Chapter 6

The band had a Friday night job at a middle school dance in Marlton the night before the wrestling team’s first scrimmage. For Zach that meant that he’d be doing some important wrestling on just a few hours sleep unless he could find a way to get home early.

“Toby, how about if we drive separately from Joe and Bo?” he asked Dumphries as they rode over to Fauquier’s place. “Then you could drop me home after we’re done.”

“You know what Joe will say,” Dumphries said. “He wants us all in his van.”

“Why?” Zach asked. “What’s the difference? Look, I have a good reason this time. I need to get home.”

“Then you ask him,” Dumphries said.

Zach didn’t. He’d irritated Fauquier enough recently and didn’t want to push it. Instead, he resigned himself to another late night followed by some early morning wrestling.

“Let’s try out the two new ones right after we set up,” Fauquier said on way over. “If it isn’t a total disaster we’ll add them to the set list.”

“I don’t know, Joe,” Zach said. “That’ll be our first time doing them. Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

“You’ll be fine,” Fauquier said in apparent appreciation of Zach’s anxiety. “It’s our first chance to show that we can go a different direction. I’m pretty excited about it.”

Herndon nearly choked on the bottle of water he was drinking as he laughed and coughed at the same time. “Where do you get this rap?” he asked Fauquier. “Nobody cares what direction we’re going in.”

Zach tuned it all out, knowing he’d heard it all before. Despite having sung the new songs dozens of times alone, he didn’t feel confident about them. It didn’t help matters when he noticed Jeanine come in from a side door while they were setting up.

“Hey Joe!” hissed Herndon after everything was in place and they were tuning their instruments. “Check out that old bird by the door.” They all looked over to see a middle-aged woman arranging items on a long table. “I’ve got this feeling that we would make her night if we gave her a dose of ‘Fire House’. What do you say?”

“I don’t think so, Bo,” Joe laughed. “I get a different vibe off of her.”

Herndon spun the volume knob on his amplifier and launched into the band’s ritual warm-up song anyway. Rules were rules, even if they were unwritten and unspoken. Once he started the others joined in. Instantly the woman at the door clapped her hands over her ears. Herndon burst into laughter as they watched her mouth some angry but inaudible words in their direction. Fauquier turned his back on her and shook his head at Herndon, trying not to laugh. Herndon looked away but managed to wipe the smile off his face. Thankfully, the woman was nowhere to be found when the song ended.

“Let’s try one of the new ones,” Fauquier said after it was over. “Which one do you want to do first?”

“‘Shandi’, I guess,” Zach said, his stomach immediately tying itself up in knots.

“Yeah, that’s better,” said Herndon. “I don’t have my keyboards hooked up yet.”

“Okay,” Fauquier said. “But we’re doing the other one next so you better get it set up.”

“Yes sir,” Herndon said, while raising his middle finger at Fauquier at the same time. “Right away, sir.”

“Just wait until after the song,” Fauquier said.

Without another word Herndon grabbed his guitar by the neck and shifted it into position. After looking back to make sure Dumphries was ready at the drums, he started the song off with the rif he’d learned after hearing the song only once. Since they’d never played the song together before there were a few unexpected pauses and gaps, but they synchronized themselves by the time Zach was ready to sing.

“Nice job, Zach,” Dumphries said when it was over. “I think we sounded pretty good once we had the timing down.”

“Thanks,” Zach said. “That one’s not as hard. It’s still rock even though it’s about a girl,” he said, grinning over at Herndon. “The Aerosmith one’s harder.”

“Even Aerosmith hates it,” Herndon said as he gathered cables and connected his keyboards to his amplifier. “I don’t want to miss a thing!” he sang in falsetto, with a sickly smile on his face.

“Yeah, right,” Fauquier said. “That song got them exposed to a whole different set of fans. They hate it all the way to the bank.”

By then there were more people coming in to the cafeteria. Most looked to be about middle school age. They were working on setting up for the dance, and appeared to be oblivious to the band that was rehearsing on stage. Even so, Zach felt more and more nervous as he watched them. “If we’re trying the other one, let’s do it now. If too many people hear it we might get canceled.”

“You’ll be fine,” Dumphries said.

“I’m ready,” Herndon said. “Sorry if I screw up the piano part. It’s been a while since I played with both hands.”

If Zach wasn’t nervous enough, Jeanine reappeared just as they were about to start. Hopefully, he thought, she’ll still like the song after hearing him sing it. He took a deep breath and tried to remember the words. Jeanine hopped off the stage and moved over to where she was standing directly in front of Zach. She couldn’t make me any more nervous if she tried, Zach thought.

