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Chapter twenty-three

I’ve always been a mediocre football player who loves football and a natural-born wrestler who abhors wrestling. Such is my curse.

Wrestling is the hardest, most arduous activity ever invented by man. Three two-minute periods equal six minutes of exhaustive hell on earth. As our coach once said, “There is no more intense combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercise in all of sports.” He also told us that Dan Gable, the greatest amateur wrestler ever who compiled a 132–1 record at the University of Iowa, “is regarded by many experts to be the most complete human specimen in the history of athletics.” Most complete? What the fuck does that mean?

And did I mention I hate wrestling?

I tipped off my coaches about my latent ability early on. I was a sophomore when one of our varsity wrestlers decided to get mono. Weighing in at 155 pounds soaking wet and with a grand total of five practices under my belt, I was the Ridge’s last minute substitution in the 171-pound weight class in our dual meet versus Prep. Not only were we facing our archrivals, but my opponent was Kevin Stark, the undefeated #6–ranked wrestler in the state at 171 pounds, a guy who two nights prior (against wrestling powerhouse Perry Meridian) pinned the #3 wrestler in the state in the first twenty seconds of the first period. I lost the match, by a wide margin. By rule, if one wrestler gains a fifteen-point lead over his opponent at any point, that wrestler is declared the winner of the match by technical fall. Stark whooped my ass 18–3, but it took him until the third period to beat me, and he didn’t pin me.

Three years later, that match against Kevin Stark continues to be the highlight of my career. I throw matches during big tournaments so I can have the weekend to myself. I fake bronchitis for weeks at a time to rationalize losing to my coach. I’ve lost more matches than I’ve won. And the only reason I don’t quit is because my arms and legs look fucking awesome.

About three feet away from me, Mom and Dad sit in the bleachers at the Major Taylor Memorial Gymnasium in downtown Taylor. On any other day, I might pause to note the perverse irony of Taylor, a racist southern Indiana hollow whose namesake was a turn-of-the-century elite cyclist and the world’s first great black athlete, but right now I’m just warming up for my match. Per the program, “Hank Fitzpatrick’s 9–8 record earned him the fourth seed in the 171-pound weight class of the 1989 Indiana High School Athletic Association Major Taylor Wrestling Sectional.”

The 171-pound bracket only has four seeds.

“Hank.” Mom motions to me. “Come here for a second.”

I jog over to her, spinning my arms. “Mom, I’m up next. What do you want?”

“I want you to at least try today.”

“Okay,” I say, more dismissive than responsive.

“No, I mean really try.”

“It’s just wrestling.”

“Yeah…well, your father and I have been sitting up here talking.”

“About what?”

“About spring break.”

“Is now the time to get into this?”

“Son, I know you’re upset about us not letting you go down to Panama City with all your friends.”

“Mom, we’ve been through this a hundred times, and it’s still January.”

“And I still say you have no business going down to Florida unchaperoned when you’re seventeen years old.”

“Never mind I’m turning eighteen two weeks after spring break. Are you just telling me all this to piss me off again? Maybe give me some motivation?”

“Oh, I’m going to give you some motivation.”

“Let me know when that starts.” I jog in place, the hood of my warm-up pulled over my head.

Dad listens in on our conversation, interrupting at a no doubt predetermined moment. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Your mother and I want you to do your best today. If you win at least one match, you can go on spring break with your friends.”

I try to stifle a laugh. “You do realize I have a combined career record of something like 0–10 versus the guys in this tournament, right?”

Dad scans the program. “Taylor, Rosehaven, Prep—not exactly a rogue’s gallery of wrestling powers.”

“Rogue enough to beat my butt ten times,” I say.

The buzzer sounds, ending the last match of the first round of the 160-pound class. It’s a close match. I still have some time to kill. I turn to leave.

Dad grabs me by the sleeve. “Wait a second, son.”

My father is a part-time motivational speaker. He does some seminar work on the side for Oldsmobile, even volunteers for the occasional Catholic retreat. But it’s a part of him I’ve never seen.

I have a feeling that’s about to change.

“Hank, look at me.” Dad stares me down. He’s never stared me down before. “You know and I know you’re a much better wrestler than you pretend to be. I’ve watched you sleepwalk through years of wasted talent.”

