Page 32 of Playworld
“Don’t play to his strength.”
“Put him on the defensive. Initiate, don’t defend.”
“Shoot your double or single leg.”
“Because he’ll kill you if you go upper body.”
“And only hit that switch of yours from the down position.”
“Because if you try a stand-up escape—”
“He’ll Suplex you.”
There was a long silence during which all three chewed ruminatively. The last matches before the consolation finals were going on. These were the heavier weights, the future offensive linemen and rugby players, the Little Johns and Ajaxes, the Men among Boys. Their contact generated shockwaves; their bodies hit the mats like fluke slaps. Our three captains watched them as a unit. Their eyes were all drawn to the same sequences. When one of the competitors pulled an exceptional move they said “Nice” or “Slick” or whistled in appreciation. Or they made mid-match predictions with the disinterestedness of oracles: “He’s going to sell aSnap Down and then hit an ankle pick,” or “He’s going to crab ride this guy into a Stack.” And then, just seconds later, he would.
—
Nobody really cared about the consolation finals.
These matches were on the order of undercard. The main event—the finals—were a couple of hours off. Still, the bleachers were more than half full now. What had felt more like intermission, really, as if those who’d hung back didn’t have the confidence or determination to leave their seats, had now built into an anticipatory energy. The gym’s high windows were shading from purple to black. The change in brightness was theatrical, a luminosity less diffuse, with several of the ceiling’s tube lights cut and the pendant high bays turned on so that the mats shined like billiard tables.
My name was called over the PA; it was a lonely, empty, ringing sound. Applause from the Boyd bleacher. From the Ferren bleacher when Goldburn was announced. Kepplemen, who’d just finished coaching a match, signaled to me to stay where I was. I could tell by his very pace, by the slowness of his tilted gait and the additional time he took to join me, that he too was nervous. He palmed my cheek and pressed his temple to mine, waiting to find his words.
“You can’t be passive,” Kepplemen said. His palm slid up my elbow to curl around my biceps as we walked. “Do you understand?”
He escorted me toward the mat, carrying enough of my weight that my shoulders were uneven. Goldburn awaited me, explosively jumping, bringing his knees to his chest. My mouth was cottony, but Kepplemen’s was worse. Each time his tongue detached from the roof of his mouth, it made a click. It was at these moments that I was aware of how much he cared for me.
“If you’re reacting, you’re conceding initiative. If he’s got the initiative, you’re not dictating.”
“Yes.”
“To dictate you’ve got to move.”
“I understand.”
“Move out there,” he said. He took me by the shoulders and turned me so that I faced him. Then he slapped me once.“Move,”he shouted. And then he slapped me a second time, so hard my eyes watered. It mademe livid, and when I ran onto the mat and faced Goldburn, when I shook his hand and took my ready position, he noticed that I was vibrating with fury. He glanced at his coach in what was something like confusion, and in that second, I believed I could win.
Goldburn was not as strong as he looked. One of wrestling’s physiological mysteries is that sometimes those with the most statuesque physiques, who from pure optics looked like they emerged from the inked corners of a comic book’s panels, in fact lack fight and determination. They have a capacity to collapse, to tank; like Thanksgiving floats, their bodies, in spite of their size, feel air-filled, light. And conversely (at times) the most powerful just as often appeared otherwise: their thin arms hide bones fashioned of rebar, the soles of their feet are tethered to the earth’s core, and the force they generate, exponent to your base, seems to come from a place that is spiritual rather than physical, elemental as opposed to gym-built—ocean deep or jungle dark.
That Goldburn wasn’t as ferocious or overwhelming as he appeared bolstered and emboldened me. It increased my resolve and resistance, which translated in turn to desperation on his part and immediately caused him to expend even greater effort to try to bring our match to a quick conclusion. Which he couldn’t.
This didn’t mean I wasn’t losing. Like Voelker, Goldburn tried early on to steamroll me, building an advantage in the first period before fading. The score was 6–3 in his favor, it was the third and final period, and there was a little over a minute left. He was on top but so gassed I took the risk of playing to his strength. Against the advice of Santoro, who was assistant coaching me now, and to the horror of Kepplemen, who shouted,“No!”I attempted a stand-up escape. Hopping to my feet, pressing the belt that Goldburn’s arms formed at my waist toward my hip bone, I tried to use its point and my own pressure to unclasp his grip. In response to this, Goldburn lifted me off the mat—what crowd there was gasped—and flung me over his shoulder. When I landed headfirst, when I heard my neck crunch, I saw a sudden spray of light, a fountain of sparklers that briefly dotted my vision. Fortunately, Goldburn had thrown me out of bounds; he’d neither scored points nor gained a positional advantage; we were back to neutral. But the blow was tremendous; my inner gyroscope had cracked. I could not get my equilibrium.I began, in my confusion, to walk off the mat. I was concussed, I now know, but the ref mistook my injury for dizziness; he figured the throw had merely disoriented me and guided me back to the mat’s center. And at this moment I saw, sitting on the lowest seat of the nearest bleacher, my parents. Beside them: Sam Shah. Beside him: Naomi.