Once he started singing he felt much better about it. He fought the urge to pull back from the song. When Fauquier edged over to the PA head to add some reverb to his voice Zach nodded approvingly without missing a word. Jeanine leaned on the front of the stage and stared at Zach as he sang the romantic lyrics, making him feel uncomfortable. Aside from that, he and the rest of the band felt good about it. They considered both songs passable, and played them both during the dance.

When the dance was over most of the middle-schoolers disappeared almost immediately. Two teenaged girls approached the stage, giggling more and more the closer they came. Fauquier brightened up when he saw them. “Good evening ladies,” he said when they climbed onstage.

“Hi,” one of them said. “We’re supposed to give you this,” she said, handing him a plain white envelope.

“Oh,” he said flatly. “Thanks.”

The girls looked towards the back of the stage where Zach was. When they saw him they giggled again. One began walking toward him, but the other grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the front of the stage. Without looking back they jumped down and disappeared into a hallway.

“You did good tonight, Zach,” Fauquier said. “You sounded good. If only you didn’t look like Joe Jockstrap, we’d be in business.”

“There were a few times when I felt like I wasn’t hitting the note,” Zach said, ignoring the slight. “With our usual stuff it doesn’t matter but if I’m flat on this new stuff it really shows.”

“I didn’t notice anything,” Fauquier said.

“It isn’t something I heard,” Zach said. “Just something I can feel. Now that we’re putting the speaker cabinets up front I can’t really hear what I sing at all.”

“That’s why I’ve been talking about buying some monitors,” Fauquier said. “That’s what the pros do. We can’t hear what the crowd is hearing unless we have some speakers facing back towards us. We can’t skimp, man, or it’ll show.”

It was less than an hour before all the equipment was packed and loaded into the van. They all climbed in to their usual seats. The first thing Fauquier did was to get everybody to agree to go look at some used monitors the next afternoon. After that, it was time for play. “Where’s the party?” Dumphries asked, lighting one cigarette off of another before handing one of them to Fauquier.

“I don’t know about anything going on tonight,” Fauquier said. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and sucked in enough smoke to fill his lungs. “Let’s just go back to my place, maybe there’s somebody there.”

