was sure everybody else had gotten off. Then, with the driver watching him in his overhead mirror, Zach slowly walked down the aisle and stepped onto the curb without a word.

~~~

When Beth Ellicott saw Easton and the wrestlers trudge into the school she could tell their match hadn’t gone well. She was on her way from the gym to the locker room after practice but she stopped and waited for him. “You guys look like you just lost your best friend,” she said.

“We lost, alright,” Easton said. “To Williamsboro. We should have beaten them. You’re pal didn’t help matters.”

“Zach?” she asked. “Did he lose?”

“He didn’t even make weight,” Easton told her. “But he couldn’t have wrestled anyway. He slipped and hurt his wrist, or so he says.”

Beth paused for a moment to take it all in. “Where is he?” she asked.

“I know where he’ll be in a few minutes,” Easton said. “Coach’s office. I think he’s getting the boot. The guy’s had one chance too many.”

“No!” she said, horrified. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”

“Coach was pretty mad, just like everybody else,” Easton said. “He pretty much told me on the way back that Zach is history.”

“Mark, he can’t do that,” she said. “He just got kicked out of his band because of wrestling.”

“He did?” Easton asked.

“Yeah, he did,” Beth said. “And now he’s getting kicked out of wrestling, too?”

~~~

“Zach!” Coach Crisfield yelled as Zach was shuffling along the sidewalk away from the school, trying to be invisible. He hadn’t noticed Crisfield and Hancock lingering on the other side of the bus. “Come on over here,” Crisfield said. Zach put his head down and walked in their direction as slowly as he could.

~~~

“The guy’s a born loser, Beth,” Salisbury said. He’d heard most of the conversation after following Easton over to where Ellicott had waited. “We gave him every chance in the world to make it. I have to admit he pulled it off for longer than most of us expected. He had me fooled.”

“Come on, Kevin,” Easton said. “The deck’s stacked against him. Why don’t you cut him a break? If you were walking in his shoes would you be doing any better?”

~~~

As he entered the building flanked by his coaches Zach felt like a criminal being escorted into a courtroom. It got worse quickly when he finally looked up, only to see Easton, Salisbury and Beth Ellicott watching silently as the three passed. They walked through the locker room and into the coaches’ office. Zach took the usual plastic chair and waited for it to begin.

~~~

“I think you’re starting to like this guy,” Beth said after Salisbury walked away. “Did you mean what you said?”

“He can be a jackass but I do respect him,” Easton said. “Just think how hard it was for him to come back to the team this year when nobody expected it. Plus, he worked hard since last season. He worked harder than anybody else on the team. He’s not a bad wrestler. I hate to see his talent go to waste.”

“What can we do to help him out?” Beth asked. “You’re the captain.”

“Yeah, but the coaches were pretty pissed off,” Easton said. “He cost us that match, and our ranking.”

“He gave up a lot to be here,” Beth said. “Now it’s all gone.”

Easton sighed. “I tell you what. I’ll try to talk Coach into changing his mind. It can’t hurt. I’ll try the ‘pity the poor boy’ angle.”

“Try something, please, Mark,” Beth said. “Okay? It’s important.”

“But he’s got to keep training until we get him back on the team,” Easton said. “It’s not just the conditioning. He dropped a lot of weight. It won’t take long for him to eat it all back. Then it’ll be too late.”

“If you promise to talk to the coach,” Beth said, “I’ll go by his house and tell him what you just told me. If he cares enough he’ll keep training.”

“I’ll do it,” Easton said. “I’ll talk to Coach on Monday. That’ll give him some time to cool off.”

~~~

“Let’s start with the wrist. Level with us, Zach,” Crisfield began. “How did you hurt it?”

“I told you already,” Zach said.

“And if we were to take a drive over to your house, would we find this stretch of arctic tundra on the sidewalk?” Crisfield asked.

“Yup,” Zach answered. He was too far into the lie to get away with switching to the truth and he didn’t think it was going to matter anyway.

“I think you were out late with that band,” Crisfield said. “And you got into some kind of trouble. What do you think about that?”

“I’m not in the band anymore,” Zach said. “You told me to quit so I did.”

“How about your weight?” he asked. “I checked the records before we left. When you weighed out last night you were a pound under. But at weigh-ins that scale clanked so hard I thought you’d fall off. What happened?”

“I was really thirsty this morning,” Zach said. “And last night, too, after practice. I didn’t think I could wrestle anyway with my wrist and all so I drank a lot of water. I just didn’t think it would matter if I made weight or not.”

“I’ve had it, Zach,” Crisfield said. “I’m tired of giving you chances. I’m suspending you from the team. I wanted to kick you off completely but Coach Hancock here talked me out doing anything permanent. Of course, districts are seven days away, so it’s pretty permanent anyway.”

“Come on, Coach,” Zach said. “I know I screwed up by not making weight. If you let me slide just one more time I promise I’ll be an angel from now on.”

“No more chances,” Crisfield said. “That’s all. Dismissed.”

Zach stood up hard, deliberately flipping the flimsy plastic chair hard enough that it clattered onto its back. “Up yours,” he said before slamming the door on his way out. He was thankful that nobody he knew was around as he passed through the lobby and back to what was left of his life.