Slot Machine (12 page)

Victor and I shook hands before the match. Good grip there, Vic. Vic was one of those confirmed wrestlers.

Within five seconds, he had a lock on my leg and was working feverishly to lift me off balance. I pushed down on his shoulders; he jerked me back up. Finally, I fooled him. As soon as I had him pushed halfway down again, I dropped.

Victor went flat as a spatula. I spread myself as wide and bulky dead as possible, praying he couldn’t get me off. He pushed, lifted himself off the floor like a push-up with me on top. I was lost. He actually crawled several steps with me up there helplessly along for the ride like a parade float, bringing a few laughs. I honestly didn’t know what to do. Anything I’d ever done before, that was all just weight. I dropped on a guy, I grabbed, pulled, rolled on him. But I hadn’t really done one bona-fide wrestling maneuver in the five days I’d been in wrestling. It was time to quit that.

I reached down and put a lock on Victor’s arm just as he was about to roll me. As hard as I could, I yanked, tripping him.

Just like something that would happen to me, Victor fell straight over, onto his face. On his back I rode him into the floor. One of his shoulders was down, and it was staying down, dammit, as I put everything I had into the effort of keeping my welterweight stuck to the floor in whatever position he was in when I got him there. I wouldn’t even consider trying to turn him over and get a full pin. I was a lot of things, but I was not stupid. And I wasn’t giving this back. He pushed, thrashed, reached up behind him with his good hand to try and get some piece of some part of me, but I had that one shoulder nailed, the arm tucked under him.

“Predicament,” Coach called out, and I almost started trying to kick out until I remembered I was the
top
guy.

The whistle blew, and Coach came out. Eugene stopped what he was doing and came too. I rolled off Victor and punched the mat with both fists, I was so charged.

When Victor got up, Coach had to pull him away, because he couldn’t wait to get back to round two. Coach had to jam the white towel up under Victor’s nose, then pull it out to show him the blood hosing out. He’d landed squarely on the nose, but it didn’t seem to bother him much. He was tough, and must have landed on that nose plenty of times before, only not with two and a half times his weight behind it.

“You did all right,” Eugene said as Victor walked himself off to the nurse’s station with his nose bundled. “You held him; that’s the job. Good.” He helped me to my feet, and I wobbled. The adrenaline splashing through me now was making me woozier than the morning run up the mountain had.

“That was—it was a good move, Elvin,” Coach Wolfe said. “It only kinda makes me wish we coulda seen what woulda happened in round two and three.”

I didn’t want to think about that. I wished he hadn’t said it. But he was right to. It was only one move, and a half-belly-flop move at that. Victor was good. Victor knew how to do stuff, and given more time, he would have figured me out. I had to know more.

“Can I go some more, Coach?” I asked.

“That’s the spirit, son,” he answered brightly. Coach motioned for the other welterweight to come on over, and back we were.

This one, Lute, was not as strong as Victor, but he was less inclined to stay still for me. He first faked the same leg grab Vic used; then when I went for it, he scooted around behind me. Also just like Victor, Lute put a hold on me that people seemed to find funny.

Why do people think it’s so funny when a fat kid tries hard?

He wrapped his arms around my middle and squeezed, as if he was trying to get a chicken wing out of my throat. I walked, dragging him, then tried awkwardly to reach from one side and then the other around my back. I could not get him and he would not let go. I bent way forward to try and flip him over, but he dug in.

For a moment I stood motionless and clueless. I suddenly got so embarrassed, with Lute squeezing me from behind and me helpless to stop him, that I almost just said, “Okay, stop. That’s it, just get off and leave me alone.”

But I didn’t have to. Even that would have been better than what did happen.

Quick as a snake, and suddenly strong in just the same way, Lute hopped up and coiled his legs up around my thighs and his arms in around my arms. He leaned backward, catching me by complete surprise, and pulled.

We both went over backward, slamming to the floor. But he wouldn’t let me stop moving. By inching his body down, pulling my top and kicking my bottom at the same time, Lute pulled me down, rolled me up onto my back, then all the way up onto my shoulders. In one of the most painful, precarious moments of my life, he had me with my legs up in the air, my head bent sideways, all my weight resting on my neck. Lute was still draped over me, only now he had me all curled in and staring straight at my own navel. And with both shoulders welded to the floor.

