Vision Quest (10 page)

Later, at the lodge, Carla looked up from her dinner and around at all the people and up at the deer, elk, bear, bobcat, pheasant, and fish trophies on the walls and turned back to me and said, “We have a secret. We know something nobody else in here knows.”

Actually, I thought our secret was showing. Carla glowed like sunset and I couldn't stop the smiles coming. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. And maybe it was just the fragrance remaining in my mustache, but in spite of our icy creek baths, I thought we smelled like a fish sack left out in the sun.

“And we're going to have another one when we get back to the tent,” Carla said.

We've been having secrets like that ever since.

I'm lying on a cot.
Tanneran is sitting on a stool talking to me. He says I fainted dead away when I got up to give my book report. He says we walked down here to the nurse's office and I seemed okay until I fainted again. I feel like I just sprinted to the top of Mt. Rainier and went takedowns with a Sasquatch.

“How's your weight?” Gene asks.

“Forty-seven last night,” I reply.

“Did you have any breakfast?”

“A veritable feast, Gene. A big bowl of Carla's yogurt with some giant chunks of fresh pineapple.”

“What'd you do before class?” Gene asks.

“I skipped my two study halls and did a workout,” I reply slowly.

“What sort of workout?” Gene's being very slow with me. I'm grateful. I'm having a little trouble following.

“Regular workout, Gene,” I say. “I ran three. Did five hundred pushups, a hundred dips, a thousand sits.”

Gene shakes his head. “And what did you weigh then?”

“Forty-six.”

“I'll bet anything you're going down too fast,” Gene says.
He purses his lips and nods. “Coach is on his way. He'll know.”

“Where's the nurse? Where's the damn nurse?” Coach flaps his arms, looking in all directions.

“She doesn't come on Fridays,” I hear myself whisper. I feel strange.

“What do you weigh?” Coach asks. I close my eyes and breathe through my mouth. My fingertips tingle and my body seems to float. I can't feel the gray wool blanket I know I'm lying on. In my mind I see Coach waving at me from the top of David Thompson's green-and-gold water tower in the park. He's yelling toward school, where I'm being kept prisoner. I think he wants to spring me, but I can hardly hear.

Gene answers for me. “Forty-six after a workout about fifteen minutes ago.” Gene's voice is faraway.

“Christ!” Coach rants. “He's going down too fast. He's probably dehydrated. I'll go get some salt. Make him drink some water, Gene.” And Coach is gone.

I hear his heels click. He's walking right down the side of the water tower! What balance! Boy, I'd have hated to wrestle Coach Ratta in his prime.

I lose control. I rave. I'm out the window, up the hill in the park. It's summer and I'm swinging on the big kids' swing. I throw my head back and pump for the sky. Upside down a green-and-gold kingdom oscillates feudally. There are 2,563 of us in David Thompson High School. That's more than some small towns. The high school is green and gold, the junior high, the grade school, the water tower, the public
toilet, the grass, the sun. I swing level with the bar. I stretch my head way back, the ground swooshing, swooshing in my ears. I can't get sick now. I always get sick on the big swing. I look down. How many David Thompson sneakers rubbed to sand this former grass? My teeth fall out. They slide across the sandy patch below, near, then very far as I swing. They nip the iron pole, bite down on a clump of grass. I can't get sick now. I'm lean. I carry the colors of the Columbia. I can make the river flow again. My short hair brushes the sand, the grass, the sand, the grass. My nose begins to bleed, arcing dots of blood elliptically. I rave. I jump.

Gene catches me. He's making me drink water. It's easy, because I'm thirsty as hell.

“You're all right, man,” Gene says. “You're just dehydrated.”

“Victim of a fucked-up nitrogen balance,” I reply. “At least I hope that's all, Gene. There's no end to the terrible diseases people can get.” I've been reading
Rare Diseases
lately. It's ghastly. Poe could have written it.

I feel a bit better. Things have changed a little since Gene wrestled in high school back in the middle sixties. I explain to him how I've got to have a doctor's permission to drop down to 147. I have my appointment next Tuesday, the day after Christmas. The appointment's in the morning; then we wrestle Lewis and Clark in the afternoon. If I'm much over fifty, I doubt the old doctor will let me go down. We have to wrestle eight matches at the weight we'll wrestle in the state tournament. Outside of those eight, we can wrestle in any
class above the one we start the season in. But if we want to drop down a class, then we have to have a doctor's permission. I wrestled my first match this season at sixty-five; then I dropped to fifty-four. I'll wrestle at fifty-four against Lewis and Clark Tuesday afternoon, then once or maybe twice more in the Custer-Battleground meet in Missoula next Friday and Saturday. Then Shute at 147 on the day after New Year's.

