One Shot Away (11 page)

Bobby Longo struggles, twists under Jimmy's weight. The referee scrambles around the mat on his stomach, trying to get into position to see Longo's shoulder blades. The referee slaps the mat. Pin. Jimmy springs to his feet. He struts to the center of the mat, shoulders back, chest out. Jimmy shakes Longo's hand. The referee raises Jimmy's arm in victory.

“Seventy-five seconds,” says Pancakes, smiling. “You owe me a Coke.”

“We didn't bet.”

“Yeah, we did,” he says with the same stupid smile.

Trevor glances across the gym at Armbrewster, who's skipping rope like a prizefighter.

“You got Armbrewster.” Pancakes shrugs. “I saw him lose once when he was in the fourth grade. So, it can be done.” Pancakes cracks himself up.

“He looks bigger,” says Trevor.

“He is. Last year, he wrestled one-sixty.”

“Okay, Crow, show us what you got,” shouts Greco.

Trevor reaches for his toes, stretching one last time, then jogs through his teammates' clap tunnel. “Crow, Crow, Crow,” they chant.

On the mat, he skips in place like Jimmy had done. The crowd is quiet. Armbrewster jogs onto the mat. Trevor pictures him at weigh-ins towering over the other wrestlers. Trevor needs to stop thinking, needs to relax. His heart pounds.

“Feed him to the lions,” yells someone from the other team.

“A stack of bricks,” yells Jimmy. “You're a stack of bricks!”

The referee signals them to the line. The whistle blares. Trevor circles, then shoots under Armbrewster's arms toward his legs, but instead of clasping the legs, Trevor remembers the Fireman's carry and seizes Armbrewster's arm with one hand and thrusts his hand between Armbrewster's legs. Trevor drops to his knees and throws Armbrewster over his shoulder to his back. It's quick, and Trevor can't believe it worked. Suddenly he's in pinning position, chest on chest, with Armbrewster struggling, arching. Trevor locks his arms around Armbrewster's neck and squeezes.

Armbrewster struggles, arches high with his head and feet on the mat. Trevor hangs on with his bicep crushing Armbrewster's face. Trevor's not letting go. He's riding a wild animal, but he's got him. Armbrewster is pushing himself out of bounds. Trevor sees the line and tightens his grip around Armbrewster's arm and neck.

Armbrewster flips and hurls Trevor almost to the center of the mat. The power is shocking. Trevor hangs on, but now he's on his back with Armbrewster crushing him! Trevor struggles, rocking his shoulders. Armbrewster's rough beard scratches Trevor's forehead. Armbrewster's stale breath is in Trevor's nostrils. Armbrewster powers down for a pin.

Everyone is cheering. The Minute Men leap in the air screaming. Trevor can't arch, can't move. He glances to the clock, thirty seconds left.

Then, it's over. Pinned. Armbrewster runs to the side of the mat for high fives from his team. Trevor rises slowly. He stumbles off the mat in half a daze.

T
HE LATE BUS LETS
T
REVOR OFF AT THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY
, past the motel's sign, blazing with new light bulbs. He carries his wrestling bag and books into the parking lot. His room door is wide-open. He enters and tosses his stuff onto the old trunk. His mother and London are looking at a hole, about six inches wide, scratched through the sheetrock wall. Chewed plaster lies on the carpet.

“You're going to have to train your dog,” says London sternly. “I'm planning to sell this place someday, and I'm working on a margin, a thin margin. You get what I'm saying?”

Trevor ignores him and turns to his mother. “What are you doing in here and where's Whizzer?”

She frowns.

“You see this?” London moves the drapes off the windowsill. “The molding is gnawed. Who's going to fix this? Me, that's who.”

“You just come into my room, uninvited?” asks Trevor.

“Trevor, I opened the door,” explains his mother. “Whizzer was barking.”

Trevor glances toward the courtyard. “Where is he?”

“If he can't be in this room unsupervised, then he'll have to be outside.” London drops the drapes.

“What did you do with him?” demands Trevor.

