Читать книгу Wrestling with Angels - John Hanrahan - Страница 13

WINNER & LOSER

I stood in front of thousands of cheering fans, the opposing team, referees, my coaches, and my team, high on the cocaine I did beneath the bleachers where everyone was standing for me now.

Can they tell? Do they know I am unworthy of their praise right now?

I felt weak as I walked onto the mat. I was tentative, thinking my heart was exploding. As the match began, the crowd, given nothing to cheer about and sensing I was off, had grown silent, which only made me more aware of the sound of my racing heart. Well into the second period, I was still thinking I was going to collapse, EMTs would whisk me to the ER, doctors would order blood tests, and all would be revealed. The newspapers that had covered my success would relish the chance to document my fall: John Hanrahan, Penn State’s winningest wrestler, collapsed on the mat last night after the university paid tribute to him. He was found to have cocaine in his system.

What the hell had I done?

I had to shake it off. I had to. I had made a mistake that I could not undo, but the addiction would only score a point tonight, not win the match. This was not the night that my house of cards would collapse, revealing my addiction and my double life. The conference tournament was next week, and I would not make the same mistake again. Ever again. Ever.

I took my opponent down, turned him on his back, and finally felt at ease, winning 11–1, a major decision covered by the local paper. At the conclusion of the event, they brought me to center mat again and presented me with the Ridge Riley Outstanding Wrestler Award.

As I looked at that story the next morning, just three days shy of my twenty-second birthday, I resolved to stay clean. I still had the control to keep myself pure for the rest of the season, and I blazed through the conference tournament, winning it once again. I then went into two weeks of intensive training for my final NCAA Nationals. My sense of mission recovered, I rolled past my first test in the NCAA tournament against a dirty head-butting wrestler from Nebraska I had lost to earlier that year. I then took a hard-fought battle against a guy from Old Dominion in match two.

Things were going as planned as day one concluded, and I rested up for the quarterfinals. The following morning, I found myself flying through the air with my opponent from Navy. As our combined weight hit the mat, the point of total impact was my right thumb. It snapped. I had never felt such pain. My body was ringing with it.

This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not how champs went down. This was not how I went out. I refused to stop. I fell behind in the score and vowed between periods that I would never get my thumb fixed if I was unable to come back and win this bout.

Use the thumb, Hanrahan. You’re down by five points, and if you don’t come back and win this match, you can never get this fixed.

I lost.

But I refused to bow out. The second day at the NCAAs is known as “The Blood Round,” because that’s what you see as everyone fights tooth and nail to survive. Anyone left standing after The Blood Round earns a chance to wrestle on day three, a guaranteed place on the podium, and coveted NCAA All-American status. I stayed in despite my immobilized thumb and limited use of my right hand. I took out my next opponent from Wisconsin and then beat one of Dan Gable’s guys from Iowa, earning my spot in day three. I lost a tough one to an All-American from New Mexico, but came back to beat an opponent from Yale to finish my college career with a win, fifth place on the podium, and All-American status once again.

As I climbed the podium, I heard the announcer introduce me as completing my collegiate career with the Most Wins in Penn State’s history with 105 wins.

But I was disappointed—both that I never got to face Schultz in the finals, and that I would never be enshrined in Rec Hall at Penn State as a National Champion. I would never be one of the exalted few—big pictures of the biggest stars that ring the top of the wrestling complex walls. Every time I entered the Hall from that day forward, I would be reminded of my failure. Mine is one of the commemorative plaques beneath them, celebrating Penn State All-Americans over a century of wrestling.

But I was more than disappointed. I was over. My four years competing for Penn State were done. The next Olympics were two years away. There was no going back. No undoing past mistakes and avenging past losses. No daily anchor of wrestling to keep the drugs away.

Wrestling gave me more than just a sense of power and control. From second grade on, it had given me the approval that I never got anywhere else. I hid my drug use from people, not only because I did not want to taint the sport I loved, but because I couldn’t bear to taint what others thought of me.

If I was addicted to anything besides wrestling and drugs, it was the praise. I wanted people to see me as the best and strongest version of myself—the winner I usually was, even in defeat. Wrestling was my stage. At the end of every performance, there was a judgment—from the referee, but also everyone else. I didn’t and still don’t know why I did cocaine before my last match at Penn State. But I do know the reason for my self-imposed panic attack: I would be exposed as a fraud to everyone. I would wonder what they thought of me, like I always did, but this time I would be exposed as an addict unworthy of their praise and applause.

Now what? I loved and still longed for the feeling I got on the mat and for the high I got from cocaine. In my last match, drugs and wrestling had come together. Where did that leave me?

The terrible answer came the summer my collegiate career ended, when I freebased cocaine for the first time with a few friends holed up in a seedy DC apartment. The drug sped through my body. It overtook me. I crawled into the bathroom. My ears were ringing. I splashed cold water on my face, and the sound of the water made my ears hurt. I threw up. I wound up awake for days, looking for more, and when there was none, I crawled around on the floor, fishing around in the shag carpet, picking at every little white piece and hoping it would burn like a rock of cocaine.

I never got my thumb fixed, nor anything else in my life that was broken. I was crawling around on the floor looking for rock because I was broken. I was making more money than I ever had in my life and was sure nothing would be the same again. I was right in more ways than one.