I shrug his hand off my sleeve. I take off my warm-ups. “What do you want from me, Dad?”

“I want you to realize your potential.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Haughty.” Dad hands me my headgear.

“Huh?” I button my chinstrap, making sure my headgear is snug.

“Haughty, Hank.” Dad makes a fist, holds it in front of his face. “That’s the word.”

“What’s the word?”

“Haughty.”

“And what the heck does that mean?”

“It means knowing you will win.”

“I don’t know I’ll win.”

“Then you’ve already lost.”

“But I—”

Dad grabs me by the front of my singlet, pulling me close to his face. “If I want to win, I win. Period.”

Every hair stands up on the back of my neck. They could pipe the “Notre Dame Victory March” into the Major Taylor Memorial Gymnasium, and I wouldn’t be more pumped up than I am at this moment. I’ve lived my life believing Dad doesn’t have an ounce of conceit in him. But given that he’s worked his way up from being a music teacher to owning his own car dealership, he has more than just a token dose of hubris in his schematic.

“Haughty?”

Dad grabs my shoulders, squeezes. “Haughty.”

I step back and look at both him and my mother. I jump up and down a few times to get the blood flowing. I sense an opening. A huge opening.

“Tell you what. Forget winning just one match. How about if I win the whole damn thing today, you let me go to spring break, and you pay my way?”

Mom hears my counter. “What?”

“All or nothing,” I say. “If I win the first match but lose in the finals, I don’t go to spring break.”

Dad looks at me, then at Mom. He offers me his hand. “Deal!”

I turn my back to my parents. I approach the wrestling mat, wondering how long it will take before Dad realizes he’s made a sucker’s bet.

My opponents are fucking toast.

I come out against the second seed from Prep like a man possessed. I throw a double-leg takedown and get him on his back for a near-fall ten seconds into the match. I keep throwing my favorite move, the butcher, in which I do a cross-face, grab my opponent’s elbows out from under him, and then twist him around to his back like a human pretzel. Twice he tries to put a double-arm bar on me when I’m in the down position, and twice my double jointed arms laugh at his futility. The points start piling up, and the ref calls the match in the beginning of the third period by technical fall 19–4.

The ref raises my hand in victory. My dad stands two rows up in the bleachers, cups his mouth with his hands, yelling, “What’s the word?”

I pump my fist at him. “Haughty!”

Jed Pahl, the first seed from Taylor, walks onto the mat. I bump his shoulder as I pass him, and not by accident. I smile an evil smile. My head is dizzy. I’m ready to kick his ass.

I can’t sit still waiting for the final round to begin. I warm up to a mix tape of Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen songs, making sure to hit both “Paradise City”—replacing “Paradise” with “Panama” in the lyrics of course—and “Panama” on the playlist. Unlike most wrestlers, I like neither the song “Lunatic Fringe” nor the movie Vision Quest, although I’d knock the back out of Linda Fiorentino.

Finally, they call us up. Jed and I walk to the center of the mat. We shake hands. I’m jumping up and down, staring at him. Jed won’t make eye contact, but nonetheless seems unfazed by my posturing. He won his first match easily, pinning the third seed from Rosehaven in the middle of the second period. The ref blows the whistle to start our match.

I’m not a technical wrestler, but Jed makes me look like one. He tries to throw a standing single, and I see his move like it’s in slow motion. I sprawl, the combined strength and leverage of my legs and hips sending Jed to the mat stomach first. I can hear the wind being knocked out of his lungs. I whizzer him, coming back into a quarter nelson and sneaking in a couple punches to his midsection. With the alternative being suffocation, Jed goes slack, dropping his shoulder blades.

The ref slams his hand on the mat while blowing his whistle. I have never beaten Jed in five previous tries, or even made it past the second period. On the sixth try, I pin him forty-three seconds into the match.

It’s the shortest finals match of the entire Taylor Sectional. Nearly as bad as the beat down Notre Dame gave West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl four weeks ago to win the national championship. If it’s possible, Dad appears happier for me in victory than he was for his Irish. He’s screaming like a goddamn girl. He points at me. I point back.

Haughty!