“He's fine,” says his mother.

“Where is he?” Frustration rises into his throat.

“In the lot, out back,” says London. “Tied up.”

Trevor runs down an alleyway to an empty asphalt field dotted with stiff straw-colored weeds and broken glass. He looks toward the road and the streaming headlights. Whizzer is chained to a fence post at the corner of the building. He stands alert, attentive, straining on his chain as if hoping someone will take him home. Trevor unhooks the chain from his leather collar. He carries his puppy back toward his room. Whizzer licks his face. His nose is ice cold.

Trevor pushes the door open. “I don't want him chained like that!”

“He was perfectly fine,” says London. “Dogs like fresh air.”

“You're full of it,” says Trevor.

“He's half Lab,” says London. “He doesn't mind the cold. Feel his coat.” London tries to touch Whizzer.

Trevor stiffens and backs away.

“You're making a big deal out of nothing,” says London.

“Maybe I am,” he says. “But you gave him to me. He's mine, and I don't want him chained outside.”

“Trevor,” says his mother. “Harry didn't mean any harm.”

“Mom, can't you for once take my side?”

“I can't have him ripping this room apart,” says London. “And your mother can't be in here all day.”

Trevor wants to scream. He sits on his bed and raises his eyes to the rusted exposed pipes. Whizzer continues to lick his neck and face.

London puts his hand on Trevor's shoulder.

“Get off me.” Trevor shrugs him off.

“You're not going to wake up one day and discover Whizzer knows how to do everything,” says London. “It won't happen. Dogs don't work like people.” He looks around his room until his eyes settle on a puddle of pee that missed the newspapers spread on the floor.

“I'll clean that up,” says Trevor.

“Let me show you something.” He snatches Whizzer by the neck. Whizzer's nails scrape on the peel-and-stick tile. London presses Whizzer's nose into the urine. “No!” he shouts.

“Harry, that's enough,” says Camille.

“I'm showing Trevor something. If a puppy wets off the paper, you've got to rub his nose in it, otherwise he thinks my motel is his toilet.”

“Just keep your hands off him.” Trevor pushes London and seizes Whizzer by the neck, snatching him from London. They lock eyes. Trevor's heart somersaults in his chest.

“That's enough,” shouts Camille. “Enough.”

“Dogs are animals, that's all I was trying to teach the boy.” London's face is red and he's huffing.

“Leave.” Trevor holds Whizzer tightly. “You too, Mom.”

“I can't have him pissing and ripping apart my motel!”

“Come on, Harry, that's enough for tonight,” says Camille. “Whizzer is a smart dog, he'll learn.” She takes his arm and they step out of the room.

Trevor closes the door. He looks around his jail cell, his own personal rat-hole motel room. He wants to punch the wall.

R
ICKY
O'S
HEA IS PERCHED ON THE CONSOLE, BETWEEN THE
front seats of the minivan, bouncing like a bag of groceries. Diggy's sitting in a captain's chair in the back seat. Jimmy's kneeling on the floor. Trevor Crow is in the other seat, with Little Gino on his lap. Bones is squished in the rear compartment under the hatch. Jimmy's father is driving like a nut, frogging lanes, riding every car's ass. Jimmy's mother has one hand on the dashboard and the other across Ricky.

“The early bird special is over at five-thirty and it's five-twenty,” says Mr. O'Shea. “I'm not paying eleven bucks for chicken parm.” He presses the gas. “Not for these savages.”

“If we have an accident on the way there, we're not going to eat anything,” says Mrs. O'Shea. Steadying his phone, Diggy reads another text message from Jane. In the past hour, she's sent him six texts. He didn't text back. He presses through them:

Text 1:
Dig where r u? want to hang tonight? i get off at 8:30

Text 2:
movies then TGIFs

Text 3:
TGIFs has ½ priced appetizers tonight

Text 4:
u alright

Text 5:
do u want me to call u at home

Text 6:
if u don't want to go to the movies, tell me

The movies on a Saturday night? Every dating couple in the high school will be there. People will be looking at her face. He's not ready to go public yet. He likes her, yet when he's with her, he feels messed up, buzzed, and weird, all at the same time.