My father was so wrapped up in his conversation with Sam that my match seemed incidental—that is, the pair of them paid next to no attention to the proceedings. But out of fear Mom now took Dad’s wrist, and when Naomi lowered her hand from her mouth I knew that something was seriously amiss. She was gripping the bleacher’s riser so fiercely her knuckles were visibly blanched. And in that short and vivid walk from the mat’s outer ring to its inner one, I not only registered her fear but also realized that she had begun making plans for this visit the moment I told her the tournament’s location. She had wanted to see me, to be here, if for nothing else than to let me know she’d tried. And for those several stretched-out seconds, I felt the full force of her care, and was grateful.
The ref indicated that I should take the down position; once I was on my hands and knees, he directed Goldburn to take the top. Somehow it was as if the entire match had reset; I was suddenly, utterly awake. From the scorer’s table Cliff shouted, “Twenty-eight seconds!” Goldburn’s grip touched my elbow and his other hand palmed my stomach. The instant the ref blew his whistle, I faked the Granby, Goldburn dropped his weight, and then I stood. Goldburn, having nearly exhausted himself with the previous throw, countered by letting me up in order to attempt the same throw again. And in that lag I’d created, that half second I’d anticipated before he secured his grip on my waist and shifted his own hips beneath mine; in that loose, interstitial pause in which there was space and contested leverage between us; with nearly the same force Goldburn had previously thrown me, I hit a standing switch. I clasped his right elbow with my left hand, cat-pawed the inside of his right leg, and then spun behind him, so that he was slung toward the ground. The mat must have seemed like a wave rising toward him. His face hit the foam with a great, wet slap.
The score was now 5–6. I scurried to Goldburn’s side, perpendicular to him, and secured a cradle—a pinning combination—one arm laced over his neck and the other threaded between his legs; as I gripped myhands by his belly, I drove my head into his ribs and bowbent his body to further collapse it. I confess I was surprised by where I’d found myself. Kepplemen, in astonishment, leaped to his feet and threw his arms out, grabbing Santoro, who had also stood as if to steady himself. “There it is!” Kepplemen screamed. All I had to do to win was tip Goldburn toward his back to get the points. Again I drove the top of my head into his ribs and he began to tilt; he mustered everything he had left to resist. The match had garnered the entire gym’s attention. Shouting erupted stereophonically, from the Ferren side, from the Boyd side, from everywhere. I heard my mother scream,“You can do it, Griff!”I heard Oren cry,“Go!”I needed only to tip Goldburn’s shoulders only one degree past ninety and hold him there. The ref slid to the floor near my face to better observe the angle.I have him,I thought. I smiled to myself. I gathered all my remaining strength for a final effort, but next made a terrible miscalculation. Because when I shoved him, I pushed us out of bounds.
And then the horn sounded and the ref blew his whistle.
I had run out of time.
—
It was decided that I would leave the tournament with my parents. I’d skip dinner with the team and miss the finals. But there is an aftermath to a closely contested match. It occurs in the period when neither participant has yet composed himself, the shaking of the opposing coaches’ hands is discombobulated, and with face buried in the crook of an elbow the loser stumbles off somewhere private while the victor breathes a sigh of relief. I shambled to the nearest doors markedExit. I found myself in a darkened school hallway, posters on the dim walls, signs on the windows of classrooms, and, drenched in sweat, I slid down the lockers to the floor and covered my eyes. I’d yet to catch my wind. I heard another crash of the doors. It was Oren. It was my brother. He slid to his knees and, the moment we collided, threw his arms around me;hewas the one who was sobbing. “I’m sorry,” he said, “they said I couldn’t cheer for you, they said if I rooted for you I’d be betraying the team,” and the pain this had caused him eclipsed mine. I hugged him while he shook, his tears mixed with my sweat, and then he staggered off.
Before I departed, Kepplemen pulled me aside. He led me to a set of far bleachers and indicated I sit; the gym was emptying out ahead of theday’s last chapter—the teams off to dinner ahead of the finals. I still held my headgear in my hands.