One Shot Away (13 page)

“Then you could eat.”

Diggy juts out his chest and chin. “You've been at one-sixty for how long, since the tenth grade? Why don't you wrestle one-seventy?”

“You're not your brother,” says Jimmy. “You can't expect to win them all.”

Diggy wants to hit him so bad.

“Diggy! Get over here.” It's Greco. He's standing next to his office.

“I thought you'd have some loyalty,” says Diggy to Jimmy.

“I do,” says Jimmy. “Loyalty to the team.”

Greco closes the door and pulls the shade over the window, blocking the view of the mats and the main entrance. Diggy's eyes roam over the posters of beefy wrestlers and their captions: “They call it obsession. I call it dedication,” and “Train to near death, rest, repeat.” One book is on the desk, the same one that's always there:
The Winners Manual
, by Jim Tressel.

“Sit down,” says Greco.

Diggy perches on the edge of a chrome-legged bucket chair. Last time he was in here, Greco lectured him about throwing his headgear at an opponent.

“What was that with Jimmy?” asks Greco.

“Nothing.”

“What's your weight?”

Diggy folds his arms across his chest. “I'm almost there.”

“I didn't ask you that.”

“One-fifty-four,” lies Diggy.

Greco heaves a sigh. “Did you ever think that winning matches is a short-term goal?”

Diggy groans. “No.”

“What do you want from wrestling?”

“To win, to get a scholarship.”

“How about getting prepared mentally and physically for life? How about becoming a good sport? How about leaving this program in better condition and a better person?”

Diggy raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, right.”

Greco leans back in his chair. “I've been coaching ten years. I've had two wrestlers go to college on a full scholarship. One quit his freshmen year because he couldn't keep his grades up. One was your brother. Ten years, thirty wrestlers a year. Two out of three hundred.”

“Coach, are you telling me that I'm not going to get a scholarship?”

Greco hesitates. “I'd like you to take one-seventy. I think you'll be as effective and it will give your body a chance to grow stronger.”

“I knew it.” Diggy leans forward, anger rising in his chest. “You think Randy's going to agree?”

“I think this should be our decision.”

Diggy smiles.

Greco reaches over the desk and grabs his arm. “Come on, Diggy, cut the crap. I need someone at one-seventy or we forfeit the weight class. I have two wrestlers at one-fifty-two, you and Trevor. I think you're the one to move up.”

“You mean I'm supposed to volunteer?”

“I'd cancel the wrestle-off. You build on your current weight.”

“Everyone would think I wimped.” Diggy stands.

“I'd rather settle this without a wrestle-off,” says Greco. “I think it's better for morale.”

“Morale? This was never about morale. It's about Trevor. You feel sorry for him. Well, I don't, and I'm not jumping two weight classes.” The room is quiet. Greco's face reddens. Diggy pulls the door open and flees into the gym. Randy is standing next to the emergency entrance. His hair is gelled. His face is all business.

Diggy trots over and spurts, “Greco just tried to talk me into going to one-seventy.”

“What?”

“Trevor Crow is one-fifty and …” Diggy doesn't finish his sentence. With his shoulders hunched and his chin protruding like a hood ornament, Randy beelines across the red wrestling mats. His black leather shoes make perfect impressions, then disappear.

Greco lets his whistle fall from his lips.

Randy points his finger in Greco's face. “My son is not going up two weight classes for anyone. It's that simple. He'll pin that kid.” His voice echoes off the rafters. Wrestlers freeze and turn to watch.

Greco pushes Randy's finger away from his face. “Off the mat!” orders Greco. “This is MY gym right now.”

“My son might be on your team, but he's my responsibility!”

“Off the mat!”

Randy drops his shoulders. He crosses back to the emergency doors.

“You're an asshole,” says Diggy with his eyes on the floor. “Please, go back to work, or home, just get out of here.”

“No, you go wrestle like a Masters and there won't be a problem.”

At Greco's whistle, Diggy steps forward in a staggered stance, head upright, knees bent, arms dangling like a hyperactive raptor he's seen on Animal Planet. He leans right, feints left. Trevor stalks him, flatfooted and deliberate. His muscles knot under his tan skin. Diggy smacks Trevor's head. He needs to get on the inside. He tries another head smack. Trevor snags his fingers and squeezes them tight.

Diggy pulls back, momentarily off balance, and feels his finger pop from the knuckle. Searing pain. Diggy sees the beast in Trevor's eyes roaring. Trevor shoots into his legs. He wraps Diggy's knees in his arms, pivots, and power lifts him in the air. The team cheers. Diggy is over Trevor's shoulder, kicking, twisting, fighting. Trevor's muscles feel hard as iron. Randy waves his arms over his head, screaming something. Everything feels upside down. Diggy rakes his fingers across Trevor's face. Once. Again. Trevor spins around. Diggy sees his teammates' faces flash by, all of them are screaming, rooting for Trevor.

At the edge of the mat, Trevor drops Diggy down hard on his back. Diggy's brain vibrates in his skull. Trevor drives his shoulder into Diggy's gut. In that instant, Diggy knows what he should have known all along—he underestimated Trevor.

“That's a slam,” screams Randy from the side of the mat.

Diggy wishes Randy would back off, give him some space. He listens for the whistle, hoping Greco will halt the match, but Trevor is on him, chest-to-chest, face-to-face. Trevor extends his legs in a push-up position and balances on his toes. Head up. Diggy knows it's perfect pinning position. Trevor locks his arm around Diggy's arm and head.

Diggy goes wild, shifting his weight, arching his back, rolling his shoulders, ripping at Trevor's face, his neck, any exposed flesh.

“Trevor, lift his head, lift his head,” yells Jimmy.