Coach Wolfe blew the whistle as soon as Lute had the position locked. Then he let me go and I fell in a heap.

“No,” I insisted. “I don’t want to go to the nurse. I’m fine.” I couldn’t even turn my head to face the coach without shifting my whole body.

“Just have it looked at—you shouldn’t mess with vertebrae.” He motioned for Eugene to take me out. “Everybody knows now you’re a gamer, Elvin. Nobody’s going to think any less.”

“I don’t want to be a gamer,” I thought as I went meekly. “I want to be good at this.”

When I got to the bay, Victor was just pushing the ice away, saying, “Enough,” to the nurse’s assistant.

“Good move back there, man,” he commended me as they laid me down in his old spot. “So what happened, you put a move on yourself this time?”

“You could say that,” I said.

“Well, come back soon,” Victor said as he headed back to the trenches, “’cause I can’t wait to
kick your ass
.” He laughed, because that was his idea of fun. Victor loved his work.

Maybe it was the vicious pinning I took from Lute. Or maybe it was fighting two real matches in one day. Or maybe it was the no real breakfast, or the early run. Probably it was all of it, and all of it being so far from any way I’d ever been before. Whatever the reason, when the nurse gave me two anti-inflammatories and told me I had to lie there for a while, I didn’t mind. Even though I really didn’t want to be there. The ward was half empty by this stage in the game; all the real needies were out of vouchers by now and slogging through the Sectors half dismembered. So it was quiet. And cool. And undemanding of me.

I fell asleep, and I stayed asleep until they figured they should wake me for Nightmeal.

When I walked all bleary back into the dining hall, it was a dining hall again. It was beginning to feel like a weird funny movie where I just kept walking back and forth between two or three locations, I’d get mugged, and while I was out somebody’d quickly switch around all the decor to drive me insane until I didn’t know who or where I was.

It was working beautifully.

I waved to the Indian on the Massachusetts flag as I passed under. He waved back.

“What are you doing with my book?” I said as I walked up to Mikie at our table. “Give me that.” I swiped it back.

He shrugged. “It was here on the table when I got here. It must have been in here since you brought it this morning. I think it’s a good idea, Elvin, to study up, but keep it in perspective.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning it’s kind of an old book. And meaning no book is going to make you great overnight. You may have to consider that you might never be great at this. Or that maybe it’ll take a fair amount of time.”

“I know that,” I said snottily, turning my head—that is, my head and neck and shoulders and upper back as one rigid unit—for emphasis.

“What happened to your neck?”

“Jeez, Mikie, can’t we talk about something else for a change? What is it with you, it’s always, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling lately.”

He got the picture. “Okay, El, new subject. Your mother coming this weekend?”

“I won one today.”

“Excuse me?”

“I won a match. Beat the bejesus out of one very tough welterweight.”

Mike extended his hand across the table and shook mine. “Hell, El, awesome. You pin him?”

“Nah.” I took a big satisfied bite of dry French bread from a basket on the table. My mouth filled to capacity with chalky bread, so Mikie had to wait. Finally I said, “Nah. Fell on him. Bloodied his nose up pretty good, though.”

“Well there you go. It’s a start.”

“Yup. A finish too. The next little welterweight spun me on my head like a figure skater and put
me
in sick bay.”

Mike stared at me deadpan. “El, there may be guys who want to be here more than you do—”

“Ya, like maybe three
hundred
of them—”

“But there sure isn’t anybody getting more bang for the buck than you.”

“Except me,” Frankie said, slipping in beside Mike.

“You look better than this morning,” I said.

“You don’t,” Frankie answered. “But we can fix that. You guys want another chance tonight? The O’s—that’s what we call Obie and Okie and all those guys—the O’s kind of think you two are wimps, but I told them you’re cool and you should have another chance.”

“Spare me,” Mike said.

“Ya, spare me too,” I said.

“Come on, guys,” Frank said. “Tonight’s movie night.
Real
movie night. Not like
Ernest Goes to Camp
chump stuff. More like
Felicia Goes to Camp
. It’s going to be
wild,
and you’re invited.”

“Take a night off, why don’t you, Frank,” Mike snapped.