It turned out there wasn’t. That was bad news for everybody else, but good for Zach. When Dumphries dropped him off back home it was only eleven-thirty. There was still plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep. That was a lucky break. Maybe there was a chance to make a good showing at the scrimmage after all, he thought.

~~~

“Zach, don’t you have to be at the school?” the voice asked. “It’s almost nine.”

He heard the voice, knew it was his mother, but still couldn’t figure out what day it was or what she was talking about. Then it hit him. The scrimmage. He had to be at the school at nine or he’d miss the bus.

“Were you out late?” she asked as he threw off the covers. His eyes darted around the room in search of some acceptable clothes.

“No,” he said hurriedly. “I was in bed early. I don’t know what happened.” It didn’t look like she was in any hurry to leave. It felt odd to change with her in the room but he was running out of time, so he stripped down to his underwear and pulled on the pair of jeans he picked up from the floor. He decided the shirt he’d slept in was good enough, so all he needed was some shoes.

“Why don’t I give you a ride?” she asked. “Do you have everything you need?”

“That would be extremely cool, Mom,” he said, leaning over to hug her. “I don’t think I could make it otherwise. Everything I need is in my bag.”

“Okay, then let’s go,” she said as she hurried out of the room. “I’ll grab my keys.”

When they lurched into the high school parking lot the bus was at the curb. There was nobody to be seen except for Coach Crisfield and one other wrestler on the sidewalk. Zach assumed that everybody else was already on the bus. “Thanks, Mom!” he said as he threw the door open and scrambled out. He had forgotten to put a coat on and the cold winter bit into his exposed skin as he sprinted towards the bus. Crisfield looked at Zach quizzically and then followed him onto the bus. Moments later the door closed and the team pulled away.

“Another late night with illegal substances?” asked somebody in the front row as Zach turned to walk down the center aisle. He looked and saw that it had come from Richie Thurmont, the team’s likely 130-pound starter. It was the first time Zach could ever remember Thurmont saying a word to him. He ignored it the way he always did. After he had passed Thurmont he saw Mark Easton and Kevin Salisbury snickering together in a seat to the left.

He continued towards the back of the bus and plopped into the first empty seat he came to. That was close, he thought. I almost missed it. He reached into his gym bag and pulled out a sweatshirt, the one with the faded Jimi Hendrix picture on the back. After he put it on he looked around and saw Tim Betterton watching from two rows back on the other side of the aisle.

“Hey, man,” Zach called over.

“I was worried there,” Betterton said. “It looked like we were leaving without you.”

“You noticed?” Zach asked. “Most of these guys couldn’t care less whether I got here or not.”

Betterton came over to Zach’s seat and slid in. “Look, Zach, don’t let it get you down. There are only a few kids that you need to worry about.”

“I could care less what they think of me,” Zach said.

“Well, okay,” said Betterton. “All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t go by a few wisecracks here and there. Most of us are glad to have you. You belong. Coach already used you as an example to some of the freshman, trying to get them to work harder.”

“Really?” Zach asked, genuinely surprised.

“I heard this team has a blind guy in your weight class,” Betterton. “Have you ever wrestled a blind guy?”

“No,” Zach said.

“Here’s my idea,” Pete Denton said from the seat behind Zach. “After the whistle blows, just take off your headgear and throw it to the side. He’ll hear it and think you’re over there. Then just jump on him from the other side.”

“Right, Pete, right,” Betterton said sarcastically. “What a knucklehead.” Then he turned back to Zach. “It’s not that different, except for takedowns,” Betterton. “I think you have to start out holding each other’s hands, or arms, or something.”

“I never thought about it,” Zach said. “Who are we going against anyway?”

“Sea Crest,” Betterton said. “It’s down by Atlantic City. They said there might be another team coming, too.”

Zach was nervous as the teams all crowded into the Sea Crest wrestling room for the scrimmage. As Betterton had thought, there was a third team, Ventnor. While the teams were doing warmup exercises and stretches the three coaching staffs huddled in the corner with their clipboards. Coach Crisfield told his wrestlers a few minutes later that each wrestler from each team would wrestle once against somebody from the other two teams. In order to get as many matches in as possible, six matches would be going on at the same time. It wouldn’t look much different from a regular practice except that wrestlers from different schools would be competing against each other.

It turned out that Betterton hadn’t gotten the story quite right. Sea Crest didn’t have a blind wrestler but they did have a double amputee named Hank Orlando. A few minutes later Easton approached Zach with some news. “You’re wrestling Orlando in the first match. He’s a senior but he missed last season.” Easton said. “He’s too heavy for me, so you’re getting him.” It bothered Zach that Easton looked so pleased that it was going to be Zach drew drawn Orlando.

Just as Easton had predicted, Zach was paired off with Orlando when his turn came up. The amputation had been below the knee on both legs. Except for the obvious lack of height, Orlando was huge. That makes sense, Zach thought. If he’s my weight even with half his legs gone, he’s basically a heavyweight.

Since the first period would be wrestled from neutral position, Orlando began on his knees. Zach wondered if he could simply run around Orlando and tackle him from behind, but resisted the urge. That would look tacky if it worked and disastrous if it didn’t. All he wanted to do was finish this match without drawing any attention to himself. Taking a shot at Orlando’s legs seemed like a bad idea too, so he simply tied up and held on tight, hoping that time would run out without incident.

Orlando had other ideas. After a minute he dropped from the tie up and grabbed one of Zach’s legs. Luckily for Zach he was unable to gain the leverage needed to take him to the mat. The period ended with Orlando clutching Zach’s leg but getting nowhere with it.

Zach chose the bottom position for the second period. Still uncomfortable, he again planned to run as much time off the clock before he actually had to do anything. After controlling Orlando’s wrist for half a minute Zach sat out and turned back toward his opponent. He knew he could escape but the last thing he wanted was a return to the neutral position. Rather than work below the waist he reached and under hooked Orlando, and flipped him over. He allowed Orlando to roll through and off his back rather than going for the pin because the coaches had announced that if there was a pin, the remainder of the match would be wrestled in neutral position. The assistant coach who was refereeing the match awarded Zach a two-point reversal. For the rest of the period Zach switched between half nelsons and cradle attempts, trying to look busy.

The final period was similar to the last part of the second period. In complete control, Zach switched between various holds, just enough to avoid a stalling call but not enough to generate any points. By the end of the match he was breathing heavily and tiring fast, but he hung on for a 2-0 victory. He was thankful to be out of the limelight after shaking Orlando’s hand.

The second match was less awkward for Zach. He was matched against a short, muscular wrestler from Ventnor. Zach took him down with his fireman’s carry almost immediately, and proceeded to turn him over and pin him. That pattern repeated itself for the next six minutes. After that match was over and Zach’s arm was raised in victory, he had something to feel good about on the bus ride home.