Coach is back, stuffing yellow salt tablets down me.

“Salt,” he says.

“Sodium depletion,” I reply.

“You're crazy,” Coach says. “Shute'll take you apart if you ruin your health going down too fast.”

“My doctor's appointment's Tuesday,” I say.

“You'll be all right if you stay about fifty, fifty-one. Take salt. Don't start dehydrating. And don't screw so much, for Chrissake!” Then Coach pounds me on the chest, knocking the wind out of me, and clicks off down the hall.

I feel a lot better after I get my breath. I'm hungry. I remember I haven't mentioned Carla. Coach just gave me a good opportunity. I'm a little weak yet, but I think fast.

“God,” I moan. “A guy can deny himself only just so many needs of the flesh. I'm not sure willpower would do it, anyway. I think all this weight loss has given me priapism. The problem may be pathological, Gene.”

“Priapism?” Gene says. I can see him thinking, Priapism? Priapism? What the fuck is priapism? Gene knows a lot of stuff, but sometimes I can catch him.

“A disease of constant hard-on,” I explain. “I'll bet Coach wouldn't tell Carla to slack off. She'd gouge his eyes, invert his navel.” I'm getting in pretty good spirits.

“Carla!” Gene exclaims quietly. “I thought you and she didn't get along. What happened to the black dude?”

Tower used to take Carla to the Spokes' games. About half the time Gene didn't know the snap, he'd be scouting the bleachers so intently for beaver. He used to love to dive for sideline tackles so he could roll under the bleachers and look up skirts.

“Gene, kind of a sad thing happened to that relationship. One day last August this black girl walked into Tower's apartment and began to shout at Carla how she is his old lady come from New York and that Carla had best get her little red-haired ass out of there in a big hurry. Carla knows just what to do if people are leering at her, but she doesn't react well at all to threats of physical violence. Carla grabbed on to Tower and this girl started pulling her off. Tower got between them and told Carla she'd better split. So Carla did. She doesn't talk about it much. Elmo's the one who told me. Carla and I get along pretty well now.”

“I'll be damned,” Gene says.

“Listen,” I say. “How would you like to meet one of Carla's friends? She's better-looking than Carla—a little flashier. Her chromosomes are probably restructured, but she's a nice girl.”

“What's her name?” Gene asks.

“Belle,” I reply.

Gene nods. I'm sure he's seen her around. Everybody knows cheerleaders.

We're circled up on the
mat and Coach is going over the scouting report for the Lewis and Clark match. L.C. is especially tough in the lower weights. Damon Thuringer, “Sausage Man,” our sophomore at 105, has a real tough one. He's wrestling a Japanese kid named Kenuchi Mashamura. Mash is a senior who has taken the state championship at both 119 and 112. Early in the season a
Spokesman Review
article quoted him as saying he was beginning to think seriously about college wrestling, so he thought he'd train real hard this season and drop down to a weight where he could be more competitive. He was sincere. He's a very humble guy. He's also a monster, a real teratoid. He looks about thirty years old with his giant little body and his furry eyebrows and cauliflower ears even more grotesque than mine. Of course, Mash is undefeated.

Sausage is a baby-faced, flute-playing, downy-haired hobbit. Carla thinks he's the cutest thing in the world and is always after me to stop scaring his little brother. Sausage's record is four and four. He is well-conditioned and fierce to a fault, but I hope he's made peace with himself. Coach
has made him captain for the meet. That'll help a little. It always give the guy a psychological boost. The whole school knows who the captain is because Coach announces it over the intercom at the beginning of the week. Kids encourage him in the halls, call him “Captain” and stuff. And when he leads us out on the mat and circles us up for our warm-ups, people ooh and aah and yell heartening sentiments because they know what a tough match the guy must have if he's captain.

As we're circled here on the mat listening to Coach go over the scouting report, Otto and I plot to harass the Sausage Man.

Coach is saying he's glad Kuch and I got our wrestle-off for Shute out of the way a few days early, so now we can get down to thinking about the immediate future. We could have waited until next week, but we were too nervous and wanted to get it done. I'm glad we did. Before, I was worried about Kuch and Shute. Now I'm just worried about Shute. Both Kuch and I still officially have to wrestle off with our number-two men to see who wrestles L.C. But we've been beating them all season.