“No way. This is the night. We have the flicks. We borrowed a projector and a screen and a generator from the seminary—they were very generous about it. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”

“This sounds dangerous, Frank,” I said, “taking stuff from the school.”

“Don’t be so serious, Elvin. This is the kind of stuff guys do together. This is what that brochure of yours was talking about, bonding stuff. It’s going to be
hot
.”

“Franko,” Mikie said, “let’s make you a deal. Stick around camp for one night, and we promise Elvin and me will bond with you. Won’t we, El?”

“Well, ah, what exactly is involved with that?” I asked. “Sounds a little complicated to me. I’ve got a lot on my plate as it is, and I’m not sure I could manage...”

“We’ll listen to your stories,” Mike encouraged Frank further. “The nun story and the Avon lady story and the crossing-guard story like we never heard them before. We’ll boost a ton of Cokes and Suzy Q’s from the dining hall and pound them down until we’re so mental we can’t sleep all night and we can’t stop talking.”

“Listen to him, Franko,” I leaped in. “He’s making a lot of sense here.”

He was listening, with a dopey little-boy smile coming across him that made him look younger, less smarty-pants. Happier.

“We’ll even tell you some stories about you that you don’t even know. The ones that we make up to tell the girls in the school yard.”

Frankie looked hooked. “Like when it was just us,” he said, kind of dreamy, “and everybody else was kind of outside.”

“Right,” Mikie and I chirped together.

There was a long pause. I felt the long day gaining on me and popped some more bread to fight the oncoming woozies of fatigue.

“Okay,” Frank said easily. “To tell the truth, I could use a night off from—”

“From being hazed?” Mike snipped.

“I’m not being hazed—that’s so totally wrong. I’m being... ceremoniously welcomed.”

“Jeez,” I said, pulling back. “That sounds like it would hurt even
more
.”

“Tell me something, Franko,” Mike asked. “You really like those guys? Honest?”

Frank dragged out the word way too long to actually mean it. “Ahhyyyya, y-ya I like them. They’re cool. They’re, y’know, I’m learning to like them.”

“I see,” Mikie said. “Why bother, if you have to learn to like them?”

“Okay, never mind. You’ll see, later on. You’ll thank me for breaking us in.”

“Okay,” Mikie said, “I’ll see.”

Frank got up from the table. “All right, I just have to run ahead and tell them I’m out for tonight. Then I’ll meet you guys back here. Elvin, save me some Suzy Q’s.”

“I’ll try my best,” I said, “but you better hurry.”

We took our sweet time with dinner, dragging it out until we were the last ones eating. Then when the two guys who were that night’s sweepers started cleaning up, Mikie and I went over and volunteered to relieve them, to get rid of the final witnesses.

They were pretty grateful. And I didn’t even mind the extra work, since I’d been doing it every morning after Mornmeal and before wrestling. I was starting to take a strange, satisfying pleasure in my skill with the big industrial broom. Though I didn’t tell anyone about it.

When we were done sweeping, we slipped into the kitchen. We opened the big red-and-white floor cooler and pulled out fifteen cans of Coke, stuffing them into brown shopping bags. Then we went to the stack of metal cage shelves, scanning the dessert possibilities.

“How can they have no more Suzy Q’s?” I barked. “What kind of a savage joint is this anyway?”

“Shaddup,” Mikie said. “You want to get caught? Look, at least they have Sno Balls.”

“Sno Balls? The pink Sno Balls? In place of
Suzy Q’s
? Jeez, I’m embarrassed to be seen stealing food with you.”

“Elvin, Sno Balls
are
Suzy Q’s, only with hats on.”

“And I thought you were smart. And I thought you had taste. Sometimes, the things you say—”

While I was ranting, Mikie had ripped the packaging off a pair of Sno Balls. Then he jammed one in my gaping mouth. I bit, chewed, swirled it around in there.

I started tossing Sno Balls into the bags.

“But they are not the same as Suzy Q’s,” I said. “That rubbery skin makes it a whole different ball game. So you were not right.”

We left our haul just inside the doors and went out on the porch to wait for Frankie with three cold Cokes.

“Taking him a long time,” I observed.

“Uh-huh,” Mike answered.

“Is he not coming, do you think?”