Hearing Jimmy makes Diggy's entire body go numb. They are all rooting for a scrub, for Crow. Diggy twists right, then left. Trevor's arm crushes Diggy's chest and shoulders. Diggy's fingers press into Trevor's eye socket, because there is no playing fair. Nothing is fair. He doesn't care if he is penalized. But Trevor doesn't let up the pressure. He grabs Diggy's free arm by the wrist and straightens it on the mat. Trevor jams his chin into Diggy's shoulder, just above his collarbone. The pain is shocking.

Greco, watching for the pin, lies flat on the mat getting a good angle on Diggy's shoulder blades. Trevor jerks Diggy like a rag doll, forcing his shoulders to the mat. Greco's hand slaps the mat. Pin. The whistle sounds. A cheer bursts into a roar. Headgear is flying in the air. Guys are slapping five.

Diggy sits up and spits his mouthpiece into his hand.

“Crow was out of bounds,” shouts Randy. “You didn't see that?”

Greco ignores Randy and meets Trevor in the center of the mat. Trevor toes the centerline, a mass of flexed, glowing muscle. Tufts of his black hair stick out of his headgear. Blood seeps from the corner of his left eye, down his cheek. Greco raises his arm. Victory!

Diggy cradles his hand. “I think he broke my finger,” he yells.

Randy follows Greco around the mat. “You didn't hear me? I said he was clearly on the line. Coach, you're not going to let that stand as a win?”

Greco spins around, making fists with his hands, cutting Randy off. “Trevor was in-bounds! On the line is in-bounds. I was looking right at the line! It's over!”

“Believe me,” says Randy. “This isn't over.” He smacks Diggy in the back of the head. “What are you sitting there for? Get up.”

“Keep your hands to yourself.” Diggy gets up. “And go back to work or go home. I don't care, just get out of here. Do you understand me! Get out of here!” he yells.

The guys are quiet. Trevor takes a knee with them. Jimmy holds out his hand and Trevor slaps it.

Diggy looks at his father, then at the team. All traitors! Randy pushes open the emergency door. A crack of light shoots into the gym, across the red mat. The hell with it. Diggy holds his throbbing hand and passes by the team. “I'm gonna destroy you,” he mouths to Trevor.

D
IGGY LOCKS THE BATHROOM DOOR.
H
E RUNS COLD WATER
over his throbbing finger. It's definitely dislocated at the base of the joint. He grabs the tip with his good hand and pulls gently. Pain. Nothing like on the mat, but enough to make his eyes tear. Groaning, he pulls harder, then pushes the joint back into place with steady pressure. It clicks.

He sits on the side of the hot tub and calls his brother.

“What's up,” says Nick.

“Hey, bro.”

“I'm on my way to the library. I have a multivariable calculus test tomorrow.”

“I lost my wrestle-off.”

“You what? You lost, to who?”

Through the walls, Diggy hears his father. “He never wanted it bad enough! You don't give something away, just give it away!” Diggy imagines his mother holding her breath, afraid to say a word.

“Randy's going nuts,” says Diggy.

“What happened?”

“I lost. I didn't have it.” Diggy can't tell him Crow lifted him in the air, that he was on Crow's shoulders, then pinned in 46 seconds.

“You didn't get pinned, did ya?”

“Nick, yeah.”

“When?”

“In the first period.” His throat is closing. Diggy can't let himself cry, not with Nick on the line. The Masters brothers don't get pinned. “I should have beaten him.”

“Do I know him?”

“You know him. Crow, the scrub.”

“Trevor Crow, the kid who couldn't make varsity to save his life? That kid? The one that's Native American or something?”

“It wasn't fair. And the whole team was on Crow's side.” His voice cracks. “Even Greco was against me.” Diggy can still hear them cheering for Trevor.

“Was Randy there?”

“Same as always, standing there with his
White Men Can't Jump
body, wearing his Range Rover jacket.”

“I wish I could tell you what to do.”

“Nick, come home this weekend.”

“I can't, I've got papers due, labs, and exams coming up.”

“What the hell am I going to do, Nick? You know I can't wrestle one-seventy. You know that? Sucking weight, that's my whole game.” Diggy's middle goes into a knot.

“Diggy, you're a good wrestler. Remember you and me in the basement rolling around on the mats? You were tough as hell.”

“Come home,” begs Diggy.

“I will.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

Diggy looks at the phone, then presses End. “Soon? When is soon?” he screams into the shower stall.

Randy holds a bourbon in his monogrammed glass. Beverly sits on a leather-cushioned barstool sipping wine from a long-stemmed glass. Randy's eyes slide from the glass to Diggy. “It feels like we've had a death in the family. My son's season just croaked.”

The words are a blind whack on the side of Diggy's head.

Randy swirls his drink with his finger. “A junior-varsity wrestler pins you like you're nothing, like you're a rag doll.”

Diggy massages his knuckle. It's pulsing like it has its own heart.

“I took off a half day of work to witness that mess!” The cords in his neck strain. “Say something. Do you think sitting there like a dope is proving anything? I'm not one of your idiotic friends walking around with their caps on sideways and their pants falling off.”

“It was one match.”

“It was
the
match! You don't do well in school. You don't do anything around here.”

“He really doesn't have much time to help,” says Beverly.

His father stares angrily at her. “Your mother and I, we don't ask for much. All we ask is that you give one hundred percent. That's what separates us from them. We give one hundred percent. I built my business from nothing, from nada. Your brother started a tradition. So how do you let that second-rate little … little …”—his face trembles—“pin you right in front of me, your coach, your team? How?”

“Maybe he should move up a weight class,” suggests his mother.

“Bev-er-ly, you would think after all these years you'd understand the team dynamics.”