While Coach explains that Kuch's man likes to work a fireman's carry right to a fast pin, Otto and I sneak around the circle to Sausage, who peers out from beneath a pile of wool blankets. He has some trouble making weight. He's down from 125 as a cross-country man. He spends slack time doing pushups and situps in his rubber sweat suit
under his bunch of wool blankets. You'll come off the mat after a drill and off in a corner will be a boy-sized green heap with gold trim pumping furiously up and down. We often wonder aloud about the true nature of these movements. It's reported that his girl is denying Sausage his strokes and that Sausage has taken to throbbing his cob more frequently than may be healthy.

Otto sneaks one way and I sneak the other. Coach is talking about Romaine Lewis, L.C.'s man at fifty-four. Coach looks around for me. I stop my stealthy crawl and pop up behind Kenny Schmoozler, our man at 133. Carla thinks Schmoozler's name is awfully cute. She says that with a name like that, Schmoozler should be a little animal. I assure her that he is.

“Lewis will take you down, you let yourself get weak!” Coach yells.

“I feel great, Coach.” I gleam. “That Romaine Lettuce is a doper. He won't take me down. I'll dance, sing, dice him, slice him. I'll counsel him on the dangers of snorting hair straightener. His internal environment is polluted. Lettuce won't take me down.”

Coach covers his eyes. He knows when the team is feeling right.

“Did you eat?” he growls.

“I ate, I ate. Two carob bars and a can of Nutrament,” I reply. “Lean and mean, Coach! Lean and mean!” I chant.

Otto snorts like a wild pig. “Lean and mean, lean and
mean!” He's worked his way around to Sausage and kicks him through his blankets.

“Lean and mean! Lean and mean!” the Sausage Man pipes.

Now all of us are rooting around the mats on all fours, bumping into each other, grunting like frenzied swine, chanting, “Lean and mean! Lean and mean!”

Coach lets us go for about a minute, then continues with the scouting report. We stop. We've got to conserve. There's a tough practice ahead.

Otto and I sit with our arms resting on Thuringer. He peeks his head out at Otto, then leers at me. “Don't fuck with me,” the Sausage Man warns.

“Damon,” I say. “Damon, my boy. Otto and I have only come to congratulate you on your captaincy.”

“Bite ass, Swain,” Sausage says. “Just bite ass.”

Otto is offended by this unfriendliness. He tweaks Sausage's nose and pushes his head under the blankets.

“Sausage Man,” Otto coos. “We know what you do under your blankies. No more hacking your lizard in the privacy of your little nest. Self-abuse saps your strength, Sausage. Take heed: thou shalt not pump thy pepperoni.”

“You fuckers better not hurt my lip. I haven't got my mouthpiece,” Sausage informs us. Being a good flute player, Sausage really has to take care of his lip.

“Your mouthpiece is in a safe place, Damon,” I reply.

The Sausage Man groans from beneath his blankets. He
knows where that safe place is. Every chance I get I stuff his mouthpiece down my jock. He's usually more careful with it. He must be worried about his match. He left it on the windowsill.

Coach is demonstrating to Jean-Pierre Baldosier, our number-one man at 185, how his L.C. man likes to stack people up with a double chicken wing. We call him “Balldozer” half out of fun and respect for the way he munches people and about half because we can't pronounce his name right.

Coach's arms are hooked deeply under Jean-Pierre's armpits, and Coach has driven him forward on the mat so that his neck has bent underneath him and he is now “stacked up” on his shoulders, his feet waving in the air. Coach asks if Balldozer understands the move. Balldozer can't breathe, let alone speak, and he tries to communicate that idea with gasps and grunts. Coach thinks he's requesting further demonstration, so he reefs some more on the double chicken wing. Balldozer is pinned. His scapulae rest on the mat. His nose is buried in his hairy chest. Coach cinches up good on his chicken wing, scrunching Jean-Pierre even further into the shape of an upside-down question mark, and asks again if he understands. Taking advantage of Coach's inattention, Otto flops down on Sausage, who is mashed from lump to patty. He squeals unintelligibly. Otto watches attentively as Balldozer's head turns purple and blue, while I reach
under the blankets and pull off Sausage's shoes and socks.