Every evening for the past week, Diggy stopped at Jane's apartment after practice. He told his mother he was doing a class project. They played backgammon or rummy in the front room with the television on MTV. They made out and joked around while her sister did homework at the kitchen table and her mother drank white wine and talked on the phone. Jane made fat-free microwave popcorn and cut celery and carrot sticks for him. In her room, they kissed and did some serious DH-ing—that's what she calls dry humping. Then, it happened. They had their clothes off and they went all the way. After, he was lying next to her covered in sweat, thinking this is what it's supposed to be like.

“Jimmy, where are we going, anyway?” asks Diggy.

“The Naples.”

“For real?” asks Diggy.

“What's the matter, you don't want to see Jane?” says Gino.

“Jane the Stain, yo,” yucks Bones. Everyone cracks up.

Diggy reaches over the seat and punches Bones in the head. Bones puts Diggy in a chokehold.

“Now stop it!” yells Mrs. O'Shea.

Diggy wonders what it would be like to have Jimmy's mother. As far as moms go, Mrs. O'Shea is the double bomb. So cool and real. No makeup. No beauty parlor hairdo. No maids necessary. Not like his mother. She never leaves her bedroom without two layers of lipstick and a mushroom cloud of hairspray around her head.

“Hold on, I'm hanging a U-ee!” Mr. O'Shea makes a u-turn, sending all of them into a heap. The car swerves. A driver, eyes popping, whizzes by, flipping the bird. Everyone is laughing. Diggy extracts Jimmy's bony shoulder from his side. Finally Mr. O'Shea straightens the car and hangs a quick left into the Patriot Shopping Center.

“Artie, what the hell do you call that?” yells Mrs. O'Shea.

Naples Pizza is slotted between the Protein Punch Juice Bar and the Sew Clean Laundry. Diggy stares at the red curtains and the menu scrawled on the window, wishing he'd stayed home. They've come here to celebrate Jimmy's birthday. What's the big deal? He's eighteen, can't drink legally, doesn't have a car, and probably will be pumping Regular at the Shell across the street in a year. Diggy will be eighteen on January 8th. Elvis's birthday. Nixon's birthday. One drug addict. One liar.

Everyone piles from the car like clowns in a circus. Mr. O'Shea leads the pack across the parking lot.

The place is practically empty, except for Roxanne, who must have parked behind the restaurant so she wouldn't ruin the surprise. She's wearing Jimmy's varsity jacket, all hyped up, shrieking like an eight-year-old at her first sleep over. She holds a gift bag over her wrist, the ones with the little nylon rope handles. “Omigod! Are you surprised? Are you?” she asks. Jimmy plays along, acting astonished by shaking his head. They touch lips and hold hands. The thing Diggy hates about Roxanne is she's too cute. She's like a stuffed poodle you win on the boardwalk. All bright and perfect.

Jane's clearing dishes from a table. She wears a short top, hip-hugger blue jeans, and an unbuttoned red waitress jacket. Roxanne and the guys follow Jimmy's parents past the counter toward the rear dining room. Tables are set with tablecloths, red napkins, and vases with cloth flowers.

Diggy meets Jane's eye. Her smile spreads across the room. She winds through everyone and gives him a hug. “Diggy! I don't believe this. What are you doing here? I texted you like five times in the past hour.” She kisses him on the lips.

He's like a ventriloquist's dummy without a hand up its ass, dead and playing dumb. He neither kisses her back, nor pulls away.

She backs off. “What's wrong?”

Jimmy, Trevor, Bones, and Gino wait with their jaws dropped open. Diggy knows he owes Jane. He was with Jane last night, all over her, and he wants to continue being with her. He's trapped. He raises his palms to the guys as if to show them he's not hiding anything and remembers a line he's heard Randy say. “Must be my new cologne.” He grins like he's too cool.